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Jan 17, 2014

Estate of mysterious heiress still not settled

Clark (right) with her father and sister
The Huguette Clark estate has been in limbo for three years. A tentative settlement was reached in the fall of 2013 after several contentious legal battles, but the lawsuits just keep coming. The entire saga is worthy of a long-running soap opera - with ample material for several spinoffs, too. Money, greed, family, and questionable estate planning are the main plot points. While mind-boggling sums of money are at stake in this conflict, there are lessons to be learned for those with more modest means, too.

In case you've been hiding under a rock for the past three years, here are the basics: Huguette Clark was the highly reclusive heiress to a vast mining and railroad fortune. Clark was briefly married and never had children, and her one sibling died at a young age. At the time of Clark's passing, her only family members were 20 very distant relatives, the product of her father's previous marriage and with whom she had little or no contact.

Pathologically shy, Clark lived a hermit-like existence in a palatial 42-bedroom apartment on New York City's tony Fifth Avenue. She had lived with her mother there until her mother died in 1963. Clark rarely ventured out over the years except to purchase clothing for her extensive doll collection, valued at $1.7 million. In 1991, an emaciated Clark was carried out of her apartment; she had skin cancer on her face so advanced that she is said to have resembled a leper. She was admitted to Beth Israel Hospital in New York, where she was treated and returned to relatively stable condition. But even then, she never checked out, continuing to reside in the hospital until her death two decades later. She remained there under the alias Harriett Chase, in an unmarked room to protect her privacy The only people who saw her during that time were her accountant, lawyer, and a team of private nurses.

In the many lawsuits that have cropped up since her death, the hospital and its supporters have argued Clark chose to remain in the hospital, an arrangement that suited her because it provided security and a surrogate family. Others allege she was coaxed to remain there and her whereabouts kept hidden from the world, so that those around her could pressure her into giving them money. And give she did, regardless of why she remained at the hospital. Over the tears the heiress provided frequent and extravagant gifts into the millions to the people in this tiny inner circle - her physician, nurses, lawyer, etc.

When Clark died at age 104 in 2011, among the assets in her $307 million estate were the New York apartment; a 22-room mansion in New Canaan, Connecticut; and a 21,000 square foot Santa Barbara, California home overlooking the Pacific housing an original Renoir and other valuable paintings, a Stradivarius violin, and an original edition of "Paradise Lost." All her homes had been meticulously maintained over the years, even though Clark never went to any of them.

Two wills were found. The first will, signed March 7, 2005, left everything to her distant relatives.  It had the word "revoked" handwritten and a line drawn through the first page. The second will, signed just a few weeks later on April 5, 2005, cut out the relatives, stating: I intentionally make no provision in this my last will and testament for any members of my family, whether on my maternal or paternal side, having had minimal contacts with them over the years. Instead, the new will left $1 million to Beth Israel Hospital; $100,000 to her personal physician, Henry Singman; additional gifts to the caretakers of her various properties and to her lawyer and her accountant; the California property to a foundation to be established to promote the arts; a Monet painting, "Water Lillies," to Washington, D.C.'s Corcoran Gallery of Art, an institution her father had supported; and her collection of dolls and dollhouses and 60% of the rest of the estate to her longtime daytime nurse, now-retired Brooklyn resident Hadassah Peri.

You don't need a degree in rocket science to figure out what came next: The relatives contested the April 2005 will, claiming that Clark had been coerced into excluding them from her estate. After years of legal back-and-forth, a tentative settlement was reached in September 2013. Under the terms, the relatives would divide $34.5 million among themselves. Clark's attorney and accountant would be stripped of their bequests. The doll collection would go to the arts foundation, not Peri. The hospital would get $1 million. Peri also would be required to return $6.7 million of $31 million she received from Clark during the heiress' lifetime, and also forego  the $30 million earmarked for her in Clark's will. (There are still other, separate lawsuits pending: the executors of the estate are trying to claw back some of the money that Clark gave out over the years; Beth Israel Hospital is also being sued.)

But this January, there was a new turn of events: Geraldine Coffey, Clark's night-duty nurse for two decades, said she would not agree to the settlement, threatening to derail it. She claims she was not consulted during the negotiations, and that, in addition to the gifts she'd received during Clark's lifetime, Clark had also told her she would be provided for in her will.  Coffey received about $1 million in gifts before Clark passed on, monies used to purchase real estate and pay her children's tuition, in addition to a $130,000 annual salary.. Attorneys for the estate have countered that Coffey caused Clark distress by pressuring her for money. The matter is due back in court this month.

Of course, the conflict is also generating enormous fees for the lawyers involved.
These high-profile legal conflicts over huge fortunes are intriguing, to be sure, and Clark's eccentricity and unusual circumstances make this one more intriguing than most. However, at its heart it is an everyday and common drama: An isolated, elderly person whose competency is questioned along with the motives of those around her, and estate planning documents that arouse suspicion. Multi-millionaires or not, all of us should take steps to ensure that in death, our wishes are carried out, and those we care about most are protected. If you need help to create a sound and thoughtful estate plan,  contact our lawyers for a consultation.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That 'family' needs to but out and not get diddily squat. The fact that you are taking money from someone who was given it WHILE THE PERSON WAS ALIVE, is a completely stupid move. I hate my family and hope they never do something as stupid as this.
Phillius | http://www.rigaziolaw.com

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Ciao! Compost presents:

A Beginner’s Guide to Psychic Archiving

by Kate Lepper

Performed on site in Finland by: Nastja Rönkkö, Anna Bunting-Branch
And via digital link from Quebec, Canada by: Kate Lepper

“objectify Pronunciation: /ɒbˈdʒɛktɪfʌɪ/
verb (objectifies, objectifying, objectified)
[with object]
1 express (something abstract) in a concrete form:
good poetry objectifies feeling
2 degrade to the status of a mere object:
a deeply sexist attitude that objectifies women*”

A Beginner’s Guide to Psychic Archiving is an experimental new work developed for Performance Compost, a festival of Live Art at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland. Performance Compost aims to create a living museum including lectures, installations and a blog, addressing such questions as: how can performance art be documented? Can documents from previous performances be used as material for new ones? What kind of documents can be used to create a performance and what is the role of those documents in the performance? How can the boundary between fact and fiction be blurred in a performance?

A Beginner’s Guide to Psychic Archiving playfully suggests that the problem of recording the meaningful moment in any live art work (as in any art interaction no matter how ‘autonomous’) is akin to the impossibility of capturing concretely the experience of being in ones body. This problem becomes politicised when attributes of an ‘object’ are defined and stacked in a value hierarchy determined by a knowledge producing elite, and not according to the ‘object’s’ own determination.

In response to themes of exhibitionism, narcissism and objectification within performative practice and feminist theory, A Beginners Guide to Psychic Archiving intends to free each performer from the politics of the ‘Gaze’, to occupy attention away from critical self-consciousness, confront the values of ‘spectacle’ and create problems for conservative strategies of knowledge production and dissemination.

Using the lexicon of mind-body techniques, everyday objects, art conservation, office presentations and memory, A Beginners Guide to Psychic Archiving suggests that the site of meaning is always on the move between material and sensation, between self and other, and, between the known and the unknowable.

Consisting of eight Psychic Archiving Exercises beginning every half hour, this is a practical instructional on how to record memories of famous women performance artists in Object Archives.

Schedule of Exercises:

  • The Ono-Export Performance Charades
  • Orlan’s Plastic Surgery series (1979-93) & The Crystalline Structure of Soil
  • Marina Abramovic’s Art Must be Beautiful, Artist Must Be Beautiful (1975) & A Scent Remnant
  • Ana Mendieta’s Ocean Bird Wash-up (1974) & A Data Silhouette
  • Jo Spence’s A Picture of Health (1982-6) & A Shape-Colour Essence
  • Adrian Piper’s The Mythic Being (1973) & The Memory of Water
  • Carollee Schneeman’s Interior Scroll – The Cave (1975) & An Air Drive
  • Pippilotti Rist’s Pickelporno (1992) & A Salad Legacy

Performance At Finnish Museum of Contemporary Art

MIXING METAPHORS by CIAO! COMPOST at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland.
CIAO! COMPOST (Nastja Rönkkö  / Fin,  Anna Bunting-Branch / UK, Kate Lepper / NZ) is the latest in a series of experimental performative encounters between diverse artistic methodologies and aesthetics. The Ciao! Compost project revives not only the works of individual artists (the poetics and politics of their relationships within the narrative of art history), but also thinks through complex and challenging questions of ownership, re-enactment and preservation of an art form that, by its own definition, rebels against preservation and the stillness of object-hood.
Traversing such varied terrain as a disco of rock stars died young, a folktale infused children’s hand-clapping game, and A Beginners Guide to Psychic Archiving. Over three days, Ciao! Compost will present three new works each involving a live video/audio link with Quebec, during which the day will dawn from darkest Canadian night.
Three works performed by CIAO! COMPOST
4th October, 5 – 8pm: ‘Club 27′ by Nastja Rönkkö
5th October, 10am – 2pm: ‘Suomi Missi (Bim Bum)’ by Anna Bunting-Branch
6th October, 10am – 2pm: ‘A Beginners Guide to Psychic Archiving’ by Kate Lepper
Performance Compost
Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art
Helsinki, Finland

Artist Residency at Site Festival & Meantime Project Space

I will be Artist in Residence this weekend at Site Festival 2012, in Stroud.

My residency will coincide with Causeway – a pop-up restaurant, that teams designer Anna Usborne with architects Millar Howard Workshop in making a place to meet, eat and encounter art. Food will be provided by the Hobbs House Bakery, a.k.a. The Fabulous Baker Brothers of recent TV fame. (See pdf flyer below for details)
My weekend Satellite Residency is presented by Meantime Project-Space, Cheltenham, and will mark the beginning of my ‘Tactile Love Propaganda’ project that will get into full swing at Meantime, during the month of June. At Site Festivial, I will begin with a statement of intent by making a tactile psuedo-protest banner with the affirmation: ‘There is a Cure for Capitalism Inside Your Imagination That Wants to Get Out‘.
For more information about my upcoming residency at the Meantime Project-Space follow this link:
Best wishes,

Group Sculpture Show

I have new work ‘Weed Preserver with Pillar Pillow’ in this show at Construction Gallery.

We would like to invite you to our Closing Event that will celebrate the culmination of our well received first three-month run funded by the Outer London Fund.

We have loved bringing you Construction Gallery and are in conversations about its future continuation. All letters of support are very welcome and a big thank you to all our audiences and friends! E-mail us at
Construction Gallery
Sculpture Show
Wed 21 – Sun 25 March, 12 – 7 daily
Closing Event: Saturday 24 March 2012
6.30pm to 9.30pm
after celebration at Brick Box’s 2nd Unorthobox event from 9pm
74 – 80 Upper Tooting Road, London SW17 7PB
Bram Thomas Arnold, Helen Barff, Nadia Berri, Sarah Bowker-Jones, Amy Cochrane, Alice Cunningham, Dexter Dymoke, Anna Flemming, Catalina Garces de los Rios, Jonathan Gildersleeves, Kate Lepper, Fiona Long, Jera May, Fleur Melbourn, Joanna Mires, Emer O’Brien, Marianna O’Reilly, PsychoanalYSL, Sam Zealey.

Sculpture is the theme of our final exhibition and each space within Construction Gallery has been opened to a provocative set of juxtapositions.

With a multitude of materials, methods and motives the selected participants provide insight into contemporary sculpture.

From tongue-in-cheek inventions to surreal forms that suspend disbelief; from carefully balanced compositions to the sinister implications of obsessive design; from craft as a means to remember to craft as a means to forget; various concerns are introduced in a collision of intuitive and analytical means with which ideas and their forms can be celebrated

Our final exhibition takes a fun humorous approach to sculpture, bringing cutting edge art into this unconventional gallery space and reflecting the wider interests at the core of the POST artist group’s ethos.
Bram Thomas Arnold
Bram Thomas Arnold works with simple and subtle imagery, that often have melancholic or Romantic overtones to them. “I work with explanations of experience, or attempts at such, idiosyncratic ways of looking at perception that seek to open up in the viewer the realisation that all perception is idiosyncratic; that I have never seen anything you have, and you have never seen anything I have.”
Helen Barff
The Materials and processes Helen Barff uses contradict and disrupt expected perceptions – hard, cold materials look soft and warm. Heavy pieces or objects look weightless. Objects turned upside-down disturb perceptions of gravity. Things turned inside out create a dichotomy between presence and absence. The work suggests the uncanny, yet invites a tactile interaction.

Nadia Berri
Nadia Berri’s practice investigates the interrelationship between imagination, reality and perception.

‘Ladder without steps’ is a sculpture that transforms a figure of speech into a physical object. In the figure of speech a concrete image is used to describe something less tangible – in this case the idea of impossibility. Nadia Berri is interested to see what happens when this concrete image, only ever existing in the mind, becomes actual reality.

Sarah Bowker-Jones
Sarah Bowker-Jones‘ ribbon paintings, created specifically for the Construction Gallery windows during a project residency are made using plastic curling ribbon, polythene, acrylic paint, PVA, dirt and heat.
Amy Cochrane
Amy Cochrane utilises imagery from Greek and Egyptian art – restoring white marble sculptures with the colours they once wore. This conflict with our modern sensibility for clean white classical sculptures raises questions regarding taste and the kitsch. She uses common representations of these archetypal forms to restore some kind of mystique akin to the original.
Alice Cunningham
Through an understanding of materiality and form Alice Cunningham seeks to evoke a pure individual perception on a very base, instinctive level; to try and speak through materials.

Her recent work is concerned with highlighting natural process as a mirror to describe the cogs of our existence in a greater sense and hint at the artificial complexities of our modern world

Dexter Dymoke
Referring losely to A E Houseman’s poetry, Dexter Dymoke‘s sculpture, “Lost Content” uses found objects and materials in a nostalgic manner that makes them seem like symbols retrieved from the past.

“Focusing on that which is forgotten, ignored or taken for granted, my process is an improvisation of a story, the resolution of which remains bracingly elusive.”
Anna Flemming
The practice of giving present value to past objects is the main focus of Anna Flemming‘s current work.  Through a selective accumulation of material she studies the cultural and social ramifications of using a nostalgic method of production.  Primarily working with the bizarre and kitsch aesthetic of dated decorative objects, she aims to investigate the fragmented nature of presenting the past through contemporary culture.
Catalina Garces de los Rios
Catalina Garces de los Rios’ light box with view master attached to the front, explores cultural dislocation. The slides narrate a world of slapstick scenes performed by the artist, whilst the viewer is invited to listen to the sound of a voice struggling to recite the British national anthem.
Jonathan Gildersleeves
Jonathan Gildersleeves artwork explores the relationship between drawing and sculpture. He produce 3D objects through an intuitive, playful process, similar to that of doodling or sketching.
Kate Lepper
Kate Lepper‘s practice deals with human relationships with nature and the nature/culture academic paradigm. The aesthetic is intentionally easy, drawing on toys, furniture, clothing and utensils. Often involving vegetables, plants or animal remnants and plastic, pseudo-functional objects and installations attribute emotional experience to the inanimate, and suggest unlikely uses for the useless.
Fiona Long
Fiona Long’s practice explores the way in which the banal and everyday can be humorously elevated through laborious scrutiny. Her site responsive work examines the environment and recapitulates it in a subtly absurd way. Her sculptures playfully challenge our expectations of the urban environment. With attention, the most ordinary details can become exquisite observations.
Jera May
Jera May replaces Constable’s foreboding sky with an invading ocean presenting an inescapable peril for this heartening pastoral scene.  The title of the work, Lagoon, is taken from ‘The Drowned World’ by JG Ballard, a science fiction writer of 20th century apocalyptic literature who predicts another kind of landscape which occurs when temperatures increase, ice caps melt and the inevitable rise of the sea.
Fleur Melbourn
Fleur Melbourn‘s ‘The Enemy’  is an archival project on the second phase of the Third Reich’s ‘Wonderweapons’ at the end of WWII and Hitler’s quasi Sci-fi ambitions. Upon their victory, the allied forces implemented ‘Operation Paperclip,’ a controversial “bleaching” of the ‘menace to security’ status of Nazi Scientists, in order to commandeer their technological developments for the sake of US space exploration.
Joanna Mires
Joanna Mires’ work aims to elevate the discarded; a fascination with second hand objects and “the idea that something hs a life before my experience of it”.

The ornaments shown as part of ‘Occur’ have been re-cast from curiously shaped Avon perfume bottles made in the early 1970’s. Through the creation of a mould these functional scent holders are given new life as pure white ceramics. By removing the colour, transparency and function of the original form only the memory of the shape remains.
Occur, 2012
Marianna O’Reilly
Marianna O’Reilly‘s ‘28’ is a humorous narrative focusing on the mouth as a tool for expression and teeth as instruments for possible aggression, questioning its strength of bite as well as breaking down and assimilating knowledge as metaphorical food.
PsychoanalYSL (Joey Holder, Benjamin Orlow and Christopher Thomas) present a 3D simulation of ‘The Solution’, an environmental super-sculpture that contains experimental environmental technologies developed by physicists investigating ‘dark flow’. ‘The Solution’ comprises a computer powered by a neon liquid that generates a light fog. When breathed in by visitors who then take the ‘air’ out into the world, this purifying fog will clean the sky and thereby save the planet.
Sam Zealey
Sam Zealey‘s practice attempts to make an uncommon experience common in a controlled situation by constructing ‘Potential Energy Sculptures’ that perform microcosms of our universe. He takes on the role of an artist, scientist and engineer, translating the ordinary into the impossible, recreating scientific and celestial phenomena out of spinning tops, magnets, vacuum cleaners and running machines.
Sculpture Show Closing Event!
Sat 24 March, 6.30 – 9.30
Join the Construction Gallery Team and the artists exhibting in Sculpture Show to celebrate the culmination of our glorious first three-month run and the closing of this exciting and high calibre group exhibition.
Emer O’Brien
Performance of ‘Barbara’
Emer O’Brien has an enduring interest in the passage of time.  Her work is a meditative combination of analogue photography, film and installation.  She is best known for works that mediate on the redundancy of human artifacts when deserted by man or things; once known, now unfathomable in their mystery.

Retreat 2012

back from rural cumbria. out of range for a week: no cellie, no internet. roaming in the hills. big communal evening meals. night time presentations about each others practices. nourishing debate, gorgeous generousness, support and respect. plus lot’s of laughter and hi-jinx. can’t wait til next year.

I really enjoyed the content of presentations particularly this year. Good hearty discussions about politics and the social responsibilities of artists.

Thanks to Michael Whitby for making it all possible.

Kate Lepper’s News

Some recent news:

This January I took part in a performance series at Guest Projects in Hackney, London, as part of the exhibition ‘Circa 1960′. The series was titled ‘Ciao! Modernism’ and was curated by John Walter ( ) and Anna Bunting Branch ( ).
Nastja Ronkko ( ) & I performed our new piece ‘Soil Brick Soil’. Here is an online link to the exhibition:
I have also been invited to complete a one month residency at Meantime Project Space, in Cheltenham, UK, this coming June which I am very excited about.
For those who have not caught up on my news of late here is a run down of recent projects:
Last year I took part in two shows. The most recent was at the Pumphouse Gallery, in London:
and the other, at the Edith Gallery in Whanganui:
the latter exhibition coincided with a paper delivered at an Australian National University conference by Professor Jen Webb, from the University of Canberra:
Here are a couple of highlights since moving to London to do my MFA at the Slade:
In the first year I won a prize from the UCL Graduate School:
In my second year I was awarded the Thomas Scholarship by the Slade School of Fine Art, and gained a Distinction when I finally finished my MFA last June.
This is our Slade graduate online page:
For the time being I’m keeping close ties with NZ whilst running a studio in London.
I look forward to keeping up with all your news.

Best wishes,

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Tags Archives

You are currently viewing all posts tagged with giveaways.

I just realized this morning that yesterday was National Siblings Day—or, as I like to call it, Opposites Day. I can’t think of a person on earth who is more my opposite than my big brother, Drew.

Me and My Brother

Thankfully, we share the same Biblical values . . . but that’s pretty much where the similarities end.

Read more →

The Gift of Thoughtfulness

I was cleaning out a plastic container in our basement several months ago when I came across a Christmas card given to me waaaaaay back in high school. And though I do have many, many containers of memories in our house, I’m not the type to hang on to a card given to me by a high school classmate.

This card was different.

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Thanksgiveaway 2013

Update:  November 20, 2013

Thank you to everyone who participated! The winners of the gorgeous cookbooks are…

1)  gina:  “A FULL dish!!! But seriously, I could eat sweet potato casserole until I’m doubled over with a stomach ache–and still manage to eat one more bite! The toasted marshmallows seal the deal for me!”

2)  Laura:  “My mom’s green beans is a dish that I loved and I didn’t find anything similar at other thanksgivings. Steam them, then combine in sauté pan with crumbled bacon, bit of brown sugar, worcheshire sauce and thinly sliced green onions. I also enjoyed her jello mold…orange jello with peach slices in it on top of a cool whip fluff of some sort. She made it every year just for me.”

Congratulations! Please send an email to katy@katyinacorner.com to claim your prize.

It’s that time again, y’all:  time for the 2nd Annual Katy in a Corner Thanksgiveaway! This tradition has lasted almost as long as my most impressive workout streak—so…twice in a row.

Okay, it’s lasted TWICE as long as my most impressive workout streak.

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The winners of the 3 months of delicious NatureBox snacks are:

Rachel Fish:  “Yes I do!”

Kelsey:  “I don’t ‘hide’ snacks, but I let my hubby know that there are only a certain number of ‘non-chocolate’ things for me, so please don’t eat them if you can help it! haha”

Congratulations, Rachel & Kelsey! Contact katy@katyinacorner.com to claim your prize.

THANK YOU to everyone who participated! If you didn’t win the giveaway, but still want some delicious, healthy snacks delivered to your door, use the code “KATY” on the NatureBox website to get 50% off your first month of snacks!

When Hangry Toddlers Attack
(This post and giveaway are sponsored by NatureBox. All stories and opinions are my own.)

As a mother of two toddlers, I have learned to accept the fact that we will rarely venture out of our home without some sort of meltdown. Either we’ll skip Averi’s afternoon nap, and she’ll repay us with a Toddlers in Tiaras-worthy hissy fit, or JJ will wake up too early that morning and decide to do that whole-body limp thing every time we try to get him to walk. And since he’s a 3-year-old man-baby and weighs almost as much as I do, this is probably a fun scene for complete strangers to witness.

[Why can’t that woman control her teenage boy? And WHY is he wearing a diaper?]

Okay, he’s not that big.

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The winner of the gorgeous gloves is…

Judi Miller:  “Love my sweaters & boots!!! A free 20 seconds, that’s all I had ;)

Congratulations, Judi! Contact katy@katyinacorner.com to claim your prizes.

Fall is in the air (literally) for us here in Kansas, and I got seriously bitten by the fashion bug this weekend.

Leggings and tunics and boot socks, oh my!

I spent the entire day Saturday at a local outlet mall—by myself—

Yeah, I can’t even finish that sentence it’s so beautiful.

By myself. That phrase deserves a sentence all its own. Actually, a whole line…

By myself.

Yeah, I think it needs caps lock, bold, italics, and an exclamation point.

[Overkill, lady. We get it.]

So, I walked around Legends Outlets in Kansas City…

And though I found some great deals and a few essential items to add to my wardrobe, there was nothing quite as detailed and beautiful as what I’m giving away today!

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On the first Blogiversary, my true love sent to me:

A book for Ms. JuliaJetSki.

On the second Blogiversary, my true love sent to me:

A book for DeannaMurphy. And a book for Ms. Julia JetSki.

On the third Blogiversary…

I’m just kidding. I won’t make you sit through all this nonsense. Though, I’m really tempted to do the entire song in video form. You should be really thankful I have no makeup on right now. That’s all I’m saying.

Here are the random winners of the 12 copies of my favorite parenting book, Shepherding a Child’s Heart:

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Happy Blogiversary!

On August 16, 2012, I sat down at the computer in our basement and began to type. I was in the throes of “single” parenthood while Brian was away on military business, and it seems I was starting to feel the pressure:

“I would venture to say that Martha Stewart’s sentence vacation in a federal prison was more like a Caribbean holiday compared to the trenches of motherhood.”

Alllllllllrighty then.

But then it got worse…

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In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit of a clothes horse. I love the look and feel of a well-tailored dress. I walk taller (literally) in a cute pair of platform heels. I search far and wide until I find the right accessories. I may or may not sniff a new handbag after I purchase it just to take in that “new bag” smell.

Don’t judge.

But, we’re also on a bit of a fixed income. We have two kids in diapers, my husband is in the military, and I’m a stay-at-home mom.

You can do the math.

Read more →

Update as of April 10:  Congrats to the winner, Dusti!

“Ireland. i have always wanted to go there!

but in reality, maybe an hour long trip to the coffee shop with my laptop? that sounds like a great vacation to me!

p.s. Im new, and really liking your blog! i am also a stay at home momma, to 3 and 2 year old boys.”

It’s that time again, friends. The time when I take something that is just sitting idly in our house and give it to one of my wonderful readers who will actually use it.

Truthfully, I’m a bit torn about this item. Not because I don’t think one of you will give it a good home but because I have lots of memories attached to this bag. It went with me all over the world.

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Regional News

New rules for Oregon beachcombers: pet owners will have to keep positive control of their animals when visiting Oregon beaches, under a new rule proposed by the State Parks Department. But that doesn't necessarily mean they have to be on leash. Chris Havel of the Parks Department says if the pet can be controlled by voice, that's good enough, under the proposed new rules. Also, finding items worth more than $100 must be turned into authorities. Chris Havel at the Parks Department says beachcombers can keep anything they find that's worth under a hundred. The new rules are part of a long list of proposed changes.

Public hearings will be held later this month.

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“The Norm Chronicles” by Michael Blastland and David Spiegelhalter

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The Norm Chronicles” by Michael Blastland and David Spiegelhalter

c.2014, Basic Books
$16.99 / $19.99 Canada
358 pages

You hadn’t seen your old classmate in years.

He was never at reunions or any events. He never called you, either, and truth be known, you kind of forgot about him – until his name came up on Tuesday and on Wednesday afternoon, you spotted his face in the background of a stranger’s online photo.

Total coincidence? What are the odds?  Michael Blastland and David Spiegelhalter say they’re actually pretty good, and in “The Norm Chronicles,” they explain.

Congratulations, your lottery numbers all came up. You missed being in an accident. You were in the right place at the right time, but you didn’t “defy the odds.”

That, say the authors, is impossible.

“Odds,” they explain, “simply describe how many people are expected to be on each side of a possibility.”  Something good happened in the above situations; you were on the positive side, which is “meeting the odds.” And chance, of course, “always plays a part” in everything we do.

From the moment we’re born, we risk: infants have the “same level of annual hazard” as do middle-age adults. Get to age 10, though, and you’re good to go for awhile, since that’s the approximate age of our lives, roughly speaking, when we’re safest and have the lowest relative units of “MicroMorts.”

Or take, for instance, disease. You might think that everything causes cancer, but numbers can be deceiving. Is a specific risk relative or absolute? The former can “make the numbers seem scarier than maybe they should be.” Furthermore, the “nature of news” is that “things that are… likely to get you are not reported nearly so often as others that are rare.” Yes, some behaviors seem to invite disaster, but others “fall… into the same category of philosophy” that should include data on values and traditions. Alcoholic consumption is one of those.

Is it chancy to get immunized?  To lose a job?  To eat 5,000 bananas?  Yes, but what we need to remember about risk, chance, and probability is that there is no average. You can be “average for some subset” of people but that can change – and besides,  it’s all about perception anyhow, since probability is a “recipe for muddle.”

Through a mixture of fact and fiction about a regular Joe called Norm, “The Norm Chronicles” is an informative book that’ll tickle your funnybone.

Or, as much as you can understand it, anyway.

Authors Michael Blastland and David Spiegelhalter sprinkle wit all over their chapters and fill them with asides and silly stories that illustrate risk throughout life and in all aspects. The thing is, the facts and stats just don’t let up, which can be overwhelming for some readers. We learn one thing that seems contradictory elsewhere (the nature of possibility), and the numbers just keep on coming…

Now, that’s not to say that this is a bad book; quite the contrary, it’s good entertainment, but it’s just going to need some digesting-time, that’s all. Give yourself that, and I think “The Norm Chronicles” is a book you’ll probably like.

Terri Schlichenmeyer is based in Wisconsin.

Print Print

Copyright (c) 2010 Keizertimes / Wheatland Publishing. Created by Born Invincible Design.


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KEXP Reviews

Browse by one of the following:
Afro-Cuban All Stars: A Toda Cuba le Gusta
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KHN Morning Briefing

Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations.

State Insurance Exchanges: Separating Fact From Fiction

Georgia Health News asks a state insurance expert to analyze premiums in the new online marketplace -- they dispute predictions of exploding premiums by Georgia's insurance commissioner. Meanwhile, the Minneapolis Star Tribune talks to people in that state's high risk insurance pool who could not buy policies in the past because of serious illnesses but who will be able to do so beginning Oct. 1.

Georgia Health News: Exploding Premiums: Real Danger Or False Alarm?
"Massive rate hikes." That's how Georgia's insurance commissioner has characterized the premiums in the upcoming state insurance exchange, being created under the federal Affordable Care Act. Commissioner Ralph Hudgens received national attention recently when he blasted the premiums in Georgia's federally run exchange, or marketplace, which will begin enrollment Oct. 1 (Miller, 8/29).

Minneapolis Star Tribune: Minnesota’s Insurance Plan Of Last Resort Nears End Of Line
Donna Devine is tired of being branded as "uninsurable" more than a decade after being treated for cancer. …Until now, Devine's only option has been to buy insurance through a state-run program that helps those with pre-existing conditions or who have been denied traditional coverage. The program, called the Minnesota Comprehensive Health Association (MCHA), serves about 26,000 residents, but it will be phased out in 2014 when insurers will be required to take all comers under the Affordable Care Act (Crosby, 8/29).

This is part of the KHN Morning Briefing, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.


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Saturday, October 06, 2012

Configuring Mongo/PHP on Ubuntu : A Surefire Way

Working with latest versions of ubuntu has been nothing short of a harrowing experience. finding the right parts to fit into the command-line to get the mongo up and running for PHP. After struggling for the past 1-2 hours, here is the solution:

1. Install the mongo release for Ubuntu, which are apt-get packages by 10gen.
write this in your command line:
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver --recv 7F0CEB10

then, copy this line to the end of your /etc/apt/sources.list file
deb dist 10gen

then, do this:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mongodb-10gen

2. After this, install the driver for PHP. For this you'd need PEAR with a PECL repository. For getting PEAR, do a
sudo apt-get install php-pear

Now, coming back to the point, to install mongo for PHP, do this: (if admin, remove the sudo part)
pecl search mongo
sudo pecl install mongo

(Note: if you encounter an error such as :
sh: phpize: command not found
ERROR: 'phpize' failed

then install php5-dev by running
sudo apt-get install php5-dev
and then run the pecl install mongo again.)
(Do follow up the links if you're interested in knowing what all those lines mean)

3. Now, do a
locate php.ini
and open up the /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini file and add

to the file, and that's it.
Now, restart the apache server by executing
sudo service apache2 restart

And voila !

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Have Your OWN web-hosting for FREE

Hey there. Its been a long time since anything was scribbled here… so here i am with one really really useful tip for creating web hosts to be used to access your site for FREE !!

Probably you’d be thinking… “Can’t i get sites for free?? Sure as hell I can!! There are SO many ads all over the internet claiming so…” But there is a catch there… You DO NOT have the freedom to put up ANY content you’d like and add to that, you may not get all the cool services like MySQL, Apache, etc.

Another way is to get a FREE domain name and get a PAID hosting service, then put all your stuff on the hosting server. Whereas, if you read through this post, you’ll be able to Host a complete website on your OWN computer.

OK… so lets get started…

  • Get a WebServer software such as WAMP or XAMPP or EasyPHP, etc. I’ll use WAMPServer to proceed, though using any other server wouldn’t make much of a difference. Use a software you are comfortable with. Go to and get the latest version of WAMPServer. Point it to the installation directory, though I’d recommend installing in the default directory C:\wamp.image
  • Now since you’ve installed WAMP, lets get a bit cozy with this vampi…er… WAMP.
    • When you run WAMP for the first time you’ll see that it is having a RED tinge to its icon. That’s when all the services are stopped. After a few moments, the meter will turn yellow, and eventually white. That is when all the services have been properly initialized. When the meter is white, that’s when you can access the menu and all the configuration options of the services, which I'll not go in detail. But hang on… before you proceed to the next step, you’ll notice an option saying PUT ONLINE but we’ll not go there just yet…
  • Put your site at the www directory of the WAMP, which would be like :
    or in the default case (in windows) like :
    And you're done with the first part... nearly... You can check out your site in any browser. Just go to the address bar and type this : image
    and you'll be able to see your site locally.

Now we are halfway through. We have set up out site, now the other part is making it accessible from all around the world!!

  • First, we start by searching for a Dynamic DNS Service Provider. Or spare yourself the pain. I’ll suggest a few : or or or better, have a look at this page : List of Dynamic DNS Providers
  • Most ISP providers provide you with a DYNAMIC DNS (unless you opt for a STATIC one) which changes every time you connect to the internet. So basically, there is a different IP per session assigned to your system. This also means that you can’t get a ‘normal’ domain (in the classical sense) where each Domain Name is bound to a Static IP. But that’s where the DDNS Service Providers step in. They allow a Domain Name to be linked to a dynamically changing IP. TO read more, consider THIS LINK.
  • Now things are pretty straight forward. I’ll use NO-IP for demonstrating what to do because I used that, but things won’t be much different with other providers. Click on that beckoning SIGN UP button, fill in the form, and maybe you’ll be asked to verify your email id… the usual ‘paper’work.
  • Now you’ll probably find yourself at a ADD A HOST page or something equivalent, with fields like the following screenshot : image
  • Fill in the name of your choice and select a TLD (Top Level Domain). Do not change other settings if you are unsure what they do. then NEXT.
  • Now the site asks you to install a software (a small and clean one) which will reside on your system, and periodically notify the DDNS Provider about any changes in your IP Address. So, basically, every time your IP changes, that software does its job. We are done.

This small last part is perhaps the most important, because apart from the single step which I’ll describe to you, there are some advices you should follow (trust me, you’ll be happier if you follow them).

  • So, off we go to that WAMP icon of ours sitting in the taskbar, and click on it. Once you get the menu, we’ll click on … yeah, that’s right… , PUT ONLINE !!!! This will make your Server accessible over the Internet. So, now you have a functional SERVER, and a Domain Name to point to it. So basically you’re done. But one last point
  • Get a GOOD ANTI-VIRUS / FIREWALL software, if you don’t have one, because once you’re online, your computer in prone to virus attacks, and a system without an A/V, and that too an online one, is a ship in a tornado : god save them. Actually this should be your first step :-P…

Hope you enjoyed this walk-through/tutorial… Come back for more, and keep reading stuff…

Bye For Now!!! :-)


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Group Info Group Founded 4 Years ago Statistics 121 Members
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Gallery Folders

Falling Apart
Nov. Prompts 2012
Dec. Prompts 2012
January Prompts 2013
February Prompts 2013
March Prompts 2013
April Prompts 2013
May Prompts 2013
Whoa, this one almost got in late, lol. Anyway welcome to day five! Our prompt today is Tradition! A very...traditional prompt.

...Okay, bad puns aside. All folders but Union and Falling Apart are open!

:iconlizthompsonplz::iconsaysplz: Hey Kid? Are there any Reaper traditions we don't know about?

:icondeaththekiddplz::iconsaysplz: There are plenty, Liz. For example, my Lady Death's wedding dress must have the traditional colors and be very regal.

:iconlizthompsonplz::iconsaysplz: *smirk* Tell me...Why'd you mentioned the wedding dress one?

:icondeaththekiddplz::iconsaysplz: *blush* Uh...well...I...Uh...

:iconlizthompsonplz::iconsaysplz: *giggles*
A word to anyone using alternative means (ie PS3) to work with DeviantArt: make sure you double check that your post went through. Seriously. This is second time that I've written this and I'm slightly peeved. Bad PS3. Now back to your regularly scheduled journal.

Hello everyone, and welcome to Day Four . Bittersweet, talk about a juxtaposition. Happy and sad or literally bitter and sweet, lots you can do with this one, particularly given recent events, for those who know what I'm talking about. For those who don't, nevermind. I'm quite interested to see what pops up for this one, so submit away.

Okay, you know which folders are open, which aren't, yadda yadda, just make sure stuff goes where it's supposed to, okay?

:icondeaththekiddplz::iconsaysplz:  Liz...are you crying?

:iconlizthompsonplz::iconsaysplz:  No! Okay, yeah, a little. But my movie, the ending's just so romantic and sad...

:icondeaththekiddplz::iconsaysplz:  Romantic and sad?

:iconlizthompsonplz::iconsaysplz:  Yeah, Samantha died to give Jason a second chance at life. But it's okay, cause she's watching over him and it's just so sad and sweet...

:icondeaththekidplz::iconsaysplz:  Right... Are you...Tissue?
More Journal Entries

Oct 2013 Prompts

1. Sticky-Oct. 16th
2. Geek(y)-Oct. 17th
3. Laid-Oct. 18th
4. Bittersweet-Oct. 19th
5. Tradition-Oct. 20th
6. Union-Oct. 21st
7. Falling Apart-Oct. 22nd
8. Guava-Optional Crack

October's Kid/Liz Week will run from Oct. 16th to Oct. 22nd!
Remember you can interpret these anyway you want!

We now have an official chat room! Come join the fun at Kid/Liz-Week Chat!

Our new forum for all your Kid/Liz needs!

FAQ/Rules Please read if you are new!

Add a Comment:
Need more themes
FANopy Featured By Owner Jul 16, 2013
Hello! I'm new in devianart and I wrote a fanfic. (Kidxliz of course) please read. I would be more happy is you guys did.

Thanks anyway!
BluuMaskedBandette10 Featured By Owner Jul 9, 2013
Does any1 mind if i jus drew picture that match each prompt?
Robotmonkeygirl91 Featured By Owner Jul 12, 2013  Hobbyist Digital Artist
That's the whole point of KLW~! As long as the pictures you draw are submitted to the right folder/prompt go right ahead~
Thnx! jus makin sure! ;)
Gypsy08 Featured By Owner Feb 13, 2013
Sorry, I'm new to deviantart and don't know how to publish in the gallery photos, but um here's the link to the story.
Robotmonkeygirl91 Featured By Owner Feb 13, 2013  Hobbyist Digital Artist
Thanks! Oh and it's easy to submit. Just save your fic as a text document (Done in Notebook) and then go to the submit page and follow the directions from there! Once you do that, and feel free to note if you're still having trouble, you can sumbit it to the group!
Gypsy08 Featured By Owner Feb 13, 2013
Never mind I fixed it, sorry.
Gypsy08 Featured By Owner Feb 13, 2013
I messed up and submitted a pic instead of a story. How do i take it off?
Sword-of-Romance Featured By Owner Mar 12, 2013  Hobbyist Writer
Whoops, didn't mean to leave you hanging, thought RMG was helping you. That said, I can see you fixed it yourself, but I wanted you to know you weren't forgotten, just an admin miscommunication/I don't check the comments enough. In any case, welcome to KLW, hope you have lots of fun here!
Add a Comment:


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Fri Mar 25, 2011

The ASA Loophole and the unfairness of AEA dues

While looking again at the proposed changes to the ASA’s dues, I noticed that, under the new scheme, a few lucky duckies will pay nothing at all. How is this possible, you ask? Consider the table:

As you can see, for those sociologists lucky enough to earn between $125,000 and $125,998 per annum, the new system requires them to pay no dues at all. What a great deal!

Speaking of good deals, it’s worth comparing the generous terms of the new ASA dues structure to what’s currently on offer from the American Economic Association. As it happens, the AEA has also just announced what it describes as a “substantial change to 2012 Dues under the newly adopted by-law” and has rejigged its dues structure. At present, membership starts at $70 for those making less than $66,000 per year and tops out at $98 for those making above $88,000. Not terribly progressive, but then what would one expect from a bunch of economists? Under the new rules just adopted, however, things get much worse. Beginning in 2012, if you make under $70,000 the AEA will force you to pay the outrageous sum of twenty bucks for association membership. This includes full electronic access to the seven AEA journals. If you make between $70,000 and $105,000, membership dues are a shocking $30. And if you make more than $105,000 fees rise to a positively outrageous $40. That’s a whole five dollars less than the subscription cost of a single ASA journal!

To put this in terms of the principle of progressivity, if you make less than $30,000 a year, the ASA proposal makes it easy for you—indeed, you are required—to pay an $80 membership fee. If you’re unemployed, the cost is the socially inclusive sum of $50. In return you receive one journal of your choice. Exploited AEA members, meanwhile, have to make upwards of a six-figure income before they are allowed to pay even half as much as that, and there is no way for an AEA member of any salary level to be socially included at the $50 level, something which even unemployed ASA members are able—that is to say, required—to do. And in a striking display of illiberality from a discipline allegedly committed to the idea that people should be “Free To Choose”, the AEA allows its members no choice of journals at all. No matter how little money you make, all members are forced to receive all seven journals published by the AEA, which not only makes a mockery of the idea that economics is the study of the allocation of scarce means which have alternative uses, but surely also imposes an absurdly high reading burden on its most vulnerable members. I for one am relieved to be a member in good standing of an academic association that has more respect for its members than this.


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Friday, September 10, 2010

Sesame Noodles and Baked Egg Rolls

Sometimes I suprise even myself.  I have a tendency to "experiment" in the kitchen.  I like to try new recipes, and I like to make substitutions to make it as tasteless low-fat as possible.  So whenever my husband finds out I am making something new, he secretly cringes and makes a mental note to pick up a hamburger later.  He would deny this of course.  But every once in a while, I'll make something that is delicious. and we're usually both pretty surprised.  This was one of those evenings... homemade egg rolls and asian noodle salad.  I've watched the egg rolls being made once before and I've made similar things to the asian salad, so I wasn't totally in the dark.  But still, when left to my own devices in the kitchen, you just never know what 'cha gonna get.  but sometimes i get lucky.  take that as you will.

Anyway, back to dinner....

ok, so this doesn't look incredibly good, but stick with me...

I shredded a carrot, cut up a celery stalk and a green onion (should have used two) and cooked that in just a little bit of olive oil for a few minutes.  I then added a bag of coleslaw mix (shredded cabbage and carrots), some chicken and a little salt and a lot of pepper.  My chicken also had some dressing on it from the asian noodle salad that's coming up!  Cook this until it starts to soften...

Then place some of the mixture in the middle of your egg roll wrapper.

wrap that baby up...directions are on the package if you are like me and couldn't remember

bake those little suckers at 350-375 degrees until nice and brown.  Or you could fry them.  But I don't fry.  Pretty much ever.  And they are much healthier if they are baked!

I served my eggrolls with this.  Isn't it pretty?  It was sooo good.  I got the original idea from Got No Milk when she made Sesame and Cilantro Vermicelli Salad.  I had to make a few changes...

Sesame Noodles

Honey Soy dressing:

1/4 cup corn oil  I didn't have corn oil, so used canola. not sure if this was a good idea, it was a little greasy
3 tablespoons sesame oil
1/4 teaspoon crushed dried red pepper flakes I used chilli powder per another recipe
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons soy sauce

8 ounces vermicelli or thin spaghetti  I accidently bought regular spaghetti
1/2 cup coarsely chopped cilantro  I used fresh basil - to taste, instead
1/4 cup chopped roasted peanuts   omitted b/c my son and I are allergic
1/4 cup thinly sliced green onions
1/4 cup sliced and chopped red bell pepper
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
leftover chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces  did not use chicken since I had chicken in the egg rolls

Cook the pasta in a large pot of salted boiling water, according to package directions. Drain but do not rinse.

While the pasta is cooking, prepare the dressing. In a microwave-safe dish, heat the vegetable oil, sesame oil, and red pepper flakes, in the microwave on high heat for 2 minutes. Add the honey and soy sauce and mix well.

Combine the drained pasta with the dressing in a large bowl until the pasta is well coated. Cover and chill for several hours.

When ready to serve, mix in the cilantro or basil, peanuts, green onions, bell pepper (and chicken, if desired). Garnish with toasted sesame seeds. Makes 4-8 servings.

Final product.  Delicious.  The only thing I would do different next time is use a different oil and increase the amounts of onion and red pepper.  I also added extra sesame seeds!

My hubs and I really enjoyed this.  Number One would not even try it "the noodles are cold, I don't like cold noodles".  Number Two tried the noodles, but said she didn't really care for it.  And Mr. Terrible Two....well, he wouldn't even smell it.  There loss.  I ate their portions.  Hmmm, guess we know why I need to lose 10 lbs.!

I'm linking this up with Eat at Home: Ingredient Spotlight Cabbage!

  1. That looks so good. I bet my daughter would love this.
    Hope you have a great weekend.

  2. These are certainly a stroke of genius! That'll teach the husband not to question your cooking prowess.

  3. That does look good! I love eggrolls and would have never thought to make them myself. Much healthier.

  4. YUM! I love egg rolls but I always fry ours.... I need to try this out1

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NWS: three tornadoes hit southeast Nebraska Monday night

May 28, 2013

The National Weather Service says three tornadoes touched down in southeast Nebraska Monday night.

A damage assessment team from Omaha visited the sites in Jefferson and Gage counties Tuesday morning. Two tornadoes touched down in Jefferson County, and one in Gage County.

The strongest of the three tornadoes was an EF2, with winds of 120 miles per hour. That tornado cut a six-mile path between Diller and Harbine in Jefferson County.


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Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Piano Time 2015-Blocking In

My first design planned for figures on the sides but the trick with these kinds of commissions is to balance the design with how long it takes to execute.

The end result? Harlequin pattern on the sides and top.

Looking down on the top with part of the figures visible. It took two hours to paint all those little triangles.

Our old friends, The Doctor and Pulcinella.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Piano Time 2015-First Primer coat

I decided to see if the medallions would pry off the front panel. I used a palette knife and hammered it gently in all round the edge. It went in easily but stuck in the middle. When I lifted up the front panel, lo and behold, screws! Five screws were holding it on. Several turned freely in their holes. Don't know why they didn't fall out.

Medallions gone. See the five screw holes?

I roughed up the ovals with a wet sanding sponge and loaded up the primer.

The legs left unprimed. Not sure if I'll leave them as is or paint over them. Because I still don't have the final design worked out.

Another Piano Time artist, Yoyo.

Jennifer working mosaic magic on her piano. Jennifer and I painted pianos in 2012.

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Piano Time 2015-the Candidate

I was accepted to paint a piano for Shoreline's Piano Time 2015. I last did this in 2012. Unfortunately, that piano was in terrible shape musically and the city opted not to keep it. No one could be found to take it.  I considered just taking the upper and bottom panels until I remembered the state of my basement.

Oh No! Another beautiful old piano

Again I face the alteration of a lovely piece. I would have preferred a modern spinet with little innate character.

Look at the detail on the medallions! I am tempted to see if I can pry them off without breaking them.

In 2012 we painted in a huge empty hardware store with a utility sink. This time it is a former medical office. The space is cramped and the hours are restricted to M-F  9-5.

Limited access is tricky but has it's upsides. I have to schedule when I'll go and there is an enforced break on the week-ends.

The piano is washed. Priming starts on Monday. And I still have to design the thing. Luckily, I have week-ends free.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

The Portrait Group

Recently two artists friends and I have been meeting and drawing each other. We've been wanting to put together a show but while Peggy Murphy and Cynthia Yatchman have work that has commonalities, my work doesn't quite fit.  I wondered if we choose the same genre we would achieve bodies of work that would complement each other.

It's an intriguing process trying to capture someone's likeness and I am consistently successful with my drawings of Cynthia but Peggy eludes me. These are fairly quick studies. We each sit for 20-25 minutes.

So far I've only done the drawings and haven't moved on to paintings. I am still having trouble painting, partly due to the complete mess of the studio and partly due to anxiety.

It is completely ironic that I, who hated and feared drawing when I first started art school, feel more comfortable with it than any other artistic expression.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Work in Progress-Patience

I have finally started working on this fencer painting again. I moved it down to the basement where I really don't like to work but I also don't like paint in my living space. Oh, to have a separate studio.

The first layout and drawing steps are here.

Blocking in

More blocking in and changing the colors.

What it looks like today

After I had brought this to a fairly complete state (which I neglected to photograph, probably a good thing) I realized the head was not sitting right on the body. It needed to be brought forward.

This often happens in a painting. I get it to a happy place and then realize it has some major flaw.  I dither about it for awhile because I want to save the parts I like.

Finally, I just have to suck it up and start revising. Going from thinking a painting is almost finished back to where it needs lots more work can be discouraging.  Just tell yourself you like to mess around with paint.

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Interview with an Artist (me!) by Andrea Mull

I was recently contacted by a student, Andrea Mull, who needed to interview an artist for a paper for her Graphic Illustration class.  I was flattered that Andrea chose to interview me and grateful for the opportunity. Composing the answers led me to think more deeply about how and why I work the way I do.

Dear Ms. Bateman,

This letter is to request your assistance for a school paper that I am writing for my Graphic Illustration class that I am attending with the Art Institute Online of Pittsburgh.  We are to contact an artist that we admire and ask them questions about their work.

I found your profile on Graphic Artists Guild and loved your illustrations.  I am fascinated by the way you use line and color to created such soft and beautiful pieces like Little Pink Dress with Cones.  I also enjoyed your sheep oil pastel work.

You will find an attachment of a few questions about your work and style.  I hope that you will be able to spare a few moments of your time to answer and share your creative process with me.

I thank you for your time.

1) How did you get started as an illustrator?

My background is in fine arts. I have a BFA from the University of Southern California and a MFA from the University of Washington. I majored in printmaking and have always had an interest in picture books.

2) How did you find your style?  How has it changed since you started?

I think style, to a certain extent, is innate. I admire many artists and illustrators and I study their work to see how they accomplish certain effects. Ultimately, my work always looks like me.

When I started my work was darker, moodier and the artists I liked reflected that: Bosch, Kollewitz, Goya. Now my work is lighter in palette, line and subject matter and I love picture book illustrators like Mini Grey, Emily Gravett, and Shirley Hughes. Not to say I’ve left the dark behind, maybe the work is more balanced.

3) Can you explain your creative process?

I first sketch from life or photographs to get the forms I want. Then I make several thumbnails to play with the composition. I usually have some colors in mind but that can change over the course of the painting.

 I work slowly and used to work hours at a time on a painting. This often left me tired and hating the process. Now, I work faster and don’t spend so many hours each day. That way I am eager to get back to it the next day.

4) Do you ever have creative slumps?  What do you do to overcome them?

I have had long periods of not working where it just seems impossible. I’ll trick myself by saying “I am just going to clean up my desk and palette” or “I’ll only work for ten minutes”. This gets me over the inertia. When I look up, it's several hours later.
Looking at art is also helpful. I’ll see a painting that excites me and it makes me want to paint something that I hope will engender that same emotion in someone else.

5) What is the best/worst part of your job?

Best part: I love color and paint and playing. Art supplies stores are toy stores to me. I am my own boss and can create whatever world I want. Making art puts me outside of time. It is passing, but I am not aware of it.

Worst: When the work is not going well and I stop for the day thinking, "I hate this, I can't paint." And each painting is starting all over again. I look at a finished piece and wonder how I ever did it.

I am my own boss. I have to organize and motivate myself.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

I'm a Winner! 30 Ideas in 30 Days for PiBoIdMo 2014

Thirty ideas, some with sketches, all safely tucked in my little drawing book. I wrote down an idea almost every day, only having to double up a couple of times. Now I have to find last year's book, take one of these ideas and actually write a picture book.


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AM 1450 KMMS » Rhetoric Bozeman's News Talk Leader Wed, 29 Jul 2015 04:38:18 +0000 en-US hourly 1 AM 1450 KMMS I Can't Understand This Either Fri, 11 Feb 2011 18:00:12 +0000 Mark Allen Continue reading…]]> Kerry White with Citizens For Balanced Use sent me this:

The new Forest Service Planning Rule has just been released. I was going through it a bit and came across the following statement under 219.62

Read More|Comment

Continue reading…

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- KNIA / KRLS - http://kniakrls.com -

Let’s Talk Pella – PADCO Visiting Washington D.C.

Posted By News On March 11, 2013 @ 12:59 pm In Let's Talk Pella,Today’s Local News | Comments Disabled

Karen Eischen with the Pella Area Development Corporation talks about an upcoming trip to Washington D.C. to discuss local issues with federal lawmakers.

Article printed from KNIA / KRLS: http://kniakrls.com

URL to article: http://kniakrls.com/2013/03/lets-talk-pella-padco-visiting-washington-d-c/

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Thread: 64-bit live disc with root GUI?

  1. #1

    64-bit live disc with root GUI?

    I'd like a live Linux CD/DVD for diagnostic and repair purposes, that has a GUI for root, that does not automount media except itself until I opt to mount what's available, and that will run on a 64-bit Intel Core i3 platform. Knoppix apparently is that except that I understand it will not run on a 64-bit platform. My Knoppix 4.0 won't run on it, although it works on my Pentium 4 32-bit machine. It looks like you've been developing Knoppix64 for years and isn't out yet. Can anyone please recommend some 64bit-compatible Linux counterparts? Thanks.

  2. #2
    Senior Member registered user
    Join Date
    Jul 2004
    Knoppix 7.0 (DVD only) as distributed at Cebit or on Linux Magazine.

    Will appear online in due course.

    That's what Klaus Knopper says anyway - provided you have more than 4GB RAM

    Knoppix 4 is o-l-d. Where have you been?

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eBay Classifieds » All ads » Pets »

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St. Augusta man crashes ATV

St. Augusta man crashes ATV Click to Enlarge Photo:

Apr 24, 2013 at 9:35 am

ST. AUGUSTA, Minn. (KNSI) A St. Augusta man was admitted to St. Cloud Hospital Tuesday afternoon after crashing the ATV he was driving.

The Stearns County Sheriff's Office says 34 year-old Patrick Watrin was found unresponsive lying in the ditch along County Road 47.

He apparently crashed the four-wheeler while attempting to cross over a driveway approach.

Watrin was not wearing a helmet.

Authorities believe alcohol may have been a factor in the crash.

Mike Tanner

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6 definitions by RikkiPG

Top Definition
Your secret phone ... the one your significant other doesn't know about. Its your down-low-got-a-chick-on-the-side phone!
"Your phone is ringing."

"That's my bat phone... must be a booty call; wifey calls on the main phone!.... Hello? Hey baby. Sure, same bat time, same bat place? See you soon."
RikkiPG가 작성 2007년 12월 04일 (화)
A black girl's hair when it's pulled back into a rushed ponytail.
I didn't have time to do her hair this morning, so she's sporting the snatchback today.
RikkiPG가 작성 2007년 11월 29일 (목)
Leaving your work station 10 minutes earlier than you should to for a "restroom break" (real or imagined) and then head straight out the door.
Tamika and Rikki always do the piss and dip at 4:20. They think the boss doesn't know but he does.
RikkiPG가 작성 2008년 01월 03일 (목)
The agreement between you and your FBuddy that you will only sleep with eachother.
Yeah we date other people, but Hook and I only sleep with each other - we're sexclusive. :)
RikkiPG가 작성 2008년 07월 21일 (월)
1. Two parties looking to beat each other up, or 'knock the snot out of them', whether it be 2 fighters, 2 sports teams, etc.
2. What a woman has once someone sneezes on her chest.
"The Skins and Eagles are both snotknockers tonight - they just came to crush eachother and see how many players they could take down!"

"Achoooo!" "Damn, did you have to sneeze on my tits?!" "Haha, now they're snotknockers!"
RikkiPG가 작성 2007년 09월 19일 (수)
Holding firmly on to an African-American male, emotionally or physically.
"Man, them po-pos had me in a nigogrip for like 10 mins, until I was all 'racial profiling' and they eased up off me!"
"Girrrl, you wanna know how to get a firm nigogrip on him, you betta start givin' head more often than that!"
RikkiPG가 작성 2007년 09월 18일 (화)

매일 매일 받아보는 무료 이메일

아래에 이메일 주소를 입력하시고 매일 아침 Urban Dictionary 오늘의 단어를 받아 보세요!

이메일은 daily@urbandictionary.com에서 보냅니다. Urban Dictionary는 스팸 메일을 절대 보내지 않습니다.


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2002 Louis Roederer "Cristal" Brut Rosé Champagne
Casper C.가 작성 2011년 01월 20일 (목)
A girl you would go through time and space for.
I would go to another dimension for rose
Perseass 가 작성 2015년 03월 05일 (목)
When your boyfriend, girlfriend or partner makes you smile so much that your cheeks hurt and turn a rose pink colour. It usually happens when they say something nice over a text or on the phone.
man: "you look beautiful"
woman: "you just made me do a rose"
somethingsmiling가 작성 2010년 06월 19일 (토)
n. a term used in Florida (at least), and usually in convenience store type settings, for the 4 inch long glass tube that features a tiny plastic rose inside but is known by all, including the authorities, to really be intended for use as a crack cocaine smoking pipe. (A Tampa newscaster recently shocked many by presenting an expose on the sale of "roses" from behind the counters of several small grocery stores!)
Yeah, whattup Fergie! Give me two packsa Kool cancers and 3 roses, k bro?
galcoolest가 작성 2005년 03월 10일 (목)
Rose is the most amazing person you will ever know she has the wierdest sense of humor she is a dirty person but still so funny you cant help but ahng with her
ANONNOMOUS가 작성 2015년 03월 19일 (목)
Used by prostitutes, Meaning a Benji or 100 dollar bill when the person doesn't want to plainly say I want money they usually add it in a discreet sentence that could be interpreted differently if you didn't already know what was up.
A hooker would say "you need to bring 1 rose" or "Roses are a girls best friend" that means you need to pay up sucka and she wants you to bring a friend with ya, Ben Franklin.. Can you dig it?
GreenCodeinE가 작성 2010년 05월 29일 (토)
A pretty flower, which has a variety of different colours, most vividly red.
Michael gave his girlfriend Alice a rose, because they were in love.
SomeoneNew가 작성 2014년 08월 28일 (목)

매일 매일 받아보는 무료 이메일

아래에 이메일 주소를 입력하시고 매일 아침 Urban Dictionary 오늘의 단어를 받아 보세요!

이메일은 daily@urbandictionary.com에서 보냅니다. Urban Dictionary는 스팸 메일을 절대 보내지 않습니다.


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Conan O’Brien v3.0

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conan on tbs Conan OBrien v3.0

Conan O’Brien debuted his new show last night on TBS.  Living in Arizona, we get to see it at 9pm!  Thank God, since I’m usually passed out  by 11.  While the show didn’t blow me away, it was funny.  The guest list was pretty weak.  I sure hope that’s not an ongoing problem at TBS.  Conan has friends.  Let’s hope they come over to visit!

I’ve picked my 3 favorite jokes from his monologue.

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The Three Steins;Gate Spin-off Games You’ve Probably Never Heard of

Steins;Gate is an absolutely fantastic visual novel. And while it has been released on the PC in the US (and will be hitting the PS3 and Vita next month), it’s far from the only Steins;Gate game out there. And no, I’m not talking about the upcoming sequel, Steins;Gate 0; I’m talking about the three spin-offs.
» 7/29/15 6:30am 24 minutes ago


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Scalese-Ward Family – by Joe Ward

Clover Home
(Photos Provided by Nadelle Arthur)

Dell T Hales first came out to Toole County in the spring of 1910. She was teaching near Ipswitch, South Dakota and 21 years old. She’d grown up near Mt. Sterling, in southeast Iowa, on a farm called Clover Home, where her father raised grain and hay and fed cattle for a company out of Chicago. Her father had taken the family west to South Dakota in hopes of getting enough land to make farmers of his three sons. One of those sons, Miller, went on west to look for land in Montana. He found a couple of adjacent half-sections in Toole County.  You could homestead half a section in those days, and he figured that if he could get Dell to grab the adjacent half-section, he could eventually buy it from her, and maybe have enough land to actually make a living on. Her motivation was to be to get money to finish college.

But time was of essence. Somebody else could file on the other half-section at any time, and there would go the whole plan. So he got word back to his father that she needed to get on the train west immediately. She got home from school on a Friday afternoon and was told to hurry. Among other things, her father pumped water for a railroad with a line right through their place, and the train was stopped as they spoke. She had 15 minutes to make it. She did.

Miller took her out to see the place and had arranged for her to stay with a family already in residence nearby. She remembered a commotion in the house next morning because the children had forgotten to put out a saucer of water the previous night for the mice. Consequently, two mice had been found floating in the water barrel. They had to haul water a long way in those days in that country, and they couldn’t be too squeamish. The father said the water would be okay if he dipped it out of the other side of the barrel from where the nice were found.

Anyway. Dell T, my grandmother, filed on the half section, and went back to finish out the school year and then came back later in the year to take possession. Miller had some men put up his 12 by 14-foot cabin in a day, but Grandma had a tent up on her half-section. She said she put a bed in the tent and the wind would whip the canvas against the bedstead in such a way that she never could stay in the tent the whole night. She would wrap herself in her blanket and make her way across the dark prairie to Miller’s cabin in the middle of the night and sleep on his floor.

She had moved up to a chicken house – before the chickens took residence – by October. Then, on a trip to Galata for supplies one day, Miller found out she could get a job teaching school in Galata if she wanted to. Galata was just getting started as a town then and the school was in the feed store, across a really muddy street from the boarding house. The teacher who’d been hired for the job had arrived on a train one morning and departed on another that night. So Grandma took the school, about 25 miles south of her homestead. She’d teach all week and then ride out to the homestead on the weekend so that nobody could file against her, arguing that she wasn’t spending enough time on the claim. She said years later that she sometimes had wondered since why she thought anybody would want the place.

But she would go to the livery stable on Friday nights and hire a horse and climb on and ride the 25 miles in the dwindling light, often in frigid temperatures. We, her grandchildren, are in the process of establishing a 25-mile recurring group bike ride to retrace her steps in honor of her effort. Back in 1910, though, as it happened, the guy who ran the livery stable was Frank S. Scalese, an Italian immigrant who had been in the country around Galata for a number of years. He had worked on the railroad through there, then drove freight wagons up toward Gold Butte, where he also worked for a  a mining company for awhile. He also was and expert sheep shearer, among other things.

Grandma had met Grandpa at the boarding house. Besides running the livery stable, he also hauled the ever-precious water, and was, Grandma allowed, “Galata’s indispensable man.” He sat at the head of the table at the boarding house, even though it also served a banker and a lawyer. He took a shine to Grandma, and would make sure she had a good horse for the treks, north and was well wrapped in her blanket on those cold nights. Within two years they were married at the hotel in Gold Butte, with the whole town attending. That was to the chagrin of Great-Uncle Miller, who saw his full-section plan disintegrating as Grandma took more interest in her homestead and less in selling it to go to college. Eventually Uncle Miller left the country for World War I, met a woman in Tacoma, and let his part of the place go for taxes.  Grandpa bought it, and also homesteaded another chunk on the other side of Grandma’s place.

Scalese rhymed with “Dallas” in the American pronunciation, though I found out years later on a trip to his native village of Borboruso in the hills of Italy’s Calabria – in the instep of the boot – that it’s Sca –LAY-zay there. I ran into a man in a store in Augusta once who had known him as “Sam Charles,” a name he apparently used in his freighter days. The man who told me that story said young men around there in those days often took such names, so that if they ever disgraced themselves the word would never get back to their families. But hardly any of them ever did. We grandchildren thought that the need for an alias was especially humorous with regard to our grandfather, who didn’t smoke and didn’t drink, and – apart from that one bad night at Vaughn Junction when he let six years’ savings from his railroad days go in a card game in about half an hour – you couldn’t have found anything checkered in his past if you’d hired Bulldog Drummond.

Boroboruso is an agricultural village. I met Angelo Scalese there in 2008, one of Grandpa’s nephews, who had a huge garden behind his house on one of the three streets of the place. He also had olives and chestnuts and timber in various places around the village. When my wife and I showed up unexpected Angelo’s wife, Yolanda, went up the street to another of his houses and gathered an egg from the chicken house there, cracked it into some spaghetti with a few vegetables and whatnot to produced the best pasta we’d ever eaten, four- and five-star restaurants notwithstanding. If that’s not agriculture, I don’t know what is.

Grandpa’s father, though, was a railroad employee who contracted labor that helped build railroads in Europe and such as the Great Northern across America. He came to America several times himself, occasionally leaving a son behind each time, but always returning to Borboruso. Grandpa’s agriculture days started pretty much when he was casting about for things to do while freighting and mining in Toole County. He’d given up on one dessert claim and lost one 320-acre homestead before he met Grandma.

Grandma built a house on her place with $350 she had from her South Dakota teaching days. It’s still on there. We grandchildren and great grandchildren put a new foundation under it a few years ago, and once in awhile some of us chase the mice out of it and stay there for a few days.

Grandma and Grandpa moved in there in early 1912 and commenced to doing agriculture. They started off with eight brood sows and a team of Clydesdales and an old jersey cow Grandma had brought from Iowa. The big team didn’t make it through more than a couple of winters in the harsh Montana climate, and their huge bones still lay out on the prairie for grandchildren to marvel at many years later. Grandpa and Grtandma raised a “good crop of oats” that first year, Grandma said, and fed them to the hogs. But they came out at the end of the year with one brood sow and four piglets left. That was the end of the pig business for them. But the old jersey provided good milk and butter for the brood of kids that came along shortly for several years.

They tried cattle, but soon learned that you really have to run through a lot of volume to make any money if it costs more to keep the cows than you get for the calves. They did pick out a few range cows that looked like they might be milkers, and tried selling cream. One of the four children would hold a cow’s head and another rope its hind feet together, and Grandma would milk. Grandpa was often off sheep shearing or hauling the mail or in others of the pursuits it took to keep a place going in those days. They skimmed the cream off and made some money on that for awhile. They also worked out a deal with some people who had a small coal mine nearby to trade butter for coal, and thereby kept the house reasonably warm, and were able to cook.

Grandma had been a gardener back in Iowa and she had Grandpa plow up a piece of land at the bottom a sort of coulee behind the house. She tried all sort of produce, and in short order had a garden she considered to be the equal of any anybody ever raised in Iowa. It not only made her a serious threat at the Marias Fair for many years, but provided a lot of food for the family and enough surplus for some cash-money requirements.. She said the horseradish crop paid the taxes for several years, for example. She would grind it and add her special ingredients, and her children would peddle it door to door in places like Cut Bank. Once two of her boys offered some there to an oil field worker named J. Hugo Aronson – then just a few years into Montana where he famously got his start with an English vocabulary consisting of the term, “ham and eggs.” He scoffed at the boys’ horseradish concoction, suggesting it would be “mild as goosemilk.” But he tried it and was hooked, and years later, after he became governor of Montana, he still joked with my uncles about that underestimation.

The farm also sustained itself with various critters that wandered across it. Antelope and deer added to the larder in pre-fish and game-law days, and hides of various kinds added to the $300 cash money Grandma calculated at one point it took to keep the place afloat for a year. Grandma and Grandpa trapped and skinned enough badgers one year to pay for a Model A car. Their first car, though, was a Model T touring car, purchased in 1914 for $406 to help with the mail route, and described by Grandma this way: “It had a top that folded back. You could take it down. It also had three doors. The man on the driver’s side knew how to jump over the side of the car to get into the driver’s seat, and that was the way everybody else’s Ford worked, so it was all right with us.”

And so it went, eking out an existence. Grandma would get permission from neighboring ranchers to skin winter-killed cattle with her butcher knife for the $5 a hide would bring. She said the enterprising couple never really felt secure on the homestead until about 1925 when the oil interests started moving into the country and leasing rights for cash. Eventually Grandma and Grandpa got about $2,000 a year that way – “for nothing, essentially,” Grandma said  — and it covered their needs, along with what actual agriculture could bring in.

By the time Grandpa died in 1957 the homestead was mostly a sheep ranch. Cream prices had gone south in earlier years, and Grandma and the kids had taken to getting bum lambs from the ranches around, and putting the milk into them instead. The sheep multiplied rapidly and produced cash from wool and lambs. Eventually there were 800 on the place. Cattle peaked out at about 60, Grandma said. The family ate a lot of mutton, right down to the grandchildren. I, for one remember my first taste of beef, which did not taste right. Something missing. Which goes to show you what sort of beast was important on the Scalese ranch.

The Scaleses produced four offspring on the place. The eldest, Frank, died in 1924 at eight. Appendicitis. The nearest hospital, in Conrad, was too far away by the time they realized how serious it was. Grandma spoke poignantly years later of the cactus flowers Uncle Frank’s classmates used to line his grave on the prairie, and of other children who had died young on places nearby, pulling grindstones over on themselves, among other things. “It was part of the price people were paying for their homesteads,” Grandma said.

The second child was Teresa, my mother, who got a few semesters toward her teaching degree before hooking up with another agricultural family down in the Marias River Country south of Chester. They needed a teacher for the Erikson School down there, and the Erikson School would board its teachers with the Ward family. Mom was 16 when she started, a couple of years younger than Walter, the eldest Ward boy. He got to squiring her around to school dances in the country, and a year and a half or so later, they eloped.

The Wards were homesteaders, too. Les Ward, Walter’s father, my grandfather, had come out from Wisconsin in 1910. His father-in-law, Emmett Martell, a French Canadian, had come down from Alberta the year before. They were grain farmers, though Grandpa Ward did his time in livery stables and other jobs as well. My dad remembered his grandfather cutting a sizable field of wheat with a scythe in the ‘20s. The dry years and the crash of wheat prices after World War I put the Wards on an even more precarious footing on their homestead than the Scaleses ever were. Grandpa Ward had to let his claim go for taxes in the early ‘20s, to go over to the mountains near Rexford and make his living logging for several years. Fortunately, Grandma Martell was in a position to buy the place at the tax auction, and he sold it back to his daughter and son-in-law when economics improved about 1927. Grandpa Ward farmed that place until he retired in the late 1940s.

My father went back over to the mountains after his elopement and worked in the woods, teaching Civilian Conservation Corps boys how to use an axe, among other things. Eventually, though, harvest time came south of Chester and Grandpa Ward needed help, and he knew my dad knew what to do. So Daddy was lured back to the wheat country, soon to have his own place near Grandpa’s and to put in many a crop before he officially gave it up in the 1970s. He did have a shot at agriculture down in the balmy Bitterroot Valley in the 1950s, and then spent some time as a truck driver and mechanic, before getting back into the wheat business on Grandpa and Grandma Scalese’s Toole County homestead after they had both died – Grandma in 1975. Teresa’s skills with bum lambs, gardening and teaching got her husband and the 11 children they eventually raised through a good bit of that agriculture.

Dady’s father, Aden, farmed the Ward place for many years, spreading out eventually to land in Canada. His grandson is still farming down on the Marias.

Hales Angelo Scalese was actually the first of Scalese children to get into agriculture off the home place. He went to work on a cattle ranch north and east of the homestead as a young man, and eventually bought up a big chunk of it, where he still raises angus cattle with his youngest son, Steve.  They still run some cattle and cut some hay on Grandma’s original homestead.

Tom, the Scalese child just younger than Teresa, went off to the oilfields as a young man, and then moved back onto a part of the homestead to raise hereford cattle for many years.

Teresa’s eldest daughter, Sally, married Joe Evans, who mostly worked in the furnace and roofing businesses, but who raised and milked cows, and kept a few horses, for a number of years at Browning. Their son, Boyd, continues in his father’s business and still has cattle and a few wandering buffalo in that area. His wife, Lila, is a state representative. Another son, Tony, now diseased, was a cowboy, though he moved cattle the modern way, by truck. Joe and Sally’s daughter, Wendy works at KSEN, where she must work a little agriculture news in with the basketball. She married Bob Nielsen, a diesel mechanic who keeps a lot of agricultural equipment running up and down the Hi-Line. In keeping with the family tradition of multi-tasking, he also delivers the Great Falls Tribune.

Teresa’s eldest son, John, worked on dairy and other farms, mostly in the Bitterroot, to make his way through college, and then taught school in Montana, Alberta and Nevada for many years. He usually had a little chunk of ground with a few goats and chickens and rabbits and such wherever he went. In his ‘70s he pulled up stakes and followed a woman to upstate New York, where he lives with her and a few critters.

One of Teresa’s daughters, Margo, a school teacher and later school principal, taught school around Montana and Oregon and Nevada, and eventually married a cowboy. Is marrying a cowboy considered agriculture?

The next child – and that would be I – worked for the Chester Trading Company a couple of summers when I was in high school. Helen Baker, the crafty owner of that establishment, once over bought eggs and got to worrying about having them go bad on her. So she suggested I take a few gross dozen to a larger grocery in Shelby, tell them I was from a farm nearby, and see if I could unload them. It was my first inkling that commerce doesn’t always get done in this country through a strict adherence to the truth. But the grocer in Shelby recognized Helen’s blue, 1955 Chevrolet station wagon, and I was busted on the spot. I hauled the eggs back to Chester, and we sold most of them. Faux agriculture?

Later, I left home as a junior in high school to work on a dairy farm in the Bitterroot, and then went off to the air force and to college. I became a newspaper reporter in Louisville Kentucky, and wrote extensively about tobacco, corn, soybeans, whiskey, and thoroughbred horses for many years. I was called the agriculture reporter. I also taught a couple of semesters at the University of Kentucky, one of the first land-grant colleges.

Caroline, child next younger than me, and Karen, fourth down from there, married brothers – Orville and Steve Forseth – and those families have eked out a decent living on the Fairfield Bench, mostly on land well-watered by a Franklin D. Roosevelt irrigation project. Though, as good Republicans, they don’t bring up the Roosevelt part a lot. Caroline taught for many years. Their son, Clayton, also married a school teacher, and is farming on the bench near his father. Calyton’s sister, Teresa, raised a daughter, Stephanie, who is a newly-minted teacher. Karen and Steve also raised a teacher, Amie. Their son, Stacey, grew up in agriculture but has wandered from that as an adult, and is now working on a railroad. Full circle.

Family 2005
(Photo Provided by Nadelle Arthur)

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text:
Fort Hood victims upset; suspect can question them

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) — A judge was to decide today whether to delay the Fort Hood shooting suspect’s trial three months so he can have more time to prepare.

Maj. Nidal Hasan requested the delay after the judge ruled that he can represent himself. But Col. Tara Osborn, the judge, scolded him Monday, reminding him that he previously said he wouldn’t need extra time. Jury selection is still set for Wednesday.

Hasan faces the death penalty or life without parole if convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in the 2009 attack on the Texas Army post.

Some wounded soldiers say they’re angry that Hasan will be allowed to approach and question them.

Retired Staff Sgt. Shawn Manning says testifying will be more difficult but he’s prepared.

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