World War Cancer - The New Yorker

<base href="data:">Richard Nixon launched the so-called War on Cancer on December 23, 1971, in what was supposed to be a "moonshot" effort to cure the disease. Two years later, a Time magazine cover read, "Toward Control of Cancer." Two decades after that, it announced, in bold red letters, "Hope in the War Against Cancer," surmising that "a turning point" may have been reached. In 2001, its cover asked if the blood cancer drug Gleevec "is the breakthrough we've been waiting for." And this past April, the newsweekly pronounced "How to Cure Cancer." Yet roughly one hundred and forty thousand Americans have died from the disease in the last three months.<br><br>Outrage over our paltry victories against cancer informs the forthcoming book, "The Truth in Small Doses: Why We're Losing the War on Cancer—and How to Win It," by Clifton Leaf, who wrote a much-discussed essay on the same topic for Fortune in 2004. The title comes from a 1959 pamphlet that tells doctors to trickle out information to cancer-stricken patients, since most of them "couldn't stand" to know the truth: the disease would kill them and there was little that could be done about it. Today, draped in ribbons of every hue, blinded by the promises of targeted therapies and antioxidants, we have, according to Leaf, neglected a basic truth: "'the cancer problem' is, in reality, as formidable a challenge as ever." (Jerome Groopman discussed the progress in cancer cures, particularly immune therapy, in the magazine last year.)<br><br>Leaf is not an oncologist, but he became acquainted with the profession at an early age; he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease at fifteen years old. In the book's most poignant moment, Leaf orders his father into the corner of his hospital room to atone for having dozed off while sitting bedside. When Leaf woke up the next morning, "the biggest man I had ever known" was still standing in the corner.<br><br>As an editor at Fortune, Leaf became enthralled by the promise of Gleevec, an enzyme inhibitor that, since its release in 2001, has proven highly effective at battling chronic myeloid leukemia. Many thought a new age was coming, in which the chaotic spread of cancer would be hindered by drugs that would be precision-targeted to block the replication of rogue cells. It seemed far better than indiscriminately killing both cancerous and healthy cells, as chemotherapy had been doing for the past half-century.<br><br>But Gleevec is the exception, not the rule—and C.M.L. is a relatively simple cancer compared to solid-state tumors of the lung, colon, pancreas, or breast. Once they metastasize, most cannot be cured. Those, like Leaf, who have faced cancer have good reason for their impatience: it takes an average of thirteen years to bring a new cancer drug to market. Many of these drugs are pellets fired into cancer's flank. A recent article in the New York Times titled "Promising New Cancer Drugs Empower the Body's Own Defense" hailed a new melanoma drug whose median survival rate was 16.8 months. An editorial this winter in The Lancet, the august British medical journal, put the matter even more bluntly: "Has cancer medicine failed patients? In the words of cancer experts, the answer is yes."<br><br>Leaf argues we should be closer to an all-out cure, considering our investment in the effort. The National Cancer Institute receives roughly five billion dollars per year from the federal government. If both public and private investments are to be accounted for, then Leaf estimates the United States spends about sixteen billion dollars a year on cancer research. Nor is there a lack of political will to eradicate cancer, as there is to, say, reducing carbon emissions. Leaf calls it a "bipartisan disease" that a Republican from Alabama would want defeated as much as a Democrat from Illinois. President Barack Obama said in 2009 that he would "launch a new effort to conquer a disease that has touched the life of nearly every American, including me, by seeking a cure for cancer in our time."<br><br>In Leaf's telling, oncology is a hidebound field averse to risk, a culture that "has grown progressively less hospitable to new voices and ideas over the past four decades." He yearns for the likes of Sidney Farber, the unorthodox pathologist who invented chemotherapy in the late nineteen forties at Boston Children's Hospital by injecting children stricken with acute lymphoblastic leukemia with aminopterin, which prevents cancer cells from replicating. A hero in Siddhartha Mukherjee's "The Emperor of All Maladies," Farber is largely responsible for the fact that childhood A.L.L. is a manageable disease today. But his methods had a high cost: he disobeyed superiors, conducted his own trial-and-error studies, and foisted unproven drugs on sick, vulnerable children.<br><br>What made Farber an iconoclast is that he wanted to cure cancer even more than he wanted to understand it. As he would come to argue, "The three hundred and twenty-five thousand patients with cancer who are going to die this year cannot wait; nor is it necessary, in order to make great progress in the cure for cancer, for us to have the full solution of all the problems of basic research…the history of Medicine is replete with examples of cures obtained years, decades, and even centuries before the mechanism of action was understood for these cures."<br><br>Few new bold projects are being funded now, writes Leaf, noting that in 2010, the N.C.I. used the bulk of its two billion dollars in research grants on existing projects. He is as incensed that the same institutions get most of the money, writing that "in 2011, the top 43 research centers got more funding ($12 billion) than did the bottom 2,574 institutions receiving any kind of NIH support." To some, this is the price of science that is both sound and safe. To others, it is a culture of scientific inefficiency, an I.B.M. mindset in a field that desperately yearns for Apple.<br><br>Oncologists in the field with whom I spoke agreed with this overall assessment of the War on Cancer. Andrea Hayes-Jordan, a pediatric surgical oncologist at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, told me that "Our strategic attacks are improving, and we are winning some battles, but not the war yet." Silvia Formenti, who chairs the radiation oncology department at New York University's Langone Medical Center, was even more negative in her assessment of the War on Cancer. She wrote to me in an e-mail, "We have managed to make cancer a huge business, and a national 'terror,' but the progress in reducing mortality is quite questionable."<br><br>The book suggests some remedies, foremost among them preventing cancer before it strikes. At Stage 0, a cancerous growth can be detected and removed before it has diversified and spread. By the time a tumor is the size of a grape, it has as many as a billion cells. Those cells become increasingly heterogeneous, and once they break through the basement membrane that acts as a final barrier between organs and tissues, they are free to metastasize throughout the body via the bloodstream or the lymphatic system.<br><br>The book finds great promise in the chemoprevention pioneered by Dartmouth researcher Michael Sporn, who wants to treat pre-invasive lesions as seriously as full-blown cancers. This seems to fly in the face of the cautious watch-and-wait philosophy popular with many oncologists, who have become convinced (not without reason) that the cure—toxic chemotherapy, high doses of radiation—could be worse than the disease.<br><br>However, other than the breast cancer drug tamoxifen and the H.P.V. vaccine—both of which can reduce the risk of getting cancer, not cure the disease—the promise of chemoprevention remains largely unrealized. A recent paper by two preventative oncologists concluded, "There have been numerous chemoprevention trials in the past 10 years, but the number of approved chemoprevention drugs is still quite small."Another recent study on older men with prostate cancer suggested that "watchful waiting" was often the best route, noting that many patients opted for expensive treatments they didn't need, thus leading to impotence and incontinence. And a federal task force ruled four years ago that women should delay getting mammograms until age fifty (ten years later than the previous recommendation) because of the procedure's own potential dangers.<br><br>Leaf acknowledges these dangers, and also points out an even more serious problem with chemoprevention: biomarkers that would signal carcinogenesis in its earliest stages have not been found. So while he is correct to highlight the potential promise of a prophylactic approach, Leaf's own description of "the failed biomarker hunt" is, indirectly, a defense of why oncologists today are left with no choice but to wait until the disease develops.<br><br>The desire for an accelerated approach to cancer has antecedents in the AIDS activism of the nineteen-eighties. As Mukherjee describes in his book, organizations like ACT UP "made the FDA out to be a woolly bureaucratic grandfather—exacting but maddeningly slow." That had repercussions in cancer medicine, where patients also demanded quicker access to potentially life-saving therapies. Especially en vogue by the early nineties was "megadose chemotherapy" for breast cancer, complemented by a bone marrow transplant. (The original marrow would have been destroyed by the high toxicity of the purported cure.) Yet as Mukherjee notes, by early 2000, the procedure was discovered to have been supported by fictional studies. One of its main proponents, a South African oncologist named Werner Bezwoda, had charmed his fellow practitioners with astounding results that masked the true, fatal dangers of this excessive approach. Mukherjee calls Bezwoda's influential drug trials "a fraud, an invention, a sham," yet he was hardly the lone cheerleader for megadose chemotherapy. Any urge to hasten the War on Cancer—however justified that urge may be—must grapple with the risk of promising anecdotes curdling into hideous truths.<br><br>Of course, some approaches are neither terribly controversial nor difficult, at least from a medical standpoint: Debu Tripathy of the University of Southern California's Norris Cancer Center told me that he believes that ninety per cent of all lung cancers could be eliminated through the cessation of cigarette smoking. Studies have shown a link between red meat consumption and an elevated risk of cancer. Here, then, may be cancer prevention in its simplest form.<br><br>On the whole, Leaf is much less optimistic than Mukherjee. Surveying the state of cancer medicine as it was in 2005, Mukherjee concludes, "The empire of cancer was still indubitably vast…but it was losing power, fraying at its borders." Surveying some three thousand years of humanity's battle with cancer, Mukherjee's is the more meditative work. Leaf's book is more urgent, more insistent—the voice of a frightened patient who yearns for a cure, rather than of the sober oncologist concerned with getting the science right. "Emperor" is a story; "Truth" is an argument.<br><br>Earlier in June, researchers discovered a tumor of the rib bone of a Neanderthal believed to be a hundred and twenty thousand years old. What plagued him then still plagues us today, much as it plagued Atossa, the ancient Persian queen who is believed to have suffered from breast cancer, as well as the London chimney sweeps stricken with scrotal malignancies. This war has been a long one.<br><br><i>Alexander Nazaryan is a writer living in Brooklyn.</i><br><br><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/07/world-war-cancer.html">http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/07/world-war-cancer.html</a><br><br>

World War Cancer - The New Yorker

Richard Nixon launched the so-called War on Cancer on December 23, 1971, in what was supposed to be a "moonshot" effort to cure th...

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Chicago Tribune to Teamsters on strike: 'Pay up, or no ad'

The Chicago Tribune is refusing to run an ad from Teamster funeral directors unless they spend the same amount on advertising -- $5,700 -- as the giant corporation they're striking against.  <br /><br />Fifty-nine funeral directors from Local 727 were forced to walk off the job yesterday morning due to the unrelenting greed of SCI, the Dignity Memorial company.Seeking support from the community, the funeral directors tried to place ads in the two biggest area newspapers: the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune.<br /><br />Unlike its rival, the <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/teamsters-sun-times-refuses-union-advertising-2013-06-28">Chicago Sun-Time</a>s, the Tribune did run an ad from Teamsters Local 727 last week. The ad linked to a website <a href="http://www.integrityinillinois.com/">www.integrityinillinois.com</a> that outlines their grievances -- wage freezes, higher health care costs, elimination of the pension. And it offers a list of alternative homes where grieving families can turn for help.<br /><br />The Sun-Times refused to run a similar ad. And then yesterday, the Tribune notified Local 727 that it would not run another one of their ads unless it bought one as expensive as the one paid for by <a href="http://www.integrityinillinois.com/who-is-sci--dignity.html">SCI</a>.<br /><br />To add insult to injury, the Tribune (which may, by the way, be purchased by the <strike style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.890625px;"><a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2011/10/bombshell-kochs-sold-oil-equipment-to.html" style="color: #336699;">Benedict Arnold</a></strike> Koch brothers) published a hideously one-sided, pro-SCI story about the strike.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrB2LBuK0qb_TcXEQ2xuYfywblT7no_uAbnuQ_b_11l7EhWTrnYJ_li-kFg1Axg8a66uqdZA1B1Zp3jeLBdPN1xSrYa4omwUgj-mP3zmAYr-u0Pbrwkv65YvBW9azwuDomM8_PLDL0PWcp/s640/Blake+Lamb+strike.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrB2LBuK0qb_TcXEQ2xuYfywblT7no_uAbnuQ_b_11l7EhWTrnYJ_li-kFg1Axg8a66uqdZA1B1Zp3jeLBdPN1xSrYa4omwUgj-mP3zmAYr-u0Pbrwkv65YvBW9azwuDomM8_PLDL0PWcp/s320/Blake+Lamb+strike.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>Chicagoland union households don't have much of a place to turn for print news anymore. (But at least there's <a href="http://laborradio.org/">WIN Labor Radio</a>!)<br /><br />If you live in Chicago, please consider supporting the funeral directors by dropping by their strike lines. If you do go, please be respectful. The funeral directors are taking down their signs and standing by quietly when funerals are in progress.<br /><br />Here are the addresses of the funeral homes they're picketing:<br /><blockquote>Blake-Lamb Funeral Home<br />4727 W. 103rd St., Oak Lawn, IL </blockquote><blockquote>Blake-Lamb Funeral Home<br />5015 Lincoln St., Lisle, IL </blockquote><blockquote>Cypress Funeral Home<br />1698 N. Bloomingdale Rd., Glendale Heights, IL </blockquote><blockquote>Drake & Son Funeral Home<br />5303 N. Western Ave., Chicago, IL </blockquote><blockquote>Kenny Brothers Funeral Directors<br />3600 W. 95th St., Evergreen Park, IL </blockquote><blockquote>Lloyd Mandel Levayah Funerals<br />4750 W. Dempster St., Skokie, IL </blockquote><blockquote>Malec Funeral Home<br />6000 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL </blockquote><blockquote>Marsh Funeral Home<br />305 Cemetery Rd., Gurnee, IL </blockquote><blockquote>Montclair-Lucania Funeral Home<br />6901 W. Belmont Ave., Chicago, IL </blockquote><blockquote>Piser Funeral Services<br />9200 N. Skokie Blvd., Skokie, IL </blockquote><blockquote>Ridge Funeral Home<br />6620 W. Archer Ave., Chicago, IL</blockquote>

funeral directors Koch brothers strike Chicago Tribune to Teamsters on strike: 'Pay up, or no ad'

The Chicago Tribune is refusing to run an ad from Teamster funeral directors unless they spend the same amount on advertising -- $5,700 -- a...

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Post 1.5 week Belviq Before/After photo

I wasn't going to do this yet but I got WAY too excited!!!  So, I came in to work today wearing a top I've always worn.  This time, I had a ton of compliments.  I even noticed this morning what a difference I already looked.  So, here it is, the before and after - just 1.5 weeks in!  I am telling you - THIS STUFF WORKS.  This stuff as in Belviq ha!<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCv69-1Wxh99oBYDCtOYMGPLQA1yzk8SaMvhifgpuCb4yrxmNO8vHzhwyM-uqBy2h5SM7MUmFK1rIPZf5jFETvj6Y8qu5uhOVVs5MSxwhsXjLGz6xIEWDsLtskTqzdkpZv5KR-B6yLdlg/s960/photo.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" oya="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCv69-1Wxh99oBYDCtOYMGPLQA1yzk8SaMvhifgpuCb4yrxmNO8vHzhwyM-uqBy2h5SM7MUmFK1rIPZf5jFETvj6Y8qu5uhOVVs5MSxwhsXjLGz6xIEWDsLtskTqzdkpZv5KR-B6yLdlg/s320/photo.PNG" width="213" /></a></div>

Post 1.5 week Belviq Before/After photo

I wasn't going to do this yet but I got WAY too excited!!!  So, I came in to work today wearing a top I've always worn.  This time, ...

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Part Time Library Assistants - Trinity College Library, Hartford

<strong>Part Time Library Assistants - </strong><strong></strong><strong><strong><span style="color: #48286d;">Trinity College Library</span></strong></strong>, Hartford. We are seeking three part time library assistants to help cover evening and weekend library operations: The Evening Interlibrary Loan Assistant processes incoming and outgoing interlibrary loan requests. In the absence of the evening circulation assistant, may also occasionally oversee the Circulation desk and be responsible for closing the building. Work hours for this position are just for the academic year Sunday-Thursday 10pm-1am (15 hours per week) when classes are in session. Starting salary $14.21/hr depending on experience. The Evening Circulation Assistant oversees evening building operations with special focus on Library Circulation. Manages student assistants and service desk operations, maintains public equipment, and closes the building. Also assists in stacks maintenance activities including shelving, paging, and inventory control. Starting salary $14.21/hr depending on experience. Work hours for this position during the academic year is Thursday-Saturday 5:00pm-10:00pm (15 hours per week) with optional weekday daytime hours during the summer and when classes are not in session. Starting salary $14.21/hr depending on experience. The Weekend Library Assistant oversees weekend building operations with specific assignments in cataloging and circulation areas. Assists student assistants with service desk operations, maintains public equipment, and opens the building. Also assists with cataloging and processing materials for the library collections. Work hours for this position during the academic year are Saturday and Sunday 9:30am-6:00pm (15 hours per week) with optional weekday daytime hours available during the summer term and when classes are not in session. Starting salary $14.21/hr depending on experience. For full job descriptions and application procedures, please see <a _fcksavedurl="https://trincoll.peopleadmin.com/" href="https://trincoll.peopleadmin.com/" target="_blank">https://trincoll.peopleadmin.com/</a>. Applications will be accepted until the positions are filled.

Part Time Library Assistants - Trinity College Library, Hartford

Part Time Library Assistants - Trinity College Library , Hartford. We are seeking three part time library assistants to help cover evenin...

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Part-Time Library Clerk - Levi E. Coe Library, Middlefield

<strong>Part-Time Library Clerk -</strong> <strong><strong><span style="color: #48286d;">Levi E. Coe Library</span></strong></strong>, Middlefield, is seeking a year-round, part-time Library Clerk. The schedule includes flexible hours throughout the week for approximately twelve hours per week. Required hours include Saturdays from 9:30am-2pm from September through May; and two evenings per week from 3:00pm-7pm throughout the year. Additional daytime hours are possible, depending on the need for additional staff coverage. The hourly compensation for this position is $10.25 per hour. The successful candidate should be able to perform a wide variety of library related tasks and have the ability to meet the public courteously. Additionally, candidates should be prepared to work in both the Adult and Childrens’ departments. Computer literacy is necessary and prior experience in a library is preferable. Interested candidates should send a letter of interest, resume and the names of three references no later than Wednesday, <span style="color: red;">July 31, 2013 </span>to the Levi E. Coe Library, P.O. Box 458, Middlefield, CT 06455. No phone calls, please.

Part-Time Library Clerk - Levi E. Coe Library, Middlefield

Part-Time Library Clerk - Levi E. Coe Library , Middlefield, is seeking a year-round, part-time Library Clerk. The schedule includes fle...

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'We live under the flag, but we won't scab under the flag!'

And, hopefully, it will be an American-made American flag.<br /><br />If you're thinking of replacing your<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbbGi3mTjCo"> ragged old flag</a> for the July 4th holiday, here's a list of U.S.-based manufacturers that make American flags, courtesy of the <a href="http://www.fmaa-usa.com/membersonly/memberlist.php">Flag Manufacturers Association of America</a>:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><a href="http://www.annin.com/">Annin Flagmakers</a><br /><a href="http://www.cfflag.com/">C.F. Flag </a><br /><a href="http://www.flagsource.com/">J.C. Schultz Enterprises, Inc. / FlagSource</a><br /><a href="http://www.valleyforgeflag.com/">Valley Forge Flag</a><br /><a href="http://www.glasermills.com/">Glaser Mills, Inc.</a></blockquote>Their websites either have online catalogs or store locators where you can find the nearest flag store.<br /><br />According to <a href="http://americanmanufacturing.org/blog/made-your-city-american-made-flags">manufacture this</a>,<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) often hears from people frustrated by an inability to find “Star Spangled Banners” made in the U.S... </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-tA_RVNepjPj6sFzAwRx44n6rhk4UkJFrZuZ5UDswTZ2wjZu3scfOoU_JZ69yvg8XR8YRl6xl-XXwD_0wOwzxdCXdNOUOKfXX49TqGODK1wfgvBhcFgkotSokZSayO1Xlr0A5YcIgI9p0/s245/proud+to+be+union.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-tA_RVNepjPj6sFzAwRx44n6rhk4UkJFrZuZ5UDswTZ2wjZu3scfOoU_JZ69yvg8XR8YRl6xl-XXwD_0wOwzxdCXdNOUOKfXX49TqGODK1wfgvBhcFgkotSokZSayO1Xlr0A5YcIgI9p0/s200/proud+to+be+union.jpg" width="200" /></a>The Flag Manufacturers Association of America (FMAA) works to make it easy for consumers to know they’re purchasing an American-made flag. The Association certifies flags that are “made in the U.S. of materials that are domestic in origin and that all processes in every step of its manufacture were completed in U.S. facilities with U.S. labor.”</blockquote>The Flag Manufacturers website also offers an<a href="http://www.fmaa-usa.com/info/faq.php#q3"> FAQ</a> about the proper way to display and handle the flag. It gives very specific guidelines on displaying a flag In a public gathering, from a staff on the speaker's platform or on the floor. The FAQ also explains why some American flag kits include Chinese-made poles.<br /><br />And in honor of both the unions that protect freedom and the flag that represents it, we bring you this <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/17/1194309/-Hellraisers-Journal-Cripple-Creek-Miners-Strike-in-Sympathy-with-Smeltermen">rallying cry</a> by striking flag-makers during the IWW millworkers' strike in Paterson, N.J., in 1913. The mill owners tried to lure the workers back by hanging American flags on the mill and signs appealing for them to return. The IWW had lapel cards made that said:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">We wove the flag; we dyed the flag; we live under the flag; but we won't scab under the flag!</blockquote>Happy 4th!<br /><br /><br />

'We live under the flag, but we won't scab under the flag!'

And, hopefully, it will be an American-made American flag. If you're thinking of replacing your ragged old flag for the July 4th holid...

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Eric Cantor says ObamaCare delay should be permanent

<div class="p1">Bowing to the reality that ObamaCare isn't quite ready for prime time, the White House announced on Tuesday that it was delaying the employer health care mandate for a year.</div><div class="p1"><br /></div><div class="p1">In response, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) noted that the best cure for ObamaCare would be a permanent delay:</div><div class="p1"><blockquote>"This further confirms that even the proponents of ObamaCare know it will hurt jobs, decrease economic growth and make it harder for families to have access to quality and affordable health care," Cantor said. "Rather than continuing to delay the predictable pain until another election day has passed, we should scrap this entire law and instead implement patient-centered reforms before any more damage is done to our economy or the health care families depend on."</blockquote>Interesting that the announcement was made barely 24 hours before the Independence Day holiday and while President Barack Obama was out of the country.</div>

Congress Eric Cantor obamacare U.S. House of Representatives Eric Cantor says ObamaCare delay should be permanent

Bowing to the reality that ObamaCare isn't quite ready for prime time, the White House announced on Tuesday that it was delaying the emp...

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Today's Teamster News 07.03.13

<a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/07/02/unemployment-rate-still-above-10-in-27-us-metro-areas/">Unemployment Rate Still Above 10% in 27 US Metro Areas</a>  Wall Street Journal   ...Eleven of these areas were in California, the country’s most-populous state, which continues to grapple with fallout from the housing-market downturn...<br /><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/07/dont-blame-unemployment-insurance-for-our-jobs-crisis/277402/">Don't Blame Unemployment Insurance for Our Jobs Crisis</a>  The Atlantic   ...there's no evidence that long-term unemployment benefits have discouraged the long-term unemployed from taking jobs -- because they can't get jobs to begin with...<br /><a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/07/01/dutch-pension-group-halts-wal-mart-investments-over-low-wages-and-working-conditions/">Dutch pension group halts Wal-Mart investments over low wages and working conditions</a>  Reuters   ...Wal-Mart “was not prepared” to take concerns about what PGGM called “tense” U.S. labor relations into consideration and its board was not willing to participate in “fruitful dialogues” with shareholders, PGGM said in a statement...<br /><a href="http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/elderly_man_who_picked_dandelions_for_food_gets_75_ticket">Elderly man who picked dandelions for food gets $75 ticket</a>  ABA Journal   ... John Taris, a 75-year-old retiree ... lives in the Chicago area with his wife on a $1,500-a-month social security payment. When the couple's food supply was a bit low recently, he volunteered to go pick some to provide a vegetable ...But, caught in the act of picking the weeds by a Cook County Forest Preserve cop, he was issued a $75 ticket...<br /><a href="http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/07/02/Big-US-Companies-Pay-12-6-Percent-Average-Tax-Rate.aspx#page1">Big U.S. Companies Pay 12.6 Percent Average Tax Rate</a>  Reuters   ...As corporate lobbyists seek to preserve business tax breaks and cut the corporate tax rate, the Government Accountability Office said big companies with earnings paid just 12.6 percent of their worldwide income in taxes in 2010...<br /><a href="http://www.rollcall.com/news/to_restore_the_american_dream_restore_the_promise_of_american_labor_law-226058-1.html?pos=oplyh">To Restore the American Dream, Restore the Promise of American Labor Law</a> (opinion)  Roll Call   ...Republican Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon recognized the important work of the NLRB and worked with union leaders and other representatives of organized labor as did Democratic Presidents Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy...<br /><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/07/01/2238201/banks-are-finding-new-ways-to-saddle-low-wage-workers-with-fees/?mobile=nc">Banks Are Finding New Ways To Saddle Low-Wage Workers With Fees</a>  Think Progress   ...Low-wage workers are increasingly getting their wages in prepaid cards that hit them with fees. According to the Times, the largest American companies have done away with direct deposit and paper paychecks in favor of prepaid cards that require employees to withdraw cash from ATM machines...<br /><a href="http://www.okgazette.com/oklahoma/article-18681-playing-politics-wit.html">Playing politics with prison</a>  Oklahoma Gazette   ...Private prison corporations have deep pockets, and Oklahoma’s governor and Republican leadership are only so willing to take their money...<br /><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/02/shuanghui-smithfield-missouri-idUSL2N0F81NX20130702">Missouri governor veto of farmland bills could hamper Smithfield sale to China</a>  Reuters   ...Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed two bills on Tuesday that would have would have cleared the way for foreign ownership of farmland and potentially eliminated obstacles to Smithfield Foods Inc.'s planned $4.7 billion purchase by a Chinese company...<br /><a href="http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/burlington_county_times_news/christie-conditionally-vetoes-bill-to-create-state-program-to-buy/article_bb48c823-a665-5274-a45f-b3a18b4a7d03.html">Christie conditionally vetoes bill to create state program to buy foreclosed properties</a>  Burlington County Times   ...A controversial housing bill intended to help reduce New Jersey’s glut of foreclosed homes was vetoed by Gov. Chris Christie for a third time...<br /><a href="http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/protestors_unchain_social_security/">Protesters: Keep Social Security Unchained</a>  New Haven Independent ...Manny Gomez worked for Winchester Repeating Arms for 44 years, paying into social security with each paycheck. Now at 84 he can’t afford to live off his social security check, he said. And he can’t afford a proposed change to calculating the federal retirement benefit...<br /><a href="http://www.ohscanada.com/news/ontario-workers-exposed-to-agent-orange/1002445267/">Ontario workers exposed to Agent Orange</a>  OHS Canada   ...Ontario workers might have been exposed to Agent Orange, a recent report from an independent fact-finding panel has revealed...<br /><a href="http://www.providencejournal.com/breaking-news/content/20130701-rhode-island-senate-passes-minimum-wage-increase.ece">Rhode Island Senate passes minimum-wage increase</a>  Providence Journal   ...A bill that raises Rhode Island's minimum wage by 25 cents, to $8 an hour, cleared the state Senate on Monday night and is headed for the governor's signature...<br /><a href="http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2013-07-01/hawaii-gov-signs-domestic-workers-bill">Hawaii gov signs domestic workers bill</a>   Associated Press   ...Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed a domestic workers bill of rights Monday, making Hawaii the second U.S. state to give nannies, housekeepers and others protections on wages and other labor issues...<br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/us/north-carolinas-deep-cut-to-jobless-benefits-takes-effect-amid-protests.html?_r=0">North Carolina’s Deep Cut to Jobless Benefits Takes Effect Amid Protests</a>  New York Times   ...North Carolina’s sharp cuts in benefits to the unemployed went into effect this week, amid a swelling public outcry...<br /><a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/report-property-values-dropped-taxes-didnt-b9941518z1-213031541.html">Report: Property values dropped, taxes didn't  Milwaukee</a> Journal Sentinel   ...Total property values in southeastern Wisconsin dropped 5% in 2012, but municipal and school district property tax levies did not follow suit...<br /><a href="http://www.record-bee.com/news/ci_23583644/protesters-want-strike-deal?source=rss">Protesters want to strike a deal</a>  Lake County Record-Bee   ...About 30 people were on strike and will continue in Lower Lake, Lakeport and Clearlake protesting lack of raises for Paratransit employees, said Mike Yates, Business Representative of Teamsters Local 665. The Teamsters are currently in negotiations … in hopes of signing a contract and preventing further strikes...<br /><a href="http://www.mainlinemedianews.com/articles/2013/07/02/king_of_prussia_courier/news/doc51d2491376355931080271.txt">Upper Merion School Board extends services from Teamster maintenance workers</a>  Mainline Media News   ...The Upper Merion Area School Board in Pennsylvania adopted a “status quo” resolution between the district and Teamsters Local 384, which represents the custodial, building, and turf maintenance employees. The contract expired on June 30, and because no new agreement has been reached, the resolution stated that services provided by the employees would continue...<br /><a href="http://www.teamster.org/sites/teamster.org/files/7213ABFTotalsforWeb.pdf">ABF Vote Results By Local Union</a>  IBT   ...View the ABF vote results by local union <a href="http://www.teamster.org/sites/teamster.org/files/7213ABFTotalsforWeb.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>...<br /><a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/07/teamster-funeral-directors-strike-in.html">Teamster funeral directors strike in Chicago </a> TeamsterNation   ...<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.890625px;">The relentless greed of </span><a href="http://www.teamsterslocal727.org/" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.890625px;">Houston-based funeral giant SC</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.890625px;">I has forced Teamster funeral directors and drivers to strike today. The funeral directors, members of Local 727, set up strike lines this morning outside of area funeral homes...</span>

Today's Teamster News 07.03.13

Unemployment Rate Still Above 10% in 27 US Metro Areas  Wall Street Journal   ...Eleven of these areas were in California, the country’s mo...

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a break from celebrations to celebrate

Thought I'd take a quick break from my birthday/4th of July vacation week to share some fun news. My bedroom is featured in <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/02/living/open-house-beds/index.html" target="_blank">CNN's Open House series</a> (along with my friends <a href="http://emilyaclark.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Emily</a> and <a href="http://www.powellbrower.com/" target="_blank">Bethany</a>).<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSe7a_MUoTt9r1ec5GUPO7o1NzfUXdOmxante41bEAA_5Xf0PpvZykhx7OwouUFoUD4WuYi57VEpK4vQPtJByfLu-AJOs3nrfVCcznYVkiOq5quZkDu6cqbF7MO795jIWoo7W6qy0wAs45/s641/CNNiReport.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="440" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSe7a_MUoTt9r1ec5GUPO7o1NzfUXdOmxante41bEAA_5Xf0PpvZykhx7OwouUFoUD4WuYi57VEpK4vQPtJByfLu-AJOs3nrfVCcznYVkiOq5quZkDu6cqbF7MO795jIWoo7W6qy0wAs45/s640/CNNiReport.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Now that is a great way to celebrate a birthday!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/02/living/open-house-beds/index.html" target="_blank">Check it out</a> and see a lot of great spaces.<br /><br />Happy holiday weekend y'all!!<br /><br />

a break from celebrations to celebrate

Thought I'd take a quick break from my birthday/4th of July vacation week to share some fun news. My bedroom is featured in  CNN's O...

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Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 07/03/2013

<ul class="diigo-linkroll"><li> <div class="diigo-link"><a href="http://worldeducationcongress.com/learntech/Award_Winner.html">Learn Tech Conference & Exhibition</a> </div><div class="diigo-description">The World Education Congress has named their outstanding award winners. I was excited to see one of my blog sponsors, WizIQ win best virtual classroom provider for the second year in a row. Lots of interesting companies herein the global education community.</div><div class="diigo-tags">tags: <a href="https://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/education">education</a> <a href="https://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/news">news</a> <a href="https://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/awards">awards</a> <a href="https://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/professionaldevelopment">professionaldevelopment</a> <a href="https://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/bestpractices">bestpractices</a></div><ul class="diigo-comments"> </ul><ul class="diigo-annotations"><li> <div class="diigoContent"><div class="diigoContentInner">  <br />Best Virtual Classroom Provider<br />  <br />    <br />  <strong class="style7"><span class="style19">»</span>  </strong>WizIQ.com, authorGEN Technologies Ltd.<br /></div></div></li></ul></li></ul><div class="diigo-ps">Posted from <a href="https://www.diigo.com/">Diigo</a>. The rest of my favorite links are <a href="https://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher">here</a>.</div>

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 07/03/2013

Learn Tech Conference & Exhibition The World Education Congress has named their outstanding award winners. I was excited to ...

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Dinner disaster

Yesterday's dinner was a disaster after a disaster.  At lunchtime, I went to marks & spencers and bought food for dinner.  I got chicken kievs, some vegetables and cos lettuce for a salad.  When I returned to work I put them in the fridge to keep them chilled.  As I drove home that evening I rembered that I had left the food in the fridge.  :-(<div><br></div><div>So just as I neared home I stopped in Superquinn in Ranelagh and bought a stuffed chicken with prepared vegetables.  All was good, I had rectified the forgotten food situation.</div><div><br></div><div>I switched on the oven set the timer for 70 mins and popped the chicken in.  With 20 mins left of cooking time I went and checked the chicken. This was when I discovered that I had put the chicken in the other oven.  There was a lovely warm oven that was empty and above it was a stone cold chicken sitting in a cold oven.</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4Le4lI4B1-8GgmOrjyfBSLPz__dEuZsmycQmf1AqBGDVa2_W01s7WNtPCebpVQI5PwYqxjkoOaD19v0FXyv6-NWcxOjXaDPdFZouij7m1t8LMmUcJHYYOJsps3cT9wC1-VcJvwBgP4DfZ/s640/blogger-image-501541711.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4Le4lI4B1-8GgmOrjyfBSLPz__dEuZsmycQmf1AqBGDVa2_W01s7WNtPCebpVQI5PwYqxjkoOaD19v0FXyv6-NWcxOjXaDPdFZouij7m1t8LMmUcJHYYOJsps3cT9wC1-VcJvwBgP4DfZ/s640/blogger-image-501541711.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>At this point when I moved the chicken in to the warm oven it would be 10pm before we would be eating.</div><div><br></div><div>A decision was made, we rang Siam Thai, drove around and collected food and were sitting down eating noodles by 9.20pm.</div><div><br></div><div>Any dinner disasters on this scale (all down to my stupidity) ever happen to you?</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5lOzcLIc7W7X_HFa0UsSZ0h7CtfwailWQFHpNTJcZ5Yp4UEIIMatsWb0BQ6anKDeAagJq4Jslm5AQuV8-0ie0fsIr1ZKCt2y-hUQpyJm0-DCbq8s6mR-bB-Afyr0d8iPELknSjuTGWtZT/s640/blogger-image--682760957.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5lOzcLIc7W7X_HFa0UsSZ0h7CtfwailWQFHpNTJcZ5Yp4UEIIMatsWb0BQ6anKDeAagJq4Jslm5AQuV8-0ie0fsIr1ZKCt2y-hUQpyJm0-DCbq8s6mR-bB-Afyr0d8iPELknSjuTGWtZT/s640/blogger-image--682760957.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtgJJv0HRXy33GdA1LRVcZOfqP4gfcil9BwCIfTcZMA9x4UEls30ba83W0m66zAsTRW2i_6bu3ShqYW-1Au4v1qxiLz0VmTZJ9uF1OteUFke75gDWGBx5H3H5eRH2bL2WsZGt-dlxy1S8W/s640/blogger-image--969662506.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtgJJv0HRXy33GdA1LRVcZOfqP4gfcil9BwCIfTcZMA9x4UEls30ba83W0m66zAsTRW2i_6bu3ShqYW-1Au4v1qxiLz0VmTZJ9uF1OteUFke75gDWGBx5H3H5eRH2bL2WsZGt-dlxy1S8W/s640/blogger-image--969662506.jpg"></a></div><br></div><br></div><div><br></div>

Dinner disaster

Yesterday's dinner was a disaster after a disaster.  At lunchtime, I went to marks & spencers and bought food for dinner.  I got chi...

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Despicable Me 2: Villainy lite

<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><i>Despicable Me 2</i> </b></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>(2013) • <a href="http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/universal/despicableme2/" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">View trailer</a></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b> </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>3.5 stars. Rating: PG, and quite needlessly, for mild rude humor</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b>By <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/12885694730612878577" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">Derrick Bang</a></b></span></b></span></span></span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles></xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style><![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <br /><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thank goodness for the minions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2010’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://derrickbang.blogspot.com/2010/07/despicable-me-deliciously-evil.html">Despicable Me</a></i> got much of its hilarious edge from the personality transformation experienced by Gru, the vaguely Slavic super-villain who mellows out — but only somewhat — after encountering a trio of trusting little girls.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgatsADfffRrHfBD9MPMdtAO8g6vJwg_-CavWPd3OGSaem_BTEBDPoAEvtotuV__6AGiHrnCVKXNPdPCKnnYCU-TNtxAhpEA8jts0lWq8T-EForqgL2ssxKkV7G3lE4t142bdNCId9fvD0/s538/Despicable+Me+2+blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgatsADfffRrHfBD9MPMdtAO8g6vJwg_-CavWPd3OGSaem_BTEBDPoAEvtotuV__6AGiHrnCVKXNPdPCKnnYCU-TNtxAhpEA8jts0lWq8T-EForqgL2ssxKkV7G3lE4t142bdNCId9fvD0/s400/Despicable+Me+2+blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Sent undercover as the owner of a mega-mall's boutique cupcake emporium, Gru is<br />annoyed to discover that he has been saddled with an assisant: Lucy Wilde, an<br />aggressively eager agent of the Anti-Villian League. Their goal: to figure out which<br />neighboring shopkeeper actually is a dastardly criminal mastermind.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gru’s introductory strut in that first film — to a deliciously snarky title song written and performed by Pharrell Williams — was the stuff of greatness. Here was a gleeful scoundrel who’d embrace badness big and small, whether stealing the Earth’s Moon, or stealing candy from a baby. And he wouldn’t merely snatch the sweet from the crestfallen tyke; he’d replace it with a cod liver oil sucker.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Watching this fellow struggle against the arrival of a hitherto buried good side — trying to stay wicked in the face of unconditional love from Agnes, the youngest of his new wards — was the stuff of classic character comedy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This sequel’s Gru, alas, has completed this makeover, and has fully embraced his light side. As a result, he’s both less interesting and less funny. His inventive genius now reduced to concocting playful gadgets for Agnes’ birthday party, the low point arrives when — a paid actress having failed to show up — Gru dresses himself as the world’s most unlikely fairy princess.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Which, yes, results in a genuinely poignant moment between Agnes and her <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">de facto</i> daddy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don’t intend to suggest that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Despicable Me 2</i> is either disappointing or unsatisfying: far from it. Returning directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud maintain their engaging blend of character comedy, goofy slapstick and oddball peril, and returning scripters Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul certainly know the territory.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But the latter are on their own this time, whereas the first film derived from a story by Sergio Pablos ... and he may be the essential missing ingredient. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Despicable Me 2</i> is a more conventional animated comedy, in terms of its standard-issue narrative and predictable plot hiccups. We never knew what would happen in the first film, which was much of its charm; this sequel, in contrast, lacks that element of uncertainty.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fortunately, Daurio and Paul have the good sense to grant more screen time to the first film’s breakout stars: the mischievous, hapless and hilariously speech-challenged minions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can’t get enough of them, and this new film takes ample advantage of that fact.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(To be more precise, we certainly haven’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">yet</i> gotten enough of them. Let’s see what happens next year, when they get their own movie.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><a name='more'></a><br /> <div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With Gru (again voiced by Steve Carell) out of the super-criminal game, he has settled into the comfortable shoes of adoptive parenthood. He dotes on little Agnes (Elsie Fisher), tries to keep hyperactive Edith (Dana Gaier) out of trouble, and does his best to ignore Margo’s (Miranda Cosgrove) slide into boy-crazy adolescence.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gru’s massive underground lab, once the source of magnificently devious weapons and vile thingamajigs, has been re-purposed into a factory that crafts signature jams and jellies ... much to the delight of the minions, who love sampling the raw ingredients. They’re less interested in the finished result; Gru’s resident genius, Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand), just can’t get the mix right.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nor is he interested in trying. Gru’s first crisis arrives when Dr. Nefario reluctantly departs, having been offered alternate employment with the promise of actual skullduggery. The second crisis erupts when Gru is snatched by Lucy Wilde (Kristen Wiig), an eager-beaver agent of the Anti-Villain League.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The AVL chief, Silas Ramsbottom (Steve Coogan), has become deeply disturbed by a recent eruption of super-villainy, and most particularly by the discovery of a nasty serum that — in some laboratory test footage — transforms a cute, cuddly bunny into a purple, frazzle-haired, mindless and indestructible eating machine.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Obviously, such a serum would have ghastly results, if employed for the wrong purposes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Borrowing a note from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To Catch a Thief</i>, Ramsbottom gives Gru a cover identity and makes him the owner of a cupcake emporium in a nearby mega-mall. Ramsbottom is convinced that one of the mall’s other shop owners is the mastermind behind this dastardly plot; Gru and Lucy — who’s sweet on her new partner — are tasked with figuring out <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">which</i>shop owner.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gru’s suspicion immediately turns to Eduardo Perez (Benjamin Bratt), the rotund and flirty owner of the nearby Salsa & Salsa restaurant, because he bears a striking resemblance to history’s most heinous super-villain ever, El Macho. But that’s not possible, because El Macho perished years ago, when he rode a dynamite-laden shark into an erupting volcano.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Evidence points instead to Floyd Eagle-san (Ken Jeong), proprietor of the local hair-replacement club for men. But Gru can’t get Eduardo out of his mind ... and the obsession becomes even more intense when the restaurant owner’s suave son, Antonio (Moises Arias), makes a move on the smitten Margo.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At this point, Gru’s objectivity has been compromised, and his increasingly frenzied suggestions fall on Ramsbottom’s deaf ears.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meanwhile, Gru’s minions have been vanishing — singly, and in groups — and spirited to parts unspecified, for reasons unknown. Gru doesn’t notice for quite some time; it’s not easy to keep track of several hundred (thousand?) nearly identical yellow, pill-shaped henchmen in blue little-kid overalls. Even if they do have individual names such as Kevin, Bob and Stuart.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On top of which, Gru is forced to contend with various undesired match-making efforts, whether they come from nosy neighbor Jillian (Nasim Pedrad) or Gru’s own wards. Not to mention his oil-and-vinegar relationship with Lucy, which we all know is destined for greater things.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The core plot advances leisurely, intercut with unrelated minion escapades and sidebar distractions. Some of the latter integrate nicely with the narrative; others don’t. Gru and Lucy’s battle with Eduardo’s attack chicken is quite funny, whereas Gru’s blind date with a fitness-obsessed bottle blonde doesn’t work at all.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The minions pretty much steal the show, because of their impressionable innocence, their bratty (but benevolent) tendency toward mischief, and their side-splitting approach toward speech. If the apparent gibberish sometimes sounds like actual words, that’s no accident; Coffin and Renaud voice all the minions with a random blend of French, English, Spanish, Italian and Indian.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, while a French theater patron may recognize the minion phrase <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">poulet tiki masala</i> as an Indian chicken dish, the words certainly don’t have that context in the storyline. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As for what happens to all those missing minions, well, let me point out that the filmmakers were inspired by a 1960 Warner Bros. Tweety and Sylvester cartoon, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hyde and Go Tweet</i>. Draw your own conclusions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Carell has a great time with Gru’s often exasperated, Eastern European overtones, and the animators do a correspondingly slick job of matching the character’s expressions and movement to the actor’s vocal mannerisms. The overly enthusiastic Lucy is coordinated equally well with Wiig’s mildly snarky delivery.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bratt is a stitch as the overblown Eduardo, and Brand is just as funny as the ancient, ultra-lethargic Dr. Nefario. Cosgrove, Gaier and Fisher are adorably girl-like as their respective characters.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mostly, though, this film benefits from Coffin and Renaud’s unerring sense of timing. They’re equally adept at both extremes: getting the maximum emotional mileage from a tender moment between Gru and Agnes, or earning a belly laugh from competitive, shifty-eyed interactions between minions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Editor Gregory Perler keeps things moving at a good clip; the 98-minute length feels just right. And you’ll definitely want to hang around for the minions’ final-scene cover of the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All told, this sequel is a thoroughly enjoyable lark, with enough to captivate both adult and small-fry viewers. Any mild disappointment arises mostly from remembering its predecessor; Coffin and Renaud haven’t maintained the momentum present in (for example) each new <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ice Age</i> entry.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But if faced with an Independence Day weekend choice between <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Despicable Me 2</i> and the overwrought, under-humored and occasionally loathsome new take on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lone Ranger</i>, I strongly advise the former.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can’t go wrong with the minions.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><!--EndFragment-->

2013 Animated films Benjamin Bratt Dana Gaier Elsie Fisher Ken Jeong Kristen Wiig Miranda Cosgrove Russell Brand Sequel Steve Carell Steve Coogan Despicable Me 2: Villainy lite

Despicable Me 2   (2013) •  View trailer   3.5 stars. Rating: PG, and quite needlessly, for mild rude humor By  Derrick Bang Tha...

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Lafayette, We Are Here; So Let's Cook-Out!!

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaUvViIKDERPbrp_VrjT_cgqcOBf-mx4Q7NFjnt-0ulp_tXmfWG4jivFDQQ4K8U9vJYlYa8z5vJ-sXozIWdzQ0QW9MSPE921737gEkdMGpw5kVDlELcQAwq0NdMJUODjljkDmObj9bj1s/s397/French+Guy+Cooking+Out+Charcoal+Briquet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaUvViIKDERPbrp_VrjT_cgqcOBf-mx4Q7NFjnt-0ulp_tXmfWG4jivFDQQ4K8U9vJYlYa8z5vJ-sXozIWdzQ0QW9MSPE921737gEkdMGpw5kVDlELcQAwq0NdMJUODjljkDmObj9bj1s/s400/French+Guy+Cooking+Out+Charcoal+Briquet.jpg" width="400" /></a>Bon Matin, Accueil, and Hello!!<br /><br />I am the official French griller and cooker-outer for IWS Radio, Char'coal Bri'quet here for IWS Radio on this very fine, pre-Independence Day Eve..<br /><br />Allow my Gallic self to tell you in your own boorish language…<br /><br />My rocks are hot, and I can’t wait to flame up an American Independence Day soiree for you.  Viva la Lafayette; here’s to the defeat of Cornwallis at Yorktown, and the smiting of his culinary penchant for gruel and haggis!!<br /><br />Which on its face, was very troubling in itself, but even more so, because of instead of serving red wine with swine innards, Cornwallis served mead.<br /><br />Sérieusement?  Oui, and Sérieusement…Oh, the gaucheness of it all!!  Anyhoo…<br /><br />Let me, or should I say, “allow” me to say, while you enjoy your, “chien chaud” upon the grill, do it in such a way that the processed skin and fillers of said, “chien chaud” crisp up, and maximize their potential artificial juices.<br /><br />I know that you Americans love your Hot Dogs, but in order to be kind to dogs, be they hot or any other breed, allow them to be all that they can be.<br /><br />The hot dogs that you are so fond of will live for minutes beyond their shelf life, and you will enjoy a nice crisp bite, while at the same time, savor their genetically-altered juices.<br /><br />Place them so that they may receive the maximum grill marks.  Allow them to cook perching perpendicular upon either the Y or X-Axis of the grill!!  Do this not, and you will rue the day that you ate a limp hot dog with no cool burn marks worthy of Avignon!!<br /><br />As for the Dachau-Like, hand-beaten, Nazi-Jack Booted, kicked in the ass, lump of meat that you call hamburgers?<br /><br />Fry em’!!  Fry them hard, fast and nasty.  It is cow meat, a stupid animal that just sits there, grazes, and says to itself…<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtcacgr_Bdcbf8lg6EXUCOG68w4t-bVp2J0VKfWBHQqUyT0Y7rC8-kYoW9nSETTcKf0sZJ9X-2Qb7LqftpzfRJq_mFbxHYJcbY6YyE4xXSa7bhNh-c_ZhbAFBzQLJsaipLn9bK9637_60/s400/american-burger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtcacgr_Bdcbf8lg6EXUCOG68w4t-bVp2J0VKfWBHQqUyT0Y7rC8-kYoW9nSETTcKf0sZJ9X-2Qb7LqftpzfRJq_mFbxHYJcbY6YyE4xXSa7bhNh-c_ZhbAFBzQLJsaipLn9bK9637_60/s400/american-burger.jpg" width="400" /></a><i>“I better eat some more hay, so I will become a better burger.”</i><br /><br />Who the Hell does that!?  Cows…American Cows, that’s who…er…Cows…any cow…American, or otherwise.  Hell, they don’t know their fate growing up…They’re stupid, and well, they’re cows, so that explains it, but as a Frenchman, I have to say…<br /><br />Even though the hamburger (uuch) is round, it stills needs to be cooked perpendicularly.  If not?  The grill marks will be straight, and the burger will look like…well…<br /><br />A round piece of meat with straight lines upon it.<br /><br />And you know what?  When I think of that, I can only think of the way my great-grandfather described the look on Mussolini’s face when he was hung in 1943.<br /><br />Saint Enfant Jésus, and Oy Vay!!<br /><br />Anyway…Keep your grill hot and haute, and always, sprinkle it with oil…This is your Number One Summertime French Guy saying…<br /><br /><i>Bon Voyage and Happy Grill'age!!</i><br /><br />Char'coal Bri'quet<br /><br /><a href="mailto:mattmaniws@ymail.com">mattmaniws@ymail.com</a><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/MattMan_IWS" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">@mattman_iws</span></a><br /><a href="https://www.facebook.com/mattmaniws" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Matt’s Facebook Page</span></a></div>

Lafayette, We Are Here; So Let's Cook-Out!!

Bon Matin, Accueil, and Hello!! I am the official French griller and cooker-outer for IWS Radio, Char'coal Bri'quet here for IWS Rad...

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Charlottesville ABC agents should be reminded of the Alicia Showalter Reynolds tragedy

I had no intention of writing about the Charlottesville ABC agents who apprehended a UVa student in the false belief she was underage with beer. Her "beer" turned out to be sparkling water but a series of events led to her arrest and she was thrown in the slammer overnight. ABC agents thought their lives were in danger, and the young lady thought her life was in danger, and it ended up in a big mess.<br /><br />The actual incident occurred in April but came to light at the end of June when the <i>Daily Progress</i> reported on it after charges were finally dropped against Elizabeth Daly. Reporter K. Burnell Evans wrote "<a href="http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/bottled-water-purchase-leads-to-night-in-jail-for-uva/article_b5ab5f62-df9b-11e2-81c4-0019bb30f31a.html">Bottled-water purchase leads to night in jail for UVa student</a>:"<br /><blockquote>When a half-dozen men and a woman in street clothes closed in on University of Virginia student Elizabeth Daly, 20, she and two roommates panicked.<br /><br />That led to Daly spending a night and an afternoon in the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail. Her initial offense? Walking to her car with bottled water, cookie dough and ice cream just purchased from the Harris Teeter in the Barracks Road Shopping Center for a sorority benefit fundraiser.<br /><br />A group of state Alcoholic Beverage Control agents clad in plainclothes approached her, suspecting the blue carton of LaCroix sparkling water to be a 12-pack of beer. Police say one of the agents jumped on the hood of her car. She says one drew a gun. Unsure of who they were, Daly tried to flee the darkened parking lot.<br /><br />"They were showing unidentifiable badges after they approached us, but we became frightened, as they were not in anything close to a uniform," she recalled Thursday in a written account of the April 11 incident.</blockquote>And then there's this:<br /><blockquote>Prosecutors say she apologized profusely when she realized who the agents were. But that wasn't good enough for ABC agents, who charged her with three felonies.</blockquote>She was charged with two counts of assaulting a police officer and one count of eluding police. <br /><br />What stands out to me is that <i>half a dozen</i> agents closed in, at night, on several young college students. The agents were in street clothes, unrecognizable as law enforcement, and apparently their quick flashing of badges was not enough to be seen or confirmed. It was dark, the agents banged on the windows and jumped on the hood of the vehicle. The girls fled, terrified they were being assaulted. Stopped a short distance away by another police officer, Ms. Daly was told the car-jumping, window-banging shadows in the night were actually agents, and she apologized profusely. They slapped the cuffs on her and hauled her to jail.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.readthehook.com/109831/terror-harris-teeter-gun-wielding-abc-agents-arrest-underage-water-buyer">Local</a> and national news outlets have picked up on it. <br /><br />As I read yet another account of the incident, I thought about Alicia Showalter Reynolds who was abducted and murdered 17 years ago on Rt. 29 north of Charlottesville, reportedly by a man who had a flashing police light on the roof of his truck and pulled her over. She went missing for two months until her body was found in Culpeper. The murder was never solved ... the case is still open.<br /><br />That incident was an alarming event for women in the area. Still unsolved, Virginia State Police issued a statement in March of this year: <br /><blockquote>CULPEPER – Apprehending the person responsible for the disappearance and death of Alicia Showalter Reynolds remains a priority for the Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s Culpeper Field Office.<br /><br />March 2, 2013, marks 17 years since Ms. Reynolds was abducted in Culpeper County on Route 29 while traveling from Baltimore, Md., to Charlottesville. Since then the Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s Culpeper Field Office has received more than 10,040 tips relating to the ongoing case, with 27 of them coming in within the past 12 months. State police continue to ask the public to come forward with any information related to the investigation.<br /><br />According to witnesses who observed Ms. Reynolds’ vehicle parked on the southbound shoulder of Route 29 on March 2, 1996, a white male, approximately 35-45 years old with a medium build and light to medium brown hair was stopped out with her vehicle. The man, described as between 5’10’ to 6’0 tall, was driving a dark colored pickup truck, possibly a green Nissan. Ms. Reynolds’ remains were found two months later on May 7, 1996, in the Lignum area of Culpeper County.<br /><br />As news spread about Ms. Reynolds’ abduction, several other female subjects came forward advising that a white male had either stopped them or attempted to stop them while they were traveling along Route 29 in Culpeper County.<br /><br />Despite the passage of time, state police continue to pursue this case. “Within the past year, the investigation into Ms. Reynolds’ murder was the focus of review by State Police violent crimes investigators from around the state,” said Capt. Gary T. Settle, commander of the Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation Culpeper Field Office. “These investigators poured over the entire case file, leads, witness statements, interviews, suspect profiles, evidence, etc., to strategize and pursue any new evidential or technological avenues that could benefit and, ultimately, advance the progress of this ongoing investigation.”<br /><br />Anyone with information pertaining to the abduction and murder of Alicia Showalter Reynolds is asked to contact the Virginia State Police Culpeper Division toll-free at 1-800-572-2260, or the Bureau of Criminal Investigation toll-free at 1-888-300-0156 or by e-mail at bci-culpeper@vsp.virginia.gov.</blockquote>At the time, police advised women who were apprehended by a "police" vehicle to find a safe area before stopping, and were assured real officers would know they were not fleeing. <br /><br />With that in mind, perhaps ABC officers, especially those working in college towns, should be reminded of the <a href="http://unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com/wiki/Alicia_Showalter_Reynolds">Alicia Reynolds tragedy</a>.<br /><br /><b>UPDATE: </b>A number of newspaper editorials have questioned the validity and wisdom of ABC agents' actions during this incident including the Richmond Times-Dispatch, posting the editorial, <a href="http://www.timesdispatch.com/opinion/our-opinion/today-s-top-opinion-drunk-on-power/article_6d59ca44-59bb-5bb2-88b6-78f17b3ffade.html">Drunk on power?</a> 

ABC agents Alcoholic Beverage Control Alicia Showalter Reynolds Daily Progress Elizabeth Daly K. Burnell Evans The Hook University of Virginia Virginia State Police Charlottesville ABC agents should be reminded of the Alicia Showalter Reynolds tragedy

I had no intention of writing about the Charlottesville ABC agents who apprehended a UVa student in the false belief she was underage with b...

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Deaths in Painkiller Overdoses Rise Sharply Among Women - 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); ">PORTSMOUTH, Ohio — Prescription pain pill addiction was originally seen as a man's problem, a national epidemic that began among workers doing backbreaking labor in the coal mines and factories of Appalachia. But a new analysis of federal data has found that deaths in recent years have been rising far faster among women, quintupling since 1999.</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); ">More women now die of overdoses from pain pills like OxyContin than from cervical cancer or homicide. And though more men are dying, women are catching up, according to <a title="The analysis." href="http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/PrescriptionPainkillerOverdoses/index.html" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">the analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a>. And the problem is hitting white women harder than black women, and older women harder than younger ones.</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 this Ohio River town on the edge of Appalachia, women blamed the changing nature of American society. The rise of the single-parent household has thrust immense responsibility on women, who are not only mothers, but also, in many cases, primary breadwinners. Some who described feeling overwhelmed by their responsibilities said they craved the numbness that drugs bring. Others said highs made them feel pretty, strong and productive, a welcome respite from the chaos of their lives.</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); ">"I thought I was supermom," said Crystal D. Steele, 42, a recovering addict who said she began to take medicine for back pain she developed working at Kentucky Fried Chicken. "I took one kid to football, the other to baseball. I went to work. I washed the car. I cleaned the house. I didn't even know I had a problem."</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); ">Ms. Steele, now a patient at the <a title="The center s Web site." href="http://www.thecounselingcenter.org/The_Counseling_Center/Programs.html" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">Counseling Center</a>, a rehabilitation center here, remembers getting calls about deaths of high school classmates while working at an answering service for a local funeral home. She counted about 50 women she had known who had drug-related deaths. She believes that had it not been for a 40-day stint in jail for stealing pain pills, she would have been among them.</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); ">"I felt like I sold my soul somewhere along the way," said Ms. Steele, whose father was an alcoholic and abusive. "I didn't feel like I deserved to be given a second chance. I thought my kids would be better off without me."</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); ">For years, drug overdose deaths in the United States were seen as mostly an urban problem that hit blacks hardest. But opioid abuse, which exploded in the 1990s and 2000s and included drugs like OxyContin, Vicodin and Percocet, has been worst among whites, often in rural places. The C.D.C. analysis found that the overdose death rate for blacks in 2010, the most recent year for which there was final data, was less than half the rate for whites. Asians and Hispanics had the lowest rates.</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); ">According to the report, 6,631 women died of opioid overdoses in 2010, compared with 10,020 men.</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); ">While younger women in their 20s and 30s tend to have the highest rates of opioid abuse, the overdose death rate was highest among women ages 45 to 54, a finding that surprised clinicians. The range indicates that at least some portion of the drugs may have been prescribed appropriately for pain, Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said in an interview. If death rates were driven purely by abuse, then one would expect the death rates to be highest among younger women who are the biggest abusers.</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); ">Deaths among women have been rising for some time, but Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the C.D.C. director, said the problem had gone virtually unrecognized. The study offered several theories for the increase. Women are more likely than men to be prescribed pain drugs, to use them chronically, and to get prescriptions for higher doses.</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's authors hypothesized that it might be because the most common forms of chronic pain, like fibromyalgia, are more common in women. A woman typically also has less body mass than a man, making it easier to overdose.</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); ">Women are also more likely to be given prescriptions of psychotherapeutic drugs, like antidepressants and antianxiety medications, Dr. Volkow said. That is significant because people who overdose are much more likely to have been taking a combination of those drugs and pain medication.</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); ">Broader social trends, like unemployment, an increase in single-parent families, and their associated stressors, might have also contributed to the increase in abuse, but they are slow moving and unlikely to be a direct explanation, Dr. Volkow 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); ">Stella Collins, who runs group therapy sessions at the Counseling Center, said her patients, most of whom are poor, feel trapped. They are squeezing a living out of tiny paychecks. Many get no financial support from the fathers of their children and come from families where alcohol or drugs were abused. Their feelings of inadequacy and shame over not properly caring for their children help drive their addictions, 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); ">"Poverty is depression, it's failure, it's sadness, it's low self-esteem," said Ms. Collins. Her mother, an addict, died of a heart attack at age 56 after spending money meant for heart medication on pain pills, 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); ">"These women are stuck, emotionally and financially," Ms. Collins added.</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); ">But some of the women also fight their way back.</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); ">Kathy Newman, 35, who started using pills in her 20s, after her older sister overdosed, and whose oldest son was born addicted, has been drug-free for two years. She now takes classes, and travels around the county telling her story at schools.</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); ">For Ms. Steele, the most motivating image is that of her 12-year-old son's face streaked with tears, looking at her through the glass of the prison visiting area. Her eldest son now has custody of him.</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); ">"I was at a big stop sign and it was like, 'O.K., which way are you going to go?' " 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); ">Portsmouth has worked hard to stop addiction. Easy access to prescription pain pills has been shut down. Mothers of dead addicts give talks at schools. And while Ohio's death rate from overdoses, like the national rate, is still climbing, the rate in Scioto County, where Portsmouth is located, has declined in recent years, according to the city health department.</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); ">Ms. Collins works with women in group sessions, teaching them how to like themselves again.</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; ">"Watching them die is the hardest part," Ms. Collins said. "You sit in this room and you don't know who's going to make it."</p></div><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/03/health/rate-of-painkiller-overdose-deaths-rises-among-women.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/03/health/rate-of-painkiller-overdose-deaths-rises-among-women.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print</a><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>

Deaths in Painkiller Overdoses Rise Sharply Among Women - NYTimes.com

PORTSMOUTH, Ohio — Prescription pain pill addiction was originally seen as a man's problem, a national epidemic that began among workers...

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two more on Belviq with same results....

So excited, tomorrow (Wednesday) is my Friday.  I am off for 4 days for the holiday weekend.  I don't have a lot planned, well, actually, I kind of do....<br /><br />I am going to sit down and make a menu for the next week or so and plan some good meals, etc.  I am also planning some pool time and walking time on the treadmill.  <br /><br />On Sunday, I have some friends that might be coming over to grill by the pool.  That's going to be a challenge in terms of eating so I think I am going to make some yummy fruit/salad/veggie things maybe and tell them they can bring junk if they want it!!<br /><br />I came across two more people that just started taking Belviq this week.  One at my doctors office - she said she noticed an immediate effect.  The only problem is that she was having some headaches - which is a side effect.  The other one was in the Belviq support group on facebook.  She started it yesterday and noticed the change in appetite immediately.<br /><br />I'm telling you - this stuff works if you can get past the side effect.  I didn't have many myself so it was great for me.  <br /><br />I have to say again though, Belviq is not a quick fix weight loss plan.  If you have no intentions on changing your eating habits, don't waste your time.  You really have to commit to a change.  That's what I am doing!!!<br /><br />I didn't have anything exciting to eat today.  Just some left overs from Sunday.  <br /><br />I want to thank everyone for your support.  Whether your support is because you know me and want this for me as bad as I do, or your support is because you are watching Belviq on the financial side, it doesn't matter to me.  I take whatever support I can get because I need it.  So, if the incentive for you is financial, you can push me just as those who are in it for me!  <br /><br />Thanks again!!!!! 

two more on Belviq with same results....

So excited, tomorrow (Wednesday) is my Friday.  I am off for 4 days for the holiday weekend.  I don't have a lot planned, well, actually...

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Services Offered By The Weight Loss Surgery Options Fort Worth TX

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Services Offered By The Weight Loss Surgery Options Fort Worth TX

By Freda Watts Obesity patients are at a high risk of getting some of the lifestyle diseases. These individuals need to make sure they c...

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Making Changes, Such As Weight Loss Salt Lake City, Can Be Achieved.

<div style='font-style:italic;' class='uawbyline'>By Roxy Albright</div><br /><br /> <div class='uawarticle'>If you believe that weight loss Salt Lake City is easy, then you have seen one too many infomercials toting the latest pill, equipment, or any other method that will melt away the fat quickly. If fact, each year, billions of dollars are spent on overall appearance, whether it be trimming down or plumping up (such as in the case of lip injections Utah.) And even with all that money being spent on different products and services, many people are still unhappy and overall dissatisfied with their bodies. Is it really all as simple as the "people on tv" make it sound?<br /> <br /> It is a fairly complex problem that actually has surprisingly simple solutions. The idea behind weight loss Salt Lake City is simple enough - burn more calories than you eat. This may seem daunting to some used to consuming whatever they wish, whenever they wish, but simple changes in every day choices, while only small actions, add up to big results. Simply replacing your favorite soda with water a couple of times per day and also walking at least twenty minutes a day can make all the difference. But reasons for wanting change matter too. Getting on a "health kick" is not just about choosing a salad over a burger though. It is really about your attitude, lifestyle, habits, goals, and even your willingness to fail sometimes.<br /> <br /> Attitude is probably the single most important factor when it comes to weight loss Salt Lake City. If you are tying to lose weight only in an effort to look a certain way or because you find yourself having a temporary moment of guilt over not being as healthy as you could be, when results don't come quickly, resolve to succeed is often lost. The desire to lose weight alone is a great goal, but it is also important to find motivation that can sustain your commitment through the times when things are difficult and results are few and far between.<br /> <br /> When it comes to appearance, lifestyle is also an important part of any changes that we are attempting to make. Peer pressure can be your enemy and is sometimes the biggest hurdle we face when it comes to making positive changes. Peer pressure can strengthen or damage even the strongest resolve. For instance, if everyone you regularly associate with is slim, tanned, toned, and has received lip injections Utah, you might feel that doing the same things is the only way to fit in. While exercise is most certainly good for you and being toned and fit is a great choice, too much sun or too many injections can lead to serious health complications now and later in life. Learn to choose what kind of peer pressure to give in to, choosing the good and leaving the bad behind.<br /> <br /> Setting realistic goals is critical when it comes to weight loss Salt Lake City. If you set an impossible goal, you are certain to fail. And if you constantly feel like a failure, what is your motivation to keep trying? The key to actually losing weight is to set realistic, attainable goals. What is reasonable? That is different for each person and is wholly dependent on genetics, eating habits, exercise routines, and metabolism, just to name a few. Pick goals that you are confident you will be able to achieve so you always reach your goals and feel successful. Goals can be as small as you like, so long as they are reachable.<br /> <br /> Whether you want to make cosmetic changes in appearance such as lip injections Utah or physical changes such as weight loss Salt Lake City, set goals that are reasonable for your lifestyle and achieve them!<br /> <br /> </div><br /> <div class='uawresource'><br /> <div style='font-style:italic;' class='uawabout'><br /> About the Author:<br /> </div><br /> <div class='uawlinks'>Want to find out more about <a href='http://www.elase.com/utah/vive-weight-loss'>weight loss Salt Lake City</a>, then visit Esme Spence's site on how to choose this or other services like <a href='http://www.elase.com/utah/lip-augmentation'>lip injections Utah</a> for your needs.</div><br /> </div><br />

Making Changes, Such As Weight Loss Salt Lake City, Can Be Achieved.

By Roxy Albright If you believe that weight loss Salt Lake City is easy, then you have seen one too many infomercials toting the latest ...

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Possible Ways To Start The Weight Loss Salt Lake City Residents Want

<div style='font-style:italic;' class='uawbyline'>By Lucy Cho</div><br /><br /> <div class='uawarticle'>The secret to weight loss Salt Lake City residents have been looking for? It takes some work. There are various products, services, and ideas that may help jump start your process, but it will take you putting in some work. We will discuss various ways you can get yourself in a better space to start your journey to weight loss in Salt Lake City. We'll go over how even getting treatments like lip injections in Utah might help your process! Of course, that won't make you lose weight (in fact, I guess that makes you gain a miniscule bit of weight), but it can contribute to the overall process. More on that later.<br /> <br /> First, we're going to talk about things you can do to jump-start your weight loss in Salt Lake City through exercise and staying active. Next, we'll talk about how making improvements to yourself can put you in the mindset to work toward your goals. Finally, we'll talk about how your diet can help get you going.<br /> <br /> Doctors are frequently telling us that exercise is big part of staying healthy, but many of us find it tough to work exercise into our schedules. There are several ideas which may provide a a way to get going on the weight loss Salt Lake City residents frequently want. Start by looking around you for ideas. For example, if you live in Utah you are almost definitely close to mountains that offer many places to explore. Hiking, biking, and other opportunities to be active aren't too far from home. If you want to stay closer to home, you could obtain a pedometer to keep track of the number of steps you take. Walking more can help you get closer to your goals. Just try to stay busy. Do what you can to keep from being too sedentary.<br /> <br /> So how might getting lip injections Utah cosmetic services can offer help to boost your journey in losing weight? It could possibly be part of putting yourself in a more confident space about your appearance. The more confidence you have in yourself, the more that may contribute to your willingness to work at weight loss. Getting laser hair removal, a new hairdo, or a facial might help you feel better about yourself in general. Feeling better can make you feel more like doing what you need to do to lose weight.<br /> <br /> Naturally, a healthy, well-balance diet is key to contribute to the weight loss Salt Lake City residents are after. You should look seriously at the drinks and food you buy. Consider what should be added and the things that you probably could get less often. Eating right is a great boost for weight loss and may make you feel better in general.<br /> <br /> Getting the jump-start to weight loss Salt Lake City residents are looking for might involve interesting things like getting lip injections Utah spas offer, but more generally it just requires some good ol' hard work.<br /> <br /> </div><br /> <div class='uawresource'><br /> <div style='font-style:italic;' class='uawabout'><br /> About the Author:<br /> </div><br /> <div class='uawlinks'>Want to find out more about <a href='http://www.elase.com/utah/vive-weight-loss'>weight loss Salt Lake City</a>, then visit Esme Spence's site on how to choose this or other services like <a href='http://www.elase.com/utah/lip-augmentation'>lip injections Utah</a> for your needs.</div><br /> </div><br />

Possible Ways To Start The Weight Loss Salt Lake City Residents Want

By Lucy Cho The secret to weight loss Salt Lake City residents have been looking for? It takes some work. There are various products, se...

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Low-wage govt. contract workers strike -- again

About 50 workers at the Reagan Building and the Old Post Office in Washington, D.C., walked off the job today to protest poverty wages and widespread wage theft by federal contractors. Earlier this morning, a group of workers visited the home of Dan Tangherlini, the head of the General Services Administration, which owns the buildings and contracts with the franchisees that do business from them.<br /><br />Josh Eidelson at <a href="http://www.blogger.com/Non-Union%20Federally%20Contracted%20Workers%20Will%20Stage%20Second%20Strike%20Today%20%7C%20The%20Nation%20http://www.thenation.com/blog/175062/non-union-federally-contracted-workers-will-stage-second-strike-today#ixzz2XvKsZQTP">The Nation</a> tells us:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Tangherlini can be seen standing in his doorway, telling the group on his porch, “I’d like to look at the issues that are involved. Obviously we’re interested in trying to find a solution to these problems.” One striker tells Tangeherlini, “We don’t want to, like, steal, you know. We just want what we’re supposed to get.” Tangherlini responds, “I completely understand. All right, take care.”</blockquote>Watch the visit <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkCHerArtis">here</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/07/02/2245171/dc-workers-strike/">ThinkProgress</a> reminds us this is the second time this year the workers tried to pressure the government to demand its contractors treat workers better.<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The earlier strike led to 10 of the workers – who get organizing help from a union-backed group called Good Jobs Nation but do not have a union themselves – being fired, as The Nation’s Josh Eidelson reported at the time. The managers in question ultimately backed off, and the workers returned to their jobs at the Ronald Reagan Building. That building is the focus of a Department of Labor investigation prompted by worker complaints of wage and hour violations.</blockquote><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqVPcbUaG_HGq16mCmLh3jAPc__9xKKCB_u9LS5JwzpweU3W8BwiR-QkVID3h-A9qiYrJI6PldvhRFyFtdmFDBu89TSAyjSZTZ8gEpfn1mED8BEZmfjTo1N3tDAttjwZH0WM-jqzrIQCqO/s960/low-wage+worker+strike_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqVPcbUaG_HGq16mCmLh3jAPc__9xKKCB_u9LS5JwzpweU3W8BwiR-QkVID3h-A9qiYrJI6PldvhRFyFtdmFDBu89TSAyjSZTZ8gEpfn1mED8BEZmfjTo1N3tDAttjwZH0WM-jqzrIQCqO/s320/low-wage+worker+strike_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another worker revolt in DC</td></tr></tbody></table><a href="http://goodjobsnation.org/">Good Jobs Nation</a>, the group working to organize the workers, wants Labor Department to investigate the employers for wage theft and worker harassment. After one three-year employee walked off the job in May, he was held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody for four days and fired by Quick Pita, according to Eidelson. The company claimed he was fired for not preparing a sauce quickly enough.<br /><br /><a href="http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/07/02/second-service-workers-strike-hits-ronald-reagan-building-in-washington/">Ned Resnikoff</a> at MSNBC tells us:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">...Good Jobs Nation has drafted a 16-page complaint addressed to the U.S. Department of Labor, which claims that private contractors within the Reagan Building have repeatedly violated the Fair Labor Standards Act through “payment of wage rates under the federal minimum wage, 60 to 70-hour workweeks without payment of overtime, and use of false or deceptive record-keeping to conceal these violations from employees and public authorities.” </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">On Tuesday morning Good Jobs Nation group personally delivered that complaint to the home of Dan Tangherlini, acting head of the GSA. The GSA, which owns the Reagan Building, took the complaints to the Department of Labor and the Trade Center Management Associates (TMCA), the private company which manages the building, saying it looks forward to the results of the investigation.</blockquote>The federal government<a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/05/federal-govt-has-more-low-wage-workers.html"> employs more low-wage workers than Walmart and McDonald's combined</a>, according to a<a href="http://www.demos.org/publication/underwriting-bad-jobs-how-our-tax-dollars-are-funding-low-wage-work-and-fueling-inequali"> Demos</a> report released in May:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16.890625px;">Hundreds of billions of dollars in federal contracts, grants, loans, concession agreements and property leases go to private companies that pay low wages, provide few benefits, and offer employees little opportunity to work their way into the middle class. At the same time, many of these companies are providing their executives with exorbitant compensation. </span></blockquote>Today's strike is the latest in a wave of job actions by low-wage worker across the country. Last month, Walmart workers went on strike for two weeks and traveled to the company's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters in bus caravans modeled after the freedom riders of the Civil Rights era. <br /><br /><br /></div>

low-wage workers strike Low-wage govt. contract workers strike -- again

About 50 workers at the Reagan Building and the Old Post Office in Washington, D.C., walked off the job today to protest poverty wages and w...

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