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Some (Interior) Situational Sources War – Part III
Posted by The Situationist Staff on June 5, 2007
This series is devoted to highlighting some of the psychological tendencies that encourage individuals and groups to enter conflicts and wars that they later regret. Part I and Part II of the series included portions of an article co-authored by Daniel Kahneman and Jonathan Renshon, titled "Why Hawks Win." In this part, we reproduce a superb op-ed written by Situationist friend Dan Gilbert. The essay was originally published in the New York Times on July 24, 2006 and is entitled "He Who Cast the First Stone Probably Didn't."
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Long before seat belts or common sense were particularly widespread, my family made annual trips to New York in our 1963 Valiant station wagon. Mom and Dad took the front seat, my infant sister sat in my mother's lap and my brother and I had what we called "the wayback" all to ourselves.
In the wayback, we'd lounge around doing puzzles, reading comics and counting license plates. Eventually we'd fight. When our fight had finally escalated to the point of tears, our mother would turn around to chastise us, and my brother and I would start to plead our cases. "But he hit me first," one of us would say, to which the other would inevitably add, "But he hit me harder."
It turns out that my brother and I were not alone in believing that these two claims can get a puncher off the hook. In virtually every human society, "He hit me first" provides an acceptable rationale for doing that which is otherwise forbidden. Both civil and religious law provide long lists of behaviors that are illegal or immoral — unless they are responses in kind, in which case they are perfectly fine.
After all, it is wrong to punch anyone except a puncher, and our language even has special words — like "retaliation" and "retribution" and "revenge" — whose common prefix is meant to remind us that a punch thrown second is legally and morally different than a punch thrown first. That's why participants in every one of the globe's intractable conflicts — from Ireland to the Middle East — offer the even-numberedness of their punches as grounds for exculpation.
The problem with the principle of even-numberedness is that people count differently. Every action has a cause and a consequence: something that led to it and something that followed from it. But research shows that while people think of their own actions as the consequences of what came before, they think of other people's actions as the causes of what came later.
In a study conducted by William Swann and colleagues at the University of Texas, pairs of volunteers played the roles of world leaders who were trying to decide whether to initiate a nuclear strike. The first volunteer was asked to make an opening statement, the second volunteer was asked to respond, the first volunteer was asked to respond to the second, and so on. At the end of the conversation, the volunteers were shown several of the statements that had been made and were asked to recall what had been said just before and just after each of them.
The results revealed an intriguing asymmetry: When volunteers were shown one of their own statements, they naturally remembered what had led them to say it. But when they were shown one of their conversation partner's statements, they naturally remembered how they had responded to it. In other words, volunteers remembered the causes of their own statements and the consequences of their partner's statements.
What seems like a grossly self-serving pattern of remembering is actually the product of two innocent facts. First, because our senses point outward, we can observe other people's actions but not our own. Second, because mental life is a private affair, we can observe our own thoughts but not the thoughts of others. Together, these facts suggest that our reasons for punching will always be more salient to us than the punches themselves — but that the opposite will be true of other people's reasons and other people's punches.
Examples aren't hard to come by. Shiites seek revenge on Sunnis for the revenge they sought on Shiites; Irish Catholics retaliate against the Protestants who retaliated against them; and since 1948, it's hard to think of any partisan in the Middle East who has done anything but play defense. In each of these instances, people on one side claim that they are merely responding to provocation and dismiss the other side's identical claim as disingenuous spin. But research suggests that these claims reflect genuinely different perceptions of the same bloody conversation.
If the first principle of legitimate punching is that punches must be even-numbered, the second principle is that an even-numbered punch may be no more forceful than the odd-numbered punch that preceded it. Legitimate retribution is meant to restore balance, and thus an eye for an eye is fair, but an eye for an eyelash is not. When the European Union condemned Israel for bombing Lebanon in retaliation for the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, it did not question Israel's right to respond, but rather, its "disproportionate use of force." It is O.K. to hit back, just not too hard.
Research shows that people have as much trouble applying the second principle as the first. In a study conducted by Sukhwinder Shergill and colleagues at University College London, pairs of volunteers were hooked up to a mechanical device that allowed each of them to exert pressure on the other volunteer's fingers.
The researcher began the game by exerting a fixed amount of pressure on the first volunteer's finger. The first volunteer was then asked to exert precisely the same amount of pressure on the second volunteer's finger. The second volunteer was then asked to exert the same amount of pressure on the first volunteer's finger. And so on. The two volunteers took turns applying equal amounts of pressure to each other's fingers while the researchers measured the actual amount of pressure they applied.
The results were striking. Although volunteers tried to respond to each other's touches with equal force, they typically responded with about 40 percent more force than they had just experienced. Each time a volunteer was touched, he touched back harder, which led the other volunteer to touch back even harder. What began as a game of soft touches quickly became a game of moderate pokes and then hard prods, even though both volunteers were doing their level best to respond in kind.
Each volunteer was convinced that he was responding with equal force and that for some reason the other volunteer was escalating. Neither realized that the escalation was the natural byproduct of a neurological quirk that causes the pain we receive to seem more painful than the pain we produce, so we usually give more pain than we have received.
Research teaches us that our reasons and our pains are more palpable, more obvious and real, than are the reasons and pains of others. This leads to the escalation of mutual harm, to the illusion that others are solely responsible for it and to the belief that our actions are justifiable responses to theirs.
None of this is to deny the roles that hatred, intolerance, avarice and deceit play in human conflict. It is simply to say that basic principles of human psychology are important ingredients in this miserable stew. Until we learn to stop trusting everything our brains tell us about others — and to start trusting others themselves — there will continue to be tears and recriminations in the wayback.
* * *
The next couple of parts of this series will look to situationist essays written in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terror.
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SEATTLE — A man who used a can of spray paint and a lighter as a makeshift blowtorch to kill a spider in his laundry room started a blaze that caused $60,000 worth of damage, Seattle fire officials said Wednesday.
The man and his mother got out of the house, and no injuries were reported in the fire that broke out in the West Seattle home Tuesday night, said Kyle Moore, a spokesman for the Seattle Fire Department.
Moore said the man used the spray paint and lighter as "a self-made blowtorch to kill a spider in the laundry room" of a rental house.
"I don't want to encourage people to do this, but that's what he did," Moore said Wednesday. "The spider tried to get into the wall. He sprayed flames on the wall, lit the wall on fire, and that extended up to the ceiling."
Fire crews were called to the home in the home just south of Seattle just before 8:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Firefighters initially fought the fire from outside after someone reported hearing ammunition go off in the house. Crews eventually went inside the house after confirming from tenants that there was no ammunition inside.
The man initially tried to put water on the fire, but he wasn't able to put it out and the blaze quickly spread into the attic.
"There are safer, more effective ways to kill a spider than using fire," Moore said. "Fire is not the method to use to kill a spider."
The Red Cross is providing temporary shelter for the home's two residents, whom authorities have not identified.
As for the spider, Moore said: "I'm pretty sure the spider did not survive this fire. The whole wall went."
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Here are a few reasons for refinancing your mortgage and using your home to your advantage: * Lower Your Monthly PaymentsRefinance to get a lower interest rate, which lowers your monthly payments, or simply change the type of loan you have or both. With rates changing so frequently, homeowners cannot afford to not consider refinancing. Why pay more when you don't have to? * Relax with Stability If you purchased your home with a 3- or 5-year Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM), when the loan period is up, the interest rate will go up to the current rate or higher. This means your mortgage payment will also go up, possibly as much as $300 per month or more. Homeowners with these types of loans can eliminate their worries just by refinancing to a fixed-rate mortgage. The key is not waiting until the last minute to do so. Don't risk ruining your credit or losing your home. Shop around for quotes today. * Put Cash in Your Pocket With Cash-Out Refinancing you can use the equity in your home to borrow the money you need to do whatever you wish. It's cash in your pocket -- pay bills, buy a car or take a trip! Another plus here is the interest rates are usually lower than home equity loans and second mortgages. * Debt Management Made Easy When you have equity in your home you have options. You can use the cash to consolidate your debt and pay it off faster with one monthly payment. The interest rate on home equity loans is typically much lower than credit cards and the additional advantages are endless. You can lower your monthly payments, pay off debt faster, and put money in your pocket. Another plus: the interest on a home equity loan is usually tax deductible.
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Find out what mortgage is best for you and who the best lenders are in your area. Log on to www.NationalHomeSavings.com and start refinancing today.
Copyright 2007, ARAnet, inc.


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When we first heard rumors last week that Microsoft was planning to offer a cheap Xbox 360 and Kinect bundle to customers who committed to two years of a new monthly online service, we thought it had the potential to revolutionize the way game consoles are sold and positioned as full-service living room entertainment centers. Now that Microsoft has confirmed the details of its subsidy plan, however, we can't help but see it as a bad deal and a missed opportunity.
Despite initial rumors that those paying $15 per month and committing to two years of online service would get "possibly some additional streaming content from cable providers or sports package providers," it turns out that the service is the exact same Xbox Live Gold plan that you can buy à la carte for $60/year (or less, if you shop for deals online). So while those who commit get to pay $200 less for the Xbox 360 and Kinect hardware up front, those savings will end up going towards at least $240 more in monthly payments for what amounts to the same exact online service, over two years.
True, the $40 or so extra you end up paying over the long haul isn't as bad as that offered by dicey rent-to-own outlets, but you still end up paying more later for the benefit of paying less now. That might be useful if you just got your first job and don't want to wait to scrape together the full up-front cost, but if you have the money to spare, you're probably better off shelling out less cash sooner rather than more cash later.
It's a shame, because Microsoft had a real opportunity here to use heavily subsidized hardware as a way to lock players into a truly higher tier of online service. These customers are agreeing to pay three times as much as normal for that online service, after all, so it seems like Microsoft would want to offer them some incentive to keep paying that fee over the long term, to make back that initial $200 hardware subsidy.
Sony's PlayStation Plus is one obvious model, with its regular offerings of free and reduced-price game downloads and full-game trials, but some sort of integrated premium video package would also be a good way for Microsoft to add value. A certain subset of customers would be eager to continue paying extra for the improved service in this situation, and with the two-year commitment they would be less likely to transition to a competing system a few months down the line as well. On the other hand, Microsoft may simply be counting on customers to forget about that $15 fee being billed to their credit card every month, letting the company rake in larger-than-normal Xbox Live fees for years into the future without having to improve the service.
Microsoft is currently offering this subsidy deal at its 26 Microsoft Store locations, and the offer page notes that the offer may terminate at any time, suggesting that this "deal" is more of a tentative test of the new sales model rather than a major marketing push. Still, the company probably needs to think a bit more expansively if its going to convince a large number of people to buy game consoles in the same way they buy cell phones.
Listing image by Photograph by Steven Depolo


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Immigration, student loan top congressional agenda
July 7, 2013
By DONNA CASSATA
(WASHINGTON, AP) — Republicans and Democrats will put good will to the test when Congress returns this week to potentially incendiary fights over nominations, unresolved disputes over student loans and the farm bill, and the uncertainty of whether lawmakers have the political will to rewrite the nation's immigration laws.
Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has indicated it's a decision Reid could regret if the GOP seizes Senate control in next year's elections.
"Once the Senate definitively breaks the rules to change the rules, the pressure to respond in kind will be irresistible to future majorities," McConnell said last month, looking ahead to 2014 when Democrats have to defend 21 seats to the GOP's 14.
McConnell envisioned a long list of reversals from the Democratic agenda, from repealing President Barack Obama's health care law to shipping radioactive nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain in Reid's home state of Nevada.
Recently elected Democrats have clamored for changes in Senate rules as Obama has faced Republican resistance to his nominations.
Two Cabinet-rank choices — Tom Perez as labor secretary and Gina McCarthy to head the Environmental Protection Agency — could be approved by the Senate this month after a loud debate over administration policies.
The GOP also has challenged Obama's three judicial nominees to the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit as they've tried to eliminate the vacancies.
Reid had served notice in April that the Democratic majority could change the Senate rules on "any given day," and he was willing to do so if necessary.
In the Republican-controlled House, courteous behavior, even within the GOP ranks, has barely been perceptible with the ignominious failure of the farm bill. Some collaboration will be necessary if the House is to move ahead on immigration legislation this month.
Conservatives from safe, gerrymandered House districts have rebuffed appeals from some national Republicans who argue that embracing immigration overhaul will boost the party's political standing with an increasingly diverse electorate, especially in the 2016 presidential election. The conservatives strongly oppose any legislation offering legalization to immigrants living here illegally.
Reflecting the will of the rank and file, House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and other Republicans have said the comprehensive Senate immigration bill that couples the promise of citizenship for those living here unlawfully with increased border security is a nonstarter in the House.
Republicans were assessing the views of their constituents during the weeklong July Fourth break and planned to discuss their next steps at a private meeting Wednesday.
"I think what members need before we proceed on the actual immigration reform is an ironclad guarantee that the border is going to be secure," Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., said just before the recess. He didn't see any urgency to acting quickly.
"I find it very interesting the argument that we can't wait till the border is secure, we can't even do a six-month test to make sure … we have to get them out of the shadows immediately," Salmon said. "They've been in the shadows for 20 years, and another six months is going to break their backs? I mean come on, that's not even a valid argument."
The House Judiciary Committee has adopted a piecemeal approach, approving a series of bills, none with a path to citizenship that Obama and Democrats are seeking. Democrats hope the single-issue bills get them to a conference with the Senate, where the prospects for a far-reaching overhaul improve.
A more pressing concern for some lawmakers was the fate of the five-year, half-trillion-dollar farm bill.
In a surprise last month, the House rejected the bill as 62 Republicans voted no after Boehner had urged support for the measure.
House conservatives wanted cuts deeper than $2 billion annually, or about 3 percent, in the almost $80 billion-a-year food stamp program while Democrats were furious with a last-minute amendment that would have added additional work requirements to food stamps, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Reid has made it clear that an extension of the current farm law, passed in 2008, is unlikely as he presses the House to pass the Senate version of the bill. That leaves Boehner to figure out the next step before the current policy expires Sept. 30.
Congress also must figure out what to do about interest rates on college student loans, which doubled from 3.4 percent last Monday because of partisan wrangling in the Senate.
Lawmakers promised to restore lower rates when they return this week, both retroactively and before students start signing loan documents later this summer. For now, the rate stands at 6.8 percent, which is higher than most loans available from private lenders.
Congress faces political and economic fights over the budget, with the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 and Congress plodding through spending bills with no sign they will be done on time. The House is set to vote this week on the spending bill for the Energy Department.
In addition to legislation to keep the government running, Congress probably will have to vote on whether to raise the nation's borrowing authority, a politically fraught vote that roiled the markets in August 2009.
Three Senate committees will consider Obama nominees for major national security positions this month, confirmation hearings certain to set off a political dust-up over the president's policies though the criticism is unlikely to scuttle the selections.
Questions about the administration's policy toward Syria and plans to arm the rebels in their civil war with President Bashar Assad's forces will dominate the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the re-nomination of Gen. Martin Dempsey for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The hearing is scheduled for July 18.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected to hold a hearing on Samantha Power, the president's pick for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and a subcommittee meets July 11 to consider the nomination of Victoria Nuland for assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs.
That posting typically wouldn't draw a great deal of attention, but senators are certain to press Nuland about her work on the widely debunked talking points about the deadly assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed in the Sept. 11 attack last year.
Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations at that time, used the talking points five days after the attack, blaming the assault on a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islamic video.
The Senate Judiciary Committee holds a confirmation hearing Tuesday on Obama's choice of James Comey to serve as FBI director. If confirmed by the Senate, Comey, a top Bush administration lawyer best known for defiantly refusing to go along with White House demands on warrantless wiretapping nearly a decade ago, would replace Robert Mueller.
The administration's recently disclosed surveillance programs are likely topics for Comey's hearing.


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I am a meteorology professor at Suffolk County Community College and have been teaching for 26 years (four of those at Pennsylvania State University).
The science is clear to me and to most experts in the various fields associated with climate science: Humans are causing most of the observed global warming in the past several decades and, if we continue emitting heat-trapping GHGs such as carbon dioxide under a "business as usual" scenario, it will become increasingly difficult and costly to adapt to the changes that are likely to occur.
As a parent of two small children, I do not wish to see them nor their children grow up in a world where billions of people may suffer due to the ignorance of those before them. After reading Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum's book Unscientific America it dawned on me that the message from the scientific experts was not reaching the masses. It has become a central mission in my life to bring the science from the journals into the hands of the general public. For this reason, I co-founded the Climate Science Rapid Response Team (CSRRT) with Drs. John Abraham and Ray Weymann. CSRRT is a match-making service between top scientists and members of the media and office holders and their staffs from various levels of government.
Scientific research has brought us amazing advancements in technology, medicine, and in our basic understanding of the planet. Over the last twenty years, a small handful of politically-motivated think tanks and legal foundations, because they disliked certain scientific findings, have taken legal action against scientific institutions and individual scientists. In recent years, the legal attacks have intensified, especially against climate scientists. For this reason, I co-founded (along with Joshua Wolfe) the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund to protect the scientific endeavor.
In case you are wondering, I am a registered Independent.


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Dimitry Salita, – last evening's guest on our internet radio show – shows his understanding of blogs and his superb reading taste by giving The Kosher Scene a thumbs up, in the photo below which appeared last eve on The Wall Street Journal's website and on page 25 in the Greater New York section of today's print edition.
Seriously, gentle reader, I certainly did not set up this shot, even though I was standing by when the WSJ photographer was taking her photos last Thursday eve, at Allison Joseph's Jew in the City's event at Kehilath Jeshurun I guess being the only red logo on the poster over the red carpet makes us stick out, being in the center was also a very lucky break! I guess now I can claim, that the big media noticed us… Huh… huh… can I?


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Grand Canyon opens in state, fed nat'l parks deal
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Tourists returned to the Grand Canyon on Saturday after Arizona officials along with several counterparts agreed to a federal government plan to reopen national parks, which had been closed as a result of the partial government shutdown.
But the Obama administration's OK to reopen tourist areas across the nation came with a big caveat: States must foot the bill with money they likely won't see again.
So far, Utah, Colorado, South Dakota, Arizona and New York have agreed to open parks that had been closed since the beginning of the month. Meanwhile, governors in other states were trying to gauge what would be the bigger economic hit — paying to keep the areas operating or losing the tourist money that flows when the scenic attractions are open.
South Dakota and several corporate donors worked out a deal with the National Park Service to reopen Mount Rushmore beginning Monday. Republican Gov. Dennis Daugaard said it will cost $15,200 a day to pay the federal government to run the landmark in the Black Hills. He said he has wired four days' worth of donations.
In New York, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo said his state will pay $61,600 a day to fully fund Park Service personnel and the Statue of Liberty will open Sunday.
In Arizona, Republican Gov. Jan Brewer balked at spending about $112,000 a day for a full reopening of the Grand Canyon. She said a partial reopening would be much cheaper while allowing tourists to visit and businesses to benefit.
"The daily cost difference is enormous, especially without assurances that Arizona will be reimbursed," said Andrew Wilder, a spokesman for Brewer.
In the end, Arizona agreed to pay the Park Service $651,000 to keep the Grand Canyon open for seven days. The $93,000 a day is less than the $112,000 the federal government had said was needed to fund park operations each day.
In additional to state money, cash provided by the town of Tusayan, just outside the South Rim entrance, and private business would also be included in the funding.
At this time of year, the Grand Canyon draws about 18,000 people a day who pump an estimated $1 million a day into the local economy.
The town of Tusayan, and area businesses have pledged $400,000 to help reopen the canyon, but Wilder said it was unclear if the Interior Department could accept private funds.
In Utah, federal workers rushed to reopen five national parks for 10 days after the state sent $1.67 million to the U.S. government with the hope of saving its lucrative tourist season.
Zion National Park superintendent Jock Whitworth said staff members began opening gates and removing barriers and expected to have the park fully operational Saturday.
"This is a practical and temporary solution that will lessen the pain for some businesses and communities in Utah during this shutdown," Interior Department Secretary Sally Jewell said in a statement.
It was welcome news for beleaguered shop owners in the small town of Springdale adjacent to Zion. Hotels have been vacant and rental and retail shops have seen sales plummet during the shutdown.
"It's going to be awesome," said Jenna Milligan of Zion Outfitters, an outdoor gear rental shop. "A lot of businesses have suffered severely because of the government. I just hope it does stay open through autumn."
In Colorado, officials said a deal had been struck for the state to pay $360,000 to reopen Rocky Mountain National Park for 10 days to allow tourists to reach Estes Park. The visitors are needed to help the town recover from flooding.
Slightly more than 400 national parks, recreation areas and monuments — including such icons as the Grand Canyon and Yosemite — have been closed since Oct. 1 because of the partial government shutdown.
More than 20,000 National Park Service employees have been furloughed, and lawmakers from both parties have complained that the closures have wreaked havoc on communities that depend on tourism.
Interior Department spokesman Blake Androff said Thursday the government had no plans to reimburse states that pay to reopen parks. But members of Congress introduced legislation Friday to refund the money within 90 days.
In Utah, Republican Gov. Gary Herbert estimated the economic impact of the federal government shutdown at $100 million in his state.
Missouri Democrat Gov. Jay Nixon's administration was working on a proposal to reopen parks in that state, including the Gateway Arch grounds in St. Louis and the Ozark National Scenic Riverways Park in southern Missouri.
Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, said his state can't afford to reopen its parks, as did Nevada Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval.
Sandoval said Nevada is already facing critical funding decisions on dozens of programs, including food stamps, unemployment insurance and aid to women, infants and children.
In Wyoming, Republican Gov. Matt Mead's office said the state would not pay to reopen two heavily visited national parks or Devil's Tower national monument.
"Wyoming cannot bail out the federal government, and we cannot use state money to do the work of the federal government," Mead spokesman Renny MacKay said.
At the Grand Canyon on Saturday afternoon, Joe Del Monte and his family planned to do some hiking and "soak in as much as possible and enjoy the nice weather."
The family had planned the trip to canyon from suburban Phoenix for their children's mid-winter break from school. He kept their hotel reservations in Tusayan, just outside the South Rim entrance, while they visited Sedona, holding out hope that his son's wish to throw a stick into the Grand Canyon would be fulfilled.
"It was a bit of disbelief that they could close a place like the Grand Canyon," said Del Monte, of Chandler. "We're grateful politics got pushed to the side."
Follow Michelle Price at https://twitter.com/michellelprice . Price contributed from Salt Lake City. Also, contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Matthew Daly in Washington, Brady McCombs in Utah, Brian Skoloff and Bob Christie in Arizona, Ken Ritter in Nevada, Colleen Slevin in Colorado, Mead Gruver in Wyoming, David Lieb in Missouri, Jonathan Lemire and Michael Virtanen in New York, and Chet Brokaw in South Dakota.


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Last evening I had dinner with some friends, the main dish was absolutely delicious, looked great and its aroma alone was enough to make even the most satiated creature hungry again! It was superb tasting, by any standard, even if I'm very partial to lamb.
When I asked the lady of the house for the recipe she referred me to a small book titled Mmmm… Casseroles, put out in 2010 by Parragon (under their Love Food imprint) in the UK. I can't wait to make it myself, meanwhile here's the recipe:
Lamb Stew with Sweet Bell Peppers
Serves 4
- 1 pound lean, boneless lamb such as leg of lamb or fillet
- 1 1/2 tablespoon all -purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon ground cloves
- 1 – 1 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 white onion sliced
- 2 – 3 garlic cloves, sliced
- 1 1/4 cups orange juice
- 2/3 cup lamb or or chicken stock
- 1 cinnamon stick, bruised
- 2 red bell peppers (sweet pointed variety, if available) seeded and sliced into rings
- 4 tomatoes
- a few, fresh cilantro sprigs, plus 1 tablespoon to garnish
- salt and pepper
- Preheat the oven to 375 F.
- Trim any fat or gristle from the lamb and cut into thin strips. Mix the flour and cloves together. Toss the lamb in the spiced flour until well coated and reserve any remaining spiced flour
- Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a heavy bottom skillet and cook the lamb over high heat, stirring frequently, for 3 minutes, or until browned on all sides. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to a casserole.
- Add the onion and garlic to the skillet and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently for 3 minutes adding the extra oil if necessary. Sprinkle in the resrved spiced flour and cook, stirring constantly for 2 minutes then remove from the heat. Gradually stir in the orange juice and stock. then return to the heat and bring to a boil stirring.
- Pour over the lamb in the casserole, then add the cinnamon stick, bell peppers, tomatoes, and cilantro sprigs and stir well. Cover and cook in the preheated oven for 1 1/2 hours, or until the lamb is tender.
- Discard the cinnamon stick and adjust the seasoning adding salt and pepper if needed. Serve immediately, garnished with the chopped cilantro.
Aaah, this makes a perfect dish for a Shabbat dinner…
Enjoy, gentle reader, enjoy!


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We had two great gluten-free dining experiences recently. I only wish I had brought my camera.
Last week, relatives were visiting from out of town, and we met them at Mon Ami Gabi, a French bistro in Chicago. We chose Mon Ami Gabi because it's not far from our home and, since it's a Lettuce Entertain You restaurant, I felt reasonably confident they could handle a gluten-free request.
Little did I know that Mon Ami Gabi has a full gluten-free menu, with steaks, chicken, salmon and more. The real surprise came when the waiter brought out a gluten-free baguette nestled inside a long paper sleeve. My daughter quickly gobbled up the fresh, warm bread. Though it didn't have the crispy crust or chewy interior of a real French baguette, my husband declared it the best gluten-free bread he's ever had.
I love, love, love the thin, crispy pommes frites, or french fries, at Mon Ami Gabi. I asked our waiter if they were gluten-free. He replied, "They can be," and cooked up a batch in a dedicated fryer just for us. (Background info: Celiacs cannot eat fries that are cooked in the same oil as battered items like onion rings. Always ask if fries are cooked in a dedicated fryer.)
After a warm baguette and hot, crispy fries, what 6-year-old needs an entree? We had to coax our daughter to eat it, but she enjoyed the lemon chicken paillard, skinny french green beans and, of course, the hot fudge sundae (no coaxing there). Chocolate mousse, creme brulee and peach parfait are other gluten-free dessert options.
Mon Ami Gabi also has locations in Oak Brook, Ill.; Las Vegas; Bethesda, Md.; and Reston, Va.
Fattoush, a Lebanese restaurant in Lincoln Park, also surprised us with its wealth of gluten-free options. The clearly marked menu specifies the few items that contain gluten and notes which dishes can easily be made gluten-free. Three years ago, chef/owner Lina Elakhaoui learned the hard way that she suffers from celiac disease when her bones started fracturing from merely standing in her kitchen. Lina came out of the kitchen to introduce herself and chat with my daughter about the diet that they share.
The few dishes that use wheat flour are prepared on a different floor from the kitchen and kept carefully segregated from the gluten-free offerings. Upon request, Lina serves tender gluten-free pitas from Rose's Wheat-Free Bakery in Evanston, Ill. Instead of couscous (semolina wheat), dishes can be served with millet, which is gluten-free.
My daughter loved the pita and the lentil soup. Lina suggested she order shish tawouk, charbroiled chicken breast. However, the spices were too unusual for my 6-year-old, so she didn't eat much of it. I, however, liked the chicken and liked eating at a restaurant where the chef truly understands celiac disease.
Update: Fattoush has closed. Lina's husband, Sam, passed away. They ran the restaurant with a different chef for a while. But they were presented with an opportunity to sell the restaurant, so it closed in December 2011.
My goal is to post a list of gluten-free-friendly Chicago restaurants. Stay tuned for that at a later date.


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Teacher Evaluation
The percent of teachers evaluated as excellent or proficient by an administrator or other evaluator trained in performance evaluations. Learn More
In 2010, the Illinois Performance Evaluation Reform Act was signed into law and required schools to design and implement performance evaluation systems that assess teachers' professional skills as well as incorporate measures of student growth. These evaluation systems must rate teachers in one of four performance categories: excellent, proficient, needs improvement or unsatisfactory.
Teachers without tenure must be evaluated every year. Teachers with tenure must be evaluated every 2 years unless they are rated needs improvement or unsatisfactory and then they will be evaluated the following year after additional requirements are met.


text: Charlie Trotter About Food & Wine Food & Wine, a Dotdash Meredith Brand, is an award-winning online resource for anyone passionate about the culinary world. With rigorously tested recipes and the most trusted restaurant, drinks, culinary travel and home coverage, we inspire and empower people everywhere to discover, create, and devour the best in food and wine. Learn more about us and our editorial process.


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After their first complete homestand at the new Nationals Park, the Washington Nationals are ranked 20th among Major League Baseball teams in home attendance, and averaging fewer paid spectators than the team did at this point in their first season at RFK stadium.
Perhaps most striking is the lack of bodies in the new stadium's most visible seats — the "Presidential Seats" which sit directly behind home plate and serve as a backdrop for televised shots of the batter's box.
Possible reasons for the lackluster attendance have been much debated. Team president Stan Kasten says he's "very pleased" with attendance given the cold weather and the hot playoff pursuits of other DC sports teams. Others have cited the high cost of Nationals Park tickets and concessions, or the team's losing record.
I blame it on The Myth.
The Myth was born from a well-intentioned effort to promote the use of Metro to get to Nationals home games. Team, city, and Metro officials worked their tails off to get the word out. They talked about it non-stop, held press events, and devoted significant advertising and PR dollars to the cause.
The problem? They put the creative message in the hands of marketing amateurs, and the campaign went negative.
Why not? Negative works, right? Fear, uncertainty, and doubt are some of the greatest tools in the marketing arsenal. Attacking the competition (in this case, trying to park at the Park) is a time-tested and reliable method of getting people's attention. Positive is boring.
So the message got delivered, and it wasn't "Take Metro!" or "Try our free parking shuttle!" The message was clear. Parking is a nightmare. Take Metro or your life will be miserable.
Local news producers love fear, uncertainty, and doubt. It helps them invent drama where none exists. So they jumped on the bandwagon quickly with "public interest" feature stories about how terrible the parking situation is going to be.
A radio ad running non-stop for the last 6 weeks profiles a man who drives around Nationals Park for inning after inning looking for a parking spot. The man is desperate. He is miserable. He misses the entire game. The voiceover intones "Don't drive and try to park at Nationals Park!"
It worked too well.
I know dozens of people who have shared or partial-season ticket plans. In March, as they picked their games, everybody told me that they were trying to avoid the first few homestands, "to let them get this parking and traffic mess figured out."
The Myth is that transportation to Nationals Park is a nightmare, and this myth was created by the team itself. I haven't seen any meaningful traffic, parking, or crowd issues. It's time for the powers that be to pull this campaign and go positive instead.
Nationals Park from photo by Flickr user Ouij.
Navy Yard Metro from photo by Flickr user MissChatter.


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Can a marriage survive if a husband and wife disagree on what it means to be a good person?
How to Be Good. By Nick Hornby. Riverhead, 305 pp., $13, paperback.
By Janice Harayda
Not long ago, the New England Journal of Medicine published the results of a study that found that if you get fat, your close friends tend to gain weight, too. Something like this principle drives the third novel by Nick Hornby, the author of High Fidelity and About a Boy and the memoir Fever Pitch.
Katie Carr, an English doctor, has to reconsider her ideas about what it means to "a good person" after her 41-year-old husband, David, falls under the influence of a spiritual guru named D.J. GoodNews. This premise might sound like the set-up for a variation on that bedraggled cliché, an overprivileged couple's midlife crisis.
But How to Be Good is a novel of ideas that is less about a marriage in trouble than about the question implicit in its title: What does it mean to be "good" in a materialistic age? Does it involve helping people through your work, as Katie imagines? Or does it require sacrifices such as giving away a family computer, as David insists after his abrupt spiritual conversion? If two people disagree on the answer, can they stay together?
As it parses these questions, How to Be Good shifts from satire to farce, and at times the characters resemble intentional caricatures. But Hornby maintains suspense about fate of Katie and David's marriage until the last pages and invests their plight with enough comedy that the novel doesn't turn into a sermon. And even his one- or two-liners often have a sly wisdom. In the first scene, Katie calls David on her cell phone to say she wants divorce, then tries to rationalize her behavior as atypical.
"But for the majority of people, marriage-ending conversations happen only once, if at all," she reflects. "If you choose to conduct yours on a mobile phone, in a Leeds car park, then you cannot really claim that it is unrepresentative, any more than Lee Harvey Oswald couldn't really claim that shooting presidents wasn't like him at all. Sometimes we have to be judged by our one-offs."
Best line: "Sometimes we have to be judged by our one-offs."
Worst line: It's unclear whether the lack of punctuation and subject-verb agreement in the following are intentional: "Whenever I have seen Jerry Springer, the guilty party always says to the devastated spouse 'I tried to tell you we wasn't happy, but you wouldn't listen.' And I always end up thinking that the crime of not listening does not automatically deserve the punishment of infidelity."
Recommendation? A good book club book. More than most comic novels, How to Be Good raises the moral questions that could help to foster a lively discussion. And the slackers who never finish the book may have seen a movie version of one of Hornby's other novels, so they won't feel completely left out of the conversation.
Reading group guide: www.penguinputnamguides.com
Published: July 2001 (Riverhead hardcover), May 2002 (Riverhead paperback) us.penguingroup.com. Hornby's latest novel is A Long Way Down (Riverhead, 2005).
Links: You can read about Hornby and download the first chapter of How to Be Good at his official site, www.nicksbooks.com. Visit the Internet Movie Database www.imdb.com for information on the movie versions of Fever Pitch, High Fidelity and About a Boy). Search for "Nick Hornby" on British Council site www.contemporarywriters.com for a biography, critical analysis and a list of his awards.
Caveat lector: I haven't read Hornby's earlier novels or Fever Pitch, which many of his fans prefer to How to Be Good.
Janice Harayda www.janiceharayda.com is an award-winning critic who has been the book columnist for Glamour, book editor of the Plain Dealer and a vice-president of the National Book Critics Circle www.bookcritics.org. She wrote the comic novels The Accidental Bride (St. Martins, 1999) and Manhattan on the Rocks (Sourcebooks, 2004).
© 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.


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10 Ways Our World is Becoming More Shareable
We're sharing more things, more deeply, with more people. Why sharing is the answer to some of today's biggest questions.
by Neal Gorenflo, Jeremy Adam Smith
Sharing is a big deal these days. Sharing is a growth industry, a new field of study and of practice; it presents a realm of career opportunities, a new way of life, and a concept around which we are restructuring our world. Sharing is the answer to some of today's biggest questions: How will we meet the needs of the world's enormous population? How do we reduce our impact on the planet and cope with the destruction already inflicted? How can we each be healthy, enjoy life, and create thriving communities? —Janelle Orsi, "Four Degrees of Sharing"
Our world is inherently shareable, though it's easy to take that for granted. We are already historically connected by climate, roads, fisheries, language, forests, culture, and social networks, all of which are part of the commons. But in recent decades, the rules of access and ownership have started to shift in new directions, making sharing more convenient, necessary, fulfilling, and even profitable. Here are ten ways that our world is becoming more shareable.
Sharing as a Lifestyle. The ways to share in everyday life seem to be multiplying like rabbits, but maybe the Great Recession is just forcing all of us to pay more attention these days.
There's carsharing, ridesharing, bikesharing, yardsharing, coworking, cohousing, tool libraries, all kinds of cooperatives—it goes on, trust us. And ways to share power, dialogue, and knowledge, such as workplace democracy, citizens' deliberative councils, unconferences, open space, and world café, are getting more attention these days, aided by innovative Web 2.0 tools.
There are also scores of new websites—like Divvy, Neighborgoods, ShareSomeSugar, Relay Rides, Rentalic, hyperlocavore, and many more—designed to help us share real stuff. Taking all of these into account, it's entirely possible to create a complete lifestyle based on sharing. You can live in a cohousing community, work in a co-op, grow food in your neighbor's yard, and get to the open space town council meeting via your carshare. Want to know about the nuts and bolts of how to build a Shareable life? Check out The Sharing Solution by Janelle Orsi and Emily Doskow.
Shareable Cities. A revolution is underway in our understanding of cities. The revolution couldn't come any sooner, considering that 2007 was the first year in human history that the majority of human beings lived in cities. Perhaps as a result, cities are becoming the focal point for our collective hopes and dreams, as well as all kinds of innovation needed to avert a worsening climate crisis.
In the past, we tended to see cities as dirty, unnatural, and isolating places; today, citizens and urban planners alike are starting to see their potential for generating widespread well-being at low financial and environmental cost. There's increasing appreciation for the benefits of public transit, urban agriculture, making room on the streets for pedestrians and bicyclists, and for civic engagement. The very thing that defines a city—its population density—makes sharing easier, from cars to bikes to homes.
Perhaps in response, there seems to be a boomlet in technology that helps First World urbanites understand their environment, share, and use resources more effectively; IBM has based their massive Smarter Cities advertising campaign around this theme. But it may be that the most successful innovations will spring from the megacities of the developing world. In the absence of vast financial resources, these cities may do as Bogotá, Colombia did and prioritize human well being over economic growth. Can a city become a happiness commons? Former Bogotá mayor Enrique Penalosa knows from experience that it's possible.
Social Enterprise & Cooperatives. Definitions vary, but in general social enterprises, whether nonprofit or for-profit, offer a product or service in order to advance a social or environmental mission with benefits for all. The industry is small relative to the overall economy, but growing extremely fast in some sectors
- Nonprofit earned income grew over 200 percent to $251 billion between 1982 and 2002.
- Investment in clean tech ventures nearly trebled to $5.2 billion between 2004 and 2008 (though it has declined recently thanks to the Great Recession).
- Fair trade good sales doubled between 2004 and 2007 to around $4 billion.
- Over 11,000 worker cooperatives have emerged in just the last 30 years, many them embracing prosocial missions in addition to being managed, governed, and owned by the people who work at them.
- Social investing could grow to $500 billion in assets under management in 5-10 years, according to the Monitor Institute.
The Nonprofit Sector. Nonprofits are an increasingly important way for people to share their wealth and labor. Nicola Goren, former acting CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, said in a speech last year that we're in a midst of "a bona fide compassion boom." The Obama administration is encouraging the trend toward mutual aid with the United We Serve program. With engagement and social enterpreneurship growing, Bill Drayton may be right: We may yet evolve into a world where everyone is a change-maker.
- In the U.S. alone, donations to nonprofits more than doubled between 1987 and 2007, to $303 billion.
- About 75 percent of all donations come from private individuals like you and me.
- The number of nonprofits doubled between 1991 and 2006, to 1.9 million.
- In 2005, nonprofits employed 12.9 million people, or 9.7 percent of the US workforce.
- In 2008, 61.8 million volunteers dedicated more than 8 billion hours of service, worth an estimated $162 billion.
Microfinance is a powerful innovation that extends small loans and financial services to help the world's poorest rise out of poverty, serving customers traditional banks ignore. The growth of Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus' Grameen Bank, and its success in alleviating poverty in Bangladesh, helped trigger an almost unmanageable surge of money into the sector—currently about $25 billion, and growing fast. Grameen has low-interest loan programs for a variety of poor borrowers, including no-interest loans, and is owned by the rural poor it serves. Kiva, a U.S. nonprofit peer-to-peer microfinance sensation, facilitates around $5 million in no-interest loans a month to entrepreneurs in developing nations through its website. At one point, Kiva had to limit loans through their platform because the demand to give out loans was so high. Microfinance is yet another way the world is learning to share its wealth.
The Internet. It's easy to take it for granted, but its potential as a sharing platform has arguably just begun to unfold. The Internet itself would not be possible if people did not share labor, code, and infrastructure. No one owns it or runs it. It's built and it operates on free and open source software and open standards. Data travels over networks and is routed through servers owned by private individuals and corporations who share transport and routing duties.
Generation Y is a hero generation, coming of age in a time of crisis they're already helping to resolve, largely by applying the tools and mindset of sharing.
This global commons enables the creation of tremendous value. Harvard Business School professor John Quelch estimates that the economic impact of the Internet is $1.4 trillion annually in the U.S. alone. This year, the Computer and Communications Industry Association calculated that companies and nonprofits relying on "fair use" (such as search engines, web hosts, and social media) employ 17 million people and generate $4.7 trillion a year, one sixth of our Gross Domestic Product.
All of that value is created on top of what is essentially volunteer sharing on a massive scale. As late as 1992, IBM did not think such a network was possible. Through its runaway success, the Internet has become the model for organizing life in the twenty-first century, as well as the essential infrastructure and distribution channel for commerce, ideas, work, and play.
And its influence reaches far beyond the online world. The Internet is reprogramming culture to the degree that society will likely be remade in its image, so that we have a better chance at thriving like it does. As you'll see by the end of this list, this change is already underway.
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). FOSS and the Internet have a symbiotic relationship. The Internet would not have been possible without FOSS. And the growth of FOSS relies on the Internet to power its peer production and distribution model. Over 270 million people use the Firefox browser, a shared, freely available tool. Half of the world's Web sites, about 112 million, run on Apache Server, also open source. A quarter of a million websites run on Drupal, a leading open source content management system.
That's just scratching the surface: Today, there are over 200,000 open source projects with nearly 5 billion lines of code that would cost an estimated $387 billion to reproduce. Check out the Infoworld's Open Source Hall of Fame for more on desktop favorites, like Ubuntu, as well as obscure but vital infrastructure projects like BIND. You might also check out the Open Source Census, which tracks business installations of FOSS.
Today, millions of people and organizations rely on FOSS for their daily work, as do a growing number of governments. It's a pervasive part of life in the developed world—and because of its low cost, open source may become even more important to developing countries.
The Open Way. Inspired by the success of free and open source software, the values and practices of open source—making information and innovations publicly available—are being applied in a truly dizzying number of ways. In just the last few years, open or peer-to-peer sharing strategies have gained significant traction in science, business, culture, education, and government. Applications of "the open way" range from the obscure, like the open source tractor, to the everyday, like the OpenStreetMapsproject. It's a tough trend to quantify because it is so viral and self-organized. To get a sense of the scope of the movement, check out the P2P Foundation blog or opensource.com.
The Obama administration's Open Government Directive is currently one of the most visible of these efforts, at least in the U.S. The directive ordered executive departments and agencies to identify and publish online in an open format at least three high-value data sets; create an open government web page and respond to public input received via that page; and develop and publish an Open Government Plan that will describe how they will improve transparency and integrate public participation and collaboration into its activities.
Social Media. Sharing is the currency of social media. And as the author of Socialnomics, Erik Qualman, says, social media is bigger than you think .
- More video was uploaded to YouTube in the last six months than was produced by the three major TV networks in 60 years.
- With over 400 million users, Facebook would be the fourth largest country in the world by population.
- Wikipedia has over 13 million articles, all written by volunteers—and with an accuracy that studies show is comparable to the best commercial encyclopedias.
- In 2008, one in eight newly married couples met through social media.
- Ninety-six percent of Generation Y has joined a social network, where sharing is a way of life.
- Creative Commons has made it easier for creators to share their work. They've licensed over 130 million creative works in 50 countries since 2002.
In these powerful ways, social media has taken sharing mainstream.
Generation G. Now that a Shareable world has a serious foothold, all that's needed is a willing population to scale it up. There's a strong argument that Gen Y is the generation that can bring a shareable world to fruition.
Roughly 100 million strong in the United States, Gen Y grew up on the Internet and brings its values and practices, including sharing, into the real world. Last year TrendWatching.com called them Generation G (for "generous") and said they are accelerating a cultural shift where "giving is already the new taking." They may not reach their full sharing potential until later in life, but there are promising indicators:
- Sixty-one percent of 13-25 year olds feel personally responsible for making a difference in the world.
- Eighty-three percent will trust a company more if it's socially and environmentally responsible.
- Volunteering by college students increased by 20 percent between 2002 and 2005.
- Eighty-three percent volunteered in 2005.
Gary Hamel believes that this massive generational force, which outnumbers baby boomers, promises to transform our world in the image of the Internet, a world where sharing and contributing to the common good are integral to the good life. William Strauss and Neil Howe, authors of Millennials Rising, believes that Gen Y is a hero generation, coming of age in a time of crisis they're already helping to resolve, largely by applying the tools and mindset of sharing.
Neal Gorenflo and Jeremy Adam Smith wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Neal is the publisher of Shareable.net, a new online magazine that explores the ways that sharing is transforming life in the twenty-first century. Jeremy is the editor of Shareable.net, author of The Daddy Shift, and co-editor of two anthologies, The Compassionate Instinct and Are We Born Racist?.
Source: http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/10-ways-our-world-is-becoming-more-shareable?b_start:int=0


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At the BET awards last night, Bey, Jay, 'Ye and something called a Kim Kardashian sat together in a royal enclave and the photos of this momentous event have already been analyzed until the end of time. Beyoncé and Kim, who sat on the outside of their respective men, "made no effort to stretch across to chinwag." Kim was said to be so out of her element that she was Tweeting about Keeping Up With The Kardashians during the ceremony.
There was also a Whitney Houston tribute featuring Mariah Carey, Monica, Brandy, Chaka Khan, Houston's castmates from Waiting To Exhale, and a performance from Houston's mother Cissy that made everyone cry. Odds and ends: The false Twitter rumor that Chris Brown was arrested for weapons possessions at the awards. This hilarious picture of Kim and a sheepish-looking Nicki Minaj. Oh and this gif. [TMZ, Daily Mail, USA Today, The Grio]
An entertainment journalist named Seth Kaufman, while researching his first novel (about a reality TV show), uncovered some, um, interesting pre-production paperwork signed by the cast of Jersey Shore: a "VD clause."
It reads, in part, "Producer hereby informs me, and I acknowledge and accept, that the other participants have not been screened for any diseases, sicknesses or other health conditions (and specifically have not been tested for any sexually transmitted diseases) and I assume all risks of interacting with the other participants, including any consensual contact." So now we know. [NYDN]
Kate Winslet on her famous enthusiasm for nude scenes: "Oh my God, I couldn't give a shit. I mean, I'm so much less self-conscious and I think that's something to do with getting older and acceptance of one's self, feeling stronger, feeling more confident. I think confidence does come with time and I've been really surprised by that actually. I mean, I remember being 21 and imagining that at 36 my tits would be around my knees and I would have bad hair and terrible teeth. When you are younger, somehow being in your later thirties just seems really old. But I feel stronger, fitter and more comfortable in my own skin now than I have ever done." [The Sun]
Willow Smith's new video I Am Me is an unexpectedly solemn departure. Then again, it must be hard for such a little kid to carry all that heavy swag around all day. :((( [YouTube]
Today in mandatory Tomkat news, Tom Cruise will let Katie Holmes drag Suri away from Scientology over his dead body—it's even been suggested that Cruise's zealous need to introduce Suri to Xenu and co. is the primary reason he's going in for a custody battle in the first place. However, attorneys from both coasts say that it would be "unconstitutional" to get involved in issues of a child's religious upbringing. For her part, Suri likes pretty bows, wants a Graham cracker. Somebody give her a fucking Graham cracker. [Radar]
- BTW, "Tom Cruise Hires Pitbull Divorce Lawyer," says Google Reader. Would have been so much better if it were "Tom Cruise Hires Pitbull, Divorce Lawyer." Oooooh, what a little comma can do. [Newsday]
- Sigourney Weaver was once escorted away from Ronald Reagan at a party when she confronted him about abortion. [FemaleFirst.co.uk]
- Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux were brought closer together by their love of banging each other. [Gather Celebs]
- Blake Lively, liar, says she doesn't work out, doesn't drink water, and just sits around eating cupcakes all day. [NBC Chicago]
- Robbie Williams pulls out. Of the Olympics closing ceremony. ONCE AGAIN, THE IMPORTANCE OF PUNCTUATION. [Timeslive.co.za]
- Here's the first image of Naomi Watts as Princess Di. [Daily Mail]
- Amber Heard says she's a sucker for romance, and possibly people who dress exactly like that homeless guy in Astor Square who is considered some kind of weird prophet by the kind of NYU students who go to Burning Man (she's rumored to be dating Johnny Depp.) [Monsters And Critics]
- Michael Jordan's son was arrested for a hotel disturbance in Omaha. [USA Today]
- Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher might be a thing. Jackie and Kelso IRL! [Us Magazine]
- It was Melanie Griffith's kids who convinced her to go to rehab for her painkillers addiction. [LA Times]
- Kelis''s milkshake unable to prevent being charged with $300,000 worth of back taxes. [Daily Mail]
- Elizabeth Banks pretends to be Chelsea Handler a lot. [Inquisitr]
- Here are Alec Baldwin and Hilaria
ThomasBaldwin's wedding rings. Flashy, but te quiero mucho. [News.au]
- Matthew McConaughey on his 1999 arrest for naked bongo drumming: "I've done it since too. Oh yeah bro, I love playing drums naked. Who doesn't like comfort and music?" [Express]
- Aviva Drescher and Harry Dubin of The Real Housewives Of New York City fought over unpaid child support, fancy Hamptons sandwiches. [Page Six]
- Jonah Hill cares about fashion more than most of us were aware of. [Page Six]
- Nicki Minaj likes signing female fans' boobs, male fans' moobs. [The Sun]
- Michael Fassbender's dad spies on him via Google Alert. [The Sun]
- Kimye went to Childrens Hospital. I mean, a children's hospital. [E!]


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The count down is on!! Summer Reading 2014 is just around the corner with great books to read, and fantastic programs and activities for the entire family. This summer our theme is science, and our books and programs are bound to have our young readers "FIZZ, BOOM, READ", our teens and young adults to "SPARK A REACTION" and give our adults great "LITERARY ELEMENTS".
Join us for our annual summer reading kickoff on Friday, June 6th at 6:30 pm on the corner of Trade Street and Liberty Streets, during DADA's Gallery Hop, featuring our talented Youth Service Librarians, hand clapping, get you out of your seat band BIG BANG BOOM and a few surprise guests too! It will be a great night to celebrate our kickoff, and an opportunity to register for summer reading and enjoy downtown festivities.
Nothing drives a child's imagination quite like reading. Reading cultivates creativity and critical thinking, and is the catalyst for a lifetime of academic success. Forsyth County Public Library is committed to providing a Summer Reading Program that inspires a love of reading and learning in children and teens and encourages them to read throughout the summer and all year long. Who knows what discoveries will surface from the minds of our youth who spend the Summer immersed in Reading.
We look forward seeing you.


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Michael Gerson: The Olympics of joy
?On a rainy Saturday morning, in the packed gym at the Blessed Sacrament School in Northwest Washington, a parade of middle and high school basketball players, many with Down syndrome or autism, follow behind the tinfoil torch of the Special Olympics. As each athlete is introduced and cheered, he or she basks, with high fives and blown kisses, at the center of attention for all the right reasons. (Overheard from the mother of one player: "He lives for this day," but also that, in the past, it has brought on an anxiety attack.)
Feeling the pleasing thwack of a rubber ball on hardwood is a nearly universal American experience. In the process of making it even more universal, Special Olympics varies the game a bit. It includes more than the usual share of interruptions, hugs, hand-holding and random dancing (though none of this is unknown at other high school basketball games). The players tend to be transparent, unencumbered.
Students without disabilities also participate, setting up shots for the Special Olympics athletes, whose abilities vary widely. Some have little hope of a basket; the crowd cheers when they rise after falling. Others score when the referee allows a few extra tries. Others are determined and well-practiced, displaying unsuspected skills -- not, one imagines, for the first or last time, and not only in basketball. One athlete will only take shots from near the three-point line. When he finally makes one, the crowd responds with Final Four intensity.
By giving opportunities to those with intellectual disabilities, we discover what interests them. This includes sporting competition -- and the inalienable right to put on a skirt and lead cheers. At halftime, the Joy cheerleading squad performance includes some impressive splits. The sight of young women with Down syndrome and other disabilities breaking the cheerleading barrier is no longer unusual. It is still better than Beyonce.
Special Olympics athletes take an oath: "Let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt." Real bravery is rare on the main stages of sport. It was common in a suburban gym on a Saturday morning.
Because of the Special Olympics movement, the striving of disabled athletes and the pride of their parents are now familiar. But they are remarkable in historical context. Just a few decades ago, children with intellectual disabilities were subject to vast, systematic cruelty. Those with Down syndrome were often placed in institutions before parents could "bond with them," denied surgery for heart problems and intestinal blockages, and targeted for eugenic sterilization. In 1929, most children born Down syndrome did not live until age 10. Today, average life expectancy is between 50 and 60. Human beings, unsurprisingly, have shorter life spans when you refuse to give them routine treatment for medical problems. Children are "uneducable" when you refuse to educate them.
Viewing the intellectually disabled as athletes has aided a civil rights revolution -- changing both individual lives and social perceptions. And Special Olympics is carrying that revolution to a global scale. How many of the poor in the developing world are further disadvantaged, stigmatized and isolated by disability? We don't really know. The world measures what it values -- things like stock values and commodity prices. There is little good information on the struggles of the intellectually disabled. But Special Olympics programs in 170 countries are calling attention to the uncounted. The most recent World Games took place in Asia, where it can be hazardous to be a female child, much less a disabled one. In many places, Special Olympics has become a front-line human rights organization.
Not that America -- where thousands of children with Down syndrome are aborted each year based on prenatal diagnosis -- has much standing to judge. Raising a child with a disability -- getting adequate services in school, helping the transition to adulthood -- remains difficult in ways that are hard for outsiders to imagine.
But in dealing with struggles we would not envy, disabled children and their parents have created a form of community we should honor -- where worth is not contingent on accomplishment, and people strive without fear of failure, and affection is freely given, and some get a few extra shots, and bravery is common. Everyone, it turns out, is dependent and vulnerable -- and sacred and able. And the most remarkable thing about that discovery is the sheer joy of it.
Michael Gerson's email address is firstname.lastname@example.com.
Washington Post Writers Group


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Wahlberg guarantees a hit with new 'Transformers'
LAS VEGAS – Mark Wahlberg, star of the upcoming "Transformers: Age of Extinction," is promising the fourth installment of the Michael Bay-directed franchise will be a huge hit.
"For moviegoers all over the world, I guarantee this will take it up a notch," Wahlberg said Monday at the annual movie-theater convention CinemaCon.
Paramount Vice Chairman Rob Moore said Bay was hesitant to return to the franchise until they were able to zero in on the right story and cast that would capture his imagination.
"Michael promised me it would be a very different, stand-alone movie, which it absolutely is," said Wahlberg. "It is bigger and better than the other three (films) combined. This will be the biggest movie of 2014."
In the action film, Wahlberg, who reteams with Bay after last year's "Pain and Gain," plays Cade Yeager, an automobile mechanic who discovers a rundown truck, which is really a transformer. Soon, he's the target of Autobots, Decepticons and the government.
With a series of "Transformers" films, which featured a consistent cast including Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson, Wahlberg admitted he's feeling the pressure of stepping into the shoes of the other actors.
But he says he "had to jump at the opportunity because I really feel like it is probably the most iconic franchise in movie history."
Wahlberg was joined on stage by his co-stars and CinemaCon Rising Stars award recipients Nicola Peltz, who plays his daughter, Tessa Yeager, and Jack Reynor, who portrays Tessa's boyfriend, Shane. But the surprise guest was Wahlberg's 10-year-old daughter, Ella, who is not in the film, but accompanied her dad to Vegas.
"This is (Ella's) first time in Vegas and hopefully her last," Wahlberg joked. The actor flexes his protective daddy disposition in the upcoming action film as well. His Cade comically nags daughter Tessa about her tiny shorts and the boyfriend he didn't know she had, offering a glimpse into the humor of the new film.
Though Bay was expected to attend CinemaCon to also plug "Age of Extinction," Wahlberg says the filmmaker was confined to the edit bay to finalize the film's special effects. Or could he have been afraid of another teleprompter mishap?
"He wanted me to make sure that you all understand that the effects are temp," added Wahlberg of the extended preview shown to the industry crowd.
Unfinished or not, the impressive footage, including bigger, more powerful robots, sharper battle scenes and a fresh crop of good-looking movie stars, could be just the thing to drive home Wahlberg's No. 1 film prediction and cap Bay's massively successful series, which together have grossed over $2.6 billion.


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A new bakery called Nothing Bundt Cakes – specializing in "modern Bundt cakes" – is holding grand opening festivities for its new location at 5679 Poplar Ave. the week of Jan. 13.
The eatery features Bundt cakes that range from single-serving "Bundtinis" to larger cakes that serve up to 26 people.
There's a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Germantown Chamber of Commerce Jan. 15. On Jan. 17, 20 percent of sales will benefit the Memphis Child Advocacy Center, and guests that day also can enjoy cakes paired with wine.
On Jan. 18, the first 50 guests who make a purchase will win free "Bundtlets" for a year – one per month.
Nothing Bundt Cakes was founded in 1997 and is based in Las Vegas.
ServiceMaster CEO Robert Gillette has named Susan Hunsberger as the Memphis-based company's new senior vice president of human resources.
Hunsberger comes to ServiceMaster from being head of human resources for the global business solutions group of Nielsen, the Connecticut-based information and data company best known for its television ratings.
Hunsberger is the latest appointment Gillette has made in the top ranks of ServiceMaster since becoming CEO of the provider of residential and commercial services in June.
The board of directors of AutoZone Inc. has authorized the repurchase of an additional $750 million worth of the company's common stock, part of AutoZone's ongoing share buyback program.
Since that program began in 1998 and including the new authorization, AutoZone's board has authorized the car parts retailer to buy back $14.2 billion worth of the company's stock.
AutoZone Chief Financial Officer Bill Giles said the company's strong financial performance is what is allowing the company to buy back stock while maintaining its investment-grade credit ratings.
U.S. Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker of Tennessee voted against the Ryan-Murray budget agreement that passed the Senate Wednesday, Dec. 18, and was on its way to President Barack Obama's desk for his signature.
Alexander said he voted against the measure because it "avoids the federal government's most urgent need, reducing the growth of runaway entitlement spending."
"Instead, it spends savings that should be used to strengthen Medicare, pensions and the air transportation system," he added in a written statement.
Corker had similar concerns that motivated his vote against the agreement. But he also said Republican actions in the House that led to the government shutdown earlier this year led to the compromise.
"It's disappointing the misguided strategy of the House this fall weakened our hand on fiscal issues and that House appropriators indicated they were unwilling to live within the budget discipline laid out in the sequester," Corker said in a written statement.
Corker and Alexander have proposed a "fiscal sustainability act" that features $1 trillion in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security entitlement savings and cuts.
The Bubble Bistro has opened a new store in Baton Rouge, La.
The Memphis-based business sells all-natural skincare and bath and beauty products.
Founded in 2009 by Andrea Johnson, Bubble Bistro features products that are prepared from scratch daily using ingredients shipped from across the globe.
Bubble Bistro offers face and body soaps, perfume oils and sprays, bath salts, body scrubs and exfoliating products, body and hair moisturizers, mineral-based makeup and candles.
Johnson's first Bubble Bistro was launched in the Virgin Islands in 2009. In 2010, Johnson relocated to her hometown of Memphis and opened a 1,700-square-foot store at 425 N. Watkins St. in the Crosstown community. Johnson also operates an online store, bubblebistro.com.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has appointed Holly M. Kirby of Memphis to the Tennessee Supreme Court. Kirby will succeed Janice M. Holder, who announced her retirement from the bench on June 28, upon expiration of her term.
Kirby, a lifelong Tennessean, has served as a member of the Tennessee Court of Appeals, Western Section, since 1995. She was the first woman to serve on that court and has authored more than 1,000 opinions on appeals from trial courts across the state.
"We are fortunate to have someone with Judge Kirby's depth of experience to serve on the Tennessee Supreme Court," Haslam said. "Her impressive record of service will benefit Tennesseans in this position, and I am pleased to announce her appointment."
Kirby's opinions have covered a range of civil law, including business and commercial litigation, employment law, tort law and family law. Prior to her appointment to the Tennessee Court of Appeals by Gov. Don Sundquist, Kirby was a partner at the Memphis law firm Burch, Porter & Johnson.
"I thank Governor Haslam for this great privilege," Kirby said. "It is a high honor and an awesome responsibility to serve on the Tennessee Supreme Court. I will do my utmost every day to earn the confidence the Governor has placed in me and to serve the citizens of our great state."
Kirby has served on the Tennessee Board of Judicial Conduct since 2012. She served on the Tennessee Court of the Judiciary from 1998 to 2012 and has served on the Tennessee Judicial Conference since 1995. She also served on the Council of State Governments interbranch committee in 2013, the Tennessee Appellate Court Nomination Commission from 1989 to 1994, and as a court-appointed special advocate from 1992 to 1994.
Shelby County Commissioner Chris Thomas is the new city manager for Lakeland.
Thomas was the choice of new Lakeland Mayor Wyatt Bunker, and his choice was confirmed Tuesday, Dec. 17, by the town's board of commissioners with a unanimous vote.
Thomas will serve the remaining nine months left on his term of office on the county commission but will not seek re-election in 2014.
Bunker's resignation from the commission following his November election to the mayor's office is effective Jan. 3.
The commission's last meeting of the year – and Bunker's last as a commissioner – was Monday, Dec. 16.
Thomas' decision not to seek re-election means the 13-member county commission that takes office Sept. 1, 2014, will have at least seven new members.
Six other commissioners are term-limited.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has launched its 2014 Dream Home Giveaway contest.
St. Jude officials on Wednesday, Dec. 18, broke ground on the new home inside the Canterbury Manor development in Eads. Renaissance Development Co. is the developer of Canterbury Manor and Southern Serenity Homes is building the home, which will be given away June 22.
The St. Jude Dream Home Giveaway is a 23-year tradition that has become one of the research hospital's largest single-event fundraisers. Nationally, more than 300 homes have been given away and the program has raised more than $240 million for St. Jude.
This is the 15th anniversary of the program launch in Memphis. Around $1.2 million was raised in last year's Memphis campaign.
Mercedes-Benz of Collierville has announced a giveaway to celebrate the grand opening of the dealership, which is scheduled for March.
For the contest, participants will be entered to win a 24-month lease on a 2014 Mercedes-Benz C250 Sport Sedan, which will be given away in December 2014. The first round of entries for the year-long campaign is under way now, with entries being accepted via Facebook and Twitter until Jan. 31.
Participants should tweet @MBCollierville or post to the dealership's Facebook page at facebook.com/mbcollierville with thoughts on what they're thankful for this holiday season. There will be other opportunities to enter the giveaway through 2014, and the winner will be chosen in December 2014.
The Federal Reserve expects unemployment to fall a bit further over the next two years than it thought in September and expects inflation to remain below the Fed's target level.
The Fed predicts the unemployment rate will dip as low as 6.3 percent next year and 5.8 percent in 2015. Both are one-tenth of a percentage point lower than it forecast in September. Unemployment has fallen faster this year than policymakers had predicted. It's now 7 percent.
The Fed estimates that economic growth will be between 2.8 percent and 3.2 percent next year, roughly what it predicted in September. Growth for 2013 will likely be about 2 percent.
Fed policymakers have said they'll keep the short-term rate they control near zero at least until unemployment falls below 6.5 percent.
Memphis could be getting a new hotel at a prime Downtown location.
Turkey Creek Hospitality has signed a licensing agreement with Hilton Worldwide to develop a 140-room Hilton Garden Inn at 235 Union Ave., the site of a former structured parking facility at the corner of Union and Fourth Street. Knoxville-based Turkey Creek Hospitality would own and operate the new hotel.
According to Shelby County property records, Nitinkumar Patel purchased the property in September for $1.4 million. The Shelby County Assessor of Property's 2013 appraisal of the site is $747,200.
A new hotel would be welcome news to the local convention industry, which has struggled with an outdated Memphis Cook Convention Center and a shortage of hotels concentrated in the Downtown Core.
However, two planned Downtown hotels announced in recent years – both Hilton brands – were never built. Hilton announced agreements to build a 118-room Hilton Garden Inn at Second Street and Linden Avenue, and a 300-room Hilton at Fourth and Linden, but neither project materialized.
There were only a few contract details remaining last week between former Shelby County Schools superintendent John Aitken and the job of superintendent of the Collierville Schools system.
Those were worked out Monday, Dec. 16, and Aitken was hired by the Collierville Schools board, becoming the first leader of one of the six suburban school systems.
Aitken will be paid $185,000 a year in base pay, with the possibility of an annual bonus of $15,000.
The Bartlett Schools board met Monday evening to begin interviewing finalists for the Bartlett superintendent position.
The three finalists being considered by the Bartlett board are: David Stephens, deputy superintendent of Shelby County Schools; David Hill, director of academic operations for Memphis Catholic Schools; and M. Wayne Honeycutt, former director of the Loudon County, Tenn., school system.
The Germantown Schools board, meanwhile, approved the settlement with Shelby County Schools by a 3-2 vote. The board's debate and vote came hours after the Shelby County Commission approved the deal, which is the last of the settlements between the commission, SCS and leaders of the Shelby County's six suburbs.
In the agreement, Germantown Elementary, Middle and High Schools remain in the Shelby County Schools system. The other five schools within Germantown's city limits become part of its new municipal school system.
Shelby County Commissioners set the stage Monday, Dec. 16, for a new Ward Road Bridge in north Shelby County.
The commission accepted a $982,485 state transportation grant for construction and engineering of the replacement of the bridge over Big Creek. The acceptance includes a $1.3 million subcontract with Dement Construction Co. LLC. In addition to the state grant, funding for the project includes $407,160 in state gas tax funds.
Commissioners sent back to committee a proposal from Memphis City Council member Lee Harris that targets "tax dead" properties for tax breaks and redevelopment incentives. Commissioner Mike Ritz proposed several amendments after he said the original provisions might have been open to some abuse by developers or might have encouraged property owners to not pay property taxes.
If approved by the commission and the council, the proposal's next stop would be the Tennessee Attorney General's office for a legal opinion. If the opinion upholds the legality of the program, it would then go back to the council and commission for approval in its final form.
With no debate, the commission rejected a joint resolution from the City Council that called for the formation of a joint city-county committee to study an expansion of the Memphis Cook Convention Center.
And commissioners approved $516,455 worth of replacement vehicles for the Shelby County Sheriff's Department from three dealers: Dobbs Ford, Serra Chevrolet and Sam Swope Automotive. Of the total, $381,551 comes from the department's drug funds, and the remaining $134,904 is from the department's general fund budget.
First Tennessee Bank is preparing to open a new office outside Tennessee – its first in Charleston, S.C.
The new office will provide private client banking, wealth management, commercial financial services and commercial real estate finance services to the Charleston market. First Tennessee's presence there joins existing Mid-Atlantic offices in Winston-Salem, Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C., and in Richmond, Va.
Rotcher Watkins, Charlotte-based market executive and senior vice president, will lead the Charleston office. The team of bankers there includes Andy Thomas, senior vice president and commercial banking relationship manager; Allston Moore; senior vice president and private client team leader; and Shelly Clark, private client relationship manager.
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange has given Shanghai-based MicroPort Scientific Corp. the green light to move ahead with its $290 million acquisition of Wright Medical Group Inc.'s knee and hip division.
MicroPort has scheduled a Jan. 3 shareholder meeting to vote on the transaction. Wright now expects the transaction to close around Jan. 9.
Wright Medical won approval earlier this year to relocate its corporate headquarters from Arlington to Memphis. The company, which has around 1,500 employees, will maintain and expand its manufacturing facilities in Arlington.
Wright announced in October it had reached a $75 million agreement to buy the French company Biotech International, a privately held manufacturer of surgical implants and advanced fixation technologies that deal with fractures.
U.S. workers boosted their productivity from July through September at the fastest pace since the end of 2009, adding to signs of stronger economic growth.
The Labor Department said Monday that productivity increased at a 3 percent annual rate in the third quarter. That's up from an initial estimate of 1.9 percent and much stronger than the 1.8 percent rate from April through June.
Productivity rose because economic growth was much stronger than previously estimated in the third quarter. Productivity is the amount of output per hour of work.
Labor costs fell in the third quarter, evidence that inflation will remain low.
Higher productivity enables companies to pay employees more without sparking inflation. But greater productivity can also slow hiring if it shows companies don't need more workers to boost output.
However, productivity growth has been mostly flat over the past year. That's because the gains from the past six months have been offset by declines in previous six months.
Worker productivity is improving along with economic growth. Hiring has accelerated since the summer and wages are gradually rising. The economy grew a 3.6 percent annual rate in the third quarter, much faster than the 2.8 percent rate previously estimated.
But productivity gains have slowed in the past three years after jumping in the aftermath of the recession.
Zipcar, the car share division of Avis Rent a Car, has expanded to Memphis International Airport.
The two cars at the airport join a fleet that also includes four in Downtown Memphis and one at Rhodes College.
The recent expansion comes after a trial period at two Downtown locations this year to test whether there is a market for car sharing in Memphis. Zipcar's business model includes a separate focus on college campuses.
The newest Zipcars are on the airport property and are aimed specifically at air travelers with time between connecting flights or a meeting between flights.
The digital reservations of the cars include gas, insurance and 180 miles of travel.
Eric Bolton, chairman and CEO of Memphis-based MAA, has been elected to the board of directors for a Mississippi-based real estate investment trust focused on industrial properties.
Bolton will join the board of EastGroup Properties Inc., which focuses on the development, acquisition and operation of industrial real estate across the Sunbelt, with an emphasis on properties in Florida, Texas, Arizona, California and North Carolina.
EastGroup's portfolio, including projects under construction, includes 33.7 million square feet of industrial properties. According to EastGroup's website, the company owns one Memphis property, a 92,000-square-foot building at 3906 Air Park Drive. MAA is one of the nation's largest student housing real estate investment trusts.
Memphis-based marketing communications agency archer-malmo has made several hires and promotions across its account service, digital, public relations and media teams.
Beverly Mattingly has been promoted to senior vice president, group account director. She's joining the management team and will report directly to archer-malmo CEO Russ Williams.
In her new role, Mattingly will oversee the account service team for Zoetis.
Meanwhile, archer-malmo also has promoted several staffers. Courtnay Hamacheck has been promoted to account supervisor from senior account executive for the company's retail group, TMB. Liz Hamilton from the PR department, and Rebecca Harris and Madesyn Don from account services, were promoted to account manager from account coordinator.
During the fourth quarter, archer-malmo also has added three professionals in the account services, digital and media teams.
Brent Booth has joined the digital team as a senior information architect. Ai Doan joined the agency as an assistant planner/buyer on the media team. And Wes Melton has been hired as an account coordinator for account services.
Foreigner buyers of U.S. Treasury securities increased their holdings for a third month in October, despite budget battles in Washington that shut down the government for 16 days that month.
The Treasury Department says total foreign holdings edged up 0.01 percent in October to $5.65 trillion after a 1 percent gain in September. Holdings had fallen from April through July, likely reflecting concerns about rising interest rates. In October, holdings were 1.2 percent below the record high of $5.72 trillion reached in March.
China, the largest foreign buyer of Treasury debt, boosted its holdings 0.8 percent in October to $1.3 trillion. Japan, the second-largest buyer, trimmed its holdings 0.3 percent to $1.17 trillion.
An impasse over the budget led to a 16-day partial government shutdown in October.
U.S. factories increased output in November for the fourth straight month, led by a surge in auto production. The gains show manufacturing is strengthening and could help boost economic growth at the end of the year.
Factory production rose 0.6 percent in November after a 0.5 percent gain in October, the Federal Reserve said Monday.
Production of motor vehicles and parts increased 3.4 percent, rebounding from a 1.3 percent decline in October. Factories also stepped up production of home electronics and chemical products.
Industrial production, which includes manufacturing, mining and utilities, rose 1.1 percent in November. It was the fourth straight gain.
Colder-than-average temperatures drove a 3.9 percent surge in utility production. Mining output jumped 1.7 percent to reverse a similar decline in October.
Overall production for the first time surpassed the pre-recession peak set in December 2007, the month the Great Recession began. Output is now 21 percent above its recession low hit in June 2009, the month the downturn ended.
Memphis-based Aluma-Form Inc. will open a manufacturing facility in Walnut, Miss.
The planned 70,000- to 80,000-square-foot facility on a 17-acre site is expected to employ around 125 people.
Aluma-Form, whose headquarters are at 3625 Old Getwell Rd., is a manufacturer of overhead power distribution products for the electrical industry.
The company expanded its Memphis facility in 2010. Earlier this year, it took out a $1.8 million loan through Trustmark Inc. on that property.
Aluma-Form, which was founded in 1961 and previously manufactured all its products at its Memphis location, sells its line of products throughout the U.S. and Canada. The company will continue to build its core product line in Memphis, while the Walnut facility, which is projected to open in late 2014, will manufacture its new products. Aluma-Form expects to invest $6.7 million in the new facility.
Shelby County Register Tom Leatherwood is the latest incumbent to pull a qualifying petition to run for re-election in the 2014 county elections.
Leatherwood pulled a petition to run in the May Republican primary.
He has several potential Democratic challengers, including Coleman Thompson, who was the Democratic nominee in 2010. Other Democratic contenders with petitions out in the race are Stephen R. Christian and Terrance Monger.
RedRover Sales & Marketing has added three new employees to the roster.
They are creative director Carl Cottam, corporate trainer Lori Guy and marketing account executive Jennifer Seidman.
Cottam comes to RedRover from Medtronic. Guy is a veteran of First Horizon National Corp., and Seidman was previously at GTx Inc.
The hires come at a time RedRover has just finished settling into its new space at 22 N. Front St. after a move from South Main. RedRover founder and CEO Lori Turner-Wilson said this summer that the new space will allow the firm plenty of room to grow over the next few years.
The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development has announced four new locations ready for company investment.
The Select Tennessee Certified Sites program was launched last year with the goal of helping Tennessee communities prepare available sites for investment and expansion. The program sets a rigorous standard upon which companies can rely in making location decisions. There are 26 greenfield sites available in 19 counties across the state.
Qualifications include having at least 20 developable acres, proper zoning in place to allow for ease of development and truck-quality road access.
The four new sites are American Way in Lauderdale County, City of Milan Industrial Park in Gibson County, Clinton/I-75 Industrial Park in Anderson County and Rialto Industrial in Tipton County.
Mall operator Simon Property Group Inc. plans to spin off to its shareholders a business that operates strip malls and smaller enclosed malls so it can focus on bigger malls and premium outlets.
Indianapolis-based Simon said the new, publicly traded real estate investment trust is expected to own or have an interest in 54 strip malls and 44 smaller enclosed malls. Its portfolio will total 53 million square feet in 23 states.
It estimates the new company will generate about $300 million in funds from operation, or FFO. FFO is the preferred profit measure of real estate investment trusts like Simon Property. It adds back charges that measure the costs and declining values of equipment and property back to net income.
Simon President and Chief Operating Officer Richard Sokolov will become chairman of the new company, and Simon Chairman and CEO David Simon will serve on its board of directors. Simon Property shareholders and limited partners get stakes in the new company.
Simon currently owns or has an interest in more than 325 retail real estate properties in North America and Asia.
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