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Back in February 2012, The Seattle Times caught the buzz around Ben Haggerty '09 and proclaimed him "Seattle's best shot at mainstream stardom right now."
Before long, this prediction proved true. Within months, Haggerty—the homegrown rapper more commonly known by his stage name Macklemore—and his producer-partner Ryan Lewis released their breakthrough song, "Thrift Shop," a funny, infectious ode to the thrills of thrifting ("This is...awesome," raps Macklemore). It rocketed up the iTunes download list and by January, it was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making the duo the first Seattle artists to reach that spot since 1992, when Sir Mix-a-Lot was there with "Baby Got Back."
By April, "Thrift Shop" had topped Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs for 12 weeks, setting the record for the longest-running No. 1 rap song in the chart's history. In less than eight months, it sold more than 5 million copies and was certified multi-platinum. To date, its YouTube video— which drove the popularity of the song online and on radio—has racked up well over 200 million views, and the debut studio album it's drawn from, The Heist, became the most downloaded on the U.S. iTunes chart within hours of its release. It sold 78,000 copies in its first week and reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200—without the backing of any record label, advertising or mainstream media.
Last October, Rolling Stone magazine dubbed the artists' spectacular commercial success an "indie rags-to-riches" story and rated their online marketing as "top-notch," which it noted, "bodes well for concert-ticket sales."
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis have performed across North America and Europe, from Seattle's Bumbershoot festival to New York City's Bowery Ballroom to Dublin, Ireland (where Haggerty roused the crowds with his tune, "Irish Celebration"), gaining a reputation for their ebullient concerts, audience rap-alongs and flamboyant threads. Their world tour for The Heist has sold out several upcoming shows, including gigs in London in May and July and in St. Gallen, Switzerland in June.
This past March, nearly 6 million viewers watched Haggerty (and the huge, gold-fringed epaulets on his bright red suit) kinetically bouncing across the Saturday Night Live stage, several months after his appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where he played "Same Love," his touching anthem for marriage equality (the single's YouTube video has since eclipsed 31.3 million views).
Afterwards, "Same Love" caused a stir in a middle school in Michigan when a teacher was suspended for playing the song in class at the request of a student—and another student complained about it. On his website, Haggerty weighed in on the incident, saying, "I wrote the song 'Same Love,' not with the expectation that it would cure homophobia and lead to marriage equality across the US (although that'd be awesome). It was written with the hope that it would facilitate dialogue and through those conversations understanding and empathy would emerge. This incident demonstrates how too often we are quick to silence conversations that must be had."
A hip-hop fan since childhood, Haggerty began writing lyrics at 14, when he was known as Möcklimore, the nickname his buddies gave him. That evolved into Professor Macklemore, the name under which he released his first EP, "Open Your Eyes," in 2000.
As an undergraduate, Haggerty (who had by then dropped the "Professor") reached a younger generation by facilitating music workshops at the Green Hill School, a maximum-security juvenile detention facility in Chehalis, Wash., where he worked in Evergreen's Gateways for Incarcerated Youth program.
"It gave me a lot to write about, being around youth who were incarcerated. It gave me a broader perspective on our country's prison system and judicial system, and exposed me to a lot of amazing individuals who were locked up since they were 12 or 13 years old," he told an interviewer from the Seattleite news website. "Green Hill is where, as the system would call it, the 'worst of the worst' type of kids lived. However, it's completely not that—they were incredible kids who just got caught up in other things. It was an intense experience and it gave me a lot to reflect on in my life."
Because his music has dealt with such issues as gay rights, addiction ("Otherside," 2010; "Starting Over," 2012), consumerism ("Wing$," 2011) and racism ("White Privilege," 2005), Haggerty's been pigeonholed in the subgenres of alternative, underground, and conscious rap. But he rejects being "put in a box," saying, "I make rap music. My intention was to make music that spoke to people— and not like 40 people, like hundreds and thousands if not millions of people who could connect with what I'm writing about."
Music is my creative outlet in terms of expressing what's important to me...
It comes down to this, the 29-year-old says: "Music is my creative outlet in terms of expressing what's important to me, what has value, and I want to be respected for that." He's written thoughtfully not only about controversial issues, but also about the things he loves, like baseball ("My Oh My," his 2010 tribute to the Mariners' late announcer Dave Niehaus, which he and Lewis performed at the Mariners 2011 home opener) and his community ("The Town," 2009).
Haggerty's collaboration with Lewis began in 2010, and they've since forged a partnership that has struck a chord with millions of fans. Their hits have quickly been parodied, imitated, and employed as themes for special events and contests, like the "Macklemore Thrift Shop Challenge" issued by a popular blog called "Young House Love." It asked readers to visit a thrift store with "$20 in your pocket" and find at least one item referenced in the song (examples: gator shoes, a velour jumpsuit, a brown leather jacket, a keyboard, a kneeboard, luggage, flannel zebra jammies, a telescope, a big ass coat). Already, eBay is selling thousands of Macklemore items, including plenty claiming to be authentically autographed.
A do-it-yourselfer to the core, Haggerty has remained independent from the beginning, producing one mixtape, two albums and three EPs over the past 13 years. He considers his art to be completely his own business and he's purposefully held on to his brand to maintain creative control. He's involved in every detail from writing the lyrics and melodies to delivering the message through merchandising, picking out wardrobes, video production, truck driving and distribution. He's built his craft and his following through dedication, hard work, sacrifice and smarts—oh, and an annual fan appreciation pizza party he hosts.
His stardom has been organically cultivated. As he told Jabari Johnson, the creator of the documentary Jabari presents: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, "It was grassroots. Wasn't big money behind it, wasn't a label, wasn't a cosign. It was just hard work and people connecting with the music, and that's the dopest thing." He alluded to the critics who've inevitably cropped up since he's achieved prominence, declaring, "Say whatever you want…But you can't take away the fact that there are x amount of people that believe in what I do, passionately. And that's better than any cosign, that's better than any signing bonus, that's better than any label, and that's why I got there."


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Barack Obama has been one of our most decent and intelligent presidents. I'll miss him. Instead of simplification and slogans, Obama explained the complexities of everything from medical treatment to foreign policy. Instead of shooting from the hip, he studied problems carefully and reached mature, intelligent decisions.
But what will stick?
Starting with foreign affairs, Obama got most of our boots off Muslim lands. When Obama took office in 2008 we had close to 200,000 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now we have about 15,000 troops, combined, there and in Syria.
ISIS seems to have refocused on Europe but that's still a problem for us. Europeans' objectives are compatible with our own, so they are crucial allies, unlike the Russians. But Europe confronts many times more refugees than we do, with backlash and threats to democracy in several countries. American action in Syria added to the refugee flow, but much resulted from revolutions independent of us. More American militarization in the Arab world would inflame the refugee crisis and increase the terrorism directed at us.
Terrorists are fueled by militarization; nations are much more vulnerable to our military – that's the difference between defeating Saddam Hussein, having him executed and trying to remain there. Trump may talk tough, but will he be fool enough to wade back into those trouble waters?
In Guantanamo, fewer than 60 prisoners remain of the nearly 800 who were imprisoned there.
Republicans dislike the Iran nuclear deal but so far they've nothing to show for their fears. Objections from the other signatories may prevent Trump from disavowing it. This may be the first real test of whether Trump has any grip on reality.
At home, Republicans have been yelling for years that they will tear Obamacare down the first chance they get. But their friends in the insurance industry will howl if they do, especially if Republicans leave features Americans like – a guarantee that you can get insurance, coverage for pre-existing conditions, tax credits for small businesses, etc. So it's not clear what they'll actually do. Obama took his health care plan from Mitt Romney's Republican plan. I can think of improvements to the left of Obamacare, but not any that are more consistent with Republican free-market philosophy. Republicans are in a pickle.
Obama got a small stimulus soon after taking office. Terrified it might actually work, Republicans fought to keep it small. Obama's stimulus worked, slowly, satisfying the cynicism of Congressional Republicans willing to hurt the country in order to make Obama look bad.
Dodd-Frank financial regulation still stands, reigning in a financial system that gambled with everyone else's money and made a large number of us much worse off.
Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. One has become the conscience of the Court, the other quieter and more conciliatory. Together, they've made a the Court much more fair. The future depends on how long Ginsburg lives and how long Trump is in office. The difference Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan made could disappear in a heartbeat.
So, there's a lot to celebrate in what Obama did or tried to accomplish. But I have real fears of what could be done in the effort to discredit him instead of making things better for the people of America.
Steve Gottlieb is Jay and Ruth Caplan Distinguished Professor of Law at Albany Law School and author of Unfit for Democracy: The Roberts Court and the Breakdown of American Politics. He has served on the Board of the New York Civil Liberties Union, and in the US Peace Corps in Iran. Steve maintains a blog: constitutionalismanddemocracy.wordpress.com
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.

subset: commoncrawl


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Interview with Ramona Mitrică, director of Profusion Publishers
Interview by Iulian Sirbu. The original version in Romanian was posted on 10 April 2012 on Hyperliteratura.ro
Ramona Mitrica is director of Profusion Publishers, through which she brings Romanian authors on the English-speaking book market.
She started out in cultural entrepreneurship after many years of being close to this phenomenon in the UK. She came to London in 1999, as the cultural attaché of the Embassy of Romania to the UK. In 2002, Ramona became the director of the Romanian Cultural Centre and the Ratiu Foundation in London – two independent British organisations. In 2008 she created Profusion International, her own artistic consultancy firm, and in 2011 she launched her private publishing house: Profusion Publishers, an independent British company.
You are living in London and you are working intensely for the benefit of Romanian culture and especially of Romanian literature.
I've been living in London for more than 12 years now and my work was connected, from the very start, to promoting Romanian culture in the UK. It is not just "a job" – it is a passion: after al these years I am still working in this sector. The British cultural scene is vibrant, very competitive. Prestigious companies and organisations with a tradition in the promotion of culture, but also young independent organisations, entrepreneurs, national and international cultural institutes are working continuously in order to capture the public's attention.
If you want to stand out in such a landscape, you have to focus on bringing over a new element which can surprise the audience you choose to address. I believe that my most important accomplishment was to succeed in interesting British cultural operators in Romanian products, so that the request for the so-called "cultural exports" would be initiated by the British partners. To this end, I started and maintained collaborations with film distributors such as Artificial Eye, Trinity or Soda Pictures, with Curzon Cinemas (the partners of the Romanian Film Festival in London), with university chairs and schools such as the theatre department of London Southbank University or the literature departments of Goldsmiths College and the University of Leeds.
Maybe the most courageous step I took in relation to promoting Romanian literature was to establish, together with British author Mike Phillips, our own publishing house, Profusion, which translates and publishes works from the Eastern European area.
Due to the huge popularity enjoyed by crime writing in the UK, we decided – after thorough research – to establish the Profusion Crime Series. We selected works we believe to be representative for the "noir" trend in Romanian literature. We started with "Attack in the Library" by George Arion, a book from 1983 which is considered by the critics as a cornerstone of Romanian crime writing. The second book is "Kill the General" by Bogdan Hrib, published in Romania at the beginning of 2011. Both translations were launched in the UK at the end of November 2011. The following two books, which will be published soon, are "Anatomical Clues" by Oana Stoica-Mujea, a debut crime novel with a heroine who is atypical for the genre in Romania, and "Rîmaru – Butcher of Bucharest", a true crime story by Mike Phillips and Stejărel Olaru about the serial killer active in 1970-71.
Through the books we publish we wish to transmit to the audience the fact that the Romanians, even if they live in a different society and in different conditions, can go through the same existential problems as the British and can react in the same way – both in ordinary and extraordinary situations. At times, Romania's image in the UK can be rather simplistic, and we wanted in fact to try and change an attitude. We don't want to be seen as some exotic foreigners coming from Bram Stoker's Transylvania.
Translating colloquial Romanian – a language full of humour, allusions and specific expressions – into English was as difficult as it was satisfying in the end: a challenge. We tried to keep the original style and tone, using good, grammatically correct English that would not "naturalise" the characters and make them sound like East End cockneys. We started with a rough translation and then refined the text, adding explanatory notes along the way which would give the reader as true as possible an image of the times and locations where the actions take place.
How is Romanian literature seen from the UK?
With the risk of attracting critical comments, I have to say that our literature is not as well known as it truly deserves in the Anglo-Saxon space. Names like Emil Cioran, Mircea Eliade, Mihail Sebastian or Marin Sorescu are known to a certain segment of the public, but we are talking about an upper and relatively closed echelon of readers. It is difficult for an author coming from outside the English-speaking world to enter and have success in the British book market, even in the cases of established writers promoted through the efforts of successful publishing industry names such as Penguin or Random House... Sometimes, it takes a Nobel in order to open the gates – as in the case of Herta Muller. Of course, there are authors from outside the English-speaking world who enjoy great success in the UK, like Orhan Pamuk, Umberto Eco or Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but these are exceptional cases – if we take the statistics into consideration. So when we decided to publish literature that comes from Romania, our idea was to try a different approach and address the audience through the means of popular culture. We believe the reader will be able to discover more easily a world which is different from his if this world is more accessible than the one presented, say, in a philosophical novel.
Do you think Romanian authors have a chance to become more visible on the UK literary market? What about the US, keeping in mind the close connections between the two countries?
Of course we believe that, otherwise we would not have started on this road, investing not only in translations but also in printing, distribution and advertising. We believe Romanian authors bring something extra, something that does not only come from their own talents, but also from the experience of being Romanian, of having lived in Romania in certain times and conditions. The visibility of Romanian authors in the UK is something that has to be built up with much patience and passion, as well as with a lot of confidence in the capacity of Romanian literature to say something to any audience. We also need lots of hope, but also a lot of hard, sustained work. As the English would say, "It is an act of faith". The book markets in the UK and US are well connected, especially through the important publishing houses, so authors who are successful in the UK can reach the US market more easily, the reverse being also true. Even so, we cannot talk about a solution with guaranteed 100% success rate, as there are many factors that can influence the way in which an author or book will "travel" across the ocean. We have already established connections with academics, book distributors and literary agents in America and we hope that our discussions will lead to an even closer cooperation.
Returning to the subject of Romanian authors' visibility in the English speaking world, I would like to add that, through Profusion, we also established a special publishing project. We realised that, after so many years spent in the British cultural milieus, we have both the necessary know-how and relationships to connect Romanian authors and publishing houses or publications from Britain. That is why we wish to also act, in the future, as literary agents, but on smaller-scale. The project is still in its incipient phase, but, as a secondary direction, we created Academic Fellowship Publishers, through which we want to bring specialised literature from Romania (research, studies, doctoral dissertations, etc) to the English-speaking academic book market. We have already started negotiations with Romanian and British partners and are working on a publishing plan.
How did you adapt to the London lifestyle?
Having lived here for so long, I can say that I am well adapted to it. I have always been attracted to an active lifestyle which would enable me to do interesting things every day. London offers such an atmosphere that, if you truly want to do something, it is impossible to get bored. Being one of the great capitals of the world, both financially and culturally, there is always something to keep you going on in London.
Are you familiar with the new books published in Romania? What do you like to read?
I visit Romania often, on holiday and on business, and I have many friends working in the Romanian cultural landscape. Furthermore, being in this business, I have to be familiar with what is happening in Romanian arts and culture in general. I have pretty wide literary interests, and I read anything from Romanian crime novels to Mircea Cărtărescu and the works of the younger generation of authors such as Răzvan Rădulescu, Filip and Matei Florian, Adrian Urmanov or Vera Ion. I like good literature – I am afraid it would take far too much space to give an exact definition of what I understand by this term.
How do you see Romania's cultural presence in the UK ten years from now?
My answer would be an optimistic one, based on what happened in the past ten years. This last decade was a period when Romania became a European partner of the UK, a period of time when artists, writers and cultural operators from Romania have had unprecedented access to international resources. I hope the next ten years would introduce Romanian literature in the British cultural market in the same way that Romanian film has become a byword for cinema of the highest quality.


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Back Pain
Click on the following conditions to learn more:
Did you know that an estimated 75 to 85 percent of all Australian will experience some form of back pain during their lifetime? Most certainly low back pain can be quite debilitating and painful. Good news, most cases respond well with non-surgical treatment. However, it has been estimated that 50 percent of all patients who suffer from an episode of low back pain will have a recurrent episode within one years.
The costs associated with diagnostic procedures alone are estimated at $50 billion yearly. Back pain is one of the most common reasons for missed work. In fact, back pain is the second most common reason for visits to the doctor's office, outnumbered only by upper-respiratory infections. The personal costs are immeasurable from chronic pain alone, pain sometimes so great that it interferes with a healthy and satisfying lifestyle.
Also, it is recognized that most cases of back pain are mechanical in nature, and the pain is usually not caused by very serious conditions, such as cancer, fracture, infection, etc. The anatomy of the spine and the many conditions that negatively impact spinal health are complex. The following information provides a simplistic explanation of the causes for back pain:
Some common causes of Low Back Pain
On many occasions you first feel back pain just after you lift a heavy object, move suddenly, sit in one position for a long time, sustain an injury or have been in an accident. Prior to that moment in time, there was often a pre-existing weakness, or loss of tissue integrity in your spinal structures.
The specific structures in your back responsible for your pain are difficult to determine in many cases.
Whether identified or not, there are several possible sources of low back pain:
- Bulging or herniated discs
- Injury or overuse of muscles, ligaments, facet joints, and the sacroiliac joints.
- Muscle spasm (very tense muscles that remain contracted).
- Degeneration of the discs.
- Poor alignment or fixations of the vertebrae.
- Spondylolisthesis.
- Osteoarthritis.
- Spinal stenosis (narrowing of the spinal canal).
- Small fractures to the spine from osteoporosis.
- Strain or tears to the muscles or ligaments supporting the back.
- Spinal curvatures (like scoliosis or kyphosis), which may be inherited and seen in children or teens.
Less Common Causes of Low Back Pain
- Ankylosing spondylitis, which is a form of joint inflammation (arthritis) that most often affects the spine.
- Prostate cancer.
- Bacterial infection, in which bacteria are often carried to the spine through the bloodstream from an infection somewhere else in the body or from IV drug use. However, bacteria can also enter the spine directly during surgery or injection treatments, or as the result of injury. Back pain may also be the result of an infection in the bone (osteomyelitis) or in the spinal cord (most often in the material covering the spinal cord, called an epidural infection).
- Spinal tumors, or growths that develop on the bones and ligaments of the spine, on the spinal cord, or on nerve roots.
- Paget's disease, which causes abnormal bone growth most often affecting the pelvis, spine, skull, chest, and legs.
- Scheuermann's disease, in which one or more of the bones of the spine (vertebrae) develop wedge-shaped deformities. This causes curvature of the spine (rounding of the back, or kyphosis), most commonly in the chest region.
You are at particular risk for low back pain if you:
- Work in construction or another job requiring heavy lifting, lots of bending and twisting, or whole body vibration
- Smoke, don't exercise, and/or are overweight
- Are over age 30
- Are pregnant
- Have bad posture
- Have arthritis or osteoporosis
- Have a low pain threshold
Are non-surgical treatments a better option than surgery?
In most cases, non-surgical therapy done at Scoliosis & Spine Correction Clinic is better than surgery. This is due to the fact that surgery physically alters the spine by removing all or part of the problematic disc. Although this can reduce the pressure on the nerve, and relieve the back pain, the surgery tends to place more stress on the healthy discs above and below
As with any operation, there are risks involved with spine surgery and complications can be severe. Possible complications include injury to your spinal cord, nerves, esophagus, carotid artery or vocal cords; non-healing of the bony fusion; failure to improve; instrumentation breakage and/or failure; infection; bone graft site pain.
Other complications may include phlebitis in your legs, blood clots in the lungs or urinary problems.
Surgery to relieve chronic lower back pain is usually no better than intensive rehabilitation and nearly twice as expensive.
We do not ignore the fact that there is a small percentage of cases that indeed require surgery or medication. Indeed, in certain cases, surgery can significantly help back pain sufferers. But surgery should always be a last resort, offered when conservative treatments have failed.
We recommend that you exhaust all other avenues before surgery, try Dr. Kevin Lau's non-surgical innovative treatment!


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Questions are stirring, we're told, even in the minds of stalwarts of the biotech brigade like Martina Newell-McGloughlin. And Gregory Jaffe, the pro-GM director of the biotechnology project for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, even admits, "Government agencies, he says, have adopted what almost amounts to a 'don't look, don't find' policy." Not so long ago Jaffe was complaining that GM was being discouraged and that the pipeline was running dry - there just weren't enough GM crop trials in the US! ---
When genetically modified plants go wildEven advocates of these crops were shaken recently when GM plants 'escaped' from test areas. By Gregory M. Lamb The Christian Science Monitor, Aug 31 2006 http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0831/p15s01-sten.html
In rice-growing states, traces of an unapproved genetically modified (GM) rice have been found mixed in with conventional rice meant for human consumption.
In Oregon, genetically engineered creeping bentgrass, being tested for possible use on golf courses, has been found miles outside its test beds, making it the first GM plant known to have escaped into the wild.
In Hawaii, a federal judge has admonished the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for displaying "utter disregard" for the state's endangered native plant species. The judge says the USDA failed to conduct research on the environmental effects of fields of experimental corn and sugarcane that had been genetically modified to produce pharmaceuticals. Environmental and food-safety groups have asked for a moratorium on all field tests of experimental drug-producing plants until their safety precautions can be reviewed.
Early indications are that in each case little substantial harm has been done. The experimental rice, for example, is similar to two other GM strains already approved for general use.
But many who closely watch how biotechnology is changing agriculture, including those who see a valuable role for GM crops, are disturbed by what appears to be a series of recent incidents showing lax supervision of experimental plantings by the government and agribusinesses.
"You absolutely should be in compliance with regulations," says Martina Newell-McGloughlin, an internationally recognized advocate for the uses of biotechnology based in Davis, Calif. She directs the University of California's systemwide biotechnology program. The three incidents "aren't health concerns, but they are regulatory concerns," she says. "It's incumbent on the companies, on the USDA ... to ensure that everybody complies with these regulations."
The three incidents convey a message that "the US government has been somewhat lax in its oversight of the biotechnology industry and in some instances has not taken its responsibility to regulate as strongly as it should," says Gregory Jaffe, director of the biotechnology project for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer group in Washington that has expressed qualified support for the use of genetic modification in agriculture.
"Clearly this shows that the companies and the government don't have as much control over experimental crops as they need to have," Mr. Jaffe says. "I think there's a sloppiness out there. Industry doesn't take the rules of conduct as seriously as it should."
Government agencies, he says, have adopted what almost amounts to a "don't look, don't find" policy. "We have a fairly passive regulatory system," he says, that does "a little spot checking" but mostly relies on businesses to step forward and report their own problems.
The cases of the escaped GM grass and the mysterious appearance of experimental rice in the food supply raise important questions, says Michael Fernandez, executive director of the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, a nonprofit group in Washington that seeks to be an independent and objective source of information on agricultural biotechnology. "How do you know that [GM crops] are staying where you want them to stay?" he asks. "As there are more kinds of genetically-engineered crops out there, it continues to pose challenges for companies and for regulators."
Some amount of movement of GM crops outside their containment areas "is virtually inevitable," Mr. Fernandez says. "The question is, how do we feel about that? How important is that? Does it matter what the crop is?" The bentgrass may pose no significant danger, he says, but "would we feel differently" if it were a plant that produced pharmaceuticals?
Last December, a report from the USDA's own Office of the Inspector General urged the department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) division "to strengthen its accountability for field tests of [genetically enhanced] crops." The report added that "weaknesses in APHIS regulations and internal management controls increase the risk that regulated genetically engineered organisms (GEO) will inadvertently persist in the environment...."
The report also criticized APHIS for lacking "basic information about the field test sites it approves and is responsible for monitoring, including where and how the crops are being grown, and what becomes of them at the end of the field test."
In a response, APHIS agreed to implement 23 of the inspector general's 28 recommendations. Among those it rejected was a request to develop guidelines to physically restrict public access to unapproved edible GM crops.
US corn and cotton are mostly GM
America is awash in genetically modified crops that already have been approved for use both as animal feed and for human consumption. This year, 61 percent of all corn and 89 percent of all soybeans planted in the United States were GM varieties, the USDA estimates. More than 80 percent of the US cotton crop is also GM.
But despite that wide usage, the development of other applications and other crops has largely stalled. Plans to introduce a GM wheat to the market have yet to go forward. Nearly all widespread applications of GM to agriculture have been limited to two functions: enhancing resistance to insects or to herbicides. Plans to alter plants through genetic modification to improve such qualities as their flavor, growth rates, or size have yet to blossom.
Suspicion of GM foods in Europe, and to some extent in Asia, is limiting the world market for GM crops. China had been expected to OK the use of GM rice by now, but appears to be dragging its feet. After the news spread that unapproved GM long-grain rice had been found in US consumer supplies, the European Union announced it would require imports of long-grain rice from the US to be certified as free from the GM strain. Japan has suspended its imports of American long-grain rice pending further review.
Farmers sue over 'contaminated' rice
Earlier this month, the USDA reported that a long-grain GM rice strain produced by Bayer CropScience had been found in bins of conventional commercial rice. It marked the first instance in which an unapproved GM rice had been found in the rice supply. The GM rice poses no health or environmental threat, the USDA said. But rice farmers in Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas filed a lawsuit against Bayer this week alleging its genetically modified rice contaminated the crop, according to the Associated Press.
The USDA is conducting an investigation to determine how the contamination occurred, and Bayer now is petitioning to have the strain approved for general use, a spokesman for APHIS says.
In Oregon, APHIS is continuing to monitor the escaped creeping bentgrass, an APHIS spokeswoman says.
The ruling in Hawaii by a federal judge was the first to involve drug-producing GM plants. A coalition of consumer and environmental groups is asking that the government suspend all field tests of drug-producing plants until its process for issuing permits can be reviewed.
In addition, says Bill Freese, science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety, a consumer group in Washington that is among those seeking a moratorium, the USDA should follow all the recommendations in its inspector general's report. It should also take additional measures, such as regularly testing fields neighboring GM test beds for potential contamination, he says.
But Dr. Newell-McGloughlin hopes that this summer's outbreak of GM fiascos won't be taken out of context.
"The few missteps that have occurred, in my opinion, are tiny in the context of the large amount of good that has been done with this [GM] technology," she says. Genetic manipulation has much more promise for good that has yet to be tapped. By overreacting, we could miss out." The risks, she says, always must be weighed against the benefits. "There is the cost of not doing something," she says.
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UH Hilo College of Pharmacy, Nursing program to aid aging populations
May 20, 2009
When people need to go to Hawaiʻi County's Aging and Disability Resource Center they will soon be able to get advice on medications from experts from the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo College of Pharmacy. The collaboration is due to funding from the Health Resource Services Administration from a grant that will also benefit UH Hilo's Nursing program's efforts to promote geriatric healthcare.
The project, entitled Pacific Island Geriatric Education Center, gives $22,000 each to the College of Pharmacy and the Baccalaureate Nursing Program to increase the amount of interdisciplinary geriatric care concepts with community projects. One of Pharmacy's projects is to provide counseling at the Aging and Disability and Resource Center.
"We'll be able to reach parts of the community through the Center for Aging and Disabilities that never have a chance to meet anyone from the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo," said Dr. John M. Pezzuto, dean of the College of Pharmacy. "In addition, our collaboration with our colleagues from Nursing on this grant allows us to reach inward as well and concentrate on similar health issues. It's a win-win situation."
Nursing is using grant funds to support a conference benefiting geriatrics called "Pulama I Ke Ola" (Hold Life Precious), to be held on the Hilo campus May 21-22. Cecilia Mukai, an associate professor in nursing who has been a practicing Registered Nurse since 1973, said she envisions further collaborative efforts with Pharmacy to include mutual geriatrics coursework. Currently, she teaches one geritological healthcare course that is open to other disciplines.
"It's part of our responsibility as healthcare professionals to work together and teach the whole experience of living healthily," Mukai said. "For the same reason, we are including a youth program and including high school students in our conference this year. We are trying to influence future generations, and the best way to do that will be by working together."
Through this collaboration, the Pacific Island Geriatric Education Center proposes to increase faculty expertise in the area of geriatric medicine. Work at the Aging and Disability Resource Center places Pharmacy faculty in the middle of 11 agencies that provide care and support.
"This collaboration between the County's Office of Aging and the UH Hilo College of Pharmacy is a tremendous step forward for our island," said Hawaiʻi County Mayor Billy Kenoi. "It improves the quality of life for our elderly residents and their caregivers by having qualified pharmacists available to help them through the maze of medications with which they are often confronted.
"We are grateful to the College of Pharmacy for its willingness to participate in this valuable program for our residents, and we look forward to even more partnerships between the University and the County that will be as mutually beneficial as this one," he added.
Also called Kahi Malama, or "a place for caring," the Center acts as a single access facility that provides help to caregivers, seniors and individuals. The facility houses agencies such as the Hawaiʻi County Office of Aging, the local Area Agency on Aging, the ARC of Hilo, the Center for Independent Living, Coordinated Services for the Elderly, and the Hawaiʻi County Nutrition Program. A future tenant will be the State Department of Human Services.
"One of the reasons people are living longer is because of medications, so the contract with the College of Pharmacy is a natural fit," said Alan Parker, Executive on Aging at the center, which had a grand opening in November after three years of planning. "When you start working together, ideas just start popping up."
Faculty members will be available to start consulting with clients by September, according to Scott Holuby, an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice who is also a licensed practicing pharmacist with a specialty in diabetes. He is working on getting supplies, such as computers and projectors, as well as planning group classes, field trips and one-on-one counseling.
"We can show people how to read medication labels, how to choose over-the-counter drugs and how to use their medications properly," Holuby said. "My goal is to encourage seniors to use their local pharmacist to help them get the most out of their medications."
Ultimately it will be a rotation site for students, he said. One role of the students will be to help the patients set up medication schedules. They will be able to print lists of medications with instructions, as well as provide additional written medical information from verified online resources available through UH Hilo.
"Our hope would be that this will lead to a geriatric residency opportunity for our students," said Dr. Edward Fisher, associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Pharmacy. "It's the perfect opportunity for students to experience the various problems that geriatric patients encounter by observing other agencies in the Center."
For more information, call (808) 961-8626. For information on the College of Pharmacy, call (808) 933-2909 or email firstname.lastname@example.com.
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George Monger listened to his critics and his backers late last year as he contemplated another run for office 11 years after his first try.
1929: The Chicago Bears come to town to play the Memphis "Sole Owner Tigers" professional football team at Hodges Field – the city's largest venue at 10,000 seats. The game is arranged by Clarence Saunders, owner of the Memphis team, and George Halas, the Chicago Bears owner and until recently a player.
NASHVILLE – Two Memphis legislators co-sponsoring a Shelby County pilot voucher bill say the measure is one more attempt to give students more options for education.
Rep. John DeBerry and Sen. Reginald Tate, both Democrats, defended their support of the measure sponsored by Germantown Republican Sen. Brian Kelsey the same day the U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump's selection of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. DeVos has been under fire from Democrats for her support of charter schools and vouchers and a perceived lack of knowledge about public education.
Editor's note: This is part two of Nashville correspondent Sam Stockard's feature on Memphis state Rep. Karen Camper. Read part one in the Thursday, Dec. 22, edition of The Daily News or online at memphisdailynews.com.
The Brian Clay Chronicles is set to present "The Golden Renaissance of Women in Memphis Leadership" at LeMoyne-Owen College on Wednesday, Oct. 19, beginning at noon. The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held in Brownville Hall on campus, 807 Walker Ave.
State Representative Raumesh Akbari had the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia Thursday, July 28, for four minutes.
The speech Thursday afternoon was as part of a diverse group of younger state legislators and mayors from across the country to start the last day of the convention.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Gov. Bill Haslam's order for flags to be flown at half-staff following the death of former University of Tennessee coach Pat Summitt is the latest exception to state protocols that normally reserve the honor for members of the military.
Those who wondered how Raumesh Akbari would do in following legendary Memphis legislator Lois DeBerry now have a much clearer picture.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A recent analysis of state campaign finance records show at least seven Tennessee lawmakers collectively spent more than $30,000 in campaign money on tickets to professional sporting events since 2003.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – State Rep. Raumesh Akbari of Memphis has been awarded a new annual scholarship named after the late Lois DeBerry, her predecessor in the Tennessee General Assembly.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A new sculpture planned for the state Capitol complex will celebrate Tennessee women's role in passing the 19th Amendment.
In 1920, Tennessee became the 36th and final state needed to ratify the amendment that gave women the vote.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A state prison in Nashville that houses men with mental illnesses is facing a critical shortage of corrections officers.
Officials at the Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Facility say they are struggling to meet the demands brought about after implementing a new schedule intended to save $1.4 million statewide in wage costs, according to documents obtained by The Tennessean.
State lawmakers on Tuesday reconvened the 108th Tennessee General Assembly in a legislative session that is expected to feature debates over creating a school voucher program and whether to allow supermarkets to sell wine.
2013 brought plenty of unique and out-of-the-ordinary moments, as well as the launch of new events, businesses and civic ventures that collectively made the Memphis experience richer.
Much of it was covered in these pages, including in recent days a U.S. Supreme Court justice eliciting chuckles from and sharing his constitutional philosophy with an audience of Memphis lawyers.
For the second time in a year, Memphis voters have said "no" to a sales tax hike and Democrat Raumesh Akbari claimed the Tennessee House District 91 seat.
The outcomes at the polls Thursday, Nov. 21, were the bottom line of the last two elections of 2013 in Shelby County and the last in a series of 11 elections in the county over the last three months.
Opponents of a half percent hike in the city sales tax and Democratic Tennessee House candidate Raumesh Akbari took the early vote in the last election of 2013 in Shelby County.
Early voting results released by the Shelby County Election Commission Tuesday, Nov. 21, after the election day polling sites closed at 7 p.m. show Akbari beat Libertarian rival Jim Tomasik in the early balloting for the District 91 seat.
Early voting in the last elections of 2013 expands Tuesday, Nov. 12, to 15 satellite voting sites across Memphis.
The early voting period, underway since Nov. 1 and ending Nov. 16, is for the only citywide election of an unusually busy political year that has featured 11 elections in three months.
As fewer than 2,000 voters participated in the latest of 11 elections in Shelby County in a three-month span, the independent candidate in the Nov. 21 special general election for state House District 91 filed suit against state election officials in U.S. Federal Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.
Raumesh Akbari, an attorney making her first bid for elected office, won the Democratic primary State House special election Tuesday, Oct. 8 in a low turnout contest featuring seven contenders and an unofficial voter turnout of 5.4 percent.
For the first time in 41 years, Lois DeBerry's name will not be on a Shelby County ballot for a state House seat.
For the first time in a shortened campaign season, all seven candidates in the Oct. 8 Democratic primary for state House District 91 shared the same stage.
Early voting in the primary continues through Thursday, Oct. 3.
Early voting opens Wednesday, Sept. 18, in the Democratic primary special election for State House District 91.
From Wednesday through Sept. 26, early voting is limited to the Shelby County Election Commission office at 157 Poplar Ave.
Dwight DeBerry is off the Democratic primary ballot for State Representative District 91.
The Shelby County Election Commission removed DeBerry's name last week from the list of candidates it certified earlier this month for the Oct. 8 special election primary.
Early voting comes to an end Saturday, Sept. 14, in the first two of 11 elections between now and Thanksgiving.
Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. is the last chance for voters in Arlington and Lakeland to vote in municipal elections at the Shelby County Election Commission offices at 157 Poplar Ave. Lakeland voters can also vote Saturday only at theRefuge church, 9817 Huff 'n' Puff Road.
The race for the state House seat held by the late Lois DeBerry since 1973 includes 10 Democrats, one Libertarian and no Republicans or independents, as of the Thursday, Aug. 29, noon filing deadline for candidates.
The political tide of late-in-the-year elections begins rolling Thursday, Aug. 29, with the candidate-filing deadline for state House District 91.
The filing deadline is noon Thursday, the day before early voting opens in the regularly scheduled municipal elections in Arlington and Lakeland.
Some of the early voting periods and election days will overlap in the set of 11 elections – special and regularly scheduled – in Shelby County this year.
Those elections would take place in less than a three-month period.
If the Shelby County Election Commission sets a new election date for the District 4 countywide school board seat sometime this year, it will be the 10th special election in Shelby County in what was supposed to be an off-election year for much of the county.
The District 91 State House seat, formerly held by the late Memphis Democrat Lois DeBerry, will be filled with a special primary election Oct. 8 and a special general election Nov. 21.
Flags over the state capitol in Nashville and all state office buildings remained at half staff Tuesday, July 30, in honor and memory of state Rep. Lois DeBerry of Memphis.
Funeral services were pending Monday, July 29, for Lois DeBerry, the longest-serving member of the Tennessee House of Representatives.
DeBerry, who represented District 91, died Sunday, July 28, after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has included funding in his budget proposal for a $62 million renovation at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and a $45 million center for the University of Memphis's nursing and audiology programs.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has included funding in his budget proposal for a $62 million renovation at the University of Tennessee Center for the Health Sciences in Memphis and a $45 million center for the University of Memphis's nursing and audiology programs.
NASHVILLE (AP) – Gov. Bill Haslam confirmed Monday that he will introduce his own proposal to create a school voucher program in Tennessee, though he declined to elaborate about which parents he wants to make eligible to use public money to send their children to private schools.
The Shelby County legislative delegation to Nashville returned to the capital Tuesday, Jan. 8, with three fewer members – one state senator and two state representatives – all Democrats – but with no new faces.
Gov. Bill Haslam has declared November pancreatic cancer awareness month in Tennessee.
The Republican governor made the announcement at a ceremony in Nashville on Monday, Nov. 19. Among those joining the governor was Democratic Rep. Lois DeBerry of Memphis, a pancreatic cancer survivor and the first female speaker pro tempore in the House.
Slightly less than 127,000 Shelby County residents – or 21.6 percent of 584,443 registered voters – cast ballots in the Aug. 2 elections.
The turnout in early voting and election day combined was a higher percentage than the 15 percent turnout four years ago in the same election cycle, but it was well below the 44-year high of 39.4 percent set in the August 1992 elections.
Voters in each of the six suburban towns and cities in Shelby County approved establishing municipal school districts in the unofficial results of the Thursday, Aug. 2, county general and state and federal primary elections.
When the polls open across Shelby County Thursday, Aug. 2, election officials will be watching closely in several areas for continuing election problems.
The problems began during the early voting period that ended Saturday with more than 1,000 getting ballots that had the wrong district races for the Tennessee Legislature and the U.S. House.
The Tennessee State Senate will vote Monday, April 30, on the bill that would permit suburban towns and cities in Shelby County to hold referendums this year on forming their own municipal school districts.
The Shelby County Election Commission has certified the ballot for the Aug. 2 election cycle, which features nonpartisan races for countywide schools board and Millington mayor and aldermen as well as state and congressional primaries.
Add Republican state Rep. Curry Todd to the list of state legislators from Shelby County who are unopposed in the August primaries and the November general elections.
At the Thursday, April 12, deadline for candidates to withdraw from the August ballot, Todd's lone challenger, Bob Nozigla, dropped out of the Republican primary in District 97.
NASHVILLE (AP) – Gov. Bill Haslam's plan to overhaul state civil service rules headed to him Thursday to become law despite opposition from some lawmakers whose constituents are uncomfortable with parts of the legislation.
"This time I waited to be sure," Ian Randolph said just before the Thursday, April 5, deadline for candidates to file in the Aug. 2 elections.
The chairman of the countywide school board, Billy Orgel, was effectively elected to his District 7 school board seat without opposition at the Thursday, April 5, filing deadline for candidates on the Aug. 2 primary and general election ballot in Shelby County.
A bill in the Tennessee Legislature to lift the statewide ban on creating municipal school districts is moving as the legislative session nears an end.
The House Education subcommittee approved the bill Wednesday, March 28, on a voice vote with the House Education Committee to consider the bill next week.
A bill in the Tennessee legislature to lift the statewide ban on creating municipal school districts is moving as the legislative session nears an end.
The House education subcommittee approved the bill Wednesday, March 28, on a voice vote with the House education committee to consider the bill next week.
The August elections were already going to be more complex than usual. There are the changes from this year's drawing of new district lines for the Tennessee Legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives.
NASHVILLE (AP) – Rep. Jimmy Naifeh announced Thursday that he won't seek re-election after 38 years in the House of Representatives, saying it's time to "pass the torch to the next generation of leaders."
NASHVILLE (AP) – State Rep. Lois DeBerry of Memphis has a lot to be thankful for this holiday season – mainly being alive.
NASHVILLE – House Speaker Beth Harwell, who donates her own legislative expense payments to charity, has moved to curtail the expense money other state representatives collect for out-of-state traveling.
When the Tennessee Legislature returns on Feb. 7 from its three-week recess, the 22-member Shelby County legislative delegation will be at full strength.
The newest member, District 98 Democrat Antonio Parkinson, won appointment by the Shelby County Commission to the seat he claimed in this month's special Democratic primary election.
The Women's Foundation for a Greater Memphis is seeking nominations for the 2011 Legends Award to celebrate women and their contributions to the Memphis community.
Nominations are encouraged for trend-setting women whose visionary and innovative work is paramount in their areas of outreach.
As chairwoman of the Tennessee Republican Party, Beth Harwell targeted Memphis Democratic state Rep. Mike Kernell by recruiting candidates to run against him.
Shelby County's legislative delegation to Nashville remained intact following the Nov. 2 election.
But the group of 22 will return to the capital in Nashville changed by the death this week of veteran Democratic state representative Ulysses Jones Jr. The Shelby County Commission will appoint someone to fill the vacancy.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee lawmakers working to settle on a spending plan finally have some good news: The state's monthly sales tax collections have grown for the first time in nearly two years.
Seven state legislators from Shelby County will begin new terms of office in January.
They had no opposition at Thursday's filing deadline for the Aug. 5 state and federal primary elections.
They are District 33 Democratic state Sen. Reginald Tate, District 83 Republican state Rep. Mark White, District 90 Democratic state Rep. John DeBerry, District 92 Democratic state Rep. G.A. Hardaway, District 96 Republican state Rep. Steve McManus, District 97 Republican state Rep. Jim Coley and District 98 Democratic state Rep. Ulysses Jones.
The Aug. 5 elections will feature two races for open seats on the Shelby County school board.
At the noon Thursday filing deadline for the four odd-numbered district seats as well as the state and federal primaries, board member Anne Edmiston did not file for another four-year term. Board member Teresa Price had announced earlier that she would not be running either.
The stage is set for the county's most anticipated political showdown in the Aug. 5 state and federal primary elections.
Noon today is the deadline for candidates in the primaries, as well as those vying for nonpartisan seats on the Shelby County school board and the three judicial positions, to file their qualifying petitions for the ballot.
A year ago, Kent Williams came to The Regional Medical Center at Memphis. He wasn't a patient, but some doubted how long his political life would last.
Twelve days into the new year, Gov. Phil Bredesen stood in the well of the state House in Nashville and talked about leading the nation in education reform.
Later this year, Bredesen will return to address legislators on a less lofty but more immediate topic – a pool of red ink in the state budget unprecedented at least since the Depression years of the 1930s. For more than a year and a half, Tennessee has failed to meet its monthly revenue projections.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - House Speaker Kent Williams returned to the Legislature Tuesday following the death last week of his 92-year-old father, Roby.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - State House Speaker Kent Williams has returned to the Legislature after missing part of last week to attend to his hospitalized mother.
The absence of the top two leaders in the Tennessee House Wednesday forced the chamber, which has been in turmoil since it convened, to consider the election of a temporary speaker.
House Speaker Kent Williams has returned home to Elizabethton to be with his ailing mother, while Speaker Pro Tempore Lois DeBerry of Memphis has been away since being hospitalized earlier this month with an unspecified illness.
NASHVILE, Tenn. (AP) - The Tennessee House has unanimously elected Republican Rep. Steve McDaniel to serve as temporary speaker while the chamber's top two leaders are away due to illnesses.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - The husband of House Speaker Pro Tem Lois DeBerry says the Memphis Democrat is in stable condition at a Nashville hospital where she is undergoing some tests.
Charles Traughber wouldn't specify the reason for DeBerry's hospitalization, but he told The Associated Press on Tuesday that "she is doing well."
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - The Tennessee House has its first Republican speaker in 40 years, but the lawmaker who won did it without the support of the GOP.
Rep. Kent Williams of Elizabethton upset Rep. Jason Mumpower of Bristol on Tuesday on a vote of 50-49 after Democrats banded together to nominate and support him.
Two days after the Nov. 4 elections, the final unofficial totals were finally posted by the Shelby County Election Commission. The long vote count involved absentee ballots whose count was delayed because of problems with an optical scanning machine.
NASHVILLE (AP) - A proposal that would restrict credit card solicitations to students on college campuses was approved in the state House.
The bill is sponsored by Speaker Pro Tempore Lois DeBerry, a Memphis Democrat who has struggled for almost 10 years to pass the legislation.
NASHVILLE (AP) - The Senate Education Committee reconsidered action on legislation that would restrict credit card solicitations to students on college campuses and unanimously passed the measure.
NASHVILLE (AP) - A proposal that would require retailers to make their employee toilet facility available to customers with certain medical conditions is headed to the governor for his consideration.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Tennessee spent $1.13 million on lawmakers' expenses in the first quarter of 2008.
The expenses posted on the General Assembly's Web site cover travel costs, hotel accommodations at conferences and daily stipends called per diems. They do not include lawmakers' salaries.
NASHVILLE (AP) - House Speaker Pro Tempore Lois DeBerry received $31,967 in "per diem" payments last year, more than any other state lawmaker, according to a review of 2007 legislative expense payments.
State Rep. Gary Rowe, the chairman of the Shelby County legislative delegation, died Wednesday of cancer at Baptist Memorial Hospital Memphis.
State House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh announced Rowe's sudden death after a "short battle with cancer" as the legislature was in session Wednesday.
State Rep. Gary Rowe, the chairman of the Shelby County legislative delegation, died early today of cancer at Baptist Memorial Hospital Memphis.
State House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh announced Rowe's sudden death after a "short battle with cancer" as the legislature was in session.
The presidential primary season came to a rain-soaked and stormy end Tuesday evening in Memphis even as some voters were still showing up at the polls.
Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee carried Shelby County in Tuesday's Tennessee presidential primaries in which 24 percent of Shelby County's 611,000 registered voters cast ballots.
Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee carried Shelby County in Tuesday's Tennessee presidential primaries.
Huckabee went on to win statewide in the GOP contest while New York Sen. Hillary Clinton took the statewide Democratic primary.
There was a telling moment Sunday at Monumental Baptist Church. It came as Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton swayed in her chair to the melody of the church choir.
Laquita Jackson strode purposefully down the center aisle of the South Memphis church, a bundle of Barack Obama signs under one arm and holding another bundle of Obama fans. It caused a brief uproar in the crowd of 300 as she took her seat in the fourth row behind two women with larger home-made Clinton signs. A sign truce was quickly negotiated as the choir continued and something that happens occasionally among competing presidential campaigns blew over quickly.
NASHVILLE - Tennesseans charged with crimes while protesting segregation-era laws will be able to have their records cleared beginning next month.
Gov. Phil Bredesen has signed what is known as the Rosa Parks Act into law, according to information released by his office Thursday.
The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development hosts a seminar to inform employers about important poi...
The international kickoff for Roadcheck 2004, an annual event that focuses on the year-round commercial vehicle and driver roadside inspe...
Maurice Wexler, a shareholder in Baker, Donelson, Bearman & Caldwells Memphis office, was elected to the board o...
Calendar of events June 24-June 30
June 24
Mississippi Museum of Art, 201 E. Pascagoula St. in Jackson, Miss., presents Passionate Observer: Eudora Welty among Artists of the Thirties, featuring photographs by Mississ...


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Tuition Information
Paying for Medical School
Ninety percent of medical students at The UT Health Science Center College of Medicine receive some form of financial assistance to cover their educational needs. To be eligible to receive financial aid, your first step is to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid Application (FAFSA).
The three basic types of financial aid include: grants, scholarships, and loans. While the majority of aid awarded to medical students across the U.S., as well as, UTHSC, consists of loan programs, it should be noted that UTHSC has several scholarships available to qualified medical students.
The federal school code for the UTHSC is 006725.
Tuition and Fees
The Finance and Operations staff are here to serve the faculty, students and staff of the UTHSC campus. They are responsible for the financial integrity of the UTHSC, overseeing the revenue and expenditures for the campus and have the responsibility for the optimal management of the UTHSC's cash balances and reserves.
College of Medicine Scholarships
The UTHSC College of Medicine Admissions Committee invites the top 15 accepted applicants (for that entering class) to return to The UTHSC campus for additional interviews as a finalist. We are especially fortunate to have up to five merit scholarships of generous proportions available annually. If selected to compete, an invitation will be e-mailed to the top 15 accepted applicants in late February to return to our campus (in late March) to compete for one of the UTHSC College of Medicine's scholarships. Selection is based on:
- academic achievement
- leadership ability
- interviews
- outstanding personal qualities.
No application is necessary to be considered.
Financial Aid Counselors
Financial Aid counselors can be reached between the hours of 8:00 am and 5:00 pm CDT. For more information regarding grants, scholarships, loans and/or questions regarding your specific needs, please direct your questions to a financial aid counselor at 901.448.5568.


text: Holes in Sutter Fort's Roof Provide Glimpse of History Bob Moffitt Tuesday, August 6, 2013 | Sacramento, CA Listen / Update RequiredTo play audio, update browser or Flash plugin. A doorway provided access from one side of the attic to the other. The removal of the leaky roof allows for a once in a generation look at history. California's first permanent building, Sutter's Fort in Sacramento, will be closed to the public for the next six weeks. The rest of the park grounds and buildings will remain open during the renovation. The building is undergoing a renovation that includes a new roof to help make it less susceptible to damage from earthquakes. Sheets of half-inch plywood will cover the beams on top of the 170-year old building. The California Department of Parks and Recreation says the materials are part of the plan to keep the building from shaking during an earthquake. "That half-inch- that's going to go up on top of the existing roof and then the new roof will go on top of that," says project manager Gary Smith. "So, that will act as a seismic diaphragm." In the 1840's, miners and European settlers could spend a night on the floor upstairs by renting a seven-by-three foot space. Sutter Fort State Park says renters and then construction crews who renovated the building in the 1890's left their mark –sometimes with the year they were there. "So I guess in a way it has become historic in and of its own right, now," says the park's Director of Educational Programming, Steve Beck. "It may have been graffiti at one time, but now it's historic graffiti and worth preservation." The upstairs isn't open to public viewing and the graffiti on the ground floor was plastered over long ago. But, there's more in the basement where John Sutter had a pool hall. The building's clay bricks and architecture made it unique long after it was completed in 1840. "In California you either had flat roofs or you had roofs that had a single peak and just like a lean-to almost kind of structure, whereas this one had a peak to both sides," says Beck. So they've described it as a chalet structure. These beams are from the 1890's reconstruction." Nearly 300-thousand dollars in voter-approved funds have been allocated for the new roof and for the lower walls of the fort to be stabilized and restored... and whitewashed –on the outside. Follow us for more stories like this CapRadio provides a trusted source of news because of you. As a nonprofit organization, donations from people like you sustain the journalism that allows us to discover stories that are important to our audience. If you believe in what we do and support our mission, please donate today. Donate Today


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The Netgear R6300 WiFi Router will be able to achieve a speed of 1.3Gbps (bits per second) and extend the range of high-definition video streaming in homes, the company said. Because it's compatible with the DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) standard, the R6300 will be able to stream content to any DLNA device, including TVs, Blu-ray players and other home entertainment gear.
IEEE 802.11ac can go faster than the current 802.11n technology because of a variety of enhancements, including the ability to use a radio band as wide as 80MHz (versus 40MHz for 802.11n). That's possible because the new standard uses only the 5GHz band, which offers more non-overlapping channels than Wi-Fi's other band, at 2.4GHz. The R6300 will be able to use 802.11n and earlier Wi-Fi standards for both bands in addition to 802.11ac.
Netgear's is the first router based on Broadcom's 802.11ac silicon, which the chip maker introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January under the name 5GWiFi. Other chip vendors are also working on processors for 802.11ac. Broadcom's rival Qualcomm Atheros has said it will start shipping samples of chips with the new standard in the second quarter of this year.
The IEEE hasn't yet finished the standard, and the Wi-Fi Alliance does not plan to start a certification program for 802.11ac products until early in the first half of next year. But Broadcom believes any changes still to come in the standard will be relatively minor and can be applied to products already in the field.
Like 802.11n, the new standard presents a variety of modes and features that can provide different performance up to that 1.3Gbps top speed. Those include sending and receiving multiple data streams from multiple antennas and creating targeted streams that resist interference, using so-called "beam-forming." Also, consumers will need to have client devices equipped with 802.11ac in order to get top speeds. Phones, tablets, laptops and other devices built for the current or older standards will work with an 802.11ac router but won't get its optimal performance.


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Purple America:
- Community Land Trust Keeps Prices Affordable—For Now And Forever
- Share
Community Land Trust Keeps Prices Affordable—For Now And Forever
An agenda that puts people first.
Since the recent housing boom went bust, the news has been filled with stories of panic-stricken homeowners, skyrocketing foreclosure rates, and multi-billion-dollar taxpayer bailouts.
It's especially striking, then, that not a single owner of a house, condo, or co-op purchased through the Vermont-based Champlain Housing Trust (CHT) has experienced a foreclosure in the past year. Nor do any of the renters in the more than 1,600 CHT apartments have to fear eviction because of the mortgage meltdown. It's the kind of track record that has brought the CHT international accolades and sparked an affordable housing revolution.
Over the past 25 years, the CHT has become one of the largest providers of affordable housing in the tri-county area surrounding Burlington, the state's largest city, and home to its priciest homes and tightest rental market.
The genesis of the idea took form in the late 1970s, when environmentalist Rick Carbin formed the Vermont Land Trust to preserve open space as developers bought up farms. Instead of buying and holding land, as some land trusts do, the trust bought undeveloped properties at the edge of urban areas and resold them, often at a profit, but with strict limits on future development.
Then, in the early 1980s, wealthy out-of-town speculators began driving up the cost of housing in Burlington. Longtime working-class residents were being priced out of their homes and neighborhoods. Frustration reached a boiling point when the political establishment cut a deal with big-time developers to put upscale apartments on the city's scenic waterfront. Voter disgust with this plan to privatize public space led to an upset mayoral victory in 1981 by socialist gadfly Bernie Sanders and his ragtag Progressive Coalition.
Sanders and the coalition quickly sought to develop institutions that would have a lasting impact. They established the Burlington Community Land Trust as an independent nonprofit corporation in 1984 with backing from the Burlington City Council and $200,000 in seed money. While the land trust was designed primarily to promote sustainable home ownership in the city, the Lake Champlain Housing Development Corporation, set up at the same time, focused on rental properties in the areas surrounding Burlington. The two organizations merged in 2006 to form the nonprofit CHT.
The trust became a central part of the area's affordable housing effort— one that bridges the ideological divide between a flawed free-market approach and heavy-handed government intervention. Both Democratic and Republican politicians found it difficult to oppose a program that promotes homeownership and offers life-long renters a "piece of the American Dream."
Housing Trust 101
Buying land through a housing trust starts when the trust acquires a parcel through purchase, foreclosure, tax abatements, or donation. The trust arranges for a housing unit to be built on the parcel if one does not yet exist, then sells the building but retains ownership of the land beneath. The new homeowner leases the land for a nominal sum (for example, $25 per month), generally for 99 years or until the house is resold.
This model supports affordable housing in several ways. First, homebuyers have to meet low-income requirements. Second, the buying price of the home is reduced because it does not include the price of the land. Third, the trust works with lenders to reduce mortgage costs by using the equity of the land as part of the mortgage calculation. This reduces the size of the down payment and other closing costs, and eliminates the need for private mortgage insurance. In all, the trust can cut the cost of home ownership by 25 percent or more.
For longtime CHT member Bob Robbins, purchasing a home through the trust was the only affordable option. "We did not have access to money for a down payment on a regular home, and at our income level, we wouldn't have qualified for a mortgage," Robbins says. "Through the CHT, we were able to purchase a $99,000 home with just $2,500 down."
Unlike federal programs that only help the initial buyer, the CHT keeps the property affordable in perpetuity by restricting the profit buyers are able to take when they sell the house. According to the terms of the CHT leases, homeowners get back all of their equity plus the market value of any capital improvements they made. However, they only get 25 percent of any increase in the value of the house, and none of the increase in the value of the land.
This model gives the buyer access to the benefits of homeownership otherwise beyond her means, including tax deductions, wealth accumulation through equity, and stable housing costs. In return, she gives up her chance at windfall profits. A study of trust homes sold to a second generation of buyers showed that members were realizing a net gain of 29 percent on the money they had invested. "These aren't sky-high returns," says CHT executive director Brenda Torpy. But most CHT homeowners would never have been able to buy homes otherwise.
"We're trying to stop the concentration of land in the hands of a wealthy minority," says Torpy.
The CHT has become an increasingly important force in Burlington's housing market as well as in the surrounding counties, even as city administrations have come and gone. After 25 years, the trust has over 2,100 households living in its homes, condos, and apartments, not concentrated in pockets of poverty, but spread throughout the area. Since the 2006 merger of the Burlington Community Land Trust and the Lake Champlain Community Development Corporation into the CHT, the trust has become one of the region's largest managers of rental property.
The CHT is remarkable not only for its size, but for its promotion of community empowerment. CHT tenants and owners vote for and serve on its governing board, along with government officials and other city residents with technical expertise, such as architects and urban planners. The system is designed so that all interested parties have a voice and a vote, making it an experiment in democratic self-governance as well as an affordable housing program.
Booms Without the Bust
CHT employs several strategies to make sure their model succeeds, even during tough times. They offer homes below the market rate—typically half the price of a comparable open-market unit. Unlike shady mortgage brokers, "we're not going to let people take risky mortgage products," says Chris Donnelly, CHT's director of community relations. And if residents run into trouble, the land trust works with them. "It's not hand-holding," Donnelly says. "It's standing next to the homeowner."
A study conducted in December showed that foreclosure rates among members of 80 housing trusts across the United States were 30 times lower than the national average.
Tenants in the trust's rental properties are also benefiting from CHT's commitment to affordability and community building. By leveraging grants and subsidies, and because they aren't seeking a profit, CHT is able to keep rents up to 30 percent below market rate, even though they use the most environmentally rigorous building standards and set aside funds to cover future maintenance and repairs. The trust fixes up the buildings that for-profit companies won't touch. "When a fire destroys a block, we're the ones who come running in to restore the neighborhood," says Donnelly.
"We're going to steward these places forever," says Donnelly.
Housing advocates in Burlington have created a sustainable model for affordable housing through shrewd politics and a belief that housing is a fundamental human right rather than a commodity. Their model is being emulated across the country. There are 200 community land trusts in the United States today, including in large cities like Atlanta and Cincinnati. Washington, D.C., is in the midst of creating a 1,000-home land trust with advice and support from the CHT. Half of these trusts started up in just the past seven years.
Back in Burlington, the main obstacle to CHT's expansion is money. The trust relies on government programs, grants, and donations to bring new properties into its model. "We're doing about 25 new homes each year, and about 25 to 30 resales. We could easily do 100 sales a year if we just had enough cheap capital. The model has been proven to work. It's gone to scale. It would be a great way to fill the need without the problems we're seeing nationally," says Donnelly. But public funding has been flat or falling in recent years, and the economic downturn will make other funding harder to find.
Donnelly hopes that the recent troubles in the conventional housing market and some international accolades will help spur more interest in the land trust model.
In October, CHT will be honored with a World Habitat Award at the annual gathering of UN-HABITAT, the global agency dedicated to sustainable living. The award is one of only two given out each year. Donnelly is proud of the achievement. "It's like the Nobel Prize for sustainable development and housing."


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Ralph Lauren publicized its designs for the U.S. Olympic team's opening ceremonies uniforms yesterday. They feature smart berets, neckties, and double-breasted blazers in a sailor-inspired blue-and-white ensemble with red accents. Countless online outlets have mocked them for their aura of preppy elitism and the shameless self-promotion of the oversized Ralph Lauren logo on each blazer.
But U.S. lawmakers have a much bigger problem with the uniforms: every single item of clothing was made in China.
"I think they should take all the uniforms, put them in a big pile and burn them and start all over again," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told ABC News. "If they have to wear nothing but a symbol that says USA on it, painted by hand, that is what they should wear."
(MORE: Top 10 Sports-Fashion Controversies)
(MORE: 50 Olympic Athletes to Watch)
Reid's frustration is echoed by many other lawmakers who are offended that the uniforms won't benefit the American manufacturing sector. Two New York Congress members, Rep. Steve Israel and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, wrote a letter this morning asking that all U.S. uniforms be American-made in future years.
Some have called for more immediate steps. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio has asked the Olympic Committee to immediately find a domestic manufacturer to remake the team's uniforms. Brown is the sponsor of some pending legislation that would strengthen "Buy America" requirements for items paid for by federal tax dollars. And House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has also stated that she believes the Olympic team should wear American-made uniforms.
(MORE: Athletes in Love: 9 Olympic Romances)
The U.S. Olympic Committee defended the uniforms in a statement to ABCNews . "The U.S. Olympic team is privately funded and we're grateful for the support of our sponsors. We're proud of our partnership with Ralph Lauren, an iconic American company," the statement said.
It's not the first time that the 'Made in China' issue has come up: in fact, the exact same thing happened four years ago, when Ralph Lauren also created the 2008 Olympic team's uniforms — which were also manufactured in China.
MORE: Why Women Watch the Olympics (But Tune Out Other Sports
MORE: TIME Olympics Blog


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Media Releases
In the dragonfish's mouth: the next generation of superstars to stir up our galaxy
November 30, 2011
TORONTO, ON — Three astronomers at the University of Toronto have found the most numerous batch of young, supermassive stars yet observed in our galaxy: hundreds of thousands of stars, including several hundreds of the most massive kind –blue stars dozens of times heavier than our Sun. The light these newborn stars emit is so intense it has pushed out and heated the gas that gave them birth, carving out a glowing hollow shell about a hundred light-years across.
These findings will be published in the December 20 issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters. For the researchers, the next step is already clear: "By studying these supermassive stars and the shell surrounding them, we hope to learn more about how energy is transmitted in such extreme environments," says Mubdi Rahman, a PhD candidate in the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, who led the work with his supervisors, Professors Dae-Sik Moon and Christopher Matzner.
Such large nurseries of massive stars have been noticed in other galaxies, but were so far away that all stars are often blurred together on images taken by telescopes. "This time, the massive stars are right here in our galaxy, and we can even count them individually," Rahman says.
Studying the individual stars will require intricate measurements. The cluster of bright stars is located nearly halfway across our galaxy, 30,000 light-years away, and the line of sight is blocked by dust. "All this dust made it difficult for us to figure out what type of stars they are," Rahman says.
"These stars are incredibly bright," Rahman says, "yet, they're very hard to see." Before the light from these stars can reach us, most of it is absorbed by the intervening dust in our galaxy. This makes the brightest stars in the cluster appear as dim as smaller, nearby stars. The fainter stars in the cluster appear so dim that they are not seen.
The researchers used the New Technology Telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile to collect whatever light they could from a few dozen stars. They measured in details how much light the stars emit in each colour, and were finally able to confirm that at least a dozen stars in the cluster were of the most massive kind, some possibly a hundred times more massive than our Sun.
In fact, before turning a ground telescope toward the stars themselves, Rahman first noticed the glow from the large shell of heated gas using the WMAP satellite, which is sensitive to microwaves (between radio waves and visible light). To make an image of the gas shell being blown away and heated up, the researchers used the Spitzer satellite, which works with infrared light (between microwave and visible light).
Rahman suggested the name "Dragonfish" after comparing the infrared image of the celestial gas shell with Peter Shearer's illustration of the deep-sea creature with the same name. The astronomical image resembles a dark gaping mouth-like shape with teeth, two eyes, and a bright fin to the right. The "mouth" is the volume from which the gas has been cleared by the light of the stars, pushed outward to form a shell that is particularly bright in spots corresponding to the eyes and the fin of the animal.
"We were able to see the effect of the stars on their surroundings before seeing the stars directly", Rahman says. This would be like seeing lit faces and red cheeks from the heat of a campfire, without being able to see the logs and flames themselves.
In the same way that red embers are cooler than the blue flame of a welding torch, the gas is cooler than what is heating it, and thus glows redder than the blue stars. Compared to the colours of a rainbow ranging from red to blue, most of the light emitted by the heated gas is in fact redder than red, and thus infrared –less affected by gas or dust, and invisible to our naked eyes, but not to appropriate telescope instruments. At the other end of the rainbow, the giant stars in the cluster are bluer than blue, and emit mostly in the ultraviolet, which is blocked by dust and thus not visible on the image.
"But we had to make sure what was at the heart of the shell," Rahman says. Now that the astronomers have identified several stars there as very massive, they know that these stars will burn their nuclear fuel relatively quickly in astronomical terms: within a few million years (thousands of times faster than for our Sun) even though the giant blue stars contain dozens of times more fuel than our Sun.
"Still, if you thought the inside of the shell was empty, think again," Rahman says. For each of the few hundred superstars the researchers may have spotted, there are thousands of average stars more akin to our Sun. When the superstars have burned through their fuel, they will explode and release metals and other heavy atoms that may help form rocky planets around smaller, quieter stars –perhaps providing the building blocks for life.
"There may be newer stars already forming in the eyes of the Dragonfish," Rahman says. Some areas in the shell glow particularly bright, and the researchers think the gas there may have been compressed enough to ignite even more stars.
The gas now in the shell is the remainder of the very gas that gave birth to the stars, and there is a lot of it: the mother shell is more massive than the cluster of its babies. But with no mother anymore to keep them reined in via its mass and gravity, all the young stars may start wandering off in all directions. "We've found a rebel in the group, a runaway star escaping from the group at high speed," Rahman says. "We think the group is no longer tied together by gravity: however, how the association will fly apart is somethie still don't understand well."
A high-resolution infrared image of Dragonfish association, showing the shell of hot gas, can be found at:
This image can be reused freely, provided the following credits are displayed clearly: NASA/JPL-Caltech/GLIMPSE Team/Mubdi Rahman
The high-resolution illustration of the animal, created by Peter Shearer after digitally altering his photo of a dead Black Dragonfish (with left and right flipped for convenience), can be downloaded from:
This image can be reused freely, provided the following credits are displayed clearly: Peter Shearer, www.petershearer.co.nz
The online version of the scientific paper can be downloaded from:
For more information, please contact:
Mubdi Rahman
Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Toronto
Prof. Dae-Sik Moon
Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Toronto
Prof. Christopher Matzner
Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics
University of Toronto
Johannes Hirn, PhD
Communications, Dunlap Institue for Astronomy & Astrophysics
University of Toronto


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Guest poem submitted by Rama Rao:
(Poem #1966) Hello In There We had an apartment in the city, Me and Loretta liked living there. Well, it'd been years since the kids had grown, A life of their own left us alone. John and Linda live in Omaha, And Joe is somewhere on the road. We lost Davy in the Korean war, And I still don't know what for, don't matter anymore. Ya' know that old trees just grow stronger, And old rivers grow wilder ev'ry day. Old people just grow lonesome Waiting for someone to say, "Hello in there, hello." Me and Loretta, we don't talk much more, She sits and stares through the back door screen. And all the news just repeats itself Like some forgotten dream that we've both seen. Someday I'll go and call up Rudy, We worked together at the factory. But what could I say if asks "What's new?" "Nothing, what's with you? Nothing much to do." So if you're walking down the street sometime And spot some hollow ancient eyes, Please don't just pass 'em by and stare As if you didn't care, say, "Hello in there, hello." |
I am a little surprised not to see John Prine on the Minstrels. Hailed by some on his debut as "the next Dylan " he has had many of his folksy lyrics sung by other famous singers. As the developed world including America ages, with larger percentages of older people in their populations, this poem captures some of the increasing loneliness they feel. The stanza contrasting old people to old trees and old rivers is particularly powerful. A John Prine bio is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Prine Rama Rao.


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Virtual SugarFest 2020
Virtual SugarFest 2020
SugarFest is fun for all ages and is traditionally held on the first Sunday in October! This year, mark your calendars for a special two day celebration on October 3rd and 4th, 2020 on the museum's Facebook page! Virtual SugarFest will allow you to enjoy interviews, performances, and demonstrations with Louisiana folk artists and musicians, as well as recipes for sweet treats, and even a look inside the sugar industry—all from the comfort of your home. A schedule of events including the concert line-up will be posted in the coming weeks.
While we may not be able to gather in person with a few thousand of our closest friends, a quarter of a century marks an excellent time to document our local culture and traditions for generations to come. If there is a silver lining to be found for our silver anniversary, the pandemic gives us reason to pause and archive the things that make SugarFest special, in particular the great works of participating occupational and traditional folk artists who carry on the old fashioned ways of doing things by hand, and bands who continue to play musical genres indigenous to Louisiana. As Jeannie Luckett, Director of Programs, stated, "Some of these folks don't have apprentices studying under them, and these arts are at risk of fading away. The music is a rich part of that tradition too. So, it will be important for the museum to do their part in preserving this history as well as finding a creative way to stay connected and celebrate with the community."
Participant Contact Info
Everything looks a little bit different this year, including our lineup. To make sure we can shine a bright line on those featured during Virtual SugarFest, and those we hope to see in person next year, we have curated a list of contact information for the artists and acts that bring SugarFest to life. Click here to take a look.
Virtual Sweets Contest
In celebration of West Baton Rouge Museum's SugarFest Silver Anniversary, we have teamed up with celebrity judge, Chef John Folse and Susan Ford, Publisher & Editorial Director of Louisiana Kitchen & Culture to continue the tradition of the annual Sweets Contest as part of Virtual SugarFest. Participants submitted sweet recipes in person and digitally, providing the judges with lots of treats to consider. Below, you can read every entry we received this year! While photos weren't required, some of our participants decided to include a picture of their sweet treat. As icing on the cake, Susan Ford, Publisher & Editorial Director of Louisiana Kitchen & Culture magazine will publish these recipes digitally and/or in print in the November/December Holiday edition. As always, the grand prize winner will be awarded the highly sought after sugar shell. Thanks to everyone who participated this year, and a big thank you to Louisiana Kitchen & Culture for helping us keep our sweet traditions alive--even in unprecedented times!
Congratulations to SugarFest 2020 Sweets Contest Grand Prize Winner: Abbie Edens!
Persimmon Oatmeal Cookies - Braeden Larpenter
The Best Chocolate Chip Cookes - Chase Berenson and Charla Hughes
Valerie Shexnayder - Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies
Chococonut Chip Cookies - Christine Laiche
Gran Gran Ginger Cookies - Cindy Bryson
- Chococonut Chip Cookies - Christine Laiche - First Place
- Blackberry Swirl Cookies - Colleen Martin - Second Place
- The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies - Chase Berenson & Charla Hughes - Third Place
- Almond Fudge Topped Shortbread - Fannie Easterly
- Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies - Valerie Shexnayder
- Gran Gran Ginger Cookies - Cindy Bryson
- Persimmon Oatmeal Cookies - Braeden Larpenter
- Reese's Cookies - Sheila Gomez
- Rock Cookies - Sheila Gomez
- Honey Pistachio Cake with Honey Buttercream - Abbie Edens - First Place & Grand Prize Winner
- Chunky Apple Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting - Fannie Easterly - Second Place
- Black Forest Cake - Sheila Alleman - Third Place
- Fresh Apple Cake - Andrea Normand - Staff Favorite
- Black Forest Torte - Nancy Luckett
- Banana Cake - Iris Bonanno
- Blue Ribbon Chocolate Cake with Strawberries - Sheila Alleman
- Cinnamon Pecan Oatmeal Bread - Terresa Marler Dipuma
- Eclair Cake - Sheila Gomez
- Elizabeth's Yum Yum Cake - Sue Ellen Clements
- Mamere's Brownies - Benjamin Shexnayder
Banana Cake - Iris Bonanno
Fresh Apple Cake - Andrea Normand
Honey Pistachio Cake with Honey Buttercream - Abbie Edens
Pear Pie by the Dozen - Valerie Shexnayder
Cherry Crumble Pies - Brigette Larpenter
A Fantastic Creole Coconut Pie - Mary Broussard Acosta
Buttermilk Pie - Dr. Marge Gill
- Cane Syrup Ice Cream with Candied Pecans - Maylee H. Samuels - First Place
- Creamy Chocolate Pecan Fudge - Karen Messenger - Second Place
- Chocolate Peanut Butter (Pecan) Candy - Tara Messenger - Third Place


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Stocks, also called shares or equities, are certificates of company ownership typically purchased by investors and traders on secondary markets called exchanges. Stocks are also bought and traded as bundled investments, called funds, and as derivatives like futures and options, and occasionally re-purchased by their issuer.
Types of Stocks[edit]
Common stock (aka "ordinary shares") is the kind of stock American investors and media are usually talking about - one share means one part-ownership of a company, a claim on part of its profits and a vote to elect board members. Common stock in the U.S. occasionally pays an annual dividend but the issuer can choose whether and how much to pay. Dividends are more likely to be paid by European stock issuers.
Preferred stocks, by contrast, usually pay a guaranteed dividend for the life of the issuer, and their holders get better treatment than common stockholders if the issuer declares bankruptcy. However, preferred stocks can also be repurchased - usually above market value - by the issuer at any time. Some investors consider preferred shares a midpoint in securities risk between bonds and common stock [1].
Some corporations issue different classes of stocks to separate groups of shareholders to give them greater or lesser voting powers. Such corporations in the U.S. typically issue class A and class B shares and give significantly greater voting rights to class A shares. A corporation's first public sale of its shares is called an initial public offering (IPO)
Stock Investors and Traders[edit]
Stocks are companies' main form of equity financing - raising capital by offering share-buyers a stake in its future growth but with no guarantees of success. For debt financing, companies typically issues bonds that it must repay with annual interest.
Common stock value rises and falls with the issuer's fortunes and stockholders face the risk of losing their entire investment, unlike those holding the company's bonds. Nonetheless, stock volumes continue to grow worldwide because they offer unlimited returns if the company succeeds, outweighing the downside risks of failure.
Historically, stocks as investments have returned about twice that of bonds and other fixed income investments. Stock investors naturally have a greater appetite for risk than bond investors, since stocks carry no guarantee of annual return or of even maintaining their face value. Younger investors in retirement plans, for example, typically have a portfolio weighted to stocks over bonds.
New Stock Marketplaces[edit]
The expansion of the Internet during the late 1990s shifted the focus of trading from telephone-based stock-brokers to computer-based independent and so-called day traders. Although faster-paced trading has shifted from volatile technology-stock IPO to more liquid derivatives markets, increasing volumes are traded online and Internet platforms have grown significantly. Recent research[2] shows trading volume growth on the all-electronic NASDAQ exchange clearly outpacing that on the New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange in both stock numbers and in dollar values.
- ↑ Stock basics: Different types of stocks. Investopedia.com.
- ↑ Recent Growth in Nasdaq Trading Volume and Its Relation to Market Volatility. Social Science Research Network.