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George's recalls chicken products
Roughly 1.25 million lbs. of chicken tenders are affected.
MeatPoultry.com, 1/28/2014
by Meat&Poultry Staff
WASHINGTON – George's Inc., Springdale, Ark., recalled approximately 1.25 million lbs. of frozen par-fried chicken tenders due to misbranding and concerns the product contains an undeclared allergen — wheat, the US Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service reported. There have been no reports of illnesses or adverse reactions associated with the product.
The company discovered the problem during a routine label review, according to FSIS. Isolated printer problems caused some labels to print without selected ingredients. The chicken tenders were formulated with wheat, a known allergen, which was not declared on the label. George's has since corrected the issue, FSIS said.
Products impacted by the recall include:
• 10-lb. cases of "George's Uncooked Breaded Chicken Breast Tenderloins" with Case Code 4831 and packaging dates between Feb. 21, 2013 and Dec. 19, 2013.
• 10-lb. cases of "George's Uncooked Chicken Tenderloin Fritters" with Case Code 4861 and packaging dates between Feb. 21, 2013 and Jan. 4, 2014.
• 10-lb. cases of "George's Uncooked Chicken Tenderloin Fritters" with Case Code 4880 and packaging dates between Feb. 21, 2013 and Jul. 19, 2013.
The products bear the establishment number "P-13584" under the USDA Mark of Inspection and were sold to wholesale locations for distribution to institutional customers nationwide.


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11. Lita Ford - 'Living Like a Runaway'
Lita Ford's solo career since the band she joined at age 15, The Runaways disbanded in 1979 has had its ups and downs. Arguably, one of the "downs" was her 2009 release, Wicked Wonderland, produced by her then-husband, Jim Gillette (ex-Nitro vocalist.) How was her 2012 album, Living Like a Runaway different? "The last album was really out of my control, and [this one] is completely in my control," she told About.com Heavy Metal's Chad Bowar in a recent interview. "It's my songwriting, it's my playing, it's my vocals. It was really wonderful making this record." For her fans, the new album is a welcome return to her hard rock roots, containing a suite of songs that tell very personal parts of her life story. Whatever ground she lost with her last album, she has more than made up with her new one.
12. Joe Walsh - 'Analog Man'
Analog Man is Joe Walsh's 10th solo album. That's just one fewer than the number he has made with Eagles, James Gang and Barnstorm. And there's the one he did with REO Speedwagon, and the six he did with Ringo Starr (including one that Walsh also produced.) At last count, he has played at least one song on 26 more albums by other artists, not to mention writing five Eagles songs, including "Life In The Fast Lane" and "In The City." Walsh co-produced this album with Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra and Traveling Wilburys fame.
13. Patti Smith - 'Banga'
Banga is Patti Smith's 11th career release, and includes a tribute to the victims of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, a memorial to Amy Winehouse and a birthday greeting to Johnny Depp. The first single from the album, "April Fool" was released on (when else?) April 1. A 40-show tour of Europe followed the album's release.
14. Strawbs - 'Of a Time'
Strawbs co-founder Dave Cousins reconstructed an album that was rejected by A&M Records in the early '70s and never released. Of a Time was created from the original tapes, and the addition of some bonus tracks. Strawbs were the first British band to sign with A&M but, according to Cousins, the label wasn't expecting the orchestral rock that was prominent on the album.
15. KISS - 'Monster'
Monster is the 20th KISS studio album, and the second to be produced by guitarist-vocalist Paul Stanley. Co-founder Gene Simmons (bass/vocals) says band members collaborated closely on the album, adding "The best thing we did was to turn inwards to ourselves." The other members are longtime veterans Tommy Thayer (guitar) and drummer Eric Singer.
16. Neil Young & Crazy Horse - 'Psychedelic Pill'
Hmmm. I wonder (with apologies to Jeff Airplane) if this is the pill that makes you larger or the one that makes you small? Psychedelic Pill consists of "us jamming and having lots of fun," according to Crazy Horse guitarist Poncho Sampedro in a Rolling Stone interview. As you would expect from a jam, most of the tracks are long -- one runs more than 27 minutes -- requiring two CDs (or three LPs) to hold just nine tracks. This is the second Neil Young release of 2012. The other, Americana was, as the title suggests, something of a polar opposite to this one musically.
17. Bob Dylan - 'Tempest'
You can never be sure of exactly what Bob Dylan will do when he goes on stage to perform on any given night, or when he goes into the studio to produce a new album. The one thing you can be sure of is that he will do whatever he wants to do, without worrying much (if at all) at how it will be received. It isn't just since he became an elder statesman (he turned 71 this year) that Dylan has done his own thing. He's done it for the most of the 50 years since he released his first album. He did it again with his 35th, Tempest, which has a typically Dylanesque twist on life, but from a different perspective than when he was, well, not a senior citizen.
18. Alvin Lee - 'Still on the Road to Freedom'
If you don't know who Alvin Lee is then you're probably not familiar with Ten Years After and thus might not be aware that the "freedom" Lee refers to is that which he found when TYA disbanded in 1974 after eight years on the rock merry-go-round. Lee was co-founder, lead guitarist and vocalist for one of the bands whose performance at Woodstock propelled them to fame and stardom. But Lee felt that commercial success came with a much higher price tag than creative freedom. So, he opted for the latter, with the results in evidence once again in his latest album.
19. Scorpions - 'Comeblack'
In 2010, German hard rockers Scorpions began what was said to have been a final tour, followed by retirement. It turned out that reports of their demise were premature. During a break between tour legs they released a new album in 2012. Comeblack features new arrangements of standards like "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and "Still Loving You" plus covers of some other artists' standards, like Small Faces' "Tin Soldier" and Rolling Stones' "Ruby Tuesday." They plan to come out with another new album in 2013, consisting of previously unreleased tracks that were originally planned for inclusion on earlier albums.
20. Pat Travers - 'Blues on Fire'
Blues rocker Pat Travers points to several blues legends among his strongest musical influences, artists like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Bessie Smith, Tampa Red. Travers pays tribute to these and more artists with his classic rock guitar-driven versions of blues standards like "Nobody's Fault But Mine," "Black Dog Blues" and "Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out."

subset: commoncrawl


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University of Washington coach Jim McLaughlin won a national title coaching the USC men's team. But, long ago, he switched to coaching women, becomming the first coach to ever win NCAA titles with both men and women.
Now, Hugh McCutcheon is doing the same.
I often contribute stories to the Seattle Times; the latest is about McCutcheon's choice and his upcoming visit to Seattle:
Olympic Coach here for Volleyball Clinic
HUGH McCUTCHEON Man who coached U.S. men to 2008 gold will coach women in 2012
by Jack Hamann
special to the Seattle Times
He could have coached any men's volleyball team in the world.
He's decided, instead, to coach women.
Hugh McCutcheon was one of the biggest stories of the Beijing Olympics, leading the U.S. men's team to unexpected gold, despite the murder of his father-in-law the day after the Games' opening ceremonies.
Two weeks ago, McCutcheon announced that he had spurned offers to join the lucrative overseas professional volleyball circuit to become the head coach of the U.S. women's national team.
It was a bittersweet decision.
"Our sport is not like other sports," McCutcheon says, "especially for coaches. There are just not as many opportunities in men's volleyball as in women's.
Not that McCutcheon regrets coaching women. With the sport's popularity at an all-time high, he'll have a vast pool of world-class American athletes to choose from for the 2012 London Olympics. That pool includes several current and former UW Huskies like Courtney Thompson, Candace Lee and Becky Perry, among others. The US women won their second indoor silver medal in Beijing, but have never won the Olympic gold.
Men's volleyball reached its heyday in the 1980s, as teams led by Karch Kiraly dominated the Olympic games and the world. Since then, the number of women's teams playing NCAA volleyball has soared (to more than 1,000 teams and 14,200 athletes), while men's NCAA volleyball has stagnated (just 80 teams and 1,200 athletes.) While every state offers high school girls' volleyball, very few offer the sport for boys. There are no male teams in high school or college in the state of Washington.
"I think it's a shame," says McCutcheon, who points to the large number of football scholarships as one reason why men's Olympic sports are often ignored or overlooked. "In this country, people rarely get a chance to see men play volleyball. It's a very enjoyable sport, not only to play, but to watch."
In general, he acknowledges, the demand for volleyball facilities outstrips the supply. In Washington state, more and more boys have expressed interest in starting teams, but are usually turned away from high school and community center gymnasiums which have already committed space and time to basketball.
Girls' teams face similar shortages, both of facilities for club volleyball, and of coaches qualified to teach the modern physical style of the sport.
McCutcheon will be in the Seattle area this weekend to headline a US Volleyball Association coaching clinic, which also features former US Olympic coaches Doug Beal and Bill Neville, plus Russ Rose, the coach of two-time defending women's NCAA champion Penn State.
"When you have coaches who know all that volleyball has become, more and more people will fall in love with the sport," McCutcheon says.
"We want people to be excited about what we're trying to do."
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Coach men or coach women?
Posted by Jack Hamann | Leslie Hamann, nolittlethings.com ` | 2:55 PM
Labels: Bill Neville, blog, Courtney Thompson, Hugh McCutcheon, Jim McLaughlin, Karch Kiraly, Seattle, University of Washington, USAV, UW, volleyball, Washington
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A man well-known to many Madison residents has been cleared after a complaint about one of his many appearances as what police call the "Thong Cape Scooter Man," according to Madison police.
The 56-year-old man, who is known to police, has been spotted around Madison riding a scooter and wearing a black cape with red trim, a thong, a helmet and nothing else.
Staff at Kennedy Elementary School at 221 Meadowlark Drive complained to police when the man drove past the school on May 16 while students were being let out of class.
When police visited the man about the complaint, he admitted he exercised poor judgment by going past the school during that time of day. He told the officer it was unintentional because he just happened to be traveling through the area.
Police said the officer checked with the City Attorney's Office about issuing a disorderly conduct citation. An assistant city attorney told the officer there had been no violation of any ordinances.


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Basel's wingman, Stan Dai, is equally disarming. Except Dai served as an operations officer in a Department of Defense irregular-warfare fellowship program and may or may not have trained with the Israel Defense Forces. But Dai is a 24-year-old immigrant from China—he's not exactly Jonathan Pollard. O'Keefe doesn't have much to say. What he lacks in social skills he makes up for in creative genius and enormous balls.
Before Election Day there will be more stings. If you are part of a large organization with a vested interest in the Obama administration's success, be afraid.
The inner core of Tea Party consultants I work with don't like to see their names in the news, but we do enjoy a good dark bar. Nearly all are based far from the Beltway. Imagine the rooftop deck of a D.C. steakhouse with about 40 Tea Party celebrities. It's not the stuffy crowd that usually congregates at Morton's. Picture Breitbart holding court with donors in one corner and fake ACORN hooker Hannah Giles in another (too young to drink legally at the time), talking with the even younger doe-eyed, homeschooled daughter of a prominent activist. Though it had been a month since Washington's last snowfall, the rooftop deck still had piles of snow, allowing Maura Flynn to start the first-ever snowball fight inside Morton's bar. Welcome to my Tea Party party.
We make a sport out of confusing the press. I had fake business cards printed to give to reporters. I watched a reporter walk out of a Conservative Political Action Conference reception in mid-February with a fistful of my faux business cards. Feeling a little guilty I told him not to file a story immediately because it would be guaranteed to be dead wrong. He finally published it a month later, after one of our friends charitably spent three hours with him.
At the Tea Party convention in Nashville I was photographed by The Washington Post while meeting with the inner sanctum, but the paper wasn't able to identify us in the caption. The picture captured my chin and arm and my colleague with a mouthful of hamburger as we listened to an Andrzejewski campaign staffer explain why he knows how to run a campaign better. A local blog described him a couple of years ago as a "radically right-wing psychopath." That was generous. In reality he's an Allstate IT guy who should not be allowed near tequila, sharp objects or a campaign.
Causing mayhem is not limited to dealing with the press. We've quietly acquired Service Employees International Union shirts to wear at Tea Party rallies. For big labor, that's like handing out TSA uniforms in Kabul. And at a rally in St. Louis this March, fake SEIU protesters joined the Tea Party protest.
Various Republican congressional leaders met for hours with our leadership and our finance team in the Richard Nixon suite at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington. Never in my career had I had a congressman look me in the eyes behind closed doors and say with such sincerity, "Give me a list of what you need me to do." The second meeting drew 10 congressmen. There we sat, inside the Capitol Hill Club (which shares the building that houses the Republican National Committee), sharing ideas on how we can work together. The third meeting drew 17 congressmen. We'll see help with fundraising and research from friendly members of Congress. It's what you won't see that's more important. Our role is to quietly help a dozen grassroots conservative candidates win in the fall, using traditional and nontraditional means. If you don't hear from us directly, we will have done our job.


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Godwin's diesel driven automatic Dri-Prime® pumps now include the Godwin PrimeGuard Automatic Level Control system on all Tier 2 electronic diesel engines. The Godwin PrimeGuard is a fully programmable microprocessor engine control system allowing for inputs from level, flow, pressure transducers or standard floats. Using any of these systems, your Godwin Dri-Prime® pump can start and stop automatically with no operator intervention required. Call today for more details about Automatic Level Controls for your portable/permanent pumping application.
• High performance, state of the art, touch-sensing digital controller.
• No mechanical switches to wear or stick.
• Manual, automatic, or remote starting capabilities.
• Security levels allow limited to full access of controller functionality.
• Includes 8 programmable relays and 66 selectable features, including pump running, pump failure, and others.
• RS-232 and RS-485 communication ports enable communication with SCADA and other alarm equipment.
• Available as an option for non-electronic diesel engines.
• Capable of auto throttling engine rpm in response to changing pressure/level/flow transducer signals.
• Maintains an "event history" of all warning alarms (up to 32).
• User can pre-set engine rpm to maintain flow and head parameters when running unattended.
• Tracks oil and filter usage and alerts operator when replacement is recommended.
• Diesel engine warm up/cool down cycle available.
The Godwin PrimeGuard is designed to operate from any DC supply from 8-35VDC continuous.


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Lifelong Learning
What do you need to know and how will you learn it?
This Is What Happened When Scholastic Tried to Bring Pro-Coal Propaganda to School
by Bill Bigelowposted Mar 06, 2014
- "The United States of Energy" was a colorful series of lessons on the advantages of coal, aimed at 4th-graders—and sponsored by Big Coal. Here's how educators and activists worked together to get it out of classrooms.
The Radical Homemaker Turns 40
by Shannon Hayesposted Mar 04, 2014
- I've learned to embrace the dreams I most deeply desire, but also the burdens that so often work against them.
Meet the New Rebels Taking Back Our Public Schools
by Sarah van Gelderposted Feb 21, 2014
- For decades the myth of failing public schools justified industrial-scale testing and a privatization agenda. Now radical educators are bursting the bubble test, getting culturally relevant, and restoring justice to the classroom.
Discipline With Dignity: Oakland Classrooms Try Healing Instead of Punishment
by Fania Davisposted Feb 19, 2014
- As executive director of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth, Fania Davis sees programs like hers as part of the way to end the school-to-prison pipeline.
Less "Big Bang Theory," More Dana Scully: What It's Going to Take to Lead More Girls Into Science
by Christopher Zumski Finkeposted Dec 24, 2013
- Only 25 percent of STEM jobs are held by women. YouTube science sensation Emily Graslie on how we can inspire them with better-quality pop-culture role models.
6 Habits of Highly Grateful People
by Jeremy Adam Smithposted Dec 23, 2013
- Wearing yourself down with worry? It's time to thank outside the box.
This Christmas, Try Compassion at the Dinner Table
by YES! online staffposted Dec 20, 2013
- In the spirit of the season, Reverend James Forbes shows us how compassion at the dinner table can bring people from all walks of life together—and reminds us that our work isn't done until that happens.
Getting Past a Knitting Freak Out: Why I Didn't Let My Daughter Quit
by Shannon Hayesposted Nov 01, 2013
- Stepping into the realm of creativity can be scary for little ones. But reward for sticking with it is the powerful feeling of making something beautiful with your own hands.
Kids Can Teach Themselves
posted Oct 21, 2013
- In this TED Talk, 2013 TED Prize Winner Sugata Mitra believes that a child-driven education is the best way for kids to learn. Mitra shares his findings from his Granny Cloud and Hole in the Wall projects.
Georgia Professors Teach Undocumented Students—for Free
by Chris Francisposted May 20, 2013
- Georgia is one of three states that exclude undocumented students from full access to higher education. "Freedom University" operates on the principle that "you can stop me from going to a UGA classroom, but you can't stop a UGA professor from teaching me."
What Our Kids Can Teach Us About Trying Over
by Shannon Hayesposted Mar 15, 2013
- Children's future happiness is not tied to how well they behave or whether they will be able to hold a job. It is tied to their ability to create with their minds and their hands.
Shooting Stars and Living Spirit
by Roberto Vargasposted Feb 01, 2013
Language and Metaphors for a New Cosmology
by Tim Foxposted Feb 01, 2013
You Are Where You Live
by Susan Griffinposted Jan 30, 2013
- How the sky, rain, geography, and cultures of our place shape us.
6 Habits of Highly Empathetic People
by Roman Krznaricposted Jan 10, 2013
- According to new research, empathy is a habit we can cultivate to improve the quality of our own lives. But what is empathy? And how can you expand your own empathetic potential?
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text: The title says it, ask me some questions and I'll try my best to answer them. Any questions, prospects, veterans, how bad IS scope food. I won't be writing about the games this weekend since they are on the road and I wouldn't have an in person write up. If you have time this evening you can catch the game on 1021thegame.com and click listen live, should switch to Admirals stuff around 7.


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Liz Heidelberger has seen kids come and go through the juvenile justice system, often without getting the help they need.
"Kids that go into detention one time have a higher likelihood of going back. They also have a higher likelihood of mixing with kids who have a higher level of offences," said Heidelberger.
Heidelberger, the coordinator of the Juvenile detention alternatives initiative says the idea is to evaluate which youth truly need detention and which could benefit from an alternative placement.
"Alternatives are for kids who are committing misdemeanors, non violent, non person to person crimes like status offences, minor consumption, runway," said Heidelberger.
It's all about putting the right kids in the right place at the right time.
"We rely on psychological evaluations, chemical dependency evaluations to find out what's going on. Biggest challenge is figuring that out those kids who are a risk to the community, and those who just made a bad decision and have something else influencing that," said R.J. Rylance, Deputy State's attorney for the Juvenile docket.
"They'll be visited by officers or get on the ankle monitor, we have the evening reporting center. Or they can be put on house arrest," said Rylance.
But organizers admit, more work needs to be done.
Of the 605 kids accessed in the program since January, 75% were diverted from detention.
More than half of those received no further follow up - in terms of J.D.A.I. alternatives.
"If they come back a few times, we up what we do on our graduated sanctions as well," said Joe Guttierez, Commander of the Western South Dakota Juvenile Services center.
"We deal with kids doing different things, different behaviors, our system has to be malleable," said Heidelberger.
While the program continues to evolve, organizers remain hopeful that countless juveniles will make the most of a second chance.
It costs an average of $225 a night to house a juvenile in the detention facility.
The cost for home detention services / community detention ranges from $8 dollars to $35 dollars a day.
Organizers hope to also add a ten bed shelter to the detention shelter, for runaways or those kids who have no where else to go.
There are more than 100 JDAI sites in 24 different states.
Critics of the initiative say there is not enough accountability or effective alternatives in place to keep kids on the straight and narrow for good, if at all.
When KOTA News asked the Rapid City Police Department for their input, as well as feedback from officers, they declined to comment and referred us to the JDAI coordinator.


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The Middle East is an exciting place to live and work. It has all year sunshine with a good climate for most of the year; it has a remarkable culture and thriving expatriate population. Schools provide free furnished accommodation and tax-free salaries. Those who enjoy the Middle East are accepting of foreign cultures and sensibilities, adaptable, flexible, outgoing and willing to see everyday things from another viewpoint. If this sounds like you, many exciting opportunities might await you in the Middle East!
Find out more about this stunning region in our overview of the area.
"There are islands off the coast of the UAE which I have not explored yet, but hear great things about. The UAE location is ideal. Puts you in the middle of the world. A lot of teachers travel to Europe and the Mediterranean and East Asia. Desert safaris are a lot of fun. Many people take up "sandboarding." or take the 4-wheelers out.
The UAE weather is great about 70% of the year. It's breezy and cool now. Mostly sunny with occasional overcast. Months November - January have been very comfortable.
I have really enjoyed the UAE. The money and weather are great. The food is really tasty. Mostly everything is very modern and clean. It's much more English friendly than Korea was. You do not need to learn Arabic because most people understand English.
LT, American teacher in the Middle East
© Teachanywhere randstad.com terms and conditions privacy policy sitemap


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Cross Country
Winfields Josh Hanna beats teammate Riley Osen for 4A cross country title
When it came to Josh Hannas chance of winning a second straight state individual title, all that everyone associated with the Winfield cross country team knew was that it was uncertain. Full Story →
Girls cross country: Douglass wins another 3A crown
State championships are supposed to earn you a certain level of respect, which the Douglass girls cross country team never felt it received. Full Story →
Carroll boys win fifth straight 5A cross country title
Nearly two years ago, Lucas Clupny made a decision that would come to define the Bishop Carroll cross country program this November. Full Story →
State cross country results (Nov. 2)
Class-by-class results from Saturdays state cross country meets. Full Story →
Kapaun freshman Kelsie Andrews runs straight to the top
If Jennifer Laudick had her way, this Saturday would likely be an uneventful day for her daughter, Kapaun Mount Carmel freshman Kelsie Andrews. Full Story →
Eisenhower girls continue cross country streak
Not many cross country programs can say they have qualified as a team for the state meet every year of their existence. Full Story →
Cross country: Southeast boys are looking to end long drought
Rob Maddux has tried to look, but it's been so long since the Southeast boys cross country team has been to the state meet, he can't find the exact year. Full Story →
Sunday's high school scoreboard (Oct. 20)
High schools Full Story →
Cross country: Kapaun freshman, Carroll senior win City League races
Kapaun Mount Carmel freshman Kelsi Andrews was a winner in her first City League cross country championship Saturday at Cessna Activity Center. Full Story →
Friday's high school results scoreboard (Oct. 18)
High schools Full Story →
Maize girls cross country team gets added motivation
On Nov. 4, Maize cross country coach Skeeter Rankins hopes to come to school in a dress. Full Story →
Saturday's high school scoreboard (Oct. 12)
High Schools Full Story →


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A great review of THE ACCIDENTAL CANDIDATE by Thornwell Simons:
Ever since James. L. Petigru commented on South Carolina's secession from the Union by describing the state as "too small for a Republic and too large for an insane asylum[,]" South Carolina's local politics have had a knack for garnering ridicule, whether it's our former governor deciding to coin an amazing new euphemism when he "hiked the Appalachian Trail" or our current governor's somewhat more upbeat mandate that *all* state agencies answer the phone with "It's a Great Day in South Carolina!"
At first blush, that seems like all there was to the Alvin Greene story — just another momentary blurb for the Daily Show, someone in South Carolina doing yet another thing for John Stewart to crack wise about. There's really a lot more to the story, though; as Axe and Hutchins tell Greene's story, it becomes more about the sorry state of South Carolina politics generally, the history of racial skulduggery, and the questions of corruption that have never been quite answered or settled.
All in all, this ends up being one of the best encapsulations I've ever seen of everything wrong with South Carolina politics. It's incredibly interesting, comic, and, well, if you have to live here, more than a little sad, both for Mr. Greene and for the rest of us as well.
If you want a little more insight into why and how South Carolina's politics don't work, read this book. It's more than just a funny book with pictures.


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BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Authorities say a 12-year-old boy accidentally shot his 8-year-old brother with a gun he found in a closet at his grandparents' Baton Rouge home.
The Advocate reports (http://bit.ly/17PNjgA ) that the 8-year-old was shot on his shoulder and taken to a hospital Saturday for treatment of injuries that weren't considered life-threatening.
A spokeswoman for the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office said the 12-year-old found the gun, a .380-caliber pistol, on the top shelf of a closet.
No charges were immediately filed, but the shooting remained under investigation.
Information from: The Advocate, http://theadvocate.com


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The president has called for a national day of service to remember the attacks of September 11, 2001 on Tuesday.
Around the country citizens will give their day to community service, whether its neighborhood cleanups, disaster preparation, flood relief, or something else, people are taking the day to give back and be a communty.
But is that enough? Do you think it should be honored in another way?
Should September 11 be a national holiday? What should it be called? Given the fact that tragedies occur worldwide daily, is a national holiday for September 11 over the top?
Tell us in the comments.
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UPS To End NASCAR, RFR Deals After '14 ExxonMobil Ends Masters Sponsorship Nuggets Seeing Resurgence Among Fans Social Media Firms Target Youth Leagues Nationals' "Take Back The Park" Promo A Success Kentucky Fans Upset Over New UPS Ad Campaign IMG College Looks To Go Nationwide UPS Plans To Cut Back Backing Of No. 6 Cup Car A Look At College Deals For UPS, MillerCoors IMG: UPS Sponsorship Biggest In College Sports
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...r tickets, keep Phils fans in small, separated groups and put on considerable extra security" (WASHINGT...
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Kentucky Fans Upset By Use Of Laettner Shot In New UPS Ad CampaignPublished March 15, 2012
UPS is airing an ad during the NCAA men's basketball... ...of 'logistics,' which is the theme of the current UPS ad campaign. ...e company "plans to continue running the ad." Two UPS spokespeople said that it "was not meant as a sli... " UPS Dir of Global PR Mark Dickens, an admitted UK fan... "Hopefully, no one thinks UPS has an anti-UK bias" (Louisville COURIER-JOURNAL,... " UPS, the NCAA's official logistics partner, also has...
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In The Studio: IMG College Ready To Take Its Offering Nationwide To SponsorsPublished September 09, 2011
...to sign major sponsorship deals with the likes of UPS and MillerCoors across its affiliated collegiate... ...d that's what they have been able to do with this UPS deal.


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ECB discusses rate cut, depicts bleak 2013
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The European Central Bank pondered an interest rate cut on Thursday and predicted the euro zone economy would shrink again in 2013, leaving the door open to a possible reduction in borrowing costs early next year.
ECB President Mario Draghi said the policymaking Governing Council held a wide discussion on interest rates before opting to leave them on hold. The euro fell against the dollar and the yen in response.
The Council also touched on the idea of cutting its deposit rate into negative territory. By effectively charging banks for their deposits rather than paying them interest, the ECB could push banks to put their money to work elsewhere.
"There was a wide discussion ... but the consensus was to leave the rates unchanged," Draghi told a news conference, a hint that opinions differed about what course to take. When there is unanimity, the ECB chief generally says so.
In the end, the ECB left its main interest rate at a record low 0.75 percent for the fifth month running despite new forecasts which suggest the euro area economy will contract next year as it has this. It left the deposit rate at zero.
On the idea of negative deposit rates, Draghi said: "We briefly touched upon the complexities that such a measure would involve and possible unintended consequences, but we didn't elaborate any further."
The bank's new staff projections put gross domestic product in a range of falling by 0.9 percent to growing by just 0.3 percent next year, suggesting contraction is far more likely than not. Draghi said downside risks prevailed.
In September, the ECB's staff had penciled in a significantly higher range of -0.4 to +1.4 percent for the euro area economy.
"The somewhat downbeat ECB forecasts, the somber tone of the ECB statement and Draghi's admission that the ECB had a 'wide discussion' over many issues including a potential rate cut also keep the door open for a cut in early 2013," said Berenberg Bank economist Holger Schmieding.
The Governing Council's decision to leave its main interest rate unchanged for now matched economists' expectations in a Reuters poll, which also showed opinion was split down the middle over the chances of a cut early next year.
"Later in 2013, economic activity should gradually recover as global demand strengthens and our accommodative monetary policy stance and significantly improved financial market confidence work their way through the economy," Draghi said.
But a political impasse over the United States' fiscal policy, which could presage steep tax hikes and budget cuts if a deal is not reached, could also dampen sentiment for longer, he said.
The level of uncertainty was reflected in the ECB's first attempt to forecast 2014, for which it penciled in growth of between 0.2 and 2.2 percent. The midpoint forecast for 2012 was pushed slightly lower to -0.5 percent.
The ECB will also continue to supply euro zone banks with all the liquidity they ask for in the central bank's refinancing operations at least until July 2013, Draghi said.
While financial markets have calmed since the European Union and the International Monetary Fund put in place further steps to help Greece, and the ECB promised to do what it takes to preserve the euro, the bloc's economy has sunk into recession from which it shows few signs of emerging soon.
An inflation forecast of 1.1 to 2.1 percent next year -- compared with the ECB's target of close to but below two percent -- means there appears to be plenty of room to cut rates further.
But some at the central bank are wary of taking any action that could see the bloc's governments soft-pedal on budget consolidation efforts. Others, it seems, feel the economy warrants more stimulus now.
Market interest rates vary greatly across the 17-country bloc and the ECB is focused primarily on fixing what it calls the 'transmission mechanism' for passing on its rates to all corners of the euro area before.
The most obvious way of doing that would be using the ECB's yet to be used new bond-buying scheme, which could drive down government borrowing costs.
The ECB has not yet bought any sovereign debt under its new program -- dubbed Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) -- because Spain, which is seen as most likely to become the first country to make use of the new support measure, has not yet fulfilled the precondition of asking for help from the euro zone's rescue fund.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has said he wants assurances that ECB intervention would bring down Spain's debt yields, Draghi refused to commit to any targets for bringing down Spanish borrowing costs.
"The conditions under which the OMT is going to be activated are very straight," he said. "They don't talk about negotiations or a certain interest rate or anything like that."
(Writing by Mike Peacock/Paul Carrel. Editing by Jeremy Gaunt.)
They're strangling the poor peripheral economies like Spain, Portugal, Greece and even Italy.
Let them breath!
The Wall Street Journal article from which I sourced these statistics claims that these forecasts are only three months old. They are and they aren't. While first made in September, they have been repeated ad nauseam since then in an effort to jawbone markets. Just one week ago, Draghi was forecasting a return to growth in the second half of 2013, not a "gradual return to growth."
There are implications of the deepening Eurozone recession that are being ignored by the mainstream media. In the PIIGS, the baseline economic forecasts used to mollify investors about their fiscal conditions need to be changed.
In each of the periphery countries and across the entire Eurozone, slackening demand will lead to small tax revenues and higher social spending on items such as unemployment payments. Portugal, Spain and Greece will endure widening budget gaps as a consequence. Greece may even need a 4th bailout prior to German elections.
I bet 2013 deficit forecasts are not revised until the Spring of 2013 in any of these countries despite the fact that the more timely information is available now to make adjustments.
Furthermore, since the onset of the eurocrisis, economic and fiscal projections have proven to be much nicer than the biting truth of reality. These projections will be no different. Europe's recession will be both longer and deeper than predicted with adverse consequences to the Eurozone's crisis fighting efforts.
Read about the implications for Greece here:
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I've scanned the MTS (San Diego Transit)/NCTD digital 800 MHz frequencies off and on for a while now, and was always interested to learn more about how the system worked. Like most transit radio systems, it uses a "Request to Talk" (RTT) feature where the driver has to push a button, wait for the dispatcher to acknowledge their call request and automatically assign their radio a voice channel before they can start talking. In a sense it operates kind of like a trunking system, only with a real person in the dispatch center (not a site controller computer) responding to the call request.
The MTS and NCTD frequencies can be found here: http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/? ... #cid-11160
I've been riding MTS a lot lately, and was really surprised to see that the drivers have no direct access to their radio. In fact the only evidence of a radio at all is an easy to miss telephone style handset hanging behind and to the left of the driver. Instead, the radio system (along with GPS Automatic Vehicle Location, farebox integration and a host of other data and messaging features) is integrated into the gray "Orbital SmartMDT" Mobile Data Terminal which hangs from the ceiling above and to the right of the driver's head.
When riding on the North County Transit "Breeze" buses I noticed the same set-up, same Orbital SmartMDT model, and same P25 NAC of 339 on their sole 800 MHz voice frequency.
It turns out that back in 2003 MTS and NCTD teamed up and contracted with Motorola (who in turn hired Orbital and other companies) to build an integrated GPS, data and countywide simulcast voice communications system called the "Regional Transportation Management System" (RTMS). MTS and NCTD still operate on separate frequencies (and I believe separate dispatch centers - NCTD still IDs as "Control 2"), but the combined RTMS effort explains why they share the same NAC and use identical Orbital SmartMDT equipment (and the same digital protocol on their MDT frequencies).
http://sandiegohealth.org/sandag/sandag ... 8_9290.pdf
That explains why things are the way they are, but I was still curious how exactly the radio system aspect of the integrated MDTs worked.
I was able to find this photo of the same Orbital SmartMDT model (this one taken from AC tranist in Alameda County):
and I was also able to find a closeup of the unit itself from an eBay auction:
Operation of the integrated radio system looks to be extremely simple. The driver doesn't select the channel they talk on. They simply pick up the telephone handset and push one of two buttons on the MDT. The two buttons on the top right of the unit say "RTT" and "PRTT", which stand for "Request to Talk" and "Priority Request to Talk" respectively. This likely sends a signal to put the driver's call request into a waiting queue in the dispatch center CAD, and likely sounds a talk permit tone when the dispatcher answers the call (since usually the driver just starts talking).
Even though MTS has four available conventional frequencies for voice (plus the fifth MDT frequency), there's no real way to label them since each "Request To Talk" call is automatically assigned an available voice frequency when it's answered by the dispatcher. In essence there's a pool of voice frequencies (like on a trunked system) and each transmission on the system is like a private-call on between the driver and the dispatcher. I also heard one of the MTS dispatchers mention today that they have 90 seconds to carry out the call before it times out and gets dropped, and the voice frequency goes back into the pool. So for one call they had to RTT twice. Since the radio system control is integrated into the MDT, I wouldn't be surprised if there's an ASTRO Spectra or XTL5000 hidden in the equipment cabinet behind the driver that's being controlled via data cable from the Orbital SmartMDT unit - which tells it which voice channel to switch to when it gets the channel grant over the MDT frequency.
I'm curious what kind of MDT signalling protocol they use - whether it's proprietary to the Orbital SmartMDT or more common (I believe San Francisco Muni and AC Transit use the same format, but AC Transit has the same model MDT and SF might too). I wonder if the packets are encrypted?
Anyway, this is probably not that interesting to 99% of you, but it cleared up the mystery for me of how the system works.


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Pop the popcorn, roll out the red carpet, and get ready to watch the 85th Annual Academy Awards. With a great year in a film, it's a tough race this year in numerous categories despite many unfortunate snubs and nominations with which I disagree. (My relationship with the Oscars is quite complicated.)
If I were voting, the show would certainly be quite different. But like most years, I'll be watching the TV and shouting at the screen when the Academy manages to get it all wrong again.
While I've enjoyed the past string of Best Picture winners ("The Hurt Locker," "The King's Speech," "The Artist"), never has the winner actually felt like the "best" film of the year, but rather the most likely to win.
Hence, predictions are born, and every year I get about 70 percent correct of the 24 categories. As with most years, I'll be completely satisfied if my following predictions end up being wrong, because that just means a more deserving title or actor likely took the prize.
So, without further ado, here are my predictions for the big six categories of the 85th Annual Academy Awards.
* "Amour"
* "Argo"
* "Beasts of the Southern Wild"
* "Django Unchained"
* "Les Misérables"
* "Life of Pi"
* "Lincoln"
* "Silver Linings Playbook"
* "Zero Dark Thirty"
"Django Unchained."
SHOULDN'T BE HERE: "Silver Linings Playbook."
LEFT OUT: "The Master"
While recent Best Picture winners are likely to fade from audience's memory shortly after they nab the top prize, this year's (likely) winner will forever live on since it will be shown in 8th grade history classes for the rest of eternity. Steven Spielberg's well-made, superbly written and masterfully acted "Lincoln" is a fine, prestigious, political biopic that Oscar voters love and will probably find best suited to win big at the awards.


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Kickstarter-funded fan films
I've recently learned of four very interesting Kickstarter-funded Star Trek fan films, the first two by accident, the third by actual effort, and the fourth by e-mail requesting use of my LCARS schematics. Anyway, I've written up brief descriptions of them for Star Trek Journal, and here are all four they are pasted in. And from now on, I'd just better heed the seventh Rule of Acquisition and keep my ears open.
Star Trek: Renegades is a fan-film project to create a pilot for a new Star Trek series. Several former Trek actors will appear, including Walter Koenig, Robert Picardo, and Tim Russ, who also directs. William Shatner has a cameo. Funding is through Kickstarter. Principle photography is completed, and the full-length pilot is expected to be 90 minutes long and be released in Fall 2014.
Wikipedia: Star Trek: Renegades
Star Trek: Renegades Official Teaser 2
A 20-minute fanfilm is in the works called Star Trek: Prelude to Axanar, set 21 years before the five-year mission of Captain Kirk and his Enterprise crew, due to be released this May. The project, headed by Alec Peters, who played Garth in Star Trek: Phase II, had raised nearly $60,000 as of March 28. Onboard are J.G. Hertzler, Richard Hatch, Michael Hogan, and Gary Graham (who will play Soval, as he did in Enterprise). It is planned as a prelude to a full-length movie with a $250,000 budget about the Battle of Axanar, which was won by Garth. Star Trek: Prelude to Axanar will be presented like a documentary of the events to be seen in the subsequent full-length film. Star Trek: Phase II special-effects man Tobias Ritcher will also be contributing his talents to the project, and Peters expects to do more in the future.
Star Trek: Horizon is a Kickstarter-funded, feature-length, ENT-era (NX-04 Discovery), Romulan War fan film due out late 2014. The CGI looks great.
Here's the teaser:
YouTube: Star Trek: Horizon teaser trailer
Here's the Web site:
John Savage will reprise his role as Captain Rudy Ransom (VOY: Equinox), having been beamed away an instant before his ship exploded, and Gary Lockwood will reprise his role as Gary Mitchell (TOS: Where No Man Has Gone Before), together in a Kickstarter-funded fan film called Star Trek Equinox.
Star Trek Equinox
Gary Lockwood is retired but impressed enough with the script coauthored by John Savage and writer Camren T. Burton to do this film. In 1997 he played Chief Justice Earl Warren in the episode of Dark Skies that brought on Jeri Ryan as regular, the gig that led to her role on VOY.
Star Trek Journal
Last edited by LCARS 24 : 04-19-2014 at 08:20 AM.
On YouTube: More about Star Trek: Renegades:
Tim Russ Interview part 1
Tim Russ Interview part 2
Tim Russ Interview part 3
Star Trek: Renegades (cast Q&A)
Star Trek Journal
Last edited by LCARS 24 : 04-18-2014 at 11:05 AM.
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Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Doesn't Think Asians Are Smarter Than Anyone Else, Can't Tell Them Apart
On Friday speaking to the Asian Chamber of Commerce, Harry Reid (D-NV) joked about the stereo-type Asians and then some how thought it was okay to say that he could not keep his Wongs straight as they all looked alike. Are you kidding? Imagine what the fire storm would have been if he said the same thing about blacks? Imagine if these same comments were made by a Republican? There would not be calls for an apology, there would be cries for him to resign.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is making the rounds Friday after video surfaced of him cracking two jokes about Asians at a Las Vegas meeting.
Speaking to the Asian Chamber of Commerce, Reid joked about the stereotype regarding Asian intelligence.
"I don't think you're smarter than anyone else, but you've convinced a lot of us you are," he said to chuckles.
Later, when someone mentioned a person with the last name "Wong," Reid cracked: "One problem that I've had today is keeping my Wongs straight."
National Review reminds us that the hypocrite Harry Reid was quick to go after his 2010 US Senate challenger Sharron Angle when she made an Asian joke:
While on the campaign trail in 2010, Reid criticized Republican challenger Sharron Angle for her own "Asian" comments. Angle came under fire for telling a group of Hispanic students that "some of you look a little more Asian to me."
UPDATE I: Harry Reid apologizes to Asians over 'Wong' comment.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is apologizing for comments he made in "poor taste" about Asian people.
The apology was prompted by remarks he made Thursday to the Asian Chamber of Commerce in Las Vegas and after video was posted by conservative trackers.
On Friday, Reid offered a mea culpa: "My comments were in extremely poor taste and I apologize. Sometimes I say the wrong thing."
Posted August 23, 2014 by Scared Monkeys
Democrats, Double Standard, Harry Reid (D-NV), Humor, Liberals, Progressives, WTF, You Tube - VIDEO | no comments
CREDIBILITY? Key Witness in Ferguson, MO Michael Brown Shooting … 22 Year Old Dorian Johnson Has a Warrant Out for His Arrest in Jefferson City, MO
22 year old Dorian Johnson, the individual who was walking with Michael Brown when he was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson,, appears to have a warrant out for his arrest in Jefferson City, MO. Dorian Johnson was arrested for theft and making a false report in 2011. Theft, imagine that … water does seek its own level, doesn't it? Me thinks some one has a lack of credibility here. Remember, this is the eye witness who said that Michael Brown was shot in the back when the autopsy image reports plainly show that was not the case.
When there's smoke, there's fire and when there is one lie to cover up you were doing, there are usually many more to follow.
The warrant is for stealing and dates back to June 2011.
ABC 17 News looked into Johnson's past and found out he has also been charged with filing a false police report in the same year.
After cross referencing several records, ABC 17 News found the warrant, which is for Dorian Jordan Johnson, is actually the same person as Dorian Jarvis Johnson.
Johnson has told news organizations Brown was, "shot like and animal…"
You might remember, Johnson told reporters Brown was running away with his hands up.
Posted August 22, 2014 by Scared Monkeys
Arrest Warrant, Black America, Ferguson, Liars, MO | 2 comments
Barack Obama Supposedly Outraged Over Beheading of Journalist James Foley, Vows to Stay on Course … The Golf Course that Is
How does Barack Obama spend eight minutes professing outrage over the beheading of American journalist James Foley at the hands of ISIS and then minutes later rush off to the gold course and yuk it up with his friends? WHO DOES THIS? It is unbelievable that a US President could be so out of touch, so self-consumed, so ignorant and so void of conscience that they disrespect the family and the memory of James Foley. Let alone disrespect the United States. Get off the golf course you clown and take you job seriously. You are the President and the Commander in Chief of the United States of America … ACT LIKE IT!
And just when you thought Obama's golfing after his faux ISIS outrage could not get any worse, from Twitchy comes the Fist Bump in Chief. Here is your Hope & Change America. Here is the president you not only elected once, the one that you some how managed to reelect. What a tone deaf, insensitive, cold, uncaring individual. Obama could care less about James Foley and the safety and security of the United States. Such things are an inconvenience to his tee times.
From The Daily News via Powerline comes the headline and the disgusting and reprehensible optics of Barack Obama golfing while the heartbroken parents of James Foley gives a presser of their brutal son's death at the hands of ISIS. Some one may want to put an AMBER ALERT out for Obama's missing soul and conscience. At what point will Obama make US national security and dealing with ISIS more important than his golf game? Sadly, it would appear Obama is more concerned with shooting par than ISIS.
Even MSNBC's Chris Mathhews took exception with Barack Obama, not so much with the presidents golfing, but instead Obama's statement regarding ISIS's beheading of American journalist James Foley.
"I don't know why he used the word 'justice.' It's not appropriate here. This is an attack on our country, we have to react to it," an upset Chris Matthews reacted to a video excerpt of President Obama's statement today about the beheading by an ISIS member of American freelance journalist James Foley.
UK Daily Mail: Playing golf AGAIN: Obama tees off for second time in 24 hours since he solemnly pledged justice for beheaded journalist James Foley
President Barack Obama teed off again on Thursday, just 24 hours after pictures of his wide grin on the golf course drew condemnation in the wake of the beheading of American photojournalist James Foley.
'Admit it,' a White House pool reporter emailed the press corps. 'You all made small-dollar bets that POTUS would be playing golf today. And … you would be right!'
'We are at the Farm Neck Golf Club at 1:13 pm. and POTUS is hitting the links again.'
The president drew fire Wednesday after reacting to Foley's on-camera slaying for just five minutes, and then gripping his driver.
He had told a global audience minutes earlier that 'when people harm Americans, anywhere, we do what's necessary to see that justice is done.'
Then he was seen laughing with friends and fist-bumping them during a five-hour round at Farm Neck on Martha's Vineyard.
Posted August 22, 2014 by Scared Monkeys
Act of War, Barack Obama, Chicago-Style Politics, Comedian in Chief, Epic Fail, Golfer in Chief, ISIS, Islamist, Jihad, Lost in Smallness, Misleader, Terrorism, United States, War on Terror, WTF, You Tube - VIDEO | 3 comments
Daily Commentary – Friday, August 22, 2014 – Jet Ski Explodes on the St. Croix River in Wisconsin
- 20 year old Nicole Montez walks away with two broken vertebrae while her passenger is unharmed
Daily Commentary – Friday, August 22, 2014 Download
Posted August 22, 2014 by Klaasend
Dana Pretzer, Scared Monkeys Radio | one comment
GAO Oversight Report: Obama Administration Broke the Law by Freeing 5 Taliban Terrorists in Exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl
Barack Obama, The Law Breaker in Chief …
The GAO, Government Accountability Office, issued a report that concluded that the Obama Administration broke federal law when it released five Taliban prisoners from GITMO in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl without notifying Congress in advance. According to the GAO, the Pentagon "violated" the 2014 Department of Defense Appropriations Act "when it transferred five senior Taliban prisoners to Qatar without providing at least 30 days notice to certain congressional committees. The GAO also found that the DOD violated the "Antideficiency Act," which prevents unauthorized government expenditures. As Hot Air opines, many Democrats in Congress spent much of the summer dismissing Republicans' claims as partisan and even callous, preferring to focus on the return of an American soldier held captive rather than the politically expedient removal of the "Taliban Five" from American custody. Now we know what many had suspected and alleged … The Obama Administration broke the law.
Full GAO report can be read here.
The Obama administration violated federal law when it released five senior Taliban leaders from prison without notifying Congress, as is legally mandated, according to an investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The GAO concluded in a report issued Thursday that the Obama administration failed to provide proper notification of the Taliban release and illegally used taxpayer funds that were not appropriated to enable the inmate transfer, according to the report.
The Obama administration in May secretly struck a deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan to free from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba five of its top leaders in exchange for the return of captured U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl, who was later accused by fellow soldiers of having deserted the Army prior to his capture.
The Pentagon was found to have "violated" the 2014 Department of Defense Appropriations Act "when it transferred five individuals detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the nation of Qatar without providing at least 30 days notice to certain congressional committees," according to the report.
Barack Obama 5 for 1 swap was already on the wrong side with the American people and their belief that it was wrong to release 5 senior Taliban individuals in exchange for what many believe to be a military deserter, now we find Obama is on the wrong side of the law as well.
Posted August 22, 2014 by Scared Monkeys
Abuse of Power, Barack Obama, Chicago-Style Politics, Community Agitator, Democrats, Divider in Chief, Epic Fail, Government, Imperial President, Law Breaker in Chief, Misleader, Obamanation, Pentagon, Transparency | 2 comments
Bill O'Reilly Blasts the MSM Coverage of Ferguson, MO News Coverage of the Michael Brown Shooting (VIDEO) … Calls Out Looting Thugs, Charlatan Al Sharpton and Liberal Media
Bill O'Reilly returned from vacation to put forth the below 'Talking Point Memo,' maybe one of his best in a long, long time. O'Reilly discussed the situation in Ferguson, Missouri since the death of Michael Brown on August 9 and blasted the liberal MSM for their bias reporting and ripped the likes of Al Sharpton, calling him a charlatan.
Al Sharpton has the nerve to insult the American police community, men and women risking their lives to protect us. This charlatan has the gall to do that and NBC News is paying him. My god! Why is that acceptable?"
Something Al Sharpton will never give him because Sharpton only cares about his own self-aggrandizement and if he has to stoke racial hatred to get that, that's what Sharpton will do. I know this man. His record defines him. Yet, he has succeeded in bringing his brand of racial grievance to the White House.
[T]o the race hustlers, Officer Wilson is already guilty. They have convicted him. There slogan is no justice, no peace. I guess that's lynch mob justice because if those people will never accept anything other than a conviction of murder in this case. They don't really care what happened. They want Officer Wilson punished and he should be punished if he murdered Michael Brown.
Many of the others are trouble makers who just streamed into town, but the liberal media will never report that. Nor will they report the true picture of criminal justice in the U.S.A.
Posted August 21, 2014 by Scared Monkeys
Al Sharpton, Black America, Blacks, Ferguson, Media, Media Bias, Minorities, MO, MSNBC, No Justice, No Peace, Race Card, Racism | 6 comments
Dyer County, TN High School Student Kendra Turner Suspended For Saying 'Bless You' After Classmate Sneezed
To the IDIOT teacher that would be so offended by a student saying bless you … Bless your heart.
So much for the Bible belt … Kendra Turner, a Dyer County High School senior was suspended for saying "bless you" after a fellow classmate sneezed. HUH? Mind you the high school student did not even say God bless you, just bless you. But for this she was told to go to the school administrator and then served the rest of the class period with in-school suspension. According to reports, bless you is on a list of words that this teacher does not allow in her class that include: stupid, dumb, boring, stuff, i don't know, other peer expressions, bless you, hang out and my bad. I am guess they don't teach the US Constitution at Dyer County high School and namely the First Amendment. In this day and age where we yearn for our youth to be responsible and kind to one another and battle school bullying, this is the crime that gets a student suspension? Really, why stop there … had she said God bless you would that have meant being expelled?
KUDOS to Kendra Turner for standing up for her rights.
Action News 5 – Memphis, Tennessee
A young girl, who claims she was standing up for her religious beliefs in the classroom, was suspended after breaking a class rule of saying "bless you" after a classmate sneezed.
When Dyer County High School senior Kendra Turner said bless you to her classmate, she says her teacher told her that was for church.
"She said that we're not going to have godly speaking in her class and that's when I said we have a Constitutional right," said Turner.
Turner said when she defended her actions, she was told to see an administrator. She said she finished the class period in in-school suspension.
Students sent WMC a photo of the teacher's white board that lists 'bless you' and other expressions that are banned as part of class rules.
Pretty amazing how this high school senior is a bigger individual than her teacher. I guess God will do that. Kendra Turner said she doesn't want trouble for her teacher but says she'll stand up for her faith … "It's alright to defend God and it's our constitutional right because we have a freedom of religion and freedom of speech."
Here is my note to the teacher that would some how think that bless you and stupid would ever be included in the same list. As I was hanging out I came across a teacher that was outraged that a student said bless you. This educator might be the most stupid and closed minded individual ever that would some how be so dumb that words like boring and stuff would be used in the same sentence as bless you. I guess if I said this in class it would get me suspended or expelled, sorry, my bad!
Posted August 21, 2014 by Scared Monkeys
Abuse of Power, Bizarre, Education, High School, Liberal Indoctrination, Religion, WTF, You Tube - VIDEO | 7 comments
Daily Commentary – Thursday, August 21, 2014 – Protesters Throw Urine and Bottles at Police in Ferguson, MO
- Hiding in the media area, one even chanted "it's time to kill a cop"
Daily Commentary – Thursday, August 21, 2014 Download
Posted August 21, 2014 by Klaasend
Dana Pretzer, Ferguson, Racism, Scared Monkeys Radio | one comment
Reports Says that Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson was Badly Beaten by Michael Brown Prior to Shooting
DRIP, DRIP, DRIP … Information comes out that police officer Darren Wilson was severely beaten prior to shooting.
Fox News is reporting that Ferguson, MO police officer Darren Wilson was badly beaten by Michael Brown during the confrontation prior to the shooting death of Brown. ABC News is reporting that the characterization of Officer Darren Wilson being injured in his confrontation with Michael Brown comes on the day that a grand jury was expected to begin hearing evidence in the shooting. Who wouldn't release such information in a story that has been so one-sided reported and slanted against officer Wilson by the MSM? And a bias governor calling for a "vigorous prosecution" According to reports, the grand jury will be shown the hospital photo of the office's facial injuries.
Darren Wilson, the Ferguson, Mo., police officer whose fatal shooting of Michael Brown touched off more than a week of demonstrations, suffered severe facial injuries, including an orbital (eye socket) fracture, and was nearly beaten unconscious by Brown moments before firing his gun, a source close to the department's top brass told FoxNews.com.
"The Assistant (Police) Chief took him to the hospital, his face all swollen on one side," said the insider. "He was beaten very severely."
According to the well-placed source, Wilson was coming off another case in the neighborhood on Aug. 9 when he ordered Michael Brown and his friend Dorain Johnson to stop walking in the middle of the road because they were obstructing traffic. However, the confrontation quickly escalated into physical violence, the source said.
"They ignored him and the officer started to get out of the car to tell them to move," the source said. "They shoved him right back in, that's when Michael Brown leans in and starts beating Officer Wilson in the head and the face."
Wilson suffered a fractured eye socket in the fracas, and was left dazed by the initial confrontation, the source said. He is now "traumatized, scared for his life and his family, injured and terrified" that a grand jury, which began hearing evidence on Wednesday, will "make some kind of example out of him," the source said.
What sounds more plausible, the accounts above or that Michael Brown was assassinated by a rogue cop being shot in the back when autopsy images specifically show all shots to the front of Brown?
Legal Insurrection has more as to the possible validity that Darren Wilson was beaten badly. Even the NY Times reported it, albeit buried deep in the article.
Further indicating the story may be true is the fact that even the liberal NY Times reported today that Wilson was injured during the altercation. Allahpundit notes at Hot Air that, although the Times buried the news in the 21st paragraph of its article, it was the first report in a major paper that Wilson was injured at the hands of Brown. Now Fox News has climbed aboard, with more details.
In addition, yesterday blogger Jim Hoft had reported at Gateway Pundit that police sources had informed him that Wilson suffered an "orbital blowout fracture to the eye socket" as a result of his encounter with Brown.
St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch said the grand jury investigation will be thorough. I guess this is the reason why so many want him to be removed from this case. Many with an agenda just want Officer Wilson to be indicted, tried, convicted and put to death as fast as possible without looking at all the facts.
"They will have absolutely everything there is, every piece of paper, every photograph, every bit of physical evidence, all of the forensic information," the district attorney said.
Supporters of Wilson, however, point to a videotape taken by a Ferguson resident showing Brown's body lying in the street. In the background of the video a man's voice can be heard saying, "Police got out and ran after him. The next thing I know he's coming back towards the officer. The police had his gun drawn on him."
That would conflict with witnesses who said Brown was standing still with his hands raised when Wilson shot him.
Antonio French, an alderman in Ferguson, reacted with skepticism to McCullough's announcement that it could be another two weeks before there is a decision on whether to prosecute the police officer.
Posted August 21, 2014 by Scared Monkeys
Assault, Battery, Crime, Deceased, Ferguson, Injury - Surgery, Law Enforcement, MO | no comments
Democrat Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon Says "Vigorous Prosecution Must Now Be Pursued" …
Seriously, imagine being a police officer in Ferguson, MO or in the state of Missouri for that matter with a governor that has already prejudged the shooting death of Michael Brown at the hands of officer Darren Wilson? Gov. Nixon (D-MO) stated that a "vigorous prosecution must now be pursued". Not just any prosecution, but a vigorous one. Actually sir, a vigorous investigation needs to occur to determine what actually happened the day of the shooting and the events that led to it, not a vigorous prosecution so to placate your voting base. Just curious … what is correct justice as defined by this governor? Does Gov. Nixon know something that we don't? Hardly. This political gas bag is only making matters worse. Much can be inferred in the fact that he used the word "correctly" last. I can't imagine that police officers in Missouri are too enamored with Nixon seeing that he has pre-judged this case and his only idea of justice is for Michael Brown. No one at this point knows exactly what happened, not even Gov. Nixon. Police officer Darren Wilson may be in the end at fault; however, what if he was not, the fact prove it and a jury finds him not guilty? Would that be justice as well?
"A vigorous prosecution must now be pursued,"
"The democratically elected St. Louis county prosecutor and the attorney general of the United States each have a job to do."
"Their obligation to achieve justice in the shooting death of Michael Brown must be carried out thoroughly, promptly, and correctly"
Gov. Nixon Calls For 'Vigorous Prosecution' Of Darren Wilson.
Not content with a regular prosecution or a vigorous investigation, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said he hopes that Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson will receive a "vigorous prosecution" in the shooting death of Michael Brown on Aug. 9.
"A vigorous prosecution must now be pursued," Nixon said in a five minute video address posted to his website Tuesday.
"The democratically elected St. Louis county prosecutor and the attorney general of the United States each have a job to do," said Nixon, a Democrat.
"Their obligation to achieve justice in the shooting death of Michael Brown must be carried out thoroughly, promptly, and correctly," said Nixon of investigators.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder plans to visit Ferguson on Wednesday to meet with federal law enforcement officials and community leaders. Forty FBI investigators traveled to Ferguson over the weekend to interview witnesses.
Nixon has not directly justified his call for a strong prosecution. He has not indicated that he has any information on the shooting that has not been made public.
Posted August 20, 2014 by Scared Monkeys
Black America, Deceased, Ferguson, Governors, Justice, Law Enforcement, MO, No Justice, No Peace, Racism, WTF, You Tube - VIDEO | 9 comments


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More than 30 participants attended the College of Law's Health Law and Policy Clinic's first Affordable Care Act 'Get Covered' workshop. The Health Law Clinic – a medical-legal partnership with the College of Medicine's Green Family Foundation Neighborhood HELP™ program – together with Get Covered Florida and the Epilepsy Foundation of Florida used the opportunity to inform students and their families about their health coverage options through the new Health Insurance Marketplace, which opened for enrollment on October 1, 2013.
Law students Cinthya Beato, Kelly Kearns, Markus Kamberger, Alan Pena and Allan Zullinger, and medical student Nicole Colwell, joined Affordable Care Act navigators from Catalyst Miami, the Epilepsy Foundation, and Cognosante. The law and medical students educated attendees on local safety net health care access resources. Attendees were also able to sit down with a navigator to discuss their specific health and insurance needs.
Stay tuned – the Health Law Clinic will be planning additional 'Get Covered' workshops during the upcoming spring semester.


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Dr. Absael Antelo comes from a family of educators who believe that education is the golden avenue to social development, economic growth, freedom and happiness. During the last three decades, his life has been dedicated to educational development, leadership, research and teaching. He has been involved in teaching students at the elementary, junior and high school levels. His university teaching and research activities have been done first as a teaching assistant at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and then as a graduate school professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, the University of Texas at Austin, Texas, the Universidad Autonoma del Noreste in Saltillo, Mexico, Universidad Privada Boliviana in Cochabamba,Bolivia, Universidad Franz Tamayo in La Paz, Bolivia.
Dr. Antelo has a significant leadership experience in higher education. He has been university president of two private universities: Universidad Privada Boliviana and Universidad Franz Tamayo. His experience as a school superintendent of the Santa Cruz, Educational System and as a school principal reflects a life dedicated to the betterment of education and to leadership for social development.
Dr. Antelo's research involvement, interests and inquiry include studies related to followership, the participation of women in policy development and decision-making in independent universities, business and health care institutions, equity in higher education, organizational and teaching needs assessment, autogogy as a teaching theory, and language and culture.


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on December 23, 2013
LOS ANGELES (December 23, 2013) - Fandango, the nation's leading moviegoer destination, announced that 2013 was its best-performing year in its 13-year history, breaking records in annual ticket sales, visitor traffic and mobile app downloads. The rapid growth was driven by the rise of post-opening weekend ticket sales, with 47% of Fandango tickets sold after the movies' opening weekend (representing a 15% year-over-year increase), plus a 57% rise in mobile ticket sales.
"This year's record-breaking growth, especially in our post-opening-weekend ticket sales, shows that consumers are increasingly making Fandango their go-to moviegoing habit," said Fandango President Paul Yanover. "The incredible surge in mobile ticketing is attributable to the innovative products and new video-enhanced experiences we launched across mobile devices and connected platforms in 2013."
In 2013, moviegoers utilized Fandango's enhanced products and services including paperless mobile ticket scanning, reserved seating expansion and new platform apps to help perfect their moviegoing experience. Year-over-year, Fandango saw a 15% rise in monthly visitors to its online and mobile destinations, and has also reached 39 million downloads of its award-winning mobile apps.
New exhibitor partnerships and distribution deals generated additional growth for the company in 2013. During the past year, Fandango signed five new exhibitors including Pacific Theatres, Muvico, Studio Movie Grill, Krikorian Premiere Theatres and Penn Cinema, in addition to an extension of its long-term partnership with Regal Entertainment Group -- bringing Fandango's nationwide theater reach to 22,000 screens, more than 75% of U.S. theaters with advance ticketing capabilities.
The company also expanded its promotional movie ticket business with the acquisition of Quantum Loyalty Solutions, Inc., the leading provider of movie ticket-related promotions and owner of Hollywood Movie Money, a trusted and widely recognized movie currency accepted at more than 36,000 screens nationwide. The acquisition of Quantum dramatically increased the company's broad array of product offerings and marketing solutions for studios, exhibitors, advertisers, and promotional sponsors worldwide.
On the original video front, Fandango debuted a weekly movie recommendation show, "Weekend Ticket," hosted by Chief Correspondent Dave Karger, and in early December launched the second season of "Fandango Frontrunners," a star-studded interview show exploring the personal journeys of A-list talent and their award-worthy performances. Throughout the year, Fandango launched several new content hubs centered around movie genres such as "Summer of Action," "House of Screams" and "Winter Chill Out," as well as Fandango's "Family Room," a destination just for parents seeking information, recommendations and ticketing for kid-friendly movies.
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Derry News
---- — LONDONDERRY — Jonathan Edwards, who topped the charts with the classic hit "Sunshine" in the 1970s, will perform songs from his latest release, "My Love Will Keep," his first in 14 years, when he appears in Londonderry Friday, Sept. 6, at Tupelo Music Hall, 2 Young Road.
Tickets are available at tupelohall.com.
"Jonathan Edwards' voice sounds wonderful, maybe better than ever," Country Music People's Paul Riley wrote. "He sings with purity and passion. Some of the huge talent, compassion, passion and style of Jonathan Edwards should not have a 14-year gap between albums. The world needs more Jonathan Edwards discs."
Edwards remains one of the premiere troubadours of the past 40 years, who debuted in many hearts and minds with the 1971 release of his hit single, "Sunshine," the first gold record for then-fledgling Capricorn Records.
His debut album for Capricorn and subsequent releases on Atlantic Records and other labels (including his own imprint), showcased the Virginia-raised artist's country, folk and bluegrass influences, and demonstrated his penchant for writing songs of both honesty and poignancy.


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Jim Jones – Vampire Life 3
Harlem's own Jim Jones is back with the third installment of his popular Vampire Life series. Jones has diversified his repertoire in the past few years as an executive and star with reality television in addition to substantial dealings on the business end with his Vamp Life clothing line. Jim has definitely mastered the art of multitasking and making things happen. On this drop, Capo brings it back to his roots with that official NYC street corner Hip Hop.
Here are the SOHH.com 5 Reasons to download Vampire Life 3.
1. Drink From The Bottle
One of the first singles released from VL3 is "Drink From The Bottle" featuring former Coke Boy artist Charlie Rock. Rock was responsible for the catchy hook on French Montana's hit song "Shot Caller". This joint is tough and should be reserved for club nights and getting right. The Rock and Jones connection is a nice look for both artists. Rock is featured throughout the mixtape with his unique voice and ill hook game. Jim has always found a way to recreate what he does best and make it fresh. Whether you are looking for songs to set the party off, or you vampin' on that all night flight, VL3 has something for you.
2. Get It In
Jones truly thrives when he brings that hustla's spirit to the booth on full blast. There are some soulful introspective cuts on this release. The Olympicks produced "Rotations" has Jim in a comfortable element reminiscing on his peoples and past times on the block. Jones has that delivery when he spits that paints pictures and this song is a example of that. The track also features long time Byrdgang member Mel Matrix.
"Lets get back to music/
That was crack influenced and backed by truants/
That cut classes and sold crack so fluent/
Killers that was strapped to do it/
Drug dealers that had stacks and blew it/
It's all the same to us/
Cook the caine till they came for us/
I can't forget my n*gg* Big Sheik/
He in Lewisberg sittin up with Big Meech" – Jim Jones
3. Vamp Up
Jim has been real active on all fronts getting back into the music. From taking mainstream singles and adding his own twist to them with something called a revamp, Jones knows how to grustle and keep his name buzzing. In addition to VL3, he is also working on a follow up to one of his illest drops, The Ghost Of Rich Porter. The movement is still in full swing and Capo recently had a listening party for the Vampire Life EP he is currently finishing up on which should be on the way soon.
4. Ride Out
If you're looking for something to put in the whip and ride, this tape is for you. The aptly titled "Summer" is a short laid back joint produced by Joe Black with a breezy feel to it. "NY Times (Back On Broadway)" has that vintage city sound courtesy of Sonaro. "All In" has that gritty, grimy feel to it. Jim keeps it diverse and even brings soul singer Estelle into the mix on the cut "Coming Home". The ladies should be getting their twerk on to the Jeremih and DJ SpinKing feature, the iTunes available single "Nasty Girl".
5. Features
Capo brings the usual suspects out on VL3 along with some new voices. Features include Chink Santana, Lady H, Mel Matrix, Nino Man, T.W.O., Estelle, Charlie Rock, Jeremih, DJ SpinKing, Sen City, Trav, Philthy Rich, Byrdgang Shoota and Chris Luck. Jones – who always had an ear for great beats, brings aboard producers such as the Olympicks, Sonaro, Hero Beats, Vakseen, Jahlil Beats, Cy Fyre, Joe Black, Automatik, Certified Trunk Bangers, Vinylz, Spectacula, Ablaze Da Arkitek and Marvino to assist on the sounds.


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CNN's Dan Simon looks at a San Francisco ballot initiative that would rename a sewer plant for President George W. Bush.
This video is from CNN's American Morning, broadcast July 23, 2008.
Download video
By Katie Halper
By TBogg
By Roy Greenslade, The Guardian
By The Conversation
Raw Story is a progressive news site that focuses on stories often ignored in the mainstream media. While giving coverage to the big stories of the day, we also bring our readers' attention to policy, politics, legal and human rights stories that get ignored in an infotainment culture driven solely by pageviews.
Founded in 2004, Raw Story reaches 9 million unique readers per month and serves more than 30 million pageviews.
Copyright © 2004-2013 Raw Story Media, Inc. All rights reserved.


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SplashClock Ranking & Summary
SplashClock description
The best selling Palm and Treo favorite is reborn on the iPhone with great new features!
Dont let your iPhone or iPod touch sit idle while charging -- turn it into an attractive desk clock!
SplashClock displays a highly customizable clock with a slideshow of your favorite digital photos in the background.
SplashClock is easy to customize:
- Choose from various analog and digital clock types
- Create a background slideshow with beautiful preloaded images or add your own from your photo library
- Choose no images to just have a nice desk clock
- Choose no clock to just have a nice digital photo frame
- Optionally display seconds and/or date
- Optionally play soothing background sounds like a babbling brook, ocean surf, or a ticking clock
- Adjust the color of the digital clock or analog clock hands to suit your photos
Be sure to check out our other applications like Birthdays and Holiday as well - just click on the link below that says: "All Applications by SplashData"
Requirement:Compatible with iPhone and iPod touch Requires iPhone OS 2.1 or later
SplashClock Screenshot
SplashClock Keywords
Bookmark SplashClock
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Want to place your software product here?
Please contact us for consideration.
Contact WareSeeker.com


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Geraldine Brooks fills in the blanks of Alcott's 'Little Women'
Like many women, Geraldine Brooks was inspired by Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, which she first read as a girl in Australia. Though her mother, whom Brooks calls "one of the world's great cynics," advised her to take it with a grain of salt ("nobody in real life is as goody-goody as that Marmee"), Brooks had a strong reaction to the book and its heroine, the irrepressible Jo March.
"I thought she was fantastic," Brooks recalls during a call to Australia, where she'd just spent the year with her husband, writer Tony Horwitz, and their eight-year-old son. "This really powerful girl character who's struggling to find her way creatively and to fit into the social restrictions that were so overwhelming . . . my situation was so different on the other side of the world and a century removed, but it just fired me up."
The events of Little Women take place while Mr. March is off serving in the Civil War. The original ending of the novel finds him safe at home with his family—but says next to nothing about his wartime experiences. "It's like Jane Austen and the Napoleonic Wars; it's just not the business of her books, but that was the background of their times," explains Brooks.
While Horwitz was researching Confederates in the Attic (1998), his best-selling book about the Civil War's legacy in the modern-day South, Brooks found that she had unwittingly become something of an expert on the War Between the States. "When he was writing that, a tremendous amount of our lives was consumed with Civil War trips. And I wasn't crazy about this for a long time. But suddenly somehow the stories of the individuals started to work on my imagination." Brooks became fascinated by the moral debate that took place in Waterford, the Virginia town where her family now lives, which was settled by Quakers in 1733. These pacifists "were passionate abolitionists, yet were part of the South. And then one day this light bulb went off in my head, and I was thinking, gee, Alcott's Little Women was really one of the first Civil War novels, and how would that [conflict] have played out for a man like March?"
March is the incredible result of these two converging trains of thought, though the novel touches only tangentially on Little Women. "I wouldn't have the hubris to attempt to rewrite Louisa May Alcott, so I've just taken the bit of the story she didn't want to deal with, for whatever complex, psychological or Freudian reasons," Brooks laughs. Her fascinating and meticulously researched novel imagines the Civil War experiences of Mr. March, whom she based on Alcott's own father. Brooks' March is an idealist and a man of faith whose convictions are challenged by the horrors of war. Faith in crisis is a topic that particularly interests Brooks, who wrote about an English village devastated by the plague in her first novel, Year of Wonders. "It is a theme I keep returning to. I'm intrigued by people who have strong beliefs, because I don't. I'm a spiritual quester, but I also think that you have to work very hard to make the ethical choice rather than the expedient one."
Deciding that the cause of abolition is worth the necessary evil of war, March enlists as a chaplain. He expects hardship, but the reality of battle is almost more than he can bear. March struggles to keep the disillusionment he feels from his daily letters home to the girls and Marmee, which are a marked contrast to the honest and, as a consequence, graphic, scenes of wartime life masterfully depicted by Brooks. These experiences are interspersed with March's recollections of his youth spent as a traveling salesman; his passionate courtship of the intelligent, fiery Margaret May (Marmee); and their married life as prominent citizens of Concord, Massachusetts, who rubbed elbows and exchanged thoughts with Emerson and Thoreau.
March's character is skillfully drawn through his own thoughts and actions, but Brooks rounds out his portrayal in the few brief chapters told through Marmee's eyes. Her practical voice is a marked contrast to that of her visionary husband, and she has difficulty accepting that March has concealed much of the truth of his experiences.
Idealistic men and their pragmatic female counterparts have appeared in both of Brooks' novels: is she making a larger statement about men and women? "That hadn't occurred to me, but I also think it's very true, and something that comes from my experiences of being a foreign correspondent in the Middle East [for the Wall Street Journal]. You'd have these fiery-eyed Islamic preachers like the Ayatollah telling everybody how it had to be, and then you'd have women actually having to feed their families and keep them safe through the consequences of that," she says. "Even in our comparatively luxurious circumstances, even in my own life as a writer, you might have a male novelist who feels free to go into some kind of, don't disturb me, I'm in my ivory tower out in the woods thing, but as a mother, the kid has to be dressed. So you're always tied into the practical world, and I think that's a good thing."
Brooks is content with her life in the practical world. Her family spends time each year ("ideally it'd be half-and-half") in Virginia and Australia, despite the 24-hour journey. "The only good thing about it is after you get used to coming back and forth to Australia, every other plane flight seems short!" She's working on another historical novel. "It's sort of insanely ambitious. It's the story of a [real-life] Hebrew manuscript that was created in 14th-century Spain and still exists today. I'm tracing it through the hands that held it. I love finding these stories in history where you know something, but you can't know everything, and so you've got the license to let your imagination fill in the voids." And she's looking forward to readers' responses to March. "I hope that people who love Little Women will see it as a respectful homage to Louisa May—books find new lives and new readers all the time." Copyright 2005 BookPage Reviews.
Kirkus Reviews 2005 January #1
Brooks combines her penchant for historical fiction (Year of Wonders, 2001, etc.) with the literary-reinvention genre as she imagines the Civil War from the viewpoint of Little Women's Mr. March (a stand-in for Bronson Alcott).In 1861, John March, a Union chaplain, writes to his family from Virginia, where he finds himself at an estate he remembers from his much earlier life. He'd come there as a young peddler and become a guest of the master, Mr. Clement, whom he initially admired for his culture and love of books. Then Clement discovered that March, with help from the light-skinned, lovely, and surprisingly educated house slave Grace, was teaching a slave child to read. The seeds of abolitionism were planted as March watched his would-be mentor beat Grace with cold mercilessness. When March's unit makes camp in the now ruined estate, he finds Grace still there, nursing Clement, who is revealed to be, gasp, her father. Although drawn to Grace, March is true to his wife Marmee, and the story flashes back to their life together in Concord. Friends of Emerson and Thoreau, the pair became active in the Underground Railroad and raised their four daughters in wealth until March lost all his money in a scheme of John Brown's. Now in the war-torn South, March finds himself embroiled in another scheme doomed to financial failure when his superiors order him to minister to the "contraband": freed slaves working as employees for a northerner who has leased a liberated cotton plantation. The morally gray complications of this endeavor are the novel's greatest strength. After many setbacks, the crop comes in, but the new plantation-owner is killed by marauders and his "employees" taken back into slavery. March, deathly ill, ends up in a Washington, DC, hospital, where Marmee visits and meets Grace, now a nurse. Readers of Little Women know the ending.The battle scenes are riveting, the human drama flat.Author tour Copyright Kirkus 2005 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.
Library Journal Reviews 2004 November #2
Brooks imagines what happened to March, father of Alcott's little women. With a ten-city author tour. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Publishers Weekly Reviews 2004 December #3
Brooks's luminous second novel, after 2001's acclaimed Year of Wonders, imagines the Civil War experiences of Mr. March, the absent father in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. An idealistic Concord cleric, March becomes a Union chaplain and later finds himself assigned to be a teacher on a cotton plantation that employs freed slaves, or "contraband." His narrative begins with cheerful letters home, but March gradually reveals to the reader what he does not to his family: the cruelty and racism of Northern and Southern soldiers, the violence and suffering he is powerless to prevent and his reunion with Grace, a beautiful, educated slave whom he met years earlier as a Connecticut peddler to the plantations. In between, we learn of March's earlier life: his whirlwind courtship of quick-tempered Marmee, his friendship with Emerson and Thoreau and the surprising cause of his family's genteel poverty. When a Confederate attack on the contraband farm lands March in a Washington hospital, sick with fever and guilt, the first-person narrative switches to Marmee, who describes a different version of the years past and an agonized reaction to the truth she uncovers about her husband's life. Brooks, who based the character of March on Alcott's transcendentalist father, Bronson, relies heavily on primary sources for both the Concord and wartime scenes; her characters speak with a convincing 19th-century formality, yet the narrative is always accessible. Through the shattered dreamer March, the passion and rage of Marmee and a host of achingly human minor characters, Brooks's affecting, beautifully written novel drives home the intimate horrors and ironies of the Civil War and the difficulty of living honestly with the knowledge of human suffering. Agent, Kris Dahl. 10-city author tour. (Mar. 7) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
School Library Journal Reviews 2005 July
Adult/High School-In Brooks's well-researched interpretation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Mr. March also remains a shadowy figure for the girls who wait patiently for his letters. They keep a stiff upper lip, answering his stiff, evasive, flowery letters with cheering accounts of the plays they perform and the charity they provide, hiding their own civilian privations. Readers, however, are treated to the real March, based loosely upon the character of Alcott's own father. March is a clergyman influenced by Thoreau, Emerson, and especially John Brown (to whom he loses a fortune). His high-minded ideals are continually thwarted not only by the culture of the times, but by his own ineptitude as well. A staunch abolitionist, he is amazingly naive about human nature. He joins the Union army and soon becomes attached to a hospital unit. His radical politics are an embarrassment to the less ideological men, and he is appalled by their lack of abolitionist sentiments and their cruelty. When it appears that he has committed a sexual indiscretion with a nurse, a former slave and an old acquaintance, March is sent to a plantation where the recently freed slaves earn wages but continue to experience cruelty and indignities. Here his faith in himself and in his religious and political convictions are tested. Sick and discouraged, he returns to his little women, who have grown strong in his absence. March, on the other hand, has experienced the horrors of war, serious illness, guilt, regret, and utter disillusionment.-Jackie Gropman, Chantilly Regional Library, VA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.


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(NEW YORK TIMES) -- An interactive map from the New York Times tabs East Carroll Parish as one of the 10 lowest counties in the country.
The rank is based on six factors: education (percentage of residents with a bachelor's degree), median household income, unemployment rate, life expectancy and obesity.
The 10 lowest counties in the country, by this ranking, include a cluster of six in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky (Breathitt, Clay, Jackson, Lee, Leslie and Magoffin), along with four others in various parts of the rural South: Humphreys County, Miss.; East Carroll Parish, La.; Jefferson County, Ga.; and Lee County, Ark.
According to the article, East Carroll Parish ranked 3,130 out of the 3,135 counties in the nation. 10.7 percent have a college education, 15.7 percent are unemployed and 53 percent are considered obese. The median income is $25,413. Life expextancy is 73.1 years and the 4.6 percent of people in the parish are disabled.
Parishes that faired better include Bossier, Lafayette and St. Tammany parishes.
To see how your parish or county faired, click here for full article and interactive map.
Copyright 2014 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


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Welcome to CWIs Employee KRONOS Self Service Portal
Through Kronos Self Service CWI staff will have the ability to view records on file such as: direct deposit, tax withholding, current benefits, personal profile, personal information, address on file, email address and emergency contacts.
Staff will be able to view and print: pay check stub information.
In addition, the following historical information is available: earnings history and W-2's.
For reference, posted are annual notifications and disclosures and forms.
Should you have updates for your account, please forward the information on applicable forms to the Human Resources Department.
Click the link below to access your Kronos Self Service Account:
Please contact HR if you need any assistance.
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