NPR Story

­ So, Would You Eat A Panda? by Barbara J. King October 18, 2012 9:36 AM Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images A Chinese scientist recently suggested that prehistoric humans ate pandas. The evidence, based on cut marks on panda bones, strikes me as thin, but the report led me to a thought experiment. How would people in the modern world react if the some population or subculture today made panda-foraging a goal? I imagine most of us would be horrified, and not only because the panda is an endangered species. The panda has become a symbol of cuteness, an animal we love to love. Although some pretty neat research is underway seeking a genetic substrate for certain taste preferences, anthropologists know that what people choose to eat and what we find out of the question to eat is a deeply cultural matter. What we consume is bound up in a specific time and place with family, tradition, and ethnic identity in complicated ways. Many of us can probably remember a time when, traveling far from home, we felt incredulous at what foods people around us were eating with nonchalance — or with lip-smacking enthusiasm. Years ago, newly arrived in Gabon, West Africa, and about to study captive chimpanzees, I dined at a small rural restaurant. Selecting chicken from the menu, I was urged to try another dish: monkey. I couldn't imagine eating a monkey! I was after all, devoting my professional life to observing monkeys and apes, whom I knew to be thinking and feeling creatures. When my chicken and French fries arrived, I discovered coarse black hairs nestled among the food. Part of the monkey had slipped onto my plate after all. I picked out and discarded the monkey hairs. But I ate the chicken without a second thought. These days, I couldn't eat that chicken any more than I could eat the monkey. Although not in ways as complex as primates, chickens do, science tells us, think and feel. I still very occasionally eat fish. And I seem to have a harder and harder time understanding how any of us draw the line about what we will and won't eat. In the same way that panda-eating wouldn't be acceptable to most of us in this country, there was outrage expressed when a Colorado restaurant put lion on the menu for a special event. The lion was soon enough removed from the menu, but other exotic species such as kangaroo and water buffalo were not. So what is it about lions and pandas — and cats and dogs? What keeps these animals off our dining tables, when we readily consume, say, pigs and chickens? And we don't just eat pigs and chickens, we rhapsodize about eating them. In last Sunday's Food magazine of The New York Times, Mario Batali wrote blissfully about the odd foods he encountered on a visit to Tokyo, ranging from pork uterus to chicken kneecaps, using words like "exciting" and "heavenly." Of course, I'm generalizing. Millions of vegetarians and vegans don't eat chicken kneecaps, or any other part of chickens, turkeys, pigs, lambs or cows. I don't either. People in that category hope, for the animals' sake and for the sake of human health, that people lucky enough to have an economic choice in the matter will eat less of these creatures or none at all. So are we non-meat-eaters bucking cultural tradition, and forging a new identity based on what we don't eat instead of what we do eat? We're not just non-panda-eaters, like everyone else. In this country, at least, we are still an anomaly, and an evolutionary anomaly at that. In the Homo lineage, according to new research by anthropologist Henry Bunn on our hominid ancestors from Olduvai, Tanzania, we've been big-game hunters for longer than I'd ever thought: about 2 million years. We've been eating meat for longer than that, via scavenging or taking small game opportunistically. Our evolutionary history, though, cannot explain what each of us finds delectable or disgusting today. And it shouldn't, and doesn't, define our dietary choices, either. http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/10/18/162959912/so-would-you-eat-a-panda You can keep up with more of what Barbara is thinking on Twitter: @bjkingape

NPR Story; The Computers Behind The Cloud

The Computers Behind The Cloud Categories: The Industry 08:26 am October 17, 2012

by Jordan G. Teicher October 17, 2012 Listen to the Story Morning Edition   Enlarge Connie Zhou/Google Google's data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, houses servers in over 115,000 square feet of space. Connie Zhou/Google Google's data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, houses servers in over 115,000 square feet of space. Behind the ephemeral "cloud" of cloud computing, the network we use for everything from checking our email to streamlining our health care system, there lies a very tangible and very big computer infrastructure. But besides a glimpse at some of the hardware in 2009, there has been little information about Google's data centers, the warehoused collections of servers that have given the company the foundation for its vast Internet operations. Today, the company is throwing open the gates to the world — digitally, of course. It has released a site featuring photos of facilities from Belgium to Finland to Iowa and launched a guided Street View tour of one in Lenoir, N.C. Enlarge Connie Zhou/Google A rare look behind the server aisle in Mayes County, Okla. Hundreds of fans funnel hot air from the server racks into a cooling unit to be recirculated. This is the first time Google has opened the doors of its data centers to outsiders. Connie Zhou/Google A rare look behind the server aisle in Mayes County, Okla. Hundreds of fans funnel hot air from the server racks into a cooling unit to be recirculated. This is the first time Google has opened the doors of its data centers to outsiders. It's the same facility the company revealed in an exclusive tour to Wired senior writer Steven Levy, whose story on Google's infrastructure appears in the magazine's November issue. In an interview with Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep, Levy described going where no Google outsider has gone before: "What strikes you immediately is the scale of things. The room is so huge you can almost see the curvature of Earth on the end. And wall to wall are racks and racks and racks of servers with blinking blue lights and each one is many, many times more powerful and with more capacity than my laptop. And you're in the throbbing heart of the Internet. You really feel it." Google has a lot of servers — Levy reports 49,923 in Lenoir alone. The total worldwide number eludes even Google's executives, but there have been at least 1 million cumulatively, according to a plaque Levy found on the premises. Google is not the only company with massive computer networks. In 2006, Microsoft built a giant data center on 75 acres of bean fields in Quincy, Wash. Yahoo and Dell, among other companies, have also set up data centers in Quincy. But Google's data center technology is unique, Levy says, which is partly responsible for the company's success — and a cause for the secrecy surrounding it. "One technique that Google really pioneered was keeping things hotter than has been traditionally expected in a data center," Levy says. "In old data centers, you would put on a sweater before you went in there. Google felt that you could run the general facility somewhat warmer than even normal room temperature. When I walked into Lenoir I think it was 77 degrees." The trick to keeping the heat under control, Levy writes, is a "hot aisle," a space that harnesses hot air from the servers into water-filled coils, sends it out of the building to cool, and then circulates it back inside. This is a dramatic departure from traditional centers, which use large amounts of energy on air conditioning. Levy says that the specific technology varies from center to center and that Google has considered the local resources and geography in each design. That doesn't necessarily mean, however, that the centers don't have an environmental cost. "There's no way around it. These things burn a lot of energy, and a lot of the energy in a data center is done to cool it down so the computers don't melt. Data centers in general consume 1.5 percent roughly of all the world's electricity," Levy says. Google's servers have been getting progressively faster and cheaper, and even now the company has plans to completely change the basics of the system in places like Lenoir. But the specifics of those changes will remain secret — at least for now. "Google may be dedicated to providing access to all the world's data, but some information it's still keeping to itself," Levy writes.

Tax Tips for 2012

 
12 Tempting Tax Tips to Save You Money for 2012

By Kay Bell | Bankrate.com – Wed, Jan 4, 2012 12:38 PM EST
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In recent years, as Congress crafted new laws such as housing bills, health care reform or extended tax provisions such as the Bush-era tax cuts, lawmakers were careful to make sure that no major taxes took effect in 2012.
Why? Because it's a presidential election year. No candidate wants to explain to voters heading to the polls why they are facing added taxes.
But there are still many tax considerations in the coming year. Here are 12 tax tips, reminders and planning tools for 2012.

Remember Roth IRA conversion taxes
Anyone, regardless of income, can convert a traditional individual retirement account to a Roth IRA. But when that option first became available in 2010, a special feature that year allowed individuals who converted to a Roth IRA to spread the taxes due on converted amounts equally over the 2011 and 2012 tax years. That means your first Roth conversion tax bill will be included on your 2011 return filed in 2012. Make sure you have that cash on hand, and plan now for the 2012 conversion bill.

Claim your American Opportunity
The American Opportunity Tax Credit was a centerpiece of the 2009 stimulus bill. The new education tax break expanded the existing Hope Credit, providing a credit of up to $2,500 of the cost of qualified tuition and related expenses, and up to $1,000 of the credit could come back to the taxpayer as a refund.
The American Opportunity Credit was originally supposed to end in 2010, but it was extended through 2012. However, this could be the credit's last year. Congress is looking for ways to cut the federal deficit, and allowing tax breaks to expire is an easy way to save some dollars. If you have eligible education expenses, be sure to claim the American Opportunity Credit while you can.

Note health care info on W-2
When you get your 2011 W-2, you might notice some new information on the form. Box 12 is where employers will report the cost of your workplace's group health insurance coverage. This amount is both the amount the business pays as well as the premiums paid via payroll deductions by the workers.
Don't freak out. The amount, which will be designated by the code DD, is not taxable income. It's informational only, designed to help Uncle Sam confirm taxpayers have coverage. Under the health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, the data will help to enforce the eventual individual coverage if it survives a Supreme Court hearing as well as the so-called Cadillac tax on more expensive workplace insurance plans.
However, if you don't see anything in Box 12, don't freak out about that either. The IRS ruled that reporting 2011 health care data is optional for employers.

Pay attention to Form 1099-K
If you get a Form 1099-K in 2012, don't toss it. The new form records payments received in 2011 by credit card or through third-party networks such as PayPal. This added income reporting mechanism was created as part of the Housing Assistance Tax Act of 2008 and is finally taking effect for the 2011 tax year because of concerns that some small businesses do not report all of their income. Previously, the Internal Revenue Service had to take taxpayers' word that all income was reported because the agency didn't have access to credit card or online payment details. The 1099-K changes that.

Be ready for basis reporting
Beginning with the 2011 tax year, brokers must report an asset's basis, the value that is used to determine profit when you sell, to the IRS. That amount will show up on the 1099 forms you receive in 2012 for 2011 stock transactions. Additional basis reporting will be phased in, in 2012 and 2013. You might have heard of this new requirement when your investment managers asked which type of basis reporting you preferred they use. Generally, brokers must report the sale of securities on a first-in, first-out basis unless the customer specifically identifies which securities are to be sold.

Accelerate income
Most tax experts will tell you to pay no tax before its time. However, impending income tax rate changes might make 2012 the exception to that traditional tax adage. The top ordinary income tax bracket in 2012 is 35 percent of annual taxable income. If Congress doesn't act, the highest tax rate will go to 39.6 percent in 2013. So, if you're in the top tax bracket, you might want to accelerate income into 2012 and pay taxes at the lower rate.

Cash in winning stocks
Along with higher ordinary income tax rates, there's a possibility of higher tax rates on investment income. Through 2012, the top federal capital gains tax rate is 15 percent for most taxpayers, and no tax is due from investors in the 10 percent and 15 percent tax brackets. These lower rates apply to assets held for more than a year. If you believe capital gains taxes might go up, 2012 could be a good year to lock in profits on long-term investments.

Plan for the added Medicare tax
Higher-income earners always have a few more tax considerations, and that's true in 2012. In 2013, a new 3.8 percent Medicare tax is slated for collection on profits from the sale of investment property.
This includes capital gains, dividends, interest payments and, for those who own rental property, net rental income. The tax will apply to individuals with a gross income of $200,000 or more or married couples filing jointly with a combined gross income of $250,000 or more. If you're in the targeted income brackets, talk with your tax and investment advisers about steps you can take this year to prepare for the new tax.

Assess AMT danger
The alternative minimum tax, or AMT, is a continual tax trap for millions of middle-income taxpayers. This parallel tax system was created in 1969 to ensure wealthier taxpayers pay a minimum amount of taxes, primarily by disallowing several common deductions that are claimed under the regular tax system.
But because the AMT is not indexed for inflation, Congress must increase the income levels affected by the alternative tax.
It's possible that tax reform in 2012 could eliminate the AMT, a longtime goal of many lawmakers. But just in case that doesn't happen and you fear you might end up paying the alternative tax, talk with your tax adviser about ways you can limit your AMT exposure.

Give gifts
Giving to charity can help reduce an annual tax bill, but if you have a large estate, gifts also are important estate tax tools. Thanks to the resurrection of the estate tax in 2011, the unified gift tax also returned. This means you can give away $5 million during your lifetime without having to pay the 35 percent gift tax.
There's also an annual amount to note in giving away your estate's assets while you're still around to get thanks. In 2012, you can give up to $13,000 each to as many individuals as you wish without any tax costs to you or your gift recipients.

Evaluate estate tax implications
Speaking of the estate tax, the inevitable meeting of death and taxes will be a hot topic in 2012. If Congress takes no action, the current $5 million estate exclusion will fall to $1 million, and the tax on estates larger than that will be 55 percent on Jan. 1, 2013. If your estate will be larger than $1 million, talk with an estate tax adviser in 2012 about options to reduce any possible larger federal tax bite.

Hire a registered tax pro
The IRS is continuing its efforts to regulate tax preparers. The process began with the registration of return preparers and the issuance of a personal Preparer Tax Identification Number, or PTIN, to each. The IRS is ramping up its effort to hold tax preparers accountable and weed out unscrupulous tax pros, with proposals to fingerprint preparers and, in 2013, require them to pass competency exams. If you hire a tax pro, ask about his or her IRS registration status, along with your usual inquiries to verify the preparer's ability to meet your tax needs.

Boston Globe: 'Cleveland '95: A Football Life' is superb

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'Cleveland '95: A Football Life' is superb
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Posted by Chad Finn, Globe Staff
 
October 3, 2012 11:03 AM

By Chad Finn, Boston.com Columnist

The reminder is probably unnecessary and even unwelcome, but it's relevant to this discussion since it is one that has come around for the Patriots and their fans a couple of times in the past half-decade or so:

No matter how talented a football team you have, it is extremely difficult to win a Super Bowl. (Let alone three, or four, or five ...) An unfortunate bounce here, a receiver catching the ball by clamping it to his helmet there, and the confetti that was supposed to rain down on your head is falling on the other, victorious side.

That disclaimer aside, I can tell you this: After watching a screening of "Cleveland '95: A Football Life,'' the latest installment of NFL Films' extraordinary documentary series that premieres on the NFL Network at 8 p.m. Wednesday, I'm almost certain the Browns under coach Bill Belichick would have won at least one Super Bowl and probably more had everything remained in place during his time there.

Of course, you know it played out differently, a story of greed, desperation, and abandonment so ugly that it became instant sports legend. Nothing remained in place other than a jilted, devastated fan base. Word of debt-ridden owner Art Modell's heartless plan to move Cleveland's cherished Browns to Baltimore leaked out during the 1995 season, Belichick's doomed final year among his five as the franchise's head coach.

The result over the rest of the promising season -- Sports Illustrated had picked the Browns to go to the Super Bowl -- was escalating chaos fueled by fan anger, resulting in a toxic lame-duck situation unprecedented in professional sports. It was hopeless.

"I felt bad for the team and the players and the coaches who were working so hard with less than no support,'' Belichick says. "The owner was nowhere to be found. He was in Baltimore. You kind of felt like you were on a deserted island, fending for yourself."

As you might have guessed, this film isn't exactly a warm eulogy for the recently deceased Modell. Nor should it be. He fled the city before taking his team with him, unaccountable to the end. Belichick, as we are reminded with some downright eerie final-game footage, was left behind as a victim of the misguided wrath, receiving death threats and being hanged in effigy in the stadium parking lot. Jim Schwartz, the current Lions coach who was on Belichick's remarkably talented staff at the time, remembers his work being interrupted multiple times a day by bomb threats.

The team collapsed under the weight of it all, and during the final home game, on Dec. 17, 1995, the stadium was in effect torn apart around them, with fans bringing hammers and saws into the ancient venue to take a memento with them. What they didn't want was discarded onto the field during the game.

"I personally never felt threatened,'' Belichick recalls. "But it certainly was not like a normal home game.''

Ozzie Newsome, the legendary Browns tight end and current Ravens general manager who was breaking into coaching on Belichick's staff, summed up the hopelessness of it all: "It's hard enough to win with no distractions in this league. When you have a distraction like that, you've got no chance. No chance.''

Seventeen years after the Browns' departure, it's still impossible not to sympathize with Cleveland, which was awarded an expansion team, retained its name and records, but hasn't made any meaningful history since. But for a Patriots fan, there is another truth in the subtext: All of the great things that have happened here since Belichick's arrival in 2000 never would have been had Modell not moved the Browns and scapegoated his coach.

The Patriots were blessed because of Cleveland's loss. Belichick had a plan there that was aborted by factors beyond his control. In New England, he proved he had the right ideas.

The film, flawlessly executed with that familiar, irresistible NFL Films formula of gorgeous video, miked-up personnel, and candid interviews, leaves little doubt that great things were on the verge of happening in Cleveland. The behind-the-scenes footage of Belichick's early days as head coach are the closest a Patriots fan will ever come to seeing the Patriots on "Hard Knocks.''

In one early scene, Mike Lombardi, the Browns' player personnel director under Belichick who is now a respected analyst on the NFL Network, talks about his boss's attention to detail, specifically how he wanted a writeup of every single opposing player --"not how I would write it up, how he wanted it written up.''

The film then cuts to footage of Belichick (who apparently favored Mizuno shirts and hideous pastel-highlighted sweaters in those days) and Lombardi sitting in an office, presumably in 1991, going over the personnel of that week's opponent.

"Before we get into the X's and O's,'' Belichick tells him, "we're going through each player. Strengths, weaknesses, overall physical abilities, what his history is, speed, you know, all that [expletive]."

Lombardi offers an eager medley of criticism on a couple of players. "I'm not sure this guy's got enough arm strength left to play,'' he says of one.

"OK, so that's a typical report right there,'' said Belichick, his eyes smiling. "Everybody on their team stinks, nobody has any athletic ability, so unless the coaches [expletive] this game up, there's no way we could lose."

In retrospect, it's surprising that while building his program, it took Belichick until his fourth season to have a winning record. His coaching and personnel staffs were stacked with future stars, with nine future NFL head coaches or GMs and three successful college coaches on his staff.

"What was Bill looking for in people?" recalled Newsome. "Bill was looking for Bill. And he found a lot of little Bills.''

Alabama coach Nick Saban was his defensive coordinator for four years. Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz was plucked from the University of Maine to oversee the offensive line. Schwartz, Newsome, Tom Dimitroff, Eric Mangini, and Scott Pioli were among the self-proclaimed "slappies'' who got their first break from Belichick, much the way Belichick had been given a break by Colts coach Ted Marchibroda in 1975. (Included is some outstanding footage of a very young Belichick lurking on the Colts sideline, holding a clipboard and various colored pens.)

Among the film's most mesmerizing scenes is one in a coaches room in which the respect and trust between Belichick and his staff is evident. Saban -- skinny, bespectacled, and apparently willing then to make eye contact with other human beings -- laments to Belichick about how that week's opponent had beaten them in a previous meeting:

Saban: "I mean, if we don't play our [expletives] off, they'll beat us."

Belichick: "Oh, I agree.We've got to do everything we can to get our team to the highest level we can this week. Pull out all the [expletive] stops, no matter what they are."

Saban: "And I'll tell you what. We may not have had a very good plan, but we had [expletive] preparation the last time we played these guys."

Belichick: "No question."

His coaches were permitted such candor if they had his respect, so they strove desperately to earn it. Newsome, who has been an outstanding general manager in Baltimore, said the lessons he learned from Belichick were applied during his first draft with the Ravens in 1996.

Modell wanted running back Lawrence Phillips in the first round, a troubled, talented player who fit a need. But Newsome remembered Belichick's first rule of draft day: Always stick to your board and take the best player. He chose the player tops on his board, UCLA tackle Jonathan Ogden, with the fourth pick, then at No. 26 selected Miami linebacker Ray Lewis. Combined, they made 24 Pro Bowls -- Lewis could make another one or two on reputation -- and they will be reunited in Canton someday.

Newsome and so many others on that staff learned their lessons well. It's less certain that Modell ever did. When "Cleveland '95: A Football Life'' is complete, his legacy is more complicated than before. Stealing the Browns from Cleveland still stands as his cruelest move. But his dumbest? Not taking Belichick with him.

http://www.boston.com/sports/touching_all_the_bases/2012/10/cleveland_95_bill_belichick.html

NPR Articles

Walter Dean Myers, A 'Bad Boy' Makes Good by Juan Williams August 19, 2008 Listen to the Story Morning Edition Add to Playlist Download Transcript   In this two-part series, we look at two writers — Richard Wright and Walter Dean Myers — who explored what it feels like to be African-American in the United States. Courtesy of Walter Dean Myers Walter Dean Myers's most recent books are Sunrise Over Fallujah and Game. Read an excerpt of Game. Enlarge Courtesy of Walter Dean Myers Myers uses old photographs of African-American life as inspiration for his books. The above picture of a tall, youthful Ethel Waters helped him develop Harlem Summer, which is set in 1925. Courtesy of Walter Dean Myers Myers uses old photographs of African-American life as inspiration for his books. The above picture of a tall, youthful Ethel Waters helped him develop Harlem Summer, which is set in 1925. Enlarge Courtesy of Walter Dean Myers When he was writing USS Constellation: Pride of the American Navy, Myers made a point of seeking out sailors who were of African descent. Courtesy of Walter Dean Myers When he was writing USS Constellation: Pride of the American Navy, Myers made a point of seeking out sailors who were of African descent. Enlarge Courtesy of Walter Dean Myers Myers amassed a collection of aviation photographs while preparing to write The Brown Condor, the story of a pilot in the Italian-Ethiopian conflict of 1935. Courtesy of Walter Dean Myers Myers amassed a collection of aviation photographs while preparing to write The Brown Condor, the story of a pilot in the Italian-Ethiopian conflict of 1935. August 19, 2008 Author Walter Dean Myers meets some of his young fans in a classroom at a juvenile detention center in the South Bronx. Though the audience members walk in wearing prison jumpsuits and sit slumped in their chairs, don't be fooled by the attitude: These kids have read some of Myers' dozens of books and are here because they want to meet the author. Myers' books tell stories that many in the audience are all too familiar with — stories about being insecure for lack of a dad, being scared to walk in your neighborhood, being viewed as a criminal monster. Growing up, Myers lived with his adopted family in Harlem, not far from this Bronx detention center. He was tall, with a speech impediment that elicited teasing. He got into his share of fights and run-ins with the law. But he was also bookish, and he knew he wanted to be a writer. The only problem was that all the authors Myers read in school were white and British. Then one day in the 1950s, he met Langston Hughes in Harlem. "He didn't look to me like a writer because he wasn't white," remembers Myers, now 70 years old. Myers also discovered Richard Wright, whose memoir, Black Boy, told of a troubled childhood in Natchez, Miss. It's a powerful book that details racism, extreme poverty and brutal violence. Some African-Americans struggled with it: "James Baldwin and Wright had this clash," Myers says, adding that Baldwin said "that when he read Black Boy he was both pleased with it, because it mirrored some of the things that happened to him, and he was upset with it, because he felt that Wright had glamorized in a negative way some of his earlier upbringing." Baldwin's charge that Wright had glamorized the negative aspects of his story stayed with Myers. When he wrote his own memoir, Bad Boy, Myers says he wanted to show "a duality of characters more clearly than Wright had." One aspect of his life that Myers omitted from his memoir was his mother's alcoholism. He says that if he were to write Bad Boy again, he would write more about what he calls "the burden I carried with me every single day." "The first time I dropped out of school, the counselors asked me what was wrong. ... I wasn't going to tell some teacher that my mom is an alcoholic — I wasn't going to do that," says Myers. Myers understands that there must be a lot weighing on the minds of the kids at that Bronx detention facility. He shows them old photographs depicting various aspects of African-American life, which he uses to help flesh out the characters in his books. Myers started gathering photos while doing a writing workshop in Jersey City. Today, Myers has over 10,000 of them. "The kids were writing such negative stuff about themselves that I began to collect photographs to show how beautiful they actually were," he says. "I used the photographs in a number of different books." During his talk the at the detention center, the kids who slouched in the chairs when he first started speaking lean in to listen. One girl tells Myers that she regrets not being as "book smart" as she wants to be. "One of the things you can do is start writing," he tells her. "What you're saying — other young people want to hear [it]. If you're interested, I am." Excerpt: 'Game' by Walter Dean Myers "Yo, Drew, here's the story!" Jocelyn called me from the living room. She and Mom were already sitting on the couch across from the television. Pops came out of the bathroom in his undershirt and started to say something, but Mom held her hand up. "Wait a minute, honey," she said. "They're talking about that stick up on 126th Street." Pop looked at me. There was a commercial on the television. "It's coming up next," Jocelyn said. A moment later a woman's face filled the screen. What's happening with the youth of America? Well, if you're talking about the young people in our inner cities, the picture is far from pretty. Today, two high school boys were involved in a vicious robbery and shoot-out in New York's Harlem community. The image on the screen switched to a picture of the police stretching yellow tape across the sidewalk in front of a discount store. At one thirty this afternoon, two boys, boys who should have been in school, attempted to stick up this store on 126th Street and Lenox Avenue. As they made their way from the store and down the busy street they encountered an off-duty policeman, who immediately sensed what was going on. The two youths shot at the policeman, who returned fire. The result: a badly frightened and wounded clerk in the store, a sixteen-year-old in police custody, and a seventeen-year-old fatally wounded. The country's educational mantra these days is "No Child Left Behind." Tragically, this is yet another example of the growing number of children left behind on the cold streets of New York. In Lebanon, negotiators have reached a tentative agreement . . . Jocelyn switched channels. "They didn't even give their names," Mom said. "That's because they weren't eighteen yet," Pop said. "You can read about it in the papers tomorrow." "It just tears me up to see young people wasting their lives like that," Mom said. "Every time you pick up the newspaper, every time you switch on the television, it's more of our young men either killed or going to jail. Lord have mercy! There just doesn't seem to be an end to it. Now there's a young man with all his life in front of him, and I know his parents wanted the best for him. Laying out on the sidewalk. It just . . . oh, Lord have mercy!" Mama's voice was cracking, and I wondered why Jocelyn even had the story on. She knew how it upset Mom. She had always worried about me and Jocelyn, but then when my man Ruffy's brother was arrested right after Christmas, she got really messed around. "I still think you children should finish school down south." Mom was on her feet. She had the towel in her hand she had been using to dry the dishes. "It's just safer down there." Pops started in about how it wasn't any safer in Savannah, which is where my grandmother lived, than it was in Harlem. I went back to my room, and Jocelyn followed me in and plunked herself down on the end of my bed. "Why don't you go to your own room, girl?" "Why don't you let me borrow your cell until I get mine fixed?" "No." "Drew, you ain't got nobody to call. Let me use your phone." "Those guys must have been on crack or something," I said. "Pulling a stick up in the middle of the day." "So when do you pull your stickups?" "Jocelyn, shut up and get off my bed." "How long you think Mom is going to be upset?" she asked, not budging from the bed. I took my sneakers off and threw them near her. "Yo, even when Mom's not acting worried, she's upset," I said. "I only got the rest of the year to go at Baldwin. You're the one she's going to send down south." "I was thinking that maybe I should just go to Hollywood and start my career," Jocelyn said. "I thought you were going to go to Harvard first." "I could commute back and forth." "And you could get off my bed so I can get some rest." Jocelyn got up, picked up one of my sneakers, sniffed it, and then staggered out of the room. ***** The only time our neighborhood made the news was when something bad went down, and the talk in school was about the shooting and who knew the guy who had been killed. It was a hot subject in the morning but had cooled down by lunch time. A helicopter had gone down in Afghanistan and that made the front page of the newspaper. The main inside story was about some girl singer getting a divorce and accusing her husband of fooling around with her sister. That was good, because I knew Mom would be looking for news about the shooting. Everything that went down wrong in the neighborhood upset her. I could dig where she was coming from. There had been a time, a few years ago, when the shootings and all the drug stuff were just background noise. You heard about it happening, but unless some kid my age or Jocelyn's age was hit by a stray bullet, it didn't seem that real. But when I reached fifteen, it was boys my age being shot. Mom was always warning me to be careful and stay away from gangs. That's what she understood most — the gangs. She knew I wasn't about gangs. I was about ball. Ball made me different than guys who ended up on the sidewalk framed by some yellow tape. "Basketball is wonderful, Son," Mom would say. "And I'm sure glad you're playing sports instead of running the streets." She would let it go at that, but I knew she had listened to people talking about how hard it was to make it in basketball. I knew that, too. But I also knew that even if I didn't make it all the way, I could cop some college behind my game. Everybody in the city who played any real ball knew my game was strong. James Baldwin Academy had almost made it to the regional finals in my junior year, and now, as a senior, I knew we had a good chance to make it. Last year I led the team in scoring, assists, and defense. The word was that there were a lot of scouts checking me out at the end of last year, and I knew they would be back this year. They always came after Christmas, when the deal got serious. There would be some guy recording your shoe size and how strong your wrists were and smiling when they asked you if you did any weed. They were smiling, but I knew what I had going on. All the real players told me to pick up my action during February, because that's when the scouts were sending in their reports. The thing was to make it to the tournaments in March, when the college coaches would be making their final reports. My high school basketball career had been dope, but I knew I needed a strong finish, too. I remembered seeing documentaries on a couple of players headed for the big-time schools. Division I all the way. If I could deal big-time and get picked up by a smoking college program, I thought I could make it to the NBA. It was a dream, but it was a dream I could back up. Lots of dudes talked the talk and a few could even walk the walk, but I knew I was solid because I had big-money skills and my head was into the game. All I needed to do was to live up to my ability. But every time something hard went down in the hood — some young brother got wasted, some kid got killed in a drive-by, or someone we knew got arrested — Mom got upset. I could dig it. She was about family all the way. When Tony got a fall, it shook Mom. "Drew ain't Tony," Pops said. "He got more to him. Ain't you, Drew?" "Yeah, Mom," I said. "I thought you knew that." She smiled and patted me on the hand. Tony is the brother of my best friend. If I needed a reminder, it was Tony. Everybody had thought he was all-world on the court, too. I knew in my heart that I was more than Tony. Maybe not on the court, but in real life. I had seen Tony hanging out on the corner and messing with the crack hos. It worried me some, because I wasn't digging anybody in the hood getting into a telephone booth and turning into Superman. But I believed in myself. When I looked around, I didn't see too many brothers believing in themselves. They were steady rapping sunshine, but you could see the weakness in their eyes when they had to stop rapping and walk away. It was like when you were on the court with a dude, and he was blowing smoke but backing off when the deal went down. I was fronting strong, but I knew that ball wasn't a done deal. Ruffy Williams was Tony's younger brother. He was my main man and the team's center. He was usually happy, but when I met him in the hallway outside the media center, he looked pissed. "What happened?" I asked. "I bought an MP3 player from Ernie, and he told me he had downloaded over two hundred songs." Ruffy was six three, two inches shorter than me, but built like a tank. "So I hook up, and the only thing he's got downloaded is classical music." Ernie Alvarez was a guard. He was usually cool but a little quirky. His father ran a television repair shop, and he was always getting used tape recorders and stuff that didn't work quite right. But he sold the stuff cheap, so it was okay. "So we got practice today, right?" "Yeah." "How about we take some time out right after practice and kill Ernie?" I asked. "No big deal. We got other guys who can play guard." "Hey, I heard we got two new players on the team," Ruffy said. "Who told you that?" "Needham. You know those two white guys we saw in the gym last week?" "Yeah." "Them." I had seen the two guys around the school for a couple of weeks. One was small, maybe five ten, and played like he thought his game was hot. The other guy was big, my height, but broad. He played some ball during Phys. Ed. but I hadn't paid him a lot of attention. I did notice he had a slight accent. I hate it when it's really cold outside and the windows are closed and it's stuffy in the school. Time dragged all day. I slid through the morning and made it into my afternoon English class with the clock pushing towards two. I was getting sleepy when Miss Tomita asked me to stand up and discuss the play I had been assigned to read. She didn't expect me to have my stuff together, so I sat at my desk looking all stupid while she got her steam up, and then I stood and started running it down. "Okay, so Othello's a play about this brother who was a general but was married to a white chick," I said. "The brother was uptight and worried that the chick was stepping out on him, and this guy he trusted, Iago, started whispering in his ear about what was going on behind his back. I think Iago didn't like black people." "Mr. Lawson, Shakespeare described Othello as a Moor, but there's no reason to believe that his actual skin color was black. That probably would not have been acceptable in Elizabethan England." Miss Tomita was small, but when she was mad, she could make herself look bigger. "The guy's picture on the cover showed he was a black man," I said. "That is what the publisher assumed," Miss Tomita said. "We happen to be studying the author, not the publisher." There were some kids goofing up as if I had done something really stupid instead of just making a simple mistake. I sat down and looked at the book jacket again. I wondered why, if everybody else thought Othello was black, I wasn't allowed to think the same thing. I let it slide because you can't win with a teacher. Everybody knew that Miss Tomita was the hardest teacher in the school. She was Japanese American and taught English and acted as if she loved every book that was ever written. As far as I was concerned, she had to be reading in her sleep to know as many books as she knew. I wanted to get my grades together and English was my shakiest subject. Related NPR Stories The Legacy Of A Nation's 'Native Son' http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93699480 The Legacy Of A Nation's 'Native Son' by Juan Williams August 18, 2008 Listen to the Story Morning Edition Add to Playlist Download Transcript   In this two-part series, we look at two writers — Richard Wright and Walter Dean Myers — who explored what it feels like to be African-American in the United States. Enlarge Getty Images Getty Images Read an excerpt of A Father's Law. Watch a scene from the documentary, Richard Wright: Black Boy. The Impact of Richard Wright's 'Native Son' Add to Playlist   text size A A A August 18, 2008 African-American author Richard Wright had a very different upbringing from his daughter, Julia. In his autobiography, Black Boy, Wright described the neighborhood he lived in as a child as swarming with "rats, cats, dogs, fortune tellers, cripples, blind men, whores, salesmen, rent collectors and children." "Smoke obscured the vision and cinders drifted into the house, into our beds, into our kitchens, into our food; and a tarlike smell was always in the air," he wrote. Just a generation later, his daughter grew up in a very different world; in the late 1940s, Wright moved the family to Paris, where Julia would later attend the Sorbonne. It was in Paris that Julia first encountered her father's famous autobiography. She was 12 at the time, and she found Black Boy on the shelf one evening when her parents were at the theater. "I really didn't want to read it. I maybe would have preferred a mystery," she recalls. "Then I went into the kitchen and took some chocolate caramels and went to bed with Black Boy and the chocolate caramels." Here's some of what she read: By the time Wright was 12, he'd set fire to his mother's home, been sent to an orphanage and been lured into a Memphis bar and plied with liquor. "When I got to the end of Chapter 2 and I read that he only had an orange for Christmas and that he sucked it slowly to make it last, I spit the caramels out," says Julia. Richard Wright's story of his childhood made him one of America's most popular writers in the 1940s. In addition to Black Boy, which he dedicated to then 3-year-old Julia, he also wrote Native Son, a fictional account of a black youth in the segregated North. Native Son tells the story of Bigger Thomas, an uneducated black man from Chicago who unintentionally kills a young white woman. Bigger is a study in contrasts: Strong, ignorant and angry, he's also confused, vulnerable and at a loss about how to deal with a racist society. Wright's novel makes Bigger into America's native son — the offspring of a nation's bigotry. Julia has spent this year — the centennial of Richard Wright's birth — talking about A Father's Law, the book her father was writing when he died. It's about the relationship between generations. But now, a hundred years after Wright's birth, it seems that his books aren't as widely read as they used to be. "You would be surprised at how many students don't know who Richard Wright is," says Latashia Wansley Clark, a student at Copiah-Lincoln Community College in Wright's hometown of Natchez, Miss. To mark the centennial of his birth, the college produced a documentary about his life and work. "Actually, I'm 32 years old and I didn't know who Richard Wright was before I started this documentary," Wansley Clark says. "It changed my life," she says. "I read the book and now I read books all the time, because of the impact that it had on me. It's like you're there with [Wright] as he's going on his journey." Excerpt: A Father's Law by Richard Wright Chapter One He saw the dim image of the traffic cop make a right-face turn and fling out a white-gloved arm, signaling that the flow of cars from the east should stop and that those toward the south now had the right of way, and at the same instant he heard the cop's shrill whistle: Wrrrriiiiiieee . . . Yes, that was a good rookie. He had made change-over in traffic smartly, the exact manner in which the Metropolitan Handbook for Traffic Policemen had directed. The footwork had been perfect and that impersonal look on his face certainly inspired confidence and respect. That's the way a policeman should work. Well done, Officer, he mumbled in his sleep as the officer now did a left-face turn, again flinging out his flashing white-gloved hand and sounding his whistle: Whreeeeeiiiiiee . . . "Ruddy!" "Hunh!" "Ruddy! Wake up!" Wrrrriiiiiieeeeee . . . "Hunh? Hunh?" "Ruddy, it's the telephone, darling!" Wreeeiiieeeeee . . . "Oh!" "It's the telephone, Ruddy!" "I'll get it, I'll get it," he mumbled, blinking his sleep-drugged eyes in the dark and fumbling with the bedcovers. He sat half up and sleep rushed over him in a wave, seeking to reclaim him. "This rush-hour traffic . . ." He sighed, his voice trailing off. "Hunh? Ruddy, are you awake?" "Hunh?" "Darling, the telephone!" Wreeeeeiiiiiii . . . In one stride of consciousness, he conquered his sleep and pushed his feet to the floor, reached out to the bedside table and lifted the receiver. He cleared his throat and spoke professionally: "Captain Rudolph Turner, speaking." A woman's sharp, crisp voice sang over the wire: "Ruddy, Mary Jane . . . Mary Jane Woodford." "Yeah, Mary Jane. What is it? What's up?" "Who is that, Ruddy?" "Wait, Agnes. I'm trying to talk. Switch on the light." "What was that?" "I was talking to my wife, Mary Jane. Spill it. What's the trouble?" "A message for you. The commissioner wants to see you at two o'clock," Mary Jane informed him. "So hustle up here. And don't wear your uniform." "Two o'clock? Tonight?" "Naw. This morning. It's past midnight now. And it's urgent." "But what about?" "I'm not the commissioner, Ruddy. You understood what I've said?" "I got it." "You sound like you were dead to the world." "I was sleeping like a log. I was dreaming. I was coaching a rookie to direct traffic." "Traffic? I bet it was flowing north and south! Ha, ha!" "You dirty-minded gal!" "Ha, ha! See you, Ruddy!" Click! He hung up and stared into space, vaguely aware that his wife had flooded the room with light. "Who was that, Ruddy?" "Mary Jane. The commissioner's secretary." "Why in God's name is she calling you at this hour?" "It's her duty, honey. I got to go in at the commissioner's at two . . ." "Tonight?" "It's morning, darling. It's urgent, she said." "She shouldn't call you like that." "She's doing what she's told." "But she never called you before at this hour." "I know. Don't know what this can mean." "Didn't you ask her?" "Yeah. I did. But she won't tell." "Well, I never. You're a captain. They shouldn't rouse you out of your sleep like that." "Something's up," he said, idly scratching his chest, vaguely sensing the vivid dream he had had fading from his mind. Was it the Maybrick case? No—that was settled. And don't wear your uniform! "She said I was not to come in in uniform." "Why?" "The commissioner's order, she said." "That sounds fishy to me." He turned and looked down at his wife's dimpled, peach-colored face, the deep brown eyes clouded and heavy with sleep. "Now, Agnes, don't you be a little kitten and start scratching at Mary Jane. She's not trying to lure me out of the house for her sake . . ." "I didn't say that," Agnes mumbled sulkily. He glanced at his wristwatch; it was twenty minutes past midnight. He leaned over to his wife and lifted her head with his left palm and kissed her. Gently, he eased her face from him. "You go right back to sleep. I'll get dressed." "When will you get back?" "I really don't know, honey. Something's up. It's been years since I got a midnight call to come in . . . say, what's that?" "What?" "That noise? Jesus . . . Tommy's typing. And at this hour. Doesn't he ever sleep?" "He's studying for his exams, Ruddy." "Goddammit, he's overdoing it. A boy his age ought to be sleeping." "He sleeps enough. You'll call me as soon as you know?" "Sure thing, kitten." "And no uniform? Maybe they've got a plainclothes assignment for you and—" "Naw. Those guys are a dime a dozen." "Maybe you're being assigned to guard some bigwig?" "Could be. But they've got hundreds of guys to do that stuff. And I'm the man who assigns 'em. Couldn't be that." He rose, yawned, and stretched. "I won't wear my uniform, but I sure will take my gat." "You do that," Agnes said. "I'll shower," he said, turning as a knock came on the door. "Dad." "Yeah, Tommy. What is it?" "Come on, Tommy," Agnes called. The door swung in and a tall, slender brown youth of eighteen poked his head and half of his body around the doorjamb. "I heard the phone and heard you two talking," Tommy began. "I'm summoned to headquarters," Ruddy said lightly, poking his feet into his house shoes. "You still up?" "Cramming," Tommy said, twisting his lips in a self-effacing smile. "You ought to get your sleep, son," Ruddy said. "When I was your age, I was either playing baseball or chasing gals." "He knows what he wants to do," Agnes said. "A big crime case coming up, Dad?" Tommy asked. He now showed his right hand, which held a smoldering cigarette. He lifted it to his lips and drew smoke deep into his lungs. "Don't know, son. Got to report at two. Say, you look damned tired," Ruddy scolded softly. Excerpted from A Father's Law, by Richard Wright. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission from HarperCollins Publishers.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87984371

Article- Healthy Living

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The 5 foods you should eat every day

·        by Holly Robinson Peete, Shine staff, on Tue Feb 16, 2010 11:31am PST

Eating right on a budget can be a challenge, but it's certainly not impossible. Consider this your cheat sheet to the 5 inexpensive foods you should eat everyday for optimum health.



#1 Leafy greens
Medical experts call them one of nature's miracle foods. Leafy greens like Swiss chard and kale are high in nutrients like folate and vitamins A and C that can lower your risk of cancer. Just one cup of dark, leafy greens a day could also prevent diabetes and high blood pressure.

#2 Nuts
Many nutritionists recommend nuts like almonds, cashews and walnuts because they're high in natural fiber. Fiber slows your digestive process, keeping hunger and unhealthy mid-afternoon snacks at bay. Goodbye vending machine runs!

#3 Onions
Studies show that consuming onions on a regular basis may reduce symptoms of asthma and the risk of developing stomach cancer. Add them to soups and stir-fry, and just remember -- the stronger the onion, the greater the health benefit.

#4 Whole grains
Refined grains, like white rice and pasta, have lost 90% of their nutritional value through the refining process. As if that weren't reason enough to choose whole grains like brown rice, quinoa and whole oats, a recent study showed that a diet rich in whole grains actually flattens your belly by reducing fat storage in your lower abdominal region.

#5 Yogurt
Making yogurt part of your daily eating routine can improve your digestion -- if you're buying the right stuff. Check that the label lists "active cultures" to make sure you're getting healthy probiotics, and pick a yogurt rich in vitamin D to prevent osteoporosis.  

Thanks for watching Real-Life Makeover! Tune in next week with more simple solutions to enrich your life.