Wrong: Deputy Town Clerk, Thomas Dow said, “Yadda yadda yadda.”

Correct: Deputy Town Clerk Thomas Dow said, “Yadda yadda yadda.”

Or: Thomas Dow, Deputy Town Clerk for Keene, said, . . .

But wordly slightly differently, the following is correct:

The Deputy Town Clerk, Thomas Dow, said, “Yadda yadda yadda.”

Wrong: Former U.S. Congress candidate, Arnie Arnesen said, “Blah blah blah.”

Correct:  Professor Arnie Arnesen, a former U.S. Congressional candidate, said, . . .

Or: The former U.S. Congress candidate, Arnie Arnesen, said, “Blah blah blah.”

Information that comes after a name and helps identify the person is treated like a title after a name.

Correct: Freshman Tania Liberata, who helped at the festival, said . . .

Properly punctuate the following:

Marabeth Farmer the head of community service said . . .

Professor Fred Rogers  one of the judges said

One of the judges Professor Fred Rogers said . . .

Joe Blow a junior said

Junior Joe Blow said

The junior of the group Joe Blow said

Reminder, when listing times, use lower case followed by periods: 6 a.m. to
11 p.m.

Wrong: 6 AM to 11 PM,  6a.m. to 11p.m.

Nearly half say Rihanna was responsible for the incident with Chris Brown

BOSTON – A survey conducted by the Boston Public Health Commission on the dating violence incident involving pop music idols Chris Brown and Rihanna revealed that nearly half of Boston youths surveyed said she was “responsible” for what happened while 52 percent said they were both to blame. “The story of Chris Brown and Rihanna may have happened 3,000 miles away, but it is very much a Boston story,” said Casey Corcoran, director of the Public Health Commission’s new Start Strong program. The incident, the most high-profile youth dating violence case in memory, has drawn national headlines, even prompting Oprah to devote an entire show today, March 12, to teen dating violence. Oprah will feature the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded Start Strong: Building Healthy Teen Relationships Initiative. Last November, the Boston Public Health Commission received one of the foundation’s $1 million, four-year grants to launch a Boston-based Start Strong effort to prevent and reduce teen dating violence, as part of the nationwide initiative. The goal is to stop teen dating abuse before it starts, specifically focusing on teaching 11 to 14-year olds about healthy relationships. This includes ensuring that parents, teachers, coaches, older siblings, peers, school nurses, and mentors know what to say to teens and that relationship violence is unacceptable, Corcoran said. Corcoran’s program, housed in the Commission’s Division of Violence Prevention, surveyed 200 Boston youth ages 12 to 19, between Feb. 13 and 20, using the Chris Brown-Rihanna case to gauge their attitudes toward teen dating violence; 100 percent of those surveyed had heard about the incident. Among the findings: 71% said arguing was a normal part of a relationship 44% said fighting was a normal part of a relationship 51% said Chris Brown was responsible for the incident 46% said Rihanna was responsible for the incident 52% said both individuals were to blame for the incident, despite knowing at the time that Rihanna had been beaten badly enough to require hospital treatment 35% said the media were treating Rihanna unfairly 52% said the media were treating Chris Brown unfairly In addition, a significant number of males and females in the survey said Rihanna was destroying Chris Brown’s career, and females were no less likely than males to come to Rihanna’s defense. “Boston parents need to be aware that our children are facing a crisis,” said Emily F. Rothman, assistant professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health, and an advisor to the Boston Start Strong initiative. “Ten percent of Massachusetts youth report having experienced dating violence during their lifetimes. The consequences of dating violence can be severe and long-lasting. Teen dating violence victimization can be a precursor to adult violence victimization, and can increase risky behaviors during adolescence, including substance use, unhealthy dieting and weight control practices, and suicidal behavior,” she said. Corcoran suggested that parents use the Chris Brown-Rihanna incident as an opportunity to ask their children for their opinions about what happened, and to share their own viewpoints. “The case provides all of us with an opportunity to have this conversation with the young people in our lives, and it should serve as a reminder that no one—not even the rich and famous—are immune to abuse.” Parents who need help talking to their teen can contact the “Child Witness to Violence Project” at the Boston Medical Center, which offers counseling and advice at (617) 414-4244, or call Casa Myrna Vazquez (877) 785-2020, which can offer tips on talking to teens about dating violence. -BPHC-

]]> http://www.fpujournalism.org/classes/?feed=rss2&p=125 0 http://www.fpujournalism.org/classes/?p=43 http://www.fpujournalism.org/classes/?p=43#comments Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:15:25 +0000 admin http://www.fpujournalism.org/classes/?p=43 Cloudbusting

Dan Glaister sees the spirit of a fabled rainmaker alive and well in Californian farmers’ latest attempts to control the weather

Tuesday January 2, 2007

Guardian Unlimited

It is tempting to say that southern California has not seen anything like it since the heyday of Hatfield the rainmaker. But John Diepersloot has an entirely different aim.

Where Hatfield the rainmaker’s calling was to make it pour, Diepersloot, a peach and apricot farmer from the San Joaquin valley, wants to stop the hail that can ruin his crop.

Diepersloot has installed 24 cannons on his 1,200-acre farm. At the approach of a storm, his 20ft cannons emit an electronic blast. As the sound waves travel up into the sky, they disrupt the water that is gathering to turn into hail, causing it to fall as mere rain. At least that’s the theory, and an expensive one at that: Diepersloot’s cannons set him back $50,000-$70,000 each (£26,000-£36,000).

“It’s the science of nature,” Diepersloot told the Associated Press. “The first year I had them, there was a storm where I saw my neighbour’s fields had damage and mine didn’t.” The scientific establishment, however, sees things differently.

“It would have to be something pretty major to upset hail,” said Charles Knight of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. “If you exploded an atomic bomb in a cloud, that might do something.”

Harry Andris, of the University of California, was pessimistic: “There just isn’t a lot of technology that we can use to alter the weather. Some of the things that farmers try aren’t that effective. Unfortunately,” he added, sounding a little like George Harrison, “you have to buy them to try them.”

The Associated Press goes on to say that “a small group of farmers in the San Joaquin Valley and across the country is putting faith – and tens of thousands of dollars – into hail cannons”.

Which brings us back to the days of Charles Mallory Hatfield and the art – or science – of “pluviculture”. Hatfield promised rain to the parched agricultural communities of southern California, summoning up impressive rainfalls with the aid of his “evaporating tanks”. The tanks, filled with “certain chemicals the character of which must necessarily remain secret” became a common feature of the southern Californian landscape, according to the chronicler of the southland, Carey McWilliams.

After first setting up his tanks and producing an inch of rainfall in five days, for which he received $50 from the landowner, Hatfield’s fame and his fee rose unchecked. Nearly all the city governments in southern California, McWilliams writes, had contracts with Hatfield to make rain, some of them for $10,000. On one occasion Hatfield, contracted to fill a reservoir for $4,000, was so successful that he brought down 11in of rain. In the first four months of 1905, he delivered 18in of rain to the city of Los Angeles.

Hatfield was a phenomenon, and a modest one, claiming that in using his chemicals to “overturn the atmosphere”, he was merely lending “nature just a little assistance”. Hatfield’s greatest achievement came in 1916, when he gave San Diego the biggest storm on record, delivering 16in of rain in a two-day period. But San Diego was too much of a good thing, producing more damage than benefit and Hatfield never collected his fee.

Nevertheless, Hatfield was debunked. In an article for the July 1925 issue of Science magazine, David Starr Jordan noted that nobody had really questioned Hatfield’s technique. Jordan, however, had a theory. “For successful rainmaking,” he wrote, “it is necessary to find first a region in which rain is expected but has failed to come. The first element is then to find a few hundred ranchers willing to give, let us say $8,000 to insure a storm.”

Next, Jordan noted the existence of Lloyds of London, “which insures anybody against anything”. Then he did his sums: rain or shine, Hatfield would make money, Jordan concluded before quoting PJ Barnum’s maxim that “a sucker is born every hour”.

Fortunately for Californian folklore, the debunking had little effect on Hatfield’s business. People continued to welcome him when he showed up near the end of a dry spell, and to give him money when the dry spell came to an end.

Hatfield and his experiments in pluviculture were eventually finished by Los Angeles’s acquisition of the waters of the Colorado river. But his spirit lives on, as does the belief that help must be sought to cope with the improbabilities of living – and practising agriculture – in southern California.

1b) It was a silence like no other.  The 1,000 high school students were hushed, not one of them stirring as they stood for a quarter of an hour at the foot of a hill waiting for the memorial service to begin, and another quarter-hour listening to the eulogies.

They had gathered Tursday outside Cocoa High School to pay tribute to 1^st Lt. Clyde Wayne Plymel, a 1976 graduate who died . . .

2a) A free seminar about how to cope with depression caused by the Christmas season will be held Dec. 16 at Mercy Hospital.

2b)Mercy Hospital will offer a seminar to help residents who may not be so jolly this holiday season

3) Rafael Morales promised he would show up for trial.  His father promised.   His mother promised.  And his two sisters promised.  His boss promised too.

Morales, 33, a Hialeah salesman charged with cocaine trafficking, did not keep his promise.  He jumped $75.000 bail and fled.  So Dade County Circuit Judge Margarita Esquiroz sent his father, mother, two sisters and his boss to jail for 30 days.

4) There were row after row of gravestones – and they were knocked over, lying flat, more than 500 of them, under a chill sun yesterday at Mount Hebron Cemetery in Flushing, Queens.

5) Three weeks ago Sue McCrady bought a stack of guidebooks to national parks, planning a cross-country trip she and her husband were to begin today.  Two days later she bought a coffin.

6) The Supreme Court today upheld a controversial federal law that requires banks to report to the government large cash transactions made by their customers.

In other decisions, . . .