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A Bears team that tied for the fewest sacks in the NFL last season began free agency by signing a defensive end who recorded fewer sacks than Julius Peppers, a defensive end the Bears couldn't wait to get rid of because, well, he didn't record enough sacks.
On the day the Bears terminated Peppers' contract, they signed Lamarr Houston to a five-year deal. Playing for the Raiders last season, Houston managed a career-high six sacks, 1 1/2 fewer than the guy the Bears cut Tuesday.
Excuse me?
The Bears desperately needed a pass rusher after last season. They became more desperate after Michael Bennett re-upped with the Seahawks on Monday.
What the Bears needed was the Peppers they signed in 2010. What they needed was a double-digit sack guy. What they got was a 6-foot-3, 300-pounder who isn't that guy.
Who never has been that guy.
Maybe that guy wasn't out there, but the Bears are committing to Houston as if he is. Committing to a defensive end who has 16 sacks in his career when the Bears need someone to do that in a season.
Perhaps Houston's versatility will lead the Bears to move him inside and leave him there while signing a pure pass rusher on a deal shorter than Houston's five-year agreement.
But that hasn't happened yet.
So, we're left with this, and we're left with this question: This is better?
In some ways, it is.
Houston is 26 and has started all 16 games for the last four seasons, which is more than a lot of Bears defensive players could say.
So, the good news is that it looks like he'll be available on game day to frustrate us by a lack of production when Aaron Rodgers stands back there all day.
The thing that Houston does well is play the run, which happens to be something the Bears did horribly -- worse than anyone in the league, in fact.
Houston graded out better than almost any defensive end when it came to setting the edge and stopping the run. So, Houston isn't likely to crash down every play the way Peppers and Shea McClellin did in making outside contain a rumor.
Coming from a three-man front, Houston's versatility plays into the Bears' idea of a hybrid scheme, but if they're going to slide him inside in the nickel package, then they'll have, who, McClellin rushing off the edge?
Do the Bears know McClellin had just four sacks last season? Do the Bears know that's fewer than Houston managed? Does Phil Emery have any idea what a pass-rushing defensive end looks like?
Chicago Tribune Sports
After drafting the failed McClellin two years ago and now signing Houston in an attempt to make up for it, you have to wonder whether Emery understands the object of the exercise.
Emery needed a pass rusher two years ago, and then drafted a linebacker and tried to jam him into the position. Now McClellin is being moved to linebacker, where he might not be good enough to start, by the way.
This year, Emery again needed a pass rusher, and then he signed a defensive end who isn't known as a pass rusher. There is growing evidence that Emery wouldn't know a pass rusher if Lawrence Taylor asked him to snort a line.
I get the idea that anything the Bears put on their defensive line now is better than what they put out there last year.
But here's the thing: When you pay good money for a defensive end, you want him to be a game-changer. You want him to be someone opponents have to game-plan for.
No question the Bears have to stop the run before they can worry about rushing the passer, but still, this feels a little bittersweet, or maybe backward:
The Bears signed a defensive who's most effective at doing something they need from a defensive tackle, and they need a starting defensive tackle.


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Perched on a bluff above Pacific Coast Highway, Passages Malibu Addiction Cure Center looks more like a prefab movie set than a place to kick hard drugs. Near the entrance of the garish $23 million mansion stands a glass-enclosed gym filled with the latest high-tech equipment, on which men and women work out feverishly with the assistance of hands-on trainers. Beside a well-stocked koi pond, two stone-carved lions with gargoyle-like faces guard the marble walkway to the imposing front door, which is framed by a Parthenon-style stone portico and supported by eight 20-foot-high Ionic columns. Marble is everywhere.
Inside the cavernous main hall — there are two other buildings on the 10-acre facility — are yet more columns, a cascading staircase and a gaggle of pretty young guys and gals. These are the personal assistants. Each client at Passages gets his or her own personal assistant, which is kinda cool when you've been hammer-heading (combining Ecstasy and Viagra) for months and need a Himalayan goji-berry cocktail brought quickly to your bedside so you don't miss the next installment of Intervention on your personal 46-inch plasma TV while waiting for your kick meds to kick in. The 29 comfortable beds here are currently filled with patients who pay $67,550 a month for them. Passages, owned and run by Chris Prentiss and his son Pax, is the most expensive, luxurious and controversial residential drug-treatment center in the world.
Also read Going Undercover at Impact House and Rehab or Bust: A Guide to L.A.'s Drug and Alcohol Treatment Centers by Mark Groubert
The Prentisses are the Holocaust deniers of the addiction-recovery industry. They deny the existence of addiction. They deny the existence of alcoholism. They deny that it is a disease, or that it is incurable.
In April 2007, Chris and Pax Prentiss appeared on a segment for Paula Zahn Now, in an interview with CNN's Brooke Anderson.
"The Prentiss duo," Anderson explained, "claim a success rate of better than 80 percent and even wrote a book about their unconventional approach. They reject the decades-old 12-step program and proudly defy scientific studies about addiction. Doctors, scientists say addiction is a disease. You say it's not."
"I know it's not," Pax stated bluntly.
"When you send patients home, what do you say to them?" Anderson asked.
Young and old Prentiss almost in unison: "You're cured. Totally."
"You will never use drugs and alcohol again," Pax added. "Your dependency has been cured. Have a wonderful life."
Chris Prentiss' personal assistant, Deena Avery, a woman in her late 40s with a Hale-Bopp glint in her eyes, leads me on a mini-tour. She indicates the "graduation room" to our right and tells me about the Native American talking-stick ceremony that graduates take part in. I'm given a glass of fresh carrot juice, which I sip nervously while watching six kitchen workers busily prepare food at a Spago pace. Suddenly, Prentiss appears behind me, seemingly out of nowhere, and introduces himself. He has bright-white combed-back hair and a permanent tan, and is wearing a dark-suede bomber jacket. He looks like a movie producer. (Then again, everyone his age out here looks like a movie producer.)
"Doctors and scientists are still treating alcoholism as if it is the problem, when it has nothing at all to do with the problem," Prentiss tells me. "They might as well be studying scratchism for people who have a chronic itch." Prentiss insists that one of his major goals is to "see the word alcoholism eliminated from the English language."
Pax Prentiss arrives. At 34, he's a younger version of his dad: tall, surfer-blond, buffed and tan. With steel-gray shark eyes and the slinky, swaying body language that junkies never seem to lose, he looks at me with a suspicion he tries to hide but can't. The three of us sit down in his father's office.
Prentiss immediately tells me the I Ching is "the greatest book ever written," that "it tells the future with 100 percent accuracy." He tells me he has written more books on the I Ching than any writer in the world. I wonder if that's true, seeing as how I am currently surrounded by I Ching books written by an author named Wu Wei — titles like I Ching Wisdom and I Ching Life, I Ching Readings, TheI Ching Workbook, The I Ching: The Book of Answers. Wu Wei, it turns out, is Prentiss' pen name. It means "no name." All his books are self-published under his own imprint, Power Press.
Prentiss explains that his cure techniques simply involve intense around-the-clock therapy. When I ask why he charges $67,550 a month for this cure, he says, "These are the finest therapists on the planet, and when you start to hire that kind of people, they cost a lot of money."
Prentiss then tells me of being interviewed recently by an alcoholic reporter from The Times of London. He says he quickly determined the reporter's underlying problem and cured him on the spot. When I point out that he just told me he needed 20 therapists around the clock for nearly 70 grand a month to do what he himself did in just 20 minutes, his voice drops to a more sinister register, his smile disappears and he says, "You're actually smarter than you think you are."
Passages is the result of Chris Prentiss' 10-year battle to save his son's life. A heroin addict since the age of 18, Pax had been raised in the plush serenity of Pacific Palisades. Why he became an addict completely baffled his father, who dedicated his life to saving his son.
"I took him to drug therapists, alcohol therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, addiction specialists and counselors of every sort," Prentiss recalls.
Pax has a personal drug story that involves coke, alcohol, mushrooms, pot, crack, acid, speed and Ecstasy. All of this led to a "$300-a-day addiction to the finest tar heroin money could buy," he gloats in his dad's controversial book The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure.
Through it all, his father kept asking him, "Pax, why do you get high?" Pax would always respond, "Because it feels so good."
"I put him in 30-day programs, 60-day programs and 90-day programs," says Prentiss. "Nothing worked. He was clean 40 times or more. Each time, he relapsed."
That is, until Pax found out why he got high: He couldn't live up to his dad's achievements. Once this was revealed as the reason for his drug use, he was free of the clutches of addiction. He was cured. Or so say the Prentisses.
"That was the start of the world's most successful treatment center," Pax writes.
Despite its staggering cost and a recommended 60-day commitment, Prentiss insists that Passages is not the exclusive retreat of celebrities and the wealthy. "We do have some celebrities on occasion, but primarily, it is middle-class America. People mortgage their houses, max out their credit cards, sell assets, whatever it takes to get here."
According to Prentiss, everything happens for a reason — a good reason. There are no bad events. The universe doesn't make mistakes. It's perfect. I think of 9/11 but don't bother to offer up such an obvious banality.
When I ask why the universe is perfect, Prentiss tells me, "Because it's 16 billion years old."
I ask him if he is suggesting simply that age equals perfection.
"The universe is perfect," he repeats, like a mantra.
"What about black holes, death stars and solar flares?" I ask.
He stares at me like I am an idiot, which of course is obvious.
"Is the universe going to disappear tomorrow?" he asks.
"Probably not," I respond sheepishly.
"Ah, so there you are," he says, smiling that smile. "The universe is perfect."
Fashion designer Marc Jacobs is perfect. I know that because Chris Prentiss tells me so.
"He has I am Perfect tattooed around his wrist," says Prentiss, gesturing. "He is cured of addiction."
After just 18 days in an Arizona rehab, Jacobs headed to Passages in August of 2007 because of the promises of no group therapy. "That was annoying," Jacobs told CNN's Brooke Anderson for Showbiz Tonight on location at Passages. "I like the idea of being cured as opposed to being forever an alcoholic or forever an addict."
This parrots a line Prentiss says to me in his office.
How long did it take the designer to be cured from a lifetime of addiction? "I think for me a month is enough," Jacobs told Anderson. "I feel like I could leave today and never drink and drug again."
I ask if he has seen Jacobs recently, but Prentiss demurs, saying only, "He is doing very, very well. He's doing exceptionally well."
On Chris Prentiss' desk is a framed photo of a tough-looking, elderly white-haired woman. This is Prentiss' mother, Bea, who died recently at the age of 92. According to Prentiss, she carried a gun until the day she kicked the bucket, after which Prentiss celebrated with a lavish dinner, he says, to reinforce his good-reason-for-everythingphilosophy.
In Prentiss' most recent self-published book, Zen and the Art of Happiness, this one bearing his own name,he describes the strange, sad story of his mother's life. In New Jersey in 1915, he writes, Bea was raped and then forced to marry her attacker. After her divorce three years later, she turned to a life of crime, and eventually employed a large criminal gang while turning into a Ma Barker type, heading a stolen-car ring out of Jersey and a crew of con artists across the Hudson in the Big Apple. When Prohibition began, she expanded into bootlegging. It seemed like a natural move. When Prentiss was born, she taught him how to rob, steal and be part of the gang. "Never tell the truth," she counseled. "Only fools tell the truth. If you do, it will get you in trouble."
"So I lied and cheated and stole and I was highly praised for it," Prentiss writes. "She taught me shoplifting when I was four. She also told me no one could be trusted, particularly women."
"When I grew older," he adds, "my business dealings were always shady."
In 1965, at the age of 25, Prentiss headed to Southern California. "Help Me, Rhonda" was blasting from radios at the time. As with many whose checkered pasts brought them to L.A., Prentiss' journey led directly to the film business. In 1976, he wrote, produced and directed Goin' Home, a family drama about a runaway boy and his dog, which is falsely accused of biting someone. Boy and dog split Florida and head for California. On the way, they meet a hobo, a shoeshine man, an abused boy and a very bad guy who chases them.
Prentiss never released another film, which is understandable if you watch Goin' Home. Like so many post-Hollywood movie mavens before and after him, Prentiss schemed and scammed to find another way to make a steady living. He sold real estate. Then, at 40, he discovered the I Ching and began running so-called Power Workshops based on its teachings. The workshops were so successful, Prentiss was invited to produce a number of TV and radio shows. He dedicated his new life to teaching the I Ching, mostly to Southern Californians in search of anything but themselves.
Problem was, he says, he couldn't truly understand the text until his head was partially crushed by a boulder. In 1993, while he and Pax were gathering rocks for a landscaping project in Malibu, a Raiders of the Lost Ark–size boulder Prentiss was trying to dislodge suddenly came loose and landed on his head. "I was slammed into the ground with such force that two bones were broken in my left hand. … I was lying face-down in the mud, unable to breathe and unable to move because all my vertebrae had been compressed and I was paralyzed," he says. As he lay there trying desperately to suck oxygen into his mouth through the Malibu mud, Prentiss says, the only thought running through his head was, "I wonder what good thing will come from this?"
Talk about the power of positive thinking. This was the "white-light experience" the former filmmaker had been seeking.
"One week later, I was lying in bed recovering," he recalls. "I picked up the I Ching, and the passages that had earlier baffled me were now understandable. Somehow that blow to my head had opened the channels that allowed me to perceive the meanings of what had before been unintelligible."
Wu Wei then took over, and went on to write 10 books on the I Ching.
"All that was a result of the rock smashing my head," says Prentiss.
In the years that followed, he ran his workshops, produced his books and repeatedly attempted to save his son from the spiral of addiction. Pax and his dad say they stumbled on their "cure" for addiction out of luck and desperation. Claiming to have had it with 12-step stuff, Pax decided to throw the kitchen sink at his multiple drug habit. His plan was to implement every East/West form of high-end therapy simultaneously and see what happened.
According to Pax, it worked. He became free of addiction. During his first moments of clarity, sobriety and fantasy, Pax had an entrepreneurial epiphany. He convinced his dad that they should create their own rehab. And not just any rehab.
Passages Malibu opened in 2001. Today, while Pax does many of the meet and greets and focuses on the younger clients, Prentiss continues to run his metaphysics workshops and propagate his belief that the universe is perfect, and every single bad event that happens to you is for the better. The most visceral example of this philosophy is cited by Prentiss himself in The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure.
One woman in his class, a victim of incestuous rape, he writes, yells out angrily that Prentiss' philosophical statement is "the stupidest, most ridiculous utterance I've ever heard. You wouldn't say that if it was you who was raped!" After a long silence, Prentiss calmly replies to the woman, "I was raped in the sixth grade," then quickly adds, "but I'm not so foolish as to let that event ruin the rest of my life."
Prentiss now tells me how his system of workshops and therapy can actually cure addiction: "Our powerful treatment methods provide total recovery from addiction through intensive individualized therapy. Our fully customized treatment program first discovers and then heals the underlying causes of a person's addiction using one-on-one therapy."
Confused by Prentiss' claims, I later call Dr. Drew Pinsky, the noted addiction specialist. When I read Prentiss' statement to Pinsky, he states emphatically, "There's no evidence that aggressive therapeutic intervention early in the course of addiction does anything but make addicts want to get loaded more."
Of all his offbeat claims, Prentiss' "success rate" may be his most outlandish. In an industry where reputable facilities such as the Betty Ford Center and Hazelden wouldn't dare claim even a 25 percent cure rate, Prentiss sticks to his guns. He looks me square in the eyes and says: "We have an 84.4 percent success rate since we opened our doors in 2001, the highest in the world."
Prentiss says his cure rate is based on the latest survey involving 700 of his graduates, with whom he keeps in contact through phone calls and alumni gatherings.
I ask him how he could statistically compare someone who left his rehab sober seven years ago with someone who graduates tomorrow having spent 30 days off drugs. In 12-step programs, the person with 30 days sober is considered to be in the infancy of his or her sobriety. Prentiss doesn't see it that way. Once the car comes off the assembly line, it's ready to drive.
"It's easy," he grins. "They're both cured."
For more than 100 years, medical science has racked its collective brains trying to figure out just what causes addiction. Despite numerous theories, a consensus has never been reached among the world's doctors, scientists and researchers. Yet Chris Prentiss, the former filmmaker and real estate agent, and self-taught master of the I Ching, claims that he knows:
1. Chemical imbalance.
2. Unresolved events from the past.
3. Beliefs you hold that are inconsistent with what is true.
4. Inability to cope with current conditions.
Prentiss may be certain, but his former medical director is having none of it: "Chris Prentiss is not qualified to be talking like that," Dr. Hamlin Emory tells me by phone from his Beverly Hills office. "And no respectful physician would ever talk like that because you don't say that you know the cause.
"I will tell you one thing about Chris Prentiss," continues Dr. Emory, "he is the consummate Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus-barker showman."
It didn't take Emory long to reach the end of his rope with Prentiss. "I started [at Passages] from the beginning [in 2001]. I left in 2004, or late 2003. I resigned. I had to leave because he was interfering with my work. He would be giving these Chinese teas that had up to 127 different compounds, and I need to medicate or test people at base line."
I tell Emory the story of the interview in The Times of London in which Prentiss claims to have cured a man on the spot.
"He's not Louis Pasteur! C'mon. He's a marketer," bellows Emory, almost spitting into the phone. "Now, I am embarrassed." There is a brief pause as he gathers his thoughts. "It's sad," he continues. "The residential centers make lots and lots of money now preying on the ignorance of the medical profession's inability to help these people."
Dr. Emory, despite being a man of science, concludes, "The principles of the 12-step program are superb. They're excellent."
Prentiss remains unbowed, despite the fact that, in 1956, the American Medical Associationdeclared that alcoholism is indeed a disease, as it meets the five criteria: a pattern of symptoms, chronicity, progression, subject to relapse and treatability.
"Today, having healed hundreds of people," Prentiss boasts, "I can write with complete certainty that alcoholism and addiction are not diseases."
On that episode of Paula Zahn Now, the Prentisses were joined by Pinsky. "I think [Prentiss] said it wasn't a disease," said Pinsky, somewhat amused. "I don't know what you can cure other than diseases."
Besides contradicting the AMA, Prentiss also maintains a one-sided propaganda war with Alcoholics Anonymous.He fuels this by espousing numerous dubious claims against the organization. For instance, he says that A.A. "is only open to those who are willing to publicly declare themselves to be alcoholics or addicts and who are willing to give up their inherent right of independence by declaring themselves powerless over addictive drugs and alcohol."
In fact, A.A. simply states in its 3rd Tradition: "The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking." Prentiss knows that A.A. has no official spokesperson to rebut his claims.
He also tells me that "only 5 percent of the people who go to A.A. ever come back again." When I ask where he had learned this number, he replies, "From A.A.'s own Web site." A complete search of the Alcoholics Anonymous Web site reveals no such statistic.
"Do you know what the first step is?" he asks me with an impish grin. "That you are powerless. How silly. We're not powerless!"
When I point out that his son Pax was certainly powerless when he was battling addiction for 10 years, he shoots back, "Well, he's not powerless now!"
Prentiss excuses himself to take an important conference call. He and Pax move to their adjoining desks, don electronic phone headsets and stare straight ahead into space like the pilot and co-pilot of a contemporary Spruce Goose preparing for takeoff. Upon contact with the other party, Prentiss begins berating the poor bastards. While I only hear half of the story, the theme is apparent: The operators of the 800 phone service for ordering his books are not closing the sale on customers at a high enough rate. I am ushered out of the office by Prentiss' chagrined assistant, as father and son yell into space.
Jeannie J. is a 45-year-old divorced heiress who had headaches. Really bad headaches, it seems. Her befuddled doctors back in Wichita prescribed her higher and higher doses of painkillers until she was finally hooked on OxyContin. In a madcap medical merry-go-round, her addiction led the doctors to prescribe her methadone to get her off the original drug. After she attempted suicide, her concerned family sent her toPassages.
"I was on methadone for four and a half months," Jeannie whispers into the phone from her four-star hotel residence in Beverly Hills. "And when I got there, they said, you know, we don't get people off of methadone. They did it [to me] cold-turkey and that was extremely hard. I had to go to the hospital two weeks into it."
The hospital administered shots of buprenorphine. Employees from Passages arrived later and took her back to the rehab, where she remained for three months.
"My back nerve endings are dead from it. I've had back pain ever since," she tells me.
Jeannie is no simple country gal. The petite bleached blonde has a B.A. in fine arts from the University of Kansas. A mother of two girls, Jeannie comes from family money and married a wealthy man in the import/export business. When their marriage splintered, so did her stability. She spiraled deeper and deeper into a suicidal abyss.
"I was [at Passages] for three months in 2003, then I went home and came back for a month and a half. I spent over a quarter of a million," she declares matter-of-factly.
Jeannie did return to Wichita, but she was not alone. A Passages-assigned companion, at a rate of $60 an hour for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, stayed with her for two months. When she mentioned in passing that she missed drinking wine, she was hustled back to Passages for an additional month and a half.
"The doctor there, Dr. Emory, he did help people with headaches though. He gave me Adderall. He still gives me that. He also gives me Suboxone and Neurontin."
Jeannie now lives alone in a swanky but lonely hotel on Doheny Drive. On some nights, she actually gets dressed to go out but then realizes she doesn't have the nerve and retreats.
"At night, I drink champagne because of the pain, but I want to try and quit doing that," she tells me with some hope in her voice.
After spending a quarter of a million dollars at Passages, Jeannie now realizes, "There is no cure, I know that now. So I don't get what they're saying."
And she's not alone. Billy N. is a blond 28-year-old who resembles the late Heath Ledger. He's the cool kid from the sticks outside Kansas City, the one who read Burroughs, Nietzsche and Kerouac in the seventh grade. The one who can't wait to leave home, who starts taking drugs at an early age to help expedite matters.
Tucked into a booth at the House of Pies in Los Feliz, Billy rarely looks up while he picks at his remaining, limp fries. His skin is so colorless he could pass for a corpse. As he explains his drug expedition to me, his voice, barely audible, forces me to lean over a table of scattered chicken-quesadilla remains just to hear him.
Four years ago, Billy entered Passages with a needle-heroin habit. Months before, when the senior Prentiss called Billy and his father in Missouri, he made Billy a promise he said he could take to the bank.
"He just kept saying, 'You will get a tan. You will leave here with a tan,'" whispers Billy.
I laugh as this paleface just smirks at me.
"Chris told me he had a 90 percent success rate or higher," Billy recalls. "After two months, the entire medical staff recommended I could leave. When Chris found out, he freaked and said to them, 'He's not going anywhere.' He spoke to my dad and said, 'If you let him leave, you'll be sentencing him to a relapse. The only way to prevent your son from relapsing is to keep him in here for at least one more month.' "
Dipping his final fry in a puddle of mayo, Billy continues, "I explained to my dad that everyone in the entire place says I'm ready to go, and it was only the guy who owned the place and making the profit who has an issue with me leaving.
"Chris hadn't even had a conversation with me in over a month because I had gotten to know him and written him off as a lunatic," Billy laughs. "I decided I was going to enjoy my time there and get the best recovery out of being there, and part of that was not having anything to do with Chris Prentiss while I was there."
Despite the pressure to stay another month, Billy took part in the talking-stick ceremony after 60 days and some $100,000 of his parents' money. One of the first things Billy did to celebrate was to smoke two eight balls of crack in a reunion with three other "cured" grads after renting a luxury hotel room on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. Combined, the four upscale crack heads had spent more than $300,000 on the Passages cure. The two eight balls, by contrast, cost around 500 bucks.
Today, Billy resides somewhat peacefully in the Hollywood Hills. He has been totally clean and sober for almost two years by working a vigorous A.A. 12-step program. Billy's dad dropped nearly a hundred grand on the "cure," but at least his son is alive and sober. That's all he cares about.
Billy does not regret the past. He just wishes to shut the door on this chapter. Some others do regret the past and want to reopen the door.
"I went there twice, in '04 and '05. I went two months each time," declares Stuart R., a 47-year-old former executive for an international computer firm. Like Jeannie, Stuart also spent a quarter of a million dollars at Passages.
"Prentiss starts throwing that number around, the 85 percent cure rate. The thing that's hard to believe is that he sticks to the story," says Stuart, who tells his tale like he has been waiting for someone to find him for years. I know this because he actually tells me so. I ask him how long the cure lasted when he left Passages the first time.
"I got loaded the same day."
I tell him that despite Prentiss' denouncements of 12-step programs, I saw residents' schedules on the wall that indicated optional A.A. meetings.
"When I was there, we did six or seven [A.A.] meetings a week. Two or three in-house and the rest out," he says. "And they were mandatory. When Chris wrote his book [The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure],that ended. That's when he decided A.A. was the villain, because he decided he could make a fortune if he just claimed he had found the cure for alcoholism."
The business executive continues in an upbeat, almost appreciative tone: "Chris has a brilliant scheme that they have cooked up there. He has the perfect sales pitch." His voice suddenly drops. "I know. I fell into it. It's a beautiful sales pitch when someone is at the end of their rope."
When I tell Stuart I couldn't find any of the success stories Prentiss brags about, he tells me, "People come in there, they fail and nobody can call him on it. He's got clients with confidentiality agreements to hide behind."
How did anybody at all get sober, I ask? The answer, says Stuart, is the ironic one: A.A. I remind Stuart just how adamant Prentiss was with me in mocking A.A.
"Chris was having trouble filling the beds, and the minute he changed the message, they filled to the brim. He created a cash machine," Stuart says. "After my stay in '05, I was invited back as someone early in recovery, and I started talking of all the people I had been there with who had relapsed. And my message was, this is a great place, it's just not gonna teach you anything about staying sober when you leave."
According to Stuart, a woman in the group stood up and asked him about the 84.4 percent cure rate. A grumble started through the group. The next week, a sign was put up saying that the A.A. alumni meetings were canceled until further notice. Stuart was persona non grata at Passages.
What about that 84.4 percent?
"I liken Chris and Pax to a couple of circus barkers," Stuart says, laughing. "Your first clue that that number is total bullshit is that it never changes."
I ask Stuart how he feels personally about Prentiss. "He's a strange, strange man," he replies, "and he's got a wonderful Ponzi scheme going. And he's got nothing to stop him. He's smart enough to see that there's nothing that could bring him down, and he's going to continue doing it."
Does Stuart know of anyone who went through Passages who is sober today?
"I don't know of anybody who went through there who doesn't go to A.A. and stayed sober," he says.
Stuart says he has been clean and sober for three years. How has he processed all this?
"I struggled with the anger about this whole thing for a long time, and I let it go. That is, until friends of mine started dying," he says. "When I saw [Prentiss] doing his parade of press interviews, he kept quoting the [cure] number. I owe it to the alcoholic or addict who is still suffering to let them know that he does not have the cure."
There is a long, awkward silence, then this:
"I scraped ex-clients out of seedy hotels, that's why I have firsthand knowledge. I actually cleaned up the mess. The first thing they would say to me was, 'Omigod, I relapsed,' and the second thing was, 'Please don't tell anyone atPassages. Chris will be disappointed in me. I must be hopeless.' They believed the 85 percent cure rate and felt like complete losers."
Stuart suggests I seek out Dr. Jason Giles, the medical director who succeeded Dr. Emory at Passages. "Giles was very uncomfortable with the success-rate claim," he says. "He was an old friend of Chris' from way back. They ended up having a pretty large falling-out."
I reach Dr. Giles on the phone at the Malibu home he shares with his wife and their two young children. Although he is actually featured prominently in Prentiss' controversial book The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure, on the phone, Giles is prone toward long pauses regarding Passages and Chris Prentiss.
He repeatedly hedges when asked to talk about Prentiss, but finally says, "The interesting part, I think, is how people are vulnerable to charlatans. I think these rehabs are modern-day quackery."
Then he lowers his voice to a whisper and adds, "I've been in contact with a lot of my former patients from when I was there and the data, the data do not come anywhere near what he is quoting as his success rate."
He pauses dramatically, and then continues, "I have five times the data than anyone else, and the results are no better than any other treatment center. And that's by report at variable lengths of time."
I ask him why he is telling me this.
"My primary motivation is to help the patients I have, and to help others down the road."
I ask Giles if he thinks speaking out will do any good. He thinks this over carefully and says, "I cannot imagine a situation where Mr. Prentiss would say, 'Well, shucks, okay, yeah. I was misrepresenting here.' I can't imagine that ever happening."
'I flipped cars doing 150 mph. I was in intensive care for two months — wheelchair bound. Took out a whole city block another time and nearly died in that one."
Mark Bufe is a 32-year-old real estate executive and former binge drinker now living on a farm in southern Illinois with his wife, Kristin Merrill, and their 3-year-old. Both are graduates of Passages, and are recommended to me by Chris Prentiss when I call him back and tell him that not everyone seems to agree with his 84.4 percent recovery data. Since he left Passages, says Bufe over the phone, he has had no cravings to drink. "It's been four years. It doesn't even enter my mind."
How did Passages cure him? "It put closure to some internal issues I had."
Bufe says he has no such issues today, and in the four years since graduating, he has not attended one A.A. meeting. "No A.A. meeting," he says, "no anything."
He does, however, admit that A.A. played a pretty large role in his and Merrill's life at Passages: "We went to A.A. meetings pretty regularly. The in-house meetings were daily. Outside meetings, pretty much every day."
That's a lot of A.A. for a place that says it's unnecessary and overly negative. Bufe seems uncomfortable with the subject and turns me over to Merrill, a perky 30-year-old raised in Santa Barbara. When I ask how long she's been clean, she begins to ramble: "I think, well, it's almost four years. … I lose count. I don't really pay attention anymore 'cause it's so crazy — we don't go to A.A. or anything like that, 'cause we don't need it! We just don't think about it anymore! Honestly, it's not really a part of our lives at all. And it's weird, because I was a bad addict. I was a straight-up heroin addict.
"First I smoked it, then snorted it," Merrill continues. "The last part of my addiction, I was shooting it." At one point, she says this went on for four years — from age 21 to 25 — but later says that for the first three years, she mostly took pills. In any case, that last year, she shot dope "until I couldn't find any veins to hit." She claims her habit cost $500 a day.
I can see why Prentiss suggested I call Bufe and Merrill. They're good spokespeople for the program. In fact, Merrill admits that she's told the story before, and often; that she and Bufe are the go-to couple for Prentiss when potential clients are on the fence about dropping almost 70 grand for a one-month visit to Malibu.
Sometimes, Merrill answers questions I haven't asked. At one point, she blurts out, "I don't think Passages is ripping people off."
I ask if she ever feels bad or wants to alter her mood.
"No, never!" she replies quickly. "I am normal now."
Why can't she drink and use like normal people?
"Because then I won't want to stop," she says.
When I point out that that is not normal, she sounds befuddled. What does she do now that is more fun than slamming china white on a cool summer night?
"I have fun with other things. We go watch scary movies!"
In my last conversation with Prentiss, he not only recommended I speak to Bufe and Merrill, but he also had a few choice words regarding his critics — and former employees — doctors Emory and Giles. Responding to Emory's comments that Prentiss is not qualified to say he knows the cause of addiction, Prentiss says, "Okay, that's his story. My side of the story was that we actually forbid him to work here because he overmedicated people. He believed, and he said — and this is why I let him go — he said that every person who comes to Passages should be medicated. Forever!"
Told of these claims, Emory responds, "I don't medicate people unless I see abnormalities. And I find it fascinating to be debating a person who has no education and just a real estate licence."
As for Giles, Prentiss seems stunned that I even mention his name. He gathers his thoughts and then brings the noise: "Giles is a very sweet guy. A very sweet guy who turned out to be a skunk!" Prentiss stammers. "I was Jason's mentor for more than 20 years. When I met Jason, he was a high school dropout. He came to work for me in my seminars. Then he went to work for me as a real estate agent. He got his doctor's license, got into anesthesiology and was discovered to be using drugs. I gave him this very cushy job here, where he was making over $1 million a year." Prentiss makes other charges that appear to be unfounded, including one that Giles kept fees that should have gone to Passages.
Dr. Giles' response is swift and adamant: "It is true we met when I was 16. It is true that I dropped out of high school. It is true that I had problems with drugs and alcohol. I never had a job at Passages. What is true is that I had direct relationships with each of the patients. What is true is that [the Prentisses] wanted money that they're not eligible for. It wasn't enough that they're charging $60,000 a month. They wanted my professional fees for interpreting complex lab tests and everything else they could get their hands on. It's against the law.
"I'm one of the few people who have intimate, factual knowledge of how Passages runs its practice," Giles says. "Therefore, I must be destroyed by Prentiss. He can say anything he wants to. What reputation does he have? He's just a real estate salesman. It makes me sad and angry. It's just awful."
And so it goes at Passages Malibu, where, according to Chris Prentiss, the universe is perfect, and everything happens for a reason — a good reason.
Also read Going Undercover at Impact House and Rehab or Bust: A Guide to L.A.'s Drug and Alcohol Treatment Centers by Mark Groubert
Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.

subset: commoncrawl


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Police: Naked man falls through church roof
Authorities in Hickory have arrested a man after they say he fell through the celing of a church and was found naked inside.
The Hickory Daily Record reports the staff of Resurrection International Church asked police to remove a suspicious man from the building Saturday afternoon after he'd asked to spend the night there.
Police think 46-year-old James Albert Kimrey Jr. of Durham tried to re-enter the church through the roof. They say he apparently took off his clothes because he couldn't get through a gap between a ventilation duct and the framework. He fell through the ceiling and into a conference room. A church member found him Sunday morning in a restroom stall.
Kimrey is being held at the Catawba County Detention Center under a $1,200 secured bond.


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Third Annual "Avery Give Back to Schools" Promotion
October 2, 2012
Avery Dennison's Office and Consumer Products Group announced the winners of their "Avery Give Back to Schools™" promotion today. Prizes will be awarded to each of the 30 schools that received the most online votes in a tier-based structure, and 10 randomly selected schools that qualified based on a threshold of votes received.
The five schools that earned the most online public votes will each receive $10,000 (retail value) worth of Avery® school supplies, 25,000 Bonus eBox Tops® (a $2,500 value) and $1,000 in gift cards for teachers to purchase additional classroom supplies. The next 25 schools with the most votes will each receive 10,000 Bonus eBox Tops (a $1,000 value). In addition, 10 randomly selected schools with 100 votes or more will each receive 5,000 Bonus eBox Tops (a $500 value).
Avery Dennison Office and Consumer Products Group created the online initiative as an additional opportunity to give back to the communities that have made the company's success possible. Teachers, families and supporters (ages 18 and older) voted online for their local K-8 school between May 7 and September 14, 2012.
"For the third year in a row we are happy to be supporting and drawing attention to the needs of schools," said Tim Bond, Group Vice President of Office and Consumer Products for Avery Dennison. "We are excited to award 40 hard-working schools this year with these Avery® school supplies and Bonus eBox Tops, and are pleased to have another chance to demonstrate our commitment to them."
Receiving more than 2 million votes:
The top 5 schools are:
1. Stone Elementary – Crossville, TN
2. Henry Elementary – Henry, VA
3. Discovery Key Elementary – Lake Worth, FL
4. Tyndall Elementary – Panama City, FL
5. Walt Disney Elementary - San Ramon, CA
The 25 runners up are:
1. Emmorton Elementary – Bel Air, MD
2. Edna Batey Elementary – Elk Grove, CA
3. Addison Elementary – Hartford, WI
4. Sontag Elementary – Rocky Mount, VA
5. La Fetra Elementary – Glendora, CA
6. Hancock Elementary – Chandler, AZ
7. Jack L. Weaver Elementary – Los Alamitos, CA
8. Binks Forest Elementary - Wellington, FL
9. Eastvale Elementary – Corona, CA
10. Bear Creek Elementary – Elizabethtown, PA
11. St. Bede School – Ingleside, IL
12. Mt. Vernon Elementary – St. Petersburg, FL
13. Banyan Elementary – Newbury Park, CA
14. St. Mary's School – Bellevue, NE
15. Ryan Elementary – Chandler, AZ
16. Los Angeles Center For Enriched Studies – Los Angeles, CA
17. Atascocita Springs Elementary – Humble, TX
18. Lietz Elementary – San Jose, CA
19. Parmenter – Franklin, MA
20. Hugo A. Owens Middle – Chesapeake, VA
21. Lakeway Elementary – Austin, TX
22. Snow Creek Elementary – Penhook, VA
23. MacArthur Elementary – Germantown, WI
24. W.C. Abney Elementary – Dallas, GA
25. Lakeview Elementary – Trophy Club, TX
The 10 randomly drawn schools are:
1. Charlotte Patterson – Gilbert, AZ
2. Bay Haven School of Basics Plus – Sarasota, FL
3. St. Mark Catholic – Cleveland, OH
4. St. Peters Middle School – Joplin, MO
5. Sacred Heart Catholic School – Uvalde, TX
6. Henrietta Elementary – Henrietta, TX
7. St. Demetrios School Astoria – Astoria, NY
8. Margaret Landell Elementary – Cypress, CA
9. St. Joseph Regional School – Newton, NJ
10. St. Mark's Episcopal School – Upland, CA
The Avery Give Back to Schools™ promotion reflects the division's belief that a solid education is the cornerstone of a strong community. To enable children to receive the education that they need and deserve, Avery Dennison Office and Consumer Products Group provides financial and in-kind support to children, teachers and schools through programs such as Box Tops for Education®. In three years, schools have earned more than $2,500,000 through Box Tops coupons found on Avery® products, the first school and office supply manufacturer to participate in the program. For more information on Avery Dennison Office and Consumer Products Group's participation in the program, visit www.avery.com/btfe and www.btfe.com.
About Avery Dennison
Avery Dennison (NYSE:AVY) helps make brands more inspiring and the world more intelligent. The company is a global leader in pressure-sensitive labeling technology and materials and retail branding and information solutions. A FORTUNE 500® company with sales of $6 billion from continuing operations in 2011, Avery Dennison is based in Pasadena, California and has employees in over 50 countries. For more information, visit www.avery.com.
About Avery Dennison Office and Consumer Products
Avery Dennison Office and Consumer Products Group (www.avery.com) markets products under the well-known Avery® brand name and is one of the world's leading manufacturers of self-adhesive labels for laser and ink jet printers, binders, sheet protectors, index and tab dividers and other office-, home- and school-related supplies. Avery Dennison Office and Consumer Products Group, a business unit of Avery Dennison Corporation, is based in Brea, California. For more information about Avery® brand products, consumers can visit the Avery Dennison Office and Consumer Products Group web site at www.avery.com or call the Avery Consumer Service Center at 1-800-GO-AVERY (1-800-462-8379).
About Box Tops for Education®
Green Giant® Fresh is the only produce brand featuring Box Tops for Education® coupons. General Mills' Box Tops for Education® program offers families easy, everyday ways to earn cash for their designated school. The program started in 1996 and over the past 15 years, more than 90,000 schools have earned over $400 million through Box Tops for Education, including more than $59 million last school year. Many General Mills brands – ranging from Cheerios to Bisquick to Betty Crocker cake mixes and licensee brands including Green Giant® Fresh produce, Hefty bags, Juicy Juice juice boxes, Brita water filters, Kleenex facial tissues and Avery school and office supplies – feature a Box Tops coupon that can be submitted to General Mills for 10 cents for a participating school.
©2012 Avery Dennison Corporation. All rights reserved. Avery, Avery Dennison and all other Avery brands, product names and codes are trademarks of Avery Dennison Corporation. All other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners. Box Tops for Education is a registered trademark of General Mills, used with permission. © 2012 General Mills
Media Contact
Avery Products Corporation


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RIFTScene should be back and stable – it's all been moved to a shiny new server that can handle the load without an issue. Sorry if you've experienced slowness over the past week.
PLEASE comment on this post if you notice anything that isn't quite right.
On another note – you've probably noticed that the news has been.. well.. non existent lately. I've been busy with real life doing other things plus it's just that time of the year – but I do make sure that the loot stays up to date and that the best in slot always has the latest loot and such. I am looking for people who'd like to contribute or folks who would be interested in writing daily news, pts updates, etc.
If that's something you may be interested in doing – feel free to shoot me an e-mail to email@example.com. Huge bonus if you have blogging experience and double bonus awesome if you have WordPress experience.
That's all for now, and hopefully you all have a wonderful holiday and an exciting New Year!


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We got a whopping two-tenths of an inch of rain last week. It was glorious while it lasted. Unfortunately, it mostly drove the humidity up and the ground continues to bake. Temperatures have been holding steady in the mid-90s for more than 25 days now, often pushing into the triple digits. The tulip poplars are shedding their leaves so fast it looks like fall.
It's depressing, really.
We've started feeding hay to the weaned calves. We'll be lucky to make it through July before the rest of the herd will need hay. We were able to cut and buy in our usual amount of round bales, but we usually don't start feeding it until December. At this rate, we don't have enough to get us through winter and it's unlikely we'll be able to find anymore as everyone is in the same boat.
Yesterday I heard on NPR that 61 percent of the country is experiencing drought. I hope this weather isn't our new normal.
The drought and the heat is taking its toll everywhere on the farm. Julia's milk production is typical for what I would see during winter. I've taken to letting Babette take all the evening milk. The hummingbirds are going through one feeder full of nectar a day. The wild birds that come to our feeders have been grateful for the seed and water that we put out for them. We lost a chicken during the last heat spike and if the promised forecast holds true this week, we could lose more.
The garden looks like hell. The corn is burnt crisp. The squash produced so poorly, I finally quit watering them. The tomatoes are covered in green fruits – all with blossom end rot. Same for the peppers.
Me? I managed to come down with a nasty cold that kept me from training for four days. Not a good start to my training plan. I did pull off a 750-yard swim on Wednesday and a three-mile run last night. I waited until 8 p.m. so things could "cool" down.
Wow. Not much good news to report here. I checked the 10-day forecast this morning and it promises more of the same.
Some days, the idea of living in a condo in town seems like a wonderful idea – a life where extreme heat and dry days would feel like an irritating inconvenience, not something to fear.


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I went on an impromptu trip out to Montauk, Long Island last weekend with Catherine. Photo essay and travel tips below.
STAY at The Panoramic View – simple luxury, right on the beach
EAT fish and chips at Gurney's Inn, right next door to The Panoramic View
DRINK at Nick's, a beach bar right in town with live music
WATCH the sunset at the Montauket
EAT lobsters at Duryea's. Rustic and delicious. My lobster was pregnant! Yum.
ADOPT a sock monkey and shop for other kitsch Americana at a shop on the main street in town (don't remember the name)


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Cases Assigned to the Family Department
Cases Recommended
The Utah Constitution confers upon the Legislature the authority to restrict the jurisdiction of the district court as well as the authority to establish the jurisdiction of any statutory court.(1)
The task force distinguishes between jurisdiction over the subject matter of a case, which attaches to the district court itself, and the assignment of that case, which might be to the general department or the family department of the court. The result of this distinction is that assignment or reassignment of cases between departments is not jurisdictional. Court orders are valid even though a case is inadvertently or purposefully assigned to the "wrong" department. If the need exists, judges of either department may conduct proceedings and enter orders in the cases of the other department without a special order of assignment.
The task force recommends that the case types that follow be assigned to the family department. The task force used two criteria in determining which case types should be assigned to the family department:
The need to present a collaborative effort in providing programs and services to the parties of the case.
The need to adjudicate cases involving common family members in a single forum.
The task force is mindful that some exceptions are necessary to these general rules. For example, the task force debated the possibility of assigning intrafamily crimes to the family department. Such cases meet the criteria established, but countervailing public policy arguments, developed more fully below, led the task force to recommend against including intrafamily crimes in the family department.
Generally, the cases to be assigned to the family department comprise the current jurisdiction of the juvenile court, the domestic jurisdiction of the district court, and some select probate matters.
Aggravated murder, 76-5-202, by a person over the age of 16 was placed within the exclusive jurisdiction of the district court during the Second Special Session of the 1993 Legislature. Under the task force recommendation, prosecution for this offense remains in the general department. Prosecution of a minor under the age of 16 for what would be aggravated murder if committed by an adult is assigned to the family department.
Current law regarding the certification of a minor to stand trial as an adult in the general department and the discretion of the prosecutor to file a criminal information against a minor in the general department remains unchanged.
The district court should assign to the family department the following case types:
- an action filed under Title 30, Husband and Wife,(2) except that:
- joint or several liability of a spouse to a third party under Title 30, Chapter 2, Property Rights, shall be assigned to the general department; and
- either department may make a determination under Section 30-1-4.5 regarding a marriage that is not solemnized;(3)
- an action filed under Title 42, Chapter 1, Change of Name;
- an action filed under Sections 62A-3-305, 62A-3-306, 62A-3-307, or 62A-3-309, Adult Protective Services;
- an action filed under Title 62A, Chapter 5, Services to People with Disabilities;
- an action filed under Title 62A, Chapter 12, Mental Health, if the commitment is of a minor;
- an action filed under Title 75, Chapter 5, Protection of Persons Under Disability and Their Property;
- an action filed under Title 77, Chapter 31, Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act;
- an action filed under Title 78, Chapter 3f, Termination of Parental Rights;
- an action filed under Title 78, Chapter 30, Adoption;
- an action filed under Title 78, Chapter 45, Uniform Civil Liability for Support Act;
- an action filed under Title 78, Chapter 45a, Uniform Act on Paternity;
- an action filed under Title 78, Chapter 45c, Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction;
- an action to modify or enforce an order of custody, visitation, support, property distribution, or alimony of this state or of another state;
- a petition for a writ of habeas corpus involving the custody of a minor, unless the minor is in the custody of state or local corrections officials after conviction of a crime;
- a referral or petition for the prosecution of a minor for acts that would be a public offense(4) if committed by an adult other than an offense in Title 41, Motor Vehicles, and ordinances regulating traffic and motor vehicles;
- a referral or petition for the prosecution of a minor for violation of:
- - Section 41-1a-1311, unauthorized control over a motor vehicle, trailer, or semitrailer;
- - Section 41-6-13.5, fleeing an officer;
- - Section 41-6-44, operating a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol or drugs;
- - Section 41-6-45, reckless driving; and
- - a traffic offense that is part of a single criminal episode containing an offense that would be assigned to the family department;
- a criminal information or indictment alleging contributing to the delinquency of a minor(5) or failure to report child abuse;
- a referral or petition concerning a minor who is abused, neglected, or dependent;
- a referral or petition for prosecution of a minor whose status as a minor is an element of the offense, but referral and petition for the following offenses shall require a showing of earnest and persistent efforts to correct the behavior:
- - concerning a minor who is habitually truant from school; and
- - concerning a minor who is beyond the control of school authorities or the parent, custodian, or guardian of the minor;
- a petition involving the interpretation, application, or enforcement of a living will;
- a petition to perform or restrain the performance of a medical procedure, including but not limited to abortion and the application, withholding, or removal of life sustaining medical treatment;
- a petition for judicial review of the informal adjudicative proceedings of an administrative agency involving a minor;
- a petition for judicial consent for enlistment in the armed forces of the United States or of this state or for employment when judicial consent is required by law;
- a petition to modify a birth certificate; and cases under the Interstate Compact on Juveniles.
The district court should assign all other cases to the general department of the district court. Assignment of cases is not jurisdictional. The objective of the division of case types between the two departments of the district court is to provide to parties and their families a convenient forum for the resolution of domestic and family law issues and the avoidance of conflicting orders in separate but related cases. To this end, the court may assign a case to the family department or to the general department contrary to the general rule as experience and need warrant.
A. Cases Not Recommended
The task force recommends that intrafamily crimes and minor traffic offenses not be prosecuted in the family department.
1. Intrafamily Crimes
The criminal prosecution for crimes of domestic violence belongs in the general department of the district court.(6) Although these types of offenses meet the two criteria considered by the task force for inclusion within the cases assigned to the family department, countervailing arguments require that they be assigned to the general department. Removing these crimes from the general department of the district court, which will adjudicate all other public offenses, may give the impression that crimes against family members are not as serious as crimes against strangers. The objectives of criminal prosecution includes, among others, punishment of the perpetrator of a crime, often without regard to the impact upon other family members. The expertise of the family department judges and staff becomes less applicable in criminal matters. The expertise of the family department is dispositional. The expertise needed in criminal cases is procedural.
The result of this recommendation is the separation of child protection proceedings in the family department from the criminal prosecution for child abuse in the general department. Even though the coordination of these two related case types between separate courts currently creates some difficulty, the task force does not recommend assigning the criminal prosecution to the family department. In this and other examples of the coordination of civil and criminal cases in the family department, judges and prosecutors likely will see the need to separate the proceedings in any event, and thus halt progress of the civil case until the disposition of the criminal charges.(7)
The recommendation for prosecuting family crimes in the general department of the district court extends to violation of a cohabitant abuse act protective order. The entry of the protective order itself is a civil matter and should be in the family department. The violation of the protective order is a class A misdemeanor(8) and should be in the general department.
2. Minor Traffic Offenses
Prior to 1989 the juvenile court shared jurisdiction over traffic offenses with the circuit court and justice court. In 1989 the Legislature divested the juvenile court of jurisdiction over all traffic offenses except automobile homicide, driving under the influence, reckless driving, and fleeing a peace officer, which remained in the exclusive jurisdiction of the juvenile court.(9)
In 1990 the Legislature added unauthorized control of a vehicle, traffic offenses arising out of a single criminal episode containing an offense over which the juvenile court has jurisdiction, and traffic offenses by a juvenile under the age of 16 to the exclusive jurisdiction of the juvenile court.(10)
The task force recommends not altering the current division of traffic cases. To give the family department exclusive jurisdiction over all traffic offenses would carry a tremendous fiscal impact to counties and municipalities from the loss of revenue from the prosecution of such cases in the justice courts, and to the state in the operating costs necessary to assume the additional traffic caseload. To return to concurrent jurisdiction would lead to disparate treatment of youths who by circumstance are cited by a peace officer to juvenile court or to circuit or justice court. Moreover, a minor traffic offense does not involve the same criminal culpability that tends to put a youth at risk of continuing criminal behavior.(11)
1. Utah Constitution, Article VIII, Section 5.
2. This includes divorce, separate maintenance, cohabitant abuse, and all other actions recognized in Title 30.
3. The need to determine the validity on an unsolemnized marriage may arise in some probate proceedings.
4. The exception regarding aggravated murder, 76-5-202, by a person over the age of 16 is again noted. Also, the law regarding certification of a minor to stand trial as an adult and the discretion of the prosecutor to file a criminal information against a minor would remain unchanged.
5. A significant portion of the current section of the Juvenile Court Act defining contributing to the delinquency of a minor, 78-3a-19, defines as a class B misdemeanor acts that are much more serious offenses under the Criminal Code, Title 76. The task force recommends that the offense of contributing to the delinquency of a minor be redrafted to differentiate the offense from violations of the criminal code.
6. The only exception to this is prosecution of an adult for the Class B misdemeanor, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and failure to report child abuse.
7. Szymanski, Linda, Theresa Homisak, and E. Hunter Hurst, Policy Alternatives and Current Court Practice in the Special Problem Areas of Jurisdiction Over the Family, National Center for Juvenile Justice, 9 (1993)
8. Title 77, Chapter 36 and 76-5-108.
9. Laws of Utah 1989, Chapter 150.
10. Laws of Utah 1990, Chapter 55.
11. Report of a study requested by Governor Calvin L. Rampton of the Utah Juvenile Justice System conducted by the Youth Development and Delinquency Prevention Administration, Social and Rehabilitation Service, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. December 16, 1971. Pages 120 to 125.
The Utah State Courts mission is to provide the people an open, fair, efficient, and independent system for the advancement of justice under the law.


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Microsoft is moving a lot of Surface Pros, considering the high price for the device.
Microsoft has sold 400,000 Surface Pros since launch, according to a Bloomberg report.
That's not a bad start for a very pricey tablet -- starting at $899 -- considering that the Windows 8-based Pro launched only about a month ago.
"That's a respectable number and it leads me to believe that Surface Pro will end up outselling Surface RT," Bob O'Donnell, an analyst at IDC, said in a phone interview.
O'Donnell is referring to the RT version of Surface, which is less expensive, starting at $499, but it is not compatible with older Windows software.
"It's something that we've predicated all along because of the compatibility that Surface Pro offers," he said.
In total, Microsoft has sold about 1.5 million Surface devices, including both Pro and RT, according to Bloomberg. Surface RT was announced more than three months ago.
While the RT version initially sold out, Microsoft was able to meet demand quickly. That hasn't been the case for the Pro. The high-end 128GB Pro has been chronically sold out since its release on February 9. Only in the last week to ten days has the high-end model become readily available.
Of course, the Pro's numbers pale in comparison with the iPad. Apple sold more than 20 million iPads in the quarter ending December.
But, like Surface RT, the 9.7-inch Retina iPad starts at $499, while the iPad Mini is even cheaper, starting at $329.
The Surface Pro essentially squeezes a mainstream laptop into a 2-pound, 0.5-inch thick tablet. Pro packs a 1,920x1,080 resolution 10.6-inch display, Intel Ivy Bridge processor, 4GB of memory, and a full-fledged solid-state drive (not the slower flash drives found in Apple and Android tablets).
[Via The Verge ]


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Leg: Achilles Tendonitis
Achilles Tendonitis might be the most common winter climbing condition. Here's how to whip that beast and get back on your frontpoints.
The early-season ice flows of Silverton, Colorado, sit at almost 12,000 feet. Having just flown in from coastal Maine, I huffed the thin air on the approach to Stairway to Heaven (WI 4). As we traversed the hillside, I noticed that not only were my lungs searing, but my ankle throbbed due to a bad case of Achilles tendonitis, acquired while training for a mountaineering trip the year before. The steep approach wasn't helping matters and my ankle had just been stuffed in climbing boots for the first time that season.
As I led up the fourth pitch I heaved to catch a full breath, hesitating one move away from pulling the bulge below the next belay. The ice in front of me was thin, candled and poorly bonded. I grew weak as I hung from my right arm, trying desperately to get a solid stick with my off-hand.
I tried to remind myself to drop my heels, but the more anxious I became the more I leaned into the ice and up on my frontpoints. With one last effort I swung my left tool. It skipped off the rock and threw me off balance. My right toe popped out and all of my weight crashed down on my left frontpoint. I felt an intense burning in my left ankle. My Achilles tendon had ruptured.
I fell onto a tied-off stubby ice screw and landed on my partner's pack, tearing it from the anchor and sending it down into the river. The next five hours consisted of shaky raps from V-threads, followed by an exhausting one-legged posthole traverse back to the van.
Tendonitis For Everyone!
About 30 percent of all climbers will deal with some degree of Achilles tendonitis over their lifetimes. Most physicians who treat climbers attest that Achilles tendonitis is probably the most common climbing-related condition overall. Still, it's hard to know exactly how prevalent it is. Accumulating data on the exact incidence of Achilles tendonitis is difficult. Many climbers who have it do not seek medical attention, and few climbing-specific studies have been done on Achilles tendonitis.
What has been studied is the link between hiking, running and tendonitis. One study published in Clinics in Sports Medicine (January 2004) found that the annual incidence of Achilles tendonitis in runners is around seven to nine percent. Considering many climbers cross-train or run, and that 50 percent of cases result from overuse, Achilles tendonitis is one of the most common training injuries. The American Journal of Medicine (March 2003) published a study showing that 20 percent of subjects who were backpacking or mountaineering for more than seven consecutive days sustained Achilles tendonitis. According to that data, anyone planning a technical enchainment, alpine climb with a long approach or ascent of a glaciated peak may encounter Achilles pain.
Achilles tendonitis is more common in mountaineers than craggers since the demands of rock climbing put more stress on the elbows than the ankles, but if you're a sport climber or boulderer, you are still at risk.
The biggest complication of tendonitis, aside from chronic pain, is tendon rupture. While tendonitis alone can end your climbing season, a blown Achilles can end your climbing career. Rupture can occur if the tendon becomes compromised. When Achilles tendonitis becomes chronic, the prolonged inflammation leads to thickening of the tendon with microscopic tears, calcium deposits and disorganized scar tissue. These structural changes, referred to as tendonosis, weaken the tendon. The simple act of "toeing off" during a sprint puts the stress equivalent of a static load over 10 times your body weight on a single Achilles tendon. Now picture the stress of a dyno or the cumulative stress of 5,000 vertical feet of glacier plodding with a 50-pound pack on a significantly weakened tendon and it's easy to see how that tendon might snap.
Achilles What?
Unlike ligaments, which link bones together, tendons tie the end of muscles to bone. The Achilles tendon connects the two major calf muscles, the gastrocnemius and soleus, to the calcaneus (heel bone).
As you walk, the calf muscles contract, yanking on the Achilles tendon. This flips your toes under your foot as you "toe off" against the ground and your calcaneus rocks upward. When you finish your stride and are preparing to land your heel, you lift your toes up, which rolls the calcaneus bone back to its original position. This back-and-forth rocking action consistently rolls the Achilles tendon against the back of the calcaneus bone, causing abrasion.
This abrasion would wear out a tendon in a few weeks, but our bodies are designed for longevity. Tendons are equipped with a protective sheath, usually filled with fluid that lubricates the tendon as it slides over rough surfaces. In addition, a small pocket of fluid, called a bursa, acts as a pad at the point where a tendon repeatedly rolls over an edge of bone. The bursa, the protective sheath (usually called a synovial sheath or, in the case of the Achilles, a paratendon) or the tendon itself can all become inflamed. When the tendon, not the surrounding tissue, becomes inflamed, you've got Achilles tendonitis.
Why Me?
Achilles tendonitis has two major causes: overpronation and overuse. Pronation is the act of pressing your toes against the ground, forcing them in a down-and-out direction. This act partially collapses the arch of your foot. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but if you have poor arch support in your shoes, are flatfooted or wear shoes that fail to stabilize the heel, your heel will roll slightly and your arch can collapse too much. This causes rotation of the calcaneus, friction near the lower Achilles, and eventually tendonitis.
Overuse is a relative term. Some climbers will transition from weekly to daily sport climbing without a problem. Others might suffer an inflamed Achilles out of the blue. A common misconception is that only weekend warriors acquire Achilles tendonitis. Certainly their activity pattern is more likely to cause the condition because the tendon is at rest for long periods of time, where it contracts and becomes tight. If, after this lack of use, you embark on a three-day climb of Mount Rainier, for example, the Achilles will almost certainly scream. However, any significant change in exercise pattern, if not executed carefully, can lead to tendonitis. It's common for guides or daily climbers to feel the flame in their heels when they start training for an expedition, work a hard problem or return to climbing after a hiatus.
If you have Achilles tendonitis you may not know it. Pain in the heel can be due to a number of other problems, such as bursitis or stress fractures. Typically, Achilles tendonitis occurs gradually, over months. It can occur more suddenly, however, especially if put under an extraordinary amount of stress without prior training or stretching.
Pain—burning or aching—is the most common symptom of Achilles tendonitis. The Achilles may feel slightly thick, and you may notice a grinding sensation when you pull back on your toes. Stretching may cause pain. In addition, you may notice shocks of pain when descending stairs or trails. There's usually no dramatic swelling or redness.
Prevention is Another Word for Love
Make sure you have proper footwear and arch support. Dropping molded insoles into your approach shoes or climbing boots will help. Make sure you stretch for a good 15 minutes before climbing. Remember that if you're using your feet, you're stressing your Achilles. Perform calf-strengthening exercises (see below), which decrease the frequency of tendon flares.
If you're training for a long climb or expedition, start slowly. According to the American College of Sports Medicine, athletic training errors cause 60 to 80 percent of Achilles injuries. Overambitious distances or pack weights early in a training regimen may send you on the trip of your dreams with a bum leg. If you can't get out on the trails to train, use a Stairclimber or elliptical trainer machine. However you train, increase the intensity of your workout gradually, allowing your Achilles to adapt to the daily insult of a heavy pack and long miles. Most important, listen to your body. If it hurts, rest it and treat it.
Be Patient, Be Healed
It's not easy to get rid of Achilles tendonitis. The mainstays of treatment include a diligent regimen of at-home tendon-strengthening stretches, rest from repetitive injury (don't go running, for instance) and anti-inflammatory medications (mentioned below). Institute all of these methods concurrently at the first sign of Achilles tendonitis.
For your stretching, face a wall, plant your foot firmly on the floor about two or three feet from the wall and gradually lean into the wall, stretching your heel while keeping it pinned to the floor. Do this for 30 seconds, relax for a minute and repeat. Do five to 10 reps and repeat these sets a few times per day. Whatever you do, don't skip the first session of the day, which you should do as soon as you get out of bed. Your foot has been in a dropped position all night and the Achilles is contracted and tight. This is the most important time to rehabilitate it.
Newer evidence has shown that eccentric (tendon-lengthening) stretches are also effective for treating Achilles tendonitis. Stand on a low step with only your toes on the step and your heel hanging off the edge. Push up high on the toes of the problem foot, bearing weight only on that foot, balancing against the wall if needed. Over a 10-second period, lower your heel from its high position until it again drops off the edge of the step. Repeat this routine 10 times, three times a day, for 12 weeks.
Try not to stress your Achilles for a one to three weeks, depending on the severity of the tendonitis. If you suffer from chronic tendonitis, longer periods of rest may be needed. Be sure to wear shoes with proper arch and heel support. Ice your heel. There's conflicting evidence regarding the benefit of ice, but most experts agree it decreases inflammation. Icing your Achilles for 30 minutes after exercise may help shorten the duration of a tendonitis flare. Another option is to apply ice for 15 minutes on, remove it for 15 minutes and repeat for four to six cycles. If nothing else it'll keep you on the couch so you can rest your tendon.
While you are stretching and icing, try a course of anti-inflammatories. Early initiation of oral anti-inflammatories is perhaps the most effective treatment (even more than stretching) for warding off Achilles tendonitis. You may be able to get away with as-needed anti-inflammatories, like ibuprofen, but a 10-day burst of around-the-clock anti-inflammatory use is more effective, especially if this is your first bout with Achilles tendonitis. While over-the-counter doses may help, most doctors advise a higher dose for better inflammatory control. Talk to your doctor before starting anti-inflammatories, as these drugs can cause stomach ulcers or bleeding and have long-term health consequences.
If those conservative treatments fail, see your doctor and pull out the big guns. Ankle splints, ultrasound treatment, casting and even surgery are all more aggressive options that can help treat Achilles tendonitis. However, with proactive conservative treatment these drastic measures will likely never be needed.
Last year I was slithering up a narrow chimney near the top of Bugaboo Spire. I jammed my left foot in a perfect crack deep inside the slot, weighted it, and fiddled with gear, trying to yank a cam from my tangled rack. Suddenly a twinge of pain shot from my ankle up into my calf. It took my breath away.
As I quaked and tried to avoid peeling off, I thought back to my incident on Stairway to Heaven. I pushed down with my left foot. It worked perfectly. I had been rehabilitating my Achilles all spring, just as I have every year since my accident in Silverton. I was lucky that day in Colorado. My Achilles only partially ruptured. It's much better now, but occasionally it hurts. Every now and then, on a slab or in a steep couloir, it'll talk to me and remind me to do my exercises.
Dr. Brian Irwin is a family practitioner from North Conway, New Hampshire. He still hasn't finished Stairway to Heaven.
Climbing Injury, Feet: Gout and Pseudogout


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Donating blood has changed into a regular routine for me and also a number of other people searching to create a variation in other people day-to-day lives. I could recall the first time I generously donated blood flow, I'll be truthful, I used to be nervous and wasn't really sure what to anticipate. Right after filling in a pretty detailed list of questions, a specialist examined my vitals and got a few droplets of blood vessels from my pointer finger to check my iron ranges. I seen anxiously because the bloodstream from my finger was dropped right into a tube of some form of water. The bloodstream sunk quickly to the foot of the liquefied showing that my metal amounts had been good enough to donate blood. The real reason for the steel examination is a typical blood vessels donor drops between 200-250 mg of steel per contribution. Metal is a nutrient that is certainly important at the same time of making red-colored blood cells, so needless to say, an individual with low iron is not an effective candidate to give away bloodstream.
I could keep in mind the initially blood vessels generate I participated in. Employees was very warm and friendly and made certain I had been cozy along the way. After I found myself connected towards the bag, I was given a little golf ball to pull through the entire method to keep the blood flow moving. Right after about 20 minutes, the technician emerged over and told me I had been done. I found myself a little gentle going but nevertheless capable of stand up and move on the refreshment region. The refreshments was made up of bottles water, apple and orange juice, cookies, crackers and some other tasty things. I sat for a couple minutes along with a great conversation with a bit of other donors. Still it amazes me that a mere twenty minutes of my time may possibly help save the lives of a few people in require.
You can find four distinct blood flow varieties, A-B-Abdominal and bad, every single might be positive or negative. Stomach is a common beneficiary and adverse is really a general donor of red-colored bloodstream tissue. If you don't determine what blood flow variety you will be, the blood vessels heart can tell you after your first donation. As soon as you give away complete blood vessels, you will be not qualified for give away again for about eight weeks. This is the suitable time it takes to replace the contributed blood vessels. Roughly 4.5 million Americans will need a blood vessels transfusion each year, virtually two-thirds from the U.S. inhabitants is qualified for donate yet only lower than 5 % of the qualified will in reality donate. Once I see figures like this, this makes me ponder why more and more people don't give blood vessels.
Following contributing blood initially, I made the decision to give away regularly and get also turn out to be lively in fundraising attempts to assist a very important non-revenue business. If you have never donated blood vessels and would want to preserve a life or 3, call your community blood vessels financial institution or visit a blood generate in your town.
Inspired by: ezinearticles


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CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, Florida (AP) — An unmanned rocket has launched a new U.S. military satellite into orbit.
The Atlas V (five) rocket lifted off Tuesday afternoon from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying the second satellite of four planned in the Space-Based Infrared System.
The spacecraft will provide early missile warning, missile defense, battlefield reconnaissance and technical intelligence for the US military and its allies.
The satellites will move at the same speed as the earth's orbit. More satellites will be added at a later date.
The full complement of satellites, built by Lockheed Martin, cost $15 billion.
Filed Under: Aerospace + defense


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1978 Ford Fairmont Futura - Quit Your Job Build A Ford
Meet A Guy Who Escaped The Office Cube-Farm To Find His Dream Job And Build The Ultimate Fairmont Futura.
Bryan Sharer used to work for Dr. Phil. Yes, the current tool of pop psychology and the guy who let the air out of Oprah's bouncing ball of weight fluctuations. But Bryan doesn't care; he'd already been fired for racing at Oklahoma's Thunder Valley dragstrip instead of attending a last-minute business trip for that gig. Would you have picked racing? Us too. After three months of unemployment, his racing buddy John Dodson invited him to work as a tech for a Volkswagen dealership in Lewisville, Texas. He's been there ever since. And if you ask him, he's never been happier.
Morphing to a fresh VW wrench while still a longtime Mustang racer caused Bryan to change a few things. "I had a fast nitrous Mustang but I couldn't keep from just driving it around and spraying it. I kept having to fill the bottle and then at the track keep the pressure up and everything. And Mustangs were everywhere. You couldn't do anything that someone else hadn't done." His mind was popped when he saw a Fairmont wagon cracking the whip at the street races. He knew the truth immediately. When you drive a Fairmont, no one cares. When you drive a fast Fairmont, everyone thinks you're cool.
He paid $250 for a '78 that was sitting in a field with two smoked trannies in the trunk and nothing under the hood. The first race for the car was at the same track in Oklahoma that got him fired the first time. He ran a twin-turbo setup using a pair of small spools from smashed '86 Thunderbird Turbo Coupes to feed a 600-cfm Holley on a 302. After one would grenade, he would go to the yard and pluck another. In the meantime, his wife stuffed her Mustang on the freeway. The 85mm Garrett intended for her became the Fairmont's new single turbo. About that time he met Dave Harjtes from Majestic Turbo who turned him on to tuning with compressor-housing sizes. Bryan ended up with the current version: a mild 302 with an 88mm Garrett with a smaller exhaust turbine in proportion to the compressor to eliminate the big-turbo lag.
We couldn't feel any lag when Bryan winged it to whiplash speed for us. Makes you giggle. John Dodson sat shotgun with one eye on the EGT gauge and the other on the guy in the next lane. The delivery of boost is smooth, but there is nothing subtle about this combination. It roars and the Heim-joint rear suspension thocks and cracks as the car struggles to hook it all up. The converter stalls above 4,500, which we will argue is beyond the street, but lifting then flashing it back up gives the impression of a major jolt of speed and power on the freeway. It keeps on building with the nose up and the car absolutely bellowing through the 4-inch Bullets. His latest combination netted a 9.80 at 138 on the race tune-up, yet we found him driving it on the street. Turbos rule.
The Details
Car: '78 Ford Fairmont Futura
Owner: Bryan Sharer
Hometown: Trophy Club, Texas, which was named for the Trophy Club Country Club, which itself was named for hosting the trophy collection of golfer Ben Hogan.
Speed: Quickest in the quarter is 10.05 after driving it to the track and 9.80 with a track-only tune-up.
Engine: Standard-bore 302 from a '90 Mustang 5.0. He took it apart for some rings and bearings and added an SVO main girdle. Otherwise it uses all factory parts.
Heads: Iron World Products Windsor heads with "a lot" of intake, short-side, and bowl work.
Induction: The single-plane Weiand X-CELerator port matched to a Fel Pro 1250 gasket. Carburetor Solutions Unlimited built the blow-through 750 and Bryan added pump-shot and is experimenting with a boost-referenced power valve. The carb hat is from Extreme Velocity (superiorairflow.com).
Fuel System: Bryan didn't want to open the trunk to fill the tank, so he bent up the walls for an aluminum 12-gallon tank and had it welded up. It attaches to a steel plate welded into the former spare-tire well and the neck exits in the stock location. A rear-mounted pickup connects to the MagnaFlow ProStar 500 pump with -12 lines then -10 to the Aeromotive regulator.
Special Tricks: Bryan uses tire pressure to adjust the fuel-pressure regulator and the wastegate using a tool created by Dave Harjtes at Majestic turbo. Simply plug it into the Schrader valve on the tire and dial in the "boost" then attach it to the pressure regulator or wastegate and adjust. Nifty.
Ignition: It's a MSD Digital 7. Bryan uses it to retard the timing per pound of boost and datalog everything to download later.
Exhaust: The Bassani 131/44 shorty headers are mounted backward and connect to the turbo with 211/44-inch tubes. The wastegate runs from there to a 171/48 downpipe, and the turbine discharges to a 4-inch collector and finally a 4-inch Dynomax Bullet muffler.
Camshaft: He used a Ford Motorsport E303 single-pattern hydraulic roller with 220 degrees at 0.050 and 0.498 lift left over from his Mustang.
Rearend: He bought an 8.8 from a guy on the Internet. It bolted right in after a change of brake lines. He uses a 3.08:1 gear and a spool.
Converter: He is balanced between blowing through a loose converter and failing to spool with a tight one. Currently, he uses a 4,700-4,800-rpm Hobart Racing 9.5-inch converter with billet anti-balloon plates.
Front suspension:
Rear suspension: The rear is a bit rougher-double-adjustable upper control arms with heim-joint ends and single-adjustable lowers.
Brakes: He is using stock 11-inch Mustang fronts and stock rear drums. He says they're barely adequate for the street.
Wheels and tires: Front wheels are 15x3.5 Weld Draglites, and the rears are 15x8 with 5.5 inches of backspace. A panic stop will smoke the cheap Pep Boys 165R15 front tires. For the track he uses Hoosier Quick Time Pro 28x11.50-15LT DOT Racing tires.
Body modifications: To keep it somewhat a sleeper, the oil, water temperature, and voltage gauges are in the glovebox just to glance at before a run. The EGT is there to monitor the exhaust for a rough idea if the 302 is rich or lean. Anything in the 1,570-1,580-degree range is safe. When he got into the 10s, he added the 10-point 'cage and painted everything interior color.
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Bears' defense helps Chicago beat Philadelphia, 24-20
The Bears got big doses of both Good Kyle and Bad Kyle.
Kyle Orton, supposedly Chicago's safe but boring quarterback, was neither safe nor boring Sunday night. He threw a career-high three touchdown passes before the game even reached halftime. But he also had four turnovers in Chicago's 24-20 win over the Philadelphia Eagles.
Orton's struggles reached their apex in the third quarter, when he had three turnovers and four yards passing. He lost two fumbles and threw an end zone interception.
Part of the problem was the Bears' running game did nothing to slow down a Philadelphia pass rush that registered nine sacks last week. The Bears ran 10 times on first down the first three quarters for a paltry average gain of 0.6 yards.
But that didn't matter, because Chicago's defense came up big when it mattered most. The Bears stuffed the Eagles three straight times from the 1-yard line to take over on downs with 3:32 remaining. Alex Brown made the fourth-down stop.
And then the offense finally made some plays to run out the clock. Matt Forte's 10-yard run on third-and-4 used up Philadelphia's final timeout one play before the two-minute warning. That allowed the Bears to run the clock down to 28 seconds before punting.
The Bears, for all Orton's ups and downs, never trailed.
Chicago, for the first time this year, came out throwing instead of running, and it worked. At least early. Orton threw a 34-yard pass to Rashied Davis on the Bears' first offensive play, Chicago's longest pass play of the season.
After a 6-yard pass to Forte, Orton threw 19 yards to tight end Greg Olsen, who made a fingertip grab in the back of the end zone, to put the Bears ahead 7-0.
Philadelphia answered with an eight-play, 74-yard drive. Donovan McNabb tied the score at 7 with a 22-yard pass to rookie DeSean Jackson. Brian Urlacher almost had an interception on the play, but the pass cleared his fingertips by an inch or two.
The Bears went back in front 14-7 early in the second quarter with a 23-yard Orton pass to Marty Booker. The drive was set up by Nick Roach recovering a muffed punt by Jackson at the 24.
McNabb then completed consecutive passes of 16, 31 and 19 yards on the next drive to set up Cornell Buckhalter's tying 1-yard TD run.
But those were the only two drives, out of seven, that Philadelphia ran more than four plays in the first half. Alex Brown kept Chicago tied by stuffing Buckhalter on third-and-1 after Orton threw an interception. David Akers then missed a 50-yard field goal.
After that miss, Orton drove the Bears 60 yards in nine plays for a 21-14 lead. He came up big on three consecutive third downs. He threw 24 yards to Brandon Lloyd on third-and-5, 7 yards to Matt Forte on third-and-7 and a 20-yard touchdown pass to Devin Hester on third-and-9.
That gave Orton a career-high three touchdown passes. He had 174 yards passing at halftime with a 106.6 rating.
Orton, though, also made big mistakes. After Kevin Payne returned a McNabb interception 49 yards to the 11 in the third quarter, Eagles safety Quintin Mikell intercepted Orton in the end zone.
He lost a fumble on a sack a few minutes later to give the Eagles the ball at Chicago's 38, one play after Akers missed another long field goal. His 47-yarder banged off the right upright.
The Eagles got a first down at the 2 on that drive, but McNabb tripped and fell on second down and Mark Anderson touched him for a 4-yard sack, Chicago's third of the game. After an incomplete pass on third down, the Eagles settled for a 24-yard field goal to pull within 21-17. An exchange of field goals made it 24-20.
Chicago lost starting cornerbacks Charles Tillman (shoulder) and Nathan Vasher (thumb) in the second half.
Assistant sports editor Matt Trowbridge can be reached at: 815-987-1383 or firstname.lastname@example.com


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Summit County rescuers reflect on a year marked by avalanche tragedies
For those in the rescue business, some years seem busier than others.
That has certainly been the case this year for the Summit County Rescue Group, which has, to date, responded to about 40 calls — considerably fewer than what's expected in a typical year.
A dry winter played a significant role in the few calls the Summit County Rescue Group received this winter, but when the snows did finally arrive, it fell in bunches.
The Colorado Avalanche Information Center warned of a deep, unstable snow layer for the entire winter, and many avalanches had been triggered in Summit County, but with no lethal consequences.
That all changed on April 18 and April 20, when Summit County Rescue Group responded to two avalanches in three days. Those slides resulted in six fatalities and launched a week Charles Pitman, public information officer for Summit County Rescue Group, said he would long remember.
The avalanches took place on Vail Pass and Loveland Pass, respectively, Pitman said. For the many rescuers working the Loveland Pass slide, it was fortunate that all of the people caught in the avalanche were wearing avalanche beacons, which is seldom the case.
These beacons greatly facilitated the rescue effort and Summit County Rescue Group personnel were able to locate several buried skiers, the deepest was recovered from a depth of 15 feet. Without the beacons, rescue efforts could have taken several days, Pitman said.
"The fatalities on Loveland Pass were particularly concerning, since the skiers and boarders were well versed in snow safety, had all of the proper safety equipment, and were doing their best to be safe," Pitman said. "There is never a time to let down your guard and there are always lessons to be learned from such an incident. This was a serious tragedy that we hope to never see again."
Summer rescues have also been few, Pitman said, but have resulted in rescues of critically injured patients. SCRG has come to the assistance of five mountain bikers this summer, including two accidents involving very experienced riders. Both resulted in serious neck and head injuries necessitating quick extraction.
The two patients were taken by Flight for Life to Denver area hospitals for further evaluation and treatment. Both are recovering.
Although technology has given backcountry travelers a means of providing family and friends with the ability to track their progress, many of the unofficial trails in Summit County, known as social trails, results in confusion for local and visiting hikers.
In July a hiker, deep in the Gore Range, triggered a SPOT beacon indicating some sort of emergency. Thanks to the owner of Slate Creek Ranch, rescue teams using ATVs were able to cut several miles off of the hike in and reached the hiker before his condition became life threatening.
"People need to be especially vigilant on their hike in, so as not to be thrown off on their return," Pitman said. "Losing the trail in a thunderstorm, with temperatures dropping, even in the summer can result in a dangerous situation. Wet cotton t-shirts can be a significant contributor to hypothermia. I would say that summer backcountry day hikers are generally less well prepared than those in winter."
Pitman suggests never going on a hike without rain gear, a flashlight and food, at an absolute minimum. A relatively minor injury requiring rescue group response can be a several hour affair.
"This isn't like television, where we swoop down in a helicopter and pluck you to safety," Pitman said. "Air transport is reserved for the truly severe and life threatening injuries."
The Summit County Rescue Group is an all-volunteer, nonprofit search and rescue organization that responds to backcountry emergencies in all weather conditions and all times of the year. In 2012 they dedicated more than 3,500 hours to respond to calls for assistance, and more than 3,900 hours in training. SCRG depends on grants and donations for training, equipment and to cover expenses.
For more information or to donate, visit their website at http://www.scrg.org.
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Summit Daily is embarking on a multiyear project to digitize its archives going back to 1989 and make them available to the public in partnership with the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. The full project is expected to cost about $165,000. All donations made in 2023 will go directly toward this project.
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Maybe I'm just a nosy person who likes to be all up in people's business, but I majorly get the sads when I feel left out of a conversation, an inside joke, a secret, a piece of gossip—you name it. I just like being in the loop, okay?
It turns out that those jerks who leave us out feel pretty crappy about it themselves. Literally—in their brains.
According to a study published in Psychological Science, leaving people out—whether it's making someone feel ignored or being full-on Mean Girls-style exclusive—just isn't worth the toll it takes on the psyche.
More From Cosmopolitan
Using a computer-simulated game in which participants had to throw a ball to who they thought were real people, researchers were able to compare people's mood changes when they were ignored by other players verses when they were the ones being ignored by the other players.
In both cases, participants' moods shifted for the worse both when they were left out and when they left other people out. Though, their emotions were slightly different: Ostracized participants said they felt anger, those who did the ostracizing felt shame, guilt, and distress.
Bottom line: If you're the clique-y type, just know that excluding or ignoring others hurts you just as much as it hurts them. So, maybe snap out of it, 'mkay?
Want more from Natasha? Follow her on Twitter or find her on Facebook.


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~The Archivist
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Detective Time! What Can You Learn About These Berry Children?
It's been pointed out to me that it's been some time since I've shared the detective hat with my readers, so today's post will do just that. What can you discover about the three youngsters featured in today's photograph?
Let's see if we can identify the children, come up with an approximate date this photograph was taken and maybe even a possible location. If we are really lucky, perhaps we can find a descendant who would like to claim the original image.
Ready to go? Here's the reverse of the photograph:
Happy researching!
5 comments:
Donald Francis Berry was born 29 Sep 1913 in Humboldt County, California and died 26 Nov 1995 in Merlin, Josephine, Oregon).ReplyDelete
The 1930 US Census shows him with brother Douglas Stanley (25 Jan 1919 - 22 Sep 1996 in Lake Stevens, Snohomish, Washington) and sister Helen May (30 May 1922 - ?).
They were the children of Stanley (11 Sep 1882 - 25 Jul 1974) and Alice J (nee O Rourke) Berry (21 Mar 1888 - 2 Dec 1961).
The photo dates to c. 1923.
Wow, that was quick! The person who wrote the inscription on the back of the photo was careful to provide full names of the children, and their birth dates, which is so helpful.ReplyDelete
Your info mirrors what I found, too. Great job, Iggy!Replies
I was frustrated by not being able to determine what happened to the sister Helen M.Delete
A "Helen M Berry" married Cecil A Bulbeck on 05 May 1962 in Sonoma, California. She died on 4 Nov 2012. She appears to have been his second wife.ReplyDelete
Good research, that is what I found too..a little late but it was still fun to look:)ReplyDelete