pimblr.com

Like many people, Daryl Penn liked to bring out games such as Scene It? or Family Feud during weekend get-togethers. But the fun started to fizzle as the 38-year-old business teacher at Old Mill High School realized that few of the questions tapped into the history or culture of African-Americans.
After one family get-together last year, Penn went shopping for a game that featured African-American trivia.
He couldn’t find any on store shelves.
So Penn, an entrepreneur from a family of educators in Anne Arundel County, decided to create one.
He invested $25,000 to produce 1,000 copies of Are You Sure? Since its release April 28, he has sold more than 300 copies of the game, which costs $34.99. He figures he needs to sell about 800 copies to break even, so now that school is out, he plans to market it as aggressively as possible.
Penn, of Glen Burnie, has approached black fraternities and sororities in several states and is recommending the game as a fundraiser to a church in Pennsylvania. He plans to run commercials locally on cable. Eventually, he would like to see the game sold nationally in a large retail store.
“For me, the game is really for families, for the bonding,” Penn said.
The DVD game is modeled on popular ones such as the movie trivia game Scene It?, which shows a question on a television screen and allows players to select an answer using a remote control.
Sometimes after an answer is selected, players see a clip of one of Penn’s family members asking, “Are you sure?” Players then get a second chance to change their answer before the game shows them the correct one. The “Are You Sure?” clip plays regardless of whether the player selected the right answer - one of Penn’s classroom techniques to challenge students to stand behind their position.

baltimoresun.com

The following students shared more than $140,000 in scholarships awarded Saturday night at the 13th annual Gala and Scholarship Awards dinner at the Hyatt Regency hotel. The event was sponsored by Ibero-American Action League Inc.
$40,000 scholarships from Nazareth College:
Zullette Hernandez, of Monroe High School. She will attend Nazareth to study studio art.
Christina Valentin, of Dr. Freddie Thomas High School. She will attend Nazareth to study history.
$34,000 scholarship from St. John Fisher College:
Grisell Buides, of Bishop Kearney High School. She will attend Fisher to study English.
$2,000 each from the Hispanic Scholarship Endowment Fund:
Robert “Mike” Collier IV, of Webster Christian School. He will attend Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pa., to study civil engineering.
Marcos Cruz, of Allendale Columbia School. He will attend Ohio State University to study chemical engineering.
Matthew Falcon, of Fairport High School. He will attend the University of Pittsburgh. He is undecided on a major.
Carly Maldonado, of Webster Thomas High School. She will attend Nazareth College to study speech pathology.
Yamiled Ortiz, of Monroe High School. She will attend Monroe Community College to study political science.
Albert Parisi-Estevez, of Brighton High School. He will attend Cornell University to study policy analysis.
William Pellet, of Williamson High School. He will attend the University of Rochester to study political science.
Gabriel Ruiz, of one of the specialty schools at Franklin. He will attend the State University College at Buffalo to study engineering.
Sergio Rodriguez, of East High School. He will attend Rochester Institute of Technology to study chemistry.
Lizette Santana, of Our Lady of Mercy High School. She will attend the University of Pittsburgh to study liberal arts.
Melanie Vazquez, of School of the Arts. She will attend MCC to study education.
$1,000 each from MCC:
Denisse Ramos, of Penfield High School. She will attend MCC to study business administration.

democratandchronicle.com

100 meters: Kevin Steinberg, Neshaminy, senior. Steinberg posted a fully automatic time of 10.58 seconds - the state’s second-fastest time - while finishing second at the Class AAA state meet. The Connecticut signee also won the Suburban One League National and District 1 Class AAA meet titles.
200: Kevin Steinberg, Neshaminy, senior. Steinberg ran a 21.44 - the fastest time in the state - to finish first at the Class AAA state meet. He also swept the event at the Suburban One League National, Neshaminy Invitational, and Ken Montgomery Memorial meets.
400: Khaliff Featherstone, Simon Gratz, senior. Featherstone ran a state-best 47.92 to win the Class AAA state meet race. The Barton Community College signee also finished first in both the District 12 Class AAA and Public League Championships meets.
800: Tom Mallon, Central Bucks South, sophomore. Mallon posted the state’s fastest time of 1 minute, 52.35 seconds to finish first at the Class AAA state meet. He is the Helman Invitational champion and District 1 Class AAA runner-up.
1,600: Nick Crits, Wissahickon, senior. Crits ran a state-best 4:11.69 to win the Class AAA state meet. The La Salle recruit also swept the District 1 Class AAA and Suburban One League American titles.
3,200: Max Kaulbach, Germantown Friends, senior. Kaulbach recorded an 8:58.69 - the fastest time in the state - to win the third annual Henderson Invitational. The Princeton recruit is regarded as one of the nation’s premier distance runners.
110 hurdles: Stu Fram, Council Rock North, junior. Fram ran a 14.30, the state’s third-fastest time, to finish second at the Class AAA state meet. He is also the District 1 Class AAA, Suburban One League Continental, Neshaminy Invitational, and Council Rock Kiwanis meets champion.
300 hurdles: Frank Wainwright, Simon Gratz, senior. Wainwright posted a 37.84, the state’s second-fastest time, in the preliminaries of the Class AAA meet. He followed with 37.99 to finish second in the final. He won the District 12 Class AAA and Public League Championships titles.

philly.com

by Bridget McCrea
Poudre School District of Fort Collins, CO is automating its workforce management processes with WorkForce Software’s EmpCenter for K-12 School Districts suite.
Using the Time and Attendance, Employee Self-Service, Activity-based Costing, and Multiple Assignments modules, the district will be able to create and process separate timesheets for every employee, independently manage that information, and then incorporate it into a single employee paycheck. The end result complies with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and other state and federal requirements.
Workforce Software has been working with school districts nationwide and over the last several years to create solutions that meet their unique workforce management needs.
About the author: Bridget McCrea is a business and technology writer in Clearwater, FL. She can be reached at bridgetmc@earthlink.net.
Proposals for articles and tips for news stories, as well as questions and comments about this publication, should be submitted to David Nagel, executive editor, at dnagel@1105media.com.

thejournal.com

She was one of two students in Poudre School District and 24 across the state last summer to reach perfection on the college-entrance exams.
And as she hunkered down for her last year of high school, she got involved in the many clubs and activities offered at Rocky and signed up for six AP courses.
Pettinger expects to graduate Saturday with a 4.12 grade point average and a full-ride scholarship to the University of Denver.
Pettinger received DU’s Alumni Scholar-ship, which pays her full tuition for up to five years, giving her a chance to join a program that earns students a bachelor’s degree in three years and a master’s degree in two.
Pettinger is thinking about studying sociology with a minor in leadership studies.
“I definitely want to work with people, and I think I want to work internationally for a little while and maybe go into the Peace Corps,” she said, “I’ll have to see where my major ends up taking me.”
She said getting involved at Rocky, especially her senior year when she took on the leadership role as the student director for the spirit and marching band, made her high school experience memorable.
“Ever since elementary school, I’ve been driven to do well in my classes; and as I got older, I started to realize the benefits and that I could get into college,” she said. “But I also realized how much happier you are when you get involved; so this year, I got involved as much as I could because it makes it a lot more fun.”
Graduation is only a few days away for Rocky seniors, and Pettinger can’t quite put her thoughts into words about the milestone.
“I don’t think it’s completely sunk in that I’m leaving Rocky,” she said. “But I’m looking forward to living in the dorms and being on my own and meeting lots of new people (this fall).”

coloradoan.com

If you’re a hospital patient and a doctor refers to you as a “rock” it’s probably not a compliment, but try not to take offense if a nurse mutters “S.O.B.” in describing your condition.
Those are just two examples of the common slang and shorthand that reveal one of medicine’s little secrets: Doctors and nurses gossip just like anyone else, and they’re not above gossiping about the patients they serve.
Some of the jargon is harmless or even useful; for instance, “S.O.B.” usually is an acronym for “shortness of breath.”
But medical educators are trying to curtail the use of more callous language that can lead doctors to think of their patients as obstacles to overcome, rather than human beings deserving of empathy.
Medical residents tend to pick up such terms quickly during training, and many said the lingo ranges from humorous to downright nasty. A patient not in obvious need of surgery may get the tag “lgfd”—short for “looks good from the door.”
But a “rock” describes someone whose condition never seems to get better or worse, creating a hassle for doctors who often see their job as moving patients smoothly through the system.
“It’s implying that these human lives, these suffering people, are no more than mere insults to you,” said Dr. John Schumann, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center who tries to prevent medical students from adopting crude habits of speech.
Medical slang always is changing, but doctors say many of the terms in current use appeared a generation ago, when residents routinely endured seemingly endless shifts and a crushing workload that was supposed to prepare them for the rigors of medical practice.
Some residents said they still pick up slang terms from the influential 1978 novel “The House of God,” one doctor’s fictionalized account of the absurdity and emotional churn of medical training. One of the most infamous words that book introduced was “gomer,” short for “Get Out of My Emergency Room”—an epithet usually reserved for elderly patients with difficult, chronic illnesses.

chicagotribune.com

Salt Lake Community College’s men’s basketball program picked up two of the state’s top senior guards when Viewmont’s Davis Emery and Davis’ Connor Van Brocklin signed with the Bruins last week.
Emery and Van Brocklin won’t need any introductions, as they’ve battled hard against each other in Region 1 the last couple of seasons.
They’re also first cousins.
Emery’s dad, Jeff, the Viewmont boys basketball coach, is the brother of Van Brocklin’s mom, Allyson. Emery and Van Brocklin have played together on AAU teams in the past, but never in as meaningful of a situation as they’ll find themselves at SLCC.
“It will be fun,” Emery said. “We’ve talked about how it’s weird that we get to go to college and play on the same team.”
Both players were being looked at by a few programs. Emery said that he and Van Brocklin decided early on in the recruiting process that if they were offered a place at SLCC, they would commit and sign to play for the Bruins on the spot. SLCC, coming off a second-place finish in the NJCAA tournament, has a lot of holes to fill from this past season’s team.
Emery and Van Brocklin are tight, and all the time they spent playing with and against each other on Van Brocklin’s Sport Court will likely pay off for SLCC coach Norm Parrish.
“We have a good feel for each other and what we’re going to do,” Emery said.
The two players engaged in a friendly rivalry while competing for Viewmont and Davis. Emery said they would occasionally talk during their games. If they were ever seen laughing during the heated games between the two programs, it was because one was making fun of the other, or someone else on the court.
“It never really got too competitive,” Emery said. “Connor is probably the least cocky kid you’ll ever meet.”

deseretnews.com

Today is April Fools’ Day, which means as a newspaper writer I’m supposed to invent some outrageous-but-semiplausible story and see if readers will buy it. You know, something crazy like, “Chris Buttars Endorses Barack Obama,” or, “Hollywood Bad Girl Lindsay Lohan Announces She’s Moving to Boring Ol’ Utah.” Oh, wait, she actually did say that.
But since the fake-news-story thing has been done a zillion times, and I’m a really bad liar, I’m not going to do that. Besides, as Jay Ence told the Tribune back in the 1990s, April Fools’ is for amateurs. Ence was a St. George prankster who liked to glue quarters to the floor of his office and pass out chocolate eclairs filled with shaving cream - but never on April 1, because, he said, “Everyone is expecting it.”
That hasn’t stopped folks from trying, though. Among the all-time classic April Fools’ pranks:
* In 1957, a BBC news program announced that Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. The newscast even aired “footage” of Swiss peasants plucking strands of spaghetti from trees. Many viewers called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree.
* In 1996, Taco Bell Corp. announced it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell, prompting hundreds of outraged calls to the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the bell is housed. Asked about the “sale,”
quick-witted White House press secretary Mike McCurry responded that the Lincoln Memorial also had been sold and would now be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.
* Burger King in 1998 unveiled a “Left-Handed Whopper,” specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. The next day Burger King revealed the special burger was a hoax, but not before thousands of customers requested the new sandwich and many others asked for their own “right-handed” version.

sltrib.com

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Rainbow, indeed. He’s mutli-racial, he’s bi-racial, he’s post-racial, he’s retro-racial. He’s the Black Power candidate and the Honolulu candidate. He’s everywhere, he’s nowhere, he’s you, he’s me, he’s the change that he and we have been seeking. Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih
Yes, and don’t overlook another point of Obama’s amazing upbringing -his early teen years, in a small town in Galilee where he learned carpentry, wine making, and excelled in aquatic sports, such as water polo and walking. For futher elaboration on Palestine and its imjpact on Obama’s ideas about money changers, prostitutes, and the unclean, see St. Matthew’s beautiful essays describing the background he and Obama shared in Nazareth.
Can TNR gush any more? Hillary the Shrew. Obama the Adamic Hang Ten Aloha Kenyan Kansan Indonesian Rainbow Warrior.
TNR - you guys are getting closer and closer to self-parody status.
Time for someone to force his or her way into CW’s TNR archives and retrieve that TNR file showing Obama on the cover of Tiger Beat.
Actually, tep, this particular theory of Obama makes a lot of sense. Why does Obama not bug the hell out of most non-Baby Boomers, even though he is, demographically, a member of the Baby Boom? Largely because he did not live on the Mainland during the height of the Boomer youth rebellion (and the larger early Boomer conservative backlash of the same years). Thanks to this quirk of geography, the culture of Obama’s youth was much closer to the culture of the post-Boomer 1970s and the 1980s in the rest of America than to the 1960s and early 1970s on the Mainland. Facile as my summation is here, this line of analysis actually stands up pretty well when you get into it.

blogs.tnr.com

OAK CLIFF — As part of a two-day summit commemorating the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life, legacy, and death, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Jr. will be honored at an award dinner in Dallas next Saturday, March 29.
Wright, who has long-served as pastor to Democratic Presidential hopeful and U.S. Senator Barack Obama, recently made headlines when Wright’s controversial statements about the disparity between black and white America were denounced by Obama. Brite reaffirmed its decision to honor Wright as part of the fourth annual National Black Church Studies Forum and Black Church Consultation, saying:
UPDATE: Obama discussed Rev. Wright and Trinity (the church Wright pastored, where Obama has been a member for decades), in a speech Tuesday morning, saying, “As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. … He contains within him the contradictions — the good and the bad — of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.”

pegasusnews.com