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The Pirates of Penzanze (operetta by Gilbert & Sullivan) When I went into a cafe the other day and said to the man behind the counter, "Could I have a hamburger, please?" he said, "Do you want to eat it here or take it away?" And I said, "With a bit of luck, I'd like to do both." Now I mention that, because what it emphasizes is the strange phenomenon which has absolutely revolutionized English eating habits: take-away foods. Now that is a completely new development. There's so many varieties of take-away food you can get: kebab, that's a fancy name for what, when you get it home, turns out to be nothing but a fry-up on a skewer. And still in the east there's the Indian take-aways, which offer chipotees and pop-a-doms and curry with the singe on top. And there's Japanese take-aways. I don't really know WHAT they sell; I imagine it must be those karate chops. And then the most successful of all are the Chinese take-aways. Our local one has done so well, they've bought a wacking great limousine to make deliveries in. We call it the Rolls Rice. However, what you may have noticed about all these things is that they have one common factor, all these take-away places, and that is the foods they offer are all of foreign origin. And that's why I think a mate of mine, called Ben, is on to what could well turn out to be a gold mine. Because he has an idea for opening a shop that will sell take-away steak and kidney pies, real English steak and kidney pies, which are to be cooked by his elderly Aunt Em and his elderly Aunt Bea. Now, unfortunately, his plans have set suffered a setback. Like all simple, old-fashioned aunties. Auntie Em and Auntie Bea will cook ONLY with the very best ingredients. And where steak and kidney pies are concerned, that means the very best steak and the very best kidneys. Now, have you any idea what that costs? There are those who will deny that meat is that expensive. My butcher does. And his butler. And his two undergardeners. Nevertheless there was a story in the paper the other day about a gang of thieves who broke into a Smithfield cold store, stole a quantity of filet steak to the value of sixty-eight thousand pounds and got away in a Volkswagon. So you perhaps appreciate why it is that Ben's plan for Auntie Em and Auntie Bea's Take-away Steak and Kidney Pie Palace, although it's a good idea in theory, in practice, what it looks like is enough steak and kidney pies to feed four people will work out to the rate of something like nine pounds, seventy-six p. Well the ironic thing is, that my poor friend looks like LOSING a fortune on the very thing that made Gilbert and Sullivan gain a fortune. In other words, the pie rates of Ben's aunts. Dennis Norden 731127a Download at http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?bqpiwe85vj554t5

Nothing to indicate that no resuscitative care should be provided. But Bob Manning had no interest in dying; after almost forty years of living with almost complete paralysis, he was a remarkably vital man. As Dr. Chew noted when he told me about this incident, end-of-life decisions are a fit subject for a physician to discuss with a patient. But this nurse was not a caregiver; she was an agent of a company that would lose money if Manning went on living and would profit from his death. "She was asking me to die," Manning told me. Dr. Chew agreed: "She wanted Bob to have a DNR order and was quite insistent." The nurse turned out to be an employee of a medical advice company called Concentra. When I asked Tom Fogarty, the doctor who is a cofounder of Concentra about this, he did something unusual. Unlike the top executives who will not come to the phone or who speak only through written statements, Fogarty set out to find out what happened. When he got back to me he was guarded about what he shared, but he made it clear he was aghast that any medical professional representing a financial interest in someone's life would even inquire about a DNR order. He also volunteered that after a brief spell, his company had gotten out of the line of business that the nurse had been part of. How much better American business would be if we had more chief executives who dealt forthrightly with issues instead of hiding behind publicists and lawyers, not to mention squads of burly security guards. Now, to be clear, I do not think for a moment that Warren Buffett knew that the nurse working for his Cologne Re insurance company was going to ask Bob Manning, in effect, to die the next time he had a medical emergency. But that does not mean Buffett is free of responsibility for what happened. Buffett often says that his style is to let his managers run their shops, as long as they make their numbers, meaning their expected level of profit. His management style is widely praised in news reports and in profiles of the "Oracle of Omaha." By giving managers the freedom to run their business units as they see fit, Buffett takes on a duty to demand the highest ethical standards. That would not, in my opinion, include gouging customers on coal shipping rates as his BNSF railroad does. Nor would an ethical chief executive allow anyone in his employ ever to suggest that anyone should die to bolster a company's profits. But that is what happens under the Buffett style, in which by his own account he focuses on whether managers, some of whom resort to immoral conduct to give their billionaire boss what he demands, "make their numbers." The reality is that what Manning had been saying all along, even before we met in 1997, was true. The insurance company wanted him to die. They had made it difficult for him to get care, they had for years refused to replace the crane Helen used to hoist him out of bed after the gears were stripped, they made it hard for him to get supplies to avoid infections. And finally a nurse hired by a Warren Buffett company carne right out and asked him, in effect, why he was not going to die the next time he had a medical emergency. Bob Manning lived until 2009. To this day, his family says they are still owed money to which he was entitled. They are owed more than that. David Cay Johnston "Free Lunch" (2007)

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson worked to advance the U.S. relationship with India throughout the first year of the Trump administration. The South Asian republic, the world's most populous democracy and one of its fastest-growing economies, was a natural ally the United States. Tillerson felt strongly that America needed to fortify its alliances and block rivals, chief among them China, from taking advantage of any gaps or friction between the United States and its strategic partners. To that end, he believed that if the United States strengthened its transpacific alliance with India, Japan, and Australia, with open trade and shipping routes, it could keep China at bay. In October 2017, Tillerson telegraphed the administration's hopes for the region and India in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and then jetted to New Delhi to discuss the alliance in person with Prime Minister Narendra Modi: Tillerson was immediately impressed by Modi. The prime minister was a serious person, an experienced deal maker who was motivated by the prospects of a strategic partnership with the United States. Modi was candid with Tillerson about his challenges. He was operating in a tough neighborhood. On one border was Pakistan, India's greatest threat, and on another was China which had been trying to partner with Pakistan. To the north was Afghanistan, which was ravaged by war, highly unstable, and vulnerable to Russia and other countries. As he considered allies for India, Modi had options. He was inclined to deal with the United States, but if things ever went sour, Russia was knocking on his door. The second week of November, President Trump took his first trip to Asia, a five-country, ten-day journey that concluded in the Philippines, where he attended a global summit of leaders. On November 13, Trump sat down with Modi in Manila on the sidelines of the summit. Tillerson had high hopes for the meeting - even though, back at the White House, Trump was known to have affected an Indian accent to imitate Modi, a sign of disrespect for the prime minister. As with most of his foreign leader meetings, Trump had been briefed but didn't appear to have retained the material and instead tried to wing it. He took a hard right turn into a nitpicky complaint about trade imbalances. Modi tried to refocus on the threats India faced from Afghanistan, China, and Pakistan. His mention of Afghanistan led Trump off into a lengthy tangent about how stupid it had been for the United States to maintain its military presence in Afghanistan for so many years. When Modi mentioned his concern about China's ambitions and aggression in the region, Trump revealed a stunning ignorance about geography. "It's not like you've got China on your border," Trump said, seeming to dismiss the threat to India. Modi's eyes bulged out in surprise. Aides noticed him giving a sidelong glance at Tillerson, who accompanied Trump as part of the U.S. delegation. The Indian prime minister considered Tillerson among the best-versed Americans on the region's security challenges, and together they had been plotting a new partnership. Tillerson's eyes flashed open wide at Trump's comment, but he quickly put his hand to his brow, appearing to the Indian delegation to attempt not to offend the president as well as to signal to Modi that he knew this statement was nuts. Trump did not appear to notice their silent exchange. He just kept rolling, droning on about-unrelated topics. Modi tried to keep the conversation an elevated plane, hoping to follow the path Tillerson had laid out for them in the previous weeks to work together to protect India and fend off China's Belt and Road Initiative. But each time Modi tried to get Trump to engage on the substance of U.S.-India relations, the American president veered off on another non sequitur about trade deficits and the endless war in Afghanistan. Those who witnessed the meeting that day in Manila were disheartened. Modi's expression gradually shifted, from shock and concern to resignation. "I think he left that meeting

One more issue needed resolving before rehearsals started: what was the show going to be called? The authors and Prince had batted around ideas for months and they all agreed only that "Tevye" was too bland and too vague. "A Village Story," "To Life," "Listen to the Fiddle," "Make a Circle," "Once There Was a Town": their list kept growing, but nothing zinged. "To Light a Candle," "My Village," "Three Brides and a Man," "A Village Tune," "Homemade Wine," "Not So Long Ago," dozens more. The authors liked "Where Poppa Came From," but Prince preferred a name that suggested that the show was a musical. In late March, he called the question. "Anything on the list will do," Stein told him. "I don't care anymore." Prince scanned the list and made the choice. "But it doesn't mean anything," Stein said. Prince shrugged and replied, "Well, that's the title." Fiddler on the Roof went into rehearsal on June 1. Alisa Solomon "Wonder of Wonders" (2013)

He who hesitates is lost (proverb) I don't know how many people listening to this program, there must be literally dozens, are going to Ian and Cynthia Hope-Willaby's fancy dress party tomorrow. But if any of you who are listening are going, then I'm going to tell you something which will make somebody there happy. They have sort of schemes and you always have to come as something. So this year the invitation came and it was "Come as a Sin" I must be able device a costume immediately recognizable. So, I paraded myself in front of my wife, and said "What are you going as?" And she said, "I'm going as lust." And she showed me her costume. I must say it was pretty good. It was immediately recognizable after about an hour and an explanation in writing. It was a pair of flame-colored tights, on which she'd embroidered, or was going to have embroidered, slogans like "Kiss me quick I'm nearly forty." And this represented lust. I didn't hold up much hope for her. But I thought very carefully about mine. And I got my daughter's old very long fur coat, which she bought for one and nine at a white elephant store in the village market and buttoned that up at the neck and I sewed the skirts together to make sort of trousers and I put my gum boots on and I cut two wedges in the toes of the gum boot and I was going as a sloth. And I thought if I hang upside down with my fur coat on (you have to climb up on a step ladder). If you hook your toes in the gum boots over the edge of a door, you can really hang quite reasonably. There's a tendency to get bloodshot hair after about an hour. It is not dangerous at all, unless somebody comes rushing in the door, which happened, and not only was the back of my head bumped against the wall, but I came out of my gum boots and landed on my head. And when the doctor had given me sedatives the twitching, (this is yesterday) stopped. But he said, "You mustn't go out, you must take it very calmly. It's OK to do My Word, 'cause that's no problem, just sitting there pretending you know things, but you can't go tomorrow to the party." And I thought, "Well, I can't go." And I was explaining that to my wife as she came rushing in and said, "The most terrible thing. I took my red tights, my flame-colored, lustful tights, soon to be embroidered with 'kiss me quick I'm nearly forty' to Cynthia, the woman who does all the embroidering, and she'd delivered the wrong ones." And my wife hadn't gotten her flame tights embroidered with 'kiss me quicky, I'm nearly forty' on them. Instead she got a voluminous pair of trousers with a slice of bacon stitched onto the kneecap, obviously gluttony. And her tights are gone, some fellow obviously got hers, so she couldn't go to the party either. So neither of us is going tot he party, which is marvelous But if anybody is, any of you in the audience tomorrow. That fat chap is going to have (who left his trousers with a slice of bacon) is going to have my wife's tights on. and you know who he's meant to be, so at least recognize his instantly and make his evening. All you've got to remember is the garment she was wearing: flame tights embroidered. And, so when you get in tomorrow look around all the company, and he who has her tights is lust. Frank Muir 731127 b Download at http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?bqpiwe85vj554t5

Wouldn't it be marvelous if someone else paid your income taxes? Imagine all that extra money in your paycheck. You could pay your debts, set aside a few dollars, or splurge on something special. Of course, if someone else had to pay your income taxes it would not be such a good deal for them. They would have to pay their own income taxes and yours. You wouldn't want to be that person, would you? Well, in a sense, you already are. There's a federal regulation that makes us pay someone else's taxes and, worse yet, that somebody is exempt from federal income taxes, meaning they pocket the tax money we give them as extra profits. This policy comes from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. FERC sets the level of water behind hydroelectric dams and oversees electricity grids and wholesale electric markets whose initial rules were written by Enron and then adopted by government. FERC also sets the rates pipelines charge to transport oil and natural gas across state lines but which are exempt from corporate income tax. As federal agencies go, FERC is small. Its budget amounts to about a quarter of a billion dollars a year, less than a tenth of a penny on each dollar in the federal budget. And its staff is modest, too, about fifteen hundred people. Most federal agencies have struggled for years with flat or shrinking real budgets, but not FERC. Its 2010 budget was 9 percent larger than in 2009, which in turn was 10 percent more than in 2008. Congress approved these increases because the energy industry wanted FERC's budget to grow. That may seem odd, given how often we hear how businesses dislike being regulated. But FERC's funding is just one of its peculiarities. As it happens, FERC's budget does not come from the taxes you pay to Washington. Instead, the commission is financed with fees paid by the industries it regulates, industries that get their money from you. Energy companies gladly pay those fees because they help ensure incredible profits, like those earned by pipelines. To put this into perspective, tax records show that the 5.8 million corporations in America keep as profit about six cents on each dollar of revenue. The 14,000 largest do better, keeping as profit roughly a dime on each dollar of revenue. And how well do oil pipelines do? Their profit is forty-two cents on the dollar. Measured against assets, the story of bloated profits is the same. American companies earned 6.7 percent on their assets in 2010, according to calculations done by the federal Bureau of Economic, Energy, and Business Affairs. But among the 175 interstate oil pipelines, three earned more than 30 percent, three more earned more than 40 percent and apipeline owned by Sunoco made an astounding 55 percent. One reason they did so well is that you paid these pipelines for corporate income taxes, both federal and state. Problem is, most pipelines do not pay the corporate income tax. That means the taxes you were forced to pay - but that never got passed on to government - were really just extra profits. How do you pay this tax? You won't find it cited anywhere on a bill you get. Looking at your utility bills and gas station receipts, you would never know that the federal government lets pipeline owners drill a hole in your pocketbook. But if natural gas warms your home, if you use electricity that comes from a generation plant that burns gas, or you drive a car fueled by gasoline, chances are the fuels travel via monopoly pipelines, meaning you paid your piece. If you have never heard about this tax-gouging rule, that's not surprising. The major news media have missed it completely. News outlets rarely cover FERC. When they do, the stories tend to be superficial and based on press releases. Without a watchdog to watch, much less bark, how are you to know you're being ripped off by an entire industry? The way this rule came about is a perfect example of how big companies use the fine print of regulations to enrich themselves unfairly at your expense. THE PIPELINE PROFIT Pipelines collect all of their revenues from their customers, the energy

Prison Conditions This same lack of accountability helps explain other prison policies that have the effect of undermining public safety. Consider the physical location of prisons. Individuals are often locked away far from their homes with more than 75% of people incarcerated more than 50 miles away from home and the average person 100 miles away These distances make it difficult for family and friends to visit, particularly those who struggle to afford transportation to the facilities. One study found that fewer than half of all people imprisoned less than 50 miles away receive visits at least once a month, and the number declines as the distances increases, with only about one-quarter of the people incarcerated more than 100 miles away receiving monthly visits. In Florida, for example, the majority of people are never visited while they are in prison; 58% were never visited in the year prior to their release. Those who do receive visits are much less likely to recidivate when they are released. People incarcerated in state prisons in Florida who had visitors had a 30.7% lower incidence of recidivism than those who did not. Significantly, for each additional visit an individual received, the odds of recidivism declined by 3.8%. It is not just distance that matters for visits. It is up to each state whether it wants to impose restrictions on prison visits, and the states can consider any penological goal, not just the effect on public safety. Courts usually defer to prison administrators in making these determinations. The result is that many correctional facilities have limited visits as disciplinary measures or for other cost-saving or administrative reasons, such as preventing the transfer of contraband. Visitation policies in maximum-security prisons are often the most restrictive, even though the individuals housed there are likely the ones who need the most help and support for successful reentry. In North Carolina, for instance, prisoners in maximum security can have only one visit per week for two hours. In Oklahoma maximum-security prisoners have up to four hours a week of visitation, while minimum-security prisons allow eight hours. While tightening visitation might aid the administration of the facility, it is a terrible policy if the goal is to reduce crime because maintaining connections with loved ones is critical for an individual's successful reentry. Studies consistently show that visitation reduces and delays recidivism. Visits should be in-person to have the greatest benefit, but many states are now turning to video visits instead to save administrative costs. To be sure, virtual visitation programs are useful when an individual is incarcerated far from their loved ones or when in-person visitation may be dangerous. But video calls should not replace in-person visits in most cases because virtual visitation does not produce the same strong communal and familial ties that are demonstrated to change individuals' behavior both in and out of prison. Video calls are often interrupted by technical difficulties, and prisoners do not have the same privacy and intimacy that in-person visits afford. Video visitation can also have negative effects on the prisoner's loved ones. Seeing someone on a screen does not provide the same reassurance about his or her well-being as does an in-person visit.106 Despite these negative effects on reentry and ultimately public safety, some jail and prison administrators are nevertheless replacing in-person visits with video visits because it makes their jobs easier, even if the general public pays the price in terms of inferior reentry outcomes. Facilities often adopt similarly counterproductive telephone policies. The rates for phone calls are often exorbitant because pay phone companies have a monopoly on calls to and from the facilities, and the fees are split between those companies and the prisons and jails. A 4-minute call costs as much as $56. Prisons and jails go along because they reap revenue from this setup, collectively making around $460 million per year in concess

While Richard's nights were spent in search of the perpetual party, his days were soon spent performing a sharply ironic role, as the confidant of a great artist destroying herself through drugs. When he was first cast in Lady Sings the Blues, the glossy biopic of jazz singer Billie Holiday, his part had exactly one scene and one line. He was the piano player who, after a young Billie fumbles an audition as a dancer, implores the exasperated nightclub owner to try her out as a singer: "Hey Jerry, give the girl a chance." It was a thin role, but Richard projected a personality onto it, modeling his character after Jimmy Binkley, the upbeat jazz pianist he'd known at Collins Corner a decade before, in Peoria. He cocked his fedora at a rakish angle and, when the cameras rolled, gave his line a wry topspin. The gambit worked. Lady producer Jay Weston recalled that Richard delivered his single line "in such a funny, drawling way that when we looked at the dailies that night, someone said, 'Let's keep him in the scene tomorrow, where she sings her number.' " Given more room in the scene, Richard improvised a stream of patter on camera - "You've never heard ['All of Me'] like this. Church! Take you home! " - with a spieling delivery that the Village Voice's Andrew Sarris later called "mumbly-magical." The movie's creative team set about revising the script as the film was being shot. The originally nondescript "piano man" became Billie's best friend "Piano Man," and his scenes gradually expanded to a third of the film. His death at the hands of two drug dealers - with Billie looking on, powerless - became, astonishingly, the movie's emotional climax, the event that sends her into a final tailspin. Richard ended up the third-billed star on the picture, just beneath Diana Ross and Billie Dee Williams, its two romantic leads. Richard was glad to pick up the extra work. Signed originally for five hundred dollars, he started receiving multiples of that amount every day to improvise in tandem with Diana Ross and develop his character in real time. The two found a groove, both of them stretching outside their comfort zone - singing for Ross, stand-up for Richard - and seizing the chance to act. "We became real close," remembered. "Every day, it wasn't a job. We just worked totally easily." In his scenes Richard was, alone among the film's actors, given the freedom to ad-lib his entire performance, and the character who emerged from that improv was both the Jimmy Binkley facsimile he originally intended and much more. Quick with a quip, his Piano Man brought out the earthy humor of the jazz world. After Billie shuddered at the sight of nightclub singers using their private parts to pick up tips from customers, Piano Man jibed about one performer: "Don't worry about her - what she misses on the top, she picks up on bottom. One day she picked up the tabletop." When put in the of toasting Billie on the happy occasion of her anniversary at the he took the opportunity to roast the club owner: "We got old cheapie to spring for something. Everything's beautiful. He even paid the band since you been here. A beautiful year! Look at the girls, look at their uniforms. Even the hos are making money!" Without Richard's Piano Man, Lady Sings the Blues would have had no leavening agent; the down-home humor of Billie Holiday's world would have been sacrificed on the altar of the film's high production values. Yet Richard may have left his greatest imprint by adding a layer of emotional and ethical complexity to a film that put forward as its moral hero, Billie's husband Louis McKay (a choice much disputed by those familiar with the real-life Billie, who wrote, of the men in her life, "I was as strong, if not stronger, than any of them") As played by Billie Dee Williams, McKay was magnetic and suave, a do-right man who aimed to steer Billie from away from drugs and toward a conventional family life. The movie's villains, like the masked southern Klansmen who ram an American flag through the window of Billie's tour bus, were drawn with a similarly broad

She watched with eyes as wide as her colleagues' when Robbins dispatched her and the others to wedding parties through Dvora Lapson. Everett and Migenes tried to blend in among the women at a grand affair at the Ansonia Hotel one hot night, conversing with vague "um hmms" and silent nods for fear of being revealed as interlopers. Merlin and Pendleton played participant-observers at weddings in Williamsburg in their respective gendered tribes, allowing themselves to get lost in the crowds of hundreds. As a self-described "goy from Ohio," Pendleton was amazed by everything: the groom stomping on a glass, the couple raised up in chairs, the hours of raucous dancing - and astonished more by the transference of the joyous ritual into a staged scene that he would eventually play night after night with genuine, brimming emotion. Educating the cast mattered enormously to Robbins, but the improvisations and table talk served another function, too: as delaying tactics. Robbins was both the most prepared director anyone had ever worked with and also the most insecure, especially when it came to scene work. He simply didn't know how to talk to actors. He'd blurt out Actors Studio words like "motivation" and "justification" and urge his cast to find their "inner reality," but he couldn't articulate any thoughts about the specific emotional lives of the characters. So he concentrated on the behavior. Obsessively. But Robbins knew, as a week of rehearsal was flying by, that no matter how much he dreaded the process, he had to get the actors up. He started by staging the early scene where the daughters set the table for the Sabbath and Tzeitel and Motel end up having a private conversation in which she urges him to speak to her father about their desire to marry each other, while he helps her lay down a tablecloth and then add dishes and candlesticks. The action is in the dialogue, the pretext in the business. But Robbins could deal only with the business - and he spent several precious hours on it one afternoon. By Pendleton's count, Robbins restaged the table setting twenty-five different ways: Put a plate down on this line. No, try it after that line. Maybe it would be better on the next line. Never mind, put the candlestick down instead. Not there, over two inches to the left. No. To the right. Switch places and try it again. Go faster. Try it slower. Let's go back to the first way. And so on, well into the night. Merlin and Pendleton grasped that Robbins wanted them to arrive at behavior that seemed effortless, just part of the reality of their characters' lives, but the wavering unnerved them. They had only just gotten started. Were they in for seven more weeks like this? For the chorus, who joined the rehearsals in the third week, work ran more smoothly (at least at first). Robbins was at ease placing dancers on the stage and showing them their moves. And dancers, in turn, did not expect or need the coaxing and questioning that drew the best work from actors. They did as they were told, even when what Robbins told them deviated from any task they'd been given before. They weren't there to sing and dance, he explained; they were there as vital members of a community. He required all the ensemble members to conjure up character's and write their biographies. Food vendors, hatmakers, cobblers, street cleaners, embroiderers, water carriers: the research materials described many communal roles they could choose from. He mandated that they describe their ages, professions, temperaments, and relationships to everyone else in the town. One night Robbins assembled the entire company to show them Ghetto Pillow and Through Tears. And a large group of the chorus, too, made a field trip to a Brooklyn wedding. When Zero Mostel blasted into rehearsals after the second week he started ridiculing Robbins right away. "A couple of weddings in Williamsburg and that putz thinks he understands Orthodox Jews!" he'd snort with a roll of the eyes that seemed to trace the full circumference of the globe. Mostel vied for power with everything he had - comi

Reentry and vocational training programs are also effective. Consider, for instance, EMPLOY, a prisoner reentry employment program run by the Minnesota Department of Corrections, which has been shown to decrease recidivism and increase employment for program participants. The program, which participants begin within the final few months of their prison term and conclude one year after their release, reduced the likelihood of reincarceration for a new crime by 55% and increased the likelihood of securing employment within a year of release by 72%. Or take the case of the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program, a federal initiative that allows private industries to employ individuals in prison in realistic work environments and helps them acquire marketable skills, all while being paid prevailing local wages for that line of work. The program not only reduces recidivism but also helps incarcerated individuals accrue savings and payoff any money owed for victim cornpensation. Vocational training programs such as these are critical because individuals are more likely to commit new crimes if they remain unemployed upon release, and employment is hard to come by for formerly incarcerated people. One study of post-release employment outcomes among individuals in Indiana found that, of the more than 6,000 people tracked, roughly 94% remained unemployed nine months following their release, and 78% of these same individuals remained unemployed even five years later. Drug treatment programs have also been found to reduce both recidivism and relapse into drug abuse. A 2012 meta-analysis of 74 studies evaluating incarceration-based drug treatment programs over the past 30 years found that, on average, participants in a treatment program had a 15% to I7% reduced likelihood of both recidivism and relapse. And some incarceration-based treatment programs exceed those average results. Participants in the Forever Free Substance Abuse Treatment Program at the California Institution for Women in Frontera, for example, had a 20% reduced likelihood of recidivating compared to similarly situated nonparticipants, enjoyed a I6% increased likelihood of employment, were 26% less likely to have reported drug use in the year since their release, and had a greater likelihood of living independently and maintaining custody of their children. Unfortunately, prison programs are woefully underfunded .and do not come close to meeting the needs of those who are incarcerated. Indeed, the percentage of individuals participating in vocational, educational, and drug treatment programs declined in the 1990s while incarceration rates were going through the roof, demonstrating that jurisdictions were investing in longer sentences but not the programming that would ultimately bring public safety benefits when these individuals were released. One study of prison programming in seven states found that less than 10% of the people who were incarcerated took part in educational, employment, or vocational programming. To be sure, many people in prison are participating in a work program, but the majority are performing jobs to support the functioning of the prison, such as food preparation or janitorial work, which impart few marketable skills and do not improve the person's employment prospects upon release. The vocational training that works best to help individuals when they leave prison is in short supply. For example, UNICOR, the vocational program run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons which affords participants experience in carpentry, electronics, automotive repair, and other marketable trades, has a waiting list of 25,000 people and a meager 8% participation rate, despite the fact that participating in UNlCOR reduces recidivism by 24%. Education offerings in prison similarly fall well short of reaching all the needs of those in prison. An estimated 40% of people in state and federal prisons have neither a high school diploma nor a GED, but many of these individuals need more than a GED-prep course, which tends to be the standard offering in facilities.

His life had been one of achieving "firsts" for African Americans. He had been a pioneer in interracial relations in an era before many people spoke in terms of a civil rights movement. Many of his racial breakthroughs have been forgotten amid the accelerating pace of the civil rights movement in the second half of the century, but in terms of breaking down racial barriers, Pollard's accomplishments were self-evident. In 1916, he became the first man of his race to be named to a backfield position on the mythical All-America team named by Walter Camp. At the time, the former Yale coach called Pollard "one of the greatest runners these eyes have ever seen." Some football expects, including Wallace Wade, Pollard's former teammate and later a successful collegiate coach, ranked him ahead of Red Grange as a college halfback. The winter before his All-America season, Pollard had been the first black to play in the Rose Bowl. As a professional, Pollard was instrumental in integrating what by 1922 would become the National Football League. Those in the crowd who had heard Pollard's name mentioned in recent years perhaps knew that he was the first black head coach in the NFL. Few remembered that he was the first of his race to play quarterback in the now well-established professional football league. During his playing days, he also organized and coached the first all-black professional team and later returned to coaching in an unsuccessful effort to thwart the segregationist policy adopted by NFL owners in the 1930s. In 1954, Pollard was the first black named to the National Collegiate Football Hall of Fame, but inexplicably had been denied entrance into its professional counterpart in Canton, Ohio. Although the list of athletic firsts was impressive, few in the crowd in September 1978 could begin to appreciate the courage and determination it took for a young African American to confront and surmount racial barriers in a less tolerant America more than fifty years before. Racial slurs, physical abuse, and the humiliation of being denied dressing quarters, hotel accommodations, and access to restaurants and transportation had awaited Pollard at every turn. Although he had often understated the extent of the racial harassment he had endured, Pollard in later years admitted that he had been "niggerized" throughout his athletic career. Yet, Pollard's pioneering endeavors did not end when his playing days were over. In the 1920s, he established what may have been the first all-black investment securities company in the country. The following decade Pollard ran the first African-American tabloid in New York City. In conjunction with his brother Luther, he had an early involvement in the making of all-black films during the World War I era. By the 1940s and 1950s, Pollard was one of a handful of African Americans who continued to produce black films. At the same time, he established himself as a leading black booking agent and was responsible for integrating scores of nightclubs that had previously barred African-American entertainers. During the 1940s, his Suntan Studios in Harlem was a training ground and springboard for scores of young black artists who sought careers in the entertainment world. Pollard had accomplished much in eight-and-a-half decades, but most of the fans who saw the small, elderly man accept the engraved plaque knew little of Fritz Pollard or his courage and determination. The New York newspaper strike had curtailed advance publicity of the 1978 Young Award and seemed certain to limit national coverage of the award ceremony the following day. A few months earlier, the nationally syndicated sportswriter Jerry Izenberg had described Pollard as "a genuine unknown hero," lamenting that it was "a shame and a scandal" that "young people do not even know his name." Izenberg explained the oversight by pointing out that each generation regardless of race acts as if it "invented the games we play, the barriers we break and the hurdles we clear." Those who had seen Pollard play, however, never forgot the small, shifty hal

"My girl, she went a-golfing, and boy did she have fun / She her new silk stockings and got a hole in one." Scott Saul "Becoming Richard Pryor" (2014)

The climax of the scene comes when, in the frenzy, a Russian bumps into Tevye. Everything pauses as the two glare at each other and, without moving, approach the precipice of a physical fight. Then the Russianplayed by Lorenzo Bianco-thrusts out a hand, inviting Tevye to dance with him. Here, Mostel's dexterity allowed him to be funny and piteous in a single moment and small gesture: slowly, he moves his pinky into Bianco's hand, expressing with just a finger Tevye's eagerness to trust his neighbor as well as his apprehension. In the instant their hands connect, Bianco flies into a toe-and-heel-tapping caper, and Mostel seems as if he will take flight. At half Mostel's girth, Bianco pulls him through the dance like a weightless kite and the men from both factions join in, their clashing styles meshing in the celebration not only of the engagement but now also of the rare and temporary suspension of hostilities. In a line, the Jews take small sideways steps and the Russians come bursting through between them, scooting along the floor on their knees and swooping in all directions. The number was a triumph for Robbins and for Mostel. The first time Prince saw it in rehearsal, he figured it wouldn't take long before he'd be sending checks to investors. But as the work continued, Robbins didn't stage any more dancing. Six weeks of rehearsal had gone by and the male dancers hadn't learned anything else; the women hadn't done anything at all. Robbins had wangled the unusually long eight-week rehearsal period by insisting he needed four as director of the actors and four as choreographer. So where were the rest of the dances? "Oh, I'll do them," Robbins said, with a nonchalant wave. Prince fumed quietly. The members of the cast, too - especially the women - were beginning to wonder. They had learned and practiced the prologue's song, "Tradition," but as they entered their seventh week of rehearsals and the departure date for Detroit neared, Robbins still hadn't staged it. Given how tediously they'd labored over the simplest scenes, actors were getting nervous. At the rate Robbins was going, they figured he'd need at least a few days to put the opening number on its feet. And it wasn't going to be fun. One day toward the end of the last week in New York, after the lunch break, Robbins clapped his hands and called the full chorus onto the stage (meanwhile, the principals were sent off to the lounge to work on their scenes with assistant director Richard Altman). He put the group in a line - young Roberta Senn at the lead - and told them to hold their arms up at a 90-degree angle and to link pinkies with the person on either side of them. His dance assistant, Tommy Abbott, helped show them what to do: maintaining their line, walk in from the stage-left wing, stepping on the downbeat of a four count, knees pulsing lightly, and circle the stage. Nothing could have been simpler. The variations flowed out of Robbins with an effortlessness that seemed casual: some performers were to shift their head position from left to right every four beats, some to turn around entirely. When the circle was complete, with all twenty-four performers onstage, the two positioned downstage center were to let go of each other's hands and lead their lines in opposite directions, heading upstage, walking underneath hand bridges formed by pairs of actors and coming to rest in two semicircles. Robbins gave each group with a verse in the song - the papas, mamas, sons, and daughters - a series of defining movements to perform as they came downstage, in turn, to sing about their lives and obligations. Papas slap their chests with their right hands, point an index finger skyward, turn around with arms raised at 90 degrees, palms toward their faces, snapping their fingers. Mamas fold their hands on their stomachs, wipe their brows with the back of the right hand and thrust the hand toward the floor, walk toward the audience rolling their hands in a paddle-wheel motion. Robbins presented the sons with a little skipping crossover step and incorporated into their seq

A time to be born and a time to die (Ecclesiastes) 2124 The other day I saw a woman's magazine article which posed an interesting question. At what time of life do human relationships become most difficult. I thought well, I can tell 'em what's the most difficult time for human relationships as far as the average middle class male is concerned. It's that twenty minutes or so before your guests arrive when you're giving a dinner party. Now I don't think any of you ladies listening have ever considered what that period is like for the host, for the man about the house In the first place everything is suddenly out of bounds. You get these warnings shouted at you from upstairs. "Don't sit on the chairs. I've plumped all the cushions." "Don't stand by the window, they'll think you're anxious." There's a pause and then, "Where are you?" "I'm in the living room." "ON THE CARPET." "No. Not on the carpet. I am hanging by a crooked finger from the light fixture." These long-range up-and-down conversations, by the way, they're another feature of this difficult twenty minutes. The reason for the to-and-fro shouting is that madam insists on remaining upstairs until the very last moment. The thinking behind it apparently is that if you only puts her dress on when the doorbell rings she avoids any possibility of premature creasing. You live with that. But YOU, however, sir, you lurk downstairs in this peculiar state of suspended animation. You mustn't sit down. And there's nowhere you can stand up. Your whole domestic environment has become a sort of mine field. You know I got once from upstairs? "Did I hear ash dropping onto the rug?" "NO. NO. Of course not." "You're not dirtying a clean ashtray I hope." "No. Not me." "What are you doing with your ash?" "I'm SWALLOWING it." So perhaps now you can understand why I classify that twenty minutes before the guests arrive as the most difficult time in all relationships. In fact, I now divide dinner parties into two distinct time periods. There's the actual eating period and there's that period before it when all a man CAN do is just grin and bear it. In other words: a time to be bored and a time to dine Dennis Norden 545b

Home Robbery Anyone who has bought a house remembers the rush of emotions when the moment finally arrives to close the deal. There is the excitement of owning your own home, the satisfaction of success, plus a touch of anxiety about whether you can really afford it - and whether you paid too much. All that is kept in check by the rapid presentation of documents to sign and initial. Once the deed is done, the buyer receives an envelope with copies of all the documents and a list of the closing costs: fees for preparing documents and for filing them, payments to the appraiser and the termite inspector and perhaps one for a tax stamp. Among the bewildering array of little nips at your wallet of $15 here and $150 there, one item stands out as a very big bite - title insurance. On average, the title insurance premium adds half of 1 percent to the purchase price of a home (except in Iowa, where it costs a lot less). As the price of real estate has ballooned along the coasts, the title insurance industry has jacked up prices, making that bite deeper. Americans paid $16.4 billion for title insurance in 2005, double what they paid five years earlier and four times what they paid in 1995. Yet title insurance remains an expensive mystery. Why must you buy it? Who exactly is being insured? For what? Why does it cost so much? And why do you have to pay again when you refinance even with the same lender? Answering those questions takes us inside a business that owes its riches entirely to the government. The product itself costs next to nothing but, because of the way the market is organized, competition pushes prices higher instead of lower and government regulations help hide the true cost. Here it is not Adam Smith's invisible hand of the market producing unexpected benefits through competition, but instead the manipulative hand of government helping the regulated insurers fleece the consumer. A title proves ownership and it can come in different forms for different possessions. Many communities require that bicycles be licensed, a minimal form of proof that eases recovery if the bike is stolen. Every state has a reliable system to title cars and register outstanding liens that helps hold down the cost of car loans. Yet even though some cars cost more than houses, there is no requirement for title insurance on new cars. Until recently no such requirement existed for used vehicles, either, but the title insurance industry is working to create demand for such coverage. Establishing rights to land is more complicated than it is for objects like bicycles or automobiles. For starters, there is the issue of where your property ends and your neighbor's begins. In the United States property line boundaries often trace back to markers that are far from fixed: a bend in the river that may have moved over time with the watercourse, or a landmark rock so large that selecting slightly different reference points on its face results in different boundary lines radiating away from it. Some property records even refer to famous but transitory markers, like a once-renowned oak that was chopped down a century ago. Even when surveyors mark plot lines from markers set out by the United States Geological Survey, imperfections arise because the Earth is curved while a surveyor's transit measures in straight lines. Mistakes are made, too. Then there is the random outbuilding that encroaches an inch or so onto a neighbor's property, or so he says. Or the easement for an underground pipe that runs right under your garage and needs replacement. And what of the rights to the oil, water, or minerals underground? Or the inheritor who shows up with a copy of his grandfather's will that says he was entitled to a share of the property, only no one told him when the ancestor died two decades ago because he was only seven years old? The land title insurance companies point to examples like these to make the case that the system cannot operate without them. The land title companies are correct that a reliable system for tracking land ownership is crucial to building

The case of Weldon Angelos raised similar proportionality objections from his sentencing judge. Angelos was required by law to receive a sentence of at least 55 years (660 months) for carrying a gun to two $350 marijuana deals and for having an additional gun in his house. His sentencing judge noted this was more than double the required sentence for a kingpin of a major drug trafficking ring in which death resulted (293 months), an aircraft hijacker (293 months), a terrorist who detonates a bomb in a public place intending to kill a bystander (235 months), a racist who attacks a minority with the intent to kill (210 months), a spy gathering top-secret information (210 months), a second-degree murderer (151 months), a kidnapper (151 months), a saboteur who destroys military materials (151 months), a marijuana dealer who shoots an innocent person during a drug transaction (146 months), the rapist of a 0o-year-old child (135 months), and a child pornographer who photographs a 12-year-old in sexual positions (108 months)." It is not just drug sentencing that exhibits this kind of disproportionality, It makes little retributive sense for a woman who forged a $200 check to receive a 20-year sentence. It is similarly inconsistent with retributive notions for a man who lent his car to friends who committed a burglary that resulted in a death to receive a life sentence when intentional killings typically receive less. In Louisiana alone, more than 300 people are serving sentences of life without parole despite never having been convicted of a violent crime. Or consider the irrationality of treating child pornography more seriously than the actual molestation of a child. Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan has pointed out the absurdity of a system where "a defendant with no prior criminal record and no history of abusing children would qualify for a sentence of 15 to 20 years based on a small collection of child pornography and one photo swap, while a 50-year-old man who encountered a 13-year-old girl online and lured her into a sexual relationship would get no more than four years." In Arizona, Morton Berger, a man with no prior criminal record, ended up with a 200-year sentence for child pornography. One of the justices on the Arizona Supreme Court observed the irrationality of the state sentencing scheme, where "the minimum sentence for possession of an image of child pornography is longer than the presumptive sentence for rape or aggravated assault. A presumptive sentence for possession of two images of child pornography ... is harsher than the sentences for second degree murder or sexual assault of a child under twelve. With results such as these, it is not surprising that a report commissioned by the Department of Justice found that lengthy prison sentences are not the best way to deter crime. A 2016 report by the president's Council of Economic Advisers concurred, concluding that "research on the impact of sentence length has found that longer sentences are unlikely to deter prospective offenders or reduce targeted crime rates." What makes a larger difference on behavior is improving the odds that someone will serve a sentence. That is, certainty of punishment matters more than severity for deterrence. Consistent with these findings, we have seen state after state reduce sentence lengths without an increase in crime rates or recidivism. Seven states put fewer people in prison while also experiencing decreases in their crime rates: California, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, South Carolina, Texas, and New York. California is a particularly striking example; from 2006 to 2012, it cut its prison population by 23%, and violent crime fell by 21%. Texas also saw its violent crime, property crime, and recidivism rates fall while shrinking its prison population. Indeed, states that lowered their incarceration rates have seen a greater drop in their crime rates than the states where imprisonment rates have increased. West Virginia, for example, increased its incarceration rate more than any other state but experienced a 6% increase i

He was frustrated by the amateur code which mandated that college athletes should play for no pay. Coach Bill Sprackling, who held a full-time job at the Collier Wire Company in Providence, later recalled that numerous stories circulated that Pollard would attempt to solicit funds from downtown businessmen who were enthusiastic about Brown football. Just before a Saturday game, the stories went, Pollard would explain that he was financially strapped, and that if he did not get his bills paid he would not be able to play in the upcoming game. The former Brown assistant coach maintained that Pollard "was quite successful in this." Although there is no solid evidence to support Sprackling's account, it is consistent with Pollard's business dealings in later years. His son recalled him as an "operator," who always had several financial deals going to support himself and his family," Brown opened its 1916 football season on September 30 with a game against Rhode Island State at Andrews Field. The Rhode Island Rams were clearly overmatched, but made a stronger showing than in previous years. Brown rolled up three touchdowns by the early part of the third period and went on to an 18-0 victory. That Brown missed three extra points in the game was not unusual for a team of that era. In 1916, points after touchdown either had to be kicked from placement or drop-kicked from a position perpendicular to the point where the ball crossed the goal line for the touchdown. In many cases, the kicker was forced to attempt the conversion from an acute angle. The alternative for the scoring team was to punt the ball out of its end zone to the kicker, who then attempted a kick in the face of the on-charging defensive team. Thus, the success of a conversion after touchdown most often depended on where the ball crossed the goal line on the scoring play." Pollard had an outstanding game against Rhode Island, but like most of the regulars sat out the fourth quarter. The Brown Daily Herald designated Pollard and halfback Jimmy Jemail, who scored two touchdowns, the stars of the game. The highlight of the game for Brown was the outstanding play of about a half-dozen freshmen who played most of the second half. The play of fullback Walter de Vitalis, who scored one touchdown, and Dune Annan, a future professional player who replaced Purdy at quarterback in the fourth period, indicated that Brown had more depth than in 1915. On the Brown campus, Pollard was also a celebrity, but he was careful to share credit for his good fortune with his teammates and the university. As Pollard later explained, "I felt very highly honored and only wanted to keep my feet on the ground because I felt that our whole team had played a very important part in my having received this great honor and I did not want to do anything which might reflect on Brown University or any of the players." While Pollard was genuinely grateful to his teammates and school, he also knew that the racial code of the day demanded that he, a young black man, be properly modest and humble in accepting this honor. Yet, he would have a difficult time keeping his feet on the ground. His brash, assertive personality took over. He later admitted that "I was young and foolish and crazy. I was Fritz Pollard, All-America, and my head was getting a little bit big then," One day in mid-January 1917, President Faunce summoned Pollard to his office and introduced him to a dignified looking gentleman whom Faunce identified as John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Faunce asked whether Fritz knew who Mr. Rockefeller was, and Pollard replied that he did not. Rockefeller, an 1897 Brown graduate and former manager of the school's football team, asked Pollard a number of questions, and then he was excused. The next day Faunce visited Pollard's Hope College room and explained that Rockefeller thought Fritz's room was too cramped, with all the pressing equipment and the clothes hanging everywhere. Rockefeller, the president explained, had made arrangements for Pollard to have another separate room for his living quarters and new

Around this time, Richard fell into his first performance as a comic. In his memory, his first stage was the brothel's backyard in the mid-1940s; his first prop, a pile of dog poop. He was wearing a spiffy cowboy outfit his grandfather had given him and was sitting on the edge of a brick railing, looking for all the world like a miniature version of his heroes John Wayne or Lash LaRue. Then he threw himself on purpose off the railing, and his family broke out in laughter. A few more falls, and the laughter didn't stop. The comedian-in-the-making conceded that his routine was over and ran to his grandmother, but along the way, he slipped on the pile of dog poop. Again, roars of laughter. Eager to please, he did what any attention-craving child would have done: he repeated his pratfall, dog poop and all. "That was my first comedy routine," he said. "And I've just been slipping in shit ever since." If comedy was partly the art of self-humiliation, early on Pryor realized he had a knack for it. Scott Saul "Becoming Richard Pryor" (2014)

If there was an award for thinking on the fly, it should absolutely go to a German driver who was on the autobahn last week when he noticed that his car smelled weird. He pulled over, popped the hood, and the car was on fire. He had no fire extinguisher, but he did have beer. He grabbed bottles from the case in his car and put out the fire. Authorities said the fire department did show up, but there was nothing left for them to do.

Coming events cast their shadows before (proverb) That phrase, word for word, exactly as you heard it, without one syllable altered or twisted, that phrase was the scathing retort I made, at the age of seventeen, to Trent Nugent, who was the artistic director, juvenile lead, and theater blessee of the Willstone Thespians. Now I must explain that I had joined the Willstone Thespians for only one reason. Because, at the age of seventeen I had extremely sticking-out ears. I mean extremely. With my flat cap on, the silhouette of my head resembled nothing so much as a Austin Seven with the two side doors open. Which of course made me extremely diffident with girls. And that is actually is what made me join the Willstone Thespians. Because among young men of that day there was a very widely held theory that the best possble way to get girls flocking to you was to be the star in an amateur dramatic society. And of all our local amateur dramatic societies the thespians attracted by far the largest female following. This wasn't so much because of the quality of their plays or the standard of their acting. It was due practically completely that the bloke who printed their posters was a little on the short-sighted side. This was demonstrated by the enormous crowds that rushed to see their production of Patrick Hamilton's play Rope and it was a similar error which brought the house-full notices out for Ivor Novello's Careless Rapture. But as I say, when I joined them for their winter season my purpose was quite cold-blooded: to work my way up through the company 'till I could take the starring role in The Desert Song. I went along at the beginning of the season and presented myself to Trent Nugent. Now there was an insufferable character. Trent was actually, in the society, more or less all-powerful. And accordingly it was to him that I explained that I wanted to end the season as the Red Shadow but until then I was perfectly willing to work my way up to it. "All right, very well," he said, "In our first production, we'll just give you a walk-on part." Now that expression a walk-on part I took to be the customary theatrical jargon 'till I saw what the first production was: The Bridge of San Luis Rey. And I was to be the bridge. There was apparently some altercation with the scenary builders which meant that I spent the major part of Thornton Wilder's great work stretched out between two paper-mache rocks with hand-rails attached either side of me being walked on. Nevertheless I did feel that I'd served the necessary apprenticeship, so when we finally came to the first read-through of The Desert Song I thrust myself in front of the company and without prompting I recited the whole of the Red Shadow part, chucked in a snatch of One Alone to Call My Own, to say nothing of two choruses of the Rift Song. When the rest of the cast broke into spontaneous applause I could tell that Trent Nugent was really impressed. He said, "That was very good. Very good. I think" And he handed me a script. "I think you've earned this." And when I looked down at the part circled for me my gorge leapt. I was Third Sand Dune. I said, "Wait a minute. What about the Red Shadow?" He said, "I'm terribly sorry. but that's quite out of the question. You see I was cast for that before the season even opened." That was where I made that aforementioned retort. "In that case," I said, "This amateur dramatic society shouldn't call themselves the Willstone Thespians. They should call themselves The Coming Events." He said, "Why?" I said, "Because," without altering or twisting a syllable, "It's Coming Events cast their shadows before." Dennis Norden 573a