Super Bowl Update

Hey Everyone! Only two weeks and a day until The Timing Of A Day opens! I'm super excited for it. Things are moving along incredibly well, but we could still use some help reaching our fundraising goal and I'm hoping all of you out in Cyberland will lend a helping hand.

You can make a tax-deductible contribution to the show here!

You’ll know you’re donating to the right place when it says on the screen "in behalf of Intimation Productions." Don't be confused that my name or the play's name isn't on the screen. You're in the right place. The money donated here will go to costs exclusively for the play. And there are donation levels that give you different benefits!

FAN - $10-$49
Your Name will be on the play's official webpage! **This would be an incredibly lovely gesture for those who want to support the show but are unable to make it. Regular price for a ticket is $18 at the door. A $20 donation for fans who can't be with us, would put us that much closer to our goal. We would love you for it!

If you're saying, "Owen, I can't stop myself. I need to donate more and I know you need the money." Well friend, I ain't gonna stop you. Here are some more levels with even more benefits!!

SUPPORTER - $50-$99
+ Your Name will be listed in the production's Fringe Program!

CONTRIBUTOR- $100-$249
+ you'll receive a poster signed by Cast & Creative Team

FRIEND OF THE ARTS- $250 to $499
+ you'll receive 2 Tickets to a "The Timing of A Day" Fringe Performance!

PATRON OF THE ARTS - $500 to $999
+ you'll receive 2 Tickets to "The Timing of A Day", Fringe Performance, plus 2 Tickets to any other MTAE Show, & MTAE Pin

Doesn't that all sound fantastic? I'll say it does. Thank you for all the continued messages of support and interest in the project. They are incredibly inspiring. I hope to see you at the show in two weeks!

I have a new meal that I eat in preparation for all my long races now. It comes courtesy of Rafa Nadal. Surprised? I didn't think so. Turns out he has a favorite meal that helped him out at Roland Garros and Wimbledon as he marched towards victory. That meal is pasta y gambas. I love both of those things! I need to carbo load anyway, and I've always been a fan of shrimp, so if I can eat foods i like before a race AND draw inspiration from Rafa, this is a win-win for me.

Nadal's still prepping to get back in the (literal) swing of things for the US Open Series leading up to the US Open later this month. I still haven't bought tickets! I hope some are still available! I need to get on that right away.

Here's a US Open commercial where Nadal talks about prepping his secret recipe for success! I love how he can't take his delivery of the lines that seriously.

(FOR WHOM THE BILLY (ELLIOT/JAMIE) BELL TOLLS/NO WAY, JOSE. Two high-profile personalities dealing with season-long vote deficiencies finally get cut, even as Billy gives his best performance of the season.)

We're back again with 6 Finalists just like last week: 4 contempos, 1 jazz hands and1 breaker. Unlike last week, they might all actually perform. They'll be dancing three times again this week. In the end two will go home, so that production stays on schedule. Welcome... to So You THINK You Can Dance!

Here come the intros, let's count to make sure everyone is here. One, two, three, four, five and... six! Hooray! One has a big ol' knee brace on, but I'll take it! Cat Deely comes out looking better-dressed than last week and is all "no injuries! no injuries!" and somewhere on Mount Olympus, The Muse Terpsichore is all "For now. Don't tempt me, Deely." There's a new fourth judge, but it still isn't Mary Murphy. Mary I miss you! Come back and Scream just once for me, please? Instead we get the ballroom expertise of Toni Redpath! She has the best last name. It makes me think she's like Beatrix Kiddo in the House of Blue Leaves leaving a trail of wounded behind her. Anyway, it's finally time to dance!

First it's the All-Star routines. Kent gets cha-cha again with Anya and choreo by Jean-Marc and France. The concept of the dance is that Anya is a Mary Kay Letourneau-type and Kent is her horny rebel student. It's fun, and it's ANYA! but it's not super spectacular. There's a top layer of sheer school-teacher blouse on Anya's costume that needed to go at some point during the routine. The judges ding Kent again for his face-pulling and he tries for a "I have to be true to my face-pulling self!" defense but Mia isn't having it and politely tells him to be more of a chameleon. You're heading to the Top Four, Kent. They want you to earn your eventual title now. Don't slack. Transform!

Robert - dancing contemporary with Kathryn with choreo by Stacey Tookey. Soldiers are going off to war in this routine. It's not the first time we've explored this on SYTYCD, but seeing as we've been at war longer than this show has been on the air, I guess we ought to keep doing dances about it. The dance is set to a fancy version of "Heaven Is a Place on Earth"a song which holds the unique distinction of being the earliest song I can remember learning from listening to it on the radio. The routine is very emotional and Robert and Kathryn have a great connection between them, matched with great technique. There's a bit of a switch at the end because you think Robert is going off to war but it's actually Kathryn! Robert is left alone. Oh good job, Robert! The judges eat it up. Nigel says it shows how's he grown this season, which is the exact opposite of what he said about Robert when he was in the Bottom 3 last week, but no matter. Toni loves him, Kathryn loves him, Mia loves him and Adam loves him. Hopefully love will translate into caller votes.

AdeChike - paired with Courtney, dancing Jazz and Tyce is handling choreo. It's gonna be more straight jazz instead of contempo Jazz so as not to ruffle Nigel's feathers. The performance is fine, but I was a little bored. Too many jazz routines this season, I think. Still not one waltz. What is up with that??

Jose - hip-hop. He's got Comfort with him, doing a routine by Marty Kudelka and Dana Wilson. This routine has a fun throwback feel to it as they dance to "Try a Little Tenderness." I actually think Comfort is totally captivating in this. She's soft and flirty in character, but her moves are all so on point. I love it. Jose works to keep up. The judges are nice to Jose, but everyone involved seems to know he'll be in the bottom 3 this week and is a sure bet to be leaving the competition. The only question left to answer is who is joining him.

Lauren - Broadway with Allison. Girl on Girl action! Damn Yankees again?? Why does this musical have such a hold on this show? This is another Tyce number where it feels like not much is happening and is over before it starts. The girls can't help but look physically amazing though. They both do gymnastic flips at the end, and it looks like Allison is having to work harder than Lauren to get it done, but it only makes me love Allison more. The judges all praise Lauren, saying it's like she's already an All-Star. She really has grown leaps and bounds this season - literally and figuratively.

Billy - contemporary with Ade. Oh, eff yeah! Stacey Tookey is back again for the choreo. The story here is Rich Man/Poor Man. Billy is a homeless dude and Ade is in a super smart suit. They are in their own worlds and then halfway through they realize they used to know each other and that makes them freak the eff out. The music is the Donnie Darko version of "Mad World" by Tears for Fears, a song that I find as emotionally evocative as Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah." You just don't have to work that hard to get something out of it. It's beautiful. Billy and Ade however DO work hard and they get A LOT out of it. It's really amazing. Billy's best performance on the show, by far. He does half of it with a wool hat pulled down over his eyes. Ade is his usual amazing self. Toward the end there are these amazing lifts and the tortured expression on Billy's face is perfection. Everyone but Nigel (who likes it in a more reserved way)goes crazy for it at the end, and Cat makes sure we all know Ade finished up the routine with a "Work, Billy!" of approval. I love the All-Stars. The judges are very complimentary to Billy. Mia tells Billy that win or lose the competition (it will likely be lose) he's an amazing emerging artist and she loves him. Billy beams. Aww. I forget these kids are all like 10 years younger than me.

Contestant! Dancing together! LIVE!

Kent and Jose - Broadway with choreo by Spencer Liff. They're just a couple of old-school blue-collar guys hollerin' at a girl on the street. I gotta tell ya, I'm a little over Kent and Jose so even though there's nothing wrong with this routine, it can't really hold my attention. I'm not even sure what the judges said to them and I've watched it back twice. I just keep spacing. Let's make an educated guess that they liked Kent and were a little underwhelmed by Jose's lack of technique.

Lauren and AdeChike - foxtrot with choreo by Jean-Marc and France. They're dancing to "Fever" which is a nice sexy song for a fox trot. This one is not super-memorable. I don't know what to really say about it. Neither of AdeChicke's routines tonight really made any impact on me, so I wonder if that will be reflected in the vote. Lauren seems to be leaning very heavily on AdeChike during the critique... she doesn't collapse or anything, but it looks like the girl could use a nap.

Robert and Billy - We have a pull Bollywood finale by Nakul Dev Mahajan! Awesome. The idea of the routine is two actors fighting for the same role, but it could just as easily be two contempo dancers fighting to avoid a spot in the Bottom 3. It's very very good. There's a lot of squatting and bouncing and 1,001 ways to aggravate a knee injury, and everyone remembers Bollywood was what took Alex out several weeks ago so there's a bit of weird energy about the whole thing, but both guys make it through and everyone goes crazy. Nigel loves it , Toni amusingly compares Robert to a "big, cheesy hamburger" (she kinda wants him), Mia calls Billy the pizza she prefers and once again points out that they got through it without injury. On Olympus, Terpsichore stirs in annoyance. Nigel points out that Billy is working his knee out, but give the kid a break. He's fiiine, Billy insists to the judges and to America.

Cat again revels in the fact that there were no injuries. (Terpsichore - "You were warned!!") And throws it to the numbers.

My preference for the evening goes:
Billy and Ade's contemporary
Robert and Billy's Bollywood
Robert and Kathryn's contemporary
Lauren and Allison's Broadway
Kent and Anya's cha-cha
AdeChike and Courtney's jazz
AdeChike and Lauren's foxtrot
Jose and Comfort's hip-hop
Kent and Jose's Broadway

She's Cat Deely, goodnight! Wait, what? FIVE dancers are on stage and not six? Cat tells us, abashed, that since no one could shut up about their good fortune tonight, Terpsichore went and made an example of the last girl left in the competition. (TERPSICHORE: DO NOT TEST ME, MORTALS! Lauren's being checked out by the medics. They won't tell us why. Sigh. Hopefully this doesn't spell the end for her.

Results Show! The group routine is very Alice in Wonderland. Allison is Alice, so I guess it's really Allison in Wonderland. Lauren is nowhere to be found. I do spot Jose back in the mix after being mostly absent from the group numbers the past two weeks. Nigel tried to explain yesterday that Jose's absence from the group numbers was a result of a groin problem, but I don't know how much I believe that. Maybe I'm just unfairly hating on Jose. Tonight's group number featured choreo courtesy of Mia Michaels. Fun times!

Lauren is actually fine, btw. Terpsichore just let us off with a final warning not to discuss dance injuries anymore. Lauren got dehydrated, i think is the official diagnosis. She should have been drinking Gatorade during the performance show. Speaking of Gatorade, this season's winner will be featured in an ad campaign for the sports drink. Gatorade now considers dance a sport. Nigel hopes the Olympics will follow suit. I'd personally like to see Anya and Pasha win an Olympic Gold for Latin Ballroom. They deserve it.

Bottom 3 is Jose (not unexpected) Billy (unfortunately not unexpected) and Lauren (what?? unexpected!) American, you got this all wrong! Billy was great last night! How does AdeChike have such a strong fan base? This means Billy has been in the Bottom 3 for FIVE weeks in a row! Since Top 9!! The voting public is not watching what I'm watching. Billy takes it more in stride than I do. You really want less "Mad World" on this show and more "Fever," voters? Okay then. It's clear to everyone now that Billy and Jose are goners. There's no way they will axe Lauren, nor should they at this point.

No All-Star dance this week. Are you saving Transformers with Lauren and Pasha for next week, producers? Instead we get a megamix dance from Step Up 3D. This movie features Dance alums Twitch, Joshua, Ivan, Legacy, Ashlee, and Musa. Tonight's performance also features Tony Bellissimo (but he's not in the movie? I'm confused.) and Lil' C!! They don't show enough of Lil' C during the dance. As I watch, I wonder if Lil' C is younger than me (like Wade Robson), and I just think that he's older because he's a successful choreographer. (Note: wikipedia tells me he is younger, by 3 years - younger even than Wade. Wow.)

Next up is a performance by some dude named Christian TV. He scares me and I don't listen to his song. The Bottom 3 dance solos, but they are just swan songs for the boys because the decision is so obvious.

Up next we have a performance by homegirl Allison Iraheta. She's got Orianthi on guitar with her. To my they are like a real life version of Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn if those two started a rock band. It's not my favorite Iraheta jam, but she's great nonetheless. There are these two random dancers on stage with them, but they're not All-Stars so what was the point of them? More All-Stars, please!

Time for cuts. Jose should be happy he made it this far. He is, and then he's gone. Nigel tells Billy his "androgynous dance style," didn't gel with America. That seems not exactly right to me, but I don't have a better explanation as to why he's had no voter support for over a month, so what can I really say? Billy is an odd bird perhaps, but he's a beautiful dancer and I think he grew a lot through the last month of finding a reason to dance brilliantly even if the public wasn't responding to it. I felt like he made adjustments that were right for him to improve his craft, instead of just trying to please voters and that's gonna benefit him so much more in the long run. I'd pay to see him dance live. I think he's fantastic. Both he and Jose seem really at peace with their eliminations.

So now we're down to four. It's all about the call-in votes from here on out. Next week it's a straight vote tally that determines which three are going to the final and the judges simply critique. i don't think we've ever had an odd number of dancers in a Finale week before this season. Should be interesting. My voting power is firmly behind Robert. I think the Top 3 should be Robert, Kent and Lauren, but AdeChicke has had the magic touch for several weeks. It should be very very interesting next Thursday.

Hey everyone, if you want to buy tickets in advance for The Timing of A Day, (as well you should, we'll sell out!) but don't want to pay the online surcharge, you can buy them in person at FringeCentral which opened this past Thursday at 1 East 8th Street at 5th Ave - as the sign shown above indicates. I would take advantage of this resource, if you can make the trip down there. You'll probably want to see more than one Fringe Show, and why pay surcharges with each ticket you buy? Some other shows you definitely need to check out include:

Spellbound - A Musical Adventure: it's Timing's sibling Fringe Show, also being produced by Mind The Art Entertainment. It's gonna be so good!

Two Sisters: directed by Joey Brenneman, who is also directing my play. Her work is fantastic, so we must send love to her other show.

Pope! An Epic Musical: It is called Pope! An Epic Musical. How can you stay away? You cannot.

West Lethargy: My friend produced this show for the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and I'm happy I finally get a chance to see it Stateside. Woohoo!

You can find all the fringe listings at www.FringeNYC.org. Enjoy your August Staycation!

Martha note: Harrisonburg’s Gemeinschaft Home has been easing men’s transition from prison back into mainstream life for 25 years. Recent massive state budget cuts, however. Have forced the residential treatment program to re-invent itself. Today, in place of WMRA’s traditional Civic Soapbox, Gemeinschaft’s Board Chair Ruth Stoltzfus Jost talks about the transitional program's own transition. And about Harrisonburg’s ongoing support of the program's efforts to help ex-offenders.

The program used to be called Transitional Therapeutic Community, and it meant transitioning people from a therapeutic community program in prison to a transitional therapeutic community outside of prison. . .

When you lose two-thirds of your budget, which is essentially what happened with us, you have to really slice to the bone and so we’ve done that. . . .

What we have now is just called a Community Residential Program. Instead of a 180-day program, it’s a 90-day program. The people who come to this Community Residential Program, these are people who may or may not have had a drug treatment program at all; may or may not have ever been part of a therapeutic community setting. So we are having people who come to us who are sometimes more in need, worse off, but we have them for 90 days instead of 180, and we are not funded to do the intensive program that we were before . . . 

What we decided at Gemeinschaft was to gamble really big, and that is that even though we are getting this lower reimbursement for the shorter program, for people with more problems, we decided to go ahead with hiring a staff person who is a master’s level clinician. Who has the credentials to provide treatment for our residents. Which we aren’t required to do as a Community Residential Program. . . .  

If you talk with our Program Director, he’ll conduct group sessions., and if he think he sees someone who’s kind of floating through and not dealing with the issues he needs to be facing with - -they’re just going to skate through their 90 days, he starts assigning responsibilities to them. He makes sure they get to a point where they confront the things they need to confront—how to deal with substance abuse, how to avoid being in a situation where they’re going to go backwards. . . .

We’re finding the Department of Corrections is really happy to see the work we are doing. They’ve come and sat in on sessions with group sessions and watched the kind of treatment that people here have access to. But again, when you look at the state budget, there’s the danger they’ll just say, we can’t pay for residential programs. And so it’s something that’s valuable, but that doesn’t necessary mean it’s something that will be funded. . . .  

The community has just been fantastic. I don’t know what the opposite is of “not in my backyard,” but this is what we have. We have people who are saying, “yes, in my backyard,” and  “my yard is your yard and I’m glad to have you here.”

Project Runway is on its way back again. We are now entering Season 8. Has it really been going on this long? With no end in sight, the show is now 90 minutes long and starting off with roughly 100 contestants. Sadly, only half of that last sentence is an exaggeration. Thank goodness for Tim Gunn. He makes it still worthwhile.

I will be watching - old habits die hard - but I will not be recapping, because recapping 4 hours of SYTYCD a week is all I can handle for the summer season. Luckily, my girl Sassy is bravely soldiering on with her HuffPo recaps. This is gonna be a long season, so she needs all our love and support!

Check out her excellent, hilarious and in-depth look at this season's contenders here. I can't believe those bitches in casting let three people with essentially the same name into one season. It's like they're hoping someone mentally snaps while trying to keep them all straight. I believe Sassy will persevere! Names won't take her down! Horrible runway designs involving adult jumpers, however, might be a different story.

Well, folks this morning I hit some kind of blogging wall.

I was doing research on the NRA's campaign against NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's campaign (a campaign featuring a TV ad boosting our own Governor McDonnell), which quickly led me into political rhetoric that I found deeply fatiguing. And depressing.

I then drifted over to taking a look at the "Republican Tea Party Contract on America," released yesterday by DNC Chair (and former Virginia governor) Tim Kaine.

I found the rhetoric surrounding that to be no less enervating. And depressing.

My brother-in-law happens to be visiting. Last night after supper the three of us Woodroofs watched The Green Zone, a Matt Damon movie which makes a fictive argument that politics, rather than information, sent us to war in Iraq. Which Susan Hasler, retired after 21 years of toil at the CIA, argues as well, in her ironically titled novel Intelligence.

Weekend before last Charlie and I drove out to Green Valley Book Fair (a business supporter of WMRA) where I found a treasure trove of novels I'd always meant to read. Among them was V.S. Naipaul's A Bend in the River, a novel of cultural transition in Africa. While reading it, I underlined this passage in which the narrator assesses differences between his people and the country's European colonizers:

"We didn't lie because we never assessed ourselves and didn't think there was anything for us to lie about; we were people who simply did what we did. But the Europeans could do one thing and say something quite different; and they could act in this way because they had an idea of what they owed to their civilization." 

So what do our politicians think they owe American "civilization?" Not, apparently, the truth. Why let the truth get in the way of effectively scary rhetoric?

And so it seems to me, just this morning, that we Americans are at our own bend in the river; that our politics has divorced itself pretty firmly from reality. Which, I guess, does assume that someone, somewhere knows what reality is . . .

Perhaps you've heard already, but this is news to me. Apparently a zedonk, which is cross between a donkey and a zebra, was born last week at the Chestatee Wildlife Preserve in Dahlonega, Georgia. The little lady is currently living it up there with her zebra father and donkey mother. Here's a picture of her.

(Zebras are from Mars, Donkeys are from Venus, and Zedonks are from The Outer Limits.)

I honestly didn't think cross-species mating like this happened. I thought that was something that was made up to keep the make-up department on Star Trek busy or a fever dream of whoever came up with the Wuzzles. I mean, obviously different breeds of dogs and cats can mate, but I didn't know that zebras and donkeys were genetically close enough to produce viable offspring.

For the record, it seems that Baby Zedonk takes after her zebra papa in terms of behavior. She doesn't lie around like mama, and instead stands alert as is watching for predators. Someone tell her she lives on a preserve and can lie down! I don't know if they named her yet, but I suggest "Nanny" as an homage to the Muppet Babies caretaker who was also known for her striped legs.

************THIS RESTAURANT IS NO LONGER IN BUSINESS*************************


Who knew there was a Puerto Rican restaurant in our midst? A friend whose taste I trust a lot told me about this place quite awhile ago and I put it on the list then, but for some reason had a hard time motivating myself to go. This is another place on the East side of town, where I am starting to notice there is quite a nice little cluster of good ethnic restaurants, much like the West side of town.

This is a little hole in the wall kind of place for sure. The dining area is nothing to look at, metal folding chairs and tables, but it is clean, and as you walk up to the front with its steam table of the items for sale, you can see this food is being made from scratch. In fact if you peek around the corner, you can see the cook cooking up lots of things in what appears to be a teeny tiny kitchen. They have different specials each day. We were there on a Wednesday when one of the specials is “Pollo en fricase” or chicken stew which is what I got. But what they call “stew” is actually whole legs or thighs in a nice reddish brown sauce with soft potatoes cooked alongside. You also get rice (either white or Spanish rice with peas), beans, and fried green plantains. I didn’t know until after we left you can get fried ripe plantains or fried green plantains or else I would have tried the green ones. I like the sound of that—described on the menu as “crunchy” instead of “sweet.”
Anyway, I got two chicken legs in my portion of “stew.” They were wonderfully tender and juicy and flavored throughout with the sauce they were cooked in. I would guess the sauce had onions, cumin, oregano and maybe some seasoned salt and garlic as well. This was one that had flavors that were hard for me to pick out I guess because this is not a type of food I am overly familiar with. The sliced potatoes were slow cooked along with the chicken and were nice a soft and had soaked up lots of the sauce as well. But I just couldn’t get over how tender the chicken was. The skin was still on, but because it was slow cooked, it was not crispy at all and actually sort of slid right off the chicken as you ate it. But you didn’t need it at all for flavoring as you ate (although I am sure it gave the stew a very nice flavor as it cooked). Since the texture of the skin was sort of gooey, I just pulled it off and skipped it. Didn’t miss it at all.

Hubby had beef ribs that were also slow roasted cooked in a similar, but more meaty flavored sauce. The meat just sort of fell off the bone which was nice, although I have to say, I liked my chicken better (even hubby agreed with that I would say). He got the Spanish rice which he really liked. I had a bite and it had a nice taste, but with a sauced based dish like this, I sort of like getting white rice with mine to really get the flavor of the sauce, and not the rice. Although honestly, you barely need the rice with those yummy potatoes I had.

The plantains were just ok. They were cooked fresh and were smoking hot (in temperature) when we got them, but they just seemed kind of dull next to all the flavors of the other dishes. Like I said, I would certainly be interested to try the green plantains next time. That really intrigues me. And looking over the menu, there will certainly be a next time because on Thursdays they have “bistec encebollado” (or beefsteak with sautéed onions) which is something I have had at Peruvian places and really enjoyed. They also have items on the menu like “Camarones al ajillo” (shrimp in garlic sauce) which I can only assume is cooked to order since I didn’t see it and it is not listed as a particular day’s special. The other regular offering on the day we were there was “Pechuga de pollo ajillo” which is chicken breast strips with garlic butter which also looked quite intriguing. According to the menu they also do Jamaican patties and Puerto Rican fritters known as Alcapurrias… oh so many things to try….

Caribbean Cravings
4632 N. Post
Indy 46226
317/897-4241

I know daytime talk TV almost exclusively from the gym; from the row of suspended flat-screen TVs mouthing soundlessly at me while I trundle away atop an elliptical.

I usually ignore all those chatting heads and read a book, but this Thursday, if I'm trundling away at 11 AM, I may just watch. That's when my local ABC affiliate, WHSV, broadcasts The View.

This announcement from The View's website, got a lot of buzz yesterday:

Barbara Walters and Bill Geddie, executive producers of The View, announced today that President Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, will be the featured guest on Thursday, July 29th. This marks the first time in history a sitting United States president has visited a daytime talk show. . . .

President Obama joined the ladies on the couch in March 2008 before the history-making election.

Hmmmm...

Of course, President Obama's "unprecedented appearance" is not really without precedent for him, personally-- Candidate Obama (as well as Candidate McCain) appeared on the show back in 2008. But it is unprecedented for President Obama, or, to repeat what I just posted above, for any President of the United States.

But then, you know, this is the Information Age, we all get our information in different ways, and President Obama may be the first sitting president to really, really come to terms with this. Just think back to his effective use of the internet during the campaign.

Which is beginning to seem like a long, long time ago.

President Obama was embraced warmly at his inauguration, but, despite the passage of landmark health care reform and tough financial regulations, his approval numbers as president continue to decline. Julian E. Zelizer, Princeton professor of history and public affairs, addressed this seeming paradox in a CNN op-ed piece last week. Dr. Zelizer cited several factors as reasons for President Obama's sinking numbers.

The first factor has to do with President Obama's decision to focus on controversial issues that he felt were important to the nation, even if they were not the most beneficial issues for his party. In other words, Obama selected issues such as health care and financial regulation that were sure to stimulate conservative opposition and cause concern among moderates.

At the same time, the president is a pragmatic politician who has been willing to cut deals to survive a notoriously difficult legislative process. In making those compromises, he has often angered many of his supporters on the left. The strategy of going big, yet doing so through big compromises, has resulted in an energized conservative movement, uneasy independent voters and a frustrated liberal base.

Given that Barack Obama ran a primary campaign in which he promised to pursue transformative politics and avoid the kind of compromises embraced by President Clinton, this has caused disappointment. Recent comments by the administration dismissing its liberal critics has only intensified bad feelings.

Dr. Zelizer goes on to talk about the nature of the political process and the fact that no president has been able to figure out how to focus the public's attention on what he'd like it to focus on. And that last factor appears to be the reason for President Obama's upcoming daytime talk appearance.

“Given the difficulty of reaching people in this hyperactive media environment, we look for opportunities to reach people in environments that are not traditional forums for political newsmakers,” Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, said in an e-mail message quoted yesterday in the New York Times blog ArtsBeat . “That’s why we have been willing to have the president on Leno, Letterman and ESPN.”

And now on The View. Which, like everything else a sitting President does, has drawn criticism.

Fox News pointed out yesterday that, while taping his appearance today, the President will miss a chance to speak before 45,000 boy scouts at their annual Jamboree. This revelation unleashed a flood of comments, either very witty or very snarky, depending on your point of view.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell suggested on MSNBC's Morning Joe, that The View (which he compared to Jerry Springer) may not be an appropriate venue for a sitting President of the United States. "I think the president should be accessible, should answer questions that aren't pre-screened, but I think there should be a little bit of dignity to the presidency," Rendell said.

Howard Portnoy, however wrote on examiner.com/Philadelphia: 

So how bad a miscalculation is it for the president to appear with Whoopi and company?

I'm inclined to agree with Laura Ingraham, who as a guest host for Bill O'Reilly last night, opined "not at all." Ingraham's contention is that viewers who tune in to The View are probably not likely to vote in the fall midterms anyway and that if Obama were somehow to present a charming and rousing version of himself (as he is capable of doing), he might actually persuade some of these people to turn out at the polls.

If the medium is the message, perhaps The View is not the most presidential of podiums. However, if the medium gets the President's message out to people it hasn't gotten to before, The View then becomes the bulliest of pulpits.

So, what's your reaction? Do you plan to watch?

(MAKING IT UP AS WE GO ALONG. The judges don't like the rules they set up so they ignore them and no one goes home. Also Cat wears her craziest outfits ever. And it's our first episode without Anya or Pasha. Nothing this week makes sense!)

6 Finalists Remain: 4 contempos, 1 jazz hands and1 breaker... who's kinda outstayed his welcome. Everyone will dance three times this week, as we try to fill two hours with fewer and fewer dancers. Welcome... to So You THINK You Can Dance!

Here come the intros, let's count to make sure everyone is here. One, two, three, four, five and... NO! Not again! Three weeks in a row someone is injured? And it's Billy (Elliot/Jamie) Bell that's gone down. Holy hell.

Okay, listen. I can't do a normal recap this week, because the whole two episodes turned out to be a total wash. Here's what happened. Billy hurt his knee while rehearsing. the doctors cleared him, but he still thought it was better not to push it as he was set to dance some knee-intense numbers. This was a little weird though because no one has ever elected not to dance before when the doctors said they could. So Billy got sent to the bottom three and the others danced two routines plus solos. Kenny Ortrga was also there as the 4th judge to mark the special anniversary of the show's 150th episode. Here's how the dances went in my order of preference.

Lauren and Twitch did a Tabitha and Napoleon Wild West routine. Lauren did this insane reverse somersault roll designed to look like a tumbleweed. That was intense! Everything was hit hard and looked really really good.

Robert and Fellow-Contestant Lauren did a beach party-flavored samba by Dmitry Chaplin. It was cute. They had the right feel for it. Robert looked solid and strong. Lauren looked great. They had a few wonky moments where they didn't quite connect right on the lift spins, but overall a fun number.

Kent and Kathryn danced Jazz From Sonya, but I didn't really dig the choreo even though they had strong energy. The thing i remember most from this was their colorful shirts. Nigel says Kent outdanced his all-star partner 2 weeks in a row and i think that's not true in both instances.

AdéChiké paired with Comfort for Tabitha and Napoleon lyrical hip hop. It's emotional and danced strong, but there's a very real slap that seems kind of out of place. It's not like there haven't been a million fake punches and kicks and smacks on this show before. We could've lived without it.

Robert and All-Star Lauren's had jazz with Tyce. It was sexy and well done, but there was one moment where Tyce had Robert lick Lauren's leg that felt totally gratuitous. Still it gets points for being straight jazz and not dependent on a literal story.

Kent should've danced with "injured" Billy to a step routine by Chuck Maldonado. Instead he gets partnered with Twitch. I didn't think this routine worked at all. Twitch and Kent are so physically different. The style was much more natural for Twitch than Kent, who i personally thought flailed around for a lot of it. The judges can't find enough praise to heap on him, but really? It was no Alex and Twitch Hip Hop from before all the injuries came to town.

Jose and Allison did Sonya Tayeh contempo, which was all danced on the lip of the stage and would've been really cool if someone with more technique than Jose was dancing it. Instead, Sonya gave Jose movements which Mia later characterized as "pedestrian," meaning they came out of normal everyday movement instead of movement learned through technique. Jose is just in over his head right now, people.

AdéChiké and Jose dance a guy on guy Paso Doble choreo'ed by Dmitry Chaplin and All-Star in his own right Legacy. It doesn't work at all, mainly again because Jose has no technique. Just being shirtless and waving a cape does not a paso doble make.

Results Show: The opening dance is a cool cover of "All That Jazz" with choreo by a lady named Kelley Abbey. Jose does not dance the opening number for the second week in a row which seems insane to me. How does he keep getting excused from doing these routines?

Bottom 3: Robert, Jose and a by-default Billy. They all do solos. Wait, no they don't. Robert and Jose do, Billy's still chillin' in the audience.

The All-Star encore dance is Wade Robson's routine for Lauren and Neil from season 3, which is cool and all, but I am still waiting for Lauren and Pasha's Transformers routine. They must be saving it as the finale of all the encore numbers because it rocks so hard.

Members of the American Ballet Theater performed the Grand Pas de Deux from Act III of Don Quixote, and they looked more like claymation figures than people for all their superhuman nimbleness.

The boys do solos. The judges go off to deliberate. Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull show up to sing a song and Allison, Lauren and Dominic supply the back up dancing.

Then the judges return. They are in a predicament, you see. They have Robert, who they suddenly think has stopped growing. Jose, who maybe has not grown at all ever on the show, and Billy who elected not to compete this week even with doctor's clearance. Getting rid of Robert before Jose would be insane. So it comes down to Billy and Jose. I think they would like to get rid of Jose, but don't like the idea of rewarding a contestant who just wants to take a week off from competing. And here I must paraphrase Into The Woods: Then from out of the blue, and without any guide. They know what they're decision is, which is not to decide. No one gets cut. Next week they'll cut two. So nothing this week really mattered, except maybe every flaw in Jose's dancing was exposed and maybe Billy's attitude has cost him a trip to the top 4, since I find it likely both those boys will be cut next week. At this point I really think nothing can stop Kent's ascent to the title, except maybe an injury. The way this season is going it's not out of the realm of possibility.

Let's hope next week we get 6 healthy and willing contestants and lots of solid routines!

Vivienne Flesher

The Bush Administration has ended, but its most lasting influence on America may be its appointment of one Justice, Samuel Alito, and one Chief Justice, John Roberts, to the Supreme Court.

Adam Liptik wrote a piece in the New York Times last weekend arguing that Chief Justice Roberts' Court is the most conservative court this country's had in decades and it is likely to remain so for a long time.

Writes Mr. Liptik,

. . . Chief Justice Roberts, 55, is settling in for what is likely to be a very long tenure at the head of a court that seems to be entering a period of stability.
If the Roberts court continues on the course suggested by its first five years, it is likely to allow a greater role for religion in public life, to permit more participation by unions and corporations in elections and to elaborate further on the scope of the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. Abortion rights are likely to be curtailed, as are affirmative action and protections for people accused of crimes.

The recent shift to the right is modest. And the court’s decisions have hardly been uniformly conservative. The justices have, for instance, limited the use of the death penalty and rejected broad claims of executive power in the government’s efforts to combat terrorism.

The Court swung right, Liptik argues, with the 2006 appointment of Samuel Alito to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. John Roberts had already been appointed Chief Justice in 2005,

Ed Whelen, writing in the National Review Online, begs to differ with Mr. Liptik's assessment.

The Supreme Court, with its eight current members and the prospective addition of Elena Kagan, will be no more “conservative” (in crude political terms) than [swing vote] Justice Kennedy is. . . . As I’ve previously explained, at most the Roberts Court has taken a small step to the right—and towards the center.  I am not contending that the Court is walking in opposite directions.  Rather, after decades of liberal judicial activism on so many issues, the Court’s starting position remains decidedly on the left. . . .

Whether or not you view the Roberts Court as liberal, conservative, or balanced, its ruling in the case known as Citizens United  did strike down a significant part of the 2002 McCain/Feingold campaign-finance reform law, thus allowing corporate and union money a much bigger voice in American elections.

The House has already passed legislation designed to promote full disclosure in campaign advertising. A Senate version of  the Disclose Act (passed in the House with NRA support in exchange for an exemption) probably comes up for a vote today, and its passage is looking iffy.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who opposes passage, issued a statement saying, in part

. . .The DISCLOSE Act seeks to protect unpopular Democrat politicians by silencing their critics and exempting their campaign supporters from an all out attack on the First Amendment. .

President Obama spoke Monday in the Rose Garden urging Senate passage, saying in part: 

 . . .You'd think that making these reforms would be a matter of common sense, particularly since they primarily involve just making sure that folks who are financing these ads are disclosed so that the American people can make up their own minds. . .

With all the hoopla caused by WikiLeaks' latest batch of leaked documents focusing our attention on the war in Afghanistan (for better, for worse, another Bush administration legacy that's been firmly embraced by the Obama administration), it's important for all of us to remain aware that there's arguably more important action underway a lot closer to home.

Our country's government works because governance is divided among three branches. We have changed administrations, but the last administration's Supreme Court (whatever your view of it) remains intact. Our system of government certainly provides high drama at times as these three branches duke it out, and one of those times promises to be the Senate vote on the Disclose Act.

This morning as I sat down to post WMRA's first Facebook question/comment of the day, it was with the knowledge that there were potentially 500 million other people out there doing the same thing.

I was not surprised to learn that Facebook had passed this milestone. The site works so well on so many levels -- FB can inform and invite discussion (which is what I hope the WMRA page does), it keeps our mobile population connected, and it can be simply silly and fun.

Anyone else remember the hula hoop craze of 1958 when 20 million Whamo hoops sold in six months? It pales in comparison, doesn't it? And the Beatles had only sold a paltry 100 million albums by February of 1965.

There may be all kinds of concern about FB and privacy, but there's absolutely no argument that FB is a huge part of our internet life in this, the Internet Age.

What I used the WMRA Facebook page for this morning, however, was to post about something that is anything but fun; WikiLeaks' posting of what the New York Times calls "The War Logs:" 6 years (2004-2009) of leaked classified documents that fill us in on what's going on in Afghanistan.

Kevin Frayer/Associated Press

Now, good luck getting onto the WikiLeaks site, itself. I tried and failed all the time I was writing this blog post.  The site, my internet provider told me, was too busy. But despite my American propensity to think I need to know everything right now, I'm willing to wait my turn on this one, because I need time to think and there's a lot of information out there posted by reliable sources who have been able to access the site.

 For example, the Wall Street Journal writes this morning,

There appears to be evidence of war crimes in the leaked documents, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a news conference in London on Monday according to the Associated Press. "It is up to a court to decide really if something in the end is a crime. That said ... there does appear to be...."

And then there's disturbing information about Pakistan as reported in the New York Times:

. . . [Leaked documents] suggest that Pakistan, an ostensible ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.

It strikes me that it's one thing to rant about suspected dark deeds in this ugly war; it's another to have them detailed on our computer screens by, it appears, those who have first-hand knowledge of them. We now have to stop ranting and start thinking, assessing, and, most importantly, reading. It is, in some ways, yet another end of innocence. "National security" in a sense protected us from having to deal with all this difficult information.

There's a lot more on this story out there on the internet this morning, and it's not just about the documents, themselves. There's White House National Security Adviser James Jones' strong statement about "national security," condemning WikiLeaks' release of the documents as "irresponsible." Yet, the "Greenslade Blog" of the British newspaper, The Guardian asks:

Do we believe factual reports by US soldiers about the killing of civilians is worthless? Do we really think that hard information about the increasing strength of the Taliban should be covered up? Is it of no consequence that there is new and more obvious evidence about Pakistani and Iranian aid for the Taliban?

Do we believe? Do we really think? Is it?

Well, please, please, please don't answer that. Yet.

Last week's news kerfuffle was caused by the misuse of a Shirley Sherrod speech by He Who Shall Not Be Named (yes, that conservative blogger, who's been named enough, already) and the administration's subsequent overreaction to it.  It was fueled on the internet, in large part I would suspect by us 500 million FB users reacting too quickly to what we read on the internet.

I hope we learned from this disaster that we need to take time to be informed before we form our opinions. And to shy away from the opinions of those who do not appear to be reliably sourcing their material.

So, may we all have more than our customary patience while we wait in line at WikiLeaks. Might I suggest amusing yourself on Facebook, chatting with friends about how long they've been waiting . . .

Note: I just went back to insert a link to WMRA's Facebook page and realized I had done what I just blogged against doing: I had solicited an immediate response from you to the WikiLeaks story. So, I've dope-slapped myself, and I do promise to try to do better.

Bloomington holds a lot of fond memories for me because I did my undergraduate degree there a long time ago. Even then, although I could rarely afford it, Bloomington had a unique food culture with a lot of interesting and independent restaurants. Occasionally I would get to go to a few of them back then, but now that I am older and can afford to eat out a bit more, I always like going down to Bloomington.
On this trip, our destination was Restaurant Tallent. Hubby had not yet been and wanted to go and I had promised that I would give it another try in a season that was more up my alley. Well as far as the seasonal ingredients being used on the menu, I was in heaven. How can you really go wrong with lots of tomatoes and corn? I had a hard time choosing.

We started with something that I think was new to Tallent’s menu—a “snack.” These are just that—smaller appetizers priced at $5.00 per portion. There were two or three on the menu but we went with one that was a special. It was salmon tartare described as having citrus in varying ways—including citrus vinaigrette. We assumed that as a snack, and for $5, it was going to be very small. It was actually quite a decent size, and I could have eaten something like this for my regular appetizer. The salmon was good, but it didn’t have enough citrus for me to make it stand out. There was quite a bit of fresh arugula on top that was so peppery and spicy you only wanted a little bit in each bite or it overpowered the other flavors. The salmon also wasn’t served with any crunchy bit to put the salmon on—some chips or crackers would have been nice.

I then had the foie gras poutine. Apparently, a poutine is a dish originated in Quebec consisting of French fries, cheese curds and covered in brown gravy (who knew? Not me.) The Tallent version was housemade French Fries (which were crunchy and salty and delicious) topped with goat cheese, a small piece of seared foie gras, a sunny side up quail egg, and covered in a chanterelle and corn gravy. This was my favorite dish of the night. The liver was cooked perfectly and the goat cheese gave that requisite zing that I look for to balance the complete decadence that was the other ingredients in this dish. I really enjoyed the chanterelles in the gravy although the corn overall this night was a little disappointing in its lack of flavor.

Hubby had the BLT risotto as his starter. The risotto itself was very tomato-ey (cooked with a tomato sauce)—and a few bites were a little al dente for our taste, but the drizzle of basil aioli on top was a really nice touch. The best parts for me were the little bits of fried green tomato scattered throughout. They were just little dices that were fried and were a nice textural component. There were also dices of bacon mixed throughout which I would say were probably hubby’s favorite part. All in all this dish was good, but didn’t really wow us.

For my entrée, I had the lobster roll. I am a sucker for a good lobster roll and as soon as I saw it on the menu, I knew there was no other choice for me. The sandwich was served with a side of fried green tomato slices, housemade chips, and an ear of corn on the cob. Sadly, this course just did not come together for me at all. The best things about it were the bread that the lobster roll was in and the chips. The bread was really crunchy and tasted like it had been coated in butter and then toasted. It was really yummy. The chips were just really thin crunchy housemade chips and were tasty too (they have a “snack” featuring these chips and truffle dip which I bet is good—and I bet those chips would be great with the salmon snack we had.) Sadly though, the filling of the lobster roll just didn’t excite me that much. The lobster seemed to be cooked properly, but it just didn’t have a lot of flavor. It just seemed like mayo and lobster and celery. The lobster flavor just didn’t come through that much and there really didn’t seem to be much seasoning. I don’t know, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but it was just okay. The fried green tomatoes were cooked well in cornmeal, as fried green tomatoes usually are, but they needed some salt, and really, in my opinion could have used a drizzle of something to go over them (that basil aioli from earlier maybe?). Honestly, I was surprised they were on the side of the sandwich. For some reason, I thought they might actually be a part of the sandwich. The corn on the cob just didn’t taste good to me which is a shame for July in Indiana. And I have been having great corn on the cob from the Farmer’s Market around here. Not sure if it was past its prime or just a little overcooked.

Hubby had the Indiana ribeye with roasted new potatoes, summer vegetable salad and blue cheese. The ribeye was cut into slices on the place over the potatoes that were also sliced and the whole dish was covered in a sort of slaw of veggies mixed with blue cheese. First of all, the portion was very large. Even hubby couldn’t eat it all. He also thought the way it was served (sliced on the plate) he felt like they were trying to make it appear like a filet. The potatoes were nicely flavored and while hubby enjoyed the salad, he would have preferred it on the side—he sort of liked eating it separately. It was all good, but again, just not amazing.

Even though we didn’t finish our entrées, we decided to get a dessert anyway, and we were really glad we did. We split the blueberry tart with sweet corn ice cream. This was outstanding. What a great mix of flavors with the blueberries, the streusel topping and the sweet, yet slightly savory ice cream. This was a beautiful taste of summer.

All in all, we had a nice night away even though our meal didn’t blow us away. When we are in the mood for a road trip again though, Tallent will probably not be our first choice. Tell me, if you were getting a night away and a meal outside of Indy, where would you go?

Restaurant Tallent
208 North Walnut
Bloomington, IN 47404
812/330-9801
www.restauranttallent.com

Have you ever wondered why people who are willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year to protect the United States against any possible threat from an external enemy, nonetheless say we can’t afford to sacrifice much of anything to combat the threat of climate change that could make our world, and our country, less livable?

Part of the answer involves money. The U.S. has giant corporations that want us to spend a lot on defense, and even mightier corporations that don’t want us to kick our fossil fuel habit. So the big money wins both ways.

But the more interesting and maybe more important answer goes deeper into our culture. It has to do with the traditional concept of manhood.

For thousands of years, human communities have perceived the greatest threat to their survival as coming from enemies outside their borders. So they have made warriors their heroes, and warrior virtues their ideal of manhood.

We have been taught that it’s manly to arm ourselves and to prepare to fight our enemies. There is no shame if we invest too heavily in armor. Nobody thinks it unmanly if a president spends unnecessary billions for defenses against an exaggerated threat.

But with concern about environmental dangers, however clear and present, it’s different. Here the dangers do not come from the power of other men, but rather from the excessive and irresponsible use of our own powers. The remedy does not involve more action, but more restraint. We are challenged not to make ourselves larger, but to limit ourselves to fit into something larger than we are.

“Real men” in America are not supposed to accept limits. “Real men” don’t “take care of things”—that’s what women do. And real men certainly don’t take care of things by reining in their powers to exploit nature and extend their material empires.

With spending for defense against uncertain military threats, it’s damn the uncertainty and full speed ahead. With uncertainty about possible climatic catastrophe, it’s wait and see and “we can’t afford it.”

Our concepts of manhood may have been adaptive during most of history, but the exponential growth of the human impact on the earth has made these old concepts inadequate.

There is a different ancient image of what a man might be. It is the image of the good steward, the man to whom the care of things can be entrusted. Until the good steward seems to us as manly as the vigilant warrior, our national security will be in jeopardy.

Holding too narrowly to that traditional warrior ideal of manhood may prevent our coming to grips with what may be the greatest challenge humankind has ever faced.

 --Andrew Bard Schmookler lives in the Shenandoah Valley and maintains the website nonesoblind.org

New York Theater Workshop’s 4th Street Theater - (83 East 4th St at 2nd Ave)

HERE'S WHAT IT'S ABOUT
Written by Owen Panettieri and directed by Joey Brenneman, The Timing of a Day follows three New York City roommates who share a loving (if cramped) Harlem apartment and a similarly loving (if cramped) triangular friendship. As the play opens, the three find themselves navigating the regular ups and downs of city life, and the unpleasant question of where their adult lives are taking them, when an unforeseeable tragedy rips them from the ordinary and changes the course of their lives and friendships forever. What follows is the reshuffled story of their time living together told over the course of a single day. Slices of their future, present, and past weave together in new ways, illustrating what it is that really draws these three people together, as well as what pulls them apart. While examining life, love, and loss from one sunrise to the next, each individual is forced to question if there really is such a thing as “perfect timing” or if all timing is just perfectly flawed…

For more info go to Mind The Art Entertainment

I'm also blogging about the show experience here

I hope everyone comes out to see the show! Thanks for your ongoing support!

Have any comments or concerns about the Chamberlain Student Center? Post them on our Blog, on Facebook, or on Twitter....let us know what's good, what's bad, or just whats what...and we'll get back to you ASAP!!!!!

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Martha note:   Yesterday's blog post was on the Moro Campaign, the first (and almost forgotten) armed conflict the U.S. engaged in with Muslims driven by religious beliefs. The campaign, which lasted from 1903 to 1920, begs for comparison with our current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

The so-called Moro Crater Massacre took place during this campaign. Below is a short description lifted from Wikipedia.

The Moro Crater massacre is a name given to the final phase of the First Battle of Bud Dajo, a military engagement of the Philippine-American War, which took place March 10, 1906, on the isle of Jolo in the southern Philippines. Forces of the U.S. Army under the command of Major General Leonard Wood, a naval detachment comprising 540 soldiers, along with a detachment of native constabulary, armed with artillery and small firearms, attacked a village hidden in the crater of the dormant volcano Bud Dajo. More than 600 mostly unarmed Muslim Moro villagers (including many women and children) were killed by the Americans, of whom fifteen soldiers were killed and thirty-two were wounded. 

Mark Twain, at the time, was vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League.  He wrote the following response to news of the incident.

(March 12, 1906) This incident burst upon the world last Friday in an official cablegram from the commander of our forces in the Philippines to our Government at Washington. The substance of it was as follows: A tribe of Moros, dark-skinned savages, had fortified themselves in the bowl of an extinct crater not many miles from Jolo; and as they were hostiles, and bitter against us because we have been trying for eight years to take their liberties away from them, their presence in that position was a menace. Our commander, Gen. Leonard Wood, ordered a reconnaissance. It was found that the Moros numbered six hundred, counting women and children; that their crater bowl was in the summit of a peak or mountain twenty-two hundred feet above sea level, and very difficult of access for Christian troops and artillery. Then General Wood ordered a surprise, and went along himself to see the order carried out. Our troops climbed the heights by devious and difficult trails, and even took some artillery with them. The kind of artillery is not specified, but in one place it was hoisted up a sharp acclivity by tackle a distance of some three hundred feet. Arrived at the rim of the crater, the battle began. Our soldiers numbered five hundred and forty. They were assisted by auxiliaries consisting of a detachment of native constabulary in our pay -- their numbers not given -- and by a naval detachment, whose numbers are not stated. But apparently the contending parties were about equal as to number -- six hundred men on our side, on the edge of the bowl; six hundred men, women and children in the bottom of the bowl. Depth of the bowl, 50 feet.

Gen. Wood's order was, "Kill or capture the six hundred."

The battle began-it is officially called by that name-our forces firing down into the crater with their artillery and their deadly small arms of precision; the savages furiously returning the fire, probably with brickbats-though this is merely a surmise of mine, as the weapons used by the savages are not nominated in the cablegram. Heretofore the Moros have used knives and clubs mainly; also ineffectual trade-muskets when they had any.

The official report stated that the battle was fought with prodigious energy on both sides during a day and a half, and that it ended with a complete victory for the American arms. The completeness of the victory is established by this fact: that of the six hundred Moros not one was left alive. The brilliancy of the victory is established by this other fact, to wit: that of our six hundred heroes only fifteen lost their lives.

General Wood was present and looking on. His order had been. "Kill or capture those savages." Apparently our little army considered that the "or" left them authorized to kill or capture according to taste, and that their taste had remained what it has been for eight years, in our army out there - the taste of Christian butchers.

The official report quite properly extolled and magnified the "heroism" and "gallantry" of our troops; lamented the loss of the fifteen who perished, and elaborated the wounds of thirty-two of our men who suffered injury, and even minutely and faithfully described the nature of the wounds, in the interest of future historians of the United States. It mentioned that a private had one of his elbows scraped by a missile, and the private's name was mentioned. Another private had the end of his nose scraped by a missile. His name was also mentioned - by cable, at one dollar and fifty cents a word.

Next day's news confirmed the previous day's report and named our fifteen killed and thirty-two wounded again, and once more described the wounds and gilded them with the right adjectives.

Let us now consider two or three details of our military history. In one of the great battles of the Civil War ten per cent. of the forces engaged on the two sides were killed and wounded. At Waterloo, where four hundred thousand men were present on the two sides, fifty thousand fell, killed and wounded, in five hours, leaving three hundred and fifty thousand sound and all right for further adventures. Eight years ago, when the pathetic comedy called the Cuban War was played, we summoned two hundred and fifty thousand men. We fought a number of showy battles, and when the war was over we had lost two hundred and sixty-eight men out of our two hundred and fifty thousand, in killed and wounded in the field, and just fourteen times as many by the gallantry of the army doctors in the hospitals and camps. We did not exterminate the Spaniards -- far from it. In each engagement we left an average of two per cent. of the enemy killed or crippled on the field.

Contrast these things with the great statistics which have arrived from that Moro crater! There, with six hundred engaged on each side, we lost fifteen men killed outright, and we had thirty-two wounded-counting that nose and that elbow. The enemy numbered six hundred -- including women and children -- and we abolished them utterly, leaving not even a baby alive to cry for its dead mother. This is incomparably the greatest victory that was ever achieved by the Christian soldiers of the United States.

Now then, how has it been received? The splendid news appeared with splendid display-heads in every newspaper in this city of four million and thirteen thousand inhabitants, on Friday morning. But there was not a single reference to it in the editorial columns of any one of those newspapers. The news appeared again in all the evening papers of Friday, and again those papers were editorially silent upon our vast achievement. Next day's additional statistics and particulars appeared in all the morning papers, and still without a line of editorial rejoicing or a mention of the matter in any way. These additions appeared in the evening papers of that same day (Saturday) and again without a word of comment. In the columns devoted to correspondence, in the morning and evening papers of Friday and Saturday, nobody said a word about the "battle." Ordinarily those columns are teeming with the passions of the citizen; he lets no incident go by, whether it be large or small, without pouring out his praise or blame, his joy or his indignation about the matter in the correspondence column. But, as I have said, during those two days he was as silent as the editors themselves. So far as I can find out, there was only one person among our eighty millions who allowed himself the privilege of a public remark on this great occasion -- that was the President of the United States. All day Friday he was as studiously silent as the rest. But on Saturday he recognized that his duty required him to say something, and he took his pen and performed that duty. If I know President Roosevelt -- and I am sure I do -- this utterance cost him more pain and shame than any other that ever issued from his pen or his mouth. I am far from blaming him. If I had been in his place my official duty would have compelled me to say what he said. It was a convention, an old tradition, and he had to be loyal to it. There was no help for it. This is what he said:

Washington, March 10. Wood, Manila:- I congratulate you and the officers and men of your command upon the brilliant feat of arms wherein you and they so well upheld the honor of the American flag. (Signed) Theodore Roosevelt.

His whole utterance is merely a convention. Not a word of what he said came out of his heart. He knew perfectly well that to pen six hundred helpless and weaponless savages in a hole like rats in a trap and massacre them in detail during a stretch of a day and a half, from a safe position on the heights above, was no brilliant feat of arms - and would not have been a brilliant feat of arms even if Christian America, represented by its salaried soldiers, had shot them down with Bibles and the Golden Rule instead of bullets. He knew perfectly well that our uniformed assassins had not upheld the honor of the American flag, but had done as they have been doing continuously for eight years in the Philippines - that is to say, they had dishonored it.

The next day, Sunday, -- which was yesterday -- the cable brought us additional news - still more splendid news -- still more honor for the flag. The first display-head shouts this information at us in the stentorian capitals: "WOMEN SLAIN MORO SLAUGHTER."

"Slaughter" is a good word. Certainly there is not a better one in the Unabridged Dictionary for this occasion

The next display line says:

"With Children They Mixed in Mob in Crater, and All Died Together."

They were mere naked savages, and yet there is a sort of pathos about it when that word children falls under your eye, for it always brings before us our perfectest symbol of innocence and helplessness; and by help of its deathless eloquence color, creed and nationality vanish away and we see only that they are children -- merely children. And if they are frightened and crying and in trouble, our pity goes out to them by natural impulse. We see a picture. We see the small forms. We see the terrified faces. We see the tears. We see the small hands clinging in supplication to the mother; but we do not see those children that we are speaking about. We see in their places the little creatures whom we know and love.

The next heading blazes with American and Christian glory like to the sun in the zenith:

"Death List is Now 900."

I was never so enthusiastically proud of the flag till now!

Martha note #2: FYI, Lexington-based writer James R. Arnold, author of Jungle of Snakes: A Century of Counterinsurgency Warfare from the Philippines to Iraq, will publish a book on the Moro Campaigns next year.