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Show Volume XXI Issue VII The Ogden Valley news Page 3 July 15, 2013 Letters to the Editor Sponsors, Vendors, & Volunteers Needed for Upcoming Ogden Valley Roots & Blues Festival Ogden Friends of Acoustic Music (OFOAM) is looking for arts-minded, community/environment-minded, outdoorsy musicloving sponsors to join OFOAM in presenting its first Ogden Valley Roots & Blues Festival. Sponsorship packages include tickets to the festival, mention in brochure, placement on stage banners, stage announcements and the privilege of hanging your banner(s) at the venue. In addition your business/organization receives critical exposure to some of the best people on earth! This three day music festival will be held at Cutler Flats, North Gate, North Fork Park, Liberty, UT, Friday-Sunday, August 23-25, 2013. Visit OFOAM.org and scroll down for the link to the Sponsor Packet. Vendor application is also available. Volunteer opportunities will be available soon. Artists include Detroit soul-singer Bettye LaVette, rock/blues/jazz/improve The Wood Brothers, Bill Kirchen “The Titan of the Telecaster”, North Florida swamp-blues Swamp Cabbage, New Orleans slap steel blues John Mooney, Oklahoma pedal-steel country blues Watermelon Slim, rootsy-bluesy-grassy The Hill Benders, surf rockin’ youth The Atomics, Jazz-gentleman Joe McQueen, blues-rockers The Sister Wives, Korene Greenwood & the Horse Brothers, The Kap Brothers Band and the Legendary Porch Pounders. Bill Kirchen and members of Swamp Cabbage will provide a “Guitar Master Class” Friday, August 23, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. with breakout sessions on song-writing and rhythm and groove. A free to the public outreach geared towards youth will be presented Thursday, August 22, at 6:00 p.m. at the Downtown Ogden Amphitheater to kick-off this great weekend and lure those city folk up to the mountains! Camping at Cutler Flats available through Weber County Parks & Recreation (801)-399-8491. Tickets at OFOAM.org and soon in local outlets such as Eden Coffee & Cocoa in Eden. Feel free to call Michelle Tanner (801) 391-9182 or Reba Nissen (801) 682-6953 for sponsor questions, Kara Twitchell (801) 3933420 for non-food vendor questions, and Weber County Food & Beverage (801) 399-8257 for food vendor questions. Guest Commentary Progressive . . . . Compared to What? Being progressive is a good thing . . . right? We are practically destined to be progressive in this modern world—we’re surrounded by innovation and technological advances; science cranks out new inventions daily; we’ve found cures for disease and illnesses, we can communicate electronically in dozens of ways; and we’ve been to the moon and back, exploring near and outer space. The earth’s population has more than doubled to 7 billion in the last half century, and is predicted to reach 10 billion by 2050; we must be “progressive” mustn’t we? Well, not necessarily. Our attitudes certainly have changed about religion, morals, national pride, and freedoms— among other things. Marriage is less revered than 50 years ago, premarital sex is common place, and unwed mothers more numerous. We have huge problems with substance addictions, mental illness, and homeless problems, which manifest themselves through crime and mass murders. We are awash in violent media entertainment that is filled with torture, murder, and other despicable acts. Political views have changed too; become more divisive (in Progressive speak, it’s pronounced “divissive”) and a whole lot more confrontational and even downright dishonest. The divide between “left” and “right” is to the point that the word “progressive” is spoken with the same venom as “serial killer” or “child molester” on some news/opinion TV and radio talk shows. Conversely, in some quarters, the words “tea party” or “conservative” are spat out with equal distaste, and “red neck” is used as a synonym for ignorant or to describe anyone who disagrees with the Liberal/Progressive point of view. You can tell when a Progressive is speaking by his or her gesticulation—hand extended with thumb and forefinger exactly 2.3 centimeters apart to indicate the preciseness of the thinking that went into a decision. The separate political ideological camps are forever at each others’ throats, conjuring up halftruths, distorted facts, and convoluted lies to do battle with the enemy. As Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Leading one to ask, “If this is progress, what is the alternative?” You and I, like many other Americans, can probably agree on at least a few things. We’d like to have a peaceful world, we’d like to enjoy this life if at all possible, we’d like to be safe in our homes from any number of threats, and we generally believe that ours is a pretty good country with pretty good people and pretty good values. But, insuring that these goals are achievable is where the conflict occurs; the devil is in the details. It seems that the thing Progressives most want to distance themselves from is our Constitutional Republic. Some even question whether we need a Constitution at all, noting that we already have an abundance of laws. It follows that if we don’t need a Constitution, then we certainly don’t need a Supreme Court to decide which laws are constitutional and we certainly don’t need a Congress to make any more laws. An Executive Branch will do just fine under this kind of thinking; perhaps a Benevolent Dictator would do the job, as in the counties ruled by Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. One branch of government was all that Hitler and Stalin required. Surely Progressives don’t advocate such extreme measures. Finding “wiggle room” and deniability are among Liberal/Progressive favorite pastimes. For starters, the requirement that an American president be a natural born citizen, which the Supreme Court said in 1784 meant that both parents had to be American Citizens; Barack Obama and his supporters found wiggle room and moved on. Wiggle room was given by the current Supreme Court in finding that a “fee” in Obamacare was actually a “tax” and therefore constitutional. And the media, with few exceptions, gives the administration abundant wiggle room, not taking note of their screw-ups and lies unless it has to do with one of their own reporters. The path to deniability seems to work this way—you take full responsibility for an event such as the disaster in Ben Ghazi, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated, then you totally wash your hands of the whole affair and go along with the administration’s “white wash” of the killing of four Americans in our embassy. Currently the administration is denying any responsibility for IRS targeting of Conservative groups and government eavesdropping on practically everyone in the country. This is an administration that consistently bends the facts for its own benefit, perhaps the most egregious being the false narrative used during the 2012 Presidential election that the war on terrorism was won with the obvious benefit to the Presidents’ status and electability, a truly Progressive act. The leader of Bhutan, a tiny kingdom in Asia, has a different take on progress; he declared that his country’s goal is an increase in GNH, Gross National Happiness. Among other things, he put up road signs warning that “life is a journey, complete it.” If only life were that simple but it’s not. We’re not powerless to change our destiny if we progress in the right way. John W. Reynolds, Pleasant View The 2013 Outdoor Retail Expo will be held on July 29 & 30 at Port Ramp Marina in Eden. The ramp will be CLOSED to the public both days. Ogden Pediatrician: Childhood obesity serious By Jamie Lampros Standard-Examiner correspondent OGDEN — Every day, Dr. Isabel Cristina Lau encounters children who are obese and living with its related problems. The Ogden pediatrician said childhood obesity is common and serious and is leading children to be diagnosed with problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, fatty liver disease, acid reflux, and stretch marks at earlier ages than ever before. Lau and Ogden Regional Medical Center registered outpatient dietitian Jennifer James spoke about the issue recently during the Ogden Medical Surgical Society Conference. Although both said progress is being made with some changes, childhood obesity continues to increase. “There are numerous diseases that I recognize when the patient is obese,” Lau said. “Every organ gets affected. One of the organs first affected is the skin. Patients at a young age start to have stretch marks on their abdomen.” In addition, they can develop acanthosis nigricans, which is a dark coloration of the skin around the neck, underarm and groin, she said. “The mental and physical damage is enormous,” Lau said. “Obese kids are bullied, depressed, and have poor self-esteem. Also, bigger children are getting bigger to the point that 25 percent of adults that are obese were obese before 8 years of age. This is going to increase the price of goods that society has, like clothing, transportation means, and office equipment.” According to a report released in September by the Utah Department of Health, nearly onefourth of Utah third-graders are at an unhealthy weight. More boys are overweight or obese in every grade, with a dramatic increase between first and fifth grades. During her presentation at the conference, James focused on the sugar and fat content in an average child’s diet that is typical of what she has seen in her patients. She showed an average day’s menu with the typical fast food and sugary beverages, and it amounted to around one stick of butter fat content equivalent, and almost a cup of sugar from all the sweets and sugary beverages. “Expand that out to one year, and it equals 157 pounds of sugar and 12.5 gallons of oil, or 121 pounds of butter,” James said. James also showed a variety of foods that equal 1,500 calories. They included six cases of spinach, 25 small apples or oranges, 50 small cans of V-8 juice, one gallon of 1 percent milk, one slice of carrot cake from The Cheesecake Factory, two cups of jelly beans, one Bloomin’ Onion from The Outback, 12.5 tablespoons of oil, 16 oz. of sweetened condensed milk and six Snickers candy bars. Both experts said in order for a child to conquer obesity, the entire family has to be supportive. “Fast food, video games, and sugary beverages are not going away, so these things have to be managed better,” James said. “Kids these days often don’t know how to play hopscotch, jump rope, or kickball. Then they spend so much time playing video games and not playing outside, they never learn the street games we all played growing up. Would you believe there are elementary schools in other parts of the country that have been built without playgrounds? We adults need to do a better job at raising healthy kids. A 5-year-old can’t buy his own groceries or drive to the fast-food place for lunch. They are a captive audience.” James said a concerted effort from the community — including food producers and manufacturers, schools, grocery stores, restaurants, law enforcement, higher education, local government and medical facilities — is also necessary in order to help combat the problem. Lau agreed and said that in a child who is obese, the treatment is multidisciplinary. “A dietitian, physician, psychologist and physical therapist need to be involved to teach the child and family what is the best choice for them to have (in their normal life),” she said. “This is a serious problem for the child’s health and future. Doing minimal changes in your diet helps decrease body mass index a few points. Like more water in the diet. No soda. Avoid juices … and for readers who own a restaurant, I would encourage them to provide real kid’s portions for kid menus.” Note: This article originally ran in the Standard-Examiner on July 4, 2013, and is being reprinted by permission. 2013 Governor’s Medal for Science and Technology Awards Nominations Being Accepted For 26 years, the Governor has awarded the Medal for Science and Technology as a symbol of achievement to those individuals who have provided distinguished service to the state of Utah in science and technology. Governor Gary R. Herbert and the Utah State Advisory Council on Science and Technology are accepting nominations for the twenty sixth anniversary awards to be presented for 2013. The Governor will present the awards at a dinner in January, following the final selection of the awardees. The Utah State Advisory Council on Science and Technology is responsible for administering the award and for recommending nominees to Governor Herbert. This year, nominations will follow a simplified, two-step submittal process. A one-page form is all that is needed to initiate a nomination. This form can be accessed via the web at < http://business.utah.gov/governors-medals> Nominations should be emailed to Carol L. George, State Science Advisor, at cgeorge@utah.gov Nominees selected from the first round of applications may be asked to submit a more complete application package that would include letters of recommendation. Any Utah citizen or organization may submit nominations. Nominees must meet specific requirements detailed in the “Procedures and Criteria for Selection” document located at <http://business.utah.gov/Procedure-Criteria> Nominations must be received by 5:00 p.m. on Monday September 13, 2013. Nominations can be made in one of five categories: • Academic • Science Education • Industry-Individual (independent inventors and entrepreneurs) • Industry-Company (for- and non-profit company) • Government. The Weber County Fire Department has issued no firework restrictions. Please call your local fire station for up-to-date restriction updates. Eden Fire Station 801-745-2315 Huntsville Fire Station 801-745-9277 Weber County Fire 801-782-3580 Fireworks may be discharged between the hours of 11 AM and 11 PM July 21 - 27. July 24th hours are extended to midnight if there are no restrictions. |