Music

Beautiful Soul
Jesse McCartney

I don't want another pretty face
I don't want just anyone to hold
I don't want my love to go to waste
I want you and your beautiful soul
You're the one I wanna chase
You're the one I wanna hold
I won't let another minute go to waste
I want you and your beautiful soul
I know that you are something special
To you I'd be always faithful
I want to be what you always needed
Then I hope you'll see the heart in me
[Chorus:]
I don't want another pretty face
I don't want just anyone to hold
I don't want my love to go to waste
I want you and your beautiful soul
You're the one I wanna chase
You're the one I wanna hold
I won't let another minute go to waste
I want you and your beautiful soul
Your beautiful soul, yeah
You might need time to think it over
But I'm just fine moving forward
I'll ease your mind
If you give me the chance
I will never make you cry c`mon lets try
[Chorus]
Am I crazy for wanting you
Baby do you think you could want me too
I don't wanna waste your time
Do you see things the way I do
I just wanna know that you feel it too
There is nothing left to hide
[Chorus]
I don't want another pretty face
I don't want just anyone to hold
I don't want my love to go to waste
I want you and your beautiful soul
You're the one I wanna chase
You're the one I wanna hold
I won't let another minute go to waste
I want you and your soul
I don't want another pretty face
I don't want just anyone to hold
I don't want my love to go waste
I want you and your beautiful soul
ooooooo
Beautiful Soul, yeah
oooooo, yeah
Your beautiful soul
yeah

NEW YORK

New york
he word "panic" has historically been blacklisted in baseball, and for good reason. To acknowledge it means feeling it, surrendering to it and making decisions based on its overwhelming presence.
No one wants to admit they're panicking, but what else can the Yankees' summoning of rookie Phil Hughes from Triple-A be except just that -- panic, following a disastrous weekend sweep at Fenway?
Even using the milder description (worry) or the politically correct term (concern) doesn't minimize the Yankees' crisis. Losers of four straight, the Bombers are getting just 4.9 innings per appearance from their starters, which the Elias Sports Bureau says is last in the majors.
Everyone is hurt, including Mike Mussina, Carl Pavano and Chien-Ming Wang, who finally comes off the disabled list tonight against Tampa Bay. But the franchise's foundation was further rocked on Friday when Mariano Rivera blew a disastrous save against the Red Sox, and was clocked at just 88 mph on the radar gun.
The rest of the bullpen has been so unreliable that Andy Pettitte has already made two relief appearances. The other relievers, it seems, are just waiting for their next flogging, with no cure on the horizon.
No one's going to clone Aaron Small's 10-0 miracle performance in 2005. The landscape is so littered with problems, even Randy Johnson's 5.00 ERA looks good in retrospect.
Through it all, however, the Yankees vowed they wouldn't dare touch Hughes, the farm system's shining star. Some scouts liken the kid to a young John Smoltz, which is why GM Brian Cashman promised -- no, insisted -- that Hughes wasn't ready for the big leagues. Not at age 20.
But 17 games into the season, the Yankees have rewritten the business plan, calling up Hughes from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. He'll start Thursday in the Bronx against the Blue Jays with the chance to become a permanent fixture in the rotation.
Did the Yankees panic? Cashman says no, not exactly. But in a telephone interview on Monday, he admitted: "With the injuries we've had over the last three weeks, it just necessitated the move. Our needs overmatched his development process.''
Hughes has had mixed results in the minors, pitching effectively in his first start, getting roughed up in his second, before finally mixing and matching his weapons to perfection in overwhelming Syracuse. In six scoreless innings, he allowed just two hits and struck out 10. Pitching coach Dave Eiland told the Scranton Times-Tribune, "If [Hughes] pitches the way he pitched the last time in Syracuse, he's not going to have any problems."
Of course, there's a wide gulf between Triple-A hitters and facing big leaguers in Yankee Stadium. The obvious question is whether Hughes is really ready, his talent and outward poise aside. The last time the Yankees relied on a rookie in a pressure situation, the results were monumentally bad.
Chase Wright, making only his second major league start, gave up four consecutive home runs Sunday night in Fenway. He was mercifully returned to the minors on Monday morning, and it's anyone's guess what kind of psychological scarring he has suffered.
What was so disheartening for the Yankees is that the weekend could've been so profitable. They scored four runs in the first two innings against previously unhittable Josh Beckett on Saturday. And the next night, the Bombers punctured the myth of Daisuke Matsuzaka's invincibility, ambushing him for six runs in seven innings.
But the Yankees couldn't win either game, which prompted some players to quietly question why Cashman had yet to address the roster's glaring deficiencies. As one veteran put it, "What we have right now, I'm not sure it's enough."
The player said the Yankees need a two-step remedy. The first is calling up Hughes, the second is making sure the Bombers don't get outbid for Roger Clemens the way they were for Matsuzaka.
"I wouldn't say this is one of the better Yankee teams of the last few years."
-- A major league executive
Hughes and Clemens could, theoretically, fix what's wrong with an old, fragile rotation. Even when Mussina returns from the DL, he'll have to prove he can throw harder than 85 mph. At 38, it's fair to wonder if Mussina's diminished velocity is nothing more serious than a sluggish April or, more insidiously, an age-related decline.
And Pavano will have to demonstrate he wants to pitch, period. He's reported yet another mysterious injury -- this time it's a forearm strain that keeps "grabbing" -- that kept him off the mound while the Yankees were being swept.
When asked what the Yankees can realistically expect of Pavano -- who swore, hand on his heart, he was healed physically and spiritually in 2007 -- one member of the organization shook his head and said simply, "Who knows."
This isn't exactly the soft landing the Yankees wanted to give Hughes. He's being asked to do more than simply hold his own; the Yankees need him to win decisively. Even beyond that, the Yankees want the kid to succeed where Mussina, Pavano and Kei Igawa have so far failed: restore the Yankees' aura of invincibility, even if it's for one night.
Don't think people aren't noticing how vulnerable they are. One major league executive said, "I wouldn't say this is one of the better Yankee teams of the last few years."
No wonder the Yankees are looking for help. If it's not panic, it's close enough. They're turning a desperate gaze toward Hughes, one that needs no translation: help.

News article

Billionaires Start $60 Million Schools Effort
Eli Broad and Bill Gates, two of the most important philanthropists in American public education, have pumped more than $2 billion into improving schools. But now, dissatisfied with the pace of change, they are joining forces for a $60 million foray into politics in an effort to vault education high onto the agenda of the 2008 presidential race.
Experts on campaign spending said the project would rank as one of the most expensive single-issue initiatives ever in a presidential race, dwarfing, for example, the $22.4 million that the Swift Vets and P.O.W.s for Truth group spent against Senator John Kerry in 2004, and the $7.8 million spent on advocacy that year by AARP, the lobby for older Americans.
Under the slogan "Ed in ’08," the project, called Strong American Schools, will include television and radio advertising in battleground states, an Internet-driven appeal for volunteers and a national network of operatives in both parties.
"I have reached the conclusion as has the Gates foundation, which has done good things also, that all we’re doing is incremental," said Mr. Broad, the billionaire who founded SunAmerica Inc. and KB Home and who has long been a prodigious donor to Democrats. "If we really want to get the job done, we have got to wake up the American people that we have got a real problem and we need real reform."
Mr. Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, responding to questions by e-mail, wrote, "The lack of political and public will is a significant barrier to making dramatic improvements in school and student performance."
The project will not endorse candidates — indeed, it is illegal to do so as a charitable group — but will instead focus on three main areas: a call for stronger, more consistent curriculum standards nationwide; lengthening the school day and year; and improving teacher quality through merit pay and other measures.
While the effort is shying away from some of the most polarizing topics in education, like vouchers, charter schools and racial integration, there is still room for it to spark vigorous debate. Advocating merit pay to reward high-quality teaching could force Democratic candidates to take a stand typically opposed by the teachers unions who are their strong supporters.
Pushing for stronger, more uniform standards, on the other hand, could force Republican candidates to discuss the potential merits of a national curriculum, a concept advocates for states’ rights deeply oppose and one that President Bush has not embraced.
The initiative will be announced today in South Carolina, a day before the first Democratic debate. Similar publicity is scheduled for the first Republican debate early next month in Simi Valley, Calif.
Mr. Bush made education a major theme in 2000, paving the way for the No Child Left Behind law and its emphasis on testing. In 1992, President Bill Clinton proposed an array of education initiatives. But this year the issue is overshadowed by the war in Iraq, terrorism and health care.
"Right now it’s too low on the list of priorities for all the candidates," Mr. Broad said, "and our job is to get it up on the list."
The project’s first print advertisement addresses the national focus head on, showing a student misspelling "A histery of Irak" on a blackboard. "Debating Iraq is tough," the advertisement says. "Spelling it shouldn’t be. America’s schools are falling behind. It’s a crisis that takes leadership to solve. So to all presidential candidates we say, ‘What’s your plan to fix our schools?’ "
The effort will be directed by Roy Romer, the former Democratic governor of Colorado and the recent superintendent of schools in Los Angeles, and by Marc Lampkin, a Republican lobbyist and former deputy campaign manager for Mr. Bush. It will be financed by the billionaires’ respective foundations, which they established with their wives, Melinda Gates and Edythe L. Broad. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is far larger, having disbursed $1.8 billion in education grants compared with $250 million by the Broad Foundation.
Mr. Broad has long been a major political donor, primarily to Democrats, and has been particularly well known as a friend and supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton. He has contributed personally to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign as well as to other Democratic candidates.
Mr. Gates also gives handsomely, though to campaigns in both parties. The two men emphasized that their education advocacy was nonpartisan.
Supporters of the project also include Bob Kerrey, the former Democratic senator from Nebraska; Ken Mehlman, the former Republican Party chairman; and Louis V. Gerstner, the former chief executive of I.B.M. Several of the presidential candidates yesterday applauded the billionaires’ effort, but some bristled at the notion that they were not paying sufficient attention to education.
"I think 70 days into a campaign that has yet to choose any nominees for either party, to make a sweeping kind of analysis that they are not talking about education is probably a little premature," said Kevin Madden, a spokesman for former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, a Republican. "If anybody goes onto the campaign trail with Governor Romney, they’ll recognize that education is an important issue to him and to voters."
A campaign spokesman for Hillary Clinton said Mrs. Clinton was pleased that the issue would get "much-needed attention."
Senator Christopher J. Dodd, a Democratic presidential candidate who has proposed legislation calling for tougher and more uniform education standards, issued a statement praising the Strong American Schools effort. "I look forward to including elements of the Gates-Broad initiative in the current dialogue on how to improve our nation’s schools," Mr. Dodd said.
Bill Hogan, a senior fellow at the Center for Public Integrity and director of the Buying of the President 2008 project, which is scrutinizing the influence of money in the campaign, said the new effort could prove remarkable in its spending level.
"If we are talking about efforts in presidential campaigns to promote discussion or debate of an issue, there has been nothing like this," Mr. Hogan said. "This would be off the charts."

3ºI 2007

If you're ever in a jam, here I am.
If you're ever in a mess, S.O.S.
If you're so happy, you land in jail. I'm your bail.
It's friendship, friendship, just a perfect blendship.
When other friendships are soon forgot, ours will
still be hot.
Da da da da da da dig dig dig.
If you're ever down a well, ring my bell.
If you're ever up a tree, just phone to me.
If you ever loose your teeth when you're out to dine,
borrow mine.
It's friendship, friendship, just a perfect blendship.
When other friendships are soon forgeet, ours will
still be great.
Loddle doddle chuck chuck chaa.
If they ever black you're eyes, put me wise.
If they ever cook your goose, turn me loose.
And if they ever put a bullet through your brain, I'll
complain.
It's friendship, friendship, just a perfect blendship.
When other friendships are soon forgit, ours will
still be it.
Ah loddle doddle hip hap hap.
If you ever loose your mind, I'll be kind.
And if you ever loose your shirt, I'll be hurt.
If you're ever in a mill and get sawed in half, I
won't laugh.
It's friendship, friendship, just a perfect blendship.
When other friendships are are up the crick, ours will
still be slick.
Ah loddle doddle woof woof woof, hep hep hep, chopp
chop chop, dig dig dig.
Good evening friends.

By: Ray Charles