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Edition: U.S. / Global

Disillusionment Over the Thames

Published: September 15, 2003

LONDON, Sept. 13 — To the extent there was a consensus among those watching the illusionist David Blaine's latest endurance feat, it was that Mr. Blaine did not deserve to be pelted with eggs, attacked by golf balls, harassed with laser pens or jolted awake by people banging on drums, as has happened to him since Sept. 5.

But that doesn't mean that Mr. Blaine's latest stunt — living in a see-through box suspended from a crane near Tower Bridge — was winning lots of new fans among the hard-to-please Britons gathered below.

"It's rather pointless, I must say," remarked Philip Landau, a 38-year-old lawyer, watching Mr. Blaine lie down and then get up again. "There's not much to watch. It's like watching someone sitting in a box."

Mr. Blaine entered the plexiglass box, a structure measuring 7 feet high, 7 feet long and 3 feet wide, last Friday, vowing to spend 44 days there with no food and only water to drink. "The feeling of wonder is amazing," he said.

Mr. Blaine, 30, who is from New York, is a dazzling magician who has also made a name for himself with a series of stunts, equally odd and well-publicized. His death-defying acts have included standing for a long time on a plinth, burying himself alive in a plexiglass coffin and encasing himself in a huge block of ice. But never before has he had to confront the particular brand of British cynicism that regards him, as Jane Moore wrote in The Sun, as "that total twerp currently dangling in a glass box over the Thames."

There has also been unpleasant speculation about his bathroom arrangements, in keeping with Britons' well-known lavatorial obsessions. Liquid wastes are being expelled via a tube leading out of the case; solid waste details have been murky, although at one point there was talk of adult-sized diapers. Using the British word for diapers, one radio commentator began referring to Mr. Blaine as Nappy Man.

In The Guardian, the columnist Catherine Bennett encouraged Londoners to join in "an exhilarating act of public ridicule" by taunting Mr. Blaine with food. "Even a blob of oily ice cream," she wrote, "tastes exquisite when consumed in the suspended company of the preposterous, faux-starving Blaine."

The ridicule started soon after his stunt began, when he was pelted with bananas, French fries and eggs that dripped down the side of his temporary home. Humiliatingly, his German girlfriend, Manon von Gerkan, had to be cranked up on a crane to wash the box with a cloth. "I find it quite bizarre that people here have felt it necessary to throw eggs and other things at David," she told reporters. "We never had anything like this in New York."

Other teases followed: a hamburger van pulled up beneath him, ostentatiously frying onions and other pungent foods intended to make his mouth water. A group of men positioned themselves on Tower Bridge and tried, unsuccessfully, to hit him with golf balls. Some women took their tops off and flashed their breasts at him.

Perhaps worst of all, a group congregated drunkenly beneath his box in the middle of the night, banging loudly on a drum when Mr. Blaine tried to go to sleep.

Mr. Blaine's handlers raised his box a bit, so it was not so close to the public, erected a wire fence around the spot over which he is hanging, and hired the sort of security guards who usually can be found outside violence-prone nightclubs in scary parts of town.

"Unfortunately, you will always get one or two thugs," said a spokesman for Sky One, which, with Britain's Channel 4, has bought the television rights to his story for an undisclosed sum.

Projectiles aside, Mr. Blaine still has his fans. More than two million people watched the television special in which he entered the box, and he is attracting a corps of loyal observers, including one the other day dressed as Saddam Hussein. "I think he's really brave," said Hitesh Vajir, 21, a student, as Mr. Blaine waved at some people below. "You don't normally get things like this in London."

Chris Alexander, a bartender and writer who had come from Boise, Idaho, specifically to see Mr. Blaine in the box, had worn the same clothes — black pants, a white windbreaker, and a black beret — every day, and tried to catch the illusionist's increasingly bleary eye.

"I give him the same wave, and I think there's been a glint of recognition," Mr. Alexander said. He attributed the egg-throwing and other episodes to simple jealousy. "They have to put him down because they can't fathom doing something like this in a million years," he said.

That's right, said another bystander, Robert Jones, 49, who was far from impressed at Mr. Blaine's activities, which included some desultory squat-thrusts and exchanging what appeared to be sign language remarks with a man on the ground.

"How boring is this?" Mr. Jones said. "They were probably doing him a favor, throwing eggs at him."


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Edition: U.S. / Global

Illegal Immigrants And Auto Licenses

Published: December 1, 2003

To the Editor:

Re ''Licenses for Illegal Immigrants'' (editorial, Nov. 26):

You are correct to call upon the federal government to rationalize the entire immigration issue. We applaud your support of driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants.

Each state has the responsibility to ensure all of its residents' safety on the roads and in their neighborhoods. Studies have found that unlicensed drivers are a great danger to public safety, while police departments across the country have supported the licensing of undocumented immigrants. Access to driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants is one step on the way to ensuring safety on our roads.

Access to identification, to fair treatment in the workplace without exploitation, to freedom from detention and to lawful immigration status are essential to uphold the human rights and values for which this country stands.

Newark, Nov. 26, 2003

The writer is program director, American Friends Service Committee Immigrant Rights Program.

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Edition: U.S. / Global

Business People; Bring On the Reruns

By Melinda Ligos
Published: March 14, 2004

Bill Allard is turning into the old pro on ''The Apprentice.''

Mr. Allard, the chief executive of Marquis Jet, a two-year-old company in Boston that sells prepaid blocks of travel time on its planes, appeared in a January episode of ''The Apprentice,'' the NBC reality show with Donald J. Trump. The show's male and female teams had to propose advertising campaigns for Marquis.

The women won, with a racy campaign that brought out the phallic symbol in the company's jets. ''I thought, 'Oh my goodness, what have I done to my company?''' he said. ''I was worried that this kind of exposure on the show could hurt our high-class image.''

But the day after the episode was broadcast, Mr. Allard said, the company had a ''twentyfold'' increase in calls asking about its services. And Marquis has closed six deals with customers who found out about his company through the show, he said.

Mr. Allard was so thrilled that he has agreed to participate in other installments. In the episode on Thursday night, Marquis paid $1,400 to have its advertisements on rickshaws used by the competitors. He is also talking to the producers about being involved in a second season of the series.

The show has also meant some new celebrity status. Mr. Allard said that on recent trips to Dallas and New York, he was stopped repeatedly in airports by fans.

''People kept saying, 'Weren't you featured on that Donald Trump show?''' he said. ''I guess it's my new claim to fame.'' Melinda Ligos


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Edition: U.S. / Global

OLYMPICS; Progress On Roof Concerns The I.O.C.

Published: May 8, 2004

The International Olympic Committee insists that the complicated process of moving the steel-and-glass roof into place at the main Olympic stadium in Athens must start by the time its inspectors arrive for a final review next week.

The three-day visit appears to present a defining moment for the project.

The I.O.C. has demanded that the entire stadium complex be finished by the end of June, but has backed off setting specific deadlines for progress with the roof.

The I.O.C. team will be headed by Denis Oswald, the chief I.O.C. overseer of Athens.

Gilbert Felli, the executive director of the Olympics, said Friday that the I.O.C. could consider canceling or scaling back the roof work.

''We hope that when we will arrive, the roof will have made some sign of movement on Monday, and then if this roof has started to move, then we will keep working on it,'' Felli told The Associated Press.

''If for some reason the roof has not started to move, of course we have discussion.''

The roof, designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, is being built in two sections on either side of the 75,000-seat stadium. Engineers plan to use tracks to glide the arches into place.

But the I.O.C. has said the roof is not necessary and may ask Greek officials to postpone the project until after the Games if it interferes with stadium work and pre-Olympic test events.

Athens has faced years of construction delays, and preparations only recently picked up speed.

The I.O.C. will seek updates on all aspects of the preparations.

Delayed transportation links will also be examined.

The tram, which is to connect the city center with seaside locations, and a suburban rail from the airport are far from completion.

Officials will also assess a triple bombing of a suburban police station in Athens on Wednesday, the 100-day mark before the Games. There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack, which caused damage but no injuries.

Many Greeks were stunned at the global reaction of the attack, which was widely viewed in Greece as the work of fringe radical groups that do not threaten the public.

''This type of incident you have in cities every day in the world,'' Felli said. ''What is very important is to make sure people understand very quickly the scope of the incident.''

Greece has budgeted as much as $1.2 billion for security.

Photo: Olympic officials say the process of moving the roof into place at the main Olympic stadium in Athens must start by the time inspectors arrive for a final review. (Photo by Getty Images)


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Edition: U.S. / Global

THE MEDIA BUSINESS: ADVERTISING -- ADDENDA; Subway Begins Review of Its Account

Published: July 29, 2004

Subway Restaurants is beginning a review for the creative and strategic planning duties on its account, which have been handled on an interim basis by McCarthy Mambro Bertino in Boston since May, when Subway parted ways with Fallon Worldwide in Minneapolis. Billings were estimated at $250 million.

Joanne Davis, president at Joanne Davis Consulting in New York, which is helping to manage the review, said that most participants have been identified. McCarthy Mambro is participating, but Ms. Davis declined to identify the others. The review is being overseen by the Subway Franchisee Advertising Fund Trust.

Subway, part of Doctor's Associates, parted ways with Fallon, part of the Publicis Groupe, after less than a year because of creative differences. A decision in the review is expected in early November.


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March 4, 1979
A Book of Last Things

THE PRICE WAS HIGH: The Last Uncollected Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
Edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli.

We have to start with various subtractions from 164, which is the number of Fitzgerald stories originally printed in magazines, including school papers. Subtract 46 for the stories he reprinted in one or another of the four collections published during his lifetime. Subtract 61more for the stories collected after his death, in six volumes edited by others. That would leave 57 uncollected stories, but Frances Scott Fitzgerald Smith, who owns the copyrights, believes that eight of these are so far beneath her father's standard that they should be forgotten. (I have read the eight stories in old magazines and feel that she is right.) Now we are down to 49, but to give his readers good measure, Fitzgerald's new editor, Matthew J. Bruccoli, has resurrected "On Your Own," an awkwardly put-together but appealing story rejected by seven magazines. Mr. Bruccoli tells us that there are other stories in manuscript, but that "On Your Own" is the only one bearing, in Fitzgerald's words, "one little drop of something...the extra I had."

Fifty stories, then - or nearly one-third of Fitzgerald's magazine work - are collected for the first time in "The Price Was High." "There isn't any more now," the editor says a little wistfully. The barrel has been turned upside down, but I was happy to find that there are things other than dregs at the bottom of it.

There are, for example, several remembered stories that I read again with pleasure and with greater admiration than I had expected to feel. Among them, "Dice, Brassknuckles & Guitar" (1923) is almost pure froth and lightheartedness. The Southern hero, with his touring car that keeps coming apart and his brassknuckled finishing school for the subdebs of Southhampton, evokes a mixture of hilarity and affection. Plot? There's too much plot, as often with Fitzgerald, but one can forget about it.

"The Love Boat" (1927) marks a new stage in Fitzgerald's career as a magazine write; it is the first of his mature stories about the search for irrecoverable illusions. But the illusions themselves are what I remember from long ago, when I first read "The Love Boat" in a new 236-page issue of The Saturday Evening Post. As always, they center on a girl. "Her smile came first slowly, then with a rush, pouring out body had gathered for a moment around her mouth and the rest of her was a wisp that the least wind would blow away." Here the romantic music resembles the grand opening scenes of Alain-Fournier's "The Wanderer."

"The Bowl" (1928) is Fitzgerald's only college-football story, much as he loved the sport. It also expresses his lasting admiration for what he called the "final people" in any profession. "All these," I once wrote of the story, "had an authority and, he believed, a sense of kinship that was based on their common respect for disciplined effort. 'Why, I'm Dolly Harlan,' the football hero says, in the same spirit that the author would like to hae said, 'why, I'm Scott Fitzgerald.'"

"The Rubber Check" (1932) is about the usual Fitzgerald young man, this time depicted frankly as a fortune hunter. He falls in love with Ellen Mortmain, whose "childish beauty was wistful and sad about being so rich and sixteen." But later, "all around her he could feel the vast Mortmain fortune melting down, seeping back into the matrix whence it had come." Reduced to working as a gardener, Val Schuyler reflects: "Society. He had leaned upon its glacial bosom like a trusting child, feeling a queer sort of delight in the diamonds that cut hard into his cheek."

"More Than Just a House" (1933) is about the same Fitzgerald hero, though it casts him in the role of a rising businessman. Lew Lowrie falls in love successively with all three Gunther sisters, in their big Maryland house that he also loves. Amanda, the beautiful sister, can't forgive him for being the parvenu who saved her life. Why couldn't she have been saved by one of her own crowd? "She turned her slender smile full upon Lew for a moment, and then aimed it a little aside, like a pocket torch that might dazzle him." A few years later the second sister, Jean, would be glad to accept him, his wealth having increased, but she frightens him off by revealing her selfishness. Finally he marries the youngest sister, Bess, but only when the Gunther house is falling to ruins. "The purpose of the house was achieved - finished and folded - it was an effort toward some commonweal, an effort difficult to estimate, so clearly does it press against us still."

Those five are my favorites among the stories over-looked by previous editors (including myself), but there are others I was glad to see collected in this book of last things. One of them is "Image on the Hear" (1936), a story based on Zelda Fitzgerald's passion for a French aviator and the ambiguous feelings it left behind. Another is "Discard" (1939), for which Fitzgerald's title was "Director's Special"; it is the double portrait of a Hollywood sat and of the younger woman who tries to devour her, lock, stock and top billing, husband and house. "A Freeze-Out" (1931), "Three Acts of Music" (1936)...and I could name a few others that present new facets of Fitzgerald's talent.

The sad fact remains that three-fourths of the stories in "The Price Was High" are below his usual level of achievement. In general they depend too much on coincidence, melodramatic turns of plot and information withheld from the reader until the last moment so as to end the story with an O. Henry twist. More fatally, they reveal an innocent snobbery, a resentful tribute paid to inherited wealth and position - a habit of mind that went out of fashion in the Depression years and that new seems archaic.

Yet I was glad to reread all 50 stories, including the weakest of those rescued from the bottom of the barrel. Almost all of them contain something to surprise us, if only a sentence or a passing observation of the sort that Fitzgerald squirreled away in his notebook for possible use in a novel after the story itself had bee (as he used to say) "junked and dismantled." "Abruptly it became full summer," we read in "A Freeze Out," one of the dismantled stories. "After the last April storm someone came along the street one night, blew up the trees like balloons, scattered bulbs and shrubs like confetti, opened a cage full of robins and, after a quick look around, signaled up the curtain upon a new backdrop of summer sky." Those lines are romantic poetry, a mixture of Keats and Cummings with a dash of Jerome Kern, but they bear the distinctive Fitzgerald stamp.

"The day of his elopement with Lucy," we read in another dismantled story, "The Adolescent Marriage" (1975), "had been like an ecstatic dream; he the young knight, scorned by her father, the baron, as a mere youth, bearing her away, and all willing, on his charger, in the dead of the night." That too bears the Fitzgerald stamp; in a few phrases it gives us the Lochinvar legend that was his favorite theme. Obsessed with time, he was a master at rendering ecstatic dreams or moments of felt beauty. Here is a sentence from "Six of One..." (1931), an otherwise mechanical story: "The young princes in velvet gathered in lovely domesticity around the queen amid the hush of rich draperies may presently grow up to be Pedro the Cruel or Charles the Mad, but the moment of beauty was there." Such moments are still there for Fitzgerald's readers, and they are a sound reason for preserving even the weaker stories in the final collection.

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text:
The Maiden King
The Reunion of Masculine and Feminine

Henry Holt and Company, Inc.

Read the Review

Once upon a time" is the way a storyteller often begins a tale in English. By contrast, an old Persian storyteller might say, "At one time there was a story and there was no one to tell it," or "At one time there was a story, but there was no one to hear it but God." In other words, stories were in existence before human beings. That's a strange idea, but lays a lot of responsibility on the good storyteller. "The Maiden Tsar" is one of the most magnificent of all stories.

    It has been preserved in the Russian language, but the storyteller does not say exactly where the story takes place: it is occurring "in a certain land, in a certain kingdom." That seems right, because the narrative is happening, one could say, simultaneously in the other world and in this one. A storyteller might say, "Our earth has four continents, and we are going now to the fifth," or "In our planet there are seven oceans; we are going now to the eighth." If you, as a reader, adore literalism, you may as well close the book now--you'll argue with our sallies so often that it will be bad for your health. Storytellers will mention that in "this kingdom" time is not linear, but persistently circular. When some event takes place in our world--a group of people walk into the desert--it never really happens exactly the same way again; new incidents replace the earlier incident. But in this "certain kingdom," the same events happen over and over; and that is what is so beautiful about that realm. People who live there love the way stories happen over and over again. They get a good look at the characters that way, because they know the old miser will come back, the dog with three legs will reappear, utterly unchanged, the prince will be just as foolish next time, the obstinate old woman just as determined, the father just as absent.

The Opening Situation

In a certain land, in a certain kingdom, there was a merchant whose wife died, leaving him with an only son, Ivan.

The father is a merchant, and so we know he will travel a lot. We are told then that his first wife, who is Ivan's mother, has died; so we could say both mother and father are absent in differing ways.

    The merchant father marries a second time, and as usual in fairy tales, he picks the wrong second wife. We've learned to expect that. The blessings the motherless child will receive will come, as we know from dozens of other tales, from the mother who has died, who sometimes leaves a doll for her child, which the daughter or son can speak to in difficult situations. The departed mother generally protects the abandoned child from evil.

    The trouble comes from the stepmother. It has to come from somewhere. If we omit literalism from our discussion of mother and stepmother, we can say that we are looking at two code words. "The mother who died" is a code word for the positive side of your own mother, which you probably felt deeply and unforgettably in the womb, and in very early childhood; and the "stepmother" is a code word for the dark side of that very same mother, who has, one might say, other invisible children besides you, and sometimes she prefers them to you. If you don't like this extravagant way of understanding a story, you can always remain with the more literal way; that is, Ivan's true mother did die, and a stepmother entered the family, and that's the way it was. Either way will work fine in this story.

In a certain land, in a certain kingdom, there was a merchant whose wife died, leaving him with an only son, Ivan. He put this son in charge of a tutor, and after some time took another wife; and since Ivan, the merchant's son, was now of age and very handsome, his stepmother fell in love with him.

    By the time we reach the word "handsome" in the second sentence we know that more than a little trouble is approaching. The father has hired a tutor to be a sort of mentor for the son, and that sounds fine, but it turns out that Ivan is handsome and the stepmother has fallen in love with him.

    Stuff like that happens sometimes when a father is absent. Our storyteller casually drops the tutor and the stepmother into the same sentence, but from this cool juxtaposition we don't have any way of knowing what a team these two will shortly become. This team will undo the boy.

The Fishing Trip

Things move fast in a story like this.

One day Ivan went with his tutor to fish in the sea on a small raft.

    The father apparently has wisely asked the tutor to teach the boy how to fish. We each need to know how to "fish." Psychologically, fishing amounts to an inquisitiveness about the "treasures of the deep." We float in broad daylight, on our well-constructed, rationally engineered raft or boat, looking down into the cloudy waters--inhabited by God knows what--the same waters each dreamer fishes in at night. Teaching people to fish is a just aim in education. We are fishing right now.

    Fishing is a kind of dreaming in daylight, a longing for what is below. There are many mysteries down there in those waters over which these two dwarfed, half-abandoned people drift. I suppose we could say that as we brood over the story, we are fishing in the eighth ocean mentioned earlier, the ocean that amounts to a legacy left by our ancestors to living women and men. Novelists are fisherpeople; so are poets and psychologists. Many superb psychologists have been fishing in the last hundred years, among them Freud, Jung, Karen Horney, Marie-Louise von Franz, Marion Woodman, Heinz Kohut, Melanie Klein, Georg Groddeck, and Alice Miller.

    A lot of our joy and happiness has come from these investigators of our legacy. Just as the fish "accidentally" bites on the worm, so a life passion may rise from below our consciousness during "fishing," evoked by an accidental reference noticed in a book that simply fell open. I know one man who found a book by James Hillman in a Goodwill dumpster, and it moved his whole life into psychology and mythology. Marie-Louise von Franz, at sixteen, the night before she was to have a brief meeting with Jung, dreamt such a powerful dream about "Virgin's milk" that when she told him the dream, he invited her to translate into German the medieval Latin of some ancient alchemical texts he had just purchased, and a sixty-year-long friendship began.

    A casual reference to a spider interests a young boy, and soon he is ransacking encyclopedias, studying webs, learning the ninety species of arachnids. When you visit his parents' house, he places a living tarantula in your hand. He has discovered his passion, or one of them, and in some way he is an individual.

    Painters are always going on fishing expeditions. Chagall was amazed at what he saw in the waters beneath his little Russian village, and he spent his life bringing those violinists and horses and brides up to the surface.

    Sometimes what we discover when fishing is a Presence. An event like that is about to happen to Ivan in our story. The boy and the tutor are looking down into the sea, one might say, for the Presence that swims about in the murky world below the surface of things; and all at once the Presence arrives on the surface of the ocean, coming in from the horizon, seemingly belonging to the sea itself.

One day Ivan went with his tutor to fish in the sea on a small raft; suddenly they saw thirty ships making toward them. On these ships sailed the Maiden Tsar with thirty other maidens, all her foster sisters. When the ships came close to the raft, all thirty of them dropped anchor. Ivan and his tutor were invited aboard the best ship, where the Maiden Tsar and her thirty foster sisters received them; she told Ivan that she loved him passionately and had come from afar to see him. So they were betrothed.

    This is an amazing event. A fleet of thirty ships arrive. The thirty women, who as we later find out are both swans and women, arrive, one on each boat, and there is a thirty-first Being as well, who is the "Maiden Tsar," or the Maiden King. The phrase is meant to carry a contradiction: she is not a woman Queen, but a woman King. We know from other stories that this is a divine being, sometimes called the "Woman with Golden Hair." She isn't a Queen, for that term would imply a King of her same rank. She is the King. She doesn't participate in opposites: the Queen vs. the King, or night vs. day. She does not belong to this world of opposites; the world we live in is a place of opposites, moon and sun, right and wrong, left and right, joy and sorrow, Democrats and Republicans, masculine and feminine. She is the unity of opposites.

    How could Ivan not be entranced? He is. She tells Ivan that she loves him and that they are betrothed. "Do you know my name?" "Oh, of course; we've known each other for a long time." He and this Golden-Haired Woman are already betrothed. That's the way it is in life.

    The moment the flotilla arrived must have been that instant the Greeks called kairos or "the right instant." There is a certain particle of time in which the stars are lined up--then the shaman can actually heal the sick person, then silver will turn with the right tincture into gold, then the Holy One can be born. A fifteen-year-old can wake up one morning and for ten minutes understand all of mathematics in the world, or the principles of great art, or grasp ahead of time everything that will happen to her in her life. The kairos moment seems to be the moment when one world interpenetrates the other. It is hard to explain this in Freudian psychology, but it is very easy in Islamic psychology. Avicenna, also known as Ibn Sina, said there was a world Aristotle didn't know of, in which Spiritual Presences live. One world is mud and stone; one world is divine; and there is a third world, an in-between world. The name given to it so far in English is the Imaginal World. St. Francis and St. Teresa can meet a human being there. The thirty boats are arriving from that world.

The Moment When the Worlds Meet

The second when thirty silver and golden boats touch the boy's raft is an astonishing moment; on the other hand, it is a playful magnification of certain heated moments we have all experienced. What are those moments like in human terms? Sometimes when one reads diaries written in one's twenties, one finds written there accounts of sudden illumination, perhaps a moment or an entire morning when the spiritual goal of one's life is utterly clear: the clarity is so amazing that we know we will never forget it. We feel a bit of inflation that morning, but inflation is merely a drawing in of breath, of air, of oxygen, which was always out there. It was actually an illumination; some sort of light came in from the other world, or from the stars. We were confused, but the visit amounted to a visitation. A spiritual woman--some sort of messenger, or angelos, as the Greeks called her--entered our house, interrupting those anxious hours when we brooded over our inadequacy, or schemed how to make some money. The angel said, "I am a spiritual being visiting you." Some angel with wings whose tips are violet at the edges descends to the young man or woman. We understood our life had changed; we knew nothing would ever be the same. We knew now that we were a person with a calling--as St. John of the Cross was, or the author of The Cloud of Unknowing. We carried inside a new dignity; we felt related to Buddhist saints or to monks who stayed in the desert hut for thirty years. In that mood, I set down these lines, which I included in my first book of poems:

We know the road; as the moonlight
Lights everything, so on a night like this,
The road goes on ahead, it is all clear

    It was all clear, but two months later I wasn't sure. A renewed need to pick up dry cleaning, or perhaps a return of our old habit of self-absorption, turns our eyes away from the clear road. The superficial, greedy part of the soul that retired for a few days returns with the fury of all pushed-away beings.

    Sometimes in early adolescence a love feeling will flood the brain with radiance again; a beauty glimpsed in another's face will bring all the radiance forward, and once again we have a sense of a Presence. A child of ten sees an unusual light flooding the fields. Blake saw angels sitting in a tree when he was ten; Thomas Traherne recorded a moment when he looked on the street and saw "boys and girls like moving jewels."

    Robert Johnson, in his new autobiography Balancing Heaven and Earth, describes a half hour when he stood looking down over the city of Portland, Oregon. A few weeks before he had lost part of one leg when a runaway car pinned him against a wall; he had come close to death, and he knew that. Standing on a hill, he saw that something had replaced ordinary sunlight, so that a heavenly light seemed to glow from behind every house and tree and person in Portland. The experience lasted only five minutes or so, but it determined the rest of his life.

The New Life

The arrival of the thirty golden boats and the meeting with the "divine woman," who remarks that she and Ivan are already betrothed, reminds one of certainties associated with romantic love. Each person in love feels that he or she has known the other before, in some other life. This is the lightning bolt called amor celebrated so deeply by the Provencal poets of the thirteenth century, by Dante in La Vita Nuova, and by the Norman and Irish love sagas. The two lovers may feel so close that death together is--compared to parting--the lesser of two evils. Coleman Barks, in his translation of Rumi, depicts the mood well:

Come to the Garden in spring.
There is wine, and sweethearts in the pomegranate blossoms.
If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter

    This intense awareness of destined love, of a unity bypassing all class and gender lines, the ecstatic sense that something divine is hidden in the meeting of these two, that "you" may be God, that each separate and foolish human being is actually participating in a holy meeting, occurs. Wallace Stevens says of Aphrodite in adolescence:

She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plates. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves

Romeo says:

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east and Juliet is the sun!...
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through to any region stream so bright
That birds would sing, and think it were the night

Juliet later replies:

Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this,
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmer's kiss

    There is an ancient Egyptian saying that suggests that the divine power in woman is so strong that boys in some sense die simply from having experienced that power. "We must die because we have known them." Rainer Maria Rilke imagines the boy as a mountain valley, earthbound, rather inert. The feminine wind makes "his body leaves rustic."

The adolescent boy praises the death-givers,
when they float magnificently through his
heart-halls. From his blossoming body
he cries out to them:
Impossible to reach! Oh, how strange they are:
They go swiftly over
the peaks of his emotions and pour down
the marvelously altered night into his deserted
arm valley. The wind that rises
in their dawn makes his body leaves rustle. His brooks
glisten away in the sun

(Translated by R.B.)

    At a certain age, then, a boy's emotional receptors become attuned to the wind of the feminine. And hers become attuned to the mountain valleys of the masculine, perhaps. How large is this attunement? Enormous. When two people are together, there are really four, so the attraction can happen many ways, between men and men, or women and women.

    The arrival of the boats is a good development for Ivan. The "betrothal" has begun. The feminine has shown herself, bravely, vulnerably, ready for serious life. The Goddess has arrived from the In-between World.

    The question is: What will happen to Ivan? When he got back on shore, he went to his room and thought about it. What did the stepmother do? She undoubtedly noticed a new expression on Ivan's face when he came ashore. As we know, she called the tutor into her room, gave him some brandy, and asked, "What happened today?" "Oh, nothing much." "Don't be foolish. Something happened, man. Tell me what it was!" "Well, about two o'clock or so some boats did approach, twenty-five or thirty of them, and there was one beautiful woman on each boat. That was about it." "Go on, have some more brandy." "One of the women was especially beautiful, I must say. Not as beautiful as you, of course." "Come to the point. What happened?" "The woman on the golden boat seemed to know Ivan, and it was quite a scene." "What happened next?" "She told Ivan she was coming back to the same spot tomorrow, and he should come. That's what she said. We pulled up anchor and came home."

    How did the stepmother respond?

The Maiden Tsar told the merchant's son to return to the same place the following day, said farewell to him, and sailed away. Ivan returned home and went to sleep. The stepmother led the tutor into her room, made him drunk, and began to question him as to what had happened to him and Ivan at sea. The tutor told her everything. Upon hearing his story, she gave him a pin and said, "Tomorrow, when the ships begin to sail toward you, stick this pin into Ivan's tunic." The tutor promised to carry out her order.

    "Tomorrow when the ships come into sight, I want you to slip this pin into the collar of Ivan's tunic." "Will it hurt him?" "How could a pin in his collar hurt him? Don't be absurd." The tutor promised to do what she wished.

    The pin is an old shamanic tool. We know that Siberian shamans still will prick the finger with a pin, and if it is done rightly, the person will fall asleep. This is an old magical trick, and it seems to be flowing out of the stepmother's dark side, the power side. We notice the pin theme in many Central European stories as well, such as in "Sleeping Beauty." In that story, a King and Queen plan to invite all the goddesses or wise women of the neighborhood to the christening of their new daughter, but something goes wrong--perhaps they have only twelve golden plates. The thirteenth goddess or "wise woman" is not invited. She appears anyway, but she feels insulted. During the christening ceremony, while others are blessing the daughter, she cries out, "This girl will prick herself with a spindle on her fifteenth birthday and die!" The goddess who speaks next does what she can; she cannot cancel the curse, but she softens it so that the fifteen-year-old girl will merely fall asleep, though the sleep will be a hundred years long. The parents from that day on keep all needles and pins away from the girl. But one day, when the girl is fifteen, she wanders into a room high in the castle. An old woman sits there spinning, and when the daughter tries out the spinning wheel, she pricks her finger, and the whole castle goes to sleep. Even the slow kitchen boy, plucking a chicken, stops with his fist full of feathers; the cook falls asleep with his hand halfway to the boy, about to hit him.

    The stepmother in our story comes forward as a practitioner of the magical arts. What is the insult or hurt the stepmother has received? Given the passion the stepmother feels for Ivan, perhaps the hurt lay in Ivan's failure to reciprocate it. If a human being or a goddess reaches for love and doesn't achieve it, he or she usually reaches next for power.

(C) 1998 Robert Bly and Marion Woodman All rights reserved. ISBN: 0-8050-5777-3

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Monday, July 14, 2014

Movie Review

Montparnasse 19 (1958)

March 1, 1961

Screen: 'Modigliani of Montparnasse':Late Gerard Philipe in French Drama Story of the Painter Opens at Baronet

Published: March 1, 1961

"MODIGLIANI OF MONTPARNASSE," which came to the Baronet yesterday, has one melancholy distinction. It shows the late Gérard Philipe acting an exceedingly ironic and poignant death-bed scene.

The fact that M. Philipe himself has since died under comparably tragic circumstances at the age of 36, which was exactly the age of the painter he portrays at his death, now adds a startling realism and somewhat ghoulish characteristic to this scene. It gives it a doubly sad significance for those who knew and admired M. Philipe.

Otherwise, this long, tear-stained French drama, shot in Paris more than three years ago and generally released in Europe under the title of "Montparnasse 19," is a standard and none too striking story of a struggling artist who knocked heavily on the booze and who died dismally of consumption before his painting, became popular and renowned.

Presumably, it is the story of Amedeo Modigliani, who went to Paris in 1906, became a friend of Picasso and Utrillo and was one of the Montparnasse Bohemians. At least, it recounts his story to a certain extent. And the paintings of the hero have the lean look of those that Modigliani did.

But so far as conveying any idea of the nature of its subject is concerned, it does no better or worse than most of the movies that have tried to recount various artists' careers. It starts with the proposition that its hero is a lush, a sad-eyed, tormented garret dweller who is inexplicably bored and finds bleak comfort with a rich mistress, whom Lilli Palmer plays.

Such is our boy, without clear reason. Nor is it any better explained why he is attracted to a pretty art student, played primly by Anouk Aimee. He just loves her, that's all. He dotes upon her. And she dotes upon him. She goes to live in the garret with him, as soon as she can break away from her stern old man.

So far, all right. But why our hero continues to sulk from time to time, why one day a lot of people are at an exhibition of his paintings and the next day nobody is there, why he blames his poor wife and rails against her—these things are not explained. They become nothing more than surface details of the agony of the artist's life.

One episode is harsh and stinging. It shows the artist, his wife and a friend going to offer some of his paintings to a rich American collector in a fancy hotel. The American, played by Frank Edwards, is rather strongly and cruelly drawn, but this scene of a shattering disappointment is the most vivid and compelling in the film.

And it leads to the only resolution that the stubbornly downbeat drama has, which is that the artist was the victim of idiots and ghouls. For the death-bed scene comes shortly after and it is succeeded by a now appreciable scene in which a slinky art dealer who was at the bedside hastens to the artist's garret and buys up all his paintings from his overjoyed wife before she knows her husband is dead.

It is one of those resolutions that leads one to suspect the scriptwriters, Henri Jeanson and the late Max Ophuls, were more impressed by the commercial irony of the artist's misfortune than by his personal tragedy. This is felt in the tone of the performing, directed by Jacques Becker.

M. Philipe is a constant image of a sensitive, sad, frustrated man, rendered all the more poignant by our post-knowledge of the artist's tough break and the fact that the actor is now dead. Mlle. Aimee is stoic and solemn, as though presaging the eventual trick of fate, and Gerard Sety is in a state of indignation through most of his scenes as a loyal friend.

The one bright spot is Miss Palmer, who acts with the breezy air of one who looks upon drunken artists as amusements. Maybe that's the way to look at this film.

The Cast
MODIGLIANI OF MONTPARNASSE, scenario by Henri Jeanson and Max Ophuls, based on a novel by Michel Georges-Michel; directed by Jacques Becker; produced by Ralph Baum for Franco London Films, of Paris, and Astra Pallavicini, of Rome; a Continental Distributing, Inc., release. At the Baronet Theatre, Third Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street. Running time: 110 minutes.
Modigliani . . . . . Gerard Philipe
Beatrice . . . . . Lilli Palmer
Jeanne . . . . . Anouk Aimee
M. Sborowski . . . . . Gerard Sety
Mme. Sborowski . . . . . Llia Dedrova
Rosalie . . . . . Lea Padovani
M Hebuterne . . . . . Jean Lanier
Mme. Hebuterne . . . . . Denise Vernac
Morel . . . . . Lino Ventura
Bertha Weil . . . . . Marianne Oswald
Mme. Salomon . . . . . Paquerette
Lulu . . . . . Arlette Poirier
Marcel . . . . . Robert Ripa
Mr. Dickson . . . . . Frank Edwards
Mrs. Dickson . . . . . Carol Sands

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Edition: U.S. / Global

Monday, July 14, 2014

Subway in the Sky ()

Review Summary

Berlin provides the backdrop for this crime drama that centers on a military doctor falsely accused of dealing illegal drugs. Determined to prove his innocence, he escapes from the MPs and ends up holing up in the apartment his wife rented. He doesn't know that she has sublet the flat to a nightclub singer. When he finds out, he begs the singer to assist him. She is attracted to him and agrees. The doctor believes that his wife is behind the black-market dealings, but in the end, they find the real culprit. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Movie Details

  • Title: Subway in the Sky
  • Running Time: 85 Minutes
  • Status: Released
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Genre: Adaptation, Crime, Mystery

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Edition: U.S. / Global

Monday, July 14, 2014

Jimi Plays Monterey ()

Read the New York Times Review »

Review Summary

Few people in the United States had any idea who Jimi Hendrix was when he and his band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, came on-stage at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. By the time his relatively short set had been played, everyone present knew they had heard a guitar genius -- the performance was history-making. This HBO Home Video release contains most of the songs from the festival performance, which was the Jimi Hendrix Experience's U.S. concert debut. ~ Steve Blackburn, Rovi

Full New York Times Review »

Movie Details

  • Title: Jimi Plays Monterey
  • Running Time: 48 Minutes
  • Status: Released
  • Country: United States
  • Genre: Documentary, Music

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Edition: U.S. / Global

Monday, July 14, 2014

Movies & TV

Edna Ferber

  • Screenwriter/Book Author/Play Author
  • Gender: Female
  • Born: August 15, 1887
  • Birthplace: Kalamazoo, MI

Full Biography

From All Movie Guide: Edna Ferber was probably the most respected and widely read woman author of the 20th century, and ranks among the most influential female novelists in history. Her books, which often told large, sweeping stories across a great historical arc from the standpoint of ordinary men and women, sold in the millions, while the plays adapted from them enjoyed long runs and the films adapted from them were among the most successful of their respective eras. Ferber was born to a Jewish family in Kalamazoo, MI, in 1885, the daughter of Jacob Charles Ferber and the former Julia Neumann. She intended to study at Northwestern University, but was forced instead to take a job as a reporter on the Appleton Daily Crescent in Wisconsin, and later went to work for the Milwaukee Journal. It was this early career in journalism that allowed Ferber to perfect her observer's eye for the small details of people's lives and the psychology that motivated them, which she put into the service of her fiction later on, as well as bringing her into close contact with the working men and women who populated her books.

It was anemia, developed out of her exhaustion from overwork as a reporter, that brought Ferber to the writing of fiction. She decided to try it while convalescing and ended up with a short story entitled {-Dawn O'Hara}, which she sold to a magazine almost immediately. That marked the end of her career as a reporter -- from that day forward, she wrote short stories, novels, and plays. Ferber first achieved fame with a series of stories about Emma McChesney, a traveling saleswoman selling underskirts, which eventually ran to more than 30 installments because of its popularity. It was those stories for which, to her embarrassment, President Theodore Roosevelt remembered her when the two met in 1904 at the Republican National Convention. Her works also tended to yield other, even more significant works, on occasion -- it was while in New London, CT, at a tryout of the play {+Minnick} that the producer Winthrop Ames wryly suggested hiring a show boat, which led her to ask what a show boat was, which led her to the then still extant world of show boats working the southern and border states, and resulted in the novel {-Show Boat} (1926). Similarly, it was during a visit with William Allen White that she heard of the Oklahoma and Indian territories, and the opening of the West, which led her to write {-Cimarron}. {-Show Boat}, of course, became the groundbreaking (indeed, one might say, defining) musicals by Jerome Kern, which was later successfully filmed twice, once in 1936 and again in 1951, with an abridged (sort of "Cliff Notes") version slotted into the 1946 Kern biopic Till the Clouds Roll By, as well. {-Cimarron} was also filmed twice during her lifetime, and a few of her stories, such as {-So Big} -- which dealt with life on a truck farm near Chicago -- were filmed three times, counting early silent versions.

Additionally, Ferber enjoyed much success as a theater writer, principally in collaboration with George S. Kaufman, and plays such as Stage Door and {+Dinner at Eight}, which became major motion pictures as well ({+Dinner at Eight} was also revived on-stage in New York in 2003). What's more, her popularity never waned -- Ferber's book {-Giant}, telling of the state of Texas and how it changed across the 20th century, was published in 1952, a half century into her career, and sold three million copies, as well as generating the George Stevens movie Giant (1956), which is perhaps the best known film to be derived directly from one of Ferber's books. Ironically, when it first appeared, the political powers in Texas resented the book, believing that it showed too many negatives about the state, but the movie was so popular there, and its Dimitri Tiomkin score was so appealing, that the title music was adopted by the legislature as the state song. Ice Palace came from this same late period, published in 1958 and dealing with Alaska, and it was filmed in 1960 in an epic production, running 143 minutes and starring Richard Burton and Robert Ryan. Regarded as the greatest American woman novelist of the 1920s and 1930s, Ferber almost outlived her fame -- by the time of her death in 1968, she was a literary institution. Though there have been no fresh adaptations of her work in the decades since -- and the owners of the most recent film version of {-So Big} even declined to renew the underlying literary rights to that property -- works such as {+Dinner at Eight}, {+Show Boat}, and {-Giant} continue to exert a very strong pull on audiences more than a century after Ferber's birth. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi


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Edition: U.S. / Global

Monday, July 14, 2014

Movies & TV

Harve Presnell

Alternate Name: George Harvey Presnell, George Harvey Presnell

Actor, Singer

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About This Person

From All Movie Guide: First earning an international reputation in opera and musical comedy, Harve Presnell made his feature-film debut in the film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown playing opposite Debbie Reynolds. Though he has spent the bulk of his career on the stage, Presnell periodically appeared in other films through the '70s. After taking no film roles in the '80s, Presnell re-emerged in the Coen brothers' Fargo (1996) and continued to play character roles in films such as Julian Po (1997) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

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Monday, July 14, 2014

Movies & TV

Paul Blaisdell

Actor/Costume Designer/Special Effects

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About This Person

From All Movie Guide: Paul Blaisdell's career was the stuff that nightmares were made of, especially for baby-boomer filmgoers. Blaisdell's career in movies lasted barely four years, and seldom involved pictures budgeted even in the six-figure range. If he isn't remotely as well known as, say, Dennis Muren or Jim Danforth, then that's because he never had more than a fraction of their budgets to work with. Blaisdell was born in Newport, RI, in 1927, and attended the New England School of Art and Design. Among his first steady work assignments after graduation was as an illustrator for various science fiction pulp magazines. It was during this period that Blaisdell entered the orbit of Forest J. Ackerman, a science fiction writer who would later become famous as the editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. Ackerman became Blaisdell's agent, and this led to his entry into movies. One day in 1955, Ackerman received a call from fledgling producer/director Roger Corman, who had completed a film called The Beast With a Million Eyes, which played nicely enough, but for one problem -- it had no monster. Corman made the movie knowing that he couldn't afford much of a monster, and had built the plot around the idea of an alien consciousness that occupied the bodies of existing animals; it was a clever idea, but the movie's distributors knew that audiences that had paid to see a monster movie would expect to see a monster in the movie. Corman needed an affordable creature, and Ackerman steered him to Blaisdell, who created a barely believable alien and a flying saucer for 200 dollars.

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Soft emissions target might rise

By Brian Fallow

Govt commits to cutting greenhouse gases to 5% below 1990 levels by 2020

Climate Change Minister Tim Groser says the 26,000ha of plantation forest cut down in New Zealand between 2008 and 2012 has been more than offset by 42,700ha of replanting. Photo / APN
Climate Change Minister Tim Groser says the 26,000ha of plantation forest cut down in New Zealand between 2008 and 2012 has been more than offset by 42,700ha of replanting. Photo / APN

The Government has adopted a soft unilateral target for reducing carbon emissions by 2020, but Climate Change Minister Tim Groser said a future Government might lift it, should progress towards an international agreement post-2020 warrant it.

He announced yesterday that New Zealand had committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.

It is an end-point target, unlike the target for the first period of the Kyoto Protocol, which was to reduce average emissions over the 2008-2012 period to 1990 levels.

"In deciding this target, the Government has carefully balanced the cost to New Zealand households and businesses against taking ambitious action to tackle climate change," Groser said.

It is unconditional, but weaker than the conditional reduction of 10 to 20 per cent the Government had previously tabled in international negotiations.

Greens co-leader Russel Norman described the target as a disgrace.

"As a small country, New Zealand is reliant on major global emitters to reduce their emissions in order to avoid serious consequences of human-caused climate change. We can't expect them to act to save our bacon while we freeload," he said.

Groser said: "I'm very confident on the basis of the advice I'm getting that New Zealand will not only achieve minus 5 per cent, we will end up achieving considerably more than that."

He was still hopeful that the international negotiations would produce an agreement.

"And I am quite confident that any future Government will have to go back and look at the unconditional offer and at some point make a decision as to whether we can lift our contribution beyond this minus 5 unilateral commitment."

He said he agreed with the Government's chief science adviser, Sir Peter Gluckman, that, with New Zealand contributing less than 0.2 per cent of global emissions, any effort it made to reduce them was "more of a geopolitical nature".

"Unless we get a serious international effort, anything we do with the ETS or subsequent to it is a complete waste of time. Disturbingly, over 100 members of this negotiation have not yet said they are going to do anything let alone tell us what it was. And their emissions are not trivial, they are collectively twice the whole of Europe's," Groser said.

"With respect to developing countries which have at least, to their great credit, said they will do things, like China, we are still working through what precisely that means they are going to do. So until we are in a position to make an assessment that there is a serious and concerted international effort, it is entirely appropriate New Zealand sits below its [previous] offer."

Groser said the "strong advice" from officials was that the target could be met without any changes to settings of the domestic emissions trading scheme.

The ETS is widely seen as environmentally ineffectual because of carve-outs from the scheme and the collapse of international carbon prices.

New Zealand's gross emissions are more than 20 per cent above 1990 levels, but it has been able to meet its Kyoto target with a bit to spare because of offsetting credits for the carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere by forests planted since 1989.

But plantation forests will flip from being a net sink for CO2 to a net source of emissions when the "wall of wood" is harvested in the 2020s.

In the meantime, forestry's net contribution depends in part on what happens to the size of the plantation forest estate.

Groser strongly disputes claims of an upsurge in deforestation now that low carbon prices provide no barrier to landowners switching to another land use.

"There is net afforestation going on," he said. The 26,000ha of plantation forest cut down between 2008 and 2012 was more than offset by 42,700ha of replanting.

"People plant trees primarily for wood. That hasn't changed."

Labour's climate change spokeswoman, Moana Mackey, said yesterday's announcement was disappointing but unsurprising.

"National has gutted the emissions trading scheme, devastated the carbon forestry sector and pulled out of Kyoto."

New Zealand's international reputation had taken a hammering in recent weeks, she said.

"This will do nothing to restore credibility to our clean green image. We are the last developed country to announce a target - a target which was due last year - and we still haven't seen any plan as to how the Government expects to achieve even this very modest reduction."

- NZ Herald

© Copyright 2014, APN New Zealand Limited

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Elton John: Modern pop singers 'lack humanity'

Elton John. Photo/AP
Elton John. Photo/AP

Sir Elton John has dismissed modern pop by "processed performers" such as Britney Spears.

The Candle In The Wind singer insisted the charts are now full of "packaged c**p" - unlike his songwriting, which he said is inspired by Bach and Beethoven.

The 66-year-old claimed singers lack the "soul and humanity" of Judy Garland or Nina Simone.

"Everything's too flawless now," he said. "Everything's autotuned, there's no trace of humanity. If you go and see a Britney Spears concert, you might as well stay at home and watch the video."

He was speaking at a function at the Royal Academy of Music, where he trained for six years from the age of 11. And the flamboyant singer-songwriter cited classical music as his inspiration: "If you love Bach, Mozart, Chopin and Beethoven, you can't help but be influenced. They wrote the greatest melodies of all time."

© Copyright 2014, APN New Zealand Limited

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Victims want real police not stand-ins

By Mathew Dearnaley, NZPA

Victims of high-profile police communications failures are unimpressed by a call on community patrols to scout potential emergencies before the police can get to them.

An organisation called Community Patrols of New Zealand, with 72 affiliates nationwide, says it is not unusual for its members to be asked for help in reporting on domestic disputes or other flare-ups before police can reach remote areas.

"In rural areas not every area has 24-hour police, and a lot of people make 111 calls for domestic situations and all sorts of situations," said the organisation's chairman, Neil Sole.

"The comms [police communications] more than likely have dispatched a police car, but it's 30 or 40 minutes away.

"We are Johnny on the spot, and they would more than likely ask us to do a drive-past just to see if the situation is as serious as reported or has it escalated."

Mr Sole said community patrols, which had a memorandum of understanding with police, had a strictly observational role and were not meant to get embroiled in any confrontation.

He denied that police were asking the patrols to do their job for them.

"Definitely not - CPNZ are community-based organisations and it's the community taking a wee bit of responsibility of their own. They are the eyes and ears only for the New Zealand police."

But Peter Bentley, a Bay of Plenty farmer whose skull was broken last year in a home invasion to which it took police an hour to respond, said community patrols were no substitute for a professional force.

"The crux is that our existing system has become so undermanned and therefore unreliable," he said last night.

Although he admired any attempt by community groups to fill gaps left by inadequate police resources, their members might be tempted to step into a dispute that could fast spiral out of control.

© Copyright 2014, APN New Zealand Limited

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Bryce Edwards ' Opinion

Bryce Edwards is a lecturer in Politics at the University of Otago.

Bryce Edwards: Political round-up: The bizarre and mysterious Peter Dunne scandal

United Future Party leader Peter Dunne. Photo / Mark Mitchell
United Future Party leader Peter Dunne. Photo / Mark Mitchell

So much of what goes on in politics is shrouded in mystery and intrigue and it's a constant struggle to lift the veil on what is actually happening. Journalists attempt to get scoops, MPs leak information, spin-doctors try to mold public opinion and keep embarrassing facts under wraps.

We still don't really know what caused Peter Dunne's downfall and it remains quite a bizarre mystery with many unanswered questions and issues arising from the situation.

One of the most insightful and interesting analyses comes from David Farrar in his blogpost Dunne winners and losers. Farrar writes 'Who would have picked that Kim Dotcom would indirectly claim Peter Dunne as a victim', and he proceeds to go through and systematically analyse the roles of the various players in the scandal. If you want a visual portrayal of Peter Dunne's fall from grace, see my own blogpost aggregating the various cartoons and photos: New images of the Peter Dunne scandal.

If you want to know why Dunne might possibly be leaking highly sensitive material to journalists, possibly the best account is Jane Clifton's online Listener column written immediately in the wake of Dunne's press conference. Clifton writes 'My best guess is that being a source can be quite ego-boosting, and it is part of a midlife crisis to seek ego-boosts from novel sources' - see: Peter Dunne's gobsmacking fall from grace.

What's most interesting about Clifton's account is her defence of, and praise for, individuals who leak material. Colin Espiner also argues this point of view in his column Captain Sensible got too near the flame. Espiner's excellent column praises the 'proud tradition of leaking', emphasising the extent of this practice, and explaining why it happens. He says that 'Peters is the king of leaks, although he doesn't betray a trace of irony in his demands for Dunne to face a police investigation', and that 'Helen Clark leaked like a sieve'. What's more, 'There are very senior people sitting around Key's Cabinet table who have leaked information to me in the past. And every other reporter in the press gallery I'm sure'.

Perhaps the most contentious issue to arise out of the Dunne scandal is how the Opposition parties have reacted to it. Generally their response can be characterised as fairly authoritarian and illiberal. New Zealand First, Labour and the Greens have taken a hardline approach to the leaking of the report, and are seeking the most severe punishment and condemnation of the leakage, and of Peter Dunne. In particular, the Opposition parties are attempting to force Dunne and Andrea Vance's communications to be made public, and have made calls for the police to step in and start criminal investigations.

This has drawn the wrath of blogger No Right Turn, who has written an extremely critical post about those seeking to punish leakers - see: The Greens should support leakers, not oppose them. His main point is that 'leaks are the lifeblood of democracy. And the more sensitive and embarrassing the leak, the greater the public interest in protecting the leaker. If Dunne leaked this report, he should be viewed as a hero, not a criminal'. Russel Norman is labeled an 'authoritarian' and called upon to resign. In another post, The Henry report, No Right Turn defends Dunne's right to keep his correspondence private: 'Dunne is the leader of a political party, and it is entirely normal for him to communicate with journalists. Given his previously expressed views on the GCSB and the fact that he is a critical swing vote in passing the government's spy bill, its even entirely natural for him to communicate with a journalist on GCSB issues. And it is entirely natural for him to regard those communications as none of the PM's business'.

In Opposition parties may look silly over Police complaints, David Farrar says 'talking of Police complaints is hysteria' and that the Labour Party appears to be hypocritical as it is currently engaged in trying to prevent another leaker's name from being released. Similarly, I've argued that calling for Police intervention in the political and media realm is a dangerous path for politicians to go down - see the NBR's Dunne affair: Labour, Greens draw flak over 'chilling' police inquiry call. Of course, it makes some difference whether Dunne - or anyone else - has actually broken any laws in leaking the GCSB report. The growing consensus, including that of the PM, is that no crime has been committed - see Felix Marwick's GCSB leak not criminal, says lawyer. And for a fulsome legal discussion and analysis of the issues, see Andrew Geddis' Peter Dunne - what happens next?.

Pro-Labour blogger, Scott Yorke has criticised David Shearer's aggressive approach to the issue, suggesting that he's making himself 'a huge target for accusations of hypocrisy' - see: A different strategy. He also asks a good question: 'Does it mean that the next time someone tries to leak to Labour something damaging to John Key's government, David Shearer will threaten to call the cops?' A similar argument is made by Tracy Watkins in her column, Dunne's a scalp that may weigh too heavy, in which she points out that Phil Goff has also been recently involved in leaking confidential reports: 'That moral high ground should last about as long as it takes to extend the logic to Labour MP Phil Goff, who was leaked sensitive Cabinet documents relating to Foreign Affairs. Labour would scream constitutional outrage if his emails were seized and he was made to name the leaker. Like journalists, MPs don't reveal their sources. But if leaking was criminal, half the National Government and its Labour predecessor would be locked up'.

Fairfax journalist Andrea Vance, who received the original leak, has been a target of rumour and speculation since Dunne's resignation. This reached a pinnacle on TVNZ's Q+A programme, when Vance was accused by National's Michelle Boag of actually leaking the story to Winston Peters. Boag said, 'Now, my question is, how does he know? There is only one other person that could have given him access to those emails - and that is Andrea Vance. There is no other way that he could get that information. And I have to ask what sort of game is she playing? I understand that she is also very close to Grant Robertson' - see: TVNZ's Dunne was 'leaking like a sieve', says Peters. Fairfax boss Paul Thompson has responded, saying 'That's ludicrous' - see Attempts to get reporter's emails 'will be fought'. He is also reported as saying that 'politicians should tread carefully before embarking on a witch hunt. That could have a chilling effect on how journalists covered politicians'.

So, what happens now? It all depends on what else emerges about Dunne's actions and emails. Matthew Hooton looks at some of the possible scenarios if things get worse for Dunne - see: Dunne affair: Key would win snap election. Also, see TV3's Where to now for Peter Dunne?, in which Hooton recommends various options for Dunne. But it all depends a lot on Winston Peters' next move. He claims to have copies of the email correspondence between Dunne and Vance, and therefore may continue to drip-feed information about the contents. But there's very good reason to question whether Peters is bluffing, and United Future blogger Pete George puts together the arguments for this being the case in his post, Winston Peters evades questions on evidence. But Danyl Mclaughlin says 'my guess is that Peters has the emails that were handed over to the Henry inquiry. If that's the case then Dunne was very wise not to hand over the rest of his correspondence' - see: What does Peters have?.

Finally, for the satirical takes on the Peter Dunne issue, see Steve Braunias' The secret diary of Peter Dunne and Ben Uffindell's Civilian blogpost, President Obama listening to Peter Dunne's phone conversations with amusement.

Other recent important or interesting items include the following:

Andrea Vance was recently a key journalistic player in another behind-the-scenes political story. She wrote a very important profile on National Party strategist and wannabe Svengali Simon Lusk - a must-read if you haven't already - see: Seriously happy to upset the status quo. The Standard provided some useful analysis of this in the blogpost, That Lusk article.

Soon after Vance's profile of Lusk was published, some of his internal documents were leaked to the media, providing further insight into what goes on behind the scenes on the National Party rightwing. This was best covered by David Fisher in National turns on hard right advisor and Ports and bloggers colluded: strategist. TV3's The Nation also had good coverage - watch: PM responds to plans to push the Nats to the right.

Do bloggers get paid behind the scenes by political parties? That's a question asked recently by David Farrar - see: A question. It turns out that Daily Blog editor Martyn Bradbury is on the parliamentary payroll of the Mana Party, and you can read his response here: Declaration - David Farrar's Darth Vader helmet is too big for me. The issue is also parodied by Scott Yorke in his post It's me.

Behind the scenes at the Green Party's recent conference there was also some important maneuvering. Isaac Davison reports on a leak from the party which shows that Greens accused of changing rules to stifle grassroots. John Armstrong has elaborated further on the issue, with a strong critique of how the party is evolving in Get-tough Greens preparing for battle. But for an even more trenchant analysis of the Green's pragmatism see an analysis from Massey University's Grant Duncan, Green Effluent. An ex-Alliance cabinet minister is also strongly criticising the Greens from the left - see his blog post, Now Dunne Is Done Let's Consider The Not So Grand Coalitions.

Russel Norman is also still being taken to task for his recent conference speech likening John Key to Robert Muldoon. Rodney Hide argues that in fact, it's more interesting to compare and contrast Norman to Muldoon - see: Norman so (un)like Muldoon too. Fran O'Sullivan uses a recent case study of Norman's attacks on an economist, to label him the real 'Muldoonist' - see: Politics of abuse: spot the real Muldoonist. Yet another rightwing commentator lines up for a shot, with Matthew Hooton saying that Russel's history lessons ring hollow. But Norman gets the last word in his blogpost, Muldoon and Key.

Hekia Parata was recently interviewed and profiled by Rachel Smalley on TV3's The Nation -well worth watching here: Hekia Parata: a minister out of her depth?. Controversial questions were put to the minister, as explained in Kate Shuttleworth's TV3 host to Parata: 'How Maori are you?'. Brian Edwards has come out in Smalley's defence with When Hekia met Rachel - a sometime interviewer's perspective. But Metiria Turei disagrees - see: Response to Brian Edwards concerning Hekia Parata.

Are the Maori seats falling out of favour with Maori voters? Certainly there are fewer switching over the Maori roll than might have been expected - see TVNZ's Maori Roll campaign fails to fire. Consequently there are fears that the number of seats could fall - see Newswire's Sharples: A Maori seat could be lost. David Farrar has a good analysis of the decline in growth of the Maori roll and suggests it's because 'Maori are no longer under-represented, but over-represented' in Parliament - see: The Maori option. Morgan Godfery responds by saying Enroll! (On the Maori roll).

Finally, if you're sick of the current parties on offer, you don't have to give up on politics and voting - there's a new option rising - see Ben Uffindell's The Civilian blogpost, Why we're registering a political party.

- NZ Herald

Bryce Edwards

Bryce Edwards is a lecturer in Politics at the University of Otago.

Bryce Edwards is a lecturer in Politics at the University of Otago. He teaches and researches on New Zealand politics, public policy, political parties, elections, and political communication. His PhD, completed in 2003, was on 'Political Parties in New Zealand: A Study of Ideological and Organisational Transformation'. He is currently working on a book entitled 'Who Runs New Zealand? An Anatomy of Power'. He is also on the board of directors for Transparency International New Zealand.

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NRL: Rabbitohs throw off wrestling worries

Roy Asotasi. Photo / Getty Images
Roy Asotasi. Photo / Getty Images

South Sydney coach Michael Maguire says he is unconcerned about Canterbury's wrestling techniques ahead of tomorrow's NRL grand final qualifier.

Under Des Hasler, the Bulldogs have become the game's premier side at slowing down the ruck and controlling the speed of the game through the wrestle.

But despite the threat it could pose to the Rabbitohs' attacking maestros Greg Inglis, Issac Luke and Adam Reynolds, Maguire said it had not factored into their preparations for the ANZ Stadium clash.

"I think every team practises that area of the game and it's no different each week," Maguire said.

"Everyone's doing their practice in various areas and I'm sure they're practising what they need to do and we're focused about what we need to do."

With a crowd in excess of 70,000 anticipated for the all-Sydney showdown, Maguire said his young stars were handling the expectation of the big week impressively.

"The boys in our group like Roy Asotasi, Michael Crocker, Matty King, Greg Inglis, Sam Burgess I could go on on a number of players," Maguire said.

"Even Luke Burgess has played in a number of finals overseas. We're lucky that we've got a lot of experience at this time of the year and the young boys are just thriving on the enthusiasm."

Maguire confirmed that winger Nathan Merritt was on track to return from a shoulder injury that forced him to miss last week's victory over Canberra.

"We're really hoping he's right to go. He's trained all this week so there's no reason why he shouldn't be playing," Maguire said.

"As a team we want Nathan in there. He's a massive part of what we've been doing here."

Should Merritt fail a late fitness test however, the versatile Justin Hunt will take his spot as he did against the Raiders.

© Copyright 2014, APN New Zealand Limited

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‘Iron Man 3' shows rust

By Michael Sragow Orange County Register

The ads read “Iron Man 3” but the end credits say “Iron Man Three” – the perfect capper for a movie that tries to spell everything out.

Why is Tony Stark working for 72-hour stretches without sleep? He'll tell you in dialogue or voice-over. He's haunted by the Avengers' apocalyptic showdown with aliens in New York City. He's still experiencing psychic bends because of his change from playboy genius to committed good guy and stalwart lover of Stark Industries' new CEO, Pepper Potts. Every time he switches on the TV, he sees another horrifying video message from the Mandarin, a madman with a ZZ Top beard, an all-purpose Oriental costume and a voice that sounds as if he's narrating an expose on “60 Minutes.” The Mandarin takes credit for multiple terrorist conflagrations and vows to defeat America and its heroes, including Tony Stark. No wonder Stark starts having anxiety attacks.

The moviemakers are really the ones getting anxiety attacks – over how to keep a towering comic-book franchise fresh. After a promising opening stretch, they overstuff the movie with explosions, hairpin plot turns and forced or arbitrary character reversals. The showdowns between Iron Man and biotech-created super-soldiers become monotonous, even if these new enemies have nifty powers. (They're strong and fast, their flesh is more resilient than robot armor, and they can breathe fire and melt metal with their hands.)

The script, by director Shane Black and Drew Pearce, lacks the connective tissue it needs to be a ripping yarn. Stark sets the main action in motion with a move so stupid that the film never recovers. On TV, he dares the Mandarin to come out and fight, then gives his Malibu address. It's astonishing that Stark has no battle plan when he's attacked there the next day.

The movie is strewn with grandiose strokes that go nowhere or stock sequences gussied up with special effects. The matchup of two small super-armies provides an “Oh, this again” kind of climax. It doesn't help that director Black has no gift for staging action – he can't achieve suspense because he doesn't give his set pieces a driving logic. When you want a visceral lift, you get a hardware show. It doesn't help that screenwriter Black withholds information about Stark's latest tinkering, so when his newest creations are fully revealed, they're literally a group deus ex machina.

How can a movie with such a smart hero be so dumb? After all, Downey hasn't lost a step in his sauntering man-about-town gait or a millisecond of his spot-on comedy timing. He told Jon Stewart on Tuesday night that fans' love for Iron Man made him feel “like a Beatle.” In “Iron Man 3,” he looks like he's in the middle of an endless hard day's night. Insomnia unleashes his fear that he can't protect the woman he loves.

Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow), who now lives with him, may think he's obsessed with his various new models of remote-controlled Iron Men. But Downey conveys the bedrock commitment to their life together, as well as the angst that fuels his nonstop puttering.

In the thick of the numbskull action, Downey finds ways to surprise you. You groan when Tony partners up with a helpful young'un in Tennessee named Harley (Ty Simpkins). But Downey mocks the cornball conventions of superheroes and youthful sidekicks. The kid plays right along, even when Stark briskly tells the fatherless boy, “Dads leave,” adding that there's no need to be a sap about it. The way Downey plays him, Stark handles the obligations of being a celebrity/superhero by refusing to fake emotions.

Downey's talent ups the game of everyone who acts beside him. In an introductory flashback at a 1999 tech conference in Switzerland, Rebecca Hall is even more smart-girl-sexy than usual as Maya, a biotech pioneer who's also a saucy one-night stand. Guy Pearce goes from geeky caricature to walking GQ ad as Aldrich Killian, the nerd who weaponizes Maya's research. Ben Kingsley taps into his inner Peter Sellers as the Mandarin: He gets to be spooky and funny.

Sadly, their characters run into dead ends. That goes for “Iron Man” regulars, too. Downey's hyperactivity and Paltrow's calm elegance are so well matched that you hope they'll have more of a chance to perform as a team, which doesn't happen much until the very end. Jon Favreau (who directed the first two “Iron Man” movies) is uproarious as Happy Hogan, Stark's best friend and former bodyguard, now the head of security for Stark Industries. He makes his loyalty and need for friendship earthy-funny and noble. Don Cheadle comes into his own as Col. James “Rhodey” Rhodes/Iron Patriot (formerly War Machine). He's learned how to undercut Tony's stream-of-consciousness rants with his own pinpoint understatement. He's turned into a stealth comedian.

Keep watching until after the last credit and you'll see Mark Ruffalo, as Bruce Banner/the Hulk, trying to play shrink to Tony Stark. Downey, with Ruffalo's help, sends up Stark's overblown talk about creating his own demons. As these actors go about their blissfully irreverent raillery, the movie's clanging and shouting float out of your head. You bask in the pleasure of seeing gifted performers at play.

Ruffalo's Banner/Hulk can't keep awake. After 2 hours and 10 minutes, you know how he feels.

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Shields earns split decision over Maia

2013-10-09 20:01:26

BARUERI, BRAZIL – Jake Shields earned a hard-fought split decision victory over Demian Maia in the UFC Fight Night 29 headliner, besting the Brazilian grappling ace in front of a partisan crowd.

“That was one of the hardest two or three fights of (my career). It ranks up there with Dan Henderson and (Georges St. Pierre),” Shields said. “He’s a phenom, and he gave me all I could handle. I expected that going in. It was a close fight, and I’m just thankful I got the win.”

Maia took control early by scoring a trip that put Shields on his back. Though the American recovered his vertical base, Maia used the opportunity to hop on his back for a moment before the ADCC bronze medalist shook him off and spent the rest of the round in top position.

Rounds 2 and 3 brought more of the same, as Shields countered Maia’s grappling advances to land in his opponent’s guard, firing short elbows into the face of the former Pan-American BJJ champ. Maia returned the favor in Round 4, however, firing off left hands and sprawling on Shields’ takedowns attempts to force the Californian to pull guard.

In the final frame Shields again assume the role of aggressor, driving for multiple takedowns against a stout defense from Maia. After 25 minutes, the judges were split in their verdict, with two awarding Shields the victory on scores of 48-47 and a third dissenting with a 47-48 card.

“In my mind, I had it two rounds apiece,” Shields said. “I didn’t know how the judges had it, but I thought we were even. I was really tired, so I tried to open up the standup more. I thought I edged it out there, but it was close.”

Welterweight standout Dong Hyun Kim extended his winning streak to three in the co-main event, scoring a brutal, second-round knockout of Brazilian prospect Erick Silva.

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Grant helps woman hear new sounds

Providence Speech and Hearing Center assisted in getting hearing aids with the latest technology. The Orange-based nonprofit is one of the 2011 Season of Caring charities.

Grant helps woman hear new sounds

Sharon Atkins received a grant from Providence Speech and Hearing Center for new hearing aids that help her detect sounds she hasn't heard in more than 30 years.

2011 Season of Caring

The 2011 Season of Caring campaign recipients include the following Orange County charities:

Casa Youth Shelter

Community SeniorServ

Fullerton Interfaith Emergency Service

Orangewood Children's Foundation

Project Dignity

Providence Speech & Hearing Center

Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County

The Salvation Army Orange County

Contributions can be made by donating online at

This year, for the first time, Sharon Atkins heard her cat meow.

"You should see some of the conversations we've been having," she joked. "I had always seen his mouth move but never knew what that sounded like."

Thanks to the latest technology in hearing aids and help from Providence Speech and Hearing Center, Atkins is hearing the world as she never thought she could.

Providence helped Atkins, who suffers from a rare degenerative hearing disorder, pay for new hearing aids that allow her to pick up sounds she hasn't been able to detect in more than 30 years.

Atkins can now distinguish background music from the voice singing the lyrics and is able to hear conversations in somewhat noisy places when before, the many voices would meld together.

"I'm having fun getting more enjoyment out of watching "American Idol" and "The X Factor," she said. "I can't wait to try these out on the dance floor."

Orange-based Providence Speech and Hearing Center is one of eight local charities benefitting from the Register's Season of Caring campaign. All proceeds raised will go to the organizations. Providence helps children and adults who suffer from various speech or hearing disorders.

Atkins started to lose her hearing at age 13. She returned from summer camp and complained her ears felt clogged. She woke up one day and her hearing was gone.

"I remember I turned on the shower and couldn't hear the water running," she said. "I freaked."

Her hearing returned but slowly got worse.

One doctor said it was tonsillitis; another told her she had attended one too many concerts. Atkins was about 20 years old when doctors discovered she was suffering from degenerative hearing loss.

A handful of doctors and two other hearing centers later, Atkins found herself at Providence Speech and Hearing. That was more than 10 years ago.

She gets yearly evaluations to check on the progression of her hearing loss.

About six months ago, Atkins said a new type of hearing aid was introduced but the cost was too high at $2,300. Her medical insurance does not cover it.

"Then I got the best Christmas present I've ever received," she said. "They had a grant available for people just like me. I still cry when I think about it."

Providence paid more than half the cost of her new hearing aids.

Atkins said she hopes her story will help others like her struggling with how to pay for hearing aids.

"I would hate to see somebody say they can't afford it when there is help out there," she said. "Without Providence, I wouldn't have hearing."

Contact the writer: 714-796-7953 or

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text:
Carona challenger faces probe

Sheriff's opponent is subject of investigation into suspected campaign improprieties.

By PEGGY LOWE / The Orange County Register

Carona challenger faces probe

SECOND PLACE: Bill Hunt was placed on paid leave just hours after losing to his boss.
SECOND PLACE: Bill Hunt was placed on paid leave just hours after losing to his boss.

SHERIFF MIKE CARONA: Articles, columns, documents, background and related information about the federal grand jury indictment of the Orange County sheriff.

Orange County sheriff's Lt. Bill Hunt was headed back to his job Wednesday morning and was feeling good about getting back to work, despite an election loss to the boss.

"I'm done criticizing Mike Carona," Hunt said. "It's my job to be a good soldier."

But Hunt was quickly sidelined when Carona placed him on paid leave pending an internal investigation that accuses Hunt of campaign improprieties involving what Carona's lawyer said were Hunt's "public statements, actions and accusations."

Carona's move shocked even longtime politicos, coming just hours after the sheriff squeaked by in a race that cost the incumbent $1.3million.

"Machiavelli would be a lot more subtle," Jack Pitney, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College, said, comparing Carona with the Italian politician known for his devious tactics. "This is not exactly a morale builder."

Carona garnered 50.9percent of the vote on Tuesday to win the primary election outright and avoid a runoff with the second-place finisher, Hunt, which would have been triggered if Carona's votes fell under 50percent. Hunt won 26.5percent.

Multiple internal investigations involving Hunt have been under way for some time, Carona said, adding that he couldn't be specific because state law requires that personnel matters be kept private.

An outside attorney told him months ago that some of Hunt's campaign statements could be a workplace violation, Carona said, but he put off the leave until after the election.

"I wanted to make sure the electoral process was just that: fair and unbiased and not affected by anything I would do inside the organization," Carona said. "So I was patient and compliant. But that doesn't mean I don't stand tall and do my job. This has nothing to do with retaliation."

Carona's attorney, Martin J. Mayer, said in a written statement that Hunt's comments as a candidate went beyond those covered by the First Amendment.

Mayer's $195-an-hour county-paid legal contract with the sheriff, approved by the Orange County Board of Supervisors last year, was one of the issues Hunt blasted the sheriff on. Hunt said he wasn't surprised by Carona's action and he understood the potential consequences before entering the race.

"At the end of the day, I'm a big boy. I made the decisions I made," Hunt said. "I knew the type of people I was going up against. That's why I was doing it. This too will pass, and we'll see where we are at the end."

Carona has faced many controversies, including the firing of his chief of staff, George Jaramillo, who has since been indicted on several charges, including bribery.

Hunt slammed the sheriff for the Jaramillo scandal and for two state investigations into Carona's suspected campaign-finance violations and claims of sexual harassment against him.

Carona and Hunt also had a brief court battle when the sheriff successfully sued Hunt for mentioning Carona's record as "one scandal after another" in his ballot statement.

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a USC professor who watches Southern California politics, said she has often seen bosses retaliate against a deputy who runs against them for the top job.

For instance, some district attorneys have placed those once-promising deputies into a kind of workplace Siberia, "where you can't get any gold stars," she said.

"I've seen it before, even though the incumbent will never admit that that's what it is," Jeffe said. "But I don't think I've ever heard of an internal investigation questioning ethical behavior in a campaign."

Pitney said Carona's reaction is even more surprising given his comments to reporters on Election Night, when the sheriff said there's some "healing" that he needed to do with the deputies' union, which endorsed Hunt.

"He's sounding like a divider, not a uniter," Pitney said. "Instead of reaching to put balm on the wounds, he reached for the acid."

Contact the writer: 714-796-2221

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Alabama Crimson Tide vs Charleston Southern Buccaneers Preview

Charleston Southern BuccaneersAlabama Crimson Tide
Nov 23, 8:00 PM | Coleman Coliseum

Charleston Southern Buccaneers vs Alabama Crimson Tide Odds

Coleman Coliseum will host Alabama Crimson Tide vs. Charleston Southern Buccaneers action on Friday as both teams try to pay off for bettors in NCAA basketball betting action.

The Crimson Tide sit at 4-0 (2-1 ATS) on the season. By comparison, the Buccaneers are currently 1-3 (0-0 ATS). Looking to wager on the totals? Alabama is 1-2 OU, and Charleston Southern is 0-0 OU.

View Charleston Southern vs Alabama Odds and Stats.

Power Rankings / Prediction:
The Power Rankings at Odds Shark show No. 173-rated Charleston Southern taking on the No. 30-rated Crimson Tide in this contest. The scores prediction computer here indicates a possible 83-72 win for the Crimson Tide on Friday.

How They Match Up:
Offensively, the game matches up Alabama's No. 113 nationally ranked offense (73 points per game) against a Buccaneers defense that sits as the No. 240 at 69.5 PPG. The Crimson Tide have been averaging 48.4% from the field, more than the Buccaneers have managed so far this season (37.6% on average).

Defensively, Charleston Southern features the nation's No. 244-rated defense on the road, allowing 75 points per game. Alabama, meanwhile, comes in at No. 153 nationally in scoring at home.

Charleston Southern was a 59-57 loser in its last match at home against East Tennessee State. The Buccaneers got 13 points from Arlon Harper, but it was East Tennessee State that prevailed in a 59-57 final on Tuesday at CSU Field House.

Alabama won its last outing, a 77-55 result against Villanova on November 16. They covered in that game as a 3.5-point favorite. Villanova was run off the court by the Crimson Tide on Friday as Alabama routed them 77-55 at Madison Square Garden.

Alabama Crimson Tide Trends:
When playing on Friday are 9-1
After a win are 7-3

A few Buccaneers at Crimson Tide trends to consider:
Alabama is 5-0 SU in its last 5 games at home
Alabama is 4-1 SU in its last 5 games

Next up:
Charleston Southern home to College of Charleston, Wednesday, November 28
Alabama home to Lamar, Tuesday, November 27


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Washington Tops Philadelphia 6-0 - Recap

Washington Tops Philadelphia 6-0 - Recap

Philadelphia struck out 10 times against Stephen Strasburg in losing 6-0 to Washington on Sunday at Nationals Park.

Washington was favored by -215 and came through for bettors backing them. The game went UNDER the consensus closing total of 7.5.

Stephen Strasburg earned the victory for the Nationals, throwing 9 innings of work, striking out 10, walking 1, and allowing 4 hits and 0 earned runs. That effort was supported by 1 RBI from Denard Span in the win.

Philadelphia's starting pitcher Kyle Kendrick worked 4 1/3 innings, giving up 11 hits and 4 earned runs while striking out 3 in the loss. They got 2 hits from Kevin Frandsen in a losing cause.

The battle of the bats favored Washington as they had 13 hits, while Philadelphia only had 4.

Next game, Washington takes its act home to face San Francisco looking for another win. For Philadelphia, they head on the road to face Atlanta.


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Alouettes surge past Stampeders

Alouettes surge past Stampeders

Anthony Calvillo threw for 325 yards on Thursday to lead the Montreal Alouettes to a 33-32 victory over the Calgary Stampeders.

The Alouettes failed to cover the 7-point spread at home in this contest, while the combined score went OVER the night's posted total (55.5).

Kevin Glenn had 254 passing yards in the loss for the Stamps.


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Blue Jackets zip past Sharks

Blue Jackets zip past Sharks

Steve Mason stopped 40 shots for the shutout Wednesday, as the Columbus Blue Jackets defeated the San Jose Sharks 3-0 at Nationwide Arena.

Columbus won the game as +125 underdogs, while the three goals went UNDER the posted over/under (5.5).

Rick Nash, Jakub Voracek, and Antoine Vermette scored for the Blue Jackets. Thomas Greiss stopped 18-of-20 shots for the Sharks.