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6 Serious Sexual Health Symptoms for Women
What's normal and what may need a doctor's attention.
3. Abnormal Vaginal Discharge
With vaginal discharge, “abnormal is what the woman decides is abnormal,” Puritz says. “Women know their bodies pretty well.”
Abnormal symptoms include a strong odor; an unusually large amount of discharge; accompanying itching, burning, or irritation; unusual color; or blood in the discharge.
Most causes of abnormal discharge are minor, Puritz says. “Any sort of infection can cause a discharge.” Common ones include yeast infections, bacterial vaginosis, or trichomonas, she says. “They’re all easily treated.”
Because sexually transmitted diseases can also cause abnormal discharge, check in with your doctor to rule out the possibility.
Also be sure to tell your doctor about any persistent, watery discharge, a classic symptom of fallopian tube cancer, which is rare.
Women may have itching without discharge, a problem that Puritz sees frequently when patients use perfumed soaps or personal care products -- especially perfumed lubricant jellies. “All perfume lotions and potions wreak havoc,” she says. “Especially if you have sensitive skin, that can cause a lot of itching and irritation.”
Although genital itching isn’t likely to be serious, it’s still a good idea to tell your doctor if it’s bothersome. The fix might be simple.
However, “if it’s itching and there are skin changes, that would be a worrisome sign,” Puritz says.
For example, a skin condition called lichen sclerosus can cause itching and small, white spots on the vulva. The spots grow into bigger patches that turn thin and crinkled. Lichen sclerosus is an uncommon problem that tends to affect older women, Puritz says.
“It’s something that needs to be medically treated,” she says. Left untreated, the patches can scar and create problems with urination or sex. There’s also a tiny chance that skin cancer may develop in the patches.
Aside from lichen sclerosus, any itchy lesion on the vulva or vagina may need to be biopsied to rule out cancer.
5. Vaginal Dryness
Vaginal dryness in nursing mothers or postmenopausal women can cause spotting after intercourse. Once nursing moms start ovulating again, dryness will ease.


Are there any OTC sleep medications that do not cause symptoms like restlessness?
Kristen A. Binaso, RPh, FASCP, CCP
American Pharmacists Association
Restlessness is a common side effect of the over-the-counter products that can be used as sleep aids because the active ingredient is an antihistamine. I would advise making an appointment with your doctor or health care provider for further evaluation, and advise them of the side effect you experience with the OTC products. You may require prescription medication instead because they work differently and are not antihistamines.


This is a public service announcement warning you about the latest abomination upon the lord, Ylvis’ “The Fox”.
Posted on YouTube on September 3rd, 2013, it’s the latest viral infection music video made and performed by Bård Urheim Ylvisåker and Vegard Urheim Ylvisåker, a Norwegian variety show duo who call themselves “Ylvis”.
Currently, it’s No.29 on the Billboard Hot 100 list, and has over 36 million views and a half a million thumbs up on YouTube, signaling the approval of this latest electronic dance musical masterpiece.
Suppose you don’t want to watch the video, (and that’s understandable, as it can’t be unheard) but you still want to know what it’s about. Well, remember that time when you were a child and you sat peacefully in grandpa’s warm lap while he would mimic the various sounds of animals in a picture book? Perhaps you were taught with one of Mattel’s See n Say. You’ve heard what an elephant said, or what a dog said, but have you ever wondered what the fox said? Well, Ylvis will give you their theory, which sounds like a bunch of noises you’d hear from the combined blood curdled helium screams of Pauly Shore, Satan, and a dying wildebeest:
The video spans a length of 3 minutes and 45 seconds, featuring multiple partygoers dressed as animals (some say furrys), with the two singers of Ylvis dressed in orange fox costumes. They pose the question, “What does the fox say?” and proceed to come up with a variety of possibilities, while they dance in a laser lit forest with back up dancers and an old man reading a book to his presumed grandson. The song appears on the top 100 iTunes charts of 21 countries around the world, reaching #1 in Norway, #6 in Finland, and #9 in Estonia.
Upon the international success of the song, Ylvis told Mother Jones that they were “quite surprised”, saying that the music video was “supposed to entertain a few Norwegians for three minutes – and that’s all”. Originally, the song was meant to promote the new season of the local Norwegian show, I kveld med Ylvis.
Here is what a fox actually says.


The Comoros, officially the Union of the Comoros (Comorian: Udzima wa Komori,), is a sovereign archipelago island nation in the Indian Ocean located at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel off the eastern coast of Africa between northeastern Mozambique and northwestern Madagascar. Other countries near the Comoros are Tanzania to the northwest and the Seychelles to the northeast. Its capital is Moroni, on Grande Comore.
At , excluding the contested island of Mayotte, the Comoros is the third-smallest African nation by area. The population, excluding Mayotte, is estimated at 798,000. As a nation formed at a crossroads of many civilizations, the archipelago is noted for its diverse culture and history. The Union of the Comoros has three official languages – Comorian, Arabic and French – though French is the sole official language on Mayotte.
Officially, in addition to many smaller islands, the country consists of the four major islands in the volcanic Comoros archipelago: northwesternmost Grande Comore (Ngazidja); Mohéli (Mwali); Anjouan (Nzwani); and southeasternmost Mayotte (Maore). Mayotte, however, has never been administered by an independent Comoros government and continues to be administered by France (currently as an overseas department) as it was the only island in the archipelago that voted against independence in 1974. France has since vetoed United Nations Security Council resolutions that would affirm Comorian sovereignty over the island. In addition, a referendum on the question of Mayotte becoming an overseas department of France in 2011 was held on 29 March 2009 and passed overwhelmingly.
The Comoros is the only state to be a member of the African Union, Francophonie, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Arab League (of which it is the southernmost state, being the only member of the Arab League which is entirely within the Southern Hemisphere) and the Indian Ocean Commission. Since independence in 1975, the country has experienced numerous coups d'état and, as of 2008, about half the population lives below the international poverty line of US$1.25 a day.
How places in Comoros are organized
All places in Comoros
Further information on historical place organization in Comoros


Virginia City is a town in and the county seat of Madison County, Montana, United States. In 1961, the town and the surrounding area was designated a National Historic Landmark District, the Virginia City Historic District. The population was 190 at the 2010 census.
In May 1863, a group of prospectors were headed towards the Yellowstone River and instead came upon a party of the Crow tribe and were forced to return to Bannack. On May 26, 1863, Bill Fairweather and Henry Edgar discovered Gold near Alder Creek. The prospectors could not keep the site a secret and were followed on their return to the gold bearing site. A mining district was set up in order to formulate rules about individual gold claims. On June 16, 1863 under the name of "Verina" the township was formed a mile south of the gold fields. The name was meant to honor Varina Howell Davis, first and only First Lady of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. Verina, although in Union territory, was founded by men whose loyalties were thoroughly Confederate. Upon registration of the name, a Connecticut judge, G. G. Bissell, objected to their choice and recorded it as Virginia City.
Within weeks Virginia City was a boomtown of thousands of prospectors and fortune seekers in the midst of a gold rush. The remote region of the Idaho Territory was without law enforcement or justice system with the exception of miners' courts. In late 1863, the great wealth in the region, lack of a justice system and the insecure means of travel gave rise to serious criminal activity, especially robbery and murder along the trails and roads of the region. Road agents as they became known were ultimately responsible for up to 100 deaths in the region in 1863 and 1864. This resulted in the formation of the Vigilance committee of Alder Gulch and the infamous Montana Vigilantes. Up to 15 road agents were hanged by the vigilantes in December 1863 and January 1864, including the sheriff of Bannack, Montana and alleged leader of the road agent gang, Henry Plummer.
The Montana Territory was organized out of the existing Idaho Territory by Act of Congress and signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on May 26, 1864. Although Bannack was the first territorial capital, the territorial legislature moved the capital to Virginia City on February 7, 1865. It remained the capital until April 19, 1875 when it moved to Helena, Montana. Thomas Dimsdale began publication of Montana's first newspaper, the Montana Post in Virginia City on August 27, 1864. Montana's first public school was established in Virginia City in March 1866.
In the 1940s, Charles and Sue Bovey began buying the town, putting much needed maintenance into failing structures. The ghost town of Virginia City began to be restored for tourism in the 1950s. Most of the city is now owned by the state government and is a National Historic Landmark operated as an open air museum. Of the nearly three hundred structures in town, almost half were built prior to 1900. Buildings in their original condition with Old West period displays and information plaques stand next to thoroughly modern diners and other amenities.
The Historic District of Virginia City and Nevada City is currently operated by the Montana Historic Commission and is the top state-owned tourist attraction in Montana. The Commission operates gold panning, a historic hotel, and the longest continuously operating live summer theater company in the western United States.
Virginia City also has a Boothill Cemetery. There is also the narrow gauge Alder Gulch Short Line Railroad, which transports passengers by rail to the nearby ghost town of Nevada City, Montana and back.


HE may have had many job titles — songwriter, poet, musician, humorist, playwright and children’s writer — but Ivor Cutler was certainly a one-off.
Now Nairn-based Matthew Lenton hopes to introduce a new generation to the work of one of Scotland’s most unique cultural exports, and remind older fans of the singular genius that was Ivor Cutler.
Cutler, who died in 2006 at the age of 83, was born in Glasgow to a middle-class Jewish family, but it was not until middle-age when he became known as a songwriter after moving to London to work as a teacher.
The only artist to have his songs played on Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4, Cutler also made an appearance in The Beatles’ film Magical Mystery Tour, and numbered among his fans the late John Peel, whose radio sessions helped bring Cutler’s work to a wider audience, Billy Connolly, Stephen Fry, philosopher Bertrand Russell, and authors Iain Banks and Will Self.
Famously deadpan and lugubrious — Cutler would instruct his audience to applaud at 50 per cent their normal volume — his eccentricities included turning up at the BBC with half a boiled egg stuck to his forehead.
Yet his songs and poems could also be deeply moving, as with Going In a Field, the song which introduced Lenton to Cutler’s work.
"I always found his songs and his poems and his stories very evocative," Lenton said.
"They always pulled me into a distinctive imaginative world and that is what great artists do. They pull you into a world that has its own logic and beauty."
Lenton has paid tribute to Cutler and his work by devising The Beautiful Cosmos of Ivor Cutler for Vanishing Point and The National Theatre of Scotland, bringing together the story of Cutler’s life with his words and music, which Lenton reckons stands comparison with the work of Russian absurdist writers like Nikolai Gogoln and Daniil Kharms.
"If he hadn’t been Scottish, I think he would have been treated more seriously," Lenton said.
Which does raise the issue of whether she should regard Cutler, with his distinctive Glasgow brogue and Caledonian dourness, as a particularly Scottish.
"It’s a good question, and particularly in this year," Lenton said.
"I think some of the pessimism and dourness of the Scots was something that weighed him down.
"He left Scotland when he was 40 and he always said that was the beginning of his life. All his work he created in London.
"What it makes me reflect on, in this year of the Scottish referendum, is whether Scotland wants to be a place that people want to leave to go to London, or whether it can be a place people don’t want to leave.
"Cutler left Scotland to go to England and I’m an Englishman who came to Scotland and understands it’s a different place. Those things are implicit in the show, though it’s not in any way political. It’s more a celebration of his life and work."
• The Beautiful Cosmos of Ivor Cutler is at the OneTouch Theatre, Eden Court, Inverness, on Friday 4th and Saturday 5th April.


If you sometimes get confused between a colon and a semicolon or a hyphen, dash, or em-dash, then you are not alone. In fact, not only are you not alone, but you join the majority of people in this world who can speak English fluently, but who don't know the first thing about the details of punctuation. Fortunately, for you, WhiteSmoke has developed a state-of-the-art punctuation checker to help you correct punctuation errors in your writing.
WhiteSmoke Writer offers a wide range of operations. It will identify missing punctuation, like an absent quotation mark or a missing period – obvious mistakes that you probably just missed due to working quickly, and it will also find and correct less-obvious punctuation mistakes, like a colon that should really be a dash or an apostrophe that was put in the wrong place. One of the benefits of such an elaborate tool is that over time, you will find that your punctuation usage has actually improved. WhiteSmoke's Writer’s integrated punctuation checker won't just correct your punctuation errors without showing your mistakes; rather, it will highlight your errors, offer possible solutions, and even provide writing tips that will help you avoid making those same punctuation mistakes in the future. Think of our program as your very own personal tutor – you'll receive flawless, perfectly punctuated writing and one-on-one English punctuation lessons!
Offices, universities, and homes across the world benefit from using WhiteSmoke Writer for their grammar and punctuation checking, as well as text editing. According to Dr. David Spencer, professor of English, punctuation is a little-studied subject that should deserve more attention. "From an early age, schoolchildren are taught how to spell and how to write simple sentences," he says. "However, grammar in general and punctuation, in particular, have been neglected in recent years. Teachers seem to think that students can just rely on Microsoft Word's grammar and punctuation checker and have that be enough. It’s not enough – the program has its limitations and there are no lessons learned from its suggestions. WhiteSmoke's solution offers a dual advantage – it corrects poor grammar and punctuation, and it teaches students how to avoid making these errors in the future."
WhiteSmoke’s developers and linguists knew they had to address the multiple shortcomings associated with other punctuation checkers. With this in mind they created WhiteSmoke Writer’s punctuation checker with a variety of advanced features, including the ability to analyze all sentences efficiently for structural errors including missing and incorrectly placed punctuation marks. The software compares your written text with its large database of sentences, words and mistakes, and then uses an artificial intelligence algorithm to determine the writing patterns. The program assists novices and professional writers in writing impeccable documents without spending too much time worrying about editing punctuation and rewriting their sentences. It also teaches them a thing or two about the mechanics of the English language so that, in time, they'll make fewer and fewer grammatical mistakes and punctuation errors!


Immunization highlights: 2011
IVB Document centre: a valuable resource
The IVB Document Centre produces high quality information and communication products relating to advocacy and coordination of global research and development; policy framing; technical and strategic support to strengthen national capacity. Its three areas of work are: document production, dissemination and storage.
In 2011, the document centre supported the publication of 16 new documents and over 32 immunization-related articles published in scientific peer-reviewed journals and ensured wide dissemination of documents to key target audiences. In addition, the document centre has a database to facilitate searching for documents published by the Department.
Searches can be done by title, language and year. Also on the site is a catalogue listing all of the Department's publications, which is generated on a daily basis and includes a short summary of all documents, document numbers, and an indication of language versions. Hard copies of documents posted in the document centre can be ordered from firstname.lastname@example.org.
Updated immunization financing database now online
The immunization financing database is now updated with the latest comprehensive multiyear plans (cMYPs). The database contains information extracted from cMYP costing and financing tools from 62 countries. In particular, key data on costing and financing from the immunization plans have been included in the database for public access.
The database allows users to produce reports by country and by WHO region for the planning periods on the following information:
- total costs and financing of routine immunization programmes;
- total costs and financing of campaigns;
- specific immunization and health system shared expenditures;
- detailed expenditure composition by item costs and sources of financing; and
- immunization costs indicators per capita and per child.
Country and regional reports are provided in table formats and accompanied by graphical representations.


1 Cholesterol level in rabbit meat is much lower than chicken, turkey, beef,
pork. (Alabama A & M University 1989)
2 Rabbit is lower in % of fat than chicken, turkey, beef, and pork. (U S D
A circular # 549)
3 Unsaturated fatty acids is 63% of total fatty acids. ( Dr Reo)
4 Rabbit is highest in protein%. (U S D A circular # 549)
5 The office of home economics, state relations of the U S Department of
Agriculture has made extensive test and have stated that domestic rabbit meat is
the most nutritious meat known to man (or dog?).
6 Rabbit meat has been used and is suitable for special diets, such as those for
heart disease patients, diets for the aged, low sodium diets, weight reduction
diets, etc. ( Rabbit production Cheek Patton Templeton) Of course this is
between you and your doctor (vet!!). We do not make any recommendations of this
type because we are not qualified.
7 Rabbit has 795 calories per pound. Chicken 810, Veal 840, Turkey 1190, Lamb
1420, Beef 1440, Pork 2050. ( U S D A circular # 549 )
8 Rabbits will produce 6 pounds of meat on the same feed and water as a cow will
produce 1 pound of meat on the same feed and water.
9 Rabbits are raised up off the ground and is one of the cleanest meat.
10 As the worlds human population grows there will be less land to raise
food. The rabbit will play a more increasing role in this supply.
11 France is the world's largest producer and consumer of rabbit meat. In
Hungary there are rabbitries with over 10,000 does producing rabbits for export
12 Rabbit meat is all white meat.


TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) - Eighteen years ago April 23, Kansas reinstated the death penalty. One group marked the anniversary by renewing the call to take it back off the books.
People gathered Monday at the Tree of Healing. The tree was planted by members of Kansas Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation 18 years ago.
The group continues to advocate to outlaw capital punishment. Members say executions don't benefit anyone.
Connecticut lawmakers recently voted to repeal their state's death penalty, making it the 17th state to outlaw capital punishment.


(CBS) Here's bad news you might want to take standing up. An ominous new report ties a lack of physical activity - spending too much time sitting on your duff, essentially - to up to 43,000 cases of colon cancer and 49,000 cases of breast cancer each year.
The report - presented Thursday at an annual conference of the American Institute for Cancer Research in Washington, D.C. - has experts urging Americans to make more time for physical activity and to take a one- to two-minute break for every hour of sitting.
Something as simple as walking to a colleague's office instead of sending an email or going to the kitchen to get a glass of water can make a critical difference, experts say. Just don't make the mistake of thinking regular workouts can eliminate the cancer risk tied to inactivity.
"A person who gets up in the morning and makes time by spending 30 minutes on the treadmill probably feels pretty pleased with himself - and he should," registered dietitian Alice Bender said in a written statement issued by the institute. But, she asked, "What happens during the other 15 hours and 30 minutes he spends awake? If he's like most Americans, he sits - on his commute, at the office, and at home."
Do the math, and that means such a person is physically active for just 3 percent of his time awake.
Exercise is believed to help prevent cancer by reducing several key risk factors for the disease, including inflammation, excessive body fat, and the prediabetes condition insulin resistance.
And it's not just colon and breast cancers that physical activity might help prevent, according to the statement. There's also evidence that activity can lower the risk for prostate and endometrial cancer, according to Dr. Christine Friedenreich of Alberta Health Services-Cancer Care in Alberta, Canada.
Dr. Friedenreich's research shows that even in previously sedentary postmenopausal women, a program of moderate to vigorous exercise can lower levels of the so-called "biomarkers" of cancer risk.
The institute offered several ideas for boosting activity levels, including:
*Set a timer on your computer to remind you every 60 minutes to take a short break.
*Hold quick meetings on the go - while walking.
*Keep light hand weights in your office to use while talking on the phone or reading.
*Stand up and walk around during phone calls.
*Ask your employer to install a punching bag or chin-up bar in the break room.
Looking for more ways to sit less? Click here.


In tonight's Economy Rockford report.. a local expert details what's ahead for the car market and how some big changes will affect our buying habits and our wallets.
23 news auto expert George Schaffner thinks buyers will get a big lesson in supply and demand when it comes to buying a car .
Manufacturers have finally learned how to control their inventory.
Most dealers have a new car supply that will last them 53 days... compared to over 100 days last year.
This could make it harder for us to find a car because dealers won't replenish their supply as quickly as before.
Schaffner says if we see a car we want our best bet is not to wait because incentives we have gotten used to will be a thing of the past .
"Probably the transaction price is going to increase because there is no sitting inventory.. rebates may be a thing of the past or very small if any but your also going to see your re-sale value go up because if your average transaction price increases, the re-sale value increases as well, so even though you might be spending more this Spring your car is going to be worth more in the long run and your cost of usage may be the same if not even less."
And speaking of auto highlights this year...The annual Spring Auto show begins tomorrow at 10-am at Cherryvale Mall. The show features one hundred cars.. trucks and vans in all the latest styles and colors. The show continues through Sunday


Lycium carolinianum Walter
Carolina wolfberry, Carolina desert-thorn, Creeping wolfberry, Christmas berry
Solanaceae (Potato Family)
USDA Symbol: LYCA2
The spiny branches of this shrub are erect or spreading, may be up to 6 ft. long, and bear small, succulent leaves. The four-petaled, somewhat tubular, lavender to blue flowers usually occur singly and are followed by fleshy, red berries.
The Christmas Berry is a member of the nightshade family (family Solanaceae) which includes herbs, shrubs, vines, and trees with often showy flowers generally in branched clusters.
From the Image Gallery
Plant CharacteristicsDuration: Perennial
Leaf Retention: Evergreen
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Breeding System: Flowers Bisexual
Size Notes: 4-6 feet.
Flower: Flowers 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch
Fruit: Red 1/4 inch
Size Class: 3-6 ft.
Bloom InformationBloom Color: Purple
Bloom Time: Apr , May , Jun , Jul , Aug , Sep , Oct
DistributionUSA: AL , FL , GA , LA , MS , SC , TX
Native Distribution: Coastal plain from SC to TX
Native Habitat: Ditches, Ravines, Depressions, Swamps, Marshes
Growing ConditionsWater Use: High
Light Requirement: Sun , Part Shade
Soil Moisture: Moist
CaCO3 Tolerance: Medium
Cold Tolerant: yes
Heat Tolerant: yes
Soil Description: Coastal sands; tolerates salinity. Gravelly, Sandy, Sandy Loam, Medium Loam, Clay Loam, Clay, Saline tolerant.
Conditions Comments: The spiny branches of this shrub are erect or spreading, and bear small, succulent leaves. The four-petaled, somewhat tubular, lavender to blue flowers usually occur singly and are followed by fleshy, red berries. The berries are edible and have a sweet, tomato-like taste. Tolerates saline sites.
BenefitUse Ornamental: Fruits ornamental, Ground cover
Use Wildlife: Nectar-insects, Fruit-birds, Browse: deer, racoons and other wildlife.
Conspicuous Flowers: yes
Nectar Source: yes
PropagationDescription: Propagation by seed is possible.
Seed Collection: Ripe berries may be picked from the bushes in the fall and the seeds extracted by maceration.
Seed Treatment: Seed dormancy in this genus is variable. Seeds of some species may require stratification at 41 degrees for 60-120 days.
Commercially Avail: yes
National Wetland Indicator Status
From the National Suppliers DirectoryAccording to the inventory provided by Associate Suppliers, this plant is available at the following locations:
Far South Wholesale Nursery - Austin, TX
From the National Organizations DirectoryAccording to the species list provided by Affiliate Organizations, this plant is on display at the following locations:
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department - Austin, TX
Wildflower Center Seed BankLBJWC-1093 Collected 2007-09-06 in Cameron County by Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
BibliographyBibref 355 - Landscaping with Native Plants of Texas and the Southwest (1991) Miller, G. O.
Bibref 318 - Native Texas Plants: Landscaping Region by Region (2002) Wasowski, S. & A. Wasowski
Bibref 291 - Texas Wildscapes: Gardening for Wildlife (1999) Damude, N. & K.C. Bender
Search More Titles in Bibliography
Research LiteratureReslit 190 - Growth patterns of Carolina wolfberry (Lycium carolinianum L.) in the salt marshes of Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, Texas, USA (2006) R. E. Butzler and S. E. Davis
This information was provided by the Florida WIldflower Foundation.
Search More Titles in Research Literature
Additional resourcesUSDA: Find Lycium carolinianum in USDA Plants
FNA: Find Lycium carolinianum in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Lycium carolinianum
MetadataRecord Modified: 2015-01-21
Research By: TWC Staff


Divide prepared decorating icing in half. Use half for decorating the house now, the other half for adding, "snow" around house later (keep covered with a damp cloth).
Fill decorating bag with 1/2 cup icing.
Decorate corners of house and under eaves with line of icing. Attach mini multi-colored candies to house corners.
Outline windows and decorate curtains. Attach candy rounds to sides and top of windows. Cut gum drop candy ring in half and attach for windowsills with dots of icing. Decorate icicles on windowsills.
Outline front door and fill in with zigzags (smooth with finger dipped in cornstarch). Attach candy round for window. Attach mini multi-colored candies on doorframe with dots of icing and add red mini multi-colored candy for doorknob with dots of icing. Cut green gum drop candy ring in half and attach above door for awning. Cut red candy round in half and attach above green gum drop candy ring. Position yellow candy round above cut red candy round over door.
Ice roof smooth and divide in fourths on each side with lines of icing. Decorate zigzag garlands from each division line. Attach mini multi-colored candies in center of zigzag garland loop and at the beginning and ending point of each garland.
Decorate line on roof peak. Cut gum drop jelly rings in half and attach to peak with dots of icing. Decorate icicles on roof peaks and eaves. Attach candy rounds on sides of roof peaks with dots of icing.
Ice snow on base fluffy. Cover walkway path with mini multi-colored candies.
What a welcoming, cozy little cottage. Zigzag icing snow designs on roof topped with candy and punctuated with festive icicles. A dream house trimmed with bright and tempting candies and borders with green leaf trees.
Evergreen trees are created from cut green leaves and placed on every corner of this cottage. Even an evergreen wreath hangs above the front doorway. A colorful, stained-glass inspired walkway leads to the house.


General Motors revealed several of its new fuel efficient vehicles, including the Buick Enclave at the L.A. Auto Show. The Enclave is Buick's first luxury crossover SUV. It and its sister vehicle, the GMC Acadia are made at the new GM Delta Township plant. They both get about 26 mpg on the highway.
GM's Chief Executive Rick Wagoner spoke out at the show about other environmentally friendly vehicles the company is working on. He says his company is committed to making alternative fuel, hybrid, electric, and hydrogen-powered vehicles. He says the nation's No. 1 automaker is developing a hybrid car that plugs into a standard power outlet.
Lansing's Glenn Buege GMC General Manager Allison Buege-Watson says its no surprise, "It is what customers are asking for, and GM is just responding, trying to fulfill that need."
Environmental activists still say GM and other auto companies have been too slow to curb the nation's dependence on foreign oil. As for how long it will be before the new alternative fuel vehicles become available, Wagoner says no certain date is available, only that developing the cars is a priority.
The L.A. Auto Show runs through December 10. It is second in importance in the industry only to the Detroit International Auto Show.


Children with disabilities often have to sit on the sidelines while other kids their age are participating in sports.
A group in Grand Rapids has changed that by introducing an old sport with a new twist. It's called sled hockey and it's giving children with disabilities the chance to hit the ice.
The kids use special sled and two sticks, instead of one to help them get around. Sled hockey is played nationally and internationally, but there's only one team in Michigan.
It's in Grand Rapids, sponsored by the G.R. Griffins Youth Foundation and the Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital. The group was at Ice Sports East Lansing recently showing off their stuff.
The Greater Lansing Hockey Amateur Association, or GLAHA, now wants to start a team here in mid-Michigan.
For more information about Sled Hockey and how you can help start a team in Lansing, log onto GLAHA's website www.lansinghockey.com
Viewers with disabilities can get assistance accessing this station's FCC Public Inspection File by contacting the station with the information listed below. Questions or concerns relating to the accessibility of the FCC's online public file system should be directed to the FCC at 888-225-5322, 888-835-5322 (TTY), or email@example.com.


We start off in Dewitt, where Dr. Mark Schaar, at Dewitt Family Practice, says the common cold is going around this week.
Cold symptoms include itching or sore throat, sneezing, nasal congestion and mucus drainage, and watery eyes.
To treat the cold, it's important to rest and drink plenty of clear fluids. Also, gargling with salt water can ease a sore throat.
Over-the-counter decongestants containing pseudo ephedrine can help dry and clear nasal passages temporarily. Decongestant nasal sprays can help but be careful, because using those for more than five days can cause a "rebound effect." That means more mucus and worse congestion.
In Okemos, Dr. James Brouillette at Ingham Primary Care Center is treating ear infections, which oftentimes follow a cold.
The main symptom is mild to extremely painful ear pain. You may also have a fever. Babies and young kids are often fussy, have trouble sleeping, pull at their ears and cry.
You can take pain relievers, or put a warm washcloth or heating pad on the ear. It's also important to rest. You should talk to your doctor too; he or she may prescribe antibiotics or ear drops to help the pain.
You can help prevent ear infections in your child, by not smoking. Children who are exposed to cigarette smoke are more prone to ear infections.


Lansing-area women visited a local Target store to try to make a point: there is nothing strange about breastfeeding in public.
"Breastfeeding in public is important because no mom wants to sit at home all the time," said Lindsey LaForte, as she held her infant son Henry. "You have to go out and about, you have to go grocery shopping."
But moms who demonstrated at Target Sunday say sometimes they're afraid or ashamed of breastfeeding in public. Some say they get funny looks from other people in stores. Those that gathered want to end those glances.
"Breastfeeding is the biological normal for feeding a baby and a mother should feel welcome to feed their baby wherever and whenever," said Jessica Thomas, who breastfeeds her infant. "This is the normal way to feed a baby, that it's not something that should be hidden."
Forty-five states have laws that expressly permit women to nurse in public and private places. Michigan is not one of them, though a similar bill is in committee in the state house. However, by a separate state law, nursing women cannot be cited for indecent exposure.
Participants said Sunday the demonstration -- which was organized via Facebook and was not affiliated with a particular group -- wasn't just to make a point to passersby. It was also to show strength and support in numbers.
"It was important to support moms who were doing this for the first time," said Lisa King, a nursing mother, "and show there's plenty of other women out there to support them."


According to figures released by telecommunications firm TeleGeography, Skype continues to become more and more popular. And the increase in popularity is not small — between 2012 and 2013, international Skype to Skype calls rocketed by around 36 percent. The number of international phone calls being made in general is on the up, but Skype’s gains are well above those seen from landline and mobiles which stands at around 7 percent over the same period.
Microsoft’s ever-popular online messaging and calling service is available for a wide range of platforms, including desktop and mobile devices, and its widespread availability — coupled with the fact that people are looking for ways to save money these days — helps to account for the increase in usage. All told, 2013 saw a staggering 214 billion minutes of calls made Skype to Skype.
These numbers are already good news for Microsoft, but looked at in terms of increase things are even more impressive. Put together the traffic increases enjoyed by all of the telecommunication companies in the world, and Skype has gained 50 percent more than all of them combined. As TeleGeography points out, this is good going for a service that is already ten years old and faces competition from ever more IM and VoIP tools.
“2013 saw a staggering 214 billion minutes of calls made Skype to Skype”
Despite the popularity of computer and mobile based communications, it’s unlikely that the humble landline is going anywhere soon. TeleGeographyanalyst Stephen Beckert said: “No other network comes close to matching the global reach of the PSTN (public switched telephone network). While Facebook has approximately 1.2 billion monthly users, at year-end 2013, the PSTN connected to just over 8 billion fixed and mobile subscribers worldwide.”
Do you fit into these statistics? Do you find that you are using Skype more than in the past, and do you choose to use it in place of making a regular phone call?


According to a new report, Microsoft has publicly disclosed how much money the company has made in revenue from its Surface tablet lineup. This data comes from the annual Form 10-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission. So how much as Microsoft made? $853 million dollars since launch!
“Microsoft just filed its annual Form 10-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and deep in the filing is the first public disclosure of the company’s revenue from its Surface tablet lineup: $853 million,” the report states. This figure covers the launch of the Surface tablet up until the end of Microsoft’s fiscal year on June 30th of 2013. Microsoft has not disclosed how many Surface devices were sold nor do we know exactly which Surface device (Surface RT or Surface Pro) sold the most or least.
Microsoft recently slashed prices of its Surface RT tablet by nearly $150 dollars, after reporting a $900 million dollar loss for its Surface devices during its quarterly earnings report recently. According to new data, Windows 8 and Windows RT based tablets account for 4.5% of the global tablet market as of Q2 2013.
As GeekWire reports, $853 million amounts to roughly 4.4 percent of the total Windows Division revenue of $19.2 billion, which was reported by Microsoft recently. And obviously, $853 million in revenue is less than the $900 million charge that Microsoft took from the Surface brand.
“Windows Division operating income decreased, primarily due to higher cost of revenue and sales and marketing expenses, offset in part by revenue growth. Cost of revenue increased $1.8 billion, reflecting a $1.6 billion increase in product costs associated with Surface and Windows 8, including a charge for Surface RT inventory adjustments of approximately $900 million. Sales and marketing expenses increased $1.0 billion or 34%, reflecting an $898 million increase in advertising costs associated primarily with Windows 8 and Surface,” the filing states.
Keep in mind that Microsoft has spend a ton of money to advertise the Surface RT and Surface Pro. Unfortunately, it was not good enough.


Local Civil War battlefield site is re-emerging
WINCHESTER — The site of one of the largest and deadliest Civil War battles in the Shenandoah Valley is starting to emerge from a veil of trees and brush.
A native grasslands restoration team has…
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6/11/2014 2:24:00 PM Wood ducks and hen mallards need more protection
Ron Kuecker Outdoors Columnist
I think the time is ripe to start lobbying for wood ducks and mallards. Nope, they're not endangered species but if my observations are accurate it's time to roll back the liberalized hunting regulations on them. During current Minnesota DNR Commissioner Landwehr's tenure we've seen the hen mallard fall hunt bag limit increase from one to two per day and the wood duck bag limit increase from two to three per day. Hunters liked it and the commissioners popularity among opening day duck hunters soared. Well, not so for this old duck hunter. Two woodies and one mistakenly shot hen mallard per day, double that after the opener in possession, are all we should need to be happy hunters. Both species of ducks are well known for their nesting tradition, that is, they return to nearly the same place to nest each year. At least that is true for the first place they try. Heavy hunting pressure and too liberalized bag limits and our local population suffers. Combine that with habitat loss or weather induced pressure and we gradually lose the breeding population of our two most popular local ducks, the woody and the greenhead. It won't be long now, just a matter of a month or so, and the flyway councils will be meeting in far off cities to draw up a framework for this fall's hunt. After that each state will make some final decisions within those federal guidelines and voila, we've got our rules and reg's for 2014. We've seen some really good changes to our local fall hunts for wildlife. An earlier season duck hunt to allow the taking of blue wing teal before they leave the state was a great choice, albeit long overdue. That also reduced the opening day pressure on woodies and mallards. But soon, the blue wings are gone and the pressure on woodies and mallards steps up. Fortunately, a mallard hen can quite easily be differentiated from a feathered out drake by experienced hunters (but not youthful hunters early in September). Let's use that to protect our local mallards. Duck hunters, you can step up and be the conscience of the flyway once again. Let's "lobby" the DNR to limit the local take of woodies and hen mallards to two per day woodies, one per day hen mallard. If they hear from enough of you I'm guessing they'll change. Only a desk-bound, computer-staring, wildlife manager can not see what is going on. Let's tell them now before the seasons are set. The Belgian Malinois I first heard about the wonderful Belgian Malinois (Mal-in-wah) when our son Dan (career Army, Ft. Bragg, NC), his wife Lisa and son Remington took over foster care of one of them. Being prepped for military duty, trainers found he couldn't quite meet the rigid military standards so he needed a permanent home. They fostered him for nearly a year. They continually praised their temporary adoptee for its gentleness with five-year-old Remy. Then they passed it along to its life home, not an easy task. Then came the June 2014 issue of National Geographic with a lead article on Hero Dogs and the Malinois. I was in love with them, albeit from a distance. It made me understand why I chose veterinary medicine as my career and made me wonder, why did I retire? If you are a dog lover, as I, and you get a chance, pick up a copy of National Geographic or try to find it online. If I didn't have a big, loveable chocolate lab I'd be searching for a Malinois. A military drop out would be fine with me. More outdoor sightings As we sat on our point at Lake Amelia near Glenwood recently, the three of us, Dianne, brown dog and I, he suddenly turned his head to focus on a loon. Only 50 yards or so away, the big male had quietly surfaced and was sitting there, lowering its head into the water occasionally. I soon realized he was putting his well-adapted eyes below the surface, looking for small fish to feed on. No unproductive dives for this guy until he spotted something below the surface. It was the first time a loon was close enough to me that I could see what he was doing. Always thought before they were simply cleaning themselves with their head movements, foolish me. Another revelation came to me last week as the big pileated woodpecker returned to some trees alongside our cabin. Woody, as I now call him because of the cartoon character named after the species, was looking for insects. Then I realized, the longitudinal series of finger sized holes in the tree weren't put there without reason. He followed them up the tree, examining each hole for bugs that might be hiding in them. The big woodpecker had essentially set up a trap line of holes in that tree and was checking them out for lunch. Steve and Deb Freking, our neighbors on the north hill of Windom stopped by the other evening. Steve told me of the big bald eagle that flew so low over their backyard he could see the top of the wings. He suspected it was checking out a life-like lawn ornament for dinner. Nesting swan Do you want a good outdoor viewing? Out at Wolf Lake, about a mile and a half east of McDonald's, sets a huge trumpeter swan on a muskrat house, head laid back over her body. I presume she is incubating some large eggs. Get a look at her now, from the parking lot above, before she hatches and moves on to new outdoor viewing opportunities.


VSMC, a joint venture between Royal Boskalis Westminster and VolkerWessels, will complete the export and inter-array cables at the 400MW project off England's east coast.
The first work will be the creation of two 1,100-metre horizontal directional drillings at the landfall. The export cables, stretching 42 kilometres to the coast, are expected to be installed in 2016.
Included in the work is the design, supply, installation and testing of the 67 infield cables with a total length of around 100 kilometres.
Statoil and Statkraft announced their final investment decision to go ahead with the construction of the project earlier this week. The total investment in the wind farm is expected to be £1.5 billion (EUR 1.9 billion).
It will be made up of 67 of Siemens' SWT-6.0-154 6MW turbines.


Wine Price and Quality
© by John Juergens
About the only aspect of wine price that is closely related to quality is the amount of human handling that occurs during the wine making process. Most wineries have several levels of quality --at least by their definition-- and the prices will vary according to their perception of the quality. Without a doubt, the better and more expensive wines usually involve more handling, such as hand selecting individual grapes, and these wines sometimes are referred to as "hand-made". Wine makers can do all sorts of other things to try to improve quality-- like using oak barrels--but these efforts usually increase the cost of production.
What about American versus imported wine quality and price. This is a touchy subject because I know there are a lot of people out there who still think that only the French can make truly good wine. Those people are entitled to their opinion, but I feel sorry for them since they are missing out on a whole world of great wines. Trying to make quality comparisons among wines from different countries largely is a waste of time since many of the products of every wine producing country are good or even great, but they usually are very different due to differences in soil, climate, etc. It's the old apples and oranges thing. It's fun and interesting to taste wines of the same grape type from different countries to explore the similarities and differences, but it is non-productive to argue about which is absolutely "better".
Speaking of the Europeans, there is a much closer relationship between price and quality among wines from Western Europe, especially French and German wines. The wine industry is those countries is far more highly regulated in terms of quality. However, when you are evaluating wines from different countries, you have to make sure that you are tasting wines in roughly the same quality bracket, which can be a tricky proposition. The problem is, to get a French wine equivalent in quality to say a $12 Australian wine you generally have to spend $20 to $30. I know there are some notable exceptions to this rule, such as some of the Beaujolais wines, but most of the French wines available in our market under $15 represent the lower end of the spectrum of medium quality wines. They are roughly equivalent to some of the better California large volume wines or what used to be called "jug wines". Don't get me wrong, I really like French wines and used to be a French wine snob, but I believe wines from South and North American and Australia are a much better value. The bottom line is that the old saying, "You get what you pay for" doesn't necessarily apply to wine.
These are products that I believe are good value wines that have many of the classic characteristics of the major grape varieties. I'm sure I've left out someone's favorite wine, but this is just a starting point and I will add to the list regularly. They are broken down by grape type and I have indicated their relative degree of sweetness/dryness and "weight" (light/heavy). Since prices and availability will vary among retail outlets, I suggest you shop around. Your best bet is to look at PJ's Wine and Liquor in the Kroger Shopping Center on University Ave., C&M Package Store on South Lamar across from the hospital, and Star Package Store at 308 Jackson Ave.
Robert Mondavi Chenin Blanc (slightly sweet, light)
Kendall Jackson Sauvignon Blanc (dry, medium)
Chateau Souverain Chardonnay (dry, medium to heavy)
Chateau Ste. Michelle Johannisberg Riesling
Beringer White Zinfandel (medium sweet, light)
Napa Ridge Pinot Noir (dry, medium)
Chateau Souverain Cabernet Sauvignon (dry, heavy)
Louis Jadot Beaujolais (dry, light)
Fetzer Eagle Peak Merlot (dry, medium to heavy)
Hacienda Merlot (dry but fruity, medium)


by Susan Skomal
"People seem to love the science section. It's the one place where you can find good news and you can talk about sex,"
observes Natalie Angier, Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer for the New York Times. Readers are more than ever interested in news from all branches of science, particularly those touching on experiences close to home - the social sciences. Her advice to fellow reporters is equally relevant to anthropologists working with the media or preparing to publicize their research results.
"Public levels of ignorance about science are astonishing,"
Sports writers feel no need to translate such terms as ERA or RBI, nor do they bother to explain the significance of the 10-yard line each time it's used. Even business and economics reporters use jargon freely. Yet, when covering a scientific topic for the general public, Angier has found it necessary to "seduce" the reader. The trick is to convince the public that science is neither too hard nor too boring to understand.
Readers "do not like didactic writings; they do not like condescension."
Despite the public's general unfamiliarity with scientific terms and concepts, the average reader does not read the tutorial sections of most science articles.
To help readers digest an unfamiliar subject without seeming to preach, Angier suggests the following:
"Make the unseeable visible."
Use your imagination to describe an abstract concept in readily accessible concrete terms. Anthropologists have an edge over other scientists in this department, for we are talking about human behavior. For example, rather than expecting an audience to grasp the concept of diffusion in the abstract, describe the effect through the eyes of a single person.
"Tell what you need to tell to keep the story moving. No more. No less."
Don't underestimate the patience of your readers. By thinking of your piece as a short narrative, with a plot and punchline, much of the extraneous information can be eliminated. It may seem important to you as the expert, but it will have a greater impact to non-anthropologists if it is short and to the point.
"A good journalist hates to make an error just as much as a good scientist does."
The culture of a newsroom contrasts sharply with that of an academic journal. A news item will not be featured if the deadline is not met, while scholarly publishing is usually not so time-sensitive.
After former Vice-President Quayle's denunciation of the lack of American family values, the AAA Press Office was contacted by CNN for experts who could comment on the issue. It was a Friday at the end of Spring semester, when many colleagues were busy tying up loose ends and preparing for vacations or fieldwork. CNN was in a hurry, the offices in Atlanta had to make the New York studio's deadline for that afternoon. Of the ten anthropologists we recommended, only one was interviewed.
In our interactions with the media, we scientists will have the most success if we are sensitive to their limitations. A reporter simply cannot accomodate requests to FAX copies of his or her article to three different experts. As practised observers of human behavior we are all aware that three different informants will have at least three views on a subject. Most journalists take seriously their obligation to take the differing interpretations into account, while trying hard to minimize errors.
Reprinted with permission of the American Anthropological Association.
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Leading her first House of Lords debate yesterday, Martha Lane
Fox challenged the UK government to address its investment and
policies regarding adult training and skills in the face of the
growing digital skills gap.
The Baroness of Soho praised the government for including coding
and computer science in the future national curriculum, saying that
it puts the country in the position of being able to boast the most
visionary policy for educating children in the G8.
It is not enough to focus on educating the young though, she
added, as 90 percent of new jobs require some level of online
skills, and the majority of jobs are now advertised online.
"There are 11 million
adults who lack four basic online skills -- the ability to
communicate, search and share information and to do these things
safely," she said, adding that 50 percent of these adults are over 65, with the other 50 percent being of
The value to the British economy of equipping the adult
population with digital skills has been estimated by the
cross-sector charity that the Baroness chairs at £68 billion. By
2020, there will be nearly one million technology sector jobs in UK
that will need to be filled, something we will be unable to achieve
with our workforce as unskilled in these areas as they currently
are, she said.
Lane Fox also touched briefly on the current decline in the
overall percentage of women working in technology. At the current
rate, she said, by 2040 only one percent of people working in this
sector will be women.
founder also asked the government what its plans were to celebrate
the achievements of Tim
Berners-Lee in this anniversary year of the World Wide Web. She
paid tribute to Berners-Lee, as well as Ada Lovelace and the
Bletchley codebreakers for bringing us the internet. "I find
something magical and remarkable on it every single day," she
"All industries are being disrupted," said Lane Fox, listing
MOOCS, digital healthcare innovations, business solutions for the
developing world and online retail -- the sector with which she is
most personally familiar -- as the areas in which we are starting
to see the most significant changes.
Half of web users worldwide are now online shoppers, she said,
adding that in the UK, the online retail sector now accounts for
nearly 10 percent of the country's total annual GDP. "The British
are the most advanced online shoppers on the planet," she said.
The UK internet sector is now bigger than the education sector,
the health sector and the construction sector, Lane Fox pointed
out. Record numbers of digital startups around the country, along
with hugely successful businesses such as ASOS, Lastminute.com and
Moshi Monsters, put the UK in an extremely strong position to take
advantage of this revolution in retail.
"The UK's relative position on the technology stage is a complex
one. There are many ways in which we lead the world," said Lane
Fox, adding that our location and language put us at a huge
advantage in that they mean we are a vital part of every global web
"Through the Government Digital Service, the UK government is also "leading
the way in terms of open data, open standards and digital
governance," she said. At the same time, she criticised the
government's reactions to the Snowden allegations, describing it as
being "woefully quiet on the subject of liberty versus
There are in fact several ways the UK is falling short in its
adoption of technology beyond the online skills deficiency, she
pointed out. These include average UK broadband speeds, the failure
of UK businesses to scale themselves to compete on a global level
and the lack of understanding about the digital world on behalf of
the country's corporate, public and political elite. "Only four
FTSE 100 businesses have a CTO or digital executive on their PLC
boards and yet all of these businesses are facing potential
upheaval," said Lane Fox.
"The technology landscape is not remotely stable but is changing
at mindboggling speed," she said, suggesting that the 25th birthday
of the web is a "good moment to reflect" on how we react to the
pace of change. The Baroness also repeated Tim Berners Lee's
challenge for us all to take part in open-source-style, local
discussions trying to answer the question: "what kind of web do we
You can read Martha Lane Fox's full speech from the House of
Lords on her website.


More than 1,000 people have joined a campaign on Change.org
urging Texas Gov. Rick Perry to use state funds to alleviate the drought's negative impact on small ranchers and farm animals.
Bob Williams, founder of the Texas-based animal rescue organization Ranch Hand Rescue, launched the online campaign on Change.org
, the world's fastest-growing platform for social change. Williams has received a record number of requests to care for horses, cattle and other farm animals as a result of the Texas drought, which has caused a major hay scarcity in the state.
"We desperately need to raise awareness about this issue," said Williams. "Hay prices continue to climb, and much of the hay that's being brought into Texas is of poor quality. We know Gov. Perry is a good man, and we want to work with his team to develop a plan to make sure we help our ranchers and farm animals."
The drought has caused the price of hay to nearly quadruple in recent months, leading small ranchers and farmers, already struggling in a down economy, to sell off large portions of their herds or give them to farm rescue organizations like Williams'. Some horses and cattle have starved to death because of the lack of hay, and conditions are expected to worsen. Williams is asking Gov. Perry to use state funds to truck in hay from other states into Texas.
"Bob Williams is standing up and taking action for what he believes in," said Change.org
Senior Organizer Sarah Parsons. "Clearly, farmers, ranchers and concerned citizens across the state agree with him. Change.org
is about empowering anyone, anywhere, to start campaigns on issues they care about, and Bob's campaign is a perfect example of that."
State Climatologist John Nielson-Gammon recently declared Texas' ongoing drought to be the state's worst one-year drought on record. Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicates that the drought will likely persist through the winter.
To view the petition, visit http://www.change.org/petitions/governor-perry-save-our-starving-farm-animals.


While the cooler temperatures are here now, spring is right around the corner, and that means allergy season.
Its almost impossible to escape the heavy yellow dust piled on cars and windows but it might not be what's causing your headaches. This pollen is Pine pollen. It's the heaviest of all the pollens. The experts say because of that, its less likely to be inhaled and cause an allergic reaction, though some people do have issues because of it.
According to one pharmacist we talked to, untreated allergy symptoms could increase your chances of developing asthma and other serious allergic diseases.


A veteran of the US Air Force, Jimmy Fox wasted no time enrolling at FSU. “I don’t worry about tuition. It’s paid for with the post 9/11 GI Bill.”
And starting his own business.
“You’re not just going to get a free ride out of the VA, you need to have a way of supporting yourself,” said Fox.
Florida has the 3rd largest number of veteran owned businesses in the county. More than 176,000 Florida soldiers have started their own companies. They employ more than 300,000 people.
The state is helping them in their business endeavors. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission are waiving rules to help soldiers become commercial fishermen.
“This will allow veterans an opportunity to participate,” said Commissioner Chuck Roberts.
And starting last month, The Department of Business and Professional Regulation began waiving business licensing fees for returning soldiers.
“Come to Florida when you’re done with your career. Establish a business here. Be part of our economy,” said DBPR Secretary Ken Lawson.
There’s even more help coming from Tallahassee.
Florida State University launched its Veteran’s Film Festival Monday. FSU has vowed to become the most veteran friendly campus in the county.
“When you come to FSU, your service is going to be respected. Your service is going to be appreciated. The student body is going to reach out and open their arms unto you,” said Colonel Billy Francis.
With all the new help available, the problem becomes spreading the word. In September the state launched this website, floridavets.org, compiling information about state and federal programs.
More help is on the way. The newly formed Statewide Veterans Advisory Committee will hold its first meeting Wednesday in Tallahassee. The committee will focus on drug abuse and mental health problems effecting returning soldiers.


There will be changes to this year's annual 4th of July fireworks display in Portland. The fireworks will be shot off from land instead of a barge like the one that was used last year. During that display, a worker was badly injured.
An investigation by the State Fire Marshal's Office and the U.S. Coast Guard found that the weather was a contributing factor in the accident that left one of the pyrotechnicians severely injured.
The display was delayed a day due to weather and the Fire Marshal's investigation found that moisture and water from the night before, got into the tubes used to fire off the fireworks on July 5. The moisture caused an eight inch shell to explode prematurely.
The injured worker from Atlas Pyrotechnics suffered a serious shoulder injury and a collapsed lung. Atlas says it was a good thing the worker was wearing a life-preserver, because it helped soften the blow.
The city says the barge was donated, and the coast guard says it issued a permit, but found the barge was not inspected.
However, because the barge didn't carry any hazardous materials, it wasn't required to be inspected.
"The Coast Guard did investigate this because the nature of the injury and the fact that there was an injury on board, a barge that was otherwise in commercial service. So, that's one of the trigger points that the Coast Guard does step in and will do an administrative investigation, and we do many of these annually," said U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Nick Barrow.
The Coast Guard says either way, a 350-yard safety radius is required to prevent spectator injuries.
If you're thinking of having your own fireworks, click here to make sure they're not banned in your town.


I have never understood why people spend so much time building sandcastles. There are even contests where the sandcastles become quite elaborate. I look at those gigantic, detailed structures and think: That probably will be gone by tomorrow. (Maybe even sooner, because some little child will go stomping through it – probably one of my grandkids, as a matter of fact.) My sandcastles, on the other hand, are very primitive. They are basically lumps of sand with the token moat. The first wave that comes along usually takes them out.
Spiritually speaking, some people build their entire lives on sand. Jesus said, “Everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall” (Matthew 7:16–27 NKJV).
Even as culture changes, the Bible never does. I saw a pastor being interviewed recently, and the interviewer was pressing him on what the Bible says about some issues that are not popular in today’s culture. The interviewer asked, “Don’t you think it’s time for us to drag the Bible, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century?”
I thought: That is the whole problem. We have ignored the Bible. The Bible is never out of date. The news is quickly outdated, but the Bible never is. The question is whether we will put it into practice. If we do, then we will grow spiritually.
I read an interesting article about a woman who decided to kill her son, Kenneth. She fired a shotgun at him at close range, but the bullet hit the Bible he had been carrying. Later, the deputy who arrested Kenneth’s mother said the Bible saved Kenneth’s life.
The Bible will save your life as well. But it is not enough to simply read it; you have to do what it says. You see, there are some things that only God can do and some things only I can do. Yes, God can do anything, but He doesn’t do everything. For example, God does not sin. So He can do anything, but there are some things He will not do.
And here is something else God will not do: He will not violate human will. Sometimes we wish He would, because we know people who are doing the wrong thing with their lives, and we feel that God ought to grab them and drag them to where they need to be. But He actually will let them do the things they choose to do. He will let their lives run their course. Sure, He will give them warnings. Sure, He will speak to them. But He honors human will.
So it comes down to this: There are some things only God can do and some things only I can do. Only God can save us. Only God can forgive our sins. Only God can change a human heart. That is what God does.
At the same time, only we can believe. God will not believe for us. He will give us the ability to believe. He will urge us to believe. He will tell us to believe. But ultimately it is our choice.
God says, “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live …” (Deuteronomy 30:15-16 NKJV).
That is sort of like a teacher saying, “Today, I am going to test you on who is buried in Grant’s Tomb.” The teacher has already revealed what the answer is, but you still have to write it down.
God is saying, “Here is life and death. Here is good. Here is evil. You choose. Oh, by the way, choose life. I just want to let you know that is the right answer.” But it is still your choice. Ultimately, you have to choose.
So it is not enough to just read the Bible. Think about it. Contemplate it. Ponder it. Let it sink in. As one man said, “Conversion turns us to the Word of God, which is our touchstone.” A touchstone originally was a special rock that was used to measure precious metals. It was a point of reference. In the same way, the Bible is our touchstone in life.
If you believe that people are basically good, and the only reason they do bad things is because of their environment, then things probably aren’t making sense to you right now. When we look at the so-called government solutions that are supposed to improve our way of life, we see they have really done no good at all. That is because changing an environment does not change the heart.
The Bible doesn’t teach that people are basically good and do bad things because of bad influences. Rather, the Bible teaches that people are basically sinful, and they are born sinful. We are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners. It comes naturally to all of us. That is how we are prewired.
If you believe that we can bring about a utopia on earth through man-made solutions, then you must be very disappointed – because, despite all of our advances in technology, we can’t change the human heart. But if you believe what the Bible says, then things will make a lot more sense to you.
When Joshua was preparing to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land, God told him, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success” (Joshua 1:8 NKJV).
It’s all there for us in a relationship with God. And we can be sure it will stand the test of time.


There are many reasons why soap operas, those daytime dramas that once dominated afternoon television, are on life support. More working women, an explosion of other entertainment choices on TV and the Internet, the end of sponsorship by Procter & Gamble (the company that once owned most of the major daytime dramas, hence the moniker, “soap operas”), and shrinking budgets at the networks making less expensive formats like quiz, reality, and talk shows more attractive, have all contributed to the erosion of the audience. A recent event at the Paley Center for Media, co-sponsored by the Screen Actors Guild Foundation, brought together cast members from ABC’s One Life to Live and served as a huge wake-up call. Much will be lost—for both those who work on soaps and those who enjoy them—if the genre cannot be resuscitated.
OLTL’s cast was adamant that pronouncements of the soap opera’s death are premature. “We’re still around and doing well,” said Executive Producer and Lead Director Frank Valentini. In fact, OLTL, as well as All My Children, and General Hospital, stand a greater chance to survive because ABC, rather than P&G, owns them. The soap giant began sponsoring radio soap operas in the 1930s, but now only partially supports one—CBS’s The Young and the Restless. Listening to the OLTL actors talk about the show and acting underlined the important role soap operas continue to play in the world of entertainment.
Soap operas provide that coveted first job for beginning actors.
Both Kristen Alderson (who plays college student, Starr Manning) and David Gregory (who plays single teacher Robert Ford) talked about how thrilled they were to land parts on a daytime drama. “I’m madly in love with the show,” said Alderson, who was only six years old when she was cast as Starr. Gregory (above), who was kidded by other cast members about his sexy, good looks, said: “I want to do good work and I want to learn. I could take off my shirt and do that for ten years.”
Some soap actors do indeed make a career on daytime drama, while others use it as a stepping-stone to other opportunities. Famous faces who had their first close ups on soaps include: Meg Ryan, Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Kathy Bates, Marisa Tomei, Julianne Moore, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Tommy Lee Jones, Judith Light, and many, many more.
Soaps also provide a starting point for those who work behind the camera. Valentini said that he began at OLTL fresh out of school and has been with the program for 25 years. And sometimes those who never thought about acting hit the jackpot. Sean Ringgold was working as a bodyguard for A-list celebrities when he was spotted and cast in OLTL as Shaun Evans—surprise!—a bodyguard. Since then Shaun’s story on the soap has evolved and a whole family created around him. He knew he had crossed over when a director told him: “You’re not security anymore—you’re talent.”
Soap operas are a great training ground for actors.
Working on a soap is hard work. “There’s nothing better than a soap opera to hone your [acting] skills,” said Hillary B. Smith (above), who plays District Attorney Nora Buchanan. “Those who look down on soap operas have never done more than three pages [of script] a day.” Kassie DePavia, who plays “fiery and driven” Blair Cramer, said that her nighttime routine includes doing her “homework,” memorizing dozens of pages of dialogue for the following day. (A side benefit? She encourages her son to do his homework at the same time). Gina Tognoni (newspaper editor, Kelly Cramer), said the scenes she had taped the previous day took up more than 30 pages of the script.
That soap opera “commando acting,” according to Hillary, means that daytime actors can hit the ground running when they land parts in TV dramas or feature films. “After this, nothing scares me,” said Florencia Lozano (one of our Women Around Town who plays the OLTL’s manipulative attorney, Tea Delgado). “You step up to the plate, do what you have to do, be present, and make something happen.” Lozano, an accomplished stage actress, is comfortable in any medium. She recently had a guest role on the CBS hit, Blue Bloods.
Soap operas make a social statement.
Long before nighttime TV featured incest, rape, abortion, breast cancer, racism, homosexuality, and other social issues as themes for stories, soap operas were tackling these controversial topics. And OLTL continues to push the envelope. “We get to walk in every day and tell a story,” said DePavia (above, right, with Lozano, left). “Sometimes we make a difference socially.”
The downside? A storyline can be so emotional, it may be difficult for the actor to leave the character behind at the end of the day. “We have to be very careful what we open ourselves up to,” said Gina, who said that when appearing on another soap, she agonized each night over her character’s dilemma. She learned that she had to let it go. “You have to protect the soul,” she said.
Soap operas influence other entertainment media.
Telling a story, melodrama, teasing the viewer to stay tuned—all are hallmarks of the soap format. “The storytelling aspect of the soap has been adopted by every other medium,” said Hillary. Whether a nighttime drama with a continuing storyline, a reality show that plays up the conflict between participants, or a quiz show where waiting to hear the “final answer” ratchets up the tension, the format of the soap is the boilerplate.
Unfortunately, soap operas, like all entertainment, must always be concerned with the bottom line. And daytime drama has borrowed from the movies in changing how episodes are filmed. To save money, scenes may be filmed out of sequence when special sets or locations are needed. “It’s all about being efficient,” said Valentini. That timing puts extra pressure on the actors. With a film, the actors have read the entire script and know what will happen scene by scene. “But we may be shooting shows that are four weeks apart,” Valentini explained, adding that the actors will not have information about what transpires in between—one reason soap actors must know their characters very well and be able to adapt.
Soap opera actors will keep perfecting their craft and developing their characters, no matter what plot twists are thrown their way. The big question is: will soap operas themselves be up to the challenge to keep this art form fresh and relevant? Much depends on the outcome. Stay tuned.
One Life to Live
2 p.m., Monday through Friday
Paley Center for Media
25 West 52nd Street
Screen Actors Guild Foundation


- Word Explorer
|part of speech:
||a disease of the skin and nerves caused by infection. People with leprosy have sores on their skin and lose feeling in their bodies. They sometimes lose fingers and toes.
In the past, people with leprosy were greatly feared and forced to live far away from others.


- Word Explorer
|part of speech:
||something stated in words.
The company made a statement to everyone about the new work hours.
||any sentence that is not a question.
The paragraph consisted of one question and three statements.
||a report or record of financial matters.
The bank sends my mom a statement every month.
- account, record, report
- similar words:
||assurance, budget, certificate, comment, expression, message, notice, observation, testimony, word


Rothenburg, Romantic Road © www.romantischestrasse.de
To experience the best of medieval Germany, thousands of visitors drive, bus or cycle their way along the Romantic Road, a 180 mile (290km) route between Munich and Frankfurt that links together a string of quaint, well-preserved walled towns dating back a thousand years or more. The towns en route have banded together to market their attractions and ensure Romantic Road travellers are well informed and accommodated. Bicycles can be rented at any train station along the road, and tourist offices along the route provide maps and information. There are brown signposts along the route in several languages and many attractions along the way including amazing castles, some great museums and historic sightseeing in the ancient towns; the natural surroundings are also very beautiful and there is lots of yummy local cuisine to sample along the way.
The Romantic Road is a deservedly popular route and some of the attractions and villages can get crowded, particularly during peak tourist season. The route starts in Würzburg but you can start following the trail at any point you choose. The best known of the towns on the Romantic Road is Rothenburg, in the Tauber River Valley, and other favourites along the way are Dinkelsbuhl and Nordlingen.


Growth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is revised downward to 2.6 % in 2015 and the short term prospects remain “cautiously pessimistic”, according to the latest issue of the Quarterly Economic Brief for MENA (QEB). The report examines the different ways in which civil wars affect the economies of the region, including the important channel of forced displacement, which has become a crisis. It also explores how economic fortunes will turn around if there is peace.
This issue of the MENA Quarterly Economic Brief (QEB) traces the economic effects of the latter development—removing sanctions on Iran—on the world oil market, on Iran’s trading partners, and on the Iranian economy.The most significant change will be Iran’s return to the oil market. The World Bank estimates that the eventual addition of one million barrels a day (mb/d) from Iran, assuming no strategic response from other oil exporters, would lower oil prices by 14 percent or $10 per barrel in 2016. Oil importers, including the European Union (EU) and United States (US), will gain while oil exporters, especially the Gulf countries, will lose.
The over-50% decline in world oil prices—from US$115 a barrel in June 2014 to less than US$50 today—will have significant consequences for the economies of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This report titled " Plunging Oil Prices", focuses on the implications of low oil prices for eight developing countries, or the MENA-8 (oil importers: Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon and Jordan and oil exporters: Iran, Iraq, Yemen and Libya) and the economies of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council), who play a major role in providing funds in the form of aid, investment, tourism revenues and remittances to the rest of the countries of the region.
This report assesses the macroeconomic performance of seven of the MENA countries: Egypt, Tunisia, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen and Libya. All of these countries experienced rapid economic growth during 2000-10, and suffered a sharp economic slowdown in the aftermath of 2011. The brief focuses on the challenges facing these countries with a closer look at the actual growth performance in comparison with their forecasts and highlights the limitations of forecasting in the wake of the 2011 uprisings; and at the consequences of the growth slowdown, including unemployment, where perceptions may diverge from reality. The story is told in fourteen charts.
Ongoing regional tensions, together with a challenging external environment, have hit the economies of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region hard. Economic growth is slowing, fiscal buffers are depleting, unemployment is rising, and inflation is mounting in seven transition countries in the region.
While the focus has been on the recent change in government in Egypt, five countries in the Middle East and North Africa Region, including Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, Jordan and Iran are facing a growth slowdown, rising fiscal deficits and debt, and high unemployment and inflation.


Case Sensitive Sorts
Do you sort a lot of data in MS Excel? Ever find that you have case sensitive data (part numbers, account numbers, etc.) that just don’t seem to sort properly? Does Excel ignore upper and lower case and sort purely on letter content? Is this a problem for you?
If it is, then it seems to me that you do a lot of manual manipulation of your data to get it all “in the right place.”
Want a way out of the manual manipulation?
No problem – unbeknownst to us for all this time, Excel can do sorts that are case sensitive.
I know by now you’re probably very interested, so let’s take a look at how to get Excel to cooperate.
Begin your sort as normal – that is, highlight the list to sort or select a cell in the data range to get Excel to select the whole thing for you.
Next, it’s off to the Data menu, Sort choice.
When the Sort window opens, locate and click the Options button.
Once in the Sort Options window, you’re looking to check the “Case Sensitive” option.
Upon returning to the Sort window, finish setting your choices, complete the sort and then it’s back to business as usual.
This time the sorted data should be sorted in a whole new light! Lower case items will be sorted before upper case and…
…you no longer have to rearrange anything by hand!


I have always been a big fan of hard drive management programs but I’ve never seen a good one for free. Having a partition management program can really get you out of a jam, help speed things up, and even give you a better understanding of the current status of your drives. Not to mention that these programs can take a lot of the confusion and apprehension away from such tasks that the common end user may even find a bit overwhelming.
Most drive management applications give you an interface in which you can use to control different aspects of your computer’s hard drives. However with SwissKnife, today’s Download of the Week, you are not limited to just your internal hard drives you can also manage removable drives as well. It is a great way to keep track of all these new USB storage devices such as: hubs, readers, external hard drives, and card reader/writers that we all have plugged in anymore. I know that with all my gadgets plugged in I’m pushing over 20 drives and believe me this is when it’s nice to have a program that can create a convenient environment in which to oversee the big scheme of things.
Before SwissKnife I would use My Computer to view and perform basic drive procedures depending on the Operating System. If you have either XP or 2000 operating systems then you can use the Administrators Tools to manage a good deal of these drive management functions, however, in any other Windows Operating System you don’t have this option. SwissKnife can create, delete and format partitions on your hard disk drives almost effortlessly. Not to mention that Swissknife can be used interchangeably between several different Operating Systems.
Here’s a list of what SwissKnife can do for you:
- Formats faster than the OS (click on chart for details)
- Allows change of cluster size during Full format or Quick Format
- Divides a single hard drive into one or more partitions
- Supports Hi-Speed USB, PCMCIA, SATA, SCSI, USB 1.1, and FireWire® external drives
- Supports Fixed and Removable disk formats
- Supports FAT, FAT32 & NTFS systems
- Allows creation of a single partition of up to 2048GB of FAT32 or NTFS file systems.
- Full format or Quick Format of existing partitions
- Selective partitions can be modified for optimum flexibility
Supported Operating Systems:
- Windows XP (Home, MCE, Professional and Server edition, all service packs)
- Windows 2000 (Professional and Server edition, all service packs)
- Windows NT 4.0 Workstation and Server
- Windows Me
- Windows 98 (First and Second Editions)
- Windows 95b (OSR2 Edition)
So there you have it – a quick and easy way to deal with those “mounting” number of drives (that’s a geek joke). Anyway, I hope you find the program useful and if so then I have done my job. Now, however, I am sad to say that I must go as there are downloads out there waiting to be discovered and delivered onto you, our fantastic Worldstart Readers. So, I bid you adieu until next week and wish you all Happy Holidays.


Birth, marriage and death records, sometimes referenced to as vital records are invaluable to your genealogy search. Because they were typically recorded around the time of the event they are often considered more accurate then other types of records. - read more
Not only will you find information about a particular relative search, often information about other near relatives will be included. For example, birth and marriage records include parents full names and divorce records list the names of the couple?s children.
Can't find a collection you are looking for? Try using our Card Catalog to find a collection in Tennessee Birth, Marriage and Death.
Search most popular collections for Tennessee Birth, Marriage And Death databases:
Kineo Family Announcements(1,053,216 names)
Kineo Graveyard(699,037 names)
Jewish Data(352,709 names)
Canadian Headstone Photo Project(682,968 names)
Click here to view more Tennessee resources.


The primary concern of school personnel is for the physical safety, emotional well- being and civil rights of students and staff of Worthington Schools.
A crisis is any event in or out of school that has potential for disruption of the educational process.
We believe that:
· A well-defined plan will allow for timely interventions which will hasten the recovery process.
· There are four distinct areas of concern when dealing with crisis of which all are equally important. (Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, Recovery)
· A sensitive and caring approach must permeate the entire process.
· All information generated throughout this process is deemed confidential. Sensitive methods must be in place for dissemination of information to the various publics, such as, students, parents, staff members, community members, law enforcement officials, news media outlets, etc.
· An effective plan includes a multi-disciplinary approach which will draw upon the strengths and expertise of many community and school district professionals. (For example: teachers, administrators, counselors, nurses, psychologists and student support services personnel, community counselors and psychologists, pastors, law enforcement officials, firefighters, etc.)
· When school personnel are adequately prepared, trauma can be minimized and the time it takes to return to normal operation can be reduced.
· Crisis has similarities, therefore, materials can be prepared that will assist school professionals in the event of an emergency.


| Can we manage our water better?
|Expanded Title:||Water is an important resource for economic and social development in South Africa. Its limited and uncertain availability imposes serious constraints on development. In global terms, South Africa is categorised as a water-stressed country.
To date, these constraints have been overcome by building infrastructure to store and transport water, increasingly often from one river catchment to another. Such infrastructure can supply more water, more reliably than undeveloped rivers but the country is now approaching a physical limit to the amount of water that can be made available for use.
In the future, water users will therefore have to cooperate more closely with each other to maintain reliable access to what is becoming an increasingly contested resource. They can do this indirectly, by supporting and complying with the decisions and directions of government or, more directly, by working together to manage the available resources.
Water management is a difficult and complex business that needs appropriate institutional arrangements. While government can give broad guidance and support, as water resource constraints become more acute it is often unable to act effectively to address day-to-day details. And there is evidence that national government’s ability to control pollution and keep discipline over water use is slipping.
Many water resource management functions are best carried out at local level, often within the boundaries of river catchments themselves, since this is the geographical unit within which water flows and where one user’s actions affect others. At this level, it is helpful to involve water users and other stakeholders since they have detailed and up-to-date local knowledge as well as an interest in ensuring effective management to share water equitably between different users and to control pollution.
This approach is supported by South Africa's National Water Act (NWA), which provides for the establishment of “Catchment Management Agencies” (CMAs) to perform a range of water resource management activities within the framework of a national water resource strategy. However, since the NWA was passed in 1998, only two of the proposed nineteen CMAs have been established.
According to the NWA, “a catchment management agency may be established for a specific Water Management Area (WMA), after public consultation, on the initiative of the community and stakeholders concerned. In the absence of such a proposal the Minister may establish a catchment management agency on the Ministers own initiative."
To date, this provision has not been successfully used. So the immediate objective of this study is to determine why water users and other stakeholders have not taken advantage of the opportunity to lead the establishment of CMAs in the absence of action by government.
To do this, it sought to identify the concerns of a diverse group of water resource stakeholders about the benefits and disadvantages of establishing a CMA. The wider purpose was to understand better stakeholders’ attitudes to institutions such as CMAs as interventions to improve water resource management in South Africa.
At the start of the study it was considered that the reason for stakeholders not taking the initiative might include:-
• ignorance of the enabling provisions of the NWA (knowledge)
• lack of compelling incentives to establish a CMA (satisfaction with status quo)
• concern over ability to defend their interests in a CMA (capacity and uncertainty)
• fear that a CMA might be detrimental to their interests (negative evaluation of the management concept); and
• fear that a CMA would be ineffective in achieving its goals (lack of confidence in the management model).
Focusing on the Upper Vaal and Olifants river catchments, two “water management areas” that extend from the Free State to Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces, the knowledge and views of more than 50 water users and other stakeholders were surveyed.
The key findings were that:-
• Ignorance about the provisions of the National Water Act was not the main reason for stakeholders not taking the initiative;
• stakeholders were not satisfied with the status quo and many were frustrated by government’s weak administration of water matters and its failure to deal with serious water management issues;
• many were seeking ways in which they could become more involved in the management of water resources;
• there were however concerns about whether a CMA would protect their interests and support their objectives or undermine them;
• some stakeholders felt that the CMA model was too complex and would not solve the underlying lack of capacity and leadership that were at the root of their problems; and
• most respondents looked to national government to lead in establishing effective water resource management arrangements but were pessimistic about its capacity to do this.
Extensive evidence was presented of failures in the present management of water resources. These included administrative failures to issue licences and incoherent licence conditions, which were hampering economic activity; uncontrolled illegal water use, which undermined other activities; as well as widespread pollution of rivers, especially by municipalities and the mining industry, that damaged the natural environment and imposed costs on other water users.
It was also evident from the pilot areas studied that each WMA has its own local characteristics and challenges, which must be reflected in the approach taken to establishing management arrangements.
On the basis of these findings, recommendations are made for actions to improve water resource management. These include:
• Action must be taken to address water resource management problems which, if not attended to, will impact severely on economic and social life and damage the natural environment.
• The majority of water users and other stakeholders support the establishment of a more local level of water management and this support should be recognised and built upon.
• No serious impediments were identified to the implementation of the basic structure proposed for CMAs.
• Individual stakeholders can contribute best through institutions that represent their views and interests. Such institutions should be identified and organised or strengthened so that they can participate effectively in water resource management.
• While day-to-day water resource management activities should be supported from water resource management charges, funding support will be needed to support the initial establishment of CMAs.
• New management arrangements must make effective use of limited human resources with clear delegation of functions and management systems designed to allow functions to be transferred and/or shared between CMAs and DWA regional offices.
• Where there is no immediate crisis, the development of catchment management strategies will help to identify initial priorities for CMA action and the process of producing municipal water services development plans could provide a helpful focal point for initial discussions and actions.
• Current proposals to reduce the number of CMAs and enlarge the WMAs may weaken the relationships between stakeholders and could affect the performance of the CMAs.
|Document Type:||Research Report
|Document Subjects:||Water Resource Management/IWRM - Planning and development, Water Resource Management/IWRM - Water Governance
|Document Keywords:||Water Quality
|Document File Type:||pdf
|Research Report Type:||Technical
|WRC Report No:||1972/1/12
|Authors:||Muller M; Hollingworth B; Ndluli M
|Organizations:||Water and Development Management
|Document Size:||1 450 KB
|Attachments:||EXECUTIVE SUMMARY for 1972.pdf
TABLE OF CONTENTS for 1972.pdf


Four Headland students are celebrating their graduation from the Explorer Program tonight.
The 13-week program gives teens interested in law enforcement an inside look at what police officers do on a daily basis.
Officials say the program is a way to keep teens from going down the wrong path.
Explorers graduate can stay in the program until their 20th birthday. They then can apply to be a part of the Headland Auxiliary Department which can lead to a full time Police Officer position.