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Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Trying not to be "one of those" mothers.
Enter these last few months, where CindyLou chose cheerleading and tumbling (With or without a nudge from her mother? A former cheerleader, who always regretted a lack of formal tumbling training? Ok, probably a little nudge.) Bean chose soccer (pretty much of his own accord, well, that, and the fact that it is pretty much the only organized sport available for boys at age 3). We started out with the best intentions, and really, watching 3 year olds playing soccer is a bit like watching cats being herded on the field. Except, then Bean really started to *get* it, and then he got *really good* (for a three year old). Each game he would score at least a couple of goals, setting his own goal for each game for *at least* five goals per game. Then he achieved that goal, and all of the sudden, Mr. Whoo (assistant coach) felt like he had to take his own son out so other kids had a chance to score. The other parents would ask where or how often we practiced with him (exactly twice, right before the first game and then again right before play-offs), like they were somehow implying that we were driving him to his successes (we were not). It made me uneasy to have that feeling of competitiveness creep anywhere near my sweet 3 year old baby, who was just there to have fun.
Things were no better with CindyLou, sitting behind the glass with the other "gym moms." I did my best to fade into my chair while the other mothers, obviously veterans, systemically analyzed and subsequently ripped apart each girl in the gym, including their own daughters. Despite my best intentions, however, it completely stoked my competitive fire, and made me want to take CindyLou home and drill motions and practice flexibility for hours on end. How dare they judge my babies like that, and, indirectly, how dare they judge *me*? It is a strange new world, the world of competitive extra-curricular activities, where the parents are just as cruel and mean as the kids can be.
Growing up, for me, it wasn't this way. Parents did not hang around at our practices and activities and compare notes. I did tap at 5, piano at 8, softball and cheer in 4th and 5th grade, band (clarinet) in middle school, and cheerleading through middle and high school. Parents were only there for recitals/games. Maybe that made it easier to not be so fiercely competitive. I think this can apply to the academic setting as well, although, to this point, we have had no "real" report cards with As or Bs, just Ms for "meeting criteria." So tell me MiMs, how do you stifle your competitive streak and just keep your cool around other "tiger-like" mothers and fathers? How do we teach our children to be *their* best, without making them feel like they have to be *the* best?
16 comments:
- AnonymousAugust 9, 2011 at 9:52 AM
By defenition "tiger" parenting is NOT pro-sports. If you read Tiger mother book, she specifically and intentionally ignored sports. Parents you describe are narrow-minded people of lower culture levels. I have enough confidence in me to ignore pro-sports culture and intentionally do not enroll my elementary age kids in such activities. They both do karate, very individual achievement activity. In our training style we do not do competitions. I ensure outdoors time for my kids physical fitness, that helps brain development (per research). I seriously doubt a value of cheerleading, I would be worried if I had a daughter who was in this activity. I guess in my mind this can lead to promiscuity in high school. I do not think it is right for super young kids who are just developing their physique to be pushed into any sport. What happened to biking, swimming, running around the playground, creative and social hide-seek, tag, etc. Trust me that's all I did as a child, and I am more fit and strong than most my peers.ReplyDelete
I love sports, and hope that someday when I have kids that they will love sports too, as well as academics. I don't agree at all with the above poster who thinks that cheerleading has no value and could lead to promiscuity(!). I did horseback riding growing up, and loved it and got very good, but completely burned out when I was 16. Then I took up water polo and running. My husband was a competitive swimmer, and was very good! But also burned out when he was 15, and started playing basketball for fun.ReplyDelete
I have NO IDEA how to avoid being riled up by the competit-parenting. I think it's pervasive, not just in sports, but in every single facet of life these days. I'd hate for my own future offspring to burn out like we did, but it seems hard to avoid these days. Such a great question.
- AnonymousAugust 9, 2011 at 10:41 AM
By all means keep your little boy in soccer. It would be so unfair to him to be pulled out. And for other parents?... well its just more fun when you have a good player on the field, even if he is the only one. It is their probelm and they have to deal with it.ReplyDelete
As far as cheerleading? H-m-m, OMDG, I met some parents who would not allow their daughters take on cheerleading. They do not like the idea of their young girls shake their bottoms in front of everyone (dont' t teens involved in football have earlier relationships and more parties?). And reciting Tiger Mother book drums lead to drugs. So, see some have stronger opinions.
Well, I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that not all parents share the same values re: cheerleading or anything else for that matter. I can think they're wrong just as much as they can think I am. Good thing they don't get to dictate my life!ReplyDelete
Anon~ Yes, I know that "real, by *definition*" Tiger mothers are unimpressed with sports. I was using "tiger-like" to draw a parallel from parents who are into coaching their kids to excel in academic/artistic pursuits to those who coach/push their kids to excel in athletic pursuits.ReplyDelete
As for cheerleading leading to promiscuity and "shaking (our) bottoms" (really, as if) for all to see, as I said in the article, *I* was a cheerleader, hardly promiscuous, and, actually felt it kept me well-rounded, athletic, in the correct social circles in high school, and from being a complete school geek (I was also in Student Council, National Honor Society, and a couple of community service clubs). We competed at the state and national levels, and were every bit as much of an athlete as the girls on the softball or basketball teams.
OMDG~ I definitely see the value in sports, both team and individual. Maybe my blue collar middle class is showing :P As for not getting on board the competition train, it's tough. I'm just super competitive about everything. I try my best just to keep my mouth shut. We are adding piano lessons and jazz class for CindyLou this season, at least the piano lessons are private.
Another cheerleader here - NHS, forensics team, show choir, top of the class....cheerleading today is nothing like it is portrayed in movies and television. It is a tough sport that requires much practice and dedication. We were also a competition squad and practiced as a team 4 nights a week. I put in many hours at home in front of my parent's picture window "dance mirror" perfecting form. Parties? yes. Drinking and Drugs? NO. Promiscuity? NO.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousAugust 9, 2011 at 9:55 PM
If cheerleading success is important to you, then the only option seems to accept the parent culture.ReplyDelete
I have no grand illusions about changing the parent culture, just a hope to avoid becoming immersed in it and becoming part of it. The difficult part is that I want to join in to the competition *too* much, and I think that ultimately that would be to my children's detriment.ReplyDelete
My son, at 6, still has his head in the clouds on the soccer field. He told me this year he wants to do tennis (??!!??). Daughter (8) is becoming quite the dancer/performer, but I try to teach her not to take herself too seriously, which makes her even better on the stage.ReplyDelete
As for the other parents? Screw what they have to say, unless it is positive.
I was too gravity-challenged to be a cheerleader, but I was on the pom squad (we were the promiscuous ones - ha ha so kidding) for a couple of years. Enjoyed much. C did one year in cheerleading - she wanted to at 6 and I let her. She learned the dedication to getting a routine down, and it translated nicely to her ballet/jazz/hip-hop/tap she is enjoying now (yes! My 8 year old wears booty shorts to dance class!). I say let kids be who they want to be. Good parents translate good values.
Gizabeth -- Thanks for making me laugh out loud this AM!ReplyDelete
Parents need to realize that kids excel at things or not, largely because they have 1) an opportunity to try something; 2) support (whether they succeed or they fail at it); 3) an inherent talent, or lack thereof for the thing in question; and 4) a drive to practice/compete/excel. We provide the opportunities when we sign them up for these things or pay for them, and we provide the support...hopefully. But the biggest determinant of whether our kid ends up being Hope Solo or Yo Yo Ma will be #3 and #4, and we have little or no control over those. If we stop seeing our kids' soccer goals or cello solos or whatever as feathers in our own caps, it will be a lot easier to avoid becoming "one of those parents". As a mother, I don't want my kids to have "one of those moms", and looking forward, I don't want my kid to turn into one of those parents either.ReplyDelete
Back to your original question...I think it's really hard to stifle that competitive streak. One thing I've noticed is that it's way easier when the kids are doing something that's not near and dear to my heart. For instance, I think team sports are great for kids, and I'm happy to support them. I think my 8-year old daughter is not destined for greatness in them though - she lives in her own lala land, and basically quits paying attention to the soccer ball any time it's not actually touching her cleat. Since I never did team sports myself, however, it doesn't bother me much that she's not super successful. She's getting exercise and having fun - that's good enough for me.ReplyDelete
Different story with academics though. That is VERY important to me - the foundation of my own identity, really, and it always came easily. I find it very difficult that my daughter struggles in that area. Every time a report card comes home I feel like I'm getting punched in the stomach, and I can't sort out why I feel that way - but I know I'm not supposed to. I bet that is much the same for an ex-star baseball player who has an uncoordinated kid. I have some empathy for that less-than ideal face of parenting, though I do think we'd be better if we could all chill out a bit!
Our kids are close in age to yours so I know your fears. But they are not our reality. With soccer, our son also "got it" much quicker than his age-peers and he "plays up" a league. At 3 and 4, it was frustrating to him to play with kids who couldn't remember which was the correct goal so the older league is better. He'd be a star in the younger league, but he's average on his team. He's the youngest by over 6 months, but most people don't know that.ReplyDelete
Our son also dances and we've been told he is quite good. He "dances up" as well, but there is almost no competition because he's the only boy so it's just different. For dance and soccer, we've moved him to a level where he is average by having him with older kids. This wasn't our decision (coaches and dance teachers pretty much made the call), but it has worked out well. He also plays violin (and is the best in his group) and is academically very near the top of his class. So he is the best at these things and more middle of the pack with dance and soccer.
However, if you are really looking for advice, here it is. Don't stay at the practices. Our dance studio is near a great cafe and whichever parent does dance pickup/drop-off gets glorious alone time in the cafe. Soccer is tougher, but you can always bring work to do, even if it's in the car or on a nearby hillside. I realize this is sort of anti-social, but the conversations with the other parents don't sound like much fun anyway.
Giz~ Right! Screw what the other parents have to say! Love it! :)ReplyDelete
Tempeh~ You are the voice of reason, as always. It is hard not to see our children as an extension of ourselves, instead of their own whole person. I need to tell myself this every day.
KGood~ I agree. The closer to our hearts the activity, the more competitive we become. As for the academics, I am totally with you, but so far our system is still giving out Ms (Meeting Goals) or Ps (Progressing Towards Goals). I have no idea how well CindyLou is doing academically. I mean, I know she can read and writes above grade level, and her math is good, but it's not graded on the same scale. Once she gets further along in school, I'm sure I'll be contending with those feelings, as well.
sew~ Yes, advice is that for which I am asking!! "Playing up" a league may be a good option for Bean next year, he just turned 4 and the league in which he currently plays is 3,4, and 5 year olds. Unfortunately, he is also small for his age, so he tends to be one of the smaller guys on the field, which makes me nervous to move him up with even bigger kids. Bean doesn't practice, but I will go to his games. Can't avoid the parents there. As for not staying at CindyLou's practices, good advice, I would love this... except she asks that I be there to watch. I do *not* engage with the veteran gym moms. I usually bring a book or play Angry Birds, but can't help but overhear them nonetheless. Perhaps earplugs are in order? :)
- LauraFPAugust 15, 2011 at 1:09 PM
Wow, someone has a big hangup about cheerleaders! My daughter wanted to do cheer this year and the only qualm I had about it was the expense compared to the soccer and lacrosse that she had done previously. I was never a cheerleader but at my school but my impression was that they were less "promiscuous", maybe because if anything they seemed more concerned about what parents/teachers/other kids thought of them. On topic, I think as long as your kid is happy in whatever activity they are doing then that's all that really matters. It's sad the way some people live through their kids, you have to have incredibly low self esteem to go around tearing down other people, especially a kid.ReplyDelete
Dear Dr. Whoo,ReplyDelete
It's a great pleasure to read your blog. I find your post very informative. Thank you for sharing your insights.
As a reader, I consider your writing to be a great example of a quality and globally competitive output. It would be a great thrill and honor if you could share your genuine ideas and knowledge to our community, Physician Nexus. With this you can gain 1000 physician readers from over 62 countries on Nexus.
We would love for you to visit our community. It's free, takes seconds, and is designed for physicians only - completely free of industry bias and commercial interests.
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On behalf of the Physician Nexus Team


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Funnyman Darrell Hammond's backstage struggles were anything but a laugh, the comedian reveals in his new book "God, If You're Not Up There, I'm F****d."
Hammond says that a traumatic childhood led him to drink heavily, which then led to imbibing harder and harder substances before eventually smoking crack during his 14th season as a "Saturday Night Live" cast member.
"I kept a pint of Remy in my desk at work," Hammond says in the book. "The drinking calmed my nerves and quieted the disturbing images that sprang into my head. When drinking didn't work, I cut myself."
U.S. & World
News from around the country and around the globe
Hammond goes on to say that once, following a drinking binge, police took him to the NBC infirmary in a straitjacket, and that the actor was unable to identify his wife.
The comedian, who famously parodied Bill Clinton during his SNL years, says that for a while his cocaine use was relatively controlled.
"I had to be creative about how I did it without other people catching on or letting it interfere with the work. At least too much," he says.
Hammond, who currently works alongside fellow SNL alum Will Ferrell on the web site Funny or Die, rose to prominence for his hilarious impressions of Clinton, Sean Connery, Al Gore, and Chris Matthews.
The book will be available November 8th.
Selected Reading: New York Post, Huffington Post, NY Magazine


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PASO PARTY: You know how after a major trip you just don't feel like doing much? You can barely get to your normal errands and chores, and you would never think of turning around and hosting a full-on affair. Not right away at least. It turns out Paso Robles does not think this way. A lot of the area winemakers hit the road in February to talk about what's growing in the Central Coast burg, and now they're turning right around and hosting full-scale, full-bodied the Paso Robles Zinfandel Festival.
MARCH 18-20: The three-day sip-and-talk fest will be happening at several Paso-based and Paso-close vineyards. And the creator of "Sideways" -- Rex Pickett is his name -- will be around town to discuss his new book, which follows the guys of that wine-loving world on a new road trip. Get details and times on all the zin-y goings-down.


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Tuesday, March 16, 2010
The Color Of Hope
14 comments:
- Nancy said...
So beautiful. I'll never look at green the same. Thanks for spreading Hope!
- March 16, 2010 at 6:49 PM
- KK said...
Your posts are so beautiful, Sweet Sibi!
- March 16, 2010 at 6:53 PM
- lizziefitz said...
Amen. I remember one time Oprah said that New leaf green is her favorite color. Crayola ignored her and gave her a color purple crayon. Anywho... I love the color green and I love when details are paid attention to for others. I will call you tomorrow:)
- March 16, 2010 at 6:54 PM
- LeeAnn@Encouragement Is Contagious said...
Ahhh, it is so good to see green! I'm thankful for God's new beginnings.
- March 16, 2010 at 7:27 PM
- The Little Red Shop said...
Mmm...cucumber sandwiches and chocolate bunnies...
God is so good!! (my kitty is on my lap and just added the second exclamation point : )
Happy Saint Patrick's Day,
: )
Julie M.
- March 16, 2010 at 7:46 PM
- Katie said...
Beautiful! I can't wait to notice all the green this spring season...I'll be thinking of HOPE!!
- March 16, 2010 at 8:16 PM
- Susan R said...
My favorite color. Well, particularly green and pink together. Have a blessed day.
- March 16, 2010 at 8:18 PM
- Jennifer said...
Whew! That was beautiful.....
- March 16, 2010 at 10:02 PM
- Henley on the Horn said...
What a beautiful post. Every picture was more beautiful than the next!
- March 16, 2010 at 11:12 PM
- nest of posies said...
love those pictures mrs. P&G!
i'll be dreaming some sweet dreams over them.
can't wait for those sprouts. i was needing & still needing the sun to come out today.
this post gave me alot of SONshine hope! thank you my sweet friend!
- March 16, 2010 at 11:27 PM
- Sherrie said...
Beautiful photos!
- March 16, 2010 at 11:34 PM
- Charity said...
I love spring, it always reminds me of how I have a new begining and all my sins are wash away. I am worth of His love because of what He did, I can spring up and bask in His love and not wither and hide under leaves of shame.
This post is beautiful, the pictures and your heart felt words.
Have a Beautiful Day
Cha Cha
- March 17, 2010 at 6:16 AM
- Lori said...
Love HOPE, LOVE green!
Thinking of you....
- March 17, 2010 at 11:48 AM
- nest of posies said...
and btw.....
don't think i didn't notice that you changed some of your font color to GREEN.
ok. just wanted to say i noticed. i love it!
- March 17, 2010 at 2:22 PM


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TSA Behavioral Screening
Behavioral screening is a useful tool in deterring and preventing terrorist attacks. As I noted in this piece at Politico, a border patrol agent successfully used behavioral screening to stop the would‐be Millennium Bomber. She noticed something "hinky" about a man driving south across the Canadian border. That "hinky" – fidgety and nervous behavior when asked routine customs questions – exposed a car full of explosives intended for the passenger terminal of Los Angeles International Airport.
Two items from the USA Today travel section highlight some mixed results with TSA behavioral screening. Today's edition reports that behavioral screening, applied by Behavioral Detection Officers (BDOs) missed at least 16 people later linked to terror plots. On the other side of the equation, false positives can impose burdens on those who are nervous or upset for reasons other than terrorism aspirations.
The TSA Blog defended the program: "If you're one of those travelers that gets frazzled easily (not hard to do at airports), you have no reason to worry. BDOs set a baseline based on the normal airport behavior and look for behaviors that go above that baseline. So if you're stressing about missing a flight, that's not a guaranteed visit from the BDOs."
That would be reassuring if yesterday's travel section hadn't revealed that TSA screeners are keeping a list of those who get upset at intrusive screening procedures. "Airline passengers who get frustrated and kick a wall, throw a suitcase or make a pithy comment to a screener could find themselves in a little‐known Homeland Security database."
Of course, we can take comfort from the words of a TSA screener to security expert Bruce Schneier. "This isn't the sort of job that rewards competence, you know."


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Commercial gifting, redemption of QR codes and social gifting is a trend taking soaring importance in the e-commerce industry today. Social gifting apps such as Wrapp, being just over a year old, are expanding across territories in exponential fashion. Apparently Apple Inc. has been inspired by this concept too. At WWDC in June 2012, Apple Inc. announced the "Passbook", an app which aims to act as the future digital wallet. It stores passes such as movie tickets and boarding passes at a single destination, thereby making life easier for consumers who are so digitally savvy.
The "Passbook" was not considered to be something totally new or innovative. Nevertheless, given that Apple has a cult-like fan base, the Passbook will shape out be a sublimely hot app. It will attract plenty of consumer attention and will penetrate into the mainstream quickly. Apple has often been criticized for keeping their information and property proprietary but the Passbook is prone to give dividend.
Motivated by the announcement of Passbook, JTribe Labs returned from WWDC with the aim to make the Passbook available to everyone. As a result, they developed the app "PassRocket" earlier this month. It is an app which operates on iOS 6, the new operating system announced by Apple a few days ago. "With PassRocket, retailers, businesses and cafes can design their own Loyalty 'Pass' and share it with their customers instantly with Twitter, Facebook or email. PassRocket then scans customers' passes every time they visit. The designer app comes with a great range of themed passes that have been beautifully designed. Customizing the pass can occur right within the app itself and be immediately available to customers. Businesses can create a loyalty card where they trade. Within seconds, a business can have an instant campaign and share it with their customers."
For example, JTribes portrays the "Taco Truck Scenario". Taco Truck looks to keep building a tribe of loyal customers as it does its weekly city route. As a small business, 'Taco Truck's' marketing activities are constrained by time and money. Taco Truck downloads PassRocket. Within minutes, they select their pass theme, customize with the Taco Truck name, the number of visits and discount, or in this case, 'a free taco'. Taco Truck receives a short link to share with their customers via Twitter, Facebook and email. They are now ready to scan customers' passes. It's taken two minutes and they have done all this from the Taco Truck. Their first customer Sam, visits the Taco Truck, opens the link on their phone and presents the Taco Truck pass in their Passbook app. Sam buys a Taco and the PassRocket scanner, scans the pass. Four more tacos and Sam has a free one.
An overview of how the app operates from the consumer perspective can be seen in the clip below:
The future potential of PassRocket will be partly influenced by what is released with the Passbook app. For now, jTribe Labs want PassRocket to be the solution that makes Passbook available to everyone, for free.


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February 13, 2008 by Lifepainter
I'm late (as usual) getting Christmas and Birthday gifts out to my kids and grandchildren. There is my son, who also has a birthday two days before Christmas; my two grandddaughters who were born in a set 2 months apart and turned Sweet 16 this year in November and in December; my two daughters and my two sets of two grandchildren in age sets of 7-8 yrs old and 2-3 yrs old.
Well, I did get the gifts to my husband, mother and step-daughter timely – before Christmas. But the delay in getting out the gifts to my kids and grandchildren took me into February. I really had wanted to do some homemade craft type gifts this year along with purchased gifts. It took me a bit to get all the handcrafts done and I finally got all the gifts wrapped, packaged up and into the mail by this week, Feb 10. My daughter's birthday Feb 13, and the packages for her family arrived today – just in time for her birthday. Woo Hoo.


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Title 16 → Chapter II → Subchapter A → Part 1014 → §1014.4
Title 16: Commercial Practices
The following proof of identity is required for requests for records made pursuant to §1014.3:
(a) An individual seeking a record about himself or herself in person may establish his or her identity by the presentation of a single document bearing a photograph (such as a passport or driver's license) or by a presentation of two items of identification which do not bear a photograph but do bear both a name and address. An individual who cannot provide documentation of his or her identity may provide a written statement affirming his or her identity and the fact that he or she understands the penalties for making false statements (18 U.S.C. 1001 and 5 U.S.C. 552a(i)(3)).
(b) An individual seeking a record by mail shall include a statement signed by the individual and properly notarized, that he or she appeared before a notary public and submitted proof of identity acceptable to the notary public.
(c) Requests made by an agent, parent, or guardian shall, in addition to establishing the identity of the minor or other person he or she represents as required by paragraphs (a) and (b), establish his or her agency, parentage, or guardianship by documentation.
(d) In any case in which the Commission determines that the proof of identity is not adequate, it may request the individual to submit additional proof of identity.


text: If you have a link of 2 components $U$ and $V$ in $S^3$. $U$ is the unknot, and you make $1/q$ dehn filling in $U$, you can visualize the resulting knot $V'$ from $V$, by twisting it $q$ times along a disc bounding $U$. How can I visualize $p/q$ dehn filling?. I mean, in that case after you do the filling you end up with a knot in the lens space $L(p,q)$, what knot $V'$ do you get in the universal covering $S^3$?


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Wednesday morning a document was leaked that reveals President Obama's plans to surrender American sovereignty to international tribunals. This is one of several frightening provisions of the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (also known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP) being negotiated in secret by American trade representatives.
In the now-public document, as part of its membership in the TPP, the United States would agree to exempt foreign corporations from our laws and regulations, placing the resolution of any disputes as to the applicability of those matters to foreign business in the hands of an international arbitration tribunal overseen by the Secretary General of the United Nations.
The leaked information confirms the fears of many who have opposed this trade agreement from the beginning. Several groups from the Left and the Right have decried the shroud of secrecy covering the TPP negotiations and are now vindicated by Wednesday's revelations.
One of these valiant organizations defending the sovereignty of the United States is Americans for Limited Government (ALG). On Thursday, ALG released a statement drawing attention to the leaked TPP agreement, as well as ably pointing out some of the most noxious aspects of it.
These new trade agreements will place domestic U.S. firms that do not do business overseas at a competitive disadvantage. Based on these leaked documents, foreign firms under this trade pact could conceivably appeal federal regulatory and court rulings against them to an international tribunal with the apparent authority to overrule our sovereignty. If foreign companies want to do business in America, they should have to follow the same rules as everyone else. No special favors.
It is telling that the only apparent way these Pacific nations will enter a free trade agreement with the U.S. is if they are exempt from our onerous environmental and financial regulations that make it cost-ineffective to do business here. Instead of making these foreign firms exempt from these burdensome rules, they should just repeal the regulations and make it cheaper to do business here.
This poses an even wider problem, though. Obama is negotiating a trade pact that would constitute a judicial authority higher than even the U.S. Supreme Court that could overrule federal court rulings applying U.S. law to foreign companies. That is unconstitutional. The U.S. cannot be allowed to enter a treaty that would abrogate our Constitution.
It is telling that the only apparent way these Pacific nations will enter a free trade agreement with the U.S. is if they are exempt from our onerous environmental and financial regulations that make it cost-ineffective to do business here. Instead of making these foreign firms exempt from these burdensome rules, they should just repeal the regulations and make it cheaper to do business here.
This poses an even wider problem, though. Obama is negotiating a trade pact that would constitute a judicial authority higher than even the U.S. Supreme Court that could overrule federal court rulings applying U.S. law to foreign companies. That is unconstitutional. The U.S. cannot be allowed to enter a treaty that would abrogate our Constitution.
This tribunal needs to be removed from this agreement, and no foreign company doing business on our soil should have a competitive advantage, created by some dumb agreement, over American companies. What is Obama thinking? He is placing international organizations above the interests of our own country. [Emphases in original.]
In an interview with The New American, ALG President Bill Wilson further explained what Americans have to fear should the United States enter the TPP and why the negotiations have been conducted in secret:
"These trade pacts starting with NAFTA and before [GATT], strike at the heart of national sovereignty, ours and that of the other member nations," Wilson warned. "At their core they diminish the prerogatives and powers of a specific country and surrender them to international bodies or corporations."
"As for the secrecy, if folks on the ground find out what's going on ahead of time, they might get upset. We tend to think of populations of the Asian nations as being more compliant, but they are not. If they thought for a minute that American corporations could ignore their local laws and customs, they'd be angry, so the multinational corporations that are pushing this thing have to do so in secret," he continued.
Wilson also recognizes another problem for the internationalists in the provenance of the leaked document. The information revealed in the portion of the proposed agreement leaked on Wednesday was posted by Public Citizen, a Texas-based consumer rights advocacy group founded by Ralph Nader — hardly a member of the right-wing conspiracy. Wilson sees this as instructive.
"There is a great coming together of the minds here," Wilson said. "The Left doesn't want an international tribunal coming in and doing away with their environmental regulations and we conservatives don't want anything destroying our sovereignty and independence. That is a powerful confluence of interests and that's why they [the international corporations] want to keep it secret."
Wilson's identification of large corporate interests as being the engine that is driving this vehicle for the eradication of American sovereignty is borne out by the experience of some of our own elected officials who have tried to pierce the veil of secrecy protecting the TPP negotiations.
Zach Carter of the Huffington Post reports that Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee's subcommittee on International Trade, Customs and Global Competitiveness, was stonewalled by the Office of U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) when he attempted to see any of the draft documents related to the governance of the TPP.
In response to this rebuff, Wyden proposed a measure in the Senate that would force transparency on the process and that was enough to convince the USTR to grant the Senator a peek at the documents, though his staff was not permitted to peruse them.
Wyden spokeswoman Jennifer Hoelzer told HuffPost that such accommodations were "better than nothing" but not ideal in light of the well-known fact that on Capitol Hill the real work of drafting and evaluating legislation is performed by the representatives' staff members who are often experts in particular areas of domestic and foreign policy.
"I would point out how insulting it is for them to argue that members of Congress are to personally go over to USTR to view the trade documents," Hoelzer said. "An advisor at Halliburton or the MPAA is given a password that allows him or her to go on the USTR website and view the TPP agreement anytime he or she wants."
That's right. A duly elected Senator of the United States has to beg and plead and threaten legislation in order to see the TPP trade agreement negotiations, but corporate interests are given by a password by the USTR that grants them a priori access to those same documents.
U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) issued a statement criticizing the Obama administration for the lack of oversight into an agreement with devastating potential.
After more than a decade of broken promises from NAFTA, CAFTA, and normalized trade relations with China, we can now add a credibility deficit to the trade deficits we've seen. The leaked documents surfacing today only underscore the secrecy surrounding TPP negotiations and confirm worst suspicions about the direction trade negotiations are heading. It's telling that it is easier for the CEO of a major corporation to access information about the negotiations than the American people's elected representatives. The negotiations must involve more transparency and bring more voices to the table.
ALG's Bill Wilson perceives real harm in the USTR's grant of such a powerful corporate prerogative.
"We are elevating private businesses up to the level of sovereign governments," Wilson said. "Under NAFTA we gave companies the power to sue governments and the TPP does this as well. In this trade pact, we agree that our government can be sued by these foreign corporations who will be treated as sovereign nations. This is submerging the idea of sovereignty into a sea of regulatory bodies and international agencies and our freedom is drowning it it."
"It is self-evident that the erosion of the right of citizens to control their own lives is progressing at a rate that we are little more than wage slaves to an oppressive government and its cadre of corporate backers that consider our lives and our liberties of little or no consequence," he stated.
When it comes to TPP and its surreptitious assault on freedom, Bill Wilson hit the nail squarely on the head. Unfortunately, if the American people do not rise up in firm opposition to TPP and other globalist ventures, it may be the final nail in the coffin containing the remains of our sovereignty.
Photo: President Barack Obama, third right, stands with Prime Minister Julia Gillard of Australia, left, President Sebastian Pinera of Chile, second left, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore, third left, Prime Minister John Key of New Zealand, second right, and Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei, right, as they take part in the Trans-Pacific Partnership meeting at the APEC summit in Yokohama, Japan, Nov. 14, 2011.: AP Images


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Summer's Cool Music Course – 28th July – 2nd August 2019 - All Hallows School
* Directed by Andrew Mock
* Fantastic wide variety of activities, from orchestra to choir and swimming to bowling.
* Day and residential places available for 8-16 year olds and we are able to cater for a wide range of abilities from grade 1-8 as much of the music is written and arranged specifically for the course.
* Previously organised in a number of venues all over the country since 1985 and now settled in beautiful somerset countryside at All Hallows School
* A small family-run course with a fantastic team of staff who are also music teachers/ heads of music in their 'day job'!
Older children help younger ones, and in turn have a great experience both socially and musically.
* This is a wonderful opportunity for your child(ren) to learn even more about music, whilst making friends and having fun in the process! We build on techniques learnt in their instrumental lessons and aim to inspire playing through the summer holidays and beyond.
Please see our website for more details and don't hesitate to get in touch with any questions.


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VIDEO DOWNLOAD - Pro Wrestling Guerrilla All Star Weekend Night 2
Incredible night of action. Praised by Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer as probably the single best weekend of wrestling anywhere in the world!
- Elimination Match: Ricky Reyes vs. Puma vs. Davey Richards vs. Ronin
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- PWG Title: Super Dragon vs. AJ Styles
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Special Report: Paying for college
College costs are on the rise and don't seem to be slowing, but is that deterring people in Maine from seeking a higher education?
Part of the problem many Maine colleges and universities face has to do with demographics. There are not as many 18-year-olds was there were 20 years ago, and there are fewer resources and stiffer competition when it comes to education beyond high schools
Click here to see what it costs to attend Maine's colleges.
Experts News 8 WMTW spoke with said students shouldn't let the sticker shock of college scare them out of a degree.
Ben Hartford said he is cutting corners where he can so he can earn his degree.
"It's extremely frustrating, but it's kind of the reality you have to face when you're trying to make it in the educated world," said Hartford.
He is attending Southern Maine Community College to get his core classes out of the way and then plans to transfer to a four-year college and later law school.
Hartford's approach is not a unique one, according to Maine Community College Systems President John Fitzsimmons.
He said with higher education costing more every year, community colleges know their lower price tag is part of their appeal.
"The four-year colleges over the last 5 years have increased by 36 percent. The average two-year colleges have increased by 27 percent, and we have increased by only 7 percent. We're very proud of that, but there's a reason we do that," said Fitzsimmons.
Fitzsimmons said keeping costs low hasn't been easy, but said it's a necessity when many of his students will drop out if the cost of a class rises by even $5.
"Maine incomes are the lowest in New England, so we've kept a promise, and that's our tuition will be the lowest in New England," said Fitzsimmons.
At the University of Southern Maine, students there said scholarships help with the high cost of higher education and seemed to be willing to pay because of the benefits of a degree.
With the price to attend USM about 75 percent higher than it was 10 years ago, the school has seen a drop in enrollment.
"I think it's the sticker price. I think it's the demographics. It may be just lack of general awareness of the financial benefits of urging a college degree, even an associates degree or bachelors degree," said USM spokesman Bob Caswell.
Caswell said demand and inflation have increased the cost of college.
He also said budget cuts mean colleges have smaller staffs and fewer resources, but at the same time more students are applying and enrolling.
Click here for resources on how to help pay for college.


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• psephology •
see-fah-lê-jee • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun, mass
Meaning: The study of elections and election polling, usually a subfield of sociology.
Notes: For all the political talk shows and articles in the US we rarely hear or read this word. It comes with a full panoply of derived forms: psephological is the adjective, psephologically, the adverb, and a practitioner of this science is a psephologist.
In Play: We should hear more comments like this: "Before tossing his hat into the political ring, Corry Publican talked to several psephologists about the latest psephological forecasts." If talk show hosts should ever turn to experts for their opinions, we will hear them saying things like this: "After losing three runs for Congress, Jerry Mandor decided to retire and teach psephology at the local college."
Word History: Today's Good Word gives us a glimpse into the history of voting. Like ballot, which comes from an Italian word meaning "a little ball", today's word is made up of Greek psephos "pebble, ballot" + log-os "word, idea, thought" + the English noun suffix -y. The Greek word for "pebble" came to mean "vote, ballot" from the use of pebbles in voting in ancient Greece. Greek psephos came from the same original root that emerged in Latin as sabulum "sand" and in the Germanic languages as German Sand and English sand. (Any psephologist worth his salt would tell you that Luciano de Oliveira has earned two votes of thanks: one for suggesting today's Good Word and another for serving years as an editor of this series.
P.S. - Register for the Daily Good Word E-Mail! - You can get our daily Good Word sent directly to you via e-mail in either HTML or Text format. Go to our Registration Page to sign up today!
Come visit our website at <http://www.alphadictionary.com> for more Good Words and other language resources!


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A struggling waitress in Tennessee got a reprieve from her mounting bills in the nick of time from generous strangers who left her a $1,075 tip.
Knoxville waitress Khadijah Muhammad's fateful bill was one for just $29.30, for a small meal she served to a couple and their young son on Jan. 22 — the same day she had received a disconnection notice from her local utility for not having paid her bill, Knoxville's NBC affiliate WBIR reported.
"They really did not stand out. They were just nice folks," Muhammad recalled of the generous couple she served at Cheddar's recently, along with their young child.
U.S. & World
Stories that affect your life across the U.S. and around the world.
"I remember talking to them and having a friendly conversation like you would with a neighbor. The father ordered a country steak. The mother and son split a fish taco. They split it. They were really humble people," she told WBIR.
When she came to the table at the end of the family's meal to pick up their check, she found the receipt turned upside down.
"Normally as a server, when a receipt is turned upside down it means you did not get a good tip or any tip. Or people will leave a nasty note about how you messed something up with their service. I remember thinking, 'I wonder what I did wrong.' Then I picked it up and I just was in shock," Muhammad said.
As it turned out, she hadn't done anything wrong.
"I just remember seeing a comma after the one and knew it wasn't $10. And I was like, 'Oh, my God!' And I just lost my balance and I was like, 'Does this say a thousand dollars?' I could not believe it," she told WBIR.
The tip came accompanied by a note explaining the family's generosity: "Jesus has blessed us & we were led to give it to you! God bless!"
Muhammad was especially touched by the gesture because it came just as she was struggling to pay her bills, after having had to take time off work to visit her mother, who had suffered a heart attack, she said.
And Muhammad, who spends much of her time serving food to homeless people when not waitressing, told the station she was humbled by the generous tip and intended to show the same kind of selflessness to somebody else.
"I'm humbled. I'm grateful. I do believe that God led you to me at this time in my life," she said of her tippers. "I hope and pray that someday I'm able to do this for somebody. And at the first opportunity I will do it."


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COVID 19 UPDATE: We are pleased to announce that all 15 PMT Stores across the UK are Covid Secure and are now open. MORE INFO.
Ibanez have been producing guitars and stringed instruments since 1908, and they are made across Japan, China, Indonesia and in the United States. Renowned for their speed and precision, Ibanez guitars have a unique style and character that sets them apart from other major Guitar manufacturers.
Ibanez Guitars are all about performance, sleek hardware, fast necks and using precision engineering to bring it all together. Since they introduced the RG series in the 80's, their mission has been clear; To make the best guitars that please the most demanding and technically gifted players.
Ibanez Guitars are a top choice for hard rock guitarists like Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and Herman Li, many of them adopting the 7 string models that Ibanez helped bring to the forefront.
Jazz guitarists such as Pat Metheny and George Benson love them too, particularly the Ibanez Semi-Acoustic / Jazz ranges - in fact there's even a George Benson Signature series guitar that we have for sale here at PMT in a variety of finishes.
Jazz guitarists can find the Ibanez Artcore series is particularly suited to them. The Artcore series are hollow bodied and the perfect instrument for players of any skill level that is into the jazzier genre. With their solid build and great sustain, they have a reputation for being extremely reliable and holding their tune for long periods of time.
The Ibanez Iron Label series is based on the RG and S series, and contains a multitude of different styles of guitar.
Fancy a 7 or even an 8-string guitar? The Iron Label series can provide both of these, as well as having a built in on-board kill switch, meaning you can do manual external effects without having to use an effects pedal. And yes, they do "Djent".
Ibanez are most renowned for their metal guitars. The Iron Label models as well as the signature models are world famous shredding tools used by a large majority of famous musicians. They provide intense face-blasting tone and heaps of sustain as well as a neck and fretboard build for fast playing.
If it's good enough for musicians pushing at the boundaries of their technical ability, then it should be good enough for us mere mortals right? Thankfully Ibanez are also pretty good at keeping things affordable, with even Premium models cheap enough for the committed guitarist. There's no frivolous aged bodies or vintage recreations here, every penny spent on an Ibanez goes towards making it the best guitar it can be.
Ibanez Acoustic Guitars represent great value for money too. Fitted with electronics to for use on stage but with a mellow tone that suits recording as well. From the jazzy Artcore series to the solo shredding metal Iron Labels, Ibanez guitars are suited to all sorts of genres and play styles.
As one of the UK's largest Ibanez guitar stockists, and also Ibanez Prestige Dealer, here at PMT we have a large number of Ibanez Guitars and Basses for you to peruse through. If you see once you like on our website, and it happens to be in stock at a store near you, then get in touch with the store and request a demonstration with one of our product experts - they're always more than happy to help out.


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Boston: Asian Street Food from Fugu Truck
A weekly profile on a favorite New England dish.
I like to think that Bing Liu and I had a symbiotic goal for Boston street food. He wanted to serve the dishes he grew up eating in China, I wanted to eat them. Perfect.
Fugu, his bright blue truck based out of Malden, was born this past spring after Liu wrapped up stints working in France and at a couple Michelin-starred restaurants in New York and rallied some college buddies to go into business with him. What came of their creative thinking (and successful Kickstarter campaign) was a menu of noodles, buns, fresh rolls, and rice-based preparations that rotates regularly. I have yet to try a dud dish, and some plates made me downright weak in the knees (I'm looking at you, chewy, smoky grilled rice cakes). Here's the 4-1-1 on a handful of their mainstays (which, regrettably, doesn't include a few of my favorites—namely, those grilled rice cakes and the coconut rice pudding with fresh mango, both of which seem to be hard-to-come-by specials):
Their sesame noodles ($7) bear no relation to the usual gluey or, worse, grease-slicked versions that put me off of this dish before. The springy wheat strands are lightly coated with a roast-y, creamy-textured sesame paste that's mixed with chile oil. That combination, plus the crispy bits of pork (or chicken), might be cloying if it weren't for the mellow heat and the abundance of julienned cucumbers and carrots and cilantro leaves that make it feel more like a light summer salad.
A truck that serves braised pork belly buns ($6) isn't newsworthy, but this particular sandwich bread, if you will, is delicate and fluffy—a distant relative of most tough, chewy steamed buns. The pork itself is about average, even a little on the dry side, but the bean sauce nails the sweet-savory balance.
If you can get past the idea that this bibimbap ($8) isn't the ok dol variety and, therefore, lacks the crusty base that a stone bowl delivers, this is a great option. Lightly sticky rice topped with sweet-spicy shredded beef, barely cooked broccoli, really tasty kimchi and pickled onion, a perfectly hard-cooked egg half, bean sprouts, and sesame seeds add up to a lighter take on this wintertime staple.
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


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The Orphan Works Act of 2008 was passed by the Senate last week, but the House failed to take action before taking off for a couple of days, and the bill may be dead until after the fall election. The bill would have loosened restrictions on using copyright-protected works that have been abandoned by their creators. It has faced strong opposition from copyright holders who fear it could create loopholes that would insulate perpetrators of commercial copyright infringement.
The Senate passed the bill after making changes intended to clarify the language and provide a higher level of specificity. The House version of the bill states that individuals are entitled to make use of a work after conducting a "diligent search" for the copyright holder. That aspect of the bill generated controversy and was regarded by some in the content industry as excessively vague. Critics were concerned that the copyright office, which would ultimately have the task of interpreting the legislation and defining the standards for diligence, would be unable to devise consistent requirements.
The final version of the bill included an expanded definition of "diligent search" that instructs users to seek expert assistance and look in Internet databases and Copyright Office records to try to ascertain the rights-holder before using a work without permission. Specifically, users must first search the relevant Copyright Office records, search for the owner in "reasonably available" sources of information, use technology and printed publications, and search various databases, including those available online.
In fact, the bill specifies that these guidelines are merely minimums, and as pointed out by Public Knowledge, it also asks the Copyright Office to take into account comments from the Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy in order to determine best practices. This was added, no doubt, in order to quell critics' fears that the Copyright Office was not well-equipped to handle the job entirely on its own.
Unfortunately, after the Senate passed its version of the bill, it was sent to the House just as all hell broke loose over the current economic situation in the US, leaving it lost in the fallout from the failed attempt to pass the $700 billion bailout bill. As a result, lobbyists have apparently told Wired that the House isn't likely to take up the Orphan Works Act until after the November election.


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Diabloii.Net Member
658 rushing yards in one game, still no record!
Anyone else see the huge problem here?DELBARTON, W.Va. (AP) -- Paul McCoy ran for 658 yards in a high school football game and, believe it or not, may not have set a national record with his feat.
The total tops the National Federation of State High School Association's listed record of 619 yards set by Ronney Jenkins of Oxnard, Calif., in 1995. But high school records historian Doug Huff said Saturday the recognized record is 739 yards by John Giannantonio of Netcong, N.J., in 1950, against Mountain Lakes.
McCoy piled up his yardage on just 29 carries -- an average of 22.7 yards per attempt -- and scored 10 touchdowns as Matewan beat Burch 64-0 on Friday. McCoy racked up 477 of his yards scoring on TD runs of runs, which covered 69, 1, 52, 56, 52, 20, 31, 84, 87 and 25 yards.
He also had a 77-yard TD run called back because of a penalty.
"The National Federation book for some reason does not include that (the 739 yards), and I think the reason is there's a formal process for submitting those things," Huff said Saturday. "This school doesn't exist anymore. The papers recognized it. The school had a special ceremony. It's been in my records for years."
McCoy did set a state record with his 658 yards, and his 10 TDs would tie him with two others for the second most nationally. The record is 12, set by Ken Pearson of Hugo, Colo., in 1930.
McCoy, averaging 345 yards per game, has 1,723 yards and 26 touchdowns this season.


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Dreyer & Reinbold INFINITI carries an impressive selection of new and pre-owned cars, crossovers and SUVs in Indianapolis. No matter what vehicle you might have in mind, we've got the perfect fit for you. If you're looking to lease your next INFINITI, at Dreyer & Reinbold INFINITI, we have competitive lease specials on new INFINITI vehicles. Dreyer & Reinbold INFINITI also has an extensive collection of quality pre-owned and certified vehicles at affordable prices. Whether you're looking for new or pre-owned, Dreyer & Reinbold INFINITI is your trusted dealership in Indianapolis. We look forward to seeing you soon.
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Best friends and high school sophomores Skylar Neese, Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf were inseparable.
Living in Morgantown, West Virginia, the then-16-year-olds were pretty and sociable, taking selfies and spending time together. Shown here in this Facebook photo together is Neese on the right, Eddy on the left, and Shoaf in the middle.
But everything changed on July 6, 2012, when Neese's parents discovered she was missing. Six months later, Shoaf told authorities that she and Eddy had stabbed their best friend Neese to death.
Watch the full story on ABC News' "20/20" on Friday, July 18 at 10 P.M. ET
Shocking Tweets from Skylar Neese's Killer After She Stabbed Her to Death
In a look back at how a friendship ended in murder, here is a timeline of events leading up to and after Skylar Neese's death.
At 16, Skyler Neese was thriving, according to her parents. Neese had a 4.0 grade point average, a part-time job at a fast food restaurant and an active social life.
She was Dave and Mary Neese's only child.
"Skylar was a very bubbly person," Dave Neese told ABC News' "20/20." "She was also very loyal to her friends, the people she thought was her friends."
Skylar Neese met her best friend Shelia Eddy at age 8.
"She was like a part of our family. She really was," Dave Neese said. "I mean, just like one of our kids."
While entering her freshman year in high school in September 2010, Eddy met Rachel Shoaf. The next month Eddy transferred to the same high school as Skylar Neese, and Shoaf also soon became friends with Skylar Neese.
Before long the three teens began to argue among themselves.
On July 5, 2012, Skylar Neese went home after finishing a shift at work.
The next morning, her dad said he discovered that she didn't sleep in her bed. He later found her window screen in her closet and a hidden bench that she could use to climb in and out of her window.
"Then I knew: she snuck out last night," Dave Neese said. "And then, oh my god, she snuck out last night, and she's not home."
That same day, after Skylar Neese missed work for the first time ever, her parents called police to report her missing. Star City, West Virginia, police officer Bob McCauley responded to the 911 call and began investigating Skylar Neese's disappearance.
Later that day, Sheila Eddy called Skylar Neese's parents to tell them what had happened the night before.
"She proceeded to tell me that her, Skylar, and Rachel had snuck out the night before and that they had driven around Star City, were getting high, and that the two girls had dropped her back off at the house," Mary Neese told "20/20." "The story was they had dropped her off at the end of the road, because she didn't want to wake us up sneaking back in."
Eddy said she and Rachel Shoaf had picked up Skylar Neese at around 11 P.M. and dropped her back off at home before midnight.
On the Neese's apartment's surveillance camera, a car is seen pulling up to the apartment at 12:30 A.M.
At 12:35 A.M., the grainy video shows Skylar Neese sneaking out of her room and slipping into the car, which drives away.
"I was scared to death. I mean I didn't know where my baby was. It was horrible," said Dave Neese.
On July 7, 2012, Shelia Eddy and her mom helped Skylar Neese's parents canvass the neighborhood looking for Skylar Neese, while Rachel Shoaf left for Catholic summer camp for two weeks.
Two days later, the public learned that Skylar Neese was missing through television, radio and internet coverage. As weeks passed, the investigation into Skylar Neese's disappearance contPolice believed the most likely scenario was that Skylar went to a house party and overdosed.
Corporal Ronnie Gaskins told "20/20" he heard rumors that Skylar Neese had supposedly overdosed on heroin. "She died. People there panicked, and they disposed of the body," said Gaskins.
Jessica Colebank, who was working on the case, found Shelia Eddy's demeanor suspicious when she went to speak to her for the first time.
"Just complete blank on emotions and there was absolutely nothing. It was like iced over," Colebank told "20/20."
Colebank also thought Rachel Shoaf was very nervous when she first spoke to her.
"Their stories were verbatim, the same. No one's story is exactly the same, unless it's rehearsed," Colebank said. "Everything in my gut was, 'Sheila is acting wrong. Rachel is scared to death.'"
After viewing surveillance video and cell phone records that prove Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf were lying about what happened the night they last saw Skylar Neese, police tell Dave and Mary Neese that Eddy and Shoaf had a secret.
Dave and Mary Neese, classmates and even strangers put pressure on Eddy and Shoaf to tell the truth.
On Dec. 28, 2012, Rachel Shoaf had a nervous breakdown and was committed to a local psychiatric hospital, where she had no contact with Shelia Eddy.
After being discharged from the hospital on Jan. 3, 2013, Shoaf confessed to her attorney and police that she and Eddy stabbed Skylar Neese to death.
"We never encountered anything that led us to believe that these two girls conspired with one another to commit premeditated murder," Corporal Ronnie Gaskin said.
The car that Skylar Neese was seen getting into was determined to be Shelia Eddy's.
After her confession, Shoaf agreed to lead police to the site of the murder to try to find Skylar Neese's body.
Shoaf talked with Eddy while wearing a microphone, but Eddy failed to incriminate herself.
With the discovery of Skylar Neese's body and that the blood found on Eddy's car was Skylar Neese's, police had enough evidence to arrest Eddy and Shoaf.
"We asked Rachel, 'Why did you guys kill Skylar?' And her only answer to that was, 'We just didn't like her,'" State Police Corp. Ronnie Gaskin said.
Rachel Shoaf turned herself into authorities at the Monongalia County Circuit Court on May 1, 2013.
Shoaf, now 18, was transferred to criminal court in closed hearing and was charged as an adult. She pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and is incarcerated at the Northern Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Wheeling, West Virginia.
She faces 30 years in prison and will soon be transferred to adult prison.
Also on May 1, Shelia Eddy, now 18, was arrested in a restaurant parking lot.
She was charged as an adult, pleaded guilty and was sentenced as an adult to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 15 years.
Shocking Tweets from Skylar Neese's Killer After She Stabbed Her to Death
"They're both sickos, and they're both exactly where they need to be: away from civilization, locked up like animals. Because that's what they are, they're animals," said Dave Neese.
In memory of their daughter, Dave and Mary Neese helped pass Skylar's Law in West Virginia. It requires Amber Alerts for all missing children, not only those believed to have been kidnapped.
To honor their daughter, Dave and Mary transformed the site of her murder into a memorial. Dave often makes the 20-mile drive.
"Something horrible happened here," Dave Neese said.
"But I wanted to take the horrible thing that happened here and try to turn it into something good -- a place that people can come and remember Skylar and remember the good little girl that she was, and not the little beast that they treated her like."
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An Interview With Jeri Westerson, Author of Blood Lance and the Crispin Guest Book Series
Author Jeri Westerson has done it again: She's managed to craft another fascinating, entertaining, engaging book in a style that's been dubbed "medieval noir."
Her latest book, Blood Lance, is the fifth in her series of books about Crispin Guest, a detective of sorts during the medieval era, a man who was previously a knight.
One of the many aspects of this book and series I enjoy is how Westerson combines history with fiction, even historical figures with fictional ones, with grace and eloquence.
In our latest interview--I previously interviewed her about her book Troubled Bones--she also talks about her concerns about the state of the publishing industry and how it will affect authors including herself.
The photos include two of Jeri jousting, which she did as part of research for this book. The jousting photos were taken by Craig Westerson.
How did the ideas for the latest book in your Crispin Guest series develop? How would you summarize the plot for this one?
The latest is Blood Lance: In late 14th century London, disgraced former knight Crispin Guest spies a body hurtling from the uppermost reaches of London Bridge. Crispin's attempted rescue fails, however, and the man-an armourer with a shop on the bridge-is dead. While whispers in the street claim that it was a suicide, Crispin is unconvinced. He discovers that the armourer had promised Sir Thomas Saunfayl something that would make him unbeatable in battle. Sir Thomas--a friend from Crispin's former life--believes that the item was in fact the Spear of Longinus - the spear that pierced the side of Christ on the cross-which is believed to make those who possess it invincible.
Complicating matters is another old friend, Geoffrey Chaucer, who is suddenly anxious to help Crispin find the missing spear.and locate Sir Thomas, who must face a trial by joust for desertion to determine whether he lives or dies. Desperate to help, Crispin, along with his faithful apprentice Jack Tucker, hunt for the spear while dodging the various powerful factions determined to have it for themselves. Through danger and trials, Crispin finds that the safety of England may have landed solely in his hands.
I wanted to write something that dealt with Crispin's knightly past, to feature a joust, and bring in the iconic London Bridge into the story. So I chose a knightly relic-the Spear of Longinus. And because Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder seemed to frequently feature in the nightly news, I thought I'd explore that and its history. Surely, I thought, that this is not a new phenomenon. And when I delved into the research I found it wasn't, though it went by other names in the past, most notably cowardice. And so I brought a knight back into Crispin's life suffering from PTSD but seen through the eyes of medieval people. One thing just leads on to another thing when it comes to devising plot.
Do you have a favorite character in your books or is that like asking a mother to pick her favorite child? I really like Jack, Crispin's apprentice, and enjoy how he has grown throughout the books. I wonder if Jack one day would get or need his own apprentice.
Crispin is still my favorite, but Jack offers all sorts of advantages to the plot and to Crispin's backstory. Jack is the foil, someone to whom Crispin can explain what's going on (and, subsequently, to the reader). Jack seems to be becoming wise and maturing while Crispin is often stuck in the loop of his worst nightmare. And yet he is still young and somewhat naïve. They are good for each other. And considering Jack was never going to be returning after book one, it's quite a testimonial. In fact, Jack will be featured in his own young adult series to hopefully expand the Crispin universe. It will be for tweens and teens and a bit of a departure from mystery with more of a fantasy element, but I think Crispin's readers will find it enjoyable, too.
One of many joys as I read your books in this series is wondering which characters are real life people, or at least based on real people (Geoffrey Chaucer, for example), and which are fictional. Do you enjoy that too? Put another way, is it fun to intermingle fictional characters with real people?
Lots of fun. And I do mention in the Afterword who did exist and who is imaginary. Learning about the real people of the time always suggests interesting plot twists, because I use the history presented. I don't change the history to suit the plot. Some real people have very little information about them. The sheriffs, for instance. So I usually cobble their characters out of whole cloth. I was always a big fan of Geoffrey Chaucer, which is why I picked this particular time period in which to place my novels, because I knew I wanted to use him. He's been in two books so far and I have no reason to believe he won't be in more. The same with Henry Bolingbroke, the son of the duke of Lancaster.
Lancaster was another character who was supposed to show up only in the first book but he kept barging his way back into book after book. Now he has to make regular appearances. But in Blood Lance he is away in Spain. Actually, he's away for the next two books. That's an historical fact. I can't very well plausibly have him sending Crispin messages and so his son has stepped into his role, which makes perfect sense to the history unfolding.
So... that leads to this follow-up: In this book, for example, which characters besides Chaucer ARE real? Some of the royalty and clergy are, correct?
Abbott Nicholas of Westminster Abbey, two Spaniards, both sheriffs, Brother John of Canterbery (note the different spelling), John Charneye the coroner, the earl of Suffolk, the earl of Oxford, Richard II and his wife, the Lady Anne, and an assortment of other nobility at court mentioned in passing.
How do you go about doing research for this series and, specifically, this book?
Mostly the old-fashioned way. In university libraries and archives. The internet is useful in that it can direct you to archives and more research, and I also seek the advice from scholars, professors, and historians from a medieval listserv.
As for the jousting, I looked at some of the fourteen and fifteenth century books written about swordplay and jousting and suited up into armor myself. Nothing like hands on research!
Do you read other authors who do sort of what you do with this great series, namely construct a fictional historic thriller using some real people, places and events? For example, have you read Gyles Brandreth's novels about Oscar Wilde?
I haven't read that series but I do read the occasional historical mystery. I must be careful, however, not to pick up any plot points, so I don't read medieval mysteries anymore.
How far or long would you envision the Crispin Guest series going? I feel I'd be remiss if I didn't ask about a Facebook page you put up titled Save Crispin Guest. It sounds like you are concerned that due to the realities of the publishing world if sales of your books don't increase your books won't come out in paperbacks and the series may end. I realize that's an oversimplification but is that the basic point?
I'm following a specific timeline with his story and so I envision-after next year's release of Shadow of the Alchemist--11 more books to fully explore Crispin's tale. And yes, we've hit a snag with the current publisher. They live or die by their sales, too, and the unfortunate truth is that sales of the Crispin books have not met their expectation. But to be completely fair, publishers, particularly big New York publishers, are terrible at promoting their midlist books. What seems to happen is they scatter a lot of money publishing a LOT of midlist authors, sort of throwing them all on the wall and seeing if any of them stick.
One or two might, that is, they garner good solid sales all on their own, and then the publisher moves in with more marketing to bolster them. But for the others, they don't help to promote those author's books and then they wonder why sales aren't meeting their expectations. It's backwards business practice to be sure, but that is the state I find my books in. They won't invest in the paperbacks because their whole marketing strategy is concentrated on hardcover.
Hardcover sales, primarily to libraries, have been their staple, whether it's currently a solid business practice these days or not. Fewer bookstores and ebooks have moved into the paradigm, and for a while my ebook sales rose, too, but now they've plateaued as well. The only thing that will save Crispin's books with this publisher is for readers and libraries to buy more hardcover books. A LOT more of them.
But if this publisher won't offer any more contracts, then there is the hope a smaller publisher will pick it up and be happy with the solid core of fans. Smaller publishers, ironically, put more effort into promoting their authors, but naturally there is less money for authors with a smaller publisher; smaller advance, less places to buy the book. It's a trade off. That's why it's most difficult for authors to make any sort of living at writing.
What made you decide to set up the Facebook event? What has been the reaction to it?
I wanted to boost sales in order to keep my current publisher. It was a desperate and gutsy move. It's still a better deal having that big name publisher behind you. By my book's mere presence in their catalog-a catalog that goes out to libraries and bookstores-gives my book that imprimatur that lifts my novels above the dross.
The reaction has been heartfelt. Every Crispin fan wants to help. Readers don't realize how important it is these days to talk up a book. To ask their libraries to order it for all their branches. To review it on online sites and to "Like" it where those buttons are offered. I really hated to do it, because it could backfire just as much, but I'm not one to sit by. I'm proactive and have always busted my buns getting the word out about my books. I don't know whether it will be enough, however. Plenty of other seemingly successful authors have been in my shoes, and they have had to find smaller publishing homes for their series as well.
Let me come at that topic another way. Recently, I understand, you got word that the books haven't met the publisher's sales projections and they have no plans to offer more contracts for the series. No contracts, no books, unless sales rise significantly or another publisher can be found. What are your plans regarding this issue? Did I sum up those facts correctly?
That's about it. They are a business, after all. A strange cock-eyed business but that's what I signed up for. My plans are to raise awareness and maybe sales enough for them to change their mind. And failing that, to find another mid-size or small publisher who would be happy with the sales numbers we are getting. I have a fan base and a good platform and it would be a good addition to any publisher's stable. I know a lot of people have told me to go indie, to self-publish, and though I haven't taken that off the table either, I consider it my absolute last resort. To have the backing of a publisher is far, far better that not having one at all. The books can be reviewed by reputable industry magazines, they can be distributed to bookstores and to libraries (library sales are significant. Picture your main library. Now think of all the satellite branches that could order copies). It doesn't matter to readers, but I got my foreign rights sales and audio book sales based on that publisher name on the spine. It matters. Self-pubbed books rarely get into libraries and bookstores.
Do you do e-book sales? How does the sale of e-books by you and others fit into this equation and problem?
The publisher creates the ebooks. Sales rose slightly but then plateaued. They still only account for ten percent of my sales. Readers who like this kind of mystery really do prefer paper. Sometimes they buy the ebook for convenience, but then they also buy the print book to have on their shelf. The historical mystery demographic is different from what you might read about on blogs and on news sites.
What is your favorite part about writing what I believe you call "medieval noir"?
I like Crispin's being a tough guy. I like incorporating the hard-boiled tropes into the medieval setting. And I love delving into his character and exploring his chivalric side, whether it's a good idea for him to indulge in that or not.
Final question: Some of my favorite scenes in this novel involve the jousting. You suggest readers, if they get a chance, should go see a real joust. What is it like to see one in person? Where's the best place to go see one, barring a time travel machine?
They are terribly exciting. There is an authorized jousting circuit but they are few and far between in the U.S. I just signed books at the Tournament of the Phoenix that is presented every autumn in Poway, California. But I imagine you can check the internet to find them locally. Theatrical jousting that you might see at Medieval Times Dinner Theatre is not the same, because it's staged. When two powerful horses ride toward each other, with their mounted knights with lance at the ready, and then they clash! Wow! Imagine the best play of football, basketball, hockey-with horses-rolled into one and you'll get a feel for my excitement.


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An investigative thriller with elements of romance, the film narrates the story of two couples: a Kochi-based scrap artist named Luca and his girlfriend Niharika; and a police officer named Akbar and his wife Fathima.
Directed by Arun Bose, Luca stars Tovino Thomas in the titular role alongside Vinitha Koshy, Sooraj S. Kurup and Ahaana Krishna Kumar.


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- Flat Iron Beef (Order Now)
- 2 big Spanish onions
- 3 carrots
- 1 garlic head
- 1 bouquet garnis (bay leaf, thyme, parsley and celery tied on a green leek)
- 1 ounce black peppercorn
- 1 ounce coarse sea salt
- 1 gallon of heavy red wine
- 2 ounces dark chocolate (minimum 72% )
- 1 pound of pearl onions
- 1 pound of button mushrooms
- 8 ounces of butter
- 5 ounces of smoked pork slab
2-3 days before serving
- Take the piece of beef and grill or roast it on all its faces to obtain a nice dark brown color.
- While it is grilling, cut the carrots and the onions in big chunks, the garlic in two.
- Prepare the bouquet with leeks (greens), fresh thyme, bay leaves, parsley.
- When the beef is marked, put it in a big pot along with the onions, carrots, garlic salt and pepper, bouquet, red wine, and the chocolate.
- Let everything rest together in your refrigerator.
The morning of your dinner
- Take the meat out off the wine mixture and place it in a big pot.
- Drain the vegetables and sauté them.
- Add 3 spoonfuls of flour and cook for 4 to 5 minutes.
- Pour some of the wine on the veggies.
- Put everything on top of the meat.
- Bring the pot to a boil, and then cook in the oven at 325°F for 4 to 6 hours.
- Cook the mushrooms and the baby onions with a little stock, a piece of butter, a pinch of sugar and salt until brown.
- Cut, blanch and sear the bacon.
- When the meat is cooked, take it out of the juice.
- Cut it into pieces of 1 to 2 oz.
- Reduce and drain the sauce.
- In one or two large heavy pot(s) place the meat, the garnish, and the sauce.
- Half an hour before the dinner put the pots in the oven.
- You can serve this "bourguignon" with fresh pasta or boiled potatoes.
- For the pasta, pre-cook them "al dente", and at the moment of service, re-heat them with a little water, a little heavy cream and a piece of butter, salt and pepper.
- For the boiled potatoes, pre-cook them and add them to the pot when you re-heat the bourguignon.


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There are quite a few versions of the coveted Kodak Aero Ektar lenses. Here are the two most common versions: The 12" f2.5, weighing 7.3 Kg/16.1 lbs is on the left. It sports two dots, one yellow, one purple, and was made in 1953. Perhaps it was used to spy on Iron Curtain countries during the Cold War.
In the center is the much more common f2.5 7" version, with a weight of 1.45 Kg/3.2lbs. There are lots of these around from WWII. This example was made in 1944, about three years after Aero Ektar inventor George Aklin's 1941 patent.
To the right is a far rarer, and more desirable Aero Ektar with a very much slimmed down mount as supplied by Kodak in 1951, making it one of the later versions of this useful lens. It weights a "mere" 1.2 Kg/2.8 lbs, and has a slim aperture ring, a much slimmer front hood with the indicia placed at the periphery, and appears to have a hard coating. This also sports the two dots, one yellow, the other purple. It has a manufacturing date of 1950.
These were very expensive to produce. Kodak took a great deal of pride in the Ektar lenses, and today they are still among the sharpest. Our masthead of the Charles River and trees was shot on Type 55 using an Ektar lens, and you can view it with a microscope and see every leaf, so sharp it is.
All of these are quite well made and thick lenses of the double Gauss design, with rear elements comprised of mildly radioactive thorium glass that, over time, produces color centers at the molecular level responsible for producing a reversible yellowish or even brown cast to that element. The physics of color centers has been studied in crystals and other optical substances and this sub-micron change to the actual structure of the molecules can be brought on by gamma radiation and reversed by exposure to UV. Read Micheal Brigg's emphatic, and excellent treatise on Aero Ektar radioactivity.
Online there is this un-named shot of an even later Aero Ektar having a sort of hybrid mount. Like the distal end of our slim Aero Ektar, above, this version uses a peripheral beauty ring too, but retains the more massive aperture ring. It has a manufacturing date of 1960. One wonders what Kodak was up to during the peak of the cold war, and how many of these were made.
The lenses shown are of the same design, just scaled up (or down) depending on the focal length. There are other longer and shorter focal length Aero Ektars too, including a 6" f2.5 version, and slower, longer versions that are not often much sought after, but show up on ebay frequently.
People love the mysterious dots, so here is more about the dots, here, and even more here.
Even more from Aero Ektar inventor, George H Aklin....Click Here
|Aero Ektar Patent


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Found 1 resultsAuthor Title [ Type] Year
Filters: First Letter Of Title is B and Author is Vets, E [Clear All Filters]
Journal Article
"Background Morbidity in HIV Vaccine Trial Participants From Various Geographic Regions as Assessed by Unsolicited Adverse Events", Hum Vaccin Immunother, vol. 8, no. 5, pp. 630-638, 2012.,


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Even if co-infected people are on antiretroviral medicines, they may succumb to hepatitis C which is much more expensive to treat - this study aims to find a solution for countries with limited resources
BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) has launched the first regional study in Asia looking at obstacles in treating people living with hepatitis C and HIV in low and middle-income countries.
Greater access to the antiretroviral therapy (ARV) has helped give HIV-positive people longer and better lives, but chronic health problems such as hepatitis C and tuberculosis are causing premature and unnecessary deaths, experts say.
Hepatitis C - which is prohibitively expensive to treat - can be cured but is often undiagnosed. Left untreated, the virus can lead to deadly liver disease.
An estimated 5 million people living with HIV worldwide - about 15 percent of all who are HIV-positive - are also infected with hepatitis C, of which a fifth are in Asia, according to amfAR.
"Our concern is that we can invest all our resources we have in treating somebody with HIV and give them the optimal antiretroviral therapy that we have access to, but they can still die of liver failure," amfAR's vice president Annette Sohn said Thursday.
"We know how to treat these infections, we just need the tools and distribute the knowledge to make that happen," said Sohn, who is also director of amfAR's Therapeutics Research, Education, and AIDS Training in Asia (TREAT Asia).
A course of hepatitis C therapy costs between $10,000 and $20,000, and could last up to 48 weeks.
The high cost for treatment, side effects including severe flu-like symptoms and a lack of experience in care for co-infected patients mean many in Asia go untreated, Sohn said.
In December, U.S. regulators approved a pill with fewer side effects, but it costs $1,000 a day and requires 12 weeks of treatment.
"We don't see those drugs becoming immediately accessible in the low- and middle-income countries in the near future," she said. "There are people who are dying of liver failure. We don't feel like we can afford to wait."
The study, launched on Jan. 6 and expected to last a few years, will be implemented in four HIV treatment centres in the capitals of Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia.
A total of 200 HIV-positive patients with hepatitis C or signs of liver disease will be offered free hepatitis C treatment integrated within routine HIV care. They will also receive support and education on treatment.
"What we're hoping is through this project we learn as much as we can about what to do and what not to do in order to implement this sort of a programme on a broader scale," Sohn said.
Experts say a large number of patients co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C are current or former injecting drug users.
A 2010 report by the Thai AIDS Treatment Action Group (TTAG) said about 90 percent of the roughly 30,000 to 60,000 injecting drug users in Thailand who are HIV positive also carry the hepatitis C virus.
In an interview with Thomson Reuters Foundation, TTAG said Thailand's failure to treat hepatitis C in HIV-positive injecting drug users means the HIV remains highly infectious in this group and is more likely to spread to other people.
This is one thing the amfAR study hopes to prevent.
"One of the main reasons why these countries were selected was because they have concentrated epidemics within populations of people who inject drugs or who have injected drugs in the past," said Sohn, who added that HIV and hepatitis C co-infections have not received much attention in part because of stigma and discrimination.
"We cannot possibly control our HIV epidemic and hepatitis C epidemic… unless we ensure that people who inject drugs, whether currently or in the past, are included in these interventions and research studies."
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