The newspaper ad appeared on Wednesday in The Cincinnati Enquirer and featured a large picture of the Representative and his two daughters.  Driehaus is “outraged” according to his spokesman, Time Mulvey.  ”He can take more than his fair share of political attacks, but this one crossed the line.”

The ad was paid for by the Committee to Rethink Reform, a Washington-based group that has already admitted that the ad was a mistake and apologized both in print, in another ad, and to the Representative.  The strangest part of the decision to break the unwritten rule that politicians children are off limits is that Driehaus is actually firmly against the reform bill.

Political ads involving children have become more and more of a problem of late on both sides.  This summer the White House had to put a stop to a series of ads from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine that featured 8 year old vegetarian Jasmine Messaih questioning why the Presidents daughters had better lunch options than she did.  While the head of the PCRM did not see the ads as an infringement against the Obama girls, and the ads in Ohio did not directly attack Driehaus’ children, politicians maintain that mentioning their children in reference to their politics at all is dirty pool.  What do you think?

So why is this cool? It’s the first time that anyone has managed to make a cloaking device work in three dimensions.  Cloaking has been managed before, but only in a two dimensional fashion. Earlier research at Duke University developed a way to cloak objects in two dimensions from microwaves.  Like light and radar, microwaves usually bounce off objects, making them visible to instruments and creating detectable microwave shadows.  This cloak is a structure of crystals, stacked together with open air between them, that bends light around the object it’s hiding.

The value of the find lies less in being a step towards actual invisibility and more in it being a step forward in transformation optics, a new field that is working to control the flow of light.  Learning to control and manipulate the flow of light could lead to advances like computers and electronic devises that use light instead of electronic signals to process information, incredibly powerful microscopes that might be able to see things as small as DNA, advanced sensors and more efficient solar collectors.  Plus the whole power of invisibility thing.  Seems pretty cool to us.

Though rumors have swirled about the production of a live-action series, neither that nor any information of a release date for this new animated series have been announced.

I remember the day my preschooler came home talking about Darth Vader. This surprised me because we hadn’t exposed him to any “Star Wars” material, deeming it a little too violent for a four year old to consume. Of course, his preschool friends had seen the movies, and would role play them. At some point, we realized that certain things are out of our control, and that we have to simply let them be. We could, however, keep “Star Wars” out of our own home.

This latest news, though, just seems like a money-hungry grab. Whether or not characters are actually shown getting shot or cut, the “Star Wars” universe features a lot of combat. Kids mimic what they see, and it seems unnecessary to give young kids a show about fighting. Though I will say it’s a fine opportunity for parents to discuss the nature of violence, both in real life and as it’s depicted in the media. All actions have consequences, and this should be stressed to our children, who may think otherwise, watching the tidy way events tend to just clean up on television. So, thanks, George Lucas, for your inadvertent help with this. Let’s hope your new show includes a little moral education as well.

The turrtopsis nutricula species of jellyfish are the only creature science has even encountered that do not eventually break down and die. How do they do it? By cycling through their adult phase back into their immature polyp stage and then back again.  Imagine, instead of growing old, you grow up, spend a few years being 35, and then grow young again.

Scientists say this ability is totally unique.

The key to this unique death cheating tactic lies in transdifferentiation, which allows one type of cell to transform into a different kind of cell.  Some animals use a limited form of this process to do things like regenerate organs and limbs (think salamander).  Turritopsi nutricula doesn’t just occasionally replace a limb, they replace their whole body over and over again.

Because the jellyfish don’t die, their population is spiking.  They used to just be found in the Caribbean, but now they’ve spread to every ocean in the world.  ”We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion,” says Dr. Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute.

Naturally, scientists are eagerly studying the jelly’s, hoping to discover their secrets and apply them to human medicine.  With some doctors hypothesizing that extending the human life-span to 500 years or more may enter the realm of possibility in the next 25 years, an immortal jell fish is sure to play a sizable role in that race for the fountain of youth.

(Photo by Peter Schuchert)

“Finding Entertainment Appropriate for Kids,” or FEAK, runs every Friday and discusses places – mainly the movie theaters – where parents can look to find things for their kids to watch over the weekend.

Chances are that your kids are clamoring to see “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” this weekend. It’s the big family release, the commercials have been everywhere and many of them might be fans of the book.

Well, we reviewed the movie itself right here. Basically, your kids will like it, but they aren’t going to connect to it very easily. Still, the film is most certainly appropriate for kids. It’s rated PG for “some rude humor and language” so be aware of that. There are a lot of gross scenes, scenes of menace (The kids get chased. A lot.), scenes of embarrassment and a whole bunch of language that sounds like it’s straight off the SATs rather than a middle schooler’s journal.

So be sure to know all of that before going into the film.

Also opening these weekend, on a much smaller scale, is “Hubble 3D.” This IMAX movie is playing on a few IMAX screens across the country and, with its G rating, is certainly worth searching out. It’s part educational and part jaw dropping visuals of the universe around us. Plus it’s narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio.

Also still in theaters are “Alice in Wonderland” and “Remember Me,” which were the subjects of the last two FEAK columns. Check those out by clicking the links.

Next week: “How To Train Your Dragon” in 3D.

Which is exactly what critics of the program have a problem with – making kids ride in ad ladened buses isn’t much better than selling ad space on chalk boards.  Of course, some schools are already selling ad space inside their schools too. Jefferson County Schools, the biggest district in Colorado, has a contract with First Bank of Colorado that is worth $500,000 over four years.  This contract entitles First Bank to logos on 100 of the districts 350 buses, and a prominent display of their logo in every high school gym in the district, on the district Web page, in district stadiums and a company announcement during sports events.

And controlling the content of the ads isn’t as easy as you’d think it would be. A Southern California highway authority recently lost their battle to keep the Minutemen militia group from getting an “adopt a highway” type advertising sign put up.  It’s a 1st Amendment issue and the same logic is likely to hold for school transportation.  What happens when parents don’t agree with the advertisements their children are being exposed to at school? “Parents who are concerned about commercial messages will have no choice,” according to Josh Colin, associate director of Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood. “Parents won’t be given the option to send their kids on the ad-free bus.”

Another big problem is that, even if you’re willing to force the kids exposure to advertising, “It’s not as large a revenue generator as you might think,” according to Mike Griffith, a policy analyst for the Education Commission of the States. The Jefferson County deal with First Bank amounts to $7 a bus per day – just a fraction of the districts $959 million budget.  Oh, and most districts actually have to hire someone new to sell their new ad space.  According to Griffith, that extra cost usually cuts profits enough to discourage adopting the policy.  But, a lot of will to try in these tough times, including Colorado, Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, Tennessee and Texas.

So he decided he would try and raise around £500 (around $800) by riding his bike five miles around his local park, little did he know that it would be far more.  He started a JustGiving page with this simple message:

“My name is Charlie Simpson. I want to do a sponsored bike ride for Haiti because there was a big earthquake and loads of people have lost their lives.  I want to make some money to buy food, water and tents for everyone in Haiti.”

It just exploded from there. Word spread and Charlie’s bike ride became a national event.  British Prime Minister Gordon Brown even spread the word through his “Downing Street” Twitter account.  The country rallied behind little Charlie and his simple act of kindness towards a country he has never been to.  When all was said and done, Charlie raised more than  £136,000 (around $220,000) for UNICEF’s relief efforts in Haiti.

All children should realize that a simple act of kindness can turn out to be a national event.  Charlie simply saw that people were in trouble and he acted.  He wasn’t looking for national notoriety or fame but he got it because he was a good person.  What is not to admire about that?

Accomplishments

• Personally raised more than $200,000 for Haiti relief
• Received thanks from British Prime Minister and David Bull, UNICEF’s UK executive director
• Got to hang with Simon Cowell
• Gained national attention with a simple act of kindness
• Rode his bike 5 miles around local park

Other role models for your kids:

• Child Role Model - Ashley Qualls, 20
• Child Role Models – Sage Karam, 15
• Child Role Models – Cameron Johnson, 24
• Child Role Models – Mirai Nagasu, 16
• Child Role Models – Akrit Jaswal, 17

When Alana realized that the baby was not going to wait until the paramedics got there, the 911 operator instructed Faith and Jabari to get towels and then the even had to tie off the umbilical cord when 9 pound, 4 ounce baby Joseph was born in the bathroom.  Paramedics soon arrived and took 36-year-old Alana Sanders and Joseph to the hospital where the boy received a clean bill of health.

Husband Geoffrey Sanders, 35, said he had left for work about 1:30 a.m. and was not around when the baby came March 9. “I’m a proud father … we are doing something right,” he said.

Alana, 36, said her children remained composed throughout the ordeal. “They didn’t freak out. They didn’t fight with each other,” she told The Oakland Tribune

Jabari said the birth was “cool and weird.”

Good job to Faith and Jabari for staying cool under pressure and turning an emergency into a joyous day that nobody in that family will ever (EVER) forget.

For you parents who might have been decrying the lack of similarly engaging content in the digital age, we now have the opportunity to re-experience the magic on our iPhones, courtesy of ChooseCo and Magnetism Studios. The first adventure to be released is “Return to Atlantis”, by the famed CYOA scribe R. A. Montgomery. As hoped, the app is no less than a faithful recreation of the actual text, complete with illustrations. For only $0.99, one hopes that it will be successful, as we can then look forward to digital ports of the entire series.

If you haven’t ever experienced the joy of cracking one of these CYOA books, the draw is simple: at the end of each passage of narrative, the reader is asked to decide which action of two choices to take next. The reader then proceeds to the referred page, and the adventure continues. Each book has multiple endings, and the fun of guessing what comes next, and going back to choose different paths truly sparks some exciting activity in the minds of those who participate. There’s something powerful in putting into a child’s hands the ability to make decisions. There’s also a lot to be said for making concrete the idea that there are many ways that any one scenario can go, and thus, no situation, no matter how dreadful-seeming, is entirely hopeless. This can be helpful if a child is fearful of the future, because it’s easy for one’s mind to dwell only on a disastrous outcome. To live in hope is a far better way than to dwell in fear.

That is just one of the problems with the film adaptation of “Diary Of A Wimpy Kid.” Based on a popular series of books by Jeff Kinney, the film stars Zachary Gordon as Greg, a kid just about to start middle school who is writing in his diary, even though he doesn’t like to call it that. So the audience hears all of his inner most thoughts as he tries to adjust to a very new time in his life: cliques, girls, after school sports, etc.

Great idea, right? Without a doubt, middle school is an awkward time in a young person’s life and is ripe with comedic situations. “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” has plenty of those. And while many of them are a little too cliched, others – such as “The Cheese Touch” – are new and really, really funny.

Still – it’s hard to get into this semi-awkward film, funny as it may be, when the main character is so unlikable. And that’s not a knock on Zachary Gordon’s performance – the kid has charisma – but the character himself is near impossible to get behind. Through him, the audience is meant to learn the message “being yourself is cool.” But instead of making it easy and him learning the message in a simple way, the film makes us dig around for it through his interactions with the side characters. That kind of complicated characterization would be fine if “Diary Of A Wimpy Kid” was a low budget, independent film, but this is a big budget kids movie. It’s way too difficult for kids to appreciate in the way they should.

Plus, the film constantly feels a little too smart for its own good. Many of the characters in the film are way too worldly. Somehow, even though they are only 13 years old or so, they have the knowledge that middle school is nothing but a pointless stage between childhood and your teen years and should be treated as such. It’s almost as if they’re the adult versions of themselves, transplanted back in school like in films “17 Again” or “Never Been Kissed.”

There’s a lot to like in “Diary Of A Wimpy Kid.” The casting and characters are awesome, the drawings and humor are winning and the film – based on the first book – leaves you wanting more. But, still, it feels more like a film about middle school for adults than a film about middle school for middle schoolers.

Earlier this week, a band called Back of the Class released the above, hilarious music video called “My Mom’s On Facebook.” Then, thanks to the fine folks over at Mashable, it blew up.

Now, we present it to you: the parents.

The lyrics aren’t exactly safe for work, or for your little ones, but this R-rated song gives a funny and truthful take on how kids feel about their parents joining their favorite social networking site.

Check it out.

Sandberg was mobile and responsive after the hit, but his parents and teachers weren’t taking any chances, they called 911.  It’s a good thing too, because when emergency room doctors did a CT scan they determined that he needed surgery to relieve pressure on his brain.  The surgery, done on Friday, removed a portion of his skull to allow for swelling of the brain without compression.  He has been in a medically induced temporary coma since then.  His doctors estimate that the coma should last three to five days.

But how did a high school hitter get a ball moving so dangerously fast?  The players were using lightweight aluminum bats, banned from pro leagues because they allow batters to hit balls at such tremendous speeds.  Gunner is far from the first child to be seriously hurt by a ball hit from an aluminum bat.  In fact, if he escapes without brain damage he’ll be luckier than most.  New York and North Dakota have banned metal bats in youth baseball and parent groups across the country are lobbying for their local schools and states to do the same.

Another possible step that has been suggested is fitting players, particularly pitchers, with helmets like batters already wear.  Since many of the particularly bad injuries due to these high speed drives have been to pitchers who stand directly in the path of the ball, it only makes sense. Bottom line? As Sandberg’s father told the Marin IJ: “We need to make this game safer for the players.  These new bats are too powerful.  They’re like weapons.”

]]> http://www.kidglue.com/2010/03/18/young-pitcher-gunner-sandberg-hit-by-130-mph-line-drive/feed/ 1 http://cache.static.tsavo.com/wordpress/uploads/2010/03/Baseball_bats-SM.jpg http://www.kidglue.com/2010/03/18/does-berthe-meijers-book-shine-further-light-on-anne-frank/ http://www.kidglue.com/2010/03/18/does-berthe-meijers-book-shine-further-light-on-anne-frank/#comments Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:00:03 +0000 Bridget Tyler http://www.kidglue.com/?p=22136 According to Berthe Meijer, now 71, famous diariest Anne Frank distracted younger children in the Bergen Belsen concentration camp where both children were incarcerated with fairy tales.  Meijer, only 6 years old when she knew Frank, who was then a teenager, paints a heart wrenching picture of Anne in the last few weeks of her life in the Nazi camp, trying desperately to keep her own spirits up as she tried to keep the younger children’s hope alive.  However, at least one Frank authority and a childhood friend of Frank’s doubt that Meijer’s story is accurate.

Frank’s famous diary makes it clear that she had a gift for stories, but Meijer’s memoir, being published in Dutch later this month, is the first to mention Anne’s talent for spinning tales even in the despair of the camp. “The Diary of Anne Frank” is based on a diary the young girl kept during two years in hiding with her family in Amsterdam. The scattered pages were collected and published after the war in what became the most widely read book to emerge from the Holocaust.

Annemarie Bekker, a spokeswoman for the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, said Berthe Meijer has been interviewed by museum specialists and they had no reason to doubt Meijer’s testimony.  But Hannah Pick-Goslar, a childhood friend of Frank’s who also met her at the concentration camp, has doubts.

“In that condition, you almost died,” she said in a telephone call from her home in Jerusalem.  ”You had no strength to tell stories.”

Willy Lindwer, a Dutch filmmaker who won an Emmy for his documentary about Frank’s life said that he interviewed Meijer for the film and also found her story less than convincing.

“Berthe… had not more than a very vague recollection of this concentration camp,” he said in an emailed message to the Associated Press. “She recalled the image of an older girl who told stories to younger children.  It may have been Anne Frank, but also maybe not.  Very vague.”

Anne Frank made her final diary entry August 1, 1944.  She died in a typhus epidemic in the Bergan Belsen concentration camp 8 months later, just two weeks before the camp was liberated.  She was 15 years old.

These days more and more people are looking for greener, and more economic, ways to do household chores.  Kitchen gardens and keeping small domestic food animals like chickens are in vogue again, as is air drying laundry.  But one Philadelphia area mother is having to fight for her right to air dry.  Patty Pozeynot of Skippack Township, Pennsylvania was fined $100 for hanging her laundry to dry on her back porch.

The Hunter Ridge development where Pozeynot lives does have an ordinance against hanging laundry outside, even in the back yard, but Pozeynot says that the rule was put in place a year after she moved in and she feels it’s not fair.  She told NBC Philadelphia, “I wanna hang out my laundry because I think it’s better for our environment, it’s the green thing to do.” Some of her neighbors, however, don’t want to see the rules bent.

“You change one rule, what’s going to be next,” resident Karen Kelly asks. ” I think if everybody did it, I don’t think it would look appealing.”

Pozeynot has considered moving, but she doesn’t want to uproot her kids so she has decided to stay and fight.  To legally hang her clothes, she needs more than half of her 55 neighbors to sign a petition allowing her to continue.  A neighbor in a nearby home has gotten the necessary signatures, but Pozeynot only has 19 of the 38 she needs.

In true Murphy’s law fashion, the glitch occurred from 6:15AM to 8:15AM – hours that many young children are watching TV unsupervised while parents are getting ready for work or just waking up.  ”We’re very, very sorry it happened – we know parents are concerned,” spokesman Keith Poston told local news station WRAL.  ”It took about an hour or so once we were notified of the problem to actually get it fixed.  It was a technical glitch and unfortunately it hit at the worst possible time on the worst possible channels.”

The clips in question appeared on the On Demand menus – a list of available children’s programming was listed on the left side of the screen as usual, but the previews area of the screen, normally reserved for cartoons and other children’s programing, showed “nude women engaged in explicit conversations.”

Time Warner says that the glitch has been repaired and it will not happen again.  Whether or not that’s true, the glitch serves as a good reminder to parents that a little supervision of TV time goes a long way.

“I try to put the kids in the best educational system possible and I think there is something to be said for their father, who has been blessed to play in the NFL and do something he’s loved to do, going back and finishing what he started,” Warren said from the campus of Texas A&M. “In the big picture, I think it’s important for me to do what I’m doing. I can sacrifice that bonus for that.”

This will be the first time in eight years that Ty will not be attending any sort of voluntary workout sessions before the NFL season.  He has always done some training regime to keep his body in condition.  This time he will be focusing on conditioning his mind and showing his children, Brionna, Brielle and Bailey, how important their education is even if they are blessed with other abilities.  An education is important enough for him to not only pay for the opportunity to be in classes but to also give up easy money elsewhere.  That is an extremely admirable decision.

Kids should know who Ty Warren is and understand what he is doing and how they should take the same mindset when it comes to their schooling.  Ty has one of the coolest jobs in the world, he gets to play a game for money, but he still values his education.  Better yet, he is doing to because he knows his kids look up to him and he is being a positive role model for them.

The Texas State Board of Education voted on March 12 to alter the history books. Why? They claim “adding balance” to curriculum, because “academia is skewed too far to the left,” according to former chairman Don McLeroy. I claim stereotypical right-wing pompousness, bigotry, and… well, outright idiocy.

How does this affect your kids if you’re not in Texas? Texas is such a large textbook publishing leader that many states adopt the same course materials, which means that Texas essentially sets requirements for 80% of the textbook market. So states from Oregon to Vermont could very well end up downplaying Ted Kennedy while extolling the virtues of conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for changing history books. I’ve felt that way since I was in high school myself. I’ve always wanted to see more balance. For instance, Andrew Jackson is hailed as a great American president – he made it possible for the people to elect the electoral college instead of the representatives and did away with the national debt. He’s also responsible for the Trail of Tears because of a personal vendetta against the Cherokees. Sure, we learned about the Trail of Tears, but Andrew Jackson’s instigation of it and purpose behind it are downplayed, if not right out deleted.

My issue is that we’re going from one extreme to the other here. We’re not just talking about adding conservative influences and people throughout history – we’re talking about replacing “left” components with “right” components.  I’m conservative; I’m Texan; I’m in favor of changing history books. I’m not in favor of the Good Ol’ Boys club having an educational cross-burning. I mean, haven’t we progressed passed that kind of crap already? I find it embarrassing and shameful that highly educated people would admit to such archaic thinking and tactics, let alone have the audacity to actually try to promote them.

Hey, McLeroy and posse – take off your 10-gallon dunce caps and come to the 21st century.

How? We see with our mind, not with our eyes.  The retina, the part of the eye that collects light information and translates it into nerve impulses, doesn’t actually interpret those impulses.  It sends them to the visual cortex via two million or so optic nerves, where that information is decoded, allowing us to experience vision.  If one can find another way of collecting and decoding that light information, then transmitting it to the brain, one can bypass the eye all together.  Or at least that’s the theory that, BrainPort, the new device being developed by neuroscientists in Wisconsin, works on.

The BrainPort device collects visual data through a tiny digital camera in the center of a pair of sunglasses and transmitted to a handheld unit the size of a cell phone.  This unit allows the wearer to control zoom, light setting and shock intensity levels and houses a central processing unit (CPU) that converts the digital signal from the camera into electrical pulses. Those electrical pulses are transmitted back to the brain through the tongue.  A “lollipop,” an electrode array that sits directly on the tongue, transmits these pulses through a series of tiny electrical bursts that feel like Pop Rocks or champagne bubbles to the user.

After about fifteen minutes, blind users begin to interpret spacial information via the BrainPort.  ”It becomes a task of learning, no different than learning to ride a bike,” neuroscientist Aimee Arnoldussen says.  The “process is similar to how a baby learns to see.  Things may be strange at first, but over time they become familiar.” Patients testing the device are quickly learning to do things like find doorways and elevator buttons, read letters and numbers and pick up utensils without fumbling.  Arnoldussen and her colleagues are still not sure whether or not the BrainPort is actually managing to transmit information to the brain’s visual cortex or whether or not it’s being interpreted through the somatosensory cortex, where data from the tongue is usually processed. But for the people the BrainPort promises to help, that hardly matters.

If pictures of puppies are cute, live streaming Web footage of what puppies do when left to their own devices is pretty much irresistible.  The award winning Shiba Inus Web cam that started the trend in 2008 has proven it, scoring a People’s Voice Award and landing in the Viral category for the 13th Annual Webby Awards.  Their success have led other breeders to follow suit, and now whether you’re keeping an eye on a puppy until you can bring it home or you just like watching puppies hang out (who doesn’t?) you can watch any number of breeds 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on the live broadcast site UStream.

Puppy Cams are more than super cute ways to market dogs to potential owners – they add transparency to the breeding process and help potential owners avoid buying from puppy mills.  Ed Pelto, an English bulldog breeder in Woodbury Minnesota told the Paw Nation Web site that “There’s no hiding anything here. With all the controversy, all the news and with these cams, how people still end up buying from puppy mills, I just don’t understand.”

Puppy Cams also allow people to enjoy breeds that may not be right for their living situation, according to breeder Karen Moureaux – owner of Contact Border Collies in Fillmore, California – “Some people fall in love with them just watching them online, but it isn’t necessarily the right dog for their situation.”  The Puppy Cams also become a second set of watchful eyes, viewers often call Moureaux if they think something is wrong with the puppies and some even take turns watching over mothers who are close to delivery so that Moureaux can get some sleep. Like most successful online offerings, good Puppy Cams are allowing people to build communities and make new friends.  Plus, puppies.  How could they really go wrong?

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Domingo Pianezzi, a Peruvian surfer, is something of an expert at teaching pets to hang ten.  He’s spent the last ten years training dogs to surf with him – even competing internationally in competitions for people and their surfing dogs. It was at one of these competitions, in Australia, that he got the idea to surf with an Alpaca.  ”I’ve surfed with a dog, a parrot, a hamster and a cat, but when I was at a competition in Australia I saw people surfing with kangaroos and koalas,” Pianezzi explains.  ”So I thought that, as a Peruvian, it would be interesting to surf with a unique animal that represents Peru.”

Peruvians raise alpacas, a species of South American camelid (the same biological family as camels and llamas), primarily for their warm wool and occasionally for their meat. Alpacas, and their wool, are an important part of the Peruvian culture.  This particular alpaca, Pisco, named for another classic part of Peruvian culture, a liquor distilled from grapes, is the first to ever set foot on a surfboard.

Some of Pianezzi’s neighbors in the beach town of San Bartolo don’t think that taking Pisco, whose natural habitat is the high mountain ranges of Peru, into the water as a good thing.  Others see him as an innovator.  Pisco hasn’t yet decided which camp he’s in.  While he is getting used to the water, and will sit calmly on the board with Pianezzi for longer and longer periods of time, he has yet to complete a full ride without jumping off the board.

In the adult world, this kind of prior restraint would be a violation of the First Amendment.  Public school students once enjoyed the same First Amendment rights as adults, but the 1988 Supreme Court case of Hazelwood vs. Kuhlmer established that, as publishers of their school newspapers, school districts, have the right to censorship.  That leaves the student journalists of the Viewer with few options other than what they’ve done – walk off the job.

The trouble started when the paper decided to publish a story about the school’s handling of two students who posted a “joke” picture of a teacher on Facebook.  Wikelius claims that she asked the paper to pull the story to protect student confidentiality – she was concerned about releasing private disciplinary information without parental consent.  Christina Xia, the student editor of the Viewer, says that the paper had gotten parental permission to publish the children in question’s names.  They just hadn’t gotten signed parental waivers, but they were able to do so by the end of the day and go ahead with distribution of the paper.

Xia says that by the Viewer received Wikelius’ initial the request to drop the article, the paper had already gone to the printers.  They had interviewed the Principal five days earlier.  Xia is hoping that they can work the issue out internally and lift the prior review rule. “I do not believe that prior review is the solution,” Xia says on the Student Press Law Center’s website.  ”I think that prior review will limit us from learning responsible journalism.”

Los Angeles is teaming with RecycleBank to start a new pilot program that will compensate households for recycling. The goal is to increase Los Angeles’ recycling rate from 65% to over 70% and eventually, if Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has his way, push the city toward zero waste.

The program will weigh and record the recyclable contents of tagged bins each week.  Depending on the weight of the bins, residents can earn points that they can redeem at local businesses like CVS, Bed Bath and Beyond and even restaurants like El Pollo Loco.

RecycleBank already has contracts with more than 50 cities around the U.S., including Philadelphia, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, and Atlanta.

15,000 L.A. area homes will be eligible for the program, including Northridge, Topanga, Sherman Oaks, Hollywood, Lincoln Heights and Cypress Park.  The program kicks off April 5, and each household can earn recycling points up to the equivalent of $400 a year per blue bin.  Residents along various routes will receive mailers in March that explain what they can recyclables are eligible and how to register for the program. The existing blue recycle bins will be given a bar code and ID stickers embedded with microchips with the resident’s account number to track their recycling rewards.

The rewards are based on weight of recyclable material and will be evenly divided among households along an entire route, not by individual participation.

If you live in the LA area, this is the perfect opportunity to teach your children not only about the importance of recycling, but working to earn money for the things they want. Kids can collect bottles and cans from the household and learn what is a recyclable material, and what isn’t.  Set goals for your family to exceed the previous weight’s total and use the points you earn for family activities, like meals out, or make a special trip to participating stores so everyone can pick out toys, books or games with your family’s hard earned points.

Or think bigger: organize a recycling pick up day where families on the same route can band together and pick up recyclable materials around the neighborhood.  The payoff?  A greener, more connected neighborhood and a fun way to earn extra cash.

The new additions to the recall are the following items:

• 240,000 “Innovations” and “At Home with Meijer” Roman Shades and Roll-Up Blinds -  Shades are made with fabric or bamboo and the Roll-up blinds with bamboo. A label reading “Innovation” or “At Home with Meijer” can be found under the head-rail.  For more information visit Meijer or call 800-927-8699
• 5,000 Lutron Shading Solutions Roman Shades – Motorized and manual Lutron Shading Solutions Roman shades. The shades were sold in a variety of colors, fabrics, and sizes. Nearly all shades were professionally installed. “Lutron Shading Solutions” or “Lutron Shading Solutions by VIMCO” is printed on the packaging.  For more information visit Lutron or call 866-793-4270

If you or someone you know has any of these products they should immediately stop using the item and remove if necessary.  Contact the manufacturer for more information about a replacement or refund.

Please see the links below for additional recalls that may affect you:

• RECALL – Martha Stewart Kettles May Cause Burns
• RECALL-3 Different Sweatshirts May Cause Strangulation
• RECALL – 500,000 Cribs May Cause Infant Deaths
• RECALL – ‘Princess and the Frog’ Walmart Neckalces May Be Toxic
• RECALL – Steamer Mops May Cause Scalding or Lacerations

Ron White, a Texas native and Navy veteran prepared for the U.S.A. Memory Championship by snorkeling.  How does snorkeling improve your memory?  Well, when you can memorize shuffled decks of playing cards while hovering under the water in snorkel gear, memorizing a deck of cards on stage seems like child’s play.

White also memorized cards and strings of numbers, the two tests the Championship is based on, while jogging and doing jumping jacks – anything to make the process more challenging.  All that work paid off when White won his second U.S.A. Championship in a row. White didn’t have the best school record – he was actually suspended from college for earning a 0.9 GPA, but he says his time in the Navy taught him the discipline he needed to train his memory for competition.  He also brought in a friend, a former Navy Seal, to help him train.

“I am beyond happy because I had to prove that (last year’s victory) was not chance, so now I am totally at peace.  I love to compete against myself and getting better and better.” White says.

White holds the U.S. record for memorizing a shuffled deck of cards – one minute and twenty seven seconds.  That feat, in combination with memorizing a one hundred and forty digit number in five minutes was enough to earn his title.  Now White will continue on to the August World Memory Championship in China.

This study of 120 infants between the ages of 5 months and 2 years old, found that its subjects reacted strongly and rhythmically in response to music. “Our research suggests that it is the beat rather than the other features of the music, such as the melody, that produces the response in infants,” says researcher Marcel Zentner, a psychologist at the University of York in England.  ”We also found that the better the children were able to synchronize their movements with the music, the more they smiled.”

To test baby’s reactions to music, researchers played recordings of classical music, rhythmic beats and speech to infants and videotaped the results. They also brought in professional ballet dancers to analyze how well the babies were moving to the music.  To keep the babies’ parents from influencing them, they were given headphones to make sure they couldn’t hear the music and unthinkingly move with it.

Though this new research has shown that the ability to move to a rhythmic beat is innate in humans, researchers still have no idea why.  ”It remains to be understood why humans have developed this particular predisposition,” Zentner said.  ”One possibility is that it was a target of natural selection for music or that it has evolved for some other function that just happens to be relevant for music processing.”

Zentner and Tuomas Eerola, from the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Music Research at the University of Jyvaskyla, in Finland, published their findings in the March 15 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Click here to see their subjects rocking to the beat.