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DONALD TRUMP HAS MET HIS MATCH
RANDEEP RAMESH, GUARDIAN - In the most conspicuous sign yet of India's
unprecedented prosperity, the country's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, is
building a new home in the financial hub of Mumbai: a 60-story palace
with helipad, health club and six floors of car parking. The building,
named Antilla after a mythical island, will have a total floor area
greater than Versailles and be home for Mr Ambani, his mother, wife,
three children and 600 full-time staff.
Draped in hanging gardens, the building will have a floor for a home
theatre, a glass-fronted apartment for guests, and a two-storey health
club. As the ceilings are three times as high as a normal building's,
the 173m (570ft) tower will only have 27 floors.
With property prices rocketing, the building is already worth more than
L500m. It is expected to be ready for the Ambanis to move in next year.
. .
Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Group is India's largest private company, with
interests in oil, retail and biotechnology. The 50-year-old became the
country's first rupee trillionaire this week, taking his net worth to
L14bn. . .
"Our wealthiest citizens used to hide their money," said Hafeez
Contractor, a Mumbai-based architect. "They would not drive their
Mercedes, they lived in small apartments. Even Mr Ambani's father lived
in a small block of flats. They were afraid of the taxman. But that
attitude has gone; Mukesh has made his money, and good for him if he
wants to flaunt it."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0,,2092811,00.html
MUMBAIR MIRROR - The first six floors - which have come up - will be
reserved for parking alone, and that too for cars belonging only to
Mukesh's family.
Sources said the Ambanis would prefer to have all their cars serviced
and maintained at an in-house service centre. This centre will be set up
on the seventh floor.
The eighth floor will have an entertainment centre comprising a
mini-theatre with a seating capacity of 50.
The rooftop of the mini-theatre will serve as a garden, and immediately
above that, three more balconies with terrace gardens will be
independent floors.
While the ninth floor will a 'refuge' floor - meant to be used for
rescue in emergencies - two floors above that will be set aside for
'health.' One of these will have facilities for athletics and a swimming
pool, while the other will have a health club complete with the latest
gym equipment.
There will be a two-storeyd glass-fronted apartment for the Ambani
family's guests above the health floors. One more refuge floor and one
floor for mechanical works will be built on top of these apartments.
The four floors at the top, that will provide a view of the Arabian Sea
and a superb view of the city's skyline, will be for Mukesh, his wife
Neeta, their three children and Mukesh's mother Kokilaben.
According to the plan, two floors above the family's residence will be
set aside as maintenance areas, and on top of that will be an "air space
floor," which will act as a control room for helicopters landing on the
helipad above. The plan states that three helipads are to be built on
the terrace.
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.aspx?Page=article§id=
15&contentid=20070530022210718d7460de5
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DENVER TRIES TO APPROACH FOR FOSTER CHILDREN
STUART STEERS, ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS - Denver has become a national model
for the Family to Family philosophy, which marks the biggest change in
child welfare in a generation. Under the system, when children are
removed from a home, social workers place them with relatives or in
foster homes in their neighborhoods, rather than in institutions or with
foster parents far from home. As recently as four years ago, the
majority of children removed from a dangerous home environment in Denver
were first placed in group homes. Today 62 percent go to live with
relatives. . .
"We feel like we have good news," said Roxane White, Denver's manager of
human services. According to White, the rate of "re-abuse" - children
coming back into the system because of abuse or neglect - is just over 2
percent in Denver, vs. a national average of 6 percent.
But some see Denver's motivation in adopting Family to Family as a
desire to save money and say the city is sending children back into
unhealthy families.
"This is all a smoke screen, the real issue is money," said Bob Agard,
former director of human services in Gilpin County. "They don't want to
spend the money they have to to place kids in quality homes." Agard
believes many of the children that come into Denver's system would be
better off placed in foster families elsewhere.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5560097,00.html
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BOOKSHELF
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FROM THE PALMER RAIDS TO THE PATRIOT ACT
A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America
Chris Finan
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Finan, president of the American Booksellers
Foundation for Free Expression, provides an insightful history of the
long struggle for free speech in America. . . The government has more
than once tried to suppress the First Amendment right to free expression
of suspected radicals, antiwar activists and labor unionists. In
November 1919, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer launched raids during
which 4,000 Americans, mostly immigrants, were rounded up because they
were suspected of being Communists. In 1923, Upton Sinclair went to jail
for the brazen act of reading the First Amendment aloud on Liberty Hill
in San Pedro, Calif. Thirty-four years later, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and
a City Lights bookstore clerk faced trial in San Francisco for selling
Allen Ginsberg's "obscene" book Howl. Finan's tome is chock-full of
would-be tyrants eager to tell others what they might say and think. But
it's also chock-full of heroes (from the ACLU to those brave librarians)
who have refused to be silenced.
.
BOOKLIST - The book is a welcome and much-needed change from the
simplistic good-versus-evil treatment this subject often gets. Could be
the definitive study of a perpetually complex, contentious issue.
ORDER
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0807044288/progressiverevieA/
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
DONALD TRUMP HAS MET HIS MATCH
RANDEEP RAMESH, GUARDIAN - In the most conspicuous sign yet of India's
unprecedented prosperity, the country's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, is
building a new home in the financial hub of Mumbai: a 60-story palace
with helipad, health club and six floors of car parking. The building,
named Antilla after a mythical island, will have a total floor area
greater than Versailles and be home for Mr Ambani, his mother, wife,
three children and 600 full-time staff.
Draped in hanging gardens, the building will have a floor for a home
theatre, a glass-fronted apartment for guests, and a two-storey health
club. As the ceilings are three times as high as a normal building's,
the 173m (570ft) tower will only have 27 floors.
With property prices rocketing, the building is already worth more than
L500m. It is expected to be ready for the Ambanis to move in next year.
. .
Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Group is India's largest private company, with
interests in oil, retail and biotechnology. The 50-year-old became the
country's first rupee trillionaire this week, taking his net worth to
L14bn. . .
"Our wealthiest citizens used to hide their money," said Hafeez
Contractor, a Mumbai-based architect. "They would not drive their
Mercedes, they lived in small apartments. Even Mr Ambani's father lived
in a small block of flats. They were afraid of the taxman. But that
attitude has gone; Mukesh has made his money, and good for him if he
wants to flaunt it."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0,,2092811,00.html
MUMBAIR MIRROR - The first six floors - which have come up - will be
reserved for parking alone, and that too for cars belonging only to
Mukesh's family.
Sources said the Ambanis would prefer to have all their cars serviced
and maintained at an in-house service centre. This centre will be set up
on the seventh floor.
The eighth floor will have an entertainment centre comprising a
mini-theatre with a seating capacity of 50.
The rooftop of the mini-theatre will serve as a garden, and immediately
above that, three more balconies with terrace gardens will be
independent floors.
While the ninth floor will a 'refuge' floor - meant to be used for
rescue in emergencies - two floors above that will be set aside for
'health.' One of these will have facilities for athletics and a swimming
pool, while the other will have a health club complete with the latest
gym equipment.
There will be a two-storeyd glass-fronted apartment for the Ambani
family's guests above the health floors. One more refuge floor and one
floor for mechanical works will be built on top of these apartments.
The four floors at the top, that will provide a view of the Arabian Sea
and a superb view of the city's skyline, will be for Mukesh, his wife
Neeta, their three children and Mukesh's mother Kokilaben.
According to the plan, two floors above the family's residence will be
set aside as maintenance areas, and on top of that will be an "air space
floor," which will act as a control room for helicopters landing on the
helipad above. The plan states that three helipads are to be built on
the terrace.
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.aspx?Page=article§id=
15&contentid=20070530022210718d7460de5
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
DENVER TRIES TO APPROACH FOR FOSTER CHILDREN
STUART STEERS, ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS - Denver has become a national model
for the Family to Family philosophy, which marks the biggest change in
child welfare in a generation. Under the system, when children are
removed from a home, social workers place them with relatives or in
foster homes in their neighborhoods, rather than in institutions or with
foster parents far from home. As recently as four years ago, the
majority of children removed from a dangerous home environment in Denver
were first placed in group homes. Today 62 percent go to live with
relatives. . .
"We feel like we have good news," said Roxane White, Denver's manager of
human services. According to White, the rate of "re-abuse" - children
coming back into the system because of abuse or neglect - is just over 2
percent in Denver, vs. a national average of 6 percent.
But some see Denver's motivation in adopting Family to Family as a
desire to save money and say the city is sending children back into
unhealthy families.
"This is all a smoke screen, the real issue is money," said Bob Agard,
former director of human services in Gilpin County. "They don't want to
spend the money they have to to place kids in quality homes." Agard
believes many of the children that come into Denver's system would be
better off placed in foster families elsewhere.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5560097,00.html
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
BOOKSHELF
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
FROM THE PALMER RAIDS TO THE PATRIOT ACT
A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America
Chris Finan
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Finan, president of the American Booksellers
Foundation for Free Expression, provides an insightful history of the
long struggle for free speech in America. . . The government has more
than once tried to suppress the First Amendment right to free expression
of suspected radicals, antiwar activists and labor unionists. In
November 1919, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer launched raids during
which 4,000 Americans, mostly immigrants, were rounded up because they
were suspected of being Communists. In 1923, Upton Sinclair went to jail
for the brazen act of reading the First Amendment aloud on Liberty Hill
in San Pedro, Calif. Thirty-four years later, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and
a City Lights bookstore clerk faced trial in San Francisco for selling
Allen Ginsberg's "obscene" book Howl. Finan's tome is chock-full of
would-be tyrants eager to tell others what they might say and think. But
it's also chock-full of heroes (from the ACLU to those brave librarians)
who have refused to be silenced.
.
BOOKLIST - The book is a welcome and much-needed change from the
simplistic good-versus-evil treatment this subject often gets. Could be
the definitive study of a perpetually complex, contentious issue.
ORDER
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0807044288/progressiverevieA/
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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