Female detainee who became ill at immigration removal centre in Scotland tests … – BreakingNews.com

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Friendsville man charged with fourth DUI in wreck on Alcoa Highway – Maryville Daily Times

A Friendsville man was charged with a fourth DUI offense and vehicular assault following a two-vehicle accident Sunday afternoon on Alcoa Highway near Topside Road.

According to Sgt. Rodney Wilson of the Alcoa Police Department, at approximately 4:11 p.m., a 1973 orange Volkswagen Beetle was traveling northbound on Alcoa Highway, when a 2002 blue Ford Escape traveling southbound, driven by 35-year-old Michael Dee Palmer, Cedar Crest Lane, was attempting to make a left turn into the Cornerstone of Recovery facility. Palmer’s vehicle pulled into the path of the Volkswagen during the turn, and the vehicles collided after Palmer failed to yield.

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Editorial: Labor force rebound hardly robust – The Spokesman Review

This editorial from the Orange County (Calif.) Register does not necessarily reflect the views of The Spokesman-Review editorial board.

Two new reports are out this week that, taken together, provide a pretty good picture of how the U.S. labor force has fared since the economic recovery began in June 2009.

On Monday, the U.S. Conference of Mayors released a report, prepared by IHS Global Insight, noting that U.S. payroll employment reached an all-time high this spring, finally surpassing the prerecession peak of 138.4 million jobs, reached in the first quarter of 2008.

Then, the Labor Department …

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This editorial from the Orange County (Calif.) Register does not necessarily reflect the views of The Spokesman-Review editorial board.

Two new reports are out this week that, taken together, provide a pretty good picture of how the U.S. labor force has fared since the economic recovery began in June 2009.

On Monday, the U.S. Conference of Mayors released a report, prepared by IHS Global Insight, noting that U.S. payroll employment reached an all-time high this spring, finally surpassing the prerecession peak of 138.4 million jobs, reached in the first quarter of 2008.

Then, the Labor Department reported Tuesday that there were 4.7 million job openings on the last business day in June, not only a slight uptick from May, but also the highest number of openings in 13 years.

If the reports stopped there, it would be cause for celebration, from Orange County, California, to Orange County, Florida. But as a wise man famously advised, all that glitters is not gold.

Indeed, the Conference of Mayors report laments that jobs gained during the economic recovery pay an average 23 percent less than jobs lost during the so-called Great Recession.

The annual wage was $61,637 in sectors where jobs were lost in the economic downturn, which began in December 2007, while the average wage of new jobs gained through the second quarter of this year was only $47,171. “This wage gap,” said the report, “represents $93 billion in lost wages.”

As to the Labor Department’s monthly report on Job Openings and Labor Turnover – known as JOLTS – it has been held out by Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen as an important barometer of the state of the nation’s job market.

Continued strength in the next several JOLTS reports could portend a move by the Fed to ratchet up short-term interest rates, which would be most welcomed by inflation hawks, who complain that the nation’s central bank has kept short-term rates too low for too long.

But Yellen and the Fed’s board of governors are not strictly looking at job openings. They also are looking at the number of workers who voluntarily quit jobs and the number of workers hired.

Indeed, when workers voluntarily leave their employers, it usually means they have found better – usually higher-paying – jobs. That’s a sign of a dynamic labor market. Similarly, when that nation’s employers are competing with each other to hire workers to fill job openings, it’s a sign of robust economic growth.

In June, about 2.53 million workers quit a job, the most since June 2008.

Meanwhile, some 4.8 million Americans were hired in June.

Regrettably, that quit rate was a mere 1.8 percent in June, which is trending somewhat upward, but remains at a historically low level. And, while monthly hires are trending in the right direction, they have yet to return to prerecession levels.

So, American workers are to be forgiven if they are not especially bullish about the nation’s labor market. After five years of putative economic recovery, they almost certainly expected more.

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Federal autopsy ordered in Missouri teen’s death – Maryville Daily Times

FERGUSON, Mo. — Attorney General Eric Holder on Sunday ordered a federal medical examiner to perform another autopsy on a black Missouri teenager whose fatal shooting by a white police officer has spurred a week of rancorous and sometimes-violent protests in suburban St. Louis.

The “extraordinary circumstances” surrounding the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown and a request by Brown’s family members prompted the order, Department of Justice spokesman Brian Fallon said in a statement.

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Safeguarding our facilities: Blount systems address community use of schools … – Maryville Daily Times

At a time in which political and religious organizations are seeking the use of school facilities for after-hours programming, potential liabilities have never been greater.

In addition to normal wear and tear, personal injury and property damage, school districts must now consider the risk of potential litigation for denying groups the right to host after-school programs. Knox County Schools is already dealing with this new legal reality.

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Not-so-dumb blondes – Bucks County Courier Times

Growing up with golden locks means dealing with decades-old stereotypes that show no signs of waning. But, really, why does the color of your hair even matter?

It’s the color of sunshine and stupidity, gold and giggly, daisies and dumbness. For some reason, the stereotype that blondes are considered slow but sexy has yet to be destroyed, even diminished.

The media, entertainment industry and even children’s toys constantly remind us just how “dumb” blondes really are.

Over the past few years, dark- or red-haired female protagonists have been playing huge roles in movies that would otherwise have been suited for men, heroic characters such as Katniss Everdeen in Suzanne Collins’ “Hunger Games” films, Tris Prior in Veronica Roth’s “Divergent” (although she was blond in the books), the ever-clever Hermione Granger in J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series, even Pixar’s new heroine Merida from “Brave.”

But what of the blondes? They are left to play their “typical” roles, like princesses or “mean girls.” Examples include Rapunzel in “Tangled,” Quinn Fabray and Sue Sylvester in “Glee” and Regina George in “Mean Girls.”

Being blond isn’t easy for men, either. The famous Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter couldn’t be more of a villain, not to mention Buffalo Bill in “Silence of the Lambs.” In addition, there is Stifler from “American Pie,” who plays a dumb, sex-obsessed young adult male.

What is depressing is how long this stereotype has been around, and how society’s outlook of blondes hasn’t changed very much.

Look at Nancy Drew. When the series began in the 1930s, Nancy was a blonde on the front cover of all 100-some books. The hair color quickly changed in the 2007 “Nancy Drew” movie to auburn.

We wonder, why? Is it because of the stereotype that blondes face? Or is it because the actress just happened to fit the role? What if Nancy Drew wasn’t smart or clever — would she be cast as a blonde? I guess we will let that one be a mystery.

But what the media doesn’t show are the real blondes, the blondes who don’t use their hair color to succeed socially, who don’t act dumb because they’re “supposed to.”

Let’s take a deeper look at some blond iconic figures:

First, we have Madonna, a famous actress and singer from the 1980s known for her look and style that consisted of lace tops, skirts, fishnet stockings and, of course, her signature bleached-blond hair. Her style influenced young girls and female fashion around the world.

Madonna was not the usual ditzy blonde. Although she used her bleached hair as part of her act, it was merely a prop, not a character trait. In her song “Express Yourself,” she describes the importance of young women standing up for their rights and not letting men take advantage of them. She emphasizes the importance of respecting yourself and having men fall in love with you, not for your looks but for who you are at heart.

Marilyn Monroe, a famous actress, model and singer of the 1950s, had the signature bleached-blond hair and a unique style. Monroe was able to captivate audiences with her talent for acting, not only because of her style and hair color.

Yet she is often seen as the epitome of a blonde. Society forgets she was also a human with a very high intelligence level. Maybe she changed how media perceived her after having to be the subject of an obnoxious stereotype. After all, she was an actress who could play her part very well on- and off-screen.

Actor and comedian Julie Brown (brunette), famous in the 1980s, wrote a demeaning song called “Cause I’m a Blonde” to describe her feelings and thoughts toward blond performers like Madonna. Her lyrics were able to put all the stereotypes one can imagine into a catchy song.

It opens with, “Because I’m a blonde, I don’t have to think. I talk like a baby, and I never pay for drinks” and also includes lines such as “I never learned to read, and I never learned to cook. Why should I bother when I look like I look?”

Brown’s song emphasizes the belief that blondes get by only on their looks and not their talents. The hatred toward blond actresses is clearly seen throughout the lyrics as she continues to mock and bully blondes. Brown’s song might have brought back confidence in the eyes of a brunette; however, it left a negative effect on all current and future blondes.

And we can’t forget Barbie, the ever-famous doll most girls grew up with. Barbie was created by Ruth Handler to allow girls to dream of a future lifestyle. As the late Handler stated in a quote found on the official Barbie website: “My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices.”

Maybe so, but Barbie’s image was quickly misconstrued to became a blond sex figure. People thought of Barbie not as a representation of women having choices but as the typical ditzy, stupid blonde in doll form. People only saw what Julie Brown had described in her lyrics to “Cause I’m a Blonde.”

Therefore, a doll meant to represent, as fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg stated “… a confident and independent woman with an amazing ability to have fun while remaining glamorous,” was just another reason to believe the blond stereotypes.

Unfortunately, people have started taking Barbie way too seriously. Some, like model Valeria Lukyanova, have gone so far as to put their bodies through several plastic surgeries and unbelievably unhealthy diets to look as much like Barbie as possible. But no matter how much they change their bodies, they will never be a real-life Barbie, since a recent study showed that if you were to make Barbie a real person, she wouldn’t be able to stand because her breasts are too big and her neck would be incredibly elongated.

“Since her waist would be 4 inches thinner than her head, Barbie’s body wouldn’t have the room it needs to hold all of its vital organs, and her uber-skinny ankles and child-size feet would make it necessary for her to walk on all fours,” wrote Emma Gray on Huffington Post.

So what kind of message is this sending to all young blondes out there?

We reality writers know what it’s like to be a blonde in this demanding society.

Amanda:

My friend and I had created a “Blond Pact,” a promise to each other that we were never to alter our naturally blond hair. The one conundrum was our hair was always dirty blond. Everyone always said, “If you stand out in the sun long enough, your hair will get naturally blond.” So in our quest to become naturally blonder, we stood in the sun for hours. Just to see no difference in our hair color.

It was a mutual agreement ever since we started the “who’s blonder war” that we were never to alter our hair with any chemical. We let the level of blondness be a deciding factor in things like who would start board games.

Aug. 18, 2012: The tragic day came when my friend and I decided it was time to break the pact. We were sick and tired of standing in the sun and seeing nothing happen. We decided to take action.

We had acquired Go Blonder by John Frieda, a product similar to Sun-In hair lightener. We were so excited, we sprayed our hair to the perfect tint of blond that we had always wanted. It was great, we were finally the right shade of blond.

Except we hadn’t thought about the fact hair grows. A couple of months after our hair was blond, we had noticed the dreaded roots that any “experienced hair-dyer” knows.

It was time to create a new pact. “The never getting roots until I get gray hair pact.”

Samantha:

Aside from my mom, I am the only natural blonde in my entire family (not to mention the shortest, which means I get picked on twice as much). When I was younger, I would always envy my brunette friends because whenever I read YA novels, the female protagonist would always have dark hair, while the blondes were generally the fierce antagonists who used their looks for power. It made me feel as though I wasn’t as capable of a being kick-ass, smart and powerful woman.

People would always tell me dumb blond jokes, but that wasn’t nearly as bad as when I’d make a silly verbal mistake. For instance, I completely messed up the punchline of a joke I had just learned. Everyone made such a big deal out of it, when I know if it were a brunette or a redhead, it wouldn’t be nearly as funny.

And God forbid I dye my hair blonder. While I’m naturally a dirty blonde, I’ve gotten highlights before, and even this simple change (which I actually quite liked) made me feel fake, as if I were trying to be some plastic toy.

It’s so silly — it’s just the color of your hair. No one judges you by the color of your eyes, but your hair? Different story.

It is clear that in today’s society, blondes are the ultimate antagonists of the world. Maybe it’s payback for all the time Madonna, Marilyn Monroe and other powerful blonde actresses of the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s had on center stage. But when it comes down to it, the real question is: Why does the color of your hair even matter?

Whatever caused this, it needs to stop. It’s time to prove the world wrong. Whether you’re a natural blonde or you dye your hair blond, don’t play the part society has already seemed to give you. Be the protagonist of your life.

You have a good, blond head on your shoulders. And if you do make a mistake, let it go. It’s not evidence you’re a “dumb blonde.”

And just because people associate blondes with being “girly” doesn’t mean you have to change who you are to become a tomboy. Stay true to yourself, because you share the color hair of a lioness.

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Juneau police: death on cruise ship not suspicious – Maryville Daily Forum

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Police say an 87-year-old Missouri woman died of natural causes on a cruise ship in Juneau last week.

Police investigated the death after the woman’s body was found on the Holland America Oosterdam while the ship was in port.

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© 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Thank you for reading 12 free articles on our site. You can come back at the end of your 30-day period for another 12 free articles, or you can purchase a subscription at this time and continue to enjoy valuable local news and information. If you need help, please contact our office at 660-562-2424.

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New dental providers may harm the poor and uninsured – The Intelligencer

Healthcare in America has changed. Even before the passage of the affordable care act (ACA), the role of medical doctors in the assessment and treatment of patients has diminished. Nurses, techs, physician’s assistants, and other “providers” render much of the care performed at the hospital and in medical offices. In recent years, politicians have been pushing this model for dentistry as well. Never mind that most direct care for dental patients is both surgical and irreversible. What matters is that we need more access to dental care for the underserved, regardless of the potential consequences for the patient or the negative impact on the profession of dentistry.

The programs that have caused the most controversy in recent years are the dental health aide therapist (DHAT), the dental therapist (DT) and the advanced dental therapist (ADT) programs. These new “midlevel providers” practice primarily in Alaska and Minnesota, but their impact and reach could spread throughout the country in the near future.

The level of education required for the DHAT, DT and ADT is far less than the education and training a dentist receives, and is roughly comparable to a dental hygienist. The typical training of a dentist requires four years of college with a heavy concentration of basic science, passing an entrance exam, and then four years of dental school with challenging written and clinical board examinations. Many new dental graduates then do at least one year of residency. In recent years, admission to dental school has become extremely difficult. See also www.dentalcomfortzone.com/story.php?aid=273

So what can these mid-level providers do? They are essentially able to do most of what a licensed dentist can do, including administering local anesthesia and nitrous oxide, fillings, removing part of the nerve of primary teeth, pulp capping, extracting primary teeth, and “simple” extractions. The problems that these mid-level providers can and will encounter when providing dental treatment to patients are too numerous to list here. When considering oral surgery, problems can occur with fractured roots, damage to the jaw, perforation of the sinus, and excessive bleeding, to name a few. What if there is a medical emergency? Will the mid-level provider know how to handle something as “simple” as a patient fainting or as complicated as chest pain or a heart attack? How will an allergic reaction or aspiration of a foreign body be handled? Even something as routine as administering local anesthesia or nitrous oxide can quickly become a dental emergency.

In my view, treatment provided by those with insufficient education and training is unethical and wrong. It is an irresponsible approach to treating the poor, underserved, or uninsured. Recently, I was asked to share my views on the subject with a prominent dental journal, Dental Abstracts. My commentary will be published in the September/October issue of this year.

Dr. Jerry Gordon can be reached at (215) 639-0571. Comments, questions, and second opinions are available at The Dental Comfort Zone, 2734 Street Rd. Bensalem, PA 19020 (across from the Giant supermarket). To learn more: www.dentalcomfortzone.com, E-mail: drjdmd@comcast.net

Dr. Jerry Gordon can be reached at 215-639-0571. Comments, questions and second opinions are available at The Dental Comfort Zone, 2734 Street Road, Bensalem, Pa. 19020 (across from the Giant supermarket). To learn more: http://www.dentalcomfortzone.com; email drjdmd@comcast.net.

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Missing Colossus? Magic Mountain’s new ride has an old look, with a techno twist – OCRegister

Designer’s other beasts

World-famous roller coaster designer Alan Schilke is responsible for revamping the iconic Colossus. Here are ten of his noted creations:

X: The Fourth-Dimension Roller Coaster, Six Flags Magic Mountain

Goliath, Six Flags Great America, Illinois

Medusa Steel Coaster, Six Flags Mexico

Iron Rattler, Six Flags Fiesta Texas

New Texas Giant, Six Flags Over Texas

Hell Cat, Timber Falls Adventure Park, Wisconsin

Outlaw Run, Silver Dollar City, Missouri

Timberhawk: Ride of Prey, Wild Waves Enchanted Village, Washington

Tenessee Tornado, Dollywood

Polercoaster, LakePoint Sporting Community, Georgia

Coaster details

Features of Magic Mountain’s Twisted Colossus:

• The High Five: Two tracks intertwine and tilt toward each other so riders can almost touch hands.

• Zero Gravity Roll: New metal tracks will twist 360 degrees for a weightless full-circle inversion.

• Top Gun Stall: Riders will experience an upside-down loop in slow motion.

• Near-Vertical Drop: The ride’s classic 130-foot drop has been steepened to a breakneck 80 degrees.

VALENCIA – Colossus, the iconic Magic Mountain roller coaster that closed this month, will return as a record-breaking wood and steel hybrid ride in 2015.

Greater speeds, steeper drops, and more extreme features impossible on a wooden coaster will be possible in a new steel design of twisted tracks, Six Flags Magic Mountain officials said Thursday.

Twisted Colossus has riders look up at each other while train cars tip sideways – a trick called a “high five” – and it will be the first coaster in the Western Hemisphere with the feature.

“The two tracks twist through and past each other, which is definitely something unique that we’ve never done before,” said Jake Kilcup, co-designer of Twisted Colossus and chief operations officer of Rocky Mountain Construction.

The new ride will retain the original 1978 wooden coaster’s structure and add two intertwined Iron Horse tracks.

“It takes a classic, beloved wooden coaster that, frankly, lots of people had gotten tired of, and literally puts a twist on it,” said Robert Niles, editor of award-winning site ThemeParkInsider.com.

The updates catapult the coaster back into the realm of record-breaking rides. Nearly 5,000 feet of track will make the four-minute ride the world’s longest for a hybrid coaster, according to Six Flags.

“I think this will prove to be a pretty big success; many of our readers have ridden these hybrid coasters and have almost universally raved about the experience,” Niles said of the wood-to-steel conversion.

Where the original Colossus had a maximum speed of 62 mph, the revamped version could go as fast as 80 mph if sent full throttle.

Aficionados will recognize the coaster’s signature 130-foot drop, this time steepened to a near-vertical 80 degrees.

Eric Geiszl, 41, has ridden the Iron Rattler and New Texas Giant hybrid coasters at Six Flags parks in Texas and looks forward to trying out the reinvented Twisted Colossus.

“Hybrids are like a Ferrari, they glide along at super speeds and you lose the rackety rough feel of the wood,” Geiszl said. “There’s also many more elements of airtime, which is that negative G-force that gives a weightless feeling, which many enthusiasts love.”

Twisted Colossus will have 18 airtime hills, where riders pop up out of the seats momentarily.

It will also feature a zero-gravity roll, where tracks twist around 360 degrees, and a slow-motion inversion where riders catch their breath upside down before speeding off again. Rocky Mountain designers referred to the trick as a “Top Gun stall,” after the Tom Cruise film.

“Because of the new metal tracks, the ride is much smoother, so it will feel less nostalgic but more current,” Kilcup said of the revamped experience, which he compared to the Iron Rattler hybrid coaster at Six Flags Fiesta Texas.

Geiszl, who founded UltimateRollerCoaster.com, said the updates will make Colossus a state-of-the-art attraction once again, returning the ride to its glory days of the 1970s and 1980s.

“It’s becoming a bit of a trend in the industry to take old wooden coasters and top them with steel tracks, but over the last two seasons it’s been at smaller parks that don’t attract the multimillions of visitors,” explained ThemeParkInsider’s Niles.

While hybrid coasters are nothing new, Twisted Colossus will be the first one featured in Southern California, one of the top two amusement-park markets in the United States, along with Orlando, Fla.

Six Flags locations in Texas and Illinois, as well as amusement parks in Idaho, have retrofitted wooden rides in recent years. Critics call the result the best of both worlds, combining the nostalgic old-time silhouettes with the thrill-seeking effects made possible with steel.

“If Six Flags can manage to get it open before summer 2015, Twisted Colossus is something a lot of people will actually get up and go to the park to experience rather than just think of as being cool back in the day,” Niles said.

While unable to comment specifically on when Twisted Colossus will be ready, project officials at Rocky Mountain Construction said it typically takes between nine and 18 months to complete roller coaster parts, which are then shipped to the park and assembled on-site.

Six Flags confirmed that construction has begun but declined to specify when in 2015 the ride will open.

“Over the years, Colossus’ popularity has waned, and it’s deserving of a reinvention,” Geiszl said. “With the update they’re really paying tribute to the original.”

Contact the writer: ahernandez@losangelesregister.com

Related:

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Shared offices provide advantages for startups, nonprofits, others – Tribune-Review

Bibhuti Aryal, a tech consultant in Pittsburgh, runs a nonprofit that helps educate girls in rural areas of Nepal.

To coordinate his team on two continents, Aryal, 35, ran the Rukmini Foundation out of his living room in Dormont for about two years. He liked the 10-foot commute but not the isolation.

“It’s harder to run ideas when you’re not in front of other people,” he said.

Aryal and his team moved to Global Switchboard in Lawrenceville, where they share office rental space with others who have international missions. Soon he had opportunities to meet with large foundations and to network. All he had to do was walk around a partition.

Global Switchboard is a shared work environment, known as a co-working space, and it’s one of perhaps a dozen in the Pittsburgh area.

Co-working is becoming an alternative workspace option for many area freelancers and entrepreneurs. People who share rental space say it’s inexpensive, promotes collaboration and cuts the time and some of the expense of setting up an office.

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, who highlighted co-working at roundtable discussions he hosted this week and last, has said the concept is a way to keep startups, ideas and entrepreneurs in Pittsburgh.

“The desk is the smallest component of what we get from being there,” Aryal said. “You get efficiencies you just can’t get through email.”

Co-working environments are loosely defined as spaces where several independent professionals or entrepreneurs share space and pool resources such as phones, Internet service, even coffee. Some spaces look like corporate offices, with shared conference tables or a beer keg to give it a startup feel. Others have more traditional decor with whiteboards and cubicles. Some are simply space for rent that users can personalize.

“The home office doesn’t do it for me anymore,” said Tom Buell, who rents shared office space from Global Switchboard.

In exchange for rent starting at about $200 a month, Aryal and Buell, 58, get outfitted office space among a group of other nonprofits. They can solve problems and collaborate to grow their philanthropy.

Though co-working is novel in the nonprofit sector, it’s common among tech startups.

Mark Musolino, founder of the co-working spaces at Revv Oakland, said his idea is to get people working quickly by eliminating the energy they would spend setting up an office.

His tenants get tax breaks because Revv is in a Keystone Innovation Zone, an area designated to promote entrepreneurship near colleges and universities such as Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. Musolino said access to the universities and co-working is a way Pittsburgh can prevent technology startups from fleeing to the coasts.

“The vision is just to see Pittsburgh as a destination for startup companies,” said Musolino. “We bring people to these great universities from all over the world, and then they leave.”

While co-working makes financial sense for young companies of three and four people, for others, it’s about professionalism and community.

Elliott Williams, 32, started Catapult, a co-working space in Lawrenceville. He grew tired of meeting clients at coffee houses. His tenants include a company making an app to help the visually impaired, freelance writers and designers, an improv class teacher and lawyers.

He said that in other cities, co-working makes sense because home offices aren’t available. In Pittsburgh, real estate is less expensive, so to make co-working a viable business, he said, one must sell it on the benefits of collaboration.

“In other cities … you’re not going to have a spare bedroom. In Pittsburgh, you do,” he said.

Despite their disparate professions, he said, everyone in Catapult’s open-concept office works together. After one tenant learned from co-workers he charged too little for his services, Williams said everyone in the office decided on a minimum, fair fee. If a designer needs computer programming help, a developer is at the next desk.

Even though they run separate businesses, the people at Catapult re-create an office environment, Williams said, standing in their shared kitchen. Most of it is positive, he said as co-workers milled around a coffee table and a dog ran down the hall. But it’s still an office, he said next to a sign above the sink that notes who washed dirty dishes that other tenants left overnight.

Megha Satyanarayana is a staff writer at Trib Total Media. She can be reached at 412-320-7991 or megha@tribweb.com.

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Police shooting draws protesters from near, far – Maryville Daily Forum

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — Protesters who have for days lined a busy suburban St. Louis street not far from the place where a white police officer fatally shot an unarmed black teenager have walked from nearby apartments, driven from neighboring communities and flown in from states hundreds of miles away. Some are young parents carrying infants. Others, college students. Retirees. Professionals taking a break from their jobs.

They have chanted, marched, shouted, danced on vehicles and — though most have remained peaceful — also looted and vandalized stores during late-night clashes with armored police who have fired smoke canisters and tear gas into the crowds.

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Peters, Cook strike bank deal; Century to acquire Valley National – Santa Fe New Mexican.com

In an era of corporate dealmaking that can span global time zones, the sale of Valley National Bank in Española to Century Bank in Santa Fe easily could have started with a telephone call from Richard Cook to Gerald Peters.

The two Northern New Mexico businessmen have owned the majority interest in their respective banks for almost 25 years, and on Friday it was announced that Cook’s Valley National will be sold to Century Bank, where Peters and his family have 85 percent ownership.

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Eco Challenge contest winners announced – OCRegister

Eco Challenge contest winners announced

Three of the contest winners were present at the Eco Challenge Event for the announcement.

, COURTESY OC WASTE & RECYCLING

Five young Orange County artists have earned the opportunity to serve as Honorary Bat Kids at the Angels game Sept. 12, as winners of the Eco Challenge Poster Contest.

In keeping with the 125th anniversary of the county’s founding, contestants were called to show what the next 125 years would look like if we all take the Eco Challenge.

The winning posters were selected from 200 submissions. Judges selected the winners based on originality, clarity, relevance to theme, artwork and effectiveness of message.

One winner was selected from each of the county’s five supervisorial districts.

The winners are:

Benjamin Muñiz, Santa Ana, 1st District

Merrin Joseph, Buena Park, 2nd District

Natalie Chang, Irvine, 3rd District

Danilo Macias, Anaheim, 4th District

Charlie Adams, Ladera Ranch, 5th District

“We were pleased to see so many Eco Challenge posters submitted in this year’s contest. We saw so much talent and excitement for the future in their work,” board Chairman Shawn Nelson said.

The poster contest is sponsored by the County of Orange, Discovery Science Center and Angels Baseball.

– Submitted by

OC Waste & Recycling

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MWL umpire one of five from Canada in pro ranks – Peoria Journal Star

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New rolling recycling bins irk Chapel Hill residents – The Daily Tar Heel

By Zoe Schaver

|
Published 08/14/14 9:14pm

Orange County thought expanding the residential recycling program would be a crowd pleaser.

The blue recycling bins that now decorate Orange County’s neighborhoods are bigger and more technologically advanced than previous bins.

The wheeled bins are part of an effort by the Orange County Solid Waste Management Department  to encourage residents to recycle more material more often.

But some residents disagree with the decision to use the larger bins.

The Shady Lawn Road neighborhood near Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard is lined with woodsy, brown houses tucked below street level, many with steep, narrow staircases leading to their front door, meaning residents have to wheel the larger carts to a central road. Before, they could bring the smaller bins to the top of their driveway.

Elizabeth Moore, who lives on Shady Lawn Road, said there should be an alternate option for residents in areas like hers in a letter to the Chapel Hill Town Council.

“I pay taxes like everyone else and don’t understand why, now, I cannot recycle at curbside,” she said in her letter.

The Solid Waste Management Department provides alternate recycling options for the elderly and disabled, but not for other community members.

Each new 95-gallon bin contains a monitored computer chip. The computer chips report when each bin is picked up by a collector.

Eric Gerringer, recycling programs manager at the Solid Waste Management Department, said the county will monitor the computer chips to determine which neighborhoods recycle least often, then target those neighborhoods with educational programs about recycling.

Volunteers for the Solid Waste Management Department distributed fliers in various Chapel Hill neighborhoods to educate student residents who were just moving in about the recycling changes that came with the new bins.

The bins can be filled with a wider variety of materials, including plastic cups and tubs, but still cannot contain plastic bags. Bins must be placed at the curbside by 7 a.m. on collection day each week.

Gerringer also said the bins have logistical benefits.

“Primarily it was the ease of rolling out the carts,” he said. “They also have a greater capacity for placing recycling in, cardboard boxes can fit more easily, the lid keeps recyclables dry and more pest-free, and collection is safer and more efficient.”

Patrick Wallace and Laurie McNeil of Columbia Place told the Chapel Hill Town Council they have no space for the bin.

“Our neighborhood has small garages, and in ours we keep a compact car, a commuting bicycle, a garbage can and the smaller of two recycling bins,” the two explained in their letter. “Also, we just don’t need such a large recycling cart.”

Wallace and McNeil said their homeowners association will not allow the carts to be left out during the week.

But Gary Dupart, a first-year graduate student at UNC living on Columbia Place, said he hasn’t had a problem storing the bin in his backyard.

“I like it. I have a lot of stuff to recycle,” he said.

Gerringer said the department is working with town staff to address these concerns.

“You would have to purchase additional carts — there’s a cost there,” he said. “You would need to not only track which carts go to which residents but also the delivery of those carts. At this point, it’s still under review.”

city@dailytarheel.com

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Western Indiana county reports rapid bats – News Dispatch

ROCKVILLE, Ind. (AP) — A western Indiana county reports three people have had to undergo a series of shots after being bitten by bats that were rabid, or believed to be rabid, and four others have had to be treated for possible exposure.

The Tribune-Star reports (http://bit.ly/1oYYwDN) the cases have been reported in Parke County, about 25 miles northeast of Terre Haute. Parke County public health nurse Kevin Elizabeth Rowe says her 16-year-old son was bitten by a rabid bat last week at a friend’s house in Rockville.

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Chinese man accused of hacking for defense data – Merced Sun-Star

LOS ANGELES — A federal grand jury in Los Angeles has charged a Chinese businessman with a computer hacking scheme to steal information on military projects, including fighter jets, to sell to Chinese companies.

City News Service says Su Bin was indicted Thursday on charges of conspiracy and unauthorized computer access. He faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors say Su — working with two other Chinese — hacked the computers of defense contractors, including Boeing, and stole trade secrets on projects including the C-17 military transport and the F-22 and F-35 fighter jets. They’re accused of trying to sell the information to state-owned Chinese companies.

Su is held in Canada, where he was arrested in June. It’s not clear whether he has an attorney.

The indictment replaces earlier federal charges against him.

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The hunger crisis in America’s universities – MSNBC

Hungry students don’t enter the on-campus food pantry at New York’s LaGuardia Community College; instead they sit in an office in the college’s financial services center while a staff member or volunteer runs upstairs to get their food, bringing them unmarked grocery bags to take home. 

Little more than an unlabeled office, containing a series of unmarked file cabinets, the pantry goes undetected to most – and that’s the point.

Dr. Michael Baston, the college’s vice president of Student Affairs, says the whole process is designed to be invisible.

“We did this because we feel like it is a stigma reducing strategy,” he said. “Because we want students to feel like whatever the resource they need to sustain themselves, that would be available to them.”

Battling stigma is a challenge for food pantries of all stripes, but the struggle appears to be especially pronounced on college campuses. After all, universities are supposed to be islands of relative privilege. If you can afford to spend thousands of dollars a year on a college education, the thinking goes, you can’t possibly be hungry enough to require emergency food assistance.

Rhondalisa Roberts, a LaGuardia sophomore and food pantry client, has witnessed that stigma firsthand. She says that when she suggested that a hungry classmate of hers visit the pantry, the classmate told her, “Oh, I’m not going to go there. I’m not poor.”

“It’s very, very alarming,” Roberts told msnbc. “Most students have a negative stigma when it comes to receiving help for food. Everybody doesn’t want to receive food or seem needy, even when they are in dire need of resources.”

It’s difficult to track just how many college students are in dire need, but new data from the country’s largest emergency food service network suggests that the number is at least in the millions. Feeding America’s 2014 Hunger in America report estimates that roughly 10% of its 46.5 million clients are currently students, including about two million people who are attending school full-time. Nearly one-third of those surveyed—30.5%—report that they’ve had to choose between paying for food and covering educational expenses at some point in the last year.

Feeding America, a network of some 46,000 emergency food service agencies in the United States, releases its Hunger in America report once every four years. This latest iteration of the report, which is based on a survey of more than 60,000 Feeding America clients, is the first to include data about college students in need of emergency food services. The new research suggests that America’s chronic hunger emergency has not spared institutes of higher learning.

Maybe that should come as no surprise, given that food insecurity—defined by the Department of Agriculture as lack of ”access … to enough food for an active, healthy life”—has been rising steadily for years. In part that’s due to the Clinton and Reagan administration’s significant revisions to the welfare state. Yet the situation didn’t become a true crisis until after the 2008 financial collapse, which caused food insecurity to rise by 24% in the space of a single year, according to USDA figures. In response, the federal government approved an emergency transfusion of funds into the food stamp program; but then it began to roll back those additional funds in November 2013, even though food insecurity had never returned to pre-2008 levels. The result was an unprecedented state of permanent emergency for emergency food assistance programs across the country.

As food insecurity rose, it also began to affect households that had never experienced it before. Data published by Feeding America in April suggests that 27% of food insecure people don’t qualify for food stamps because their incomes are too high. And even as food insecurity continued to climb, so did college enrollment rates, in part because college is seen as a stepping stone to economic security.

“Poor people and people who struggle with food insecurity didn’t used to go to college. … If they were going to get education, they were going to get the free part and that’s it,” said Sara Goldrick-Rab, professor of educational policy studies and sociology at the University of Madison-Wisconsin. “But there’s been such a strong cultural push and a strong economic push for college that people with no means are pursuing it.”

As low-income populations have gone to college and food insecurity has risen up to swallow the lower rungs of the middle class, hunger has spread across America’s university campuses like never before. In some places, it’s practically a pandemic: At Western Oregon University, 59% of the student body is food insecure, according to researchers from Oregon State University (OSU). A 2011 survey [PDF] of the City University of New York (CUNY) found that 39.2% of the university system’s quarter of a million undergraduates had experienced food insecurity at some time in the past year.

But it’s not just undergraduates: the number of food insecure graduate students is also growing. Between 2007 and 2010, the number of doctorate-holding food stamp recipients tripled, according to a 2012 Chronicle of Higher Education analysis. The number of food stamp recipients with a master’s degree wasn’t found to have tripled over the same time frame, but it got remarkably close, going from 101,682 to 293,029. At one large research school, Michigan State University (MSU), the on-campus food pantry reports that more than half of its clients are graduate students.

Ying Liu, a doctoral student in chemical engineering and occasional client of the MSU Food Bank, told msnbc that MSU undergraduates are more likely to be able to call on their parents and other sources of financial support when necessary. Graduate students tend to have less of a safety net. At the same time they’re likelier to have dependents of their own, who they often need to support on a meager stipend.

“A lot of students who are married, they have to support their children,” said Liu. “Because their family is dependent on them. For one person it would be fine, but for a three or four-person family it’s pretty high pressure.”

Kristin Sewell, an anthropologist and doctoral student, is currently raising a teenage son while pursuing a five-year fellowship at MSU. Her daughter, who recently turned 20, is in college herself. Sewell told msnbc that her modest fellowship stipend is enough to ensure that she doesn’t access the MSU Food Bank regularly, although she has used it “when things got particularly tight.”

“Like after my first winter here in Michigan, I hadn’t anticipated my heating bills would be as high as they were,” she said. “I knew they would be high, obviously, but I hadn’t planned for $500 electric bills. So then I decided to use the food pantry just to make ends meet.”

Her decision was shaped in part by her own upbringing.

“As a kid myself, I had experienced hunger,” said Sewell. “I grew up with a single parent in Southern California and we often went to bed hungry. I didn’t want my kids to experience that, so I didn’t hesitate to go to the food pantry when I needed to.”

While it can be difficult for many small food pantries to provide high-quality food or other essentials, the MSU Food Bank does pretty well, offering meat and toiletries like toothpaste to its clients. In part that’s because MSU has been in the food pantry game for so long: The Food Bank, which first opened its doors in 1993, is the oldest student-run, on-campus emergency food providers in the United States. Just over two decades later, the program serves about 2,200 clients, from an overall student population of nearly 50,000.

“We’re an established part of the campus community,” said Nate Smyth-Tyge, MSU Food Bank’s current director and a PhD student in the university’s Higher, Adult and Lifelong Education program. “People know they can rely on our services to bridge that gap. And that’s sort of our underlying philosophy: We provide the assistance to students to bridge that gap.”

On-campus food pantries were extremely rare when the MSU Food Bank first launched, but more and more schools have come to adopt them in recent years, as students and administrators have taken note of the rising hunger in the midst. Mainstream news organizations like the Atlantic Monthly and the Washington Post also caught on. Meanwhile, Smith-Tyge starting getting emails from people on other university campuses, asking questions about how the MSU Food Bank is run.

“About a year and a half ago I’d been getting so many of those inquiries that I started to think and about about the idea of some kind of association,” said Smith-Tyge. He ended up connecting with Clare Cady, Human Resource Center coordinator and food pantry administrator for the Oregon State University. Together, Cady and Smith-Tyge founded the College and University Food Bank Alliance (CUFBA) in March 2013. Nearly a year and a half later, CUFBA has members running food pantries at about 100 universities nationwide. Smith-Tyge said he’s aware of roughly 30 on-campus food pantries in the United States that are not affiliated with CUFBA.

The alliance is still growing. Every week, CUFBA receives at least one email from a new university where people are interested in establishing a food pantry. When that happens, Cady and Smith-Tyge try and share best practices with then interested party, as well as connect them with more experienced food pantry administrators in the region. The biggest challenge, said Cady, is “creating sustainable programming.”

“What I see happen is that folks say, hey, we want to get this started. And they’re able to get a grant or food donations, or they’re able to develop a USDA partnership or a food bank partnership, and they’re able to get food and distribute it,” said Cady. “That’s a lot of work and it requires a strong partnership to keep it going, especially when you see increased need or increased participation.”

And participation does increase, once the word gets out that help is available for food insecure students. Yet limited resources and the voluntaristic nature of the program mean that food pantries will rarely, if ever, capture the full extent of the need on campus. In the meantime, research on food insecurity among community college students and children in primary or secondary school indicates that persistent hunger can negatively affect students’ ability to focus on their education—the same education which is supposed to act as a pathway out of food insecurity, at least in theory.

“Being hungry inhibits learning,” said Goldrick-Rab. “We certainly know something about stress and how that contributes to challenges in how healthy people retain material.”

Meanwhile, she added, many hungry students find they can only afford to pay for food if they forego purchasing class materials such as books. In that situation, “you’re not studying with the right materials, so your grades go down, so you lose financial aid,” she said. The loss of that aid can be the final straw that forces students to drop out.

In June, Goldrick-Rab helped arrange a “Housing and Food Security Workshop” through the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin HOPE Lab, which she directs. She described the event as “a pretty heartbreaking day.” Students who attended the program discussed the trouble they have publicly admitting that they’re hungry, fearing that it would socially isolate them or help to reaffirm some of their classmate’s racial stereotypes.

“I certainly don’t think we as a country ever agreed that this is an okay way to do things,” said Goldrick-Rab. “We agreed to give people financial aid so they don’t have to starve to go to school.”
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Telstra inks deal with Ericsson for SDN – Delhi Daily News

Sydney: Australian telecom giant Telstra has inked a deal with Ericsson under which the latter will supply software-defined networking support to the company as part of its continued optical network equipment and services contract.

In a network, the switches and routers determine the flow of traffic on the network. Under software-defined networking (SDN), software is installed on the network equipment to abstract the control of network traffic away from the forwarding of packets, and it allows the network administrator to centrally and programatically determine where and how data flows across the network.

The network administrator can also prioritise certain types of traffic, and provide quality of service guarantees for some specific types of traffic.

We know that Telstra is currently making efforts to manage traffic on its fixed and mobile networks and the Australian firm started talks with Ericsson in 2013 to achieve this goal.

Telstra executive director for networks, Mike Wright, said last year that SDN would make it possible for Telstra to bring products to market earlier. It would also control the flow of data across the network.

“At the end of the day, what that means is we should be able to create services that use less network resource, and at the end of the day lower our capex, and lower our opex,” he said.

“And more particularly, allow us to create services more quickly because we will be able to route the services more dynamically and really bring them to market without the traditional intergrating to every network element and every network box,” he added.

Telstra’s director of transport and routing said that SDN will help the company cope with the rising demands for high traffic across different parts of the network.

“The continued improvement of Telstra’s optical technology will increase bandwidth capacity and also lower latency which is of growing importance as more and more operations move to the cloud,” Robertson said in a statement.

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What’s Happening for August (UPDATED Aug. 16) – SunHerald.com

Send calendar items to mynews@sunherald.com or fax to 896-2104.

TODAY

Sonny Johnson Memorial Fishing Tournament: 6 a.m. Aug. 15-16; weigh-in, 1-4 p.m. Aug. 17, Gulfport Small Craft Harbor, U.S. 90. Hosted by the Mississippi Big Game Fishing Club. Details/registration: 617-3112.

VFW Post 3937 breakfast: 7-10 a.m. Aug. 16 and 23, 213 Klondyke Road, Long Beach. Cost: $6. Details/orders: 863-8602.

VFW Post 2434 pancake breakfast: 8-11 a.m., 289 Veterans Ave., Biloxi. Details: 374-4112.

Pass Market: 8 a.m.-noon Aug. 16, 23 and 30, War Memorial Park, Pass Christian. Locally grown vegetables, fruits, baked goods, arts and crafts. Details: 297-3040.

Depot Country Market: 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Aug. 16, 2-6 p.m. Aug. 21, 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Aug. 23, Train Depot, Blaize Avenue, Bay St. Louis. Local homegrown produce, baked goods, plants and eggs. Details: 601-273-6403.

Adventure Quencher — Turtles: 9-11:30 a.m., Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve Coastal Resources Center, 6005 Bayou Heron Road, Moss Point. Learn how to identify and protect turtles. Details: 475-7047.

Biloxi Excel By 5 annual health fair: 9 a.m.-noon, Donal Snyder Community Center, 2520 Pass Road, Biloxi. Designed for children from birth to 5 years old including screenings such as eye/vision, physical growth, hearing, speech and language. Proper hand washing techniques demonstrated by Mr. Germ Glow. Details: 436-1644 or 297-6808.

Long Beach Farmers Market: 9 a.m.-noon Aug. 16, 23, 30, Jeff Davis Avenue, Long Beach. Local produce, artisan breads, honey, dairy, meats, eggs and more. Health Family Fun Fair: 9 a.m.-1 p.m., Cafe Climb, 1316 30th Ave., Gulfport.

Yoga for Heart Health: 9:30 a.m.-noon (Yoga for High Blood Pressure) and 2:30-4:30 p.m. (Rhythm of Heart) Aug. 16, 9:30-noon Aug. 17 (Inactivity and My Pump), River Rock Yoga, 2429 W. Commerce St., Suite C, Ocean Springs. Cost: $45 per session, $175-185 weekend. Led by Dr. Baxter Bell, western medical doctor and medical acupuncturist.

Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art Mudgslingers: 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., 386 Beach Blvd., Biloxi. Try your hand at pottery on the wheel. Cost: $25. Comfortable wear. Details; 374-5547.

Amanada Medlock benefit: 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Long Beach Town Green, Jeff Davis Avenue. Live music, silent auction, raffles and face painting. Order $20 barbecue plates by Aug. 15. Details: 601-884-0197.

Watercolor workshop: 1-3 p.m., Gallery 782, 782 Water St., Biloxi. Host: Marguerite Pivarnik, artist. Participants will paint a watercolor featuring a variety of crabs. Open to all ages. Cost: $15. Reservations encouraged. Details/reservations: 369-8349.

Pass Christian Art Association meeting: 2 p.m., Pass Christian Library, 111 Hiern Ave., Speaker: Regan Carney, who has 30 years of experience working in clay, pottery wheel and sculpting. Details: 216-0210.

VFW Post 2434 steak night: 4:30-7 p.m., 289 Veterans Ave., Biloxi. Details: 374-4112

Third annual Dillard’s Back to School Civitan Benefit Fashion Show: 5 p.m., Edgewater Mall, Biloxi. Cost: $5. Proceeds benefit North Bay Civitan Club of D’Iberville-St. Martin. Details: 219-2238.

Spaghetti dinner: 5-7 p.m., Handsboro United Methodist Fellowship Hall, 2333 Demaret Drive, Gulfport. 896-7264.

Biloxi Elks 606 Lodge steak night: 6 p.m. Aug. 16 and 23, 1178 Beach Blvd. Cost: $18-20. Details: 374-0606.

Fifth annual Anniversary Ball: 7 p.m., Mississippi Ballroom Dance Club, 15199 Community Road, Gulfport. Cost; $15. Hors d’oeuvres, general dancing, and special dance demonstrations. Semi-formal attire requested. Details: 539-0311.

“Saltoriya”: 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 3 and 7 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through Aug. 17, Beau Rivage Theatre, Biloxi. No shows Mondays. Features aerial acts, comedy and music. Tickets start at $12.95. Buy four tickets for $40 when mentioning the offer code SALT or two tickets for $20 Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays when mentioning offer code RIYA. All tickets are subject to tax and service fees. Buy tickets at the Beau Rivage ticket office, by phone at 888-566-7469 or at beaurivage.com.

Fifth annual Blitzin’ on the Bayou: 7 p.m.-midnight, National Guard Armory, 4264 Kiln-Delisle Road. Entertainment by Category Six, food from local restaurants, silent auction, raffle and more. BYOB. Proceeds benefit Hancock High School Athletic Department. Details: 493-5920.

Belles and Buoys Square Dance and Ice Cream Social: 7:30-10 p.m., Lyman Senior Citizen, 14592 County Farm Road, Gulfport. Details: 596-5362.

French Club Saturday dance: 8 p.m.-midnight, 182 Howard Ave., Biloxi. Cost: $8 single, $15 couple. Details: 436-6472.

SUNDAY

VFW Post 6731 breakfast: 8-11 a.m. Aug. 17, 24 and 31, 4321 W. Gay Road, D’Iberville.

Faith, Hope and Charity ceremony on 45th anniversary of Hurricane Camille: 8:30 a.m., Evergreen Cemetery, 28th Street, Gulfport. Harrison County officials will lay flowers on the graves of Hope, Faith and Charity, the three women who never were claimed or identified after Camille. John McKay, pastor of Handsboro United Methodist Church, will deliver a short message.

Ocean Springs Elks Lodge 2501 breakfast: 9-11 a.m., 2501 Beachview Drive. Cost: $6. Details: 872-2501.

Pass Christian’s Hurricane Camille ceremony: 10 a.m., War Memorial Park on Scenic Drive. City officials will lay a wreath at the park.

Camille 45th anniversary remembrance: 2 p.m., Saenger Theater, 170 Reynoir St., Biloxi. Presented by the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art and the city of Biloxi, the event will feature a Camille documentary and never-before-seen interview with Daniel Guice Sr., mayor of Biloxi during the storm. Tickets can be purchased at the Biloxi Visitors Center or the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art. Cost: $10.

Episcopal Church of the Redeemer’s Hurricane Camille ceremony: 4:30 p.m., at the Hurricane Camille Memorial, Water Street and U.S. 90. The names of the missing and the dead are read during the ceremony.

Dancing with the Blue Stars Orchestra: 3-6 p.m., VFW Post 2434, 289 Veterans Ave., Biloxi. Cost: $10 individual, $18 couples. Dancing includes waltz, cha-cha, mambo, foxtrot and rock and roll. Also features three vocalists. Details: 374-4112.

MONDAY

Orange Grove Rotary meeting: Noon, Golden Corral, Gulfport. Details; 365-2769.

Harrison County Library board of trustees meeting: 3 p.m., Orange Grove Public Library, 12135 Old Highway 49, Gulfport.

American Legion Post 42 meeting/VA benefit paperwork assistance: 5-6 p.m. paperwork assistance, 6:30 p.m. meeting, Senior Citizen’s Center, 514 Washington Ave., Ocean Springs.

TUESDAY

Red Cross blood drive: 8 a.m.-1 p.m.., Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, George County campus, 11203 Old Hwy 63, Lucedale.

Harrison County Development Commission board meeting: 8:15 a.m., 12281 Intraplex Parkway, Gulfport. Details: 896-5020.

Commission on Marine Resources meeting: 9 a.m., Bolton Building, 1141 Bayview Ave.,

Computer 101: 10 a.m., Pass Christian Public Library, 111 Hiern Ave., Presented by Mississippi State Extension Service and Pass Christian Public Library. Instructor: Andy Collins. Class size limited. Details/registration: 452-4596.

Red Cross blood drive: 10 a.m.-2 p.m., American Red Cross of South Mississippi, 2782 Fernwood Road, Biloxi. To schedule an appointment, visit redcrossblood.org. Sponsor code, ARCSOUTHMS.

State of the County address: Noon, IP Casino Resort, Biloxi. Features Harrison County Board of Supervisors President Marlin Ladner. Tickets: $35 includes lunch. Tables and sponsorships available. Details: 604-0014.

AARP driver safety course: 12:30-4:30 p.m., 842 Commerce St., Gulfport. Possible insurance discounts from completed class. Details: 896-0412.

Facebook 101: 1 p.m., Pass Christian Public Library, 111 Hiern Ave., Presented by Mississippi State Extension Service and Pass Christian Public Library. Instructor: Andy Collins. Class size limited. Details/registration: 452-4596.

Bike Biloxi dinner ride: 6 p.m. meet at Biloxi Visitor Center, 1050 Beach Blvd., Bring bike, bike light and helmet. Dinner will be at downtown restuarant. Details: 435-6339.

Affordable Care Act educational meeting: 6 p.m., Pass Christian Public Library, 111 Hiern Ave., Pass Christian. Learn about the Affordable Care Act and the Health Insurance Marketplace before open enrollment begins Nov. 15. Free. Details: 452-4596.

WEDNESDAY

Sixth annual Anchor Awards: 7:30 a.m., Pelican Landing Conference Center, Moss Point. Honor and celebrate achievements of small businesses and nonprofit organizations that are Chamber members. Details: 762-3391.

East Central Harrison County Public Utility District meeting: 8:30 a.m., Offices of Hopkins, Barvie and Hopkins, 2701 24th Ave., Gulfport.

Mississippi State Department of Health District IX Fetal Infant Mortality Review: 9-10:30 a.m., Knight Nonprofit Building banquet room, 11975 Seaway Road, Gulfport. Hosted by Interfaith Partnerships and the Mississippi State Department. Speaker: Michael Cruthird, District coordinator of First steps early intervention and Terry Letham, Hope Haven. Topics will be infants and toddlers with disabilities, and awareness of child abuse on the Gulf Coast. RSVP: cherylcolemandoyle@gmail.com.

Gulfport Harbor Market: 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Aug. 20 and 27, Jones Park in Gulfport Harbor off U.S. 90. Producer-only certified market featuring local and seasonal produce, honey, eggs, plants and more.

Zumba class: 10 a.m. Aug. 20 and 27, Mississippi Ballroom Dance Club, 15199 Community Road, Gulfport. Cost: $1 special, $6 week following. Instructor: Rachael Picard. Details: 539-0311.

Gulfport-Biloxi Regional Airport Authority meeting: 2 p.m., third floor of airport terminal. Details: 863-5951, ext. 3027.

Helping Hands food distribution: 2:30-5 p.m. (or until food runs out), D’Iberville Youth Sportsplex Recreation Center, 10706 Kajja Drive. Bakery items, dry and canned goods, frozen meats and fresh produce. Details/volunteer/sponsor: 354-9660.

The Pass Market: 4-6 p.m. Aug. 20 and 27, Community Pavilion, Davis Avenue, Pass Christian. Locally grown vegetables and fruits. Details: 297-3040.

American Legion Post 1992 Riders spaghetti dinner for college scholarship fund: 5-7 p.m. Aug. 20 and 27, 3824 Old Spanish Trail, Gautier. Cost: $7. Details: 497-6422.

NFWF Gulf Environment Benefit Fund Community Conversations: 5:30-7:30 p.m., Bay St. Louis Community Center, 301 Blaize Ave., Discuss Gulf restoration priorities and opportunities. Details: 523-4124.

Argentine tango class: 6 p.m. beginner level, 7 p.m. intermediate level, Aug. 20 and 27, Mississippi Ballroom Dance Club, 15199 Community Road, Gulfport. Details; 539-0311.

Biloxi Elks Lodge 606 meeting: 7 p.m., 1178 Beach Blvd., Details: 374-0606.

Harrison County Emergency Communications Commission meeting: 10 a.m., 1st Judicial District Courthouse EOC Conference Room, 1801 23rd Ave., Gulfport.

THURSDAY

Women’s Business Center workshop: 9-11 a.m. and 6-8 p.m., CLIMB CDC Women’s Business Center, 1316 30th Ave., Gulfport. Subject: Social media marketing. Details: 864-6677.

Take Off Pounds Sensibly support group: 9:30-10:30 a.m. Aug. 21 and 28, Ocean Springs Church of Christ Fellowship Hall, 1116 Washington Ave., Weight management and wellness education. Details: 875-3576 or 238-0423.

MGCCC Lifelong Learning Institute luncheon: 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., MGCCC Jeff Davis campus, private dining room. Speaker: Gulfport Mayor Billy Hewes. Details: 896-2549.

Updates on Federal Employment Law: 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., Jackson County Chamber of Commerce. Presenter: Stacie Zorn and Karl Steinberger, Heidelberg, Steinberger, Colmer and Burrow, P.A. Limited space. Details: 762-3391.

Pass Christian Sundial Project unveiling and dedication: 5-7 p.m., Pass Christian Public Library, 111 Hiern Ave. The sculpture by local artist Marie Lamb will be dedicated at the entrance of the library. Details: 452-4596.

NFWF Gulf Environment Benefit Fund Community Conversations: 5:30-7:30 p.m., Fontainebleau Community Center, Mississippi 57 South, Ocean Springs, Discuss Gulf restoration priorities and opportunities. Details: 523-4124.

Gulf Coast Community Action Agency board of directors meeting: 6 p.m., Gulf Coast Community Action Agency, 500 24th St., Gulfport. Details: 896-1409, ext. 8319.

Author discussion/book signing: 6 p.m., Ina Thompson Moss Point Library, 4119 Bellview St., Author Julie Hedgepeth Williams signs “Wings of Opportunity.” Details: 475-7462.

Family movie night: 6 p.m., Handsboro United Methodist Fellowship Hall, 2333 Demaret Drive, Gulfport. Details: 896-7264.

Coastal Mississippi Hurricane Insurance Initiative: 6:30 p.m., St. Thomas Catholic Church, 720 E. Beach Blvd., Long Beach. Details: 313-8938.

How to Develop a Business Plan: 5:30-7:30 p.m., Innovation Center, 1636 Popp’s Ferry Road, Biloxi. Details: 396-8661 or 392-9741.

FRIDAY

Ocean Springs Elks Lodge 2501 fish fry: 5-7:30 p.m., 2501 Beachview Drive. Cost: $10. Details: 872-2501.

McCoy’s River Cruises: 6 p.m., Pascagoula River Audubon Center, 7011 Frank Griffin Road, Moss Point. Tickets: $28 adults, $18 for children 12 and under. Boats hold 22 passengers and will be led by Benny McCoy. Reservations required. Details/registration: 475-0825.

Madeline’s Storybook cooking class for children: 6-7:30 p.m., Lynn Meadows Discovery Center, 246 Dolan Ave., Gulfport. Tickets:$25, one parent and child, $5 each additional person. Details: 897-6039.

Shrimp Bowl Classic Spirit Night and Pep Rally: 6 p.m. Aug. 22, Biloxi Town Green. Football games and introduction of Sports Hall of Fame Inductees begin at 4 p.m. Aug. 23, Biloxi Stadium.

French Club Friday night dinner: 6-8 p.m. Aug. 22 and 29, 182 Howard Ave., Biloxi. Cost: $8. Details: 436-6472.

Country dance night: 7 p.m. country lesson, 8 p.m. potluck country, Aug. 22 and 29, Mississippi Ballroom Dance Club, 15199 Community Road, Gulfport. Features Terry Bennett. Details: 539-0311.

Friday night dance: 8-10 p.m. Aug. 22 and 29, Amour Danzar, 9355 County Farm Road, Gulfport. Cost: $10 per person. Casual dress. Details: 324-3730

AUG. 23

Biloxi Gun and Knife Show: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Aug. 23, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Aug. 24, Coast Coliseum, 2350 Beach Blvd., Biloxi. Cost: $8 adults, $2 ages 6-11. Under 18 admitted with parent only. Active military $1 off admission with ID. Details: 985-624-8577.

Hurricane Blitz: 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Edgewater Mall, Biloxi. Hosted by Mississippi Department of Transportation, Mississippi Emergency Management Agency and the Red Cross. Preparation for hurricane disaster including: updated lodging information, radio coverage, road routes and other resources.

Ultimate Chip and Dip Set: 10:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m., Ohr-O’Keefe Mueseum of Art, 386 Beach Blvd., Biloxi. Create two dishes using slabs of clay. Cost: $30. Details; 374-5547.

Back to School Lego party: 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Ina Thompson Moss Point Library, 4119 Bellview St., Friends of the Library supplies legos. Door prizes and refreshments. Details: 475-7462.

Tullibee Submarine Veterans meeting: 11 a.m., Biloxi Yacht Club, 408 Beach Blvd., Biloxi. Spouses of veterans welcome. Details: 324-8196.

Fiesta Gulfport Festival: Noon-midnight, Jones Park, Gulfport. Celebrating diversity, the multicultural festival will feature artists, dance, live music, ethnic, Cajun and carnival foods, vendors, carnival rides and more. Cost: $25 for ages 13 and older; $15 for ages 7-12; $5 for ages 6 and younger. Details: 601-955-4850.

Third annual Bill Seal Charity Golf Tournament: Noon lunch, 1 p.m. tee off, Windance Country Club. Food and beverages provided. Proceeds used to support Catholic education and schools. Sponsorship available and door prizes. Details: 860-7556.

Harrison County Federation of Democratic Women meeting: 1 p.m., Margaret Sherry Library, 2141 Popp’s Ferry Road, Biloxi.

Edible plants program; 1-2 p.m., Crosby Arboretum, Picayune. Features Darla Pastorek discussing edible plants. Cost: $5 nonmembers, and free to Arboretum members. Details: 601-799-2311, ext. 102.

Combined Schools Reunion Committees election of officers: 2 p.m., First Missionary Baptist Church, 658 Esters Blvd., Biloxi. Schools involved Our Mother of Sorrows Catholic School, Biloxi Colored School, A.E. Perkins Elementary School and M.F. Nichols Junior and Senior High School. Details: 806-6574.

NFWF Gulf Environment Benefit Fund Community Conversations: 4-6 p.m., Handsboro Community Center, 1890 Switzer Road, Gulfport. Discuss Gulf restoration priorities and opportunities. Details: 523-4124.

D’Iberville Moose Lodge Kids Fishing Rodeo: 5:30 p.m. setup, 7-11 p.m. contest, Under Interstate 110 bridge. Details: 392-2465.

Night of Fun Improv: 7 p.m., Center Stage, Biloxi. Presented by Longshot Theatre Company. Tickets; $10. Details: 388-6258.

AUG. 24

Red Cross blood drive: 8 a.m.-1 p.m., St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, 1026 E. Central Ave., Wiggins. To schedule an appointment, visit redcrossblood.org. Sponsor code, STFRANCIS.

Ocean Springs Elks Lodge 2501 omelet breakfast: 9-11 a.m., 2501 Beachview Drive. Cost: $8. Details: 872-2501.

Jackson County Distinguished Young Women Scholarship Program informational and kickoff meeting: 2 p.m., Caswell Springs United Methodist Church, 18601 Mississippi 63, Moss Point. Young women classified as a junior in high school that live in the East Central, Vancleave, St. Martin, Moss Point and Ocean Springs school districts are eligible to participate. Details: 990-0130.

USA Pot Luck Dance: 3 p.m. dance lesson, 4-7 p.m. open dance, Mississippi Ballroom Dance Club, 15199 Community Road, Gulfport. Dancing includes ballroom, tango, swing and country. Cost: $10. Details: 539-0311.

AUG. 25

Beginning chair yoga class: 1 p.m., Pascagoula Public Library, 3214 Pascagoula St., Instructor: Shawn Chappell. Designed for individuals with physical limitations. Details: 769-3060, ext. 1.

Red Cross blood drive: 1-6:30 p.m., Edgewater Mall, 2600 Beach Blvd., Biloxi. To schedule an appointment, visit redcrossblood.org. Sponsor code, EWMALL.

Town Hall meeting: 5:30 p.m., Mary C. O’Keefe Cultural Center, 1600 Government St., Ocean Springs. Host: State Rep. Hank Zuber of District 113.

Financial Peace University orientation: 5:30-6 p.m. Aug. 25 and Sept. 8, Habitat for Humanity of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, 2214 34th St., Gulfport. Details: 678-9112.

Epilepsy Foundation of Mississippi support meeting: 6-7:30 p.m., Garden Park Medical Center, classroom one, 15200 Community Road, Gulfport. Details: 601-936-5222.

AUG. 26

Semiannual book sale: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Aug. 26-30, Lucedale-George County Public Library, 507 Oak St., Fiction, nonfiction, paperbacks, magazines and videos. Proceeds go to the Friends of Lucedale-George County Public Library. Most under $1. Details: 947-2123.

Harrison County 4-H Modeling Squad orientation: 4:30 p.m., Harrison County Extension Office, 2315 17th St., Gulfport. Ages 10-18. Models will be involved in future free training, upcoming fashion shows and contests. Details: 865-4227.

Common Core discussion: 5:30 p.m., Beatrice Brown Community Center, Biloxi. Refreshments with session to offer parents a chance to learn how their child will adjust to changes. Appropriate for students that live in Oakwood Village and attend Gorenflo Elemetary, Biloxi Junior High and Biloxi High School. Details: 435-6368.

Vietnamese cooking class: 6-8:30 p.m., Lynn Meadows Discovery Center, 246 Dolan Ave., Gulfport. Features Rosi Healy. Tickets:$30-35. Details: 897-6039.

Belles and Buoys Square Dance Club open house: 7-9 p.m., 14592 County Farm Road, Gulfport. Free to all individuals. There will be a charge for additional classes. Details: 596-5362.

AUG. 27

Inaugural Live2Live Forum and Business Expo: 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Jackson County Civic Center, 2902 Shortcut Road, Pascagoula. Attendees have opportunity to network, generate new business and leads and more. Vendors registration: $50. Details: 938-6604.

Senior Health Resource Lunch: 10:30 a.m.- 1 p.m., Trinity United Methodist Church, 5007 Lawson Ave., Gulfport. Door prizes, legal advice, blood pressure checks, lunch and more. Details: 863-2717.

Red Cross blood drive: 11 a.m.-4 p.m., Diamondhead Community Center, 5300 Diamondhead Circle. To schedule an appointment, visit redcrossblood.org. Sponsor code, DIAMONDHEAD.

Red Cross blood drive: 2:30-7:30 p.m., Planet Fitness, 2390 Pass Road, Biloxi. To schedule an appointment, visit redcrossblood.org. Sponsor code, PFBILOXI.

AUG. 28

Women’s Business Center workshop: 9-11 a.m. and 6-8 p.m., CLIMB CDC Women’s Business Center, 1316 30th Ave., Gulfport. Subject: Grow your business on Google. Details: 864-6677.

Mississippi Regional Housing Authority Board of Commissioners meeting: 10 a.m., 10430 Three Rivers Road, Suite A, Gulfport.

Cash Flow Projections for Your Business Plan: 5:30-7 p.m., Innovation Center, 1636 Popp’s Ferry Road, Biloxi. Details: 396-8661 or 392-9741.

Tailgating at Ground Zero: 6-9 p.m., Ground Zero Hurricane Museum, Waveland Civic Center, Coleman Avenue. Live music, hamburger slider cookoff between first responder groups. Slider cost: $3. Complimentary snowballs and drinks. Exhibits: Solveig Wells quilt collection and beach children of Dawn Evans. Details: 243-3235 or 467-9012.

AUG. 29

Hurricane Katrina Memorial Service/Monument Dedication: 9 a.m., Ground Zero Hurricane Museum, Waveland Civic Center, Coleman Avenue. Speaker: Waveland Mayor David Garcia, Bay St. Louis Mayor Les Fillingame, Diamondhead Mayor Tommy Schafer and Hancock County Board of Supervisors President Lisa Cowand. Donations accepted to support awareness and education efforts at museum. Details: 467-9012.

Red Cross ninth annual Katrina Memorial Blood Drive: Noon-7 p.m., Edgewater Mall, 2600 Beach Blvd., Biloxi. To schedule an appointment, visit redcrossblood.org. Sponsor code, KATRINA.

Free Friday night: 5-8 p.m., Lynn Meadows Discovery Center, 246 Dolan Ave., Gulfport. 897-6039.

Yoga teacher training program discussion: 6 p.m., River Rock Yoga, 2429 W. Commerce St., Suite C, Ocean Springs. Discussing upcoming yoga training about requirements and prerequisites.

Aug. 30

Red Cross ninth annual Katrina Memorial Blood Drive: Noon-7 p.m., Edgewater Mall, 2600 Beach Blvd., Biloxi. To schedule an appointment, visit redcrossblood.org. Sponsor code, KATRINA.

Biloxi Elks Lodge 606 steak night/dance: 6 p.m. kitchen opens, 8 p.m. dance begins, 1178 Beach Blvd. Cost: $8 single, $15 couples. Details: 374-0606.

Pre-season Saints party, silent auction and raffle: 6-9 p.m., Long Beach Senior Center, Daugherty Road. Silent auction items include golf packages, home decor items, local art work and more. Raffle wins feature a 42-inch TV, a pair of Saints football season tickets and gift cards. Cost of raffle tickets: $25 each or five for $100. Auction and raffle proceeds benefit Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church. Details: 342-7431 or 493-5555.

Aug. 31

37th annual George Ross-George Allen family reunion: 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Latimer Community Center, 10908 Daily Vestry Road, Biloxi. Families are asked to bring a dish. Cost: $5 per family. Details: 326-3456, 396-1543 or 365-1627.

Magnolia Chamber Orchestra Promenade summer series: 2 p.m., Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art, 386 Beach Blvd., Biloxi. Visit the new exhibitions at 2 p.m.; music at 2:30 p.m. Reception and gallery tours included in ticket cost. Cost: $30 each or $75 for three concerts. Details: 374-5547.

West Coast Swing potluck: 3 p.m. lesson with Todd Longsworth, 4-7 p.m. open West Coast swing party. Mississippi Ballroom Dance Club, 15199 Community Road, Gulfport. Cost; $10. Details: 539-0311.

Source

Miller: Niceties replace nastiness in AL West rivalry – OCRegister

Miller: Niceties replace nastiness in AL West rivalry

Angels catcher Chris Iannetta pumps his fist as Athletics pinch-hitter Stephen Vogt strikes out with the bases loaded to end the sixth inning.

MICHAEL GOULDING, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

ANAHEIM – The Angels pitcher ripped the actions of the A’s, warning “that doesn’t go unnoticed.”

Specifically, he called what Oakland’s pitcher did “just dumb.”

Excellent, I’m thinking, because the Angels and A’s are both trying to wedge themselves into a space big enough for only one team and – in the midst of seven meetings in a week and half – this showdown could use a spark ready to ignite as the friction builds.

Just something to boost the thrills, a little ecstatic electricity.

That Angels pitcher, however, is now with his second team since leaving the Halos, John Lackey first with Boston and today with St. Louis.

And the A’s pitcher who that day was “just dumb,” who threw a fastball behind Vladimir Guerrero? That was Dan Haren, who, among other things, since has been an Angel.

This isn’t going to be easy, folks, unless a wayward baseball darts violently – and perceived intentionally – too close or someone takes a knee to the throat on a play at second base or in a place even more sensitive, by which I don’t mean third base.

In trying to work up some genuine dislike for these A’s, we all might need to get creative. The on-field bitterness between these teams hasn’t maintained its boiling point since a series of incidents ending in the summer of 2007.

And, today, they seem to be coexisting rather comfortably atop the American League West, separated by just two games after Thursday’s 4-3 Angels win but not at all annoyed by the mutual invasions of personal space in mid-pennant race.

Right now, with these teams, there’s no hate lost.

“Something would have to happen to cause that,” Angels reliever Kevin Jepsen said when asked if, in general, players simply don’t like anyone who’s wearing opposing colors. “I don’t dislike individuals just because they’re on a certain team. Some of us have friends who just happen to be on other teams.”

A bunch of Angels are still buddy-buddy with former teammates Alberto Callaspo and Scott Kazmir, who are now A’s. Angels closer Huston Street remains a favorite in Oakland, where his career began.

And Chris Iannetta and Jason Hammel work out together in the offseason, the Angels catcher and the A’s pitcher planning to bring together SoCal and NoCal this winter on the other side of the country, near their homes in New England.

“As far as individual rivalries or whether I love a player or hate a player, I haven’t experienced that much,” Iannetta said. “The focus is more on the individuals in your own clubhouse.”

And given the frequency with which players share, switch and then – often – share clubhouses again, there might not even be enough time any longer to generate hatred between franchises.

Source

One 40-mile ride might be enough – Post-Bulletin

We were riding through a quiet, tree-lined neighborhood when my friend Gary first raised the idea.

“Let’s organize a bike ride,” he suggested. “We could have rest stops, and turn it into a day-long event.”

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Dan Conradt, a lifelong Mower County resident, lives in Austin with his wife, Carla Johnson, and their son.

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Airlines cram in passengers, because they can – OCRegister

Airlines cram in passengers, because they can

Passengers aboard an Allegiant Airlines flight en route from Las Vegas to Colorado Springs, Colo., in December. To gain a little more space between seats in the continuing push to add passengers, airlines like Allegiant, which uses seats that do not recline, are turning to a new generation of seats that use lighter materials and less padding.

JOE GIRON, THE NEW YORK TIMES

Losing the space race

Space between seat rows can vary for each airline, depending on what model plane you’re flying.

Airline Seat space, in inches

Spirit 28-36

AirTran 30-31

Allegiant 30-34

American 30-34

Frontier 30

United 30-37

US Airways 30-32

Delta 31-34

Hawaiian 31-32

Southwest 31

JetBlue 32-39

Virgin America 32-38

Source: SeatGuru

When two United Airlines passengers did battle this week over legroom, they touched a nerve among cramped passengers everywhere.

Fliers aren’t imagining it: Airliners across the country have pushed for years for denser, more lucrative cabins – and jet makers are unveiling innovative new ways to cram more passengers into shrinking seats.

The average short-haul passenger aboard a U.S. airliner gets 32 inches of “seat pitch,” an industry term for the space between rows, an analysis of data from travel compendium SeatGuru shows. But 11 of the 13 biggest U.S. airliners run short-haul flights with even less legroom, and some allow much less. Spirit Airlines offers the smallest space between rows, at 28 inches, about the size of a computer monitor.

JetBlue Airways and Virgin America now provide the roomiest arrangements, with an economy-row average of about 35 inches. But even those jetliners aren’t opposed to shrinking fliers’ space. When JetBlue announced it would double the number of “Even More Space” seats on its Embraer E-190 fleet, it stole away the roominess from other coach seats.

Cramping matters even further, Spirit and fellow budget airline Allegiant Air have removed the reclining features from their seats, locking seat backs eternally upright. (In the tradition of corporate euphemisms, Spirit calls the seats “pre-reclined.”)

“It’s one of the most unmistakable trends over the past number of years: densification,” said Seth Kaplan, an analyst for Airline Weekly, an industry publication. “And it’s accelerated with the fact that flights are much fuller than they used to be. Back in the days when flights were two-thirds full, who cared how many seats were onboard?”

The space between seats has fallen from around 33 to 34 inches before 2001 to around 30 to 31 inches now, according to Henry H. Harteveldt, founder and travel industry analyst at the Atmosphere Research Group.

Airlines have also installed skinnier seat cushions, pushed for “ultra slimline” rows and shoehorned in more seats to profit from more paying passengers. In 2012, most of Boeing’s most popular aircraft, the 777, were delivered with 10 seats to a row, breaking from a decades-long tradition of nine-seat rows.

Airbus, the French plane maker that originally designed its A320 jet to fly with 150 seats, is pushing to pack in up to 186 passengers.

Other proposals have hewed toward the bizarre: In June, Airbus submitted a patent for a tiny swiveling toadstool that looks like a bicycle seat.

“You don’t get a Mercedes S Class for a Ford Fusion price,” Spirit chief executive Ben Baldanza said last year in an interview. “If you want more legroom – go pay for it at another airline.”

Airlines have offered plusher arrangements for a price, but even that doesn’t prevent neighbors from sparring. Indeed, the battle of the “knee defender,” a $21.95 device that clamps onto the tray table preventing the next seat up from leaning back, raged in United Airlines’ “Economy Plus” section, where coach fliers can pay a premium for four extra inches of precious room.

United Airlines and other U.S. carriers have banned the device, and the Federal Aviation Administration restricts its use during taxi, takeoff and landing.

Travelers, as they often do, disagree on whether reclining one’s seat is a civil right or searing wrong. But nearly everyone has found something to complain about regarding the coach-cabin crunch.

A TripAdvisor survey in June found fliers were most peeved when planes had limited legroom and uncomfortable seats, with their complaints even outnumbering costly airline fees and erratic delays.

So why aren’t airliners giving passengers more breathing room? Simple: Cramming pays.

Spirit – the no-frills, high-fee airline that Consumer Reports last year gave one of the lowest overall scores for any company, ever – enjoys one of the highest profit margins of all jetliners, and posted half a billion dollars in revenue in the second quarter, 22 percent higher than the same time last year.

Meanwhile, investors have routinely dogged the performance of the spacious-seated JetBlue, with investors egging the jetliner to tack on fees and, yes, add more seats.

Said analyst Helane Becker: “The revenue benefit to the company would probably trump any customer pushback.”

Related:

Source

FOOTBALL: LC’s Pinzka embraces leadership role – The Intelligencer

LANSDALE — Senior quarterback Joe Pinzka comes from a long line of Lansdale Catholic Pinzkas.

“It seems like he’s been here forever,” Crusaders third-year coach Tom Kirk said. “Certainly the Pinzka name has been here a long time. Even before I got here, I knew the Pinzka name.”

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BOONE COUNTY COMMISSION AGENDA – Columbia Daily Tribune

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A. Second reading of cooperative contract C202051001 — GIS software and maintenance support services, sole source No. 19-1232102

A. First reading of consultant services agreement with Howe Co. LLC for Boone County Bridge No. 3070006, Mexico Gravel Road

B. Second reading of mutual rescission of agreement with Benton & Associates

C. Second reading of distribution of road sales tax and road property tax revenue to Sturgeon

A. Public Hearing and second reading of budget amendment to increase 2014 budget allocation for conferences

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Fee structure change proposed for sanitary sewers – Columbia Daily Tribune

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Connection fees are a one-time expense for new sewer connections or for when a water meter is either replaced with a different-sized meter or added to a property, while base fees are monthly recurring charges.

With regard to the connection fee, the city does not plan to stop with the increases proposed for the upcoming fiscal year. A consultant hired by the city to conduct a cost-of-service study for its sanitary sewer and storm water utilities has recommended that the connection fee be increased to $2,460.

According to a report to the city council, the city’s Public Works Department is proposing to gradually increase the connection fee to $2,400 by fiscal 2018.

Although there will be connection fee increases for all water meter sizes, Dave Sorrell, the city’s sewer utility manager, said city sewer customers predominately use five-eighths-inch and three-quarters-inch meters, as those tend to be used at residential properties.

But while rate increases are being proposed for base and connection fees, Public Works is proposing to decrease the volume charge for sewer service — which is based on how much water a customer uses — from $2.41 per 100 cubic feet of water to $2.27.

“People’s bills, for the most part, are going to go up,” Sorrell said. “Some will decrease.”

The changes are intended to create a 6 percent revenue increase for the sanitary sewer utility. When voters approved a $32.3 million bond issue for sewers last November, they were told customers’ rates will increase 6 percent in the next fiscal year, 5 percent in fiscal 2017 and 1 percent in fiscal 2019.

That would have increased all customers’ bills, Sorrell said. But, he said, because the city has decided to adjust base and connection fees, it has instead focused on generating 6 percent new revenue, which would have happened anyway if the utility had just raised rates.

Third Ward Councilman Karl Skala said the increases are part of a larger effort by the city to adjust how it collects fees for various services. He noted that the city hopes to pump more money into the construction of arterial roads with a development fee increase proposal on the November ballot, and city leaders will consider the consultants’ recommendations for the city’s stormwater utility in fiscal 2016. “It’s a cost-of-service issue,” Skala said. “We’ve been trying to do that with fees for a long time.”

The measure to implement the sanitary sewer rate changes is included in a group of bills pertaining to the city’s budget for fiscal 2015 — which begins on Oct. 1. — and is up for public hearing at the council’s Monday meeting. Hearings on the bills also are scheduled for Sept. 1 and Sept. 15, and votes on the bills are scheduled for the latter date.

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Live updates: All of tonight’s games @OCVarsity – OCRegister

Published: Aug. 29, 2014 Updated: Aug. 30, 2014 8:36 a.m.

Live updates: All of tonight’s games @OCVarsity

Are you an Orange County football fan looking for live score updates from tonight’s games?

This season OCVarsity is going to make that easier than ever. We’ll be posting all of our score updates through our Twitter account (@OCVarsity).

If you are at a game, post your score update on Twitter and include the hashtags #ocvarsity and #ocvupdates so that we can retweet them.

This will be the place to get all of the scores for Orange County’s games.

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Travel firm told to pay over phony discounts – OCRegister

After more than two years of allegedly cheating Southern Californians and others out of thousands of dollars, Colorado-based travel company Sea to Ski Vacations was ordered by a Denver district court to pay $7 million in penalties and restitution to consumers it had scammed, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office said Thursday.

The court last week also banned the company and its former operators, the Wunder family, from conducting travel-related business ever again.

“Consumers complained that they were told membership in the travel club would entitle them to deep discounts on condos and cruises,” Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said in a statement. “Yet, after paying as much as $9,000 for a membership, the Sea to Ski ‘deals’ were no better than what the consumer could purchase on popular Internet travel sites.”

In June of last year, the Attorney General’s Office filed a lawsuit against Sea to Ski and the Wunders for false representation of their services and other offenses. The complaint estimated that about 1,750 individuals paid an average of $3,640 for a Sea to Ski membership.

Stephen Wunder, whom the original lawsuit said was formerly managing director of distributor relations for Sea to Ski, said in an email that the Denver ruling was based on the testimony and affidavits of only 10 complainants, while he claimed Sea to Ski has served more than 7,000 families.

“We are extremely proud of the thousands of member families who… continue to happily refer family members and friends to Sea to Ski,” he said in the email.

In his order against Sea to Ski, District Court Judge Robert L. McGahey, Jr. said that while the court could not verify how many people besides the 10 complainants had issues with Sea to Ski, the company deceived all its consumers by saying it could provide exclusive deals on travel.

Wunder claimed he and his family were “not afforded the opportunity to respond” by Colorado officials before the order was issued. Carolyn Tyler, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, said her office reached out to the Wunders but the only family member it was able to contact was Christian Wunder, whom the lawsuit said was formerly the owner and technology manager of Sea to Ski.

Stephen Wunder had filed a response to the attorney general’s motion for permanent injunctive relief, but McGahey said it was not enough to convince him otherwise.

Earlier this month, the Register wrote about consumers who say they were scammed by Sea to Ski and its copycat company,American Travel Planners.

Scores of complaints listed on travel sites and with the Better Business Bureau, and personal testimonies from Orange County residents, claimed money was withheld from consumers with what they said was no valid explanation. Among those consumers were Lake Forest residents Tory Hughes and her husband, Tom, who said they lost $7,619 after American Travel Planners failed to deliver on promised discounts.

Because last week’s ruling was made in a Colorado district court, it is unclear whether out-of-state consumers who were scammed by Sea to Ski will be able to receive restitution, said Tyler. This could have large implications for Orange County residents since Sea to Ski’s sales operations were concentrated for a time in Orange County in cities including Newport Beach.

“It’s still to be decided as to whether compensation for out-of-state consumers would be possible, but we have, in some instances, been able to do that,” Tyler said. “It is just too early to tell.”

It is also unclear whether consumers who lost money to American Travel Planners will be able to pursue restitution.

The details of how restitution will be issued will be decided once the court receives payment from Sea to Ski and the Wunders, Tyler said. “We have quite a few hurdles to go through at this point,” she said.

Individuals who believe they were scammed by Sea to Ski can contact the Colorado Attorney General’s Office at 800-222-4444.

Contact the writer: ktaketa@ocregister.com

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Taxpayers on hook for $6.5M to Bridgegate law firm – Milton Daily Standard

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey taxpayers are on the hook for more than $6.5 million to the law firm Gov. Chris Christie hired to represent his office in the George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal.

The state attorney general’s office released recent bills from Gibson Dunn & Crutcher on Friday.

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It’s that time of year again – OCRegister

After weeks of preparation, the start of the high school football season is almost here.

The Santa Ana Register is celebrating with our second annual football edition, which will be in two parts. Next week, we will present previews of Century and Santa Ana, who open play next week.

The most intriguing matchup of this first week, which is called zero week, is the Santa Ana Valley-Segerstrom game at Segerstrom on Friday night at 7.

It marks the first nonleague matchup of the two programs, which have been the class of the city among the public school football programs.

“It’s a big one for the city,” Segerstrom coach Mike Maceranka said. “We’re so close, and they’ve had a lot of success and we’ve had a lot of success. I think we’ve won four league championships, and they’ve won three. No one else has won any, so it’s a good matchup.”

Segerstom defeated Santa Ana Valley, 42-14, in a CIF playoff game in 2012, in the only other match-up.

There should be a good turnout for this match-up. But since school doesn’t start until next week in Santa Ana, it may not be a capacity crowd.

Teams moving from bowl

It seems that high school football teams in Santa Ana are moving away from the Santa Ana. Bowl. While Mater Dei has the budget to pay for the rental fees there, the public schools are on tight budgets and many have moved their games to Segerstrom, an ideal football facility.

In addition, Santa Ana Valley is building a new on-campus football stadium, which may be ready in time for next season.

Contact the writer: tburt@ocregister.com

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State proposes 2015 trapping season for otters – News Dispatch

SEYMOUR, Ind. (AP) — The state of Indiana is proposing a limited trapping season for river otters and to allow for the sale of river otter furs less than 20 years after the animals were reintroduced after becoming extinct in Indiana.

Indiana Department of Natural Resources spokesman Phil Bloom tells The Tribune of Seymour (http://bit.ly/1sLq1n1 ) that It hasn’t been determined where trapping would be permitted. But he says the animals are found in 74 of Indiana’s 92 counties. The animals were removed from the state’s endangered species list in 2005.

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© 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Thank you for reading 8 free articles on our site. You can come back at the end of your 30-day period for another 8 free articles, or you can purchase a subscription at this time and continue to enjoy valuable local news and information. If you need help, please contact our office at 219-874-7211.

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Boot up: tougher screen payments, OnePlus recants, Xiaomi’s new look – The Guardian (blog)

A butcher in an abattoir. Is this a job that can easily be automated? Photograph: Dag Sundberg/Getty Images

A burst of 9 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

We surveyed in total 1,206 customers who had recently requested an Apple screen repair quote, and asked them to answer one simple question:

Would you pay extra to own an iPhone or iPad with a more damage-resistant screen?

The answer options were:

Yes, I would pay up to £50 extra.
Yes, I would pay up to £20 extra.
No, I would not pay any extra.

Survey carried out via SurveyMonkey. Obviously, these are customers who are in the position of “I wish I wasn’t having to pay for this”; in that context maybe it’s surprising that 21% said they wouldn’t pay extra for a more damage-resistant screen.

A side question though is whether – assuming there is sapphire in the next iPhone screens – this will damage the business of iPhone repair companies.

---

OnePlus recants on its competition, with a statement saying:

Women make up half the world, and we want to help them be more involved in tech. We understand that our contest was in bad taste, and have therefore pulled it. All participants will be contacted for prizes.

We apologize and we will course correct for the future. At the same time, we would love to hear your feedback on how we can better get women involved in tech.

Greg Kumparak:

This isn’t the first time OnePlus has thrown a contest that clearly hadn’t been thought all the way through. Back in April, they threw a “Smash the Past” campaign that encouraged users to record themselves destroying their high-end smartphones in hopes of winning a OnePlus handset.

Because smashing a perfectly usable phone filled with glass, rare earth, and a rechargeable battery (read: nasty chemicals that like to explode) is a totally sane thing to do instead of, you know, selling it. Or donating it. Or doing literally anything else with it.

---

The long-expected MIUI 6 is finally here! Visually stunning, Stunningly Simple. It’s a new chapter for MIUI. And here is a full review for you to get a taste of it.

Plenty of American commentators have been remarking on how this resembles iOS 7. But for example, Xiaomi’s calendar app has looked this way for some time; MIUI 4 in 2011, for example, was already flat.

An alternative explanation: Xiaomi is that rare thing – a company with taste in design.

---

computerization has been a major contributor to the “hollowing-out” of middle-skilled, middle-wage jobs and a corresponding rise in employment at both the high and low ends of the skills spectrum. To quantify this, the researchers developed an index of “routine task intensity,” or RTI. The higher an occupation’s RTI, the more it’s characterized by routine tasks with relatively little manual labor or abstract reasoning involved. Dorn, in a separate paper, said RTI could “be interpreted as an occupation’s potential susceptibility to displacement by automation.”

Athletes, firefighters and kindergarten teachers can rest easy for now, apparently. Butchers, meter readers, proofreaders.. could we have a word?

---

As published in the Quarterly Mobile PC Value Chain & Insight Report, we forecast that there will be a 144% rise in sales of Chromebooks in 2014, to 8m units. While far lower than Google’s planned 20m units for 2014, Chromebooks are likely to achieve 5% penetration of the notebook PC market. In 2013, more than 80% of Chromebooks were shipped to the North America market.

As Chromebook PC demand increases, and as Google focuses on selling into some of Microsoft‘s core markets, we anticipate that Google will gain some advantage in the notebook PC market. ASUS and other brands, and several OEMs are developing Chromebooks, in order to gain a foothold in this growing market.

The only support for the “Google planned 20 million in 2014” claim is some waywardly sourced articles from 2012. It seems unlikely Google would have quite such large targets yet.

---

[The Georgia Tech team’s] attack [to be shown at the Usenix Security Symposium] requires the victim’s computer to have malware installed, but there’s a thriving community of people known as “botnet herders” who sell access to large networks of compromised computers.

Wang said they conducted their research using iOS devices connected to Windows, since most botnets are on that platform, but their attack methods also apply to OS X.

Apple requires a person to be logged into his account in order to download an application from the App Store. But Wang and the researchers developed a man-in-the-middle attack that can trick an Apple device that’s connected to a computer into authorizing the download of an application using someone else’s Apple ID.

As long as the application still has Apple’s digital signature, it doesn’t even need to still be in the App Store and can be supplied from elsewhere.

Perhaps a good thing that iPhones haven’t needed to be connected to a computer for backup or activation since October 2011.

---

Today, Rafael Berri at Santa Catarina State University in Brazil and a few pals reveal their approach to the problem using a small dashboard camera that watches for the tell-tale signs that the driver is on the phone.

Their approach is relatively straightforward. Berri and co point out that drivers usually scan the road ahead while driving but when on the phone, they tend to fix their gaze straight ahead. This means that a dashboard camera in front of the driver is well-positioned to spot mobile phone use.

Their system processes the images from this camera in three steps. First, it locates the driver and crops the image to show just the face and area to each side of the face. The idea is to see the driver’s hands should they be raised next to the ear in holding a mobile phone while making a call.

A great idea. Can’t think anyone’s going to install a dashcam that will tell on them though.

---

Just five years ago, mobile phone penetration in Myanmar stood at 1%. By 2013, it had already shot up to 13%. The government wants to drive that number north of 75%.

Meanwhile, the price of a SIM card dropped from $3,000 to about $260. This month, Qatar’s Ooredoo, a mobile operator, started selling SIM cards for 1,500 kyat ($1.50).

Watch Myanmar’s GDP rocket. Fun fact from the article: Myanmar was one of the three “unconnected” markets effectively closed to mobile phones – the other two are Cuba and North Korea.

---

Paul Thurrott:

Because only the newest versions of Skype support “enhanced quality, better reliability [and] improved security,” and these versions of Skype cannot be ported to Windows Phone 7, Microsoft is “permanently retiring all Skype apps for Windows Phone 7.” The app has been removed from the store, and those using Skype on Windows Phone 7 will find the app to be non-functioning soon (“within the next few weeks”).

Why are they doing this so suddenly and without any advance warning? Who knows.

Does it have to do with low Windows Phone 7 usage? I don’t believe so: According to the latest Windows Phone usage stats, 17.7% of Windows Phone users are still using Windows Phone 7.x devices. That’s a pretty healthy percentage, though it’s obviously on the way down.

If I had to guess—and what the heck, I do have to guess—I’d say that Microsoft is aware of a problem with older versions of Skype, and since there is no way to update the Windows Phone 7 version, they feel compelled to shut it down fairly immediately.

---

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SCORR takes a ‘deep dive’ into a client’s DNA – Kearney Hub

KEARNEY — Last February, as Kidwell, a 60-year-old Omaha-based technology company, made plans to open in Kearney this August, Todd Long, Kidwell’s vice president of operations in Lincoln, called SCORR Marketing. It would be Kidwell’s first-ever office west of Lincoln.

“They sought us out,” Marnie Vasquez, a SCORR senior account executive, said. “This is our hometown, and we understand the market.”

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Reality Bites and the slackers of 1994 all but ruined me – A.V. Club Milwaukee

In 1994, I was a soft-brained 16-year-old—soft in many respects, really. Of mind and of body, of cushy suburban surroundings, of 1990s thrift-shop flannels and T-shirts so baggy I could have curled up inside them and gone to sleep (which was all I wanted to do at age 16, anyway). How fortuitous that I was at my laziest in an age where idleness was celebrated as the noblest of virtues. 1994 was when the “slacker” hit its cultural apex, spawned of Douglas Coupland novels, grunge rockers, and Richard Linklater’s 1991 movie, bottled in cans of OK Soda and big studio movies about directionless twentysomethings, then sold back to couch-bound sponges like me, all but ruining us forever. Allen Ginsberg saw the best minds of his generation destroyed by the madness of an oppressively conformist culture. Mine were destroyed by Kevin Smith and Ethan Hawke.

You’ll have to forgive the self-indulgent nature of this essay, as in 1994, I was led to believe there was nothing more interesting—yet simultaneously worthy of ironic derision—than the story of yourself. This thanks to a flood of pop culture about talky characters who were endlessly unspooling their own lives out loud, all while dismissing the idea that anything beyond your own navel is just society’s sad self-delusion. Happiness is a lie you learned on The Brady Bunch. To buy in is to sell out. Caring about, like, careers and politics only made you vulnerable to mockery and disappointment. This was the world that 1994 movies like Reality Bites, S.F.W., PCU, and Clerks inhabited. And it was the world I, as a high school senior, was about to join. Gee, thanks, I sneered for the next decade or so.

And they wonder why those of us in our 20s refuse to work an 80-hour week, just so we can afford to buy their BMWs. Why we aren’t interested in the counterculture that they invented, as if we did not see them disembowel their revolution for a pair of running shoes. But the question remains, what are we going to do now? How can we repair all the damage we inherited? Fellow graduates, the answer is simple. The answer is… The answer is… I don’t know.

Reality Bites opens with this speech given by Winona Ryder’s Lelaina Pierce, the most defeatist college valedictorian ever to grace a podium. The joke is that Lelaina has lost her notes and fumbled her grand, unifying statement, but that “I don’t know” actually works just as well, because this was an age when “statements” were totally meaningless. As Lelaina alludes to, the disenfranchised dropout was a proud tradition long before she and her Reality Bites gang decried the emptiness of gainful employment. Marlon Brando rebelled against whatever you’ve got. Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Jack Nicholson just wanted to grow their hair and ride free. The Graduate’s Benjamin Braddock just wanted to float in the pool. John Lennon declared that world peace starts by staying in bed. But remember when Nike used The Beatles “Revolution” to sell some sneakers? Yeah, so they were all full of shit, then. Better just to say you don’t know—and what’s more, who cares.

That virtue of jaded apathy, so alluring to a teenaged asshole, is best embodied in the ostensible hero of Reality Bites, Ethan Hawke’s Troy Dyer. Troy is a shaggy, slacker Sartre who finds life as pointless as baths. Troy is incapable of smiling—only smirking. Troy speaks entirely in ironically appropriated slogans. (“I finally figured out what your problem is, Dyer,” Lelaina says. “What’s that? I’m not a Pepper?” Troy retorts, sort of.) Troy is above material concerns and can’t be troubled to keep his menial job if it means he can’t steal a candy bar now and again.

Troy is repeatedly characterized as a “genius” adrift in a world where intelligence doesn’t have any marketable value, despite mostly expending that “genius” on talking about old TV shows and his terrible coffee shop band. Troy—wearing a vintage polyester shirt, his greasy bangs caressing his oops-I-grew-a-goatee—stops Reality Bites mid-movie to deliver a monologue about the emptiness of human existence and the deliciousness of Quarter Pounders With Cheese. It’s like 1994 summed up in a single, cringe-worthy minute.

Naturally, Troy proves irresistible—not only to the parade of “philosopher groupies” whose beds he’s sometimes seen exiting, but ultimately to Lelaina herself, who recognizes the wounded, brilliant poet behind the cloud of Camel smoke and Cool Hand Luke quotes. He wins her, despite spending most of the movie treating her like shit—despite at one point telling her he loves her then openly laughing in her face—ostensibly because he is “the only real thing” in her life. Or in life itself, for that matter. His competition for her hand, Michael, played by the film’s director, Ben Stiller, is a nebbishy yuppie TV executive whose chief failing is that he’s actually sincere. What a loser.

But Michael’s sincerity is (ostensibly) exposed as totally fake, after his network turns Lelaina’s voice-of-a-generation documentary that she worked so hard on—mostly by videotaping her friends getting stoned and saying faux-profound nonsense—into MTV-friendly romantic pabulum. (The deeper irony, of course, is that Reality Bites is doing the exact same thing. And now, Lisa Loeb’s video for “Stay.”) So, despite Michael’s self-flagellating apologies, and his white knight offers to fly Lelaina to the network to present her documentary the way she wants it, obviously, Lelaina gives up on her dream and chooses the warm, greasy embrace of Troy’s utter apathy. After all, it’s the only thing that’s real.

As a 16-year-old asshole, I couldn’t blame her. I also found Troy super cool.

1994 spawned several variations on Troy Dyer, each of them their own walking, snarking mouthpieces for the ideology of indifference. Starring Jeremy Piven as the world’s only 45-year-old college student, PCU finds Piven’s “Droz” sarcastically navigating a campus overrun by “cause-heads,” whose commitment to animal rights and feminism have transformed them into cartoons right out of a 1970s Playboy. He’s pitted against a crusty old dean (Jessica Walter) whose commitment to “political correctness” threatens everyone’s steak-and-cigarettes-and-rock-n-roll good times. And her hatred of Piven’s fraternity, The Pit, runs so deep that she allies herself with the Balls And Shaft, a Skull And Bones-like society of bigoted young Republicans run by David Spade—who, much like his fast-food manager character in Reality Bites, represents all that is career-obsessed and therefore risible.

More than just lampooning the idea of college students adopting social causes “for about a week,” PCU mocked the very idea of giving a shit. As Droz walks his assigned “pre-frosh” through college life, he points out a student whose senior thesis involves proving that a Gene Hackman or Michael Caine movie is always on TV. (“That’s the beauty of college these days, Tommy! You can major in Game Boy if you know how to bullshit.”) The film’s true hero is Gutter, a blinkered, grunge-loving wastoid played by Jon Favreau, whose pot-fueled misadventure to procure a keg ends with his accidentally bringing George Clinton to play a campus rager, after Clinton decides it’s too much trouble to get to his scheduled show. “Let’s give up,” is not just the mantra of The Pit’s two skateboarding idiots, Dave and Dave; it’s the entire message of the film. I went to college the year after PCU’s release with Droz’s “Classes: nothing before 11” credo burning in my ear and a chosen major in watching movies.

I’m not saying my spotty attendance record and general academic laziness can be blamed entirely on PCU. But it certainly didn’t hurt.

Similarly fortuitously (or unfortunately) timed was Kevin Smith’s Clerks, as
1994 was the year I truly entered the work force, beginning with a brief turn as a pharmacy cashier and followed by the first of many video store jobs. As it no doubt did for many, Clerks contributed greatly to my notion that to be an overeducated wage slave was actually quite romantic—and quietly tragicomic.

The film’s Randal (Jeff Anderson) and Dante (Brian O’Halloran) are two guys who are too smart for their menial positions, yet similarly unmotivated to do anything about it. Like Troy Dyer, Dante is a college dropout whose girlfriend laments his wasted potential, even as he constantly whines, “I’m not even supposed to be here today”—the existential lament of an entire generation. His friend Randal is more like Troy Dyer’s rampant id, given to Star Wars exegeses and an indifference toward social niceties that borders on sociopathy. But such obvious shortcomings aside, the movie argues, they’re heroes for enduring the daily barrage of stupidity inherent in customer service.

To Clerks’ credit, even the movie calls Dante out for his unreasonably high opinion of himself—and unlike Reality Bites, it doesn’t go ahead and reward him anyway. “’I’m not even supposed to be here today’—you sound like an asshole!” a fed-up Randal shouts at Dante, pointing out that the two work “a monkey’s job” solely because of their own poor decisions. “We look down on them as if we’re so advanced. Well, if we’re so fucking advanced, what are we doing working here?” Randal asks. For the slacker generation, it’s a sobering moment of clarity. Though of course, the notorious original ending of Clerks provides a shocking punchline to that semi-enlightenment, with Dante being gunned down by a robber—a nihilistic capper that would have made the movie just another statement on the cruel pointlessness of life (as well as way less fun).

While it was thankfully cut from Clerks, that existential punishment would finally be meted out at the tail end of 1994’s season of the slacker, in Jefery Levy’s S.F.W. Released in January 1995, almost exactly a year after Reality Bites, S.F.W. starred the off-brand Ethan Hawke, Stephen Dorff, as Troy Dyer’s physical and spiritual twin, a guy bearing the incredibly ’90s movie name of “Cliff Spab” who’s kidnapped and held hostage live on TV. Cliff quickly becomes a pop icon, and his mantra, “So Fucking What,” an inescapable catchphrase, emblazoned across T-shirts and CDs. The fast-food restaurant where he once toiled even sells a “Cliff Spab Burger,” in case you needed a meatier metaphor for the mass marketing of Gen-X angst.

Just before S.F.W. hit the festival circuit in 1994, Levy gave an interview where he linked S.F.W.—and implicitly, all of those recent movies starring scraggly cynics—to their actual marketing source. “In a way, this story parallels what happened to [Kurt] Cobain,” Levy told Entertainment Weekly, meaning that, like Cobain, Cliff Spab had an “extraordinary sensitivity” that made him self-destructively sick to see his misanthropy transformed into a branding niche. That Levy made a movie that did exactly that did not appear to bother him—or even register. In fact, Levy claimed that Cobain had “really connected” with the film at a private screening, then remarked, in a just-sayin’ sort of way, that during Courtney Love’s reading of Cobain’s suicide note, “she kept using the term ‘so fucking what.’ It was weird,” as though it were all some particularly morbid subliminal marketing.

Somehow, there was an even more uncomfortable parallel. Like Clerks originally intended for Dante, Cliff Spab is put out of his misery with a bullet—though in his case Cliff survives, and his near-martyrdom proves but a brief prelude to a Hollywood happy ending. Symbolically, he’s gunned down by a member of the younger generation, a teenager who screams out, “Everything matters!” Her upbeat motto quickly replaces Cliff Spab’s “so fucking what” in the public consciousness; even Spab learns to love it.

While S.F.W. was far from influential—or even a hit—it was prescient in predicting 1995 as the death of the slacker, at the hands of a younger generation tired of being tired. That year, the anti-activism stance of PCU yielded to Higher Learning—a movie where not only did every campus cause matter, it was a matter of life and death. The ambling dream hangouts of Dazed And Confused and Reality Bites gave way to the AIDS-ridden nightmare of Larry Clark’s Kids. Kevin Smith followed Clerks with Mallrats, a semi-prequel that traded the former’s ambivalence for deep, if equally destructive, romantic passion. Even Ethan Hawke grew up, shedding Troy Dyer’s nihilist approach to love-or-whatever for the genuine, awestruck passion of Before Sunrise.

I first became aware of this sea change in the summer after I’d graduated high school, watching a teen movie that I realized, for the very first time, was no longer meant for me. Clueless presented a world populated by young people who actually cared—teenagers like Alicia Silverstone’s Cher who, despite all their superficialities, are motivated by a genuine interest in being somebody. In one of its most slyly epochal moments, Cher declares, “I don’t want to be a traitor to my generation and all, but I don’t get how guys dress today. I mean, come on, it looks like they just fell out of bed and put on some baggy pants and take their greasy hair—ew—and cover it up with a backwards cap and like, we’re expected to swoon? I don’t think so.” Sitting in the theater, I swear I could feel the Earth tremble, as an entire populace of Troy Dyers stampeded for the shower.

In Clueless, Paul Rudd’s Generation X stand-in is ribbed for his Nietzsche-reading angst and his coffeehouse soul patch. After learning that she’s interested in hanging with the school burnouts, Cher disdainfully lectures Brittany Murphy’s Tai on the difference between going to “spark up a doobie and get laced at parties” and being “fried all day.” In short, all of the qualities that only a year before had been the mark of a hero were turned on their head in an instant, replaced by a chipper will to succeed. In the ensuing years, movies like Can’t Hardly Wait, Drive Me Crazy, She’s All That, and American Pie would be filled with Clueless-derived teens brimming with crazy ambitious schemes and youthful exuberance. The dream of not giving a shit was at its end.

“The revolution is over, Mr. Lebowski. Condolences. The bums lost!” David Huddleston sneers to Jeff Bridges’ The Dude in The Big Lebowski, one of the movies, like Office Space and Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle, that would carry the embers of the slacker archetype into the 21st century. And while each of those movies featured their own bums achieving their own minor, bum victories, the revolution was over: The ’90s slacker more or less died with Cliff Spab. Today, the bums have been replaced by a new breed of mumblecore solipsists, who, for all their slacker tendencies, have no problem with emotional vulnerability, and remain unflappably convinced of their own self-worth. “I think that I may be the voice of my generation—or, at least, a voice of a generation,” Lena Dunham famously proclaimed in Girls, an echo of Winona Ryder’s “I’d like to somehow make a difference in people’s lives” in Reality Bites. And yet there’s no Troy Dyer popping up next to Lena Dunham, sarcastically declaring that he’d like to buy the world a Coke.

Fortunately, I was caught between the tail-end of Gen-X wallowing and Gen-Y determination, and—through happenstance and the barest of careerism—I managed to turn some of my own slacker proclivities into a job. (Poor Troy Dyer; he would have made an excellent pop culture blogger.) But like so many of my narrowly defined generation, I know I struggle still to overcome the jaded laziness that is my ingrained, natural resting state. I love my work. I try to evolve. But somewhere, deep within my DNA, Troy and his 1994 ilk are sitting back with their Camel straights, asking why I bother. And the answer is… I don’t know.

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Social Network Sobbr Deletes Your Drunken Debauchery After a Day – Re/code

Bruce Yang had one of those raucous Vegas bachelor parties that are best remembered selectively. Unfortunately, his social media profiles, and those of his groomsmen, made that difficult. Yang, a former LinkedIn engineer, spent the morning after cleaning up after himself on Facebook, WeChat, and WhatsApp instead of choking down the greasy breakfast to which all post-bachelor party grooms are entitled.

The experience, foggy as it was, left Yang with a clear idea: There should be a social network that supports the “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” mindset, one that erases digital footprints we’d rather not leave behind.

So was born Sobrr, a social networking app that deletes everything posted to it within a day. Photos, messages, even friends and new connections all disappear after 24 hours, a spin on the ephemeral messaging service Snapchat. The idea, summed up by Sobrr’s catchphrase, is to help users experience “life in the moment.”

Sobrr

Since launching with 200 beta users in early July, Yang says Sobrr has taken off. It now has a user base of about 10,000. The app, which relies heavily on geo-location, generates a personal stream of photos and updates collected from the 500 users closest to you geographically. By swiping right on an update, you “cheer” it — the equivalent of a Facebook Like. Swiping left calls up the next update or photo in the stream. Users can comment on photos and connect with one another. But those connections are temporary — unless both users agree to make them permanent.

Sobrr’s 24-hour limit does two things. First, it offers users a social media safety net. That photo of you doing a keg stand? Share it! It’ll be gone before you sober up. Second, it encourages users to repeatedly check Sobrr for new content they know will soon be deleted.

Yang has big plans for Sobrr. He’s in the process of finalizing a $1 million-plus seed round for it led by IDG Ventures, and he’s expecting a big spike in usage when students return to college in the fall. While revenue isn’t a focus yet, Yang envisions bars and restaurants someday using Sobrr to offer coupons and discounts to nearby partiers — all with a 24-hour expiration, of course.

In the meantime, Yang is simply hoping to appeal to a more social media savvy party crowd, one hell bent on documenting nights that are sometimes best forgotten. “Sobrr is the morning after pill after a night of craziness,” he says. “We want to help people stay sober online, while they have all kinds of craziness offline.”

After all, what happens in Vegas…

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Source

Thai Economy Averts Recession as Outlook Improves After Coup – Bloomberg

Thailand’s economy expanded more
than estimated in the second quarter as local demand recovered
after a military coup ended months of political unrest. The baht
advanced.

Gross domestic product rose 0.9 percent in the three months
through June from the previous quarter, when it shrank a revised
1.9 percent, the National Economic & Social Development Board
said in Bangkok today. The median of 16 estimates in a Bloomberg
News survey was for 0.7 percent growth. The economy expanded 0.4
percent from a year earlier, compared to a survey estimate for
no change.

Junta leader Prayuth Chan-Ocha, who seized power on May 22,
has paid money due to rice farmers, capped fuel prices and
outlined plans for a new government to revive confidence. There
will be a “steady economic recovery” in the second half of the
year, the state planning agency said today, while cutting the
upper range of its growth forecast for 2014 to 2 percent.

“Second-quarter GDP confirms the stabilization in economic
activity,” said Weiwen Ng, a Singapore-based economist at
Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. As the political
outlook turns constructive, “we expect the unlocking of fiscal
spending to manifest itself in a V-shaped recovery for Thailand
in the second half,” he said.

The baht gained 0.2 percent to 31.807 against the dollar as
of 10:36 a.m. local time. It reached 31.763, the highest level
since July 29, and is the second-best performer in the past
three months in Asia among 11 currencies tracked by Bloomberg.
The benchmark SET Index was little changed.

Export Constraints

The state planning agency today said it forecasts full-year
growth at 1.5 to 2 percent from a range of 1.5 percent to 2.5
percent projected in May. The economy may expand 3.5 percent to
4.5 percent in 2015, it said. It cut its export growth estimate
for this year to 2 percent from 3.7 percent.

“Even though the economy will recover in the second half
and government spending will return to normal, exports (THCTEXPY) still
face constraints,” Arkhom Termpittayapaisith, secretary-general
of the state planning agency, told a news conference. “Private
investment is also expected to recover slowly.” The agency had
skipped its press conference for GDP data the previous two
quarters because of the unrest.

Thai consumer confidence rose to the highest in 11 months
in July, data earlier this month showed. Exports climbed in June
for the first time in four months.

The central bank earlier this month kept its policy
interest rate unchanged for a third straight meeting, and said
it expects a “V-shaped” recovery in the second half on rising
consumption and government spending. The monetary authority has
lowered its growth forecast for this year to 1.5 percent.

Private Consumption

Private consumption rose 0.2 percent in the second quarter
from a year earlier, expanding for the first time in four
quarters, today’s data showed. Exports slipped 0.7 percent,
while investment fell 6.9 percent.

Elsewhere in the region, Malaysia last week said the
economy grew at a stronger-than-estimated 6.4 percent pace last
quarter, while Singapore reported an unexpected expansion.

Prayuth has said Thai elections can’t be held until
late-2015 at the earliest and could be delayed further if the
situation is deemed unstable. The junta has written an interim
constitution that gives it absolute power and appointed a
National Legislative Assembly dominated by the military. The
assembly may name a new prime minister as early as this week.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Suttinee Yuvejwattana in Bangkok at
suttinee1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Stephanie Phang at
sphang@bloomberg.net
Rina Chandran, Tony Jordan

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The Twilight Zone: “Black Leather Jackets”/“From Agnes With Love” – A.V. Club Milwaukee

“Black Leather Jackets” (season 5, episode 19; originally aired 1/31/1964)

In which you should never trust anyone, especially if they look cool…

(Available on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon.)

It’s a silly week in The Twilight Zone. A silly, silly week. Gird your loins, batten down the hatches, maybe see if something else is on TV—that sort of thing. Although to be fair, “Black Leather Jackets” isn’t overtly comedic. It’s goofy and campy and the premise is utterly absurd, but it at least has the decency to present us with a story with actual stakes and consequences. It offers a premise, and however ludicrous that premise is, it follows through to the bitter end, for better and for worse. The commitment helps a little. If this is going to be nonsense, at least we know an entire civilization gets destroyed by the nonsense.

Also helping: this is so silly that, for a while, the episode can get by on novelty alone. We open with a trio of black-leather jacket wearing dudes on motorcycles, looking like an offshot of Marlon Brando’s The Wild Ones. In a clever edit, we see the young men walk into the real estate office of one R.C. Jones—and then we cut to an R.C. Jones Realty sign in front of the house which the trio just presumably purchased. Why an an alien invasion force would want to set up cover in a suburban neighborhood, and why they’d go to lengths to establish that cover via legal means, isn’t answered. But it does give us the sight of the three guys driving into a quiet neighborhood on their roaring bikes, pulling up neatly to the curb, and then setting up house together. So either it’s gay panic or it’s juvenile delinquency panic, or some marvellous combination of them both.

From a certain angle, it seems clear that writer Earl Hamner, Jr. is mimicking a kind of Rome And Juliet, girl-falls-for-boy-on-wrong-side-of-galaxy model. There’s a family living next door to the invaders (who Serling labels Steve, Scott, and Fred, although those aren’t their “real” names), and that family has a daughter, and the daughter falls for one of the guys, as teenagers are wont to do. Far weirder is that Scott (Lee Kinsolving) falls for her right back, even to the point of trying to sabotage his main mission in order to save her life. What little real drama the episode has comes from Scott’s efforts, although the tension never gets particularly high. The strange, not-quite-comedic tone that makes the first part so endearing also serves to make it impossible for any of the characters to be more than walking pieces, fitting into roles with pre-determined outcomes in a way that’s amusing, sometimes interesting, but never really thrilling.

The main problem isn’t tone, though: it’s that the story, stripped of its more baroque adornments, is about as dull as an alien invasion story can be. There’s no twist here, and no big surprise. The bizarre black-leather-jacket guys are, in fact, from outer space, and they are here, along with groups like them all over the world, to test out a bacteria that will kill every human being and domesticated animal on the planet. The tests go successfully. Given the size and scope of the invasion, the odds that humanity will be able to save itself are practically nill. The closest the invaders come to failing is when Scott steps in, and his efforts as a revolutionary are unsuccessful, to put it kindly. Which means that this is a story in which there are no reversals, no upsets, no impressively big reveals. The discovery that the black leather jacket guys are aliens is the only real surprise, and given what kind of show this is, that’s not really enough. Everything else follows pretty much a straight line. And while there’s a certain amount of power to be had in going with a premise to its logical conclusion without any attempt to mollify or soften that conclusion, it makes for pretty damn dull drama.

Still, those baroque adornments are curious enough to elevate this above the series’ weakest outings. The black-leather jackets are one thing; there’s also the slang the aliens throughout in their effort to maintain cover—a cover, one might add, that really only serves to draw attention to them, given the environment where they set up shop. (Although, since the aliens have also infiltrated the local police department, I guess they don’t really give a damn.) There’s the communication device the aliens use to receive orders, a standard-for-the-time collection of boxes with blinking lights that’s topped by a screen that only ever reveals a close up shot of a single eye. All very low-fi and cool. Maybe the aliens’ boss is a big Tolkien fan. The work looks for him, anyway. (And he’s definitely a him, despite the fact that all we ever see is the eye—that’s a very masculine voice booming out of those speakers. In fact, every alien we see is male.)

I’m also fond of the guy living next-door’s assumption that the reason the television isn’t working is because the leather jacket wearing dudes are ham radio operators. He says “ham radio” three or four times, and it gets funnier every time he says it. And hey, the plot to dump bacteria into the town water supply is specific enough to be kind of cool. Scott and Ellen (Shelley Fabares) have a tepid, almost parodic relationship, and their moony exchanges are the most overtly funny scenes of the episode, although it’s questionable if their amusement value is intentional or not.

It’s not enough, though. Nor is there much effort to exploit the automatic tension between social classes here; sure, the black leather jacket dudes are aliens, but their attire and behavior makes them suspect even before we know their identities, a fact which is ultimately utterly irrelevant. No one treats them poorly or dismisses them out of hand because of what they’re wearing. The closest we get is that whole “ham radio” thing, and the family’s suspicions about Ellen dating someone. When Scott starts ranting about alien invaders, the response is about the same as he’d get no matter what he looked like: everyone thinks he’s crazy, and eventually they call the cops, who just so happen to be aliens themselves. As a result, it’s a half hour with several potentially interesting quirks which delivers the shallowest possible version of those quirks; the results are frequently amusing, but never memorable.

What a twist: It was aliens.

Stray observations:

• I hadn’t thought about it while watching the episode, but Mark Zicree makes a good point in his entry on this episode in The Twilight Zone Companion: why doesn’t Scott use some of his crazy mental powers to prove his story to Ellen? He doesn’t offer any evidence at all to support his claims, which makes it impossible to really blame anyone for not believing him.
• This is another sci-fi story in which aliens decide humanity is too violent to live. Very Old Testament of them.

“From Agnes With Love” (season 5, episode 20; originally aired 2/14/1964)

In which we find love in the last place we look…

(Available on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon.)

There’s wacky music playing in the first five minutes of “From Agnes With Love,” and if that doesn’t send you running, you have a stronger stomach than I do. Or else, like me, you’re obligated to watch every episode of the series, regardless if they’re supposed to be “funny” or not. Whatever the reason, we’re stuck with this, and it’s a rough slog. There’s a lot of mugging for the camera, a lot of overplayed physical comedy, and worse, there’s just that awful assumption that all of us out in the audience are going to find what we’re watching absolutely hilarious. Not every intentionally comedic episode of The Twilight Zone is terrible, but enough of them are to suggest some sort of endemic problem at the heart of how the show tries to create humor. Maybe it’s because these particular episodes always work so hard to reassure us that everything we’re seeing isn’t meant to be taken seriously.

That’s an issue with this episode, anyway. There’s some effort at the beginning and near the end to remind us that Agnes, the super-computer nebbishy James Elwood (Wally Cox) is in nominal control of, is an important part of Science for Science reasons. There’s a mission to Venus and that sort of thing. But while this information at least makes Elwood’s time with the machine more than just an intellectual problem, the stakes never become particularly high. What Agnes does when she isn’t offering Elwood romantic advice is essentially irrelevant. That’s not a fault in and of itself, since the focus of the story really is on the relationship between man and machine, but it means that, if that relationship isn’t interesting (or if Elwood’s romantic woes don’t grab you), there’s nothing else going on worth caring about.

“From Agnes With Love” is largely focused on Elwood’s efforts to get a date with his attractive co-worker, Millie (Sue Randall). He keeps asking her out, and offering her gifts, all with limited success. Then Agnes starts offering tips, and Elwood follows them. The tips at first seem well-intentioned, but each one ends up backfiring, until Elwood finally ends up pushing Millie into the orbit of a far more attractive co-worker. This, it turns out, was Agnes’s plan, because it—she—is in love with Elwood. This discovery drives him temporarily insane, enough so that his bosses finally take him off the project, and that, minus a minute or two of Serling narration and a lot of “Gah, women!” eye-rolling, is that.

So, like I said, no damn stakes anywhere. Elwood’s determination to find a girlfriend seems like it’s at least something to care about, but on his first real date with Millie, he spends the whole evening reading aloud to her from a science book filled with science. When she tries to get him off his feet to dance with her, he has no idea what’s going on. See, it’s funny, because she’s a lady and she’s into romantic things, and Elwood is a nerd, so he… um… damn, I thought i had something for this.

There are elements in this scene which could’ve made sense in another context. Elwood’s social ineptitude is necessary for the story, and the fact that he has no idea what to do once he’s actually close to the girl of his dreams can sort of kind of nearly count as ironic commentary. But it’s not that he fumbles or trips up or anything remotely recognizable. After vehemently pursuing Millie, once he actually has a chance to get to know her, he shows no apparent interest in her whatsoever. The switch is bizarre, and it’s especially bizarre considering that even after their disastrous first date, Elwood is still determined to win her over. Not because he’s learned something, or because he’s realized what she means to him, or even because he’s just a creep who can’t take no for an answer. He keeps pursuing her because if he didn’t, the episode wouldn’t have a third act. Elwood’s attempts at romance don’t connect to his character (although Wally Cox works hard to make sense out of them); they exist solely because you need the pursuit to build the connection between him and Agnes, and to make Agnes’s big reveal have any sort of meaning at all.

Millie doesn’t fare much better. She seems at first indifferent to Elwood, and then, during their apartment date, she’s super keen on him, to the point where she’s actively trying to seduce him (which he doesn’t get at all, because ha ha nerds r dum). Then Elwood brings her flowers she’s allergic to, and she still agrees to go on another date with him, even though the two have apparently nothing in common apart from working in the same place and both wearing glasses. Elwood, taking Agnes’s advice, bring Millie to see one of their co-workers, and that co-worker turns out to be a virile, confident man whom Millie immediately takes a shine to. She’s less a human being than a free-floating particle of affection, attaching herself to whatever likely target comes along.

Actually, it’s worse than that: Millie, much like Agnes, exists to frustrate Elwood by not giving him what he wants. The episode mitigates this by making sure Elwood is such huge doofus that it’s not really Millie’s fault that they don’t end up together. (The two seem like they’d make a terrible couple anyway.) But in doing so, Elwood becomes too much of an idiot to be someone we can really root for. After that awful first date, it’s clear that he’s not just awkward around people, he’s fundamentally incapable of forming the kind of connection he thinks he wants. Yet because the episode is so hellbent on making sure we never forget how silly it all is, there’s never any chance to take his plight seriously. What should be deft and quick moving turns into a long slog of knowing exactly what’s coming (oh hey, Elwood is going to fail again) and not being at all surprised when it arrives.

It’s a joke that takes so long to get to the punchline that by the time Agnes reveals her true feelings, it’s too late to be funny anymore. The most interesting relationship in the episode is between Agnes and Elwood, and the closest the episode ever comes to having a strong character is Agnes—she’s not the much better developed than the others, but she’s consistent, and there’s enough mystery about her to make her intriguing. She still ends up more a curiosity than anything else, though. Serling’s closing narration about how male programmers need to worry about women is about as funny as everything that came before it, and suggests a script held back, at least in part, by some shallow, reductive ideas about both sexes. Also, it would’ve been nice to hire someone who could write actual jokes.

What a twist: Agnes, the computer who’s been giving Elwood advice all along, is actually in love with Elwood, and has been sabotaging his attempts at romance to get closer to him. Elwood is not happy to learn this.

Stray observations:

• I don’t know if it’s intentional or not (and it certainly isn’t referenced anywhere I can find), but the story here is suspiciously close to the plot of Kurt Vonnegut’s “EPICAC.” Both feature computers that fall in love with humans, and try and offer romantic advice, albeit with much different results. Anyway, the Vonnegut story is much better, so maybe we all should’ve read that instead.
• Another Richard Donner directed episode. There are some nifty close up camera angles, and I like how he films the chaos in the computer room. (I doubt Donner is responsible, but the design of the “computer” isn’t bad either; it’s just suggestive enough of having a face without being a complete cartoon. Unlike the rest of the episode.)

Next week: We see what happens in the “Spur Of The Moment,” and check out “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”

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Helping grow new West Side businesses – Insurance News Net

By Emma Sapong, The Buffalo News, N.Y.

McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

Aug. 17–In Burma, a country with lax regulations, new businesses can be launched on a whim.

“If you want to start a business, you just start it,” said Pau Du. “You find a place and you open. It’s very easy.”

But in 2013 when Du, a Burmese refugee, tried to open a Thai eatery in Buffalo, it wasn’t so easy. He first needed to draft a business plan, apply for licenses and permits, obtain a tax ID and get insurance. The multistep process was dizzying.

“It’s difficult here; there are a lot of steps,” he said. Unversed in the American business process, Du also couldn’t speak English.

“I really didn’t know how to do it,” he admitted, speaking with the help of his teenage daughter.

So Du called WEDI — the Westminster Economic Development Initiative — for guidance. And three months later, he was serving up pad thai and pad ka pow at his Family Thai restaurant in WEDI’s international business incubator, the West Side Bazaar on Grant Street.

“If it wasn’t for WEDI, I wouldn’t be open; I wouldn’t have a business,” Du said.

With its West Side Bazaar, one-on-one business training and micro-lending programs, WEDI is building a growing list of success stories and becoming a beacon for immigrant and refugee entrepreneurs.

And WEDI’s help is not just for immigrants.

Tanya Candeleria is American and had previously run a small business.

Still, Candeleria and her husband turned to WEDI to set up a commercial cleaning firm that employs young adults on the West Side.

“It was like having a business consultant without a consultant’s fees, which is huge when you’re starting a business and you’re pinching pennies,” she said.

WEDI was recently awarded grant money from various sources totaling almost $500,000 to further it efforts.

Business owners of varying stripes credit WEDI for help starting or improving their ventures. “They reviewed our business plan and guided us when we were looking for a location,” said Aung Myat, a native of Burma and co-owner of I.T. Garden, a computer repair and sales business. “And then they helped us negotiate the terms of our long-term lease.”

In its seven years, WEDI has helped bring more than 30 business ideas to fruition and given micro-loans to 16 of those startups. In the process it contributed to the revitalization of a part of the West Side.

“There are so many businesses on Grant Street because WEDI,” said City Council Member David A. Rivera. “Grant Street has been re-engerized. It’s thriving now. They’ve made my job a lot easier, and I give them all the credit for the work that they do.”

Refugees and immigrants comprise 75 percent of WEDI’s client base. The program doesn’t just teach business competency. It helps with cultural competency and does more hand-holding than similar programs.

“I think WEDI is… emotionally, personally (and in a tactile way) on the ground and involved day-to-day with the businesses on the West Side, especially in the immigrant community,” said Susan A. McCartney, the director of Small Business Development Center at SUNY Buffalo State. “They offer a very strong support system to entrepreneurs.”

WEDI grows up

As its clients have grown, WEDI itself has raised its own expectations. Started as a volunteer-run church program, it has become a pillar of the small community, and with that role came bigger dreams.

The recently-awarded nearly half-million dollars in grant money has meant a rebirth of the program. It won a $100,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo in 2012. Last fall, it received $250,000 from the Oishei Foundation, and in May it was one of four nonprofits to receive $100,000 from First Niagara Financial Group. The WNY Foundation and the Josephine Goodyear Foundation also provided funding for the program’s ongoing transformation.

“It’s a change in what we are capable of doing,” said Bonnie Smith, WEDI’s founding executive director and a current board member. “This is huge for WEDI and the West Side. “Now we’re able to have a greater impact, with more resources, we can reach more people.”

Changes are happening quickly. Programs like the micro-lending initiative are being revamped. The loan program, now more structured, will become the area’s only certified community development financial institution. CDFIs offer affordable lending to populations under-served by traditional banks.

In less than a year, WEDI has gone from being volunteer-run to having a paid staff of seven, and from holding coaching sessions at coffee shops and park benches to its own conference room in its own building on Grant Street. An open house will be held from 3 to 7 p.m. Wednesday to mark the grand opening of the office at 436 Grant.

The program brought in John McKeone, a business adviser from the Small Business Development Center at Buffalo State, to be its economic development director. And a director to run its micro-loan operation is coming onboard.

Bissell, who for two years was an Americorps volunteer with WEDI, is new the full-time, paid executive director. He’s 25 years old, and Du, Myat and other business owners can’t stop singing his praises.

“It was Ben for everything I needed,” Du said. “He did everything.”

Modest start

WEDI was started in 2007 by two members of the Westminster Presbyterian Church on Delaware Avenue. Smith, also a member of the church and longtime business owner, was the volunteer executive director. The church held a drive within its congregation to raise money to get things going.

“It was the church that allowed all this to happen; It all started there, and we’re grateful to them,” Rivera said.

Its mission wasn’t necessarily economic development, but whatever it took to revitalize the West Side. Ferguson Avenue — a notoriously blighted street off Grant Street near West Ferry Street — was its first project. With a partnership with Habitat for Humanity, the block was eventually transformed.

In 2008, it became a nonprofit and in 2009 joined the newly formed West Side Stake Holders. That group, initiated by Rivera, is comprised of West Side agencies, business owners and other concerned residents. The need for a business incubator to nurture micro-businesses emerged from the group’s meeting.

The West Side Bazaar, a collection of vendors from around the globe, selling food, jewelry and clothing, opened in 2011. Louise Sano, owner of Global Villages and another shop on Grant Street, is one of the successful graduates of the incubator. By the end of 2012, the bazaar moved to a bigger space that could accommodate up to 21 businesses.

While WEDI does have a long-running, successful after-school program and it has dabbled in housing, Bissell said it’s focus now will be providing training and services to prospective and existing businesses, starting with Grant Street.

“Rather than being a project-by-project kind of organization, we’re now an organization that wants to have a sustainable impact in our community,” Bissell said.

email: esapong@buffnews.com

___

(c)2014 The Buffalo News (Buffalo, N.Y.)

Visit The Buffalo News (Buffalo, N.Y.) at http://www.buffalonews.com

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Want Cheap Car Insurance? These 5 States Have the Lowest Rates – NASDAQ

Even old cars are expensive to insure. Image source: KB35/Flickr.

With high prices at the pump and the ever-present need for regular auto maintenance and repairs, Americans are frustrated with how much it costs to drive these days. Car insurance is just one more thing that drivers have to worry about, and in many states you’ll pay an arm and a leg for coverage . Yet going without insurance is illegal and carries major financial risks if you’re in an accident.

Some states, however, have managed to stem the tide of rising insurance costs and offer their residents the lowest rates in the nation. Earlier this year, Insure.com looked at every state’s insurance market to figure out which gave drivers the best bargains. Here are the five cheapest states on its list.

Images courtesy U.S. Mint.

5. Iowa
Drivers in Iowa pay an average of $1,058 for their auto insurance each year. That’s consistent with the state’s reputation for low car ownership costs generally, as the state topped the Bankrate list of cheapest places to own a vehicle. Insurance costs played a major role in that survey, with a slightly different methodology leading Bankrate to name Iowa the cheapest insurance market in the nation. But rock-bottom repair costs also had a hand in the results, offsetting the higher costs of gasoline that living in a rural state usually entail due to longer car trips.

Low repair costs can keep insurance rates low. Image source: Christopher Ziemnowicz , Wikimedia Commons.

4. Idaho
Idaho edges out Iowa for the No. 4 spot, with an average car insurance rate of $1,053 annually. Like Iowa, Idaho has the advantage of being sparsely populated, with the rural nature of most of the state helping to keep the perils of city driving to a minimum. One report from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners found Idaho’s costs to be the lowest in the nation, again using a slightly different methodology from the Insure.com study but confirming the relative affordability of insurance for state residents.

3. New Hampshire
New Hampshire is one of just three states to break the $1,000 barrier for car insurance costs, weighing in at $983 for the typical driver. Yet the New England state was actually found to be the most expensive in which to insure teenage drivers, with rates more than doubling when families add a teen to their car insurance coverage. New Hampshire is one of three states in which insurance giant Allstate is testing its Drivewise car-monitoring smartphone app, as it seeks to keep up with insurance rivals collecting more information on their drivers. By learning more about what behavior leads to greater accidents, insurance companies hope to roll out similar programs across the nation to produce similar savings.

Avoiding tickets is a way to keep costs down. Image source: Woodleywonderworks , Flickr.

2.Maine
In Maine, car insurance runs an average of $964 per year. With a small population and relatively few urban areas, Maine doesn’t encounter the traffic snarls that plague much of the country and lead to the minor accidents that jack up insurance rates elsewhere. In addition, Maine’s legal system is notorious for having juries that avoid awarding big verdicts, and low rates of auto theft also keep premiums down.

1. Ohio
Ohio tops the list of cheap car insurance states, sporting an average premium of just $926 annually. In some ways, Ohio’s presence in the No. 1 slot is a surprise, given its extensive urban areas and high population. But insurance regulation in Ohio helps keep premiums down, and a heavily competitive insurance-company network featuring hundreds of different car insurance providers also leads to lower rates for drivers. Amazingly, those measures have kept average auto insurance expenses flat compared to what drivers paid 12 years ago.

If you live elsewhere, the prospect of paying these low rates for car insurance might look very appealing. Yet even these reduced costs present a challenge to many drivers, especially in parts of those states where high unemployment rates and low wages make it tough to make ends meet. Still, insurance regulators and other policymakers could learn some lessons from the ways in which these five states keep their costs down, and make them more manageable for their drivers.

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The article Want Cheap Car Insurance? These 5 States Have the Lowest Rates originally appeared on Fool.com.

Dan Caplinger has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends and owns shares of Tesla Motors. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days . We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .

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Researcher: More nurses means better care – Santa Fe New Mexican.com

In the winding hallways and gleaming corridors of Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, staff members have debated a question for years. Sometimes in whispers. Often in tense soliloquies. The question: How many nurses does it take to provide safe care for patients?

Now, that question is at the heart of stalled contract negotiations between the nurses union and hospital administrators. And as the nurses inch toward a possible strike, it remains maddeningly difficult to answer.

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Nashville schools see uptick in free lunches – Greeneville Sun

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Nashville school officials say thousands of more students are taking free lunches after the first week of school.

Free lunches and breakfasts for all students, regardless of family income or grade, are new to Nashville this year after the district announced in June it would take part in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Community Eligibility Provision program.

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Perry 3rd GOP presidential hopeful with legal obstacles – Times Daily

AUSTIN, Texas — As they form exploratory committees, consider the grueling prospect of a national campaign with their families and begin hiring staff in key presidential battleground states, three potential Republican White House candidates also face the distraction of legal troubles back at home.

The latest is Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who following his indictment on two felony charges, is staring at the most serious accusations of wrongdoing by a prominent Republican governor openly considering a run for president.

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Clergy members charged in protest at Legislature – Maryville Daily Forum

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The 23 clergy members who were arrested in May for disrupting a session of the Missouri Senate are each now charged with two misdemeanors.

The Jefferson City News-Tribune reported (http://bit.ly/1uFx7db ) Friday that Cole County authorities charged the clergy members with obstructing government operations and first-degree trespassing.

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Briefcase: Business names in the news – Palladium-Item

Indiana
11:41 p.m. EDT August 16, 2014

Valerie Ray

• Valerie Ray has been appointed executive director of resource development for Ivy Tech Community College Richmond region. Ray has been on the staff at Ivy Tech for more than 34 years. She became executive director of finance and facilities in 2007 and has served as interim campus president for the past four months, duties she will continue until Chad Bolser, newly named president of the Richmond and Connersville campuses, takes office. In her new role, Ray will be responsible for fundraising, meeting student needs for scholarships and making sure Ivy Tech has the facilities and technology necessary to prepare students for the future. Ray graduated from Ivy Tech and has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Indiana Wesleyan University. She serves on the boards of directors of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Wayne County and the United Way of the Whitewater Valley.

• Staff news from Reid Hospital & Health Care Services: Becky Jewison is the new director of volunteer services. She will manage more than 400 adult, junior and student volunteers, as well as other programs, including chaplaincy and hospice outreach, and pet and music therapy. Jewison previously was events coordinator for the Reid Foundation. Jared Dunlap is Reid Ambassador of the Month for August. Dunlap, a resident of Farmland, has worked on the night shift in the critical care unit for two years. He joined Reid in 2009 in food and nutrition services and moved to a clinical position in 2010.

• Two employees of First Bank Richmond have marked anniversaries of service: Pat Cassel, receptionist, 10 years; and Justin Thompson, banking center assistant branch manager, five years.

• Pat Bean was July Employee of the Month at Arbor Trace Exceptional Senior Living in Richmond. Bean joined the staff in 2013.

• Traci Taylor, director of independent living services at the Independent Living Center of Eastern Indiana in Richmond, has been appointed to a three-year term on the state Rehabilitation Services Commission.

• The Lamplight Inn at the Leland has received a deficiency-free quality review from the Division of Long Term Care of the Indiana State Department of Health and found in compliance with licensure requirements for nursing homes.

• Hair stylists Juanita Ford, Autumn Beatty and Miranda Wilkie of Hair Evolution in Richmond attended the Paul Mitchell Gathering from Aug. 2-6 in Las Vegas participating in workshops on men’s styling, color, cutting and more.

• The Whitewater Valley REMC Community Trust has donated $500 to the Friends of Morrisson-Reeves Library to support the early childhood literacy effort “1,000 Books Before Kindergarten,” a program that encourages families to read to their children from birth to age 5.

• Beginning in the fall semester, Ivy Tech Community College will offer technical certificates in accounting and certificates in fundamental payroll and bookkeeping at the Instructional Center in Connersville. Courses in certificate programs apply toward technical certificates and associate degree programs. Registration is underway and classes begin Aug. 25. For more information, contact Mary Richey at (765) 825-9394 ext. 6010 or mrichey@ivytech.edu.

• The Cambridge City Chamber of Commerce meets at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the City Building, 127 N. Foote St., to discuss the strategic plan and Canal Days.

• The Preble County Safety Council will meet at noon Wednesday at the Preble County YMCA, 450 Washington-Jackson Road, Eaton, Ohio. Speaker will be Kathleen Davenport, Bureau of Workers Compensation business consultant for southwest Ohio. For information, contact the Preble County Chamber of Commerce at (937) 456-4949 or chamberoffices@preblecountyohio.com.

• Learn about 3D printing from noon to 1 p.m. Thursday at the Purdue University College of Technology at Richmond, 2325 Chester Blvd. The Brown Bag Tech Lunch will be in Computer Lab 218 in Tom Raper Hall. Cost of $10 includes lunch. Register at www.mycentercity.com. For more information, contact Dawnn Berry at (765) 962-8151 or dawnnb@mycentercity.com.

• Fleet professionals only are invited to a tour of IMPCO Automotive in Union City, Ind., from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Aug. 27. Lunch and a presentation by Kellie Walsh of the Greater Indiana Clean Cities Coalition are included. Reservations required. Seating is limited. Contact Rob Walsh at rob@greaterindiana.com if interested.

Submit items to: Briefcase, c/o Palladium-Item, 1175 N. A St., Richmond, IN 47374 or email palitem@pal-item.com. Briefcase items run at no charge. Include a contact name and phone number.

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Liberia opens 2nd Ebola center in capital – Daily Item

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Liberian authorities opened a new center to treat Ebola patients in the capital Saturday after the existing one became overwhelmed with patients, while two more airlines announced they will halt flights to the capitals of Liberia and Sierra Leone amid the deepening crisis.

Kenya Airways and regional carrier Gambia Bird join a number of other airlines in temporarily cancelling flights to avoid transmitting the disease beyond the four countries already affected in West Africa.

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Report: Teen shot 6 times, including twice in head – Maryville Daily Forum

NEW YORK (AP) — An unarmed black teenager killed by a white officer in Missouri was shot at least six times, including twice in the head, a preliminary private autopsy has found.

The New York Times reported (http://nyti.ms/1mZThz0 ) that the autopsy by Dr. Michael Baden, a former New York City chief medical examiner, found that one of the bullets entered the top of Michael Brown’s skull, suggesting that his head was bent forward when he suffered a fatal injury.

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Google Purchases Image-recognition Startup Jetpac – Design & Trend

(Photo : REUTERS/Nir Elias) Google has acquired yet another startup company. Jetpac Inc, a software developer for analyzing digital pictures was purchased by Google for an undisclosed amount. The tech giant looks to exploit the startup’s ability to organize the world’s information and will deliver it alongside advertisement as a means of monetization.

Google has acquired yet another startup company. Jetpac Inc, a software developer for analyzing digital pictures was purchased by Google for an undisclosed amount. The tech giant looks to exploit the startup’s ability to organize the world’s information and will deliver it alongside advertisement as a means of monetization.

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The startup based off San Francisco used information obtained from social media photos, like Facebook’s Instagram photo-centered social network, to create city guides. Through the information captured from pictures of food, décor and people, Jetpac’s software will offer insight on city locales.

In a tweet yesterday, Jetpac cofounder and chief technology officer Pete Warden wrote:

“We look forward to working on exciting projects with our colleagues at Google. We’ll be removing Jetpac’s apps from the App Store in the coming days, and ending support for them on 9/15.”

For people that use Google services, this purchase will be of good news. As more and more people upload photos and video to the web, the demand for a service that can analyze the information within the photos, making them easier to utilize.

Google has been doing much work on image-recognition technologies alongside other tech giants like Microsoft.

Jetpac was founded by Pete Warden and Julian Green. After the purchase, Green has become chief executive officer and Warden has moved to chief technology officer. The company recently raised $2.4 million from venture capital firms.

Warden’s competence can be looked at from his five-year tenure of senior engineer at Apple. He is working on a book about deep learning and has yet to respond to VentureBeat’s request for comment.

Jetpac used to let people explore travel pictures from their Facebook friends to decipher where they wanted to travel to. Recently, Jetpac created a mechanism that could use smiles in pictures to decipher how happy people were in a city. 

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Right on Target – Barron’s

Aug. 16, 2014 2:29 a.m. ET

In the past year,

Schlumberger

SLB +0.59%



Schlumberger Ltd.


U.S.: NYSE


^$106.53


+0.62
+0.59%



Aug. 15, 2014 4:02 pm


Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
5.28M

AFTER HOURS

^$106.53


0.00
%

Aug. 15, 2014 6:08 pm

Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
38,661

P/E Ratio
21.22

Market Cap
$138.11 Billion

Dividend Yield
1.50%

Rev. per Employee
$380,545

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08/12/14 Schlumberger Expects Limited I…
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More quote details and news »

has quietly flexed its financial muscles, acquiring 12 North American companies that specialize in boosting the production from oil and gas wells. Just like that, the energy equipment and services giant became a leader in extracting liquids from shale basins through what’s known as artificial-lift operations, part of the booming business in hydraulic fracturing that’s reshaping the industry.

Long the top offshore and international provider of services and equipment catering to huge clients such as

ExxonMobil

XOM -0.06%



Exxon Mobil Corp.


U.S.: NYSE


^$99.03


-0.06
-0.06%



Aug. 15, 2014 4:00 pm


Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
9.12M

AFTER HOURS

^$99.03


0.00
%

Aug. 15, 2014 7:55 pm

Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
113,177

P/E Ratio
12.62

Market Cap
$422.33 Billion

Dividend Yield
2.79%

Rev. per Employee
$5,295,050

08/13/14 Mexico Outlines Plan to Open O…
08/12/14 Holman Jenkins: More War for O…
08/11/14 Anadarko’s Controversial Mozam…
More quote details and news »

(ticker: XOM) and

Chevron

Cvx +0.17%



Chevron Corp.


U.S.: NYSE


^$126.10


+0.21
+0.17%



Aug. 15, 2014 4:00 pm


Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
5.54M

AFTER HOURS

^$126.10


0.00
%

Aug. 15, 2014 7:19 pm

Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
213,364

P/E Ratio
11.94

Market Cap
$239.46 Billion

Dividend Yield
3.39%

Rev. per Employee
$3,232,450

08/15/14 How to Win the College Scholar…
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(CVX), Schlumberger (SLB) is in the midst of an aggressive push to gain share among onshore exploration-and-production companies in North America, where much of today’s growth is. “Where the drill goes, Schlumberger goes” has been the operating philosophy of the company since its founding in 1920 by two brothers, Conrad and Marcel Schlumberger, in Paris. Their first service featured Conrad’s innovative method of using electrical probes to survey deposits in rock formations for mineral exploration. Paris remains Schlumberger’s cultural home, but Houston, where it has had a presence since 1935, is now its operational headquarters.

Chief Executive Paal Kibsgaard’s recent acquisitions should address one of the few weak spots in the company’s substantial arsenal and put more distance between Schlumberger and smaller rivals such as

Halliburton

HAL +1.60%



Halliburton Co.


U.S.: NYSE


^$68.42


+1.08
+1.60%



Aug. 15, 2014 4:03 pm


Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
6.81M

AFTER HOURS

^$68.42


0.00
%

Aug. 15, 2014 6:08 pm

Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
32,322

P/E Ratio
20.30

Market Cap
$58.19 Billion

Dividend Yield
0.88%

Rev. per Employee
$396,234

08/04/14 Demand for Sand Takes Off Than…
07/31/14 KBR Swings to Loss
07/26/14 Some See Upside for the ‘New’ …
More quote details and news »

(HAL) and

Baker Hughes

BHI +1.26%



Baker Hughes Inc.


U.S.: NYSE


^$67.66


+0.84
+1.26%



Aug. 15, 2014 4:00 pm


Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
3.17M

AFTER HOURS

^$67.66


0.00
%

Aug. 15, 2014 7:59 pm

Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
13,210

P/E Ratio
23.41

Market Cap
$29.44 Billion

Dividend Yield
1.01%

Rev. per Employee
$392,475

08/10/14 Blackstone Nears Deal For Shel…
07/17/14 Stocks to Watch: Mattel, Morga…
More quote details and news »

(BHI), which have benefited more from their North American operations. Schlumberger is expected to earn $7.5 billion this year on revenue of $49 billion. Revenue at Halliburton and Baker Hughes is forecast to come in at some $33 billion and $25 billion, respectively.

Kibsgaard, however, uses even bigger measuring sticks these days: Schlumberger, No. 29in the Standard & Poor’s 500 by market value, wants to benchmark itself against the top industrial names in the index, including storied operators such as

General Electric

GE -0.93%



General Electric Co.


U.S.: NYSE


^$25.64


-0.24
-0.93%



Aug. 15, 2014 4:00 pm


Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
27.93M

AFTER HOURS

^$25.63


-0.01
-0.04%

Aug. 15, 2014 7:59 pm

Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
240,495

P/E Ratio
17.83

Market Cap
$257.27 Billion

Dividend Yield
3.43%

Rev. per Employee
$471,622

08/15/14 How to Win the College Scholar…
08/14/14 Banks, Financial Firms Load Up…
08/14/14 Electrolux in Talks to Acquire…
More quote details and news »

(GE),

Honeywell International

HON -0.17%



Honeywell International Inc.


U.S.: NYSE


^$94.23


-0.16
-0.17%



Aug. 15, 2014 4:02 pm


Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
3.04M

AFTER HOURS

^$94.23


0.00
%

Aug. 15, 2014 4:35 pm

Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
413,044

P/E Ratio
18.26

Market Cap
$73.74 Billion

Dividend Yield
1.91%

Rev. per Employee
$305,137

08/04/14 China Using Antimonopoly Law t…
07/31/14 America’s Business Puzzle: Rec…
07/18/14 Honeywell Reports Better-Than-…
More quote details and news »

(HON), and

Boeing

BA -0.77%



Boeing Co.


U.S.: NYSE


^$123.16


-0.95
-0.77%



Aug. 15, 2014 4:01 pm


Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
4.56M

AFTER HOURS

^$123.00


-0.16
-0.13%

Aug. 15, 2014 7:03 pm

Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
12,855

P/E Ratio
18.33

Market Cap
$88.75 Billion

Dividend Yield
2.37%

Rev. per Employee
$525,220

08/14/14 Experts Reassess Risk of In-Fl…
08/14/14 Boeing Plans Further 737 Produ…
08/14/14 Ethiopian Short-Haul Fleet Pre…
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(BA), as well as best-in-class companies such as

Walt Disney

DIS +0.76%



Walt Disney Co.


U.S.: NYSE


^$89.28


+0.67
+0.76%



Aug. 15, 2014 4:00 pm


Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
8.20M

AFTER HOURS

^$89.25


-0.03
-0.03%

Aug. 15, 2014 5:57 pm

Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
8,593

P/E Ratio
21.16

Market Cap
$153.25 Billion

Dividend Yield
0.96%

Rev. per Employee
$273,869

08/15/14 FreshGrade Raises $4.3M to Con…
08/13/14 After Shark Tank, Packback See…
08/13/14 Can the SEC Network Find Enoug…
More quote details and news »

(DIS),

Microsoft

MSFT +1.17%



Microsoft Corp.


U.S.: Nasdaq


^$44.79


+0.52
+1.17%



Aug. 15, 2014 4:00 pm


Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
41.35M

AFTER HOURS

^$44.81


+0.02
+0.04%

Aug. 15, 2014 7:59 pm

Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
264,223

P/E Ratio
16.84

Market Cap
$369.06 Billion

Dividend Yield
2.50%

Rev. per Employee
$677,570

08/15/14 Interpublic Working With Banks…
08/15/14 Patent Win for Google and Alli…
08/15/14 Taiwan Ups Growth Forecast
More quote details and news »

(MSFT), and

Amgen

AMGN +0.71%



Amgen Inc.


U.S.: Nasdaq


^$132.80


+0.94
+0.71%



Aug. 15, 2014 4:00 pm


Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
4.05M

AFTER HOURS

^$132.60


-0.20
-0.15%

Aug. 15, 2014 5:19 pm

Volume (Delayed 15m)
:
294,316

P/E Ratio
20.06

Market Cap
$100.88 Billion

Dividend Yield
1.84%

Rev. per Employee
$972,950

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08/13/14 Amgen Myeloma Drug Kyprolis Fa…
08/04/14 Stocks to Watch: Cardinal Heal…
More quote details and news »

(AMGN), whose earnings growth and dividend yields are comparable to Schlumberger’s.

“I don’t think we should focus on only being the best company in our industry,” says Kibsgaard, 46, a petroleum engineer who has spent 17 years at Schlumberger. “We have the potential to be the best-run company in the world, and that’s what we are trying to do,” he told Barron’s in a recent phone interview. (To see how the company stacks up in some of these comparisons, see chart below.)

KIBSGAARD’S GRAND SCHEME impressed Wall Street when he and other top executives outlined their goals at the company’s annual investor conference in late June at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in New York.

By improving the technology and durability of its products, and becoming more efficient and integrated, they said Schlumberger could achieve a tenfold increase in operational reliability, reduce inventory levels by 25%, boost asset utilization by 100%, raise productivity by 20%, and lower unit support costs by 10%. By 2017, the company expects to boost earnings per share to $9 to $10, from an expected $5.70 this year and more than double the record $4.75 posted in 2013.

No doubt, achieving these targets would help the stock price. Based on Schlumberger’s robust forecasts of future growth, Morgan Stanley’s Ole Slorer raised his price target for the shares to $168, more than 50% above last week’s $106; the stock price could conceivably reach $200 if the company hits its revised earnings targets sooner than expected, he says.

The company, whose $140 billion market value is roughly 2½ times that of its nearest competitor, also intends to manage its vast resources more efficiently. Schlumberger spends about $9 billion a quarter to support a corporate infrastructure that includes 160,000 personal computers and mobile devices for 126,000 employees in 85 countries, 2,500 operating bases and plants, 80,000 suppliers, and a transportation network bigger than that of many countries.

Kibsgaard and his team have estimated that 1% in savings in the cost of running its corporate operations would result in an additional nickel to quarterly earnings, and “through our ongoing transformation programs, we are looking for multiples of this.”

IN JUST ONE EXAMPLE of how it’s controlling costs, the company in 2011 studied its support workforce by separating it into two groups — those delivering products and services directly to customers, and those supporting that process. The two groups had grown at the same rate over the previous decade. But by upgrading some of its technological platforms, Schlumberger subsequently was able to hold steady the number of personnel supporting the process. The company estimates that in 2013 there were 3,500 fewer workers in operations support than there would have been had pre-2011 trends continued.

“We are significantly bigger than all our competitors, and the size of the company is way up there with some of the largest companies in the world,” says Kibsgaard. “If you grow without focusing on leveraging size, it can become an impediment to your abilities, and we are determined that is not going to happen. We are going to make sure size is leveraged and build that into another unique company strength.”

This is all part of the vision that persuaded Schlumberger’s board of directors to choose Kibsgaard as CEO in 2011, when they were seeking a successor to his well-respected predecessor, Andrew Gould, who was nearing the mandatory retirement age of 65. Gould is credited with refocusing the company on oilfield services during his eight-year tenure following a misguided foray into information technology by his predecessor. The board asked candidates to write essays about their approach to running the company. Then the chief operating officer, Kibsgaard drew on his experience managing the overhaul of the company’s technology processes in 2008, when he had turned to the automotive and aerospace industries for lessons on how to improve research, engineering, and manufacturing at Schlumberger.

“Even as the leader in our industry, we were behind on a number of things that [the auto and aerospace companies] were doing that could help us significantly in terms of developing better products faster and at lower cost, and also how to drive innovation and the rate of innovation in technology development,” recalls Kibsgaard, who joined Schlumberger in 1997. Before that, he spent five years at ExxonMobil, after earning a master’s degree in petroleum engineering at the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim.

At the time, Schlumberger had about half of the product lines it does today, and each had its own development group. Under Kibsgaard, the individual groups have been combined to eliminate overlap and build on strengths more quickly. Separately, Schlumberger has revised its approach to design, considering not just functionality at the outset, but also reliability and cost, a process known as concurrent engineering that it borrowed from aerospace companies. It also switched to using software modeling for new products rather than building hardware prototypes that added to cost and project times. That has enabled it to expand its product lines to 15.

Schlumberger, which spends about $1 billion a year on research and development, recently unveiled a series of new products for hydraulic fracturing that it expects will fetch premium prices and higher margins. Overall, new products are forecast to drive one-quarter of revenue by 2017. For instance, Schlumberger recently commercialized a service known as the Broadband Sequence Fracturing Technique, which improves the productivity of a well and then reduces the cost of sealing it. The technique saves money for customers, and applies a methodology to what had been a trial-and-error process.

Another new product, the Stinger drill bit used in hydraulic fracturing, is expected to lead to significant changes in this high-margin business because it is especially effective in hard-rock formations, lasts 20% to 25% longer than more conventional bits, and reduces the number of times operators have to change it.

Increasingly, Schlumberger is combining its technology, processes, people, and back-office support systems to provide integrated and customized services to customers in long-term higher-margin contracts. Its purchase of Saxon, a Calgary, Canada–based provider of international land-drilling services, gives Schlumberger more access to rigs and enhances its ability to offer integrated well construction and production management. It expects that “integrated” projects will account for 30% of revenue in the future.

IN A WELCOME BREAK from company tradition at the June investor meeting, Kibsgaard and his team provided detailed financial forecasts for the next three years, using conservative assumptions about industry growth. The company’s earnings are expected to increase by an average of 17% to 20% a year on revenue gains of 7% to 8%, helped by widening profit margins and continued share repurchases.

The forecast isn’t based on hopes for a surge in oil prices. Schlumberger’s financial targets are predicated on oil prices continuing to hover around $100 a barrel. (Brent crude changed hands at $103 on Friday.) The view is based on annual global growth of 3% to 4%, slightly higher than current levels, as improving recovery rates in developed countries are offset by lower growth in emerging markets.

Oil demand is projected to increase 1% to 1.5% a year. Continued growth in the North American shale-liquids market is expected to be undercut by ongoing softness in oil-production growth and declining rates in mature fields, exacerbated by project delays and supply disruptions caused by geopolitical unrest. Amid that backdrop, the big integrated oil companies have cut back on spending to focus on improving returns and cash flow, lowering overall spending growth on exploration and production to a rate of 6% to 7%, down from the average increases of 9% to 10% common between 2011 and 2013.

“There are plausible supply-and-demand scenarios that could lead to a tightening of the global oil market as well as the North American gas market, with a corresponding impact on commodity prices and investment levels, but we have chosen not to factor this upside into our 2017 target,” says Kibsgaard. “We realize there could be upsides to some of our assumptions, and were these to materialize, there should be an equivalent upside to our financial targets.”

THE PROSPECT FOR SHARP EARNINGS gains based largely on operating improvements isn’t reflected in Schlumberger’s stock price, which has been buffeted a bit lately by worries about stepped-up sanctions against Russia, where it gets some $2.2 billion in annual revenue. But at $106, the stock trades for less than 16 times 2015 projected earnings of $6.85 a share, and at about 13 times 2016 expectations of $8.03 a share. Historically, Schlumberger has traded at about 20 times forward earnings.

Based on enterprise value to Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization), Schlumberger also looks cheap, at about nine times estimated 2015 EV/Ebitda and eight times estimated 2016 EV/Ebitda. Historically, the stock has fetched a multiple of 10 to 11.

“The value proposition has never been higher,” says Bill Herbert of Simmons & Co. International, a Houston-based investment-banking firm. He sees the shares reaching $145, a gain of more than 30% from recent levels, as the multiple expands to better reflect the growth it expects to show.

Adds James Clark, portfolio manager at Greenwich, Conn.–based Sound Shore Management: “Schlumberger is particularly cheap relative to its own history and to the market. If they pull off their plan and do so with the financial discipline they are talking about, they could get to their earnings target, and the multiple should expand back to 20 times earnings.”

Schlumberger has also been more generous with dividend increases since Kibsgaard became CEO three years ago this month, raising the payout three years in a row by increasingly higher rates. The dividend yield is now 1.5%. Analysts note that Schlumberger is the only large oil-service company to consistently return capital to shareholders, and it is getting more aggressive. In the most recent quarter ended on June 30 — the 11th straight in which it beat earnings expectations — Schlumberger bought back $1.2 billion worth of shares.

Overall, the company is targeting a return of capital of 20% by 2017, up from the current 16%. Capital spending is expected to drop to 10% of revenue from the more typical 12%, which will free up more cash flow to return to shareholders in the form of buybacks and dividends. Indeed, Schlumberger expects to convert 75% of earnings to free cash flow, up from the current level of 55%. An estimated 60% to 65% of that will be given back to shareholders.

The company is likely to use some of its increasing free cash flow — roughly $6 billion in 2013, up from less than $2 billion in 2012 — to make even more acquisitions, a key source of its growth over the years. The biggest purchase in its history, the $11 billion takeover of Texas-based bit maker Smith International in 2010, gave it a substantial beachhead as it focused more on North American land-based drilling.

Despite some early reluctance to invest in North American land-based drilling projects because of the continent’s boom-and-bust energy cycles, Schlumberger already has made substantial inroads in the shale-gas and shale-liquids market. Since 2010, it has restructured its land business and separated it from its offshore business, made acquisitions, and developed new products especially targeted at drilling in unconventional shale deposits.

WHILE SCHLUMBERGER SHARES’ 18% GAIN this year has outperformed the S&P 500, its stock has lagged behind that of Halliburton for much of the past five years because its cross-town rival was more active in the hot North American shale market. Halliburton derives 50% of its operating profit here, while Schlumberger gets less than 30%. But the gap is largely a function of Schlumberger’s mammoth size. North American revenues at the two companies are now nearly matched, with $14 billion for Schlumberger and $15 billion for Halliburton. Still, Schlumberger’s 18% margins in North America through the second quarter bested the 16.9% posted by Halliburton. And internationally, there’s no contest: Schlumberger’s overseas revenue of $31 billion is more than double that of Halliburton, and its margins are more than seven percentage points wider.

“We see North America land as a very exciting opportunity,” says Kibsgaard. “We now have a setup and a focus on this, which is going to allow us to compete very well going forward. We love to compete, and we love to win.”

And if Schlumberger wins, so do its shareholders. 

E-mail: editors@barrons.com

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California cemeteries work to cope with drought – Merced Sun-Star

ROSEMEAD, Calif. — Cemeteries with thirsty lawns are figuring out new ways to conserve water amid California’s drought.

Ways to cope include replacing grass with native plants or using recycled water, two steps being taken by Savannah Memorial Park, the oldest nonsectarian cemetery in Southern California.

Groundskeepers there removed grass, put in native plants and started to cover the ground with mulch, which helps keep soil moist.

With the state in its worst water crisis in a generation, state officials have asked everyone to cut use by at least 20 percent.

The goal at Savannah is to reduce water use by 60 percent, The Los Angeles Daily News reported (http://bit.ly/1t8Z21g ).

“No other cemetery in California is even attempting to do this,” Beverly Morton, a Savannah board member, told the newspaper. “They usually let the grass die and the weeds take over.”

Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier plans to use only recycled water for landscaping starting next year. Drought-tolerant grasses help keep the amount of watering down.

Other cemeteries are having a tougher time identifying ways to save water and still keep their grounds attractive.

One is Evergreen Cemetery, the oldest in Los Angeles. Lacking access to recycled water, its lawns have been mostly brown for several years.

Last fall, Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina launched a campaign to help beautify the cemetery.

But after another winter of little rain, Evergreen faces new water restrictions.

A big challenge is getting the cemetery access to recycled water, according to Roxane Marquez, a spokeswoman for Molina. Her office has been meeting with city officials and hopes to give Evergreen — and other parts of the city’s east side — access to recycled water piping.

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