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Their aged meeting place

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(CFD.net.au – Contract for Difference, Share, Forex, ETFs, Commodities Traders) –

The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) predicted a 50 per cent leap in bonuses compared to January, from STG4 billion to STG6 billion.

“Banks profits have risen very sharply this year, reflecting a lack of competition in the market,” said CEBR chief executive Douglas McWilliams.

“It is not surprising that the increase in bonuses has matched these higher levels of profitability.”

The CEBR said however that it would still be at least five years before bonuses in the financial sector return to their levels before the crisis erupted last year. It said STG10.2 billion were paid out in 2007.

The US banking industry posted landmark profits last week, prompting concern that banks will return to paying staff huge bonuses, a practice blamed for encouraging excessive risk-taking that exacerbated the global downturn.

G20 world leaders pledged in September to end “practices that lead to excessive risk-taking”.

But McWilliams said any attempt to curb bonuses was “likely to be either unsuccessful or very damaging” unless it addressed the lack of competition that followed the collapse or merging of several banks due to the global crisis.

Source: Britain set for surge in finance bonuses: study | Business Breaking News | News.com.au

Mission Nuestra Señora del Espíritu Santo de Zúñiga

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For your consideration: The following information from yesterday’s MD Daily Record article.

The owners of the five-screen Charles Theatre would keep the Senator a movie theater… and potentially add a smaller auditorium.

“When you have another screen, you have more flexibility,” Kathleen Cusack said. “If you have a second screen and you have a movie that isn’t making a lot of money, you can move it there and put something else on the main screen.”

If the Cusacks add a 120-seat theater to the Senator, the main auditorium would shrink from 940 seats to 760. Cusack said the smaller theater could be used as an arts education area.

It was our understanding that the interior spaces, including The Senator auditorium, were now under the ‘protection’ of Baltimore City’s Commisson for Historical & Architectural Preservation (CHAP) Landmark and Special Designation Lists.

So, we have to wonder how could the BDC reconcile James “Buzz” Cusack’s plan with CHAP’s intent to protect the interior beyond “normal maintenance”?

For that matter, given Mr. Cusack himself is a CHAP member, why would he even suggest such a move?

From a historical standpoint (one which we share), subdividing the auditorium is unthinkable and therefore a plan we could not support.

A different view of an oft photographed landmark.

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www.christopherjonesphotography.co.uk

A Different Perspective, Brighton, UK

A herd of urban goats is set to populate one of Bristol’s best-known beauty spots in an effort to clear scrubland…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: michigan city. The blog is also related to: urban city.

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Ram Charan Tej launched the latest issue of PEOPLE, featuring him on the cover, at Landmark Bookstore, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad today. Following unveiling, Charan interacted with the media and talked about his interview with PEOPLE.

Speaking at the press meet Ram Charan Tej said, “I used to read People’s magazine when I was in USA. I am very happy to know that it has launched the Indian version. People has the history of 70 years. People magazine never sports gossips and speculative news. It always carried authentic news and interviews that are real. I am thrilled to be on the cover page of People’s south special.”

In his PEOPLE interview, south india’s hottest young star opens up about the record-breaking success of his second filmMagadheera and living up to him formidable legacy as superstar-politician Chiranjeevi’s son. The London-educated star says, “I was nervous when I realised that my father’s fans were expecting a lot from me.”

But after Magadheera performance, Charan says, “My dad walked up to me and gave a tight hug.” The actor, who possesses his father’s innate dancing abilities, reveals that he was ‘never a trainer dancer’ and offers a glimpse of his life off-screen. “I always enjoyed going to coffee shots and accompanying mymother and sisters shopping but I can’t do it anymore,” he says.

Charan’s superstar dad also gushes about his son’s achievements. “Charan has inherited a lot of my qualities. I feel hard work and dedications are his greatest assets. For me and for my family, he is a doting and responsible son.” Says Chiranjeevi.

source : idlebrain.com

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I’ve just noticed that I’ve passed (by two!) 80,000 visitors, so thought I’d mark the landmark with a short post. I know I’ve been very quiet recently, but thank you to those of you who come back anyway, and to those of you who faithfully read each and every post I read. I hope to become a bit more prolific with my writing in the near(ish) future, and resume normal service! Perhaps I’ll do NaBloPoMo in January, to get me back into the swing of things. My craft projects alone would probably see me through half of that!

UPDATE: See our new The Senator Theatre RFP Proposals Info Page for updated details on each proposal, collected from various news media.

The Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC) revealed the four contenders for ownership of The Senator and their planned uses today:

• The Lofts at The Senator Theatre - JR Owens Corporation (JR Owens)
  A mixed-use development that includes the renovation of the existing movie theatre along with new construction of 24 two bedroom/two bath rental apartments on three floors, 27 secure parking spaces in the basement of the new construction and existing retail space.
• The Senator Theatre, LLC – James “Buzz” Cusack, Jr. and Kathleen C. Cusack (owners of The Charles Theatre)
  proposes to maintain the building as a single screen movie theatre, restaurant &
  crepe shop with alternates
  1) that would provide for a second screen & an arts education area in the approximate 2,000 square foot triangle to the south of the theatre, &
  2) a sliding glass door system in the front of the restaurant.
• The Theatre Project PUPKIDS, Inc. – Noch-Noch, Productions (Enoch Cook III)
  The proposal suggests the mixture of live performances & cinemaplex attractions simulating a staged Vaudeville Revue to attract interest in puppetry & puppeteers.
• WTMD… At The Senator – Senator Theatre Redevelopment, LLC (Towson University, Robert L. Caret, President)
  WTMD-FM, Towson University’s public radio station proposes to relocate to the Senator Theatre through a historically sensitive renovation of the interior, a new addition to the south side of the building as well as an expansion of existing space on the north side of the theatre. The Senator will be home to WTMD’s daily operations, as well as a schedule of films, educational activities, concerts and community events designed to reach people from all over the region. The station will connect and promote the events taking place in the theatre.

Apparently the previous information that David Cordish has submitted a proposal was erroneous. Our apologies for whatever confusion they may have caused.

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Photography by Jenny Shain

“MUNY REFLECTIONS”

Forest Park in St. Louis
The Muny is the place where the World’s Fair was held in 1904 in St. Louis. Hence, “Meet Me in St. Louis.” The Muny is the World’s Largest Outdoor Musical Theatre! The Muny gazebo sits in front as the symbol for the Muny.
The name “The Muny” came years ago when the theatre was named the Municipal Theatre Association of St. Louis. It’s a an incredible place where artists come from all over the nation to create & perform the best musicals ever written!

by Jenny Fox Shain

Check out my other photos of the “Forest Park Series” here on my site!

published on http://pummeledbyadoringfans.wordpress.com

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Actions speak louder than words yet words do matter.  Words create a context for actions to exist in.  When actions don’t match with the declaration of one’s speaking, the words itself lose their power and they become just words.  The lack of integrity gives one little power with their words.  On the contrary, when actions do match with words, then one has the opportunity to be their word and have their life work the way they say it.  The lack of integrity creates a loss of power over what one wants in their life with themselves and with other people.  It changes the way people relate to themselves, people relate to other people, and how other people relate to them.

Often times when people say they want something, they really don’t.  What they want is to feel comfortable.  Often times getting what a person “says” they want may compromise a belief system or compromise a habit that is based in the past.

For instance I know a guy who used to feel that people thought he was weird.  Now I wouldn’t doubt that at one moment in time someone called him weird.  So he took a word and turned it into an is.  And that’s how people destroy their lives.  They turn words into actual things.  Or they may come up with thoughts such as, “my mother doesn’t love me”, “people don’t listen to me”, “girls don’t like me”, “i’m inferior”, “i’m superior”, “my music will never get heard”, “i’m lazy”, “i’m driven”, etc.

Now these ways of how one sees themself (i.e. weird), the world (people don’t listen to me), and ways of being (lazy) is often shaped by their past.  These limits either put on by oneself or by others sometime in the past we let these words often times shape who we are.

So for instance maybe I see myself as lazy and not only do I see myself that way but also feel I am.  So therefore when if it takes me doing something where I really need to work at it, go to conferences, network, fly to China to sign some deal, whatever it may be, I may not do it because…well I’m too lazy for that.

Or maybe I’m a busy person and can never find enough time.  Or maybe I’m one of those people who doesn’t ever have enough money.  Or maybe it’s I’d do it but my ideas wouldn’t be heard anyway.

All these statements are statements with the based attached to it.  It’s all past based communications.  There’s no creation here only an acknowledgment of what was so in the past thereby bringing the past into the present and almost probably as well into the future.

So why not create?  How about creating a job.  In a time where I know people who can’t find work, I’ve found 2 jobs in the past 3 days.  It just took me being completely out there, unreasonable, and totally out of my comfort zone to do it.

Why not create what you want.  How about create a record deal?  How many people say they want a record deal but just play in some places and don’t really sell much merchandise or how many people say they want a record deal but only play at coffee shops, or how many people say they want a record deal and just record a demo and mail it into record labels hoping for the best.  Declaring you want a record deal in this case would be a lie.  Your actions don’t match.  Your actions would match with, I’d like a record deal but I’ll just hope it happens or another way of saying that would be “a record deal sounds nice but I’ll stack the odds against me because everyone else i know does that too”.

It’s also the guy who says he wants a girlfriend but then never walks out of the house.  Maybe he doesn’t because he thinks girls hate him, or that he’s weird, or that he doesn’t have enough money to buy a girl a drink, or that he doesn’t have the confidence to say hello.

Everyone is going to have reasons that automatically come up for them on why they can’t or shouldn’t do something.  But they’re only reasons.  When one sees they aren’t real and probably based on something was in the past or just happens to come up for you automatically then one has some choice in the matter of what to do about it.

Example:

I was talking to this girl last week who said she felt stuck.  She tells me she loves sex and that her boyfriend just wasn’t crazy enough.  She said that’s a really important thing for her and that she felt the only way to be happy was to cheat on her boyfriend and she still didn’t feel great about that.  So she felt her only options were to lie to her boyfriend and be out of integrity with him or not lie to her boyfriend and be unfulfilled in the relationship.  The context for how she related to her boyfriend was that she was attached to the fact that they would be married in the future and that he was the only guy for her and that she loved him EXCEPT for the fact that he wasn’t good enough in bed.

You can’t change people but what one does have some power over is what they do with the circumstances in their life.

Now what if this girl was to create?  It sounded like to me (and of course this is just how it sounded TO ME and not necessarily how she saw it) that she wanted a great boyfriend who she could settle down with who could fulfill her needs and be happy with and not feel the need to lie to him.  She did tell me she prefers to be monogamous.  So in this case she could create the possibility for herself the possibility of an amazing boyfriend who can keep up with her in bed.  So you make this a game.  Now play!

The Complaint

This way of seeing things top down and seeing the end-game is a way to have one’s actions be meaningful and with intention and purpose.  The purpose is to win this game and it won’t just be going through the motions with the same complaint.  Now the first appropriate action to get rid of this complaint.  But there are payoffs and costs to having this complaint for her stay into being.

On one hand she can get rid of her complaint.  Understanding you can’t change people she can break up with her boyfriend and find a guy who fulfills her needs and who she can have a relationship with.

Now her current situation where she stays with her boyfriend and has different sexual encounters and is complaining about not having exactly what she wants does have some payoffs for herself. Does she really want to be fulfilled.  When she says she does she’s really just lying to herself.  She’d rather be RIGHT than be FULFILLED.  For instance things she feels right about is that

1. This guy is the only guy for me

2. I will marry this guy and that is how it SHOULD look

So to be right about her story in her head about how this guy is the only guy for her and continuously needing to justify it as well as being right about how her future SHOULD look than it will keep her complaint into being.  Her payoff is she gets to be right about the things she feels right about.

But what’s the cost?  She loses vitality, happiness, and affinity in this situation.  She throws out joy, throws out full self-expression, all just to be right.

So for this girl to get what she wants she would need to:

1. GIVE UP being right about and justifying her story about this guy is the only guy for me

2. GIVE UP being right about knowing exactly how something SHOULD look.

I know for me I can have all the ideals of how something will look like but often times that can be the biggest limitation to actually getting what I want.  You can get what you want and not know how it will look like exactly.

Reasons

She may have all the reasons in the world why not to do this too.  Perhaps she feels she doesn’t have the courage to do it, or she feels she can’t go on if she does this, or she feels she’ll never find the one if she does this, or maybe he’s rich and she wouldn’t have the money to do the things she wants if she breaks up with him, or she won’t be happy if she breaks up with him.  All those reasons are just reasons and don’t become real unless that’s what you create.  If you don’t get what I mean by that refer to above where I talk about “creating”.

So if you are playing the game, “I will be unhappy when I break up with my boyfriend” or “I will not have the money” and you play to win.  Then guess what, you’ll end up with exactly what you wanted.  Or you could “breakup with this guy and find another guy to be happy with” or “breakup with this guy and have the money to do the things I love” then if you play to win those games then it may take getting another job, starting a business, doing a service for some extra cash.  Now of course this would mean GIVING UP HOW IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE or perhaps the REASON you feel you can’t be happy is because you compare every guy to the guy you were dating in the past.  So to be happy with another guy you’d have to GIVE UP COMPARING and seeing things for what they are what they are not.  Comparing someone to someone else in the past will keep bringing up the same issues with different people probably looking differently a bit different either time come up.  All past based.  The reasons will never stop you.  It’s always you stopping yourself by not choosing what you want and letting your reasons choose for you.

For things I love to do whether it be my business, recording the album I currently am working on, doings things I love to do for probably 90% of those things I either didn’t have the MONEY or the TIME.

Starting a hedge fund I didn’t have the money.  Running my hedge fund I certainly don’t have the time.  Recording an album which may cost me $3,000 I definitely don’t have the money or the time.  When I was dating a girl who lived 3 and a half hours away from me and making a commitment to myself to see her every weekend I certainly didn’t have the time to do that.  But the thing is I did all of this anyway.  I just made the time or I made the money or found another way to do something without money getting in the way.  I had to put myself in a lot of high anxiety situations, I had to be uncomfortable a lot, I had to go out of my way to do things that weren’t the norm.  But by doing so I am able to commit to the things I want the most and the purpose I put to my life which I create so much meaning and intention to in areas that I want…seeing the end game keeps me focuses and motivated.

Now sometimes I slip up.  I can slip up real bad.  I’m just as human as anyone else on this earth.  I’ve been broken up with before, I’ve had huge disappointments, I’ve been upset before, I’ve had things definitely not turn out the way I wanted them to be, I’ve had real tremendous breakdowns with things I wanted to get accomplished.  But by seeing the big picture those breakdowns have always created real breakthroughs in my life.  By disappearing the complaint it naturally uncovers a blind spot I may have never seen before.  But without taking action, all I get is a bunch of thoughts of how to do something instead of just doing it and I get thoughts but not what I want.  When I stop seeing the end game, things for me feel pointless.  The emptiness and meaninglessness of my life takes over.  Having a completely purposeless life will be just going through the motions.  It’s no fun but some people think that’s all it can ever be.  They won’t consider the possibility of another way of thinking, a radical way of thinking.

You know how profound is it when you’re cool, down, and hip and your life doesn’t work any better.  Or you constantly try to come off as smart or attractive and your life still doesn’t work any better.  You try to keep it all together, put on whatever front you think looks the best even if it means not getting exactly what you want just because you need to look good.  Perhaps it’s apologizing to somebody that you want to be close with or perhaps it’s not telling that girl how beautiful you think she is because your scared of being embarrassed.  When I realized how small the game of looking good or the game of how well can I keep it all together it just stopped being interested.  When I travel 3 and a half hours to see a girl I am really interested in, I had a friend say it was dumb and that I was letting her have the upperhand.  No there was no upper hand and everything was mutual he just thought it looked bad and it didn’t make a damn bit of difference.  When I go out of my way to make something happen there will always be people telling me it isn’t possible.  Eric it’s just not possible.  When I first created the idea of Energy Independence Day which is something the Pickens Plan uses to help forward their agenda. The first person I ever spoke to about it he told me I shouldn’t waste my time and told me it wasn’t possible.  When I was in Omaha, Nebraska and I saw this beautiful girl smoking a cigarette on the street it looked really bad to me because I was so embarrassed to just leave my friends to talk to her. I felt very vulnerable being all by myself in the situation and not having my friends to back me up.  Not only that I was totally scared she’d reject me because in middle school I had been rejected all the time by girls.  All these fears were certainly based in the past but I still felt them.  If she rejected me right in front of my friends that would have looked horrible but I did it anyway.  It ended up working out in that situation but certainly that’s not the point.  It doesn’t always.  And what happened between us after that is completely irrelevant.

When I used to try to look good for everybody and keep it all together it was always a way to try to compensate for something.  I don’t remember exactly what I thought or what I was even trying to compensate for but what I do remember is that I could never compensate enough for whatever I was trying to compensate for.  When I started caring more about the things I truly wanted, looking good, winning, all of that stuff that I guess most people I knew cared about just really stopped being interesting, it just was all really pointless to me.  When I had this huge intrinsic shift in myself and also realizing I wasted the first 19 years of my life it felt like I was just suddenly a fish let into the ocean and was living in a fish bowl my whole life.  But not only that I always felt the fish bowl was all that there was.   When I broke throughout the sadness and despair of feeling like I had wasted my life it was completely freeing.  It was also very overwhelming to me.  What does it mean to not have these limits on myself anymore.  What does it mean for me that I’m not attached to my identity or point of view.  All these new possibilities that became possible in my life that at one time weren’t possible based on how life, the people in my life, and myself occurred to me and having a past suddenly not influencing what I was doing in my life, it really was completely overwhelming.  I had plenty of instant breakdowns at the beginning, I had plenty of crap I needed to clean up with people, and had a problem of too many choices.  To this day there are no words in the English language that give access to truly understanding this remarkable transformational experience.  All I can do is speak to the results the ever come out of this experience.

Updated Nov. 23, 2009

The BDC’s Request For Proposals (RFP) closed yesterday at noon.

According an article by Michael Sragow and Chris Kaltenbach of The Baltimore Sun, here are the known contenders:

• James “Buzz” Cusack of The Charles Theatre and recently renominated member of the city’s CHAP
• Towson University’s WTMD radio station
• Developer  David Cordish (most recently in the news for seeking to place a slots casino at Arundel Mills) Information that David Cordish had submitted a proposal was incorrect. Please see the November 23 blog entry for the official participants list. Our apologies for whatever confusion this may have caused.
  

The fourth party is not yet public, but is expected to be revealed Monday.

Particular points of interest to us in this article:

Kim Clark, executive vice president of the BDC, said Friday that there would be a public presentation of the proposals…
“The worst case would be if the public falls in love with one of them, and that one is not financially viable,” she said. “In my mind, that would be horrible.”

. . .

Cordish, who has repeatedly said he “would run the theater as a public service or a trust,” confirmed that he filed a proposal, but did not provide any details.

Last we heard, publicly, from the Cordish group they stated they would only step into the BDC process “if the city is stuck“. Everyone is entitled to change their mind, of course, but the fact that no details are offered causes nearly as much concern as the secrecy of the fourth proposal submission. We will be very interested to see what the Cordish Company has in mind!
. . .

Cusack… would keep the Senator as a single-screen movie theater. But he would also add a restaurant on its north side… and a crepes shop on its south side.

“I’m also talking to a children’s-services provider… about using the auditorium for children’s activities from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., when the theater is closed.” According to Cusack, a triangular area in the southern part of the property contains enough space for another screen… operating it would require a partner who would use that space for other purposes, such as art education.

While the thought of keeping The Senator a single screen movie house sounds wonderful, it’s been shown time and again that the model doesn’t hold up in this day and age… Can a private owner keep it going by renting the spaces out to restaurateurs and educational programs?

Stay tuned & as always, feel free to chime in here and/or on Facebook!

Outside of the Mission wall is the oldest water operated Mill in Texas… Click image below to view Series…

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