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A Lighter Bloody Mary

FitSugar — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 03:30:09 -0800

Bloody Marys are the quintessential brunch time drink; some might even argue that it's liquid salad. My feeling is that as long as you don't overdo it, they're a fun way to get lycopene in your diet.

Ever since I discovered shochu - a low-calorie alternative to vodka - I've been playing around with different cocktail recipes. My latest is a lighter version of the Bloody Mary but with an Asian twist, and using shochu saves you abut 100 calories. If you can't find shochu in your area, use sake or soju instead. All of these spirits contain fewer calories than vodka and complement the Asian flavors of the drink nicely.

To see the recipe, read more.

Asian Bloody Mary
original recipe

If I don't have homemade tomato juice on hand, I'll use R.W. Knudsen's organic tomato juice. It has no added sugar, and the sodium content is relatively low compared to other store bought brands.

Ingredients

2 ounces shoju
4 ounces tomato juice
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated wasabi or 1 teaspoon wasabi paste
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon Sriracha hot sauce
Pinch of freshly ground pepper
Juice of 1/2 large lime
Celery stalk, tomato, lime, or cucumber spear for garnish

Directions

Combine all ingredients except garnish in an ice-filled cocktail shaker and shake to combine.
Strain over fresh ice into a glass and garnish with assorted veggies.

Makes one drink.

Print recipe with images | without images

Source: Flickr User kthread

Louboutin Bloody Mary

janeaniela — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:35:04 -0800

I am selling this also on Ebay. New and authentic. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=260346082337 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=260346098963 or u can type in Christian Louboutin Bloody Mary by valen-moo. =)

Shochu: Cheers With Fewer Calories

FitSugar — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 04:05:02 -0800

There's nothing wrong with enjoying a cocktail or two - especially during the holidays. But if you're concerned with calories and carbs, alcohol can be a fast and easy way to overindulge without even realizing it. The next time you're drinking, try shochu. It's a distilled beverage from Japan that works great in cocktails and has far fewer calories than other liquors.

In most cocktails, a 1.5-ounce serving of hard liquor adds about 100 calories per drink, and this is before any juice, tonic, or simple syrup is added. The same amount of shochu only adds about 30 calories, a savings of 70 calories per drink!

Shochu is a clear beverage distilled from grain, barley, sweet potatoes, or buckwheat and contains 20-35 percent alcohol by volume. To put that in perspective, most vodkas are 80 proof, meaning they contain 40 percent alcohol by volume. In terms of taste, shochu resembles vodka, making it a great substitute in a Cosmopolitan or Bloody Mary. It's also great on its own, over ice, or paired with soda or tonic water. The clean taste and smooth finish of the alcohol makes it a really versatile drink that will mix nicely with fruit, herbs, and juices.

Keep in mind that shochu is different than sake or Korean soju, which can be similar in taste and appearance. Soju and sake have a slightly higher calorie count, clocking in at about 65 and 80 calories respectively per 1.5-ounce serving. You can find shochu in Japanese restaurants and markets, cocktail lounges, or buy it online to use at home. American made Haamonii Shochu ($31) is usually the easiest to find in the States, and comes with the street cred of having earned a bunch of awards too. If you're looking for a Japanese brand, Yokaichi Kome ($22) is a good place to start.

Source: Flickr User Ewan-M

Shochu: Cheers With Fewer Calories

FitSugar — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 04:05:02 -0800

Source: Flickr User Ewan-M

JD Robb: In Death Series

Myst — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:48:42 -0700

In honor of Reading Is Sexy's grand opening, I'm going to start off with the series that's has been holding me in a chockhold for going on 10 years now.
Nora Roberts, writing as JD Robb in her not so far distant future has captured my attention since my very good friend lend me a copy of the 1st of the series, Naked In Death. That copy started me on my 10 year journey of hunting and gathering mission to find and read every one of the books in the series. Luckily, JD Robb is too kind and releases 2 books a year under this series. I can happily say that I'm a proud owner of all 34 books so far and you'll have to pry them from my cold dead hands before I let them go.
Brief Synopsis:
The In Death Series is a futuristic police procedural by author J.D. Robb centering around NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas and her fight to bring justice to those brutally murdered in her city. Many might call this series more of a futuristic romantic suspense series, because so much of it revolves around the marriage of Eve to Irish billionaire Roarke. But while there's plenty of romance between our favorite couple, there's also plenty of suspenseful murder mystery. Put that together with some very interesting futuristic world-building, and you get a series that shows up on bestseller lists with every new release.

Books

	Naked in Death - #1 in the "In Death" Series - July 1995 Breaking every rule, Eve gets involved with Roarke, a suspect in her latest murder case. But passion and seduction have rules all their own.
	Glory in Death - #2 in the "In Death" Series - December 1995 In Eve's latest case, two murder victims have one connection: Eve's lover, Roarke.
	Immortal in Death - #3 in the "In Death" Series - July 1, 1996 She was one of the most sought-after women in the world. A top model who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted -even another woman's man. And now she's dead, the victim of a brutal murder. Police lieutenant Eve Dallas puts her life on the line to take the case when suspicion falls on her best friend, the other woman in the fatal love triangle. Beneath the façade of glamour, Eve finds that the world of high fashion thrives on an all-consuming obsession with youth and fame-one that leads her from the lights of the runway to the dark underworld of New York City, where drugs can fulfill any desire, for a price.
	Rapture in Death - #4 in the "In Death" Series - October 1, 1996 An investigation of three apparent suicides draws Eve into the world of virtual reality -- where the mind can become the weapon of its own destruction.
	Ceremony in Death - #5 in the "In Death" Series - May 1, 1997 Conducting a top secret investigation into the death of a fellow police officer has Lieutenant Eve Dallas treading on dangerous ground. She must put professional ethics before personal loyalties. But when a dead body is placed outside her home, Eve takes the warning personally. With her husband, Roarke, watching her every move, Eve is drawn into the most dangerous case of her career. Every step she takes makes her question her own sense of right and wrong - and brings her closer to a confrontation with humanity's most seductive form of evil...
	Vengeance in Death - #6 in the "In Death" Series - October 1, 1997 He is an expert with the latest technology . . . a madman with the mind of a genius and the heart of a killer. He quietly stalks his prey. Then he haunts the police with cryptic riddles about the crimes he is about to commit - always solved moments too late to save the victims' lives. Police lieutenant Eve Dallas found the first victim butchered in his own home. The second lost his life in a vacant luxury apartment. The two men had little in common. Both suffered unspeakable torture before their deaths. And both had ties to an ugly secret of ten years past - a secret shared by none other than Eve's new husband, Roarke.
	Holiday in Death - #7 in the "In Death" Series - June 1, 1998 No one likes to be alone during the holidays. For New York's most posh dating service, Personally Yours, it is the season to bring lonely hearts together. But Lieutenant Eve Dallas, on the trail of a ritualistic serial killer, has made a disturbing discovery: all of the victims have been traced to Personally Yours. As the murders continue, Eve enters into an elite world of people searching for their one true love--and a killer searching for his next victim. A world where the power of love leads men and women into the ultimate act of betrayal.
	Midnight in Death/Silent Night Anthology - #8 in the "In Death" Series - November, 1998 When her first Christmas with her new husband Roarke is interrupted by reports of the naked, mutilated body of the judge responsible for convicting serial killer David Palmer, Eve learns that her name appears on the list of others to be killed. This is another "ensemble" book, "Midnight" being one of four in the book "Silent Night." "Midnight" should come directly after "Holiday."
	Conspiracy in Death - #9 in the "In Death" Series - April 1999 In the late 21st century, on the streets of New York City, a street sleeper is found murdered, his diseased heart removed with surgical precision. His death would typically drop to the bottom of a list of senseless and inexplicable killings, but Lieutenant Dallas, who "would stand for the dead and the living," is not about to let that happen. When her research uncovers similar crimes in several cities that were dropped under mysterious circumstances, Dallas knows she's facing a killer cruel enough to prey on the weakest in society and powerful enough to conspire an extensive coverup. To complicate matters further, Dallas faces an equally troubling threat to her career when she's linked to the death of a fellow cop. Now she must fight to restore her good name as well as track down the killer.
	Loyalty in Death - #10 in the "In Death" Series - October 1999 Eve Dallas returns to face her most ingenious foe -- a 'secret admirer' who taunts her with letters...and kills without mercy.
	Witness in Death - #11 in the "In Death" Series - March 2000 Eve Dallas is thrust into the spotlight when she becomes the key witness in the brutal murder of a famous actor.
	Judgment in Death - #12 in the "In Death" Series - September 2000 When a cop killer cuts loose in a club called Purgatory, Lieutenant Eve Dallas descends into an underground criminal hell.
	Betrayal in Death - #13 in the "In Death" Series - March 2001 At the luxurious Roarke Palace Hotel, a maid walks into suite 4602 for the nightly turndown-- and steps into her worst nightmare. A killer leaves her dead, strangled by a thin silver wire. He's Sly Yost, a virtuoso of music and murder. A hit man for the elite. Lieutenant Eve Dallas knows him well. But in this twisted case, knowing the killer doesn't help solve the crime. Because there's someone else involved. Someone with a more personal motive. And Eve must face a terrifying possibility--that the real target may, in fact, be her husband Roarke.
	Interlude in Death/Out of This World Anthology - #14 in the "In Death" Series - August 8, 2001 Lieutenant Eve Dallas uncovers a murder-frame plot at a law enforcement seminar held at an off-planet resort owned by her husband, Roarke. One story out of four by different authors in the book "Out of This World."
	Seduction in Death - #15 in the "In Death" Series - September, 2001 Lieutenant Eve Dallas is searching for a Casanova killer with a deadly appetite for seduction.
	Reunion in Death - #16 in the "In Death" Series - March 5, 2002 A birthday party sets the scene for a frightening reunion with a killer from Eve Dallas's past.
	Purity in Death - #17 in the "In Death" Series - August 27, 2002 A frightening new computer virus is spreading and it knows no boundaries. And Eve Dallas must face the impossible -- that this computer virus can spread from machine to man.
	Portrait in Death - #18 in the "In Death" Series - March 1, 2003 Photos seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary for any pretty young woman starting a modeling career. Except that she wasn't a model. And that these photos were taken after she had been murdered. Now Dallas is on the trail of a killer who's a perfectionist and an artist. He carefully observes and records his victim's every move. And he has a mission: to own every beautiful young woman's innocence, to capture her youth and vitality--in one fateful shot.
	Imitation in Death - #19 in the "In Death" Series - September 2003 Police Lieutenant Eve Dallas encounters one of her most difficult cases in this latest offering from J. D. Robb. With the very first victim, Eve realizes that the killer stalking the streets of New York City isn't a run-of-the-mill serial murderer. The copycat executions are imitating the methods and victim choices of an ominous list of notorious serial killers, beginning with Jack the Ripper. And when the killer leaves a distinctive note at the crime scene, it's clear that he's targeting Eve personally--a fact that worries Roarke, Eve's shrewd husband.
	Remember When - #20 in the "In Death" Series - September 2003 Laine Tavish is an ordinary woman living an ordinary life in the small town of Angel's Gap, Maryland, as the proprietor of Remember When, an antique treasures and gift shop. At least, that's what everyone in Angel's Gap thinks. They have no idea that she used to be Elaine O'Hara, daughter of the notorious con man Big Jack O'Hara. Or that she grew up moving from place to place, one step ahead of the law . . . Laine's past has just caught up with her, though-in a very dramatic way. Her long-lost uncle suddenly turned up in her shop, leaving only a cryptic warning before dying in the street, run down by a car. Soon afterward, her home is ransacked. Now it's up to Laine, and a sexy stranger named Max Gannon, to find out who's chasing her, and why. The answer lies in a hidden fortune-a fortune that will change not only Laine's life but also the lives of future generations. And danger and death will surround that fortune for years to come. Until New York City detective Lieutenant Eve Dallas gets on the case. A thrill-ride of a novel that blends present-day romance and futuristic suspense, Remember When is a tale of deceit and secrets, of strong women and fascinating men-a brilliant combination of the incomparable talents of the two sides of Nora Roberts.
	Divided in Death - #21 in the "In Death" Series - January 22, 2004 Reva Ewing was a former member of the Secret Service, and now a security specialist for Roarke Enterprises--until she was found standing over the dead bodies of her husband, renowned artist Blair Bissel, and her best friend. But Lieutenant Eve Dallas believes there was more to the killing than jealous rage--all of Bissel's computer files were deliberately corrupted. To Roarke, it's the computer attack that poses the real threat. He and Reva have been under a code-red government contract to develop a program that would shield against techno-terrorists. But this deadly new breed of hackers isn't afraid to kill to protect their secret--and it's up to Lieutenant Eve Dallas to shut them down before the nightmare can spread to the whole country. The first strictly "In Death" novel to be released in HARDCOVER January 22, 2004
	Visions in Death - #22 in the "In Death" Series - August 9, 2004 On one of the city's hottest nights, New York Police Lieutenant Eve Dallas is sent to Central Park-and into a hellish new investigation. The victim is found on the rocks, just above the still, dark water of the lake. Around her neck is a single red ribbon. Her hands are posed, as if in prayer. But it is the eyes-removed with such precision, as if done with the careful hands of a surgeon-that have Dallas most alarmed. As more bodies turn up, each with the same defining scars, Eve is frantic for answers. Against her instincts, she accepts help from a psychic who offers one vision after another-each with shockingly accurate details of the murders. And when partner and friend Peabody is badly injured after escaping an attack, the stakes are raised. Are the eyes a symbol? A twisted religious ritual? A souvenir? With help from her husband, Roarke, Dallas must uncover the killer's motivation before another vision becomes another nightmare. . . .
	Survivor in Death - #23 in the "In Death" Series - February, 2005 The members of the Swisher family were murdered in their beds with brutal, military precision. The state-of-the-art security was breached, and the killers used night-vision equipment to find their way through the cozy, middle-class house. Clearly, Dallas is dealing with pros. It seems the only mistake they made was to overlook the nine-year-old girl cowering in the darkened kitchen. Now Nixie Swisher is an orphan-and the sole eyewitness to a seemingly inexplicable crime. Kids are not Dallas's strong suit. But Nixie needs a safe place to stay, and Dallas needs to solve this case. With her partner, Peabody, back on the job-and her husband, Roarke, providing the kind of help that only he can give-Lieutenant Eve Dallas is running after shadows, and dead-set on finding out who's behind them.
	Origin in Death - #24 in the "In Death" Series - July, 2005 New York police lieutenant Eve Dallas and her partner Peabody enter the hallowed halls of the Wilfred B. Icove Center for Reconstructive and Cosmetic Surgery on an open and shut case of self-defence. But before they can leave they are called to another crime scene. Dr. Wilfred B. Icove himself has been found dead in his office - murdered in a chillingly efficient manner: one swift stab to the heart. Struck by the immaculate condition of the crime scene, Dallas suspects a professional killing. Security discs show a stunningly beautiful woman calmly entering and leaving the building - the good doctor's final appointment. Known as "Dr. Perfect," the saintly Icove devoted his life to his family and his work. His record is clean. - Too clean for Dallas. She knows he was hiding something and suspects that his son - and successor - knows what it is. Then, like father like son, the young Dr. Icove is killed...with the same deadly precision. But who is the mystery woman - and what was her relationship with the good doctors? With her husband, Roarke, working behind the scenes, Dallas follows her darkest instincts into the Icoves' pasts. And what she discovers are men driven to create perfection - playing fast and loose with the laws of nature, the limits of science, and the morals of humanity...
	Memory in Death - #25 in the "In Death" Series - January, 2006 In December 2059, a mysterious woman shows up in Eve's office claiming to be her "mama." It's Trudy Lombard, the cruel foster mom who took nine-year-old Eve in after Eve killed her abusive father. Trudy made Eve take cold baths and locked her in closets, among other torments, and now Trudy wants Eve to pay $2 million to keep her past a secret. Readers of the series will know how Roarke, Eve's rich, deadly husband, handles the situation; he tosses Trudy out on her ear. When Trudy is found murdered the next day, it's up to Eve to catch the killer and prove that neither she nor Roarke was behind the bludgeoning.
	Haunted in Death/Bump in the Night Anthology - #26 in the "In Death" Series - July, 2006 In this short story, Eve finds herself investigating a murder in an old nightclub which some claim is haunted. Are there really "ghosts"?? Are the "ghosts" responsible for murder?? Eve finds herself in a tough battle between what she can rationally prove, and what her irrational mind is telling her. "Bump in the Night" is an anthology of stories from J.D. Robb, Ruth Langan, Mary Kay McComas and Mary Blayney.
	Born in Death - #27 in the "In Death" Series - November, 2006 As a New York homicide detective, Lieutenant Eve Dallas is used to death - the mysterious murders of two young professionals she's investigating with her partner, Peabody, almost seem like the norm. Harder to deal with is her best friend Mavis' nearly-to-term pregnancy, and Mavis' terror over the strange disappearance of another woman who is about to give birth. Now Eve is fighting on two fronts, hunting a ruthless killer, searching the streets for a missing woman--and time is running out, because Eve has a terrible hunch that she'd better recover the mother-to-be quickly, or an innocent life could be ruined forever.... According to Nora: "It's in Born Mavis will, at last, have the baby."
	Innocent in Death - #28 in the "In Death" Series - February, 2007 Eve Dallas has a mysterious homicide to solve when a popular teacher at a posh Upper West Side school turns up dead in his classroom. It doesn't help when an old flame from Roarke's past suddenly comes roaring back into his life. While Eve is fighting off jealousy, she grows more and more frustrated with the case. But from the mouths of babes, she pieces together enough evidence to prove no one is as innocent as they seem.
	Eternity in Death Novella/"Dead of Night" Anthology - #29 in the "In Death" Series - October 30th, 2007 When club-hopping bad girl Tiara Kent is found dead in her plush Manhattan apartment, the killing has all the earmarks of a vampire attack. The ever-practical Lieutenant Eve Dallas has to deal with superstitious cops carrying garlic and stakes, as well as the ever-hysterical press. None of the wealthy young victim’s friends seem to know much about the Dark Prince she has been secretly seeing. The chase to stop him before he kills again will lead Eve and her team into areas of the city that not even the most intrepid cop wants to visit, and into the very heart of darkness.
	Creation in Death - #30 in the "In Death" Series - Nov 6, 2007 Lieutenant Eve Dallas keeps the streets of New York City safe in this extraordinary series. But even she makes mistakes, and is haunted by those she couldn't save - and the killers she couldn't capture. When the body of a young brunette is found in East River Park, artfully positioned and marked by signs of prolonged and painful torture, Eve is catapulted back to nine years ago. A man the media tagged "The Groom" - because he put silver rings on the fingers of his victims - had the city on edge with a killing spree that took the lives of four women in fifteen days. But now, The Groom has returned - and Eve's determined to finish him. Familiar with his methods, Eve knows that he has already grabbed his next victim. Time is running out on another woman's life. When it turns out that the dead woman was employed by Eve's billionaire husband, Roarke, she brings him onto the case - a move that proves fitting when it becomes chillingly clear that the killer has made it personal. The victim was washed in products from a store Roarke owns, and laid out on a sheet his company manufactures. And chances are that he's working up to the biggest challenge of his illustrious career - abducting a woman who will test his skills on every level and who promises to give him days and days of pleasure before she dies: Eve.
	Strangers in Death - #31 in the "In Death" Series - Feb 19, 2008 Technology may be different in 2060 New York, yet the city is still a place of many cultures and great divides. But as ever, some murders receive more attention than others - especially those in which the victim is a prominent businessman, found in his Park Avenue apartment, tied to the bed - and strangled - with cords of black velvet.It doesn't surprise Lieutenant Eve Dallas that Thomas Anders' scandalous death is a source of titillation and speculation to the public - and of humiliation to his family. But while all those in the city are talking about it, people close to Anders aren't so anxious to do the same. With some help from her billionaire husband, Roarke, Eve is soon knocking on doors- or barging through them - to find answers.But the facts don't add up. Physical evidence suggests that the victim didn't struggle. The security breach in the apartment indicates that the killer was someone connected to the family, but everyone's alibi checks out. Was this a kinky sex game that turned into a crime of passion - or a meticulously planned execution? It's up to Dallas to solve a case in which strangers may be connected in unexpected, and deadly, ways.
	Salvation in Death - #32 in the "In Death" Series - November 4, 2008 A priest is conducting the funeral service for a beloved member of his congregation. But when he lifts the chalice to his lips, he dies suddenly and horribly ? poisoned by the blood of Christ. Who would want to murder a parish priest in such a way? And who could get access to the closely guarded communion wine? Lieutenant Eve Dallas is called to the scene to investigate. Although initially there seems to have been nothing out of the ordinary about the priest's life, there is something about the situation that just doesn't add up. And then she starts to uncover the evil lurking behind the ceremonial robes. The dead priest was not who he seemed to be ? he harboured a dark, deadly secret that could bring Eve's own demons rushing back ...
	Ritual in Death Novella/"Suite 606" Anthology - #33 in the "In Death" Series - November 4, 2008 When a high-society party is crashed by a naked, knife-wielding, blood-covered man who "thinks" he might have killed someone, Eve Dallas must track down the crime, and the criminals. Everything points to Satanic ritual, but Eve doesn't believe in devil worship...
	Promises in Death - #34 in the "In Death" Series - January/February, 2009 Amaryllis Coltraine may have recently transferred to the New York City police force from Atlanta, but she's been a cop long enough to know how to defend herself against an assailant. When she's taken down just steps away from her apartment, killed with her own weapon, for Eve the victim isn't just "one of us." The truth will need to be uncovered one layer at a time, starting with the box that arrives at Cop Central addressed to Eve containing Coltraine's guns, badge, and a note from her killer: "You can have them back. Maybe someday soon, I'll be sending yours to somebody else." But Eve Dallas doesn’t take too kindly to personal threats, and she is going to break this case, whatever it takes. And that's a promise.

Upcoming Titles

Kindred in Death - #35 in the "In Death" Series - November, 2009
A phone call from up high interrupts Eve's plans to have a lazy day with her husband: The teenage daughter of Captain Jonah McMasters, head of the NYPD drug squad, has been found raped and strangled in her bedroom. A terrifying video of Deena, bloody and beaten beyond recognition, hints at a link between her death and a criminal in McMaster's own past, someone determined to exact revenge in the cruelest way possible. Searching through McMasters' cases leads Eve nowhere - until another rape-murder, and another video, reveals the killers deadly intent: to target every single person involved in his family's case over a decade ago. With barely anything to go on except a tangle of dead ends, Eve and her team must work fast to identify the next victim of a killer with who will stop at nothing ...

Missing in Death Novella/"Lost" Anthology - #36 in the "In Death" Series - November, 2009
"....a woman goes missing on a NYC ferry and Eve Dallas has to find her: if she isn't on the ferry and isn't in the water, where is she??"

From Citizens to "Stakeholders": The New American Constitution

Grandpa — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:38:31 -0700

From Citizens to "Stakeholders": The New American Constitution
By Angelo M. Codevilla

"I'm going to get everybody concerned around a big table where all can express their views and their needs. And I'll express mine, and that will make sense of them all because I'll be president."
-Barack Obama, candidate

OBAMA WAS NOT KIDDING. Ever since he became president the media have carried accounts of him and his closest officials meeting with "everybody," meaning executives of banks, auto makers, insurance companies, medical suppliers, energy producers, indeed of major corporations in each sector of American life. They meet for no less a purpose than to mandate new ways for Americans to go to the doctor; to change the kinds of cars we drive, the kinds of places we live, and the work we do; to decide how much we should pay for electricity; and many more things. Corporations that had grown by providing their customers ever more attractive choices now negotiate with the U.S. government and each other about how collectively to structure (read, restrict) their customers' choices in ways that will suit the government while guaranteeing their profits. To object that there is nothing in our Constitution that empowers the government to make deals with some private citizens at the expense of other private citizens or otherwise to shape citizens' lives involuntarily is to have failed to notice that a new constitution has largely superseded the one ratified in 1789. Here is a primer on it.

The Obama administration develops laws and practices toward any sector of American life by holding "summit" meetings with what it calls the "stakeholders" in that sector, satisfying and modifying the stakeholders' interests into a scheme that supports its own political standing and objectives. For each sector, it appoints what it calls a "czar," who shepherds the stakeholders into line, binding both the government and the stakeholders. It expects Congress to follow, and the people to consent. Thus in July 2009 Obama argued that since "the doctors, the nurses, the hospitals" (meaning the leaders of some associations with whom he had been meeting) had agreed to his plans for restructuring America's health care system, "including even Wal-Mart" (more on this below), any wholesale objection to his plan was somehow illegitimate. Although in America this way of governing has grown gradually only over the past half-century, it is common around the world.

First developed in 1920s Italy, what we are coming to know as stakeholder government is akin to the regimes of Argentina, Mexico, and the European Union. Herein I explain what should be obvious: Unelected "stakeholders" gathered by "czars" around big tables make for bodies politic very different from officials elected and removed by the general public. Recall Aristotle's lesson: Any polity's character and identity depend on who makes the rules. Stakeholder government must make America different from what it has ever been, and more in the image of the countries where it has been practiced.

The Difference

UNDER THE U.S. CONSTITUTION, whose form if not substance has been copied around the world, laws are made by legislators, each of whom represents voters with diverse interests and views about their own and the common good. Such legislators arbitrate conflicts within and among interests. As well, they "enlarge and refine" the public's views of the common good. The voters, for their part, may accept or reject the legislators' or executors' actions by voting them out. Crucially, this Constitution limits the extent of the government's role in people's lives. By contrast, under the constitution that is now fast waxing solid among us, decisions about what cars we will drive, how we will go to the doctor, how much and what kind of energy we will use and at what price are no longer up to individual consumers, nor even subject to our collective judgment as citizens. Rather, they are being made by stakeholders around the big table under the guidance of their czars. Crucially, no constitution limits what they may agree to impose on their fellow citizens.

By governing explicitly through "summits" with "stakeholders" rather than through representative institutions, the Obama administration is leaving no doubt that, in the new American constitution, "stakeholders" are the only citizens, and that neither voting nor taxpaying qualifies as stakeholders the individuals who used to be known as citizens.

Mere interest in any field does not qualify anyone or any group as a stakeholder. Thus, for example, while our government considers teachers' unions and state governments and certain nonprofit groups as stakeholders in the field of education, it does not recognize parents as stakeholders. Nor are car buyers stakeholders in the auto industry, whereas bondholders, labor unions, and management are. Whereas citizens are supposed to be created equal, stakeholders have only such status as the sovereign authority manages to give or take from them. Thus, in the auto industry, the Obama administration chose to rank the unions first, management second, and some bondholders ahead of others. The energy business's stakeholders include the various companies involved in the production of energy plus farmers and environmentalists. But not consumers. By definition, non-stakeholders have no stake.

Our Not-So-New Constitution

BARACK OBAMA IS BY NO MEANS the first American to believe that minimally intrusive government based on representation of individuals in localities is a barrier to doing what needs to be done to improve people's lives, and that it does not fulfill people's spiritual need to feel part of things bigger than themselves.

Woodrow Wilson's 1885 book, Congressional Government, faulted the U.S. Constitution for not creating a power able to deal in detail with the reality of "modern industrial organization, including banks, corporations, joint-stock companies, financial devices, national debts, paper currency, national systems of taxation...so that the play of the civil institutions shall not alter the play of the economic forces, [and thus accurately to regulate] the complication and delicacy of the industrial system." Wilson wrote that competent government must be like "a foreman [who] take[s] a hand in the work which he guides; and so I suppose our legislation must be likened to a poor foreman, because it stands altogether apart from that work which it is set to see well done." A competent government must also have full power "to remedy the mistakes of the legislation of the past." In short, according to Wilson, a new constitution that reaches over citizen-voters and their elected representatives should transcend the Constitution of 1789. This new constitution should run the nation's vital organs directly, with full power over details. Planted by Wilson, this Progressive dream continued to grow in the minds of America's ruling class.

The version of that dream that Obama named "The New Foundation" in 2009 had been gestating since the 1930s creation of "independent" agencies endowed with powers "quasi-legislative and quasijudicial" to govern broad areas of national life. With each passing year, Congress has given broader and less defined authority to these agencies, and ever less defined mandates. Bureaucracies with names like the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency exist on the state level as well, and take their cues from their kindred on the federal level. Almost half of state funds come from the federal government. At all levels and in each of the fields they cover, these agencies are and cannot be but the sum, the expression, the guarantors, the regulators, of the interest groups in their field. Presidents Clinton and Bush held "White House Summits" on all manner of subjects, to develop policies in concert with interest groups and then to get Congress to ratify faits accomplis. Obama means to bring these developments to their logical conclusion.

Stakeholders Are Artificial

WHAT EXACTLY IS A "STAKEHOLDER"? How does anyone qualify as a stakeholder?

What is the difference between a society organized on the basis of stakeholders rather than of citizens, families, localities, states?

Because the Constitution of 1789 (and its imitators) is based neither on socioeconomic classes nor on socioeconomic functions, it takes no position on the relative value of medicine, mining, banking, or farming, or of the individuals and corporations who perform these functions. Much less is our Constitution about arranging and rearranging functions, making some in any given field into winners and others into losers. That is because our Constitution and its imitators presuppose that government exists by the consent of the individuals who live under it, all of whom are "created equal." By sharp contrast, stakeholders are not equal individuals, but rather unequal collective entities.

In the 19th century the word "stake," which had meant a bet, also came to mean a share, a claim, or an interest. A 1975 British management textbook defines "stakeholders" as "the persons and groups having a direct stake in our organization: the owners, employees... customers, suppliers, financiers, managers, the area in which the organization is established, etc." But as used currently in the U.S., the term is hardly distinguishable from "interest groups" or "corporations." Hence "stakeholder primacy" is close to what one might call in economics "producer primacy" and is diametrically opposed to "consumer primacy." Under the new constitution, privileged access to power defines any corporation's socioeconomic functions, its status as a stakeholder, and constantly readjusts that status vis-à-vis other stakeholders. Government rightly arranges and rearranges each group's roles and functions, deciding who and what are to be on top or below, because modern stakeholders, interests, or corporations have no natural or customary right to exist as they do.

Indeed, when such as Obama gather "everybody around a big table," they mean in practice that they will choose those in any given function, field, or sector whom they think counts or should count. That is why everybody does not include you. Those who are chosen to be around the ruler's table will count if they had not counted before, and those whom the government chooses to leave out will not count as much afterward as they had before. Thus each automaker, health care provider, producer of various kinds of energy, etc. has enormous incentives to beat out others in their field for a seat at the table. For stakeholders, the price of privilege is to lend themselves, and their increasingly captive customers, to the rulers' agenda. The stakeholders pay in the coin of political support, and receive in return the privilege to profit from the rules they help to shape. Privilege flows down, support flows up. As stakeholders serve the rulers' agenda with the rulers' support, they function as parts of the ruling party. This is the nature of the beast, and has been so everywhere that this form of rule has manifested itself.

Artificial Morality

WHAT DO SUCH REGIMES OFFER to the vast majority of persons who are not around the big table, the non-rulers and nonstakeholders who are necessarily on the wrong end of the special deals? After all, even the rank-and-file members of government-connected labor unions or ordinary shareholders of favored industries get only the crumbs that fall from the big table. Somehow, such regimes must divert the many from measuring daily reality against largely unrealistic hopes of material benefit. Hence such regimes try to transcend the facts of daily life, typically by presenting themselves as agents of national enterprises-the less well-defined the better-that will raise the nation to a new, higher moral and spiritual level, as well as eventually fulfill everyone's private dreams. Cynically or not, these oligarchies live by filling voids in the non-favored masses' souls. The bigger these voids, the better.

Though the Obama administration and its supporters represent disproportionately American society's most secular elements, there is no mistaking its claim to righteousness and its followers' faithful commitment to transcendent ends, including, prominently, controlling the earth's climate. Thus Michael Knox Beran wrote: "In rejecting the Anglo-American politics of limits, Obama revives a political tradition" of seeking "a communitarian paradise" in which "citizens forsaking their own swinish pursuits would become happy in the pursuit of a common good" and end up loving one another. The charismatic leader would cause their sinful society to do penance and fill their spiritual emptiness. That such attitudes could support a constitution that consists of trading privilege for political support is strange to reason. But, in America as elsewhere, reason often counts less than passions, especially partisan ones.

Mutatis mutandis, what is happening in America is just another variation of a well-known phenomenon with many local names.

Italy

THROUGHOUT THE LATE 19th and early 20th centuries, progressive critique of representative constitutions was all the rage among Western intellectuals. But it was summed up most coherently in Italy in the 1920s. Along with Joseph Schumpeter, the Italians argued that mature capitalism naturally produces large entities in capital, labor, and endeavors of all sorts. Because the most successful of these want to secure themselves from competition, they demand protection and coordination from the state. The state grants these demands ostensibly because the public good demands that producers and consumers, creditors and debtors be harmonized to their own good. Not incidentally, those who run the state draw power from their role as harmonizers. Hence, beginning in 1925 the Italian government established in each sector of public life a corporazione, and pressed the principal industries in that field to join it. It also pressed workers to join that sector's labor unions. Business and labor then worked out their modus vivendi in meetings with their senior partners in the Ministry of Corporations.

As Benito Mussolini explained at the Ministry's inauguration, "The Ministry of Corporations is an institution...where balance is achieved between interests and forces of the economic world. This is only possible within the sphere of the state, because the state alone transcends the contrasting interests of groups and individuals, co-coordinating them to achieve higher aims. The achievement of these aims is speeded up by the fact that all economic organizations [are] acknowledged, safeguarded and supported by the Corporative State...." (sic) In sum, the state nominally ratified the decisions of the workers' and of the owners' representatives. In reality, all such representatives worked under the watchful eye of the state, which mediated and shaped their decisions, and sometimes dictated them. Moreover, the participants in these arrangements of "cooperative consultation" valued their status because they knew they were privileged to have been chosen for it, and because they profited from the privilege. The core of Mussolini's party consisted of persons moved by interest, not ideology. Privilege ran the system, not force.

Mussolini gave this amoral system moral cover with the general population by mocking the liberal pretense that man can find secular meaning individually. The state, he wrote, can fulfill human imagination by letting individuals feel part of things that are obviously beyond the power of any person to achieve. By hoping together, cheering together, believing together in things so big that they can only be accomplished together, through shared rituals, through faith in the truth of science of which the state is the effective arbiter, individuals are fulfilled more than through any intellection.

So while Italy's regime in the 1920s and '30s empowered hundreds and enriched thousands, millions of ordinary Italians celebrated with parades, sound and light, oaths, subsidized art and literature, the myth that they were the reincarnation of glorious Romans. The regime talked a lot about "faith" and "religion." But the place that the regime allotted to the Catholic Church in the official culture was just a place; the state led the people in self-worship, and the Church was to be just another acolyte.

Argentina

WHEREAS IN 1890 ARGENTINA'S per capita income was 81 percent that of America's, by 1913 it was only 70 percent. As the Argentine people continued to grow relatively poorer amidst arguably the world's grandest natural resources, the presidents and congresses produced by elections under their liberal constitution increasingly became vehicles for citizens expressing mutual grievances.

In 1943 the army staged a coup d'état to stop the strife and integrate contrasting grievances into a social whole. The minister in charge of the labor movement, Col. Juan Perón, quickly dominated the government, became president, and instituted "a new human solution, a third philosophical position." This new arrangement would avoid "the extremes of proletarian domination, of social immobility, of vengeance for past wrongs, of abuse of wealth." The new order "institutionalized existing labor organizations, thus placing them within an order of social peace, converting them into a constituent of state power...constituting one of its pillars, adding to the nation's equilibrium and harmony." Note well that while labor leaders exercised more power than ever under Perón, they now held their offices by his leave.

The same was true of other social entities. Perón established an industrial bank, which engaged explicitly in preferential lending. Some sectors-e.g., agricultural export-had a harder time getting loans because they did not fit his view that Argentina should disengage from Britain as much as possible. Others, especially industrialists whose plans fit with his economic nationalism, got easy terms. Especially favored were vehicles, machinery, pharmaceuticals, plastics. Tariff policy served the same ends. Within each sector, executives who showed themselves most harmonious got preferential treatment for government contracts. In sum, the partnership of management, labor, and government yielded impressive profits to the partners while impoverishing the nonpartners and disempowering all but the Perónists.

The Argentine regime of the 1940s and '50s, the echoes of which endure in our time, was possible only because it was upheld by the pseudo-religious worship of Juan Perón's wife, Evita-a phenomenon all the more significant for being so unlikely. Only because millions of otherwise intelligent people were so emotionally addled as to importune the Vatican to declare Evita a saint could they overlook the ruin that her husband's regime was bringing upon them. Privilege kept the regime together at the top, while enthusiasm about Juan and veneration of Evita made the unprivileged feel good about themselves.

Mexico

THE INSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTIONARY PARTY (PRI) that stamped its character on Mexico from 1934 to 1990 developed out of the circumstances of the Mexican revolution of 1910, not from ideas. Nevertheless, that shape belongs to the same genus as that of the constitutions we are considering, and as such sheds further light on the nature of that genus.

For more than three decades prior to the revolution, Mexico had been ruled by the technocratic dictator Porfirio Díaz, under the forms of a U.S.-style constitution. But neither Díaz, nor his technocrats, nor the figurehead congressmen really represented the country's increasingly antagonistic prominent citizens, some based on the land, some in industry, others in the army, all well armed. From start to finish, the revolution was about which of these claimants would be left standing, and what he would do with the others' retinues. After nearly 14 bloody years, the winner was Plutarco Elías Calles who, having physically eliminated his opponents' retinues, spent the next four years persecuting Christians with fire and sword. In 1934 Calles made Lázaro Cárdenas president, thinking he would be his tool, but who arrested him and pacified the country by institutionalizing the ruling party. In sum, the PRI, as it was named in 1938, was all about Mexico's barons agreeing to share the loot in peace under any given president, while jockeying for a better share under the next one-including the labor and peasant leaders who kept their charges in line and passed the crumbs to them.

The PRI made small farmers members of the National Peasant Confederation (CNC), and enrolled wage workers, by sector, into the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM). Each of these became a "sector" of the party, along with the "military sector" and the "popular sector." The military sector was then folded into the popular one, and that effectively subdivided into interest groups both functional and geographic. That the party secured the loyalty of each group's leaders by franchising to them the power to extort from those below their level, which power subsequent levels franchised further down in ways that we characterize as corrupt, is less interesting than the fact that the PRI's essence is unremarkable in the modern world: Government power organizes society into groups that agree to be thus organized in exchange for the wealth that comes from privileged power over their subordinates, subject only to demonstrating loyalty to the system.

Officially anti-Christian, the PRI tried to build an official culture for Mexico that would legitimize its rule and fulfill the people's longing for moral meaning. That culture had three components, touted on murals, in curricula, and in subsidized literature: "We are all Indians, and ours is the continuation of a glorious pre-Columbian history." "The Gringos stole our land, try to oppress us in countless ways, but we resist them heroically." "Unlike and against the Gringos, we are part of the world's progressive movement, and believe that the state exists to take care of the people." These myths, along with patronage backed by force, made modern Mexico what it is.

The European Union

THE EUROPEAN UNION uses the word harmony arguably more than any other to describe what it is about. The ideas of Jean Monnet and friends in the 1920s that germinated into the
1956 Treaty of Rome and eventually the EU arose out of the desire to restore some of the harmony that World War I had destroyed. It is difficult to overstate the contrast between how freely persons, goods, and ideas moved throughout Europe before 1914 and the passports and protectionism that persisted after the war. It is just as difficult to argue against the widespread sense that, prior to 1914, increased popular representation had made governments throughout Europe more bloody-minded than they had ever been. For Monnet and other heirs to the 18th-century Physiocratic tradition of Diderot, the path to peace and prosperity lay in de-emphasizing political repre sentation. If people could be habituated to treating each other as valued suppliers and customers rather than as political adversaries, then they would live in peace and prosperity once again.

World War II flattened the remaining obstacles in the way of Monnet's vision by discrediting what was left of nationalism in Europe. By the late 1940s the need to eat and to be warm had overwhelmed all political questions except whether to align with America or with Stalin-for most, not much of a question. Moreover Germany's Konrad Adenauer, France's Charles de Gaulle, and Italy's Alcide de Gasperi, the principal figures of postwar Europe, advocated both siding with America and European integration. As Catholics and patriots, they envisaged a Europe of nations governed by elected representatives. Theirs would have been a chastened, wiser version of pre-1914 Europe. They supported the Treaty of Rome's integration of European markets, sector by sector, under a European Commission, as part of a "political Europe." Their vision failed because there was little political substance left in European hearts and minds, and no sentiment for common, purposeful political existence. Hence the technocratic work of the Commission ended up being all the Europe that's there.

The fact that the EU deals with people's lives technocratically does not negate the political character of the things it touches. Who is to rule over whom? Who will gain and who will lose? What kinds of activities, what sort of life do we encourage, what do we discourage, and what do we prohibit? What do we honor and what do we dishonor? What, if anything, do we kill and die to protect, or to destroy? Since 1993 the European Union's Commission, courts, and parliament have made countless decisions about such matters as well as about the length of condoms and the specifications of lawnmowers. Their decisions about energy have made scores of billionaires, while other decisions about agriculture and fishing have put thousands out of business. Their decisions about what constitutes human rights have effectively promulgated a moral code common to Europe's ruling class but alien to all of Europe's nations. Nor does anyone pretend that these decisions emanate from "the people" of Europe, since perhaps the sole item concerning European affairs on which there is unanimity is that the European Union suffers from a "democratic deficit." Lack of popular mandate notwithstanding, the EU is especially active in cultural affairs, specifically rejecting Christianity as even one among the bases for its legitimacy. The EU is very loud in affirming its own moral superiority, but this substantively empty claim moves no hearts.

Our New Foundation?

SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES between the New Foundation that President Obama is instituting and the regimes of the European Union, or of 1920s Italy, PRI Mexico, or Perón's Argentina are beside the fact that all are variants of one kind of rejection of liberal representative government. What does this rejection mean in America? Here is how it works among us.

Arguably the main American constitutional event of 2008-09 was the passage under the Bush administration, with support from future president Obama as well as from virtually all the nation's major interest groups, of a $700 billion bill to purchase "troubled assets" from big banks. All agreed that unless the government were given this huge sum with unprecedented latitude and in a hurry, the average American would see his life's savings disappear. By 2008 the hurried demand for large, unspecified powers under the threat of imminent disaster was no longer exceptional. The Obama administration made it the rule, and used the money to build its "New Foundation."

The Obama team (different from its predecessor only in degree) purchased few "troubled assets." With most of the money it bought stakes in the biggest banks, with which it leveraged them to support its political agenda, including the takeover of General Motors and Chrysler, which Obama had also made dependent on the government by lending them "troubled asset" money. Chrysler (with GM to follow) having failed financially, the Obama administration forced it to give a 55 percent stake in itself to the United Auto Workers union, a major constituent of the Democratic Party. The government took the next 30 percent, and gave the remainder to Italy's Fiat, in exchange for management and technology. In so doing and against bedrock bankruptcy law, it gave some 43 cents on the dollar to the UAW's unsecured interest in the company and only 28 cents to secured creditors. Meanwhile, part of the deal worked out with the favored stakeholders was that they would produce mainly small cars, with better fuel economy. But few believed that the American public would buy them. Doing this lent support to the administration's claim of moral authority as savior of the earth from global warming. In an event that would have been unremarkable in Europe or the Third World, the Obama administration took assets from persons independent of it, transferred them to political allies, and bolstered in the popular mind the rationale for its rule.

What does it take to become a stakeholder in our new constitution, and what does it yield? Consider the Service Employees International Union. Andy Stern, its president, said, "We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama-$60.7 million to be exact-and we're proud of it." Stern claimed that he hired people who "knocked on 1.87 million doors, made 4.4 million phone calls, and sent more than 2.5 million pieces of mail in support of Obama." He had borrowed some 20 of those millions. But he is reaping fabulous returns on his investment.

The union has 2 million dues-paying members whom Stern and his associates got, according to the Los Angeles Times, by forceful or fraudulent takeover of locals as well as by bribery and intimidation. But Stern is now a stakeholder in just about any matter he chooses. Most visibly, on April 15, 2009, his lawyer and lobbyist were part of an administration virtual "round table" that decided to withhold $6.8 billion of "stimulus money" appropriated for the state of California unless the state restored a $7.4 million (1.4 percent) cut it made in one of its programs, which happens to be serviced by Stern's union. Surprised, California secretary of health and human services Kim Belshe said, "The involvement of a stakeholder in this kind of state-federal deliberative process is unusual at best...outside any norm I am familiar with." Alas, this sort of thing is becoming the new rule.

One corollary of that rule is that powerful stakeholders like the SEIU can help turn former opponents into new stakeholders. Thus when President Obama said, wryly and proudly, that even Wal-Mart was supporting his health care plan-the very Wal-Mart that the Democratic Party had demonized for its resistance to unionization-he was in fact acknowledging yet another debt to the SEIU. Stern's union, along with liberal groups, had so harassed Wal-Mart that it agreed, in exchange for peace, to endorse the Obama health plan's requirement that employers provide health insurance or pay the government 8 percent of gross income. Not incidentally, if the plan became law, Wal-Mart would be insulated against potential competitors who did not offer health insurance.

Whereas the big banks, GM, and Chrysler became stakeholders by accepting partnership with the Democratic Party and the United Auto Workers union, and the SEIU did it by brute force and money, even as Wal-Mart was forced into an auxiliary role, an outfit by the name of Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society did it by presenting the administration with a plan for a single electronic registry of all American health care records. The company had tried to sell its plan to Congress as a cost-saving measure. But it then realized that the plan would help the Obama administration grasp the whole of the U.S. health care system in order to impose its priorities on it. Hence, HIMSS got a $36.5 billon contract, for starters. Its money and its status as a stakeholder came from pure lobbying and networking with vendors and customers, who saw opportunity in the administration's proclivities.

In sum, in America as elsewhere, stakeholder government grows by its essential internal dynamic: the more the rulers' power grows over more matters, the greater the incentives of people to do whatever they can to become stakeholders.

Where does stakeholder government hit those of us who are part of the general public? Consider colonoscopies. In May 2009, after consultation with stakeholders, Medicare proposed no longer paying for the electronic, noninvasive, "virtual" kind, and only for the kind that involves insertions into your colon. The makers of the electronic equipment for the virtual ones disputed this immediately. What will and will not go up your colon depends on to which part of the industry the money will go. Under our new constitution such questions, regardless of how important to you they may be, are reserved for stakeholders.

Hence it is poignant to read William Greider, an enthusiastic supporter of Obama's New Foundation, expressing shock in the Nation about its results. Greider wrote that Obama's actions had taught people such as himself "a blunt lesson about power, who has it and who doesn't. They watched Washington rush to rescue the very financial interests that caused the catastrophe. They learned that government has plenty of money to spend when the right people want it. ‘Where's my bailout,' became the rueful punch line at lunch counters and construction sites nationwide."

Greider continued, "If the largest bank holding companies are given privileged proximity to the source of government protection, then everyone in finance and commerce will want to become a bank holding company, too. We are already seeing this happening as former investment houses like Goldman Sachs and non-bank financial firms decide to join the system. Why not General Electric and Microsoft? Where does this end? What does it mean for smaller enterprises that lack the scale and influence?" He concluded, "Government and politics would become even more responsive to big money, but also able to tamper intimately with private enterprise, picking winners and losers based on political loyalties, not on performance."

Why should Greider or anyone else have expected that government, especially one made up of bankers and bank regulators, would not have plenty of money for them? Why should anyone expect that a government that has the United Auto Workers as a constituency, or that wants to harness the auto industry or the energy industry to its plans, would not pay to support and shape them according to its vision? Why should anyone expect that persons who watch government dispense privilege to its supporters and enablers would not want to pay the price to join their ranks? Why be surprised that the bigger the government, the bigger a friend it is to those connected with it, and the more indifferent to the unconnected? It would be just as unreasonable to expect water to flow uphill.

Nor does it make sense, under this genus of constitutions, to rue the substitution of political loyalty for performance, because in these constitutions, political loyalty is the only kind of performance that counts.

What's It to Us?

THE MORAL BASIS OF OUR "New Foundation" consists of the desire that many have to support it, whatever it might be. For many, the will to affirm collective action is much less a matter of ideology than of eagerness to escape what they experience as a meaningless America. Thus in an influential 1997 Wall Street Journal article, prominent neoconservatives William Kristol and David Brooks regretted that so many Americans had chosen to elect Republicans who pledged to get government off their backs. "Wishing to be left alone is not a government doctrine," they wrote. They argued for government that would lead America to "a grand destiny," to "national greatness." What would that look like? Candidly, Brooks explained elsewhere, "It almost doesn't matter what task government sets for itself as long as it does some tangible thing with energy and effectiveness.... Energetic government is good for its own sake. It raises the sight of the individual. It strengthens common bonds. It boosts national pride. It continues the great national project." Italians, Argentineans, Mexicans, and others are familiar with such pseudospiritual summonses to what the French intellectual bureaucrat Jean-Marie Guéhenno calls "religions without God."

Adherence to the regime's official truths and refusal to challenge their moral substance is a prerequisite for working within the system wherever political loyalty also becomes the measure of cultural, spiritual matters, whether in the European Union, in 1920s Italy, 1950s Argentina, in Obamaland, or in PRI Mexico. In practice, however, such moral bases of government are but thin cover over the raw trade of privilege for power.

Moreover, in America as elsewhere, while giving lip service to official truths enhances one's self-image, actually taking them as moral authority is another matter. In this regard, the moral basis of our "New Foundation" is emptier and engages hearts less than that of Mussolini's Italy, Juan Perón's Argentina, and Mexico's PRI's dinosaurs. Encouraging people to think of themselves as saviors of Planet Earth by driving small cars is thin stuff by comparison with images of glorious Rome, of saintly Evita, of the great Montezuma. Our New Foundation requires either habituating oneself to be enraptured by empty words, or getting used to swallowing questions that naturally come to mind (e.g., how can the world be burning up when the last decade has been colder than the previous?), or uttering official lies. In sum, if you are not a stakeholder-and odds are you won't be, can't be-the Stakeholder Constitution will impoverish you morally as well as materially.

True Blood Season 2, Episode 9: I Will Rise Up (Let’s Discuss)

LaLa0428 — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:58:58 -0700

This contains big time spoilers. If you haven’t watched the episode, I am advising you turn back now. Save yourself.**

I had so many questions during this episode; serious questions. First, did anyone else want to change places with Sookie lying underneath Eric for a minute or two? At least until he got up. Anyway, the main characters all survived Lucas little Unabomber routine, of course. He didn’t make it, and neither did Stan and some other vampires, we don’t care about. Eric as in the book uses his body to cover Sookie from stray bullets and a few lodged in his chest and asks her to suck them out because he’s dying. I didn’t see a problem with the request, personally. Sookie, reluctantly sucks the bloody bullets from Eric. Making Bill angry and pointing out to her, Eric was already starting to heal which meant the bullets were going to push themselves out anyway. So, there was no need for doing the sucking in the first place. Hey, it might have been a dirty trick but, he said she was superb with the sucking. Of course Eric and Sookie are now connected forever. Can you think of a better vampire to be connected to?

Why do I love Hoyt and Jessica? Their little romance melts my frozen heart. I just want to pinch their cheeks and buy them ice cream cones. Hoyt is getting serious; he wants to invite Jessica to meet his momma. That should be fun. Speaking of fun, Tara and Eggs awoke from another night of the I can’t remember sh*t and my face is beat to death. But, I’m sure it was fun, because they are not in the least annoyed as they should be. Maryann comes in all cheerful and starts talking about ancient civilizations and how lucky they are to have nights of total memory loss and debauchery or something, she bores me and I usually stop listening to her. Basically the b*tch is nuts and evil and somebody needs to put her out of her misery.

Poor Stupid Hot. Can we please get him a girlfriend that’s not crazy? Anyway, he and Sookie had a nice little brother/sister moment and he tells her how no one likes him for him. To which she replied that he should try being smarter. You know I was thinking the same thing about her, but whatever. Sister Sara and Rev. Newlin have already managed to get their story out via, the CNN-like channel. But, they are clearly having a breakdown in their marriage thanks to the failed war and her sleeping with Jason. I’m going to miss the crazy of those two. Arlene and Terry also realize that they are suffering from bouts of no memories. I like them also, my second favorite couple.

Where can I buy tickets to the Lafayette/Eggs Cage match? Lafayette confronts Eggs about Tara’s beat to death face. I have nothing to say about this, but how much longer with this storyline. It’s BORING as hell. Jessica, Hoyt and Momma meet at Marlotte’s and it’s not good for any of them. Needless to say the mom sends Jessica crying because of babies and Hoyt stands up to her for the first time probably ever. Good for him! I think she should turn him, seriously can you imagine how goofy he would be as a vamp?

THE DREAM!!! THE DREAM!!! THE DREAM!!! How hot was that dream Our Lady Of Perpetual Annoyance Sookie had about her and Eric? I’m sorry that was hot. Finally Sam used his powers for good and turned himself into a fly, just in time to flee Maryann. And of all places he wound up at drunk Andy’s. Who knew Andy was going to hold the key to this mess in his hands. Probably not, but he is the only person in town it seems that doesn’t have a case of the not remembers Coroline button eye disease. Lafayette and Lettie Mae go to Stackhouse manor to rescue Tara from herself. But of course she doesn’t want go because Maryann’s spell is apparently strong. But, not as strong as Eric’s blood. Did anyone notice Lafayette beat the hell out of Eggs, even though Eggs was under the crazy? Had to be the V, right? Can we buy a case Eric’s blood at Target?
There was some more less pressing info, I call filler involved, like Bill hitting Eric over Sookie. Maryann basically sending everyone to look for Sam, and now I think everyone in the town is under the spell. The episode ended with Godric meeting the sun. Sookie of course stayed with him as he died. It was one of the first times this season, I liked her character. Overall, by far imo, one of the best episodes this season. I would give the episode an 8.5/10 if I were rating it. Thoughts, groans, moans?
I will leave you guys with these questions for next week’s episode:
Blood Mary anyone?
Will Sam reveal himself to Andy as a shape shifter? Does he already know?
How will Eric come into play with Maryann? Will he?
Will Lafayette and Lettie Mae be able to get through to Tara?
Will Sookie be able to get Maryann to leave her house?
And most importantly was Sookie wearing a gingham? WTH?

History's Most Sinister: Jack the Ripper

Princesskitty22 — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 23:19:18 -0700

WARNING: While the photos I've posted in the main blog are "work safe", the links I've provided are not. You can click on the victims' name to see an actual photo of them. However, the last two photos, particularly the last (Mary Kelly) are very gruesome. You may want to wait until your boss (or children) can't see.

There is one killer who has inspired more fear and fascination than any other. His crimes, when compared to those perpetrated in the 20th century by men such as Ted Bundy, Jeffry Dahmer, and Gary Ridgeway, seem almost tame. Today, we probably wouldn’t be all that shocked. Horrified, yes, but not entirely surprised. Yet his name has become synonymous with Evil. He has become a modern legend; more myth than man. Why is this so? Well, perhaps it’s because we’ve never been able to put a human face on this creature, nor listen to some psychiatrist tell us that it’s all OK, because he’s just insane. We’ve never heard about his awful childhood, his demented motives, or his delusional ideas about society, sex, and God. We haven’t been able to recreate exactly how and why he committed his crimes. We haven’t been able to do any of this, because we’ve never learned his name. We simply called him Jack. Jack the Ripper.

While Jack the Ripper was not technically the first person who could be classified as a serial killer, he is, in most people’s minds, the first Serial Killer in the modern sense of the term. Ole Jack prowled the streets of London’s Whitechapel district in the summer of 1888. He targeted poor women, mostly prostitutes who drank heavily. There is some disagreement about how many women he killed. The most widely accepted number is five: Mary Anne “Polly” Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Kelly. Some insist that a sixth, Martha Tabram, was also killed by Jack the Ripper. There are several others, who at one point or another were considered as possible Ripper victims, but most of them have been ruled out in recent years.

Whitechapel experienced a large increase in immigration in the mid to late 19th century (as did the rest of England). Most of these immigrants were Eastern Europeans, primarily Jewish, as well as Irish. The resulting overcrowding of the already poor area led to absolute destitution among the people living there. Many women had no choice but to sell themselves. It was once estimated that there were over 1200 prostitutes in Whitechapel at the time, as well as 62 brothels. Along with the economic hardship came a rise in violent crime. Murder rates went up. However, very few reached the severity of violence and brutality that the Ripper murders did. He was like nothing anyone had ever seen.

The first murder (unless you count Tabram) was Polly Nichols. She was discovered by a Mr. Charles Cross and another man on August 31, 1888. She was still alive when he found her. The two men tried to help her up and out to the street, but she was too weak, so they left her and went to get help. Before they could return, however, a constable named John Neil found her. She was dead. With his lantern, he could see the severity of her wounds. Her throat had been cut almost to the point of decapitation. However, she was probably already incapacitated when this was done, since the blood indicated that she was lying down when the wound was inflicted and she had a large bruise on her jaw indicating either strangulation or a punch. Upon closer examination, it was found that she had also been mutilated in other ways. Her abdomen had been cut open. The killer had worked quickly; the constable had walked by just a half an hour before she was found and saw nothing out of sorts.

The murders got increasingly more violent after that. The next victim, “Dark Annie” Chapman, was completely disemboweled, her organs removed from her abdomen and arranged on and around her body. Parts of her, such as a portion of her vagina, were missing. Her possessions had been arranged at her feet very deliberately, suggesting some kind of ritual. The mutilations were post mortem and were obviously done by someone of some skill. The wounds were clean, the killer seemed to know where major organs and muscles were located, and he worked extremely quickly. It was determined that Dark Annie was killed by the same man who killed Polly Nichols. She died September 8th, 1888.

On September 30th, shortly after 1 A.M., Elizabeth Stride was found. It’s believed that the Ripper may have been interrupted during this murder, since her throat was slashed but there was no further mutilation. However, just because he didn’t get to finish with Liz didn’t mean he was going home for the night. A mere forty-five minutes later, another woman was discover a quarter of a mile away. This was Catharine Eddowes. Her murder was the most vicious yet, with extensive facial wounds and a complete disembowelment. Several of her organs were missing. Her right ear had been completely cut off. The killer had murdered and mutilated her in less than 15 minutes.

The gruesome double murder, clearly connected to the earlier murders of Chapman and Nichols, led to a new level of panic in Whitechapel. The streets were virtually deserted after dark. People who didn’t live there avoided the district all-together. For a month, nothing happened. In fact, the streets of Whitechapel were safer than ever, because even the petty criminals wouldn’t walk the streets at night. The investigation continued, but to no avail. Slowly, people began to relax. The working ladies took to the streets again.

They didn’t wait long enough.

On November 9th, 1888, the landlord of Mary Kelly went to collect whatever rent he could from the poor girl who had recently been forced to turn to prostitution. When his knock went unanswered, he peered through a window. What he saw sent him running for a policeman. Mary Kelly was lying on her bed. More accurately, what was left of Mary Kelly was lying on her bed. The body had been completely destroyed. Since it was indoors, the killer had taken his time and indulged his sick appetites to their height. She was naked. Her abdomen and thighs had been completely cut open; her organs had been removed entirely. Her face was unrecognizable. Her breasts had been cut off. Her throat was cut to her spine. Her organs were strewn around the room. The only organ left unaccounted for was her heart, the killer had apparently taken it with him. Mary’s murder renewed the panic in the city.

There were very few clues as to the identity of the murderer. There were three letters sent to police and the press, supposedly from the killer. However, the authenticity of these is highly disputed. They’re highly theatrical and it’s probable that they were sent either from members of the press, attempting to add sensation to the story or from someone simply playing a sick joke. It is from one of these letters that the name, “Jack the Ripper” comes. Another was addressed “From Hell”. There was a bit of bloody apron found that belonged to Catharine Eddowes near a doorway; written above, in chalk, were the words “The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing”. However, it’s doubtful that this was actually written by the killer, in retrospect. It was most likely written by a passer-by, who was trying to point the finger at a Jew. At the time, it was believed by most that the Ripper was a foreigner, probably a Jew. There were several eyewitness accounts that described a dark, foreign, Jewish looking man seen with the victims. Unfortunately, the widespread anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant feelings at the time make even these accounts suspect. The people of London were furious that the Metropolitan Police of London and the Scotland Yard were unable to make an arrest, but Serial Killers are difficult to catch even with a wealth of physical evidence. This was before the days of Forensic Science. Criminal profiling was in its infancy (you could argue, in fact, that this was the first case in which profiling was used with any seriousness). There are some details about Jack that can be agreed upon, though. He was a white male between the ages of 30 and 40. He was most likely not poor, or at least he didn’t dress like it. He was probably single, since he wandered the streets late at night and went home bloody. A wife or lover would have questioned his actions. He probably lived or worked in the East End of London, so his appearance in and around Whitechapel wouldn’t be suspicious. Since he only killed on the weekends, it’s likely that he had a regular job. He most likely had some surgical skill or at least some knowledge of anatomy. He might have been foreign or Jewish.

Jack the Ripper fills our imaginations. There are countless novels, graphic novels, movies, documentaries, and even an Opera about him. There are guided tours led by folks dressed in Victorian wares through the area that he frequented. Authors and historians have various theories about who he was. They range from speculation about the original suspects to conspiracy theories involving the Royal Family to theories about Masonic rituals. Most of these are complete and utter nonsense. Some notables who have been accused: C.S. Lewis, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Prince Albert Victor, Queen Victoria's grandson.

As quickly as he appeared and maimed, he was gone. The killings stopped after Mary Kelly (arguably, some believe that he continued to murder until 1891). Serial Killers don’t just stop killing. His sudden disappearance is the result of three things: he moved out of the area, he was arrested or committed to an insane asylum for some other offense, or he died. This uncertain end only heightened the supernatural aura surrounding Ole Jack. He was like a ghost.

Wikipedia Article on Jack the Ripper
Crime Library article on Jack the Ripper

Something About Mary: Don't Try This At Home

chancleta — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 08:25:50 -0700

This past Friday's episode of GW was called "Don't try this at home."
It was all about Bloody Mary.
Melinda is brought on the case by her cutie husband Jim who comes across a college girl that has been scared into a coma like state.
Turns out several college girls unleashed some nasty stuff with a silly prank.
In the end it turns out the girl that was haunting the college girls wasn't quite Mary.
Melinda makes things right and the not-so-Mary goes in to the light.
But not before ending the epy with a possible "the real Mary might still be out there."

My favorite part of this epy:
I love when Melinda strolls in to archives and is like, "These are public records and stuff so try to stop me."

My least favorite parts:
Need more Jim.
Need more Delia.

In all it seems like the writers were trying a bit too hard to stay hip and edgy with this epy.

This weeks looks pretty interesting though!

"Haunted Hero": Jim’s friend Matt returns home with memory loss after serving overseas in the military where all of his friends died. Matt’s comrades appear to Melinda to help Matt regain his memory.

But it appears the next reallll good one will be the Halloween epy on 10/26! "Weight of What Was": In this Halloween episode, Gabriel returns to Grandview and Melinda learns more about what is lurking below. I can't WAIT!
More details on Gabriel and his plans 10/26/07

As always check out the Ghost Whisperer MySpace Fan Page. It's pretty cool!:
http://www.myspace.com/ghostwhisperer

ADC: Atoxicsparkle's Gettin' Pretty in Kentucky- UPDATE: With Haunted Hospital she will visit!

redegg — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 06:39:12 -0700

Good morning, ladies! Today we are all about atoxicsparkle, our favorite beauty queen, who's going to be getting beautiful down in Kentucky this summer! Now we don't know exactly what she's going to be up to (it's not the Derby!) but she is going to be walking a lot and visiting lots of friends.

She gave us two bottoms that she might wear while there and she would like to wear either flats or a low wedge heel. Also, tops can be any color but we all know the pin-up sexy look Ms. atox loves! It's going to very hot there in August so keep that in mind. And the stores she has near her are Forever 21, Wetseal, Express, Charlotte Russe, Dillards, and Target, oh, and the INTERNET!

So let's see if we can get her looking like a sexy 40's pin-up queen who's ready to walk the streets and look at the sights:

UPDATE WITH TOXY'S HAUNTED HOSPITAL:
I found it when I googled haunted hospital pics! I think this has got to be the one you are talking about-
Waverly Hills Sanitarium
The Haunted Hospital

By Bobette Bryan
© 2005 by Bobette Bryan

The Waverly Hills Sanitarium in Louisville Kentucky has it all-- cold spots, disembodied voices, and ghosts roaming the halls. It sits on a great hill overlooking the city and seems like a reigning fortress of gloom in its eerie, decaying state. The atmosphere is further darkened by a chilling history of mass death and of patient abuse during the years it was used as a geriatric hospital.

In 1910, a wooden two-story hospital was built on the site, which was the highest elevated hill in southern Jefferson County, but with tuberculousis rampant in the area, the building wasn't big enough to house all of the patients. And so a new building was constructed in 1924, and the new Waverly Hospital opened in 1926.

Treatment for the dreaded disease was primitive at that time. Without antibiotics, natural cures provided the only available defense. Health care providers believed that rest and plenty of fresh air and sunshine was the answer, and thus the patients spent the majority of their time in the solarium-like porch ways.

You can see in the picture above that the patients are just outside of their rooms on an enclosed porch. The large windows had no glass and were screened. Even in the winter, patients would be placed outdoors with heating blankets (such tuberculosis treatments were the reason why heating blankets were invented.).

Besides such natural remedies, there were also many experimental treatments which were downright dangerous including: pneumothorax, surgically collapsing or deflating a portion of the lung so that it would heal; and thoracoplasty opening up the chest and removing up to 2 to 3 ribs at a time so that the lung would have more room to expand and heal. And there were other dire experimental methods as well. None of these methods were effective. In fact, fewer than five percent of patients survived the pneumothorax method.

Thousands of people died at Waverly before streptomycin was discovered in 1943--some estimates are as high as 64,000. Ten thousand people died during Waverly's first three years alone. But by the 1950's, tuberculosis was nearly eradicated thanks to the antibiotic. As a result, the need for such a huge facility to handle tuberculosis patients was no longer necessary, and the hospital closed in 1961.

It reopened a year later as the Woodhaven Geriatrics Sanitarium, where there have been many tales of patient mistreatment and unusual experiments. The state of Kentucky closed it in 1982 due to patient abuse.

The buildings, contents, and land were auctioned off and the doors were locked for good. Over the next 18 years, ownership of the building changed hands many times. The second owner wanted to tear it down, but was stopped because the property was on the National Historic Register’s “endangered” list. He decided that if he couldn’t legally tear it down then he would do everything in his power to get it condemned.

He encouraged vandalism and people broke windows, porcelain sinks, toilets and doors. They sprayed the walls with graffiti and defaced stone and wood. The owner then dug around the foundation, in some places as deep as 30 feet, to try and make the foundation crack. If this happened, he believed, he could get the building condemned and would be able to legally tear it down. But his efforts failed, and he finally gave up and sold the property in 2001.

Efforts are now being made to renovate the hospital, and in recent years, interest has grown in the history of the building. It was even featured in a segment of Fox Television’s, World's Scariest Places, and on MTV's Fear. A documentary is now in the works called, Spooked, and the feature film Death Tunnel should hit the theatres around Halloween.

There are rumors that satanic rituals have taken place within its walls, of a little girl moving about the third floor solarium playing hide and seek with trespassers, of a little boy named Bobby playing with his leather ball, of rooms lighting up though there was no power in the building, of doors slamming, disembodied voices, a hearse driving up and dropping off coffins, and an old woman running from the front door with her wrists bleeding screaming: “Help me. Somebody save me!”

Ghosts have been seen in the form of shadow people and ectoplasm clouds, and even in full apparition form. Cries and screams are frequently heard in the lonely, moldering halls.

Hauntings
Here are some of the most well-known supernatural occurrences in the building:

Main Entrance:
Here the ghost of an old woman has often been seen. Sometimes she runs out the front door. Her hands and legs are in chains and spectral blood drips from her wrists and ankles. She cries for help before she dissipates into thin air.

The Third Floor
Many have seen a little girl on the third floor who is known as "Mary." Some say that she plays with a ball; others have only heard the ball bouncing on the floor or down the stairs. This ball bouncing has also been attributed to a little boy, but the little girl seems the spookiest. One man said that he encountered a little girl that "wasn't normal." She kept saying that she has no eyes. He was so terrified that he refused to enter the building again. Some have seen the child peering out the third floor windows.

Roof
Some have heard children chanting verses here such as: "Ring around the Rosy." But why would the spirits of children be on the roof? When the hospital was a tuberculosis facility, children were taken up to the rooftop for "heliotherapy," in which they were exposed to the supposed healing rays of the sun.
Room 502

Perhaps the most infamous area of all in the hospital. is room 502. The story goes that In 1928, the head nurse was found dead in the room. She had hanged herself from the light fixture. No one knows why the 29-year old woman would take her own life, but it's believed that she was unmarried and pregnant. It is unknown how long her body hung before she was finally discovered. The county coroner’s office attributed her death to suicide.

In 1932, another nurse who worked in room 502, supposedly committed suicide when she jumped from the balcony of the roof. No one knows why.

Folks have seen the full body apparition of a female nurse in white on this floor.

People have also reported that this room gives them an "unsettling" feeling of great despair. Some have heard a voice say, "Get out!"

The Body Chute or Death Tunnel

What is now called the “body chute” is actually a 500 foot long tunnel that leads from the hospital to the railroad tracks at the bottom of the hill. When someone died they were sent down the tunnel via gurneys to an awaiting hearse. This was done so that patients wouldn't see the hearses or the bodies--in order to keep morale high. Concrete steps line one side of the tunnel while the other side consists of a motorized rail and cable system.

Voices are often heard along the long eerie passage.

Cafeteria and Kitchen
A spectral man in a white coat and pants supposedly roams this area. No one knows who he is but some think he's an old employee of Waverly who contracted tuberculosis and died. The smell of food often wafts from the kitchen though no meals have been served since 1982 when the mental hospital was closed.

Fourth Floor
Some regard this as the most scary and "active" area of the hospital. There have been many reports of people seeing ghostly shadow-like people treading the halls, and doors frequently slam for no apparent reason.

Other Oddities:

A guard saw a floating head in one of the rooms late at night. He screamed and rushed downstairs where he passed out. He was so terrified that he never returned to the sanitarium.

Many people have also reported that they've seen lights in the building at night though there had been no electricity in the building for many years and no glass to reflect light. A security guard once reported that he'd seen a television playing in a room on the third floor. From outside, he could see what appeared to be the distinct flicker of a television in a dark room. He went upstairs to investigate but found nothing out of the ordinary.

Troy Taylor of the Louisville Ghost Hunter's Society investigated the building in 2001 and captured a strange photo of a light burning in a stairwell though there were no lights in the building at the time and no light hanging in that spot. See that photo and many others here. In addition, he got several very odd readings from his EMF meter--a piece of equipment that detects disruptions in electro-magnetic fields, which is often associated with hauntings.
Conclusion:
So is the hospital haunted? It certainly sounds like it. Hopefully, in the near future, I'll be able to travel there and get some first hand experience. It would be even more exciting if Marie St. Claire could accompany me. I've asked Marie St. Claire to try to connect to the hospital to see what she feels from afar. Here are her impressions.

Marie's Psychic Investigation:
I can't tell you how much this building bothered me during the course of my research.

I spent a whole day studying photos of it in order to connect. And I made a very strong connection. At first I was fascinated with the place, but as I started to mentally connect, feelings of despair and anger overwhelmed me. Suddenly, I found Waverly repulsive. It caused a definite--though temporary--mental change in me.

I can't say that there's necessarily anything evil there, but what I did pick up on was a whole lot of bad feelings and mental pain, which were so strong that they made me nauseous. I feel that a lot of this pain came not from the tuberculosis era but from the geriatric era of the hospital. Though certainly the TB deaths have left their mark as well.

I don't know if I could go there in the flesh. I don't know if I could bear the overwhelming emotions that pour from this building.

There is an old woman in the building with blood and metal cuffs on her arms. She most often inhabits the lower levels of the hospital near the entry. Someone took her to the hospital--a son or daughter perhaps, long before her death, and she's waiting for that person to come and "rescue" her, but, of course, that person never will.

She's thin with long gray scraggly hair and large expressive eyes. She is a patient of the geriatric hospital--not the TB hospital. She was treated badly and felt like a prisoner. The chains and blood are symbolic, however, the staff often restrained her to the point where her arms were raw and bloody.

In addition, she was often cold, not fed well, and allowed to lay in her urine for long periods of time. I'm not sure what was wrong with her other than old age and possibly dementia. Her soul is in pain and not at rest. She does not understand that she is now free in death. She is still living the nightmare of her confinement in the hospital and is seeking aid.

There is the spirit of an eight-year old girl there. Like the old woman, she can't accept or understand that she's dead. She was in bad shape when she arrived at the hospital, and she died quite suddenly. Unfortunately, they never explained to her just how ill she was. She feels lost and so alone.

Many are fascinated with room 502 and the stories of two nurses that supposedly killed themselves. I only saw one nurse, very attractive, dark haired, shapely, and young. It doesn't mean that there isn't another one--only that I didn't pick her up during this brief investigation.

The nurse went about her duties but was burdened with feelings of great despair and hopelessness that she kept hidden. These feelings came from the place and from the isolation in working there. I don't know if she was pregnant--nothing suggested it.

Is she one of the nurses who is rumored to have killed herself? I believe that someone jumped from roof when the building was used as a sanitarium. I don't see a hanging. And I never actually saw this nurse kill herself; nor did she reveal that to me, but it's likely from the feelings of gloom and despair that I picked up from her that she's the one who jumped from the roof. The anguish she carried was just too heavy to bear.

To learn more about her, I would have to try another connection and focus entirely on her--something I'm not anxious to do, considering the negative affect that the hospital had on me. Still, at some time, I might take another peek as I'd like to know more about this nurse.

In conclusion, Waverly is very haunted. I'm not surprised that a place with such a dark history is. I would be more surprised if it wasn't.

-The End-

Naughty little bunny!!!
A little bit of this and little bit of that...
Bottom Option #1: Bermuda Shorts
Bottom #2: Leggings
Good luck, aldies! And remember to:
♠ Bookmark items to "A Devilish Challenge"
♠ Put "Beauty" in the item titles!