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It may have looked like a group project to some of the kids in eighth-grade science class. But the chemical compound one 13-year-old girl was pouring from her hand into the small bottle her friend was holding wasn't listed on the classroom's Table of Elements.
"What is it?" a Phoenix police officer later asked the girl.
"It's G," she said, referring to the small vial of a crystal substance she had pocketed in science class.
"What is G?"
"I don't know what it is. I barely started doing it," she said, adding that the first time she tried methamphetamine -- sniffing it up her nose through a straw -- was four days ago.
The cop asked her how it made her feel.
"Good," said the girl, slightly chubby for her short height. "I twitch and stutter."
Then he asked her how much she paid for it.
"I just put a dollar in when they got it," she said. Apparently, several of the eighth-grade students at Westwind Intermediate near the west 101 Loop and Camelback Road had chipped in their lunch money to buy a Ziploc baggie of meth from a 13-year-old boy who was known to deal packages of the drug from the side pockets of his backpack.
When school employees wrapped up their search of the backpacks and the police finished questioning the students at Westwind on that Tuesday in February of 2004, three kids were arrested -- one for dealing and two for possession.
But subsequent conversations with students, held in confidence with Westwind assistant principal Amy Perhamus, revealed a much larger group of users.
"That year, we ended up with a list of 45 students in the eighth grade at Westwind who were using meth," she says.
If Perhamus' numbers are solid, what she discovered was the largest drug ring ever exposed at a Valley junior high, police say.
And that's a potentially dangerous discovery, given the location.
"Maryvale is typically the place where new drug trends will start in the city," says Phoenix Police Sergeant Tony Boynton.
The incident at Westwind Intermediate suggests that drug education in the schools isn't working.
More convincing than one anecdote, though, is 10 years of research showing that the top program for drug education in Arizona schools, DARE, has no effect on student drug use.
So new programs are being developed.
In response to the meth busts at Westwind, Pendergast School District superintendent Ron Richards conferred with Amy Perhamus to develop a way to continue providing an education to the students deemed to have a drug problem, rather than expelling them. "We have no throwaway kids," he says.
Together, they decided to create a separate two-room schoolhouse and a separate curriculum for any student in the district who admits he or she needs help kicking drugs.
The methamphetamine ring at Westwind appears to be unique among Valley schools, police say.
And critics of Perhamus say she has garnished that initial bust with hyperbole, including the number of kids found to have used meth at her school. Indeed, two people closely involved with the investigation in early 2004 put the number closer to eight.
Is Perhamus a visionary or an alarmist?
What most experts in the field suggest is that Perhamus is at least on the right track toward quality drug education for young people. She probably has overshot the mark by establishing a separate school, something experts say can just as easily ostracize kids and promote drug cliques as much as help them steer clear of drugs.
But most schools undershoot the mark, experts say, by providing drug education that involves little more than police officers telling them horror stories about drug use.
What most often is agreed on is this:
Children need to be provided access to an ongoing, honest conversation about drugs with a competent role model throughout their school years. And beyond conversations, young people need to be given the skills to help them combat the allure of drugs in the real world.
"You don't help if you don't give them the right tools," says Jean Ajamie, director of school safety and prevention in the Arizona Department of Education. "And you don't help if you stop talking to them in the sixth grade."
With guidance on research-based drug-education programming from the state Department of Education, this is the direction most Arizona schools are heading with drug education.
But, as usual in Arizona's education matters, this new mandate is grossly underfunded and applied sporadically.
"We need to create a multilevel approach to helping these kids," says Perhamus. "It is not simply a matter of will power, especially when you're dealing with 12- to 14-year-old kids.
"They all have a secret. They all struggle with the good and bad inside of them. They all struggle with the things that they've lived through. We believe very strongly that there is no such thing as a bad child. Unfortunately, a lot of them make very bad decisions. And unfortunately, a lot of them lead very bad lives."
DARE, which stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education, has been a rite of passage for parents and their elementary-school-age children in Arizona since the 1980s.
An estimated 80 percent of Arizona junior high and high school students have gone through the DARE programming.
The program was created in 1983 by then-Los Angeles police chief Darryl Gates, who, around that time, also stated that the "casual user ought to be taken out and shot, because he or she has no reason for using drugs."
DARE swept across the country within the parameters of Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign. The program usually consists of a 17-week series of lectures given to fifth- and sixth-grade students by police officers, who spend the time emphasizing the dangers of drug use.
For years, though, students and educators have complained that the officers often exaggerate the effects of recreational drug use and tend to group all drugs together in one pool of deadly and addictive substances.
The problem, research shows: If a young person tries a drug and doesn't experience the effects described by the DARE officer, the officer is likely to lose all credibility with the student.
Kids pretty quickly realize you don't turn into Charlie Parker after smoking one joint.
The two most critical flaws with DARE, though, seem to be the length of the program and the things that aren't taught.
What research shows, Jean Ajamie of the Department of Education says, is that students need to be discussing drugs long after their sixth-grade graduation from DARE.
And DARE doesn't teach kids how to handle peer pressure, or stress, or "any of the other situations that we know lead to drug use," she says.
"You can't just stop talking to young people about this," she says, "and you can't just sit there and lecture them that this stuff is bad. That just doesn't work."
It's amazing the program, which Lemoyne College economist Edward Shepard, who has released several national studies on DARE's finances, estimates costs about $200 per student per year, held out for so long in so many schools.
"Well, it just seems like such a good idea," Ajamie says. "And it's full of great people. But you've got to look at the numbers."
Several young people from Pendergast-area schools give their drug education classes a mixed review. The general consensus among the students, who were interviewed as they walked to their homes near Camelback Road and the 101 freeway after school, is strikingly similar to what research says:
DARE is okay, it helped a little, but it probably didn't help those most at risk, and it did little to build the skills a young person needs to avoid the lure of drugs.
"You get the 'Just Say No,' and that's fine, but they don't teach tactics for keeping away from stuff," says Natalee Barnes, 14, a freshman at nearby Copper Canyon High School. "I learned that stuff from my parents. But I don't know that everyone learns that from their parents."
At Copper Canyon, students can take a class on "making the right choices in life," she says, but it's an elective. And to be honest, with so little room for electives in the Arizona school day, she uses her choices for subjects she really loves. Same with most of her classmates.
Herman Zepeta, a former Westwind Intermediate student now at Copper Canyon, says he doesn't even remember DARE.
"They must have been that boring," he says.
But Alex Madera, also a Copper Canyon freshman who attended Westwind, does remember his DARE classes. And it's one of the most criticized parts of the program -- the showing of grisly accident photos of teens who drove under the influence -- that most imprinted on Madera's mind the dangerous of the drugs.
"You know, if they just kept showing us the photos every year, I think that would be the best thing you could do," he says. "They were gross. But I can still see them in my head today. It was serious stuff."
For Fabien Espinoza, 16, another former Westwind grad, it was a much more personal experience that he says keeps him away from drugs.
His mother's boyfriend, "who was just like a dad," got hooked on meth. Then the boyfriend started dealing, then his life went to hell, now he's "on the run somewhere," Espinoza says.
"You hear the stuff in DARE, and my mom is always saying, 'Stay away from that junk,' and that's all fine," he says. "But what hits me is what happened to his life. I hate it because I've seen it up close.
"I guess if everybody could just see it up close, maybe that would stop them. Because it's just plain ugly what happens to you."
In September of this year, Phoenix police, following their peers in Scottsdale and Mesa, ditched the DARE program. The department will use the $500,000 to strengthen its vice squad.
That leaves about 50 law enforcement agencies still teaching the classes, according to the Arizona DARE Officers Association.
In its place, Ajamie says, is a new wave of programs that stress "skill-building" throughout more of the student's school career.
Also, the DARE program itself is being revamped to better reflect what research is showing to be effective.
Neither the new DARE nor the new wave of drug education comes anywhere close to the intensity of the program being piloted by Amy Perhamus in the Pendergast School District.
Just two weeks ago, a young special-ed student found a meth pipe on the playground outside Calderwood Elementary, the newest of the Pendergast District's schools.
Par for the course, Perhamus says.
"It was in a nice little black zipper pouch," Perhamus says. "From the night before, somebody had dropped their meth pipe on the playground. Yesterday alone, I had three meth pipes that I had to turn in to Phoenix PD."
To hear Perhamus tell it, the West Valley's elementary and middle school teachers and administrators are sweeping up meth around the campuses like so much spilled milk on the cafeteria floor. And it's not just methamphetamine residue and paraphernalia they're finding.
"Lately, we've seen a resurgence of cocaine," she says, affecting a pained, well-isn't-that-special smile. "Not crack, but true cocaine. It's having a pretty strong hold on our kids right now."
Like many of the newer residential areas expanding the Valley's urban sprawl, the neighborhoods surrounding the Pendergast District's schools are lined with nice, attractive, middle-class homes with neatly trimmed yards, whose affordability masks the sometimes desperate lives of the young families living inside them. The way that kids in one of the least affluent parts of the Valley get cocaine, one of the most expensive highs out there, is often courtesy of a well-connected relative or older friend, Perhamus says.
"A lot of these kids begin their addiction because they have a cousin or an uncle or a big brother or a parent who think it's funny to get them high when they're 5 years old," she says. Same with meth. "Any meth addict will tell you they will spend their entire life trying to achieve the high that they got that first time on meth."
The district's meth issues all started out, apparently, with a frighteningly inappropriate party favor at an eighth-grader's birthday party.
"The way that the epidemic -- as we call it -- began was that there was a girl who was having a birthday," says Perhamus. "And her big sister, who was a meth user, thought that it would be a very nice gift to hand out the meth, for free, to her little sister and all of her friends at the birthday party."
Perhamus began hearing about the girls toting the crank to class from the school's secretive network of "good snitches" -- students encouraged to tell on their classmates only when they're observed doing something that clearly endangers others, or themselves.
She already knew that the school community, which encompasses a square mile bordered by 87th Avenue and Indian School Road known for its high level of gang activity, had a problem with meth.
But nobody in the school knew how widespread meth use was until Perhamus sent out the word to her good snitches to come back with a list of classmates they had observed at one time or another using the drug.
Students who felt they had a drug problem themselves were encouraged to come forward and, providing they didn't have any meth in their system or in their possession, there'd be no questions asked.
A few students took Perhamus up on the offer, admitting that together they had hidden a vial of meth on campus, but that now it had been stolen.
Immediately, the panicked staff began an all-out search of the campus. "Well, kids aren't stupid," Perhamus says. "They know when something's up. So as soon as word of the search got out, we found meth in desks, we found meth on the floor." She then pauses, placing emphasis on each of her next three words:
"We . . . found . . . meth."
They also found the dealer -- a boy who later told police he had gotten it from a neighborhood gang member and "didn't want to smoke it, so I started selling it and I was making a lot of money" -- and two other kids with enough of the drug on them to warrant an arrest. One was the girl in science class, who initially said she was holding it for a friend who had been called into the principal's office because of a dress-code violation.
The dealer was expelled; the other two were put into in-school suspension -- separated from the rest of the student body, but still allowed to stay in school.
Perhamus eventually convinced Pendergast District superintendent Ron Richards that drugs were enough of a problem in the district that separate classrooms, with a separate curriculum, were needed to handle all the other drug abusers she suspected were in the schools.
Today, Perhamus is the administrator of this new school, Calderwood Elementary, which, right now, is little more than two modular buildings sitting on the grounds of Copper King Elementary at 107th Avenue and Campbell.
Two former Westwind teachers, Peter Newberg and Mike Larson, accepted the challenge of teaching the new classes.
Already, the program's been hailed by Ajamie of the Arizona Department of Education, who cheers Pendergast administrators for finding a way to keep the offenders in school, rather than simply expelling them.
White House "Drug Czar" John Walters, who met with Perhamus and Richards last summer during a 25-city fact-finding tour, gave the program a thumbs-up.
It was a gigantic coup to get somebody of Walters' stature out to speak at such a small and untested school drug-education program.
Perhamus followed up Walters' visit with a press release.
"The growing use of methamphetamines in the west Valley of Phoenix, particularly spreading down to use by children in elementary schools, was of interest to Mr. Walters," Perhamus wrote in her press statement.
The only trouble is, apart from Perhamus' statements, it's hard to find evidence that meth use is really becoming at all rampant at the elementary and middle school levels.
Other school administrators that Richards has spoken with claim they haven't seen anything like what Perhamus describes. Cops who've pulled stints as school resource officers maintain the meth problem at that level is more like kids popping too much Sudafed.
Indeed, police officers interviewed by New Times from throughout the Valley say they've seen nothing like what Perhamus describes.
Commenting anonymously, one west Phoenix law enforcement officer suggests that Perhamus tends toward alarmist comments, relying on the words of tattletaling preteens to overinflate the severity of the problem and launch herself into a specially created position.
Even Westwind's principal, Claudio Coria, while praising Perhamus for her work, says the school's search turned up only nine suspected meth users -- still plenty shocking for middle school, but nowhere near Perhamus' original list of 45.
Two police officers with knowledge of the sweep at the school put the number at eight.
"And even then," Coria says, "there were only three in the original group we caught, and then over time, we had other kids say, 'Ah, I think I tried it' -- at home, or at school, or in the park -- wherever."
Three students at nearby Copper Canyon High School, Alex Madera, Phyro Sears and Herman Zepeta, were all students at Westwind Intermediate in 2004, at the time of the meth ring bust. They say they never heard of any kids using methamphetamine at the school of 801 students, especially not 45 kids, but they did know of a few kids smoking pot.
Still, they agreed that those kids needed something more intensive than DARE. Those pot smokers, they say, were the same kids who laughed the most during the DARE classes the years before.
"It's kind of like you could already tell the ones that would be getting into the stuff because of how they acted back then [during DARE]," Madera says. "It's like it only works on the people who wouldn't do drugs anyway."
Nevertheless, superintendent Richards stands by Perhamus' assessment. Like Coria, Richards thinks the 45 count is a little high, and admits that, at present, only 15 kids have been signed up to go through the Calderwood school, even though the program is open to the entire district.
Still, he believes Perhamus when she says the problem is bigger than anyone realizes.
"Well, you've talked to Amy," he says, by way of explanation. "I'm sure you can hear the passion in her voice. And that's what you need -- somebody who has that level of care, and that level of passion for working with children."
Newberg, who taught for 10 years at Westwind before coming aboard at Calderwood, is even more emphatic.
"I would trust anything that Amy says," he maintains, when asked if he thinks her count of 45 is in the right ballpark. "I think Amy is the most in-tune person in the entire school district. And if she gives you a statistic, then I would trust her statistic over anyone else's. Without question."
At Calderwood, students identified as having drug problems are offered what Richards calls "a mall of opportunity" to help them find their best treatment. Calderwood also brings in counselors from ValueOptions and the New Foundation residential treatment center on a weekly basis.
"It hasn't been easy to get our behavioral-health unit into schools," says ValueOptions' Arjelia Gomez. "If anything, it's offered as an after-school program. But there, it's a part of the regular class day."
Peter Newberg says teaching kids with meth problems can mimic the ups and downs of any teacher's day -- only with much more "spiky" ups and downs.
"You never know what feelings a kid's gonna bring with them to school," he says. "They can come into class in a great mood, and then you may be talking about amoebas, and that will strike a chord somehow. They'll come out with a big incident that they want to talk about, that may even reveal a CPS issue that you need to call on. There's just so many more extremes."
Some of the kids in Calderwood are beyond the stage where they only need counseling. A few require treatment -- and that's where, Perhamus says, they fall into a gap where neither the schools nor the courts can give them the help they need.
"Most of the kids who come to us really want help," she says. "The problem is that we have kids who feel the only way to get treatment is to get locked up. So they will go on a crime spree, not to feed their drug habit -- 'cause they can all get drugs for free -- but to get caught, so that they can get help."
The trouble with that, Perhamus says, is that most first-time juveniles are only sentenced to a year's probation with a probation officer. If they violate probation, they're sent to Durango, a county jail for juveniles, where there's no substance-abuse treatment, and then released with a mandate that they receive treatment from a provider like ValueOptions -- which can have a long waiting period for an initial intake evaluation -- to be funded by private insurance.
"What happens is they fall into this black hole, where they can never hold on long enough to get treatment," she says. "Our student that we expelled -- highly intelligent, gifted student. Family history of mental illness.
"Every time he got released from Durango, his mother would set up an appointment with ValueOptions. But he could never hold on long enough to get to that initial intake. They would always schedule it 30 days out. By then, he was locked up again. So five times later, he still is untreated for his drug addiction, and today, he is what we would consider a hardened criminal."
He's now at Adobe Mountain, one of the state's juvenile detention centers, Perhamus says, where he might finally get drug treatment -- but at a cost of what could have been a bright future.
"The absolute hardest part is when you have to look a kid in the face, and you know you can't help them, and CPS can't help them, and the police can't help them," she says, choking back tears.
"There are not many kids that I have to do that with," she adds. "I won't give up on any kid. But sometimes you just know they're gone, and you'll never get them back. That's when this job is really hard."
With her small size, soft voice and deceptively young appearance, Amy Perhamus hardly looks the part of a street-smart homie.
But as she details the exploits of the WSP (West Side Phoenix) 87th Avenue gangs, speaks fluent Spanish on the phone to a young kid calling in to tell her about a friend he worries may be doing meth, and decodes the latest graffiti tagged on the neighborhood walls ("That's actually where we get some of our information"), it's evident Perhamus has spent a lot of time getting to know her surroundings.
"The drug scene here is very ingrained with the gangs," she says. "And the most difficult part in this specific neighborhood is that nobody will ever snitch anyone out. Anybody who is even trying to help themselves [by seeking treatment] will never give up enough information to get rid of the source."
Perhamus is guardedly protective of her own snitches, but for entirely different reasons.
"If anything ever gets tied back to a kid telling me anything," she says firmly, speaking in slow, measured tones, "somebody will go kill one of my kids. And they'll do it for real. I've been to kids' funerals, and I don't ever want to go to another one."
She's not scared of the gang-bangers herself, she says. "I'm just scared for them."
That may account for why Perhamus ultimately did not put New Times in touch with any students to speak, even anonymously, about their experiences, despite numerous attempts to line up interviews. "Don't get your hopes up," Peter Newberg warned at one point. "These kids can be very private -- for good reason. They may have seen their uncle shoot someone the night before, and now they've got this secret that they have to hold onto for fear of their own lives."
As chilling as it sounds, Perhamus clearly loves working in this environment. Formerly a teacher at an upscale prep school in New York, Perhamus says she couldn't identify with all the "spoiled brats driving to school in their Beamers," and practically gave up on teaching.
After moving to Phoenix, she took a job in the Madison District, teaching kids on in-school suspension, and found herself enthralled by a particular student's stories about life as an Eastside Crip. When that position ended, she took a job teaching P.E. at the Harold W. Smith magnet school in Glendale -- a low-income school with, at the time, the second-lowest test grades in the state and a high gang rate.
"Before the principal hired any new teachers, he put us all on the school van and he would not let us sign our contract until he drove us around the neighborhood," Perhamus says. "And he gave it to us good. He drove us around the trailer park, where we watched babies walking around, naked, with no adult to be found. He made us watch a drug deal. And when we got back to the school, he said, 'If this is really what you want to get into, you can sign your contract.'"
Perhamus signed on immediately, and quickly learned what she says remains her key to getting the truth out of troubled kids: "If you respect them, the kids will all tell you their stories. And then you start to realize that there's a lot more to it."
She says that's what they try to get to at Calderwood: the problems really driving the kids to use drugs. Much of the time, bad family influences are at the root -- which can make it particularly hard to get the kids into the program, since the parents have to be involved, too.
"The parents of many of the kids we've tried to help get very angry with us," she says. "It's a very hard thing to sit down in a school office and be told your child is using a hard-core drug."
Making it harder yet, says Westwind's Coria, who recommends a transfer to Calderwood when a student shows definite signs of drug problems, often the parents of a meth-addicted student look like they're modeling the lifestyle.
"The parents will come in all tatted up, with a doo-rag and the flag hanging out, and you think, 'Okay, what do I do here?'" he says. "We have to tell them, 'Leave that stuff at home. There are home rules, and there are school rules. And we have to enforce them.' This is a community problem. It's not a school problem. We deal with the school piece, but as a community, we all have to be on the same page."
Richards believes society is on a steep decline, and that the problems in his district are just a concentrated preview of where all schools are headed.
"It's getting worse," he says. "The availability of these drugs is increasing significantly. The social acceptance of inhalants, and these pill parties, and alcohol, is increasing. You see it on TV, and in the music kids are listening to. It's socially accepted.
"We need to give kids the skills to make that distinction between what is accepted social behavior and what is not," he says. "And that's a hard thing to do, especially when this negative stuff is all around you."
Before Ron Richards gave the green light to Amy Perhamus' alternative school, he first put in a call to all the other elementary and middle schools in the district to ask them how they were handling their meth problem.
To his surprise, most of the principals responded with the same befuddled words: "What meth problem?"
"Some will admit they've caught kids with marijuana," Richards says. "But the attitude is often, 'Well, at least it's not heroin,' you know?" When asked specifically about meth, Richards says most administrators describe their worst offenders as "kids robbing their parents' medicine chest, and taking pills 'til they get dizzy."
Richards, like Perhamus, believes that other principals and police officers aren't seeing a problem that exists right under their noses.
Those other principals and police officers, however, believe they are the ones seeing the problem clearly.
They say meth isn't showing up in the Valley's junior high and elementary schools. They say that adolescent use of drugs hasn't changed much in the past 40 years, since, yes, the 1960s.
They note that Perhamus and Richards are seeing things from the perspective of arguably the toughest neighborhood in the Valley.
But this opinion also is coming from police officers and educators who work in some of the Valley's other toughest neighborhoods.
Before the '60s, cops say, kids just experimented with booze, which, researchers point out early and often, is still by far the biggest chemical problem facing today's young people.
This issue of properly assessing the problem is no small matter.
Because as top drug researchers such as Dr. Barry Lester of Brown University point out, much of the Drug War's worst policies and programs were born of bad data and bad science.
"There's just so much bogus information out there about drugs," Lester tells New Times. "Sometimes people just let it go and say it's wrong for a good cause. What actually happens, though, is that good cause is badly damaged by bad data."
Some of that bad data is what so often compromised the mission of DARE.
New Times contacted 10 cops who've worked with school districts, and their overall assessment of the meth problem among young kids was roughly the same.
Even in Pendergast's own backyard.
"We're certainly not drug-free, but it's still comparatively low-key in the lower grades," says Sergeant Tony Boynton, supervisor of the school resource officers in the Maryvale Precinct, which encompasses Pendergast's area.
"Typically it's kids experimenting. We've had some kids trying to get high on cough syrup, get a pseudoephedrine high. It's that attempt to find a high somewhere. I'm not saying that's not bad. It's just that it has remained over the years at a comparatively low level."
Even in the tough streets of the central precinct, says Sergeant Ted Music, a police officer who has worked in central and south Phoenix for 33 years.
"In those 33 years, it's pretty much been the same thing in the junior highs," Music says. "You always see a little bit of marijuana. But as far as the harder drugs like meth? No. Those drugs are still something you begin seeing at the high school level."
Even Westwind's principal Coria is careful not to let the February 2004 incident color his school as one with a major meth problem.
"Here, that was the only incident we dealt with," he says. "We never dealt with anything like that before or after. I think it was just a group of kids who had tried it, brought it to school, and we nailed 'em for it. But we haven't had an incident like that since."
Still, the Pendergast program's supporters argue that the early stages of meth addiction are only evident to a very keen eye, and that most teachers or school resource officers don't spend a lot of time looking for it.
"It's not something a lot of school officials see," Richards says. "It takes a concerted effort to be attentive enough to identify kids on meth. Because sometimes, when they're first starting on it, they're the best, most attentive kids in class."
Newberg, a well-liked teacher with a hip Serj Tankian beard and a high radar for cues that he says should tell any teacher when a kid is on meth -- "Do they have facial tics? Lick their lips a lot? Are they always scratching at 'crank bugs'?" -- says most schools simply choose not to look too hard at the problem.
Newberg even smells a cover-up.
"They don't want it to become a big deal," he says. "If you recognize it, then it's a problem you need to try and solve. If you don't recognize it, then your district's doing okay."
Newberg says he's visited other schools and is amazed how many red flags go unnoticed by those in charge.
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"These kids have blatant gang-related stuff on their folders. Blatant gang-related stuff on their shirts and hats. And they walk to class like this. Because the teachers and principals don't want to make the connection. They'll say, 'We don't have a drug problem. We don't have a gang problem.' I wanna just tell them, 'That shirt right there? That kid's claiming hard-core. And he's walking right by your security officers, he's walking right by you. You just don't know it.'"
Newberg admits the problem in the Maryvale area is a bit more evident, but he feels that's only made him and Perhamus more attuned to an epidemic he's certain will eventually spread to every elementary school in town.
"We're really tuned in to it," he says. "We do watch the trends, we do pay attention to the articles. We listen to what the kids say and how they tell us about what's going on. And I think that a lot of people don't. They don't recognize it.
"But any time you ignore something, you're just an ostrich. And if you're gonna hide your head and say, 'Oh, that's not us,' or 'It's not that bad,' you're just promoting the problem. You're helping it continue. And you're still gonna get eaten by that lion, whether or not you hide your head in the sand."


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IsolationNovember 05, 2009
You probably experience this on a regular basis: a client sends you an illustration or a logo they'd like to use in a project, but it's a low-res bitmap or a flat image file with a background texture. Or both, if you're really lucky. Sure, you can try and ask for a vector version, but more often than not what they originally sent was the best copy they had on hand.
I seem to have made something of a hobby out of trying to coax useful results out of this type of file. Over the years I've stumbled across far better ways of doing it than manually clipping the background with the the magic wand or various selection tools.
For the next time you're handed a less-than-ideal source image, here are a few of my tricks for isolating the part of the file I want to work with in Photoshop.
I'll use this Firefox promo image as an example. Yeah, I know I can find a vector version of this particular logo online, but it makes for a fairly good demo thanks to the complexity of the background.
Let's start with the text. A single, flat colour ends up being fairly easy to extract. The first step is using the Hue/Saturation sliders [Ctrl / Cmd + U] to drop the saturation all the way down to a value of -100:
Then trim away the surrounding pixels to focus on the area you want:
Next use the levels sliders [Ctrl / Cmd + L] to increase the contrast on either side so that the background is black and the text is white. The trick is doing it in a way that doesn't completely kill the anti-aliasing between the text and the background, while at the same time making sure the foreground/background colours are pure black and white. You don't want stray pixels on either side, otherwise nasty things will happen later on when you try using your results. If you just can't find a balance, use the brush tool to fill in the strays manually.
The best results come from images where the text is clearly a different shade than the background behind it. In this case it is, so I'm able to get a reasonably high-contrast result:
At this point you have two choices. If you don't need the ability to change the colour of the text or apply layer effects, you can stop now and set the layer's blending mode to Screen or invert it (Ctrl / Cmd + I) and set the mode to Multiply. With the either of those blend modes you should be able to place this high-contrast layer over top of a background and it'll be treated as isolated text. The key being placing it on top of non-transparent background; if there are no pixels beneath for the layer to blend with, you won't be able to save it out the same way it renders in Photoshop.
For that extra control you need to take it further. By holding down Ctrl / Cmd and clicking on the image's layer in the Layers palette you can select just the outline; copy that to the clipboard, open the Channels palette, create a new Channel, and then paste the clipboard into that channel. If you've done it right it should look something like this:
The same way you selected the outline of the image in the Layers palette, you can Ctrl / Cmd + click in the Channels palette and the selection will change to just the border between the background and foreground. If you switch back to the Layers palette and create a new Solid Color fill layer:
The text now sits on an isolated layer that allows you to easily change the colour, apply layer effects, etc.
The icon is more complicated. We've got a strong orange foreground, but the globe and the background share some tones so extracting is going to be trickier. This is a fairly common scenario in the wild, but the good news is that it's still doable in most cases.
Let's be a little more selective about what we're trying extract this time. Start by focusing on the orange fox for now, we'll come back for the globe. The Select > Color Range tool allows you to click an area and select all colours similar to that selection point, and the Fuzziness slider controls how loosely or tightly the selection matches that colour. Selecting the blue area instead of the orange produces a much higher-contrast outline of the orange area:
Once you hit okay you're left with marching ants. The selection isn't useful yet, so back to the Channels palette we go. Create a new alpha channel and fill the selection with white:
Now you can just pull up the Levels palette and, with the same high-contrast result in mind as the previous text example, adjust the levels until the fox is pure black and the background is as pure white as you can make it:
If you hit Ctrl / Cmd + click on the channel then head back to the Layers palette and select the original, you can click the Add Layer Mask button in the bottom of the palette and have the selection mask the image to just the orange areas we've managed to extract:
If you end up with too many fringe pixels from the background, you can hit Ctrl / Cmd + select the mask again, and use the Select > Modify > Contract tool to decrease the selection 1px on all sides. Invert this smaller selection with Ctrl / Cmd + Shift + I, then select and fill with black the layer mask to apply it. This will eat up a one pixel outline around the object, which should take care of the fringe without tossing out too much image data. Though it does depend on the size of the source image.
We now want to add the globe back in, so duplicate the layer and remove the mask to show the original image again. Manually trace the outline of the globe with the circular marquee tool, select the masked layer and fill that selection with white within the mask. And there we go, an isolated version of the Firefox icon that you can manipulate as you please:
Extraction this way seems like a lot of work, but once you get the hang of it you'll find it's fairly quick work to go from a source image to something usable.
For relatively simple jobs like the text, the process is straightforward and can be done in a couple of seconds. For more complicated extraction as in the case of the icon, creative alpha masking combined with a bit of manual tweaking will usually get the job done.
(And I don't have to remind you to always use this for good and never for evil, do I?)
Thanks for the great tips Dave.
I often find the Extract tool is useful for this stuff. This is no longer installed by default in CS4, but is an optional plugin.
It has the ability to extract foreground shapes from a background with the correct colour and alpha channel right to the edges. This solves the problem of coloured fringe pixels that you suggest cutting off by contracting the edges of the mask.
It can take some learning, but the Adobe docs do a pretty good job of explaining it: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/11.0/WSCAC4D084-6AB1-483a-B264-6336B4888649.html
The Extract tool is partially replaced by the Background Eraser tool in CS4, but I think the full plugin does a better job. However, it doesn't always work perfectly, so your alpha channel solution is sometimes better.
Good stuff. To me, the first step is to always run it through http://vectormagic.com and see how good/bad the output is. VectorMagic is a project originated at Stanford and it blows away every other raster-to-vector technology I've ever seen (especially what it built into Adobe products).
The Firefox logo is a tough customer because of the complexity – as you mention – but a lot of other logos come out of VectorMagic almost as if they were originals.
These are some useful tips, using channels to change isolated colors or backgrounds is a good way of getting clean results, but they all always at some point need to involve the marquee tool, in my opinion never use the magic wand tool its rubbish just get stuck in with the marquee zoom in nice and close that way you can be more hap hazard with your lines allowing to to get the job done faster.
Don't forget to check brandsoftheworld.com to see if a vector is there. I know it's not always but worth a check.
I often find myself using the pen tool for extracting a selection for this kind of work (aside from text/fonts.)
The background eraser tool says hello.
Often over-looked, but bloody effective with the correct settings.
if you're comfortable and quick with it, the pen tool is a great way to handle this as well. (especially if you're the 'do it manually' type)
Wow. If you had just written this 4 years ago, you could've saved me hours of wasted time removing extraneous background detail from logos and other image.
When I create my latest idea, Time Machine Bookmarks, I'll be sure to add this link for my previous self to look at in 2002.
Useful technique! So many times I've just been told to "use the logo from our old site because we don't have the original". I've always ended up either re-drawing it, or using the pen tool, will give this a go next time.
I'm very impressed about the technique you describe. I never understood how you can isolate perfectly a logo from a background (always a problem with a coloured background and a white background website).
Thanks, I will try this.
Can't remember how many times i had this specific problem. I'd always prefer struggling with photoshop instead of trying to talk the client into finding a better sample or using the pen tool to get something vectoral.
Anyway, i'll be using this technique and this time, i'll know what i'm doing :D Thanks!
if you're comfortable and quick with it, the pen tool is a great way to handle this as well. (especially if you're the 'do it manually' type


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QuickBuild 5.0 released - Continuous Integration and Deployment Server
QuickBuild 5.0 released - Continuous Integration and Deployment Server
Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.Join For Free
QuickBuild is a continuous integration and deployment server featuring build definition inheritance and overriding to easily handle large number of projects. In the latest 5.0 release, the following features and improvements are delivered:
- Launch build agent on demand in cloud environment including Amazon EC2.
- Build pipeline to visualize commits life cycle across different build and deployment stages.
- Optionally store artifacts of configuration sub tree to specified build agents to reduce server load.
- Grid and server metrics collecting and trending.
- Alert definition and notification for key performance indicators.
- Enhanced tray monitor and refined message window.
- Toggle node and step information in build log.
- Share dashboards with specified users besides groups.
- New dashboard gadgets to display build pipeline, grid performance measurements and system alerts.
For details, please visit http://www.pmease.com/features/whats-new/
Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.


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Unit Circle Labeled In 45° Increments With Values
Illustration of a unit circle (circle with a radius of 1) superimposed on the coordinate plane with the x- and y-axes indicated. At 45° increments, the angles are given in both radian and degree measure. At each angle, the coordinates are given. These coordinates can be used to find the six trigonometric values/ratios. The x-coordinate is the value of cosine at the given angle and the y-coordinate is the value of sine. From those ratios, the other 4 trigonometric values can be calculated.
45°, analytic geometry, circles, coordinate plane, cos, cosecant, cosine, cot, cotangent, csc, Degree, degrees, quadrantal angles, quadrants, radian, radians, radius of 1, ratio, sec, secant, sin, Sine, special angles, Tan, tangent, trig, trig ratios, trigonometric functions, trigonometry, unit circle
Florida Center for Instructional Technology Clipart ETC (Tampa: University of South Florida, 2007)


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Story highlights
- Romney iPhone app goes viral with misspelled "Amercia"
- The campaign app lets users take and share photos with pro-Romney slogans
- The typo has been the butt of jokes on social media
- UPDATE: Campaign issued an updated version of the app Wednesday that fixed problem
It's probably not the kind of thing voters will use to choose the leader of the free world.
But the Web was taking no shortage of presidential potshots Wednesday over Republican candidate Mitt Romney's new mobile app, which embarrassingly misspelled "America."
Yes, Internet. Welcome to AMERCIA.
"Sorry about the shaking California, that was just the rest of America laughing at Mitt Romney running for Pres. of #Amercia," wrote a person behind a parody President Obama account on Twitter (referencing a minor earthquake late Tuesday).
The gaffe, presumably by some poor developer hired by the campaign, appears on "With Mitt," the campaign's newly released iPhone app. The app invites users to photograph themselves with their choice of 14 pro-Romney slogans such as "I'm a Mom For Mitt," "Obama Isn't Working" and "The America We Love," and then share them on social media.
But one of the slogans reads, "A Better Amercia." Oops. Somebody didn't observe the "I-before-C" rule.
An update to the "With Mitt" app, with the typo corrected, became available at about 1 p.m. on Wednesday. No one with the campaign was speaking on the record about it, but staffers were downplaying its importance in the run-up to November. By Wednesday afternoon, the campaign also had paid for a "promoted tweet" that appears when a Twitter users searches for "Amercia."
Slips of the tongue by political candidates are, of course, not uncommon. In 2008, then-candidate Obama got grief for saying he'd visited "all 57 states." And Vice President Joe Biden's free-speaking nature has gotten him no shortage of headlines.
But the Web's politically minded (many of whom, presumably, don't consider Romney their top choice), were noting that when a mistake appears in writing, it shows a lack of attention to detail.
"If you're applying for a job, and you misspell the name of the company you want to work for, you won't get that job. #Amercia," wrote a Twitter user.
"#Amercia" was a trending topic (meaning it's one of the most discussed terms) on Twitter late Tuesday and again Wednesday morning.
The typo has already also inspired its own Tumblr blog, "Amercia Is With Mitt."
It features photos created with the app and, as of Wednesday morning, included a group of spelling bee champions, Beaker from "The Muppet Show" and Rich Uncle Moneybags, the Monopoly mascot, among its subjects.
And numerous images were popping up on Instagram -- one highlight being Bart Simpson having to write the correctly spelled "America" during his iconic chalkboard gag from the intro to "The Simpsons."
To be honest, the Romney camp is probably more pleased at winning enough delegates in the Texas primaries Tuesday to make him the unofficial GOP nominee than it is worried about a spelling gaffe.
And it's worth noting that lots of folks who support Romney probably only learned that the app exists because of talk about the typo.


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Hubble Snags One of the Farthest Exploding Stars
These three images taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveal the emergence of an exploding star, called a supernova.
Nicknamed SN Primo, the exploding star belongs to a special class called Type Ia supernovae, which are distance markers used for studying dark energy and the expansion rate of the universe. Type Ia supernovae most likely arise when white dwarf stars – the burned-out cores of normal stars – siphon too much material from their companion stars and explode.
The top image shows part of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, the region where astronomers were looking for a supernova blast. The white box pinpoints the area where the supernova is later seen. The image combines observations taken in visible and near-infrared light with the Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Wide Field Camera 3.
The image at bottom left, taken by the Wide Field Camera 3, is a close-up of the field without the supernova.
A new bright object, identified as the supernova, appears in the Wide Field Camera 3 image at bottom right.
The exploding star was discovered as part of a search for distant Type Ia supernovae called the CANDELS+CLASH Supernova Project.
The supernova team's search technique involved taking multiple near-infrared images over several months, looking for a supernova's faint glow. Once the team spotted the stellar blast in October 2010, they used WFC3's spectrometer to verify SN Primo's distance and to decode its light, finding the unique signature of a Type Ia supernova. The team then re- imaged SN Primo periodically for several months, measuring the slow dimming of its light.
NASA, ESA, A. Riess (Space Telescope Science Institute and The Johns Hopkins University), and S. Rodney (The Johns Hopkins University)


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In today's dynamically changing business environment, organizations have to be agile and quick in responding to market changes and internal factors to minimize losses and leverage opportunities. Demand Planning Software is essential to gauge customer demand and market changes in real time and pass on the information to the supply chain. It creates the perfect balance between market demand and supply. However, these are not the only benefits that a demand planning software offers. It has many other benefits and some of them are listed here.
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Their cloud platform mPower supports various aspects of businesses such as demand planning, retail planning, business integration management, supply chain planning, etc. The platform's design allows business to do smart resource management and make intelligent business decisions.


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5/28/07 - Some final pictures from today. We raffled off the list to about 300 people at two drawings. People were very excited to get your work. Smartypants even had someone offer to buy one of his figures!!! /img]
Great work everyone. Although I did not participate, I have enjoyed watching all of this come together and glad for all of you that it was such a big hit.
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text: I'm in Cheshire. Listening to Radio 4 this morning I heard the name Robert Service. That's the name I could not remember of a poetry book I read in a B & B whilst working in Bolton in the mid -sixties. So I used Google to look up the name with that bit about 'half a yard of toilet seat'. It came up with 'Kintyre Forum' amongst others. Wow! I like poetry and have several on Lancashire dialect - being very close to Lancashire there is /was quite an influence in our dialect/accent. It's not easy to read if you don't have in inkling of what words mean; there are many strange ones. Even my locally-born father corrupted words (I think- at least I blame him) He used to say 'neest' instead of nest and 'rot' instead of rat. My granddad called a horse a 'tit' who, born in Lancs , is understandable, but it sounded strange to me if not somewhat rather risqué.


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Distance from Elbert, WV to Uvalde, TX
Driving distance between Elbert, WV and Uvalde, TX is 1,411.20 miles (or 2,271.10 kilometers). If you drove an average car (using about 3.6 gallons of gas per mile), the gas would cost you around $, since you would need about gallons of fuel.
Leaving from Elbert, WV you would reach Uvalde, TX in about 22 hours 11 mins if you keep an average speed of miles per hour, assuming you don't make any breaks or get stuck in traffic.


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Narration Transcript:
Located nearly 500 million miles away, the planet Jupiter is best known for its Great Red Spot.
The spot is really a huge storm… big enough to swallow Earth.
This series of Hubble Space Telescope photos spanning nearly two decades shows the Great Red Spot shrinking to the smallest size ever measured by astronomers.
Scientists do not know why this legendary storm is changing.
NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon and M. Estacion (STScI);
Acknowledgment: C. Go, H. Hammel (Space Science Institute and AURA), and R. Beebe (New Mexico State University);
Science: A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), G. Orton (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), J. Rogers (University of Cambridge, UK), and M. Wong and I. de Pater (University of California, Berkeley)
Publication: May 15, 2014


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Intel has released of its Intel Graphics Performance Analyzers (GPA), a suite of software tools created in support of the a Visual Adrenaline developer program. GPA enables PC game developers to analyze and optimize game performance on Intel Integrated Graphics. The Visual Adrenaline program provides tools, resources and information for game developers, artists and animators.
GPA consists of three components: System Analyzer, Frame Analyzer and the Software Development Kit (SDK). System Analyzer delivers high-level views of overall software performance, Frame Analyzer offers in-depth frame-by-frame performance analysis and the SDK enables developers to customize the suite according to their needs. Developers have the choice to run the tools locally or remotely through a network connection.
"Game developers need simple, yet powerful tools which enable them to create games that look real, act real and feel real," said Elliot Garbus, vice president and general manager of Intel's Visual Computing Software Division. "The Intel Graphics Performance Analyzers suite is the only software development toolkit that provides a holistic view of system performance for games running on Intel Integrated Graphics. Solving performance bottlenecks with GPA ensures developers are delivering the best gaming experience."
GPA offers the ability to analyze graphics performance on current Intel integrated graphics chipsets and processors, including the Intel Core i7 Processor. In the future, GPA will also support upcoming Intel graphics and many-core related products. GPA is available free of charge to Visual Adrenaline members and can be purchased by non-members for $299 through the Intel Business Exchange.
For more information on the GPA, see this interview with Dave Shinsel and Aaron Davies of Intel's Visual Computing Software Division.


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The Best Dallas Hotel Brunches
Though most hotel restaurants serve breakfast—making them ineligible for our best brunch list—it would be a crime not to salute these deliciously inventive establishments, our favorites in Dallas.
Brunch served Saturday and Sunday
Craft Dallas, the W Hotel's elegant diner, follows the same artisanal approach at weekend brunch that it observes at every other meal, with an emphasis on local, seasonal ingredients. The menu runs along classic lines, but attention to detail keeps it from feeling humdrum. Buttermilk pancakes are made from scratch in-house, and the maple syrup is the real deal from Vermont. Eggs Benedict features blue crab and an egg that's perfectly poached. Omelet fillings include wild mushrooms—no mere button—and only the greenest spears of asparagus. There are a few wild cards, such as an extra-juicy short rib and shishito pepper hash with diced potatoes, or a cheeseburger topped with an over-easy egg. The cinnamon roll and other pastries are made on-site. Pair one with a side of white cheddar grits or, better yet, a bowl of granola or steel-cut oats with raisins and dried fruit. For those seeking a huge spread, portions might seem model-size, while prices are not. But the service is sublime, and, besides, it's the W. What do you expect?
Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek
Brunch served Saturday and Sunday
Even at brunch, the Mansion is the ultimate in refined dining, with white tablecloths, doting service, and things done just so. Forget the tacky buffet—this is a tasting menu, $49 a person. The menu is carefully curated, with new items from chef Bruno Davaillon folded in with Mansion "musts." There must be tortilla soup. There must be granola parfait, layered with yogurt and berries. Then it's on to Davaillon's twists on classic Franco cooking. Soups rotate. Right now, it's celery root bisque with soft chunks of lobster. There's a crab cake Benedict with wilted spinach, poached egg, and hollandaise sauce. Biscuits and gravy are a standout, with two eggs, spicy jalapeño sausage and shredded hash browns. Don't forget dessert, an ever-changing menu that runs from piémont with dark chocolate mousse to vanilla panna cotta with coconut meringue and exotic sorbet.
Brunch served Sunday only
Ritz-Carlton Dallas may have a glamorous veneer, but the Sunday brunch at Fearing's has a surprisingly down-home vibe. The menu seems virtually torn from chef Dean Fearing's family album; just about every item has a personal angle. Carmella's Truck Stop Beef Enchiladas—a funky casserole with tortillas, beef, chili gravy, and a topper of fried eggs—was inspired by Fearing's assistant, Carmella Henson. Cos' Chili is the dish Fearing devised for Bill Cosby 18 years ago. It's served on jalapeño cheddar cheese biscuits, poached egg, and poblano hollandaise sauce. You don't have to guess the source of Granny Fearing's "paper bag shook" fried chicken, with green beans cooked all day like his grandmother made them in eastern Kentucky, served with whipped potatoes and smoky tomato gravy. The ethereal Jaxson and Campbell Style Pancakes are named for Fearing's two sons. Of all the major brunch spots in town, Fearing's makes the most thoughtful effort toward vegetarians with a stand-alone vegetarian brunch menu that includes a vegetable "kibbeh" crusted in chopped pistachio with rice and tomato-ginger chutney, and a nifty vegetarian sampler with spinach enchilada, butternut squash taquito, and avocado fries. The signature Bloody Mary is a unique spin—a little bit spicy, with baby tortilla strips, fresh jalapeño, and a smattering of micro-cilantro sprouts.
Brunch served Saturday and Sunday
In the brunch world, Dragonfly at Hotel ZaZa has become better known for its monthly brunch party called Sunday School, held every third Sunday. There, brunch is accompanied by line dancing, sparklers, and people dressed in panda costumes. But the hotel does have a more conventional brunch every Saturday and Sunday, with a spread that combines "hotel classic" with ZaZa's hipster persona. There is the quintessential house-made granola, a basket of muffins and breads, and buttermilk flapjacks with Vermont maple syrup. But at no ordinary hotel would you find Pigs in a Snuggie—chicken-apple sausage links dipped in pancake batter and deep fried. Or chicken-fried lobster Benedict, with lobster chunks battered and fried, then placed on a potato cake with spinach and hollandaise. Dragonfly is surely the only place serving a pepperoni pizza omelet with San Marzano tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese. If the cliche is true that brunches exist to cure a hangover, then Dragonfly's will punch your hangover in the face. Its coffee vodka espresso liqueur with St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram and milk makes for one fearsome hair of the dog.
Brunch served Saturday and Sunday
Located at the historic Belmont Hotel—a renovated 1940s motor court that oozes cool cat charm—this is easily the hippest brunch in Dallas. Chef/co-owner Tim Byres serves artisanal smokehouse-style fare putting a hearty meaty spin on brunch classics. House-smoked ham, a farm egg fritter, sweet corn griddlecakes, and Dr Pepper redeye gravy elevate standard ham and eggs to down-home haute cuisine status. Thick, cakelike ricotta pancakes are studded with a heavy dose of blueberries and topped with vanilla poached apricots and whipped cream. Smoked brisket cornbread hash is served with green chile rajas, pearl onions, and a poached egg. You get the picture: meat, and lots of it. That's a good thing because Byres smokes all of his breakfast meats in-house, including thick-cut pork belly bacon that is knife-and-fork indulgent. Southern touches fill the menu—sorghum molasses, collard greens, and homemade jams and jellies—and the restaurant has an easy-going Austin vibe that draws both families and hipsters on the weekends.


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Lompoc Valley Medical Center participates in a nationwide program that surveys patients about their experiences at LVMC. In September, 2011 LVMC was recognized for out efforts in improving patient care.
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|The children arriving at Disha with their school teachers
We've talked about travel and some of the amazing gardens we saw on our Rajasthan trip, while researching plants for the garden at Disha, but we haven't yet shared details of one of our Health Camps, which we all helped to run. Health Camps are a vitally important way of spreading news to the villagers in Rajasthan and while we were in India, we ran a special Children's Health Camp, where students from two of the local village schools came to Disha Hospital for a general medical check-up.
|Dr Deepak Babel carrying out a medical check
Some 120 children from two schools within walking distance of Disha came and spent several hours with their teachers and a team of local helpers, plus the four English visitors (Paul and Pauline McBride, Chris Walker and Charlotte, who founded the Raven Charitable Trust). Dr Deepak Babel conducted the health camp, with assistance from Mr Subhash Goyal, Ms Pooja Bajaj, Mr Hetal Amin, and many other local helpers. The children were weighed, measured and had a 10-point medical check up.
|Charlotte with some of the younger children
With more than 100 students, ranging in age from three to 12, we organised a full activity programme for them while they were waiting to see the doctor, including drawing, singing and a traditional Rajasthani puppet show, with a health theme. All volunteers turned their skills to entertaining the children and we also provided a healthy lunch for them.
|Pauline (left) and Deepak serving the food for the children
Everybody joined in to help and for once the Indian caste system was left behind. Paul, Pauline, Chris and Charlotte organised the drawing competitions, where the children were asked to draw their homes and families. In the next entry, we will be featuring some of the artwork they produced and asking you to help us choose the winners.
|Chris Walker, helping with shoes after the medical check
Chris had to turn his hand to shoe-putting-on-skills as the children finished their medical checks, and Deepak and Pauline got busy serving the lunch (above). But all in all the day was hugely successful and both children and adults thoroughly enjoyed themselves. When the children left, they were all given soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste.
|One of the groups of school children at Disha
When a project like Disha starts, it is vitally important to let the villagers know that there is a hospital nearby where they will receive free treatment, so Health Camps need to be run on a regular basis and aimed at all sectors of the community to encourage the villagers to visit the hospital for the first time. Once they know it is there, they will return when they need medical help.


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Quick question: There are Orthodox groups there as well. Have they been denied anything? Has the Latin church lashed out at our efforts to help the poor and to build orphanages?I haven't heard of that yet, although I'm sure someone would let us know.
"Freedom of Religion" is an American principle, not an universal one.
So are you arguing that we shouldn't have it because it's American, or are you saying that this American principle, while a very good one, is unfortunately not recognized in many cultures?
Don't you Orthodox go accusing the Catholic Church for being unfair towards religious minorities. I am a Roman Catholicin Greece and I know what it is to be treated unfairly by the Orthodox church, the state, the school and the Orthodox parishes sorrounding our Catholic parish. I attend a greek high school and I know how it feels to be beaten up unless you say stuff like "Long live the Ecumenical Patriarch" and be accused for the sack of Istanbul by the Turks. So, kindly I say:BUGGER OFF!
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Patrick would bolster pharmacy oversight
More inspectors would be hired to scour compounding pharmacies following the outbreak of fungal meningitis blamed on a Framingham drug business, under the budget Governor Deval Patrick proposed Wednesday. And the state would resume coverage of full dental care for low-income adults next January, lifting the current prohibition on paying for fillings in back teeth.
Hospitals, which have balked at years of state spending cuts, would receive nearly $30 million more, or roughly a 5 percent rate increase, for their care of low-income patients, and $34 million would be used for implementing health care cost-control legislation passed last year.
With December's Connecticut school massacre still fresh in mind, Patrick's budget also includes a $23 million boost for mental health services, roughly a 3.3 percent increase, to improve juvenile justice-related community health programs and psychiatric services in hospital emergency rooms, said John Polanowicz, who was sworn in this week as health and human services secretary, replacing Dr. JudyAnn Bigby.
"We know that mental illness is a disease that can be treated," Polanowicz said, "and we need to work collaboratively with communities to reduce stigma and increase programs at the community level."
Polanowicz inherits a Department of Public Health that has come under scrutiny after back-to-back scandals, including the national fungal meningitis outbreak linked to tainted drugs produced at New England Compounding Center.
The state agency oversees the regulation of such pharmacies.
The new money includes $1 million specifically for the department to hire more people to conduct surprise inspections at compounding pharmacies, which prepare medications in formulations and doses unavailable off the shelf.
An additional $2.7 million would be used to hire about 31 staff members for other public health efforts, such as examining food safety in restaurants and clearing a backlog of required hospital inspections.
The Massachusetts Hospital Association released a statement saying it is pleased with Patrick's budget, particularly the boost in reimbursement rates for hospitals treating low-income patients.
"While it doesn't solve the state's underpayment for Medicaid patients, it is an important recognition of the challenges that hospitals face," said the statement from Lynn Nicholas, the association's chief executive.
MassHealth dental coverage for low-income adults had been cut in 2010 during the recession and was partially restored last year. Patrick proposes to resume full coverage at the start of 2014 using money available under the federal health care law.
Patrick's budget includes more funding for the Hinton State Laboratory Institute in Jamaica Plain, though the facility's budget overall would decrease roughly $225,000 to $12.5 million, because of a drop in federal grants.
Until last summer, Hinton was home to the state drug lab, where chemist Annie Dookhan is accused of having tampered with samples, throwing into question thousands of drug convictions.
Oversight of the drug lab was transferred in July to the State Police.
The Hinton labs continue to test for infectious diseases, as well as mosquito-borne illnesses, rabies, and food safety.
No additional funding was provided for home care services for more than 1,000 senior citizens on a state waiting list, prompting immediate reaction from the AARP, a nonprofit that advocates on issues facing people over 50.
"The time to end home care waiting lists is now," state director Michael Festa said in a press release. "The vast majority of seniors want to stay in their own homes and communities as they age."
Chelsea Conaboy of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Kay Lazar can be reached at email@example.com. Follow her on Twitter @GlobeKayLazar.


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This big box adds something to any number that goes into it. If you know the numbers that come out, what addition might be going on in the box?
Shapes are added to other shapes. Can you see what is happening? What is the rule?
Here's a very elementary code that requires young children to read a table, and look for similarities and differences.
A case is found with a combination lock. There is one clue about the number needed to open the case. Can you find the number and open the case?
Letters have different values in Scrabble - how are they decided upon? And would the values be the same for other languages?
Can you follow the rule to decode the messages?
Find the frequency distribution for ordinary English, and use it to help you crack the code.
Time for a little mathemagic! Choose any five cards from a pack and show four of them to your partner. How can they work out the fifth?
Can you work out what size grid you need to read our secret message?
Here is the start of a six-part challenge. Can you get to the end and crack the final message?
Substitution and Transposition all in one! How fiendish can these codes get?
How can Agent X transmit data on a faulty line and be sure that her message will get through?
In 'Secret Transmissions', Agent X could send four-digit codes error free. Can you devise an error-correcting system for codes with more than four digits?
Is the regularity shown in this encoded message noise or structure?
Can you crack these very difficult challenge ciphers? How might you systematise the cracking of unknown ciphers?
There were lots of good ideas sent in for this challenge. Everyone had good reasons for their choice as to who won each race.
We had the most blogs yet for this task, many from Brynmill School in Swansea. These and others can be viewed at our Infinities blog. Randley School in England also sent in a number of observations from their children, Olivia, Anna, Jamie and Harvi.
This was a very popular problem and we received many useful suggestions on how to tackle it. Thank you all.
Reading through and understanding the solution to this very difficult challenge will be of value to the mathematical enthusiast!
This article describes the underlying mathematical ideas and skills involved in the important mathematical application of coding.
The Enigma Project's James Grime has created a video code challenge. Watch it here!
Simon Singh describes PKC, its origins, and why the science of code making and breaking is such a secret occupation.
Dr James Grime takes an Enigma machine in to schools. Here he describes how the code-breaking work of Turing and his contemporaries helped to win the war.
Our toolkit removes the drudgery of codebreaking while leaving you to do the hard thinking!


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|Texas! The Exhibition by photine on Flickr
There are some amazing photographers that wander the halls of HMNS – as well as the areas surrounding the Museum in Hermann Park. When we're lucky, they share what they capture in our HMNS Flickr pool. Each month, we highlight one of these photos here on the blog.
This month, we're featuring a photo from Laurie Ballesteros, known as photine on Flickr, who is a regular attendee of the Museum's Flickr meetups. This photo is from the meetup we held in our current Texas! The Exhibition which features hundreds of fascinating artifacts from Texas' long and rich history – from the first people who set foot in the state through the Spindletop era.
I loved this photo because it features an artifact that highlights an aspect of a very famous Texan's character that we tend to forget. But I'll let Laurie tell it:
My favorite part of Texas history is the Texas Revolution. The characters, stories and battles are bigger than life and I have traveled to several of the battle sites around the states to walk in their footsteps.
I was especially interested in this part of the Texas! exhibit and took my time looking at all the artifacts. As a musician I could not pass up Davy Crockett's fiddle. It is obviously well used and I love to imagine the tunes floating up from this instrument in the hands of a Texas legend.
You can see more of Laurie's lovely photos of the Texas exhibition on her blog. Many thanks to Laurie for allowing us to share her image here!
Inspired? Most of the Museum's permanent galleries are open for photography, and we'd love for you to share your shots with us on Flickr, Facebook or Twitter. Check out the HMNS photo policy for guidelines.
Texas! The Exhibition is a temporary exhibit, and photography is restricted outside of special Flickr meetup opportunities. Follow our posts in the HMNS Flickr pool for announcements about upcoming events.


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Beautiful Christmas Table Settings
Pair serving pieces with Christmas table settings to create a beautiful background for your holiday meal.
Every little detail in your Christmas decor is important during the holiday season, from the Nativity Scene on the lawn to the details in your wonderfully decorated Christmas table setting. Take your guests' breath away with a beautiful Christmas table setting that complements your delicious Christmas menu. Incorporate sleek gold touches to give your Christmas table a modern look, or dress it up in the classic red and green accents of the season for a more festive look. Make it kid-friendly, or use heirloom Christmas china and include a few updated touches. Don't overlook these important details this season – each and every detail will make a world of difference. No matter what style you choose for your Christmas table setting, we're sure a beautiful table within a home filled with holiday decor and seasonal ambiance will bring you undeniable holiday cheer.