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Mustang Engine Brackets & Pulleys 1964-2017
The engine in your Mustang doesn't just provide power to turn the wheels. Through a series of belts and Mustang Engine Brackets & Pulleys, the engine is also providing power to many other systems within your Mustang. While the pulleys connecting these systems are pretty reliable, occasionally they will need replaced, or you'll want to resize them to maximize power. With CJ Pony Parts, you can do both, so find the engine pulleys on your list and order today.
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Engine Brackets & PulleysIn their simplest forms, Mustang engine brackets & pulleys work by taking the power generated by the engine and transferring it to the Mustang crankshaft, which in turn causes the crankshaft pulley to rotate, which moves a belt or series of belts, which turns other Mustang engine pulleys that power the various accessories in your Mustang. The series of Mustang engine pulleys begins with the crankshaft pulley. It's this Mustang engine pulley that is attached to all the other pulleys, either by the serpentine belt or several V-belts that each go out to various accessories. The power from the crankshaft pulley turns the Mustang belts, which turns these other Mustang engine pulleys, which are connected to accessories like the air conditioner, power steering pump, water pump or Mustang alternator.
While Mustang engine brackets & pulleys rarely have to be replaced if they're operating under normal conditions, Mustang engine brackets & pulleys can break if your Mustang is in an accident, though that's really about the only way Mustang engine brackets & pulleys can have major issues. However, many owners will opt to replace Mustang engine brackets & pulleys on their own in order to underdrive the pulley system. Mustang engine brackets & pulleys come in a wide variety of sizes so, while the factory pulley might've been one size, if you put on a slightly larger or smaller size, you're going to be changing the RPMs of that particular pulley, which will affect the amount of power getting to the accessory. In many cases, the factory systems are overpowered, which means you can change the Mustang engine brackets & pulleys to slow them down (underdrive), which frees up more horsepower to get to the wheels. If you're looking to make this change on your Mustang, order your new Mustang engine brackets & pulleys today from CJ Pony Parts.


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LONDON (AP) Juan Martin del Potro is hoping to turn tennis' Big Four into a quintet in 2013.
The big-hitting Argentine's season ended Sunday when he wasted a one-set lead against Novak Djokovic to lose 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in the semifinals of the ATP finals. But his strong end to the year has made Del Potro confident he can once again challenge the sport's biggest names for Grand Slam titles next season - like when he won the 2009 U.S. Open before a serious wrist injury caused a lengthy layoff.
Since then, Djokovic and Andy Murray have joined Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in dominating the sport - and those four have shared every Grand Slam title since Del Potro's victory at Flushing Meadows.
Judging by his recent form, the Argentine may be ready to break into that group again.
``I'm getting closer every day,'' Del Potro said. ``Maybe that could be my big challenge for next year, my big goal, trying to fight (for all the Grand Slams) with this group. You know, they are winning all the Grand Slams - Novak, Federer, Rafa and now Murray. I would like to be part of those names in the Grand Slams.''
Many thought he would permanently be part of that group after beating Federer in the U.S. Open three years ago. But he missed most of the next season because of wrist surgery, and has struggled to re-establish himself at the top since. He wasted a two-set lead against Federer in the French Open quarterfinals this year, and then lost to the Swiss star again in an epic Olympic semifinal that ended 19-17 in the third set.
But he rebounded to beat Djokovic in the bronze-medal match and then defeated Federer in the final of his hometown tournament in Basel last month. He beat Federer again here in London on Saturday to clinch a spot in the semifinals, becoming the first player in 10 years to defeat the Swiss great in back-to-back indoor events.
And his booming forehand had Djokovic in trouble, too, before the top-ranked Serb found his stride in the second set. Djokovic, for one, has no doubts that Del Potro will be back to fight for more major titles.
``He's definitely one of those players behind the big four that can challenge for winning a Grand Slam,'' Djokovic said. ``Next to him it's obviously (David) Ferrer that had a fantastic year, the best year of his career. So there are players, and he's probably one of them.''
While Del Potro couldn't end the year with another title, his latest results bode well for next year.
``These kinds of matches give me illusions (dreams) for the next season,'' Del Potro said. ``I beat Roger yesterday. I was close to beat Nole (Djokovic) today. ... I think I'm playing good. I don't know if I play better or not than 2009. But being (in) the semifinals in this tournament is so big for me. It's still Federer, Djokovic, Murray and me. Was the same four players (in) the Olympics and in the U.S. Open.''
Nadal missed those events, and the ATP finals, with a knee injury but is hoping to be fully recovered by the start of next year. Del Potro is also looking forward to some rest after another grueling season.
He said he wasn't planning on even watching Monday's final in London, or any other tennis over the next few weeks for that matter.
``I will be watching soccer,'' he said.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Windows - CD/DVD Tools
DAEMON Tools Lite 4 12 3
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Name:DAEMON Tools Lite 4 12 3
Infohash: 323B4BE68F78789E9B5E7ED5035885B0B115EBE0
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Daemon Tools Lite.rar (Size: 3.60 MB) (Files: 1)
Daemon Tools Lite.rar3.60 MB
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DAEMON Tools Lite 4.12.3
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text:
Throughout the reign of Adolf Hitler, Berlin warped the physics of Europe. It was at the center of the continent geographically but utterly isolated morally. With the exception of a few near-sighted ideologues such as Charles Lindbergh, hardly anyone regarded Germany as anything but a threat to human values and, ultimately, to humanity itself.
Then, from the Berlin airlift of 1948-1949 to the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and all the way to the collapse of the wall in 1989, East Berlin was isolated both geographically and morally. It sat behind a concrete barrier designed to keep its citizens fleeing from a country, East Germany, that was little more than a police state stuffed with swimmers, rowers, gymnasts and spymasters —and nauseating coffee made with repellent fillers like chicory and sugar beets.
Today Berlin is a bustling city of commerce, parliamentary government, even tourism. A visitor is drawn not only to the beer gardens and the marvelous food court on the sixth floor of the city's trademark department store, KaDeWe, but also to the macabre sites of Nazi tyranny and communist despotism.
Indeed, right across the street from the Brandenburg Gate is an explanation for tourists of the Berlin Wall. The account is in German, English, French — and Russian. It explains how the city was carved into four zones after World War II and how, a decade and a half later, the great barrier went up.
This was one case where good fences did not make good neighbors, and it is hard to repress the thought that the presence of a Russian-language narrative on the tourist kiosk is anything but a rebuke, a not-so-subtle reminder of the Soviet role in dividing the city with a concrete partition.
Today Berlin is no longer isolated, though the memories from World War II and the Cold War remain searing. But Berlin still stands as a symbol of how ancient capitals of great nations can become isolated.
The obvious modern analogue is Moscow, today morally isolated from nations on every continent.
The rest of the world rooted for Russia when communism fell, hoping it might become part of the commerce of nations, and not only in the financial sense. Green shoots of democracy were visible, and early signs of productive capitalism were evident. Today, of course, we know that the democracy was ephemeral and the capitalism was held hostage by a crude cartel of oil oligarchs and business gangsters.
All that was before the separation of Crimea from Ukraine, the testing of a cruise missile in violation of an important arms-control treaty and the downing of a Malaysian plane crammed full of tourists whose hand luggage of toys and toothpaste underlined the savagery of the rocket attack that dropped it from the sky. Russia has become an international pariah — a phrase used by the Financial Times, which added, frightfully, that "a dark new era in East-West relations will begin."
Berlin offers lessons from four of the most tragic episodes of the 20th century: the German blank check to Austria-Hungary after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914, theascension of Hitler in 1933, the Berlin airlift in 1948 and the Wall in 1961.
Now we are deep into one of the signature episodes of the 21st century.
It occurs as Germany is asking whether Hitler's "Mein Kampf" should be allowed back into print; its copyright is held by the state of Bavaria and expires in 17 months. I'm inclined to argue that the book — though hateful, though repugnant, though impenetrable — should be available in print, and my argument is rooted in both of the tragedies for which Berlin stands as a symbol: Nazism and Soviet communism.
Both ideologies stood firmly against the principal value of the Enlightenment — the free flow of information and the freedom to examine the assumptions upon which every culture and every country is founded. Both Nazi and Soviet regimes banned or burned books, but the ash heap that matters to us all today is the one upon which Nazism and Soviet communism now rest.
In famous commencement remarks in 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower railed against the barriers to free thought that communism represented in the Cold War. "Don't join the book burners," he said. "Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship."
Today, a visitor to Berlin walking along the streets where books once burned inevitably thinks, too, about the journey, more than five decades ago, of Mr. Eisenhower's successor, another veteran of World War II, to the divided city. John F. Kennedy's speech on that occasion is remembered for the "Ich bin ein Berliner" flourish that so ruffled the Soviet bloc. And yet the paragraph that follows is perhaps more searing:
"There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the communists. Let them come to Berlin."
The Kennedy speech, and indeed his entire visit, required real physical and moral courage, far more so than that of presidential candidate Barack Obama, who undertook a risk-free trip to the city in 2008. One was a challenge to Nikita Khrushchev, the other to challenge John McCain.
Today, Vladimir V. Putin stands in a position not so different from that of Mr. Khrushchev, in opposition to all the Enlightenment values cherished in the West. Time magazine suggested the world may be sliding into Cold War II. Perhaps it is.
So perhaps this is the time Mr. Obama truly is needed in Berlin. Perhaps this is the time for an American president to stand before the Brandenburg Gate, or to walk along Wilhelmstrasse and pass the very building at No. 64 that once was occupied by Rudolf Hess, Martin Bormann and Joachim von Ribbentrop, and to throw a challenge to a Russian tyrant and what Oxford historian Timothy Garton Ash calls the "ideologies of resentment." Indeed, as the 35th president might say across more than a half-century to the 44th: Let him come to Berlin.
Comment by clicking here.
David Shribman, a Pulitzer Prize winner in journalism, is executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.


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|Connor, Erin
|Hutchison, Jana - Edwards
|Norman, H
|Olson, Katie - NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF ANIMAL BREEDERS
|Van Tassell, Curtis - Curt
|Leith, Jonathan
|Baldwin, Ransom - Randy
Submitted to: Journal of Animal Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/12/2013
Publication Date: 8/1/2013
Publication URL: http://handle.nal.usda.gov/10113/57165
Citation: Connor, E.E., Hutchison, J.L., Norman, H.D., Olson, K.M., Van Tassell, C.P., Leith, J.M., Baldwin, R.L. 2013. Use of residual feed intake in Holsteins during early lactation shows potential to improve feed efficiency through genetic selection. Journal of Animal Science. 91:3978-3988.
Interpretive Summary: Rising feed costs, as well as public concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient losses to the environment associated with agricultural animal production, have renewed interest in identifying the most efficient dairy cattle in feed conversion to milk output. Use of a measure of feed efficiency in beef cattle, called residual feed intake or RFI, to identify and select the most efficient animals at conversion of feed into gain has shown great promise in reducing feed costs by 10 to 12%, greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 30%, and nutrient losses in manure by 15 to 17%. In the present work, RFI was estimated for dairy cattle and its heritability shown to be moderate. In addition, results indicated that high efficiency was associated with less time feeding per day and slower feeding rate, which may contribute to differences in RFI among cows. The heritability and repeatability of RFI in lactating dairy cattle suggest an opportunity to improve feed efficiency through genetic selection, which could reduce feed costs, manure output, and greenhouse gas emissions associated with dairy production.
Technical Abstract: Improved feed efficiency is a primary goal in dairy production to reduce feed costs and negative impacts of production on the environment. Estimates for efficiency of feed conversion to milk production based on residual feed intake (RFI) in dairy cattle are limited, primarily due to a lack of individual feed intake measurements for lactating cows. Feed intake was measured in Holstein cows during the first 90 d of lactation to estimate the heritability and repeatability of RFI, minimum test duration for evaluating RFI in early lactation, and its association with other production traits. Data were obtained from 453 lactations (214 heifers and 239 multiparous cows) from 292 individual cows from September 2007 to December 2011. Cows were housed in a free-stall barn and monitored for individual daily feed consumption using the GrowSafe 4000 System (GrowSafe Systems, Ltd., Airdrie, AB, Canada). Animals were fed a total mixed ration 3 times daily, milked twice daily, and weighed every 10 to 14 d. Milk yield was measured at each milking. Feed DM percentage was measured daily and nutrient composition was analyzed from a weekly composite. Milk composition was analyzed weekly, alternating between morning and evening milking periods. Estimates of RFI were determined as the difference between actual energy intake and predicted intake based on a linear model with fixed effects of parity (1, 2, = 3) and regressions on metabolic BW, ADG, and energy-corrected milk yield. Heritability was estimated to be moderate (0.36 ± 0.06), and repeatability was estimated at 0.56 across lactations. A test period through 53 days in milk (DIM) explained 81% of the variation provided by a test through 90 DIM. Multiple regression analysis indicated that high efficiency was associated with less time feeding per day and slower feeding rate, which may contribute to differences in RFI among cows. The heritability and repeatability of RFI suggest an opportunity to improve feed efficiency through genetic selection, which could reduce feed costs, manure output, and greenhouse gas emissions associated with dairy production.


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Mythic Legions: Freyja of Deadhall! This is an exclusive Mythic Legions: Advent of Decay Test Shot. These highly articulated, 6" scale action figures are produced in very small quantities. These figures come in poly bags with all accessories shown.
Orders for test shots CANNOT be combined with the current Mythic Legions: Soul Spiller Pre-Order. Any orders containing both In-Stock Test Shots and Pre-Order items will be immediately CANCELLED without notice.
Please be aware that these are pre-production figures and may contain various flaws.


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Drury Lane Theatre's SUNSET BOULEVARD Continues Through 3/24
Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, presents Andrew Lloyd Webber's triumphant Broadway musical SUNSET BOULEVARD, opening Friday, February 1 at 8:30 p.m., and running through March 24. The all-star cast is led by Christine Sherrill as "Norma Desmond" (National Tour of Mamma Mia!, Legally Blonde at Marriott Theatre and Xanadu and Curtains at Drury Lane Theatre) and Will Ray as "Joe Gillis" (National Tour of Little House on the Prairie, the new musical Allegiance at The Old Globe Theater, and Irish Repertory's Meet Me In St. Louis). SUNSET BOULEVARD is directed by William Osetek (Drury Lane Theatre's smash hit production of Spamalot and Jeff Award nominee for Best Director and Best Production for Thoroughly Modern Millie.)
SUNSET BOULEVARD, based on Billy Wilder's 1950 film, weaves a magnificent tale of faded glory and unfulfilled ambition. Silent movie star Norma Desmond longs for a return to her glamorous heyday on the big screen, having been discarded by Tinseltown with the advent of "talkies." When Norma meets struggling Hollywood screen-writer Joe Gillis, their subsequent passionate and volatile relationship leads to an unforeseen and tragic conclusion.
SUNSET BOULEVARD also features Don Richard as "Max" (the National Tours of Sunset Boulevard and Wicked); Jonathan Weir as "Demille" (Candide and A Christmas Carol at The Goodman Theatre); Dara Cameron as "Betty Schaeffer" (Hero at Marriott Theatre); Adrian Aguilar as "Artie" (Follies at Chicago Shakespeare); and David Kortemeier as "Hog Eye" (Gypsy and Spamalot at Drury Lane Theatre). The ensemble includes Larry Adams, William Carlos Angulo, Amy Brophy, Gary Carlson, Devin DeSantis, Ariane Dolan, Cory Goodrich, Rachel Klippel, Andrew Lupp, Alex McCrary, Alex Newkirk, Amy Orman, Sarah Page, Paula Scrofano, Jill Sesso, and Will Skrip.
Jeff Award winner Roberta Duchak (Xanadu, The Sound of Music, Sweeney Todd, Ragtime, and Spamalot at Drury Lane Theatre) serves as Musical Director of SUNSET BOULEVARD, and choreography is by Jeff Award winner Tammy Mader (Hairspray at Drury Lane Theatre). The set design by Scott Davis (Beauty and the Beast at Chicago Shakespeare Theater) transports audiences to 1940s Hollywood. Lighting design is by Rita Pietraszek (The 39 Steps at Drury Lane Theatre). Sound Design is by Jeff Award winner Ray Nardelli (Follies at Chicago Shakespeare Theater). Costume design is by Theresa Hamm (Drury Lane Theatre's Sweeney Todd and The Sound of Music).
The performance schedule for SUNSET BOULEVARD is as follows: Wednesdays at 1:30 p.m. ($35), Thursdays at 1:30 p.m. ($35) and 8 p.m. ($40), Fridays at 8:30 p.m. ($45), Saturdays at 5 p.m. ($45) and 8:30 p.m. ($46), and Sundays at 2 p.m. ($45) and 6 p.m. ($40). Lunch and dinner theatre packages range from $49.75 to $68 depending on the day of the week. Student group tickets start as low as $20 and Senior Citizens start at $30 for matinees and $44.75 for a matinee luncheon package. For reservations call the Drury Lane Theatre box office at 630.530.0111, call TicketMaster at 800.745.3000 or visit www.drurylaneoakbrook.com.


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InterContinental Moorea Resort & Spa / InterContinental Resort Tahiti
InterContinental Tahiti Resort
Just minutes from the airport and downtown Papeete, with magnificent views of Moorea from its 30 tropical acres. Gourmet overwater restaurant and spectacular dinner shows at the open-air Tiare restaurant. Guests can enjoy two infinity pools as well as a lagoonarium teeming with tropical fish.
InterContinental Moorea Resort
This resort provides all the comfort, friendly


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Brian Dykhuizen has been appointed head athletic trainer at Hope College.
Dykhuizen will assume the position held by Dr. Kirk Brumels who has been named director of the athletic training program. Brumels had served as head athletic trainer since 2001. Brumels will maintain involvement in both the clinical and classroom aspects of the athletic training program. However, more of his time will be spent teaching athletic training and human anatomy.
"We are very excited about the appointment of an athletic trainer of Brian's caliber. His personal qualities and professional experience will definitely be an asset to the HopeCollege athletic programs and both the student/athletes on our athletic teams, as well as, the students in our athletic training program will be the beneficiaries of his knowledge and skills," Brumels said.
Dykhuizen has an extensive background as an athletic trainer at the high school, collegiate and professional levels. Most recently he served for nine seasons as an assistant athletic trainer for the Cincinnati Bengals of the National Football League (NFL). Included in his responsibilities for the Bengals was the facilitation of the student intern program.
He received the bachelor of science degree from the University of Cincinnati and the master of science from Iowa State University.
Dykhuizen and his wife Jill have two daughters, Sarah and Katie.
Dykhuizen has a Hope College connection. His grandfather, the late Rev. Cornelius Dykhuizen, graduated from Hope in 1925 and was a minister in the Reformed Church in America.


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Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
—Ephesians 3:20-21
Growing In Faith Together (GIFT) is a time of contemporary worship held on select Sunday evenings. Although supervised by the dean of chapel, GIFT is organized and led almost exclusively by students. This is a worship opportunity that strives to bring honor and glory to God and to strengthen and enhance the faith lives of all students through corporate expressions of worship and devotion.


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Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts
Hardcover, 159 Pages
Price: $35.00
Prints in 3-5 business days
Upgrade your OSR Magic-Users with Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts. This tome provides everything you need to run a spellcaster in Labyrinth Lord or classic 1981-styled OSR games. This tome includes full rules for playing Clerics, Wizards, Elven Swordmages, Elven Warders, Enchanters, Fleshcrafters, Healers, Inquisitors, Merchant Princes, Necromancers, Pact-Bound, Theurges and the Unseen - along with all their spells, a collection of magic items, and a variety of new elementals to summon. This supplement is not a full RPG, but is designed as a supplement for Labyrinth Lord or any other OSR-styled RPG.
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Product Details
- Copyright
- Standard Copyright License
- Publisher
- ZERO/barrier
- Published
- May 9, 2013
- Language
- English
- Pages
- 159
- Binding
- Hardcover (casewrap)
- Interior Ink
- Black & white
- Weight
- 0.66 lbs.
- Dimensions (inches)
- 6 wide x 9 tall
- Product ID
- 21013166
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Welcome to the website of the European Parliament PANA Committee of Inquiry!
Following the Panama Papers leaks, the European Parliament decided on 8 June 2016, to establish a Committee of inquiry to investigate alleged contraventions and maladministration in the application of Union law in relation to money laundering, tax avoidance and tax evasion (the PANA committee).
During its twelve-month mandate, the 65 Committee members and the 65 substitute members will have the opportunity to investigate the alleged failures. Organizing hearings with experts and fact finding missions, inviting witnesses, requesting and scrutinising confidential information related to the mandate are some of the instruments that will be used by the Committee. At the end of the twelve-month period, a report will be submitted.
As I declared after my election I think that tax justice and fair tax competition are essential elements of the European Single Market as well as a fair global system of labour division in the context of globalisation. This year I want to have clarifications and make suggestions on what went wrong in the last few years and decades. I therefore invite you to follow closely our Committee work through this site where you will find meeting documents, webstreaming and our regular newsletter.
I wish you a nice visit on our website.
Dr. Werner Langen


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This is the weekly fresh food basket menu and what's in store for Thanksgiving, from the Friends and Farms folks. Philip Gottwals, left, and Greg Zotti are shown in the background. Gottwals of Columbia and Tim Hosking of Baltimore co-founded Friends and Farms in Columbia this summer to work with regional farmers, bakers, etc. to get their fresh foods into consumers' hands with minimal trucking. Their misson, (according to their website) is to offer weekly food baskets containing fresh produce, meat, dairy and seafood from regional suppliers, all year round. Our suppliers have a commitment to good agricultural practices and sustainability, as well as a commitment to providing food to us. In essence, we bring the farm closer to you by sourcing directly from the farmers, makers and bakers in this region. Our job is to then take our finds, package them up, and ensure they end up on your table as soon as possible and with minimal storage and handling.
Gene Sweeney Jr., Baltimore Sun
Copyright © 2019, The Baltimore Sun, a Baltimore Sun Media Group publication | Place an Ad


text:
By Lisa Capobianco
Staff Writer
Contestants of all ages kept their mouths wide open and their stomachs growling during the apple pie and the apple fritter eating contests at the 45th annual Apple Harvest Festival.
On Saturday, registered participants competed on the main stage to claim their title, stuffing their mouths until they could no longer carry the weight of the apples.
Three age groups competed for the medal: 7-11 years of age, 12-17 years of age and 18 and up. Luke Gagnon, a fifth grader from Wolcott, won the first pie eating contest, followed by Christopher Bowman, who came in second place and Camdyn Grosskoph who came in third.
As his face lit up with excitement and remnants of pie filling sticking to the side of his mouth, Gagnon said competing in food contests is not new for him—he was the winner of last year's apple fritter contest, and his father also used to compete in eating contests.
He also did not prepare for the apple pie eating contest.
"It was on a whim," Gagnon said.
Julia Berardinelli, a subcommittee member of the festival who helped coordinate the sign-up sheets for the contests, said it is exciting to see people of all ages have fun with the competition.
"The kids absolutely love it," Berardinelli said. "We get the same people to come back every year and claim their title."
Christine Aldier, the winner of the 18 plus age group during the pie eating contest, said she is also not a stranger to food competitions. Aldier said she has participated in the pie eating contest for five years now. She even decided to enter the apple fritter contest that same day with the hope of winning another competition.
Although she did not win the fritter eating contest, Aldier walked down the stage with her head held high, saying, "I will be back next year."
The apple fritter champion for the adult competition was David Harnois, who has competed and won sporadically for at least six years. Harnois said he felt "fine" even though he stuffed a total of 18 apple fritters in his mouth.
"One year I drank a milkshake before I did it," Harnois said.
Danny Dolan came in second place for the apple fritter contest, and John Kowalczyk came in third place.
Children and teens also made room in their stomachs for the apple fritters, made by volunteers of Zion Lutheran Church. Both Nick Mangene, the winner of the seven to 11 age group, and Michael Fappiano, the winner of the 12 to 17 age group, said they actually ate lunch before entering the contest.
All winners of the apple fritter contest won an electric toothbrush and toothpaste from Just for Kids Dentistry, a new pediatric dental office in town, which sponsored the contest.
"I figured I would give them something to clean their teeth with," said Dr. Celeste Wegrzyn.
If anyone wants to take up the challenge, the apple pie eating contest and the apple fritter eating contest will take place again on the main stage Saturday at noon during the festival. Preregistration will start from 9 a.m. to noon at the gazebo, and all participants must arrive ten minutes before the contests begin.
Eating contests highlight Apple Harvest Festival
By Lisa Capobianco


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Rain puts work on hold for many Wisconsin farmers
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Rain and cool temperatures are keeping many Wisconsin farmers out of their fields. According to the National Weather Service, almost 7 inches of rain fell in La Crosse in April, making it the second-wettest April on record. Although rain has brought relief to parts of drought-stricken southwestern Wisconsin, it's also put crop planting on hold for many farmers. La Crosse County's University of Wisconsin-Extension Agriculture Agent Steve Huntzicker tells Wisconsin Public Radio (http://bit.ly/PSaKPE ) the fields are too wet and farmers can't till their land, spread nutrients like manure, or plant seeds. He says it's too early to tell how the late planting will affect crop yields. In Kewaunee County, UW-Extension Agriculture Agent Aerica Bjurstrom says farmers typically have oats in the ground by now, but hardly any have been planted.
Information from: Wisconsin Public Radio, http://www.wpr.org
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On Friday, the Library at The Gardens welcomed its newest art gallery, "Nature's Gifts." Presented by The Committee, this gallery will be featured for the remainder of 2011. Artists whose work is currently on display and available for purchase include Shirley Barnes, Heike Covell, Sallie Estes, Mary Ellen Davidson, Dee Burt Holmes, Marcia Leonard, Joyce Lowery, Terri Shows, Carolyn Wheeling and Maria West. See some of the work below and come out to The Gardens to pick up a piece that will be a stunning accent to your room!
And our Gallery continues to be the home for work by Laura Brookhart. Stop by to pick up her pieces as well!
Tags: Andrew Krebbs, Birmingham Botanical Gardens, Blake Ells, Carolyn Wheeling, Dee Burt Holmes, Heike Covell, Hope Long, Joyce Lowery, Marcia Leonard, Maria West, Mary Ellen Davidson, Sallie Estes, Shirley Barnes, Terri Shows, The Gardens, The Library at The Gardens


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For those of you that work in animal control facilities that also do adoptions - What are some of the things you do to get the publics attention and get them to your facility?
We have a new manager that wants our adoptions to basically quadruple. And although we have a beautiful new facility, we are a city run shelter. That seems to automatically put a certain image into people's minds. We also have strict 'rules' that we have to follow as far as events, and whatnot, go because we are city run (you know how all of those politics go).
We did just have a microchip clinic and free registration this past weekend - and our adoptions that day were more than normal, but we didn't have nearly as much traffic as we had hoped.
So, any advice? What do you do to the public's attention?


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Tyler's Teasers
Just in case you missed one, you can catch up with all of Martin Tyler's World Cup Teasers.
Last Updated: 12/07/10 9:39am
Martin Tyler has been testing your World Cup knowledge all summer long.
Sky Sports' Voice of Football came up with a tricky teaser each day throughout the World Cup to see how much you really knew about the biggest tournament in football.
But just in case you missed any of our daily tests, you can catch up with our teaser archive below...
And don't forget to catch up with Martin's World Cup diary from South Africa.
And remember, Martin will be back for his statistical look at the Premier League when the new season starts in August.
June 7: Name the seven England players to have scored in a World Cup penalty shoot-out.
June 8: Name the four men to have played in the English top flight AND scored in a World Cup Final.
June 9: Put together a team of European players at the 2010 World Cup whose first names and surnames begin with the same letter.
June 10: Name the 12 current Liverpool players who have gone to this year's World Cup in South Africa..
June 11: Come up with an XI from France's 2010 World Cup squad that have been signed - either permanently or on loan - by an English club at some point in their careers?
June 12: Name the players in the England squad who have scored at the World Cup finals. And who was their top scorer in 2006?
June 13: Name the seven players to have won a World Cup winners medal while playing for London clubs? And for a bonus point, name someone who was given one very belatedly?
June 14: Can you name the only player to have played in the Premier League and been sent off in two different World Cup tournaments?
June 15: Can you name the six British-based players - and their clubs - in the New Zealand squad?
June 16: Bafana Bafana return to action on Wednesday, but can you name eight South Africans who have scored in a Premier League match since its inception in 1992?
June 17: Zinedine Zidane was one of only four players to score in the World Cup final on two separate occasions. But can you name the other three?
June 18: Name the 18 current UEFA nations that have played in a previous World Cup, but are not at this one.
June 19: How many current Premier League managers (2010-2011) have played at a World Cup finals? And can you name them?
June 20:Between their defeat in the 1998 final and their elimination in the last 2006 Round of 16, Brazil won 11 straight World Cup finals matches. The run was book-ended by defeats to France, but can you name six men that started both games?
June 21: England played their first ever match against Algeria on Friday night. Which of the other World Cup 2010 nations have England never played before?
June 22: Question: South Korea coach Huh Jung Moo is one of eight coaches to lead his country to the 2010 World Cup, having also previously played for them in a finals. Can you name the other seven?
June 23:Name the England players to have scored in two separate World Cup finals.
June 24:Name the six teams to have won the World Cup in their own country.
June 25: Name the five countries that played in the first World Cup finals but are not at this one?
June 26: Nobody likes finishing third, but can you name the five countries that have finished third at the World Cup more than once?
June 27: Can you name six players to have played for England in each of the last three decades - the 1990's, the 2000's and the 2010's?
June 28: Of the 32 teams at the World Cup, only seven do not have players that played in the Premier League in the 2009/10 season. Can you name them?
June 29: Can you name three players who have played at the 2010 World Cup, played in the Premier League and have the letter 'x' somewhere in their name?
June 30: Apart from Ghana and Paraguay, can you name 13 other current nations to have reached a World Cup quarter-final, but have never gone further?
July 1: Since Bobby Robson led England to the World Cup semi-finals in 1990, there have been five British-born managers at World Cup finals. Name them.
July 2: Can you name England's five unused squad members at the 2006 World Cup?
July 3: Can you name the 14 players who scored in the group stage of the 2010 World Cup and also in the Premier League last season (own goals not included)?
July 4: Can you name the four managers out of the 32 at this year's World Cup that have managed a DIFFERENT national side at a previous World Cup?
July 5: Including 2010, who were the last five Englishmen to referee at a World Cup?
July 6: Name 10 players who have scored in a previous World Cup - and could feature in this year's semi-finals.
July 7: Name two players to have been sent off at the 2010 World Cup who have played for Everton.
July 8: Giovanni van Bronckhorst became the 14th Dutchman to have scored a goal both in the World Cup and in the Premier League. Can you name the other 13?
July 9: Can you name the five Spaniards who've scored a goal in both the World Cup and in the Premier League?
July 10: Can you name the seven Premier League teams who have a current or former player in either the Spain or Holland squads?July 11:Wesley Sneijder was hoping to become the third man to win the World Cup and the Champions League in the same season. Can you name the previous two - who have done so since the formation of the Champions League in 1992?
June 7: Gary Lineker, Peter Beardsley, David Platt, Alan Shearer, Michael Owen, Paul Merson, Owen Hargreaves.
June 8: Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters, Emmanuel Petit, Marco Materazzi
June 9: This was our team: Goalkeeper: Victor Valdes (Spain)
Defenders: Peter Pekarik (Slovakia), Sebastian Squilacci (France), Matej Mavriè (Slovenia), Alvaro Arbeloa (Spain)
Midfield: Marko Marin (Germany), Gennaro Gatusso (Italy), Francesc Fabregas (Spain), Daniele De Rossi (Italy), Eljero Elia (Netherlands)
Attack: Stanislav Sestak (Slovakia)
Substitutes: Cedric Carrasso (France), Kostas Katsouranis (Greece), Kamil Kopunek (Slovakia), Demy de Zeuuw (Netherlands), Stijn Schaars (Netherlands)
June 10: Daniel Agger, Ryan Babel, Jamie Carragher, Steven Gerrard, Glen Johnson, Dirk Kuyt, Sotirios Kyrgiakos, Javier Mascherano, Pepe Reina, Maxi Rodriguez, Martin Skrtel, Fernando Torres
June 11: Cedric Carasso, Bacary Sagnas William Gallas, Patrice Evra, Gael Clichy, Djibril Cisse, Alou Diarra, Abou Diaby, Florent Malouda, Nicolas Anelka, Thierry Henry.
June 12: Emile Heskey, Joe Cole, Peter Crouch and Steven Gerrard. Gerrard was the top scorer in 2006 with two goals, while Rio Ferdinand also scored in 2002, but of course is no longer in the squad.
June 13: George Cohen, Bobby Moore, Martin Peters, Geoff Hurst, Frank LeBoeuf, Emmanuel Petit, Patrick Vieira. For the bonus point you could choose from Jimmy Greaves, Peter Bonetti or George Eastham.
June 14: Rigobert Song
June 15: Ryan Nelsen (Blackburn), Tommy Smith (Ipswich), Chris Killen (Middlesbrough), Chris Wood (WBA), Rory Fallon (Plymouth) and Michael McGlinchey (Motherwell)
June 16: Sean Bartlett (Charlton), Mark Fish (Charlton), Quinton Fortune (Man Utd), Mbelulo Mabizela (Tottenham), Phil Massinga (Leeds), Benni McCarthy (Blackburn), Steven Pienaar (Everton), Erik Tinkler (Barnsley)
June 17: Pele, Paul Breitner and Vava
June 18: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Russia, Scotland, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, Wales
June 19: Five: Carlo Ancelotti, Martin O'Neill, Alex McLeish, Mick McCarthy and Roberto Di Matteo. In addition, Roberto Mancini and Chris Hughton were non-playing squad members at World Cup Finals.
June 20: Fabien Barthez, Lilian Thuram, Zinedine Zidane, Cafu , Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo
June 21: North Korea, Honduras, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Serbia.
June 22: Javier Aguirre (Mexico), Carlos Dunga (Brazil), Diego Maradona (Argentina), Ricki Herbert (New Zealand), Morten Olsen (Denmark) and Rabah Saadane (Algeria)
June 23:David Beckham, Bobby Charlton, Tom Finney, Steven Gerrard, Geoff Hurst, Gary Lineker, Michael Owen, Martin Peters
June 24: Uruguay - 1930; Italy - 1934; England - 1966; West Germany - 1974; Argentina - 1978; France - 1998
June 25: Bolivia, Peru, Belgium, Romania, Yugoslavia
June 26: Brazil, France, Germany, Poland, Sweden
June 27: David James, Rio Ferdinand, Jamie Carragher, Frank Lampard, Emile Heskey, Wes Brown
June 28: Uruguay, Slovenia, Japan, Italy, North Korea, Chile, Germany
June 29: Xabi Alonso, Maxi Rodriguez and Alex Song
June 30: Cameroon, Cuba, Denmark, Korea DPR, Mexico, Northern Ireland, Peru, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Senegal, Switzerland, Ukraine and Wales
July 1: Mick McCarthy, Craig Brown, Glenn Hoddle, Roy Hodgson, Jack Charlton
July 2: David James, Scott Carson, Wayne Bridge, Jermaine Jenas, Theo Walcott
July 3: Steven Gerrard, Jermain Defoe, Dirk Kuyt, Florent Malouda, Tim Cahill, Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, Robin Van Persie, Didier Drogba, Salomon Kalou, Nicklas Bendtner, Park Ji-sung, Lee Chung Yong and Yakubu
July 4: Marcelo Bielsa, Sven-Goran Eriksson, Lars Lagerbäck, Carlos Alberto Parreira
July 5: Howard Webb, Graham Poll, Paul Durkin, Phillip Don & George Courtney
July 6: Phillip Lahm, Miroslav Klose, Lukas Podolski, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Arjen Robben, Robin Van Persie, Xabi Alonso, David Villa, Fernando Torres, Diego Forlan
July 7: Tim Cahill of Everton FC and Marco Estrada, who played for the Chilean club Everton from 2001-06.
July 8: Dennis Bergkamp, Arjen Robben, Wim Jonk, Patrick Kluivert, Robin van Persie, Edgar Davids, Ruud Gullit, Dirk Kuyt, Marc Overmars, Bryan Roy, Pierre van Hooijdonk, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Bolo Zenden
July 9: Xabi Alonso, Fernando Hierro, Gaizka Mendieta, Fernando Morientes, Fernando Torres
July 10: Arsenal, Blackburn, Chelsea , Everton, Liverpool, Man City , Man Utd
July 11: Ropberto Carlos (2002) and Christian Karembeu (1998)


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Best and worst of 2012
Television Although a few good shows premiered this year, most of those in top tier are returning series
If television is experiencing a "golden age," how do we explain the fall season? By anyone's assessment, it was pretty much a dreadful fall, with only a handful of decent new shows: "Revolution," "Copper," "Elementary," "Vegas," "Nashville" and ... well, that's about it, really.
The best shows of 2012 were all from previous years or from this year's mid-season: "Homeland," "Breaking Bad," "Mad Men," "Sons of Anarchy," "The Hour," "The Walking Dead," "Justified."
The medium will bounce back, because it always does, but there's work to be done if that's to happen. "Breaking Bad" will end next summer and many of the other powerhouse dramas could begin to feel old-hat.
Television, like any medium, needs regular infusions of new blood to remain viable. Too often, networks take the easy way out and throw in another reality show. Yes, it was the year of "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo," but there were almost as many other new reality shows as bugs crawling happily around mama June's ingrown toenails.
Dramatic series continued to rule the realm of scripted TV, while the industry scrambles to find a sense of humor. There were some new sitcoms, but nothing to write home about with the possible exception of Ryan Murphy's "The New Normal" and the quirky "Ben and Kate."
"Malibu Country" is fairly weak, but has a major ratings asset in its star, Reba; "Guys With Kids" is just dull; "The Neighbors" insufferably precious; "Animal Practice" and "Partners" were killed off before they completed a first season; and even stalwarts like "Modern Family" are beginning to show their age. With the end of "30 Rock" just around the corner, and a sadly weakened "The Office" about to close up shop as well, NBC has to build a new comedy franchise beyond its great "Parks & Recreation."
Here again, the best comedy shows are the old ones: "Big Bang Theory," "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," "Raising Hope," "Wilfred," "The Middle," "Happy Endings," "2 Broke Girls," and, from time to time, "Suburgatory."
It was a big year for news and sports, with a presidential election and the Summer Olympics to cover. As the year ended, the news itself just got worse and worse. Just when Americans thought they could finally take a breather from all the partisan bickering in the presidential election, they found out they were headed for a fiscal cliff and the sniping started right back up again.
"Conversation" became the most frequently used word on TV news shows, despite the fact that the country seems far from being in a conversational mood. Politicians became overly fond of saying they want to have a "conversation" about things like gun control, but what they really mean is they want to pummel into the ground anyone who disagrees with them.
The presidential election was too much for TV news, for the most part: Cable and broadcast scrambled to find a way to cover the long, long campaign in a way that might engage viewers, but devolved into same old, same old.
The horrifying tragedy in Connecticut showed what television news can really do. CNN and NBC did an especially thorough and sensitive job covering the murders in Newtown and their aftermath. I'd single out Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Ann Curry and Brian Williams for showing not only true professionalism, but that heart and intelligence can be enormously useful in helping a sorrowful nation understand the scope and nature of a tragedy that remains beyond understanding.
The big news in news at the end of the year was that CNN has tapped Jeff Zucker to oversee and overhaul its programming. Shortly after the announcement, CNN hired away ABC's workaholic bulldog Jake Tapper, which must have been a stunning blow to ABC and Diane Sawyer. Tapper is aggressive, smart and likable and will get an hour show on CNN. But will Zucker get rid of the dimmer bulbs in the CNN-HLN world? Don Lemon is an OK news reader, but was way out of his depth in Newtown. Robin Meade is just silly.
Then again, ABC, for one, has proved that when it comes to what Americans expect in their news programs, silly sells. If Zucker wants to do something good for CNN, get rid of Piers Morgan. Pro-gun people are petitioning to have him deported. I'm not pro-gun, but I'd petition to have him sent back to "America's Got Talent." What a deeply unpleasant and uninteresting interviewer.
Speaking of which, ABC scored big ratings wins with "Good Morning America" by minimizing substance and increasing fluff. "CBS This Morning" still has the best morning news show, although viewers with any remaining gray cells are advised to stop watching after the first hour when Gayle King begins to dominate the show. Equally insufferable is ABC's second-hour ray of empty-headed sunshine, Lara Spencer.
The "Today" show made a mess in its response to the ratings loss to "GMA," dawdling forever on sealing the fate of Ann Curry, who took the fall for the show's problems. Finally, Savannah Guthrie was brought in to share the couch with Matt Lauer, adding virtually nothing to the show's appeal. Meanwhile, Curry got her revenge, of sorts, by showing what a superb reporter she is on a difficult story: Newtown.
With that, here's a closer look at the year in TV that was:
-- More of 2012 in TV inside: Shows that got better, Canceled shows, shows that need help, shows that should be canceled. Page E4-5
'Better than all the rest': Best shows of 2012
A handful of decent shows premiered this fall - "Revolution" on NBC, "Elementary" on CBS, "Copper" on BBC America - but oldies remain TV's real goodies. Here are my top 10 with an extra 10 great shows.
1. "Homeland," Showtime
2. "Breaking Bad," AMC
3. "The Hour," BBC America
4. "The Walking Dead," AMC
5. "Mad Men," AMC
6. "Girls," HBO
7. "Justified," FX
8. "Sons of Anarchy," FX
9. "Downton Abbey," PBS
10. "Southland," TNT
Honorable mention:
1. "Boardwalk Empire," HBO
2. "Enlightened," HBO
3. "Revolution," NBC
4. "American Horror Story," FX
5. "Totally Biased With W. Kamau Bell," FX
6. "Key & Peele," Comedy Central
7. "Shameless," Showtime
8. "Copper," BBC America
9. "Awkward," MTV
10. "Covert Affairs," USA
'Wave your little hand and whisper so long, dearie': Shows that need to go
"Kids ..."
That was it. That was the trigger word a couple of months ago for me to say enough is enough. I had fired up the trusty old TiVo and figured I'd watch a recent episode of CBS' "How I Met Your Mother," a show I'd followed since it came on the air eight years ago.
And then, as soon as I heard the voiceover narration begin, as it does every week, with that one word, "Kids ...," I knew it was time to let it go. What would I find? Barney cracking inappropriately wise? Robin and Ted on again or off again - does it matter? Marshall and Lily being, well, Marshall and Lily? My finger trembled slightly as it hovered over the "Delete" button, but there was no turning back now: I deleted the episode, canceled the season pass and felt sad, in a way, but liberated.
Here are some other shows my TiVo and I wouldn't miss if they went away:
"Glee," Fox: Yes, it still rallies from its death bed from time to time, but overall, Ryan Murphy's high school musical shows every indication of not knowing where to go next. There are some new cast members, but they haven't caught our interest as fully as some members of the original cast did. Some critics like the fact that the episodes bounce back and forth between William McKinley High in Ohio and the streets of Manhattan, where Rachel and Kurt have moved. I don't: The peripatetic format just makes me want to reach for a Dramamine. It's too often just a lot of noise and movement meant to hide an absence of direction. Pack it in while you've still got some cred left.
"Up All Night," NBC: Another flailing sitcom. It's had more work done than Joan Rivers and is nowhere near as funny. The show came closest to getting it right when the baby really was keeping Christina Applegate and Will Arnett's characters "Up All Night," and when Maya Rudolph's Oprah-like show was still on. The writers have screwed all of that up, introduced other characters, like Reagan's (Applegate) pointless brother. Through it all, Emily Spivey's once-charming baby has grown into an obnoxious and unfunny toddler. Time to go beddy-bye. Don't make me come in there.
"Two and a Half Men," CBS: Its ratings are too high to hope for its demise, but creatively, it's been stagnant for years. The whole Charlie Sheen kerfuffle grabbed headlines, but Ashton Kutcher is a weak replacement, only emphasizing how creatively vacuous the show had become. Angus T. Jones was right in telling you not to watch, but not for the reasons he gave.
"Mike & Molly," CBS: Talented cast, yes, but there's just not much meat on its bones. It's always been the weak link in the network's Monday night lineup and would probably crash and burn on its own if it didn't have "How I Met" and "2 Broke Girls" as lead-ins.
"Rules of Engagement," CBS: The only reason it's still around is so that CBS has something to plug holes with when shows like "Partners" get canceled.
"Guys With Kids," NBC: Co-created by Jimmy Fallon, the sitcom about men and their infants probably hangs on because NBC doesn't want to make Fallon angry. That's the only logical explanation for a show that exhausted its comedic stock by the second episode. It's also an example of the network seeking a "broader" audience for its sitcoms. I'm not head over heels about ABC's "Last Man Standing," but it does prove that broader doesn't have to mean "not funny."
"Beauty and the Beast," The CW: The network continues to prove it has no game plan and limited ideas. The show mangles the old fairy tale, but its biggest sin is that it's just not interesting or believable, even to the CW's target demo of 14-year-old girls with nighttime retainers.
"Perception," TNT: This messy mix of "Sherlock Holmes" and "The Sixth Sense" may have had some appeal when it premiered in the dead of summer, but once CBS unveiled "Elementary," it only pointed up how off the TNT show was. "Perception" is badly written and directed, and Eric McCormack should look to Jonny Lee Miller to get tips on how to play a wacko an audience can actually like.
Home (screen) improvement: Shows that have gotten better
The dirty little secret of the critic-ing business is that we rarely get to see an entire season of a new show before we do reviews, and usually are given only the pilot episode on which to form our opinions. You don't really know a show until at least a couple of episodes in, yet, based on minimal information, we have to determine how these elements could evolve over time. Getting three episodes before a show premieres is a godsend.
A few shows get better after their premieres, but many just get worse or run in place, hoping to survive long enough for a syndication deal. Here are a few that have improved to one degree or another since their premieres:
"Chicago Fire," NBC: At first, the show didn't seem to know where it was going. The formula Dick Wolf has relied on for his "Law & Order" franchise wasn't an easy transfer to firefighters. But over time, the series found a better balance between the personal lives of the fire and rescue personnel, and their work fighting fires and saving lives. Wolf didn't want the show to become just like "Rescue Me," and it hasn't, except for all-important character depth and complexity that make us care.
"Love You, Mean It, Whitney," E: It's always going to be "Whitney Lately," so it made sense for Whitney Cummings to allow her still awkward half-hour to be more like her pal Chelsea Handler's nightly show. Cummings is clearly making an effort not to be the biggest fan of her own jokes, and now has three other people to riff with for a segment of the show, much like Handler's rotating trio of comics. It has more work to do, though.
"New Girl," Fox: This was last season's big hit and is still doing well, although I'm not sure I'd watch it regularly if it wasn't my job to do so. The show is better, though largely because it's much more of an ensemble piece than it was when Zooey Deschanel first hit the airwaves as the "adorkable" oddball living with three male roommates. In fact, the show is so much more than "just" a Deschanel vehicle that co-star Max Greenfield has been nominated for a Golden Globe this year. It's especially laudable that the show's creators made the adjustments in "New Girl" because they probably didn't need to, if all they cared about were ratings.
'So when you're near me, can't you hear me, S.O.S.': Save Our Show
So many shows seem to fall into slumps of sameness as time goes on, limping along with problems that could and should be fixed. Here are a few that need a little creative love to remain or become viable again:
"Modern Family," ABC: Yes, it's still a big award- and ratings-winner, but creatively, "Modern Family" is beginning to wobble, as if the writers aren't sure how it should evolve. Look to NBC's "Parenthood" and you'll find the answer. Granted, it's a dramatic show, but it endures because of character depth and evolution, elements that could help "Modern Family" remain modern. This year's Emmy sweep was habit on the part of the myopic TV industry, not an acknowledgement that the show was as great as it was in the past.
"Revenge," ABC. Oh how the mighty have fallen. Other shows may have minor problems, but this one has gone from TV's beloved guilty pleasure to TV's unholy and almost unwatchable mess. Granted, it's a nighttime soap opera, but the plot has become absurdly complicated and unbelievable. It's almost hard to remember who the main characters are or were, with so many extraneous figures added to the cast. The evolution of some of the characters - especially Nolan Ross, Ashley Davenport and Daniel Grayson - is illogical and annoying. In years to come, the term "jumping the shark" may be replaced by the phrase, "cutting Nolan's hair." Kidding ... I hope.
"The Newsroom," HBO. It's not just that Aaron Sorkin is so wrong about how a cable news show really works. It's that there's such a disconnect between the updated "Network" rant and the unconvincing interrelationships among the "Newsroom" staff that it undermines the show's believability. Fix the people, then you can rant all you want about how conservatives are to blame for everything wrong in the world. One thing you can't blame conservatives for is how tiresome this show is.
'Hit the road, Jack, and don't you come back no more': Cancellations
Shows started keeling over early in the fall season and the cancellations continued right up until the weekend, when TNT threw the towel in on "Leverage," a modest show that probably lasted longer than it should have. The list of cancellations would have been longer, if only the networks had had decent fare to plug into the holes.
Among other shows to get the ax this year:
"Partners," CBS: Max Mutchnick and David Kohan tried to replicate the magic of "Will & Grace," but they forgot to get a 21st century plot and actors who played off each other as well as Sean Hayes and Eric McCormack did.
"Animal Practice," NBC: An unfunny show about animals run amok in a freewheeling veterinary clinic, apparently crafted by TV writers run amok at NBC.
"Emily Owens, M.D.," The CW: The show was never very good, but it's sad that it wasted its one great asset: Mamie Gummer in the title role. She'll bounce back because she's good. So will the CW because ... well, there must be some reason. Oh yeah, "Vampire Diaries."
"The Inbetweeners," MTV: A singularly stupid show about high school oddballs that just mangled the concept and characters of the British original and purified language and sexual situations to a laughably ridiculous degree. MTV wouldn't know a real American teenager if one bit them in the a-. (Memo to MTV: the missing word is "ass").
"Last Resort" and "666 Park Ave.," ABC: The first one never made any sense. It seemed to be a mash-up of "Lost" and some Vance Packard novel from the '60s. Sad waste of talent like Andre Braugher. "666" had real promise, as ABC's "Rosemary's Baby"-influenced answer to FX's "American Horror Story," but the "story" part got lost from episode to episode. By becoming too episodic, "666" cut its own throat.
"Upstairs Downstairs," PBS: Why soldier on when Julian Fellowes has done such an efficient job of ripping you off from upstairs to downstairs with "Downton Abbey"? Still, the first season of the rebooted classic proved it could co-exist with "Downton" well enough, but the second season was such a disaster, it felt like an "SNL" spoof of "Upstairs Downstairs." Or "Downton Abbey." Take your pick.
"Boss," Starz: The single regrettable cancellation of the fall, but you could see it coming after the completely unwarranted snub by the Emmys. For whatever reason, the show found little love inside the industry and never really gained a foothold with audiences, perhaps because they wanted their Kelsey Grammer as Frasier Crane and got a modern-day Macbeth instead. Sad loss of a smart and insightful show with a superb cast. It's even sadder to realize Starz killed off "Boss," but still thinks there's magic in "Magic City."
"Fairly Legal," USA, and "Made in Jersey," CBS: I can only tell them apart when I'm watching them, even though "Jersey" star Janet Montgomery is really a Brit doing a decent job with a Joisey accent. These were two innocuous but uninspired shows about attractive women with big hair who worked in law. "Fairly's" Sarah Shahi has landed on her feet at "Chicago Fire," and Montgomery can be seen in BBC America's "The Spies of Warsaw," with David Tennant next year. Both will live to see another big-hair day.
"Anderson Live," Syndicated: At least it had nothing to do with Anderson Cooper's coming out. Cooper is a gifted, trust-inspiring newsman, but the afternoon talk show format just wasn't his thing. He gave it a good try, and was at least somewhat unhorsed because of how crowded the afternoon battlefield became with the arrival of Katie Couric and others.
David Wiegand is The San Francisco Chronicle's executive features editor and TV critic. E-mail: email@example.com Twitter: @WaitWhat_TV


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We (ok, I) always thought that sending broadband over powerlines was one of those empty threats used to gain leverage on cable and DSL providers. But DirecTV has just announced a partnership with Current Group to provide their Dallas/Fort Worth market with high speed Internet through their wall sockets.
The resulting BPL (Broadband Over Powerline) should be a lot faster than DSL, with theoretical transmission rates hitting between 256k/s and 2.7 MB/s. 1.8 million subscribers will get to find out starting late 2007 and into 2008. Now let's get the gas lines going, too. Maybe the power companies will stop bill-raping us if they're making a bit more on their lines...nah! [cnnmoney]


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Reuters reports that some medical device manufacturers — including Elyria-based Invacare Corp. — "are trying to pass on the cost of the new federal tax on medical devices to hospitals," and a trade group has launched a website to identify those companies publicly. Congress imposed the 2.3% tax on the manufacturers as part of the Affordable Care Act. It is expected to collect more than $30 billion over the next decade. Reuters notes that the Healthcare Supply Chain Association, which represents the biggest group purchasing organizations used by hospitals, on Thursday said its new site would help raise awareness of efforts by some manufacturers "to shift costs of the tax directly to hospitals, healthcare providers, patients and taxpayers." Most of the companies on its list of "cost-shifting suppliers" are small and private, Reuters reports, but there are some large ones. Medtronic Inc., the world's largest standalone medical device maker, does not intend to pass on the costs of the tax to users, CEO Omar Ishrak told Reuters in a recent interview. "We price according to the value of our products," he said. But Invacare in a statement said that based on its interpretation of the regulations, "the company expects the impact of the tax to be less than $1.5 million, adding it intends to pass the cost on to the market," Reuters reports.
Editor's Choice
So, just who will pay the new tax on medical device makers?
Lincoln Electric Co., the Euclid-based maker of welding equipment, lands on the new Motley Fool list of America's 25 best public companies. The Fool says it analyzed data for more than 1,700 companies to come up with the elite 25, measured by "their success in serving investors, customers, employees and the world at large." Here's how the website describes Lincoln: For 79 straight years, this welding materials manufacturer has paid its work force an annual bonus – last year averaging nearly $34,000 per worker. No one has been laid off for more than 65 years. Holding onto its experienced work force allows Lincoln to retain the human capital it has trained and developed, saving it from having to reinvest in bringing new employees up to speed. Lincoln Electric makes its products an essential part of its customers' work. By keeping its equipment easy to use yet effective for the multiple purposes it must serve, Lincoln Electric builds loyalty among those who use its products, making it more likely that they'll come back as repeat customers.
The Cleveland Cavaliers are among the early adopters of a gaming app from Krossover, a New York City-based startup, that lets the user freeze real basketball video action — and then guess how the play ends. The app "obviously could be used simply for recreation," USA Today reports. But it's being tested by the Cavs to analyze their play as well as evaluate opponents. Cavaliers analytics head Ben Alamar tells the newspaper that the app has "the added benefits of forcing players to watch film." USA Today says Krossover hopes to go on to create similar apps for sports such as football and soccer. The app, like the InFomotion Sports Technologies' 94Fifty basketball, will be demonstrated at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston today and Saturday. (One of the stars of that conference is Daryl Morey, the Northeast Ohio native who is general manager of the Houston Rockets. In December, Sports Illustrated wrote an excellent profile of Mr. Morey and his commitment to advanced analytics.)
Sen. Sherrod Brown, a liberal Democrat from Avon, and conservative Sen. David Vitter, R.-La., are getting a lot of attention for their plan to introduce legislation addressing concerns about "too big to fail" banks. The American Banker reports that the two lawmakers announced their intentions during back-to-back speeches Thursday "in which they described their concerns and outlined the contours of their upcoming bill." The legislation "will draw upon ideas put forward by Thomas Hoenig, a director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and the agency's former chairman Sheila Bair, along with Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas." Sen. Vitter added that while the two are not quite ready to unveil their bill, the legislation would "fundamentally require significantly more capital for the megabanks" and reduce the regulatory burden on community banks, The American Banker noted. You can see the video of Sen. Brown's Senate floor speech here. In advance of the speech, he gave a long interview to the Huffington Post, which is worth your time.
A Detroit startup that got key early support from the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Lake Erie Monsters has raised $1.5 million in Series A funding, according to Venture Capital Dispatch. The company, Rock City Apps, makes an app called UpTo "that allows users to follow each other's schedules and publish their own schedules to the public, or to specific groups like co-workers, friends, family or fans of a particular sports team or musician," according to the story. The funding came from Detroit Venture Partners and Ludlow Ventures, the same investors that backed the company in an earlier $875,000 seed round. One of the company's investors is Cavaliers majority owner Dan Gilbert, who says he has a "handicap" on UpTo and expects Rock City Apps to "put Detroit on the map" in terms of consumer web innovation. Rock City plans to release a web app in 2013 and a premium, paid version of UpTo for organizations that want a higher degree of security around their event schedules, or groups that publish high volumes of content around their events, the story notes. Early in the startup's life, according to Venture Capital Dispatch, Mr. Gilbert helped UpTo attain partnerships with Cavaliers and the Monsters, as well as other arenas and teams in which he holds a majority stake.
You also can follow me on Twitter for more news about business and Northeast Ohio.


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June 13, 2013
(202) 649-6870
OCC Publishes "A Common Sense Approach to Community Banking"
WASHINGTON—The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced today that it is publishing on its Web site a new booklet that shares the agency's perspective on the best practices that distinguish high-performing community banks.
The booklet, "A Common Sense Approach to Community Banking," was previously distributed to national banks and federally chartered thrifts. It is now available on the OCC's Web site, www.occ.gov.
"There are a lot of publications out there that describe both the difficulties and opportunities that confront community banks," said Bert Otto, Deputy Comptroller for the OCC's Central District. "What we thought was missing and very much needed was a publication that takes a practical, common sense approach to community banking."
Mr. Otto, who spearheaded the publication, said the Common Sense booklet is aimed at helping community banks and thrifts succeed.
"In developing this publication, we asked ourselves, 'What distinguishes community banks that thrive from those that either just barely survive or eventually fail?' " said Mr. Otto, who is based in Chicago.
The booklet focuses on three interrelated areas:
- Risk assessment and management, with particular emphasis on how the OCC's Risk Assessment System can be used by community banks;
- Strategic planning; and
- Capital planning.
Also highlighted is the key role the OCC portfolio manager plays in the supervision of national banks and federal thrifts.
"Every community national bank or federal thrift has a portfolio manager who serves as the institution's primary point of contact with the OCC," said Jennifer Kelly, Senior Deputy Comptroller for Midsize and Community Bank Supervision. "The portfolio manager not only ensures effective communication, but also serves as a resource who understands local markets and has ready access to OCC specialists who can provide assistance to community banks and thrifts."
"We at the OCC believe that the future for community banks in the United States is bright, and we hope smaller institutions will find our new publication helpful as they consider risk management and both strategic and capital planning," Ms. Kelly said.


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Though he'd never say it, Gerd Koch knows more than you do — about Ventura County, aesthetics, world travel and probably a handful of other subjects. Thankfully, the 84-year-old artist is securing his life experience for posterity by writing his memoirs. His stories are legion and he loves to share them.
Named ArtWalk Ventura's Artist of Distinction for 2013, the veteran bohemian's accomplishments include an artists' commune established in Ojai in the 1950s, the founding of Studio Channel Islands Art Center (SCIART) at CSUCI, curating 23 exhibitions and a renowned 35-year teaching career (UCSB Extension, Ventura College) that yielded crop after crop of successful careers in the arts for students. Amid all that, Koch's own body of work (a sampling of which can be viewed at Vita Art Center during ArtWalk, on Saturday and Sunday, July 20-21) has been collected and awarded by the likes of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and the famed Ferus Gallery in L.A. In the '60s, his paintings were photographed by LIFE magazine, and in the '90s his likeness was used by artist John Nava to represent St. Nicholas for a tapestry series at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles. "I believe in grasping opportunities or, if necessary, initiating opportunities," he says.
Koch is a fervent preacher of the importance of art in practical as well as aesthetic applications, reminding us that "everything that is made by man has been touched by an artist. When you teach art you just don't teach drawing or painting, but also design. Clothing, automobiles, toasters — it's all designed," he says.
Koch's impact on the region has yet to wane as he celebrates a newly expanded SCIART and continues to take artists and others (nearly 1,000 to date) on guided tours of Europe, where he especially likes to visit the graves of Van Gogh and Monet, consistent sources of inspiration for him.
While most men who've seen as many sunsets as he has, tend to slow things down, Koch's vitality is both unceasing and endearing. "When you are older you have a tendency to reminisce and evaluate," he says. "Well, I'm not done yet. I have projects in the fire. I guess I'm gonna die in my boots."
Inside the box
Now in its third year since being placed in the able hands of the art community, following city of Ventura budget cuts, ArtWalk Ventura is finding its own identity amid the multitude of local arts-driven events, and a fresh energy seems to be circulating around it.
New this year is the introduction of PODS moving and storage containers employed as portable galleries and sponsored by local businesses. The 16 PODS containers were donated — during moving season, no less — by PODS president Steve Yapp, and represent the largest grouping of the containers ever used in the U.S. for an arts event. Vita Art's Mary Perez, who was instrumental in partnering local business sponsors with participating artists, said it's a great way to get businesses not normally associated with the arts to become involved with the local art community.
John White • Photo by: Chris Jensen
Artist John White, another elder statesmen of regional art and husband of gallery owner/consultant Sylvia White, is using a PODS container to showcase other local talent — namely Kenny Milton and Perez's son Amadeo, who painted the exterior — while bringing attention to a condition he's been dealing with for decades: asthma.
Using "souvenirs" from his many visits to Community Memorial Hospital, he's created a few sculptural pieces incorporating asthma inhalers, hospital bracelets and other affliction-related ephemera. "I'm having a ball," he says.
Not being able to breathe is no laughing matter but White has managed to lighten the subject while bringing awareness to it. His PODS space, which will be on display at the Museum of Ventura County during ArtWalk, will house a giant, breathing (via audio installation) papier-mâché nose crafted by MB Hanrahan, along with poetry about breath by various writers and White's own personal statement about the exhibit. "I signed it 'artist and asthmatic," he says. "It's educational in the sense that if you're an asthmatic and see this you might think, 'Oh, wow, I never thought of it this way.' " Which, fittingly, is what might also be said about the venue for his exhibit. Other artists who are transforming storage containers into art receptacles include Gerald Zwers, Chris Jensen, Stephanie Hogue, Audra Arbas, Brett Jordan and others. "You give them this empty space," says Perez, "and it's amazing to see the directions they go with it."
John White's PODS exhibit sponsored by CMH.
With the return of the Bowl Hop for charity plus Focus on the Masters' "Convergence" multimedia and dance presentation, the PODS, the pop-ups, the WAV community's Eco Arts Fest and all the area's best in visual art at Stoneworks Studios, Bell Arts Factory, Vita Art Center, Museum of Ventura County, Green Art People and other participating galleries, this year's ArtWalk Ventura is taking shape as the area's flagship annual art event.
"Art is something that is very important for any community to support," says Koch. "The most important decision of my life is that I chose become an artist."
For more information about PODS artists and sponsors and a complete ArtWalk Ventura schedule, visit westsideartwalk.org.


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