Mealworms are typically used as a food source for reptile and avian pets. They are also provided to wild birds in bird feeders, particularly during the nesting season when birds are raising their young and appreciate a ready food supply. Mealworms are high in protein, which makes them especially useful as a food source. They are also commonly used for fishing bait.

They can be purchased at most pet stores and bait shops. They are also available via mail order and via internet suppliers (by the thousand). Mealworms are typically sold in a container with bran or oatmeal for food. When rearing mealworms, commercial growers incorporate a juvenile hormone into the feeding process to keep the mealworm in the larval stage and achieve an abnormal length of 2 cm or greater.

Live Food

ADELAIDE, Australia – The world's first human trials of a swine flu vaccine have begun in Australia, drug company officials said Wednesday, with the aim of controlling the virus that has so far killed more than 700 worldwide.
Two biotechnology companies have started injecting adult volunteers in the southern city of Adelaide with their vaccines. Adelaide-based Vaxine began trials Monday with 300 subjects, and Melbourne's CSL has 240 people in its seven-month trial, which started Wednesday. The companies say their trials are the first tests of a swine flu vaccine on humans.
At least 41 people have died in swine flu-related illness in Australia, which is well into its winter flu season.
"We're in the southern hemisphere, and that is where the problem is right now," Vaxine research director Nikolai Petrovsky told The Associated Press. "The demand was here yesterday. We're right in the middle of a surge of swine flu cases where perhaps the United States won't have to worry about it as much until their flu season hits in six months."
Australia had confirmed 14,703 cases of swine flu as of Wednesday. The worldwide death toll from swine flu is more than 700, according to the World Health Organization, which recently stopped counting the number of cases worldwide. An explosion of cases is predicted in September and October, when students and workers in the northern hemisphere return from summer vacation.
CSL expects that initial results will allow distribution of its government-funded vaccine in October. The federal government has already ordered 21 million doses of CSL's vaccine for use in Australia, should it be proven to work.
"We have a specific vaccine that we believe will be able to protect millions of people against this new H1N1 flu," Andrew Cuthbertson, CSL's director of research and development, told reporters. He called swine flu "a novel strain of influenza" and said the trial would determine the dose and schedule of the vaccination.
Vaxine's Petrovsky said it would be six to eight weeks before results would verify whether a vaccine was effective.
"There is no guarantee any of these vaccines will work," he said. "Swine flu is a very peculiar beast, its a very different virus that we're dealing with. But we are hopeful."
Medical experts warned against rushing the vaccines through trials.
"I think it's important for the public to know that they're going to get a safe and effective vaccine," Andrew Pesce, president of the Australian Medical Association, told Sky News television. "No one will give anybody brownie points for putting out a vaccine that didn't work or caused harm."

These garments are placed on the newly-baptized immediately after coming up out of he waters of baptism (the Orthodox baptize by immersion, even in the case of infant baptism). As the robe is being placed on the new Christian, the priest says the prayer: "The servant of God, N., is clothed with the robe of righteousness; in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen." and the choir sings: "Vouchsafe unto me the robe of light, O Thou who clothest Thyself with light as with a garment, Christ our God, plenteous in mercy."

"O Thou who, through holy Baptism, hast given unto Thy servant remission of sins, and hast bestowed upon him (her) a life of regeneration: Do Thou, the same Lord and Master, ever tgraciously illumine his (her) heart with the light of Thy countenance. Maintain the shield of his (her) faith unassailed by the enemy [i.e., Satan]. Preserve pure and unpolluted the garment of incorruption wherewith Thou hast endued him (her), upholding inviolate in him (her), by Thy grace, the seal of the Spirit, and showing mercy unto him (her) and unto us, through the multitude of Thy mercies..."

Christening Gifts

NEW YORK – Immigration agents raiding homes for suspected illegal immigrants violated the U.S. Constitution by entering without proper consent and may have used racial profiling, a report analyzing arrest records found.
Latinos made up a disproportionate number of the people arrested who were not the stated targets of the raids, and many of their arrest reports gave no basis for why they were initially seized, said the report, which was based on data from raids in New York and New Jersey.
The Immigration Justice Clinic at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law analyzed home raid arrest records from Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in Long Island and throughout New Jersey. The clinic, founded last year, represents indigent immigrants facing deportation.
Its report, released Wednesday, said that since ICE agents use administrative warrants — instead of judicial warrants, which give law enforcement unfettered access — they must have a resident's consent to enter a home or else violate the constitutional right to protection against unreasonable searches.
On Long Island, 86 percent of arrest records from 100 raids between January 2006 and April 2008 showed no record of consent being given, the report found. In northern and central New Jersey, no record of consent being given was found for 24 percent of about 600 arrests in 2006 and 2007, it found.
Peter Markowitz, director of the clinic and one of the authors of the report, said raids often are carried out with great force, with immigration officials pushing their way into homes in pre-dawn or late-night hours.
The raids are ostensibly aimed at targeted individuals who present threats either to national security or community safety, but arrests of illegal immigrants nearby, known as collateral arrests, are also made.
While the report only analyzed data from two states, it said the pattern suggested the problem was nationwide. It listed examples from California, Texas, Arizona, Massachusetts, Georgia and other places.
A federal judge in Connecticut last month ruled that federal agents violated the constitutional rights of four illegal immigrants in a 2007 raid under similar issues. The judge ruled the immigration agents went into the immigrants' homes without warrants, probable cause or their consent, and he put a stop to deportation proceedings against the four defendants.
"The widespread illegality by a law enforcement agency should be kind of shocking to anybody," Markowitz said.
In a statement, ICE said its agents uphold the country's laws.
"We do so professionally, humanely and with an acute awareness regarding the impact enforcement has on the individuals we encounter," it said.
The agency said it also had a mandate to pursue all illegal immigrants, whether targeted or not. A spokesman for the agency declined to comment further.
The agency has about 100 Fugitive Operations Teams around the country; in fiscal year 2008, the teams made more than 34,000 arrests.
The report also found that Latinos were a disproportionate number of collateral arrests. In both New Jersey and on Long Island, two-thirds of the targeted detainees were Latino. But 87 percent of collateral arrests in New Jersey were Latino, as were 94 percent of the collateral arrests in Long Island.
Collateral arrest records can indicate why the person was seized and questioned. But the report found that almost all of the records that didn't contain that information were for Latinos taken into custody. The report said that supported community complaints that Latinos were targeted for arrest simply because of how they looked or how well they spoke English.
The report makes several recommendations, including limiting the use of home raids to a last resort for targets who pose a serious risk to national security or have violent criminal records; the use of judicial rather than administrative warrants, and the videotaping of all home raids.
It also calls for the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General to conduct an investigation.

"These are violations that go to the very heart of the Constitutional expectation of privacy in this country," Markowitz said.

Some older infants may have delayed speech development due to the pacifier's constant presence in their mouths preventing them from practising their speaking skills.[citation needed]

The term "infant" derives from the Latin word in-fans, meaning "unable to speak." There is no exact definition for infancy. "Infant" is also a legal term with the meaning of minor; that is, any child under the age of legal adulthood.

Natural Baby Cream

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) –
Sam Worthington, who starred opposite Christian Bale in "Terminator Salvation," will star in a remake of the recent Danish thriller "The Candidate."

Beau Willimon has been hired to write the project, and Summit Entertainment has picked up the remake rights.

The story involves a defense attorney who goes on the hunt for a group of blackmailers after he is accused of murder. In a nothing-is-what-it-seems fantasia reminiscent of David Fincher's "The Game," the mystery ends up tying back into the suspicious death of the lawyer's father.

Written by Stefan Jaworski, directed by Kasper Barfoed and starring Nikolaj Lie Kaas, "The Candidate" played in theaters in Denmark in the fall, but it has no American distributor at the moment.

Worthington next stars in James Cameron's "Avatar," which Fox will release in December, and "Clash of the Titans," which Warner Bros. will release in March.

Willimon's political play "Farragut North" drew interest from George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio to direct and star in, respectively, a film version for Warner Bros. Willimon also has adapted the TV series "The Jury," written by Peter Morgan, into a feature screenplay to be directed by Marc Forster.

(Editing by SheriLinden at Reuters)

The English word dog can be traced back to the Old English docga, a "powerful breed of canine". The term may derive from Proto-Germanic *dukkōn, represented in Old English finger-docce ("finger-muscle"). Due to the linguistically archaic structure of the word, the term dog may ultimately derive from the earliest layer of Proto-Indo-European vocabulary, reflecting the role of the dog as the earliest domesticated animal.

The English word hound is a cognate of German Hund, Dutch hond, common Scandinavian hund, Icelandic hundur which, though referring to a specific breed group in English, means "dog" in general in the other Germanic languages. Hound itself is derived from the Proto-Indo-European *kwon-, which is the direct root of the Greek κυων (kuōn) and the indirect root of the Latin canis through the variant form *kani-.

Dog Tags

MISKOLC, Hungary (Reuters) –
Heavy industries across eastern Europe, once the beacons of communist "planned economies," survived the collapse of communism 20 years ago but may not live to see the end of the current economic crisis.

The downturn, which has hit the region's export-led economies hard, is threatening to turn former powerhouses of the communist and post-Soviet eras into a new "rust belt" and causing a surge in unemployment and leaving deep social scars.

Geza Tokodi has worked in the Hungarian steel mill DAM in the northeastern city of Miskolc for 38 years.

The global crisis has brought him face-to-face with the unthinkable: a shutdown of the plant for more than six months, plunging the huge production halls which once employed 18,000 workers into eerie silence.

"My ears got used to the noise of the plant. Quiet is good when you want to have a rest, but here, it's much worse than noise," Tokodi says, walking through the vast derelict halls.

The only sound in the vast plant is the occasional crack of metal expanding and contracting as the temperature changes or the cheep of birds that venture in through broken or open windows.

The sprawling steel complex, once called the Lenin Steel Works, developed quickly in the 1950s when the communist government wanted to make Hungary "the country of iron and steel" despite its lack of raw materials and cheap energy.

In its heyday in the 1980s. the city of Miskolc had more than 200,000 residents, most working in industry.

The population has fallen to about 170,000 and unemployment stands at between 15 and 16 percent, well above the national average of 9.8 percent.

DAM, which survived privatizations in the 1990s and was rescued after previous liquidations, is being wound up again and is laying off its approximately 700 remaining employees.

The liquidation process started on June 24 and the liquidator Ratis Kft. has to put the assets up for sale.

If it can find an investor, the plant may survive.

Jozsef Papp, 53, who has been at DAM for 36 years, said they had been idle since late last year.

"There have been a few liquidations, and the plant always survived, but I don't think this will be the case now," he told Reuters.

Steelmakers throughout Europe have operated at between 55 and 60 percent capacity usage rates this year, shelved investment plans and cut jobs to weather the biggest downturn to affect the industry since World War Two.

SOCIAL SCARS

Miskolc, Hungary's second largest city, is finding it hard to cope with soaring unemployment and a lack of new jobs.

Agnes Dudas, who heads the employment office in the city, says the number of registered jobless had risen to 18,200 in May from between 12,000 and 13,000 at the end of last year.

More than half of those losing their jobs at the steel mill are aged over 50 and finding new work for them will be difficult, even though the city receives funds from an EU program partly designed to help crisis-hit regions, she says.

"Those who worked at DAM for 30 to 40 years would have never left this plant. First they must overcome the trauma of all this, and it's very hard," Dudas says.

Miskolc has a Roma population of about 12,000 to 15,000, many of whom used to do unskilled jobs in the steel industry and have little choice but to rely on social assistance from the government.

Hungary's Roma minority is one of the largest in central Europe, accounting for between 6 and 7 percent of the population.

Growing social tension in Miskolc, once a Socialist stronghold, showed in June's European election results when the far-right Jobbik party won 21 percent of the votes. The Socialists received 23 percent.

"Industries have collapsed and services are not developing at a pace which would allow them to absorb the extra workforce," said Imre Lakatos, head of the Iron Workers' Union VASAS who has worked at DAM for 40 years.

Next to the steel works, hundreds of Roma families live in houses with no running water or sewerage.

"Most families here live on social assistance now... and odd jobs," said Ferenc Botos, who works for the local Roma minority council.

EARLY RETIREMENT OFFER

Dunaujvaros, formerly Sztalinvaros ("Stalin city"), 70 km (43.50 miles) south of Budapest, is the home of Hungary's biggest steel mill, Dunaferr.

The firm, a unit of Ukraine's Donbass Group, saw its sales revenues drop by 40 percent in the first quarter and has said it will lay off 400 workers and offer early retirement to several hundred more to try to weather the crisis.

It will have a workforce of 7,200 after the restructuring.

The town is faring better in the face of the crisis because of its proximity to Budapest and investment by South Korean tire manufacturer Hankook in 2006 which created new jobs.

ArcelorMittal's Czech unit, in the northeast of the country where unemployment is rife, is using only 35 to 45 percent of its capacity because of a lack of orders.

The glut in the steel sector has spread, hurting earnings for London- and Prague-listed New World Resources, which owns the country's largest hard coal mines.

In the past 20 years, the labor force has shown few signs of changing in many former communist industrial centers.

"It will be difficult to expect any big structural changes in industrial regions because people skilled in heavy manufacturing or mining can't transfer easily to other sectors of the economy," said David Marek, an economist at Patria Finance.

"For the regions, it can be a big problem, especially when it comes to a high concentration of heavy industries like steel or coal. It's a social problem, not only an economic problem."

(Additional reporting by Jason Hovet in Prague; editing by Andrew Dobbie)

NEW YORK (Reuters) –
NBC Universal's top executive said he hopes the media company has seen the worst of the recession after posting sharply lower quarterly results, but noted advertisers remain skittish and consumers nervous.

NBC Universal's second quarter results on Friday showed an 8 percent fall in revenue and a 41 percent drop in profit, depressed by cutbacks in spending by advertisers and consumers that have hurt the industry for several quarters.

Shares of NBC Universal's majority owner, General Electric Co, fell 5.3 percent to $11.74 after the conglomerate reported quarterly earnings that were undercut by its media and finance businesses.

NBC Universal is 80 percent owned by GE and 20 percent by France's Vivendi SA.

Other top media companies, including Walt Disney Co, Viacom Inc, CBS Corp and News Corp, will post second quarter results over the coming weeks, with investors watching whether predictions executives made three months ago that spending had steadied prove true.

NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker, in a memo to staff following the results, said the company is "seeing signs of life in local and national advertising" and is hopeful it will witness "better earnings growth in the second half of the year."

He added, however: "The negatives are the same ones that are dragging down the results of every media company: Advertisers are skittish about the economy and marketing budgets are easy targets."

He also said consumers continued to scale back on discretionary purchases, hurting sales of NBC Universal's DVDs and visits to its theme parks. The latest quarter's results were also hit by a write-down of its ION Media stake and a limited number of DVD releases.

Concerns about media company earnings had been heightened by disappointing results on Thursday from Google Inc, which had weathered the recession better than nearly all of its rivals.

Those worries dragged down shares of top media companies on Friday, with the sector underperforming the broader market. The Standard & Poor's Media index, which includes CBS, Time Warner Inc and Viacom, was down nearly 1 percent in afternoon trade.

"The media sector rallied more than the broader market coming out of Q1 2009 earnings releases, as hopes built that the stage was set for an ad market improvement in the back half of 2009," Pali Capital analyst Richard Greenfield said in a recent report.

"Now the question becomes, will they all begin to shift to a more cautious/negative tone on Q2 calls that begin later this month?"

(Reporting by Paul Thomasch, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Citibank says it will continue accepting California IOUs for another week.
It announced Friday that it was extending the deadline to July 24 after previously saying it planned to stop accepting the state's registered warrants.
The move gives individuals and businesses receiving the IOUs more time to cash them as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers try to break an impasse on the state's $26.3 billion shortfall. California began printing IOUs earlier this month to conserve cash, sending them to thousands of state contractors and vendors.
Friday also marked the second of three furlough days this month, keeping most state offices closed.
Meanwhile, a state children's health insurance program was scheduled to stop enrolling new clients. It would be the first time the Healthy Families program has done so since it started in 1997.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Most state government workers are staying home for the second time this month while Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and top lawmakers work to close California's $26.3 billion budget deficit.
Without a balanced spending plan, the state was operating in a lopsided manner as the recession drags down tax collections. The projected deficit amounts to more than a quarter of the state's general fund, and to conserve cash, the state has begun issuing IOUs to contractors and government workers are being furloughed three days a month.
A state-sponsored children's health insurance program planned to stop enrolling new clients Friday, the first time that the Healthy Families program has done so since it started in 1997. And at least one more major bank was scheduled to stop accepting the state's IOUs.
California's budget impasse brought rebuke Thursday from state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who warned that further delays on resolving the state deficit will threaten the state's ability to build schools, highways and levees.
Lockyer said the state's recent credit-rating downgrade could jeopardize its ability to secure financing for infrastructure projects, which would hurt businesses, local governments and ultimately, taxpayers.
"Give Californians and the world a pleasant surprise for once: Balance the budget now, and get back to the work of getting our state back to work," Lockyer said in a statement.
It was not clear if a meeting would be called Friday. The governor didn't meet with Democratic lawmakers on Thursday.
Schwarzenegger is in disagreement with state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and state Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, over how the state should repay $11 billions to schools once the economy recovers.
The Democrats said Schwarzenegger could guarantee future money for schools with a statutory change. But the governor's administration disagreed, saying such a change would require voter approval.
Education advocates prefer to get the repayment pledge in writing because they feel the governor hasn't always made good on his promises. Back in 2005, the administration agreed to repay $2.9 billion to public education after the state's largest teachers union accused Schwarzenegger in a lawsuit of taking school funding and refusing to pay it back.
"Our position is that there should be some legislative clarification on what's owed and when it will be repaid to schools," said Sandra Jackson, a spokeswoman for the California Teachers Association, considered one of the most influential forces in California politics.
Republican legislators said they wanted to concentrate on the current problem — the funding shortfall for the fiscal year that began July 1 — rather than future scenarios.

Most state agencies, including the Department of Motor Vehicles, will be closed Friday but state prisons, hospitals, police and firefighters were operating, along with and parks and jobless centers. Healthy Families, which offers reduced-cost medical coverage to low-income children, was scheduled to close to new enrollment.

Advocates fear as many as 570,000 children would be denied access to health coverage.

"Every possible opportunity must be taken advantage of and every avenue must be exhausted before taking the drastic and devastating step of denying health care to children," said Wendy Lazarus, founder of The Children's Partnership, in a statement.

Friday also marked the last day Citigroup Inc. planned to accept IOUs after extending the deadline by one week.

Bank of the West and some credit unions have said they will continue to accept IOUs but JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., and Wells Fargo & Co. and other major banks have already stopped honoring California's warrants.

WASHINGTON – Federal agents have arrested a convicted murderer for allegedly providing the gun later used to kill ex-NFL quarterback Steve McNair.
Adrian J. Gilliam Jr. was arrested by agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
A criminal complaint unsealed Friday in Nashville says that Gilliam — who was convicted of murder and attempted armed robbery in 1993 in Florida — admitted he sold the gun to the woman who later shot McNair.
McNair was shot to death on July 4 at his condo by his 20-year-old mistress Sahel Kazemi, who then turned the gun on herself.
The complaint, signed by ATF agent Mickey French, charges Gilliam with illegally possessing a firearm, which he is barred from doing as a felon.
Detectives traced the gun to its 2002 sale at a pawn shop, according to the complaint. Gilliam eventually bought it from an individual for $100 about a year ago. According to court documents, Gilliam admitted to detectives he sold the gun to Kazemi for $100.
Federal prosecutors in Nashville planned to announce the case at a press conference later Friday.
Police announced in a news conference last week that Kazemi purchased "a fully loaded nine millimeter pistol from a private individual" who met her in the parking lot of the mall where she worked at a Dave & Busters restaurant.
Kazemi met the person when she was trying to sell her car. She mentioned to him that she was looking to buy a gun and he told her he had one for sale, police said. The sale took place two days before McNair's shooting.
Authorities believe McNair was asleep when Kazemi put the pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. She put two more slugs into his chest and a fourth bullet into the other side of his head before shooting herself.
McNair, a married father of four, walked away from the NFL last year. "Air McNair" was known as a gutsy quarterback who played through serious injuries and led his Tennessee Titans to a Super Bowl.
Though the gun sale in question did not involve a licensed gun dealer, the ATF recently warned all gun dealers in Tennessee that they must still comply with federal gun laws despite a new state law aimed at easing such requirements for weapons manufactured and sold in-state.
___
Associated Press Writers Harry Weber in Atlanta and Travis Loller in Nashville contributed to this report.

Here

Often benches are simply called after the place they are used, regardless whether this implies a specific design Garden benches are very similar to public park benches set outdoors, but the former offer usually only two or three -, the latter mostly up to five persons sitting places. Picnic tables, or catering buffet tables have long benches as well as a table. These tables may have table legs which are collapsible, in order to expedite transport and storage. Church pews inside places of worship are equipped with an additional kneeling bench.

Various types of benches are specifically designed for and/or named after specific uses, such as a Bench (weight training) is used for fitness exercises, such as the bench press which is named after its use of a bench a Communion bench is not used as a seat Piano benches offer usually one person seating and are height adjustable. a spanking bench, such as a caning bench, is specifically designed for a spankee to lie upon, possibly strapped down, while submitting to paining of the posterior Swing seats are independently movable, suspended benches, used for play or as a relaxing porch swing. a courting bench (or kissing bench, or tête-à-tête): a two-seater with the seats pointing in opposite directions, thus almost facing each other. A friendship bench in a school playground is where a child can go when they want someone to talk to. The bench in a courtroom, behind which the judge is seated.

Personalized Pens

At that time they were written in Hebrew dialects with bird feathers or quills. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Europeans had difficultly in obtaining reeds and began to use quills. There is a specific reference to quills in the writings of St. Isidore of Seville in the 7th century. Quill pens were used until the nineteenth century.

The earliest historical record of a reservoir fountain pen dates back to the 10th century. In 953, Ma'ād al-Mu'izz, the caliph of Egypt, demanded a pen which would not stain his hands or clothes, and was provided with a pen which held ink in a reservoir and delivered it to the nib via gravity and capillary action.

The Nation --

Wrap-up: I've got a new Think Again column called "The end of Local reporting," here .

For the Daily Beast this week, I did a piece on "Cheney's Shadow Government" here and "Sonia's Kabuki Confirmation" here.

And my regular Moment column, is called "Should We Settle for Settlements--or Peace?" and that's here.

Also, my I.F. Stone column of last month also led to the following exchange in The Nation, which was available only to subscribers:

I.F. Stone, Secret Agent? Spy? Mole?Silver Spring, Md.

In an October 3, 2006, piece on The American Prospect's website, Eric Alterman denounced as "almost entirely bogus, controversy over "whether [I. F.] Stone ever willingly...cooperated with the KGB in any way. He did not."

In May 2009, Alexander Vassiliev's notes from KGB archives became public. They show that from 1936 until the end of 1938, Stone secretly carried out specific tasks for the KGB. That is the definition of an intelligence agent, although Stone appears not to have been a particularly important one.

Vassiliev's notes also corroborate that Stone was code-named "BLIN" and thus was the journalist whom the KGB attempted to re-recruit in late 1944, as first revealed by Venona intercepts released in 1996. Moreover, former KGB Maj. Gen. Oleg Kalugin, whose 1992 allegations instigated the controversy, stated three years ago that Stone began cooperating with Soviet intelligence in 1936. Kalugin has rightly been criticized for changing his story, but that statement has to count for something, unless one thinks it was a lucky guess.

Rather than retract his ill-advised assertion when faced with new evidence, Alterman has aggressively attacked--obfuscating the facts, denouncing the messengers and lumping together everybody who doesn't march in lockstep with his inner convictions ["The Liberal Media," June 22].

Because of the new evidence, I agreed to sift through all the allegations and counterclaims in an essay for the Journal of Cold War Studies, which appears in the Summer 2009 edition. Readers can judge for themselves whether I treated Stone fairly and put his activities in context.

Alterman's behavior is disappointing for a CUNY journalism professor who never fails to present himself as a disciple of I.F. Stone, one of the premier investigative journalists of his generation.

-Max Holland

Alterman RepliesNew York City

Neither space nor sanity allows me to regurgitate, yet again, all the holes in the arguments for I.F. Stone's alleged espionage career made by the likes of Max Holland, or those of Ann Coulter and Messrs. Haynes, Klehr, Radosh, Horowitz, Novak, etc. They reveal far more about Stone's accusers than about the man himself. Holland knows that the notes of Vassiliev--ex-KGB man desperate to sell his wares in the West--have never been verified and are hardly the kind of source upon which any careful historian would build a case for espionage. He also knows that the myriad self-contradictory musings of Kalugin--another ex-KGB man desperate to sell his wares in the West--have not only been successfully challenged but have changed over time, depending on who was buying. (Kalugin denied them to me personally.) He knows, further, that by the standards of Haynes, Klehr and Vassiliev, Walter Lippmann was a "Soviet spy," as were countless other Western journalists of the period.

But more troubling than what Holland knows and does not admit is what he "knows" that ain't so. I referred to Holland in my column exclusively because of his baseless speculation that the KGB funded publication of I.F. Stone's Weekly and Stone's Hidden History of the Cold War. He has produced no evidence for this slanderous flight of fancy and offers none here. Finally (and least consequentially), his crack about my self-presentation is also false. I have never presented myself as a "disciple" of Stone or even as an "investigative journalist." I was Izzy's friend, period.

This Week on Moyers:

In his new book The Evolution of God, bestselling author Robert Wright examines how the idea of God has changed through history. Bill Moyers sits down with Wright to discuss why he thinks the notion of God -- real or not -- is imperative to a moral society. "Religion will be the medium by which people express their values for a long time to come, so it's important to understand what brings out the best and the worst in it," says Wright. Robert Wright is editor in chief of Bloggingheads.tv, a contributing editor for The New Republic and a contributor to Time and Slate.

Alter-reviews, The Shaw Festival and four great new CDs...

The Shaw Festival at Niagara On the Lake:

Last week I traveled to the idyllic Canadian town of Niagara on the Lake--about twenty kilometers from the Falls themselves--to attend its famous Shaw festival, which I first heard about from friends I made on an ancient Nation cruise. (I was making my "Perhaps I'm a philistine, but I prefer Shaw to Shakespeare and Mozart to Beethoven" argument.) This year the festival, which runs from April to October, is presenting two plays by George Bernard Shaw, and ten mini-plays (with three presented at each performance) by Noel Coward. Both Shaw plays, The Devil's Disciple, and In Good King Charles' Golden Days, allow for plenty of musing over principles in politics. The plays are expertly produced and beautifully acted with some of the best sets I've ever seen. Naturally, Shaw's wit shines brightly as ever, even as the characters are pushing you to think about the ways in which fanatical adherence to ideology is tragically destructive. The Coward trios are lighter fare, but share with the Shaw a certain sharpness of wit that justifies their shenanigans.

In Good King, King Charles cautions his brother James (who will succeed him as King) against boldly advertising his Catholicism, reminding him that the constituency that keeps them in power is gentry, not the public. Charles efforts to elevate reason above religious doctrine (by founding the Royal Society) must be wily and strategic, rather than bold and assertive, as his political power and his financial base are precarious. For Shaw, what might be taken for Charles's political cynicism is devotion to deeper desire to avoid bloodshed.

In The Devil's Disciple, Shaw's hatred for Puritanism as well as for the mindless adherence to duty or empty principles is again on display. The heroes of the play find themselves to be moved to act in ways they did not expect of themselves -- and in contrast to the principles they have espoused. Thus, the amoral cad (aka the devil's disciple) finds that he is a man of moral principle, the mild preacher turns out to be revolutionary, the upstanding preacher's wife falls in love (albeit briefly) with a man who is not her husband, and the British general turns out to be a deeply humane pragmatic peacemaker. (It was fun to see the play in a town that was founded by loyalists, alas.)

Brief Encounters contains the Coward plays "Still Life" "We Were Dancing" and "Hands Across the Sea". "Dancing" and "Hands" have the upper crust behaving badly and comically, while "Still Life" is sadder, with two ordinary people deciding not to act on their love for each other since they are married to other people. Star Chamber pokes fun at the narcissism of actors as they engage in a philanthropic cause. As a member of the Advisory Board of the Creative Coalition, I can promise you that nothing like that ever happens in real life.

Music reviews: John Doe and the Sadies, Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women, Chris Gaffney tribute and Mark Karan

I've been listening to three Americana-ish CDs a great deal of late, all of which happen to be released on the small Yep Roc label, and all three are gems. They are, in no particular order: John Doe and the Sadies: Country Club, Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women and A Chris Gaffney Tribute: The Man of Somebody's Dreams.

I was never much for John Doe's punk bank, X, but I heard him spend an hour with Terry Gross--who's become my new imaginary best friend of late--and I thought him terribly intelligent, well-spoken and he did a great job on these songs. So I got the album, and hey, it's great. The songs by Waylon Jennings, Roger Miller, Mel Tillis, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Tammy Wynette, Hank Snow, Hank Williams, Kris Kristofferson, and Johnny Cash, are treated respectfully but reverentially and Sadies, whoever they might be, provide excellent backing.The album also features four originals - three from The Sadies and one by Doe and Exene Cervenka. It's a hard album for anyone to dislike, methinks.

The Blasters are one band I really miss but Dave Alvin, on the of the Blaster brothers, is more than making up for it with his wonderful solo work with The Guilty Men and now The Guilty Women, made up of Cindy Cashdollar, Nina Gerber, Laurie Lewis, Sarah Brown, Amy Farris, Christy McWilson and Lisa Pankrantz, with guest appearances from Marcia Ball and Susie Thompson. It's smart, heartfelt bluegrassy Americana--with a new reworking of "Marie, Marie," and lots of stuff to put a smile on your face and an occasional gulp in your throat.

Speaking of which, Alvin was close friends with Guilty Men accordionist Chris Gaffney, who did nothing but good-to-great stuff, though nothing as great as the great Hacienda Brothers album, What's Wrong with Right?--a band he led together with Dave Gonzalez and was brilliantly produced by Dan Penn--before his sad, early cancer death in 2008. So Alvin put down what he was doing and put together this absolutely terrific collection of Gaffney originals by Los Lobos, John Doe, Dave Gonzalez, Joe Ely, Peter Case, Jim Lauderdale, Tom Russell, James McMurtry, Robbie Fulks, Boz Scaggs and Freddy Fender, among others.

If your taste is anything like mine, all three of these albums will send you deep into the back catalogues of all three artists, particularly Gaffney and Alvin. But after getting the Doe/Sadies record, I ordered an earlier, similar effort by another throwoff country punk band he founded The Knitters, and already, I'm having a better summer.

Another album I'm spending some time with this summer is Mark Karan's Walk Through The Fire, which is out on a label called Dig. Karan's played as a sideman with everyone from Dave Mason to Delaney Bramlett and where I heard him--Radog and the Dead/Other Ones. This album is a friendly survey of rootsy Americana-ish rock with some great guitar. Though I'm told the title track was written as he began chemotherapy (and profits from the track go to the Oral Cancer Foundation). We get nice, clean versions of great song after grat song: Robert Johnson's "Love in Vain" (with Delaney Bramlett) the Dead's "Easy Wind" and Randy Newman's "Think It's Gonna Rain Today" I also love this song, "Memphis Radio" by Susan Sheller, but there all pretty damn good and the musicianship, as you'd expect, is first rate throughout.

The mail:

Name: Guillermo A. PartidaHometown: Duarte, CA

Mr. Allerman,

Please don't use the term "splainin" any more. The correct English word is "explaining". By using "splainin" you are ridiculing every one of my Latino brothers and sisters who took the time and effort to learn to speak English properly. You owe an apology for offending millions of people south of the border.

Eric replies: I don' thin so... I thin I am paying tribute to the great Desi Arnez, ....

Name: Timothy BarrettHometown: Louisville, Ky

I regret having missed several weeks of Altercation during my move to a new house. I have also had some trouble getting the Nation website to behave. It goes out of whack occasionally and mistreats me, sometimes being jumbled and other times dismissing me out of hand.

I'm here to report that the sham called the financial bailout has blossomed, borne fruit and now withers on the vine, all for Goldman Sachs and its executives, past and present. The average worker has been left holding the bag, and its empty. All along, Paulson and his cronies have deluded the hopeful and painfully ignorant Congress and two separate Executives that what's good for banks is good for the nation. Goldman now posts record profits, pays enormous bonuses, and looks to a cheery jobless recovery for all; for all bank stocks, that is.

Obama said in March that a forecast of national double digit unemployment was a little pessimistic but now admits that it will likely still get worse before it gets better. He says it was always a two year recovery plan and not a four month recovery plan. Still, just two months ago he was the equity cheerleader-in-chief.

I still love Obama. He is still smarter than all the past presidents since Nixon. He is also not afraid to lose his high approval rating regardless of how closely each falling point is scrutinized by the chattering class. But he is failing economics 101: he let the fox guard the henhouse.

Now while the 24 hours news cycle shifts temporarily from flogging the Jackson family to slandering as racist perhaps the most honest jurist to seek appointment to the high court since Thurgood Marshall (yes, I was first to make the comparison and I don't take Mr. Marshall lightly-let's talk in 20 years) no one is watching the real scandal.

Roger Daltrey said we won't be fooled again. But he was wrong. We will be fooled continuously. It's not conspiracy on the level of Mulder's FBI's pact with a conquering virus, it's more like Gordon Gekko's personal goal to be "fifty, a hundred million, liquid, a player", in other words it's greed, dummy. We all have it, but we're limited in our appreciation of scale. Ponzi duped hundreds into about 7 million in losses, but for Madoff it was 65 billion in losses. For all of Obama's commitment to turn this economy around, he's still the dupe who came to a gun fight with a knife.

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McCLEAN, Va. – Rates for 30-year home loans dropped for the third-straight week, inching toward a record low reached earlier this year, Freddie Mac said Thursday.
The average rate for 30-year fixed mortgages was 5.14 percent this week, down from 5.2 percent last week. Last year at this time, the average rate for a 30-year mortgage averaged 6.26 percent, Freddie Mac said.
Falling mortgage rates can spur refinance activity, which increased as rates on 30-year mortgages fell to a record low of 4.78 percent in April.
But rates then rose as high as 5.6 percent in June after yields on long-term government debt — closely tied to mortgage rates — climbed as investors worried that the huge surplus of government debt hitting the market could trigger inflation.
Since then, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note has fallen back from an eight-month high of 4.01 percent reached in June to 3.53 percent on Thursday.
Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac's chief economist, said rate reductions over the past five weeks translate into monthly savings of $56 on a $200,000 mortgage.
Freddie Mac collects mortgage rates on Monday through Wednesday of each week from lenders around the country. Rates often fluctuate significantly, even within a given day.
This week, the average rate on a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to 4.63 percent, down from 4.69 percent last week, according to Freddie Mac.
Average rates on five-year, adjustable-rate mortgages were 4.83 percent, up just a bit from 4.82 percent a week earlier. Rates on one-year, adjustable-rate mortgages fell to 4.76 percent from 4.82 percent.
The rates do not include add-on fees known as points. The nationwide fee averaged 0.7 point for 30-year and 15-year fixed rate mortgages, and five year adjustable rate mortgages. The fee for one-year adjustable rate mortgages was 0.5 point.