Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Almanacs “Capitol Christmas tree stops in OV - Northwest Explorer” plus 4 more

Almanacs “Capitol Christmas tree stops in OV - Northwest Explorer” plus 4 more

Capitol Christmas tree stops in OV - Northwest Explorer

Posted: 18 Nov 2009 05:14 AM PST

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The Almanac - Nov. 18 - Post Chronicle

Posted: 18 Nov 2009 04:45 AM PST

Today is Wednesday, Nov. 18, the 322nd day of 2009 with 43 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Scorpio. They include French philosopher and writer Pierre Bayle in 1647; German composer Carl von Weber and English composer Henry Bishop ("Home Sweet Home"), both in 1786; French physicist Louis Daguerre, inventor of daguerreotype photography, in 1787; English playwright W.S. Gilbert, libretto writer for the comic operas of composer Arthur Sullivan, in 1836; Polish composer Ignace Paderewski in 1860; conductor Eugene Ormandy in 1899; pollster George Gallup in 1901; comedic actress Imogene Coca in 1908; songwriter Johnny Mercer in 1909; astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space, in 1923; and actors Brenda Vaccaro in 1939 (age 70), Linda Evans in 1942 (age 67), Jameson Parker in 1947 (age 62), Kevin Nealon in 1953 (age 56) and Elizabeth Perkins in 1960 (age 49).

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On this date in history:

In 1477, "The Sayings of the Philosophers" was published, the earliest known book printed in England to carry a date.

In 1883, the United States adopted Standard Time and set up four zones -- Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific.

In 1928, Mickey Mouse made his screen debut in the landmark "Steamboat Willie" at the Colony Theater in New York City. The Walt Disney cartoon was the first with synchronized sound.

In 1963, push-button telephones made their debut. Touch-tone service was available as an option for an extra charge.

In 1978, more than 900 people died in a mass suicide-murder led by the Rev. Jim Jones at the People's Temple commune in Guyana, following the slaying of U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan, D-Calif. It was the largest mass suicide in modern history.

In 1991, the Lebanese Shiite Muslim faction the Islamic Jihad freed Church of England envoy Terry Waite and U.S. professor Thomas Sutherland.

In 1994, Palestinian police opened fire on Islamic militants outside a mosque in the Gaza Strip, sparking riots that killed at least 14 people and injured 200.

In 1996, Harold Nicholson, a 16-year CIA veteran, was arrested for spying.

In 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the state's prohibition against same-sex marriages was unconstitutional.

In 2004, Britain outlawed fox hunting in England and Wales.

In 2005, suicide bombings killed more than 50 people in Iraq, most of them in or near two Shiite mosques near the Iranian border.

In 2006, a Connecticut woman who pleaded guilty to sending cookies loaded with rat poison to the U.S. Supreme Court was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

In 2007, authorities in Bangladesh upped the death toll from Cyclone Sidr to at least 2,000 people. Many more were reported missing and some 600,000 were believed homeless from the vicious storm that ruined much of the country's food supply.

Also in 2007, a methane explosion in a Ukrainian coal mine killed at least 88 miners with about a dozen others reported missing, officials said.

In 2008, pirates hijacked a Saudi oil tanker anchored about 480 miles off the coast of Somalia, loaded with about 2 million barrels of oil, worth about $100 million.

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A thought for the day: Ogden Nash said,

"Once again there is someone we don't see eye to eye with, and maybe I couldn't be dafter,

"But I keep wondering if this time we couldn't settle our differences before a war instead of after." (c) UPI

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It's a fact: Information' author John Hodgman is funny - Sacramento Bee

Posted: 18 Nov 2009 05:14 AM PST

As a "famous minor television personality," John Hodgman is almost a household name.

We said "almost."

You know him as the PC guy in the Mac commercials and as the "resident expert" on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart." And you might recognize him by some of the adjectives the humorist has enjoyed on the road to his near-famousness: hapless, befuddled, nerdy, bespectacled and round-faced.

Hodgman is also a Yale graduate and writer whose book "More Information Than You Require" has just been released in paperback. It's a follow-up to his previous book, "The Areas of My Expertise."

They are books of fake facts and false history. This one covers such subjects as "How to Tell the Future," "Gambling: The Sport of the Asthmatic Man" and "How to Remember Any Name, Especially the Name 'John Hodgman.'" Plus: 700 mole-man names.

In his wry and dry way, Hodgman, 38, answered a few of our questions by telephone from his home in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he had just picked up his youngsters from school. For privacy reasons, he didn't divulge much additional personal information, including the children's names, except to refer to his daughter as Hodgmina and his son as Hodgmanillo.

Q. Of you and Jon Stewart, Stewart is the actual famous one, so do people ask you what he's really like?

A. That's certainly a question that is asked. He's as smart and as funny and absolutely as good-natured and short as he appears, depending on the size of your television.

Q. I'm reading your book and am reminded of the time my brothers and I tried to get my mom to watch Monty Python. She said, "Now that's just silly."

A. That is a favorable comparison, to Monty Python, and one that flatters me but is not entirely deserved.

I am a fan of silly things, but remember Monty Python was not itself purely silly. Even arguably the silliest, the Ministry of Silly Walks sketch, was a brilliant take on bureaucracy and British conformity.

I think that where I endeavor to emulate Monty Python is certainly to embrace the absurd but especially to embrace the absurd when it has a point. I'm not a fan of the non sequitur, although I'm guilty of it quite a bit.

Q. So are your books works of satire?

A. I have never been able to make distinctions or understand any of the many definitions of satire versus parody versus comedy. I don't think I endeavor to any particular category other than the estimable category of fake trivia.

Fake history can have comic and non-comic purposes and has a long precedence.

How incredible was it, for example, that Thomas Jefferson, a wealthy landowner who had nothing to gain but everything to lose by becoming a traitor to his country and a revolutionary, still did so?

History itself has never been fully able to explain that shift in Jefferson's character. So I think it was just as likely as anything that it was due to the tutelage of the Enlightenment ideals produced by the mole-men.

Q. I see your point. But what about this part about predicting the future using a pig's spleen?

A. Now that is something that is actually done. You can look it up on the Internet, one of my favorite sources of dubious scholarship. Or in an old Farmers' Almanac. It's a traditional means of divination the old farmer would use to predict seasons, to take the spleen of a freshly killed pig and examine it.

I take credit in that I have refined pig spleen divination methods not only to predict the weather but also the coming global warming apocalypse - almost down to the day. I'm pretty sure of the day, but I'm not so sure of the year. It will be a Wednesday, though.

Q. People seemed to like your gig on this year's Emmys telecast. Will you do more of that?

A. I enjoyed doing the color commentary for the Emmys very much. It was in some ways a very glamorous and in some ways a very unglamorous experience. I was secreted in the back of the back of the backstage, practically in a little wooden box.

I was watching the same way you were, while wearing a tuxedo. As the winners were announced, I had to very quickly look through the script and talk into the microphone, which no one in the audience of the theater could hear. I may as well have been a ham radio operator.

Q. Will there be more books?

A. This current book is the paperback edition of the second book of my "Complete World Knowledge." There will be a third book of "Complete World Knowledge," as there is knowledge being generated every day. I'm pretty sure by the third book, I'll have it.

HODGMANIA

Here's a short list of some of the places you've seen and heard Hodgman:

Contributor to Public Radio International's "This American Life"

TV appearance on "Battlestar Galactica"

Film appearances in "Baby Mama" and "The Invention of Lying"

Humor editor for The New York Times Magazine

Advice columnist for McSweeney's

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KO teachers and district OK pact - Pennsylvania Almanac

Posted: 18 Nov 2009 04:02 AM PST


KO teachers and district OK pact

The Keystone Oaks School District and the Keystone Oaks Education Association (KOEA),which represents the district's 180 teaching professionals, jointly announce that a contract settlement has been reached between the two organizations.

The agreement will increase the amount of time teachers spend in their classrooms, increases student opportunities for distance learning, offers financial incentives to any teacher who manages to attain National Board Certification, increases flexibility to the district for staff size management, and ensures manageable maximum class sizes going forward.

After nearly two years of negotiations, an agreement was reached when representatives of the school system and KOEA signed the document Nov. 16, at the district's business and legislative meeting. Immediately prior to signing the agreement the district's board of school directors agreed to the contract by a 9-0 vote. Ninety percent of those voting at the KOEA's Nov. 12 ratification meeting elected to adopt the agreement.

The five year deal, which is retroactive to July 1, 2008 and expires following the 2012-2013 school year, also includes annual teacher raises that will average 3.5 percent per year.

Teachers will also receive their raises for the 2008-2009 school year in which they continued to work while the current contract was still being settled. Teachers will also increase their contribution to their health care benefits.

"It was a long, arduous negotiation and, as with any good negotiation, both sides had to compromise to reach an agreement," said Marian Randazzo, board president. "However, our school district is at a crossroads right now and I think both sides understood that reality and negotiated this pact with the community's best interest in mind."

"I'm relieved that a lengthy process has reached a resolution," said Sue McAllister, president of KOEA. "During these past months we have been very sensitive to the tough economic times that we are all facing and I'm pleased that we have reached an agreement that is fair to everyone. I'm particularly proud of the fact that during our contract talks it was our conscious decision to continue to work through the issues and to continue to provide a positive educational experience for the students and families of the Keystone Oaks School District."

"I am very pleased that we were able to achieve this agreement with KOEA," said Dr. William Urbanek, the district's superintendent. "Now that we have reached a settlement that means that we can now move forward and re-focus on what matters most to everyone - student achievement."


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C-M: Back to the bargaining table - Pennsylvania Almanac

Posted: 18 Nov 2009 04:02 AM PST


C-M: Back to the bargaining table

By Dawn Goodman Observer-Reporter dgoodman@observer-reporter.com

 Canon-McMillan School Board and the district's teachers union are going back to the bargaining table.

Just days after the union rejected a fact-finder's report about the teacher's contract, the school board also voted it down by a 4-4 vote Nov. 16.

By a 5-4 vote, the board approved the recommendations the first time. Because the teachers voted against it, both sides had to vote again within five to 10 days.

A fact-finder from the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board came up with the recommendations for the new contract, though his suggestions were not binding.

The recommendations include a proposal for first-year teachers with a bachelor's degree to have a salary of $37,393 in 2009-10, up from $35,800 in 2008-09. It calls for teachers with a master's degree plus 30 hours of credits to make $77,782 in 2009-10, up from $76,182 in the 2008-09 school year. By the 2011-12 school year, the starting salary would be $41,729 and the maximum salary would be $80,082.

It also calls for increasing health insurance premiums to $15 per month for individuals and $30 per month for all others. Currently, teachers pay $12.50 per month for individual and $25 per month for all others.

Joe Grosso, lead negotiator for the teachers union, said the board voted against the fact-finder's report by a 3-1 margin Nov. 12.

He said teachers still had the same concerns that led them to vote against the report the first time around, which include class size, involuntary transfers and the salary schedule.

"We're just looking forward to getting back to the bargaining table and getting this thing done," Grosso said Monday night.

This time, board members Joseph Zupancic, Robert Malwitz, Debbie Link and Jay Romano voted in favor of the recommendation.

Board members Adam Galambos, Kathy Smith, Manuel Pihakis and Nick Cianelli voted against it. Laura Grossman left the meeting before the vote.

During the meeting, Cianelli questioned whether the contract had been costed out and if administrators knew how much the three-year deal would cost the district.

"Here we are possibly repeating the same mistake of not costing out a union contract," Cianelli said, adding the last teachers contract helped create a negative fund balance for the district.

Joni Mansmann, director of business and finance, said after the meeting that the administration talked to the board about the cost of each individual component within the contract, but not in a "summary sense."

Zupancic said that no matter how board members voted, there wouldn't be a contract today because of the union vote.

However, he said, based on Grosso's comments in recent newspaper articles, it appears that the union and school board aren't that far apart in what each side wants in the contract.


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