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Resurrection - the rising of the dead

Discussion in 'General Discussions' started by Lanolin, May 17, 2015.

  1. chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians is very interesting.
    Jesus was not just raised by his soul, but bodily and spiritually. (if you think of us in three parts)
    Paul talks about being an eyewitness, and also how the natural body is sown, like you would sow a seed, and is raised a spiritual body. Jesus in his spiritual body. How different do you think our spiritual body is from our natural? Our earthly from our heavenly? What are our heavenly bodies going to be like?

    verse 23 also interesting. Christ the first fruits, and afterward, they that are Christ's at his coming.
    some people were raised to life at Jesus resurrection. I think that's in Mark. But the rest of us, wait till he comes.
    Juk likes this.
  2. When a Christian dies his soul and spirit leaves and goes to heaven to be with Jesus, and the spiritual body looks just like we do. We will recognize people we know when we get there.

    When our spirits don our glorified bodies at the resurrection, we will be just like we are now, with flesh and bone, but we will be perfectly whole, young, and imperishable, able to withstand easily the glory of God without disintegrating---as they would now.

    Those who were raised to life at Jesus' death (not his resurrection) would have been raised like Lazarus, in the body, not resurrected as immortal as in the rapture, so they would have died again, like Lazarus would have.
    Juk, Abdicate, Arrie03 and 4 others say Amen and like this.
  3. Have you ever thought about how when Jesus came back to speak to His disciples after His resurrection, that He never mentioned that He had blood in His body? Just flesh and bones....makes me think that it was the Glory flowing through his veins.
    Just remembered that when i read what you wrote!
    Juk, Abdicate and Major says Amen and like this.
  4. yes, its like he is now divine and incorruptible.
    Like we will be.
    I've heard some people say it will be like caterpillars turning into butterflies. This I'm not too sure about...but I'd love to have wings. I imagine, gravity will either let go or we will be so light that we can float from place to place.
    Sometimes I wonder how Jesus will gather us all together. Will we fly to the new Jerusalem on airplanes, or will it be on eagles or on those winged beast creatures? Or will we, seeing Jesus, just be somehow magnetically attracted to Him? Or will we have angel escorts? Will we actually get to see angels? I suppose we will have divine vision. That would be awesome. I wouldn't need my glasses anymore.
    Juk likes this.
  5. I really don't think that we will have wings. And i don't think that we will be weightless. I think it will be like things are here on earth....just this time there will be no sin, because we all have already made Jesus and God's ways our choice.

    The Bible says that we will be gone in a twinkling of an eye. So to me i think that we will just be here, and then blink...we are there. It happens like that when one dies. As soon as our spirits leave our bodies.....blink and we are in the presence of the Lord.

    And yes as our bodies will be brand need for glasses anymore :)
    Juk, Abdicate, Major and 1 other person say Amen and like this.
  6. I think we will be able to move from place to place in an instant like Jesus did in His glorified body. I also think the reason there is no mention of blood is because since the bible says the life is in the blood of a mortal body then we will no longer need it since God is our life.
    Juk, Arrie03 and Cturtle says Amen and like this.
  7. Hmmmm very interesting thoughts. I guess that would save wear and tear on our glorified shoes :LOL::ROFLMAO::whistle:
  8. Lol@glorified shoes. Hey, if the Israelites shoes didn't wear out in the wilderness then surely our "glorified" shoes won't either [emoji14]
    Juk, Euphemia and Cturtle says Amen and like this.
  9. I really want to fly! I don't see why we wouldn't be able to do so, even without wings.
  10. Shoot you can do that now.......just book a flight on an airplane and away you go :) of can fly in a really fast sports cars or race cars....or in racing boats. So why wait till later?
  11. Lol, that's not the kind of flying I meant
  12. I know but i just could not help it you opened the door wide on that one.

    But seriously......i wonder really how we will get around and yes it would be nice to fly or even blink and be where we wanted to be. Like Philip did after sharing the gospel with the Ethiopian
    Juk likes this.
  13. The bible says we wont be 'gone' it says we will be 'changed' as far as I know we not going anywhere...Jesus is coming to meet us! Hes bring heaven down to earth.

    I would love to fly. I dont really enjoy flying commercially at the moment. Probably cos Ive never been able to afford anything more than economy. The first time you go up is exhilerating. But after that, the novelty wears off. I used to have dreams I could fly, just soar over the tops of trees (watching out for powerlines) like a bird. Bible says the holy spirit is like a dove. And doves wings are like angels wings.

    Maybe the angels will have chariots?
  14. I am one who understand that we will be like Jesus.

    John 5:28-29
    "Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment."

    Rom. 8:29.....
    "For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers."

    2 Corinthians 3:18 ...........
    "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."
    Juk and Cturtle say Amen and like this.
  15. Every time the question on resurrection comes up, I always go back to Genesis. I firmly believe things will be restored back to the way it was before fall of mankind. Adam was in the same flesh body before and after fall. The difference was, sin. Which brought in all kind of sickness and eventually death itself. When we are resurrected, things will be just like how it was before fall. Still in flesh, but without the implications of fallen world..
    Juk and Cturtle say Amen and like this.
  16. I agree, it will be like paradise again. We will be clothed in white garments - Gods glory. We will also be able to eat from the tree of life. The leaves that are for the healing of nations...I believe when Jesus returns hes going to restore the earth back to original design. I always wondered why 1000 years...I guess thats how long it would take. And then everything will be perfect.
  17. Based on what I understand of all scripture that I have read on this topic....I believe it will be much more than just this. I believe we will be able to step out of space and time the way God does. Those that live and are born during the coming millennium will be in a different state than those that have already received their final resurrected glorified bodies.
    Juk and Euphemia say Amen and like this.
  18. I agree! I am convinced that since we will have bodies like Jesus we will be able to go to any place our heart desires including other solar systems.
    Mykuhl likes this.
  19. I dont know about those being born.
    I think in our glorified bodies nobody will be having children...?
    That would just be weird. I could be wrong though.

    Unbelievers outside the gate perhaps, but not us believers.
  20. Now do you know the amazing thing about the caterpillars. AS caterpillars all the do is eat and grow, they then hang themselves, shed their skin and become a thingy for which I do not have a word right now. But here is when it gets amazing, everything inside the thingy turns to goo. All it's organs, everything becomes a snotty goo. One to two weeks later, this beautiful butterfly comes out, complete with four amazing wings, legs, new organs the kitchen sink man, I tell you.
    Now it's a creature that eats nectar, polonaise flowers and is capable to fly thousands of miles. All out of snotty goo. And compare that to the caterpillar it was before.
    Tell this story to an evolutionist, and they tend to mumble afterwards. Here evolution happened in a few weeks - where is your million years mister.
    I call it intelligent design - plus I know who did the design.:D
    Juk, Cturtle and Mykuhl says Amen and like this.

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Research Claims Almost Half of Pastors Never Discuss Domestic Abuse

Carrie Dedrick | Editor, | Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Research Claims Almost Half of Pastors Never Discuss Domestic Abuse

According to a new study from LifeWay Research, almost half of Protestant pastors do not broach the topic of domestic violence from the pulpit; more preachers only brush over the subject once a year. Perhaps even more concerning is that less than 50 percent of pastors have been trained in counseling victims.

Statistics of the survey included the following:

  • 42 percent of surveyed pastors reported rarely/never speaking on domestic or sexual violence
  • 22 percent of respondents said they spoke on domestic or sexual violence once per year
  • 28 percent said they discussed sexual or domestic violence several times per year
  • 4 percent responded they preached on domestic or sexual violence about once a month
  • 2 percent reported speaking on domestic or sexual violence several times per month

‘When two-thirds of pastors address the issue of domestic violence in church one time a year or less, we have a serious disconnect with the realities of American life. Pastors cannot ignore or downplay the issue, when lives are being ruined -- and sometimes lost -- through sexual and domestic violence right in their own communities and churches,” said Ed Stetzer LifeWay Research Division president.

Most pastors responded that domestic and sexual abuse was a problem in their community, but not their church. At the same time, most pastors (74 percent) knew someone who had been a victim of domestic violence.

Additionally, a lack of training on how to deal with domestic abuse situations in the church became apparent through the study. According to the survey, 52 percent of preachers were insufficiently trained with domestic abuse counseling; 81 percent said they would take further action to prevent domestic abuse if they were better equipped to do so.

Publication date: July 1, 2014

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We've always had a love affair with the printed book. We write our names on the inside flaps, loan books to friends, and read bestsellers in the bathtub. We dog-ear the pages, underline our favorite passages, and stack paperbacks on our nightstands.

So what are book lovers to make of the electronic book? In this volatile time when the latest technology claims last a nanosecond, digital content providers promise us the moon. Electronic books, they assert, will cost readers less money, save publishers warehousing and overhead costs, and allow pastors and missionaries in Third World countries to access resources more quickly via the Internet. Authors will be able to self-publish their titles; bulky textbooks will be replaced by sleek laptops or handheld devices; and those quirky little tomes we love but that don't sell well will never go out of print.

Whether all of these things are true or just hype, one major appeal of the electronic book is its instant gratification for a fast-food generation. Digital books—via online bookstores such as or—are accessible 24/7. If you crave the latest bestseller at 2 a.m., you can download it to your PC in seconds. There's no shipping delay, and no out-of-stock apologies.

Business is betting on electronic books. According to research by Accenture, in just five years, 28 million of us will be adopting some sort of device to read our books electronically, whether through our PCs, a handheld reading device, or even a special mobile phone. Accenture also found that more than half of consumers, regardless of their age, want to use digital media—including audio, interactive television, and e-books. If these estimates hold true, Accenture ...

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Is God a Problem? Modern Theology Faces Its Alternatives

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the editorial opinion of The Christian Post or its editors.

The Christian Century, the venerable voice of liberal Protestantism, juxtaposed two significant obituaries in its August 23, 2011 edition - and both on the same page. The magazine published a respectful obituary of evangelical titan John R. W. Stott, identifying him as “a renowned and prolific author credited with shaping 20th-century evangelical Christianity.” After reviewing his 90 years of life and ministry, the magazine quoted S. Douglas Birdsall of the Lausanne Movement, who described Stott in this way: “The church was his great love. World evangelism was his passion. Scripture was his authority. Heaven was his hope. Now it is his home.”

The magazine’s other obituary marked the death of Gordon Kaufman, a professor of theology at the Harvard Divinity School for more than three decades, who died at age 86. Kaufman, the magazine reported, “had a profound influence on rethinking theology in naturalistic terms, arguing for a vision of God as the ‘profound mystery of creativity.’” Kaufman influenced generations of liberal theologians through his writings and teaching, serving as president of both the American Theological Society and the American Academy of Religion.

As a seminary student, I was assigned to read Kaufman’s 1972 work, God the Problem, a book that set forth Kaufman’s effort to bring Christian theology in line with modern thought. A frustrated seminary student in my class posted a sarcastic cartoon on the classroom wall, with the cover of Kaufman’s book changed from God the Problem by Gordon Kaufman to Gordon Kaufman the Problem by God.

The book is nothing less than a treatise for a purely secular theology. The entire concept of God, he wrote, “is problematical to men in many different senses and ways.” As he explained:

For the Judeo-Christian tradition, God has been the primary and fundamental reality with reference to which all of life - indeed all of creation - was oriented and understood. To our modern empirical, secular, and pragmatic temper, however, it has seemed increasingly dubious, ever since the Enlightenment, whether it is necessary or even reasonable to believe in such a transcendent Reality; human life can be adequately understood as an emergent from evolving nature, and the meaning of human existence can be found in the cultural values produced by man’s creative genius and the social interaction of which love is the profoundest form. Is not talk about God simply a vestige of earlier stages of man’s historical development which, however appropriate and necessary in its own time, is no longer relevant or useful in ours?

Kaufman argued that an entire array of intellectual problems made belief in a personal God impossible on modern terms. Human beings now consider themselves autonomous and belief in God “raises serious problems for man’s sense of moral autonomy.” He went so far as to argue that belief in God might be “in itself morally dubious.”

On the other hand, even the most secular among us have a hard time letting go of God entirely. Modern humanity cannot believe in the God of the Bible, he insisted, but we still require some intellectual referent that can be called “God.” Kaufman’s answer to this problem was to construct a notion of God as symbol. Having rejected the idea of a God who objectively exists or a personal God who engages his creatures, Kaufman argued that the human imagination is the proper source for a doctrine of God.

Devising a naturalistic doctrine of God was just practical, Kaufman argued. Since human beings seem to need a God as referent, humans should just construct a symbolic reality to meet their need for moral validation and the sense that life is meaningful. Of course, those who construct a concept of God as mere symbol know that they are doing so, and their references to God are more poetic than anything else.

Some of Kaufman’s theological colleagues criticized his use of the word “God” in this sense as confusing - and understandably so. If God is nothing more than “a construction of the human imagination,” then why use the word at all?

In one of his last books, God-Mystery-Diversity, Kaufman took a shot at conservative Christian theologians:

Conservatives may still wish to maintain that it is possible and necessary to give an authoritative and binding definition of Christian beliefs and praxis, and that theologians should proceed on that basis, but such positions express a kind of romanticism about how things used to be. History has moved Christian faith beyond that sort of possibility, willy-nilly, and theologies alert to their own historical situatedness can no longer proceed easily on such assumptions. Theologians can no longer take it for granted that there is a fixed body of beliefs simply to be interpreted and explained. On the contrary, a major task for theologians today is to ascertain just which beliefs and concepts inherited from tradition are still viable, and to determine in what ways they should be reconstructed so they will continue to serve human intellectual and religious needs.

This is where the revisionist methodology of liberal theology inevitably leads. Doctrines are no longer considered to be true statements of fact, but only reflections of “human intellectual and religious needs.” Since these needs are supposedly changing over time, doctrines must change as well. God is just a symbol, and doctrines are symbolic as well.

In their own ways, Gordon Kaufman and John Stott represent the stark alternatives that face the Christian theologian today. We will either embrace a theology established upon the knowledge of the self-revealing God of the Bible, or we will see theology as a project to be developed by the human imagination. We will choose between the affirmation of the triune God of the Bible or the claim that God is merely a symbol.

In other words, the obituaries of Gordon Kaufman and John Stott represent more than footnotes in Christian history. These were men who represented two very different and irreconcilable understandings of God, theology, and the Christian faith.

Their obituaries may have been published side by side, but - in the truest sense - Gordon Kaufman and John Stott were never on the same page.

Adapted from R. Albert Mohler Jr.'s weblog at

R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. For more articles and resources by Dr. Mohler, and for information on The Albert Mohler Program, a daily national radio program broadcast on the Salem Radio Network, go to For information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to Send feedback to Original Source:


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There is no such thing as a good neighbor in sports.

So, seeking to build tradition and stir passions, MLS has branded this weekend's matches as Rivalry Week.

Eight of the nine matches pitted clubs against regional foes, with the Dynamo traveling north to face FC Dallas at noon Sunday. At stake: three points, state pride and the right to take home a replica Civil War-era cannon called El Capitán.

The Texas rivalry is more about geographical convenience than sporting logic given the clubs' divergent fortunes. FC Dallas has not beaten the Dynamo since May 2010.

FC Dallas has won only three of 19 meetings in the rivalry, with the Dynamo victorious on nine occasions and claiming five out of seven season series.

More Information

Today: Dynamo at FC Dallas

When/where: Noon; FC Dallas Stadium.

TV/radio: ESPN2; 1560 AM and 850 AM (Spanish).

Dynamo (1-0-0 in MLS) update: This is the Dynamo's first MLS game since their opener March 2. … The Dynamo split games with Santos Laguna in CONCACAF Champions League play but were eliminated on aggregate. … The Dynamo are unbeaten at home in 26 consecutive MLS games, three short of the record set by Real Salt Lake. … Defender Corey Ashe practiced Friday and is expected to be ready after falling ill in Mexico.

FC Dallas (1-1-0) update: Dallas led Chivas USA by a goal before allowing three consecutive goals last week. … Michel started that game in place of Jair Benitez (bruised ribs) at left back. … Forward Blas Perez will be available for FC Dallas after serving a two-game suspension.

The culture clash between Texas' two biggest cities might be as febrile as ever, but on the pitch the battles are less frequent since the Dynamo switched from the Western to the Eastern Conference in 2011.

The clubs faced off three or four times a season in the early years after the Dynamo joined the league in 2006, but Sunday's game is the lone scheduled meeting this year. The sole match in 2012 was won 2-1 by the Dynamo at BBVA Compass Stadium.

Tunes out crowd

"It's unfortunate because in the early stages of MLS it was a good rivalry because we played each other so much, but now that it's only one game we don't see each other too much," Dynamo coach Dominic Kinnear said. "But it's still a fun game.

"It's early in the season, but it's one of those, no matter who's doing well or who's doing poorly, they always bring their best to these games. It's always difficult; it's not going to be any different if it was home or away."

The rivalry match will be a new experience for Giles Barnes, the English playmaker who joined the Dynamo last fall.

"I've played in a few in my time so it'll be good to experience the American way as well," Barnes said. "I'm really interested to see this one. I know it gets a bit intense, a bit heated, so I'll be looking forward to it."

Barnes, 24, has spent most of his career in England's crowded Midlands region, which has nine big teams within an 80-minute drive of each other. He played for West Bromwich Albion versus Birmingham City in the Premier League in September 2010 - clubs only 51/2 miles apart.

Large numbers of traveling fans typically make for a more boisterous atmosphere than usual, but Barnes said he tries to ignore the racket.

"I never really notice anything when I'm playing apart from my teammates and the other team," he said. "As a professional, you block stuff out, not intentionally but you kind of do, and then when you hear a goal go in, that's when it kind of comes to you."

Good fit with Bruin

Barnes has started the season paired with Will Bruin at forward while new signee Omar Cummings recovers from surgery on his right knee in January. Cummings is available, but Barnes wants to carry on up front.

"I think he does well in that position," Kinnear said. "He sits deep, he's good on the ball, he's linked up pretty well with Will. It wasn't envisioned he was going to start there at the beginning of the year, but he's doing it and he's doing well."

Barnes relishes the chance to play.

"I'm enjoying it, and I'm thankful for the opportunity," Barnes said. "That's my preferred position and hopefully it continues."

Tom Dart is a freelance writer.


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Request for Police Report

Police and Accident reports are available from the Dickinson Police Department. Read through the directions below and then fill out the Online Request for Police Report Form to proceed.

Accident Reports
Accident reports are reports of motor vehicle collisions. There is a $4 fee for accident reports. They are not available by email. You may order an accident report by mail by completing and printing this form. Mail it, along with a self addressed stamped envelope and check or money order for $4 to:
Dickinson Police Department
Records Division
4000 Liggio St.
Dickinson, TX 77539

Police Reports

Copies of current police reports (crime reports) under 10 pages are free and are available by email. The report will be emailed to you in PDF format. The request will be processed during normal business hours (Monday - Fridays excluding holidays). Reports 10 pages and over are charged at a rate of 10 cents per page. Archived reports may include a research fee depending on the time involved. If your report exceeds the page limit you will be notified of any charges involved and the report would need to be requested by mail or in person.


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More >

Crock Pot Round Steak Stew

2 pounds round stead cut into 1-inch cubes

Salt and pepper

1/4 cup minced pancetta

1 large onion, coarsely chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

Herb bouquet of thyme, rosemary, and parsley, tied together with kitchen string

1 large whole bay leaf

1 cup thinly sliced celery

2 carrots, cleaned and cut into rings

2 red skin potatoes, cut into quarters

4 cups diced plum tomatoes with their juice, either fresh or canned

1/2 cup dry red wine

2 cups beef broth or water

Rub the meat pieces with salt and pepper. Place everything in a crock-pot, starting with the meat, except the tomatoes, wine and beef broth or water.

Mix the tomatoes, wine and beef broth or water together and pour over the meat. Stir everything and cover. Cook over low heat according to the manufacturer's directions. Remove the bay leaf before serving.

Variation: You can also make this stew in a heavy-duty stove-top pot or cook it in a slow oven (250F) for 1 1/2 hours or until the meat is fork tender.

This recipe is featured on show 1621 - Help!

  1. Jane Pappas's avatar

    Jane Pappas

    How do you keep the round steak from being tough? I have not had good luck with cut of meat.

Leave a Comment

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Talking with Castro

For most of the last 50 years, nearly every U.S. president has negotiated secretly with the government of Cuba in bids to resolve the two nations' conflicts
Peter Kornbluh, William M. Leogrande
From the Print Edition:
Cuba, January/February 2009

In late August of 1994, the Nobel Prize—winning novelist Gabriel García Márquez traveled to Martha's Vineyard for a dinner with President Bill Clinton. "Gabo wanted to come and talk to Clinton about Cuba," recalled Rose Styron who, along with her famous husband, William, hosted the evening at their rambling island home. Indeed, the dinner party served as an elaborate cover for García Márquez to deliver a message to Clinton from Fidel Castro. While the other guests ate fried chicken with rice and gravy, the writer shared with the president details of Castro's proposal to end the "balsero crisis"—the flood of Cubans taking to the seas in small boats, inner tubes and makeshift rafts to cross the Florida Straits to the United States. As Rose Styron remembers, García Márquez also took the opportunity to press Clinton on "the need to open up relations" with Cuba; Clinton, she said, appeared to agree. "Try and come to an understanding with Fidel, as he has a very good opinion of you," García Márquez advised the president. The next day, García Márquez left the Vineyard and traveled to Havana to report on Clinton's response to Castro.

This furtive communication between a U.S. president and the fiery Cuban leader was no historical anomaly. Clinton was hardly the first U.S. president to negotiate with Castro, discreetly, through an intermediary. It is a little-known fact that since the Eisenhower administration broke relations with Cuba on January 3, 1961, every president has engaged in some form of dialogue with Fidel Castro—with the exception of George W. Bush. From Kennedy to Clinton, one U.S. administration after another has negotiated immigration accords, anti-terrorism treaties, counter-narcotics agreements and other bilateral arrangements. Behind the scenes, the United States and Cuba have repeatedly resorted to clandestine diplomacy to address and resolve crises, ranging from tensions at the U.S. military base at Guantánamo to terrorist plots against Cuba. Several presidents—most notably Kennedy, Ford and Carter—engaged in secret dialogues with Castro to explore the normalization of relations.

This history has immediate relevance for the new president of the United States. During his campaign, Barack Obama raised expectations about a change in Cuba policy when he pledged to meet with leaders of hostile states such as Iran and North Korea "without preconditions." Asked during a debate with Hillary Clinton in Texas if he would actually sit down with Raúl Castro in Cuba, Obama replied:

That's correct.... I would meet without preconditions, although Senator Clinton is right that there has to be preparation.... And that preparation might take some time. But I do think that it's important for the United States not just to talk to its friends, but also to talk to its enemies. In fact, that's where diplomacy makes the biggest difference. Preparations for such diplomacy should include a review of past efforts by Obama's predecessors to talk with Fidel about changing the hostile framework of relations that has endured for 50 years. Kennedy, Ford and Carter failed to reach an accommodation with Cuba. Clinton's efforts to reduce tensions and improve relations also fell short of that goal. But the historical record generated by their administrations contains important lessons on how an effective effort at direct diplomacy might end, once and for all, the perpetual antagonism in U.S.-Cuban relations.

In his youthful demeanor and charisma, Obama has often been compared to John F. Kennedy. The Cuban issue dominated Kennedy's thousand days in office. As president, he led the country and the world through the Cuban Missile Crisis; he also oversaw some of the most egregious acts of U.S. aggression toward the island nation, including the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, the trade embargo and Operation Mongoose, a set of covert actions designed to destabilize the country and overthrow Castro. But Kennedy also had the courage and curiosity to explore what Top Secret National Security Council memoranda described as "U.S./Cuban discussions about accommodation" and "a rapprochement with Castro."

Early in his administration, Kennedy learned that the Cubans were open to such talks. During an international economic summit in Montevideo, Uruguay, in August 1961, Che Guevara arranged an all-night meeting with White House aide Richard Goodwin—by using an Argentine diplomat as an intermediary to dare Goodwin to smoke a Cuban cigar. Che emphasized several salient points that would be repeated in almost all future negotiations and remain relevant today.

First, as Goodwin wrote in a secret memorandum of conversation to President Kennedy, Cuba was clearly interested in a dialogue that would lead to coexistence. "They would like a modus vivendi—at least an interim modus vivendi," Goodwin reported. Second, although Castro was willing to make a number of concessions toward that goal, the nature of Cuba's political system was nonnegotiable. "He said they could discuss no formula that would mean giving up the type of society to which they were dedicated." Finally, Guevara raised the issue of how the two countries would find "a practical formula" to advance toward an accommodation. He made a pragmatic suggestion—one that Cuba would invoke again and again in pressing for a diplomatic dialogue over the next 48 years: "He knew it was difficult to negotiate these things but we could open up some of these issues by beginning to discuss secondary issues … as a cover for more serious conversation."

To demonstrate just how serious the Cubans were, Che gave Goodwin an engraved mahogany box of premium Cuban cigars for Kennedy—a gift representing Cuba's first attempt, although not its last, at "cigar diplomacy" aimed at a U.S. president.

When Goodwin returned to Washington, he recommended seeking "some way of continuing the below ground dialogue which Che has begun." He even tasked the CIA to develop a "precise, covert procedure for continuing below ground dialogue with the Cuban government" to maintain secrecy around such politically sensitive talks. But the rest of the administration ignored Cuba's overture. "The emotion that had always surrounded the 'problem' of Cuba had, if anything, been heightened by our defeat at the Bay of Pigs," Goodwin later wrote. "To make a deal with Castro, any kind of deal, would have been politically difficult, perhaps impossible."

Yet, in early 1963, when U.S. intelligence picked up signals of a breach in Soviet-Cuban relations in the aftermath of the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, savvy administration officials saw an opportunity and an opening for an accommodation with Castro. The idea of using "the sweet approach" to advance the possibility of "quietly enticing Castro over to us" began to surface in Top Secret NSC memoranda. Alongside proposals for covert intervention and sabotage in Cuba, senior White House aides proposed exploring "the rapprochement track." Kennedy "clearly thought this was an exploration worth making," his NSC adviser, McGeorge Bundy, recalled in an interview with the authors. The key problem, Bundy said, was finding a politically "non-dangerous way" to pursue a dialogue. Starting in the spring of 1963, the Kennedy administration engaged Castro in a dialogue through three intermediaries. James Donovan was the first. A prominent New York lawyer and renowned international negotiator, Donovan was recruited by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to win the release of 1,113 Bay of Pigs brigade members who had been captured during the invasion debacle. In face-to-face talks with Castro between August and late December 1962, Donovan not only succeeded at obtaining the release and repatriation to the United States of the Cuban exiles, but thousands of their relatives as well. In Donovan, Castro found the first trusted—indeed respected—U.S. emissary. Believing that the prisoner negotiations had set the stage for a broader discussion about U.S.-Cuban relations, Castro broached the subject in mid-March 1963. "If any relations were to commence between the U.S. and Cuba," Fidel wanted to know, "how it would come about and what would be involved?" In his debriefing at the CIA—tape-recorded and later transcribed—Donovan reported his colorful response:

So I said to him, well, do you, are you familiar with porcupines, and this had to be translated … but they finally agreed that he did understand porcupines. So I said, now do you know how porcupines make love? And he said no. And I said well, the answer is "very carefully," and that is how you and the U.S. would have to get into this.

Castro's expressed interest in discussing peaceful coexistence set off the first high-level debate inside the U.S. government over how or even whether to respond. In a Top Secret—Eyes Only option paper to the White House, the State Department's Cuba specialist, Robert Hurwitch, suggested that Donovan be instructed to "take a week-long walk on the beach" with Castro and tell him that Cuba's ties to the Sino-Soviet bloc were nonnegotiable and would have to be broken. Surprisingly, President Kennedy overruled this approach as too restrictive. "The President does not agree," McGeorge Bundy wrote in a Top Secret memo. "We don't want to present Castro with a condition that he obviously cannot fulfill. We should start thinking along more flexible lines."

Talks with Castro continued through a second, unlikely intermediary: a striking blonde reporter from ABC News named Lisa Howard. During Donovan's last trip to Havana in April 1963, Howard begged him to undertake one final mission—to negotiate an interview with Castro for ABC. Howard scored an exclusive televised interview with the Cuban leader— his first with a U.S. network in four years. Castro used the interview to make the same point he made with Donovan. The prisoner negotiations could be "a beginning point for discussions, if the United States wants it, it is the beginning of better relations." The hour-long interview, broadcast on May 10, 1963, generated headlines around the nation such as "Castro would like to talk to Kennedy" and "Castro Makes Overt Hints He Wants Kennedy Parlay."

Behind the scenes, Lisa Howard committed herself to making negotiations happen. When she returned from Cuba, she briefed Deputy CIA Director Richard Helms on her private talks with Fidel. "Howard definitely wants to impress the U.S. government with two facts: Castro is ready to discuss rapprochement and she herself is ready to discuss it with him if asked to do so by the U.S. Government," Helms reported in a Top Secret memorandum of conversation to President Kennedy.

Howard also made contact with a fellow journalist-turned-diplomat, William Attwood, who was special adviser to U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson. The two worked out a "cocktail diplomacy" scheme. Howard would hold a reception at her Central Park East townhouse and invite both Cuba's ambassador to the U.N., Carlos Lechuga, and Attwood to attend so they could discuss how to move negotiations forward. On September 23, amid drinks, finger foods and several dozen members of the New York literati, the first bilateral talks on the potential for a U.S.-Cuban accommodation took place. Lechuga hinted that Fidel was "indeed in the mood to talk," and "thought there was a good chance I might be invited to Cuba if I wished to talk to Castro," Attwood reported to the White House.

To sustain momentum for the diplomatic initiative, Howard transformed her home into a center of communications between Havana and Washington. She made, and received, a series of calls to Castro's office hoping to organize Attwood's trip. On October 31, Fidel's top aide, Rene Vallejo, called her and formally transmitted an invitation for Attwood to clandestinely travel to Cuba and meet with Castro alone.

Castro's concrete invitation set off a flurry of discussion inside the Oval Office. There, on November 5, Bundy briefed President Kennedy on Castro's proposal. The president's secret taping system captured his concern about how the secret mission would actually stay secret, but he expressed no opposition to the meeting itself. "How can Attwood get in and out of there very privately?" the president asked. Bundy and Kennedy then discussed the possibility of "sanitizing" Attwood—retiring him from his U.N. post for a month before undertaking the secret dialogue in Cuba.

On November 19 at 2 a.m., Attwood spoke to Vallejo himself from Lisa Howard's study. Before he could travel to Cuba, Attwood said, the Kennedy White House felt a preliminary meeting in New York "was essential to make sure there was something useful to talk about." Vallejo replied that Castro's office would send instructions to Lechuga on what "an agenda for a later meeting with Castro" would look like. When Attwood passed this information to Bundy later that day, he was told that when the agenda was received, "the President wanted to see me at the White House and decide what to say and whether to go [to Cuba] or what we should do next."

In the final days before his death, Kennedy used yet a third intermediary to send a message of potential détente to Castro. His emissary was the noted French journalist Jean Daniel, who, through Attwood, obtained a meeting with the president. Kennedy expressed some empathy for Castro's anti-Americanism, acknowledging that the United States had committed a number of sins in pre-revolutionary Cuba, including turning the island into "the whorehouse of the U.S." He told Daniel that the trade embargo could be lifted if Castro ended his support for leftist movements in the hemisphere, and that Daniel should return to Washington after seeing Castro and brief Kennedy. The U.S. president, Daniel thought, was "seeking a way out" of the poor state of relations with Cuba. "When I left him," Daniel recalled, "I had the impression I was a messenger of peace." Daniel transmitted Kennedy's message during a meeting with Castro in Havana on November 20. "He listened to me intently. He was drinking my words," Daniel would recall in an interview 40 years later. "Clearly he was happy about the message I was delivering. Sometimes he would say, 'Maybe he has changed. Maybe things are possible with this man.'" Two days later, their subsequent meeting was interrupted by a phone call informing Castro that Kennedy had been shot. He turned to Daniel and said, "This is the end of your mission of peace." Daniel recalled thinking that he was right: without Kennedy, there was no mission.

As Obama's foreign policy aides review the actions of his predecessors to engage Castro in a dialogue toward better relations, they will note the bipartisan nature of this history. Republican and Democratic presidents alike have talked with Castro. At the end of the Nixon administration and throughout the short presidency of Gerald Ford, the United States pursued a secret effort to negotiate normal relations.

This initiative began on April 24, 1974, at 2:32 p.m., with a phone call to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger from Frank Mankiewicz, a longtime Democratic Party operative and former press secretary for Robert Kennedy. "That trip I told you about is now on … to the Caribbean," as Kissinger's secret taping system recorded Mankiewicz's cryptic remarks. "I told you that I might be doing a television interview with…." Kissinger replied immediately: "Yes, yes, I know exactly—of course. Good. Then I want to see you…. I must see you before you do that." Six weeks later, when Mankiewicz traveled to Havana along with two other journalists, he carried with him a handwritten note from Kissinger to Castro. The secret communication stated that Kissinger was interested in initiating bilateral talks on mutual interests but that such a dialogue needed to be conducted discreetly, through intermediaries and unofficial meetings. Castro deemed the note "a very serious communication" and sent a message back with Mankiewicz, along with a box of premium Cuban cigars. (When a U.S. Customs guard attempted to confiscate the cigars, Mankiewicz issued a stern warning: "Son, this box of cigars is a personal gift for Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Are you sure you want to take them away?")

So began the first serious dialogue aimed at fundamentally changing the framework of U.S.-Cuban relations—a dialogue that holds significant lessons for the new Obama administration. As is the case today, in the mid-1970s the domestic and international controversy over the hostile nature of U.S.-Cuba policy was proving to be a greater headache for the executive branch than the regime in Cuba itself. In the U.S. Congress, there was a growing bipartisan consensus that the trade embargo should be lifted. In the Organization of American States, the Latin American nations were pushing to lift the ban on diplomatic and economic relations with Cuba that Washington had strong-armed them into approving in 1964.

Given these domestic and international pressures, a secret State Department review of Cuba policy, titled "Normalizing Relations with Cuba," recorded the clear advantage to moving toward better bilateral ties:

If there is benefit to us in an end to the state of "perpetual antagonism" it lies in getting Cuba off the domestic and inter-American agendas—in extracting the symbolism from an intrinsically trivial issue.… Our interest is in getting the Cuba issue behind us, not in prolonging it indefinitely.

Negotiations to change the hostile nature of U.S.-Cuban relations should take place as quickly as possible, the report concluded, before Congress and the OAS took away Washington's bargaining leverage. "We have a poor hand to play and should ask for a new deal before we lose our last chip."

It was in the context of these political realities that Kissinger initiated contact with Castro. He authorized his top deputy, Lawrence Eagleburger, and William D. Rogers, the assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, to undertake half a dozen furtive meetings with Castro's representatives in airport cafeterias, swanky New York hotels and personal homes. Kissinger made his negotiating philosophy clear: "It is better to deal straight with Castro," he told his aides. "Behave chivalrously; do it like a big guy, not like a shyster. Let him know: We are moving in a new direction; we'd like to synchronize…; steps will be unilateral; reciprocity is necessary."

At the first meeting, held in a public cafeteria at LaGuardia Airport on January 11, 1975, Kissinger's aides came well prepared. An aide-mémoire Eagleburger read to Cuba's U.N. ambassador, Ramón Sánchez-Parodi, and his deputy, Nestor Garcia, was explicit in the goals of the dialogue: "explore the possibilities for a more normal relationship between our two countries." Kissinger made clear the potential for a U.S.-Cuban détente:

The ideological differences between us are wide. But the fact that such talks will not bridge the ideological differences does not mean that they cannot be useful in addressing concrete interests which it is in the interest of both countries to resolve. The United States is able and willing to make progress on such issues even with socialist nations with whom we are in fundamental ideological disagreement, as the recent progress in our relations with the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China has shown.

The United States set no preconditions for these talks. Unlike his predecessors, Kissinger did not demand that Cuba terminate its military ties with the Soviet Union, and unlike his successors, he did not make democratization or human rights a prerequisite or even a goal of settling the differences in U.S.-Cuban relations. Sánchez-Parodi, however, suggested that Cuba might have a precondition of its own—lifting the trade embargo. He promised to report back to his government.

To underscore Washington's commitment to negotiations, the State Department immediately undertook a series of diplomatic gestures. In mid-January, Assistant Secretary Rogers quietly arranged for the 25-mile travel restriction on Cuban diplomats to be expanded to 250 miles, so that Cuba's U.N. officials could travel to Washington for secret meetings in the future. The United States lifted prohibitions on American corporations making sales to Cuba through third-country subsidiaries. And Kissinger sent another secret message to Castro through Frank Mankiewicz alerting him that these measures reflected U.S. interests in continuing to explore more normal relations and suggesting another meeting. But Cuba did not respond to a request for another meeting until June, when U.S. officials again approached the Cuban delegation at the U.N. and requested a "further government-to-government exchange of views" before the OAS convened in San José, Costa Rica, in late July to vote to lift multilateral diplomatic and trade sanctions. At a meeting at Eagleburger's home in Washington, D.C., on June 30, the two sides planned a major secret negotiating session at the Pierre Hotel in New York.

On July 9, Eagleburger, Rogers, Sánchez-Parodi and Garcia quietly gathered in a private room at the Pierre for what, at that point, would be the most significant and serious negotiating session in U.S. relations with Castro's revolutionary government. According to a declassified transcript of the meeting, Assistant Secretary Rogers laid out the U.S. proposal for a series of steps by both countries culminating in normal relations. Washington was prepared to lift the embargo piece by piece if Cuba reciprocated by: releasing American citizens in Cuban jails; allowing family travel to and from the island; restricting military relations with the Soviet Union; committing to nonintervention in Latin America; settling U.S. property claims from seizures after the revolution; and tempering support for Puerto Rican independence movements.

But, with the exception of family travel, the Cubans were not willing to yield on any of these points. Sánchez-Parodi pointed out the irony of Washington demanding that Cuba commit itself to nonintervention in the region amid recent revelations of CIA covert intervention in Chile contributing to the September 11, 1973, overthrow of the democratically elected president, Salvador Allende. On Puerto Rico, he said, Cuba believed in the "need for independence and self-determination." Once again, he indicated that lifting the embargo was a precondition for Cuba to engage in serious negotiations. "We are willing to discuss issues related to easing the blockade but until the embargo is lifted, Cuba and the United States cannot deal with each other as equals and consequently cannot negotiate." The meeting ended rather abruptly with Eagleburger rushing to catch the Eastern Airlines shuttle back to D.C. The momentum for any progress in future talks came to a complete halt in September. First, Castro convened a special conference on Puerto Rican independence in Havana, casting the United States as a neocolonial imperialist power. Then, in November, Cuba deployed thousands of combat troops into Angola to support the MPLA government of Agostino Neto, who had requested assistance against CIA- and South African—backed rebels fighting to control Angola's post-colonial future. The Cuban deployment marked Castro's first major military foray into Africa and established Cuba as a leading player in the Third World. The audacity of a small island nation in the U.S. sphere of influence challenging U.S. geostrategic aims in Africa left Kissinger apoplectic. "I think we are going to have to smash Castro," he told President Ford according to a recently declassified memorandum of conversation. "We probably can't do it before the [1976] elections." For the final meeting with the Cubans held at Washington National Airport on January 12, 1976, Kissinger sent Assistant Secretary Rogers with a somewhat more diplomatic message: "Cuba's dispatch of combat troops to take part in an internal conflict between Africans in Angola is a fundamental obstacle to any far-reaching effort to resolve the basic issues between us at this time."

The major legacy of Kissinger's initiative was that it took place, thereby setting the stage for the next president. When Jimmy Carter won the November 1976 election, Frank Mankiewicz briefed his secretary of state designate, Cyrus Vance, on the secret dialogue during the Ford administration. The Carter administration came into office prepared to pick up where the Kissinger team had left off.

More than any other of his presidential predecessors, Jimmy Carter shares Barack Obama's perspective that the United States should talk to its adversaries. Indeed, Carter took that philosophy beyond a commitment to dialogue, deciding that Washington should strive toward normal bilateral ties with hostile states. "I was determined to work for peace and the resolution of problems that the United States had with other countries," the former president told the authors in 2004. That commitment included Cuba, he told us. "I felt then, as I do now, that the best way to bring about a change in Cuba's communist regime was to have open trade and commerce, and visitation, and diplomatic relations."

In office less than eight weeks, Carter became the first, and to date the only, U.S. president to order the normalization of relations with the Castro government. "I have concluded that we should attempt to achieve normalization of our relations with Cuba," stated Presidential Directive/NSC-6, signed by Carter on March 15, 1977. "To this end, we should begin direct and confidential talks in a measured and careful fashion with representatives of the government of Cuba. Our objective is to set in motion a process which will lead to the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba...." This clear presidential mandate set in motion a process that moved quickly. First, Carter lifted the travel ban, not just for Cuban Americans but for all Americans (a ban subsequently reimposed by Ronald Reagan). Freedom to travel was a constitutional right, Carter believed, and having ordinary citizens visit Cuba would help reduce tensions between the two countries—a strategy of engagement that President Bill Clinton would later dub "people-to-people."

Next, Carter dispatched a State Department team to negotiate maritime boundaries, fishing rights and Coast Guard cooperation, all issues of mutual interest that Havana had offered to discuss. After just two rounds of talks, they reached agreements in all three areas. Shortly thereafter, the two governments agreed to reestablish direct diplomatic communications by opening diplomatic missions, called "interests sections," in each other's capital. The interest sections functioned as de facto embassies (even locating in the old embassy buildings), a step just short of the reestablishment of formal diplomatic relations.

But toward the end of 1977, discord within Carter's foreign policy team killed the momentum. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski viewed Cuba as a Cold War pawn of the Soviet Union, and worried that normalizing relations would enhance Soviet power and prestige. Despite Secretary of State Vance's continued desire to at least partially lift the embargo, Brzezinski began to sway Carter after Cuba deployed troops to Ethiopia.

The Cubans remained eager to jump-start the normalization process and chose a private emissary of their own—Cuban-American businessman Bernardo Benes. In August 1977, Castro's agents tracked Benes down on a vacation in Panama and invited him to come to Cuba and discuss a rapprochement between Cuba and the Miami exile community. After several visits with Fidel over the ensuing months, Benes traveled to Washington to report on these secret talks. As a gesture towards Carter's commitment to human rights, Benes told Vance and Brzezinski, Castro was willing to release thousands of political prisoners in hopes of resuming the diplomatic dialogue.

The Benes initiative led to the most sustained secret talks between U.S. and Cuban diplomats to date. During 1978, senior U.S. officials met covertly with Cuban counterparts on six separate occasions in venues ranging from New York City, Washington, and Atlanta, to Cuernavaca, Mexico, and Havana. The United States quickly agreed to accept any Cuban prisoners who wanted to emigrate, but the talks stalled when they turned to wider issues.

The Cubans wanted to discuss lifting the embargo; the U.S. negotiators, under strict instructions from the White House, insisted no progress could be made on the trade sanctions and other bilateral issues until Cuba withdrew its troops from Africa. The Cubans replied that they were in Africa at the request of legitimate, recognized governments. They would not desert their friends to curry favor with Washington. Although the talks explored the full range of bilateral issues, the negotiators could never cut through the Gordian knot of that disagreement.

"My personal feeling was that there might have been a chance to make some progress on other issues if we had been permitted to take a somewhat different tack," U.S. negotiator David Newsom said in an interview with the authors. "But our hands were pretty well tied."

These negotiations, all held in the strictest of secrecy, culminated in a face-to-face meeting with Fidel in Havana. Vance's special assistant, Peter Tarnoff, and Brzezinski's assistant for Latin America, Robert Pastor, presented Washington's position to the Cuban leader. Over the course of a five-hour conversation, Castro reiterated Cuba's position so vehemently, "I felt like I was being run over by a train," Pastor recalled.

"The impression I have of the United States is that it has the wrong approach toward Cuba," Castro told the U.S. officials. "There should be no mistake—we cannot be pressured, impressed, bribed or bought." His stern lecture highlighted two important components of Castro's position for any future negotiations: the demand that Cuba be treated as an equal and Cuba's grievance over the embargo. "I do not understand the United States' enormous concern about Cuba in Africa," Fidel declared:

We have never discussed with you the activities of the United States throughout the entire world. Perhaps it is because the United States is a great power, it feels it can do what it wants and what is good for it. It seems to be saying that there are two laws, two sets of rules and two kinds of logic, one for the United States and one for other countries. Perhaps it is idealistic of me, but I never accepted the universal prerogatives of the United States.

On the embargo, Fidel voiced Cuba's anger at having the "blockade" that he viewed as unjust and illegal used as Washington's main bargaining chip: We understand that it is a tangled ball of yarn that has been formed around the blockade and that it will be very difficult to unravel.... We are the victims and cannot be asked to help you find ways to let us stop being victims.

There was no give on either side, and talks did not resume for over a year. The negotiators reconvened in Havana in January 1980, after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The Soviets had not warned Havana of the impending invasion, despite Cuba's role as chair of the Nonaligned Movement. Just as Fidel's anger over the Soviets' disregard for Cuban sovereignty during the 1962 missile crisis led him to seek an opening to Washington in 1963, his anger about Afghanistan now prompted him to explore his options with Washington. The conversation ranged widely for more than 10 hours. Fidel offered Cuba's good offices to help free U.S. hostages in Iran, he declared his desire to get Cuban troops out of Africa as soon as the host governments were safe and stable, and he insisted that Cuba's support for revolutionaries in Central America was not aimed at causing problems for the United States. The Carter administration, however, remained unconvinced.

A few months later, the migration crisis known as the Mariel boatlift hijacked the diplomatic agenda. U.S. negotiators returned to Havana twice to try to resolve the crisis—they finally succeeded in September. Washington promised Havana that the dialogue would continue and future sessions would return to issues of central concern to Cuba, especially the embargo. But plans to put Cuba on the agenda for the second term fell through when Carter lost his bid for reelection.

Obama will also want to draw from the experiences of Bill Clinton. Unlike Obama, Clinton entered the White House beholden to the right-wing Cuban American National Foundation. The foundation donated tens of thousands of dollars to his campaign in return for his endorsement of legislation to tighten the embargo. Nevertheless, Clinton worked to lower the hostile rhetoric and engage the Cubans on bilateral issues such as establishing modern telecommunications links, U.S. news bureaus in Havana and counter-narcotics collaboration. During his first term, the White House toyed with the concept of "calibrated response"—a synchronized process in which the United States would gradually dismantle the embargo and Cuba would take steps toward democracy until relations were normal. But White House aides abandoned this idea of step-by-step reciprocity as impractical. "We needed a dance not to the same music but to a similar beat," one White House official told us, "where each side pursued interests independently."

Momentum in easing tensions in U.S.-Cuban relations was undermined by the balsero crisis in the summer of 1994. In the midst of a horrendous economic collapse following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Castro unleashed another refugee exodus—and then took back-channel steps to resolve it. The Cubans initially contacted former President Carter to act as an interlocutor, but Clinton preferred to use Mexican President Carlos Salinas to open a direct dialogue with Castro. "The task had to be taken with total discretion," Salinas wrote in his memoirs. "I needed a connection to the Cuban government, someone who would be completely discreet while having direct and immediate access to Fidel Castro.... I telephoned Gabriel García Márquez."

The message that García Márquez carried to Martha's Vineyard set the stage for talks in September to end the massive flow of refugees. But the temporary fix of transforming the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo into a massive detention center for 20,000 rafters intercepted at sea soon became a nightmare for the U.S. military. In April 1995, U.S. and Cuban diplomats met in utmost secrecy in Toronto to hammer out a new accord: the Guantánamo detainees would be brought to the United States. But from then on, Cuban refugees who did not make it to land in the United States would be repatriated to Cuba. This new policy—known as "wet foot/dry foot"—marked a fundamental change in the U.S. immigration posture, which had always welcomed all refugees from communist Cuba. It generated howls of protest from anti-Castro groups furious about the secret talks and worried that further dialogue might lead to normalized relations.

One such group was Brothers to the Rescue (BTTR), led by a militant anti-Castro exile named José Basulto. BTTR pilots began flying planes over the Florida Strait looking for refugees in need of rescue, but soon the planes were buzzing Havana, dropping propaganda leaflets over the city. Along with open diplomatic communiqués, the Cubans used no fewer than three back channels, including then Congressman Bill Richardson, to get the message to President Clinton that they could not tolerate such security breaches of their airspace. All these communications failed. When three BTTR planes flew into Cuban airspace on February 24, 1996, Cuban MiGs scrambled and shot down two of them as they fled, killing four young men and precipitating the worst crisis in U.S.-Cuban relations since the Mariel Boatlift.

Despite the shoot-down, communications continued during Clinton's second term. Castro once again used Gabriel García Márquez as a secret emissary to alert President Clinton to "a sinister terrorist plot," as the writer described it, "which could affect not only their two countries, but others as well." During a secret meeting at the White House on May 6, 1998, García Márquez shared with four of Clinton's top national security aides the details of a threat to blow up airliners flying to Cuba from Central America. "Your mission was one of the highest importance," he was told by a senior U.S. official, "and you have carried it out admirably." Clinton sent the FBI to Cuba to be briefed by intelligence officials; subsequently the FBI arrested a network of Cuban spies in Florida, but not the exiles who were plotting attacks.

The two countries engaged in "béisbol diplomacy"—negotiating arrangements for ballgames in Havana and Baltimore between the top Cuban team and the Baltimore Orioles in early 1999. That year, Clinton took unilateral steps to expand travel to Cuba for U.S. residents and Cuban-American families. The reduced tensions proved useful when a little boy named Elián González became the center of an international tug-of-war between his relatives in Miami and his father in Cuba. Behind the scenes, U.S. and Cuban officials in Havana and Washington engaged in extensive diplomatic talks to bring that crisis to an end, and return Elián to his father.

"After nearly 50 years of failure, we must turn the page and begin to write a new chapter in U.S.-Cuba policy," Barack Obama declared during the presidential campaign. "I will also do what this president has not done: engage in aggressive and principled bilateral diplomacy." As Obama reviews the previous chapters of bilateral diplomacy written by his predecessors, he should take note of some key historical lessons that still resonate today.

The first lesson is that the Cubans have always been interested in normalizing relations. Besides engaging in talks with the Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Clinton administrations, the Cubans held secret meetings with emissaries from Presidents Johnson and Reagan, and negotiated immigration accords with those two administrations. Diplomatic dialogue on resolving the conflicts in Central America also took place during the administration of George H. W. Bush. "We have always been disposed to normalize relations on an equal plane," Raúl Castro reiterated after taking over for his ailing brother in 2006.

But the second lesson that each president has learned is that while the Cuban government's interest in improved relations has been unwavering, so, too, is its unwillingness to give in to U.S. demands that it alter its domestic politics and sacrifice its international principles. The sanctity of Cuba's socialist system, as Che Guevara made clear in 1961, is nonnegotiable. The Cubans, as the new administration will discover, are no more willing to negotiate their constitution with us, than we would be to negotiate ours with them.

Third, the quid pro quo approach has never worked because it drags out the process and allows time for complicating circumstances, such as Cuba's involvement in Africa, or the shoot-down of planes from Brothers to the Rescue, or U.S. electoral politics, to torpedo progress.

These lessons suggest a final one—that moving quickly and unilaterally to lay the groundwork for better ties is likely to produce the best results. To the extent that the Obama White House can treat normalization as a starting point, rather than the endgame of changing the U.S.-Cuban equation, concrete advances in bilateral relations will be made. Indeed, that is the conclusion that Jimmy Carter draws from his own failed experience: "I think in retrospect, knowing what I know since I left the White House," he told us, "I should have gone ahead and been more flexible in dealing with Cuba and establishing full diplomatic relations."

That is good advice for President Obama as he settles into the Oval Office. Like Kennedy, who saw the potential for changing the dynamic of relations in the aftermath of the missile crisis, Obama faces a true period of change on the island as Cuba moves firmly into a post-Fidel—and eventually a post-Castro—era. As was the case in the mid-1970s, there are growing domestic and international pressures on the White House to finally unravel "the tangled ball of yarn" that is Cuba policy. With a solid Democratic majority, Congress is moving toward lifting key elements of the U.S. embargo, particularly the prohibitions on travel. The last United Nations vote to condemn the trade embargo was 185-3 (Israel, Palau and the United States), reflecting the condemnation of the international community of U.S. policy as archaic, ineffectual and counterproductive. Finally, Obama's solid victory in Florida, with 35 percent of the Cuban-American community, frees him from the domestic political constraints that plagued so many of his predecessors. Drawing on this advantage and utilizing these pressures, the Obama administration is well-positioned to reconfigure a stagnant, Cold War—era policy that has failed for five decades to meet U.S. goals.

Given the intractable nature of 50 years of hostile U.S. policy toward Cuba, and the sharp political sensitivities surrounding the issue of a dialogue toward better relations, the new president will no doubt be advised to approach this problem like porcupines make love—"very carefully." But the historic candidate who ran on a platform of "change you can believe in" should move quickly to apply that philosophy to a policy problem that has bedeviled no fewer than 10 occupants of the Oval Office before him. With their history as his guide, Obama now has the best opportunity to succeed.

Peter Kornbluh directs the Cuba Documentation Project at the National Security Archive; William M. LeoGrande is Dean of the School of Public Affairs at American University. This article is adapted from their forthcoming book: Talking With Fidel: The Untold History of Dialogue Between the United States and Cuba.

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If you have a blog (which every business should) add the feed to your signature. A blog can attract more people to your site and get them interested in your brand. A feed is constantly changing as you add new content so it will catch people’s attention and draw them in.

Our company e-mail signature is used by everyone that works at our company. However, each individual person adds their own contact information above it. Below is an example from Ken Cimetta, owner of Cimetta Design.

Ken Cimetta
Cimetta Design, Inc.
tel: 954-680-4584
cel: 954-650-7715
fax: 954-434-2607
e-mail signature

An e-mail signature should not only look great, but should act as a successful marketing tool. Here at Cimetta Design, We love helping your business look good and achieve success. Like our e-mail signature? We can help design one just as impressive for you.

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Xavier Cimetta

Xavier Cimetta is part owner and the head Designer/Front-end developer at Cimetta Design, Inc. As an entrepreneur and work-a-holic, his mission is to help fellow entrepreneurs & businesses design beautiful brands, websites, packaging and experiences to reach their goals.

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Rent David Parker films

Here is collection of David Parker films we carry in our extensive library of over 90,000 titles. Rent new releases as well as back catalogue of David Parker films on DVD and Blu-ray with our no obligation Free Trial offer.

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Rent The Three Stooges Online DVD Rental

Rent The Three Stooges (1965)

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DVD: 55 min.

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Google+ Cinema Viewfinder: Patrick Swayze

Monday, September 14, 2009

Patrick Swayze

I never saw Patrick Swayze in his breakout role in Dirty Dancing (1987), which seemed to dog him for the rest of his career. But I'm sure it was a great example of the stunning physicality and grace he seemed to bring to each of his performances. That grace helped elevate what could have been a silly role in a B-movie—the spectral Sam Wheat in Ghost (1990)—to one with which the romantic in all of us could identify. My first exposure to the sweet, yet volatile, actor was in Coppola's underrated classic The Outsiders (1983), where he brought a gravitas to the role of oldest brother Darrel that helped set an example for the rest of the cast, mostly made up of then unknown Brat Packers like Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, and a young goofball by the name of Tom Cruise. Swayze would again be the anchor amongst his younger cohorts—Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Jennifer Grey and others—in the right-wing Soviet invasion fantasy, Red Dawn (1984), where his horrified reaction to the thought of executing a friend who betrayed him ran counter to the movie's sensibilities, and generously provided a scene-stealing moment for fellow actor Howell. Because that was just the kind of actor he was. He'd take the backseat if he knew a fellow performer had a shot at stealing the show. How else can one explain his receding from view on a now legendary Saturday Night Live sketch, where Swayze—an athletic dancer—competes with the obese late comedian, Chris Farley, for a slot as a Chippendale dancer, and Farley wins the slot. However, Swayze was not above taking the spotlight when the situation called for it. As Southerner Orry Main in TV's Civil War miniseries, North and South (1985) and its sequel, he ran circles around his co-star James Read, who wrongly decided to underplay the part of his former best friend and Northerner, George Hazard. And he shone in an episode of Spielberg's Amazing Stories called "Life on Death Row" (1986), where—years before Stephen King wrote The Green Mile—he played a convicted murderer on Death Row who miraculously acquires the power to heal. All of this, Swayze accomplished before he hit it big with Dirty Dancing... which I did not see. Yes, Swayze had plenty of misfires after that, as many actors do in pursuit of the next big hit. Road House, Next of Kin, City of Joy are all... forgettable. But if there's one part that demonstrated that there was a powerful actor in there whose depths had not truly been plumbed, it was his role as the surfing philosopher/bank robber Bodhi in Point Break (1991). It even sounds funny when describing it. But Kathryn Bigelow's marvelous genre mash-up of surf movie by way of crime thriller is deservedly a cult classic, and it afforded Swayze his best chance yet to exhibit both his intensity as an actor and his physical ability. Instead of using a stunt double, he ended up doing all of the skydiving and most of the surfing himself. He never again had another part that quite harnessed his unique brand of energy in that way again. But as his determination to keep acting (in the daily grind of a TV series no less) while he fought with pancreatic cancer over the final years of his life demonstrated, and his near-40-year-long romance with wife Lisa Niemi attested, the man walked it like he talked it in his personal life also. Patrick Swayze died today at the age of 57. Recommended Films - The Outsiders, Red Dawn, Ghost, Point Break

Adam Zanzie said...

One Swayze vehicle I enjoyed (in my childhood) was Black Dog (1998). If you're in the mood for a fun, ludicrous action flick, it's recommended. Meat Loaf Aday and Randy Travis co-starred.

I wish Swayze had chosen his projects better, but I'm thankful that he at least got to work with Coppola and Milius.

Kevin J. Olson said...

Nice thoughts here, Tony. I too agree with what you say about Point Break and Swayze's performance as Bodhi. I have to say that I actually love Road's a great drive-in action movie made the way they don't make them anymore. It's gratutious and ridiculous -- the way action movies like that should be. Plus, I think he and Sam Elliot are having a lot of fun in the movie playing super cool bad asses.

It's sad that Swayze never got out from under the shadow of Dirty Dancing. I love Red Dawn, and two recent performances that are sometime overlooked are his supporting role in Donnie Darko, and the starring role in a minor film Green Dragon...both showed a range of emotions that were rarely on display because of the lack of quality in the roles he was offered.

Scorpius Maximus Indicus said...

Apart from Ghost, Point Break, liked his supporting act in Donnie Darko, as the celebrity self help speaker, with whom Donnie has a tiff.

He was pretty good in Ghost, showcasing his comic side especially in the scenes with Whoopie Goldberg.

cb on bonanzle said...

Another talented star gone. May he rest in peace and may his death be an inspiration in finding a cure for pancreatic cancer. As he said earlier this year "I want to last until they find a cure, which means I'd better get a fire under it."

J.D. said...

Yeah, POINT BREAK is probably my fave film of his. He really committed to the pulpy material all the way and really stole the film away from the "star" Keanu Reeves -- not too hard considering his stiff acting style, but it plays well off of Swayze's philosophical surfer/bank robber. And you can just see in many of the scenes it looks like Swayze's having a total blast with the role, getting to do all those crazy physical stunts. It's interesting to see this film kinda getting rediscovered. It has been on cable TV all summer and I've watched it countless times and each time I enjoy it more and more and that's because of Swayze's top notch performance.

Hokahey said...

I have watched Red Dawn many times. When I first saw it, I expected it to be a shoot-em'-up with a happy ending. When it turned into a serious examination of the effects of violence, and when Swayze delivered his powerful performance as Jed, I was pleased and amazed.


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Dell CIO on Culture and Web 2.0

By Elizabeth Bennett  |  Posted 07-01-2009 Print Email
Corporate culture is critical to social media projects.

Decide whether to buy or build, choose features and functionality, weigh security and privacy concerns, consider ROI--it's easy to get bogged down in discussions over social media. While those discussions are crucial, they're only chapters in a larger, more strategic narrative.

That larger story, says Dell CIO Robin Johnson, is about developing a culture that supports successful social media projects. At Dell, those projects tend to focus on generating ideas for products, product development processes and sales. "What I'm really trying to do is foster debate internally among our 80,000 employees in 20 locations," Johnson explains.

Creating such a culture at Dell means getting people to adopt the technology and ensuring that senior leadership is publicly engaged in the unstructured dialogue the technology supports, be it about R&D, sales or customer support. Perhaps most essential, says Johnson, it means that management must use the feedback posted in idea forums, blogs, wikis and other interactive spaces.

Let's start with adoption of social media, which Johnson says is barely recognizable compared with what it was 20 years ago. "What you're seeing today as compared to the days of the mainframe is a huge interaction between how people run their lives outside the office and how they expect to run it inside," he says. For example, he points out that nearly everyone knows how to connect a computer to a network today, while very few did two decades ago.

Similarly, Johnson says workers expect the information-sharing tools they use at work to mirror those they use at home. He sees his role as overseeing the development of secure methods to meet that expectation.

Dell employees are entitled to expect their business tools to be as "totally familiar" as the ones they use in their everyday lives, Johnson points out. "If you know how to send a picture from your phone to a Website, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to use the same method at work," he says.

What's more, Johnson adds, people don't want the "burden of learning" the ins and outs of another application.

Yet, even with the most familiar application interfaces, tools don't cultivate themselves. Johnson likens Dell's EmployeeStorm--an online forum to which employees can contribute and rate ideas--to the old idea boxes that used to sit outside managers' offices.

The key to success, he says, is making sure that executive management is actively engaging with the ideas. (There are, for example, about 4,000 ideas posted on the sales area of EmployeeStorm.)

Engagement, Johnson says, means publicly acknowledging contributions. "It's worthy of my time to respond to blog posts and say, 'That's fantastic to see this being talked about,'" he explains. "That inspires people to use the tools."

But responding involves more than just a virtual pat on the back. It also means listening, adopting the most promising ideas and relaying those decisions to the work force. "Adopting ideas gives people a feeling of validation that they can contribute and knock down barriers," he says.

Johnson urges anyone who wants to use social media for idea generation first to take stock of what the organization can handle and respond to--or risk failure. "There's no point in running a hundred Storms if you only have the capacity to respond to 10," he says.

The danger lies in falling in love with the technology for technology's sake, when what's at issue is fostering more effective communications. And in the case of generating new ideas, those communications are dependent upon accountability and action from executive management.

"The tool may be sexy," Johnson says, "but if no one listens or takes action, then its usage will die."

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CIPS Working Paper, August 2009

  • The policies of the United States and its international partners in Afghanistan during the past eight years have proven wrong-headed and ineffective in delivering the promised peace, stability and democratic governance.
  • Faulty assumptions on the part of key US government advisors, decision makers and many of their Afghan and Pakistani clients have contributed to the resurgence of the Taliban and a crisis of trust for the Karzai government and the internationally supported state-building process.
  • The Obama administration must discard the misguided policies of the past and adopt a historically informed and culturally sensitive strategy aimed at fundamentally changing the governance system in Afghanistan, rather than simply reinforcing the current dysfunctional regime through increases in levels of military and economic assistance.

Full text (pdf)

M. Nazif Shahrani is Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and professor of anthropology, Central Asian and Middle Eastern studies at Indiana University, Bloomington.

This publication is part of the project on Afghanistan: Can a Sustainable Outcome Be Achieved?


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The life, loves and traumas of a truly modern English Mother

In what ways is your home town unique from other places you've lived or traveled?

What do your kids love most about living in the European Union?

What outdoor activity do you enjoy doing most with your kids?


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Germany extends ban on short selling

GERMANY is expected to roll out further restrictions on short selling.

A draft German finance ministry document yesterday called for restrictions on speculative trades to be extended to all shares, widening a ban imposed last week.

The shock move last week banned naked shorting on top financial firms, euro government bonds and related credit default swaps.

The move stunned markets, contributing to a climate of uncertainty that sent the euro close to a four year low against the dollar. It was immediately set upon by analysts who branded the panic move “desperate”.

It was seen as largely symbolic because it was isolated -- only Australia followed -- and most of the affected trading takes place in London. The ban will run for almost a year, finally coming to an end on 31 March 2011.

Naked shorting is when a trader sells a financial instrument, such as a shares or bonds, that they have not yet borrowed.


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Technology Teacher Education / Career & Technology Teacher Education
These two Bachelor of Science programs prepare students for positions as career/technical and technology teachers. Students can get provisional certification en route to teach in New York public middle and high schools. Students in the career teacher program can earn up to 30 credits based on previous occupational skills. This is a high-demand field that offers an extremely satisfying career.


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South Baylo University

South Baylo University

South Baylo University, SBU, was established in 1977. It was originally located in Los Angeles, and comprised of the School of Business Administration, and the School of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. In 1982, the university was relocated to Garden Grove, and in 1994, it moved into its present campus in Anaheim, California. The two schools separated in 1997, and SBU currently has under it the School of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine.

South Baylo University offers master's, and doctorate degrees, as well as certificate programs of study. These courses focus on classical internal medicine, herbology, acupuncture therapy, and medical biology.

SBU supports on-campus organizations like the Chinese Student Council, English Student Council, and Korean Student Council. In addition to Federal grants, loans, work study programs, and Veteran's Benefits, the university also awards deserving candidates the Academic Excellence Scholarship, the Clinic Excellence Scholarship Award, the Special Scholarship Award, the Student Council Scholarship Award, the Alumni Association Scholarship Award, and the President Scholarship Award.

Disclaimer: Information on this page was not provided or commissioned by the featured school. Information has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the featured school.

Contacting South Baylo University

South Baylo University
1126 N Brookhurst St
Anaheim , CA 92801-1701
General Phone: (714) 533-1495

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South Baylo University Programs and Degrees (2008-2009)

General CategoryDegreesMost Common Majors [see all]
Nutrition and Exercise Therapy152acupuncture

Number of programs and degrees for South Baylo University in 2008-2009:

Degree LevelTotal
Number of
Bachelor's degree121
Master's degree1401

South Baylo University Student Body

In 2007-2008, South Baylo University had a total enrollment of 573 students (794 full-time equivalent).

Students By Class:

Group Percent
Undergraduate 26%
Graduate 74%

Racial Diversity:

Race Percent
White 7%
Hispanic 1%
Asian 47%
Unknown 0%
(Foreign Students) 45%

Students by Age:

Age Percent
18-19 0%
20-21 1%
22-24 9%
25-29 21%
30-34 17%
35-39 15%
40-49 21%
50-64 14%
65+ 1%

South Baylo University Room and Board (2007)

The school does not offer campus housing.

(Please refer to our profile of Anaheim, California for details about the area surrounding the campus. Also see our list of other California Colleges).

The school does not offer students a meal plan.

South Baylo University Admissions and Selectivity

Application Requirements:

Years of College Work Before Admittancerecommended

South Baylo University Expenses and Financial Aid (2008-2009)

Expenses and Financial Aid:

Expense Amount

Financial Aid:
South Baylo University participates in Federal Title IV financial aid programs. (The school's OPE ID is 2597300)

South Baylo University Degree Programs (2007)

Nutrition And Exercise Therapy

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Top 17%South Baylo University Male % of student body

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400 Days 2015 720p BluRay x264 x0r

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400 Days 2015 720p BluRay x264 x0r

400 Days (2015)

01:30:05 | [email protected] kb/s 23.98 fps(r) (eng) | ac3, 48000 Hz, 5:1 (eng) | 1.89 GiB
Language: English | Genre: Mystery / Thriller | Subtitles: None

imdb iNFO

"400 Days" centers on four astronauts sent on a simulated mission to a distant planet to test the psychological effects of deep space travel. Locked away for 400 days, the crew's mental state begins to deteriorate when they lose all communication with the outside world. Forced to exit the ship, they discover that this mission may not have been a simulation after all.
Director: Matt Osterman
Writers: Matt Osterman
Stars: Brandon Routh / Dane Cook / Caity Lotz / Ben Feldman / Tom Cavanagh / Grant Bowler / Dominic Bogart / Fernanda Romero / Sally Pressman / Mark Steger / Frank Ashmore / Luke Barnett / Rene Bremond / Nicole Derseweh / Gretchen Dickason
Country: USA
Language: English
Ratings: 4.6
Release info

File: 400.Days.2015.720p.BluRay.x264-x0r.mkv
Size: 2031185792 bytes (1.89 GiB), duration: 01:30:05, avg.bitrate: 3006 kb/s
Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, 5:1 (eng)
Video: h264, yuv420p, 1280x720, 23.98 fps(r) (eng)

400 Days 2015 720p BluRay x264 x0r

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iZotope Alloy 2 2.03 (Mac OS X)

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iZotope Alloy 2 2.03 (Mac OS X)
iZotope Alloy 2 2.03 (Mac OS X) | 136.07 MB
Alloy 2: Essential Mixing Tools - Alloy 2 gives you futuristic tools, fast results and most importantly, fantastic sound. Bring character and life to every element of your mix with Alloy 2. Far more than just a traditional channel strip, Alloy 2 is a modern twist on classic mixing.

The basics have been re-imagined with forward-thinking features and time-saving flexibility. Innovative sound sculpting tools are ripe with potential for delivering your distinctive sound. And best of all, Alloy 2 allows you to focus on mixing without distraction, neatly packaging the mixing essentials in a self-contained and completely configurable plug-in that puts everything you need at your fingertips.

Key Features:
- Get six powerful tools in one integrated plug-in: Equalizer, Dynamics, Exciter, De-Esser, Transient Shaper and Limiter.
- Achieve exceptional sound quality, balancing vintage emulation with digital precision.
- Hear results immediately with zero latency performance, whether youre tracking in real-time or in the midst of a mix session.
- Visualize your mixing decisions with rich meter displays to guide the way.
- Start fast, then go deep with over 250 presets and a tweakers paradise of advanced controls.

System Requirements:

Operating system requirements:
- ShiChuang: XP (32-bit Service Pack 3), Vista (64-bit), 7, 8
- Mac: OS X 10.6.8 or later (Intel only)

Plug-in formats:
- Pro Tools 7.412 (RTAS, AudioSuite, 64-bit AAX), VST, VST3, Audio Unit, DirectX

Plug-in host compatibility:
- Pro Tools, Cubase, Nuendo, WaveLab, GarageBand, Logic, Audition, SONAR, ACID, Vegas, Sound Forge, Peak, Ableton Live, and many more

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Dean Somerset - Ruthless Mobility

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Dean Somerset - Ruthless Mobility
Dean Somerset - Ruthless Mobility
.MP4, AVC, 552 kbps, 854x480 | English, AAC, 64 kbps, 2 Ch | 6 hours | + PDF | 1.37 GB

Discover Cutting Edge Techniques that Will Help You and Your Clients Move Better, Increase Performance, Create Explosive Strength, Resolve Pain and Prevent Injuries in As Little As 6-Hours Without the Need for Any Equipment.

What is Ruthless Mobility

Some people are born with the bone and joint alignment to be human versions of Gumby, and some are not. That doesn't mean you should exist within the confines of a body with less range of motion than a clam. There are quick and easy ways to see massive increases in range of motion, and I want to show them to you.

This seminar goes through the most cutting edge techniques, science and application to increase range of motion without surgery or other invasive procedures. Taking advantage of optimal centration, neural affect, and breathing techniques to target in on limitations, as well as some additional active drills to help speed the process can help take you from stiff as a board to near Van Damme levels of flexibility, all in record time. Did I mention no static stretching required

What you will discover in Ruthless Mobility:

- Learn different methods of developing muscle tension and how it can reduce range of motion, and also how to can facilitate increasing range of motion when used properly
- How to identify and address common issues for developing mobility, featuring structural, soft tissue, neural and protective tension
- A variety of foam rolling, breathing, active mobilization, static stretching, traction, co-stabilization and tac & stretch modalities will be discussed, including neural effect, structural effect, and soft tissue alterations of each technique
- Self myofascial release and its role in increasing range of motion, as well as what it doesnt do
- Key cueing and coaching of modality exercises
- Neurophysiology of stretching
- Fear & anxiety and their roles in stiffness
- Application of different stressors to elicit stretch reflex loops
- Case studies highlighting common problems encountered in the gym population and how to solve them.

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