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Show A2 The Emery County Review, Tuesday, September 16, 2008 The News Off The Beaten Path SLICE OF LIFE D E DA Z LIGHTER SIDE For the Dogs Cleveland Elementary goes for the Gold James L. Davis Kathy Ockey Our dog likes to lick the refrigerator. I don’t know why, but she does it all of the time. It could be because she knows that within the refrigerator awaits all of the food that she would dearly love to eat and is not permitted to. My wife says people food is not good for her. She has to eat her dog food. I wish that were not so because I believe her dog food actually costs more than the food in our refrigerator. I didn’t really understand why people food is not good for our dog until the other day when I went to get our dog a bone and found that we were out of bones. They aren’t really bones, mind you, because bones are apparently not good for dogs. They are called Greenies and they have the texture of plastic and are a deep, dark green. They don’t look entirely healthy to me, but I don’t argue the point with my wife because the dog belongs to her. I also haven’t mentioned that the dog has been known to get “treats” out of the cat litter box from time to time and that these treats may really not be good for her. At any rate, I went in search of a Greenie and there weren’t any, but my wife’s dog knew that I was going to get her a treat and so she began to bounce up and down on the floor, resembling in many ways a fur covered pogo stick with a tail. I knew that my wife’s dog would continue to act like a pogo stick until I gave her a treat. I knew this because I have tested her. But with no dog treats in the house, I had absolutely no choice but to give her a human treat. So I gave her a hot dog. I didn’t think to cut the hot dog up because I thought that the dog had the intelligence to actually chew her food. In this I was mistaken. After giving her the hot dog I stepped back to see if she would actually eat it or not and it is then that I discovered that dogs can suck, which is something I was unaware of. Perhaps only my wife’s dog can suck, but at any rate as I watched, the dog sucked the hot dog into her mouth and was apparently intent on sucking the hot dog right into her stomach without bothering to chew at all. This was somewhat alarming in that I was not entirely sure if sucking a hot dog into your stomach was entirely good for you. My wife was definitely of the opinion that sucking an entire hot dog into your stomach was not good for you, so she dashed over and took the hot dog away from her dog before she could swallow it whole. Having her treat confiscated before it had reached her belly set the dog off into another bout of pogo jumping, so while my wife cut the hot dog into bite size chunks I watched her dog bounce on the floor. “Still think she’s brilliant?” I asked harmlessly enough and was given a dirty look by my wife. With the hot dog cut into multiple bite size morsels she gave the dog the treats on a paper plate. Before she could turn around the dog had sucked them individually into her mouth, past her teeth and into her stomach. “She can’t have anymore human food,” my wife said yet again. “It’s not good for her.” I didn’t argue the point because the dog had her treat and was no longer bouncing like a pogo stick or licking the refrigerator, so I didn’t really care if she had anymore human food or not. When faced with the complexities of a complex world I often make myself feel better by looking at my wife’s dog and thinking that while I may possess limited abilities, I am, at least, smarter than the dog. But during the past week I discovered that my wife’s dog and I have far more in common than I had previously supposed. I quit drinking coffee several years ago. I quit drinking coffee on the same day that I quit smoking cigarettes and drinking beer and while I did not slip into a coma from the shock, I dearly wanted to. I wanted to change the course of my life and knew that I couldn’t do that with baby steps. I had to leap. So I did. You may have heard the screaming. While I quit all of these habits that does not mean that I stopped enjoying the thought of these habits, because I didn’t; especially drinking coffee. I can smell a pot of coffee brewing from a mile or more away and whenever I smell coffee I want to drink coffee, lots of coffee. But I know that all of my addictions were interrelated. When I drank coffee I invariably smoked a cigarette. And if I sat down on a warm Saturday afternoon to drink a cold beer, I would smoke a cigarette. So the only way to get rid of cigarettes was to get rid of coffee and beer as well. If I went back to coffee or beer the cigarettes would not be far behind. Living with weaknesses at least gives you insight into how your weaknesses manipulate you. But just because I know I can’t risk drinking coffee does not mean that I don’t wish to. I happened to be staying at a hotel recently that had in its lobby a Starbucks. I like to go into Starbucks just to smell the air. If they charged for the right to smell their coffee brewing I would probably be willing to pay. But not being able to drink Starbucks coffee was a painful experience. I knew it wasn’t good for me, but I wanted it desperately. So when the Starbucks manager stepped outside and asked me politely to stop licking the window I gained a newfound respect for my wife’s dog. Cleveland Elementary held their Gold Medal kickoff assembly on Sept. 8. Afterwards, the student body had a flag raising and completed a one mile victory lap around the school grounds. The Gold Medal Program educates students on the importance of physical activity and healthy nutrition choices and can also improve their academic success because of helping them to learm the importance of good nutrition, physical activity and the importance of staying tobacco-free. The Bronze and Silver levels must be earned before reaching the Gold Medal and each level has different criteria to move onto the next one. Examples of the criteria includes: Establish a walking program on or around the school grounds and set a goal for each student to walk at least one mile each week; develop a policy for all teachers and staff to not use food as a reward and to promote good eating information; mandates a tobacco free school and education on the danger of tobacco use; and provide healthy activities for both students and faculty. Principal Ed Clark said the school will be working this current year to complete and achieve the requirements for the Platinum level next year. Photo by Kathy Ockey Cleveland Elementary students and teachers take a walk as part of the Gold Medal program. Vickie Rasmussen is the school representative for this program Cleveland reading contest winners: Back row, Simone Burton, Lainee Jensen, Jazmyn Sacco, David Bird. Front: Gage Jensen, Gracie Winn and Melissa Allred from public health is also very involved with the school in meeting the requirements for this program. Another fun program the Gold Medal School has is a summer reading program Principal Clark started five years ago for the elementary students. They are challenged to read during the summer and must keep a record of the books they have read, the number of pages, and must be of an age appropriate book level. The lower grades can read the books themselves or read with a parent. He said they have had good success with this reading program and a lot of the students participate each year. A monetary reward is given to the winners. Winners of this years reading contest are: First place: Jazmyn Sacco (5th grade), 13,993 pages; Second place: David Bird (6th grade), 6,013 pages; Third place: Gracie Winn, (1st grade), 2,371 pages; Fourth place: Lainee Jensen (3rd grade), 1,657 pages Fifth place: Simone Burton (4th grade), 1,445 pages Sixth place: Gage Jensen (2nd grade), 1,025 pages Principal Clark concluded saying, “We have a wonderful school. I provide the resources, step back and let the excellent teachers do their job.” NEWS OF THE WEIRD Chuck Shepherd Lead Story Italian and U.K. legal authorities have recently discarded rule interpretations based on embarrassingly anachronistic stereotypes of women. In July, Italy’s Court of Cassation reversed a 1999 ruling creating a legal presumption that a woman wearing tight jeans could not be the victim of rape because such jeans would be impossible to remove without her assistance. Coincidentally, at about the same time, the British government formally removed the special, ameliorating defense of “provocation” for husbands charged with murdering their wives, thus putting domestic homicide on the same footing as other homicides. (Some husbands had received lesser penalties by claiming that their wives’ affairs had provoked them to murder.) Compelling Explanations -- Jonathan Williams, 33, was convicted of cocaine possession in England’s Guildford Crown Court in July, as jurors rejected his explanation that the pants he had on (containing the cocaine) were not his. That explanation also failed in August in Naples, Fla., for Richard Obdyke, 19, when police found a stolen debit card in his pants. (In both cases, the men said they had no idea whose pants they were wearing.) And in August The Duplex in Corpus Christi, Texas, a 25-year-old man was arrested for drug possession during a traffic stop, despite his volunteering to police that “It’s not my truck,” and “If you find something (searching it), it’s not mine,” and “If there’s anything in that black bag, it’s not mine.” -- Gill Switalski, 51, filed a lawsuit in London, seeking the equivalent of almost $40 million for her dismissal from the Foreign and Colonial investment firm, claiming she was fired illegally during an illness. However, F and C asserted in June that it found an instance during a particularly sickly spell for Switalski when she interviewed for a job at a competitor while demonstrating enough energy and drive to have received an offer of employment. Switalski said she was merely using an “alternative personality” during that interview. -- In July, Leroy Mcafee, 55, was charged in Austin, Texas, with molesting an 11year-old girl but confessed to police that he had molested two others, as well. However, he refused to describe those incidents because he wanted to save that information for his autobiography. What Goes Around, Comes Around -- According to police in Bethlehem, Pa., four kids (ages 9 to 14) grabbed a donation box in August at RiverPlace park (contributions to an organization that maintains the park’s portable toilets) and ran for nearby woods, with several police officers in pursuit. Three boys were caught, but the other made it a little ways into the woods before falling into a manure pit built by homeless people at their encampment. -- About 10 years ago, reported LA Weekly in July, Southern California was awash with hysteria over household “toxic mold,” in which lawyers convinced jurors that a wide range of illnesses was caused by fungi that previously had been minor irritants controlled by ordinary cleansers. (Centers for Disease Control maintains there is no basis for such hysteria and that the only at-risk people are a tiny number vulnerable to specific fungi.) Among the mold alarmists then was announcer Ed McMahon, who famously received a multimillion-dollar settlement by claiming that mold killed his beloved dog. Recently, McMahon even more famously publicly lamented his potential bankruptcy, in large part because no one wanted to buy his house (although the reason now seems more the mortgage credit crisis than the home’s alleged toxicity). The Litigious Society -- Kevin Hansen filed a lawsuit in West Bend, Wis., in August, claiming that spotting a clump of hair in a steak he sliced into from a Texas Roadhouse restaurant caused “severe and permanent injuries,” pain, suffering and “disability,” requiring “extensive medical treatment.” In fact, said his lawyer Ryan Hetzel to Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel, “It’s bothered the heck out of him.” (The employee who prepared the steak was fired and later pleaded guilty to a felony, explaining that he was trying to retaliate because Hansen complained about a previous order.) -- After failing the West Virginia Bar Exam for the second time (during which he was given an extra day to complete it), Shannon Kelly filed a lawsuit in July demanding even more concessions based on his unspecified cognitive disability. The second failure was also on a special version of the exam in large type, and Kelly had been permitted to work in a room by himself. He now believes he can earn his license if he is allowed four days instead of the normal two, to make up for (according to his lawyer) “severe deficits in processing speed, cognitive fluency and rapid naming” (though it is not clear how many attorney jobs are available for someone with such a skills set). (Copyright 2008 Chuck Shepherd. Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate.) By Glenn McCoy |
