A program to exchange guns for gifts brought in a record number of weapons this year as residents hit hard by the economy look under the bed and in closets to find items to trade for groceries.
The annual Gifts for Guns program ended Sunday in Compton, a working class city south of Los Angeles that has long struggled with gun and gang violence.
In a program similar to ones in New York and San Francisco, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department allows residents to anonymously relinquish firearms in return for $100 gift cards for Ralphs supermarkets, Target department stores or Best Buy electronics stores.
Turning in assault rifles yields double that amount.
In years past, Target and Best Buy were the cards of choice, with residents wanting presents for the holidays.
This year, most asked for the supermarket cards, said sheriff's Sgt. Byron Woods.
"People just don't have the money to buy the food these days," he said.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Blood alcohol tester charged in Nevada with DUI
Talk about Life's twists and turns ...
A contract worker for a Nevada sheriff's department is accused of driving drunk to a jail to test a suspect's blood alcohol content.
A contract worker for a Nevada sheriff's department is accused of driving drunk to a jail to test a suspect's blood alcohol content.
Fifty-three-year-old Kathleen Cherry told a Carson City sheriff's deputy who smelled alcohol on her breath that she had one margarita before driving Friday night.
She's accused of failing field sobriety tests and registering a blood alcohol content over the state's legal limit of 0.08 percent.
Cherry is a phlebotomist, trained to draw blood for lab tests. She was booked on a misdemeanor drunken driving charge, and her bail was set at more than $1,000.
Bridges arrested, charged with assault
On the eve of the Carolina Panthers' biggest game of the season, offensive lineman Jeremy Bridges was arrested Sunday night and charged with simple assault and battery and communicating threats.
The charges stemmed from an incident Saturday night involving Dom Perignon champagne and a bouncer at Villa Antonio Restaurant in Ballantyne, according to Bridges' attorney, George Laughrun, and the restaurant's manager.
Bridges turned himself in Sunday night and was expected to be released after posting $2,500 bond. Laughrun said he expected Bridges would plead not guilty.
Panthers spokesman Charlie Dayton said Carolina team officials were aware of the charges and were trying to get more information.
Other Panthers' players were gathered Sunday night in a local hotel awaiting their Monday Night Football game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Bank of America Stadium.
Bridges, 6-foot-5, 325 pounds, is a reserve lineman for the Panthers who started four games at right tackle earlier this season when regular starter Jeff Otah was injured.
The manager at Villa Antonio, Miguel Rullier, said the incident started when Bridges ordered a bottle of Dom Perignon from the restaurant bar Saturday night and shook it up, causing the champagne to spew and get other patrons wet.
Rullier said Bridges was asked to leave and politely agreed to do so.
He said a female customer who had been doused then pursued Bridges, complaining loudly.
“I don't know what she told him, but it made him irritable,” said Rullier.
Rullier said Bridges became angry and had to be restrained by a bouncer. He said Bridges pushed the bouncer out of the way, but did not strike anyone else.
“He was yelling and out of control,” said Rullier. “He's a big guy and we couldn't handle it anymore, so we called the police.”
Rullier said Bridges left about 10 minutes later, before police arrived.
Laughrun said Bridges doesn't dispute the part of the story about the wine bottle erupting, but denies that Bridges pushed a bouncer or threatened anyone.
“He left his credit card there and had to go back and get his credit card,” said Laughrun. “There was a woman who evidently got irate. But we adamantly disagree that he pushed or shoved anybody, or communicated threats to anyone.”
*****
No matter what the details are, this was a dumb move.
Obama's Cabinet taking shape
President Barack Obama's Cabinet is taking shape, and other top jobs are being filled.
TREASURY SECRETARY: Timothy Geithner, president of Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
SECRETARY OF STATE: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.
ATTORNEY GENERAL: Eric Holder, former deputy attorney general.
DEFENSE SECRETARY: Robert Gates, a holdover from Bush administration.
HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Gov. Janet Napolitano, D-Ariz.
NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Retired Marine Gen. James Jones.
COMMERCE SECRETARY: Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M.
NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL DIRECTOR: Lawrence Summers, former treasury secretary.
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET DIRECTOR: Peter Orszag, director of Congressional Budget Office.
VETERANS AFFAIRS SECRETARY: Retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki
TREASURY SECRETARY: Timothy Geithner, president of Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
SECRETARY OF STATE: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.
ATTORNEY GENERAL: Eric Holder, former deputy attorney general.
DEFENSE SECRETARY: Robert Gates, a holdover from Bush administration.
HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Gov. Janet Napolitano, D-Ariz.
NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Retired Marine Gen. James Jones.
COMMERCE SECRETARY: Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M.
NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL DIRECTOR: Lawrence Summers, former treasury secretary.
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET DIRECTOR: Peter Orszag, director of Congressional Budget Office.
VETERANS AFFAIRS SECRETARY: Retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki
Today's readers
Readers in the following countries have read Carolina Naturally today:
la France (France)
Alban (Scotland)
ישראל(Israel)
Deutschland (Germany)
مصر (Egypt)
England (England)
السعودي (Saudi Arabia)
Cymru (Wales)
Canada (Canada)
België (Belgium)
España (Spain)
台湾 (Taiwan)
(Bahrain)
日本 (Japan)
Κύπρος (Cyprus)
Australia (Australia)
Suomi (Finland)
Sverige (Sweden)
Italia (Italy)
Norge (Norway)
Brasil (Brazil)
Ísland (Iceland)
I have listed the countries in their native or dominant language (except for Bahrain - my Arabic is not that great so I do not know what they people living there call their country).
Now, who said you could not learn something from reading this blog.
la France (France)
Alban (Scotland)
ישראל(Israel)
Deutschland (Germany)
مصر (Egypt)
England (England)
السعودي (Saudi Arabia)
Cymru (Wales)
Canada (Canada)
België (Belgium)
España (Spain)
台湾 (Taiwan)
(Bahrain)
日本 (Japan)
Κύπρος (Cyprus)
Australia (Australia)
Suomi (Finland)
Sverige (Sweden)
Italia (Italy)
Norge (Norway)
Brasil (Brazil)
Ísland (Iceland)
I have listed the countries in their native or dominant language (except for Bahrain - my Arabic is not that great so I do not know what they people living there call their country).
Now, who said you could not learn something from reading this blog.
Country Ham
The slow-cured country ham is the opposite of fast food.
It is also one of North Carolina's oldest culinary traditions.
Salty. Leathery. The skin dried so hard, it can take a band saw to cut through it. Before cooking, you have to heft it into a sink and scrub off the mold. This is not most people's definition of food. But in the Carolinas, it's a good description of one of our most important contributions to the American food story: Slow-cured country ham.
It once kept people in this part of the world alive through tough winters. It added flavor and protein to meager plates of grits and greens. It was so prized, colonists made scarce cash by shipping it to Europe for the gentry.
Today, slow-cured country ham is not much more than a lingering taste of Carolinas history. In supermarkets, you usually find mass-produced versions that use climate controls to hurry the process.
What is hard to find is the original kind, treated with nothing but salt and maybe sugar, and hung in a room with open windows, exposed to months of spring breezes and humid summer nights.The 'Days of Pork ... are over'
President Barack Obama issued a warning Sunday to officials around the country who want to fund projects with federal dollars: no more business as usual.
In an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Obama said: "What we need to do is examine: What are the projects where we're going to get the most bang for the buck? How are we going to make sure taxpayers are protected?
"You know, the days of just pork coming out of Congress as a strategy, those days are over."
Workers in Argentina taking over dead factories and running them democratically
There is a lesson here somewhere ...
As Argentine factories go bankrupt and shut their doors, workers are breaking in, starting the machines up again, electing their own leaders, and running the businesses themselves, putting up fierce resistance when the police try to evict them.
As Argentine factories go bankrupt and shut their doors, workers are breaking in, starting the machines up again, electing their own leaders, and running the businesses themselves, putting up fierce resistance when the police try to evict them.
On 19 March 2003, we were on the roof of the Zanón ceramic tile factory, filming an interview with Cepillo. He was showing us how the workers fended off eviction by armed police, defending their democratic workplace with slingshots and the little ceramic balls normally used to pound the Patagonian clay into raw material for tiles. His aim was impressive. It was the day the bombs started falling on Baghdad...The movement of recovered companies is not epic in scale - some 170 companies, around 10,000 workers in Argentina. But six years on, and unlike some of the country's other new movements, it has survived and continues to build quiet strength in the midst of the country's deeply unequal "recovery". Its tenacity is a function of its pragmatism: this is a movement that is based on action, not talk. And its defining action, reawakening the means of production under worker control, while loaded with potent symbolism, is anything but symbolic. It is feeding families, rebuilding shattered pride, and opening a window of powerful possibility.
Riots in Greece cities after teen killed
Hundreds of youths angered by the fatal police shooting of a teenager rampaged through Greece's two largest cities for a second day Sunday in some of the worst rioting the country has seen in years.
Gangs smashed stores, torched cars and erected burning barricades in the streets of Athens and Thessaloniki.
Riot police clashed with groups of mostly self-styled anarchists throwing Molotov cocktails, rocks and bottles.
Clouds of tear gas hung in the air, sending bystanders dashing for cover.
Rioting in several cities, including Hania in Crete and cities in northern Greece, began within hours of the death Saturday night of a 15-year-old shot by police in Exarchia.
The downtown Athens district of bars, music clubs and restaurants is seen as the anarchists' home base.
Soon stores, banks and cars there were in flames.
This is but the latest in a long history of rioting in Greece over the slightest of provocations or no provocation at all. It is an odd note that the last series of riots set off for the same 'reason' was also a fifteen year old boy killed by police. What is it that the police in Greece have against 15-year-old boys?
Gangs smashed stores, torched cars and erected burning barricades in the streets of Athens and Thessaloniki.
Riot police clashed with groups of mostly self-styled anarchists throwing Molotov cocktails, rocks and bottles.
Clouds of tear gas hung in the air, sending bystanders dashing for cover.
Rioting in several cities, including Hania in Crete and cities in northern Greece, began within hours of the death Saturday night of a 15-year-old shot by police in Exarchia.
The downtown Athens district of bars, music clubs and restaurants is seen as the anarchists' home base.
Soon stores, banks and cars there were in flames.
This is but the latest in a long history of rioting in Greece over the slightest of provocations or no provocation at all. It is an odd note that the last series of riots set off for the same 'reason' was also a fifteen year old boy killed by police. What is it that the police in Greece have against 15-year-old boys?
Nobel winner says Internet might have stopped Hitler
The spread of information on the Internet has given the world a new tool to forestall conflicts, Nobel literature prize winner Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio said Sunday.
In his Nobel lecture to the Swedish Academy, the 68-year-old Frenchman said an earlier introduction of information technology could even have prevented World War II.
"Who knows, if the Internet had existed at the time, perhaps Hitler's criminal plot would not have succeeded - ridicule might have prevented it from ever seeing the light of day," he said.
Still, the globe-trotting writer noted that access to computers remains a luxury to many in the developing world and said eradicating hunger and illiteracy remain the "two great urgent tasks" of humankind.
"Literacy and the struggle against hunger are connected, closely interdependent," he said.
"One cannot succeed without the other. Both of them require, indeed urge, us to act."
Le Clezio was praised by the Nobel jury at the Swedish Academy for his "poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy" in such works as "Terra Amata," "The Book of Flights" and "Desert."
Though he was born in France, Le Clezio's father is British and he holds dual nationality with Mauritius, where his family has roots.
He spends much of his time in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Recalling his beginnings as a writer, Le Clezio said the books that had the greatest impact on him were anthologies of travelers tales, including those of Marco Polo.
"Those books gave me a taste for adventure, gave me a sense of the vastness of the real world, a means to explore it through instinct and the senses rather than through knowledge," he said in a speech delivered in French.
Le Clezio called on publishers to make books available to a broader public in developing countries and to publish more material in lesser-known languages.
"In Africa, Southeast Asia, Mexico, or the South Sea Islands, books remain an inaccessible luxury," Le Clezio said.
He will receive the Nobel Prize in literature at a ceremony on Wednesday. The medicine, chemistry, physics and economics prizes are also handed out in Stockholm, while the Nobel Peace Prize is presented in Oslo, Norway.
In his Nobel lecture to the Swedish Academy, the 68-year-old Frenchman said an earlier introduction of information technology could even have prevented World War II.
"Who knows, if the Internet had existed at the time, perhaps Hitler's criminal plot would not have succeeded - ridicule might have prevented it from ever seeing the light of day," he said.
Still, the globe-trotting writer noted that access to computers remains a luxury to many in the developing world and said eradicating hunger and illiteracy remain the "two great urgent tasks" of humankind.
"Literacy and the struggle against hunger are connected, closely interdependent," he said.
"One cannot succeed without the other. Both of them require, indeed urge, us to act."
Le Clezio was praised by the Nobel jury at the Swedish Academy for his "poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy" in such works as "Terra Amata," "The Book of Flights" and "Desert."
Though he was born in France, Le Clezio's father is British and he holds dual nationality with Mauritius, where his family has roots.
He spends much of his time in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Recalling his beginnings as a writer, Le Clezio said the books that had the greatest impact on him were anthologies of travelers tales, including those of Marco Polo.
"Those books gave me a taste for adventure, gave me a sense of the vastness of the real world, a means to explore it through instinct and the senses rather than through knowledge," he said in a speech delivered in French.
Le Clezio called on publishers to make books available to a broader public in developing countries and to publish more material in lesser-known languages.
"In Africa, Southeast Asia, Mexico, or the South Sea Islands, books remain an inaccessible luxury," Le Clezio said.
He will receive the Nobel Prize in literature at a ceremony on Wednesday. The medicine, chemistry, physics and economics prizes are also handed out in Stockholm, while the Nobel Peace Prize is presented in Oslo, Norway.
Chicago workers' sit-in becomes rallying point
A sit-in by laid-off workers at a shuttered window factory in Chicago is becoming a cause celebre for those who want action to avert economic pain.
Politicians, community leaders and members of outside unions turned up Sunday at the Republic Windows and Doors company to support the 250 or so former workers occupying the plant.
Workers say they'll stay put until they're given severance and vacation pay.
Factory worker Melvin Maclin says the protesters expected to face arrest when they began the sit-in Friday.
But he says spirits are high after all the backing they've received.
Supporters fill the lobby of the building, and workers take turns occupying the plant floor.
Politicians, community leaders and members of outside unions turned up Sunday at the Republic Windows and Doors company to support the 250 or so former workers occupying the plant.
Workers say they'll stay put until they're given severance and vacation pay.
Factory worker Melvin Maclin says the protesters expected to face arrest when they began the sit-in Friday.
But he says spirits are high after all the backing they've received.
Supporters fill the lobby of the building, and workers take turns occupying the plant floor.
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