Egypt to update reform plan ahead of IMF meeting on Saturday

Egypt is rushing to knock into shape an economic reform plan to qualify for a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which remains skeptical of the government’s readiness to implement key austerity measures needed to prevent an economic crisis.

Egypt presented a plan to the international lender, involving measures to slash energy subsidies and raise taxes, to increase revenue and quell a soaring budget deficit. The IMF technical mission, which visited Cairo earlier in April, found the plan “weak” and “not rigorous,” according to an Egyptian official close to the negotiations.

But Egyptian officials, including the ministers of finance, planning and international cooperation, as well as the governor of the central bank, will meet with IMF chief Christine Lagarde on Saturday to present an updated programme with new figures to help allay the world lender’s concerns over implementation and reach an agreement.

“We are working to put together a more convincing program with more precise figures and a clearer time frame on when and how broad structural measures, such as reforming energy subsidies and raising certain taxes, would be implemented,” the official, who requested anonymity, told Ahram Online.

Mekkawy was keen to stress that the government’s aim to introduce structural reforms was not because of pressure from the international lender but because this was the necessity for Egypt’s economy. The talks are held on the sidelines of the Spring Talks meetings in Washington.

“We are developing the program to move ahead with the reforms that will improve Egypt’s economy, not because of the IMF or others but because this is the right thing to do for the country,” Mekkawy said.

The IMF mission, which concluded its trip to Cairo last week without reaching an agreement, informed the Egyptian side that parking guidance were still pending over how the government plans to implement a coupon plan designed to cut massive energy subsides that eat up a quarter of the budget, the Egyptian official explained.

He added that the IMF is skeptical Egypt can kick-start the process of the smart-card system by July and has doubted the government’s ability to monitor the distribution of the coupons within a realistic timeframe.

Mekkawy said the IMF also needed a breakdown of the figures of energy subsidies, and has dubbed Egypt’s petroleum sector a “black box” because the data and surveys were not easily available.

Energy subsidies take up 20 percent of Egypt’s budget, and authorities estimate the energy subsidy bill will reach LE120 billion in the financial year ending 30 June. In total, the subsidies bill is forecast to grow by 12 percent in the coming fiscal year, a growth level that is significantly lower than that seen in other major expense items, such as public wages.

The Egyptian officials’ comments echoed Lagarde’s assessment on Thursday that the Egyptian programme needed more work. “There is clearly more work to be done; numbers need to be aligned and worked on,” she told reporters.

Earlier this week, a director in the IMF’s fiscal affairs department said Egypt should consider compensating its poor in cash transfers for the removal of subsidies.

Unrelenting political bickering between ruling Islamists and opposition groups has derailed the government’s efforts to impose austerity measures to help fix the economy. IMF officials at the annual Spring Talks meetings said a lack of political consensus has held back growth. The latest world economic outlook report predicted the Egyptian economy will grow by 2 percent in 2013, down from an earlier forecast of 3 percent.

Everybody all thawed out? Ready to watch some football in oh I don’t know, actual sunlight? Well break out the sunblock and leave the layers at home, because our third trip to BMO in a week will not require winter gear – rejoice! And if that weren’t cause enough for celebration – although really, that would top the list for a lot of fans so far this year as evidenced by the empty seats on Wednesday night – the Reds are coming off a win and who doesn’t love to celebrate a win; especially for our long suffering fan base.

For those of you that braved the cold on Wednesday you saw the kids put in a dominant second half (we won’t discuss the first half) and come away with a fairly satisfying win over rivals the Montreal Impact. A couple of goals, a win and clean sheet. All helped along by some very nice performances from Doneil Henry and Jonathan Osorio – CanCon can be a good thing. And even though a number of the starting XI that we saw on Wednesday night will likely not see the pitch today, there could be some new faces on the bench.

The performance by some of the lesser used Reds on Wednesday has to be heartening for fans – even if (as many will point out) it was against Montreal’s B team – a win is a win, regardless of who you beat. Those same performances are also good for coach Ryan Nelsen as it gives him more options off the bench for league games while we’re waiting for reinforcements.

In what some viewed as a gamble, Nelsen gave a number of the first team a deserved rest on Wednesday night – most notably team captain Darren O’Dea, keeper Joe Bendik and scorer of goals Robert Earnshaw. A number of the other usual suspects also were rested or subbed in late guaranteeing lots of fresh players for the game against New York. And the Reds will need lots of fresh legs in the coming weeks as there are still four more games to play in the coming ten days – the last three all on the road; not exactly TFC’s happy place through the years.

However before heading out on the road Toronto still has to face New York. TFC haven’t beaten the Red Bulls at home in close to four years – I’ll just let that sink in for a moment – four years. And we won’t even speak of that game – you know the one I’m talking about, I still have nightmares about it – and are unbeaten against Toronto in their last 7 meetings.

The Red Bulls, while not world beaters and showing uneven form so far this season, are still not a team to be taken lightly. New York are in a somewhat similar boat as TFC as they are in the midst of a rebuild and have their own rookie coach in (former Nelsen teammate) Mike Petke. They are coming off of a dominant performance last weekend when they trounced the Revolution 4-1, but they’ve alternated wins and losses over their last 5 games, let’s hope that continues.

TFC have been more solid defensively so far this season but will have to be razor sharp to contain the speedy Fabian Espindola and the always dangerous Thierry Henry. Both are more than capable of evading defenders and finding space seemingly at will in the box. O’Dea and the back line will hopefully have reviewed man marking on set pieces over and over again this week in training to cut off any runs that either of these two like to make.

I’m revolted by the greed on display at children’s parties

As a child, when I used to go to birthday parties – which wasn’t often – I might take a card. I would then get sandwiches, crisps and lemonade and play a few party games.

Now, children’s birthdays have expanded to epic proportions. Not only, it seems, does every child have to be invited to every other kid’s birthday – my children rarely make it through a weekend without some crayon-scrawled RSVP dropping out of their schoolbag – but said invitees each have to bring a) a card and b) a substantial gift for the special birthday bunny.

After any one of these beanos takes place – which nowadays may involve a visit to the cinema or restaurant/diner or both as well as a number of professional children’s “entertainers”, or a bouncy castle – the person holding the party is required to come up with a party bag for each and every child who attends, which usually amounts to the same value as the gifts given by the attendees. Then there are the thank you cards that act as a compulsory coda.

All in all, each and every birthday is an enormous MGM-style production involving considerable expense and a great deal of effort – always, of course, on the part of the adults. The children just sit there getting fatter and greedier for pointless stuff and forced ritual.

The celebration industry is booming, leaking out of Christmas and birthdays into Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Easter. It can only be a matter of time before I have to buy my children gifts to give me for Movember. I can only partly put this down to the extremely effective marketing campaigns of those who make their living from these sorts of occasions – card manufacturers, crap plastic toy makers, etc.

Part of it is to do with the sentimentality and indulgence of parents, but much more of it is about peer pressure. We do what we do simply because other people do it, and once the stakes are raised, as they always are, guilt forces us to keep up with the Joneses, lest our little darlings accuse us with “but Wayne/ Scheherazade/Kemal/Madison had a troupe of dancing giraffe clown acrobats at their parking guidance.”

I am surprised that we are so often told our children are the unhappiest in the western world – or something – which must be powerful evidence supporting the idea that materialism doesn’t cut the mustard when it comes to a happy soul. However, when I actually see the kids at these events, they seem to be having a nice time, though not obviously nicer than if they had just gone down the park together and climbed on the swings. It’s the parents who are probably the unhappiest in the world, revolted by the greed on display, and checking their watch after 10 minutes to see how long there is still to go before it all ends.

I am starting a Campaign for Real Childhood Celebration in which a) birthday parties are limited to six attendees, none of which is required to bring a present and none of which will receive a party bag, b) all celebrations other than Christmas or birthdays will not require the exchange of gifts and cards, c) all parties are limited to two hours maximum, and d) all children over six must be involved in preparing for said party and clearing up after it.

This is almost certainly an unachievable ideal, as we all crumble in the face of pressure from one another and within ourselves. I suspect children don’t really care that much – give them a few sausages, a few simple games to play and put them in a room together with some paper hats and they’ll be happy. But the marketeers of happiness are too clever for us. It’s not that they understand people so well, they simply understand guilt – and it makes them immense profits and us considerable fools.

Every good Vegas story usually involves an all-nighter, and this tale is no exception. After rocking out at Boothy’s wedding on Thursday and racing EnduroCross on Friday, my brother Scotty and I set off into the moonlight at 2 a.m. on Saturday bound for the legendary Silver State 300 desert race. Put on by the iconic Best In The Desert Racing Association, the Silver State punishes both bike and truck racers with 300 miles of wide-open roads, tight sand washes, deep silt beds and tricky elevation changes. If you ask me, that stuff beats a Saturday morning by the pool any day!

Luckily, I wouldn’t be racing it alone; fellow journalist and speedy off-roader Ryan Dudek offered to join me, and Navy SEAL Desert Off-Road Race Team captain and desert racer Andy Wilkins rounded out our three-man team. Not only did Andy bring a ton of organization and desert racing experience to the table, but he also offered up his Chris Haines–prepped CRF450X race bike for us to ride, as well as a crew of dedicated, highly trained “operators” to help get us through the event. What could possibly go wrong?

Dudek blazed off of the start at first light and quickly pulled into fourth overall. As soon as our #312 Honda was out of sight, our convoy broke off into different directions so as to be at our designated pits at the proper times. All was going smoothly until Johnny Law decided that Scotty’s van needed to be pulled over. Fact: You should never tell a highway patrol officer that you’re in the middle of a race and you’d appreciate it if he would keep it quick. In the time it took him to write us one ticket, I could’ve chiseled a ticket into a stone slab and still had enough time to whip up a dozen donuts from scratch. When we finally came skidding into pit number three, it was all I could do to jump out of the truck, water a tree and put on my goggles before Ryan came in and handed off the bike.

Probably the biggest difference with desert compared to anything else I’ve raced was the sheer speed—you can forget about the 25-mph enduro speed average out here, I was wide open! My section was a well-marked mix of two-track washes and fast road sections, with the occasional rock segment sprinkled in for taste. Honestly, the BITD crew really impressed me with the safe, fun track they laid out. It seemed that whenever I would start to get even slightly bored, a new terrain type would pop up and I’d be grinning again.

Barking Up the Wrong Trees

The phone rang, and I didn’t answer. It was some guy wanting to know why S.B.’s Earth Day celebration began the same day as Adolph Hitler’s birthday. I had no answer. I kind of doubt one exists. It rang again. Someone else wanted to know if it was merely coincidental that the Earth Day event started on 4/20, the same day potheads worldwide are supposed to toke up. As if any excuse were needed. I said I’d put an intern on it. Then I got a call from S.B.’s former mayor Hal Conklin, the last alcalde of the masculine persuasion to occupy that post in the past 30 years. That call, I took. Hal is now happily retired and, among other things, sits on the board of California Green Communities, which bestows the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval on cities that strive to go above and beyond when it comes to cutting-edge green practices.

Back when the first Earth Day was being celebrated in 1970, Hal was right in the thick of things. Earth Day—as any kid in kindergarten can tell you—started as part of a national response to S.B.’s epochal Oil Spill of 1969. That cause-and-effect connection provides the basis for the claim—repeated ad nauseatingly—that S.B. is the birthplace for the environmental movement. If that’s the case, Hal wanted to know, is Santa Barbara now experiencing the empty-nest syndrome where its environmental progeny is concerned More specifically, he wondered, why are cities like Ventura, Simi Valley, and Riverside—that’s right, Riverside—eating S.B.’s lunch when it comes to creative, cutting-edge eco-practices Have we been resting on our laurels so long that we’ve squashed them beyond recognition I’m not exactly sure what the answer is, but it’s a hell of a question.

The first thought is that we’ve succumbed to Newton’s First Law of Thermodynamics, which posits that if you stay in any one place long enough, you’re doomed to become dull, enervated, and tiresome. Intuitively, that seems pretty likely. But maybe not entirely fair. Last week, after all, City Hall held a grand unveiling of a new tech-wonk program in which all the fats, parking guidance, and greases—yes, the acronym is FOG—generated by the food industry that would otherwise be trucked off to out-of-sight, out-of-mind rendering facilities in places like Vernon are processed here to generate alternative fuels in quantities sufficient to power 700 homes. But however cool FOG is, it qualifies as a nibble, not a bite. That’s not surprising. Around places like City Hall, the acquired wisdom is that people who take big bites risk choking to death and those who stick their necks out are the first to lose their heads.

Just look at how long it’s taken for Santa Barbara to pass a ban on single-use plastic bags. For the record, the idea was first proposed seven years ago. At that time, only San Francisco had adopted a similar measure. The convenient excuse is to blame the council’s conservative bloc. But even before they’d taken power—swept into office on a rising tide of discontent over bulb-outs, high-density development, and traffic calming—the previous council (made up entirely of card-carrying Yellow Dog Democrats) showed little appetite for the rhetorical leadership or grand gesture of a bag ban.

The first rule of safe government is to do unto others; the bag ban, by contrast, would have had us do unto ourselves by prompting some nominal change in the unconscious convenience of our shopping habits. It got bogged down in committee after committee. Amazingly, it managed to survive, kept on life support by the usual coalition of eat-your-spinach, know-your-facts eco-activists, coupled with a new breed of provocative provocateurs like Save the Mermaids. When Councilmember Frank Hotchkiss opined early that plastic bags posed no health hazard to marine life and that fish could simply poop them out, the Mermaids showed up en masse, dressed in short skirts and carrying trays of mock hors d’oeuvres—all featuring delectable delicacies made of plastic—for Frank’s fine-dining pleasure. For a while, it appeared a one-man industry front group calling itself the Save the Plastic Bag Coalition put the ban on ice.

This group, lead by attorney Stephen Joseph—threatened to sue if City Hall didn’t commission an environmental impact report (EIR) to document the effect of such a ban. Joseph had sued other cities throughout the state on similar grounds and won. Typically, such bans spark an increase in paper-bag consumption—as well as reusable tote bags—and paper-bag production is not without environmental consequence. City Hall, reeling from the recession, didn’t have the spare change—or political capital—to spend. Councilmember Grant House got the bright idea to have one of the most obscure government entities on the planet—a joint-powers agency dedicated to keeping the beaches of S.B. and Ventura counties coated with enough sand to keep the tourists coming—pay for the EIR instead.

If all the cities and counties that belonged paid just a tiny fraction of the total price, he figured, the cost of the EIR could be easily covered. In addition, he reckoned, the document could serve as a one-size-fits-all EIR for all but two of the cities (Ojai and Carpinteria already have bag bans) in the two counties as well as the two county governments. Rather than one ban, the new master EIR could potentially precipitate the passage of 20. Nice move. Naturally, Joseph freaked and, last Friday, threatened to sue if the EIR were ratified as written. Endowed with a tireless flair for hyperbole, Joseph contends that the document is “disingenuous, dishonest and deceptive,” and has vowed to “draw a line in the sand.” That’s appropriate, I suppose, given that sponsoring government agency—which held off ratification for another month in the face of Joseph’s threat—is all about keeping the beaches sandy. But at this point, it’s only a matter of when the bag ban is passed, not if. But by that time—getting back to Conklin’s point—72 other cities and counties will have beaten us to the punch. Good thing it’s not a boxing match.

The power of options…

“I’m broke.” The refrain is far from uncommon among college goers in the city and otherwise. It is part of the experience of embracing adulthood. In the first few years of managing one’s own finances and stepping out of the house, living off a tight budget is the norm. Amongst students, jokes abound on who has the lowest phone balance, least cash in the wallet, longest period of pennilessness. This has forever been the college scenario.

Yet, there is the flipside to this state of affairs. Today, at a blink of the eye, youngsters head to malls, cinemas and posh shopping complexes to while away the afternoon and spend a few hours with aimless window shopping. Some may venture to flip out the wallet, flick out some plastic and become the cause of envy amongst their peers.

Over the years, the college experience has evolved. Today, the youngsters and 20-somethings are the prime targets of over-the-top marketing, sales pitches and extravagant advertising. Their pockets are heavy, their eyes are starry and they represent the potential buyer in every industry. Be it entertainment or retail, cosmetics or sports, youngsters today are a very real target audience.

Today, ice cream parlours demand an average of Rs. 200, a sit-down dinner totals to about Rs. 400 a head and many spend an upwards of Rs. 600 on birthday gifts for friends. The kind of money that has found its way to the hands of the dependant population is tremendous.

When did everything change? When did this section of society begin receiving such attention? Why this newfound phenomenon? Is it true that malls have overtaken the beaches as popular hangout spots? Is sun, sand and surf being fast replaced by air-conditioning, mannequins and rows of imported brands?

Talk to Saravan Krishna M., II Year, City College, on his favourite hangout spots and his list includes The B Bar, Pheonix Market City and Express Avenue. Someone in the midst of this extravagance is Besant Nagar beach, a locality known for catering to the needs of the youngsters. “With the exposure that all of us get these days and the levels of ultrasonic sensor, brands are becoming increasingly important. Moreover, we are all progressively getting more independent, so the money flowing out is not a surprise!”

Uthra Venkatesh, Ist Year, MOP Vaishnav College also has a similar list. “The beach has cheap cafes and most clubs have free entries for girls on specific nights. Affordability is hardly a problem. Even at the malls, expenditure is minimum. Girls spend hours window shopping or just trying on clothes and contentedly walk out without a penny spent. It is only when you enter these places with the express purpose of spending that they can get a bit expensive,” she explains.

The weather coupled with the influx of indoor shopping areas and malls seems to be pushing everyone inside comfortable buildings. “Malls are also dotted with food stalls and dispensers, making refreshments easily available without having to worry about cleanliness or hygiene,” adds Sreenidhi Krishnan.

Perhaps an important explanation to this phenomenon is the advent of internships and part-time jobs. With every semester break or a few weeks off, there is a frenzied search for jobs or projects that would not only add a resume point or two but add a little weight to the pocket.

Internshala, a website dedicated to the popularisation of internships, sees about 1.5 lakh students visiting their portal every month. With a policy of publishing only a majority of paid internships, they give their students an opportunity to earn their way through summer with programmes paying an average of between Rs. 8000 to Rs. 10,000. According to Sarvesh Agrawal, Founder and CEO at Internshala, “Companies recruiting interns are increasingly veering towards paid internships or at least those that cover expenditure. There is also a trend towards working from campus particularly amongst law students who earn between Rs. 2000 and Rs. 5000 even during the course of their semester.”

Perhaps a case in point is Internshala’s ‘My First Stipend’ contest which asks students what they would do with their first cheque, first payment and first salary. According to the founder, shopping figures high up on the list, whether it be for oneself or for those back home, clothes or gadgets. And where else would one turn to shop but the malls?

Vanya Rachel, III year, IIT-M, explains how malls provide a holistic experience of entertainment: “A lot of it has to do with the small things, the things you do not consciously pay attention to. The AC in this weather, the spread of food at your beck and call, the movies that are just a floor above you… it all contributes to why you would choose to head over there instead of the beaches. When you are at the mall, you are actively participating voluntarily as a consumer in capitalist society. You are there because you want to be and hence, you enjoy yourself.”

The decision seems to be nearly universal. The battle is not one of ‘Malls vs. Beaches’ but rather ‘Malls and Beaches’. Youngsters today do not choose one over the other but rather flock to whichever suits their convenience the most. The litter and debris on the beaches on Sunday evenings speaks volumes of the hordes that still prefer the sand over the tiles of the malls. Cafes and cafeterias in Besant Nagar will still be mobbed by youngsters out for coffee or a cold drink, as the weather may have it. Yet, in equal amounts, you are likely to run into someone you know at Express Avenue.

There is a lot of time, money and energy being put into upgrading and enhancing the visual experience for the 320 million fans who attend live sports events each year. Live2media has now joined the elite ranks of tech companies seeking to enhance the audio experience for fans during games in arenas, stadiums and at such events as marathons, outdoor Olympic competitions and the America’s Cup yacht competition.

Live2media, based in Pleasanton, Calif., had its official unveiling today (April 24) as well as the unveiling of its  flagship product, Livecard, a reusable smart receiver that is about the size of a hotel key card and is designed to be used as a personal listening device.

According to Live2media, their aim is to deliver a new, real-time audio experience by giving fans at live events the ability to tune into multiple channels to hear players, coaches and referees from the field of play, in addition to media broadcast feeds. Live2media also said that their technology would “create new revenue for event operators and sponsors.”

“We are building and broadening the fan experience in a way that has never been done before,” said Greg Moyer, CEO for Live2media. “There are more than 320 million fans worldwide at live sports events every year, and most of them can’t hear what’s happening on the playing field, can’t hear the broadcast commentary and, in the case of America’s Cup, certainly can’t hear what the crew is saying on board the competing yachts. If they could, it would intensify and enhance their experience. Livecard now gives them that ability.”

Celtics searching for answers on offense heading into Game 2 against the Knicks

Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett have cast a misleading image over the Celtics’ offense the last few seasons, as far too many assume that the renown of a team’s headliners dictate its capacity to score effectively. But Boston hasn’t scrapped together even a league-average offense since 2010, and over the past two seasons in particular it has plummeted toward the bottom of the NBA rankings in offensive efficiency. That limitation has come to define these most recent Celtics teams as much as their world-beating defense. With such a thorough and consistent offensive weakness, Boston leaves its defense precious little margin for error on a night-to-night basis.

But the Celtics’ D was good enough on Saturday to steal Game 1 from New York at Madison Square Garden, and for a half its offense followed suit. Jeff Green erupted for 20 first-half points on a series of strong drives and tough jumpers, and the Celtics put up 53 points on just 38 shots (good for 52.6 percent shooting). That’s a strong playoff output in the general sense, but a miraculous achievement for a team so limited offensively that it ranked 20th in points scored per possession during the season. The Celtics managed to slip through the grips of the Knicks’ defensive coverage for 24 solid minutes, eluding traps with smart passes and conjuring mismatches to exploit through New York’s propensity to switch pick-and-rolls.

But a sobering second half swung the Celtics’ offense back to its inefficient norm, in no small part because Mike Woodson’s Knicks made a series of very necessary adjustments. Woodson, frankly, has come up short in this regard in recent years, but he quickly directed his team to play to Boston’s limitations after an uncomfortable first-half showing.

The easiest change to make was a mere scouting-report refresher. New York’s various perimeter defenders had allowed Green to drive to his right with perplexing frequency in the first half. When given that avenue, Green can be an effective off-the-dribble scorer — big enough to create problems for the undersized wings often tasked with guarding him, and quick enough to push past tweener forwards like Carmelo Anthony and Chris Copeland. All of this would be understandable if Green were even the slightest bit ambidextrous, but his left hand seems to be present solely for symmetry — a garnish with little practical value. Once the Knicks began to play him as such, Green turned back into a pumpkin, contributing just six points on 1-of-5 shooting from the field in the second half. Their adjusted coverage looked largely like this.

Like so many in the Celtics’ rotation, Green is an imperfect player. He requires the slightest deliberate attention to nip his offensive strengths, leaving both him and Boston to subsist on his wild-card jumper and complementary skills.

With Boston’s first-half leading scorer under wraps, New York turned its focus toward defending the post — an area that had proved to be a consistent problem in the first 24 minutes. Boston wasn’t manufacturing points explicitly out of post-up shot attempts, but rather using the low block as the focal point of its offensive action. It was an area of the floor from which Pierce, Garnett and Green could gain an advantage with relative certainty, helping Boston create without a reliable point guard.

The action on all of those plays is fairly consistent, as a low-block touch for any of Boston’s post options would result in a double team to force the ball out of their hands. That’s a reliable strategy against dangerous post threats, but only if the defense on the whole is prepared to adjust to the imbalance. On several occasions multiple defenders edged over to help against Pierce on the right block without any plan in place on how to recover once Pierce passed the ball back out, resulting in wide-open cuts for Avery Bradley and some good looks for the Celtics’ perimeter shooters.

New York was able to get stops on some of Pierce’s switching sequences, but overall the Knicks’ coverage was painfully predictable. Because of that, Boston’s ball handlers knew exactly what actions would cue which responses — a knowledge that put the Celtics in control of the board, free to manipulate matchups as they wished. Pierce exploited those conjured advantages repeatedly, as Boston was allowed to get the ball to its primary scorer against a smaller opponent without even the slightest defensive deterrence. It was an exercise in repetition, and on first-half possession after first-half possession the Knicks were bludgeoned with their own reluctance to change things up.

When faced with such a sequence, many coaches would change up their gameplan completely, forcing their players to adapt to a challenge by altering direction. Yet Woodson stuck to more or less the same plan — doubling the post and switching difficult screens — by tightening the screws on his team’s execution. Those efforts largely started by preempting the Celtics’ now-predictable play preferences before they happened. In familiar sequences that are designed to set up a Boston player on the block, the Knicks now aggressively played for post position while denying entry passes. That adjustment forced Doc Rivers to move Bradley — who was just horrible with his entry feeds on Saturday — off the ball more often, offering an offensive player whom the Knicks could cheat off of without much penalty. Watch here how re-routing post feeds through other players mucks up the Celtics’ spacing, if only because there’s no optimal place for Bradley — an inconsistent shooter — to be.

Halifax businesses gaining “big-business” technology

Small to medium-sized business customers will discover a completely different experience from the moment they walk into the store. Instead of choosing their devices or plans from the other side of a counter, they will be invited to discuss their needs with a dedicated TELUS Business Specialist.

The joint TELUS-Advantage Wireless venture is already helping businesses understand and take advantage of new, powerful, affordable technologies and services to help them save time, reduce stress, save and make more money. Offerings include Google Apps for Business; Moneris POS and mobile payment systems; digital IP phone systems; web/mobile site development, management and hosting; computers, smart phones, and tablets; and airtime.

Blomidon Nurseries General Manager Andrew Palmer knew that cash register lineups at his Wolfville, Nova Scotia operation hurt sales, especially on busy summer weekends.

“We’d wince as people walked away rather than wait in line at the cash,” said Palmer. “Now our sales staff have iPhones with mobile payment systems so they can help customers find what they need, load merchandise into their trunks, and complete credit and debit card transactions in the parking lot. Everyone loves the benefits our new technologies bring – speed, convenience, reliability, intelligence, and a serious cool factor.”

Backing up Blomidon’s e-commerce-enabled iPhones is Google Apps, a cloud-based suite of tools that includes email, calendar, documents and online storage that allows the company to connect with everyone, work faster, and stay organized.

With the zeal of the newly converted, Palmer added, “Now we have more time to spend with customers, less cash to handle, fewer errors, accounts are updated automatically, reduced software or hardware costs, and everything’s networked and generating data to help us better understand and serve our market. And it was easier than I imagined.”

“Small business owners don’t have time to become tech experts,” said Carl Launt, president, Advantage Wireless. “So it’s rewarding to help liberate them from the limitations and headaches of their old clunkers so they can harness new technologies to take their businesses to the next level in an accessible, cost-effective way.”

It’s very hard to talk about the Story Mode of Injustice: Gods Among Us without assuming a level of knowledge from the reader, because the set-up was explored in the accompanying comic series and has been touched upon in trailers, but there’s also one bit of information that is delivered shortly after starting the mode that directly addresses the fan rumours on the nature of the storyline and how, for instance, it’s possible that Hal Jordan comes face to face with a Yellow Corp version of himself, as seen in a recent trailer. And as promised by the developers, how these heroes are able to avoid being outmatched is also explained…but I won’t go into those details.

All I can write about is the opening and the conflict between the Regime and the Insurgency, but there’s more to this than meets the eye (no, it’s not a Transformers crossover, although that would be intriguing). Metropolis is destroyed…millions dead. Batman has The Joker in custody, in the middle of an interrogation. The Joker had orchestrated a trap where Superman would fall subject to a toxic gas that caused him to hallucinate and envision Lois Lane as Doomsday. The Joker had attached a heart monitor to Lois Lane, so when she dies, a nuke would detonate in the heart of Metropolis. After all of this goes down, Superman wastes little time in busting through the wall to take matters into his own hands, interrupting the interrogation, snapping, and killing The Joker…

Then, we transition “Elsewhere”…I wish I could tell you what is going on “elsewhere”, but I don’t want to ruin even an early spoiler as the mode is only 4-5 hours long (finished it in just over 4 hours on normal difficulty). That was my only true disappointment by the way, but only because the Mortal Kombat story mode was significantly meatier. Then again, it was tight and effective and said what it wanted to. But, back on point… that single event molded the reality where Superman names himself High Councillor and begins the Regime, effectively turning into a ruthless dictator. This doesn’t happen overnight, as we skip forward 5 years in time. Wonder Woman, as seen, is his right-hand…woman.

Naturally, Batman is the purveyor of justice and sees the flaws in Superman’s new, controlling nature. And so a classic showdown between the Bat and Kal-El becomes inevitable with the Dark Knight’s troop of resistant heroes deemed “the Insurgency”. There are 12 character-focused chapters in Story Mode. Upon reflection, I understand the decision to only explore the good guys’ perspective first-hand; you choose sides in conflict, and embodying the bad guys could potentially breed sympathy for the dark side, who, morally, we shouldn’t be sided with. But there is a large grey area in regards to the alliances and alignments of those under the Regime, so I feel that could’ve been better exploited to some degree. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed this well-written story; definitely worthy of standing beside its comic inspirations.

The health bar is now broken into two-tiers; once one has been depleted, the winner of that “round” does not get their health replenished like in other fighting games. So they may act as round counters for the most part, but not in that one aspect. Pulling off a “super” when your opponent has a minor amount of health left in the first tier is a waste as the move will cut off after the first blow and full damage will not be done, although you will still lose your super meter. Speaking of which, there are four bars to your super meter. This is where elements of Mortal Kombat carry through as you can “meter burn” one bar in order to enhance a special move or “block escape” (combo-breaker equivalent). Executing a block escape off a ground or wall bounce attack burns two bars instead.

Landing a wall bounce attack (away +’A’) at the borders of a level will initiate a level transition, which really increase the number of varied backgrounds in the game, each with their own interactables which can be utilised by pressing ’RB’ once in their radius of use (‘RB’ will flash besides your health bar). The aforementioned super moves use up your entire super meter and rely on differing conditions to follow through. Lex’s, for instance, requires you to land the final hit in a string of four, even if the previous 3 are blocked. These do big damage and are entertaining to watch; they don’t pull you away from the action and rhythm of the match for too long, although fighting purists might argue that point.

Villa d’Este model grand opening next weekend at Talis Park

Talis Park announced it will celebrate the grand opening of Harbourside Custom Homes’ Villa d’Este model residence in the North Naples community’s Fairgrove neighborhood with an open house event Saturday, April 20 and Sunday, April 21. The grand opening will coincide with the National Association of Realtors’ National Open House Weekend that will be hosted locally by the Naples Area Board of Realtors. Open house hours are 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday and noon to 4:30 p.m. on Sunday.

The 3,175-square-foot Villa d’Este great room model in Fairgrove offers three bedrooms, four baths, a study, a double-island kitchen with stainless steel Thermador appliances, a formal dining room, a covered lanai with an optional summer kitchen, fireplace, pool and spa, a three-car garage and a security package that can be operated via an iPad. An optional built-in entertainment center in the great room includes a wet bar and a wine bar. Coffered ceiling details and crown molding are found throughout the home. The fully-furnished Villa d’Este model with options is offered at $1.795 million. The floor plan, with lot, is base priced at $1.325 million.

The Villa d’Este’s California casual interior was designed by Debbie DeMaria, ASID, IDS and Leslie Gebert, ASID of Vogue Interiors. The design mixes stone finishes, light granites, mica and slate wall coverings and light woods. The home’s color palette includes mossy green, slate blue and gray tones and cocoa accents. Porcelain tile flooring is used in the living areas, while medium brown hardwood is presented in the study. The great room flows into a large kitchen with an outer island that offers bar seating for four. Cabinetry along the perimeter is an off-white glaze while the island bases have a dark espresso finish. The counter tops are granite with medium tones of taupe, cream and cocoa.

A double-coffer ceiling with a grass-cloth inlay, an applied molding detail on the headboard wall and a warm palette of beiges, creams and gold are featured in the master bedroom. Sliders open the room to the lanai. The master bath includes a large walk-in shower with oversized tile walls, deep gray wall covering with a soft metallic-gold damask pattern, his-and-her vanities with a light finish and softly colored granite counter tops.

Talis Park’s five neighborhoods offer the possibility of living in a park-like setting or in a maintenance-free environment a short distance from the community’s village center. This “in the park” or “in the village” approach reflects developer Kitson & Partners’ commitment to creating a New Fashioned community where every aspect of country club living is relevant to the residents’ daily lives and rituals.

The “in the park” lifestyle of Talis Park’s Fairgrove neighborhood offers golf course, water and preserve views. Fairgrove is a “single loaded” neighborhood with south facing homes on just one side of the street. Unobstructed views to the north include a Talis Park preserve and a golf course in an adjacent community. Fairgrove’s Italian Renaissance designs honor the more traditional view of Naples’ architecture and are joined by a Spanish Eclectic style that offers a perfect complement. Homes being built in Fairgrove by Harbourside Custom Homes and by Imperial Homes of Southwest Florida in partnership with Iron Star Funding range from 3,100 to 4,000 square feet.

Imperial Homes/Iron Star Funding will open the La Villa Sul Verde model in Fairgrove in May. The 3,506-square-foot home has three bedrooms, three-and-a-half baths, a great room, a formal dining room, a double-island kitchen, a bonus room, a three-car garage and an outdoor living area with a covered lanai, outdoor shower, outdoor kitchen and bar, a pool with a negative-edge spa, and an open-air cabana with a fireplace. The European style residence’s interior was designed by Charlie Hansen and Rebekah Errett-Pikosky of Clive Daniel Home. The fully-furnished La Villa Sul Verde is priced at $1.745 million, with options. The base-price with lot included is $1.329 million.

In addition to opening the Villa d’Este, Harbourside is currently building its Villa Lante residence, a single-story, 3,101-square-foot under air move-in ready spec home in Fairgrove. The three-bedroom, three-and-a-half bath Villa Lante great room floor plan includes a formal dining room, study, an island kitchen, a three-car garage and an outdoor living area with a covered lanai, pool, spa and summer kitchen. The move-in ready Villa Lante is priced at $1.395 million and is scheduled for completion by late summer.

Talis Park’s neighborhoods are being crafted by Southwest Florida’s finest custom homebuilders and present all-new home designs in a fresh palette of Spanish eclectic, Italian Renaissance and Colonial Caribbean architectural styles. The new designs are the result of a design partnership with Stofft Cooney and Herscoe Hajjar Architects that has produced more than 20 Portfolio Plans exclusively for Talis Park. The availability of the Portfolio Plans provides an array of newly-created designs priced from the $700s into the millions.

Kitson’s “New Fashioned” aesthetic at Talis Park represents a shift in thinking that serves as the foundation for the creation of one of the most extraordinary luxury home communities in Naples. Talis Park’s village center will include Vyne House, the central gathering place of the community. Vyne House will consist of a series of lifestyle oriented spaces designed to be used every day. Phase I is under construction and will be completed in September. Phase I also includes completion of Vyne House Shops and the Esprit Spa.

Looming levies could put end to Kathleen Wynne’s honeymoon with voters

Of all the questions raised by Premier Kathleen Wynne’s speech Monday on raising new revenue to fix Toronto’s nightmarish traffic troubles, one thing has become crystal clear: the preem’s honeymoon is coming to a halting end.

Wynne captivated us from the moment she gave that goosebump-inducing speech at the provincial Liberal leadership convention in January. And if opinion polls are anything to go by, her popularity has only increased since then.

Let’s start with her lunchtime speech to the Toronto Region Board of Trade on investing in transit infrastructure. For the past several months, Wynne has said cities need new money specifically for transportation infrastructure. And while she didn’t get into specifics during her Monday chat, she didn’t shy away from the fact that the funds would have to come from some sort of new levy.

Transit in the Toronto region, for example, “will need tens of billions of dollars over the next 20 years,” Wynne said. “Our whole provincial budget each year is about $125 billion … We need to find dedicated revenue for these projects, because the money cannot be found elsewhere.”

The agency floated a short-list of ideas earlier this month, and a recent poll shows that 51 per cent of Torontonians are against any money-raising measure. Only a third of respondents were in favour, according to a Forum Research poll, while 16 per cent didn’t know what to think.

And it’s not like Ottawa is warming up to the idea, either. It’s true that Wynne’s plan is aimed chiefly at fixing a Toronto problem, but we certainly have our own traffic issues that increased transit investment would improve. (Extend the LRT to the west AND the east, anyone? Or how about rail to the airport?)

But Councillor Diane Deans, who chairs Ottawa’s transit commission, has already said she’s not interested in any new levies in Ottawa, preferring instead that the provincial government use its taxation powers to raise money for municipalities’ transit systems.

Deans told the Citizen’s David Reevely that she doesn’t “think we’re ready” for even the most timid step of letting solo drivers use high-occupancy vehicle lanes for a fee. It’s hard to know what exactly we’re waiting for to enact this minor measure — Toronto-grade traffic chaos? — but the point is, Wynne has quite the sales job ahead of her to convince taxpayers they need to shell out more bucks.

Initially, when teachers’ unions resumed extra-curriculars, it was considered a political win for the premier. But by all accounts, the still-secret details of the agreements include fiddling with sick days, unpaid days and retirement payouts. If that turns out to be the case, Wynne will have to ante up for breaking her word that the teachers’ contract wouldn’t be reopened. Again and again, the premier said the broken relations with the teachers’ unions were all about negotiations process and that there was “no new money” available.

Now, it’s quite possible that the fact that sports teams and school clubs are back on is the only thing parents will care about. But the ensuing political hay that her opponents will make of the issue will take a bit of the shine off Wynne’s sparkling stature.

Neither issue will likely catch up with the premier until after the budget is approved, which seems likely now that the NDP has extracted a promise from the Liberals to go along with the New Democrats’ scheme to reduce auto insurance premiums by 15 per cent.

The budget looks like it could be tabled at the end of this month, or even early May. But that still leaves enough time to get it through the Ontario legislature before Metrolinx comes out with its report. Keeping a lid on the teacher negotiations may be tougher, but that uncomfortable issue shouldn’t affect the passage of the Wynne government’s inaugural budget.

As all eyes focus on federal budget battles, let’s not glide too smoothly past America’s latest jobs report from this past Friday: It’s a blunt indicator of the structural economic challenges that are still with us since the Great Recession.

America’s jobs challenge and Europe’s slogging fiscal crisis are both, at their core, about the underlying demographic changes in our societies. There is still a profound mismatch between the economic and social programs of the 20th century and this century’s new and evolving demographics. We’re living longer and working longer – yet we stubbornly cling to “old” notions of what retirement means.

There are clues to understanding all of this in the recent and seminal 2013 S&P Global Aging Report. The ratings agency Standard and Poor’s released the newest installment of its Global Aging report, which highlights the  inconsistencies between systems built for the last century and today’s economic and demographic needs. Can we really have a well-functioning economy in which our growing percentages of aging populations are presumed to be dependent?

The 2013 edition, “Rising to the Challenge,” has some unexpected good news about the progress that Europe and other nations are making in regard to fiscal sustainability and population aging.

Standard and Poor’s has been writing about the fiscal and economic implications of population aging for over a decade. Its analysis has been insightful and incisive, if not wholly optimistic. In 2010’s “Global Aging: An Irreversible Truth,” S&P wrote: “In our view, population aging will lead to profound changes in economic growth prospects for countries around the world, alongside heightened budgetary pressures from greater age-related spending needs. In the absence of appropriate budgetary adjustment, additional reforms to pension and health-care systems, or structural measures to improve sovereigns’ growth potential, our projections show the future fiscal burden will increase significantly across the board.”

Uttar Pradesh to be given ‘Most Improved State’ award at Kerala

For a state where the multi-crore scam involving the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was unearthed during the previous government, Uttar Pradesh sits on a historic turning point coming Monday being recognized by the Government as the most improved state in the implementation of the NHIS. It would be recalled that the health sector has been reenergized in the NRHM scheme with the 108 scheme bringing in all round accolades and appreciation of the people.

And the 360 degrees turn around and all this is largely credited to the leadership and vision of the young and dynamic chief minister of UP, Shri Akhilesh Yadav . The award for the ‘Most Improved State’ under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) will be given by Sri Mallikarjun Kharge, Union Labour Minister at a function to be held on the 8th of April at Trivandrum, Kerala. It would be received on behalf of the state government by senior IAS and Chief Executive Officer of the scheme, Shri Alok Kumar who is also the Secretary to the Chief Minister.

This recognition will bring smiles to the team which has worked unflinchingly and dedicatedly under the leadership of Health Minister, Mr Ahmad Hasan on a mission mode to ensure that the scheme is made available to the target audience ( BPL Families) so that the poor of the state are not impoverished by bouts of sickness requiring in patient treatment.

Mrs Minishthi S, district magistrate of Barabanki will also be rewarded for the wholesome work initiated in the district under the scheme. It is also a matter of pride for the state that the UPRIMS in Saifai, Etawah has been rewarded for its good and laudable work as the best hospital catering to treatment of the poor in the whole state. Compared to the last phase of the scheme, more than 25% of the below poverty line (BPL) population have been provided insurance cover under the scheme. It is expected that over 53 Lakh families will avail of the health insurance cover provided in this scheme.

As part of course correction, taken as part of the inferences drawn from the first phase of the scheme where the claims were not attended to by listed hospitals due to tardy payment schedules, for the first time the anomalies were weeded out by the help of technique and weekly reviews and a server was established at the state level. The intervention and initiative saw miraculous results and of the claims made by listed hospitals, as many as 74% were settled within 30 days.

To ensure and enhance transparency in listing of hospitals, a district insurance committee was formed under the chairmanship of the district magistrate at district levels. This committee comprised of the district magistrate, the chief medical officer/DKMA and the representatives of the selected insurance company and after due deliberations, the recommendations to list hospitals was sent for approval to SACHI.

Owing to the prompt process and quick decision making, 1486 hospitals have been listed so far, of which 823 are private hospitals while 663 are government hospitals. Aware of road blocks, for the first time a two tier grievance redressal system was set rolling in which claimants dissatisfied with decisions of the insurance company could appeal to district and then to the state level committee.

The smart card holding families are entitled to a health care cover of Rs 30,000 per family on floater basis for one year. A total of 1090 pre decided diseases/packages requiring indoor patient treatment are covered under the schemes. The scheme also entails giving of food and Rs 100 per day for transport on discharge from hospital but a maximum of Rs 1,000 in a year.

For the last couple of years, retailers have had this intense love-hate relationship with self-checkout. Chains have touted “customer service” as their reason both for yanking the self-checkout units out and for adding more of them. Higher theft rates have been reported in some stores and not others. Much of it is like any other retail IT deployment, influenced sharply by how much attention is paid to the deployment and how the customers in different neighborhoods—based on demographics—react to the machines.

But the idea of requiring CRM to self-checkout is a new twist. Chains—and that’s triply true for grocery—have always struggled getting shoppers to use their loyalty cards. To be fair, many of those difficulties have been self-inflicted. We’ve seen many associates offering to scan generic loyalty cards to give the discounts to non-cardholders. (Note: The very concept of a generic CRM card is the quintessential oxymoron.) Even worse, we’ve seen some stores that actively discourage card use. The associates will stop customers trying to pull out the cards, saying, “That’s not necessary. The discounts are being added automatically.”

The story quoted Giant Eagle spokesperson Dick Roberts saying: “Scanning a Giant Eagle Advantage Card ensures that customers receive all available weekly specials, fuel perks, personalized register coupon offers and other savings, while also making available vital customer contact information in the instance of a product recall.”

Those are all true and helpful, but for Giant Eagle to benefit, it is going to have to work at making those benefits happen routinely. Customers need to see those recall notices before they read about them online, assuming it impacts them. Better yet, how about a comforting note about a recall? Something like, “You might have heard about a large recall of canned mushrooms today. Rest assured that we checked and your mushrooms are not part of the recall. Thank you for shopping at Giant Eagle and a particularly large thanks for using your loyalty card. As long as you keep using it, we can keep protecting you.”

There are other useful aspects of this program. One of the key problems with self-checkout is that most of the systems were designed for 10 or fewer products. The untrained consumer scanner is simply too slow to efficiently move many more items through the line. When the item count moves into double digits, it’s in everyone’s interest—the store, the shopper and particularly the people in line behind the shopper—for that shopper to be encouraged to use the staffed lanes.

Signs indicating this are nice, but a CRM problem allows for contact information to be associated with the shoppers who are sluggishly scanning 59 items. What the stores does with that information is a test of diplomatic skills, but with a CRM self-checkout program, at least the store has a chance to do something.

The 99 aims to scare teens onto right path

All around, there’s carnage. Two crumpled cars in a head-on collision, steam rising from the radiators. Screams from the dying driver who caused the accident by texting while driving are chilling.

Pretty gruesome stuff. And a good thing for the “victims” that it’s just play-acting by volunteers and the visual effects are just makeup and props.

“It’s emotional. It’s tough,” says Rachel Purtz, 20, who portrays one of the dead passengers. “This isn’t anything I ever expected to do. But I know it’s going to impact lives. It’s even making me think about making better decisions.”

The scene is part of The 99 – a national “ultimate near-death experience” aimed at teens and young adults. After making stops in 33 cities and drawing 410,000 people, it has come to Tampa for every weekend in April, with the portable theater set up in the mega parking lot at The River at Tampa Bay Church.

For $3 admission, spectators get a guided 45-minute tour in an inflatable 20,000 square-foot, 30-foot high building with 13 rooms depicting graphic scenes that re-enact preventable deaths due to life choices. Among them: texting while driving, a crack house with alcoholics and drug addicts, a teen suicide, fight clubs, drag racing, gang violence, bullying. Panels display giant-sized mug shots of meth addicts and horrific car crashes. A pulsating soundtrack reverberates through the portable structure.

And though organizers don’t want to stress the faith element for fear that will keep some people away, there’s no denying it’s an integral part of the experience as well.

The last two viewing rooms feature a raw crucifixion scene with a bloodied Christ on the cross, and a shortened version of the Christian video, “The Train,” a story of a father who sacrificed his son to save a train full of passengers. The final stop is an area manned by trained “encouragers” who are standing by if spectators want to talk about issues in their lives or to hear about the Gospel and eternal salvation.

At Friday night’s opening, which drew about 200 people, some of the visitors left the premises with the free gift given to all: an edgy Bible tract and a youth-geared pamphlet called the “Book of Hope.” Others stayed around to dissect what they just had witnessed, to privately talk or pray with one of the volunteers, or to peruse the gift shop, which included “99” T-shirts, wristbands and hats.

“The three areas that seem to get the most attention are family, school and emotions,” says Terry Henshaw, the 99 founder. He got the name from a Center of Disease Control statistic that maintains an average of 99 young people die every day – most from preventable causes like suicide or car accidents.

He used to be a successful businessman who ran a sprawling entertainment complex in Tulsa. After selling his company in the 1990s, he went to his pastor seeking guidance on “moving to significance” for the next chapter in his life.

His passion for reaching out to youth came from personal experience. Raising four teenagers gave him some insight on the struggles and issues that young people face these days. So he developed the 99 concept and funded the entire operation himself.

For more than four years now, he and his wife have traveled to cities from January through November, staying one month at a time for the weekend productions. They have about two dozen unpaid interns who work with them for one-year stints, living with host families.

The rest of the 99 crew comes from about 200 local church volunteers, who can be trained for their respective roles in about 15 minutes. They’ll re-enact their parts about 50 times a night, as escorted groups are brought into the rooms for the scenes, which run less than three minutes.

Three semi-trucks haul the massive tent and equipment to donated space for the month-long runs. In Tampa’s case, The River is providing both the parking lot and dozens of volunteers.

Henshaw only comes to cities where he’s invited, and he doesn’t charge a fee. He depends on local sponsors – ranging from civic groups, faith-based organizations and police agencies – to help with logistics, promotion and manpower. He says he already is booked through half of 2014.

Impact Tampa Bay, a group of business, community and ministry leaders who work together to influence the area’s spiritual culture, is one of the sponsors for the Tampa run. Member Gibbs Wilson, who attends Van Dyke United Methodist Church, says he was “very impressed” with the production after seeing it in Manatee County.

“This isn’t a fear-based event. It’s reality theater,” Wilson says. “It’s a wake-up call meant to jolt youth into realizing there are poor choices to make, and some of those choices can be permanent.”

He says word-of-mouth generally doubles the turnout every weekend, with some people waiting in line for as long as two hours. His main concern is that some youth might avoid the 99 if they get the impression it’s “too churchy or preachy.” Promotional materials are deliberately “mysterious” instead of religious to create some buzz and intrigue.

A little money can go a long way for a school… especially if it’s located in Zimbabwe. Spaulding High School Guidance Counselor Connie Littlefield found that out during one of her many trips to the South African country.

“I’m looking at the school and I’m like, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” she said about a visit to the village of Dzika a few years back.

At the time, Littlefield was helping to set up a program providing goats for 12-14 year old orphaned girls. That program was designed to help the girls maintain an income, when the alternative was often marriage. For a country with 80-90 percent unemployment, the program was hugely successful as the 25 goats provided originally now number 85, according to Littlefield.

The condition of the village school was the next problem Littlefield wanted to tackle. The primary school serves about 500 students, yet hadn’t been updated in 50 years.Littlefield is lucky enough to work at Spaulding High and that’s where she became acquainted with Maggie Mason, now a senior at the school. Like-minded, the then sophomore went barefoot to raise awareness of a lack of shoes in Africa. That effort turned into a shoe drive that netted over $600 and 1,000 pairs of shoes.

Mason joined Littlefield and Weight Watchers instructor Ann Bilodeau on a trip to Zimbabwe last summer and money raised through a decathlon held at Spaulding in 2012 (along with a lot of sweat and work), helped local efforts to finish upgrades on three classroom blocks at the school in Dzika.

The cost to rebuild two classroom blocks last year at the Dzika school was $2,500. After seeing the initiatives going into the village, Plan International, an organization involved in over 50 developing countries, sponsored a block, so three of the school’s four blocks were finished.

Mason, along with Littlefield and fellow students in Spaulding’s Interact Club, have planned another decathlon for Sunday, April 14 at 2 p.m. in the school’s gymnasium. They’ve dubbed it “Put on Your Sneakers for Dzika!” Teams of 10 will participate in 10 events and all of the proceeds will benefit the Dzika Primary School in Zimbabwe. Each competitor pays, or is sponsored for $10, so each team would raise $100.“The conditions in Dzika are simply unimaginable compared to what we consider adequate for American schools,” Littlefield said. “… I want to see bathrooms.”