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"It wasn't even on the bucket list," Bell said, "because it wasn't something that was attainable."
That changed earlier this year when he attended a Cubs Charities event, and, after walking away with a few silent auction items, he saw "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" on the list.
"I said to my wife (Shannon), 'The only one worth anything is this singing gig, but it will be way too expensive,'" Bell said. "And my wife just kept raising the paddle."
Last year at the same auction he won a private dinner, for six, with Cubs manager Joe Maddon and bench coach Dave Martinez.
"I love the Cubs, but it's great what the Ricketts family has done with Cubs Charities," Bell said. "Like everywhere there is a lot of need, and there is need for kids in Chicago; we feel good about helping them out."
Has he practiced singing at all?
"I can't get that thing out of my head!"
Despite what Bell said about non-celebrities singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," Larry Bell is a celebrity in the craft beer world -- taking his home brewing hobby in the '80s to becoming the nation's seventh-largest craft brewery.
Sheffield's Beer and Wine Garden in Chicago is having a Larry Bell 7th Inning Stretch Viewing Party & Bells Tap Takeover.
"It's no secret that Mister Larry James Bell is indeed a Chicago Cubs fan! Perhaps second to his love of beer is his love of our very own Chicago Cubbies! Join us and the rest of the Bell's Brewery crew for a Bells #TapTakeover and Cubs viewing party and watch the man himself take the mic!"
Bell said he'll sing the original lyrics to the song, but make one change: "It's still going to be 'Root, Root, Root for the Cubbies!' I won't change that."
"We have the ability to clinch the division tomorrow evening. Can you imagine?"
In 2014, Bell attended all 81 home games of the Chicago Cubs, and only missed 10 innings.
Follow Bell's Brewery, Inc., at bellsbeer.com.
Follow MLive's beer coverage at mlive.com/beer.
A package containing marijuana was intercepted Thursday by Metro Narcotics.
The delivery of a parcel containing one pound of marijuana was intercepted in West Monroe by agents with the Metro Narcotics Unit.
According to arrest reports filed in connection with the case, agents received a tip Thursday that a package of illegal narcotics was being delivery to Butler Avenue in West Monroe.
Agents intercepted the package and obtained a search warrant to open it. Per the report, the package contained approximately one pound of high-grade marijuana inside vacuum sealed packages.
The package was then taken to its original destination by agents. Piper M. Folden, 20, took possession of the package, the report continues, then notified her boyfriend, Tommy D. Ingles Jr., 23, of the delivery. Folden opened the package,.
After agents obtained a search warrant for the home on Butler Avenue, the opened box was found along with additional marijuana on a set of digital scales in the bedroom.
Folden was transported to MNU headquarters to be interviewed. Per the report, she said Ingles told her a package of marijuana was being delivered to the home.
Ingles told officers he knew about the package and that he sells marijuana.
Folden was booked on one count of possession of a schedule I controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute.
Ingles was booked on the same charge. Bond for each suspect was sent at $20,000.
On Oct. 6, two people were taken into custody following a meth bust on Riverside Drive in Monroe.
Approximately 542 grams of methamphetamine concealed in a package were seized in that arrest. The meth had a street value of $40,000.
Brittany Gix, 28, reportedly received the package and was booked on charges of possession of a schedule II controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute and conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.
Meko Walker, 35, visited the Riverside Drive address to pick up the package and was booked into Ouachita Correctional Center on charges of possession of a schedule II controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute, conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.
Since that arrest, Gix appeared in court on Oct. 16, and her bond was reduced to $12,500. Gix was represented by Marcus Hunter on behalf of Katrina Jackson.
Discovery motions were filed by attorney G. Mennon Campbell Jr. in connection with Walker's case on Oct. 12.
The Jewish cemetery in Lodz, Poland on May 11, 2017. Photo: Isaac Harari/FLASH90.
I recently had a kosher dinner with Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawieckiat at his official residence in Warsaw. After the passage of Poland’s Holocaust law criminalizing both the mention of “Polish death camps” and the attribution of blame for Nazi crimes to Poland I penned a column criticizing the law and calling on the prime minister to rise to the occasion of setting Polish-Jewish relations on a new footing.
The prime minister responded in a letter, saying “no Jewish family, none of our Jewish brothers and sisters, could be saved during the Shoah without some form of help from Polish families, from Polish neighbors.” The prime minister invited me to sit down and discuss the issue with him and I did so.
He said that he takes the tensions created by the Holocaust law seriously.
The day before our dinner, Bashar Assad of Syria had gassed and slaughtered his people again. The message was clear: genocide and mass murder remain global problems that are never sufficiently addressed.
In my view, Poland — which witnessed the greatest genocide of all time taking place on its soil — could become a leading voice in fighting genocide and condemning the use of poison gas. But the Holocaust law undermines Polish credibility on the issue.
The prime minister expressed his people’s pain, and conveyed the unjustness of conflating victim and culprit. He said that Poland had lost 200,000 citizens in the Autumn 1944 uprising alone. Poland had been the first to fight the Germans, had never collaborated as a people, had never collaborated as a government, had been brutally suppressed by the Germans, and scores of Poles had helped to save many Jews.
The prime minister said that his government was Israel’s strongest ally in Europe. He claimed that he comes under repeated pressure from EU countries to join in various condemnations of Israel, from which he always abstains because of his genuine friendship with Israel and the Jewish people. He said that the purpose of the law was to lay blame for the Holocaust squarely where it belonged — with the German Nazis and not the Polish people.
But what of well-documented atrocities against Jews — where Poles were directly involved? Jedwabne was mentioned at the dinner. There is, of course, also the Kielce pogrom of July 1946, in which 42 Jews were murdered by Poles after the war was over. The prime minister was adamant that the law would never contravene fact or dispute the historical record.
But why in that case was the law important at all? Poland is a democracy whose constitution guarantees freedom of expression. Let the historical facts decide. The prime minister maintained that the Polish people were hurt and angered by repeated use of expressions like “Polish death camps.” The law was an attempt at righting a historical wrong. Indeed, President Obama used the expression in May 2012, for which the White House later apologized.
But, I countered, the law was counterproductive and only increased accusations of Polish insensitivity to Jews.
What was clear from the conversation was that this controversial law, to which I am irrevocably opposed and hope will be struck down by the Polish courts that are currently reviewing it, might present an opportunity.
A great many Jews, including myself, are of Polish descent. But the story being passed down through many Jewish families is that Poland was a place of irrevocable hostility to Jews and endless antisemitism.
Is that the whole story? Obviously not. Jews lived in Poland for 800 years. In that time they produced some of their greatest rabbis, works of scholarship, and synagogues of awe-inspiring beauty. Was there antisemitism? Undoubtedly so. Poland was deeply Catholic, and the church itself held the Jews accountable for killing Christ.
But Poland was also the place that the Jews began to emigrate to in the 12th century because of the tolerant policies of Boleslaw III; the Polish Jewish community would become the largest and most developed in the world. Jews suffered in Poland, but they also thrived and flourished.
Are the Poles responsible for the Holocaust? Most definitely not. Did large numbers of individual Poles collaborate with the Germans? Were many Poles happy to see the Jews gone? Historical fact would definitely suggest this was the case — and certainly, after the war, when many Jews tried to reclaim property, they were met with a strong rebuff and in many cases violence. Poland cannot deny these historical truths. But that does not change the fact that the Polish government never collaborated with the Nazis and Polish partisans fought them throughout the war.
I do not believe there is any antisemitism in Mateusz Morawiecki. In fact, I believe he seeks to be a friend of the Jewish people and truly wishes for Poland to have a closer relationship with the Jewish community and Israel. The prime minister also claims that the Jews have to better understand the extent of Polish suffering under the Nazis, even if it did not reach the mass extermination faced by the Jews. In my view, he is right. But the law has hindered those efforts.
What’s needed is the abolition of this law so that misunderstandings can be addressed honestly and forthrightly, and a new era of Polish-Jewish relations can ensue.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, “America’s Rabbi,” whom the Washington Post calls “the most famous Rabbi in America,” is the international best-selling author of 31 books, including his most recent, The Israel Warrior. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.
This week on the podcast, PCWorld editors Robert Strohmeyer, Jason Cross, Ginny Mies, and Tim Moynihan talk about Apple's lawsuit against HTC and about the brand-new TiVo Series 4 Premiere and XL digital video recorders (DVRs).
Subscribe to the PC World Podcast on iTunes or via the PC World Podcast RSS feed. You can reach us at [email protected] and review our podcast on iTunes.
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The number of measles cases in Michigan has reached 41, including the first reported in Washtenaw County.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services updated the numbers Monday with two additional cases. Thirty-nine cases have been confirmed in Oakland County.
Authorities are trying to determine possible exposure sites in Washtenaw County in southeastern Michigan. They’re also urging people again to get vaccinated if they haven’t received the vaccine in the past. Measles is highly contagious and is spread by personal contact and through the air.
The state considers the vaccine to be highly effective and safe. A single dose protects about 95% of children. After two doses, almost 100% are immune.
The number of measles cases in Michigan is the highest since 65 in 1991.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (CBS/KCNC) Sounds like this heist was dreamed up with a little help from Mary Jane.
Three active duty soldiers at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs are being held on $10,000 bond after they allegedly tried to rob a marijuana dispensary but got locked inside, and it was all caught on tape.
Police say Ramone Hollins, Cory Young and Darius Thomas broke into Rocky Road Remedies just after 2 a.m. on Saturday. They reportedly broke the lock on the back door but what they didn't know was that the door locks automatically from the inside.
But that wasn't the end of their troubles. At the same time, police officers were next door responding to an unrelated call when they noticed the burglars inside, according to CBS affiliate KCNC.
Authorities say that the surveillance video shows Hollins, Young and Thomas, dressed in black, trying to break the front door of the dispensary once they realize the back door has locked them in. But the door and the windows are reinforced with metal bars, so they try to go back the way they came only to find that door locked, too.
At one point one of the alleged burglars decides to dive through a small interior sliding glass window instead of walking through the open door right next to it.
"It's definitely humorous because in the videotape you see them running back and forth, back and forth, kind of realizing that they're trapped and they are going to get caught," dispensary owner Renze Waddington told KCNC.
The three men were finally able to break free of the marijuana labyrinth and were being held in the El Paso County Jail, facing charges of second degree burglary.
Episode 35 - Filthy Rich!
Sherman Hood may have stolen her father's gold, but Melody still admires his noble practice to steal from the rich and give to the poor. Trouble is, no one is poor except the dragon!
John Sexton’s office, which sits on the top floor of NYU’s Bobst Library and boasts an impressive view north to Washington Square Park, has recently begun to resemble a shrine to Abu Dhabi. The university president has installed a massive Oriental rug, a gift from the crown prince, on one entire wall. On another hangs a framed portrait of the sunglasses-clad founder of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. In the center of the room is a large framed photograph of an Emirati woman, hand covered in a henna tattoo, gazing provocatively from behind a sequined veil.
When we start to talk about NYU’s expansion plans in Abu Dhabi, Sexton props his sneakers up on the coffee table, then folds them beneath his chair, kindergarten style. He looks uncomfortable, as if he’d rather play the schlumpy college professor—unkempt hair, rumpled clothes, rotund paunch—than a global tycoon. And over the next two hours, Sexton tries to downplay his own role in the university’s Abu Dhabi plans. But he just can’t help himself.
Within less than three years, NYU plans to more or less clone itself in Abu Dhabi, thereby becoming the first major U.S. research institution to open a complete liberal-arts university off American soil. It is a wildly ambitious project, far more grandiose than simply opening up a foreign branch or study-abroad program. Unlike any other major American university, NYU will treat its offshore campus as virtually equal to its New York campus. NYU Abu Dhabi students will be chosen by the same admissions procedure, and will graduate with the same degrees, as their Washington Square colleagues. Eventually, Sexton hopes that New York and Abu Dhabi will serve as two nodes for a global network of NYU programs and classes.
And despite his protestations, it is impossible to imagine NYU’s initiating this expansion without John Sexton at the helm. The president has taken the thirteen-hour flight to the desert emirate four times over the past two years to personally broker the deal with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi. He refers to his trips there as a “spiritual experience” and sees the project as honoring his late wife.
When NYU opens its Abu Dhabi Institute (a precursor to the full-fledged campus) this fall, Sexton himself will be teaching one of the first courses—traveling from New York to Abu Dhabi and back every other weekend. “I can’t wait to teach my class over there,” he exclaims, his face flushed with excitement as he throws his feet up in the air and falls back in his chair.
Sexton admits he is worried whether, as he puts it, “I have the leadership capability to explain adequately to my colleagues what we’re doing.” Indeed, the project has faced particular criticism among a faculty that has often found itself at odds with Sexton’s empire-building. “Of all of Sexton’s projects, Abu Dhabi is really the one where professors are drawing the line,” says Andrew Ross, chair of the NYU chapter of the American Association of University Professors.
Many professors fear that, as sociology professor Craig Calhoun puts it, NYU is “creating a second-tier version of itself,” spreading itself too thin and turning the university into an academic chain restaurant—“a conglomerate with a number of wholly owned subsidiaries.” Others object not just to the risk of brand dilution but to Sexton’s wholesale embrace of a regime with a troubling history regarding academic freedom and human rights (not to mention the state of Israel). Similar entreaties by Arab states have recently been rejected by other American universities; why, critics wonder, has NYU’s president not been dissuaded?
Sexton argues that the plan will vault the university into the top echelons of global academia. The scale of Abu Dhabi’s support, he says, will help NYU to expand its student body by 4,000 over the next 25 years, to boost its meager endowment (currently about one-fourteenth the size of Harvard’s), and to transform itself into a “glocal” university. He knows such dramatic changes will make some faculty anxious, but he believes that when they consider the opportunity as much as he has, they’ll come around. To Sexton, growth is by definition virtuous, and international engagement a matter of moral courage.
Al Mubarak sports frameless glasses and wears his white kaffiyeh flipped over one side of his head in this season’s popular style, known around town as “the Bluetooth.” At 32 years old, he is CEO of the government-owned investment company Mubadala, and as such he oversees a cadre of young leaders charting the course for Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates and the richest city-state in the world. They have set their sights on becoming an international hub competitive with London, Shanghai, and New York, and their strategy to do so is very new-money: a global shopping spree for the world’s most prestigious status symbols. Last year, Abu Dhabi signed a $2 billion deal with Warner Bros. to open a megastudio and jump-start a burgeoning entertainment industry. It is pumping millions into a new English-language newspaper that has already hired top writers and editors away from the Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker. It recently signed deals with Cleveland Clinic and the Imperial College London to open branches in the emirate. And, most spectacularly, it is sinking $27 billion into the adjacent Saadiyat Island, which over the next decade will be transformed from a deserted sand bank into the most highbrow cultural theme park on Earth.
It should surprise no one, then, that one of Sexton’s primary initiatives of late has been to create, in his words, “the world’s first global university in the world’s first truly global city.” Under his tenure, NYU’s study-abroad rates have increased from 23 percent to 42 percent—the school sent more students abroad this past year than any other American university. Sexton wants that number to increase to 50 percent and has recently opened new study-abroad sites in China and Buenos Aires, for a total of nine semester-abroad programs run by the university. NYU’s business school is partnered with the London School of Economics and the HEC School of Management in Paris, and the NYU law school and Tisch School of the Arts have both set up programs in Singapore. Meanwhile, over 5,000 international students studied at the New York campus last year, making NYU the U.S. university with the third-most international students.
In Good Company; NYU's Abu Dhabi campus will be on Saadiyat Island, above, currently empty desert but soon to become the world's most highbrow cultural theme park.
Together they envisioned a campus that will offer the same-caliber education as NYU’s main campus, “but with an Arab twist,” Al Mubarak says. Unlike other American universities that have recently flocked to the region (Cornell, Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon among them) to open specific programs for, say, medicine or engineering, the new NYU branch will be a complete campus, offering the full spectrum of liberal-arts courses within a research university.
To oversee the planning of the new NYU campus, the university tapped Ballon, a former Columbia professor of art and architectural history who spearheaded last year’s revisionist exhibitions of Robert Moses. According to Ballon, various star architects will design multiple buildings that attempt to “translate the identity of NYU” to the Middle East. The school even brought a team from Mubadala to New York in November to, in Ballon’s words, “soak up the atmosphere.” But Ballon’s task is not to insert NYU into an existing foreign city; it is to plan for an urban campus on a piece of land that today is literally a desert island. “It’s an amazing opportunity for the university to seed the urban fabric the way we would like it,” Ballon says. “Where else would you basically get to operate on a tabula rasa?” Eventually, the campus will share Saadiyat Island with a new outpost of the Louvre designed by Jean Nouvel and a new Guggenheim by Frank Gehry; a Zaha Hadid–designed performing-arts center, possibly partnered with Lincoln Center; a maritime museum by Tadao Ando; and a canal-side park for a biennial international arts festival—not to mention 29 luxury hotels, three marinas, two golf courses, and hundreds of waterfront villas.
The grandiosity of vision may have hooked Sexton, but Abu Dhabi’s financial generosity was also enticing. Though the two sides have not agreed on a concrete dollar amount, Sexton says that the university has essentially been given a blank check from Abu Dhabi to fund his most expansive fantasies.
On a Friday afternoon in February, a dozen NYU faculty members—tenured professors, department heads—sit around a long wooden table in a townhouse off Washington Square. They have gathered in an exasperated effort to understand why the university would choose to open a campus in Abu Dhabi, and the atmosphere is one of outrage and confusion.
“Who will do the hiring?” one professor asks.
Perhaps most striking is not how far Sexton has strayed from the conventional values of higher education but how faithfully he has crafted New York University in the image of today’s New York City.
Others question whether Sexton’s own Supreme Court and Religion course—not to mention Theories of Gender and Sexuality, or the Constitution in the Age of Terror—will be welcome in a country that lacks an independent media and judiciary or a separation of church and state. Two years ago, a foreign lecturer at a university in the emirates was dismissed for showing and discussing controversial Danish cartoons that ridiculed the Prophet Muhammad.
Al Mubarak and Sexton have agreed on a model in line with the U.A.E.’s many free zones, in which the school will have autonomy within its campus to decide curriculum, faculty hiring, and student admissions. Off campus, however, is a different story. Homosexual activity is illegal in the United Arab Emirates, and those found guilty of drug use, prostitution, or adultery can be sentenced to flogging. “We have to accept the fact that, like in New York, we cannot provide immunity to students or faculty members at NYU Abu Dhabi from the normal laws of that society when not engaged in activities on our campus,” Sexton says.
Abu Dhabi has also come under fierce criticism from groups like Human Rights Watch for its mistreatment of foreign laborers, mostly Pakistani and Indian, who have shouldered much of the country’s breakneck development. With few labor laws in place, there is little NYU can do to assure that its new campus will not be built by this workforce. Human Rights Watch has already criticized the Guggenheim for failing to address these concerns in the planning of its Abu Dhabi branch.
But perhaps most striking is not how far Sexton has strayed from the conventional values of higher education but how faithfully he has crafted New York University in the image of today’s New York City. Like Glenn Lowry, who has doubled the size of MoMA during his time as director, and Thomas Krens, who invented the idea of the global Guggenheim, Sexton has grown his institution in lockstep with the boom times of the last few years. And like Vikram Pandit of Citigroup and John Thain of Merrill Lynch, he’s demonstrated a homegrown knack for sniffing out foreign wealth eager to acquire blue-chip New York property. There are risks in running an academic institution like a multinational corporation, but losing one’s New York City sensibility doesn’t appear to be one of them.
Published: July 16, 2014 11:40 am Updated: July 16, 2014 12:07 p.m.
A team of biologists has confirmed that a new California condor chick is the first to hatch in the wild in Utah since the species was reintroduced in northern Arizona in 1996. This photo shows the new condor's mother.
SALT LAKE CITY — A team of biologists has confirmed that a new California condor chick is the first to hatch in the wild in Utah since the species was reintroduced in northern Arizona in 1996.
The Peregrine Fund and a host of federal agencies made the announcement Tuesday.
"This is the first documented occurrence of California condors raising a chick in Utah," says Eddie Feltes, condor project manager with the Peregrine Fund. "This is great news. This pair of condors and their newly hatched chick could be a major step toward California condors re-establishing themselves in southern Utah."
Park officials announced the birth in June after spotting the chick atop the 1,000 foot-tall nest. They say it’s a sign that the endangered species is growing in Utah.
Keith Day, regional wildlife biologist for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, said the chick won't try to fly until November or December.
"California condors take about six months to fledge," he said. "Their fledging period is the longest of any bird in North America."
He added that the parents will spend the next year raising the chick.
Last winter, the birds built a nest in a remote canyon in Zion National Park and began showing courtship behaviors.
Other condors have tried without success to breed in Zion in recent years. Some of them died from poisoning.
February 23, 2015 Everyone presumes that soap is clean, but manufacturers know it's always got a few random germs in it. Most of the time that's not a problem, but every now and then things can get out of control.

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