Dennis Miller - World-of-Newave.info

Dennis Miller - World-of-Newave.info World-of-Newave.info http://www.world-of-newave.info/ 2008-11-23T20:48:51Z Latest news and articles about Dennis Miller Copyright (c)2004-2008.§/Newave SARL. All rights reserved. {ISSUES > BIAS AND BALANCE} - Dennis Miller: "[W]omen on the left hate" Palin "because to me ... it appears that she has a great sex life"

As noted by Gawker.com, on the November 12 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, radio host Dennis Miller stated of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R): "I think the left hate her -- mostly women on the left hate her, because to me, from outside in, it appears that she has a great sex life." He continued, "I think she has non-neurotic sex with that Todd Palin guy. I think most of the women on the Upper East Side, their husbands haven't been aroused since [Norman] Mailer signed copy of The Executioner's Song at Rizzoli's back in the early '70s." Miller also said in reference to the Palins, "[T]hat snowmobile looks like mechanized foreplay to me, and that's why people are fascinated by it." Moments later, host Bill O'Reilly asked, "You think that because she looks like a happy, wedded mom with not so much neurosis, that these people are going, 'We have to hate her'?" Miller responded, in part: "It's like Tina Fey's movie Mean Girls. Women are mean to other women. They look at her, she looks happy, a lot of them aren't, and they're cranky about her." Later in the discussion, after Miller said that President-elect Barack Obama "ought to flatten these punks at AIG [American International Group]," O'Reilly stated, "OK, and then arrest [Rep.] Barney Frank [D-MA], correct?" As the blog Think Progress noted, Miller replied, "Barney might want to be arrested." In response, O'Reilly said, "Oh, jeez. Ugh," and shuddered. He continued, "OK, Dennis Miller, everybody. I told you to hide the kids." Before going to a commercial break, O'Reilly added, "Next up, a viewer warning -- I'm sorry I didn't give you one before Miller." From the November 12 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor: O'REILLY: Now, the Sarah Palin hysteria. I mean, can you believe she's getting more ink now than the president-elect is getting? Didn't she lose? It looks like she won. MILLER: Listen, she's a great dame. People are fascinated by her because the left hate her. I think the left hate her -- mostly women on the left hate her, because to me, from outside in, it appears that she has a great sex life. All right? I think she has non-neurotic sex with that Todd Palin guy. I think most of the women on the Upper East Side, their husbands haven't been aroused since Mailer signed copy of The Executioner's Song at Rizzoli's back in the early '70s. So they look at her, and they hate her. I think that snowmobile looks like mechanized foreplay to me, and that's why people are fascinated by it. O'REILLY: So you think that -- cutting through all of the metaphors that even I don't even understand. Rizzoli's used to be a bookstore. You think that because she looks like a happy, wedded mom with -- MILLER: Yeah. O'REILLY: -- not so much neurosis, that these people are going, "We have to hate her"? It's -- what, it's schadenfreude? Is that -- how do you say that? German? MILLER: It's called schadenfreude. O'REILLY: Schadenfreude. [unintelligible] MILLER: The Germans concocted it. It's one's vague pleasure in another's discomfort. Leave it to the Germans, by the way, to concoct an intricate glossary of pain terminology. But I think people have -- I think people have schadenfreude about her. It's like Tina Fey's movie Mean Girls. Women are mean to other women. They look at her, she looks happy, a lot of them aren't, and they're cranky about her. Plus, you know, she's still viable to me. Katie Couric is not going to be the interlocutor that turns me off Sarah Palin. For God's sakes, does anybody remember Katie Couric during her first month on the job? Bill Paley and Ed Murrow were turning over in their graves so fast that they resembled the twin screws on the Thunderball boat, the Disco Volante, when they threw it into hydrofoil mode. O'REILLY: I guess that's a James Bond reference there? MILLER: I don't even -- Billy, I have no idea. Help me. Help me, for God's sake. O'REILLY: Miller, I hate to say this, but I think you may be beyond help. I think Bordello of Blood was it. Now, you've been reassessing in the last -- in the last eight days the presidential vote. And what conclusions, Miller, have you come to? MILLER: Well, two. I'm kind of happy now that it's over. Because when they showed Grant Park that night and I saw the looks on the face of some of the black elders looking up, who had been pushed aside to lunch counters and bathrooms, and I saw that catharsis, I thought, well, I intellectualized this would be good for the country in that way. I had no idea the depth of feeling. It pleases my heart. I'm happy for them. Also, the guy looks so smart to me. I didn't believe anything he said when he was running. But now I know he's so smart that when two dim, mindless magpies like [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid [D-NV] and [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi [D-CA] trundle down there to sell their tired Willy Loman wares, he's going to pay them lip service. The moment they split, he's going to look at [incoming White House chief of staff] Rahm Emanuel and go, "Sharp elbows, dull intellects. We're not listening to those cats. Do you think I worked this hard to get to this point that I'm going to parrot what those two idiots say?" So I like the fact that he's really smart. And you know something? He's my president now. And I am not going to do what the left did to Bush. I find it unbecoming. I hope that Barack Obama does so well that four years hence, I am salivating to vote for him. I want this all to work, because I love my country. At some point, I make Lee Greenwood look like the Rosenbergs. And I hope he does great. But I will not turn my back on George Bush. Today, 2,619 days since a domestic terror attack on this soil. Thank you to my commander in chief, and thank you to the troops for providing us the safety to have an election like that. O'REILLY: Absolutely. Now, how skeptical are you going to -- I think your sentiment is noble, by the way. And particularly in this dangerous economic time when people are really suffering, you've got to root for Obama to get the economy back on track and lessen suffering. But how skeptical are you going to be? And how -- and what is my watchdog role? See, I'm setting myself up to watch Barack Obama. You know, and I'm going to be fair about it. There's no doubt I'll be fair. But I'm going to very -- you know, watch him closer than I watched Bush because I didn't watch Bush close enough. I didn't. I admit it. I should have. So, how skeptical are you going to be about Obama? Are you going to bring a skepticism in from the beginning? MILLER: I'm always skeptical about guys who want to be president, because it seems like its own form of madness to me. But I'll tell you, if he wants to earn my goodwill and the goodwill of a lot of people, he ought to flatten these punks at AIG who keep taking -- these guys party. They make Caligula look like a shut-in. Enough is enough. We just gave them $150 billion. We've got to follow them around with hidden cameras. Take it all back, let them go away. It's economic Darwinism. If they want to spend like that, they should go under. Forget the parties, you guys. And I think that he ought to come down hard on them right now. O'REILLY: OK, and then arrest Barney Frank, correct? MILLER: Barney might want to be arrested. O'REILLY: Oh, jeez. Ugh. [shudders] OK, Dennis Miller, everybody. I told you to hide the kids. Next up, a viewer warning -- I'm sorry I didn't give you one before Miller.

http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/dennis-miller-w-omen-on-the-left-hate-palin-because-20081154714.htm 2008-11-13T23:54:37Z 2008-11-13T23:54:37Z Mediamatters.Org http://mediamatters.org/items/200811130013 Dennis Miller: "[W]omen on the left hate" Palin "because to me ... it appears that she has a great sex life" ^{{new window}} Mediamatters.Org - As noted by Gawker.com, on the November 12 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, radio host Dennis Miller stated of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R): "I think the left hate her -- mostly women on the left hate her, because to me, from outside in, it appears that she has a great sex life." He continued, "I think she has non-neurotic sex with that Todd Palin guy. I think most of the women on the Upper East Side, their husbands haven't been aroused since [Norman] Mailer signed copy of The Executioner's Song at Rizzoli's back in the early '70s." Miller also said in reference to the Palins, "[T]hat snowmobile looks like mechanized foreplay to me, and that's why people are fascinated by it." Moments later, host Bill O'Reilly asked, "You think that because she looks like a happy, wedded mom with not so much neurosis, that these people are going, 'We have to hate her'?" Miller responded, in part: "It's like Tina Fey's movie Mean Girls. Women are mean to other women. They look at her, she looks happy, a lot of them aren't, and they're cranky about her." Later in the discussion, after Miller said that President-elect Barack Obama "ought to flatten these punks at AIG [American International Group]," O'Reilly stated, "OK, and then arrest [Rep.] Barney Frank [D-MA], correct?" As the blog Think Progress noted, Miller replied, "Barney might want to be arrested." In response, O'Reilly said, "Oh, jeez. Ugh," and shuddered. He continued, "OK, Dennis Miller, everybody. I told you to hide the kids." Before going to a commercial break, O'Reilly added, "Next up, a viewer warning -- I'm sorry I didn't give you one before Miller." From the November 12 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor: O'REILLY: Now, the Sarah Palin hysteria. I mean, can you believe she's getting more ink now than the president-elect is getting? Didn't she lose? It looks like she won. MILLER: Listen, she's a great dame. People are fascinated by her because the left hate her. I think the left hate her -- mostly women on the left hate her, because to me, from outside in, it appears that she has a great sex life. All right? I think she has non-neurotic sex with that Todd Palin guy. I think most of the women on the Upper East Side, their husbands haven't been aroused since Mailer signed copy of The Executioner's Song at Rizzoli's back in the early '70s. So they look at her, and they hate her. I think that snowmobile looks like mechanized foreplay to me, and that's why people are fascinated by it. O'REILLY: So you think that -- cutting through all of the metaphors that even I don't even understand. Rizzoli's used to be a bookstore. You think that because she looks like a happy, wedded mom with -- MILLER: Yeah. O'REILLY: -- not so much neurosis, that these people are going, "We have to hate her"? It's -- what, it's schadenfreude? Is that -- how do you say that? German? MILLER: It's called schadenfreude. O'REILLY: Schadenfreude. [unintelligible] MILLER: The Germans concocted it. It's one's vague pleasure in another's discomfort. Leave it to the Germans, by the way, to concoct an intricate glossary of pain terminology. But I think people have -- I think people have schadenfreude about her. It's like Tina Fey's movie Mean Girls. Women are mean to other women. They look at her, she looks happy, a lot of them aren't, and they're cranky about her. Plus, you know, she's still viable to me. Katie Couric is not going to be the interlocutor that turns me off Sarah Palin. For God's sakes, does anybody remember Katie Couric during her first month on the job? Bill Paley and Ed Murrow were turning over in their graves so fast that they resembled the twin screws on the Thunderball boat, the Disco Volante, when they threw it into hydrofoil mode. O'REILLY: I guess that's a James Bond reference there? MILLER: I don't even -- Billy, I have no idea. Help me. Help me, for God's sake. O'REILLY: Miller, I hate to say this, but I think you may be beyond help. I think Bordello of Blood was it. Now, you've been reassessing in the last -- in the last eight days the presidential vote. And what conclusions, Miller, have you come to? MILLER: Well, two. I'm kind of happy now that it's over. Because when they showed Grant Park that night and I saw the looks on the face of some of the black elders looking up, who had been pushed aside to lunch counters and bathrooms, and I saw that catharsis, I thought, well, I intellectualized this would be good for the country in that way. I had no idea the depth of feeling. It pleases my heart. I'm happy for them. Also, the guy looks so smart to me. I didn't believe anything he said when he was running. But now I know he's so smart that when two dim, mindless magpies like [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid [D-NV] and [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi [D-CA] trundle down there to sell their tired Willy Loman wares, he's going to pay them lip service. The moment they split, he's going to look at [incoming White House chief of staff] Rahm Emanuel and go, "Sharp elbows, dull intellects. We're not listening to those cats. Do you think I worked this hard to get to this point that I'm going to parrot what those two idiots say?" So I like the fact that he's really smart. And you know something? He's my president now. And I am not going to do what the left did to Bush. I find it unbecoming. I hope that Barack Obama does so well that four years hence, I am salivating to vote for him. I want this all to work, because I love my country. At some point, I make Lee Greenwood look like the Rosenbergs. And I hope he does great. But I will not turn my back on George Bush. Today, 2,619 days since a domestic terror attack on this soil. Thank you to my commander in chief, and thank you to the troops for providing us the safety to have an election like that. O'REILLY: Absolutely. Now, how skeptical are you going to -- I think your sentiment is noble, by the way. And particularly in this dangerous economic time when people are really suffering, you've got to root for Obama to get the economy back on track and lessen suffering. But how skeptical are you going to be? And how -- and what is my watchdog role? See, I'm setting myself up to watch Barack Obama. You know, and I'm going to be fair about it. There's no doubt I'll be fair. But I'm going to very -- you know, watch him closer than I watched Bush because I didn't watch Bush close enough. I didn't. I admit it. I should have. So, how skeptical are you going to be about Obama? Are you going to bring a skepticism in from the beginning? MILLER: I'm always skeptical about guys who want to be president, because it seems like its own form of madness to me. But I'll tell you, if he wants to earn my goodwill and the goodwill of a lot of people, he ought to flatten these punks at AIG who keep taking -- these guys party. They make Caligula look like a shut-in. Enough is enough. We just gave them $150 billion. We've got to follow them around with hidden cameras. Take it all back, let them go away. It's economic Darwinism. If they want to spend like that, they should go under. Forget the parties, you guys. And I think that he ought to come down hard on them right now. O'REILLY: OK, and then arrest Barney Frank, correct? MILLER: Barney might want to be arrested. O'REILLY: Oh, jeez. Ugh. [shudders] OK, Dennis Miller, everybody. I told you to hide the kids. Next up, a viewer warning -- I'm sorry I didn't give you one before Miller.

Media Matters - Dennis Miller: "[W]omen on the left hate" Palin "because to me ... it appears that she has a great sex life" {...} On The O'Reilly Factor , Dennis Miller stated of Gov. Sarah Palin: "[M]ostly women on the left hate her, because to me, from outside in, it appears that she has a great sex life." He continued, "I think she has non-neurotic sex with that Todd Palin guy. I think most of the women on the Upper East Side, their husbands haven't been aroused since Mailer signed copy of The Executioner's Song at Rizzoli's back in the early '70s." {...}

Published: November 13, 2008, 11:54 pm - Indexed: November 14, 2008, 12:50 pm - Page Size: 24KB

Category: Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance

]]> {AVIATION > HANG GLIDING} - The US National Champion, a history

The US National Champion, a history Mike Meier <> writes: This is a "complete" list of US National Hang Gliding Champions, as best I can compile it - with one exception - it contains no women champions. There were not that many years that a women's national champion was named, and I did not try to compile a list of those. The list is complete, except for the glider that Mike Daily flew in 1986, which I could not find, and it is accurate to the best of my knowledge and ability to research it. I made only one assumption - that Campbell Bowen flew the same glider in the 2007 Nationals as he did in the Quest Air comp that immediately followed the Nationals. All of the other data listed is documented somewhere, Hang Gliding Magazine, the Oz Report, manufacturer web sites, etc. That does not guarantee that all the data is accurate, but it is all documented. Anyone who has conflicting information should, of course, comment on anything they think is not accurate. The history of the title US National Champion in hang gliding is not, perhaps, as simple or as clean as one might prefer. As I mentioned above, there was a period (1983 - 1987) where the rules called for a single national champion, to be determined by CPS points, and during this period the winners of the U.S. Nationals competitions, in various classes, were supposed to have been designated as "Nationals Champions" (i.e. Champions of the Nationals), but that convention was not followed, in almost all cases, when the meets were reported in the media, so in those years we had additional "National Champions" beyond what the rules provided for. Another source of possible confusion or complication is that the term US National Champion has been reserved for a US pilot, so in many cases, after the meet became international in its participation, the National Champion did not necessarily finish in first place in his class in the meet. In the list, I've added a column where I've listed the National Champion's finishing place in the meet, where I was able to determine that, when it was not a first place finish. Year Pilot Site Class Glider (Place in meet) 2008 Zac Majors Lakeview, Oregon Flexwing Wills Wing T2C 144 2007 Campbell Bowen Florida Ridge, Florida Rigid Wing Air Atos VX 2007 Tom Lanning Florida Ridge, Florida Flexwing Moyes Litespeed S 4 5th 2007 Rodger Furrey Florida Ridge, Florida Sport Class Wills Wing U2 160 2nd 2006 Campbell Bowen Florida Ridge, Florida Rigid Wing Air Atos VX <1st 2006 Curt Warren Florida Ridge, Florida Flexwing Moyes Litespeed S 3rd 2005 Bruce Barmakian Quest Air, Florida Rigid Wing Air Atos VR 2005 Paris Williams Quest Air, Florida Flexwing Aeros Combat L 3rd 2004 Davis Straub Big Spring, Texas Rigid Wing Air Atos VX 2004 Curt Warren Big Spring, Texas Flexwing Moyes Litespeed S 2003 Bruce Barmakian Big Spring, Texas Rigid Wing Air Atos C 2003 Paris Williams Big Spring, Texas Flexwing Aeros Combat 2 2002 Bruce Barmakian Wallaby Ranch, Florida Rigid Wing (Class 5) Aeros Stalker 4th 2002 Brian Porter Wallaby Ranch, Florida Rigid Wing (Class 2) Bright Star Swift 2002 Paris Williams Wallaby Ranch, Florida Flexwing Icaro Laminar 3rd 2001 Brian Porter Hearne, Texas Rigid Wing Bright Star Swift 2nd 2001 Paris Williams Hearne, Texas Flexwing Icaro Laminar 2000 Brian Porter Lakeview, Oregon Rigid Wing Bright Star Swift 2000 Bo Hagewood Lakeview, Oregon Flexwing Wills Wing Fusion 1999 Brian Porter Quest Air, Florida Rigid Wing Utopia 1999 Jim Lee Quest Air, Florida Flexwing Wills Wing Fusion 5th 1998 Dave Sharp Dinosaur, Colorado Rigid Wing Flight Designs Exxtacy 1998 Chris Arai Dinosaur, Colorado Flexwing Wills Wing Fusion 3rd 1997 Chris Arai Lakeview, Oregon One Class Wills Wing Fusion 1996 Larry Tudor Dinosaur, CO One Class Wills Wing XC 3rd 1995 Chris Arai Chelan, WA One Class Wills Wing XC 2nd 1994 Chris Arai Mount Princeton, Colorado One Class Wills Wing RamAir 1993 Jim Lee Lakeview, Oregon One Class Wills Wing RamAir 1992 Brad Koji Telluride, Colorado One Class Wills Wing HP AT 1991 Tony Barton Owens Valley, California One Class UP TRX 1990 Bruce Case Dinosaur, Colorado One Class Wills Wing HP AT 2nd 1989 Brian Porter Dunlap, California One Class Odyssey 1988 Joe Bostik Chattanooga, Tennessee One Class Wills Wing Sport 1987 Joe Bostik Overall (on CPS points) Wills Wing HP II 1987 Howard Osterlund Owens Valley, California Meet Winner Airwave Magic IV 1986 Rick Rawlings Overall (on CPS points) Wills Wing HP 1986 Rick Rawlings Chelan, Washington World Wills Wing HP 1986 Mike Daily Chelan, Washington Sporting 1985 Rick Rawlings Overall (on CPS points) Wills Wing HP 1985 Rick Rawlings Chelan, Washington World Wills Wing HP 1985 Gerry Uchytil Chelan, Washington Sporting Airwave Magic 1984 Stew Smith Crestline, California Overall (on CPS points) Seedwings Sensor 510 1984 Rich Pfeiffer Crestline, California World Seedwings Sensor 510 1984 Terry Wilkins Crestline, California Sporting Wills Wing Duck 1983 Rick Rawlings Overall (on CPS points) Wills Wing Duck 1983 Chris Bulger Dunlap, California World Bennett Delta Wing Streak 1983 Lee Fisher Dunlap, California Sporting Seedwings Sensor 510 1982 Rich Burton Crestline, California Open UP Comet 1982 Rich Pfeiffer Crestline, California Flexwing Wills Wing Duck 1981 Fred Hutchinson Slide Mountain, Nevada Open Manta Fledgling IIB 1981 Rich Pfeiffer Slide Mountain, Nevada Flexwing Seedwings Sensor 510 1980 Rex Miller Ellenville, New York Open Manta Fledgling IIB 1980 Tom Haddon Ellenville, New York Flexwing UP Comet 1979 Eric Raymond Crestline, California One Class Manta Fledgling IIB 1978 Dennis Pagen Hyner View, Pennsylvania One Class Sky Sports Sirocco II 1976 Rob Reed Dog Mountain, Washington Standard Bennett Delta Wing 19/13 1976 Keith Nichols Dog Mountain, Washington Open ASG 21 1976 Ken Koklenski Dog Mountain, Washington Unlimited Manta Fledgling 1975 Dave Muehl Grandfather Mtn, North Carolina Overall Eipper 19 x 17 1975 Chris Price Grandfather Mtn, North Carolina Open Price Special 1975 Chris Wills Grandfather Mtn, North Carolina Advanced Standard Wills Wing Swallowtail 1975 Dave Muehl Grandfather Mtn, North Carolina Standard Eipper 19 x 17 1974 Bob Wills Escape Country, CA Flexwing Wills Wing Swallowtail 1974 Jack Schroeder Escape Country, CA Rigid Wing Eipper Quicksilver 1973 Chris Wills Sylmar, CA One Class Wills Wing Discuss The National Champion, a history at the Oz Report forum link»

http://articles.world-of-newave.info/recreation/aviation/aircraft/footlaunched/hang-gliding/the-us-national-champion-a-history-20081053628.htm 2008-10-31T15:40:32Z 2008-10-31T15:40:32Z OzReport.Com http://OzReport.com/1225467632 The US National Champion, a history ^{{new window}} OzReport.Com - The US National Champion, a history Mike Meier <> writes: This is a "complete" list of US National Hang Gliding Champions, as best I can compile it - with one exception - it contains no women champions. There were not that many years that a women's national champion was named, and I did not try to compile a list of those. The list is complete, except for the glider that Mike Daily flew in 1986, which I could not find, and it is accurate to the best of my knowledge and ability to research it. I made only one assumption - that Campbell Bowen flew the same glider in the 2007 Nationals as he did in the Quest Air comp that immediately followed the Nationals. All of the other data listed is documented somewhere, Hang Gliding Magazine, the Oz Report, manufacturer web sites, etc. That does not guarantee that all the data is accurate, but it is all documented. Anyone who has conflicting information should, of course, comment on anything they think is not accurate. The history of the title US National Champion in hang gliding is not, perhaps, as simple or as clean as one might prefer. As I mentioned above, there was a period (1983 - 1987) where the rules called for a single national champion, to be determined by CPS points, and during this period the winners of the U.S. Nationals competitions, in various classes, were supposed to have been designated as "Nationals Champions" (i.e. Champions of the Nationals), but that convention was not followed, in almost all cases, when the meets were reported in the media, so in those years we had additional "National Champions" beyond what the rules provided for. Another source of possible confusion or complication is that the term US National Champion has been reserved for a US pilot, so in many cases, after the meet became international in its participation, the National Champion did not necessarily finish in first place in his class in the meet. In the list, I've added a column where I've listed the National Champion's finishing place in the meet, where I was able to determine that, when it was not a first place finish. Year Pilot Site Class Glider (Place in meet) 2008 Zac Majors Lakeview, Oregon Flexwing Wills Wing T2C 144 2007 Campbell Bowen Florida Ridge, Florida Rigid Wing Air Atos VX 2007 Tom Lanning Florida Ridge, Florida Flexwing Moyes Litespeed S 4 5th 2007 Rodger Furrey Florida Ridge, Florida Sport Class Wills Wing U2 160 2nd 2006 Campbell Bowen Florida Ridge, Florida Rigid Wing Air Atos VX <1st 2006 Curt Warren Florida Ridge, Florida Flexwing Moyes Litespeed S 3rd 2005 Bruce Barmakian Quest Air, Florida Rigid Wing Air Atos VR 2005 Paris Williams Quest Air, Florida Flexwing Aeros Combat L 3rd 2004 Davis Straub Big Spring, Texas Rigid Wing Air Atos VX 2004 Curt Warren Big Spring, Texas Flexwing Moyes Litespeed S 2003 Bruce Barmakian Big Spring, Texas Rigid Wing Air Atos C 2003 Paris Williams Big Spring, Texas Flexwing Aeros Combat 2 2002 Bruce Barmakian Wallaby Ranch, Florida Rigid Wing (Class 5) Aeros Stalker 4th 2002 Brian Porter Wallaby Ranch, Florida Rigid Wing (Class 2) Bright Star Swift 2002 Paris Williams Wallaby Ranch, Florida Flexwing Icaro Laminar 3rd 2001 Brian Porter Hearne, Texas Rigid Wing Bright Star Swift 2nd 2001 Paris Williams Hearne, Texas Flexwing Icaro Laminar 2000 Brian Porter Lakeview, Oregon Rigid Wing Bright Star Swift 2000 Bo Hagewood Lakeview, Oregon Flexwing Wills Wing Fusion 1999 Brian Porter Quest Air, Florida Rigid Wing Utopia 1999 Jim Lee Quest Air, Florida Flexwing Wills Wing Fusion 5th 1998 Dave Sharp Dinosaur, Colorado Rigid Wing Flight Designs Exxtacy 1998 Chris Arai Dinosaur, Colorado Flexwing Wills Wing Fusion 3rd 1997 Chris Arai Lakeview, Oregon One Class Wills Wing Fusion 1996 Larry Tudor Dinosaur, CO One Class Wills Wing XC 3rd 1995 Chris Arai Chelan, WA One Class Wills Wing XC 2nd 1994 Chris Arai Mount Princeton, Colorado One Class Wills Wing RamAir 1993 Jim Lee Lakeview, Oregon One Class Wills Wing RamAir 1992 Brad Koji Telluride, Colorado One Class Wills Wing HP AT 1991 Tony Barton Owens Valley, California One Class UP TRX 1990 Bruce Case Dinosaur, Colorado One Class Wills Wing HP AT 2nd 1989 Brian Porter Dunlap, California One Class Odyssey 1988 Joe Bostik Chattanooga, Tennessee One Class Wills Wing Sport 1987 Joe Bostik Overall (on CPS points) Wills Wing HP II 1987 Howard Osterlund Owens Valley, California Meet Winner Airwave Magic IV 1986 Rick Rawlings Overall (on CPS points) Wills Wing HP 1986 Rick Rawlings Chelan, Washington World Wills Wing HP 1986 Mike Daily Chelan, Washington Sporting 1985 Rick Rawlings Overall (on CPS points) Wills Wing HP 1985 Rick Rawlings Chelan, Washington World Wills Wing HP 1985 Gerry Uchytil Chelan, Washington Sporting Airwave Magic 1984 Stew Smith Crestline, California Overall (on CPS points) Seedwings Sensor 510 1984 Rich Pfeiffer Crestline, California World Seedwings Sensor 510 1984 Terry Wilkins Crestline, California Sporting Wills Wing Duck 1983 Rick Rawlings Overall (on CPS points) Wills Wing Duck 1983 Chris Bulger Dunlap, California World Bennett Delta Wing Streak 1983 Lee Fisher Dunlap, California Sporting Seedwings Sensor 510 1982 Rich Burton Crestline, California Open UP Comet 1982 Rich Pfeiffer Crestline, California Flexwing Wills Wing Duck 1981 Fred Hutchinson Slide Mountain, Nevada Open Manta Fledgling IIB 1981 Rich Pfeiffer Slide Mountain, Nevada Flexwing Seedwings Sensor 510 1980 Rex Miller Ellenville, New York Open Manta Fledgling IIB 1980 Tom Haddon Ellenville, New York Flexwing UP Comet 1979 Eric Raymond Crestline, California One Class Manta Fledgling IIB 1978 Dennis Pagen Hyner View, Pennsylvania One Class Sky Sports Sirocco II 1976 Rob Reed Dog Mountain, Washington Standard Bennett Delta Wing 19/13 1976 Keith Nichols Dog Mountain, Washington Open ASG 21 1976 Ken Koklenski Dog Mountain, Washington Unlimited Manta Fledgling 1975 Dave Muehl Grandfather Mtn, North Carolina Overall Eipper 19 x 17 1975 Chris Price Grandfather Mtn, North Carolina Open Price Special 1975 Chris Wills Grandfather Mtn, North Carolina Advanced Standard Wills Wing Swallowtail 1975 Dave Muehl Grandfather Mtn, North Carolina Standard Eipper 19 x 17 1974 Bob Wills Escape Country, CA Flexwing Wills Wing Swallowtail 1974 Jack Schroeder Escape Country, CA Rigid Wing Eipper Quicksilver 1973 Chris Wills Sylmar, CA One Class Wills Wing Discuss The National Champion, a history at the Oz Report forum link»

The Oz Report hang gliding news - Blog {...} The Oz Report is a near-daily world wide hang gliding news ezine with reports on competitions, pilot rankings, political issues, fly-ins, the latest technology, ultralight sailplanes, reader feedback and anything else from within the global HG community worthy of coverage. Topics include: hang gliding, paragliding, aerotowing, platform towing, competitions, fly-ins, hang gliding and paragliding news from around the world by Davis Straub, soaring, flying, cross country, photos, pics, gliders, hang gliding forums, hanggliding, videos, photos, flying, hang gliders. Information about Dealers, Instructors, Sites Weather, Fly-Ins, State Records, Site Records, XC Competition, Repeater Frequencies, Maps, GPS Locations, Free Classifieds, Mosquito Harness, Powered hang gliders, learn to fly, free flight lessons freeflight, instruction, extreme sports. {...}

Published: October 31, 2008, 3:40 pm - Indexed: November 1, 2008, 10:54 am - Page Size: 47KB

Category: Recreation > Aviation > Aircraft > Footlaunched > Hang Gliding

]]> {AVIATION > HANG GLIDING} - Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge 2008

Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge 2008 Lucas Ridley and oliver gregory <> writes: I thought we'd never beat the fantastic soaring weather and the great line up of speakers we had for Team Challenge 2007, but we did. BY A LOT! We stayed at Henson's every day. Only Wednesday was called due to high winds, but high wind aficionados flew for fun. Every day was soarable and good for XC for those with solid thermal soaring skills. Camping was so pleasant! It never felt too hot. Fall is wonderful in Tennessee Tree Toppers land! We had fine meals on site made by Tennessee Tree Toppers volunteers. Aldonna had breakfast ready for us right on site every morning. The dinners for affordable donations were a big hit. I'm hungry for some of Jeff's cooking now! Jeff Wilson fed us like kings and queens. Dinner menus included ribeye steaks, pork butt, chicken and gourmet burgers and fantastic sides. I can't say enough about the Tennessee Tree Toppers volunteers. The place looked great. The hand outs were excellent. The launch crew was top notch. We had excellent help all week! Tennessee Tree Toppers supporters were very creative this year. We had homemade Tennessee Tree Toppers soap, cologne, stickers, magnets, gift boxes, Tennessee Tree Toppers license plates and cards for sale to help with fund raising for our Whitwell LZ Field of Dreams project. I want to thank those industry supporters who contributed items to award to our pilots. Steve Kroop of Flytec USA, Wills Wing, Kraig Coomber of Moyes USA, LMFP all helped out with great hang gliding bling. And, of course, we want to thank you, Davis, for getting the word out on the Oz Report! We went high tech this year with video and Power Point presentations! Every evening and all day on the windy day we enjoyed great seminars. Our great A pilots were helping out in every way possible. Mark Stump led the Arkansas Air Hogs and did his hilariously funny talk on assessing the air and one's personal skills in the context of the micro meteorology of the day. Mike Barber became our most professional wind technician, did several excellent talks ranging from XC decision making, to landing video clinics and safe flying. Boy, Mike pulled us this year! Thanks Mike! Hang gliding author, Dennis Pagen led a team, led a wonderfully effective video launch technique seminar where every launch was analyzed. Dennis promotes the prolonged grape vine launch technique and it works great. My launch technique certainly improved due to this unique seminar. Dennis also did a great "Scratching" seminar for soaring in light lift. Jim Lamb led the Ohio Flyers to second place, did a fantastic "Soaring 101" that explained polars, thermal soaring efficiently and using the MacCready function correctly. For a lot of the C's, this talk was a little over their heads, but all the A's and B's were nodding and smiling enthusiastically as Jim made points we put to use the next day. Terry Presley substituted for an absent A pilot, pulled a C to goal, made goal himself so the team scored big that day! (They won overall!) Terry also did a seminar on "XC Landing Field Assessment." We learned to read the terrain, look for hazards and set up good approaches over unfamiliar fields. His seminar also included short field landing techniques. I didn't hear of anyone needing to use the short field techniques, because the Sequatchie has so many big fields, but the guys were ready. Kevin Carter led a team and gave a great "Gettin' Ready to Race" seminar addressing the unique skills needed to move up to XC racing. We followed the format set a couple years back. We called conservative tasks for C's, B's and challenging tasks for A's. The scoring system is designed to heavily handicap A pilots on super ships, but our A's were so good, they were scoring more than the C's who made their goals. C's who were making shorter goals got big multipliers of their milages. In the spirit of Team Challenge, we made a big adjustment mid week. The adjustment resulted in all pilots at every level getting a score of 100 when they made their goal. We made this scoring format retroactive to the first day. The handicaps were simply accomplished by the progressively tougher tasks for the 3 classes. A's still got bonuses for "really, really" helping their C's make goal. This put the scoring emphasis back on the C's and turned the scores around and away from teams loaded with A's. At any other comp, fist fights would have broken out, but everyone at Team Challenge welcomed the adjustment which rewarded the C's for their flights. Courses always overlapped so the A's could help their team mates make their shorter goals before the A's took off for their more challenging task. We usually did race track or out and back, and repeat tasks so the A's could stay with their team and help the less experienced pilots. A good example is the last task. We called a C pilot goal to Galloway Airport 5 miles into the valley on a light wind day. B pilot task was to fly to Galloway and back to Henson's LZ for a about 9.5 miles. The A pilot task was fly to Galloway, back to Henson's, back to Galloway and back to Henson's to land for a task of almost 20 miles. This format keeps the A pilots flying with or overlapping their team and allows the A pilots to get a section of their task done while their C's and B's made the shorter goals or missed it the first time. We allowed as many reflights as possible as long as the landing was in one of the designated LZ's. Actually all relights got bonus reflight points. This is what happened to me on the last day. I love my Pale Glider Team, but they had a tough last day. I launched right with most of my C pilot buddies but they all missed the light thermals and landed. I got up and ran the first lap with my free flying buddy James Stinnett. When I got back to Henson's after lap one, I waited around in yo yo mode till my team set up again to re-fly. I spiraled down to take off height when they got close to the front of the launch line. This allowed me to fly with them a second time. I helped as much as possible, as did one of my VR flying friends David Giles. I know it was kinda cheating to have Dave on his VR space ship spiraling down with me to get below launch and help out, but that day, my guys needed all the help they could get! We did everything but throw 'em a rope! Unfortunately, the guys still didn't get their climb tickets punched, so I ran the second lap of the task with my friend Dave. Lots of fun, but it would have been even sweeter if we'd pulled some of the boys out to their goal. This meet was all about the C's and B's. I want to thank all the A pilots who spent the week working with their less experienced team mates. I'm happy to say that all 4 of my C pilots made their XC goals at least once this week. I believe all of my guys had their longest XC flights this week! It was clear all 52 competitors had a blast and many pilots had personal bests this meet. Here's how the teams ended up after a 6 days of Team Challenge flying: In Tenth place were Team Mountaineers with A pilots Will Jenkins on a topless, A Jim Rowan on a double surface. A pilot Patrick Brooks on a double surface. A pilot Patrick Brooks on a double surface, A pilot Pat Halfill on a double surface, A pilot John McAllister on a topless. In Ninth place were the Arkansas Air Hogs. They had 6 and flew 5 a day. They were loaded with A+ pilot and my best old flying buddy Mark Stump on a VQ, A pilot Barron McKinley on an ATOS C, B pilot Walter Jordan on a double surface, B pilot Butch Pritchett on a topless, C pilot Steve Prater on a double surface, and my old buddy Miller Stroud making his comeback to hang gliding on an ancient wing, the Manta Fledge IIB! The last time I flew with Miller, I was on one too! On that last day, Dave Giles and I were spiraling down to get with my C's when Miller launched. I asked Dave if he'd ever seen one of those funny looking wings before. Dave said, "Maybe in a museum!" In Eighth place were The Leftovers with A+ pilot Bruce Engen on a VX, B pilot Kinsley Sykes on a topless, C pilot Jonathan Small on a double surface, C pilot Rodger Tubbs on a double surface, and C pilot Kevin Sheridan on a double surface. In Seventh place were Team Colorado with A pilot Jeff Laughery on a topless, B pilot Fred Kaemerer on a double surface, B pilot Shawn Banks on a double surface, B pilot John Wilber on a double surface and C pilot Rick Maddy on a double surface. In Sixth place were my boys! The Pale Gliders had 6 and flew 5 a day. Our team was full of talent with C pilots Colin Hodson on a double surface, Jake Mitchell on a double surface, Jeff Bozart on a double surface and Ricker "The Ringer" Goldsborough on a double surface. My old buddy A pilot Larry Snyder flew in from Seattle WA, rented a Sport 2 from Lookout and had a blast. I was on The Pale Glider VR and am ranked A+. We had a so much FUN!!! In Fifth place were Team B'Low Me Again with A+ team leader Dennis Pagen on a topless, A pilot Stephen Krichen on a topless, B pilot Jesse Fulkersin on a Topless, C pilot Donald Campasino on a double surface, and C pilot Edward Jowett on a double surface. In Fourth place were The Comp Concepts with A++ pilot Kevin Carter leading, B pilot Jeff Nibler on a double surface, B pilot Bryon Estes on a topless, B pilot Peter Kane on a topless, and C pilot William Estes on a double surface. In Third place were The E Team with A+ pilot Dave Hopkins on an ATOS B with a tail and modified spoilers, A pilot Stan Roberts on a Phantom, B pilot Lindsey Chew on a double surface, C pilot James Donovan on a double surface, and C pilot Gavin Riley on a double surface. In Second place, was Team Ohio led by "The Man" Jim Lamb A++ on an ATOS VQ that my old buddy Miller took home with him after the dust settled. The rest of the Ohio boys are C pilot Terry Mull n a double surface, C pilot Mark Thogmartin on a double surface, C pilot Christopher Thale on a double surface, and B pilot Crain Hassen on a double surface Winning it all, a team with some local boys leading was Team Thermal Underware. The Underwares were made up of A pilot Eric Donaldson on a WW T2, A pilot Lucas Ridley on a Litespeed S, C pilot William Baker on a double surface, B pilot Keith Smith on a U2, and Bob Belshan on a double surface. I can't wait to do it again next year. Team Challenge is evolving in a very interesting and healthy way. Just don't miss it next year! The winning Thermal Underwear team was led by super duper A's Eric Donaldson and Lucas Ridley. They were the coolest team leaders beyond a doubt! Here's the story of the Thermal Underware A leader and prototype Team Challenge pilot Lucas Ridley. Thanks Lucas for all the help with the write up! In Lucas' words: My Team Challenge history begins one year ago, the day before the meet started was the first day I thermal soared! I went into that meet a new H3 with only ridge soaring under my belt. Now, a year later, I am a leading a team with Eric Donaldson. Because of that one week of flying a year ago I was propelled into another dimension of hang gliding that would have taken much longer to find on my own, if at all. After Team Challenge 2007, I flew all winter and spring and got up the nerve up to go to the East Coast Championships. I was hooked! Only two months later I went to the Big Spring Championship. All this within less than a year of Team Challenge. I credit Tennessee Tree Toppers's incredible meet with motivating me to fly a lot and teaching me cross country skills. Otherwise, I think I would have puttered around my home site for another year or two before I built up the courage to venture out. Encouragement is where Team Challenge really excels. Team Challenge like meets can do a lot for our sport by creating opportunities for those pilots in H2 purgatory who have not had a formal introduction to cross country flying or competition to try it out in a welcoming environment. Heck, Kevin Carter's first competition was a Team Challenge and he went on to be a World team member and comes back to help give seminars and lead his own teams. Ollie's H2 driver even learned a lot just from listening to the seminars and the radio each day and plans to come back next year on a team. I have new respect for what A-pilots do and what Mike Barber does all the time when helping out lower air time pilots. It adds a new dynamic to not only try to make your goal, but fly as a team and help others along. Many times that required spiraling down to be at the same level with those you were trying to help and sacrificing altitude that you've struggled to achieve. One of the best video seminars featured Dennis Pagen critiquing everyone's launch! Not to say you can't pop your nose with the grapevine grip, but the worst launches I witnessed were using the bottle grip. I think everyone took something away from the talk, and here are a few example pictures of what we saw: The first and second photo sets show how easy it is to pop your nose with the bottle grip where the only contact with the glider is through the hands, not the shoulders. The next two photos show what most people did at the meet: start with grapevine and transition to the bottle grip during the launch sequence. Dennis called this transition 'unnecessary' and felt it still allows for an opportunity to pop the nose. Bottle vs. Grapevine: The last two sets of photos show holding the grapevine grip throughout the launch sequence by allowing the hands to slide down the downtubes as the glider begins to lift above the pilot. The shoulders lock the glider to the pilots body as it continues to lift, enabling three axis control during the entire launch sequence. That is just one example from the many great seminars that were given by the pro's that came out to volunteer their knowledge, many thanks to them! I hope to go to more competitions in the future and it all started at Team Challenge where I continued to learn so much this year. I would encourage all H2's to try to get their H3 by next Team Challenge so you can get signed up early. It filled up early this year, and I anticipate it filling up even sooner this coming year. See you there! Lucas Ridley Below are some of the comments made on our club email list after the event and links to videos from the event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AXAYoENhlQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9LsxxNiEu4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLgg_5OLpLw There is a loss for words on how to express my deepest appreciation for all who contributed to this years team challenge. I am blessed to know that there is NO where else in the world that you can go to learn at this level from the best pilots ever. (This is history in the making) The level of knowledge at this event was unprecedented. We had the top pilots there to teach us what they know. It is one thing to be a great pilot and another to have the ability and willingness to teach others. The best pilots in the world were there and ALL of them knew how to share their knowledge with passion and a genuine loving spirit. I THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING SO GENEROUS WITH YOUR SHARING AND TEACHING. The knowledge base was HUGE! Even our drivers were amazed in what they learned. Ollie, I have to give you thanks for keeping a tight hold on the leash. Even when you are stressed out you have a rather calming nature about you. You are truly blessed with many positive personality traits that I hope to obtain in the years to come. Congratulations Bill for clenching the "C" pilot Rookie of the Year award. You truly earned it. I will see you all next year. Discuss Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge 2008 at the Oz Report forum link»

http://articles.world-of-newave.info/recreation/aviation/aircraft/footlaunched/hang-gliding/tennessee-tree-toppers-team-challenge-2008-20081024726.htm 2008-10-24T15:28:29Z 2008-10-24T15:28:29Z OzReport.Com http://OzReport.com/1224858509 Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge 2008 ^{{new window}} OzReport.Com - Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge 2008 Lucas Ridley and oliver gregory <> writes: I thought we'd never beat the fantastic soaring weather and the great line up of speakers we had for Team Challenge 2007, but we did. BY A LOT! We stayed at Henson's every day. Only Wednesday was called due to high winds, but high wind aficionados flew for fun. Every day was soarable and good for XC for those with solid thermal soaring skills. Camping was so pleasant! It never felt too hot. Fall is wonderful in Tennessee Tree Toppers land! We had fine meals on site made by Tennessee Tree Toppers volunteers. Aldonna had breakfast ready for us right on site every morning. The dinners for affordable donations were a big hit. I'm hungry for some of Jeff's cooking now! Jeff Wilson fed us like kings and queens. Dinner menus included ribeye steaks, pork butt, chicken and gourmet burgers and fantastic sides. I can't say enough about the Tennessee Tree Toppers volunteers. The place looked great. The hand outs were excellent. The launch crew was top notch. We had excellent help all week! Tennessee Tree Toppers supporters were very creative this year. We had homemade Tennessee Tree Toppers soap, cologne, stickers, magnets, gift boxes, Tennessee Tree Toppers license plates and cards for sale to help with fund raising for our Whitwell LZ Field of Dreams project. I want to thank those industry supporters who contributed items to award to our pilots. Steve Kroop of Flytec USA, Wills Wing, Kraig Coomber of Moyes USA, LMFP all helped out with great hang gliding bling. And, of course, we want to thank you, Davis, for getting the word out on the Oz Report! We went high tech this year with video and Power Point presentations! Every evening and all day on the windy day we enjoyed great seminars. Our great A pilots were helping out in every way possible. Mark Stump led the Arkansas Air Hogs and did his hilariously funny talk on assessing the air and one's personal skills in the context of the micro meteorology of the day. Mike Barber became our most professional wind technician, did several excellent talks ranging from XC decision making, to landing video clinics and safe flying. Boy, Mike pulled us this year! Thanks Mike! Hang gliding author, Dennis Pagen led a team, led a wonderfully effective video launch technique seminar where every launch was analyzed. Dennis promotes the prolonged grape vine launch technique and it works great. My launch technique certainly improved due to this unique seminar. Dennis also did a great "Scratching" seminar for soaring in light lift. Jim Lamb led the Ohio Flyers to second place, did a fantastic "Soaring 101" that explained polars, thermal soaring efficiently and using the MacCready function correctly. For a lot of the C's, this talk was a little over their heads, but all the A's and B's were nodding and smiling enthusiastically as Jim made points we put to use the next day. Terry Presley substituted for an absent A pilot, pulled a C to goal, made goal himself so the team scored big that day! (They won overall!) Terry also did a seminar on "XC Landing Field Assessment." We learned to read the terrain, look for hazards and set up good approaches over unfamiliar fields. His seminar also included short field landing techniques. I didn't hear of anyone needing to use the short field techniques, because the Sequatchie has so many big fields, but the guys were ready. Kevin Carter led a team and gave a great "Gettin' Ready to Race" seminar addressing the unique skills needed to move up to XC racing. We followed the format set a couple years back. We called conservative tasks for C's, B's and challenging tasks for A's. The scoring system is designed to heavily handicap A pilots on super ships, but our A's were so good, they were scoring more than the C's who made their goals. C's who were making shorter goals got big multipliers of their milages. In the spirit of Team Challenge, we made a big adjustment mid week. The adjustment resulted in all pilots at every level getting a score of 100 when they made their goal. We made this scoring format retroactive to the first day. The handicaps were simply accomplished by the progressively tougher tasks for the 3 classes. A's still got bonuses for "really, really" helping their C's make goal. This put the scoring emphasis back on the C's and turned the scores around and away from teams loaded with A's. At any other comp, fist fights would have broken out, but everyone at Team Challenge welcomed the adjustment which rewarded the C's for their flights. Courses always overlapped so the A's could help their team mates make their shorter goals before the A's took off for their more challenging task. We usually did race track or out and back, and repeat tasks so the A's could stay with their team and help the less experienced pilots. A good example is the last task. We called a C pilot goal to Galloway Airport 5 miles into the valley on a light wind day. B pilot task was to fly to Galloway and back to Henson's LZ for a about 9.5 miles. The A pilot task was fly to Galloway, back to Henson's, back to Galloway and back to Henson's to land for a task of almost 20 miles. This format keeps the A pilots flying with or overlapping their team and allows the A pilots to get a section of their task done while their C's and B's made the shorter goals or missed it the first time. We allowed as many reflights as possible as long as the landing was in one of the designated LZ's. Actually all relights got bonus reflight points. This is what happened to me on the last day. I love my Pale Glider Team, but they had a tough last day. I launched right with most of my C pilot buddies but they all missed the light thermals and landed. I got up and ran the first lap with my free flying buddy James Stinnett. When I got back to Henson's after lap one, I waited around in yo yo mode till my team set up again to re-fly. I spiraled down to take off height when they got close to the front of the launch line. This allowed me to fly with them a second time. I helped as much as possible, as did one of my VR flying friends David Giles. I know it was kinda cheating to have Dave on his VR space ship spiraling down with me to get below launch and help out, but that day, my guys needed all the help they could get! We did everything but throw 'em a rope! Unfortunately, the guys still didn't get their climb tickets punched, so I ran the second lap of the task with my friend Dave. Lots of fun, but it would have been even sweeter if we'd pulled some of the boys out to their goal. This meet was all about the C's and B's. I want to thank all the A pilots who spent the week working with their less experienced team mates. I'm happy to say that all 4 of my C pilots made their XC goals at least once this week. I believe all of my guys had their longest XC flights this week! It was clear all 52 competitors had a blast and many pilots had personal bests this meet. Here's how the teams ended up after a 6 days of Team Challenge flying: In Tenth place were Team Mountaineers with A pilots Will Jenkins on a topless, A Jim Rowan on a double surface. A pilot Patrick Brooks on a double surface. A pilot Patrick Brooks on a double surface, A pilot Pat Halfill on a double surface, A pilot John McAllister on a topless. In Ninth place were the Arkansas Air Hogs. They had 6 and flew 5 a day. They were loaded with A+ pilot and my best old flying buddy Mark Stump on a VQ, A pilot Barron McKinley on an ATOS C, B pilot Walter Jordan on a double surface, B pilot Butch Pritchett on a topless, C pilot Steve Prater on a double surface, and my old buddy Miller Stroud making his comeback to hang gliding on an ancient wing, the Manta Fledge IIB! The last time I flew with Miller, I was on one too! On that last day, Dave Giles and I were spiraling down to get with my C's when Miller launched. I asked Dave if he'd ever seen one of those funny looking wings before. Dave said, "Maybe in a museum!" In Eighth place were The Leftovers with A+ pilot Bruce Engen on a VX, B pilot Kinsley Sykes on a topless, C pilot Jonathan Small on a double surface, C pilot Rodger Tubbs on a double surface, and C pilot Kevin Sheridan on a double surface. In Seventh place were Team Colorado with A pilot Jeff Laughery on a topless, B pilot Fred Kaemerer on a double surface, B pilot Shawn Banks on a double surface, B pilot John Wilber on a double surface and C pilot Rick Maddy on a double surface. In Sixth place were my boys! The Pale Gliders had 6 and flew 5 a day. Our team was full of talent with C pilots Colin Hodson on a double surface, Jake Mitchell on a double surface, Jeff Bozart on a double surface and Ricker "The Ringer" Goldsborough on a double surface. My old buddy A pilot Larry Snyder flew in from Seattle WA, rented a Sport 2 from Lookout and had a blast. I was on The Pale Glider VR and am ranked A+. We had a so much FUN!!! In Fifth place were Team B'Low Me Again with A+ team leader Dennis Pagen on a topless, A pilot Stephen Krichen on a topless, B pilot Jesse Fulkersin on a Topless, C pilot Donald Campasino on a double surface, and C pilot Edward Jowett on a double surface. In Fourth place were The Comp Concepts with A++ pilot Kevin Carter leading, B pilot Jeff Nibler on a double surface, B pilot Bryon Estes on a topless, B pilot Peter Kane on a topless, and C pilot William Estes on a double surface. In Third place were The E Team with A+ pilot Dave Hopkins on an ATOS B with a tail and modified spoilers, A pilot Stan Roberts on a Phantom, B pilot Lindsey Chew on a double surface, C pilot James Donovan on a double surface, and C pilot Gavin Riley on a double surface. In Second place, was Team Ohio led by "The Man" Jim Lamb A++ on an ATOS VQ that my old buddy Miller took home with him after the dust settled. The rest of the Ohio boys are C pilot Terry Mull n a double surface, C pilot Mark Thogmartin on a double surface, C pilot Christopher Thale on a double surface, and B pilot Crain Hassen on a double surface Winning it all, a team with some local boys leading was Team Thermal Underware. The Underwares were made up of A pilot Eric Donaldson on a WW T2, A pilot Lucas Ridley on a Litespeed S, C pilot William Baker on a double surface, B pilot Keith Smith on a U2, and Bob Belshan on a double surface. I can't wait to do it again next year. Team Challenge is evolving in a very interesting and healthy way. Just don't miss it next year! The winning Thermal Underwear team was led by super duper A's Eric Donaldson and Lucas Ridley. They were the coolest team leaders beyond a doubt! Here's the story of the Thermal Underware A leader and prototype Team Challenge pilot Lucas Ridley. Thanks Lucas for all the help with the write up! In Lucas' words: My Team Challenge history begins one year ago, the day before the meet started was the first day I thermal soared! I went into that meet a new H3 with only ridge soaring under my belt. Now, a year later, I am a leading a team with Eric Donaldson. Because of that one week of flying a year ago I was propelled into another dimension of hang gliding that would have taken much longer to find on my own, if at all. After Team Challenge 2007, I flew all winter and spring and got up the nerve up to go to the East Coast Championships. I was hooked! Only two months later I went to the Big Spring Championship. All this within less than a year of Team Challenge. I credit Tennessee Tree Toppers's incredible meet with motivating me to fly a lot and teaching me cross country skills. Otherwise, I think I would have puttered around my home site for another year or two before I built up the courage to venture out. Encouragement is where Team Challenge really excels. Team Challenge like meets can do a lot for our sport by creating opportunities for those pilots in H2 purgatory who have not had a formal introduction to cross country flying or competition to try it out in a welcoming environment. Heck, Kevin Carter's first competition was a Team Challenge and he went on to be a World team member and comes back to help give seminars and lead his own teams. Ollie's H2 driver even learned a lot just from listening to the seminars and the radio each day and plans to come back next year on a team. I have new respect for what A-pilots do and what Mike Barber does all the time when helping out lower air time pilots. It adds a new dynamic to not only try to make your goal, but fly as a team and help others along. Many times that required spiraling down to be at the same level with those you were trying to help and sacrificing altitude that you've struggled to achieve. One of the best video seminars featured Dennis Pagen critiquing everyone's launch! Not to say you can't pop your nose with the grapevine grip, but the worst launches I witnessed were using the bottle grip. I think everyone took something away from the talk, and here are a few example pictures of what we saw: The first and second photo sets show how easy it is to pop your nose with the bottle grip where the only contact with the glider is through the hands, not the shoulders. The next two photos show what most people did at the meet: start with grapevine and transition to the bottle grip during the launch sequence. Dennis called this transition 'unnecessary' and felt it still allows for an opportunity to pop the nose. Bottle vs. Grapevine: The last two sets of photos show holding the grapevine grip throughout the launch sequence by allowing the hands to slide down the downtubes as the glider begins to lift above the pilot. The shoulders lock the glider to the pilots body as it continues to lift, enabling three axis control during the entire launch sequence. That is just one example from the many great seminars that were given by the pro's that came out to volunteer their knowledge, many thanks to them! I hope to go to more competitions in the future and it all started at Team Challenge where I continued to learn so much this year. I would encourage all H2's to try to get their H3 by next Team Challenge so you can get signed up early. It filled up early this year, and I anticipate it filling up even sooner this coming year. See you there! Lucas Ridley Below are some of the comments made on our club email list after the event and links to videos from the event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AXAYoENhlQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9LsxxNiEu4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLgg_5OLpLw There is a loss for words on how to express my deepest appreciation for all who contributed to this years team challenge. I am blessed to know that there is NO where else in the world that you can go to learn at this level from the best pilots ever. (This is history in the making) The level of knowledge at this event was unprecedented. We had the top pilots there to teach us what they know. It is one thing to be a great pilot and another to have the ability and willingness to teach others. The best pilots in the world were there and ALL of them knew how to share their knowledge with passion and a genuine loving spirit. I THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING SO GENEROUS WITH YOUR SHARING AND TEACHING. The knowledge base was HUGE! Even our drivers were amazed in what they learned. Ollie, I have to give you thanks for keeping a tight hold on the leash. Even when you are stressed out you have a rather calming nature about you. You are truly blessed with many positive personality traits that I hope to obtain in the years to come. Congratulations Bill for clenching the "C" pilot Rookie of the Year award. You truly earned it. I will see you all next year. Discuss Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge 2008 at the Oz Report forum link»

Published: October 24, 2008, 3:28 pm - Indexed: October 25, 2008, 10:43 am -

Category: Recreation > Aviation > Aircraft > Footlaunched > Hang Gliding

]]> {ISSUES > BIAS AND BALANCE} - Despite evidence to the contrary, Hannity claimed "[n]obody in the Republican Party" has resorted to overtones of "race and fear" in attacking Obama

On the October 9 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, co-host Sean Hannity said of Gov. Sarah Palin: "[T]here are some extreme, left-wing Democratic lawmakers accusing her of resorting to race tactics on the campaign trail. Why? Palin recently referred to Barack Obama as, quote, 'not one of us,' prompting New York Congressman Greg Meeks to say the following, quote: 'They know they can't win on issues, so the last resort they have is race and fear.' " Hannity went on to assert: "If it wasn't so ridiculously idiotic and absurd, it'd be funny. But -- you know, but this -- this sounds a lot like Barack Obama: 'They're going to tell you I have a funny name, and I don't look like those guys on the currency. And they're going to say, "Oh, he's black?" ' " Hannity added: "Nobody in the Republican Party is bringing this up except him and his supporters." However, contrary to Hannity's claim that Meeks' comments are "ridiculously idiotic and absurd" and his claim that "[n]obody in the Republican Party" has brought up Obama's race or his middle name, several Republican officials and supporters have brought up the issue of his race, made racial innuendos, or used his middle name, as Media Matters for America and several media outlets have documented: On October 5, Los Angeles Times staff writer Peter Wallsten reported that Bobby May, treasurer of Virginia's Buchanan County Republican Party, wrote a column for the Virginia newspaper The Voice in which he lampooned the platform of "Barack Hussein Obama." May wrote that Obama would "[h]ire rapper Ludacris to 'paint [the White House] black' " if he won the presidency. May had previously been a member of the McCain campaign's Virginia leadership team, though according to an October 7 report by NBC affiliate WRC-TV, May has since been "removed from the campaign." Hill reporter Mike Soraghan reported that Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) called Barack and Michelle Obama "uppity" while answering questions with reporters on September 4. Soraghan wrote: " 'Just from what little I've seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity,' Westmoreland said. Asked to clarify that he used the word 'uppity,' Westmoreland said, 'Uppity, yeah.' " On April 14, The New York Times' Kate Phillips reported on the blog The Caucus blog that Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY) referred to Obama as "boy[]" during April 12 remarks at a Lincoln Day Dinner in Kentucky's 4th Congressional District. Phillips reported: " 'I'm going to tell you something: That boy's finger does not need to be on the button,' Mr. Davis said. 'He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country.' " Davis offered a written apology to Obama in which he wrote: "My poor choice of words is regrettable and was in no way meant to impugn you or your integrity. I offer my sincere apology to you and ask for your forgiveness." Media Matters documented comments made by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to a Spencer, Iowa, radio station and published in a March 8 article in Spencer's Daily Reporter: "I will tell you that, if [Obama] is elected president, then the radical Islamists, the al-Qaida, the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11 because they will declare victory in this War on Terror." The article continued: King thinks radical Islamists will say the United States has capitulated because the Obama administration would be pulling troops out of any conflict associated with al-Qaida. "Additionally, his middle name (Hussein) does matter," King said. "It matters because they read a meaning into that in the rest of the world. That has a special meaning to them. They will be dancing in the streets because of his middle name. They will be dancing in the streets because of who his father was and because of his posture that says: Pull out of the Middle East and pull out of this conflict." As Media Matters documented, a February 25 press release by the Tennessee Republican Party, titled "Anti-Semites for Obama," stated that Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan "likened Obama to a new messiah" and "compared Obama to the founder of Islam, remarking that both had a white mother and black father, according to the Associated Press." The release originally included an image of Obama dressed in Somali clothing during a 2006 visit to northeast Kenya and described the photo as Obama "dressed in Muslim clothing during a 2006 trip to Africa." In fact, Yusuf Garaad Omar, head of the BBC's Somali Service, said of the clothing: "There is no religious significance to it whatsoever. It is mainly the nomadic people who use it. Some of them are religious, some are not." As Media Matters documented, while The Washington Post reported that Sen. John McCain condemned the press release, he later touted the endorsement of the Tennessee GOP chairman, who was quoted attacking Obama in the press release. In an October 6 post on CBSNews.com's From The Road blog, Scott Conroy reported that Mike Scott, sheriff of Lee County, Florida, said, "On Nov. 4, let's leave Barack Hussein Obama wondering what happened." Conroy wrote that Scott "used Barack Obama's middle name in order to incite the crowd of thousands of people." In an update to the post, Conroy reported that after the rally, Palin campaign spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt issued a reprimand, calling Scott's remark "inappropriate rhetoric." Washington Post staff writer Michael D. Shear reported that during the October 9 edition of Dennis Miller's talk radio program, The Dennis Miller Show, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating (R), a co-chairman of McCain's campaign, "raised the issue of Obama's drug use." Keating said that Obama "ought to admit" that he "was a guy on the street." Huffington Post reporter Sam Stein noted that while speaking at an October 8 McCain campaign rally in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Bill Platt, the Republican Party chair of Lehigh County, "twice referred to 'Barack Hussein Obama' minutes before John McCain and Sarah Palin were set to take the stage." During his speech, Platt said: "And think about how you'll feel on November 5 if you wake up in the morning and you see the news that Barack Obama, that Barack Hussein Obama is the president-elect of the United States of America." Pratt later said that "this year ... the number one most liberal senator in the United States of America was, you guessed it, the ambassador of change, Barack Hussein Obama." This is not the first time Hannity has suggested that "[n]obody in the Republican Party" has brought up Obama's race or his "funny name." As Media Matters documented, on the July 31 edition of Hannity & Colmes, Hannity asked Democratic strategist Michael Brown "a very specific question": "Can you name any prominent Republican that has brought up -- that has said that [Obama] is not patriotic, or that he's got a funny name, or that he doesn't look like those presidents on dollar bills? Do you know any prominent Republican that has said any of these things?" From the October 9 edition of Fox's Hannity & Colmes: HANNITY: Governor Sarah Palin has been the toast of the Republican Party, luring the conservative base back to Senator McCain. But there are some extreme, left-wing Democratic lawmakers accusing her of resorting to race tactics on the campaign trail. Why? Palin recently referred to Barack Obama as, quote, "not one of us," prompting New York Congressman Greg Meeks to say the following, quote: "They know they can't win on issues, so the last resort they have is race and fear." We continue with Ann Coulter and Pat Caddell. If it wasn't so ridiculously idiotic and absurd, it'd be funny. But -- you know, but this -- this sounds a lot like Barack Obama: "They're going to tell you I have a funny name, and I don't look like those guys on the currency. And they're going to say, 'Oh, he's black?' " Nobody in the Republican Party is bringing this up except him and his supporters. Ann Coulter? COULTER: I think this is -- HANNITY: Go ahead. COULTER: -- I don't think this is helping Obama. He was, in the words of his vice-presidential choice, Joe Biden, supposed to be the new, you know, clean black candidate. By which, among other things, I assume he meant he wasn't constantly going to be haranguing white people for being racist. So, going back to the old school of forcing white people to walk on egg shells -- I mean, there was a hockey mom claim, that that was racist. Joe Six-Pack, that that is racist. No one wants a black president more than I do, just so we can stop walking on egg shells.

http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/despite-evidence-to-the-contrary-hannity-claimed-20081088917.htm 2008-10-13T19:06:37Z 2008-10-13T19:06:37Z Mediamatters.Org http://mediamatters.org/items/200810130009 Despite evidence to the contrary, Hannity claimed "[n]obody in the Republican Party" has resorted to overtones of "race and fear" in attacking Obama ^{{new window}} Mediamatters.Org - On the October 9 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, co-host Sean Hannity said of Gov. Sarah Palin: "[T]here are some extreme, left-wing Democratic lawmakers accusing her of resorting to race tactics on the campaign trail. Why? Palin recently referred to Barack Obama as, quote, 'not one of us,' prompting New York Congressman Greg Meeks to say the following, quote: 'They know they can't win on issues, so the last resort they have is race and fear.' " Hannity went on to assert: "If it wasn't so ridiculously idiotic and absurd, it'd be funny. But -- you know, but this -- this sounds a lot like Barack Obama: 'They're going to tell you I have a funny name, and I don't look like those guys on the currency. And they're going to say, "Oh, he's black?" ' " Hannity added: "Nobody in the Republican Party is bringing this up except him and his supporters." However, contrary to Hannity's claim that Meeks' comments are "ridiculously idiotic and absurd" and his claim that "[n]obody in the Republican Party" has brought up Obama's race or his middle name, several Republican officials and supporters have brought up the issue of his race, made racial innuendos, or used his middle name, as Media Matters for America and several media outlets have documented: On October 5, Los Angeles Times staff writer Peter Wallsten reported that Bobby May, treasurer of Virginia's Buchanan County Republican Party, wrote a column for the Virginia newspaper The Voice in which he lampooned the platform of "Barack Hussein Obama." May wrote that Obama would "[h]ire rapper Ludacris to 'paint [the White House] black' " if he won the presidency. May had previously been a member of the McCain campaign's Virginia leadership team, though according to an October 7 report by NBC affiliate WRC-TV, May has since been "removed from the campaign." Hill reporter Mike Soraghan reported that Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) called Barack and Michelle Obama "uppity" while answering questions with reporters on September 4. Soraghan wrote: " 'Just from what little I've seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity,' Westmoreland said. Asked to clarify that he used the word 'uppity,' Westmoreland said, 'Uppity, yeah.' " On April 14, The New York Times' Kate Phillips reported on the blog The Caucus blog that Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY) referred to Obama as "boy[]" during April 12 remarks at a Lincoln Day Dinner in Kentucky's 4th Congressional District. Phillips reported: " 'I'm going to tell you something: That boy's finger does not need to be on the button,' Mr. Davis said. 'He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country.' " Davis offered a written apology to Obama in which he wrote: "My poor choice of words is regrettable and was in no way meant to impugn you or your integrity. I offer my sincere apology to you and ask for your forgiveness." Media Matters documented comments made by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to a Spencer, Iowa, radio station and published in a March 8 article in Spencer's Daily Reporter: "I will tell you that, if [Obama] is elected president, then the radical Islamists, the al-Qaida, the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11 because they will declare victory in this War on Terror." The article continued: King thinks radical Islamists will say the United States has capitulated because the Obama administration would be pulling troops out of any conflict associated with al-Qaida. "Additionally, his middle name (Hussein) does matter," King said. "It matters because they read a meaning into that in the rest of the world. That has a special meaning to them. They will be dancing in the streets because of his middle name. They will be dancing in the streets because of who his father was and because of his posture that says: Pull out of the Middle East and pull out of this conflict." As Media Matters documented, a February 25 press release by the Tennessee Republican Party, titled "Anti-Semites for Obama," stated that Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan "likened Obama to a new messiah" and "compared Obama to the founder of Islam, remarking that both had a white mother and black father, according to the Associated Press." The release originally included an image of Obama dressed in Somali clothing during a 2006 visit to northeast Kenya and described the photo as Obama "dressed in Muslim clothing during a 2006 trip to Africa." In fact, Yusuf Garaad Omar, head of the BBC's Somali Service, said of the clothing: "There is no religious significance to it whatsoever. It is mainly the nomadic people who use it. Some of them are religious, some are not." As Media Matters documented, while The Washington Post reported that Sen. John McCain condemned the press release, he later touted the endorsement of the Tennessee GOP chairman, who was quoted attacking Obama in the press release. In an October 6 post on CBSNews.com's From The Road blog, Scott Conroy reported that Mike Scott, sheriff of Lee County, Florida, said, "On Nov. 4, let's leave Barack Hussein Obama wondering what happened." Conroy wrote that Scott "used Barack Obama's middle name in order to incite the crowd of thousands of people." In an update to the post, Conroy reported that after the rally, Palin campaign spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt issued a reprimand, calling Scott's remark "inappropriate rhetoric." Washington Post staff writer Michael D. Shear reported that during the October 9 edition of Dennis Miller's talk radio program, The Dennis Miller Show, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating (R), a co-chairman of McCain's campaign, "raised the issue of Obama's drug use." Keating said that Obama "ought to admit" that he "was a guy on the street." Huffington Post reporter Sam Stein noted that while speaking at an October 8 McCain campaign rally in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Bill Platt, the Republican Party chair of Lehigh County, "twice referred to 'Barack Hussein Obama' minutes before John McCain and Sarah Palin were set to take the stage." During his speech, Platt said: "And think about how you'll feel on November 5 if you wake up in the morning and you see the news that Barack Obama, that Barack Hussein Obama is the president-elect of the United States of America." Pratt later said that "this year ... the number one most liberal senator in the United States of America was, you guessed it, the ambassador of change, Barack Hussein Obama." This is not the first time Hannity has suggested that "[n]obody in the Republican Party" has brought up Obama's race or his "funny name." As Media Matters documented, on the July 31 edition of Hannity & Colmes, Hannity asked Democratic strategist Michael Brown "a very specific question": "Can you name any prominent Republican that has brought up -- that has said that [Obama] is not patriotic, or that he's got a funny name, or that he doesn't look like those presidents on dollar bills? Do you know any prominent Republican that has said any of these things?" From the October 9 edition of Fox's Hannity & Colmes: HANNITY: Governor Sarah Palin has been the toast of the Republican Party, luring the conservative base back to Senator McCain. But there are some extreme, left-wing Democratic lawmakers accusing her of resorting to race tactics on the campaign trail. Why? Palin recently referred to Barack Obama as, quote, "not one of us," prompting New York Congressman Greg Meeks to say the following, quote: "They know they can't win on issues, so the last resort they have is race and fear." We continue with Ann Coulter and Pat Caddell. If it wasn't so ridiculously idiotic and absurd, it'd be funny. But -- you know, but this -- this sounds a lot like Barack Obama: "They're going to tell you I have a funny name, and I don't look like those guys on the currency. And they're going to say, 'Oh, he's black?' " Nobody in the Republican Party is bringing this up except him and his supporters. Ann Coulter? COULTER: I think this is -- HANNITY: Go ahead. COULTER: -- I don't think this is helping Obama. He was, in the words of his vice-presidential choice, Joe Biden, supposed to be the new, you know, clean black candidate. By which, among other things, I assume he meant he wasn't constantly going to be haranguing white people for being racist. So, going back to the old school of forcing white people to walk on egg shells -- I mean, there was a hockey mom claim, that that was racist. Joe Six-Pack, that that is racist. No one wants a black president more than I do, just so we can stop walking on egg shells.

Media Matters - Despite evidence to the contrary, Hannity claimed "[n]obody in the Republican Party" has resorted to overtones of "race and fear" in attacking Obama {...} On Hannity & Colmes , Sean Hannity again claimed that "[n]obody in the Republican Party" is bringing up race in the context of the presidential campaign. In fact, several Republican officials and supporters have brought up the issue of Obama's race, made racial innuendos, or used his middle name. {...}

Published: October 13, 2008, 7:06 pm - Indexed: October 14, 2008, 2:36 pm - Page Size: 25KB

Category: Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance

]]> {EUROPE > NEWS AND MEDIA} - The first great American play of the 21st century

Sam Shepard, the American playwright, when asked why he wrote so much about family, answered: 'What else is there?' Tracy Letts likes to borrow the quote, and it is easy to see why. Letts is the author of August: Osage County, an epic tragicomedy about family that has taken America by storm. His new play is the feted youngest member of American drama's extended, dysfunctional family - a natural heir (or, perhaps, wayward stepchild) to Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee and Eugene O'Neill. Steppenwolf's production first triumphed in its Chicago hometown, and then on Broadway (where serious work is often drowned out by the sound of musicals), and went on to capture the 2008 Pulitzer Prize, five Tony awards and the nation's imagination. Rachel Weisz described seeing it as one of her 'top 10 nights in the theatre ever'. Tracey Ullman told Deanna Dunagan, the actress who plays Violet - the bitter, addicted matriarch at the centre of the family web - that she recognised her own mother in Dunagan's performance. And Patrick Stewart paid the cast the awkward compliment of leaving after the first act because he found it too close to home (he promises to return). A film adaptation - with the Weinstein company - is now planned. But it is not just celebrities that are hooked. Family as a subject speaks to everyone - especially when pain and laughter collide.This week the show opens at the National Theatre in London. And it seems incredible that Steppenwolf have not been seen in the capital since their stunning, sell-out adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath in 1989. The Chicago company first flared into life in the mid-Seventies. Its founders helped themselves - rather cheekily - to the title of Hermann Hesse's novel (even though no one had actually read Steppenwolf). But the name appealed: it sounded arresting, original, bold - and Steppenwolf was all these things. The founders were three boys barely out of school: Gary Sinise, Jeff Perry and Terry Kinney. They had energy, nerve and style. And the company, although peripatetic for years, became renowned for its risk-taking and up-front ferocity. This was where John Malkovich, John Mahoney and Joan Allen started their careers -and many other Steppenwolf stars have blown from the windy city to New York and Hollywood. Yet the company has always commanded loyalty and first-rate actors who wanted to stay on. Their return to London is an event in itself. Before meeting the cast, I rang Tracy Letts in Chicago to ask about the family tree that inspired his play. Letts is 43 and has been an actor and Steppenwolf member since 2002. He is the author of several smaller-scale pieces (including Killer Joe and Bug - defined by one critic as 'trailer park noir'). Letts told me about the suicide of his maternal grandfather - a labourer who drowned in a lake. It's a story that has haunted Letts all his life. 'His death has always been a mystery and not one I remotely solve.' Instead, his grandfather's suicide exists in the play as the question from which everything else follows. His wife, Violet, is based on Letts's grandmother who became an addict after her husband's death. (Letts himself, more than a decade ago, battled with alcohol and drug addiction.)He grew up in Oklahoma and does not regard his own family as having been unhappy. His mother, Billie, is a novelist; his father, Dennis, was a literature professor. And it is his relationship with his father that is key to understanding him and the production. Steppenwolf boldly cast Tracy's father (who had, extraordinarily enough, taken on a second career as an actor) in the role of grandfather. He played in Chicago to great acclaim before briefly transferring to Broadway. But in November 2007 he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He left the show in January, died in February. He was 73. Dennis had believed absolutely in his son's play but never lived to see its laurels. For Tracy, this was devastating. The overlap between what was happening on stage and the drama of losing his father was 'the most emotionally powerful thing of my life'. On the night of the Pulitzer ceremony, he could not feel conventionally celebratory. Instead he was overtaken by a rage he could neither subdue nor explain. 'It was complicated. As my shrink said: we're not wind-up dolls. I could not access the feelings I was supposed to feel.'Letts has a highly developed emotional intelligence. In particular - and it is what makes his play powerful - he understands the force of what is not being said. It is difficult to feel to order - expecting an emotion may make it take flight. He expected his mother to be upset by his portrait of her mother - and she was. But he could never have predicted her verdict: 'You have been very kind to her,' she said. His mother seems to have a way of finding the right thing to say. Apparently - I gathered later from a cast member - she offered her son, after his father's death, the thought that for Dennis, his involvement in the play was 'the cherry on top of the sundae'. She told Tracy: 'Your Dad could not have picked a better last chapter.'The cast of charactersI met the actors on their first day in London - jet-lagged but buoyant. I had decided to pick half a dozen key family members (the cast is 13-strong) and ask each of them to begin by talking in character, to make it possible not only to ask personal questions but to reveal exactly how dysfunctional this American family is. The poky interview room at the National came perfectly equipped - with a couch.Jeff PerryActor, teacher, co-founder of Steppenwolf. He plays Bill Fordham, a married professor in his fifties having an affair with a student half his age. Perry is delightful yet distrait, with a way of holding one hand up like a traffic policeman, hoping to halt or redirect his thoughts.'I am Bill Fordham. When challenged, I defend myself with verbal analysis. My marriage is in dire trouble. I am on the second half of the mortal merry-go-round. My wife does not understand, accept or particularly like my hard-wiring. I look forward to hitting the refresh button in my new relationship.' This makes unpleasant listening because Perry's Bill entirely lacks remorse. I banish him, with relief, in order to ask Perry about the company he co-founded in 1976. He is thrilled, he says, that Steppenwolf now has, in Letts, a writer of international stature. And he explains that Steppenwolf has always been defined by its ensemble work: 'We made a religion of communication between ourselves as actors. That has been the unchanging way in which we have measured our success and failure.'Amy MortonActor, director and Steppenwolf member since 1997. She has been in many of the company's productions, including One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Morton plays Bill's estranged wife. She is an angular beauty and in every way sympathetic but, in character, talks with injured defiance.'I am Barbara Fordham. I am 47. My qualities are my sense of humour. Loyalty. Passion. Yes - passion. It goes into my anger. My marriage is challenging but I am not to blame. I am not the one who left for someone younger. Bill won't talk to me. I am more than willing to talk to him. My daughter's drug problem? You'll have to talk to her father about it.'What has it been like to play Barbara? 'There are days when you'd rather peel the skin off your face than go on stage,' Morton says. After a recent rehearsal: 'I went home in an edgy, foul humour and realised: "Oh, right, it's her." She is very frustrated, angry and sad. The older you get as an actor, the less you bring it home, but if you do a role for more than a year, it's going to take its psychic toll.' She admits: 'I feel this character in my bones.'Molly Ranson Making her professional debut. She plays troubled, 14-year-old, dope-smoking Jean - Bill and Barbara's daughter. Ranson, unlike her character, is full of shining optimism. 'I have just found out Dad is sleeping with one of his students. Recently, Mum hasn't been there for me, nor has Dad. It all happened suddenly: we were happy, then my grandfather went missing. When did I start smoking pot? During 8th grade.' Jean represents family history - the addictive gene - repeating itself. Her 'inability to face reality,' Ranson suggests, is 'representative of many Americans'. She likens the play to 'watching a car accident. You feel you shouldn't be there but you can't look away.' The humour is 'real, terrifying and dark'.Deanna DunaganWon a Tony award, among others, for her performance as Violet Weston. Has been in eight Steppenwolf productions. Dunagan is poised, eloquent and diffident. In character, she is unnervingly deluded, unable to face up to being an addict. And she reminds us how often family is about front.'I am Violet. I am 67. I have to take many pills - but I don't agree that I have a problem. I have a bad back and knees. I am a survivor. I have been a good mother. I love my girls. Barbara left - she just left. In my day, families stayed together. Barbara is quite smart. Ivy, my daughter who stayed at home, could find a good husband. Karen - has gone away. Regrets? I wish I had been able to make a mark in the world. But my girls are good people and that is an achievement.'Dunagan believes that audiences want to 'find the key to how to live in a family. There will always be problems. Even if you love each other deeply. You'll be hurt. It's inevitable. Everyone comes to the theatre hungry to see another family's pain.'Rondi ReedMember of Steppenwolf since 1979. Has appeared in more than 60 company productions. She won a Tony as Mattie Fae. Reed is ebullient, warm, with a jesting energy. 'I am Mattie Fae, Violet's sister. I am 57. I am gregarious and sexy for my age. I am a goer, a doer, an organiser. I am well provided for by my husband in the upholstery business and I'm upholstered in every sense - always fighting my weight. I have a wonderful sense of humour. But my son is a trial to me. My sister is having big problems. Do I have faults? I like too many sweet things. I probably give people too many chances.' Reed laughs, exclaiming at how similar she and Mattie Fae are. That's not surprising: the part was written for her.Kimberly GuerreroPlays the Native American servant. She grew up near Pawhuska, Oklahoma, where the play is set. TV appearances include The Sopranos. Guerrero has an uplifting spirit and pride in her role.'I am Johnna. Some people think Native Americans no longer exist, or that we are inarticulate. My role is to embrace the compassion and wisdom of my culture. Native Americans see death as not so far from the beauty of birth - as its photo-negative. We don't look at life as linear, we see it as a circle.' Letts has described his play as a 'political parable' - a portrait of America. It is no coincidence, as Amy Morton points out, that the play begins (and ends) with a Native American. Morton believes the play reflects the 'mess of the American story and the beauty of it'. Rondi Reed sees the play as being about addiction and a 'toxicity that has pervaded the American psyche'. As a cast of Democrats, they all felt that if John McCain had won the US presidential election, the play would have had a 'sadder reception'. But, as Deanna Dunagan asserts: 'Since Obama has been elected, everything has changed. We were all so embarrassed, depressed, fearful and disgusted with what was happening in our country. Now there is hope. It is astonishing what one day can do in the life of a nation.' And it changes the way they feel about coming to London. Rondi explains: 'It makes us come here with our heads held high, as opposed to slinking through the back door.'? August: Osage County opens on Wednesday at the National Theatre, London SE1Theatreguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/europe/united-kingdom/news-and-media/the-first-great-american-play-of-the-21st-century-20081125632.htm 2008-11-23T00:04:54Z 2008-11-23T00:04:54Z Guardian.Co.Uk http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2008/nov/23/theatre-tracy-letts-august-osage-county The first great American play of the 21st century ^{{new window}} Www.Guardian.Co.Uk - Sam Shepard, the American playwright, when asked why he wrote so much about family, answered: 'What else is there?' Tracy Letts likes to borrow the quote, and it is easy to see why. Letts is the author of August: Osage County, an epic tragicomedy about family that has taken America by storm. His new play is the feted youngest member of American drama's extended, dysfunctional family - a natural heir (or, perhaps, wayward stepchild) to Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee and Eugene O'Neill. Steppenwolf's production first triumphed in its Chicago hometown, and then on Broadway (where serious work is often drowned out by the sound of musicals), and went on to capture the 2008 Pulitzer Prize, five Tony awards and the nation's imagination. Rachel Weisz described seeing it as one of her 'top 10 nights in the theatre ever'. Tracey Ullman told Deanna Dunagan, the actress who plays Violet - the bitter, addicted matriarch at the centre of the family web - that she recognised her own mother in Dunagan's performance. And Patrick Stewart paid the cast the awkward compliment of leaving after the first act because he found it too close to home (he promises to return). A film adaptation - with the Weinstein company - is now planned. But it is not just celebrities that are hooked. Family as a subject speaks to everyone - especially when pain and laughter collide.This week the show opens at the National Theatre in London. And it seems incredible that Steppenwolf have not been seen in the capital since their stunning, sell-out adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath in 1989. The Chicago company first flared into life in the mid-Seventies. Its founders helped themselves - rather cheekily - to the title of Hermann Hesse's novel (even though no one had actually read Steppenwolf). But the name appealed: it sounded arresting, original, bold - and Steppenwolf was all these things. The founders were three boys barely out of school: Gary Sinise, Jeff Perry and Terry Kinney. They had energy, nerve and style. And the company, although peripatetic for years, became renowned for its risk-taking and up-front ferocity. This was where John Malkovich, John Mahoney and Joan Allen started their careers -and many other Steppenwolf stars have blown from the windy city to New York and Hollywood. Yet the company has always commanded loyalty and first-rate actors who wanted to stay on. Their return to London is an event in itself. Before meeting the cast, I rang Tracy Letts in Chicago to ask about the family tree that inspired his play. Letts is 43 and has been an actor and Steppenwolf member since 2002. He is the author of several smaller-scale pieces (including Killer Joe and Bug - defined by one critic as 'trailer park noir'). Letts told me about the suicide of his maternal grandfather - a labourer who drowned in a lake. It's a story that has haunted Letts all his life. 'His death has always been a mystery and not one I remotely solve.' Instead, his grandfather's suicide exists in the play as the question from which everything else follows. His wife, Violet, is based on Letts's grandmother who became an addict after her husband's death. (Letts himself, more than a decade ago, battled with alcohol and drug addiction.)He grew up in Oklahoma and does not regard his own family as having been unhappy. His mother, Billie, is a novelist; his father, Dennis, was a literature professor. And it is his relationship with his father that is key to understanding him and the production. Steppenwolf boldly cast Tracy's father (who had, extraordinarily enough, taken on a second career as an actor) in the role of grandfather. He played in Chicago to great acclaim before briefly transferring to Broadway. But in November 2007 he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He left the show in January, died in February. He was 73. Dennis had believed absolutely in his son's play but never lived to see its laurels. For Tracy, this was devastating. The overlap between what was happening on stage and the drama of losing his father was 'the most emotionally powerful thing of my life'. On the night of the Pulitzer ceremony, he could not feel conventionally celebratory. Instead he was overtaken by a rage he could neither subdue nor explain. 'It was complicated. As my shrink said: we're not wind-up dolls. I could not access the feelings I was supposed to feel.'Letts has a highly developed emotional intelligence. In particular - and it is what makes his play powerful - he understands the force of what is not being said. It is difficult to feel to order - expecting an emotion may make it take flight. He expected his mother to be upset by his portrait of her mother - and she was. But he could never have predicted her verdict: 'You have been very kind to her,' she said. His mother seems to have a way of finding the right thing to say. Apparently - I gathered later from a cast member - she offered her son, after his father's death, the thought that for Dennis, his involvement in the play was 'the cherry on top of the sundae'. She told Tracy: 'Your Dad could not have picked a better last chapter.'The cast of charactersI met the actors on their first day in London - jet-lagged but buoyant. I had decided to pick half a dozen key family members (the cast is 13-strong) and ask each of them to begin by talking in character, to make it possible not only to ask personal questions but to reveal exactly how dysfunctional this American family is. The poky interview room at the National came perfectly equipped - with a couch.Jeff PerryActor, teacher, co-founder of Steppenwolf. He plays Bill Fordham, a married professor in his fifties having an affair with a student half his age. Perry is delightful yet distrait, with a way of holding one hand up like a traffic policeman, hoping to halt or redirect his thoughts.'I am Bill Fordham. When challenged, I defend myself with verbal analysis. My marriage is in dire trouble. I am on the second half of the mortal merry-go-round. My wife does not understand, accept or particularly like my hard-wiring. I look forward to hitting the refresh button in my new relationship.' This makes unpleasant listening because Perry's Bill entirely lacks remorse. I banish him, with relief, in order to ask Perry about the company he co-founded in 1976. He is thrilled, he says, that Steppenwolf now has, in Letts, a writer of international stature. And he explains that Steppenwolf has always been defined by its ensemble work: 'We made a religion of communication between ourselves as actors. That has been the unchanging way in which we have measured our success and failure.'Amy MortonActor, director and Steppenwolf member since 1997. She has been in many of the company's productions, including One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Morton plays Bill's estranged wife. She is an angular beauty and in every way sympathetic but, in character, talks with injured defiance.'I am Barbara Fordham. I am 47. My qualities are my sense of humour. Loyalty. Passion. Yes - passion. It goes into my anger. My marriage is challenging but I am not to blame. I am not the one who left for someone younger. Bill won't talk to me. I am more than willing to talk to him. My daughter's drug problem? You'll have to talk to her father about it.'What has it been like to play Barbara? 'There are days when you'd rather peel the skin off your face than go on stage,' Morton says. After a recent rehearsal: 'I went home in an edgy, foul humour and realised: "Oh, right, it's her." She is very frustrated, angry and sad. The older you get as an actor, the less you bring it home, but if you do a role for more than a year, it's going to take its psychic toll.' She admits: 'I feel this character in my bones.'Molly Ranson Making her professional debut. She plays troubled, 14-year-old, dope-smoking Jean - Bill and Barbara's daughter. Ranson, unlike her character, is full of shining optimism. 'I have just found out Dad is sleeping with one of his students. Recently, Mum hasn't been there for me, nor has Dad. It all happened suddenly: we were happy, then my grandfather went missing. When did I start smoking pot? During 8th grade.' Jean represents family history - the addictive gene - repeating itself. Her 'inability to face reality,' Ranson suggests, is 'representative of many Americans'. She likens the play to 'watching a car accident. You feel you shouldn't be there but you can't look away.' The humour is 'real, terrifying and dark'.Deanna DunaganWon a Tony award, among others, for her performance as Violet Weston. Has been in eight Steppenwolf productions. Dunagan is poised, eloquent and diffident. In character, she is unnervingly deluded, unable to face up to being an addict. And she reminds us how often family is about front.'I am Violet. I am 67. I have to take many pills - but I don't agree that I have a problem. I have a bad back and knees. I am a survivor. I have been a good mother. I love my girls. Barbara left - she just left. In my day, families stayed together. Barbara is quite smart. Ivy, my daughter who stayed at home, could find a good husband. Karen - has gone away. Regrets? I wish I had been able to make a mark in the world. But my girls are good people and that is an achievement.'Dunagan believes that audiences want to 'find the key to how to live in a family. There will always be problems. Even if you love each other deeply. You'll be hurt. It's inevitable. Everyone comes to the theatre hungry to see another family's pain.'Rondi ReedMember of Steppenwolf since 1979. Has appeared in more than 60 company productions. She won a Tony as Mattie Fae. Reed is ebullient, warm, with a jesting energy. 'I am Mattie Fae, Violet's sister. I am 57. I am gregarious and sexy for my age. I am a goer, a doer, an organiser. I am well provided for by my husband in the upholstery business and I'm upholstered in every sense - always fighting my weight. I have a wonderful sense of humour. But my son is a trial to me. My sister is having big problems. Do I have faults? I like too many sweet things. I probably give people too many chances.' Reed laughs, exclaiming at how similar she and Mattie Fae are. That's not surprising: the part was written for her.Kimberly GuerreroPlays the Native American servant. She grew up near Pawhuska, Oklahoma, where the play is set. TV appearances include The Sopranos. Guerrero has an uplifting spirit and pride in her role.'I am Johnna. Some people think Native Americans no longer exist, or that we are inarticulate. My role is to embrace the compassion and wisdom of my culture. Native Americans see death as not so far from the beauty of birth - as its photo-negative. We don't look at life as linear, we see it as a circle.' Letts has described his play as a 'political parable' - a portrait of America. It is no coincidence, as Amy Morton points out, that the play begins (and ends) with a Native American. Morton believes the play reflects the 'mess of the American story and the beauty of it'. Rondi Reed sees the play as being about addiction and a 'toxicity that has pervaded the American psyche'. As a cast of Democrats, they all felt that if John McCain had won the US presidential election, the play would have had a 'sadder reception'. But, as Deanna Dunagan asserts: 'Since Obama has been elected, everything has changed. We were all so embarrassed, depressed, fearful and disgusted with what was happening in our country. Now there is hope. It is astonishing what one day can do in the life of a nation.' And it changes the way they feel about coming to London. Rondi explains: 'It makes us come here with our heads held high, as opposed to slinking through the back door.'? August: Osage County opens on Wednesday at the National Theatre, London SE1Theatreguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

The first great American play of the 21st century | Stage | The Observer {...} Playwright Tracy Letts talks about his Pulitzer Prize-winning work while the actors talk in character about their roles {...}

Published: November 23, 2008, 12:04 am - Indexed: November 23, 2008, 1:36 pm - Page Size: 89KB

Category: Regional > Europe > United Kingdom > News and Media

]]> {EUROPE > NEWS AND MEDIA} - Canavan picks up honorary degree

Former MSP Dennis Canavan is among those being given honorary degrees by the University of Stirling.

http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/europe/united-kingdom/scotland/news-and-media/canavan-picks-up-honorary-degree-20081159431.htm 2008-11-21T11:58:08Z 2008-11-21T11:58:08Z News.Bbc.Co.Uk http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7741640.stm Canavan picks up honorary degree ^{{new window}} News.Bbc.Co.Uk - Former MSP Dennis Canavan is among those being given honorary degrees by the University of Stirling.

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Tayside and Central | Canavan picks up honorary degree {...}

Published: November 21, 2008, 11:58 am - Indexed: November 21, 2008, 12:47 pm - Page Size: 44KB

Category: Regional > Europe > United Kingdom > Scotland > News and Media

]]> {EUROPE > NEWS AND MEDIA} - 1992 hattrick hero Dennis Bailey tells QPR to attack Manchester United in Carling Cup

Man who stunned Man Utd 16 years ago has message for class of 2008.

http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/europe/united-kingdom/recreation-and-sports/sports/football/news-and-media/1992-hattrick-hero-dennis-bailey-tells-qpr-to-attack-20081182920.htm 2008-11-10T20:17:02Z 2008-11-10T20:17:02Z Telegraph.Co.Uk http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/leaguecup/3417750/1992-hat-trick-hero-Dennis-Bailey-tells-QPR-to-attack-Manchester-United-in-Carling-Cup-Football.html 1992 hattrick hero Dennis Bailey tells QPR to attack Manchester United in Carling Cup ^{{new window}} Www.Telegraph.Co.Uk - Man who stunned Man Utd 16 years ago has message for class of 2008.

1992 hat-trick hero Dennis Bailey tells QPR to attack Manchester United in Carling Cup: Football - Telegraph {...} If Queens Park Rangers need last-minute inspiration before their Carling Cup tie at Old Trafford on Tuesday night they could do worse than access the YouTube footage of the side's wildly unexpected 4-1 win at Old Trafford on New Year's Day in 1992. {...}

Published: November 10, 2008, 8:17 pm - Indexed: November 11, 2008, 1:04 pm - Page Size: 45KB

Category: Regional > Europe > United Kingdom > Recreation and Sports > Sports > Football > News and Media

]]> {EUROPE > NEWS AND MEDIA} - Seamus Heaney talks to his fellow Irish poet Dennis O'Driscoll

Seamus Heaney talks about his early writing life, the Troubles and his public persona

http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/europe/united-kingdom/news-and-media/seamus-heaney-talks-to-his-fellow-irish-poet-dennis-20081116511.htm 2008-11-08T00:02:53Z 2008-11-08T00:02:53Z Guardian.Co.Uk http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/nov/08/seamus-heaney-interview Seamus Heaney talks to his fellow Irish poet Dennis O'Driscoll ^{{new window}} Www.Guardian.Co.Uk - Seamus Heaney talks about his early writing life, the Troubles and his public persona

Seamus Heaney talks to his fellow Irish poet Dennis O'Driscoll | Books | The Guardian {...}

Published: November 8, 2008, 12:02 am - Indexed: November 8, 2008, 10:28 am - Page Size: 98KB

Category: Regional > Europe > United Kingdom > News and Media

]]> {EUROPE > NEWS AND MEDIA} - Julian Borger: What Obama's victory means for US foreign policy