Monday, September 20, 2004
Call a movie the worst thing you've ever seen, and it's a gilded invitation for the rest of the world to pipe up, "It's not so bad, really." That's the break that director/writer/star Vincent Gallo has caught after the catastrophic debut screening of his tragic road movie The Brown Bunny (Wellspring Media) at last year's Cannes Film Festival, after which Roger Ebert told a TV crew it was the worst movie ever shown at the festival, and Gallo responded by calling Ebert a "fat pig" and putting a hex on a part of his anatomy. (Which part is a matter of dispute, but it was somewhere below his downward thumb.) Gallo then trimmed half an hour (approximately a quarter of the film), screened the 90-minute cut for a select few critics (this critic was happily on vacation), and voilà—a movie that isn't so terrible. Some even regard it as a triumph. Ebert (himself trimmed down by approximately a quarter) has not only embraced the new Bunny but written tenderly of the tortured auteur, so "defenseless and unprotected in front of the camera," a "lonely wanderer whose life traverses a great emptiness punctuated by unsuccessful, incomplete or imaginary respites with women." It seems only a matter of time before Roger fills out adoption papers.
I don't think Ebert has been entirely snookered—Gallo does have a primitivist sort of talent (here's my guardedly enthusiastic review of his 1998 Buffalo 66) and The Brown Bunny does come together, in its way. But I don't know that I've ever encountered a filmmaker who wants to be loved so badly on his own wheedling, whiny, abrasive, motherless, misogynistic, and—last but not least—non-narrative terms. If Gallo's movie weren't so fatally inexpressive, it would nail you the way a toddler does, bawling in the night for its mama. But that inexpressiveness is what separates the film from its models (chiefly Antonini) and what makes it so exasperating.
Gallo plays Bud Clay, a man of only a few (strangled, high-pitched) words and a shell-shocked mien. (His eyes are as wired-open as Lon Chaney's in The Phantom of the Opera, only Gallo didn't use wires.) For most of the movie, the audience has little clue what's eating him, just that he's not a well boy. He suggests to a young checkout-counter girl that she run off with him to California. (Actually, he shocks us with his falsetto: "Please come with me. Please.") Then he abandons her when she hurries into her house to pack a bag. Later, he begs a young prostitute in Las Vegas to have lunch with him, then abruptly abandons her, too.
He's always loving 'em and leaving. Gallo photographs himself as a rangy sex object in tight jeans and a T-shirt, leered at by the young and the not-so-young alike. When the 56-year-old Cheryl Tiegs ogles him at a rest stop, he wordlessly begins to make out with her. In a long, silent scene, he consoles her (over the loss of her youth?), and then she consoles him—a Pieta that ends with Bud tenderly departing. After stops at the house of his ex-girlfriend's elderly parents, a pet store (where he asks questions about the life span of bunnies), and the desert, Bud arrives in L.A., where he's joined in a motel room of striking blankness by his ex, Daisy (Chloe Sevigny), in a brown suit but no floppy ears. Daisy is so desperate to get back together with Bud that she gets down on her knees and worships his penis. After she fellates him (it's a long, single, extremely graphic take), he calls her a whore and tortures her with questions about a past indiscretion, then ends up pleading (that falsetto again) for forgiveness.
Gallo and the fearless Sevigny pull off a theatrical coup in the last act—a shocker that, retroactively, invests the earlier parts of the film with meaning. But not enough meaning, finally, to justify this particular odyssey. The Brown Bunny has been described as "meditative," but it must be the critics who are doing the meditating: For most of the running time, Gallo just turns on the camera and trances out. That camera, in a fixed position, catches a race car going around and around and around and around a track. The road is viewed, for minutes at a time, from behind a windshield smudged with dead insects. The protagonist's zombielike disengagement is being depicted in a zombielike and disengaged technique: Method directing? In Buffalo 66, Gallo proved himself a resourceful expressionist. Here he seems to want to shed that artfulness and try for something unmediated. But, frankly, he doesn't have the eye for it, and there's no dramatic context until the end of the film, when Sevigny's Daisy supplies the dialogue (and the acting chops) to orient us.
Even if The Brown Bunny were half an hour shorter and more artfully framed, it would still add up to something kind of infantile. Gallo's Bud is ultimately damned by his unmanliness, by something he didn't do because he was too whiny and jealous and self-pitying. But this whole movie is the product of whininess and self-pity, of childish narcissism and neediness. Buffalo 66 began with its hero unable to find a place to pee (for, like, half an hour), which justified his taking a young woman hostage. Here, Gallo makes his audience sit through long, long passages of nothing, then he asks—no, pleads—for forgiveness on account of his terrible suffering. Gallo wants us to reject him, and then feel guilty for our rejection, and then tell him it's OK: OK for him to do whatever it takes to wee-wee, OK for him to haul out his penis and have it sucked before our eyes. He has earned that right by being, as Ebert puts it, "defenseless and unprotected on camera." I began with Roger and I end with him because this is Gallo's final, extratextual coup: the embrace of the father who laughed at him, whose organ he cursed.
David Edelstein is Slate's film critic. You can e-mail him at movies@slate.com.
Also in today's Slate:swingers: New Mexico: Bush can beat Kerry. But can he beat Bill Richardson?moneybox: The Big Sandy: Obscure economic indicators, Part 4: Central Appalachian Coal Futures. surfergirl: The Kennedon'ts: The WB's Jack & Bobby hijacks the Kennedy mystique. But why?
I don't think Ebert has been entirely snookered—Gallo does have a primitivist sort of talent (here's my guardedly enthusiastic review of his 1998 Buffalo 66) and The Brown Bunny does come together, in its way. But I don't know that I've ever encountered a filmmaker who wants to be loved so badly on his own wheedling, whiny, abrasive, motherless, misogynistic, and—last but not least—non-narrative terms. If Gallo's movie weren't so fatally inexpressive, it would nail you the way a toddler does, bawling in the night for its mama. But that inexpressiveness is what separates the film from its models (chiefly Antonini) and what makes it so exasperating.
Gallo plays Bud Clay, a man of only a few (strangled, high-pitched) words and a shell-shocked mien. (His eyes are as wired-open as Lon Chaney's in The Phantom of the Opera, only Gallo didn't use wires.) For most of the movie, the audience has little clue what's eating him, just that he's not a well boy. He suggests to a young checkout-counter girl that she run off with him to California. (Actually, he shocks us with his falsetto: "Please come with me. Please.") Then he abandons her when she hurries into her house to pack a bag. Later, he begs a young prostitute in Las Vegas to have lunch with him, then abruptly abandons her, too.
He's always loving 'em and leaving. Gallo photographs himself as a rangy sex object in tight jeans and a T-shirt, leered at by the young and the not-so-young alike. When the 56-year-old Cheryl Tiegs ogles him at a rest stop, he wordlessly begins to make out with her. In a long, silent scene, he consoles her (over the loss of her youth?), and then she consoles him—a Pieta that ends with Bud tenderly departing. After stops at the house of his ex-girlfriend's elderly parents, a pet store (where he asks questions about the life span of bunnies), and the desert, Bud arrives in L.A., where he's joined in a motel room of striking blankness by his ex, Daisy (Chloe Sevigny), in a brown suit but no floppy ears. Daisy is so desperate to get back together with Bud that she gets down on her knees and worships his penis. After she fellates him (it's a long, single, extremely graphic take), he calls her a whore and tortures her with questions about a past indiscretion, then ends up pleading (that falsetto again) for forgiveness.
Gallo and the fearless Sevigny pull off a theatrical coup in the last act—a shocker that, retroactively, invests the earlier parts of the film with meaning. But not enough meaning, finally, to justify this particular odyssey. The Brown Bunny has been described as "meditative," but it must be the critics who are doing the meditating: For most of the running time, Gallo just turns on the camera and trances out. That camera, in a fixed position, catches a race car going around and around and around and around a track. The road is viewed, for minutes at a time, from behind a windshield smudged with dead insects. The protagonist's zombielike disengagement is being depicted in a zombielike and disengaged technique: Method directing? In Buffalo 66, Gallo proved himself a resourceful expressionist. Here he seems to want to shed that artfulness and try for something unmediated. But, frankly, he doesn't have the eye for it, and there's no dramatic context until the end of the film, when Sevigny's Daisy supplies the dialogue (and the acting chops) to orient us.
Even if The Brown Bunny were half an hour shorter and more artfully framed, it would still add up to something kind of infantile. Gallo's Bud is ultimately damned by his unmanliness, by something he didn't do because he was too whiny and jealous and self-pitying. But this whole movie is the product of whininess and self-pity, of childish narcissism and neediness. Buffalo 66 began with its hero unable to find a place to pee (for, like, half an hour), which justified his taking a young woman hostage. Here, Gallo makes his audience sit through long, long passages of nothing, then he asks—no, pleads—for forgiveness on account of his terrible suffering. Gallo wants us to reject him, and then feel guilty for our rejection, and then tell him it's OK: OK for him to do whatever it takes to wee-wee, OK for him to haul out his penis and have it sucked before our eyes. He has earned that right by being, as Ebert puts it, "defenseless and unprotected on camera." I began with Roger and I end with him because this is Gallo's final, extratextual coup: the embrace of the father who laughed at him, whose organ he cursed.
David Edelstein is Slate's film critic. You can e-mail him at movies@slate.com.
Also in today's Slate:swingers: New Mexico: Bush can beat Kerry. But can he beat Bill Richardson?moneybox: The Big Sandy: Obscure economic indicators, Part 4: Central Appalachian Coal Futures. surfergirl: The Kennedon'ts: The WB's Jack & Bobby hijacks the Kennedy mystique. But why?
GotFacts Fast Facts
-Starfishes don't have a brain. -The human heart creates enough pressure while pumping to squirt blood 30 feet.-The average man has about 20 square feet of skin. The outer skin is replaced about once a month.Astounding Averages buy it at Books at Amazon.com-1% of land area in the US has been hit by tornadoes in the last 100 years.-The Sun is about 4.6 billion years old. It has already used up almost half of its hydrogen supply in its core. The Sun will run out of this hydrogen supply in about 5 billion years.-During the average lifetime the human heart pumps 48 million gallons of blood around the body. Astounding Averages buy it at Books at Amazon.com-The diameter of the Sun is about 1,4 million kilometers. This is 109 times more the Earth's! (The Earth's diameter is 12 756 km) The Sun's volume is big enough to hold more than 1,3 million Earths!- Venus spins on its axis in the opposite direction as Earth and most other planets. This means that the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east on Venus.-The Alaskan brown bear is the world's largest meat-eating animals that live on land, can weigh as much as 1,700 pounds-The largest frog in the world is called Goliath frog -The original name for the butterfly was flutterby-A cheetah can run 46 miles per hour-A blue whale's whistle is the loudest noise made by an animal -The fastest water mammal is the dolphin, they can swim up to 35 miles per hour.-Some breeds of vultures can fly at altitudes as high as 36,900 feet. -A rhinoceros's horn is made of the same stuff found in human hair and fingernails which is called keratin.-There is an average of 2 earth quakes every minute in the world-The most humid city in the United States is Cincinnati Ohio-The circumference of the earth at the equator is 40,066 km-The skin of the average adult weighs about 5.9 pounds and is considered the heaviest organ. Astounding Averages buy it at Books at Amazon.com-The first visit to Antarctica was not thought to be until around 1800-The Crater of Haleakala Volcano is the world’s largest known dormant volcano-The average human body contains enough iron to make a three-inch nail. Astounding Averages buy it at Books at Amazon.com-The Nile River is the longest river in the world-The smallest bird in the world is the Hummingbird they weigh about 1oz.-A crocodile can't move its tongue and cannot chew, they use their very powerful digestive acids to break down food-The mouse is the most common mammal in the US -Alligators will sometimes swallow rocks to help them grind up food in their stomachs -The SIBERIAN TIGER is the largest cat in the world. It weighs up to 660 lbs-The elephant is the largest animal on land -"Googol" is the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros.maddhacker24-The battle of Lexington was won by Major Pitcairn (British).radams-Muscles in the human eye move an average of 100,000 times a day-Right now we are moving at 66,700 mph, this is the speed at which theearth orbits the Sun.-During the average lifetime about 40 pounds of dead skin is shed. Astounding Averages buy it at Books at Amazon.com-Humans have dammed up over 10 trillion gallons of water over the last 4 decades-The longest bone in the human body is the femur-The Amazon River at its estuary is over 202 miles wide-An average of 43 muscles are needed to make a frown, but only 17 are needed to smile. Astounding Averages buy it at Books at Amazon.com-It can snow in Hawaii! The Hawaiian volcanic mountain of Mauna Kea (Hawaiian for "white mountain") sometimes gets enough snow to ski or snowboard on. Its summit is 13,796 feet and December to March temps can range between 25 and 40 Degrees F.-The Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean is the deepest spot in the world's oceans at 35,827 ft deep-The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue. -It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. -Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.-A cat's urine glows under a black light. -An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain. -A catfish has more tastebuds than any other animal -Ostriches live about 75 years and can reproduce for 50 years. -No one really can decide how many different countries there are, depending on thesource there are 189, 191, 192 or 193 in the world today-The average human brain weighs about 3 pounds. Astounding Averages buy it at Books at Amazon.com-Greenland is part of the continent of North America-The stellar eagle is the largest bird in the world with a wingspan up to 14 feet, it is native to Siberia and inhabits the north eastern Siberian coast and the Alaskan peninsula.-The highest mountain in North America in Mt Mckinley (Denali,meaning the tall one) at 20,320'-Antarctica has no year round population other than research groups-The Amazon River basin is the world's largest rain forest-An average of 144 bones in the human body fuse together between birthand adulthood-The average life expectancy in the US is 76.2 years-The bird, known as the kea, is the world’s only alpine parrot-The planet of Saturn has 18 known moons-An Astronomical Unit (AU) is used to measure distances in space, it is the average distance between the earth and the sun, about 150 million km(93 million miles)-The first wolf pack spotted after there disappearance in the lower 48 states was in Glacier national park Montana in 1981-The difference between antlers and horns on animals is that antlers are shed annually and horns are not.-Both male and female caribou have horns-The Whale Shark is the biggest fish in the world. -About 1000 Earths would fit inside Jupiter.-The Hubble Space Telescope weighs 12 tons (10,896 kilograms), is 43 feet (13.1 meters) long.-Each year, North America and Europe move 4 cm away from each other due to the movement of continent-bearing plates in the Atlantic.-The Earth is rotating slower. Because of the Moon orbiting the Earth, the oceans undergo friction with the land (tidal forces), which brakes the rotation speed of the Earth and increases our days with 0.0023 seconds per century. 900 million years ago, one day on Earth were only 18 hours long! -The Amazon River is home to the world’s only nut and seed eating fish-The peach was the first fruit eaten on the moon-Pine pitch is flammable in the rain-The annual per capita wine consumption of France is over 21 gallons, compared to the US at 2.1 gallons.-A snow avalanche is most common on leeward slopes with a slope of 30-45 degrees-Once a person is totally buried by an avalanche there is only a 1 in 3 chance of survival-There is estimated to be more than 100 undiscovered species in theAmazon River Basin-La Boca in Southern Buenos Aires is the birthplace of the tango-The largest exclusively freshwater fish in the world is the Arapaima, it can be 15 ft/4m long and can weigh up to 440lbs.-The Amazon River sheds 1/5 of the world's river water annually-The strawberry is the only fruit with it's seeds on the outside.-The total population of the US in 2002 was: 288,368,698Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census. Web: www.census.gov-The most spoken languages in are:Chinese Mandarin spoken by about 874 million Hindi spoken by about 366 million English spoken by about 341 million Spanish spoken by about 323 million Bengali spoken by about 207 million-The International Space Station orbits earth at 17000mph-Water is its heaviest at 39 degrees F.-Light travels at 186300 miles per second-Man's fastest spacecraft travels at upwards of 20km/sec-Most rainfall from thunderstorms begins it's fall to earth’s surface as ice becauseof the cold temperatures at high elevation-The far side of our Moon was not seen at all until 1959 when the Soviet spacecraft, Luna 3 flew by and took pictures.-During landing of a space shuttle, it takes approximately one minute between touchdown of the wheels and wheelstop, the point at which the shuttle comes to a complete stop.-The Moon is moving away from the Earth at about 3-4 cm per year!-The Sun is made mostly of helium and hydrogen with a surface temperature of 6000°C.-Mars has the largest mountain in the Solar System named Olympus Mons. It is 26 km high, almost 3 times taller than Mt. Everest!-Jupiter has no seasons. Planets can only have seasons if they are tilted on their axes. (Earth is tilted 23,5°) Jupiter's axis of rotation is only tilted 3°.-The Universe is thought to be about 15 to 20 billion years old and according to Einstein has no center or edge. It bends into an endless curve.-Pluto has temperatures ranging between - 230° C and - 200° C.-The Amazon River is approximately 6280km long-Mt Whitney at 14,494' is the highest mountain in the lower 48 states of the US and death valley at -282' is the lowest point. They are both in California-The Northernmost point in the United States is Point Barrow, Alaska-The Easternmost point in the United States is West Quoddy Head, Maine -The Southernmost point in the United States is Ka Lae South Cape, Hawaii-The Westernmost point in the United States is Cape Wrangell, Alaska Attu Island-The high altitude Atacama Desert in Chile is said to be the driest desert on earthYou Got a Fact that GotFacts don't? >> Submit-a-Fact
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-Starfishes don't have a brain. -The human heart creates enough pressure while pumping to squirt blood 30 feet.-The average man has about 20 square feet of skin. The outer skin is replaced about once a month.Astounding Averages buy it at Books at Amazon.com-1% of land area in the US has been hit by tornadoes in the last 100 years.-The Sun is about 4.6 billion years old. It has already used up almost half of its hydrogen supply in its core. The Sun will run out of this hydrogen supply in about 5 billion years.-During the average lifetime the human heart pumps 48 million gallons of blood around the body. Astounding Averages buy it at Books at Amazon.com-The diameter of the Sun is about 1,4 million kilometers. This is 109 times more the Earth's! (The Earth's diameter is 12 756 km) The Sun's volume is big enough to hold more than 1,3 million Earths!- Venus spins on its axis in the opposite direction as Earth and most other planets. This means that the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east on Venus.-The Alaskan brown bear is the world's largest meat-eating animals that live on land, can weigh as much as 1,700 pounds-The largest frog in the world is called Goliath frog -The original name for the butterfly was flutterby-A cheetah can run 46 miles per hour-A blue whale's whistle is the loudest noise made by an animal -The fastest water mammal is the dolphin, they can swim up to 35 miles per hour.-Some breeds of vultures can fly at altitudes as high as 36,900 feet. -A rhinoceros's horn is made of the same stuff found in human hair and fingernails which is called keratin.-There is an average of 2 earth quakes every minute in the world-The most humid city in the United States is Cincinnati Ohio-The circumference of the earth at the equator is 40,066 km-The skin of the average adult weighs about 5.9 pounds and is considered the heaviest organ. Astounding Averages buy it at Books at Amazon.com-The first visit to Antarctica was not thought to be until around 1800-The Crater of Haleakala Volcano is the world’s largest known dormant volcano-The average human body contains enough iron to make a three-inch nail. Astounding Averages buy it at Books at Amazon.com-The Nile River is the longest river in the world-The smallest bird in the world is the Hummingbird they weigh about 1oz.-A crocodile can't move its tongue and cannot chew, they use their very powerful digestive acids to break down food-The mouse is the most common mammal in the US -Alligators will sometimes swallow rocks to help them grind up food in their stomachs -The SIBERIAN TIGER is the largest cat in the world. It weighs up to 660 lbs-The elephant is the largest animal on land -"Googol" is the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros.maddhacker24-The battle of Lexington was won by Major Pitcairn (British).radams-Muscles in the human eye move an average of 100,000 times a day-Right now we are moving at 66,700 mph, this is the speed at which theearth orbits the Sun.-During the average lifetime about 40 pounds of dead skin is shed. Astounding Averages buy it at Books at Amazon.com-Humans have dammed up over 10 trillion gallons of water over the last 4 decades-The longest bone in the human body is the femur-The Amazon River at its estuary is over 202 miles wide-An average of 43 muscles are needed to make a frown, but only 17 are needed to smile. Astounding Averages buy it at Books at Amazon.com-It can snow in Hawaii! The Hawaiian volcanic mountain of Mauna Kea (Hawaiian for "white mountain") sometimes gets enough snow to ski or snowboard on. Its summit is 13,796 feet and December to March temps can range between 25 and 40 Degrees F.-The Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean is the deepest spot in the world's oceans at 35,827 ft deep-The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue. -It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. -Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.-A cat's urine glows under a black light. -An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain. -A catfish has more tastebuds than any other animal -Ostriches live about 75 years and can reproduce for 50 years. -No one really can decide how many different countries there are, depending on thesource there are 189, 191, 192 or 193 in the world today-The average human brain weighs about 3 pounds. Astounding Averages buy it at Books at Amazon.com-Greenland is part of the continent of North America-The stellar eagle is the largest bird in the world with a wingspan up to 14 feet, it is native to Siberia and inhabits the north eastern Siberian coast and the Alaskan peninsula.-The highest mountain in North America in Mt Mckinley (Denali,meaning the tall one) at 20,320'-Antarctica has no year round population other than research groups-The Amazon River basin is the world's largest rain forest-An average of 144 bones in the human body fuse together between birthand adulthood-The average life expectancy in the US is 76.2 years-The bird, known as the kea, is the world’s only alpine parrot-The planet of Saturn has 18 known moons-An Astronomical Unit (AU) is used to measure distances in space, it is the average distance between the earth and the sun, about 150 million km(93 million miles)-The first wolf pack spotted after there disappearance in the lower 48 states was in Glacier national park Montana in 1981-The difference between antlers and horns on animals is that antlers are shed annually and horns are not.-Both male and female caribou have horns-The Whale Shark is the biggest fish in the world. -About 1000 Earths would fit inside Jupiter.-The Hubble Space Telescope weighs 12 tons (10,896 kilograms), is 43 feet (13.1 meters) long.-Each year, North America and Europe move 4 cm away from each other due to the movement of continent-bearing plates in the Atlantic.-The Earth is rotating slower. Because of the Moon orbiting the Earth, the oceans undergo friction with the land (tidal forces), which brakes the rotation speed of the Earth and increases our days with 0.0023 seconds per century. 900 million years ago, one day on Earth were only 18 hours long! -The Amazon River is home to the world’s only nut and seed eating fish-The peach was the first fruit eaten on the moon-Pine pitch is flammable in the rain-The annual per capita wine consumption of France is over 21 gallons, compared to the US at 2.1 gallons.-A snow avalanche is most common on leeward slopes with a slope of 30-45 degrees-Once a person is totally buried by an avalanche there is only a 1 in 3 chance of survival-There is estimated to be more than 100 undiscovered species in theAmazon River Basin-La Boca in Southern Buenos Aires is the birthplace of the tango-The largest exclusively freshwater fish in the world is the Arapaima, it can be 15 ft/4m long and can weigh up to 440lbs.-The Amazon River sheds 1/5 of the world's river water annually-The strawberry is the only fruit with it's seeds on the outside.-The total population of the US in 2002 was: 288,368,698Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census. Web: www.census.gov-The most spoken languages in are:Chinese Mandarin spoken by about 874 million Hindi spoken by about 366 million English spoken by about 341 million Spanish spoken by about 323 million Bengali spoken by about 207 million-The International Space Station orbits earth at 17000mph-Water is its heaviest at 39 degrees F.-Light travels at 186300 miles per second-Man's fastest spacecraft travels at upwards of 20km/sec-Most rainfall from thunderstorms begins it's fall to earth’s surface as ice becauseof the cold temperatures at high elevation-The far side of our Moon was not seen at all until 1959 when the Soviet spacecraft, Luna 3 flew by and took pictures.-During landing of a space shuttle, it takes approximately one minute between touchdown of the wheels and wheelstop, the point at which the shuttle comes to a complete stop.-The Moon is moving away from the Earth at about 3-4 cm per year!-The Sun is made mostly of helium and hydrogen with a surface temperature of 6000°C.-Mars has the largest mountain in the Solar System named Olympus Mons. It is 26 km high, almost 3 times taller than Mt. Everest!-Jupiter has no seasons. Planets can only have seasons if they are tilted on their axes. (Earth is tilted 23,5°) Jupiter's axis of rotation is only tilted 3°.-The Universe is thought to be about 15 to 20 billion years old and according to Einstein has no center or edge. It bends into an endless curve.-Pluto has temperatures ranging between - 230° C and - 200° C.-The Amazon River is approximately 6280km long-Mt Whitney at 14,494' is the highest mountain in the lower 48 states of the US and death valley at -282' is the lowest point. They are both in California-The Northernmost point in the United States is Point Barrow, Alaska-The Easternmost point in the United States is West Quoddy Head, Maine -The Southernmost point in the United States is Ka Lae South Cape, Hawaii-The Westernmost point in the United States is Cape Wrangell, Alaska Attu Island-The high altitude Atacama Desert in Chile is said to be the driest desert on earthYou Got a Fact that GotFacts don't? >> Submit-a-Fact
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Got site comments? webmaster@gotfacts.comGot a fact correction? badfact@gotfacts.com
About GotFactsCopyright 2004, GotFacts.com
All Song Lyrics for Soundtrack The Big Chill:
ARTIST/BAND NAME
SONG LYRICS
Marvin Gaye Lyrics
I Heard It Through The Grapevine
The Temptations Lyrics
My Girl
The Rascals Lyrics
Good Lovin'
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles Lyrics
The Tracks Of My Tears
Three Dog Night Lyrics
Joy To The World
The Temptations Lyrics
Ain't Too Proud To Beg
Aretha Franklin Lyrics
Natural Woman
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles Lyrics
I Second That Emotion
Procol Harum Lyrics
A Whiter Shade Of Pale
The Exciters Lyrics
Tell Him
Creedence Clearwater Revival Lyrics
Bad Moon Rising
Percy Sledge Lyrics
When A Man Loves A Woman
The Rascals Lyrics
In The Midnight Hour
The Spencer Davis Group Lyrics
Gimme Some Lovin'
The Band Lyrics
The Weight
The Beach Boys Lyrics
Wouldn't It Be Nice
Bert Kaempfert Lyrics
Strangers In The Night
Church Version Lyrics
You Can't Always Get What You Want
Lyrics
J.T. Lancer Theme
Four Tops Lyrics
It's The Same Old Song
Martha & The Vandellas Lyrics
Dancing In The Street
Marvin Gaye Lyrics
What's Going On
The Marvalettes Lyrics
Too Many Fish In The Sea
Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell Lyrics
Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing
Jimmy Ruffin Lyrics
What Becomes Of The Broken-hearted
Jr. Walker & The All Stars Lyrics
Shotgun
Isley Brothers Lyrics
Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me A Little While)
The Supremes Lyrics
Ask Any Girl
Lesley Gore Lyrics
You Don't Own Me
Spanky & Our Gang Lyrics
Like To Get To Know You
The Mamas And The Papas Lyrics
Monday, Monday
Moody Blues Lyrics
Nights In White Satin
Joe Cocker Lyrics
Feeling Alright
Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders Lyrics
Game Of Love
James Brown Lyrics
I Got You
Blues Magoos Lyrics
Nothing Yet
The Zombies Lyrics
Time Of The Season
Howard Tate Lyrics
Get It While You Can
[More The Big Chill Lyrics
ARTIST/BAND NAME
SONG LYRICS
Marvin Gaye Lyrics
I Heard It Through The Grapevine
The Temptations Lyrics
My Girl
The Rascals Lyrics
Good Lovin'
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles Lyrics
The Tracks Of My Tears
Three Dog Night Lyrics
Joy To The World
The Temptations Lyrics
Ain't Too Proud To Beg
Aretha Franklin Lyrics
Natural Woman
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles Lyrics
I Second That Emotion
Procol Harum Lyrics
A Whiter Shade Of Pale
The Exciters Lyrics
Tell Him
Creedence Clearwater Revival Lyrics
Bad Moon Rising
Percy Sledge Lyrics
When A Man Loves A Woman
The Rascals Lyrics
In The Midnight Hour
The Spencer Davis Group Lyrics
Gimme Some Lovin'
The Band Lyrics
The Weight
The Beach Boys Lyrics
Wouldn't It Be Nice
Bert Kaempfert Lyrics
Strangers In The Night
Church Version Lyrics
You Can't Always Get What You Want
Lyrics
J.T. Lancer Theme
Four Tops Lyrics
It's The Same Old Song
Martha & The Vandellas Lyrics
Dancing In The Street
Marvin Gaye Lyrics
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Top Ten Signs Your Kid Had A Bad First Day At School.
10. Already voted "Least Likely to Succeed."
9. His class schedule includes daily beatings from bullies, teachers, and the custodial staff.
8. Lunch was whatever he could scrape off the bottom of his desk.
7. His school bus driver made him ride on the outside of the bus.
6. Got tackled twice in gym class--three times in algebra.
5. He comes home pledging loyalty to fearless leader Kim Jong-Il
4. When you ask how his day went he tells you to direct all further questions to his attorney.
3. Homework on the first day: try not to be such a loser.
2. You know the kid everyone picks on? He got picked on by that kid.
1. Your last name is McGreev
10. Already voted "Least Likely to Succeed."
9. His class schedule includes daily beatings from bullies, teachers, and the custodial staff.
8. Lunch was whatever he could scrape off the bottom of his desk.
7. His school bus driver made him ride on the outside of the bus.
6. Got tackled twice in gym class--three times in algebra.
5. He comes home pledging loyalty to fearless leader Kim Jong-Il
4. When you ask how his day went he tells you to direct all further questions to his attorney.
3. Homework on the first day: try not to be such a loser.
2. You know the kid everyone picks on? He got picked on by that kid.
1. Your last name is McGreev
Which way?
Where you are is not nearly as important as the direction you're moving. No matter how far down you are, you can quickly turn around and head back up. You cannot instantly get to the top, but you can instantly be on your way. Which way are you headed right now? Are you moving steadily toward an important goal? What will you do today to keep yourself moving that way? Are the things you're doing moving you toward where you want to be? If not, why in the world are you doing them? Do you really believe you can get somewhere by walking farther and farther away from it every day? There's something you can do today to keep yourself, or to get yourself moving toward exactly where you want to be. Do it! Every day you spend drifting away from your goals is a waste not only of that day, but also of the additional day it takes you to regain lost ground. Know where you want to go. Get on track and stay on track. Keep yourself always moving forward.
Where you are is not nearly as important as the direction you're moving. No matter how far down you are, you can quickly turn around and head back up. You cannot instantly get to the top, but you can instantly be on your way. Which way are you headed right now? Are you moving steadily toward an important goal? What will you do today to keep yourself moving that way? Are the things you're doing moving you toward where you want to be? If not, why in the world are you doing them? Do you really believe you can get somewhere by walking farther and farther away from it every day? There's something you can do today to keep yourself, or to get yourself moving toward exactly where you want to be. Do it! Every day you spend drifting away from your goals is a waste not only of that day, but also of the additional day it takes you to regain lost ground. Know where you want to go. Get on track and stay on track. Keep yourself always moving forward.
How will Villeneuve measure up?
Returning world champions have had mixed success in Formula One racing. Will Jacques Villeneuve follow in the footsteps of Alain Prost and Niki Lauda or will his comeback come to nothing?
The paddock has been filled with rumours of unlikely driver moves all summer - and now, at last, one has come true. Former World Champion Jacques Villeneuve will be returning to a race seat this weekend at Renault, replacing Jarno Trulli (who has left the team and joined Toyota for next year) - and the French-Canadian veteran is also set to take on a full race seat with Sauber next season.History suggests that he will have his work cut out, although there have been some notable Formula One returns over the years. Villeneuve last drove a race at last year's United States Grand Prix, the end of his largely unsuccessful five-year relationship with the BAR team. To add insult to injury, BAR has since gone onto great things this season, with Jenson Button and Takuma Sato taking no fewer than nine podiums between them. Now Villeneuve is back – but how is he likely to fare? We opened the history books to find out.Several former world champions have ‘retired’ from Formula One racing only to change their minds later. Some of them have returned with little success. Alan Jones is a prime example, the 1980 champion leaving the sport at the end of 1981 (after a fine victory at the US Grand Prix) only to return twice, for a single race in 1983 and then for two seasons with Lola in 1985/6. He finished the 1986 drivers' championship in 12th place.Others have fared better on their return to the sport. Nigel Mansell left Formula One racing at the end of the 1992 season, his championship year. He returned in '94 to Williams after the death of Ayrton Senna and took an emotional final victory at the Australian Grand Prix, but another attempt to revive his fortunes with McLaren in 1995 ended in failure and he only competed in two races.Alain Prost was another world champion who returned to form in spectacular style. Having left Ferrari at the end of 1991 after a disappointing season he sat out 1992 without a drive. In 1993 his luck changed after Mansell left Williams and Prost was offered a race seat. The Frenchman took seven victories to win his fourth and final championship in fine style, although he was dropped for 1994 to make room for his arch-rival, Ayrton Senna.But the all-time comeback king has to be Niki Lauda. Not only did the Austrian recover from the terrible accident that almost cost him his life at the Nurburgring in 1976, he was also, later, to emerge from a three year retirement in 1982 and prove himself immediately on the pace again. Driving for McLaren in 1984 he took the world championship by just half a point from Alain Prost, before retiring (for good) at the end of 1985.Back to the present, and Villeneuve finds himself in one of the most competitive (non Ferrari) cars on the grid - as good a place as any to make an impression. He's certainly got the hunger to succeed and to prove his doubters wrong. The fascinating question will be that of whether he can also muster the pace and the temperament after nearly a year away from the sport.
2004 Chinese Grand Prix
Drivers Table
M.Schumacher
136
R.Barrichello
98
J.Button
71
J.Trulli
46
More >>
Constructors Table
Ferrari
234
BAR-Honda
94
Renault
91
Williams-BMW
60
More >>
onL();
© 2004 Formula One Administration Ltd. A Formula One Group Company. All rights reserved.
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Returning world champions have had mixed success in Formula One racing. Will Jacques Villeneuve follow in the footsteps of Alain Prost and Niki Lauda or will his comeback come to nothing?
The paddock has been filled with rumours of unlikely driver moves all summer - and now, at last, one has come true. Former World Champion Jacques Villeneuve will be returning to a race seat this weekend at Renault, replacing Jarno Trulli (who has left the team and joined Toyota for next year) - and the French-Canadian veteran is also set to take on a full race seat with Sauber next season.History suggests that he will have his work cut out, although there have been some notable Formula One returns over the years. Villeneuve last drove a race at last year's United States Grand Prix, the end of his largely unsuccessful five-year relationship with the BAR team. To add insult to injury, BAR has since gone onto great things this season, with Jenson Button and Takuma Sato taking no fewer than nine podiums between them. Now Villeneuve is back – but how is he likely to fare? We opened the history books to find out.Several former world champions have ‘retired’ from Formula One racing only to change their minds later. Some of them have returned with little success. Alan Jones is a prime example, the 1980 champion leaving the sport at the end of 1981 (after a fine victory at the US Grand Prix) only to return twice, for a single race in 1983 and then for two seasons with Lola in 1985/6. He finished the 1986 drivers' championship in 12th place.Others have fared better on their return to the sport. Nigel Mansell left Formula One racing at the end of the 1992 season, his championship year. He returned in '94 to Williams after the death of Ayrton Senna and took an emotional final victory at the Australian Grand Prix, but another attempt to revive his fortunes with McLaren in 1995 ended in failure and he only competed in two races.Alain Prost was another world champion who returned to form in spectacular style. Having left Ferrari at the end of 1991 after a disappointing season he sat out 1992 without a drive. In 1993 his luck changed after Mansell left Williams and Prost was offered a race seat. The Frenchman took seven victories to win his fourth and final championship in fine style, although he was dropped for 1994 to make room for his arch-rival, Ayrton Senna.But the all-time comeback king has to be Niki Lauda. Not only did the Austrian recover from the terrible accident that almost cost him his life at the Nurburgring in 1976, he was also, later, to emerge from a three year retirement in 1982 and prove himself immediately on the pace again. Driving for McLaren in 1984 he took the world championship by just half a point from Alain Prost, before retiring (for good) at the end of 1985.Back to the present, and Villeneuve finds himself in one of the most competitive (non Ferrari) cars on the grid - as good a place as any to make an impression. He's certainly got the hunger to succeed and to prove his doubters wrong. The fascinating question will be that of whether he can also muster the pace and the temperament after nearly a year away from the sport.
2004 Chinese Grand Prix
Drivers Table
M.Schumacher
136
R.Barrichello
98
J.Button
71
J.Trulli
46
More >>
Constructors Table
Ferrari
234
BAR-Honda
94
Renault
91
Williams-BMW
60
More >>
onL();
© 2004 Formula One Administration Ltd. A Formula One Group Company. All rights reserved.
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
Home
Hostage Deadline Passes; Iraq Clerics Slain
7 minutes ago
By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Relatives pleaded Monday for the release of two Americans and a Briton held hostage as a deadline passed for their beheading. In Baghdad, gunmen assassinated two clerics from a powerful Sunni Muslim group opposed to the U.S. presence in Iraq (news - web sites).
AP Photo
AFP
Slideshow: Iraq
Latest headlines:
·
Web Site: American Hostage Killed in Iraq AP - 1 minute ago
·
Death threat hangs over US, British hostages in Iraq AFP - 3 minutes ago
·
Kerry Blasts Bush for 'Colossal Failures' in Iraq Reuters - 14 minutes ago
Special Coverage
The Tawhid and Jihad group, led by Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has threatened to behead Americans Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong and Briton Kenneth Bigley on Monday unless Iraqi women are released from two U.S.-controlled prisons here.
The threat came in a video aired on Al-Jazeera television Saturday, which showed the three construction contractors blindfolded and said they would be killed in 48 hours. No exact time for the deadline was given. But 48 hours after the video's release, there was still no word on the fate of the three construction contractors, who were snatched Thursday from their Baghdad home.
Meanwhile, U.S. warplanes struck in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, west of the capital, and doctors reported three people killed. The U.S military said its planes hit equipment militants were using to build fortifications in the city and that care was taken that "no innocent civilians" were there at the time. Doctors said the dead were municipal workers using a bulldozer on construction projects near the railway station.
In the northern city of Mosul, a car packed with explosives blew up in a residential neighborhood, killing its two passengers and a passer-by, police at Al-Salaam hospital said. Police had been searching for the vehicle, which was reported stolen earlier Monday.
Insurgents attacked a U.S. patrol with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades Monday, killing an American soldier, near Sharqat, 168 miles north of Baghdad, the military said. More than 1,000 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003.
It was not immediately known who was behind the gunning-down of two Sunni clerics Sunday night and Monday in Baghdad.
The two clerics belonged to the Association of Muslim Scholars, a grouping of conservative clerics that opposes the U.S. presence in Iraq and has emerged as a powerful representative of Iraq's Sunni minority.
The association is believed to have contacts with Sunni insurgents, though it denies any links with them. It has interceded often in the past to win the release of foreign hostages, and militant groups have asked the association for a religious ruling on whether kidnappings and killing of hostages are permitted.
Gunmen shot and killed Sheik Mohammed Jadoa al-Janabi, a member of the association, as he entered a mosque in Baghdad's predominantly Shiite al-Baya neighborhood to perform noon prayers Monday, the association said.
The previous night, gunmen kidnapped Sheik Hazem al-Zeidi and two of his bodyguards as he left a mosque in another largely Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad, Sadr City. Al-Zeidi was killed and the bodyguards were released Monday, the association said.
A few clerics from the association have been killed in the past — most recently in February. But the motives in those and the latest slayings have been unclear.
There have been tit-for-tat killings of Shiite and Sunni clerics in the past year, widely believed to be motivated by sectarian sentiments.
The Sunni minority dominated Iraq for centuries but is now eclipsed by the Shiite majority and the Kurds, and there are resentments from all sides. The association rose to prominence as the champion of Iraq's Sunni Arabs when its leaders played a key role in organizing taking relief supplies to Fallujah in April, when it was besieged by U.S. Marines.
The association's leaders routinely criticize the government of Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and call for the departure of American and other foreign troops in Iraq.
However, one of its key members, Sheik Ahmed Abdul-Ghafour Al-Samarie, may have angered insurgents by criticizing attacks against Iraqi police that left dozens dead last week. Al-Samarie said the attacks should instead be directed against foreign troops — not Iraqi civilians.
The group may have also raised the ire of the militants by failing to act as yet on calls to issue a fatwa, or religious edict, sanctioning the kidnapping of foreigners.
The clerics' slaying also come on the heels of the beheading — apparently by Sunni insurgents — of three Kurdish militiamen taken hostage in the north.
Insurgents waging a 17-month campaign of violence against U.S. and Iraqi forces have used kidnappings and spectacular bombings as their weapons of choice to undermine the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and push the United States out of Iraq. There have been 32 car bombings this month — the highest in any month since the U.S. military entered Iraq in March 2003.
The British government and the brother of British hostage Kenneth Bigley appealed for his and the Americans' release in statements broadcast repeatedly Monday on the Arab satellite television station Al-Arabiya.
"Ken has enjoyed working in the Arab world for the last 10 years in civil engineering and has many Arabic friends and is understanding and appreciative of the Islamic culture," said Philip Bigley.
"He wanted to help the ordinary Iraqi people and is just doing his job," he said. "At the end of the day, we just want him home safe and well, especially for my mum Lil."
Hensley's wife, Patty, appeared on the Arab television station Al-Jazeera and said her husband, like all Americans in Iraq, was there to help the Iraqi people.
Patty Hensley told ABC's "Good Morning America" in an interview broadcast Monday that her husband, a native of Marrieta, Ga., had been optimistic about his safety in Iraq, but that had changed in recent days, when the group's Iraqi security gaurds stopped showing up for work or found excuses to leave.
On NBC's "Today" show Monday, Ty Hensley said his brother, who went to Iraq in February after failing to find construction work and needed money to support his family, recently wrote home saying he was being "staked out" and that the guards feared for their own safety.
Tawhid and Jihad — Arabic for "Monotheism and Holy War" — has claimed responsibility for the slaying of three hostages in the past, including the beheading of American Nicholas Berg, who was abducted in April. The group has also said it is behind a number of bombings and gun attacks.
In the latest kidnapping, it is demanding the release of Iraqi women from Abu Ghraib and Umm Qasr prisons. Abu Ghraib is the prison where U.S. soldiers were photographed sexually humiliating male prisoners. The U.S. military says no women are held at either facility, though it says it is holding two female "security prisoners" elsewhere.
More than 100 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq, some for lucrative ransoms, and at least 26 of them have been executed. At least five other Westerners are currently being held hostage here, including an Iraqi-American man, two female Italian aid workers and two French reporters.
Kidnappers released a group of 18 abducted Iraqi National Guard members after renegade Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for their release, an al-Sadr aide Nail al-Kabi told The Associated Press.
"Al-Sadr has called for the release saying such acts are against principles of religion and followers of al-Sadr reject such acts that harm the freedom of citizens," he said. "The kidnapping group appears to have heard the call and released them."
Asked who the kidnappers were, he said it is an unknown group. "They might be sympathizers with al-Sadr," he said.
A video aired on Al-Jazeera showed a group of men said to be the freed hostages, dressed in white robes and holding Qurans apparently given them by the kidnappers.
Al-Jazeera reported Saturday that a group calling itself the Brigades of Mohammed bin Abdullah was threatening to kill the men unless Hazem al-A'araji, an al-Sadr aide detained in a U.S.-Iraqi raid in Baghdad, was released.
Some 300 people have been killed in escalating violence over the past week, including bombings, street fighting and U.S. airstrikes. Despite the unrelenting violence, Allawi said Sunday that his interim government is determined "to stick to the timetable of the elections," which are due by Jan. 31.
"We are adamant that democracy is going to prevail, is going to win in Iraq," Allawi told reporters after a meeting with British leader Tony Blair (news - web sites) in London.
Last week, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) warned there could not be "credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now."
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7 minutes ago
By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Relatives pleaded Monday for the release of two Americans and a Briton held hostage as a deadline passed for their beheading. In Baghdad, gunmen assassinated two clerics from a powerful Sunni Muslim group opposed to the U.S. presence in Iraq (news - web sites).
AP Photo
AFP
Slideshow: Iraq
Latest headlines:
·
Web Site: American Hostage Killed in Iraq AP - 1 minute ago
·
Death threat hangs over US, British hostages in Iraq AFP - 3 minutes ago
·
Kerry Blasts Bush for 'Colossal Failures' in Iraq Reuters - 14 minutes ago
Special Coverage
The Tawhid and Jihad group, led by Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has threatened to behead Americans Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong and Briton Kenneth Bigley on Monday unless Iraqi women are released from two U.S.-controlled prisons here.
The threat came in a video aired on Al-Jazeera television Saturday, which showed the three construction contractors blindfolded and said they would be killed in 48 hours. No exact time for the deadline was given. But 48 hours after the video's release, there was still no word on the fate of the three construction contractors, who were snatched Thursday from their Baghdad home.
Meanwhile, U.S. warplanes struck in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, west of the capital, and doctors reported three people killed. The U.S military said its planes hit equipment militants were using to build fortifications in the city and that care was taken that "no innocent civilians" were there at the time. Doctors said the dead were municipal workers using a bulldozer on construction projects near the railway station.
In the northern city of Mosul, a car packed with explosives blew up in a residential neighborhood, killing its two passengers and a passer-by, police at Al-Salaam hospital said. Police had been searching for the vehicle, which was reported stolen earlier Monday.
Insurgents attacked a U.S. patrol with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades Monday, killing an American soldier, near Sharqat, 168 miles north of Baghdad, the military said. More than 1,000 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003.
It was not immediately known who was behind the gunning-down of two Sunni clerics Sunday night and Monday in Baghdad.
The two clerics belonged to the Association of Muslim Scholars, a grouping of conservative clerics that opposes the U.S. presence in Iraq and has emerged as a powerful representative of Iraq's Sunni minority.
The association is believed to have contacts with Sunni insurgents, though it denies any links with them. It has interceded often in the past to win the release of foreign hostages, and militant groups have asked the association for a religious ruling on whether kidnappings and killing of hostages are permitted.
Gunmen shot and killed Sheik Mohammed Jadoa al-Janabi, a member of the association, as he entered a mosque in Baghdad's predominantly Shiite al-Baya neighborhood to perform noon prayers Monday, the association said.
The previous night, gunmen kidnapped Sheik Hazem al-Zeidi and two of his bodyguards as he left a mosque in another largely Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad, Sadr City. Al-Zeidi was killed and the bodyguards were released Monday, the association said.
A few clerics from the association have been killed in the past — most recently in February. But the motives in those and the latest slayings have been unclear.
There have been tit-for-tat killings of Shiite and Sunni clerics in the past year, widely believed to be motivated by sectarian sentiments.
The Sunni minority dominated Iraq for centuries but is now eclipsed by the Shiite majority and the Kurds, and there are resentments from all sides. The association rose to prominence as the champion of Iraq's Sunni Arabs when its leaders played a key role in organizing taking relief supplies to Fallujah in April, when it was besieged by U.S. Marines.
The association's leaders routinely criticize the government of Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and call for the departure of American and other foreign troops in Iraq.
However, one of its key members, Sheik Ahmed Abdul-Ghafour Al-Samarie, may have angered insurgents by criticizing attacks against Iraqi police that left dozens dead last week. Al-Samarie said the attacks should instead be directed against foreign troops — not Iraqi civilians.
The group may have also raised the ire of the militants by failing to act as yet on calls to issue a fatwa, or religious edict, sanctioning the kidnapping of foreigners.
The clerics' slaying also come on the heels of the beheading — apparently by Sunni insurgents — of three Kurdish militiamen taken hostage in the north.
Insurgents waging a 17-month campaign of violence against U.S. and Iraqi forces have used kidnappings and spectacular bombings as their weapons of choice to undermine the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and push the United States out of Iraq. There have been 32 car bombings this month — the highest in any month since the U.S. military entered Iraq in March 2003.
The British government and the brother of British hostage Kenneth Bigley appealed for his and the Americans' release in statements broadcast repeatedly Monday on the Arab satellite television station Al-Arabiya.
"Ken has enjoyed working in the Arab world for the last 10 years in civil engineering and has many Arabic friends and is understanding and appreciative of the Islamic culture," said Philip Bigley.
"He wanted to help the ordinary Iraqi people and is just doing his job," he said. "At the end of the day, we just want him home safe and well, especially for my mum Lil."
Hensley's wife, Patty, appeared on the Arab television station Al-Jazeera and said her husband, like all Americans in Iraq, was there to help the Iraqi people.
Patty Hensley told ABC's "Good Morning America" in an interview broadcast Monday that her husband, a native of Marrieta, Ga., had been optimistic about his safety in Iraq, but that had changed in recent days, when the group's Iraqi security gaurds stopped showing up for work or found excuses to leave.
On NBC's "Today" show Monday, Ty Hensley said his brother, who went to Iraq in February after failing to find construction work and needed money to support his family, recently wrote home saying he was being "staked out" and that the guards feared for their own safety.
Tawhid and Jihad — Arabic for "Monotheism and Holy War" — has claimed responsibility for the slaying of three hostages in the past, including the beheading of American Nicholas Berg, who was abducted in April. The group has also said it is behind a number of bombings and gun attacks.
In the latest kidnapping, it is demanding the release of Iraqi women from Abu Ghraib and Umm Qasr prisons. Abu Ghraib is the prison where U.S. soldiers were photographed sexually humiliating male prisoners. The U.S. military says no women are held at either facility, though it says it is holding two female "security prisoners" elsewhere.
More than 100 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq, some for lucrative ransoms, and at least 26 of them have been executed. At least five other Westerners are currently being held hostage here, including an Iraqi-American man, two female Italian aid workers and two French reporters.
Kidnappers released a group of 18 abducted Iraqi National Guard members after renegade Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for their release, an al-Sadr aide Nail al-Kabi told The Associated Press.
"Al-Sadr has called for the release saying such acts are against principles of religion and followers of al-Sadr reject such acts that harm the freedom of citizens," he said. "The kidnapping group appears to have heard the call and released them."
Asked who the kidnappers were, he said it is an unknown group. "They might be sympathizers with al-Sadr," he said.
A video aired on Al-Jazeera showed a group of men said to be the freed hostages, dressed in white robes and holding Qurans apparently given them by the kidnappers.
Al-Jazeera reported Saturday that a group calling itself the Brigades of Mohammed bin Abdullah was threatening to kill the men unless Hazem al-A'araji, an al-Sadr aide detained in a U.S.-Iraqi raid in Baghdad, was released.
Some 300 people have been killed in escalating violence over the past week, including bombings, street fighting and U.S. airstrikes. Despite the unrelenting violence, Allawi said Sunday that his interim government is determined "to stick to the timetable of the elections," which are due by Jan. 31.
"We are adamant that democracy is going to prevail, is going to win in Iraq," Allawi told reporters after a meeting with British leader Tony Blair (news - web sites) in London.
Last week, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) warned there could not be "credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now."
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Canyon Holds Ancient Civilization Secrets
Mon Sep 20, 7:41 AM ET
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By PAUL FOY, Associated Press Writer
RANGE CREEK CANYON, Utah - The newly discovered ruins of an ancient civilization in this remote eastern Utah canyon could reveal secrets about the descendants of the continent's original Paleo-Indians who showed up before the time of Christ to settle much of present-day Utah.
AP Photo
Archaeologists estimate as many as 250 households occupied this canyon over a span of centuries ending about 750 years ago. They left half-buried stone-and-mortar houses and granary caches, and painted colorful trapezoidal figures on canyon walls.
"It's like finding a van Gogh in your grandmother's attic," Utah state archaeologist Kevin Jones said.
The so-called Fremont people, named after a Spanish explorer who never met them, remain a poorly understood collection of widely scattered archaic groups. Yet they represent a tenuous link to the earliest inhabitants of North America, who are believed to have arrived by way of the Bering Strait more than 10,000 years ago.
As a culture, the Fremont were distinguished by their style of basket weaving, animal-claw moccasins and farming and hunting skills.
Their everyday tools and pottery were different from the farming-dependent Anasazi south of the Colorado River — even as they shared a similar fate. Both cultures packed up and left about the same time for reasons not fully explained. What became of the Fremont and Anasazi also is a mystery.
Earliest traces of Fremont life show up three centuries before the birth of Christ, but they disappeared around A.D. 1250. This unlooted canyon — turned over by a rancher who kept it secret for more than half a century — could have been one of their final strongholds.
It also could reveal why the Fremont were driven out of Utah and possibly left in isolated pockets to die off. More recently, makeshift sites found in northwest Colorado suggest they were forced into exile by the Numic-speaking Ute, Pauite and Shoshone tribes.
Utah's Indian leaders, however, take exception to that, believing the Fremont are their ancestors. "The sacred belief is that we are all related," said Mel Brewster, an archaeologist and historic preservation officer for Utah's Goshute tribe.
Range Creek differs from other, better-known ancient sites in Utah, Arizona or Colorado because it has been left virtually untouched by looters, with the ground still littered in places with arrowheads, beads and pottery shards.
"You could stand right on it and not know it," said Corinne Springer, an archaeologist and Range Creek's new caretaker.
Until recently, Range Creek was all but unknown. An expedition from Harvard's Peabody Museum made a stop in 1929, but visited only a few sites. In recent summers, archaeologists and graduate students have quietly conducted a labor-intensive survey — keeping the area's full significance under wraps until news reports surfaced about the land transfer in June.
Archaeologists have documented about 300 sites — pit houses, granaries and petroglyphs — but they've surveyed only about 5 percent of the canyon drainage.
Among recent finds: a paddle-like wood shovel; a rare bundle of arrow shafts, found wedged in a canyon wall; a perfectly preserved beehive-shaped granary with a cap stone, still a third full with piles of parched wild grass seed and corn; and a pair of human remains from surrounding federal land.
To safeguard the canyon, the Utah Natural Resources Department is rushing to adopt a management plan that will restrict hunting, prohibit camping and require visitors to get permits and guides. The state Legislature also appropriated $152,000 for ground patrols and aircraft surveillance.
So far, the canyon's subtle charms tell two tales: traces of larger villages just off the canyon bottom and defensive retreats as high as 900 feet atop pinnacle and mesa tops, Jones said.
Archaeologists believe more carbon-dating will show the Fremont retreated to the higher positions toward the end of their tenure here, suggesting they were feeling pressure from other tribes moving through their territory.
The Fremont would have used ladders, ropes or cords to reach some of their granaries, set at impossible heights "where you risk life and limb getting to them," Utah journalist and archaeologist Jerry Spangler said.
___
On the Net:
More of the Fremont: http://gocalifornia.about.com/cs/fremont
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Fremont
Adapted from: Madsen, David B. 1989. Exploring the Fremont. Utah Museum of Natural History/University of Utah, Salt Lake City.
Originally considered to be an inferior, out-back branch of the well studied Anasazi culture, the Fremont are now considered to be a distinct and unique prehistoric culture that once inhabited the western Colorado Plateau and the eastern Great Basin. This confusion stemmed largely from the wide variety of lifestyles represented in the Fremont archaeological record, indicating that the people we now call Fremont were less socially organized than their Anasazi counterparts, but also highly adaptable. "Fremont" is actually a catch-all term used to describe scattered groups of hunters and farmers as diverse as the landscapes they inhabited and somewhat difficult to classify. In fact, anthropologist David B. Madsen (1989) states that the name Fremont "may be more reflective of our own need to categorize things than it is a reflection of how closely related these people were" and that "variation is the key word in describing them." Thus there is not a distinctly defined Fremont lifestyle, as some were settled farmers, and some were nomads, and still others shifted between these lifestyles, either seasonally or over the course of a lifetime. It is possible that people living in the region spoke several dialects or even different languages. Yet, although the Fremont do not fit into standard archaeological classification schemes as easily as other ancient cultures, certain behaviors and living patterns tie this variable cultural group together.
Most archaeologists believe that between 2500 and 1500 years ago, the existing groups of hunter-gatherers on the Colorado Plateau and eastern Great Basin gradually developed into the Fremont. By 2000 years ago, corn and other cultivated plants were being grown east and west of the central Wasatch Plateau in what is now central Utah, although these early Fremont farmers did not build settled villages, but remained nomadic for most of the year. Farming and the associated pottery making gradually spread from this region to the rest of the Fremont area, which includes most of present day Utah and extends well into central Nevada, and slightly into southern Idaho and western Colorado. By 750 A.D., settled village life had developed in the heart of the Fremont region, with a number of farming villages consisting of semi-subterranean timber and mud pithouses and above-ground granaries. Fremont farming techniques appear to have been as sophisticated as those of other contemporary farming societies, involving water diversion techniques such as irrigation. This lifestyle continued relatively unchanged along the drainages on the sides of the Wasatch Plateau for about 500 years, although hunting and gathering remained important, especially on the fringes of the Fremont region.
Archaeologists studying the Fremont have found only four distinct artifact categories which readily identify this society from others of its time, since pithouse design, horticulture, and projectile points were similar across cultures of this era. The four "classic" Fremont artifacts are as follows: 1) a unique one-rod-and-bundle basketry style, 2) moccasins constructed with the dew claws a deer or mountain sheep forming the heel, 3) a distinctive art style used in pictographs, petroglyphs, and clay figures depicting trapezoidal human figures bedecked in necklaces and blunt hairstyles, and 4) thin-walled gray pottery. Fremont archaeology sites, ranging from villages to small camp-sites, have been identified in virtually every ecosystem of the Great Basin/Colorado Plateau region. Artifacts such as snare traps, rabbit nets, fur clothing, leather mittens and pouches, and bows and arrows attest to the complex and diverse adaptations the Fremont people developed in order to reside in this imposing environment.
Due to generally favorable climatic conditions and a culminating indigenous knowledge of the area, the era between roughly 700 A.D. and 1250 A.D. was the height of Fremont culture, as well as other southwestern prehistoric cultures. The Fremont's southern neighbors, the Anasazi, also flourished during this time. With few exceptions, the Anasazi inhabited the south-central portion of the Colorado Plateau, particularly the Four Corners region, while the Fremont culture did not extend south of the Colorado River. In fact, Colorado Plateau Fremont sites are less common than Great Basin sites and are generally smaller and less developed, while Great Basin sites tend to be larger and more village-like. The nature of the interface between the Fremont and the Anasazi remains a fascinating archaeological question: How much interaction existed between these people? A handful of sites in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and the Henry Mountains near the current Arizona/Utah border indicate cultural mingling between the two groups, including trade and even possible intermarriage. Generally speaking, however, Anasazi archaeological features diminish and Fremont features increase as one moves north along the Green River.
Between 1250 and 1500 A.D., the Fremont culture vanished. As in the case of the Anasazi collapse, the exact reasons for this disappearance are not known, but there are several possible factors which likely worked together to bring about this change. Climatic changes, including decreased precipitation, may have forced the Fremont to increasingly rely on wild food resources as farming became difficult. In addition, Numic-speaking peoples, the ancestors of the Ute, Paiute and Shoshoni peoples, are believed to have migrated into the region around this time, and may have displaced the Fremont in the competition for limited resources, or absorbed the Fremont into their own culture. Whatever the case for the Fremont demise, it is clear that these resourceful and impressive ancients had great knowledge of the land that they inhabited, allowing them to thrive for over fifteen hundred years. Today, the Fremont Indian State Park in Clear Creek, south-central Utah, protects the largest Fremont site ever excavated in Utah, including forty pithouses, twenty granaries and countless artifacts and rock art panels. Other notable Fremont archaeology sites include those found in Dinosaur National Monument, and Zion and Arches National Parks.
Resources:
Barnes, F. A. 1989. Canyon country prehistoric rock art: An illustrated guide to viewing, understanding and appreciating the rock art of the prehistoric Indian cultures of Utah, the Great Basin and the general Four Corners region. Wasatch Publishers, Salt Lake City, UT.
Coltrain, J. B. 1993. Fremont corn agriculture: A pilot stable carbon isotope study. Utah Archaeology 6: 49-55.
Fawcett, W. B. 1999. Transitions between farming, hunting & gathering along the Fremont/Puebloan frontier: archaeological evidence from Coombs Cave and field near Moab, Utah. Contributions to Anthropology No. 26. Utah State University, Logan.
Geib, P. R. and Bungart, P. W. 1989. Implications of early bow use in Glen Canyon. Utah Archaeology 2: 32-47.
Houk, R. 1988. Dwellers of the Rainbow: Story of the Fremont Culture in the Capitol Reef Country. Capitol Reef Natural History Association, Torrey, UT, 63 pp.
Janetski., J. C. 1997. Fremont hunting and resource intensification in the eastern Great Basin. Journal of Archaeological Science 24: 1075-1088.
Madsen, D. B. 1989. Exploring the Fremont. Utah Museum of Natural History/University of Utah, Salt Lake City, 70 pp.
Madsen, D. B. and Simms, S. R. 1998. The Fremont complex: A behavioral perspective. Journal of World Prehistory 12: 255-336.
Marwitt, J. P., editor. 1973. Median Village and Fremont culture regional variation. Anthropological Papers Number 95. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
McDonald, E. K. 1994. A spatial and temporal examination of prehistoric interaction in the eastern Great Basin and on the northern Colorado Plateau. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Colorado, Boulder.
Metcalfe, D. and Larrabee, L. V. 1985. Fremont irrigation: Evidence from Gooseberry Valley, Central Utah. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 7: 244-254.
Schroedl, A. R. and Hogan, P. F. 1975. Innocents Ridge and the San Rafael Fremont. Antiquities Section Selected Papers Vol.1, No. 2. Utah Division of State History, Salt Lake City.
Sharp, N. D. 1990. Fremont and Anasazi resource selection: An examination of faunal assemblage variation in the northern Southwest. Kiva 56: 45-65.
Talbot, R. K. and Wilde, J. D. 1989. Giving form to the Formative: Shifting settlement patterns in the eastern Great Basin and northern Colorado Plateau. Utah Archaeology 2: 3-18.
Winter, J. C. 1973. The distribution and development of Fremont Maize agriculture: Some preliminary interpretations. American Antiquity 4: 439-452.
Adapted from: Madsen, David B. 1989. Exploring the Fremont. Utah Museum of Natural History/University of Utah, Salt Lake City.
Originally considered to be an inferior, out-back branch of the well studied Anasazi culture, the Fremont are now considered to be a distinct and unique prehistoric culture that once inhabited the western Colorado Plateau and the eastern Great Basin. This confusion stemmed largely from the wide variety of lifestyles represented in the Fremont archaeological record, indicating that the people we now call Fremont were less socially organized than their Anasazi counterparts, but also highly adaptable. "Fremont" is actually a catch-all term used to describe scattered groups of hunters and farmers as diverse as the landscapes they inhabited and somewhat difficult to classify. In fact, anthropologist David B. Madsen (1989) states that the name Fremont "may be more reflective of our own need to categorize things than it is a reflection of how closely related these people were" and that "variation is the key word in describing them." Thus there is not a distinctly defined Fremont lifestyle, as some were settled farmers, and some were nomads, and still others shifted between these lifestyles, either seasonally or over the course of a lifetime. It is possible that people living in the region spoke several dialects or even different languages. Yet, although the Fremont do not fit into standard archaeological classification schemes as easily as other ancient cultures, certain behaviors and living patterns tie this variable cultural group together.
Most archaeologists believe that between 2500 and 1500 years ago, the existing groups of hunter-gatherers on the Colorado Plateau and eastern Great Basin gradually developed into the Fremont. By 2000 years ago, corn and other cultivated plants were being grown east and west of the central Wasatch Plateau in what is now central Utah, although these early Fremont farmers did not build settled villages, but remained nomadic for most of the year. Farming and the associated pottery making gradually spread from this region to the rest of the Fremont area, which includes most of present day Utah and extends well into central Nevada, and slightly into southern Idaho and western Colorado. By 750 A.D., settled village life had developed in the heart of the Fremont region, with a number of farming villages consisting of semi-subterranean timber and mud pithouses and above-ground granaries. Fremont farming techniques appear to have been as sophisticated as those of other contemporary farming societies, involving water diversion techniques such as irrigation. This lifestyle continued relatively unchanged along the drainages on the sides of the Wasatch Plateau for about 500 years, although hunting and gathering remained important, especially on the fringes of the Fremont region.
Archaeologists studying the Fremont have found only four distinct artifact categories which readily identify this society from others of its time, since pithouse design, horticulture, and projectile points were similar across cultures of this era. The four "classic" Fremont artifacts are as follows: 1) a unique one-rod-and-bundle basketry style, 2) moccasins constructed with the dew claws a deer or mountain sheep forming the heel, 3) a distinctive art style used in pictographs, petroglyphs, and clay figures depicting trapezoidal human figures bedecked in necklaces and blunt hairstyles, and 4) thin-walled gray pottery. Fremont archaeology sites, ranging from villages to small camp-sites, have been identified in virtually every ecosystem of the Great Basin/Colorado Plateau region. Artifacts such as snare traps, rabbit nets, fur clothing, leather mittens and pouches, and bows and arrows attest to the complex and diverse adaptations the Fremont people developed in order to reside in this imposing environment.
Due to generally favorable climatic conditions and a culminating indigenous knowledge of the area, the era between roughly 700 A.D. and 1250 A.D. was the height of Fremont culture, as well as other southwestern prehistoric cultures. The Fremont's southern neighbors, the Anasazi, also flourished during this time. With few exceptions, the Anasazi inhabited the south-central portion of the Colorado Plateau, particularly the Four Corners region, while the Fremont culture did not extend south of the Colorado River. In fact, Colorado Plateau Fremont sites are less common than Great Basin sites and are generally smaller and less developed, while Great Basin sites tend to be larger and more village-like. The nature of the interface between the Fremont and the Anasazi remains a fascinating archaeological question: How much interaction existed between these people? A handful of sites in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and the Henry Mountains near the current Arizona/Utah border indicate cultural mingling between the two groups, including trade and even possible intermarriage. Generally speaking, however, Anasazi archaeological features diminish and Fremont features increase as one moves north along the Green River.
Between 1250 and 1500 A.D., the Fremont culture vanished. As in the case of the Anasazi collapse, the exact reasons for this disappearance are not known, but there are several possible factors which likely worked together to bring about this change. Climatic changes, including decreased precipitation, may have forced the Fremont to increasingly rely on wild food resources as farming became difficult. In addition, Numic-speaking peoples, the ancestors of the Ute, Paiute and Shoshoni peoples, are believed to have migrated into the region around this time, and may have displaced the Fremont in the competition for limited resources, or absorbed the Fremont into their own culture. Whatever the case for the Fremont demise, it is clear that these resourceful and impressive ancients had great knowledge of the land that they inhabited, allowing them to thrive for over fifteen hundred years. Today, the Fremont Indian State Park in Clear Creek, south-central Utah, protects the largest Fremont site ever excavated in Utah, including forty pithouses, twenty granaries and countless artifacts and rock art panels. Other notable Fremont archaeology sites include those found in Dinosaur National Monument, and Zion and Arches National Parks.
Resources:
Barnes, F. A. 1989. Canyon country prehistoric rock art: An illustrated guide to viewing, understanding and appreciating the rock art of the prehistoric Indian cultures of Utah, the Great Basin and the general Four Corners region. Wasatch Publishers, Salt Lake City, UT.
Coltrain, J. B. 1993. Fremont corn agriculture: A pilot stable carbon isotope study. Utah Archaeology 6: 49-55.
Fawcett, W. B. 1999. Transitions between farming, hunting & gathering along the Fremont/Puebloan frontier: archaeological evidence from Coombs Cave and field near Moab, Utah. Contributions to Anthropology No. 26. Utah State University, Logan.
Geib, P. R. and Bungart, P. W. 1989. Implications of early bow use in Glen Canyon. Utah Archaeology 2: 32-47.
Houk, R. 1988. Dwellers of the Rainbow: Story of the Fremont Culture in the Capitol Reef Country. Capitol Reef Natural History Association, Torrey, UT, 63 pp.
Janetski., J. C. 1997. Fremont hunting and resource intensification in the eastern Great Basin. Journal of Archaeological Science 24: 1075-1088.
Madsen, D. B. 1989. Exploring the Fremont. Utah Museum of Natural History/University of Utah, Salt Lake City, 70 pp.
Madsen, D. B. and Simms, S. R. 1998. The Fremont complex: A behavioral perspective. Journal of World Prehistory 12: 255-336.
Marwitt, J. P., editor. 1973. Median Village and Fremont culture regional variation. Anthropological Papers Number 95. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
McDonald, E. K. 1994. A spatial and temporal examination of prehistoric interaction in the eastern Great Basin and on the northern Colorado Plateau. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Colorado, Boulder.
Metcalfe, D. and Larrabee, L. V. 1985. Fremont irrigation: Evidence from Gooseberry Valley, Central Utah. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 7: 244-254.
Schroedl, A. R. and Hogan, P. F. 1975. Innocents Ridge and the San Rafael Fremont. Antiquities Section Selected Papers Vol.1, No. 2. Utah Division of State History, Salt Lake City.
Sharp, N. D. 1990. Fremont and Anasazi resource selection: An examination of faunal assemblage variation in the northern Southwest. Kiva 56: 45-65.
Talbot, R. K. and Wilde, J. D. 1989. Giving form to the Formative: Shifting settlement patterns in the eastern Great Basin and northern Colorado Plateau. Utah Archaeology 2: 3-18.
Winter, J. C. 1973. The distribution and development of Fremont Maize agriculture: Some preliminary interpretations. American Antiquity 4: 439-452.
Yankees Blast Pedro in Rout of Red Sox
Mon Sep 20, 7:53 AM ET
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By The Associated Press
The New York Yankees (news) felt a renewed sense of confidence after romping past the Boston Red Sox (news) for the second game in a row.
AP Photo
"We just feel like we're the best team in baseball," outfielder Gary Sheffield said.
The Yankees certainly played that way in the last two games of the three-game series, including an 11-1 victory Sunday. New York outscored their rivals 25-5 the past two days after a deflating loss Friday night, when Mariano Rivera blew a ninth-inning lead.
"We take a lot of pride in coming back with intensity," captain Alex Rodriguez said.
Gary Sheffield, Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada homered off an ineffective Pedro Martinez, and Mike Mussina gave the resilient Yankees another excellent outing as New York opened a 4 1/2-game lead in the AL East.
"They put us in the rearview mirror a little bit," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said.
The Yankees have their largest lead over Boston since before games of Aug. 31. The teams play another three-game set this weekend at Fenway Park.
By then, the Red Sox might be too far back to catch New York, though they still have a 5 1/2-game lead over Anaheim in the wild-card race.
"If we get to the playoffs, believe me, we're not going to be the ones who are scared," Martinez said.
In other AL games, it was: Minnesota 5, Baltimore 1; Oakland 2, Seattle 1; Texas 1, Anaheim 0; Chicago 6, Detroit 1; Toronto 9, Tampa Bay 7; and Cleveland 8, Kansas City 3.
At New York, Mussina (12-9) allowed one run and seven hits and struck out eight in seven innings, winning his third straight start since losing a career-worst five consecutive decisions. He was sidelined from July 7 to Aug. 10 with a stiff right elbow, but has a 1.20 ERA in his last four outings spanning 30 innings.
"If I'm not at 100 percent, then I can't wait until I get there," he said.
Martinez (16-7) lasted only five-plus innings and allowed eight runs, matching a season worst.
"I wasn't actually hitting my targets and made a couple of mistakes," he said. "Some of them were good pitches that they hit. Some of the others were just my fault."
Boston lost its first series since dropping two of three Aug. 13-15 against the White Sox. The Red Sox also lost consecutive games for only the second time since Aug. 7.
"This team doesn't get demoralized. This is the Sox," first baseman Kevin Millar said. "We're family in this clubhouse and we'll be ready to roll tomorrow night."
Twins 5, Orioles 1
At Minneapolis, Johan Santana won his 11th straight start with another dominant performance, striking out a career-high 14 over eight shutout innings for Minnesota.
By winning his 12th consecutive decision, Santana (19-6) tied a Twins team record. Santana allowed seven hits and didn't walk a batter, extending his scoreless inning streak to 30.
Michael Restovich hit a two-run homer, and Luis Rivas and Henry Blanco each had solo shots for the Twins, who could clinch their third straight AL Central title with a victory Monday at Chicago against the White Sox.
Athletics 2, Mariners 1
At Seattle, Eric Chavez and Erubiel Durazo each drove in runs, and Mark Redman (11-12) outpitched Bobby Madritsch (5-3) as Oakland pulled three games ahead of Anaheim in the AL West.
Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki was hitless in four at-bats and walked, holding his season hits total at 236. With 13 games remaining, he needs 22 more to break the major league record set by George Sisler in 1920.
Rangers 1, Angels 0
At Anaheim, Calif., rookie Chris Young (2-2) allowed five hits in six innings, Kevin Mench hit a run-scoring single and the Rangers shut out the Angels for the second straight day.
It's the first time since Sept. 28-29, 1992, against Kansas City that the Angels were shut out by the same team in consecutive home games.
White Sox 6, Tigers 1
At Chicago, Paul Konerko and Carlos Lee homered, and Freddy Garcia pitched shutout ball into the eighth inning.
Garcia (12-11) allowed one run and six hits, struck out eight and walked three in 7 1-3 innings.
Blue Jays 9, Devil Rays 7
At Toronto, Vernon Wells homered in a five-run third inning and Guillermo Quiroz had two RBIs for the Blue Jays, who moved two games behind fourth-place Tampa Bay in the AL East.
Aubrey Huff and Tino Martinez homered for the Devil Rays, who are trying to avoid a last-place finish for the first time in their seven-year history.
Indians 8, Royals 3
At Cleveland, Ben Broussard hit a three-run homer to help Kyle Denney (1-1) earn his first major league win for the Indians
Mon Sep 20, 7:53 AM ET
Add Sports - AP to My Yahoo!
By The Associated Press
The New York Yankees (news) felt a renewed sense of confidence after romping past the Boston Red Sox (news) for the second game in a row.
AP Photo
"We just feel like we're the best team in baseball," outfielder Gary Sheffield said.
The Yankees certainly played that way in the last two games of the three-game series, including an 11-1 victory Sunday. New York outscored their rivals 25-5 the past two days after a deflating loss Friday night, when Mariano Rivera blew a ninth-inning lead.
"We take a lot of pride in coming back with intensity," captain Alex Rodriguez said.
Gary Sheffield, Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada homered off an ineffective Pedro Martinez, and Mike Mussina gave the resilient Yankees another excellent outing as New York opened a 4 1/2-game lead in the AL East.
"They put us in the rearview mirror a little bit," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said.
The Yankees have their largest lead over Boston since before games of Aug. 31. The teams play another three-game set this weekend at Fenway Park.
By then, the Red Sox might be too far back to catch New York, though they still have a 5 1/2-game lead over Anaheim in the wild-card race.
"If we get to the playoffs, believe me, we're not going to be the ones who are scared," Martinez said.
In other AL games, it was: Minnesota 5, Baltimore 1; Oakland 2, Seattle 1; Texas 1, Anaheim 0; Chicago 6, Detroit 1; Toronto 9, Tampa Bay 7; and Cleveland 8, Kansas City 3.
At New York, Mussina (12-9) allowed one run and seven hits and struck out eight in seven innings, winning his third straight start since losing a career-worst five consecutive decisions. He was sidelined from July 7 to Aug. 10 with a stiff right elbow, but has a 1.20 ERA in his last four outings spanning 30 innings.
"If I'm not at 100 percent, then I can't wait until I get there," he said.
Martinez (16-7) lasted only five-plus innings and allowed eight runs, matching a season worst.
"I wasn't actually hitting my targets and made a couple of mistakes," he said. "Some of them were good pitches that they hit. Some of the others were just my fault."
Boston lost its first series since dropping two of three Aug. 13-15 against the White Sox. The Red Sox also lost consecutive games for only the second time since Aug. 7.
"This team doesn't get demoralized. This is the Sox," first baseman Kevin Millar said. "We're family in this clubhouse and we'll be ready to roll tomorrow night."
Twins 5, Orioles 1
At Minneapolis, Johan Santana won his 11th straight start with another dominant performance, striking out a career-high 14 over eight shutout innings for Minnesota.
By winning his 12th consecutive decision, Santana (19-6) tied a Twins team record. Santana allowed seven hits and didn't walk a batter, extending his scoreless inning streak to 30.
Michael Restovich hit a two-run homer, and Luis Rivas and Henry Blanco each had solo shots for the Twins, who could clinch their third straight AL Central title with a victory Monday at Chicago against the White Sox.
Athletics 2, Mariners 1
At Seattle, Eric Chavez and Erubiel Durazo each drove in runs, and Mark Redman (11-12) outpitched Bobby Madritsch (5-3) as Oakland pulled three games ahead of Anaheim in the AL West.
Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki was hitless in four at-bats and walked, holding his season hits total at 236. With 13 games remaining, he needs 22 more to break the major league record set by George Sisler in 1920.
Rangers 1, Angels 0
At Anaheim, Calif., rookie Chris Young (2-2) allowed five hits in six innings, Kevin Mench hit a run-scoring single and the Rangers shut out the Angels for the second straight day.
It's the first time since Sept. 28-29, 1992, against Kansas City that the Angels were shut out by the same team in consecutive home games.
White Sox 6, Tigers 1
At Chicago, Paul Konerko and Carlos Lee homered, and Freddy Garcia pitched shutout ball into the eighth inning.
Garcia (12-11) allowed one run and six hits, struck out eight and walked three in 7 1-3 innings.
Blue Jays 9, Devil Rays 7
At Toronto, Vernon Wells homered in a five-run third inning and Guillermo Quiroz had two RBIs for the Blue Jays, who moved two games behind fourth-place Tampa Bay in the AL East.
Aubrey Huff and Tino Martinez homered for the Devil Rays, who are trying to avoid a last-place finish for the first time in their seven-year history.
Indians 8, Royals 3
At Cleveland, Ben Broussard hit a three-run homer to help Kyle Denney (1-1) earn his first major league win for the Indians
