EAST ALTON ILLINOIS ROTARY CLUB

JUST FOR PUN

2009-12-29T14:37:00.001-06:00

New years resolution for the bankrupt gardener was to forget the past and rely on the fuchsia.

TODAY IN HISTORY

2009-12-29T14:33:00.001-06:00

DECEMBER 29

1978:Ohio State head coach Woody Hayes punches Clemson player Charlie Bauman after he makes an interception. Hayes, who has two national championships, never coaches again.

1851: Ex-sea captain Thomas Sullivan founds the first U.S. Young Men’s Christian Association in Boston.

1989: Vaclav Havel is elected Czechoslovakia’s first non-Communist president in four decades.

TUNE IN TONIGHT

2009-12-29T14:26:00.000-06:00

32nd ANNUAL KENNEDY CENTER HONORS

CBS, 9 p.m. ET

So far as I’m concerned, this two-hour annual CBS special is required viewing – and this year’s edition is one of the best in years. Bruce Springsteen, Dave Brubeck, Mel Brooks, Robert De Niro and opera singer Grace Bumbry are the honorees .

2009-12-29T14:22:00.002-06:00

PEOPLE BEING PEOPLE

2009-12-29T11:03:00.001-06:00

A thief with a sweet tooth made off with more than $40,000 worth of stolen cheesecake and a refrigerated truck on Dec. 26, police said.

Orlando police said the truck's owner had parked the semi-tractor trailer at 8440 Tradeport Drive at about 3 p.m. The victim said he turned off the ignition, left the refrigerated trailer running and walked away from the vehicle.

When he returned, the semi and trailer were missing. The owner told police he had all the keys belonging to the truck in his possession.

The truck is valued at $50,000 and the refrigerated trailer is valued at $120,000, police records show.

Police did not have leads on the whereabouts of the sugary goods.

BOOK REVIEW

2009-12-29T10:34:00.002-06:00

On Campus, Unprepared
Colleges are filled with unserious students learning too little. What should be done?

By BEN WILDAVSKY
When President Barack Obama announced earlier this year that the U.S. should aim to have the world's highest proportion of college graduates by 2020, he was staking out an ambitious but hardly a maverick goal. It is widely recognized, by Republicans and Democrats alike, that the gap between the earnings of high-school graduates and college graduates has become a chasm in recent decades. More college graduates would mean more prosperity for individuals—and for the nation, too. Bowing to this logic, governments around the world—from China and India to the Middle East—are trying to boost college attendance for their knowledge-hungry populations.

As Mr. Obama's goal suggests, there is plenty of room for improvement in the U.S. While nearly seven in 10 high-school graduates go on directly to two- or four-year colleges (up from 49% in 1972), many students are poorly prepared for college and end up taking remedial courses. And huge numbers fail to graduate. Reformers believe, not without reason, that such problems can be solved in part by improved high-school preparation and better college instruction. But is it possible that aiming to increase the number of American college graduates is actually a fool's errand?
A few skeptics think so. Most prominent among them is Charles Murray, who in "Real Education" (2008) argued that most young people are just not smart enough to go to college and should be encouraged to take other paths instead, especially vocational training. Now comes Jackson Toby with "The Lowering of Higher Education in America," a provocative variation on Mr. Murray's theme.
Mr. Toby draws on social-science data as well as personal experience—he taught sociology at Rutgers University for 50 years before retiring a few years ago—to decry the intellectual conditions that prevail on the American campus. Sidestepping the matter of students' innate abilities, he blames low academic standards mostly on the easy availability of financial aid to undergraduates who are unqualified for college-level coursework.
Early on, Mr. Toby concedes that education has become the country's "main economic escalator." But he is alarmed at how few students are prepared to meet even the minimal demands of a real college education. He faults lax college-admission standards that give high schools little incentive to push their students harder. Too many undergrads can't write with minimal competence or understand basic cultural references. Students often take silly, politicized courses. And they feel entitled to inflated grades: Mr. Toby reports that one of his students spewed obscenities at him for ending the young man's straight-A record.
Perhaps this kind of experience accounts for Mr. Toby's seeming bitterness toward unserious students, whom he calls "unprepared, half-asleep catatonics who drift in late and leave early." Most undergrads, Mr. Toby suggests, enjoy a steady diet of extracurricular hedonism while skating through their coursework (though it's unclear how this claim jibes with his complaints about low graduation rates).
Worst of all, he says, students have been misled about the value of their degrees. Yes, a bachelor of arts degree commands a wage premium, but less because of a graduate's acquired knowledge than because of the signal that his degree sends to employers about the abilities that got him into college and about a variety of soft skills, such as reliability and problem-solving capacity. Graduates in undemanding majors—in the humanities, for example, or most of the social sciences—are unlikely to earn what their more studious counterparts in, say, engineering can. They are thus disproportionately likely to be saddled with debt and prone to default, Mr. Toby argues. He claims that this pattern amounts to the kind of unsound lending that led to our recent credit crisis—one that he darkly suggests may soon be repeated in higher education. He believes that today's "promiscuous" system of college grants and loans—which, at the federal level, is based largely on financial need—ought to be retooled to focus on academic merit.
But his platform is less radical than his book's subtitle promises ("Why Financial Aid Should Be Based on Student Performance"). He acknowledges that quite a few states already have merit-based aid. And in a concession to political reality he would continue the federal Pell Grant program, which focuses on need alone. Mr. Toby's main proposal, then, is to require good grades and test scores from those seeking federal student loans. This requirement, he believes, would improve incentives for academic performance and mitigate the inevitable trade-off between widening access to college and maintaining educational standards.
Strangely, Mr. Toby does not address the biggest objection to merit aid, which is that it usually subsidizes middle- and upper-income students who would go to college anyway. By contrast, need-based aid often provides make-or-break help to low-income applicants: Without grants and student loans, they would probably not go to college at all.
Mr. Toby sees reduced college opportunities as the price of keeping under-prepared students off campus. But that is one trade-off we should not make, especially when a college degree carries so much value in the marketplace. Our vast and varied college system, to its credit, enrolls all sorts of students. Mr. Toby delineates the system's manifold shortcomings, which badly need to be remedied. And to be sure, academic merit deserves a place in our financial aid system. But the indisputable benefits of college ought to be spread more widely, not less.

AND I QUOTE

2009-12-29T08:53:00.001-06:00

"Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them." – Agatha Christie

2009-12-29T08:30:00.001-06:00

2009-12-29T08:28:00.001-06:00

DO YOU REMEMBER?

2009-12-29T08:27:00.001-06:00

When Ross Bagdasarian changed his name to David Seville, sped up his recorded voice, and released the single, “The Chipmunk Song,” he didn’t realize he was starting a pop culture industry. The success of that song lead to The Alvin Show in 1961, which followed the animated adventures of chipmunks, Alvin, Simon, and Theodore, and their friend and mentor, David Seville.

In 1972, Bagdasarian passed away, but in 1979, NBC aired The Alvin Show again during Saturday mornings. A year later, Ross Bagdasarian Jr. released Chipmunk Punk, a successful comeback album. The Chipmunks were once again in the spotlight, and NBC created a new animated show, Alvin and the Chipmunks, in 1983.

The new show continued the adventures of the three chipmunks – Alvin, the schemer, Simon, the sensible one, and Theodore, the silly one. They were now a rock band in their floor-length sweaters, and David Seville was their manager. They covered Top 40 hits in their high-pitched voices – just like on Chipmunk Punk. They were often joined by guest stars such as Dolly Parton and Mr. T (who shortly after launched his own self-titled animated series.)

The Chipmunks were also joined by another band, the Chippettes – Brittany, Jeanette and Eleanor, lovely ladies to be matched up to Alvin, Simon and Theodore, respectively. They often found themselves competing against each other in talent contests.

These new zany adventures proved to be a success – the show ran for an impressive eight seasons on NBC’s Saturday morning schedule. The show changed title twice, becoming The Chipmunks in 1988, and Chipmunks Go To the Movies in 1990. This latter show focused on parodying pop culture, with spoofs such as "Batmunk."

For something that started as a silly little novelty song, The Chipmunks have been entertaining audiences for over thirty years.

TIME TO GET "LOST"

2009-12-29T08:24:00.004-06:00

If Lost lost you somewhere along the way, here's how you and the show can find each other again.

Before ABC starts the sixth (and final) season on Feb. 2, catch up to everything that's happened with the castaways, the island, the Dharma Initiative, the Oceanic Six, and more of the series' sometimes inpenetrable mythology.

A couple of new ways to do that: free iTunes downloads and weekly DirecTV recap specials.

Over at iTunes, you can now score free downloads of 2004's two-part series pilot -- basically a movie in itself, which wowed both viewers and critics -- as well as the yearly recap specials broadcast by ABC to bring us up to date just before each new season started. That's five free hours to help figure out what the bleep is going on with the action.

If you're a DirecTV subscriber, you can watch those five recap hours on The 101. The first aired last Saturday at 9 p.m. ET, the same slot in which succeeding seasons' will unreel weekly.

And then there's ABC's sixth-season teaser at the network's Lost page, which also offers streams of the 10 most recent episodes (aired last spring) and earlier seasons, too.

Finally, of course, you can buy all five seasons so far on DVD and Blu-ray.

TODAY IN HISTORY

2009-12-28T20:30:00.002-06:00

DECEMBER 28

1981:Elizabeth Jordan Carr becomes the first American test-tube baby when she is born in Norfolk, Va.

1945: Congress recognizes the “Pledge of Allegiance.” The words “under God” are officially added in 1954.

1958: In what has been called football’s greatest game, the Baltimore Colts win the NFL championship in overtime against the New York Giants.

CONSUMER TIP FROM CONSUMER REPORTS

2009-12-28T18:32:00.001-06:00

Use Billshrink's comparison tool if you want to check out the contract plans of major cellular carriers. But if you want to
pay the lowest possible price for your cellphone service, be sure to check companies that offer mainly prepaid plans, including Boost, TracFone, and Virgin.

2009-12-28T17:11:00.002-06:00

SOCIAL MEDIA TENDS FOR 2010

2009-12-28T09:22:00.001-06:00

This year, the mainstream news media embraced social media, and Rotary clubs and districts demonstrated that they're comfortable using it, that it can provide great marketing, and that it can serve as an effective communication tool for reaching out to potential new members. With 2010 around the corner, social media predictions abound. Read about how social media will change in the next year.

RECYCLE YOUR OLD ELECTRONICS GEAR

2009-12-28T08:13:00.001-06:00

(link above)

Electronics are popular Christmas gifts. After all, who wouldn't want a new computer or television?

But there's a problem with getting new gear. You need to dispose of the old stuff.

You can't just put electronics in the trash. They contain compounds that are bad for the environment. Besides, tossing them may be illegal in some areas.

So, make sure the old gear is handled correctly. Your best bet is to donate it to a charity. Or, you can take it to be recycled.

Used to be, you had to pay to recycle computer gear. Fortunately, things are changing.

If you want to get rid of old gear, head over to Reconnect's site. It's a partnership between Dell and Goodwill.

Goodwill will accept virtually any type of computer gear. Even CRTs with broken glass are welcome! If the equipment can be reused, it will be. If not, it will be recycled responsibly.

The site will help you find a drop-off location. It also covers acceptable items. Check the list before hauling in your stuff.

Of course, you'll get a receipt for tax purposes. So, you may want to look into recycling your equipment before year's end.

GET RID OF THE GERMS

2009-12-28T08:09:00.002-06:00

Proper hand washing could save more than a
     million lives a year worldwide, public-health
experts say. But nearly 40 percent of Americans still
seldom or never wash their hands after coughing or
sneezing, a recent survey found. The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention recommends washing hands
with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, about as
long as it takes to sing "Happy Birthday" twice. The
most important times to wash are:
   • Before preparing or eating food.
   • After going to the bathroom, changing a dia-
per, blowing your nose, coughing, handling garbage,
sneezing, or taking care of an animal.
   • Before and after tending to a cut or wound, or
having close contact with someone who is ill.
    Hand sanitizers can help in a pinch, but make sure
they contain at least 60 percent alcohol. They can kill
the germs they come in contact with but don't cut
through layers of dirt that can hide germs. So use soap
and water whenever you can. Antibacterial soaps are
unnecessary and potentially harmful. They don't kill
viruses, and the main ingredient, triclosan, may help
breed drug-resistant bacteria.

SAVE AT THE SUPERMARKET

2009-12-28T06:26:00.001-06:00

Supermarket execs have made a science of temptation. They dazzle us with fresh fruit, ply us with samples at the deli counter, and seduce us with buttery scents from the bakery. I should know—I've been analyzing grocery-store marketing techniques, and consumer responses to them, for more than 30 years. My advice: When store strategy is to entice you to buy on impulse—to go with your gut—saving money means using your head. Here are my top ten tips for paying less without sacrificing quality or forsaking the foods you want.
Tip 1: Make shopping a job
Food may be fun, the glue that connects us with family and friends, but you need to look at grocery shopping as a job—one best completed on time and under budget.
Tip 2: Take stock
In surveys I've conducted, most people report they already had in the pantry, freezer, or fridge at least 15 percent of the foods they bring home from the store. So don't just "go shopping." Check your shelves before you shop, plan your needs for a set number of meals, and stick to the list: the less you wander the aisles, the more money you're likely to save. If you allow for chance discoveries, make them part of your meal plan on the spot.
Tip 3: Bring a calculator
Failing to tote up what you're spending as you go is like driving a car without an odometer. So keep a running tally—especially at warehouse stores, where those "bargains" by the case can empty your wallet fast.
Tip 4: Start at the center
Working from your list, begin not on the margins of the supermarket, amid mouthwatering sights and smells, but in the middle, with its boring aisles of boxes, cans, and jars, where you'll find more discounts.
Tip 5: Compare aisles
Each department in the store operates independently—and has a different profit margin—so you can find the same or similar products in different locations at wildly different prices:
Cheese
Recently I found Swiss cheese on the cheese table for $8.99 a pound and in the dairy case for $5.99 a pound—a 33 percent discount.
Fish
Save up to 40 percent by walking past the seafood department to the freezer cases. Because lots of seafood is filleted and flash-frozen right after being caught, its freshness is preserved. The best way to thaw it is overnight in the fridge, soaking in milk, which makes it taste milder.
Ground beef
Buying fresh can cost you around $2.49 a pound for 80 percent lean. Buy frozen ground beef in a three-pound vacuum-packed "chub" (it's shaped like a salami) and you'll save at least 25 percent.
Pasta
Refrigerated pastas can cost $3.99 for nine ounces. Go for dried Italian pasta. Any brands using durum-wheat semolina are probably good—even ones you've never heard of—and should cost about $1.29 a pound.
Tip 6: Go back to white eggs
Although brown eggs are otherwise identical, they can cost 50 cents more per dozen than white.
Tip 7: Select Select beef
The USDA has three quality categories for cuts of beef: Prime (the highest grade and most expensive), Choice (the middle grade), and Select (the least expensive, and the least fatty). To save, buy Select beef and tenderize it with a marinade.
Tip 8: Try store brands
These are always going to save you 20 to 30 percent. If you're afraid the ingredients aren't up to snuff, know that every private-label brand I've encountered—including Ann Page at A&P, and the ShopRite, Albertson's, and Safeway brands—is backed by a money-back guarantee. See the store manager if you aren't satisfied.
Tip 9: Customize your cereal
To avoid paying $4 or more for a box of brand-name cereal, buy a basic high-fiber store brand for 20 percent less and add your own selection of sweeteners, fruits, and nuts. Also, note that generic cereals packed in plastic bags typically cost around a dollar less than boxed varieties.
Tip 10: Skip fake convenience
Do you really need to purchase your oatmeal in single-serving packets that cost as much as $3.99 a dozen? Buy oatmeal (either regular or quick-cooking) in those familiar cardboard cylinders instead and you'll trim up to 75 percent from the cost of breakfast.
Prewashed mixed greens, on the other hand, may be a worthwhile alternative to keeping three or four different heads of lettuce in the crisper. Factoring in how fast those heads can spoil, that "fancy" bag of assorted leaves could be an unexpected bargain.

PEOPLE BEING PEOPLE

2009-12-27T13:27:00.001-06:00

A DOZY robber was nicked while scoffing a chicken dinner at a restaurant he held up at gunpoint 20 minutes earlier.

The 38-year-old is accused of stealing several hundred pounds after waving an airgun at terrified staff.

But he then sniffed the tasty aromas at the Southern Fried Chicken branch and demanded: "Give me one of those Hunga Busta Meals too."

He sat down to eat the meal and was still tucking in when armed cops alerted by staff burst into the diner in Colchester, Essex.

An Essex police source said: "We've come across some stupid criminals in our time but this beats all. Normal practice is to grab the cash and run. But this man was obviously controlled by his belly rather than his brain.

"After running in with a hoodie and scarf hiding his face, he took them both off to stuff his face with chicken.

"The staff he'd just waved a gun at were gobsmacked.

"He sat there eating for 20 minutes so they had tons of time to dial 999.

"Staff thought it was a bizarre TV stunt. It just goes to show, you shouldn't carry out a heist on an empty stomach."

The man, a double glazing salesman who cannot be named, is charged with possessing a weapon in a public place, theft and using threatening behaviour in a public place.

He has been bailed to appear at Chelmsford Crown Court on January 4. A CPS spokeswoman yesterday confirmed a man had been charged over the hold-up.

2009-12-27T13:09:00.001-06:00

TUNE IN TONIGHT

2009-12-27T12:19:00.000-06:00

ADAPTATION

Sundance, 10 p.m. ET

Nicolas Cage finally gets to star opposite an actor as quirky as he is – because he plays dual roles, of a struggling screenwriter and his own twin. Charlie Kaufman, who co-wrote the screenplay with his twin brother Donald, inserts them both into a purported adaptation of Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief. The result? A 2002 movie that’s jaw-droppingly original, and original. Meryl Streep co-stars.

TODAY IN HISTORY

2009-12-27T12:16:00.000-06:00

DECEMBER 27

1947:“Say, kids, what time is it?” “Buffalo Bob” Smith debuts on the NBC children’s program Howdy Doody. The answer, of course, was “It’s Howdy Doody time.”

1900: Prohibitionist Carry Nation begins her crusade against alcohol by smashing the Carey Hotel’s bar in Wichita, Kan.

1932: John D. Rockefeller Jr. opens his Radio City Music Hall to the public.

BRITS HELPING IN POLIO CAMPAIGN

2009-12-27T06:20:00.001-06:00

British news outlet the Guardian recently recognized Rotary's commitment to ending polio by covering a National Immunization Day in India. The story highlights the efforts of British and Indian Rotarians and includes a photo gallery by photojournalist Jean-Marc Giboux. Read the full article.

2009-12-26T13:31:00.002-06:00

TUNE IN TONIGHT

2009-12-26T13:14:00.000-06:00

FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH

Encore, 9:35 p.m. ET

Sean Penn. Phoebe Cates. Jennifer Jason Leigh. Ray Walston. Judge Reinhold. Forest Whitaker. All that talent, in a clever script written by young (very young) Cameron Crowe. This 1982 movie is still fun, and Sean Penn, in a breakout role, has never been funnier. He’s seldom tried, but he’s never been funnier.