MissKeys

WASHINGTON — A Senate panel's proposal to abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency after its bungled response to Hurricane Katrina was criticized Thursday by the Bush administration and some lawmakers. Michael Chertoff, who oversees FEMA as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said dismantling it and creating an independent agency would be like "slapping a fresh coat of paint on."

But leaders of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee - Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn. - argued that Katrina revealed FEMA is too broken to be fixed. They said their proposed replacement agency would be much stronger and more effective.

"FEMA is discredited, demoralized and dysfunctional," Collins said. "It is beyond repair. Just tweaking the organizational chart will not solve the problem."

The Aug. 29 hurricane was the worst U.S. natural disaster ever, killing 1,500 people in three states and causing damage for which Congress has allocated $100 billion to fix.

Collins and Lieberman released an executive summary of conclusions and recommendations from a seven-month investigation of the Katrina response spanning 830,000 pages of documents, 320 interviews and 22 hearings. Their entire committee will review the report Tuesday.

The proposed new agency would recombine disaster preparedness and response activities, reclaim power over billions of dollars of state and local grants, gain responsibility for securing critical infrastructure, and restore an emphasis on natural as well as terrorist threats. Those functions and approaches were part of FEMA when it was a freestanding agency, but were divided up by the Bush administration when FEMA was merged into DHS.

The report criticized federal, state and local emergency responders for a variety of failures. People weren't evacuated ahead of the forecasted storm, leaving dozens to die unnecessarily in nursing homes; emergency responders couldn't relay information about dire conditions; and confusion among agencies delayed aid to the stranded, according to the report.

"The first obligation of government is to protect our people," Collins said. "In Katrina, we failed - at all levels of government - to meet that fundamental obligation."

Recommendations include:

Creating regional "strike teams" of emergency responders from all levels of government who train together to coordinate better when disasters occur.

Increasing funding to train and equip emergency responders because FEMA teams have been cut back and neglected.

Negotiating contracts for food, water, fuel distribution and housing before disaster strikes. Complaints after Katrina included the lack of food and water, combined with $400-a-night hotel rooms.

Former FEMA director Michael Brown, who resigned after Katrina, said the proposed replacement agency would basically be the same as FEMA before it lost its disaster-planning responsibilities a year ago. "It sounds like they're just re-creating the wheel and making it look like they're calling for change," he said.

Collins and Lieberman recommended abolishing FEMA and replacing it with a National Preparedness and Response Authority within DHS. The new director would report directly to the president during emergencies.

Also, the agency's budget would increase significantly to finance preparation for emergencies and the distribution of grants for local jurisdictions. But Collins and Lieberman argued that separating it entirely from DHS would lead to duplication of responsibilities and a lack of coordination.

The proposal, which would be subject to congressional approval, aims to restore the agency's independence in a way similar to how the Coast Guard and the Secret Service are treated in the department.

FEMA, which has 2,500 workers, had been an office in the president's Cabinet before being subordinated and weakened in the larger department. For example, Lieberman complained that the agency had a 15 percent staff vacancy rate for a year.

Frances Fragos Townsend, the president's homeland security assistant, said Thursday she still was reviewing the recommendations. But she urged a strengthening - not a reshuffling - of current operations and said the FEMA director should continue to report to the DHS secretary. She also said it was the wrong time to debate agency changes because hurricane season is about a month away.

"Now is not the time to really look at moving organizational boxes," Townsend told reporters aboard Air Force One on a flight to New Orleans.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. and a member of Collins' committee, said FEMA should be separated from the department and restored as an independent agency in the president's Cabinet. "That's how it was done in the past, and it worked as we hoped," he said.

Despite the report's criticisms, Collins said it is "highly unlikely" that legislation could be approved before June 1. But she said she would work to do it this year.

"It does not in any way diminish our determination to make these urgently needed changes in the long run," she said.

Townsend said FEMA offices in the Gulf Coast region have been strengthened with three top officials who have a combined 100 years of experience managing large organizations and crises.

"So we are far better prepared today than we were this time last year, and we will be even better prepared by June 1," Townsend said.

Collins agreed. "We're clearly better prepared than last year," she said. "But are we prepared enough? Not if we're still operating with a flawed system."

As reported by the Washington Post and Portland Press Herald

Posted by Kimberly Keys at 08:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

National High Five Day falls on the third Thursday of April each year, which falls next year on April 19, 2007. The holiday originated at the University of Virginia in 2002, and has since spread across the nation, and around the globe.

Imagine that while on your way to class, you pass a dignified looking middle-aged man in a suit. You, of course, are wearing the same underwear as yesterday, a pair of pants off your floor, and a T-shirt with something ironic printed on it. Instead of noticing this respectable pillar of society fifteen seconds or so before your interaction is fated to occur, and lowering your head to avoid his disapproving scowl, you take another course of action. You confidently walk forward, and at the moment of passing, you and the businessman simultaneously raise your hands and wordlessly high-five. The sound of the perfect high five resonates, causing those nearby to silently and enviously take notice. You both walk on, and likely relate the story to whomever you eat dinner with that night. There is no reason why this should not happen with alarming frequency.

Posted by Kimberly Keys at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

NEW YORK - All 69 people trapped for hours in two cable cars that were suspended hundreds of feet above the East River after losing power have been rescued, police said Wednesday.

The passengers became stranded around 5:15 p.m. Tuesday, and police worked through the night to free them. Passengers in one of the dangling cars were plucked one by one and hoisted onto a gondola, while those in the second car were removed in an industrial crane and bucket.

The rescue effort ended around 5 a.m. Wednesday. No injuries were reported.
At least a dozen of those stranded were school-age children or babies. Police delivered food, water and diapers to the passengers.

The cause of the outage of the Roosevelt Island Tramway cars was not known, said Herb Berman, president of the agency that operates the system, which offer breathtaking views of the city from up to 250 feet high.

One of the tramcars had 46 passengers plus an operator, the other had 21 passengers and an operator, police said. Each car can hold about 125 people.

Tramcars on the system stall occasionally, the last time around Labor Day, said Berman. Police said both the main and backup power systems failed.

Lynn Krogh, spokeswoman for Gov. George Pataki, said the state Department of Labor would conduct a full investigation and review of the incident and the tram before service was allowed to resume.

Positive mood in the trams
Robbyn Maier said her 12-year-old son, Dax Maier, was going to Roosevelt Island to play tennis when he got stuck. She talked to him by cell phone.

“He’s like a trouper through it all,” she said. “He’s really a little hero.”

Once safely on the ground, Dax Maier said he told himself not to look down while being rescued. He said the mood in his car was almost festive, with people singing and telling jokes.

“Sometimes you can find great people in New York,” he said.

The tram system, which opened in 1976, is the only commuter cable car system in North America, according to the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp. Web site.

The system has been featured in such movies as “Spider-Man” and “City Slickers.” It travels 3,100 feet in about 5 minutes at an average speed of 16 mph, the Web site says.

Roosevelt Island, which lies in the East River between Manhattan and Queens, is about 2 miles long and 800 feet wide. About 10,000 people live on the island, which also is accessible by bridge and subway.

as reported by the Associated Press

Posted by Kimberly Keys at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

According to law-enforcement officials the 73-year-old Mr. Provenzano ran a vicious Mafia family that dominated organized crime on the island of Sicily for decades, leaving behind a long trail of blood, in murdered prosecutors, reporters and investigators. He has already been sentenced at least six times in absentia to life in prison as a member of the so-called Mafia Cupola responsible for coordinating the mob's strategies.

The police have been conducting surveillance on Mr. Provenzano's wife and two sons. Today they spotted a bundle of laundry being sent from her house to a remote farmhouse. As investigators explained it, they saw a hand come out from a door to take the package, and they decided to act.

Mr. Provenzano did not put up a struggle when police special forces burst into a remote farmhouse near Corleone on Tuesday morning. "He didn't say a word," the Palermo police chief, Giuseppe Caruso, told reporters at a packed news conference in Rome.

When Mr. Provenzano arrived at a Palermo police station, bystanders called out insults. Television newscasts showed an unruly crowd yelling "assassin" and "bastard" at the diminutive, speckled, silver-haired man, dwarfed by the black-hooded police officers jostling him through.

Officials involved in the arrest described the leadup as complex, dating back several years. Working from one of the few known photographs of Provenzano, a 1959 snapshot, the police produced a computer rendering of his current appearance, and picked up his trail when he underwent surgery in a clinic in Marseilles, France, in 2003.

Mr. Caruso said cameras had been planted in fields surrounding Corleone, where, according to Pietro Grasso, Italy's top anti-Mafia prosecutor, the ailing mobster had come "to take refuge," near to those "he most trusted."

On Tuesday morning, police tailed a courier carrying a bundle of clean clothes from Provenzano's family home in town to the remote farmhouse. When police burst in, he put up no resistance.

"He was imperturbable," Mr. Caruso said, adding that Mr. Provenzano was in good health, but undergoing unspecified treatment.

"The Mafia has lost its most prestigious leader," Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said at the press conference. "It has undergone an undeniable decapitation."

Mr. Grasso said "an entire world" of professionals, businessmen and politicians had aided Mr. Provenzano during his time on the run, and Mr. Caruso said that other investigations should lead to results "in the coming months."

Mr. Provenzano's ability to outwit investigators for 43 years has become legendary but it also made him a lingering symbol for many Italians of the state's inability to eradicate the Mafia. And it raised suspicions that the elusive mobster had high-ranking friends who helped him stay hidden.

Mr. Provenzano went underground in 1963, when he became a suspect in the murder of a rival mobster. Under the heavy hand of Salvatore (Toto) Riina, the Corleonese family dominated organized crime in Sicily for 30 years, and mounted an attack on the state that culminated in the 1992 murders of top anti-Mafia prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, and their bodyguards, in separate attacks. Mr. Riina was arrested in 1993, and Mr. Provenzano is believed to have replaced him.

Mafia turncoats arrested over the past decade confirmed to investigators that Mr. Provenzano was at the head of a criminal organization that controlled public work contracts and a sizable protection racket.

Mr. Grasso said it was unlikely that the mobster would turn state's evidence, "though I hope I'm mistaken."

The arrest of one Italy's most wanted men was greeted with satisfaction by politicians mulling over the election results and Mafia investigators.

But in a televised interview prosecutor Giancarlo Caselli, who once headed Palermo's anti-Mafia team warned that other important bosses had been captured in the past, "and this didn't mean the end of the Mafia."

(As per the New York Times)

Posted by Kimberly Keys at 02:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A new study from Sweden found that “the chance of developing a malignant brain tumor was roughly eight times higher for cell phone users in the Swedish countryside than in urban areas,” according to Consumeraffairs.com.

The same article contends that “the risk of developing any brain tumor was four times higher for country dwellers using mobile phones for five years or more, compared with those who did not use the devices.”

Dr. Lennart Hardell, professor of oncology at university hospital in Orebro, Sweden, published his findings in the British journal, “Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

The test group included more than 1,400 adults aged 20 to 80 who had been diagnosed with a malignant or benign brain tumor between 1997 and 2000. Researchers asked them to recall their daily use of mobile and cordless phones and correlated those results with cell phone use and the geographic area where the patients lived.

To date, the United States Food and Drug Administration has not been able to conclusively assert a connection between cell phone use and cancers, so the jury may be out on whether cell phone use increases risk of cancers.

However, I know for a fact that cell phone use has had a fatal effect on courtesy.

Let’s take a typical scenario: I am out with a friend for lunch. During the meal, the cell phone goes off, and he or she takes the call. What I had envisioned as a chance for the two of us to talk becomes an opportunity for me to watch my friend talk to someone else.

Cell phones have given people an undue sense of self-importance. Does anyone really need ready access to communication 24/7 ­— that is 24 hours a day and seven days a week?

For the past several years I have worked as a facilitator for the North Carolina Teaching Fellows summer conferences. Inevitably, if a cell phone erupts during a general assembly, that phone belongs to a facilitator.

Last year during orientation, I told facilitators at both conferences, “Turn your cell phones off while you are on duty. The President is not going to be calling you today.”

I remember the good ol’ days when we had some sense of isolation from the high-tech world of communication. If someone called us, we actually had to listen to our answering machine — or read a note someone had taken for us. I never recall missing a call so important that World War III broke out.

Cell phones have impacted classroom courtesy. I tell ECU students that if their cell phones go off in my class, they must make a decision. They can immediately turn the phone off — and all is well. Or they can decide to take the call, pick up their book bags, leave class, and be counted absent.

How annoying to hear a cell phone ring at the library or in a movie theater.

I read recently that merely having a cell phone in a car doubles the risk of having an accident. Talking on the cell phone while driving increases accident risk four-fold.

But now you have another reason to get that cell phone away from your ear — besides practicing common courtesy: You might be giving yourself a brain tumor.

(As per The Free Press)

Posted by Kimberly Keys at 03:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

City clerks from all over Georgia will converge on Statesboro this week for the 50th annual convention of municipal clerks and finance officers.

“We’re thrilled to be hosting the 50th because they approached us about having it here,” said Statesboro City Clerk Judy McCorkle.

Until a few years ago, the conference was always held at the University of Georgia. Within the past five years, the conference has gone to resort areas like St. Simons Island.

This year, however, the organizers decided to hold the event in a city represented by one of the clerks.

“This is the first time they’ve ever gone into a city clerk’s city,” McCorkle said. “We’re excited they asked to come here. This is a chance for us to show off our city to other city officials from across the state.”

Statesboro was selected over Valdosta and Tybee Island, each of which sent in proposals to host the event.

Kym Hughes, director of the Statesboro Convention and Visitors Bureau Director, said hosting city officials from across the state is an excellent opportunity for the city.

“More than anything, this gives us exposure on a statewide level,” she said.

The conference begins Wednesday night and runs though Friday. Hughes said hosting conferences such as the municipal clerks and finance officers meeting helps spread the word that Statesboro can handle such events.

“It gives us a chance to show our city and let them see for themselves. More than likely they’ll take information back to their cities and we hope they’ll tell people who will want to plan their meetings here,” she said.

While in Statesboro, those attending the conference will spend time downtown, including the Emma Kelly Theater and at the Lamar Q Ball Raptor Center on the campus of Georgia Southern.

(as per the Statesboro Herald)

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WASHINGTON - White House chief of staff Andy Card has resigned and will be replaced by budget director Joshua Bolten, President Bush announced Tuesday amid growing calls for a White House shakeup and Republican concern about Bush’s tumbling poll ratings.

Though there was no immediate indication of other changes afoot, the White House did not close the door on a broader staff reorganization. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Bolten will have the authority to make personnel shifts if he deems them necessary, and he declined to say whether top aides, such as the two current deputy chiefs of staff, Joe Hagin and Karl Rove, would remain in place.

"All of us serve at the pleasure of the president," McClellan said. "It's premature to talk about any future decisions that may or may not be made."

Bush announced the changes in a nationally broadcast appearance in the Oval Office.

“I have relied on Andy’s wise counsel, his calm in crisis, his absolute integrity and his tireless commitment to public service,” Bush said. “The next three years will demand much of those who serve our country. We have a global war to fight and win.”

Card, 58, stood stoically with his hands by his sides as Bush lauded his years of service through the Sept. 11 attacks, war and legislative and economic challenges. Gripping the podium, Card said in his farewell: “You’re a good man, Mr. President.” Card’s eyes were watery. Card said he looks forward to just being Bush’s friend. Bush then gave him five quick slaps on the back and the two walked out of the Oval Office together.

The president called Bolten, 51, a man with broad experience, both on Wall Street and in Washington, including the last three years as director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Combating sliding approval ratings
Alarmed by Bush’s declining approval ratings and unhappiness about the war in Iraq, Republicans have been urging the president to bring in new advisers with fresh ideas and energy. Bolten has been with Bush since his first campaign for the White House. There was no immediate indication of other changes afoot.

“The good news is the administration has finally realized it needs to change its ways, but the problems go far deeper than one staffer,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. “Simply rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic by replacing Andy Card with Josh Bolten without a dramatic change in policy will not right this ship.”

Continue reading "White House Chief of Staff Resigns" »

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Philipp Lenssen notes that the Google Reader Blog has announced that you can now share the content you read with your friends, family, colleagues and others. This is a big move for Google, what seems to be the first time they've allowed people to both tag and importantly share that tagged content with others.

Google's had tagging in the form of "labels" at Gmail for some time and recently added (and also see here) bookmark/tagging features to the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer. However, items you tagged couldn't be shared with others.

In contrast, Yahoo allows people to share tagged content through its My Web 2.0 service, not to mention owning two posterchilds of the tag-and-share movement, del.icio.us and Flickr.

Now Google's on the sharing scene. Perhaps they'll even begin saying "tags" rather than "labels," as they did originally in the Google Reader announcement, only to later fall back to the preferred term of labels:

Additionally, if you use the tagging labeling feature of Reader, you can label items and share them.

To begin sharing your reading lists or add a clip to your blog, go to reader.google.com and open the Share tab. Check the 'shared' check box to opt-in to sharing your starred items or selected labels.

For examples, Philipp shared this page as items labeled "google". You can also share your "starred" pages.

Posted by Kimberly Keys at 08:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

At a time when poetry is flourishing, this day could provide an occasion for activities and efforts carried out at different levels to support poetry and more particularly to promote:

u the efforts of small publishers who are struggling to enter the book market by publishing more and more collections by young poets;

u a return to the oral tradition, or rather to live performance, since poetry recitals attract more and more people today;

u the restoration of dialogue between poetry and the other arts such as theatre, dance, music, painting and so on, and with topical themes like the culture of peace, non-violence, tolerance, etc.;

u the association, on the occasion of World Poetry Day, of all the arts and philosophy, which is also akin to poetry, so as to breathe new meaning into the dictum of Delacroix who wrote in his Journal: "There is no art without poetry";

u the image of poetry in the media so that the art of poetry will no longer be considered an outdated form of art but one which enables society as a whole to regain and assert its identity.

Posted by Kimberly Keys at 08:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The next sunspot cycle will be 30 to 50 percent stronger than the last one, and begin as much as a year late, according to a breakthrough forecast using a computer model of solar dynamics developed by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo. The research results, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA, were published on-line on March 3 in the American Geophysical Union journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Scientists now predict that the next cycle, known as Cycle 24, will produce sunspots across an area slightly larger than 2.5 percent of the visible surface of the Sun. The cycle is projected to reach its peak about 2012, one year later than indicated by alternative forecasting methods that rely on statistics.

By analyzing recent solar cycles, the scientists also hope to forecast sunspot activity two solar cycles, or 22 years, into the future. The team is planning in the next year to issue a forecast of Cycle 25, which will peak in the early 2020s.

The researchers expect that predicting the Sun's cycles years in advance will lead to more accurate plans for solar storms, which can slow satellite orbits, disrupt communications, and bring down power systems.

The team has verified the information by using the relatively new technique of helioseismology, based in part on observations from NASA instruments. This technique tracks sound waves reverberating inside the Sun to reveal details about the interior, much as a doctor might use ultrasound to see inside a patient.

"Forecasting the solar cycle will help society anticipate solar storms," says Paul Bellaire, program director in NSF's division of atmospheric sciences, which funded the research. "Important discoveries are being made using helioseismology. Through this technique, we can image even the far side of the Sun."

The scientists gained additional confidence in the forecast by showing that the newly developed model could simulate the strength of the past eight solar cycles with more than 98 percent accuracy.

"The model has demonstrated the necessary skill to be used as a forecasting tool," says NCAR scientist Mausumi Dikpati, the leader of the forecast team at NCAR's High Altitude Observatory. The team also includes NCAR scientists Peter Gilman and Guiliana de Toma.

"This is a significant breakthrough with important applications, especially for satellite-dependent societies," says Gilman.

The Sun goes through approximately 11-year cycles, from peak storm activity to quiet, and back again. Solar scientists have tracked these cycles without being able to predict their relative intensity or timing, says Dikpati.

Solar storms are linked to twisted magnetic fields that suddenly snap and release tremendous amounts of energy. They tend to occur near dark regions of concentrated magnetic fields, known as sunspots.

The NCAR computer model, known as the Predictive Flux-transport Dynamo Model, draws on research indicating that the evolution of sunspots is caused by a current of plasma, or electrified gas, that circulates between the Sun's equator and its poles over a period of 17 to 22 years.

The plasma acts as a conveyor belt, transporting the imprints of sunspots from the previous two solar cycles. As they return toward the equator, they become stretched and twisted by the internal rotation of the Sun, gradually becoming less stable than the surrounding plasma. This eventually causes coiled-up magnetic field lines to rise up, tear through the Sun's surface, and create new sunspots, beginning the cycle again.

(National Science Foundation)

Posted by Kimberly Keys at 08:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

No question about it, in some ways we humans are very much like monkeys.

Scientists at the Duke University Medical Center have found in past research that, like some humans, monkeys will "pay" for the attention of a monkey of higher social rank, and even to see the female hindquarters of another monkey. And now they've added even more evidence of the similarity between monkey and human behavior.

Monkeys, it turns out, can be snobs.

For several years now, neurobiologists at Duke have been studying how monkeys perform in a social situation, or more specifically how the brain is wired to deal with social cognition. It's all part of ongoing research into autism, which affects more than 1 million Americans and is the fastest-growing developmental disorder.

Persons suffering from autism have much difficulty in dealing with social situations, including paying attention to what's going on. So several years ago Michael Platt and Robert Deaner began studying rhesus macaque monkeys to see if they could figure out how these cleaver animals deal with their social challenges.

In early research they found that monkeys, like humans, pay considerable attention to what others in the room are looking at. We humans see that all the time at parties. One person turns to see who just entered the room, and in a split-second the rest of us take a gander too.

The research, using sophisticated timing devices, showed that the action was almost instantaneous among monkeys as well as humans. If one monkey saw an image of another monkey looking to the right, it looked instantly to the right.

Building on that work, the researchers decided to see if monkeys would be willing to forego some of their juice for various privileges, including seeing an image of a monkey with a higher social rank, or looking at a bit of monkey porn.

Monkeys were willing to "pay" for both those treats, but they weren't willing to pay a drop of juice to see a picture of a monkey with lesser status. In fact, they wanted to be paid to look at riff-raff. Give them juice, and they'll look, but otherwise forget it.

That set the scientists to wondering, "is it possible that what seems to be an involuntary reaction, like following the gaze of another, can be influenced by social standing?"

In the latest experiment, the monkeys were shown photographs of members of their colony with varying social status. Each image showed a monkey gazing either to the right or the left. The researchers measured the time it took for each monkey to look in the same direction as the monkey in the photo.

And here they found a significant difference. Monkeys of high social status cared less about where the monkey in the photo was looking. It took them twice as long to respond as those with lower social status, who responded in one-10th of a second.

The latest research, published in the journal Current Biology, (lead author Stephen Shepherd), indicates that part of the response was automatic, a built-in demand that monkey does what monkey sees. But the difference in status shows that the overall response consists of both a reflexive and a voluntary component. Social status dictated part of the response.

The research also suggests that social status may have a biological component. The high status monkeys have an elevated level of the male sex hormone testosterone, and the scientists think that may suppress the level of "social vigilance," thus allowing them to take longer to respond.

Monkeys on a lower rung of the social ladder aren't quite as charged up with testosterone, and are twice as likely to have their attention diverted by the simple gaze of another monkey. Easy distraction, by the way, is a key symptom of autism.

So while the research may seem funny, it's quite serious. The discovery of a biological component to any disorder may open new avenues for treatment.

(as reported by ABCNews)

Posted by Kimberly Keys at 08:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The city of Statesboro (its councilmen) have unanimously decided to bring happy hour back to the town. The vote amends the highly fought ban on happy hour making the drink specials to occur from the hours of 5 to 7 p.m. and allowing patrons to purchase more than one drink at a time. Some restaurants are not able to have the drink specials due to prior alcohol violations.

Posted by Kimberly Keys at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Have you every had an interest in playing an instrument? Do you like the sounds produced by strings, pianos, and other classical instruments? Well at Georgia Southern University, you can enjoy these sounds with a twist- they are all digitized. At the Performing Arts Center of Georgia Southern University, Wednesday February 22 @ 8 p.m., faculty, staff and students will be performing in the second annual Electronic and Digital Music Concert. The performers featured have composed their own original pieces in different music genres such as rap, rock, and pop, using different electronic instruments. There will also be visulas in the background to entertain the eye as well. This concert is free and open to the public.

Posted by Kimberly Keys at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This weekend is one for the release of some highly anticipated movies. Here lately, the box office has been doing fairly shabby in the movie department but this weekend will have some exciting movies for everyone. The Pink Panther and London are opening in addition to the movies I find to be very interesting to share a small preview about:

Children of all ages will enjoy an animated movie that is a ppopular book series that has never been out of the print stage until now. Curious George (the curious little monkey) hits the big screen with actor voice talents such as Will Ferrell and Drew Barrymore.

For some movies, sequels do not live up to the standards of the first. This does not begin to have an effect on the movie Final Destination. Opening with its third installment, Final Destination 3 remains true to the story line- premonitions of death, cheating it, and suffering the consequences.

Another movie that is to be exciting is the opening of Firewall with Harrison Ford. His character is the developer of a system that secures funds at the bank he's employed by. The catch is, he is going to breach that system. Why? There are men watching his every move, knowing his wife and children's personal information and they hold his family against him in order to get him to crack the code. Whether or not he goes through with the plan is up for the viewer to see.

Posted by Kimberly Keys at 09:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

According to a USA Today article, we "really don't want" fries in our order. Lots have people here recently have become extremely carb conscious and are discovering ALL the bad things in foods- like trans-fatty acids. Theire main concern though is that these deep-fried items, like french fries, are being served in hospitals. Michael Jacobson, director of a national consumer group said, "Trans fat has as much place in hospitals' cafeterias as ashtrays have in their operating rooms."
Don't get me wrong it's very important to remain healthy but I think some people are getting "scared" into doing what I think should have been done all along- eating healthy. And should you choose to have freis with your order, then do so in moderation. Some people's eyes are bigger than their stomachs when it comes to hunger and opt for "supersizing". I'm definitely not the smallest person in the world but I know if I want to prevent diabetes, heart disease, etc., I consider moderation in what I eat. And times- like holidays when Grandma cooks those WONDERFUL meals, I'm going to eat and eat well!

Posted by Kimberly Keys at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)