| December sales results affirm nation's retailers fears
The pollsters weren't wrong this time. When it came to the holiday shopping season, consumers voted as cautiously as many prognosticators had forecast -- and the nation's retailers had feared. December sales results poured in yesterday from retail chains selling everything from clothes to jewelry to perfume to toys. The picture that emerged showed consumers avoiding many stores early last month, then turning out for discounts offered closer to Christmas that still didn't drive enough sales to make up for the slow start. Department store operator Macy's posted a deeper-than-expected dip of 7.9 percent in sales at established stores, while discounter Target showed a 5 percent drop and South Side specialty retailer American Eagle Outfitters reported a 2 percent decrease.
Restless retiree
Retirement for Gerry Phelps means reading through her Bible for the 45th time. From her 15th-floor apartment in the RBJ Towers, a low-income senior citizen complex founded by Lyndon Baines Johnson in honor of his mother Rebekah, Phelps can read and enjoy a panoramic view of downtown Austin: capitol dome, corporate towers, the University of Texas campus. The LBJ connection is a nice touch. Phelps despised him and Richard Nixon, and in 1969 went to prison for her role in the botched armed robbery of a liquor store meant to raise funds for a radical, anti-war newspaper. At the time she committed the crime, Phelps was a leftist, working on her Ph.D. and teaching economics at the University of Houston. In prison she became a Christian. In 1976, after serving seven years of a 35-year sentence, she gained parole to San Francisco.
Revered, reviled: a nation divided
SOEHARTO, the military strongman who dominated Indonesia for 32 years, has died in a Jakarta hospital, leaving a nation torn between revering and reviling its former president. One of the region's most influential and controversial figures, he died after his organs failed at 1.10pm yesterday after 21 days on life support in
Pertamina Hospital. His body will be flown to Solo for burial today in a family mausoleum. During his three weeks in hospital, debate raged over whether Soeharto and his family should be pursued for decades of human rights abuses and graft that reaped billions of dollars. Soon after the former president's death, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, with Vice-President Jusuf Kalla alongside both close to tears expressed their condolences "on behalf of this country and Government" in a live television broadcast from the Presidential Palace.
December 2007 Archives
This is NOT something to believe in EVER, much less on New Year's Eve. Don't drink and drive -- it is a big deal. Make the start of 2008 as fantastic as you want the rest of the year to be. Much love and best wishes for a happy and healthy! XOXO Tracy .
Councilman MikeK Recalls Knievel Action Figure
Top: Young MikeK playing with Evel Knievel action figure; bottom: MikeK receives inspiration from his childhood friends before leaving for a Coeur d'Alene City Council meeting. I had a classic Evel Knievel motorcycle riding action figure when I was a kid. The stunts my brothers and I would stage for that motorcycle toy were legendary (riding out a second story window, chasing the dog around the house without getting chewed to ribbons, you name it). RIP Evel. I wonder what happened to Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man who played the role of Evel's arch-nemesis in the boyhood action figure wars?/Councilman MikeK. Question: What was your favorite action figure/doll when you were little? .
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