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ingredient information
Fish Clam Juice
The clam is a bi-valve mollusk of the Pelecypoda class that digs in the sand. Although native to both salt and fresh water, saltwater clams are considered far superior for eating purposes. The word clam comes from the Old English clamm, meaning "bond" or "fetter," referring to its tightly clamped shell. Native Americans carved clam shells into beads and used them as currency or wampum (Algonquian meaning "white string of beads"), and introduced colonists to the concept of clambakes. The National Marine Fisheries located in Milford, Connecticut, pioneered clam farming circa 1930. Commercial hatcheries gained their foothold in the Northeast in the 1960s. Most commercially-available clams are nowadays raised on farms. Since the shells are built of calcium deposits, it is no wonder that clams are a good source of calcium as well as being high in protein.


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Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2013 4:47 pm
Post subject: 19 And Pregnant
Hi there, I'm 19 and me and my partner decided that we wanted to try for a baby, I had my implant taken out at the end of December and two months later I'm pregnant. I know its early to tell people as I worked it out I'm only 4-5 weeks but I was shocked how fast it happened and a few family and friends know we were trying. And with my sudden change of mood and attitude they guessed. I have the support off my partner and parents but I feel that the majority of my family aren't happy for us due to my partner being older than me. However I'm happier than I ever have been and I know we'll make perfect parents, we bounce off each other and I know we will get through anything together. I have a few concerns and worries with it been my first and I'm constantly been told all sorts of different things I cant do which I appreciate but tire of, its like a constant list of things I'm doing wrong and baby isn't even here yet. I'm sure it's just my hormones playing up why I'm feeling anxious. I am unbelievably excited but have a nagging feeling I'm going to mess up? Plus I'm comparing myself to my partners ex wondering if I'm going to be a good parent that wont stop him seeing our child if things go wrong. But on the other hand I know I'll be a good mother. Are these normal feelings? xx
Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2013 4:55 pm
Post subject:
Totally, it doesn't matter how old you are you always worry that you won't be a good mum or you might not be able to cope and it definately doesn't help having other people commenting because of your age , sometimes you just have to politely tell them to keep their opinions to themselves when you haven't asked for them Congratulations xx
Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2013 7:41 pm
Post subject:

subset: commoncrawl


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ingredient information
Vegetables Colors
If it's not something like beet juice,Annatto Extract or like that then The FDA does not require companies to disclose ingredients of color or flavor additives so long as all the chemicals in them are considered by the agency to be GRAS ("generally recognized as safe") enabling companies to maintain secrecy of formulas. It also hides the fact that flavors often contain more ingredients than the foods to which they give taste. A typical artificial strawberry flavor contains over 30 chemicals. According to manufacturer safety data sheets those chemicals cause eye irritation, corneal damage, eye burns, skin irritation, severe / permanent damage to digestive tract, gastrointestinal irritation, gastrointestinal tract burns, CNS depression, neurological effects, liver abnormalities, cardiac abnormalities, or other harm. Natural flavor, according to the FDA, must be derived entirely from natural sources (herbs, spices, fruits, vegetables, beef, chicken, yeast, bark, roots, etc). Consumers prefer to see natural flavors on a label out of a belief they are more healthful. Natural flavor is not necessarily more healthful or purer than an artificial flavor. Almond flavor when derived from natural sources may contain traces of hydrogen cyanide, a deadly poison. When derived by mixing oil of clove & amyl acetate, it does not. Natural flavors and artificial flavors are often manufactured at same chemical plants. Flavor manufacturing may also involve biotechnology, using enzyme reactions, fermentation, & fungal and tissue cultures. Flavors created by these methods are considered natural flavors by the FDA. In addition to flavor chemicals also think about genetic engineering of food, DNA or gene alteration, and medicines and hormones given to cows, cattle, hogs, and chickens. What affect does it have upon us? Some are suspected causes of cancer or other problems. When a natural flavor or artificial flavor is added to a food or drink the resultant processed food is no longer natural & is potentially harmful.


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What is the background to the MR approach and its technological development?
Using targeted experiments, a new film coating system was developed, which enabled the technology for use with weak bases (3). The increase in potential products that could benefit from the new film-coating system prompted further investment of time and resources to fully explore the capabilities of this technology.
The new coating system developed was an enteric film coat based upon previous research into different detackifiers. For weak bases, this coating initially retards the release of the active material to the drilled apertures while within the high-solubility gastric environment. Upon reaching the higher pH of the intestines, the coating dissociates and becomes soluble. The dissolution of the coat increases the exposed surface area of the core, which increases the availability of the exposed drug substance, thereby compensating for the decreased solubility. By making use of established polymer matrix techniques, the core is formulated to ensure a controlled release rate is maintained.
Further refinements have been made for specific compounds, dependant on the product's pharmacodynamics. The use of a bilayer core enables the combination of an immediate-release (IR) layer and a MR layer. The IR layer reduces the time to reach the minimum therapeutic dose for the patient while the MR layer provides a maintenance dose. This bilayer approach can obviously be extended to combination products though this has not been trialled at this time (4). GSK has several products utilizing this technology under development at various clinical stages, with Lamictal XR (lamotrigine) being the first product commercially available on the market.


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Malignant mesothelioma is an uncommon cancerous tumor of the lining of the lung and chest cavity (pleura) or lining of the abdomen (peritoneum). It is due to long-term asbestos exposure.
Malignant mesothelioma
Long-term exposure to asbestos -- a fire-resistant material -- is the biggest risk factor. Asbestos was once commonly found in insulation, ceiling and roofing vinyls, cement, and automotive brake materials. Although many asbestos workers smoked, experts do not believe smoking itself is a cause of this condition.
Malignant mesothelioma affects men more often than women. The average age at diagnosis is 60. Most people seem to develop the condition about 30 years after being in contact with the asbestos.
Symptoms may not appear until 20 to 50 years or longer after exposure to asbestos, and may include:
The doctor or nurse will examine you and ask about your medical history and symptoms. Tests that may be done include:
Mesothelioma is often hard to diagnose under the microscope. It can be hard to distinguish between this disease and similar conditions and tumors.
Malignant mesothelioma is a difficult cancer to treat.
There is usually no cure, unless the disease is found extremely early and the tumor can be completely removed with surgery. Most of the time when the disease is diagnosed it is too advanced for surgery. Chemotherapy or radiation may be used to reduce symptoms. Combining certain chemotherapy drugs may help decrease symptoms, but it will not cure the cancer.
Untreated, most patients survive about 9 months.
Consider participating in a clinical trial (test of new treatments), which may give you more treatment options.
Pain relief, oxygen, and other supportive treatments may also help relieve symptoms.
You can ease the stress of illness by joining a support group where members share common experiences and problems.
The average survival time varies from 4 to 18 months. Your outlook depends on:
Call for an appointment with your health care provider if you have symptoms of malignant mesothelioma.
Avoid exposure to asbestos.
National Cancer Institute: PDQ Malignant Mesothelioma Treatment. Bethesda, MD: National Cancer Institute. Date last modified 3/07/2014. Available at http://cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/malignantmesothelioma/HealthProfessional. Accessed May 29, 2014.
National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines): Malignant pleural mesothelioma. Version 1.2014. Available at http://www.nccn.org/professionals/physician_gls/pdf/mpm.pdf. Accessed May 29, 2014.
On a mission to heal body, mind and spirit


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DON'T MISS: "Rosemary's Baby" -- A strange way to celebrate Mother's Day? This eerie two-part miniseries is not a remake of Roman Polanski's classic thriller, but a fresh adaptation of the hellishly suspenseful 1967 novel by Ira Levin that shifts the setting from New York to Paris. It focuses on a young pregnant woman (Zoe Saldana) and her husband (Patrick J. Adams), who move into a prestigious apartment complex seeking a fresh start. Just one problem: It comes with a haunted past and an immeasurable price. 9 p.m. Sunday, NBC.
SUNDAY: The two-hour season finale of "Once Upon a Time" features a time portal and we've learned by now that time portals usually lead to trouble. Proceed with caution. 8 p.m., ABC.
: You might want to keep the lights on during "Penny Dreadful." It's a creepy new drama series about monsters and demons who terrorize Victorian London. There will be blood. 10 p.m., Showtime.
MONDAY: "The Blacklist" closes out its highly successful freshman season with an episode that producers promise is a "game-changer." That's great, but what we really want to know is the true identity of Liz's mysterious husband (Ryan Eggold). 10 p.m., NBC.
TUESDAY: "NCIS," which usually goes out on a suspenseful note, instead ends its season with an emotional one. The episode is a tribute to the late Ralph Waite, who played Gibbs' (Mark Harmon) father. 8 p.m., CBS.
TUESDAY: The Season 5 finale of "Glee" opens with everyone at a crossroads as Rachel (Lea Michele) ponders leaving Broadway behind to try out television. Our advice? Don't do it, Rachel! 8 p.m., Fox.
WEDNESDAY: Do you hear wedding bells? On "Modern Family," Mitchell and Cameron's (Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Eric Stonestreet) big day is finally here. But we suspect their walk down the aisle won't go off without a hitch. 9 p.m., ABC.
THURSDAY: The season finale of "The Vampire Diaries" apparently puts some lives at risk. In other words, it's business as usual. 8 p.m., The CW.
THURSDAY: Break out the Kleenex. In the Season 10 closer of "Grey's Anatomy," we're forced to bid farewell to hard-driven surgeon Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh), one of TV's great characters. We'll be OK, but what about poor Meredith (Ellen Pompeo)? 9 p.m., ABC.
FRIDAY: The third season of "Grimm" ends with the long-awaited wedding of Rosalee and Monroe (Bree Turner, Silas Weir Mitchell). Should be fun -- as long as the guests don't try to kill each other. 9 p.m., NBC.
FRIDAY: Earlier in the day on "The View," the show's esteemed creator and co-host was scheduled to slip off into retirement. Tonight brings "Barbara Walters: Her Story," a two-hour retrospective special that recalls an incredible, groundbreaking television career. 9 p.m., ABC.
SATURDAY: The season finale of "Saturday Night Live" serves as a homecoming for Andy Samberg ("Brooklyn Nine-Nine"), who returns to the show for his first hosting gig. The musical guest is St. Vincent. 11:35 p.m., NBC.
Contact Chuck Barney at firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow him at Twitter.com/chuckbarney and Facebook.com/bayareanewsgroup.chuckbarney.


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After a 15-month world tour as a dancer for Disney Live, 20-year-old Ashley Wiemer discovered something about herself.
The 2010 Eagle Valley High School graduate had always known that she loved dancing and performing. That's why she entered Brigham Young University as a dance major.
She auditioned for Disney Live in February 2011, accepted a contract in June and returned home last month with a new outlook on life. She's not a dance major anymore.
"I love dancing and it will always be a part of me, but now I know that I can make it as a professional dancer - I don't need to study to be something I already am," she said.
Now she wants to explore her other talents, so she's switching her studies to health care at BYU.
"I was on tour, thinking about what I would do next," Ashley said. "I'm ready to start the next chapter of my life. A friend's mom works in prenatal care at Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs, and I've been drawn to that since I got back."
She is currently taking a certified nursing assistant class through Colorado Mountain College and working as a waitress in Eagle. The class started Aug. 27, so she hit the ground running when she returned home Sept. 10.
"I was studying to keep up with the class while finishing the tour," Ashley said.
During her time on the road, that wasn't the only studying she faced. She toured nine countries and had to learn the script in four languages. That's in addition to all the dance moves, positioning on stage and six understudy positions.
"You have to learn quick," she said.
When Ashley auditioned for Disney Live in February 2011, it was just another audition in a series of many.
"I'd been doing a ton of auditions for practice and fun," she said. "I didn't know anything about Disney Live at the time and wasn't stressed because I didn't think I could get the part."
Besides, the director told her it would be an eight-month contract.
"I said, 'I can't do that, I'm in school.'"
Then Ashley got a call the following May.
"It was for the 15-month tour and I had to make a decision in nine hours," she said.
Ashley's mom, Tammi Wiemer, said her initial reaction was worry.
"I always envisioned her entertaining but not on a 15-month tour," she said. "My first reaction was, 'No way. She'll be all alone, she doesn't know anybody.' Her dad, on the other hand, said, 'Go for it.'"
During the tour, Ashley came home for breaks every so often and her mom witnessed an evolution.
"Each time she came home, she had grown so much," Tammi said. "My confidence grew in her ability to take care of herself."
Not only that, Tammi felt even more connected to her daughter's life.
"I think the time away and sporadic communication made us closer," she said. "The first time she went through airport security, I saw apprehension in her. Not so later on, it was routine - she would leave for another country without batting an eye."
Starting from the moment she accepted the contract, Ashley simply learned to roll with the intensity of a demanding tour.
"I left in June 2011 and had to learn the entire show in Mandarin Chinese in four days," she said.
When Ashley auditioned for Disney Live, one of her greatest aspirations was to win a spot on the BYU Cougarette Dance Team.
"They're national champs," she said.
She had been on the EVHS Dance Team her last three years of high school and was a co-captain her junior and senior years.
"I was one of three people in the final rounds of auditions for the Cougarettes," she said. "I was really frustrated to not make the team and I questioned my ability. I had no idea that Disney Live was right around the corner and I ended up being grateful. I got to see nine countries and meet incredible people, which I wouldn't have been able to do if I was committed to the dance team."
But Ashley hasn't given up on the Cougarettes.
"I still want to make the team," she said.
Ashley faced an additional challenge on tour. As a Mormon, she tries to devote every Sunday to God.
"Mormon churches are all over except in China, where it's illegal to proselytize (in public)," she said.
Most Sundays, Ashley found a church nearby where she could go by herself, since she was the only Mormon among the tour group of 15 cast members, 10 crew members and five administrators (all from the United States). Other Sundays, she had to perform.
"On those days, I found ways to dedicate myself to God by thinking of it as a service day - how I was bringing happiness to people," she said.
Meanwhile, Ashley's boyfriend has been on a two-year mission for the Mormon church in Argentina. He is from Glenwood Springs and the two have been dating since their junior year of high school.
"He gets home next month," she said. "I was stoked that I got to go on tour while he was away. We're going to have a lot of things to catch up on. He's only been able to send handwritten letters about once a month."
It's hard for Ashley to pick a favorite place from her tour visits.
"I saw so many cities in each country and each city had it's own culture," she said. "I loved Thailand. I got to do a four-day side trip there and camped in the jungle and rode an elephant."
She also got to pet a tiger in Thailand.
"I met amazing people in Singapore through church," she said. "They became like family and I was so happy when the tour returned there."
In total, Ashley visited nine cities in China; Singapore; two cities in the Philippines; Thailand; Singapore (again); two cities in Indonesia; 10 cities in Australia; 11 cities in Japan; three cities in Taiwan; and then 13 cities on a second tour in Japan.
Jakarta, Indonesia, was the most uncomfortable place for her.
"The culture was very different - Muslim - and it didn't have the kind of respect for women that I'm used to," she said. "At the hotel, I had to go through two metal detectors and we had four security guards for the whole show there. Most other places we only had one security guard. I stayed in my hotel room as much as possible."
There were also parts of Indonesia she loved, however.
"I got to take a side trip to an island, so Indonesia was also one of my favorites in that regard," she said. "It just goes to show that anywhere you go, you can find good and bad."
Japan had some of the friendliest people, Ashley said.
There were very nice people, even overly friendly," she said. "I never felt in danger. You could leave your purse on the subway and it would still be there when you looked for it."
She said the people there tend to model themselves after Americans.
"They try really hard to be like us - they try to keep their skin as white as possible and avoid tanning," she said.
Their take on American food is different as well.
"One restaurant offered 'American Pizza' - it was french fries on top of cheese and marinara sauce," she said.
Dancing is sort of what led to Ashley's interest in health care.
"I love learning about the body," she said. "When I was younger, I wanted to go into physical therapy for dancers. Dancers have different bodies. For example, I'm more flexible, so the stretches that helped everyone else didn't work for me."
Now she's fascinated with prenatal.
"I want to learn everything!" she said.
She might go back to Disney Live at some point.
"I was a good employee and I told them I would fill in if needed," she said. "I will continue dancing it up. That's what I breathe - most people know me as 'Ashley the dancer.'"
Her mom agrees that dancing is a huge part of who she is.
"I remember her moving to music before we even knew what that meant," Tammi said. "I would say she needs to dance like people need oxygen."
As scary as it was for Tammi to send her daughter off on a plane to the other side of the world, she acknowledges that Ashley and her 11-year-old sister were raised to be that way.
"We always told our kids, 'Don't be afraid of change because it is inevitable; don't be afraid to take a risk,'" she said. "You have to seize opportunity while you can."


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My buddies and I are coming down from Minneapolis for our third annual spring tournament. We have friends from Lincoln that meet us there (We originally met in DSM just becuase it was half way, then we realized that DSM is a real disc golf destination).
We've always camped at Saylorville and the courses we play are
Twice. We might play in Ames on the way down.
I see there's a couple of new nine holers down there. Are they worth putting in our tournament line-up?
Also, are there camping sites in/around DSM that are better than Saylorville?
Thanks Des Moiners--all of you we've met over our years playing down there have been kind and helpful.


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Bianchi Milano produce products with original style and fabric use, as unique as Bianchi's victories. With attention paid to even the smallest details, these products reflect the full passion of the sport and victories.
Moisture is generated on the skin through transpiration, the MantoDry fabric absorbs this moisture and quickly conveys it outside. The optimised synthetic fiber carries out constant evaporation and a more effective heat exchange. The result is a sensation of freshness on the skin.
Key Features:
Please remember to add postal time (2-3 working days) to obtain a complete estimate of delivery to your door.
You will receive an email to confirm when your item has been sent.
You can also check the status of your order and individual items by accessing your account details and following the prompts.
Please allow 10 working days from dispatch of your order before notifying us of any late deliveries.
It may be advisable to check with your neighbors to see if your delivery has been left with them, check any places it could be left such as: garage, porch, or behind garbage cans if it was too big to fit through your mailbox. Contact your local post office to see if the item has been returned to the depot as undelivered and awaiting collection.
Please see our returns policy.
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Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on CookiesKids at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
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They'll dream of outer-space adventure in these Angry Birds pajamas. The T-shirt features a ribbed neckline and a "These Birds Are Awesome" graphic. The pants have an elastic waistband. Both pieces are made of soft, breathable material for all-night comfort. Flame Resistant 100% Polyester Machine Wash Cold, Inside Out Made in China. Price: $14.99
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Spanx for MenCotton Compression V Neck T-shirt
To get more from your undershirt go for this cotton compression v-neck t-shirt from Spanx. The ergonomic, tapered shape provides powerful body control for your chest & stomach whilst improving posture. Invisible under clothing.
Product code: SPX-610-COT
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Gary Gene Nestor, 59, of Gypsum passed away on July 14 at his home after a short battle with cancer.
Gary was born on Dec. 25, 1952, in Hugo to James and Dora Nestor. Gary was one of seven children. He grew up in Hugo where he attended school until he graduated in 1972.
On May 26, 1973, Gary married Linda Elliott of Karval. The two lived in Denver after they were married until 1979, when they moved to the Gypsum area in Eagle County.
On March 25, 1977, the couple welcomed twin girls, Amy and Alicia, into the family. On May 21, 1981, their son Corey joined the family.
Gary was an outdoorsman. He loved elk, deer and antelope hunting. Gary loved being around his family and hunting was a family event for them. Gary also had a passion for old cars. He spent most of his free time working on and restoring cars. He started the Bad Mountain Boys Car Club and put on the "Bad Mountain Boys Car Club Car Show" at Gypsum Daze for the past seven years. He loved to travel to car shows throughout the state, showing off his '66 Impala. His garage was his usual hangout and you could find him there with a new project or an idea for a new project. He enjoyed making antler and wood art, and building tables and chairs.
Gary spent a lot of time at the Skiles Ranch in Burns with his family and friends. He found it relaxing there with no cell phone service, no television and always something to do. Whether working on cabins, fixing fence or bailing hay, it was always a favorite place of his.
Gary was preceded in death by his parents, James and Dora; brothers Charles and James; sister Betty; one daughter, Alicia; and nephew Jerry Olson.
Gary is survived by his wife, Linda; daughter Amy (Sam) Boles of Burns; son Corey (Jody) Nestor of Gillette, Wyo.; brother Austin (Shirley) Nestor of Hugo; sisters Naomi (Bob) Olson of Yuma, Ariz., and Sue (Doug) Dreier of Buena Vista. He is also survived by his grandchildren, Samuel Boles, Bailee Boles, Hayden Boles, Westin Boles, Addison Nestor and Garrett Nestor, as well as numerous nieces and nephews.
His celebration of life memorial was held July 18 at the Gypsum Town Hall.
In lieu of flowers the family has set up an account to help cover the cost of his medical bills. Donations can be made to The Gary Nestor Benefit Account through Alpine Bank, P.O. Box 70, Eagle, Colo. 8163. For additional information regarding the memorial fund, call (970) 328-1666.


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Health and Wellness Fair
Kansas City Health & Wellness
Saturday, October 27, 2012
12:00pm @ Irene H. Ruiz Biblioteca de las Americas
The Kansas City Public Library, in partnership with Truman Medical Centers, will host two health and wellness fairs over the next two months. All will take place on Saturdays from Noon – 2 p.m.
On October 27, 2012, the Irene H. Ruiz Branch, 2017 W. Pennway, hosts free cholesterol screenings as well as vision screenings courtesy of the Lion's Club.
On November 10, 2012, the Southeast Branch, 6242 Swope Parkway, hosts free glucose testing as well as vision screenings courtesy of the Lion's Club.
A pharmacist from Truman Medical Centers will be on hand at each event to answer questions about medications.


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SANTA CLARA -- Aldon Smith savored every minute of the 49ers' final minicamp practice Thursday, whether he was pass-rushing against Joe Staley, lining up on special-teams drills or congratulating Bruce Miller on a benign carry.
What comes next for the 49ers linebacker won't be as enjoyable.
Smith will be sentenced July 25 in Santa Clara County Superior Court after pleading no contest last month to weapons and drunken driving charges.
"I don't know what's going to happen," Smith said at his locker. "I'm going to enjoy my month. I'll work out and stay here."
Smith, who also plans to spend time with his 1-year-old son, endorsed coach Jim Harbaugh's advice to the team on staying safe before reconvening July 23 for training camp.
"Beware with whom you associate," Harbaugh said, in relaying his end-of-minicamp speech. "It's very important to know your surroundings.
"Friend or foe? There always seem to be a foe present. Get in a good football position and be ready for anything that comes at you. See around corners, see under doors and anticipate. But mainly surround yourselves around good people."
Smith is one of at least five 49ers players who've been involved in police investigations over the past year. And Smith didn't feel as if Harbaugh's advice was solely directed at him.
"He was talking to everybody because anybody can be in a situation," Smith said.
Harbaugh's words resonated with quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who was cleared last week after a Miami police investigation into an April 1 incident with a belligerent woman at his hotel suite.
"Since I really started playing (in 2012), it's something I've been more aware of, and especially in the past few months," Kaepernick said of off-field dangers. "It's something that obviously you have to be very aware of."
Smith's off-field issues, including an April arrest on suspicion of making a false bomb threat at Los Angeles International Airport, could lead to a suspension from the league.
Will Smith be back on the practice field for the 49ers' first session July 24, on the eve of his court sentencing? "That's to be determined," Harbaugh answered.
Harbaugh praised Smith, among several others, for the minicamp effort, stating: "Aldon was dominant today. He had a lot more reps yesterday, and we weren't able to block him."
Said Smith: "It was a good camp. We all look good, even the new guys."
"I want to see this offense do whatever it has to do to win games. That's really what's most important," Kaepernick said. "But I'm always good to throw a few more balls."
Kaepernick also was good with his contract's structure that's been widely regarded as team-friendly, since it didn't give Kaepernick more than $13 million guaranteed up front.
"The things that aren't set up like those (other quarterbacks') contracts are because we wanted them that way so we could sign other players," Kaepernick said. "It was very deliberate by my agents, the organization and myself that we wanted things done this way, so we could keep a solid team here."
Crabtree has looked fully recovered from last year's Achilles tear. "At the end of last year he still wasn't 100 percent," Kaepernick said. "He has a lot more burst to him now. Looks really good."
Three training-camp sessions will be held next door at Levi's Stadium and open to the public; those dates are tentative.
Purdy: Kaepernick making minicamp impression. PAGE 6


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Holding back sobs, a former Marietta City Schools employee pleaded guilty Monday in Washington County Common Pleas Court to slowly siphoning away more than $145,000 from the district for personal use.
"Please accept my guilty plea," said former Marietta City Schools assistant treasurer Barbara Mincks as Washington County Common Pleas Court Judge Randall Burnworth wrapped up the plea proceedings.
Burnworth did accept the plea, and now Mincks, 53, of 60 Warner Second St., Lower Salem, will be required to pay back the money she stole from the district.
Article Photos
JASMINE ROGERS The Marietta Times
Former Marietta City Schools assistant treasurer Barbara Mincks, left, chokes back a sob Monday in Washington County Common Pleas Court as she pleads guilty to theft in office. Mincks, pictured with attorney Rolf Baumgartel, stole more than $145,000 over the course of five years by reissuing uncashed checks in her name.
That satisfies the school district, said Board of Education president Greg Gault.
"I think the No. 1 concern for the district was recovering the funds that had been stolen, and that appears to have been addressed," he said when contacted after the hearing.
As part of the restitution agreement, Mincks will sign over the rights to the retirement benefits she accrued during her 28 years working for the school district, said Washington County Prosecutor Jim Schneider.
Fact Box
Timeline of events
Oct. 3: Marietta City School District placed then-assistant treasurer Barbara Mincks on paid administrative leave after receiving information from the Ohio Auditor's Office that indicated Mincks had engaged in manipulation of records that indicated a theft of public funds.
Oct. 8: Marietta City Board of Education accepts Mincks' resignation.
Oct. 12: Mincks is charged with theft in office, a third-degree felony.
Nov. 26: Investigators estimate the thefts totaled around $146,000 and took place over a five-year time span.
December: Mincks is indicted on the third-degree felony count of theft in office.
Monday: Mincks pleads guilty as charged to the indictment.
Her retirement account is believed to be worth between $90,000 to $100,000, he added.
Mincks was indicted in December on a third-degree felony county of theft in office after officials from the Ohio Auditor's Office uncovered evidence of the possible theft during an October audit.
At that point, Mincks had been stealing money for more than five years, pointed out Schneider.
The thefts date back to June 2007, he said.
Mincks resigned in October to save the school district from going through the termination process, said her attorney, Rolf Baumgartel, at the time of her resignation. At that time, Mincks had a $37,000 annual salary.
All told, she stole $145,183.51 from the district by finding uncashed, long-outstanding checks and reissuing them to herself, he said.
"She prepared and created documents to cover that up and try to hide that," said Schneider.
Among other things, Mincks had used the money to pay off her daughter's student loans and to throw her daughter a lavish wedding ceremony, said Schneider.
The plea agreement also contained a sentencing component, he said.
On top of paying restitution, Mincks will have to spend 120 days in the Washington County Jail and she will be subject to three years community control, he said.
Burnworth approved the sentencing agreement pending the results of a pre-sentence investigation.
"If it would indicate a pattern of criminal behavior we're not aware of, that sentencing agreement can be revoked," he noted.
Mincks had faced a maximum of three years in prison and a $10,000 fine in the case.
The state asked the court to waive the fine so that precedence could be given to restitution, said Schneider.
"I'm glad she's making restitution," said Marietta City Schools Superintendent Harry Fleming. "It's a sad situation, and it's good we can put it behind us."
As assistant treasurer, Mincks was in charge of coordinating the education management information system (EMIS), said Fleming. The statewide data collection system includes demographic, attendance, course information, financial data and test results, according to the Ohio Department of Education.
That job has been filled on a temporary basis, he said.
Mincks is scheduled to be sentenced May 21 at 4 p.m.


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This seems like a relatively easy endorsement to make, and in a way, it was.
There are those of us on this newspaper's editorial board who have known Jon Stavney since he first became Eagle's mayor. Over the years, we've generally been impressed by his intelligence and by the sheer amount of effort he's put into his elected jobs.
That's become even more pronounced in Stavney's term as an Eagle County commissioner. Stavney has made his elected position his full-time job, and it shows in the connections he's made and the meetings he so frequently attends.
Sending a department head to a meeting about river use sends one message. Sending an elected official sends another, namely that this topic is important enough to dispatch a representative of the people.
Then there's the simple fact critics don't want to hear: Eagle County is being run pretty well right now.
Two years ago, this group of commissioners was warned about a coming fiscal cliff and took decisive action. That action wasn't easy - scores of people lost their jobs. Still, it's more than was done by some other local governments that take a bite of our property tax dollars.
The fact is, Eagle County seems to be well-positioned for the next drop in property tax revenue coming in 2014. This board of commissioners deserves credit for that.
The county's relatively strong fiscal position is why open space has become perhaps the central issue of this year's campaign. Reasonable people can, and do, disagree about where that dedicated funding source is going, and how property is managed. But again, the fact of the matter is that the program is decidedly different today than it was when Stavney took office, with a much greater emphasis on public access than simply giving ranchers money to not develop their land.
Make no mistake, Stavney believes in an activist government. But he remains just a few clicks to the left of center. He's no Nancy Pelosi. Or even Diana DeGette.
So this endorsement is easy.
On the other hand, we've quickly come to like and respect Courtney Holm, Stavney's Republican opponent.
Holm got into the race in August, after former candidate Shayne Mitchell dropped out. She's played a credible game of catch-up ever since.
We like her willingness to throw herself into a difficult project, and she seems to have quickly come up with a reasonable campaign platform, through both research and a firm sense of who she is and how government ought to work.
In a different year, facing a different opponent, this endorsement may well have gone the other way.
So, while we'll wish Stavney well in a second term, we very much hope Holm stays involved in the county's political life. We believe she'd make a very good candidate when this seat again comes up for election in 2016.
Vail Daily Editorial Board


text:
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Terrebonne's Relay for Life is largest in the state
Published: Wednesday, July 17, 2013 at 9:46 p.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, July 17, 2013 at 9:46 p.m.
Terrebonne's Relay for Life this year raised more money than any other such event in the state, organizers said.
About $417,000 has been collected so far since the 18th annual relay kicked off April 27 at the Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center. The relay raised about $360,000 last year.
Anne Bates, development representative for the American Cancer Society's Mid-South Division, said Terrebonne has the largest American Cancer Society Relay for Life in the state.
Relay for Life is part of the Cancer Society's national fundraiser in which teams of people camp out and take turns walking or running around a track to support and honor anyone who has had cancer and touched their lives.
The Terrebonne relay has been judged a model event by the national organization.
This year, more than 569,490 Americans, including 8,480 in Louisiana, are expected to die of cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.
From a relatively small event, the local relay has grown to include more than 150 teams and close to 2,000 participants. It included live music, a cook-off, games, a rock-climbing wall, bounce houses and more.
M.J. Plaisance, co-chair for Terrebonne's Relay for Life committee, said the relay keeps growing and new teams have already committed for next year's relay to be held April 12 at the civic center.
"We want to continue to have this momentum going and to keep having these huge, successful turnouts," Plaisance said
Plaisance said he and his wife lost their son to brain cancer.
"You don't talk to anybody that has not been affected either directly or indirectly," he said. "That's one of the reasons we get so much support from the community."
Plaisance said the primary purpose of Relay for Life is to raise awareness for cancer research and to educate the public about early detection.
"Early detection is key," he said. "Regular checkups and not ignoring signs are important, and people have to be educated on what those signs are."
Sue Szush, chair of the American Cancer Society Terrebonne chapter, said each year's relay takes about 10 months of planning.
It couldn't be done without the dedication from team captains and the 20-member committee, she said.
Szush, who lost her mother to lung cancer and whose husband has been diagnosed with colon cancer, said the disease is a horrible one, and she hopes these events eventually raise enough money and awareness to cure the disease.
That's why organizers work so hard, she said, "because cancer doesn't sleep and neither do we."
For information or to view the schedule, visit www.relayforlife.org/terrebonne or call 851-7776.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.


text:
Saturday, January 26, 2013
AIKEN, S.C. – Behind four players in double figures the nationally sixth-ranked University of South Carolina Aiken women's basketball team claimed a 69-58 Peach Belt Conference victory over Francis Marion on Saturday evening at the Convocation Center.
The victory allowed USC Aiken (15-2, 8-2 PBC), which never trailed in the game, to remain in sole possession of first place in the Peach Belt Conference East Division.
Mia Antoine led the four Pacers in double figures with a career-high tying 16 points. Antoine shot 60 percent (6-for-10) from the field in the game. She was a perfect 4-of-4 at the charity stripe.
Antoine (Stone Mountain, Ga./Dominion Christian HS) also had six rebounds, two assists and two steals in the Pacer win.
Daniela Tarailo (Crown Point, Ind./Crown Point HS) closed out the Pacer victory over Francis Marion with 15 points, four rebounds, four assists and one steal.
Porsha Martin (Douglasville, Ga./South Paulding HS) and Mackenzie Reese (Madison, Wis./Edgewood HS) each finished with 11 points in the win over Francis Marion. Martin also had a team-best eight rebounds to go along with three assists.
Reese ended her evening with four rebounds, two assists and one steal in addition to her 11 points.
USC Aiken's Brittany Hill (Mechanicsville, Va./Quinnipiac) did not end her night in double figures in scoring, but she once again figured prominently in numerous categories as she had eight points, six assists and one steal. She also had no turnovers in the contest.
Briana Robinson was the top scorer for the Patriots in their loss. She ended the loss to the Pacers with a game-high 18 points.
USC Aiken as a team ended the win over Francis Marion (7-8, 2-7 PBC) shooting 45.8 percent (27-for-59). The Pacers held Francis Marion to just 33.3 percent (18-for-54) shooting as a team.
The Pacers closed out the game shooting 45.5 percent (5-of-11) from beyond the arc. Francis Marion hit just 33.3 percent (4-for-12) of its 3-point attempts as a team in the game.
USC Aiken shot 71.4 percent (10-for-14) from the free throw line in the game, while Francis Marion could only manage to hit 18 of its 28 free throw attempts (64.3 percent).
USC Aiken held a commanding presence in the paint in the game, outscoring Francis Marion, 38-14. The Pacers out-rebounded Francis Marion, 45-34.
The Pacers have now won seven straight against the Patriots. USC Aiken is now 2-0 against Francis Marion this season.
USC Aiken also bested Francis Marion, 74-55, on Dec. 17 in Florence, S.C.
USC Aiken has now won 27 of its last 28 regular-season home games.
The Pacers will next welcome Peach Belt Conference rival Flagler to the Convocation Center on Thursday, Jan. 31. Tip-off is scheduled for 5:30 p.m.


text:
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New Zealand International Film Festival website2014
- Cactuslab
- Matthew Buchanan
- Hayden Hunter
Contributed by Matthew Buchanan
Staff Pick
Contribute to the Collection
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Cats Let Nothing Darken Their Roar 20132012
- Noa Bembibre
Contributed by Florian Hardwig
Staff Pick


text:
Cordia M. Stevenson passed away Saturday, November 9, 2012, at home with her brother and sons in loving attendance. Services will be 11 a.m. Friday, November 16, 2012, at First Baptist Church, 16 E Street NE, Ardmore, Oklahoma, with interment following in Clearview Cemetery. Viewing will be from noon to 6 today at Grant Owens Mortuary and 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Friday, November 16, 2012, at First Baptist Church.
Cordia was born July 29, 1933, the second daughter of Clarence Williams and Rena Stevenson and lived all of her life in Carter County. She graduated from Central High School in Woodford, Oklahoma. Throughout her life, she worked as housekeeper and cook for the Fred Chapman Sr. family and Keith Walker family.
A deaconess and member of First Baptist Church for over 40 years, Cordia's faith in Jesus Christ defined her life. She was a Sunday school teacher for many years and was an officer and member of the Missionary Board of First Baptist Church. She also was a member of the community and civic organization, Ladies of Action. A master cook, she delighted in creating dishes that she put her signature stamp on and believed that cooking delicious food was an expression of love for her family and friends.
Cordia is survived by three sons, Larry Franklin, Pasadena, Calif., Dennis Franklin, Ardmore, Okla., and Joey Williams, San Antonio, Texas; three stepchildren she helped raise along side her second husband, Luke Alvin Stevenson II, Stephanie Stevenson Caldwell and Sonja Stevenson; brother, Lee Arthur Jackson, Moreno Valley, Calif.; sister, Gloria Potts, Lancaster, Calif.; three grandchildren, LaQuita Franklin, Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., Radhi Franklin, Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., and Madison Williams, Lancaster, Calif.; three great-grandchildren; nieces, Dorscine Spigner Littles, Oklahoma City, Okla., Reba Jackson, Seattle, Wash., and Belinda Jackson, Portland, Oregon; nephews, Jimmy Jackson and Tony Jackson, Portland, Ore., and Marty Jackson, San Bernadino, Calif.
She was preceded in death by her parents; brother, J.D. Jackson; and sister, Kathryn Spigner.
A fun-loving person, Cordia leaves behind a legacy of dignity, love and laughter. We know she is in a better place, but she will be forever remembered, always loved and greatly missed.
Location, ST | website.com


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The Oak Ridge High School Wildcats triumphed over Fulton, 7-5 (3-2), on Saturday, 8-4. The Wildcats, 6-10 (4-6), only got three hits, compared to Fulton High School Falcons' 8, but the 'Cats took advantage while the Falcons stranded nine on base.
Luke Hebert went 3-4 for the 'Cats, driving in one and scoring one run. He doubled in the second inning and singled in the second and sixth innings.
Chris Romanoski allowed one run over three and two-thirds innings, striking out four, walking two and giving up four hits.
The top of the first saw Fulton take an early lead of 1-0 over the 'Cats.
With a second inning rally that saw six runs cross the plate on an error, a sacrifice fly by Kyler Jones, and an RBI single by Hebert, the Wildcats took a 6-1 lead over the Falcons.
The 'Cats built up their lead to 8-1 over the Falcons with two runs in the fourth. Stephen May scored on a wild pitch by Fulton to start the scoring for the inning.
Two runs in the top of the fifth helped Fulton close its deficit to 8-3.
Fulton scored one run in the top of the seventh to cut its deficit to four. The Wildcats closed the game out with an 8-4 win when Hunter Sampson got two to fly out.
The Wildcats were scheduled to play Anderson County, 11-8 (6-3), on Monday afternoon, and will face off against Powell, 12-2 (8-1), at 5 p.m. today.
Both of these games will give Oak Ridge a chance for redemption after the March 17 and 18 consecutive losses to Anderson County with a final score of 7-0, and Powell with a final score of 10-0.
Heather Hicks can be reached at (865) 220-5501.
Location, ST | website.com


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Mortified by SiPort's refusal to keep him employed, the engineer responsible for one of Silicon Valley's worst workplace killings testified Wednesday that he fired the first of six shots at his bosses by accident.
Former test engineer Jing Hua Wu said he was pointing his 9 mm semi-automatic at his own head and threatening suicide, when his immediate supervisor tried to stop him by throwing a chair at him. The chair struck Wu's left elbow, he testified, causing the gun to go off and wound supervisor Brian Pugh in the buttocks.
Wu said doesn't remember much else -- not the two other shots he fired into Pugh's chest and head, the single bullet he used to kill office manager Marilyn Lewis or the two he pumped into CEO Sid Agrawal's head and neck.
Instead, he said, his mind flashed back to the inhumane abuse he suffered in mainland China during the Great Famine and Cultural Revolution, including the endurance during his childhood of water-board torture by young bullies.
"I never had any thoughts about killing anyone -- not just that day, but in my whole life,"Jing Hua Wu told the Santa Clara County Superior Court jury of six men and six women.
Lost face
But in cross-examination Wednesday afternoon, prosecutor Tim McInerny began chipping away at Wu's contention that he is not guilty by reason of (temporary) insanity. McInerny rejects that notion, arguing instead that Wu committed first-degree murder because he planned the killings to get revenge for the humiliation of being let go by SiPort -- including purchasing the bullets after being fired earlier that fateful Friday.
"Mr. Wu, the whole reason we are here today is you were fired, you lost face and the people responsible for that firing had to pay, isn't it?"the prosecutor asked rhetorically.
McInerny is set to continue cross-examining the 51-year-old engineer Thursday. That's when he'll query him about the actual Nov. 14, 2008, final confrontation between Wu and his bosses at the then-startup in Santa Clara.
McInerny questioned Wu's argument that he was under enormous financial pressure in 2008 and that the firing sent him over the edge mentally, preventing him from forming the specific intent to kill. The prosecutor noted that Wu had landed on his feet after being laid off before. His skills were in high demand even after the dot-com bust in the early 2000s.
The only difference between being laid off in 2001 and this time, McInerny suggested, was that Wu was the only SiPort worker singled out for termination. By Wu's own account, he felt like a "dog begging for a bone"when he pleaded with Agrawal during that last fateful meeting to keep him on for at least six weeks because otherwise he would go bankrupt. The CEO agreed to let him come back for three months as a contractor, but Wu said he did not believe the offer was sincere.
McInerny also scoffed at Wu's insistence that he lived in mortal fear of being audited again by the IRS. Wu was far from being on the verge of going entirely broke, the prosecutor said. His eight rental properties had lost value, but Wu was still keeping up his payments.
He also had at least $61,780 in the bank, and would have received another $5,400 if he had simply returned SiPort's key fob and turned over the external drive of his computer.
Hospital versus prison
Wu also never previously reported having psychiatric problems or a history of mental illness in his family to doctors he saw in 2001 when he was feeling depressed because of problems at another job. This week, he testified his mother had been in a mental hospital, his beloved eldest sister committed suicide and that he suffered from hallucinations and other problems.
McInerny got Wu to acknowledge that he'd learned from other inmates that life in a state mental hospital was more "humane"than prison, the food was better and there were some beautiful nurses. Wu also has had four years behind bars to study the law regarding insanity because he was acting as his own lawyer for a time.
Unlike most defendants, Wu is educated, articulate and accustomed to dealing with people as an equal. Wednesday, he clashed with McInerny, saying in response to a query, "How can you possibly ask such a question? Is that how you conduct yourself?"
He'd also challenged his own lawyer, Tony Serra, saying of one of his questions: "I don't think this is in the right order."
Both times, the normally easygoing Judge Sharon A. Chatman ordered Wu in a loud voice to stop it.
Contact Tracey Kaplan at 408-278-3482. Follow her at Twitter.com/tkaplanreport.


text:
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. —
1. Avoid placing large pieces of furniture across the corner of a room. Rather, place large pieces on an angle. Why? Your room will appear to have move visual movement. This will give a potential buyer the idea that your room might be a bit larger and easier to work with for their own furniture placement.
2. If your home features a vaulted wall, place large pieces of furniture close to the highest wall. This calls attention to the wall's architectural interest, and creates balance in your room.
3. If your home features smaller rooms, remember less is more. An under-furnished room is preferable to an over-furnished room.
4. Change your lampshades. This "quick fix" can give any room an updated appearance — especially if you select dramatic black or textured shades.
5. If need a smaller room to seem more expansive, consider purchasing a large wall mirror. Mirrors definitely give the illusion of more space. Just be sure to take special care in placing your mirror. You want to be sure that what it reflects is a pleasing sight!
6. Add some texture! Throws, tasseled pillows, even an inexpensive area rug can create a warmer, cozier feel in any room.
7. Let there be light! Be sure your window treatments are in the "open" position, flooding as much light as possible into each and every room in your home.
8. Add some permanent florals and greenery. Don't go overboard, but adding a silk tree in a bare corner, or a floral arrangement on a dining room table adds lots of ambiance to any room.
9. Go crazy with color… or not! When selling a home, neutral shades are always the best. It's difficult for a buyer to see beyond the colors they see when they enter a room.
10. Re-accessorize! Your cherished mementos, while precious to you, might actually create a barrier in the mind of a buyer. Think about simple accessory plans with minimal clutter. Perhaps a display of leather bound books paired with small greenery, and a small picture on an easel.
— Kristen Fencl, CID, is an interior decorator and owner of Decorating Den Interiors. Learn more at www.decdens.com/kristenf, or call 775-832-8012.


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text:
Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.
This work is covered by a Creative commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 licence.
Other languages
Thanks to the hard work of others, The Bizarre Cathedral is now also available in the following languages (links below go to external sites):
- Greek -- thanks to Eleftherios Kosmas
- Czech -- thanks to Kainashi
- Italian -- thanks to GL-Como (Gruppo Linux Como).
you may have to wait for the latest strip to be translated. If you are translating the strips into other languages and would like a link here, please get in touch as below.
Got an idea for the Bizarre Cathedral? Send it to the following e-mail addresss:
tbc then at then freesoftwaremagazine then dot then com
When it reaches strip 100.. or so
Will there be a booklet? :-)
Sure why not
I'm not sure how much demand there would be but it would be fun to do.
Equitas IT Solutions - fairness, quality, freedom
Well, there'd be very little risk if you went with print-on-demand. I'd buy one. :-)
I have some graphics resources that might be useful if you want it to carry FSM branding (the "FSM Press" logo and the background image from the original magazine that I used on my book cover.
That's what I had in mind
P.O.D. was what I had in mind. To be honest I have been thinking about this for a little while myself but rather than just reproduce the strips as they have appeared in FSM I might see if adding some colour works. Some are in colour as it is but the Mutt's t-shirt will always be a faded black one ;).
The 100th strip seems a good target to aim for. I'm also working on a Comic Strip Plasmoid plug-in for KDE as well. Watch this space as they say.
Equitas IT Solutions - fairness, quality, freedom


text:
Sherman George Sloan
Published: Tuesday, April 9, 2013 at 8:07 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, April 9, 2013 at 8:07 a.m.
INMAN, SC-- Funeral services for Sherman George Sloan will be held at Seawright Funeral Chapel today, April 9, 2013, at 3:00 PM. The family will receive friends one hour before the service. Burial will be in Grandview Memorial Gardens in Travelers Rest on Wednesday, April 10th at 2:00 PM.
Seawright Funeral Home and Crematory
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.


text:
This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.
June 08, 2011
Secretary Steven Chu Highlights Grand Opening of Natural Gas Fueling Station in Camden
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu issued the following statement celebrating today's grand opening of a public compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling station in Camden, New Jersey. Funded in part through the Department of Energy's portion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the project is one of four stimulus-funded CNG fueling stations opening in New Jersey under DOE's Clean Cities initiative.
"This project illustrates how the Recovery Act is supporting the president's goal to reduce oil imports by one-third by 2025 and advancing clean energy technologies that can strengthen our nation's competitive edge," said Secretary Chu. "By expanding the use of alternative fuels such as natural gas, this project will increase our nation's energy security while reducing carbon pollution and lowering fuel costs for American businesses."
Background Information on Today's Announcement
The New Jersey Clean Cities coalition was awarded $15 million as one of the 25 alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicle projects funded through DOE's Clean Cities initiative. The initiative invested a total of $300 million under the Recovery Act in the 25 clean vehicle projects. The partners in the New Jersey Clean Cities coalition—the City of Newark, Waste Management, Central Jersey Waste, Atlantic County Utilities Authority, Atlantic City Jitney Association, and Clean Energy—contributed $38.7 million in cost-shared funding. When completed, the New Jersey coalition's project will deploy 272 alternative fuel vehicles and four new CNG fueling stations. Today's event celebrates the opening of 80 slow fill pumps to serve Waste Management's fleet of natural gas-powered refuse haulers and one public pump. The project is expected to displace more than 1,750,000 gasoline gallon equivalents per year, and annually reduce more than 600,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions.
The Department of Energy's Vehicle Technologies Program works with industry leaders to develop and deploy advanced transportation technologies. The Vehicle Technology Program's Clean Cities initiative supports local decisions to reduce petroleum consumption in transportation.
To learn more about DOE's Recovery Act investments, see DOE's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act website.


text:
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LOUROE ELECTRONICS® is the leading U.S. manufacturer of Audio Monitoring Systems, microphones and base stations. Their line of Verifact® microphone and microphone / speakers systems are designed to interface DVRs, IP Network Cameras, Soundcard modules, Video Servers, Encoders/ Decoders and CCTV systems. Audio products can be used in stand-alone systems as well as integrated into an existing system and can feature single or multiple zones and one-way listen or two-way listen/talk functions.
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text:
STOCKTON - Deputy Superintendent Gary Dei Rossi will retire in March, the San Joaquin County Office of Education announced Wednesday.
Dei Rossi, 61, has been with the county office since 1991. He will be replaced by James Mousalimas, the assistant superintendent of county operated schools and programs. Mousalimas' spot will be filled by Janine Cuaresma, director of alternative education. The county office also announced it will soon open a search for an assistant superintendent of educational services.
Dei Rossi's 38-year career in education includes a stint as principal at Lincoln Elementary, as well as time spent in Manteca Unified as a teacher and coach.
"Dr. Dei Rossi's work at the state and county has changed what education looks like forever," said Mick Founts, superintendent of the county office. "As a pioneer of education, we are grateful for his tireless efforts and success in bringing innovative programs to our staff and students."
Location, ST | website.com


text:
Bhaskar Chakravorti: More than 75% of the world's GDP growth is expected to originate in emerging markets and they already account for 50% of the world's economic output. It comes as no surprise, then, that multinationals in virtually every sector have been busy formulating an emerging market strategy. Typically, such strategies use the company's experience from mature markets as the baseline. The companies try to gauge how emerging markets are different and then look for ways in which their core strategies, activities, processes and organizational forms may be modified to account for the differences. This approach makes sense—it builds on existing organizational capabilities and allows companies to exploit synergies with the core in new high-growth markets.
How about a very different approach to building an emerging markets strategy-- one that looks for insight not within the company but from outside its four walls? To create an alternative frame of reference, consider the actual operating experiences of other entities with a track record in emerging and frontier markets and work back. An interesting place to turn for experience on this issue is to international development aid agencies, which have been operating in these countries for decades. Are there some lessons learnt that might carry over to private enterprises? In other words, can UNICEF teach Unilever how to succeed in emerging markets?
Peter Uvin: My experiences and lessons learned from the work of development organizations can be distilled into a handy collection of "laws" in almost slogan form, a set of principles of operating in emerging markets, akin to other so-called laws (as in the law of gravity, or the forces of tectonic plates): regardless of one's opinion about them, one has to live with them. Let me start with the most basic, and maybe counter-intuitive, point:
Rule #1: All action is political.
The development experience suggests that—whether you want it or not, intend it or not, recognize it or not—everything you do is political. A simple declaration that you have no political aims will not alleviate the inevitable political ramifications of your actions. It may allow you to preserve an apolitical and purely idealistic illusion for some time, but none of the political effects of your activities will disappear; they will simply accumulate and catch up with you eventually.
There are multiple reasons for this. First, the poorer a country, the more every economic decision has major social and distributional implications. The stakes are simply higher, and hence the conflicts about these stakes are bigger and more omnipresent. Second, in countries where institutions are weak, decisions are rarely made through formal procedures and objective criteria; patronage, power and politics are more likely to interfere in even the smallest decisions. Third, the less developed and free markets are, the more artificial scarcities and odd distortions create opportunities for gain by some, frequently at the expense of others. As a result, every action has political implications. In most African countries, for example, drivers for aid agencies or typists in the UN earn more than government ministers—do we really think that, under those conditions, hiring decisions are apolitical?
One can also state the first law in a different, more ominous form: the less institutionalized a socio-political system is (i.e., the further down the ladder of emerging markets you go), the more your actions will strengthen the socio-political system you are working in—except if you work very hard at avoiding that. If the local socio-political system is characterized by a lack of transparency, profound structural inequalities, deeply engrained types of social discrimination, widespread arbitrariness, omnipresent corruption or pervasive structural violence, then your actions will normally reinforce those features, even if unintentionally. Apart from the moral dilemmas this poses, the practical problem is that some people will likely be angry at you or even consider you part of the problem, and you may have no idea why this is the case. As long as those people are weak and poor, that may not affect you much, but if they organize well and/or get a coalition of foreigners to publicize their plight, you will suddenly start looking far worse than you expected.
This first law is very hard for all of us to accept. Even development practitioners, who have been working in these areas of the world since the beginning, took decades to come to grips with this insight, and it is still deeply resisted, and often conveniently forgotten, by many today. So I imagine that it is equally hard for private sector managers to accept this law.
BC: I agree that it is useful to reflect on how this law applies in the context of private sector organizations. One would expect that recognizing the law may be even harder for managers from the private sector to accept, as the sense of being apolitical is even more deeply part of their basic mental outlook. While business managers may be aware that their CSR work touches on politics and governance, they surely see their core business work as entirely a-political
However—and this may come as a surprise—the private sector may be more attuned to this reality than one would give it credit for. Entry into an emerging or frontier market typically involves some form of baptism by political fire: cutting through regulations, laws, red tape, corruption by political and bureaucratic gatekeepers—and recognition of the need for cross-subsidies of some kind and more generally a quid pro quo as the entry ticket. However, the moment you play in such a market, you side with a political constituency and risk alienating others who might be important for long-term commercial success. Too often, political alliances have a short half life.
Problems associated with running afoul of the law, however, may arise at a later stage. Once managers overcome entry barriers (or start-up barriers, for homegrown enterprises), they face two difficult political challenges.
First, a company's choices made at entry, while born out of expedience and need, do have long-term political consequences. This is most obvious when political environments change, and managers suddenly find themselves and their companies marginalized, associated with now discredited power holders, subject to "politically motivated" investigations, considered enemies by some political parties and leaders, and so on (the experiences of many companies in Russia, or of Enron in India, come to mind).
Second, while they may have been willing to cut a political deal at entry or start-up, companies subsequently tend to have far more difficulty imagining and preparing for the unintended consequences of market penetration (most of which also have political implications). They are also very focused on growth that satisfies the CFO's directives, which leads to an exclusive focus on economic metrics, target consumers, efficient resources utilization and cost management, minimizing payback periods—frequently at the expense of social, environmental and political considerations. Managers on the ground have short time horizons: they know they are on the job for a short stint before they prove their ability to thrive under adversity and then move "up" to more prestigious markets. In other words, they often do what is expeditious and focus on the bottom line and quarterly targets rather than thinking holistically and longer-term about the broader impact of their commercial initiatives (see rule 6). At the core of near-term/ quarterly success is focus on the bottom-line or on meeting financial targets, which means certain factors or segments of the stakeholder population or other externalities are necessarily excluded. Such exclusion is a recipe for ignoring the wider political ramifications of a campaign focused on market penetration.
PU: You make some interesting and convincing arguments here, and I think they are totally valid for development practitioners in return. Let me just make one more observation here: you have been mainly focusing here on 'big politics'—the sort of relations with national figures one needs to establish—and maybe also to grow—a company. This big politics is real. But my argument also refers to small politics—the politics of daily decisions about who you hire, who you contract with, what land you buy, and so on. This brings me to my next point.
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PU: Those who operate in the development world have a serious problem with elites. Often they do not recognize them. They may want to believe that everybody is equal, part of the entity called "country" that needs "ownership," or, at the local level, the "community" that needs "participation." They may fail to see that within countries and communities there can exist great inequality, exclusion and divergence of interests. As a result, they suffer by running afoul of the local power structures.
In those cases where development organizations do recognize elites—in highly authoritarian and unequal countries, for example—they try to avoid or circumvent them. They reach out directly to the poor, the marginal, the women, the excluded, etc. This very rarely works—really only under those circumstances where the poor and marginalized have already started organizing themselves before outsiders arrived, and where the outsiders spend a long time gaining their credibility and trust. These conditions are seldom both present. Elites know far more than the outside experts do about local contexts; have been there and will stay around far longer; can benefit from the attitudes and calculations of the disadvantaged themselves; and possess many more tools for manipulation than outsiders are aware of. Development professionals would all be far better off directly interacting with elites, seeking to create positive sum interactions with them that may also provide benefits to the poor, and using the power of argumentation and socialization with elites to change their preferences. Elites learn, after all, just as we do.
BC: This is an area where well-run businesses are frequently far ahead of the development sector. Business managers are much more attuned to the critical role of the elite. Really well run businesses implicitly—and often explicitly—think about their markets as a network with power concentrated within various hubs. Unilever operates in many emerging economies by understanding the "elites," who act as the key distribution nodes in various second and third-tier cities/towns and on down, which get their soaps and detergents to the middle and bottom of the pyramid. The absence of access to such elites and an effective distribution strategy often stymies foreign entrants. Some private sector players brilliantly piggyback on the elitist hierarchy created by others; for example, GrameenPhone used the women coordinators of the Grameen Bank microfinance organization to distribute wireless telephony in Bangladesh, and Godrej used a similar approach to conduct market research and distribute little red refrigerators in India. However, locating these elites is often not easy. Marketing and distribution and networking theory may have many lessons not only for business but for development organizations as well.
PU: The less developed a socio-political system is, the more the formal rules, decision makers, procedures and institutions are not the real ones. Informal institutions exist everywhere, including in the world's richest countries. But in emerging and frontier markets, the gap between the informal and the formal is often far more extensive—it both covers more areas of life and is further removed from formal rules and institutions. And thus there can exist formal laws and freshly built courts, but no justice; tenders boards and bids, but no competition; elections and parliaments, but no popular choice; gender laws, but no benefits to women; banking regulations, but pervasive cronyism; and so on.
Why these wide gaps? At the core lies the fact that in many post-colonial, "modernizing" countries, the formal institutions of states, civil society and markets have been imported and copied—not created from within. There are advantages to that: as with, say, communications technologies, there is a "cognitive clarity" from being able to learn from more advanced countries and "leapfrog." Yet, for many people, these imported formal institutions possess little in the way of legitimacy; they are not natural, self-designed or internalized. As a result, they become spontaneously perverted. Frequently, there is a class of intermediaries—those with sufficient command of both the formal and the informal—who will rise to the top, playing both levels simultaneously, like chess masters playing on two boards at the same time. Most outsiders have no idea of the existence, let alone the rules, of the second "invisible" board.
For development practitioners, this is quite troublesome. Their aims—pro-poor growth, empowerment, democracy and accountability—frequently run counter to these informal institutions. They often spend enormous amounts of time and money implementing technically sophisticated solutions that work at home, only to have them circumvented or re-appropriated by these informal institutions. As outsiders, they eventually understand these institutions exist, but they seem powerless to affect them—their only tools lie in the realm of the formal, and they are always checkmated on the invisible board.
BC: For businesses, this law presents a dilemma. On the one hand, profit-seeking can make managers agnostic to institutions. It could be argued that businesses can be equally profitable in systems that feature formal or informal institutions; if desired outcomes are not delivered through one set of institutions, a savvy manager will seek alternatives. As long as the prevailing system works for the company's business objectives, there is no need to understand or judge it. On the other hand, private sector enterprises are typically subject to many forms of scrutiny—from auditors, the wider management team, the board, regulators, the press and other stakeholders. Even if the real chess game is being played on a different board, managers risk violating disclosure rules, company policies and ethical standards by playing the game with an informal institution–even when no laws are being broken. These issues become even more salient when the enterprise is publicly traded and is therefore subject to even more scrutiny and disclosure requirements. As a result, competing on the invisible chessboard may not be a viable option for many enterprises, even though that is where the real game is being played. This puts those companies from countries with strong regulations and enforcement at a disadvantage compared to those from countries where such regulations do not exist or are weakly enforced. It also may create temptations for employees to play on the invisible chess board, with potentially negative political or legal repercussions down the road.
PU: An axiom among many savvy development and conflict resolution veterans goes as follows: if a program does exactly what it was planned to do, one of two things is going on –either you are not being told what is really going on (and things thus are not going according to plan; they only appear that way to you), or nobody gives a damn. Conversely, any program that is being diverted, modified, toned down, captured or contested is becoming locally owned. Now, who does the owning—elites or counter-elites, those opposed to change or those in favor—is the question that you may have to be concerned with.
Meaningful outcomes in the social sphere do not reflect initial plans; they never do. On balance, that is probably a good thing, and all the more so if the plan emanates from outsiders and is intended for societies where endemic poverty, deep social division and absence of clear rules are the norm. This doesn't mean that plans are unnecessary, but it does mean that linear execution is the enemy of meaningful impact; plans should instead be flexible, allowing for change, opposition and reappropriation, ongoing analysis and continuous learning.
BC: Businesses are much more restrained in any enthusiasm for deviation from plan. Plans are essential for the organization of private sector enterprises in setting targets, assigning metrics, determining compensation, approving budgets and managing employees. Experienced managers usually understand that plans and roadmaps do not always survive contact with reality. But these plans do establish a baseline for initial resource allocation and decision-making. Plans also play a very important role in setting expectations, which in turn determine whether the company and its managers are rewarded or penalized; the act of meeting, exceeding or under-performing expectations is generally much more critical than actual performance.
Most businesses learn that they key is to not be dogmatic about the first version of a plan and to learn. Uncertainty from many sources—e.g. the market, technology, finance, organization—is inherent in every business proposition. Businesses, like development organizations, have to anticipate those uncertainties. Here, too, the more evolved ones create risk management strategies: hedging their bets, building in flexibility to adapt to new information, developing crisis management plans, buying insurance and redundancy and taking a portfolio approach. Many business plans involve the consideration of alternative scenarios that highlight the key uncertainties and variations on the future context and on the resulting plans. In fact, businesses have become quite sophisticated in their recognition of uncertainty and have developed instruments to "de-risk" themselves. That said, plans and the goals of adhering to them are still central to their modus operandi.
In fact, development organizations may have much to learn from businesses (the more evolved ones) in taking a systematic approach to the vagaries of reality. Business has much to learn from development on how to think about the sources of uncertainty in more holistic terms—to create a richer set of scenarios and recognize the multiple stakeholders and their multifaceted incentives (economic and non-economic). All that said, the law as it is stated may be off-putting for a business person. Private sector projects that go according to plan may be rare, but they are rarely irrelevant. Of course, the larger the organization, the more it struggles with any deviation from the plan; predictability, routine and process are the keys to capturing economies of scale and scope. So the rare occurrence of projects going according to plan is generally a matter of celebration, especially since one expects that—as they say—stuff happens.
PU: In development, it is increasingly obvious that, rather than the actual physical products of a project, the way agencies interacted with people and institutions is the essence of what is left behind. What matters is not so much which school or hospital was built, but who conceived it, who did the building, who was the broker, who decided on the priorities, who knew about the project and who did not. Did new elites enter onto the scene or not; were the usual people excluded or not; did people learn to conceive, organize, negotiate, etc.? More generally, what matters in development and social change is really not so much money and knowledge. These things can be bought. (Yes, money buys money!) The key issues are institutional and relational: they are about the way people and institutions relate to each other.
The converse of this statement is that much of development work is about facilitation, mediation, negotiation, learning and relations—not about money or technical knowledge, even though most people think that his should be the prime, if not the sole, focus of international aid. The technical knowledge can be bought or brought. Social learning, the emergence of new networks, the capacity to conceive and bargain, and confidence in oneself: money cannot buy any of these. They emerge—or are stifled—as a result of processes, and have much greater and far-reaching impact relative to actual products.
BC: Businesses, on the other hand, of course, live or die by their abilities to deliver a product to the customer. In the absence of right product delivery to the right customer at the right time, one could argue that a business cannot expect to remain competitive for long. However, it is important to distinguish the "early wins" from a sustainable and robust longer-term growth trajectory. While early wins are necessary to keep management interest alive in the endeavor, a proven upward trajectory in sales penetration is crucial. And such a trajectory is impossible in an emerging market without a clear process for how the business enterprise solves the three critical problems of affordability, appropriateness (in terms of usage context, sustainability, availability of complements, etc.) and access to consumers through a distribution network or to raw materials and resources through a supply chain. Such a process is often at the heart of an innovation in the company's business model. Getting this model right is generally far more important than getting the early batches of product sold. Getting the model right allows the company's operations to get to scale and, thereby, become self-sustaining.
In this sense, we have a paradoxical outcome: even though product is what defines a company, it is crucial to have a process in place that is tested in the emerging market environment and has the capability to get the product sales onto a sustainable grow path-- and to do so at scale. It often takes several experiments to get the process quite right, so managers learn how to build in points of flexibility and opportunities to learn from past experiences. Such a locally tailored process may ultimately be the defining reason for a company's success in an emerging market.
PU: Given the importance of process, it is hard to change the legacies of the way a project or organization started later on. Once you enter a community, approach a partner, or negotiate with a government in a certain way, you will be locked in, as long as the political conditions remain the same. It will be nearly impossible to change direction. If you started in a confrontational manner, it will be very hard to move to genuine collaboration and trust; if you began in a condescending and offensive way, it will be very hard to ever develop a truly respectful relation; if you approached people first in an authoritarian or top-down mode, it will be very hard to add meaningful participation later; if you allowed corruption and clientelism to dominate your entry into a community, it may be near impossible to reverse that course; if you developed a reputation for unreliability early on, it will be very hard to shake that off; if you built relations with elites of a particular regional or political bias, it will be hard to build relations with others; and so on. Once you have started in a certain way, vested interests come into being to maintain this modus operandi; attitudes and assessments become locked into position; mistrust and miscommunication (or the opposite) become the norm.
BC: While a development agency may view this situation as one with all the facets of a classic "bad marriage," a business manager would worry about path dependence and may consider an arsenal of management weapons to fight against it. As with any kind of relationship, getting off on a bad note makes it hard to re-build goodwill, trust and cooperation. A good start may buy you some "currency" or favors that you could use down the road, but it does not guarantee a free pass. Businesses are just as dependent on social norms, relationship-building and human foibles as any other enterprise. Relative to relationships in the development and aid world, there is likely to be a much clearer logic of mutual self-interest that governs how business relationships and interactions evolve. Business newcomers to emerging market environments may therefore find it surprising, even frustrating, that rational self-interest is not the only dominant driver of behavior.
That said, a poor start or a crisis (e.g. a public health disaster, pollution, negative media coverage, displacement of local industry, labor unrest, etc.) is often expected as a company moves into a new market, particularly those that are as yet unknown and not completely stable. Businesses invest in marketing, branding and public relations in anticipation of such outcomes, and quite frequently are successful in rebuilding goodwill even after a poor start. Conversely, a good start can breed complacency and arrogance. Managers let their guard down and do not invest as much in nurturing relationships, and this could either lead to a bad outcome or create an opening for a highly motivated competitor to enter and position itself as the better alternative.
PU: In the development field, report after report, study after study, and policy paper after policy paper describe the right path, the brilliant solution, the new approach–and few to none of these produce the expected results. This is in part because it is hard to create empowering social change in the tough and volatile circumstances of emerging and frontier markets. But it is also because most reports fail to look at the internal incentives, organizational rules and procedures, and human capabilities and ideologies that condition what comes out of an organization. It is difficult to affect meaningful change with outside stakeholders if the same process did not first occur inside the aid agencies themselves. In post-genocide Rwanda, for example, Oxfam was one of the only organizations that managed to have a positive impact on conflict, in part because it had gone through a painful internal dialogue first, allowing employees to see eye-to-eye about key objectives and obstacles. In contrast, when CARE wanted to adopt a rights-based approach to development in Nepal, it could not do so meaningfully until it first hired staff and senior managers from the lowest castes and ethnic groups. No amount of expert reports and workshops could help make development organizations in Kosovo capable of moderating and remedying that country's conflict; they needed to transform the mindsets of their own employees first.
BC: Private sector companies have a mixed record as far as this law goes. Whenever a multinational operates across national borders it must grapple with a fundamental tension between scale economies of global uniformity and common activities, processes and systems vs. better serving distinct emerging markets with multiple locally optimized organizations. Where one draws the line often depends on the source of competitive advantage in the emerging market in question. The more the competitive advantage relies on superior cost structures and operational efficiencies and positioning of a global brand and standards, the less it makes sense for the company to make major changes to its organization in a local market. On the other hand, the more the company's competitive advantage derives from deep insights drawn from local knowledge and on home-grown relationships with customers, suppliers, regulators and other key stakeholders, the more the need for internal change as the emerging markets organization is established. There are other instances where such internal change is necessary for political and socio-cultural reasons, where a "foreign" brand may not play well with consumers. In fact, many companies go in with a local partner or even acquire a local player to enable the change.
It is useful to also note that internal change may be necessary not only in the emerging market but also at headquarters. For example, in the early stages of the outsourcing or off-shoring phenomenon, so-called "non-core" functions, such as back-office processing, call centers and technical support, were transplanted to low-cost emerging markets. Over time, as the low-cost nature of these markets started changing to higher productivity characteristics, certain core functions, such as R&D, data analytics and market research were also transplanted. As the progression continues and the emerging markets are given priority because they represent the company's fastest-growing consumption opportunities, other crown jewels, including the CEO's office, may move in that direction as well.
PU: Finally, in a conversation designed to offer some lessons, we present our favorite: there are no lessons learned; there are only good questions, and all answers are location-specific. Every emerging and frontier market offers fresh lessons for those who are ready to learn. There is a version of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle at work in these markets. The more you operate in them, do development work in them or conduct business in them, the environment, people and markets adapt and change. Progressively, even the rules of thumb change. Professionals in both development and business who have been visiting an emerging market over a period of many years find it quite remarkable how quickly the context—from early basic functions to today's shiny new airports and ubiquitous mobile phones—evolves. While there are several fundamentals that do not change at all, it is easy to be surprised by how quickly some other elements get completely transformed.
BC: It is the one law that both the development and the business communities can completely agree on: in essence it tells us to not get too complacent about knowing all the laws.
PU: Coming back to the main question: Can UNICEF teach Unilever about how to succeed in emerging and frontier markets? I like the alliteration, and I definitely think that, in principle, it is an important and timely question to ask. But I am not sure I would stick with UNICEF as the example, for two reasons. A) As a UN agency, it is more reliant on governments than bilateral and non-governmental agencies, and thus some of the issues we discuss here are different (for example, they do work with government elites); B) There are other agencies that are more cutting edge on the ground. They may not be the best illustration for many of the observations we make here. Is there another alliteration we can think of?
Institute for Business in the Global Context (IBGC)
Council on Emerging Market Enterprises (CEME)
Planet eBiz
Fletcher Network of Sovereign Wealth and Global Capital (SovereigNET)
Sustainable and Inclusive Business Activities (SIBA)


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Bombay Chai Gift Tin
Enjoy 15 Tea Pouches of Bombay Chai in a stylish black tin. Bombay Chai tea with a melange of spicy notes conjures the steamy, aromatic delights of an Indian street market. Black tea leaves with subtle hints of pepper, orange, cinnamon, cardamom, and clove make up our chai, the Indian word for tea. Bombay Chai tea is delicious when brewed fresh and blended with heated milk and sugar to taste.
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SAN JOSE -- Virgin America launched four daily flights from San Jose to Los Angeles Wednesday, and executives with the airline hope to add even more flights from Silicon Valley to the East Coast.
Aboard Virgin's 149-seat Airbus A320 nicknamed "#nerdbird," Virgin America President and CEO David Cush said officials with the Burlingame-based airline will monitor demand for their new San Jose-Los Angeles route throughout the year and will make a decision in early 2014 about whether to include longer trips out of Mineta San Jose International Airport, which could possibly begin in summer 2014.
Silicon Valley-based passengers are willing to drive to San Francisco for long-distance flights aboard Virgin, Cush said. But until Wednesday's inaugural Los Angeles-to-San Jose route, those same "very valuable guests" picked Virgin's competitors to make short hops out of San Jose, Cush said.
"This allows us to fill more of their travel needs," he said. Fares on the flight will range from $59 to $491.
Compared with San Francisco International Airport, Mineta airport is nicer, more tech-friendly and easier to get to for Silicon Valley-based passengers, said Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson.
He proclaimed Mineta airport "beautiful."
"I wish every airport could look like this," Branson told this newspaper.
For Silicon Valley-based passengers, Branson said, "if we can give them the routes they'll fly us."
Mark McDaniel, a 47-year-old senior solutions architect for Mountain View-based Violin Memory, boarded Virgin's first scheduled 65-minute flight out of Los Angeles on Wednesday morning and loved the experience of the tech-laden Airbus A320, which allowed him to check scores on ESPN and book a rental car from his seat.
By the time he finished his glass of orange juice, McDaniel said, "all of a sudden it was time to land."
The #nerdbird arrived 14 minutes ahead of schedule at Mineta to a traditional water cannon greeting, and McDaniel soon found himself in Mineta's Terminal A surrounded by Virgin officials, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, San Jose Rep. Zoe Lofgren, members of the San Jose City Council and other dignitaries.
"The whole experience was kind of amazing," McDaniel said.
Reed promised Virgin America officials that their commitment to Silicon Valley will pay off.
"It's a great day when the most innovative airline in the world comes to San Jose," Reed said. "We're going to make this route a success."
Contact Dan Nakaso at 408-271-3648. Follow him at Twitter.com/dannakaso.


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The Diplomatic Escape
Inspired by "Argo"
Serves 1
1 ounce Dewar's 12 year old Scotch
3/4 ounce St-Germain elderflower liqueur
3/4 ounce Campari
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
1 small sprig basil
Canada Dry ginger ale
Orange peel, garnish
Fresh basil, garnish
In a mixing glass, combine the scotch, St-Germain, Campari, lemon juice and basil with ice. Shake vigorously. Strain and serve over the rocks, topped with ginger ale. Garnish with orange peel and fresh basil.
-- Manny Hinojosa, Bacardi USA mixologist