(News Briefs July 5, 2007)

ATV Plans
A proposed state policy regarding where all-terrain vehicles can be used has yet to be enacted and remains under review by the Department of Environmental Conservation.
Two years ago the state proposed an effective ban on all-terrain vehicles on state land in the Adirondack and Catskill state parks. ATVs and other motorized vehicles are already banned from state land designated as wilderness, such as much of the state acreage in the region. The proposal is also aimed at making sure public land is not used to provide access to trespass on private land, as well as to stop “environmental degradation.” The policy would provide a process for a road or trail to open to ATV use under specific criteria.
The ban under a draft of a policy by the state Department of Environmental Conservation comes after environmental groups and state officials used photographs to show damage by the powerful three- and four-wheelers with wide, knobby tires.
ATV enthusiasts have opposed greater restrictions. They note the growing activity provides an economic boost to the areas often hit hard.
Opponents of ATV’s see the ban as a great thing.
“This is going to be an enormous relief to badly damaged areas in the Adirondacks and Catskills and will make enforcement much easier,” said John Sheehan of The Adirondack Council. “This will make especially the western Adirondacks much more serene and peaceful, especially in summer.”.
DEC spokeswoman Lori O’Connell said last week many draft policies are being re-examined in the wake of Eliot Spitzer becoming governor in January. She said the state hopes to finalize the ATV policy soon but does not have a timetable for action. State officials originally hoped to have the ATV policy finalized by the beginning of 2006, but that later was pushed back to the summer of 2006 and then the fall.
The DEC already has determined recreational vehicle access must conform with state vehicle and traffic laws, the environmental conservation law, agency rules and regulations and the Adirondack and Catskill state land master plans.
The policy also would prohibit all-terrain vehicle use within the boundaries of wildlife management areas, tidal wetlands and environmental education centers.

Ulster Rx!
Ulster County residents can enroll in Ulster Rx, the county’s discount drug program, for free the rest of the year. Liberty Care Rx, the company that administers Ulster Rx, announced the enrollment fee will be waived for all of 2007. The one-time $15 fee for individuals and $26 for families had been waived at the beginning of the year, and the free enrollment is now being extended to encourage more participation.
All county residents are eligible for Ulster Rx, regardless of their health insurance coverage or level of income. The program offers 10 to 50 percent discounts on prescription drugs at participating pharmacies around the country, as well as a Canadian mail-order option. There are currently about 662 members enrolled in the program - 198 of whom have signed on in 2007 – out of an estimated 40,000 uninsured residents in the county.
Posters advertising Ulster Rx will be featured on county buses starting in July in another effort to raise awareness. For more information or to join Ulster Rx, visit the Web site www.ulsterrx.com or call (800) 780-8738 or (716) 204-9059.

Casino Block?
Under the leadership of Ulster County’s Kevin Cahill, the New York Satte Assembly has approved a bill that would prevent a casino from being fast-tracked in Ulster County - except in Wawarsing, where town leaders have been receptive to the idea of hosting a gaming hall. An original bill would have required the governor to receive approval from Ulster County before authorizing any casino within the county’s borders but was amended to exclude Wawarsing, which objected that the legislation appeared anti-casino and feared it would discourage casino developers.
Currently, the governor has the power to authorize a total of three casinos in Ulster and Sullivan counties without prior approval from the counties or municipalities. This automatic approval was granted shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks as a way to generate quick revenue amid the prospect of a weakening state economy. So far, one such casino has been approved - for the Monticello Raceway, in Sullivan County. Several municipalities in Ulster County - including Saugerties, Woodstock and New Paltz - have gone on record opposing casinos, while Wawarsing and the village of Ellenville favor keeping the door open.
The Assembly bill has no sponsor in the Senate, which was has taken its recess for the summer.

Gun Amnesty…
A new law proposed by County Legislator Leonard Distel, D-Ellenville and a retired corrections officer who sits on the Legislature’s Criminal Justice Committee, would allow Ulster County residents to trade in their unlicensed guns without repercussions and receive gift certificates to local stores in exchange. A similar gun buy-back program was launched earlier this month in neighboring Orange County, to run through July 15, with residents anonymously turning in firearms in Middletown, Newbugh and Port Jervis in exchange for $150 gift certificates from ShopRite. As of press time, over 100 people had taken advantage of the program.
Details of the program have yet to be worked out. Distel has said that he hopes to add an educational element to the proposed program by sending sheriff’s deputies into schools and informing the public about the ramifications of owning an illegal gun.

Sales Tax…
Ulster County consumers will continue to pay an 8 percent sales tax rate for at least the next two years. The state Assembly last week approved extending until 2009 the county’s 1 percentage point “temporary tax” that has kept the total tax rate at 8 percent since 2002. The Senate approved the extension in May. Ulster County Administrator Michael Hein has described how the county has three major sources of revenue - sales tax, state and federal aid, and property taxes. The sales tax makes up about 29 percent of the county’s revenue, and county lawmakers, assuming the 8 percent rate would stay in effect, budgeted $86.25 million in sales tax revenue for 2007.
Half of the sales tax collected in the county goes back to the state. The county keeps 85.5 percent of the other half, giving 11.5 percent to the city of Kingston and dividing the remaining 3 percent among the county’s 20 towns.
Nut Ulster County’s overall revenues could still fall short for the year because the state Legislature did not vote before adjourning last week on county requests pertaining to the hotel occupancy and mortgage taxes. The county has asked for permission to double its 2 percent hotel and motel tax, and it also requested a one-time, quarter-point tax for those getting a new mortgage. The requests aimed to keep property taxes down while bringing more revenue to the county’s strained budget. They were projected to bring in between $4 million and $4.3 million in revenue, Hein said.
County lawmakers are now hoping the state Legislature will convene for a special session in July and vote on the lodging and mortgage tax requests then.
The county’s 2008 budget will be presented by the administrator in October and must be approved by the Legislature by early December.

Award Us!
The Ulster County Development Corporation (UCDC) and the Chamber of Commerce of Ulster County (Chamber) are seeking nominations for their 3rd Annual Business Recognition Awards. The awards recognize Ulster County entrepreneurs and businesses that are leaders in their field, have realized outstanding achievements over the past year, or have shown dedication and commitment to furthering business in Ulster County. Awards will be given for Entrepreneur or Businessperson of the Year, Business of the Year, Small Business of the Year, Cultural Business of the Year, Building Project of the Year and Tourism or Hospitality Business of the Year. The application period is now through August 17, 2007. Nomination forms must be submitted to the office of UCDC at 5 Development Court, Kingston, New York, no later than 5:00 P.M. on August 17th.
A committee of UCDC and Chamber representatives will evaluate nominations. Winners will be recognized at a dinner to be held on October 11, 2007 at the Wiltwyck Golf Club in Kingston, New York. Additional information about the awards and the nomination forms is available by contacting Ward Todd at the Chamber at 845-338-5100 or ward@ulsterchamber.org.

New OFA Offices
The Ulster County Office for the Aging has announced the opening of new satellite offices featuring staff members from the Ulster County Office for the Aging to provide information and assistance on a monthly basis from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM on specific Mondays when the Care-A-Van will be available at the sites from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM offering free early detection and health screening tests. In addition, special programs on education and information for senior citizen healthy lifestyles will be offered at 12:30 PM at the New Paltz and Shokan offices and 11:45 AM at the Ellenville office. The satellites include The Trudy Resnick Farber Building, 50 Center St., Ellenville the first Monday of each month, the Jewish Community Center in New Paltz on the second Monday of each month, the Reservoir United Methodist Church at 3056 State Rt. 28, Shokan on the third Monday of each month. For more information call the Ulster County Office for the Aging at 845-340-3456 or toll free 1-877-914-3456.

Plea Bargaining
The state legislature has for the second time adopted legislation requiring state police to plea bargain settlements for tickets they issue to motorists. Gov. Eliot Spitzer must now decide whether to overturn a state police policy against the plea bargaining or, like his predecessor Gov. George Pataki, veto the legislation. The Senate approved the bill 59-1 on May 8. The Assembly passed it unanimously last week.
In September 2006, the state police, under an order by the Division of State Police, stopped plea bargaining traffic tickets with motorists. In defending their decision, which was blasted by judges, district attorneys and local elected leaders across the state, state police officials declared the practice “repugnant” and said prohibiting troopers from engaging in the long-standing practice would return “integrity” to the system.
In his 2006 veto message, Pataki said an internal policy prohibiting troopers from plea bargaining tickets always existed to avoid “the potential appearance of impropriety.” He said that policy had “eroded” over the years, making adoption of the new regulation necessary. Critics, however, accused the state police of abdicating their responsibility in an effort to reduce overtime costs.
The decision has resulted in a sharp increase in the number of traffic trials, a protracted time frame in the adjudication of tickets, and, perhaps most disconcerting, an unequal application of justice, because other police agencies continue to allow their officers to negotiate settlements with accused traffic violators.

Go, Chuck, Go!
U.S. Senator Charles Schumer recently called on FEMA officials to waive the $23 million threshold for federal funding to help Sullivan and Delaware counties flood victims restore their towns. FEMA set that amount as a measurement tool for areas that need federal disaster relief, but the senator who visited the disaster site last week following heavy flooding from a recent Nor’easter that blew through the region said he will stop at nothing to get federal funding for the towns of Colchester in Delaware County and Rockland in Sullivan County, and asked for a waiver if the damage assessments don’t reach that amount.
“The dilemma we face with federal funding is that the disaster was very intense, but not so widespread,” Schumer said while at the command post in Roscoe.
“The people here need help. FEMA was created to come to the aide of disasters just like this.”
Schumer also called for a revamping of the federal disaster relief guidelines, and asked that the relief amount of $28,200 per home destroyed be raised, and that the threshold for an entire area being assessed for damage be lowered.
Governor Eliot Spitzer joined the senator to take a firsthand look at the damage from the flash flood, which he called a “tsunami”, in southern Delaware County. The five-foot wall of water washed away homes, killing an elderly couple. Two other people are still missing.
Spitzer pledged state and federal resources to restore the community. Senator John Bonacic said the area, prior to this event, has had four certified floods. The communities are not rich communities and have been battered, and will receive government aid, he said.
Spitzer said the state will work toward better remediation of flooding problems, which could include everything from dredging and better weather tracking to more thorough cell phone service in the area.

UCCC Granted…
The United States Department of Education has approved a five-year development grant for Ulster County Community College under the Strengthening Institutions Program of Title III, Federal Institutional Aid. The grant for 2007 is $397,506, with an additional $1.5 million awarded over the next four years, pending Congressional funding. This is the third Title III grant awarded to SUNY Ulster.The funds will be used to update technology, to implement activities that address student under-preparedness and to offer mini-grants to faculty for development opportunities. Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) stated, “These funds will enable SUNY Ulster to develop and implement a plan that will help it to become a stronger institution that provides students with classes and activities that will allow them to get the higher education they need to succeed. Having such a strong community college in Ulster County will help grow our local economy and have a wide array of other positive impacts throughout the college.”

A GOP Oopsy
Republican presidential candidates made a major miscalculation last month by skipping the nation’s largest gathering of Hispanic elected officials, party representatives and event organizers said. The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed officials opened its 24th annual convention June 28 at Walt Disney World, with top billing for a Democratic presidential candidate forum Saturday. Friday’s Republican forum? Canceled. Only Rep. Duncan Hunter of California agreed to show. The other candidates cited scheduling conflicts, including a Saturday debate in Iowa, which Hunter also planned to attend.
“The Republican candidates have blown off Hispanics in Florida,” said state Rep. Juan Zapata, a Republican who helped bring the NALEO event to the state.
Zapata hoped the conference would provide a plum opportunity for candidates to court Florida’s Hispanics. Instead, he and others say it has become an embarrassment for the party.
With many Hispanics already concerned about some of the candidates’ opposition to a bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants - which failed in the Senate last week - and anti-Hispanic rhetoric accompanying the debate, top candidates can ill-afford to alienate those loyal to the party, especially in a swing state like Florida, they said.
“I’m somewhat offended because this is about Hispanics, not about politics,” said state Rep. Julio Robaina, also a Republican.
Florida is an anomaly among states with large Hispanic groups. For years, the majority of its Hispanic voters - mostly Cuban-Americans and business-oriented Puerto Ricans - have identified as Republican.
In 2004, Bush captured about 40 percent of the Hispanic vote nationally, the most ever for a GOP presidential candidate. His Democratic rival John Kerry won 53 percent, down from the 62 percent former Vice President Al Gore garnered in 2000.
Republican National Committee regional spokeswoman Amber Wilkerson disagreed about the mishap showing a disdain for Latinos on the part of her party..
“The Republican Party continues to demonstrate leadership on the issues that are important to the Hispanic community: immigration reform, lower taxes for working families and small business, strong national security, better education and the protection of family values in America,” she said.

CHA Prizes…
Four local high school seniors received the Catskill Heritage writing prize for their respective schools at graduation ceremonies recently in Margaretville. The winners were Philip Rezac Jr. of Andes, who will attend SUNY Albany in the fall.; Melinda White of Margaretville High, a Halcott Center resident who will also be attending SUNY Albany; Olivebridge resident Clare Branman of Onteora, who will start off at Ulster County Community College this fall before switching to Geneseo; and Michelle Wojciechowski of Roxbury, who will study nursing and art at Castleton in Vermont.
The prize to each student, awarded annually, consists of $100 in scholarship money and a book—this year, The Catskill Park: Inside the Blue Line by Norman J. Van Valkenburgh, Christopher W. Olney, and Thomas Teich.
Only high school seniors are eligible to compete for the prize, which is awarded for the best written entry on the subject of My Catskill Heritage. The prize is awarded by a jury comprising members of the Catskill Heritage Alliance (CHA), sponsor of the writing prize contest.
The winning entries can be read on the CHA website, http://www.catskillheritage.org. The Catskill Heritage Alliance is a grassroots organization dedicated to preserving the harmony between the villages of the central Catskills and the surrounding wilderness through community revitalization and open space conservation.

Mayors Vs. War
The U.S. Conference of Mayors have endorsed a resolution calling for the Bush administration to begin planning for the swift withdrawal of troops from Iraq. But a chaotic debate on the motion echoed political divisions across the country.
Fresno, Calif., Mayor Alan Autry resigned from the conference immediately after the vote, saying the group had made a “grave error” by hastily veering into foreign policy. He predicted troops could be harmed. But supporters like Stamford, CT Mayor Dannel Malloy said the war was draining money from classrooms and municipal services across the country and local governments have “gotten to the boiling point.”
“It’s time to begin developing a plan to bring the troops home,” Malloy said in an interview. “Many people see this as a very important moment in our history.”
The resolution was adopted 51-47 after a debate that stalled repeatedly on questions about amendments and parliamentary procedure. At one point, a motion to table the resolution failed.
The largely symbolic resolution, sponsored by Providence, R.I., Mayor David Cicilline, said the conference supports U.S. troops “completely and 110 percent” but called on the Bush White House to “begin planning immediately for the swift and prudent redeployment of the U.S. Armed Forces.” It further called on the federal government to provide funding for medical, psychological, housing and other services for troops when they come home.
“Continued U.S. military presence in Iraq is resulting in the tragic loss of American lives and wounding of American soldiers,” the resolution said. The Iraq war “is reducing federal funds ... for needed domestic investments in education, health care, public safety, homeland security and more.”

DA’s Race…
So the race for the county DA is turning into a doozey, eh?
At first it seemed simple. Holley Carnright of Saugerties got the GOP nod easily, and in a surprise upset vote, Jonathan Sennett of New Paltz got the endorsement of the county’s Democratic Committee plus, last week, the nod from the Working Families Party, which represents about 370 enrolled members in Ulster County, according to the county Board of Elections.
Then came the news that both Vincent Bradley Jr., officially un-enrolled, and Julian Schriebman were seeking to challenge Sennett in a September primary.
The Independence Party and Conservative Parties then endorsed Bradley. Schreibman charged Bradley with having threatened his job as a senior assistant DA after the candidate refused to consider a deal for delegates at last the recent party convention. And the fact that Bradley is not an official Democrat, and would require special permission to run in that party’s primary, almost led everyone to fisticuffs at a recent county Democratic Committee meeting where supporters of Sennett have charged current county chair Hohn Partete of Olive with having tried to stack decks in favor of the late county judge’s son.
All are vying to succeed Republican Donald A. Williams, who is stepping down as district attorney after eight years. Stay tuned on this one…

Warming Trends
This year is on track to be the second warmest since records began in the 1860s and floods in Pakistan or a heatwave in Greece may herald worse disruptions in store from global warming, experts said this past week.
“2007 is looking as though it will be the second warmest behind 1998,” said Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at Britain’s University of East Anglia, which provides data to the U.N.’s International Meteorological Organization. “It isn’t far behind ... it could change, but at the moment this looks unlikely,” he said, based on temperature records up to the end of April.
Almost all climate experts say that the trend is towards more droughts, floods, heatwaves and more powerful storms. The 10 warmest years in the past 150 years have all been since 1990. Last year ranked number six according to the IMO. NASA, which uses slightly different data, places 2005 as warmest ahead of 1998.
Meanwhile, a new investigation has revealed that distortions regarding the seriousness and even existence of warming trends were sanctioned at the highest levels of our government, in a policy formulated by the vice president, implemented by the White House Council on Environmental Quality and enforced by White House political director Karl Rove. An examination of thousands of pages of internal documents that the White House has been forced to relinquish under the Freedom of Information Act - as well as interviews with more than a dozen current and former administration scientists and climate-policy officials - confirms that the White House has implemented an industry-formulated disinformation campaign designed to actively mislead the American public on global warming and to forestall limits on climate polluters.
“They’ve got a political clientele that does not want to be regulated,” says Rick Piltz, a former Bush climate official who blew the whistle on White House censorship of global-warming documents in 2005. “Any honest discussion of the science would stimulate public pressure for a stronger policy. They’re not stupid.”
Indeed, the campaign to sow doubts about climate change has grown more aggressive in recent years. No longer is the administration simply censoring scientific reports - it has moved to silence the scientists themselves. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the administration refused to allow a top federal scientist whose research links increased hurricane intensity to global warming to speak to the press. It sent out a gag order to top government polar scientists, demanding that anyone attending international scientific conventions agree not to speak to reporters about “climate change, polar bears and sea ice.” And it ordered a former intern from the Bush-Cheney campaign in the NASA press office to prevent Dr. James Hansen, the godfather of global-warming science, from talking to the media.
“Interference with communication of science to the public has been greater during the current administration than at any time in my career,” Hansen testified before Congress in March, suggesting that NASA’s press office had become an “office of propaganda.” This month, when news leaked that the Pentagon plans to kill a satellite program critical to monitoring the Earth’s climate, NASA’s scientists issued a confidential memo warning that the move “places the overall climate program in serious jeopardy.”
The House of Representatives, aiming to put an end to the debate over whether global warming is actually occurring, last week passed legislation recognizing the “reality” of climate change and providing money to work on the problem. By a vote of 272-155, the House approved an environmental funding bill for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 that would increase federal investments in basic research on climate change and establish a new commission to review scientific questions that need to be addressed.
The White House has threatened a veto of the $27.6 billion bill because its overall spending would exceed President Bush’s request by about $2 billion. The Senate has not yet debated the bill.

Esopus Talk
Dr. Ann L. Riley a watershed and river restoration advisor for the California Regional Water Quality Control Board will be presenting “Managing Floods and Erosion: What Works?” at the St. Francis DeSales Catholic Church Parish Hall on Old Route 28 (Plank Rd.) in Phoenicia on Tuesday July 10, from 7:00pm – 9:30pm. All are invited to attend this free presentation as Dr. Riley will share her experience in rural and mountainous regions like the Catskills including examples of “successful” and “not-so-successful” stream management practices. She will also discuss important topics regarding successful flood and erosion protection, changes in engineering practices, bioengineering practices and basic stream maintenance and processes all stream-side landowners should be aware of.
Dr. Riley is the Executive Director of the Waterways Restoration Institute of Berkeley California. WRI is a technically orientated organization which works on the national level to promote and sponsor stream restoration projects and youth education and training projects in rural and urban environments. Riley is the author of “Restoring Streams in Cities” a comprehensive and detailed guide on stream restoration methods.
This presentation is sponsored by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County and the Esopus Creek Stream Management Program. For more information contact Michael Courtney, Community Educator: Esopus Creek Stream Management Program at 845-340-3990 or 845-688-5496
Later, the Upper Esopus Creek in Phoenicia will be the setting for a Stream Monitoring Workshop on Saturday, July 21 from 9:00am to 4:00pm that will explore and investigate the Esopus Creek Ecosystem. Participants will meet at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County’s Phoenicia Office at 5578 Rt. 28 in the Phoenicia Plaza. Activities will include identifying various macro-invertebrates and aquatic insects found in the Upper Esopus Creek. Participants will learn how to conduct their own experiment generating data that will provide a snapshot of stream health.
This free educational hands-on workshop for ages 10 and up is also sponsored by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County and the Esopus Creek Stream Management Program in partnership with the Catskill Center for Conservation & Development and Hudson River Basin Watch. Space is limited and reservations are required. Lunch will be provided.
For more information or to register contact Michael Courtney, Community Educator: Esopus Creek Stream Management Program at 845-340-3990 or 845-688-5496

Live Earth!
Live Earth, a 24-hour, 7-continent concert series taking place simultaneously on 7/7/07 is designed to draw attention to global warming and ways of stemming its rising tide by bringing together more than 100 top music stars and 2 billion people around the world. It is being broadcast in all media platforms - TV, radio, Internet and wireless channels, as well as a host of localized events, including a Kingston-based street party based in Uptown’s Backstage Productions, on Wall Street, as well as a special event taking place on the Village Green in Woodstock. The event marks the beginning of a multi-year campaign led by the Alliance for Climate Protection, The Climate Group and other international organizations to drive individuals, corporations and governments to take action to solve global warming. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore is the Chair of the Alliance and Partner of Live Earth, which was founded by Kevin Wall, the Worldwide Executive Producer of Live 8, an event that brought together one of the largest audiences in history to combat poverty. Live Earth will stage official concerts at Giants Stadium in New York; Wembley Stadium in London; Aussie Stadium in Sydney; Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro; Maropeng at the Cradle of Humankind in Johannesburg; Makuhari Messe in Tokyo; the Steps of the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai; and HSH Nordbank Arena in Hamburg. Live Earth concerts will be broadcast to a live worldwide audience by MSN at www.LiveEarth.MSN.com, as well as on Bravo, Sundance, MSNBC, and other major channels, plus a host of radio outlets. Check it out!

Bankless…
As many as 28 million people in the United States are forgoing traditional financial institutions because of mistrust, cultural and language barriers or a belief that by the time all the bills are paid there will be nothing left for an account. The bankless are estimated to earn hundreds of billions of dollars a year in income. Seeing a business opportunity, banks are trying to draw in these potential customers. So, too, are check-cashing businesses and retailers, including Wal-Mart.
According to sources, a majority of the bankless tend to be minorities - Hispanic or blacks especially - as well as low income and young. Also, according to the Federal Reserve, about one in 12 families - 8.7 percent - does not have a bank account. The number is higher for the poorest - nearly a quarter of families earning less than $18,900, the Fed said, citing 2004 data.
But being bankless can also be expensive… A Consumer Federation of America survey of check-cashing outlets, found that on average it cost $24.45 to cash a $1,002 Social Security check last year. A blue-collar worker pays an average $19.66 every week to cash a $478.41 handwritten paper check.
Meanwhile, those who are bankless counter that having a bank account can be expensive, too, if it is not managed wisely. Failure to keep track of an account balance can incur a penalty of $20 to $35 each time a check is bounced or an account is overdrawn.
Federal Reserve research found that the most common reason families gave for not having checking accounts was that they did not write enough checks to make it worthwhile. Many people said they did not like dealing with banks.

Echinacea!
Echinacea may not only help reduce the symptoms of a cold but may help prevent infection with some cold viruses, U.S. researchers said recently. People who took echinacea had a 58 percent lower risk of catching a cold, according to the researchers, who did not study the herb’s effects directly but looked at the results of 14 studies in an approach called a meta-analysis.
The study appeared to show that echinacea reduced the duration of a cold by 1.4 days on average. It also looked at echinacea used together with vitamin C, another common cold remedy, and showed the two together reduced the number of colds by 86 percent.
The term echinacea refers to parts taken from nine related plant species indigenous to North America. It was used originally by Native Americans and is now the most commonly used “nutraceutical” product — a catchall term that refers to herbs and some supplemented foods.

Food Vs Fuel
The price of cereals in this country has jumped by 12 per cent in the past year. Rice prices are climbing worldwide. Butter prices in Europe have spiked by 40 per cent in the past year. Wheat futures are trading at their highest level for a decade. Global soybean prices have risen by a half. Pork prices in China are up 20 per cent on last year and the food price index in India was up by 11 per cent year on year. In Mexico there have been riots in response to a 60 per cent rise in the cost of tortillas. And the cost of milk on the global market has leapt by nearly 60 per cent.
In short we may be reaching the end of cheap food.
The new trend of rising food costs on a global basis is being called agflation, and it refers to the conflation of agriculture and inflation, and more specifically the increase in the price of food that occurs as a result of increased demand from human consumption and the diversion of crops into usage as an alternative energy resource.
On the one hand the growing affluence of millions of people in China and India is creating a surge in demand for food - the rising populations are not content with their parents’ diet and demand more meat. On the other, is the use of food crops as a source of energy in place of oil, the so-called bio-fuels boom.
As these two forces combine they are setting off warning bells around the world.
In six of the past seven years, we have used more grain worldwide than we have produced. As a result world grain reserves - or carryover stocks - have dwindled to 57 days. This is the lowest level of grain reserves in 34 years.
The reason for the price surge is the wholesale diversion of grain crops into the production of ethanol. Thirty per cent of next year’s grain harvest in the US will go straight to an ethanol distillery. As the US supplies more than two-thirds of the world’s grain imports this unprecedented move will affect food prices everywhere. In Europe farmers are switching en masse to fuel crops to meet the EU requirement that bio-fuels account for 20 per cent of the energy mix.
“The stage is now set for direct competition for grain between the 800 million people who own automobiles,” said economist Lester Brown from the Earth Policy Institute in a briefing to the US Senate last week, “and the world’s 2 billion poorest people.” Stay tuned…

Chinese Fat?
The typical Chinese restaurant menu is a sea of nutritional no-nos, a consumer group has found. A plate of General Tso’s chicken, for example, is loaded with about 40 percent more sodium and more than half the calories an average adult needs for an entire day. The battered, fried chicken dish with vegetables has 1,300 calories, 3,200 milligrams of sodium and 11 grams of saturated fat. And that’s before the rice (200 calories a cup). And after the egg rolls (200 calories and 400 milligrams of sodium).
“I don’t want to put all the blame on Chinese food,” said Bonnie Liebman, nutrition director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “Across the board, American restaurants need to cut back on calories and salt, and in the meantime, people should think of each meal as not one, but two, and bring home half for tomorrow.”
The average adult needs around 2,000 calories a day and 2,300 milligrams of salt, which is about one teaspoon of salt, according to government guidelines.
In some ways, Liebman said, Italian and Mexican restaurants are worse for your health, because their food is higher in saturated fat, which can increase the risk of heart disease. While Chinese restaurant food is bad for your waistline and blood pressure - sodium contributes to hypertension - it does offer vegetable-rich dishes and the kind of fat that’s not bad for the heart.
However - and this is a big however - the veggies aren’t off the hook. A plate of stir-fried greens has 900 calories and 2,200 milligrams of sodium. And eggplant in garlic sauce has 1,000 calories and 2,000 milligrams of sodium.
“We were shocked. We assumed the vegetables were all low in calories,” Liebman said.
Also surprising were some appetizers: An order of six steamed pork dumplings has 500 calories, and there’s not much difference, about 10 calories per dumpling, if they’re pan-fried.

Stay At Home
A measure introduced in the Senate by Senator William Larkin of Cornwall-on-Hudson that would allow unmarried children up to the age of 25 to be covered by their parents’ health insurance policies has been adopted within the 2007-08 state budget. The legislation authorizes health insurance companies to keep covering a family’s children under a family policy until those children reach age 25, provided that the son or daughter is still living at home.
Under current law, an unemancipated child over the age of 19 must be dropped from a family’s health insurance coverage unless that child is in college or is mentally incapable of self-sustaining employment.
“It just seemed very unfair that college students would be covered by their parents’ health plans up to the age of 23, but a young person who chose to go to work instead of college would be dropped when they turned 19 by the same family’s health insurance policy,” said Larkin. “This new law will ensure that all young people up to the age of 25 who live at home have health insurance, whether they are college students or not.”

Baby Memories
Adults thinking back rarely can remember anything before preschool, but those bright infant eyes staring back at mommy and daddy really are forming memories. It’s just that babies also forget. In fact, babies’ rate of forgetting is even faster than that of adults, Patricia J. Bauer of Duke University said recently at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science as part of a panel discussing “infant amnesia,” the puzzling inability of people to remember events early in life.
Researchers have long speculated that babies’ brains were simply unable to form memories, but Bauer said new research indicates that is incorrect. While rates of memory development vary among infants, all babies are extremely intelligent, added Lisa M. Oakes of the University of California, Davis. “The task they have before them is overwhelming.”
The ability to form memories depends on a network of structures in the brain and these develop at different times. As the networks come together between 6 months and 18 months of life, researchers see increased efficiency in the ability to form short- and long-term memory. From age six months to two years, memory increases from about 24 hours to a year, she said.
But, noting that children, like adults, forget, all the scientists compared the brains of infants and adults to colanders used to drain food. The adult colander has small holes, for draining something like orzo or rice, while the infant colander has larger holes, such as for draining large penne pasta, but allowing more information to flow out.
Adults’ earliest memory of childhood tends to be of emotional events, either positive or negative, they added.
“Our lives completely depend on being able to remember the past,” Bauer said, and that matures during the first two years of life.