Monday, December 3, 2012

Geithner on averting cliff: 'I actually think we're going to get there'

Boehner, Geithner (AP/Getty)

With the fiscal cliff looming--and Republicans, like House Speaker John Boehner, slamming the White House's latest proposal--U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner hit the Sunday morning talk show circuit, saying the partisan posturing is a necessary part of "political theater" but that he's hopeful a deal will get done before the end of the year.

"I actually think that we're gonna get there," Geithner said on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos." "I mean, inevitably [there is] gonna be a little political theater in this context--sometimes that's a sign of progress. I think we're actually making a little bit of progress, but we're still some distance apart."

Geithner said the GOP lawmakers need to realize that the burden is now on them to work with Democrats--and that the ball is in their court.

"There's just no reason why 98 percent of Americans have to see their taxes go up because some members of Congress on the Republican side want to block tax rate increases for 2 percent of the wealthiest Americans," the treasury secretary said.

"They really are in a difficult position," he added. "And they're going to have to figure out their politics of what they do next."

On CNN's "State of the Union With Candy Crowley," Geithner dismissed Boehner's contention that debt talks were at a "stalemate."

"I think we're far apart still, but I think we're moving closer together," Geithner said. "Republicans have said for the first time in decades, if I'm not mistaken, that they are prepared to raise taxes as part of a deal that helps reduce our long-term deficits. Now, what they haven't said to us is how far they're willing to go both on rates and revenues. And that's something we're going to need to see from them if we're going to have an agreement."

He added: "There's going to be a lot of political theater between now and when we get there."

On "Meet The Press," Geithner said he thinks a deal will get done by the end of the year.

"The only thing standing in the way of that would be a refusal by Republicans to accept that rates are going to have to go up on the wealthiest Americans," he said. "And I don't really see them doing that."

Geithner's Sunday talk show tour was met with immediate criticism from the GOP.

"The president and the White House have had three weeks and this is the best we've got?" Boehner asked on "Fox News Sunday." "We are nowhere."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/geithner-fiscal-cliff-boehner-sunday-talk-shows-161349699--politics.html

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Principles Of Stand-Up Wrestling ? Recreation and Sports

To be a very good wrestler, it?s good to know the rules of stand-up wrestling. Basically, it all starts on the feet. That you must know the proper positions. It?s essential to be in the most effective condition, so that you will be able to undertake essentially the most efficient and efficient wrestling postures. These are the positions or postures that you need to be able to defeat your opponent. By figuring out these postures, you will be able to anticipate your opponent?s move and put together for his attacks.

?On Your Ft?

Strictly speaking, being on your feet in wrestling would require you to have your elbows in, chin tucked, knees bent and lead leg forward. You want to just be sure you hold your arms near your body. This may assist protect you towards having your opponent grabbing onto your arms and taking management of the fight. All the time preserve your arms close to your body. Don?t simply allow them to dangle on your sides or your front. You?ll want to have your opponent work for it. Wait in your opponent to extend his arms in order to grab you. Inadvertently, this can depart him open to your attack. This is whenever you take the chance to attack him.

?By no means Take Your Eyes off Your Opponent?

Rule of the thumb in relation to wrestling: Never Look Down! Do not look at the floor. Wherever the head goes, the physique follows. You should also avoid trying up because this position exposes your throat. Stand-up wrestling requires quick thinking. You need to know find out how to mess together with your opponent?s head. An excellent wrestler will likely pull his opponent?s head in different directions simply so to get a response out of his opponent. Having your head manipulated this way messes with a wrestler?s focus and stability. This is the reason it is important that you have a strong neck. That is the place neck workouts help a lot.

?Saddle Your Opponent Your Weight?

Your opponent is your mule when you find yourself contained in the ring. You must let him carry your weight. Should you weight 600 lbs, then saddle him with each pound. Do not forget that wrestling is about ?wrestling management? away out of your opponent. You might want to be in control, so you?d be capable to hook him. You could anticipate his moves, so that you will know methods to respond. That is the way you win in opposition to your opponent.

Courtesy of Behind Pro Wrestling!


Tags: behind wrestling, pro wrestling, wrestling

Source: http://recreationandsports.flyfishing-guide.net/uncategorized/principles-of-stand-up-wrestling/

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Cuba pushes swap: its spies for jailed American contractor

NBC News

A billboard in Cuba shows the Cuban Five -- Gerardo Hern?ndez, Antonio Guerrero, Ram?n Laba?ino, Fernando Gonz?lez, and Ren? Gonz?lez.

By Michael IsikoffNBC News

It seems straight out of a Cold War spy movie. A group of Cuban undercover agents sneak into the U.S. and set up a secret pro-Castro network in south Florida ? receiving instructions in code through late night radio transmissions from handlers in Havana. But the FBI gets wind, tails the agents, intercepts their messages and busts them, sending the agents off to federal prison, their ringleader for life.

Today, the story of those spies -- called La Red Avispa, or the Wasp Network ? rolled up by the feds 14 years ago is barely known in the United States. But its members, now? known as the Cuban Five, are national heroes in Cuba ? the subjects of mass demonstrations, their pictures on billboards and? posters ? and their petitions for freedom are championed around the world by Nobel Prize winners, celebrities like Danny Glover, even former President Jimmy Carter.

And they may now prove key to the tense impasse between Havana and Washington over the fate of jailed American contractor Alan Gross, arrested three years ago Monday for distributing sophisticated satellite equipment to Cuba?s tiny Jewish community and later sentenced to 15 years in prison for ?acts against the independence and/or territorial integrity of the state.? (Gross says he was only bringing Internet access to Cuba.)


While the U.S. is demanding that Cuba release Gross, who visitors say is angry and frail, having lost 110 pounds in prison, Cuban officials say they are willing to do so only if President Barack Obama will? release the Cuban agents.

?I understand what Mr. Gross is going through,? Gerardo Hernandez, 47, the Cuban Five ringleader, said in an exclusive interview with NBC News in October at his current home --a federal prison outside Victorville, Calif. ?I understand his sufferings and that of his family. ? If an agreement can be reached, to stop the sufferings of six families, then I welcome it.?

The idea of a swap?the release of Gross for Hernandez and his confederates among the Cuban Five ? faces legal and political hurdles.

An Obama administration official told NBC News that the ?imprisonment of Alan Gross, an international development worker, is not comparable in any way to that of the five Cuban agents,? noting that the Cubans were afforded their ?due process rights? and convicted of serious crimes.

Cuban Five ringleader Gerardo Hernandez

Members of Congress have denounced Cuba for holding Gross ?hostage? to the release of the Cuban Five. ?The Castro regime has no regard for human rights or international law,? said Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and frequent critic of the Castro regime. ?The Cuba Five should serve their sentences for spying.?

And Hernandez, who sports a trim goatee and displays a hearty laugh despite 14 years in prison,? might not make the ideal candidate for a pardon or commutation from Obama ? a precondition for a swap to take place. Asked if he regretted any of his actions, he smiled and said, ??I regret that I got caught.? In a follow up phone interview, Hernandez readily acknowledged that ?we violated some U.S. laws? ? mainly failing to register as foreign agents with the U.S. Justice Department. ?We came here with fake passports. Fake identities.? ?But, he added, ?We act out of necessity.,?

As Hernandez and Cuban officials tell it, the Cuban Five was not sent to spy on the U.S. government. In fact, the members weren?t accused of stealing any U.S. secrets (although they were convicted of conducting surveillance of U.S. military bases.) Instead, the mission of the Wasp Network, they say, was to infiltrate? anti-Castro exile groups in South Florida who Havana suspected of plotting terrorist attacks inside Cuba. Among those attacks: the notorious bombing of Cubana Flight 455 over the Caribbean in 1976, killing 73 passengers (including teenage members of a Cuban? national fencing team)? as? well as a string of hotel bombings in Havana in? 1997 that killed an Italian businessman and were believed to have been aimed at disrupting Cuba?s nascent tourist industry.???

?Cuba doesn?t have drones to neutralize the terrorists abroad,? said Hernandez. ?They need to send people to gather information and protect the Cuban people from these terrorist actions. ? I think it?s the same feeling that Americans have that defend their country and love their country when they go to infiltrate al-Qaida and send information here to avoid the terrorist acts. And the U.S. has to understand that Cuba has been involved in the war against terrorism for 50 years.?

Alan Gross in an undated family photo, left, and in 2012, after losing 110 pounds while imprisoned in Cuba.

While admitting his role in spying on anti-Castro exiles ??I would do it again,? he said -- Hernandez adamantly denies the most serious charge against him: conspiracy to commit murder. His conviction on that count, which has earned him a life sentence, was based on his alleged complicity in the February 1996 shoot-down by a Cuban fighter jet of two Cessna planes flown by members of the Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue, killing four men.

The anti-Castro group had provoked Cuba by dropping anti-government leaflets over Havana. At the trial of the Cuban Five, prosecutors introduced messages between Hernandez and his controllers in Havana suggesting he had prior knowledge of the shoot-down. But Hernandez insists that prosecutors misinterpreted the messages and he knew nothing that wasn?t already public.

?No, sir, absolutely not,? Hernandez replied when asked if he knew in advance about the incident. ?All I knew was what everybody knew: that Brothers to the Rescue through the years has violated many times Cuban air space, that there have been 16 diplomatic notes from Cuba complaining over that situation.?

/

Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban National Assembly

Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba?s National Assembly (the Parliament) and a longtime Castro confidante, said this week in Havana that ?the Cuban government publicly, front page in our papers, months before that incident had warned that we are not going to allow any more intrusions into our air space. ? The order, the decision (to shoot down the planes) came from the highest level. Fidel Castro himself had said that publicly, that he was responsible for that decision.?

U.S. Appeals Court Judge Phyllis Kravitch of Atlanta concluded in 2008 that prosecutors never proved their case tying Hernandez to a plot to shoot down the planes, but she was outvoted two to one and his conviction on the murder conspiracy charge was upheld. Now Hernandez and his lawyers are appealing on another ground: that hundreds of thousands of dollars in secret ?U.S. government payments to anti-Castro journalists in Miami -- newly discovered through Freedom of Information Act requests ?inflamed the Miami community against the Cuban Five and made it impossible for them for them to get a fair trial. The payments were mostly made for appearances on Radio Marti, a TV and radio operation funded by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an independent agency that oversees international broadcasting sponsored by the U.S. government.

Slideshow: Castro through the years

In court papers, lawyers for the Cuban Five have cited articles by some of the journalists, including one that denounced the ?genocidal character? of Castro?s regime and another that speculated that the real purpose of the Wasp Network was to introduce ?chemical or bacteriological weapons? into south Florida. ?This information was spread throughout the Miami area and helped inflame the community against these guys,? said Martin Garbus, Hernandez? lawyer. ?It was total madness. ? When the case was brought, the anti-Castro feeling in the Miami area was at a fevered pitch.?

Keystone / Getty Images

Ever since U.S.-backed Cuban President Fulgencio Batista was forced from power by rebels led by Fidel Castro in 1958, the relationship between the two nations has been fraught with difficulties.

U.S. prosecutors dismiss as ?implausible? and ?unfounded? the idea that the Radio Marti payments were part of a U.S. government effort to influence the jury in the Cuban Five case.

??The jury (in the case) was carefully selected, following a searching voir dire (jury selection process) that the appellate court deemed a high model for a high-profile case, and that the trial comported with the highest standards for fairness and professionalism,? wrote Caroline Heck Miller, an assistant U.S. attorney in Miami, in a court filing in July asking a judge to reject Hernandez? motion for a hearing into the payments to the journalists. She also noted, as federal prosecutors have repeatedly done when the issue has come up, that ?no Cuban-Americans ? the audience (Hernandez) hypothesizes as the target of the government campaign he imagines?served on the jury.?

Unless Hernandez can somehow persuade a court to reopen his case ?? or barring a prisoner swap with Gross -- he would seem to have few options. ?

Rene Gonzalez, another member of the Cuban Five who was not convicted of the conspiracy-to-commit-murder charge, was released from federal prison on probation late last year, but has not yet been allowed to return home to Cuba to live.

/

Adriana Perez, wife of imprisoned Cuban agent, Gerardo Hernandez

The Cubans are doing their best to ratchet up the pressure. Just as Judy Gross has launched a public relations campaign in the United States to free her husband, appearing at a National Press Club press conference on Friday, this week the Cubans made Hernandez wife, Adriana, available for an interview with NBC News. A chemist in the food industry in Havana, she wept as she described the pain of separation from her husband ? and how it has left her unable to bear children. ?Every detail, every single moment reminds me of him,? she said. ?I believe there are many people in the U.S. and the American people as a whole, who could convey to President Obama that there is a woman here suffering.?

Hernandez, too, says missing his wife is the hardest part of his life in prison. And he has few illusions about his prospects of being freed. ?The only thing I know for sure with me is that I have two life sentences and live with that every day,? he said. ?And to keep your sanity and your mind, you have to be realistic. But I would be dishonest to say that I don?t have hope. ?

Michael Isikoff is NBC News' national investigative correspondent; NBC News Producer Mary Murray also contributed to this report.

More from Open Channel:

Source: http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/01/15602211-cuba-pushes-swap-its-spies-jailed-in-us-for-american-contractor-held-in-havana?lite

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Sunday, December 2, 2012

Indefinite strike: Egypt's anti-Morsi rebellion of judges is complete

CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt's rebellion of the judges against President Mohammed Morsi became complete on Sunday with the country's highest court declaring an open-ended strike on the day it was supposed to rule on the legitimacy of two key assemblies controlled by allies of the Islamist leader.

The strike by the Supreme Constitutional Court and opposition plans to march on the presidential palace on Tuesday take the country's latest political crisis to a level not seen in the nearly two years of turmoil since Hosni Mubarak's ouster in a popular uprising.

Judges from the country's highest appeals court and its sister lower court were already on an indefinite strike, joining colleagues from other tribunals who suspended work last week to protest what they saw as Morsi's assault on the judiciary.

The last time Egypt had an all-out strike by the judiciary was in 1919, when judges joined an uprising against British colonial rule.

The standoff began when Morsi issued decrees on Nov. 22 giving him near-absolute powers that granted himself and the Islamist-dominated assembly drafting the new constitution immunity from the courts.

The constitutional panel then raced in a marathon session last week to vote on the charter's 236 clauses without the participation of liberal and Christian members. The fast-track hearing pre-empted a decision from the Supreme Constitutional Court that was widely expected to dissolve the constituent assembly.

The judges on Sunday postponed their ruling on that case just before they went on strike.

Without a functioning justice system, Egypt will be plunged even deeper into turmoil. It has already seen a dramatic surge in crime after the uprising, while state authority is being challenged in many aspects of life and the courts are burdened by a massive backlog of cases.

"The country cannot function for long like this, something has to give," said Negad Borai, a private law firm director and a rights activist. 'We are in a country without courts of law and a president with all the powers in his hands. This is a clear-cut dictatorial climate," he said.

Mohamed Abdel-Aziz, a rights lawyer, said the strike by the judges will impact everything from divorce and theft to financial disputes that, in some cases, could involve foreign investors.

"Ordinary citizens affected by the strike will become curious about the details of the current political crisis and could possibly make a choice to join the protests," he said.

The Judges Club, a union with 9,500 members, said late Sunday that judges would not, as customary, oversee the national referendum Morsi called for Dec. 15 on the draft constitution hammered out and hurriedly voted on last week.

The absence of their oversight would raise more questions about the validity of the vote. If the draft is passed in the referendum, parliamentary elections are to follow two months later and they too may not have judicial supervision.

The judges say they will remain on strike until Morsi rescinds his decrees, which the Egyptian leader said were temporary and needed to protect the nation's path to democratic rule.

For now, however, Morsi has to contend with the fury of the judiciary.

The constitutional court called Sunday "the Egyptian judiciary's blackest day on record."

It described the scene outside the Nile-side court complex, where thousands of Islamist demonstrators gathered since the early morning hours carrying banners denouncing the tribunal and some of its judges.

A statement by the court, which swore Morsi into office on June 30, said its judges approached the complex but turned back when they saw the protesters blocking entrances and climbing over its fences. They feared for their safety, it added.

"The judges of the Supreme Constitutional Court were left with no choice but to announce to the glorious people of Egypt that they cannot carry out their sacred mission in this charged atmosphere," said the statement, which was carried by state news agency MENA.

Supporters of Morsi, who hails from the Islamic fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, claim that the court's judges remain loyal to Mubarak, who appointed them, and accuse them of trying to derail Egypt's transition to democratic rule.

In addition to the high court's expected ruling Sunday on the legitimacy of the constitution-drafting panel, it was also expected to rule on another body dominated by Morsi supporters, parliament's upper chamber.

Though Morsi's Nov. 22 decrees provide immunity to both bodies against the courts, a ruling that declares the two illegitimate would have vast symbolic significance, casting doubt on the standing of both.

The Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice party, sought to justify the action of its supporters outside the court as a peaceful protest. It reiterated its charge that some members of the judiciary were part and parcel of Mubarak's autocratic policies.

"The wrong practices by a minority of judges and their preoccupation with politics ... will not take away the respect people have for the judiciary," it said.

Its explanation, however, failed to calm the anger felt by many activists and politicians.

"President Morsi must take responsibility before the entire world for terrorizing the judiciary," veteran rights campaigner and opposition leader Abdel-Halim Kandil wrote in his Twitter account about the events outside the constitutional court.

Liberal activist and former lawmaker Amr Hamzawy warned what is ahead may be worse.

"The president and his group (the Muslim Brotherhood) are leading Egypt into a period of darkness par excellence," he said. "He made a dictatorial decision to hold a referendum on an illegal constitution that divides society, then a siege of the judiciary to terrorize it."

Egypt has been rocked by several bouts of unrest, some violent, since Mubarak was forced to step down in the face of a popular uprising. But the current one is probably the worst.

Morsi's decrees gave him powers that none of his four predecessors since the ouster of the monarchy 60 years ago ever had. Opposition leaders countered that he turned himself into a new "pharaoh" and a dictator even worse than his immediate predecessor Mubarak.

Then, following his order, the constituent assembly rushed a vote on the draft constitution in an all-night session.

The draft has a new article that seeks to define what the "principles" of Islamic law are by pointing to theological doctrines and their rules. Another new article states that Egypt's most respected Islamic institution, Al-Azhar, must be consulted on any matters related to Shariah law, a measure critics fear could lead to oversight of legislation by clerics.

Rights groups have pointed out that virtually the only references to women relate to the home and family, that the new charter uses overly broad language with respect to the state protecting "ethics and morals" and fails to outlaw gender discrimination.

At times the process appeared slap-dash, with fixes to missing phrasing and even several entirely new articles proposed, written and voted on in the hours just before sunrise.

The decrees and the vote on the constitution draft galvanized the fractured, mostly secular opposition, with senior leaders setting aside differences and egos to form a united front in the face of Morsi, whose offer on Saturday for a national dialogue is yet to find takers.

The opposition brought out at least 200,000 protesters to Cairo's Tahrir Square on Tuesday and a comparable number Friday to press demands that the decrees be rescinded. The Islamists responded Saturday with massive rallies in Cairo and across much of Egypt.

The opposition is raising the stakes with plans to march on Morsi' palace on Tuesday, a move last seen on Feb. 11, 2011 when tens of thousands of protesters marched from Tahrir Square to Mubarak's palace in the Heliopolis district to force him out. Mubarak stepped down that day, but Morsi is highly unlikely to follow suit on Tuesday.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypts-anti-morsi-rebellion-judges-complete-200428078.html

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Making families whole again - Health & Fitness - The Olympian ...

ADAM ASHTON | Staff writer ? Published December 01, 2012 Modified November 30, 2012

Chelsea Riley picked up a marker pen to answer the question, but she couldn?t stop at a single word. A small essay poured out, describing how she missed Capt. Ian Riley during the holidays even as she looked forward to his return by Christmas.

?He?s been going off and on since I was 7,? the 13-year-old explained.

One of Chelsea?s younger brothers had a simpler message about Dad?s return. He bounded up to the wall where children of deployed troops shared their thoughts and scrawled out: ?Excited.?

The Riley family?s anticipation echoes around Joint Base Lewis-McChord this winter. Banners hang along roads welcoming troops who left for tough missions in southern Afghanistan a year ago. Planes land almost daily, bringing back more and more Stryker soldiers ? about 8,000 in all.

It?s a joyful period for many Army families as the base south of Tacoma has its last big homecoming wave from a decade of war. But it?s also a challenging time as they reintegrate soldiers who spent the past nine to 12 months in a combat zone.

In this season, a child?s daydreams about getting the full attention of mom or dad can crash into the reality that it takes some time to calm down from the heightened senses of war, not to mention the exhaustion of the long trip home.

?They see their parent, they have all these created realities, and that?s not what happens,? said Norma Melo, Lewis-McChord?s youth education support services director.

?What happens is Dad?s lucky if he can get a shower and eat before he falls asleep,? she said.

Melo has a special touch with Army kids. She knows when to hug and how to draw out an honest remark. Her experience is personal; she lost her husband, Julian, a Lewis-McChord Stryker sergeant, in Iraq in 2004.

Her job gives her influence over school liaison officers and counselors supporting the families of Lewis-McChord?s 46,000 active-duty and Reserve service members.

Two-thirds of the local service members who responded to a South Sound Military and Communities Partnership survey last year indicated they have children. The partnership estimates that 1 in 5 children between Tacoma and Lacey have a parent working at the base as a civilian or service member.

From Melo?s standpoint, those children often go overlooked, especially compared with services provided to soldiers and their spouses.

?The one thing we don?t concentrate on is our kids,? she said.

She helped prepare dozens of Army children for their parents? homecomings last month at an exercise called Camp Arrowhead. It centered on children such as Chelsea Riley who have a parent in the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division ? Lewis-McChord?s ?Arrowhead Brigade.?

Melo kicked off the camp by inviting the kids to write words on a banner describing how they felt about their parents coming home. She put up a hypothetical example on the paper to set the tone for the day.

?Here?s mine ? I feel scary,? she told them. ?When dad left, he told me to be good, but I haven?t been so good.?

Kids were free to express feelings other than happiness about mom or dad coming home from Afghanistan. The messages they offered included ?worried,? ?weird,? and ?relief.?

Throughout the day, kids broke into small groups in which they played games and talked with counselors about what to expect at home.

Many had been through a deployment before. They looked forward to day trips, or doing fewer chores around the house once their family reunites.

?I?m going to be happy when he comes home because I won?t have to babysit so much,? said Kali Budd, who was anticipating the return of her stepdad, Cpl. Dan Stamper.

Jayson Roy, 16, expected Dad getting on his case about homework. The oldest of four children, he took on more responsibilities over the past year.

?I can?t wait to have him get on my butt about school,? said Roy, whose stepdad, Maj. Dave Polizzotti, was finishing up his third yearlong deployment.

?I?m losing concentration because of the war,? Roy said.

Last month, Chelsea Riley was looking forward to holidays with her dad and maybe a couple of trips to the bowling alley. Capt. Riley?s tour in Afghanistan was his fourth deployment since 2005.

Chelsea knew what to expect from his first days back in the house.

?When he comes home, he sleeps and eats my mom?s cooking,? she said.

Capt. Riley made it home by late November. The family relaxed for a few days and took their time getting back to their pre-deployment routines.

The officer and his wife, Bobbi-Jo Riley, started making their homecoming plan weeks before he returned. They discussed when he?d start to assert himself in the house, and how to balance the checkbook now that he?s not receiving combat pay.

They put much more work into their planning this time than they had in the past.

?You learn from each one, and you just get better at it,? said Capt. Riley, 34.

He led a company of soldiers in the 3rd Brigade?s 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment for part of his deployment. His troops often take direction better than his four kids.

?You ask your soldiers to do something, and they do it. You ask your kids to do it, and they don?t,? he said.

Bobbi-Jo Riley also thinks their planning paid off. She attended a ?spouse academy? for 3rd Brigade families in October at which she shared tips with other wives about how to adjust to having their husbands home.

?The same things happen every time, but sometimes you don?t think of it,? she said.

?They come home and they take their boots off at the door, and that?s the honeymoon phase.

?Three months from now, it?s ?Can he put his boots away???

She thinks Camp Arrowhead helped her children adjust their expectations and prepare for their dad?s return, too.

?The happiness is there, but without the time to reflect, you just focus on making posters,? she said, referring to the welcome-home banners families often make for soldiers. ?You forget you actually have to work at it.?

COMING SUNDAY

As thousands of local soldiers try to adapt to life back home, the military says it will do better at preventing them from falling through the cracks. What?s different this time?

Adam Ashton: 253-597-8646 adam.ashton@ thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/military @tntmilitary

Source: http://www.theolympian.com/2012/12/01/2338041/making-families-whole-again.html

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Five New Nashville Restaurants - Carry On | Travel + Leisure

11.30.12

Nashville Restaurant: Barista Parlor

Inventive chefs have restaurants in Music City singing a different tune. Check out five of our favorite openings.

With a strong Southern food identity and a bevy of nearby farms, all Nashville needed to become a red-hot culinary destination was a dose of innovation?and it has arrived. At the Catbird Seat (1711 Division St.;?$$$), chefs Josh Habiger and Erik Anderson have turned heads with their whimsical tasting menu (Wonder Bread pur?e, anyone?). Pizzas get a creative spin at Bella Nashville (Farmers Market, 900 Rosa L. Parks Blvd.; 615/457-3863; lunch only; $), where toppings include hummus and beets. The hip coffee shop Barista Parlor (pictured; 519B Gallatin Ave.; 615/712-9766; $$) offers more than just cups of joe: its chicken and waffles sells out in hours. Local food icon Deb Paquette goes global at Etch (303 Demonbreun St.; $$$), serving dishes such as Moroccan-spiced duck breast with harissa cranberries. Finally, Silo (1121 Fifth Ave. N.; $$) offers smoked-pork pot pie and grits with bacon jam, proof that even down-home classics can have an edge.

Photo by Caroline Allison

Source: http://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-blog/carry-on/2012/11/30/five-new-nashville-restaurants

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Saturday, December 1, 2012

Hostess liquidation draws more than 100 bidders

22 hrs.

UPDATED 6:15 PM ET:?Hostess Brands,?the bankrupt maker of Twinkies snack cakes, received court permission to wind down its 82-year-old business on Thursday but revealed "furious" interest in its iconic brands from potential buyers.

New York Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Drain approved the final orders that cleared the way for the company to begin selling its assets, everything from brands such as Ding Dongs and Twinkies to baking equipment and real estate.

"It's undisputed they will be worth more moving down this path," Drain said of the wind-down plan.

Around 110 potential bidders have contacted the company about bidding for at least part of its business, and 70 had enough interest to sign confidentiality agreements, Hostess' banker told the hearing in White Plains, N.Y.

Joshua Scherer of Perella Weinberg, who was hired by Hostess to sell its assets, said that six potential bidders have hired large investment banks to help them.

"It's very significant because it indicates to me that not only are these buyers serious, but they are expecting to spend substantial sums," said Scherer. He said the liquidation could raise $1 billion.

Scherer described the level of incoming calls from potential bidders as "fast and furious." Interested parties include large national retailers and overseas buyers that wanted to bring Hostess brands to India, he said.

By early January, the company expects to have initial bids for its various brands, which will then be put to auction.?

Hostess Brands also?is asking for a judge's approval to give its top executives bonuses totaling up to $1.8 million as part of its wind-down plans.

The company?says the incentive pay is needed to retain the 19 corporate officers and "high-level managers" during the liquidation process, which could take about a year. Two of those executives would be eligible for additional rewards depending on how efficiently they carry out the liquidation. The bonuses would be in addition to their regular pay.

The bonuses do not include pay for CEO Gregory Rayburn, who was brought on as a restructuring expert earlier this year. Rayburn is being paid $125,000 a month.

Hostess is seeking final approval for its wind-down, which was approved on an interim basis last week.

The company's shuttering means loss of about 18,000 jobs.

In court Thursday, an attorney for Hostess noted that the company is no longer able to pay retiree benefits, which come to about $1.1 million a month. Hostess stopped contributing to its union pension plans more than a year ago.

The company's demise came after years of management turmoil, with workers saying the company failed to invest in updating its products. In January, Hostess filed for its second Chapter 11 bankruptcy in less than a decade, citing steep costs associated with its unionized work force.

Although Hostess was able to reach a new contract agreement with its largest union, its second biggest union rejected the terms and went on strike Nov. 9. A week later, Hostess announced its plans to liquidate, saying the strike crippled its ability to maintain normal production.?

Information from the Associated Press and Reuters was included in this report.

Related story: Bankruptcy judge OKs Hostess liquidation

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/hostess-seeks-sweet-bonus-deal-top-executives-1C7325957

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