Just Wondering Outloud

Welcome Back, Guthrie

2005-11-07T14:22:00.000-05:00

Welcome back to the States, Guthrie! Rest up, and we'll be ready to hear stories you have to share with us about your adventures, reflections and more from your Trek Asia trip to Vietnam.

For more information about Guthrie's trip, go to his online TrekAsia journal at:

www.guthrietrekasia.blogspot.com

Again, welcome back! Hugs!

An Educational Sick Day

2005-11-04T14:39:00.000-05:00

What an educational sick day so far. I've been watching the National Geographical Channel for few hours while resting on the couch. Each hour was devoted to a specific species or region.

I learned some new things about zebras and observed lions' interesting bite positions while attacking a zebra. It seems that when a pride takes down a zebra, there are always 2 lions head-by-head guaranteed at the zebra's butt, biting and... *ahem* *shuddering* I hypothesize that it is due to the massive buttock muscles which, when taken down, helps weaken the rear legs, forcing the zebra to succumb to the ground. Sad. Did you also know that zebras don't walk in circle-like groups while travelling? They line up like schoolchildren and are arranged according to hierarchy, led by the dominant male. It was touching to learn that the dominant male maintains close affectionate relationships with all its sons. The sons can leave or stay with the group as long as they want to. If not the leader's son, the male zebra would otherwise be forced to leave and join another group. Different groups do respect each other. When groups meet, the leaders meet and nuzzle affectionately and playfully. Aww!

During another hour, I learned that when a baby elephant dies, the entire group, especially the mother, actually cries - not from their eyes but from something between the eyes and ears, creating wet trails down the sides of their heads. This is brought on by stress and emotions. Elephants cry!!!

Ok, end of my excited nerd ramblings. I'm off to either take a nap or watch one of my roommates' netflix rentals - either Bride & Prejudice or Best in Show.

Yuckity Yuck!

2005-11-04T14:37:00.000-05:00

Yuck.

Yuck.

Yuck.

That's how my day started. Make that early morning hours. Nauseous. Vomiting. Spikey fever. Stomach aches. Bleh.

Yuck.

Going back to bed soon. My cat seemed to know last night and curled up right next to my head all night. (I know that animals tend to know or sense things before they happen or are about to happen. Did she know last night?) This morning, she stayed with me in bed and was a little clingy which she does when I'm sick. Sweet cat. Now, she's all curled up on the couch sleeping soundly. I know that she'll follow me to bed when I get up from the computer to go to bed.

Got a mini-course at school tonight. I hope I feel well enough to go later tonight. It's tonight and all day tomorrow. I do not want to lose money after I already paid for the mini-course. Have champ interpreters for the course. I should go back to bed soon and keep on resting and hopefully feel better as the day goes on.

Ready to Be 30?

2005-11-03T19:33:00.000-05:00

Ready to be 30 years old? I sure am. This is from an article posted somewhere on Netscape. Have fun learning about yourselves.

-S

You Won't Believe What Happens at Age 30

The new age of adulthood: 30. Our extended adolescence has really, well, extended. But according to Josh Albertson, Lockhart Steele, and Jonathan Van Gieson, authors of the new "Book of Ages 30," life begins at 30. Thirty is cool. Party on, dude!

That should be good news to the 3,789,800 Americans who will turn 30 this year. Unlike their parents, today's thirtysomethings think of this milestone as a new beginning and not an end. Priorities shift. New things become important. Uh oh. You're adulthood is showing.

"When we started writing this book, I really didn't feel like there was a whole lot of buzz about being 30," Albertson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "Now there is a lot of talk of 30 being the new 21. People are looking at it as the beginning of adulthood. I think people put off growing up for longer. Sometimes people look up when they're 30 and sort of wonder where they are and what they've done."

So who are America's thirtysomethings and what do they have to look forward to? "Book of Ages 30" has an interesting take on it:

How Old IS 30?
If you're 30, you're old--specifically, you're older than 42 percent of all Americans. But you're not alone. Fifteen percent of Americans are also in their 30s.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Being 30
If you're 30, you've already lost 10 percent of your muscle mass. You're likely to be in debt to the tune of $20,000. But the good news is that you're also likely to be having sex 2.24 times a week.

Sex
While 81 percent of women and 71 percent of men have been married by their early 30s, there are plenty who are still virgins after their 30th birthday: 1 in 33 men and 1 in 25 women.

Your Good Looks
Men at 30 are on average 5' 10.2" tall and weigh 174 pounds, while 30-year-old women are 5' 4.6" tall and weigh 130 pounds.

Let's Talk Money
The median income for 30-year-old men is $30,510, while the median income for 30-year-old women is $21,473. On average, 30 year olds have held 7.5 jobs. They have a 24 percent chance of being promoted in the next year.

Career Peaks and Valleys
J.K. Rowling published the first volume in the "Harry Potter" series just before she turned 32. By 30, Harrison Ford went from being a carpenter to an actor in "American Graffiti," and back to being a carpenter. Remember Mr. T? At age 30, in case you wondered, he was about to play the villain in "Rocky III." When they were 30, no one other than their family and friends knew who Oprah Winfrey or Jane Austen were.

No More Naps
You're less likely to fall asleep at your desk than those young twentysomething whippersnappers down the hallway. Just over half of 18- to 29-year-olds report substantial daytime sleepiness, compared with 33 percent of the over-30 crowd.

Don't Shoot!
Nearly half, 45 percent, of all thirtysomethings own a firearm. In fact, more people in their 30s own firearms than do people in any other decade of their lives.

Lesbian Version: Mathematics & Arithmetic

2005-11-03T19:28:00.000-05:00

Got this from a friend. Some might find this amusing while others find this offensive or stereotypical. While reading this, I was wondering, "What would a lesbian version of this look like?" Interesting what roles gender plays in this. Suggestions, anyone?
-S

Mathematics & Arithmetic

Romance Mathematics

Smart man + smart woman = romance

Smart man + dumb woman = affair

Dumb man + smart woman = marriage

Dumb man + dumb woman = pregnancy
______________________________

OFFICE ARITHMETIC

Smart boss + smart employee = profit

Smart boss + dumb employee = production

Dumb boss + smart employee = promotion

Dumb boss + dumb employee = overtime
_____________________________

SHOPPING MATH

A man will pay $20 for a $10 item he needs.

A woman will pay $10 for a $20 item that she doesn't need.
_____________________________

GENERAL EQUATIONS & STATISTICS

A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.

A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.

A successful woman is one who can find such a man.
_____________________________

HAPPINESS

To be happy with a man, you must understand him a lot and love him a little.

To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.
______________________________

LONGEVITY

Married men live longer than single men do, but married men are a lot more willing to die.
______________________________

PROPENSITY TO CHANGE

A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't.

A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, and she does.
_____________________________

DISCUSSION TECHNIQUE

A woman has the last word in any argument.

Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.
_____________________________

HOW TO STOP PEOPLE FROM BUGGING YOU ABOUT GETTING MARRIED

Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poking me in the ribs and cackling, telling me, "You're next." They stopped after I started doing the same thing to them at funerals.

News Flash???

2005-11-03T19:24:00.000-05:00

Why do they need to write up an article about something we might as well have already known all along since precivilization times.... that honesty and ethics are not politicians' strengths or part of their dictionary.
-S

Congress Gets Poor Marks on Honesty, Ethics
By WILL LESTER, AP

WASHINGTON (Oct. 29) - Only one-third of Americans give Congress good ratings for its ethics and honesty, according to an AP-Ipsos poll that found more evidence of the public's longstanding disdain for the legislative branch of government.

Investigations of two top congressional leaders have drawn more attention to Congress' low standings, though analysts say other factors such as the Iraq war and gas prices are likely contributors to the dip this year in Congress' ratings.

Almost half in the poll, 45 percent, give Congress poor marks for its honesty and ethics, and 21 percent said congressional ethics were neither good nor poor.

Congressional ethics have been in the spotlight recently with the probe of stock sales by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and the indictment of Texas Rep. Tom DeLay, former House majority leader, on charges of violating campaign finance laws. DeLay recently notified House officials that he has failed to disclose all contributions to his legal defense fund.

"Public opinion about Congress is at low ebb," said John Hibbing, a University of Nebraska professor and a co-author of "Congress as Public Enemy." But Hibbing said he doubts that recent news about Frist and DeLay are big factors.

"Congress always lags behind the other two institutions of government and most other institutions," he said. "People don't really like to hear about conflict about important decisions."

Just over a third in the poll, 35 percent, approve of the way Congress is handling its job - down from 44 percent in February, according to the poll of 1,000 adults taken Oct. 3-5. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Recent polling has shown public regard for Republican leaders in Congress has dipped during the past year, but Democrats are down as well.

"We have the best Congress money can buy," said Greg Goldstein, a salesman from New York City who is a political independent. "The entire political-economic system is very money-driven."

Republican pollster Ed Goeas said recently that it's lucky for the GOP that voters won't be focused on elections for another 10 months. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to take a positive view of the honesty and ethics of Congress.

"I hear so many people talking about how dishonest they are, but I have a hard time believing they're as bad as people say," said Krista Gneiting, a Republican from Caldwell, Idaho. "I have not heard much specifically about Bill Frist and Tom DeLay."

10/29/05 04:26 EDT

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

For the Nerds in Us...

2005-11-03T19:20:00.000-05:00

For the nerds in us who enjoy articles like these... there is so much we do not know and also assume about other living creatures on earth. Just because we do not see, hear, taste, smell or feel something while observing, interacting or reading about such creatures does not mean these do not exist in their worlds. We merely do not know because... as in this article... they might communicate and hear on levels that we simply cannot hear/speak.

-S

Mice Take a Page From Birds' Songbook
Study Suggests Males Sing During Courtship
By CHERYL WITTENAUER, AP

APResearchers were surprised to find patterns in the twitterings of mice.

They Sing -- but Who Listens?

ST. LOUIS (Nov. 1) - Songbirds may be the Sinatras of the animal world, but male mice can carry a tune too, say Washington University researchers who were surprised by what they heard.

Scientists have known for decades that male lab mice produce high-frequency sounds - undetectable by human ears - when they pick up the scent of a female mouse. This high-pitched babble is presumably for courtship, although scientists are not certain.

But it turns out those sounds are more complex and interesting than previously thought.

"It soon became ... apparent that these vocalizations were not random twitterings but songs," said researcher Timothy Holy. "There was a pattern to them. They sounded a lot like bird songs."

To make their point, the researchers provided audio recordings of the sounds, which have been modified for human ears. The recordings do indeed sound birdlike.

The findings by the researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are published online Tuesday in the journal Public Library of Science Biology.

If the analysis by the researchers is confirmed, mice can be added to the short list of creatures that sing in the presence of the opposite sex, including songbirds, humpback whales, porpoises, insects and, possibly, bats.

"There was joy in this discovery," Holy said. "We didn't expect it."

The finding opens the possibility of using mice to study and develop treatments for autism and other communication disorders, said Holy, the lead author and assistant professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the university's medical school.

Bird song, how it is perceived and learned, is used to understand how the human brain works. But some questions might be posed better with mice, for experimental convenience, he said.

If it is true that the male mice are producing songs, it raises questions about how their sounds develop and whether mice - like birds - are able to learn new sounds, said animal communication expert Peter Marler, a behavioral neurobiologist at University of California, Davis.

He said "extraordinarily little" is known about how the human brain helps people learn to speak.

"We don't know even where to look in the (human) brain," he said. "If it were to turn out that (mice) songs are learned, and that parts of the brain are involved in learning, that might open a new area of investigation."

Marler said the only mammals known to learn new sounds are whales and porpoises, and "they're not exactly ideal for study."

Holy and co-author Zhongsheng Guo were studying the brain response in male mice to chemical signals emitted by female mice. The mice sounds were not audible to humans without technical amplification. Initially, researchers recorded the sounds with a microphone, stored them in a computer and converted them to an image.

Later, they developed a way to hear the sounds by recording them on tape and reconstructing them four octaves lower. Holy said the mice sounds met two key criteria for song - distinct syllables and recurring themes, "like the melodic hook in a catchy tune."

He said their finding is not just perception, but a "very careful quantitative analysis of sounds."

Holy said adult bird songs are much more practiced, predictable and refined than those of mice, but even birds don't start out as great singers. They learn.

11/01/05 14:17 EST

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

Interesting....

2005-11-03T19:19:00.000-05:00

Interesting... I think I'm starting to get bored with www.blogthings.com.
-S

You Are 31 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe.

13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world.

20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences.

30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!

40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

Happy Birthday, Sabine!

2005-11-01T19:25:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday to you, Dearest Sabine Hava!

Happy Birthday to you!

Awww, have a wonderful 7 month-old birthday! :)

Hugs,
Auntie Sarah

Interesting....

2005-10-30T20:26:00.000-05:00

Your Seduction Style: Au Natural

You rank up there with your seduction skills, though you might not know it.
That's because you're a natural at seduction. You don't realize your power!
The root of your natural seduction power: your innocence and optimism.

You're the type of person who happily plays around and creates a unique little world.
Little do you know that your personal paradise is so appealing that it sucks people in.
You find joy in everything - so is it any surprise that people find joy in you?

You bring back the inner child in everyone you meet with your sincere and spontaneous ways.
Your childlike (but not childish) behavior also inspires others to care for you.
As a result, those who you befriend and date tend to be incredibly loyal to you.

What Kind of Seducer Are You?

How True!

2005-10-30T19:41:00.000-05:00

You Are Apple Cider

Smooth and comforting. But downright nasty when cold.

What Part of Fall Are You?

I'm not necessarily downright nasty. I just bicker more... either grin and bear it or bitch directly about what I do not like about feeling/being cold. I don't like to be cold, period. I do not like to feel suffocated by layers of clothes. I love my skin being bare and free. I do adjust tho. I bicker for a short bit then just adjust and look forwrad to spring. In fact, I'm already looking forward to spring!

My Pizza Personality

2005-10-30T18:36:00.000-05:00

Veggie Pizza

Upscale and trendy.
You're the most likely to go for a gourmet pizza.
You have impeccable taste in everything.
You truly enjoy the finer things in life.

What's Your Pizza Personality?

True. Also came up with this.

Cheese Pizza

Traditional and comforting.
You focus on living a quality life.
You're not easily impressed with novelty.
Yet, you easily impress others.

What's Your Pizza Personality?

My Inner Child... Mmm....

2005-10-30T18:27:00.000-05:00

Took a What's Your Inner Child quiz through www.blogthings.com. I wish I could choose few answers for few questions. But, here's my first result. I decided to retake the quiz and answer with the other ones I wanted to pick out too.

Your Inner Child Is Surprised

You see many things through the eyes of a child.
Meaning, you're rarely cynical or jaded.
You cherish all of the details in life.
Easily fascinated, you enjoy experiencing new things.

How Is Your Inner Child?

This was my other result...not complaining. :)

Your Inner Child Is Happy

You see life as simple, and simple is a very good thing.
You're cheerful and upbeat, taking everything as it comes.
And you decide not to worry, even when things look bad.
You figure there's just so many great things to look forward to.

How Is Your Inner Child?

Odds & Ends

2005-10-30T16:31:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Brook Shields for expecting her 2nd child

Out of all people, it's Anna Nicole Smith & her dogs who boycotts IAMS in a new advertisement for PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). I've long been against IAMS because of the company's cruelty to animals and testings on animals in their labs. Why couldn't a better person have been chosen to bring light to this? This is an article written by the Associated Press and posted on AOL:

Anna Nicole Smith's Dogs Boycott Iams

NEW YORK (Oct. 28) - Anna Nicole Smith's dogs are boycotting pet food maker Iams. Smith's protesting pooches are refusing dog food from Iams in a new advertisement for PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

"Marilyn, Sugar Pie and Puppy are boycotting Iams until it stops testing on animals in labs," the poster reads beneath a picture of Smith, a former Playboy model, and her three dogs.

PETA claims an undercover investigation in 2002 and 2003 revealed "deplorable" conditions in Iams' contract laboratory. The group said at least 27 dogs were killed, and listed abuses including cramped conditions and having dogs' vocal cords removed to prevent barking.

Iams, which sells pet food and pet care products, disputes those allegations.

"We have constantly and publicly communicated with the public with what we do in our feeding studies," Kurt Iverson, a spokesman for Iams, told The Associated Press on Friday. "We also work with a number of well-respected officials from animal welfare groups, like the ASPCA and the Humane Society of the United States."

The ad will be posted next week on PETA's Web site, and it will appear on billboards this winter.
10/28/05 12:47 EDT

Heard of These Fears?

2005-10-30T16:29:00.000-05:00

Anthrophobia - Fear of flowers
Lachanophobia - Fear of vegetables
Helmintophobia - Fear of being infested with worms
Genuphobia - Fear of knees
Blennophobia - Fear of slime
Selenophobia - Fear of the moon
Arachibutyrophobia- Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth
Bogyphobia - Fear of the bogeyman
Chromatophobia - Fear of colors
Mnemophobia - Fear of memories
Sciophobia - Fear of shadows
Ablutophobia - Fear of washing or bathing
Mottephobia - Fear of moths
Triskadekaphobia - Fear of the number 13

Patricia Ordonez's Announcement!

2005-10-30T16:14:00.000-05:00

Patty is the one in black - the first one on the right in the rear row.

Patty O

Fashion Designer

Custom-Fitted
Just for You

info@patriciaordonez.com
www.patriciaordonez.com

EXCITING NEWS FROM PATTY O!

I am expanding my business and working to provide individual attention to my most important customer – YOU!

You can find my new lineup of exclusive designs at The Market NYC (268 Mulberry Street between Houston and Prince Street) beginning October 29th. I will also be selling my clothing at the same location on November 12, November 26, December 3, December 10 and December 17th, so mark your calendars and be sure to stop by!

Additionally, in order to give my distinctive clients more individualized attention, I have opened my sewing studio on the Upper West Side for custom fittings. To set up an appointment you can visit me 24/7 on my website at patriciaordonez.com or feel free to contact me via email at info@patriciaordez.com.

Need to find the perfect gift for the perfect person?

A PattyO gift certificate for a fashion consulting session and custom fitting is something that they will NEVER re-gift! Inquire at info@patriciaordonez.com.

Russian Restaurants in Brighton Beach

2005-10-30T16:01:00.000-05:00

Here are restaurants that come highly recommended should you venture down to Brighton Beach, Brooklyn for a night of Russian cuisine and entertainment (yes, a show):

1. Winter Garden
2. Imperator
3. Rasputin
4. Odessa

As for a good Turkish-Uzbek restaurant in Sheepshead Bay by the water where you go go for a lovely stroll after you eat, go to:

Bay Shish Kebab & Gyro
2255 Emmons Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11235
(718) 769-5396

2005-10-30T14:30:00.000-05:00

Your Brain is 46.67% Female, 53.33% Male

Your brain is a healthy mix of male and female

You are both sensitive and savvy

Rational and reasonable, you tend to keep level headed

But you also tend to wear your heart on your sleeve

What Gender Is Your Brain?

Delighted to Share.....

2005-10-30T13:44:00.000-05:00

The engagement of Lauren & Doug!

They became engaged on August 20, 2005. What a great day! :) I was SO delighted and happy. I knew it was a matter of time before they got engaged. We were roommates when they began dating and beautifully evolved into a loving couple with fireworks. The fireworks show started in 2002. And, the firework show is nowhere near from being over! There is no end in sight. They moved in together over the past year. The magic and spark was there right from the start. In other words, they always clickety-clicked. And, I'm so happy for them!

Here is Lauren's email announcing the great news! I squealed in delight when I read it!

Hi Sarah-

I came back from Nassau last Friday, and as usual, Doug and I headed to the Hamptons but it was a most unusual day at the beach. While digging sand to make a sand castle (doug's idea), I unearthed a ring inside a little red plastic container. I was stunned, floored, flummoxed. So shocked he had to ask me "will you marry me?" three times before I finally understood what was going on, and happily (and so...uncoolly) said YES! I cried and laughed and sweated all at the samme time. I even got up and shimmied! What a messy yes that was!! I'm no longer on cloud 9-im now visiting cloud 10, 18, and 102. I'm blown away. Sure, we had talked about marriage but Doug always made it sound like it was something we'd do in 2, 3 years. This is alll surreal. We're shy and giddy all over again (yeah, I know, ew, gross, barf). :) :D anyway-this changes things a bit. This weekend his family and we are scouting out locations.

Hugs
Lauren

Here is the official story:

A Ponquogue Beach Story

Doug asked Lauren if she wanted to talk. Lying on a blanket on the quiet beach, Lauren closed her magazine and sat up. Sure, she said.

Doug asked Lauren if she wanted to build a sand castle. He knew that she harbored a secret hope—that the sand hid treasures and new worlds. It was no surprise when Lauren happily began digging. Before long, she uncovered a bright shiny red container. Turning the container over, she saw a ring inside. Someone hid this, she said.

Doug asked Lauren if she would marry him. What? She said.

Doug asked Lauren if she would marry him. Are you serious? She said.

Doug asked Lauren if she would marry him, for the third time.

Yes! She said.

We are engaged! :)

Pascal's Quote

2005-10-29T15:55:00.000-04:00

Another quote courtesy of friend ME:

We arrive at the truth, not by the reason only, but also by the heart.
~Blaise Pascal

Yoo Hoo???

2005-10-27T23:33:00.000-04:00

Any single suitable beautiful lesbian women out there for dating? Yoo hoo, anyone?

"Whew, She's Sane!"

2005-10-27T23:21:00.000-04:00

Whew, my friend is sane!

She suddenly said on AIM:
I feel buzz buzz

I am thinking to myself:
Huh? What buzz buzz? Her head dizzy or body tired? Or, she's insane with buzzing in her head/body?

So, I asked her hopefully, with my fingers crossed:
What buzz buzz?

She said:
My pager

Me:
Whew!! Thank goodness she's sane!

*breathing a sigh of relief*

Popping Babies Like Baseball Ball Machine

2005-10-27T20:11:00.000-04:00

You may have heard of "the mother who recently gave birth to 16th child." It seems like all it took was one head turn before she gave birth once again. I remember reading news about "the mother who gave birth to her 15th child." Now, it's the 16th child named J-something in the Duggar family.

Michelle Duggar, age 39, is the name of the baby popper. She first popped a baby at age 21. I think it's incredible how she loves and genuinely wants to have more children.

They have two websites. I'm not sure which one is current or if they run both websites:

www.jimbob.info and www.duggarfamily.com

Their children include two sets of twins, and the parents have stuck to the letter "J" for their names.

* Joshua, 17
* Jana and John-David, 15
* Jill, 14
* Jessa, 12
* Jinger, 11
* Joseph, 10
* Josiah, 9
* Joy-Anna, 8
* Jeremiah and Jedidiah, 6
* Jason, 5
* James, 4
* Justin, 2
* Jackson, 1
* Johannah, 0

Her husband, Jim Bob Duggar, quoted in an CNN article: "I have always left it up to Michelle because she's actually the one that carries them and does all the labor," he said. "But we both love children. Even yesterday, she said she would like to have some more." He later went on to say how happy and excited they were to have a baby girl, the first in 8 years for the family. Jim further states in the article that "We both just love children and we consider each a blessing from the Lord. I have asked Michelle if she wants more and she said yes, if the Lord wants to give us some she will accept them," he said in a telephone interview.

One word: Wow.

It always seem that large families like them are strongly rooted in their faith. In other words, they're always religious or strongly identified in their faith. And, their faith provides structure, discipline, and guidance in raising large families.
I've never read of a large family that was non-religious or not strongly rooted in faith and make faith their way of life.

It's just too interesting and remarkable that these large families of baby poppers always seem to be christians or religious. I've never seen a non-religious LARGE family where they love popping out babies at the rate of a baseball training ball popper that pops out balls at you every few seconds during practice. The only difference here is that there's no training, and these miracles of life are real.

With all due respect to these families and their faith, I can't help but wonder about this: if Kinsey's estimate that 1:10 people are gay, will at least one of their children later come out of the closet as a gay person? Nonetheless, I have faith that these children are growing up to become loving respectful adults with a wonderful large family like Michelle and Jim Duggar's.

Congratulations, Michelle and Jim, on your new addition and arrival!

Oh man!

2005-10-27T19:59:00.000-04:00

Oh man! Just realized while looking up the Spring 2006 Schedule for class registration that I'll soon be registering for the last time during my graduate studies. Before I know it, I'll be starting my last semester of graduate school. In a blink, I'll be graduating. Oh man! Where's the fan? *deep sigh and breathing* Is this for real?

Bush Replaces Greenspan

2005-10-24T17:36:00.000-04:00

In a move that stunned the international financial community, President George W. Bush today announced that Stanley A. Weinberg was his choice to replace Alan Greenspan as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Weinberg is Mr. Bush's longtime personal financial advisor at Morgan Stanley. "He's like a member of the family," Bush said.

The president dismissed as "predictable" the criticisms that Weinberg had never served on a regional federal reserve bank, never participated in discussions about international banking, had never run a company, and was not an economist. "I trust him," the president said. "I know what is in his heart."

"He's just like you see it in those Morgan Stanley commercials -- another member of the family," the president added. "He set up the college funds we used to put Jenna and Barbara through college, and sat with us at the girls' graduations. He put together the trust we used to purchase the ranch at Crawford. He is just a whiz at numbers -- what better qualification than to deal with all those numbers they have to deal with at the Fed?"

The Fed choice was the latest in a spate of nominations made by the president. The day began with the White House announcement of a new chief of the Food and Drug Administration -- Billy Bob Garmer, the head pharmacist at Wayne Drug in Crawford. "He has been my personal pharmacist for years now," the president said. I've watched him put all kinds of drugs together behind that counter. He knows everything there is to know about all these medications. And he is a good man."

That was followed by the presidential pick to replace Michael Brown as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA: Dr. James Kilgallen, who has served since the beginning of the Bush presidency as his personal physician. "Dr Kilgallen was the first one on the scene when I was choking on that pretzel while I was watching the Texas Longhorns football game. I could have died! But he stepped in and performed that Heimlich maneuver without skipping a beat. I thought, if he can manage that kind of emergency, he can manage anything! And he is a good man."

One earlier nomination, however was withdrawn before the end of the day. The White House had announced at noon the nominee for chief of health for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Chester McFadden, the president's personal veterinarian who has cared for the Bush dogs Spot, an English Springer Spaniel, and Barney, a Scottish Terrier. The nomination was withdrawn at 4 pm with no explanation.

NOTE: This is a satire written by Norm Ornstein.

www.huffingtonpost.com/norm-ornstein/whats-next_b_8450.html

God's A Photographer!

2005-10-22T21:35:00.000-04:00

*gasp*

God's a photographer!

I was sitting on the couch chatting with two friends online. I saw a flash in the room.

*gasped*

*looked to window then to hearing roommate on the other couch*

*she nodded*

"You serious? Thunder?"

"Yes. It's been going on."

*paging friend who's in car - to get confirmation*

"Yes. I thought someone was taking a picture."

"You serious - thundering outside?"

"Yes. It's thundering and raining"

"Wow. Thundering, and it's October 22!"

*asked roommate for date confirmation*

"God's taking pictures"

*windows fill with strong bright white flash*

God sure is taking many pictures tonight, not too far from here.

NOTE: A friend online was silly to suggest that there was an explosion. I told him, " Yea, right. My hearing roommate is here. She must be deaf for not hearing it. Wow, it busted her eardrums." I told my roommate what he said. She said, "Yes, a visual light bomb when it hits the ground. Now, that's logical."

Bush's Freefalling!

2005-10-22T20:58:00.000-04:00

www.yeeguy.com/freefall/

I can see that Bush's yoga and pilates classes at his ranch and the White House have paid off. When he's stuck, be creative with your mouse and see how flexible he can be or what positions he can get into.

Too bad he isn't as flexible and smart (up there in the head) when it comes to politics and making decisions for America.

If you're a Republican who actually likes Bush, here is my advance apology for seeing your beloved free falling. No offense intended. Grin.

Enjoy!

Time to Learn Our Greek ABC's

2005-10-22T19:42:00.000-04:00

Time to start learning our Greek ABC's! According to cnn.com, Tropical Storm Alpha was born and is just south of Puerto Rico. It's the 22nd named storm of the season, making 2005 the busiest hurrican season on record. We're witnessing history in the making while finally learning our Greek ABC's. And, as my roomie Kate put it, it's not even November yet (the end of the hurricane season).

Knowledge + Empathy = Power

2005-10-22T19:17:00.000-04:00

A dear friend, Julie, recently wrote this article for www.deafdc.com.
-S

Knowledge + Empathy = Power

Posted on October 21, 2005 at 11:33 AM

We just got a picture of our cousin proudly sporting an Israeli military uniform. Instead of enrolling in college like most freshmen his age, he opted to serve two years in the Israeli army. People think his mother is either very brave or very crazy. I think she is incredibly generous to allow her only son dedicate his life to a passion that she also understands. Aside from once hitting a hole-in-one during golf, the main item in my grandfather's obituary mentioned his thirty-year service in the Navy. It defined my grandfather, and I will always remember and love him for that.

People join such services for a wide variety of reasons - not necessarily always having something to do with sacrifice. Sometimes, it's actually for self-indulgence; the need to escape life as is. But we all know very few people who actually just go out and do it - for the sake of others' lives. Quality or quantity, it's all the same "out there" (and in a few dark corners of this country, as well).

A few months before graduation, I picked up a Peace Corps application. I slowly filled it out (one of my secrets- I love filling out forms). I made sure that my t's and i's were crossed and dotted. I never mailed it in. After all, I had my family. Cat. Boyfriend-soon-to-become-fiancé. New friends in the next city - Washington, D.C. Important stuff, you know?

Five years later - today - I feel very blessed. I have a beautiful daughter, a good job, comfortable home, dedicated husband, loyal friends, and family in good health. Basically, all the tenets of life in place. But does any of this have to do with my country? I'm living the classic American dream, thanks to the thousands - or millions? - of people who died before me. And also to people who are still dying today, not always intentionally, for the sake of their country. Does that make me feel guilty? You bet.

I hope I teach my daughter to become a "doer". The last thing I want to do is direct the course that her life takes- but I do want to, at the very least, arm her with knowledge. Living in the city of Washington, D.C. is a wonderful place to do just that. Next to serving in the military, I think the next best thing you can do is to teach the next generation the meaning of life, and how it is generated from sacrifice.

A Click Away From Helping Others

2005-10-22T18:16:00.000-04:00

Hi-

You're a click away from helping another woman receive a free mammogram. This woman could be your coworker, sister, aunt, mother, passing stranger on the street, or friend. Or, she's one to another woman in your life.

Please click on this Pink Ribbon Challenge daily:

www.thebreastcancersite.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/CTDSites

As you may know, October 2005 is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Click on this daily, and it helps increase company donations for funding free mammograms to women in need.

They are behind in their goal to help. Every click is tripled in October, and there are only 9 days left. 368 mammograms left to go! And, the goal is 750.

ABOUT THE BREAST CANCER SITE Your click on the "Fund Free Mammograms" button helps fund free mammograms, paid for by site sponsors whose ads appear after you click and provided to women in need through the efforts of the National Breast Cancer Foundation to low-income, inner-city and minority women, whose awareness of breast cancer and opportunity for help is often limited. For info about early detection (from the website), read at the end of this email.

Let's support our fellow women. Many of us know women who have survived, experienced, and/or died from breast cancer. I've always known women all my life who have had breast cancer. Some survived while others eventually died. When I participated in the Revlon Walk few years ago, there were about 8 names on my number card. During the walk, I remembered even more names. There are survivors and fighters amongst us daily.

My dear Aunt Naomi, my father's sister and best friend, was one of the women who fought hard for years and eventually passed away. All my life. during the years I knew her, she had breast cancer. It never defined her or defeated her spirit. Naomi always shone, and she shared and led by example. Over the years, I became a young woman and corresponded with her regularly during her last few years. The night she died, snow began to fall and made the bleak winter landscape so beautiful and shiny. Although her battle was hard-fought with beautiful and difficult moments, she showed great strength and grace. She shed light on blessings in our lives. And, her last moments, although sad for others and peaceful for her, were reflected in the beautiful snow. Her spirit shone on through the falling snowflakes. Let us help others shine on too.

When I click, it's for Aunt Naomi, friends and relatives who have survived, and more importantly, for women who are our mothers, sisters, friends, strangers, acquaintances and so much more.

Let's help the Aunt Naomi's in our and others' lives get free mammograms and education.

Feel free to forward to others. Thank you.

Hugs,
Sarah

EARLY DETECTION: DO YOU KNOW THE FACTS?

Each year, 182,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer and 43,300 die. One woman in eight either has or will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. In addition, 1,600 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 400 will die this year.

If detected early, the five-year survival rate exceeds 95%. Mammograms are among the best early detection methods, yet 13 million U.S. women 40 years of age or older have never had a mammogram.

The National Cancer Institute and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommend that women in their forties and older have mammograms every one to two years. A complete early detection plan also includes regular clinical breast examinations by a trained medical professional. Monthly breast self-exams are suggested in addition.

An Untapped Market in NYC!

2005-10-22T17:10:00.000-04:00

Will this ever happen in NYC? This is a great untapped market here in the city there rats are aplenty.

-S

Rat Owners Seek Grooming for Their Pets
LA VERNE, Calif. (Oct. 21) - Karri Garrison is getting rid of that cliche about dirty rats - one rodent at a time. Grooming isn't just for dogs anymore, and many pet owners are bringing in their rats to groomers like Garrison, who uses waterless shampoo to make their coats shine and smell sweet.

Customers at Katie's Pet Depot in La Verne, about 30 miles east of Los Angeles, began requesting rat grooming soon after the store opened nearly two years ago. Employees began researching rats and even adopted some.

"We need to be there for all our clients," Garrison said. "I think we might be the only place around that grooms rats."

One of the clients was named Jewel, a half-pound, white-and-yellow hooded rat owned by a local high school student. The $10 treatment included clipping her claws, spraying her with the waterless shampoo, and using a product that kills fleas and mites.

Garrison and two other employees, Laurie Torres and Gloria Ferguson, also groom guinea pigs, mice, and rabbits.

They said small pets can bring big challenges.

"The most difficult part of grooming rats is trimming their nails," Garrison said. "They have very small feet."

Ferguson recommends pet owners get their animals groomed at least once a month to protect them from parasites.

"I love rats," she said. "It's an obsession to me. Sometimes when they get nervous they (urinate) but they don't usually bite. We know how to handle them because that's what we do."

10/21/05 17:05 EDT

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

Capacity for Hope

2005-10-21T01:06:00.000-04:00

I have no idea who the heck this person is. But, thanks to Marilyn for passing this on.
-S

"The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings with a sense of destination and the energy to get started."
– Norman Cousins

Close Resemblences

2005-10-21T00:26:00.000-04:00

Thanks to J for this!

Purple Hats

2005-10-19T21:59:00.000-04:00

Purple Hats

In honor of women's history month and in memory of Erma Bombeck who lost her fight with cancer. Here is an angel sent to watch over you. Pass this on to five women that you want watched over. If you don't know five women to pass this on to, one will do just fine.

IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER - by Erma Bombeck
(written after she found out she was dying from cancer)

I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day.

I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.

I would have talked less and listened more.

I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained, or the sofa faded.

I would have eaten the popcorn in the 'good' living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.

I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.

I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband.

I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.

I would have sat on the lawn with my grass stains.

I would have cried and laughed less while watching television and more while watching life.

I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil, or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.

Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.

When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, "Later. Now go get washed up for dinner." There would have been more "I love you's." More "I'm sorry's."

But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute...look at it and really see it, live it and never give it back. Stop sweating the small stuff.

Don't worry about who doesn't like you, who has more, or who's doing what.

Instead, let's cherish the relationships we have with those who do love us.

Let's think about what God HAS blessed us with. And what we are doing each day to promote ourselves mentally, physically, emotionally. I hope you all have a blessed day.

Send this on to all the women you are grateful to have as friends. Maybe we should all grab that purple hat earlier. Please send this to five phenomenal women today in celebration of Beautiful Women's Month. If you do, something good will happen: you will boost another woman's self esteem.

Sent with love to my girlfriends...

Dance as if No One is Watching...Sing as if No One is Listening...and Live Each Day as if It were your last...Irish Proverb

The Wizard of Odds

2005-10-19T19:24:00.000-04:00

Thanks to SF for this! :)

Dear Sabine

2005-10-19T04:38:00.000-04:00

Dearest Sabine,

I wonder what you're dreaming about in this picture. I'm pretty sure that you'll wake up in about 1 1/2 hours to say hi to Mommy and have breakfast.

I really enjoyed visiting on Sunday. You're beautiful as always. The green dress looked great on you and complemented your features. And, the bed jammies your Grandma gave you looked great on you too. Many clothes look good on you. You wear them well!

I delighted in seeing you crawling and knocking down the blocks. You have such a magnificent giggle while playing with the stuffed dog as it barks and jumps around (animated by your mother). You indeed are full of life!

It was fun to feed you a bottle before bed and spend some quality time together. More of your personality is emerging, and it's awesome to see you grow in the littlest yet biggest ways.

CQ also enjoyed meeting you. She said you were (and still are) a beautiful baby and a delight to spend time with. She said you had such a good aura that anyone would want to be near you.

I hope to visit you again soon and spend more time with you and your parents. We'll play more the next time and get to giggle some more. And, I'll chat with your parents more. The next visit will be more fun.

Please let your parents know that I said hello and send my love to you and the family.

Love,
Auntie Sarah

Odds & Ends

2005-10-19T03:39:00.000-04:00

* Jessica Biel - named sexiest women alive by Esquire... I agree... I knew for a long time she was sexy. Age 23 now. So, it's ok to say she's sexy now.. finally there's someone different on the sexy scene.

* Best shows this season - Commander in Chief, America's Next Top Model, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, and few more I forgot to mention....

* Cut it out with the news on wehther or not Nick and jessica have split. Many couples forget to wear their rings or do not always wear their rings for various reasons. Imagine being married under the limelight. Give them space and back off!

* With all due respect to Alan Alda, please stop using him in nearly every single crossword puzzles in magazines such as People and In Touch. Before, Alf was common. Now, it's Alan Alda. Move on.

* Etheridge Used Marijuana During Cancer Fight. She's now cancer-free.

* Daniel Craig will be the "new '007." I frankly don't care. I'm glad it's not some big-screen name tho. I always like seeing new names and faces in leading/well-known movies.

* Norah Jones is hot!

* Grace singing during the Will & Grace show last week was hilarious. She was accused of being a snob. Then, to prove she wasn't a snob, she accepted a date with her friend's bf's coworker who lived in a place by the Staten Island Fishkill dump. He eventually dumped her.

* Old news that Mary-Kate Olsen left NYU. I am glad she is being true to herself and I wish her the best in life. She's taking an "approved LOA" to focus on her life and company business.

* Cut it out with news re. Tom and Katie. I'm tired of hearing about them.

* Tori Spelling's husband filed for divorce and is allegedly seeking spousal support. I am against that. What does he need spousal support for?

* Spike Lee went to New Orleans to make a documentary examining how race and politics collided in aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Now, I'm interested in this.
Lee's documentary will be produced by Time Warner's HBO cable channel and is slated to be ready for the one-year anniversary of Katrina.

* Mayim Bialik gave birth to a baby boy. Learned that Mayim means water in Hebrew. Cool.

* Penelope Cruz is hot.

* Check out Sundance Channel's Transgeneration documentary series.

The Government: Official Announcement

2005-10-18T20:23:00.000-04:00

The government today announced that it is changing its emblem from an Eagle to a CONDOM because it more accurately reflects the government's political stance. A condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you a sense of security while you're actually being screwed.

Damn, it just doesn't get more accurate than that!

Shout Out to Darren

2005-10-18T17:48:00.000-04:00

Here's a shout out to Darren Frazier on his 35th birthday! :)

I Will Survive

2005-10-18T17:03:00.000-04:00

Thanks to a friend for this.... this is for those of you who are straight.... you have my empathy and sympathy.
-S

SING IN TUNE TO " I WILL SURVIVE "

*clap your hands above your head again and again like at a concert*

*tap your foot to the beat*

Now sing it loud girls...

Bring it on!

*rocking head*

At first I was afraid, I was petrified,
When you said you had 10 inches Lord I almost died,
But I'd spent oh so many years just waiting for a man that long,
That I grew strong, and I knew that I could take you
on. . .

But there you are, another lie,
I was ready for a big mac and you've bought me a
French fry,
I should have known that it was bullshit,
Just a sad pathetic dream,
Should have known there was no anaconda lurking in
those jeans.

Go on now go, Walk out the door,
Don't you promise me 10 inches then turn up with only
4,
Weren't you a prat to think I wouldn't catch you out,
Don't you know we' re only joking when we say size
doesn't count.

(Chorus)

I will survive, I will survive,
Cos as long as I have batteries,
My sex life is gonna thrive,
I will always have good sex with a handful of latex,
I will survive, I will survive. . .hey . hey

It took all my self control not to laugh out loud,
When I saw your little wiener standing tall and proud,

But to hell with all your ego's and to hell with all
your needs,
Now I'm saving all my lovin for a cordless multi
speed,

Go on now go, Walk out the door,
Don't you promise me 10 inches then turn up with only
4,
Weren't you a prat to think I wouldn't catch you out,
Don't you know we' re only joking when we say size
doesn't count.
HEY, HEY

The Diet Guide to the Jewish Holidays

2005-10-14T00:35:00.000-04:00

Courtesy of Jenny's aunt and uncle.... Jenny is a fellow Jewish friend....

I thought that the following, in addition to giving information was highly amusing.

For those of you who have been searching for a greater understanding of Jewish holidays major and minor, you will find the explanation below most enlightening:

Jewish Holidays

As a general principle, Jewish holidays are divided between days on which you must starve and days on which you overeat. Many Jews observe no fewer than 16 fasts throughout the Jewish year, based on the time-honored principle that even if you are sure that you are ritually purified, you definitely aren't.

Though there are many feasts and fasts, there are no holidays requiring light snacking. Note: Unlike Christians, who simply attend church on special days (e.g. Ash Wednesday), on Jewish holidays most Jews take the whole day off. This is because Jews, for historical and personal reasons, are more stressed out.

The Diet Guide to the Jewish Holidays:

Rosh Hashanah -- Feast
Tzom Gedalia -- Fast
Yom Kippur -- More fasting
Sukkot -- Feast
Hashanah Rabbah -- More feasting
Simchat Torah -- Keep feasting
Month of Heshvan -- No feasts or fasts for a whole month. Get a grip on yourself.
Hanukkah -- Eat potato pancakes
Tenth of Tevet -- Do not eat potato pancakes
Tu B'Shevat -- Feast
Fast of Esther -- Fast
Purim -- Eat pastry
Passover -- Do not eat pastry
Shavuot -- Dairy feast (cheesecake, blintzes etc.)
17th of Tammuz -- Fast (definitely no cheesecake or blintzes)
Tish B'Av -- Very strict fast (don't even think about cheesecake or Blintzes)
Month of Elul -- End of cycle. Enroll in Center for Eating Disorders before High Holidays arrive again.

Except for the fasting ones, here is a synopsis of most Jewish holidays:

-They tried to kill us.
-They couldn't.
-Let's eat!

We wish you a happy, healthy and peaceful new year!

And may all your kugel be calorie-free!

Who's Who?

2005-10-14T00:21:00.000-04:00

Who's who? Can you tell them apart? I happened to view one picture and mistook her for someone else. Both women made the news recently.

Picture #1
Credit given to AP for picture.

Picture #2
Credit given to Getty for picture.

So, who's who? Answer...

Picture #1: Conservative leader Angela Merkel (Christian Democrat party) - took over Germany's Chancellor position as first female chancellor after reaching an agreement with the Social Democrat party on numerous political arrangements.

Picture #2: Harriet Miers, President Bush's pick for Supreme Court nomination which has stirred up controversy.

What both women share in common is the fact that their countries are fucked up with political turmoil and controversies as usual. And, both share similar features although Merkel applies her make up better. Perhaps Miers should meet Merkel for pointers on how to look better in the limelight.

Neighbor Singing Contest

2005-10-12T23:40:00.000-04:00

Ooops. Originally spelled signing contest. Then, I realized... siNGing contest.

Anyways, been having a singing contest with my downstairs neighbor on and off over the past hour. See, he's the building drunk who "professionally trains" as a singer on his karaoke machine. He started at a low volume which I could feel with my fee sometimes after 5 PM. The volume gradually increased, and I was surprised to hear his voice. I'm tone deaf. With my hearing aid, I can hear some - like a severely hard of hearing person, I guess. If I hear the voice, it means he's super loud and already annoying fellow hearing neighbors who might already be yelling out expletives by that time.

Knowing Malcolm's, the building drunk, patterns and tendencies after living above him for 3 years, I knew that by the time I returned home late from class, he'd be at a louder volume. Sure enough, I was right.

So, out of the blue after stomping my feet few times (which NEVER works but gives me satisfaction knowing I tried something), I just belted out some nonsense words with no restrain. When I realized that the volume briefly went down a bit, I thought that perhaps this was a great spur-of-the-moment improv move on my part. When the volume went up again, I belted out again unrestrained. The volume went down again. When it went up again, I opened my lovely mouth and did every speech therapist and sensitive embarassed hearing parents' worst nightmare - I sang outloud with my fully and truly deaf voice - with my tongue wagging nonsensely in the mouth and my throat doing whatever as I breathed erratically, happily bellowing out whatever words or sounds that came out.

This was a fun singing contest with my downstairs neighbor, the building drunk. Our singings were like 2 different roller coasters racing, going up and down at different times and trying to outdo each other. Then, I intentionally (and I think) coherently (with the lifelong-years worth of speech training in mind) sang - "Now, will the building drunk please shut up and turn down the damn music because this deaf person can hear it! And, a deaf person is not supposed to hear your music and voice!" Well, something along these lines.

I emailed my roommates to inform them of this new option in dealing with the building drunk when he's too drunk to accurately judge his voice, let alone the music volume of his "professional" karaoke machine.

Realization

2005-10-12T18:29:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Carm for this one...

This one makes you think and realize just how blessed you are...

To realize
The value of a sister
Ask someone
Who doesn't have one

To realize
The value of ten years:
Ask a newly
Divorced couple.

To realize
The value of four years:
Ask a graduate.

To realize
The value of one year:
Ask a student who
Has failed a final exam.

To realize
The value of nine months:
Ask a mother who gave birth to a stillborn.

To realize
The value of one month:
Ask a mother
who has given birth to
A premature baby.

To realize
The value of one week:
Ask an editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realize
The value of one minute:
Ask a person
Who has missed the train, bus or plane.

To realize
The value of one-second:
Ask a person
Who has survived an accident.

Time waits for no one.

Treasure every moment you have.

You will treasure it even more when
you can share it with someone special.

To realize the value of a friend or family
member:

LOSE ONE.

If Women Ruled the World....

2005-10-11T00:53:00.000-04:00

Courtesy of Jenny....

Día de la Raza

2005-10-10T12:13:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Carm for this educational piece.

-S

Día de la Raza

A celebration of the modern Latin American and the contradictions of the Columbus celebration.

To sum up the great profits of this voyage, I am able to promise, for a trifling assistance from your Majesties, any quantity of gold, drugs, cotton, mastic, aloe, and as many slaves for maritime service as your Majesties may stand in need of.
-Christopher Columbus

Hispanics have a particular concern when it comes to the celebration of Columbus. It used to be that Hispanics would argue with Italians over who had more of a claim to the Columbus expedition. While Columbus was Italian, his expeditions were funded and powered by the Iberian nations of Spain and Portugal. These two nations would dominate the European exploration the Western hemisphere in cooperation with the talents of other Latin nations. Today, it seems as if it's everyone versus the
American Indians [http://web.mit.edu/thistle/www/v9/9.11/1columbus.html] on whether to celebrate the life of Columbus.

For Hispanics, the dilemma is that our cultures and languages [http://members.dandy.net/~orocobix/terms1.htm] are heavily influenced by Native Americans (referred to as indios in Latin America). Beyond the influence of indio culture, we share much of the same blood, and therefore history. The same can be said of the Africans who would become slaves in the Americas. Many call the attacks on Columbus revisionist history, but that claim loses weight in light of the fact
that history was being revised as it was written. Every action, regardless how malevolent, was justified in the name of the Church. Our accepted history isn't the work of unbiased intellectuals, but rather religious and political zealots seeking fortune. The rest of the story has also been recorded, but is seldom presented.

It cannot be said that Columbus was simply a product of his times. In every era and region where there has been slavery, there has been an abolitionist. In every era there was brutality, there were voices of opposition and advocacy for the abused. This isn't a case of applying modern morality to past actions, but rather a case of applying any morality at all. Some journalists have tried to turn the tables by
equating the rituals of Aztecs [http://www.ambergriscaye.com/pages/mayan/aztec.html] and other groups with the brutality of European conquerors in the New World. The
contradiction is that this righteous morality has always been applied to our indio ancestors, but the actions of our European ancestors have always been viewed merely as a product of their time and culture. Most people are aware that cannibalism or human sacrifice existed in the Americas, but those same people often believe that claims of Columbus' legacy of brutality and slavery are fiction. We also accept the idea that widespread slavery and nation-felling were morally acceptable compared to the confined atrocities that occurred in a few of the original indio nations.

In the case of Columbus, his primary moral opponents were Fray Bartolomé de las Casas [http://www.lasculturas.com/lib/libLasCasas.php] and Queen Isabella. Queen Isabella was a strong advocate of Columbus, his patroness, but she would also finally come to question his policies and would later have him arrested. Fray de las Casas himself left a legacy of paradoxes. He did own Arawak slaves, but was the first to document atrocities against the natives as atrocities and not as righteous
necessities. He argued that they had souls and should be treated with dignity. Unfortunately, he also was one of the first to recommend using Africans instead of the Arawak as slaves.

Columbus was a magnificent navigator and naval commander. Contrary to one of the most widespread urban legends, he was not [http://www.hartford-hwp.com/Taino/docs/columbus.html] among the first to believe the earth was round. This had been known for centuries. He does have the distinction of being the first European (that we know of) to make conscious repeated journeys while mapping his route to the Americas. Columbus also established the first European government in
the islands and became governor. This is where his image tarnishes. Las Casas, who journeyed with Columbus, would document such horrors as gambling to see who could cut a person in half with one stroke of the sword. This is only the beginning of the documented atrocities.

Columbus' government would be the first to institute an official form of slavery and an active onslaught of brutality against the natives. He would define the rest of the conquest for many. Las Casas is sometimes credited with the Spanish "Black Legend [http://clas-www.uchicago.edu/Civilization/American/Supp135/LasCasas.html]"
that painted them all as savages.

It is important to note that there were those who behaved with respect towards the Arawak. Queen Isabella recognized the Arawak as her subjects, to be protected and treated with at least a basic sense of dignity. When Columbus sent back hundreds of Taino [http://www.lasculturas.com/lib/libTaino.php] indians to be sold as slaves, Queen Isabella ordered them free and returned to their land.

Eventually, the European colonists and sovereigns became so discontent with Columbus' mismanagement that he was arrested and shipped back to Spain in chains. He spent the rest of his life trying to regain his governorship over Hispaniola [http://www.hispaniola.com/].

The government of Columbus was brutal and violated human dignity and the moral senses of his contemporaries. He was the first to establish institutions of slavery and brutal conquest that would lead to the demise of the nations and people who already called the Western Hemisphere their home. He is also responsible for completing the modern Latin American identity by introducing Europeans, Africans and Asians to the family identity of the Americas. It is an irony that the only two
individuals celebrated with national holidays in the United States of America are Columbus, a man who ended his career in disgrace for his policies over Spanish subjects and cost many their lives, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who gave his life fighting for the dignity of every man. Not every sin of the first colonists can be laid at the feet of Columbus. Even he wrote about his colonial subjects, "I take my oath that numbers of men have gone to the Indies who did not deserve water of God or man." Still, you have to wonder how the first meeting of the two hemispheres would have gone if Columbus had applied the same strict management to his own people that he did to the Arawak he conquered.

There's a saying that Columbus landed in 1492 and nine months later the first latinoamericano was born. El Día de la Raza is celebrated on Columbus Day. It either replaces it or is combined with the holiday, depending on the nation celebrating. The U.S. celebrates on the second Monday in October; most of Latin America celebrates it on the 12th. El Día de la Raza[http://www.lasculturas.com/lib/libDiadelaRaza.php] celebrates the birth of our current identity, with its bittersweet history and contradictions. Our ancestors fought against each other sometimes, fought together other times and created families from the very beginning. Columbus Day won't find me celebrating Columbus, the man, but I will be grateful that I have all the ancestors I do, from all over the globe.

-KJ Balogun

Time Flies!

2005-10-10T00:43:00.000-04:00

10 years ago.....

In 1st year of college and starting to work jobs to pay my way through college. Met and dated beautiful smart Yalie women. Met a girl I ended up staying with for 2 years. Did the AIDS Ride from Boston to NYC. Escaped on weekends for deaf medicine after a week of classes on a hearing college campus. Made the college softball team only to quit later on after adding yet another job to make ends meet. Cut my hair to a short buzz-cut style.

5 years ago.....

Left a public relations agency to return to working in the social services field. Worked at New York Society for the Deaf where many people in the field seem to have worked at one point or another during their career. Lived in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and didn't mind the "long" commute into the city. Felt right at home in the city and enjoyed meeting people. Started to become involved with Deaf Women United - Greater NY Chapter. Elected to the Board.

1 year ago....

A graduate student at a prestigious university, undergoing growth and numerous transitions - all for the best, still loving living in NYC without any questions or doubts, continued vision field loss, meeting a dear friend of mine who I've come to become sisters with, living as a Manhattanite, loving living here although I dream of someday living in a building with a laundry room IN the building, elevators, courtyard, and perhaps in closer proximity to a subway station .....

Yesterday.....

Slept in. Talked with friends. Went out to dinner. Played in the rain and got all wet. Had fun. Laughed a lot. Went to bed happy.

5 snacks I enjoy.....

Coke
Frozen grapes/fruits
Mozzarella string cheese
Cheese/cracker/fruit platter from Starbucks
Ice cold water with ice cubes dancing in the glass

5 songs i know all the words to.....

None that I can think of.... remember portions of...

Lean on Me
All I Ask of You (opera)
Step By Step
I Love You Bushels & Pecks (in Italian)

5 things I would do with a million dollars....

1 - Give half to my brother
2 - Pay off ALL school loans
3 - Go on a vacation overseas and go to beautiful beaches
4 - Invest
5 - Buy my own place in Manhattan - Upper West Side, Central Park West, or Midtown West then buy a place in Brooklyn if money has grown enough by then

5 things I'd never wear.....

1 - mini-skirts
2 - man's tuxedo
3 - Uggs boots
4 - tent dresses aka muumuu dresses (i think)
5 - bathing suits with skirts

5 bad habits.....

1 - Sleeping through my alarm clock
2 - Drinking coke
3 - Forgetting to return clothes to stores
4 - Forgetting to clean the hair out of the tub after showering
5 - Leaving stacks of school books in the living room while in middle of studies, writing papers, etc. (i'm fortunate to have supportive understanding roomies)

5 fav toys.....

1 - cat toys for my cat to happily play with
2- art supplies
3 - the dvd remote control (to figure out how the heck to watch a movie, not miss a chapter, etc)
4 - the laptop
5 - and more....

Elvis

2005-10-08T20:17:00.000-04:00

Heeeeeere's Elvis!

Elvis, the dog, not Elvis Presley! Elvis Presley still hasn't been found. But, my dear friends MK and Casey did find Elvis the dog. Now, they're one happy family. I visited and met Elvis 1-2 weeks ago. He was adorable, funny, alert and brilliant. I can't wait to see Elvis again! It's so much fun to watch a puppy grow up.

Congratulations, Kate & Tom

2005-10-06T21:34:00.000-04:00

Congratulations, Kate & Tom, on expecting your first child together. I'm sure that we'll understand more this time around when you go jumping up and down on or off more couches during upcoming interviews.

Upcoming Blog

2005-10-06T03:49:00.000-04:00

A blog about slices of life in Hell's Kitchen, my neighborhood, will be coming soon. Here's a preview.

Worst Disaster to Hit the US

2005-10-06T03:27:00.000-04:00

When will the rest of America wake up and realize that Bush is the worst disaster to strike the United States?

Bush nominates a woman to the Supreme Court who has no experience as a judge although she has experience as a lawyer, who is yet another one of Bush's endless "loyal friends," needs an extreme makeover especially instructions in how to properly apply eyeliner unless she has a visual problem causing her to think that the eyeliners are thinner than they appear (just like objects in your car side mirror are actually larger and closer than they appear), and seems like a quick shoo-in through the Congress since she's probably got nothing that the politicians can find enough mud to slug her with. With all due respect to her, I hope that if she is appointed to the Supreme Court, she's a pleasant surprise for Americans. I'd like to see more information about her employment history and track record as a lawyer. Yes, I know she was once the President of the Texas Bar Association or something like that. Whop-de-doo! Titles aside, how did she work? What were her ethics? Where does she stand on major issues?

Bush goes riding bikes with Lance Armstrong while ignoring Mama Cindy because he does not have the spine to face her. Instead, he biked away and put on that infamous face. What a wimp.

Bush exhibited that same facial expression during the Katrina disaster just like he did while reading books to children on 9/11 after receiving news of what just took place. That face is well known by now. Every time I see that face, I know that something bad has happened, and he's being a dimwit about it once again.

Bush doesn't know how to move beyond his comfort zone and team of "buddies" who have money or have been "loyal to him since his earlier Texan days." Perhaps Bush should have stayed in Texas since he seems to love Texas so much as evidenced by his frequent vacations, endless loyal Texan friends and chums, business ties, and so on. Need I say more? He doesn't have the guts to take on real changes for America outside of his britches and comfort zones. Perhaps he could learn one thing or two from watching "Commander In Chief." It should be easy enough for him to understand and learn something while watching. If not, he must be dumber than we already made him out to be.

I am counting the time left until he is out of the White House. I hope that we have decent presidential candidates this time around, minus the few dimwits from smaller parties who don't have real platforms and take away important votes from the candidate we really need in the office. That includes Al Sharpton. When is Al going to get it in his head that he has no chance in making it to the White House? Guess democracy is a two-sided sword. We have this privilege of having different parties and voting for who we want in government. Yet, when we have one too many, votes are more spread out to a point where a dimwit like Bush is unfortunately reelected to office.

Bush is such a pea-head with his pea-sized brain full of squashed peas. Pass the pea bowl, please!

5 Ways to Possibly Hypnotize Guys & Lesbians

2005-10-06T03:20:00.000-04:00

Disclaimer: Some of you may find this humorous. Some of you may not. This is x-rated and includes nudity. If you disapprove of nudity, do not click. If you are comfortable with nudity and have a sense of humor, click. This does not necessarily represent my approval or agreement. This is posted for possible entertainment purposes.

www.ourlighterside.com/stuff/hypnotize

Through My Cat's Eyes

2005-10-05T22:52:00.000-04:00

I love looking into my cat's eyes, whether it be us looking at each other or her looking at something. I would love to look through my cat's eyes one day and know what is going on with her.

Pastor Gets Unwelcome Supply of Viagra

2005-10-05T22:51:00.000-04:00

I wonder which denomination he was with. Sounds like quite a surprise....

-S

LINCOLN, Neb. (Sept. 29) - A pastor received an unwelcome supply of Viagra pills by registered mail earlier this month. The 500 pills of the impotence drug was very unexpected, he said.

The pills were charged to his credit card, which the pastor believes was stolen while he was on vacation in Canada, according to the Nebraska State Patrol.

"I do see the humor in it, but it's kind of not the type of humor you'd want for yourself," the pastor said Wednesday.

The company that issued the pills had a Canadian phone number, and the package had a return address in India.

All information gathered was sent to the FBI, and the unordered pharmaceuticals were destroyed.

09/29/05 16:32 EDT

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

Kung Fu Power Outfit

2005-10-05T22:47:00.000-04:00

I liked my outfit today which made me feel like I had kung fu power, especially while walking down the street in my boots with heels with audible steps. Today, I wore long dark rose pants, black leather boots with thick heels, and a black top armed with a small black purse. I was ready to go and do a Kung Fu kick with my boots.

No Hurricane Ursula?

2005-10-05T22:41:00.000-04:00

I talked with someone recently who is a hurricane afficiando. I asked him, since Tropical Storm Tammy was threatening Florida at that time, what the name for Hurricane/Storm U would be. I thought Hurricane Ursula would be appropriate. This country has taken more than its share of battering storms this season. And, the season isn't over yet. It is common knowledge that after the Hurricane names run out on the A-Z list that any further storm names will be according to the Greek alphabet. How many times do we get to see this during our lifetime during a season?

There are no Hurricane/Storm U's or Y's and Z's. They will skip U to Vince and Wilma before resorting to the Greek alphabet. Then, it's Greek time! We'll be learning our Greek ABC's.

*tune begins* Alpha Beta.......Z... and now I know my Greek ABC's. Won't you sing along with me the next time? *tune repeats as I bob my head*

Socialist

2005-10-04T17:10:00.000-04:00

You are a
Social Liberal
(73% permissive)

and an...
Economic Liberal
(10% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Socialist

Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid
Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

L'Shana Tovah!

2005-10-04T13:07:00.000-04:00

L'Shanah Tovah!

I wish you a Shana Tova U'Metukah!

This is a time to start over - who you are, yourself, your life, your plans and choices, and your commitments.

Enjoy apples with sweet honey!

Hugs!

First Household Call

2005-10-02T11:57:00.000-04:00

Just woke up to receive the household's first phone call in 3 years. See, we've never had a real phone in this place since it's a deaf household. Sorenson changed everything.

I was in the middle of dreaming about travels to Australia, New Zealand, and surrounding islands. I was on the phone numerous times with my father, aunt and uncle, etc throughout the dream making travel arrangements. At one point during my travels, a friend flew out so we could explore several small islands with clear blue water, vibrant sea life, and natives in their natural surroundings not interfered by the government. Then, I got out of the water to chat with my aunt and uncle and make new travel plans for the next leg of my journey. During this phone call in my dream, my roommate Kate came in to wake me up and inform me that a friend was on the phone. I had my eyes half open, nodded and closed my eyes again.

See, I thought it was surreal that someone was calling me in real life so I just nodded. Thought it was a spoof during my dream cuz I was already in the middle of a phone conversation at that moment in my dream... with a slight odd departure to Kate telling me that someone called me and is waiting for me on the phone. I continued to chat with my aunt and uncle on the dream phone.

Kate entered again. This time, she tapped me harder and kinda sign-screamed that my friend really was on the phone. I said - what phone? Remember, we've never had a phone in this household over the past 3 years. So, this was out of ordinary.

Me - what phone?

She sign-screamed - your friend is on the phone - Sorenson!!!

I said - sorenson? how?

Kate - Doesn't matter. Get up! She's waiting for you now! Phone to talk with you now!

Me - Uhh... ok...(dream's still lingering in my head, and i'm still sleepy with my eyes temporarily open) soon me get up.

Kate - No - NOW. Real phone call. She on phone now waiting. U must come and talk with her.

Me - ok ok ok please close the door. thanks. (puzzled sleepy look)

Me thinking - mmm? sorenson? phone? how? (closed eyes... half dreaming.. told aunt and uncle I'd call back and I had to go now and answer the other phone. hung up)... woke up again... Kate would kill me if she found me still in bed dozing off. She doesn't just make this up, and this has to be real somehow. let's go check it out. Put on something decent cuz it's sorenson.

Out of room. Plunked down on couch. Yup, an interpreter on the screen. Me half asleep said hi. Friend was in energetic mood and said hi hi hi! Me nodded. Hi.

Checked train sked. Called her back. Finalized plans for this afternoon.

My roommates and I just discussed our first household phone call. Bec was thrown off. She told Kate - the phone is ringing! She thought it was her own cellphone but was puzzled. Oh, the tv is ringing! Sorenson! Kate - uh ok ok ok .... click remote control. Ah, phone call. I've received the first official household phone call.

Now I'm off to shower and get ready to head for the train station. Will have pedicures with my friend and just spend time together. It'll be fun.

Google Image Bandwagon

2005-10-01T18:20:00.000-04:00

Jumped the "Google Image" bandwagon and did this for fun. It indeed was a lot of fun!

-S

Age now - 29

Next age: 30

Hometown - NYC

Neighborhood - Hell's Kitchen/Midtown West

There are many slices of life in Hell's Kitchen for sure.

Last residence - Bay Ridge, Brooklyn

One of the Avenues in the neighborhood.

A common sight I grew to love as a neighborhood signature.

Fave color - Aqua
(Couldn't decide which one to pick since both capture how that color makes me feel)

My Favorite Fruit - Peach

Favorite Nickname - Peach Girl
(given my my dear daddy and called this all my life)

My Favorite Veggie - Snow Pea

Came across this great recipe for "Snow Pea Canoes"

Favorite Salad - Caprese

First Name - Sarah

(A Hebrew name that means princess)

This beautiful oak wood Mezzuza case is enhanced with the Hebrew letter shin in silver and is adorned with sterling silver leaves and semi-precious gems.

I felt this was appropriate to include since I have come to learn and find proof that I have Jewish heritage.

Famous Person with Same Name - Sarah Jessica Parker

Middle Name - Marie

Reminded me of the "Ave Maria" song.... thanks to my Italian relatives who attend Catholic masses.

Found this hilarious, so had to include it....

Came across so many pictures of nuns named Marie. What % of nuns are named Marie? I sure wonder!

First & Middle Name

Too cute that I had to include it!

My Fave Pet - Cat
(I admit I love dogs just as equally as cats.)

Reminded me of my first cat, Joy. She was alive when my mom became pregnant with me, and she was there when my mom went into labor with me and stayed with mom until Dad came home to take her to the hospital.

My Current Pet's Name - Emma

My Hobbies

Exploring

Taking Pictures (until I finally get a digital camera, I frequently use disposable cameras with which I actually do get some great pictures sometimes. I always see opportunities that would make great photo shots)

Watching Movies - Especially Indies, Foreign, Comedy, etc

Exploring, Observing, & Learning About Sealife (used to want to be a marine biologist until I realized I did not want to do certain scientific stuff that the job required and that I wanted to work with people)

Beach-Hopping

Why? This is how seeing and exploring new beaches make me feel - especially when I can observe sealife and enjoy water beauties.

Fave vacation spots - Hawaii & South Beach

Hawaii

South Beach (an actual picture from South Beach)

Huh?

2005-09-29T23:13:00.000-04:00

Huh? What's with this??? I know for a fact that cats fart at least once a year - to my knowledge. Either they fart more frequently than we know and they're too polite to let us know/smell it. Or, they simply just don't fart as frequently as us human counterparts do.

Crossing Signs

2005-09-29T23:08:00.000-04:00

Let's see....

Question: How many times have we seen this sign during our lifetime?

Answer: One too many times.

I have another question for you.

Question: How many times have you seen this sign?

Answer: Once!

Who Cares?

2005-09-29T23:07:00.000-04:00

Who cares about this? Someone wrote a book about what a deaf girl misses out on. I say... who cares? Life offers so much more than these...

Porno for the Deaf

2005-09-29T23:03:00.000-04:00

Who would you like to be the interpreter who pops up in that corner?

The Things Brits Do!

2005-09-29T23:00:00.000-04:00

What's up with this?

Deaf Bunny

2005-09-29T22:57:00.000-04:00

CDC warning - please take note of this disease

2005-09-29T22:47:00.000-04:00

Please be aware of this new, insidious disease.

THE CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL has issued a no-nonsense, albeit delayed, warning about a new, highly virulent strain of sexually transmitted disease.

This disease is contracted through dangerous and high risk behavior.

The disease is called Gonorrhea Lectim (pronounced "Gonna Re-elect him").

Many victims have contracted it after having been screwed for the past four years, in spite of having taken measures to protect themselves from this especially troublesome disease.

Cognitive sequellae of individuals infected with Gonorrhea Lectim include, but are not limited to, anti-social personality disorder traits; delusions of grandeur with a distinct messianic flavor; chronic mangling of the English language; extreme cognitive dissonance; inability to incorporate new information; pronounced xenophobia and homophobia; inability to accept responsibility for actions; exceptional cowardice masked by acts of misplaced bravado; uncontrolled facial smirking; total ignorance of geography and history; tendencies toward creating evangelical theocracies; and a strong propensity for categorical, all-or-nothing behavior.

The disease is sweeping Washington, DC and there are considerable outbreaks throughout the country. Naturalists and epidemiologists are amazed and baffled that this malignant disease originated only a few years ago in a Texas bush.

Please inform any of your friends and associates who have been acting unusual lately.

Grandmommy's Hometown

2005-09-29T19:03:00.000-04:00

My grandmommy hails from Ribera, Sicilia. I decided to check out google image and use it for this post.

This is the armor for Ribera, my grandmother's hometown.

Ribera is in the Providence of Agrigento.

Here's my grandmother's home island: Sicilia. Think of it as the mainland Italia kicking its soccer ball, the island of Sicilia. To get an idea of where Ribera is, just look for Agrigento, and Ribera is to the northwest.

A Favor to Ask....

2005-09-29T16:35:00.000-04:00

A favor to ask -- And it only takes a minute ..

The Breast Cancer site is having trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their quota for donating at least one free mammogram each day to an underprivileged woman.

It takes only a few seconds to go to their site and click on "donating a mammogram" (the rectangular pink button in the middle). There's no financial obligation; it doesn't cost you a thing.

Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammograms in exchange for advertising.

Here's the website! PLEASE pass it along to all the people you know! http://www.thebreastcancersite.com

PLEASE TELL 10 FRIENDS TO TELL 10 TODAY

Interpreters Provided?

2005-09-28T16:33:00.000-04:00

I'm glad that they provide a TTY number. I hope it really works and that competently-trained people are answering the TTY calls.

In the meantime, I wonder if certified interpreters are provided at these sites mentioned below. I sure hope so.

Approximately 10% of Americans have a degree of hearing loss. A smaller percentage out of that are Deaf with ASL as their first language. Now, apply that % to the population of Katrina victims and people displaced by the hurricane. Do the math, and the number of Deaf, deaf and hard of hearing people is high enough to warrant competent interpreters at each Disaster Recovery Center site.

I also wonder which agencies that focus on serving Deaf clients have been formallly identified by FEMA as service provideres for Deaf people who're Katrina victims - in each state (i.e., Texas, Louisana, Florida). For example, New York Society for the Deaf provided Project Liberty services to the Deaf community (as identified and designated by FEMA and the state) to help Deaf NYCers, their friends and families deal with the aftermath of 9/11.

I also want to know how FEMA is ensuring access for displaced Deaf people who have been moved or sent to other states. Did they already have such deaf and interpreter agencies on list for each state as part of emergency preparedness and emergency management plans?

-S

DISASTER RECOVERY CENTERS OPEN TO SERVE HURRICANE VICTIMS

AUSTIN – To help meet the ongoing needs of those who suffered damage from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Texas Governor’s Division of Emergency Management opened Disaster Recovery Centers. The centers provide a single location where people are able to talk face-to-face with recovery specialists.

There are two ways to begin the application process. People may call FEMA’s toll-free number, 1-800-621-FEMA (3362), or TTY 1-800-462-7585 for those with speech or hearing impairment. Both numbers are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week until further notice. Or apply online at http://www.fema.gov.

Disaster assistance may include grants to help pay for temporary housing, minor home repair and other serious disaster-related expenses not covered by insurance or other sources. Low-interest disaster loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) also are available for residential and business losses not covered by insurance.

Representatives from local, state and federal agencies, and voluntary organizations, will staff the Disaster Recovery Centers. Visitors can:

• Inquire about the status of their application.
• Receive referrals for temporary rental assistance resources.
• Get help completing SBA low-interest loan applications for homeowners, renters or business owners;
• Receive information about different types of state and federal disaster assistance.
• Receive referrals to American Red Cross and other voluntary organizations to help with immediate unmet needs.
• Learn cost-effective measures to reduce the impact of future flooding or disaster losses.

These federal and state Disaster Recovery Centers are open, or will open as noted, until further notice:

Greater Austin Area DRC
825 East Rundberg Lane
Suite E
Austin (Closed on Sundays)
Hours: 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Kelly Air Force Base
809 Davy Crockett Road
Bldg. 171
San Antonio
Hours: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Amon Carter Exhibit Hall
3401 Burnett Tandy Drive
Fort Worth
Hours: 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Island Community Center
4700 Broadway
Galveston
Hours: 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Kelly Air Force Base
809 Davy Crockett Rd
Bldg. 1537
San Antonio
Hours: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Greater Houston Area DRC
6059 South Loop
EastHouston
Opening Wed. Sept. 28
Hours: 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Dallas Convention Center
650 Griffin Street
Dallas
Hours: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

FEMA prepares the nation for all hazards and manages federal response and recovery efforts following any national incident. FEMA also initiates mitigation activities, trains first responders, works with state and local emergency managers, and manages the National Flood Insurance Program and the U.S. Fire Administration. FEMA became part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on March 1, 2003.

A Hands-On Adventure

2005-09-28T08:43:00.000-04:00

From the newsroom of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Honolulu, Hawaii, Sunday, September 25, 2005 .....

A hands-on adventureTactile sign language helps a deaf and blind couple express their excitement about their first trip to Oahu

By Helen Altonn

Ken and Annie Sting of Seattle can't see or hear, but they had the time of their lives visiting Oahu through touching.

They experienced Hawaii's culture, plants, history and marine life through tactile sign language.

"And they really like the smells of things, like leis," said Holly Delcambre, volunteer interpreter with the couple. "Plumerias are a big hit."

Ken Sting, 65, recently retired from the Light House for the Blind, a sheltered workshop in Seattle, where his wife, 58, still works. Their trip here Sept. 13-22 was a retirement celebration.

They left Thursday talking about returning for three or four weeks. "It's been a great experience," Sting said through Delcambre.

"It is so beautiful here," said Annie, explaining her impressions of Hawaii were formed by Elvis Presley's "Blue Hawaii" movie when she still had vision.

The two have Usher syndrome, an inherited disease resulting in hearing loss and retinitis pigmentosa, an eye disorder causing vision to worsen over time. Balance problems also may occur.

There are three types of Usher syndrome, according to the National Institute of Deafness and other Communication Disorders. The Stings have type 1, one of the most common types, said Delcambre.

People with USH1 are profoundly deaf from birth. Children begin to have vision problems by the time they are 10.

Annie has "a tiny itsy bit of sight," Delcambre said. Ken has a guide dog, Skinner, he left at home.

The couple uses tactile sign language, holding another person's hands and using movements to converse."They do sign language on their hands or my hands," Delcambre demonstrated. "They feel the shape and movement. You can express a lot of emotions through your hands."

The couple was clearly excited as they used their hands to describe playing with Sea Life Park's hybrid dolphin-whale Kekaimalu and her baby, Kawilikai. The wholfins performed, splashed them with water, nuzzled and kissed them.

"I got to kiss a dolphin. Can you imagine that?" Annie said through interpreter Tracey Clark. "I loved touching it and feeling the flippers. I'm so thankful to be able to do this."

"Dolphins are very smart," her husband said. "I got to put my hands on his back and he came up and gave me a kiss ... The skin is so soft."

He said he feels the adventure "was a blessing from God."The Stings were on the go every day with Delcambre and Clark, both longtime friends and traveling companions, and interpreter Rogelio Rios, who just graduated from high school. His father is deaf-blind and he wanted to check things out to see if he could bring him here, Delcambre said.

"Ken's impression was it's really a good place for people who are deaf-blind to come because people are really friendly and helpful and there's so much to touch.

"Although he's "kind of a shy guy," she said he's talking about giving a lecture on his Hawaii experience to a deaf-blind class in Seattle. He has a lot to tell.The couple, married 19 years, danced to vibrations from speakers at the block party on Kalakaua Avenue. They fed the fish at the Byodo-In Temple, rang the bell and felt it ringing. They smelled flowers and touched the long needle as a woman made leis outside their hotel.

At Dole Plantation, they enjoyed a train tour and felt pineapples, which they had thought grew on trees.

They loved Iolani Palace, Delcambre said. "People there were so nice. They had a bunch of things to touch at the end," such as wood from the flooring, curtain fabric and a piece of crystal from the chandelier.

They touched names on the wall at the Arizona Memorial, looking for Sting and Annie's maiden name, Thomas, but found neither. They met a 94-year-old Pearl Harbor veteran who signed a book for Ken and the three posed for a photo.

They went to the swap meet three times. "They really got into that, feeling everything and talking to people," Delcambre said. Ken, signing with Delcambre, said he found two hula dancing dolls with batteries to take home that were "a bargain" for $14.

They felt a coconut at a stand, drank the milk with a straw and then ate fresh sliced coconut. "They really liked that," Delcambre said. "Especially Ken. He was going on and on about how they don't have that in Seattle.

"They felt a lot of different fruits and vegetables at Chinatown, tasted sugar cane and touched live squirming catfish.

They thought the Polynesian Cultural Center "was really fun," Delcambre said. "The people there were really wonderful."

The most exciting part, she said, was the Samoan exhibit where one of the men did a special demonstration allowing Ken to feel him hopping up a tree with a strap around his feet.

The couple also was intrigued with how bananas grow in a bunch on a tree, she said.

A woman demonstrating weaving showed Annie what she was doing and gave her a woven hat and the couple learned how to weave a fish in the Tonga area.

Among other memories they're taking home:

They went to a noodle house and were sitting at the counter when birds flew in, Delcambre said. "It was like a different thing for us.

"They sat on their hotel balcony during a rain thinking the whole day was ruined and then, unlike rain in Seattle, it stopped.

They managed to get to the beach between excursions, Delcambre said. "Ken kept saying, 'Is Jaws here?'

"Turtles swam up while they were having a picnic lunch at a beach near Sea Life Park, she said. "Annie was very thrilled with that."

The couple had a surprise birthday party Tuesday night for Clark with a passion fruit, guava and pineapple "rainbow cake" Ken ordered at a bakery that morning, Delcambre said. The couple gave her a little Hawaiian pineapple-shaped container they had purchased at Dole Plantation.

Their "trip of a lifetime" ended with a luau Wednesday night.

© Honolulu Star-Bulletin 2005

Oprah!

2005-09-28T08:41:00.000-04:00

Oprah to Produce Broadway Version of 'Purple'

NEW YORK (Sept. 25) - "The Color Purple," a musical based on Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, will have Oprah Winfrey as a producer and investor when it opens on Broadway in December.

In Winfrey's first Broadway venture, she will contribute more than $1 million of the musical's $10 million production cost, The New York Times reported Sunday on its Web site.

The musical, which has been revised since receiving some bad reviews when it opened in Atlanta last year, will be called "Oprah Winfrey Presents: 'The Color Purple."'

Winfrey told the Times it has been "a secret dream" to be part of Broadway.

"I hope to do for this production some of what I've been able to do for books - that is, to open the door to the possibilities for a world of people who have never been or even thought of going to a Broadway show," she said.

Winfrey was nominated for an Oscar for her role in the film version of "The Color Purple," directed by Steven Spielberg.

Walker's book has been adapted by Marsha Norman, author of "'night, Mother," while the score is by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray.

The Winfrey production will be directed by Gary Griffin, a Chicago-based director best known for his small-scale productions of musicals such as "My Fair Lady" and "Pacific Overtures." The choreographer is Donald Byrd.

Besides Winfrey, producers include Quincy Jones, Scott Sanders and Roy Furman.

The actress LaChanze will star in the show.

"The Color Purple" is told through the eyes of Celie, a timid young Southern woman who is raped by her father, gives birth to two children and suffers years of cruelty married to an abusive man.

09/25/05 22:23 EDT

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

Attack of the Mold Spores in New Orleans

2005-09-28T08:36:00.000-04:00

U know there's an epidemic of molds growing in New Orleans and surrounding areas? If it was me, I'd just move elsewhere.

-S

Monster Mold Threatens Health in the South
By JULIA SILVERMAN and MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP

NEW ORLEANS (Sept. 27) - Wearing goggles, gloves, galoshes and a mask, Veronica Randazzo lasted only 10 minutes inside her home in St. Bernard Parish. Her eyes burned, her mouth filled with a salty taste and she felt nauseous. Her 26-year-old daughter, Alicia, also covered in gear, came out coughing.

"That mold," she said. "It smells like death."

Mold now forms an interior version of kudzu in the soggy South, posing health dangers that will make many homes tear-downs and will force schools and hospitals to do expensive repairs.

It's a problem that any homeowner who has ever had a flooded basement or a leaky roof has faced. But the magnitude of this problem leaves many storm victims prey to unscrupulous or incompetent remediators. Home test kits for mold, for example, are worthless, experts say.

Don't expect help from insurance companies, either. Most policies were revised in the last decade to exclude mold damage because of "sick building" lawsuits alleging illnesses. Although mold's danger to those with asthma or allergies is real, there's little or no science behind other claims, and a lot of hype.

"We went through a period when people were really irrational about the threat posed by the mere sight of mold in their homes," said Nicholas Money, a mold expert from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and author of "Carpet Monsters and Killer Spores," a book about mold.

"If you give me 10 minutes in anybody's home, I'll find mold growth somewhere," he said.
Mold is everywhere. Most people have no problem living with this ubiquitous fungus. It reproduces by making spores, which travel unseen through the air and grow on any moist surface, usually destroying it as the creeping crud grows.

Mold can't be eliminated but can be controlled by limiting moisture, which is exactly what couldn't be done after Hurricane Katrina. Standing water created ideal growth conditions and allowed mold to penetrate so deep that experts fear that even studs of many homes are saturated and unsalvageable.

In fact, New Orleans is where mold's health risks were first recognized.

A Louisiana State University allergist, the late Dr. John Salvaggio, described at medical meetings in the 1970s what he called "New Orleans asthma," an illness that filled hospital emergency rooms each fall with people who couldn't breathe. He linked it to high levels of mold spores that appeared in the humid, late summer months.

"These are potent allergens," but only for people who have mold allergies, said Dr. Jordan Fink, a Medical College of Wisconsin professor and past president of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

Molds produce irritants that can provoke coughing, and some make spores that contain toxins, which further irritate airways.

"The real pariah is this thing called Stachybotrys chartarum. This organism produces a greater variety of toxins and in greater concentrations than any other mold that's been studied," Money said.

Doctors at Cleveland's Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital blamed it for a cluster of cases of pulmonary hemorrhage, or bleeding into the lungs, that killed several children in the 1990s, but the link was never proved.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there is no firm evidence linking mold to the lung problem, memory loss or other alleged woes beyond asthma and allergy.

However, the sheer amount of it in the South could trigger problems for some people who haven't had them before, medical experts said.

"The child who didn't have a significant problem before may be in a much different scenario now," said Dr. Michael Wasserman, a pediatrician at Ochsner Clinic in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie whose office and home were flooded and are now covered in mold. He plans to tear down his house.

Even dead mold can provoke asthma in susceptible people, meaning that places open to the public - restaurants, schools, businesses - must eliminate it.

This is most true for hospitals, where mold spores can cause deadly lung diseases in people with weak immune systems or organ transplants. Such concerns already led Charity Hospital's owners to mothball it.

Tulane University Hospital and Clinic's cleanup is expected to take months.

"The first floor's got pretty much mold. It's going to be pretty much a total loss," said Ron Chatagnier, project coordinator for C&B Services, a Texas company hired by the hospital's owner, HCA.

"It might be difficult or impossible to reopen some of these medical centers," said Joe Cappiello, an official with the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.
"It's not just the physical destruction that you see," but ventilation systems and ductwork full of mold, ready "to seed the rest of the hospital with spores" if the heat or air conditioning were turned on, he said.

As for houses, "anything that's been submerged probably will be a tear-down," said Jeffrey May, a Boston-area building inspector, chemist and book author who has investigated thousands of buildings for mold problems.

Clothes can be washed or dry cleaned, but most furniture is a loss. Ditto for carpeting, insulation, wallpaper and drywall, which no longer lives up to its name. Mattresses that didn't get wet probably have mold if they were in a room that did.

"Anything with a cushion you can forget about," May said.

The general advice is the same as when food is suspected of being spoiled: when in doubt, throw it out.

When is professional help needed?

"It's simply a matter of extent. If you've got small areas of mold, just a few square feet, it's something a homeowner can clean with 10 percent bleach," said Anu Dixit, a fungus expert at Saint Louis University.

She studied mold after the Mississippi River floods in 1993 and 1994, and found cleaning measures often were ineffective, mainly because people started rebuilding too soon, before the surrounding area was completely dry.

In the New Orleans suburb of Lakeview, Toby Roesler found a water line 7 feet high on his home and mold growing in large black and white colonies from every wall and ceiling on the first floor.

Wearing goggles, a mask and rubber gloves, he sprayed down the stairwell with a bleach solution. A crew will arrive soon to gut the lower floor.

"I think it's salvageable," he said, but admitted, "It's going to be some gross work to get it ready."

Others won't try.

Dionne Thiel, who lives next door to the Randazzo family, was only 7 when Hurricane Betsy raced through her neighborhood 40 years ago. Returning on Monday, after Hurricane Katrina, something was instantly familiar.

"The mold and the water," she said. "It's the exact same smell."

Mold covered her dining room walls, snaked up doorframes and even found its way into the candles she sold for a living. She and her husband salvaged his golf clubs but left the rest. They'll move to Arizona.

"I would never want to live here again," said her husband, Don Thiel. "It's not going to be safe."

Associated Press writers Julia Silverman and Allen G. Breed contributed reporting for this story from Louisiana; Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione reported from Milwaukee.

09/27/05 15:22 EDT

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press

Old Enough For AARP?

2005-09-25T14:48:00.000-04:00

Am I old enough for AARP? I opened yet another mail from AARP offering deals for older people. I started receiving AARP mail when I was in middle school. I suspect they got my name through AAA or some other organization because of my father and/or Grandma's membership. They were old enough to receive AARP material. I wasn't. I find it hilarious. At least I get a glimpse on what older people are offered through AARP. Talk about good education and time to get used to the idea of becoming old enough to qualify for certain services and programs as well as learning what my options may be by the time I actually am old enough for AARP.

Dinner That We Never Ate

2005-09-25T00:34:00.000-04:00

Two friends and I went out to a restaurant and had a dinner that we never ate.

Caught your attention and went huh?

What happened was we placed our order upon seating. We chatted and went through two bowls of breads, some kind of spicy dip, wine, and drinks. As time went by, we watched other tables being served and slowly watched restaurant patrons leave the place. Before we knew it, the place was empty with the exception of us and the restaurant workers.

While sipping my glass of water, I saw the waitress slide the bill with candies onto our table. I broke out into laughters. Everyone else at the table laughed so hard. We received a bill for a dinner that we never ate!

The workers were puzzled and came over at our gesture. We indicated that we were billed for food we never were served. They felt so bad. We cancelled our order. They apologized profusely and did not charge us for our drinks. I decided to tip them anyway for good service (for drinks and taking order) as well as their sincere concern about us never being fed. We left the restaurant laughing hysterically and walked down the street to a local diner, still laughing. We sat at our new restaurant booth laughing. The waiter smiled as we laughingly placed our order. This time, we were served dinner.

Why Women Won't Take Men On Vacations....

2005-09-24T16:39:00.000-04:00

Thanks to a friend for sending this hilarious email... about why women won't take men on vacations....

Desperately Waiting

2005-09-24T16:35:00.000-04:00

I've been desperately waiting to see the "Desperate Housewives" season premiere which will finally take place tomorrow! It's going to be quite a season! If you'd like to get together at my home to eat and watch the premiere, email me!

-S

March On, Protestors!

2005-09-24T16:34:00.000-04:00

March On! They have my full support!
-S

Anti-War Protesters March in D.C., London
By JENNIFER C. KERR, AP

WASHINGTON (AP) - Opponents of the war in Iraq rallied by the thousands Saturday to demand the return of U.S. troops, staging a day of protest, song and remembrance of the dead in marches through Washington and other cities in the U.S. and Europe.

More than 2,000 people gathered on the Ellipse hours before the showcase demonstration past the White House, the first wave of what organizers said would be the largest Washington rally since the war began. President Bush himself was out of town, monitoring hurricane recovery efforts from Colorado and Texas.

"We have to get involved," said Erika McCroskey, 27, who came from Des Moines, Iowa, with her younger sister and mother for her first demonstration, traveling in just one of the buses that poured into the capital from far-flung places.

"Bush Lied, Thousands Died," said one sign. "End the Occupation," said another.

While united against the war, political beliefs varied in the Washington crowd. Paul Rutherford, 60, of Vandalia, Mich., said he is a Republican who supported Bush in the last election and still does - except for the war.

"President Bush needs to admit he made a mistake in the war and bring the troops home, and let's move on," he said. His wife, Judy, 58, called the removal of Saddam Hussein "a noble mission" but said U.S. troops should have left when claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction proved unfounded.

"We found that there were none and yet we still stay there and innocent people are dying daily," she said.

Arthur Pollock, 47, of Cecil County, Md., said he was against the war from the beginning. He wants the soldiers out, but not all at once.

"They've got to leave slowly," said Pollock, attending his first protest. "It will be utter chaos in that country if we pull them out all at once."

A crowd in London, estimated by police at 10,000, marched in support of withdrawing British troops from Iraq. Violent clashes between insurgents and British troops in the southern Iraq city of Basra in recent days highlighted the need to get out, protesters said.

"Enough is enough," said Lindsey German, an official of the Stop the War Coalition, which organized the march. "It is now time, once again, for the British people to step forward into the streets and insist that this time we will not be ignored."

Rallies were planned, too, in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Florence, Rome, Paris and Madrid.

In a hitch for some coming to the protest, 13 Amtrak trains running between New York and Washington were delayed for up to three hours Saturday morning for repair of overhead electrical lines. Protest organizers said that held up thousands coming to the rally.

"We believe we are at a tipping point whereby the anti-war sentiment has now become the majority sentiment," said Brian Becker, national coordinator for ANSWER, one of the main anti-war organizers.

Cindy Sheehan, the California mother who drew thousands of demonstrators to her 26-day vigil outside President Bush's Texas ranch last month, joined the protest. Sheehan's 24-year-old son, Casey, was killed in an ambush in Sadr City, Iraq, last year.

Supporters of President Bush's policy in Iraq assembled in smaller numbers to get their voice heard in the day's anti-war din.

Gary Qualls, 48, of Temple, Texas, whose Marine reservist son, Louis, died last year in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, spoke in support of continued U.S. involvement.

"If you bring them home now, who's going to be responsible for all the atrocities that are fixing to happen over there?" he asked. "Cindy Sheehan?

The protest route runs to the front of the White House, down to the Justice Department and then back to the Washington Monument, site of an 11-hour concert and rally featuring folk singer Joan Baez and stretching well into the night.

Sheehan and other mothers against the war held a small rally near the Washington Monument on Friday. They spoke just a few feet from 1,000 white wooden crosses tucked into the grass to symbolize the more than 1,900 members of the U.S. armed forces who have died since the beginning of the war in March 2003.

At a rally at the U.S. Navy Memorial put on by Protest Warrior and other groups supporting Bush's policy, demonstrators denounced Sheehan as a mother exploiting her son's death.

"If I were to die in Iraq, I wouldn't want my parents to be like Cindy Sheehan," said Army National Guard Spc. Julie McManus, 20, of Drexel Hill, Pa., who was among more than 100 people holding signs. "I'd be ashamed of them."

McManus said she drove to Washington with her boyfriend; she wore a white tank top with the words "American Solider" in black marker.

Associated Press writer Elizabeth White contributed to this report.

On the Net:

ANSWER Coalition: http://www.answercoalition.org

Gold Star Families for Peace: http://www.gsfp.org

Families United for our Troops: http://www.unitedforourtroops.com

09/24/05 11:57 EDT

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

New York Times Article: Kill the Light, Save a Bird

2005-09-24T16:30:00.000-04:00

I'm so glad that New York Times ran this article to educate us about how the lights affect birds. How many of us NYCers and tourists think about wildlife while we are in this city and easily caught up in the wonders of people and buildings? Birds besides pigeons do exist and live above and around us.
-S

Kill the Light, Save a Bird

By JENNIFER 8. LEE
Published: September 23, 2005

Tourists have always flocked to see the bright lights of New York City, but starting this week, the city is dimming parts of its renowned skyline to ward off one group of visitors: migratory birds. The Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center, the Citigroup Center, the Morgan Stanley Building and the World Financial Center are among the high-profile high-rises that have agreed to requests from the city and the Audubon Society to dim or turn off nonessential lighting at midnight.

At left, the Chrysler Building about 11 p.m. on Wednesday, and then an hour later, its lights turned down to aid birds.

Thus the city's skyscrapers will defer to nature at least twice a year: by dimming their lights in September and October, during the peak of the fall migratory season, and again in April and May, during the peak of the spring migratory season.

While the Empire State Building's lighting policy to protect migratory birds is decades old, and other buildings have used netting on glass windows so birds do not mistake reflections for sky, this policy will be the first citywide effort to protect migratory birds from crashing into buildings. The voluntary policy is aimed at buildings taller than 40 stories, as well as lower glass buildings that hug the Hudson and East Rivers, which birds use as navigational aides. About five million birds pass through New York City during migration season, according to E. J. McAdams, the executive director of the New York City Audubon Society.

The combination of glass, tall buildings and bright light is extremely dangerous for birds, according to Daniel Klem, an ornithologist at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. He says that a conservative estimate is that more than 100 million birds die each year from crashing into glass on structures of all types, even houses.

"Here is the bottom line: Birds just don't see glass," said Professor Klem. "The animals are not able to recognize glass as a barrier and avoid it."

And lights, particularly those from skyscrapers, distract migratory birds from the visual cues they receive from the stars and the moon, said Douglas Stotz, a conservation ecologist at the Field Museum in Chicago.

The bright lights of tall city buildings pull the birds off their migratory path and into urban canyons, especially when skies are foggy or overcast. Then the birds either crash into the building's glass at night because they are attracted to the light, or they circle the buildings until they become exhausted. In the morning, when they try to escape the city, they crash into the glass because they are confused by the reflection of sky.

Unless people look carefully, the dead birds can be hard to spot because many of them are small songbirds.

"They would be swept up by custodial staff," said Adrian Benepe, the New York City parks commissioner. "I've often seen them on the streets, and wondered, 'Why is this little songbird dead on the street?' "

Since 1997, Audubon Society volunteers have collected more than 4,000 dead birds of 100 different species at just a handful of buildings in Midtown and Lower Manhattan.

Toronto began a program to dim its lights in 1993, and Chicago started a voluntary program in 1999 that now includes 100 buildings. In Chicago, the Field Museum found an 80 percent reduction in bird deaths when lights were turned off during a five-year study on a single Chicago Building, McCormick Place. "When the lights are on, you get these big bird kills, and when they aren't, you don't," said Judy Pollock, director of bird conservation for the Audubon Society in Chicago.

Even with a dimmed skyline, the problem of birds crashing into glass remains. Environmental groups are working with the construction industry to come up with glass that can be seen by birds, potentially by giving the glass a UV coating.

Three real estate groups have agreed to promote the program to dim lights among their members: the Real Estate Board of New York, the Building Owners' and Managers' Association, and the Associated Builders and Owners of Greater New York. "We are going to make it a little safer for the birds to visit here," said Steve Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board, which represents many real estate developers. "The response that we have gotten is overwhelmingly, 'Sure.' "

Certainly lower electric bills help sell the concept. Call it saving two birds with one stone: preventing fatal bird crashes while conserving energy. Energy savings could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most buildings plan to turn off just their exterior lights, but some will also turn off interior lights and ask their tenants to draw the shades. The only buildings expected to opt out are ones that are contractually obligated to keep advertisements lighted, Mr. Spinola said.

Of the city's landmark buildings, the Empire State Building has long been aware of migratory bird problems. For at least 25 years, the building has turned off its decorative lights when large numbers of birds are observed flying around the top of the building during migration season. The circling birds are particularly common during foggy or overcast nights, said Lydia Ruth, a spokeswoman for the building.

Employees from the observatory will call down to the building engineers to tell them to shut off the lights. "We don't want to take any chances, and we don't want to cause any bird death," Ms. Ruth said. "But we have people call the next day, 'Why did you turn the lights out early?' You can't keep everybody happy."

Storm Affects Southbound Migration of Birds

2005-09-24T16:28:00.000-04:00

Poor birds. I hope the changes aren't too permanent and that the species can rebound and recover, especially the local birds.
-S

Storm Affects Southbound Migration of Birds
By LYNN BREZOSKY, AP

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (Sept. 23) - For millennia, fall's Gulf of Mexico hurricanes have butted gale-force winds against the southbound journeys of migrating birds. Somehow, the birds have been able to sense storm paths and survive.

"This is not new to birds," Cliff Shackelford, an ornithologist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, said Friday as Hurricane Rita began lashing the central Gulf Coast. "Birds can detect things like barometric pressure, changes in wind. ... With a storm like Rita, so big it's covering the whole ... Gulf, they're not going to take that first step."

The Texas coast acts as a funnel for birds migrating from North American summer grounds to wintering havens in Central and South America. Bird watchers from around the world come to the region for glimpses of hundreds of species of birds.

Rita's northern trek countered peak migration for hawks, and her direction earlier in the week prompted an evacuation order that canceled Corpus Christi's annual Celebration of Flight.

"This is the largest hawk watch in the U.S., that's why we invite everybody out," festival organizer Joel Simon said. "We had 44,000 yesterday, which is a good day. We're hoping some more get through today before the storm."

The Texas tail is the convergence point for four major flyways, two of them coming west along the Gulf from East Texas and Louisiana. Hummingbirds have been coming through for weeks, Simon said, as well as songbirds, shorebirds and "pretty colored birds" like orioles, buntings, and warblers.

He said the hawks would be stressed but would likely find free skies to the west.

Scientists debate whether hurricanes are worsening due to global warming or whether the Gulf is just on the violent side of a repeating cycle. Either way, the biggest problem if the trend continues may be destruction of the already dwindling habitat of birds living year-round on the Gulf, such as the long-legged herons and egrets that wade in salty marshes.

"I'm more worries about the resident birds," Simon said. "They're not used to going anywhere."

09/23/05 19:22 EDT

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

Congratulations, Jennell Dickens!

2005-09-24T16:26:00.000-04:00

Congratulations! What a pregnancy for a 22 year-old woman! I wish the best in their lives and health.

-S

Quintuplets Born at University of Maryland Medical Center
By MICHAEL J. FEENEY, AP

BALTIMORE (Sept. 23) - Jennell Dickens is single, petite, and 22 years old.

On Wednesday, she became the mother of quintuplets.

"A lot of people didn't think I would make it this far," said the cheerful new mother during a press conference Friday at the University of Maryland Medical Center, her face glowing with pride.

The babies - a boy and four girls - are the first set of quintuplets born at the Baltimore hospital in more than 30 years and only the second set born in Maryland since the new millineum, health officials said.

The hospital has established the Dickens Quintuplets Fund to collect donations for the babies.

Doctors said the quintuplets, born 10 weeks early, are doing well and are being monitored closely.

"The first baby came out screaming and hollering," said Dickens, an administrative assistant at the hospital's division of emergency medicine. "After the initial shock was over, everything else was okay."

The babies ranged in weight from one-pound, 12 ounces to two-pounds, 13 ounces. Together, they weighed more than 11 pounds.

"It is truly remarkable for a woman to carry quintuplets past 30 weeks," said Dr. Hugh Mighty, who delivered all five babies and led a team of 30 specialists. "The fact that Ms. Dickens was able to do that enabled the babies to grow bigger and has improved their chances of survival."

Dickens had been at the hospital since July 12 to allow doctors to monitor her progress.

"The delivery went very smoothly and Ms. Dickens was comfortable and awake so that she could see each baby being born," said Dr. Andrew Malinow, a member of the delivery team.

Dickens said she found out she was having quintuplets nine weeks into her pregnancy when she went for her first prenatal visit and the doctor noticed her uterus was up higher than normal. The next day, an ultrasound reading showed she was carrying five babies.

"I just cried," said Dickens. "At that point I didn't know what to expect. It's a lot to take on. I just wish for the best of health for them."

Older sister, Sharita, 23, was in shock when she got the call at work that her sister was having quintuplets.

"I went from sitting in the chair to being on the floor," she said. "I'm just excited that they're here."

Sharita has two children of her own, ages two and five, but said, "They'll definitely be loved. There is plenty of love in our family."

Her mother Floryn said she thought her daughter was joking when she received the news.

"I just laughed," said the grandmother of seven. "But, once I saw the sonogram I just couldn't believe it."

Dickens, who was presented five baby t-shirts, is expected to released from the hospital over the weekend.

Neonatologist Dr. Rose Viscardi said the newborns may be able to go home within the next two months, provided they continue to do well.

"Right now they're great. It's too early to see if there will be long term problems."

The births took two-and-a-half minutes. Each baby was assigned their own group of doctors immediately following their births. There were four other births at the hospital on that day, as well.

"The initial hurdle is making sure that each baby is breathing own their own," said Viscardi, who noted one baby was placed on a ventilator shortly after birth. "We need to also make sure they are able to maintain temperature."

Pictures of each baby, wearing a white hat with letters "A" through "E" to distinguish identity, were on display at the press conference at the hospital. All are currently in incubators.

They've been named JaMir Amare, Si'ani Ritay, NaRae Dimetria, Jade and Rayne Anye.

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the medical center is the largest in the state and is part of the University of Maryland Hospital for Children.

09/23/05 14:31 EDT

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

Officially Disabled

2005-09-24T15:52:00.000-04:00

Yippee! I'm officially disabled in the eye of NYC.

Just received my replacement reduced-fare metrocard in the mail. They never sent me the replacement after I made few calls over the past year with my new address. I already called them with my new address 3 years ago - before I moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Now, they have my new address on file "officially." I will still send a letter in writing anyway to be on the safe side and also thank them for sending the replacement so promptly after the most recent call.

I'm also thrilled that it has my older picture - with my thinner face on it with a nice smile. The picture was taken over 6 years ago around the time I moved to NYC.

And, I'm glad to be a disabled rider once again in the MTA system and save money big time. No more staring or yelling by the bus driver when I board the bus and forget I have to pay full fare instead of half fare only to have someone inform me to go back to the front of the bus to pay the remaining fare. No more bumping hard and bruising my waist while trying to go through the non-moving turnstile only to realize there isn't enough fare and ending up holding up friends while I refill my card. No more!

turning toward turning toward

2005-09-23T22:03:00.000-04:00

Paintings and conceptual works by

Gregory Gadilan Horwitz

is informed by the artist’s personal history and heritage and blurs the boundaries between religious and artistic concepts. The work found in “Turning Toward Turning Toward” is inspired by the unique configurations of the pages of the Talmud, the concept of shatnez which forbids one from combining wool and linen in a garment and Jewish skullcaps, with which the artist playfully explores the dynamics between individuality and commonality.

To learn more about the artist visit www.gadilan.com

A Message From Jade

2005-09-23T21:31:00.000-04:00

Hello Everyone!

First off, I want to thank those of you who came to my party on September 10th to celebrate my 40th Birthday Bash. This party was not only a birthday celebration. It was a time of rebirth as well as image and business rebranding. Many of you who came to the party were loyal supporters for many years when I first started out 15 years ago. Those of you who are now continual supporters, thank you for being a part of my film career journey. This is just the biginning of my PRIME... TBC...

If you have not yet check out my new website, now's the time!

www.jadefilm.com

Here's a list of people I'd like to thank, please acknowledge them!

* My long time companion & supporter, Linda Mosca-Ginis for picking out the right outfit for the party. I love you gurl!

* Jenuma for the ride and keeping me sane. LOL.

* Bianca, Maleni, Linda, Vicki and Michelle for helping with food and preparation and making sure my people were well fed. Maleni Chaitoo came with me to check out the hotel a week before and took my party pictures in the first link. Thanks, sweetie!

* Zach, Jason, Andrew and Darren for bartending and making sure my people enjoyed themselves. Haha.

* My lovely brother for food shopping, the lovely carrot cake and sharing the expenses.

Friends who flew/drove from out of town: Michelle Banks, Ellen Roth, Barb Gurga, Bonnie Kaplan, Stephanie Clark, Sharon Levine, Jenuma, business associate & partner Tim Trotto, and my 9/11 documentary editor, Adrean Mangiardi. Thank you for coming.

Last but not least, my publicist and friend, Sarah Pack for her enormous heart and charity for helping me plan this party and for promoting it. Guys, she rock!!!! She made sure everything was in control. She's the behind-the-scene lady and not to be messed with. LOL. She got style, too. Ya heard!?

I had a wonderful time with each and everyone of you. It was a night to be remembered. I will ALWAYS cherish it. Those of you who donated monetary gift, would you be so kind to email me your snail mail address to jade14@mac.com. I'd sincerely appreciate it very much. Thank you again for coming. I hope to God I didn't forget to thank anyone else. Thank you a million times. Oh yeah, thanks Vicki, Melissa, Andy, Jaime, Ellen, Maleni and James for their pictures. I love them all!!!

For those of you who were missing, I'm truly sorry but you missed a helluva party!!!

Anyway, I have attached three links for you to enjoy my mac.com online photo album from our recent get together, CINEMATIC LIMELIGHT OF JADE. Please enjoy them!

The first link is: Cinematic Limelight of Jade
http://homepage.mac.com/jade14/PhotoAlbum31.html

The second one is called: A Night of the Intimates
http://homepage.mac.com/jade14/PhotoAlbum32.html

And finally, A Night of Suga' n' Spices
http://homepage.mac.com/jade14/PhotoAlbum33.html

Cheers!

Queen Jade

Love This Quote

2005-09-23T20:08:00.000-04:00

Love this quote from Melmira's site:

To love what you do and feel that it matters - how could anything be more fun? -Katharine Graham

Captioning Blooper

2005-09-23T20:06:00.000-04:00

While watching the news last night with my roommates, we broke out in laughter after holding our breath watching the Jet Blue plane landing with its disabled front wheel. Why? There was a captioning blooper: "Amongst 140 marriages, passengers on the Jet Blue landing...."

Authorities search for criminals among hurricane refugees

2005-09-22T13:32:00.000-04:00

Authorities search for criminals among hurricane refugees

Thursday, September 22, 2005; Posted: 9:59 a.m. EDT (13:59 GMT)

MIDDLETOWN, Rhode Island (AP) -- After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, federal officials flew Brian Murph and more than 100 other victims to Rhode Island. They were greeted by the governor and cheered by residents.

Then the handcuffs were placed on Murph.

State police did criminal background checks on every refugee and found that more than half had a criminal arrest records -- a third for felonies. Murph was the only one with an outstanding arrest warrant, for larceny and other crimes.

Around the nation, state and local authorities are checking refugees' pasts as they are welcomed into homes, schools, houses of worship and housing projects. In some states, half the refugees have rap sheets.

"It's a balancing act," said Kyle Smith, deputy director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. "We don't want to treat them like criminals after they have been traumatized, but we want to make sure they are in no danger nor the families they are housed with."

Civil libertarians call the checks thinly veiled race and class discrimination against people who have suffered already. The checks are made on those evacuated or forced to seek help from charities or others -- in other words, people who are often black and poor.

"I think it's happening partly because who these people are and where they came from," said Steve Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island ACLU. "The mere fact that people have past criminal records in and of itself doesn't say anything about harm to the community."

Some state and local governments screened just those refugees evacuated by the federal government. Others screened anyone placed in private homes -- and screened the hosts as well.

In South Carolina, state police checked every evacuee flown there by the government. Of 547 people checked, 301 had criminal records, according to Robert Stewart, state Law Enforcement Division Chief.

While most had been law-abiding for years or had committed minor offenses, the group included those convicted of rape or aggravated assault. Two had warrants, but were not held because the states weren't interested in extraditing them.

"This was all done for everyone's protection," Stewart said. "If you're going to be sheltering people, it would be prudent for people taking them in to know what criminal pasts they might have."

The state police in West Virginia said roughly half of the nearly 350 Katrina victims evacuated by the government to that state had criminal records, and 22 percent have a history of committing a violent crime.

In Massachusetts, where about 200 evacuees were flown to a military base on Cape Cod, criminal background checks turned up six sex offenders and one man wanted for rape in Louisiana. Two of the sex offenders have since left the state, said Katie Ford, a spokeswoman for the state public safety office. The rape suspect was being held on $250,000 bail.

In Tennessee, police checked every federal evacuee flown to Knoxville and found outstanding warrants for two people in Louisiana -- but Louisiana did not want to extradite them.

In Texas, with more than 300,000 refugees, local officials have run 20,000 criminal background checks on evacuees, as well as the relief workers helping them and people who have opened up their homes.

Most of the checks have found little for police to be concerned about. Philadelphia police found no criminals as of the middle of last week, even though the local ACLU branch objected to the checks themselves.

Several states with thousands of refugees aren't checking criminal backgrounds at all. Missouri has no formal effort to check its 6,000 refugees. Neither has California, which reported about 3,800 refugees earlier this month, or Maryland, Minnesota and Michigan, which together took in several thousand evacuees.

In Middletown, a community just north of Newport, several evacuees shrugged at the prospect of background checks and said they understood the state's desire to learn more about them.

"I would like to know if there's any skeletons in the closet with my neighbors or the community," said one refugee, 38-year-old Carmen Williams.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

League Buzz, Special Edition

2005-09-21T01:42:00.000-04:00

League Buzz, Special Edition

FEAST SNEAK PEEK for League Buzz subscribers only.

Feast with Famous Faces
Monday, September 26th from 6:30pm-9:30pm
270 Park Avenue (between 47th & 48th Streets)

MEET & EAT
If you haven't purchased your Feast tickets yet, don't worry. It's not too late. Tickets are still available.

Contact Astrid Flores at 917.305.7820 or email aflores@lhh.org to buy your ticket today!

DID YOU SAY SILENT AUCTION????
DRUM ROLL PLEASE......

AUCTION ITEM
LIVE THE LIFE OF
ONE LIFE TO LIVE
One lucky bidder will win:

· A personal tour of the set of One Life to Live
· An autographed script from the cast of One Life to Live
· Lunch with Daytime Emmy nominated star Kassie DePaiva

AUCTION ITEM
BE A SCOUNDREL:
HAVE A DIRTY, ROTTEN
ONE-OF-A-KIND EXPERIENCE
One lucky bidder will win:

· Two Tickets to Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on Broadway
· The Opportunity to meet Norbert Leo Butz, Recipient of the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Astaire and Drama League Awards for his performance as Freddy Benson in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

· A champagne toast with Norbert Leo Butz
· A Backstage tour of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with an introduction to cast members and crew

AUCTION ITEM
"YOU CAN'T STOP THE BEAT?"
TEASE IT UP!
HAIRSPRAY PACKAGE
One lucky bidder will win:

· Two House Seats to Hairspray
· A Backstage tour of Hairspray with the opportunity to meet the cast and crew
· DVD of the original movie, Hairspray
· Gift Basket of Hairspray Souvenir Merchandise

Auction Item
Tennis Anyone?
AN ACE OF A PRIZE
One lucky bidder will win:

· Four (4) VIP Box Seat Tickets in "J-BLOCK" (James Blake's personal cheering section) for one of James Blake's matches during Pilot Pen August 18-26, 2006

· Meet and Greet for entire party of four (4) with James Blake, 2005 Pilot Pen Tennis Champion and US Open Quarterfinalist, during the 2006 Pilot Pen (autographs & photos)

· One (1) Autographed "J-BLOCK" tee
· Dinner for four (4) in the Racquet Club
· Four (4) Pilot Pen Tennis Goody Bags

Auction item
DIAMONDS ARE A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND
Pure love(tm) Pendant designed by Kenneth David
One lucky bidder will win:

· 1 Carat total weight 3 stone, past-present-future, pure love(tm) pendant set in 14K and 24K pure gold.

*** Must be present at event to bid on the auction items***

HOT HINT
Sneak preview of some of the raffle and silent auction items to look out for! Tip off: if you're not able to come to the Feast, you can still buy raffle tix - 1 for $25 or 5 for $100 (yes, yes, we know the amazing deal you get if you buy 5!)

Partial list: Grand Raffle prizes donated by (and not limited to) the following:

· Butter Restaurant
· Cockburn Port and Ghirardelli Chocolate
· Fortunoff
· Fifi La Roo
· Grand Hyatt New York
· Gutzees
· Hermes of Paris
· JetBlue Airways
· Lake Morey Resort
· Laura Geller Makeup
· New Line Home Entertainment
· Rosa Mexicano
· Science+ Beauty Medical Spa
· St. Regis Hotel
· Tahari
· The Art Institute of New York City
· Theatre Development Fund
· Trans-Ocean Import Co.
· Travel Group and Continental Airlines
· TRIO Restaurant and Wine Bar

Reminder: 1 ticket for $25 and 5 tickets for $100!
Contact: Astrid Flores at 917.305.7820 or aflores@lhh.org

Well, League Buzzers, that's the Feast Sneak Peek!
Looking forward to Feasting with you on September 26th, 6:30-9:30 at the JPMorgan Chase building at 270 Park Ave. (Btw. 47th & 48th)!

Bitchology

2005-09-20T12:25:00.000-04:00

Got this from an acquaintance.
-S

BITCHOLOGY

When I stand up for myself and my beliefs, they call me a bitch.

When I stand up for those I love, they call me a bitch.

When I speak my mind, think my own thoughts or do things my own way, they call me a bitch.

Being a bitch means I won't compromise what's in my heart. It means I live my life MY way. It means I won't allow anyone to step on me.

When I refuse to tolerate injustice and speak against it, I am defined as a bitch.

The same thing happens when I take time for myself instead of being everyone's maid, or when I act a little selfish.

It means I have the courage and strength to allow myself to be who I truly am and won't become anyone else's idea of what they think I "should" be.

I am outspoken, opinionated and determined. I want what I want and there is nothing wrong with that!

So try to stomp on me, try to douse my inner flame, try to squash every ounce of beauty I hold within me. You won't succeed.

And if that makes me a bitch, so be it. I embrace the title and am proud to bear it.

B - Babe
I - In
T - Total
C - Control of
H - Herself

B = Beautiful
I = Intelligent
T = Talented
C = Charming
H = Hell of a Woman

B = Beautiful
I = Individual
T = That
C = Can
H = Handle anything

"If you can't do something right, get a woman to do it."

"Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody is watching."

To all my bitchy friends - Stand Proud!

Have a great day!

Miscellaneous Thoughts

2005-09-19T02:32:00.000-04:00

A hurricane has come through my bedroom frequently over the past few weeks. As soon as it's cleaned up and everything's put away, another hurricane comes through. Hurricane Sarah sure pays regular visits. It's been a Category 5 since I began Fall semester classes and internship.

My parents are going to Ukraine again from September 28 - October 15. It'll be my father's 7th time while it'll be my mother's 5th time (I think).

Ever notice that the Bush family has a trademark facial feature? It's the pursed lip look. President Bush had the exact same pursed lips look on 9/11 just like Jeb Bush's son had in his mug shot after being arrested for public intoxication and resisting arrest. The Bush family definitely has substance abuse issues running throughout the generations. I wish them the best.

Some people move around so frequently in NYC that I call them Cockroach Movers. They fly from one apartment to the next apartment. They move all the time just like cockroaches and rats that sometimes I lose track of where few people currently live. All I have to do is wait until the next party or social gathering to find out the latest residence for certain people.

I'm still thinking about Jade's successful party at Hotel Ganesevoort which took place last weekend. Wow. Few new pictures were added recently. More will continue to be added to the photo album. To view pictures, go to:

http://homepage.mac.com/jade14/PhotoAlbum31.html

To check out Jade's awesome brand new website look, go to www.jadefilm.com

NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY TO REVEAL UNTOLD STORYOF SLAVERY IN NEW YORK

2005-09-19T02:25:00.000-04:00

NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY TO REVEAL UNTOLD STORYOF SLAVERY IN NEW YORK

Major exhibition for first time presents history of slaves who built New York

The remarkable, untold story of New York's deep involvement in the slave trade is the focus of a major multi-media exhibition, Slavery in New York, which opens October 7, 2005 and runs through March 5, 2006 at the New-York Historical Society, at Central Park West and 77th Street in New York City.

The 9,000 square-foot exhibition (the largest in the Society's 200-year history), incorporates historically detailed video re-enactments, audio narrative and interactive video displays, along with rare, primary source materials (paintings, original documents, artifacts) to detail this remarkable, dark time in America's history.

Exhibition highlights include: giant billowing sails and voices (speakinga dozen African dialects) suggestive of the harrowing Middle Passage; a multi-media installation portraying a local well where slaves met as they gathered water and (in 1712) fomented a slave rebellion; and wire sculptures, which evoke the toil of the faceless, voiceless peoples whose histories were (nearly) erased. The rarely seen, original hand written draft of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation will be on display from October 7-16.

Bills of sale for the human slave trade; advertisements offering rewards for runaway slaves; original 18th century maps detailing farmland (in what is now Soho) dedicated to freed blacks; letters revealing the details of daily life of slaves and slave holders; and objects such as a silver tea service crafted by slaves from Africa's Gold Coast, offer a window into another time.

A portion of the exhibit will recreate, through ships logs and diaries, the experience of a 10-year-old, Priscilla, kidnapped from Sierra Leone and brought as a slave to the New World.

James Horton (author of Slavery and the Making of America) is chief historian, and Richard Rabinowitz (president of the American History Workshop) is curator. For additional information visit:

www.nyhistory.org/

WHAT: SLAVERY IN NEW YORK

WHEN: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7 - SUNDAY, MARCH 5, 2006

WHERE: NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
170 CENTRAL PARK WEST AT 77TH STREET

ADMISSION: MEMBERS AND CHILDREN UNDER 12: FREE
ADULTS: $10
TEACHERS, STUDENTS, SENIORS: $5

Directions: To get to The New-York Historical Society take B or C trains to 81st Street or M10 bus to 77th Street; M79 to 81st and CPW.

Dolphins Missing After Katrina Found

2005-09-19T02:21:00.000-04:00

I was so relieved to hear that these dolphins were found and rescued!
-S

Dolphins Missing After Katrina Found
Aquarium's Eight Bottlenose Animals Found Huddled Together

(Sept. 15) - Eight bottlenose dolphins that were washed out of their aquarium tank in Gulfport, Miss., have been found swimming together in the Gulf of Mexico. But they're not safe yet.

Because the dolphins are domesticated, aquarium officials fear they can't survive in the wild and that the effort to recapture them will take some time.

Moby Solangi, owner and director of the Marine Life Oceanarium in Gulfport, moved as many of his 14 dolphins as time allowed to hotels on higher ground. Three took up residence in the pool at Gulfport's Best Western, and three made the pool at the Holiday Inn their home during the storm.

The remaining eight stayed behind at the aquarium's pool "that has survived every hurricane, including Camille, and survived [Katrina] as well, but didn't survive the 40-foot tidal wave," Solangi said.

That wave swept away all eight dolphins. It also destroyed the pool, which will take 18 to 24 months to rebuild, Solangi said. The six dolphins who rode out the storm in hotel pools have all since been transferred to the Gulfarium in Fort Walton Beach, Fla.

For nearly two weeks, there were no signs of the eight missing dolphins. Finally, the head of the aquarium secured a ride on a sheriff's department helicopter and what he saw, after just five minutes, was surprising.The eight dolphins were swimming together in the Gulf of Mexico.

"It was total astonishment and a miracle that you have eight dolphins that were swept away and are now right back in your backyard and you can touch 'em," Solangi said.

Immediately, the Oceanarium's trainers were out on the scene, feeding their dolphins and plotting how to rescue them.

"They wouldn't leave, I mean they were flipping, they were jumping, they hadn't had food for two weeks," Solangi said. "They don't have FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency], they don't have anybody else but their trainers."

The hope is to teach the animals to leap onto mats and then into boats so they can be transferred to pools the Navy is bringing in. A dolphin rescue team from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association is helping in the effort.

"Many of the dolphins are already trained to come up on their stomachs, we call that beaching," said Delphine Vanderpool, a dolphin trainer at the Marine Life Oceanarium. "If we can get some of them to beach on the mat, that would be great."

"It looks really good for at least six of the animals," said Jeff Foster, who is part of the NOAA team. "Two are a little standoffish."

The dolphins who don't learn how to jump onto the mats will be rescued by nets, Vanderpool said.

"All of them have lost weight," Vanderpool added. "But right now, they seem to be doing well.

To learn more about the Marine Life Oceanarium and its dolphins, visit www.dolphins.com.

09-15-05 11:43 EDT

Copyright 2005 ABCNEWS.com

Out of Katrina's Wake, Victims Find Aid in Harlem

2005-09-19T02:19:00.000-04:00

I wonder if any of them are deaf.
-S

Out of Katrina's Wake, Victims Find Aid in Harlem
By NINA BERNSTEIN (NY Times, I think)

Published: September 17, 2005

Using a model developed to help bereaved families after 9/11, New York has turned one floor of an old Harlem welfare office into a welcoming center where several hundred Katrina storm survivors are finding one-stop disaster assistance.

Asia Townsend of New Orleans waited for her son, David, 27, Friday at the hurricane disaster relief center in Harlem.

The center, which opened at noon Thursday, had handled more than 300 people from 100 families by Friday evening, city officials said, describing them as people who had made their way on their own from the storm-devastated Gulf region to join friends and family in New York. State rules for identification were waived so that no one would be denied public aid for lack of documents lost in the flood.

"We wanted to make these people feel welcome," said Bob McHugh, a spokesman for the city's Human Resources Administration. He said employees worked around the clock to remodel the space for the city's Office of Emergency Management, which is in charge of the overall operation. "These people are traumatized, and New York's going to be there for them."

On Friday night, the two dozen people at the center were almost overwhelmed by the city and state officials who were there to offer help. There was a day care area where children could play with toys on a newly-tiled floor, banks of telephones, computers and cubicles for privacy.

Besides such basics as food stamps, Medicaid and housing assistance, the families found offers of counseling from the Office of Mental Health, help accessing bank records from the State of New York Department of Banking, representatives from the Social Security Administration, and Red Cross workers handing out debit cards and hotel assignments.

"I'm tired, hungry; I'm ready to settle down," said Sheila Clifton, 39, who was holding a donated teddy bear and seeking a place to sleep for her family - sons Nicholas, 15, and Brandon, 17, and her granddaughter, Akyra Nettles, 5. "Everything's in one place, and I like it like that."

Nicholas said they had walked out of their house in New Orleans' Carrollton section in waist-high water two days after the storm, gathering what belongings they could, including important documents. With rides from friends and strangers, they made their way to Texarkana, Tex., and finally, after learning from an online bulletin board that Ms. Clifton's brother in New York was looking for her, they flew to New York with the help of the Federal Emergency Management Administration, or FEMA. Ms. Clifton had not seen her brother in seven years, Nicholas said.

Ms. Clifton, who said that before the flood she worked at the Place d'Armes Hotel in the French Quarter and was a student at Southern University, soon had a hotel room provided by the Red Cross, and had signed up for other benefits.

Initially, New York State prepared for many more than the 750 or so people who have shown up in county social services offices since the hurricane, said Joseph F. Bruno, the city's emergency management commissioner. Until Monday, officials at FEMA, had planned to send planeloads of Katrina evacuees to the state, and the city and six counties had volunteered to take them in - including Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Erie, Onondaga and Monroe.

Camp Smith near Bear Mountain had been selected as a staging area for up to 1,500 at a time and the state had agreed to accept as many as 5,000. Then the state, city and county officials who had mobilized for the event were told mass transports were off. Apparently too many evacuees resisted a secondary migration so far from home, Robert Doar, commissioner of the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, said yesterday.

Meanwhile, however, the state relaxed the rules for obtaining public benefits like food stamps, Medicaid and cash assistance. "If someone presents themselves as a victim of Katrina and doesn't have a driver's license or ID, those document requirements should be waived," Mr. Doar said yesterday.

"The situation in New Orleans was unprecedented. We wanted to respond in a way that showed the heart of New York, and we have."

At the same time, he added, counties were told, "Don't completely forget about the fact that there are unfortunate people in your cities and towns who will attempt to abuse this."

At the center, which will be open seven days a week - 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday - most of those seeking help Friday night had documentation, officials said.

Before reaching the center at 530 W. 135th Street, near Broadway, many had stopped at a welcome center set up nearby in the Great Hall of City University of New York, where weary families were issued photo ID's, screened by health care workers, and collected free MetroCards, diapers, comfort kits and cots.

Officials said they expected about 50 families a day. Mr. Bruno suggested that most would eventually return home to rebuild their city. But some seemed ready to put down roots.

Ollie Stewart, who worked at a home for abused children in New Orleans and lived in the Garden District, said his mother wound up in Tennessee and his sister in Georgia. But he likes what he has seen since Sept. 2, when he moved in with his 37-year-old brother, Darryl Bloodsaw. After picking up a Red Cross debit card worth $360 for 14 days, he said he was planning to stay in New York.

"They're taking care of me here," he said, "showing me mad love."

Peter Beller contributed reporting for this article.

Digital Mammograms Good for Young Women

2005-09-19T02:14:00.000-04:00

Here's some education for us young women. I sure don't want my mammary glands squashed into pancakes when I'm older or ever during my lifetime. Who knows? I sure hope there's better technology by the time I need routine mammograms. In the meantime, I can rest assured that there's digital imaging for me. Knock on wood that I won't ever need one anyway. I don't like exposing my chest to medical professionals anyway.
-S

Digital Mammograms Good for Young Women
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP

(Sept. 16) -- Newer mammograms that allow doctors to use digital imaging to help spot cancer are better than standard X-rays for young women and those with dense breasts, but not for most post-menopausal women, a landmark study concludes.

Doctors say women who aren't in one of the groups that benefited can skip the extra cost of the newer digital tests and have a standard mammogram.

However, they expect digital tests to become more common because of their many advantages, including that they can be stored on a computer and sent electronically whenever a woman moves or a new doctor needs to see them.

"Everything is going filmless. If there's no disadvantage to digital mammography, I would presume over time it will replace film screening," said Dr. Kathy Brandt, chief of breast imaging at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who had no role in the study.

The study involved 42,760 women in the United States and Canada and was done by the American College of Radiology Imaging Network. It was funded by the National Cancer Institute.

Results were to be reported Friday at a medical meeting. They also were released online by the New England Journal of Medicine and will appear in its Oct. 27 edition.

Mammograms cut the risk of dying of breast cancer by up to 35 percent among women 50 and older, but only by 15 to 20 percent among younger women, who tend to have dense breasts that standard film X-rays have trouble penetrating.

Digital mammograms produce images on a computer screen, where they can be enhanced or magnified to reveal lurking signs of cancer. Doctors have hoped that this would improve mammography's usefulness for younger women.

The study aimed to learn whether they are more accurate; that is, whether they correctly detected cancer and didn't give too many "false alarms."

Each participant received both types of mammograms. Results were reviewed independently by two radiologists, and biopsies settled whether suspicious findings were cancer. Follow-up exams were done a year later to see how many cancers had been missed the first time around.

A total of 335 breast cancers were found. Both types of mammograms missed about 30 percent of them.

Digital mammograms proved 15 percent more accurate than standard film X-rays among women under 50, in whom breast cancer is relatively uncommon. Among women with dense breasts and those not yet in menopause, digital mammograms were 11 percent and 15 percent better, respectively.

For all other women, "film is just as good," said Dr. Etta Pisano, a radiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who led the study.

She said the results should help prioritize who gets the more expensive tests.

"We don't have enough digital mammography for everyone to get it and some women won't benefit from it anyway," Pisano said.

The first digital machines came on the U.S. market in 2001, but they account for only 8 percent of mammography equipment today, largely because of cost. Medicare pays an average of $85.65 for a standard film mammogram and $135.29 for a digital one.

Robert Smith, director of screening at the American Cancer Society, said no woman should delay getting a mammogram if a digital one is not available. The society recommends annual mammograms starting at age 40; the federal government advises them every one to two years for women in their 40s and then annually starting at age 50.

As for the study results, "we'd always like a newer technology to do better in every way," but improving mammograms for certain groups of women is still a gain, he said.

In the study, about two-thirds of women either had dense breasts, were under 50 or had not reached menopause. That led Dr. Daniel Sullivan, who heads cancer imaging at the cancer institute, to conclude "it may not be completely representative of the general population" because most mammograms are done on women over 50 who have fatty breasts.

The study was the largest ever done to compare mammography techniques. Earlier studies have found digital mammograms to be comparable in accuracy to film for women in general.

On the Net:

New England Journal: www.nejm.org

09/16/05 09:20 EDT

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

Pizza Farm Gives Tourists a Slice of Life

2005-09-19T02:12:00.000-04:00

I think this is an absolutely brilliant way to make a living, educate others, run a farm, and make a profit. Kudos to the farmers for their creativity.
-S

Pizza Farm Gives Tourists a Slice of Life
By JIM SUHR, AP

DOW, Ill. (Sept. 16) - Walt Gregory found a way to make dough harvesting pizza. The retired insurance agent and his business partner have carved up quite a tourist draw near the Mississippi River town of Alton, educating people with a half-acre circular plot divided up like the slices of a huge pizza.

Each of the eight wedges represents something used on a pizza - from tomatoes to peppers to herbs including rosemary and sage. Three goats represent milk and Cleo the cow is symbolic of beef. Seven penned-in pigs illustrate pork.

The chickens pecking nearby? Eggs, of course.

"I enjoy it immensely, just to see the looks on people's faces and seeing some people make the connection," Gregory said from his 3-year-old "R" Pizza Farm. "A 62-year-old lady, standing with her husband, didn't know pepperoni came from pigs."

Only a handful of such farms are believed to exist in the United States. However, farmers increasingly are turning to inventive land use - cornfield mazes are another example - to supplement their bottom lines. Illinois, which is among the nation's leaders in pumpkin and horseradish production, is no exception.

The project seems to be working for Gregory and business partner Lynne Weis. They expect their organic pizza "demonstration" farm to draw 5,000 to 6,000 visitors this year, far more than the 1,500 visitors in 2004 or the 300 the year before that.

The two have a similar venture near Quincy, with plans for a third next spring near Peoria.

"Word's getting out," Gregory said as he walked through the wedges, plucking peppers and tomatoes along the way.

During tours offered from April through October, Gregory briefs guests about the ingredients, then walks them through each slice. Afterward, there's pizza and soda in a pizzeria inside a log cabin.

Most of the ingredients come from the farm and are organic, including the fennel herb commonly used to flavor Italian sausage. Gregory still hopes to find a source of organic cheese and is talking with an Amish slaughterhouse about supplying organic pepperoni.

Gregory hopes to educate guests about organic growing. He makes no bones about his opposition to corporations behind agricultural biotechnology or farmers who use herbicide-resistant products he considers dangerous.

"Someone's got to stand against them. That's what I try to accomplish with the pizza farm," said Gregory, who elsewhere on his spread grows asparagus, zucchini, watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries, squash, pumpkins and corn.

Elizabeth Decker, a second-grade teacher in nearby Bethalto, can't seem to get her fill of the farm. She has taken her classes, which typically number 20 students and chaperoning parents, on the tour every year since the farm opened.

Decker said the place teaches kids firsthand what goes into a pizza, from harvest to hearth.

"I think parents learn just as much as the children," she said.

09-16-05 19:14 EDT

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

Candidates Screened for First Face Transplant

2005-09-19T02:08:00.000-04:00

I think that the idea itself is mind-boggling. Yet, I understand the doctors' rationale for doing this type of transplant. Imagine how much this might help a deaf person since facial expression is a crucial part of ASL. It'd be strange to have the face of someone else and to have a new face affect your identity.
-S

Candidates Screened for First Face Transplant

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP

CLEVELAND (Sept. 17) - In the next few weeks, five men and seven women will secretly visit the Cleveland Clinic to interview for the chance to have a radical operation that's never been tried anywhere in the world.

They will smile, raise their eyebrows, close their eyes, open their mouths. Dr. Maria Siemionow will study their cheekbones, lips and noses. She will ask what they hope to gain and what they most fear.

Then she will ask, "Are you afraid that you will look like another person?"

Because whoever she chooses will endure the ultimate identity crisis.

Siemionow wants to attempt a face transplant.

This is no extreme TV makeover. It is a medical frontier being explored by a doctor who wants the public to understand what she is trying to do.

It is this: to give people horribly disfigured by burns, accidents or other tragedies a chance at a new life. Today's best treatments still leave many of them with freakish, scar-tissue masks that don't look or move like natural skin.

These people already have lost the sense of identity that is linked to the face; the transplant is merely "taking a skin envelope" and slipping their identity inside, Siemionow contends.

Her supporters note her experience, careful planning, the team of experts assembled to help her, and the practice she has done on animals and dozens of cadavers to perfect the technique.

But her critics say the operation is way too risky for something that is not a matter of life or death, as organ transplants are. They paint the frighteningly surreal image of a worst-case scenario: a transplanted face being rejected and sloughing away, leaving the patient worse off than before.

Such qualms recently scuttled face transplant plans in France and England.

Ultimately, it comes to this: a hospital, doctor and patient willing to try it.

The first two are now in place. The third is expected to be shortly.

The "consent form" says that this surgery is so novel and its risks so unknown that doctors don't think informed consent is even possible.

Here is what it tells potential patients:

Your face will be removed and replaced with one donated from a cadaver, matched for tissue type, age, sex and skin color. Surgery should last 8 to 10 hours; the hospital stay, 10 to 14 days.

Complications could include infections that turn your new face black and require a second transplant or reconstruction with skin grafts. Drugs to prevent rejection will be needed lifelong, and they raise the risk of kidney damage and cancer.

After the transplant you might feel remorse, disappointment, or grief or guilt toward the donor. The clinic will try to shield your identity, but the press likely will discover it.

The clinic will cover costs for the first patient; nothing about others has been decided.

Another form tells donor families that the person receiving the face will not resemble their dead loved one. The recipient should look similar to how he or she did before the injury because the new skin goes on existing bone and muscle, which give a face its shape.

All of the little things that make up facial expression - mannerisms like winking when telling a joke or blushing at a compliment - are hard-wired into the brain and personality, not embedded in the skin.

Some research suggests the end result would be a combination of the two appearances.

Surgeons will graft skin to cover the donor's wound, but a closed casket or cremation will be required.

It took more than a year to win approval from the 13-member Institutional Review Board, the clinic's gatekeeper of research. Siemionow assembled surgeons, psychiatrists, social workers, therapists, nurses and patient advocates, and worked with LifeBanc, the organ procurement agency she expects will help obtain a face.

At first, not everyone was on her side, acknowledged the board's vice chairman, Dr. Alan Lichtin. After months of debate, Siemionow brought in photographs of potential patients.

Looking at the contorted images, Lichtin said he was struck by "the failure of the present state of the art to help these people." He decided he didn't want to deprive the surgeon or patients of the chance.

The board's decision didn't have to be unanimous.

In the end, it was.

Surgeons wished they could have done a transplant six years ago, when a 2-year-old boy attacked by a pit bull dog was brought to the University of Texas in Dallas where Dr. Karol Gutowski was training.

Other doctors had tried to reattach part of the boy's mauled face but it didn't take. The Texas surgeons did five skin grafts in a bloody, 28-hour surgery. Muscles from the boy's thigh were moved to around his mouth. Part of his abdomen became the lower part of his face. Two forearm sections became lips and mouth.

"He'll never be normal," said Gutowski, now a reconstructive surgeon at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Surviving such wounds can be "life by 1,000 cuts." Patients endure dozens of operations to graft skin inch by inch from their backs, arms, buttocks and legs. Only small amounts can be taken at a time because of bleeding.

Surgeons often return to the same areas every few weeks, reopening old wounds and building up skin. Years later, many patients are still having surgeries. A face transplant - applying a sheet of skin in one operation - could be a better solution.

Despite its shock factor, it involves routine microsurgery. One or two pairs of veins and arteries on either side of the face would be connected from the donor tissue to the recipient. About 20 nerve endings would be stitched together to try to restore sensation and movement. Tiny sutures would anchor the new tissue to the recipient's scalp and neck, and areas around the eyes, nose and mouth.

"For 10 years now, it could have been done," said Dr. John Barker, director of plastic surgery research at the University of Louisville, where the first hand transplant in the United States was performed in 1999.

Several years ago, these doctors announced their intent to do face transplants, but no hospital has yet agreed. They also are working with doctors in the Netherlands; nothing is imminent.

However, Siemionow had been doing experimental groundwork. She already had creatures that resembled raccoons in reverse - white rats with masks of dark fur - from years of face transplant experiments. She developed a plan and got clinic approval before going public, and insists she is not competing to do the first case.

"I hope nobody will be frivolous or do things just for fame. We are almost over-cautious," she said.

Siemionow, 55, went to medical school in Poland, trained in Europe and the United States, and has done thousands of surgeries in nearly 30 years. The success of this one depends on picking the right patient.

She wants a clear-cut first case. No children because risks are too great. No cancer patients because anti-rejection drugs raise the risk of recurrence.

"You want to choose patients who are really disfigured, not someone who has a little scar," yet with enough healthy skin for traditional grafts if the transplant fails, she said.

The person must bond with the transplant team, especially Siemionow. How much would she want to know about the person?

"Everything possible. It's a commitment on both sides," she said.

Dr. Joseph Locala will decide whether candidates are mentally fit. His chief concern: making sure they realize the risks.

"They almost need to understand as much as the surgeon," he said.

A psychiatrist who has worked with transplant patients for 11 years, Locala knows they often have been coached on what to say to be chosen. He'd veto candidates who had abused alcohol or drugs, because they may not comply with medications.

Likewise someone who had attempted or seriously threatened suicide, or with little family or friends for support.

"I'm looking for a psychologically strong person. We want people who are going to make it through," he explained.

Dr. James Zins, chairman of plastic surgery, expects to be among the 10 to 12 doctors involved in the transplant and has been screening patients.

"We get some pretty strange calls from people who are really not candidates," he said. For someone to be chosen, "they're going to have to get a pass from every member of the team."

Matthew Teffeteller might seem an ideal candidate.

Hair is driving him crazy. What used to be a beard can't grow through the skin-graft quilt that Vanderbilt University doctors stitched over parts of his face that were seared off in a car crash. Trapped under this crust, hair festers, leading to staph infections, pain and more surgeries.

"It's a nightmare and it never ends," he said. "Being burned is the worst thing that can happen to you. I'm about sure of it."

Teffeteller, 26, lives south of Knoxville, in the foothills of Great Smoky Mountains National Park where he worked, ironically, as a fire fighter. The day after Valentine's Day in 2002, he was taking his pregnant wife to buy a cowboy hat and go country line dancing to celebrate their first anniversary.

"The next thing I remember, everything just went all to pieces...there was a big explosion. I remember seeing gas splash off of the windshield," he said.

Rear-ended by a truck, his car flipped and caught on fire. His wife died. He was burned trying to free her.

"They said my face was charcoal black," he said.

He didn't see it for two months, until he glimpsed a mirror on his way to therapy.

"Oh, my God," he thought. "I remember seeing my eyes pulled open. I remember my ears were burned off, and I remember my bottom lip being pulled down."

Three years later, his face still frightens children. Yet he wouldn't try a transplant.

"Having somebody else's face ... that wouldn't be right. When I look in the mirror, I might be scarred but I can still tell that it's me," he said.

"I'd be afraid something would go wrong, too. What would you do if you didn't have a face? Could you live?"

Bioethicist Carson Strong at the University of Tennessee wonders, too.

"It would leave the patient with an extensive facial wound with potentially serious physical and psychological consequences," he wrote last summer in the American Journal of Bioethics.

Such worries led the Royal College of Surgeons in England and the French National Ethics Advisory Committee to decide it shouldn't be tried. Any doctor considering it should examine soul and conscience, Strong wrote.

Ironically, people most emotionally devastated by disfigurement are those most likely to seek a transplant and least able to cope with uncertain results, media attention and loss of privacy, ethicists from England wrote in the same journal.

One worried that a donor family might have unhealthy expectations of seeing a loved-one "live on" in another person's body, or that recipients might want to see and approve a potential face.

No way, said Siemionow.

"It's not a shopping mall. They need to rely on our judgment. If they are starting to shop, they are not good candidates," she said.

Siemionow said critics should admit that risks and need for the transplant are debatable.

"Really, who has the right to decide about the patient's quality of life?" she asked. "It's very important not to kind of scare society.... We will do our best to help the patient."

If all of the candidates back out, "that's OK. It means that we are not ready yet," she said.

But if a transplant succeeds, many people who live in misery could benefit, said Gutowski, the Wisconsin surgeon.

"Someone's got to push the envelope," he said. "In retrospect, we'll know whether it should be done."

09-17-05 17:00 EDT

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

Deaf-blind campers find camaraderie at retreat

2005-09-19T02:06:00.000-04:00

Few friends of mine flew there to volunteer. I look forward to hearing their stories about the camping retreat.
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From the newsroom of The Repository, Canton, Ohio, Sunday, September 18, 2005 .....

Deaf-blind campers find camaraderie at retreat

By RACHEL LA CORTE Associated Press writer

SEABECK, Wash. — Heads bowed close to each other, hands clasped, fingers fluttering, dozens converse without a sound.

Far from the world they normally live in, with its seeing and hearing majority, more than 60 deaf-blind campers gather at a yearly retreat on Hood Canal in western Washington state to do what much of society thinks they are incapable of — ride Jet Skis, work on computers, tackle a triathlon.

“I’m trying things I’ve never had the courage to do,” said Richard Garrett, of Austin, Texas, who’s almost completely blind and hard of hearing and was looking forward to getting into a kayak for the first time.

The Seattle Lighthouse, a not-for-profit agency that helps blind and deaf-blind people with employment, support and training, has run the weeklong retreat every year since 1978, drawing deaf-blind people from across the country and beyond.

Worldwide allure

This year, Canadians, Australians and a camper from Japan also made the trek. The more than 130 volunteers traveled just as far.

There are other camps for those without vision or hearing, but supporters say the Seabeck retreat is uniquely varied in its offerings. Campers can ride tandem bicycles, take dance classes and create art. They also learn about the latest medical research and technological advances that make everyday life easier.

Rope paths lead from house to house, activity to activity, so that campers can explore the compound independently. A series of knots tell them where they are.

“It’s a breath of fresh air,” said retreat coordinator Tami Berk. “It’s a little bit of hope and inspiration, and then they go back to their real lives.”

There are at least 40,000 to 50,000 blind-deaf children and adults in the United States, said Nancy O’Donnell, with the Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults in Sands Point, N.Y.

Within this group, there’s a broad range. “People try to fit deaf-blind people into a stereotype and they forget that there’s a person behind those challenges,” O’Donnell said.

Many at the retreat had Usher Syndrome, a degenerative condition that affects the hearing and vision of more than 10,000 people in the United States.

For those who are completely blind and deaf, tactile signing is used; for those who are deaf but still maintain some vision, American Sign Language or different variations are used.

While many of the volunteers have both their vision and hearing, several are deaf, something they say helps them relate even more to the campers.

“I have a similar shared experience,” said Terry Dockter, who was born deaf and is a freelance interpreter who also does advocacy work in Seattle.

For Dockter, deaf culture is as distinct as Italian or German culture and should be treated as such, not as a disability.

Feel good thing

“Hearing people feel the need to ’fix’ deaf people,” he said, noting that at the camp, no one is made to feel that there’s anything wrong with them. “This is fertile ground for people who are going through this to come here and feel good about themselves.”

Berk said that the cost of the weekly retreat is about $75,000, though that doesn’t involve the staff time.

The more than 130 volunteers pay their own way and donate their time, and while it costs the Lighthouse about $900 per camper, the campers pay a flat fee of $280 to attend, and can apply for scholarships to cover their costs. The costs are covered by the Lighthouse, which raises money throughout the year.

The tuition covers a week’s worth of food, lodging and activities, including a craft house, where the sound of hammering rings out as campers make leather bracelets and bookmarks.

Lavena Meske of Seattle pounds metal imprints into the soft leather of her bracelet as her interpreter guides her.

“Do you want to put in a moon or a star?” interpreter Deanna Donaldson asks Meske, her fingers forming the question in Meske’s uplifted palms. Meske chooses the crescent moon, carefully feels for the space on the band that her eyes cannot see, lifts the mallet, and pounds down to create the imprint.

“I’m trying to get the hang of this,” Meske says through Donaldson, who is deaf. “I think it’s going to be really pretty.”

Upstairs, Anindya “Bapin” Bhattacharyya, technology supervisor at the Helen Keller National Center, is demonstrating how to use phones, laptops and Braille communicators.

Campers sit at computers, scrolling through Web sites that they “see” through the refreshable Braille that rises under their fingers on a board just below the keyboard.

Bhattacharyya, who is deaf and blind, speaks with a reporter intermittently through a translator and through a screen Braille communicator. The communicator has two sides: one in Braille that the deaf-blind person can read, and the other a screen with a keyboard, for a sighted person.

Thanks to technology

“The technology has enabled us to participate in the world more than before,” he said.

Berk said the popularity of the retreat shows how vibrant the deaf-blind community is, something that she said is often overlooked.

“I think people think deaf-blind people are slow, they need to be in a group home, they can’t live by themselves,” Berk said. “How can you live alone if you can’t see or hear? But every deaf-blind person here does exactly that.”

On the Net:

Seattle Lighthouse: www.seattlelighthouse.org/

Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults: www.hknc.org/

American Association of the Deaf-Blind: www.aadb.org

© 2005 The Repository

Hearing-impaired teen learns to say the prayers for her bat mitzvah

2005-09-19T02:05:00.000-04:00

From the newsroom of the San Antonio Express-News, San Antonio, Texas, Saturday, September 17, 2005 .....

Hearing-impaired teen learns to say the prayers for her bat mitzvah

Jan Kilby
Special to the Express-News

Preparing to say prayers in Hebrew for a bat mitzvah can be challenging for any teenage Jewish girl, but for Genae Weinberger, it required that she first learn to speak.

Genae, 14, has been hearing-impaired since infancy and has used sign language to communicate since she was a child.

With the help of a cochlear implant, Genae has been able to hear some sounds and has tried to replicate them. Her mother said, however, that though she can form some words, she's never fully developed her speech.

Until now.

When the time came for her bat mitzvah, the sometimes shy, sometimes assertive girl decided to take on a daunting task: to fulfill the requirement in the Jewish faith for a person making a bat mitzvah to vocalize the prayers.

Five years ago, Genae set out to accomplish what many considered impossible: speaking her bat mitzvah prayers in Hebrew from the Torah before those in the Congregation Agudas Achim, her synagogue on the city's far North Side.

For Genae and other Jewish girls who reach age 13, making a bat mitzvah signifies their desire to assume the spiritual and moral responsibility of following Jewish laws.

The words "bat mitzvah" mean daughter of the commandment. For Jewish boys, the term is "bar mitzvah," or son of the commandment.

Reaching her goal would allow her several spiritual rewards. After the ceremony, Genae could be counted in the minyan, a group of 10 adult synagogue members required to conduct specific Jewish religious services. She could also go up to the bimah, the raised area in the sanctuary in the synagogue where the service is conducted, to receive an aliya, a call to read Torah passages at services. She would do so wearing a tallit, or prayer shawl, and a kippa, a prayer cap.

Over the years, Genae's parents, Risa and Keith Weinberger, supported their daughter in achieving her goal.

"She's worked very hard. It's more difficult for her," Keith Weinberger said.

Risa Weinberger said she didn't see the ceremony two weeks ago as different from any other one.

"We just had to do some things differently. Everybody's different," she said.

Risa Weinberger said she's happy her daughter has proved something she believes: People with disabilities can fully participate in a spiritual life.

They knew Genae could succeed, so they worked with her daily to prepare her, and they found other professionals to help. Five years ago, they began taking her to weekly 30-minute speech therapy sessions at the Speech and Language Center at Stone Oak.

"She's become more confident in speaking since we started doing this," Risa Weinberger said.

In the past year, Genae has devoted half of each session to learning how to pronounce Hebrew words.

Speech therapist Gayle Flores spoke highly of Genae's progress.

"She was so motivated to learn the prayers," she said.

Risa Weinberger also sought the help of a Jewish interpreter for the deaf, Sharon Ploeger, to assist in the service. She wanted someone to communicate the meaning of Genae's Hebrew prayers into sign language so her daughter's many hearing-impaired friends attending the service could understand them.

A month before her bat mitzvah, Genae, her parents and Rabbi Leonardo Bitran of the Congregation of Agudas Achim rehearsed the service at Ploeger's Austin home.

"She's done beautifully," Ploeger said. "A lot of people would say, 'I'm not going to do this. I have a hard enough time speaking English.' The fact that she really did have the drive to do this — something every Jewish child has the want and need to do — that's wonderful," she said.

Bitran, who also worked with Genae for a year to prepare her for the service, spoke of his admiration for her and her parents.

"The tenacity and commitment of the parents to give Genae the opportunity to be exposed to this change in her journey is remarkable," Bitran said. "It takes a daughter with the willingness to do it and a mom and dad with the commitment to do it."

Bitran also spoke of what he's gained.

"It's been inspiring, a discovery for me, and has sensitized my rabbinate to a different world," he said.

He said he even learned to sign a blessing to Genae during the service.

Keith Weinberger spoke about the impact of his daughter's experience.

"Everybody's learned something from this — the rabbi, the people in the synagogue, Genae and Ashlyn, her younger sister," he said.

As for Genae, her message is simple: "I want others to know," she said through her mother in sign, "that even deaf people can study for a bat mitzvah."

© 2005 San Antonio Express-News. All rights reserved.

CEPIN's New Free E-Mail List

2005-09-19T02:02:00.000-04:00

ANNOUNCING OUR NEW FREE E-MAIL LIST

The Community Emergency Preparedness Information Network (CEPIN) Project now has a new e-mail list for people who are interested in emergency-related information for people with hearing loss.

If you haven't seen our first issue of the ARE YOU READY? Newsletter, you're missing out! Sign up to get the newsletter, different news and announcements, and to be kept updated of emergency preparedness information. And best of all - it costs nothing to join!

SIGN UP TODAY AT WWW.CEPINTDI.ORG!

The CEPIN Project is funded by a $1.5 million grant from the Dept. of Homeland Security, and is coordinated by TDI.

Restaurant Recommendation: Turkuaz

2005-09-19T01:59:00.000-04:00

Turkuaz is a Turkish Bar & Lounge at 2637 Broadway and 100th Street. I've been there for dinner during evening hours as well as the Sunday brunch ($14.95 for a wide spread of delicacies). I've been pleased each time. Few people I know also frequent this place.