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A condominium with a view of Manila Bay.
Located along Taft Avenue, facing Luneta Park.
Torre de Manila. . .
Front Units are facing the amenities of Torre de Manila and Luneta Park, it is also facing the sunset along the coast of Manila Bay.
Back Units would be overlooking the Makati Skyline and facing the morning sun rise. And since Torre de Manila is surrounded by school establishments, there will be no obstructions to the views.
~Torre de Manila~
A resort-inspired hi-rise condominium located along Taft, Manila. Near U. N. Avenue and fronting Luneta Park.
TURN OVER DATE: NOVEMBER 2016
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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Google is adding a new entree to its menu: free restaurant ratings from the Zagat review service.
Zagat, which Google bought in September, was charging $25 annually or $5 monthly for online access to its survey of diners. Those diners have rated about 35,000 restaurants in more than 100 cities around the world.
The reviews will be available for free on Zagat.com as well as several services on Google's website as part of a change announced Wednesday.
"Now, the world's highest-quality reviews are available to more people, whether they are at their desks or on the go," Zagat founders Nina and Tim Zagat wrote Wednesday on their Google Plus social-networking page.
Zagat will still charge $10 a year for using an application designed for Apple Inc.'s iPhone and iPad, although Google indicated it may eventually drop that fee. After a six-month free trial, Zagat charges $25 annually to see reviews on its app for mobile devices running on Google's Android software.
The Internet fees helped protect sales of the burgundy-colored guides that Zagat has been putting out since its 1979 inception. For now, Zagat still intends to publish the guides, which were listed Wednesday on Amazon for $8.75 to $16.
Google Inc. acquired Zagat for $151 million in September to compete against Yelp's popular online rating service. Google and Yelp Inc. are battling to attract more traffic to spur more sales of ads to neighborhood merchants.
Yelp explored a possible sale to Google for a reported $500 million in 2009 before deciding to go its own way. The two companies have since become prickly rivals, driven by Yelp's allegations that Google rigs its search results to favor its own services over its competitors.
The Federal Trade Commission is looking into the complaints lodged against Google by Yelp and other Internet companies as part of a broad antitrust investigation.
The decision to turn Zagat into a free online service comes as part of Google's expanded local business listings in its search results and the Plus service. The overhaul is being billed as "Google Plus Local" as the company continues to promote a social networking alternative to Facebook's popular online hangout.
A search request for a restaurant that has been reviewed by Zagat will now trigger a listing that includes a breakdown of the service's ratings. Zagat's scoring system provides separate ratings on a 30-point scale for the quality of food, decor and service in a restaurant.
The new business listings, which will also appear on Google's online mapping service and mobile device applications, will also include any pertinent recommendations from within a user's contacts on Plus.
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In this May 23, 2012 photo, people exercising are reflected on the entrance of a beachfront apartment in the Leblon neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Brazil?s burgeoning middle class is moving up in the world, into fancier high-rises. The discovery of vast oil deposits off the coast has flooded the city with renters carrying fistfuls of petrodollars. And property owners already are hiking rents in anticipation of Rio's upcoming mega-events, the 2014 soccer World Cup and 2016 Olympics. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
In this May 23, 2012 photo, people exercising are reflected on the entrance of a beachfront apartment in the Leblon neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Brazil?s burgeoning middle class is moving up in the world, into fancier high-rises. The discovery of vast oil deposits off the coast has flooded the city with renters carrying fistfuls of petrodollars. And property owners already are hiking rents in anticipation of Rio's upcoming mega-events, the 2014 soccer World Cup and 2016 Olympics. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
In this May 23, 2012 photo, a woman cleans the windows of a beachfront apartment bellow a sign that reads 'for rent' along Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Brazil?s burgeoning middle class is moving up in the world, into fancier high-rises. The discovery of vast oil deposits off the coast has flooded the city with renters carrying fistfuls of petrodollars. And property owners already are hiking rents in anticipation of Rio's upcoming mega-events, the 2014 soccer World Cup and 2016 Olympics. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
In this May 23, 2012 photo, beachfront apartments overlook the ocean along Ipanema in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Brazil?s burgeoning middle class is moving up in the world, into fancier high-rises. The discovery of vast oil deposits off the coast has flooded the city with renters carrying fistfuls of petrodollars. And property owners already are hiking rents in anticipation of Rio's upcoming mega-events, the 2014 soccer World Cup and 2016 Olympics. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
In this May 23, 2012 photo, a view of Guanabara Bay is available from an apartment in the Flamengo neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Brazil?s burgeoning middle class is moving up in the world, into fancier high-rises. The discovery of vast oil deposits off the coast has flooded the city with renters carrying fistfuls of petrodollars. And property owners already are hiking rents in anticipation of Rio's upcoming mega-events, the 2014 soccer World Cup and 2016 Olympics. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
In this May 23, 2012 photo, Sugarloaf mountain is visible from an apartment in the Flamengo neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Brazil?s burgeoning middle class is moving up in the world, into fancier high-rises. The discovery of vast oil deposits off the coast has flooded the city with renters carrying fistfuls of petrodollars. And property owners already are hiking rents in anticipation of Rio's upcoming mega-events, the 2014 soccer World Cup and 2016 Olympics. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) ? Moving to Rio, I had visions of paradise, of a sprawling apartment with panoramic views over a palm-lined beach.
Instead, I found myself plunged into the inferno of one of the hottest real estate markets in the world.
Brazil's burgeoning middle class is moving up in the world, into fancier high-rises. The discovery of vast oil deposits off the coast has flooded the city with renters carrying fistfuls of petrodollars. And property owners already are hiking rents in anticipation of Rio's upcoming mega-events, the 2014 soccer World Cup and 2016 Olympics.
Property prices in some neighborhoods have risen six-fold in the past decade and now rival those in world capitals such as New York or Paris. I was moving from Paris and had previously lived in New York, so I thought I knew a little something about finding a place in notoriously difficult rental markets.
Hubris. It'll get you every time.
Armed with the Sunday classifieds, I launched what was to become my epic quest for an apartment back in January. I went first to Rio's showcase neighborhoods ? tony, seaside Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon, the ones everyone imagines when they think of fabulous Rio. Perusing the ads, however, it seemed as if an extra zero had been tacked onto the price of every apartment. A studio with a shared toilet on the landing for $1000 a month? Or $2750 for a 400-square-foot (37-square-meter), one-bedroom on the first floor, apparently with no natural light? Could I be reading this right?
Unfortunately, I was. For the rent I used to pay on my Paris penthouse looking out onto the Eiffel Tower, I found I could get a postage stamp-sized place on the third floor of a down-at-the-heels Ipanema building with a spectacular view ? into the neighbor's bathroom.
These neighborhoods had become the favorite haunt of the expat crowd ? deep-pocketed executives from foreign oil companies, banks, car manufacturers, cosmetics giants and other multinationals eager to get in on the booming Brazilian market. With the number of foreign workers in Brazil up some 60 percent over the past four years, demand for seaside digs here had exploded.
Priced off the beach, I focused my search instead on the stately neighborhoods of Flamengo and Botafogo on picturesque Guanabara Bay. Their beaches are too polluted for swimming, but at least I'd have a view of the sea, I thought.
Again, I made the rounds with classifieds in hand. About two-thirds of the time, real estate agents didn't even bother to turn up for our scheduled appointments. When they did show, a quick peek through the open door frequently sufficed: A two-bedroom in which neither bedroom was large enough to fit a bed. ("Sleep on a mat," the agent helpfully suggested.) A "loft" overlooking an eight-lane highway that was so loud it felt like it sat in the median.
My search stretched from weeks into months. I couch-surfed for weeks, shedding more of my belongings with each subsequent move ? including my cat, whose jittery nerves required pet anti-depressants.
Rio's property boom is a reversal of fortune for a city that had been in steep decline for decades since 1960, when Brazil moved its capital from the Marvelous City to the red-dirt plateau of Brasilia, and businesses fled to industrial Sao Paulo.
Now, the question on everyone's lips is whether the city's spiraling real estate prices are a bubble, like the one that burst in the U.S. in 2008, or a response to increased demand in a city surrounded by mountains and the sea with no room to grow. But even if the bubble were to burst, surely it would be after the 2016 Olympics, and I needed a place to live immediately.
As my desperation spiraled, the advice came pouring in from other expats who'd also been through the Rio housing crunch. "Find a street you like and go ask the doormen if there's a vacancy coming up," well-meaning friends counseled. Several sweat-drenched days going door-to-door under the scorching summer sun yielded nothing but shaking heads.
"This is Rio. You've got to lower your standards. And raise your budget," was another frequent piece of advice.
But even with my newly minted standards, I found precious few places within my price range that were safe, sanitary and could fit a bed in the bedroom. Of the 70 places I looked at, I ended up applying for just four. Three of my applications were rejected out of hand because I didn't have a guarantor who lived up to the owners' now-stringent standards in a competitive market. Whereas in years past they would have almost certainly been willing to accept a multinational company, many owners now demand the guarantor be the owner of not one but two properties in the city of Rio de Janeiro.
For a foreigner parachuting into the country, it was an impossible demand.
"Don't worry," the real estate agents cooed, as the tears welled in my eyes. "We'll find a solution."
In the end, that meant paying an insurance company the equivalent of nearly two months' rent to act as a cosigner, or roughly an extra $4,000 annually.
And it meant paying a hefty "finder's fee" to help convince the landlady to choose me out of the long list of potential renters for the fourth and final apartment I bid on.
The apartment is old, with rusty pipes and possibly faulty electric wiring, and rent is a third more than I'd wanted to pay. But outside my bedroom window, palm trees shake in the breeze and the squawks from a flock of wild parrots echo through my apartment. Each time I leave my building, I'm greeted by the picture postcard sight of Sugarloaf Mountain and the Guanabara Bay, the expanse of its azure waters glinting warmly.
Finally, I'm home.
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May 16, 2012 (Archdruid Report) -- Over the last four months or so, as this blog has sketched out the trajectory of empires in general, and then traced the intricate history of America?s empire in particular, I?ve been avoiding a specific issue.
That avoidance hasn?t come from any lack of awareness on my part, and if it had been, comments and emails from readers asking when I was going to get around to discussing the issue would have taken care of that in short order. No, it?s simply a natural reluctance to bring up a subject that has to be discussed sooner or later, but is guaranteed to generate far more heat than light.
The subject? The role of protest movements in the decline and fall of the American empire.
That?s an issue sufficiently burdened with tangled emotions and unstated agendas that even finding a good starting place for the discussion is a challenge. Fortunately I have some assistance, courtesy of Owen Lloyd, who is involved with an organization called Deep Green Resistance and recently wrote a review of my book The Blood of the Earth.
It?s by no means a bad review. Quite the contrary, Lloyd made a serious effort to grapple with the issues that book tried to raise, and by and large succeeded; where he failed, the misunderstandings were all but inevitable, given the differences between his views and mine. Thus it?s all the more striking that his review points up so precisely the reasons why protest movements have by and large been spinning their wheels in empty air for 30 years, and will almost certainly continue to do so while America?s empire crashes and burns around them.
The point that matters here is the review?s denunciation of one of the central points of the book, which is that those who want to change the world need to start by changing their own lives. According to Lloyd, we don?t have time for that, since the biosphere is in dire peril; what?s needed instead are the standard tools of contemporary activism -- "direct action, community building, and outreach," in his convenient summary. His reasoning is logical enough, as far as it goes; if your house is on fire, after all, it?s a little late to install sprinklers and smoke alarms. If the situation is as urgent as Lloyd claims, all other considerations have to take a back seat to an all-out effort to deal with the immediate crisis with the most effective means available.
It?s a common enough claim in the contemporary activist community; Derrick Jensen had an article in Orion Magazine a few years back making essentially the same argument. Still, there?s a problem with that argument, because the responses Lloyd, Jensen, and other activists are promoting here have been standard across the spectrum of activist groups for more than three decades now, and that?s more than enough time to see how well they work. The answer? Well, let?s be charitable and say "not very well."
For years now, leading environmentalists have been bemoaning how much ground is being lost year after year, and how little the environmental movement has been able to do even to slow that down. They are quite correct in that assessment, of course. It?s standard these days to insist that this simply shows the power differential between the corporate interests that profit from environmental destruction and the citizen groups that are trying to fight them. That argument seems convincing, too, so long as you do what most people these days are taught to do, and ignore the lessons of history.
Glance back to a slightly earlier period and at least one of those lessons stands out in bold relief. In the 1970s, environmental activists facing equally powerful and well-funded corporate interests built a mass movement and forced through landmark legislation. In the United States, the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and a bevy of less famous but equally important environmental bills crashed through a wall of corporate opposition and became the law of the land.
That sort of success is something that today?s environmental activists can only daydream about, and it was accomplished using the same tools that activists use today -- with one important addition: the environmental activists of that time recognized that the most effective way to advocate any given change was to make that change in their own lives first. That awareness was not limited to the environmental movement; it was pioneered by the feminists of the 1960s and 1970s, in fact, who turned it into a core principle of their movement -- "the personal is political" -- and leveraged it efficiently to bring about dramatic if still incomplete gains in women?s rights. They recognized, as did many other activists in those years, that if your lifestyle supports a system, and depends on that system, any efforts you may think you?re making to force significant change on that system will be wasted breath.
It will be wasted breath because most people, reasonably enough, want to see that there?s a life worth living on the other side of the changes your activist movement wants to make, and the best way to give them a glimpse of that life is to enact it yourself. It will also be wasted breath because most people have a tolerably good nose for hypocrisy, and are highly familiar with the kind of demagogy that calls on everybody else to make sacrifices and get by with less so the demagogue doesn?t have to do so.
Talk to Americans who didn?t support either the climate change movement or its corporate opposition, and you?ll find that for a good many of them, it was when word of Al Gore?s air-conditioned mansion and frequent-flyer miles got around that they decided that global warming was yet another manufactured threat, meant to stampede people into acquiescing with somebody?s political agenda.
Finally, it will be wasted breath because if the system you think you want to change is also the system that supplies you with a comfortable middle class lifestyle, with all the comforts and conveniences that such a lifestyle supplies, the changes you will push the system to make will pretty reliably be limited to those that will not affect your continued access to the lifestyle, comforts and conveniences in question. The Breton peak oil blogger Damien Perrotin has commented amusingly on the influence of what, in France, are called bobos -- that is, bourgeois bohemians (the acronym works equally well in both languages), members of the liberal upper middle classes. Bobos are terribly eager to see themselves as the saviors of the world -- that?s the bohemian side -- and will do absolutely anything to fulfill this role, so long as it doesn?t require them to give up any of the benefits of their privileged status -- that?s the bourgeois side.
I hope the term catches on in this country, because we have a lot of bobos over here, too. Last week?s discussion of captive constituencies has a special relevance in any discussion of the species Bobo americanus, because being active in the captive constituency of some otherwise mainstream political faction is a very popular way to play the role of saving the world without risking disruption to the system that gives bobos their privileged status. There are also substantial personal rewards available for those who take leadership positions in captive constituencies, and help keep them captive. It?s a role bobos are well qualified to fill, especially those who come from the upper end of the class hierarchy and so have the connections and skills for the job. That?s where you get the executives of mainstream environmental groups who draw six-figure salaries, maintain cordial relationships with corporate sponsors, and show an obvious willingness to settle for whatever scraps may fall from the tables of wealth and power onto their corner of America?s unwashed kitchen floor.
Still, the bobo-ization of American radicalism is not limited to such obvious cases. When you hear activists loudly insisting that it?s possible to save the world without being an ascetic -- and I?m sorry to say that, yes, that well-worn trope turned up in the Owen Lloyd book review cited above -- you?re hearing the echoes of bobo influence, in the form of the popular but profoundly wrong notion that it must somehow be possible to maintain today?s unsustainable lifestyles on a sustainable basis. That?s not going to happen, for reasons that reach right down into the laws of thermodynamics; no amount of handwaving is going to make it happen; and the sooner we get used to living with a lot less, the less damage we will do to ourselves, each other, and the Earth as the industrial economy sputters to a halt.
Now of course that suggestion is anathema to the existing order of things, in America and elsewhere. It?s usually anathema in a declining imperial society. James Francis? useful study Subversive Virtue: Asceticism and Authority in the Second-Century Pagan World chronicles how the imperial Roman government came to treat the asceticism of Stoic and Neoplatonic philosophers as an unendurable threat to its authority. They were quite correct to do so; a system that maintains itself in power by bribing the lower classes with panem et circenses and the middle and upper classes with the more lavish entertainments chronicled in Petronius? Satyricon has no convenient lever with which to control those who have no interest in these things.
Thus it?s probably safe to assume that there will be no effective opposition to the status quo in this country until some movement arises that in practice -- not just in theory -- embraces an essentially ascetic approach. My guess, for what it?s worth, is that the first movement to do so will be a revived Marxism. I?m no fan of Karl Marx, and even less a fan of the various ideologues who filled out the framework of his system, but Marxism has features that will give it powerful appeal in the decades ahead.
It gives the poor someone to blame for their misfortunes, and does so in a far more detailed manner than (say) the vague rhetoric of the Occupy movement; it is among the few ideologies that manage to fuse a rigorous intellectual tradition with a utopian future vision of religious intensity; and it has a strong ascetic element -- the figure of the Marxist revolutionary, lean, passionate, doctrinaire, and contemptuous of material goods except insofar as they might help further the cause, was a common social type in Europe for close to a century.
Marxism also has an advantage just now that no amount of money could buy it: the extraordinary campaign of unintended propaganda that the Republican party is currently carrying out on its behalf.? Right now, even the most moderate and revenue-neutral attempts to use the powers of government for the benefit of American citizens are being lambasted by the GOP as communism. It?s an embarrassing admission of intellectual poverty -- one gathers that the American right spent so long belaboring the Red Peril that it really has no idea what to say now that communism isn?t around any more -- but it also guarantees a familiar kind of backlash. Fundamentalist churches that spend too much time denouncing Satanism, complete with lurid descriptions of Satanic living replete with wild parties and orgiastic sex, get that kind of backlash; that?s why they so often find that they?ve merely succeeded in making devil worship popular among local teens.
In the same way, if the Republicans succeed in rebranding, say, public assistance and food safety laws as Marxist, the most likely result of that campaign will be to convince a great many Americans of otherwise moderate political views that Marx might have had something going for him after all. As suggested above, I don?t consider this a good thing; in theory, Marxist revolution leads to the glorious worker?s paradise of the future via the inevitable workings of the historical dialectic, but in practice the dictatorship of the proletariat reliably turns into just another dictatorship, with the usual quota of gulags and unmarked mass graves. Still, in a country where most people are frighteningly ignorant of history, and are being driven to the wall by a corrupt and spectacularly mismanaged imperial economy in headlong decline, it?s unpleasantly unlikely that this point will be remembered.
Still, other forces are pushing American society toward a crisis that its existing political and economic arrangements are unlikely to survive, and the rehabilitation of Marxism is unlikely to proceed fast enough to reach any sort of critical mass before that crisis hits in earnest. It?s probably a safe bet that the more mainstream groups will increasingly side with the established order of things -- I?ve long suspected that before all this is over with, the Sierra Club will come out in favor of strip mining the national park system so long as it?s done in, ahem, an environmentally sensitive way.
Outside the bobosphere, things are much less clear, for the twilight years of a disintegrating political system tolerably often create a fiercely Darwinian environment for ideologies and political movements, in which the only thing that matters is which set of beliefs and personalities can build the strongest coalition at the right time, absorb or marginalize the largest fraction of opposing groups, and make the most successful bid for power. As that bubbling cauldron of competing belief systems boils over in violence and systemic disruption, it?s anyone?s guess who or what will come out on top.
Whoever ends up more or less in charge of what?s left of the United States of America when the flames die down and the rubble stops bouncing, though, will have to face a predicament far more difficult than the ones encountered by the winners in 1932, or 1860, or for that matter 1776. All three of these past crises happened when the United States was still a rising power, with vast and largely untapped natural resources, and social and economic systems not yet burdened with the aftermath of a failed empire; the winning side could safely assume that once the immediate crisis was resolved, the nation would return to relative prosperity, pay off its debts, and proceed from there.
That won?t be happening this time around. When the crisis is over, whatever form it takes, the United States -- or whatever assortment of successor nations end up dividing its territory between them -- will be a shattered, bankrupt, resource-poor Third World failed state (or collection of failed states) that will likely have to struggle hard even to regain basic levels of political and economic stability. That struggle will be pursued in a world in which energy and other resources are getting scarcer each year, energy- and resource-intensive technologies are being abandoned by all but a very few rich and powerful nations, and unpredictable swings in temperature, rainfall, and other climatic and ecological factors make life a good deal more difficult for everyone.?In that not-so-far-future America, the comforts and conveniences most of us now take for granted will be available only to the rich and powerful, if they can be had by anyone at all.
That?s the world our choices over the last three decades or so have been preparing for us, and for our grandchildren?s grandchildren. In such a world, the people who will have the most to offer their communities, their societies, and the biosphere that supports all our lives will be those who have the courage, now, to walk away from the consumer economy and its smorgasbord of dubious pleasures, and learn, now, how to get by with less, use their own capacities of body and mind, and work with the patterns and processes of nature.
For the time being -- specifically, until we get close enough to the crisis period that even the most nonviolent challenge to the existing order calls down massive violence in response -- protest can still accomplish goals worth pursuing, especially if activists wake up once again to the power of personal example; over the longer run, though, it?s the change on the individual, family, and community level that so many of today?s activists reject as pointless that have the most to offer the world.
***
End of the World of the Week #22
Comets are fascinating things, and they have an ancient reputation as omens of trouble. Still, you might expect the industrial world in 1973 to have responded with a little less frenzy to the appearance of the much-ballyhooed Comet Kohoutek. It was discovered by Czech astronomer Lubo? Kohoutek on Mar. 7 of that year, while it was still a very long way from the sun, and back-of-the-envelope calculations suggested that it might put on a spectacular show. The mass media proceeded to lose the word "might" and fill headlines with claims that Kohoutek would be "the comet of the century."
That was all it took to catch the attention of the apocalyptically minded. David Berg aka Moses David, leader of the Children of God sect, did the most to publicize a Kohoutek apocalypse; his proclamation? that the comet would destroy the world in January of 1974, printed on bright orange flyers, was handed out by his followers to people all over North America. (I think I may still have one in a file box in the basement.) All through the last months of 1973, the comet had something of the same cachet that the supposed end of the Mayan calendar has today.
As it turned out, though, the prophets were wrong, and so was the media. Far from being "the comet of the century," Comet Kohoutek turned out to be a very modest spectacle indeed, barely visible in the night sky above my backyard -- I think we were too close to the streetlights or something. Fans of apocalyptic prophecies quickly found some new prediction of doom to discuss, and the phrase "Comet Kohoutek" had a brief moment of fame as a synonym for "dud."
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Asking such a question will yield you varied results depending on who you ask. ?He said, She said? - Going to the chapel is a huge life decision.
So it?s almost June and a lot of us can be fairly certain that at some time during the 30-day period, we?ll be dressed to the nines, craning our necks during Wagner?s Bridal Chorus,? enjoying an open bar and doing the Electric Slide. Still, marriage rates have been declining for a decade. EBONY asked men and women across the country if they institution is becoming obsolete or whether it?s as valuable as ever.
Does marriage still matter today?
HE SAID?
The institution of marriage has not changed; however, people?s mindset has drastically changed. or example reality stars including Kim Kardashian and her 72-day marriage, Snooki becoming pregnant without being married and the women on the popular Housewives shows have influenced the young generation. It is not surprising that people would not see the significance of marriage.
?Roland, 45 Los Angeles
A good marriage allows a man to productively focus his sexual energy on one woman. That way, he can concentrate his other creative energies to be successful in his career or business. I personally believe that the lack of a healthy and enduring marriage is one reason that so many Black males are not on par with other males (White, Asian or Latino) in terms of career, business or financial achievement.
?Tony, 48, Dallas
I?m married with kids, but I think that if not obsolete, marriage has become less important for African-American men. Our women aren?t demanding more. They are settling for part-time or temporary relationships that end in emotional discord. Most men will take the path of least resistance, especially if there are no demands placed on them by the women they date.
?Ivan, 50, Atlanta
I have tried to [be a] role model for a marriage that is a lot of fun and that s a desirable activity. Many men don?t advocate the positives of being married. Like they say, ?The squeaky wheel gets greased,? and I think more of us happily married men need to get SQUEAKY.
?B.J., 35, Washington, D.C.
I plan on getting married and enjoying all of the personal, professional, social and financial benefits of my relationship with my future wife and our children, but not until I further secure my financial stability for the long term.
?Rodric, 31, Scottsdale, Ariz.
and then
SHE SAID?
The actual deed of getting married shows how serious we are about our promise to one another. The commitment only begins to look less valuable when people enter into it like a dating relationship. If we?re only making this commitment until one of us gets mad, why bother?
?Camesha, 35, Los Angeles
Marriage is becoming less valuable because people do not want to make long-term commitments anymore. Spending the next 50 or 70 years of your life with one person is going to take commitment and work, and some people are not willing to work at it. Couples have to invest time in each other, going on retreats, for example. Most of all, they have to work at forgiveness, trust, being accountable and overlooking the faults of their spouse. Before a couple seals the marriage covenant with ?I do,? they have to decide in their hearts and minds that divorce will not be an option.
?Darla, 47, Radcliff, KY
I?m not sure if I want to get married. Nowadays, I want a committed relationship with someone who loves and respects me and has his own home, where he can sleep two or three times a week. The goal isn?t for me to be married; it?s for me to be loved and to love someone. If the relationship leads to marriage, then fine. If it doesn?t, that is okay as well.
?Shannon, 43, Washington, D.C.
I am married to my wonderful husband of 10 years, and neither of us would have it any other way.
?Tamira, 35, Orlando, FL
I have come to believe that most people want to be married, but no one wants to be miserable. Therefore, I strongly believe that relationship readiness skills need to be a core part of social curricula in school, church, and most certainly in the family. I?m a single christian woman who strongly believes in marriage. I look forward to making a connection that leads to a life commitment.
?V. McLeod, 50+, Savannah, GA
[Ref. Source: Ebony Magazine]
________________________________________________________________________
My personal story is one you already know.
I?m still with my HS Beau & Love is like woah!
I still love him madly. He still makes me laugh.
We span 2 decades through much and less cash.
The key is to laugh!
Keeping a commitment is easy ? even though I?m from a divorced home.
I was born the second child of 4 ? my life is not one of lone.
And so here I am, no fan of ?marriage? but of ?being in love?.
I do believe my guy was made-for-me. A gift from the man above.
Because I am not easy to deal with. I am no escalating crystal stair.
There?s much more to satisfying me than getting my nails done & hair.
I?m a picky eater and the house must be cleaned as so!
I?m adventurous in travel and have a knack for going to and fro.
My mate is no easy push over, regardless of what you?ve heard.
However, he is sweet on me, and is an awesomely tech-skilled nerd.
Did I jump the broom? I did ? over 2 decades ago,
I?m Qui
A believer in commitment ? ..aka that marriage show.
One blogger likes this post.
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Pope Benedict XVI celebrates a Pentecost Mass inside St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Sunday, May 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Pope Benedict XVI celebrates a Pentecost Mass inside St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Sunday, May 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
FILE - In this March 23, 2012 file photo, Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, left, looks on as Pope Benedict XVI talks to journalists during a press conference aboard the flight to Silao, Mexico. An already sordid scandal over leaked Vatican documents took a Hollywood-like turn Saturday, May 26, 2012 with confirmation that the pope's own butler had been arrested after documents he had no business having were found in his Vatican City apartment. The "Vatileaks" scandal has seriously embarrassed the Vatican at a time when it is trying to show the world financial community that it has turned a page and shed its reputation as a scandal plagued tax haven. Bertone, 77, has been blamed for a series of gaffes and management problems that have plagued Benedict's papacy and, according to the leaked documents, generated a not inconsiderable amount of ill will directed at him from other Vatican officials. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)
FILE - In this Monday, April 21, 2008 file photo, Pope Benedict XVI, left, arrives at the Italian air force 31st Squadron base in Ciampino, 30 kilometers (19 miles) southeast of Rome, on his way back from a six-day trip to the U.S. including the U.N. and Ground Zero in New York. The Vatican has confirmed Saturday, May 26, 2012, that the pope's butler Paolo Gabriele, at right carrying bags, was arrested in an embarrassing leaks scandal. Spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said Paolo Gabriele, a layman, was arrested in his home inside Vatican City with secret documents in his possession. Vatican documents leaked to the press in recent months have pointed to power struggles and accusations of corruption touching senior Vatican cardinals.(AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis)
This file photo taken Monday, Feb. 7, 2011, shows the building, left, which hosts the Vatican bank, formerly known as the Institute for Religious Operas, I.O.R., inside the Vatican. Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, head of the I.O.R. was ousted after a no-confidence vote of the I.O.R. governing body on Thursday, May 24, 2012. The "Vatileaks" scandal has seriously embarrassed the Vatican at a time during which it is trying to show the world financial community that it has turned a page and shed its reputation as a scandal plagued tax haven. Vatican documents leaked to the press in recent months have undermined that effort, alleging corruption in Vatican finance as well as internal bickering over the Holy See's efforts to show more transparency in its financial operations. But perhaps most critically, the leaks have seemed aimed at one main goal: to discredit Pope Benedict XVI's No. 2, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state. (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis)
VATICAN CITY (AP) ? The biggest scandal to rock the Vatican in decades widened Monday with the pope's butler, arrested for allegedly having confidential documents in his home, agreeing to cooperate with investigators ? raising the specter that higher-ranking ecclesial heads may soon roll.
Few believe butler Paolo Gabriele worked alone to leak dozens of documents shedding light on power struggles, corruption and intrigue inside the highest levels of the Catholic Church. The leaks have tormented the Vatican for months and painted a picture of a church hierarchy in utter disarray.
Gabriele, the pope's personal butler since 2006, was arrested Wednesday evening after Holy See documents were found inside his Vatican City apartment, adding an unfathomable Hollywood twist to the already sordid Vatileaks scandal. He remains in custody in a Vatican detention facility, accused of theft, and has met with his wife and lawyers.
Gabriele's lawyer, Carlo Fusco, said Monday his client was "very serene and calm," despite the whirlwind of speculation surrounding his arrest. He said Gabriele himself had told the Vatican judge investigating the case that he would "respond to all the questions and will collaborate with investigators to ascertain the truth."
Italian media reported Monday that a cardinal is suspected of playing a major role in the scandal. However, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, denied the reports categorically. He said many Vatican officials were being questioned but insisted "there is no cardinal under suspicion."
But Lombardi acknowledged that the investigation continues.
And on Monday, Italian daily La Repubblica published a rambling interview with what it described as another Vatican "mole," someone who described the various agendas at play behind the leaks.
The unnamed leaker said the aim was to show how weak Pope Benedict XVI is, the fears of his secretary of state, and to make clear that the "fundamental role of the church is to defend the Gospel, not accumulate power and money."
Lombardi dismissed as "pure fantasy" such a rash of unsourced reports about the investigation in the Italian media, which have been on a frenzy ever since reports of Gabriele's detention emerged Friday.
Gabriele, a 46-year-old father of three, was always considered extremely loyal to Benedict and his predecessor, John Paul II, for whom he briefly served. Vatican insiders have said they were baffled by his alleged involvement, and Lombardi said Monday that the entire scandal has caused pain throughout the Vatican.
Benedict, who in March appointed a commission of cardinals to investigate the leaks, was being kept informed of developments and is "aware of the delicate situation that the Roman curia is going through," Lombardi said.
He acknowledged the "negative image" of the Vatican that was emerging from the scandal but said the developments made it ever more important to "reestablish a climate of clarity, truth, transparency and trust as soon as possible."
The Vatileaks scandal broke in January when Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi broadcast letters from the former No. 2 Vatican administrator to the pope in which he begged not to be transferred for having exposed alleged corruption that cost the Holy See millions of euros in higher contract prices. The prelate, Monsignor Carlo Maria Vigano, is now the Vatican's U.S. ambassador.
The scandal widened over the following months with documents leaked to Italian journalists that laid bare power struggles inside the Vatican over its efforts to show greater financial transparency and comply with international norms to fight money laundering. There was even a leak of a memo claiming that Benedict would die this year.
The scandal reached a peak last weekend, when Nuzzi published an entire book based on a trove of new documentation, including personal correspondence to and from the pope and his private secretary, much of which paints Benedict's No. 2, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, in a negative light.
Vito Mancuso, an Italian theologian, told reporters at a press launch of the book "His Holiness" that the documents, many of which point to Bertone's involvement in scandals that have afflicted the papacy, all appeared aimed at providing evidence for why he should resign.
"Looking at the documents in succession, it seems like you're seeing a series of bullets aimed at hitting Bertone," Mancuso said.
Bertone, 77, was Benedict's loyal No. 2 at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith before being named secretary of state. With no diplomatic or broad administrative experience coming into the job, he has earned not a few critics inside the Vatican bureaucracy.
The Vatican probe into the leaks is actually working on several tracks: Vatican magistrates are pursuing the criminal investigation, and Gabriele was arrested as part of that. The Vatican secretariat of state is pursuing an administrative probe. And the three cardinals appointed by Benedict are acting in a sort of supervisory role, looking beyond the narrow criminal scope of the leaks to interview broadly across the Vatican bureaucracy, Lombardi said.
They report directly to the pope and can both share information with Vatican prosecutors and receive information from them, Lombardi said.
The group is headed by Cardinal Julian Herranz, an Opus Dei prelate who headed the Vatican's legal office as well as the disciplinary commission of the Vatican bureaucracy before retiring.
Gabriele's arrest occurred almost simultaneously with another stunning development inside the secretive walls of the Vatican: the ouster of Benedict's hand-picked president of the Vatican bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, himself close to Opus. The bank's board took a vote of no-confidence last week to oust him for failing to do his job.
Bank board member Carl Anderson told The Associated Press that the ouster had no political undertones and that the board wasn't taking cues from Bertone. He said it was purely a business decision since Gotti Tedeschi had become an obstacle to the bank's efforts to be more transparent in its financial dealings. Gotti Tedeschi hasn't responded to the accusations.
The chaos of the scandal came amid new developments in one of the Vatican's most enduring mysteries, the case of Emanuela Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee who disappeared in 1983 while on her way to a music lesson in Rome.
On Sunday, Orlandi's brother led a march to the Vatican in hope that Benedict would offer them a prayer following the unearthing of the tomb of a mobster alleged to have kidnapped her. The crypt, inside an Opus Dei church in Rome, yielded hundreds of old bone fragments that are being examined for a trace of the girl.
___
Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield
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Here is President Obama speaking in Ohio Thursday:
We also need to keep investing in clean energy like wind power and solar power.
?? And as long as I?m President, we are going to keep on making those investments.? I am not going to cede the wind and solar and advanced battery industries to countries like China and Germany that are making those investments.? I want those technologies developed and manufactured here in Ohio, here in the Midwest, here in America.? (Applause.)? By American workers.? That?s the future we want.
The President has picked three industries and is arguing for an industrial policy to subsidize them in part because other countries are subsidizing them.
Let?s extend this logic.? Suppose China or Germany starts subsidizing the biotech industry.? Should the U.S. government subsidize American biotech firms so that ?those technologies [are] developed and manufactured ? here in America, by American workers??
What if China subsidizes web development firms, Germany subsidizes auto manufacturers, France subsidizes biotech firms, Japan subsidizes advanced battery firms, Brazil subsidizes ethanol firms, and South Korea subsidizes chip manufacturers?? Should the U.S. subsidize all of those domestic industries so that we don?t cede any of them?
What if the Canadian or Mexican government were to subsidize high-tech oil production firms, or Brazil to subsidize advanced tobacco production?? Is the President?s policy to keep here in American through subsidies all industries that other governments are subsidizing, or only the ?good? industries that he thinks should be kept in America?
More generally, should the U.S. government (a) subsidize particular industries and if so (b) determine those subsidies based on what other countries are doing?
If we are to subsidize particular industries over others, how do we square that with the argument, made by the President and others, that we need to remove such subsidies from the tax code?
If the rule for structuring subsidies is to make sure we don?t cede certain industries to other countries, how is that different from giving the governments of those countries control over the shape and structure of the U.S. economy?
If the President wants to subsidize wind and solar power because he wants to accelerate the development of carbon-free alternatives to coal and natural gas, he should make that argument.? If President Obama is instead going to subsidize industries either because he likes them or because other Nations? governments are subsidizing them, then we must acknowledge that he is engaged in industrial policy, aka state-managed capitalism, with an open question about whether the managing state is based in DC, Berlin, or Beijing.
(photo credit: Maryellen McFadden)
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BELLINGHAM - A major portion of Galbraith Mountain, known in the community for its recreational uses such as mountain biking, is up for sale.
Polygon Financial has put 3,119 acres up for sale, marketing it as a "unique long-term asset" and touting its potential multiple uses, including recreation, timber extraction or even conservation, preserving it for future generations.
"It's a unique property with many different attributes for potential buyers," said Matthew Balkman of Turning Point Realty Advisors. Balkman is one of the listing agents for the property.
The appraised value of the property is just under $16 million and includes the market value of the timber and that 749 acres on the outer edges allow for some residential development. The majority of the property - 2,370 acres - is zoned commercial forestry, which doesn't allow for residential development.
Polygon became the owner of much of the property back in 2009 after Trillium Corporation deeded the property to it in lieu of foreclosure.
Located east of Bellingham, Galbraith is the common name for Lookout Mountain. The area is quite popular, particularly for mountain bike enthusiasts. It has about 44 miles of mountain biking trails, most of which were built and maintained by WHIMPs Mountain Bike Coalition.
Mark Peterson, president of WHIMPs, said it's a good sign that the initial marketing of the property touts the outdoor recreation potential.
"We want to continue to show that we are a benefit to a new owner," said Peterson.
The WHIMPs organization has been working with Janicki Logging & Construction, which has contracted to harvest wood for Polygon.
"They've been absolutely phenomenal to work with to help minimize the (harvest) impact on existing trails," Peterson said. "We've also had an outpouring from the community when it comes to help with the trails."
Along with the mountain bikers, Peterson said he's noticed an increase in other uses, including hikers and trail runners. The selective harvesting that's taken place has created some new views for hikers.
"More people are out exploring the area," Peterson said.
As for a potential buyer, Balkman said there are a variety of options, depending on what is valued by the investor. He thinks it would be someone that has a long-term outlook on the property, since developing much of it isn't available in the short term. As for the price, it's difficult to judge whether the appraised price will be the purchase price, because there are so few similar properties to compare it to.
"We'll see what the market will bear," Balkman said.
With the city of Bellingham dealing with tight budget issues, it wouldn't be a property officials would try to purchase outright, said Mayor Kelli Linville.
"We simply don't have that kind of money available," Linville said.
She would be open to the idea of partnering with another agency like Whatcom County, but only for the watershed aspects of the property.
Putting a levy measure on the ballot is another possibility, but Linville is reluctant to do that.
"I'm conservative about putting a levy on the ballot while we are dealing with a budget deficit," Linville said.
The city still needs to find a way to repay more than $3 million it borrowed from a fund to help buy Chuckanut Ridge property last year. Those 82 acres, also known as Fairhaven Highlands, cost $8.2 million.
To view Turning Point's brochure on the property, visit this commercialmls.com webpage.
Reach DAVE GALLAGHER at dave.gallagher@bellinghamherald.com or call 715-2269. Visit his business blog online at blogs.bellinghamherald.com/business or get updates on Twitter at twitter.com/BhamHeraldBiz.
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