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Monday, May 3, 2010

Picture Book, When You Were Just a Baby, Those Days When You Were Happy, A Long Time Ago...

On August 14th, 2004, I met Leticia Blake. She was a writer, model, photographer, activist, public health volunteer, code writer, a familiar presence in the L.A. avant-garde scene. She also did porn, under the name Eva Lux.

We clicked in person almost immediately that night, spending hours in conversation, first at a Heidi Calvert art event at Bluespace, then later that evening at a friend's apartment until almost sunrise. A few weeks later, relations with that friend went downhill, and she moved in with me for a spell. She was a good houseguest - we watched lots of movies, went to dinner, had long talks about deep subjects.

She also had an active heroin addiction at the time, which she was working hard to quit. After a few weeks with me, she moved down to Costa Mesa to get clean. And she did it. It was hard, there were lapses and run-ins with the law, but she went through the steps and the discipline and the halfway houses and the mandatory tests and it was working.

A year later, Leticia came into L.A. one weekend in September on a 48 hour pass. She was hanging out at a mutual friend's home, with some people who liked the smoke. Having been well-behaved for months and keeping the big demons at bay, she took a couple hits from the joint.

And then she remembered that coming Monday there was going to be a drug test.

Failing it would have been a violation of her probation, and she would have been facing a mandatory 25 year to life sentence...for the non-violent crime of heroin addiction. I will never be 100% certain whether what followed was merely an "let's go all-in" gut reaction or a glumly rational final solution, but the outcome renders those details moot: Leticia overdosed on heroin, went into a coma, and died on September 20, 2005.

Today would have been her 37th birthday.

Besides a lot of wonderful and bittersweet memories, Leticia left me her Canon PowerShot S230 digital camera. While I had taken photography as part of my college courses years ago, I grew disenchanted with the practice of taking pictures. Maybe I didn't think my photos were good, maybe I began to believe that the act of taking pictures means you're stepping out of a moment and not truly living in it, maybe I just got self-conscious over the fact that I hate to be photographed because I'm 40 lbs overweight with a double chin so to not be a hypocrite I'd leave my friends alone...there are plenty of possible reasons I stopped keeping images.

But this year, something stirred in me, and I picked up Leticia's camera, bought an uploading device, and little by little, started trying to get in the habit of taking a few snaps of things I liked. If I can succumb to a mushy screenwriter's poetry, I treated this as my way of keeping her with me as a surrogate eye - what I'm snapping, she's seeing.

So here are some of the things she saw for me in the last few months...

Lab-fresh uncut 35mm prints of BRIGHTON ROCK and THE THIRD MAN;

DJ Sallycat: mixing artisan, go-go dancer, sometime ROCKY HORROR Trixie, and proprietress of the Hang The DJ blog;

The unusually heavy L.A. rains this past couple months brought waterfowl to my building's pool. Luckily, having studied my Steve Martin, I knew what to say when the ducks showed up.

One day in my parking lot, I was downright dumbfounded - how many fucking grey cars in a row can there be in one complex?

Julia Marchese, hands-on Girl Friday of the New Beverly Cinema, and star of Marion Kerr's GOLDEN EARRINGS, at her birthday/off to England party;

Taylor Locke and Chris Price of Taylor Locke & The Roughs, rocking out at their second show ever, at Cinespace on Hollywood Blvd.

There will be more photos to come.

So thank you, Leticia, both for giving me so much to remember...and the means and motivation to find more to remember...

  1. im so sorry for your loss... she sounded like a great woman and judging from the first photo, she was gorgeous, too.

  2. What a beautiful idea, the thought of Leticia inspiring you to create more art and snap precious moments that we are lucky to have. Time is actually a rare commodity, despite what so many of us believe. I lost several friends at early ages and every one contributed so much and made me realize all that I have to be thankful for, even when things don't seem to be going my way at least I still have time.

  3. I heard about this a while back, it's a shame Leticia is gone - she sounds like a wonderful person.

    Your keeping her memory alive & putting life back into her camera is beyond thoughtful & kind...I respect & appreciate you a lot for that. Most people would want to forget, but you know better and remember.

    Thank you for making this post.


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• 100 g (3½ oz) bar Toblerone chocolate
  • 50 g (2 oz) plain dark chocolate
  • 1 tablespoon rum
  • 2 tablespoons double cream
  • selection of fruit, such as strawberries, cherries and sliced banana
  • cookies

Melt the Toblerone and dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of gently simmering water. When melted, add the rum and cream, and continue to heat, stirring, for 1 minute.

Pour the chocolate mixture into a fondue pot and keep warm on a burner. Dip a selection of fruits and cookies into the chocolate and enjoy.

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text:
the Unauthorized Memoirs of Sam Smith

When the smog lifted -- especially, it seemed, on Sundays when automobile traffic was light -- you could rediscover Washington the beautiful. The white office buildings leapt out from the brilliant blue backdrop of the sky. If it was springtime, tens of thousands of tulips planted by the National Park Service provided a pointillist ground cover to downtown squares and circles. Along Rock Creek Parkway, daffodils proclaimed the beginning of Washington's favorite season. The city lived for spring and fall, periods separated by muggy summer and by an unpredictable yet dull winter. In the fall, the gauze of noxious gas that stretched over DC all summer was peeled away, permitting the sun a rare chance to lounge unimpeded against the sides of buildings or ricochet off spires. The air conditioner's monotone was finally silenced and the hint of chill repulsed by a friendly jacket. But the spring was even better; you quickly forgot the snow that didn't come, or that did come but all in one blizzard, and you luxuriated in a few months of unadulterated color and life. Summer was awful and in winter it was best to heed the words of Mark Twain:

When you arrived it was snowing. When you reached the hotel it was sleeting. When you went to bed it was raining. During the night it froze hard, and the wind blew some chimneys down. When you got up in the morning it was foggy. When you finished your breakfast at ten o'clock and went out, the sunshine was brilliant, the weather balmy and delicious, and the mud and slush deep and all pervading. You will like the climate-when you get used to it. . . . Take an umbrella, an overcoat, and a fan, and so forth.

Would that all critiques of the city had been as valid. No other American city had so much written and spoken about it by people who had no organic connection with it and who expended so little effort on its behalf. From presidents to Time reporters, the city was what they wished (or had time) to see, and the resulting reporting veered from descriptions of a Grossinger's for megalomaniacs to a Tolkien-like netherworld inhabited by orcs, goblins, brigands and things that go bump in the night and take all your money. The Washingtonian found few friends among those who passed through. Jack Kennedy called it a place of 'northern charm and southern efficiency.' Senate District Committee chairman Thomas Eagleton responded to a complaint that a proposed home rule bill would leave Congress with a veto over all local actions by saying, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away." Congressmen with impeccable liberal credentials curried favor with their conservative constituents and financial backers by supporting freeways, developers and 'law and order' schemes for the District. Such were our friends.

Then there was the legion of race-baiters, demagogues, and legislators using the District to make deals, political and business, that would have been a scandal if they had occurred in their home districts, and others who used their power over the city to make sure they got cheap liquor and cheap taxi rides.

The denigration of Washington as a place followed other paths as well. Washingtonians, told that their town was a federal city, grew up believing that this somehow prohibited the District from seeking political equality or even other sources of income such as a commuter tax. Washingtonians were taught to rely on the national government until they had lost much of their will for self-initiative. One of the hardest problems faced by anyone seeking change in Washington was what became known as the colonial mentality, a fatalistic acceptance of powerlessness in political and social life.

Washington was a city of dichotomies, contrasts, and striking inequalities. It was the capital of a major democracy that lacked local democracy. It was a citadel of power whose residents lacked power. It was a city with an excess of multimillion dollar office buildings and a shortage of housing. It was a city that was wealthier than most in which a sizable minority lives in great poverty. It had a 70 percent black population but the major decisions were still made by whites. It was a city in which the American dream and the American tragedy passed each other on the street and did not speak. It was, finally, a city that had suffered a form of deprivation known primarily to the poor and the imprisoned, a psychological deprivation born of the constant suppression and denial of one's identity, worth, or purpose by those in control. Washington to those in power was not a place but a hall to rent. The people of Washington were the custodian staff. And the renters were as likely to visit the world in which this staff lived as a parishioner is to inspect the boiler room of the church. The purpose of Washington's community was to serve not to be. Its school children were not taught the history of their city; they were told little of its significant men and women. There was no city festival or parade. In fact, this repository of national history didn't even have a local history museum. The city's present was suppressed, its future was a hostage, and its past was ignored.

This was the city that civil rights activists and other reformers determined to - and did - change. This change was cultural as well as political and increasingly the old ways and the new found themselves in conflict. For example, having discovered that there were more African-American books in the libraries in the white parts of town than in the black city, I decided I better check out the meetings of the library board of trustees. There I found not only an all-white board but a chair in his 90s serving his colleagues tea and cookies.

Leaders of a reform movement at the Edmunds-Peabody Elementary School parent body also ran up against the old ways at a meeting so heated and controversial that the citywide PTA sent its president and two vice presidents to serve as monitors. The organization's vice president, Bessie Turner, repeatedly interrupted the proceedings with instructions such as "Madame Chairman, the names of the nominated slate must be on the left hand side of the board." During a break, I attempted to engage the formidable Turner in conversation. She told me, "I'm not interested in reporters. I defy you to write anything I don't want in."

In the end, Ted Jones won the heated election for president by a vote of 28 to 26. Mrs. Turner called the new officers forward. Ramrod straight, she read from the PTA's encomium to itself as contained in its manual and instructed the audience to rise as she recited the "objects" of the organization. Asked whether they intended to help the new officers attend to their duties, the parents obediently responded, "I do." Mrs. Turner then told the officers that "I sincerely hope you will follow your manual. If you follow its provisions you will not get into any difficulty." She handed Jones his gavel but said he couldn't have the official PTA president's pin because he wasn't a woman and that the pin would be held in escrow until the election of the next woman president. And she promised to send all the new officers their own manual.

It could be funny and it could be maddening. In 1967 I expressed my frustration in a piece for a local paper written as a letter to a friend moving into my neighborhood:

Don't complain if Deborah comes home from elementary school with dirty hands. There are not enough wash basins to go around and she's just being considerate to the other kids.

Don't complain if John's junior high history text stops with the League of Nations. . .

Don't call a cab after sundown. It won't come.

Look at the underside of produce in the supermarket. If it is less than 25% spoiled, buy it. You won't do better.

Don't call policemen "boy." That's a special phrase they reserve for their own use.

Train your dog to use the first spot of grass he finds. A choosy canine around here can be very tiring.

That scrawny tree behind your house is not dead. It is called a tree of heaven and it meant to have just three leaves on each branch. It only grows in blocks with a median income of less than $3,000 a year.

It is all right to call the Post Office after the third missed mail delivery. But don't quote them that line about "neither snow nor rain not heat." They are not familiar with it. They will think you're some sort of hippy poet and will seize and burn all your mail.

Yet there was another side I attempted to describe in an article I wrote in the 1980s:

Twenty years ago this town was, in many ways, a more exciting and appealing place than it is today. I'm not talking economics here -- obviously the economic status of many Washingtonians is far better then it was two decades ago, in part because of real advances and in part be-cause the less economically successful (including many teachers, cops, and firefighters, for example) can't afford to live here anymore. And I'm not talking about changes that were national in scope, such the dramatic improvements for minorities and women.

I'm talking about the culture and spirit of the place, factors that can be quite independent of economic and social indices. I'm talking about a city where people were doing things, not just buying them and showing them off. The nouveau slick with their nouveau cliches, being consumers and parasites rather than creators and participants, wouldn't have liked it, because to enjoy the Washington of the 1960s you had to be a part of it -- you couldn't merely shop or strut in it. Its fertilizer came from a characteristic that Henry James had noted 60 years earlier an "extraordinarily easy and pleasant" quality of life. It was the unassuming aspect of Washington so hospitable to people of ideas, to artists , to dissidents of varied stripe, and to those who sought a place from which to discover or change the world.

Washington had a social elite, but it kept out of the way of the generic culture; the leading members of this elite, after all, had long ago been accurately dubbed "cave dwellers." The government loomed large, but its turf and its hours of influence: were also circumscribed. To a young person coming to Washington in the 1960s it was a frontier offering both space and opportunity. Outside of what James called the "imperial part" of Washington, if there was an elite it was of the sort well-described by E.M. Forster an aristocracy of the "sensitive, the considerate, and the plucky." The very nature of Washington as an ill-defined culture spread a welcome mat to the new. With its natural charm and physical modesty, its gentleness and lack of urban hysteria, it was a perfect place for trying what hadn't been tried before.

It worked for artists. It worked for young black activists who succeeded in changing so many political relationships in a way that their parents and grandparents could only dream about. It worked for those who believed, as one still could, that power should have some moral end. It worked for those who wanted to try out new definitions of community that would have meaning to themselves and their children It even worked for those who sought nothing more than a satisfying adulthood in a comfortable place.

The issues the Gazette covered and the causes it pressed ran the gamut. We campaigned for the then novel idea of packer sanitation trucks to replace the high sided open trash trucks. And we warned readers not put dog and cat dirt in their trash cans, quoting a trashman as saying, "How would you like to stand up in that truck in that stuff all day?'

We also quickly became a leading voice of the anti-freeway movement, and a precocious supporter of light rail and bikeways years before such phenomena became popular. Kathy would later recall going to an anti-freeway meeting and being astounded that we thought we were actually going to stop a highway. In fact, we didn't stop the one we were fighting; it sliced through Southeast Washington, dividing public housing from the rest of the community. The Gazette ran a photo two young boys looking wistfully up at "Southeast's Berlin Wall." But before it was all over, people like us all over DC had stopped hundreds of lane-miles that would have made the city look like an east-coast Los Angeles.

There was always something to save - such as the 200-old trees in Lincoln Park - and something to promote -- such as a new swimming pool - and something to cover - such as activists Janie Boyd and Marguerite Kelly, who were taking on the local supermarket chains. They challenged quality disparities between outlets in different parts of town and campaigned for the open dating of meat. Meat at that time was dated with a code known only to supermarket employees. The Gazette took the bold position that "an understandable date on each package of meat would be of considerable value to the shopper," noting that "we have shared with other consumers the experience of having meat go bad soon after it has been brought home and put in the refrigerator."

The consumer activists also went comparison shopping, coming up with prices at inner city Safeways up to a third higher than those in a white section of town. Further they demonstrated that prices were hiked when welfare checks came out.

During congressional hearings, Rep. Henry Reuss double-checked the figures at lunch time, returning to the hearing room with bags of groceries that he placed on the podium. When a Safeway official blamed some of the price differences on human error, Reuss responded, "In an hour and half I found quite bit of human error."

We also ran a feature on Jane Hardin who had opened a combination laundromat and legal services office on Pennsylvania Ave., where on the first day someone stuck a quilt into a washer, jamming up the pipes. And we wrote about community police officer Ike Fulwood who, as we drove past some grim public housing, remarked, "There's trouble. They never ask the police their opinion when they build public housing." Fulwood would eventually become the city's chief of police.

But things were already well beyond the capacity of any one community to solve. America's cities were starting to burn and you could feel the heat even in Capitol East. In September 1967, anti-poverty activist Lola Singletary convinced the white businessmen of H Street to form a organization dedicated to involvement in community problems The group, the Gazette reported, "intends to deal with such issues as employment, welfare, safety, health, housing, recreation and urban planning."

In late 1967 I came up with the idea of pulling together the various leaders of Capitol East into an informal leadership council with the possibility of forming a major neighborhood coalition. Fourteen people attended a meeting on January 31: 7 white and 7 black.

Among our purposes:

To share our group differences so we can increase our knowledge of one another's group positions, plans and needs.

To increase opportunities to share our group concerns so that we can better support one another's group efforts.

To obtain full representation for our community in civic and governmental affairs.

To unite in common action where we have agreement.

Your participation in the Council does not commit your organization to any position or organizational arrangement.

In February 1968, I wrote in the Gazette:

As contrary as the thought is to our national self-image, it is entirely possible that we are giving up the struggle to solve the deepest problems of our cities. . . National Guard troops are undergoing special training. Hotlines are being established. Armored trucks are being purchased. Police riot equipment is being beefed up. . . .Ramsey Clark, the Attorney General, was probably correct when he told a group of police chiefs and city officials recently that the nation's power to deal with urban riots is increasing faster "than the underlying layers of frustration that cause them."

On March 6, I wrote a prospective member

Although the Leadership Council has yet to establish a formal structure, the present trend appears to be in favor of a loose federation of leaders, relatively unstructured, and designed so we can act effectively when we have agreement but not get hung up when we don't.

In the issue that appeared in late March, I wrote:

It seems like a lot of people, both the militants and the extremist moderates, are putting down Martin Luther King. I share some of the doubts that have been expressed as to whether his efforts this spring will make any difference. On the other hand, I wonder whether anything will. MLK does have one big factor in his favor. He is doing something. Congress isn't. The White House isn't. The District isn't. The Urban League isn't. Stokely isn't. Possible or impossible, King's show is the best we have in town this spring and it behooves all who would like to see some changes made to lend a hand.

That same month, the US Court of Appeals ordered the city to halt construction on four major sections of the city's freeway system. For a change, it looked as if we might be winning.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, I was up on T Street with a group of anti-freeway protesters picketing the mayor's house, when word came of Martin Luther King Jr.'s death. We went home as the police cars poured by filled with shotgun-armed and helmeted police.

The next morning things were quiet enough that we went about our business as usual. But I came home that afternoon from the office a few blocks away to find a slow stream of people walking down the street with liberated articles: hangers full of clothes, a naugahyde hassock, a television set. Somewhere in our neighborhood a woman walked off with a case of whiskey from a liquor store. When she got home she realized she didn't have any soda to go with it. She went back and was arrested as she tried to liberate her chaser.

There were only a few whites living in the block; but I felt little tension or hostility. I mainly noted the black smoke drifting down from H Street, four blocks away. Kathy was out back working in our foot-wide strip of garden, listening to reports of looting and arson on a portable radio as a black fog settled in. We decided to go up on the roof for a better look. H Street was burning. Others areas had gone first and the radio reported a lack of fire equipment to deal with the situation a few blocks to the north. I tried to count the fires but they congealed under the curtain of smoke.

We decided to pack just in case. For about ten minutes we gathered an instinctive selection of nostalgic items, favorite photos, the non-valuable but irreplaceable. Then we looked at what we had done and laughed. Like loyal children of our generation, we settled down in our smoky living room to watch on television what was happening to us.

At six-thirty the next morning, a white friend from around the corner rang our doorbell. He wasn't in trouble; he just wanted company on a tour of the area. We got into his car and drove to H, Seventh and 14th Streets. As I looked at the smoldering carcass of Washington and observed the troops marching down the street past storefronts that no longer had any windows, I thought, so this is what war is like. As we drove past a gutted store on 14th Street it suddenly reignited itself and flames leaped towards the pavement.

That day and for several days thereafter, we stuck to home. The trouble had flared again. We received anxious calls from friends and relatives in another parts of town and in other towns. We assured them we were all right; they seemed more upset about our physical safety than we were and I did not want t alarm them by speaking what was in my mind.

For a year and a half of running a neighborhood newspaper, I had observed, and tried to report, a part of the community seething with emotions much of the other part refused to recognize. Now it was worse than even I had thought and anger, frustration and helplessness washed up on my mind's shore.

I subconsciously prepared myself for it to get worse. In the middle of one of the riot nights, I awakened to a rumbling noise in the street and ran to the window expecting to see tanks rolling past our house. There were no tanks. In fact, the physical threat of the riots barely touched us.

The strange ambivalence of the riots -- the slashes of violence mixed indiscriminately with the sparkle of carnival, the sounds of racial war penetrating the tranquility of a white couple's home four blocks from disaster, our strangely ordinary experiences in an extraordinary situation -- made the disorder a crazy amalgam that took weeks to sort out. For months after, when sporadic violence hit stores in our neighborhood, I expected to find our newspaper office smashed and looted. It wasn't, despite the inviting glass storefront. I was inclined, with normal self delusion, to attributed this to having paid my dues. It was more likely that our second hand electric typewriters weren't worth the candle when there was a whole Safeway up the street and a cleaners right on the corner.

Some people seemed to think I had something to do with it all. One of my advertisers, the photo dealer Harry Lunn, told me late one night that if anyone firebombed his store he was going to come and personally burn my house down. He had been or was still with the CIA so I tended to take him seriously.

Len Kirsten, an advertiser and owner of the Emporium, was more blasé. A lady walked into the store one day and, spotting the pile of Gazettes on the floor, said, "Isn't that a Communist paper?"

"Oh no," Len replied cheerfully. "The editor's a communist but the paper isn't."

On the other hand, Lee, of Helen & Lee's Chinese carryout was totally indifferent to politics. Lee and his wife ran a regular ad bragging that the carryout had been recommended by their four doctor sons. One of the items on the menu was a pork chop sandwich -- the chop still on a bone slapped between two pieces of Wonder Bread. After Helen died, the sign over the door was changed to read: & Lee's Carryout.

Another favorite advertiser was Harry Spack, owner of Spack's Chicken on the Hill, which had a storefront windows filled with an 1883 Swiss music box, an airplane propeller, opera glasses, statuettes and drug store jewelry. There are Arabic sabers hanging over the restroom doors and travel posters on the wall. Also "the world's smallest bar" -- a few shelves filled with miniature liquor bottles.

"Now someday this place is going to have class," Spack told our reporter, Greg Lawrence. "You know -- cosmopolitan, relaxing, with fine music from the past. For instance," he said as he reached for an object under the counter, "this vase from Europe has been dyed by its creators in pigeon blood. Now I ask you, what other cafe on Capitol Hill features decorations dyed in pigeon blood?"

The riot did more than $3 million worth of property damage. In the vicinity of H Street and some 124 commercial establishments and 52 homes were damaged. Another 21 businesses were damaged on or near 8th street. I wrote:

The destruction did not end with the quelling of the riot and the removal of federal troops who had guarded the area after being called in by city officials. Sporadic arson occurred, primarily along H Street, doing hundreds of thousand of dollars additional damage. . . Reaction varied from the intense anger of many white merchants at the failure of police to shoot looters to the feeling on the part of some community leaders that a new opportunity had been created to correct old economic and social wrongs.

During the riots, Mayor Walter Washington had been called to the office of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, where he was told to start shooting looters. Washington refused, saying that "you can replace material goods, but you can't replace human beings." Hoover then said, "Well, this conversation is over." Replied Washington, "That's all right, I was leaving anyway."

One white businessman, Milton Hoffman of Art Young's clothing store, which had been burned in the riot, proposed a one percent of gross sales contribution by businesses to be used for community projects. Black businesses posted large "soul brother" signs on windows and walls. Private social agencies and anti-poverty centers were left alone. A laundry near the US Marine Barracks received special attention; guards with fixed bayonets protected the troop's clothing inside. The riots had created their own rules.

At the time of the riot early 25% of the labor force in Capitol East was either unemployed, earning less than $3000 a year or employed only part-time. Over half of all adults living in the east part of the neighborhood had eight years or less schooling. Over a quarter of the housing units in this same area were listed by the census as dilapidated or deteriorating.

Not long after the riots it was Easter and three local ministers, Tom Torosian, Jesse Anderson and Ralph Dwan held a sunrise service on 8th Street, refusing what Camus called the sin of despair.

The riots weren't the end of it. Even where there was a building to come back to, business on H Street wouldn't really return for decades. A real estate dealer's home was fire bombed as was a local settlement house. White and black friends no longer saw each other. And one day, in the dingy basement offices of SNCC, Stokely Carmichael said that we whites were no longer welcome in the civil rights movement. Black nationalism had arrived and people like me were out.

The dream of a functioning bi-racial community was in pieces. H Street, with its jagged free standing walls and piles of rubble, looked like photos from a World War II retrospective. For me, hope had lost its virginity. There was no work for a white editor in a black neighborhood anymore. If I was to talk to anyone now, they would have look a lot more like me.

To be sure, a bi-racial slate of reform Democrats was elected in early May as convention delegates and central committee members. The slate included both Bobby Kennedy and Gene McCarthy supporters, united in a desire to defeat the locally popular Hubert Humphrey. I won one of McCarthy's slots on the party central committee. McCarthy had stated that he wanted no part of a coalition but some of his supporters, including myself, disagreed and so worked out a deal. A few days before the riot, the anti-war Democrats for Peace and Progress held a neighborhood convention in Capitol East. Five persons -- a community organizer, a minister , a physicist, a school lunch clerk, and myself -- were nominated. To my surprise, the Kennedy organization accepted us as well as other McCarthyites from around the city.

It was an unprecedented relinquishment of political power to mere party members and it produced an unusual slate that included community organizers and college professors, mothers on welfare and lawyers, black militants and a white philanthropist. Possibly no slate in America has ever been so varied.

The slate also included Sophie Reuther, wife of Victor Reuther. A former union organizer, she had once jumped out of a second story window to escape armed KKKers who had been set upon the union at the urging of management. Recalled Victor later, "She went underground and it took me three days to find her." It was not a singular incident. On Sophie's 25th birthday, her party had been interrupted by two gun-wielding company thugs who forced their way in and began pistol-whipping Walter Reuther, her brother-in-law.

Our campaign was short, lasting about month and for some of us election day began to close rapidly before we had any notion of what we were supposed to be doing. Typical of our appearances was a "debate on Vietnam" before a group of 12 persons. Since my opponent was also opposed to the war, our confrontation was rather turgid. We were preceded by a couple of 14th Precinct cops who promised to get an abandoned car towed away and to take action on other matters less cosmic than withdrawal from Southeast Asia. I was glad the policemen were not running for office. Still we knew we had support. A poll taken by a community group found that 44% already favored an end to the war's escalation and to the bombing of North Vietnam.

I was second from the end of the ballot which hardly boded well for my political career. I contemplated the slogan, "Roses are red, violets are blue; you'll find me listed at the end of page 2." Another more Stevensonian phrase briefly crossed my mind: "Vote for the penultimate candidate." I eventually settled on a flyer which proclaimed that "The District's Friend is Second from the End," which was never circulated because a fellow candidate pointed out that it violated a cardinal political rule against "single-shooting" on a slate.

Another political lesson came from a friend who upbraided me for having passively accepted my full name on the ballot. He said I should have gone immediately into court. The publicity alone would have been worth 1,000 votes.

Eventually I did most of what a good candidate should. Kathy and I even participated in one and a half parades. We didn't quite make through the second one owing to our VW's weak battery.

On election day I stood outside my precinct distributing sample ballots. The Humphrey people were there too, but our main competition came from a man who accosted as many voters as he could and read them a two-page polemic against the police department for having stolen his watch three years earlier.

Inside my wife served as a Kennedy poll watcher in what was DC's second election after a century of a full colonialism. Early in the morning the precinct election official had hung some political posters to decorate the drab voting area. Kathy indicated that the posters were nice but illegal. She also met a lady whose name she could not find on the voter list and who told her, "Oh, you won't find me. I'm just here from Philadelphia visiting my aunt and I thought I'd come by." Kathy thanked her and suggested that her vote might better be cast in Philadelphia.

Late in the afternoon, I moved to a corner with my card file of known favorable voters who had yet to cast a ballot, dispatching a small squadron of volunteer kids to remind them. We won and the next day, the Evening Star offered this editorial comment on the new Democratic Central Committee:

They are likely to be more militant, more aggressive and more insistent on direct participation in local affairs. What this bodes for the community remains to be seen.

With such unbridled enthusiasm from the establishment, we were off to a good start.

Then, one month later, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, completing the hat trick of evil begun four years earlier with the killing of his brother, followed by the slaying of Martin Luther King. While the other deaths may have been more tragic to more people, in one respect RFK's was the most profound, for it appeared to shut the door on hope. What had been with his brother a grim anomaly had turned into a grisly habit. I wrote about it on June 7, 1968, two days after Kennedy was shot. He had died a day later:

Following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, one of his associates is said to have told another: "The time will come when we shall laugh again; but we shall never be young again."

The comment, I suppose, was about those closest to the dead president, but it also contained a truth for the country. As I sat before a television set the last few days, attempting to sort the emotions marching through my mind, the thought that kept coming back was how weary, how old, we had all become. The inertia of age had settled upon the nation in the years following John Kennedy's death it seemed, and now we were stoically acting out one more scene in an unrelieved tragedy.

There were attempts to respond to the slaying of Robert Kennedy with affirmations of a will to change the old ways, but they appeared hollow. The nation had watched John Kennedy die and had not changed; it had watched Martin Luther King die and had not changed. Now it watched Robert Kennedy die and even the most effervescent and optimistic among us could not summon a viable vision of a new order to lessen our brooding. . .

The central point of the tragedies was not their proximate cause but rather that we, as a nation, had assigned so much of the burden of hope, progress, decency and faith to so few men.

Their deaths leave us shaken, fearful and alone because we had been so willing to share their vitality only vicariously. We permitted them to affirm for us rather than with us. Their stature was increased by our common weakness as much as by their individual strength. They were exceptions, when they should have been the best among many. . .

In the excruciating hours following the shooting of Robert Kennedy a soft-drink commercial interrupted the coverage of the event and on the screen came images of young men and women romping across the sand of a beach with hair waving, teeth glistening, and cans of soda held high. There was an ersatz gaiety to the scene. So strained was the laughter that one could not help sense an absence of joy.

And then, as suddenly as the 60-second artifice had come, it was gone and we were back with Kennedy again. And in the film clips of the campaigning there was hair waving and people moving with enthusiasm and glistening teeth. But this time it was real. And there were the pictures of the campaign ballrooms of Kennedy and McCarthy after the shooting and the hair hung limp on young foreheads, the lips pursed tight over the teeth and there were tears. And that was real too. And I thought of the commercial and said to myself, sell your damn soda but leave us at least real laughter and real tears. .

Robert Kennedy was no artifice. No one had packaged him. His political career might have been smoother if they had. He stood before us as a man, with his faults and virtues on view. I was among those who were quick to criticize him. I make no apologies for that other than to say that I, like many, overestimated his capacity for cynicism and underestimated his capacity for compassion. But that is no matter.. . For unlike many politicians, Kennedy did not seek mindless adulation. He asked to be listened to, challenged, questioned and tested. And he, in turn, expected to listen, challenge and test. . .

Tomorrow I shall go down to see the funeral cortege arrive at Union Station. I shall go not just out of sorrow and respect, but also to try to find some small sign that we collectively - without waiting for someone else to do it for us - are willing and able to have a dream, or seek a newer world.

Then, perhaps, we can become young again.

Later in June I wrote:

To a large extent, a community such as Capitol East is limited in its ability to respond with justice and adequacy to the current situation. Even if we had the will to change, we would remain hostage to the larger inertia of the nation and the city.

In September I wrote:

The Republicans have nominated Richard Nixon for president. The Democrats have nominated Hubert Humphrey for president. The reading scores of Capitol East schools are lower than ever. Some 9th Precinct patrolmen don't want to ride in integrated scout cars. Some white DC fireman don't want to use the same breathing apparatus as black firemen. Congress has passed, and the President has signed a bill ordering the District to complete a freeway program overwhelmingly opposed by the people of the city. DC Transit wants another fare hike and the transit commission says there's nothing it can do about it. . . We could write an editorial on each of these items, but they'd all be pretty much the same. From the mundane to the cosmic, it's been a busy month. We think we'll just wait until October and hope things get better.

About six months later, I folded the Capitol East Gazette into the DC Gazette, a publication more like the many underground papers sprouting throughout America. I wrote:

We have decided to suspend publication of the Capitol East Gazette. Our reason for this change is that we have been unable to develop either the advertising base or the paid circulation within Capitol East to support a separate community paper. For more than three years, we have tried very hard to make the Capitol East Gazette a self-sustaining paper. . .

This was a sad and difficult decision to make. We believe, however, that the DC Gazette which shows considerable potential, is a logical extension of the type of reporting and commentary we have been doing in the Capitol East community. The most serious problems of our neighborhood in the areas of schools, housing, transportation, police, racism and the like, are citywide. We hope that the DC Gazette can help the many neighborhoods that make up the District tackle these problems together.

Later I would explain it by saying that it seemed like too many of my readers wanted to burn down too many of my advertisers, but it wasn't really funny. And it still hurts.

Copyright 1997 Sam Smith

An Unauthorized Memoir
by Sam Smith

GEORGETOWN: A child of contradictions

GHOSTS: The ubiquitous past

BECOMING: Playing with and putting away childish things

FRIENDS A Quaker education

MAGNA CUM PROBATION: Falling from grace at Harvard U

THE CANARIES IN STUDIO A  in which a young radio reporter learns a lot about the media and Washington in a short time.

SUSPECT: The author becomes a 23-year-old suspected spy.

HOOLIGAN DAYS: A memoir of the Coast Guard

SEEDS The 60s before they became the 60s; in which your editor discovers the civil rights and anti-war movements.

HOW THE TROUBLE BEGAN:   A long adventure in alternative journalism began in the mid-sixties

FIRE: The Washington riots and other suspensions of hope

PLACE: The battle for local power

THE LONELIEST MILE IN TOWN:  Adventures in apostasy

GROWING GREEN The birth of a movement

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Thursday, January 08, 2015

Freedom and the assertion of the true self

I started this blog ten years ago, this month, in reaction to the reelection of George W. Bush. Although I did some campaign work for the Democrats in 2004, I felt that I didn’t do enough, say enough, risk enough, to have a part in changing the direction of a government lassoed by our cowboy president and his chortling arms tycoon, Cheney. I could no longer “sit there and say nothing.”

That brings me to the tragic events in Paris, Wednesday, when Stéphane Charbonnier, the editor of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hedbo, and a team of committed cartoonists were murdered, just for presenting a wry view of the relationship between fundamentalism and a free society. He refused to stop, even after the paper’s offices were firebombed in 2011.

They had something to say, these journalists. They could not say nothing, even though it was obvious their government could not protect them.

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Kate Hudson for Harper’s Bazaar US, December 2013

This is far by my favorite Kate Hudson Editorial photographed by famous Alex Lubomirski. In the editorial called "California Dreaming: Kate Hudson" gorgeous actress is wearing beautiful gowns and all embellished sexy mini dresses and sultry all glowing swimwear. Her look was absolutely fabulous and her smile was prettier then never before. In this editorial for Harper’s Bazaar US Kate reveals more about her life with husband and two gorgeous children, about her life as actress and fashion diva, if you wish to read more then wait no longer and read the interview with stunning blonde in mag itself :)

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Compensation Study

Consultant Reports

Stan McKnight and Drew Brock of Stan McKnight and Associates made two “town hall” presentations of the results of (1) a faculty compensation study and (2) a separate study of administrative/professional faculty compensation. Relevant documents from those presentations are available at the links below:

UMW_Faculty Comp Study 081711 presentation
Faculty Scales Final
UMW_AP Comp Study 081711 presentation

Message From President Rick Hurley, September 2, 2011

Dear Teaching and Administrative Faculty:

Again, I want to thank all of you for your participation in the compensation study process. The consultants reports for each of the compensation studies are now posted for your information. Still pending are the Administrative Faculty position grade assignments. I expect to receive additional recommendations from the Administrative Faculty Compensation Steering Committee within the next few weeks and will also make those available, as promised. Your leadership, thoughtful discussions, and feedback have been invaluable and will continue to make a difference as we now translate these results into effective compensation strategies.

Rick Hurley

As President Rick Hurley announced at the “University Assembled” meeting on January 12, the University has engaged the services of a consultant, Stan McKnight and Associates, based in California, to study our teaching faculty and administrative faculty salaries and compensation structures. This consultant group has worked extensively in the higher ed community throughout the country, including recent contracts for similar studies with the College of William and Mary and UVA.

This initiative was prompted by our need to be fully informed about equity, internally and externally as well as market competiveness. Our positions and salaries will be benchmarked against positions at other private and public liberal arts institutions that are similar in size, budget, student composition, and academic programs, that also have accredited business colleges or schools.

Here are documents relevant to the salary studies:

The goal is to come away from the study with a model salary design for each group that will inform hiring and salary progression for each teaching and administrative/professional faculty position. Results generated by the study will also inform our discussions regarding issues of salary compression, salary inversion, and the resource requirements and priorities required for addressing these issues.

To ensure that the studies are informed, transparent, inclusive, and responsive they are being guided by two representative steering committees, with the assistance of the Office of Human Resources.

The teaching faculty study is being overseen by:

Richard Finklestein, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
Larry Penwell, Acting Dean, College of Business
Mary Gendernalik-Cooper, Dean, College of Education
Jane Huffman, Chair, Department of Foundations, Leadership, and Special Populations
Eric Gable, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Gladys Gomez, Department of Accounting and Information Systems
John Morello, Associate Provost for Academic Affairs

The administrative/professional faculty study is being overseen by:

Tera Kovanes, Internal Auditor
Hall Cheshire, Information Technology
Carol Stevens, Office of Academic Services
Eric Gable, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Allyson Moerman, Administration and Finance
Marion Sanford, Student Affairs
Ken Steen, Advancement and University Relations
Mark Safferstone, Division of Professional Development and Regional Engagement (Internal Consultant)

If you have any questions about the study please contact your college or division representative on the appropriate steering committee or Sabrina Johnson at in the Office of Human Resources.


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Melissa Snow, LPCC, LSC

Melissa Snow LPCC, LSC

Melissa Snow works with children, adolescents, adults and families and has a special interest in college-related issues in young adults. Additional specialty areas are Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), adjustment disorders, anxiety, self-esteem and depression.  Her experience includes providing behavioral health care services at Applewood Center, Guidestone and the Kent State University Counseling Center. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Cleveland State University and master’s degrees in both community mental health counseling and school counseling from Kent State University, earning the university Professional Development Award. A member of the Ohio Counseling Association and the Ohio School Counseling Association, she served as a board member for both professional organizations.

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Financial Diagnosis: The Effect of The Credit Rating System on How We Feel About Ourselves

With almost every meaningful institution now committed to free market self-interest, Americans inhabit a culture of competition, inadequacy, anxiety, and low self-esteem. A person’s value in this culture solely derives from the ability to make profits. This is not a recipe for happiness; rather, it is a recipe for anguish and servitude.

JD Banke, "Mr. Coray"

For what purpose does the free market economy inflict psychological distress? Quite simply, because those with wealth in our society want to keep their power, and an anxious population ensures their position. With deregulation, wealth has steadily funneled upward into the hands of the few, thanks to the labors of everyone else, who now work for less pay and poorer benefits. At the same time, those who work for the wealthy struggle under the illusion that they, too, have a chance to “succeed.” This fool’s quest, in turn, leads to discontent and frustration on a colossal scale.

In brief, modern America’s free market economy has an interest in keeping people anxious and insecure. Only their economic fear keeps them coming to work for their wealthy employers. The “American Dream” offers a faint gleam of hope, but this, too, is an illusion intended to keep people from giving up on a rigged game.

Most Americans face a lifetime of financial obligation in the free market. It is their responsibility to pay their bills, including bills for staples like education and health care. To get a crack at the “American Dream,” most go into debt. And all around them, they face enticements to buy things to make them happy–on consumer credit.

America is a nation of debtors. From impoverished college graduates to overextended credit card holders, almost no one escapes debt’s shadow. The wealthy get richer by loaning money, charging interest and — in many cases — selling their accounts to other creditors for a fee. In the process, they not only guarantee an endless income stream, but they also transform the entire population into financial vassals.

Like feudal barons, creditors in modern America expect devotion from their vassals. In this sense, debt cements the social order. It brands the debtor as servant and enthrones the creditor as master. The law supports the master, empowering him to take harsh action against his servant if he does not honor his obligation to pay. And it relegates the debtor to a lifetime of insecurity, inadequacy, fear, and resentment. If he does not honor his master, he loses his wages, home or worse.

And the free market does not stop there. It has a ruthlessly efficient way to brand its vassals: The credit reporting system.

Few economic phenomena wield such destructive psychological influence on Americans as the credit reporting system. It represents a private tyranny, a secret cartel that assigns numbers to its subjects, boiling them down to a crude probability representing whether or not they will pay their bills on time. While the free market causes anxiety, hopelessness, low self-esteem and anger in a general sense, the credit reporting system does so in a very specific, tangible way. Through credit reporting, those ensnared in the free market do not just intuit that they are inadequate; they get a score telling them just how inadequate they really are, down to the last decimal.

All Americans stress over their credit rating. But very few understand what it is, who determines it, and how it arose. What exactly is credit reporting? What is the credit score? It is no accident that few people know how credit reporting works; it wields psychological influence precisely because it is inscrutable and secret. Like a modern day Inquisition, the credit reporting system carries out clandestine investigations, makes clandestine judgments, and circulates its quasi-official findings to anyone who will pay its fee.

In this light, it is no wonder that Americans fear their credit rating: They have almost no control over it, they do not really know who formulates it and — for all concerns and purposes — it determines their financial future.

Most Americans fear credit reporting in the same way they fear government power. Just as a person caught in the criminal justice system feels overwhelmed by an incomprehensible institution with power over life and property, so too does a person struggling with credit scores feel lost in a mysterious system with power over his economic life.

Yet there is a key difference between the criminal justice system and credit reporting: The government has no role in credit reporting. That dreaded credit score is not a criminal sentence; no State authority empowers it.

Instead, the credit score results from three private, mammoth, mysterious “credit bureaus” that make astronomical profits collecting — and selling — every conceivable piece of financial data about everyone in the United States. This process is called “data mining.” These bureaus are not government agencies; they are private businesses selling a valuable product to other private businesses, like any other participant in the free market. They do not wield State power, but given their influence on everything from getting a home loan, a professional license, a job, or an apartment lease, it certainly seems as if they do. Worse still, the credit score does not just permit or forbid economic activity. It literally brands people with an unpredictable number they will carry as different digits for their whole lives, just as a criminal carries the stigma of a conviction, or as a “mental patient” carries the stigma of a diagnosis.

How did this happen? How did these corporations gain so much government-like authority over such vital parts of people’s lives? It is a legitimate question, and one that demands an explanation.

Credit bureaus began as adjuncts to the financial industry. They had a simple purpose: To help banks determine whether it was worth the risk to disburse money to a person applying for a loan. Like any self-interested participant in the free market, a bank wants a profit. To secure that profit, it has to assess every conceivable threat. When it comes to loaning money to someone, that “threat” is the borrower:

What kind of person is he? Will he pay the money back on time? Will he honor his obligation to the bank?

In essence, a bank wants to know that it will make money on a transaction. And to feel comfortable in that knowledge, it has to know what kind of character it is loaning money to. To slake banks’ desire to guarantee profits from loans, credit bureaus entered the “data collection business.” The only way the bureaus could certify that a particular applicant was “creditworthy” was to determine his “financial character.” And to do that, they had to amass as much information about the person as possible. They had to examine the applicant’s bill-paying history, his financial status, whether he had outstanding debt, whether he had borrowed money before, whether a court had ever entered a judgment against him for a debt. In short, they had to look at the past to decide how he would act in the future. They had to predict how he would honor his creditor today based on how he had honored his creditors yesterday.

To make their predictions, credit bureaus in turn employed information tributaries, so-called “data furnishers” — other banks, creditors and debt collectors — that streamed all kinds of information to them about potential borrowers. In most cases, this meant tracking all their bills, all their financial transactions, and — most importantly — whether they ever paid late, or missed a payment.

Private businesses all too readily supplied this information. After all, in the free market, those with power (like creditors, employers, landlords and banks) have an interest in maintaining their position by guaranteeing profitable transactions. It made sense to share information about consumers so they could maximize their chances to make profits in the future from the “right people,” namely, people who paid their bills on time, every time, no matter what. That’s the kind of people they could do business with. A person with a good credit rating was not just a “good person,” he was a sure bet, too.

But these “data furnishers” did not just supply financial information to the bureaus. They also supplied non-commercial facts, such as whether an individual was married, homosexual, communist, had a college degree, or carried on extramarital affairs. All these “facts” went into the bureau’s “file” on the applicant, and these “facts” supplied the basis for assigning an ominous “credit score” onto him through an elaborate, incomprehensible algorithm.

Equipped with the score, the bank could assess whether the applicant posed an acceptable risk. It could then safely proceed with the loan, secure in the knowledge that it would make a profit.

Not surprisingly, credit reporting and credit scores became immensely popular among creditors. Here was an easy, ostensibly objective way to reduce every person on earth to a number that could tell them whether he would honor his obligations on time — and guarantee their profits. Faced with greater demand, credit bureaus grew in scope, ultimately coalescing into the three titans of modern American credit reporting: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.

It did not take long for other free market barons to see the potential in credit ratings. What began as a calculation to help banks assess whether they could make a profit on a loan soon branched into other economic sectors. Soon, employers, landlords, State licensing authorities, and insurance companies began buying reports from credit bureaus. The bureaus — and the credit score numbers they peddled — assumed the role of “moral guarantors” for anyone who would pay their fee. Their scores, they said, could tell you not just whether a person would pay their rent or insurance premium on time, but whether he was a “moral person.” From this perspective, what a makes a person moral is whether he honors his obligations to his creditors: On time, every time, with no excuses or explanations.

In essence, the credit score coopted morality, equated it with economic loyalty to creditors, and passed it off as ethics.

Now, credit scores dominate American life. Before hazarding a transaction with people struggling to make ends meet in the free market, those with economic power want to see a credit report. Try to get a job, you need a credit report. Try to get an apartment, you need a credit report. Try to get a home loan, you need a credit report. Try to get a cell phone plan, you need a credit report. Try to get insurance, you need a credit report. Try to get on a payment plan to pay for dental work, you need a credit report.

Woe to you if your “score” is poor. You will not get the goods and services you need. You have been branded a “credit risk,” someone who will not honor his obligations to his financial master. You are not worthy, you are worthless, and probably immoral and unethical, too.

But God bless you if your “score” is good. You will get all the goods and services you need. You have been idolized as a “good debtor” who steadfastly honors his financial masters in all situations. That makes you worthy, moral, and good. After all, you pay your bills on time, every time, no excuses, no explanations. Those are the economic qua ethical values creditors want to see in their vassals.

Is loyalty to rapacious creditors really what makes a person “good” in our society? Is human worth and morality truly determined by a scale from 300 to 850? Should access to vital goods, services, and opportunities depend exclusively on a biased algorithm that arises in secret, with only limited opportunities to challenge or change it?

It is no wonder that credit scores cause such anxiety in American life. If you score poorly you won’t get a job, apartment, loan, or house. And at the same time, you must bear the stigma of “the person with bad credit,” a status akin to leprosy or insanity: No creditor will go near you.

Yet all the negative emotions associated with credit reporting mean nothing to the free market. From the free market’s perspective, people are potential profits. It cares nothing for their happiness or self-esteem. It simply wants to know whether they represent reliable revenue. Credit scores provide information in this regard, and that is all a creditor or landlord wants to know. In the free market, people are not unique individuals with hopes, dreams or — perish the thought — circumstances that might make them miss a bill payment once in a while. No, they are servants expected to tender their tributes to their economic lords. And lords do not want unreliable servants. They want their tribute the first time, every time.

In this light, we see how the credit reporting system reinforces the culture of inadequacy and unhappiness that drives the modern American free market. Most Americans cannot escape debt, nor can they make it through life without applying for jobs, renting apartments, or buying homes. In all these pursuits, they must submit themselves to the credit bureaus, opening themselves to secret investigations that brand them with numbers expressing judgment not just on their financial ability, but on their character, too.

It is no wonder that so many Americans live in fear of credit reporting, not to mention anxiety, resentment, and helplessness. There is little they can do about the credit bureaus and their procedures. After all, the bureaus assemble their data in secret, beyond scrutiny, without notice or an opportunity to be heard. If the bureaus report something inaccurately, the damage is done; it can take years to correct errors in credit reports, if at all. Although legislation has mandated that all Americans must have free access to their credit reports, the bureaus have either obscured that right, or freighted it with so many restrictions and inducements to pay money that it is barely worth the effort (i.e. the 2005 Experian case establishing recurring subscription as a condition to getting a “free credit report”). Even if a consumer manages to correct an error in one bureau’s report, there are still two other bureaus that might be selling inaccurate information to employers, banks, and landlords. And that information could determine access to essential goods and services. This is a recipe for helplessness and fear.

Credit reporting also unfairly conflates devotion to one’s economic betters with moral integrity.

In this sense, credit scores shame Americans into living their lives to maintain their credit numbers. “Bad credit” is a stigma as rueful as “criminal” or “crazy,” and no one wants to go through life with a scarlet letter. To avoid that fate, many Americans refuse to take risks with their money, live obediently, and do what their creditors tell them. They refrain from using their money for self-development or creativity, fearing that missing a payment to some creditor will tarnish their names for all time. They might even pay an erroneous or disputed bill, simply because it’s not worth taking the chance that it will go to collections and ruin their credit score. In debt-addled America, having a poor credit score is a very real danger. It limits access to everything from health care to employment. It is no wonder that Americans fear it, and live their lives to make sure it does not fall.

In effect, credit scores have locked most Americans into a life of blind economic servitude. By conflating morality with economic loyalty to creditors, most Americans truly believe that their credit scores tell them “what kind of people they are.” In this way, credit scores not only coerce them to live their lives to pay their creditors, but also force them into anxiety, inadequacy, and hopelessness. Combined with the fact that it is extremely difficult to “restore” a negative credit report, it is easy to see why many Americans feel depressed about their scores. They must bear their shame for a lifetime, confused as to whether their indentured financial performance makes them a “bad” person.

Viewed broadly, we see how credit scores work alongside other normalizing influences to curtail individuality and reduce the population to economic servitude. Just as modern psychiatry brands those dissatisfied with allegiance to free market life as “mentally ill,” so too does the credit reporting system brand those who do not devotedly honor their economic betters with “bad credit scores.” These “diagnoses” are one in the same: They proceed from those in power against those who behave in a way that frustrates power’s purposes. Just as the “mentally ill” person does not act in a way that serves the free market — whether through creative eccentricity, or some other refusal to live “normally” — so too does the “person with bad credit” not act in an obedient way–namely, to enrich his creditor at all costs. In both cases, psychiatry and credit reports punish the “deviant” for “rebelling” against power, heaping disadvantages and stigma upon him for his recalcitrance.

Ben Peck

Born in 1977 in New London, Connecticut, Benjamin Peck is a literature major, licensed attorney, blogger, writer and porn performer. He attended Columbia University, where he studied German and Russian literature, then obtained a law degree at Loyola University in Chicago. He found practicing law inconsistent with his moral and ethical values, however, and became a sex worker. He escorted extensively for several years beginning in 2010. He also began working as a porn performer that year, charting a new career course in his career. He lives in New York City , where he continues to care for his disabled partner of 13 years, as well as forge ahead with his career in progressive adult entertainment. Benjamin does not label himself straight, gay or bisexual, choosing instead to call himself "omnisexual," committed to sexuality in all its beautiful, life-affirming forms.

About Ben Peck 8 Articles
Born in 1977 in New London, Connecticut, Benjamin Peck is a literature major, licensed attorney, blogger, writer and porn performer. He attended Columbia University, where he studied German and Russian literature, then obtained a law degree at Loyola University in Chicago. He found practicing law inconsistent with his moral and ethical values, however, and became a sex worker. He escorted extensively for several years beginning in 2010. He also began working as a porn performer that year, charting a new career course in his career. He lives in New York City , where he continues to care for his disabled partner of 13 years, as well as forge ahead with his career in progressive adult entertainment. Benjamin does not label himself straight, gay or bisexual, choosing instead to call himself "omnisexual," committed to sexuality in all its beautiful, life-affirming forms.

1 Comment on Financial Diagnosis: The Effect of The Credit Rating System on How We Feel About Ourselves

  1. The article promotes dependency and victimization I would not share it with my children grandchildren or my clients. This negative victim message is the message my mother gave me and some of my liberal socialist professors gave me and it’s bull shit. I’m successful as so many of my family members are. Those that believed the negative ended up with nothing. Those that strived, thrived and have so much to be grateful for. Don’t believe the BS believe in being the best you can be.

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What is REMAP?

By Steve B. Reed, LPC, LMSW, LMFT

the REMAP process therapy

What is REMAP?  REMAP is an acronym for Reed Eye Movement Acupressure Psychotherapy.  REMAP, or the full REMAP process, is an acupressure-enhanced form of psychotherapy designed to treat the amygdala-based issues that impact the emotional midbrain.  Those issues cause an excessive activation of the sympathetic nervous system's fight-or-flight mechanism.

Another way to think about REMAP is as a sensory stimulation desensitization response (SSDR) method designed to reduce or eliminate trauma, panic attacks, phobias, generalized anxiety, anger and other intense emotional responses.

The REMAP process utilizes cognitive, behavioral, affective, and sensory stimulation (eye movement and tactile) interventions.  The psycho-sensory, tactile interventions include the stimulation of acupressure points that have been shown to produce changes in brain functioning and within the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.  SSDR types of methods would include such treatments as EMDR, REMAP and EFT.

REMAP is similar in some ways to Systematic Desensitization which desensitizes stress responses by pairing peripheral muscle relaxation with the stressful memory or experience.  But in the case of REMAP, the relaxation response is produced not just at a peripheral muscular level but also in the deeper regions of the brain where the body's alarm system (located in a part of the brain called the amygdala) is also calmed.  This produces a faster and more comfortable path to easing emotional pain.

The REMAP process training has been presented twice at Ohio State University Medical School.  REMAP lectures and training seminars have also been presented in Canada, Guatemala (Central America), Europe and throughout the United States.

The REMAP process has three branches, Quick REMAP, the Full REMAP Protocol and the REMAP Visual Field Treatment.

Here is some brief information about the methods and links that will let you find out more.

Quick REMAP provides simple and easy to use interventions that can reduce emotional distress fast.  Quick REMAP is based on interventions studied at prestigious institutions such as Harvard Medical School and the Yale School of Medicine.  It also includes some of the most potent interventions from traditional Chinese medicine.  Yet, these techniques are so simple that they can be used as self-help tools.

Introducing Quick REMAP

A Tale of Two Brains--How REMAP Can Help

Introduction to the 4-point Rapid Relief Protocol

Steps in the Quick REMAP (4-point) Rapid Relief Protocol

Quick REMAP--Better than Chocolate for Rapid Stress Relief

Detailed Results--Quick REMAP Research Experiment

Overcoming a Firefighter's Trauma (a REMAP Case Study)

Introduction of Firefighter article and Steve B. Reed

Quick REMAP--Emotional Intensity Amnesia

Agoraphobia--Relieving the Roots of Agoraphobia with Quick REMAP

Quick REMAP Trauma Treatment

The Full REMAP Protocol is a professional strength method that is customized to each individual.  This protocol is usually taught in professional training to mental health professionals.

Soothing the Sympathetic Nervous System with REMAP:

Results from Treating Eight Trauma Survivors

and Measuring Treatment Effect with Heart Rate Variability Analysis (Pilot Study)

Overcoming a Firefighter's Trauma (a REMAP Case Study)

Introduction of Firefighter article and Steve B. Reed

REMAP-- A New Form of Psychotherapy

Advantages to the REMAP process

The REMAP process: Letting Meridians Identify Emotions

Dinner and the Amygdala: An Introduction to a Fascinating Article

REMAP Potent Acupressure Points

Acupressure and the Brain

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Family Goals FHE

The fhe this week is very different from what we normally do. There are no cute handouts, no themed desserts and very little fluff! :) Kind of a stretch for me. However, after ward conference last week and a great combined Relief Society/Priesthood meeting yesterday, I have felt inspired to share some things with my children that we all need to work on.

We just moved a few weeks ago and the new stake we are in has listed 4 goals for the upcoming year for members of our stake. They are as follows:

1. Spend 30 minutes a day in the scriptures.

2. Make our Sabbath Day more holy.

3. Attend the temple monthly (at least!)

4. Be free of consumer debt within 3 years.

Our bishop pointed out yesterday that its kind of cool how the first goal is something we can do every day, the next something every week, the next something every month and the next we can work on for the next year and then some :) That really made it feel not quite so overwhelming to me and made me excited to share these goals with our little ones. Even though they are young they play a big part in these goals...especially numbers 1 and 2.

We are going to mostly talk about having family scripture study and how we can make our Sabbath Day more holy. I have some fun ideas about the latter that I will hopefully be sharing with you tomorrow in a throwback to "Cutting the Chaos...one week at a time!" Remember that??

Anyway, it will be short and sweet but I am excited to get the whole family on board with the goals we are going to be working on. I know these are things that will be pleasing unto the Lord, and I know He will bless us as we strive dilligently to do the things the leaders of our church have asked us to do. Hope you all have a great family night!!

Dental Health Week!!

Sounds exciting...doesn't it?! Since February is National Dental Health Month I figured it was a great time to spend a week focusing on the importance of our teeth, and making it fun for the kids. Also, I am having a lot of guilt about not taking my kids to the dentist as often as I should so they have appts for next week and I think this will be a fun way to get them excited about it!

I found all of these ideas at different preschool websites and am then tweaking them to fit our needs. The first idea that I found was a really cute one, and a great memory game. On a tray, place items that promote good dental health, such as a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, a container of dental floss, a small bottle of water, and a hand mirror. Also include a fresh fruit and a fresh vegetable, such as an apple and a carrot. Sit with your children around the tray and talk about how each item helps to keep teeth healthy. Then ask the children to close their eyes while you remove one of the items. When they open their eyes, have them try to guess which item is missing. Continue the game, each time rearranging the items on the tray and removing a different one. My kids LOVE playing memory games, so I am sure this one will be a hit!

I LOVE this next one....and not just because it involves Oreo's :) Give each of your children a couple of Oreo cookies. Have them eat them and let them look in the mirror at their teeth. Then discuss with them how plaque builds up on your teeth. Next give your children some fruit and have them look at their teeth again. Now tell your children how some foods are good for your teeth and how others are not. My kids do much better when thy have a good visual to go along with what I am teaching them.

I found this fun idea for a simple science experiment to do with the kids. Put several eggs into different liquids (cola, milk, orange juice, etc). Discuss with your children what they think will happen to the eggs in the different liquids. Leave the eggs in the liquids for a couple of days. When you take it out the kids can see what the liquids would do to their teeth.

A great craft idea was to make big teeth out of 20 oz bottles. Make large teeth with your children to help them learn to brush. It is really easy. Cut the bottom off of 20oz. or two litter bottles and cover them with white temper paint. I know my kids will at least have a good time getting messy :)

Finally I thought I would use a nice scare tactic to get them motivated to brush their teeth. Ever seen this treat before? We make them every year for Halloween, but I'm thinking it could be a great "this is what your teeth WILL look like if you don't brush" kind of teaching moment :)

Hope everyone has a great week and if you have any tips for taking kids to the dentist or enforcing good brushing habits...I would love to hear 'em!! :)

Manners Family Home Evening

UPDATE: Here is the link for the entire lesson, with printables!!! Enjoy!!

I was so excited when I googled this fhe and was able to find it online! I remember my mom doing this fhe for me and my brother YEARS ago...and if I remember it it must be pretty good, right?!

This cute story is all about dinosaurs and manners, something my kids love and something I hope to teach them to love :) I can no longer find the link I printed the story from so I decided to just type it up here...I am sorry I don't know where the credit goes to for this darling story, but its definitely not me! :)

Where the Dinosaurs Roam

I went to a land....not far from here where dinosarus roamed with manners I'd fear.

first of all I came across STINGY-STEGO. He's big and greedy. He thinks he should always be first in line, first one to play games, first one to eat, first one for everything. He acts like he is the only one thats important. He turns green with envy if you have something that he doesn't. He gets upset until he gets what he wants...and then he's happy. However, by then he's made everyone else miserable! But he's to greedy to realize that.

I quietly sneaked out of STINGY-STEGO's and no sooner had I left, I came upon and ANGRY-OSAURUS. Now he's okay to be around if he's happy, but if everything doesn't go his way, you better watch out!! He gets really pouty and really angry! He gets upset and angry if he has to do chores, if he doesn't get called on first in school, or if he has to share his toys. He never has any fun because he is too busy pouting and being angry. Do you know any ANGRY-OSAURUS' in your land?

Better watch out, here comes TATTLE-ACHODON! She is always on the look out for someone to tattle on. She doesn't play with others very much because she is too busy looking for people doing something wrong so she can tattle on them.

After coming across the TATTLE-ACHODON I decided this trip into the land not far from here was pretty exhausting, so I stopped for a picnic lunch high up in a tree. All of the sudden I heard a terrible noise! It was the YELL-ADACTYL, and boy was he noisy! You could hear him everywhere! He zooms and yells wherever he goes, he may not be very big, but he is very loud. Have you ever heard the voice of a YELL-ADACTYL before? I climbed out of that tree as quickly as I could!

Boy, I didn't know which way to go! No matter which way it went I seemed to come across something with horrible manners! Wouldn't you know the next one I'd see would be RUDE-REX. He always wants to be the center of attention. He doesn't think its important to say please or thank you. He doesn't ask permission and he takes whatever he wants. He doesn't have any manners, and if he's not careful pretty soon he won't have any friends. Have there been any sightings of RUDE-REX near your place?

Oh dear, up next here comes POUT-ASAURUS. Shhhh!! You have to be really careful what you say around her because she gets her feelings hurt very easily. She is always sad about something, like she can't draw as well as everyone else, or her friend can't come over to play. She is always getting her feelings hurt and nothing looks very good to the POUT-ASAURUS.

Uh-oh! I think I see BUTT-IN-BRONTO! I better hurry and talk before he gets here or else he will butt in and I won't get a chance. Whenever anyone else tries to talk BUTT-IN-BRONTO interrupts and talks louder and louder til he takes over the whole conversation. I wish BUTT-IN-BRONTO would just butt out!

Oh my goodness, here comes POKY-CERATOPS! I almost forgot about her. She is always late to everything. She pokes around until the last minute and then can't catch up. Her mother has to ask her 5 times to get dressed, and when she finally does she is almost late to school! Have you seen a POKEY-CERATOPS in your territory?

Well, it sure has been a long day. I decided to head home when I came upon the most gorgeous sight you have ever seen. I saw the most colorful dinosaur of all He had a smile on his face like you wouldn't believe. I realized this must be the HAPPY-OSAURUS!! This dino is everyones friend. He is polite and kind and never interrupts. He is not stingy and is always willing to share. He never pouts and rarely tattles or whines. Sure, sometimes he gets sad and discouraged, but then he chooses to be happy and everyone loves to be around him.

I think I know what makes HAPPY-OSAURUS different from all the other dinosaurs....he's polite, friendly and most of all he's happy! He's the kind of dinosaur you want to be around and he knows he's special too!

I sure hope your lucky enough to have lots of HAPPY-OSAURUS' living at your place. Because just like dinosaurs are extint, hopefully bad manners are extinct at your house too!!

Okay, sorry that was so long, but isn't it adorable? It really touches on all of the biggest things we deal with in our home. I am really sad because when I found this online a few years ago it included a link with dinosaurs you could print out and then bones that had polite words on them. I have colored, cut out, and laminated all the dinosaurs and we go on a dinosaur hunt and read about each dinosaur as we find them. Then we usually find the Happy-osaurus at the end with a fun treat attached :) If anyone has any luck finding this file let me know, I would love to have the link for my records!

I hope this can be useful to someone else, it is one of my kids favorite lessons and something I don't think we can reinforce enough in our home!

Just in case...

I had somehow given the impression that the activities I do with my kids always turn out, I thought I would show you proof of one that didn't quite take off like I thought it would :) Don't get me wrong, the kids still had fun and we all enjoyed the yummy treat, but one look at these pictures and you'll see what I mean!

I had the brillian idea of letting the kids build their own "snowmen" with powdered donut holes. I thought it would look darling and be really fun for the kids. Well....one out of two isn't bad, right? :) They did not turn out NEARLY as cute as I thought they would, but if this picture of Britton is any proof they still enjoyed eating them!

I'm really lucky to have my girls...no matter what we are doing they always think its the coolest thing....especially once they see the camera!

Here they are in all their.....ummmm....glory?? Snowmen made with donut holes for the body, a tic tac for the nose, sour straws for the scarf and pink frosting for the eyes....we ran out of black :)

Ok, seriously, I know they look ridiculous. But if I only blogged about the things in my life that turned out perfect it would be a pretty boring (not to mention empty!!) blog indeed! :) Have a great night everyone!

Manners Week!!

Ok, I hope I am not the only one, but at times I am horrified at my kids manners!! I have tried to do a good job at teaching them at least the basics, but I'm afraid we need lots more work :) I thought having the theme for the week being Manners would hopefully bring light to the importance of good manners, and of course make it lots of fun too! :)

The first thing I found in my research is that January is National Thank You Month. Perfect!! One day we will focus on saying thank you and why its important, and also make a bunch of thank you cards so anytime the kids want to give one to someone we will have a bunch ready to go.

Another activity that I thought would be especially fun for my girls would be to have a formal Tea Party. I am going to make invitations that have a set time and place and also asking for an RSVP. We will discuss what that all means and they will be responsible for being appropriately dressed, on time, and letting me know in advance that they are coming. Then we will really focus on please, excuse me, may I be excused, etc. They are going to have to much fun they will have no idea we are even learning anything! :)

Another thing I think is so important to focus on is covering your mouth when you sneeze or cough....especially this time of year! I saw a cute craft you could do where the kids decorate a paper plate to look like a face and then you trace their hands and cut them out. Then they glue one of their hands with a tissue over the mouth....a good visual for something they should always be doing!

I am really excited for this week....this is something we have really needed to work on, and I think it will be lots of fun too! Stay tuned for one of my FAVORITE family home evenings of all time....I remember my mom doing it for me and my brother when I was 8 or 9 :) Have a great week everyone!! :)

Some perspective...

A while back I did a post about putting together a binder with all of your important papers, calendars, phone numbers etc. I have LOVED my binder and find I (and my entire family!) function much better when it is updated and in tact. Today I wanted to share with you my favorite part of the binder. I tossed it in as an after thought after I used it to prepare for a Relief Society Meeting last year, but now I look at it often, especially when I am in need of some perspective.

President Gordon B. Hinckley gave a talk back in 2003 entitled "To The Women of the Church" and if you haven't read it....you MUST!! :) It is such an inspired, beautiful message to not only the women of the church, but ALL women everywhere who are striving to make the best lives they can for themselves and their families.

I printed this talk out and have placed it in the front pocket of my binder. There are many days I look at everything I need to accomplish, or think of all the things I wish I was doing better and this talk gives me a great perspective. I don't want to ruin it for you :) so I will just leave you with this little gem (my favorite quote of the whole talk):

"You are doing the best you can, and that best results in good to yourself and to others. Do not nag yourself with a sense of failure. Get on your knees and ask for the blessings of the Lord; then stand on your feet and do what you are asked to do. Then leave the matter in the hands of the Lord. You will discover that you have accomplished something beyond price."

Book of Mormon Family Home Evening

Tonight we had a really fun family home evening...I don't know how effective it actually was, but fun was had by all and I laughed a lot at my cute kids :)

I decided to have a family home evening on the Book of Mormon for two reasons. One, reading the scriptures is the theme for Primary this year and now that two of my children go to Primary I wanted to emphasize this theme in our home. Also, since moving to our new place we have been VERY diligent about family scripture study each night. We only read 10 verses but the kids actually look forward to it and always sing Book of Mormon stories after we're done. It's been a big blessing for our little family and I wanted to help the kids understand WHY we actually do it.

Paul was great and gave the meat of the lesson. He spoke on the origin of the Book of Mormon, the plates, and why Heavenly Father gave them to us. It was a good reminder for me, that he simply gave them to us because he loves us and so we can apply them to our own lives. We talked about how we can learn lessons from the scriptures, like how Laman and Lemuel were always murmering and complaining, and in comparison how faithful Nephi was, encouraging our children to look to his example.

After the lesson and LOTS of comments from the kids we did a little activity. I had covered 3 pieces of cardboard in tin foil and them hid them around the house. The kids had to find the "plates", and they way they found them was by the adults singing Book of Mormon Stories. The closer they got the louder we sang, the further they were the softer. It was entertaining to say the least....just ask my brother and sister in law who joined us...good times! :)

Then once the kids had found the "plates" we gave them all paper clips and let them "engrave" things on them. At least the girls did...Britton was convinced it was a present wrapped underneath that tin foil and proceeded to rip the entire thing apart and then looked at me with a really disgusted face when he saw the piece of cardboard :)

All in all a great night with the family, topped off by a really yummy dessert. I am sure almost all of you have the recipe for this one, but I thought I would post it just in case. It is known by many names, we call it the Better Than Anything Cake :)

Better Than Anything Cake

1 Pkg Devils Food Cake mix
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
1 jar (17 oz) caramel topping
1 container (8 oz) frozen whipped topping, thawed
1 bag toffee bits

Make cake mix according to package directions. Cool cake for 15 minutes, then poke top of warm cake every 1/2 inch with handle of wooden spoon. Drizzle sweetened condensed milk evenly over the top of cake. Let stand until milk is absorbed. Drizzle with caramel topping. Cover and refigerate for 2 hours. Spread whipped topping and sprinkle with toffee bits.

Winter Week!

Hey strangers! :) Long time, no blog....I know. But seriously, do you remember how fun this blog used to be? Lots of fun activities with the kiddos, some organizational ideas, some pics of some really cute kids ;), and more?! I do! And I have missed it! We just got settled into our new home this week and I am feeling anxious to get back to my old ways...at least for the next few months until baby Avery joins our family and I fall off the face of the earth again :) Anyway, without any further ado, here are our plans for our theme for this upcoming week....Winter Week!

One of the most fun things that we did last year was messy and kind of yucky to clean up after, but seriously so fun! Since we can't have a real snowball fight we got out some bags of big marshmallows and went at it! We pulled out the couches so we could each hide behind one, and then I put mittens in the middle of the floor. The goal was to run out and grab as many mittens as you could without getting hit. If you got hit, you had to drop the mittens and start over. We played this forever, and Skylar was getting pretty good at throwing by the end :)

One idea I saw that would be SO fun as soon as we do get some snow is to fill up squirt bottles with colored water and let your kids paint the snow. I think this would also be a good way to work on letter recognition, write a huge letter on the snow and have them tell you the letter and the sound it makes.

Last year I found a cute little poem on http://www.dltk-kids.com/ about snowflakes. The direct link is http://www.dltk-holidays.com/winter/m5snowflakes.htm and you can print out 5 little snowflakes to go with it. We laminated them and put them on popsicle sticks so Skylar could act it out with me.

Finally I found two fun things to make on Family Fun. The first is (what else?) a cute snowman treat. Here is the direct link:http://jas.familyfun.go.com/recipefinder/display?id=50093

And this next one is a fun, simple craft all my kids will enjoy. http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca


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World Cafe's Map Of Rio

Jul 17, 2013
Originally published on July 15, 2014 11:13 am

The World Cafe crew recently traveled to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the seventh destination in our Sense of Place series. From samba venues to popular bars, get a behind-the-scenes look at our trip through the city. We even venture further down along the coast to explore outside Rio de Janeiro, including Copacabana Beach and Sugarloaf Mountain.

Copyright 2014 WXPN-FM. To see more, visit


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The Voice of Reason. A look at contemporary philosophy and politics from outside the Left vs. Right continuum. RSS FEED

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Some are more equal than others

The out-of-control Congress on a runaway mission to implement so-called "health-care reform" at any cost has over the past few weeks demonstrated a complete disregard for the Constitution. In particular, the concepts of equal protection under the law and federalism are being completely run over by the Obama-Pelosi-Reid cabal.

First, everyone knows about the Cornhusker Kickback - special deals whereby Nebraska gets a free ride on Medicaid increased which will be paid by the Federal Government. Every other state in the nation, however, gets no such deal. The Cornhusker Kickback was a cynical payoff to get Ben Nelson's vote for the Senate bill. Yet many state Attorneys General have stood up to say this provision is unconstitutional.

Second, just announced today:

A senior Democratic official speaking on background told Fox News that the threshold for exemption would be raised from $23,000 to $24,000 per family but would remain the same at $8,500 for singles with high-value plans. Dental and vision plans would be removed from that calculation, however.

State and local workers and union members are exempted until 2017. A Democratic source with close union contacts said labor leaders are not particularly happy with the tentative deal, but are much less angry than they were at the previous plan.

So union members are going to be treated one way under the law, while everyone else - you - gets to foot the cost of a 40% (forty percent) excise tax on your health insurance. And if you think Democrats in Congress won't simply vote to continually extend the special union exemption from this excise tax just before it expires, you don't understand how these people work.

This last is beyond deranged. By what right do the Democrats/Socialists in Congress pass a law saying you have to pay a 40% tax on your health insurance yet a union member with the same plan does not have to? This is a massive violation of the Constitution's "equal protection" clause. This is no different than saying whites have to pay 50% income tax and blacks 10%.

But Obama, Pelosi, and Reid don't care. They don't care that it's unconstitutional. They don't even care that it's a blatant violation of Obama's "not one dime of tax increase on people making less than $250,000" pledge, which he repeated over and over during the campaign. Yet another campaign promise shown to be a lie, just like Obama's lie about the health care bill being negotiated in public on CSPAN.

Apparently what Obama really meant was, "I will not increase taxes on people making less than $250,000 as long as you're in a labor union. If you're not, then you're screwed. Too bad."

They see nothing wrong with setting up specially privileged classes of people - because these labor union members vote for them. Obama, Pelosi and Reid will simply continue to buy the votes of the unions with hundreds of billions of dollars of your money.

Obama, Pelosi and Reid have dropped all pretenses. They are openly and blatantly looting the nation now and they don't care what anyone else thinks about it. Their goal is to get it rammed through before anyone has a chance to even read the bill. Once in law it will be very hard to repeal later.

We have to stop it before that happens.

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The Oracle – Eurorack Module

The Oracle is the first machine learning synthesis module.

The Oracle is a control voltage (CV) sequencer in the Eurorack format. The module is based on a machine learning algorithm that can detect repeated patterns in a sequence. The device learns a control sequence (think a melody) and produces variations on that initial sequence in a musically meaningful way (think theme and variations).

The algorithm builds a model of the syntax of the sequence that then allows for the generation of new, closely related sequences. These new sequences follow the logic and structure of the original sequence, but with different orderings.

Module Main Page

  • 16 HP.
  • 32-bit Cortex M4 processor, running at 96 Mhz.
  • 12-bit CV conversion.
  • 12-bit CV output.
  • Buffered CV (+/- 5V) and Clock (0 – 10V) input and output.
  • 10 Panel LED indicators.
  • 3.7 cm deep.

Available on backorder

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