Well over 1,000 people attended the Family Health Fair at Loma Linda University's Drayson Center on Sunday.
The event mixed serious medical issues, like high blood pressure, diabetes prevention and mental health with fun things like face painting and origami.
"It's lots of fun," said Melody Luikham, who brought her 4-year-old son, Jared, to the fair.
"It's good to have some health habits reinforced by others, like the importance of brushing your teeth regularly.
"It's also lots of fun for the kids," Luikham said.
Andrew Hirinouchi, 26, was among those teaching origami techniques to young fair attendees.
Hirinouchi went to elementary school in Japan, where he learned the art.
People at the fair especially liked the origami "frog," which can hop surprisingly far with the proper finger pressure, said Hirinouchi, who is a biostatistics major in Loma Linda's School of Public Health.
Kids also seemed to like an educational booth called the Teddy Bear Clinic, where LLU student nurses did head-to-toe assessments of teddy bears selected by each child.
After an explanation of the physical exam, children would then administer a flu "shot" to their stuffed animal.
They use a real hypodermic plunger and barrel, but there's no needle, said Clyde Dieto, 21, a School of Nursing junior, who is also the school's community-service vice president.
The child then placed a very small version of a bandage on the teddy bear, which they got to take home.
Veronica Flores, 7, of Loma Linda said she liked giving her bear, named Kelly, a flu shot "because it made him healthy."
As part of the health fair, LLU nursing students administered real flu shots without charge.
Tiffany Mambo, 21, a junior in the school of nursing, rotated between several stations, each with a different task.
She liked the booth that gave flu shots the best "because you are doing things that feel like real nursing."
But she also enjoyed the blood-pressure booth, where she manually inflated the cuff to get a reading.
As part of their coursework, student nurses do blood-
pressure readings for patients at Loma Linda University Medical Center.
But those are automated devices, so she doesn't get the experience of doing things the old-fashioned way, which sill done in many health care settings, such as convalescent homes, she said.
2011年10月31日星期一
2011年10月30日星期日
N.J. good Samaritan protections should extend to reports of drug overdoses
New Jersey believes in being a good Samaritan, but only in certain circumstances.
The state has a selective good Samaritan law, a life-saving statute that provides legal latitude in cases that involve a minor who calls 911 for help for a severely intoxicated peer.
The New Jersey law, known as Lifeline Legislation, does not extend the same leeway, however, in cases of illegal drug use.
This inconsistency results in many unnecessary deaths, as those in the company of someone who has overdosed from an illicit drug often hesitate to call 911, for fear of legal repercussions.
The state needs to rethink its position and understand that when it comes to an overdose, the drug involved is not what is most important.
The state’s death toll stemming from drug overdoses is considerable.
A fact sheet from the Drug Policy Alliance-NJ shows that overdoses are New Jersey’s leading cause of accidental death.
Almost 6,000 people have died from drug overdoses in New Jersey since 2004; more than 700 people died from drug overdoses here in 2009 alone. These deaths are preventable.
The most vital part of saving an individual from a drug overdose does not occur in the emergency room, nor does it involve a complex medical treatment.
The most critical aspect of saving someone from an overdose is the decision to act swiftly to get the person medical attention. The chance of a person surviving an overdose often depends on the speed with which that person receives appropriate medical care.
Many individuals faced with a medical emergency stemming from drug use often hesitate to call for help or seek medical attention because of uncertainty or the fear of facing legal charges related to their own or the victim’s illicit drug use. This can be fatal.
Good Samaritan laws are proven to prevent fatal overdoses.
They increase the number of calls for medical assistance and follow-up counseling for the individual who overdosed. The same concerns about legal fallout that had prevented underage people from calling for help in cases of alcohol poisoning are even greater for a drug overdose.
Studies have shown that when limited immunity is provided to individuals who seek help for potential overdoses, the number of calls to medical personnel increases, the number of individuals who participate in counseling about drug use increases and numerous lives are saved.
The Drug Policy Alliance-NJ is compiling a video record for people who have lost a loved one because of an overdose. Some of these stories recount how a son or daughter was lost to drugs because their friends froze when they fell ill, afraid to act.
New Jersey’s neighboring state of New York has recently enacted a comprehensive good Samaritan Law.
That state’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, said about the law, “I have received compelling letters from parents whose children have died from a drug overdose or are struggling with drug addiction urging me to approve this bill.
These letters, and other information provided to me, have convinced me that this new law will save lives.”
New Jersey needs to consider Gov. Cuomo’s words as well as the source of the law’s name. The biblical story of the good Samaritan illustrates that when the opportunity to do good presents itself, one should simply act. The parable of the Samaritan who helps a man after he was robbed, beaten and left for dead by the side of the road crystallizes the moral clarity of someone with the willingness to do the right thing and not question the circumstances.
Before the Samaritan had come upon the fallen man and given him succor, two others had seen him but passed him by.
New Jersey lawmakers must stop bypassing those who overdose from drugs, leaving them to die; they need to broaden the good Samaritan law so it can save lives, no matter the drug that imperiled those lives.
The state has a selective good Samaritan law, a life-saving statute that provides legal latitude in cases that involve a minor who calls 911 for help for a severely intoxicated peer.
The New Jersey law, known as Lifeline Legislation, does not extend the same leeway, however, in cases of illegal drug use.
This inconsistency results in many unnecessary deaths, as those in the company of someone who has overdosed from an illicit drug often hesitate to call 911, for fear of legal repercussions.
The state needs to rethink its position and understand that when it comes to an overdose, the drug involved is not what is most important.
The state’s death toll stemming from drug overdoses is considerable.
A fact sheet from the Drug Policy Alliance-NJ shows that overdoses are New Jersey’s leading cause of accidental death.
Almost 6,000 people have died from drug overdoses in New Jersey since 2004; more than 700 people died from drug overdoses here in 2009 alone. These deaths are preventable.
The most vital part of saving an individual from a drug overdose does not occur in the emergency room, nor does it involve a complex medical treatment.
The most critical aspect of saving someone from an overdose is the decision to act swiftly to get the person medical attention. The chance of a person surviving an overdose often depends on the speed with which that person receives appropriate medical care.
Many individuals faced with a medical emergency stemming from drug use often hesitate to call for help or seek medical attention because of uncertainty or the fear of facing legal charges related to their own or the victim’s illicit drug use. This can be fatal.
Good Samaritan laws are proven to prevent fatal overdoses.
They increase the number of calls for medical assistance and follow-up counseling for the individual who overdosed. The same concerns about legal fallout that had prevented underage people from calling for help in cases of alcohol poisoning are even greater for a drug overdose.
Studies have shown that when limited immunity is provided to individuals who seek help for potential overdoses, the number of calls to medical personnel increases, the number of individuals who participate in counseling about drug use increases and numerous lives are saved.
The Drug Policy Alliance-NJ is compiling a video record for people who have lost a loved one because of an overdose. Some of these stories recount how a son or daughter was lost to drugs because their friends froze when they fell ill, afraid to act.
New Jersey’s neighboring state of New York has recently enacted a comprehensive good Samaritan Law.
That state’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, said about the law, “I have received compelling letters from parents whose children have died from a drug overdose or are struggling with drug addiction urging me to approve this bill.
These letters, and other information provided to me, have convinced me that this new law will save lives.”
New Jersey needs to consider Gov. Cuomo’s words as well as the source of the law’s name. The biblical story of the good Samaritan illustrates that when the opportunity to do good presents itself, one should simply act. The parable of the Samaritan who helps a man after he was robbed, beaten and left for dead by the side of the road crystallizes the moral clarity of someone with the willingness to do the right thing and not question the circumstances.
Before the Samaritan had come upon the fallen man and given him succor, two others had seen him but passed him by.
New Jersey lawmakers must stop bypassing those who overdose from drugs, leaving them to die; they need to broaden the good Samaritan law so it can save lives, no matter the drug that imperiled those lives.
2011年10月27日星期四
Friends of man shot by Shasta County deputies say meth led to violent end
Those who knew a 26-year-old Redding man shot and killed by a Shasta County sheriff’s deputy Tuesday night describe him as a nice man, a good father and a hard worker whose life fell into an abyss of crime and violence because of his addiction to methamphetamine.
“I know he did a terrible thing to someone else, but he was a good person when he wasn’t on drugs,” said Amanda Torras, a 27-year-old Redding woman whose daughter used to play with James Thomas Jobe’s little girl.
Torras said when she first met Jobe working at Redding’s Red Lion Inn nearly a decade ago she never would have expected his life to end the way it did Tuesday night.
Redding police investigators say a deputy was forced to shoot Jobe after he somehow got his hands on another deputy’s baton and beat that deputy to the point he needed 26 staples in his head to close the wounds. When he was shot, Jobe was trying to wrest the deputy’s pistol from him as the two grappled on the side of Interstate 5 in north Redding, investigators say.
Police say the deputy was bleeding so badly his blood soaked the crime scene.
Torras didn’t offer excuses for Jobe’s violent end, but she said she wanted those who may judge him to know that he wasn’t always a violent meth addict, one so paranoid that another friend, the woman who was pulled over driving Jobe Tuesday night, said he bolted when he saw red and blue lights flashing in the pickup’s rear view mirror.
In fact, Torras said, there was a time when she felt him safe enough to watch her daughter, while she and the mother of Jobe’s now 5-year-old girl ran errands.
Torras said she first met Jobe at the hotel’s restaurant around 2003. She said he impressed her with his work ethic. She said she watched as he worked his way up from a dishwasher to a line cook, she said.
“He was a good guy, a great worker,” Torras said. “Then he went the wrong way.”
His habit got him fired from that job and from another he later landed at different Redding restaurant, she said.
Torras said Jobe was in a long-term relationship with his daughter’s mother, her friend. She said the mother, too is battling a meth addiction and she has since distanced herself from her.
The couple split up about two years ago. Torras said that’s when Jobe’s life seemed to spiral out of control. She said it’s reflected in his crime reports.
Jobe had a history of drug and weapons offenses in Shasta County. He had been arrested eight times in the past 15 months, police said.
He was due to be arraigned Monday on a felony count of possession of a controlled substance and misdemeanor counts of being a felon in possession of a stun gun, as well as being in possession of controlled substance paraphernalia and a hypodermic needle or a syringe.
Sheriff Tom Bosenko has said Jobe’s most recent arrest was late last month. A criminal complaint was filed on Oct. 17.
Elizabeth Theresa Couts, 47, of Burney, the woman driving the pickup from which Jobe fled Tuesday, said Jobe ran from the truck because he thought he had warrants out for his arrest. She said she’d only known Jobe for about four months.
The two had been roommates.
“I was trying to get him into fishing and stuff to try to keep his mind off other bad things,” Couts said Thursday, tears welling in her eyes. “I just thought he was a really nice person. He was only 26. Nobody deserves to die that young. He still had his whole life ahead of him.”
Couts said before they were pulled over, Jobe was telling her he wanted to try to see his daughter.
Torras said Jobe’s little girl is being watched by her grandmother, because the girl’s mother is unable to care for her.
She said she didn’t want to give the girl’s name because she hopes she can grow up without being associated with her father’s violent end, and with the meth use that has ruined her family — and plagued a community.
“I see it mess up families all the time. You see them walking around, and you look at all the arrests,” Torras said. “It makes me realize I hate that crap. I can’t stand it.”
“I know he did a terrible thing to someone else, but he was a good person when he wasn’t on drugs,” said Amanda Torras, a 27-year-old Redding woman whose daughter used to play with James Thomas Jobe’s little girl.
Torras said when she first met Jobe working at Redding’s Red Lion Inn nearly a decade ago she never would have expected his life to end the way it did Tuesday night.
Redding police investigators say a deputy was forced to shoot Jobe after he somehow got his hands on another deputy’s baton and beat that deputy to the point he needed 26 staples in his head to close the wounds. When he was shot, Jobe was trying to wrest the deputy’s pistol from him as the two grappled on the side of Interstate 5 in north Redding, investigators say.
Police say the deputy was bleeding so badly his blood soaked the crime scene.
Torras didn’t offer excuses for Jobe’s violent end, but she said she wanted those who may judge him to know that he wasn’t always a violent meth addict, one so paranoid that another friend, the woman who was pulled over driving Jobe Tuesday night, said he bolted when he saw red and blue lights flashing in the pickup’s rear view mirror.
In fact, Torras said, there was a time when she felt him safe enough to watch her daughter, while she and the mother of Jobe’s now 5-year-old girl ran errands.
Torras said she first met Jobe at the hotel’s restaurant around 2003. She said he impressed her with his work ethic. She said she watched as he worked his way up from a dishwasher to a line cook, she said.
“He was a good guy, a great worker,” Torras said. “Then he went the wrong way.”
His habit got him fired from that job and from another he later landed at different Redding restaurant, she said.
Torras said Jobe was in a long-term relationship with his daughter’s mother, her friend. She said the mother, too is battling a meth addiction and she has since distanced herself from her.
The couple split up about two years ago. Torras said that’s when Jobe’s life seemed to spiral out of control. She said it’s reflected in his crime reports.
Jobe had a history of drug and weapons offenses in Shasta County. He had been arrested eight times in the past 15 months, police said.
He was due to be arraigned Monday on a felony count of possession of a controlled substance and misdemeanor counts of being a felon in possession of a stun gun, as well as being in possession of controlled substance paraphernalia and a hypodermic needle or a syringe.
Sheriff Tom Bosenko has said Jobe’s most recent arrest was late last month. A criminal complaint was filed on Oct. 17.
Elizabeth Theresa Couts, 47, of Burney, the woman driving the pickup from which Jobe fled Tuesday, said Jobe ran from the truck because he thought he had warrants out for his arrest. She said she’d only known Jobe for about four months.
The two had been roommates.
“I was trying to get him into fishing and stuff to try to keep his mind off other bad things,” Couts said Thursday, tears welling in her eyes. “I just thought he was a really nice person. He was only 26. Nobody deserves to die that young. He still had his whole life ahead of him.”
Couts said before they were pulled over, Jobe was telling her he wanted to try to see his daughter.
Torras said Jobe’s little girl is being watched by her grandmother, because the girl’s mother is unable to care for her.
She said she didn’t want to give the girl’s name because she hopes she can grow up without being associated with her father’s violent end, and with the meth use that has ruined her family — and plagued a community.
“I see it mess up families all the time. You see them walking around, and you look at all the arrests,” Torras said. “It makes me realize I hate that crap. I can’t stand it.”
2011年10月26日星期三
Drug Possession, Larceny, Assault
Southampton Town Police arrested a 38-year-old Riverhead woman and 41-year-old man from upstate New York on drug charges last week.
Police said officers approached Tara Bennett and Brian Hambrick, who were parked on the corner of Flanders Road and Enterprise Zone Drive in Riverside on Oct. 18 at about 12:42 a.m. Bennett, the passenger, admitted to officers that she had a needle and crack cocaine with her, according to a police report.
Police said they discovered that Hambrick, who is from Monroe, New York had crack in a glass pipe.
Bennett was charged with seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and criminal possession of a hypodermic needle, both misdemeanors. Police charged Hambrick with seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, a misdemeanor.
Christopher Dopkins, 48, of Mount Sinai was arrested and charged with DWI on Oct. 15, after he was allegedly caught driving a party bus while nearly three times the legal limit, according to police.
Dopkins, who worked for Red Carpet Limousines, was driving a wine tour bus with 25 passengers on Sound Avenue when a man at his company called to speak to Dopkins. The Red Carpet official thought Dopkins sounded intoxicated and called police, said Lt. Robert Peeker.
Police also received a call from a witness who said the bus driver drove over a traffic sign, Peeker said. Police pulled Dopkins over in the parking lot of East Wind, where he blew a .21 blood alcohol content, police said.
"[The passengers] were going out to have a good time so they could drink, but unfortunately he violated that trust," Peeker said. He added that no children were on the bus at the time.
Dopkins was charged with Aggravated DWI, a felony, and held for arraignment.
A Riverhead man told police that two unknown men put him in a chokehold, stole money from his wallet, threw him to he ground and punched him in the head, according to a police report.
The alleged victim told police he was walking on Segal Avenue in Riverhead when two men approached him and "asked him if he wanted to do business," according to a report. When the victim said no and began to walk away, he was grabbed from behind and put in a chokehold, police said. One of the men reached into the victim's pocket and took out his phone and wallet, emptying the wallet of about $348 dollars in cash. The two men then allegedly threw the victim to the ground and punched him in the head.
The two suspects were allegedly last seen by the victim getting into a black vehicle occupied by two other unknown suspects, police said.
The victim reported no injuries after the mugging, according to a police report. Police said they are still investigating the incident.
A Miller Place man was stopped on the Northern State Parkway near Glen Cove Road Thursday morning for moving unsafely from lane to lane, New York State Police said.
When stopped at approximately 11:20 a.m., the trooper noticed the driver, Jeffrey Albano, 47, of Miller Place, had constricted pupils, droopy eyelids and slow speech. After failing sobriety tests, he was arrested for DWI Drugs. A search of the vehicle then revealed eight decks of heroin, police said.
Albano complained of pain in his feet and legs while in custody and was taken to Nassau University Medical Center for observation, where he began spitting at members of the hospital staff and using offensive language, according to police.
He was arrested for DWI Drugs, seventh degree criminal possession of a controlled substance (a misdemeanor), disorderly conduct and traffic violations.
Police said officers approached Tara Bennett and Brian Hambrick, who were parked on the corner of Flanders Road and Enterprise Zone Drive in Riverside on Oct. 18 at about 12:42 a.m. Bennett, the passenger, admitted to officers that she had a needle and crack cocaine with her, according to a police report.
Police said they discovered that Hambrick, who is from Monroe, New York had crack in a glass pipe.
Bennett was charged with seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and criminal possession of a hypodermic needle, both misdemeanors. Police charged Hambrick with seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, a misdemeanor.
Christopher Dopkins, 48, of Mount Sinai was arrested and charged with DWI on Oct. 15, after he was allegedly caught driving a party bus while nearly three times the legal limit, according to police.
Dopkins, who worked for Red Carpet Limousines, was driving a wine tour bus with 25 passengers on Sound Avenue when a man at his company called to speak to Dopkins. The Red Carpet official thought Dopkins sounded intoxicated and called police, said Lt. Robert Peeker.
Police also received a call from a witness who said the bus driver drove over a traffic sign, Peeker said. Police pulled Dopkins over in the parking lot of East Wind, where he blew a .21 blood alcohol content, police said.
"[The passengers] were going out to have a good time so they could drink, but unfortunately he violated that trust," Peeker said. He added that no children were on the bus at the time.
Dopkins was charged with Aggravated DWI, a felony, and held for arraignment.
A Riverhead man told police that two unknown men put him in a chokehold, stole money from his wallet, threw him to he ground and punched him in the head, according to a police report.
The alleged victim told police he was walking on Segal Avenue in Riverhead when two men approached him and "asked him if he wanted to do business," according to a report. When the victim said no and began to walk away, he was grabbed from behind and put in a chokehold, police said. One of the men reached into the victim's pocket and took out his phone and wallet, emptying the wallet of about $348 dollars in cash. The two men then allegedly threw the victim to the ground and punched him in the head.
The two suspects were allegedly last seen by the victim getting into a black vehicle occupied by two other unknown suspects, police said.
The victim reported no injuries after the mugging, according to a police report. Police said they are still investigating the incident.
A Miller Place man was stopped on the Northern State Parkway near Glen Cove Road Thursday morning for moving unsafely from lane to lane, New York State Police said.
When stopped at approximately 11:20 a.m., the trooper noticed the driver, Jeffrey Albano, 47, of Miller Place, had constricted pupils, droopy eyelids and slow speech. After failing sobriety tests, he was arrested for DWI Drugs. A search of the vehicle then revealed eight decks of heroin, police said.
Albano complained of pain in his feet and legs while in custody and was taken to Nassau University Medical Center for observation, where he began spitting at members of the hospital staff and using offensive language, according to police.
He was arrested for DWI Drugs, seventh degree criminal possession of a controlled substance (a misdemeanor), disorderly conduct and traffic violations.
2011年10月25日星期二
Gillnetters Target Up-Market Salmon
When Kirk Hardcastle thinks of wild salmon, he see strawberries and champagne grapes: delicacies requiring special treatment.
“They’re just as fragile,” said Hardcastle, a Juneau gillnetter who grew up in California’s wine country and married into an Alaska fishing family. “If you have 10 or 12 people handling a strawberry from the time it’s picked until the time it winds up on your plate, what do you get? A bruised strawberry.”
For Hardcastle, salmon’s the same. After navigating thousands of miles through fresh and salt water over the course of years to finally spawn in their natal streams, these athletic, nutrient-rich fish should be treated extremely carefully when hauled aboard and processed.
“These fish deserve to be honored,” he said.
It’s with that passion and respect for wild salmon that Hardcastle and his wife, Heather, together with her parents and two close friends, have built a successful artisan seafood company. The couple can be described as meticulous about how they handle their catch. Some might say fanatical.
As co-owners of Taku River Reds (TRR,) a direct-market seafood business based in Juneau, the Hardcastles are setting new standards for the gillnet-caught salmon they sell, mainly to high-end restaurants and markets in the Lower 48 and Hawaii.
“We freak out if we see someone handling our fish by the tail,” said Heather, a second-generation fisherman who was born and raised in Alaska’s rain-soaked capital.
Picking up a salmon by the tail forces blood back into the body cavity which leads to faster decomposition and that smelly fish odor, according to Heather.
The Hardcastle operation is more than just about delicate handling. It’s a business ethic that ensures every step of the salmon’s ocean-to-table journey results in a product that commands top dollar and yields superior taste.
“The quality is the best that I’ve been able to find in the market. Not only the way it looks at first glance, but the flavor and the shelf life. It’s beyond anything I’ve seen,” said seafood industry expert Tom Worthington, a partner of San Francisco-based Monterey Fish Market.
Intravenous Pressure Bleeding
Taku River salmon appear perfect, of course, when pulled from the water. But unless proper steps are taken immediately, the quality can quickly deteriorate. TRR crew members not only clean and ice the fish as soon as they’re hauled aboard but they go one step father. Every sockeye, coho and king caught and handled by TRR under goes intravenous pressure bleeding. It’s akin to the embalming process used to preserve bodies except no preservatives or chemicals ever go anywhere near these highly prized salmon.
After a TRR salmon is brought on deck, a crewman slices it head off, removes the guts and inserts a hypodermic needle attached to a seawater pump into the fish’s dorsal aorta, the major artery that moves oxygenated blood from the gills throughout the body. The pressurized water flushes through the salmon’s circulatory system, forcing out nearly all the blood. Next, the crewman inserts the needle again, this time into the caudal artery, forcing any remaining blood out of the muscles and tissue and rendering a product that looks clean, smells like the ocean and remains fresh for about a week longer than non-pressure bled fish, according to the Hardcastles.
“The salt in the seawater pushed through the fish acts as a natural preservative so the salmon stays fresh a lot longer than it otherwise would,” said Dave Faulk, owner of Porterhouse, a luxury market that features meat, seafood, wine and cheese in Eagle, Idaho.
Pressure bleeding is labor intensive and time consuming. Very few gillnetters and only a few trollers invest the effort in it, said Glenn Haight, development manager with the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development.
“What Heather and Kirk are doing is pretty cutting edge. They’ve carved out a nice niche for themselves and they deserve a lot of credit,” said Haight.
Discerning Buyers
Pressure-bled salmon tend to appeal to discerning fish buyers – some might call them food snobs -- who prize aesthetics as well as freshness and taste. Because a pressure-bled salmon carries practically zero blood, the fish appears nearly immaculate, lacking the dark-red lines down the belly or blood smudges that non-pressure-bled salmon commonly have.
“You can see belly burn within a few hours unless it’s pressure-bled,” said Worthington. “The blood is the first thing that goes sour.”
While pressure-bled salmon costs more, many consumers appreciate the higher quality and are willing to pay for it, Faulk said. In July, he was retailing TRR king salmon for $22 a pound and sockeye at $18.99 a pound. He purchased it from TRR at $10 per pound for kings and $7.50 for sockeye. The mark-up includes the cost of his freight, employees who fillet and sell the fish to customers, and other overhead.
“My customers are people who can afford pressure-bled salmon and who want top-quality fish,” Faulk said.
Photographs of the TRR crew in rain gear hang on his seafood case. People love to know that a pair of Alaskan families actually caught the fish that will be on their dinner plate that night, Faulk said. Elisa Jordan, the meat and seafood manager at Boise Co-op who spent several days fishing with the TRR crew a few years ago, said customers seem fascinated by TRR’s story.
“I tell them about a woman on the boat who, before she cut off the salmon’s head, said ‘thank you’ to the fish. These people are obsessed about treating the salmon with care,” Jordan said.
TRR’s niche seafood serves the growing “slow food” movement comprised of people who eschew fast food and mass-produced grocery products in favor of healthier, sustainably raised meat, fish, produce and dairy items, Faulk noted. Although obesity continues to expand America’s collective waistline, the slow food trend is gaining traction and TRR is grabbing a slice of that lucrative market, Faulk said.
TRR is what the industry calls a direct marketer. The company has cut out the middle man and sells directly to buyers, taking charge of most aspects of the supply chain.
Direct marketing is not for the feint of heart. It’s a risky proposition on multiple fronts, including: making the investment to buy a permit, boat and equipment; securing markets; battling Alaska’s notorious weather; locating and harvesting often elusive fish; resolving mechanical problems; securing and satisfying finicky customers.
And then, there’s raw, physical labor involved.
“It’s a lot of hassle if you have to fish all day and then come back and have to handle the processing, packing and shipping,” said Tyson Fick, communications director for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. “The advantage is maybe you squeeze a little more money out of each fish. And on the restaurant side, you can tell customers exactly where you got the fish.”
The depth of work was apparent during an offload in Juneau’s Harris Harbor last summer. As the F/V Heather Anne pulled up to the dock after a three-day opener, sheer exhaustion showed on the crew’s faces. At least six more hours of hard work still lay ahead. Remaining tasks included transferring the fish from the vessel to a waiting truck, driving the catch to a warehouse for sorting and packaging, and then driving the fish boxes to the airport for loading on jets bound for the Lower 48 and Hawaii. Accounting and boat maintenance followed.
Despite the work and risk involved, TRR appears to be holding its own. The Hardcastles and their partners, Len and Sheila Peterson, and Renee and Winston Warr, have taken things gradually, building their business one step at a time.
Still, the economic recession has not bypassed the company.
“When the economy tanked in 2008, our sales dropped considerably. We’re still rebuilding,” said Len “Pete” Peterson, who founded the company along with his wife, Sheila.
“They’re just as fragile,” said Hardcastle, a Juneau gillnetter who grew up in California’s wine country and married into an Alaska fishing family. “If you have 10 or 12 people handling a strawberry from the time it’s picked until the time it winds up on your plate, what do you get? A bruised strawberry.”
For Hardcastle, salmon’s the same. After navigating thousands of miles through fresh and salt water over the course of years to finally spawn in their natal streams, these athletic, nutrient-rich fish should be treated extremely carefully when hauled aboard and processed.
“These fish deserve to be honored,” he said.
It’s with that passion and respect for wild salmon that Hardcastle and his wife, Heather, together with her parents and two close friends, have built a successful artisan seafood company. The couple can be described as meticulous about how they handle their catch. Some might say fanatical.
As co-owners of Taku River Reds (TRR,) a direct-market seafood business based in Juneau, the Hardcastles are setting new standards for the gillnet-caught salmon they sell, mainly to high-end restaurants and markets in the Lower 48 and Hawaii.
“We freak out if we see someone handling our fish by the tail,” said Heather, a second-generation fisherman who was born and raised in Alaska’s rain-soaked capital.
Picking up a salmon by the tail forces blood back into the body cavity which leads to faster decomposition and that smelly fish odor, according to Heather.
The Hardcastle operation is more than just about delicate handling. It’s a business ethic that ensures every step of the salmon’s ocean-to-table journey results in a product that commands top dollar and yields superior taste.
“The quality is the best that I’ve been able to find in the market. Not only the way it looks at first glance, but the flavor and the shelf life. It’s beyond anything I’ve seen,” said seafood industry expert Tom Worthington, a partner of San Francisco-based Monterey Fish Market.
Intravenous Pressure Bleeding
Taku River salmon appear perfect, of course, when pulled from the water. But unless proper steps are taken immediately, the quality can quickly deteriorate. TRR crew members not only clean and ice the fish as soon as they’re hauled aboard but they go one step father. Every sockeye, coho and king caught and handled by TRR under goes intravenous pressure bleeding. It’s akin to the embalming process used to preserve bodies except no preservatives or chemicals ever go anywhere near these highly prized salmon.
After a TRR salmon is brought on deck, a crewman slices it head off, removes the guts and inserts a hypodermic needle attached to a seawater pump into the fish’s dorsal aorta, the major artery that moves oxygenated blood from the gills throughout the body. The pressurized water flushes through the salmon’s circulatory system, forcing out nearly all the blood. Next, the crewman inserts the needle again, this time into the caudal artery, forcing any remaining blood out of the muscles and tissue and rendering a product that looks clean, smells like the ocean and remains fresh for about a week longer than non-pressure bled fish, according to the Hardcastles.
“The salt in the seawater pushed through the fish acts as a natural preservative so the salmon stays fresh a lot longer than it otherwise would,” said Dave Faulk, owner of Porterhouse, a luxury market that features meat, seafood, wine and cheese in Eagle, Idaho.
Pressure bleeding is labor intensive and time consuming. Very few gillnetters and only a few trollers invest the effort in it, said Glenn Haight, development manager with the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development.
“What Heather and Kirk are doing is pretty cutting edge. They’ve carved out a nice niche for themselves and they deserve a lot of credit,” said Haight.
Discerning Buyers
Pressure-bled salmon tend to appeal to discerning fish buyers – some might call them food snobs -- who prize aesthetics as well as freshness and taste. Because a pressure-bled salmon carries practically zero blood, the fish appears nearly immaculate, lacking the dark-red lines down the belly or blood smudges that non-pressure-bled salmon commonly have.
“You can see belly burn within a few hours unless it’s pressure-bled,” said Worthington. “The blood is the first thing that goes sour.”
While pressure-bled salmon costs more, many consumers appreciate the higher quality and are willing to pay for it, Faulk said. In July, he was retailing TRR king salmon for $22 a pound and sockeye at $18.99 a pound. He purchased it from TRR at $10 per pound for kings and $7.50 for sockeye. The mark-up includes the cost of his freight, employees who fillet and sell the fish to customers, and other overhead.
“My customers are people who can afford pressure-bled salmon and who want top-quality fish,” Faulk said.
Photographs of the TRR crew in rain gear hang on his seafood case. People love to know that a pair of Alaskan families actually caught the fish that will be on their dinner plate that night, Faulk said. Elisa Jordan, the meat and seafood manager at Boise Co-op who spent several days fishing with the TRR crew a few years ago, said customers seem fascinated by TRR’s story.
“I tell them about a woman on the boat who, before she cut off the salmon’s head, said ‘thank you’ to the fish. These people are obsessed about treating the salmon with care,” Jordan said.
TRR’s niche seafood serves the growing “slow food” movement comprised of people who eschew fast food and mass-produced grocery products in favor of healthier, sustainably raised meat, fish, produce and dairy items, Faulk noted. Although obesity continues to expand America’s collective waistline, the slow food trend is gaining traction and TRR is grabbing a slice of that lucrative market, Faulk said.
TRR is what the industry calls a direct marketer. The company has cut out the middle man and sells directly to buyers, taking charge of most aspects of the supply chain.
Direct marketing is not for the feint of heart. It’s a risky proposition on multiple fronts, including: making the investment to buy a permit, boat and equipment; securing markets; battling Alaska’s notorious weather; locating and harvesting often elusive fish; resolving mechanical problems; securing and satisfying finicky customers.
And then, there’s raw, physical labor involved.
“It’s a lot of hassle if you have to fish all day and then come back and have to handle the processing, packing and shipping,” said Tyson Fick, communications director for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. “The advantage is maybe you squeeze a little more money out of each fish. And on the restaurant side, you can tell customers exactly where you got the fish.”
The depth of work was apparent during an offload in Juneau’s Harris Harbor last summer. As the F/V Heather Anne pulled up to the dock after a three-day opener, sheer exhaustion showed on the crew’s faces. At least six more hours of hard work still lay ahead. Remaining tasks included transferring the fish from the vessel to a waiting truck, driving the catch to a warehouse for sorting and packaging, and then driving the fish boxes to the airport for loading on jets bound for the Lower 48 and Hawaii. Accounting and boat maintenance followed.
Despite the work and risk involved, TRR appears to be holding its own. The Hardcastles and their partners, Len and Sheila Peterson, and Renee and Winston Warr, have taken things gradually, building their business one step at a time.
Still, the economic recession has not bypassed the company.
“When the economy tanked in 2008, our sales dropped considerably. We’re still rebuilding,” said Len “Pete” Peterson, who founded the company along with his wife, Sheila.
2011年10月24日星期一
Woman Caught with Class B Drug Suboxone
Police on Sunday caught an Arlington woman in a car with several hypodermic needles and a substance that officials believe to be Suboxone, a class B in Massachusetts.
Capt. Richad Flynn, of the Arlington Police Department, said the matter remains under investigation and the woman’s identity won’t be revealed at this time. According to the incident report, she is to be summonsed for possession of a class B drug, but she was not arrested or charged with a crime.
The stop happened on Mystic Valley Parkway, after a passerby told police there were three people inside a white car, acting suspiciously.
There were two men and a woman in a white Honda, according to the report. Police noted the back passenger had placed a dark blue hooded sweatshirt on the floor of the car.
The driver of the car, who has not been identified, said they were “just hanging out,” and the woman said, “Waiting for a friend,” according to the report.
The officer asked the trio to get out of the car. He noticed about 10 capped and uncapped hypodermic needles throughout the vehicle, according to the report.
In the dark blue sweatshirt, police found a spoon and an uncapped needle, according to the report.
Police asked to search the woman’s bag. Inside, they allegedly found an orange substance wrapped in glassine packaging, which police believe to be Suboxone.
The woman told police it was a small amount of the class B drug and that she forgot it was in there.
Possession of a class B drug in Massachusetts can result in a maximum sentece of one year in jail for the first offense and up to two years for the second. Other drugs also considered in the same class are cocaine, LSD, ecstasy and methamphetamine. Heroin and morphine are class A drugs.
Capt. Richad Flynn, of the Arlington Police Department, said the matter remains under investigation and the woman’s identity won’t be revealed at this time. According to the incident report, she is to be summonsed for possession of a class B drug, but she was not arrested or charged with a crime.
The stop happened on Mystic Valley Parkway, after a passerby told police there were three people inside a white car, acting suspiciously.
There were two men and a woman in a white Honda, according to the report. Police noted the back passenger had placed a dark blue hooded sweatshirt on the floor of the car.
The driver of the car, who has not been identified, said they were “just hanging out,” and the woman said, “Waiting for a friend,” according to the report.
The officer asked the trio to get out of the car. He noticed about 10 capped and uncapped hypodermic needles throughout the vehicle, according to the report.
In the dark blue sweatshirt, police found a spoon and an uncapped needle, according to the report.
Police asked to search the woman’s bag. Inside, they allegedly found an orange substance wrapped in glassine packaging, which police believe to be Suboxone.
The woman told police it was a small amount of the class B drug and that she forgot it was in there.
Possession of a class B drug in Massachusetts can result in a maximum sentece of one year in jail for the first offense and up to two years for the second. Other drugs also considered in the same class are cocaine, LSD, ecstasy and methamphetamine. Heroin and morphine are class A drugs.
2011年10月23日星期日
The Spoiled Brats Occupying Wall Street!
What blind suckers many Americans have become in thinking that government will be their champion. In a free society the only defense is the strength, knowledge and experience of the individual who will use that strength against all forces that would attempt to take away their life, their liberty, their property and their pursuit of happiness. Circling around all Americans today are the political and special interest vultures that get their kicks out of herding and manipulating the masses for their own gain.
The people protesting in the streets in the national “Occupy Wall Street” circus are nothing but disgruntled, ungrateful, spoiled, ner-do-well brats who don’t work but smoke pot, shoot up heroin, defecate on cop cars, engage in public sex, disrupt businesses and generally make an infuriating nuisance of themselves. They are exploited, funded and supported by unions, communists, socialists, illegal aliens, radical environmentalists, one-world-order types and the anti-war crowd. Hundreds of arrests have occurred around the country in these protests, while arrests in the millions of the peaceful folk that took part in the tea party rallies, numbered on one hand.
Do you ever wonder why that is and why the mainstream media can’t seem to tell the difference? To House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the Tea Partiers were Astroturf, but she thinks that the Occupy Wall Street crowd represent the true grass roots of America. That’s OK. Nancy is about 10 cards short of a full deck anyway. She was the one that said we have to pass Obama’s health care bill “to see what was in it!” But we digress.
These throwbacks to the 1960s flower-children rejects camped out in downtown Manhattan, have been brainwashed into thinking that it is those that control the money and horde the wealth that are the enemies of the common man, whatever that is. They get this pile of dung in our public schools and colleges. It is parroted by the media and by the talking points of the liberal left. Government adds to the din by providing the overall propaganda for their progressive political agenda, which is repeated ad nauseam across the fruited plains.
That people so naive, ignorant, lazy and weak can call themselves Americans, is beyond comprehension. They could have never won the American Revolution, pioneered the west, or fueled the fire of entrepreneurs that were and are the power and strength of this once-great nation. They could have never been the creators, the inventors, the doers, the engineers, the architects, the funders, or much less the workers that built railroads, bridges, super highways, skyscrapers, war ships, airplanes, or grow the food that feeds not only a hungry nation, but at least one third of the world as well.
They are the hanger-ons, the leaches, the whiners, the complainers and those that feed shamelessly at the government pig trough. They want someone else to do the heavy lifting for them and they want to get paid for doing nothing. They lobby government to steal their ill-gotten handouts for them, from the achievers, the plodders and the hard workers. They wrongly believe that because they might be less well off than the Wall Street types, the bankers, the company presidents, the hedge fund managers, or a whole host of others who keep the engines of commerce humming, they have a claim or a right to the earnings of those achievers. Government is only too quick to plant that socialist thought in their minds in exchange for their votes, with a constant barrage of indoctrination and class warfare, as Obama has been doing for almost three years now.
For those who don’t seem to have the intellect to grasp it, there will always be the rich and the poor among us in every nation because of the inviolate golden rule of “Those with the Gold, Rule!” The difference between America and other nations is that our freedom and the U. S. Constitution allow the opportunity for the poor to become rich, that is if they have the ambition, the knowledge and the experience to compete on the national stage. And because of this opportunity that a free society encourages, America has one of the highest middle classes on the planet. If the middle class is shrinking, it can be laid directly at the feet of government who sucks the ambition out of people by providing them with free handouts. Adversity and failure create strength, winners and ultimate success. Government giveaways without responsibility, create mediocrity, self-loathing, self-pity and losers.
In all of life there are winners and losers. Animals, birds, insects, plants and humans alike are not immune. The problem comes in humans when the government gets to choose who gets to win and who gets to lose. The other problem that comes is when the people don’t hold their elected representatives to their oath of office where they solemnly swear to preserve, protect and defend the U. S. Constitution, so help them God. If the people don’t care, or they want too much from government, government will secretly burn the constitution in effigy to satisfy the irrational wants of the people and then turn around and quote from it when it serves their evil purposes.
The miscreants that are now occupying Wall Street and other downtown centers across the globe, are placing their emphasis on the wrong syllable. It is quite possible that many at the top and several rungs down the ladder within the financial community deserve to be behind bars. But it is the unholy alliance between government and the financial community that breaks the rules to enrich themselves, on Wall Street or in Washington DC. If the occupiers are looking for a villain at which to point their finger and express their anger, they need to be protesting in front of the White House and the U. S. Capitol building, the occupants of which engage in racketeering with the moneychangers in exchange for political power and a seat at the table of the financial elite and powerful. Many in political power should also be behind bars as well. Crony capitalism, backroom deals and insider trading are the rule in politics and business, rather than the exception. But none of this would be possible if politicians or the people were honorable and could not be corrupted by money and power.
In the end, it boils down to an electorate that doesn’t care or wants too much from government and politicians without honor who can’t resist a payoff in return for a larger bank account, or the votes necessary to remain in power.
The solution to all this is not so easy. How do you replace the lack of honor, integrity and honesty in an entire culture where a large percentage of the people have thrown all three attributes into the trash heap and position themselves to be on the receiving end of thousands, millions, billions or trillions of dollars that fall magically out of the sky if you just happen to be at the right place at the right time .... or know someone?
America was built on individual, unalienable rights, as a gift from our creator and on the corresponding duty of individual responsibility. Its strength comes from individual thought and individual achievement. America is not a collective or a socialist society where the rights or desires of the many, or the mob, have priority over the rights of the minority. Without individual rights, individual achievement and individual responsibility, America is just another third-rate protectorate.
“The Parallax Prophecies” predicts that until the nation heals itself and reclaims the characteristics of goodness and honor and rejects and roots out corruption at every level, America will slowly decay into a non-exceptional, bankrupt, corrupt and third-world country. The problem is, that decay is now increasing at an exponential rate and there is little time to insert a course correction before it is too late.
All these attempts to fix the “system” by well meaning individuals and groups, is a little like trying to insert a hypodermic needle into a spinning tennis ball. The needle would go in, if the ball would ever stop spinning. But alas the ball just keeps going round and round, defying every single or multiple attempts to bring it to a halt. The nagging question is, whom or what will stop the ball from spinning and bring our lives and America under the umbrella of freedom again?
Are any of the solutions to our dilemma peaceful, or are we too far gone such that peaceful solutions are no longer viable? The election of 2012 may give us the answer, but it may not be the answer we want to hear.
The people protesting in the streets in the national “Occupy Wall Street” circus are nothing but disgruntled, ungrateful, spoiled, ner-do-well brats who don’t work but smoke pot, shoot up heroin, defecate on cop cars, engage in public sex, disrupt businesses and generally make an infuriating nuisance of themselves. They are exploited, funded and supported by unions, communists, socialists, illegal aliens, radical environmentalists, one-world-order types and the anti-war crowd. Hundreds of arrests have occurred around the country in these protests, while arrests in the millions of the peaceful folk that took part in the tea party rallies, numbered on one hand.
Do you ever wonder why that is and why the mainstream media can’t seem to tell the difference? To House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the Tea Partiers were Astroturf, but she thinks that the Occupy Wall Street crowd represent the true grass roots of America. That’s OK. Nancy is about 10 cards short of a full deck anyway. She was the one that said we have to pass Obama’s health care bill “to see what was in it!” But we digress.
These throwbacks to the 1960s flower-children rejects camped out in downtown Manhattan, have been brainwashed into thinking that it is those that control the money and horde the wealth that are the enemies of the common man, whatever that is. They get this pile of dung in our public schools and colleges. It is parroted by the media and by the talking points of the liberal left. Government adds to the din by providing the overall propaganda for their progressive political agenda, which is repeated ad nauseam across the fruited plains.
That people so naive, ignorant, lazy and weak can call themselves Americans, is beyond comprehension. They could have never won the American Revolution, pioneered the west, or fueled the fire of entrepreneurs that were and are the power and strength of this once-great nation. They could have never been the creators, the inventors, the doers, the engineers, the architects, the funders, or much less the workers that built railroads, bridges, super highways, skyscrapers, war ships, airplanes, or grow the food that feeds not only a hungry nation, but at least one third of the world as well.
They are the hanger-ons, the leaches, the whiners, the complainers and those that feed shamelessly at the government pig trough. They want someone else to do the heavy lifting for them and they want to get paid for doing nothing. They lobby government to steal their ill-gotten handouts for them, from the achievers, the plodders and the hard workers. They wrongly believe that because they might be less well off than the Wall Street types, the bankers, the company presidents, the hedge fund managers, or a whole host of others who keep the engines of commerce humming, they have a claim or a right to the earnings of those achievers. Government is only too quick to plant that socialist thought in their minds in exchange for their votes, with a constant barrage of indoctrination and class warfare, as Obama has been doing for almost three years now.
For those who don’t seem to have the intellect to grasp it, there will always be the rich and the poor among us in every nation because of the inviolate golden rule of “Those with the Gold, Rule!” The difference between America and other nations is that our freedom and the U. S. Constitution allow the opportunity for the poor to become rich, that is if they have the ambition, the knowledge and the experience to compete on the national stage. And because of this opportunity that a free society encourages, America has one of the highest middle classes on the planet. If the middle class is shrinking, it can be laid directly at the feet of government who sucks the ambition out of people by providing them with free handouts. Adversity and failure create strength, winners and ultimate success. Government giveaways without responsibility, create mediocrity, self-loathing, self-pity and losers.
In all of life there are winners and losers. Animals, birds, insects, plants and humans alike are not immune. The problem comes in humans when the government gets to choose who gets to win and who gets to lose. The other problem that comes is when the people don’t hold their elected representatives to their oath of office where they solemnly swear to preserve, protect and defend the U. S. Constitution, so help them God. If the people don’t care, or they want too much from government, government will secretly burn the constitution in effigy to satisfy the irrational wants of the people and then turn around and quote from it when it serves their evil purposes.
The miscreants that are now occupying Wall Street and other downtown centers across the globe, are placing their emphasis on the wrong syllable. It is quite possible that many at the top and several rungs down the ladder within the financial community deserve to be behind bars. But it is the unholy alliance between government and the financial community that breaks the rules to enrich themselves, on Wall Street or in Washington DC. If the occupiers are looking for a villain at which to point their finger and express their anger, they need to be protesting in front of the White House and the U. S. Capitol building, the occupants of which engage in racketeering with the moneychangers in exchange for political power and a seat at the table of the financial elite and powerful. Many in political power should also be behind bars as well. Crony capitalism, backroom deals and insider trading are the rule in politics and business, rather than the exception. But none of this would be possible if politicians or the people were honorable and could not be corrupted by money and power.
In the end, it boils down to an electorate that doesn’t care or wants too much from government and politicians without honor who can’t resist a payoff in return for a larger bank account, or the votes necessary to remain in power.
The solution to all this is not so easy. How do you replace the lack of honor, integrity and honesty in an entire culture where a large percentage of the people have thrown all three attributes into the trash heap and position themselves to be on the receiving end of thousands, millions, billions or trillions of dollars that fall magically out of the sky if you just happen to be at the right place at the right time .... or know someone?
America was built on individual, unalienable rights, as a gift from our creator and on the corresponding duty of individual responsibility. Its strength comes from individual thought and individual achievement. America is not a collective or a socialist society where the rights or desires of the many, or the mob, have priority over the rights of the minority. Without individual rights, individual achievement and individual responsibility, America is just another third-rate protectorate.
“The Parallax Prophecies” predicts that until the nation heals itself and reclaims the characteristics of goodness and honor and rejects and roots out corruption at every level, America will slowly decay into a non-exceptional, bankrupt, corrupt and third-world country. The problem is, that decay is now increasing at an exponential rate and there is little time to insert a course correction before it is too late.
All these attempts to fix the “system” by well meaning individuals and groups, is a little like trying to insert a hypodermic needle into a spinning tennis ball. The needle would go in, if the ball would ever stop spinning. But alas the ball just keeps going round and round, defying every single or multiple attempts to bring it to a halt. The nagging question is, whom or what will stop the ball from spinning and bring our lives and America under the umbrella of freedom again?
Are any of the solutions to our dilemma peaceful, or are we too far gone such that peaceful solutions are no longer viable? The election of 2012 may give us the answer, but it may not be the answer we want to hear.
2011年10月20日星期四
‘Time to pack up... and leave’
A confrontation with a knife-wielding junkie at Occupy Boston and rampant thefts have tensions simmering between the protesters and the homeless, prompting Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s predecessor to say it’s high time for police to clear the tent city.
“It’s causing disruptions to public order,” former Mayor Raymond L. Flynn told the Herald. “They should have been given one day — 24 hours and that’s it. They have to be removed.”
Asked how he’d handle the encampment — which Menino has been willing to tolerate so far — Flynn said: “I’d walk down there with the police commissioner and I’d say, ‘Look, you’ve done your thing, but please respect the laws of this city. It’s time to pack up, clean up and leave.’”
Flynn’s tough talk comes amid the reported rape of a 19-year-old female college student at an Occupy camp in Cleveland and the knife play in Dewey Square in Boston on Sunday.
According to a Boston police report, a disgruntled homeless man got into an argument at 6:15 p.m. with Occupiers because he “had nowhere to stay.” The man urinated on a tent and then allegedly pulled a knife on a group of 10 shocked protesters. No one was stabbed but several protesters later told cops they felt “threatened” by the incident.
Cops assigned to the site grabbed the man, searched him and found a hypodermic needle and a knife. The blade was seized, but the alleged victims would not provide their names to police, so the man was not arrested, police said.
“Vigilant officers intervened in the situation and quickly de-escalated it,” Boston police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said.
Menino yesterday downplayed the problems, repeating that the demonstrators can stay as long as they are peaceful. He said he’s not concerned about police costs. “It is not right now a drain on resources,” he said.
The incident highlights an emerging rift between the Occupiers and homeless, who have moved into the tent city to feast on freebies. Occupy protesters and a law enforcement source said cellphones, laptops and other items have been swiped from tents, but Driscoll said the department has received no reports of robberies.
“The homeless people are down there lurking around,” a law-enforcement source told the Herald. “Some of them are mentally ill and criminally insane. The potential is there for problems.”
Demonstrator Andrew Warner, 36, said homeless people are hijacking tents, getting drunk, “passing out” and stealing.
“It’s turning into us against them,” Warner said. “They come in here and they’re looking at it as a way of getting a free meal and a place to crash, which is totally fine, but they don’t bring anything to the table at all. It gets really frustrating.”
Jackson Bush, manning the Occupy information tent yesterday, said some homeless people have been hoarding free items, including donated coats.
“We do have homeless people and people addicted to drugs who need to steal things,” Bush said. “They’re getting more than they need and trading it off. What we noticed is all the new jackets are disappearing quickly.”
“It’s causing disruptions to public order,” former Mayor Raymond L. Flynn told the Herald. “They should have been given one day — 24 hours and that’s it. They have to be removed.”
Asked how he’d handle the encampment — which Menino has been willing to tolerate so far — Flynn said: “I’d walk down there with the police commissioner and I’d say, ‘Look, you’ve done your thing, but please respect the laws of this city. It’s time to pack up, clean up and leave.’”
Flynn’s tough talk comes amid the reported rape of a 19-year-old female college student at an Occupy camp in Cleveland and the knife play in Dewey Square in Boston on Sunday.
According to a Boston police report, a disgruntled homeless man got into an argument at 6:15 p.m. with Occupiers because he “had nowhere to stay.” The man urinated on a tent and then allegedly pulled a knife on a group of 10 shocked protesters. No one was stabbed but several protesters later told cops they felt “threatened” by the incident.
Cops assigned to the site grabbed the man, searched him and found a hypodermic needle and a knife. The blade was seized, but the alleged victims would not provide their names to police, so the man was not arrested, police said.
“Vigilant officers intervened in the situation and quickly de-escalated it,” Boston police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said.
Menino yesterday downplayed the problems, repeating that the demonstrators can stay as long as they are peaceful. He said he’s not concerned about police costs. “It is not right now a drain on resources,” he said.
The incident highlights an emerging rift between the Occupiers and homeless, who have moved into the tent city to feast on freebies. Occupy protesters and a law enforcement source said cellphones, laptops and other items have been swiped from tents, but Driscoll said the department has received no reports of robberies.
“The homeless people are down there lurking around,” a law-enforcement source told the Herald. “Some of them are mentally ill and criminally insane. The potential is there for problems.”
Demonstrator Andrew Warner, 36, said homeless people are hijacking tents, getting drunk, “passing out” and stealing.
“It’s turning into us against them,” Warner said. “They come in here and they’re looking at it as a way of getting a free meal and a place to crash, which is totally fine, but they don’t bring anything to the table at all. It gets really frustrating.”
Jackson Bush, manning the Occupy information tent yesterday, said some homeless people have been hoarding free items, including donated coats.
“We do have homeless people and people addicted to drugs who need to steal things,” Bush said. “They’re getting more than they need and trading it off. What we noticed is all the new jackets are disappearing quickly.”
2011年10月19日星期三
Officer suspended over syringe needle
An Austin police officer has been suspended for 90 days after he reportedly failed to dispose of a hypodermic needle correctly and then lied to his supervisors about it.
A citizen spurred the investigation into officer Danny Johnson after complaining to a supervisor about how Johnson had treated her and handled the call.
Johnson responded to a March 26 call about a hypodermic needle in the 12100 block of Metric Boulevard, where a police memo explains Johnson disposed of the syringe he said was "old and cracked" with no needle attached.
However, Johnson's disciplinary memo said supervisors pulled in-car video that showed the syringe did have a needle. Department officials said Johnson not only misled his chain of command but also failed to comply with APD procedures for disposing of narcotic paraphernalia.
In addition, Johnson's supervisors said the video showed he had been rude and condescending with the citizen.
In a section about the department's "responsibility to the community," it oulines that the Austin Police Department "constantly works to establish direct contacts with the community we serve. Without 'grass roots' community support, successful enforcement of many laws may be difficult, if not impossible."
A citizen spurred the investigation into officer Danny Johnson after complaining to a supervisor about how Johnson had treated her and handled the call.
Johnson responded to a March 26 call about a hypodermic needle in the 12100 block of Metric Boulevard, where a police memo explains Johnson disposed of the syringe he said was "old and cracked" with no needle attached.
However, Johnson's disciplinary memo said supervisors pulled in-car video that showed the syringe did have a needle. Department officials said Johnson not only misled his chain of command but also failed to comply with APD procedures for disposing of narcotic paraphernalia.
In addition, Johnson's supervisors said the video showed he had been rude and condescending with the citizen.
In a section about the department's "responsibility to the community," it oulines that the Austin Police Department "constantly works to establish direct contacts with the community we serve. Without 'grass roots' community support, successful enforcement of many laws may be difficult, if not impossible."
2011年10月18日星期二
Meth lab ingredients found in vehicle
The sound of glass breaking alerted a Bedford County deputy to what turned out to be an alleged meth lab in a vehicle last week near Wartrace, according to a sheriff's department report released Monday.
Three Manchester men -- John Wayne DeWitt, 30, James Edward Rutledge, 52, and Bill Rich Teal, 39 -- were charged with promotion of meth manufacture. Rutledge and DeWitt were also charged with possession of a schedule VI drug and possession of drug paraphernalia when marijuana was found in their clothing, deputy Benjamin Burris said.
Burris said he spotted the car stopped on a curve on Kellertown Road and, as he neared the scene, it started moving and he heard glass breaking, turned around, and saw several items on the road that were not there seconds earlier.
Following a traffic stop Burris and deputy Cam Ferrell said they discovered a broken Mason jar, a bottle of muriatic acid, clear tubing, Crystal drain cleaner and a bag with empty pseudoephedrine tablet boxes in the road. Those items are used in manufacturing methampthetamine, Burris said.
Burris said he found a bag of marijuana in Rutledge's clothing, was handed a bag of marijuana and hypodermic needle by DeWitt and found two lithium batteries (used in manufacturing meth) in Teal's clothing.
Syringes, another Mason jar, bags, coffee filters and syringes were confiscated from the car, Burris said.
A Shelbyville man was arrested last Thursday night after a marijuana joint was found in his vehicle during a traffic stop, city police said.
John Thomas Anderson, 41, Noblitt Street, was stopped in front of his home after allegedly running a stop sign. He was arrested after a computer check indicated his driver's license had been revoked. A conviction would be his fourth offense, according to police records.
Charges of possession of a schedule VI drug and running the stop sign were also filed.
Three Manchester men -- John Wayne DeWitt, 30, James Edward Rutledge, 52, and Bill Rich Teal, 39 -- were charged with promotion of meth manufacture. Rutledge and DeWitt were also charged with possession of a schedule VI drug and possession of drug paraphernalia when marijuana was found in their clothing, deputy Benjamin Burris said.
Burris said he spotted the car stopped on a curve on Kellertown Road and, as he neared the scene, it started moving and he heard glass breaking, turned around, and saw several items on the road that were not there seconds earlier.
Following a traffic stop Burris and deputy Cam Ferrell said they discovered a broken Mason jar, a bottle of muriatic acid, clear tubing, Crystal drain cleaner and a bag with empty pseudoephedrine tablet boxes in the road. Those items are used in manufacturing methampthetamine, Burris said.
Burris said he found a bag of marijuana in Rutledge's clothing, was handed a bag of marijuana and hypodermic needle by DeWitt and found two lithium batteries (used in manufacturing meth) in Teal's clothing.
Syringes, another Mason jar, bags, coffee filters and syringes were confiscated from the car, Burris said.
A Shelbyville man was arrested last Thursday night after a marijuana joint was found in his vehicle during a traffic stop, city police said.
John Thomas Anderson, 41, Noblitt Street, was stopped in front of his home after allegedly running a stop sign. He was arrested after a computer check indicated his driver's license had been revoked. A conviction would be his fourth offense, according to police records.
Charges of possession of a schedule VI drug and running the stop sign were also filed.
2011年10月17日星期一
Needles Threaten Recycling Employees
Dangerous items are showing up at recycling centers in Sioux Falls and it's not against the law.
Medical waste products, like hypodermic needles, are putting recycling center employees at risk of serious and sometimes life-threatening diseases.
The lines move quickly and employees work fast to sort more than nine tons of recycled products per hour at Millennium Recycling in Sioux Falls. Already this year, 12 employees have been stuck with hypodermic needles.
“If an employee does get poked by a hypodermic needle, they are then taken to the hospital and they are given a hepatitis vaccination and then they are tested for a whole year,” Millennium Recycling spokesperson Kim Smith said.
Smith says it's a nerve-racking year for these employees because they must be tested for HIV and other life-threatening diseases.
Millennium Recycling believes an increase in the number of home health patients is why the company is seeing more needles in the recycling bins.
There's a safer option to throwing your needles or syringes into the recycling bins by using these Sharps Disposal containers.
“What we really need is for residents to use the city’s home needle disposal program. You fill them up and dispose of them safely at no charge,” Smith said.
It is currently acceptable for people to throw away their used needles and other medical waste as long as it is in a rigid plastic container. Millennium Recycling would like to see that changed.
"A few states are moving towards banning this practice because as you can see from the materials n the table, they are not exactly puncture proof. They're not as rigid as one would think,” Smith said.
People currently using milk jugs and laundry detergent bottles to dispose of their hypodermic needles are asked to consider switching to the red Sharps Disposal containers that are available at Lewis, Hy-Vee and Walgreen pharmacies. You pick them up, drop them back off and it's completely free.
Medical waste products, like hypodermic needles, are putting recycling center employees at risk of serious and sometimes life-threatening diseases.
The lines move quickly and employees work fast to sort more than nine tons of recycled products per hour at Millennium Recycling in Sioux Falls. Already this year, 12 employees have been stuck with hypodermic needles.
“If an employee does get poked by a hypodermic needle, they are then taken to the hospital and they are given a hepatitis vaccination and then they are tested for a whole year,” Millennium Recycling spokesperson Kim Smith said.
Smith says it's a nerve-racking year for these employees because they must be tested for HIV and other life-threatening diseases.
Millennium Recycling believes an increase in the number of home health patients is why the company is seeing more needles in the recycling bins.
There's a safer option to throwing your needles or syringes into the recycling bins by using these Sharps Disposal containers.
“What we really need is for residents to use the city’s home needle disposal program. You fill them up and dispose of them safely at no charge,” Smith said.
It is currently acceptable for people to throw away their used needles and other medical waste as long as it is in a rigid plastic container. Millennium Recycling would like to see that changed.
"A few states are moving towards banning this practice because as you can see from the materials n the table, they are not exactly puncture proof. They're not as rigid as one would think,” Smith said.
People currently using milk jugs and laundry detergent bottles to dispose of their hypodermic needles are asked to consider switching to the red Sharps Disposal containers that are available at Lewis, Hy-Vee and Walgreen pharmacies. You pick them up, drop them back off and it's completely free.
2011年10月16日星期日
Homegrown talent takes helm of Franklin Lakes-based Becton
Vincent Forlenza was one of 10 MBAs recruited by Becton, Dickinson and Co. in 1980 for a management training program. The goal was to recruit and train people for successful careers at BD.
"And it did work out that way for me," said Forlenza, who this month became the chief executive officer of BD, a medical technology company based in Franklin Lakes with 30,000 employees worldwide.
Forlenza, 58, an Allendale resident, quickly advanced to various leadership positions at BD, after his earlier jobs included a stint in Grenoble, France, working in strategic planning and in the hypodermic needle business for BD Europe.
He later commuted between his home in Allendale and California as head of the BD Biosciences division. As president and chief operating officer he oversaw BD's three business segments — BD Medical, BD Diagnostics and BD Biosciences.
Forlenza, 58, was born in East Orange and grew up in Sea Girt. He and his wife, Ellen, have two daughters. He is chairman of The Valley Hospital board of trustees, and in his spare time he enjoys playing acoustic guitar, golfing and bicycle riding. (Interview edited and condensed.)
The first thing was the industry we're in. When I was coming out of [the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania], I was looking at two different industries — one was health care and the other was in the environmental sciences area. I chose health care, and I was happy I did because you can get up every day and do something good for patients. The second piece is you do it with technology. I like that interface between business and technology. I was very fortunate when I moved into BD that I had the chance to do business development roles and strategic planning roles that often have a big component of product planning. I liked the sciences I was involved with, I liked the purpose of the work, and I liked the people I was working with.
BD is a very collegial company. It's a company that runs a worldwide matrix of businesses, functions and regions, and for this to work you have to be able to work well with one another. It's an "and also" culture instead of an "either or." How are we going to get together, drive to consensus and get to a better solution? And that's something I enjoy.
Remote testing has been more an issue for us in the developing world. In the developing world, the idea is to make the products much simpler to use, so they can be taken out of the cities and into rural areas, for example, for HIV testing or [tuberculosis] testing. On the device side of the business, needles and syringes, we're working with pharmaceutical partners in creating self-injection products, auto-injectors. Instead of having to go into the doctor's office to get the injection, you can do it at home and you can do it yourself. So you've dropped the cost of the entire system.
For me and for the company, the biggest challenge is to increase our innovation capacity. These markets are changing very rapidly because of the pressures on health care systems worldwide. So you have markets changing rapidly and technology that's also changing fairly rapidly. While we have a good new-product development pipeline, with a series of new products that are coming out in all three of our businesses, the challenge is to increase that flow and do it in the context of a deeper understanding of the customer and how they're changing to make sure that we are targeting the right set of needs.
"And it did work out that way for me," said Forlenza, who this month became the chief executive officer of BD, a medical technology company based in Franklin Lakes with 30,000 employees worldwide.
Forlenza, 58, an Allendale resident, quickly advanced to various leadership positions at BD, after his earlier jobs included a stint in Grenoble, France, working in strategic planning and in the hypodermic needle business for BD Europe.
He later commuted between his home in Allendale and California as head of the BD Biosciences division. As president and chief operating officer he oversaw BD's three business segments — BD Medical, BD Diagnostics and BD Biosciences.
Forlenza, 58, was born in East Orange and grew up in Sea Girt. He and his wife, Ellen, have two daughters. He is chairman of The Valley Hospital board of trustees, and in his spare time he enjoys playing acoustic guitar, golfing and bicycle riding. (Interview edited and condensed.)
The first thing was the industry we're in. When I was coming out of [the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania], I was looking at two different industries — one was health care and the other was in the environmental sciences area. I chose health care, and I was happy I did because you can get up every day and do something good for patients. The second piece is you do it with technology. I like that interface between business and technology. I was very fortunate when I moved into BD that I had the chance to do business development roles and strategic planning roles that often have a big component of product planning. I liked the sciences I was involved with, I liked the purpose of the work, and I liked the people I was working with.
BD is a very collegial company. It's a company that runs a worldwide matrix of businesses, functions and regions, and for this to work you have to be able to work well with one another. It's an "and also" culture instead of an "either or." How are we going to get together, drive to consensus and get to a better solution? And that's something I enjoy.
Remote testing has been more an issue for us in the developing world. In the developing world, the idea is to make the products much simpler to use, so they can be taken out of the cities and into rural areas, for example, for HIV testing or [tuberculosis] testing. On the device side of the business, needles and syringes, we're working with pharmaceutical partners in creating self-injection products, auto-injectors. Instead of having to go into the doctor's office to get the injection, you can do it at home and you can do it yourself. So you've dropped the cost of the entire system.
For me and for the company, the biggest challenge is to increase our innovation capacity. These markets are changing very rapidly because of the pressures on health care systems worldwide. So you have markets changing rapidly and technology that's also changing fairly rapidly. While we have a good new-product development pipeline, with a series of new products that are coming out in all three of our businesses, the challenge is to increase that flow and do it in the context of a deeper understanding of the customer and how they're changing to make sure that we are targeting the right set of needs.
2011年10月13日星期四
Serial shoplifter gets an Asbo
A DRUG addict shoplifter who threatened to stab a security guard with a dirty hypodermic needle has been given a five-year Asbo.
Marc Porter, of Speedwell Street, Oxford, was jailed for 20 weeks for stealing from three city shops and breaching the terms of a community order.
The 34-year-old admitted stealing food from the BP Express Garage in Woodstock Road on September 16, perfume worth £120 from Boots Chemist in Cornmarket Street on August 25 and food from Tesco Express at the Westway Shopping Centre store in Botley on August 1.
Under the terms of his Asbo, Porter is banned from going to Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Boots, Co-op, or Marks & Spencer stores within the Oxford ring road area.
Crown Prosecution Service spokesman Jacqui Broadbridge said: “Porter is a one-man crime wave who is a nuisance and a persistent offender who cannot keep his hands in his pockets.
“He has now received a five-year Asbo preventing him from entering many of the shops in Oxford from which he stole. With any luck this will reduce opportunities for his offending.”
Porter has 12 previous convictions for shoplifting, one previous conviction for stealing from a car, using threatening behaviour and failing to attend a drugs test.
Welcoming the news of Porter’s Asbo, Mahabub Alam, a Tesco Express team leader at the Botley store, said: “We informed the police when we had problems with Mr Porter and the police investigated it.
“They did a good job and responded really quickly. Our staff are safe and happy now.”
Pc Mike Ellis, Oxford anti-social behaviour officer, said: “Porter is a prolific shoplifter, stealing higher value meat, alcohol, and perfume in order to support a drug habit.
“In some instances, Porter has used aggressive and intimidating behaviour when confronted by security officers and shop staff and has threatened to stab a security officer with a dirty hypodermic needle.
“The lengthy Asbo banning him from some of the stores he has stolen from in the past will give some protection to the staff of these stores from future intimidation and threats.
“The police, in partnership with the local authority will continue to deal robustly with this type of behaviour.”
Marc Porter, of Speedwell Street, Oxford, was jailed for 20 weeks for stealing from three city shops and breaching the terms of a community order.
The 34-year-old admitted stealing food from the BP Express Garage in Woodstock Road on September 16, perfume worth £120 from Boots Chemist in Cornmarket Street on August 25 and food from Tesco Express at the Westway Shopping Centre store in Botley on August 1.
Under the terms of his Asbo, Porter is banned from going to Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Boots, Co-op, or Marks & Spencer stores within the Oxford ring road area.
Crown Prosecution Service spokesman Jacqui Broadbridge said: “Porter is a one-man crime wave who is a nuisance and a persistent offender who cannot keep his hands in his pockets.
“He has now received a five-year Asbo preventing him from entering many of the shops in Oxford from which he stole. With any luck this will reduce opportunities for his offending.”
Porter has 12 previous convictions for shoplifting, one previous conviction for stealing from a car, using threatening behaviour and failing to attend a drugs test.
Welcoming the news of Porter’s Asbo, Mahabub Alam, a Tesco Express team leader at the Botley store, said: “We informed the police when we had problems with Mr Porter and the police investigated it.
“They did a good job and responded really quickly. Our staff are safe and happy now.”
Pc Mike Ellis, Oxford anti-social behaviour officer, said: “Porter is a prolific shoplifter, stealing higher value meat, alcohol, and perfume in order to support a drug habit.
“In some instances, Porter has used aggressive and intimidating behaviour when confronted by security officers and shop staff and has threatened to stab a security officer with a dirty hypodermic needle.
“The lengthy Asbo banning him from some of the stores he has stolen from in the past will give some protection to the staff of these stores from future intimidation and threats.
“The police, in partnership with the local authority will continue to deal robustly with this type of behaviour.”
2011年10月12日星期三
Useful Scots word: jag
It’s that time of year again when the relatively stricken in years or those with potential respiratory problems are advised to get a vaccination against the dreaded flu. Most of us do not use the word vaccination or even injection. We opt for something more informal, perhaps to make the experience sound less medical and so less scary
In English this informal equivalent is the word jab, the same word that is used to describe a short sharp punching movement of the kind used in boxing. As is often the case, the Scots word for vaccination or injection is nearer the mark, so to speak.
The word is jag and it somehow describes the sharp and sometimes painful experience of vaccination more aptly. A jab may sound painful but it does not capture the piercing effect of theneedle sinking into flesh.
Jag in Scots has been around a lot longer than the process of vaccination. It came into being in the very early 16th century meaning to pierce, later coming to mean also to feel pain resulting from being pierced with something sharp. In origin, it is probably descriptive of the action involved in piercing.
The noun equivalent was originally used to refer to a thorn or prickle, as of our emblematic thistle, or anything else which pierces or stings. It is also used to describe the action of piercing or stabbing with a sharp instrument like theneedle on a hypodermic syringe.
Incidentally, as many of you will know, jag’s connection with thistles has led to football teams containing the word Thistle being nicknamed the Jags. Best-known of these is Partick Thistle.
From jag comes the adjective jaggy or jaggie, meaning prickly, piercing or sharp-pointed. It is used of obviously prickly things such as thistles and barbed wire is known as jaggy wire. However, nettles are also frequently referred to as jaggy because of the painful stings that they impart to bare limbs.
Jag is one of those Scots words that do not obviously reveal their origins. It does not sound Scots and many people may use it without realising that it is Scots. In fact, the word jag does exist in English but with different meanings. It can refer to a sharp projection like a piece of rock and from this comes jagged, meaning with rough, pointed, often sharp edges.
English jag can also refer to a short period of time spent over-indulging in a particular activity such as shopping or weeping. This sense often relates to a period of time spent downing excessive quantities of alcohol, as when binge-drinking.
In this alcoholic respect, English jag has a connection with Scots jag which, apart from the meanings already given, can mean a shot of alcohol. Some people with aneedle phobia may feel the need of such a jag before going for their flu jag. If so, it might be wise to suck a strong mint sweet before breathing over the doctor or nurse wielding the needle .
In English this informal equivalent is the word jab, the same word that is used to describe a short sharp punching movement of the kind used in boxing. As is often the case, the Scots word for vaccination or injection is nearer the mark, so to speak.
The word is jag and it somehow describes the sharp and sometimes painful experience of vaccination more aptly. A jab may sound painful but it does not capture the piercing effect of the
Jag in Scots has been around a lot longer than the process of vaccination. It came into being in the very early 16th century meaning to pierce, later coming to mean also to feel pain resulting from being pierced with something sharp. In origin, it is probably descriptive of the action involved in piercing.
The noun equivalent was originally used to refer to a thorn or prickle, as of our emblematic thistle, or anything else which pierces or stings. It is also used to describe the action of piercing or stabbing with a sharp instrument like the
Incidentally, as many of you will know, jag’s connection with thistles has led to football teams containing the word Thistle being nicknamed the Jags. Best-known of these is Partick Thistle.
From jag comes the adjective jaggy or jaggie, meaning prickly, piercing or sharp-pointed. It is used of obviously prickly things such as thistles and barbed wire is known as jaggy wire. However, nettles are also frequently referred to as jaggy because of the painful stings that they impart to bare limbs.
Jag is one of those Scots words that do not obviously reveal their origins. It does not sound Scots and many people may use it without realising that it is Scots. In fact, the word jag does exist in English but with different meanings. It can refer to a sharp projection like a piece of rock and from this comes jagged, meaning with rough, pointed, often sharp edges.
English jag can also refer to a short period of time spent over-indulging in a particular activity such as shopping or weeping. This sense often relates to a period of time spent downing excessive quantities of alcohol, as when binge-drinking.
In this alcoholic respect, English jag has a connection with Scots jag which, apart from the meanings already given, can mean a shot of alcohol. Some people with a
2011年10月11日星期二
MILLVILLE AFTERNOON POLICE BEAT INCLUDES Apparent theft from vice principal
A vice principal at Millville Senior High School reported Friday a 3rd Generation Ipod Touch, Ipod charger and auxiliary cable that was attached to the radio were missing from her vehicle after she parked it at the school. She parked it at 7:20 a.m. There were no signs of forced entry. She said she locked the vehicle when she parked it.
Brian M. Beebe, 27, 2100 of West Weymouth Road, Newfield, was arrested Saturday on a warrant for contempt dated Friday.
Romone Lamar Street, 20, of the 600 block of Dock Street was charged with simple assault Saturday.
Terri Boring, 43, of the 300 block of South 5th Street was charged on a contempt warrant Saturday.
Troy Lamont Johnson, 37, of the 800 block of North High Street was arrested Saturday and charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.
Leeanna J. Aikins, 23, of the 200 block of Princeton Ave., National Park, was arrested Saturday at Walmart and charged with shoplifting and contempt.
Jennifer Marie Dilks, 32, of the 300 block of Jute Road, Laurel Lake, was charged Saturday with resisting arrest, contempt, possession of a controlled dangerous substance, possession of drug paraphernalia with intent to use and possession of a hypodermic needle or syringe with intent to use or sell.
Jerome Lamar Young, 30, of the 6900 block of Yock Wock Road, Port Norris, was arrested Sunday and charged with robbery and hindering apprehension.
Benjamin T. Maddox Jr., 19, of the 900 block of Church Street was charged Sunday with possession of a controlled dangerous substance.
Ernest C. Rosado, 20, of the 1700 block of Necombtown Road was charged Sunday with simple assault, criminal mischief and resisting arrest.
Heath Chadwick Harris, 34, of the 900 block of Louis Drive was charged on a warrant for contempt Sunday.
Condensers and coils were stolen from three large air conditioning units at KMO Coffee in the 500 block of South Wade Boulevard on Thursday night.
Chairs made of wicker, with black metal legs were stolen from a patio furniture set on a front porch on East Mulberry Street, the owner reported Friday.
Williams Hulitt III, 39, turned himself in on a warrant Friday. He posted $750 bail and was released.
Brian M. Beebe, 27, 2100 of West Weymouth Road, Newfield, was arrested Saturday on a warrant for contempt dated Friday.
Romone Lamar Street, 20, of the 600 block of Dock Street was charged with simple assault Saturday.
Terri Boring, 43, of the 300 block of South 5th Street was charged on a contempt warrant Saturday.
Troy Lamont Johnson, 37, of the 800 block of North High Street was arrested Saturday and charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.
Leeanna J. Aikins, 23, of the 200 block of Princeton Ave., National Park, was arrested Saturday at Walmart and charged with shoplifting and contempt.
Jennifer Marie Dilks, 32, of the 300 block of Jute Road, Laurel Lake, was charged Saturday with resisting arrest, contempt, possession of a controlled dangerous substance, possession of drug paraphernalia with intent to use and possession of a hypodermic needle or syringe with intent to use or sell.
Jerome Lamar Young, 30, of the 6900 block of Yock Wock Road, Port Norris, was arrested Sunday and charged with robbery and hindering apprehension.
Benjamin T. Maddox Jr., 19, of the 900 block of Church Street was charged Sunday with possession of a controlled dangerous substance.
Ernest C. Rosado, 20, of the 1700 block of Necombtown Road was charged Sunday with simple assault, criminal mischief and resisting arrest.
Heath Chadwick Harris, 34, of the 900 block of Louis Drive was charged on a warrant for contempt Sunday.
Condensers and coils were stolen from three large air conditioning units at KMO Coffee in the 500 block of South Wade Boulevard on Thursday night.
Chairs made of wicker, with black metal legs were stolen from a patio furniture set on a front porch on East Mulberry Street, the owner reported Friday.
Williams Hulitt III, 39, turned himself in on a warrant Friday. He posted $750 bail and was released.
2011年10月10日星期一
An inside look at the Albany County Jail
Cells are turned upside down as the Albany County Sheriff's Office searches for anything illegal inside the facility. They brought in extra manpower Monday for a shakedown.
When it's over and the inmates are locked back in their cells, the sheriff's office is left with a cart full of contraband.
Acting Sheriff Craig Apple said, "We've been slowly finding contraband. Last week we had a female come in with a hypodermic needle. It is problematic not just for inmates but for officers as well. We want to keep them safe."
The sheriff's office searches the tiers frequently, but Monday's shakedown entails them searching the jail from the top to the bottom. They are looking for marijuana, matches and everything illegal in between.
They bring in extra staff, like K9s for these special searches.
Monday morning, while the dogs searched the cells so did the CERT team. They searched every book, every box and every bed.
In the end, they turned up a rope being braided from sheets and screws put into the sides of shoes.
On a piece of plastic, those screws can become a weapon.
But these are small finds compared to what used to turn up.
Apple says, "We were finding cigarettes, lighters, all kinds of contraband. A toothbrush scraped up against the concrete, you can sharpen into a nice shank."
Apple says that this is happening less and less thanks to what is going on outside the jail. They have an increased presence out in the parking lot with deputies stationed a few times a year to check visitors.
Apple said the road checks net a number of arrests and serve as a deterrent. "A lot of contraband is being stopped out on street before gets in here, that is the goal," he said.
But Back inside Monday there were no serious finds. No weapons, no drugs. For the sheriff's office, finding nothing is a good thing.
When it's over and the inmates are locked back in their cells, the sheriff's office is left with a cart full of contraband.
Acting Sheriff Craig Apple said, "We've been slowly finding contraband. Last week we had a female come in with a hypodermic needle. It is problematic not just for inmates but for officers as well. We want to keep them safe."
The sheriff's office searches the tiers frequently, but Monday's shakedown entails them searching the jail from the top to the bottom. They are looking for marijuana, matches and everything illegal in between.
They bring in extra staff, like K9s for these special searches.
Monday morning, while the dogs searched the cells so did the CERT team. They searched every book, every box and every bed.
In the end, they turned up a rope being braided from sheets and screws put into the sides of shoes.
On a piece of plastic, those screws can become a weapon.
But these are small finds compared to what used to turn up.
Apple says, "We were finding cigarettes, lighters, all kinds of contraband. A toothbrush scraped up against the concrete, you can sharpen into a nice shank."
Apple says that this is happening less and less thanks to what is going on outside the jail. They have an increased presence out in the parking lot with deputies stationed a few times a year to check visitors.
Apple said the road checks net a number of arrests and serve as a deterrent. "A lot of contraband is being stopped out on street before gets in here, that is the goal," he said.
But Back inside Monday there were no serious finds. No weapons, no drugs. For the sheriff's office, finding nothing is a good thing.
2011年10月9日星期日
Mosquito inspires near-painless hypodermic needle
Mosquitoes are perhaps useful for something after all, besides feeding frogs. Along with his colleagues at Osaka's Kansai University, mechanical engineer Seiji Aoyagi has created an almost pain-free hypodermic needle that is based on a mosquito's proboscis. Perhaps surprisingly, the needle's patient-friendliness comes from the fact that its outer surface is jagged, not smooth.
While mosquito bites definitely do itch, the itching only occurs after the feeding is complete, due to bacteria in the anticoagulant injected by the insects. The initial "bite" itself can barely be felt. How is this possible?
A mosquito's proboscis includes an internal tubular labrum (that does the bloodsucking), which is sheathed between two serrated maxillae – one on either side. The maxillae are what first penetrate the skin and then sink into it, after which the labrum slides down between them. Because the maxillae have a jagged outer surface, they present a minimum amount of surface area to nerves in the skin. A smooth steel hypodermic needle, by contrast, makes contact with a maximum number of nerves, and is therefore uncomfortable.
Professor Aoyagi's needle, etched from silicon, mimics the labrum and maxillae. Two harpoon-like jagged-edged outer shanks first penetrate the skin, after which a smooth drug-delivering/blood-taking tube moves down between them, only touching the patient at its sharpened tip. Mosquitos vibrate their proboscis to help the maxillae ease down through the tissue, which Aoyagi has also copied – each of the three parts of his device are vibrated by tiny piezoelectric crystal motors at around 15 hertz.
The needle in its present form is tiny, at just one millimeter in length, 0.1 millimeters in diameter, and with walls a mere 1.6 micrometers thick. It is attached to a five-millimeter-wide tank, designed for storing fluids that the needle collects. To test the needle, Aoyagi's Kansai team used it to puncture silicone rubber with a skin-like resistance, underneath which was a container of red dye. The needle successfully drew the dye into its tank.
When tested on humans, the test subjects stated that it was much less painful than a traditional hypodermic, but that what discomfort there was lasted longer. Aoyagi believes that by copying more of the mosquito's seven mouthparts, including a system to steady the needle as it enters the skin, that discomfort could be further reduced in future versions.
He hopes that the needle could eventually be used to draw samples in labs, or that it could lead to the development of small wireless monitoring devices, which would be permanently attached to the bodies of people such as diabetics.
While mosquito bites definitely do itch, the itching only occurs after the feeding is complete, due to bacteria in the anticoagulant injected by the insects. The initial "bite" itself can barely be felt. How is this possible?
A mosquito's proboscis includes an internal tubular labrum (that does the bloodsucking), which is sheathed between two serrated maxillae – one on either side. The maxillae are what first penetrate the skin and then sink into it, after which the labrum slides down between them. Because the maxillae have a jagged outer surface, they present a minimum amount of surface area to nerves in the skin. A smooth steel hypodermic needle, by contrast, makes contact with a maximum number of nerves, and is therefore uncomfortable.
Professor Aoyagi's needle, etched from silicon, mimics the labrum and maxillae. Two harpoon-like jagged-edged outer shanks first penetrate the skin, after which a smooth drug-delivering/blood-taking tube moves down between them, only touching the patient at its sharpened tip. Mosquitos vibrate their proboscis to help the maxillae ease down through the tissue, which Aoyagi has also copied – each of the three parts of his device are vibrated by tiny piezoelectric crystal motors at around 15 hertz.
The needle in its present form is tiny, at just one millimeter in length, 0.1 millimeters in diameter, and with walls a mere 1.6 micrometers thick. It is attached to a five-millimeter-wide tank, designed for storing fluids that the needle collects. To test the needle, Aoyagi's Kansai team used it to puncture silicone rubber with a skin-like resistance, underneath which was a container of red dye. The needle successfully drew the dye into its tank.
When tested on humans, the test subjects stated that it was much less painful than a traditional hypodermic, but that what discomfort there was lasted longer. Aoyagi believes that by copying more of the mosquito's seven mouthparts, including a system to steady the needle as it enters the skin, that discomfort could be further reduced in future versions.
He hopes that the needle could eventually be used to draw samples in labs, or that it could lead to the development of small wireless monitoring devices, which would be permanently attached to the bodies of people such as diabetics.
2011年10月8日星期六
Crime Report: Home Depot Thefts
Michael Gabriellini, 25, of Melville, was arrested Oct. 3 in East Farmingdale and charged with petty larceny. Reports indicate Gabriellini stole copper wiring and drill bits from Home Depot located in East Farmingdale.
Raymond Pacheco, 48, of Kissimmee, was arrested Oct. 3 in East Farmingdale and charged with fourth degree grand larceny. Reports indicate Pacheco stole mostly plumbing products and other merchandise from Home Depot.
Antonia Petrizzo, 27, of Huntington Station, was arrested Oct. 3 in Farmingdale and charged with petty larceny. Reports indicate Petrizzo stole copper wiring and tiling from Home Depot.
Earli Perdomo, 36, of Amityville, was arrested Oct. 2 in East Farmingdale and charged with petty larceny. Reports indicate Perdomo was arrested for the theft of assorted clothing and merchdise from a store in East Farmingdale.
Jill Russo, 26, of Oceanside, was arrested Oct. 1 in East Farmingdale and charged with first degree drug impairment while operating a motor vehicle, two counts of seventh degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, and possession of ahypodermic needle hypodermic needle
Renee Pearson, 32, of Amityville, was arrested Sept. 30 and charged with seventh degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, unlawful possession of marijuana, and traffic violations. Reports indicate Pearson was stopped in her gray Nissan Altima for alleged speeding on the westbound side of the Southern State Parkway near Exit 30. Reports indicate Pearson was found to be in possession of marijuana, and paraphernalia.
William Wrenn, 41, was arrested Sept. 29 in East Farmingdale and charged with third degree criminal trespassing. Reports indicate Wrenn was arrested for entering a fenced storage yard owned by Cerco Service Products, and stayed inside a trailer.
Jose Ramos, 29, of Bayshore ,was arrested Sept. 28 in East Farmingdale and charged with fifth degree criminal possession of marijuana. Reports indicate Ramos was arrested for the possession of marijuana in the door handle of a 1992 Honda.
Aresh Saqib, 23, of Farmingdale, was arrested Sept. 28 in Farmingdale and charged with unlawful fleeing a police officer, reckless driving, and third degree aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle. Reports indicate Saqib was operating a 2006 BMW on Grand Boulevard, Deer Park and allegedly drove excessive speeds, crossed the double yellow lines, ran a red light and attempted to flee an officer.
Raymond Pacheco, 48, of Kissimmee, was arrested Oct. 3 in East Farmingdale and charged with fourth degree grand larceny. Reports indicate Pacheco stole mostly plumbing products and other merchandise from Home Depot.
Antonia Petrizzo, 27, of Huntington Station, was arrested Oct. 3 in Farmingdale and charged with petty larceny. Reports indicate Petrizzo stole copper wiring and tiling from Home Depot.
Earli Perdomo, 36, of Amityville, was arrested Oct. 2 in East Farmingdale and charged with petty larceny. Reports indicate Perdomo was arrested for the theft of assorted clothing and merchdise from a store in East Farmingdale.
Jill Russo, 26, of Oceanside, was arrested Oct. 1 in East Farmingdale and charged with first degree drug impairment while operating a motor vehicle, two counts of seventh degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, and possession of a
Renee Pearson, 32, of Amityville, was arrested Sept. 30 and charged with seventh degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, unlawful possession of marijuana, and traffic violations. Reports indicate Pearson was stopped in her gray Nissan Altima for alleged speeding on the westbound side of the Southern State Parkway near Exit 30. Reports indicate Pearson was found to be in possession of marijuana, and paraphernalia.
William Wrenn, 41, was arrested Sept. 29 in East Farmingdale and charged with third degree criminal trespassing. Reports indicate Wrenn was arrested for entering a fenced storage yard owned by Cerco Service Products, and stayed inside a trailer.
Jose Ramos, 29, of Bayshore ,was arrested Sept. 28 in East Farmingdale and charged with fifth degree criminal possession of marijuana. Reports indicate Ramos was arrested for the possession of marijuana in the door handle of a 1992 Honda.
Aresh Saqib, 23, of Farmingdale, was arrested Sept. 28 in Farmingdale and charged with unlawful fleeing a police officer, reckless driving, and third degree aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle. Reports indicate Saqib was operating a 2006 BMW on Grand Boulevard, Deer Park and allegedly drove excessive speeds, crossed the double yellow lines, ran a red light and attempted to flee an officer.
2011年10月7日星期五
Last person inside site of house fire arrested for drug possession
Last person inside site of house fire arrested for drug possession, counterfeit money
On the same day his apartment was destroyed by fire, a Wilkes-Barre man was arrested for possession of heroin, crack cocaine and $920 in counterfeit cash, police said.
Following the devastating fire at 57-59 S. Fulton St. early Wednesday, authorities had been looking to locate Louis M. Alston. He was the last person known to be home at his side of the double-block, officials and neighbors said.
Wilkes-Barre police encountered Alston, 38, around 8:15 p.m. at 35 N. Welles St. after responding to a report of a wanted person who struck someone with a bottle, police said.
Upon arrival, police saw a man climb over a fence and flee. Police then watched Alston throw money and drugs over a porch railing. He was then detained. Investigators collected the items, which included money, two bags of crack, four bags of heroin and a hypodermic needle. Police searched Alston and found two more bags of crack, five bags of heroin and a hypodermic needle. Police determined the money, which amounted to $920, was counterfeit, police said.
Alston was charged with forgery, possession of crack and heroin, and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was jailed in lieu of $20,000 cash bail and also on a warrant for a state parole violation.
Alston listed his address as 57 S. Fulton St., police said. That side of the double-block property was gutted by fire that erupted Wednesday around 4:30 a.m. and was the focus of the daylong fire probe.
At the scene of the fire, Phyllis Davis, 29, said Alston was the father of her children and occasionally lived there. She said she got into a fight with him days before the fire, and left to a friend's house with her children. Neighbors, the landlord and officials said Alston had been home prior to the fire, but could not be located afterward.
On the same day his apartment was destroyed by fire, a Wilkes-Barre man was arrested for possession of heroin, crack cocaine and $920 in counterfeit cash, police said.
Following the devastating fire at 57-59 S. Fulton St. early Wednesday, authorities had been looking to locate Louis M. Alston. He was the last person known to be home at his side of the double-block, officials and neighbors said.
Wilkes-Barre police encountered Alston, 38, around 8:15 p.m. at 35 N. Welles St. after responding to a report of a wanted person who struck someone with a bottle, police said.
Upon arrival, police saw a man climb over a fence and flee. Police then watched Alston throw money and drugs over a porch railing. He was then detained. Investigators collected the items, which included money, two bags of crack, four bags of heroin and a hypodermic needle. Police searched Alston and found two more bags of crack, five bags of heroin and a hypodermic needle. Police determined the money, which amounted to $920, was counterfeit, police said.
Alston was charged with forgery, possession of crack and heroin, and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was jailed in lieu of $20,000 cash bail and also on a warrant for a state parole violation.
Alston listed his address as 57 S. Fulton St., police said. That side of the double-block property was gutted by fire that erupted Wednesday around 4:30 a.m. and was the focus of the daylong fire probe.
At the scene of the fire, Phyllis Davis, 29, said Alston was the father of her children and occasionally lived there. She said she got into a fight with him days before the fire, and left to a friend's house with her children. Neighbors, the landlord and officials said Alston had been home prior to the fire, but could not be located afterward.
订阅：
博文 (Atom)