| eSchoolnewsletter acts to speed notifications
The company eSchool Systems LLC, which provides e-mail school newsletters to Howard County families, is moving to improve the way parents receive emergency notifications.
Parents will be able to receive text messages about school closings or delays this winter, and recent changes to the e-mail system allow news to reach parents' inboxes more quickly.
About 36,000 families in Howard County subscribe to eSchool Systems e-mail, called eSchoolnewsletters. These free eSchoolnewsletters provide a direct line of communication from schools and the central office to parents. The eSchool newsletters contain information about PTA meetings, postponed athletic events, scholarship deadlines and other things.
.
Be Aware (Beware)
But it means that the unscrupulous and the obtuse have a ready supply of raw material to mold into something vile when the occasion becomes available, or if there is some profit in it. H.L. Mencken explained that a demagogue is “one who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." The problem with this definition, of course, is that it is the product of a simpler era and so not nearly cynical enough. For a demagogue now, truth and knowledge have nothing to do with it. For the really suave expression of Islamophobofascism, however, no local sideshow can compete with an interview that the British novelist Martin Amis gave last year. At the highest stages of cosmopolitan literary influence, it seems, one may express ideas worthy of a manic loon phoning a radio talk-show and get them published in the London Times.
'Roswell Roots' festival to mark black culture
Tony Quinton is delighted that some of his paintings will be on display at Roswell Roots, a cultural arts festival that begins Friday. For starters, he said, lots of people will see his paintings. And viewers will get a chance to see that local artists like him do good work. .
The Rez Vet
Dr. Adrienne Ruby shaves the abscessed head of a stray kitten found by Linda Cleveland of Ganado, Ariz. The kitten was found wearing a red collar, so if you're missing it or want to adopt it, Cleveland says she'd be happy to give it up and would appreciate some help with the vet bill. .
Asia Markets Sink on US Economy Fears
Investors reacted nervously after a U.S. government report showed a sharp and unexpected decline in manufacturing activity and figures that showed housing starts plunged to their weakest pace in more than 16 years. That helped send the Dow Jones industrial average sliding 2.5 percent Thursday to 12,159.21, its lowest level since last March. Investors around the world are jittery about the full extent of the subprime mortgage crisis in the U.S., which has led to a credit crunch and billions of dollars of losses at major American investment banks Citigroup and Merrill Lynch & Co. due to writedowns of bad assets. Recent signs of slower U.S. consumption has added to concerns that the American economy might contract, weakening demand for Asian electronics, cars, clothing and other exports.
Minnesotan Will Steger carries the story of polar ice caps by dogsled
Will Steger was born and raised in Minnesota, but he views himself as a citizen of the world.The explorer has gained a worldwide audience with his journeys to the North and South Poles. Since 1963, he has traveled thousands of miles across the Arctic and Antarctic by kayak and dogsled.As with explorers before him, Steger wants to tell the world about what he's seen. And from what he's seen, things are changing.The Western Antarctic Ice Shelf - an area the size of Minnesota - collapsed in 2002. Steger traveled by dogsled across the region in 1989-1990.The same thing is happening in the Arctic. The ice is melting into the sea. The Canadian Ward Ice Shelf broke in half during the summer of 2002. Canada's Ayles Ice Shelf collapsed in August 2005.“The science is firmly in that we do have a major problem," said Steger.
|
