Fairfax County Counts, Registers the Chronically Homeless

“Boy, when you guys said 6 a.m., you weren’t kidding,” said Chris P. from behind his plywood front door at a campsite along Eisenhower Avenue near the border of the City of Alexandria and Fairfax County.

There was a harvest moon Monday morning, and it was cold, about 32 degrees, and dark. Five Fairfax County volunteers walked into Chris’s campsite near Interstate 495 and Eisenhower Avenue with flashlights, hot coffee and clipboards.

“Good morning! Hello!” said volunteer Joe Drach as he walked up to a tent at the small campsite, which included a fire pit, a full clothesline and a three-foot mound of broken glass from smashed beer bottles. Feral cats scampered about with familiarity, and the ground was littered with dozens of empty cat food tins.

Chris, 51, was born in the District, graduated from high school and spent three-and-a-half years in the Marine Corps, he said. He built his hut out of plywood and plastic sheeting he found dumpster diving at a nearby construction site. He, his brother and a friend have lived at the site since October.

Chris stepped out with a headlamp over a ski cap, and took a cup of coffee with sweetener. Volunteers had recently visited to let him know to expect the Monday morning visit – part of a County project this week to register the homeless. Volunteers gave Chris toe warmers, a $5 McDonald’s gift card and a bagged lunch.

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday about 200 volunteers will count, photograph and get the names and histories of the county’s homeless for the first-ever Registry Week. The effort is part of the 100,000 Homes Campaign, which advocates offering housing to the homeless. Partners include the Fairfax County Office to Prevent and End Homelessness, New Hope Housing, Pathway Homes, Reston Interfaith and Volunteers of America Chesapeake.

Drach, who lives in Mount Vernon and is a member of Good Shepherd Catholic Church, read from a list of 43 questions, which included “Have you ever been in jail?” and “If you aren’t currently but could work full-time, what kind of work would you most enjoy doing?”

“I want to be a massage therapist,” answered Chris, whose main source of income is cleaning car windows along Telegraph Road. “I had to panhandle yesterday for dinner. I just want to do something that makes people happy and get paid. But right now I got my sights set on UPS. They hire extra people every Christmas for the warehouse and sometimes they keep them after the season is over.”

Drach was joined by Rev. Keary Kincannon, pastor of the Rising Hope United Methodist Church; Pam Michell, director of New Hope Housing; Lexalynn Hooper, a member of the New Hope Housing board of Directors and a county homeless case worker.

The volunteers were told to make observations of subjects noting if they looked “yellow” or “sick” or “smelled like they consumed alcohol,” said Sherry Edelkamp, the South County corridor volunteer captain, to about 30 volunteers just after 5 a.m. Monday at the South County Center on Richmond Highway.

It was a crisp, clear winter’s morning in Rome. The sun was glinting off the marble statues on the Bridge of Angels, a light breeze was rustling through the trees bordering the Tiber River and my husband and I were stuck holding the hand of a frustrated scammer demanding petrol money.

At first he had seemed friendly enough. A small, well-dressed elderly man behind the wheel of a small blue hatchback. He stopped us as we were about to cross the street and said his name was Mario.

Leaning out of his car window, he caught us off guard as we were stumbling about starry-eyed in a particularly lovely part of town.

Acting slightly frazzled and speaking a mile a minute, he said he had travelled from Milan to Rome for a conference and he was lost. A bit of small talk later and he was chatting to us like we were old friends: “You are from New Zealand?! My wife is from New Zealand! I love Wellington. Go to Milan’s New Zealand consulate and ask for Helen! She will look after you. We will be good friends.”

Our new buddy ‘Mario’ said he was a fashion designer for Giorgio Armani, he even had a clear-file ready to show us his designs, mostly cut-outs from old magazines.

Since we were from his “favourite country in the whole wide world”, he wanted us to have a few of his latest Armani samples – a cheap looking plastic handbag and an imitation polar-fleece jacket.

He then reached out of the car window and grabbed my husband’s hand for an uncomfortably long time. He wouldn’t let go as he explained he needed help, his car was nearly out of gas (he pointed at the petrol gauge) and his petrol card was broken (he showed us the card with a corner cut off it). He gripped tight and implored us to help him as he had ‘honoured’ us with his free gifts.

Every major city has its own scammers, though a quick chat with other tourists and a search through online travel forums indicates Rome is particularly notorious.

As one of the most gorgeous places in the world, Rome understandably draws throngs of tourists year-round. As jet-lagged travellers gawp in awe at St Peter’s Basilica, as they wander lost around the bustling and slightly run-down Termini station, as the beauty of the Colosseum causes them to momentarily forget about their handbags, the scammers and pick-pockets go to work.

In Piazza del Popolo, a sprawling urban square home to a towering and ancient Egyptian obelisk, an overweight, Bangladeshi man chased us down.

He refused to take it back when I said I had no money for him.

“This is gift, you are beautiful honeymooners, good luck for Santa Maria, lovely flowers, a kiss for Santa Maria.”

Not only was he supposedly impressed by my looks, but of course Bangladesh and New Zealand shared a love for cricket and he wanted to pay his respects to our Black Caps.

So after a few attempts to return the flowers, we walked off with them. A few steps later he was running after us, beside himself with anger, demanding ‘a donation’ in return for his generous gift of flowers.

Hell hath no fury like a scammer scorned and on realising he was not going to get any cash, he ripped the flowers from my hand and muttered a few curse words under his breath.

An Italian diet is for me

The study did not explain why the Godfather died of a heart attack while chasing his grandson though his tomato garden. I guess he had a lot of stress what with all the murders, so he was apparently an outlier. The results of the study were so impressive that researchers felt ethically bound to end it early and report the results.

However, I don’t want to follow the complete program. I’m going to pick and choose what I like from the study. Here are the recommended foods and my thoughts on them.

Fish: Sure, why not? I like fish. Battered and deep-fried on a Friday night with tartar sauce is best, but I like it in most forms.

Fresh fruits and vegetables: What’s not to like? Well, beets. I hate beets. But everything else is good. I’m even coming around on the controversial issue of Brussels sprouts.

Less commercial baked products: I’m okay with this. I eat only Dianne’s home baked goods. Dianne is to baking what Picasso was to painting and what Lance Armstrong was to biking except without the drugs.

Less red meat and dairy products: Now, here’s where I have a problem. This part of the study is pure quackery. I really like a nice, thick juicy steak, and bacon, well bacon is the food of the gods. And I like milk with my cookies and butter on everything and half and half in my coffee. And if I have to have another glass of wine to cut the fat intake, well, so be it. Maybe I’d live longer without this stuff, but what would be the point?

I also want to stipulate right now that I have come to love warm cheesy dip with my salsa and chips. The paramedics will get my jar of cheese when they pry it from my cold, dead hand.

What I like most about this study is its attitude, which is basically, hey, enjoy! So, you’re a little overweight, so big deal.

We Americans have a stupid relationship with food. On the one hand we eat a lot of poor quality processed, corn syrup-infused junk that doesn’t even taste all that good, and then we swing into hair shirt-like diets that take all the joy out of eating, only to break and gorge again on the bad stuff.

Then on the other side of the spectrum you have the conspicuous consumption food snobs. The people who will only eat organic Mac and cheese. The people who take all the joy out of food by making eating a political fashion statement. They make me want to eat Fritos in their presence just as a protest against pretentiousness.

We can all agree that, in a perfect world, fish would be labeled accurately, but Oceana, an advocacy organization devoted to “protecting the world’s oceans,” and the latest to test fish samples, would have us believe the mislabeling problem is dire, dire, dire:

“As our results demonstrate, a high level of mislabeling nationwide indicates that seafood fraud harms not only the consumer’s pocket book, but also every honest vendor or fisherman along the supply chain. These fraudulent practices also carry potentially serious concerns for the health of consumers, and for the health of our oceans and vulnerable fish populations.”

Oceana collected fish samples from around the country, identified 1215 of them with DNA testing, and found that 401 didn’t match the FDA’s “Guide to Acceptable Market Names for Seafood Sold in Interstate Commerce.” “Oceana Study Reveals Seafood Fraud Nationwide,” reads the headline, and the report goes on to use the word “fraud” another 99 times. Read beyond that headline, though, and the picture changes.

The first problem with the report is the standard it uses to determine mislabeling. The FDA’s list isn’t law, it’s a set of “non-binding regulations” that lists the “acceptable market name” of each fish species. The problem is that many fish have many names – what’s a pogy to someone like me, who learned to fish on Cape Cod, is a bunker to someone like my husband, who learned to fish on Long Island, but a menhaden to someone at the FDA, whose fishing education is not clear. The list acknowledges some “vernacular” names, but specifies that they “are included ONLY for reference.” The emphasis is theirs.

It’s an emphasis Oceana takes to heart. “Labeling seafood with something other than the acceptable market name is mislabeling,” they say, because “The FDA’s general policy on vernacular names is that they are unacceptable market names for seafood.” So, even though striped bass is almost always called “rockfish” on large swaths of the East coast, Oceana counts it as mislabeled.

The FDA’s list applies only to fish sold interstate and, even then, it is a guideline and not a law. Yet Oceana counts every instance of a label not on the list as fraud.

Of the 401 “mislabeled” samples, 78 were from two kinds of fish sold under names that, while unrecognized by the FDA, are well-understood vernacular: escolar sold as “white tuna” and Japanese amberjack sold as “yellowtail.” Even Oceana acknowledges that selling Japanese amberjack as “yellowtail” doesn’t constitute fraud, as Japanese amberjack is yellowtail to everyone but the FDA .

The report doesn’t give an inch on escolar, though. This seems odd, since Oceana’s own expert, thanked prominently in the report’s acknowledgements, tells a different story. In the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Dr. Mahmood Shivji, of Nova Southeastern University’s Oceanographic Center, says, “My sense is that this is an unspoken industry standard; that white tuna is escolar even though it’s not legal to call it that. It may be such a common practice that restaurants don’t even think about it.” If all of us, diners and chefs, call escolar “white tuna,” is it really fraud?

Moving on, another 173 were substitution of a different variety of the same fish: there was Atlantic cod for Pacific, and Pacific for Atlantic. There was coho salmon for sockeye, and sockeye for coho. There was Antarctic toothfish for Patagonian – both, of course, called Chilean sea bass. The most mislabeled fish was red snapper, but almost half the imposters were either other-than-red snapper or some species of rockfish (an acknowledged snapper substitute in some places

Some of the mislabeling is clearly an attempt to unload bycatch. Find a threadfin slickhead in your net, and it’s cod or it’s wasted. I’d much rather the fish be mislabeled and eaten than properly labeled and thrown away, and that’s undoubtedly the choice at least some of the time.

The biggest real problem is that cheap fish is being passed off as expensive fish (that’s not the only problem – it’s certainly possible that some mislabeled fish marks illegal harvests). This is fraud, pure and simple, but it’s a relatively small subset of the mislabeling, and it’s primarily a problem of pocketbook. Oceana, though, isn’t content with small and pocketbook. According to them, this is a problem with repercussions for such large, important topics as “the health of consumers” and of “our oceans.”

The report calls “most troubling” the health risks, and has four examples. Exhibit A is that escolar, mentioned above. The fish contains an oil that gives some people digestive trouble, and the FDA advises against selling it. “How would anyone know they are eating escolar,” the report asks, breathlessly and ungrammatically, “when up to 84 percent of it is fraudulently mislabeled as white tuna?” Yet we’ve already seen that Oceana’s own expert acknowledges that everyone knows escolar is white tuna. In fact, according to the FDA, there’s no such thing as white tuna. There is only escolar.

Nokia Expands Its Windows Phones To More Price Points

Nokia has just announced two new Lumia smartphones at its Mobile World Congress press conference – broadening its Windows Phone 8 portfolio to five devices and filling in some of the pricing gaps in the mid and lower end of the range. The two 3G newcomers to the Lumia line are the Lumia 720, which slots into the portfolio just above the Lumia 620, and a new entry-level handset, the Lumia 520, which pushes the price of Nokia’s Window Phone 8 devices to a new low of €139 ($180) before taxes, down from its previous low of $249.

CEO Stephen Elop described the new, more populous Lumia lineup as “the most innovative portfolio of products ever” — reappropriating the tagline the company uses for its Lumia 920 flagship to underline how some of the features found on its flagships are trickling down to more affordable devices. This includes its ”super sensitive” touchscreen technology, which allows users to interact with the screen using a fingernail or when wearing gloves, and its digital lenses image filters and its Cinemagraph animated GIF creator.

“What we’re doing with this Mobile World Congress in many respects is taking some of the great innovation you’ve seen in flagship products like the Lumia 920 and we’re broadening that down through the portfolio,” said Elop. ”We’re now at a point where you’re seeing an organisation which has undergone a great deal of restructuring and changes but now you’re seeing the full power and might of Nokia being applied to the broadest range of portfolio for the Lumia products.”

The Lumia 520 has a 4-inch LCD display with a resolution of 800 x 480. Under the hood the handset is powered by a 1GHz dual-core Snapdragon chip, along with 512MB of RAM. Internal storage is 8GB but there’s a Micro SD card slot to expand memory up to 64GB (not counting the 7GB of free cloud storage that comes with Microsoft’s SkyDrive service). The device also includes a 5-megapixel rear camera, plus the swappable shells featured on the Lumia 820 and 620 — in the same range of distinctive and bright Lumia colours.

The dual-core 1GHz Lumia 720 has a 4.3 inch Clear Black display for improved viewing outdoors, with the same screen resolution as the Lumia 520. Memory and storage are also the same. Nokia described the handset as the “trendiest Lumia in product family” — talking up its sleek, rounded looks, including curved edges to the screen and a 9mm waist, which makes it the thinnest Lumia in the range. This handset is being targeted specifically at “younger, trendier, hyper social users.”

Aside from the device’s look and feel, the camera is the big focus with the 720 — thanks to its target audience’s love of social networking and photo sharing. Although the 720 is not PureView branded, it has a 6.7 megapixel rear lens, with Carl Zeiss optics (and branding) and an f1.9 aperture to allow in lots of light to boost low light photography performance. The front-facing lens has not been forgotten either — it’s a 1.3 megapixel HD wide angle lens, which allows for up to three people to squeeze into a shot so someone can take a self portrait with two friends.

Nokia has also added a new Lumia digital lens — called ‘Glam Me Up’ — which lets 720 users snap an enhanced self portrait using the front-facing lens, which then auto processes their photos to make it look more polished, giving them whiter teeth and smoother skin. The company said this feature had played very well with its target market of appearance-conscious consumers.

ASUS hari ini (25/2) mengumumkan kehadiran MeMo Pad, sebuah tablet Android 7 inci yang penuh gaya namun memiliki kemampuan yang cukup memadai dan dipasarkan di harga yang terjangkau, yakni hanya Rp1,699 juta. Hadir dengan tampilan dengan tingkat kecerahan 350-nits, layar yang digunakan mendukung multi-touch hingga 10 titik, serta resolusi 1024 x 600 piksel.

Perangkat yang dilengkapi dengan slot SD Card yang mampu mendukung memori tambahan hingga 32GB ini memiliki finishing berpola ‘Diamond Check Design’ serta hadir dalam tiga pilihan warna. “Bersama dengan ASUS Transformer Pad Series yang sudah hadir lebih dahulu, ASUS MeMO Pad melengkapi lini produk tablet Android ASUS,” kata Rex Lee, Regional Director ASUS South East Asia.

MeMo, merupakan kependekan dari “My Mobile, My Moment” dan merefleksikan posisi ASUS MeMo Pad sebagai mobile tablet bagi mereka yang sering bepergian. Hadir dalam ukuran ringkas yakni 196,2 x 119,2 x 11,2 milimeter, MeMo Pad dapat dengan mudah digenggam dalam satu tangan. Produk ini tersedia dalam tiga warna yang menarik yakni Sugar White, Titanium Gray, dan Cherry Pink. Untuk mempercantik penampilan, Pad diberi finishing berpola wajik ‘Diamond Check Design’ yang sekaligus berfungsi untuk memperkuat cengraman tangan saat menggenggam, MeMo Pad.

Dengan sistem operasi Google Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, ASUS MeMo Pad diperkuat oleh prosesor VIA WM8950 berkecepatan 1GHz. Untuk menunjang aplikasi grafis, ada chip GPU berbasis Mali-400 yang akan membuat pengalaman menjelajah Internet menjadi lebih lancar. Kamera front-facing yang disertakan mendukung resolusi HD dengan aperture f/2.0 yang sangat baik saat kamera menangkap gambar dalam kondisi ruangan berpencahayaan kurang.

Layar LED-backlit 10-point multi-touch dengan resolusi 1024 x 600 (196 point per inch) memiliki sudut pandang yang cukup luas, hingga 140 derajat. Tingkat kecerahan 350-nits memastikan tampilan akan tetap jelas meski tablet sedang digunakan di luar ruangan. Untuk fasilitas hiburan, MeMo Pad mendukung fitur ASUS SonicMaster audio dan MaxxAudio untuk keluaran suara berkualitas.

Disney magic rubs off on B&B

Watchet’s harbour is said to have inspired the opening lines of The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whose bronze statue now overlooks the water.

Otherwise, it’s pretty unknown. The Robinsons stumbled on this charming backwater while booking a nearby venue for their wedding. They were looking for B&Bs where their guests could stay.

“We loved the town,” says Jason. “It’s got a marina, a pretty harbour and the heritage West Somerset steam railway running down to the port. We thought it would make a beautiful escape from our London lives and when we saw there was a house on the market, we bought it and used it as a holiday home for a year.

“One week when we came down we found that the property next door, an unused shop, was for sale and I made a flippant remark about how we could buy it and do bed and breakfast.

“I had left my job as head of design for one of the Disney channels and was turning 40. It seems my mid-life crisis manifested itself by wanting a boutique B&B rather than a Porsche.”

The two properties were probably one house originally, but had been separated in the Victorian period, with a floor added above and an alley in between them. The upper floors still bridge above the passageway.

Fortunately for the Robinsons the building was not listed, which Jason finds odd as most other properties in Watchet are at least Grade II.

“The shop was on the market at ￡125,000. It was a wreck inside and not really suited to a developer. However, as soon as we made an offer other buyers came out of the woodwork and so it went to sealed bids. We put in a bid for ￡137,000 which was what we reckoned we could afford, and it was accepted,” says Jason.

That only left the small matter of change of use from a class A property to one which would be Class C. It’s becoming easier to do this but even so there’s reluctance in many places to lose shops because you don’t get them back.

Luckily no dry rot was found when the joists were revealed but an old well was discovered in what is now the B&B’s kitchen and Jason decided to have it capped.

“One day I hope that the next person who renovates the place will find the well, which is why I wanted it capped rather than filled in.

“I believe that it used to be outside the property but when it was rebuilt in Victorian times it somehow came to be inside. I don’t think it was used after that.”

In addition to all the refitting, there were, of course, building regulations to comply with as well as soundproofing to be installed in order that the Robinsons’ house would not be disturbed by the guests next door.

Rubber matting made from recycled car tyres and soundproofing boards were used and Jason says that the property is so quiet now that it’s hard to tell if anyone is indoors.

The Robinsons employed a private building regulations contractor instead of the council employee, and Jason believes that this was a more efficient solution, which cost only a few hundred pounds extra.

Throughout the process, Jason had been researching other B&Bs and he visited two which were particularly notable: The Ashton, in Lancaster, and The Reading Rooms, in Margate. Both are luxury guest houses with a small number of rooms.

“When it came to what the rooms would look like we made three Look Books using all sorts of ideas we found in magazines and other places. We researched all the materials online to get costings and did extensive research on the colour scheme.

“We wanted to repaint the outside of both houses so they matched, and we had to get permission for that and it decided the colour of the interiors.

“We went for a monochrome scheme with Farrow and Ball’s Downpipe as one of the main colours. We also bought the murals, which are based on Old Master paintings, from a company called Surface View which is licensed by the National Gallery in London to reproduce some of their works.

Swain House was finally ready to receive its first visitors in August 2012. The Robinsons charge ￡125 per night for each of the four rooms, all with en suite designer bathrooms.

By luck one of the first bookings was travel journalist Sally Shalham who put Watchet, and its new B&B House, on the map, describing it as “industrial luxe”, with just a quibble about the size of the guest sitting room. That is something that Jason would like to address in the future.

Asha 310 debuts with dual SIM and Wi-Fi

The Nokia Asha 310, a new dual SIM smartphone with Wi-Fi support, is out. The device helps people get more out of the Internet, for less. The powerful combination of dual SIM plus Wi-Fi in the same device, a first for Nokia smartphones, gives consumers the best of both worlds by offering the flexibility to enjoy more mobile experiences while managing their costs. The Nokia Asha 310 also comes packed with great apps and games that are the hallmarks of the Nokia Asha range.

With Nokia’s built-in Easy Swap Dual SIM technology, consumers can use the external slot on the Nokia Asha 310 to insert a secondary SIM card, while keeping their principal SIM card in place behind the battery. The Nokia Asha 310 puts the user in control, with the ability to shift between SIM cards for personal or work use without turning off the phone. They can also swap SIM cards while on-the-go, to get the best available tariffs when commuting. Nokia Easy Swap Dual SIM makes it possible to assign and store unique profiles for up to five SIM cards. Users can designate SIM cards for text, voice and data and switch between them at their convenience.

The addition of Wi-Fi in the Nokia Asha 310 gives users a fast and easy way to enjoy more online, including streaming videos from YouTube or downloading the 40 free EA Games from Nokia Store. The ability to connect to free Wi-Fi hotspots, whether at home or on-the-go, means users aren’t constrained by their data plan.

The Nokia Asha 310 comes pre-loaded with Nokia Xpress Browser, which delivers a fast and fluid browsing experience and support for thousands of web apps. Nokia Xpress Browser compresses Internet data by up to 90 percent, saving consumers money.

“The Nokia Asha 310 further strengthens Nokia’s portfolio of Asha devices. Nokia’s Asha range now comprises 15 models which succeed in bringing smartphone features like Wi-Fi, video streaming, social, fast mobile browsing, apps and games at competitive price points,” says Neil Shah, senior analyst, Strategy Analytics.

Timo Toikkanen, executive vice president, Mobile Phones, Nokia, notes: “The Nokia Asha 310 is the first-ever Nokia smartphone to offer both Easy Swap Dual SIM and Wi-Fi in the same device. It gives consumers the best of both worlds, allowing them to separate work and play, or speak with friends on other mobile networks more affordably. The addition of Wi-Fi support gives users the freedom to enjoy much more of the Internet compared to competitive devices at this price point.”

The newest addition to the Asha Touch family of smartphones, the Nokia Asha 310, features a 3” scratch-proof, capacitive touchscreen that complements the sophisticated design. It features a 2 megapixel camera and comes with a 4GB memory card included, with support for a further 32GB of external memory.

Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest maker of mobile handsets, has rolled out its highly anticipated Galaxy Grand smartphone in Nigeria, adding a new Galaxy device to its expanding range of products in this category. The device premiered in Africa at Samsung Ambassador, Banky W’s ‘R&BW the Grand Love Project’ album launch in Lagos, after a very successful pre-order campaign.

Priced at N65,000, the 5-inch display, smart, dual-SIM Galaxy Grand combines the features of Samsung’s game-changing Galaxy S III and the revolutionary Galaxy Note II, which were released by the manufacturing giant last year. According to Brovo Kim, managing director of Samsung Electronics West Africa, the new Galaxy Grand will ensure that Samsung maintains its dominance in the global smartphone market, by positioning itself to meet the demands of consumers desirous of optimising the value that they derive from their mobile devices.

“Continuing with our legacy of launching innovative devices that redefine consumer experiences, we take great pride in announcing the launch of the Galaxy Grand in Nigeria. The Galaxy Grand is revolutionary not only in terms of the great smartphone experience that it provides but also in terms of its value proposition. We feel that the Galaxy Grand will further fuel the growth of the smartphone market in the country and will especially delight consumers looking for a device with great, smart dual-SIM capabilities,” he said.

Kim reiterated Samsung’s commitment to fulfilling its brand promise of inspiring the world and creating the future through its commitment to bringing new and meaningful innovations to the doorstep of customers.

Powered by the latest version of Google’s Android operating system, Jelly Bean 4.1.2, the Galaxy Grand features an impressive 1.2 GHz dual-core processor that supports seamless multitasking; faster web browsing and superior graphics. Its 5.5-inch HD Super AMOLED display is ideal for users who want the productivity of a tablet with the portability of a smartphone.  Even with its massive screen, the device is incredibly slim, with an ergonomic design that makes it comfortable to hold. The vivid display provides an expansive viewing experience rendering messaging, multimedia and web content in brilliant colour and clarity. The device also sports a Multi-Window feature that allows seamless multitasking and running of multiple applications simultaneously without having to switch between screens.

Describing the Galaxy Grand as the ideal device for users with fast-paced mobile lifestyles who demand more from their phones, Business head, Hand Held Products at Samsung Electronics West Africa, Emmanouil Revmatas, highlighted the Galaxy Grand’s dual-SIM capability as a unique selling point of the device. “Whether users want to take advantage of different pricing plans from two network operators, or want to keep their business and personal calls separate, the Galaxy Grand’s smart dual-SIM feature provides the convenience of two cell phones within one smart mobile solution,” he stated.

Some other features that the mobile phone-maker believes will make the Galaxy Grand smartphone an instant hit with mobile phone users across the country include Smart Stay, which uses the front camera to prevent the device from going into standby mode while it detects a user in front of the device, and the phone’s Direct Call feature, which lets users automatically dial a call by raising the device up to the ear. The device also features a unique Face & Voice Unlock feature that enables the users to lock and unlock their device with face or voice recognition, providing greater security and convenience.

The art of life

Western culture tends to think of arts in segregated groups – storytelling, cooking, gathering, painting. Roby Littlefield, of Sitka, will show people that art is a whole in the University of Alaska Southeast’s Art of Place Series.

Ernestine Hayes, UAS assistant professor of English, organizes the series. She said a big challenge she is seeking to address in the series is that western-based cultures have made art a discipline, rather than an incorporated natural element in our daily lives.

“We’re schooled to think of art with a capital ‘A,’ as something else,” Hayes said. “Arts is over here, and storytelling is over here, and cooking is here and gathering is there. Everything is in its own school and discipline. There’s a taxonomy. But if we look at it from a more human perspective we see that they’re not separated, they’re blended: our spirituality, our art, the way we speak, dress. It’s all part of everything else. It’s the art of life.”

Littlefield, 61, is originally from Fairbanks, and met her husband John, who is of Tlingit heritage, when she was a teenager. Her father had homesteaded in Fairbanks and Littlefield, as the eldest child in the family, assisted in the construction of the family house. She said she enjoyed working hard, and lived close to the land, but as she met her husband in a more urban scene, she didn’t realize how similar his family’s relationship with the natural environment was to hers.

“But something about him clicked,” she said. “As I found out more about him, I enjoyed how he lived and the things he and his family would do: hunting, fishing, smoking (fish), gathering food and sharing.”

“We spent summers at fish camp, putting up food for the winter, sharing with the community what we harvested during the summer,” Littlefield said. “It was our way of life.”

It still is. Herring run through the Sitka area in April, and Littlefield’s husband would generally harvest the eggs with his uncle. One summer, while in her 20s, John was occupied and Littlefield took his place. After that spring, she said, the obligation fell to her. She would take her children out every year, and though they are adults now, she continues to harvest the herring roe April after April.

“When I first learned, my husband’s uncle taught me how to harvest herring eggs at low tide,” Littlefield said. “Now we have to go out in a boat to find the herring.”

She explained that there is a two-week period when the herring runs spawn on the shores, and timing is critical.

“You can’t do it too early or too late; you have to be prepared,” Littlefield said.

She said she takes her boat out to watch for the schooling fish with bundles of hemlock branches, which she places in the water. She returns the following day, and, if she’s hit the run well, the branches are full of herring roe.

“They’re heavy, very, very heavy,” Littlefield said. “You can’t pick it up on your own when it’s covered in roe. It feels like Easter. We joke about it, ‘It’s Easter egg time,’ as its right around Easter.”

Littlefield said that the roe are about half the size of a large grain of rice. She then cuts the branches into smaller pieces and places them into gallon-sized Ziploc bags, and places them into chest freezers.

“If you don’t kill the herring they come back every year,” Littlefield said. “But when they’re harvested commercially, for their roe, they’re killed at four or five years. The reproductive cycle has been impacted terribly by the commercial overharvesting.”

Typically, Littlefield said, she scalds the branches for a few seconds, pulls them out, places them into a strainer and peels off chucks of roe. Though some people enjoy them fresh, raw from the ocean, they are often served blanched and dipped into butter or seal oil.

“Some people like to add soy sauce to the butter or oil,” Littlefield said, “Although it’s already very salty.”

She struggled to estimate the quantity of roe she harvests annually, but said she typically fills two and a half large chest freezers. Though Littlefield enjoys consuming the herring roe, she said part of the harvesting process is sharing. That estimation was easier for her: she gives away most of what she harvests, to friends, family and those in need who no longer have the ability to harvest their own.

The Art of Place series, now in its third season, has designated a concept of food, edible art, the collection and preservation of local resources for the series, which began in January.

“Each year I try to take a different stance, occupy a different prospective, take another look at our art, at our place,” Hayes said.

“We are sold out,” said Marionette Taboniar of the Women Artists of Kaua‘i. “No one canceled and we’re using a lot of duct tape and blue tape to try and keep everything from flying.”

Winds generated by a high pressure north of the Hawaiian Islands prompted the National Weather Service to issue a wind advisory through Tuesday morning for the winds blowing in the 30 mph range with localized gusts up to 50 mph.

Outside of the grassy arena where the “Paint Our Gardens” workshop was held in conjunction with the NTBG ‘Ohana Day, visitors worked around the downed pole beans, toppled by the gusty trades, in the center’s vegetable garden.

But the tents, anchored by strong webbing, kept its occupants seated, the abundance of blue tape punctuating the collection of art supplies lining the tables where students worked.

Joining Taboniar, who offered watercolor painting instruction for tropical flowers, Dawn Lundquist led a group on Plein Air Oil and Patrice Pendarvis anchored her own tent with instruction on watercolor landscapes.

President for extending benefits of BISP

Federal Minister and Chairperson BISP Ms. Farzana Raja called on President Asif Ali Zardari at Aiwan-e-Sadr on Tuesday and briefed the President on the status of the whole range of initiatives of the BISP encompassing Benazir Smart Card, mobile phone banking, programs for health and education services, imparting training for jobs, accident insurance and interest free financing for the poor and needy.

The President inquired in particular about the progress in providing educational and vocational training and other services to the people of tribal areas and Balochistan.

Ms. Farzana Raja apprised the President that 0.4 million deserving families from Balochistan have been included in BISP and the poverty survey had already been completed in the tribal areas.

While appreciating the progress made by BISP so far the President asked Farzana Raja to step up efforts for developing the program into a comprehensive social protection, poverty alleviation and women empowerment platform.Farzana Raja explained to the President how the BISP had been developed into a non partisan and non political poverty alleviation program whose beneficiaries were selected on the basis of transparent poverty survey and not any political or partisan consideration. She said that the poverty score card developed by it was a transparent and impartial survey of the poor through an internationally recognized procedure.

The President advised Chairperson BISP to take up the challenge of seeking the involvement of the private sector as well international donors for broadening the resource base of the Programme and extending benefits to more and more people.

The Chairman BISP apprised the President of technical and financial support received from various international organizations including the World Bank, USAID, DFID and ADB. She said that foreign government had also evinced interest in replicating the program in their countries.

Patients will be able to pay after they receive medical treatment rather than before, as is the current practice, China’s Ministry of Health revealed yesterday.

Jiao Yahui, an official with the ministry’s medical administration division, said more than 20 provincial regions are carrying out pilot programs of the new payment method.

But Jiao said the “pay after” method would not be adopted nationwide in the short term due to the country’s immature social credit system and insufficient medical insurance.

Currently, Chinese citizens pay up front before being operated on or undergoing other treatment. They can then apply for a reimbursement covered by medical insurance, usually more than 70 percent of the total cost.

In August 2011, there was a national outcry after a nightshift doctor in central China’s Hubei Province removed stitches from a patient, who had torn tendons in his right hand, because the patient did not have enough money to pay the fees involved.

There have also been reports of hospitals threatening to withhold medication if patients fail to pay in advance.

In Shanghai, however, some community hospitals adopted the “pay after” method two years ago. In Xuhui District, that’s the practice in all community hospitals.

“By flashing the smart card with each person’s medical insurance, the card can do real-time recording of all tests and prescriptions,” said Guan Juanjuan of the district’s health bureau. “Patients only need pay after all diagnosis and treatment is fulfilled, instead of paying fees before each test.”

However, people failing to pay bills are recorded in the medical insurance system and banned from the “pay after” method the next time they seek treatment.

Larger hospitals say they would have difficulty in adopting the new method, since up to 50 percent of their patients could be from provinces which have no connection with local medical insurance.

“The government only covers 5 percent of big hospitals’ costs, so the hospital must earn the other 95 percent by themselves,” said Xia Lin of the Shanghai Children’s Medical Center. “If promoting the method, the government should give a subsidy to cover the delayed payment of hospitalized patients.”

In Shanghai, Longhua Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital is the only large hospital using the new method, but only for outpatients covered by medical insurance.

Jiao said once the new system is implemented, patients, especially those suffering extreme conditions, receive treatment first. After the treatment, patients will only pay the part that is not included in the medical insurance. The rest will be paid to hospitals by the government.

Northeast commuters struggle with icy roads

The workweek opened with a white-knuckle ride Monday in the snow-clobbered Northeast as drivers encountered unplowed streets, two-lane roads reduced to a single channel and snowbanks so high it was impossible see around corners.

Schools remained closed across much of New England and New York, and more than 80,000 homes and businesses were still waiting for the electricity to come back on after the epic storm swept through on Friday and Saturday with 1 to 3 feet of snow that entombed cars and sealed up driveways.

The storm was blamed for at least 18 deaths in the U.S. and Canada, and officials warned of a new danger as rain and higher temperatures set in: roof collapses.

In hard-hit Connecticut, where some places were buried in more than 3 feet of snow, the National Guard used heavy equipment to clear roads in the state’s three biggest cities.

“This is awful,” said Fernando Colon, of South Windsor, Conn., who was driving to work at Bradley International Airport near Hartford on a two-lane highway that was down to one lane because of high snowbanks.

Most major highways were cleared by Monday, but the volume of snow was just too much to handle on many secondary roads. A mix of sleet and rain also created new headaches. A 10-mile stretch of Interstate 91 just north of Hartford to Massachusetts was closed briefly because of ice and accidents.

In New York, where hundreds of cars became stuck on the Long Island Expressway on Friday night and early Saturday morning, some motorists vented their anger at Gov. Andrew Cuomo for not acting more quickly to shut down major roads, as other governors did, and for not plowing more aggressively.

“There were cars scattered all over the place. They should have just told people in the morning, ‘Don’t bother going in because we’re going to close the roads by 3 o’clock.’ I think Boston and Connecticut had the right idea telling everybody to stay off the roads and we got a better chance of clearing it up,” said George Kiriakos, an investment consultant from Bohemia, N.Y.

On Monday morning, he said, conditions were still miserable: “It’s just as slick as can be. You’ve got cars stuck all over like it’s an obstacle course.”

Cuomo has defended his handling of the crisis and said that more than one-third of all the state’s snow-removal equipment had been sent to the area. He said he also wanted to allow people the chance to get home from work.

“People need to act responsibly in these situations,” the governor said.

The number of homes and businesses without power was down from a peak at 650,000. More than 70,000 of those still waiting were in Massachusetts.

Jim and Brenda Stewart, of Marshfield, Mass., were using their fireplace to stay warm. Brenda, a nurse, said that they were getting a little bit bored but that she was reading and painting snow scenes to pass the time.

“When you’re a New Englander, you kind of hunker down and just do it,” she said.

In Scituate, Mass., Richard and Ann Brown were among about 50 people at a shelter set up at a high school. The couple, married 65 years, spent the previous three nights sleeping on side-by-side cots.

“It’s disrupting when you’re older,” said Ann Brown, 88. “You’ve got to be careful to keep your spirits up.”

Flights resumed at major airports in the region. Boston’s transit system resumed full service Monday but told commuters to expect delays. The Metro-North Railroad was mostly up and running in suburban New York City, while the Long Island Rail Road said riders could expect a nearly normal schedule.

In the long weather history of the Northeast, the snowstorm wasn’t that bad — it ranked 16th on one scale and 25th on another, according to initial data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The measuring systems take into account the size of the snowstorm, the amount of snow and how many people were in its path.

The weekend storm ranked a 3, or a “major” storm, on a 1-5 scale, with 4 being “crippling” and 5 “extreme.”

While many people tried to resume their workweek routines, others remained hopelessly stranded.

In Hamden, Conn., which received 40 inches of snow, nurse Sandy Benoit said she could not leave the house because her driveway had not been plowed. She didn’t think her street was plowed either, but she couldn’t be sure because she had to turn back after walking part of the way in knee-deep snow.

Across the region, big piles of snow blocked sight lines at intersections and highway ramps, making turning and merging hazardous. Some drivers decided the safe thing to do was to stay in the tracks cut by the cars ahead of them.

Peter Starkel, chief of the volunteer fire department in Columbia, Conn., said was difficult to maneuver emergency vehicles on the snow-narrowed roads. During one emergency medical call, “we physically could not turn the vehicles around,” he said. “So we had to back about a half-mile down the road to the closest intersection just to get out.”

In North Haven, Conn., First Selectman Michael Freda said that with many driveways still to be cleared, people were running out of heating oil and prescription medication.

“What this is creating, particularly in the senior citizen sector, is a bit of psychological anxiety with is creating a lot of emotion,” he said.

Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said there have been about six roof collapses involving barns and other structures.

Officials said people should try to clear flat or gently sloped roofs to relieve the weight — but only if they can do so safely.

“We don’t recommend that people, unless they’re young and experienced, go up on roofs,” said Peter Judge, spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.

Officials also warned of the danger of carbon monoxide poisoning.

In Boston, two people died Saturday after being overcome by fumes while sitting in running cars, including a teenager who was trying to stay warm while his father shoveled. The vehicles’ tailpipes had become clogged with snow.

Colored pencil and oil exhibit at Palace

Two of the more experienced artists from the Art Guild at Fairfield Glade are the exhibitors at the Palace Theatre in Crossville for the month of February.

Barbara Rogers is co-president of the Art Guild and has won a number of prizes for her colored pencil drawings.

Colored pencil can be long and tedious hours of work as a picture is produced through layers upon layers of color.  Barb’s work can frequently be seen in the monthly art exhibits at the Plateau Creative Arts Center, 451 Lakeview Dr., Fairfield Glade. Rogers recently had a personal exhibit at the art gallery.

Another main interest of the artist is gardening, which is perhaps why she does flowers so well. Her picture of a pair of “Pink Lady Slippers” appealed to me  because it was beautifully done. (Drawn? Painted? Pastels and colored pencil works have some aspects of both). My woods along the creek have a few Lady Slippers every spring. These little orchids need pine needles (Note: Rogers had these in the picture) for just the right amount of drainage, water, shade and a dollop of sun in order to bloom. Never transplant — their special needs are why they are so rare. So look, admire, and perhaps buy an artist’s painting, but leave these pink jewels where they are!

Donna Slinkard is the co-coordinator for Exhibits and Shows, another time consuming and sometimes under appreciated job. Of course, if no one took on this difficult task, there would be no exhibits.

I have seen most of Donna’s Palace work elsewhere, but she does a marvelous job of combining the past with the present. Slinkard uses her ability of create clear, realistic-looking glass. I don’t know where she collected all those old fashioned bottles, and I suspect some are hand-blown glass. She certainly puts them to good use.  “Peek-a-Boo” with the immense green glass bottle shows a child peering from the other side of the glass. The child seems like a genie frozen forever in green glass.  I’m not sure what the green glass bottle was used for because all such modern day large vessels are made of boring, thin, white plastic — lighter, easier to handle but most emphatically not beautiful.

The portrait of a “Young Gentleman” definitely came at a time when people would have said, “A Hippie, what is that?” “All That Jazz” with its porcelain statue and fringed throw dropped table depicts the 1920s or 1930s perhaps.

“Our main objective had been to win a third Aintree Hurdle but Big Buck’s not being there has opened it up,” he said.

“That has invited us there, and we’ll go.”

While Grandouet, set for a later gallop after recovering from a minor issue, and Kingwell Hurdle runner-up Khyber Kim join Binocular in the Stan James Champion Hurdle, Henderson effectively ruled out My Tent Or Yours.

A facile winner of the Betfair Hurdle, JP McManus’ youngster will revert to the William Hill Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.

“He’s very good and he goes for the Supreme,” he said.

“I have been speaking to everyone and that is the plan, I believe. I know JP has Jezki in the Supreme as well, but don’t forget he’s got Binocular in the Champion and we’re happy with him.”

Virtually all the team have competed their racing trials ahead of Cheltenham, one or two handicappers aside, but Saturday could see last-ditch Triumph auditions for Vasco Du Ronceray and Courtesy Call.

All of this came to mind in reading the report of the Marine Casualty Investigation Board into a RIB accident in Cork Harbour last June when the sole occupant was thrown into the water, the outboard engine didn’t cut out and the RIB hit him causing serious injuries. In commenting on the findings the Director of the Coast Guard, Chris Reynolds, urged the MCIB “that the report should make a strong recommendation against anyone venturing to sea or on the water on their own. It is neither safe nor conducive to good seamanship.”

The MCIB report focuses on the kill cord which, it says, was not functioning correctly, that the operator of the boat knew this and that he was not seated at the wheel when the accident occurred. The man concerned said his boat struck something. There is no conclusive evidence either way on this, but the MCIB said that rescuers did not note any object in the water. The MCIB is blunt, rightly so, in warning about the essential importance of the kill cord for safety in all open motorboats and that it should always be used and checked regularly. It also says that “all pleasure craft owners should complete a recognised powerboat handling course, regardless of previous experience.”

The MCIB did not go as far as making the “strong recommendation” which the Coast Guard sought, but it did say that “owners and operators of recreational craft should be aware and follow the Department of Transport, Tourist and Sport’s Code of Practice for the Safe Operation of Recreational Craft.” If you haven’t read this document, you can download it from the Department’s website. The Coast Guard and Marine Safety Directorate are, of course, part of the Department. You might be surprised, for example to learn, depending on the size of your boat and where you use it, what you are required to carry aboard under safety regulations – and there is a lot more besides.

An uncomplicated time traveller

In September, 2012, the Baroda-based Malayali artist KP Reji set up base at a lodge near Fort Kochi. And every day, at 8.30 am, he would set out towards Pepper House, a venue of the Kochi Muziris Biennale.

There, on the first floor, inside a large hall, with its windows facing the sea, Reji would sit and ponder about his life, while a blank canvas remained—silent and mute, against one wall.

Slowly, images from his childhood in the village of Allapuzha—the Venice of the East, would come up. “I remembered the time when, during Gandhi Jayanti, a lot of schoolchildren, carrying knives and brooms, would clean the school premises and cut the overgrowing grass lining the roads and highways,” he says. “Although it was done in the name of the apostle of peace, we were using a bit of violence, by using the knives.”

At other moments, he remembered trips to Kochi where he saw large ships sailing towards the Arabian Sea. He also recalled the paddy fields, which were aplenty, when he was growing up. “But our family lost the land because a new railway line was coming up,” says Reji. “As for the others, some of the fields were converted into the more lucrative fish farms.”

Soon, Reji started painting. And, at the end of three months of 12-hour work days, Reji has produced a remarkable triptych, a 15’ x 10’ oil painting. On the banks of a river, are a group of boys, with knives, but with a playful look on their faces. Next to them are a flock of ducks. There is also a snow-white goat nearby. But what is eye-catching is the sight of a naked man who lies across a broken bund to prevent flood waters from flowing into a paddy field. Right behind them all, and with a towering presence, is the aircraft carrier, the INS Viraat, painted in grey, which is gliding past peacefully.

Asked about the presence of the carrier, in a sylvan setting, Reji says, “We brought this from Britain. It gives an indication of our long relationship with the British because of their 200-year rule of India.” Reji says that the overwhelming experience for viewers is a sense of loss. “The work has enabled them to go back to the past,” he elaborates.

“There are evocative images… a carrier, small children, ducks and a paddy field. My aim was to take cliche images and present them in a fresh manner.”

If there is a greater thrill than discovering a lost work by an old master it is perhaps discovering a lost old master instead. This is essentially what the National Gallery is presenting with its new exhibition of the work of Federico Barocci.

In his lifetime Barocci was the most celebrated artist of the generation that immediately followed the High Renaissance deities of Michelangelo, Leonardo, Titian and Raphael. His patrons included Pope Pius VI, the Emperor Rudolf, the Duke of Urbino and even a saint, Filippo Neri. While his work strongly influenced later artists such as Rubens and Bernini it is little known today outside Italy, and specifically his home region of Le Marche and the hilltop city of Urbino. Of his 80 finished paintings Urbino alone has more than Britain, France, Spain and America combined, and many of his altarpieces remain in the churches for which they were painted.

Geographical isolation is, however, only one reason why Barocci has slipped from sight. Apart from a few portraits and a single late painting of Aeneas fleeing Troy, his pictures are exclusively religious, which did not endear him to Protestant taste. Nor could his distinctive style – fondant colour harmonies and an emotional sweetness – outshine the shadowy dramas of Caravaggio and his adherents. So while Barocci holds an important place in art history as the missing link between the strained distortions of Mannerism and the dynamism of the baroque, he has left little impression on the public consciousness. The National Gallery’s exhibition, which contains some 20 paintings and 65 drawings, pastel studies and oil sketches, sets out to return him to notice.

Barocci deserves it. His birthplace, Urbino, was also that of Raphael, the beau ideal to whom all painters aspired. Raphael had died some 15 years before Barocci was born in 1535, but the noble tenderness of his style remained a formative influence. So too did his family’s profession as scientific instrument makers. The painter’s father specialised in astrolabes and clocks, and their motions are echoed in Barocci’s compositions, with figures placed around the pictures like the numerals on a dial. He also studied the works of Correggio and Titian, absorbing some of the former’s sentimentality and the latter’s colour. In Rome, where he went to further his career, he met Michelangelo and probably had access to some of his drawings. His example meant that Barocci began to reconcile the two Renaissance artistic opposites of disegno (design) and colorito (colour).

According to Bellori, Barocci’s first biographer, Michelangelo first noticed the young painter when he alone among a group of students hung back while the others rushed to gain the great man’s attention. The encouragement Michelangelo gave him was one reason behind his fellow painters’ jealousy, which, apparently, came to a murderous head in 1565 when they invited him to a picnic and poisoned his salad. Whether or not the poisoning was real, Barocci suffered stomach problems for the rest of his life – although he lived another 47 years. The discomfort was such that he vomited after every meal, slept fitfully and was plagued by nightmares, and could paint for only two hours a day.