Grocery Bags Research Articles

My Father’s Nipples, and: A Series of Feasts, and: Reading Sartre by the Creek

My Father’s Nipples, and: A Series of Feasts, and: Reading Sartre by the Creek Charlotte Pence (bio) My Father’s Nipples I Fat, pastry-dough sacks, tipped with cone-shaped nipples, not hard, considering it. No—more like bloated pieces of candy corn. The raging colors of that autumn, that elm we sat under as he told me his plans for me, for other girls, but mostly for me. II A father and daughter under an elm— so tall it scratched all day at the sun. Branches gnarled but striving up and away, something Frost might say a boy could climb, a man might climb to leave earth awhile, only a little while. III From a distance, perhaps the kitchen window over the sink, his hand cupping mine might have appeared loving. Index finger circling, circling inside the palm— This is how you masturbate.This is how you kiss a man’s nipple. IV One side of his pectorals: a beached jellyfish, a strong hope, a deflating ball sitting all winter in a puddle outside the door. [End Page 82] Rain didn’t skin the hole each day, but what always remained: the sinking in the driveway. Twenty feet down an elm root must have broken off part of the earth, pulling down part of the drive, flattening one side of the ball, so don’t tell me earth itself doesn’t leave for a while. V You cannot leave this earth, but you can cross a splayed log that crosses the creek once spring begins its thaw; And you can stare at the shifting light through the shivering branches; And you can decide to love what isn’t attached to what you hate. Separate the log, the crossing, the leaves, the mother watching by the kitchen window from the elm, the body, the weight of the body. Even relinquish your hate of this earth forbidding your climbing away, giving only an afternoon by the creek under cover of damp-green rhododendrons while humidity and ghost-thin mosquitoes hover alongside something else best not to name. [End Page 83] A Series of Feasts Life began when I stood on a stool listening to the stiff-shirt rustle of a brown grocery bag, worms hatching, crackling from pecans I’d gathered, warm top of the humming fridge birthing them all. From the stiff-shirt rustle of brown grocery bags, to the light, the dark as Dad paced by windows, the warm hum of the fridge accompanying all, how can this life not be “a feast of brief hopes?” The light, the dark. From Dad pacing by windows, my brother swallowing ten bottles of pills, “Life is,” Milosz once wrote, “a feast of brief hopes.” How Ann smiled, one corner down, at my husband as we swallowed shots of Scotch after dinner. At that moment I realized I’d never smiled how she smiled. Folding one page corner down, he focused on his date book’s next task; he avoids grief most moments—like realizing I’ve never smiled or reading scrawled love notes found on sunken ships— by doing his date book’s next task. To avoid grief, each ship trudges to the next shore, the next hope. I wonder: how dying notes scrawled on ships like the Kursk differ from immigrants’ prayers who travel on orange dots of rafts floating to the next shore. Helen, too, crossed the Aegean convinced of better. How different is it? Immigrants traveling on, Helen crossing the Aegean sure of better love, to worms crackling from pecans I’d gathered, never ate, life beginning as I stood listening. [End Page 84] Reading Sartre by the Creek Not an S, more like a furious scribble, that cottonmouth charging me. Wet-black, thick whip cleaving creek-side grass and horseweed in harsh whispers. Wild thrash of body. Wide ghost of mouth. I’ve dreamt this, a snake attacking, woke worried what it could mean. But now, the snake real, I grin at each strike and miss, at speed, quick as pain travels through flesh, grin at how the day’s suddenly filled with a sureness: no debate what I should do; no mystery of its intent...

The Spirit in Me

The Spirit in Me William Hoffman (bio) Cast of Characters Lavinia Ella Betsy Hooper, a deputy sheriff Brother Gormer, a preacher Miss Bozack Darce, a servant Jessica, a rich and beautiful widow Lyle, Jessica’s suitor [End Page 1] Curtain Scene I 1936, the porch of a flaking, white-frame company store among the mountains of a southern West Virginia coal town. The porch holds two unpainted wooden benches, each located on opposite sides of a screen door. Just beneath the tin roof of the store is a sign in black paint: Pope Coal & Coke. At an end of the porch is a battered soft-drink cooler that has a lid on top. A large thermometer advertising Honest Snuff is nailed to a porch post. A limp American flag hangs from a pole over the porch steps. On the porch this hot summer day are three local middle-aged miners’ wives, their names Ella Henry, Lavinia Ackers, and Betsy Terry. They have been shopping at the store. Their clothing is of the 1930s variety, a bit dowdy and out of date, yet with color and attempts at the fashionable—a straw hat, a flower pinned to a bodice, a string of artificial pearls. Lavinia and Ella sit on a bench, their grocery bags beside them are on the floor. A fiddle plays a jolly hillbilly tune before the curtain opens, and tails off as actors begin to speak. Lavinia: (Fans her face with a languid hand) This hot, how we ever going to make it all the way through July? Ella: (Wipes brow) So humid my wash won’t dry on the line. Betsy: (Has just arrived and sets her grocery bag on a bench before sitting) Streams running dry. Lavinia: Leaves shriveling on the trees. Ella: Ground’s cracking open. Betsy: Grass snapping like twigs under your feet. Lavinia: Hot enough to melt rocks. Ella: Coal going to catch itself on fire. Betsy: Food’s so dry it’s like chewing sawdust. Lavinia: Wind’s done forgot how to blow. Ella: Dogs too hot and lazy to bite at they fleas. Lavinia: Hotter than Hell’s kitchen. Betsy: (Rises to cross to soft-drink cooler. She opens the cooler’s lid, lifts a Big Orange from chunks of ice, and uses the bottle opener to lever off the cap.) Need me a swallow to put out [End Page 2] the fire. Helps for a second anyhow. (She drinks, stops at the screen door, and calls out as she holds up the bottle.) Just put it on my ticket, Willie. Giles Hooper, a deputy sheriff, strolls in from stage right, touches his trooper hat in greeting, and lifts a booted foot to a porch step. He wears a brown uniform shirt open at the collar, a badge, a whistle, a holstered Smith & Wesson revolver, a black cartridge belt, whipcord riding britches, and brown leather puttees. He smiles as he pushes back his hat. Hooper: Afternoon, ladies. I know you all been talking it over. Betsy, Ella, Lavinia: What you mean? Roof fall at the mine? Somebody hurt? Hooper: (Holds up a hand as if stopping traffic) Whoa now. Nobody’s hurt. I figured you’d heard about Miss Jessica Tucker. Lavinia: Heard what? Ella: (Excited) She married again? Betsy: Or come home? Hooper: You got it, Miss Betsy. She coming from France sometime this afternoon. Lavinia: How’s she look? Hooper: Ain’t seen her yet. Ella: They opening the big house? Hooper: They been working at it. Betsy: She not been ’round here since they laid Captain Tucker in the grave. Lavinia: (Uses her fingers to count) Been at least three years. Ella: She still pretty? Betsy: Or got herself a man? Hooper: (Amused, he takes off his trooper hat to fan his face.) Yeah, a man from what I hear, though not a husband. Old Darce has been keeping up the house. Betsy: Bet she’s marrying again. She’s mourned the captain...

The Missing Pictures

125 M anzanar. In 1989, my grandma and I make a special stop at the mall, waiting in line at Waldenbooks just for Manzanar. We bring it home and look at it together. Well, not really together. Grandma and I were each other’s weekend for many years, apart from the one weekend a month that my siblings and I went off to our dad’s. Grandma was alone and needed help with chores, my mom needed a break from being a single mom with three kids, and I needed to be around someone steady. Gardening , cooking, cleaning the house, I became part of her routine. Usually Grandma would take a new book straight to her bedroom and put it on her nightstand, waiting until bedtime to flip through it: something to look forward to once the day’s duties were done. Sometimes she enjoyed a book so much that she’d keep reading until she fell asleep with the book on her face. If I spent the night, we would both read in her bed until I’d heard her snoring; my job would be to pick up the book without disturbing her, mark the page with a bookmark, cover her with the blanket, shut out the light. But the day we bring home Manzanar, she takes the book straight to the kitchen table, leaving it in the bookstore bag. She makes herself a pot of genmai cha, her favorite tea. She clears off the table of its everyday mess of stacked bills, fruit that needs eating, used grocery bags. She does not ask me if I want any tea. My cue to leave her alone. Ansel Adams took all the photos in Manzanar, creating a photographic account of Japanese-American internment. He had published some of the photos before, in 1944, in a book called Born Free and Equal. That book didn’t go over so well. It was banned. Copies were burned in the streets. His photos portrayed the internees as humans and not just “Japs.” Americans weren’t ready for that in 1944. But by 1989, Americans are driving Hondas and Toyotas with SARAH FANG THE MISSING PICTURES Winner of the 2008–09 AWP Intro Journals Project, selected by Barbara Hurd colorado review 126 Sony sound systems; sushi has come to places like Nebraska and Oklahoma; two Karate Kids have come out and everyone loves that Mr. Miyagi. Wax on, wax off. Pop culture has paved the way for deeper truths. This is the year after Reagan’s national apology for the internment, after the news of the reparations. The government is sorry they had stuck all the Japanese people in prison, stripped them of their constitutional rights, led many to lose all of their possessions. The government would even offer token compensation for the losses suffered. Our family does not discuss the money, but we all think about it. Grandma’s age means that she would be among the first to receive compensation ; the fact that my uncle K—— was born there means he would be among the youngest and the last. She is seventyfive years old. Uncle K—— is forty-six. I am fourteen. She was already pregnant with him when they got to Manzanar. That much of the story, I knew. I move to the living room and sit on the worn, blue 1960s sofa, still watching her in the kitchen from the corners of my eyes, pretending to occupy myself with something from the pile of old-lady magazines in front of me. National Geographic. Family Circle. Woman’s Day. Her dog, Smokey, keeps me company on the couch, his head resting on my feet. I half-heartedly read an article that teaches me the best way to clean the bathroom grout (instead of throwing away that old toothbrush, use it on the grout!). I am unused to the expression on Grandma’s face. A tense one, a somber one. Blank face, otherwise. Nowadays , I think of this face as the one that some people mean when they call the Japanese “stoic.” Grandma sits at the kitchen table with Manzanar. She sips her tea and spreads the book out flat so she...

White Paper

The aim of this White Paper was to review the current recommendations for strength training of older adults, to promote physical therapist best practice and achieve optimal functional outcomes. A secondary intent was to encourage prospective researchers to use published guidelines to establish an adequate strength stimulus for patients in their research, rather than perpetuating "usual or traditional" care.

Evaluation of the clinical efficacy of conservative treatment in the management of carpal tunnel syndrome

Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is impingement of the median nerve at the wrist. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of tendon and nerve gliding exercises with standard conservative treatment (SCT), which consists of splinting and local steroid injections, in the treatment of CTS. This study was a prospective, randomized, single-blind trial. Patients were randomized into three groups: treatment with SCT (Group 1); SCT and tendon and nerve gliding exercises (Group 2); tendon and nerve gliding exercises only (Group 3). A symptom total point score was obtained from five symptoms: hand pain, tingling, numbness, nocturnal numbness, and interrupted sleep. The functional status of the hand was determined by assessing seven daily living activities: writing, buttoning clothes, gripping a telephone receiver, opening jars, doing housework, carrying grocery bags, and bathing. Standard physical examinations (Tinel's test, Phalen's test, reverse Phalen's test, and the compression test) were also performed. A total of 111 patients who were diagnosed with intermediate-stage CTS were included in the study. At the end of treatment, significant improvements in symptoms and functionality were detected in all groups. However, the recovery of patients in Groups 1 (n=41) and 2 (n=35) were found to be significantly greater than that of patients in Group 3 (n=35; P<0.001). Patient satisfaction was investigated a mean of 11 months after treatment. Percentages of asymptomatic patients in Group 1 and Group 2 were significantly higher than in Group 3 (P=0.02 and P=0.04, respectively). In the intermediate stage of CTS, SCT was an effective treatment to improve symptoms and functional status. Tendon and nerve gliding exercises alone were inferior to either SCT alone or SCT in combination with gliding exercises.

The Bodyman

The Bodyman Joe Oestreich (bio) 1. The Thousand Dollar House Dave Cook is staying in tonight. He’s come down with whatever flu virus has been going around. But that’s not why he’s staying in. “Sick” is just not that big a deal to Dave. Shit, he’s been sick every day for 42 years. He was born with Wilson’s disease, a rare genetic disorder that has damn near killed him several times over. So, no, Dave is not staying in because he’s sick. He’s staying in because, as he says,“I don’t look too sweet, and I smell like shit, and I ain’t taking a fucking shower.” Dave ain’t taking a fucking shower because he doesn’t have a shower. He doesn’t have running water or indoor plumbing. Yet. For now he washes himself with Gojo Brand hand cleaner dispensed from a gallon-sized plastic container, and he rinses with the rainwater and snowmelt he’s collected in buckets out back. To take an actual hot-running-water shower, Dave has to track down T-Bone. T-Bone’s got a shower. But T-Bone doesn’t have a phone. Finding him is usually more of a hassle than it’s worth, so Dave keeps a stash of clean underwear and socks in a plastic grocery bag. Beyond that, he wears the same thing every day, whether he’s welding a resonator under a buddy’s LeSabre or working the cash register at Cloud Nine Pipes and Stuff: heavy Carhartt overalls, an old gray sweatshirt, and a ribbed Rip-Curl skullcap. He looks a bit like a young, thin Jack Nicholson circa One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but this getup doesn’t necessarily fly at most of Columbus, Ohio’s hotter nightspots. So Dave Cook is staying in tonight. At Dave’s house, one’s conception of “in” must be reassessed. “In” typically suggests a certain degree of structural integrity, enough to ensure that whatever is “out”—the wind, the cold, the neighbors—stays out. But on this February night, Dave’s house is penetrable by one and all. The walls of [End Page 117] what will soon be his living room consist of nothing but aluminum siding and plywood—no insulation, no drywall, no paint. To keep from freezing to death, Dave fires up a kerosene space heater that’s loud as a jet engine. When it gets so cold that even this heater is outgunned, he retreats to the back bedroom, an eight-by-eight-foot nook that he recently finished draping with pink Owens Corning fiberglass. The bedroom is cordoned off from the living room by a ratty blanket that hangs from the ceiling, and thanks to the new insulation and a smaller electric heater, it’s comparatively luxurious back there. This house, which Dave has dubbed Cook Acres, is the first major item he has owned that doesn’t have wheels, and it’s his only because he was lucky enough to know a guy, who knew a guy, who knew that the previous owner had died and left the property to his deadbeat meth-addict of a son. The son then let the house rot—literally rot—in a four-foot swamp of standing water in the basement. Looking to get out from under the dilapidation and the property taxes, and clearly more focused on his addiction than on his deceased father’s old house, the meth-head decided to see what he could get for the place. That’s when Dave and a lawyer friend made the kid an offer: 1,000 dollars. A grand. For a house on a wooded half acre. Dave paid less for a home than you’d pay for a rusted-out used car at one of the buy-here, pay-here lots in his neighborhood. You could pay more, a lot more, for a new bicycle. Dave Cook—landowner—then gave away his old pad, a shabby mobile home that had been up on blocks in an urban trailer park, to a girlfriend who was riding rough over a stretch of bad luck. He and his...

Associations of back and leg pain with health status and functional capacity of older adults: Findings from the retirement community back pain study

Low back pain (LBP) is the most frequently reported musculoskeletal problem in older adults, but its impact on health status is not well understood. Our objective was to determine whether LBP and concurrent leg pain are associated with health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and function in a cohort of older adults, and to examine care-seeking behaviors related to LBP. This was a population-based, cross-sectional survey study of 522 community-dwelling men and women (67.4%) ages >or=62 living in 4 retirement communities in Maryland and northern Virginia. LBP status in the past year was categorized as no pain in the low back or leg, LBP only, and LBP with leg pain. HRQOL and function were measured with the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form 36 (SF-36). A total of 26.8% of the sample reported LBP only and 21.3% reported LBP plus leg pain. Participants with LBP and LBP plus leg pain had lower scores in all SF-36 domains, reflecting worse HRQOL (P < 0.0001). LBP and LBP plus leg pain were associated with 2-fold greater odds of falling and increased difficulty lifting grocery bags, walking several blocks, and bathing. LBP plus leg pain was associated with difficulty in social interactions (odds ratio 10.63, 95% confidence interval 3.57-31.60). Less than half sought care for LBP and those who did had poorer health status and greater pain burden. LBP is common among older adults and strongly associated with reduced HRQOL and function. These findings argue strongly for both identifying cases of LBP by health care practitioners and pursuing effective treatments for LBP given the potential consequences.

Age- and sex-related differences in muscle activation for a discrete functional task

Electromyography (EMG) recordings for a typical 8-h day have indicated that burst activity is greater in old adults compared with young adults; these age-related adaptations might be due to the tasks undertaken. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether EMG burst activity differs between young and old men and women for a discrete task of daily living, and to assess whether the time of day when the task is performed influences the EMG burst patterns. Subjects completed a discrete functional task of a grocery bag carry prior to and following 8 h of daily activity. Surface EMG was recorded from the biceps brachii, triceps brachii, vastus lateralis, and biceps femoris. Spatial and temporal characteristics of the bursts were quantified as a period of EMG activity being greater than 2% maximum EMG and for a duration longer than 0.1 s. Burst activity did not differ between the morning and evening recordings, which indicate that the time of day does not influence burst activity recorded for a discrete task. Although there were no differences in burst number between young (10.9 +/- 1.0) and old (11.4 +/- 0.7) adults, burst duration and area were 3-7 times larger in old adults compared with young adults. The number of bursts in women (7.9 +/- 1.0) were ~85% less compared with men (14.6 +/- 0.7), but burst duration and burst area were approximately three times larger in women compared with men. Thus, older adults demonstrate higher levels of burst activity compared with young adults, and these age-related changes in burst activity are augmented in women.

Radical Departure: Polymerization Does More With Less

At its most basic level, a polymer is a molecule consisting of a long, repeating chain of smaller monomers typically four to ten atoms in size. Polymers can be straight chains of regular repeating monomers, chains of varying length, or chains that branch in multiple directions. With these different chains come different forms: hard plastics, like plumbing pipe, for example, or flexible plastics, like a grocery bag. Polymers can be molded into auto bodies, added to paint to change its properties, or foamed, as with polystyrene and urethane. Polymers, in short, are most useful. Now a team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University has discovered a way to make the process of polymerization even better, with potential environmental benefits.

The Beat

Vol. 114, No. 10 EnvironewsOpen AccessThe Beat Erin E. Dooley Erin E. Dooley Search for more papers by this author Published:1 October 2006https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.114-a577bAboutSectionsPDF ToolsDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InReddit Don’t Hold Your Breath for New InhalersIn response to a federal push to remove chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) from asthma inhalers by December 2008, some manufacturers have already stopped production of CFC-containing inhalers and are employing a new, more environmentally friendly propellant, hydrofluoroalkane. But the new inhalers are still in short supply, and drug stores are beginning to see a shortage. Why? The new inhalers can cost up to three times more than their predecessors, and some manufacturers are reluctant to pursue the switch wholeheartedly as long as the cheaper inhalers are available. For now, some experts suggest that asthma patients rely more on preventive treatments such as corticosteroids.A Yen for Better Farm Chemical RulesStrict new rules for farm chemicals such as pesticides and veterinary medicines took effect in Japan on 1 June 2006. The rules establish maximum residue limits for 799 chemicals, more than triple the number previously regulated. A blanket limit of 0.01 ppm has been set for all other chemicals. The rules apply to all farm chemicals and all categories of food. Food producers and distributors, now striving to follow the regulations, are looking for ways to minimize pesticide drift from one crop to another and are setting up plans for more stringent inspection of products—even those that originate in other countries—before they hit store shelves.Sounding Off on School NoiseMany schools use sound amplification systems to help teachers be better heard in their classrooms, but according to a policy statement issued in June 2006 by the Acoustical Society of America, such systems actually make the situation worse. Use of sound systems increases overall sound levels and may be too loud for comfortable listening. Furthermore, in many situations, amplified sound can contribute to noise in neighboring classrooms. The society says the best way to improve noisy conditions is through renovation and better design of classrooms in compliance with American National Standards Institute S12.60-2002 standards for noise control in classrooms.Blue Planet RunIn the summer of 2007 Dow Chemical and the Blue Planet Run Foundation will cosponsor the first Blue Planet Run, a worldwide relay with runners coursing across 22 countries, 24 hours a day, for more than 3 months. The aim of the run is to raise awareness of and funds for sustainable projects to provide safe drinking water for people around the world. Waterborne diseases are the single largest contributor to human sickness and health-related deaths, with more than 25,000 people falling victim to unsafe water each day.The foundation has already funded a number of projects—40 were implemented in 8 countries in 2005. The runs are planned to be a biannual event.Good Science for GirlsNearly 90% of U.S. engineers are male. To help bridge this gender gap, the New Jersey Institute of Technology has developed Femme, a program of five-week summer classes to encourage girls in grades 4–9 to aspire to careers in science and engineering. For the summer of 2006 the classes focused on environmental, aeronautical, mechanical, chemical, and biomedical engineering. A related program for 9th graders, Femme Academy, consisted of intensive instruction in electrical and computer engineering. Conducted since 1981, Femme has seen nearly 70% of its alumnae study technology, science, or engineering at the college level.A Bevy of BiodegradablesIn an effort to help stem the massive stream of waste dumped into landfills, new corn-based plastic bottles have recently hit the market in Great Britain and the United States, where millions of plastic bottles are used each day. The containers remain stable on store shelves, but decompose under composting conditions; they can also be recycled. British supermarket giant Sainsbury’s has also introduced biodegradable wrap and trays for organic foods, and other UK grocery chains are starting to use biodegradable films and grocery bags. Coca-Cola is looking into compostable bottles for its drinks as well, and Nestlé has come up with trays for chocolates sold in Britain that disintegrate on contact with water.FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Vol. 114, No. 10 October 2006Metrics About Article Metrics Publication History Originally published1 October 2006Published in print1 October 2006 Financial disclosuresPDF download License information EHP is an open-access journal published with support from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health. All content is public domain unless otherwise noted. Note to readers with disabilities EHP strives to ensure that all journal content is accessible to all readers. However, some figures and Supplemental Material published in EHP articles may not conform to 508 standards due to the complexity of the information being presented. If you need assistance accessing journal content, please contact [email protected]. Our staff will work with you to assess and meet your accessibility needs within 3 working days.

A quantitative differentiation method for plastic bags by wide angle X-ray diffraction for tracing the source of illegal drugs

Thirty-three shopping bags, commonly encountered in the packaging of drug doses, were characterized by wide angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD). Using this single technique, without sample preparation, nearly all the considered samples could be differentiated, achieving a discriminating power of 0.992. The rather large degree of variability existing in grocery bags, even though they are mass produced, was shown, confirming that these items can be useful in tracing the source of illicit drug doses.

Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor (review)

Reviewed by: Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor Elizabeth Bush McCully, Emily Arnold Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor; written and illus. by Emily Arnold McCully. Farrar, 200632p ISBN 0-374-34810-3$16.00 R 6-9 yrs Although "Mattie" Knight and her flat-bottomed paper grocery bag find their way into collections of inventor biography with some regularity, putting her story into picture-book format should extend her fame to a younger audience. McCully traces Knight's career from tinkerer, making toys for siblings and neighbors, to her first major mechanical innovation—a protective device to keep loose shuttles from flying off looms—produced around 1850 when she was just a twelve-year-old mill worker. Her invention of the bag-folding machine and the legal battle to win the patent for it bring Knight's tale to its climax, and a concluding note comments briefly on her continuing work with window sashes and automobile engines. The text does not always run smoothly, but it successfully conveys the drama of Knight's life and her focused intensity. Illustrations are vintage McCully, with dense swaths of watercolor tenuously delineated by filaments of ink outline; imagined reconstructions of Knight's sketches (one based on patent records) run along the bottom of several spreads. Invite Ms. Knight to hang out on the display shelf during Women's History Month or the run-up to the local science fair. Copyright © 2006 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Functional fitness training: The functional reach

If your goal is to carry grocery bags and babies, walk on uneven surfaces or even step off a curb you do not know is there without falling then traditional exercises may not be enough to stabilize you. A new type of training is popping up in gyms called “functional training” or “functional fitness”. Besides weight machines and floor exercises functional exercises get you on your feet, balancing, using gym balls, balance boards, and pulleys or elastic resistance bands. Functional training for performance enhancement—Part 1: The basicsJournal of Bodywork and Movement TherapiesVol. 10Issue 2PreviewHow can we make training as functional as possible so it will stabilize an athlete and enhance performance in their sports activities? Functional stability training is goal oriented. Floor or isotonic-machine based exercise may be used as stepping stones to isolate and “groove” stability patterns. However, as soon as possible “core” stability must be trained in sport-specific ways. Full-Text PDF

A quantitative differentiation method for plastic bags by infrared spectroscopy, thickness measurement and differential scanning calorimetry for tracing the source of illegal drugs

Fifty shopping bags, commonly encountered in the packaging of drug doses, were characterized by thickness measurements, infrared spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry. By these very straightforward and inexpensive techniques, without sample preparation, nearly all the considered samples could be discriminated. Ninety-seven percent of the possible pairs of white, apparently similar dull polymer films were differentiated. The rather large degree of variability existing in grocery bags, even though they are mass produced, was shown, confirming that these items can be useful in tracing the source of illicit drug doses.

Translator's Note

Translator's Note Greg Simon (bio) Our first introduction to the Cuban poet Gastón Baquero came on the luxurious AVE "bullet train" between Madrid and Seville, as it sped back to Atocha Station in the early evening of July 5, 1999. Steven F. White and I had spent a fabulous, productive but very hot day in Seville, a rich and sensuous city, not unlike Baquero's poems, of extreme density, complex, narrow passageways, and astonishing reservoirs of emotion. As my heat-stunned body tried to cool down in the comfort of the train, and my mind struggled to make sense of the wealth of images, information and personalities with which it had been bombarded during the day, I desperately wanted to drift off into sleep. But my restless friend had Baquero's Poesía completa (Editorial Verbum, Madrid, 1998) in his hands, a volume presented to us the day before in Madrid by its editor, Pío E. Serrano, and he kept shaking me awake every two or three minutes. "Greg!" he'd whisper fiercely. "Wake up! You've got to see this!" The book he was trying to show me, with which I have since become very familiar, is indeed an impressive publication, and well worth whatever sacrifice of comfort or sleep might be required to get to know it. An obvious labor of both integrity and love, it presents all of the known poetry in book or anthology form that Baquero published during his lifetime (1918–1997), in Cuba and Spain, as well as groups of uncollected and unpublished poems, and juvenilia. As we are among the first miners of this rich lode to be working in English, Steve and I, with Pío's permission, felt free to roam through the various collections and sequences at will. We then chose, for our selection, only those poems that seemed to make their presence most strongly felt in translation after we had ascertained, to the best of our ability, their strength in Spanish. This admission that our method was intuitive, and intended to represent neither a critical nor exhaustive approach to Baquero, should not be interpreted as a dictum that alternative approaches are impossible or even undesirable. Pío E. Serrano, for instance, has beentireless in his role as Baquero's editor, and the nine pages of bibliographical material he provided in Poesía completa would serve as a more than adequate starting point for any critical assessment of the poet's entire work. Baquero's name, Serrano informs us, was removed from dictionaries and textbooks in Cuba after he was exiled, his works were banned and further publication prohibited. Luckily for us, a totalitarian approach to literary criticism never succeeds, except perhaps to whet an appetite among those who are supposedly being protected from alleged heterodoxy. In his private library, for example, Serrano has a collection of Cuban poetry books and anthologies that were printed surreptitiously on grocery bags, illustrated by hand and bound with string, and then smuggled out of Cuba. I feel it is due in large part to the perseverance of these unsung poets (and their librarians) that a brand-new, comprehensive anthology of Baquero's poetry, La patria sonora de los frutos, edited by Efraín Rodríguez Santana, was published in Havana in 2001. Baquero's reaction to his exile was very complex. Not only did he seemingly forbid himself any direct mention of it in his poetry ("neither disenchantment nor resentment," Serrano says), he reached very deeply into the pocket of irony and called one of his books Poemas invisibles. But however cool his attitude, it is difficult for this reader not to equate [End Page 290] the many references in the late poems to Adam's expulsion from the Garden of Eden with the poet's own exile. The most irrefutable of responses, of course, is writing rooted so deeply in the lush garden he was expelled from that it effortlessly creates a concurrent, active nostalgia for places on earth any readers mighthave been separated from. Every exiled poet fights to return with his words. After his expulsion, Baquero plunged into his mentor José Lezama Lima's "absolute immersion in...

God's Garden

FICTION God's Garden Floyd D. Davis Unwelcome plants and noxious weeds, Mismatched colors, unwanted seeds; Creek-dumped, disdained to wash away. With no master plan, no garden tools, With no caretaker or human rules, God pities their forsaken, rootless state. Obeying, the water lifts them to the sun, Planting in His garden, one-by-one, Discarded jewels fixed in neglected earth. Riding as amber spiders on liquid webs, Borne wherever mountain streams might ebb, Sufficient to please God that falls a seed. To grow in God's garden. "It's over there, honey, see it? Over by that branch in the bottom," Melissa called. "I know; I see the damn thing!" Asa replied. "Half an acre of plants in pots at Wal-Mart, and she has to have this scrawny-assed little thing," he muttered under his breath as he pushed his way through the thick weeds and blackberry briars on the creek bank toward the stream below. He was in his high-topped boots and heavy jeans. Years of living with Melissa had taught him not to go "plant hunting" with her unprepared. Asa chose his steps carefully; snakes were surely in abundance in the thicket. Twice his heavy boots had saved him from snakebite, and he had no taste to tempt fate. He reached the stream at last, waded across the shallow water, and stepped up to mount the bank of the field in which the errant flower was growing. Immediately he sank over his ankles in blue clay. "Are you sure you absolutely have to have this one?" he called back to his wife. 30 "You're almost there; it's just a few more steps," she pleaded. "It was so beautiful and white this year, and I would so like to have it." Asa pulled his foot from the mud with an audible sloop and mounted the bank a few yards upstream. He made his way to the plant, pulling a trowel and Food City grocery bag his wife had given him for the purpose from his pockets. Squatting on his heels to avoid wetting the knees of his pants on the soupy earth, he forced the squat plant from the mire and slipped it into the bag. He then made his way back to the stream by the way he had come and pushed through the briar thicket to the edge of the road. "Here's your prize,"Asa said gruffly, still more than a little put out that Melissa had asked him to go to suchlengths for something so insignificant. Melissa draped herself around Asa's neck and stood very close. "Thanks for getting it for me," she said with genuine appreciation. She gave him a kiss and a hug and then took the bag fromhis hand so that she might examine her specimen. "You did a good job digging it, dear. There's lots ofbulbs and roots; I bet it will be full ofbloom this very next year." Seeing how pleased Melissa was with the flower, Asa relented as he always did. From the very beginning he had found it next to impossible to deny her anything. Her happiness had become his singleminded purpose over the years, so seeing her pleased and contented was reward enough in itself. As she smiled and bubbled about how beautiful the flower would be in her garden, he felt himself buoyed up by her enthusiasm. Snakes, briars, and mud were soon forgotten. Asa had met Melissa eleven years before while he was working in the local welfare office. She had come as a summer intern, and he had been a caseworker. She was a free spirit, headstrong and stubborn, but a tireless advocate for the impoverished minions who flooded the office every day. She would argue with caseworkers and supervisors if she felt decisions were unjust and would skewer inconsistent regulations and rules with a wicked tongue and sharp wit. By July, most of the office was praying for August and Melissa's return to school, but Asa's attraction to her only grew. In the last weeks of the summer they had begun dating, and when Melissa returned to school that fall, Asa drove to...

The abandoned social goals of public transit in the neoliberal city of the USA

A preface and a bus rider’s story: “two‐tiered” transit system in the making? Imagine a bus stop in a typical working‐class neighbourhood of inner‐city Los Angeles, a city with an extraordinary array of peoples and cultures. The bus pulls up with standing room only, filled with a variety of people: Mexican, Salvadoran, Korean, Filipino and African American; men and women going to jobs, some of them janitors, some street vendors. People on the bus include women clutching children and grocery bags, kids going to school, elderly folks off to the Senior Centre. The ride is like always: hot, noisy and desperately crowded. The riders come from decidedly different backgrounds, yet share the same experience daily—jostled against one another, staring blankly out cracked windows, minding their own business, intent on getting where they need to go. And getting it over with as quickly as possible. In another part of town, people of a different income class are riding in a new train. They come from the suburbs, clacking away at laptops and sipping cappuccino on their way to downtown jobs. These are people taking advantage of what Mike Davis (1995, p. 270) calls “the biggest public works project in fin de siecle America”, an ambitious series of commuter rail lines that were budgeted at $183 billion over 30 years (Sterngold, 1999). These train riders choose to leave their cars at home to avoid the maddening freeway jams of Los Angeles. Some ride the train on principle. Trains are, after all, better for the environment. Back on the inner‐city bus … someone’s handing out leaflets and talking about forming a union—of bus riders? First in English then in Spanish, the organizer tells riders how the train that’s always in the newspapers is costing more than planners expected, and that politicians now propose to take money away from buses to keep building the train lines. Then the organizer talks about racial discrimination. Racial discrimination? What do buses have to do with racial discrimination?

The 2004 Hurricane Season and Its Impact on Florida Wildlife Rehabilitators

The annual hurricane season in Florida is a fact of life. In May, you notice that the supermarket grocery bags are printed with hurricane tracking maps and that the local TV stations are giving out books entitled, “How to Prepare for Hurricane Season.” Newcomers to south Florida are a little uneasy, and old-timers talk about the great storms of years gone by. You do a mental check of the shutters and “guess” that the bolts are “somewhere in a baggie.” Still, nothing could prepare us for what happened this year. In August and September we had a steady stream of unwanted visitors: Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne. While the storms made landfall in different regions, hurricane and tropical storm-force winds and rain wreaked havoc from north to south each time. Mountains of information are available on how to prepare your home and your family for a “significant weather event,” a favorite term of one of our local weathermen. For wildlife rehabilitators, the challenges are many and magnified. You must not only worry about your home, but also about your facility, be it on your property or elsewhere.

Determination of Moisture in Hot-Mix Asphalt and Relationship with Tender Mixture Behavior in the Laboratory

In recent years, a significant percentage of coarse-graded Superpave® asphalt mixtures have exhibited tender mix behavior. Although the underlying causes of the phenomenon are not well understood, many experts believe the main cause of the tender zone problem is related to the amount of fluids, particularly excess moisture, in the asphalt mixture. Unfortunately, some asphalt technologists consider the accurate determination of moisture in an asphalt mixture to be a difficult prospect. The purpose of the present research was to determine if the tender mix behavior exhibited by some coarse-graded Superpave mixtures is related to moisture content and to develop procedures to accurately measure the moisture content in an asphalt mixture. The research indicated that conventional oven drying (110°C) was an acceptable alternative to the standard distillation procedure (ASTM D1461). The use of the microwave oven procedure for determination of moisture content also appeared to be acceptable, although in the present research there was a significant problem with breakage of the glass containers. The best sampling container for determination of the moisture content after a storage period was a 4-L aluminum paint can. When the paint can was used and sealed, the moisture content after 72 h of storage at room temperature was statistically equal to the moisture content determined immediately after sampling of the asphalt mixture. Other containers studied (paper grocery bag and plastic oven bag) indicated lower moisture content values after storage and a consistent loss of moisture the longer the sample was stored.

Breakfast grocery bag delivery program targets elderly meals on wheels recipients

Breakfast grocery bag delivery program targets elderly meals on wheels recipients