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Vossler, Ron. "Journey to the Homeland." North Dakota Horizons, Winter 1997.
"It may be argued that the past is a country from which we all have emigrated, that its loss is part of our common humanity."-Salman Rushdie
Why explore a place our grandparents left long ago? In what ways, if any, does an ethnic past shape one's present life? Those are good questions for any American. Good questions, too, for the 50 tour group members, most of Black Sea German descent, who embarked mid-June from Minneapolis on the North Dakota State University Libraries-sponsored "Journey to the Homeland Tour: Germany and Ukraine."
Retracing history over the Atlantic
For tour members the answers to those questions lay in the history of the Black Sea Germans, a farming people who settled in large numbers in the Dakotas between 1886-1914.
It's a complex history, sprawling across two centuries and several continents. It included enough wars, famines and drama for any number of novels and movies. It forged a variety of 19th century Germanic peoples into one distinctive ethnic group, with its own language, culture and world view.
Yet the sweep of history is impersonal. Most tour members, if anything like this writer, struggled to locate themselves or their ancestors in such broad currents. But as our flight arced high over the Atlantic-over that same ocean our ancestors crossed by steamship a century earlier-it grew hard not to imagine those people as real people, as young and old, as our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents-full of hope.
|Tour director Michael Miller snapped this picture of several women milking cows by hand near Landau, Beresan Enclave, Ukraine.
To be honest, though, few of us knew the real story of such a journey, at least not to the surprising extent of this writer's seatmate, a retired educator who told colorful anecdotes about his grandparents' "passage" from Russia to America. And the way he told them, with humor, compassion and dignity, spoke volumes about the best qualities that Black Sea Germans bequeathed to their descendants.
During that first leg of our journey, until we glimpsed the icy crags of Greenland beyond the plane wing, he told stories that touched on tragic immigrant themes: of burials at sea for those who succumbed to the rigors of the steamship journey; of midwives birthing babies in the smelly steerages; of a grandfather, after a cross-country train ride from New York to South Dakota, falling dead at his first glimpse of the vast prairie emptiness of Dakota.
Sociologists maintain that the psychological effects of such "passages" still reverberate in the succeeding generations. And how could they not? For the second time in less than a century, the Black Sea Germans, a gregarious village people who'd settled the barren Russian steppe in the early 1800's, found themselves catapulted into an almost stone-age past: this time on a prairie frontier where that golden dream of America must have seemed only a stark illusion.
Other cultural groups, like the South African Boers in their "vortrekker sagas," proudly recount their history. The Black Sea Germans preferred to forget. They rarely spoke of the personal price, of that sudden plunge into a New World. Only scanty oral accounts, if any, were passed to the succeeding generations about that most heroic of achievements- settling the last American frontier. Later, two world wars against a German enemy only added ambivalence about their German heritage.
No wonder that many Black Sea German descendants, who comprise 30-40 percent of North Dakota's population, seldom speak in personal terms about that rich heritage. No wonder, either, that 50 tour members on this personal odyssey anxiously awaited the landing in Germany so they could explore firsthand the place where all that history began.
Swimming in the gene pool
That busy first week, headquartered in a Stuttgart, Germany, hotel, tour group members visited institutions that have documented the Black Sea German experience, including the Bessarabian Heimats-Museum and the Landsmannschaft.
More importantly, there was a bus trip, exploring parts of the "ur heimat" in southern Germany and the Alsace region, now part of France. It's the original homeland, once overcrowded and war-torn, from where German peasants and craftsmen, at the invitation of the Czars, emigrated to Russia between 1763-1862.
In the Alsatian village of Cleebourg, there was a strange convergence of time and language. Tour members easily spoke with the locals in a common mother tongue, the same Rhenish Ranconian Alsatian dialect once spoken in the Russian "colonies," the same dialect, with its melodic nuances, that many tour members knew growing up on the American plains.
It was in Stuttgart that tour members quickly learned that the Black Sea German ancestral pool is not large. Over conversations at breakfast, or in the hotel lobby or on the bus, they explored that labyrinthine, intermarried state of affairs of Black Sea German family life; they recited their "who married whoms." And in the process, they sometimes discovered that they were kin. This writer, no exception, found his own family net flung wide. At least a dozen of his 50 fellow travellers, in one way or another, were related to him.
The grand finale of the Stuttgart visit was the "Bundestreffen. " There, in a huge convention center, crowded more than 50,000 Black Sea German "Aussiedler. " They were the offspring of those who, instead of emigrating to America, had remained in the ancestral villages in Russia. Some were "verwanten," relatives, who tour members met for the first time. All of them had been swept back to Germany by the tides of World War II; or, after the collapse of communism they'd returned-some as recently as the past year-from post-war exile in the farthest fringes of the old Soviet Empire.
The NDSU Libraries information booth at the "Bundestreffen," manned by tour members, helped these Black Sea Germans contact their American relations. But in a sense, they are a lost people, these "Aussiedlers," the broken branches of the family tree, often disdained by both Germans and Russians. Yet, the younger generations seem a combination of both cultures, amply illustrated by several Siberian Germans who, with their gold teeth flashing, scribbled out the German names of their ancestral villages on the table placards with their own wobbly Cyrillic letters.
|Tour member Brother Placid Gross, Richardton, visits with Antonia Welk Ivanova of Selz, Ukraine. Antonia is a relative of the late Lawrence Welk. Michael Miller photo.
|At a gathering in Stuttgart, Germany, Ron Vossler helps a recent German immigrant from Siberia to locate relatives in North America. Vossler, Grand Forks, wrote the feature story for Horizons. Michael Miller photo.
After the "Bundestreffen," our tour flight departed for the Republic of Ukraine, roughly retracing from the air that overland trek of our ancestors to Russia two centuries earlier: over the former Czechoslovakia, skirting the Carpathian Mountains, then angling south along the winding Dniester River.
South of Kishinev, we got our first glimpse of the steppes, scrolling off into the hazy distance. There, around villages with single streets along the flood plain, were golden squares, fields of winter wheat and rye, ripening in the rich chernozem soil of "Sud Russland," now the countries of Moldova and Ukraine. It was there our forefathers were drawn by Czarist manifestos promising freedom and land; there, far from European civilization, that they founded German villages, islands in that vast Russian sea, in the first decades of the 1800s.
Odessa's faded beauty
Our airplane bumped down on what seemed a neglected two-lane rural highway. It was hard to believe, judging from the customs officials who seemed both harried and lackadaisical, that we'd once feared the Soviet Union. In a slow-moving line, we hefted our luggage and school supplies through the antechambers of an airport building. That dim light and bad repair, so reminiscent of prairie barns, prompted some tour members to tell farm life stories, about mid-century horseback rides to rural schools and German catechism classes on the Great Plains.
After the gloomy airport, Odessa seemed drenched with sunshine. It's a city of one million, whose noble architecture is ringed by bland, Stalinist-era, high-rise apartment buildings. In the city center, there were century-old buildings with ornate, crumbling facades. Wrought iron balcony railings, entwined with grape vines, hung heavy with laundry and blankets. Battered yellow trams and diesel-spewing buses plied crowded streets.
At our tour headquarters, the Chornoye More, the Black Sea Hotel, we awakened mornings, curtains billowing into the rooms, breezes heavy with the scent of the steppe and the sea. In the evenings, from the hotel windows or balconies, there was, along the eastern horizon, the shimmering waters of the Black Sea.
Exploring the enclaves
Accompanying the tour were Prairie Public Television staff personnel, whose cameras recorded the highlights for an upcoming documentary series on the Black Sea German experience. There were also drivers, guides and interpreters, who over the next week accompanied the tour members to the five enclaves established by Black Sea Germans within the old Russian Empire.
For tour members who grew up on the Great Plains, those enclave trips were both familiar and disconcerting. Once, bumping along a winding path between the villages of Rohrbach and Johannestal, it seemed like we travelled a North Dakota section line, headed to haul bales for the day.
Another time, lost on an unmarked road, tour members did as any prairie dweller would, navigating by the position of the sun.
In the Glueckstal Enclave around Kassel, there were broad valleys and sweeping, sculpted hills, just like in parts of western North Dakota. "Where is Hazen?" someone quipped. In Bessarabia, valleys seemed steeper and villages had tumbled yardwalls and wattled fences-which made the place seem older, more isolated.
In the Liebental and Kutschurgan Enclaves not far from Odessa, villages nestled among numerous vineyards and cherry trees. These villages also boasted intact rows of German houses, standing much as a century ago, with the family names-such as "Gotz" inscribed in stucco under the roof peaks.
|A Ukrainian woman cuts bread "the old way" in the Glueckstal enclave at Kassel. Photo courtesy Elaine Becker Morrison.
A song bridges the cultures
The most emotional moment for this writer occurred in Alt Postal, Bessarabia. There, tour members visited Vera Wolchow, an elderly woman whose father was Black Sea German. She'd suffered through much of the sad recent history of Bessarabia.
It was a hot day. We'd just finished exploring the cemetery, where many of this writer's ancestors lay buried. Tour members, preparing to leave, gathered around the van, which was parked in the dappled shade. Just then, a single, quavering voice drifted into the silence. It was old Vera, singing acappella.
Soon, two other tour members joined her. Together they sang "Gott Isch Die Liebe," the death-bed song of the protestant Black Sea Germans. Its words have often been the last ones on the lips of so many as they left this world, in this century or last, in the Ukraine or the wastes of Siberia, in Asian Kazakhstan or the Dakotas.
As those plaintive voices rose in unison-it's from the Ukrainians on the steppes that the Black Sea Germans learned such mournful singing-this writer felt deeply moved. For an instant, the high cloudless Ukrainian sky seemed the prairie heavens. The acacia trees were cottonwoods, soughing in the wind. And the voices were voices from his childhood on those summer Sunday mornings during revival services in the Lehr Tabernacle, that holy edifice in the heart of the Black Sea German evangelical country in North Dakota, where people knelt in the straw to pray.
For many tour members, it was emotional to come over the rise of a hill and see one's parents' or grandparents' village; to walk the dirt streets they once walked; to feel their presence in their houses or churches; to meet people who knew of them, or once had known them, like the elderly Ukrainian woman on her way home from a funeral, who'd once been a servant for this writer's relatives in Tarutino, Bessarabia, in the 1930s.
Churches and cemeteries
Sometimes tour members found their ancestors' graves. Generally, though, the tombstones, fashioned from soft rock and weather-scoured, were illegible. Many cemeteries had disappeared altogether. Near one village, in a place the Ukrainians call the Valley of the Big Mosquitos, there were only a few bits of human skull and pieces of cement scattered in a field, which had probably been bulldozed to clear space for a nearby Russian Orthodox cemetery.
In the Tschaba Valley near the village of Friedenstal-stacked on top of each other to fill a low spot in the road-there were layers of German tombstones. In the West, of course, that constitutes a sacrilegious act, despoiling a graveyard. But in the Ukraine, where cemeteries and burial mounds of vanished peoples have long been viewed as natural resources, it is, according to one source, not uncommon.
Tour members found that the old German churches dominate the village landscapes. Their looming gothic architecture, even without steeples, is imposing. Some churches have been converted into Russian Orthodox churches. During the Soviet era, they were used as clubs, cinemas, cultural centers or for grain storage.
Depending on the source, most steeples were removed as late as the Kruschev era; or during World War II to keep troops from using them as observation posts; or before that, in the 1930s, as Stalin tightened his grip on the land.
In the Glueckstal village of Kassel, tour members discovered that the Ukrainian villagers feel an affinity for the old Lutheran church, even though it was not their people who built it. Rather than construct a new school, the villagers say, their first priority is to rebuild their spiritual life after 70 years of communism. As they spoke about someday restoring that church, they related the following story; probably meant to be understood metaphorically, not literally.
A century and a half ago, when the German colonists first built the church, each family in Kassel, besides their labor, contributed immense quantities of milk, eggs and honey. It was from these agricultural products that an enduring cement was mixed to build the church walls. Newer structures have crumbled; yet those walls endure, several feet thick, as solid and immovable as the day they were built. "Go there and see for yourself," the villagers said, gesturing towards the church.
In the ancestral villages
Once, there were more than 3,000 German villages in Russia. It was from those villages, after the advent of Russification in the 1880s, that most immigrants departed to homestead in Dakota. It was in those villages that the relatives of the Dakota Germans remained in Russia, enduring civil war, Stalin's terror famines, and collectivization.
Finally, in the early 1940s, the old way of life in those ancestral villages was swept into oblivion. The Black Sea Germans were deported at gunpoint into Siberia or Kazakhstan by the Soviet army; or, the luckier ones, under the auspices of the retreating German army, trekked west, back to Poland or Germany itself. Now, other nationalities live in those villages, most recently, evacuees from the nuclear disaster site at Chernobyl.
Yet, some original German houses still stand. Their roofs are covered with the old orange, glazed roof tiles, "dachsiegels." They have thick walls, with deep, inset windows. Sometimes they are bordered by sandstone walls, mortared over with blue plaster, against which elderly villagers on worn benches occasionally lean, just as one's own ancestors once must have.
|Mel Maier (left) of Bismarck shares historic photos with a relative who recently immigrated to Germany from the former Soviet Union.
There were any number of sights and structures familiar to those acquainted with the Great Plains. In the Beresan village of Johannestal, pungent smells rose from square piles of "mischt," drying near some homes. That's dung mixed with straw and cut into blocks, a primitive fuel once used to heat sod houses in the Dakotas.
In some Ukrainian yards stood summer kitchens. In Bessarabia, there were "vorhauslas," shady, vine-covered bowers, attached to the front of some houses. In the Beresan enclave, one saw many outdoor root cellars with sloped roofs, "storm cellars" we called them around Wishek, N.D.
Some tour members stayed overnight in Ukrainian homes. They shared meals, with the children sometimes not joining the adults at the table-a cultural tradition familiar to older Black Sea German descendants. The cuisine, sometimes like their own prairie grandparents', might include bokklajohna (tomatoes) or kartoffellin (potatoes), or blintzes filled with cottage cheese, similar in shape, at least, to that Black Sea German delicacy "blachenda."
At one meal, a Ukrainian woman, clasping a round loaf of bread against her bosom, turned the knife blade towards herself, cutting thick slices with a rotating motion that reminded tour members of their own mother or grandmother's method of cutting bread.
Exploring Odessa
With the dust of the ancestral villages on their shoes; with the lingering smells in their nostrils of camilla plants or "vermut" weeds from overgrown bashtan/an-gardens; with images in their minds' eye of cattle herds, and geese flocks, and grain fields where John Deere combines stood echeloned in quiet rows-tour members returned each evening to Odessa.
Many tour members attended world-class operas or ballets. It was dreamlike to sit in the plush seats of the gilt-edged Odessa Opera House as the fluid voices of the singers filled the ornate building; and future shock, too, going on the same day from the archaic villages, where the elderly carried firewood, to put electronic-mail messages about the tour onto the World Wide Web at the Odessa State Polytechnical Institute.
During the days in Odessa, there were also tours, including visits to the famed Potemkin steps along the Black Sea shore; to monuments honoring great artists, like Pushkin; to the somber "Great Patriotic War" monument, where fresh, blood-red flower petals lay scattered on polished marble slabs.
Evenings at the hotel there were programs, where students in colorful folk costumes staged Ukrainian music. There was also a press conference, along with a seminar, where tour members explained their interests in their ancestral villages to an audience of university students and reporters.
|A Catholic church dominates the landscape in Karlsruhe, Beresan Enclave, Ukraine. During the Soviet era, churches were used as clubs, cinemas, cultural centers or for grain storage. Photo by Michael Miller.
Throughout their Ukrainian stay, tour members distributed an extensive amount of school supplies, gathered from throughout America, to various villages in the enclaves. Other tour members delivered much needed medical supplies to hospitals in Odessa and Tarutino. The dedicated genealogists on the tour visited the Odessa archives, where the various passports and official documents of the Black Sea German villages are now stored.
As our time in Odessa dwindled, our tour took a day trip to Peterstal, a "container village," where Germans once exiled to Siberia and Kazakhstan during World War II now are resettling. It is a joint venture, funded by the German government, with labor and supplies from the Republic of the Ukraine, in an effort to limit the immigration of "Aussiedlers" back to Germany. There, in a newly-established entrepreneurial zone, a bakery produces several thousand loaves of bread each week. During a small ceremony after a meal, tour director Michael Miller announced to the gathering: "We Black Sea Germans in America have never forgotten our Siberian brothers and sisters."
Back to the future
That next day, our flight departed for Germany. As our plane followed the Dniester River again, we cast lingering glances over our shoulders, as our ancestors must have, leaving "Mother Russia."
So what did tour members learn on their journey? Did they answer those questions? Each might tell you something different. Perhaps they felt immense gratitude for their grandparents' fateful decision to immigrate to America-a choice which made them born in Dakota, not Siberia. Or, as one tour member put it, "Picking rocks on the prairie doesn't sound so bad now, compared to what the other Black Sea Germans who stayed behind suffered."
Perhaps tour members learned what they already knew but needed to affirm: that history, that Russia, left its mark on their grandparents and parents, and, in turn, on them; that though the past is buried, it is not always dead; that frontiers do not pass away, but endure in people. Or, as this writer discovered, that sometimes the most obvious, overlooked things provide solidity and substance to one's own life-like all the honey, milk and eggs in those church walls.
1997-98 tour information
For information about the 1997 and 1998 Journey to the Homeland tours contact Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, NDSU Libraries, PO Box 5599, Fargo, ND 58105-5599; or call 701-231-8416; or e-mail Michael M. Miller at email@example.com.
Helping the children
Those participating in the 1996 Journey to the Homeland tours were asked to bring with them a second piece of luggage filled with school supplies to be distributed to schools in Odessa and other villages.
On earlier trips to the Ukraine, Tour Director Michael M. Miller visited school classrooms and noticed a desperate need for not just textbooks, maps or even library books, but basic school supplies such as pencils and paper. Children played with pieces of broken toys.
The first shipment of school supplies arrived in the Ukraine in June. Those supplies were made available to teachers and students when the new school year began in September. However, more supplies are needed.
Suggested supplies include: atlases, maps, charts, tablets, pencils, erasers, pens, markers, crayons, chalk, tape, pencil sharpeners, scissors, construction paper, water color sets with brushes and rubber stamps with ink pads. Puzzles and games such as tinker toys, ball and jack sets, pick-up sticks and cards are also suggested.
Persons wishing to donate school supplies or make monetary donations to the Ukrainian School Supply Project called "Caring Hearts and Sharing Gifts for Ukrainian School Children" can do so by contacting Journey to the Homeland Tours, NDSU Libraries, PO Box 5599, Fargo, ND 581055599; or call 701-231-8416; or e-mail Michael M. Miller at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Even if an officer is wearing body armor, there is still a risk of injury, and each incident should be assessed. The following are guidelines for the care of an officer sustaining behind armor blunt trauma:
Flowchart for evaluation of officer shot while wearing body armorView a larger image and text description
Download a printer-friendly version (pdf, 3 pages)
The following is a suggested course of evaluation based on experience and the limited scientific data associated with behind armor blunt trauma. Clinician judgment should always take priority, and trauma upgrade should be considered when necessary.
When the patient is stable, the treating physician should evaluate the vest for the location of the shot(s) and if the shot(s) perforated or penetrated the vest.
Workup[2] should be commensurate with relating "at risk" underlying anatomy as follows:
[note 1] Over the past several years, an interdisciplinary review panel reviewed the specific incidents in which officers sustained behind armor blunt trauma. Funded by the National Institute of Justice, this panel identified some key findings, including the need to establish routine medical care when an incident has occurred. The medical subcommittee intends to make these guidelines a living document. As new information and cases become available, the guidelines will be updated and disseminated to the larger medical community. The subcommittee respectfully submits the guidelines for the health and safety of those who put their lives on the line for the public good. See the final product submitted by the subcommittee:
Bir, Cynthia, J. Cecconi, A. Dennis, M.J. McMullen, C. Sloane,
"Behind the Badge (pdf, 3 pages)", Final report submitted to the National Institute of Justice, Award No. 2004-IJ-CX-K040, February 2011, NCJ233645.
[note 2] A "workup" is a thorough medical examination for diagnostic purposes.
[note 3] The term "clinical clearance"' means that based on a focused physical examination for that region of the body, the physician has determined that injury can be ruled out and that no further radiographic or other testing is warranted.
National Institute of Justice, 810 Seventh Street, NW, Washington, DC 20531

subset: commoncrawl


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Would you please be quiet for a minute?
How many times a day does your mom, dad, teacher, or grandma say that to you? Probably really often, even though they were kids once, not too long ago, and even though they know how hard it is to keep your mouth closed and your ears open when there's so much to say.
But would you believe it's just as hard to keep quiet when you're a pirate? It is, and in the new book "NO PIRATES ALLOWED! Said Library Lou" by Rhonda Gowler Greene, illustrated by Brian Ajhar, you'll see all the problems that can make.
Everything was "just right" at Seabreezy Library. People were reading silently, working on the computers and looking things up, when - bang! - Big Pirate Pete stomped through the library's door.
"X Marks this spot!" he hollered. He was, of course, looking for treasure, but nobody could get close enough to tell him Seabreezy was a library.
Big Pete smelled terrible.
But Library Lou was having none of that. She told Big Pete to be quiet. Shhhhh!
Big Pete snarled at Library Lou, but she wasn't scared of a pirate and there was a nasty stare-down. Library Lou said if Big Pete couldn't hush, there would be "NO PIRATES ALLOWED" in her building! She asked to see Big Pete's treasure map and yes, indeed, there was treasure at Seabreezy Library.
Library Lou told Pete she'd help him find the treasure, but first he had to go home and take a bath. "Then come back tomorrow," she said.
The next day, Library Lou handed Big Pete another assignment. "X" didn't mark the spot; there were a whole bunch of letters to look through. It might've been a secret code, which would take a long time to figure out. Library Lou gave Big Pete a pile of words, and told him to "come back tomorrow."
But after a few days of Q and L and Z, Big Pete got impatient. Was there actually gold hidden in the rows and rows and rows of books on the shelves? Was there another clue for him? Where, exactly, was the treasure inside Seabreezy Library?
If you and your child are readers, you know where it is. But "NO PIRATES ALLOWED! Said Library Lou" is a fun (and funny) reminder.
With a rhyme and a growl, Gowler Greene offers faux-ferocity to a pirate who's really a pussycat, and gentleness to a tiny librarian who turns out to be a tiger. Kids who love books - and even those who don't - will surely want to see where Big Pete finds his "gold." Add in the absolutely wonderful illustrations by Ajhar (pay attention to Big Pete's facial expressions!), and you've got a book that's "aarrgh-really" appealing.
I'd highly recommend being very silly with this book, and putting your best pirate on when reading it aloud. Do that, and "NO PIRATES ALLOWED! Said Library Lou" will keep your 3-to-7-year-old quiet - at least for a minute.
Terri Schlichenmeyer has been reading since she was 3 years old, and she never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 11,000 books.


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Singapore on a Friday Night: Booze
A very delayed post on my Singapore trip because believe it or not, I actually forgot to pack my camera for this trip!
I was rushing home from the office. Ditch my laptop aside and took a quick shower. Had to pack some of my remaining travel essentials... and then figure out if I needed to bring anything else. All checked. And the most important item, the pastport... checked.
It was about 10 minutes later after I boarded the LRT when I realized I have forgotten my camera batteries. I left it charging in my room. But it's ok, I can survive on normal AA batteries. But then... *t00tttt* my camera is not with me.
Anyway, lucky me that Jin bought her new Ixus. Yay Canon! I was feeding her cam to the fullest during this trip. Thanks babe!
It was already 9 plus when I reached Singapore. Jin picked me up and we headed back to her place. Rested and we are off!
Ding dong here and there in Clare Quay. Saw some interesting bars. The Clinic.. gosh people were seated on wheel chairs! But didn't find any bar that attracted both of us. We ended up across the bridge to Brewerkz.
Quite a spacious restaurant that brews their own booze. They have quite a number of brews. Honestly, I am no fan of booze. Can't take the gas and hated beer that is flat. We ordered the lightest brew of the lot called Golden Ale if I remember correctly. SG36.99 a jug. It was actually not bad. Kind of reminded me of Angkor Beer. The kitchen was closed when we reached, so no food even though I was starving! Our waiter manage to squeeze a basket of fries out for us... Yay!
Hung out until they closed. We got shooed out of the restaurant but they let us use the tables outside to finish off our beer. *burp*
Email me at eatfirstthinklater[at]gmail[dot]com or
Drop me a message here =)


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DEA insists cold drug is not meth-resistant
A cold and allergy decongestant containing what the manufacturer says is the first pseudoephedrine that cannot be used in meth production is now available nationwide.
The Drug Enforcement Administration refuses to allow Zephrex-D to be sold over the counter, saying government chemists were able to manufacture methamphetamine from the product.
Zephrex-D has been sold in Missouri since December and suburban St. Louis company Westport Pharmaceuticals rolled out the product to 15,000 pharmacies nationwide last month.
Westport says the amount of meth that can be made using Zephrex-D is so small that it's impractical for meth-makers. The Missouri Narcotics Officers Association says it hasn't found the product in any meth labs.
Nonetheless, the DEA insisted Tuesday that Zephrex-D must be sold from behind the counter like all other pseudoephedrine products.
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© 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.


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UPDATE: The official dedication of the new Isaac Litton Middle school brought out Rep. Jim Cooper, Mayor Karl Dean, Councilman Anthony Davis, and more! See a slideshow of photos from the ribbon cutting below.
Original post:
When I arrived at the newly renovated Isaac Litton Middle School, principal Tracy Bruno was fleeing the spray of a lawn sprinkler deployed to help the parched and newly planted landscaping. The grass may not have been prepared for the drought, but the school is prepared for more students and a higher profile in its East Nashville neighborhood.
"We are the epitome of a neighborhood school, right here in the middle of all these houses," Bruno told me. And it's true. Litton sits nestled between small, residential streets like Winding Way and Littonwood Drive right off Gallatin Pike.
The renovations that have taken place over the last year and a half have transformed the school into a building that looks practically new – and that's because a lot of it is. The main office has been expanded. The library has a massive bank of new windows opening to the front lawn. The cafeteria is brand new and full of natural light. And the gym – once completely disconnected from the main building – has now been built out with new entrances, a new concession stand, and a host of new classrooms underneath it for fifth grade and related arts classes.
The rest of the building has been so spruced up, refinished, and painted that there is no disconnect between old and new. It all feels new to 2012. Just in time, too, because Bruno and his faculty have made it their mission to make Litton the neighborhood middle school in East Nashville.
"You can't just sit around in your office and wait for kids to come to your school. You have to go out there and market your school and sell it, tell people the great things that are going on at your school because nobody's going to do it for you."
One of those great things happening at Litton is a strong focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education. With new computers and projectors in every classroom, multiple iPad and netbook carts, and thousands of dollars in new STEM technology at the ready, Litton will prepare students to head right into Stratford STEM Magnet High School – another East Nashville neighborhood institution.
And Bruno's mission to market his school isn't self-serving. He sees in Litton the opportunity to bolster the sense of community that draws many people to East Nashville in the first place. He and his teachers have been working hard for the last year to make that happen, organizing events at feeder schools like Dan Mills Elementary and even going door-to-door to introduce themselves and build support for their school.
Fifth grade teacher Ashley Croft worked with the Martha O'Bryan Center on the Promise Neighborhood survey and used the opportunity to start building one-on-one relationships with the community.
"The whole idea was for parents and the community members to know that the teachers and the staff here care about the community," Croft said. "And so showing up at their door for this survey – not even directly representing the school, but just for building community – I think it meant a lot to some parents."
Bruno sees Litton's zoned population, neighborhood placement, and STEM focus as advantages in an area filled with school options. Students in Litton's neighborhood can choose among magnets, charters, and private schools. That's a lot of competition in such a tight radius. But he sees plenty of reasons for parents to choose Litton.
"They live around the school. There's familiarity. You have kids down the street that go to the same school your kids do. It's just more of a community feel." Indeed, listening to Bruno talk about what a neighborhood school can offer, he sounds a bit like a principal from a different era, working next to a doctor who makes house calls and a butter and egg delivery truck.
"I have no problem making a visit to a child's house. I've had parents before who would call and say 'Hey, my child missed the bus. I can't get them there' and I'll go pick them up. It's not a big thing, but the parents appreciate it. It could be a child who just doesn't want to go to school. I will go to your house and talk to your child and tell them they need to go to school because sometimes parents need that help."
And he expects a bit of reciprocity from parents; his open door policy means he is readily available to speak with parents, hear their concerns, and take their suggestions. "It helps the neighborhood take more ownership in the school and feel like they have a bigger part in the school and share as a stakeholder in the school."
If Litton is the "epitome of a neighborhood school," as Bruno boasts, then Bruno himself is the epitome of a great neighborhood principal, just like ones found all over Nashville in Metro's other neighborhood schools. Principals from Joelton Elementary to Oliver Middle, Hermitage Elementary to Hillwood High build their schools the same way: to serve as resources and points of pride for their communities. Neighbors come to Overton football games donned head to toe in red and black. Long lines of early arriving parents gather outside Lakeview Elementary to chat and share stories from the school and the neighborhood.
That's because our neighborhood schools are the neighborhoods they serve. Students live down the street, families play on the playgrounds, and school faculty and staff strive to better their communities through education.
Tracy Bruno can already see the change happening. "We have volunteers who were asking for things to do. That never happened three years previous. We had people at the doors asking, 'What can I do to help Isaac Litton Middle School?' That is a huge step in the right direction."
With the new renovations, Litton has room to grow. And Bruno plans to fill it up.
"I want to see every classroom in this building filled with neighborhood kids. And I believe we can get there. There are enough students in East Nashville, in our cluster, in our zone, to fill this school up."
His goal is to build a future for Litton where the young families now populating East Nashville feel great about sending their children there.
"I had a teacher in here last Monday who said 'I will do whatever it takes to make my kids successful this year.' When you have that kind of enthusiasm, the sky's the limit."


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Six interactive non-fiction transmedia projects awarded a total of $400,000.
The Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) has announced the grant recipients for the 2013 TFI New Media Fund.
In partnership with the Ford Foundation's JustFilms Initiative, the six interactive non-fiction transmedia projects from around the world were awarded between $50,000 and $100,000 apiece with funding effective immediately. Total funding equalled $400,000.
The recipients will also take part in regular peer-to-peer meetings and a lab focused on interactive storytelling to help them develop their projects and build engagement with audiences.
Selected from a pool of 285 submissions, the projects selected are as follows:
Chasing the Sun
Key participants: Paul Shoebridge, Michael Simons (The Goggles)
The Yes Men are Revolting
Key participants: Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, Laura Nix, Mary Notari, The Public Society, Glocal
Who is Dayani Cristal?
Key participants: Gael Garcia Bernal, Marc Silver, Lina Srivastava
This is My Backyard (Logs of War)
Key participants: Anjali Nayar, Jude Mwenda, Andrew Hill, Daniel Burwen, Leonardo Bonanni
American Promise
Key participants: Michèle Stephenson & Joe Brewster
Use of Force Protocol
Key participants: Nonny de la Peña
Jurors included Vimeo creative director Jeremy Boxer, Games for Change co-president Michelle Byrd, REV executive director Marisa Jahn, 2over10 Media for PBS Frontline producer Tom Jennings, Creators Project global editor Julia Kaganskiy and MIT Open Documentary Lab director Sarah Wolozin.
Ingrid Kopp, director of digital initiatives, commented: "These six projects cover topics from all over the world, from the fate of the Arctic to natural resource extraction in Africa to immigration stories within our own borders but what is really exciting about all this work is how differently the creative teams bring together stories and technology to engage audiences and create impact in the world.
"We are very proud to be supporting all these projects and to be able to continue to support the growth of interactive storytelling."


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Embarking on a concept of No New Wires® data communications, Aztech HL117EP transforms your in-house powerline into a networking infrastructure. Thus it successfully reduces "dead spot" and increases network coverage within your home.
Performance and Convenience in HomePlug AV 500Mbps
HL117EP HomePlug engine is a Qualcomm Atheros AR7420 chipset. It features faster processing power, two Fast Ethernet host interfaces and an enhanced analog front end. The solution is compliance with IEEE1901 and Homeplug AV, hence allowing hassle free compatibility with existing Homeplug AV devices and other suppliers of IEEE1901 PLC (Powerline Line Communication) devices.
Connect every Ethernet device possible – no new wires, no drilling and no hassle!
Embarking on HomePlug technology - a concept of No New Wires® data communications, Aztech HomePlug transforms your in-house powerline into a networking infrastructure. Thus it successfully reduces ""dead spot"" and increases network coverage within your home.
Enhanced Quality of Service (QOS) also provides the guaranteed bandwidth reservations for multimedia payloads including TV over IP (IPTV), higher data rate broadband sharing, Online-Gaming, VoIP Calls, extending Wireless LANs coverage, Audio-Video transmission across the network as well as Network camera connectivity.
Fuss-free Set-up with Simple Connect
No configuration or software is required to pair Aztech HomePlugs. The ""Simple Connect"" button doubles as a security feature supported with 128-bit AES Hardware encryption, ensuring the network communications is free from eavesdroppers and hackers.
Noise-filtered pass-through power outlet
The embedded pass through electricity socket ensures that the user does not lose a wall socket, as well as it provides an AC filtering circuit to ensure that the HL113EP is isolated from locally generated AC noise sources connected to the socket.
Data Transfer Rate
Modulation Support
Frequency Band
Quality of Service (QoS)
Diagnostic and Management Interface
Security Support
Noise Filtering
AC Pass Through Power Socket
Platform Support
Power Supply
LED Indicators
External Connectors
Push Button/Switch
Resin/Plastic Casing
Power Consumption
Operating Systems


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Questions tagged [coa]
CoA is the short form for Coenzyme A. It is a coenzyme which is important in the oxidation of pyruvate in the citric acid cycle. It is also important for the oxidation and synthesis of fatty acids.
2 questions
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Other than Acetylcarnitine what other orally-bioavailable Acetyl donors exist to assist in the conversion of CoA to acetyl-CoA?
I asked a question on bio stackexchange a few days from which I was hoping to be able to arrive at an answer for this question myself but I have had no such luck so now I am going to just ask outright:...
101 views
Where can I find an at least Semi-Comprehensive list of what biochemical reactions Acetyl-CoA participates in?
Acetyl-CoA has a number of biochemical roles in the body and I'm curious as to whether anybody knows where I can find at least a semi-comprehensive list (i.e. comprising all the major roles in the ...