Saturday, October 3, 2009

“The almanac - United Press International” plus 4 more

“The almanac - United Press International” plus 4 more

The almanac - United Press International

Posted: 03 Oct 2009 12:27 AM PDT

Today is Saturday, Oct. 3, the 276th day of 2009 with 89 to follow.

The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Mercury, Saturn, Mars and Venus. The evening stars are Neptune, Jupiter and Uranus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Libra. They include Cherokee Chief John Ross, who led opposition to the forced move of his people to what is now Oklahoma, in 1790; historian George Bancroft in 1800; novelists Thomas Wolfe in 1900 and Gore Vidal in 1925 (age 84); rock 'n' roll singer Chubby Checker in 1941 (age 68); singer/songwriter Lindsey Buckingham in 1947 (age 62); guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan in 1954; actor/singer Jack Wagner in 1959 (age 50); and actress Neve Campbell in 1973 (age 36).

On this date in history:

In 1922, Rebecca Felton, a Georgia Democrat, became the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.

In 1932, Iraq won its independence after Britain ended its mandate over the Arab nation following 17 years of British rule.

In 1952, Britain successfully tested its first atomic bomb.

In 1955, the children's TV show "Captain Kangaroo" with Bob Keeshan in the title role was broadcast for the first time.

In 1967, folksinger and songwriter Woody Guthrie died at the age of 55.

In 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko signed strategic arms limitation agreements, putting the first restrictions on the two countries' nuclear weapons.

In 1981, IRA prisoners at Maze Prison in Belfast, Northern Ireland, ended a seven-month hunger strike in which 10 men died.

In 1989, troops loyal to Panamanian military leader Manuel Noriega crushed a coup attempt by rebel mid-level officers. Noriega was held briefly by coup plotters but escaped unharmed.

In 1990, formerly communist East Germany merged with West Germany, ending 45 years of post-war division.

In 1992, William Gates III, the college-dropout founder of Microsoft Corp., headed the Forbes magazine list of the 400 richest Americans with a net worth of $6.3 billion.

In 1993, fighting erupted in the streets of Moscow between pro- and anti-Yeltsin forces. Sixty-two people died in the violence that ended two days later when the rebel vice president and speaker of parliament surrendered.

In 1995, O.J. Simpson was acquitted of charges that he killed his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman.

Also in 1995, a bomb nearly killed the president of Macedonia, a relatively peaceful part of the former Yugoslavia.

In 2001, amid rising concerns about the use of lethal substances by terrorists, the U.S. government said it was planning to stockpile 40 million doses of smallpox vaccine.

In 2002, fear escalated in the Washington area as five people were killed over a 16-hour period in apparent random sniper shootings.

In 2005, Harriet Miers, the White House counsel, was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by U.S. President George Bush to succeed the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor. Meanwhile, the high court opened a new term with a new chief justice, John Roberts.

Also in 2005, a Texas grand jury indicted U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, the former House of Representatives majority leader, for money laundering. The new indictment was aimed at correcting problems with an earlier charge against him.

And, in 2005, U.N. monitors said Afghanistan's parliamentary elections were marred by significant fraud and voter intimidation.

In 2006, a hijacked Turkish Airlines jetliner with 113 aboard landed safely in Brindisi, Italy, after Italian military jets escorted it down. The Italian civil aviation agency said the two hijackers were unarmed and wanted to get a message to Pope Benedict XVI.

In 2007, U.S. President George Bush vetoed a bill that would have increased funding of the State Children's Health Insurance Program to provide health coverage to more than 10 million children. Bush said the proposal was a move toward universal healthcare, which he opposed.

Also in 2007, more than 3,000 miners were trapped in a South African gold mine after power was cut accidentally to an elevator used to take them to the surface. There were no injuries reported but rescue by the remaining elevator took hours.

In 2008, U.S. President George Bush signed the $700 billion bailout bill into law. The House of Representatives, which had rejected the plan, approved a revised proposal following the lead of the Senate, which endorsed it two days earlier.

Also in 2008, trouble continued in the banking sector. Wachovia, which would later report a record third-quarter loss of $23.7 billion, agreed to be purchased by Wells Fargo for $15.4 billion.

And, O.J. Simpson and a co-defendant were convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping in connection with a 2007 Las Vegas incident. Simpson and five others were charged with stealing sports memorabilia from two collectibles dealers.

A thought for the day: American poet Emily Dickinson wrote,

"Behold this little Bane --

"The Boon of all alive --

"As common as it is known

"The name of it is Love."

On Native Ground - American Reporter

Posted: 02 Oct 2009 11:59 PM PDT

 On Native Ground
MY BACK PAGES: WATCHING MY CRAFT CHANGE OVER 30 YEARS
by Randolph T. Holhut
American Reporter Correspondent
Dummerston, Vt.

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DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- I got my first job in journalism at the age of 18 in the spring of 1980. I was a freshman in college and landed a night shift gig at WSPR, a radio station in Springfield, Mass.

News came over an Associated Press teletype machine at 65 words a minute. Changing the heavily inked ribbons was always a chore, not to mention making sure the paper didn't run out.

Stories were typed on battered old manual typewriters that dated back to the 1940s.

Computers? Still a new-fangled technology that hadn't yet seeped down to this level of the business.

The Internet? There were only a few hundred people using it. If you needed to look up an address, you got a phone book or a city directory. If you needed to confirm a stray fact, you pulled out The World Almanac.

They were still using reel-to-reel tape recorders, and a razor blade and Scotch tape were your tools for editing audio. It was still an analog world, with dials and meters and black telephones with dials.

In the fall of 1985, when I started working in newspapers, video display terminals were cutting edge technology. Two years later, I went out and got my first computer - a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100 laptop. With its built-in 300 baud modem, I could file a story anyplace I could find a pay phone.

Cellphones? That was as futuristic as the communicators they used on "Star Trek."

There were still a few smokers in the first city room I worked in. The barroom downstairs was still a place where you could find reporters between shifts. The building also shuddered just a little from the giant presses when they fired up, and the stairwells were coated with a thin film of ink.

That first newspaper company I worked for - the Worcester (Mass.) Telegram and Evening Gazette - had four morning and six afternoon editions and a dozen bureaus in the county it published in. There were two separate news staffs, and even though they worked for the same company, the competition was still fierce.

One of my several jobs was working in the morgue - the newspaper's library - where we still clipped stories out of each day's edition and filed them away in envelopes. When a reporter or editor needed background on a subject, my job was to retrieve the right folders with the right clippings in a room filled with hundreds of cabinets with files that went back decades.

Pneumatic tubes brought pictures up to the composing room, and page proofs came down to the copy desk the same way. The darkroom was just that, a dark room filled with a dozen photo enlargers and photographers rushing make prints on deadline. I eventually learned how to do darkroom work and how to go from taking the film out of the camera to producing a finished print in under 30 minutes. The photos from the AP came one at a time from a LaserPhoto printer, in 8 minute intervals. Waiting for photos was a constant hassle.

The old photographers I encountered then were old enough to have used Speed Graphics - the bulky, hard-to-focus 4 x 5 inch cameras that were the newspaper standard from the 1920s to the 1960s.

The old compositors I encountered then were old enough to remember linotypes and the smell of melting lead.

The old editors I encountered then were old enough to remember pastepots and black pencils and making and remaking a newspaper on the fly with a few written instructions and a lot of teamwork in the mechanical departments.

Pagination - making a pages on a computer - was just starting to creep into use. I remember the first such unit - a Mac Plus - which was used to make graphic. Within 10 years of seeing that Mac for the first time, I would be making pages on a computer. The compositors - the wizards with Exacto knifes that could do just about anything you asked, just don't touch the type, please - were out of a job.

Automation changed lots of things. I was replaced by a computer terminal in the paper's morgue. Indexing was now done with a few keystrokes, not with a heavy steel straight edge tearing pages. Digital photography made the darkroom obsolete. The teletype printers disappeared, and wire service news came flying into the mainframe computers at thousands of words a minute.

And now I feel as ancient as the people I met when I started out, the tribe that started out in the 1940s and 1950s, when newspapers were king and the work that reporters did was the stuff of movies.

Twenty years ago this month, I went through my first buyout. The T & G had been sold two years before, and changes were in the works. Being a junior member of the staff who lashed three part-time jobs into something of a living, I was thrown overboard immediately. But I was struck by how many people, the elders of the paper that I looked up to and learned from, chose to take a buyout and leave than stick around and face an uncertain future. Most of that generation left, and I got my first education on the harshness of the newspaper business.

The morning and evening papers merged the following year. The T & G's bureaus started to disappear. The presses moved out of the hulking old building on Franklin Street and went to a remote site a few miles away. The papers were sold again, this time to The New York Times Co. They eliminated zoned editions this year and the paper is struggling to survive.

Since that bleak Yuletide two decades ago, I've been through three more newspaper sales. I've become an elder, talking about the old days of afternoon papers, pasting-up pages, teletypes and darkrooms to a generation that Googles phone numbers and needs MapQuest to find an address. And I've watched my profession go from fat and sassy to threadbare and dying in one generation.

I'm still young enough to be a bridge between the analog and digital eras, and still looking forward to the shape of journalism to come. The tools we have now to tell stories were barely dreamed of when I started out, but I recognize how important they are and working to master them. We just have to remember that the need to tell stories is primal, and that storytellers will always be needed.

What will the young reporters I work with now be saying when they look back at their careers 20 years from now? Will they be talking about that gruff and crabby gray-bearded editor they had as their first mentor? The rickety first-generation iMacs that they have to use to write their stories on? The lack of reliable Internet and cellphone service? Or will they talk about working in newspapers at a time when they became quaint relics of a bygone age?

My love for the printed page is still abiding, but it's hard to remember what it was like before the Internet, before desktop computers, before digital cameras and voice recorders, before the avalanche of data that pours from the Web each day, before the 24-hour news cycle, before all the changes that I have seen in nearly three decades of broadcast, print and online journalism. The past is a nice place to visit, but the future is still the place I hope to see.

Randolph T. Holhut has been a journalist in New England for nearly 30 years. He edited "The George Seldes Reader" (Barricade Books). He can be reached at randyholhut@yahoo.com.

Copyright 2009 Joe Shea The American Reporter. All Rights Reserved.

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Winter forecast: Prepare for the gamut - Lebanon Reporter

Posted: 02 Oct 2009 08:53 PM PDT

Published: October 03, 2009 12:20 am    print this story  

Winter forecast: Prepare for the gamut

By Sarah Lang/The Lebanon Reporter

The essential item for winter this year will be boots: Both snow boots and rain boots. And you may want to also grab an umbrella.

The National Weather Service of Indianapolis predicts equal chances that precipitation will be above, below or right at average this year. But Sheridan's Clara Hoover (aka: Sheridan Clara) and The Farmer's Almanac are both calling for a winter heavily laden with precipitation in forms of snow and rain and possibly, if they intermix, ice.

NWS of Indianapolis Meteorologist Ed Terrell said the "equal chances" prediction sounds odd, but it's just the way they do the probabilities.

"There's no reason to believe it will be anything but normal," he said for the months of November, December and January.

Hoover, 93, has been predicting winter weather for years using folk sciences, making her forecasts by looking at persimmon seeds, black woolly worms and foggy days in August.

For more of the winter forecast, from Clara and other sources, see Saturday's Lebaon Reporter.

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Gardener's almanac - Wichita Eagle

Posted: 02 Oct 2009 09:35 PM PDT

Cooling off — Tropical plants shouldn't consistently be out in temperatures under 50, but it's hard to bring them in when days are so warm. Keep an eye on the forecast and on the plants. And keep watering; the wind has been drying plants out.

Natural needle drop — I noticed that needles on some pine trees were turning yellow this week, and that is natural — as long as the needles are the older needles on the interior of the branches. The needles will turn brown and then drop, says Ward Upham of K-State. It's a natural occurrence that is more noticeable in some years than others, he says. Just be sure that the needles on the tips of the branches look fine and that there is no banding or spotting on the needles that are turning yellow. If you do see spots or bands, take a sample to the Extension Service, Upham says.

Prepare for fruit planting — I always love Upham's instructions for preparing for fruit planting in the fall. It can be applied to any other type of planting you may envision as well:

"Grass areas should be tilled so grass does not compete with the fruit plants for soil moisture and nutrients. Have the soil analyzed for plant nutrients. Your local K-State Research and Extension agents have information to guide you in taking the soil sample (in Sedgwick County, the phone number is 316-660-0100). From that sample, the agent can provide recommendations on what and how much fertilizer to add to correct nutrient deficiencies. Organic materials such as compost, grass clippings, leaves, hay, straw or dried manure, can be tilled into the soil to help improve its condition. Time and weather conditions generally are more suitable in the fall than in the late winter and spring for preparing soil. If fruit plants can be set by early April, they will have developed a stronger root system to support plant growth than they would if planted later."

Small sweet potatoes — Sweet potatoes should be harvested no later than the first fall freeze, but if you prefer smaller sweet potatoes, you can dig a hill anytime to see if they're the size you want, Upham says. Because the tubers can be nicked in the harvesting process, they should be cured to heal those wounds and improve flavor and texture, he says.

To cure, "place the roots in a warm, humid location for five to 10 days immediately after digging. A location with a temperature around 85 to 90 degrees is ideal. A space heater can be used to heat a small room or other area. Raise the humidity by placing moist towels in the room.

"Sweet potatoes should be stored above 55 degrees. Storage at temperatures below that injures the roots, shortens storage life and gives them an off flavor."

Family of Four Garden —The Swiss chard was treated last Saturday to get rid of caterpillars, so the harvest of it was skipped this week in the Family of Four garden at the Extension Center. But a pound of peppers valued at $1.50 was picked. "We are about $21 from covering all seed costs (including leftover seeds) as well as the costs of building a raised bed, buying irrigation, row cover fabric, a light stand, pots and potting soil for seed starting, and fertilizers," extension agent Rebecca McMahon says. "We should at least break even on the garden this year, so in future years we will only need to count the cost of seeds, fertilizers and other miscellaneous expenses."

Plant — Fescue grass seed, by Oct. 15; tulip, daffodil, crocus and other spring-flowering bulbs, and garlic, through October; pansies, asters and mums.

African violet meeting — The African Violet Study Club will have a meeting at 1 p.m. Oct. 9 at Botanica. The meeting, which will include a talk about plants, is free and open to the public.

Autumn wildflower talk — Mike Haddock, author of "Wildflowers and Grasses of Kansas," will be at Botanica on Wednesday to talk about the Kansas plants that bloom in fall. The lecture is at 12:15 and is included in Botanica admission. Lunch from Truffles can be purchased for $6 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Kansas Pond Society auction — Members of the Kansas Pond Society are donating items for an auction to benefit Botanica tonight, and it's open to the public. The auction will be at 7 p.m. at The Learning Center, 150 Steward in Haysville. Items will include the water wall from last spring's garden show, Botanica memberships, and pond-, garden- and fish-related items, possibly even koi. Half of the proceeds will go to Botanica.

Plant a Row for the Hungry — If you have any fruit or vegetables or herbs that you'd like to donate to the needy, you can do so at these locations during business hours.

* Kansas Food Bank, 1919 E. Douglas

* Augusta Ace Hardware, 316 W. Seventh Ave. in Augusta

* Brady Nursery, 11200 W. Kellogg

* Hillside Nursery, 2200 S. Hillside

* Hillside Feed & Seed, 1805 S. Hillside

* Johnson's Garden Centers, 802 N. Ridge Road, 21st and Woodlawn, 2707 W. 13th St.

* Valley Feed & Seed, 1903 S. Meridian.

Greeting cards seminar — Botanica will offer a class Monday on how to make greeting cards with a botanical theme. The class will be from 7 to 9 p.m. and costs $18, or $15 for Botanica members. Instructor Mary Espinoza will use rubber stamps and materials with a botanical theme, and participants will learn how to make three to four greeting cards. Register by calling 316-264-0448.

Garden-to-vase class — Sherryl Fitzpatrick, one of Botanica's volunteer floral arrangers, will show how she decides what to pick from the gardens to create fall arrangements during a class from 8 to 10:30 a.m. Oct. 10 at Botanica. The fee is $12, $8 for Botanica members. Participants will be able to take limited materials home to experiment and create arrangements with. Register by calling 316-264-0448.

Composting seminar — Master gardener Kae Bowles will be at Botanica on Oct. 11 to teach about how to get started composting. The seminar will be from 2 to 3:30 p.m. and cost $8, or $6 for Botanica members. Register by calling 316-264-0448.

Daffodil class — Botanica will offer a class on varieties of daffodils and how to grow them from 1:30 to 3 p.m. Oct. 14. The class costs $8, or $6 for Botanica members. Register by calling 316-264-0448.

_ Annie Calovich

PRESS DIGEST - Financial Times - Oct 3 - Reuters

Posted: 02 Oct 2009 07:48 PM PDT

Financial Times

CITY INFLUENCE WOULD INCREASE UNDER CAMERON

According to new research, a Conservative election win would change the complexion of the House of Commons and see the City extend its influence, with at least 50 MPs coming from financial services backgrounds. This would end the current dominance of MPs who hail from teaching and the public services. Byron Criddle, co-author of the Almanac of British Politics which conducted the research, said: "The new Commons, with whatever size of Conservative victory, will see the reasserted dominance of the private sector over the public sector MP."

LONDON LURES MIDEAST BUYERS

The first half of the year saw Middle Eastern investors comprising the majority of investors in the London commercial property market. London has traditionally been the foreign base of Arab investors and, while falling oil prices have dampened their appetite for foreign investment, 25-year lows in valuations have proved the lure. The value of Arab investment in the UK, which is primarily focused on London, rose four percent to 2.8 billion dollars in the first half of 2009.

HOPES REST ON MOOD OF SPENDERS AND LENDERS

With a number of indicators suggesting the UK consumer is more inclined to save than spend in the current climate, there is concern this thriftiness could damage the nascent recovery. The prospects for a recovery also hinge on the health of the financial sector and, in particular, banks' willingness and ability to lend. Data provides a mixed picture, with the Bank of England's credit conditions survey showing mortgage lending in the three months to early September tightened, despite a rise in the number of home loans. The survey also showed banks were generally inclined to lend to big business, leaving small firms searching for funding.

CLOCK TICKING FOR XSTRATA CHIEF DAVIS TO STATE TERMS

After the Takeover Panel imposed an October 20 deadline, shareholders are waiting to see whether Xstrata (XTA.L) goes ahead with its "merger of equals" bid approach for rival Anglo American (AAL.L) or decides to make a premium offer. Under the Takeover Panel's ruling, Xstrata must clarify its position before the deadline or walk away from the deal for six months. The news is likely to spark another flurry of analyst comment on the merits of a tie-up between the two.

IPHONE CALLING

Both Vodafone (VOD.L) and Orange [ORNGF.UL] struck deals with Apple (AAPL.O) this week to sell the U.S. technology group's iPhone product in the UK market. The news comes as a blow to their rival O2, which until recent events, had exclusivity of the product. Analysts have suggested the new deals could spark a price war. Orange will start selling the device in November, taking advantage of the lucrative Christmas market, while Vodafone will begin selling iPhones in the new year.

SQUEEZING THE SUPERMARKET GIRDLE

The Competition Commission's call for a so-called competition test designed to curb the dominance of any one supermarket in a single area has divided opinion among the supermarkets themselves. Tesco (TSCO.L) said the commission has made the "wrong" decision, but Asda welcomed the test as it would benefit because it has the smallest number of stores. Sainsbury (SBRY.L) supports the test but is unhappy that it applies to larger extensions, but Morrison (MRW.L) is pleased with this particular detail. However, Greg Lawless, analyst at Collins Stewart, believes the test is irrelevant as "the horse has bolted" and Tesco already has a 30 percent grocery market share.

FASHION SHOWS OVERSEAS VAGARIES

Two of Britain's biggest fashion high street names have experienced contrasting fortunes in their overseas operations. Aurora, which owns Karen Millen and Oasis, said trading in France was "spectacular" while French Connection (FCCN.L) announced the closure of all of its 21 stores in Japan in an attempt to stem losses. Aurora's chairman Derek Lovelock said trading in Europe was encouraging, with particular emphasis placed on Germany and Spain. French Connection said its withdrawal would cost 2.5 million pounds with up to 200 job losses.

POWERLEAGUE BACKS PATRON TAKOVER OFFER  Continued...
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