Las Vegas Tourists Sink to A New Low Dissing The Disabled

Tourism in Las Vegas has sunk to a new low and to such a low one can only wonder “how low can you go”!

Not as far as Tampa Red’s Hokum Jug Band does musically but much lower socially with hundreds of Glitter Gulch tourists taking advantage of the law that while protecting the disabled shields those who diss them.

Once the prized symbol of a smidgen of normalcy for the paralyzed, disabled American, whether a veteran missing both legs, or a grandmother victimized by multiple small “vascular incidents,” the Mobility Scooter is being rented at $40 a day by (quote) “normal” able bodied tourists.

These vacationers descend on the desert gambling mecca and an increasing number find it too difficult to navigate the four miles of the famed “strip” at least by “shanks mare.”

The “Gulch” is well past its early days when tourists could amble along leisurely taking in the sights. Today, the modern casino is ’bout the size of two football fields leaving uncounted the hotel rooms, shopping malls, spas, bars restaurants and spas.

There are long stretches of sunbaked asphalt to navigate as well as crowds of people for those who plan on rolling the dice at more than one casino and taking in more than Dion or the free trapeze acts at Circus Circus.

“We’re seeing more and more young people just for the fact that the strip has gotten so big, the hotels are so large” said Marcel Maritz, owner of Active Mobility, a scooter rental firm whose inventory also includes wheelchairs, crutches and walkers.

While the majority of Maritz’s customers are obese, elderly or disabled, an increasing number are seemingly fit.

The number of able bodied has grown to account for five per cent of Active Mobility’s business, he said while noting he rents out 300 scooters.

The scooters can open up to about 5mph at full throttle albeit hindered by Las Vegas’s crowded sidewalks and can go anywhere into elevators, stores, casinos and bars and crap tables.

Police ban the scooters from the street.

Many hotel employees try to discourage the fit from using the scooters but all said refusing the self-indulgent is not an option.

“You can’t really discriminate against anybody,” said Tom Flynn, owner of Universal Mobility pointing out no prescription is required.

-30

America’s Own Oil Bank No Help At The Pump

Todays spiraling gas prices appear to be as much America’s fault as well as “Big Oil” or any of the Islamic Oil producing nations.

A large part of the blame can be shouldered by a program established 32 years ago designed to buffer Americans from the threat (imaginary or otherwise) posed by volatile governments in many oil producing nations. President Bush in his State of The Union speech proposed to spend $65 billion from the government’s general fund to double the size of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

For most Americans, the reserve, where 700 million barrels of oil have been stored since the late 1970s, is mostly an article of faith: Few know that it’s located deep underground in four sites on the Gulf Coast, and because those sites are considered vital to national security, hardly anyone has seen them.

But it’s time to take a closer look at the reserve’s purpose, its usefulness and its cost.

Before we invest another $65 billion in this underground bank of oil, we should ask ourselves what we’re really getting for the money.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve sites are remote and not open to the public.

The oil sits far out of sight, some 2000 feet below ground, in caverns located in thick salt deposits.

The caverns are made by a technique called “solution mining,” which basically involves running water down into the salt and sucking out saltwater until a significant hole has been hollowed.

The salt wraps itself around the oil like plastic, so the caverns don’t leak. They are, in fact, a miracle of salt engineering, and if it were possible to see them, they’d probably be as big a tourist draw as the Hoover Dam.

But the petroleum reserve is pretty much invisible — and so is its ambiguous history.

The government chose to put the oil near the Gulf of Mexico because there are many oil refineries nearby and because shipping is readily available.

The sites are Bryan Mound near Freeport, Texas; Big Hill near Winnie, Texas; West Hackberry near Lake Charles, La.; and Bayou Choctaw near Baton Rouge, La. Most of the oil in the reserve comes from Mexico and the North Sea.

It costs the federal government $21 million a year to maintain the oil reserve, and about 1,150 people work for the oil reserve. About 125 are government employees, and the rest are contracted workers.

The reserve was established in 1975, after the first Arab oil embargo cut exports to the United States, as a way to fight back against any future threats to our energy supply. Some called the reserve our own “oil weapon.”

By the time it was completed in the early 1980s, however, embargoes were no longer a threat. Significant amounts of oil were being traded on the open market, so oil producers could no longer control who bought their oil.

Then the Strategic Petroleum Reserve gained a second life as an insurance policy against oil shortages and high prices.

During the 1991 gulf war, the reserve stood by ready to pour more oil into the market in the event the conflict paralyzed production in the Persian Gulf. By allaying fears of a shortage, it theoretically could keep oil prices from spiking.

Since the election of George W. Bush, administration officials have resisted using the reserve at all.

At the start of the Iraq war, rather than tap into the reserve, the Bush administration asked Saudi Arabia to pledge to put an extra 2.5 million barrels of oil a day on the market, if needed. Ironically, the reserve had been created to free the United States from the influence of foreign oil producers, but our unwillingness to use it created a new type of dependency.

Saudi Arabia has indicated it will work to keep oil prices lower, at least in part to further American diplomatic goals with Iran.

This raises a new question about the reserve: If we didn’t use it in 2003, when it might have come in handy, will we be any more likely to use it once we’ve made it twice as big?

Some people say the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is more important as a psychological aid (like the stashes of food survivalists keep in case of catastrophe) than as a practical solution to energy security.

In many ways, it is a relic of cold-war thinking living on even though the very idea of energy security has changed.

We now import about a million barrels of oil a day in the form of goods from China. China imports the oil, uses it to make products, and we depend upon those products.

The reserve can do little to protect us in this more complicated modern world. If we double the size of the reserve, we will be paying $65 billion for more of the same psychological reassurance, and little else.

Rather than increase the size of our petroleum reserve, we should address its problems. One of these became obvious in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita:

The reserve is located on the Gulf Coast where America has 60 per cent of its oil production and refineries. Natural disasters (or terrorist attack) that affects our active energy supply will affect our backup supply as well.

The president’s current doubling plan would keep the entire reserve on the Gulf Coast, which means we would go from having all our eggs in one basket to having paid for twice as many eggs and put them all in the same, hurricane-prone basket.

And then there is the fact that, today, refined gas and diesel make up 60% of our imports. The reserve, on the other hand, stores only crude.

After Katrina, the reserve quickly released 11 million barrels of crude oil, but that couldn’t replace the millions of barrels of gasoline no longer flowing from the area’s refineries.

European tankers filled with gasoline were soon steaming toward the United States — like the “cavalry,” in the words of a government report, the United States is to be its own cavalry, it should have three or four regional reserves of gasoline at various locations around the country.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the reserve is its costs never appear at the pump.

The United States spends about 2 billion dollars a year maintaining the reserve, and billions more filling it, but because the money comes from the general fund, rather than from a “security tax” on gasoline, those costs are hidden from the consumer.

The reserve is only a small part of the larger story of hidden gasoline costs in the United States.

For the last 100 years, the government has used money from the general fund to subsidize energy to keep it as cheap as possible for Americans, ostensibly to encourage economic growth.

Now those hidden costs – which include tax breaks for the oil industry, accounting giveaways, direct subsidies for some oil and gas production and the cost of protecting oil and natural gas shipping lanes (about $39 billion) according to Doug Koplow, who studies energy subsidies for Boston-based Earth Track.

While many Americans feel current gas prices are high, they are in fact much lower than they would be if we counted in the costs of these subsidies, including the cost of maintaining the reserve.

We receive an unitemized bill for the subsidies when we pay our taxes on April 15, but we never see any sign of them at the pump.

Deceptively low gas prices discourage conservation, making Americans more vulnerable to supply disruptions of all sorts.

You could even argue this policy, which encourages Americans to produce 45 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide from auto emissions (even though we own only a third of the cars), is speeding global warming and making hurricanes more likely to swamp the refineries, oil installations and petroleum reserve sites on the Gulf Coast.

Any way you look at it, we need to stop subsidizing supply and start managing energy demand. But even if we determine that we need more oil, or gasoline, in the reserve, we should at least pay for it with a 5- or 10-cent-per-gallon tax on gasoline.

2006 was the year that oil prices came close to breaching eighty dollars per barrel. This was despite the fact that there were no significant supply interruptions and oil demand actually fell in industrialized countries.

This raises the question of what caused the spike.It turns out there is good reason to believe that record oil prices may be due to our own strategic oil reserve, which the Bush administration may have been manipulating to drive up prices for the benefit of its clients.

Any finding of manipulation would go far beyond corruption and be close to economic treason. That is because when oil prices increase America must pay more for its imported oil. That increases the trade deficit and our foreign debt.

Alternatively, one can think of price manipulation as the equivalent of a tax increase on American families that is paid to foreign governments, including Iran.

While some small energy scandals are under investigation by Congress, the big enchilada is the strategic oil reserve, which may have been “strategically” manipulated to drive up oil prices. The key to understanding this manipulation is demand and supply and oil storage capacity.

The last three years have seen rapidly rising oil prices, and a tight oil market has meant that even small increases in demand have had large price impacts.

During this period the Bush administration purposely expanded inventories of the strategic oil reserve, which rose from 600 million barrels in May 2003 to 700 million barrels in August 2005. The administration therefore increased demand by 125,000 barrels per day, and oil prices rose from $30 dollars per barrel to $70 dollars.

 

As oil prices rose, Wall Street became increasingly engaged in commodity speculation This is where storage matters. As speculators entered the market the spot price of crude oil rose above the futures price.

However, buying spot oil means taking delivery, which requires storage capacity. By adding to the strategic reserve, the administration not only increased oil demand but also increased storage capacity because the oil it bought was stored in the strategic reserve’s caverns.

This helped speculators by adding storage capacity vital for cornering the market.

The oil market is full of smoke that provides perfect cover for corruption. Every price blip calls forth explanations in terms of Chinese demand, more violence in Nigeria’s delta region, cold weather, threats from Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, or heightened tensions over Iran’s nuclear program.

The strategic reserve is the perfect vehicle for corruption since transactions can be cloaked in the veil of national defense.

“Old Balls” & “Loose Skin” ‘Stead of Young & Tight

Naturists do everything textiles do, except they do it nude! Nude or clothing-optional beaches are just like textile beaches, except for the dress code.

Taken off the web “loose skin and old balls “ was one descriptive phrase regarding the aging of the “Naked American”.

Reading about the declining population of Nude Americans (oops, I mean American Nudists, or Naturists, whatever the cut of their cloth) has taken me back about 30 plus years.

I sat stiffer than a pine board across a too small table from two bare chested middle aged ladies studiously trying to ignore the endless acres of bare flesh passing by the corner of my left eye.

I was having enough trouble with what was happening in front of my nose.

I did the story and to this day do not remember a word about the result of my city editor’s assignment to me ( the cub reporter sitting across the aisle from his desk which was certainly less bare then the subjects of my text only story).

The grandmotherly appearing brunette let it slip that if I came back to the Olive Dell Nude Resort for a follow up story I would feel more comfortable if I stripped to the buff sort of blending in so to speak.

She was right.

People who do stuff in the buff say there are a lot of misconceptions in U.S. society about what they are doing and why.

There are nude cruises, camping grounds, tennis courts, and motorcycle rallies across the country. There are at least three nude summer camps just for teens and about 260 clothing-optional family resorts in North America—nearly twice the number of ten years ago, according to the American Association for Nude Recreation.

“Naturists” say the benefits to sloughing off both clothes and convention include a sense of freedom and a better self image.

Twenty-five thousand simoleons was a lot of money then (even now) and I wanted to break into Hugh Hefner’s empire and take pictures of naked ladies. Dee Dee was just over 18 and was so natural about being unclothed in front of my Nikon she made the sessions smooth and easy.

It was I who made them hard. In my youthful lack of patience (oh heck, greed) I wouldn’t wait until her braces would be removed and then she would feel free to smile.

This voluptuous brunette didn’t make the Director’s Cut.

“I’ve taken lots of friends to nudist beaches, both men and women,” said Mark Storey, an editor of Nude and Natural magazine and a philosophy professor at Bellevue Community College in Washington State. Storey is also the author of Cinema au Naturel: A History of Nudist Film.

“Some of them walked away thinking it was great, some walked away thinking it was boring. But they all walked away thinking, Most people look somewhat like me.”

Storey, like most naturism activists, points to most media portrayals of the human body as inaccurate distortions of what people really look like. “There are very few model-perfect people out there. At a nude beach, you get a more realistic perception of what humanity really looks like.”

Jaws dropped, eyebrows rose, noses were averted and some just stared at the bare naked trio basking on the sand of the Santa Monica CA beach. She turned her head wondering out loud why those in trunks (textiles in nudist speak) were so rude.

This was an organized attempt to make the beach an “open” beach. I was there writing an article for “Bare in Mind”, a nudist magazine.

Nicky Hoffman, administrative director of the Naturist Society, said part of her group’s mission is to promote an environment of body acceptance. “For girls especially, there is so much pressure in our society to be a perfect size. As a result, there is a whole generation of people killing themselves to meet a standard that is impossible. Part of living a naturist lifestyle is accepting your body and regaining a normal body image.”

Hoffman further argues that when clothes are off, social distinctions shrink, creating a more level playing field for human interactions. It’s hard to tell a bus driver from a lawyer without the social and professional markings of their dress.

“People will hide and mask themselves in a number of ways to look prettier, tougher, or to establish their social rank,” Storey said. “But if you are buck naked chatting with someone, you’ll be chatting with the real person. When you get past the fear factor and the initial embarrassment, you realize it allows for a more authentic human interaction.”

“Nudity is a taboo in America because we primarily equate nudity or nakedness with sexuality and we have taboos about sexuality,” said Matthew Westra, a psychology professor at Longview Community College in Missouri, in the National Geographic Channel documentary Taboo: Extreme Living. “A lot of it has to do, I think, with the Puritan and Victorian heritage that we have, which says that any kind of temptation will lead you into hell.”

Modern strip clubs and pornography also strengthen the association between nudity and sex, a link that naturism activists are constantly trying to break.

“At nude beaches, we swim, we play volleyball, we lay in the sun. We do the same things everyone else does at the beach—we just prefer to do it without clothing,” Hoffman said. The rules: no touching, no gawking, no inappropriate behavior. “It’s a very family-friendly environment.”

I vividly remember Barbara, a sweet girl but too small up front to have a non virtual hope of becoming a Bunny. We met at the Tree House a nudist resort hosting the world’s 1^st (and only) Nude Rodeo.

The bull riding was especially revealing.

Here’s the naked truth about nude recreation: The people who practice it aren’t getting any younger.

To draw 20- and 30-somethings, nudist groups and camps are trying everything from deep discounts on membership fees to a young ambassador program that encourages college and graduate students to talk to their peers about having fun in the buff.

The Kissimee, Fla.-based American Association for Nude Recreation, which represents about 270 clubs and resorts in North America, estimates that more than 90 percent of its 50,000 members are older than 35.

No one is quite sure why nudity, at least the organized version promoted by the AANR and similar groups, is such a tough sell for younger people.

“I think people think that we’re all hippies,” said Laura Groezinger, 22, of Billerica, Mass.

“Other people, I don’t know the right way to say this, but they think it’s more sexual, kind of. They don’t understand just the being free with your body and being comfortable.”

Nonetheless, a broad movement embracing the benefits of social nudity didn’t appear in the Western world until the early 20th century. It started in Germany, where it blossomed as an alternative to the stress of industrialized, urban life. By 1929, the movement made it to the U.S., where it has struggled to become part of mainstream culture ever since.

“Americans are still severely bothered by nakedness. See a bit of Janet Jackson’s breast on national television and it’s a fiasco. But all of the violence on television—that’s accepted. To me, it’s bizarre,” Storey said.

In order to live a clothing-optional lifestyle, naturists form their own communities and have their own resorts. It protects them from prying eyes and keeps “textile” neighbors, as nudists call the rest of the world, from feeling overexposed.

But naturists argue that, as a part of the taxpaying community, some public space should be set aside for them. A recent national Roper poll, one of the two largest independent polling companies in the U.S., said 80 percent of the U.S. public agrees that it is okay to have a nude beach, as long as it is marked by a sign. 25 percent of adults polled said they’d gone skinny-dipping in mixed company at least once in their life.

“Naturists do not divide neatly down political boundaries,” said Bob Morton, the executive director of the Naturist Action Committee (NAC), based in Austin, Texas. “No true conservative would suggest compromising civil liberties, so it’s not a conservative-versus-liberal issue. Naturists span the entire political spectrum.”

The NAC monitors legislative activities at the city, state, and national level, lobbying on behalf of naturist interests and filing briefs in the courthouse to protect the naturist way of life.

“It’s been very trendy lately to try to put skinny-dipping on the list of sex offenses for which you have to register with the state. It’s already passed in 13 states,” Morton said. “That’s ridiculous. Go to any nude beach and you will understand that in ten minutes. But people confuse nudity and sex all the time. They don’t bother to distinguish between the two, and that’s the root of a lot of our problems.”

Some states, like Montana, are bringing down the hammer on their clothing-optional residents. A first offense for skinny-dipping means six months in jail; a second offense garners one year; a third offense, a hundred years. “It causes you to sit up and say, My gosh, who thinks these kinds of prison sentences make sense?” Morton said.

While naturists continue to struggle for acceptance in the United States, in Europe it’s usually a non issue.

“France has more clothing-optional beaches and campsites than you can possibly number. Croatia has nude beaches up and down the coast. So does Italy and the southern coast of Spain. Germany has large city parks where you can hang out naked. I could go on and on with other examples,” Storey said. “The United States is the only Western country that is still struggling to figure this issue out.”

Say Hey, “Spock” is taking pictures of BBW’s now instead of watching Star Trek reruns and just maybe…………….?

-30-

No Sex Milady; Kind Sir, As Long As You’re Underage

We’ve done this “rodeo” before and round and around the teenage sexual merry-go-round we go, again and again.

Country Music’s Verne Gosden was singing about martial fidelity, or its mirror, infidelity.

Academia; our government are reprising a similar old song about teens, sex, and mores.

The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States says approximately three million teenagers become infected with an STD every year

.According to Campaign for Our Children, one million teenagers become pregnant annually, and approximately 40 percent of girls in the United States become pregnant at least once before the age of 20.

Students who participated in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex as those who did not, according to a study ordered by Congress.

Students, who attended one of the four abstinence classes reviewed, reported having similar numbers of sexual partners as those who did not attend the classes.

And they first had sex about the same age as other students — 14.9 years, according to Mathematica Policy Research Inc.

The federal government spends about $176 million a year promoting abstinence until marriage. Critics have repeatedly said they did not believe the programs worked.

Bush administration officials cautioned against drawing sweeping conclusions from the study, saying the four programs were some of the very first established after Congress overhauled the nation’s welfare laws in 1996.

Officials said one lesson they learned from the study was that the abstinence message should be reinforced in subsequent years.

“This report confirms that these interventions are not like vaccines,” said Harry Wilson, associate commissioner of the Family and Youth Services Bureau at the federal Administration for Children and Families. “You can’t expect one dose in middle school, or a small dose, to be protective all throughout the youth’s high school career.”

Christian comedian Keith Deltano has been performing at a number of high schools in Loudon County, Virginia this year with the intent of pushing abstinence-only education through comedy. How does he do this, do you ask? He dangles a cinderblock over a male students’ crotch to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of condoms against HIV.

Because what’s funnier than a brick possibly dropping on your dick?? Ha! Ha! Ha! Heh!

In 2004, Sexual Intelligence noted: Texas educators are now debating the content of new high school sex education books. The Board of Education is choosing among four books, all of which passionately praise abstinence. Three omit contraception completely, while one barely mentions condoms.

Not surprisingly, federal data show Texas once again among the top five states in the country for teenage pregnancies and STDs

Then Governor of Texas, George W. Bush pushed an abstinence-based sex education curriculum.

America’s supposedly “conservative” governments–national, state, and local–have spent trillions of dollars intruding on citizens’ private lives with relentless wars on pornography, contraception, sex toys, strip clubs, and other forms of alleged “indecency.” There’s nothing “conservative” about that–just good old-fashioned hypocrisy and repressed voyeurism, ordered by too-big government and paid for by tax dollars.

Across the Pond, on the other hand, real conservatives are talking with integrity about an approach to teen sexuality. Andrew Lansley, the health secretary-in-waiting for UK’s opposition Tory party, has unveiled a plan that would encourage teens to take more control of their sexual lives to combat a recent increase in STDs and HIV..

 

The plan is a big departure from years of right-wingers demanding that children be taught to abstain.

Dismissing calls for US-style programs that encourage teens to remain virgins until marriage, Lansley told the London Observer, “I’m not talking about abstinence, I’m talking about something designed to empower young people to choose. It’s feeling one has a greater sense of control over what one does with one’s body, and being able to resist peer pressure or pressure from boyfriends.”

British research has consistently shown that teenagers delay starting sex and are less likely to get pregnant when they are taught both the mechanics of contraception and about self-esteem and how relationships work.

Of course, the English have more experience as conservatives, founding the Tory party back in 1689. How nice to see that they’re combining this with respect for science, attention to reality, and compassion for people’s lives and choices.

That’s how far America’s sex education policies have sunk–compassionate conservatism would actually be an improvement.

According to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), at least 80 percent of college students have engaged in sexual intercourse,

Again, we’re back on the sexual merry go round and let us look at 2005, the American Midwest, the State of Illinois, Chicago to be exact.

Three phrases stand out in large, white letters on the long blackboard: “To abstain,” “sexual activity” and “subliminal seduction.” Close to 50 freshmen shift in their desks, watching the teacher or talking to their peers in the crowded, windowless classroom at Kenwood Academy.

Elaine Jones blows on a whistle around her neck to gain the students’ attention and launches into her lesson on subliminal seduction—how teens are bombarded with images of sex every day, and how they can resist those seductions and abstain from sexual activity. Not just now or in the near future, she says, but until marriage.

“What is a sex act?” Jones asks the class, pointing to the “sexual activity” portion of the blackboard. One student, who has been tossing out jokes throughout the class, raises his hand from the corner. “Say, if I was a virgin,” he asks. “If I had oral sex, I’m not a virgin?”

The students look expectantly at Jones. The guidelines of the abstinence-only curriculum certainly do not consider oral sex acceptable behavior for unmarried persons, but it is an act Jones says the teens are curious about.

Jones explains that technically, if a girl engages in oral sex, “she is still a virgin. But, in her sexual abstinence, she is not a virgin anymore.”

Along with other sources, Jones teaches from an abstinence-only curriculum called Project Reality, created by an independent organization of the same name and used in 525 middle schools and high schools in Illinois, including 130 in Chicago Public Schools.

But abstinence-only curricula like Project Reality are coming under increasing fire. The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois recently sent a letter to some 1,300 school superintendents across the state, warning that abstinence-only programs often include false or misleading information about preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases—for instance, that condoms are not effective in preventing the spread of STDs.

According to the ACLU, recent studies show that abstinence-only programs do not prevent teens from engaging in premarital sex and may deter young people from using condoms or from getting tested and treated for STDs.

Yet under policies put in place by the Bush Administration, schools that want federal funds for sex education can only receive grants if they agree to teach solely from abstinence-only curricula, says Lorie Chaiten, director of the reproductive rights program at the ACLU of Illinois.

Jobi Peterson, executive director of the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health and a former CPS administrator, says very few students receive adequate information in health classes because schools lack the resources to pay for comprehensive sex education programs.

The caucus is lobbying legislators to provide federal funds for comprehensive sex education curricula, which the group notes would include a strong message in favor of abstinence but also medically accurate information on reproductive health, STDs and pregnancy prevention.

“Teachers really do want to give more information to young people but they just don’t have the curriculum or materials,” Petersen says.

The issue is particularly critical in Chicago, where teen birth rates have declined in recent years but remain higher than the averages—in some communities, more than double—for the state and surrounding Cook County suburbs.

In the classroom, however, sticking to a strict outline of “abstinence only” is not always practical. Teens bring questions and experiences that fall outside of these rigid parameters. And while students recognize the wisdom behind abstinence-focused teachings, they are also the first to point out the irony of such instruction in schools filled with pregnant students and teen parents.

“Every time you look up, someone’s pregnant,” says Kiyona Jackson, a soft-spoken senior at Hyde Park Academy in Woodlawn, which has a teen birth rate of 19 percent. “I don’t think they get pregnant on purpose. They listen to [sex education], but they go against it or whatever.”

Even though she knows not all students will listen to the sex-can-wait message, Kendra Thomas, another Hyde Park student, says she believes that it’s an important viewpoint for students to receive. “They tell you that [sex] can cause you to do things you don’t want to do, and emotional stress,” she says.

According to Denise Everhart, one of Hyde Park Academy’s physical education teachers, the school supplements its health education program with lesson plans from ABJ Community Services Inc., an agency that trains instructors to teach abstinence-only materials, and Project VIDA, a group founded in 1992 to address the rising number of HIV and AIDS cases in Chicago’s black and Latino communities.

Everhart supports this combination.

Students are getting the facts now,” she says. “Oftentimes, they misunderstand the whole reproductive process—for example, some think that they can’t get pregnant standing up. They don’t understand conception, and that’s something they definitely understand by the end [of the course].”

Najamusahar Muneeruddin, a sophomore at Lane Tech High in North Center, says some students might rebel against the Project Reality curriculum taught there.

“Some kids that take the sex ed class get angry, thinking ‘Why are they telling me what to do?’” she says.

Classmate Rex Libunao agreed. “If we are going to have sex, we might as well have choices,” he says. “At least you’d know about condoms, but they never told us about that.”

Abstinence-only supporters believe Project Reality and other such lessons arm students with information they need to refuse sexual activity until marriage.

But detractors claim that message is realistic only to a handful of students in today’s classrooms.

The debate has gained momentum over the years. The Bush Administration increased funding for abstinence-only curricula to $206 million for fiscal year 2006, from $170 million for fiscal year 2005.

Most recently in Illinois, some lawmakers have proposed a measure to guarantee state funding for “abstinence-based” sex education, which would promote abstinence as the best way to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancies but would also provide age-appropriate information about condoms and birth control.

The Illinois School Code specifies only that health education curricula should include instruction on “family life, including sexual abstinence until marriage.”

Caught in between are students left with valid questions and no answers to be found in their workbooks, like “The Navigator,” a text that supplements the Project Reality curriculum. “What if a girl was reading that, and was pregnant?” questions Lane Tech student Halla Karaman. “What if she wanted an abortion? Where would she go? How much would it cost? Do you need parental permission?”

“That’s the problem,” continues classmate Quetzalli Castro. “They tell you how you get pregnant, but not what to do. They tell you about abstinence, but they stop there.”

For her students, Jones has helped supply some of the answers. It was Rahkeisha Teagues’ favorite part of the class. “She gave us little cards to write questions down on. It’s fun,” Teagues says.

In aging metal file cabinets near the door of her classroom, Jones keeps several stacks of note cards bound with rubber bands. On each note card is a single health-related question written on the first day of class by a student; Jones proceeds through them as the semester progresses, answering each and every one of the students’ anonymous questions in class.

“I’m an advocate of abstinence, but I’m also realistic,” Jones says. “I try to teach to the whole class.” Usually the cards cover a range of topics, but this past year the cards shared an obvious theme, Jones says. “Every question was on sex, and they’re very detailed.”

Because many children are forbidden to talk about sex, they learn what little they know from hearsay and vulgar jokes.

As a result, many people make it as far as college knowing virtually nothing about sex or even about their own bodies. Since approximately half of all high school students are sexually active, this ignorance about sex can have devastating consequences.

Many teenagers do not realize the severity of the consequences of unprotected sex, are not aware of the available kinds of protection, are not educated about how to use them properly, cannot afford them, or are too embarrassed to purchase them.

Consequently, sexually active teenagers are at a very high risk for sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies.

According to Campaign for Our Children, one million teenagers become pregnant annually, and approximately 40 percent of girls in the United States become pregnant at least once before the age of 20.

The problem is that most children do not receive an adequate sex education from their parents or their schools.

Only 19 states require their schools to provide sex ed, and of those, only nine require the programs to include information about both abstinence and safe sex.

 

Many of the more conservative Christian churches believe that if children are to be taught about sex, they should only learn about remaining abstinent until marriage.

 

This attitude pervades a large part of American society.

For the Catholic Church in particular, all teachings about sexuality are based on the belief that sexual intercourse exists purely for the purpose of procreation.

 

Pope John Paul II stated in his Humanae Vitae, “The Church teaches that each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life.”

It is seen as wrong to derive pleasure from sex unless it is done within the act of procreation. Thus masturbation is wrong because it is not connected with reproduction.

Oral sex is unacceptable, even within marriage, because it cannot lead to pregnancy. Homosexuality is viewed as “intrinsically evil,” artificial insemination is seen as an attempt to defy biology, and even birth control is forbidden because it implies sex is being used for pleasure instead of procreation.

 

Many churches are very influential in maintaining abstinence-only sexual education and contend that knowledge about contraception causes more teenagers to engage in sexual activity.

Ideally, if all teenagers could be convinced to remain chaste, abstinence education would be effective in getting rid of STDs and unplanned teenage pregnancies.

Realistically, though, people are going to have sex, so teaching them about abstinence alone does not accomplish anything.

The World Health Organization has concluded that programs that teach both abstinence and safe sex are more effective than those teaching only abstinence and that sex education does not actually increase sexual activity. Studies have found that sex ed actually reduces teen pregnancy rates and that condom availability leads to safe sex without encouraging abstinent teenagers to begin having sex.

In conclusion, if a certain segment of American society has its way, this part of an old dirty joke could well apply: “…The nun, clearly confused, started scratching her head, and replied, “Gee, that’s a hard one.” And the lights started flashing, the music started playing……”

                                                                                -30-

‘Tis A “Shame,” or Not?

Shame, Shame on you or should it be Shame Shame on me?

First there were (and are) “outings” of famous, infamous and not-so-famous men and women some of which were public figures and some who were not pinned under the public eye. These “outings” dealt with scandalous doings such as Bill ’s affair with Monica, sexual deviants in the Catholic priesthood and in our educational system. All the fingers seemed to point at our sexual mores.

Now, the medium that not too many years ago was touted as the means to bring the world together and would be free to all is transmogrifying to not “outings” but “shaming” with many looking to make a buck by the click at the same time; all of this without personal responsibility for pointing an internet finger.

We’re all fascinated by our “user names” and revel in the “anonymity” they provide which could also be called “privacy.” Or, could these monikers for which we work so hard at to either shock or delight our viewers serve as a virtual wall to hide behind?

Most of us have a cell phone and use it to varying degrees from simply a means to call 911 or Triple AAA or to excess as recently portrayed in an All State Insurance Co. TV ad.

Last month, Eva Burgess was eating breakfast at the Rose Cafe in Venice, Calif., when she remembered she needed to make an appointment with her eye doctor. So the New York theater director got on her cell phone and booked a date.

Almost immediately, she started receiving “weird and creepy” calls directing her to a blog. There, under the posting “Eva Burgess Is Getting Glasses!” her name, cell phone number and other details mentioned in her call to the doctor’s office were posted, along with the admonition “next time, you might take your business outside.”

The offended blogger had been sitting next to Burgess in the cafe.

It used to be the worst you could get for a petty wrong in public was a rude look.

 

One site documents locations where people have failed to pick up after their dogs. Capturing newspaper-stealing neighbors on video is an emerging genre.

Helping drive the exposés are a crop of entrepreneurs who hope to sell advertising and subscriptions.

One site that lets people identify bad drivers is about to offer a $5 monthly service, for people to register several of their own plate numbers and receive notices if they are cited by other drivers.

But the traffic and commercial prospects for many of the sites are so limited that clearly there is something else at work.

Enforcing decency and more

The embrace of the Web to expose trivial transgressions in part represents a return to shame as a check on social behavior, says Henry Jenkins, director of the comparative media studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The sites documenting minor wrongs are the flip side of an online vigilantism movement that tackles meatier social issues. Community organization Cop Watch Los Angeles encourages users to send in stories and pictures of people being brutalized or harassed by police.

The governor of Texas plans to launch a site this year that will air live video of the border, in hopes that people will watch and report illegal crossings. In a trial run in November, the site received more than 14,000 e-mails.

In China, Web postings have become a powerful social weapon, used to rally thousands of people to hound a man who allegedly had an affair with a married woman.

For people singled out, the sites can represent an unsettling form of street justice. Chris Roth’s driving skills have been roundly criticized online by self-anointed traffic monitors. “This man needs his license revoked,” wrote one poster, who accused Roth of cutting in and out.

Another charged him with driving on a shoulder and having the audacity to flip off an old lady who wouldn’t let him cut in.

Roth found the critiques when an anonymous writer added a comment to his MySpace.com profile in late November directing him to PlateWire, one of the handful of sites devoted to bad driving. There, a user had posted Roth’s license-plate information – his vanity plate is IDRVFAST – and complained about his reckless driving. Subsequent posters found and listed his full name, cell phone number and link to his MySpace page, as well as comments like “big jerk” and “meathead.”

“There is no accountability. You can just go online and say whatever you want whether it’s factual or not,” says the 37-year-old Roth, of Raleigh, N.C., who works in technology sales.

He admits he is an impatient driver and speeds, but he has no plans to change his driving style based on posts by anonymous commentators.

“Who are they to decide what is safe or not?” he says.

The digital age allows critics to quickly find a fair amount of information about their targets.

One day last November, at about 11:30 a.m., a blog focused on making New York streets more bike-friendly posted the license plate number of an SUV driver accused of zooming from a dead stop to hit a bicycle blocking his way.

At 1:16 p.m., someone posted the registration information for the license plate, including the SUV owner’s name and address. (The editor of the blog thinks the poster got the information from someone who had access to a license-plate look-up service, available to lawyers, private investigators and police.)

At 1:31 p.m., another person added the owner’s occupation, his business’s name and his title.

Ten minutes later, a user posted a link to an aerial photo of the owner’s house. Within another hour, the posting also included the accused’s picture and e-mail address.

The SUV’s owner, is Ian Goldman, the chief executive of Celerant Technology Corp. in the New York City borough of Staten Island.

According to an e-mail exchange posted on the blog, Goldman said he had lent the vehicle in question to a relative with “an urgent medical situation” and that he was not aware of any incident.

The victim has decided to drop the matter since the damage to the bicycle, which he was standing next to at the time, was under $20.

Legal beagles say alleged wrongdoers shamed online have small recourse under libel and privacy laws if the accusations in postings are true, if they are posters’ opinions about behavior witnessed in a public place and if the personal information listed is available to the public.

“It becomes very difficult when it comes to the shaming sites in terms of what you can do in creating a case,” says Daniel Solove, an associate professor of law at George Washington University Law School, who is working on a book about gossiping, shaming and privacy on the Internet.

Some of the sites are attracting little attention. RudePeople.com has about six stories of rudeness and iratedriver.com has none.

Caughtya.org is dedicated mostly to the scofflaws who brutalize the disabled by parking in their parking slots; it lists fewer then 10 U.S. infractions

“If you have a mobility impairment, and a permit to park in accessible parking spaces, you have experienced the inability of using those spaces because someone who didn’t have a permit parked there illegally. It happens, everyday, everywhere.

“This site aims to expose parking offenders. We track parking infractions. We display details of offending vehicles worldwide.

It isn’t about revenge, though we readily admit to a certain satisfaction at the thought that offenders may be taught a lesson.

It is about getting a better picture of the problem (pun intended). It is about being able to track data and show the “powers that be” what is happening in their parking lots and cities. It is about increasing awareness of an ongoing problem.”

Many ask for donations to cover costs, but some owners hope to make money.

Mark Buckman launched PlateWire in May after almost getting run off the road a few months earlier by several drivers, including one who was looking in his back seat and steering with his leg.

The site now lists nearly 25,000 license-plate numbers. The plate owners chastised for moves like tailgating with brights on and driving too slowly in the left lane. To drum up revenue, Buckman recently added advertising and an online store with branded merchandise.

Users in about 15 states can pay $2 to have a postcard sent to an offending driver, directing the accused to the site.

He plans to launch another site this year that will allow people to rate and complain about local businesses and individuals.

“If I can create jobs and create an empire, that would be awesome, but my main goal is to make a Web site that can actually make real-world changes,” Buckman says.

Buckman said he endured a grueling HOV carpool from Fairfax to Arlington 5 days a week. “After coming close to being involved in 5 separate collisions on one fateful ride home from work, I had an idea. With very little capital to get started, I began the task, to make people more accountable for their actions on the roadways in one forum or another.

 

“ It has become an all too common fact that the only time people straighten up and drive safe is when there is a police car near by; a prime example of a society driven by fear. Adopting that same mentality, PlateWire intends to grow large enough to become a real deterrent to unsafe driving habits. My goal is to bring awareness to bad drivers so they become aware of the dangers associated with the aggressive driving they have become accustomed to. So join in, vent your rage, and let us all do our part to make the roads safer.

 

“Some of the crowd that oppose our website (The minority, our percentage of positive response is well over 90%), claim that there is nothing we can do curb road rage or carelessness. We couldn’t disagree more!” Buckman’s blog: http://BadMark.com/

At least eight PlateWire users have chastised themselves online, including one in Nevada last month who apologized for cutting another driver off in a post titled “Telling on Myself.”

MonkeyMeter.com

“None: I have not seen one monkey driving today. Low: I made it to work, and only one person cut me off! Average: I got cut off, tailgated, blocked, the usual. High: I might have used my horn once, cursed, basically got angry once or more. Saw a monkey picking his nose. Lot’s of speeding! Extreme Danger: Full moon drag racing, using your finger, people hanging their heads out the window to curse. ROAD RAGE! “

Here are two other road rage sites to look at:: AboveAverageDriver.com, Irate-Driver.com

Flickr.com, YouTube.com

Comments: Photos and videos on the two sites have captions like “bad owner.” One YouTube chronicle, “a nice doggy’s bad owner leaves a landmine on Dean Street in Brooklyn,” has been viewed nearly 1,300 times since it went up in April.

Women can post pictures and videos of men who leer or make comments like “hey baby, wanna make love??!!” HollaBackNYC.com launched in 2005, inspired by one woman who photographed a lewd man on the subway. Now there are at least 14 other local sites in the U.S. and Canada.

“I had my cell phone clutched in my hand the whole time, unfortunately it didn’t have a camera so I couldn’t take a picture of the jerk’s face. I’m 17 years old and even though I’ve been told I look 18 or 19, it’s still no justification to hit on someone who is thirty years younger than you.

“It was just plain creepy and it left me completely shaken. I ended up in tears for the two hours that followed because I was totally unnerved and I lost all sense of safety. This incident was made worse by the fact that the night before I had a group of guys shouting “I want some of that pussy” at me while I was walking down the 42 street train station stairs.

I’m use to comments of “hey beautiful” and such and I’ve learned to ignore those, but the vulgarity of what those guys were shouting surprised me and left me a bit nervous. But it certainly compared nothing to how violated I felt last night.”
Submitted by C.C.

I am reminded of the ongoing Arby’s TV commercial featuring a nerd walking the gauntlet of a trio of beefy louts who are hooting at him while he stumbles by clutching a paper sack with Arby’s logo on it. He casts a hurried look and sees the outline of the famed “Arby’s hat” hovering like little red halos over their heads. Hummmm…..?

LitterButt.com

This site doesn’t post license plate numbers of littering drivers, but it does act. Reported plate holders in participating states (Pennsylvania, Texas and North Carolina) get a notice. The site sends the details to the state, which then mails a letter to the vehicle owner. For other states, the site might send an e-mail to the governor.

From two viewers:

“I understand where you are coming from with the litter issue, I agree. But in theory I could just enter as many plate numbers as I wanted and label them as litterers, i mean it’s like convicting someone in public court with no evidence. I just think this anti- smoking thing is going too far. I must say I do NOT like the idea of the site.” ~ Phelux@aol.com

“I believe this was the type of thing the Nazi and Soviet secret police encouraged, ‘turning your neighbor in’. I don’t think it was for anything as egregious as throwing a cigarette butt out a window. FYI, I never throw cigarette butts out…I have a “butt can” which I fill with baking soda.

You zealots won’t be happy until you see smoking banned. Why don’t you at least be honest about your intent?”

david_sparling@earthlink.net

Flickr.com,

Flickr abounds with pictures of people talking loudly on cell phones or displaying bad cell etiquette. Could you be there? Photos have titles and comments like “TalksTooLoud,” “Loud talker” and “Chatty McBlabsalot.”

RudePeople.com

“A whichy, bitchy, arrogrant foregner who doesn’t care what happens to others, expecially her “friends a work”, the residents, or family. If rude had a picture in the dictionery, it would have her there! By Observer of Rudeness, Section Stories
Posted on Sun Jan 14, 2007 at 02:16:48 PM EST

“…a witchy, bitchy, arrogant foreigner…” would be the correct spelling of the words in that sentence. Sadly, in you attempt to mock foreigners, you managed to mangle your mother tounge and make yourself look like an idiot.

“Being foreign has no bearing, whatsoever, on this person’s character.

“Please rush off to your Klan rally, and be sure to pack an extra sheet.” This was a post in reply to her comments by a body named “state trooper.”

Isawyournanny.blogspot.com

The five-month-old site has about 190 sightings so far, and most relate tales of bad behavior. Two more sites for nannies – Isawyourmommy.blogspot.com and Isawnannysemployer.blogspot.com – have since been launched in reaction.

I looked at the site and found it a strangely appealing niche site which certainly seems to strike a chord in a mother’s heart. Here are some outtakes:

“Plus if the lady seemed gruff that’s about how most people here are. There’s always an edge to people in this part of Philly. Those kids probably did not even take notice that lady was “gruff.
“Just wanted to share that with you guys. I actually started laughing when I saw that location. There are two BK’s on Frankford Avenue and both are in declining neighborhoods. The people with careers high tailed it out of these parts. Good lookout though. I like this blog.

“Your nanny was in 7th Avenue Donuts today wearing a skin tight low cut black shirt. She was holding the hand of your little boy who was wearing a corduroy blue jacket and blue jeans.”

There’s sure to be more. I can think of an “American Idol” site promoting both aspiring actresses and actors walking down the street in various cities ala Paris, London and other exotic locales with a semi-literate, sarcastic MC making ill formed snide comments about the tone of the whistles and their length and intensity as well as the amount of sway in the watchee’s booty.

Perhaps there will be a blogger’s game show with prizes awarded according to the difficulty of the questions answered, or not answered as the case may be.

As the tools to build blogs become simpler and the cost for most bloggers is as good as it gets (FREE) the proliferation of blogs and bloggers will grow exponentially, of course. This is not a moot question: will the acceptance of responsibility by each and very blogger expand as well?

There’s Chicken Not in The Frying Pan But Nesting in Your Gas Tank

The race is on for sure to reduce America’s dependence on oil which translates to The Middle East oil fields.

Throughout many states farmers have been growing corn and other crops to turn into biodiesel fuel with investors worldwide jumping onto the bandwagon and entrepreneurs galore gathering in their shekels.

Jerry Bagby is typical of the oil men who are prospecting for a fortune in the Midwestern biofuels boom: He’s convinced there’s oil in these hills. He’s found a well that few others are pumping.

Bagby and a longtime friend have cobbled together $5 million building a new biodiesel plant on the croplands outside a southeast Missouri town. They’re betting that their company, Global Fuels, can hit paydirt by exploiting a generally overlooked natural resource that’s abundant in these parts — chicken fat.

There’s a virtual gusher of the stuff at a nearby Tyson Foods poultry plant. The low-quality fat is shipped out of state to be rendered and used as a cheap ingredient in pet food, soap and other products.

Bagby and his partner, Harold Williams, are planing to refine the gooey substance, mix it with soybean oil and produce about 3 million gallons of biodiesel annually.

Today, only a tiny fraction of U.S. biodiesel is made from chicken fat, but this seems likely to change. The rising cost of soybean oil — which accounts for roughly 90 percent of all biodiesel fuel stock — is pushing the industry to exploit cheap and plentiful animal fats.

The nation’s biggest meat corporations have taken notice. Tyson Foods announced in November that it had established a renewable-energy division that will be up and running this year. Perdue Farms and Smithfield Foods Tyson’s competitors, are making similar moves.

As meatpackers enter the field, they bring massive amounts of fuel stock, which could make biodiesel cheaper and more plentiful.

The shift to animal fat as a fuel stock could be key to making the budding biodiesel industry a reliable fuel source for U.S. trucking fleets, said Vernon Eidman, a professor of economics at the University of Minnesota who has studied the biofuels industry extensively.

Eidman estimates that within five years the United States will produce 1 billion gallons of biodiesel and that half of it will be made from animal fat. By that time, soybean-based biodiesel will account for about 20 percent of the total, he said.

For fuel refiners like Bagby, the allure of animal fat is clear. Soybean oil costs 33 cents a pound, while chicken fat costs 19 cents. He plans to include soybean oil in his blend only because it adds necessary lubrication for engine parts.

“Soybean oil is more expensive than other products, so we just use enough of it to make the system run clean,” Bagby said, gesturing toward a row of pipes and vats being installed in his new refinery.

For companies such as Tyson, the attraction is simple. The nation’s biggest meat company, Tyson is also the biggest producer of leftover fat from chicken, cattle and hogs.

Tyson is keeping the specifics of its renewable-fuels division under tight wraps. But Jeff Webster, the company’s vice president, told a recent investment conference that the potential is clear: Tyson produces about 2.3 billion pounds of chicken fat annually from its poultry plants. That’s about 300 million gallons that could be converted to fuel.

The market for biodiesel and ethanol started to boom in August 2005, after passage of the federal Energy Policy Act, experts say. The bill set a standard requiring the United States to use 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuels annually by 2012.

While it’s always been cheaper, animal fat was initially overlooked as a biodiesel fuel stock because of its uneven quality, Eidman said.

When the energy bill passed, soybean oil was already widely sold as a food additive. Biodiesel refiners could depend on its quality because the oil was marketed and certified under strict guidelines, Eidman said.

Animal fat also has technical drawbacks. It clouds up more at higher temperatures than soy-based biodiesel, which means it might thicken when used in colder areas, Eidman said. That might limit distribution to areas where temperatures don’t often drop below about 40 degrees.

Although these factors have kept animal fat in the background, the biodiesel industry has hit a turning point.

Increasing demand for soybean oil as a fuel and as a food is driving the price up, so it’s starting to make economic sense to invest in new technology to process animal fat into usable fuel stock.

Tyson and Perdue are experimenting with biodiesel, and both have started using it in their trucking fleets.

Perdue, based in Salisbury, Md., is also selling soybean oil as a biodiesel fuel stock through its grain and oilseed division. The company said this summer it was studying plans to build biofuel plants or invest in others.

Smithfield has established its own biofuel division. Smithfield BioEnergy is studying how to turn hog waste into fuel and has started producing biodiesel from vegetable oil. The company didn’t comment on the division, but recent financial filings show that the biodiesel program is still losing money because of start-up costs.

Having a massive new source of fuel stock is a welcome development for the biodiesel industry, said Amber Thurlo Pearson, a spokeswoman for the National Biodiesel Board.

“More biodiesel in the marketplace could help make biodiesel’s cost even more competitive with diesel fuel,” Pearson said.

The board estimates that U.S. biodiesel production is doubling to tripling annually, going from 25 million gallons in 2004 to 75 million gallons in 2005. The final tally for 2006 should be between 150 and 225 million, it said.

Biodiesel costs about $1 a gallon more to produce than conventional diesel, but federal tax breaks for fuel distributors help keep that cost from consumers.

Bagby said his plant would be running by the end of January. His equipment can refine soybean oil, cottonseed oil and animal fat. That gives him flexibility to use whatever is cheapest on the commodity markets. His first batches will be made from soybean oil because it’s easiest to calibrate the equipment.

After that? Soybean oil has a long way to drop before it’s as affordable as chicken fat.

“You can see the difference in cost,” he said. There was nothing mentioned about Colonel Saunders.

Take Heart Republicans, Mr. Pope Has a Lesson For You

Seattle, WA-Richard Pope says he needs a break. Running unsuccessfully for elected office 10 times in 11 years will do that to a man.

His most recent loss was this week, a run for King County District Court judge that gave him his best election numbers ever.

Failure is not on Pope’s mind, though. Every defeat gave him a chance to highlight issues, he said, such as what he sees as unfair port taxes and county property assessments. In some of the races, he was the only person willing to take on an entrenched incumbent.

“If I had been totally humiliated in something, I would have taken that as a message to never try this again,” Pope said. “I don’t think I’ve been humiliated.”

Pope, a Bellevue attorney, has run for just about every level of government, including two campaigns for attorney general, three runs for Port of Seattle commissioner, one for King County prosecutor and another for Shoreline water commissioner.

In half the races, he didn’t make it out of the primary, and until this year had never received more than 38 percent of the vote.

But in September Pope won a three-way primary in a race to unseat longtime Eastside judge Mary Ann Ottinger, who had been censured twice and then suspended by the state Supreme Court for a failure to notify some defendants of their rights. He faced substitute judge Frank LaSalata in this week’s general election.

The results are not final, but Pope will probably end up with a vote percentage in the mid-40s — his best showing. And he said he helped boot out a judge with a poor disciplinary record. “I had the idea going into this race that I could beat Judge Ottinger, and I guess I did,” he said.

Pope’s campaigns often hit serious obstacles. He usually runs as a Republican but hasn’t received much support from party leaders. In some races, the Municipal League has rated him poor or unqualified, and in this year’s judge race he also had to explain a history of sanctions and fines for his conduct as an attorney.

For all his eagerness, Pope is not the most prolific local political candidate. Mike The Mover, for one, has run for office at least 15 times, including a bid in the U.S. Senate primary this year.

But unlike Mover, who runs partly to drum up business for his moving company, Pope says he runs to win and has received a couple of million votes over the years, including primary and general elections.

For now, though, it’s time to leave the yard signs at home.”I don’t know what to think about what I will or won’t do in the future,” he said. “I’ll probably wait a while and see.”

Source: Seattle Times

“Pimp” Your Ride? No, Not These Drivers Whatever the Cost

Bubblegum and baling wire sure won’t cut it with these drivers; yes, there’s no ladies from The Red Hat Society needed either. If you’re wishing for more then “pimping” your ride, please consider the following:

The sticker on the window of a 2006 Range Rover Sport HSE lists a few choice selling points: a child seat sensor, voice-activated controls and heated windshield washer jets — all for an asking price of $59,350.

A more comprehensive list for buyers to consider might read something like this: $1,741 for a new headlight, $600 to replace a cracked windshield — and the instant respect of valets and your little brother’s friends.

Call it the financial spreadsheet of the luxury car buyer.

It’s a calculus more of us find ourselves making. Luxury vehicle sales in the United States have nearly doubled over the past decade, to 1.5 million in 2006, according to Edmunds.com, a consumer automotive Web site. For example. about 50,000 new luxury models are registered in the Washington DC area every year, according to R.L. Polk & Co., a Michigan firm tracking the auto industry.

Many owners quickly learn, however, that the higher cost of owning a premium ride doesn’t end with the sticker price. There are fancy-but-finicky electrical gadgets and heftier insurance premiums because of expensive parts, according to auto quality and insurance experts.

And yet, luxury automakers such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW post record sales year after year, even as non-luxury brands close the gap in quality and reliability. “There really are no bad cars or trucks sold right now,” said George C. Peterson, president of the marketing consultancy Auto Pacific Inc. “The range in research ratings . . . has narrowed consistently for the past 20 years.”

That raises an obvious question: Why are consumers choosing to upgrade to premium brands when they have more opportunities than ever to get the same quality for less money?

Market researchers say the leveling of the playing field in terms of quality is exactly what’s driving people to luxury brands. Because there’s less difference in overall quality, consumers find other reasons to buy a car, said Wes Brown, an analyst with Iceology, an auto industry consultancy in Los Angeles.

“There’s an expectation of quality whether I’m spending $20,000 or $100,000,” he said. “There are other things I’m looking for, like the power of the brand. Is it worth it to me? Do I like how it makes me feel about my station in life?” Brown said. “People nowadays are looking to have an emotional connection with their vehicles.”

Ellis Covington, 37, who runs a mortgage company in Glen Burnie,MD owns two sedans made by Mercedes, a brand he has long revered.

“It’s personal,” he said of his preference for luxury vehicles. “It’s what’s ingrained in your mind.”

Covington also owns a Hummer H2 he bought on impulse and has his eye on a third Mercedes.

Sleek styling and sophisticated features, such as 17-inch Belize wheels and a finished Burl Walnut dashboard, have always separated luxury cars from their more pedestrian cousins.

But what increasingly sets luxury cars apart are technological gizmos such as adaptive cruise control (it adjusts the car’s speed relative to the car in front of you), Bluetooth wireless technology (so you can leave that cellphone ear piece at home), and voice-activated controls (so you don’t have to lift a finger).

Living on the cutting edge, however, comes at a price. The very gadgets that make luxury cars special can become gremlins that, in some makes, keep them in the shop. Electrical problems were partly to blame for Mercedes recalling 1.3 million cars last year.

“Electrical issues are the biggest bone of contention” and are most often a source of mechanical glitches with luxury cars these days, especially in non-Japanese brands, said David Champion, senior director of Consumer Reports’ auto test division.

This year marked the first time that luxury car brands didn’t dominate the vehicle-dependability study by consumer research firm J.D.Powers & Associates. Toyota’s luxury brand Lexus was first, and Cadillac was fourth. The rest of the spots were claimed by Toyota, Mercury and Buick, said Neal Oddes, director of product research and analysis.

“The extra stuff you don’t have to have in a car — that’s what’s giving [owners] grief,” said Gus Mohammadi, owner of Eurosport Motors in Rockville MD, which specializes in Porsche repairs. “There’s no essential major problems with them. It’s the little stuff people paid a lot of money for.”

At least owners of new luxury vehicles don’t have to pay for fixing many of these glitches during the first few years. BMW, Mercedes, and Jaguar cover repairs during the first four years or 50,000 miles. BMW also covers routine maintenance, such as changing the oil and windshield wipers.

Generous warranty policies have helped luxury automakers counter the perception that their vehicles prohibitively costly to own.

Of course, no matter how good the warranty, it doesn’t shield owners from higher insurance premiums, said car experts and luxury vehicle owners.

According to the Highway Loss Data Institute, an arm of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a large number of luxury models tend to have higher losses from collisions because their parts are more expensive to replace.

On a 2005 Jaguar XJ, for instance, a replacement xenon headlight with a washer costs $1,041, not including labor. The price tag for a new heated power mirror is $562. A fender bender with a luxury car can get even pricier if the collision damages the car’s adaptive cruise control, which is behind the front bumper. The IIHS estimates a new system for the Jaguar XJ costs an average of $3,239, again not including labor.

In rare cases, premium automakers turn out a lemon, and when they do, they face the wrath of the luxury lemon owner, who may have more resources to press a claim.

Wallace Ridley of Upper Marlboro MD had owned a Mercedes, so his expectations were high when he bought a 2000 Jaguar XK8 convertible. The car came from a dealer, had 25,000 miles on it and was still under warranty.

Within the first 10,000 miles of owning it, he started to hear a noise in the engine. Every time he brought the car in for scheduled maintenance, he asked the dealer to look into it. Every time he was told the noise was normal.

The noise continued to get worse. A few days after the warranty expired, the tensioners on the timing chains — a critical engine part — came loose. Jaguar would not repair them, so Ridley paid $2,000 to fix them. About 35,000 miles later, the timing chains broke at a cost of $5,000.

Ridley believed the chains would not have broken had the dealer addressed the loose tensioners.

He looked into suing under his state’s “ lemon” laws, which are modeled after the federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, which requires manufacturers of consumer products to live up to their warranties.

The Maryland lemon law applies to new vehicles or ones transferred to another person while still under warranty. A vehicle is considered a lemon if it can’t be fixed after a reasonable number of attempts, which can be as few as one, depending on the problem.

Getting a lawyer involved often gets automakers’ attention faster than suing on your own, lemon law attorneys say.

“It puts [consumers] in a position equal to the manufacturer in bargaining,” said Craig Kimmel, a Philadelphia attorney who has handled thousands of auto cases, including in Maryland.

In July, Ridley chose to sue Jaguar himself in small-claims court in Prince George’s County. Without admitting liability, Jaguar settled with him in September.

“All high-end vehicles have problems. It’s how they’re addressed,” Ridley said.

Rosemary Mariniello, a spokeswoman for Jaguar North America, said that she could not discuss Ridley’s case because of company policy but that in general, “Jaguar takes . . . each case as it comes to us and takes into account the dealer’s actions and what the customer is asking us to do.”

After his battle with Jaguar, Ridley could have been expected to drive his XK8 into the Potomac. But he did no such thing. In fact, he still has it.

“My wife, she just loves the car,” he said. “It’s very unique, and it drives like a dream.”

Interviews with a dozen luxury vehicle owners indicate that it takes a lot to push them over the edge, out of their heated leather seats and behind the wheel of, say, a Honda Civic.

In 2004, after getting around by riding public transportation, Brown bought his first Mercedes, a 1999 ML320 sedan, from a dealer in Woodbridge for $18,000. It was silver with a black leather interior. It was sleek and beautiful. It also had a clean vehicle history and 89,000 miles on it.

“I struggle for my money. I think I should enjoy it,” said Brown, a Department of Veterans Affairs employee who was wounded while serving with the Army in Iraq.

Pretty quickly, Brown’s dream car started to have problems. It made a loud noise whenever he applied the brakes. The wheels fell out of alignment. And his fuel pump once went out a day after he replaced it.

“My friends always told me how nice it was but not knowing what I was going through,” he said.

After spending several thousand dollars on repairs, Brown decided to buy a new car. He looked at a Land Rover and at a Lexus but ended up buying another used Mercedes, this time a 2002 ML500 sport-utility vehicle with a sticker price of about $32,000.

“I still wanted a Mercedes,” he said. “It’s the name I love. It’s not about anything else.”

That was before the tires on his second Mercedes wore out three times in a year, costing him $900 to replace each time. After transmission troubles recently landed his SUV in the shop for nine days, Brown said “I’m not going to buy a Mercedes.”

Kevin Johnson, a business development executive for a information technology firm, in some ways preferred his last car, a Chrysler Concorde, to his current luxury ride, a 2002 Land Rover Discovery he bought in close-to-new condition four years ago. (The Land Rover brand is owned by Ford Motor. )

For one thing, on the Concorde, replacing a cracked windshield cost no more than $200 and could be done in his driveway. When the windshield on his Land Rover got dinged this year, he was told the repair would cost $600 and had to be brought to the shop because the windshield has special rain sensors.

But the Land Rover came with an intangible perk he didn’t quite expect: the reaction it provokes in other people. Valets treat him with more respect, as do his younger brother’s friends.

That became clear to him after he drove his wife’s Toyota Corolla for a few days. “It’s amazing how much nicer people are to you when you pull up in a Land Rover,” he said.

Johnson thinks driving the right car can have the same effect professionally as wearing a finely tailored suit or having a lofty title.

“My job is to get in front of people. If they don’t take me serious or don’t think our company is successful because I don’t have an appropriate car, it makes sense for me to pay a little more,” he said. “If it gets me one extra deal a year, it’s worth it.”

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!