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12 National Park Adventures Off the Beaten Path
Summer is prime time in our national parks, and that means crowds—unless you know where to go. From Washington to Maine, here are 12 adventures that will have you exploring the emptiest quarters of our most spectacular landscapes.
Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app.
Is there a way to find fresh adventure in our most iconic (and well-traveled) wildernesses? Actually, there is—turn your next park visit into a quest. From wolf tracking to sand-dune shredding, these nine trips will get you far beyond the ranger station.
Cross the Border
Glacier National Park, Montana, and Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta
Pack your passport and credit card but keep your panniers light for this six-day mission through the most majestic scenery south of Alaska. Start in Whitefish, Montana, where you can pick up a Jamis bike, panniers, tubes, a pump, and Clif Bars at Glacier Cyclery (rentals, $160 per week), then head east to Glacier and the classic, old-school Lake McDonald Lodge, 11 miles into the park on the famous Going to the Sun Road (doubles, $127). The next day, things get steep and twisty: ride east up Going to the Sun, a 50-mile, switchback-filled monster that climbs on a 6 percent grade before topping out at the Continental Divide, at 6,646-foot Logan Pass. Set out early—you need to reach Logan before 11 a.m., when the road closes to ascending cyclists until 4 p.m. It's all downhill from there to the east side of the park, where you can crash at St. Mary Lodge (doubles, $149) and load up on huckleberry pie at the Park Café. The following day, ride 27 miles to the border crossing at Chief Mountain, then another 19 to the Prince of Wales Hotel, a six-story chalet on the shores of Waterton Lake (doubles, US$234). Take a day to hike around Waterton (try the 7.5-mile Bertha Lake out-and-back), then head south, crossing back into Glacier. Spend your last night at the Many Glacier Hotel on Swiftcurrent Lake to complete your tour of the grand chalets (doubles, $149), and fill up on rib eye—28 ounces of it—at the nearby log-walled Babb Bar Cattle Baron Supper Club. On your final day, catch a complimentary shuttle back over Going to the Sun (climbing it once is enough) from the St. Mary Visitor Center to the town of Apgar, then coast back to Whitefish.
Go Dark
Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah
On May 20, a swath of the American West from Oregon to New Mexico will catch an almost complete solar eclipse. There's no better place to see this spooky phenomenon than Bryce Canyon National Park. Why? In many places, the sun will set before the eclipse is over, but at Bryce it ends just a minute before sunset—meaning that within a two-hour window you'll see the sun set, rise, and set again against the park's surreal hoodoo-studded landscape. Bryce is gearing up with 50 rangers and volunteer astronomy experts, who plan to narrate the event at the parking areas at Bryce Point and Inspiration Point and along the 1.5-mile trail that connects them. We recommend steering clear of all that. Instead, reserve a backcountry site at someplace like Right Fork Yellow Creek, three miles down the Under-the-Rim Trail from Bryce Point ($5), flag down a ranger for a couple of pairs of complimentary solar-viewing glasses (for safely staring directly into the eclipse), and watch the main event among mushroom-like sandstone formations. BYO performance enhancers.
Get Dirty
Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, Colorado
Set among southern Colorado's rugged Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Great Sand Dunes National Park is a terrific place to enjoy the splendors of nature. While going really, really fast. Sand sledding and sandboarding are serious business around these parts—the park has 19,000 acres of dunes reaching 750 feet, and they're open year-round. To get the scoop on how to best tear it up, we turned to Lon Beale, a.k.a. Doctor Dune, owner of Sand Master Park in Florence, Oregon. Lon's tips: (1) Leave the plastic saucer at home—sand gouges plastic. You want a sled or (better yet) a board made of high-density thermoplastic. Rent one from Kristi Mountain Sports ($18) in Alamosa, 30 minutes from the park, and they'll throw in a puck of sandboard wax—similar to snowboard wax—which you should rub onto the board every couple of rides. (2) Look for slopes of at least 20 degrees. "If it's 20 degrees, regardless of whether it's good or bad sand, you're gonna slide," says Beale. (3) Most locals head for the dunes close to the Point of No Return parking lot, two miles north of the visitor center. Beware of too-steep dunes, like the 34–degree slopes in the Castle Creek picnic area, which can plummet directly into the bed of Medano Creek. (4) Come early in the summer. Cold sand is fast sand, so skip a July or August visit, when the dunes can be as hot as an Abu Dhabi sidewalk. (5) After you return the rental board, wash the grit out of your throat with a couple of Grande River IPAs at Alamosa's San Luis Valley Brewing Company.
One-Up the Grand
Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
To climb the 13,770-foot Grand Teton, you need a rack, rope, harness, and the skills to use them safely—or a $1,000 guide. The beauty of the Grand's neighbor, the 12,804-foot Middle Teton, is that it's a lot less likely to kill you, requires no ropes, and offers the same crazy views. (In fact, the view from the Middle Teton is arguably better, since it includes the Grand.) Here's how to do it: Go in August, when all the snow in the southwest couloir—the easiest route—has melted. Pick up a backcountry permit for the Meadows campsites in Garnet Canyon, four miles into the 7.3-mile route ($25). In the morning, head for the saddle between the Middle and South Tetons, then hike 300 feet along the ridge until the southwest couloir comes into view. Get a dawn start so you're off the peak before noon—afternoon storms can rake the summits with lightning. Bonus: from the saddle between the two peaks, tagging the 12,514-foot South Teton adds only 1,000 feet of climbing. After a long descent back to your car at Lupine Meadows, gorge on a calzone and Snake River Lager at Dornans, in the town of Moose, then crash back in town in a cozy cabin at the Alpine House ($195).
Float Free Water
Olympic National Park, Washington
Olympic is in the midst of the largest dam-removal project in U.S. history: the dismantling of the Elwha River's 210-foot Glines and 108-foot Elwha dams, which will free some 70 miles of rollicking whitewater and serious salmon spawning grounds. Celebration is in order. Scope out the demolition derby from the observation spot above Elwha Dam (accessible via the Elwha Dam RV Park off Highway 112), where backhoes are knocking out the century-old plug. Then make for the whitewater. Port Angeles–based Olympic Raft and Kayak runs half-day trips between the two dams, putting in at Altaire Campground and taking out at the Highway 101 bridge, a half-dozen Class III rapids later ($54). Watch for eagles, ospreys, and elk. Your next move: set up shop in a shoreline cottage at historic Lake Crescent Lodge ($262), grab a two-day stand-up paddleboard rental from Olympic Raft and Kayak ($70), and splash around off the dock. Once you're feeling comfortable, make the 1.5-mile paddle across the placid lake to the Devil's Punch Bowl cove for some cliff jumping into the stunningly clear water. Then come back and gorge on pan-seared Muscovy duck breast, washed down with the lodge-brewed Singer's Tavern ale.
Buy Lobster Off the Boat
Acadia National Park, Maine
The only thing better than paddling between empty islands for a few days? Doing so on a diet of fresh lobster. Isle Au Haut, a 10.6-square-mile spit of land just off the harbor town of Stonington—and 20 miles southwest of bigger, more exposed (and trafficked) Mount Desert Island—is the perfect base camp for a multi-day island hop among the mostly uninhabited Deer Isle Archipelago. Rent a sea kayak, paddles, a spray skirt, and a chart from Old Quarry Ocean Adventures in Stonington ($58 per day), and stow a big pot in your boat along with your gear bag and stove. Pick up a camping permit online ($25), then paddle six miles to Isle Au Haut, where you can crash in a lean-to at Duck Harbor Campground. Tip: the village (pop. 75) has a great chocolate shop, the Black Dinah. Don't try to circumnavigate Isle Au Haut—the southeast point is exposed, with few safe landings between cliffs. Instead, the next day, head to one of the many nearby sheltered but uninhabited islands, such as Russ, Wheat, or Little Sheep. En route, flag down a lobster boat. There will be plenty: Stonington is the busiest lobster harbor in the country. Expect to pay about $5 per pound; then steam, rather than boil, your haul—it's more fuel efficient and preserves the flavor better. Recipe: bring one inch of seawater to a boil, drop live lobster in, and keep the lid closed for 15 minutes. Serves two, and goes great with a cheap white wine or PBR.
Paddle Among Icebergs
Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska
A 65-mile-long notch carved into 3.2 million acres of protected wilderness, Glacier Bay is like a Whitman's Sampler of Alaskan hallmarks: humpback whales, orcas, seals, eagles, brown bears, and building-size columns of ice plunging into the sea. Since few trails and no roads reach beyond the mouth of the bay, most park visitors arrive on massive cruise ships. But the deck-bound guests aren't allowed into the rugged, narrow fjords of the park's East Arm. From June through August, Alaska Mountain Guides can guide you there on an eight-day sea-kayaking expedition, during which paddlers cover four to eight miles per day, sleeping on empty gravel beaches ($2,200). Guide Nacho Stephens's favorite: the campsite just across from the McBride Glacier, where the inlet is so narrow that the tide rushes in and out at the speed of a flooding river, dragging massive icebergs as it goes.
Climb in Wonderland
Joshua Tree National Park, California
Most visitors to Joshua Tree are content to traipse around in the desert, gawking at alien plants and strange geologic formations, like aptly named Skull Rock. But if staring up at the rocks leaves you with the jones to stand atop one, pack your harness, rack, and rope. There are more than 7,500 routes here, a mix of bolted and trad, all of them on remarkably clean monzogranite rock. Pitch your tent at the free Hidden Valley Campground (first come, first served), just off Park Boulevard about ten miles from the west-entrance station, and scamper up such classics as the three-pitch, 5.7-rated Walk on the Wild Side. For a little more solitude, park at Keys Corner, along Quail Springs Road, and make the hour hike into the North Wonderland area. The place is lousy with bouldering options. Or get higher on Dos Chi Chis, a fantastic two-pitch, 5.10-rated bolted climb that gets you right to the top of a lumpy crag for killer views of the entire park. New to climbing? REI Adventures hosts three-day beginner camps in spring and fall in the Wonderland backcountry ($660).
See a Wolf
Isle Royale National Park, Michigan
This 45-mile-long, nine-mile-wide wilderness is tough to reach: plopped in the northwest corner of rugged Lake Superior, it's a ninety-minute ferry ride from the nearest harbor. That isolation accounts for the island's most famous residents: a pack of gray wolves whose adventurous ancestors crossed the ice here in 1948 in pursuit of moose. Unfortunately, the pack has dwindled to just 16 members, a result of inbreeding; there are currently only two females, meaning time could be running out for the canines. Take five days to traverse the 40-mile Greenstone Ridge Trail, which spans the island's entire windswept spine, keep quiet, and if you're lucky you'll catch a glimpse of the pack. If not, you're still in the most pristine boreal forest in the lower 48. Ride to Royale from Houghton, Michigan, on the park's ship, the Ranger III, and pick up a free backcountry camping permit onboard (ferry, $100 round-trip; $4 visitor fee per person per day). Then traverse the footpath from the northeast at Lookout Louise to the southwest at Windigo, winding through maple and birch forests and up 1,394-foot Mount Desor, Isle Royale's highest point. There are 36 designated campgrounds—spend a night at Chickenbone Lake, a good swimming spot. Tip: go in late August, when swarming mosquitoes and blackflies are on their way out.
Park and Ride
The best bike-friendly trails in the national park system
In 2005, the International Mountain Biking Association (IMBA) announced a partnership with the National Park Service to develop trails in parks. We rejoiced. Since then progress has been limited, due to an annoying regulation that classifies bicycles as motor vehicles. (Ah, bureaucracy.) Nonetheless, the group is hacking through the red tape, recently helping Kentucky's Mammoth Caves National Park to rebuild 12 miles of buff intermediate trail and, this spring, planning to break ground on 13 miles of singletrack in Texas's Big Bend National Park. While IMBA keeps fighting for our right to rip, here's a primer on the best existing bike-friendly trails in the national park system.
Where: Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, California
Terrain: Some 285 miles of rideable dirt—by far the most in the national park system—slicing its way through the rugged highlands overlooking the Pacific Ocean, just 20 miles from downtown Los Angeles. Our pick: the rolling, 21-mile Sullivan Ridge–Backbone Trail loop cruises the divide between L.A. and the San Fernando Valley.
Nearest Rental: Topanga Creek Bicycles; $50 per day
Where: Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, Tennessee
Terrain: Five trails with 38 miles of singletrack. Link the John Muir and Grand Gap trails for a 19-mile loop that skirts the edge of a sandstone gorge.
Nearest Rental: Tennessee Valley Bikes in Knoxville; $40 per day
Where: New River Gorge National River, West Virginia
Terrain: A new superbuff 13-mile intermediate trail complex winds through hardwood forests. Start on the Arrowhead Trail.
Nearest Rental: Fayetteville's New River Bike; $35 per day


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The Jewish immigrants to the United States formed landsmanshaftn or lodges made up of persons coming from the same town or district. These organizations served many purposes; as mutual aid or benevolent societies they enabled the immigrants to adapt to the new way of life and offered security, friendship, sickness and death benefits and financial aid. By 1914, New York had over five hundred landsmanshaftn and the number continued to grow until the 1930s when the first generation of immigrants began to move away or to die off.
The Chevra Bnei Rabbi Menachem Mendel Anshei Dubrowa was formed on March 25, 1892) the first President being Harry Bloom. The Society was named after the community's tzaddik and the membership grew throughout the early years of the century. The original immigrants had worked twelve hours a day or more, seven days a week, and lived in walk-ups on the lower East Side. A synagogue was purchased on Georgia Avenue in Brooklyn in 1920. The vitality of the organization declined after World War II. In 1955 there were about 200 family members, but by the 1980s membership had fallen to about 85, mostly widows. Because of a deteriorating neighborhood the synagogue was sold in 1968. Society members and their families are buried in three cemeteries, Mount Judah and Washington in Brooklyn and Beth David in EImont, Queens.
|Community cemetery plot for Chevra Bnei Menachem Mendel
Anshei Dubrowa in Elmont, Queens, New York.
[Page 27]
|Dance and meeting notices of the
Chevra Bnei Rabbi Menachem Anshel Dubrowa.
[Pages 28-29]
|Testimonial banquet to Mr. Harry Rosen at the 45th Anniversary
of Chevra Bnei Menachem Mendel Anshei Dubrowa, March 1934.
JewishGen, Inc. makes no representations regarding the accuracy of
the translation. The reader may wish to refer to the original material
for verification.
JewishGen is not responsible for inaccuracies or omissions in the original work and cannot rewrite or edit the text to correct inaccuracies and/or omissions.
Our mission is to produce a translation of the original work and we cannot verify the accuracy of statements or alter facts cited.
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Updated 16 Jan 2010 by LA

subset: commoncrawl


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If you are pregnant or know anyone who is pregnant, you have almost certainly heard of Listeria, a dangerous bacterium that contaminates vegetables, dairy and meat. It is something you want to avoid: Listeria infections kill about 500 people a year in the U.S., and 2,000 more become seriously ill with food poisoning. Pregnant women are about 20 times more likely to become infected.
So it might surprise you that scientists want to inject patients who have HIV and cancer with the bacterium, whose scientific name is Listeria monocytogenes.
That is because Listeria creates a strong immune response in the body. Medical researchers are trying to harness this behavior by creating their own modified version of Listeria that is less dangerous as a bug, strengthens the immune system in general, and has the ability to get inside tumors. Once inside the tumor, the idea is for this bioengineered Listeria to give the immune system the green light to terminate the tumor with extreme prejudice.
"When you're dealing with cancer, you want autoimmune responses, and Listeria invokes these responses," says John Rothman, the vice president of clinical development at Advaxis, Inc., a biotech in North Brunswick, N.J., that is working on a Listeria-based vaccine, Lovaxin C. "Listeria is a pretty nifty bug for this purpose," adds Rothman. "We're co-opting a lot of evolution here because Listeria modifies the immune system in a lot of ways."
Advaxis tested the safety of Lovaxin C between 2005 and 2007 in 15 women with progressive, recurrent or advanced cervical cancer who previously had been treated unsuccessfully with chemotherapy, radiotherapy or surgery. The women reacted with symptoms including headache, fever and chills, which Rothman attributes to the body's immune response designed to fight the Listeria infection. The company concluded that the patients generally tolerated Lovaxin C well, depending on the strength of the dose given. Too much of the drug did cause high fevers and significant drops in blood pressure. "Both the response rate and survival data are encouraging," Rothman says.
The company announced Tuesday that it expects to initiate phase II Lovaxin C testing in the U.S. this summer for the treatment of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, an overgrowth of cells in the cervix caused by the human papillomavirus—a sexually transmitted virus that can lead to invasive cervical cancer if not diagnosed properly and left untreated. Advaxis also wants to test the drug's effectiveness combating head and neck cancers.
Advaxis's researchers are not the only ones looking to make Listeria into an effective vaccine. Using the bug to create and deliver vaccines dates back to the early 1990s, when University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine microbiologist Yvonne Paterson and University of California, Berkeley, microbiologist Daniel Portnoy showed that L. monocytogenes replicates in a host cell's cytoplasm (its gelatinous fluid filling) and can move from one cell to another. In fact, Advaxis draws on more than a decade's worth of research by Paterson, a breast cancer survivor who has committed herself to developing medicine that can find and destroy cancer cells and better prevent and treat infectious diseases such as HIV.
One of the concerns about Listeria is that, even if it reproduces slowly in a patient, this could be dangerous to patients suffering from already compromised immune systems, says Darren Higgins, an associate professor of microbiology at Harvard Medical School who has performed his own experiments on Listeria to find a strain that stimulates the immune system but does not reproduce inside the body. That's a key concern in patients with HIV—the virus's middle name, "immunodeficiency," says it all—and those who have had chemotherapy, which also ravages the immune system.
Taking this a step further, Anza Therapeutics, which late last year spun out of Concord, Calif., biopharmaceutical company Cerus Corporation, is testing an approach to making vaccines that employ Listeria which is dead, and thereby unable to reproduce, although still able to stimulate the immune system. "The big worry about Listeria is that it can cause listeriosis in people with weakened immune systems," says Tom Dubensky, Anza's co-founder and chief scientific officer. "Many live attenuated vaccines have the ability to revert to being dangerous again." Anza, with funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is hoping this approach, still in animal testing, can be used to develop a vaccine for hepatitis C virus (HCV) and HIV. Anza is also testing a second approach—presently in human clinical trials—to vaccine development that uses a form of live, but weakened Listeria that is modified so it cannot revert to its dangerous behavior. The company is conducting U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved early-stage clinical studies of this approach at various sites in the U.S. on patients with advanced cancers.
Higgins and H. G. Archie Bouwer, an immunology research scientist at the Earle A. Chiles Research Institute and Portland VA Medical Center, reported in a March 2006 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA article using a weakened strain of Listeria to vaccinate monkeys against larger doses of the bacterium. It worked: "Our Listeria studies demonstrate the potential to generate vaccine strains of bacteria that are effective, yet safe for both healthy and immunocompromised individuals," they wrote, referring to people with HIV or who have been through the ravages of chemotherapy.
Higgins says that Listeria could be used to make improved vaccines for diseases other than cancer and HIV as long as researchers can figure out which targets to tell the immune system to fight. "Listeria monocytogenes is potentially a great delivery vehicle," he says, "but you need to know what to deliver."
The use of Listeria as a vaccine is promising, but it is too early to tell just how effective it might be, agrees Stanley Plotkin, emeritus professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania and an executive advisor to pharmaceuticals company Sanofi Pasteur. "We'll have to see if the promising results in animals will be borne out in human trials," he says. One of the bacterium's attractive features, for example, is that it might help the immune system fight viruses within cells—a notoriously tricky problem for vaccines—because Listeria lives within cells, instead of floating around the bloodstream.
So far, however, the effectiveness of Listeria and other potential building blocks for vaccines against cancer or HIV remains unproved. It will be five years before researchers are able to identify the best vectors, and another decade before there is a licensed vaccine, he adds, "if we're lucky."
Recruiting a Dangerous Foe to Fight Cancer and HIV
Biotechs have high hopes that a bacterium that causes food poisoning can boost the body's immune system as well as be enlisted to build vaccines against deadly diseases
If you are pregnant or know anyone who is pregnant, you have almost certainly heard of Listeria, a dangerous bacterium that contaminates vegetables, dairy and meat. It is something you want to avoid: Listeria infections kill about 500 people a year in the U.S., and 2,000 more become seriously ill with food poisoning. Pregnant women are about 20 times more likely to become infected.


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Homeland Security Enterprise
Homeland Security Enterprise Overview
Since the Department's creation, the goal is simple: one DHS, one enterprise, a shared vision, with integrated results-based operations.
Federal Building Security
The Federal Protective Service protects the homeland by managing risk and ensuring continuity for one of the most crucial elements of our national critical infrastructure, our nation's Federal Facilities and their occupants.
DHS has awarded more than $36 billion based on risk to build and sustain targeted capabilities and strengthen state and local prevention efforts across the homeland security enterprise.
Information Sharing
Protecting the country from ever-evolving, transnational threats requires a strengthened homeland security enterprise that shares information across traditional organizational boundaries.
PrivacyThe Department's Privacy Office partners with privacy staff in each Component to assess all new or proposed Department programs, systems, technologies or rule-makings for privacy risks, and recommends privacy protections


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Definitely one of the better early greys I've tried. Even though it tastes great, I think that by far my favorite thing is just smelling a fresh batch. Amazing


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America's health care system is so sick that it is tempting to believe that whatever comes out of Congress later this month will have to be an improvement over the current ailment. If nothing else, American health care resembles a mash-up of the television medical dramas House and Scrubs, sometimes great but mostly tragically comical. The bleeding edge of global medical research slices into the ignorance of human physiology more deeply in the United States than anywhere else. Yet, America spends far more of its GDP on health care than any other country in the world and in exchange receives average outcomes disturbingly low for such a technologically advanced nation. That is because tens of millions of un- or underinsured Americans rely upon uber-expensive emergency room care while untold millions more receive care a far cry short of the technological frontier being conquered in their own backyards.
As discovered by the New Orleans homeowners whose houses burned down in the midst of Hurricane Katrina's flooding, even a bad situation can deteriorate. Under the legislation now pending, even with the most sanguine expectations of what will emerge from the reconciliation process, America's health care system could become gravely ill. No ideological rants to follow here, just a simply theory of the causes underlying economic hyper-dysfunction. At the heart of every serious economic problem — financial crises, construction overruns, egregiously expensive higher education, high divorce rates, inadequate retirement savings, even slavery — lay a hybrid failure, a combination of market and government failures. In each case, government exacerbated economic problems by trying but failing to fix market failures like asymmetric information (moral hazard, adverse selection), public goods (necessary goods that private entities can't or won't supply), externalities (like pollution), and market power (monopoly or something approaching it).
So Democrats are partly right, but so too are Republicans. Governments and markets can do great things together but they can also conspire to create chaos. Health care is a tragic example of the latter outcome.
In all likelihood, the bills about to be reconciled in Congress will not fix the health care system's core cancers, the tying of health insurance to employment and the pay-for-service fee structure. The former is largely responsible for the huge number of uninsured while the latter rewards health care professionals (HCPs) for treating patients rather than curing them, a crucial distinction. Combined, those two problems lead to upward price pressures because patients have little incentive to shop around for the best bargains and because HCPs' incomes increase the more they treat. Take two aspirin and call me in the morning has thus given way to take a full course of (insert the name of some expensive, symptom-only treating drug here) and call on me next week, so I can bill your insurance company again.
The pending legislation is just the latest of a long string of reforms that treated the symptoms of the health care system's ills rather than its underlying causes. Before the twentieth century, health care was generally of dubious value so costs were low, so low that workers more desired compensation for lost wages than insurance to pay medical bills. By 1900 or so, medical treatments had improved enough, and prices had increased enough, that health care and insurance became a major policy issue for the first time in U.S. history.
Progressive attempts to implement government health care systems at the national and state levels in the 1910s failed but that did not stop governments from meddling in health insurance markets in the 1930s and 40s. With help from the Great Depression, regulators destroyed a variety of non-profit institutions, including free clinics for the very poor, prepaid doctor and hospital plans where patients paid only when they were well, and industrial sickness funds and fraternal organizations for workers and small business owners. That was a major policy blunder because those institutions had proven their ability, in all but the worst economic conditions, to mitigate the two great banes of health insurance, adverse selection (only sick people desiring insurance) and moral hazard ("malingering" in the parlance of the day). Into the vacuum stepped for-profit health insurers wielding employer-based group policies. During World War II, the government cemented the insurance companies' position by providing tax incentives to employers that offered health insurance benefits.
But that's not all. In an attempt to fix the problems it created in the 1930s and 40s, namely rapidly rising prices and a large number of uninsured, the government made matters worse with Medicare, Medicaid, mismanagement of medical malpractice, and stultifying regulations that severely restrict geographical competition as well as policy form innovations.
What would effective health care reform look like? First, it would sever completely the link between employment and insurance. To combat adverse selection, each person should have his or her own insurance policy, preferably initiated in utero, after gender identification but before any diagnostic testing. The government should also ban the insurance of regular physical examinations because known events entail no risk and folding their costs into insurance policies reduces patient incentives to seek the best bargains.
Second, effective reform would mandate pay-for-performance fee schedules or prepaid plans with premiums that are forgiven when patient health drops beyond some threshold. Why should HCPs be paid for their time instead of their effectiveness? (Or anyone else for that matter? For the record, I also advocate pay-for-learning tuition schedules for my own industry, higher education.) Some regulation and government oversight will of course be necessary to ensure that HCPs and insurers honor their promises but in general regulators should get out of the business of mandating premiums and policy forms and grant adult Americans more freedom to contract, including waiving or limiting the right to sue for malpractice.
The reforms suggested here are not panaceas; they will not bring paradise on Earth. People will still get sick, suffer, and die. Because they attack the root causes of the health care system's ills, however, they would alleviate more human suffering at any given level of expenditure than the current system does. Moreover, they would allow individual Americans to chose how much they wish to spend on health care rather than leaving that decision up to Congress, an entity that should address its own serious problems (from gerrymandering to special interest group pandering) before trying to tackle anything so intimate and important as major health care reform.
Robert E. Wright is the Nef Family Chair of Political Economy at Augustana College SD and the author of a dozen books, including 'Fubarnomics: A Lighthearted, Serious Look at America's Economic Ills' which is forthcoming later this year from Prometheus.


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On Tuesday evening (April 24), skywatchers will be treated to yet another eye-catching celestial tableau as a lovely crescent moon slides past the brightest of all the planets: the dazzling Venus.
Venus continues to draw all eyes to the western sky after sunset. Observers have been watching the bright planet for many weeks, although it seems that a fairly large percentage is not quite sure exactly what they have been looking at. I take phone inquiries from the general public on behalf of New York's Hayden Planetarium and questions regarding Venus have increased noticeably in recent days.
The typical inquiry goes something like this:
"I've been seeing this 'huge, white star' shining in the west after the sun has gone down for a number of nights. I suspect it might be a planet, but some have told me it might be a satellite … maybe even a space station. I would really appreciate if you could tell me what I've been looking at."
Venus is so bright you can see it even in broad daylight, but you have to search just the right spot in a deep-blue sky. After nightfall at a really dark site, the planet can even cast shadows. In fact, Venus is so bright that in January 2011, an Air Canada pilot mistook the planet for another airplane and sent his passenger jet into an emergency dive to avoid a potential collision! [Amazing Skywatching Photos of Venus and Jupiter]
How to see Venus
Venus is the first star-like object to appear at dusk and about 45 minutes after sunset it is indeed truly dazzling. The planet is currently shining at its greatest brilliancy, a magnitude of -4.5 on the scale used by astronomer to measure the brightness of sky objects.
On this magnitude scale, the smaller the number the brighter the object so Venus' negative number of -4.5 makes it exceptionally dazzling.
Venus will remain just as bright for all practical purposes (within a tenth of a magnitude) right on through May 17. It only seems appropriate for a planet named for the goddess of love to be showiest in northern springtime, and brightest of all around the ancient fertility festival of May Day.
Crescent moon meets Venus
The moon-Venus get together on Tuesday will not be an exceptionally close one. In fact there will be a rather wide gap separating the two brightest objects of the night sky; they will appear be roughly 6 to 7 degrees apart, Venus appearing to loom high above and to the right of the skinny moon. (Your clenched fist held at arm's length measures about 10 degrees, so the moon and Venus will be separated by about two-thirds of a fist.)
But while the moon and Venus will be far apart, they will likely attract the attention of even casual skywatchers who normally wouldn't pay much attention to things going on up in the sky wherever it is reasonably clear.
The moon will be 12 percent illuminated and will be rather far from Earth, having just passed apogee — the farthest point in its orbit — on Sunday. When they appear together on Tuesday, the moon will be about 251,000 miles (404,000 kilometers) away. Nonetheless, this is still much closer than Venus, which at that same time will be nearly 181 times more distant.
Venus takes a dip
Bright as Venus may be, it has also begun its plunge down the sky toward the sun.
Right now, the planet remains up for two hours after it fully gets dark. But by May 21, Venus will be setting prior to the end of evening twilight and just ten days later it will be setting less than 45 minutes after sunset.
What is happening in space is that Venus is "rounding the bend" on the near side of its orbit to us. This puts it ever closer to the sun-Earth line and causes the planet's outline to loom bigger while the sunlit part facing our way grows ever thinner.
Keep in mind that this stupendously bright evening star will continue "falling" until it passes directly between the sun and Earth on June 5 in the 2012 Venus Transit — the last such transit of Venus until the year 2117.
If you snap an amazing photo of Venus and the moon, or any other skywatching target, and you'd like to share it for a possible story or gallery, please contact managing editor Tariq Malik at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New York.


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When adapting the Ghost in the Shell manga into an anime film, director Mamoru Oshii chose to turn the real-life streets of Hong Kong into a hyper-stylized, dreamlike city of the future. What's astonishing is that Oshii captured the real Hong Kong so well in his submerged metropolis.
David at Randomwire went and found what appear to be some of the real locations featured in Ghost in the Shell, and took comparison photographs. The contrast between the Hong Kong of 2029, as imagined in 1995, and the Hong Kong of 2011 is pretty fascinating — but so is how much you can recognize the film's locations in David's pictures. Here's a "mise en scene" from Ghost in the Shell which especially captures the feel of Hong Kong — although that low-flying plane is definitely an artifact of the ridiculously-close-to-Kowloon Kai Tak Airport, which shut down in 1998:
David's post quotes the film's art director, Takeuchi Atsushi, as saying:
Ghost in the Shell does not have a definite chosen set, but in terms of street scenes and general atmosphere, it is obvious that Hong Kong is the model. Such a choice has, of course, something to do with the theme: on the streets there flows an excess or a flood of information, along with everything this excess brings out. The modern city is swamped with billboards, neon lights and symbols…. As people live in this information deluge, the streets will have to be depicted accordingly as being flooded…. There is a sharp contrast between old streets and new ones on which skyscrapers are built. My feeling is that these two, originally very different, are now in a situation where one is invading the other. Maybe it is the tension or pressure that is brought about by so-called modernization! It's a situation in which two entities are kept in a strange neighboring relationship. Perhaps it is what the future is.
Here are a few of David's more striking comparisons between his photos and the original film:
Tons more at the link. [Randomwire, thanks Madeline!]


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What does the Applied Engineering Sciences program involve?
Applied Engineering Sciences (AES) major is an undergraduate interdisciplinary program that combines scientific and technical coursework with a required concentration resulting in a Bachelor of Science degree awarded by the College of Engineering. The major provides educational opportunities for students who wish to gain a broad foundation in the engineering science, core engineering disciplines, and their application to one of the required concentrations in Computer Science, Supply Chain Management, Technical Sales, or Telecommunications. On a space-available basis, an Information Technology specialization can be combined with either of the two cognates.
The program is designed to develop individuals who:
- Bring to the workplace knowledge of business, management, and logistics, with a solid foundation in calculus, basic sciences, and engineering sciences.
- Can apply the rigor of their education and training to a diverse set of problems
- Are prepared to work in the areas where planning, design, production, and procurement interface with marketing, distribution, sales, and management
- Can effectively communicate across diverse professional disciplines
- Are knowledgeable of contemporary technological and societal issues and can facilitate the effective deployment of new technologies
AES graduates are uniquely qualified to function in a variety of employment settings and bring engineering skills to diverse business settings.
Recent job titles of AES graduates:
- Account Executive
- Analyst
- Application engineer
- Commodity Manager
- Consumer Representative
- Distribution Specialist
- District Sales Engineer
- Expediter/Facilities Engineer
- Financial Analyst/Forecaster
- Industrial Market Analyst
- Logistics Engineer
- Logistical Manager
- Manufacturing Control Engineer
- Materials Control Engineer
- Operations Manager
- Product Engineer
- Project Manager
- Quality Assurance Engineer
- Systems Application Engineer
- Technical Sales Engineer
- Technical Writer
- Telecommunication Engineer
Learn More! Visit the Applied Engineering Sciences website: http://www.egr.msu.edu/aes/


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- Subscribe
- Web Links
- Frequently Asked Questions
The Internet Movie Database: Where to learn more about movies.
Rotten Tomatoes: To see my reviews on a big fancy site, check out what other critics are saying, or dial up the latest news, trailers, photos, etc.
Metro Film Reviews: Metro is the beloved independent newsweekly of San Jose, CA. The head film critic, Richard Von Busack, is a damn fine writer.
Palo Alto Online Film Reviews: Another place to find my reviews, sometimes in slightly variant versions.
Celluloid Dreams on KSJS radio: Film professionals--actors, directors, writers, producers--regularly tell Tim Sika that he was the best interviewer to whom they spoke on their Bay Area press tours. His public affairs radio show—engineered by Larry Jakubecz—airs every Monday night at 5pm on 90.5 FM in San Jose, CA.
FanboyPlanet.com: Another cool cat is Derek McCaw, who blogs up storms about the latest in genre entertainment. He of the mighty chortle always has the lowdown...check it out.
GOATMILK: An intellectual playground edited by Wajahat Ali: Waj is an old friend and colleague of mine (OK, a former student...) with a razor-sharp wit and a social conscience. Here you can read an interview with Howard Zinn one day and a review of The Incredible Hulk the next. Awesome.
Scene Unseen: My old friend Chris (OK, another former student) is half—along with Jimmy—of the offbeat, irreverent movie reviewing team behind Scene Unseen, a popular podcast featuring sarcastic bickering, excellent production, and a novel twist: each film discussed has only been seen by one of the two chatters. Subscriptions are free for this iTunes Exclusive Podcast, so head on over and check it out!


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Exclusive: AEG auction starts; Anschutz seeks bids in $10 billion range
Billionaire Phil Anschutz has kicked off the auction of his Anschutz Entertainment Group, with an expectation that the sports and entertainment giant should draw bids in the $10 billion range, higher than previously believed, according to sources familiar with the situation.
The initial, 25-page AEG information memorandum that describes the business but has no financial information was expected to go to "dozens" of potential buyers on Monday, the sources said. The initial group of recipients is expected to include rich individuals, rivals, sovereign wealth funds, real estate firms, and private equity firms, they said.
Anschutz is likely to start signing non-disclosure agreements and send out the books with financial details by the end of the month, the sources said.
The list of potential bidders includes trade buyers such as Liberty Media Corp ; investment companies such as Guggenheim Partners LLC; private equity firms such as Thomas H. Lee Partners LP, Bain Capital LLC and Colony Capital LLC; and rich individuals such as Los Angeles biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, sources have previously said.
Bidders are likely to need to come up with bids in the "high single digit, low double digit" billion dollars to proceed to the next round, the sources said, signaling that Anschutz has a higher price expectation than previously believed.
Sources close to potential buyers had said last month that the company could fetch between $6 billion and $8 billion in a sale.
"The Anschutz Co has no comment on the sales process beyond its press release announcing the sales process," it said in a statement on Monday. As a private owner, the Denver-based billionaire has the final say in any deal.
Anschutz said last month that it was exploring a sale of AEG and had hired Blackstone Advisory Partners to advise it on the process.
AEG, which has around 25,000 employees, has developed more than 100 entertainment venues globally, in some of the world's largest cities such as Los Angeles, London, Berlin and Shanghai. These include the Staples Center in Los Angeles, The O2 Arena in London and the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai.
The company also owns sports assets that include the Los Angeles Galaxy Major League Soccer team, possibly best-known for its star David Beckham, and a stake in the National Basketball Association's Los Angeles Lakers.
The idea behind AEG broadly is to own the real estate and draw people to the venues through sporting events and live entertainment. Anschutz wants to keep the AEG platform in one piece because he believes the company's holdings are more valuable as a group than in individual pieces, the sources said.
The price expectations and Anschutz's insistence on keeping the platform and the management team in place, however, adds complexity to an eventual sale.
A buyer would need to write a large check for the company, including their own cash and bank financing, which could make it necessary for bidders to form consortiums.
There are no easy comparisons for potential buyers to draw on in valuing the company. What's more, Anschutz will need to get approvals from sports organizations such as the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association to be able to transfer ownership of sports teams.
A valuation analysis could eventually include a sum of the parts determination, the sources said. For example, one of the sources said, the Staples Center in Los Angeles alone could be worth around $1 billion.
Blackstone bankers are also planning to keep control of how bidding groups are formed, the sources said. The confidentiality agreement with potential buyers is expected to have a provision that will prevent parties from discussing joint bids.
The requirement is sometimes imposed by sellers in auctions to prevent bidders from forming groups as a way to undercut on price and possibly to help broker deals between bidders when the size of the asset is large.
Later on in the auction, possibly around the second round, the advisers also plan to launch a parallel process to seek approvals from the various sports leagues for the bidders, the sources said.
Blackstone bankers used a similar approach when they advised on the sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team earlier this year, which eventually sold for $2 billion to Guggenheim Baseball Management, a group that includes Los Angeles Lakers star Magic Johnson and one-time Hollywood studio executive Peter Guber.
In the Dodgers deal Johnson was the "face" of the consortium, a preference among sports leagues that usually insist on an individual rather than an institution buying the franchises.
Anschutz is likely to look to pair up the bidders in a similar manner as well, the sources said.
Blackstone declined to comment.
(Reporting By Nadia Damouni and Paritosh Bansal; Editing by Martin Howell and Jim Marshall)


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Beer and Bacon Jam
Beer and Bacon Jam
from TheBeeroness.com
Beer and bacon in a spreadable form, this may be the best thing to ever come out of my kitchen. It is a simple food, a few ingredients that over time become large with flavor and possibilities. A conversation piece, something your guest won't forget, or a handmade gift for those carnivorous beer lovers in your life. Although the cooking time is long, your active time is relatively short.
This is the perfect way to spend a lazy sunday afternoon: The smell of bacon welling up around you in a sun soaked kitchen with Delta Spirit rising from the speakers and the rest of the demanding world no longer existing. Just you, music and the transformation of ingredients happening on your stove. Cooking, creating, lingering in my kitchen gives a very grounded feeling to my over extend life. A reminder that I need to slow down and enjoy, just be. A recipe that ask little of me other that the time it takes to simply simmer is a reminder of that, just be.
12 oz bacon (8-10 strips)
4 cloves of garlic, smashed
1/2 cup yellow onion, chopped
12 oz amber ale
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup brown sugar
In a large pot or dutch oven, cook the bacon, working in batches if neccessary. Remove the bacon from the pan and allow to cool and then roughly chop. Drain off the bacon grease from the pot, leaving only about 1 tbs bacon drippings in the bottom of the pot. Return the pot to heat and cook the onions until opaque, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and stir for about 30 seconds. Add the amber ale and vinegar and scrape to deglaze the bottom of the pot. Add the brown sugar and the bacon, reduce heat to maintain a simmer. Place the lid on the pot at an angle, allowing to vent the steam. Cook until reduced to a thick and syrupy consistency, stirring occasionally, about 45 minutes. Transfer to a food processor and pulse until most of the large pieces have been chopped.
Serve at room temperature.


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LC/UPC to SC/APC Singlemode Duplex OS2 Fiber Patch Cable, 10 Meters
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Towards the latter part of last year, we started to hear how the LMSs were near death. That smartphones were the answer to mobile learning. Tablets? Who is using those things? Vendors were saying, lets "wait on those" or "our customers are not requesting them, so we are holding off".
Social learning? If they were doing it, Facebook like page, a crummy blog that looks nothing like a real blog, a Twitter like feed, maybe RSS, text chat and YouTube functions and upload/download angle.
Emerging Technology? Ha. Again, our customers aren't asking for it, so we are just doing enough to appear that we are cutting edge.
Well, guess what. Apparently, the potential customers and even clients are speaking and those vendors are listening. Not just a few vendors, the industry as a whole. Some, still are not listening, but no surprise there, arrogance doesn't change over night. Change though is happening and for all of us, that is a great thing.
Oh, for those who were ready to put the LMS into the ground and cover it with dirt? I have an announcement: You are DEAD wrong!
5 Early Indicators
#1 LMSs
Data tells it all, so without further adieu
- A significant number of vendors, reported higher revenue and sales numbers in 2010, then in 2009
- A calling to a large number of vendors (small, medium and big), are all reporting strong numbers in January, with many saying that January 2011, was their best month – numbers and business wise, in the last few years
- A stronger interest in either adding an extended enterprise option, or in some cases moving to an extended enterprise approach (albeit, they still offer across the board, but really are focusing on EE)
- Some are moving to "unlimited users" and free "tech/customer support", which the latter being a really nice and new concept for the industry
- More vendors entering the "Lite" LMS space which incorporates the "month to month" pricing structure and includes "storage". I'm glad to report that Litmos, a Lite LMS vendor, has dropped any additional cost for more storage, if you go over your included storage. Kudos!
- A number of vendors whose real focus is the Talent Management/Performance Management market. While they still offer the LMS as we all know it, and its "learning" approach, they are really driving into the TM space
- Greater number of vendors switching to only SAAS or "in the cloud" rather than self-hosted
- Continued growth for open source solutions; Moodle is still the king; especially in education, although it is slowly starting to appear in the business and government side
#2 Mobile Learning
For the longest time, it was all about smartphones. Then in some circles it was the smartphones and the power of social learning with said smartphones. Tablets were never even a consideration, and I'm talking in 2010. The iPad? You could count on your hand the number of vendors even looking at it, and I'm not just talking LMSs/Learning Portals, but content authoring tools and other products.
I recall speaking in November on a webinar panel and being somewhat chided over the fact that I kept repeating the importance of mobile learning and tablets. It was as though, I was somewhere on Saturn.
When I spoke to numerous vendors on tablets, I kept hearing the same song, "we aren't hearing it from our customers, OR we are looking in the future OR perhaps in 2012".
It was smartphones, you silly man. Funny, thing about those vendors, either their entire consumer base rose up and screamed we want tablets, or perhaps – and I know – it never happens in any industry – just perhaps, they looked again and said, "I see money in those tablets".
- Vendors who told me they were holding off or that their customers were not requesting m-learning on tablets, are or in the process of offering m-learning on tablets, with primary focus being the iPad
- A couple of rapid content authoring tool vendors are incorporating HTML5 features in their tool, which can be used on tablets, and of course the iPad
- According to a person I spoke with last week at the Articulate booth at Tech Knowledge 2011, Articulate is expecting to roll out HTML5 functionality in their product in Q4 2011 or Q1 2012
- Two Products I saw last week at TK11, showed the real power of mobile learning and tablets; one in my opinion if there was an award for "Best Product Debut at TK11" would have won it
Product A – Upside2Go
- From the makers of Upside Learning
- 100% pure mobile learning platform for tablets and smartphones – accepts them all, they plan to launch an app for the iPad to harness its full capabilities soon
- Upside2Go goes not to their current LMS, but to a separate LMS specifically for the product, thus as mentioned 100% mobile learning platform; other products in the LMS market – that offer a mobile learning solution like this – tie back into their current LMS, thus not a pure m-learning platform
- Offers offline/online synch
- To read more, click my mini-review on Upside2Go
Product B – Knowledge Tango aka K-Tango
- from CERTPOINT, not yet launched
- Truly a revolutionary product from the extended enterprise – which it is for – 100% POS (Point of Sale) focused
- Harnesses the power of Tablets, including the Ipad (which I viewed it on)
- Is a standalone solution, not tied to their LMS
- 100% mobile
Tablet Data in General
- According to the latest projections, the number of tablets to be launched by the end of 2011, is between 80 to 85, with the exception of a small few, they will all accept Flash and HTML5
- The latest market share report is Apple 75%, Android 23%, 2% Other, early projections expect Apple to increase share once the iPad2 is launched
- New vendors hitting the market include Motorola, HP, Vizio, Toshiba, Dell; LG is going to launch sometime mid-year the G-Slate, which incorporates 3D, but you have to wear 3D glasses to see it; all offer video cams and cameras
In my opinion, mobile learning with tablets is the real growth of this industry; and mobile learning will be the big player this year, above social learning.
#3 Social Learning
Still moving forward, with vendors adding some new functionality, and yes, some still in the "gerbil in the wheel".
- Vendors are adding more "comments" and voting i.e. yes or no or thumbs up/thumbs down features
- An increase in Social Q/A or some call it "Ask an Expert" or some other nomenclature; basically a person asks a question, then a subject matter expert responds; in some cases, other end users can also respond to or follow up
- An increase in enabling video upload with comments, number of times seen and date stamp
- Forums and discussion boards are making a comeback (why?)
- Chat rooms – text chat no less, also appearing – (wow, this is soo early 90's)
- Real Time collaborative tools, such as integration with Google Docs or desktop sharing, slowly starting to appear
Why haven't we seen
- Real Time video group chat
- With the exception of one vendor, voice discussion boards, but adding "video" – which the vendor does not offer
- More real time collaborative tools – project management, group tools, CRM, extended enterprise solutions
- End user lists on favorites this or that, with video as an option or mp3 for example with sites, with other end users commenting, ratings, etc
- Integration with Skype (again, one vendor does this), so you can make calls from within to other Skype end users who are within the system, text messages too
- Live casting
- Peer to Peer Sharing of files or business spreadsheets, or product videos, etc. between end users, whether via groups or not
- Slideshare presentation functionality
- Greater use of APIs and Mashups that add new social learning functionality, whatever you think up
#4 Rapid Content Authoring Tools
- A continuing and growing market, more vendors
- Call to numerous vendors in the space, report strong business in January, really good numbers
- Based on feedback, comments and interest from end users, this is a hot market
- Some solutions really becoming a turnkey PowerPoint to Flash product with minimal features or very basic
- A slow but steady growth of vendors adding advanced features targeting higher tech skills, such as adding CSS
- Simulation tools that are aiming for the rapid content authoring tool audience, easy to use, some features, but not overly robust; are appearing
- SAAS based growing, with a few vendors – equally growing – enabling people to see the courses and add feedback, while it is being developed
- High number of vendors who have no support community for their end users; or offer a quick reference card for end users (one vendor has a PDF containing over 50 pages. Who is going to read that?)
- Very few vendors have an immediate multilingual functionality, so with one pull down click, the program will switch to another language. I still do not understand, why everyone thinks the entire world prefers and wants to use only English, rather than their native language.
Emerging Technology
I'm still surprised at the number of vendors who are not truly understanding what "integration" with APIs or Mashups truly means from the end user perspective. Really it is quite simple.
The end user creates on their own or goes and locates APIs and Mashups (two or more APIs) and can integrate them into your system. Either you can do this or you cannot. Simple, yes or no.
I'm glad to report that there is an increase in the ability of vendors to enable this to happen, but it is still very slow and I'm not sure why. Especially when from the vendor side, they already are accepting APIs, just not yours. So, the argument they cannot do it – frankly it bogus.
I'd love to tell you that a mass number of vendors are incorporating emerging technology into their products, but alas it is not to be. Oh, sure there is a sprinkle, the aforementioned vendor with the voice capability in their product geared towards higher education; another who has added the ability to add social learning functionality into a CMS, with video off initial live streaming and metadata too, but it is few and far between.
But for the most part, most have not. I surmise they are just waiting or being ignorant, which for some, is a combination of both.
When it comes down to it, emerging technology ties into all of the above four indicators in one way or another. The key is seeing what is possible, what is right now appearing to be impossible and then going forward it.
After all, there is a vendor who said to themselves, that everyone's' blog in their system, looks nothing like a real blog. So, they went out, grabbed the WordPress component, stuck that into their system. Now, when people use it, it actually looks like a real blog; plus what the end users type, appears to everyone in the real world, because the blog is live.
We need more of that. So, here to those who are getting it.
Because change is coming, and if the world has shown us anything these past few weeks, you cannot stop the movement once it begins.
E-Learning 24/7


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A Grip on Grief: How to Help Children Cope with Loss
- Barbara Schiller Single Parent Family Resources
- 2012 28 Aug
Editor's note: This article was adapted from Barbara Schiller's "A Grip on Grief: How to Help Children Cope with Loss" on the Center for Single Parent Family Ministries. It was reprinted from Single-Parent Family, August 1995, a Focus on the Family production.
With downcast eyes, 11-year-old Chad walked into the classroom one Monday night during "Just Me & the Kids," a 12-week support ministry for single parents and their children. He was pale and had dark circles beneath his eyes.
Chad began to argue with the other children, insisting he didn't need to attend the class. Determined to convince the others they didn't need to be there either, he jeered, taunted and lashed out at everyone.
Chad was angry. But determined as Chad was to leave, Michael, his leader, was just as determined to be his friend. Over the next three months, Chad's grief began to unfold. Confused and disoriented by his parents' emotionally charged divorce and the family's subsequent relocation, he even tried suicide. His mother took the advice of a caring psychiatrist and enrolled him in "Just Me & the Kids," where Chad wrote this poem:
Should people hate me because I'm white?
I can't understand why people want to fight.
Is Jesus really God's Son?
Will I ever reach 21?
Why is my heart trampled and torn?
And why does my dad not love me anymore?
Is it something I did or something I said?
And why is everyone only interested in getting to bed?
So I say to the world with all my heart,
Keep us together or we'll be far apart.
As the author of "Just Me & the Kids," I offer leadership training and conferences to church staffs and educators to help them understand the unique needs of single-parent families. My conferences provide beneficial information to single parents and their children. While conducting these seminars, I see and hear stories like Chad's too often.
How can we help our children grieve following divorce? Why do they exhibit certain behaviors? Are there practical ideas we can use in the home, school and church to assist our children? I believe there are, and with God's help, children like Chad can again find hope.
Claudia L. Jewett, in her book Helping Children Cope With Separation and Loss (1982, The Harvard Common Press, Harvard, Mass.), says that children often experience three "phases of grief" when they go through a loss. With each phase, she identifies behaviors and practical ideas to assist in understanding these stages. The phases are early grief, acute grief and integration of loss and grief. The duration of each depends on how many losses the child has suffered and how much continued strife occurs between the parents.
Phase 1: Early Grief
According to Jewett, there are four common reactions in children – shock, alarm, denial and hyperactivity that is physiologically related – that indicate whether they are experiencing early grief.
Shock and Numbing. Children who find out Mom and Dad are getting a divorce go into emotional shock. These children, normally outgoing and gregarious, become sullen and withdrawn.
After a seminar one afternoon, a young mother said, "I have always had to work outside my home, and my 3-year-old son has gone to the same day care since he was an infant. My husband and I recently separated. Now when I drop him off at day care, my son cries, whines and clings to me. His caregiver tells me he sits by himself, not wanting to play with his friends. I now realize my son is suffering from emotional shock and fear of abandonment. He thinks I am not coming back to take him home."
Alarm. Jewett says, "Because children look to their parents to keep them safe, the loss of a family member heightens their sense of vulnerability" (p.25). Children experiencing this tendency will exhibit insomnia, loss of appetite, food binges and physical ailments such as earaches, sore throats and colds. When the stress does not subside, their immune system begins to break down, and they become prone to infection.
Denial and Disbelief. When shock and numbing wears off and reality becomes too difficult to handle, a child often experiences denial. The child may think, Everything is going to be like it used to be. Dad will come back and we will be fine.
If children choose to be in denial, do not try to pull them out. Rather, be available and support them, but don't force reality. If denial continues for an excessive time, professional help should be considered. Your place is to love and accept your children and listen to their concerns.
Hyperactivity. This impulsive behavior, when found in children of divorce, is thought to be related to high stress levels.
Seven-year-old Jimmy and his two older sisters were living with Dad after Mom walked out on the family. She then came back and initiated a custody battle, which was when I met the family at a church program designed for single parents.
The program leaders had trouble handling Jimmy's high intensity and impulsivity. While the other children sat at the table doing crafts, Jimmy ran around knocking down chairs. His hyperactivity was related to the trauma occurring in his home.
One evening, an exasperated children's leader massaged his shoulders to calm him down. Jimmy's body wilted. With his head bowed and his shoulders bent, he said, "My mom used to do that." His behavior improved from that moment on. The children's leader had not only touched Jimmy's shoulders, she had also touched his heart.
When children are in early grief, Jewett suggests there are several practical ways in which you can help them:
- Use flannel bed sheets. I recommend flannel pajamas, too. Flannel has a calming and nurturing effect on children.
- Play the radio softly as you put the children to bed. Bedtime is often frightening for children in a quiet environment.
- Serve foods that have a mushy, milky texture and are high in potassium – an essential stress combatant. Jewett suggests mashed potatoes and applesauce. I also recommend bananas.
- Buy a watch for the child. It provides him with a sense of control as he asks questions like, "What time are you coming home tonight?"
- Give the child a house key. Fear of abandonment may make it hard for children to be away from their parents. By having house keys of their own, they will have a constant reminder that Mom or Dad will return. Caution: Children can lose their keys often. Decorating them with ribbon will help.
Phase 2: Acute Grief
According to Jewett, the second phase of grieving is acute grief, which can be seen in several behaviors: yearning, pining and searching; strong emotions; disorganization or disorientation, and despair or depression.
Yearning, Pining and Searching. This phase is painful. The children are no longer living in denial, and they feel the deep impact of their circumstances. As the pattern of denial breaks down, they try to understand what has happened to them. They look for something good in their past to help them cope with the present and anticipate the future.
Strong Emotions. The release of your children's anger is a process. Several years ago when I was a camp counselor, seven of us spent our day off hiking in the Rockies. We agreed that whoever found the first snowfield would let the others know.
We should allow our children to be angry, scared or sad. When they "own" their emotions by expressing them, their emotional pain will not last as long.
Some ways you might help children release anger are: crumpling paper and stuffing it into a bag, pounding clay or playdough with your fist, beating a pillow, getting involved in sports, and engaging in fun activities around the house to burn any excess energy. But most importantly, allow them to move at their own pace and be available to listen.
If anger is not properly vented, it will reveal itself in outbursts, violent temper tantrums, ulcers and high blood pressure. Anger is one way of peeling back the emotional scab and allowing further healing – from the inside out.
Disorganization or Disorientation. Grieving children are often disorganized and disoriented. Though once quite competent and energetic, they find themselves sitting aimlessly with blank stares. Decisions are exhausting, and concentrating on a task becomes overwhelming. Is it any wonder that school can also become an obstacle? Because of the child's inability to concentrate, learn and retain information, his or her grades usually drop
Despair (or Depression). Children's depression often resembles a profound sadness. This was especially true of 13-year-old Maria. She was sad and needed to be given permission to openly grieve. Only then was she able to begin healing. She expressed this pain through a poem written to Jesus one afternoon:
Just Someone Who Cares (Jesus)
Every once in awhile
I sit and tell You how I feel.
My thoughts go for miles,
But physically it's not real.
Only You know how much
I miss my dad.
Only You know how it makes me sad.
Only You know how I can't compete.
Only You know how I'm always beat.
Sometimes I'm so scared,
Sometimes I wish someone cared.
Some people fake it and say they do.
I don't believe them, do You?
Phase 3: Integration of Loss and Grief
Jewett cites three behaviors to watch for in this phase, each of which shows that your children are anticipating their future.
Talking About the Loss. Children begin to talk freely about their parents' divorce as their shame and embarrassment lessen. The divorce may still bother them, but acceptance comes even though things didn't turn out the way they wished.
Getting Involved Again. The children's self-esteem is being restored. They are starting to be involved in activities again, and they are not as withdrawn. They desire to deepen their healthy relationships and want to walk away from unhealthy ones.
Caring About Others. The children's pain has been replaced with sensitivity and caring, and they begin to think about other people's needs as well as their own.
One morning after church, a kindergarten Sunday school teacher described an event involving Nicole, one of the children whom we had met during a recent session of "Just Me & the Kids." "In our Sunday school class is a little friend of Nicole's whose parents are getting a divorce," the teacher said. "Today she crouched in a corner crying. Nicole put her arm around her and said, 'I know it's hard because my parents are divorced, too. But remember, it is not your fault.'" Nicole was caring about others. She was healing.
Communicating at School. Your children's schoolteachers need to know what is happening in your home. Divorce is devastating for everyone involved, and children need the support of those at school.
Communicate with your child's teachers. Share the telltale signs of stress your child may manifest. Let them know that many behaviors may continue throughout the school year and how important it is that the child not be isolated for misbehavior. Emphasize how much you want to be involved in your child's progress.
* * * * *
Remember Chad from the beginning of this story? A year after his participation in "Just Me & the Kids," Chad, his brother and his mom attended a single-parent family retreat. It was a joyful reunion for this family and the leaders of our ministry. While roasting marshmallows beside a campfire, Chad asked if he and his brother could sing a duet. Under the starry skies of Missouri, two small voices rang out bold and strong, singing the melody "Our God Is an Awesome God."
As we listened, there was not one among us who did not marvel about the depth of God's unconditional love and faithfulness in our lives. That moment reminded us to never give up hope, to always be encouraged and to never forget that "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" (Matthew 5:4). That's a promise that can help anyone get a grip on grief.
The Center for Single Parent Family Ministry was incorporated as a non-profit corporation in 2003, led by a Board of Directors and supported by an Advisory Council. Today, we humbly follow where God is leading in order to bring about hope and healing in the lives of single-parents and their children, the modern-day widows and orphans (James 1:27).
Single Parent Family Resources is a non-profit organization that helps churches set up programs and workshops for single parents and their children. Our most successful program is Just Me & the Kids.
Publication date: August 28, 2012


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Water SA
On-line version ISSN 1816-7950
Print version ISSN 0378-4738
POINAPEN, J; EKAMA, GA and WENTZEL, MC. Biological sulphate reduction with primary sewage sludge in an upflow anaerobic sludge bed (UASB) reactor - Part 2: Modification of simple wet chemistry analytical procedures to achieve COD and S mass balances. Water SA [online]. 2009, vol.35, n.5, pp.535-542. ISSN 1816-7950.
The use of the conventional COD method to measure sulphide proved to be problematic due to the loss of hydrogen sulphide (H2S) during sample handling. For calibration of models based on mass balances, and operation of full-scale systems, it was imperative to develop simple wet chemistry analytical procedures for the accurate measurement of parameters like sulphide, COD, alkalinities and VFA in order to monitor BSR systems and achieve 100% COD and S mass balances. Three different analytical methods were investigated to minimise the loss of un-dissociated H2S. Method 1, which is the recommended Standard Methods COD test method, resulted in poor S mass balance (64-75%) due to loss of H2S during sample handling, mainly vacuum filtration. Method 2, in which 3 drops of 10 M NaOH are added immediately upon effluent sample collection to raise the pH to > 10 and converting un-dissociated H2S species into the HS- species resulted in minimal sulphide loss during sample vacuum filtration, dilution, mixing and standing. Method 3, in which a polyelectrolyte is added to the effluent sample to coagulate the organic particles with centrifugation for solid-liquid separation instead of vacuum filtration. Results from Method 3 showed an improvement in the S mass balance with respect to Method 1 - 91% against 75% without a long sample standing period and 88% against 65% with a long sample standing period. However, S mass balance with Method 3 was still relatively low when compared with Method 2 (86 to 91% against 92 to 95%). Therefore, Method 2 was the best simple wet chemistry analytical procedure to accurately measure ST (= H2S + HS-) and achieve close to 100% COD and S mass balances. The effects of ST loss were also investigated on the total and subsystem alkalinities as determined with the 5-pH point titration method. By testing standard solutions with known carbonate, acetate and sulphide species and upflow anaerobic sludge bed (UASB) reactor effluent samples, it was found that the total alkalinity concentration is not affected by H2S (and CO2) loss as the subsystem alkalinities re-speciate due to a change in pH; and to obtain accurate H2CO3* alk and volatile fatty acid (VFA) concentrations, accurate sulphide concentrations are required, i.e. those obtained from Method 2.
Keywords : biological sulphate reduction; mixed weak acid [base chemistry]; titration methods; sulphide; chemical oxygen demand; volatile fatty acids; alkalinity.


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From the Booking Desk:
This is the sixth post for this feature here at BOLO Books – The APB (All Points Bulletin).
As always, competition for these slots was tough. What books are generating that elusive buzz in the publishing industry? Which are books that I have been waiting for?
This feature works in conjunction with the weekly BOLO (Be On the Look Out) posts. Both are intended to highlight books that I am excited about in advance of their release date. In the case of the APB, the format is simply to present a gallery featuring the covers and the official release date of each book. As we get closer to that release date, the BOLO post will give you more detailed information on each title, but in the meantime, feel free to research these titles on your own. And remember to pre-order!
(Also, keep your eye out for an upcoming Triple Post with my friends – Dru Ann Love and Lesa Holstine – with even more hotly anticipated titles.)


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Wolfenstein is id Software's latest gaming title having just hit shelves last week. Upon its release Wolfenstein has received generally favorable reviews from critics. The game has been praised for its exciting single player campaign, while the multiplayer component has received the most criticism, considered by some to be a letdown when compared to its predecessor Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory.
Regardless of how you feel about playing solo or multiplayer, there is no denying that Wolfenstein is a great looking game. Based on a highly modified version of the id Tech 4 engine, the game is able to deliver cutting edge graphics that rival more recently developed engines. The modifications to the engine include depth of field effects, post processing effects, Havok physics, soft shadowing, as well as the addition of a supernatural realm called 'The Veil'.
As with any new game release there is always the chance it may not run on your current setup, or at the very least, not run well. That's the reason we like to bring you a complete set of tests based on new games such as Wolfenstein using a range of current graphics cards and some other not so current ones.
View: Wolfenstein Graphics Performance In-Depth
These articles are brought to you in partnership with TechSpot


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The Buckeye SuperBike weekend doubled up the action on Sunday after inclement weather spoiled the fun at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course the day before. All seven AMA Pro Road Racing contests were successfully run on a Sunday that saw Monster Energy Graves Yamaha teammates Cameron Beaubier and Josh Hayes share top honors in the premier AMA Pro SuperBike class.
AMA Pro SuperBike Race 1
Hayes took the holeshot from pole (the grid was based on points) but Beaubier drove past his teammate on the back straight on lap 6 of 16. Once in control, Beaubier withstood the intense pressure and last-lap assault the three-time champion subjected him to in a concerted attempt to steal away the victory.
The Mississippian blanketed his 21-year-old rival throughout the second half of their intra-team duel, yet the resurgent Beaubier proved unflappable. Hayes made a bid on the final lap, striking momentarily only to have the rookie immediately snatch back the position and ultimately hold on for a thrilling 0.293-second victory at the checkered flag.
"It feels great to be able to beat Josh after a really good battle," said Beaubier. "I know he probably has the championship in the back of his head, but I was pushing hard. ... I had the intention to push the last three laps but I made a few mistakes and ran wide here and there. I knew I wasn't going to break him, obviously, so I was just trying to ride protectively. I was braking a little harder going into the corners, (trying to) not use the whole track, and go up the inside of a lot of corners. He did sneak up on me and caught me by surprise. I saw him run a little wide so I stayed out a little wide and cut pretty hard on the inside. It was a good clean race and it was hard."
Hayes was happy with his safe second-place finish.
"It was a good race. I wanted to win it if the opportunity presented itself but I can't be silly either," said Hayes. "I don't like thinking about championships, but you know ... I was trying to be careful, but if he gave me a chance, take it. I took one shot at him on the last lap and I think if it had been anybody else, it would have been a little bit closer of a pass. I wanted to make sure I got all the way through to make sure we got through the corner clean and I overshot it enough that he was able to zip past through."
Yoshimura Suzuki Factory Racing teammates Roger Hayden and Martin Cardenas were interested spectators early in the contest, clinging on to the battle for the lead in the race's opening stages before gradually losing touch. Colombian Cardenas was the first to lose the chase, fading back around lap 8, while Kentuckian Hayden dropped out of contention a couple laps later.
"I hung on for a while but I started to make some mistakes," Hayden admitted. "I was having trouble getting my bike into the corner and was missing my apex in a couple spots. A little over half way they started pulling away and I didn't want to crash and lose my data for the next race so I kind of put it on cruise control so we could make the bike a little better for the second race. That race was really our first real practice being here on the new bike."
The two held their positions, however, with Hayden rounding out the podium in third.
KTM/HMC Racing's Chris Fillmore took a lonely fifth, while third Yoshimura pilot Chris Clark chased down ADR Motorsports/Sic/Motul Fly Racing's David Anthony for sixth, with Foremost Insurance Pegram Racing's Larry Pegram just behind in eight.
GEICO Motorcycle Honda's Chris Ulrich and Babuska Racing's Frankie Babuska completed the opening race's top ten.
AMA Pro SuperBike Race 2
After being edged by his young teammate earlier in the day, Hayes got his revenge in what proved to be an ever tighter rematch.
Again starting from pole (this time due to posting the fastest lap in Race 1), Hayes ran in front with Beaubier close in formation as they quickly broke free from the pack. The lighter Beaubier finally made his move on lap 13 of 16, again powering past at the end of the back straight, in an attempt to duplicate his earlier victory.
However, this time around Hayes made that aggressive last-lap pass that he overshot in the first race stick. Seemingly in strong shape to maintain first from there to the flag, Hayes got off line through the Carousel. That miscue allowed Beaubier to get the drive and rip up alongside him as they sprinted to the stripe.
Too close to call without a review, the photo finish ultimately showed that Hayes held on by mere inches to claim the win.
The narrow triumph was Hayes' eleventh AMA Pro Road Racing victory at Mid-Ohio, making him the winningest rider in the event's long history, one up on the legendary Mat Mladin.
"I was thinking about passing him earlier in the race and just kind of mix up my rhythm instead of waiting for some kind of desperate move on the last lap," said Hayes after Race 2. "While I was thinking about these things, we came up and I saw the white flag. I was completely taken by surprise with the white flag. I hadn't been watching the lap board and had no idea it was last lap of the race. We were going through Turn 1 and I got a good run and I thought, 'What am I going to do?' I knew what he was expecting. I still felt very confident in there so when I was close enough to have a go, I did and got it stopped. From that point forward, it was probably the ugliest half lap of riding I've ever done in my life.
"I was pretty sloppy in the Carousel but I thought I had it because there are really no passing opportunities. I was just trying to get back to the inside and I ended up losing the front and really botching the last two corners. I never upshifted, I just held second and hit the rev limiter at the line. When I glanced over to my left I actually thought Cameron had got me, but it was so hard to tell right at the line. I was pretty relieved to get to the podium and find out I had won the race. I wanted to win it really bad and I had a lot of fun racing with Cam."
Beaubier said he enjoyed the race as well.
"Josh made a hard, clean pass on me," said Beaubier. "After that I was just looking for any way I could to get around him. He was braking pretty deep trying to not give it away. I tried to set him up coming off the last corner and I didn't know who won.
"Regardless who won today, it was a great race. It's kind of crazy not knowing who won until we came into pit lane."
Hayden finished third for a second time on the day. He actually made inroads on the leaders for a couple laps after losing touch early, but a compound mistake dropped him well and truly out of contention on lap 7. The Kentuckian carried on to claim a lonely third, further enabled by Cardenas' early-race crash in the braking zone at the end of the back straight.
"It was a decent weekend," Hayden said. "Third place is not bad when you're battling for the win but when you're however many seconds back it's not very satisfying. I don't know... I'm having trouble keeping up off the corners and on the straights. I'm just riding so far above what I can do every lap and I just start making mistakes. We have some tests lined up and we need to make things a little better and hopefully at New Jersey make a race out of it."
Fillmore took advantage of the Colombian's mistake as well, coming home in fourth while Clark edged TOBC's Racing Suzuki's Taylor Knapp for fifth.
Anthony got off to a poor start and slashed his way up to seventh, while Ulrich and Team AMSOIL Hero EBR's Cory West took eighth and ninth, respectively. Babuska again rounded out the top ten.
AMA Pro GoPro Daytona SportBike Race 1
Motosport.com/Meen Yamaha's Jake Lewis won the first AMA Pro GoPro Daytona SportBike contest of the day, making a last-lap pass of Jake Gagne to win his second race in a row. Lewis shadowed RoadRace Factory/Red Bull's Gagne until the white flag then made his move at the end of Mid-Ohio's long straight. Gagne fought back, but Lewis was able to hold his line and held the lead until the flag.
"It's huge to get two wins in a row," said Lewis. "I was planning my strategy for the end of the race. I made a pretty good pass on the brakes and blocked from there. There are only a couple of other spots to pass from there."
After the race, the two Jakes were tied for the series points lead.
Riders Discount Racing Triumph's Danny Eslick won the battle for third. The Oklahoman had a good battle with Yamaha Extended Service/Monster Energy/Graves Yamaha's Garrett Gerloff and Dane Westby. Westby rose up from seventh to take third on the Yamalube/Westby Racing machine by the middle stages of the race, but Eslick rallied to take the position back.
Garrett Gerloff also passed Westby to earn fourth.
Gerloff's teammate JD Beach was sixth, having led the first lap before dropping down the order.
AMA Pro GoPro Daytona SportBike Race 2
Jason DiSalvo won the second AMA Pro GoPro Daytona SportBike race at Mid-Ohio. DiSalvo topped Jake Gagne for the prize in the red-flagged race, showing great form as he earned the win by being the strongest at the end of the race.
"The team has their heart and soul in this," said New York-born DiSalvo. "They are trying to make the best bike they can. It was great to see all the Northeasterners up here cheering me on."
Gagne now leads the points, earning two second place results on the day. The Californian is seven points ahead of Jake Lewis, who took fourth in race two after winning the opener.
Gerloff was third after trying to hang with the leaders and aggressively moving by Lewis in a bid to hang onto the lead duo. Ultimately, he took the checkered flag almost four and a half seconds back.
Bobby Fong earned an excellent fifth place on his Latus Motors/Castrol/Triumph Racing entry, holding off another former class race winner Blake Young on the GN Gonzalez machine.
AMA Pro SuperSport Race 1
Houston Superbikes' Dustin Dominguez won the first AMA Pro SuperSport race at Mid-Ohio. Dominguez ran away from early leader Hayden Gillim of TOBC Racing to take a 3.260-second victory.
"We're not really worried about points. We're here to win races and if we do, we'll win the championship," said Dominguez, who took second place in the points after the win. "That's our plan. The race went pretty perfect for me."
Gillim wasn't able to win, but assumed the points lead with his strong second place.
Corey Alexander crashed out of third place midway through the 11-lapper on his HVMC Celtic Racing entry. Alexander, who went down in the Keyhole turn, was tied for the lead in the points before the race.
The battle for third saw Alexander's teammate Wyatt Farris return to the podium. The Californian edged Excel Racing's Connor Blevins by less than a tenth of a second. Texan J.C. Camacho (House of Paint Designs) took a fine fifth.
AMA Pro SuperSport Race 2
Dominguez won the second AMA Pro SuperSport race at Mid-Ohio, too. The Oklahoman topped Gillim again, this time by 3.510 seconds after 11 laps. With the win, Dominguez closed to within two points of championship leader Gillim.
"I give Hayden high marks," said Dominguez. "He pushed me really hard. I'd give him an 'A' for effort. ... I liked doing the two races in one day. It's a lot of riding and I love it."
Gillim took the lead for good with Alexander's issues in race one. Alexander's bike was pushed off the grid just before the start of race two as well.
"It's the first time I have been in the lead in the championship," Gillim said. "This time I am going to New Jersey with the lead."
Blevins earned his first AMA Pro SuperSport podium on Sunday. The 19-year old beat top series pilots Kaleb De Keyrel, Wyatt Farris and Jason Aguilar of Tuned Industries for the final spot on the podium.
Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson Series
Josh Chisum Racing/Bartels Harley-Davidson's Tyler O'Hara snapped his midseason dry spell and returned to the top of the podium following a hard-fought AMA Pro Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson Series contest.
"It feels really good," O'Hara said. "We've been off the box the last three races in a row. This weekend was a turning point for me. Every weekend from here on out we're battling for every point. We have three races left and I expect nothing less than to just battle every weekend."
Five riders were in contention throughout in the seesawing contest that saw Ruthless Racing's Danny Eslick go from first to fifth and back to second, and Suburban Motors Harley-Davidson's Steve Rapp work from fifth to first, only to end up fifth again in the end.
Rapp's teammate, Ben Carlson, finished behind O'Hara and Eslick in third after leading on the final lap in search of his first-ever AMA Pro Road Racing win.
KWR/Millennium Technologies' Kyle Wyman was in the mix as well, ultimately taking the flag in fourth position.
O'Hara's win tightens up the points with the AMA Pro Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson Series next headed to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a doubleheader alongside the MotoGP World Championship on August 8-10. Eslick still leads with 120 points, but O'Hara has drawn closer in second at 114.
Next Race
Following the AMA Pro Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson Series' Indy doubleheader, the AMA Pro Road Racing season will come to its conclusion and the 2014 champions will be decided at the Kawasaki Devil's Showdown at New Jersey Motorsports Park in Millville, N.J., Sept. 13-14.
How to Watch
FansChoice.tv is the official home for live streaming coverage of AMA Pro Road Racing and AMA Pro Flat Track events in 2014. The site also provides coverage of IMSA's development and single-make series, and NASCAR's touring and weekly series.
About AMA Pro Road Racing:
AMA Pro Road Racing is the premier motorcycle road racing series in North America and is universally regarded as one of the most competitive road racing organizations in the world. The series is comprised of four production-based classes: AMA Pro SuperBike, AMA Pro GoPro Daytona SportBike, AMA Pro SuperSport and the AMA Pro Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson Series. Learn more about AMA Pro Road Racing at www.amaproracing.com/rr/.
AMA Pro Racing is the premier professional motorcycle racing organization in North America, operating a full schedule of events and championships for a variety of motorcycle disciplines. Learn more about AMA Pro Racing at www.amaproracing.com.
(AMA Pro Racing PR)


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