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Alabama is on top of the college football world... until September 4 when the 2010 season kicks off. That is exactly how Nick Saban wants it, having a hungry team ready to not defend, but win again.
How has the focus been for the Tide in the off season?
Can Mark Ingram become just the 2nd back-to-back Heisman winner?
Could the defense possibly be better after losing so many starters from last season?
To find out the answers to these and other questions, I contacted Roll 'Bama Roll for their insight on the Crimson Tide.
Q: Take out the great players. What do you think makes Nick Saban such a good coach?
A: First, we probably ought to define the term "great players" as it pertains to Saban. We've all crowed about all the flashy stars next to the names of the most recent recruiting classes, but a lot of them have yet to even see the field despite being arguably better, at least on paper, than the guys getting the snaps.
Take Eryk Anders and Corey Reamer, two starters on a truly dominant defense last season. Saban himself said he never thought either one of them would have a place on the team, but there they were, and they did it because they worked their butts off to know the schemes and their roles in it.
There are guys all over last year's team with the same story, players who worked hard, bought in, and gave everything they had on every snap, and most of them didn't even get a sniff from any other major BCS programs coming out of high school. So when we are talking about "great players" where Saban is involved, great has more to do with their character and work ethic than their 40 times and what they can bench.
That being said, I don't know that you can take out the great players and we'd still be talking about how great of a coach Saban is. All the attention to detail, organization, game planning, and just flat immense knowledge of X's and O's in the world (which are the things I'm sure you were expecting me to say) won't do you a lot of good if you don't have the right kind of players to pull it off. Saban knows this. That's why he's so focused on recruiting, and specifically recruiting the kinds of players that fit his schemes and his style of football.
A lot of that is measurables. He's also very aware that whoever he offers a scholarship to has to have the right kind of work ethic, be it at practice or in the film room, and the desire to get better every day so that they can be successful on the field.
Q: Will Saban and OC Jim McElwain give QB Greg McElroy more freedom at QB this year to sling the ball around?
A: I think they'll honestly just go with what's working. Both have expressed a desire to generate more "explosive" plays on offense. Opening up the passing game will be key to that, but both coaches are pretty pragmatic when it comes to the offense and if it's not there, they aren't going to force it.
I do believe that the passing game has the potential to be more wide open than it was, though, so in that regard I can say that I believe McElroy will be slinging the ball around more this season. He's got a year under his belt, he showed massive improvement towards the end of the season after a terrible slump. The WR position is getting deeper each year (and that's not mentioning the RBs out of the backfield and the TEs) so all the ingredients are there.
Q: I think Mark Ingram will not win the Heisman again because he will have to split more carries with Trent Richardson. Am I right or wrong?
A: You're probably right that Ingram won't win it again, but not necessarily because of splitting carries with Richardson. Richardson is going to be a big part of the offense this year, no doubt about it, but if the passing game takes off like we think it will then that takes even more focus off of Ingram.
And let's face it, if he hadn't been pretty much the entire offense during an important part of last year's run, Ingram probably wouldn't have even sniffed Manhattan/ However, because of his heroics against South Carolina (and then Florida), he was propelled into the Heisman race despite having zero hype at the start of the season and no orchestrated campaign from the university.
I mean, Greg McElroy was being talked about as a dark horse candidate before Ingram's name was even mentioned, so that ought to tell you a little something about how out of left field his winning it was.
Q: How healthy is Julio Jones and is there another guy who can step up and replace him if he gets hurt again?
A: He's at 100 percent now and hopefully can stay that way, though he's had a bit of a hard luck streak on the injury front for the past two years. You wouldn't have known it by watching him, but in 2008 he managed to play through both a sports hernia and a wrist injury (both were revealed after offseason surgeries). Then last year he was clearly bothered by a nagging knee injury suffered early on against FIU.
During that stretch he still played reasonably well, but was clearly not himself, and both Darius Hanks and Marquis Maze stepped up their games to take some of the burden off of him.
Of course, that was also a pretty frustrating stretch for McElroy as well, so we really don't know what might have been with a seasoned QB spreading the ball around. Hanks and Maze are going to be significant contributors again this year, but I would also think Earl Alexander, Kevin Norwood and Brandon Gibson all have a good chance of getting into the rotation a good bit as well.
Q: Alabama lost alot on the o-line after 2008, but played even better in 2009. Which players are going to step up to keep the tradition going?
A: James Carpenter (LT), William Vlachos (C), and Barrett Jones (RG) are all back and all had great seasons last year. I'll single Carpenter out for praise because his ability to come right in from JUCO and fill Andre Smith's shoes at LT was probably the biggest single key to the o-line's success last year.
He had his faults (took him a few games to get settled after a string of frustrating holding and false start penalties), but he was a serviceable SEC caliber tackle to begin with and fortunately developed over the course of the season into a more than solid player for us.
As for the vacated spots, mammoth recruit D.J. Fluker is getting a look at RT (though there's been some interesting shuffling the past few days) and by all accounts will likely wind up starting there, and Chance Warmack has effectively locked down the LG spot vacated by All-American Mike Johnson.
Warmack is an interesting case since he looked like a monster at RG during spring camp last year before being supplanted by Barrett Jones in the middle of fall camp. That took a lot of people by surprise, but he's a natural guard and has pretty well been the clear cut front runner at LG since spring camp.
Q: Who steps up in the NT spot vacated by Mt. [Terrance] Cody and how effective can they be in replacement?
A: You're going to see several players rotating in at NT this season, but the top two are going to be Josh Chapman and Kerry Murphy. Chapman has been Cody's backup the last two years and he's a fine NT on his own merits, often replacing Cody in passing situations and just generally providing a little more speed and athleticism from the inside.
I would look for him to be the preferred guy this year against the run, though, and he'll probably see the most action. Murphy really brings a pass rushing presence in the middle of the line that we just haven't had without having to move our ends inside and I think gives the coaches a little bit more versatility in their groupings.
You'll also probably see Darrington Sentimore getting in as well. There hasn't been a lot of talk of him this fall, but he looked good in the spring and is another high motor player like Murphy, so look for him on 3rd and longs.
Q: Who steps into the departed Rolando McClain's shoes as the captain of the defense?
A: Dont'a Hightower is the signal caller this year after missing most of last season thanks to a horrific knee injury against Arkansas. He was already well on his way to being a dominant force after starting every game as a true freshman, but I think what really speaks most about his leadership and the faith the staff is putting in him was the simple fact he was still learning and trying to help even on crutches.
Go back and look at the games from last year, and anytime the camera shows the defense huddled on the sideline he's right there with the linebackers telling them what he's seeing from the sidelines.
He's moved over to Mike from his Will position, and will also put his hand down some as a DE, so he knows the defense. Now all we need is for him to show he has the same smarts and ability to get the defense into the right call as quickly as McClain.
Q: Where could the potential weak link be on this defense?
A: The secondary is giving us nightmares right now. We lost so much to graduation and the NFL. Adding insult to injury (or injury to insult, as it were) we've got guys getting banged up left and right all through fall camp. B.J. Scott and Dre Kirkpatrick pretty well have the starting corner spots locked down, and both have all the talent and athleticism in the world.
Unfortunately, neither has any significant game experience.
Behind them DeMarcus Milliner and John Fulton are highly touted true freshmen, DeQuan Menzie was a coveted JUCO corner, and LSU transfer Phelon Jones is now eligible after sitting a year.
Milliner is already looking like he's going to be in the mix after enrolling early, but he's missed the last several practices with an ankle sprain. Menzie injured his hamstring before spring practice even started and wasn't expected to play this year, but he's miraculously out on the practice field and by all accounts looking good, even if still a little bothered by the injury. For the most part, the corner situation is at least reasonably manned with significant talent even if it does lack experience.
Safety, on the other hand, is too depressing to even think about. Mark Barron is a super star, but opposite him we have no one.
Robby Green is ineligible after a mysterious violation of NCAA rules.
Robert Lester has shown some talent but is far from being as consistent as we'd like.
Kendall Kelly, who moved over to DB from WR in the spring and did a pretty good job of it, just today returned to practice after suffering from dizziness and other "heat related" issues the very first day of fall camp. Even though he could contribute later in the season, he's missed so much practice that there's no way he'll be up to speed enough by the first game.
We're down to walk on Will Lowery getting a lot of quality snaps and Saban saying he's going to probably play a significant role this season, so if there's a "potential" weak link, look at the safety position and pray with me that there aren't any injuries there this season.
Q: Who are some of the freshman that are likely to contribute?
A: I already talked about DeMarcus Milliner at corner, and beyond him a couple of guys that are definitely going to see action are true freshman kickers Cade Foster, Cody Mandell, and Jay Williams.
We graduated multi-year starters Leigh Tiffin and P.J. Fitzgerald last year, so we're looking at platooning our kickers depending on what essentially boils down to Saban's game time gut feelings. Maybe I should have put that in the 'weak link' answer, too. On offense, red-shirt freshman Eddie Lacy is fighting hard to be the No. 3 running back behind Mark Ingram and Trent Richardson.
RB coach Burton Burns remarked that he's a blend of those two. Watching him at A-Day you could see the scary blend of strength and speed that those guys possess. He's going to be good when he gets a chance, so whenever he does get into the game keep an eye on him.
There's also been some talk that true freshman receivers DeAndrew White and Corey Grant have been turning heads this fall with their speed, but WR is so loaded with experience right now that I just don't see the staff burning red-shirts on them unless they manage to work their way onto special teams.
Q: Describe a successful season. Describe a disappointing one.
A: As you know, we are Alabama fans, and Alabama fans can't consider a season successful unless we win it all. That's not to say that we will, but as long as I can remember the stated goal of the Crimson Tide is to win championships, both of the league and national variety, and when you have a top program that should always be your aim.
So I honestly feel like, for teams like Alabama or Texas or Ohio State or Florida, a season's success needs to be measured by that standard. Even though nine or 10 wins and a New Year's Bowl would be considered "successful" by most standards, if it doesn't include at least a conference title then somewhere along the way the season went off the rails.
For us specifically, I would consider, at the least, winning the SEC a successful season (and winning whatever bowl would be nice, too). A disappointing one would be losing more than one regular season game and/or not making it back to Atlanta.
Q: What is your prediction for this season?
A: I can't make predictions when it comes to Alabama because I simply cannot pick against the Tide. I do believe we'll lose a regular season game, though, but I also believe we'll win the SEC West and play in the championship game again, though.
My Take on Alabama...
I think Nick Saban has a better chance to repeat with this program than he did at LSU. Even a control freak like Saban couldn't keep the Tigers hungry (much less Les Miles), but in Tuscaloosa I think he has a shot.
Offensively, as long as the offensive line is as physical as it has been the last two years they will be fine. Having Jones healthy for a season is just a bonus. One concern could be if Greg McElroy gets hurt. Saban has not had a starting QB miss a start due to injury since he got there and that luck has to run out some time.
On the defensive side of the ball, the talent level is higher than it was last year, but there will be more of a learning curve. I can see some bumps this year, early on especially, but in the next few years this unit has a chance to be Miami Hurricanes of the 1980s-esque.
Much has been made of the schedule and the opponents bye weeks. I think more important is the fact Alabama has gone two seasons undefeated in the regular season. Three is very tough in a league as deep as the SEC. I think the Tide will slip up somewhere and it may be before the 'bye week palooza' hits.
11-1, 1st in SEC West
Thanks again to Roll 'Bama Roll for their insight.
This article is also featured on The ACC and SEC Blog


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Q&A: "My Dad's New Family is Mean to Me"
Teen parenting expert Rosalind Wiseman answers your tough questions.
Question: I'm 13 years old and my parents are separated. I spend some weekends at my dad's house and his new family is mean to me. My dad and his fiancée criticize me for being lazy and overweight. They often say they're joking, but I'm in tears when I get home to my mom. How do I make them stop?
Answer: Unfortunately, I get many letters from kids in your situation and it comes down to one solution: You have to be more mature than your parent. If you want to tell your dad how you feel, bring someone with you whom your dad respects, like an uncle or grandmother. If you have to do it alone, be prepared to have your mom pick you up around the corner from his house in case the conversation doesn't go well. When you tell him how you feel, don't bring up everything he's ever done. Describe patterns of behavior, like he insults your appearance and abilities, or his fiancée does and he backs her up. If he gets defensive or laughs, say, "I'd like to have a good relationship with you. I have a right to my feelings, even if you disagree with them. How you're reacting makes me not want to be here. So I'm going to leave and when you want to talk to me about it, let me know." Then ask your ally to take you home. Remember, your goal is to live in an emotionally safe home. If your dad can't give that to you right now, stay at your mom's.
Do you have a parenting dilemma for Rosalind? Send an email to email@example.com.
Rosalind Wiseman helps families and schools with bullying prevention and media literacy. Her book "Queen Bees and Wannabes" inspired the hit movie "Mean Girls." She writes the Ask Rosalind column for Family Circle.

subset: commoncrawl


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tv Anderson Cooper 360 CNN October 26, 2012 10:00pm-11:00pm EDT
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and raised here, we know the challenges of the community. we come together for fun and come together for academics. >> it gives me a chance to go to the university. they are trying to pay for my fees. i also come back and help out here. a little can go a long way. >> math and science and english. >> exactly. >> i did not go to university, but i would like to help them. i feel excited. >> i'm going to be an accountant. >> i'm going to be a lawyer. >> i'm going to be a nurse. >> the work you are doing here is bringing change. good evening, everyone. 10:00 on the east coast. late new word on exactly where hurricane sandy is heading and just how powerful it might be if and when it hits the east coast. now, the storm has already claimed nearly two dozen lives in the caribbean as it heads north. could morph into something else entirely, part tropical weather
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system, part winter nor'easter, possibly lingering for days over the eastern seaboard. in other words, a super storm. that's what new york governor andrew cuomo is very worried about. he declared a statewide emergency this afternoon. emergency orders also in effect in pennsylvania, virginia, maryland and the district of columbia. a baltimore power company declaring 2,000 out of state linesmen, some from as far away as new mexico. philadelphia's mayor telling people in flood-prone areas be ready to leave by 2:00 p.m. sunday. i'm always worried about overhyping a storm, especially this far in advance. let's just try to get the facts tonight from chad myers, who has late new information in the cnn weather center. what's the latest on this storm, because honestly, i'm not sure -- is this for real? because we hear so much hype about storms sometimes. >> you know, it's the rub that we worked through last year with irene. we thought it was going to be such a big event for new york and it was a dud. it wasn't a big dud for vermont, new hampshire, new jersey, because of the flooding.
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but this is what we have to work through right now. this storm that looks like that, like just literally nothing, still a small category 1 hurricane, but can this morph literally into something that will have 80 to 90 mile per hour winds, put 20 inches of rain down, and cause millions of people to be without power for days and probably some for weeks. can it happen? yes. all the forecasts say that it will happen. but you know what, all the forecasts said that irene would be a worse storm than it was and it's not. everyone i'm talking to believes that this storm will be significantly more impact for new york, new jersey, maybe pennsylvania than irene was. >> it's going to be a tropical storm, right, by the time it gets up, by the time it actually hits the eastern seaboard? >> no, it will be a tropical storm briefly in here. here's the model guidance for you. the models are all right there. we put them into motion and they turn into almost to boston or down to about washington, d.c. down here, when it's really out
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of the warm water, it turns into a 65 mile per hour storm. when it gets back here, it turns back into a hurricane and that's the warm part of the storm, and here's the part that i don't like. this thing spins around, it lingers right over pennsylvania and new jersey, and the amount of water that can come down, if you get just even an inch of rain an hour, and all of a sudden it rains for 24 hours, that's a major flood right there all by itself. >> that's what we're looking at potentially, 24 hours of rain, depending how slow it's moving? >> sure. sure. on the west side over here, that will be snow. because that's what the cold air is. you know, i know it's going to be a category 1 storm. this is a category 1, this is no big deal. that's not true. it's a category 1 hurricane here, but it turns into a major low pressure, regular low pressure center here because it has to kind of gulp in this cold air so when this warm system gulps in the cold system, it just blows up. the winds are going to be
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widespread. i mean, i'm not telling you, the winds, if this was the location, the winds from here to here to here could be gusting well over 70 miles per hour for an entire day. think about how many millions of trees that would bring down, how many millions of people would be without power. let's hope it doesn't happen. i'll be the first one to say hey, this was another irene, i don't care, because i don't need this. this is going to hurt so many people's properties, hopefully not people, but the amount of damage this can do is tremendous. >> yeah. we're going to check in with you a little bit later on. i want to find out, sort of try to get a timetable when we may know more, when we will really get an accurate picture of where it's going to hit. we will check with you later in the broadcast. there's storm damage already to the campaign schedule to tell you about. the romney side canceling the last of three events in virginia this sunday an evening rally in virginia beach. vice president biden canceled a weekend event there as well. the first lady scrubbed a tuesday event in new hampshire due to possible bad weather. weather could become a factor in
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the final push for votes and if the effects linger, might even affect turnout on election day. that said, there are so many factors to consider, so much forecasting in the form of polling. there's new cnn/orc numbers tonight on the race in ohio. you all know how important ohio is. president obama holding a four-point lead in this new poll, slightly outside the margin of error and significantly right at the crucial 50% mark. so the question is, what is driving the numbers in ohio right now? chief national correspondent john king has some answers. >> well, anderson, that narrow ohio lead for the president is within the poll's sampling error but it is yet another poll showing the president with a small persistent lead in the state of ohio. let's take a closer look at why it is happening in this state that is so important in the pick for president. here's the main reason right here. governor romney gets the republicans. the president gets the democrats but at the moment, in our survey, the president has a narrow lead among ohio voters who define themselves as independents. that is the battleground in a big battleground state, if you win the independents you are likely to win. governor romney close but the president with an important edge among independent voters. there's also an age divide, if you look at likely voters in ohio.
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among voters under the age of 50, there's a big gap, 18 point lead for the president among voters under the age of 50. a smaller lead for governor romney among voters 50 and older so the republicans are withstanding the attacks on the ryan budget, the medicare attacks, but governor romney would like that lead among older, more reliable, more republican voters to be a little bit bigger than 52-46. that's one thing he needs to work on. this is significant. like in michigan, the auto bailout plays big in ohio and look at this. you might say the president's only getting 41% of white men, 46% of white women. that's actually a good number. if the president can keep above 40% among whites overall and above 40% among white men, it's pretty much game over in the electorate. this is a statistic we will watch as we get closer to election day. if the president is above 40 among whites, especially above 40 among white men, in most states he would be well on his path to victory. you see this more and more in industrial states affected by the auto bailout, the president runs stronger among white men. if that poll were to hold up, can governor romney get to 270
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without ohio and how much easier is it for the president to get to 270 with ohio? let's start with the president. he's at 237 right now, electoral college votes, leaning or strong for him, 206 for romney. if the president were to take ohio it puts him at 255, the easiest way for the president to get over the top, stay in the midwest. take wisconsin, take iowa, and the president's over the top. let's just say for the sake of argument he takes wisconsin but governor romney gets the state of iowa on election day. the president would still be at 265 with ohio and wisconsin, then he just needs five more. new hampshire would give him four so that's not big enough. but obama campaign increasingly thinks the latino vote in nevada would do it. that would put the president over the top there. if he didn't get nevada for some reason, the president's options would be colorado, virginia, new hampshire or florida. the president with an easier path. what about governor romney. let's leave this one blue. can governor romney get there if ohio is going blue. can romney get all the way to 270 when the president's already at 275. well, he would have to win florida, he would have to win virginia. then you're at 255, 254. he would have to win colorado. that would put him in play at 263.
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then from there, how does governor romney get over the top? he would if he won wisconsin, paul ryan's home state. 10 electoral votes right there. logic being if the president's winning ohio, these are two very similar states. so wisconsin would be one model and let's just say for the sake of argument that one did stay blue, that puts the president right there. governor romney would have to get there by winning in nevada, not enough, and new hampshire. so you see governor romney would essentially almost have to run the board without ohio. the president has more options if he loses ohio, because he starts closer to 270. so is it impossible for governor romney to win without this one? no. but is it improbable, yes. anderson? >> that's why they're spending so much time in ohio. let's take a view right now from the ground level. jim acosta is with the romney campaign in north canton, ohio. brianna keilar is at the white house. the presidented ahead in ohio, but a close race, no doubt about it. is the romney campaign showing any signs of concern over their ability to win ohio? >> i just talked to a senior romney advisor who said no, they
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are going to win ohio, but he did say this race in this state is going to come down to independents. whoever wins independents in the words of this romney advisor, that candidate is going to win ohio. now, there's a little bit of spin in that because if you look at recent polling like an abc news/"washington post" poll that came out yesterday, governor romney is doing well among independent voters so it makes sense they would be talking about that advantage right now. at the same time, there are signs that yes, the romney campaign is concerned about this state and talking a little bit about what john king was mentioning a few moments ago about the auto bailout, we heard one of romney's top surrogates, rob portman, defend mitt romney's stance on the auto bailout. he of course opposed the auto bailout and then last night at a late night event in defiance, ohio, mitt romney passed along a story that ended up being debunked. he said chrysler was thinking about moving its jeep operations to china. that was despite the fact that chrysler had come out with a statement on its website saying no, that is not the case, they are not moving its operations of jeep over to china. so it is a sign that yes, they are concerned about that
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position on the auto bailout and he is getting pounded relentlessly on the airwaves with obama campaign ads talking about that very stance. >> brianna, you say the obama campaign is pleased with where they are in ohio. in terms of their ground game, in terms of the number of people they have on the ground in ohio, how does it compare to romney campaign? >> compared to the romney campaign, i think they would say that they are doing better in terms of their ground game. they say this about a lot of battleground states because they've had this in place for years now, since the last election, and it never really went away. so this is something they are emphasizing now and the strategy for president obama is really to show up, to visit. he will be traveling monday, tuesday, wednesday, we know so far, and he'll be making seven stops, three of them are in ohio. he'll be emphasizing early voting. a lot of the concentration right now is on get out the vote. and they're pleased where they are but i would say this to you. they're pleased in that if they
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had their choice they would much rather be where they are than where the romney campaign is, but at the same time, they wouldn't say that they're comfortable and yes, they're emphasizing the auto bailout for sure as you heard john king say. republicans will tell you this is the obama campaign's one trick pony but when you're on the ground in ohio talking to voters, it is something that really matters to them. one in eight jobs tied to the auto industry. >> yeah. jim, romney's speech today was described as a major speech on the economy. didn't seem like there was a lot of specifics in there. but i lost count of how many times i heard him use the word change. >> that's right. they did everything but play the song "don't stop thinking about tomorrow" going back to the bill clinton days. yes, he is talking about change, he's casting himself as the change candidate and i think that is why they went out to iowa today, not to unveil any new economic proposals. you don't really do that in the final stage of a campaign. what they wanted to do was talk about this message that they unveiled yesterday here in ohio
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and that he is the candidate of not just change, but big change as he likes to say on the campaign trail. >> in terms of weather, brianna, have there been any changes to the president's schedule next week? you mentioned some of his stops. do we know how vulnerable those are to weather? >> yeah, that's right, he's heading to florida, he's heading to virginia. so certainly some of his stops are going to be vulnerable. we've already seen a change, this just came out publicly, anderson. he was supposed to head out to travel on monday to florida. his first stop. he's now going to be traveling on monday, as you know michelle obama canceled a new hampshire appearance on monday or pardon me, tuesday, because of weather concerns. vice president joe biden was supposed to be heading to virginia beach tomorrow. he's canceled that. so i think we shouldn't be surprised. they're keeping their eye on the storm and i would expect we'll be seeing more changes. let us know what you think. follow me on twitter. i'm tweeting tonight. more raw politics next, starting with who's got the enthusiasm edge. four years ago, obama voters were fired up ready to go. four years later, are voters fired up to fire him? gary tuchman takes the pulse.
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we're also talk to mary matalin and james carville. how did i get here? dumb luck? or good decisions? ones i've made. ones we've all made. about marriage. children. money. about tomorrow. here's to good decisions. who matters most to you says the most about you. massmutual is owned by our policyholders so they matter most to us. massmutual. we'll help you get there.
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welcome back. just a quick reminder about our breaking news. we're continuing to track hurricane sandy. we will talk with chad myers who is monitoring developments in weather center. we'll check back with him shortly. as we mentioned the storm threatens if nothing else to rain out significant chunks of the campaigns' final stretch. turnout is obviously going to be vital. as gary tuchman found out, enthusiasm is also going to be key. >> reporter: a day in the swing state of ohio. the electoral bull's eye of this political season. mitt romney working the crowds this afternoon in columbus. while barack obama pumped up his supporters in the evening in cleveland. both men receiving wild ovations. but while the crowd reaction is great, will that enthusiasm drive them to the polls on election day? even among the fervent obama supporters at this rally, this
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is a common theme. >> were you more excited four years ago or more excited today? >> i have to say honestly, i was more excited four years ago. >> reporter: meanwhile, fervent supporters at the romney rally often have their own nuanced motivations. are you more emotional about wanting romney to win or wanting obama to lose? >> wanting obama to lose, yes. most definitely. >> reporter: that motivates you? >> yeah. he let the whole country down. >> reporter: candidates appreciate any kind of support. but the more unconditional and enthusiastic that support is, the more likely that voter will go to the polls. and voter turnout on november 6th will be critical. romney strategists have been concerned that the perceived lack of their candidate's competitiveness could ultimately lead to less enthusiasm and therefore, a lower turnout. so the message being emphasized to the gop base is that romney can win. than makes the message from obama strategists all the more interesting. in order to increase democratic enthusiasm and turnout, they
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have the very same message. romney can win this. a new obama ad is basically trying to frighten democrats into making sure they vote. reminding them of the disputed 2000 election. >> 537. the number of votes that changed the course of american history. >> florida is too close to call. >> the difference between what was and what could have been. >> reporter: a new poll shows that 59% of obama voters and 58% of romney voters are very enthusiastic. but the abc news/"washington post" poll indicates obama's enthusiasm numbers were higher four years ago at 68%. while romney's numbers are considerably better than john mccain's, which were at 38% four years ago. the cheering was deafening at this large obama rally on cleveland's lakefront but many obama supporters say it feels different than four years ago. >> it's seriously just a different kind of excitement. it's more sort of tempered in like reality that this is a campaign, not a crusade.
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>> thank you. >> reporter: on the gop side, anti-obama sentiment remains a key component of pushing supporters to vote. much the same as four years ago. >> i think it's more important to get obama out. i do. i absolutely think it's more important to get obama out. >> reporter: clearly mitt romney and barack obama have some complicated relationships with their supporters. but no doubt neither candidate will care as long as the supporters make it to the polls. gary tuchman, cnn, cleveland. >> let's delve into the raw politics with gop strategist mary matalin and democratic strategist, james carville. good evening to you both. james, cornell belcher, the obama 2012 pollster, was on the program last night and he was saying that in internal polls, they're not seeing this romney momentum that the media has talked about so much since the first debate. they think momentum that obama
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is doing pretty well. do you buy that, that there's not the narrative of romney momentum is not accurate? >> i think romney did do better, objectively he improved his position after the first debate. i don't think he improved it any in the last ten days or so, but he improved his position then. i don't see any momentum at all and i see 1,000 polls. it still is a pretty tight race. the real difference is between polls that do live interviews and polls that do robocalls that came to cell phones. that accounts for a significant difference. that's a real issue here. as we come down the stretch. >> mary, can romney win without winning ohio? >> yes, he can, and i don't -- i don't know how that enthusiasm gap that used to be 20 points could all of a sudden be even. let's look at they have the same ending message. romney can win. romney is deploying his
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resources and previously won by double digit states of president obama's so we're down to the ground game. there's little that these gentlemen can say at this point that can exceed what their ground game has to do. we have a great ground game. we don't even -- our high propensity voters haven't even voted yet and i would disagree with my esteemed colleague and beautiful husband that it wasn't the debate, what happened at the debate was that romney filled the hole that voters wanted to be comfortable voting against barack obama and for mitt romney which is what romney's going to do for the next four years to grow the economy. there's nothing fundamental has changed. this economy is the worst ever, energy prices are not down and people are living the same life they lived four years ago. so that's what this race is about. not the polls. >> look, first of all, president obama won by 7.3 last time so he doesn't have the duplicate what he did in 2008 to win. secondly, there's a way that romney can win without ohio, but it takes a very complicated
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formula to do that. and you know, i think on the whole, i think democrats are pretty satisfied with the position they're in right now. if you had said a year ago that enthusiasm would be equal among democrats and republicans we certainly would have taken that following the 2010 election. but it's going down to the wire here. >> what about the ground game, james? how important is that in a place like ohio and i mean, the obama people seem to think they have a much better ground game than the romney campaign. >> well, they do, and if you look at some of these early voting things, really powerful for democrats. some of the stuff that i see or hear about is quite impressive. they have a much different -- they put some people say $300 million into it. we'll be able to see how they do in swing states, where it's all
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concentrated, as opposed to the other states. but the more i hear about this operation, the more that they have invested in it and the more that they think it's going to work and hats off to them if they pull it off. i hope they do. >> mary, the early voting doesn't freak you out in ohio? >> no. because there are 360,000 more high propensity republican voters, they far outnumber what obama has to turn out. furthermore, in the last election, 2008, 300,000 evangelicals did not turn out and obama won by, what, 260,000. there's all sorts of reasons. let me say something about the ground game. that's what -- this is my tenth presidential race. i started on the ground game. my first job, i was the butt end of an elephant in lincoln day parade. i know about the ground game. at some point, every time you ask the obama people what's so great about their ground game, they tell you how many offices they have. there's a rate of diminishing return. there's only so many voters that turn out. there's only so many phone calls you can make. if you don't have -- if they're not turning out for anything, then it doesn't matter how good
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your ground game is. our ground game is completely effective and it's proved itself over and over in the midterm elections. it is true what james is saying, they have this new microtargeting having your high school girlfriend call you or some of your twitter friends or something like that. if it works, it scares me, actually. >> you said you were the butt end of the elephant? that's how you started? >> yes. in a lincoln day parade. if i had been higher in the campaign i could have been the face of the elephant but i had to be the back end. >> we all got to start somewhere. both of you, thank you very much. have a good weekend. president obama continued his interview blitz today, sitting down in the oval office with mtv, answering questions from college students, part of mtv's interview ahead. plus, how both campaigns are trying to reach out to young voters. americans believe they should be in charge of their own future. how they'll live tomorrow. for more than 116 years,
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seeing mitt romney right now speaking in north canton, ohio, running mate paul ryan is with him as well. governor romney's been focusing on rallied in other campaign events, staying away from interviews in this final do or die campaign stretch. president obama has been giving a lot of interviews, waging an all out media blitz. today, president obama did an interview in the oval office with mtv's sway callaway. mtv agreed to share its interview with us. president obama was asked about a range of topics and he addressed those topics and also tried to connect with young voters with some personal details. wasn't exactly a tough interview in any way, weren't a lot of followup questions.
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take a look. >> we've seen artists like bob marley, bob dylan, public enemy's chuck d, rage against the machine have all made popular music that aspired and informed. what artist do you feel today uphold that tradition and how? >> you know, it's an interesting question. we haven't seen as much directly political music. i think the most vibrant musical art form right now over the last 10, 15 years has been hip-hop, and there have been some folks that have kind of dabbled in a political statement, but a lot of it has been more cultural than political. you just mentioned bob marley. i can remember when i was in
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college listening and not agreeing with his whole philosophy necessarily, but raising my awareness about how people outside of our country were thinking about the struggles for jobs and dignity and freedom. you know, you think about a lot of the music of the '70s, there was a sense of engagement in what was happening with anti-war movement and what was happening with respect to the civil rights movement, and so i would hope that we're going to see more of that. >> how come? >> because young people, they communicate in a lot of different ways and everything moves so fast today that you can set the world on fire in a positive way just through a message that goes through the
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internet in a way that -- i had to go buy an album or a cartridge, you know. that's old school. >> if you're re-elected, you go into a second term, sasha and malia will be in the midst of their teens. what are you most worried about, malia getting a driver's license, malia going out on a date, or malia being on facebook? >> i'd worry about facebook right now, only because, look, i know the folks at facebook, obviously they've revolutionized the social networks, but malia because she's well known, you know, i'm very keen on her protecting her privacy. she can make her own decisions obviously later as she gets older. but right now, even just for security reasons, she doesn't have a facebook page. dates, that's fine because she gets secret service protection. >> as i said, wasn't exactly tough interview. that's why we only showed you a
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small portion. we also put in a request obviously for mitt romney or paul ryan to be on the program tonight to try to balance off the time we spent hearing from president obama. they both declined. some 45 million 18 to 29 year olds are eligible to vote in the november 6th election. they also have the lowest turnout rates. in 2008, president obama captured 66% of the youth vote. joining me is mtv news correspondent, andrew jenks and peter hambian and kristen soltis joining us. you have been visiting college campuses talking to young voters. what are you detecting in terms of enthusiasm this time around? >> i think there is a sense of this has been a bit of a bad breakup from four years ago, not necessarily with president obama, but just with government at large. so the sense of being disenfranchised, not as engaged, and that's been, you know, a bit disheartening but i think it's
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on us to ask questions, to make sure that our friends get involved, and i have seen as we've gotten closer to election day a lot of young people are starting to talk about it more, so i mean, that's been encouraging. >> kristen, in 2008, president obama won 66% of the under 30 vote, 34% margin of victory over john mccain. you say the president's numbers are high this time around but certainly not as high as 2008. >> not at all. you had a recent poll come out that harvard released where he had a 19 point advantage. it's still a wide margin but not nearly the margin that he had four years ago. if he doesn't hold young voters to a significant margin that's close to those '08 numbers, it's going to be really tough for him to put together his majority coalition to try to win this election. >> peter, you spoke with obama campaign officials today about the youth turnout they expect this cycle. what did they tell you? >> well, they point out that there's sort of this mythology surrounding the youth vote in
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2008 which was 18% of the national electorate. that was only up one point from 2004, 17%. so you know, any dip in that isn't likely to really hurt president obama if it comes to that. but kristen's right, this is about the margins here. if north carolina, for example, was a good example in 2008. you know, obama won the youth vote nationally by 66%. in north carolina, he won it by 74% and he only won the state by 14,000 votes. so if he had won a similar share of north carolina as nationally, he would have lost north carolina. so that's why you see in a state like north carolina, for example, and ohio, the campaign being so aggressive with mobilization efforts on campuses because there's a cushion there, i don't think it will swing the election one way or the other on a macro level, but just around the edges. >> kristen, do you think the demographics shifts this cycle, particularly the increase in young latino voters will make a
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big difference? >> i think that you can increasingly not separate out the issues of young voters and the issues of the changing demographics in this country. significantly fewer young voters were white than older voters. the demographic shifts are showing up in this group. but you're still seeing these margins are so bad for president obama compared to where they were four years ago that even with those demographic changes, it's still going to be a struggle for president obama to get that 34 point margin again. >> peter, you spent a lot of time on college campuses. talk about the ground game you see. what are campaigns doing to try to get younger people to the polls? >> i was just in ohio and the talk among the political class there is how obama's really targeted his campaign visits to college campuses. ohio state, ohio university, kent state, bowling green. to sort of draw in these folks and since early vote has started, they can just bus students and young people who come to these rallies over to early voting locations in these counties. so obama has sort of done that while leaving the campaign appearances and sort of blue collar areas to people like bill clinton and joe biden. but young people, they aren't watching tv, they aren't consuming media in the same way that older voters are. only somewhere between 24% and 28% of young people, according to pew, watched your traditional television.
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so the campaigns are targeting them digitally. social is big in this election for persuasion. they want to put out infographics people can share on facebook and twitter. at the end of the day it comes down to traditional get out the vote efforts which are already under way. early voting started in iowa, for instance, on september 27th so people are already voting. >> you're making me feel very old because i didn't understand some of the things you mentioned. thanks very much. two quick program notes to tell you about. on saturday at 7:30 p.m. eastern, cnn traces the journey of ann romney. in 2008 she vowed no more elections. obviously four years later she's her husband's biggest champion. on sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern, "romney revealed" shows a side of the candidate the public never sees. swing states are swimming in a flood of campaign ads in this final stretch. if you don't live in a swing state it's almost hard to imagine how many ads are playing right now. both campaigns are hitting their messages hard. they are sharing some of their tactics. a closer look ahead.
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with the election less than two weeks away the air waves are flooded with ads from the romney and obama campaigns, especially in swing states. at this point the message is critical and the way it's delivered can mean just as much, right down to who appears in the ads, what they're wearing, what kind of voice is narrating. looking at the advertising end game for both campaigns, it seems they're trying to strike similar notes in very different ways. take a look. >> i'm barack obama. i approved this message. >> i'm mitt romney and i approved this message. >> in swing states across the country, air waves have been dominated by presidential campaign ads in these last days leading up to the election. new ads are out nearly every day. >> i will keep america strong. >> with both campaigns hitting their message hard. >> mitt romney's not the
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solution. he's the problem. >> drastically different messages but with some notable similarities. the "new york times" the campaign media analysis group at kantar media studied 119 presidential campaign ads that aired nearly 180,000 times in october. looking for similarities in images, themes and props. >> the campaigns have a tremendous number of ads in rotation and there's a special focus on women voters. >> 13% of the ads from both campaigns featured the voices of women. mitt romney's campaign tries to show he understands women's issues in this ad. >> he totally gets working women. >> while president barack obama's campaign ad wants to show just the opposite. >> it's a scary time to be a woman. mitt romney is just so out of touch. >> many of the ads in both campaigns are negative in tone, with 90% of pro-obama ads using an image of mitt romney. >> corporations are people, my friend. >> they always portray him in a suit and tie which is less bad than putting him in a tuxedo. but the opposite's also the case on the romney ads.
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typically in the romney ads you see him in jeans and his blue oxford shirt trying to look a little more casual. >> 75% of pro-romney ads show images of president obama. >> you can't change washington from the inside. >> republicans use sad, depressed faces in 21% of their ads, mostly to illustrate unemployment. democrats only use that tactic in 1% of their ads. but democrats went heavy on the elderly, using elderly voices or images in 38% of their ads. >> i was suddenly 60 years old. i had no health care. >> a topic republicans largely stayed away from. despite the emphasis on the hispanic vote, only 2% of ads from either side were in spanish during this period. the use of charts, numbers and statistics was used heavily by both groups. 65% of time for democrats, 79% for republicans. the american flag always an iconic image in political ads was shown in 29% of democratic ads. the flag appeared in just 6% of
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republican ads but in a much different light. talk about being worried about what he called the never-ending security threats in benghazi, specifically mentioned the rise in islamic extremism. >> republican groups used clips from newspaper headlines in 18% of their ads. >> mitt romney would have let us go under. let us go bankrupt. >> while democrats used news clippings 35% of the time. >> suddenly that nonpartisan credible news source like tom brokaw comes on the air and that can be a very powerful combination. the one-sided message and directed at people who haven't already made up their minds. >> with a race this close, campaign ads are flooding the networks but it's a question which ones will work and which side will win. >> we will check back with chad myers on the storm that's coming up. first, susan hendricks has a "360" news and business bulletin. new video that syrian officials say shows the
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aftermath of a car bombing near a damascus playground. it would be a grisly breach of a u.n. negotiated cease-fire for the muslim holiday. we can't independently confirm. ten were killed, most of them children. it is unclear who was responsible. back home, senate majority leader harry reid treated and released from a las vegas hospital after an accident in his motorcade. he suffered bruises in the crash. others he was traveling with also sustained minor injuries. an inspection report released by the fda shows the company at the center of a deadly meningitis outbreak knew it had a problem months before the first patient got sick. according to that report, the new england compounding center's internal monitoring system found bacteria and mold growing in rooms meant to produce sterile products as far back as january. federal inspectors later found dozens of vials of medicine containing greenish/blackish
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foreign matter. lance armstrong is being asked to return millions of dollars in prize money. that for his tour de france victories. he was stripped of all seven titles due to allegations of doping. an unexpected hazard on a new stretch of highway in texas. that is wild hogs running across the road. they caused four crashes the day the highway opened. luckily, no serious injuries reported. the speed limit, by the way, 85 miles per hour. anderson, back to you. back in a moment with the latest on hurricane sandy and the punishing super storm that it could become.
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> welcome back. back to our breaking news, tracking hurricane sandy and the potential forecasters now say it has to do a lot of damage in dollars, some of the most densely populated parts of the country it could hit. again, there's a lot we don't know at this point. as always, new information is coming into the weather center. let's briefly go back to chad myers for the latest. so when can we expect to start feeling the effects of this storm on the east coast? >> there are already waves in florida right now and eventually into georgia, south carolina, north carolina, but really, we won't feel wind with this until sunday night, maybe even until monday. i think we probably get a lot of air travel through on sunday night, but by the time monday rolls around, almost every airport up and down the east coast will be shut, not even -- if they don't close their doors, you're just not going to see airlines send their planes into that type of system and then risk having either a bumpy
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landing, you know, the plane being on the ground in a hurricane. there just won't be flights. >> this may be an unanswerable question. when will we know how bad this is going to be or what it's going to actually kind of look like? at this point it's still kind of far out. >> it is kind of far out and it was far out last night. at some point last night, i had three models, i tweeted about this in the middle of the night. i had three models bringing a category 3, almost category 4 hurricane, into new york harbor. >> wow. >> this is ugly. it backed off today because the storm simply didn't generate coming out of the bahamas. it didn't generate a lot like irene didn't generate. so if this thing stays kind of like the irene, this becomes not a big deal. but that's not the forecast. not a single model does that. every model turns it back into the northeast, either from new york city all the way down to north carolina and then here's the rub that we've never gone through this before. there's not been ever an instance where a computer model has had to work this out in its head or in its computer.
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there's a cold air mass back here, there's a low here, and another low here, and they're going to combine. what is going to happen when those two combine, we honestly simply don't know. there's not been any history for this in the computer program. the program's only been running for 25 years. maybe a little bit less. >> so just explain to me briefly, what is so unique about that, that combination? >> you have the moisture from a tropical storm and then you have the wind and the energy and even the potential for snow with a low pressure that is a normal low pressure. it's just a winter type low that's coming in from the west and from the southwest. when they get together, you have a storm that already wants to make 40 mile per hour winds, then you add another storm that has 70 mile per hour winds already in it, and when you smash those together, you get what's called a hybrid, a double type storm and all of a sudden,
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you have energy from one, cold from one, and moisture from the other, and it just takes off. >> wow. chad, appreciate you cutting through the hype and trying to give us the facts. appreciate that. >> we'll see. >> we'll keep following you all weekend. "ridiculist" is next. [ man ] in hong kong, on my way to the board meeting... anne's tablet called my phone. anne's tablet was chatting with a tablet in sydney... a desktop in zurich...
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and a telepresence room in brazil. the secure cloud helped us get some numbers from my assistant's pc in new york. and before i reached the top, the board meeting became a congrats we sold the company party. wait til my wife's phone hears about this. [ cellphone vibrating ] [ female announcer ] with cisco at the center, working together has never worked so well. everyone in the nicu, all the nurses wanted to watch him
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but take a look. >> in 1989, the giants were in the world series versus the oakland a's. >> okay. oh, my god! >> hang on. hang on. you know, i have to tell you, i have to tell you, one of my goals in life, bethany, one of my goals in life is to make it on youtube. i think i just did. i'm on youtube. hello to my youtube friends. how are you? >> yes, you did make it on youtube. look, it's baseball. there are going to be some runs sometimes from birds. by the way, the co-anchor is wearing a panda hat because the giants' third baseman's nickname is kung fu panda. i know stuff about baseball. at least when somebody else tells me about baseball. maybe i didn't know that before today. whatever, this isn't about me. this is about bird poop. >> you have no idea what i paid for this coat. wow. wow.
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oh, hey, there's more. all i noticed was what went in my eye. i'm supposed to go on from here? hey, darren, it's raining in san francisco. it's raining -- if i may say that. are we still on? i'm going to put my glasses back on. >> wow. that's a lot of poop. live television, anything can happen. for instance, a spider may slowly descend on a single thread of web right in front of the anchor. >> -- currently making plans to close the old landfill, clean up the pollution and plan for new services there such as composting. voters will decide next month. >> you think one little spider is enough to make a professional newscaster to go all little miss muffet? heck no! one must maintain coposure even if there's a cockroach crawling all over you. >> these are cases from back at the height of the manson family crime spree. >>
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Samsung compact cameras get optical zoom boom
Long-distance viewing
Samsung hopes to snare more high-end compact camera customers by upping the optical zoom range of its HZ line.
The company's existing HZ15W and HZ10W feature 10x optical zooms, but the new HZ35W and HZ30W go one better. Well, five times better, by providing a 15x optical zoom.
Samsung's latest HZ range of high-zoom compacts both have a 15x optical zoom
The benefits of an optical zoom over a digital one are well established, making the advantages of a 15x optical over 10x optical zoom all the more clear cut.
Zoom capabilities aside, the HZ35W and HZ30W are very similar to one another.
Both 12Mp cameras have a 24mm wide-angle lens and 3in display, though we should point out that the HZ35W's screen is an OLED. The HZ30W's screen is an LCD.
The HZ30W (above) doesn't support geo-tagging
GPS is the HZ35W's only other real advantage over the HZ30W, allowing HZ35W owners to geo-tag photos with location data in real time.
Video content can be captured in 720p and at up to 30fps on both models, with an HDMI port available for hooking either camera up to your HD TV.
The pair both measure 4.2 x 2.4 x 1.1in, support digital and optical image stabilisation, and include the usual array of image capture tools, including smile and blink detection.
Samsung's HZ35W and HZ30W will both be launched in Blighty during March. Prices haven't been disclosed. ®
Sponsored: Detecting cyber attacks as a small to medium business


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Scooter Store's staff on furlough
Late Friday afternoon, The Scooter Store's chief executive notified employees that — effective immediately, but "with certain exceptions" — they'd been placed on unpaid furlough.
In an email, CEO Martin "Marty" Landon told employees not to return to work unless they receive notice from the company's human resources department.
The Scooter Store, one of the nation's largest suppliers of power wheelchairs and scooters, had about 1,800 workers as of last month. That's following the announcement in February that it had cut 150 positions.
About 1,200 employees worked out of its New Braunfels headquarters.
The furloughs came a little more than two weeks after federal agents executed a search warrant at the company's headquarters, presumably as part of an investigation into Medicare and Medicaid fraud.
About 150 agents from the FBI, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Texas attorney general's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit participated in the raid.
The company, meanwhile, has struggled to adapt to changes in claims processing and cuts in reimbursements implemented by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
The moves are part of an effort by CMS to crack down on fraud.
"As you know, the company has been experiencing significant business challenges, which have adversely impacted our financial condition," Landon said in the email to employees. "As a result, we our streamlining our current operations to allow us to continue to provide service to our customers in an appropriate manner."
Employees expected to return to work on Monday will receive a notice from the company, Landon said in the email. He didn't specify how many employees will be brought back.
Efforts to reach Landon and other Scooter Store executives were unsuccessful.
The company, on of the largest employers in Comal County, probably is best known for its ubiquitous TV ads
An employee who asked not to be identified said she wasn't surprised by the furlough announcement.
"I'm afraid it's the end of the company as we know it, if it's not the end of the entire company," she said. "It's tragic but not totally unexpected."
The company, she added, has been missing its sales and net income targets.
Another employee who is pregnant said she didn't know how she was going to take care of her unborn child.
"What am I going to do?" she said. "I'm stuck without a job. There are no jobs in New Braunfels that will pay like The Scooter Store did, so I'm stuck."
She also wondered how The Scooter Store can expect workers to be "on-call like a doctor" to see if they'll be asked to return to work.
"I don't think I'm getting paid like a doctor," she added, "so I don't understand why I have to be on call for my job."
Even though employees have been furloughed rather than laid off, Texas Workforce Commission spokeswoman Lisa Givens said workers still can file for unemployment compensation.
"Any loss of employment would allow someone to make a claim for unemployment," Givens said. "Whether it's perceived to be temporary or not, they're unemployed."
The power-mobility industry has been the target of federal probes into Medicare fraud. Some 80 percent of Medicare claims for power wheelchairs did not meet coverage requirements and should not have been paid by Medicare, the OIG concluded in a 2011 report.
The Scooter Store has denied wrongdoing and defended its business practices. It has served more than a half-million customers, it has said.
The company has been under plenty of scrutiny in recent months.
Two U.S. senators in December sent a letter to CMS wanting to know why The Scooter Store had received, according to an independent auditor, somewhere between $46.8 million and $87.7 million in Medicare overpayments from 2009 to 2011 but only had to pay back $19.5 million.
CMS later said it accepted the amount based on The Scooter Store's analysis of the auditor's report. The company was given five years to repay.
In January, a CBS News report questioned whether power wheelchair companies were "ripping off the government."
One ex-Scooter Store employee told CBS the company's goal is to "bulldoze" doctors into writing prescriptions for power wheelchairs.
A few weeks later, CMS announced that Medicare will pay on average 36 percent less for power wheelchairs and scooters beginning July 1 in more than 90 cities.
Separately, last summer, CMS implemented a three-year demonstration program that requires durable medical equipment providers to get "prior authorization" from Medicare before patients living in any of seven states receive a power wheelchair or scooter.
The states, Texas included, have "high populations of fraud- and error-prone providers," CMS said in August.
With all of the changes, The Scooter Store last month announced plans to expand its offerings of products and services. It didn't offer any details, however.
Then, on Feb. 20, authorities raided The Scooter Store's headquarters.
Nearly a week later, Landon issued a statement that said the company is assisting in the federal investigation into its operations.
"The Scooter Store team has strived to meet the highest standards of compliance, as we help people who face true mobility challenges," Landon said. "If we learn of procedural shortcomings or personal misconduct, we will investigate and take appropriate corrective action."
FBI Special Agent Erik Vasys said late Friday that he had no update on the federal investigation.


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diy valentine's day cards for husband
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John Taylor Gatto
Nobody gives you an education. If you want one, you have to take it.
Only you can educate you—and you can't do it by memorizing. You have to find out who you are by experience and by risk-taking, then pursue your own nature intensely. School routines are set up to discourage you from self-discovery. People who know who they are make trouble for schools.
To know yourself, you have to keep track of your random choices, figure out your patterns, and use this knowledge to dominate your own mind. It's the only way that free will can grow. If you avoid this, other minds will manipulate and control you lifelong.
One method people use to find out who they are becoming, before others do, is to keep a journal, where they log what attracts their attention, along with some commentary. In this way, you get to listen to yourself instead of listening only to others.
Things I Want to Learn
From contributing editor Frances Moore Lappé:
To conceive and share an "ecology of democracy"—integrating our knowledge of ecology and human nature to ignite more effective hope-in-action.
To tap dance better.
To be in such a place of perpetual gratitude that I can embrace death when it comes.
From board member Puanani Burgess:
How and why shoyu was invented. The history of food invention and human curiosity.
How the words that I type on this computer get to you.
Is God necessary?
From contributing editor Carol Estes:
To dance the Lindy Hop.
To find my way through the wilderness with map and compass.
A system for managing multiple projects at the same time.
What it's like to be incredibly fit.
Another path to self-discovery that seems to have atrophied through schooling lies in finding a mentor. People aren't the only mentors. Books can serve as mentors if you learn to read intensely, with every sense alert to nuances. Books can change your life, as mentors do.
I experienced precious little of such thinking in 30 years of teaching in the
public junior high schools of Manhattan's ultra-progressive Upper West Side. I
was by turns amused, disgusted, and disbelieving when confronted with the
curriculum—endless drills of fractions and decimals, reading assignments of
science fiction, Jack London, and one or two Shakespeare plays for which the
language had been simplified. The strategy was to kill time and stave off the
worst kinds of boredom that can lead to trouble—the trouble that comes from
being made aware that you are trapped in irrelevancy and powerless to escape.
Institutionalized schooling, I gradually realized, is about obedience in exchange for favors and advantages: Sit where I tell you, speak when I allow it, memorize what I've told you to memorize. Do these things, and I'll take care to put you above your classmates.
Wouldn't you think everyone could figure out that school "achievement tests" measure no achievement that common sense would recognize? The surrender required of students meets the primary duty of bureaucratic establishment: to protect established order.
It wasn't always this way. Classical schooling—the kind I was lucky enough to have growing up—teaches independent thought, appreciation for great works, and an experience of the world not found within the confines of a classroom. It was an education that is missing in public schools today but still exists in many private schools—and can for you and your children, too, if you take time to learn how to learn.
In the fall of 2009, a documentary film will be released by a resident of my hometown of Monongahela, Pennsylvania. Laura Magone's film, "One Extraordinary Street," centers on a two-mile-long road that parallels polluted Pigeon Creek. Park Avenue, as it's called, is on the wrong side of the tracks in this little-known coal-mining burg of 4,500 souls.
So far Park Avenue has produced an Army chief of staff, the founder of the Disney Channel, the inventor of the Nerf football, the only professional baseball player to ever strike out all 27 enemy batsmen in a nine-inning game, a winner of the National Book Award, a respected cardiologist, Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana, and the writer whose words you're reading.
Did the education Monongahela offered make all these miracles possible? I don't know. It was an education filled with hands-on experience, including cooking the school meals, serving them individually (not cafeteria-style) on tablecloths, and cleaning up afterward. Students handled the daily maintenance, including basic repairs. If you weren't earning money and adding value to the town by the age of seven, you were considered a jerk. I swept out a printing office daily, sold newspapers, shoveled snow, cut grass, and sold lemonade.
Classical schooling isn't psychologically driven. The ancient Greeks discovered thousands of years ago that rules and ironclad procedures, when taken too seriously, burn out imagination, stifle courage, and wipe the leadership clean of resourcefulness. Greek education was much more like play, with studies undertaken for their own sake, to satisfy curiosity. It assumed that sane children want to grow up and recognized that childhood ends much earlier than modern society typically allows.
We read Caesar's Gallic Wars—in translation between fifth and seventh grades and, for those who wanted, in Latin in ninth and tenth grades. Caesar was offered to us not as some historical relic but as a workshop in dividing and conquering superior enemies. We read The Odyssey as an aid to thinking about the role of family in a good life, as the beating heart of meaning.
Monongahela's education integrated students, from first grade on, into the intimate life and culture of the town. Its classrooms were free of the familiar tools of official pedagogy—dumbed-down textbooks, massively irrelevant standardized tests, insanely slowed-down sequences. It was an education rich in relationships, tradition, and respect for the best that's been written. It was a growing-up that demanded real achievement.
The admissions director at Harvard College told The New York Times a few years ago that Harvard admits only students with a record of distinctive accomplishment. I instantly thought of the Orwellian newspeak at my own Manhattan school where achievement tests were the order of the day. What achievement? Like the noisy royalty who intimidated Alice until her head cleared and she realized they were only a pack of cards, school achievement is just a pack of words.
As a schoolteacher, I was determined to act as a deliberate saboteur, and so for 30 years I woke up committed to making the system hurt in some small way and to changing the destiny of children in my orbit in a large way.
Roadtrip Nation Takes the Route Less Traveled
It all started when four restless college grads realized school hadn't led them to a career they cared about. One had trained to be a doctor, two to be business consultants, and one had no idea—but all knew there were more possibilities. So they bought a bus and drove around the country, interviewing people whose careers had taken inspiring turns—an environmental activist, a symphony conductor, a fisherman, a cartoonist. Their journey became a documentary film, then a television series, then an organization that sends groups of young people out on the road every year to find out how people choose careers they're passionate about. Read on...
:: More Radical Acts of Education
Without the eclectic grounding in classical training that I had partially absorbed, neither goal would have been possible. I set out to use the classical emphasis on qualities and specific powers. I collected from every kid a list of three powers they felt they already possessed and three weaknesses they might like to remedy in the course of the school year.
I pledged to them that I'd do my level best inside the limitations the institution imposed to make time, advice, and support available toward everyone's private goals. There would be group lessons as worthwhile as I could come up with, but my priorities were the opportunities outside the room, outside the school, even outside the city, to strengthen a power or work on a weakness.
I let a 13-year-old boy who dreamed of being a comic-book writer spend a week in the public library—with the assistance of the librarian—to learn the tricks of graphic storytelling. I sent a shy 13-year-old girl in the company of a loudmouth classmate to the state capitol—she to speak to her local legislator, he to teach her how to be fearless. Today, that shy girl is a trial attorney.
If you understand where a kid wants to go—the kid has to understand that first—it isn't hard to devise exercises, complete with academics, that can take them there.
But school often acts as an obstacle to success. To go from the confinement of early childhood to the confinement of the classroom to the confinement of homework, working to amass a record entitling you to a "good" college, where the radical reduction of your spirit will continue, isn't likely to build character or prepare you for a good life.
I quit teaching in 1991 and set out to discover where this destructive institution had come from, why it had taken the shape it had, how it managed to beat back its many critics for a century while growing bigger and more intrusive, and what we might do about it.
School does exactly what it was created to do: It solves, or at least mitigates, the problem of a restless, ambitious labor pool, so deadly for capitalist economies; and it confronts democracy's other deadly problem—that ordinary people might one day learn to un-divide themselves, band together in the common interest, and take control of the institutions that shape their lives.
The present system of institutionalized schooling is a product of two or three centuries of economic and political thinking that spread primarily from a militaristic state in the disunited Germanies known as Prussia. That philosophy destroyed classical training for the common people, reserving it for those who were expected to become leaders. Education, in the words of famous economists (such as William Playfair), captains of industry (Andrew Carnegie), and even a man who would be president (Woodrow Wilson), was a means of keeping the middle and lower classes in line and of keeping the engines of capitalism running.
In a 1909 address to New York City teachers, Wilson, then president of Princeton University, said, "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity to forgo the privilege of a liberal education."
My job isn't to indict Woodrow or anyone else, only to show you how
inevitable the schools you hate must be in the economy and social order we're
stuck with. Liberal education served the ancient Greeks well until they got too
rich to allow it, just as it served America the same way until we got too rich
to allow it.
You can make the system an offer it can't refuse by doing small things, individually.
You can publicly oppose—in writing, in speech, in actions—anything that will perpetuate the institution as it is. The accumulated weight of your resistance and disapproval, together with that of thousands more, will erode the energy of any bureaucracy.
You can calmly refuse to take standardized tests. Follow the lead of Melville's moral genius in Bartleby, the Scrivener, and ask everyone, politely, to write: "I prefer not to take this test" on the face of the test packet.
You can, of course, homeschool or unschool. You can inform your kids that bad grades won't hurt them at all in life, if they actually learn to master valuable skills and put them on offer to the world at large. And you can begin to free yourself from the conditioned fear that not being accepted at a "good" college will preclude you from a comfortable life. If the lack of a college degree didn't stop Steve Jobs (Apple), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Michael Dell (Dell Computer), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA), Warren Avis (Avis Rent-a-Car), Ted Turner (CNN), and so many others, then it shouldn't be too hard for you to see that you've been bamboozled, flummoxed, played for a sap by the propaganda mills of schooling. Get rid of your assumptions.
If you are interested in education, I've tried to show you a little about how that's done, and I have faith you can learn the rest on your own. Schooling operates out of an assumption that ordinary people are biologically or psychologically or politically inferior; education assumes that individuals are sovereign spirits. Societies that don't know that need to be changed or broken.
Once you take responsibility for your own education, you'll join a growing army of men and women all across America who are waking up to the mismatch schools inflict on the young—a mismatch between what common sense tells you they'll need to know, and what is actually taught. You'll have the exquisite luxury of being able to adapt to conditions, to opportunities, to the particular spirits of your kids. With you as educational czar or czarina, feedback becomes your friend and guide.
I've traveled 3 million miles to every corner of this country and 12 others, and believe me, people everywhere are gradually waking up and striking out in new directions. Don't wait for the government to say it's OK, just come on in—the water's fine.
John Taylor Gatto wrote this article for Learn as You Go, the Fall 2009 issue of YES! Magazine. Gatto was a New York State Teacher of the Year. An advocate for school reform, Gatto's books include Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling and Weapons of Mass Instruction.


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A total of four people have died in storms and flooding since Sunday.
Heavy rains on Monday flooded the homes of at least 1,000 people in the Boeung Kak lake area of Phnom Penh.
Local authorities are still assessing the damage from Sunday's storm, which may have destroyed some homes.
Lack of information about proposed Sambor hydro dam across the Mekong in Kratie raises concerns for locals.
The high cost of the systems mean they are generally installed for the well-off, in places like new villas.
The government has been tearing down these kinds of reservoirs since late June, under the new Tonle Sap Authority.
The meeting was to discuss a draft law to bolster protections against pesticides and other dangerous chemicals.
Expanded plantations and mining and plans for massive hydropower dams have given rise to concerns for villagers.
Ek Sonn Chan, the head of Phnom Penh's water authority, says he wants to get clean water to Cambodians beyond the capital.
Seeing Gulf Coast oil spill, environmental and other groups in Cambodia say the country needs to do more to safeguard its environment.
The award will be conferred to the Phnom Penh Water Authority during World Water Week in Stockholm, which begins Sept. 5.
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Foodies can find local treasure on the road
Aimee Cebulski loves taking public transportation when she's visiting another city. Whenever she sees people getting on with shopping bags filled with food, she makes sure to jot down the stop and return there.
"Those areas have hidden food markets," she says.
Cebulski, a San Diego resident and freelance writer and publicist, has traveled to 43 countries to profile women who are turning 40 around the world. Trying out the local food, she says, is one of her favorite parts of the experience.
TO EAT OR OFFEND?:Bizarre foods pose etiquette dilemma
MORE:Food allergy survival tips for travelers
If she's got time, she'll sign up for a cooking class to learn how to make local dishes. "It might give you confidence to try cooking the same dishes at home," she says.
Many restaurants tout their use of local ingredients, and frequent travelers say sampling local food is one of the joys of taking a trip. Some try to learn how to recreate local dishes, even at their hotels. They can take that knowledge home so they can relive vacation memories.
Jennifer Raezer, a New York resident who writes for Approach Guides, a series of travel and wine guidebooks and apps, says discovering local food, especially when traveling internationally, is a big focus for her.
VIDEO:Shopping for cheese in NYC's Little Italy
She always asks staff members at her hotel where they eat. But she doesn't immediately expect a useful answer. "Their first instinct is not to tell you where they eat with their families, but rather restaurants that cater to tourists," she says. "But once you do get an answer, you will be greatly rewarded with a delicious and very local experience."
NEXT BIG FOOD TREND:Panuchos, mohinga, poisson cru?
6 FOOD TRENDS FOR 2013:All-things-coconut, and beer-laced goods
That means seeking advice not only from the concierge, but the person who delivers your luggage to your room, a bus boy or the doorman, several road warriors say. When you're out, ask your cab driver or a store clerk where they like to eat.
Also make sure to wander off main thoroughfares. Even walking a few blocks from a touristy area could land you at a delicious restaurant where the locals eat.
"In stepping away one or two blocks, you can get a better meal with locals for less money," says Betsy Talbot, who has been traveling with her husband around the world since 2010.
Raezer consults local food guides, even if they're in another language. In Italy, for instance, she says there are several guides that highlight the best local restaurants. It just takes some translating.
Raezer also tries to befriend local families. One of her most memorable meals was with a family in Uzbekistan.
"We helped prepare the dinner over an open fire in the middle of the courtyard of their traditional home, and then proceeded to spend the evening with them enjoying the food and sharing stories," she says.
Research before arrival
To celebrity chef Eric Ripert, owner of Le Bernardin in New York City, traveling always involves trying the local food.
"I try to never eat food that is not typical to the region in which I'm traveling, except sometimes when I order room service," he says.
He thinks about what he's going to eat before he travels. "I Google, research, ask some friends," he says.
Kathy Bechtel, the Newburyport, Mass.-based owner of Italiaoutdoors Food and Wine, which offers food tours in Italy, finds out what food her destination is known for before she sets out on her journey.
"Identify any dishes you must try — a porchetta sandwich at the open-air market — and any you may want to avoid," she says.
Donkey stew was one Italian dish she opted not to try.
10Best:Spring food festivals across the USA
Jackie Newgent, a nutritionist and author of 1,000 Low-Calorie Recipes, maps out restaurant choices in her itinerary. She visits the websites OpenTable.com, Yelp.com and Zagat.com to get ideas for good restaurants.
Once Newgent lands at her destination, she likes to walk as much as she can and study the restaurant menus that she passes. "Let your senses actually guide you," she says.
She doesn't always stick to restaurants. She'll occasionally pop into a bakery or health food store to get a sense of what the locals like to eat.
MORE:When picking hotels, some ask, 'Where's the Whole Foods?'
MORE:10 artisanal treats to try in New York City
Many USA TODAY Road Warriors, frequent travelers who log millions of miles a year combined, say that tapping into social networks such as Facebook and Twitter can produce suggestions. Simply asking friends the old-fashioned way also works. Local newspapers and magazines often have restaurant reviews and listings. Learning who the respected local food bloggers are can give you great ideas.
Shel Horowitz, a green marketing consultant from Hadley, Mass., who has been to 35 countries and 48 U.S. states, will try street food if it looks as if the conditions are sanitary.
"If it's a country where it's medically advisable, I'll sample food from street vendors and open-air markets," he says.
Eating local food doesn't have to mean sitting down for an elaborate meal, he says. He'll often buy fruit, vegetables, cheese, bread, chocolate and beverages from an open-air market and make a picnic.
One of his most memorable meals was in Mexico. He found a perfectly ripe avocado and bought some warm corn tortillas straight from a tortilla-maker and ate under giant poinsetta trees of a national park. Total cost for two people: 75 cents.
MORE:Mexican cuisine sizzles on global gourmet stage
MORE:10 great places for street food
MORE:10 great places to feast from a food truck
Many cities have companies that offer food tours, during which you can meet with chefs to learn how to recreate dishes back home.
"Culinary walks led by locals in the know who have been able to develop close relationships with the traditional food-makers found along the walk's route are one of the best and easiest ways to learn about a city's authentic cuisine and also about how its culinary culture shaped its soul," says Yigal Schleifer, co-founder of CulinaryBackstreets.com, which offers food tours of Istanbul, Shanghai, Athens, Barcelona and Mexico City.
Even if you're on your own, Schleifer suggests looking for restaurants that serve regional cuisine. "Most likely, these are the places that, rather than tourists or the well-heeled, cater to local folks who are hungry for a taste of home and expect their food to be made just as it's supposed to be made — using ingredients that may be particular to that region," he says.
MORE:Seoul street food tempts adventurous eaters
PHOTOS:Seoul's strange and scrumptious street food
Cooking for yourself
Some Road Warriors say they like to rent hotel rooms with kitchens so they don't have to eat out every night or rent apartments. That gives them the opportunity to try to recreate meals they've had at local restaurants. When they go to a restaurant, they ask the chef to explain how a particular dish was made.
But Bechtel, who offers food tours, says you should try to keep it simple.
In Italy, for instance, she picked up local cured meats and cheeses, some melon and tomatoes, and served them with a simple green salad dressed in a local olive oil. Then she cooked fresh pasta she found at a gourmet store.
"A nice bottle of wine, and you've got a simple, perfect meal," she says.
Talbot, the full-time traveler, and her husband often try to rent an apartment or house-sit for a local so they can have a kitchen.
They get a lot of their cooking tips at local outdoor markets. "You'll easily find the ingredients in the market, because everyone else is cooking it, too," she says."As you shop, you can ask the vendor how to prepare the items you buy."
She, too, believes food stands can be great resources. She can see how the cook is making her meal and ask him or her questions.
Recently, while in Mexico, her husband grilled meat and made pozole, a corn dish typical of the country. Talbot can eat out all the time if she wants to when she travels. But that home-cooked meal, she says, was one of her "favorite foodie memories."


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QIAseq Targeted RNA Panels use a digital sequencing method, whereby a unique 12-base random molecular barcode incorporated into the gene-specific primers (GSP1) is used in the first extension step (after mRNA is converted to cDNA). Thus, every extension event yields a unique combination of molecular barcode and target sequence. At the end of sequencing, the relative amount of each mRNA target is determined by the number of unique molecular barcode-target combinations that were sequenced, thereby eliminating PCR duplicates and amplification bias, resulting in more accurate, unbiased gene expression analysis.
The QIAseq Targeted RNA Panels have been developed as a Sample to Insight solution for quantitative gene expression profiling using RNA-seq. The panels use molecular barcodes and a two-stage PCR-based integrated library preparation to overcome the challenge of PCR duplicates and amplification bias to deliver unbiased, accurate and reproducible gene expression results.
Different amounts (20 ng, 5 ng or 1.25 ng) of universal reference RNA were used to determine expression levels of three genes (BNIP1, CTNND2 and DAPK1) using targeted RNA-seq. QIAseq digital RNA sequencing method (A; molecular barcode counts) showed accurate quantification of all three genes corresponding to different RNA input, whereas traditional targeted RNA-seq (B; read counts) revealed PCR duplication limitation and yielded inaccurate quantification.
Sequencing libraries were prepared using 1.25, 5 or 20 ng universal reference RNA and QIAseq Targeted RNA Panels, ranging from 12-plex to 1000-plex. Sequencing was performed on the Illumina MiSeq, dedicating 1 million reads per sample. Specificity is calculated as percent of trimmed and mapped reads that map to intended targets.
Starting with 25 ng of total unfragmented RNA, cDNA is synthesized, and each cDNA molecule is tagged with a unique molecular barcode before any amplification. The uniquely tagged cDNA molecules then undergo a two-stage PCR step for enrichment and library construction. It takes only 6 hours from RNA sample to targeted library ready for sequencing.
ERCC standards, at 86 to 705,500 copies, spiked into universal reference RNA sample and enriched using 384-plex QIASeq Targeted RNA Panel in three technical replicates. (A) Sensitivity measurement. Under standard conditions (20 ng RNA input, 0.5 million MiSeq reads), ≥~100 copies of ERCC transcripts were reliability detected, which is the equivalent of ~0.2 copies per cell. (B) Precision measurement. At >10 barcodes/gene, CV was less than 5% for all targets, indicating high technical reproducibility. This corresponds to ~100 copies target RNA in the sample.