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If you are looking to put your college search in high gear, attend Life University's Eagle Madness Preview Day. Life University (LIFE) hosts Eagle Madness twice a year – in the spring and in the fall – on LIFE's campus where you will spend the day learning about LIFE's undergraduate and graduate degree programs, meeting with faculty and current students, and exploring the campus. Representatives from Financial Aid, Admissions and Student Services will be available to answer all your questions. Enjoy lunch with us, compliments of LIFE. We welcome all, including juniors and seniors in high school, as well as counselors, parents and career advisors.
There are a number of unique elements that only happen at Eagle Madness. You will be able to interact with current students and faculty who can answer questions about LIFE's 14 undergraduate degrees, four graduate degrees and flagship Doctor of Chiropractic degree. You will meet with Department Heads and have an extensive look into the programs offered here at LIFE.
Why LIFE?
Life University offers leading-edge health science degrees in a community that empowers students to design lives of success and significance. LIFE provides students the vision to fulfill their innate potential, the inspiration to engage in a quest for self-discovery and the ability to apply a principled approach to their future roles as leaders. LIFE instills and practices a set of values, a philosophy, a perspective toward wellness and a deeper meaning of service to humanity.
LIFE offers undergraduate degrees in health sciences, business, nutrition and psychology fields; graduate programs in sport health science, clinical nutrition, positive psychology and athletic training; and is home to the world's largest single campus College of Chiropractic.
Our students come from every state in the U.S. and more than 25 countries, making LIFE a small school with a wide range of diversity. With our energetic student body, there's always something happening – from food festivals in Lyceum Park and workout classes in the Wellness Center, to free outdoor concerts and informative seminars with industry leaders. We support more than 70 campus organizations that bring students together.
LIFE's campus sits on 110 acres of lush green space with contemporary academic facilities, five miles of wooded jogging and walking paths and beautiful outdoor gathering spaces, including a 300-seat outdoor amphitheater. Our sustainable campus features LEED-certified housing and a preserved 19th century village – both of which nod to our past while looking to our future.
For students who are ready to get away from campus for a bit, Atlanta is right on your doorstep. With world-class concert venues, theaters, museums, sporting events, restaurants and shopping, there is something for everyone.
LIFE Fast Facts
- 16:1 Student to Faculty Ratio
- More than 1/3 of students identify as black, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander or Native American
- More than 25 countries represented by our international students
- One million dollars available in financial aid to Life University undergrads
- More than 70 student organizations
- Public Health Online ranked Life University's Nutrition degree program in the top 40 in the United States
- More than 60,000 patient visits at LIFE's on-campus outpatient clinic each year
- 35 minutes from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport
- Largest single campus chiropractic college in the world
Ready to Register for Eagle Madness?
If you are interested in discovering what LIFE has to offer, we encourage you and your family to start your journey and sign up for Eagle Madness. Go to www.LIFE.edu/VisitLIFE and register today.
Email us at email@example.com so that we can help answer your questions. If you want more information on all of LIFE's degrees, visit LIFE.edu/Academics.


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subset: commoncrawl


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As the name would suggest the Magellan eXplorist GC is built for a premium geocaching experience. Whether you're a seasoned geocacher with more than a thousand finds or a newbie that's interested in getting in on the action, eXplorist GC provides all the tricks of the trade. However it functions perfectly well as a handheld GPS unit in it's own right.
Probably most important, eXplorist GC supports paperless geocaching, which allows you to download more than 20 unique characteristics of each cache, including name, location, description, hider, size, difficulty, terrain, hint, spoilers, attributes, and last 20 user logs among a number of other details.
eXplorist GC comes with the most popular geocaches pre-loaded to provide a unique out of box experience. You can literally "turn it on and go!"
To customize your geocaching experience with caches that meet your specific criteria, the eXplorist GC has seamless connection to geocaching.com. This allows you to search more than one millions caches worldwide. With a click of the mouse, you can transfer the information with the Send to GPS feature. Additionally, with a Premium Membership to geocaching.com, you can create custom Pocket Queries and update your device with fresh cache information easily on a weekly basis.
Did we mention that eXplorist GC comes with a free 30 day pass to geocaching.com premium member services? Yes it does! Get access to full GPX file downloads, pocket queries, member only caches, and a host of other great features.
Now that you're hooked up with a premium membership to geocaching.com, download thousands of geocaches to the eXplorist GC. The device can hold up to 10,000 geocaches so you can continue to load new caches for each and every new adventure.
Searching for the right cache is easy by setting your search preferences: by nearest, by name, by type, by date, or by geocache ID. Also, you can customize your cache list. For example, show all regular size, traditional type caches that have not been found.
To support all your geocaching adventures, the eXplorist GC comes packed with tons of helpful hardware features. Most striking, the vibrant color screen is transflective, which allows for the best readability in direct sunlight. To zero in on the exact location of a hidden cache, the SiRFstarIII GPS chipset provides accuracy of 10-feet (3-meters). To keep your fun going all day long, the device is powered by two AA batteries for 18 hours of constant usage. Finally, to keep your new favorite toy safe as you explore the outdoors, eXplorist GC is rugged, waterproof, and submersible (IPX-7). All of this is packed into a small and attractive handheld form factor that can be hung around your neck or attached to your pack with the built-in carabineer hook.
eXplorist GC provides unmatched assistance with navigation, such as the combination of the world's two most useful navigational tools - a compass and a map! Overlay a series of different transparent compass styles on top of a pre-loaded worldwide map that show roads, water features, parks, and city centers. Access the dashboard screen that shows a mini-compass for quick reference and customizable navigation data fields, such as latitude, longitude, heading, bearing, distance to end, trip odometer, and many more. Go back to the map screen and view your active track, which is a series of digital breadcrumbs to record all yours movements. Mark your starting point (car, trailhead, parking lot...) with a waypoint and easily navigate back to that location once you've unearthed your fill of caches. eXplorist GC will not only find hidden treasure, but it will also help you find your way back.
Compete with your friends with the unique geocache tracking features. The "time to find" cache feature records the time is takes to find each cache. eXplorist GC will keep a record of the time it takes to find each cache in the geocache details page and average all finds in your user profile. The device also tracks the number and type of geocaches found. Keep track of your finds on the geocache awards screen and stats page.
Reference your Trip Summary to keep track of your distance travelled, complete travel time, moving time and stopped time, and average time to find. Easily reset your Trip Summary statistics to track the details of your next geocaching adventure.
Whether you are searching for treasure in the Nordics, the Orient, or in the West Indies, eXplorist GC will provide accurate GPS signals thanks to the Satellite Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS) of WAAS, EGNOS, and MSAS, which is identified in the GPS status bar. eXplorist GC also displays coordinates in a myriad of different global systems, including UTM and WGS84. Geocaching is a worldwide phenomenon and eXplorist GC will help guide you accurately to treasures all over the globe.
eXplorist GC has the ease-of-use to help a novice geocacher discover the world of high-tech treasure hunting and the sophistication to keep an experienced hunter satisfied with loads of advanced features. "X" marks the spot and eXplorist GC can help to find it!
Additional Information


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Report to the Community - 2011
The mission of Loring Community School is to educate children for lifelong learning in a respectful environment that supports their growth into knowledgeable, skilled, responsible and confident citizens capable of succeeding in their professional and personal life. We are a respectful, caring school where children, families, staff and community work together so all children reach their highest potential. Loring Community School is highly committed to academic achievement. We believe, and research shows, that students learn best in an environment where social skills are taught. We take great pride in being a "Responsive Classroom School" where we teach children to care about themselves, others and learning. Social skills and academics taught together result in more learning time for students. Loring Community School has been the recipient of three federal reading grants. These grants were used for intensive teacher training in research-based methods of instruction. This level of achievement is directly related to the professionalism of Loring teachers and their commitment to excellence. Our teachers have high expectations for student learning and design lessons at each child's individual skill level.
The Loring academic program places a high demand on students for thinking as they are presented a rigorous curriculum. Students are expected to raise questions, solve problems and reason. Each student receives 120 minutes a day of reading instruction and 90 minutes of math. In reading classes, students have both whole group instruction with grade level material as well as 60 minutes a day of small group instruction at their instructional level. We are privileged to have an extensive collection of instructional reading materials and supplemental texts, which are challenging and interesting. Each student's achievement and efforts are continuously evaluated and adjustments are made in curriculum and instruction as needed.
Students at Loring receive a well-balanced program of academics, technology, physical education, vocal music and band. Students with special talents and interests participate in advanced math and reading classes. General Mills Foundation recognized Loring School for its participation in the President's Active Lifestyle Award Program.
Students at Loring look forward to popular activities and experiences beyond our core curriculum. This includes the Math Masters Team, an opportunity for students eager for additional math challenges and competition with other Minneapolis Schools. Kindergarten students and their families enjoy a fall Literacy Night. Students read books such as Stone Soup, make stone soup and invite their families for dinner. Third grade expands their social studies unit on communities by visiting many important historical sites in Minneapolis. The Arts for Academic Achievement brings theater into the classroom. Fourth grade students study electricity in science class and through our affiliation with the Bakken Museum to expand their knowledge and complete additional hands on experiments. Fifth grade students look forward to going to Camp Audubon to study the environment and participate in team building exercises and develop personal confidence before going to middle school.
Loring Community School enthusiastically implements the MPS Wellness Policy. Students learn about nutrition and how to make healthy food choices through growing their own food and cooking. The Loring Schoolyard Garden is an award-winning learning laboratory for all students. The garden is a true community effort - organized by and supported by families, neighbors and friends for the benefit of the children. Loring School was awarded a Medica-funded grant to teach cross-country skiing and nutrition to students in grades 3, 4 and 5. Loring is in partnership with City of the Lakes Loppet, Nordic Ski Foundation and Kids Cook. We expect to receive national recognition through The Alliance for a Healthy Generation founded by the American Heart Association and William J. Clinton Foundation. The goal of the Alliance is to reduce the prevalence of childhood obesity by 2015, and to empower kids nationwide to make healthy lifestyle choices.
The Loring Community Council is an active group of parents, community members and teachers who work together to support children's education. The Council serves as an advisory board to the school ensuring that Loring Community School reflects the values, vision and expectations of the community. The Council also provides the school community with an annual carnival, Bingo for Books and Family Fun Nights. Other partnerships with the community include support from volunteers, Cargill Financial Services, the Victory Neighborhood Association, Salem Lutheran Church, Faith Baptist Church, the Minnesota Orchestra, Target Stores in Plymouth and Crystal, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Arts for Academic Achievement, Medica, City of Lakes Loppet and Nordic Ski Foundation.
From the Heart ♥
"I wonder, 'Why would anyone choose a private school?' Loring is a small public school with a very positive learning environment. As I walk through the halls, all the staff knows my children's names and greets them in an affirming manner. Guess what? They do the same with me! Loring approaches each student individually and works as a team to provide appropriate challenges and opportunities to ensure academic success and creative learning. Loring is truly a community school where everyone counts."
S.Q., Loring Parent
"I want to thank you for making my son a reader. Reading has always been something he wanted to avoid. Now he is reading on his own for pleasure. Thank you."
P.C., Loring Parent
"Loring Community School is my choice for my gifted son because they are able to adequately challenge him and keep him excited about school. The curriculum is challenging and exciting and the staff is highly trained and enthusiastic about teaching."
K.S., Loring Parent
Student Race
Native American
African American
Asian American
Hispanic American
White American
From School Year 2009-2010
Receive ELL Services
Qualify for free or reduced lunch*
Receive Special Education Services
Teacher Ethnicity
All staff information is preliminary 2010-2011 data.
Staff Ethnicity percentages are based on all teaching staff assigned to a building including teachers that are part time and assigned to multiple buildings.
Loring School believes that students who are given engaging opportunities to learn are more motivated to learn. The KIDS COOK SchoolYard Garden invites students to explore science, mathematics, cultures, nutrition and health through lessons taught in the garden. Science is more interesting when the monarch caterpillars are fed with milkweed from the garden. Mathematics is more interesting when you are learning estimation by estimating the number of bees on the honeycomb during a lesson about social insects...in the garden. Students can be seen exploring the senses of listening, smelling, tasting, etc., as they work in the garden. This leads them into writing assignments drawing from the observations and sensory awareness experience in the garden. We want our children to experience learning in real-life settings.
High Five is our half-day early childhood program for four-year olds. They learn academic readiness skills as well as social skills and school routines. They are a lively and fun group of learners. We love having them at Loring.
Students benefit from strong family support of education at Loring. Families at Loring are actively involved in their children's education. Ninety-five percent of our families participate in school conferences. We have a strong parent teacher organization (LCC) that supports the school community. Families are always welcome in our school. Our staff survey showed that 95 percent of our teachers know their students personally - and their families. This is a school where we all care about each other.
Loring is grateful for the support of neighbors in the community who enrich the experiences of our students. Many of the volunteers who support the school do not have students at Loring. They are committed to the neighborhood and the children of the community. In addition to devoting personal time and finances to the school, they have broadened our family of supporters through some of the annual activities including: KIDS COOK summer family picnics and pie auction; summer gardening day camp; schoolyard and butterfly gardens (winners of a State of Minnesota Horticulture Association award and Minneapolis Blooms); and participation in Holiday on 44th Street. Loring also has a dedicated group of senior citizens who either attended Loring themselves or had children who attended Loring. Five Loring School volunteers have been honored as Volunteers of the Year by Minneapolis Public Schools.
At Loring, the phrase "It takes a village to raise a child" is played out daily.
At Loring School we believe that the quality of instruction strongly impacts academic success. Our staff has made a commitment to continuous professional development. We are lifelong learners, always striving to improve our teaching.
• Loring teachers are 'Committed to Excellence' and in January 2006 received an Award of Excellence in Education.
• We believe all students can learn and challenge them accordingly.
• We worked closely with the University of Minnesota through the Reading Excellence, Reading First grants and the University of Pittsburgh's Institute for Learning to provide professional development for teachers over a six-year period. Currently we are in our third year of the Teacher Advancement Program.
• Evaluation by the University of Minnesota indicates Loring teachers have developed a strong reading program and teachers who are committed to ongoing professional development.
• All teachers meet weekly in professional conversations (study groups) to review current research and instructional practices.
• Loring School's data-driven program determines instruction based on student assessments. We are proud to be a Response to Intervention demonstration school where each student's instructional program can be fine-tuned with confidence. Loring teachers are skilled in using this research-based approach to instructional decision-making.
• Loring has a math support teacher who teams with teachers to teach math most effectively.
• Teachers at Loring choose to work here because they love teaching the children of our community!
The Minnesota Department of Education uses the MCA-IIs to track students' educational progress towards the academic goals as outlined by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. The first table shows you whether specific student group at our school met the 2010 Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goals in participation and proficiency, while the second table gives the overall percentage of our students who met the proficiency standards on MCA-II reading and math assessments for the tested grades at this school.
Adequately Yearly Progress for 2009-2010
All Students
Native American
African American
Asian American
Hispanic American
White American
Limited English Proficient
Special Education
Free/Reduced Price Lunch
Percentage of Students Who are Proficient for 2009-2010
Our School
Grade 3 Reading
Grade 3 Math
Grade 4 Reading
Grade 4 Math
Grade 5 Reading
Grade 5 Math
Grade 6 Reading
Grade 6 Math
Grade 7 Reading
Grade 7 Math
Grade 8 Reading
Grade 8 Math
Staff Survey: School Environment -- Safety & Respect
Responses from Staff
Agree or strongly Agree
Our School
I feel safe in my school building
I am often kept from teaching because of student misbehavior.
In my school, adults and students respect one another.
Staff in my school show respect for staff of all races and ethnic backgrounds.
District staff survey averages are district wide averages. From School Year 2009-2010
2600 44th Avenue North, Minneapolis MN, 55412
Telephone: 612.668.2060 | Fax: 612.668.2070


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Finger Weights 10Pc.
Finger Weights - 10 Piece Set
Worn to exercise and strengthen the fingers and hands. Used by Occupational and Physical Therapists for upper extremity rehabilitation of their patients, FingerWeights also help in the fight against Arthritis, Carpal Tunnel, and Tendonitis pain. FingerWeights help reduce morning stiffness and are guaranteed to improve flexibility, dexterity, and strength in the fine motor muscles of the hands, targeting both the extensor and flexor muscles. Ideal for use in both clinical and in-home settings. FingerWeights are used to promote health and general wellness of the upper extremities, and utilize the accepted principles of progressive weight training practiced by Sports Medicine Specialists to improve performance and rehabilitate injuries.
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MATTHEW TRESAUGUE Houston Chronicle
SEALY, Texas - Mary Chandler for decades has prayed for rain, but cautiously. God willing, the Brazos River won't rise and flood the Austin County ranch where she raises cattle and harvests pecans.
Her water worries these days go beyond the vagaries of nature, and she has put her faith in a lawyer to address a new potential threat.
A Houston-based company has requested permits to tap a deep underground reservoir in the rural area and send the water by pipeline to thirsty Fort Bend County cities. The Houston Chronicle (http://bit.ly/1aAgaHd) reported Chandler and other ranchers are opposed to the plan, claiming major pumping of the aquifer will rob them of the water beneath their land and harm their livelihoods.
"The whole operation is dependent on water," Chandler, 70, said of the ranch, which has been in her family's hands since 1885. "I have children and grandchildren, and we intend to keep this place going."
There is ceaseless wrangling over water in Texas, but tensions have been high when it comes to groundwater. Fights have broken out near Austin and San Antonio, where water marketers and utilities are working feverishly to secure large volumes beneath rural counties for fast-growing communities.
The primary reason for the conflicts is the unique way the state views groundwater.
While Texas controls surface water, state law allows landowners to pump as much water from beneath their land as they desire, as long as it is for beneficial use. What's more, the Texas Supreme Court recently ruled that landowners may seek compensation if government actions limit their access to it.
That's created new questions about who owns that water and how much of it they may use. "There's a lot to be litigated," said Mary Kelly, an Austin attorney specializing in water.
The newest front is the Bluebonnet Groundwater Conservation District, which manages the water supply beneath Austin, Grimes, Walker and Waller counties.
Electro Purification LLC has asked the district for the right to pump 22,500 acre-feet of water per year and ship it about 25 miles to Richmond and Rosenberg.
Currently, the district permits the pumping of about 87,000 acre-feet per year of groundwater, but only about 18,000 acre-feet is actually pumped. An acre-foot is roughly equal to the amount of water three typical Texas households use in a year.
Zach Holland, the groundwater district's general manager, said there is enough water available to meet the request. "The reason why this is a contested issue isn't the availability of water, but what will be the impacts," he said.
At this point, Holland doesn't know the exact consequences because the district has yet to analyze them. But residents are worried that the extra pumping could lower the water table, forcing them to dig deeper wells and causing their land to sink, a geological condition known as subsidence.
They have asked that the permit go through a trial-like hearing before state administrative law judges before the district considers approval.
"This is an extreme amount of water to pump," said Chandler, one of the residents who requested the hearing.
Electro Purification says that the proposed pumping will have no effect on shallow wells nearby and will not cause appreciable, if any, subsidence, according to its permit application. Company officials refused to comment, citing the upcoming hearing.
Ironically, the company is pursuing the water for communities facing new pumping limits in Fort Bend County.
The district, Holland said, has options: It could grant, deny or modify the application, allowing the company to pump less water than it requested.
Austin County Judge Carolyn Bilski also has urged state lawmakers to move forward with plans to build the Allens Creek Reservoir in a pocket of low-lying land near Sealy. The lake could satisfy suburban needs without pumping more groundwater, she wrote.
Talk of building a lake began in the early 1970s when Houston Lighting and Power proposed a nearby nuclear power plant, which would need water for cooling.
The nuclear plant was never built, and the Brazos River Authority eventually purchased the property. The city of Houston later signed on as a majority partner.
But Houston, with its water needs met, is in no rush and convinced lawmakers two years ago to push back the deadline for starting construction of the $223 million project from 2018 to 2025.
Ronald Kaiser, a professor of water law at Texas A&M University, said it's unlikely the lake will be built if there are other options. Water marketers and cities find groundwater attractive because it's high quality, difficult to pollute and does not evaporate like water in lakes and rivers, he said.
"Building a reservoir is hugely expensive," he said. "While buying some land and putting a well in the ground is expensive, it is not prohibitive."
Holland, the district general manager, said he has not received any other request the size of Electro Purification's application, but acknowledges that could change.
"I would not be surprised because of all the growth," Holland said, "but it will greatly depend on which way this case goes."


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CRS: Iran: Relations With Key Central Asian States, July 23, 1998
From WikiLeaks
About this CRS report
This document was obtained by Wikileaks from the United States Congressional Research Service.
The CRS is a Congressional "think tank" with a staff of around 700. Reports are commissioned by members of Congress on topics relevant to current political events. Despite CRS costs to the tax payer of over $100M a year, its electronic archives are, as a matter of policy, not made available to the public.
Individual members of Congress will release specific CRS reports if they believe it to assist them politically, but CRS archives as a whole are firewalled from public access.
This report was obtained by Wikileaks staff from CRS computers accessible only from Congressional offices.
For other CRS information see: Congressional Research Service.
For press enquiries, consult our media kit.
If you have other confidential material let us know!.
For previous editions of this report, try OpenCRS.
Wikileaks release: February 2, 2009
Publisher: United States Congressional Research Service
Title: Iran: Relations With Key Central Asian States
CRS report number: 98-86
Author(s): Kenneth Katzman and Jim Nichol, Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division
Date: July 23, 1998
- Abstract
- Iran sees the Central Asian region as an arena for reducing its own isolation. Hoping to make itself an attractive economic and political partner to the Central Asian states, Iran has been cautious in its support for radical Islamic opposition movements there. Several Central Asian countries are proceeding with or contemplating energy projects that transit Iran. These projects present the Administration and Congress with the dilemma of how to keep Iran contained while at the same time fostering economic and political development among the Central Asian states.
- Download


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The sporting world in the United States is about to change and become something unrecognisable. Monday's decision from the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) legislation that has, for decades, outlawed sports betting in the U.S. is a very big deal.
And as is only natural when it comes to betting, it will create some losers. Though reactionaries will paint sports gambling as a matter solely of vice and victims, the experience from other parts of the world where betting is commonplace suggests this simplistic view is misguided. For a start, just because something is illegal does not stop it from happening.
The fact of the matter is people have been betting for as long as individuals and teams have contested sport. Even in the U.S., beyond Las Vegas or the casinos and racetracks of New Jersey and Delaware, there has been a booming market for illicit betting. In 2014, National Basketball Association commissioner Adam Silver wrote in the New York Times: "There is no solid data on the volume of illegal sports betting activity in the U.S. but some estimate that nearly $400 billion is illegally wagered on sports each year."
So if PASPA has failed to save people from themselves, what has it done to protect professional and amateur sports from the malicious intentions of manipulators? In other words, should the U.S. be worried about match-fixing?
This question has long been a tenet of those in favour of upholding PASPA. When the state of Delaware motioned to overturn it in 2009, the National Football League stood in PASPA's defense. The NFL's vice president for communications, Brian McCarthy, said: "We don't want people second-guessing why a player would miss a field goal late in the game."
McCarthy was expressing a concern that sports betting would lead to corrupted results. He was right -- it does. Where he was wrong, however, is to think that match-fixing happens only when sports betting is legal.
In 2011, I sat through every day of a trial in the UK criminal courts involving three Pakistan international cricketers who had been part of a conspiracy to bowl no-balls in a Test match, the highest form of their sport, in return for taking bribes. I learned a lot about the machinations of match-fixers, but I also learned about the wider criminal operations their betting activities help fund. The point is simple: Much of the trillion dollars at stake in the annual global gambling market derives from countries in which sports betting has been illegal -- India, China and the United States. This, in turn, has driven sports betting into the hands of organized criminals.
For them, the incentive to fix sporting results is strong. There can be few more profitable enterprises than betting on a result you can guarantee will happen. In turn, this has placed sport -- one of the fastest-growing commercial sectors in the western world -- in the crosshairs of organized crime.
The European Gaming and Betting Association, an industry lobby group, has reported its belief that of all non-horserace betting in Asia's illegal gambling market, soccer accounts for between 70 percent and 85 percent of turnover. This makes it an obvious target for the fixers. People such as Wilson Raj Perumal, a self-confessed global match-fixer who operated from premises near Wembley Stadium, the spiritual home of English soccer, have become notorious for their efforts to subvert sport. But people like Perumal find their work harder in an environment in which sport gambling is legalised and regulated than when conducted by a network of opaque, underground-betting operators.
There are a number of reasons for this. First, if the money is made legitimately, then governments, sports authorities and franchises are able to take their share through taxes and commercial operations. They are naturally incentivized to uphold the integrity of their sports through education and protection programs.
Sportradar, a company founded by the German former bookmaker Carsten Koerl, runs a hugely sophisticated monitoring service that verifies sports results for their integrity. It holds a raft of agreements with sports governing bodies to warn them of suspicious betting patterns that might suggest a predetermined outcome. It will be doing so for FIFA at this summer's World Cup in Russia, too, but it can do this only because betting volumes in a regulated market are transparent, which makes it easy to spot unexpected spikes in volume. In an illegal market, there is no such visibility.
Koerl describes the SCOTUS decision as taking sports betting "out of the shadows and into the light," and he is right. Koerl's deputy president at Sportradar, Laila Mintas, anticipates it will bring huge commercial benefits to U.S. sports.
"On average, [bookmakers] spend over 25 percent of their total revenues on marketing," said Mintas. "[They] will be the next big driver of growth in sports sponsorship."
That has certainly been the case in the U.K. In 2017-18, the principal sponsors of nine out of 20 Premier League clubs were gambling businesses. Their sponsorship agreements often permit them exclusive access to club stadiums, where they can offer bets to match-going fans. To British visitors, the absence of betting booths at U.S. sports venues has been conspicuous, and it is likely to change eventually.
Then there is the broadcasting angle. Sky and BT Sport, the two major sports broadcasters in the U.K., will pay £9.3m ($12.7m) to the Premier League for each match they broadcast through the 2019-20 to 2021-22 seasons. Almost every single advertisement in the commercial breaks is for one bookmaker or another, suggesting the broadcasters and betting operators know their audience. This carpet bombing of bookies' commercial messaging is certainly the most troubling aspect of legalized sports betting, particularly in considering the exposure to young people, but the U.S. has a unique opportunity to bring in effective consumer-awareness programming alongside the inevitable commercials.
In any case, the upside for sports is clear. The revenue generated by sports betting directly helps to finance the multimillion-dollar salaries paid to players. As far as sports integrity is concerned, this matters because if a sportsman risks losing millions of dollars in annual wages for fixing a match, with the added risk of his celebrity status being shattered the instant he is uncovered, it becomes commensurately harder to bribe the player. With the enormous salaries on offer to athletes in the major U.S. sports, the integrity risks are lower than in others.
How the corruptibility of athletes is often directly linked to their earnings was recently demonstrated in tennis. In April, the Independent Review of Integrity in Tennis, commissioned by the sport's four governing bodies, laid bare the extent of the issues it faces. Across 2009, 2010 and 2011, there were 149 betting alerts around tennis matches made to the Tennis Integrity Unit. Across 2015, 2016 and 2017, that number had risen more than five-fold to 767, yet in that later period, between only 1 percent and 4 percent of the alerts related to high-profile Grand Slams with high prize money, and between 9 percent and 11 percent to Tour-level matches. The other 85 percent were at the middle and lowest levels of the game, where players earn markedly less, have substantially less to lose and might be more susceptible to making a corrupt profit.
Sport in the U.S. has frequently fallen victim to such scandals. The college basketball points-shaving incidents at Northwestern, Boston and Tulane stand testament to this though given the volume of sport played, they have been mercifully isolated. However, with the facility of online gambling now set to explode, temptation might get the better of some young sports stars. Even when gambling was less accessible, sports stars have been eaten up before. Pete Rose, aka "Charlie Hustle" -- a natural Hall of Famer for his achievements as a player and coach in his sport -- is still permanently ineligible to participate in baseball after betting on matches, many involving his own team.
This is something soccer has also experienced. Joey Barton, a one-time England international midfielder and self-confessed gambling addict, was banned for 18 months last year after being found to have bet on 1,260 matches over a 10-year period, in breach of Football Association rules. Upon receiving his punishment, Barton pointed the finger at a "culture of gambling" in English soccer.
"The FA needs to look at its own dependence on the gambling companies, their role in football and in sports broadcasting, rather than just blaming the players who place a bet," he said.
Clearly, nothing is impervious, but robust monitoring, good governance, sound education and lucrative salaries for athletes are strong buttresses against the greater evil of match-fixing. Even so, none of this is to say the experience for all U.S. sports will be positive from here on in.
One of the advantages soccer has had in attracting vast sums of betting liquidity is its ubiquity. There is a top-level soccer match going on somewhere in the world pretty much every day of the calendar year. If you want to have a soccer bet, you don't have to look far. For sports such as basketball, with the NBA's 82 regular-season games, and baseball, with the 162 games played in the Major League Baseball regular season, this should be encouraging. Major League Soccer, with its 34 league games per club each season, holds to a familiar soccer format.
But for the National Football League, which plays its regular season across just 17 weeks, there is no such longevity of narrative. This will likely mean much of the new sponsorship dollars will find homes away from America's biggest sport. It might also help to explain some of the NFL's prior resistance to the PASPA change.
Still, in the world of sports betting, one thing has always been for sure: Someone has to lose.


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Friday morning's rehearsal for this weekend's San Antonio Symphony concerts was just wonderful. The two works on the program are masterpieces (Beethoven's "Emperor" Piano Concerto and Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet) and the orchestra sounded great. The photo on the right was taken in the middle of the rehearsal and shows guest conductor Sebastian Lang-Lessing and guest piano soloist Ewa Kupiec.
At one point in the third movement of the Beethoven Concerto Maestro Lang-Lessing asked the orchestra to play "less beautiful." He asked for shorter notes and a more aggressive sound that would be more exciting and more contrasting with the lyrical passages. He said something that made everybody laugh: "Beethoven had to move his apartment 54 times when he lived in Vienna, and music like this was the reason!"
Here is a short video of Maestro Lang-Lessing taken right after the rehearsal.
The concerts this weekend are at 8 p.m. at the Majestic Theatre. Tickets start at $11.50.
Jack Fishman
Email: email@example.com
Web: www.sasymphony.org
Twitter @SASym
Facebook: San Antonio Symphony
For more blogs by Jack Fishman visit: www.sasymphony.org/blog


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Quick Reference
15-16-17 was a female vocal trio formed in 1974 in the UK, although they came from Jamaica. The line-up consisted of Sonia Williams, Christine McNabb and her sister Wraydette McNabb. ...
From: 15-16-17 in Encyclopedia of Popular Music »
Subjects: Music
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