Stem Cells: An appointment with chance

An accident with some chopsticks has led to an experimental medical treatment based on stem cells

LIKE other fields of endeavor, science has fashions—and one of its most fashionable areas at the moment is the study of stem cells. This is a subject that provokes high passions, particularly when the cells in question are drawn from human embryos. It also encourages the lowest form of scientific behavior, fabricating data (see article). A tragicomic stem-cell story, however, is probably a first. But a piece of research reported in this week's New England Journal of Medicine by Zhu Jianhong of Fudan University and his colleagues began that way. Its first subject was a woman admitted into Huashan Hospital in Shanghai with a chopstick in her brain. It ended triumphantly, though, with the trial of a treatment that may heal the sort of brain injuries that the woman in question suffered.

Stem cells are the cells responsible for making bodies, and then repairing the natural wear and tear to which they are subject while they are alive. The body-forming cells are the embryonic stem cells that are causing so much political trouble in America because obtaining them involves destroying early-stage embryos known as blastocysts. Some people think that destroying blastocysts is murder.

The repairing sort of cells, though, are uncontroversial, and are turning up in more and more places. Even tissues once believed not to change much after childhood, and thus not to need the renewing ministrations of stem cells, are yielding them. Heart-muscle tissue, for example, has recently been shown to have them.

Another place where they were not, at first, expected to exist is the brain. But they do. And that discovery meant that the unfortunate lady who had had a chopstick thrust through one of her eyes into part of her brain called the inferior prefrontal subcortex (IPS) presented an opportunity. When the utensil was removed, Dr Zhu decided to try culturing the tissue that came out with it, to see whether there were any stem cells there.

Waste not, want not

To his delight, the extracted tissue thrived and grew, and many of the cells in the resulting culture did indeed contain proteins known to be characteristic of neural stem cells. But Dr Zhu wanted to be sure that that was truly what he had.

The defining feature of a stem cell is self-renewal. When such a cell divides, at least one of its daughters is also a stem cell (the other may set off on the route to specialization that allows stem cells to generate new tissue). The way to test whether a particular cell is a stem cell, therefore, is to grow it individually. A single stem cell will divide continuously and form a spherical colony consisting of its progeny. Other cells will not. Dr Zhu found that about 4% of the cells from his chopstick-injured patient were able to form such colonies, which confirmed his conjecture.

Thus inspired, he started collecting samples from other patients with traumatic open-head injuries (though none with quite such an unusual cause as the first). He has managed to derive neural stem cells from 16 of these patients, out of a total of 22, and believes that success depends on which region of the brain is affected. Cells from the IPS are the best source, so it seems he was lucky in his original patient.

The point of the exercise, though, was to see whether neural stem cells could be obtained reliably, with a view to using them as a treatment. For a suitable dose of stem cells might not only help a damaged piece of tissue to repair itself; it would also, if the cells in question had come from the patient who was being treated, escape attack by his immune system. This idea of self-treatment is one of the reasons adult stem-cell science is so fashionable.

First, Dr Zhu tried it out on mice (the mice in question had had their immune systems turned off, so that they would not reject the transplanted cells). He injected stem cells he had cultured from his patients into mouse brains and found that they successfully differentiated into the various cell types found in the nervous system. Just as importantly, the resulting nerve cells were able to conduct electrical impulses and could form the specialized junctions called synapses, by means of which nerve cells talk to each other.

Having shown that the stem cells worked in healthy mouse brains, Dr Zhu tried them out on injured mouse brains. Another common property of stem cells is to accumulate at sites of injury, where their services are obviously needed. In order to track the movements of the cells, his team attached tiny magnetic particles to them before they transplanted them, and also injected them with a dye. They found that cells implanted into healthy brains stayed put, whereas those implanted into damaged brains moved towards the injured area.

The final animal trial was a safety test using monkeys. It was designed to look for cancer, and for signs that the cells had wandered from the brain to other organs such as the heart and the liver, where they might have caused trouble. No such signs were seen.

So the team moved on to people. They transplanted neural stem cells derived from eight patients with open-head injuries back into the patients who had provided the initial tissue and allowed the cells to migrate to the injury sites. (In one case, they used magnetic particles to follow the process.) Then they asked a separate group of specialists to look both at their experimental patients and at a group of people with similar brain injuries but no transplant. The second research group did not know who had and who had not been treated, so as to make the trial “blind”. Using standard behavioral tests, they concluded that the treated patients had lower disability scores.

As Dr Zhu stresses, this is a mere pilot study, and it is too early to draw strong conclusions. But if subsequent work confirms his finding, what started as an unfortunate piece of serendipity may lead to a valuable new technique for repairing injured brains.

Click here to read this enlightening article in its original format from The Economist

Cougar Attacks 4-Year Old Child At Birthday Party

62-pound cougar has been euthanized
It did not have rabies
Victim has undergone several plastic surgeries

CORAL GABLES - A day that should have been sheer joy for a little girl turned into a nightmare when she was attacked by a cougar at a birthday party.

The 62-pound cougar, named Georgia, was brought to the party by the Kendall-based company “Wild Animal World”, which was hired by Francisco Unanue, an executive with Goya Foods, for his child’s birthday party on November 18th.
The party was held near the pool at Unanue's Coral Gables home on the 7300 block of Los Pinos Blvd., but it ended badly when Georgia mauled a 4-year-old guest.

According to police reports and our news partners at The Miami Herald, the president of the company, Corinne Oltz, was showing the children the cougar. She warned the children to remain seated and calm but a four year old girl snuck up from behind and startled the big cat.

The declawed cat attacked the child and bit her on the face and head. The child suffered multiple lacerations and puncture wounds and a portion of her ear was severed. She’s already undergone plastic surgery to help repair her injuries from the mauling.

According to The Herald, Wild Animal World has been cited in two similar past attacks and faces a misdemeanor charge of allowing injury to the public.

Georgia was euthanized last week as part of a rabies test which came back negative, sparing the child painful rabies shots.

Dan Dolan, the attorney of the injured girl told The Herald, "The family wants this to be the last child who is attacked by these animals."

"We feel that Wild Animal World has a horrible history of these kinds of events and we're going to do whatever we can to make sure this is the last one." Dolan told The Herald.

The entire attack was videotaped by a man hired by Unanue to film the party for his 7-year-old child, however, Unanue's attorney, Frank M. Smith, has not allowed authorities access to the tape, according to The Herald.

The attack is being investigated by Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which is also examining whether Oltz keeps her animals caged properly. Miami-Dade County also is looking at whether Oltz carries the proper permits.

Click here to see the original story and related video from Miami's CBS4.com

Getting the picture

Video telephony becomes practical—and free

YOU’RE going away on business and want to stay in touch with friends and family back home. Mobile phones, e-mail and instant messaging are all fine. But how much more heartening it would be if you could see your loved ones, as well as hear and swap messages with them.

Well, you don’t have to pay through the nose for video calling via a mobile camera-phone any more. Nor do you have to stump up for access to a video-conferencing service. A popular internet telephony program, Skype, now has a video function built into it. Download version 2.5 of the free software from www.skype.com and install it on a laptop or PC. Plug a $20 video camera into one of the computer’s ports, and you’re ready to start making video phone calls from and to anywhere in the world for free. If the other party doesn’t have a computer, no problem. There’s a small charge (typically a few cents a minute) for calling the person’s conventional phone or mobile. You buy credit online for €10 a go (Skype is based in Luxembourg).

Though still under test, Skype’s video phone service is a doddle to set up. The video and audio are remarkably clear, and the whole thing surprisingly stable for something that’s still under development. One piece of advice, though: buy a headset with an earphone and a microphone attached. It turns out that many of us are surprisingly animated when making video calls. Using a stationary microphone on the desk can make it hard for others to hear if you’re constantly bobbing around and waving to Uncle Fred.

As with other data sent over the web, Skype relies on chopping a digital stream into tiny packets that are transmitted to their destination by the best routes they can find. When they arrive at the other end they are reassembled into a continuous stream of conversation again. “voice over internet protocol” (VOIP for short) has been around for more than a decade. But its complexity has kept all but the digirati away from it.

Skype has changed all that by being different from other forms of VOIP in two crucial ways. First, it uses a proprietary (and largely secret) protocol for communication, shunning such cryptic industry standards as SIP, H.323 and IAX. The fact that few outsiders understand Skype’s inner workings—and could potentially hack into it—makes it an extremely secure form of communication. Second, unlike other flavors of VOIP, Skype relies on “peer-to-peer” transmission for distributing its calls. The directory of users, which directs calls to their destinations, resides not on some central server, but is distributed around 20,000 “super-clients”. These are selected automatically from the 10m or so ordinary users on the network at any one time, for the speed of their computers and internet connections.

Decentralizing control in this way makes Skype far more responsive and robust than centralized rivals. It also allows it to dodge many of the “firewall” problems that plague conventional VOIP. These two differences, plus the program’s polished user interface, help explain why some 135m people have signed up for Skype since it was launched three years ago. That its main service is free hasn’t hurt matters either.

That’s all well and good, you say, for people who spend their day chained to a PC. But what about those of us on the go? Lugging a laptop around just to make and receive free phone calls is nonsense. Well, here’s the good news. Over the past few months a handful of nifty Skype phones have hit the market from makers such as NetGear, SMC, Belkin and RTX, which free you from having to use a computer. Not only do these new phones have Skype software built in, they also incorporate WiFi transmitter-receivers that connect directly to wireless networks without going through a computer to do so.

After testing several wireless Skype phones at a local store, Tech.view was impressed enough to plunk down $160 for an SMC Skype WiFi phone, which came with 500 minutes of credit and 12 months of free voice-mail. With its slick white casing and soft edges, it could easily be mistaken for an iPod (or, rather, an iPhone of the kind that Apple is expected to unveil momentarily). Unfortunately, the color screen displays only addresses and call details—and not video images of the family back home.

But the next generation of Skype phones will have built in cameras and be capable of sending and receiving video to anyone, anywhere—just as video-enabled mobile phones already can, but rarely do. The big difference will be that you won’t have to pay the mobile company’s extortionate charges for the privilege.

Click here to read the original article (and a witty picture) from Economist.com

America's democracy at risk

Almost all democracies the world has seen have died within 300 years of their founding.

Most implode from within.

At 230-some years, America has moved dangerously close to the fail-safe line for our survival.

We are in the later stages of one of the most important battles that will determine whether we survive.

It is the battle that pits democracy against the powerful. The powerful, who seek to co-opt our free press, control the news, and control the access to news, journalism and information.

It is a battle our country has fought before, but never with today's consequences.

It is a battle Thomas Jefferson clearly understood when he wrote that he "foresaw the days American democracy would have to fight the rapacious capitalists."

Good journalism, watchdog journalism, local journalism: These are the essential oxygen of self-government.

From the beginning of our democracy, marked by the ill-fated Sedition Act, the powerful — be they political, economic or ideological — have always followed their natural tendency to protect themselves and to solidify their power by stifling, intimidating, chilling and, now, consolidating both the creation of our news and access to it.

Through more than 200 years, our free press has ultimately withstood every attack, enabling our democracy to grow from a handful of privileged white landowners to the most egalitarian democracy the world has seen.

That wondrous document — the U.S. Constitution — gave us our judiciary and our Fourth Estate, as two legs of our four-legged constitutional stool. The legs were intended to provide the checks and balances so self-government could be perpetuated and so all citizens could be protected from the money-changers and powerful.

Frighteningly, the battlefield for democracy has tilted decidedly away from the people, as the rapacious capitalists have been strengthened with a new and ominous weapon — that weapon is newspaper and media consolidation, and the control of the information distribution channels.

Suddenly, our constitutional stool has lost one of its four legs and is teetering precipitously.

During the past 30 years, America has seen an unprecedented concentration of power and economic control.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the takeover of our journalistic, creative, literary, news and media functions.

The takeover began in earnest in the '70s, when absentee corporate owners began gobbling up the nation's newspapers. By the mid-'90s, the capitalists had won the newspaper battle, controlling about 85 percent of America's daily newspapers — leaving in their wake massive journalism disinvestment, which has ended most of our independent and watchdog journalism.

We are fast losing the "localism" that is essential to our sense of community and self-government.

How can we possibly control and fight the faceless, absentee money-changers as long as they can prevent us from knowing what they are doing?

Once the nation's newsrooms were tamed, like a blight of hungry locusts, the rapacious capitalists moved on to the next fertile field — their takeover of the nation's television and radio airwaves.

They used their obscene economic power and secretive insider influence to see that the Telecommunications Law of 1996 was enacted, a law that would be their Trojan horse to begin the takeover of our airwaves.

Today, they control both the news, which is still primarily generated from newspapers, and the multiple electronic distribution channels, which, for the most part, simply reuse the news and information produced by newspapers.

The mission of the Federal Communications Commission is localism, public service and diversity. Unfortunately, the majority that controls the FCC has lost its way.

The two exceptions are Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein. With patriots like them, there is hope that the agency will get its groove back, and localism, public service and diversity will again become paramount.

Next Steps:

• We need to keep all the current FCC rules in place, including the cross-ownership ban.

• We need to reinstitute the FCC regulations and controls that have been cast aside in recent years.

• We need to insist on localism.

• We need to insist on public service — they are our airwaves.

• We need to insist on diversity — diversity of thought and diversity of ownership.

• We need new legislation, controlling and limiting in some fashion the ownership of newspapers.

About 50 years ago, journalist Walter Lippmann said he was secure in his belief that American democracy would endure precisely because:

"... there is, I believe, a fundamental reason why the American press is strong enough to remain free. That reason is that the American newspapers, large and small, and without exception, belong to a town, a city, at the most to a region."

The secret of a truly free press, he said, is "that it should consist of many newspapers decentralized in their ownership and their management, and dependent for their support upon the communities where they are written, where they are edited and where they are read."

Lippmann concluded by saying, "There is safety in numbers, and in diversity, and in being spread out, and in having deep roots in many places. Only in variety is there freedom."

Today's absentee newspaper ownership and media concentration are Walter Lippmann's worst nightmare.

Fortunately, this is still a democracy.

Even if the concentrated and controlled mainstream media won't tell the story, we still get to speak out and be heard by those whom we elect.

The hour is very late, but there is still time to save our free press and our democracy.

Welcome to the battle.
Click here to read the original editorial from Frank A. Blethen, publisher of The Seattle Times

Shannon proof that tenacity, talent give way to success

He came out of the meanest streets of Miami, the ones in Liberty City that murdered his father, sent a brother to prison and killed three siblings by AIDS, each one the result of a crack-cocaine addiction.

You think Randy Shannon's a bit of an upset today as the University of Miami's newly named football coach?

That doesn't begin to tell the upset Shannon has been in life.

At every age, he has overcome more than most of us have ever faced. At 3, his father was murdered while trying to break up an argument. At 16, he became a father himself. At 22, he was the first in his family to earn a college degree.

At 23, he was an 11th-round pick by the Dallas Cowboys and became their first rookie linebacker to start since their expansion days.

At 25, his sister, Joanna, died of AIDS. Two brothers soon followed. A third brother wallowed in drugs to the point he stole Randy's identity, plunging his life into such a chaos that he had to carry around special identification to prove that he really was Randy Shannon.

At 40, he's Miami's new coach.

There's no way you can't root for him, if not for his school colors then for his life story. What's the saying about nature's cruel law? "Crush 1,000 men and 999 may die but the one who lives will be special."

That's the kind of man Miami hired. But what matters from here is what kind of coach he will be, and Shannon knows that more than anyone. No matter how much you like Shannon, how much you say he's the right choice for this job and how much you admire where he's come from, this also is true: hiring him is an unusual move.

Miami can rightfully call it a bold move. For one, Shannon was promoted over his fired boss in Larry Coker. That rarely happens. How often does a head coach get fired and an assistant takes over? And who's the real boss for the upcoming bowl game, Coker or Shannon?

For another, Shannon is black. OK, it's 2006, and you'd think we'd be past this. But there are only five other black head coaches in Division I-A college football today. This state's big three -- Florida, Florida State and Miami -- have not had a black football coach.

Also, Shannon gets the chance at Miami that Tom Olivadotti and Gary Stevens didn't. Olivadotti, the Hurricanes' former defensive coordinator, lost out in 1984 to Jimmy Johnson, who won a title and embodied much of the personality Miami's program loves.

Stevens, UM's former offensive coordinator, finished behind Dennis Erickson, who won two titles but never fit completely with the program.

Miami wanted Greg Schiano this time around for all the right reasons. He had been a Miami coordinator under Butch Davis before proving himself as the Rutgers coach. So when Schiano turned down the job, Miami either didn't have a legitimate Plan B or Shannon was it.

There are two legitimate questions about Shannon the coach. The first is the lack of head coaching experience. Answer: Davis had never been a head coach, either, and all he did was rejuvenate the program into one of America's best.

The second question: Who will run his offense? Shannon's defense speaks for itself, the way it's produced even in the most trying of years like this one. But Shannon must have given Miami officials answers about who would run the offense to get this job.

The university has hired its own before. Davis coached there under Jimmy. Coker was there under Davis. Shannon fits that profile, having won a national championship ring as a player in 1987, in 1991 as a graduate assistant coach and in 2001 as the defensive coordinator.

But Shannon is the first coach to come out of Miami as well. The program is mourning the murder of Bryan Pata? He's felt that in his life. It will be criticized by opposing recruiters as a big, bad city? He's proof you can survive anything.

Actually, he's proof you can do more than survive.

He's proof that if you're tough and talented you can succeed all the way to the top.

Click here to the original article from the SunSentinel.com's Dave Hyde

Voting with your cart

Dec 7th 2006
From The Economist print edition

Can you really change the world just by buying certain foods?

HAS the supermarket shopping cart dethroned the ballot box? Voter turnout in most developed countries has fallen in recent decades, but sales of organic, Fairtrade and local food—each with its own political agenda—are growing fast. Such food allows shoppers to express their political opinions, from concern for the environment to support for poor farmers, every time they buy groceries. And shoppers are jumping at the opportunity, says Marion Nestle, a nutritionist at New York University and the author of “Food Politics” (2002) and “What to Eat” (2006). “What I hear as I talk to people is this phenomenal sense of despair about their inability to do anything about climate change, or the disparity between rich and poor,” she says. “But when they go into a grocery store they can do something—they can make decisions about what they are buying and send a very clear message.”

Those in the food-activism movement agree. “It definitely has a positive effect,” says Ian Bretman of Fairtrade Labelling Organisations (FLO) International, the Fairtrade umbrella group. Before the advent of ethical and organic labels, he notes, the usual way to express political views using food was to impose boycotts. But such labels make a political act out of consumption, rather than non-consumption—which is far more likely to produce results, he suggests. “That's how you build effective, constructive engagement with companies. If you try to do a boycott or slag them off as unfair or evil, you won't be able to get them round the table.”

Consumers have more power than they realize, says Chris Wille of the Rainforest Alliance, a conservation group. “They are at one end of the supply chain, farmers are at the other, and consumers really do have the power to send a message back all the way through that complicated supply chain,” he explains. “If the message is frequent, loud and consistent enough, then they can actually change practices, and we see that happening on the ground.”

The $30 billion organic-food industry “was created by consumers voting with their dollars,” says Michael Pollan, the author of “The Omnivore's Dilemma” (2006), another of this year's crop of books on food politics. Normally, he says, a sharp distinction is made between people's actions as citizens, in which they are expected to consider the well-being of society, and their actions as consumers, which are assumed to be selfish. Food choices appear to reconcile the two.

How green is your organic lettuce?

Yet even an apparently obvious claim—that organic food is better for the environment than the conventionally farmed kind—turns out to be controversial. There are many different definitions of the term “organic”, but it generally involves severe restrictions on the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers and a ban on genetically modified organisms. Peter Melchett of the Soil Association, Britain's leading organic lobby group, says that environmental concerns, rather than health benefits, are now cited by British consumers as their main justification for buying organic food. (There is no clear evidence that conventional food is harmful or that organic food is nutritionally superior.)

But not everyone agrees that organic farming is better for the environment. Perhaps the most eminent critic of organic farming is Norman Borlaug, the father of the “green revolution”, winner of the Nobel peace prize and an outspoken advocate of the use of synthetic fertilizers to increase crop yields. He claims the idea that organic farming is better for the environment is “ridiculous” because organic farming produces lower yields and therefore requires more land under cultivation to produce the same amount of food. Thanks to synthetic fertilizers, Mr Borlaug points out, global cereal production tripled between 1950 and 2000, but the amount of land used increased by only 10%. Using traditional techniques such as crop rotation, compost and manure to supply the soil with nitrogen and other minerals would have required a tripling of the area under cultivation. The more intensively you farm, Mr Borlaug contends, the more room you have left for rainforest.

What of the claim that organic farming is more energy-efficient? Lord Melchett points out for example that the artificial fertilizer used in conventional farming is made using natural gas, which is “completely unsustainable”. But Anthony Trewavas, a biochemist at the University of Edinburgh, counters that organic farming actually requires more energy per tonne of food produced, because yields are lower and weeds are kept at bay by plowing. And Mr Pollan notes that only one-fifth of the energy associated with food production across the whole food chain is consumed on the farm: the rest goes on transport and processing.

The most environmentally benign form of agriculture appears to be “no till” farming, which involves little or no plowing and relies on cover crops and carefully applied herbicides to control weeds. This makes it hard to combine with organic methods (though some researchers are trying). Too rigid an insistence on organic farming's somewhat arbitrary rules, then—copper, a heavy metal, can be used as an organic fungicide because it is traditional—can actually hinder the adoption of greener agricultural techniques. Alas, shoppers look in vain for “no till” labels on their food—at least so far.

Fair enough

What about Fairtrade? Its aim is to address “the injustice of low prices” by guaranteeing that producers receive a fair price “however unfair the conventional market is”, according to FLO International's website. In essence, it means paying producers an above-market “Fairtrade” price for their produce, provided they meet particular labor and production standards. In the case of coffee, for example, Fairtrade farmers receive a minimum of $1.26 per pound for their coffee, or $0.05 above the market price if it exceeds that floor. This premium is passed back to the producers to spend on development programs. The market for Fairtrade products is much smaller than that for organic products, but is growing much faster: it increased by 37% to reach €1.1 billion ($1.4 billion) in 2005. Who could object to that?

Click here to read more of this interesting study from The Economist (not in American English)

Pata Family Hires Private Investigator

MIAMI, FL - A private investigator hired by the family of slain University of Miami football player Bryan Pata said the player had received two death threats from two different people...

"There have been threats made prior to his shooting that I know police are aware of," Diop Kamau said.

According to Kamau, the man who made the second phone call told Pata that he could kill him at any time.

Anyone with information should call Crimestoppers at 305-471-TIPS.

Click here to read entire story

Seminoles buying parent company of Hard Rock casinos, hotels for $965 million

By ROBERT BARR
Associated Press

LONDON -- The Seminole Tribe of Florida said Thursday it was buying the famed Hard Rock business, including its casinos, restaurants, hotels and huge collection of rock 'n' roll memorabilia, in a groundbreaking $965 million deal with a British company.

The deal with London-based Rank Group PLC is believed to be an American Indian tribe's first purchase of a major international corporation of its size, the Seminoles said. It includes 124 Hard Rock Cafes, four Hard Rock Hotels, two Hard Rock Casino Hotels, two Hard Rock Live! concert venues and stakes in three unbranded hotels.

The Seminoles were the first U.S. tribe to get into the gambling business in 1979. More recently, they had partnered with Hard Rock in successful hotel, gambling and entertainment complexes in Tampa and Hollywood in tourist-friendly Florida. They now have the ability to expand their gaming interests nationally by partnering with a well-known brand, experts said.

The tribe also will acquire what is said to be the world's largest collection of rock memorabilia, some 70,000 pieces including Jimi Hendrix's Flying V guitar, one of Madonna's bustiers, a pair of Elton John's high-heeled shoes and guitars formerly owned by Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and Chuck Berry.

The deal does not include Hard Rock's Las Vegas casino, however, which is owned by Morgans Hotel Group, or Morgans' rights to Hard Rock intellectual property in Australia, Brazil, Israel, Venezuela and many areas of the United States west of the Mississippi River, a Morgans official said.

Rank said the sale freed it to concentrate on gambling. It retained the Hard Rock Casino in London and plans to change it to the Rank Gaming brand.

"Hard Rock is a very strong brand," said Jeffrey Harwood, an analyst with Oriel Securities in London. "It needs further capital to be injected in the business into expanding it, which is one of the reasons Rank decided to sell."

At a Thursday news conference in New York that began with a blessing from a tribal representative, tribe Vice President Max Osceola compared the sale to when American Indians sold Manhattan to the Dutch for "trinkets."

"We're going to buy Manhattan back one hamburger at a time," Osceola said.

Hard Rock International President and Chief Executive Hamish Dodds gave Osceola a guitar that belonged to Hank Williams Sr.

"This is a proud moment for the Seminole Tribe of Florida and for all Indian tribes," said Mitchell Cypress, chairman of the elected Tribal Council. "It is also an opportunity for the Seminole Tribe to diversify its business operations and help a very successful company to achieve even greater growth."

The Seminoles tribe has about 3,300 members living on and off Florida reservations and all of them receive payments due to the success of casinos. They are pacesetters in the growing world of Indian gaming.

After selling tax-free tobacco products, the tribe opened a bingo hall in 1979 in Hollywood. It survived legal challenges from the state over the right to be in the gambling business, which led to other casinos on reservations in Florida and opened the door for tribal gaming across the nation.

U.S. tribes now have more than $22 billion in annual revenues from gambling, according to government figures.

"The Seminoles were in the forefront of those who did it right and did it successfully, so I'm sure they can take what they learned there and put it into other areas of entertainment and hospitality," said Phil Hogan, chairman of the National Indian Gaming Commission, a federal agency that oversees gambling on tribal lands.

In addition to its two Seminole Hard Rock hotels & casinos, the Seminole Tribe owns and operates five other casinos in Florida. More than 90 percent of the tribe's budget now comes from gaming revenue.

The deal also follows a national trend of tribal casinos teaming with large corporations or going to other states to expand their reach. For example, the Mashantucket Pequot tribe, which operates Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, earlier this year said it was leasing the MGM Grand name from MGM Mirage. A $700 million hotel and casino expansion will be called the MGM Grand but will be operated by Foxwoods employees.

David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at University of Nevada Las Vegas, said the Seminoles likely made the deal with gambling expansion at the top of their priorities.

"I don't think that they bought this because they only want to go into the restaurant industry," Schwartz said. "I don't think they want to only serve boneless buffalo wings."

Peter Morton, co-founder of the Hard Rock brand, sold his interests to Rank Group in 1996 for $410 million. He had retained ownership of the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, but sold that to Morgans Hotel Group Co. for $770 million in cash in May.

Rank Chief Executive Ian Burke said the company would return 350 million pounds (U.S. $690 million) of the sale proceeds to shareholders in a special dividend of 65 pence ($1.28) per share.

"We have maximized the value of Hard Rock through this disposal following a thorough strategic review and competitive auction," Burke said.

FCC Chair Schemes to Undermine Net Neutrality

Courtesy of FreePress.net

The FCC is at it again, ignoring the public interest to give handouts to massive corporations. This time, Chairman Kevin Martin has thrown the FCC's ethics out the window to rush through the mega-merger of AT&T and BellSouth.

Martin is forcing one commissioner, Robert McDowell, to overlook a conflict of interest and rubber stamp the AT&T merger without safeguards for Net Neutrality -- the longstanding principle that prevents Internet providers from discriminating between Web sites.

This move could undermine basic freedoms for all Internet users.

Chairman Martin is racing to deliver special favors to AT&T before the incoming Congress can provide oversight. Commissioner McDowell rightly "recused" his vote on the merger because he had prior business ties affected by the deal. That left the FCC in a 2-2 tie.

Rather than negotiate with commissioners in good faith, AT&T and Chairman Martin have resorted to strong-arm tactics to force McDowell to violate his ethical standards and vote for the merger.

Congress has begun to respond to Martin's outrageous behavior. Incoming House leaders John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Martin Tuesday demanding that the merger be handled "without compromising the ethical standards of the independent agency or the individual Commissioners involved."

This objection was echoed in the Senate by incoming Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye. He wrote to Martin: "I hope you will reconsider your decision to waive the ethical rules presently precluding Commissioner McDowell's participation and return to serious negotiations with your colleagues at the Commission. These rules and the rules of professional responsibility in general exist for a reason and should not be tossed away lightly."

Click here to read Free Press cofounder John Nichols' Nation article on Chairman Martin's actions.

About having that college football playoff...

It appears as if the Bowl Championship Series has once again made another sham of the college football postseason.

It's common knowledge that this system has flaws, and those flaws were once again showcased on Sunday when the BCS decided to pit SEC champion Florida (12-1) against top-ranked and Big Ten champion Ohio State (12-0) in the national championship game. The decision caused a nationwide uproar because many in the media felt that Michigan (11-1) should have been allowed to play for the national title. The Wolverines' only loss came against Ohio State in their Big Ten final regular season game.

To be honest, I had no desire to see an Ohio State vs. Michigan rematch in the national championship game. The way I see it, I don't think teams that didn't win their conference championship should be allowed to play for the national title, though I know such instances have arisen before (Nebraska 2001-02, Oklahoma 2003-04). I guess that's one of the reasons why the BCS is so inept.

To me, it's not simply about Michigan getting "snubbed." Other schools, such as Boise State (12-0), Louisville (11-1) and Oklahoma (10-2) aren't getting a shot at the title, either. Let's not forget, those teams actually won their conference titles.

So you're probably wondering: Why is the blogger bringing up the issue of the BCS' shortcomings in a blog devoted to UH, a school that had no chance of breaking into the BCS unless it finished the regular season undefeated and won its conference title? Good question.

At this moment, the 11 Division I-A conference champions have all been crowned, one of them being UH (10-3), winner of the Conference USA title. I also see a dominant independent in Notre Dame (10-2) lurking in the background that could easily qualify as this season's "champion of the Division I-A independents (Notre Dame, Temple, Navy and Army)."

Having said that, why not have a tournament of 12 Division I-A champions to decide the national champion? The format would be simple. The four schools ranked the highest in the Associated Press poll would receive first-round byes and the other eight schools would be matched up according to seeding (No. 5 vs. No. 12, No. 6 vs. No. 11, No. 7 vs. No. 10 and No. 8 vs. No. 9). After that, the top four seeds would play the first-round winners in quarterfinals match-ups.

In all, the tournament would last approximately four weeks, and the championship game would be played around the same time as the regularly scheduled BCS championship game. Problem solved, right?

Apparently, not according to supporters of the current system, who have come up with almost every excuse in the book why a playoff format wouldn't work, such as how the football season would now be too long, it would screw around with finals, and school presidents would never let it happen.

The excuse about the finals is the most legitimate of the three, because education is way more important than a few silly football games. However, a playoff format would be the fairest way to determine who deserves to be called the national champion of college football.

Because of this, a playoff format is needed. However, don't count on it being instrumented anytime soon.

Click here to read more about this original idea on repairing the most serious problem with major college football!

Tamarac Man Loses $7,000 In Lottery Scam

TAMARAC (Florida) -- A 73-year-old Tamarac man was coaxed out of $7,000 in a lottery scam, according to a Broward Sheriff's Office news release.

BSO detectives said Carlos Guerrero was shopping at Bravo Supermarket in Sunrise last Friday, when a man who identified himself as Angel and claimed to have won the lottery approached him.

Angel showed Guerrero the so-called winning ticket, but said he couldn’t cash in on his winnings because he was in the country illegally.

Angel proceeded to tell Guerrero that he had contacted lottery officials and was told he had to give them $30,000 in order to collect his prize.

Angel then told Guerrero that if helped with some money he would share the lottery winnings with him.

Guerrero said that he rode with the two men in a black sedan to a Bank of America in Tamarac and withdrew $7,000 cash.

Anyone with information is asked to call BSO Economic Crime Detective John Murray at (954) 321-4255 or Broward Crime Stoppers at (954) 493-8477.

Click here to read the original story from NBC6.net

Rising cost of living makes it harder for families, seniors to put food on the table

In an ideal world, Valerie McBean would serve her family pork chops, roast or any other prime cut.

These days, things are far from ideal. Dinner typically includes ground beef or dark-meat chicken.

"The cheapest I can find -- so we can have more of it," said McBean, now the breadwinner of her family of six.

Getting by was tough even before her husband, Howard, stopped working because of a kidney disease that requires an armful of expensive medicine and gas-guzzling trips to Miami doctors.

With $3,000 in debt and a long line of bills, something's got to give. McBean turned to one of the more negotiable items in her budget: food.

The McBeans, of West Palm Beach, are like a growing number of working families and seniors in Palm Beach County, skimping on groceries or for the first time seeking donations to pad barren pantries. It is a trend fueled by the ever-increasing expense of living in South Florida, where salaries are stagnant and the effects of several fierce hurricanes persist.

"There are more people making hard decisions: Do you pay for the electric bill or buy food for the week? Do you pay for prescription drugs or food?" said Wendy Tippett, executive director of the nonprofit Adopt-A-Family.

Click here to read more about this heartbreaking story

Right to life, freedom of speech clash

Rhode Island College faces lawsuit over removing signs

By Edward Fitzpatrick
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — The Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union yesterday filed a federal lawsuit against Rhode Island College, claiming the public college violated the First Amendment rights of a student group by removing signs that said “Keep your rosaries off our ovaries.”

The Women’s Studies Organization and three of its student officers are asking U.S. District Court in Providence to declare the college’s actions unconstitutional.

“College is a place for the free expression of ideas,” said the student group’s president, Nichole L. Aguiar. “RIC has denied our organization those rights and we have decided to take action to ensure that RIC is a better place for all students.”

A college spokeswoman said the school had not been served with the legal papers as of late yesterday. But in a statement, RIC said, “The college respects and encourages the free speech rights and freedom of expression of all members of the college community as basic elements of higher education.”

The student group said it placed a series of six signs along the entrance to the campus on the evening of Dec. 4, 2005. Aguiar said the group was preparing for activism the following day on women’s issues such as reproductive freedom and “specifically, the refusal of contraception by pharmacists.”

The signs, when read together, stated, “Keep your rosaries off our ovaries,” “Our bodies, our choice,” and “Brought to you by RIC Women’s Studies Organization.”

But according to the lawsuit, a Catholic priest saw the signs a couple of hours after they went up as he drove onto campus to conduct a weekly Mass at the college president’s residence. And when the priest mentioned the signs, President John Nazarian immediately contacted the campus police and ordered them to take the signs down, according to the suit.

Click here to find out more about this developing situation (registration required)

Are most white Americans racist?

When comedian Michael Richards unleashed a verbal rant at two African-American hecklers in a comedy club recently, he unwittingly sparked a national discussion.

Was Richards, known to many Americans as Seinfeld's quirky Cosmo Kramer, a racist? Did he explode in a fit of stage rage? Or was he telling the truth when he apologized and said he couldn't believe what had come out of his own mouth?

In a country that has shied away from examining racism, Richards' rant and Mel Gibson's drunken, anti-Semitic tirade have led many to wonder: Could there be an inner racist in all of us?

Click here to read the rest of this controversial article from Linda Shrieves at OrlandoSentinel.com

Apologies flow freely for racial police video

Six times a week during November, a television show produced by Tempe police aired on the city’s cable channel showing a white police officer telling two black men they could get out of a ticket if they performed a rap.

On Thursday, Tempe’s mayor and police chief apologized for the show, suspended its future production and the chief launched an investigation after black community leaders voiced outrage and disappointment over it.

Click here to read more

Fanfare for the common man

Is economic populism on the rise in the Democratic Party?

AS THE embers of this month's mid-term elections are raked over, a new conventional wisdom is emerging in Washington, DC. The outcome was not just about Iraq, corruption and voters' frustration with George Bush. It also marked the return of a phenomenon that has long hovered offstage in American politics: economic populism.

Frustrated by stagnant wages and rising health costs and fearful that their jobs will be sent to China, anxious voters, particularly in the industrial heartland, sent a new brand of Democrat to Congress: one who may believe in God and guns but who is wary of big business and even more dubious about free trade. The rise of these “Lou Dobbs Democrats” (a reference to a globophobic blowhard on CNN) could spell significant changes in American economic policy.

Click here to read the rest of this article (includes an archived photograph of William Jennings Bryan)

Consumer Alert - Confidence Scam

An acquaintance recently received the following official looking letter, with a check enclosed, advising him he had won some sort of lottery...Please note: phrases written in italics inside parentheses are my personal comments.

McGraw Corp.
1802 Church Ave.
Brooklyn, New York, 11226

Dear: (Last name inaccurate, written by hand)

Congratulations on your success as one of the winners on Utilities draw held on Oct. 10, 2006. Participants were selected through a computer ballot system, drawn from 147,000 telephone and light bills of individuals who signed up for the services. Your ticket number: 8261, with serial number 583 emerged one of the winning tickets. You have therefore been awarded a lump sum pay out of $50,000.00 cash, which is the winning payout for the series. This is from the total price money of $25,234,000.00 shared among the winners.

Our firm has secured for you, the percentage surcharge to be paid as commission on your winning prize to the Lotto Regulatory Board, thereby saving you the trouble. The check for $3,958.00 enclosed, will (sic) covers the charges/fees required to be paid, prior to receiving your winning. Keep winning confidential until your prize money is received to avoid multiple (sic) claim.

Please call your payment coordinator Ms. Gladys Jones or John West at (403) 708-6491 as soon as you receive this notice to assist you in finalizing the payment process. Prize (sic) are redeemable not (sic) latter than Nov.18, 2006.

Yours truly,

Celina Reeds,
Manager

Against his wife's wishes, my friend actually called the number listed and spoke to a gentleman from the Caribbean area with a thick accent and poor English skills. That's when he called my office to find out more about this "letter."

I did some investigation by Googling some keywords from the mailing he faxed over. Turns out a Better Business Bureau in Washington State posted an item about an identical notice received by someone in their jurisdiction, which found that:
- The 403 area code is for Calgary, Alberta in Canada.
- The check is drawn from the supposed company's account, issued by "United Commercial Bank" of New York. This check is counterfeit.

The BBB also noted that, "While such bogus award notifications are running rampant nationally, the reason for the issuance of this warning, and for our concern over this one, is because it refers to your utility bill or signing up for a utility service, making this a 'tricky' pitch for some."

Pass on this information to all people you know. It could save them from getting a nasty surprise.