Source: CNN

Jimmy Baron, an Atlanta radio personality walked away from his job after 13 years in 2006 when the station he’d worked for was sold and his pay was cut by 60 percent.

He quit and began looking for work. A few offers came in, but not what he was looking for. Then, the nation’s economy tanked, and — for the next three years — all the offers dried up.

Baron describes that period as horrendous, emasculating, one of the worst of his life.

Finally, late last year, he got the offer he was looking for as a morning DJ at a classic rock station in Atlanta. But on his first day back in the workforce, he realized there was a downside to the new job — he hadn’t been in the house when his son woke up, and he missed his old role of Mr. Mom.

While unemployed, Baron and his wife, who worked from home, had been equal caregivers.

Jobs for those who wanted sales careers were being offered, and there were ads for CEO jobs. But nothing in his field. So being at home he settled into a new role.

“You get to know a child on a completely different level,” he said about the hours he spent each day with 3-year-old Micah.

As women’s pay has approached — and sometimes exceeded — that of men, Mr. Moms lounging at the playground are becoming more common.

Fathers are the primary caregivers for about a quarter of the nation’s 11.2 million preschoolers whose mothers work, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 8.6 million men were unemployed in May, 34 percent more than the 6.4 million women. The Great Depression was the last time men’s unemployment figures were that much higher than those for women, said Stephanie Coontz, the director of research and public education for the Council on Contemporary Families. The Chicago, Illinois-based organization describes itself as a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to providing the press and public with the latest research and best-practice findings about American families.

And during the 1930s, when housework was considered women’s work by many, even unemployed men tended to be less involved in homemaking and child care, she said.

But early data suggest that men aren’t rejecting homemaking at the same rates in this downturn, she said.

And some men are leaving the work force by choice. An estimated 158,000 married fathers with children younger than 15 left the labor force for at least a year to care for their family while their wives went to work, according to a Census Bureau report based on data from last year.

But a father being at home more — whether by choice or, like Baron, because he has no alternative — can be a hard thing for the man as well as the outside world to accept. Neighbors wonder when the man will quit babysitting and get a real job, and teachers still address childrearing concerns to the woman, Coontz said. Finally, women tend to have a hard time viewing their husbands as equals and not just assistants in the home, she said.

“It’s because we have had, for 150 years, emphasis on men as experts, as breadwinners, and women as experts on nurturing,” Coontz said.

During his three years off the job, Baron said, he found it difficult to answer the inevitable question, “So, what do you do?” in social situations. He also found it difficult to get used to being the only man when he and Micah joined his friends at at the pool or park.

During one of those long afternoons, he vowed that he would help other Mr. Moms when he returned to a job. Recently, he launched monthly “Dads between Gigs” get-togethers for care-giving dads and their children.

“Regardless of how dads end up in the situation of being caregiver, whether they choose it or not, it’s still kind of a mom’s world taking care of kids all day,” Baron said. The events are a good way for men to get their needed guy time, he said.

Coontz said that a father becoming more involved with his children is a positive thing for everyone involved.

“Boys are more empathetic, and girls grow up more confident in their ability to tackle nonstereotype fields, like math or science,” Coontz said about children with involved dads.

The best family dynamics develop when a wife and husband share the roles of caregiver and breadwinner, Coontz said. Partners who share responsibilities tend to have more stable marriages than do parents who play exclusive roles, she said.

It’s healthy for both partners to have a life in and out of the house, and it’s good for the children to see that as well, she said.

Coontz said men may want to consider another incentive in deciding whether to lend a hand with the laundry: Women tend to feel more intimate when their partners are involved with childcare and housework.

______________________________________

My Take: The last line is a deal cincher if you ask me guys. Women might seem to worry about every little needless thing from having the perfect table cloths and matching napkins for holidays to whether the laundry is folded or lying on the bed in a pile of wrinkles. But those linen table cloths aside, what she needs most is house cleaning Rockville . If the house is clean, she can concentrate on other things, like you. Some of the best Rockville MD maid service prices could well be worth that extra attention, too, even if you are out of a job.

———————————————————–

Other Resources

Source: Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles city officials have settled the debate over who should cover the expenses of the July 2009 Michael Jackson memorial held in the city’s downtown district.

The estate of Michael Jackson and AEG, the company that produced the event at the Staples Center, have agreed to pay the city $1.3 million, Councilwoman Jan Perry said Friday, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The city’s general fund will receive $1 million, and the remaining $300,000 will go to the Los Angeles Police Foundation, Perry added.

The general fund supports public safety and parks, and the LAPF funds will be used to cover equipment at the police department.

Perry and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa expressed gratitude for the resolution. The councilwoman described the Jackson estate and AEG as “conscientious corporate citizens.” Villaraigosa echoed Perry’s sentiments, calling their actions, “good corporate citizenship,” CNN reported.

AEG President Timothy Leiweke said the company was glad to put the matter behind them, CNN reported.

According to CNN, $1,210,000 will be paid in cash. The foundation had already received $90,000.

“It was important to us that all parties agreed that this was not an obligation but a choice we believe was important to make at a time when thousands of city employees are being reduced,” Leiweke said.

AEG worked with Jackson as the promoter and producer of the This Is It concert series planned for last July. The company also runs the Staples Center.

Jackson’s posthumous film, also titled This Is It, includes concert rehearsal footage from the comeback tour and helped the Jackson estate solidify $80 million through various deals with AEG and Sony, CNN reported.

Jackson’s younger brother Randy was hospitalized this week after experiencing chest pain. And in other health related news, Garry Shider, the music director for George Clinton’s legendary Parliament-Funkadelic band, succumbed to cancer.

_____________________________________

My Take: I’m glad someone’s going to pick up the tab for the Jackson memorial besides taxpayers. Wouldn’t it be nice to have the money he had, to buy the most expensive pair of True Religion jeans on the racks, or as many DUO refills as I can buy for my smokeless cigarette kits.

It’s not uncommon for city attorneys to have to sue a company to cover the cost of damages stemming from a public/private event held on city property. People get hurt and often there is a huge toll on the public law enforcement departments who have to foot the bill initially to cover security costs, freeway closures and other things. That money could be used for a lot of things, and not Denim jeans or a new Njoy but real resources for city residents.

——————————————————–

Other Resources

Dig a room

Hudson Bound?

Piermont real estate on the west bank of the Hudson River is among the finest in the lower Hudson Valley. Many realtors specialize in marketing the extraordinary property in this region, including Upper Nyack real estate. If you’re thinking of buying a home in the area and not sure about the surrounding resources and services, click here for more information.

Source: Associated Press

If you’re summer plans still revolve around the pursuit of the perfectly golden tan, you may want to come up with plan B.

The advent of indoor tanning salons now allows Americans to sport a sun-kissed look year-round. And as more and more people pursue a perpetual summer-style tan, dermatologists have begun noticing a significant rise in skin cancer incidents, especially among young women.

Melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, still makes up just 3 percent of all skin cancers, and results in about 8,000 deaths a year, according to the National Cancer Institute. But three factors have doctors alarmed: The rates of this cancer are rising; it has become the most common cancer for young people; and many of the cases result from the preventable, but addictive, behavior of indoor suntanning.

“In the last few decades, it’s certainly been on the rise. And some people think that may be a result of behavior, and UV exposure,” said Jennifer Stein, an assistant professor of dermatology at New York University’s Langone Medical Center. “This is a very serious cancer, and this is a behavior that’s preventable.”

Tanning and cancer go hand-in-hand

Without tanning beds, soaking up the rays was limited to clear days in the summer. The invention of the tanning bed changed that, and throughout the 1990s, the rapid proliferation of tanning salons provided venues for millions of people to sunbathe regardless of weather, season, or time of day.

Since 1992, the indoor tanning industry has grown five-fold, with 28 million indoor tanners in the United States supporting a billion-dollar-a-year business, said Maria Tsoukas, an assistant professor of dermatology at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

During that same period, melanoma rates have increased by 2 percent in the general population, Stein said. Amongst young women, who make up 71 percent of tanning salon customers, incidents of melanoma have increased by 2.2 percent, Stein said. Over that time, skin cancer also became the most common form of cancer for Americans ages 25-29, a group that traditionally shows very low cancer rates, Stein said.

“We see a surprising number of young women coming in with melanoma, and a lot of them say they’ve used tanning beds,” Stein told LiveScience.com. “By far, by far, the majority of users of indoor tanning beds are young women.”

While some dermatologists believe that other factors, such as increased UV exposure resulting from the hole in the ozone layer, contribute to the rise in melanoma rates over the last 18 years, the irrefutable link between indoor tanning and melanoma makes tanning beds the prime suspect, Tsoukas said.

In a recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan, frequent tanning bed users proved three times more likely to develop melanoma than non-users, and subjects that used tanning beds for any amount of time showed a 74-percent higher rate of melanoma than non-users, according to research published online May 27 in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.

That study did not investigate the percentage of indoor tanners who developed melanoma, rather showing the difference between users and non-users.

How tanning causes cancer

Indoor and outdoor tanning can be dangerous, because the same ultraviolet radiation that provokes a tan also damages DNA. In fact, exposure to the mid-day sun can produce as many as 40,000 DNA errors an hour, said Regina Santella, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York.

The UV light causes the DNA molecule thymine to bind to adjacent thymine molecules in a manner that renders both molecules unreadable during transcriptions, Santella said. Transcription is a step in which the body reads the DNA instructions the cell will later follow. When those thymine errors occur in areas of DNA that regulate cell growth, skin cancers like melanoma can begin to develop, Santella said.

Most times, skin cells rapidly repair most of those 40,000 errors, but over time repeated errors can cause cancer or other problems.

Tanning is actually the body’s response to that damage, with the darker color produced by skin adding an additional layer of protection for the DNA, Stein said. However, when the body produces the hormone that initiates tanning, it also produces a secondary molecule in the endorphin family, said Scott Feldman, a professor of dermatology at the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

Endorphins are chemicals that transmit feelings of pleasure and happiness. In effect, exposure to UV radiation gets tanning bed users high, Feldman said. And like any high, tanning can become addictive.

In 2005, Feldman conducted a study where he gave volunteers endorphin-blocking chemicals before they used a tanning bed. The study aimed to test whether frequent tanning salon customers would enjoy the experience as much if their bodies didn’t produce endorphins. They didn’t. And even before the frequent tanners used the tanning bed, they showed signs of physical addiction to tanning.

“When we started doing the experiments, the first couple volunteers got sick, and we said ‘Hey, that’s unexpected,’” Feldman told LiveScience. “We were putting them into withdrawal.”

Tan responsibly

With studies proving that tanning bed use causes both addiction and cancer, many dermatologists have begun comparing the practice to other forms of drug abuse like drinking and cigarette smoking, Feldman said. And much like with smoking and drug abuse, doctors have told their tan-loving patients to “just say no.”

“There is no point to it. Someone wants to look darker? Gimme a break. For cosmetic reasons, people risk getting a fatal cancer. To me, it’s a public health hazard because it has no upside,” Santella said. “Don’t go to skin tanning salons. Simple as that.”

______________________________________

My Take: Melanoma is not something to be taken lightly removed with a little laser therapy and vitamin E. In fact it’s the laser therapy equipment that you might need to use to remove cancerous lesions from you face and body if you’ve had too much sun over the years.

I don’t know about you, but my summer plans don’t involve laying on the beach and frying my skin to shoe leather anymore. I have to find licensed daycare for my kids while they are out of school because I still have to get up and go to work. Not sure what your experiences are, but finding affordable summer childcare is not easily done. Sometimes I wish I’d gone into teaching so I could have summers off with my kids, to go to the beach and to tan or not tan but only within limits and always with an umbrella nearby.

————————————————————

Other Resources

Accidents Happen

If you hired a NY slip and fall lawyer to help you with an accident on the job, you likely are also working with a Workers’ Compensation doctor. Knowing what to expect from those visits is as important as any meeting with a New York City car accidents lawyer : You’ll be asked to provide detailed information about your accident because the last thing the employer wants to do is pay you through insurance and it’s up to the Workers’ Comp. doc to keep that from happening.

Drinking Problems
NJ DUI lawyers are busy these days with mounting DUI arrests. If you are in need of a DUI lawyer yourself you can expect to pay a Monmouth County DWI lawyer a significant chunk of cash to help you fight your case in court. Know all of your options before you pursue your “not guilty” plea because it ‘s getting more expensive than ever to beat a DUI case.

Cited: Reuters

Government reports show that US retail sales slumped for the first time in eight months in June, weakening an economic recovery tied to consumer spending.

Sales unexpectedly dipped 1.2 percent to 362.5 billion dollars in May from the previous month, according to data from the Commerce Department.

The data triggered fears that consumer spending, a key engine of growth, could slow recovery in the world’s largest economy from a brutal recession.

“Today?s report is both surprising and disappointing,” said Thomas Julien, US economist for Natixis.

The data came just two days after the central bank suggested sales would grow for the eighth month in a row in May, he said.

Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke also told lawmakers on Wednesday that consumer spending was likely to increase and would be a key cog in strengthening the US recovery.

The monthly retail sales report is a primary indicator of consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of US output.

Most economists had expected a 0.2 percent rise in retail sales in May following a revised 0.6 percent gain the previous month.

Sales in May dipped at building supply stores, reversing more than half of the surge in the previous two months, while many other segments posted big falls, including general merchandise stores, auto dealers, gasoline stations and apparel stores, according to the government data.

Non-store retailers and furniture stores were seen as bright spots.

Excluding autos, retail and food services sales fell 1.1 percent from the previous month, the Commerce Department said.

Despite the weak monthly retail data, sales were up nearly seven percent from their recessionary level of May 2009.

Growth was led by gasoline stations, nonstore retailers, and auto dealers, with only department stores among major segments posting sales below their year-ago level.

“Consumer sentiment is rising and the pace of the gain is good by the standards of past recessions,” said analyst Robert Brusca of FAO Economics.

“On balance the data on the day showed a weak spot in consumer spending in May. But it’s not lethal weakness. It still leaves momentum in consumer spending strong as we head into the second quarter,” he said.

Economists say consumer spending will be vital to a sustainable recovery as the government starts to wind down extraordinary stimulus measures that were aimed at jolting the economy, which plunged into recession in December 2007.

While the May data sprang a surprise, “it confirms the forecast for modest spending growth going forward more than threatens it,” said Scott Hoyt, senior director of consumer economics for Moody’s Economy.com.

He said sales grew “unsustainably fast” in the first quarter and that some of that was being reversed as spending settled into “a pace justified by modest job and income growth, low but growing wealth, deleveraging but reduced debt payments, and low confidence.”

US unemployment is near 10 percent, and last week the Labor Department reported weaker-than-expected job creation in May, also heightening fears of a faltering economic recovery.

The US economy is on track to grow 3.5 percent this year as it sees only a “modest” impact from the mounting eurozone debt crisis, Bernanke said this week.

Gross domestic product in the first quarter of 2010 rose 3.0 percent, according to the latest official data.

_____________________________________

My Take: Retail sales generally tend to focus on the big box retail stores like Walmart, Target, Macy’s and the like. What people don’t get from these stories is the truth about how well the business answering service company is doing, or how sales for bridal shower invitations are doing down the street at the local Hallmark store or on line. If they do include these types of companies, we never hear about them. The answering services company and the business that custom designs communion invitations are equally as important when it comes to taking the retail temperature, and because these generally fall under category of family owned and operated companies, that picture is part of a whole subset of retail that we should hear more about.

——————————————————–

Other Resources

Old-Fashioned Milk Paint Finishes

One company has recreated the Old Milk Paint formula to provide an authentic finish for custom made dining tables and handmade reproduction furniture. Early American Colonists and Shakers painted their farm tables, furniture and interiors with Milk Paint using a formula that dated back to Ancient Egypt. The deep rich colors of Milk Paint authentically reflect those colors found on existing antique furniture and buildings. The paint is using earth pigments. Modern paints cannot compare with the colors and the texture of the finish for achieving the “old” or “country look” of Colonial or Shaker furniture and interiors.

Source: Los Angeles Times

Fewer children under 5 who die this year will fall to 7.7 million, down from 11.9 million two decades ago, according to new estimates by population health officials.

But as much of the world makes strides in reducing child mortality, the U.S. is increasingly lagging and ranks 42nd globally, behind much of Europe as well as the United Arab Emirates, Cuba and Chile.

Twenty years ago, the U.S. ranked 29th in the child mortality rate, according to data analyzed by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

The estimates, derived from modeling based on international birth records and other sources, are being published Monday in the British medical journal the Lancet.

Singapore, the country with the lowest child mortality rate in the world at 2.5 deaths per 1,000 children, cut its rate by two-thirds between 1990 and 2010. Serbia and Malaysia, which were ranked behind the U.S. in 1990, cut their rates by nearly 70% and now are ranked higher.

The U.S., which is projected to have 6.7 deaths per 1,000 children this year, saw a 42% decline in child mortality, a pace that is on par with Kazakhstan, Sierra Leone and Angola.

“There are an awful lot of people who think we have the best medical system in the world,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, who directs the institute and is an author of the study. “The data is so contrary to that.”

Even many countries that already had low child mortality rates, such as Sweden and France, were able to cut their rates more rapidly than the U.S. over the last two decades.

“It’s really just hard to fathom,” said Laura Beavers, national Kids Count coordinator for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, one of the nation’s leading advocates for children’s health.

The U.S. mortality rates defy traditional explanations, such as a nation’s diversity, high number of immigrants and persistent pockets of poverty, Murray said.

Australia, another diverse country with a large immigrant population, cut its child mortality rate over the last two decades more than the U.S. Australia now ranks 26th in the world.

Murray said high child mortality rates were not limited to black and Latino populations in the U.S. In fact, researchers have found high rates among higher-income whites, a group that traditionally has better access to medical care.

The data regarding these baby announcements and child mortality rates instead suggest broader problems with the nation’s fragmented, poorly planned healthcare system, Murray and other healthcare experts say.

Although the U.S. spends nearly twice as much per capita on healthcare as most other industrialized countries, researchers are finding substantially higher levels of preventable deaths from diseases such as diabetes and pneumonia.

Another recent study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation found that the rate of deaths among women giving birth has actually increased in the U.S. over the last two decades.

“We certainly have outstanding medical science and centers of excellence that rival the best in the world,” said Cathy Schoen, an expert on global health systems at the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund. “But many other countries have been putting many more resources into thinking about how they can improve. … They have been far more strategic.”

That is one of the main reasons the recently enacted healthcare law is so important, many healthcare experts say. The bill not only expands insurance coverage but gives providers incentives to improve quality and better coordinate care and makes it easier for Americans to get preventive medical care.T

There is more encouraging data about progress elsewhere in the world.

Although child mortality remains extremely high in several regions — including sub-Saharan Africa, where in some countries 1 in 7 children die before their fifth birthday — mortality rates are falling at an accelerating rate, according to the institute’s research.

That in part reflects efforts to expand vaccinations for diseases such as measles and to give antiretroviral drugs to pregnant women infected with HIV, said Dr. Mickey Chopra, chief of health and associate director of programs at UNICEF.

Chopra and others said initiatives to distribute mosquito netting to reduce malaria infections, provide Vitamin A supplements to children and encourage more breast-feeding are also having an effect.

Global public health advocates hope to be able to make more progress as efforts get underway to distribute antibiotics to combat pneumonia and dysentery in the developing world. “I am even more excited about the next five years,” Chopra said, adding that such progress was almost inconceivable a few years ago.

Researchers found the fastest rates of decline over the last two decades in many countries in Latin America and North Africa.

Other countries with slow rates of decline include Britain, New Zealand and South Korea, which have all fallen in the international rankings since 1990. All three are still ahead of the U.S.

__________________________

My Take: I couldn’t imagine having a child and not being able to make those birthday invitations, or see them off to school and on to college. As a parent of a fifth grader, I can’t imagine not having my son outlive me. I make sure I do the best I can for him to keep him healthy and that includes forcing him to take organic multivitamins. He’s getting into baseball and basketball and pretty soon I suspect he’ll be asking about sports supplements, which I’m not so sure he’s ready for. But protein and whey powders for building good muscle tone, I support.

————————————————–

Other Resources

Beauty Impact

Looking for a good Miramar Beach plastic surgeon? Considering a Panama City Florida face lift? Check this video out first and find out what you need to know before you have cosmetic surgery.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times

For 50 years, they’ve avoided it. But California’s public universities are now inching closer to using the word they’ve long viewed as taboo: tuition.

Unlike schools in every other state, California’s public campuses in effect have banned official use of the word and what it means — that students pay at least a hefty share, if not most, of their education costs.

The state’s renowned master plan for higher education, which in 1960 established separate roles for the University of California, California State University and the community colleges, also declared that the public institutions “shall be tuition free to all residents.” Since then, even as the amount students pay for their education has soared, campuses here have stubbornly insisted on using the word “fees” for the instructional charges that other states call tuition.

Now, however, a movement is underway to drop what many education experts consider an outdated, even dishonest term. It’s high time, they say, to adopt the “T-word” in registration bills and campus discussions.

For example, with UC’s basic undergraduate educational cost now topping $10,000 a year, three times more than a decade ago, “tuition” is the accurate term, they say. They also note that in 2009, California’s confusing terminology nearly kept the state’s veterans from receiving certain federal education benefits and financial aid.

“Calling it tuition is necessary because that’s what it is. It’s just truth in advertising really,” said UC student regent Jesse Bernal, who is co-chairman of a systemwide study group that recently recommended the 10-campus university start using the term. UC’s Commission on the Future, to which Bernal’s advisory panel belongs, was to meet Monday to discuss the issue and other reforms designed to chart UC’s course through the current budget crunch and beyond.

Is a desk a desk?
Master plans aside, the wording changes signify a need to clarify the real issues: that the state is so cash-strapped if universities don’t find a way to get more money they won’t be able to afford school furniture, let alone teachers’ salaries. To call it “tuition” instead of fees sounds more official, and in official there is a hint of more expensive.

The wording change, Bernal added, “also signifies that we are steering away from the master plan. This is what the state is forcing us to do. As an institution, we now have tuition.”

The panel’s proposal states that the word “fees” incorrectly implies “specialized or optional services,” while “tuition” more accurately describes the way the money is actually used: to support academic programs, student services, student financial aid and administrative services.

But owning up to that reality might be difficult, several experts predicted. And approval by the UC regents, the Cal State Board of Trustees and the Legislature would be required.

“It would have a deep, deep symbolism. I think it would be a philosophical change of how we view things,” said Daniel Alvarez, chief consultant to the state Senate’s Education Committee.

Currently — and confusingly, many say — California’s public universities and colleges use “tuition” only for the hefty surcharges that out-of-state students pay to attend schools here.

Otherwise, the state is unique in its avoidance of the term, said Daniel J. Hurley, director of state relations and policy analysis for the American Assn. of State Colleges and Universities.

He and other experts said the issue was not merely symbolic, noting that last year, it had briefly threatened to keep military veterans attending private colleges in California from receiving promised benefits under the new GI Bill.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs had pegged the assistance amounts in the bill to the highest undergraduate tuition charged by public colleges in each state. But since California public institutions did not charge “tuition,” the level was set at zero for the state. It took several months of protests and bureaucratic wrangling to straighten out the mess and restore the aid.

That difficulty triggered informal conversations about finally shifting from “fees” to “tuition” on the 23 campuses of the Cal State system, said spokeswoman Claudia Keith. If UC makes such a change, Cal State will probably follow suit, she said.

UC President Mark G. Yudof said he had to get used to California’s “fee” terminology when he arrived in 2008 after holding top jobs at state universities in Texas and Minnesota. Now, although he anticipates some disagreement among the university’s regents, he would not oppose the proposed shift, he said. “I always lean toward honesty,” Yudof said.

But resistance remains.

Victor Sanchez, president of the UC Student Assn., wants to stick with “fees” for strategic reasons. “It would leave some hope of returning to some principles of the master plan,” said Sanchez, who is finishing his bachelor’s degree at UC Santa Cruz.

In the past, the “tuition” taboo was so strong that politicians would correct themselves if they used the term and university officials would scold newspaper reporters who wrote it. Now, Assemblyman Marty Block, a San Diego-area Democrat who is chairman of the Assembly Higher Education Committee, said in a recent e-mail that he would support the proposal. “It more accurately reflects where the money is going and its purpose of teaching students at our colleges and universities,” he wrote.

Daniel Simmons, a UC Davis law professor and vice-chairman of UC’s systemwide Faculty Senate, said a switch would undoubtedly ease confusion for students and parents when they see their university bills. Most faculty members also support the change, he said.

Still, Simmons said, for most students, the semantic change is not as important as the steadily rising cost of their education. “That’s the real issue,” he said. “It doesn’t matter a lot if you call it tuition or not.”

___________________________________

My Take: If the electronic book carts and the metal detection security systems in the libraries at most universities were not in place, I could see the libraries start to charge for checking out books for classes. Come to think of it, metal detectors might soon be needed just to get inside a lecture hall, people are so angry about fee increases and the prospect of not completing their education, that anything is possible. Call them fees, or call it tuition, it all boils down to money. And if the state doesn’t find a way to make it affordable for everyone to attend college, we’ll have more problems on our hands than a word game.

—————————————————-

Other Resources

Texas Legal Help

If you’ve been arrested in Texas on a drinking and driving charge, there is no doubt you need to hire the best Texas DUI attorney you can. A Dallas drug crimes lawyer is also key if you’re facing charges of possession or another drug-related offense. Criminal defense cases are highly technical and it is very uncommon that good results can be achieved without an experienced defense attorney working for you.

Source: CNN

There’s nothing wrong with your TV, even if the World Cup games you’ve been watching come with a sound like a swarm of bees, or is it a vibration of joy?

Neither — the strange noise you’re hearing during today’s World Cup games (and for the rest of the tournament, presumably) is the sound of thousands of vuvuzelas. But what, pray tell, is a vuvuzela?

(More from NewsFeed: See pictures of the World Cup opening ceremonies.)

A vuvuzela is a long plastic horn popular with South African soccer fans, who blow them en masse during games. Played by producing a ‘raspberry’ sound with your lips, the vuvuzelas’ sound has been compared to an elephant’s trumpet, a dying goat and (in the TIME office) a car going over rumble strips.

This is no house music. The horns first came into fashion in the mid-1990s, but their origin is unclear. Some say the vuvuzela is a descendant of the traditional kudu horn — though that seems apocryphal. One distributor claims the instrument came over as a children’s toy from America. So much for model train sets. The trumpets even have their own Philo T. Farsnworth: Freddie Makke, a legendary supporter of South African pro club Kaizer Chiefs, who claims he invented an aluminum version in the late ’60s, then switched over to plastic after the originals were confused with weapons.

FIFA originally considered banning the vuvuzelas in the run-up to the World Cup, after scientists warned of hearing damage among the spectators and both players and announcers expressed fears they would drowned out by the trumpets’ drone. South African officials eventually convinced FIFA to drop the proposed ban, arguing that they were an essential part of the South African soccer experience. (Vuvuzelas longer than 1 meter remain off-limits.)

___________________________________

My Take: I’ve heard a few loud noises like that humming in a Santos NY club. I’m not sure I could take watching a live event for more than a half an hour or so where those things were blasting all night or day long. Now toy trains I love. I could watch them for hours. They are mesmerizing, don’t make a lot of noise and they remind me of Christmas time.

————————————————————

Other Resources

Play Time On Line
Looking for a great way to enjoy Playstation 3 fighting games for free? You can Download PS3 games from the Web now just like you can download movies and music files. Not sure how it works or what the best sites are. Click here.

Source: Livescience

Scientists say they may have identified an obscure compound known as pyrophosphate, which may have served as a source of energy that allowed the first life on Earth to form.

From the tiniest bacteria to the complex human body, all living beings require an energy-transporting molecule called ATP to survive. Often likened to a “rechargeable battery,” ATP stores chemical energy in a form that can be used by organic matter.

“You need enzymes to make ATP, and you need ATP to make enzymes,” said researcher Terence Kee of the University of Leeds in England. “The question is: Where did energy come from before either of these two things existed? We think that the answer may lie in simple molecules, such as pyrophosphate, which is chemically very similar to ATP, but has the potential to transfer energy without enzymes.”

Obscure but important

Prior theories for how life emerged from mere chemistry have considered that a similar but separate compound known as pyrophosphate was the predecessor to the more complex yet more efficient ATP.

Phosphate has 4 oxygen atoms bound to a central phosphorus atom, and is present in all living cells. When two phosphates combine and lose a water molecule, they form pyrophosphate.

Pyrophosphite, on the other hand, is rarely encountered, chemist Robert Shapiro at New York University told Livescience. “Even in my Google search for it, I got the query: ‘Don’t you mean pyrophosphate?’”

The presence of “one or two thorny little problems” with its rival molecule [pyrophosphate] had left some unanswered questions, Kee said in a telephone interview.

The two main problems were that pyrophosphate didn’t seem to be available in significant amounts in the geological mineral record, and it doesn’t react well without catalysts (which weren’t around then), according to Kee.

On the other hand, Kee’s team has found that pyrophosphite would be “relatively straightforward to prepare from minerals that are known to exist in iron meteorites.” The routes to the production of this molecule are simpler than those proposed for pyrophosphate, Kee said.

The body fat gene?
Past discoveries such as this have led many to wonder if it’s possible to tap the original source of some genetic material that we might want to manipulate, such as the fat gene or how to lose belly fat for women, or the tired gene or the energy source linked to depression.

Though similarly produced through dehydration, and similar in composition except that it has some oxygen atoms replaced by hydrogen, pyrophosphite is rare. Only three pyrophosphite minerals exist, compared with “many phosphate minerals,” Kee said.

The chemical’s obscurity on Earth is not a sign of its irrelevance. It’s highly unstable in today’s oxygen-rich environment (meaning it breaks down into other molecules rapidly) but is a superior catalyst (jump-starter) for certain chemical reactions, Kee said, citing as-yet-unpublished evidence.

Lateral thinking

Kee called the altered theory “more a lateral thought process” than a “new concept.”

“It is as little strange that pyrophosphite and its ability to act as a phosphorus-transfer agent have been known for some time but it has not been proposed previously as being of any pre-biotic significance,” he said. “I suspect because noone had considered the need for it or that it may have been accessible pre-biotically.”

Interestingly, machines that manufacture artificial DNA for experiments regularly use pyrophophite in their assembly process, Shapiro said.

______________________________

My Take: I’m all over a gene that will help me lose belly fat, but I’m getting the hint here that this is not so much about losing fat or finding the source of all man’s (and women’s) genetic troubles and curing diseases. I doubt these new potential life source materials will help us do much about real life issues such as how to use SEO services or get our kids to do their homework. But I guess if I owned and ran the best SEO company in the country I’d have enough money to care about research like this and possibly help move it along.

—————————————————–

Other Resource

Lawyer Lines
To hire a West Palm Beach FL family lawyer you need a little history. Same goes for a West Palm Beach FL divorce lawyer . You wouldn’t hire a mechanic or a construction crew without obtaining some references or photos of a few previous projects right? The same goes for lawyers. Get referrals from friends; join Facebook; search Yelp.com for lawyers in your area and find out what people say about them.

Source: LiveScience.com

According to a new survey, three out of four Americans believe global warming is the result of human activity, down from the 84 percent who said so in 2007.

“Several national surveys released during the last eight months have been interpreted as showing that fewer and fewer Americans believe that climate change is real, human-caused and threatening to people,” said Woods Institute Fellow Jon Krosnick, of Stanford University. “But our new survey shows just the opposite.”

With funding from the National Science Foundation, Krosnick conducted the survey from June 1-7, including telephone interviews with 1,000 randomly selected adults.

When asked if the Earth’s temperature probably had been heating up over the last 100 years, 74 percent of the respondents said yes. And 75 percent said that human behavior was substantially responsible for any warming that has occurred.

Behind the shifts

As for the decline between 2007 and now, Krosnick said it is “attributable to perceptions of recent weather changes by the minority of Americans who have been skeptical about climate scientists.”

In terms of average Earth temperature, 2008 was the coldest year since 2000, Krosnick said, adding that these year-to-year fluctuations in temperature aren’t meaningful in the overall picture of Earth’s climate trends.

Even so, “people who do not trust climate scientists base their conclusions on their personal observations of nature,” Krosnic said. “These ‘low-trust’ individuals were especially aware of the recent decline in average world temperatures; they were the ones in our survey whose doubts about global warming have increased since 2007.”

The decline in those who support the idea that global warming is occurring is just temporary, Krosnic said, adding that if the temperatures on Earth increase again, so will this group’s leaning with the large majority who agree our planet is on a warming trend.

Climate skeptics

The so-called climategate controversy, in which e-mail messages were hacked from the computer system at the University of East Anglia in England and characterized climate scientists as colluding to silence unconvinced colleagues, made headlines in December 2009 and had many suggesting it would negatively impact the public’s view of the validity of climate-change science.

That didn’t bear out in this survey, with only 9 percent of respondents saying they knew about the East Anglia e-mail messages and believing they indicate that climate scientists should not be trusted. Only 13 percent said the same about the controversial Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports. There was some controversy over a few errors in the reports that scientists have said are minor in the grand scope of climate science and do not change the fundamental findings of the report.

“Overall, we found no decline in Americans’ trust in environmental scientists,” Krosnick said. “Fully 71 percent of respondents said they trust scientists a moderate amount, a lot or completely.”

Results also suggest Americans support government action to combat global warming, including:

• 86 percent of respondents said they wanted the federal government to limit the amount of air pollution businesses emit;
• 78 percent opposed taxes on electricity to reduce consumption, and 72 percent opposed taxes on gasoline;
• 84 percent favored the federal government offering tax breaks to encourage utilities to use more alternative energy sources, such as making electricity from water, wind and solar power;
• 4 out of 5 respondents favored the government requiring or offering tax breaks to encourage the production of cars that use less gas (81 percent), appliances that use less electricity (80 percent) and homes and office buildings that require less energy to heat and cool (80 percent);
• And only 14 percent said that the United States should not take action to combat global warming unless other major industrial countries, such as China and India, do so as well.

However, a recent survey by researchers at Yale and George Mason universities found that while most Americans like the idea of conservation, few practice it in their everyday lives.

______________________________________

My Take: Check to see what people really think by going online, and start with senior Websites . If you think that just because they are older they don’t know about green issues, or are too worried about their bill for their home medical care, think again. Seniors are the eye witnesses to the destruction we’ve done to our natural resources, and I’m not saying that they didn’t also play a part. While many of those house call doctors were growing up, they, too, used plastic products, cheap leaded gasoline for their cars, and other chemicals and agents that harmed the O-zone. How could they have known?

But now that we do know that green house gas effects on the environment are real, and this report says 3 out of 4 believe they are, we can do something about it. Who cares about the other 10%?

————————————————————

Other Resources

Stay at home work

NY business transcription services for the medical profession are fast becoming one of the newest stay-at-home jobs for moms. You can train quickly to work as a NY medical transcription provider and conduct all your work from home. Click here to find out more.

Locked Out?

Vehicle lockout tools are not something you carry around in the trunk of your car as a rule, but getting locked out of your car is not an impossibility. Good to know there are lots of qualified (and legitimate) lockpicks out there who can help you out of a jam.

Lifespan of Boat Polisher Pads

The lifespan of the pads depends on the user, how well they are cleaned and the condition of the surfaces being detailed. If buffing or waxing a 20-foot boat, two pads should be enough to cover the surface at one time. Keep in mind, though, that the number of pads needed depends on how experienced the user is. If the user is a beginner who doesn’t fully understand how effective these pads are, they might over load the pad with product, thus decreasing its effectiveness and increasing the number of pads needed when using boats or car polisher pads.

Cited:  Los Angeles Times

First, it was with a 268-pound guy, and, I admit, he was cute.

Despite his youth, he was gray and wrinkled. But there were others as the day wore on. One had a face like a horse. Another was nice-enough looking, but that neck — oh, heavens, that neck. And yet another was way too fast for me.

Oh, baby.

Or, more correctly, babies. These were all animal babies — an African elephant, a zebra, a giraffe and a cheetah, respectively — I saw on a two-hour photo caravan at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park. I developed innumerable critter crushes on my February visit, and with the advent of spring, there are even more objects of my affection.

San Diego Zoo director Charles Schroeder, a.k.a. “Mister Zoo,” began dreaming of a new kind of zoo in 1959. He envisioned wide-open spaces that would provide a breeding ground to help populate the world’s zoos and to avoid depopulating the wild. Schroeder theorized that happy animals with a lot of space — in this case, 1,800 acres — would be more apt to do what comes naturally.

Randy Rieches, curator of mammals at the Wild Animal Park, which opened in 1972, says captive breeding has helped several endangered species, not only here but at other facilities as well (see sidebar). Among the species and the progeny from the Wild Animal Park:

Arabian oryx: 324 babies since 1973. In the late 1960s, the world population of these antelope cousins was fewer than 20. Oryx from this program have been returned to a preserve in Senegal and introduced to the deserts of Oman and to reserves in Amman, Jordan.

Simitar horned oryx: 500-plus babies in the zoo and Wild Animal Park. They are no longer found in the wild, but some offspring have been returned to a preserve in Senegal and sent to zoos in Cape Horn, South Africa.

Przewalski’s wild horses: 142 babies to date. They have been reintroduced into native habitats in Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia.

Addax: 474 babies. The park is helping reintroduce these large, whitish antelope into their native homelands in Tunisia.

Chinese dholes: eight babies in the last year. Few institutions will work with these Asiatic wild dogs (nicknamed “Whistling Hunters”) because they are difficult to manage and can take down prey much larger than they. The dholes are not currently on display. (The Wild Animal Park also funds conservation efforts in Asia.)

Rhinos: 163 babies (92 Southern white rhinos, 59 Indian rhinos and 12 East African black rhinos). The Wild Animal Park has become the world’s leading breeding authority on rhinos, thanks to the temperate climate, the large rhino habitats and a staff that knows the nuances of rhino husbandry, Rieches said. “The Southern white rhino population was down to 100 animals in the world in the 1960s,” he said. “Now there are about 18,000 in the wild. It’s one of the biggest conservation success stories out there for a species that was never listed as endangered.”

Indian rhinos are especially rough courters, Rieches said, so keepers are prepared to intervene if necessary. “They use tusks for fighting, and sometimes we have to use vehicles to separate them,” he said. Indian rhinos in the wild number about 2,400 in India and about 300 in Nepal.

The black rhino population has been hit hard by poaching throughout Africa, Rieches said. About 3,000 black rhinos remain in the wild, victims of poachers who want their horns, which consist of matted hair and keratin (similar to a human fingernail). Chinese apothecaries use ground rhino horn, and some dagger handles in the Middle East are made from the horns.

“There isn’t any rhino species that is safe,” Rieches said. “Poachers will kill rhinos in a reserve in the middle of the day or night.”

Condors: About 300 condors have been hatched at the Wild Animal Park, and 180 have been released into the wild. By the early ’80s, only 20 California condors remained in the wild. By ‘91, they were being reintroduced into the wild, about half of those hatched at the animal park.

Elephants: 14 babies, one Asian, 13 African elephants and two more babies on the way — one in June and other next year.

“Spring is a busy time of the year for us because it is the time of year when we have the most babies born and hatched,” Rieches said. “But because animals all have different gestation and breeding cycles, we have animals born almost every day of the year, so any day is a good day to visit.”

Oh, baby.

______________________________________

My Take: I’m a huge fan of babies and I don’t mean human ones either. Don’t get me wrong, I love to see little girls in their infant hair bows. But put a flower hat on a baby monkey and it’s just a heart stopper for me. I hope the park continues to have a baby boom, because it means they are being treated well and they have good homes.

Speaking of homes, did you know you can work with property management companies and they will help you find a house to rent if you think you might want to move there? They have pictures of homes for rent on their web sites that you can take virtual tours of. If you are an owner, they will work with you to help rent your home out quickly.

———————————————————————-

Other Resources

Nature and Trees

There is specialized training or pruning practices that may be applied to certain plants, such as roses, fruit trees and grapevines. Different trimming techniques may be deployed on herbaceous plants than those used on perennial woody plants. Hedges, by design, are usually maintained by hedge trimming, rather than by pruning. However, in nature, meteorological conditions such as wind, ice and snow, and seawater mist can cause plants to self-prune. This natural shedding is called abscission. Everyone knows nature also caused more problems than it is when you will need Highland MI tree removal service to solve them.

Dump the wreck
Wrecked cars are useless eyesores on your property. You can exchange your wrecked cars for cash and now you can do it quickly with the click of a mouse. Several online sites are available to help you get rid of your car. Donations to charities are just one of your options.

Your First Stroller

Strollers are an essential item for new parents. Luckily, the stroller industry has anticipated all of your needs. Buying a baby stroller today has become as time-consuming as buying a car. Until you begin shopping around, you don’t realize how many styles and features are out there and what factors you need to consider when searching for that perfect twin stroller to hold your little bundles of joy. Before you decide on a getting a standard stroller, make sure you research lightweight strollers to learn about the pros and cons of each kind. Always make sure you test out the stroller before purchasing one.

Welcome To the New York Inn

This New York Bed and Breakfast is located just minutes away from Columbia University and City College campuses. City College is just a 5 minute walk and Columbia University is just a short train ride away. The Inn is located in the Hamilton Heights/Sugar Hill and West Harlem neighborhood. Historically and architecturally, it is one of New York City’s richest and most diverse neighborhoods. It is an understated role that bed and breakfast owners across our great nation play in restoring and maintaining not only the physical historic homes and buildings but also documenting and sharing their importance in our history.