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Lessons of the Election
The pundits and ideologist will tell you that there were some profound messages sent to politicians as it relates to the elections results in New Jersey and Virginia governor races. They'll look at the NY-23 race and highlight the significance of the race and what it means for the Congressional races of 2010.
Many of them will be right on some levels but mostly they will not give you the gist of what really took place and what it means. I am no political insider or historian but I've followed politics long enough to know that what seems complicated to the media and politicians are very simple to the voters.
And that is my perspective on this. What the voters said and what politicians can learn from it.
All Politics are local: Never forget this. The three major elections may very well have some national implications but they are first and foremost local races. In Virginia, it was a rematch of Deeds and McDowell. McDowell, the conservative, ran a basic campaign and discussed the issues facing the people of Virginia. Deeds, conversely, talked about a paper McDowell wrote almost two decades ago. That didn't work in the Presidential race and it certainly won't work in a race for governor.
The New Jersey race came down to Gov. Corzine's record. Taxes, jobs, corruption was the meme of that race and Corzine was behind the eight ball on all three. Christy ran a poor campaign but when the incumbent has no accomplishments to point out, he's in for a long election night.
In the NY-23rd race is now the poster child for this lesson. The Conservative Party candidate, backed by a lot of big-named Conservatives did an interview where it was clear he had no idea of the issues that matter to the people in that district. Dick Army, a GOP operative then went on to say that those issue were parochial. That was a major misstep. Those issues matter. People will first care if the trash is being collected and that the garbage is being removed well before they care about making a statement about the President's agenda. Any mayor worth his salt would tell you the same.
It's Not About Obama… It is about Obama: It sounds crazy but both sides have a point. Although the races came down to local issues, there is a mood in this country that the Democrats are overreaching and people are anxious. That sentiment is ignored at the peril of the Democrat Party. The Democrats now have a year to SHOW that their policies will indeed make America a better place. History is not on their side. More often than not, the Party in power loses seats in midterm elections and 2010 should be no different. How many seats are lost is up the strength of the candidate and the economy as a whole. As an outsider it is possible to run on rhetoric. As an incumbent, you must run on accomplishments.
Conservatism is not dead: Karl Rove made the grave mistake of making remarks about a permanent majority for the GOP. The same holds true for Democrats. Conservatism is a main staple of American politics. Its issue is not that people no longer believed in it, it's just that when those who touted it as their basis for governing didn't abide by its principles once in power. Neo-Cons are gone (for now, but they'll be back). Conservatism is not like being a Libertarian where it sounds good but no one believes you could actually govern a country in that fashion. It is possible to run the government using Conservative principles. So they'll always be around and Liberals would be better served if we listened to them.
Tea baggers and Shill Conservatism equals loss: Forty percent of Americans identify themselves as "conservative". But a very small segment of that 40 percent would say they believe Obama is not American, the Liberals are the enemy of America or that Creationism and Evolution should have equal standing in a science class. Yes, the Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaugh's of the world can draw ratings but remember, even with their ratings, these individuals are have a daily listening audience of maybe three percent of the American populous. The two GOP candidates in New Jersey and Virginia didn't win by screaming socialism and Marxism. Note how Sarah Palin campaigned for neither and both won but the candidate she publicly supported, lost in the NY-23rd. There is a way back for Republicans but it's not through a tea bagging revolt rally.
There are not coattails in midterm elections: A President can help lose a lot of seats during the mid-term elections but he can't win many. Democrats must realize that the enthusiastic electorate of an historical campaign run cannot be duplicated for Congressmen and governors. Pundits are asking where were all of the young people and minorities that voted during the election. They were at home not giving a damn about the choices on the ticket. It is up to the candidate to generate the enthusiasm. You must give people a reason to come out and support you. The opposition has built-in enthusiasm. Not the case for an incumbent.
There is nothing scientific about any of this. Once you remove your partisan goggles, it is clear what the way forward is for both parties.


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Tuesday June 5, 2012 2:17 pm
Nintendo confirms Wii U launching in 'Holiday 2012'
Posted by Andru Edwards - Categories: Corporate News, Home Entertainment, Video Games
It's official, folks! This morning at the Nintendo E3 Media Briefing, the company confirmed that Wii U will hit stores this holiday season. No specific price or date was given, but we're guessing that it'll cost about $400 sometime in November. In addition, NintendoLand (the title that will be to Wii U what Wii Sports was to the original Wii) will be available on launch day.
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Alternative Titles
English: My Hero Academia 2
Japanese: 僕のヒーローアカデミア 2ndシーズン
Type: TV
Episodes: 25
Status: Finished Airing
Aired: Apr 1, 2017 to Sep 30, 2017
Premiered: Spring 2017
Broadcast: Saturdays at 17:30 (JST)
Producers: Dentsu, Yomiuri Telecasting, Movic, Sony Music Entertainment, TOHO animation, Shueisha
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Why Do We Say That?
Well, okay, why do we say It's raining cats and dogs? Here's one of the most popular explanations, which may very well be what is commonly referred to these days as an "urban legend." In England during the Middle Ages, most commoners' houses had thatched roofs. That was the place where animals could keep warm in the colder months, so the pets, like dogs and cats, and other small animals lived on or in those thatched roofs. When it rained, the roofs became slippery, and sometimes the animals slid and fell off the roofs. That may be where we get the idiomatic expression It's raining cats and dogs. Is it true? Well, maybe not, but it's certainly an interesting story!
I remember many years ago wondering about the origin of my own first name. I used to joke that Richard must mean "a rich man," and that's what my folks had wished me to become when I grew up. Well, I was wrong. It turns out that the name is made up of two Germanic words, ric and hard, and they mean "brave power." Other male names ending in (h)ard are also Germanic in origin. Howard means "brave heart" and Leonard means "brave lion." I think that's neat!
My students have always been fascinated by the stories I can now tell them surrounding the possible origins of idiomatic expressions, and I get a big kick out of being able to tell them those stories instead of cleverly saying, "Because that's English." Those stories open up windows into what life was like hundreds of years ago. They're like small archaeological dig sites, only made up of words instead of artifacts you can hold in your hand. That story about the origin of It's raining cats and dogs is a perfect example.
Here's one more creative explanation that you might find interesting. What's wonderful about this story is that it explains two idiomatic expressions at the same time: Because land in England was at such a premium even in the Middle Ages, people started running out of places to bury their dead. So they would dig up coffins and reuse the graves ― a practice that's now illegal. Sometimes when reopening coffins, they'd find scratch marks inside. People quickly realized they had been burying some of their loved ones alive. To stop that horror from happening, they tied a string around the dead person's wrist, brought the string through the coffin and up to the surface of the ground, and tied the string to a bell that was mounted on a stand next to the grave. Someone would be given the charming task of sitting next to the grave all night to listen for the bell. If the bell started ringing, he'd run to get help to dig up the "dead person" before he or she really was dead! That's why on the graveyard shift, they knew someone might be saved by the bell. Interesting, right?
When I tell one of these stories to my students, I feel like a camp counselor gathered with my kids around a roaring campfire. I find these tales, whether true or not, to be a great tool to increase my students' attentiveness, listening comprehension, and retention of the idiomatic expressions under discussion. Anything that works is fine by me!
As a change of pace, I'm going to list a few of my favorite idiomatic expressions. Let's see if you can tell us how they came to be. Are you ready? Okay, let's go!
1. That husband of mine! He's not well educated, but he always manages to bring home the bacon.
2. Mildred always tips extravagantly at restaurants. She acts like she's a member of the upper crust.
3. Good night. Sleep tight.
4. Here's a rule of thumb for good cooks: Only add salt and pepper to meat right before cooking it.
5. You want to know what we did last night? We just sat around and chewed the fat.
There you go. Five commonly used idiomatic expressions with really interesting stories behind them. Let's see if you can become part-time etymologists and tell us why we say what we say. I think you'll be very surprised by what you may find out, and I can't wait to read your comments on these great idioms!


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newyorklife needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 113 designs submitted by 63 freelance designers.
Insurance brokerage company requires a corporate logo that conveys an image of trust, integrity, reliability and professionalism.
LifeStar Settlements
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As mentioned above, we need a corporate logo that conveys an image of trust and integrity. We must also project the image as a respectable-sized company that is a serious player within our industry.
The logo must be flexible enough to be used on business cards, stationary, envelopes and websites.
A color scheme would be appropriate. Fading and watermark-type backrounds (on the page of the letterhead paper) may and can add a distinguished and impressive look to the image we are trying to project.
Good luck!
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Nation & World
Sens. Marco Rubio, Rand Paul deliver blistering rebuttals to Obama
In English and Spanish, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio on Tuesday night delivered a scathing rebuke of President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech, signaling a Republican battle for middle-class voters that could help re-energize his party and also propel a potential 2016 White House run.
The Florida senator delivered his party's official rebuttal to Obama's speech, but he wasn't the only Republican responding Tuesday night. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, another potential Republican presidential contender, responded to Obama's talk on behalf of the tea party.
Rubio challenged Obama's commitment to preserving and growing the nation's middle class by expanding the role of the federal government and raising taxes on wealthy earners.
"Presidents in both parties – from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan – have known that our free enterprise economy is the source of our middle class prosperity," Rubio said in prepared remarks. "But President Obama? He believes it's the cause of our problems. . . . And, therefore, as you heard tonight, his solution to virtually every problem we face is for Washington to tax more, borrow more and spend more."
Rubio told viewers that he is firmly planted in the middle class, a legacy from his bartender father and a mother who worked as a cashier and maid, who came from Cuba "in pursuit of the opportunity to improve their life and give their children the chance at even a better one."
"Mr. President, I still live in the same working-class neighborhood I grew up in," he said. "My neighbors aren't millionaires. They are retirees who depend on Social Security and Medicare. They're immigrants, who came here because they were stuck in poverty in countries where the government dominated the economy."
He added: "Mr. President, I don't oppose your plans because I want to protect the rich. I oppose your plans because I want to protect my neighbors."
At one point Rubio paused for a quick sip of water. He went on to assert that Obama's proposals will hurt middle-class families, cost jobs and harm senior citizens because they do "nothing to save Medicare and Social Security."
"In order to balance our budget, the choice doesn't have to be either higher taxes or dramatic benefit cuts for those in need," he said. "Instead we should grow our economy so that we create new taxpayers, not new taxes, and so our government can afford to help those who truly cannot help themselves."
While Obama implored Congress to vote on gun control legislation, Rubio acknowledged "the rise of violence in our country," but he warned against weakening the Second Amendment.
Rubio said that if the economy could grow by 4 percent a year, the nation could create more jobs and reduce the deficit by nearly $4 trillion over the next decade. He proposed doing so by, in part, encouraging growth in the energy industry including solar, wind, coal, oil and natural gas.
He agreed with Obama on the need to fix Medicare in a way that doesn't harm senior citizens.
"It provided my father the care he needed to battle cancer and ultimately die with dignity," he said. "And it pays for the care my mother receives now. I would never support any changes to Medicare that would hurt seniors like my mother. But anyone who is in favor of leaving Medicare exactly the way it is right now, is in favor of bankrupting it."
In the aftermath of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's crushing loss to Obama and a disappointing showing by Republicans in last November's senatorial elections, Rubio has increased his profile and stature within the party and nationally.
Republicans, recognizing that they failed to connect with enough Hispanic voters in part because of the party's opposition to a comprehensive overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, hope the son of Cuban immigrants can help the party heal from what some leaders say are self-inflicted political wounds from failing to be more inclusive.
Rubio has been working with a bipartisan group of senators who are pushing for immigration legislation that would include a pathway to citizenship and enhance security along the U.S.-Mexican border. Overhauling immigration laws, he said, is essential for economic growth.
"We need a responsible, permanent solution to the problem of those who are here illegally," he said. "But first, we must follow through on the broken promises of the past to secure our borders and enforce our laws."
In his remarks on behalf of the tea party, Sen. Rand Paul also touched on immigration, urging tea party supporters to embrace efforts in Washington to change the system.
Rubio delivered his remarks amid the official trappings of the House of Representatives' Speakers Conference Room. Paul spoke from a downtown Washington meeting room, less than a mile from Capitol Hill.
"We are the party that embraces hard work and ingenuity, therefore we must be the party that embraces the immigrant who wants to come to America for a better future," Paul said in prepared text released before he spoke. "We must be the party the party who sees immigrants as assets, not liabilities."
Paul had harsh words for Obama, Democrats, and his own party on federal spending and the reluctance by them to take a realistic approach in cutting it.
"Both parties have been guilty of spending too much, of protecting their sacred cows, of backroom deals in which everyone wins, but every taxpayer loses," he said. "It is time Democrats admit that not every dollar spent on domestic programs is sacred. And it is time Republicans realize that military spending is not immune to waste and fraud."
Paul advocated letting the sequester, an $85 billion round of automatic cuts that would take effect March 1 if Congress fails to act, happen.
"Not only should the sequester stand, many pundits say the sequester really needs to be at least $4 trillion to avoid another downgrade of America credit rating," he said. "Both parties will have to agree to cut, or we will never fix our fiscal mess."
Being tapped to give the opposing party's response to a president's State of the Union speech is an honor usually reserved to rising stars in the Republican or Democratic parties, or others regarded as presidential or vice presidential material.
But recent history of State of the Union responders has produced mixed results. Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, viewed as a potential presidential candidate in 2016, received brutal reviews for his 2009 rebuttal and was passed over by Romney as a vice presidential running mate.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a favorite among cultural conservatives, gave the Republican's 2010 response. He, too, failed to make Romney's vice presidential cut. On the other hand, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who joined Romney on the losing presidential ticket, gave the GOP's 2011 rebuttal.


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Front - 95 mm drum
Rear - 110 mm drum
Front - 2.50-14-4PR
Rear - 3.00-12-4PR
Front - 31 mm telescopic; 4.5 in. travel
Rear - Swingarm Monocross®; 4.3 in. travel


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Is it a Change -- or is it a Goof?
Ever feel conflicted about what is and isn't considered "acceptable" in English? I know I do. (Guess what. I just used an adjective, conflicted, which wasn't considered "a real word" some years back.) So we sometimes find ourselves in this awful gray area of language, which has got to be the most uncomfortable place for an English teacher to be. Do we teach this word is acceptable? Do we teach that word is unacceptable? Do we just shrug our shoulders, sigh, and leave it up to somebody else to decide? And if we go for that third choice, who's that "somebody" supposed to be?
If you want to get some perspective on this issue, here's a term for you: an accumulation of error. It's a term used as a way of accounting for what the language has done with particular words or phrases over the centuries. If an error is made often enough and by enough people, it finally stops being an error and becomes acceptable. And going along hand in hand with this is the concept that if a word is a high-frequency item, chances are it won't change much over the centuries. A case in point is high-frequency irregular verbs such as go, eat, and see. We use them so often that there's no confusion about their past tense (went, ate, saw) or past participle forms (gone, eaten, seen) in standard English. But verbs that aren't used quite so often have either gone through a complete transition from being irregular to regular (e.g., the past of help used to be halp; now it's helped) or they're in transition at this time (e.g., the past of dive is now dove or dived).
I have to ask myself, though, are some of the things I hear or read real changes caused by accumulation of error combined with low-frequency items, or are they just goofs that people make because they don't know any better?
One example of this is a bunch of nouns we got from Latin or Greek. Those two languages have three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. In Greek the ending on a neuter noun is –on in the singular and –a in the plural. With Latin neuter nouns the endings are –um in the singular and –a in the plural. So that's why the Greek loan words phenomenon and criterion are phenomena and criteria in the plural, and that's why the Latin words are datum and bacterium in the singular and data and bacteria in the plural.
The problem is, how many English speakers know this anymore? Not too many, if you ask me. And because there's this gap in their linguistic awareness, they view data and bacteria as singular nouns rather than plural.
Funny how that problem never occurs with masculine singular words like octopus and cactus. For some reason, English speakers always recognize them as singular nouns. The only problem that came up was putting them in the plural. Do we really want to use the Latin masculine plural and say octopi and cacti? Nah! Sounds uppity:
A: Hey, Clem, how's about you and me go to the nursery and buy us some cacti for the front yard? They'll do great in this drought.
B: Yep, sounds like a good idea, Myrtle. Bet they'll look mighty nice!
No, I just can't imagine Myrtle saying "cacti." It's going to be cactuses for her. And why not? We've been regularizing the plurals of loan words for quite some time, so it's cactuses and octopuses and hippopotamuses for Myrtle. But at least she recognizes that it's one cactus and two cactuses. Not so with those poor neuter plurals like data and bacteria.
Okay, I'll make a confession, owing to the fact that I tend to be conservative in my use of language. I find it jarring to hear somebody like a doctor, nurse, or TV journalist say a bacteria instead of a bacterium. But that's just me. In fact, not only has bacteria become accepted as a singular noun, but it's also been pluralized by adding an –s, so some people actually say and write bacterias. Yikes! We've now got a plural on top of a plural. It's a linguistic "two-fer": two plural forms for the price of one! Well, is this a goof or is this a change? I don't think the jury's out on this one. I think it's a change.
Oh! By the way, speaking of a word like phenomenon . . . I was watching an American TV game show called The Phenomenon. (It didn't have a long run.) Anyway, the host of the show, a young man from the UK, actually kept saying "phenomenom." The first time he said it, I thought I'd just heard him wrong. But he said it three or four more times during the show: "phenomenom." Unbelievable! But do you know what I found really scary? The fact that nobody from the script writer to the cue card guy to the director to whoever else was involved with that show ever corrected him on it. That's what I found really scary. Now that was a goof, not a change!
So here are a few goodies to ponder over. The question is, are they changes or are they goofs? I'll leave it to you to decide. They're some of my favorites because they bother me. (Remember, I told you I'm kind of conservative.) Anyway, I'd love to know what you think of them. Are they acceptable changes or are they goofs? Any others you can think of to add to my hit list will be appreciated. Just let me know.
- She's an alumni of Duke University.
- He shouldn't talk like that about John and I.
- "Do you mind if I sit here?" "Sure."
- The police found teeth marks on the victim.
- The media isn't reporting this accurately.
- They hung Saddam Hussein in 2007.
Now ponder, dear reader, ponder. I'll have more to say on this subject at another time.


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Learn more about attractions, guided tours, parks, and more.
Hoteles, Bed & Breakfasts
Hotel guests can enjoy the unique charm and character of each of the 7 rooms. An eclectic mix of antiques and collectibles adorn the rooms and halls reminding guests of the days gone by. Enjoy a free breakfast at Edie Rae's Cafe with your overnight stay. Our guests can also take comfort in the modern Amenities of today. We welcome you into our Unique Little Heritage Hotel.
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Take advantage of the exclusive right to stay overnight in Canada's best preserved west coast artillery fort! Experience camping in the new way, with a comfy bed. Each furnished oTENTik sleeps six and includes a BBQ, campfire pit and firewood. It's only a short walk to the spectacular Fisgard Lighthouse National Historic Site. Available Mid May through September long weekend.
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Your spectacular journey to Desolation Sound with Beyond the Road Adventures begins in Lund, British Columbia, where the road (Hwy 101) ends. Cruise with us on our 37 foot tri-cabin yacht, the Agate Pass, while viewing the magnificent scenery and wildlife of our protected coastal waters. Leave your cares behind as you enjoy an afternoon of comfort and relaxation. Sightseeing, lunch and dinner cruises to Desolation Sound and the Copeland Islands are available, as well as custom day trips and multi-day cruises through the tidal rapids for bear and whale watching. With our personalized service and care, attention to detail, and extensive knowledge of the area, we are able to provide you with a unique sightseeing experience that will make memories to last a lifetime. We look forward to welcoming you on board the Agate Pass and showcasing the natural beauty our area has to offer!
Navegación, Turismo
Sail tours on a 38 foot sail boat moored in Secret Cove, Halfmoon Bay on the Sunshine Coast of B.C. Cruise among the many islands and anchorages for relaxation and adventure.See wild life and spectacular scenery. Day tours to Thormanby Island, Pender Harbour, Smuggler Cove, Jedidiah and Texada Island. Multi day tours to Vancouver Island, and Princess Louisa Inlet
Halfmoon Bay
Tours Culinarios
Taste Vancouver Food Tours provides visitors and Vancouverites with an entertaining and tantalizing food tasting and cultural adventure into Vancouver's food scene. Our walking food tours are a great way to experience the savory tastes, sounds and sights of Vancouver's many great eateries, pubs and shops. Tours are led by one of our fun and entertaining tour guides. Laugh and learn while you get to experience tasting adventures through Vancouver's unique neighborhoods. Great food, beverages, lots of fun and entertainment.
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Cultus Lake Adventure Park is BC's Best Theme Park. This is the most animated amusement park you will ever see, with award-winning craftsmanship and one-of-a-kind rides and attractions. This park is loaded with surprises at every turn and will leave you amazed. The park features 18 rides and attractions for all ages, including Giggle Ridge Adventure Golf. There is no cost to enter the park – you can buy all day unlimited ride wristbands, individual ride tokens, mini golf, gem bags and more inside the park. About a one hour drive from Vancouver, this is a destination you will not want to miss out on during the summer! Check out our website to see the full list of rides, prices, and dates.
Cultus Lake
Spas y Bienestar
We are a lakeside Aveda Spa located within The Cove Lakeside Resort in beautiful West Kelowna, BC. Our philosophy is simple-soothe the spirit and beauty will follow. Let us be your refuge in a world full of stressful demands on your body and time. Our team is committed to providing you with exceptional service in an atmosphere that is peaceful, elegant and calming.
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CedarCreek is founded on connections â to the land we care for and to the Okanagan Valley we call home. On our fifty-acre property along the shores of Lake Okanagan, Winemaker Taylor Whelan is building upon three decades of winemaking history, and defining a new chapter with our bright, expressive north Okanagan Pinot Noirs, Chardonnays, and aromatic white wines. Deepen your appreciation for our region at our brand new 120-seat restaurant and tasting room. From the panoramic views of the lake, vines and valley, to the mouth-watering local menu, we create an adventure for all of your senses. Whether you're stopping by for a tasting or to share a bottle and meal in the dining room, we want to help you fall in love with this land and all it offers.
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Okanagan Spirits is Western Canada's oldest craft distillery spanning over a decade in the production of award-winning B.C. spirits. Internationally acclaimed as North America's only designated World Class Distillery (World Spirits Awards), our portfolio includes a range of spirits from Vodka, Whisky and Gin, to Liqueurs and Brandies (Eau de Vie) as well as Canada's first genuine Absinthe.
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The Ainsworth Hot Springs Resort is a four season destination featuring 39 contemporary Guest Rooms, the Ktunaxa Grill, Nasookin Room, and a well-stocked Retail/Gift Shop. This property offers a unique cave experience where soothing, hot mineral water surfaces from the earth creating a natural steam bath. Stalactites form in abundance inside the caves. The hot water flows into our main pool and is cooled to a comfortable body temperature, suitable for your whole family. Spring, Fall, Summer and Winter bring guests from around the world to enjoy the pleasures of the crisp, clean air and the calming mineral waters of the Ainsworth Hot Springs.
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Paseo a caballo y Ranchos
Nestled in the beauty of the Cowichan Valley, this impeccable facility is a first class, family run business. It is our pleasure to offer everyone a unique equine riding experience. Escape the crowds and indulge in a memorable experience. Enjoy sweeping ocean and valley views. A great opportunity to experience a West Coast Rainforest. Our trails are expertly guided and the horses are suitable for all levels of riders.
Cobble Hill
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Most airport layouts were designed when passengers played cards while waiting for a flight because an onboard meal was an expectation and the very idea of a smartphone would have been laughable.
What was once a mess of beam seating everywhere now has a multi-function use: part lounge, part cafe, part office and a wealth of amenities. New uses of spaces as well as new types of furniture are finding their way into the airport because today's passenger is really focused on getting to point B rather than the journey itself. Airport design and furniture elements have a stronger impact on the passenger experience than one may realize. There's the comfort. The durability. The usability.
Matt Dubbe from Mead and Hunt and Joe Agati from Agati Furniture will tackle these questions and others in: Airport Interiors are Experiencing Massive Change: What You Need to Know.
View an archived version of this session in its entirety:
View full webinar:
Airport Interiors: What You Need to Know - (Flash)
View full webinar: Airport Interiors: What You Need to Know - (MP4 video)
Listen as Podcast: Airport Interiors: What You Need to Know - (podcast)


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Guest Blogger
How much threat do you need?
A few weeks ago I mentioned that if you've been assuming that you will not suffer a security breach, you're most likely wrong. Since then, though, a new survey has been released that shows that small and medium businesses don't tend to take cyberthreats seriously. It sort of makes sense; the breaches that everyone hears about are the big ones. The perception is that smaller business don't have anything that anyone would want, comparatively speaking, so they're left alone. If you run a small or medium sized business yourself you should know that's not true. If you are profitable, you have something that "they" would want, for several different values of "they": customers, clients, and competitors. And if those entities want what you have, they might be willing to pay someone to steal it for them, or to put you (even temporarily) out of business, or at least, out of heavy competition. As a security professional, I've seen myself how security software vendors consider past employees of their competitors a valuable resource. While nobody wants to face a lawsuit due to using someone else's code, the inside scoop on how software acts or where data is kept can be invaluable. It's not too much of a leap of logic to imagine someone paying for your data or trade secrets to get some competitive edge or put you out of business. And it doesn't even have to be that complex. Hackers might not care about your data or secrets; they might just want the money in your bank account. Sure, it's not as much as they could get from the "big guys", but hackers see smaller business' relative lack of security as low hanging fruit which they can much more quickly and easily exploit. Doing that over and over again can prove to be much more cost-effective, to the hackers, than all the work that goes into one large theft. So the question you have to ask yourself, as a business owner, is how much threat do you need to feel? The odds are against every business, large or small, over time, in terms of facing a data breach. You're busy, with a business to run; hackers have nothing else to do, day in and day out, but pick their targets and then pick their weapons. Every year, the number of small and medium businesses being breached goes up. Before you become a statistic, make information security a priority in your enterprise.


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A judge in Los Angeles has suspended the criminal case against a man charged with stalking Audrina Patridge so doctors can evaluate his mental competency.
Zachary Loring attempted to plead guilty Tuesday to a felony charge that he stalked "The Hills" star, but his attorney objected and a judge refused to accept the plea.
The 24-year-old criticized the court in a brief profanity-laced tirade before being returned to custody. He is being held on $150,000 bail after his arrest outside Patridge's home in February.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Ryan ordered two doctors to evaluate Loring.
Patridge obtained a civil restraining order against Loring last year after he repeatedly showed up at her Hollywood Hills home.
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MORE ACCESS ON THESE TOPICS: Audrina Patridge - The Hills - Reality TV - TV


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Disney star Selena Gomez has obtained a restraining order against a 46-year-old man who allegedly planned to kill her based on conversations he had with God.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William Stewart last week ordered Thomas Brodnicki, whose residence is listed as Los Angeles hotel, to stay at least 100 yards away from Gomez, her parents and an assistant.
In court documents, Gomez said she feared Brodnicki "will harm them in his attempts to see me or to harm or kill me."
Brodnicki allegedly has a long history of mental illness.
The 19-year-old "Monte Carlo" and "Wizards of Waverly Place" star and girlfriend of teen heartthrob Justin Bieber told the court, which issued the temporary restraining order Oct. 13, that Brodnicki visited her workplace at least three times.
The Los Angeles Police Department's Threat Management Unit was also taking Brodnicki's threat to kill Gomez "extremely seriously," due to his history of stalking, criminal threats, visits to Gomez's workplace and mental illness, according to court records.
Brodnicki allegedly traveled from Chicago to Los Angeles in September to meet Gomez, but police placed him on a 72-hour mental health hold after he told passersby that he would "scratch people's eyes out," according to court records.
During the detention, Brodnicki allegedly told a doctor that he had thoughts of hurting and killing Gomez. The doctor reported Brodnicki's threats to police because he "presented a serious danger of violence" to Gomez, according to court records.
A hearing regarding the temporary restraining order is scheduled for Nov. 4 in the Burbank courthouse.
'Hannah Montana' actor arrested in Burbank for alleged DUI-- Veronica Rocha, Times Community News
Twitter: @VeronicaRochaLA


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NBA 2K14 Trailer: The Next Generation of Basketball Has Arrived
2K Sports has been a bit more forthcoming with information and screenshots for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One version of NBA 2K14 in recent days, but nothing could have prepared us for this trailer.
To call the footage on display in the trailer above "incredible" doesn't just do it justice. If you've been wondering if the next generation of basketball games would truly live up to the power of the new consoles, you can set aside those fears now.
Now, it's easy to be impressed with the visuals created solely for the purpose of a trailer. We still don't know much about how NBA 2K14 will play on the PS4 or Xbox One, and we likely won't learn until the games arrive next month. That said, if the gameplay matches the presentation even in the slightest, 2K will be off to a great start when it comes to its next-gen library.
Check out the trailer, and prepare for the full court press of NBA 2K14 when it arrives on Nov. 15 for the PS4 and Nov. 22 on the Xbox One.


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It Pays to be Paranoid
I've got my home web server and database. I had an array controller start acting up on me about a month ago and I knew I was gonna have to replace it. So I started the process of making sure I had good backups of all my data in case the controller went out before I had a chance to fix it. I copied my DBs and websites to a different partition on the same box. I also backed them up to my NAS. I also copied them over to a different server. And just to be sure, in case the backup was corrupt (which is a real possibility with Windows backup), I copied the raw files to the NAS as well. OK, so I've got all of this paranoia going on here, but this is very important data to me and I just can't afford to lose it.
So I got my array back up and everything up and running again. No problems. Now, this weekend, I lost a drive on that array. And of course, I'm using Raid-0. Why? Well, because disk is expensive and this is my home system, and sometimes it's hard to justify the extra cost of making things redundant. Well, I've been running backups to the NAS pretty much every day, so I knew I was protected. Unfortunately, I found that my NAS had lost a disk too... and you guessed it... Raid-0 as well. OK, I could ordinarily go to that other server that I copied it to from the previous outage, but I'm in the middle of rebuilding that server for my new Exchange server. So that data's no longer there... great.
Now it looks like I've lost all my data. I can't get the array back, and I've lost something like 12yrs of data. It's a complete disaster. Well, last night after talking to one of those disk recovery folks, I was about to pack up my array and send it to them for the $3,000 data retrieval process, when I looked at the other partition on my server and there it was... the data I had copied over from the previous meltdown! I couldn't believe it. Furtunately, my data doesn't change often enough to really worry about a couple weeks going by between backups, so I haven't lost anything at all.
Let me just say that when it comes to backups, it pays to be extremely paranoid. If your data's that important, act like it. I thought that my NAS and other server would be good enough, but they clearly weren't. So always plan for a multiple failure if it's at all possible. You could have electrical problems that knock out more than one server, you could have a flood or other natural disaster, etc. I'm serious here. If the data you're protecting is that important, treat it as such. In fact, treat it like a newborn baby. Protect it and never let anything happen to it.
I'll definitely be revamping my backup strategy at home so nothing like this ever happens again. I guess the first part of that is to stop being so cheap and get off Raid-0. I just can't afford that anymore. So you guys learn from my almost misfortune and take a good hard look at your backups with a paranoid eye. Develop impossible scenarios and see if your strategy can overcome them.
Good Luck!
Cut and Paste Code
This is just a little reminder to not be so lazy. I know it's quick and easy to cut and paste code, especially for reports. It saves a lot of time and you can really burn through projects that way. But you just have to consider what you're doing. Just because a section of code worked well before, that doesn't mean that it'll work well here. Look before you leap. If you want to cut and paste code, go ahead, but at least look at it to make sure it's actually what you need.
Recently, I ran across a group of SPs that were clearly from the same template. They all pulled 150+ cols into #tables, and used only a couple of them. The theory behind it was the original author needed a few cols, and the rest of the authors only needed a couple, but since they were included in the select * the original guy pulled in, they decided to just leave it at that. It's nothing but laziness people. Look at what you need and get it. A DB is like a buffet. You can eat all you want, but eat all you take. If you need logic from a query, that's fine, but you should only use that query to help you cut some of your work, not to replace it.
So, do the work, think about what you need, and do what's right. And another thing... cut and paste code leads to some other really bad things. Like in the case of this code I just fixed. Not only did the SP get cloned, it wasn't good code to begin with. So, instead of the other report writers figuring out how to write the queries themselves, and possibly stumbling on a better way, they just pushed the same bad code out there. Don't just assume that because code is published in the DB, that it's good. Take the code if you need it, but only take what you can use, and definitely check it somehow to make sure it's written well to begin with. If you don't know how to check it, there are plenty of resources. Start with your own DBAs, and if you can't get any love there, try the internet... books... training CDs... user groups... seminars... newsgroups, etc...
Database Spam
I filled out the form to get it turned back on and it just came up today. I always pays to upgrade.
Don't Blow it Off
Take a page out of my book and never blow off backups. You never know when you'll be called on to restore. Anything can happen at any time and you need to be ready. I know sometimes it's a beating to make sure the troublesome backups complete, but one day it'll really save the day... and maybe your job.
Remember, a DBA is only as good as his last backup.
About Me
- Sean McCown
- I am a Contributing Editor for InfoWorld Magazine, and a frequent contributor to SQLServerCentral.com as well as SSWUG.org. I live with my wife and 3 kids, and have practiced and taught Kenpo for 22yrs now.
Blog Archive
- ► 2009 (53)
- ▼ 2007 (15)


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Clinton ally writes 'Benghazi Hoax'
Media Matters founder and Hillary Clinton ally David Brock has co-authored a 90-page e-book called "The Benghazi Hoax," a tome intended as a counterweight of sorts to criticisms of the former Secretary of State and President Barack Obama over the 2012 attacks in Libya.
Brock previewed the book in an interview with POLITICO last week in the liberal group's Washington offices. He described it as an important and necessary resource on the Benghazi attacks that left four Americans dead last Sept. 11 — and which some congressional Republicans have shown continued interest in probing.
Story Continued Below
Brock insisted the book is not intended as a de facto defense of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as she comes under scrutiny ahead of a likely 2016 presidential bid. Supporting the Clintons is a fraction of Media Matters' mission, he said, and her role in the Benghazi attacks is not the sole focus of the book.
( Also on POLITICO: Hillary Clinton stumps for McAuliffe)
But the mere fact of the book's existence is an acknowledgement that Benghazi will remain a topic of debate, and one that could harm Clinton with independent and center-right Republicans. And it comes as Brock-affiliated groups could fill an organizational void for Clinton, who has no machinery of her own beyond a handful of staffers since leaving the State Department.
The book, which comes out Tuesday, is as much about pushing back against criticisms by the right that Obama is a weak president who has hurt America in the world, Brock said.
Still, he added, there are "six super PACs out there dedicated to trying to tarnish [Clinton's] reputation."
( Also on POLITICO: Clintons go all out for Terry McAuliffe)
The one he focused on most is America Rising, which was founded by former Romney campaign aides and Republican National Committee officials and which has a 'Stop Hillary" project that's proceeding apace.
"Some of them are scams, so – Dick Morris is back," Brock said, citing Morris as an example of a person heading a super PAC that may exist mostly as a shell, without much financing behind it.
These groups are all relatively new and untested, he said. However, "Rand Paul, who may run for president, said that Benghazi was a disqualifier for Secretary Clinton for higher office, and you know, I mean, that's baloney.
"And I think we show in the book that Secretary Clinton was involved in forming global anti-terror policies that were tough and successful moreso than I think the last administration's [were]," Brock said. "She took responsibility for the security lapses even though [it was found] that she didn't have knowledge of the reductions. That night she was engaged and a steady hand, and then after the fact, I think her focus was on trying to keep diplomats safe in the future. … I think every step of the way she did the right thing."
He added, "While our effort is entirely independent, I do think we've learned this lesson over the years that it's very detrimental to leave charges out there that are unanswered."
The book offers a sweeping criticism of a number of Republicans, including last year's GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, as well as members of the media. That includes but is not limited to several Fox News anchors, whom Brock describes as "hoaxters" interested in tarnishing Obama and Clinton, and, by extension, former United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice. Her Sunday show appearances defending the administration shortly after the attacks helped sink her hopes of becoming Secretary of State.


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Keeping Kids Entertained on Shoreby Luisa Frey Gaynor, CruiseMates Family Editor
Look for excursions tailored to your child's interests to keep boredom from setting in; here are some suggestions.
Traveling with kids can be a chore or a fun, "edu-taining" experience. By doing a little pre-departure homework on sights and attractions that interest your children, you can avoid the "I'm bored" syndrome on the road or at sea.
We have rarely been on a cruise or land trip that my five-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter didn't enjoy. Part of the trick is compromising what you do and see on land. This doesn't mean skipping Big Ben and the Tower of London in order to visit kid-favorite Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, but it does mean that both you and your child should be able to choose an attraction or activity that you're passionate about. For example, on a recent cruise to Bermuda, my son -- who loves animals and dinosaurs -- was content to know that one of our days ashore would be spent visiting the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo. I, on the other hand, happily anticipated our morning at lovely Horseshoe Bay Beach.
Many kids, especially those in pre-school and grammar school, have particular interests and hobbies. By coupling your child's interests to appropriate land options, you are sure to have a memorable cruise filled with positive words like "awesome" rather than whining.
Here are some suggestions of typical childhood interests and appropriate attractions you can visit by cruise ship.
As I mentioned, my son is extremely knowledgeable about animals and dinosaurs. Thus on an upcoming Alaska cruise, we'll take a shore excursion called Whale Quest, which guarantees we'll see a whale or other large marine mammals during our boat ride. Another idea for animal lovers cruising in Alaska is an excursion to the dog sled camps, where kids can visit kennels of the Iditarod dogs and then ride a sled that is pulled by them. Sitka also has a raptor rehabilitation center where children can see these large birds up close.
Many other itineraries, including New England/Canada and Baja California (the latter frequented by small ships), offer great options for whale watching.
When my daughter was in grammar school, she adored monkeys. Thus, many years ago, we opted for a small ship cruise to Costa Rica, where I got a wonderful photograph of Alex cradling an injured, baby monkey at a rehab center. She'll always cherish that experience.
For itineraries or ports that are not generally nature-oriented, head to the zoo or natural history museums. If you're on a cruise departing from New York City, check out the Central Park Zoo, with its beautifully landscaped pathways. Also in New York is the American Museum of Natural History, complete with a huge dinosaur collection and dozens of preserved mammals.
Before or after a Caribbean cruise departing from Miami, you may want to visit Parrot Jungle, which is like a zoo but with a tropical twist.HISTORY
Miniature knights in shining armor will be attracted to many Northern European itineraries, particularly those calling in the British Isles and Ireland, due to the proliferation of ancient castles. Here your child's imagination can run wild. From ramparts to moats, childhood storybook tales of princes, swords, and damsels in distress come to life. In the Mediterranean, the walled city of Malta will also appeal to those who are fascinated with the past; and the Roman Coliseum will conjure up images from the movie "Gladiator."
The eastern coast of Mexico has plenty of temples to satisfy a youngster's interest in Mayan culture. Just be aware that many shore excursions to these temples are extremely long and hot; thus young children may not appreciate this option. These full-day tours are better for pre-teens and teens.
Also in North America is the Halifax citadel, an attraction on New England/Canada itineraries that call in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This classic fort offers daily parades of costumed historical re-enactors. Much further south, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is El Morro, a massive fort overlooking the Caribbean that's great for inside exploration as well as flying kites outside on its grounds.
Older children and teens with an interest in World War II will find an excursion to the Arizona Memorial/Pearl Harbor extremely moving. Similarly, cruises calling in Amsterdam give families the option of visiting the Anne Frank house, complete with the annex where Anne and her family hid for so many months during Nazi occupation.
The Caribbean and Bermuda are great spots for kids who appreciate flowers and plants. Many Caribbean islands offer easy walks through tropical gardens. One of the most popular is El Yunque rainforest in Puerto Rico, the only tropical rain forest in the U.S. National Park System. It boasts more than 240 species of tropical flowers and trees.
Bermuda's Botanical Garden is a quiet paradise that can be reached by taxi from Hamilton and St. George. When my daughter was in pre-school, she enjoyed walking among the "pretty flowers" there.
Many Alaska cruises that originate in Seattle also call in Victoria, B.C., home to world-renowned Butchart Gardens. This wonderland of flowers boasts winding paths, cascading fountains and foot bridges - great for a child's imagination.
There's something fishy going on here! Obviously, the Caribbean, Bahamas and Bermuda are treasure troves for kids who love to view life under the sea. Glass-bottom boats and snorkeling excursions abound throughout the region. Other favorites include semi-submarine adventures that take you partially underwater to view marine life. Many spots, such as Bermuda and Aruba, also offer 'swim with the dolphins' adventures. Usually children have to be a certain age or height to participate in this exciting (but expensive) excursion.
You and your family can also view marine life at Coral World in St. Thomas, which is full of aquatic tanks for easy viewing. If you're on an East Coast cruise that sails between New York and the Bahamas or Caribbean, chances are your cruise will call in Port Canaveral. While there, check out Sea World in Orlando for tons of options including exciting marine life shows.
Both the East Coast and West Coast have wonderful options for youngsters who appreciate Native American cultures. Before or after Alaska cruises starting in Vancouver, check out the Museum of Anthropology's extensive collection of artifacts from the Northwest Coast. In Alaska, visit Saxman Native Village in Ketchikan, with its large totem pole park. At the long house here, Native American dances are performed in colorful red and black capes. Your child might even be selected as one of the guest dancers!
On the East Coast, stop at New York City's American Museum of Natural History to see its extensive Native American collection. In downtown Manhattan, spend some time at the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of the American Indian, said to have the world's largest collection of artifacts from Indian cultures.
Cruises a are great way for youngsters to see the world's natural wonders, often from the comfort of a cruise ship deck. Obviously, Alaska offers many options, including seeing glaciers up close. In Glacier Bay, park rangers come aboard and often give a special kids' talk about glaciers. There's even a glacier in the state's capital city of Juneau.
Hawaii is another "hot spot" where kids can see awe-inspiring natural attractions. I was surprised at how impressed my teenaged daughter recently was by Volcanoes National Park, since it's hard to impress teens! She thought it was pretty cool to walk over steam vents and lava paths as well as through lava tubes. Waimea Canyon in Kauai is another natural wonder that kids and teens alike will always remember.
If you're headed to Europe, the Norwegian fjords will surely get your kids and teens to say "wow". Cruising through narrow fjords with sky-high waterfalls on either side is a refreshing European option for nature lovers.
For all those Jimmy Neutron fans, there are plenty of spots to visit in East and West Coast ports. On the East Coast, don't miss New York City's Rose Center (attached to the American Museum of Natural History) for the most high-tech space shows in the country. If you're cruising out of New York down the East Coast to Port Canaveral, visit nearby Kennedy Space Center, a great excursion for budding astronauts.
On the West Coast, San Francisco's Exploratorium is a hands-on museum that keeps kids "edu-tained" for hours.
Some itineraries and ships themselves hold interest for future scientists. For example, Cunard's Queen Mary 2 has a planetarium where a number of different star shows are presented during each cruise. Those with a penchant for engineering should opt for a Panama Canal itinerary. Children and parents alike marvel at the technical wizardry that went into designing the Panama Canal.
Do your kids regularly say, "Take me out to the ball game?" If so, you can easily reach historic Camden Yards in Baltimore to watch a baseball game, as well as Shea and Yankee Stadiums in New York City, which are accessible from the midtown pier via subway.
All aboard! Trains and trolleys are favorite hobbies, especially for young boys. On an Alaska cruise, opt for the White Pass and Yukon Railroad excursion, which takes you high into mountainous passes. Also on the West Coast is the Cable Car Museum in San Francisco. After visiting the museum, hop on a one-of-a-kind ride of the city's historic cable cars. To avoid a long wait for a trolley, try riding them early in the morning.
On the East Coast, Baltimore has a well-known train museum. The B&O Railroad Museum is complete with a roundhouse full of historic trains. Families can also go on a short train ride from the museum.
If you're cruising to Bermuda, there is the Bermuda Railway Trail for biking. While trains no longer travel the rail trail, there are historical markers along the way.
I'm a firm believer that if you involve your child in something active, they will remember it forever. I guarantee that if you couple your youngster's interests with sights they can interact with, they'll learn more on your cruise than they ever could from a book.


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Nevada Patient Busing
Cast out of Nevada, mentally ill man tells story of finding kindness in Sacramento
By the time his Greyhound bus hissed to a stop on Richards Boulevard in Sacramento on the morning of Feb. 12, James Flavy Coy Brown was in a mild panic.
It was 6:30 a.m., 15 hours and 11 stops after a taxi had scooped him up in front of Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas, where he had spent the previous 72 hours, and deposited him at a bus station.
During the long ride to Northern California, Brown had rationed the peanut butter crackers and Ensure nutritional supplements that a staff member at the mental hospital had given him, along with his discharge papers and a bus ticket to Sacramento. His food was gone, and he was nearly out of the medication to treat his array of mood disorders, including schizophrenia, depression and anxiety.
As the bus door opened in Sacramento, Brown, 48, stepped out into the pre-dawn gloom. It was 30 degrees, and his windbreaker was no match for the chill.
Brown, a native of the American South with a distinct accent and a healthy head of salt-and-pepper hair, had arrived in the capital city with no concrete plan for survival. He had no friends or relatives in Sacramento. He had lost his ID, Social Security and insurance cards somewhere in Las Vegas. He had no idea how to fill the prescriptions that helped tame the voices and anxiety that clouded his mind.
He wondered if he was destined to die on the streets of this strange new city.
Scanning the landscape, he spotted a nearby police station. Desperation drove him inside.
"Can you help me?" he asked.
Brown's odyssey to Sacramento has raised questions about Nevada's state-sanctioned treatment of mentally ill people.
Advocates for the mentally ill in California, including state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, call it a disturbing case of patient dumping. The federal government and Nevada authorities are investigating whether the incident is part of a broader pattern of abuse.
Preliminary reports suggest that Nevada has made a habit of discharging mental patients by bus to other states. Rawson-Neal, the state's primary hospital for mentally ill people, bused about 100 state psychiatric patients to California between July 1, 2012, and the end of February, and scores more to other states, according to data provided by Nevada health authorities.
Nevada officials admit busing Brown to California with no arrangements for his housing or care, but contend it is not common practice.
"I don't think you're going to see discharges like that again," said Nevada's chief of Health and Human Services, Michael Willden. "It's an embarrassment to us."
They also acknowledge that, as budget cuts have shrunk and shuttered government mental health programs across the country, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find housing and supervision for severely mentally ill men and women.
The Bee first wrote about Brown last month, based on interviews with homeless services workers who tried to help him before he disappeared into Sacramento's streets. Recently he contacted The Bee, and agreed to an interview at the boarding home where he is now getting food and care.
Brown was soft-spoken and polite as he sat on a patio, sipping bottled water and answering questions about the latest chapter of his lifelong struggle with mental illness. He repeatedly referred to a reporter as "Ma'am," and occasionally burst into childlike giggles when discussing the troubles that have followed him since childhood.
"Maybe my story will help someone else," he said.
Brown's memory can be faulty, and details of some portions of his life are fuzzy. Some of the stories he tells about his long-ago background are fantasy, a product of his illness, according to relatives The Bee tracked down. But an array of hospital and social services officials have confirmed what he recounted about what has happened to him since he landed in Sacramento.
Brown's experience starkly underscores gaps in the public health care system that plague mental patients across the country, advocates say, including a lack of suitable housing and crisis intervention care.
His Sacramento saga began in early February shortly after he landed in Rawson-Neal. Although his hospital discharge papers list his place of residence as Catholic Charities of Las Vegas, Brown said his last real home was a small group facility that shut down.
According to a state investigation, he spent 72 hours in the hospital's observation unit before a doctor discharged him to a Greyhound bus to Sacramento. The discharge orders noted he should be given a three-day supply of Thorazine, Klonopin and Cymbalta to treat his schizophrenia, anxiety disorder and depression, plus "Ensure and snacks for a 15-hour bus ride."
Brown said a doctor at Rawson-Neal told him to dial 911 when he reached Sacramento.
"But I don't want to go anywhere," Brown recalled telling the doctor. "Is this the only option I've got?"
He said the physician told him that Nevada had no place for him. "Pick a state," he said the doctor told him. "How about sunny California? They have excellent health care and more benefits than you could ever get in Nevada." The doctor, Brown said, then shook his hand and wished him luck in Sacramento.
His sense of the situation, Brown said, was: "If I hadn't left then, I might have had to stay in that hospital for a long time. At least I got my freedom."
Willden, the health and human services chief, declined to discuss Brown's case in detail because of patient privacy laws. But in general, he said, Brown's account does not reflect hospital policy.
"I don't think we would ever tell a patient, 'There is no room at the inn and you're getting on a bus,' " he said. Brown's discharge notes included that he had mentioned a desire to go to California, according to the state investigation.
Upon his discharge to the bus station, Brown said, he spotted four other people with whom he had lived at his former group home. All had been sent to Rawson-Neal when the home closed, he said.
"Hey, Ralph," Brown recalled calling out to one of the people. "What are you doing here?"
"He told me, 'I'm going to California.' "
"I said, 'Gee, they just put us all in separate cabs to send us to California? What's going on here?' "
The voices in his head
The Greyhound discharge, Brown said, was not the first time he had been cast adrift. He said he has felt that way for most of his life.
He was born in Anderson, Ind., to parents unable to care for him, according to family. A couple adopted him when he was a toddler and he spent his early life in Seneca, S.C.
There, when he was about 20 and working as a cook at a local hamburger joint, he met and married a cashier at the restaurant. Her name was Sandy. She called him Jamie.
"I was young and naive, and I didn't realize the problems he had," said the former Sandra Brown. Remarried with the last name Bandy now, she spoke by telephone from her home in Virginia.
Shortly after she married Brown, she said, she started to become concerned about his mental state. She learned that he heard voices inside his head. That animals told him to do bad things. He once killed a family cat that he believed to be evil. He began drinking heavily.
"He had been in a mental health facility before, and in jail," Bandy said. "He had a temper." She said she helped sign him up for Social Security disability benefits, "and they accepted him right away."
When their daughter, Shotzy Faith Brown, was about 3, Sandy took the girl to Virginia, where her parents lived, and filed for divorce. The next time James Brown saw his daughter, she was 14.
Brown said he worked in coal mines and odd jobs over the years but that his mental illness was difficult to control and he repeatedly landed in jail for disorderly conduct and stealing food. In recent years, he has been homeless for long periods, he said.
"When I'm without my medications, look out!" said Brown with a nervous laugh. "I get into trouble."
Brown left the South a few years ago, he said, at the suggestion of a psychiatrist who said budget cuts were decimating programs there. "He said things were way better out West," Brown said. So, he said, he jumped on a bus, eventually getting off in Las Vegas.
Brown stayed in shelters, group homes and "missions," he said, wherever he could find a bed. Often, he got picked up by police as he wandered aimlessly.
"I've been bounced around quite a bit along the way," Brown added. "That's what happens when you are mentally ill.
"I guess that's why they sent me to Sacramento," he mused. "I guess the people in Las Vegas thought I was some kind of a threat."
In search of shelter
Brown felt more like a victim than a threat when he walked into the police station on Richards Boulevard in the early hours of Feb. 12.
"I was scared," he said. "Really, I just wanted to find a hospital or somewhere to be."
He met a friendly officer, he said, and handed him his hospital paperwork.
"He told me they would take me to a place where there would be a meal, shelters, showers," said Brown. "He was real nice to me."
Brown climbed into the back of a cruiser, and within minutes arrived at the sprawling Loaves & Fishes homeless complex on North C Street on the industrial outskirts of Sacramento's downtown. Someone gave him a cup of coffee while the officers talked to a staff member about his situation, he said.
But the agency, which provides a variety of services for homeless people, would be closing in the early afternoon and does not operate a shelter, Brown learned. So after awhile he followed a line of people looking for a place to sleep.
Keeping to himself during his stroll, he said, he first went to the Salvation Army on North B Street, but a receptionist told him it was full. He walked until he reached the Union Gospel Mission on Bannon Street. There, he found a bed.
The next morning, he ambled four blocks back to Loaves & Fishes, where he met with a young staffer named Molly Simones.
By that time, Brown had been off his medications for more than a day, he said. He was confused and agitated, and told Simones he was thinking about throwing himself off a bridge or in front of a car. "I had to somehow get him to a hospital," Simones said. "But in our experience, that is not an easy thing to do."
Simones said she was unable to transport him herself because of legal issues. Someone at the agency could fill out papers to place a legal "hold" on him until police could take him to the hospital, but Simones decided that process would take too long.
She asked Brown whether he could make it to UC Davis Medical Center on Stockton Boulevard if she gave him directions and a bus pass.
"He was more than willing, and I felt he could make it on his own," she said. She made copies of his discharge papers from Rawson-Neal and wrote an account of his journey from Las Vegas. She told him to give the papers to nurses when he arrived at UC Davis.
After lunch, Brown recalled, he walked "a long ways" to a light-rail station, which is about five blocks away at 12th and E streets.
Small acts of kindness
Brown cannot recall where he got off the light-rail train. He remembers only concrete, horns and clanging bells. Again, an officer came to his rescue.
He said he approached the first uniformed person he saw, and handed him the note from Simones. The note said Brown was "suicidal and unable to care for himself," and should go to the hospital.
Rick Rivera said he may have been the officer Brown encountered.
"I can't be absolutely sure, because there are so many mentally ill people on the train," said Rivera, an RT transit officer for the past 10 years. But Brown's story sounded familiar. "These people get lost quite a bit, and we do whatever we can to help them."
Brown walked into UC Davis Medical Center at around 4:30 the afternoon of Feb. 13 with a police escort, joining a growing legion of mental patients seeking refuge in Sacramento's emergency rooms.
ERs have seen a spike in mentally ill patients since Sacramento County's mental health facility shuttered its crisis intervention clinic and closed half its beds in 2009 amid budget cuts.
At any given time, according to UC Davis staff, three to 10 mental patients are waiting in the facility's emergency room. The hospital has stepped up security to accommodate patients who, in some cases, are psychotic and out of control.
Brown was upset but fairly calm when he showed up, said Dr. Peter Yellowlees, a psychiatrist on duty that day.
A triage nurse greeted Brown, who handed her his paperwork. She and others took his blood, measured his vital signs and conducted other tests to make sure he was stable, Yellowlees said. A resident psychiatrist, Dr. Jamie Ng, asked him about his mental state and medications.
That night, Brown slept restlessly on a gurney as the the ER chaos swirled around him.
In the meantime, UC Davis social workers began calling area mental facilities, trying to find a bed for Brown. The task is difficult under the best of circumstances, Yellowlees said, but even more challenging when the patient is from out of state and has neither an ID nor an insurance card.
So for the next two nights and part of a third day, the UC Davis emergency room was Brown's home. He had daily visits with a psychiatrist, ate hospital meals and watched Netflix movies, including "Harry Potter" and "Lord of the Rings," on Ng's computer. His panic began to subside, Brown said, as his medications kicked in. He was grateful for small kindnesses.
"I felt like I had been rescued," he said.
The next chapter
Other rescuers would surface after Brown departed UC Davis.
From the medical center, he got a bed at Heritage Oaks, a private mental hospital on Auburn Boulevard. Brown recalls staying there for a couple of weeks before getting moved to Green Pasture, an assisted living facility, where he stayed until he was transferred to a boarding home in early March.
Now he lives in a mint-green house in south Sacramento with three other residents and a rotation of caregivers. He has his own small room, with a single bed and a shelf where he props his pipe and tobacco.
The home's operator, Joy Ubungen, accepted Brown on the promise of future payment, despite the fact that he "didn't get along" with his housemates at Green Pasture, she said.
"My heart went out to him," she said.
Turning Point Community Programs, which contracts with the county to provide supportive services to mentally ill people, is overseeing Brown's care.
A staff member brings his medications every morning, watching to make sure he swallows them. The organization has provided him with clothing and psychiatric care, said Carolin Funderburg, program director for the group's integrated services agency.
Whether the programs will be fully reimbursed for Brown's care is unclear. As of last week, his insurance and Social Security benefits had yet to be transferred from Nevada to California.
As word of Brown's experience has spread, other avenues have opened.
Sacramento civil rights lawyer Mark Merin said he is planning to pursue a lawsuit on behalf of Brown and others like him.
"There is something really wrong here," said Merin, who met with Brown last week. "I have to believe there is a constitutional issue."
And on Wednesday, the telephone rang at Brown's boarding home. Another resident told him the call was for him.
"Hello?" Brown answered.
Shotzy Faith Harrison recognized her father's soft drawl, a voice she had heard only a few times in the last two decades.
"Daddy! Daddy! It's me!" said Harrison, now 25 and a nurse. "It's Shotzy. I want to bring you home with me to North Carolina."
Brown just smiled, he said, as he listened to his daughter talk "a mile a minute" about her plans for him. It was not the first time she had offered to take him in, he said. But this time, he planned to take her up on her offer.
"I never wanted to be a burden," Brown said. "But I guess I'm not. Not to my daughter, anyway."
After locating him in a boarding home in Sacramento, The Bee pieced together James Flavy Coy Brown's story by interviewing him at length, tracking down relatives across the country, and talking to doctors, social workers and caregivers he encountered after his arrival in Sacramento. Brown gave The Bee written permission to access his confidential medical information.
Call The Bee's Cynthia Hubert, (916) 321-1082. Follow her on Twitter @cynthia_hubert.


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Surrounding historic Francis Field is Bushyhead Track, an eight-lane 400-meter synthetic surface track named for James Butler Bushyhead.
Bushyhead Track, site of the 1904 Olympics and the 2004 Olympic Global Torch Relay, is the home of the Washington University men's and women's track and field teams.
Built in 1902, Bushyhead Track featured a third-of-a-mile track—a track that was used through the early 1980s.
While a student at Washington University, Bushyhead (1914-82) was a sprinter on the track team. He graduated in 1938 with a journalism degree and served in the FBI during World War II. After a 40-year career with Moog Industries in St. Louis, Bushyhead retired as President.
Hours of Operation
- The Bushyhead Track is open for recreational use during regular Athletic Complex hours of operation.
- All outdoor facilities are available from 7 a.m. until dusk or with the close of all activity areas, whichever is first each day.
- The facilities are not available when departmental programs are scheduled.


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Reblocking Coburg
What is reblocking? and why do you need it? People are often confused between the three terms- restumping, underpinning and reblocking Coburg. The most common thing amongst all is that they are all related to reestablishing the base of your house in order to nullify the risk of damage to […]Read More


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The swirling waves of this Great Purification are churning us all… Death is inside every moment, asking to meet us that we can finally accept impermanence as the ground of birth; accepting instability and unknown as our only stable ground, that we may Rise and greet Life with a new gratitude.
In these times of great upheaval and unfolding, the ripples of misery, fear, despair, and powerlessness pool together with our trust, celebration, divine conviction, levity and courage. In this planetary moment, terror and miracles breathe side by side, paving the spiraling path.
Knowing these times are volatile, we need to be more accountable than ever to the fact that our personal emotional and psychic energies are feeding into the collective, right here and now. Whether we are alone, or speaking to a group of millions on TV, each of us is pulsing our intentions and vibrations into the web of life. Nothing is insignificant; nothing goes unseen by our own heart's conscience.
Some of us who are very empathic may be inclined to feel the "suffering of the world," especially as it amplifies our own inner unresolved wounds, presenting us with archetypal struggles and the psychic tension of existence. As fearful anxiety escalates in the collective field, and the trauma of the world's soul surmounts, we must be alert to our responsibilities to help positively influence our collective vibration. While there are countless ways to help physically, let us not overlook the energetic influences we have on all our relations.
We must do the work of transforming grief into joy, and stress into calm, by learning how to authentically process these times and align with our heart centers.
We will never be immune to the pains inherent in life, but through disciplined training of our minds, we can protect ourselves from accumulating extra layers of unnecessary suffering. (Some helpful teachings in this regard include the work of Eckhart Tolle and Byron Katie.)
For those of us privileged to be living in situations where all of our basic needs are met, we especially need to be alert and notice that as soon as we are warm, clothed, housed and fed, we move on to fabricating immense psychological problems to obsess on and identify with. While we may not be able to change all the physical circumstances of our lives, our power is always in how we perceive and respond to them. Attitude is everything. The times have never been so ripe for spiritual training and education of how to truly live as healthily as possible. Invest in your life; invest time in communing with your heart, cleansing your perceptions and nourishing your body; invest in your vibrational emanation!
Our opportunity is to meet the intensity arising in the planetary field, and channel and release the energies through whatever healthy avenues we can discover – whether catharsis, conscious breathing, dance, movement, art, expression, ritual, prayers, meditation, processing, etc. By offering our human vessels as mediums for the soul renewal brought by these sacred universal trials, we uplift the whole, helping transmute and liberate the pain and pressure into presence and knowing. Our contribution adds directly to the overall vibration incarnating upon the planetary scene. We are artists here collaborating in this dimension. Or perhaps we are merely the brush through which the great art moves. Our motives and actions affect and touch Totality.
As we are all connected, those of us who are aware of the precious calling of planetary service must take our places in attuning to the One Heart.
In the faces of life's extremes, if we can let the recognition of universal suffering crack our hearts open, then we can access true compassion. As the emergencies are screaming into the abyss, we can feel them when we attune to the One Heart. Can the destruction and pain we encounter remind us of the glory of our interdependence? Can we remember how privileged we are to be able to feel the tender suffering of human sentience? As we allow the heart breaking realities taking place in this moment to dissolve our illusory separation, we receive the blessing brought by the pain; by being present with the pain we receive its empowerment as it ripens our compassion.
Likewise, part of our mission is to anchor joy on this earth, even and especially in the midst of these dark times. This is part of our sacred balancing work. This is not about happiness that is a product of denial and ignorant pleasure. This is not about contentment that is numb to the world's tragedies and crises. This is not about distracting oneself with frivolous games of amusement. This is not about manic ungrounded outbursts. This is about a joy that is primordial, unconditional, worshipping existence itself. This kind of joy has met grief and digested it, taking it in as food to fuel its surrender. Joy because the Sky is so blue and the deeper I breathe into my heart the more I can feel the preciousness of this very moment humming. Joy because we are here, present in this adventure. Joy because we know there is more to life than what we see. Joy because there is an order that weaves all. Joy because the only thing that lightens life is love and grateful acceptance.
So knowing that our authentic work spans the wholeness of embracing the dark and the light, let us give ourselves license to pour positive, healing, ecstatic, blissful rainbow splendor into the collective cauldron, sweetening the flavor of our shared soup.
We must not be discouraged by the intensity of these times, for they are accelerated on purpose. As we understand we are in a process of an old world paradigm dying and coming apart at the seams, we can have patience and courage, knowing we are here to help anchor the new! As we hold the highest vision for the transformation of our world, rooting to our clearest intentions, let us release expectations of how things are supposed to appear, surrendering to the larger unfolding.
This moment in the collective dream is steeped in mystery. This mystery has a heartbeat that lives within us. Let it be known that we are here to manifest the new culture that is based on conscious, harmonious interdependence. This is the fulfillment this prophecy is inviting of us!
In this pivotal moment, let us learn how to truly be a friend to our own self, nurturing the flowering of our own soul's beauty and mission. Let's drop the veils and claim our staff of self-worth. Let's stop fighting ourselves and receive the chalice our own majesty. Let's feed the unique divine spark that dances its lightning through us. Let's wield our gifts with true gratitude for the abundance we have to share. Let's rejoice for each other's beauty. Let's smile for no reason. Let's smile because it makes us feel like anything is possible. Let's cry when the grief needs to flow. Let's dance when the prayer erupts into rhythmic visions. Let's appreciate each other's colors and textures of being that make this cosmic collage so diverse. Let's slow down. Let's abide in calm presence. As Maharishi Mahesh Yogi advises, let's "do less and accomplish more."
Let's breathe deeply into our connection with our spiritual guides that help us navigate the ever-unfolding labyrinths of possibility. Let's dare ourselves to trust the incomprehensible Love that has fashioned this whole existence. Let's step up in our devotion to being part of the solution and know that we have a responsibility to LIVE; to awaken to the opportunities that are offering themselves to us in these times. Let's not let fear stop us from going over our growth edges. Let's let the love in. Let's surrender to the journey. Let's overcome our cosmic amnesia, feel the earth and sky beating in our hearts, wake up from our materialist slumber, compost our ego's entrancements, and take our power back from the illusion of separation. Let's bow to the one web of life, and honor our place as children of the cosmos, innocent yet purposeful. Let's purify ourselves with sincerity, humility and dedication to serve. Let's pioneer new pathways in love-based living. Let's support each other in this quest of being we all share. As emissaries of the Calm Inside the Storm, let's emanate our inner heart fire to the whole.


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He is the head of search at VTNS Solutions, a search engine marketing firm in Nigeria. His hobbies include playing chess and reading. His twitter handle is @legendcrest .
Social media is an effective way to start building brand awareness around your services and products. Unfortunately most brands get this simple channel wrong. They set up their profile, probably use a compelling image and go on the ego tripping route; building more followers.
I have seen companies celebrate their 20,000th fans with so much fun-fare; I started wondering if getting more followers or fans is the major reason for getting on social media platforms in the first place.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a huge follower base. In fact, recently I started thinking of how to increase my followers on twitter and then like everything else, I stopped for a moment to ask myself some salient questions.
These are the kind of questions I usually ask when analysing any marketing channel or platform and answers from these questions has always guided my decisions. With the rate of noise available on twitter, facebook and other social media platform, focusing on the wrong metric will not help your business.
Have you stopped to wonder how many re-tweets or likes a brand with sometimes 20,000 followers get. Often times it is as low as 6. This means less than 1% of their followers were actually interacting with their content. Some will say it is due to the algorithms of some of these platforms. Others will give dozens of reasons and try to justify it. But I would say "You got it all wrong folks".
And I am going to prove it with these points;
Let us take these two points one after the other
Why are you on that social media platform?
If we decide to take the simplest definition of what social media means from Wikipedia, you will find it describing social media as computer-mediated tool that allows people to create, share or exchange ideas or information in a virtual environment.
If you take the definition further and ask for the meaning of social media marketing, you will get something that says social media marketing is the process of gaining website traffic through the use of social media.
Businesses joined the band wagon of getting on social media platform without understanding the meaning and use of social media. Social media can help you get traffic to your website; it can help you build relationships with prospective clients. It can even help you solve some of your customers complaints, but the bottom line is that it must help you improve your business.
And this led me to my second question.
What metrics are you focusing on?
Since the advent of social media, businesses have been in the rat race. They go after building huge followers forgetting that the use of social media is to help them gain traffic to their website and improve their business. By focusing on vanity metrics like quantity of followers rather than quality, they miss out on the most important benefit of a digital marketing channel.
So what metrics should you rather focus on?
Quality of followers – Building quality followers should be the most important metric. If you buy your followers or get them the wrong way, you are going to have a huge base of people who do not have any idea of what your brand stands for and who will never buy from you. Rather invest growing your followers by proving and sharing quality information that your target audience will appreciate.
If you build quality followers, these followers will engage with your content, visit your website and ultimately become your brand ambassadors.


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Just a day after players began reporting to Spring Training in Kissimmee, the Astros announce new increases in ticket prices for the 2011 season. Considering how terrible the team has been and the pathetic turnout of fans for most of 2010 season, the increase in prices is a slap in the face to those fans who stuck with the team despite their crummy 76-86 record.
Chronicle baseball writer Zachary Levine says in his story:
Astros single-game tickets will go on sale this Friday at 9 a.m. with ticket prices up $1-$3 in all but the least expensive sections sold on a single-game basis and consistent in the $7 outfield deck.
Here are the new price ranges:
First level: $27-$56
Second level: $21-$58
Third level: $7-$23
Club I seats (second level behind home plate): Increase from $55 to $58
The price changes might be subtle, but that's not the point. Last season, Astros owner Drayton McLane took a hit because of the drop in the games' attendance average. According to baseball-reference.com, an average of 28,784 people attended each game in 2010. During the 2009 season (74-88) when the team's payroll was the highest it's ever been ($102,996,414) but losses were bountiful, the average was 31,124 people at each game. That number is lower than the 2008 season during which the Astros enjoyed their last winning record (86-75). No need to question whether or not there is a trend. You go to games when the product on the field is worth watching.
Since the Astros are coming off a dreadful season, the organization should be doing everything to bring in more fans to Minute Maid Park. Instead, they're asking for more money from those fans who actually attend games. Maybe it's just a few dollars, but the price increases are insulting. But go ahead, Astros, raise your prices, but at least give us something better to watch in the meantime.


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Par jensenbeachmotels2 le 11 Juillet 2016 à 08:58
Waterfront motels jensen beach
The description of an water front motel may differ widely from one place to another. My home is in Myrtle Beach, Sc, where you can find lots of waterfront motels, hotels, private condos, cottages, houses plus much more. Of course, the idea of what these kinds of places are will be indicative of what Myrtle Beach is much like. It's a different story in various locations.
jensen beach motels
In Myrtle Beach, there are a few nice waterfront motels, historic waterfront motels and so the rundown motels. You actually have to pay care about in which you book. This is not to help make the city look bad. It's like this everywhere, and mistake straightforward for rundown. I have come across some simple waterfront motels that looked much more houses around here, as well as tell the family ended up running the area for generations. It's prefer that down south sometimes, which is the achievements here in Myrtle Beach, Structured.
Throughout the off-season, you are able to rent a water front motel room to put less than it is possible to rent one for inland in almost every city. It's crazy how low the drop when there's not people flocking to the hotels, motels and resorts. Naturally, during the summer, even motel rooms can be going for 1,000 dollars per week. These are generally beachfront motels, and there are other sorts of waterfront motels, for example those found on waterways.
My experience is to use the waterfront hotels and motels in Myrtle Beach, and a lot of of these can make for any great vacation. Look for ratings online, examine pictures and be sure you're selecting a invest the best place to do all you need to do. In Myrtle Beach, the spot for booking a waterfront motel is within proximity for the Boardwalk.
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Rocket Ship Mug (Retired)
This item is retired, but may be made to-order for a slightly higher price than our stock items.
This spaceship coffee mug is ready for your rocket fuel!
- Dishwasher-Safe, Microwave-Safe
- Shipped Fast
- Beautiful, Sturdy Packaging
- Permanent Design (unlike a printed graphic)
- Crisp Edges & Deep Carving (unlike laser etching)
- Big handles are comfortable to hold, even for large hands
- Stable bases won't tip over easily
Standard Mugs are packed in branded display boxes with a cutout window. Camp Mugs are packed in white gift boxes with care instruction stickers. Rustic Mugs are packed in simple bubble wrap.
Standard large ceramic coffee mugs -
Individually packed in branded display boxes with care instructions.
- Capacity: 16 oz
- Height: 4.25" (10.5cm)
- Top Width: 3.5" (9cm) across the mouth
- Bottom Width: 3" (7.5cm)
Camp Mugs - speckled ceramic
Packed in plain white gift boxes, ready to gift, or easy to wrap.
- Capacity: 15 oz
- Height: 3.5" (8.75cm)
- Opening Width: 4" (10.25cm) across the mouth
- Max Width: 5.25" (13.5cm)
Ceramic glazes you can feel good about: meet CA's Prop 65 limits for leaching of lead & cadmium (0.99 ppm lead and 7.92 ppm cadmium). In fact, our mug glazes are non-detect at testing detection limits well below (< 0.01 ppm for both).
All of our drinking glasses are made in the USA unless otherwise noted.
Our ceramic mugs, travel mugs, and stainless steel tumblers are made in China. Travel lids are made from BPA-Free silicone.
Using our original handmade stencils, the glaze of this mug is sandblasted away to create a deep 3-D graphic that will never wear away.
Our dishware is small-batch sandblasted in our studio in Portland, OR. We're very good at masking by hand, but there will be a small amount of inconsistency between handmade items, which makes them special.
Some images may be digital mock-ups instead of actual finished products. Sizing and placement are approximate representations.
Learn more about our sandblasting process here.
Sold individually unless otherwise noted. Most items ship within 1 business day. Larger orders (12+ items) are subject to our bulk lead-time, which is usually 1-3 weeks.
Contact us with questions.
Review our Store Policies for info on shipping, returns, and more.
Lettering Styles
You can add custom text to nearly any item for a one-time $12 set-up fee. Choose your font from our list.


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The one thing you absolutely do NOT want to do when you have a sweet, $750,000-a-year endorsement deal with Coca-Cola?
Sip a can of Pepsi. On camera.
But that's exactly what Brazilian soccer superstar Ronaldinho did at a press conference for his new club in Brazil, according to Yahoo. When Coke's top brass in Atlanta found out, they were not amused. They demanded the sponsorship be revoked immediately, a Sao Paulo newspaper reported.
Apparently, Pepsi is one of the sponsors of Atletico Mineiro, Ronaldinho's new team. The gaffe could cost him $1.57 million over the course of the contract.
Poor, thirsty Ronaldinho. If only a glass of ice water had been available!