America's Only Rock N Roll Magazine

CREEM Magazine, the snot rock reader of the late 70's and early 80's, is rising from the dead. A tenuous mix of the old guard and new blood, most notably the Michigan-based Brian J. Bowe, are resuscitating this iconic zine from its fifteen year rest. Bowe is a 31-year-old journalist who wrote a Master's thesis on the MC5. He freely admits to having a longstanding Detroit music fetish. Now that he's done with college and thesis writing, he is moving on to a new project; the rebirth of CREEM Magazine.
What is this Lazarus-like moment for CREEM Magazine, planned for the summer of 2003? Is it guttersnipes and geriatrics pumping the dead beast of the Boy Howdy brand for a few bucks, picking over the last scraps of viable flesh on the whitened bones left over from the carcinogenic 80's hair band days? Does the ghostly apparition of Lester Bangs hang over the new editors like a jabbering Jacob Marley, warning of the impending doom and disaster? Is the old CREEM model even relevant in a time when e-zines abound, online file sharing continues to grow, and the death knell of the record industry is near and dear?

And does anyone even care about rock and roll anymore? What constitutes rock and roll these days? A simplistic question, yet something that CREEM needs to address as part of its rebirth.

A little history on CREEM includes the icon Boy Howdy and writer Lester Bangs. This legendary rock publication was founded and published by Barry Kramer in 1968, and ran in its original incarnation until 1988. Boy Howdy was a fake brand of beer; a gag used in every issue, bands claiming it was their favorite brew, posing with cans and six-pack of it in photographs. Boy Howdy the icon, a cartoon representation of a beer bottle, embodied the puckish and defiant nature of the magazine's reporting style, exemplified best in the writing of rock critic Lester Bangs. Bangs was the fire CREEM's pants, even though he parted ways with Kramer 1976.

When asked if CREEM will still have the BANG of rock journalism without Lester Bangs, Bowe curtly replied "there were many great writers at CREEM before and after Lester." Great, but who remembers any of them? Granted, there is Dave Marsh (aka the Springsteen worshipper) along with Greil Marcus, Robert Christgau, Richard Meltzer, and Nick Tosches. But Lester Bangs, 1949-1982, was the original gonzo journalist. He was a passionate compatriot of Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Richard Hell and The Clash, able to penetrate the obvious and dig deep into the compelling sound of the guitar army. His prose is legendary, breathtaking to read, even today, and full of an integrity in reporting that has ceased to exist in the here and now of rock criticism. Bang's dedication to the raucous root that is rock and roll lives in the history of his methodology - like conducting an interview with Lou Reed that devolved into a two hour screaming match, with Bangs demanding to know if Reed had lost his will to rock.


This isn't the first rebirth of CREEM, but in fact, the second, or third, depending on who you talk to. Marvin Scott Jarrett, current publisher of Nylon, was part of Alternative Media, the group to first revive CREEM from 1990 to 1992. CREEM was as much about design as content, winning quite a few Society of Publication Design awards - it was slicker, glossier, in a larger format, resulting in a real high quality looking magazine. The first cover in 1990 featured Billy Idol, followed by Elvis Costello, Metallica, and Chrissy Hynde. When asked about the latest version of CREEM, Jarrett couldn't comment too much on the magazine. "CREEM has a tremendous history as a great brand in the past, but I can't comment on the future because I don't know the people".

Jarrett did mention yet another publisher had purchased CREEM after 1992. No details could be found about that publisher, but suffice to say CREEM closed it doors again in 1994.

And who is the muscle making this meat puppet move these days? Publisher Robert Matheu heads up the current incarnation of CREEM. Involved in other music industry internet projects, Matheu began the move to re-launch CREEM a couple of years ago. Matheu had also been a teen photographer for CREEM in the early 70's. So it was a natural progression for Matheu from personal history to reviving CREEM. He got approval from the few original folks still around, except for a few crusty editors who don't think the music industry deserves another CREEM.

In the beginning of my research about the new CREEM, I came upon their website. There is no mailing address or phone number listed, so I emailed the staff with a request for an interview. Later that day, Ric Siegel, CREEM's "Minister Of Instigations", directed me to the Boy Howdy Yahoo Group. For those unfamiliar with Yahoo Groups, let me explain - these are free bulletin board sites hosted by Yahoo, where users can post messages, images, files, vote on polls and add to a group calendar.

The illustrious Boy Howdy Yahoo Group is the internet's version of the old Legion Hall for CREEM fans and ex-staffers. Yes, the old mammoths of independent rock journalism are huddling around the warming glow of their monitors, awakening a beast, planning the demise of industry creations like N'Sync, chuckling at the last embers of rebellion in the bellies. And as they "stir the embers", they vacillate between toothless annoyance and summoned adolescent hostility, all with a touch of Boy Howdy attitude and soggy wit. My initial questions were mocked and ignored by Siegel, who also acted as the group's moderator. This was no way to conduct an interview. The posts back and forth devolved into mutual ranting. It's was getting ugly and my research was going nowhere.

My sniping with Siegel virtually snapped the collective butts of the CREEM crowd like a wet towel in a high school locker room. Grande Dame Connie Kramer, the widow of Barry Kramer, called for the moderator, while gallant Tony Reay stepped up to finally give me a long awaited quote. Bowe went into damage control mode when he got wind of the skirmish, calling me two weeks into the fray.

My story was looking rather pathetic - "look, old dudes still acting like punk rockers, bitching at a reporter at least 20 years younger". Bowe finally pacified me with limited details about the re-launch of CREEM. They don't have an office yet - this is a "homegrown" effort, he claimed. But there is a website, and they claim to get 500,000 hits per month. The content is sparse, but earnest. Bowe is so far the only writer, and most of the website content is written by him. But they do sell an interesting array of t-shirts and undies under their "CREEM Goodies" section. Hmmm…

Their launch schedule is tenuously set for sometime in the summer of 2003.

Getting back to my initial questions, I asked Bowe to describe what the new CREEM would be like. The new CREEM has to "strike the right balance between information, good journalism, good writing and good humor" while recognizing "there are a lot of folks to whom [CREEM] is beholden to". They plan to afford the MC5 a special place in their magazine, since they are so much a part of CREEM's initial vision. CREEM continuously featured staffer's favorite bands, most of who weren't famous yet - Black Sabbath, Kiss and Grand Funk Railroad, to name a few. Bowe claims GFR's output was underappreciated by rock journalism of the day, while CREEM featured them often.

What made CREEM unique back in the day and will those same methods work today, I wondered.

Bowe likes to point out that CREEM was honest, funny, and ballsy, with staffers unafraid to admit they liked Kiss and GFR, "even when those bands were being trashed by the rest of the hip-fascist music press." CREEM respected its readership and didn't "go on a real elitist power trip." Bowe claims "everybody else wrote about rock and roll" while at "CREEM, the writing WAS rock and roll." Right on, brother!

Still, why now, after almost fourteen years?

Tony Reay, the man who brilliantly engaged R. Crumb to illustrate the early CREEM Magazine covers, responded to my questions about the "reincarnation of that lusty lad, Boy Howdy:"

"We don't know if we/they can repeat it, or want to. We do know that they hope, as do we all, for the best and will strive reasonably hard to achieve it. But the social whirl, as you so ably point out is no longer so accepting of hasty, albeit brilliant, words designed to puncture pomposity and reinvent the planet in a much more rainbow hue. It would be difficult to even attempt such a thing in this far more cynical day, and foolish to try. What we/they can do is enlist the aid of virulent and verbose folk as yourself and your compadres to spread the word, and write the word and illustrate, photograph, design, lay out and sell the word, or die trying. Perhaps the halcyon days of the great and powerful Ig[gy Pop] can be no more, but there's a crazy on every block and it would be nice if one of them could start the Quarrymen, or the [Sex] Pistols. In the meantime, keep yer head down, cause as much trouble to the equilibrium as safely possible, dangle your toes in cool springs and don't let these old farts and diehard ruffians get you down. After all, you'll be here soon enough".

Skillful parry, yet no real answer there. Ideologically, it's a nice sentiment, but I still can't forget the way CREEM went from a rocker arsenal against the mainstream to the mainstream itself. And the mention of the Sex Pistols is an odd choice, since they were as much a marketing creation as any boy band today. The Sex Pistols were managed by Malcolm McLaren, the ex-manager of the New York Dolls. McLaren wanted to create a band that was as rebellious and anarchic as the bands saw in New York. How exactly does that differ from the creation of N'Sync and the Backstreet Boys by Orlando über-manager Lou Pearlman?

How is CREEM's history relevant at all to current music journalism? This is the same magazine that became the hair band and pop music rag, folding in 1988, a year that included CREEM covers with mainstream mega-artists like Poison, Madonna, Steve Winwood, David Lee Roth and Rod Stewart. And today there are no universally recognized rock stars that every seventeen year old boy listens to - the music industry is a diluted market, with every trend spawning hundreds of like-marketed bands and a diversity that deters loyalty so completely, not even tax brackets or cultural backgrounds can predict who listens to what. Who will CREEM's audience be? Are they niche, specialty, or concept?

Right now, there is no plan to get the target readership, 13 to 24 year old white males, interested in CREEM. The only people who remember how cool CREEM used to be are much older than that demographic. Bowe does admit to be banking on the CREEM brand to get interest in the magazine. He knows that if the first few issues aren't great, they won't be able to keep their readership - they have to back up the brand with the content. But Bowe is adamant about the CREEM experience not just being about a brand - that "it's an approach we're dedicated to", and "there's a style and a worldview that the publishing world lacks currently".

Worldview? From Detroit? This from an admitted MoTown-phile, who wants "personally focus on Detroit because [he] always seems to focus on Detroit." Bowe feels Detroit doesn't get its deserved recognition as the "cultural capital of the United States." Local publications are "indispensable" for the wealth of scene information, and "national publications can't and shouldn't compete with that." CREEM is aiming to give context and exposure, while also claiming to crew up from all points on the globe. The focus is unclear - is this a hybrid? National and local? This is starting to sound like an AT&T calling plan.

The message is watery, the content is limited, the staff works from home and the plans are vague. Where is CREEM headed? There are no superstars on staff, no superstars on the charts. Is this carte blanche to create anew the hardscrabble rock and roll ruffian scene and the ardent fan-journalist dynamic? Granted, Lester Bangs never lobbed easy questions at even his favorite artists, and no one was interested in (initially) pandering to the record industry. You only have to look at the PR machines of Rolling Stone, Spin and others to realize there is no such thing as rock journalism anymore. Bought and paid for, the major magazines don't dare upset the talent with harder questions, lest they take their dog and pony show to the next 20 publications eager to slap their masthead on the label's PR release.

And music journalists are lazy these days - fact checking is sketchy and it's just so much easier to reword the press release. Graduates of major journalism colleges are more concerned with their benefits and perks than getting the story straight. Journalistic integrity is sacrificed at the feet of unruffled pop stars. Where is the "fuck you, tell me the truth" attitude of yesteryear? Who gets thrown off the tour, banned from the bus, screamed at and feared these days? Music journalism has become part of the industry machine.

Rock and roll - that sounds like something decades removed from music today. It's a myth, and CREEM was part of it. To avoid becoming a pale comparison of that myth, CREEM needs to define what rock and roll is and what their plans are to report on it. The challenge will be to find writers who will ask the hard questions, if even it means lack of access. CREEM has the potential to become the lighthouse of brutal truth, where musicians must go for credible reporting. That means divorcing themselves financially from an industry always eager for another PR outlet. And while music geeks and ardent fans have passionate views to express, make sure the reporting isn't a salivating treatise lacking any objectivity. The original CREEM poked fun, prodded and pulled out the story, while still adoring their favorite bands.

Can CREEM bring back rock journalism? Boy howdy, I'd like to see it happen.

http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/may_2003/creem.html

The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy / Human Rights Scandal ?

Oprah Winfrey's boarding school for 10-12 year old girls in South Africa is the subject of a breaking story--and a possible scandal. When Oprah showed us her school on TV we learned about how carefully Oprah had chosen the children, the expensive art she installed for their viewing, the costly architecture, the sharp-looking uniforms. Come to think about it, do you remember any content on academics beyond "talented teachers" or "state of the art?" I definitely don't remember anything about caring for the "whole girl" or any spiritual program.

The news is troubling, beginning with rumblings a week ago about a girl who dropped-out due to illness (the school refused to discuss this, but still let it slip that "illness" was the reason) and another girl not allowed to return home for a family funeral because it wasn't "immediate family."

Parents now are beginning to complain that the now can visit their daughters only once per month (down from from twice per month) and that four people are the limit to family visitors a girl can receive at one time. Particularly troubling is that girls are subject to sanctions if the family brings a gift of treats, as this type of small gift is likely within the economic ability of parents.

The school has not only taken the girls away from their family, it limits the girls' telephone calls home to weekends. In a society that has scooped up poor girls who are most likely from families that live from day-to-day rather than a calendar planned months in advance, the fact that parental visits require informing the school two weeks in advance is particularly troubling.

Oprah isn't financing this operation all by herself; she actively seeks donations from others including an online collection effort. While financially her contributions are generous, they also result in substantial tax benefit to Oprah.

I urge readers to follow this story, to discuss it with their friends, and to speak out for the girls. It troubles me that Oprah may have unwitting created the poshest detention facility in the world for children replete with complete and utter lack of cultural sensitivity. Oprah is not a product of private school, nor was her family, compounding her lack of understanding.

In the US today, there is a fair amount of talk about how American Indian schools removed Native Americans from their cultures, and the suffering involved. It is time for Oprah to re-examine her concept, and time for change,

Update: It's October, and Oprah's school is predictably back in the news. Seven month's ago, I was concerned about conditions at the Oprah Winfrey Academy, and this time the news is much worse. Another girl has been removed by her parents, the local police are claiming that access to the school is limited, and child protective services have been called in. Some students are receiving counselling. The Headmaster of the school (the same person who discouraged parental visits in the first place) has been placed on paid leave, following serious allegations of unspecified misconduct made against a "house parent." Investigators from the US have been called in, and Oprah is making statements about her concern for the girls. Troubling, but the school isn't talking so there aren't any details.

Further Update: Oprah's been working hard on this scandal, going so far as to fly the students' parents from around South Africa to attend a two hour meeting at the school. The allegations involve serious criminal conduct. Even worse, there are allegations that the CEO of the school failed to act upon the first reports of wrongdoing. You can read the information that has leaked out in South Africa newspapers.

Halloween Update: Oprah has yet again returned to South Africa where she appologized to school parents. South Africa's News24 is now reporting that "the girls had often complained of being grabbed by the neck, beaten and thrown against a wall, and being sworn at. " Gauteng police have confirmed that their Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offenses Unit (FCS) has been called in.

South Africa's Cape Argus has an exceedingly negative report about the Oprah Winfrey Academy, claiming that throughout the many controversies, Oprah has all but ignored the negative incidents at the school, while it is notoriously difficult to get anyone at the school to comment on anything," and includes the information that Academy parent Bongiwe Aviwe has removed her daughter, as the school not only failed to respond to her concerns about abuse, but that the abuse intensified after her complaint.

November 2, 2007 Update: A former employee of the Oprah Winfrey school was arrested yesterday by the South Africka's Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit. Charges include alleged assault, indecent assault, crimen injuria and soliciting under age girls to perform indecent acts.

Did Oprah Winfrey personally kick-out a girl from the school for complaining about abuse? The father of an Oprah Winfrey Academy student tells how Oprah's school didn't bother informing the family of Oprah's decision, and simply never showed up to pick his daughter up after a weekend visit at home following the girl's complaint.

November 5, 2007 - Update: Oprah Winfrey has had a one-half hour cry for herlself, and is reported as saying:
"Knowing what I know now the screening process was inadequate even though I was not directly responsible for recruiting dorm parents." "No, I don't think as a school we have failed the girls. I feel there are systems within the school that failed the girls. I don't feel that it has harmed my personal reputation because I have done nothing wrong."

It is likely that these girls, if they had not been cut off from their families, would have been spared this situation. We believe that Ms. Winfrey must take responsibility for this ill-advised action.

http://wilmette.blogspot.com/2007/03/oprah-winfreys-school-scandal-brewing.html

Ecoviews / Should The Killing Of Venomous Snakes In North Carolina Be Made Illegal, Except In Self-Defense ?

North Carolina has a dilemma. A proposal has been made that the killing of venomous snakes be made illegal, except in self-defense. This is equivalent to saying that killing any venomous snake would be illegal because the excuse of "self-defense" does not really exist when dealing with U.S. snakes. The proposed law would simply protect part of our natural wildlife.

I am all for it. But not everyone is. I support the proposed legislation because snakes are more maligned by misinformed people than any other major group of animals in the world, except perhaps sharks. The amount of harm snakes do to us each year is minuscule compared to the amount of harm people do to themselves because of irrational fear.

For example, most snakebites in the United States are a result of someone's picking up the snake or trying to kill it. Is that the snake's fault? Of course not. No U.S. snake will attack or chase a person, despite Uncle Ned's childhood memories. It just doesn't happen.

One reason given by some North Carolinians for opposing the law is that venomous snakes are dangerous. Of course they are. Fangs are how they defend themselves, just as dogs have teeth. But you must first be bitten. And the latest information available suggests that the majority of U.S. snake bites happen after someone picks up the snake. No snake is going to intentionally bite a person except as a last resort when it thinks it is cornered and cannot escape.

Even rattlesnakes will retreat into a hole if given the opportunity. On a snake collecting trip, I once was unable to catch two big diamondback rattlesnakes a few feet apart because they saw me first and disappeared into stump holes. They will escape from anybody if they can do so.

According to the information from state health records, only two people have died in North Carolina from snakebite since 1970. That's one person every fifteen years! How serious a problem is that? Have these people who do not want to protect snakes checked the number of deaths from automobile accidents, drownings, and homicides? Do they also want to eliminate cars, water, and people?

North Carolina's proposed law would protect species of snakes that are getting rarer and rarer. Included are the diamondback rattlesnake, coral snake, and tiny pygmy rattler. According to one authority, few diamondbacks have been found in the state in the last few years. Yet when a proposal is put forth to protect them, some people act like a ruling was being made to require all traffic lights to be green on both sides.

If you want to comment on whether disappearing venomous snakes should be protected, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission will accept public comments on the endangered-species designations. The official date set for comments, February 29, has already passed. But with snakes and other disappearing wildlife, providing comments in their defense is never too late, as long as the species are still with us.

One of the problems with trying to respond to environmental issues involving disappearing species is that deadlines for providing comment are often upon us before most people can get their thoughts together. But consider writing them with your comments anyway. I hope you will say that North Carolina should do whatever is necessary to protect their rare snakes, venomous or not. I would rather see a few uninformed people dissatisfied with such a decision than know that one more component of our native wildlife is disappearing.

Comments should be directed to Randall Wilson, Division of Wildlife Management, P.O. Box 29613, Raleigh NC 27626-0613 or by email to wilsonrc@mail.wildlife.state.nc.us. Be sure to include your name and mailing address. You can indicate that your letter or email may be late but that you would like your views to be on the record in case the proper protection is not given this time.

People who neither care for snakes nor want to learn about them should just leave them alone. Some of us like to have snakes around, and I see no logical reason why our wishes should not be observed. Because someone has not taken the time to understand the role of snakes in natural environments is no reason for this important part of our wildlife heritage to suffer.

If you have an environmental question or comment, e-mail ecoviews@srel.edu.

http://www.uga.edu/srelherp/ecoview/Eco40.htm

Castro Family Values / Fidel VS Raul

In April of 1959, just a few months after they'd taken control of Cuba, Fidel Castro and his younger brother Raul met at a Houston hotel for a showdown. Fidel was touring the U.S. to win support for his revolution; but Raul, according to the book After Fidel by former CIA analyst Brian Latell, insisted they ditch the gringos and accelerate plans to make Cuba a communist island. The argument got so loud and heated in their suite that aides in adjoining rooms couldn't sleep. The next morning, however, the brothers emerged as chummy as ever — and went on, of course, to communize Cuba.

Almost 50 years later, the Castros appear to be hashing out their differences in print instead of hotel rooms — and this time it's Fidel who's arguing from the left. The 81-year-old comandante has made a new career of sorts as an op-ed scribe since he resigned as Cuba's President earlier this year because of health problems, leaving Raul to become the government's new No. 1 two months ago. Since then, Raul, 76, has ordered a series of small but significant economic reforms, from letting Cubans own cell phones to allowing farmers to till their own land — ideas that Fidel doesn't always find communist kosher. In a brief article published this week in the government mouthpiece Granma, Fidel takes issue with the idea, posited recently by a Cuban columnist in another official newspaper, that Raul's changes are progress compared to the more restrictive and collectivist ways of the past. In the not-so-subtle style Fidel is known for, the article's headline reads: "Don't make concessions to enemy ideology."

The essay — which warns Cubans to "meditate hard" on the policy changes and avoid "shameful concessions" — is the latest step in a strange sibling dance. Though once a devoted communist accused of ordering the summary executions of numerous Cuban dissenters in the revolution's early days, Raul is considerably more pragmatic than the obdurately ideological Fidel. His encouragement of limited market-oriented policies like foreign investment in tourism helped see Cuba through its frightening "special period" after the island's lavish Soviet aid vanished in the 1990s.

Now that he's in power, Raul is pushing further economic liberalization and improved ties with the U.S. (Washington has maintained a trade embargo against Cuba since 1962). But, because he lacks the charisma that helped keep his brother in power so long, Raul also has to keep the legendary Fidelista flame at least half lit. Even as he pledged at his inauguration to make Cuba "more efficient" and to "start removing" its "excess of prohibitions," he declared Fidel "irreplaceable" and insisted he would "continue consulting" his bearded brother on policy decisions.

As a result, Fidel's contrary op-eds are part "of an extremely delicate balance" Raul is pursuing in the early stages of his presidency, or at least until Fidel dies, says Dan Erikson, senior associate at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, D.C. "Does he disappoint Fidel or does he disappoint the Cuban people? The reality is that the legitimacy of his government rests on pleasing Cubans but not straying too far from Fidel." Analysts like Erikson concede that Raul's reforms, including permission to let Cubans buy electronics in dollar stores and gain title to their own homes, are "marginal" so far. But "for ordinary Cubans it's been a lot of change very quickly," he says. To keep their reform expectations realistic — and to appease diehard Fidelistas in the government — Raul has to indulge "Fidel's new habit of undercutting him at various times," says Erikson.

Fidel's armchair governing also appeals to an important overseas constituency — Chavistas, the loyalists of left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who reveres Fidel for his socialist purity and anti-U.S. ferocity. The relationship between Raul and Chavez is cordial at best; and Chavistas make no secret of their displeasure with Raul's quasi-capitalist bent. But Raul can't afford to alienate Chavez, who controls the hemisphere's largest oil reserves — and who each day sends 100,000 barrels of cut-rate crude to Cuba that has helped keep the island's economy afloat this decade.

Raul is widely expected to announce deeper changes during a speech on May 1, which is Labor Day for much of the world and a sacred date on the communist calendar. Since greater agricultural efficiency is regarded as his priority, some analysts say he might permit foreign investment in that sector as well. He may also allow Cubans to travel abroad freely and open the door to wider entrepreneurship in Cuba, letting business owners hire employees other than immediate family members and set their own prices.

Even so, Cuban officials are warning people both inside and outside of Cuba not to expect a free-market economy on the island any time soon. And while Raul has encouraged debate about Cuba's socialist system, most analysts agree that he's pursuing a China-style model that opens Cuba's economy but does not liberalize Havana's stringent politics. Perhaps he knows that if he attempted the latter, he'd have to read even harsher op-eds by his brother.


http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1732103,00.html

Remembering Joel Buchsbaum, The Original Draftnik

NEW YORK – Neighbors thought the little man was strange.

They didn't know who he was or what he did for a living. They knew only that he spent most days holed up in his apartment, a small one-bedroom on the fourth floor. And that he got loads of mail. His mailbox in the building's lobby bulged with letters and magazines. Many days, stacks of envelopes were bundled with twine on the floor. The superintendent, who often signed for the packages, couldn't stand it.

"I said no more, please no more," the super said. "Too much mail."

But the deluge kept coming, all bound for Apartment 4L, where things went in but hardly anything went out, including the man who lived there.

The tenant, a quiet guy who never married, left Brooklyn once, maybe twice a year. He left his building only a few hours a day. He walked his dog, visited his mother in the building next door or went to the gym.

He always looked the same: Bed-head hair. Baggy sweatshirt or sweater. Windbreaker. Long pants, even in the sticky heat of summer. His Jack Russell terrier scampered behind him, leaving puddles.

Neighbors said the man was likable and polite, a gentleman. Friends called him caring and honest. A real sweetheart.

But strangers rushed past him and kids stared.

He was so thin, he seemed to drown in his clothes. His eyes were sunken, his fingers thin as pencils. In his 40s, he looked 80.

His name was Joel Buchsbaum. And in the confines of his apartment, he became a football savant.

Buchsbaum could tell you anything about football, anything about players – even from 10 years ago. Heights. Forty-yard dash times. Injuries. If a guy sprained an ankle, he knew which ankle.

About his personal life, though, he didn't say much. It seemed he loved football more than life itself.

Obsessive and passionate about the game, yet absent-minded in life. That was Joel.

The name on Buchsbaum's apartment buzzer was J. Buchabaum. He lived there 17 years but never bothered to correct it.

He never managed to put enough postage on envelopes, just slapping on stamps. He was a menace on the road, driving his used Mazda sedan 20 mph in the fast lane. And his health? It was far down his list of important things.

"He was always too busy to eat, so he never ate," said his mother, Fran Buchsbaum. "With him, it was football, football, football. He thought it was all he needed."

Buchsbaum's fixation with work was overwhelming. He once said: "When it comes my time to go, I hope I'm 90, and I've just finished another draft. Yeah, that's the way I want to go."

He didn't make it.

On the morning of Dec. 29, 2002, in his nondescript building on Avenue I in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, Buchsbaum died at age 48, alone in the apartment where he lived a secluded life between peeling, cracking walls.

He was 5-8 and less than 100 pounds when his heart gave out. He fell to his bedroom floor, and there he lay, surrounded by the world he created – a place where quirky college dropout Joel Stephen Buchsbaum became an NFL legend.

A Cult Radio Figure

Officially, Buchsbaum's job was contributing editor for Pro Football Weekly. He wrote columns for the magazine and produced books about the 600 to 800 college players available for the NFL draft.

In his yearly book, he detailed players' strengths, weaknesses and personal information. He threw out one-liners, too: "Looks like Tarzan but plays like Jane." "It's a $20 cab ride to get around him."

Though this year's draft book has his name on it, for the first time in 25 years, next weekend's event will go on without him.

Buchsbaum also had weekly radio shows in Houston and St. Louis. Over the airwaves, he became a cult figure. His nasal, Brooklyn monotone – not a booming broadcasting voice – was his trademark.

Unofficially, Buchsbaum was one of the best evaluators of football talent. He called himself "a glorified information gatherer" because he consulted many sources to produce what NFL bigwigs say was the definitive draft guide. He didn't have to ask teams what they were going to do. He knew.

His analysis was so good that NFL coaches, owners and personnel people sought his advice.

"I tried to hire him as a scout with the [Cleveland] Browns every year," said New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. "But he always said he'd rather work for all 32 teams.

"There's a thousand people out there that write draft books, and they aren't worth the paper they're written on. But Joel? He was something special."

While NFL scouts were traveling to colleges to check out players, Buchsbaum was perched in front of his TVs, studying videotapes of games and workouts. That was his advantage.

"He knew the players better than any scout for any team," Belichick said. "Studying film is crucial, and that's why he was so good. He did it 24 hours a day."

Buchsbaum saw tapes he wasn't supposed to. Practice sessions. Private workouts. He had connections at every NFL team.

Belichick considered him a close friend, calling on the morning of the draft, then that night to talk about different scenarios. Buchsbaum was good at keeping secrets.

Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis was a buddy. So were New York Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi and Chicago Bears general manager Jerry Angelo. And NFL front office people. And agents.

"He had a network in the NFL better than I've ever heard of," said Bobby Beathard, Atlanta Falcons senior adviser and former Washington Redskins general manager.

Accorsi said: "There weren't a lot of people who influenced all these top people in the league like Joel did."

Part Of His Mystery

Of all the people who knew Buchsbaum, most knew him only by phone.

"It certainly was out of the ordinary," Belichick said. "It was like having an affair."

It was part of his mystery.

A St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist in the 1980s joked that Buchsbaum was fictional because no one had ever seen him. Was he short? Blond? Fat? Alive?

"I was never in his presence. That puts me in the same category as 99 percent of people that knew him," said NBC sportscaster Bob Costas, who hosted a St. Louis radio show with Buchsbaum in the late 1970s. "A sighting of him was like a sighting of Bigfoot.

"A portion of our audience thought he was a put-on. His voice was almost as if you invented a sports brainiac cartoon character."

In 1978, Buchsbaum started his radio career on St. Louis' KMOX. His name, usually pronounced Bucks-baum, was mispronounced Bush-bomb. He didn't care. He was happy to sit in his raggedy recliner and talk football to listeners many miles away. He was happy to be just a voice.

He avoided cameras. As part of an agreement, his column in Pro Football Weekly ran without his mug shot.

A picture would've captured this: a pale, angular face. Teeth too big for his mouth. Ears popping out. Outdated, outsized glasses with thick lenses.

Eventually, his photo made it into newspapers, when stories came out about this new breed of person called a draftnik, someone obsessed with the NFL draft.

Now there is Mel Kiper Jr., the ESPN personality identified by his distinct hair styling. But first there was Buchsbaum, the guy no one could identify.

Avoided The Public

Unlike Kiper and other draftniks, Buchsbaum preferred to avoid the public. Most of his social interaction was at the gym.

His NFL friends couldn't understand. He had many offers to go to lunch or to nearby games. But Buchsbaum declined, saying he was busy. Or his dog was sick. Or he was on a diet.

Occasionally he went to the Kickoff Classic at Giants Stadium at the start of the college season. Other than that, he watched games from his apartment, a space so messy that his mother vowed never to visit. Only his editors and best friend visited regularly – a few times a year.

"Getting into his apartment was like getting onto Gilligan's Island," one NFL executive said. "We all wondered what it was like."

There was plenty to see beneath the dust. Every cranny was filled with magazines, newspapers and thousands of videotapes from games and workouts, each labeled. Texas A&M v. Texas 1998. Notre Dame Work Out '93.

Rickety bookshelves threatened to crush him. Books, binders and spiral notebooks filled his closets. They hid stains on his worn-out carpet. They elbowed dust bunnies from beneath his bed. The bathtub was a book bin.

In the clutter of his living room were his lifelines: the phone; three TVs of varying size, only one hooked up to cable; three VCRs, some so old their buttons were held on by dry, yellowing Scotch tape. He often watched and taped three games at once.

There he worked 80 to 90 hours a week, 52 weeks a year.

"He gambled his entire well-being for the sport, and he didn't want anything in return," said Accorsi, who lives in Manhattan but met Buchsbaum only once. "His compensation was our respect. That was more important to him than any kind of money."

Money was never a concern. Pro Football Weekly paid him well and covered his phone bills, as high as $1,500 a month. He didn't need much to live on anyway.

In Love With Sports

He was an only child who resided with his parents until he was 31. His father, who died in 1999, was first assistant corporation counsel for New York City. His mother, a buyer for a local clothing store, eventually made her son and his junk move to the building next door.

Stanley Buchsbaum hoped his son would become a lawyer, but Joel had other ideas. He introduced his son to sports, and Joel fell in love.

They went to Mets and Jets games. They talked about football and hockey. But they loved baseball the most. To protest the Dodgers' leaving Brooklyn in 1957, the Buchsbaums were Baltimore Orioles fans. Joel named every dog he ever had Brooks or Miss Brooks, after his favorite player, third baseman Brooks Robinson.

He boasted about the "O's" to his friends. Back then, he was gregarious, one of the gang. Despite his insistence that he was "never any good," he played stickball in the streets until dusk, football in the schoolyards. He was pudgy but coordinated.

"There are a lot of misconceptions about Joel: He wasn't always thin, and he wasn't spastic," said Andrew Kulak, a boyhood friend. "He was a great pitcher and a great quarterback."

Buchsbaum once was obsessed with becoming a major league pitcher, just as he was obsessed with perfection in everything he did. In third grade, his mother said, he began memorizing box scores. As friends played Stratomatic, a baseball board game, he kept statistics.

His love for statistics soon became his only connection to athletics. When puberty hit, he stopped playing team sports. He developed a serious case of acne and withdrew from his friends.

One autumn, he returned to high school much thinner.

"He was obsessed with getting into shape because he wanted to be an athlete so badly, but he obviously went too far," said Paul Helman, a longtime friend. "Looking back, maybe it was anorexia or something. He just worked out all the time."

His mother said Buchsbaum lost weight because he developed food allergies. He went to State University of New York at Albany but came home after one semester, due in part, she said, to his eating problems.

In 1974, after giving Brooklyn College a one-month trial, he gave up on college. He was 19 when he began thinking up his own career. One that didn't exist.

A Collector's Item

Growing up, Buchsbaum was fascinated by Pro Football Weekly's draft coverage. So he tried it himself. For hours, he sat in a local kosher pizza parlor, scribbling notes about college players.

At age 20, he wrote his first draft report. His mother typed it and took it to the copy shop. He sent it to 120 newspapers and magazines. The next year, the Football News hired him, and his first draft analysis was published in 1975.

He moved to Pro Football Weekly in 1978, when his early draft reports were 50 pages. His last report was nearly 200 pages.

"This year's book is going to be a collector's item," Accorsi said. "You look at it and you think, 'Oh, Joel – I really miss him.' "

When Buchsbaum started out, the draft was a small affair, held at a Manhattan hotel. Now it's broadcast live on ESPN from Madison Square Garden. Thousands of people attend. Millions watch.

It was the one day of the year, guaranteed, that Buchsbaum left Brooklyn. And one day, guaranteed, that people could see the man who lived a hermit's life. It was his domain: While other reporters were sequestered in the media section, he was allowed near the team tables.

"He had a presence at the draft," said Joel Bussert, NFL senior director of player personnel. "He had an identity there. He was an important man there. I don't think he ever realized how important he was in football."

As the draft grew, Buchsbaum's methods stayed the same.

He wrote his reports in notebooks with No. 2 pencils. Pro Football Weekly editors sent him a computer, but it stayed in the box for months.

When the magazine sent him to a typing class, he resisted. Only last year did he agree to use e-mail.

Not A Jokester

Buchsbaum had his routine.

Every night, he visited his mother at 11:30. Every day, he went to the gym, wearing a fanny pack that held a notebook and pencils. He changed his NFL cap daily so he wouldn't show a particular allegiance.

He worked out with his best friend, Marty Fox. Buchsbaum climbed onto a bike in front of the TVs and barely pedaled. Or he lifted the lightest plate on the weight machines. He said he didn't want to waste calories; he just wanted to keep his parts moving. As usual, he was serious.

"You never joked around with Joel because he just wasn't that hip," Fox said. "You just had to accept him for what he was."

Many people didn't know what to think. They wondered why he insisted on commandeering the TV sets. They didn't find out who he was until he was featured in The New York Times two weeks before his death.

"People here loved him because he was as nice as can be, but some people thought he had AIDS or something," gym sales manager Michael Carlin said.

Buchsbaum had health problems for years, but never complained, and few people inquired.

Even his friends weren't sure what was wrong. Fox thought Buchsbaum had Crohn's disease, a gastrointestinal disorder. Others thought Buchsbaum was struggling with diabetes or cancer.

The death certificate cites natural causes. His mother said he died of a heart attack.

"It was terrible," she said. "You can't just live on lettuce."

He Had Demons

His NFL contacts understood his passion for the game and respected him for his hard work. Though they knew he was thin, they didn't know why.

"He had demons inside of him," an NFL executive said. "Because he was always afraid of failure. He was scared because he said he wasn't trained for anything else."

His mother said she tried to get him to relax, maybe have a family. Even when his father died in 1999 and friends worried about how it affected him, he kept working.

"After his dad died, he was really down. I thought, 'God, what is this guy going to do now? This poor guy doesn't have a life,' " Beathard said. "I always hoped he'd get a job at the NFL office, so he could get out of Brooklyn and do other things. I always wondered, 'Is this what he wants?' because I really cared about him and liked what was inside of him."

Parcells Connection

Many of Buchsbaum's contacts turned into friends, including Scott Pioli, the New England Patriots' vice president of player personnel. They talked about things other than football. Buchsbaum often chatted with Pioli's wife, Dallas, whose father is Bill Parcells, coach of the Dallas Cowboys.

They never saw him in person, but the Piolis loved their phone friend. It was mutual.

Months after the Piolis' wedding in 1999, Buchsbaum sent them a gift in brown wrinkly paper, probably a former supermarket bag. Inside, there was a wooden sailboat with a note saying, "Along the seas of life may your ship always sail smoothly."

Several weeks later, they spied the same ship at a supermarket. It was $18.99.

"We both started laughing," Pioli said. "It said a lot about the man. It was simple and thoughtful, and not in a derogatory way, it was him. It was something he felt in his heart, and even if it was a cheap old boat from Shop Rite, he wanted to get it for us."

On New Year's Eve, Pioli and Belichick drove from Massachusetts to New Jersey for Buchsbaum's funeral. Only about a dozen people showed up. His mother. His editor. A couple of cousins. A few friends from the gym. Accorsi. Bussert.

In February, about 30 people went to a memorial service at the annual scouting combine, where NFL teams evaluate prospective players. Pro Football Weekly staffers handed out tribute books filled with stories and notes about Buchsbaum. More than 300 e-mails from all over the world were posted on the magazine's Web site about him.

Pile Of Mail

Fran Buchsbaum didn't know that her son was famous, or that he influenced so many people.

At 84, she is a whisper of a woman. Most days you can find her in the same spot, sitting in her neat beige living room.

These days, she listens to a tape of the St. Louis radio show dedicated to her son. He's described as "the only man who knows and who cares who is the third-string quarterback from Alcorn State."

There's a pile of mail on the desk in her foyer, sent by her son's admirers, but she hasn't had the strength to read it, even months after his death. Instead, she holds the tribute book. A chain smoker, she exhales and smoke floats through the room like a thin veil.

"Such adoration, such adulation," she said, wiping a tear. "I had no idea. Every one of these people says he was a genius. I've never heard of these men, but look here, an NFL general manager said he was a legend. I guess he would know."

Pictures of her son line her bookcase. In one, he's a tan teenager with meaty arms, sitting on a couch with a dog. Another shows him as a high schooler with longish, wavy hair and a broad face.

Her son's TVs are in her living room, each bound for another household. They sit next to two wooden sailboats he gave her.

In the building next door, Apartment 4L is empty.

After Buchsbaum's funeral, his editor went into the apartment to collect material for the latest draft book. He took about a dozen small boxes. The building's superintendent threw away the rest.

In the cupboards, the super found 500 cans of mushrooms, 100 bottles of Diet Sprite, some popcorn and dozens of ice cube trays filled with soda. The gas to the oven was off. No one cooked there. The air conditioner had been broken for years.

Now Buchsbaum's dog, Miss Brooks, taken in by a cousin, is living in the suburbs. The floor is bare. The rooms echo.

Next door, Fran Buchsbaum is alone.

Nearly three months after her son's death, she received a call from a reporter looking for Joel. He needed insight about the draft.

"I can't give you any information," she said. She covered her eyes. Then, "He's dead. That's it. It's over."

http://apse.dallasnews.com/contest/2003/writing/over250/over250.features.second.html

The Sliding Rocks Of Racetrack Playa

One of the strangest occurrences that Dr. Bob has ever come across is the mysterious sliding boulders of Death Valley National Park, California. There are trails showing that boulders up to 705 pounds (320 kg) have moved large distances over flat terrain. No one has actually seen these boulders move.

Death Valley National Park is a protected desert region with an area of 2,067,628 acres. It receives less than 2 inches (5 cm) of rain a year. Some of the world's highest air temperatures (134°F/57°C) and ground temperatures (165°F/74°C) have been measured there. Within the park is an area called the Racetrack Playa. A playa is a nearly level area at the bottom of an undrained desert basin that is sometimes temporarily covered with water. The Racetrack Playa is where the mysterious sliding boulders are found.

What is causing these boulders to move? Gravity sliding is clearly out of the question. The Racetrack Playa is incredibly flat, so much so, that on a calm day only 2 inches ( 5 cm) of water will entirely cover the playa.

Some scientists have suggested that the boulders are blown by strong winds after a rain. They theorize that the rain forms a slippery layer of mud that the boulders can slide on.

The theory that I think is the most convincing, however, is one that was initially proposed in 1955 in which sheets of ice were thought to be involved. Recently Dr. John Reid, Jr. (a geologist) and his colleagues at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, USA, have provided additional data to support that this is the case.

It appears that the boulders do not slide very often because an unusual set of weather conditions must occur. There must first be enough rain to form a shallow lake on the playa, followed by freezing temperatures to form a sheet of ice. When this happens, the boulders become trapped in a sheet of ice that floats on the shallow lake. When there is wind, all the trapped boulders and the ice sheet are pushed around the shallow lake. The wind blowing over the ice causes "frictional drag." In other words, there is friction between the moving air and the ice sheet. As the air blowing over the ice is slowed down by this friction, it exerts a pushing force on the ice which helps to move it. This is how the wind pushes the ice sheet . The bottoms of the boulders leave the tracks that we see in the pictures. When the ice melts, the boulders assume their new resting places.

One of the unusual things about the sliding boulders is that the tracks they make are very similar. The following diagram shows what the boulder trails would look like. Note that the three wiggling boulder tracks (boulders 1, 2, and 3) look very similar. These three trails were probably made when these boulders were caught in the same ice sheet. There are also two other trails (boulders 4 and 5) that look alike but that are much different than the trails formed by boulders 1, 2, and 3. These trails were probably made at a different time when these two boulders were caught in a different ice sheet.

Patterns like these would not be expected if the wind pushed boulders of different sizes that were not held in ice. In that case, boulders of different size and shape would be pushed by the wind at different speeds and the trails that they would leave would not be so similar. For example, we would expect that a large flat boulder would be hard to push by the wind while a tall boulder might be easier to push. If this were the case, we would expect the tall boulder to move much further than the large flat boulder. On the other hand, if both of these boulders were locked in an ice sheet, we would expect them to move in the same way and have very similar trails as is observed and shown in the diagram.

Dr. Reid has also done experiments that show that very powerful winds would be required to move large boulders in the mud without the ice sheets. For example, he calculated that moving a cubic boulder weighing 705 pounds (320 kg) would require winds of 580 miles per hour (260 meters/second) to move it, something that would not happen on Earth. If the rocks are locked in an ice sheet , however, much lower wind speeds are required to move them (10 - 60 miles per hour, or 4 - 27meters/second).

The mysterious sliding boulders of Racetrack Playa and the theories to explain why they move are certainly Interesting Science Stuff at its best. I am sure that in the future, scientists will figure out this very strange occurrence.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~docbob/boulder.htm

Ethanol Reality Check ?

The U.S. is putting a lot of its energy chips on ethanol. President Bush wants to increase U.S. ethanol production by close to 600% by 2017, so U.S. companies are racing to make ethanol out of just about anything.

The technologies under development are wide-ranging: One MIT professor is even working on a process to make ethanol out of algae.

Still, right now most of the ethanol in the U.S. is being made out of food grains -- primarily corn. As of March, there were 55 corn ethanol plants under construction in the U.S., and many more are planned.
And that means it's time for a reality check. Not only is corn-based ethanol a problem practically, morally and environmentally -- it might be a loser on the investing front as well.

For one thing: While the ethanol boom is helping to produce record-high prices for corn farmers, corn ethanol producers aren't faring so well. Shares in Archer Daniels Midland (ADM, news, msgs), the country's biggest ethanol producer, skyrocketed late last year, but have hardly budged since January.

But let's backtrack to two practical questions: Where will all that corn come from -- and where is all that ethanol going to go?

First problem: If we were to produce Bush's goal of 35 billion gallons a year of ethanol with only corn, we'd have to start growing corn on an additional 129,000 square miles, according to the National Environmental Trust. That's an area about as big as Kansas and Iowa combined.

And here's the second problem: Ethanol buyers are few and far between. It's true that automakers are beginning to build flex-fuel cars, which we'll need to burn the 85% ethanol-15% gasoline mixture people mean when they say "ethanol." But consumers won't shell out for those cars till ethanol is widely available, and oil companies and gas station operators won't shell out for the massive infrastructure upgrades it will take to deliver ethanol around the country till there are a lot of cars on the road to put it in.

So viewing any kind of ethanol as a quick fix for our energy problems is foolish.

Meanwhile, corn ethanol has additional problems of its own. It does save energy, according to the Department of Energy, which calculates that burning ethanol yields 25% more energy than it takes to produce and harvest the corn and make it into ethanol. But as for cutting pollution ? Don't count on it.

Much of the electricity used to make ethanol comes from coal-burning power plants, which produce more greenhouse gases than the ethanol saves. And don't forget the cost to the environment of growing all that corn, including runoff from the huge doses of chemical fertilizers used in commercial corn production, and the loss of forests and grasslands that have been chopped down and plowed up to make room for cornfields.

Then there's the moral issue: With millions around the world barely able to feed themselves, do we really want to turn food into fuel? Surging demand from fuel producers for corn has helped push food prices to record highs not just in the U.S. but also around the globe, from Mexico to China. After all, corn isn't just for tortillas and corn on the cob. It goes into nearly everything we eat. It's a key ingredient in almost every packaged food we buy. And it's fed to cattle, pigs, chickens and even farmed fish.

Eat at McDonald's and you're essentially eating corn. The fast-food chain's shake is produced with corn; so is the burger.

"I would never invest in corn-based ethanol for my clients," says Tom Moser, an Arizona financial adviser who specializes in socially responsible investing. "They are very sensitive (about) putting food in someone's gas tank."

Which raises the question: With all these drawbacks, should the production of corn ethanol really be stepped up ?

Corn ethanol farmers and corn ethanol plant developers such as Jim Geist of Great Western Ethanol say yes -- absolutely. How a corn-ethanol plant will work

Geist says he and his fellow corn growers are successfully working with seed suppliers to get bigger yields with smaller applications of fertilizer and pesticide. Farm economists think it's possible to produce 15 billion gallons of ethanol without sacrificing food supplies or driving up food prices, he says. "We'll make sure we're part of a solution and not a problem."

Environmentalists don't buy those arguments. But some acknowledge that developing a distribution system for corn ethanol could pave the way to something better.

What might those better things be ? Almost anything, it turns out.

Though it's easiest to make ethanol from the sugar in corn -- or from sugar cane, as Brazil does -- you can make it from just about anything that can be turned into sugar. (Likewise, you can make biodiesel, another clean fuel, from just about anything that contains fats. Just ask Seth Warren and Tyler Bradt, who recently finished a 21,000-mile drive from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego in a firetruck that ran on locally available fats from salmon oil to waste grease.


What's more, many other sources produce energy much more efficiently than corn does. An acre of algae, for instance, produces up to 100 times the energy of an acre of corn.

But getting other sources into commercial production is a lot harder than making ethanol out of corn; whiskey distillers have been refining that process for centuries. Ethanol, after all, is just another form of alcohol.

"Yes there are all these things to be nervous about with corn ethanol," says Judy Greenwald, the director of innovative solutions at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. "But it's a step on the path."

Researchers are now moving further along that path, working to develop fuel from such diverse materials as citrus waste (by a company named Xethanol (XNL, news, msgs)), municipal garbage and old tires (BRI Energy) and straw and agricultural waste (Iogen). Tyson Foods is exploring making biodiesel out of excess animal fat.

MIT's Isaac Berzin has come up with a method for making both ethanol and biodiesel from algae, and figured out how to clean up greenhouse gases in the process. His company, GreenFuel Technologies, grows algae in the exhaust from power plants, where it feeds on carbon dioxide that would otherwise go into the atmosphere.

None of these techniques is in commercial production yet, but chances are that some of them will get there.

So don't give up on investing in alternative fuels altogether. The odds are, you'll find better places than corn to put your money before long.

Article Complete / http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/StockInvestingTrading/EthanolRealityCheck.aspx#pageTopAchor

Marine Who Lost Leg Returns To Combat In Iraq

A sniper’s bullet destroyed gunnery sergeant’s knee, but not his will to serve !

If you’ve ever wondered what the Marines have in mind when they advertise for “a few good men,” look no further than Gunnery Sgt. William “Spanky” Gibson.

Two years ago, he lost a leg to a sniper’s bullet in Iraq. Today, he’s back in the combat zone — by his own choice.

If you notice an unusual spring in his step as he goes about his duties at Camp Fallujah in Iraq, mark it down to the wonders of the modern technology that went into the carbon-fiber prosthetic leg Gibson wears. He may have surrendered a leg in serving his country, but he’s far from handicapped.

“As soon as a person says disabled, and they think they're disabled, they might as well keep their butt in a chair and not do anything the rest of their life,” the 37-year-old career Marine said in a story reported for TODAY by NBC News correspondent Ned Colt in Iraq.

As he goes about his duties for the 1st Marine Expeditionary force as a weapons coordinator in operations command, Gibson is an inspiration to his fellow soldiers and even to the commander in chief.

"When Americans like Spanky Gibson serve on our side, the enemy in Iraq doesn't got a chance,” President Bush said in a recent appearance in the Pentagon to mark the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

In May 2006, Gibson was on foot patrol in Ramadi in Iraq when a sniper’s bullet tore through his left knee. “Basically, the bullet disintegrated my kneecap, completely,” he said.

Being a Marine, his first instinct wasn’t to call for help but to try to get back up and return to the fight. That was impossible with the damage his knee had sustained. Besides the damage to the bone and connective tissue, the bullet that hit him also severed a major nerve and his femoral artery.

In the hospital, doctors tried to save his leg, but Gibson knew it wasn’t going to heal.

“Every day I’d beg the surgeons — I'd beg ’em, ‘Just cut it off, close me up. Get me out of here,’ ” he said, actually laughing at the memory.

Within two months of being wounded, Gibson, who makes his home in Pryor, Okla., with his wife and young daughter, was back at work at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

As he learned to navigate on his new leg, he dove back into sports, relearning how to ski and run.

Encouraged by his progress, he started training for triathlons and last year completed the “Escape from Alcatraz” race, which included a swim from the legendary prison island in San Francisco Bay to the mainland.

Marine Gen. James Mathis was at the swim and while congratulating Gibson for his achievement, asked him if there was anything he could do for the 19-year Marine veteran. Just one thing, said Gibson — get him back to Iraq.

Just two other soldiers have returned to Iraq after amputations, and navigating bureaucratic hurdles wasn’t easy, but with friends like Mathis on his side, Gibson got his wish in February, deploying to his backline job in Fallujah just 21 months after he was wounded.

To Gibson, there wasn’t any question about going back. “It's my life,” he said. “It's what I love. For me at least, being a Marine means being prepared to go into conflict.”

On the base, he’s an inspiration to other Marines, who see what he’s done and find it easier to shoulder their own loads.

“You may be down sometimes, but you look at him and say, ‘This is what it's all about,’ ” said Master Sgt. Solomon Reed. “It's inspirational to the Marines."

Gibson sees it as just doing his job. He’s seen progress in Iraq in the past two years and compares where that country is to where the United States was when it set out on the road to independence.

“This is where we were 232 years ago as a new nation,” he once said. “Now they're starting a new nation, and that's one of my big reasons for coming back here.”

Article Complete / http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24029144

US Army Defector Set Free By N. Korea A Celebrity In Japan

SADO ISLAND, Japan - Charles Robert Jenkins was planning a trip to the United States this spring to do "Larry King Live" and promote his book, but the tourist season on Sado Island is heating up.

So Jenkins decided to stay home, sell cookies and sign autographs. At 68, the former U.S. Army sergeant who defected to North Korea and lived as a captive in the curtained-off communist state for 40 years is a celebrity in Japan.

His Stalinist odyssey -- marriage to a Japanese woman who was abducted by North Korea and given to him one evening, her highly publicized release and their eventual reunion -- is household knowledge in this country. An impish man with big ears and a thick North Carolina drawl, he has done as many as 28 interviews in one day with the Japanese media. His autobiography, being published in the United States this spring as "The Reluctant Communist," has sold more than 300,000 copies in hardback in Japan.

"Everyone in Japan knows who I am," he said. "Even young girls come up and want to kiss me. I swear. And take the picture while doing it."

At age 24, while serving in South Korea, Jenkins drank 10 beers and stumbled northward across the world's most heavily militarized border. He surrendered his M-14 rifle to startled soldiers in North Korea.

"I was so ignorant," he recalled. He had deserted the Army for what became a self-imposed life sentence in a "giant, demented prison."

There, over the next four decades, he acted in propaganda movies and raised chickens. He taught English and made the Korean food staple kimchi. He memorized the teachings of President Kim Il Sung and killed rats that crawled out of his toilet.

After 15 years, his keepers delivered a lovely Japanese woman to his house and urged him to rape her. She had been kidnapped from Japan. Jenkins was gentle with her, she came to love him and they were married. They had two daughters who were in training to become multilingual Stalinist spies -- when something happened that was truly nutty.

North Korea let them go. His wife got out in 2002, he and his daughters in 2004.

An issue of raw emotion
Trading on his celebrity, Jenkins now works as a glad-hander in the gift shop of a museum here on Sado Island.

Located off the west coast of Japan, Sado is a green, isolated isle of rice paddies and tall mountains. Historically, it is Japan's Elba. An emperor, a great Buddhist monk and the inventor of Noh theater were exiled here.

Sado is now a minor tourist destination -- and Jenkins has become one of its major attractions.

Wearing a "happi" coat -- a bright yellow shopkeeper's vest with Japanese characters on it -- he sells sugar cookies seven hours a day, six days a week, shaking hands and posing for pictures with tourists.

His wife, Hitomi Soga, who is 20 years younger than Jenkins, grew up here on Sado and now works at city hall.

It was on this island on Aug. 12, 1978, when Soga was 18 years old, that three North Korean agents grabbed her at dusk, stuffed her in a black body bag and stole her away on a ship.

Fifteen years later, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il admitted that his agents had abducted 13 Japanese, including Soga.

But there are eight other abductees who the Japanese government says were taken in the 1970s and 1980s and are still unaccounted for. It wants them back.

North Korea infuriated the Japanese by sending home the bones of abductees who supposedly had died -- bones that DNA testing found did not match any of the missing Japanese.

It is almost impossible to overstate the emotional power and political sensitivity of the abductee issue in Japan. The government bans all imports from North Korea, refuses to give it food aid and forbids its ships to enter Japanese harbors. More than any other country, Japan has been talking tough in six-nation negotiations meant to coax North Korea into abandoning nuclear weapons.

The national obsession with abduction has made Soga, like Jenkins, famous. But she does not talk to the press and neither do the four other Japanese abductees who were released six years ago.

Soga is not pleased that her American husband does talk, and talk and talk. Jenkins said that over the past four years, she has warned him not to write an autobiography, not to grant interviews and not to put his signature on the cookie boxes he sells.

She is now warning him, he said, not to write a second volume of his life's story.

"She said that in the end North Korea is going to get fed up. I am going to walk out my garage one morning to walk the dog, and I am going to get a bullet in the head. Very possible."

Becoming A Cold War Trophy

When he learned the arc of Jenkins's life inside North Korea, Jim Frederick, a senior editor at Time magazine who helped write "The Reluctant Communist," was disappointed.

Frederick writes in the book's foreword: "I thought it would have been ideal if he had lived a life of decadent privilege at the right hand of Kim Jong Il, if he had acted as a kind of court jester in the Dear Leader's inner circle."

But Jenkins had no such privilege, no such access, no such life. He is not a court jester. He is not a shrewd political observer. By his own description, he is an ill-educated guy who walked the wrong way.

He grew up in a large, poor family in the small, poor town of Rich Square, N.C. His father was a drinker who died early, and his mother was a nurse who struggled to feed seven kids. Jenkins did poorly in school and joined the National Guard at 15 after lying about his age.

Soon, he joined the Army and was sent off to South Korea to prowl around as leader of a "killer hunter team" along the DMZ, the stupendously well-guarded border between the two Koreas. While there in 1965, he grew unhappy with his dangerous job. He also had heard rumors that he was soon to be sent to Vietnam.

"I gave in to the worst side of myself," he says in the book. "I attempted to run from all of my problems rather than confront them head-on like a man and a soldier."

He walked into North Korea at night, stupidly assuming that because it was a communist country, it would turn him over to the Soviet Union, which would turn him back over to the U.S. government.

Instead, he became a Cold War trophy who outlasted the Cold War, a semi-privileged captive in a country that, with each passing decade, grew poorer, more isolated, more paranoid and more threatening to the rest of the world.

Jenkins makes no attempt in his book to explain why this happened. He doesn't have a clue. He is not that kind of guy.

Painful details
The power of his story is in the details of his life. It was unspeakably boring, as well as depressing, drunken, hungry, cold, maddening and painful.

Speaking of pain: One warm summer day, while teaching English in a military school, Jenkins showed up for work in short sleeves. A "US Army" tattoo was visible on his left forearm. This upset the Communist Party cadre there.

Doctors were called in to cut off the tattoo, without benefit of anesthetics. Several cadres held Jenkins down, while a doctor used a scalpel to slice skin above and below the tattoo. Then, as Jenkins screamed, the doctor pulled up the intolerably tattooed skin and cut it off with scissors.

It should be noted that Jenkins is the only source for this and nearly all the other stories he tells about his life in North Korea. He does, though, have a wicked scar on his left forearm.

Pain of another kind occurred when Jenkins was forced to study, up to 11 hours a day, the teachings of Kim Il Sung, the founding "Great Leader" of North Korea. To this day, he said, he recites this "gibberish" in his sleep, in both English and Korean.

There were three other American deserters in North Korea, and for many years they lived miserably together. In the early 1970s, their minders gave them each a female cook.

They were divorced, infertile North Korean women who spied on the Americans and were under orders to have sex with them.

The first woman selected for Jenkins hated him. "I am not cooking for any American dog," she told him. A U.S. soldier, it turned out, had killed her father in the Korean War.

Jenkins recalled that he did not particularly want to have sex with this woman twice a month, as his minders said was the required minimum. Jenkins told them "to go to hell" and stay out of his private life.

As punishment, his hands were tied behind his back and he was repeatedly punched in the face -- by one of the other American soldiers.

Thanks to his Caucasian face, Jenkins was drafted to become an actor in propaganda films. He played the captain of a U.S. aircraft carrier in a film glorifying North Korea's capture in 1968 of the USS Pueblo, a Navy spy ship.

Jenkins devoted the bulk of his time, though, to survival -- an endless grind of shoveling coal for heat, scrounging for food, hauling water and standing guard at night so hungry, marauding soldiers wouldn't steal his peaches, his corn, his chickens or his kimchi.


Freedom & Then The Brig

The beginning of the end came when Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited North Korea in 2002, and Kim Jong Il unexpectedly said he was sorry for stealing away Japanese people. Soon, Jenkins's wife was on a plane back to Japan.

She had been, he said, the rock that kept him alive, healthy and reasonably sober in North Korea. When she flew off, Jenkins began guzzling Chinese ginseng liquor, which was 80 proof and cost $2.50 for a five-liter jug. He spent the better part of a year passed out on the floor of his house.

During that lost year, he convinced himself that Japan was holding his wife against her will. The Japanese government, meanwhile, was leaning on North Korea to release Jenkins and his daughters.

Koizumi returned to North Korea in 2004 and met personally with Jenkins and his daughters, asking them to come back with him on his airplane. The prime minister handed Jenkins a handwritten note that said the premier would "do the utmost that you can live together happily with Mrs. Jenkins in Japan."

Still, Jenkins declined, fearing that North Korea would not let him go. He also worried that, if he were allowed to leave, he would be punished harshly for desertion by the U.S. government and sent to jail for many years.

Finally, a compromise was reached. Jenkins and his daughters traveled to Indonesia, where they were reunited with Soga. Within minutes, she persuaded Jenkins to come home with her.

After a stint in a Japanese hospital, where doctors sorted out a prostate operation that had been bungled in North Korea, Jenkins put on a uniform and surrendered to U.S. authorities -- in front of a pack of TV cameras. He was, he said, the longest missing deserter ever to return to the U.S. Army. (Back in North Korea, one U.S. deserter is still believed to be alive; two others are dead.)

Jenkins faced a court-martial for desertion, aiding the enemy, soliciting others to desert and encouraging disloyalty. But the Army was lenient with him, sentencing him to 30 days in the brig. He got out five days early for good behavior.

A life to savor
Here on Sado Island, Jenkins and his wife recently finished rebuilding their house. His daughters live nearby. Now in their 20s, one is studying to be a kindergarten teacher, the other wants to be a wedding planner.

When he left North Korea, Jenkins weighed 105 pounds and had a gut full of infection from the botched prostate operation. Now he weighs 150 pounds -- and his tummy is rounded from the Japanese food that he loves.

He hasn't learned to speak much Japanese and says he probably never will. He speaks Korean with his wife and daughters -- and still dreams in Korean, sometimes about that bad old past.

He owns two motorcycles and rides one to work in good weather. His job at the cookie shop pays him about $48,000 a year, the highest salary of his life. He has won two certificates of recognition from local groups for being a tourist magnet on Sado Island.

With money from his book, he and his family have flown home to North Carolina to see relatives. He has been invited to Thailand to speak on human rights.

Over the past four decades, Jenkins said, he has often asked himself whether walking across the DMZ was truly the dumbest thing he had ever done.

Back in North Korea, the answer was always yes. But in Japan, with a family that he loves and a middle-class life that he relishes, he thinks not.

"I don't know if I'd of had a wife as good as I got," he said. "I wouldn't have had my daughters."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23977463/

How Were The Egyptian Pyramids Built ?

The Aztecs, Mayans and ancient Egyptians were three very different civilizations with one very large similarity: pyramids. However, of these three ancient cultures, the Egyptians set the standard for what most people recognize as classic pyramid design: massive monuments with a square base and four smooth-sided triangular sides, rising to a point. The Aztecs and Mayans built their pyramids with tiered steps and a flat top.

The ancient Egyptians probably chose that distinctive form for their pharaohs' tombs because of their solar religion, explained Donald Redford, professor of Classics and ancient Mediterranean studies at Penn State. The Egyptian sun god Ra, considered the father of all pharaohs, was said to have created himself from a pyramid-shaped mound of earth before creating all other gods. The pyramid's shape is thought to have symbolized the sun's rays.

According to Redford, "The Egyptians began using the pyramid form shortly after 2700 B.C., and the great heyday of constructing them for royalty extended for about a thousand years, until about 1700 B.C." The first pyramid was built by King Djoser during Egypt's Third Dynasty. His architect, Imohtep, created a step pyramid by stacking six mastabas, rectangular buildings of the sort in which earlier kings had been buried. The largest and most well-known pyramids in Egypt are the Pyramids at Giza, including the Great Pyramid of Giza designed for Pharaoh Khufu.

For centuries, people have theorized how the great pyramids were built. Some have suggested that they must have been constructed by extraterrestrials, while others believe the Egyptians possessed a technology that has been lost through the ages.

But the process of building pyramids, while complicated, was not as colossal an undertaking as many of us believe, Redford says. Estimates suggest that between 20,000 and 30,000 laborers were needed to build the Great Pyramid at Giza in less than 23 years. By comparison, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris took almost 200 years to complete.

According to Redford, pharaohs traditionally began building their pyramids as soon as they took the throne. The pharaoh would first establish a committee composed of an overseer of construction, a chief engineer and an architect. The pyramids were usually placed on the western side of the Nile because the pharaoh's soul was meant to join with the sun disc during its descent before continuing with the sun in its eternal round. Added Redford, the two deciding factors when choosing a building site were its orientation to the western horizon where the sun set and the proximity to Memphis, the central city of ancient Egypt.

The cores of the pyramids were often composed of local limestone, said Redford. Finer quality limestone composed the outer layer of the pyramids, giving them a white sheen that could be seen from miles away. The capstone was usually made of granite, basalt, or another very hard stone and could be plated with gold, silver or electrum, an alloy of gold and silver, and would also be highly reflective in the bright sun.

Said Redford, the image most people have of slaves being forced to build the pyramids against their will is incorrect. "The concept of slavery is a very complicated problem in ancient Egypt," he noted, "because the legal aspects of indentured servitude and slavery were very complicated." The peasants who worked on the pyramids were given tax breaks and were taken to 'pyramid cities' where they were given shelter, food and clothing, he noted.

According to Redford, ancient Egyptian quarrying methods -- the processes for cutting and removing stone -- are still being studied. Scholars have found evidence that copper chisels were using for quarrying sandstone and limestone, for example, but harder stones such as granite and diorite would have required stronger materials, said Redford. Dolerite, a hard, black igneous rock, was used in the quarries of Aswan to remove granite.

During excavation, massive dolerite "pounders" were used to pulverize the stone around the edge of the granite block that needed to be extracted. According to Redford, 60 to 70 men would pound out the stone. At the bottom, they rammed wooden pegs into slots they had cut, and filled the slots with water. The pegs would expand, splitting the stone, and the block was then slid down onto a waiting boat.

Teams of oxen or manpower were used to drag the stones on a prepared slipway that was lubricated with oil. Said Redford, a scene from a 19th century B.C. tomb in Middle Egypt depicts "an alabaster statue 20 feet high pulled by 173 men on four ropes with a man lubricating the slipway as the pulling went on."

Once the stones were at the construction site, ramps were built to get them into place on the pyramid, said Redford. These ramps were made of mud brick and coated with chips of plaster to harden the surface. "If they consistently raised the ramp course by course as the teams dragged their blocks up, they could have gotten them into place fairly easily," he noted. At least one such ramp still exists, he said.

When answering to skepticism about how such heavy stones could have been moved without machinery, Redford says, "I usually show the skeptic a picture of 20 of my workers at an archaeological dig site pulling up a two-and-a-half ton granite block." He added, "I know it's possible because I was on the ropes too."

Article Complete / http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080328104302.htm

The Legend, The One & Only ''Nature Boy'' Ric Flair

THE GENESIS OF A LEGEND

Ric Flair, born Richard Morgan Fliehr, was birthed on February 25, 1949, in the small hamlet of Edina, Minnesota. The son of an obstetrician/gynecologist and a marketing executive, Ric proved himself an able sportsman, no doubt a foreshadowing of greater things to lie ahead. A basketball player in high school, he also won the Wisconsin state high school championship in amateur wrestling.

By the time he started college, he was also recognized as quite the accomplished football player, being selected as a two-time All-Statelineman and going on as an offensive guard and defensive tackle at the University of Minnesota. Soon after completing his time at the University of Minnesota, Ric started his wrestling training under the watchful tutelage of Verne Gagne and Billy Robinson.

Promptly joining the American Wrestling Association, his first opponent was the inimitable "Scrap Iron" Gadaski, whom he met on December 10, 1972. The match ending in a draw, Ric realized that his full potential would have to be realized at a different time in a different place.

Guess we should just say the rest is history....WOOOOOOO BABY !!!

Copy Paste Link For Rick's Complete Biography !

http://www.ricflair.com/home.html

A Boy The Bullies Love To Beat Up, Repeatedly

All lank and bone, the boy stands at the corner with his younger sister, waiting for the yellow bus that takes them to their respective schools. He is Billy Wolfe, high school sophomore, struggling.

Moments earlier he left the sanctuary that is his home, passing those framed photographs of himself as a carefree child, back when he was 5. And now he is at the bus stop, wearing a baseball cap, vulnerable at 15.

A car the color of a school bus pulls up with a boy who tells his brother beside him that he’s going to beat up Billy Wolfe. While one records the assault with a cellphone camera, the other walks up to the oblivious Billy and punches him hard enough to leave a fist-size welt on his forehead.

The video shows Billy staggering, then dropping his book bag to fight back, lanky arms flailing. But the screams of his sister stop things cold.

The aggressor heads to school, to show friends the video of his Billy moment, while Billy heads home, again. It’s not yet 8 in the morning.

Bullying is everywhere, including here in Fayetteville, a city of 60,000 with one of the country’s better school systems. A decade ago a Fayetteville student was mercilessly harassed and beaten for being gay. After a complaint was filed with the Office of Civil Rights, the district adopted procedures to promote tolerance and respect — none of which seems to have been of much comfort to Billy Wolfe.

It remains unclear why Billy became a target at age 12; schoolyard anthropology can be so nuanced. Maybe because he was so tall, or wore glasses then, or has a learning disability that affects his reading comprehension. Or maybe some kids were just bored. Or angry.

Whatever the reason, addressing the bullying of Billy has become a second job for his parents: Curt, a senior data analyst, and Penney, the owner of an office-supply company. They have binders of school records and police reports, along with photos documenting the bruises and black eyes. They are well known to school officials, perhaps even too well known, but they make no apologies for being vigilant. They also reject any suggestion that they should move out of the district because of this.

The many incidents seem to blur together into one protracted assault. When Billy attaches a bully’s name to one beating, his mother corrects him. “That was Benny, sweetie,” she says. “That was in the eighth grade.”

It began years ago when a boy called the house and asked Billy if he wanted to buy a certain sex toy, heh-heh. Billy told his mother, who informed the boy’s mother. The next day the boy showed Billy a list with the names of 20 boys who wanted to beat Billy up.

Ms. Wolfe says she and her husband knew it was coming. She says they tried to warn school officials — and then bam: the prank caller beat up Billy in the bathroom of McNair Middle School.

Not long after, a boy on the school bus pummeled Billy, but somehow Billy was the one suspended, despite his pleas that the bus’s security camera would prove his innocence. Days later, Ms. Wolfe recalls, the principal summoned her, presented a box of tissues, and played the bus video that clearly showed Billy was telling the truth.

Things got worse. At Woodland Junior High School, some boys in a wood shop class goaded a bigger boy into believing that Billy had been talking trash about his mother. Billy, busy building a miniature house, didn’t see it coming: the boy hit him so hard in the left cheek that he briefly lost consciousness.

Ms. Wolfe remembers the family dentist sewing up the inside of Billy’s cheek, and a school official refusing to call the police, saying it looked like Billy got what he deserved. Most of all, she remembers the sight of her son.

“He kept spitting blood out,” she says, the memory strong enough still to break her voice.

By now Billy feared school. Sometimes he was doubled over with stress, asking his parents why. But it kept on coming.

In ninth grade, a couple of the same boys started a Facebook page called “Every One That Hates Billy Wolfe.” It featured a photograph of Billy’s face superimposed over a likeness of Peter Pan, and provided this description of its purpose: “There is no reason anyone should like billy he’s a little bitch. And a homosexual that NO ONE LIKES.”

Heh-heh.

According to Alan Wilbourn, a spokesman for the school district, the principal notified the parents of the students involved after Ms. Wolfe complained, and the parents — whom he described as “horrified” — took steps to have the page taken down.

Not long afterward, a student in Spanish class punched Billy so hard that when he came to, his braces were caught on the inside of his cheek.

So who is Billy Wolfe? Now 16, he likes the outdoors, racquetball and girls. For whatever reason — bullying, learning disabilities or lack of interest — his grades are poor. Some teachers think he’s a sweet kid; others think he is easily distracted, occasionally disruptive, even disrespectful. He has received a few suspensions for misbehavior, though none for bullying.

Judging by school records, at least one official seems to think Billy contributes to the trouble that swirls around him. For example, Billy and the boy who punched him at the bus stop had exchanged words and shoves a few days earlier.

But Ms. Wolfe scoffs at the notion that her son causes or deserves the beatings he receives. She wonders why Billy is the only one getting beaten up, and why school officials are so reluctant to punish bullies and report assaults to the police.

Mr. Wilbourn said federal law protected the privacy of students, so parents of a bullied child should not assume that disciplinary action had not been taken. He also said it was left to the discretion of staff members to determine if an incident required police notification.

The Wolfes are not satisfied. This month they sued one of the bullies “and other John Does,” and are considering another lawsuit against the Fayetteville School District. Their lawyer, D. Westbrook Doss Jr., said there was neither glee nor much monetary reward in suing teenagers, but a point had to be made: schoolchildren deserve to feel safe.

Billy Wolfe, for example, deserves to open his American history textbook and not find anti-Billy sentiments scrawled across the pages. But there they were, words so hurtful and foul.

The boy did what he could. “I’d put white-out on them,” he says. “And if the page didn’t have stuff to learn, I’d rip it out.”

Article Complete / http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/us/24land.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin