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Monday, January 06, 2014

Becoming Something Else: Thoughts on Arrow

For the last decade and a half, as superheroes have migrated from the pages of comics to the very heart of mainstream pop culture, they've been almost exclusively the purview of feature films.  This despite the fact that the long-running, episodic, open-ended comics medium and the bite-sized film medium map very poorly onto one another, a disconnect that has told in what passes for most superhero films' plots.  So the X-Men films have warped an ensemble story into a star vehicle for one character, the Marvel films have uniformly sketchy plots and forgettable villains, the Spider-Man films remain, even before the unnecessary reboot, caught in the gravity well of their hero's origin story, and the Superman films have simply failed to take off.  Only Christopher Nolan's Batman films, for all their problems, have managed to tell an actual story, and even then, it's a story that tends towards its hero's abdication of his heroic role, not his continuing adventures.  Television seems like a much better fit for superhero stories, to the extent that superhero conventions have been showing up in procedural TV series for years--Angel and Person of Interest both have a great deal of Batman in their DNA, for example.  And yet with one glaring exception, attempts to translate existing comics properties into television series have fizzled and died, while original superhero series like Heroes have found themselves stranded in a no man's land between the two mediums' conventions.

That glaring exception is, of course, Smallville, whose long shadow (quite literally--it's terrifying to think this, but it holds the record for longest-running American genre series) might have something to do with the chilly reception that other attempts to port comics characters to TV have met.  It's certainly a big part of the reason that I was so singularly unimpressed with the pilot for Arrow, a show that, now in the middle of its second season, might just prove to be another exception to the no superheroes on TV rule.  In its pilot episode, Arrow seemed to indulge in all of Smallville's (and the CW network's, the home of both shows) most annoying traits--blandly handsome, wooden leads, an emphasis on romance as overbearing as it is puerile, overheated emotions declared in too-obvious speeches, a tangled backstory involving the hero's father, and an aversion to the supposedly campy tropes of the comics, like costumes and catchphrases, that does absolutely nothing to make either show seems mature or realistic.  In the year and a half since this violently negative reaction, however, Arrow has slowly gained in popularity and acclaim, which finally encouraged me to give it another look.  What I found was a series that, while still suffering from a lot of CW-ish flaws, is nevertheless a lot better and more enjoyable than anyone watching its pilot could ever have hoped.  More importantly, Arrow is a series that actually takes advantage of the television medium to do something comics-like, and uses it to offer a genuine engagement with the superhero concept.

Based on the lesser-known DC character the Green Arrow[1], Arrow begins with the return of Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) to his home of Starling City, having been cast away on an island for five years after being shipwrecked while sailing with his father, billionaire industrialist Robert Queen (Jamie Sheridan).  The reactions to Oliver's return are decidedly mixed--his mother Moira (Susanna Thompson), sister Thea (Willa Holland), and best friend Tommy Merlyn (Colin Donnell) are overjoyed but also unsure how to cope with the changes in his behavior and personality, while his former girlfriend Laurel (Katie Cassidy) and her father, police detective Quentin Lance (Paul Blackthorne) are incensed, since Oliver went on the ill-fated trip with Laurel's sister Sarah, whose loss has decimated their family.  Oliver, meanwhile, has returned to Starling City with a purpose, a list of names bequeathed to him by his father of people who have failed Starling City--corrupt politicians, embezzling bankers, slum-lords and mobsters.  Though by day he continues to play the shallow, hardy-partying playboy he was before his ordeal, by night Oliver poses as a vigilante known as The Hood, using the archery and martial arts skills he learned on the island to hunt these people down and force them to atone for their sins--or, if they refuse, simply kill them.

This is, to say the least, an unpromising beginning.  The show's premise is, at one and the same time, too reminiscent of Batman (in particular, Nolan's Batman Begins, a similarity that persists throughout the first season) and steeped in a sub-Occupy rhetoric that feels exploitative and skin-deep.  The fact that Oliver seems not only to have survived on the island but to have become a super-soldier on it (it is strongly implied, for example, that the timing of his return isn't coincidental but a choice, and that he could have arranged for his rescue to happen far sooner than it did), promises a Lost-like missing backstory--which is to say, a show more interested in filling in the missing pieces of its past than in developing its story and characters into their future--which is indeed doled out in flashbacks interspersed with each episode.  The show immediately begins teasing the resumption of Oliver and Laurel's romance, in the time-honored fashion of establishing a love triangle between them and Tommy, which would be groan-worthy even if it didn't require us to ignore the surely insurmountable obstacles to such a reconciliation.  Most importantly, the fact that Oliver is an unrepentant killer--and not just of the people on his father's list, but of their henchmen and lackeys--is shocking and unpleasant, all the more so because he is so unconflicted about it.  The impression formed is of a show trying to trade on Smallville-style soapiness, Batman-style darkness, and the hot button issues of the day without any real sense of what any of these components mean in themselves, and of what kind of story it wants to tell.

And yet, as the first season draws on, Arrow steadily improves into a compelling, engaging series.  Partly, this is simply a matter of execution.  After a dozen or so forgettable one-percenter-of-the-week episodes, the show's storytelling kicks dramatically into gear, barreling through plot twists and complications with little in the way of narrative dead weight.[2]  Visually, too, Arrow is impressive, utilizing what must be a limited budget to deliver top-notch, masterfully shot and choreographed fight scenes.  Whatever the show's narrative failings, after the middle of its first season, it is never boring to watch.

At least one of those narrative failings, however, Arrow's seemingly muddled definition of heroism, turns out to be a deliberate choice.  "To save my city," Oliver tells us in every episode's opening narration, "I must become something else."  It takes a while to realize this, but Arrow's central thesis is that Oliver has no idea what that something else is, and that he is making many mistakes and wrong turns on his path to figuring that question out, and to becoming an actual hero.  That Oliver's original mission in Starling City, crossing off the names in his father's list, is unheroic both in concept and execution is something that is repeatedly drummed into us--through Detective Lance's disgust at the carnage he leaves behind him, but even more than that, through Oliver's own inability to defend it.  When other vigilantes emerge in Starling City, either independently of Oliver or in emulation of him, he moves to neutralize them without ever being able to articulate, to them or to himself, just what makes his vigilantism different and justifiable.

When, over the course of the first season, other people learn Oliver's secret, their initial reactions are almost invariably dismay and rejection.  The first of these is John Diggle (David Ramsey), Oliver's driver and bodyguard, who is brought into the fold early on.  Diggle's induction into Oliver's team would be a welcome change if only because it gives Oliver someone with whom he can discuss his nocturnal activities, thus eliminating the tortuous voiceovers that plague the show's first few episodes, but he quickly becomes one of Arrow's most important components.  Though his initial reaction to learning Oliver's secret is to declare that "You really did lose your mind on that island" and call him a criminal and a murderer, Diggle comes around to Oliver's arguments that Starling City needs extra-legal protection from the predation of people too rich to be touched by the law.  But he continues to challenge Oliver's ideas of how that protection should look, encouraging him to look past the straightforward mission of his father's list and address crime wherever he finds it.  Later in the season, the team is joined by techie Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), who also declares her ambivalence towards Oliver's methods, and agrees to help him and keep his secret only in exchange for his help on her own project.  Though that thread is underplayed for the rest of the season--Felicity quickly buys into the vigilante party line[3]--it's her focus on this alleged side project that leads Oliver to discover the season's central villain, and takes him to the next level on his journey towards true heroism.

The most important character to discover Oliver's secret in the first season, however, is Tommy.  Arrow places trauma, the recovery from it and the failure to recover, at the center of most of its character work, suggesting, for example, that Oliver's experiences on the island--where he encountered a host of violent enemies and was forced to endure and commit heinous acts in order to survive--make his difficulties in reintegrating to his old life not dissimilar from those of a soldier returning from war.  The rest of the cast, too, is coping with their own traumatic experiences--Diggle is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, and is also reeling from the death of his brother; Laurel and Quentin are still picking the pieces up from Sarah's death and the destruction of their family; when Oliver challenges Thea for acting out, she reminds him that "my brother and my father died... you guys all act like it's cool, let's just forget about the last five years.  Well I can't.  For me it's kind of permanently in there."  That trauma, the realization of the world's fundamental unfairness and of their own smallness and vulnerability before it, is what lies at the heart of most of the characters' willingness to at least consider that the vigilante is a force for good, so Tommy, as the only member of the cast who is relatively un-traumatized, plays a vital role as the voice of normalcy and sanity.  Unlike Diggle and Felicity, he can't talk himself into Oliver's point of view, decisively declaring that Oliver is "a serial killer" and eventually cutting off their friendship.  Before that happens, however, Arrow puts us into Tommy's headspace, in an episode in which he's forced to bribe a city official who wants to investigate Oliver's lair, which lies under the nightclub they've opened together, and then stall the police who want to search it.  The episode makes it clear how seedy and underhanded these actions seem to Tommy, and all to protect a friend whose compulsions he neither respects nor understands.

Of course, Arrow isn't Watchmen.  Even in its early episodes it ultimately comes down on Oliver's side, and is clearly moving towards a wholehearted embrace of his vigilantism.  But the format of a television series gives the show more room and time to build up to that point organically, and in unexpected ways.  When we watch a Spider-Man movie, we know that Peter Parker's uncle Ben will die because of Peter's indifference.  What should be a defining, life-altering trauma becomes just another set-piece to get through before the actual story can start.  Arrow, because it's taking such a long, meandering path through Oliver's origin story, can embroider it in interesting ways--as when Oliver forms a bond with a woman who, like him, is stalking the streets at night killing criminals, going so far as to invite her on his crime-fighting escapades, only to realize that she lacks even his flawed judgement and self-control.

Arrow allows characters like Diggle, Quentin Lance, and Tommy room to express their disapproval of Oliver without him having a good answer for them, because at that point in the show's story such an answer doesn't exist.  More importantly, it allows him to learn from their criticism and slowly refine his idea of what the "something else" he wants to be actually is.  Tommy's rejection of Oliver in the first season leads him to reconcile with his estranged father Malcolm (John Barrowman), who turns out to be the season's main villain.  This eventually leads to Tommy's death, an event that so shatters Oliver that he leaves Starling City and goes back to the island--as bold a declaration of his failure to reintegrate into his old life and find a place for himself in it as he could possibly make.  When he returns, Oliver announces a new mission, one of heroism and personal example rather than vengeance and violence, but his progress towards achieving that goal has been haphazard.  He resolves to stop killing, but already in the first half of the second season there have been occasions on which he's been unable to keep that resolution; he changes his moniker from the Hood to the Arrow, but most of the citizens of Starling City use the two names interchangeably, and some still call him simply "the vigilante."  This suggests a series in which it might take several seasons for Oliver to become the Green Arrow that comic book readers know, and one in which we can be privy to the process of developing that character's image and credo.

Somewhat less successful, but still quite interesting, is Arrow's handling of class.  One of the few things I did pick up about the comics' Green Arrow is that he's considered the left-wing answer to Batman, and especially in the current political climate, in which the fascism of the Nolan Batman films has been getting more and more pushback as people notice how problematic it is for a billionaire to go out at night and attack poor criminals, there's space for a story in which the Batman analogue is focused on systemic, economic crime.  As I wrote at the beginning of this piece, Arrow's social consciousness initially seems skin-deep, but as the first season draws on it becomes clear that issues of class are baked into every aspect of the show's world--in which the class war is a literal one, with the privileged classes drawing first blood.  Malcolm Merlyn turns out to have been the leader of a group, which also included Oliver's parents, of rich people who have felt the sting of street crime in Starling City--Malcolm's wife was murdered by muggers outside the free clinic she established in the Glades, Starling City's worst neighborhood; another member's daughter was raped.  In a Batman-style story, these people would be the heroes, cleaning up the streets of riffraff and scum.  In Arrow, they're the villains, who have failed to realize that their suffering is a symptom of a disease they've helped cause, and whose proposed "solution," dubbed The Undertaking, is to level the Glades and kill its inhabitants.  Despite his best efforts, Oliver is only able to partially prevent the Undertaking; at the end of the first season, a large segment of the Glades is destroyed and hundreds of people are killed.

As I've said, there are some obvious similarities here to Batman Begins, which revolves around a plan by the League of Assassins (who also appear as villains in Arrow's second season) to destroy Gotham because they perceive it as hopelessly corrupt, and believe, as Malcolm Merlyn does of the Glades, that "it can't be saved, because the people there don't want it to be saved... They deserve to die.  All of them."  As in Arrow, that plan is only partially successful, encompassing only the Narrows, Gotham's own bad, crime-riddled neighborhood.  The difference between Arrow and Nolan's Batman films, however, is that after Batman Begins, the Narrows--whose inhabitants were driven mad, but not killed, by the League of Assassins's neurotoxin--are never mentioned again.  In Arrow, the Glades, and the aftermath of the Undertaking, remain a central component of the show.  In response to the outrage of the Undertaking, some of the citizens of the Glades respond by emulating their supposed champion, forming posses of masked vigilantes who set out to murder the alleged architects of the attack, or simply the random rich.  Some of the comic's central villains emerge as a direct response to the Undertaking, most prominently Sebastian Blood (Kevin Alejandro), a mayoral candidate who has made retaking the city for its ordinary citizens his rallying cry (and is using Oliver and his family as whipping boys to rally support to his cause), even as he amasses an army of super-soldiers for some as-yet undisclosed purpose.[4]

As refreshing as it is to see class issues addressed so baldly on American TV--and in genre TV, no less--Arrow's handling of these issues often leaves something to be desired.  It is, for example, enormously problematic that the only reaction to the Undertaking to emerge from the Glades is a villainous one.  Even more of a problem is the fact that the voices of ordinary Glades citizens are almost entirely absent from the show.  Arrow does a good job of humanizing the Undertaking's architects: Malcom Merlyn is believably damaged (or, again, traumatized) by his wife's murder, and is shown to justify his monstrous actions by claiming to be protecting his son (when a shocked Tommy protests at his father killing a disarmed opponent, Malcom explains that he killed the man "as surely as he would have killed you"); even more interesting is Moira Queen, whose participation in the Undertaking is grudging at best--she knows that Malcolm is responsible for the sinking of Robert's yacht, and he has threatened Oliver and Thea--but who fails to grasp, until it's very nearly too late, that she has a responsibility to the hundreds of other families who are also in danger.  But, perhaps predictably for a series whose champion of the oppressed is himself a billionaire, the voices of the ordinary citizens of the Glades are entirely absent from Arrow's second season.  When Moira is acquitted of murder for her role in the Undertaking (an acquittal that, we later learn, was orchestrated by Malcolm, who intimidated the jury), we see Oliver's ambivalence about the verdict, but not the outrage of the people whose homes she helped destroy and whose loved ones she helped kill.[5]

Nevertheless, Arrow is committed to the notion of crime as a social, rather than individual, problem, and of economic crime as being equally destructive as street crime, if not more so.  It's particularly notable that even at his most unheroic moments, Oliver can be remarkably sympathetic towards people who are driven to crime, much more so than Diggle, who encourages him to address street crime (which Oliver dismisses as "a symptom") but also takes a much more black and white view of it.  When Oliver investigates, at Diggle's urging, a bank robbery that left a cop critically injured (even in his later, crime-fighting incarnations, Oliver doesn't really care about property crime), he discovers that the thieves are a family who fell on hard times after his father closed the factory where their father was employed.  Though Diggle insists that the robbers are guilty regardless of their misfortunes, Oliver tries to reason with the older man, and to give him an out that would prevent any further robberies without the family going to prison.[6]  At the same time, Arrow doesn't shy away from the fact of its main character's privilege, and how it can blind him.  There's a strong sense that Oliver's certainty that his vigilantism is justified (while other vigilantes must be stopped) is merely an extension of his pre-island personality, the spoiled rich kid who could have anything he wanted and hadn't heard the word "no" often enough.  And in the second season, when Oliver arranges for Felicity and Diggle to be close to him in his everyday life by making them, respectively, his assistant and driver, it falls to them to remind him how humiliating these subservient roles are for people who, in reality, are his partners and allies.

For all the good things I've said about it, I wouldn't want to oversell Arrow.  This is still a CW show, which can mean soapy storylines, too-obvious dialogue, and some infelicities in the writing.  In Arrow's case, a particular problem are the island flashback scenes.  Though they've grown more interesting as the show has progressed, and introduced some appealing characters--most notably, Slade Wilson (Manu Bennett, best "known" as the Hobbit films' Azog), a mercenary who becomes Oliver's friend and mentor, but with whom he had a bitter falling out--these sequences are still rather inelegantly presented, dumping a portion of backstory into each episode with little attempt to tie into the present day events or maintain an even pacing.  Another sort of problem is the show's diversity, or lack thereof.  In its rich neighborhoods and its poor ones, Starling City is almost uniformly white, and there's no sense that it contains ethnic enclaves--black characters, like Diggle or Moira's second husband Walter (Colin Salmon) seem to exist in isolation, not as part of a community.  And perhaps most importantly, as the show has drawn on and as Oliver comes closer to his destiny as the Green Arrow, its rooting in real world economic issues is beginning to fade.  However problematic Oliver's mission against one percenters was in the first season, it did have real world implications.  In the second season, his enemies are more and more often comic book villains, whose roots in socio-economic issues are growing more difficult to discern.

Nevertheless, Arrow is still worth a look--for a fun story, for good action scenes, for compelling characters (I've said little here about the acting, but Amell in particular has surprised me by growing into his role, ably conveying the many facets of Oliver's personality and his emotional journey as he rejoins the human race).  Most of all, for its handling, however flawed, of class issues, and for being, at least for the moment, the most interesting live-action treatment of a superhero story, in film or TV.

[1]Lesser-known, that is, to people like myself, who get their superheroes through cultural osmosis and film/TV adaptations, not comics--where the Green Arrow is, I gather, a central figure.  A lot of the discussions I've seen of Arrow have focused on how the show adapts its source material and how beholden it feels to it, but my interest is in the series as its own entity.

[2]Other reviewers have referred to this breakneck pace as Arrow learning the lesson of The Vampire Diaries, another CW series that overcame an inauspicious premise and pilot by being fearless with its plotting, but since I never gave that show a second chance, my frame of reference is a little different--the show that Arrow reminds me of, whenever I look up to realize that so much has already happened and yet we're barely at the middle of the episode, is Scandal.

[3]In general, Felicity is Arrow's most problematic character, a fact that surprised me since one of the few things I knew about the show going in was that she was a fan favorite.  Rickards is a fine performer who imbues her character with presence and verve, and her rapport with Amell is winning (it's easy to see why Oliver and Felicity have become fandom's favorite pairing), but all this only serves to obscure the fact that she has little in the way of a personality.  Especially after the fig leaf of her reason for keeping Oliver's secret is done away with, it's simply taken for granted that she will stick around and continue risking death or imprisonment for no discernible reason.  While most other characters on the show--even the generally-disliked Laurel, who has spent the second season in a well-earned but hard to watch downward spiral that still feels more realistic than anything Felicity has ever done--are given their own friends, family history, and interests, Felicity appears not to exist outside of Oliver and his mission.

[4]For all that their political perspectives on the same story are so diametrically opposed, something that Arrow and Batman Begins have in common is that neither one acknowledges the role of government and social policy in addressing (or exacerbating) economic inequality and the root causes of crime.  In the Batman films, the only department of Gotham's government we see is the police (while homeless orphan are left to billionaires like Bruce Wayne to see to).  In Arrow, Oliver seems aware of how limited his power to affect society on a large scale actually is, even in his guise as the philanthropic CEO of his father's company, but doesn't make the obvious connection to agitating for welfare and pro-equality laws and policies, while Sebastian Blood, though he talks about the importance of government and is running for mayor, obviously has other ideas about how to achieve change.  It's tempting to blame this on bad writing, but really it strikes me as a symptom of a larger trend in American pop culture (and culture in general), in which the role of government to do anything but punish wrongdoers is only rarely understood or admired.

[5]This is also an aspect of the show in which its CW-ness works against it--though some characters, like Diggle or Thea's boyfriend Roy (Colton Haynes) are supposedly from the Glades, they look like the standard CW actor, who spends two hours at the gym every day and whose hair is professionally styled.  Even more importantly, there is no sense of a cultural gap between the Glades and Starling City's upper class--Roy has no problem dressing for a party at Thea's house, or switching between the modes of behavior in the Glades and those of the Queens' mansion.

[6]Another amusing example of Diggle's law and order mentality comes later in the first season, when Oliver, having realized that his mother has some connection to his father's list, confronts her in his guise as the Hood, only for Moira--alone among all the one percenters that Oliver has attacked--to pull out a gun and shoot him.  Diggle's response--that Moira must be guilty if she wouldn't trust the word of a known killer who has promised not to hurt her--was rather different than mine--that Oliver clearly gets badass-ness from his mother.

George Pedrosa said...

After checking the pilot, I had no interest in watching the rest of the series, as the idea that it dedicates so much attention to socioeconomic issues wasn't really explored in the other reviews I've read. Oliver's radical left-wing politics and humane world view are his most interesting and unique characteristics, and it didn't seem from the pilot that this male model protagonist from the CW would be anything like his uncompromisingly leftist, rugged comic book counterpart. Glad to hear that the show is taking steps toward that direction, I might actually check it now.

Great review, as usual.

gareth-wilson said...

I can only comment on the first season, but I found it odd that Amell was so much worse at playing the Hood than he was at playing Oliver Queen. I had no problem with traumatised-playboy character, but the vigilante was just annoying.

Abigail Nussbaum said...

To be clear, there's nothing even approaching radical leftism in Arrow - unless you think that even acknowledging class in American genre TV is radical, which it may well be. I don't imagine the show will ever reach the point where Oliver is uncompromisingly leftist rather than vaguely liberal (and even then, as I say in footnote 4, within the restrictions of the quasi-libertarian, small government mentality of most US pop culture). But I still think that's an important step.

By "playing the Hood" I assume you mean the moments where he interacts with people while in costume, rather than shooting them with arrows :-) I agree that it's a one-note performance, but a) it's not a very easy character to find nuances in, as evidenced by Christian Bale's similarly wooden turn as Batman (as opposed to Bruce Wayne), and b) I think that's at least somewhat intentional. Oliver hasn't really thought of the Hood as a person with an agenda or a personality (as opposed to his persona as Oliver Queen, playboy, which is a calculated performance, or his actual personality, which is very much in flux). In the second season, for example, there are scenes where the Arrow tries to reach out to people and it feels more organic - in particular, there's one exchange with Quentin Lance that is quite good.

londonkds said...

My favourite attempts at TV superhero shows both tried to do things that comics haven't really, which is probably why I liked them so much. Alphas at least attempted to depict a government response to superpowered people in a way more nuanced and less based on protagonist-centered morality than comics' usual "muggles who are scared of people who can melt their faces off with a gesture are just like racists, and any form of official regulation of superpowers will inevitably lead to DEATH CAMPS". And Misfits worked by usually abandoning any concept of super-powered people needing to be "heroes" at all, and carefully avoiding any kind of large-scale threat-to-society plot line.

Abigail Nussbaum said...

Alphas at least attempted to depict a government response to superpowered people in a way more nuanced and less based on protagonist-centered morality than comics' usual "muggles who are scared of people who can melt their faces off with a gesture are just like racists, and any form of official regulation of superpowers will inevitably lead to DEATH CAMPS"

True, but it kind of veered too far in the opposite direction: "the government can and will imprison me and possibly place invasive technology in my body that will turn me into a mindless zombie, not for any crime I've committed but simply because I have the potential to commit crimes, and my reaction to this is at best mild annoyance." Especially in the second season, I wanted to see genuine outrage, or an unwillingness to continue hunting down other mutants.

Misfits, I agree, is fantastic in how decisively it rejects the whole notion of superheroes, right down to the series finale, in which a bunch of characters who do become heroes turn out to be sadistic murderers. That's not an attitude you could really expect from an adaptation of an existing property, though, and given that I think that Arrow's approach is quite sophisticated.

gareth-wilson said...

Yeah, that sounds reasonable. I was expecting a full-scale superhero persona, like Batman. Even the Christian Bale version makes some attempt at characterisation separate from the civilian identity. But that really isn't what Oliver Queen is doing. So it's more that Queen's behaviour and dialogue when wearing the costume came off as clichéd and dull.

Fernando Hugo Rodrigo Blanco said...

Interesting analysis. I'd like to read it with more time. But, just for the record, I would say the writers may have taken into account some of the issues you've addressed here, for the second season. Specially, on the element of giving a face and voice to the inhabitants of the less privileged areas of the city. Apart from that, and providing my memory doesn't betray me, a peculiar detail I always found interesting in "Arrow" was the fact that Oilver was moving during the whole season defining himself for what he wasn't more that for what he was ("I am not a hero", he repeated several times; and also "I am not here to defend the helpless people"), which may, perhaps have a connection to that sort of unstable self-awareness of the real reasons for which he is doing the things he does you are pointing out, if I got it right.

Again, I'd like to go through all these ideas again, but yeah, I think "Arrow" could provide at least some ideas to debate about.

Jiggily M. Wittins said...

Thankfully, the only American show to examine the effects of government policy on the inner city was the Wire, and it did so realistically. Economic policy has never been leveraged to reduce crime with any success, unlike Giuliani's NYC, which was primarily a police initiative. I don't need a utopian-minded show to try and tell me otherwise. Superheroes are unrealistic enough.

Ross G. Slutsky said...

I enjoyed this review, but on a separate note, I hope you will see/review Spike Jonze's new film Her.

Nikolai Fomich said...

I'd love to see them lead Ollie further and further into left-wing politics - though of course I'm not holding my breath. In the comics, Ollie GAVE AWAY his fortune and began living in an inner city neighborhood, working as a reporter, and even ran for public office at one point (but, if memory serves, he lost).

I love Batman, more than any hero, but the Batman myth would loose too much of its dynamic (the manor, etc) if taken down that road.

Stephen said...

I'm reading this while partway through S2 — just about where I presume you were, based on the date (although I know you're not in the US, so I may be off). So this may change in the rest of S2, I don't know. But since I'm commenting with the same knowledge you were when you wrote this piece, I have to say that, as of now, this claim is erroneous:

"It is, for example, enormously problematic that the only reaction to the Undertaking to emerge from the Glades is a villainous one."

There's a central heroic reaction to the Undertaking: Roy. Not my favorite character, but clearly a hero motivated by the suffering he saw during the Undertaking. (Granted, he had some of those feelings before; but then, so did most of the villains who were motivated by it.)

Great review, as usual. Very thought-provoking, both where I agree and where I don't.

baeraad said...

I've finally started watching the show, and halfway through the first season, I like it a lot more than I thought I would.

It's true as you say, though - for a show that is supposedly about the crimes of the rich against the poor, it is very uninterested in depicting the poor. There are working-class characters, but they all have jobs (or are otherwise seen mainly in roles, like appearing to testify in court) that require them to wear suits and be well-groomed, making them fit right in with the Beautiful People aesthetic. It's kind of a Limousine Liberal show, I suppose, all about good rich people fighting bad rich people to save poor people who they don't have much notion of as actual human beings.

But as you also say, that's still a lot more than we usually get, and I'm enjoying it greatly for what it is.

Potulný križiak zemplínsky said...

You know, this show would be truly radical if they bothered to show Queen as he's portrayed usually - a rather cheery philanthropist in his 40s or 50s. Yep. It's sad when a series like this adapts so little from the source material beyond the names, and steals wholesale from a "Just like Batman !" esthetic that doesn't fit it at all. The whole conceit of the series' version of Queen being "socially conscious" is laughable when you compare him to his comic book counterpart. George's above post about "radical leftism" makes even less sense, as the series' Queen would be hardly leftier than center-right by European standards. I always have a good laugh when a glossy film or series tries to make itself appear profound, but never goes the extra mile to prove it's really like that on the inside as well. I don't like Arrow. Bad adaptation of fairly good source material that could have been handled much more competently on a thematic level. Could have been. Coulda woulda shoulda... :-(

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text:
Emily Harris

International Correspondent Emily Harris is based in Jerusalem as part of NPR's Mideast team. Her post covers news related to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. She began this role in March of 2013.

Over her career, Harris has served in multiple roles within public media. She first joined NPR in 2000, as a general assignment reporter. A prolific reporter often filing two stories a day, Harris covered major stories including 9/11 and its aftermath, including the impact on the airline industry; and the anthrax attacks. She also covered how policies set in Washington are implemented across the country.

In 2002, Harris worked as a Special Correspondent on NOW with Bill Moyer, focusing on investigative storytelling. In 2003 Harris became NPR's Berlin Correspondent, covering Central and Eastern Europe. In that role, she reported regularly from Iraq, leading her to be a key member of the NPR team awarded a 2005 Peabody Award for coverage of the region.

Harris left NPR in December 2007 to become a host for a live daily program, Think Out Loud, on Oregon Public Broadcasting. Under her leadership Harris's team received three back to back Gracie Awards for Outstanding Talk Show, and a share in OPB's 2009 Peabody Award for the series "Hard Times." Harris's other awards include the RIAS Berlin Commission's first-place radio award in 2007 and second-place in 2006. She was a John S. Knight fellow at Stanford University in 2005-2006.

A seasoned reporter, she was asked to help train young journalist through NPR's "Next Generation" program. She also served as editorial director for Journalism Accelerator, a project to bring journalists together to share ideas and experiences; and was a writer-in-residence teaching radio writing to high school students.

One of the aspects of her work that most intrigues her is why people change their minds and what inspires them to do so.

Outside of work, Harris has drafted a screenplay about the Iraq war and for another project is collecting stories about the most difficult parts of parenting.

She has a B.A. in Russian Studies from Yale University.

Editor's Note: In a conflict that dates back generations, Israelis and Palestinians rarely change their positions or their minds. NPR's Emily Harris, who has reported from Jerusalem since 2013, explores what prompts a relative few to adopt a new perspective. This is one of several stories.

Bassam Aramin was not born hating Israel, but he learned young.

For Ayman Al-Aloul, the first night in prison was the worst.

"I was cold. I was sick," the now-free head of Al Arab Now news agency, said in an interview in his Gaza City office. "I was thinking of all the things I've done in my life, but I couldn't blame myself because I didn't know why I was there."

Glint in the grass? Often, it's not even a nickel.

But last week, Israeli Laurie Rimon spotted a gleam while on a hike in northern Israel with several friends. It turned out to be a gold coin so unusual, Israeli archaeologists say there is only one other one with the same symbols in the world.

"It's extremely exciting," said Dr. Donald Ariel, an expert with the Israel Antiquities Authority, in comments released by the agency, which says the coin was struck by Roman Emperor Trajan in the year 107. "His gold coins are extremely rare."

Israel made a decision last week that supporters are calling game-changing. Men and women will be allowed to worship together at the holiest place where Jews can legally pray. This could lead to other changes in Israel.

Batya Kallus, who helped negotiate the deal that led to the government decision, is jubilant.

"This is groundbreaking," she says. "We've reconceived what the Western Wall includes."

When his cellphone rang Friday night, on Nov. 13, Joel Touitou Laloux didn't answer. The sun had long since set, the Jewish Sabbath was under way, and he doesn't use electronics on Shabbat.

He recognized the number. One of his sons was calling from Paris. Laloux, who managed the Bataclan theater for decades until he and his family sold it in September, now lives in Ashdod, a coastal city in southern Israel.

Finally, after his son's number flashed three or four times, Laloux answered.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

You might not like your fava beans prepared the way Hannibal Lecter made them in the 1991 thriller Silence of the Lambs. But they can be delightful pureed or sauteed.

In a West Bank settlement, Israelis are taking down a synagogue. The country's highest court ordered its removal because it was built without a permit on property owned by Palestinians.

It's a rare move, and the story of how this came to be reveals a heated debate around judicial activism, government money, and settlers' political power.

Two weeks ago, the Ayalet HaShahar synagogue in the Giv'at Ze'ev settlement was packed with young Israeli men.

Convicted spy Jonathan Pollard is expected to be released from U.S. federal prison on Friday after 30 years behind bars for passing on U.S. government secrets to Israel.

When the Navy analyst was caught, his arrest initially caused consternation in Israel and denials that senior Israeli officials knew what he was doing.

But calls for to free Pollard early were soon taken up by Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who visited Pollard in prison in 2002. Netanyahu had served previously as prime minister, but held no public office at that time.

Since the start of this surge of Palestinian attacks on Jews, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly accused Palestinian leaders of spreading lies about Israeli policies.

"There is no question that this wave of attacks is driven directly by incitement – incitement from Hamas, incitement from the Islamist movement in Israel, and incitement, I am sorry to say, from President [Mahmoud] Abbas and the Palestinian Authority," Netanyahu said Thursday in Berlin, where he met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

On Saturday evening, October 3, Odel Bennett and her husband Aharon walked through a main passageway in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem's Old City.

They had taken their two young children to the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism for prayer. Then they were heading to Odel Bennett's parents' home in the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Mea Shearim.

It wasn't not far, just a few blocks outside the Old City walls. But they didn't make it home that night. A Palestinian man attacked the couple with knives.

The recent wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence has focused on two weapons. Knives, used by Palestinians in most attacks against Israelis. And guns, which the Israeli security forces, and some civilians, have used to shoot attackers or suspected attackers.

Israelis say stopping knife attacks is hard because the weapon is so easy to get and to hide.

Israeli police are publishing pictures of knives they say were weapons in recent attacks. They're kitchen knives. Things you could buy at a supermarket.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Bishop Edwin Bass first set foot in the Holy Land last month, though he'd sung songs and preached stories of Zion much of his life. Head of the Church of God in Christ's Urban Initiatives program, which helps the church's 12,000 congregations across the U.S. deal with social problems, he called his weeklong sojourn one of the most moving experiences of his life.

"Just to have come and walked in the city of Jerusalem, to put the pieces together and understand the history of it, it's been a great experience."


text:
Dax Shepard And Kristen Bell Play Not My Job

Aug 3, 2012
Originally published on August 4, 2012 12:36 pm

Real-life Hollywood couple Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard are a.) famous b.) adorable c.) funny d.) the stars of Hit and Run, a new movie they made together, and e.) amazingly, all of the above.

We've invited them to play a game called "First thing you're going to need is an adorable collective nickname." Before there was Brangelina, before there was Bennifer, there was "Dickenliz," the most amazing, tabloid fodder celebrity couple of all time: Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Bell and Shepard will answer three questions about a Hollywood pair who knew how to live large.

Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

And now, the game where we ask really cool people about things that are really lame. Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard are A: famous; B: adorable; C: funny; D: a real-life couple; and E: the stars of a new movie they made together called "Hit and Run." Here's hoping they admit to some failures so we feel better about ourselves.

SAGAL: Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell, welcome to WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME.

KRISTEN BELL: Thank you.

SAGAL: It's great to have you both.

DAX SHEPARD: Thank you so much.

SAGAL: Hey, we were talking about this. Both of you have done so much in your careers so far that it was hard for us to guess what you are most known for. So I wanted to see if we could figure that out right off the top. So, Kristen, would it be what? Would it be Veronica Mars? Would it be Sarah Marshall? Would it be what?

BELL: Oh goodness, I think for me it would probably be one of those two.

SAGAL: Right.

SHEPARD: What about in the Venezuelan community, honey? You're big there.

BELL: Oh wow.

SAGAL: The Venezuelans. And Dax, how about you?

SHEPARD: Well, sadly, I think the thing we're both most known for is something that we didn't profit from. It was a YouTube video of Kristen...

SHEPARD: ...getting a sloth for her birthday.

SAGAL: This may have been - this was like the number one YouTube video of all time.

PAULA PELL: I love that video.

SAGAL: So, Kristen, for those who have not been lucky enough to see it, can you describe it?

BELL: I am, in fact, an emotional handicap.

SAGAL: Yeah.

BELL: I have a lot of issues. I really have a love of sloths. I always have.

SAGAL: Now wait a minute, sloths?

BELL: Yes.

SAGAL: Of all things?

BELL: Sloths, question mark, exclamation point.

SAGAL: Sloths?

SHEPARD: I just want to interject that, you know, for most guys this might have been a red flag that...

SHEPARD: ...every night they get into bed and their bride-to-be is watching a video of a sloth laying in the road in Costa Rica. This is nightly, a nightly occurrence.

SAGAL: Yeah. How did you get enamored of sloths?

BELL: I don't know. Because they're so vulnerable.

BELL: They're so very vulnerable. And I think - I don't know. They take their time.

SAGAL: So you really like sloths?

BELL: I do.

SAGAL: All right, so then what happens?

SHEPARD: And we're show business types, so we have access to animal wranglers who bring, you know, animals to movie sets. So I get a hold of one of these guys and find out if I can get a sloth brought to the house for the afternoon for her birthday party.

SAGAL: All right, so you get a sloth.

SHEPARD: Well, there's more to it than that. I mean, I have to amend my homeowner's insurance policy. That's not a joke.

SAGAL: Really?

SHEPARD: Yeah. To have this wild animal in proximity to other partygoers required an umbrella, you know, contingency in the policy.

SHEPARD: So we get all the proper insurance. I tell her to go into the room on her birthday. The surprise has arrived. Take the dogs.

And by the time I get into the room to invite her out to the living room, she's put it together that since I asked her to take the dogs in the bedroom, clearly there's another animal in the house. Oh my god, it must be a sloth. And then she's hyperventilating, crying hysterically by the time I come back with it.

SAGAL: And the world knows this because you videotaped Kristen as she figured this out.

SHEPARD: Well, I had anticipated videotaping her see the sloth in the living room. And I started running the camera when I walked into the bedroom to invite her out into the living room. I didn't expect the show was going to start in the bedroom.

SAGAL: Right.

CHARLIE PIERCE: What kind of sloth was it? Was it the famous three-toed sloth?

BELL: Yeah. No, it was two-toed sloth.

SHEPARD: Which meant we couldn't cuddle it.

BELL: Yeah.

SHEPARD: For the amount that I paid for this thing, I was expecting a little more than cuddling.

SAGAL: So you guys are a real-life Hollywood couple and you went and you made a movie together called "Hit and Run." It's kind of a getaway caper. Dax, you play Charlie Bronson.

SAGAL: Which you're a guy in the witness protection program.

SHEPARD: Yes, sir.

SAGAL: Kristen is the very nice girlfriend. And the challenge is to get her to Los Angeles before the bad guys get you.

SHEPARD: Yes, I am so in love with her, as I am in real life, that I decide to leave the safety of witness protection and take her to LA. And then the second we leave, Bradley Cooper, the bad guy I testified against, he finds out.

Tom Arnold, the US marshal, he starts chasing us. And it is - yes, it is an action comedy. But at the center of all of that is Kristen and I's kind of real life relationship on display for all to see.

SAGAL: Now, Dax, you also wrote and directed the movie.

SHEPARD: Yes, sir.

SAGAL: And so was that weird?

SHEPARD: It was ego orgy.

SAGAL: I can imagine.

SAGAL: But I'm also trying to figure out what is it like trying to direct your own girlfriend as she says lines of affection and love to you that you have written?

SHEPARD: I guess auto erotic comes to mind.

SAGAL: Yeah.

SAGAL: I'm sorry; could we do that again with more genuine worship please?

BELL: Right. I don't believe you.

SAGAL: I don't believe you.

SHEPARD: I just don't feel like you're seeing me on the pedestal I am on.

SAGAL: Also, in the movie, it's funny because the couple, the characters fight...

SAGAL: And they have this very, you know, funny, bizarre way of working through their fights. Is that how you guys work through your fights? Are we seeing your process as a couple?

BELL: We do things similar to that, yeah. We're big into communication.

SHEPARD: Yeah, there's nothing we can't talk out for four hours.

BELL: Yeah. You find a topic, we'll talk it out.

SHEPARD: We'll get comfortable and really hash it out.

SAGAL: That does explain the nine-hour running time, as you guys work through your issues. That's exciting.

BELL: Yeah.

SAGAL: Well, Kristen and Dax, it's a pleasure to talk to you. But we have, in fact, invited you here to play a game we're calling?

CARL KASELL: First thing you're going to need is an adorable collective nickname.

SAGAL: Before there was Brangelina, before there was Bennifer - remember Bennifer - there was Dickenliz.

SAGAL: Dickenliz. No, that was Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, the first and greatest of celebrity couples of the tabloid era.

PIERCE: Dickenliz.

SAGAL: Dickenliz. And before we go any further, do you guys have a collective nickname?

SHEPARD: We gave ourselves one. Honey, you want to hit them with it?

BELL: Cracked.

SAGAL: Love it. Love it. And I'm sure Us magazine is known as being a Cracked addict. They can't get enough of you.

SAGAL: Well, we're going to ask you about Burton and Taylor, Taylor and Burton, the Hollywood pair that knew how to live large. Get two right, of the three questions, you will win a prize for one of our listeners: Carl's voice on their home voicemail. So, Carl, who are Dax and Kristen playing for?

KASELL: They're playing for Derrick Stacy of St. Louis, Missouri.

SAGAL: OK. You ready to do this?

BELL: Let's do it.

SAGAL: Let's do it.

SHEPARD: Assuming that Derrick's not a gun owner that's going to come after me when I screw up, yes, I'm with you.

SAGAL: No problem, no problem. All right, here's your first question. Now, you've got to be totally besotted with each other, as Burton and Taylor were. What did Burton once say about the woman he married twice? A: Quote "She'd drive me crazy, of course, but all I had to do was tune out her voice and check out her rack," unquote?

SAGAL: B: "I'd make a joke about being a Liz-aholic, if I weren't a real alcoholic"?

SAGAL: Or C: "she has a double chin and an overdeveloped chest and she's rather short in the leg," unquote.

BELL: This does not sound healthy.

SHEPARD: I'm going with personally, Sweetie, I think A, but I defer to you.

BELL: No, I trust you. Let's go A.

SAGAL: The one about whenever she started to drive him crazy, he'd just tune out and check out her rack?

BELL: Yeah.

SAGAL: I'm afraid it was C. She had a double chin and overdeveloped chest. Burton said, quote, "This most beautiful woman in the world stuff is absolute nonsense." He said of her.

PELL: What a peach.

SAGAL: He was adorable guy. All right, you have two more chances. The Burtons met when they were both married to other people. They had a tumultuous affair in the public eye. They got divorced. They married each other. They divorced each other and then they got married again.

They decided their second marriage should be more restrained then their first. Where did they do it? A: in a rural village in Botswana? B: Times Square, high noon, Saturday? Or C: in their guest bathroom?

BELL: Oh no. C.

SAGAL: You're going to go for C, in their guest bathroom?

BELL: Yeah.

SAGAL: They were like, oh, let's just...

SHEPARD: I'd love to get married in a guest bathroom.

SAGAL: Really?

SHEPARD: Oh yeah.

SAGAL: Would that be appealing?

SHEPARD: Well, look, if you get winded, you take a seat on the commode.

SHEPARD: You get hot; you can pop in the shower.

BELL: I already know we've gotten it wrong because we're talking so much without telling us the answer. So I'm going to change my answer to B.

SAGAL: Times Square, high noon, Saturday?

BELL: Yeah.

SAGAL: Because they wanted to avoid attention.

BELL: Yes.

SHEPARD: Yeah. Right.

SHEPARD: Sounds great, honey.

FELBER: We're taking more time.

SAGAL: The moment...

BELL: This just in. I like A the best.

SAGAL: She does have some detective skills. You're going to go for A?

BELL: Yeah, I'm going to go for A.

SAGAL: Yeah, it is A, it was a royal village in Botswana.

SAGAL: They were on safari in Botswana. They decided what the hey, let's get married again, and they found a magistrate in a local mud hut village to officiate.

All right, this is the last question. If you get this right you win. Liz and Dick were known for their luxurious lifestyle. They had mansions and he gave her enormous diamonds, as is well known. In fact, once, they did what? A: had pastrami from New York airlifted to them in Rangoon? B: rented an entire yacht just for their dogs? Or C: bought a limousine made of platinum?

SHEPARD: It's actually - I happen to know this one because I was reading about celebrities who have had food flown in for them.

BELL: I was just going to say A.

SAGAL: We agree.

SHEPARD: Mighty good job.

SAGAL: You're going to agree on this?

BELL: Yes.

SAGAL: I like that. I like that how you stand with each other.

SHEPARD: And you're wrong.

SAGAL: Even when you're wrong.

BELL: Oh no.

SAGAL: Yeah, we just made that up, sadly. No, the real answer was that they rented a yacht for their dogs.

BELL: That's absurd.

SAGAL: It's not. What happened was - and you guys are animal lovers.

PIERCE: Said the woman with a sloth at her birthday party.

BELL: Yeah, but I didn't buy him a Rolls Royce.

SAGAL: That's true. What happened was is they went to London, and there's a quarantine for pets. They couldn't bring the pets into London. So for $20,000, Liz Taylor rented a yacht which she moored there right on the river, the Thames, for her dogs to wait out the quarantine.

SHEPARD: Well then that's totally understandable, now that you...

SAGAL: Carl, how did Dax and Kristen do on our quiz?

KASELL: Peter, they needed at least two correct answers to win for Derrick Stacy. They had just one correct answer.

BELL: Can we get extra points for being a good team?

SAGAL: Carl, do they get extra points for being a good team?

SAGAL: Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell are in love and they star in the new movie "Hit and Run," opening on August 22nd. Dax and Kristen, thank you so much for joining us.

BELL: Thank you for having us.

SAGAL: Great to talk to you.

SHEPARD: Thank you.

SAGAL: Take care and good luck with the movie.

BELL: Thanks.

SHEPARD: Thank you.

SAGAL: Bye-bye now.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


text:
Schwebel's Says No Health Hazard Following Recall

Published: .
Updated: .

The Schwebel Baking Company says new tests show there's no health hazard following their voluntary recall.

On Tuesday, the Schwebel Baking Company announced that listeria was found during a routine swabbing of their Youngstown factory.

But late on Wednesday, the company said new tests confirmed no products were affected.

"The Schwebel Baking Company announced today that it has received test results from its independent testing laboratory that the listeria species discovered during internal routine environmental assessment of its Youngstown facility does not present a public health hazard. The report of the independent third party did not show the presence of listeria monocytogenes in the Youngstown facility, the species of listeria that causes severe illness in pregnant women and persons with compromised immune systems.
The Company has no knowledge that any of its products have been impacted by the presence of listeria in its facility and is continuing to work closely with local and federal authorities regarding this issue. The Company expects a further update on restoration of operations of its Youngstown facility later today."

Giant Eagle stores pulled some of the bread off of the shelves after a recall was announced.

The company released the following statement on Tuesday: "As directed by Schwebel, representatives from the manufacturer have removed all potentially affected Schwebel brand products from Giant Eagle, Inc. store shelves across all of our markets. As an added measure of caution, Giant Eagle is removing those varieties of Giant Eagle brand bread that were produced from the Schwebel Youngstown facility from its store shelves."

The products in question can be identified by the code number near the “best by” date on packages. Any number beginning with the letter A is part of the recall.

The Schwebel company says it will honor any bread returns. They suggest that if you have the A-code bread before yesterday's date that it be brought back.

Listeria can cause serious illness and even death for sensitive groups, such as children, the frail and the elderly. Healthy people may suffer flu-like symptoms, such as high fever, headache, nausea and diarrhea. It can cause miscarriage and stillbirth for pregnant women.

For more information about the recall, call 1-800-860-2867 or visit www.schwebels.com. Here's a list of Giant Eagle Products made in Youngstown.


text:
 Maintaining Healthy Environment In Homes And Offices
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ALL >> Home-and-Garden >> View Article

Maintaining Healthy Environment In Homes And Offices

By Author: honsey cornor

The service providers of office cleaning Melbourne undertake sprucing up works of offices. These service firms follow the most advanced methods for dusting out the furniture, carpets, etc. Delicate materials such as cotton and tapestry also are dusted out by them. For the various works they make use of either dry or steam cleaning. The personnel who are working in these firms are specially trained in different types of tidying works. For clearing out the dust and dirt in the sofa, recliner and different types of furniture, they make use of exclusive techniques. For the works these firms make use of only environment-friendly chemical agents. All the cleaning agents that they use are non-hazardous, non-toxic and are user-friendly.

The various cleaning agents that they use are mild chemicals and are not harmful to human beings. When they dust out leather upholstery, they not only remove the stains and all other contaminations, but also restore the original color and appearance of the same. The original appearance of the upholstery is retained. Those who work in the offices can get a healthy atmosphere inside the office when the furniture and carpets are cleaned by the professionals from office cleaning Melbourne services.

The upholstery cleaning Melbourne firms undertake the work on all types of upholstered furniture like sofa and arm chair that are used in offices and houses. Inside the house, these furniture items are regularly used by the children, pet animals and the elders. As a result a lot of dirt is accumulated on them and for health reasons the upholstery must be dusted out periodically. Latest methods like carbonation is used by these service firms for removing complete all types of dirt and other contaminations from the upholstery as well as the furniture. The carbonating solution has the property of penetrating deep into fabrics to bring all contaminations of dirt to the surface.

The personnel working at the upholstery cleaning Melbourne firms are experts in restoring the original color and appearance of the upholstery after cleaning. For offices as well as homes it is advisable to get the furniture and upholstery cleaned by these professional services once in a year at least. Their professional way of working will make the furniture look perfectly fresh. Dirt, dust and oil from the human body are bound to get accumulated on the fabric of the furniture. When all those dirt and impurities are completely removed the original color and appearance of the fabrics are restored and as a result a hygienic atmosphere is maintained in the home or office where the cleaning work was performed by these service providers.

If you are looking for carpet cleaning berwick services in home or office, you are in the right place now. Our Vision is to be the best provider of steam cleaning services across Australia and We now provide discount coupon for tile and grout cleaning in melbourne. For more details about please visit us

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text:
 Water Truck Fill Station: An Access To Safe Drinking Water
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ALL >> Business >> View Article

Water Truck Fill Station: An Access To Safe Drinking Water

By Author: Jon keller

Water is indeed 'The Elixir of Life' and comes under one of the basic necessities of mankind. As it is an essential commodity for everyone, it has great potential to generate good business as well. In today's scenario, we can consider water to be a great source of financial gains.

As people continue to expand into areas where water is very deep, if available at all, some people do not have piped water to their homes. They install a cistern system and a pump for their water supply. The water has to be brought to their homes in trucks or in containers in the back of a pickup. These containers need to be filled at a water loading station and the waters owner needs a way to get paid for the water.

These days’ people are more conscious of the quality of their water intake, and take precautions to protect the quality of that water. People cannot keep relying solely on distilled water bottles for all of their water needs. So, here water truck fill stations can make a difference.

The demand for buying water in bulk at a bulk water truck fill stations has increased to a great extent and will continue to increase in the further. Many people know the importance of water in their daily routine affair, so many have started selling purified or filtered water because of the rise in demand. This is because it is a very well known fact that one can survive without food, but without water, it is not possible to sustain life.

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text:
What's New

Fixes issue with drums not always being saved in the instrument editor.

App Description

Beatwave lets you make amazing music simply by tapping. Create songs anywhere, anytime on your iPhone or iPad. No musical skills required!

Using the Beatwave grid melodies and beats can be constructed easily and quickly.

Whether you're new to music or are a pro Beatwave lets you explore sounds and create new and interesting tracks.

Feature Overview
- Hundreds of instruments: Beatwave includes 20 great instruments with over 200 available via download from the Beatwave store.
- Built in effects: Includes 12 audio effects for endless sound variations.
- Always in key: With the Beatwave grid there are no wrong notes.
- Record and share: Share your creations to the world via Twitter, Facebook, Email or Soundcloud.
- Multiple layers: Layer up to four instruments at once to create a complex sound.
- Tweak sounds: Finely tune instruments to create your own signature sound.
- Designed for iOS8: Created exclusively for iOS8 Beatwave looks stunning on your device.
- Ringtone creation: Easily save you tracks as ringtones for your iPhone.
- Audiobus 2 support.
- Universal download for iPhone and iPad.

Watch the video to find out what it's all about: http://appcnct.me/s7

Any issues or suggestions please contact us at [email protected] or @beatwaveapp on Twitter.

iPhone Screenshots

(click to enlarge)

Beatwave screenshot 1 Beatwave screenshot 2 Beatwave screenshot 3 Beatwave screenshot 4 Beatwave screenshot 5

iPad Screenshots

(click to enlarge)

Beatwave screenshot 6 Beatwave screenshot 7 Beatwave screenshot 8 Beatwave screenshot 9 Beatwave screenshot 10

App Changes

  • June 12, 2014 New version 2.0
  • June 21, 2014 New version 2.0.1
  • August 06, 2014 New version 2.1
  • April 27, 2015 New version 2.5
  • May 18, 2015 New version 2.5.1
  • September 17, 2015 New version 2.5.2
  • December 06, 2015 New version 2.6
  • July 12, 2016 New version 2.6.1

Other Apps From David Fumberger

XBMC Remote SNAP! SNAP! Lite Picture Safe - Password protect your photos Video Safe - Secure Private Photo & Video Manager Animal SNAP! Lite Animal SNAP! Spout Video Stream - Watch Movies & TV Shows over the Air! Charged - Battery Reminders Video Safe 2 - Photos, Videos, Cloud, & Streaming Video Safe 2 Free - Photos, Videos & Streaming Video Stream - Free Beatwave Pro


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Cozmo’s Day Off Review

Posted by GiggleApps Staff on February 10th, 2011

Cozmo’s Day Off is a really fun and creative space-themed universal application which includes both a story as well as numerous highly engaging interactions and mini-games.

I love the look of this app; the illustrations are great as are the various interactions one can find by tapping around the pages. I like that some of the interactions are different each time they are tapped and are sometimes rather involved as well with multiple things happening from just one touch. The look of this app has a nice 1950’s space theme and I like looking at all the retro elements, including a few that remind me of an earlier steampunk style as well. The music as well as the narration is excellent and it is fun that one can change the pitch of the narrator’s voice as well as your own if you choose to make your own recording. Mini-games are also included throughout the app as well as some highly creative and unique elements. One will just have to tap to explore for himself; just be sure to touch and explore everything on the screen. Check out the “help” section if you want direction in finding the interactions that these pages contain. I greatly appreciate this information being included and wish a section like this would be part of app interactive apps.

Read the full review right here on GiggleApps.

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The sex geometry

Duration: 6min 00sec Views: 293 Submitted: 11 months ago
Get Full Access to Serious Cash - She Is Nerdy
Description: This nerdy teeny looks so cute reading the book on geometry in a park and when a handsome guy offers her help in studying for tomorrow's exam she quickly agrees. Back at his place it takes these horny students little time to go from studying to getting naked and pleasing one another in every possible way. Pussy licking, cock sucking, deep drilling – you name it! They fuck like there's no exam at all cuz they know sex is the best preparation.


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Deciding on dental health products can be tricky. There are so many options to choose from. Walking down that aisle can be overwhelming. In this post, we will look at…

Colgate Toothpaste Product Review

Product Review of Colgate Toothpastes

Deciding on dental health products can be tricky. There are so many options to choose from. Walking down that aisle can be overwhelming.

In this post, we will look at the Colgate line of toothpastes. Even within this one brand, there are dozens of options from which to choose. Below, we have broken these up by category, as best we can (most of the toothpastes overlap in what they offer), to help you pick out the toothpaste that will be most beneficial to your dental health.

Following the toothpaste categories and descriptions, you’ll find a quick review of three of these toothpastes that I chose.

Below is a list of the different Colgate toothpastes with some of their advertised features:

Traditional Toothpastes

The price of traditional toothpastes ranges anywhere from $2.50 to $5.32. Below are some of the features listed for each toothpaste.

  • Introduction to Traditional Colgate Toothpastes

Kids’ Toothpastes

The price of kids’ toothpastes ranges anywhere from $1.97 to $6.99. Below are some of their fun features to make brushing teeth fun for kids!

  • Introduction to Kids Colgate Toothpaste

Teeth Whitening Toothpastes

The cost of teeth whitening toothpastes ranges anywhere from $3.00 to $5.96. The advertised features of each one is listed below.

  • Introduction to Colgate Teeth Whitening Toothpastes

Toothpastes for Sensitive Teeth

Toothpastes for sensitive teeth cost anywhere from $2.99 to $6.99 depending on the type of paste and the store you purchase it from.

  • Introduction to Sensitive Teeth Toothpastes

Prescription Toothpastes

Prescription toothpastes cost between $12.99 and $19.75, and on up, depending on the type of paste you need. These are more expensive because they have special properties for your specific dental need.

  • Introduction to Colgate Prescription Toothpastes

Trying Colgate Toothpastes: Product Review

Based on the descriptions above, I picked out three of these toothpastes that I thought would be a good fit for my dental care needs and tested each one over a period of 4 days. Most of these toothpastes recommend a two-week trial, so keep that in mind as you read my reviews. It is quite possible more results could come about after a longer period of time.

I have sensitive teeth. Therefore, I chose a couple of toothpastes that advertise strengthening tooth enamel and helping with sensitive teeth. I would also like a whiter smile, so I tried a toothpaste that had those features, as well.

Enamel Health Toothpaste

Colgate Enamel HealthColgate’s Enamel Health Toothpaste benefits include:

  • Replenishes natural calcium
  • Whitens teeth
  • Gently polishes
  • Fights cavities
  • Freshens breath

Colgate recommends you use this toothpaste twice daily for at least two weeks to see results.

Due to some time constraints, I was unable to use this for the recommended two weeks. However, I did use it twice daily for 4 days to see how I liked the toothpaste. Here’s what I found:

  • Flavor was good. Not too strong

  • Paste was a little thick, even using recommended amount (pea-sized dab)
  • Didn’t get that freshness feeling other toothpaste options gave, probably because of the thickness (maybe that’s a part of strengthening the enamel)
  • Didn’t notice a difference in teeth sensitivity (may need to use the paste longer to gain results)

Verdict = Not the toothpaste for me

Sensitive Toothpaste (Maximum Strength)

IMG_20161014_115639295 (1)Colgate Sensitive Toothpaste (Maximum Strength) benefits include:

  •  Offers sensitivity relief

Colgate notes that with continued use, you’ll experience long-lasting relief from hypersensitivity.

I only used this toothpaste twice daily for 4 days, but unlike Enamel Health, I started to see results.

  • Flavor was good. Not too strong
  • Consistency was just right; not too thick
  • Started to relieve tooth sensitivity

  • Could have a stronger flavor for fresher breath

 Verdict = I may continue using this toothpaste to relieve my tooth sensitivity

Colgate MaxFresh with Mini Breath Strips (with Whitening)

Colgate MaxFresh

What’s funny about this one is that when I first started writing this product review and researched all of the Colgate toothpastes out there, I saw this and thought, “Wow, what a funny name for a toothpaste. And it’s kind of a mouthful, too.” Come to find out, this is the toothpaste I have been using for the past couple of months. After writing this product review, I now realize I need to pay attention to the toothpaste I’m using and be willing to try out different kinds to find the best one for my teeth.

Colgate MaxFresh with Mini Breath Strips (with Whitening) benefits include:

  • Fights cavities with fluoride formula
  • Whitens teeth
  • Freshens bad breath
  • Sugar free
  • Gluten free

Colgate doesn’t specify how long you should use this toothpaste to see results, but by the looks of the rest of their products, my guess is that the 2-week daily use rule applies to all.

As mentioned above, I’ve used this toothpaste for a while (a couple of months). Here’s what I found:

  • Strong flavor
  • Freshens breath

  • Haven’t noticed much improvement in whitening teeth

Verdict = I may look for another Colgate whitening toothpaste that shows better results. There are a lot to choose from

What should you take away from this? It’s important to read the product details for the toothpaste you choose. There could be a better toothpaste for your specific dental care needs that you haven’t even found yet. Look through these products and choose a few toothpastes to try. Try them for the recommended allotment of time to figure out which one does the best for your dental health.

What kind of toothpaste do you use? Leave it in the comments below with its benefits and how you’ve liked using it.

Disclaimer: This post is strictly educational for our readers. We are not advocating for the Colgate brand over other toothpaste lines. Colgate is a popular brand and one we thought we would evaluate for you. You may see more product reviews for other toothpaste brands. Stay tuned.

All Product Pictures and Descriptions:

Natasha is 1Dental’s managing editor and copywriter, focusing content on dental and health news, advice and tips. She graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communication and has since been a book editor and now copywriter and managing editor on dental and health. You can find her on Google+ and on all of 1Dental’s social networks.

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Italian and French courses

by Danny
(Manchester, UK)

I've been listening to the French course, and yes, his accent is noticeable and the fact you'll struggle to read and write anything clearly suggests that this method is to teach you speak only. That's exactly what I wanted, as I speak pretty good Italian and felt going through a book and CD format would bore me as I could guess the answers.

I looked up the Italian course out of interest on youtube, and his Italian, while excellent, is heavily accented. My Italian is good enough to spot a few different accents and his is clearly northern European - I used to work with a Dutch woman who sounded just like that in Italian.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying what a useful site this is, and to pass on my tip for trying to improve your accent in a foreign language.

Start out by saying something in English with, say, a French accent, then move into saying French in that way. It's not foolproof but will make you sound a little bit better - there's a reason the French and Italians sound the way they do in English!

Good tip Danny. Thanks... and don't forget to wave your hands and contort your face in a 'French' or 'Italian' way! -Editor

Click here to post comments

Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to Michel Thomas French.


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Singapore is the major regional logistics hub for the oil and gas, heavy engineering, petrochemical, maritime anbd offshore supply industry. Singapore accommodates numerous multinational headquarters and serves as an importan project cargo transhipment centre for South East Asia, the Indian sub-continent, the Middle East, the Far East and Australia.

Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics will be present at this conference at booth no. A24, and we hope to see many of you there.

To read more about this conference and exhibition, you find more information here :

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Lego Marvel Super Heroes Game PS4

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  • rated this product 5.0 out of 5 stars
Lego Marvel Super Heroes was undoubtedly created with a lot of love and attention to detail. The dialogue is absolutely spot on and captures all of the character's personalities. Everything from dialogue, to missions, side missions, minor quests, etc. have humor and captures the attention of the player. I found myself continuously laughing from start to finish, and beyond. The game cycles different heroes each mission, keeping the combat fresh and always on your toes. However, a few mishaps are the controls and some of the puzzles.

June 10th 2016

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go back

Kimmo Kaunela - Zero gravity

By 3dtotal staff

Web: www.kimmok.siteground.net (will open in new window)

(5155 Views) | 1 Comments
| Comments 1
Date Added: 14th April 2014

Kimmo Kaunela's Gravity-inspired image, Zero Gravity, sits proudly at 5 stars in our gallery. Here, Kimmo talks about his drive to become a better 3D artist.

Kimmo Kaunela's Zero Gravity image is a great homage to the 70s and 80s sci-fi stylings of space stations. Inspired by Gravity, this series of artworks has so far racked up 179 votes and stands at 5 stars. Kimmo gives us an insight into his pathway so far...

3dtotal: Tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you, what do you do, and where are you located?

Kimmo Kaunela: Hi all! My name is Kimmo Kaunela and I'm a 3D artist from Finland. My passion is to create awesome-looking environments for real-time and offline use. I started this hobby about 6 years ago and I still love it! Learning new stuff and training techniques that I already know is something that I really like to do.

When I was a kid I built a lot of things with Lego, so I think it was a natural choice for me to start learning 3D modeling at an older age. It was hard for a 15-year-old kid to start learning this whole new way of creating things. A couple of years later, I finally started to understand it.

I always liked mechanical things like cars, so at the age of 17 I started to study car mechanics, and a couple of years after that I graduated. My passion was still in 3D graphics so I made a hard decision to start learning that. It was a very reckless thing to do but life is all about making hard choices. That decision turned out to be the right one.

3dt: Tell us about your image Zero Gravity. Was it a challenge to create? What inspired it?

KK: Space is something that I find very interesting and I wanted to do a scene from there. I got the idea for this project when I saw Gravity. The visuals in that movie were so real and at times I really felt like I was there. I wanted to create that same feeling but in real time.

It was hard to build a space station from scratch. Using a lot of references helped, and pretty soon I had some modular models to play with. Like Lego, I built a small section that looked and felt like the real thing.

Zero gravity was the main theme, so I added some small props there to float. Using 80s materials and objects really helped to sell that old feeling. Finally, I wanted to place some clues to say that someone lived there, such as photos on the wall, a calendar with important dates marked and so on.

Using the Physically-Based Rendering (PBR) workflow really helped to achieve realistic results. It's always nice to learn new things that really push your work quality a step further.

The project took 2 months from start to finish. It really opened my eyes that real-time graphics can look almost real when taking the time to observe things and converting those into the engine.

3dtotal: How did you learn to paint digitally?

KK: I'm a 100% self-taught artist. I just wanted to learn creating 3D graphics no matter what. I can't say that it is the easiest way but if you concentrate hard enough you can do whatever you want. There were times when I just smacked my head against my keyboard and I still do that from time to time, but all that will make the taste of succeeding even better.

3dtotal: How do you keep your portfolio up-to-date? Any tips?

KK: I try to do a lot of different kinds of projects where I learn new things. Variation in your projects can be a very useful thing to show. However, I think you should still try to show your real focus. Also, try to keep a reasonable amount of content visible. Concentrate on your best works.

One thing that I like to do is making of projects. This way you can show how you did something and you can also re-think why. Tutorials are also nice way to show that you are interested in sharing your techniques with others. A bio is also one of the key parts in your portfolio. It's crucial to keep this up-to-date too.

At the end of the day I'm just trying to keep my portfolio clean and easy to read.

3dtotal: Who are your favorite artists, traditional or digital, and can you explain why?

KK: I can only name one artist that really inspires me and that is Marek Denko. His works are just so real and the amount of detail is insane. I really hope that one day I could be as talented as he.

I also enjoy the works of Scott Homer, Wiktor Öhman and Tor Frick.

3dtotal: What software would you like to learn in the future to expand your portfolio and skillset, and why?

KK: There are so many awesome tools out there so it's hard to choose. I think it would be nice to start learning MARI. Texturing is something that I like to learn more about so MARI appears to be a very good candidate for that.

Sculpting is also something that I want to understand more. ZBrush offers some nice tools and getting to know those would be a great advantage.

3ds Max is something that you can never handle 100% so I think I'll be learning to use that for the rest of my career.

3dtotal: How do you like to unwind after a hard day's (or night's) work?

KK: Usually I like to play games and watch movies. This way I can also collect reference materials. I have to admit that I use way too much time doing digital graphics. I guess that is one of the downsides of being a 3D artist.

Nature is really important to me and I spend a lot of time there. Living in Finland has some great advantages like snow and really cold winters. That's why the sauna is really important to me and after all we Finns invented it so it's part of our culture.

3dtotal: If you could choose any superhero power, what would you take, and why?

KK: I like Iron Man but he has no real superpower except money. Tony Stark is good at inventing stuff so that is always a nice power to have. I think that infinite resources and imagination is my choice here.

Related links

Check out Kimmo's website
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Readers Comments (Newest on Top)
KLICKSTOP on Sat, 19 April 2014 6:32am
Great artist, great interview!
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A Bad Day =(

i’m sitting here at work while the kids are napping (i teach at a day school) and i’m really honestly not having a very good day. A while back my boss told me that I had missed something like 45 days in the year that I had been here from being sick. Obviously that’s a lot. Since then I have had my tonsils out and haven’t been sick since (this was like the very beginning of april). The other day I had to call in because I pulled a muscle in my back and my mom wanted me to go to the doctor and get it checked out. Fine, whatever. Well today my boss pulled me into her office and said i’ve missed something like 60 days now, and this can’t keep happening. I tried to explain to her that 10 of those 15 days were from after the tonsillectamy, and that one day was my back and one day was because I was throwing up and I got sent home….so that’s really only 3 days that i’ve called in for something that wasn’t serious….but it’s like that didn’t matter. I have been working SO HARD to be here even when I don’t feel like it. I have come so many times lately with headaches and stomach pains and things like that….even though I didn’t feel like it, and it’s like they haven’t even noticed a difference. I was supposed to go get an MRI on my back tomorrow because it has still been hurting and i’m not so sure it’s a muscle anymore…but I called and cancelled it because I feel like if I miss another day i’ll end up losing my job. It’s just so frustrating. I feel guilty and upset and angry all at the same time. I love my job, I love these kids, but I have always had an awful immune system and I get sick a lot….and i’m definitely accident prone, so I get injured. It just sucks that i’m trying so hard to please my boss and she doesn’t see it. I haven’t been working out as much so that i’m not as sore so that I don’t miss as many days as I was before for injuries caused by stress on my muscles. I’ve been going to sleep at 9:30 or 10:00 pm so that i’m well rested. I’m just so frustrated by this. I don’t know how to handle it. I’m going to have to figure something out, it’s just not easy. Idk.

i’ve got to go put the kids snack out. Thanks for listening =/

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Lindsey Vonn makes like the Terminator: I’ll be back

Lindsey Vonn, two or so weeks after ripping her right knee up in a gruesome fall at alpine skiing’s world championships, said Friday she has no doubt she will be back for the Sochi 2014 Olympics.

It’s a race against time, one that positions Vonn, the 2010 Vancouver Games downhill champion, winner of 59 World Cup races and four World Cup overall titles, not just as an underdog but as the comeback story of the 2014 Games.

She made it plain Friday in a conference call with a group of selected reporters that it’s a race she intends — as usual — to win.

“It all depends on me,” she said. “I have to work hard and take my time and do it right. I can guarantee I will do that.”

Lindsey Vonn's report to her thousands of Facebook friends -- note the wistful "long skirts this summer" hashtag ...

Lindsey Vonn’s report to her thousands of Facebook friends — note the wistful “long skirts this summer” hashtag …

Vonn, 28, tore the anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments and broke a lower leg bone during the super-G, the first race run at the 2013 worlds in Schladming, Austria.

She was critical Friday of race organizers. Fog, snow and clouds had made course conditions extraordinarily variable the day of Feb. 5, leaving athletes, coaches and staff unsettled for hours, wondering, obviously, was the race going to be run, or not?

Finally, the race was a go — but, as Vonn noted, she had no idea what the snow itself was going to be like. Instead of being packed icy-hard the way it should be, it was “too soft,” she said, “broken down,” and when she flew too far off a jump, she hit a patch of loose snow, her right knee buckled and — that was that.

As she was lying there in the snow, in pain, she recounted Friday, she told Alex Hoedlmoser, the U.S. women’s alpine head coach, “They should stop the race right there.”

They did not. Ultimately, however, the race was delayed 14 times due to the weather and called after 36 skiers. Tina Maze of Slovenia won, with Lara Gut of Switzerland second and American Julia Mancuso third.

Vonn flew back to the United States and, on Feb. 10, underwent surgery, performed at the Vail Valley Surgery Center by Dr. William Sterett.

It went, she said as expected — the major issue the ACL. The MCL and bone break are, by comparison, relatively minor concerns.

If all goes well, Vonn added, she expects to be back on skis by November.

November? With the Olympics in February?

Perhaps, she said, a little sooner. Then again, maybe a little later.

Not to worry, Vonn said:

“I’m not extremely concerned when I’m going to be back. I just want to make sure that when I do get back my knee is 100 percent. It doesn’t take a lot of training for me to be ready to race again.”

She noted that knee injuries are something of a fact of life in alpine skiing and that she has taken comfort in seeing others — in particular her very good friend, Germany’s Maria Höfl-Riesch, winner of two golds in Vancouver, the 2011 World Cup season overall champion — come back from knee injuries.

Höfl-Riesch told the Associated Press Friday in Meribel, France, that she is making plans to come visit Vonn after the World Cup season ends and expects Lindsey to come back strong:

“She’s totally motivated, and I also know from my own [experience] that it’s not so easy after injury to get full gas again. But I’m sure Lindsey’s so strong she can get this feeling and the risk back pretty soon. Maybe at the beginning the first time on skis it will be difficult for her, too. But not for a long time.”

Picabo Street, one of Vonn’s childhood idols, busted up her knee in December 1996, then came back to win the super-G at the Nagano Games in February 1998. So, absolutely, it can be done.

“Picabo is definitely a great example of that,” Lindsey Vonn said Friday. “As I said, I have no doubt I will be back and be able to ski the same if not better than I did before.”

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BLU Realty

The 40 most expensive manufactured homes with land for sale in sunnyside park surrey, south surrey white rock

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While we currently can't find you the most expensive manufactured homes with land in sunnyside park surrey, you should get some results if you broaden your search to the most expensive listings of any type in sunnyside park surrey. If you still can't find the results you are looking for, please send us an email and we will do whatever we can to help you find the listings you are looking for.

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