Sweet Soca Euphoria

Toni Morrison - Natural Beauty

2011-11-06T12:35:00.002-05:00

She's definitely my loc mentor. Grey, braided ends, yep that's me.

Where to Find Work for Teens This Summer - WSJ.com

2011-06-25T23:25:00.000-05:00

Where to Find Work for Teens This Summer - WSJ.com: "Where to Find Work for Teens This Summer

By RACHEL LOUISE ENSIGN

Teenagers may have to dig harder to find a job this summer.

Only about one-quarter of 16- to 19-year-olds are expected to find seasonal work this year, down from nearly half in 2000, according to a report from the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. That's projected to be the lowest figure since records of teen employment began in 1948.

With unemployment still high, adults are taking many of the jobs typically held by teens, says Joe McLaughlin, co-author of the report. And companies that laid off workers during the recession have been slow to rehire -- especially seasonal staff.

So where should teens be looking? The sectors that traditionally employ younger workers are still the best bet: retail stores, hotels and restaurants. Though these places have cut back on teenage hires, more than half of kids who will work this summer will have jobs in these sectors, according to U.S. Census data analyzed by the Center for Labor Market Studies.

Fast-food restaurants, which have done well through the economic downturn as more people have opted for lower-cost options when dining out, are still hiring teens for the summer. So are seasonal eateries like ice-cream shops and juice bars.

Teens also can find jobs assisting janitors in hotels or picking up balls at golf courses. But workers under age 18 may have a tough time finding work at the mall. Many of those jobs have been taken by older teens and adults who are still struggling to find better-paying work.

One bright spot for teen workers: health care.

In hospitals, teens under age 18 can find work as file clerks or cafeteria workers. Those 18 and over can work as a nurse's aide or patient escort, says Renée Ward, founder of teen job board Teens4Hire.org. Teens can do similar jobs in nursing homes and assisted-living centers, Ms. Ward says, which are expanding as the elderly population grows.

But young workers can forget about construction and manufacturing jobs this summer. Since the housing bust, there are far fewer construction projects under way. And after a decade of laying off workers, manufacturers are now having their existing employees work longer hours, reducing the need for summer help, says Mr. McLaughlin.

Many teen-friendly companies list available jobs on Teens4Hire.org, GotAJob.com and Snagajob.com/teen-jobs. For instance, Yowza, which developed a coupon application for smartphones, is planning to hire 10,000 teenagers age 14 and over this summer through Teens4Hire.org. The teens will be paid a commission for each local business they get to provide coupons for their products through the Yowza app.

Some career experts say teens with a skill may have better luck giving entrepreneurship a shot. For example, kids who excel at math, science or computer technology could start a tutoring or website-development business.

With more competition for fewer jobs, career experts say it's important for teens to look and act professional during an interview -- regardless of how casual the actual job is. They also should bring a résumé . If teens don't have a work history to list, they should put down any school, sports, extracurricular and volunteer activities, says Alison Doyle, a job-search expert for how-to website About.com. And they should indicate if they've had any leadership roles, such as team captain or running a club.

Dave Hastings says the small minority of teens who showed up to interview for lifeguard, swim instructor and pool maintenance positions at his Brecksville, Ohio, pool-service company and dressed professionally, had a résumé and wrote a thank-you note afterward greatly improved their chances of being hired. The reason: It showed they were responsible and professional, Mr. Hastings says.
—Email: rachel.ensign@wsj.com

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Ten Things That Can Get You Fired - Finance and Accounting Jobs News and Advice

2011-06-25T23:22:00.000-05:00

Ten Things That Can Get You Fired - Finance and Accounting Jobs News and Advice: "Ten Things That Can Get You Fired
By Kelly Eggers

i

Ten Things That Can Get You Fired

By Kelly Eggers

Nobody wants to get fired. Most people avoid it by generally doing good work and keeping complaints about their jobs to themselves or close family.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. There are many things that can get you fired beyond the obvious; you don't have to burn down the office to earn a pink slip.

"If you have created a situation for yourself where there's some level of dissatisfaction with your performance, any organization will figure out where there is an option or a point of entry where they can separate you from them," said Roy Cohen, a New York City career coach and author of The Wall Street Professional's Survival Guide. "Assuming you're in an employment-at-will environment, you don't ever have to be told why you're being fired."

Most professional employees are "employees-at-will," which means that they can be fired for any reason – or none at all. Employment-at-will laws vary from state to state, but if you're not in a union or don't have a contract, they likely apply to you.

It may not be fair to get fired because you choose not to shower, think you're smarter than your boss or have issues admitting when you're wrong, but it can happen. Here are ten ways to get thrown off your job.

1. Get Conveniently Sick

It's okay to take sick days when you need them, but if you take too many at the wrong times, it could mean more free time to convalesce.

"If you want to get fired, repeatedly call in sick on Mondays," said Randy Merrell, vice president of operations at Elite Network, a San Francisco-based search firm. "Muscle up and get yourself in there. Hangovers are no excuse."

The same goes for vacation days, said Cohen. Ditching the company for a few days of sun and surf in the middle of a busy season reflects poorly on your dedication to the well-being of the business.

"An administrator in my client's department had a key role in planning a major event, and the admin called in sick for three days the week before the event," said Cohen. A check of her records showed that she had a pattern of calling in sick around major events. "All of the work gets dropped on others' shoulders. Her sick days might have been legit, but they were legit too frequently," he said. That, when combined with her sloppy work and incomplete projects, got her cut from the roster.

2. Lie on Your Job Application

Everyone beefs up their resume, and assumes that once they have the job, it's no longer important what they did to get it. Not so fast. If your job performance lags, your resume may be reviewed again. An inconsistency or poorly timed embellishment could be used to get rid of you.

"If they're dissatisfied with you and then they find out that you lied, that's an easy ticket for them," said Cohen.

For example, Bruce Hurwitz, president and CEO of New York-based Hurwitz Strategic Staffing, recalls a staff member at a former employer who noted on his resume that he had his CPA when he did not. He had taken all the coursework, but did not take the exam.

"He had the job, was doing a good job, but was fired on the spot when his boss found out he had lied on his resume. The job didn't require a CPA, but the boss checked to see if he had it anyway," said Hurwitz. "Even though it wasn't a requirement, it reflected on his character."

3. Be Disgusting

If you aren't diligent with your hygiene, people probably aren't going to go out of their way to keep you around.

"I have a number of clients who are managers that have employees who were unkempt," said Cohen. "When it came time for downsizing, they were at the top of the list."

You might think that hygiene habits should be a personal decision left to each staff member's own discretion, but Cohen said that the reach of bad body odor goes beyond the cubicle around you. "It's engaging in anti-social behavior," he said. "Not bathing, being unkempt... You have to be very careful, especially if you're in a client-interfacing role."

4. Stay Anonymous

As the old adage goes, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If you always keep your head down, never remind your boss of your accomplishments, and aren't a familiar face to the higher-ups, you aren't going to be remembered for what you're worth when headcount is being shaved.

"It's not enough to just work hard, stay late, and be intelligent," said Linda Farley, founder of Farley Training, a San Antonio-based management coaching firm. "It shows you're not a team player. If you don't speak up in meetings and share your ideas, you'll be the one who doesn't have ideas," instead of the one who works late and meets deadlines.

"People need to know you as a person before they can trust you as a worker," she said.

5. Never Compromise

An ego is arguably a necessity in the business world. But a big head that's consistently getting in the way of efficiency and teamwork is a head that will roll.

"If you're not forceful to the proper degree in promoting your own ideas, you're not going to get anything accomplished," said Hurwitz, but you have to be able to do it in the proper way.

Those who always need to do things their way, "come across as single-minded and critical of others' ideas," said Cohen. "If your ideas are smarter than everyone else's, they'll rise to the surface and be appreciated -- unless you don't listen to anyone else, ever."

6. Be Ungrateful

With unemployment hovering around 9%, try to be thankful for what you have, instead of whining about what you think you deserve. A lack of humility can earn you a pink slip.

"If you want out, ask for a raise before a round of job cuts, and get angry when they don't give it to you," said Cohen. "It shows poor judgment."

Another way to get the ax, said Cohen, is telling your boss that the work they're providing you with is beneath you.

In one word, complain. "That's how you get your name at the top of the list," said Cohen.

7. Don't Respect the Chain of Command

It's likely that the current chain of command in the office has long been in place, and for good reason. Except in the most extreme of circumstances, experts recommend respecting it.

"When you're emotionally intelligent, aware of your surroundings and know who the players are, you have a sense of what you should say when, and when you should keep your mouth shut," said Farley. "You know when you should go over someone's head, and when you should follow the chain of command."

No matter how much you hate your boss or how dumb you think he is, it's usually career suicide to reveal those sentiments to a higher-up.

8. Spend Time With the Complainers, Non-Performers and Gossips

When company information is leaked or major deadlines are missed, someone will likely be fired. Even if you weren't involved, you don't want your name associated with those of the usual suspects.

"Even if you're not a non-performer or a complainer yourself, if you're associated with them, people will start thinking of you in that way," said Farley of Farley Training.

There's a "birds of a feather" mentality to this one -- if you're in a clique with your most toxic colleagues, it's easy for your boss to liken you to them. "If you are associated with the gossip, it's going to be assumed you are spreading rumors too," said Hurwitz, of Hurwitz Strategic Staffing.

9. Never Take Responsibility When Things Go Wrong

Take a page out of former Rep. Anthony Weiner's book on this one. If you do something stupid, don't lie about it. The truth will come out -- and you'll get a lot of negative attention if you're forced to admit you tried to cover up.

"It's not the crime, it's the cover-up," said Hurwitz. "If you're the source of bad news about you and if you admit to your mistakes and you don't repeat them, that's a positive. You'll get credit for it."

But if you blame failed technology, time crunches, or the errors of your colleagues when things go awry and you're to blame, you're expendable.

10. Take Credit for Other People's Work

No one likes a freeloader. If you are the worker who never presents an original thought at work, or you take credit for others' accomplishments, you're likely to find yourself out the door.

"One guy stole commissions from co-workers when everyone was out on Christmas break," said Merrell at Elite Network. Commissions at the company were given to the person who did the legwork and sold the services to the client, said Merrell, not by the person who answered the phone when the client called to conclude the sale. "The company policy was that you gave commission credit to the correct person, even when they were out," said Merrell. "I took great pleasure in firing this guy."

Write to Kelly Eggers

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Make a Temp Job Last - WSJ.com

2011-06-25T23:18:00.000-05:00

Make a Temp Job Last - WSJ.com:

By DENNIS NISHI

Tamara Guion-Yagy was disappointed when Tetra Tech, an environmental engineering firm in Pasadena, Calif., hired somebody else for the job that she wanted. The 40-year-old graphic designer thought she was being tried out when the firm hired her as a temporary worker.

So Ms. Guion-Yagy worked even harder at the same temp job, often staying late to finish work. Her manager responded by creating another full-time position for Ms. Guion-Yagy. "I knew I'd be good at the job and liked the work," she says. "I just needed to show them how much."

Dennis Nishi

When times are prosperous, companies are more likely to use temporary jobs as a low-risk way to vet full-time candidates. But the conversion rate from temporary to permanent worker has been low over the past few years as more companies lean on temps as a hedge against a double-dip recession, says Jonas Prising, president of Manpower North, a temporary-staffing company in Milwaukee, Wis.

"That's why temps should do what they can to stand out in some way to improve their chances of getting hired full time or at least having their contracts renewed," he says.

Become a source of ideas by really understanding the needs of your company and figure ways to apply your talents to this end. If you have logistics experience, for example, and know that consolidating shipping through a single supplier can save money, why not present your ideas in writing to the boss?

Be punctual and friendly, replace the office coffee with a gourmet blend or do anything else to increase your visibility in the office. Small gestures can make a lasting impression.

Work your way into the everyday office culture so co-workers will think of you as a colleague and somebody they can rely on. Laurie Ruettimann, a human-resources professional from Raleigh, N.C., recommends participating in workplace functions like office parties, picnics and lunch outings.

Volunteer for company-supported activities like charity work. It helped Sailor Brown get a full-time job at financial-services firm E*Trade Financial in New York. A weekend March of Dimes event gave the 40-year-old executive assistant the opportunity to interact with her boss and co-workers in a casual setting. And it allowed them to connect the hard-working temp from the office with a real human being who's easy to get along with. Ms. Brown says she was hired full time soon after the event.

But don't pester everyone about becoming a full-time employee. Put out your best work and let your actions sell you. Keep note of your accomplishments and bring them up when it's time to renew your temporary contract.

Just being on the inside gives you an advantage over external candidates when applying for full-time jobs, says Mr. Prising. But don't get complacent. Ready some options for when your contract is up.

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Clarence Clemons, E Street Band Saxophonist, Dies at 69 - NYTimes.com

2011-06-18T22:36:00.000-05:00

Clarence Clemons, E Street Band Saxophonist, Dies at 69 - NYTimes.com

By BEN SISARIO

Published: June 18, 2011

Clarence Clemons, the saxophonist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, whose jovial onstage manner, soul-rooted style and brotherly relationship with Mr. Springsteen made him one of rock’s most beloved sidemen, died Saturday at a hospital in Palm Beach, Fla. He was 69.

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Clarence Clemons performed with the E Street Band during the Super Bowl halftime show in Tampa in February 2009.

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Mr. Clemons in 2009.

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The cause was complications from a stroke, which he suffered last Sunday, said a spokeswoman for Mr. Springsteen.

From the beginnings of the E Street Band in 1972, Mr. Clemons played a central part in Mr. Springsteen’s music, complementing the group’s electric guitar and driving rhythms in songs like “Born to Run” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” with muscular, melodic saxophone hooks that echoed doo-wop, soul and early rock ’n’ roll.

But equally important to the group’s image was the sense of affection and unbreakable camaraderie between Mr. Springsteen and his sax man. Few E Street Band shows were complete without a shaggy-dog story about the stormy night the two men met at a bar in Asbury Park, N.J., or a long bear hug between them at the end of the night.

Mr. Clemons also became something of a celebrity in his own right, acting in Martin Scorsese’s “New York, New York” and other films, and on television shows like “Diff’rent Strokes,” and jamming with President Bill Clinton at the 1993 inaugural ball.

A former college football player, Mr. Clemons towered over Mr. Springsteen at 6 feet 4 inches and about 250 pounds — his self-evident nickname was the Big Man — and for most of its history, he stood out as the sole black man in a white, working-class New Jersey rock band. (The keyboardist David Sancious, who is also black, played with the group until 1974.) Onstage he had almost as much magnetism as Mr. Springsteen, and even if much of his time was spent hitting a cowbell or singing backup, he could still stir up a stadium crowd with a few cheerful notes on his horn.

For many fans, the bond between Mr. Springsteen and Mr. Clemons was symbolized by the photograph wrapped around the front and back covers of the 1975 album “Born to Run.” In that picture, a spent yet elated Mr. Springsteen leans on a shoulder to his right for support; the flip side revealed that it belonged to Mr. Clemons.

“When you look at just the cover of ‘Born to Run,’ you see a charming photo, a good album cover, but when you open it up and see Clarence and me together, the album begins to work its magic,” Mr. Springsteen wrote in a foreword to “Big Man: Real Life and Tall Tales,” Mr. Clemons’s semifictional memoir from 2009, written with Don Reo. “Who are these guys? Where did they come from? What is the joke they are sharing?”

Clarence Anicholas Clemons was born on Jan. 11, 1942, in Norfolk, Va. His father owned a fish market and his grandfather was a Southern Baptist preacher, and although he grew up surrounded by gospel music, the young Mr. Clemons was captivated by rock ’n’ roll. He was given an alto saxophone at age 9 as a Christmas gift; later, following the influence of King Curtis — whose many credits include the jaunty sax part on the Coasters’ 1958 hit “Yakety Yak” — he switched to the tenor.

“I grew up with a very religious background,” he once said in an interview. “I got into the soul music, but I wanted to rock. I was a rocker. I was a born rock ’n’ roll sax player.”

Mr. Clemons was also a gifted athlete, and he attended Maryland State College (now the University of Maryland Eastern Shore) on a scholarship for football and music. He tried out for the Dallas Cowboys and the Cleveland Browns, but a knee injury ended his hopes for a football career.

He was working as a youth counselor in Newark when he began to mix with the Jersey Shore music scene of the late 1960s and early ’70s. He was older than Mr. Springsteen and most of his future band mates, and he often commented on the oddity — even the liability — of being a racially integrated group in those days.

“You had your black bands and you had your white bands,” he wrote in his memoir, “and if you mixed the two you found less places to play.”

But the match was strong from the start, and his saxophone soon became a focal point of the group’s sound. In an interview with The New York Times in 2005, Jon Landau, Mr. Springsteen’s manager, said that during the recording sessions for “Born to Run,” Mr. Springsteen and Mr. Clemons spent 16 hours finessing the jazzy saxophone solo on that album’s closing song, “Jungleland.”

Mr. Clemons’s charisma and eccentricity extended offstage. Wherever the band played, he made his dressing room into a shrine he called the Temple of Soul. He claimed to have played pool with Fidel Castro and won. And by many accounts, including his own, he was a champion partier on the road. He was married five times and divorced four. His fifth wife, Victoria, survives him, as do four sons: Clarence Jr., Charles, Christopher and Jarod.

Mr. Springsteen put the E Street Band on hiatus on 1989, and apart from reuniting for a recording session in 1995, the group did not play again until 1999. But by the mid-1980s, when Mr. Springsteen reached his commercial peak, Mr. Clemons had already found fame on his own. In 1985 he had a Top 20 hit with “You’re a Friend of Mine,” on which he sang with Jackson Browne, and played saxophone on records by Aretha Franklin and Twisted Sister. Recently he was featured on Lady Gaga’s album “Born This Way.”

Mr. Clemons’s first encounter with Mr. Springsteen has become E Street Band lore. In most tellings, a lightning storm was rolling through Asbury Park one night in 1971 while Mr. Springsteen was playing a gig there. As Mr. Clemons entered the bar, the wind blew the door off its hinges, and Mr. Springsteen was startled by the towering shadow at the door. Then Mr. Clemons invited himself onstage to play along, and they clicked.

“I swear I will never forget that moment,” Mr. Clemons later recalled in an interview. “I felt like I was supposed to be there. It was a magical moment. He looked at me, and I looked at him, and we fell in love. And that’s still there.”

Books for Low-Income Families - NYTimes.com

2011-05-17T19:57:00.000-05:00

Books for Low-Income Families - NYTimes.com

A Book in Every Home, and Then Some

By DAVID BORNSTEIN

Fixes looks at solutions to social problems and why they work.

Tags:

books, children, Education, Literacy, publishing

When we imagine people without books, we think of villagers in places like Afghanistan. But many families in the United States have no children’s books at home. In some of the poorest areas of the country, it’s hard to find books for sale. A study (pdf) of low-income neighborhoods in Philadelphia, for example, found a ratio of one book for sale for every 300 children. Tens of millions of poor Americans can’t afford to buy books at all.

Tapping a vast potential market of young readers too poor to buy books.

At Fixes, we like to highlight creative ways that markets can be harnessed to extend access to vital services like electricity, credit, or water. Today, I’m focusing on a nonprofit organization called First Book, which is spearheading a new market mechanism that is delivering millions of new, high quality books to low-income children through thousands of nonprofit organizations and Title I schools.

The First Book Marketplace is trying to do for publishing what micro-finance did for banking: crack open a vast potential market that is underserved at significant social cost. The organization’s goal is to democratize book access, but along the way, it may end up reinvigorating the book business.

Some 42 percent of American children — more than 31 million — grow up in families that lack the income to cover basic needs like rent, child care, food and transportation. “These are families that are not buying books at retail,” notes Kyle Zimmer, the co-founder of First Book. “Not only are we losing 42 percent of kids whose families can’t afford books; the industry isn’t reaching 42 percent of its potential market. The system isn’t serving them.”

In bookstores, most hardcover children’s books sell for $15 to $20, with paperbacks typically running from $5 to $10. Although lower cost titles are available, the pricing of books — especially the most popular and attractive children’s books, as well as baby board books — puts regular book buying out of reach for low-income families.

This situation might be acceptable if books were luxuries, like silk scarves. But educators contend that access to books should be seen as a necessity, alongside access to food, shelter and health care. Indeed, numerous studies have shown that making books more accessible to children — through libraries, reading programs and home libraries — can produce marked improvements in their reading behavior. A meta-analysis published last August found that access to books plays a “causal role” in children’s motivation to read.

It’s often assumed that families without books lack interest in reading. But that is not necessarily the case. “When poor people, even those at low literacy levels, have a little extra money, they will buy inexpensive books,” explains Susan B. Neuman, a professor at the University of Michigan, who specializes in early literacy development and co-authored the study in Philadelphia. “But some families have so little disposable income, they can’t afford any books.” This is bad news for their kids. Around the world, one thing that has been shown to be a consistently powerful predictor of academic achievement is a home library. [1]

First BookChildren at Children’s Zone Promise Academy in Harlem reading one of their new books from a First Book distribution.

What makes the problem even worse is that 80 percent of pre-school and after school programs serving low-income children do not have any children’s books, either, largely because they lack the money to buy them. “A poor child goes from a home without books to a pre-school situation without books,” says Neuman. “That creates serious problems for literacy later on.”

There are many factors that influence children’s reading and no one is claiming that books alone will solve the problem. However, some noted educators, such as Stephen Krashen, professor emeritus at the University of Southern California, have argued that “simply providing access is the first and most important step in encouraging literacy development.”

Libraries can make a huge difference — but inequalities persist there too. A study of book access in Los Angeles, co-authored by Krashen, found that school classrooms in Beverly Hills offered children eight times as many books as classrooms in Watts and Compton. Their school libraries also carried about three times as many titles and their public libraries carried roughly twice as many. Moreover, libraries in poor communities are open fewer hours.

First Book was founded by Kyle Zimmer and two colleagues. Zimmer had previously worked as a lawyer and community organizer. She got an intimate view of poverty while working as a volunteer tutor for poor children in Washington, D.C. Zimmer became close with some families and visited their homes — where she discovered an absence of children’s books. “I think it’s a surprise to almost anybody of modest means that there are families and children in this country without books,” she said.

She saw that children’s eyes lit up when they were given a book of their own, particularly a new book with an attractive cover. Kids would say, “Can I really take this home?” Some would add: “This is my first book.” They would go home and do their best to read it — and then they would come back and ask for another one.

First Book established volunteer chapters in hundreds of communities across the country. The organization would purchase books and donate them to groups helping low-income kids to read — everything from schools to reading groups in church basements, from Head Start programs to public shelters. “There is an army of volunteers and professionals out there who are working their hearts out in the least romanticized environments — in destitute communities, in high crime areas. We’re sending them no supplies at all — and we’re surprised when they fail,” says Zimmer.

More From Fixes

Read previous contributions to this series.

In 1999, the organization piloted the first national book bank in the United States, an online system to distribute bulk book donations from publishers to thousands of reading programs. To date, First Book has distributed close to 85 million books.

In recent years, however, the limitations of the book bank have become apparent. Publishers, facing tough times, have trimmed costs and cut print runs, which means less excess inventory for donation. At the same time, recessionary pressures mean less money for schools and nonprofits from foundations and governments. But the children still need books. “We would put up 400,000 books for distribution on the book bank and 36 hours later they’d be gone and we’d be turning thousands of organizations away,” Zimmer explained.

In 2008, First Book launched its marketplace with the goal of making books systematically available at deeply reduced prices — typically 50 to 90 percent off — to any organization that was certified tax-exempt and serving children in need. First Book offered publishers an intriguing deal. Even though the profit margins would be much smaller than normal, because the organization could aggregate sales across its network, it could make bulk purchases and remove the publishers’ biggest risk: returns. All sales would be final. First Book promised to be hyper-vigilant that books sold through its marketplace would not bleed into normal retail channels.

It took a while for the idea to catch on. “A few publishers were tiptoeing when we started,” explained Zimmer. “But now they’re pretty jazzed, because we pay on time and they haven’t seen any wobble in their retail market that has to do with us.”

Most books on the marketplace sell for under $4 with the average paperback going for $2. All shipping costs are included in the prices. Currently, there are close to 2,000 titles. “Where the Wild Things Are” (retail $8.95) sells for $2.79. “Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Sleeping Dog” (retail $5.50) sells for $1.85. “To Kill a Mockingbird” (retail $7.99) goes for $3.50. First Book’s chief financial officer, Jane Robinson, recalled: “People came to us and said, ‘The children are all talking about “The Diary of a Wimpy Kid” and we don’t want our kids to be left out — but we can’t afford it.” Now it’s available for $3. A special bilingual edition of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” sells for $3.25.

For publishers, the timing is fortuitous. Long term sales projections have been flat. This year, First Book expects to sell 3.5 million titles — close to 1 percent of unit sales in the U.S. children’s book market. At present, the marketplace is still relatively unknown — only 27,000 out of an estimated 1.2 million eligible programs have signed up. First Book’s goal is to be working with 250,000 programs in three years.

Publishers have historically had difficulty serving low-income buyers. “This market is incredibly fragmented,” explains Lisa Holton, who ran Scholastic Trade and Book Fairs and Disney Global Children’s Books. “Because First Book has been completely focused on this area for so long, they really know the customers.”

Publishers are also excited by the content possibilities. Many people go into publishing because they believe in the transformative power of books. Sometimes editors want to publish books that meet real needs, but if the market is risky it’s hard to go forward. First Book is in a position to survey thousands of organizations and ask what they want to teach. If enough groups request, say, Native American stories or Mandarin-English dictionaries or Spanish translations of midlist books, First Book can present publishers with a safer market.

Chandler Arnold, the executive director of the First Book Marketplace, explains: “Publishers have historically had to fight hard for their slice of the market segment. Here we’re making the entire market bigger. What we want to do is unabashedly change the way our country educates our hardest to reach children — and do it in a way that generates revenues for the publishing industry so that they take it up.”

I asked Zimmer if she was worried that publishers would eventually start competing with First Book rather than partnering with the organization. “The goal for us is fixing the access problem not commandeering every sale,” she said. “If we can play a role in waking the industry up to the viability of this market, then we’ll call it a win. We will be toasting each other with mint juleps on a cause well done. And I’ll go out and get a real job.”

On Friday, I’ll respond to comments and highlight two organizations that bring books to children in need.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] A study of close to 3,000 children in Germany found that the number of books in the home strongly predicted reading achievement — even after controlling for the parents’ education levels and income. And a massive, longitudinal study examining the educational attainment of 70,000 students from 27 countries found, surprisingly, that having lots of books in the home was as good a predictor of children’s educational attainment as parents’ education levels. In fact, access to books was more predictive than the father’s occupation or the family’s standard of living. The greatest impact of book access was seen among the least educated and poorest families

The Monica Bird, Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her... - StumbleUpon

2011-03-28T22:33:00.000-05:00

The Monica Bird, Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her... - StumbleUpon:

"Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

The best and worst cities for unpaid internships : Bundle

2011-03-28T22:24:00.000-05:00

The best and worst cities for unpaid internships : Bundle: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

It's spring, which means college students from around the country are on the hunt for summer internships, many of which will be unpaid. Students shouldn't be putting themselves into debt to get work experience, which is why we set out to identify the best cities in the U.S. to get an unpaid internship based on low cost of living, and potential opportunities with Fortune 500 companies (rankings included).

We dove into our data and examined how much 18 to 24-year-olds earning less than $20,000 annually were spending on dining out, groceries, gas and entertainment each month in cities with internship opportunities. We also looked what students would pay in rent in those cities using data from real estate site hotpads.com. Here's what we found.

Carnival TV

2011-03-06T21:52:00.001-05:00

Carnival TV: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Finally Trinidad Carnival 2011 in spectacular HD, online and free.

Loic Le Meur Blog: How You Can Start A Business With Passion

2011-02-01T22:20:00.000-05:00

Loic Le Meur Blog: How You Can Start A Business With Passion: "Each edition of LeWeb inspires more participants to start a business and it is one of its main purposes. I am always getting many questions about how to start a business after LeWeb, years ago I had written a series of posts, 'create a company' that I should have continued, but instead of doing that I started other businesses. To help the few friends who are dying to start their businesses in 2009, here are some very quick thoughts that could help them get started. This is NOT a comprehensive post, just sharing a few top of mind ideas that I would tell you if you asked me how you should get started.

-just throw yourself in the water and swim, stop thinking. Most people I know hesitate too much to start, they think too much, just do it and learn as you go
-it is not where you start that matters, it is where you take it that matters, as Jason Calacanis says, not where you start
-stop waiting for the idea of your life, just focus on something easy to explain and that delivers a service people will like
-identify 'empty space' that is a service or product that does not exist or badly delivered by your future competitors
-remain in your area of expertise, it is generally what you have the most passion about and where you are the best
-do not spend months on the business plan, do something simple and start selling it as soon as possible, your business plan will be wrong anyway
-do not spend time on market research, it is useless. Just search the web for who is doing it or not, read blogs about it, search on twitter, etc
-got your idea? good, just start. Do not spend months writing it in details or doing the best powerpoint ever, it is pointless. Just write it in bullet point format.
-share it as much as you can to friends and other entrepreneurs, on your blog (start blogging if you don't) and get advice. They will only care about the bullet point, short executive summary.
-do not be afraid that anybody 'steals' your idea, there are hundreds of people who have the same idea right now and probably some already working on the same. If you do not do it, you will only have to complain when someone else has done it, and it will be useless as they will always say they had the idea before (and it will probably be true, maybe not, who cares).
-repeat after me 'ideas have no value, only execution matters'. When you are done repeat that again. -try to start without resources or if you can, raise some money with friends and family, do not go and spend time see VCs at start, especially in difficult times
-start building as soon as possible, don't wait. Ship anything you can, a simple website, even with bugs, call it alpha :)
-you are not a developer? go find one, you can either give him enough shares for him to be cofounder, or just go to elance find resources generally for not much. You can have an entire site done there very cheap
-once shipped, get friends and family using it and giving you feedback. Blog it, tweet it, share on Facebook, any means to get the initial community going is the best
-don't do marketing, do a better product first
-use a feedback tool such as uservoice or getsatisfaction and ask your community to give you feedback and vote on the most important features they want
-just deliver the most popular features your active users want and deliver often, don't try to make the perfect product, it will not happen.
-run as fast as you can as being transparent implies that competitors will also read your community feedback and often copy cool ideas, sometimes deliver them faster than you do
-once your product is ready enough, start selling something, find real customers. This does not mean it should become entirely paying, the community would not like that, rather ship a 'pro' more feature packed product, or start adding some non intrusive advertising but in recession times, do not count too much on advertising revenues...
-write a weekly or monthly newsletter, email marketing is far from being dead, use one of the tens of free tools around, make sure you let people unsusbcribe easily if they like, avoid spam.
-keep in touch with the community as much as you can with events (can be virtual events such as questions, challenges) every week or even every day
-keep improving the product regularly, do not let too much time in between two versions
-if you have some friends and family or better seed or VC money, 'hire slowly and fire fast' as you will read very often, it is always good advice. As tough as it can be, it is a question of survival, always make sure you 'have enough runway' ahead of you. If you don't, your team is too big.
-success takes time, give it the time it needs. LeWeb, my conference, took 5 years to gather nearly 2000 participants and establish its brand (that can even survive some logistical issues, or at least I think!) and I did not even think about it as a business when I started it
-don't think you will never be able to execute your idea with almost no means, there are solutions most of the times and great 'bootstrapped' companies are the living proof
-in the current tough market conditions when it is extremely tough to raise money with crappy valuations, the best is obviously to work on ideas that generate revenue as soon as possible.
-have passion about your business. Do not sleep much and focus only on your business. Do not do anything else, except taking some good two hours lunches from now and then.
-work like hell. Be always on. Know your space and focus focus focus.

Obvious? Yes. All the above is obvious. But you cannot imagine how many friends I know who never start because they do not follow the obvious. I forgot things? Of course, this is why there are thousands of books about entrepreneurship. I did not talk about human resource for example. I just tried to gather a few quick thoughts. I wish you all to start a business in 2009 and will be happy to help as much as I can, just keep in mind that I am very busy trying to make mine, Seesmic, a great success. Fortunately I have some runway ahead of me as the most 'new' and 'innovative' a product is, the longer it will take to find its use, but the more exciting it is! If you have any motivation issue, just watch Gary Vaynerchuk at LeWeb and you will 'just crush it'.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

2011-01-14T22:34:00.003-05:00

This article is causing a huge uproar online. I applaud her for writing about her parenting style. She sounds like a West Indian parent. No sleepovers, big deal. High expectations? More parents should set the bar that high for their kids. That's why the drop out rate is sky high. She took her kid's educatio...n into her own hands when she said she hated math. She created study sheets and drilled her till she got it. Maybe some of her methods were a little heavy handed but definitely not child abuse as some are claiming. Parents who make their kid athletes practice for hours on end at the expense of good grades are never criticized but she is vilified for expecting academic excellence from her kids, something many parents should require. She's courageous for writing about her parenting methods.

Can a regimen of no playdates, no TV, no computer games and hours of music practice create happy kids? And what happens when they fight back?

By AMY CHUA

A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I've done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

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Erin Patrice O'Brien for The Wall Street Journal

Amy Chua with her daughters, Louisa and Sophia, at their home in New Haven, Conn.

• attend a sleepover

• have a playdate

• be in a school play

• complain about not being in a school play

• watch TV or play computer games

• choose their own extracurricular activities

• get any grade less than an A

• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama

• play any instrument other than the piano or violin

• not play the piano or violin.

I'm using the term "Chinese mother" loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise. I'm also using the term "Western parents" loosely. Western parents come in all varieties.

Ideas Market

The Tiger Mother Responds to Readers

Ms. Chua answers questions from Journal readers who wrote in to the Ideas Market blog.

All the same, even when Western parents think they're being strict, they usually don't come close to being Chinese mothers. For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It's hours two and three that get tough.

When it comes to parenting, the Chinese seem to produce children who display academic excellence, musical mastery and professional success - or so the stereotype goes. WSJ's Christina Tsuei speaks to two moms raised by Chinese immigrants who share what it was like growing up and how they hope to raise their children.

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What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up. But if done properly, the Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America. Once a child starts to excel at something—whether it's math, piano, pitching or ballet—he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction. This builds confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun. This in turn makes it easier for the parent to get the child to work even more.

Chinese parents can get away with things that Western parents can't. Once when I was young—maybe more than once—when I was extremely disrespectful to my mother, my father angrily called me "garbage" in our native Hokkien dialect. It worked really well. I felt terrible and deeply ashamed of what I had done. But it didn't damage my self-esteem or anything like that. I knew exactly how highly he thought of me. I didn't actually think I was worthless or feel like a piece of garbage.

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Chua family

From Ms. Chua's album: 'Mean me with Lulu in hotel room... with score taped to TV!'

As an adult, I once did the same thing to Sophia, calling her garbage in English when she acted extremely disrespectfully toward me. When I mentioned that I had done this at a dinner party, I was immediately ostracized. One guest named Marcy got so upset she broke down in tears and had to leave early. My friend Susan, the host, tried to rehabilitate me with the remaining guests.

The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable—even legally actionable—to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, "Hey fatty—lose some weight." By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of "health" and never ever mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self-image. (I also once heard a Western father toast his adult daughter by calling her "beautiful and incredibly competent." She later told me that made her feel like garbage.)

Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best. Chinese parents can say, "You're lazy. All your classmates are getting ahead of you." By contrast, Western parents have to struggle with their own conflicted feelings about achievement, and try to persuade themselves that they're not disappointed about how their kids turned out.

I've thought long and hard about how Chinese parents can get away with what they do. I think there are three big differences between the Chinese and Western parental mind-sets.

Chua family

Newborn Amy Chua in her mother's arms, a year after her parents arrived in the U.S.

First, I've noticed that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem. They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.

For example, if a child comes home with an A-minus on a test, a Western parent will most likely praise the child. The Chinese mother will gasp in horror and ask what went wrong. If the child comes home with a B on the test, some Western parents will still praise the child. Other Western parents will sit their child down and express disapproval, but they will be careful not to make their child feel inadequate or insecure, and they will not call their child "stupid," "worthless" or "a disgrace." Privately, the Western parents may worry that their child does not test well or have aptitude in the subject or that there is something wrong with the curriculum and possibly the whole school. If the child's grades do not improve, they may eventually schedule a meeting with the school principal to challenge the way the subject is being taught or to call into question the teacher's credentials.

If a Chinese child gets a B—which would never happen—there would first be a screaming, hair-tearing explosion. The devastated Chinese mother would then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up to an A.

Chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe that their child can get them. If their child doesn't get them, the Chinese parent assumes it's because the child didn't work hard enough. That's why the solution to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish and shame the child. The Chinese parent believes that their child will be strong enough to take the shaming and to improve from it. (And when Chinese kids do excel, there is plenty of ego-inflating parental praise lavished in the privacy of the home.)

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Chua family

Sophia playing at Carnegie Hall in 2007.

Second, Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything. The reason for this is a little unclear, but it's probably a combination of Confucian filial piety and the fact that the parents have sacrificed and done so much for their children. (And it's true that Chinese mothers get in the trenches, putting in long grueling hours personally tutoring, training, interrogating and spying on their kids.) Anyway, the understanding is that Chinese children must spend their lives repaying their parents by obeying them and making them proud.

By contrast, I don't think most Westerners have the same view of children being permanently indebted to their parents. My husband, Jed, actually has the opposite view. "Children don't choose their parents," he once said to me. "They don't even choose to be born. It's parents who foist life on their kids, so it's the parents' responsibility to provide for them. Kids don't owe their parents anything. Their duty will be to their own kids." This strikes me as a terrible deal for the Western parent.

Third, Chinese parents believe that they know what is best for their children and therefore override all of their children's own desires and preferences. That's why Chinese daughters can't have boyfriends in high school and why Chinese kids can't go to sleepaway camp. It's also why no Chinese kid would ever dare say to their mother, "I got a part in the school play! I'm Villager Number Six. I'll have to stay after school for rehearsal every day from 3:00 to 7:00, and I'll also need a ride on weekends." God help any Chinese kid who tried that one.

Don't get me wrong: It's not that Chinese parents don't care about their children. Just the opposite. They would give up anything for their children. It's just an entirely different parenting model.

Here's a story in favor of coercion, Chinese-style. Lulu was about 7, still playing two instruments, and working on a piano piece called "The Little White Donkey" by the French composer Jacques Ibert. The piece is really cute—you can just imagine a little donkey ambling along a country road with its master—but it's also incredibly difficult for young players because the two hands have to keep schizophrenically different rhythms.

Lulu couldn't do it. We worked on it nonstop for a week, drilling each of her hands separately, over and over. But whenever we tried putting the hands together, one always morphed into the other, and everything fell apart. Finally, the day before her lesson, Lulu announced in exasperation that she was giving up and stomped off.

"Get back to the piano now," I ordered.

"You can't make me."

"Oh yes, I can."

Back at the piano, Lulu made me pay. She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score and tore it to shreds. I taped the score back together and encased it in a plastic shield so that it could never be destroyed again. Then I hauled Lulu's dollhouse to the car and told her I'd donate it to the Salvation Army piece by piece if she didn't have "The Little White Donkey" perfect by the next day. When Lulu said, "I thought you were going to the Salvation Army, why are you still here?" I threatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn't do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.

Jed took me aside. He told me to stop insulting Lulu—which I wasn't even doing, I was just motivating her—and that he didn't think threatening Lulu was helpful. Also, he said, maybe Lulu really just couldn't do the technique—perhaps she didn't have the coordination yet—had I considered that possibility?

"You just don't believe in her," I accused.

"That's ridiculous," Jed said scornfully. "Of course I do."

"Sophia could play the piece when she was this age."

"But Lulu and Sophia are different people," Jed pointed out.

"Oh no, not this," I said, rolling my eyes. "Everyone is special in their special own way," I mimicked sarcastically. "Even losers are special in their own special way. Well don't worry, you don't have to lift a finger. I'm willing to put in as long as it takes, and I'm happy to be the one hated. And you can be the one they adore because you make them pancakes and take them to Yankees games."

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A Prison for Parents?
Those Tough Chinese Moms

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I rolled up my sleeves and went back to Lulu. I used every weapon and tactic I could think of. We worked right through dinner into the night, and I wouldn't let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to go to the bathroom. The house became a war zone, and I lost my voice yelling, but still there seemed to be only negative progress, and even I began to have doubts.

Then, out of the blue, Lulu did it. Her hands suddenly came together—her right and left hands each doing their own imperturbable thing—just like that.

Lulu realized it the same time I did. I held my breath. She tried it tentatively again. Then she played it more confidently and faster, and still the rhythm held. A moment later, she was beaming.

"Mommy, look—it's easy!" After that, she wanted to play the piece over and over and wouldn't leave the piano. That night, she came to sleep in my bed, and we snuggled and hugged, cracking each other up. When she performed "The Little White Donkey" at a recital a few weeks later, parents came up to me and said, "What a perfect piece for Lulu—it's so spunky and so her."

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discuss

“ I am in disbelief after reading this article. ”

—James Post

Even Jed gave me credit for that one. Western parents worry a lot about their children's self-esteem. But as a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child's self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there's nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn't.

There are all these new books out there portraying Asian mothers as scheming, callous, overdriven people indifferent to their kids' true interests. For their part, many Chinese secretly believe that they care more about their children and are willing to sacrifice much more for them than Westerners, who seem perfectly content to let their children turn out badly. I think it's a misunderstanding on both sides. All decent parents want to do what's best for their children. The Chinese just have a totally different idea of how to do that.

Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they're capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.

—Amy Chua is a professor at Yale Law School and author of "Day of Empire" and "World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability." This essay is excerpted from "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" by Amy Chua, to be published Tuesday by the Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright © 2011 by Amy Chua.

New Zodiac sign dates: Don't switch your horoscope yet

2011-01-13T20:01:00.003-05:00

I am a Scorpio, always have been, always will be!!

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/blog-post/2011/01/new_zodiac_sign_dates_dont_swi.html

By Melissa Bell

So, you've spent your whole life happily smug in your star sign. You're a fish! Swimming in two directions! You're intuitive, imaginative, unworldly! And then today's Web is aflame with the news: You are not a Pisces. You are an Aquarius. Your star sign has been wrong your whole life. All along, you've been a freaking water carrier. This is not cool.

According to Parke Kunkle, a board member of the Minnesota Planetarium Society, cool or not, it's written in the stars. Star signs were created by ancient Babylonians some 2,000 years ago by tracking where the sun was in the sky each month. However, the moon's gravitational pull has slowly moved the Earth in its axis, creating about a one-month bump in the stars' alignment, reports the Minnesota Star Tribune. Now, during what we think as the month of Pisces, the sun is actually in the sign of Aries.

The new dates would therefore be:

Capricorn: Jan. 20-Feb. 16
Aquarius: Feb. 16-March 11
Pisces: March 11-April 18
Aries: April 18-May 13
Taurus: May 13-June 21
Gemini: June 21-July 20
Cancer: July 20-Aug. 10
Leo: Aug. 10-Sept. 16
Virgo: Sept. 16-Oct. 30
Libra: Oct. 30-Nov. 23
Scorpio: Nov. 23-Dec. 17
Sagittarius: Dec. 17-Jan. 20

Is this the dawning of a new age of Aquarius? Well, Kunkle is an astronomer who is not too keen on the practice of astrology. When asked by telephone if the new star locations now require us all to switch our loyalty to a new sign, he demurred. "I can tell you what the science is, but I'm not going to tell you what your personality is based on the location of things."

Commentators have also responded to the initial article, saying the new location of the earth does not matter. One wrote, "Oh for heaven's sake (oops), how can people with Ph.D.s be so ignorant? Of course astrologers know about precession -- they've known since about 200 BC. Horoscopes always take it into account... Sheesh."

The commentator is correct that this is not new information. Live Science reported on the role of "precession" on astrology in 2007. Precession is the phenomenon of the moon causing the earth to "wobble" on its axis.

Other astrologists say the ancient system was merely a practice used as a helpful hint for diviners. Blogger Jamie on Darkstar Astrology writes, "It is the planets moving across the backdrop of the stars which influence our lives, not the planets moving through imagined 30 degree divisions on a piece of paper."

So all those hapless men and women who rushed out in college to get a scorpion tattooed on their back don't need to now rush to sign up for laser remover. If you're going to believe that all the people born on your birthday are imbued with certain traits similar to your own in some mystical, ancient manner, you might as well believe it does not matter where the stars are in the sky to begin with. On the flip side, if you've never liked your sign, here's your chance to switch.

Update: Well, strike that, you don't get to switch your sign. At least reader StarJack says so: "The stars are markers that drift, but our main points of reference are not directly the stars. They are the equinoxes (both spring and vernal) and the solstices which altogether make the four cardinal points of the zodiac which in turn determine the signs. The stars help us locate those points which define the SIGNS of the Zodiac which remain constant in relation to the equinox point. The CONSTELLATIONS do move about and we take that into consideration when locating planets."

Updated at 4:46 p.m.

By Melissa Bell | January 13, 2011; 12:15 PM ET

Barnes & Noble enters textbook rental business: Should you use it?

2011-01-12T21:47:00.001-05:00

No doubt inspired by the success of sites like Chegg.com and BookRenter.com, Barnes & Noble has entered the textbook rental fray.

In a press release, the company announced that "Barnes & Noble College has made the program easy for students, enabling them to rent their textbooks from the comfort of their dorm or home simply by logging into their campus bookstore's e-commerce site. They can also rent from their campus Barnes & Noble bookstore. This innovative rental program gives students the added flexibility of paying for their rentals using any form of tender, including campus debit cards and student financial aid."

Renting textbooks can be a good way for financially strapped students to manage cash flow: even when buying the book and then selling it at the end of the semester will result in a lower net cost than renting, renting requires less up-front cash.

Renting may be a smart option for brand new titles that are not yet available second-hand. Still, here are a couple alternatives to renting that will likely yield better results for students:

* Before you buy anything, email the professor and ask if it's OK to use an old edition of the textbook. For many classes, this will work just fine. . . and can save you literally 90% or more off of retail. For the fall semester of 2008, I bought an old edition of a legal studies textbook on Amazon.com for 1 cent -- saving 99.9759268%! For that class, the old book was every bit as useful as the new edition, but no one else in my class had thought to ask the professor whether it would work.
* Buy your books used on Half.com or Amazon, but never trade them back to the bookstore at the end of the semester. Sell them on Half.com yourself, cut out the middleman, and keep as much of the money for yourself as you can.

Zac Bissonnette's book College on a Dime will be published by Portfolio in the fall.

Top 10 Black Friday tech deals | Fully Equipped - CNET Reviews

2010-11-25T10:08:00.001-05:00

Top 10 Black Friday tech deals | Fully Equipped - CNET Reviews:

Here are the deals for the rest of us.

Commencement Challenge

2010-04-29T22:40:00.001-05:00

Maritime & Science Technology Senior High School – MAST Academy
Miami, FL

MAST's 100% graduation rate is only one measure of student success. Our school's strong core curriculum, which includes a variety of Advanced Placement and dual enrollment courses, complements the unique electives that truly set MAST apart. In Solar Energy class, we learn about kilowatt-hours, then construct solar ovens and spread environmental awareness by monitoring school energy usage. Cadets in the nation's only Coast Guard JROTC program earn boating licenses on the surface, while underwater, engineering students test their remotely operated vehicles. Culinary classes prepare feasts using produce from our "edible garden," while woodshop students construct everything from dining tables to CO2-powered cars. We express creativity through steel drum band or ceramics class, while required internships provide hands-on experience in fields ranging from marine biology to architecture. As a testament to the dedication that MAST instills, the majority of our diverse student body stays beyond the bell to participate in activities like water polo, ocean conservation, multicultural dance and independent research in our greenhouse and artificial reefs.

MAST's 100% college acceptance rate proves the effectiveness of well-rounded, interactive learning. Here, students, teachers and parents take initiative to build a culture of success that propels us into college and beyond.

VOTE MAST ACADEMY--Bring Obama to 2010 graduation

2010-04-26T02:10:00.002-05:00

MAST Academy recently became a finalist in the Race to the Top Commencement Challenge, one of six schools in the running to have President Obama speak at their 2010 graduation. And now we need your help to get the vote out. Please vote for Mast Academy at www.whitehouse.gov/commencement beginning on Monday, April 26, 2010 at 8:00 am. The voting period will end at 11:59 pm EST on Thursday, April 29, 2010. The public can view a video profile for each school on the site. The three schools with the most votes will be presented to the President and he will select the winner. The result will be announced on Tuesday, May 4, 2010, and MAST hopes to be in the Final Three.

Mast has a diverse student body that includes many students of Caribbean descent (several appear in the official video on www.whitehouse.gov/commencement ) and has a 100% graduation rate with over 90% of our graduates attending 4 year universities. We have a full steel band open to all students which is also featured in the video profile.

WSVN-TV - MAST Academy needs votes to host President Obama

2010-04-14T23:56:00.000-05:00

WSVN-TV - MAST Academy needs votes to host President Obama
MIAMI (WSVN) -- A South Florida magnet school is one of a select few nationwide that could be welcoming the president on the United States on campus.

Maritime and Science Technology High School, also known as MAST Academy, was picked as a finalist to host President Obama as a graduation speaker, but students need your help to get him there.

The excitement could be felt at MAST Academy, after the school received the word from White House staffers that they are finalists in the national Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge. The prize: a graduation speech by President Obama.

"The White House is calling. Oh, my goodness. You get on the phone, it's almost too much to wrap your mind around. You're like, oh, my goodness," MAST Academy Principal Thomas Fisher said.

MAST students wrote and produced a video, which they submitted in February, and three senior girls pulled a few all-nighters to get the essay portion of the competition ready. "We started literally jumping up and down and screaming because it was really nice to know that all the hard work paid off," said Tosca Lichtenheld.

To be in line for the presidential seal of approval is a thrill for them all. MAST Academy teacher Lynn Paisley said, "Can you imagine what kind of a story to tell your grandchildren or your children, that you put together this application to have the President of the United States to come speak at your graduation."

Videos of all the finalists will soon go up on the White House's website, where the American people will vote for the top three. President Obama will choose the winner.

"If the president wants to come to see the best school in the United States, he'll be here to see us," Fisher said.

(Copyright 2010 by Sunbeam Television Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

MAST Students Behind Effort to Have President Obama as Graduation Speaker - Key Biscayne - MiamiHerald.com

2010-04-14T23:35:00.001-05:00

MAST Students Behind Effort to Have President Obama as Graduation Speaker - Key Biscayne - MiamiHerald.com

By H. Groschel
Key Biscayne Times

Everyone affiliated with MAST Academy on Virginia Key is still abuzz: How did they do it? How did MAST become one of six finalists nationwide in the Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge, where President Obama will speak at the winning school's commencement ceremony?

The answer is easy: Because of five seniors who worked day and night to answer the call. Entrants had to submit four essays describing how their school is helping prepare students to meet the President’s 2020 goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. MAST also sent in optional materials: a 2-minute video about their public magnet school and supplemental academic and demographic data. Tosca Lichtenheld, Margaux Herrera and Chelsea Westra wrote the four mandatory essays at home and at MAST before classes, during their jam-packed days and after school. Tali Burger shot the video footage with a video camera checked out from MAST’s Media Center. Michael Ronzetti edited the video footage.

When the Final Six were officially announced on Friday, April 9, 2010, three of the five students were out of town on senior-year college visits and other travel. However, everybody heard the news in a flash because of old and new communications methods: school PA announcements, phone calls, texting and Facebook. This reporter interviewed Tosca Lichtenheld via phone while she was at an airport to return home to Key Biscayne from a college visit.

Tosca, who recruited her classmates to work on the application package, recalled, “Ms. [Jennifer] Fernandez, the MAST Activities Director, found out about the competition after the White House announced it in early March. The senior class officers were asked if they wanted to participate.” Tosca, Senior Class Vice-President, took charge of the effort after several days went by without action, and asked people she knew could do the job to participate. The next step was to get information about the Challenge from Principal Fisher and Lead Teacher Dr. Haun.

The essays were essential. “Margaux and Chelsea are excellent writers, and they have immersed themselves in the MAST experience”, Tosca recalled. Margaux is the Chief Editor of Mako Fuka, the MAST yearbook. Chelsea is Editor-in-Chief of The Beacon, the MAST newspaper. “We did [the essays] in about a week, and pulled all-nighters to finish the application. We reread the essays dozens of times” and were supported by teachers who also reviewed the essays: Ms. Paisley (Yearbook and Spanish), Ms. Sutton (Newspaper and English) and Dr. Scanlon (English).

The three young women did much of the work at home but Tosca recalls that they wrote and edited during “any free school time we could get – if we finished a test early we would meet. I missed many lunch periods. We put the essays online in a Google Document so that multiple people could edit them simultaneously. We highlighted items with a color-coded system to identify what to cut or change. At the same time we sent Instant Messages to each other” within the Google software. In this way they communicated on weekends and after school even though everyone lives in various part of Miami-Dade County.

Tosca’s friend Tali captured the footage for the optional video. The team had 2 minutes to tell the story of their school and its people and to sell it to the application reviewers. “A Day in the Life at MAST” came in at 1:55 minutes after Mike spliced and edited the footage. “Mike is very good with computers and videography and has experience with editing software Final Cut Pro”, Tosca added. Other students played key roles in the movie. Andrew Mead(e), a senior who plays in the unique steel drum school band, performed pieces that were recorded as background music. The video began with a voice over: “Welcome to MAST Academy – Here is a look at a typical day at a non-typical High School”. Student classroom work and activities were featured, followed by participant commentary. Tosca gave examples: “Andrew Wach was building a CO2 powered car in Wood Shop. Another segment showed sophomore girls in Chemistry Lab, and another featured two student government representatives.”

Three data supplements were included in the package. Tosca explained that President Obama said this “was optional, but we thought we could strengthen our application by showing that MAST’s diverse student body is united in academic excellence.” Dr. Haun and Principal Fisher provided the information in areas such as graduation rate, test scores and Advanced Placement test pass rates.

The Commencement Challenge application had to be submitted online by 11:59 p.m. on March 15. The team took a jump drive with all the information to Principal Fisher’s office to submit MAST’s entry only to be denied. The school’s Internet security firewall prevented a direct upload of the video to YouTube. Ms. [Melissa] Fernandez, the school’s IT specialist/English teacher, was able to put the video on the school server and the upload was completed.

What happens next for MAST Academy and the other five finalists? A professional production company will come to each school and, with student input, film a showcase video. When this will happen is unclear. The six videos will be placed on the White House website (www.whitehouse.gov/commencement), and the public will vote to select the top three schools. President Obama will pick the winner.

Students, faculty, alumni, parents and other school supporters will be pulling out all the stops to get votes for MAST via social media and person-to-person appeals. Having the President speak at the June 7 Class of 2010 graduation is an incredible prospect for this high school in the nation’s 5th largest school district. For Tosca, the journey to the Commencement Challenge Final Six was important as well. “Hard work and teamwork pay off. I believe this is what President Obama would want us to show other students.”

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/12/1575436/mast-students-behind-effort-to.html#ixzz0l8ki8jJF

Wayman Tisdale "Way Up" EPK

2009-05-17T13:34:00.001-05:00

Wayman Tisdale "Way Up" EPK

RIP Wayman Tisdale. He was a giant in jazz in many ways. He stood 6'9" which made him stand out but his warm smile and his bass playing just floored you. I'm glad we drove to Tampa to see him perform. We've lost a truly gifted musician.

It's That Time Of Year AGAIN … The Latest GHETTO PROM PICS Just Came Out!!!! - MediaTakeOut.com™ 2009

2009-05-14T20:52:00.000-05:00

It's That Time Of Year AGAIN … The Latest GHETTO PROM PICS Just Came Out!!!! - MediaTakeOut.com™ 2009

Ghetto prom pics!!!

Steelpan Music 24-7 Without Compromise - News, History, Business and Entertainment - When Steel Talks - Panonthenet Radio

2009-05-14T20:36:00.000-05:00

Steelpan Music 24-7 Without Compromise - News, History, Business and Entertainment - When Steel Talks - Panonthenet Radio

Pan for you 24/7

YouTube - HOT HOT HOT Birmingham School of Pan

2009-05-14T20:29:00.001-05:00

YouTube - HOT HOT HOT Birmingham School of Pan

Is this in Birmingham UK?

YouTube - Drinks Reach (Problem Child & Skinny Fabulous - Vincy Soca 2009)

2009-05-14T20:12:00.000-05:00

YouTube - Drinks Reach (Problem Child & Skinny Fabulous - Vincy Soca 2009)

Bacchanal by Destra Garcia - blip.tv - Truveo Video Search

2009-05-14T19:28:00.003-05:00

Bacchanal by Destra Garcia - blip.tv - Truveo Video Search

Obamas Host Speakers, Musicians for White House Poetry Jam - washingtonpost.com

2009-05-13T21:03:00.001-05:00

Obamas Host Speakers, Musicians for White House Poetry Jam - washingtonpost.com

By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Perhaps for the first time ever, the White House jammed and slammed last night.

Poets and playwrights, actors and musicians packed the ornate East Room, delivering cool jazz and glorious spoken-word poetry, sprinkling a bit of hip-hop and a bit of the heroic couplet. And through it all, the president and the first lady watched -- and applauded.

"We're here to celebrate the power of words," President Obama said. Words "help us appreciate beauty and also understand pain. They inspire us to action." He introduced the first lady as his poet.

Michelle Obama told the gathering that the event was a way to open up the White House and invite in diverse voices. "I have wanted to do this from day one," Mrs. Obama said. "The notion of standing in this room and hearing some poetry."

Some called the event the first White House poetry jam in history. Technically, it was not a "poetry slam," which is a competition among poets -- a form of contest that began in the 1980s in Obama's home town of Chicago. A slam pits poet against poet as they stand before a crowd that provides instant, not-always-supportive judgment. That, of course, would not befit proper White House decorum.

The spoken-word evening, however, did showcase precisely what the best poetry slammers do: Bring their verse to life so that the poem becomes a performance, recited in a rhythm that is almost sung, allowing the speaker to ride words to the deepest valleys of emotion and then scale verbal heights.

James Earl Jones, in that voice that could make a phone-book reading sound like Shakespeare, performed from the tragedy "Othello," towering over the lectern, raising his arms, casting his eyes on the audience as he evoked Othello the Moor of Venice and his torment. Obama sat at a center table next to his mother-in-law, Marian Robinson. Director Spike Lee watched from a table up front. The room was still.
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Two jazz musicians, acoustic bassist Esperanza Spalding and pianist Eric Lewis (a.k.a. ELEW), opened the show with a funky arrangement by Lewis titled "Love Letters." Filling the room with a lovely melody, they played as if the White House were a blues joint. Later, Spalding performed "Tell Him," delivering lush vocals as she plucked her bass.

The jam featured young, rising stars in theater, jazz and spoken-word poetry in addition to established actors and writers. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon stood onstage with his wife, "Bad Mother" essayist Ayelet Waldman. They talked about the power of words.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Tony-winning creator of the salsa/hip-hop-inspired musical "In the Heights," performed. Poetry slam champion Mayda del Valle, a native of Chicago's South Side, delivered a personal narrative to the cadence of a hip-hop beat.

Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, a young spoken-word poet from Hawaii, asked in an emotional poem: "What happens to the ones forgotten?" Next up was Joshua Brandon Bennett, who -- like Osorio -- has appeared on the HBO series "Brave New Voices." Bennett performed an ode to his elder sister, who is deaf. "Tamara has never listened to hip-hop/never danced to the rhythm of raindrops," Bennett recited.

Spalding and Lewis provided what they called the musical transitions between the spoken-word performances.

Spalding was first invited to the White House in February by Stevie Wonder, when he received the Gershwin Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Library of Congress. "As they were making the lineup for this poetry event, they realized they wanted some people to represent the music," Spalding said in an interview prior to the event. "They called and said, 'Can you come?' I said: 'Don't finish talking. The answer is yes!' "

Desirée Rogers, the White House social secretary, is a huge fan of Lewis, a music industry source said. Rogers saw Lewis perform at HR-57 jazz/blues club on 14th Street NW (the club's name comes from a congressional resolution that designates jazz a "rare and valuable national American treasure"). Rogers saw Lewis again in New York in February at a Donna Karan fashion show, where Lewis played live on the runway. (Lewis can also count Oprah Winfrey among his fans.)

Lewis has received critical praise for his improvisation of jazz, which he calls "rock jazz." But he has also received heated criticism from some camps. He said an invitation to perform at the White House was like a validation for his music.

"I just met the first lady and I gave her a purse, a red clutch," Lewis said in an interview prior to the performance. "She loved it. She said she saw some videos of me where I reached inside the piano and played the strings. She wanted to make sure I do that on [this] performance. It was nice to receive her okay. She told me to rock the house and do my thing on the piano.

"I can't tell you how special it is that Michelle Obama asked me to go inside the piano," said Lewis, who performed "Mr. Brightside." "For her to be that cool and open-minded to request it shows me some people get it, and some people don't.

"The one that got it happens to be the first lady."

YouTube - Pepsi Max - Interview

2009-05-07T21:26:00.000-05:00

YouTube - Pepsi Max - Interview

Cool Pepsi Max ad.

YouTube - Out of business

2009-05-07T20:51:00.000-05:00

YouTube - Out of business

New MoveOn.org ad

The Story from American Public Media

2009-05-07T07:18:00.003-05:00

The Story from American Public Media:
the_story_768_Turning_It_Around.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)

President Obama recently outlined the administration's accomplishments during his first 100 days in office. Today we talk with another man who has taken the reins of a troubled institution during unprecedented times.

In December, Doug Rodriguez was asked by his superintendent to take over a school that received five failing marks in five years- Miami Central Senior High If the school failed again, it would be taken over or shut down. Doug has been charged with turning things around in a matter of weeks. The test scores came back last week and to his great pleasure, Doug says the data shows tremendous improvement already.

The Island Where People Live Longer : NPR

2009-05-02T20:22:00.002-05:00

The Island Where People Live Longer : NPR

Weekend Edition Saturday, May 2, 2009 · Making it to 90 years old is awe-inspiring in much of the world. But on a tiny Greek island in the North Aegean Sea, nonagenarians barely merit a second glance.

The island of Icaria could be the newest of the world's so-called blue zones — places where residents have unusually long life spans.

Dan Buettner has crossed the globe many times over the years in search of blue zones, and he recently teamed up with AARP and National Geographic to study Icaria.

Buettner and a team of demographers work with census data to identify blue zones around the world. They found Icaria had the highest percentage of 90-year-olds anywhere on the planet — nearly 1 out of 3 people make it to their 90s.

Plus, Buettner says, "they have about 20 percent lower rates of cancer, 50 percent lower rates of heart disease and almost no dementia."

Our life spans are about 20 percent dictated by our genes, Buettner says. The rest is lifestyle. People in Icaria live in mountain villages that necessitate activity every day. "They have gardens," he says, for example. "If they go to church, if they go to their friends' house — it always occasions a small walk. But that ends up burning much more calories than going to a gym for 20 minutes a day."

"They also have a diet that's very interesting," Buettner continues. "It's very high in olive oil; it's very high in fruits and vegetables." It's also very high in greens; about 150 kinds of veggies grow wild on the island. "These greens have somewhere around 10 times the level of antioxidants in red wine."

And though they live on an island, Icarians don't eat much fish. Buettner says pirates pushed the culture up in the highlands and villagers couldn't depend on the sea as much as might be expected.

Particularly unusual to this new blue zone are the villagers' drinking habits. Tea drinking, that is. Icarians drink herbal teas every day, morning and night, Buettner says. This seems to be one of their secrets to longer living.

"We had five of these herbal teas sent to Athens and analyzed for their chemical composition," Buettner reports. "We found out that most of them were diuretics."

"It turns out that diuretics actually lower blood pressure," he says, "so when you're chronically lowering blood pressure every day with these herbal teas, that does help explain why there's lower rates of heart disease."

"That's something we haven't seen in Okinawa or Costa Rica or Sardinia or any of the other blue zones," Buettner says.

Pres. Obama's Shoot Around with the Lady Huskies

2009-05-02T02:32:00.004-05:00

Priceless!

Machel, Rudder and Despers for Obama in Trinidad :: ttgapers.com

2009-04-14T21:53:00.001-05:00

Machel, Rudder and Despers for Obama in Trinidad :: ttgapers.com

Machel Montano, Ella Andell, Arrow, David Rudder and even Stephen Marley are a few of the big name acts who will be performing during the official opening of the Fifth Summit of the Americas which will take place from April 17-19 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Port of Spain.

Spending It - Loans in the Time of Facebook - NYTimes.com

2008-12-05T21:34:00.001-05:00

Spending It - Loans in the Time of Facebook - NYTimes.com

Spending It
Loans in the Time of Facebook

By LAURA PAPPANO
Published: October 30, 2008

If ever there was a time to ask friends and family — and strangers — for a college loan, this is it. You don’t have to be an economics major to see that turmoil in the financial markets has made loan money scarce and expensive.
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My Rich Uncle, Campus Door (owned by Lehman Brothers), the College Loan Corporation and Education Finance Partners have eliminated or cut back on private loans. Tim Ranzetta, founder of Student Lending Analytics, which evaluates student loans for financial aid offices, estimates that lending capacity for private student loans has shrunk 20 to 27 percent since last year. That means up to $5 billion that students could borrow in 2007 is no longer available.

With this bleak backdrop, “social lending” or “peer-to-peer lending” (P2P if you’re hip) might be the Facebook generation’s answer to the crisis. Peer-to-peer lending has been around for several years for buying cars and starting businesses. In recent months, a half-dozen companies have applied the approach to student loans, aiming to help fill the gap between government financial aid and the cost of college.

The idea is to connect students who need cash with people who will lend it to them. The sites deal with the paperwork and servicing (no confusion about when that payment is really due). And a student might be able to get a lower interest rate than those available through traditional loans, because lenders are willing to look beyond conventional criteria for a chance to earn better returns on their money. The lender may also be swayed by a connection with the student. Think alumni, fellow bass guitar enthusiasts or computer science majors.

Because peer-to-peer student lending is so new and so little data is available, it’s impossible to know how many students are getting loans or to predict whether this option will ever be a major source of money for college. That’s certainly not likely for many years, says Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org.

The companies take different approaches. Virgin Money (virginmoneyus.com), Richard Branson’s foray into lending, focuses on formalizing and servicing loans among friends and family members. On Fynanz.com, strangers are the target lenders, and student profiles — brief and jazzy personal statements and photos — the lure. (Tip from the C.E.O.’s: sob stories don’t work.)

Lenders can spread their money around, offering as little as $50. Click around and weigh the merits of lending to Keith, the Occidental College student seeking $17,000 for a semester in Chile; or the 42-year-old single mother who needs $7,000 to go back to college to become a nurse; or the Columbia freshman Dominique, who has plans for medical school but right now needs $5,500 for books and expenses.

Of course, the loans are unsecured and few students have credit track records, so lenders must judge the likelihood of a default. GreenNote.com, whose interest rate is fixed at 6.8 percent, does not do credit checks but disburses money only to the college.

As does Fynanz. But Fynanz has developed its own rating system for borrowers: students must have a credit score of 640, and are graded — and their interest rates set by a calculation that includes year in college (the closer to finishing, the better), G.P.A. and college attended. Fynanz guarantees 50 to 100 percent of the loan depending on a student’s grades. (Less risky students give investors more peace of mind but lower returns.) The average interest rate, says Chirag Chaman, who runs Fynanz, is 8 to 9 percent.

Prosper.com, the nation’s largest peer-to-peer site, is currently tweaking its model. Because peer-to-peer sites will undoubtedly attract more would-be borrowers than lenders, Prosper is hoping to grow by creating a market in which lenders can sell the loans they make rather than having to hold them to maturity, following the lead of a rival, the Lending Club. Until Prosper receives regulatory approval, it announced last month, it is not processing any new loans.

Most companies won’t disclose the dollar amounts committed; the exception, Virgin Money, reports assisting with $12 million in student loans since June, when it began offering them.

Robert Shireman, president of the Institute for College Access and Success, calls the whole idea “potentially interesting” but says that because of the high risk of lending to a student, “the peer-to-peer approach only really works if there is some level of charity.” As for borrowers, he urges students to look carefully at fees. There’s generally no listing charge, but often a flat fee, or a fee based on a percentage of the loan, or a transaction fee with each payment.

Perusing the lending sites also makes clear how many students needing support are not finding it. At GreenNote, for example, page after page shows students with zero progress — in early fall, the tail end of the loan season, the sites featured as many as 1,000 profiles.

The ability to find a lender may also reflect a student’s connections. Akash Agarwal, GreenNote’s founder, says on his site, “A lot depends on the person’s social network.”

For some that’s a problem. Bakari Pace, a sophomore at Morehouse College who plans to go to law school, would seem a good bet for success. He gets federal and institutional aid and worked last summer at both a law firm and at a Costco, where he gave out samples of a new energy drink. One of five children in a family that survives on donated food, Mr. Pace was short of money. In August, he put his profile on GreenNote, seeking a $10,000 loan, but received no offers: none of his contacts have any money, either.

Mr. Pace went to school this fall with $4,000 on his bill and no money for books or a meal plan. Financial aid officers eventually found scholarships to cover his costs — for this semester.

For students like Mr. Pace, peer-to-peer lending may not be the best answer.

“I hope this takes off and works well,” says Richard Toomey, head of financial aid at Santa Clara University in California. With some students paying 10 to 20 percent interest for private loans, he sees GreenNote as a cheaper option; its rate is the same as a federal Stafford loan. Mr. Toomey says 26 Santa Clara students have profiles on GreenNote, and four have received loans. He personally “invested” $100 in a student whose story he found compelling.

The peer-to-peer C.E.O.’s say students are more likely to get money if they ask for less. “If you write that I am only looking for $4,000 to pay for X, Y and Z, it sits a lot better than if you try to get $15,000,” Mr. Chaman says. Three New York University alumni, he says, have committed to making $500,000 in loans to N.Y.U. students through Fynanz, which started up in June.

Crystal Gnemi, a University of Kansas senior majoring in arts and architecture, credits her snappy profile for helping her get a $7,000 loan in 48 hours on Prosper, which uses an eBay-like bidding system for interest rates.

Lenders offer amounts at particular interest rates; those with the lowest rates get in on the deal. Ms. Gnemi wrote that she planned to get a master’s in architectural engineering and that she had a 3.6 G.P.A. “while working 30-hour work weeks while taking 18 credit-hour semesters.”

Ms. Gnemi, whose father is an architect and mother a substitute teacher, does not qualify for need-based aid. Though she works as a lifeguard and interior designer, she needed a loan to cover tuition and costs. While she was willing to pay up to 10.92 percent for the loan, so many lenders — 221 — bid in amounts from $50 to $480 that the rate dropped to 8.95 percent (in the end, 123 lenders participated). A bonus: e-mail notes from 17 Kansas alumni. “I have zero friends and zero family investing,” she says. “It is fully funded by people I do not know, but have become friends with since.”

Fuel Academy - Fuel Economy Specialists

2008-11-30T14:12:00.000-05:00

Fuel Academy - Fuel Economy Specialists

30 tips to improve fuel economy.

Obama withdrawal

2008-11-12T21:46:00.000-05:00

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Obama: 'Change has come to America'

2008-11-05T07:01:00.005-05:00

Thank you America! and Thank You Barack Obama! It was an electoral walk-off grand slam!

Barack Obama makes U.S. history

BY BETH REINHARD
breinhard@MiamiHerald.com
Barack Obama will stride into the White House and the history books as the nation's first black president, riding a surge in Democratic voter registration, a tide of discontent with the Republican Party and a hard-fought triumph in Florida.

''If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer,'' declared the 47-year-old Illinois senator to an emotional crowd estimated at 150,000 in Grant Park in Chicago. ``Tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.''

Republican John McCain offered a gracious concession speech that recognized Obama's barrier-breaking achievement for African-Americans. He urged the country to unite.

''We both realize that we have come a long way from the injustices that once stained our nation's reputation,'' McCain, 72, an Arizona senator and Vietnam War hero, told a disappointed throng outside a Phoenix hotel. ``We fought as hard as we could. And though we fell short, the failure is mine, not yours.''

Obama sealed his victory with a daunting, 182-vote lead in the Electoral College, with five states still outstanding. The popular vote was less one-sided, with Obama winning 51 to 47 percent.

He reshaped American politics, burning through more money and shoe leather than any other presidential candidate in history.

By racking up victories Tuesday in battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia, Obama could have won the presidency without Florida's treasure trove of 27 electoral votes. But Democrats nationwide savored his victory in a state that has tormented them since the contested 2000 election.

VOTERS WERE FED UP

At a time of war and economic crisis, voters across the country fed up with the Republican administration gravitated toward the younger, more charismatic candidate who rooted his campaign in themes of hope and change. McCain, who had crossed his own party on some major issues, also tried to position himself as an agent of change.

But Obama and running mate Joe Biden relentlessly yoked McCain to the widely unpopular President Bush and the past eight years. In one television spot that ran in Florida and other states, the Democratic campaign portrayed both Republicans in a car's rearview mirror.

In the end, an increasingly diverse and Democratic electorate helped Obama persevere in a state that has chosen the Democratic nominee only three times since 1952. The so-called southern strategy that buttressed Republican candidates by exploiting racial divisions fell apart, as Obama carried Florida and Virginia, which last voted Democratic in 1964.

''I've always contended the so-called red states are not as red as people think,'' said Matt Towery, a pollster with Atlanta-based InsiderAdvantage. ``You cannot have such a shift in demography and not see it show up at the polls.''

Obama captured several states with large Hispanic populations, including Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Florida. The number of Hispanic Democrats in Florida recently surpassed Hispanic Republicans, as waves of Latin American immigrants and younger generations of Cuban-Americans have diluted the influence of the staunchly Republican Cuban exile community.

Obama started a movement as much as he launched a campaign, inspiring hundreds of thousands of young people and blacks to vote, volunteer and give money for the first time. State Sen. Frederica Wilson, who campaigned on Obama's behalf in Miami-Dade's black community, said she knew he would be president back in early January when he won the overwhelmingly white Iowa primary.

''I just marvel at America and how it has evolved and changed,'' said Wilson, who grew up during the civil rights movement. ``He went much further than they could have ever predicted that a black man would travel in America, and the world is watching.''

For Florida Democrats, who have tolerated a Republican-controlled state government since the late 1990s and relished few statewide victories since then, Obama's victory signaled a new day. The Democratic nominee didn't just invest in a rusty political infrastructure; he built a new one from the ground up.

''It's pretty clear that Obama's efforts to connect with infrequent voters and new voters is going to pay real dividends for the Democratic Party,'' said Robin Rorapaugh, a Democratic strategist based in Hollywood. ``Even local candidates who win today have to tip their hats to the amount of resources Obama put on the ground and on the air.''

Obama will take office at a time of dire economic circumstances and unfinished wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He pledged to cut taxes on the middle class and bring troops home.

The Democrat weathered attacks for his ties to a violent Vietnam War protester and the racially inflammatory pastor he later broke from. He also was assailed for his willingness to meet with hostile government leaders in Iran, Cuba and Venezuela.

FLORIDA STAYED CLOSE

Nationwide polls had braced McCain supporters for defeat, but in Florida, the race was too close to call until the last day. The state's Jan. 29 primary had figured prominently in McCain's comeback during the primaries.

''What's impressed me the most is that even when he [McCain] was short on money, he kept on going, kept on campaigning,'' said Miami developer Armando Gutierrez Jr., a McCain fundraiser who started a voter registration web site. ''That earned him a lot of loyalty.'' The first sign that Obama was headed for victory came around 8 p.m., when one of the networks declared him the winner in Pennsylvania, the one state that voted Democratic in 2004 that McCain thought he had a chance of flipping. Virginia and Ohio followed as Obama built a commanding lead. Florida helped push him over the top.

The first campaign since 1952 without an incumbent president or vice president was filled with historic moments, many of them in Florida.

The state held its earliest presidential primary, triggering a firestorm in the Democratic Party that cost Florida Democrats their say and -- nearly -- their convention seats. Univisión held the first Democratic and Republican primary debates conducted by a Spanish-language television network. McCain won his first Republican-only primary in Florida, proving that he could be the GOP's standard bearer and paving his path to the nomination.

America's best-known Democratic power couple, Bill and Hillary Clinton, helped Obama win in Florida and nationwide after some initial tension between the ex-rivals. President Clinton appeared on stage with Obama just once, in Orlando.

A frenzy of Florida visits from high-level supporters like the Clintons and the nominees themselves capped the last few weeks of the longest campaign in American history.

The race was also the most expensive; Obama, the first candidate to forgo public financing, set aside $39 million for Florida, more than any other state.

The candidates drew the biggest crowds the nation and Florida have ever seen in a presidential campaign. Obama's appearances with the Clintons and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's debut at a Central Florida retirement community each drew tens of thousands of people.

Waiting for Nov. 4th

2008-10-23T20:13:00.003-05:00

Larry David
Posted October 22, 2008 | 06:44 PM (EST)

I can't take much more of this. Two weeks to go, and I'm at the end of my rope. I can't work. I can eat, but mostly standing up. I'm anxious all the time and taking it out on my ex-wife, which, ironically, I'm finding enjoyable. This is like waiting for the results of a biopsy. Actually, it's worse. Biopsies only take a few days, maybe a week at the most, and if the biopsy comes back positive, there's still a potential cure. With this, there's no cure. The result is final. Like death.

...

The one concession I've made to maintain some form of sanity is that I've taken to censoring my news, just like the old Soviet Union. The citizenry (me) only gets to read and listen to what I deem appropriate for its health and well-being. Sure, there are times when the system breaks down. Michele Bachmann got through my radar this week, right before bedtime. That's not supposed to happen. That was a lapse in security, and I've had to make some adjustments. The debates were particularly challenging for me to monitor. First I tried running in and out of the room so I would only hear my guy. This worked until I knocked over a tray of hors d'oeuvres. "Sit down or get out!" my host demanded. "Okay," I said, and took a seat, but I was more fidgety than a ten-year-old at temple. I just couldn't watch without saying anything, and my running commentary, which mostly consisted of "Shut up, you prick!" or "You're a fucking liar!!!" or "Go to hell, you cocksucker!" was way too distracting for the attendees, and finally I was asked to leave.

Assuming November 4th ever comes, my big decision won't be where I'll be watching the returns, but if I'll be watching. I believe I have big jinx potential and may have actually cost the Dems the last two elections. I know I've jinxed sporting events. When my teams are losing and I want them to make a comeback, all I have to do is leave the room. Works every time. So if I do watch, I'll do it alone. I can't subject other people to me in my current condition. I just don't like what I've turned into -- and frankly I wasn't that crazy about me even before the turn. This election is having the same effect on me as marijuana. All of my worst qualities have been exacerbated. I'm paranoid, obsessive, nervous, and totally mental. It's one long, intense, bad trip. I need to come down. Soon

Barack and Michelle at Bicentennial Park in Miami

2008-10-21T22:23:00.009-05:00

Barack and Michelle were in downtown Miami at Bicentennial Park for an Early Vote Rally. The enthusiastic crowd was electrifying at times and well behaved. Unfortunately it was a logistical fiasco. There were 4 or 5 security booths for a crowd of maybe 40,000 so there was an hour delay in entering the park. The stage was too low so it was barely visible for those less than 6 feet tall as there were no screens. The press was mounted on a higher platform, sad! Additionally, the sound was poor so Barack was barely heard in the far parts of the park. Hopefully the Miami officials will get it right next time.

More Palin Doublespeak

2008-10-14T21:03:00.002-05:00

In the fantasy land that Sarah Palin calls home, up is down, right is left and abuse of power means exonerated.

4 Ways a Food Diary Can Help You Lose Weight

2008-07-10T04:24:00.004-05:00

4 Ways a Food Diary Can Help You Lose Weight
Writing down what you eat makes it tough to fool yourself
By Katherine Hobson
Posted July 8, 2008

There's a reason so many doctors and nutritionists recommend keeping a food diary when you're trying to lose weight: It actually appears to work. The case for food diaries (or food records or journals) got a little stronger today, when weight-loss researchers reported that a large, multicenter study suggests that tracking what goes in your mouth can double the amount of weight lost. The findings were part of a weight-loss maintenance trial whose initial results were reported in March. After analyzing the data on weight loss to see which factors made a difference, researchers concluded that the more days a person kept a careful record, the more weight he or she lost. (Attending more weekly support group sessions also helped). Here's why keeping a diary is so powerful:

Video: Healthful Eating Recipes

It's simple. No fancy machines required; just record what you eat on paper or using an online record. "The trick is to write down everything you eat or drink that has calories," says Victor Stevens, a researcher at Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research and coauthor of the study released today, which appears in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. That's easy enough with labeled foods but gets harder when you're dining out or are eating an unfamiliar food. Try online calorie databases like CalorieKing.com, and watch the serving sizes—here's a good source of info on estimating what, say, an ounce of bread looks like. You'll probably still underestimate your daily intake, says Thomas Wadden, director of the Center for Weight Loss and Eating Disorders at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, but you'll very likely come closer than someone who isn't keeping a food record.

It's eye opening. In fact, some people will be so shocked at how many calories are in their thrice-daily Coke that the "aha" moment will make going on an actual diet unnecessary. Being forced to be aware of what you're eating can often be enough to help people drop weight, says Wadden.

It helps you track your progress. Use the diary as a way to make adjustments throughout the day and to gauge how much exercise you need to hit a certain calorie count, advises Holly Wyatt, a physician and researcher at the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. "If I eat three cups of fries, I know that I ate a lot and can cut back at the next meal," says Francis Tacotaco, a 38-year-old skilled nursing assistant from Richmond, Calif., who used a food diary as part of a weight-loss program at Kaiser. He's lost 21 pounds so far and wants to drop more.

You're accountable to someone. Supervised weight-loss programs often require participants to turn in their food diaries to nutritionists or doctors, which may make you think twice before giving in to temptation. "I've seen it all," says Stevens. "One gallon of vanilla ice cream, three pizzas, and a gallon of milk. My experience is that the people who have the courage to write it down tend to do pretty well," even if what they're writing down amounts to a lot of food, he says. If you're not part of a program, you can team up with a friend and swap food diaries once a week to keep each other in line. And many people find it's enough to be accountable to themselves. "You won't put that second cookie in your mouth because you don't want to see it in your food record," says Stevens.

After the extra poundage is gone, many people continue to use a diary to keep themselves honest. About 50 percent of participants in the National Weight Control Registry (which tracks the habits and practices of weight-loss maintainers) report they use some kind of self-monitoring, such as a food diary, says Wyatt. Some people may keep a diary on the weekend only, when they tend to eat more; others just record dinner, which usually varies more than breakfast and lunch, says Wadden. It's a habit you can benefit from for a lifetime.

Soca Junkie - The unofficial theme song of Sweet Soca Euphoria

2008-07-07T20:29:00.007-05:00

This video is hilarious and makes me want to dance in an "unselfconscious" kinda way whenever I hear it. "I'm a Soca Junkie, Yeah, Yeah!"

Watch Free Movies Online

2008-06-21T18:26:00.006-05:00

Now you can watch first run and vintage movies as well as network and cable TV shows for free online at 66Stage.com and Joox . (Click on the titles in the box on the right hand side of the page). Also try Hulu.com the Official site for NBC and FOX shows & movies if you want to satisfy your Stewie crush.

Turn Me On @ Pan-Tastik 4/09/08 Mast Academy

2008-04-19T15:51:00.002-05:00

Mast Academy Music Department held their Spring Showcase on April 9, 2009. Here's Andrew Meade (left)& Special Guest Leon "Foster" Thomas on Tenor steel pans playing Turn Me On by Kevin Lyttle. They are accompanied by Gabriela Condarco-Quesada, Helena Matamoros, Alain Pierre-Louis, and Music Teacher Vincent Hamilton on drums.

Expectations Lose to Reality of Sports Scholarships - New York Times

2008-03-11T23:02:00.002-05:00

Expectations Lose to Reality of Sports Scholarships - New York Times
The Scholarship Divide
Expectations Lose to Reality of Sports Scholarships

The myth of the athletic scholarship is finally exposed. For years parents have been slavishly ferrying their kids to countless youth sports games and competititions with hopes that their child will land a full athletic scholarship to a Division I school. The reality is that the actual scholarship dollars are so little that they only pay a fraction of the cost of tuition. Clearly, parents need to devote more of their efforts to helping their child build a strong academic portfolio, a process that should begin in pre-K. Sweetness

By BILL PENNINGTON
Published: March 10, 2008
Correction Appended

At youth sporting events, the sidelines have become the ritual community meeting place, where families sit in rows of folding chairs aligned like church pews. These congregations are diverse in spirit but unified by one gospel: heaven is your child receiving a college athletic scholarship.

Skip to next paragraph

Tim Shaffer for The New York Times
Villanova sprinter Elvis Lewis. All N.C.A.A. athletic scholarships must be renewed and are not guaranteed year to year.

The Scholarship Divide
These articles are exploring the chase for N.C.A.A. scholarships, the scarcity of athletic aid, and the challenges facing coaches and scholarship athletes.
Monday

Expectations Lose to Reality of Sports Scholarships
N.A.I.A.Reports Aid Differently
Average Scholarship Amounts by Sport
Tuesday

Recruits Clamor for More From Coaches With Less.
New Rules Threaten Sport's Tryout Process.
Number of Scholarships by Sport
Wednesday

It’s Not an Adventure, It’s a Job
Divvying Scholarship Dollars Can Divide a Team

Back Story: Adaora Udoji Talks to The Times's Bill Pennington (mp3)

Tim Shaffer for The New York Times
Joanie Milhous, the field hockey coach at Villanova, said she recruited “good, ethical parents as much as good, talented kids.”
Parents sacrifice weekends and vacations to tournaments and specialty camps, spending thousands each year in this quest for the holy grail.

But the expectations of parents and athletes can differ sharply from the financial and cultural realities of college athletics, according to an analysis by The New York Times of previously undisclosed data from the National Collegiate Athletic Association and interviews with dozens of college officials.

Excluding the glamour sports of football and basketball, the average N.C.A.A. athletic scholarship is nowhere near a full ride, amounting to $8,707. In sports like baseball or track and field, the number is routinely as low as $2,000. Even when football and basketball are included, the average is $10,409. Tuition and room and board for N.C.A.A. institutions often cost between $20,000 and $50,000 a year.

“People run themselves ragged to play on three teams at once so they could always reach the next level,” said Margaret Barry of Laurel, Md., whose daughter is a scholarship swimmer at the University of Delaware. “They’re going to be disappointed when they learn that if they’re very lucky, they will get a scholarship worth 15 percent of the $40,000 college bill. What’s that? $6,000?”

Within the N.C.A.A. data, last collected in 2003-4 and based on N.C.A.A. calculations from an internal study, are other statistical insights about the distribution of money for the 138,216 athletes who received athletic aid in Division I and Division II.

¶Men received 57 percent of all scholarship money, but in 11 of the 14 sports with men’s and women’s teams, the women’s teams averaged higher amounts per athlete.

¶On average, the best-paying sport was neither football nor men’s or women’s basketball. It was men’s ice hockey, at $21,755. Next was women’s ice hockey ($20,540).

¶The lowest overall average scholarship total was in men’s riflery ($3,608), and the lowest for women was in bowling ($4,899). Baseball was the second-lowest men’s sport ($5,806).

Many students and their parents think of playing a sport not because of scholarship money, but because it is stimulating and might even give them a leg up in the increasingly competitive process of applying to college. But coaches and administrators, the gatekeepers of the recruiting system, said in interviews that parents and athletes who hoped for such money were much too optimistic and that they were unprepared to effectively navigate the system. The athletes, they added, were the ones who ultimately suffered.

Coaches surveyed at two representative N.C.A.A. Division I institutions — Villanova University outside Philadelphia and the University of Delaware — told tales of rejecting top prospects because their parents were obstinate in scholarship negotiations.

“I dropped a good player because her dad was a jerk — all he ever talked to me about was scholarship money,” said Joanie Milhous, the field hockey coach at Villanova. “I don’t need that in my program. I recruit good, ethical parents as much as good, talented kids because, in the end, there’s a connection between the two.”

The best-laid plans of coaches do not always bring harmony on teams, however, and scholarships can be at the heart of the unrest. Who is getting how much tends to get around like the salaries in a workplace. The result — scholarship envy — can divide teams.

The chase for a scholarship has another side that is rarely discussed. Although those athletes who receive athletic aid are viewed as the ultimate winners, they typically find the demands on their time, minds and bodies in college even more taxing than the long journey to get there.

There are 6 a.m. weight-lifting sessions, exhausting practices, team meetings, study halls and long trips to games. Their varsity commitments often limit the courses they can take. Athletes also share a frustrating feeling of estrangement from the rest of the student body, which views them as the privileged ones. In this setting, it is not uncommon for first- and second-year athletes to relinquish their scholarships.

“Kids who have worked their whole life trying to get a scholarship think the hard part is over when they get the college money,” said Tim Poydenis, a senior at Villanova receiving $3,000 a year to play baseball. “They don’t know that it’s a whole new monster when you get here. Yes, all the hard work paid off. And now you have to work harder.”

Lack of Knowledge

Parents often look back on the many years spent shuttling sons and daughters to practices, camps and games with a changed eye. Swept up in the dizzying pursuit of sports achievement, they realize how little they knew of the process.

Mrs. Barry remembers how her daughter Cortney rose at 4 a.m. for years so she could attend a private swim practice before school. A second practice followed in the afternoon. Weekends were for competitions. Cortney is now a standout freshman at Delaware after receiving a $10,000 annual athletic scholarship.

“I’m very proud of her and it was worth it on many levels, but not necessarily the ones everybody talks about,” Mrs. Barry said. “It can take over your life. Getting up at 4 a.m. was like having another baby again. And the expenses are significant; I know I didn’t buy new clothes for a while.

“But the hardest part is that nobody educates the parents on what’s really going on or what’s going to happen.”

When they received the letter from Delaware informing them of Cortney’s scholarship, she and her husband, Bob, were thrilled. Later, they shared a quiet laugh, noting that the scholarship might just defray the cost of the last couple of years of Cortney’s youth sports swim career.

The paradox has caught the attention of Myles Brand, the president of the N.C.A.A.

“The youth sports culture is overly aggressive, and while the opportunity for an athletic scholarship is not trivial, it’s easy for the opportunity to be overexaggerated by parents and advisers,” Mr. Brand said in a telephone interview. “That can skew behavior and, based on the numbers, lead to unrealistic expectations.”

Instead, Mr. Brand said, families should focus on academics.

“The real opportunity is taking advantage of how eager institutions are to reward good students,” he said. “In America’s colleges, there is a system of discounting for academic achievement. Most people with good academic records aren’t paying full sticker price. We don’t want people to stop playing sports; it’s good for them. But the best opportunity available is to try to improve one’s academic qualifications.” The math of athletic scholarships is complicated and widely misunderstood.

Despite common references in news media reports, there is no such thing as a four-year scholarship. All N.C.A.A. athletic scholarships must be renewed and are not guaranteed year to year, something stated in bold letters on the organization’s Web site for student-athletes. Nearly every scholarship can be canceled for almost any reason in any year, although it is unclear how often that happens.

In 2003-4, N.C.A.A. institutions gave athletic scholarships amounting to about 2 percent of the 6.4 million athletes playing those sports in high school four years earlier. Despite the considerable attention paid to sports, the select group of athletes barely registers statistically among the 5.3 million students at N.C.A.A. colleges and universities.

Scholarships are typically split and distributed to a handful, or even, say, 20, athletes because most institutions do not fully finance the so-called nonrevenue sports like soccer, baseball, golf, lacrosse, volleyball, softball, swimming, and track and field. Colleges offering these sports often pay for only five or six full scholarships, which are often sliced up to cover an entire team. Some sports have one or two full scholarships, or none at all.

The N.C.A.A. also restricts by sport the number of scholarships a college is allowed to distribute, and the numbers for most teams are tiny when compared with Division I football and its 85-scholarship limit.

A fully financed men’s Division I soccer team is restricted to 9.9 full scholarships, for freshmen to seniors. These are typically divvied up among as many as 25 or 30 players. A majority of N.C.A.A. members do not reach those limits and are not fully financed in most of their sports.

Ms. Milhous, whose Villanova field hockey team plays in the competitive Big East Conference, must make tough choices in recruiting. The N.C.A.A. permits Division I field hockey teams to have 12 full scholarships, but her team has fewer.

“I tell parents of recruits I have eight scholarships, and they say: ‘Wow, eight a year? That’s great,’ ” she said. “And I say: ‘No, eight over four or five years of recruits. And I’ve got 22 girls on our team.’ ”

That can mean a $2,000 scholarship, which surprises parents.

“They might argue with me,” Ms. Milhous said. “But the fact is I’ve got girls getting from $2,000 to $20,000, and it all has to add up to eight scholarships. It’s very subjective, and remember, what I get to give out is also determined by how many seniors I’ve got leaving.”

Two Brothers, Two Stories

Joe Taylor, a soccer player at Villanova, received a scholarship worth half his roughly $40,000 in college costs when he graduated from a suburban Philadelphia high school three years ago. He had spent years on one of the top travel soccer teams in the country, F.C. Delco, and had several college aid offers.

“It was still a huge dogfight to get whatever you can get,” Mr. Taylor said. “Everyone is scrambling. There are so many good players, and nobody understands how few get to keep playing after high school.”

In 2003-4, there was the equivalent of one full N.C.A.A. men’s soccer scholarship available for about every 145 boys who were playing high school soccer four years earlier.

“There’s a lot of luck involved really,” Mr. Taylor said. “I can pinpoint a time when I was suddenly heavily recruited. It was after a tournament in Long Island the summer after my junior year. I scored a few goals. The Villanova coach was there, and so were some other college coaches. Within a couple of days, my in-box was full of e-mails. I’ve wondered, What would have happened if didn’t play well that day?”

Mr. Taylor has a younger brother, Pat, who followed in his footsteps, playing on the same national-level travel team and for the same Olympic developmental program.

“He did everything I did, and in some ways I think he’s a better player than me,” Joe said. “But you know, I think he didn’t have the big game when the right college coaches were there. He didn’t get the money offers I did.”

Pat Taylor is a freshman at Loyola College in Baltimore. Though recruited, he did not make the soccer team during tryouts last fall.

“I feel terrible for him — he worked as hard as I did for all those years,” Joe Taylor said.

Their father, Chris Taylor, said he once calculated what he spent on the boys’ soccer careers.

“Ten thousand per kid per year is not an unreasonable estimate,” he said. “But we never looked at it as a financial transaction. You are misguided if you do it for that reason. You cannot recoup what you put in if you think of it that way. It was their passion — still is — and we wanted to indulge that.

“So what if we didn’t take vacations for a few years.”

Pat Taylor, who started playing soccer at 4, said it took him about a month to accept that his dream of playing varsity soccer on scholarship in college would not happen. He looks back fondly on his youth career but also wishes he knew at the start what he knows now about the process.

“The whole thing really is a crapshoot, but no one ever says that out loud,” he said. “On every team I played on, every single person there thought for sure that they would play in college. I thought so, too. Just by the numbers, it’s completely unrealistic.

“And if I had it to do over, I would have skipped a practice every now and then to go to a concert or a movie with my friends. I missed out on a lot of things for soccer. I wish I could have some of that time back.”

Griffin Palmer contributed reporting to this article.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 11, 2008
A front-page article on Monday about the unrealistic expectations of families in the pursuit of college athletic scholarships omitted a reporting credit. Griffin Palmer analyzed college and high school statistics for the article.

Trinidad & Tobago Wins by 5 runs, advance to Finals of Stanford 2020

2008-02-22T21:32:00.001-05:00

Trinidad & Tobago advances to the cricket finals of the Stanford 2020 on Sunday February 24, 2008. They beat Barbados by 5 runs in an exciting semi-final match in Antigua. Trinidad will face the winner of the second semi-final match of Jamaica versus Guyana on Saturday February 23rd.

3Canal - Talk Yuh Talk Putting Rapso on the map.

2008-02-22T05:24:00.006-05:00

I love to hear 3Canal. Great dance tunes and their lyrics have sweet cadence in addition to the serious message. Deep.

Machel Montano with Special Guest DJ GB God Bless Concert Tickets - The Fillmore Miami Beach at The Jackie Gleason Theater Miami Beach, FL | A Live Na

2008-02-22T02:37:00.006-05:00

Machel Montano with Special Guest DJ GB God Bless Concert Tickets - The Fillmore Miami Beach at The Jackie Gleason Theater Miami Beach, FL | A Live Nation Event

Cancelled!!!!???? Why??? Man I was in this for sure!

Rollin' and Blaze de Trail - Machel Montano ft. Patrice

2008-02-22T02:09:00.005-05:00

This video is on FIRE!!!! Love Machel, he is just phenomenal!

Stanford 20/20 - Tournament The hottest thing in the Caribbean!

2008-02-15T14:43:00.002-05:00

Stanford 20/20 - Tournament

The games are exciting, the venue is cool and the prices are reasonable. Sounds like a win-win. You can watch live games and previous matches for free online if you have A T & T DSL or Verizon at WWW.ESPN360.COM The picture is incredibly clear and the sound is amazing. Stanford 2020 - reviving West Indies cricket.

Dreadlocked Miss Jamaica puts Rastas in new light

2007-05-26T09:42:00.000-05:00

She's such a classic Jamaican beauty. So refreshing to see one of such intelligence and true inner beauty represented at a "beauty" pageant. Her locs are just phenomenal.

Reuters | Monday, 21 May 2007 By Catherine Bremer

MEXICO CITY: With dreadlocks down to below her buttocks, the first Rastafarian to compete for the Miss Universe title is out to smash the stereotype that Rastas are only interested in reggae and marijuana.

Zahra Redwood, 25 and the first Miss Jamaica to be crowned from the country's minority Rastafarian faith, is also shaking up a years-old view among many Rastas that beauty pageants should be shunned as degrading to women.

"Not all Rastafarians smoke" marijuana, Redwood, a classically beautiful Jamaican with a degree in biotechnology and zoology, said.

"People criticise what they don't know or understand and develop preconceptions, and so given that, I have gone against what they've developed as a stereotype," said Redwood, who is in Mexico for the Miss Universe final on May 28 in Mexico City.

Rastafarians – who worship the late Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie as a God they call "Jah" – stress peace, love, spiritual goals and natural living, Redwood said, denying a clash between Rasta culture and being a beauty queen.

"The Rastafarian culture and beauty pageants have a great deal in common because they both promote decorum in the attitude of the female and the female as a role model in society. You're looking at beauty of the mind, body and soul," she said.

Rather than discrimination, the main reason for a dearth of Rasta beauty queens on the international circuit is the movement's rejection of the more corrupt or gaudy facets of modern society, which they call "Babylon," Redwood said.

MADE FAMOUS BY BOB MARLEY

Made famous around the world by Bob Marley's reggae songs, the Rasta culture emphasizes human dignity and self-respect.

"Rastafarians have been a very conservative group so modelling and pageants have been considered Babylonian to some extent," Redwood said.

But the reaction from fellow Rastafarians to her competing to be Miss Universe against women from some 75 other countries has been overwhelmingly positive, partly because black women with dreadlocks are so rarely seen in beauty contests, she said.

"They've been very, very happy for what they consider a psychological breakthrough. For them it's a huge thing," Redwood said.

The Rastafari movement was born in Jamaica in the 1930s after Haile Selassie's coronation in Ethiopia. Followers started to worship Haile Selassie, who died in 1975, as a type of messiah, in light of a 1920 prophecy by Jamaican civil rights leader Marcus Garvey that a black man would be crowned king in Africa.

Roughly a 10th of Jamaicans are Rastafarians, many of whom also take literally a biblical verse in the book of Leviticus that instructs against taking a razor to one's head.

In the Miss Universe 2007 line-ups, Redwood's twisty black dreadlocks, often massed into a huge bun, stand out from the lacquered manes of the other contestants.

"For the final I'm still not sure what style I will go with. But of course the locks have to show," she said.

Smoking marijuana, known in Jamaica as ganja, is a sacred rite for many Rastas, but Redwood said she does not smoke it.

MiamiHerald.com | 11/24/2006 | No quick healing for victims of birthday party shooting

2006-11-24T21:50:00.000-05:00

MiamiHerald.com | 11/24/2006 | No quick healing for victims of birthday party shooting:
Posted on Fri, Nov. 24, 2006 CRIME
No quick healing for victims of birthday party shootingThe family wounded in a shooting at a birthday party last month still grapples with physical and emotional wounds.
BY DAVID OVALLE
dovalle@MiamiHerald.com
The suspects
CRIME
No quick healing for victims of birthday party shootingThe family wounded in a shooting at a birthday party last month still grapples with physical and emotional wounds.
BY DAVID OVALLE
dovalle@MiamiHerald.com
The suspects
The suspected killers are jailed. The healing has just begun.

That October afternoon, the man who shot Ann Maynard, 31, at point-blank range before a child's birthday party left her with a mangled jaw and a broken arm.

Her sister, Shentara Maynard, 25, still needs surgery to remove a bullet lodged near her spine.

As for Shentara's two little ones, they still haven't grasped the severity of their own wounds.

Here at Jackson Memorial Hospital, Shanterria Kearse, 7, eases her embarrassment by unstrapping her helmet. She wears it to protect the portion of her missing skull.

And Tony Chester, 4, wears thick bandages wrapped around his head, his gait a bit woozy.

''Wiggle, wiggle! Chicken noodle! Chicken noodle!'' He dances a jig for his family.

For now, his spirit is undrained even though his right eye is gone forever.

All four victims still have bullets embedded in their bodies. The physical healing is slow; recovering from the emotional wounds is even slower.

To be sure, there is joy. Tony, his family figures, should have died. The would-be killer fired through the top of his head. The bullet lodged in his eye socket.

''That's modern medicine -- and prayers,'' said his grandmother, Annette Maynard.

And raw guilt: Their cousin, Carla Queely, and her son, Chaquone, 7, didn't survive the bullets.

In a year stained by the callous shootings of young people, names like Zykarious Cadillon, Sherdavia Jenkins and Otissha Burnett have been immortalized by the media, politicians and community leaders.

Yet, these were singular victims. Easy to rally around in marches and protests. Young victims caught in the crossfire of other people's guns.

STUNNED SILENCE

But the Birthday Party Shooting, as many call it, elicited no vigils or public outcry.

Were the facts of the case too jumbled at first? The public too jaded?

Or perhaps the crime was just too ruthless to grasp:

Five gunmen staged a home-invasion robbery, searching for a safe that did not exist. For the family, the surreal images flash back in spurts: Ann hearing a knock on the door, not seeing anyone in the video surveillance monitor; the gunmen bursting in, armed with flex cuffs stuffed in a belt under their shirts; Chaquone suffering from a cold that day.

'My chil' is sick, my chil' is sick,'' Carla sobbed in her thick island accent as the men kept them hostage. ``I just want to have a party. I just want to have a party.''

''If you cry, I'll kill you. I have no problem killing you,'' Ann remembers one of the gunman snarling.

Queely, Chaquone and Ann had been hostage for some 10 minutes when Shentara, Tony and Shanterria entered the home at 20517 NE Ninth Pl., in North Miami-Dade.

Ann, who police say was held at the door by gunman Jose Estache, pushed him away, yelling for them to run. Estache then shot Ann, Shentara and her two children in the head with a .22 caliber pistol.

Police say Sean N. Condell shot Carla and Chaquone; they did not survive. Condell told police he killed them so they couldn't identify him.

''We try to block it out as much as we can,'' Shentara said.

The youngest victim was Tony, a steadily improving Pee Wee football linebacker with an appetite for Vienna sausages and oatmeal.

His family says he is a remarkably spiritual boy. He spits on his hand and blesses his auntie's forehead as if he possessed holy water. He watches sermons on TV and says he wants to be a preacher one day.

Early on, chances seemed slim he would survive. Doctors sedated him for 13 days. Hooked up to life-saving equipment, his swollen body looked more machine than human.

Shentara, his mother, was wracked with guilt. She and her sister had been out of their hospital beds the next day.

Both women struggle with the ''What ifs.'' What if they had done something different that day? What if Ann had looked out the window before opening the door? What if Shentara hadn't played dead once she was wounded?

Why did they survive?

''It was a lot of praying and crying to God. I prayed. I asked God to give him back to me,'' Shentara said of her son.

Then, signs appeared, seemingly every seventh day. He drew breaths on his own. He wiggled his toes. He squeezed his aunt's finger.

Every sign of progress was measured. Emotions ebbed and flowed. His body still shivered; he still drooled.

Hope escalated. Tony opened his eyes. Hope swelled. His mother showed him Sunday newspaper ads. ''Which one is the boy? Which one is the girl?'' she asked.

He pointed correctly. She asked him to point out his favorite sport. Tony lifted his finger to a football someone had brought to the room.

''That's when I knew I had him,'' Shentara recalled.

The family's spirits were buoyed by flowers, balloons and the oversize card signed by Tony's football teammates.

Miami-Dade homicide detectives visited every day. Lead detective Juan Capote brought Tony a red Power Ranger doll.

For the detectives, solving the shooting was urgent -- even if it didn't elicit a huge public outcry. Three teams of detectives were assigned to the case. Many of the detectives have children. Capote himself is the father of a 4-year-old boy.

PAINFUL RECOVERY

As they tracked the five men believed responsible, the victims continued to recover. Doctors removed a portion of the left side of Shanterria's skull. She spent two weeks in bed. She feels self-conscious when she wears her helmet in public. Shanterria understands she was shot -- she cries during therapy, is afraid to go to the bathroom by herself and often wets her bed.

Her aunt, Ann, is still jumpy when she is alone. She was shot through the left side of the cheek; doctors performed surgery after she developed lockjaw.

She was also wounded in both arms: She has no feeling in parts of her left hand; her right arm is broken.

Nothing will bring Carla and Chaquone back. But life trudges on.

The family hopes prosecutors seek the death penalty for the shooters. Perhaps legislation can be passed to toughen crimes against children.

Ann hopes to write a book about her life and the shooting, to inspire teenage girls. She'll call it Which Way Out.

Before the shooting, Shentara wanted to open a group home for disabled people. Now she plans to open one for troubled teenage girls.

On Monday this week, the family received a welcome gift. Tony was discharged earlier than expected. He was home for Thanksgiving.

''It's wonderful. His birthday is next Wednesday,'' Shentara said.

The Ron Brown Scholar Program

2006-11-17T11:49:00.000-05:00

My son is a freshman but I have begun the search for scholarship opportunities for college.

The Ron Brown Scholar Program

The Ron Brown Scholar Program seeks to identify African-American high school seniors who will make significant contributions to society. Applicants must excel academically, exhibit exceptional leadership potential, participate in community service activities and demonstrate financial need. The applicant must be a US citizen or hold a permanent resident visa card. Current college students are not eligible to apply.

Each year, a minimum of ten students will be designated Ron Brown Scholars and will receive $10,000 annually for four years, for a total of $40,000. The recipients may use the renewable scholarships to attend an accredited four-year college or university of their choice within the United States. Ron Brown Scholarships are not limited to any specific field or career objective and may be used to pursue any academic discipline. More than 200 students have been designated as Ron Brown Scholars since the inception of the Program.

Ron Brown Scholars are selected in the spring prior to entering college. Applications are screened during the month of February by Ron Brown Scholar Program staff. In March, finalists are invited to participate in a weekend selection process in Washington, D.C. at the expense of the CAP Charitable Foundation. Finalists are interviewed by members of the Ron Brown Selection Committee and are expected to participate in several Selection Weekend activities. Scholarship winners are selected on the basis of their applications, interviews and participation in Selection Weekend activities. Notification follows immediately.

Application Deadline
The Ron Brown Scholar Program currently has two deadlines for applications (students must be current high school seniors at the time of their application):

November 1st - application will be considered for the Ron Brown Scholar Program AND forwarded to a select and limited number of additional scholarship providers.

January 9th - final postmarked deadline in order to be considered for only the Ron Brown Scholar Program ONLY.

Application materials must be mailed in one packet. Transcripts and letters of recommendation should not be sent under separate cover. Incomplete, e-mailed or faxed applications will not be considered.

Due to the volume of applications received, the Ron Brown Scholar Program can only notify semi-finalists and finalists of their status in the competition. This notification will be made in March. Winners of the scholarship will be notified by April 1st and names

Wet Me - Krosfyah - Soca Video

2006-11-13T03:15:00.003-05:00

Wet Me - Krosfyah - Soca Video
One of my favorite soca bands. Now if only I could get a video of Pump Me up, my #1 soca song. This will have to do till then. It's a nice groovy soca tune.

Here it is!!! Pump Me Up Video by Krosfyah. I absolutely love this song! I'll dance to this tune anytime.

Machel Montano "You"

2006-11-11T02:26:00.001-05:00

Machel Montano "You" - Google Video

My favorite Machel Montano soca song.

Destra Garcia "Max it Up" Soca Video

2006-11-11T02:18:00.000-05:00

Destra Garcia "Max it Up" Soca Video - Google Video
I like the high energy in this video... steelpan, carnival and brass. Pure niceness!

U.S. Marshals Make Final Arrest In Birthday Shootings - News - Local10.com | WPLG

2006-11-11T01:34:00.000-05:00

Further proof that God answers prayers!

U.S. Marshals Make Final Arrest In Birthday Shootings - News - Local10.com | WPLG

U.S. Marshals Make Final Arrest In Birthday Shootings
5 Men Are Charged In Woman's, Son's Deaths

POSTED: 5:06 pm EST November 10, 2006

MIAMI -- On Friday, U.S. Marshals made the fifth and final arrest in connection with the shooting deaths of a mother and her 7-year-old son who were killed during the boy's birthday party.

Marshals arrested 26-year-old Jose Estache. He was taken into custody at 1943 S.W. 70th Way in North Lauderdale Friday afternoon.

On Thursday, police arrested Rayon Mathew Samuels, Sean Condell, Damian Lewis and Rashid Lee in connection with the Oct. 14 shooting. The men were connected to the shooting by weapons found during the search of a home at 1515 N.W. Third St. in Fort Lauderdale.

Carla Queeley, 34, and her son, Chaquone Watson, died from several gunshot wounds in a north Miami-Dade County neighborhood.

Shantaria Kearse, 7, and sisters Ann Maynard, 31, and Shantara Maynard, 24, were critically injured in the shooting but have since been released from the hospital. Shantaria suffered a serious brain injury when a bullet hit her in the head. Tony Chester, 4, lost an eye because of his injury. He is still hospitalized.

Relatives said that they suspected that the motive for the shooting was robbery.

"This was a brutal act, " said Curtis Maynard, who said he was Queeley's cousin. "They were trying to rob the house. Maybe they didn't expect that there was a birthday party."

Queeley, who was a nurse, was finishing up decorating the house for the birthday party when the armed men forced their way into the back of the home on Northeast Ninth Place, police said.

Police said that Queeley and her son were held hostage briefly while she was forced to call her cousins, who own the home, to tell them to return to the house. Shortly after other family members arrived, the men started shooting, police said.

cbs4.com - Arrests Made In Birthday Party Murders

2006-11-10T00:53:00.000-05:00

Proof that God truly answers prayers.

cbs4.com - Arrests Made In Birthday Party Murders: "Arrests Made In Birthday Party Murders
One Suspect Remains On The Loose

Carey Codd
Reporting

(CBS4) FT. LAUDERDALE Police have made four arrests in the murder of a North Miami-Dade mother and the shooting of her 7-year old son at the boy’s Spider-Man themed birthday party last month.

The arrests were made Wednesday after detectives raided a Fort Lauderdale apartment in the 1500 block of Northwest Third Street. Police also seized a cache of weapons and other items from the home. There were shotguns, Tec 9’s, rifles and even bullet proof vests discovered in the home.

One arrest was made after the raid and it didn’t take long before police linked the weapons discovery to the birthday party murders.

Sean Condell, aka “Shorty”, who police say confessed to the crime was arrested. Condell and Rayon Samuels, 20, have been charged with two counts of first-degree murder as well as other counts of attempted murder. Bjon Rashid Lewis, 27, and Damian Lewis, 23, were also jailed Thursday in connection to the crime.

Teams of homicide detectives have been working to solve the Oct. 14 shootings of Carla Queeley, 34, and her son, Shaquon Watson.

According to the Arrest Affidavit of Condell, he and another suspect, identified as Jose Estache entered the home at 20517 NE 9th Place, in order to commit a home invasion armed robbery.

The affidavit states that the men were armed with three guns, plastic flex cuffs and gloves when they entered the home.

Once inside, the suspects demanded to know where the safe was, while holding three of the victims at gunpoint, including Queeley, a nurse, who was preparing decorations for her son’s birthday party.

Three other victims arrived at the house in the middle of the robbery. Estache, allegedly took one victim to the front door at gunpoint. When the victim opened the front door, she told her sister and her sister’s two children, 7-year old Shantaria Kearse and 4-year old Tony Chester, to run.

When they did, the affidavit claims Estache fired his .22 caliber gun at the women and the two children. All four victims were shot in the head and sustained critical injuries. They’ve since been released from the hospital with the bullets still in their heads.

4-year old Tony Chester has lost an eye and 7-year old Shantaria Kearse will need brain surgery.

Queeley’s brother, Livingston Queeley spoke to CBS4’S Carey Codd and when told of Thursday’s arrests replied, “He deserved just what he done to my sister and nephew. He needs to get the worst punishment for this crime.”

The affidavit states police have a videotaped confession from Condell stating he shot Queeley and her son so they would not identify him in the crime.

(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

cbs4.com - Robber Could Have Caused Birthday Boy's Death

2006-11-06T00:10:00.000-05:00

Carla was born in St. Kitts but grew up in the Virgin Islands.

Oct 16, 2006 7:57 pm US/Eastern

cbs4.com - Robber Could Have Caused Birthday Boy's Death

Relatives believe robbery may be the motive
Carla Queeley And Her Son Were Killed

Carey Codd
Reporting

(CBS4 News) NORTHEAST MIAMI-DADE Two victims, hurt in Saturday’s brutal murder of a young mother and her son at a birthday party in North Miami-Dade, have been released from the hospital, all while a community and police try to figure out why the crime occurred in the first place.

Sisters Ann Maynard, 31, a Miami-Dade Corrections Department nurse and Shantara Maynard, 24, a bartender, were released Monday morning. Shantara’s 7-year-old daughter, Shantaria Kearse and 4-year-old son, Tony Chester, remain hospitalized at Jackson Memorial Hospital. They are the survivors of Saturday’s shooting which grieving family members speculate might have been motivated by robbery.

Carla Queeley, 34, a nurse was killed along with her son, Shaquon Watson, who was celebrating his 7th birthday with a Spiderman theme party. Monday, grief counselors were out at the boy's school, Lakeview Elementary, to provide emotional needed help for grieving students.

The school principal says the loss was felt by many at the school.

"It's devastating when you hear that one of your students, who you deal with on a day-in, day-out, has gone through such a catastrophe," said Principal Jeffrey Hernandez.

Relatives say that only minutes after breaking in to the home located at 20517 NE 9 Place, the gunmen demanded Queeley, who was decorating the home for her son’s birthday party, to call the owners of the house so she could show them where the money was kept. Gunfire broke out soon afterward, they said.

It's unclear whether money or valuables were taken.

Party guests arrived after 3 p.m. to find the home surrounded by yellow police tape.

Official information about the Saturday afternoon assault has been hard to come by; police made no statements Sunday and had little to say after the attack. They also have not released any type of description of the suspects. Detectives describe the case as an "ongoing, sensitive criminal investigation."

Sandry Bowers lives across the street from the home where the attack took place, and said she heard a knock at the door Saturday When she opened it, she found Ann Maynard drenched in blood.

“And the blood came in, and then she said, ‘Hurry, he’s coming’” she recalled. “And I just closed it back because, I mean, if somebody’s going to come he could come in here as well and shoot me and my grand-daughter too.”

Bowers said Maynard owns the home, and was hosting the birthday party. She was told by a relative what apparently happened in the home.

“She said they just walked up and shot the little boy in the head, and they were just walking around and shooting everybody, just shooting them with no reason,” Bowers said. “That’s what she said.”

Residents of the neighborhood say they have no idea why the home was targeted, and are upset they have heard nothing from police investigating the attack.

"It's sad, you know, because they are so innocent and wholesome and were shot and killed," said Livingston Queeley, whose sister died in the attack.

"It's devious," said Dehana. "They don't have anything else to do but go out and kill a 7 year old child and an innocent lady? She's not doing nobody nothing."

Family members have started planning funeral arrangements for the dead, even as they anxiously watch over those being treated for gunshot wounds.
The person or people responsible for the attack remain at large.

Anyone with information can call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.

(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

SUNPHONIX STEEL ORCHESTRA'S TRIBUTE TO Winston "MoutaBee" Phillips

2006-07-14T16:30:00.000-05:00

SUNPHONIX
STEEL ORCHESTRA'S
TRIBUTE TO
Winston "MoutaBee" Phillips

1942-2006
“Pan Pioneer”
MoutaBee, also called "Bee" was a stalwart who dedicated his life to the advancement and recognition of the steelband movement. He played pan all over the world. An original Invaders member, he arranged for many steelbands in Trinidad, London, Germany, Canada, New York, California, Washington, Miami and a long list of others too many to detail.
In Miami, starting with North Side Steelband, he moved to New Image Steelband and then on to Sunphonix Steel Orchestra. From the old days of "Softly in the Morning Sunrise" to his latest arrangement of "How Great Thou Art", members would forever remember his dedication to "get it right" (his favorite expression).
Now that he has been lifted up to the stars, please join us as we honor his memory.

SATURDAY JULY 15TH 2006
6:00 PM UNTIL

THE SUNPHONIX PANYARD
2734 NW 183RD STREET
MIAMI GARDENS
CALL: (305) 622-7255

INVITED GUESTS: Hon. Gerard Greene (T&T Consul General), Harvey R. Borris (Consul Info.), Carl and Carol Jacobs, Reporter, Dry River, Picoplat, Marlon Sirju (SoJoe); Andrew Romero (New Musical Arranger for Sunphonix), Rising Star Steel Orchestra, Uprising Steel Orchestra, Lauderhill Steel Ensemble, Miami Pan Symphony; DJ Tee Rexx, DJ Guru, DJ Roderick, as well as a Major Surprise ! !

FOOD & REFRESHMENTS AVAILABLE

5 tips for wisely tapping your home equity

2006-06-13T09:41:00.000-05:00

5 tips for wisely tapping your home equity
Bankers love it when you borrow against your house. That's reason enough to be wary of home-equity lending.
Yet millions of Americans are buying lenders' pitches that our homes are a good source of funds for whatever our little hearts desire, from Super Bowl tickets to exotic vacations to investments in stocks and bonds. That lust for cheap cash has turned home-equity lending into the fastest-growing, and very profitable, area of consumer loans.

Mainstream home-equity lending soared 33% last year according to SMR Research, with new borrowing at nearly quadruple the level of just five years ago. The amount we owe on home-equity loans and lines of credit, $719 billion, now exceeds the balances on our Visas, MasterCards and other general-purpose credit cards.

Home-equity lending skyrockets

2004 1999 Increase

New borrowing $431 billion $114 billion 278%

Total owed $719 billion $267 billion 169%

Source: SMR Research

Those figures don't include home-equity lending to people with troubled credit. So-called subprime mortgage lending rose 60% last year, said SMR vice president George Yacik, to $516 billion. Although the figure includes first mortgages, Yacik said most subprime home lending involves home-equity loans and lines of credit.

Good for banks, risky for consumers
The risk to lenders from all this debt is quite low. The amount banks actually lose on home-equity lending overall is about 0.15%, Yacik said, compared to more than 3% on credit cards.

"There's no bad debt to speak of," Yacik said. "(The borrower's) home is at stake, and they have to be deeply extended not to pay their bill."

Rising home prices mean that banks can get their money back even if they have to foreclose, and troubled borrowers typically sell the home or refinance before that happens.

The low default rate masks the real problem with home-equity lending: Most borrowers are using the loans and lines of credit to fritter away their long-term wealth on short-term spending.

"I recall one computer magazine a couple of years ago that recommended that people get home-equity loans or lines of credit to purchase computers," said Andrew Analore, editor of Inside B&C Lending, an Inside Mortgage Finance publication. Then there was the recent Associated Press article about fans calling mortgage lenders to finance Super Bowl tickets, on top of the more usual borrowing to fund big-screen TVs to watch the game.

"That kind of stuff can be problematic," Analore said, "because people sometimes don't understand that their house is on the line if, for some reason, they are unable to pay for their new computer or big-screen television."

Understand loan types
Solid statistics are hard to find, but lenders believe a third or less of home-equity borrowing is used for anything that could be considered an investment, such as home improvements or education. The rest goes for debt consolidation, vacations or purchases of assets that quickly depreciate, such as cars.

If you're thinking of literally betting your house with a home-equity loan or line of credit, you should clearly understand how these loans work, when to use them and how to get the best deals.

First, the basics. There are two types of home equity lending, loans and lines of credit:

Home-equity loans are installment loans, like regular mortgages and auto loans. You're given a certain amount of money which you typically receive all at once and pay back according to a set schedule, over time. Home-equity loans usually come with fixed rates and fixed payments.

Home-equity lines of credit, by contrast, work more like credit cards. You're given a credit limit that you can borrow against, and paying down your debt frees up more credit that you can potentially spend. Home-equity lines of credit have variable interest rates that are typically tied to the prime rate.

Unlike credit cards, however, home-equity lines of credit usually aren't open-ended. For the first 10 years or so, you can draw as much as you want from your credit limit, and you only need to pay the interest charges. In the next stage, however, the "draw" period ends and whatever debt you have left is "amortized," which means you need to start paying principal and interest to retire your debt. (Some lenders let you renew your draw period, but eventually the debt has to be paid off.)

Average amounts borrowed
Types
2004
1999
Increase

Lines of credit
$77,526
$49,260
57%

Loans
$62,112
$35,672
74%

Source: Consumer Bankers Association

With either type of borrowing, you're pledging your home as collateral. If you fall behind on your payments, the lender can foreclose and take your house.

When to use these loans
A home-equity loan is generally the best choice when you know exactly how much your purchase is likely to cost and you need several years to pay it off. A major home-improvement project, for example, might be a good candidate for a home-equity loan.

A line of credit may be a better option for shorter-term borrowing, or when you want to be able to tap your home equity to cover emergencies.

You also might consider a loan, rather than a line of credit, when you want to lock in a low interest rate in a rising-rate environment, like we have now. In recent months, the rates on lines of credit have been ratcheting up with each Federal Reserve hike.

The gap has narrowed considerably from a few years ago, when lines of credit averaged more than two percentage points less than loans. When the gap is that big, it may make sense to take the risk of choosing a variable-rate line of credit over a fixed-rate loan.

5 tips for smart borrowing
Here's how to know if you're getting a good deal:

Compare the rates. The rate you'll be offered on a loan or line of credit depends heavily on your credit score -- perhaps too much, according to one banking regulator. Julie Williams, acting head of the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, said in December that home-equity lenders were relying too much on "risk factor shortcuts" like credit scores, which reflect consumer's past credit performance but that don't factor in how well they'll handle a big increase in their debt.

If you have an excellent score of 760 or above, you should be able to win a home-equity line of credit for half a point below the prime rate, said Chris Larsen, CEO of E-Loan. A good score of 700 to 759 should win you a rate equal to prime. (To see current rates on lines of credit and loans by credit score, visit the Loan Savings Calculator at MyFico.com.) People with mediocre to poor credit can pay 1 to 5 points over prime, or more.

Avoid the fees. If you have decent credit, you shouldn't have to pay any application or appraisal fees to borrow against your home. (Make sure the lender isn't tacking fees onto the loan amount, and that you're not paying a "broker fee" if a third party is helping to arrange the loan.) You may have to pay recording fees, which should be minimal, and an annual fee on your credit line.

Know the tax rules. Home-equity borrowing is often touted as superior to other consumer debt because you can deduct the interest. But that's not always true. You have to be able to itemize, which most taxpayers can't do because they don't have enough deductions.

If you have excellent credit, for example, you might be able to get a new car loan for a fixed rate that's actually lower than what you'd get on a variable line of credit. Unless you're able to itemize, the fixed-rate auto loan is clearly the way to go.

Also, know that even if you do get a deduction, the tax break is limited to interest on loan amounts of $100,000 or less; if you've borrowed more, the interest you pay on amounts over $100,000 can't be deducted.

Know what you're risking. A home can be a good way to build long-term wealth -- as long as you're not constantly draining it away. Every dollar of equity you borrow is a dollar that can't be used to buy your next home when you're ready to trade up, or to fund your retirement when you're ready to downsize.

Be particularly wary of using home equity to pay off credit cards or other short-term debt. Often you'll just wind up deeper in debt because you haven't addressed the basic overspending problem that got you into trouble in the first place.

Also, don't assume that using equity to pay for home improvements or education is always a slam dunk. Not all home improvements add value and it's easy to go overboard with student-loan debt, as well. It's up to you to set reasonable limits on your borrowing and to make sure that what you're buying is worth the wealth you're committing.

In general, you don't want the term of your borrowing to last longer than what you've purchased. If you use home-equity borrowing to buy a car, for example, try to pay off the balance in a few years -- and definitely before you trade in for a new vehicle.

Keep some headroom. You should try to keep a cushion of at least 20% equity in your home. If your combined mortgage and home-equity borrowing exceeds that amount, you'll pay higher interest rates. You're also cutting yourself off from an important source of funds in an emergency.

"Very few families are good at savings. In effect, their home equity is their 'rainy day' fund," Analore said. "It's the only source of capital that many people will be able to tap in an emergency. And it won't be there if the home has already been leveraged to fund short-term consumption."

Liz Pulliam Weston's column appears every Monday and Thursday, exclusively on MSN Money. She also answers reader questions in the Your Money message board.

Don't hand your house to a thief

2006-06-13T09:30:00.000-05:00

Don't hand your house to a thief

Mortgage scams are like Baskin-Robbins offerings -- they come in 31 flavors. Here are three top choices of con artists and how to avoid them.

By Christopher Solomon

If owning a home is the great American dream, then swindling people out of their prized possession is one of the great, lucrative American scams. Mortgage fraud is on the rise, thanks to the tremendous value that's locked up in real estate today and to the increasing number of people who are struggling to pay their mortgages.

"It's kind of become the new get-rich-quick scheme out there," says attorney Rachel Dollar, publisher of Mortgage Fraud Blog.

More than 323,000 properties entered some state of foreclosure in the first quarter of 2006, a 72% increase over the same period a year ago, according to RealtyTrac. And things could get worse: Nationwide, more than one in three outstanding mortgages has an adjustable rate and interest rates have been rising. "Nobody really knows what's going to happen," says RealtyTrac's Rick Sharga, vice president of marketing.

But scammers know that people in trouble make easy victims. They're swooping in and offering to "help" beleaguered borrowers -- and ending up with their house keys. Victims sometimes spend years fighting to get their homes back and some never succeed.

Meet Carol and Anthony
Carol and Anthony Calvagno of Deer Park, N.Y., on Long Island are in a hell like this right now. In 2003, the Calvagnos were in trouble. Anthony Calvagno had health troubles and had lost his job. In order to pay their bills, the couple took out a home equity loan on the Cape Cod-style house that had been in the family for three generations. (At the time, the couple had a $125,000 mortgage on a house worth about $290,000 -- a high-equity target.) But even the home equity loan wasn't enough.

That's when Mitchell Sims swooped in, offering to help, says the couple's attorney, Arshad Majid.

Sims told the couple that he would arrange a bailout, and that they should stop making mortgage payments while he worked out the details. When foreclosure notices started showing up, he told the couple to ignore them, saying he'd take care of it.

Nearly eight weeks after Sims had entered their lives, and the day before their foreclosure was scheduled, Sims told the Calvagnos that the arrangement hadn't worked. Instead, he said they'd have to file for bankruptcy and enter a "special program" in which they'd sign over their house's title to one of Sims' employees and another of his business associates, who also happened to be Sims' brother. They'd be allowed to live in their home as tenants, Sims told them, and their rent payments would go toward buying their home back from him, says Majid. "They were put in the position where they didn't have any choice" but to sell their deed, Majid says.

But Sims never made any mortgage payments. He kept the Calvagnos' rent money and about $50,000 of the couple's money that remained after their creditors were paid.

The Calvagnos had fallen victim to a scam known as equity stripping -- just one of the many flavors of mortgage fraud. Their house was sold. Sims and another person have been put in prison for their crimes. The couple has successfully fought eviction -- so far -- but not everyone is so lucky. Here's a quick look at three of the main ways scammers can steal the roof over your head.

Scam No. 1: The bailout, aka 'equity stripping'
As the Calvagnos' case shows, this scam is particularly ingenious -- and humiliating for the victim. In theory, a person or company could help a homeowner keep his house via a process in which the homeowner sells the house very cheaply to them while the homeowner gets his finances in order. The new owner pays the mortgage, and the old homeowner pays to live in the home in the meantime, buying back the home (with interest) in a fixed amount of time. If the financial setbacks are temporary, and the company is above-board, everybody can win: The homeowner keeps the house and the company earns a profit for its role as rescuer.

But "reconveyance," as it's sometimes known, is ripe for abuse.

Attorney Leah Weaver, who focuses on fighting the scams as an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis, explains how scammers work this fraud:

Suppose you've got a $200,000 home, with $100,000 of equity in it. A divorce and medical bills have you facing foreclosure. Suddenly, the phone rings with a bailout proposal.

So you sell your home, for $120,000 -- not much more than what's owed on the mortgage. Why sell for so little? "Because it's never intended to be a true sale," Weaver explains; remember, you don't think you're selling the house permanently, but buying it back in a short period, right?

The new purchaser, meanwhile, takes out a $120,000 loan, wipes out any liens on your property and even gets you a little cash back; and you get a two-year lease with a purchase option at the end.

But soon you realize you're in trouble. Why? Because scammers aren't about to let you get your home back. Often, the lease terms desperate homeowners agree to turn out to be as onerous as their previous mortgage payments that helped get them into trouble. Con artists also manipulate victims when facing crucial deadlines.

"One of my clients was told that payments were going be to under $1,000 a month," Weaver recalls. But the criminals dragged out the process until the foreclosure was imminent and she was backed into a corner. "When she got to the closing … they were like, 'Oh, no, the payments are going to be $1,150.'

"Inevitably," she says, "you're going to default."

And default isn't pretty. The new purchaser evicts you as soon as possible, sells your $200,000 house, pays off the $120,000 loan and pockets about $80,000 -- all for a few months' work, says Weaver. Some people don't even fight back because they don't know they have options -- such as calling a lawyer, says attorney Dollar.

Do's and don'ts:
• Don't fall for promises like "We'll save your credit"; "We'll buy your house 'as is'"; or "We'll get you a new mortgage with low monthly payments."

• Don't sign away ownership of your property (sometimes called a "quit claim deed") to anyone without the advice of lawyer you trust. "When people get behind on their loan payments, they get a bit desperate, but the answer is not putting someone else on your title," says Oakland real-estate attorney James Hand.

• Beware of any home sale contract where you aren't formally released from liability for your mortgage. Also, make sure you know what rights you're giving up and that you agree to giving them up.

Scam No. 2: Phantom help
This scheme is fairly simple: Let's say you're way behind on your home payments and facing foreclosure. An individual or group approaches and offers to help -- then charges you thousands of dollars for various administrative duties like filing forms and phone calls, or else keeps simply promising a big rescue later. You can probably guess what's really going on: The "helper" isn't really doing anything at all to stop your foreclosure despite collecting thousands from you. By the time you figure out you've been hoodwinked, it's often too late to stop the loss of your house.

How did the scammer know to target you, anyway? That's easy: When a lender schedules the home for public auction, the matter becomes public record. In just more than half of the states, a lawsuit must be filed in order to spur a sale. Anyone can check the court documents to find the list of lawsuits, says Elizabeth Renuart, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center and co-author of a major report last year on mortgage fraud called "Dreams Foreclosed." Soon, a letter or phone call comes like something from a guardian angel -- only it's a vulture.

In the other states (including California and Massachusetts, for example), the process doesn't go through the courts; foreclosure sales simply must be advertised publicly, as in the local newspaper. This latter process usually moves faster -- and makes an already-stressed homeowner even more vulnerable to a scam, says Renuart.

Do's and don'ts:
• Do call your mortgage company or lender if you're in trouble. Ask for the loss mitigation department. Contrary to popular perception, lenders don't want to steal your house, says attorney Dollar. They want to work with you. Why? "Lenders always lose money on foreclosures, even in a rising market," Dollar says. Scammers, on the other hand, will try to keep you from communicating with your lender.

• Don't call for assistance from one of those ubiquitous signs on telephone poles that advertise help. Chances are, that's not where help lies.

• Do proceed with caution, if a company or person:

o Describes itself as a "mortgage consultant," "foreclosure service," or something similar;
o Collects a fee before giving any services;
o Advertises to people whose homes are listed for foreclosure, including anyone who sends flyers or solicits door-to-door; and
o Says you should make home mortgage payments directly to them or to their company instead of your mortgage lender.

• Don't panic. Get full information on the foreclosure process in your state. Make sure you know ALL deadlines -- for court, for document filings, etc. States usually have associations that can offer free advice. Minnesota, for example, has the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency as well as the Minnesota Mortgage Foreclosure Prevention Association, which has federal Housing and Urban Development counselors available. For who to turn to for advice, click on your state here.

Scam No. 3: The bait-and-switch
In this scam, which NCLC calls the "bait-and-switch," con artists actually trick a homeowner into signing over the deed to a home -- without his knowledge.

How could somebody fall for this?

Attorney Hand gives an example. Hand is dealing with 10 cases involving the same real estate loan broker, Kaseem Mohammadi of Union City, Calif., who has been charged with 13 counts of real estate fraud. One of Mohammadi’s strategies, Hand says, was to visit his alleged victims armed with a load of documents on a clipboard and places marked with Post-It notes indicating where to sign. His victims -- some of whom were elderly, or didn't speak English well -- were usually overwhelmed by the documents and also couldn't exactly see what they were signing thanks to the clipboard. And one of the things Mohammadi allegedly got them to sign was a "grant deed" that passed their home's title to a third party.

You don't have to be old or a non-English speaker to be stymied by the legalese. Attorney Renuart says she has seen shysters get their victims to sign incredibly complicated legal documents that resulted in their property being transferred to entities such as trusts. "These trust agreements, I can't understand them -- and I'm a lawyer."

And if a criminal can't get the signature? Forgery goes a long way in real estate these days, experts say.

Do's and don'ts• Don't sign anything that has any blank spaces. Information could be added later that you didn’t agree to. (Yes, it happens.)

• Never sign a contract under pressure. Always know exactly what you're signing. Take your time to review the paperwork thoroughly -- ideally with a lawyer who only represents your interests.

• Never make a verbal agreement. Get all promises in writing and get full copies.

• Cast a jaundiced eye at deals that sound too good to be true. Lately, some scam artists promise they'll wipe out or pay off your home's debt for you (so-called "debt elimination"). Some flustered homeowners bite. Just remember the free lunch rule: There isn't one.

A final thought: Remember, if you can't fix your finances, selling your house (on the normal market, that is) may not be the end of the world. Sure, you'll be a renter again. But given how much homes around the country have appreciated in the last several years, chances are you've made some money, which you can use to get back on your feet.

Source of tips: National Consumer Law Center; U.S. Department of Justice's U.S. Trustee Program; attorney Rachel Dollar

How to Answer These Tricky Interview Questions

2006-06-13T09:16:00.000-05:00

How to Answer These Tricky Interview Questions

By Kate Lorenz, CareerBuilder.com

Does the thought of going on a job interview cause your palms to sweat and your body to break out in hives? Stop itching; you're not alone.

The vast majority of job seekers admit to emotions ranging from mild uneasiness to downright panic leading up to their interviews. The good news is there have been no reported cases of job seekers who died of nervousness during a job interview. So relax and follow these simple tips for keeping your anxiety at bay before and during your interview.

First, take the proper amount of time to prepare for your interview. Being well-prepared will boost your confidence and lower your anxiety. Experts recommend that you spend at least three hours preparing for each interview.

You should draft answers to the most common interview questions and practice speaking them out loud. You also should read up on the company with which you will be interviewing and prepare some questions of your own. This lets the interviewer know that you are truly interested in the company and the position.

As a final step in your preparation, make sure you have good directions to the interview site. Some job seekers make a dry run to the interview site to ensure the directions are correct and to estimate the amount of time they will need to get to the interview on time.

Going into a job interview is often like entering the great unknown. Although every interviewer is different and questions vary from industry to industry, there are some questions that are common across the board. Reading through the following questions and developing your own answers is a good place to start in your preparation. Once you have done that, remember practice makes perfect! Nothing impresses a potential employer like being ready for whatever is thrown your way.

Why should we hire you?
Here's the chance to really sell yourself. You need to briefly and succinctly lay out your strengths, qualifications and what you can bring to the table. Be careful not to answer this question too generically, however. Nearly everyone says they are hardworking and motivated. Set yourself apart by telling the interviewer about qualities that are unique to you.

Why do you want to work here?
This is one tool interviewers use to see if you have done your homework. You should never attend an interview unless you know about the company, its direction and the industry in which it plays. If you have done your research, this question gives you an opportunity to show initiative and demonstrate how your experience and qualifications match the company's needs.

What are your greatest weaknesses?
The secret to answering this question is being honest about a weakness, but demonstrating how you have turned it into a strength. For example, if you had a problem with organization in the past, demonstrate the steps you took to more effectively keep yourself on track. This will show that you have the ability to recognize aspects of yourself that need improvement, and the initiative to make yourself better.

Why did you leave your last job?
Even if your last job ended badly, be careful about being negative in answering this question. Be as diplomatic as possible. If you do point out negative aspects of your last job, find some positives to mention as well. Complaining endlessly about your last company will not say much for your attitude.

Describe a problem situation and how you solved it.
Sometimes it is hard to come up with a response to this request, particularly if you are coming straight from college and do not have professional experience. Interviewers want to see that you can think critically and develop solutions, regardless of what kind of issue you faced. Even if your problem was not having enough time to study, describe the steps you took to prioritize your schedule. This will demonstrate that you are responsible and can think through situations on your own.

What accomplishment are you most proud of?
The secret to this question is being specific and selecting an accomplishment that relates to the position. Even if your greatest accomplishment is being on a championship high school basketball team, opt for a more professionally relevant accomplishment. Think of the qualities the company is looking for and develop an example that demonstrates how you can meet the company's needs.

What are your salary expectations?
This is one of the hardest questions, particularly for those with little experience. The first thing to do before going to your interview is to research the salary range in your field to get an idea of what you should be making. Steer clear of discussing salary specifics before receiving a job offer. Let the interviewer know that you will be open to discussing fair compensation when the time comes. If pressed for a more specific answer, always give a range, rather than a specific number.

Tell me about yourself.
While this query seems like a piece of cake, it is difficult to answer because it is so broad. The important thing to know is that the interviewer typically does not want to know about your hometown or what you do on the weekends. He or she is trying to figure you out professionally. Pick a couple of points about yourself, your professional experience and your career goals and stick to those points. Wrap up your answer by bringing up your desire to be a part of the company. If you have a solid response prepared for this question, it can lead your conversation in a direction that allows you to elaborate on your qualifications

Ways to pay for college

2006-06-03T10:39:00.000-05:00

KATHY KRISTOF 5/30/06:

Kathy Kristof
Personal Finance Columnist

June 5, 2006

For Matt Morris, the good news and the bad news came in the same envelope -- his acceptance letter from the University of Southern California's film school.

It is, after all, one of the most lauded programs in the country. But at $44,000 a year, it's also one of the most costly, and his financial aid grant was nowhere near enough to make it affordable.

Now the big issue for Morris is how to pay the tab at a time when federal grant money is scarce, competition for academic scholarships is intense, and interest rates for student loans are rising.

Paying for college is particularly thorny for middle-income families because higher-income parents can better afford it and lower-income students can get much more financial aid.

Complicating matters further are housing values, which have soared in recent years, boosting home equity for many middle-income parents. This paper wealth puts them in a bind when their children choose private schools, which can count home equity as an asset the parents can tap to pay for college.

But tapping that equity forces parents to pay on bigger home mortgages as they use most of their disposable income to pay college bills.

"It has gotten progressively tougher to finance college every year," said David Jaffe, president of College Pursuit, a New York-based college consulting firm. "Parents are in a really tough spot. I see them giving up home equity. I see them giving up their retirement money."

As students like Morris can attest, financial aid for middle-income families is increasingly about loans, loans and more loans. But experts say there are ways to cut the number of loans needed and make wiser choices among the lending options.

It all starts with a financial aid award letter, which all students who have applied for aid should receive from any college that accepted them. These award letters detail the scholarships, grants and loans available to the student from federal, state and school-based aid programs.

This is the cornerstone of college finance, but it's not the last word, said Martha Holler, a spokeswoman for student lender Sallie Mae.

Chances are, the award letter will provide a handful of sources of free money -- scholarships and grants based on need and merit -- and a list of loans and work-study awards.

Morris, for example, said he had received about $6,500 in scholarships, "enough to take the edge off" but not nearly enough to finance the entire bill. USC expects him to come up with the rest of the tab by working, using his parents' resources and taking out loans.

Before Morris heads down those roads, Holler suggested that he seek out private scholarships. Although it is too late to apply for some of these grants, others have late deadlines. The rules affecting private donor awards are as diverse as the individuals and organizations that provide them. These groups include corporations aiming to encourage certain fields of study, service groups such as the Knights of Columbus or DeMolay International, and even private individuals.

The easiest way to find private scholarships is to search on the Web. At sites such as www.fastweb.com and www.finaid.com, applicants fill out detailed surveys about their family history, awards and interests. The sites then search for relevant scholarships, sending links and applications to the student.

Students should apply for everything that has an even modest chance of success -- even if they're small amounts. But this aid will affect the aid the college provides, said Joe Russo, director of student financial strategy at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. Notre Dame tells its students that they must inform the college when they receive scholarships not listed on their aid award letters. Those scholarships will reduce other aid, he added, but will generally offset loans rather than grants.

Once all sources of free money are exhausted, students and parents have myriad loans to choose from:

>The best of the lot, for those who qualify, Russo said, is the Perkins Loan -- federally subsidized loans for students with demonstrated financial need. The government pays the 5 percent fixed interest rate while the student is in school and through a nine-month grace period after graduation.

There are no origination or guarantee fees, but the maximum loan amount for undergraduate students is $4,000 -- and few students qualify for the full amount.

The next-best option is Stafford loans, which come in two forms -- subsidized and unsubsidized. Starting in July, the interest rate on all newly issued Stafford loans will be fixed at 6.8 percent. For a subsidized Stafford loan, the government pays the interest while the student is in school. But more commonly, middle-income students are offered unsubsidized loans, for which the interest accumulates while the student is in school. Therefore, the loan amount -- the maximum is $2,625 in 2006 -- will grow until the student begins to pay it off.

The big trick with Stafford loans is realizing that the origination and guarantee fees that are charged up front are negotiable. Many lenders waive most, if not all, of these fees, which can add up to as much as 4 percent of the loan amount. Pending changes will alter the fees charged in 2007. For now, students need to know that every lender will charge the same rate on a Stafford loan, but it's worth shopping for lenders who will waive the fees.

Those who reach their Perkins and Stafford borrowing limits and still need more aid have four additional options -- monthly payment plans, parent loans, home equity loans and private loans"

>Monthly payment plans are simply an arrangement with the school -- or a third-party financial service -- to break the remaining cost of tuition (after scholarships and other loans) into nine or 10 monthly payments. For families that don't have the cash flow to handle the bill in one fell swoop, these are a terrific option. Typically, the only cost is a sign-up fee of $40 or $50, depending on the school.

>Parent loans fall under the federal student loan program. As such, they have set rates and fees. As of July 1, all parent loans, dubbed PLUS for Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students, will be at a fixed 8.5 percent rate for the life of the loan. These loans are also subject to 4 percent origination fees, and, unlike student loans, parents must start repaying this debt within 60 days after the funds are disbursed. They are generally repaid over 10 years.

With those rates and fees, PLUS loans aren't a huge bargain. But if the parents have a poor credit rating, they may be worth applying for because these parents have fewer low-cost borrowing options and, if they're turned down for a PLUS loan because of credit problems, their children may be able to borrow more under the lower-cost Stafford loan program.

>Home equity lines of credit may be a better option for some parents. A good credit risk can often secure a home equity line at prime rate -- currently 7.75 percent -- or just a fraction more. However, these loans are generally variable rate, which means they could become more costly if the Federal Reserve continues to hike interest rates.

On the plus side, interest paid on home equity debt of as much as $100,000 is tax-deductible -- no matter what the money is used for -- which lowers the after-tax cost.

The downside to home equity debt is that these loans put the house on the line, giving the lender the right to foreclose on the property if the loan is not repaid. If there's any chance the parents will have trouble repaying, they'd be smart to stick with unsecured loans, even if they cost a little more.

>Private and alternative student loans have cropped up in large numbers as lenders have discovered that the federally guaranteed options are increasingly insufficient to deal with the rising cost of college. The terms and conditions of these loans, however, vary widely. Some can be as attractive as PLUS loans, whereas others are far more costly and less flexible.

These bank loans are usually variable rate and can be taken out by the student or the parents. The loan rate will vary based on the lender and the borrower's credit profile. Holler suggests that students consider getting a cosigner if they take out the loan because it's likely to win them a considerably lower rate.

In any event, she said, the private loan is probably the last option, to be used when the student's ability to borrow elsewhere is exhausted.

Kathy Kristof writes for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune Co. newspaper. She can be reached at Business Section, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. First St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, or kathy.kristof@latimes.com.

Can this be the key to a really high SAT score?

2006-05-09T14:56:00.000-05:00

Mom was right! "Practice makes perfect."

Freakonomics
A Star Is Made

By STEPHEN J. DUBNER and STEVEN D. LEVITT
Published: May 7, 2006

The Birth-Month Soccer Anomaly

Illustration by Paul Sahre

If you were to examine the birth certificates of every soccer player in next month's World Cup tournament, you would most likely find a noteworthy quirk: elite soccer players are more likely to have been born in the earlier months of the year than in the later months. If you then examined the European national youth teams that feed the World Cup and professional ranks, you would find this quirk to be even more pronounced. On recent English teams, for instance, half of the elite teenage soccer players were born in January, February or March, with the other half spread out over the remaining 9 months. In Germany, 52 elite youth players were born in the first three months of the year, with just 4 players born in the last three.

What might account for this anomaly? Here are a few guesses: a) certain astrological signs confer superior soccer skills; b) winter-born babies tend to have higher oxygen capacity, which increases soccer stamina; c) soccer-mad parents are more likely to conceive children in springtime, at the annual peak of soccer mania; d) none of the above.

Anders Ericsson, a 58-year-old psychology professor at Florida State University, says he believes strongly in "none of the above." He is the ringleader of what might be called the Expert Performance Movement, a loose coalition of scholars trying to answer an important and seemingly primordial question: When someone is very good at a given thing, what is it that actually makes him good?

Ericsson, who grew up in Sweden, studied nuclear engineering until he realized he would have more opportunity to conduct his own research if he switched to psychology. His first experiment, nearly 30 years ago, involved memory: training a person to hear and then repeat a random series of numbers. "With the first subject, after about 20 hours of training, his digit span had risen from 7 to 20," Ericsson recalls. "He kept improving, and after about 200 hours of training he had risen to over 80 numbers."

This success, coupled with later research showing that memory itself is not genetically determined, led Ericsson to conclude that the act of memorizing is more of a cognitive exercise than an intuitive one. In other words, whatever innate differences two people may exhibit in their abilities to memorize, those differences are swamped by how well each person "encodes" the information. And the best way to learn how to encode information meaningfully, Ericsson determined, was a process known as deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice entails more than simply repeating a task — playing a C-minor scale 100 times, for instance, or hitting tennis serves until your shoulder pops out of its socket. Rather, it involves setting specific goals, obtaining immediate feedback and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome.

Ericsson and his colleagues have thus taken to studying expert performers in a wide range of pursuits, including soccer, golf, surgery, piano playing, Scrabble, writing, chess, software design, stock picking and darts. They gather all the data they can, not just performance statistics and biographical details but also the results of their own laboratory experiments with high achievers.

Their work, compiled in the "Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance," a 900-page academic book that will be published next month, makes a rather startling assertion: the trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated. Or, put another way, expert performers — whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming — are nearly always made, not born. And yes, practice does make perfect. These may be the sort of clichés that parents are fond of whispering to their children. But these particular clichés just happen to be true.

Ericsson's research suggests a third cliché as well: when it comes to choosing a life path, you should do what you love — because if you don't love it, you are unlikely to work hard enough to get very good. Most people naturally don't like to do things they aren't "good" at. So they often give up, telling themselves they simply don't possess the talent for math or skiing or the violin. But what they really lack is the desire to be good and to undertake the deliberate practice that would make them better.

Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt are the authors of "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything." More information on the research behind this column is at www.freakonomics.com.

MAST Academy makes Newsweek List of Top 100 High Schools

2006-05-01T11:25:00.000-05:00

MAST Academy on Virginia Key beach is listed at number 70 in the nation. See the complete list here. Once again MAST has ranked in the top 6% of high schools nationally by offering a combination of marine themed classes and AP courses that prepare students for college success. My son will be attending MAST Academy this fall so we are particularly proud of this achievement. He was accepted to 3 excellent magnet programs in Miami but we chose MAST (Maritime and Science Technology) because we felt the smaller school size (less than 550) and the fact that so many of their graduates are accepted to elite colleges and universities would be the best fit for him.

Scientific Proof that the Paunch Must Go

2006-04-26T16:10:00.000-05:00

Belly fat blues
A noxious type of fat raises risk for heart disease, diabetes and more. Luckily, it's easy to rid with exercise.
By Shari Roan, Times Staff Writer
April 24, 2006

HAVING a little paunch is just no good with a Speedo or bikini. Health-wise, it's none too pretty either.

That bulge is the outward sign of a deeper problem: visceral fat, a kind of biological monstrosity that, in excess, wreaks havoc on the body, raising the risk for heart disease, diabetes, possibly even dementia and some types of cancer.

Lying deep inside the body, wrapping around the liver and other major organs, visceral fat acts like a kind of organ itself — spewing out bad hormones and squashing the production of good ones. It sets up the body for sickness as the years roll by and additional fat accumulates.

"Visceral fat is very bad for you," says Richard N. Bergman, a professor at USC's Keck School of Medicine. "It seems to have a more negative outcome on health than overall fat."

The evidence now is so compelling that some experts suggest it's time to forget about scales and weight loss and focus on waists and "inch loss."

Luckily, visceral fat doesn't appear to be a particularly stubborn enemy. Health experts have discovered that consistent, moderate exercise by itself appears to help the body rid itself of vast amounts of deep abdominal fat — even when the scales show the pounds aren't dropping very fast.

This emerging science carries a message for consumers: Measure your waist circumference. And reduce it if need be. Doing something about that paunch could help save your life.

Recent studies on visceral fat help explain a well-established fact: that having a pear shape is more healthful than having an apple shape. A pear shape is caused by subcutaneous fat resting just under the skin. Apple is caused by the deep, visceral fat. What this means is that although both types of people — apple and pear — can be overweight, the person with the apple shape has more health risks.

It also means that people with normal weight can be at a higher health risk without realizing it.

Most people gain abdominal fat with age, but research shows the tendency to put on weight around the middle may be inherited. A study published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences identified particular genes that appear to dictate how fat develops and where it's stored.

A long list of illnesses

Meanwhile, the evidence for visceral fat's ill effects is mounting.

In research published in November in the Lancet, doctors concluded that a person's waist measurement is a more accurate predictor of heart attack than the body mass index, or BMI, which is a weight-to-height ratio.

Analyzing data from 27,000 people in 52 countries, the scientists found that BMI measurements were only slightly higher among people who had had heart attacks compared with those who hadn't. But heart attack sufferers had a much higher waist-to-hip ratio (a measurement that reflects abdominal fat) compared with those who hadn't, regardless of other cardiovascular risk factors. This finding was true for men and women in every ethnic group.

"This was the first study that really documented this relationship across all ethnic groups," says Dr. Arya M. Sharma, a co-author of the study from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and director of the Canadian Obesity Network.

Other studies have linked visceral fat to metabolic syndrome — a grouping of risk factors, such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure, that can precede diabetes and heart disease. For example, Wake Forest University researcher Barbara Nicklas published a study in 2004 showing that among overweight, post-menopausal women, those with the most abdominal fat were the most likely to have metabolic syndrome.

Additional illnesses may be influenced by excess abdominal weight too. A Kaiser Permanente study presented earlier this year at an obesity conference showed that people with the most abdominal fat were 145% more likely to develop dementia compared with people with the least amount of abdominal fat.

Research has also linked deep abdominal fat to the development of gallstones and breast cancer in women and overall risk of premature death in men. In a study of 291 men published online earlier this month in the journal Obesity Research, doctors found that men with more abdominal fat died in greater numbers, independent of all other risk factors the scientists examined. A man with 2.2 pounds of visceral fat has double the risk of death compared with a man with 1.1 pounds of fat.

Fat's harmful factors

Experts aren't sure why fat can be bad in one area of the body and yet not so bad in others. But they have two strong theories. One has to do with what visceral fat does. The other has to do with where it's located.

Today scientists know that fat is more than just inactive blubber. Fat cells were once thought of as inactive storage units containing a droplet of oil — the fat — that expand in a person who is gaining weight and shrink with weight loss. Now researchers have adopted a more complex picture of fat cells as mini-endocrine factories that produce a range of good and bad substances.

"Once we got beyond the bag-of-fat concept, we found there were a lot of things going on with those cells," says Philip A. Wood, director of genomics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and author of the book "How Fat Works."

Scientists now know that fat churns out an array of hormones.

The first such substance was discovered in 1994. Researchers identified a hormone, leptin, which is made by fat cells to signal a feeling of fullness.

Researchers now think that leptin, which plays a helpful role in regulating weight, goes down in people with excessive abdominal fat — leading people to eat more and pack on the pounds.

Visceral fat cells make another beneficial hormone, adiponectin, which helps insulin pull sugar from the bloodstream into cells to be used for energy or stored. This also declines as visceral fat levels go up. That can lead to insulin resistance, a condition in which cells no longer respond properly to insulin and which can lead to diabetes.

"Adiponectin going down is exactly what we don't need to happen," Wood says.

Visceral fat also causes some harmful substances to surge, including two proteins called interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha. These substances are bad players because they are thought to incite chronic, low-level inflammation in the body.

"Inflammation itself is not bad," says Nicklas, an associate professor of internal medicine at Wake Forest. "When our bodies are injured or sick we need that to heal. But there is an underlying degree of chronic inflammation with excess abdominal fat." Chronic inflammation aggravates heart disease.

This ability to promote low-level inflammation in the body may in part explain why excessive visceral fat is linked to a higher risk of dementia, says Rachel Whitmer, a research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland.

In a recent study, Whitmer examined data from more than 6,700 people who were measured for abdominal obesity at ages 40 to 45 and were followed for more than 20 years. Those with the highest amounts of abdominal fat were much more likely to develop dementia. "Being overweight is not only bad for your heart, it's bad for your brain," she says.

Whitmer's theory is that inflammatory substances released by visceral fat may enter the brain and damage nerve cells, contributing to cognitive decline.

Visceral fat may be worse than fat in the hips or buttocks not just because of the substances it makes — but because of its location. It sits near the portal vein, a major vessel that carries blood from the abdominal organs. "Visceral fat dumps its products into this vein that goes right into the liver," Bergman says.

These substances include free fatty acids — fat that circulates in the bloodstream — which appear to make the liver produce too much sugar, upsetting the body's ability to produce the right amount of insulin. This sets up the body for insulin resistance and possibly Type 2 diabetes.

The discovery that excess visceral fat functions almost like an organ, actively producing substances that can ultimately affect overall health, has changed the way many doctors now think about obesity.

"For an obese person with metabolic risks, we probably need to treat what the fat is doing to them, as opposed to trying to get them to lose weight," Nicklas says. "The idea is treating the symptoms of obesity rather than the obesity itself."

And the first step in that process could be pulling out an old-fashioned tape measure.

A simple test

Measuring the waistline with a tape measure hasn't been in vogue since the days of the girdle. Yet increasing numbers of researchers — including the Obesity Society, a major research group — are saying that waist measurements should be part of every checkup.

"You go to the doctor and get your height and weight measured all the time, but physicians don't measure the waist," says Nicklas. "I think it should be measured."

Some weight-loss groups are making waist measurement part of the weekly weigh-in. At Lindora weight-loss clinics, waist circumference is measured each week along with weight loss. It can end up being a positive experience, says Dr. Joseph Risser, director of clinical research at Lindora Medical Clinics. Studies show most dieters tend to have inflated estimates of how much weight they can or will lose. It can be discouraging when the pounds don't melt away.

But, Risser says: "People are encouraged by seeing changes in inches even without losing weight. If they go down a couple of dress sizes or pant sizes, even if the scale shows only 10 or 15 pounds [of weight loss], they are encouraged by that."

Having a tape measure wrapped around his middle was embarrassing at first, admits John Fiore, 47, a Laguna Niguel man who enrolled in a Lindora program in December.

But, he says, waist measurements have helped him appreciate his healthful new approach to eating and exercise. Along with a 64-pound weight loss, Fiore has lost 6 inches around his waist. Moreover, a recent ultrasound scan of his abdomen showed that he lost the large cluster of fat around his liver.

"I know it's important, at my age, to lose that weight around the middle," he says. "My clothes fit better too."

At least it's not stubborn

That is probably the best news about visceral fat: It's not all that hard to lose, and losing even a little might make a big difference in cardiovascular health. Sit-ups and liposuction won't work (sit-ups merely tighten the muscle and liposuction only removes subcutaneous fat), but studies show that regular diet and exercise can lead to a substantial drop. "It's easier than reducing any other fat because the abdominal fat is metabolically very active," Sharma of McMaster University says.

In fact, studies show that people who lose only 10% to 15% of total body weight can still lose up to 30% of their visceral fat — and reap fast, important benefits. A 2001 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that white and black women on a diet-and-exercise program lost 41% and 37% of their visceral fat, respectively, with a total weight loss of about 15%.

And in a study of 564 patients at Lindora, Risser found that reducing the waistline correlated with drops in blood pressure, cholesterol levels and blood sugar.

Ultimately, scientists hope that efforts to understand how visceral fat functions may lead to medications that target it and its byproducts. One drug under investigation, rimonabant, has been shown to help reduce waist circumference. For now, however, exercise may be the most effective way to reduce abdominal fat.

A study published in 2003 in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. found that people who exercised moderately for a year lost from 3.4% to 6.9% of intra-abdominal fat. The new study in Obesity Research finding higher death rates in men with excessive visceral fat also found that those who exercised tended to lose more visceral fat than those using strictly diet.

A third study, from the University of Pennsylvania, found that even among women who didn't diet, a twice-a-week strength-training regimen still helped slow the amount of visceral fat gained over two years.

"Visceral fat is sort of like a checking account: easy in, easy out," Wood says. "Excess peripheral fat, such as fat in the rear end, is like a retirement account. It's not that easy to get out."

*

(INFOBOX BELOW)

Fat around the middle

Fat comes in two forms: subcutaneous and visceral. Researchers now believe that visceral fat in the body's midsection increases the risk for several diseases.

1. Subcutaneous fat is the layer you can pinch just under the skin.

2. Visceral fat is deep in the body; you can't pinch it.

Two reasons why visceral fat is bad

1. The fat in this region of the body is near the portal vein, a major vessel feeding the liver. Substances released by fat cells, such as harmful fatty acids, may use this vein for direct entry to the liver, setting off a chain of events that can lead to insulin resistance.

2. Fat cells are thought to release both good and bad hormonelike substances. Excess visceral fat in people ...

... Decreases these helpful substances*Leptin: Helps regulate appetite by sending a message to the brain indicating fullness.*Adiponectin: Fights insulin resistance.--

... Increases these harmful substances

*Tumor necrosis factor-alpha: Worsens insulin resistance and can cause low-level inflammation in the body.

*Interleukin-6: Worsens insulin resistance and can cause low-level inflammation in the body.

*

Sources: Philip A. Wood and Richard N. Bergman

Yet another reason to turn the TV off

2006-04-26T00:17:00.000-05:00

MTV's 'Super Sweet 16' Gives a Sour Pleasure

By LOLA OGUNNAIKE
Published: April 26, 2006
Sophie Mitchell, a high school senior in Jupiter, Fla., had no intentions of turning 16 quietly. She wanted that birthday to be an epic event — no cake-and-ice-cream social or pajama-and-pizza sleepover would do. No, her party would be a ridiculously lavish, invitation-only affair, inspired by the film "Moulin Rouge." There would be can-can dancers, a fleet of stretch limousines for friends and family and a $1,500 cake.

MTV
Sophie Mitchell of Jupiter, Fla., at her sweet 16 celebration on MTV.

Readers’ Opinions
Forum: Television
"I wanted something with a lot of substance," said Sophie, now 17, without a hint of irony, "not just a regular party but pure entertainment for everyone."

Sophie is just one of the dozens of privileged kids who have had their coming-of-age extravaganzas captured on MTV's hit series "My Super Sweet 16" (Wednesdays at 10 p.m., Eastern and Pacific times; 9, Central Time). The show, in its third season, follows teenagers as they painstakingly plan their elaborate celebrations (which can cost as much as $200,000), argue over the details with their parents, fret over guest lists and shop for their first cars. There are tears and tantrums and nouveau-riche displays of conspicuous consumption. Marissa, a daddy's girl from Arizona, dyes her two poodles pink, so they'll match her dress. Her party was the show's season opener.

"It's like Jerry Springer for rich kids," said Zena Burns, entertainment director at Teen People magazine. Her readers can't get enough of the show, she said.

"You're either the type of kid that aspires to have that over-the-top party, or you're the type of kid that finds that absolutely repellent, but you still can't stop watching," said Ms. Burns, a fan of the series. "And I have just as many adult friends who watch it and do the water cooler recap the next day."

Predictably, the show has its share of critics. "Their blingy flings are not celebrations of accomplishment; they're celebrations of self," Ana Marie Cox, a Time magazine columnist, wrote in this week's issue. "What used to mark the end of childhood now seems only an excuse to prolong the whiny, self-centered greediness that gives infantile a bad name." Ms. Cox compared watching the show to eating an entire sheet cake, "wax decorative candles and all."

The show follows a simple but wildly successful formula: (1) kid makes a series of high-priced demands (a fireworks display, a helicopter ride, perhaps a harem of belly dancers); (2) parents capitulate and cough up the cash; (3) kid gleefully humiliates the uninvited; (4) something goes awry; (5) kid has a meltdown and repeatedly refers to self in the third person; (6) party miraculously comes together, and kid is presented with an automobile before his salivating, less fortunate peers. In Marissa's case, her father, who owns three auto dealerships, presented her with two cars: a red convertible for the weekend and a sturdy S.U.V. for the week.

Nina Diaz, the show's creator, said that in addition to receiving submissions, she worked with a casting team of five who scoured the country talking with party planners, florists and catering-hall owners, in search of the type of teenagers who make for great television. Each season about 200 are interviewed, but only 8 or 9 make the cut, Ms. Diaz said.

"We're looking for the parties to be over the top, and we're looking for originality," she explained. "We're looking for personality, how they visualize their grand entrance, how they're going through the process of inviting people."

While Ms. Mitchell's party was organized in four weeks, other teenagers have dedicated nearly a year to ensuring that their big one-six will be memorable. Aaron Reid, son of the music mogul L. A. Reid, took five months to plan his party. He had just moved to New York from Atlanta and was eager to make a name for himself at his new prep school, to establish himself as more than L. A. Reid's son. His invitation was an MP3 player. At his party, held at Jay-Z's 40/40 club last November, the producer Jermaine Dupri was the D.J., the rapper Kanye West performed, and Diddy, Aaron's godfather, made an appearance. Poppa Reid clearly pulled some strings.

"Everybody else spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I didn't spend anything," Mr. Reid said proudly. "I got my friend's club. I got my friend to perform and I got my friend to D.J."

"There's absolutely no way that I would ever spend that type of money," he continued. "I think it's over the top and sickening and a real poor representation of wealth."

Still, Dr. Srinivasa Rao Kothapalli, a prominent cardiologist in Beaumont, Tex., is more than willing to relinquish his checkbook. His daughter Priya turned 16 earlier this month, and she is in the throes of planning a joint birthday-graduation party with her elder sister, Divya, 18. "If you can afford to have a grand celebration, then why not," said Dr. Kothapalli, who immigrated to the United States from India in the mid-1980's. "It's the American way. You work hard and you play hard."

Born with silver ladles in their mouths, his daughters have certainly mastered the latter. Their Bollywood-themed party for 500 guests will be held in the family's backyard — all 4½ acres, behind the 10,000-square-foot house. The Format, their favorite band, will perform. And they will make their grand entrance on litters, during an elaborate procession led by elephants. The sisters, who plan to perform a choreographed routine at their to-do next month, are also taking dance lessons, and they've enlisted the help of a trainer.

"We both want to lose three pounds," said Priya, who received a Mercedes convertible and an assortment of diamond jewelry for her birthday. Her sister's graduation gift package included a Bentley, diamonds and two homes in India.

"I was really surprised," Divya said, "because I was only expecting a Bentley and one house."

Just last month they gave a preparty where invitations to their coming event were handed out by body builders whom Priya ordered not to smile. "Assistants are not supposed to smile," she explained.

Over the years, the sisters' ostentatiousness has earned them enemies. "Some people give us dirty looks and mock us," Divya said. "They're just jealous." MTV cameras following the pair around have not made things easier. "Sometimes people are fake nice because they want to be invited to our party; it's so annoying," she said.

Priya added, "It's pathetic when people suck up." Still, dealing with sycophantic classmates and a bit of teasing is a small price to pay for the spotlight. "We both love attention—that's one of our main motives for having the party," Divya said. "The more attention the better."

Ms. Burns was not surprised. "Given the advent of the Internet and reality television, a lot of kids think that fame is a realistic goal," she said. "What better way to be famous in your own world than throw the party of the year?"

Appearing on the series has meant instant pseudocelebrity for many of the teenagers. They've been asked to sign autographs and pose for photos. None of those interviewed seemed to mind the newfound attention, though not all of it has been positive. After her episode was shown last season, Sophie, the Florida teenager, a high-strung diva given to pronouncements like "the moral of this story is I'm always right," received tons of hate e-mail.

"At first I was reading it all, but then I had to stop because I was punishing myself," she said. Sophie's mother, Dale, a veterinarian, was quick to defend her daughter, blaming editing for making her look like an ungrateful monster. "My daughter and I have an adoring relationship; we're best friends," she said, "but that's not interesting to people. People want the guts and the juicy stuff."

Sophie was just as quick to defend her mother's decision to spend $180,000 for her party. "Unless they were crazy or hated their child, any parent who was financially able would do it," she said.

Affording your dream college

2006-04-26T00:07:00.000-05:00

--------------------
Affording your dream college
--------------------

Negotiation 101 begins with the financial aid director.

Gail Marksjarvis
Chicago Tribune

April 23, 2006

Who would have thought that one piece of mail could stir so much
emotion?

But that's what happens to families this time of year when the initial
elation over fat college acceptance envelopes morphs into sticker
shock.

In May, students generally need to let colleges know if they will
attend next fall, or pass up offers to favorite institutions and settle for
more affordable options. For many parents, that poses sleepless nights
as they face $20,000 or $40,000 annual costs to make their children's
dreams come true.

But there are still opportunities to make the price tags less
terrifying.

Don't take those college letters at face value. One college may appear
to offer a better financial aid package than another, but you might be
able to change that.

It's time to negotiate for better financial aid.

Financial aid offices expect it, and frequently offer more grants or
scholarships so they don't miss out on students they want.

But just don't call it "negotiation" when you make the call, said
Kalman Chany, a New York financial aid consultant and author of Paying for
College Without Going Broke.

"Use tact and don't reenact the Jerry Maguire scene: 'Show me the
money,' " he said.

The process is not unlike negotiating on a car, but the criteria is
different, and the style less overt. This is, after all, about a loftier
goal -- educating a person. So keep the discussion on that level, but do
your homework first.

To be successful, understand that colleges approach financial aid in
two ways.

There's a formula for allocating financial aid based on family
finances. That has been used by the staff to compute the financial aid it has
offered. Using the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as
the FAFSA, and perhaps the CSS Financial Aid Profile forms, they have
calculated what the formula shows you can afford to pay for college.
That's the "expected family contribution," and calls for both parents and
the student to provide a certain amount of income and savings.

The best part of the aid package is the free money -- grants and
scholarships.

While the formula is precise, there is play in the system. Each college
is different, some with more room to negotiate than others. The outcome
of the negotiation will depend on factors such as whether it's a
private or public college, how attractive a child is to that institution, the
challenges the college is facing in filling next fall's class, and the
size of the endowment the institution has to provide grants or
scholarships.

If a child wants to attend a public college, there is usually no room
to negotiate because the formula is rigid and scholarship money limited.
The exception would be if family financial conditions have changed
since the student applied for aid. If a parent has lost a job, or the
family suffered another financial setback, make sure the financial aid
office takes that into consideration.

Also do that with private schools.

"Offer documentation," Chany said. For example, show records that
indicate you have lost overtime pay or had unusual medical expenses.

You may have some luck, he said, if you can show an extraordinary
necessary expense such as a roof repair after a storm.

But private colleges have more flexibility to add grant money.
Consequently, low- and middle-income students often can attend a private school
at a better price than they would pay at a public university.

Here's what to do: Call the financial aid office and ask to speak to
the director. Tell the director that your child wants to attend that
institution, but you are agonizing over the financial impact on your
family. Also mention that your child has a less expensive option. Then ask if
there is anything that can be done to help make the school more
affordable.

Don't say there is less expensive alternative if you don't have one.
You should be prepared to fax another college's offer when negotiating.

You will be in the best position if your child has been accepted and
given an attractive financial aid package from an institution that is
viewed as a close competitor to the college your child wants to attend.
Use the college rankings assembled by U.S. News and World Report to help
spot competitors. At its Web site (www.usnews.com/us
news/edu/college/rankings/rank index-brief.php) you will see that colleges are
categorized by top universities or top liberal arts colleges. Then there are
lower tiers, or less prestigious colleges, ranked by "tier 3" and "tier 4."

If you have a great financial aid package from a tier 3 college, but
the student wants to attend a college ranked high among "top" colleges,
you probably won't have the negotiating strength that you would if you
also had a great offer from another top college.

Your negotiating position may be enhanced depending on where colleges
rank. For example, if you were admitted to Duke University, ranked fifth
best by U.S. News, and liberal arts school Goucher College, ranked No.
94, you might be in a better position to negotiate with Goucher than
Duke. On the other hand, Duke and Northwestern University, both among the
top 15 schools, might compete more aggressively for very attractive
students.

What's attractive to one college may be less so for another. For
example, all colleges compete to land students with the highest SAT or ACT
scores. When they accept students with high scores, it brings the
colleges up in the rankings, and the schools use their rankings to market
themselves to top prospective students.

So some colleges will attempt to lure students with high SAT scores by
offering merit scholarships. Don't expect the scores to mean much at
universities such as Yale or Harvard, where top SAT scores are the norm
and fewer than 11 percent of students who apply are admitted.

But look through the college rankings for colleges that accept half or
75 percent of the students applying, and there will be more opportunity
for a student with high SAT scores to receive an inducement to attend.
Also look at the average SAT or ACT scores for that college. If your
child is on the high end or above, you are in a good position to land
some merit aid.

A student also may be attractive if he or she has a special talent, is
from a particular ethnic or racial group or from a part of the country
that the admissions staff would like to represent in its student body.

If during the application process your student received special
interest by the admissions office, a coach or academic department, contact
that person and tell them about your financial concerns. He or she may be
your advocate with the financial aid office.

"Some parents are afraid to do this because they are afraid the offer
will be withdrawn," Chany said. "But at worst, they will just decline to
provide extra aid."

When trying to evaluate the attractiveness of your child to a college,
realize that it is difficult to guess on the face of it. A small
liberal arts college, for example, could have had few applicants that year
from a student with a specific talent. So, for example, if the college
needs a cello player, the admissions staff might want to make sure such a
student is admitted.

While you might receive a quick response from a college, you also could
be asked to submit a formal written appeal of your financial aid
package.

If you're still negotiating May 1, Chany suggests asking if you can
delay your response to the college's acceptance letter.

But if that doesn't work, take a deep breath and look at the cost of
college through objective eyes to evaluate whether you can truly afford
it or not.

The Chicago Tribune is a Tribune Publishing newspaper. E-mail Gail
MarksJarvis at yourmoney@tribune.com.

Copyright (c) 2006, Orlando Sentinel

Visit Sun-Sentinel.com

Toni Morrison's fabulous Locs

2006-04-18T10:10:00.000-05:00

Here's a picture of what I want my locs to look like when they mature. Toni Morrison has gorgeous locs. This is her with Selma Hayek at the Cannes Film Festival

An insomniacs shopping dream come true

2006-04-08T03:41:00.000-05:00

Woot.com

One bargain per night beginning at 1 am EST

DiscountStore.com - Discounts, Coupons, Bargains, Deals, Promotion Codes, Free Stuff + more!

2006-04-08T03:20:00.000-05:00

DiscountStore.com - Discounts, Coupons, Bargains, Deals, Promotion Codes, Free Stuff + more!
Bargains all in one spot...Cool

Earn Money and Prizes Completing Surveys

2006-04-07T11:38:00.000-05:00

Check out Vanderbilt Univ.'s elab to earn cash for completing surveys.

eLab

Also, Stanford University and Harvard University have paid survey sites as well.

Stanford University Graduate School of Business

Harvard Business School Computer Lab for Experimental Research (CLER)

New way to post pics, Mp3's and videos?

2005-12-01T11:03:00.000-05:00

David Pogue
Upload, Store, Play and Share in a Few Clicks
Glide Effortless users can create "containers" at the bottom of the screen into which items can be sorted.

Published: December 1, 2005
IN Hollywood, young screenwriters have "elevator pitches" always at the ready - pithy descriptions of their screenplays, intended to capture the imagination of passing movie executives. You know: "It's 'Titanic' on a spaceship." "It's a female 'Harry Potter.' " "It's 'Raising Arizona' meets 'Leaving Las Vegas.' "

Most of the time, high-tech companies can describe their products with equal efficiency, but not always. Take, for example, Glide Effortless, a new Web service that went live yesterday. "What is Glide Effortless?" its news release asks. "It is a compatible browser-based online solution with integrated software and service environments, providing powerful file management, creation, communication, sharing and e-commerce capabilities."

Which leaves only one question: "What is Glide Effortless?"

Here's another stab: it's a personal Web site (www.glidedigital.com) to which you can upload your favorite photos, MP3 files, video clips and even Word, PowerPoint or PDF documents. (A separate companion program speeds the uploading process by letting you drag and drop big batches of files at once.) Once everything's posted on the Web site, you can do two things with it: manage it or share it.

TransMedia, the company behind Glide, has some legitimate gripes about the way you have to perform these tasks on a Mac or PC. For example, you have to learn and use a different program to work with each file format: one to play music files, another to display photos, a third to play videos, and so on. Sending your masterpieces to other people is a drag, too. If you attach your photos or videos to e-mail, you usually wind up overflowing the recipient's in-box and causing headaches for everyone. Posting your files on a Web site or a blog (Web log) is a better solution, but that requires more geeky knowledge than average people care to acquire.

Glide avoids all of these problems. It treats each file type - photos, songs, videos, documents - nearly identically, representing each file as a thumbnail icon in your personal stash. You use a menu to switch from one "environment" (say, photos) to another (like music). At the bottom of each environment is an area where you can create "containers" - that is, playlists (for music and video clips), albums (for photos), address book groups (for e-mail), and so on. You fill up these containers by simply dragging the appropriate thumbnails from the top part of the screen. You can even drag music files into photo or video containers, thereby creating musical soundtracks.

When you want other people to see your stuff, you can send invitations by e-mail. (Glide can import your address book from Outlook or Entourage.) When your recipients click the link in your message, they arrive at a Glide Web page, where they can view or play the files.

THIS system means that you never actually send any files, so you don't clog anyone's in-box. More important, you now have total control over the material. From the moment you upload a file to Glide, it's converted into an online preview. Your visitors can listen to one of your songs or watch one of your videos, but they can't download it, keep it, or even replay it without returning to the Web site.

As a result, you can limit how many times somebody plays or watches something, or specify a window of opportunity (say, Dec. 5 to 20) for people's access. You can even play Big Brother by tracking how many times each person has viewed or played a certain goody.

With just a few clicks, you can also publish one of your containers as either a Web page, complete with embedded pictures and videos, or a blog entry. It's almost automatic, although you have no control whatsoever over the layout of the result.

All of this is fun to use, thanks to a full-blown online operating system that Glide designed itself. After all, thought TransMedia, why make the site look like Windows or Mac OS X, when a custom design could be simpler and better tailored to Glide's functions?

In the Glide OS, each object on the screen - thumbnails, containers and so on - bears a tiny "badge" that resembles a pie chart. When you point to it, a round menu sprouts at your cursor tip. It lists commands pertaining to that object (Delete, Edit or Publish, for example), arrayed like colorful slices of a pizza.

Here's where you first get an inkling that for all of Glide's genius, it's also tainted by some profound problems.

For example, you quickly realize that a circle is not a very good shape for a menu. Because each command's name must be squeezed into a triangular wedge, the number of commands and the lengths of their names are severely restricted. As it is, some of Glide's command names (like "Download") barely fit on their slices.

Then there are those rows of thumbnail images. They make it easy to see what you're dealing with; video thumbnails play a snippet of moving images, and music files bear album-cover art. But once your collection grows beyond one screenful, those horizontal rows of icons present an infuriating challenge. You can't resize them to fit more on a page, and you can't view them as a scrolling list; you can only page through them as you would with results of a Google search. They take their sweet time to appear, too.

Worse, although thumbnails excel at conveying visual information, they fail miserably at conveying text information - like their names. Only a few characters of each file's name fit beneath each Glide thumbnail; on song names, all you get is "12 Rolling Th.." and "10 It's Too L.." The only way to see the full names of your songs is to double-click their icons one at a time, opening successive Info panels.

In spots - notably the e-mail and chat environments - the Glide online operating system gets in its own way, requiring ridiculous multistep procedures for what, in Windows or Mac OS X, would be the work of a few keystrokes. For example, addressing an outgoing e-mail message and attaching a file requires switching back and forth between multiple screens.

Figuring out how to do some simple tasks, like backing out of a photo container to your full collection, are challenges for puzzle lovers only. In rejecting the traditional operating-system elements, TransMedia has thrown out significant bits of baby along with the bathwater.

You can sign up for any of three different Glide Effortless plans. There's a free service with a 100-megabyte storage limit for your files; a $5-a-month plan with 1.5 gigabytes of storage; and a $10 monthly plan with three gigabytes of storage, along with video and audio conferencing. (Discounts are available if you pay for a year up front.) Right now, Glide is for Windows only; according to the company, Mac fans can sign up starting on Dec. 25.

The Glide of today is already a vast collection of tools, integrated into a software ecosystem that's half genius and half nuts. But it's nothing compared with what the company says is on the way: a full-blown Internet music store; an online store that lets you order products by dragging their icons into a shopping-cart "container"; a Unix version; a timeline calendar module; a built-in photo-editing suite; playback of music file formats beyond MP3; and even a corporate version "for the sale, promotion and distribution of media to consumers" that will offer a project-scheduling screen, among other perks.

Furthermore, TransMedia says that soon you'll be able to share one of your songs with friends - and if they like it, they can buy a copy-protected version of their own. The company will profit from the sale, of course, but so will you; you'll get a discount on your next music purchase.

Then there's the cellphone version of Glide, the set-top TV boxes and the customized versions the company hopes to sell to cable, phone and entertainment conglomerates.

All this from a company of only 24 people?

It's a little hard to believe. And sure enough, there are some telltale signs that the company may have bitten off more than it could chew. The company acknowledges, for example, that when the Glide music store opens, it won't offer music from the Big Four record companies - only the smaller independents. There's still no user manual or online help screens. And only 48 hours before the grand opening, big chunks of the service were still being snapped into place.

Still, Glide's core idea is unassailably fresh and useful: a centralized, Web-based scrapbook of so many kinds of files, with the ability to share it without actually giving up control of the files. If TransMedia's plans for world domination fall into place, maybe it won't need an elevator pitch. Maybe "you gotta try this" will be the only pitch it needs.

E-mail: Pogue@nytimes.com

mr. bassie's notes and comment

2005-08-15T12:02:00.000-05:00

mr. bassie's notes and comment

Cool blog with reggae clips to listen to.

New Image Steel Orchestra

2005-08-13T22:46:00.001-05:00

My son Andrew plays the Tenor Steelpan here in Miami with the best steelband in Florida, the New Image Steel Orchestra. They have palyed at various events in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties, including City of Hollywood Mardi-Gras, Miami-Dade County Employee Picnic and Broward Caribbean Carnival 2005 Launch. That's Andrew with the Jamaican colors performing at the Palm Beach Carnival this June.

My Favorite Pic

2005-08-13T20:23:00.000-05:00

Here's a picture I took of my son Andrew while we were on vacation in Jamaica last year. He's drinking coconut water on the beach in Port Antonio.

Really cool picture of Bob Marley

2005-08-10T16:53:00.000-05:00

I don't think I've seen this one before. His locs look like a mane.

Got Soca?

2005-05-04T23:25:00.000-05:00

IslandMix - powered by Soca/Calypso

Check out Island Mix. Lots of soca songs to listen to, cd's to buy and plenty ole talk!

Download free music - a primer

2005-04-04T11:51:00.002-05:00

The New York Times > Arts > Music > Critic's Notebook: No Fears: Laptop D.J.'s Have a Feast

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK
No Fears: Laptop D.J.'s Have a Feast
By JON PARELES

Published: September 10, 2004

OWNLOADING music from the Internet is not illegal. Plenty of music available online is not just free but also easily available, legal and — most important — worth hearing.

That fact may come as a surprise after highly publicized lawsuits by the Recording Industry Association of America, representing major labels, against fans using peer-to-peer programs like Grokster and EDonkey to collect music on the Web. But the fine print of those lawsuits makes clear that fans are being sued not for downloading but for unauthorized distribution: leaving music in a shared folder for other peer-to-peer users to take. As copyright holders, the labels have the exclusive legal right to distribute the music recorded for them, even if technology now makes that right nearly impossible to enforce.

Recording companies have tried and failed to shut down decentralized file-sharing networks the way they closed the original Napster. (That name is now being used for a paid-download service.)

Courts have ruled that the services can continue because they are also used to exchange material that does not infringe on recording-company copyrights. At the same time, a bill before Congress, the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004, seeks to restrict the way file-sharing programs are constructed.

While the recording business litigates and lobbies over music being given away online, countless musicians are taking advantage of the Internet to get their music heard. They are betting that if they give away a song or two, they will build audiences, promote live shows and sell more recordings.

As with the rest of the free content on the Internet, there's no guaranteed quality control. Lucas Gonze, whose webjay.org lets music fans post playlists that connect to free music and video, describes free Internet music as "a flea market the size of Valhalla."

The first place to look for free music online is at musicians' own sites. Many performers, from Bob Dylan (www.bobdylan.com) to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (www.yeahyeahyeahs.com), post hard-to-find songs for listening: some as free downloads, some as streaming audio (which can be recorded with a free program like StepVoice at www.stepvoice.com). A next place to look is the labels, particularly independent rock and electronic labels like Matador (www.matadorrecords .com/music/mp3s.html), Vagrant (www.vagrant .com/vagrant/audio/audio.jsp), Barsuk (www.barsuk .com), Saddle Creek (www.saddle-creek.com) or Tigerbeat6 (www.tigerbeat6.com/html/catalogue.htm).

Many public radio stations also maintain music archives for streaming or downloading. Among them are the classical-music station WNYC (www .wnyc.org) and eclectic stations like WFMU in Jersey City (www.wfmu.org) and KCRW in Santa Monica, Calif. (www.kcrw.org), all of which have troves of live performances. MTV (at www.mtv.com) presents an entire album each week as an audio stream.

Following is a selection of sites offering free music online. Most of them are best used with a either a broadband connection or nearly infinite patience. While major-label recordings are largely (but not entirely) off limits, there's more than enough available music to satisfy every listener.

Epitonic

The first and best place to look for any band with an independent recording is www.epitonic.com, a superbly organized site that is likely to have music from nearly everyone heard on college radio. It includes not only downloadable songs but also biographical information and links for hundreds of acts, grouped under genres and subgenres. And it has an invaluable "Similar Artists" feature that can direct fans of one band to dozens of potential new favorites. Within Epitonic's huge roster is at least a song or two from some major-label acts, among them the New York band Secret Machines, the Texas band Sparta and the English bands Radiohead and Spiritualized. But independent bands like Bright Eyes or Godspeed You Black Emperor are every bit as good.

Webjay

At www.webjay.org, music fans share their Web finds with the world. There's no music on the site, just lists of links that allow users either to play entire lists or to download items directly one by one; it also includes links to videos and news sound bites. Webjay is something like the lists submitted by customers at www .amazon.com, but with connections to the music itself. As such, it's only as good as the widely varied skills of its contributors, and its links aren't always dependable. But it is a way for musical obsessives like bigwavedave to share his fondness for garage-rock or for OddioKatya to point listeners toward a wide assortment of Brazilian songs.

Furthurnet

Before the Internet became ubiquitous, the Grateful Dead's fans built up their own network to exchange concert recordings, a network that expanded as other jam bands sprang up. The logical extension of the process is Furthurnet (www.furthurnet .com). It is a peer-to-peer network that trades only recordings of bands that encourage listeners to record concerts: not just the Dead but Phish, Gov't Mule, Dave Matthews Band, Los Lobos, Wilco and David Byrne as well. Users need to install a program available on the Web site. Most of the available concert recordings don't use MP3 files, but a better quality audio format, SHN, which also requires some software installation. It's easy; information on the site explains all the technicalities.

Another connection for jam bands is www.etree.org, which points listeners toward recordings stored online and is equally fastidious about high fidelity. Meanwhile, concert recordings of all sorts, from vintage 1960's bootlegs to music only a few days old, have been traded at www.sharingthegroove.org, although the site is currently undergoing maintenance.

The Library of Congress

Through the years, tax dollars have supported researchers like Alan Lomax on excursions to collect music from every nook and cranny and tradition they could discover across the United States. The Library of Congress has made a considerable amount available free online. A place to start is the American Memory Collection (http://memory .loc.gov/ammem/audio.html), with fiddle tunes, American Indian music, border music from the Rio Grande, Dust Bowl songs and more.

Folkways Records

In 1987, the Smithsonian Institution bought the catalog of Folkways Records, which had set out to document every sound in the world and continues to support projects like a 20-disc collection of Indonesian music. Many of the Folkways recordings can be heard on the Web at www .folkways.si.edu, from "Classical Music of Iran" to "Creole Music of Suriname" to "Music of Indonesia Vol. 1: Songs Before Dawn."

Internet Archive

The Internet Archive (www. .archive.org) has set out to preserve material that might otherwise disappear from the Internet, including Web pages, documents, books and video clips as well as audio, and it includes a Live Music Archive with more than 10,000 concerts via etree.org. Most are from jam bands, but there is plenty to choose from. (More than a million people have downloaded Grateful Dead music from the archive.) The archive also includes an assortment of other audio under All Collections, which has 131 songs from 78-r.p.m. discs, and more than 3,000 songs on what it calls netlabels, most of them releasing electronic music. Try the exotica-tinged selections from Monotonik.

Iuma

The Internet Underground Music Archive (www.iuma.org) was a pioneer of free Internet music. It was founded in 1993 as a place for musicians to post their own music online, and it just keeps on expanding. Unfortunately, it is both overwhelming and overwhelmed; finding a good song requires extraordinary luck, and downloading it will take a while. Like the other send-it-yourself sites noted here, Iuma can make a user appreciate what record company scouts do.

Garageband

Hopefuls face Darwinian competition at www.garageband.com, where musicians are encouraged to rate 30 songs before submitting one of their own (or pay a $19.99 fee instead) and other listeners are also assigned tracks to rate. The songs that rise to the top of the charts have a chance to be heard on Garageband's radio outlets or collected on its compilation albums. Garageband demands original songs, not cover versions, and its top-rated ones tend to sound more professional, if not always more distinctive, than those at other mass upload sites.

CNet

The computer experts at CNet include an extensive selection of music among their software downloads at http://music.download.com. A vast bulk of the music is submitted by musicians themselves, so there are a lot of derivative sounds to wade through, but the well-organized site also includes worthwhile bands as Editor's Picks, currently including Dios and Ex Models.

Vitaminic

A huge site based in England, www.vitaminic.co.uk, offers tens of thousands of aspiring bands and a smattering of better-known acts, although brand-name bands like Franz Ferdinand tend to offer only streaming audio rather than downloads. But the site is well organized and also includes video clips from the likes of Nick Cave.

BeSonic

A European site where musicians can place their songs online, www

.besonic.com has a slightly more international perspective than the other newcomer sites. Rankings and recommendations help visitors sift the material. Registration is required for downloading.

Pure Volume

More than 76,000 songs are available at yet another site for aspiring musicians, www.purevolume.com, which is strongly weighted toward rock. To winnow the site, try the Pure Picks column or look under the category Music for Top Artists (Signed).

DMusic

Musicians can also post their own songs on DMusic (www.dmusic .com). It helps users wade through more than 17,000 acts — an overwhelming majority categorized as alternative or rock — by listing DM Picks and by having users give songs a thumbs-up or thumbs-down and append comments. As with Iuma, most are amateur submissions, with plenty of jokes, but there are some enjoyable tracks scattered among the picks.

Smart-Music

Dance-music experimenters dominate at www.smart-music.net, a selective site that draws its downloadable MP3's from hard-to-find small labels. Dipping into the genres and subgenres of electronica, Smart-Music has about 300 songs available from (relatively) well-known groups like Mouse on Mars and Zero 7 as well as basement laptop obsessives, and a high percentage of them turn out to be worthwhile.

Ragga-Jungle

Slow, deep reggae bass lines are the foundation for whole families of dance music represented at www.ragga-jungle.com. It's an outlet for amateur and professional producers and toasters (rappers), and the downloadable songs, available free after registration, include echoey dub-reggae vamps, sparse dance-hall productions and frenetic jungle tracks. Each track has ratings and comments, and quick streaming allows users to sample tracks before committing to a download. Contender for best title: "A Waste of Half an Hour of My Life, and Four Minutes of Yours" by the Archangel.

Classic Cat

With so much classical music in the public domain, it's a surprise that there aren't more free downloadable sites offering it, although the length of classical compositions can make them inconvenient to download. At www.classiccat.net, it's possible to search by composer, from Monteverdi to Messiaen. The selection is spotty and links don't always work, but it's a start.

Asian Classical

Need some Indonesian gamelan music? On the Internet at www .asianclassicalmp3.org, a dedicated collector of Asian music has transferred recordings from cassettes to downloadable MP3's. The site includes music from nine countries, including 28 minutes of gamelan music from Java.

Iraqi Music

The straightforwardly named www.iraqimusic.com is a resource for both the classical Iraqi improvisations called maqams and more recent Iraqi recordings based on traditional (and thus noncopyrighted) songs. "Sister Sites" provides links to other sites with Middle Eastern music.

Trama

A Brazilian record label, Trama (www.tramavirtual.com), offers about 10,000 MP3's, primarily from local Brazilian bands. The site is in Portuguese and requires users to sign up, but after that, it is fairly easy to navigate. "Baixar" means download.

Micromusic

The Internet is home to countless obsessives. The ones gathered at www.micromusic.net make their electronic music from the sounds of the first primitive video games. Proud of what they can generate from eight-bit gizmos, they have placed hundreds of blipping, buzzing ditties online, garnering the attention of Malcolm McLaren, the Sex Pistols' manager, among others. Registration is required, but it's a modest inconvenience on the way to tunes like "How Bleep Is My Love."

Socafm.com - The home of Soca on the web

2005-03-23T19:51:00.000-05:00

Socafm.com - The home of Soca on the web
Listen to Soca Live on the Web!!

Soca songs to listen to

2005-03-22T19:13:00.000-05:00

Soca Layout

Lots of them!

The Hottest item on TV

2005-03-16T15:53:00.000-05:00

Turn Up the Heat with G.Garvin

Check out G. Garvin on TV One on DirecTV channel 241 Wednesdays 8:00 PM. If you don't already have DirecTV, go get it now. This brother is finer than fine. And he can cook too!!! Ladies, It's worth the price of the subscription just to watch this man handle his VERY large pepper mill every week. Umm, Umm, Umm sizzling hot!!!!!!

Cool Oldies Mix

2005-02-22T18:05:00.000-05:00

Multimedia

http://www.flexsoundz.citymax.com/f/Oldies_Mix1.mp3

OMG!!! What a body!

2005-02-09T16:55:00.002-05:00

Ok I saw this on someone's Profile and I was floored by the impressive artwork ;-)

Who Knew!! WWW.MachelMontano.com

2005-02-09T15:02:00.000-05:00

Xtatik Ltd.

Now I can listen to "You" my favorite song for 2005 on demand. You done know Machel Montano wrote that song especially for me!!

Well you can also listen to other tracks as well, and even view the music video for Music Farm.

Be sure to check out the MadMan Karaoke in the games section.

Soca Pulse Radio Station > Listen to soca music & calypso music 24/7 FREE SOCA MUSIC RADIO

2005-02-09T14:29:00.000-05:00

Soca Pulse Radio Station > Listen to soca music & calypso music 24/7 FREE SOCA MUSIC RADIO: "SOCA PULSE. 24/7 soca music "

My latest favorite online radio station, 24/7 COMMERCIAL-FREE SOCA!!! No Deejays, no puull-upppp!! Just All Soca-All de time!!

I'm listening to Onika Bostik (RIP, Sista!) and Bunji Garlin sing Get on Bad!

Carnival Costume Wishlist...

2005-02-09T13:13:00.000-05:00

GVIDirect / IslandEvents Online Shop: Female - HC Madame

...Or what I would be at Trini Carnival 2005

Shurwayne Wins Road March Again

2005-02-09T10:30:00.000-05:00

Shurwayne Winchester's "Dead or Alive" won him the title of Road March King as Trinidad's Carnival wrapped up on Tuesday. Shurwayne has won the competition for the 2nd year in a row as his song was played the most on the road by the big trucks on Carnival Tuesday.

Source

Dead or Alive

World Carnival Schedule

2005-02-06T16:57:00.000-05:00

Date City / Country

Feb 19-20 , 2005 Aruba
Feb 7-8, 2005 Trinidad & Tobago

Feb 7-8, 2005 Rio de Janiero

Feb 7-8, 2005 New Orleans

Feb 7-8, 2005 Dominica

Mar 27-Apr 3, 2005 Jamaica

Apr 2005 St. Maarten

May 7, 2005 Cayman Islands

May, 2005 Pt. Fortin Borough Day

May, 2005 St. Thomas (VI)

May 21st, 2005 San Francisco

May 20-22, 2005 Oaklahoma

May 21, 2005 Honduras
May 20-22, 2005 Los Angeles

May 23-25, 2005 Oakland

May 27-30, 2005 Orlando

May 27-30, 2005 San Francisco
May 27-30, 2005 Atlanta
May , 2005 Bermuda

June 3-7, 2005 Berlin (Germany)

June 11-12, 2005 Tampa Bay
June 12, 2005 Hartford

June 18, 2005 Philadelphia
June 18-26, 2005 Washington D.C.

July, 2005 Puerto Rico

July 54-5, 2005 St. Vincent

July 9, 2005 Syracuse
July 18-20, 2005 St. Lucia

July , 2005 St. John (VI)

July 1-3, 2005 Houston (Caribfest)
July 2, 2005 Montreal (Carifest)
July, 2005 Vancouver
July 22-24, 2005 Baltimore

July 24, 2005 Jersey City

July 30, 2005 Toronto
Aug, 2005 Anguilla
Aug, 2005 Manitoba
Aug, 2005 Tortola (VI)
Aug, 2005 Winipeg (Caripeg)
Jul 30-Aug 1, 2005 Barbados
Jul 30-Aug 1, 2005 Antigua
Aug 5-7, 2005 Hamilton
Aug 5-7, 2005 Edmonton (Cariwest)
Aug 5-7, 2005 Detroit
Aug 7-9, 2005 Grenada
Aug 20-22, 2005 Chicago (Carifete)
Aug 13, 2005 Ottawa (Fete Caribe)
Aug 27, 2005 Boston
Aug 20-23, 2005 Notting Hill (U.K.)
Sept 5, 2005 New York
Sept, 2005 Las Vegas
Sept, 2005 Belize
Sept, 2005 San Diego
Sept 17-19, 2005 Baltimore
Sept, 2005 Long Island
Oct, 2005 Costa Rica
Oct, 2005 Key West
Oct , 2005 Bahamas
Oct 8-9, 2005 Miami
Oct 22, 2005 Sydney (Australia)
Nov, 2005 Jacksonville
Dec, 2005 St. Kitts
Dec, 2005 Monserratt
Dec 24-Jan 2 St.Croix (VI)

2005 Panorama Finals Results - Large Band Phase II Wins!!!

2005-02-06T02:35:00.000-05:00

PETROTRIN PHASE II PAN GROOVE 478 1
SAGICOR EXODUS 458 2
WITCO DESPERADOES 454.5 3
BP RENEGADES 437.5 4
BWIA INVADERS 433 5
RBTT REDEMPTION SOUND SETTERS 431 6
NEAL & MASSY TRINIDAD ALL STARS 429.5 7
SKIFFLE BUNCH 427 8

WOW!!!! What a Performance!!!

2005-02-06T02:19:00.000-05:00

Phase II Wows the crowd!! I think they should definitely win Panorama 2005. Fantastic performance. Clearly a great arrangement by Len "Boogsie" Sharpe.

Trindad Carnival 2005

2005-02-06T00:35:00.000-05:00

I'm listening to Panorama finals Live on Radio i95.5 FM in Trinidad. Wish I was in Trinidad. Earlier, I was listening to Machel Montano's Alternative Concept 3 on BBC 1Xtra Live. Great coverage. Machel is truly an innovater in Soca music.

Man, Exodus is gonna be harrrddd to beat! Sounds like they tearing up de stage!

Although I'm rooting for Phase II. De underdog and all dat.

Here's the Playing Positions for the Large Bands

Saturday 5th February 2005 Queens Park Savannah, Port of Spain - 7 p.m.
1 SKIFFLE BUNCH
2 SAGICOR EXODUS
3 BWIA INVADERS
4 NEAL & MASSY TRINIDAD ALL STARS
5 BP RENEGADES
6 WITCO DESPERADOES
7 RBTT REDEMPTION SOUND SETTERS
8 PETROTRIN PHASE II PAN GROOVE

Free iPod

2005-02-05T23:52:00.000-05:00

Here's how you can get a free iPod. Click here and complete one offer.

Favorite Soca Sites

2005-02-05T23:44:00.000-05:00

These are my favorite sites to listen to Soca

BBC 1Xtra with Slic and Machel Montano - Excellent show, no commercials. Too bad it only comes on once a week on Sunday nites.
i95.5FM Radio Station Live from Trinidad
Toronto Lime Great site, lots of free soca and reggae music, lyrics etc.

Sweet Soca Euphoria

Toni Morrison - Natural Beauty

Where to Find Work for Teens This Summer - WSJ.com

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Ten Things That Can Get You Fired

Make a Temp Job Last - WSJ.com

By DENNIS NISHI

Clarence Clemons, E Street Band Saxophonist, Dies at 69 - NYTimes.com

By BEN SISARIO

Published: June 18, 2011

Scott Audette/Reuters

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ArtsBeat

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A Book in Every Home, and Then Some

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