Gallic meets the Pacific
Vive le soleil … Noumea’s Port Moselle, with St Joseph Cathedral in the foreground. Photo: Getty Images
If France could be improved, it would be a tropical island. Andrew Bock knows a place that already fits the bill.
It’s all in the pout. To speak French well, one must exercise the kissing muscles. In fact, one has to use every part of the mouth, much as one does when dining at a good French restaurant.
Say “oo” and blow a kiss to the wind. Say “on” and send a nasal sound vibrating pleasantly through the palate. Say “r” and produce a soft, sexy “grrr” at the back of the throat.
Immersion in the melody of spoken French can be enjoyed less than three hours from Sydney, on a tropical island surrounded by one of the most beautiful lagoons in the world. The capital of New Caledonia, Noumea, is a banquet of foie gras and frangipani, petanque and palm trees, marinas and mangoes, champagne and geckos, kisses on both cheeks, windsurfing, sailing and sunbaking on coral beaches. There are boulangeries, patisseries, creperies, boucheries and charcuteries everywhere. There are chocolatiers, even though chocolate melts quickly outdoors in the subtropical heat.
In Noumea, a coffee is a short black and nobody gets takeaway. People drive on the right and cycle with baguettes in their baskets even in 30-degree heat. Supermarkets sell home-made pates, full-flavoured cheeses from every French province and entire aisles are stocked with French wine and champagne. Even French visitors are impressed by how much champagne New Caledonians drink.
The city has some of the best French restaurants in the southern hemisphere and the balmy night air is syncopated by music in bars and nightclubs overlooking the lagoon.
New Caledonia might have been called New South France if Captain Cook hadn’t “discovered” it in 1774 and given it the Roman name for the highlands of Scotland. Indeed, if Napoleon III hadn’t finally gazumped the British in 1853 and annexed the island to establish a French penal colony, New Caledonia might have become part of the Commonwealth.
New Caledonians, with dependable French patriotism, are just as quick to point out that if early French explorers such as Louis Antoine de Bougainville, Bruni d’Entrecasteaux and Jean Francois de Laperouse had been a little more adroit, Australia might have been French.
New Caledonia has an outdated reputation for being expensive. Airfares are slightly inflated but the strong Australian dollar and a range of accommodation means New Caledonia is no more expensive than Australia.
Not much English is spoken in “Nouvelle-Caledonie” outside the travel industry and it’s a great place for Australians to learn French. So between champagnes and dinner parties, I enrolled in a French-language course.
The most popular French language school, CREIPAC, occupies a site overlooking the lagoon and surrounded by lawns shaded by frangipani, palm and flame trees. There’s a good restaurant with a bar nearby on the lagoon. It’s hard to imagine a more attractive place to study.
Early-morning weekday classes leave students plenty of time to explore Noumea and the islands and practise their new-found French, and CREIPAC can organise home-stays for a more intensive immersion.
Cruise ships brought about 180,000 day-trippers to Noumea last year but fewer than 8000 Australian tourists came to New Caledonia by plane in the same period. About 600 of them enrolled in one- and two-week French courses at CREIPAC.
The school’s restored 1890s buildings were once part of the colony’s main convict penitentiary. New Caledonia began receiving French convict ships in 1864, just when most states in Australia had abolished transportation. The rural descendants of French convicts and early free settlers still own much of the west-coast farmland. Known as Caldoches, they farm cattle, ride horses and many drive around in big new utes bearing R.M. Williams stickers. The indigenous Melanesians of New Caledonia, the Kanaks, have their own languages but speak French, too. Although the Kanak French accent is slightly pithier than the classic accent in France, the New Caledonian accent generally is neutral, partly because the population is continually refreshed with French migrants and workers.
It took most of a fortnight course for me to mend my broken French but by the end I could understand and be understood when I spoke. Travelling and shopping became easier; at supermarkets I could read labels and on the streets I could understand directions. As my accent improved I heard more and even began to enjoy the lyrics of French songs. During my last week I managed to join an obligatory conversation about love, appropriately enough, describing cultural attitudes to love and how real love transcends them all.
The best place to practise conversation in Noumea is undoubtedly around a dining table, provided it doesn’t interfere with other pleasures. Gabriel Levionnois is the founder of one of Noumea’s better restaurants, Au Petit Cafe, and a yachtie who opens only four days a week, so he can enjoy lagoon life on long weekends. “Our philosophy was to establish a top restaurant and also have a social life, a life beyond the restaurant,” Au Petit’s chef, David Cano, says. “And why not in a country this magnificent? We love the sea, we love diving and fishing and we want to enjoy it all.”
Savouring is one of the things New Caledonians do best. The friend I stay with often comes home from work to cook a simple lunch. Businesses often shut for an hour and a half in the middle of the day. Along and beside the Promenade Pierre Vernier, Noumeans jog, cycle, windsurf, kitesurf, sail and paraglide before and after work. At Baie des Citrons, just two kilometres south of central Noumea, I join early-morning swimmers doing lazy laps over coral reefs.
At Anse Vata, the next bay around, men play petanque beneath palm trees, and windsurfers skim the lagoon like dragonflies. I count 75 kitesurfers and 50 windsurfers one Saturday.
One in two households in the south province owns a boat and if Noumeans are not on the beach they’re visiting one of the offshore islands and islets. The lagoon surrounding the main island of New Caledonia invites sailing. Or diving and snorkelling with dugongs, manta rays, clown fish and turtles. Or fishing for trevally and billfish. Immersion in Noumean culture means immersion in the lagoon.
On the three larger islands, Ouvea, Lifou and Mare, and in the north of the country, Kanak culture is more prevalent than French; an estimated 45 per cent of the overall population is Kanak, belonging to 341 tribes. A spectacular road between Kone and Poindimie in the mid-north of the main island passes traditional villages perched on ridges overlooking valleys and gorges. Stands of eucalypts, casuarinas and araucarias (conifers native to South America and Australia), are reminders the archipelago was once part of Gondwana.
It’s becoming more common for Kanaks to leave their villages to look for work in the capital. The younger Kanaks bring with them a love of post-Jamaican reggae and neo-tribal fashion. Their music sings of freedom and a Kanaky state. The first of a possible three referendums will be held between 2014 and 2018, to decide whether the country remains an autonomous “collectivity” of France or gains full independence as a nation.
One of Noumeans’ favourite holiday spots is the Isle of Pines, a 20-minute flight or a two-day sail south of the capital. Here the Kunie people farm an endemic snail species for New Caledonian restaurants. Snorkelling at La Piscine Naturelle, I see a banded sea snake and a psychedelic variety of fish. In Kuto Bay, 15 yachts from Noumea moor lazily on the mirror-finish lagoon. A flame tree drops red flowers on the sand. The slender spires of araucaria trees line distant shores like green minarets.
When a huge cruise ship arrives at Kuto Bay next morning, ferrying 2000 Australian day-trippers, I imagine how the islanders might have felt when they first saw European ships, and why some shops in Noumea don’t open when ships come in. When a throng of thong-wearing Australians approaches me asking for directions, I feel a guilty pleasure when I pretend not to understand and reply in French.
Andrew Bock studied French courtesy of CREIPAC.
FAST FACTS
Getting there
Air Caledonie has a fare to Noumea from Sydney (3hr) for about $745 low-season return, including tax. Melbourne passengers pay about $1000 and fly Qantas to Sydney to connect; see aircalin.com.
Staying there
Tera hotels are in four of the best locations: on the lagoon at Noumea; Isle of Pines; Poindimie and Port Boise. One bedroom suites in Noumea start at 22,600 CFP francs ($239) with breakfast. Garden bungalows at Oure Tera on the Isle of Pines cost from 32,900 CPF francs a night; see www.tera-hotels-resorts.com.
Nataiwatch Guest House on the Isle of Pines has simple twin share bungalows from 10,900 CFP francs a night. Camping also available. nataiwatch.com.
Motel le Bambou, at Val Plaisance, Noumea, has double rooms for 7500 CFP francs a night. motel-bambou.com.
There are affordable “gites”, somewhere between BBs and homestays, all over New Caledonia; see gitesnouvellecaledonie.nc. Stays are offered by a growing number of Kanaks; and camping grounds for travellers are available.
While there
CREIPAC’s one- and two-week courses are held on weekday mornings. A one-week course costs 26,500 CFP francs; two weeks costs 48,000 CFP francs. The school arranges home stays with families for about $50 a night, including breakfast and dinner. There are four courses scheduled a year; classes for groups of eight or more can be arranged at other times, too. See www.creipac.nc.
Charter a bare boat or with a skipper from Dream Yacht Charters; from $430 a day, see dreamyachtcharter.com.
Windsurf with Laurent Gauzere at Anse Vata for 1500 CFP francs an hour, phone +687 788 667.
Gamefish with Etienne Picquel at Bourail or Poindimie. Bookings via oceanbluefishing.com in Sydney on 8572 4777.
When to go
April to November is drier and sunnier, with lower humidity. The December to March hot, wet season can bring cyclones. January is also busier with New Caledonian holidaymakers.
Article source: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/travel/gallic-meets-the-pacific-20120518-1yuqa.html
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Shatel: Big Ten, Rose Bowl aren't playoff thorns
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.
Published Wednesday May 2, 2012
FOOTBALL
Shatel: Big Ten, Rose Bowl aren’t playoff thorns
There are a lot of great things about this college football playoff. Not the least of which is listening to all of the good old boys in the establishment tell you what a great thing it is.
Not long ago, a playoff was the bane of society, the end of our favorite game, the best game. Today, members of the old guard are falling all over each other to get a place in line.
The poo-bahs of college football are as transparent as Lou Holtz talking about an opponent. And I love them for that.
What’s especially fun is watching Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany, the best commissioner, out in front of this thing. The ever-flawed BCS was imploding and the playoff, in some form, was inevitable. Even Delany couldn’t hold off any longer. By jumping on board the train, Delany gave it full momentum.
College football has been great, despite itself. Now the lords of Saturday have a chance to do it right, fix New Year’s Day, bring back meaningful nonconference games, maybe help the athletes.
But there’s one thing in particular to watch in our Big Ten corner of the world, also known as the Land That Time Forgot.
Maybe now the Big Ten can really think B1G.
If we have learned anything in one year in the Big Ten, it’s that it’s easy to find a beer bratwurst. Another thing: the Rose Bowl is a very big deal.
The national championship? Not so much.
I’m very much in favor of the Rose Bowl. It’s that good. It was one of the appealing things about joining the Big Ten. Nebraska has a chance to go to the Rose Bowl. It’s a throwback, in more ways than one.
The Orange Bowl has been trashed, the legacy of greatness buried beneath Marlins Stadium and the remnants unrecognizable in a collage of bad games in an average NFL stadium. The Fiesta Bowl is tainted by scandal, and last week, the folks in Phoenix said they would be happy to not stage a bowl game if they could have a playoff game. Oh, the tradition.
The Sugar Bowl still works as a Southeastern Conference staple, but the Superdome is aging and the SEC’s obsession with the national title makes the Sugar not as sweet.
The Big Ten and Pac-12 remain loyal to Pasadena, and for some folks, that is tantamount to keeping a rotary phone in your house.
I don’t want the Big Ten to give up the Rose Bowl. Ever. It’s part of the league’s identity and heritage. There’s been too much selling out in college football.
But I agree that the Big Ten needs to up the ante, show some urgency and get in the game.
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Embrace the Rose Bowl and the national title? Now that would be B1G.
Why can’t the Big Ten do both?
It can. And there’s every chance this four-team playoff might be the thing that flips the switch.
Sometimes you need incentive. Sometimes you need to feel you have a chance.
The Rose Bowl is part of the Big Ten’s button-down image, an image the league takes very seriously. The league doesn’t want to sell its soul for the national title. However, recent incidents at Penn State and Ohio State showed the Big Ten’s human side.
There is no reason the Big Ten should not be part of the national title chase annually. The league is full of Type-A folks. There’s money, facilities, talent galore, good coaching and a TV network.
What I think is missing, and this will sound strange, is some self-esteem. The Big Ten can have a fatalistic attitude. Championships happen in the South, in Florida. Not up north. You see and hear this in baseball, too. Not so much in basketball, where chasing the Final Four is tradition.
Maybe, just maybe, adding two more spots to the title chase will give the Big Ten hope. The margin is now wider. Sure, it could just mean adding two more SEC teams to the mix. I’m kidding. I think.
There are other things that could get the Big Ten’s attention. Hold semifinal games on campus. Give Indianapolis the national title game one year. There’s a proposal to give an automatic berth to a conference champion if it’s ranked in the top six, a Delany idea.
And the Urban Meyer factor.
Meyer, the first-year coach at Ohio State, won two national titles at Florida. It will be interesting to see if Meyer can flip the culture in the league. He won’t want to stop at the Rose Bowl. Unless it’s the site of the national championship game.
That’s another thing that could play to the Big Ten’s favor, with Delany’s help. There are several proposals for the four-team format. Delany is pushing on-campus semifinals. That would be terrific. Anyone in favor of an LSU-Nebraska playoff game at Memorial Stadium in early January? Right. Sign us up.
The establishment, the bowl folks, are saying it won’t work, because Kansas State and TCU and Boise State won’t have a stadium or hotels big enough. It would work, but if you know college football, you know the politics and bowl people still have their hooks in. And the SEC folks won’t want to play in Ann Arbor or Lincoln when they can see their breath.
So the bowls will probably be involved, and here’s the plan that makes the most sense: include the bowls, with conference tie-ins. And hold the semifinals at the bowl sites of the teams ranked Nos. 1 and 2. If a Big Ten or Pac-12 team is one or two, the Rose Bowl hosts the semifinal game. If it’s a Big Ten team, it plays a semifinal in the Rose Bowl, while the Pac-12 team goes elsewhere for one year. If USC is No. 1 and the Big Ten is out, the Big Ten shacks up in the Fiesta or Orange for a year.
The downside is that the Big Ten would be left out of the Rose Parade for one year. The upside, the Big Ten could be in the playoffs in the Rose Bowl. And play there every other year.
A lot of things are in place. Meyer is in the ‘hood. Michigan, with the energetic Brady Hoke, will want to do whatever “Ohio” does. Others will follow. Nebraska’s here, too, and while the Huskers don’t remember much about playing in major bowls or national title games, Husker fans still have the hunger.
Now there’s going to be a playoff, and Delany, who sets the agenda for all things Big Ten, is helping drive the train. If Boss Delany says a playoff is the way to go, his subjects will follow.
It’s time for the Big Ten to stop and smell the roses. On the way to the national championship.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1025, tom.shatel@owh.com
twitter.com/tomshatelOWH
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
Article source: http://www.omaha.com/article/20120502/BIGRED/705029785
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General News. Loss of AQ Means Everything and Nothing
April 30, 2012
UCF Athletics Social Media Directory
By Marc Daniels
UCFAthletics.com
ORLANDO, Fla. (UCFAthletics.com) – When conference commissioners left Fort Lauderdale last week after three days of meetings much was known and more was not. The landscape of college football’s postseason is changing but how it is changing and the process of what determines participants in a new system remains unknown to those who were in the room of talks. But one thing appears clear, changes are coming and how it impacts programs like UCF remains to be seen.
One thing conference attendees made clear is that automatic qualifiers (AQ) are gone after the 2013 season. This means UCF will have one season in the BIG EAST where the conference is guaranteed a slot in one of the major bowl games. I get it. The most logical next questions is, “Isn’t that a bad thing?” The answer is a tough one because the answer is yes and no.
Yes if you are saying one of the reasons the BIG EAST was so attractive was that it had a guaranteed slot in the Bowl Championships Series and you knew going into the season that if you won the league you had a major bowl spot. Yes if you start adding up the money BCS games have been paying out. Yes if you think it made you feel like part of the elite in college football. All of those points are valid in saying the loss of automatic qualifiers is not a good thing.
But here is something you might be forgetting in analyzing the impact of such a move – you are looking at only the postseason. One game. One team. There is a bigger picture. A much bigger picture.
Yes, there is no questions the SEC, Big 10, Big XII and Pac 12 were interested in seeing the BIG EAST not be guaranteed a slot in the next contract, but it’s not because they didn’t like the BIG EAST. It is because they wanted to see a BIG EAST team get a ranking above some of their teams in the final regular BCS rankings.
But that’s not the bigger picture point. In regards to bowls and future four-team playoff modules, whatever system they choose to rank, invite, appoint to these games will be based on regular season success and ranking. If a BIG EAST teams goes 12-0 or 13-0 with a conference title, it will not be guaranteed a spot in a new playoff. But it will have a chance to be considered. Does an unbeaten SEC have a better chance of being in the top four? Probably. But until someone explains the formula of how the four teams are chosen, it’s a guess. Who did you beat? When and where you beat your opponents. A high preseason ranking. All those things will matter and today no one knows the process.
But back to the bigger point here. The new BIG EAST certainly hopes it is in a position to have their top team play in the biggest bowl game possible at the end of the season and hopes that if one of its teams goes unbeaten that it is in position to play for a national title. However, that’s not why the league expanded.
Remember, while a new four-team postseason model may be worth hundreds of millions, college football teams make the bulk of their media money through their own conference deals that cover the regular season.
Some college football media and fans wondered after news that the AQ’s were going away why Boise State and San Diego State would still want to join the BIG EAST. Why? Money.
Television analyst project the new BIG EAST package to be worth anywhere from $8-14 million per school for full sports members. Current non-football members make over $3 million per year. The BIG EAST has not had football-only playing members as it will in its new configuration.
UCF reportedly earned just over $1 million in its television deal with Conference USA. Boise State and San Diego State were in the Mountain West this past season. They both made about what UCF did. Boise State and San Diego State stand to make far more than they did in the current league. The Mountain West Conference shut down its television network and is currently trying to get a new deal with another network. And the planned merger between the Mountain West and Conference USA appears to have come to a screeching halt. If the television money was there, does anyone doubt the merger would have happened? In fact, according to various media reports, Conference USA has identified four expansion candidates to replace UCF, SMU, Houston and Memphis.
Whether the BIG EAST champion makes the proposed new four-team playoff is somewhat irrelevant in its television contract negotiations. What is appealing to potential new television partners are the 14 programs that reside in top-30 media markets. And the fact that the BIG EAST provides a ton of content for networks not just in football but in basketball as well.
But here is another point to consider about college football’s postseason. What you see today may change drastically in the coming years and not just at the BCS level. More and more bowls are struggling to survive. Demands on schools to purchase blocks of tickets and pay for bands to perform and hotels to book are challenging for schools. There is a push for schools to win a minimum of seven games to be bowl eligible instead of the current six. Some bowl will survive and others will not. That’s basic economics.
My guess as more television companies get in the game, a new bowl system will emerge. Someone will pay, and pay big for the rights to the new four-team model and conferences like the BIG EAST and programs like UCF will benefit. But look for some of these new television partners to create new bowl games and match teams in games they own and control. Think that is odd? Do you know who owns more bowl games than anyone else in college football? ESPN, which oversaw seven bowl games this past season.
I don’t know nor can anyone predict if the BIG EAST champion in 2014 plays in a bowl game that you view today as a major bowl. My guess is if the BIG EAST champion in 2014 goes unbeaten, it will have a chance to play for a national title. If it is highly ranked and not in the top four, it will still play in a great game.
Each year there may be only a handful of teams that truly can win the national title in college football, but don’t get caught up in that being the only thing you think the BIG EAST is good for. In reality there are millions of reasons to love the BIG EAST.
Knights notes and more: Despite dropping two of three against Memphis, UCF baseball holds the 15th spot in the Coaches Poll. A big non-conference game at Stetson awaits the Knights on Wednesday. It’s about wins in regards to hosting a regional. If UCF piles up a few more, I still like their chances to host…Final thought: I asked someone for directions and they sent me a link to a website. When I get to the site, it said I needed a password. My friend sent me the password and it then asked me to register to access the directions. Frustrated, I then just used the navigation app on my phone…after I downloaded the new version. I miss maps.
Article source: http://onlyfans.cstv.com/schools/ucf/genrel/043012aab.html
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Exergy Development Group brings valley cyclists with Exergy Tour
TREASURE VALLEY — Some of the best female cyclists in the world will race through the valley next week, including former world champion Kristin Armstrong of Boise, during the inaugural Exergy Tour.
The tour, founded by Boise-based Exergy Development Group, is one of the cyclists’ last chances to earn international ranking points for the upcoming Olympic Games in London.
Nampa, Boise, Kuna, Garden Valley and Idaho City will take turns during the five-day tour as host city, launching the race with a festival.
“ … This is a world-class event,” Nampa Mayor Tom Dale said. “This is bringing Olympic-level athletes to Nampa.”
With a $100,000 prize purse, the Exergy Tour will award the largest amount for a women’s race of its kind in the history of the sport, communications director Heather Hill said.
Tour will boost local businesses
The more than 115 cyclists from places such as Italy, Germany and Switzerland will bring with them dozens of support personnel and staff, housed and fed by five Boise hotels during the five-day tour. The Idaho Potato Commission will provide a potato bar.
Plus, out-of-town spectators are expected to have a significant economic impact paying for rooms, meals, gas and rental cars, Hill said.
“When you bring people to town, they’re going to spend money,” Dale said. “ … When hotels get full, restaurants get business.”
Then there are those little, less-obvious expenses such as laundry services for the athletes and staff.
Exergy contracted local businesses for needed services as much as possible, Hill said.
For example, local artist Irene Deely, who made the 2009 Special Olympics Cauldron that sits at the Boise Airport, made the tour’s trophy and posters.
Bicycling interest on the rise
One of the purposes of the tour, Hill said, is to inspire and open doors for women to be active.
“The overall vision of the Exergy Tour is to create greater opportunity for women in sport and to educate young girls about the importance, benefits and opportunities that can come to them through sport in their lives.”
Competitions like the Exergy Tour spark recreational interest in Idaho, which has a long-term economic impact.
“They’re going to see the best of Idaho, and if we get … any type of news coverage nationally, that is great for tourism, and that brings in dollars,” said Leo Hennessy, the non-motorized trails coordinator for the state of Idaho.
Events with role model athletes, he said, have encouraged women in Idaho to road and mountain bike — and they’re investing big bucks in top-of-the-line bikes.
“They’re buying the $2,000 bikes,” he said.
Adam Haynes, who recently opened Rolling H Cycles in Nampa, expects the tour to have the same type of positive impact on the local cycling community as the Boise Ironman 70.3 had on triathletes, he said.
“As a bike shop, we anticipate an increased interest in cycling during and after the event. But more importantly, we anticipate people becoming more aware of cycling in general.”
© 2012 Idaho Press-Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Five Seek Ketchum Council Spots
KETCHUM • Normally, Ketchum voters don’t pick City Council members in May.
That changed just for this year, after a bid to change the resort city’s form of government failed in the November 2011 general election. Since a concurrent election of council members for the new form of government was voided, city voters will choose from five candidates to fill two seats on May 15.
Zions Bank commercial lender Charles Friedman hopes to keep the seat that Ketchum Mayor Randy Hall appointed him to in March, while one seat is open after Curtis Kemp decided not to seek re-election. The job pays $1,700 a month and includes health, dental, vision and long-term disability benefits and Idaho PERSI retirement benefits.
Here’s a look at the candidates:
Michael David
David said he’s spent the past 17 years working with nonprofits, which gives him experience in getting groups to work toward a common goal. He would like to work with residents and businesses to make Ketchum “the friendliest town in the West once again.”
David said he’d live up to his campaign slogan, “Dialogue and Transparency,” by pressing for town hall meetings and the use of technology to gather public sentiment.
David points to a controversial proposal to put a transit center on East Avenue as one problem of transparency with the current council.
“We have to improve the perception that maybe everyone is not treated equally when a project comes through,”he said.
Charles Friedman
Friedman said his banking background gives him an understanding of the challenges small businesses are up against.
Friedman says he would back business development and construction of high-end hotels which, he said, spend a significant amount on marketing and attract high-end visitors.
He’d also like to see improved ground transportation to and from places like Boise and improved air service.
Like David, he says the council needs to be more transparent and involve the community earlier in its decision making.
“We need to find a way to get hot issues to community so they feel more involved,” he said.
Mickey Garcia
Garcia says the jury is still out on the new Sun Valley Marketing Alliance. But he questions the wisdom of getting rid of “an award-winning chamber director” rather than first giving her a chance to try Facebook and other social media.
And he calls the proposed transit center on East Avenue the result of a propaganda campaign.
“They think we need one just because Aspen and Park City have one. These people have the belief that the automobile is the root of all evil. And when they get rid of it we will have utopia,” said Garcia, who gets around on a three-wheeled bicycle.
Garcia said he is as pro-development as it gets.
“I’ve supported every hotel proposal that’s come around — loudly.”
Julie Lynn
Lynn says she is running partly because of the late Hailey reporter Roberta McKercher’s admonition that “you have to pay rent for the space you take up.”
Her work as a journalist gives her communication skills which, she said, is something the city needs.
“We need to get the word out about what is happening,” she said. “A lot feel they’re not in the loop and we need to try to change that.”
Lynn said she doesn’t believe the city needs a transit station on East Avenue, saying, “The current system is adequate.”
She believes the town can be more user-friendly for locals, visitors and businesses by improving walkability and signage and not limiting parking. Lynn stressed that she is a good listener and would be fair.
Jim Slanetz
Slanetz credits his two sons with prompting his efforts to improve Ketchum.
“I want to make a difference for them,” he said. “I go to a lot of meetings and I think it would be nice to have new faces.”
He adds that his status as a small business owner would help him represent that sector.
Slanetz said he would support more efforts to bring people from Boise to Sun Valley on buses.
“The ground transportation from Boise is not ridiculous — it’s the same as going to Vail from Denver,” he said.
He says the much-debated transit center might be a good idea, “but it may be a better to have another location.”
Article source: http://magicvalley.com/news/local/wood-river/11b259c7-e26e-59ee-81e7-5c16beb08687.html
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Slideshow: Fifth-Annual Modern Art at the Modern Hotel
The Modern Hotel’s mid-century decor seemed to rub off on this year’s crop of Modern artists. For the fifth-annual Modern Art event on May 3, Bryan Moore tricked out the wraparound porch of the hotel’s Business Office with vintage tiki decor, Bruce Maurey covered the walls of his vice-themed den with neon blacklight posters of celebrities who died in hotel rooms, and further down the hall, Vinyl Preservation Society slid into their polyester pantsuits and cranked out the disco jams.
Not to be left out of the throwback action, Boise Weekly staffers donned their finest flapper gear and poker faces in a 1920’s-themed speakeasy art barter room, while directly below, former BW’er Tyler Bush staged a re-creation of John and Yoko’s bed-in for peace with the fabulous Minerva Jayne, complete with frequent sing-a-longs.
But the evening wasn’t all a blast from the past. There were oracles, 9-year-old picketers, neon cat butts and crocheted VHS tape galore. Not to mention beds covered in delicate cut-paper, beds covered in pointy nails and downy feathers, and beds littered with stuffed fleshy bits, hair and marshmallows.
If you missed out on any of the artsy action, check out our slideshow here.
Article source: http://www.boiseweekly.com/Cobweb/archives/2012/05/04/slideshow-fifth-annual-modern-art-at-the-modern-hotel
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NFL enlists Boise doctor to tackle foot injuries
BOISE – Boise doctor Michael Coughlin is renowned around the country for his knowledge of the foot. After more than 35 years in the profession, the orthopedic surgeon has seen it all, from twists and sprains to torn ligaments and broken bones. That is why the National Football League approached Coughlin seven years ago to tackle the issue of rising foot injuries across the league.
“They wanted somebody who could be transparent and not affiliated. And Boise is about as non-affiliated as you can get, it’s about as far away from any NFL team in the country,” Coughlin said.
A college football fan at heart, Coughlin agreed to look into the issue, along with a group of like-minded doctors. After years of research, including a three-year, $2 million study at the University of Virginia, their findings were troubling.
“We looked at the numbers, and the three injuries that are really most serious are turf toes in the big toe, mid-foot injuries, and then high ankle sprains. They really are quite common.”
In Coughlin’s expert opinion, the number of these injuries could be reduced greatly with the help of shoe companies.
“It’s really the cleat pattern and the stiffness of the shoe that we found makes the difference.”
He says stiffer shoes give better support to the foot. They could help prevent debilitating injuries like turf toe, a joint injury to the big toe, and other foot injuries.
But it’s not big money or glory that causes Coughlin to work to improve the future of athlete’s feet.
“I’m not paid to do this. It’s red-eyes, staying in kind of mediocre hotels, flying overnight to get back to work here in Boise,” he says.
He simply wants to help players be healthier.
On Monday, Coughlin and his team met in New York with the NFL and the heads of the biggest shoe companies in the country to discuss their recent findings. Coughlin hopes new regulations will come from the meeting, and thinks footwear may become safer in-turn.
“I know there is some science from the shoe companies, but we would like to consolidate that and be partners in this with both the shoe companies and the NFL,” Coughlin said. “And the real beneficiary will be the player.”
Coughlin hopes that his work will help all players, ranging from the NFL all the way downto the prep level.
“That’s what really is special for me,” Coughlin said. “We might have a Boise High or a Bishop Kelly player who might avoid an injury because of the shoe wear that they wear is very similar to the NFL players.”
Article source: http://www.ktvb.com/sports/NFL-enlists-Boise-doctor-to-tackle-foot-injury-concerns--150544085.html
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Modern Art Turns Five
Hotels are hotbeds of celebrity vice and excess. Tales of line-snorting, champagne-swilling and the ensuing chandelier-swinging are so common they’ve become a cliched rite of passage for waifish starlets and wannabe rockstars.
Boise artist Bruce Maurey took inspiration from these sordid stories to create Room 224 at the fifth-annual Modern Art event at the Modern Hotel and Bar on First Thursday, May 3. Maurey is painting 10 9-foot by 8-foot panels of celebrities who have met their end in the confines of a hotel.
“It’s all painted in three colors, two of them are fluorescent and the whole place will be black-lit,” explained Maurey. “From there, I’m just going over the top with certain people who have died, whether it’s from pills or maybe cocaine or heroin.”
Maurey’s portraits include celebrities like Coco Chanel, Michael Hutchence from INXS, Janis Joplin and Nancy Spungen from Sid and Nancy.
“I’m trying to place everybody as close as I can to where they died–Martin Luther King is on the balcony because he was shot there, Whitney Houston is in the bathroom, Anna Nicole [Smith] is on the bed,” said Maurey.
But despite the macabre theme, Maurey insists the installation will be light-hearted.
“All of the imagery is very uplifting and happy,” said Maurey.
Not to be outdone in the realm of hotel excess, the Boise Weekly team will once again run the Art Barter Room, which has been moved up to Room 234. This year, we’re turning our primo, second-floor suite into a hazy Prohibition-era speakeasy, complete with a faux bathtub still, lounging flappers and a high-stakes poker table. Frim Fram Four will provide period music from 6-6:45 p.m. and 7:15-8 p.m., while the folks at Heirloom Dance Studio demonstrate ’20s-style rug-cutting.
And that’s just the tip of the Modern Art iceberg. In the second floor Business Office, artist Bryan Moore will create portraits in a vintage, tiki-themed space; in Room 241, writers Elizabeth Rodgers and Elisabeth McKetta will take prompts from participants; and in Room 117-118, Tyler Bush, Minerva Jayne, Laird Lucas and Tina Barnett will offer retro and modern takes on John and Yoko’s bed-in, complete with “Give Peace a Chance” sing-a-longs. In the Modern’s courtyard, attendees can contribute to the Fortune Tree, which was made in memory of artist Surel Mitchell, and marvel at the knitted/crocheted VHS-tape masterpiece spearheaded by Adrian Kershaw.
Modern Art curators Kerry Tullis and Amy O’Brien said they were taken aback by the number of new or unknown artists who applied to be part of the event this year.
“Again, we’re just shocked at the depth of the arts community,” said Tullis. “Last year, there were all these new people … And then it happened again this year in an even larger quantity.”
Article source: http://www.boiseweekly.com/boise/modern-art-turns-five/Content?oid=2645531
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College football's potential four-team playoff isn't perfect, but it's a start
The Death of the BCS is upon us, and there is no minimizing the news that college football, after 143 years, is on the verge of adopting a playoff.
The powers-that-be finally broke through decades of gridlock, entrenched interests and mind-numbing counterarguments to give players, coaches and fans what they wanted. This is a great development.
A four-team playoff may not be perfect, but it’s a perfect step in the right direction. That said, there are details to be dealt with.
So here are the issues at hand, the solutions that need to be achieved and, notably, the illogical excuses that need to stop.
1. The playoff should feature the top four teams overall, not the top four conference champions.
This is, by far, the most important issue that needs to be solved and should be the primary goal for anyone who loves college football.
The BCS champion receives a trophy for finishing atop the final coaches’ poll. (Getty Images)
A four-team playoff needs to have the top four teams. Period. Larger fields could have a mix of conference champions and at-large bids, or even, we guess, all conference champions, but not one this small. There are just too many variables between schedule strengths.
It’s either Nos. 1-4 or the entire playoff is suspect and doomed to controversy – last year the playoff would’ve featured the Nos. 1, 3, 5 and 10 teams according to the BCS formula (a lousy formula, but still).
The goal of the conference champions-only plan seems to be to prevent the SEC from having more than one team in the tournament. If the other conferences would just say that, at least we’d be dealing with an honest debate.
Instead, we get talk of how it would be “more objective, less subjective.” No it wouldn’t.
[Wetzel on Y! Sports Radio: There's always going to be controversy]
Whether it’s the top four teams overall or the top four conference champions, someone or something has to determine – subjectively – what constitutes the “top four.” One isn’t more or less objective than the other. One isn’t more or less subjective. It’s exactly the same.
There would be a smaller pool of candidates (well, sort of) to choose from if it was limited to the 10 or so conference champions, but there still would be a choice.
Yes, an objective system would be preferred. It also isn’t possible.
The only way a conference champions plan could be objective is if there were just four conferences. There aren’t. There will be nine or 10 when realignment gets done. Six of them have an obvious ability to field a team capable of being in the top four on any given year. (The Big East may be down, but if Boise State, Central Florida, Cincinnati, South Florida, etc. were to emerge unbeaten, they likely would be a top-four team.)
There also are major independent programs to consider in Notre Dame and Brigham Young. And heaven help these guys if Army ever managed to put together an unbeaten season and got left out. Have fun explaining that one.
So, in the end, something has to decide whether the fourth-best conference champion is from the Big East or the Big Ten or the ACC or whatever. It still is subjective. It requires a computer or a human element (polls, selection committee) or some combination.
If your process is burdened with subjectivity, it might as well subjectively determine the best four teams.
2. The semifinals should be played on campus; the title game should be open for bidding to any neutral site in the country.
For 95 percent of college football fans the playoff will be a television show. So once the 1-4 deal is settled, nothing else really matters. The games will be played on your TV. Everything is great.
Except for the fact that a college football game inside, say, Bryant-Denny Stadium or Camp Randall or Death Valley or the Big House is infinitely superior to a game played in Cowboys Stadium, University of Phoenix Stadium or whatever they are calling the place the Dolphins play this week.
It isn’t even close.
One of college football’s best attributes is its plethora of incredible on-campus game-day environments. It’s the history. It’s the pageantry. It’s the tradition.
Home field also provides incentive to finishing in the top two – thus making the regular season more important. It assures every game is a sellout, with a wild crowd. It keeps the money from sport inside the collegiate system and offers millions in peripheral income to college towns that support the game all year long.
[Related: BCS officials put topic of selection and who'll get in on shelf]
And, once, again, it’s really cool. It’s a way to make interregional games happen, only with higher stakes. It’s a way to bring weather into the equation – all weather is football weather. It seems ideal.
“The NCAA tournament is not played on home floors – for a reason,” SEC commissioner Mike Slive.
Please, no more comparing football to basketball. It’s one of the great canards of all time. Why not use NCAA baseball as the standard and have double elimination?
Football is football and the applicable standard is the NFL, which uses home field until the Super Bowl.
The semifinals in college football would be akin to the conference championship games in the NFL. Over the last 15 years, home teams are just 17-13 in those NFL games, even though the host team compiled a better record in a 16-game season and presumably should win at a higher level.
While home teams are overwhelmingly victorious in college football, very few games feature equal talent, so it’s difficult to get useful numbers. We do know LSU beat Alabama a year ago in Tuscaloosa and then lost in “neutral” New Orleans.
The NFL produces the greatest and most popular entertainment option in America. If neutral-site conference championship games made sense, they’d do it. Instead, they look at the idea as absolutely idiotic. Just follow the NFL lead here, guys.
Scott’s league, the Pac-12, already holds a title game at the site of the best-seeded team. (Getty Images)
“I’m a big proponent of it,” Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott told the Associated Press. “That was the choice we made in our conference with our championship game. Collegiate atmosphere. Guaranteed sellout. We’ve said all along preserving the regular season is important. What better way to emphasize the importance of the regular season than having a chance to earn a home game? It’s a proven NFL model.”
Exactly. You give the road team say 20 percent of the tickets – in the big stadiums, that’s 16,000 to 22,000 seats, a sizable block. A central organization collects the money and the host campus gets paid rent and whatever other applicable fees.
It’s the hotels and grocery stores and bars of Blacksburg and Gainesville and Norman that benefit, not some touristy place that doesn’t care about college football anyway.
[Mike Huguenin: Hammering out playoff details should be fascinating]
This is pretty simple, but then again, here comes the silliness.
One concern is over stadium size. Can TCU host a game in newly renovated Amon G. Carter Stadium (capacity 40,000 to 50,000)? That’s a lot of lost seats, right?
Well, yes, for one game. This story by Jason Kirk of SBNation.com points out that the average capacity of the four current BCS bowls is 77,363.
Since 1998, the average capacity of the college stadiums that would’ve hosted the semifinals is 86,710.
Could TCU or Boise State or Oregon host a game and lower the average? Sure.
It is more likely, however, that Michigan (109,901), Ohio State (107,282), Alabama (101,821), Texas (101,624), LSU (99,500 with coming expansion) and so many others will be in the top two though. Over time there will be more seats, not less – at least as long as the Mid-American Conference doesn’t start churning out national contenders.
Then there is my second-favorite anti-campus site argument:
“Where are people going to stay if Oregon hosts a semifinal game?” ESPN.com reported one BCS source saying. “In Portland?”
Um, yeah, sure. While plenty of hotel rooms are closer, Portland is a real nice place. It even has an interstate running right to Eugene. I’m sure the city – the entire state really – would love the economic boost of an Oregon playoff game.
The proper answer is they’ll stay wherever they do when Oregon hosts any game. The Ducks always sell out and thousands of those seats are from visiting fans. It’s not like the stadium doubles in size for the playoffs. So, just like every other week, fans that can’t afford the Eugene hotel rates crash somewhere else and then drive to beautiful campus for the game.
Hey, problem solved? Right?
Actually there’s more, and this is my No. 1 favorite anti-campus argument:
“Can Manhattan, Kan., take care of 1,200 media?” BCS executive director Bill Hancock asked reporters, wondering what would happen if Kansas State finished in the top four. “Where will people stay?”
Wait, now they are worried about the media? Finally I am 100-percent qualified to answer a question, and here’s the answer: The media will stay wherever the heck they can. Topeka, Lawrence, mostly Kansas City. Then they will get up early and drive to the stadium because, you know, it’s their job.
We do it every single week of the season. College-town hotel rates are ridiculous and usually require three-night minimums. Besides, I have never met a single sportswriter, broadcaster or television crew that doesn’t know how to drive a car.
While the suits that run college athletics darn near faint if they don’t get a police escort to the game, this isn’t a media issue.
The NFL manages to hold playoff games, including the NFC championship game, in Green Bay, Wis., which is about as small, cold and remote as anything in college football. Manhattan, Kan., is 119 miles from Kansas City. Eugene is 111 miles from Portland. Green Bay is 117 miles from Milwaukee.
The media flies into Green Bay, or stays in Appleton, Milwaukee or even drives roundtrip all the way from Chicago. It’s all done on one week planning in the middle of January. Whatever. It’s the media’s job to figure it out.
Have you ever woken up the day after a Packers playoff game and found no coverage because the reporters didn’t know where to stay or how to get to Lambeau?
3. If you must hate on-campus games, at least open this up to bid and not engage in the obvious cronyism of using only certain bowl sites.
Bowl games stopped being useful decades ago. They may be fun, but the sport doesn’t need bowls to promote it, like it did in the 1940s.
Today they are known for rampant profiteering – just this year each member of the LSU and Alabama band was charged $350 to just get into the game so they could perform for free. They’ve been hit with scandal, criminal indictments and IRS complaints. They’ve spent wildly on country club memberships, decadent parties and free-flowing expense accounts.
They pay their CEO three and four times (even more than $800,000 in a single year) the rate of similar sized non-profits.
Bowls have been horrible partners – unless you were an athletic director who received free Caribbean cruises or complimentary scotch and cigars on the 19th hole of the Arizona Biltmore. Of course, those were paid with what was college football’s money in the first place.
There isn’t a single bit of financial sense in outsourcing your most valuable product. None. Federal tax filings show that when BCS bowls have hosted the title game, they pocket between $10 million and $12 million in profits – even after all the high salaries and strip club tabs.
Now the commissioners want to give the bowls the semifinals, two games which each should be worth more than the current title game? When you extend it over an eight- or 10-year period, then college administrators will be handing over an estimated $300 million (and likely more) in profits to their already well-greased friends in what essentially is a no-bid contract.
That’s $300 million-plus that should stay with the schools.
Now, I’m half rooting for this because I can’t wait for the explanation about how the same people who can’t give the players a $2,000 stipend each year have crafted a new, rich playoff system that will assure their buddy the bowl CEO keeps banking a huge salary. I’m sure the attorneys in the O’Bannon v. NCAA lawsuit, or the leadership of National College Players Association (if not a major labor union) or the eventual congressional investigation will, just like me, be eager to hear that one.
Most of these colleges are public. They receive taxpayer funds. Many require regular students to pay athletic fees to cover costs. Even the athletic departments that are self-sufficient could use more revenue. So why give it away?
Nothing drives up a price like competition. The more cities bidding for the semifinals and championship game, the higher the price for the schools.
Ex-Fiesta Bowl CEO John Junker, here greeting Boise State coach Chris Petersen, faces prison time. (AP)
It’s better for everyone if the games are staged around the country, especially in markets that love and support college football such as Atlanta, Houston, Detroit, Arlington, Tex., Tampa, Nashville and so on. It’s also not particularly fair to Big Ten and Big 12 teams to not have a game in their geographic region.
The bowl games can go on outside of the playoff. The Rose Bowl can feature the best remaining teams from the Big Ten and Pac-12. Not much will really change, except bowl CEO salaries will drop a bit.
In the meantime, college football won’t have to hold its breath as it waits for the next John Junker/Fiesta Bowl-style scandal.
4. Anyone like math around here?
There is no good way to choose the field. None. There has to be a subjective decision made, and no one likes subjective decisions.
The best of a bad situation is to have that subjectivity hashed out in a cool, calm and studied environment and then make the selection process as transparent as possible.
As such, the sport would be best served if it created a single computer formula. People could decide how important strength of schedule (preferably giving extra credence to tough nonconference scheduling) or margin of victory or home-field/road-game criteria should be. They could program the formula accordingly and then test and tweak the next two seasons.
Most importantly, they could offer it up to everyone so that teams can plan ahead, know what they are up against and track the progress as the season goes along.
This would make all sorts of late-season games matter as strength of schedule fluctuates by weekly results. The end would be wild and debatable, but at least it would be honest and out in the open. You’d know where you stand.
This will never fly, of course. The guys who run the BCS aren’t much for math. Currently they don’t even know the formula of five of the six computer systems they currently use. They don’t check the numbers. They don’t seem to conceptualize what the computers do (the system is being boycotted by actual quantitative mathematicians). They don’t care. It’s just a PR tool.
So they never will trust one computer formula.
Vast opinion polls are no better. Sportswriters in the 1930s invented the weekly top 20 as a promotional tool, not to be used like this. They too aren’t rooted in the principles of logic, math or science. Whether it’s Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem, the power of groupthink or distracted, politicized and uneducated voters, the polls are a mess.
So the BCS needs a new formula.
If they can’t commit to math, a selection committee is the next best option. Five or seven people, analyzing set information and previously agreed-upon criteria will have to do. It basically is a computer formula with little human oversight.
Maybe they use some of the members of the Legends Poll, ex-coaches who put in a lot of time studying tape, to produce what currently is the most respectable poll.
Either way, there’s going to be controversy.
That’s OK. Controversy and debate isn’t a bad thing, especially when an actual playoff follows.
This is a good debate to have. The nonsense has been limited, the possibilities considerable. Once the four-team field is set, there’s almost no possible downside, no matter how hard they try.
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Article source: http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf--potential-four-team-playoff-not-perfect--but-it-s-a-start.html
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Fast work brings clay show to Crossroads
By LISA BRITTON
For the Baker City Herald
Ginger Savage wasn’t really paying attention to the conference call about traveling art exhibitions.
This was in January 2009 and she’d just gotten word that morning about the call.
She figured, having heard that big-name universities and art galleries were on the line as well, that an art center in Baker City didn’t stand a chance.
Then she heard a comment about rural, under-served communities, and the opportunity for a grant from the Western States Art Federation (WESTAF).
“I started listening and taking notes,” she said.
The opportunity was to bring a show titled “Persistence in Clay: Contemporary Ceramics in Montana” to Crossroads Carnegie Art Center.
She expressed her interest during the call, and two days later she received a phone call.
She had 48 hours to take photographs of the gallery space, and provide square footage, the center’s mission statement and a list of the board of directors.
The work was worth it — Crossroads was chosen as one of only three locations to host the show.
“It’s a big deal,” Savage said.
The show debuted in 2011 at the Missoula Art Museum to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, a public, nonprofit, educational institution founded in 1951 by brickmaker Archie Bray.
“It’s contemporary ceramics honoring what Archie Bray stood for,” Savage said.
The show features 40 pieces from 19 Montana artists. It will be on display at Crossroads during July and August.
“For us to get this, and to provide it free, is a monumentally big deal,” she said. “This is something you’d pay big money to see at the Portland Art Museum or Boise Art Museum.”
To bring in a show of this size, Savage has applied for grants to support improvements to the gallery and publicize the show.
“We are on track to invest in Crossroads for this show — and in turn our community — over $62,000,” Savage said.
Grant money is funding new pedestals, an outdoor gas kiln, lighting and a new website.
Improvements to the Carnegie aren’t the only perk of this show — it’s also provided an opportunity to bring big-name ceramic artists to Baker City for workshops.
“We’re so fortunate these people are willing to come to Baker City,” Savage said.
The show has brought collaboration opportunities within the community as well for those two months — art talks at Short Term Gallery and Peterson’s Gallery and historic tours on foot and by bicycle — to provide more activities for visitors.
“We hope we’ll engage a whole new group of people to come to Baker City,” Savage said.
The show opens July 6, during First Friday. From then until the end of August, there will be tours daily at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., where trained volunteers can talk about the artwork.
One way they are promoting the show is to publish a brochure with news about “Persistence in Clay” as well as a schedule of pottery classes and Baker County events in July and August.
Savage will help hand out thousands of these during the Oregon Potter’s Association’s Ceramic Showcase May 4-6 in Portland. An average of 17,000 attend that event.
“We’ll be right by the door where they walk in, and put one in every hand,” Savage said.
She’s also distributing the brochures through regional newspapers, hotels, motels and chambers of commerce. Advertising space has also been purchased in local visitors guides, the Idaho Shakespeare Festival’s program, Ceramics Monthly magazine, Walla Walla Lifestyle and Spokane Monthly.
“If we do this right, if we do this well, we will have the opportunity to bring more traveling shows,” Savage said. “Last year it was Wally Byam, this year it’s ‘Persistence in Clay.’ Who knows about next year?”
Leading up to the event, local artists will work to make 100 pots, and Savage will blog about the progress on Crossroads’ website, www.crossroads-arts.org.
More information is also available by calling Crossroads at 541-523-5369 or stopping by 2020 Auburn Ave.
Total grants that Crossroads has received so far for “Persistence in Clay”:
• Ford Family Foundation in 2011 for $7,381 — new pedestals in the Gallery and to have the floor refinished.
• Oregon Cultural Trust, $4,000 for additional lighting for the gallery
• Leo Adler Foundation, $11,240 for a new gas kiln in the courtyard
• Baker County Cultural Coalition, $1,000 for marketing of the show
• Ford Family Foundation in 2012 for $12,298 for lighting and conversion to LED gallery lights
• OTECC (via Bonneville Power Administration) Energy Rebate for Lighting, $1,900
• Oregon Arts Commission-Cultural Tourism Grant, $5,500 for marketing
• Corporate sponsors for July and August are Clarke and Clarke Insurance and Triple C Redi Mix.
Article source: http://www.bakercityherald.com/Local-News/Fast-work-brings-clay-show-to-Crossroads
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