Fecal Treatment Gains Favor for Some Illnesses - NYTimes.com

<base href="data:"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The treatment may sound appalling, but it works.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Transplanting feces from a healthy person into the gut of one who is sick can quickly cure severe intestinal infections caused by a dangerous type of bacteria that antibiotics often cannot control.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">A new study finds that such transplants cured 15 of 16 people who had recurring infections with Clostridium difficile bacteria, whereas antibiotics cured only 3 of 13 and 4 of 13 patients in two comparison groups. The treatment appears to work by restoring the gut's normal balance of bacteria, which fight off C. difficile.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The study is the first to compare the transplants with standard antibiotic therapy. The research, conducted in the Netherlands, was published Wednesday in The <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/new_england_journal_of_medicine/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about New England Journal of Medicine" class="meta-org" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">New England Journal of Medicine</a>.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Fecal transplants have been used sporadically for years as a last resort to fight this stubborn and debilitating infection, which kills 14,000 people a year in the United States. The infection is usually caused by antibiotics, which can predispose people to C. difficile by killing normal gut bacteria. If patients are then exposed to C. difficile, which is common in many hospitals, it can take hold.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The usual treatment involves more antibiotics, but about 20 percent of patients relapse, and many of them suffer repeated attacks, with severe diarrhea, vomiting and fever.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Researchers say that, worldwide, about 500 people with the infection have had fecal transplantation. It involves diluting stool with a liquid, like salt water, and then pumping it into the intestinal tract via an enema, a colonoscope or a tube run through the nose into the stomach or small intestine.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Stool can contain hundreds or even thousands of types of bacteria, and researchers do not yet know which ones have the curative powers. So for now, feces must be used pretty much intact.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Medical journals have reported high success rates and seemingly miraculous cures in patients who have suffered for months. But until now there was room for doubt, because no controlled experiments had compared the outlandish-sounding remedy with other treatments.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The new research is the first to provide the type of evidence that skeptics have demanded, and proponents say they hope the results will help bring fecal transplants into the medical mainstream, because for some patients nothing else works.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">"Those of us who do fecal transplant know how effective it is," said Dr. Colleen R. Kelly, a gastroenterologist with the Women's Medicine Collaborative in Providence, R.I., who was not part of the Dutch study. "The tricky part has been convincing everybody else."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">She added, "This is an important paper, and hopefully it will encourage people to change their practice patterns and offer this treatment more."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">One of Dr. Kelly's patients, Melissa Cabral, 34, of Dighton, Mass., was healthy until she contracted C. difficile in July after taking an antibiotic for dental work. She had profuse diarrhea, uncontrollable vomiting and high fevers that landed her in the hospital. She suffered repeated bouts, lost 12 pounds and missed months of work. Her young children would find her lying on the bathroom floor.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Initially, she rejected a fecal transplant because the idea disgusted her, but ultimately she became so desperate for relief that in November she tried it.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Within a day, her symptoms were gone.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">"If I didn't do it, I don't know where I'd be now," she said.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><a href="http://www.einstein.yu.edu/departments/medicine/divisions/gastroenterology-liver-diseases/faculty/profile.asp?id=2519" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">Dr. Lawrence J. Brandt</a>, a professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, said that the Food and Drug Administration had recently begun to regard stool used for transplant as a drug, and to require doctors administering it to apply for permission, something that he said could hinder treatment.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">A spokeswoman for the agency, Rita Chappelle, said officials could not respond in time for publication.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">C. difficile is a global problem. Increasingly toxic strains have emerged in the past decade. In the United States, more than 300,000 patients in hospitals contract C. difficile each year, and researchers estimate that the total number of cases, in and out of hospitals, may be three million. Treatment costs exceed $1 billion a year.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Fecal therapy has often been used to cure gut trouble in cows and horses. Books on traditional Chinese medicine mention giving it to people by mouth to cure diarrhea in the fourth century; one book called it yellow soup.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">In 1958, Dr. Ben Eiseman, of the University of Colorado, published a report about using fecal enemas to cure four patients with life-threatening intestinal infections.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The senior author of the new study, Dr. Josbert Keller, a gastroenterologist at the Hagaziekenhuis hospital in The Hague, said that before conducting the research, he and his colleagues had performed the transplant in about 10 cases, and it almost always worked.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">"After the first four or five patients, we started thinking, 'We can't go on doing this kind of obscure treatment without evidence,' " Dr. Keller said. "Everybody is laughing about it."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The researchers studied adults who had been suffering from C. difficile for months and had had at least one relapse after antibiotics. They were picked at random to be in one of three groups. Only one group, 16 people, had the transplant: they took the antibiotic vancomycin for four days, had their intestines rinsed and then had the fecal solution pumped into their small intestines through a nose tube. A second group, 13 people, had the intestinal wash and 14 days of vancomycin; a third group, also 13 people, had only vancomycin.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The donors were tested for an array of diseases to make sure they did not infect the patients. Their specimens were mixed with saline in a blender and strained, to produce a solution that Dr. Keller said resembled chocolate milk.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Dr. Keller said that patients were so eager to receive transplants that they would not join the study unless the researchers promised that those assigned to antibiotics alone would get transplants later if the drugs failed.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Among the 16 who received transplants, 13 were cured after the first infusion. The other three were given repeat infusions from different donors, and two were also cured. In the two groups of patients who did not receive transplants, only 7 of 26 were cured.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Of the patients who did not receive transplants at first and who relapsed after receiving antibiotics only, 18 were subsequently given transplants, and 15 were cured.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The study was originally meant to include more patients, but it had to be cut short because the antibiotic groups were faring so poorly compared with the transplant patients that it was considered unethical to continue.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The results come as no surprise to doctors who have tried the procedure. <a href="http://www.med.umn.edu/gi/faculty/khoruts/home.html" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">Dr. Alexander Khoruts</a>, a gastroenterologist at the University of Minnesota, said he had performed the transplants in more than 100 patients with C. difficile. He said that it worked the first time in 90 percent, and that the other 10 percent were cured with a second treatment. The procedure can be done with a stool solution that has been frozen and thawed, he said.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">One of Dr. Khoruts's concerns about the procedure is that many people assume it can be used for a variety of intestinal problems. He cautioned that, so far, the only real evidence is for C. difficile.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">Eventually, he said, if researchers can determine which bacteria are crucial, it should become possible to create products containing them, and to spare everyone the unpleasantness of dealing with stool specimens.</p></div><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/health/disgusting-maybe-but-treatment-works-study-finds.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0&pagewanted=print">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/health/disgusting-maybe-but-treatment-works-study-finds.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0&pagewanted=print</a><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>

Fecal Treatment Gains Favor for Some Illnesses - NYTimes.com

The treatment may sound appalling, but it works. Transplanting feces from a healthy person into the gut of one who is sick can quickly cure ...

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Attune Foods

<div style="text-align: center;"><b><u><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Attune Foods</span></u></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3aWhy1sXlNs/UPfxsnBVmDI/AAAAAAAAFIo/fUbzcFU1ptQ/s1600/attune+foods.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3aWhy1sXlNs/UPfxsnBVmDI/AAAAAAAAFIo/fUbzcFU1ptQ/s320/attune+foods.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Feel like your getting cheated out of your favorite cereal with all of those added ingredients that are unhealthy?</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">They may sound good for you when they are really not until you read the labels!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Their team is involved in improving our ways that we eat foods in the home.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Switch it up with <a href="http://www.attunefoods.com/">Attune Foods</a> where they make their cereals with pure and simple ingredients with no added sugars or flavoring and make you feel your best during the day!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What I love about this company is that they make all kinds of products such as cereal, crackers and chocolate bars!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">They are gluten free and high in fiber.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I was sent two boxes of Uncle Sam's cereal for reviewing purposes.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So I will talk a little bit about them.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Ladies and gents hold onto your cereal bowls and get ready.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8ZIWLhh4-ZA/UPfyDCqUsKI/AAAAAAAAFIw/RGwv2lcazaw/s1600/raisin+bran.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8ZIWLhh4-ZA/UPfyDCqUsKI/AAAAAAAAFIw/RGwv2lcazaw/s320/raisin+bran.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Facts: </span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">They take hard red winter wheat berries that's all the way from South Dakota and roll them, toast and flatten them.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">They also use flax seed as well!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Makes you wonder how other cereals are made, which is probably through a processor.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I know ugh.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Each Uncle Sam's cereal has seven grams of protein, ten grams of fiber and you won't believe it, less then one gram of sugar!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">How awesome is that?!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><u>Raisin Bran</u></span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r9naW7NBRK0/UPfyMIbq2PI/AAAAAAAAFI4/BZIIMW4q9kg/s1600/Raisin+Bran+Attune+Foods.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r9naW7NBRK0/UPfyMIbq2PI/AAAAAAAAFI4/BZIIMW4q9kg/s320/Raisin+Bran+Attune+Foods.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I love Raisin bran because it's high in fiber and so good.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I have never tried this kind before though and couldn't wait to dig in.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You know how other raisin bran brands have huge bran flakes in them?</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Uncle Sam's has little tiny ones!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I added in some Vanilla almond milk and dug right in!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So delicious.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><u>Original </u></span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Toasted whole wheat flakes and flax seed for a deliciously healthy meal or as a snack on top of some yogurt with fresh fruit!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Want to check out their products and learn all about them?</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Check them out on these sites here.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.attunefoods.com/">http://www.attunefoods.com/</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/attunefoods">https://www.facebook.com/attunefoods</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/attunefoods"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">https://twitter.com/attunefoods</span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/102516892582284922787/posts">https://plus.google.com/u/0/102516892582284922787/posts</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://pinterest.com/attunefoods/"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">http://pinterest.com/attunefoods/</span></a></div>

Attune Foods

Attune Foods Feel like your getting cheated out of your favorite cereal with all of those added ingredients that are unhealthy? They may sou...

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Make Google Reader your Powerhouse sharing system

Productivity and simplicity, these are two things the modern knowledge worker craves. <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.google.com/reader" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Google Reader">Google Reader</a> is my "secret weapon" of productivity and I'd like to show you how I get the most out of this program.<br /><br /><h2>What is <a class="zem_slink" href="http://google.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Google">Google</a> reader?</h2><h2>1- Make a list of the places where you want to share</h2>Begin with the end in mind by knowing where you want to share. <a class="zem_slink" href="http://facebook.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Facebook">Facebook</a>? Your blog? <a class="zem_slink" href="http://twitter.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Twitter">Twitter</a>? <a class="zem_slink" href="http://pinterest.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Pinterest">Pinterest</a>? I have a list of my places where I share every day including: my blog here, <a href="http://www.vickidavis.me/">my tumblr blog</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/coolcatteacher">Facebook fanpage</a>, <a href="http://www.twitter.com/#/coolcatteacher">Twitter</a>,<a href="https://plus.google.com/115916382183421477315"> Google+</a>, <a href="http://pinterest.com/coolcatteacher/">Pinterest</a>, <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.linkedin.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="LinkedIn">LinkedIn.</a><br /><br /><h2>2- Enable Share It</h2><h3>a) Go to your <a href="http://reader.google.com/">Google Reader</a> Settings (shown in screenshot)</h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiagYtsYV4_VP4gMSEtancdu-lcVClwob2Tcgyu_-1On8bEIrQFDMyVqvMhJWNvHqJ3VY1hYf9oVIegPZRw0HlhjM5cVn2M1FXUGAnVnstGnwKIsA4SFCjxC9x9yIspWri6WsqyxOA2cFC0/s1600/google+reader+settings.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiagYtsYV4_VP4gMSEtancdu-lcVClwob2Tcgyu_-1On8bEIrQFDMyVqvMhJWNvHqJ3VY1hYf9oVIegPZRw0HlhjM5cVn2M1FXUGAnVnstGnwKIsA4SFCjxC9x9yIspWri6WsqyxOA2cFC0/s640/google+reader+settings.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><h3>b) Click on Send To</h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKrGowmDK5PUZgiXPtlzTzk_OsKJIMH1ffuZHZBllNT0pZ4eTLYfg-vnJbDSR2mAPiXil4MZV2LKl5_ph1qEk38EJQzFLPwUw6_sou6-_NM7xvz4mTRuShiZBV3cS7vwVYkTsC9FPi9LiV/s1600/send-to-settings.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKrGowmDK5PUZgiXPtlzTzk_OsKJIMH1ffuZHZBllNT0pZ4eTLYfg-vnJbDSR2mAPiXil4MZV2LKl5_ph1qEk38EJQzFLPwUw6_sou6-_NM7xvz4mTRuShiZBV3cS7vwVYkTsC9FPi9LiV/s640/send-to-settings.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><h3>c) Enable the services that you want to share to.</h3>Blogger, Delicious, <a class="zem_slink" href="http://digg.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Digg">Digg,</a> Facebook, <a class="zem_slink" href="http://friendfeed.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="FriendFeed">FriendFeed</a>, <a class="zem_slink" href="http://instapaper.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Instapaper">Instapaper</a>, Myspace, Orkut, Ping.fm, Posterous, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Tumblr, Twitter are all available. Just make sure you add Google reader on your pop up blocker's list of approved sites.<br /><br /><h3>d) Add information to add other sites.</h3><br />I use <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.diigo.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Diigo">Diigo</a> and need it to be integrated into Google Reader. I found some older directions from the<a href="http://www.jeffisageek.net/blog/2009/08/13/add-diigo-to-google-readers-new-send-to-feature/" target="_blank"> "Jeff is a geek" blog</a> and they work.<br /><br />Under name, I put Diigo.<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi44fAUzjRwDgIOUQSJQwTLCo4F3kHCba5P2aND8qYnPQpr02zY1MFd9iLwnVVI0ozHMXPX0mr5CDa2k7CeWamobjk6LdRuqr_09tosHFC_klgl8q9liL038sa6S9vO8oBKe_WV05zScdX6/s1600/diigo-add-to-google-reader.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi44fAUzjRwDgIOUQSJQwTLCo4F3kHCba5P2aND8qYnPQpr02zY1MFd9iLwnVVI0ozHMXPX0mr5CDa2k7CeWamobjk6LdRuqr_09tosHFC_klgl8q9liL038sa6S9vO8oBKe_WV05zScdX6/s640/diigo-add-to-google-reader.png" width="640" /></a></div><h2>e) Another option is to enable <a href="http://ifttt.com/">ifttt.com</a></h2>If this then that is a website that helps you automate things. You can set up many different "triggers" from Google reader that are very simple. For example, some of the most popular recipes as shown in the chart, make use of the star in Google Reader by sending things that are starred to Buffer or Evernote or Instapaper or Delicious or Pocket.<br /><br />You could also use with any other trigger on ifttt.com including Diigo.  You could also schedule a tweet by tagging mathchat and it could tweet the title and add #mathchat on the end. I'm looking to set that up on my Ifttt.com tweak when I do my next PLN maintenance time. (I schedule at least 2-3 hours once a quarter to prune my google reader and tweak all my social media settings.)<br /><br />I choose to use tags to do this, although admittedly, I"ve realized I'm not entirely happy with that. So, something tagged tumblr sends to tumblr. The problem is that when it goes to tumblr - the words and tags are there, but I don't necessarily want the tag to say "tumblr." I haven't decided what to do about that, but overall, it is very useful.<br /><br />For example, I"m finishing up <a href="http://www.eyeoneducation.com/Collaborative-Writing-Project">Collaborative Writing in the Cloud</a> and as I've found things relating to the book, everything I tag wiki_book goes automatically to my notebook on the topic in evernote so it is all there when I head to research.<br /><br /><h2>f) Find a great <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="RSS">RSS</a> app for your Tablet Device </h2>If you have an ipad or tablet, find a device that allows you to share easily like <a href="http://www.eyeoneducation.com/Collaborative-Writing-Project">Mr. Reader </a>to use as your <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_aggregator" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="News aggregator">RSS reader</a> (I wrote a snippet at "<a href="http://vickidavis.me/post/24192152406/mr-reader-is-my-favorite-rss-app-for-the-ipad-it">Mr. Reader is my favorite RSS app</a>" but I am curious if some of you want to know more about it. <a href="mailto:vicki@coolcatteacher.com">Let me know</a>, I do requests. ;-)<br /><br />I found Mr. Reader because I had a list of required places it had to share. At the time, it was the only one that shared to Diigo. It shares to everything and I read my Mr. Reader at least two hours a week as I share and write blog posts.<br /><h2>In Conclusion</h2>Google Reader is so powerful because it can power great apps like Flipboard (see <a href="http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2011/04/15-fantastic-ways-to-use-flipboard.html">15 Fantastic Ways to Use Flipboard</a>).<br /><br />It is one of the keys behind my own ability to share and find things. It is an essential tool for researchers and I teach all of my ninth graders and tenth graders how to build their PLN in Google Reader by scraping news, blogs, and more using RSS. RSS is a powerful and essential tool with a name that intimidates smart people from even trying.<br /><br />I'm very concerned that Google got rid of <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.google.com/ig" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="iGoogle">iGoogle</a> and they may get rid of Google Reader. THIS IS AN INCREDIBLY HELPFUL APP. I USE IT ALL THE TIME. If you don't use it, we'll all lose it. So, please, if you use the product, share with others, so we can keep it. It is a valuable research tool. I also think that Google is missing the boat because they are looking at volume not WHO those people are. If the Maven's as Malcom Gladwell discusses in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316017930/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=httpwwwbrighc-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0316017930" id="static_txt_preview" style="background-color: white; color: #996633; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; text-align: center;" target="_blank">Outliers: The Story of Success</a>  the mavens, the people who share with everyone and influence a lot of people. If those people, the mavens, are using your product, and you get rid of it, you'll be alienating the wrong people. (Yet, again. iGoogle was a mistake, in my opinion.)<br /><br />Educators who care, share.<br /><br />Remember your noble calling, teacher.<br /> <div class="zemanta-pixie" style="height: 15px; margin-top: 10px;"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/?px" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_c.png?x-id=d99a6b78-2595-436a-85be-0dfb63159d06" style="border: none; float: right;" /></a></div>

Make Google Reader your Powerhouse sharing system

Productivity and simplicity, these are two things the modern knowledge worker craves. Google Reader is my "secret weapon" of prod...

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Manti Te'o 2012 Highlights HD

<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/DJfkFuJDPd4?feature=player_detailpage" width="640"></iframe><br />From: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/">http://www.youtube.com</a>

Manti Te'o 2012 Highlights HD Manti Te'o 2012 Highlights HD

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Poetry 'n' Such with Paul Piatt

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiai3BtFB8mkYNX2KlOBevvMx0aWt9-4BAf8zzWjHqPB6lYj0AZnDRHeWIrJQar1CyiRyzTwryIJow1tAZBCV1YbK9wSuwALFlb20tH7yRHoxwaUzw1LeXeRcke9lgn8SD5bN_LmYX2faM/s1600/Paul_Delany.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiai3BtFB8mkYNX2KlOBevvMx0aWt9-4BAf8zzWjHqPB6lYj0AZnDRHeWIrJQar1CyiRyzTwryIJow1tAZBCV1YbK9wSuwALFlb20tH7yRHoxwaUzw1LeXeRcke9lgn8SD5bN_LmYX2faM/s400/Paul_Delany.jpg" width="285" /></a>Gentle and heartfelt greetings to all of you discerning drinkers of the warm and aromatic coffee of life that is the IWS website.<br /><br />Renown poet and IWS Literary Editor, Paul Piatt here once again, in order to share with you some of today’s finest in the world of poetry, prose, and people.<br /><br />Today during our continuing journey along the sullied yet hopeful boulevard of words made magical, and life’s pentameters made iambic, I artfully and empathetically attempt to put finger to keyboard, and apply a balm of solace to the rage that has angrily graced the pages of the IWS website this week.<br /><br />Jay and Matt, as if twins of Joshua, have spent this week openly trumpeting their anger and disdain for others who practice, preach, and or exhibit less than what one might consider ideal human behavior.<br /><br />I understand their frustration with the world that encompasses them.  I too, as a young man sojourning through middle America in the 60’s, experienced a similar frustration which I wrote about in a poem from 1963...<br /><br /><i><b>A Negro’s in Brooklyn</b></i><br /><i><br /></i><i>I slithered through the streets of Brooklyn</i><br /><i>like the snake through the Garden of Eden.</i><br /><i>I nostralized the greens a-cookin’</i><br /><i>and heard a colored family screamin’…</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>“Greens again mama? I can no longer do.”</i><br /><i>“You’ll get what I fix, and you’ll like it too.”</i><br /><i>“I want a steak like the white folk eat.”</i><br /><i>“Steak don’t grow on trees, eat your pigs’ feet.”</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>An overheard conversation righted my ship.</i><br /><i>For it was then I knew…</i><br /><i>Pigs’ feet keep one grounded.</i><br /><br />See, gentle readers? I too knew angst and anger yet kept it in check by the writing of words, and I hope too, that Jay and Matt, can use this as a lesson in therapy and self-actualization.<br /><br />I have another cathartic poem to offer unto Jay and Matt, and you as well today.<br /><br />My longtime friend and fellow wordsmith, Blanche Carte has this piece of excellelexiconitry from her new book, <i>“Riding Shotgun with Billy Joel.”</i>  I give you…<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjltXUZeR2wWZQAeyjk8xDbtwikNWNnTo6IE7gcpnvrvPj98iiWXCq4PjVTq9YHOD88nww8839-uw2toIbZXOFnYUZXZ_GVpAWGYvEejP4YtlUrqcX1f63Vwb0gRL6V7vn5KUUJaRFC3UM/s1600/blanche_lincoln+HOT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjltXUZeR2wWZQAeyjk8xDbtwikNWNnTo6IE7gcpnvrvPj98iiWXCq4PjVTq9YHOD88nww8839-uw2toIbZXOFnYUZXZ_GVpAWGYvEejP4YtlUrqcX1f63Vwb0gRL6V7vn5KUUJaRFC3UM/s400/blanche_lincoln+HOT.jpg" width="325" /></a><i><b>The Angry Cucumber</b></i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Here I sit.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Atop a mound of dirt,</i><br /><i>sweating in the oppressive heat of the seventh month sun.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>A bit of water here, a tint of water there.</i><br /><i>I am abused and manhandled as a mighty, yet gentle flavor grows within me.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Here I weep.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Beneath the August rain,</i><br /><i>fighting the aphids, the rabbits, the kids next door.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>A bit of tending here, a tint of tending there.</i><br /><i>I am plucked from the vine like an orphan stolen from his parents.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Dipped in vinegar…Seasoned with salt…Bathed in Rosemary.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>I am stuck inside a jar and when ready for the tongue, eaten by a toothless man.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>My earlier anger seems trite.</i><br /><br />I hope that my words and those of Blanche have comforted Jay, Matt, and all of you.<br /><br /><i>For now, as I travel the road less traveled,</i><br /><br /><i>Paul Piatt</i><br /><br /><a href="mailto:mattmaniws@ymail.com"><i>mattmaniws@ymail.com</i></a><br /><i><a href="https://twitter.com/MattMan_IWS" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">MattMan_IWS</span></a></i><br /><br />Annnnnd…Jay and I bitched a lot yesterday on the IWS Radio Show…It was a good time, and if you missed it live, you can catch it all right c’here:<br /><br /><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.adobe.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0" height="105" id="143577" name="143577" width="210"><param name="movie" value="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf?file=http://www.blogtalkradio.com%2Fplaylist.aspx%3Fshow_id%3D4273579&autostart=false&bufferlength=5&volume=80&corner=rounded&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/flashplayercallback.aspx" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="menu" value="false" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf" flashvars="file=http://www.blogtalkradio.com%2Fplaylist.aspx%3Fshow_id%3D4273579&autostart=false&shuffle=false&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/FlashPlayerCallback.aspx&width=210&height=105&volume=80&corner=rounded" width="210" height="105" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" quality="high" wmode="transparent" menu="false" name="143577" id="143577" allowScriptAccess="always"></embed></object><br /><div style="font-size: 10px; text-align: center; width: 220px;">Listen to <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/">internet radio</a> with <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/im-with-stupid">Im With Stupid</a> on Blog Talk Radio</div></div>

Poetry 'n' Such with Paul Piatt

Gentle and heartfelt greetings to all of you discerning drinkers of the warm and aromatic coffee of life that is the IWS website. Renown poe...

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'American Idol': The Idol Chatter live blog

From: <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/">http://www.usatoday.com</a> <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px;">Brian Mansfield </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; line-height: 14px;">10:38p.m. EST January 16, 2013</span><br /><img alt="American Idol" src="http://www.gannett-cdn.com/media/USATODAY/idolchatter/2013/01/16/group1sm-1-4_3_r536_c534.jpg?1b79b3da202957124496e3768cfb7b67cdb10c81" /><br /><br /><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><i>Welcome to the first Idol Chatter live blog of</i>American Idol'<i>s 12th season. I'll be updating posts on this page throughout the Wednesday premiere show. Hope you'll join me here and comment often! -- Brian Mansfield</i></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>Saving the best for last? </b>It's time for the last audition of the night, so it'll be a tearjerker. Ashlee Feliciano's family fosters and adopts medically complex children. Her parents have three biological children (including Ashlee) and have adopted four more through the foster-care system. Feliciano seems sweet, the kind of woman you hope gets good things.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Her version of Corinne Bailey Rae's <i>Put Your Records On </i>is certainly a good thing, confident and sure and in the pocket, and Feliciano jumps between her registers with impressive ease. "I don't think you understand what you just did," says Minaj, who thinks she'll inspire the show's young female viewers. Carey sees lots of potential, and Urban loves her nasal lower register. Jackson brings in the entire family so the judges can share their decision with them.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">"Oh, Ashlee, that's a yes," Urban tells her.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">***</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>The Turbanator. </b>One of the best voices we've ever heard, and we only get three notes? Uh-oh, time for a backstory.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Brett Holt is a huge <i>American Idol</i> fan -- he has auditioned seven times in the past. "I challenge anybody in America to take me on in <i>American Idol</i> trivia." Seacrest challenges him, and he does OK, though he does think it's Season 13 (that's OK, so does Seacrest). Brett has auditioned seven times in the past -- will this be the lucky day? For the briefest of seconds, it seems like he might. But then his version of Nat King Cole's <i>When I Fall in Love</i> goes off the rails. Then goes further and further off. But the student of <i>American Idol</i> finally gets his face time -- now he's a trivia answer of his own.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Next up: Gupurpreet Sangh Sarin, who changes his turban with every outfit (today it's lavender). He's got 40 or 50 turbans, which means he changes his headgear the way Danny Gokey did his glasses. Let's see if he's got Gokey's chops. At the very least, he has studied Indian classical music.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Actually, he does, doing a surprising soulful take on Maroon 5's <i>Sunday Morning</i>. Then Randy gets him to sing a few Indian scales. Minaj doesn't think he has a standout voice, though, and Urban worries that his voice may be a little too light for the competition. Carey digs him, though, and gives him a yes. Jackson's going to give him one more shot. But Urban says no, leaving Sarin's fate in Minaj's hands. Sarin tries to win her over by telling her he has a marigold turban the color of her hair. Danged if it doesn't work. "Turb! You're going to Hollywood."</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>Music of the night: </b>Albert Chang works as a receptionist for a medical clinic in New York. Ryan wonders what he likes to do when he's not in the office. And Albert doesn't have an answer for him. "Sing," Seacrest suggests. And so he does, having chosen the title song from <i>The Phantom of the Opera</i> -- and it's truly a harrowing experience, especially when he jumps into his high, squeaky voice. "Your range is better than Mariah's!" Minaj exclaims. For future bad contestants, she channels her inner Simon Cowell, putting on a British accent for so long that Mariah's afraid she's going to start doing it.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Angela Miller has 40% hearing loss in one ear and 20% in the other. Mariah wonders how that affects her singing. Miller tells her that she has to turn the monitors up incredibly loud when she's on stage. But it's not a problem for an a cappella rendition of Jessie J's <i>Mamma Knows Best</i>. "I haven't felt that for the whole day," Minaj says, "that thing that makes me feel something in my soul." The other three agree. "She's got real PO-tential," Jackson tells the judges after Miller leaves.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">***</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>Shattering expectations: </b>Rozanna Shindelman, a 21-year-old from Staten Island, N.Y., doesn't usually sing in front of people, except for her parents -- who say they give her chills. They hear her singing To<i> Know Him Is to Love Him </i>before the judges and just look enraptured. But Jackson doesn't: "Dude, it was bad." Shindelman asks, "Was it really that bad?" Urban seconds Jackson's opinion: "Yes." Shindelman's audition is the first of a whole series of bad auditions where the judges struggle to break the news gently to the deluded wannabes.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Maybe 17-year-old blueberry farmer Sarah Restuccio will change things. She's a country singer who auditions with Carrie Underwood's <i>Mama's Song</i>. The judges look intrigued, but the guys, at least, might be on the bubble with her -- until Randy asks for a second song, and Restuccio says she can sing <i>Superbass</i>. She launches into a rap that has Minaj rocking, but the other three judges are mystified. Is she a country singer or a rapper or what? Minaj, who has already said Restuccio could be a "humongous" country star, totally gets it: "She's every little girl! There are so many girls that identify with her that comes from where she does. … I don't think her doing<i>Superbass </i>means she wants to be a rapper. … She doesn't have to choose anything." (BTW, my 11-year-old daughter totally agrees with Minaj -- she's ready to start voting now.)</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>***</b></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>Ben, the four of us need look no more: </b>Day Two begins with a guy named Benjamin who looks like Rerun from <i>What's Happening</i> going to a costume ball as Michael Jackson. He's going to sing "two love songs for two beautiful ladies." Carey and Minaj's smiles soon turn to giggles, especially when he thrusts his hips toward them as he sings. "You obviously love Tom Jones," says Urban. All four judges are laughing hard, but they slowly learn that, despite his curly black wig and shiny red suit, Benjamin actually thinks he can sing.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">***</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>Frankie goes to Hollywood: </b>Shira Gavrielov had a No. 1 hit in Israel when she was younger, and she makes a great impression on the <i>Idol</i> crowd. Minaj loves her choice of song -- Amy Winehouse's <i>Valerie</i>. It's a quick yes for her.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">The last contestant for Day One, Frankie Ford from Flatbush, was adopted at age 8. He sings on the subway to make money, which is actually pretty good experience for a singer who wants to learn to connect with an audience. Enough people told him that he had skills that he decided to audition. With the Eurythmics' <i>Sweet Dreams</i>. But he gets nervous, starts the song too hard, then has to stop. He regains his composure, and it's very different. He reinvents the song, with a remarkably strong yet subtle approach. The looks on the judges' faces change from concerned shock to big smiles. "I believe in you, man," Jackson tells him. Carey says: "What I think you have is an inner glow, which is always beautiful to see." Minaj doesn't think he has the best voice she's heard, but she believes people will want to hear more from him -- from his voice and his story. He's in -- and deservedly so.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>A key mistake: </b>One of <i>Idol</i>'s twists this year was to let family and friends nominate contestants. Then, Jackson goes on the road to check them out. The first singer to get surprised is Jessica Kartalis of Staten Island, N.Y., who gets a pass to go straight to the judges. Jackson asks for an original song, and Kartalis' choice begins <i>a cappella</i> -- which is a problem, because she starts the song in the wrong key, then sounds horribly out of tune when she starts playing her acoustic guitar. It's an audition-killing moment. Carey tells her she felt bad for her, but she's clearly not ready. (Takeaway lesson: If you're going to start a song <i>a cappella</i>, make sure you get your note first. It's only a strum away.) Oh, well, at least she didn't have to wait in line.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">***</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>The one-legged tap dancer: </b>Since she wanted to be a singer and she knew how much image plays into that career choice, Christina "Isabelle" dropped 50 pounds before leaving Duluth, Ga., for Berklee College of Music (my alma mater) in Boston. Her rendition of <i>Summertime</i> has a lot of heft, though. "OMG," says Minaj, who believes she'll go far in the competition. Urban wonders who she's been listening to, and she points at Carey. He's impressed by her "natural," "human" voice. "I think it was a great choice and something different (huh?)," says Carey, who'd like to see her explore more. Four yeses. "This proves that anyone -- shape, size, body type -- if you have confidence in yourself, you can go far," Christina says afterwards.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">The next contestant, tap dancer Evan Ruggiero, was shooting for Broadway at age 18 -- but got diagnosed with bone cancer a year later. "When you get diagnosed with cancer, everything stops," he says. Your life goes from career goals to staying alive. He went through 16 months of chemo and multiple surgeries, but the cancer recurred. Doctors told him they needed to save the dancer's life by amputating his leg. "Just because you have a disability doesn't mean you can't be the next <i>American Idol</i>," Ruggiero says. His take on Jason Mraz's <i>I'm Yours</i> is serviceable, but it's not especially impressive. Jackson gives him a little leeway, asks him to play something on the guitar: He chooses Bon Jovi's <i>Wanted Dead or Alive</i>. This tune suits him better -- he just might have a shot, especially with that backstory. Urban even adds the second vocal line, then says: "That's more in your wheelhouse," he says, but he's not sure the star factor is in place yet. Minaj is impressed with his ability to adapt to tough circumstances and thinks he has the potential to touch a lot of people -- but just not on this show, this year. Ruggiero takes the rejection in stride: "Maybe I touched someone out there who's watching this," he says. "This isn't the worst that could happen to me."</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">***</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>Baby, baby, he's bad: </b>James Bae's a 15-year-old Justin Bieber wannabe from Long Island, N.Y. "I sing in my room, thinking it's a concert, getting ready for the real one," he tells Urban. Unfortunately, nobody in his room has told him that his rendition of<i>One Less Lonely Girl</i> is completely tuneless. Taking a cue from the headphones Bae wears around his neck, Carey wonders if he has ever considering DJing. "It's artistic, you can still deal with music, but you <i>don't necessarily have to be a singer</i>," she says. They turn him down, but Minaj takes a moment to give him a few words to let him down easy. "I won't ever forget you," she tells him, in a moment that shows just how human she can be behind the Barbie-doll get-up.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">***</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>Tenna Torres has got a friend: </b>Hey, Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj do have something in common -- they're both <i>Mean Girls</i> fans. But it's not long till they bring out the claws, in what's clearly going to be one of the season's recurring themes.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Next hopeful: 28-year-old New York singer Tenna Torres. "I've been listening to Mariah since I was 5 years old," says Torres, who attended Carey's Camp Mariah and actually sang for her at age 13. Carey makes a huge fuss over Torres' pictures of the two of them some 15 years ago.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">All the judges make a fuss over Torres' rendition of Carole King's <i>You've Got a Friend</i>, which is a sold mix of power, control and melodic invention. "If we could have somebody like this come out of this moment of <i>Idol</i> 12, I would be personally proud," Carey says. Urban finds her patience and pace refreshing. "Welcome to Hollywood!" Jackson tells Torres. Carey asks for copies of the photos.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">***</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>Back in the New York groove. </b>This year's first audition show takes place in New York (Thursday's will feature Chicago). The judges take their seats and get to work -- which means Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj are mixing it up over Nicki's fuzzy accessory.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Michael Buonapane stomps in riffing on Queen's <i>We Will Rock You</i>. It gets the judges to stop their bickering, but I don't think it makes a particularly good first impression. He doesn't do much better the second time around, spinning around in some sort of bizarre clogging dance-chant. "Let's say no, be friends," Randy says. "It's not you, it's us."</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">***</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">This year, <i>American Idol</i> has a great way to start the season -- just show last year's winner, Phillip Phillips, who's on his way to having the best-selling single in <i>Idol</i>history. Phillips plugs in his guitar and begins singing <i>Home</i>.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">"They say home is where the heart is -- so welcome home," Ryan Seacrest says as he recaps the history of the Georgia pawn-shop worker. "History has shown that an Idol can do anything," Seacrest says, going over some impressive sales and awards numbers the Idols have put together collectively over the years.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Then, it's time to introduce the judges: Returning original dawg Randy Jackson; country singer Keith Urban; pop star Nicki Minaj; and ("last but not least") diva queen Mariah Carey. Can this group improve on the crew from the past two years, which were often entertaining but more often repetitive?</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Maybe, maybe not. It's good to know, though, that the contestants will react the same -- both good and bad. Some things never change.</div>

World's Hot Daily News 'American Idol': The Idol Chatter live blog

From:  http://www.usatoday.com   Brian Mansfield  10:38p.m. EST January 16, 2013 Welcome to the first Idol Chatter live blog of American Ido...

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Frank Zamboni Honored With Playable Google Doodle

From:<a href="http://www.pcmag.com/">http://www.pcmag.com</a> <strong class="author" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #006699; display: inline !important; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; line-height: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 8px 4px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;">By <span class="reviewer hcard" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="url fn" href="http://www.pcmag.com/author-bio/chloe-albanesius" style="border: 0px; color: #006699; display: inline-block; float: none; font-family: arial; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Chloe Albanesius</a></span></strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: arial; font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;">January 16, 2013 10:51am EST</span><br /><br /><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Frank Zamboni" height="400" src="http://www9.pcmag.com/media/images/371656-frank-zamboni.jpg?thumb=y" width="400" /></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">Google has provided users with a new way to waste time today, thanks to an interactive homepage doodle in honor of entrepreneur Frank Zamboni.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">Anyone who has spent any time at an ice-skating rink has undoubtedly laid eyes on Zamboni's most well-known invention - the Zamboni ice resurfacers. Today, in celebration of Zamboni's 112th birthday, Google's doodle lets you play Zamboni driver.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">Visit Google.com and press the "play" button to enter Google's digital ice rink. Using the arrow keys, navigate the Zamboni around the rink, erasing scratch marks made by the skaters. Erasing all the marks will take you to higher levels, where you can also earn gas for your Zamboni. The game is complete with old-school video-game sounds, though they can be turned off. The more levels you complete, the more intricate the ice scrapings become.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">Frank Zamboni was born in 1901 in Utah, but relocated to California in 1920, where his older brother George had an auto repair business, according to <a href="http://www.zamboni.com/about/zamboni-archives/the-zamboni-story/" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">his bio</a>. The family eventually shifted into refrigeration, and built a skating rink in Paramount, Calif. in 1939. At the time, the ice was resurfaced by pulling a scraper behind a tractor, while workers collected ice shavings and wiped away dirty water. The process took more than an hour, however, so Frank Zamboni started experimenting with other options in 1942.</div><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8896966065785019252" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Frank Zamboni Google Doodle" border="0" class="right" src="http://www6.pcmag.com/media/images/371657-frank-zamboni-google-doodle.jpg?thumb=y" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; background-image: none; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat repeat; border: 0px; float: right; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;" /></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;"></span><br /><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">A prototype for the Zamboni we know today, however, was not developed until 1947, while it took another two years before Frank could adequately clear ice from a rink. At that point, he applied for a patent, which was awarded in 1953.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">Frank Zamboni passed away in 1988, but his company lives on. In April 2012, Frank J. Zamboni & Co., Inc. <a href="http://www.zamboni.com/press/zamboni-company-to-deliver-machine-10000-2/" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">delivered</a>its 10,000th production machine to the National Hockey League's Montreal Canadiens.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">This is not the first interactive doodle for Google, meanwhile.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">A May 2012 <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404767,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">playable doodle</a> featured Robert Moog's signature Moog synthesizer, with all the accompanying bells and whistles. A <a href="http://www.moogmusic.com/content/google-doodle-how" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">quick-start guide</a> on moogmusic.com provided details on how to play the doodle, which also allowed users to record their creations and share them with friends.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">On Sept. 7, meanwhile, <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2409414,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Google paid homage</a> to Star Trek with an interactive homepage doodle that celebrated the 46th birthday of the original TV series. Google dressed up the letters in its logo as Star Trek cast members, and with the click of a mouse, you could beam Kirk to an adventure beyond the confines of the starship USS Enterprise.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">Back in 2010, Google's <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2364064,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">playable Pac-Man doodle</a> collectively consumed about 4.8 million hours of our time. Google eventually <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2364106,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">created a standalone site</a> so people could continue their playtime.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">For more of Google's doodles, see the <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/0,1206,l=262220&a=262220,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">slideshow</a> below. Recently, the company has honored the first computer programmer <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2413020,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ada Lovelace</a>, <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2407571,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Amelia Earhart</a>, as well as <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403995,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">artist Keith Haring</a>, zipper pioneer <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403445,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Gideon Sundback</a>, and even commemorated its own <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410259,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">14th birthday</a>with a birthday cake doodle.</div>

World's Hot Daily News Frank Zamboni Honored With Playable Google Doodle

From: http://www.pcmag.com   By  Chloe Albanesius January 16, 2013 10:51am EST Google has provided users with a new way to waste time today,...

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Aaliyah reworked: 10 mashups to celebrate her birthday

From: <a href="http://www.latimes.com/">http://www.latimes.com</a><br /><img alt="Aaliyah" src="http://www.trbimg.com/img-50f71998/turbine/la-et-ms-aaliyah-reworked-10-mashups-to-celebr-001/600" /><br /><br /><div class="small" style="background-color: #f2f2f2; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 11px; margin-top: 6px; padding: 0px;">The singer Aaliyah would have been 34 on Wednesday. <span class="credit">(<span class="photographer">Jim Cooper / Associated Press</span>)</span></div><div></div><br /><br /><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #292727; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px;">By Randall Roberts</span><br /><div class="byline" style="color: #292727; float: left; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px;"><span class="credit"><span class="toolSet" style="background-color: white; display: inline-block; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-right: -50px; margin-top: 6px; width: 335px;"><span class="titleline" style="display: block;">Los Angeles Times Pop Music Critic</span><span class="titleline" style="display: block;"><span class="dateString" style="color: #930000; display: inline; font-style: italic;">January 16, 2013</span><span class="dateTimeSeparator" style="border-left-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; color: white; display: inline; font-size: 10px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: -1px; margin-left: 6px;">, </span><span class="timeString" style="color: #930000; display: inline; font-style: italic; text-transform: lowercase;">1:14 p.m.</span></span></span></span></div><div class="clear" style="clear: both; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.43;">You know the songs, tragically frozen in time after R&B singer </span><a class="taxInlineTagLink" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/entertainment/music/aaliyah-PECLB000001.topic" id="PECLB000001" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.43; text-decoration: none;" title="Aaliyah">Aaliyah</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.43;">'s untimely death: "Try Again," "Are You That Somebody" and "We Need a Resolution." We've heard them, sung them aloud while cruising the city, romanced to them, danced to them. And we've also adapted them. By reworking those </span><a class="taxInlineTagLink" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/entertainment/music/timbaland-PECLB004718.topic" id="PECLB004718" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.43; text-decoration: none;" title="Timbaland">Timbaland</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.43;">-produced jams, their sheen and joy pops in new ways. The singer would have been 34 on Wednesday.</span><br /><div id="story-body-text" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.43; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;"><span class="credit">Below are a few inspired Aaliyah reworkings that have popped up on <a class="taxInlineTagLink" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/arts-culture/computer-networking-internet/social-media/youtube-ORCRP00000211004.topic" id="ORCRP00000211004" style="color: #666666; text-decoration: none;" title="YouTube">YouTube</a>, which, combined, not only push the singer's work in new directions but also confirm her influence on the generation of singers who followed. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;"><span class="credit">Kendrick Lamar versus Aaliyah: Lamar's killer "Swimming Pools (Drank)" combined with Aaliyah's "We Need a Resolution." Writes mashup artist Raheem D: "These two tracks were similar BPM's and had similar themes to do with drink so I decided to make it seem as if Aaliyah was fed up with Kendrick's alcohol intake during his party going which leads her to ask 'Where you were last night' and 'Where'd you go instead?' </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 1.43;">Aaliyah's "Rock the Boat" mixed with </span><a class="taxInlineTagLink" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/entertainment/music/rihanna-PECLB005404.topic" id="PECLB005404" style="color: #666666; line-height: 1.43; text-decoration: none;" title="Rihanna">Rihanna</a><span style="line-height: 1.43;">'s "Rude Boy," all mashed with the killer Enur rhythm for "Calabria." </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;"><span class="credit">Rihanna is an Aaliyah inheritor, as evidenced by this killer combo of RiRi's "Umbrella" with the rhythm and a cappella of Aaliyah's "More Than a Woman."</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;"><span class="credit">Drake's "Marvin's Room" versus Aaliyah's "If Your Girl Only Knew." Aaliyah's tough track tempers Drake's boasts, killer combo ensues. (Note, because of Drake's potty mouth, we can't embed this -- and it's not safe for jamming at work. But <a href="http://youtu.be/4v2t1pFHr88" style="color: #2262cc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">click to listen</a>.)</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;"><span class="credit">Frank Ocean "Thinkin' Bout You" versus Aaliyah's "Are You That Somebody." </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;"><span class="credit">Miguel's "Sure Thing" versus  Aaliyah's "One in a Million."</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;"><span class="credit">Yes, Aaliyah can rock too. This would be the Disturbed backing Aaliyah.</span></div></div><span class="credit"></span></div>

World's Hot Daily News Aaliyah reworked: 10 mashups to celebrate her birthday

From:  http://www.latimes.com The singer Aaliyah would have been 34 on Wednesday.  ( Jim Cooper / Associated Press ) By Randall Roberts Los ...

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Obama invokes Constitution in arguing for gun control

From: <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/">http://www.washingtonpost.com</a><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/U4ND6cGQIns?feature=player_detailpage" width="640"></iframe><br /><strong style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><strong>Video: </strong></strong><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">President Obama and Vice President Biden formally announced the specifics of their gun-control proposals in a press conference Wednesday.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><br /><div class="module byline" style="background-color: white; border-bottom-style: none; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 10px; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><h3 property="dc.creator" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: normal; margin: 17px 0px; padding: 0px;">By <span class="author vcard" style="color: #666666;"><span class="fn"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/scott-wilson/2011/03/02/ABt5vmP_page.html" rel="author" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Scott Wilson</a></span></span>, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-invokes-constitution-in-arguing-for-gun-control/2013/01/16/d5397cb4-600d-11e2-b05a-605528f6b712_story.html#license-d5397cb4-600d-11e2-b05a-605528f6b712" id="license-d5397cb4-600d-11e2-b05a-605528f6b712" rel="item-license" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;"></a><span class="timestamp updated processed" contenttype="article" datetitle="published" epochtime="1358368872000" pagetype="leaf" style="color: #6e6e6e;">Wednesday, January 16, <span class="time special" style="color: #cc131e;">12:41 PM</span></span></h3></div><div class="relative" id="article" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; line-height: 10px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><div id="article_body" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="article_body entry-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /><article><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;"><span class="dateline"></span>In making his case Wednesday for tighter controls on gun ownership, President Obama used the document most often cited by firearm advocates to show that such restrictions violate the founding spirit of the nation — the Constitution.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">By doing so, Obama sought to turn a perceived political weaknesses — his image as an aloof intellectual — into a strength, and, at the same time, to turn a perceived strength of gun advocates — the constitutional right to bear arms — into a potential weakness.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;"></div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">Obama, a former constitutional law lecturer at the University of Chicago, has been forced in the past to defend the legality of his legislative ambitions, <a data-xslt="_http" href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-06-28/politics/35462035_1_health-insurance-health-care-law-elena-kagan" style="color: black;">particularly the health-care law</a> he secured nearly three years ago.</div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">But he did so in a different way Wednesday and with a different audience in mind — the moderate America beyond the Beltway that may find the <a data-xslt="_http" href="http://home.nra.org/" style="color: black;">National Rifle Association</a> and its arguments against any gun restrictions as frustrating as Obama says he does.</div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">Where his past legal arguments have been directed at Congress or the Supreme Court, Obama used what he suggested was a clash of sometimes-competing rights guaranteed by the Constitution to assure Americans across party lines that his proposals amount to a modest approach to a societal problem.</div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;"><a data-xslt="_http" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-says-hell-offer-plans-to-stem-gun-violence-this-week/2013/01/14/b7ad8ea8-5e6c-11e2-90a0-73c8343c6d61_story.html" style="color: black;">Polls show that a majority</a> of the electorate shares his views. But he warned Wednesday that those who do must apply pressure to interest groups and members of Congress in Washington.</div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">“The only way we can change is if the American people demand it,” <a data-xslt="_http" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/president-obamas-remarks-on-new-gun-control-proposals-jan-16-2013-transcript/2013/01/16/528e7758-5ffc-11e2-b05a-605528f6b712_story.html?hpid=z1" style="color: black;">Obama said before an audience that included victims of gun violence</a> and their families, including parents of children <a data-xslt="_http" href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-15/national/35847080_1_new-details-medical-examiner-interfaith-service" style="color: black;">killed last month in Newtown, Conn</a>.</div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">He added that that “doesn’t just mean from certain parts of the country,” the liberal states and enclaves where gun control has the most support.</div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">“We’re going to need voices in those areas and those congressional districts where the tradition of gun ownership is strong to speak up and to say this is important,” he said.</div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">His challenge became evident immediately, as a number of congressional Republicans from just the kind of conservative districts Obama referred to issued statements denouncing his plans.</div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">Using Obama’s unequivocal position toward Congress on the need to raise the nation’s borrowing limit next month, Rep. Tim Huelskamp (Kan.) said in a statement that “the Second Amendment is non-negotiable.”</div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">“The right to bear arms is a right, despite President Obama’s disdain for the Second Amendment and the Constitution’s limits on his power,” Huelskamp said. “Congress must stand firm for the entirety of the Constitution.”</div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">Other Republicans followed suit, citing the Second Amendment in each case.</div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">But Obama made clear that he is eager to have an argument on constitutional grounds over whether a ban on the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, as well other elements of his gun-control package, are legal.</div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px;">Citing a series of recent mass shootings, Obama listed several amendments, as well as the defining phrase of the Declaration of Independence, to argue that a gunman’s right should not compromise any others’.</div></article></div></div></div>

World's Hot Daily News Obama invokes Constitution in arguing for gun control

From:  http://www.washingtonpost.com Video:  President Obama and Vice President Biden formally announced the specifics of their gun-control ...

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Comeback kids? Mark Sanford vs. Tiffany Six

From: <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/">http://www.washingtonpost.com</a><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18.149999618530273px;">Posted by </span><a href="http://washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost" rel="author external" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #777777; font-family: georgia; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18.149999618530273px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Visit Alexandra Petri’s website">Alexandra Petri</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18.149999618530273px;"> on January 16, 2013 at </span><span class="get-the-time" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #999999; font-family: georgia; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18.149999618530273px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">4:50 pm</span><br /><span class="get-the-time" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #999999; font-family: georgia; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18.149999618530273px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="(Joshua Drake/Reuters) The thing is, it could work." height="352" src="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/files/2013/01/marksanfordipadbackground.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">The thing is, it could work. (Joshua Drake/Reuters)</span></div><div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">It was an embarrassing few minutes. The exposure was regrettable. The angle was bad. The dialogue was unrealistic. And it’s going to be on the Internet forever.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">Never mind that it was years ago. It still comes right up when you Google it. Every so often, in moments of weakness, I allow myself to view it in its entirety, crying softly — although not at the office, of course.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">By now you have surely guessed what I am talking about: Not the porn career of California teacher <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2263238/Porn-star-Tiffany-Six-turned-biology-teacher-loses-appeal-return-classroom.html" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Stacie Halas</a>, also known as “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/calif-middle-school-teacher-fired-for-appearing-in-porn-loses-appeal-to-return-to-classroom/2013/01/15/d6481fbe-5f83-11e2-9dc9-bca76dd777b8_story.html" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Tiffany Six</a>.” Of course not. I meant former <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/01/16/mark-sanford-congress-comeback/1838947/" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">South Carolina governor</a> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/us/24text-sanford.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mark Sanford’s infamous rambling press conference</a> in which he confessed to an affair, admitted to “crying in Argentina” and spoke bewilderingly of his struggle against self and thanked “the Tom Davises of this world.” As embarrassing videos posted on the Internet go, he has Kim Kardashian beat by several leagues.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">Both Halas and Sanford are now making efforts to move past their pasts. And I regret to note that it <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/01/16/why-mark-sanfords-comeback-bid-just-might-work/" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">seems to be working much better for him</a>.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mark Sanford is making a run for Congress in his former South Carolina district. And people seem to think this is a viable plan. “Hey,” they say. “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/01/16/why-mark-sanfords-comeback-bid-just-might-work/" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Name recognition</a>!” These are the same people who seem to think Anthony Weiner is an exciting mayoral prospect. Meanwhile, Halas tried to reinvent herself as a middle school science teacher, after a brief career in which she did not break up her family or mislead taxpayers. And she’s still out of a job.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">“There are no second acts in American lives,” F. Scott Fitzgerald said. Well, unless you’re in politics.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">In most lines of work, past indiscretions can be something of a hindrance. Leave an embarrassing video somewhere in the bowels of the Internet? Forget teaching middle school. Halas was fired in April from her post as a science teacher after students and faculty at the Haydock Intermediate School in Oxnard, Calif., discovered some of her videos online. And Friday the California Commission on Professional Competence (in a unanimous 46-page decision) <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/calif-middle-school-teacher-fired-for-appearing-in-porn-loses-appeal-to-return-to-classroom/2013/01/15/d6481fbe-5f83-11e2-9dc9-bca76dd777b8_story.html" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ruled</a> that she should stay out of the classroom. The situation was not helped by her efforts to conceal her past from her employers. The ruling called this more evidence of mendacity and further proof that she was <a href="http://www.vcstar.com/news/2013/jan/15/judge-rules-oxnard-teacher-with-porn-past-is-to/" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">no role model</a>, although I have difficulty picturing a scenario in which you make no effort to conceal the fact that you used to appear in pornographic videos and someone hires you on the spot to teach middle school.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">Perhaps that someone has a point. Middle schoolers are a uniquely cruel bunch. But if you are willing to walk into a classroom and teach them science, with the knowledge that this kind of video is lurking over your head on the Internet suspended by a tiny thread — well, this country does need math and science teachers…</div><div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">But the commission felt otherwise. There are no second chances in middle school science.</div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">Back in the olden days, you always vaguely suspected that the librarian had a sordid past, but you could not quite prove it. What harm did it do? It did not impair her grasp of the Dewey Decimal System.</div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">But not now. Lady Bracknell’s salad days as a can-can dancer are searchable. Don’t think of changing your legal name, James Gatz. Forget adopting that child with your prison record, Jean Valjean. There are no second acts in lives lived half online.</div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">Celebrities can get away with these things. And even politicians, to a certain extent, can ride the wave of notoriety — at least as far as Eliot Spitzer’s talk show.</div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">But what about the rest of us?</div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">I kept assuming that we were about to hit the point where the saturation was complete, where, animated by the knowledge that there is no one alive whose college photos, if broadcast, would not fill the world with shock and horror, we would stop pulling the Gasp!-Behold-Hester-Prynne!-Someone-Stick-A-Giant-’A'-On-That-Lady! act and start accepting that we are all flawed, change is possible, and some allowances must be made. But we have not. We keep pointing. We keep thinking we are safe.</div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">After all, some people are. In school we all knew that one guy Greg who kept a turtle, woke up early, read improving books, and never went out on Thursdays. But do we really want Gregs in charge of everything?</div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">The judge in the porn star teacher’s case noted that the Internet is <a href="http://www.vcstar.com/news/2013/jan/15/judge-rules-oxnard-teacher-with-porn-past-is-to/" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“viral” and “infinite”</a>which is a gloomy way of looking at it. There are no comebacks. It is a giant bathroom wall where every scrawl will live forever. If you write big enough you can perhaps write over it. Look at Bill Clinton. But woe to you if that’s the only thing that’s up there. Rick Santorum had to mount a whole presidential campaign to fix his “Google problem.” The only way to induce people to forget is to make even more noise.</div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">If Sanford and Halas’s respective plights demonstrate anything, it is the fact that It is not on the heads of celebrities or even political figures that the ax usually falls. If you are Ann Coulter and you say something deplorable, they book you on cable for more of the same. If you are an ordinary person, you get included in a list of Hideous Racists and lose your job at Coldstone Creamery.</div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">No, it is clear that the artist formerly known as Tiffany Six is in the wrong line of work. Pornography is a poor choice for a first career. You can’t engage in congress on camera and try to engage in anything else afterwards, except to become one of those Famous Celebrities Everyone Dislikes.</div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">Perhaps she should run for office instead. It could hardly make things worse. It might be her only hope.</div><br />

Comeback kids? Mark Sanford vs. Tiffany Six

From:  http://www.washingtonpost.com Posted by  Alexandra Petri  on January 16, 2013 at  4:50 pm The thing is, it could work. (Joshua Drake/...

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