UCLA hires Alford: Steve Alford succeeds UCLA basketball coach Ben Howland, who was fired last weekend after 10 years. Alford had just inked a 10-year deal with New Mexico, when UCLA snagged him.
By Beth Harris,?Associated Press / March 30, 2013
Former New Mexico head coach Steve Alford reacts to a referee's call during a game against Harvard in the NCAA college basketball tournament in Salt Lake City earlier this month. Alford was hired Saturday to coach UCLA.
(AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
Enlarge
UCLA hired Steve Alford as basketball coach on Saturday, luring him from New Mexico days after he signed a new 10-year deal with the Lobos.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
Athletic director Dan Guerrero said Alford is "the perfect fit for UCLA" because he connects with a new generation of players and brings an up-tempo and team-oriented style of play to Westwood.
The 48-year-old coach succeeds Ben Howland, who was fired last weekend after 10 years and a 233-107 record that included three consecutive Final Four appearances and four Pac-12 titles. The Bruins were 25-10 this season, which ended with a 20-point loss to Minnesota in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Alford led New Mexico to a 29-6 record this season that included the Mountain West regular-season and tournament titles. But the Lobos were upset by Harvard in the second round of the NCAAs shortly after Alford's new deal with the school had been announced.
Alford will be introduced at UCLA on Tuesday.
"I have been so fortunate and blessed in my life, and an opportunity to lead one of the greatest programs in college basketball history is once-in-a-lifetime," he said in a statement.
Alford had a 155-52 record in six years at New Mexico, with the Lobos making three trips to the NCAA tournament. He was selected Mountain West coach of the year three times.
His other head coaching stints were at Iowa (2000-07), Missouri State (1996-99) and Manchester College (1992-95) in his native Indiana.
Alford is a legend in the Hoosier state, where he starred at Indiana University from 1984-87 under coach Bob Knight. The Hoosiers won the national championship in his senior year. He also played on the gold medal-winning 1984 U.S. Olympic basketball team in Los Angeles as a college sophomore. Knight coached that team.
Alford was drafted by the Dallas Mavericks in 1987 and played four years in the NBA before starting his head coaching career at tiny Manchester.
Stocks in the S&P 500 are now at record low valuations; the market trades as cheaply as it did in 1980 as measured by price-to-earnings, or PE, ratios, trading at a PE ratio of 15.4 times earnings.
While retail stock investors have largely been stuck on the sidelines, the stock market has made new highs. But despite the upward surge, things aren't as rosy for Wall Street as one might suppose.
Although individuals have added almost $20 billion to U.S. stock funds so far this year, the amount is just 3.5 percent of the withdrawals since 2007, Investment News.com?reported, and compares with $44 billion placed with fixed-income managers in 2013, according to the Investment Company Institute.
Fund inflows tend to buttress the beliefs of those who think the stock market?s short-term bull run can continue. As the old adage goes, individual investors don?t make money in the market, they just borrow from the institutions for a while.
The lack of participation by retail investors in the continuing rally would seem to indicate we have yet to hit a top -- because the retail money has yet to hit the market.? And that?s the line of reasoning I would have used 10 years ago. ?But a lot has changed in 10 years.
There?s a growing sense of alienation between Wall Street and Main Street. Much of the alienation has to do with the lack of the right type of oversight on money and markets. That lack of confidence, which is largely political in nature, hurts PEs.
Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder, for example, announced he'd have difficulty prosecuting too-big-to-fail management, not because there was no violation of the laws, but simply because it might affect the economy at home and abroad.
"I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions become so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if we do prosecute -- if we do bring a criminal charge -- it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy," Holder told senators this month. "I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large."
So in other words, people like former Barack Obama economic capo, Democrat Jon Corzine, will be off the hook after his firm, MG Global, ?misplaced? $1.6 billion in customer-segregated accounts in one of the top 10 bankruptcies in the country?s history.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? A recovering drug addict with a long rap sheet who's being hailed as a hero for jumping onto subway tracks in Philadelphia to rescue a man says he doesn't see himself as heroic.
Thirty-two-year-old Christopher Knafelc (kuh-NAY-ful) told The Associated Press on Friday that he just sees it as doing the right thing.
Knafelc had just sat down to wait for a train at a north Philadelphia station Thursday afternoon when he saw a man fall off the platform and onto the tracks. He jumped down to help the man, knowing that another train would be arriving in a few minutes.
Knafelc says he's struggled with drug addiction since his teens but is getting his life back on track, thanks in part to the birth of his daughter in 2010.
You are here: Home ? Announcements ? Miscellaneous Mentionables
I frequently receive email from companies asking me to share news or discounts with my readers. Each week I?ll gather the best requests and share them with you here.
Voots ?Get Kids Growing? Garden Grants
Voots? Veggie Fruit-Tarts along with Kidsgardening.org, a resource of the National Gardening Association, recently hosted the Voots ?Get Kids Growing,? interactive gardening workshop at The Americana at Brand in Glendale, Calif. with celebrity mom Christina Milian to help empower children and their families to lead healthier lives and build stronger communities through gardening!
While kids and their families had fun learning about gardening and healthy eating at the event, the main announcement was the unveiling of the Voots ?Get Kids Growing? Garden Grants, a partnership program that will award 20 grant recipients with $700* in gardening supplies including a raised bed, tools, and a curriculum guide from the Gardening with Kids Shop, and a check for $50 to be used to purchase soil amendments and fruit and vegetable plantings. The total award package is valued at over $750. Additionally, one recipient will be awarded a grand prize based on their submission, receiving an additional $1,250 in gardening supplies.
There?s still have time to participate in the grant program for a chance to win ? the deadline is April 1, 2013! More information can be found here: http://grants.kidsgardening.org/voots%C2%AE-get-kids-growing-garden-grants.
The number of Democrats who publicly oppose gay marriage dwindled this week as arguments in two Supreme Court cases drew national attention - and political pressure - to the issue.
In a matter of four days, six Democratic senators issued statements indicating that their view of the marriage debate had changed in favor of allowing Americans to marry regardless of gender. Only nine of the 53 Democrats in the Senate continue to oppose marriage equality in some way, and of those, few come down staunchly on the side of preserving the traditional one-man, one-woman definition.
Those nine senators are Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Tom Carper of Delaware, Bill Nelson of Florida, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Tim Johnson of South Dakota. Of the nine, some oppose DOMA, some have adopted a wait-and-see attitude, others are less specific.
Manchin's answer is straightforward: Spokesperson Katie Longo said that guided by his faith, Manchin "believes that a marriage is a union between one man and one woman" and wants to uphold DOMA.
Nelson is a more complicated case. In May 2012 he told the Miami Herald he believes the issue should be left to the states, but a spokesperson for his office told TIME this week that Nelson supports the one-man, one-woman vision of traditional marriage.
Some of those with more complicated stances on the issue tend to value a term President Obama once used to describe his views on gay marriage: "evolving."
"Senator Carper was proud to support Delaware's efforts to enact civil union legislation and earlier this month he joined 211 of his Congressional colleagues in co-signing the amicus brief that urges the Supreme Court to invalidate Section 3 of DOMA," a spokesperson for Carper told ABC News this week. "Like many Americans including Presidents Obama and Clinton, Senator Carper's views on this issue have evolved, and continue to evolve."
"Change" is another favorite.
"We'll have to see what the Supreme Court says about gay marriage," Landrieu told POLITICO on Tuesday. "And I just think that people's views about it are changing quite rapidly, a more progressive position. I'm just going to continue to talk to the people of my state."
An ABC/Washington Post poll released last week showed support for legal gay marriage among Americans had grown from 37 percent in 2003 to 58 percent. Almost 84 percent of Democratic Congress members signed an amicus brief for the Supreme Court asking them to overturn DOMA.
That said, not all those who signed the brief have come out in favor of legalizing gay marriage in their state - Carper, for example.
Even Republicans, typically a group staunchly opposed to gay marriage, have seen some switching up in the past month. More than 80 signed on to a similar amicus brief, led by former George W. Bush White House political director Ken Mehlman. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, announced his support for marriage equality earlier this month, and Wednesday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, announced she was "evolving" on the issue, after her Democratic counterpart, Sen. Mark Begich, endorsed it.
Political strategist Jason Johnson predicts the flood of politicians piling onto the other side isn't going to dry up any time soon. Any hesitancy to express support for same-sex marriage on either side of the aisle stems from uncertainty in how important gay marriage is to voters, according to Johnson.
"No one has been able to figure out with any effective consistency how gay voters vote and how straight voters vote on gay issues," Johnson told ABC News on Thursday. "It's very hard to determine what percentage of your population in your constituency are openly out gay voters and if gay marriage is their driving issue."
For Democrats, though, he said pressure is only going up.
"It's going to become a litmus test for Democrats and they're going to receive money pressure, and really at this point there's not much of a benefit ? to standing against it, because it's the direction that the entire country is going in."
If you are attempting to make money online, then SEO is crucial for you. By gathering the correct information and facts, it is easy to improve your website to have increased traffic and generate excellent search engine results.
Website statistics is an excellent tool for tracking the influence that changes are experiencing on the website and it must be into position before you begin any Search engine optimisation. If you purchase the software program ahead of time, you will see which strategies are productive then change points if you have to.
If you intend on utilizing website link directories to receive back links back, it is actually imperative that you use only web sites with good high quality back links, in addition to genuine blogs and internet sites. Numerous internet directories are design and style problems or are simply away from date. Often be very careful who you affiliate marketing oneself with.
Ask a no-income to get your affiliate marketing. You need your blog to be related to good, identified places due to the fact search engines look really at the, and they can mirror this in your search motor rating. Include great-high quality articles to your website that can make other businesses wish to function yourself on their internet site. Provide helpful and deserving content to the businesses.
Research your potential search phrases initial. Understand what keywords and phrases you ought to be focusing on as you created your site?s articles. Research will teach you the things individuals seek out and which key phrases ought to be utilized. You need to emphasize your keywords within your site to be able to enhance your search engine results.
You should have descriptive anchor text for all of your backlinks, notably inner links to other parts of your web site. You must stay away from inexplicable and general text message back links like ?click the link? since it is not useful when you are boosting your google search rating. Excellent search phrases inside your anchors can get you noticed through the spider crawlers.
Your website address should be both highly relevant to this product you?re offering and easy to consider. These are good for your visitors that locate your articles by way of You tube.
Honest and exact description tag are essential to get visitors from search engine listings aimed at your website. This helps boost your SEO. While the tag is very important, too much size is a bad thing. Limit the label into a to the point 30 words. You need to never ever go higher than 100 KB on the web page.
You can attempt setting up a robot. txt file that explores the root?s directory site. This technique conceals specific files from being reached on your internet site.
The meta labels should include a good outline of the web page information. All effectively-created meta tags should be each accurate and alluring.
Market your expertise in your unique industry, which means your clients know about your measure of expertise. This promotional tool can be quite helpful. Style your site around a particular niche market, and utilize Search engine optimization techniques to generate those potential customers for your site so they can purchase products. Get comments out of your clients relating to their personal preferences. This can help you figure out the most effective services and products to supply.
As you have discovered, Search engine marketing is essential to the prosperity of any business online. Have a duplicate with this post, and make reference to it while you are adding its techniques to use. A greater web site will get a boost in traffic and produce more money to suit your needs.
A video of a fight between two young girls in Tampa, Fla., has outraged parents and law enforcement officials.
Viewed thousands of times since it was posted to Facebook,?the video shows a 7-year-old girl knocking a 6-year-old girl off an air conditioning unit, and then beating her on the ground, while being encouraged by her older sister. The date the video was taken is unclear.
Authorities got involved after a woman in Georgia saw the video online and alerted police, NBC affiliate WFLA in Tampa reported.
?I think anybody that would see this would be shocked,? Tampa Police Major Brian Dugan told WFLA.??The behavior of the 7-year-old and the 14-year-old to encourage this, and it?s wrong.?
The two girls are friends, WFLA reported, and they regularly spend the night at each other?s homes, which is why the father of the 7-year-old says he was stunned and angered by the video. ?
?I couldn?t watch no more, especially when I heard the child say leave me alone, stop, stop, stop,? the father told WFLA, adding that he immediately punished his 7-year-old daughter and is still upset at his 14-year-old daughter. ?I am disappointed in her.?She made a mistake. I can't hold it against her ... but to me she made a big mistake to the point I am still mad at her."
The 6-year-old?s mother told the station she didn?t plan to press charges, but the state attorney?s office has taken over the case. The teenage girl does not have a criminal past, and police say she may go through a counseling program as a result of the incident, WFLA reported.?
The father of the girls said he hope hopes his daughters learned a lesson.
"That won't happen again, you can believe that, you can believe that won't happen again, and I apologize to the parent. It just happens it is a messed up situation,? he told WFLA.?
Meanwhile, Tampa police say they don't know who posted the video to Facebook but are trying to figure out how to stop people from viewing the it online, WFLA reported.?
?We have reached out to Facebook and asked them to remove the video,? Dugan said.
By Jill Adler! | March 27, 2013 at 1:53 am | No comments | Blog, Mountain Views | Tags: Adler, backcountry, closure, dog, hiking, Inyo County, June, Mammoth, Mono County, skiing
Skiing June Mountain is bittersweet today. While I?d normally relish having a mountain all to myself, it?s kind of sad here now. The ghosttown feel is heavy. Although there are still a handful of homeowners and businesses in the June Lake area still trying to muscle through, it?s evident that last summer?s announcement from Mammoth Mountain CEO Rusty Gregory that June would close after 50 years of continuous operation hit Mono and Inyo County hard. No one seems happy with this decision.
June was the lazy, hometown resort for locals and backcountry skiers. Those in the know would scramble to June and its world-class terrain parks and superpipe to avoid the swarms that descend on Mammoth every weekend.? It also offered unmatched, lift-served access to the Sierras and unbound exploration from here to Yosemite.
Fortunately for backcountry skiers, the US Forest Service softened the closure blow. Inyo National Forest leases June?s operating permit to Mammoth so when Mammoth yanked their operations, the Forest Service rules went into effect- ?the land will generally remain accessible to the public for backcountry skiing, snowboarding or snowshoeing. Under the plan, ski patrollers are authorized to prohibit access to the area during avalanche control activities. The ski area remains prohibited to entry by snowmobiles and other motorized use by an existing Forest Order, except by special use authorization,? the Mammoth press release states.
And so June was ?open? for skiing this year.? Local mountain guide Doug Nidiver commented, ?It?s surprising how many tracks there were this season.?
Even better is that dogs are allowed now!
At times the parking lot was full but not today. We packed up the water, the ProBars, the skins and the poop bags and headed up the service road toward the Chalet. The rise of the J1 lift and its face looked intimidating. I couldn?t wait to ski it but climbing it? Not so much.
We stopped for a water break and views on the Chalet?s deck and Nidiver reminisced about riding the lift, taking in the views, having a tasty meal- ?the food was excellent up here? and then venturing out of bounds. Locals had long whined for a backcountry lift where they could pay a reduced rate for lift-accessed OB but that had never happened.
Today, we skied the ski area. The conditions in the hot sun have shifted to spring corn and crust. It didn?t matter where we went so it was easy just to trek straight up the face.
Four hours later, we reached the 10,000-foot summit. We had no trouble skinning except that my hip flexors were a bit out of shape.
After the Kodak moment we ripped the skins, clicked in and dropped into Deer Bowl. We had to be nimble with the breakaway layer but after the first ten turns the trail turned into a smooth table of corn. Over the face and down IQ, the snow became dimpled with sun cups but we were able to ski all the way back to the car. Nearly 3000 vertical for the afternoon.
In my head, I could hear the whoops and hollers of my fellow Utahns enjoying the 10 inches of fresh powder back home. Sigh. But there?s something to be said for solitude, sun and blue skies for the end of March. I had a wicked body buzz going and a deep appreciation for spring skiing. I?m not sure that I would want to be anywhere else today. ?I?ll be back in Utah soon enough!
P.S. It?s not official yet but all signs are pointing to June reopening for winter 2014.
NEW YORK (AP) ? FX is spinning off a new cable network aimed at young adult viewers.
Launching Sept. 2, FXX will join big brother FX along with the movie-oriented FXM. All three networks will share the same sensibility, FX Networks president John Landgraf said in making the announcement Thursday. It's a mindset summed up by the brand's new tagline, "Fearless."
"All told, the three networks will air 25 original series in the next few years," he added, calling that figure comparable to any of the major broadcast networks.
The lineup for FXX will consist of original series, movies and acquired series targeting adults 18 to 34, a slightly younger demographic than the 18-to-49 audience FX attracts, Landgraf said. FXX will initially be available in 74 million TV homes.
The new channel will be anchored by the comedies "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and "The League," two veteran series that until now have originated on FX. In addition, "Legit" will move to FXX, as well as the FX late-night series "Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell," which will expand to a five-nights-per-week schedule.
Coming to FX this July is a new drama series titled "The Bridge." Starring Demian Bichir and Diane Kruger, it centers on two detectives hunting down a killer operating on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border.
The pilot for another future series, "Tyrant," will be directed this summer by two-time Oscar winner Ang Lee.
And FX's first limited series will be "Fargo," inspired by the acclaimed 1996 film of the same name. This 10-episode drama, which will tell an all-new story, will be executive-produced by the film's creators, Joel and Ethan Coen.
In another announcement, the company said that, this fall, FX Networks will launch its FXNOW app, allowing cable and satellite subscribers to access programming from the FX suite of channels.
In tonight?s Modern Family season 4 episode 15, ?The Wow Factor,? Claire and Cam are entrenched in the house flip, but when they hit an impasse on a big landscaping decision, a ?neutral? third party is brought in ? Pam (guest star Wendi McLendon-Covey), the lesbian mom from Lily?s school. Meanwhile, Phil decides to teach the kids basic fix-it skills around the house; Gloria spends some quality one-on-one time with Manny, leaving Jay alone with baby Joe; and Mitch helps Lily deal with a schoolyard bully.
The series is based on a Dutch filmmaker which records the lives of three families, including one he stayed with as an exchange student. In one household, the dad works and the mom stays at home with their kids; in another, a gay couple experiences first-time fatherhood with the Vietnamese child they just adopted; and in the third home a 60-year old man becomes an instant father when he marries a thirtysomething Latina mother. Shot documentary-style. Modern Family won six Emmy Awards, including the one for Outstanding Comedy Series. It also brought home a Peabody Award, Writers Guild Award, Directors Guilds Award and Television Critics Award.
Modern Family stars Ed O?Neill as Jay, Julie Bowen as Claire, Ty Burrell as Phil, Sof?a Vergara as Gloria, Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Mitchell, Eric Stonestreet as Cameron, Sarah Hyland as Haley, Nolan Gould as Luke, Ariel Winter as Alex, Rico Rodriguez as Manny and Aubrey Anderson-Emmons as Lily.
Modern Family ?The Wow Factor,? airs Wednesday, March 26, 9:00ET on ABC. Spoiler pictures below:
RolePlayGateway is proudly powered by obscene amounts of caffeine, duct tape, and support from people like you. It operates under a "don't like it, suggest an improvement" platform, and we gladly take suggestions for improvements or changes.
The custom-built "roleplay" system was designed and implemented by Eric Martindale as of July 2009. All attempts to replicate or otherwise emulate this system and its method of organizing roleplay are strictly prohibited without his express written and contractual permission; violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
? RolePlayGateway, LLC | with the support of LocalSense
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Gains in housing and manufacturing propelled the U.S. economy over the winter, according to reports released Tuesday, and analysts say they point to the resilience of consumers and businesses as government spending cuts kick in.
U.S. home prices rose 8.1 percent in January, the fastest annual rate since the peak of the housing boom in the summer of 2006. And demand for longer-lasting factory goods jumped 5.7 percent in February, the biggest increase in five months.
February new-home sales and March consumer confidence looked a little shakier. But the overall picture of an improving economy drove stocks higher on Tuesday.
The Standard & Poor's 500 gained 12 points to close at 1,563 ? a point away from its record high reached in October 2007. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 111 points, its biggest gain in three weeks.
"There is nothing in this data that says the economy is falling back," said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors.
A recovery in housing has helped lift the economy this year and is finally restoring some of the wealth lost during the Great Recession.
The year-over-year rise in home prices reported by the Standard & Poor's/Case Shiller 20-city index was the fastest since June 2006. Prices rose in all 20 cities and eight markets posted double-digit increases, including some of the hardest hit during the crisis. Prices rose 23.2 percent in Phoenix, 17.5 percent in San Francisco and 15.3 percent in Las Vegas.
The strength in home prices has far from erased all the damage from the crisis. Home prices nationwide are still 29 percent below their peak reached in August 2006.
Still, steady gains should encourage more people to buy and put their homes on the market, keeping the recovery going. And higher home prices make people feel wealthier, which leads consumers to spend more and drives more economic growth.
Sales of new homes cooled off in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 411,000, the Commerce Department reported. That's down from January's pace of 431,000, which was the fastest since September 2008. But February's pace was still better than every other month since April 2010, when a temporary home-buying tax credit was boosting sales. And sales are 12.3 percent higher than a year ago.
"We are still far from the healthy level of 700,000, but we're slowly making our way in that direction," said Jennifer Lee, senior economist with BMO Capital Markets. "We just have to accept the fact that the path will be interrupted once in a while and that's what happened in February."
Manufacturing is also boosting the economy this year, and factories were busier in February, according to a separate Commerce report on durable goods orders.
February's increase was driven by a surge in commercial aircraft orders, which tend to be volatile. Still, orders for motor vehicles and parts increased solidly, suggesting demand for cars and trucks remains strong.
Orders for machinery and other goods that signal business investment plans fell sharply in February. But the decline followed the biggest monthly gain in nearly three years. Economists had expected companies to ease up after January's spending spree. When looking at the two months together, business investment has accelerated from the end of last year and should contribute to economic growth.
"The picture of business spending to start the year is fairly healthy," said Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG
One concern is that tax increases and government spending cuts could stunt the economy's momentum. Both weighed on consumers' minds in March.
The Conference Board, a New York-based private research group, said its Consumer Confidence Index fell to 59.7 this month, down from 68 in February. The decline was mainly due to a drop in expectations for the economy over the next six months, though consumers also were more pessimistic regarding current economic conditions.
Some economists think the timing of the survey may have exacerbated the decline.
The survey was conducted from March 1 through March 14, just as $85 billion in automatic spending cuts began. Consumers were already feeling pinched by higher Social Security taxes that have reduced take-home pay for most workers this year. And gas prices rose sharply in February, before easing slightly this month.
"It was sort of a perfect storm," said Chris G. Christopher Jr., director of consumer economics at IHS Global Insight. "I do expect confidence to rebound as long as there is no government shutdown and the political bickering in Washington doesn't reach a fever pitch."
A healthier job market is also likely to make people feel a little better about their finances.
Employers have added an average of 200,000 jobs per month since November. That's nearly double the average from last spring. The job gains helped lower the unemployment rate in February to a four-year low of 7.7 percent.
Christopher expects economic growth in the January-March quarter to rise at a 2.9 percent annual rate. That would follow a meager gain of 0.1 percent in the October-December quarter, which was largely due to temporary factors, including sharp cuts in defense spending.
Naroff says the government spending cuts taking effect, known as sequestration, could reduce growth by a full percentage point this year. Still, even with the drag, he expects economic growth for 2013 to be around 2.6 percent. That would be better than the 2.2 percent growth in 2012.
__
AP Business Writers Paul Wiseman and Marcy Gordon contributed to this report.
Restaurant service linked to customer demographics, race, Wayne State research findsPublic release date: 26-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Julie O'Connor julie.oconnor@wayne.edu 313-577-8845 Wayne State University - Office of the Vice President for Research
DETROIT Restaurant servers are more likely to give better service to patron types they believe are more inclined to tip well, a Wayne State University researcher has found, a principle that has significant consequences when African-Americans are at the table.
In an effort to determine whether servers based their service levels on perceived tipping differences across customer demographics, Zachary Brewster, Ph.D., assistant professor of sociology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, analyzed data derived from a survey of 200 servers in 18 restaurants in a southeastern U.S. metropolitan area.
In "The Effects of Restaurant Servers' Perceptions of Customers' Tipping Behaviors on Service Discrimination," published recently in the International Journal of Hospitality Management, servers reported their perceptions of the tipping behaviors of 18 different table scenarios involving a number of demographic characteristics including race, sexual orientation and age, with combinations featuring small and adult children.
Brewster found that sensitivity to demographic differences predicted whether servers reported giving excellent service at the prospect of receiving excellent tips. While other research has shown race to be a factor in service levels, his study initially was not about racial discrimination in restaurant service.
Brewster was surprised, however, that a customer's race became such a salient variable in the study.
"Though not the focus of this study, race became a salient issue, in that the findings suggest that African-Americans, in particular, may be at risk for not only having excellent service withheld from them, but for receiving poor service in some cases," Brewster said.
Researchers also found that servers who had performed other restaurant duties, such as hosting or bartending, tended to be more sensitive to demographic differences, which predicted their propensities to differentially allocate excellent service.
Brewster said another factor that may exacerbate the problem of poor service to African-Americans, although not one addressed in the study, is an ongoing amount of racialized talk in the restaurant industry that functions to exaggerate servers' perceptions of African-Americans' tipping behaviors.
He pointed out that while the tipping difference between white and black customers has been shown to be significant enough to raise some important issues, the actual amounts are not intrinsically remarkable.
"We're talking cents, not dollars, controlling for other factors," he said.
But despite the study's limitations, Brewster believes it opens possibilities for future research in other parts of the country, using larger, more ethnically diverse survey samples (61 percent of respondents were female and 86 percent were white). Future research also could target other customer attributes for their effects on servers' decisions to exceed formal service expectations, as well as additional service industries.
"What we learned is that tipping motivates servers to provide excellent service, but more so for people perceived to be good tippers," Brewster said. "The latent consequence of that, however, is discrimination against some customers."
He believes that armed with that knowledge, restaurant operators can address the situation.
"If restaurants promoted tipping norms for specific levels of service quality for their own establishment, over time people would learn those norms and become familiar with different conceptions of service quality across restaurants," Brewster said. "Servers could come to expect to be rewarded for the service level provided, irrespective of customer demographics."
###
Wayne State University is one of the nation's pre-eminent public research universities in an urban setting. Through its multidisciplinary approach to research and education, and its ongoing collaboration with government, industry and other institutions, the university seeks to enhance economic growth and improve the quality of life in the city of Detroit, state of Michigan and throughout the world. For more information about research at Wayne State University, visit http://www.research.wayne.edu.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Restaurant service linked to customer demographics, race, Wayne State research findsPublic release date: 26-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Julie O'Connor julie.oconnor@wayne.edu 313-577-8845 Wayne State University - Office of the Vice President for Research
DETROIT Restaurant servers are more likely to give better service to patron types they believe are more inclined to tip well, a Wayne State University researcher has found, a principle that has significant consequences when African-Americans are at the table.
In an effort to determine whether servers based their service levels on perceived tipping differences across customer demographics, Zachary Brewster, Ph.D., assistant professor of sociology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, analyzed data derived from a survey of 200 servers in 18 restaurants in a southeastern U.S. metropolitan area.
In "The Effects of Restaurant Servers' Perceptions of Customers' Tipping Behaviors on Service Discrimination," published recently in the International Journal of Hospitality Management, servers reported their perceptions of the tipping behaviors of 18 different table scenarios involving a number of demographic characteristics including race, sexual orientation and age, with combinations featuring small and adult children.
Brewster found that sensitivity to demographic differences predicted whether servers reported giving excellent service at the prospect of receiving excellent tips. While other research has shown race to be a factor in service levels, his study initially was not about racial discrimination in restaurant service.
Brewster was surprised, however, that a customer's race became such a salient variable in the study.
"Though not the focus of this study, race became a salient issue, in that the findings suggest that African-Americans, in particular, may be at risk for not only having excellent service withheld from them, but for receiving poor service in some cases," Brewster said.
Researchers also found that servers who had performed other restaurant duties, such as hosting or bartending, tended to be more sensitive to demographic differences, which predicted their propensities to differentially allocate excellent service.
Brewster said another factor that may exacerbate the problem of poor service to African-Americans, although not one addressed in the study, is an ongoing amount of racialized talk in the restaurant industry that functions to exaggerate servers' perceptions of African-Americans' tipping behaviors.
He pointed out that while the tipping difference between white and black customers has been shown to be significant enough to raise some important issues, the actual amounts are not intrinsically remarkable.
"We're talking cents, not dollars, controlling for other factors," he said.
But despite the study's limitations, Brewster believes it opens possibilities for future research in other parts of the country, using larger, more ethnically diverse survey samples (61 percent of respondents were female and 86 percent were white). Future research also could target other customer attributes for their effects on servers' decisions to exceed formal service expectations, as well as additional service industries.
"What we learned is that tipping motivates servers to provide excellent service, but more so for people perceived to be good tippers," Brewster said. "The latent consequence of that, however, is discrimination against some customers."
He believes that armed with that knowledge, restaurant operators can address the situation.
"If restaurants promoted tipping norms for specific levels of service quality for their own establishment, over time people would learn those norms and become familiar with different conceptions of service quality across restaurants," Brewster said. "Servers could come to expect to be rewarded for the service level provided, irrespective of customer demographics."
###
Wayne State University is one of the nation's pre-eminent public research universities in an urban setting. Through its multidisciplinary approach to research and education, and its ongoing collaboration with government, industry and other institutions, the university seeks to enhance economic growth and improve the quality of life in the city of Detroit, state of Michigan and throughout the world. For more information about research at Wayne State University, visit http://www.research.wayne.edu.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, speaks at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, to remove three state Supreme Court justices who legalized same-sex marriage, Oct. 25, 2010.
Photo by Charlie Niebergall/AP
You can also listen to William Saletan read this piece.
The struggle to protect family values from homosexuality is starting to feel a bit lonely. In the last five years, eight states have extended marriage rights to same-sex couples. After years of winning ballot measure fights, gay-marriage opponents went 0-for-4 in November. Scores of Republican luminaries have signed a brief urging the Supreme Court to declare a constitutional right to marriage regardless of sexual orientation. And two weeks ago, for the first time, a sitting Republican senator, Rob Portman of Ohio, endorsed same-sex marriage. Behind these developments lurks an ominous trend: Gay marriage, once a fringe idea, is now backed by a majority or plurality in nearly every poll.
What the opponents fear next is that these setbacks might influence the Supreme Court. Those mushy-middle justices might decide that the country is ready to accept gay marriage as a constitutional right. This conclusion has to be squelched. Forget the poll numbers. Forget the election results. Americans are dead set as ever against same-sex marriage. Here?s how the right intends to set the record straight.
1. ?The polls are skewed.? That?s what Gary Bauer, the president of American Values, said yesterday on Fox News Sunday. Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, points to the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, which asked whether ?it should be legal or illegal for gay and lesbian couples to get married.? That question, Sprigg explains, is biased because Americans ?shy away from making things ?illegal.?? (FRC also claims that a Reuters/Ipsos survey, which deflated support for gay marriage to 41 percent by including civil unions as a third option, was biased by Reuters? efforts ?to push that number higher.?) The unbiased approach, according to opponents, is to ask whether "marriage is between one man and one woman"?i.e., to avoid mentioning gay people at all.
2. We won 30 states. Marriage ?tests very differently at the ballot box than it does in a poll,? says Ralph Reed, chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. The difference, Sprigg argues, is that in ballot measure fights, ?both sides are fully aired.? And what?s the record in ballot measure fights? Thirty to three in favor of traditional marriage, its defenders report. They leave out November?s loss in Minnesota, which actually makes the record 30-4. But the four defeats are the most recent votes. So the difference between winning and losing isn?t whether it?s a poll or a ballot measure. The difference is time. Opponents are using the cumulative record, going back decades, to hide the fact that the tide has turned against them.
3. Yeah, we got swept in November. But barely. ?My side had 45, 46 percent of the vote in all four of those liberal states,? Bauer notes proudly. In a post-election analysis, Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, blamed the defeats on ?political and funding advantages our opponents enjoyed in these very liberal states.? Brown neglected to mention Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, all of which voted for President Obama, despite having been targeted by NOM as ?presidential swing states.?
4. Blame the elites. NOM and other opponents have long claimed to represent ordinary Americans against liberal judges. Have the recent ballot measures and polls chastened them? Not a bit. They insist that ?media elites,? ?cultural elites,? and ?major donor elites? are corrupting the polls. Bauer says ?a lot of people are changing their minds because there's been a full-court blitz by the popular culture, by elites ? to intimidate and to cower people into no longer defending marriage.? Sprigg adds, ?It?s not surprising that younger voters are somewhat more likely to support marriage redefinition than their elders. After all, they have been subjected to a drumbeat of support for it from the news media, entertainment media, and higher education for literally as long as they can remember.? Brown thinks polls undercount his Republican sympathizers: ?How many more young conservatives probably support true marriage but are intimidated by their liberal college environment and peer pressure into hiding their pro-marriage views?? These cowed supporters of traditional marriage?apparently poor, uneducated, and easy to command?are hiding in the closet.
5. We still own the GOP. So what if opposition to gay marriage is no longer a majority position among voters generally? It?s still a majority position among Republicans. Reed, Perkins, Rush Limbaugh, and other opponents have fallen back on this argument, warning party leaders that any retreat will trigger a fatal walkout by social conservatives. NOM, unable to assure Republican politicians that opposing same-sex marriage is a safe position in a general election, threatens them instead with defeats in their primaries.
6. Polls are shifting back in our favor. FRC says the Post survey is old news:
"Just two days ago, news outlets were plastering its poll results of 'record' backing for same-sex 'marriage' on their websites?only to see the support vanish as quickly as it appeared. Today, the Reuters Corporation released the results of an even bigger poll than the?Post's and found that?only 41% of America supports [gay marriage]. ? In 48 hours, we've seen a 17-point swing in public opinion on marriage."
How did 17 percent of Americans turn against gay marriage in 48 hours? They didn?t. The Post poll was taken from March 7 to 10. The Reuters poll was taken from Jan. 1 to March 14. So the shift, if there was one, went the other way. In truth, you can?t compare the two questions, since one offered a middle option and the other didn?t. But you can examine trends within each survey over time. Every single polling organization shows same-sex marriage gaining ground.
7. Young people will drift our way as they age. Perkins argues that ?history?and most statistical data?shows that young people tend to become more conservative and more religious as they grow up, get married, and start families of their own.? Beyond age 23, ?people become?increasingly religious?meaning that a hasty retreat on marriage may score cheap points now, but it would actually alienate the same people later on.? But the data behind this analysis pertain to religion, not homosexuality. And there?s no precedent, in any generation, for the level of support today?s young people express for same-sex marriage.
Nobody knows whether public support for gay marriage will continue to rise at the same rate. This issue might go the way of interracial marriage, or it might get bogged down like abortion, assisted suicide, or single parenthood. But it?s clear that over the last several decades, homosexuality has become widely accepted, and opponents of same-sex marriage have now lost their grip on public opinion. The question going forward isn?t how many more states will ban same-sex marriage, but how many of the bans already passed will survive, and for how long.
William Saletan's latest short takes on the news, via Twitter:
Women?s Health is the must-read magazine for women who want to live life to its fullest. Every issue of the magazine is a manual to better, healthier living in two key respects?physically and emotionally. Women?s Health magazine is your source of information on fitness, nutrition, sex and relationships, style, beauty and more. With success strategies, fitness tips and fashion and career advice, the magazine encourages readers to take charge and conquer all aspects of life. Each issue has something different to offer, such as healthy, delicious recipes and fun weekend activity ideas. Edited for a well-rounded readership, Women?s Health focuses on providing realistic goals and covering the issues most relevant to today?s modern woman.
Women?s Health South Africa ? April 2013 English | 180 pages | PDF | 130.72 MB Torrent Search???UPLOADED???RAPiDGATOR
A cookie or an apple? French fries or sweet potato wedges? Healthy eating choices may get easier for children in New Jersey, Hawaii and California this summer.
?
Pending funding from AmeriCorps, FoodCorps hopes to add those three states to the 12 states where the group currently operates, giving it up to 130 service members in 15 states next school year. FoodCorps is a national nonprofit organization that is part of the AmeriCorps service network. It seeks to reduce the country?s childhood obesity epidemic by placing motivated?leaders in limited-resource communities for a year of public service.
?
Once in place, service members connect kids to healthy food through education, by building and tending school gardens and by bringing nutritious food from local farms into school cafeterias. Service members are currently carrying out that mission in Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina and Oregon. ?We'd like to be in all 50 states by 2020,?but growth is very much contingent upon being able to find funding and the right partners in each state,? said Jerusha Klemperer, FoodCorps communications director.
?
?
The efforts of FoodCorps and other groups to reverse the country?s childhood obesity epidemic by changing the dietary landscape for thousands of schoolchildren is part of a broad national movement called Farm to School or F2S. Those efforts are coming at a critical time.
?
America has an alarming number of children who are either obese and overweight or hungry ? and at the same time, Eschmeyer told a Georgia Organics statewide summit in Atlanta last month. ?FoodCorps addresses the root cause of both,? she said, ?which is access to healthy food.?
?
A 2007-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that about 17 percent, or 12.5 million children and adolescents aged 2-19 in the United States are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since 1980, obesity among children and adolescents has almost tripled, according to the survey.
?
There are significant racial and ethnic disparities in obesity among U.S. children and adolescents, the survey found. In 2007-2008, Hispanic boys, aged 2 to 19, were significantly more likely to be obese than non-Hispanic white boys, and non-Hispanic black girls were significantly more likely to be obese than non-Hispanic white girls.
?
The Farm to School movement is not directed by any single nonprofit organization or top-down government agency. Rather, Farm to School is a grassroots movement led by groups such as FoodCorps, state and federal agencies and individuals such as parents, educators and members of local gardening groups in communities across the country. Active in all 50 states, Farm to School programs seek to bring regionally produced foods into K-12 school cafeterias, involve children in hands-on learning through participation in school gardens, farm visits and culinary classes, integrate food-related education into the regular, standards-based classroom curriculum and support local and regional farmers.?
?
The National Farm to School Network and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), through its Farm to School Program, support local efforts by providing a combination of free training, technical assistance, research and information services, policy support and grants. Another national group, School Food FOCUS, seeks to achieve many of the same goals in large, urban school districts.
?
Proponents of Farm to School initiatives see the movement as critical in liberating a generation of American children from diet-related diseases. One in three children born in the United States, for example, is on track to develop Type II diabetes because they are overweight, according to Food Corps. The country's obesity epidemic discriminates against some children more than others. According to FoodCorps:
50 percent of children of color are expected to develop diabetes during their lifetimes.?Children in the South suffer especially high rates of obesity.
?
Long-term complications from diabetes can include heart disease, strokes, blindness, kidney failure, which may require dialysis, and poor circulation of limbs, which can lead to amputations. The stomach-churning fear of facing these possibilities is something Eschmeyer is all-too familiar with.
?
She and her husband, Jeff, were preparing to ship out for a Peace Corps assignment as agriculture volunteers in Ecuador when he was diagnosed with late onset Type I diabetes. He was a former college athlete and was just 25 at the time.
?
They were thunderstruck and cancelled the trip in February 2004 because Jeff was medically disqualified from participating. To deal with his disease, Eschmeyer started preparing special meals and cataloging what her husband ate as if his life depended on it ? which, in this case, it did. But, she soon learned that nit-picky nagging was not a solution.
?
?Food is joy. Food is community. Food is health. Food is part of the solution,? she said.
?
That ?aha moment? set her on a path that led her back to her roots? ? the farm, where she thinks her food education began. She and Jeff now operate Harvest Sun Farm in Shelby County in Central Ohio a half mile down the road from the dairy farm where she grew up.
?
?
Because children eat school food five days a week and receive more than half their daily calories from school food programs, Eschmeyer sees the nation?s schools as the frontline in the war on obesity. The biggest challenge Farm to School proponents face in winning that war, Eschmeyer thinks, is not food procurement or policy but patience. Only 2 percent of schoolchildren meet the USDA?s Dietary Guidelines for Americans, she points out. We don?t give up on our kids with math if they become frustrated learning fractions, and we shouldn?t give up on them with changing unhealthy food habits to healthy food habits, she says.
?
How will she measure success? ?When the Farm to School program takes root and is so ingrained into the school food environment that it?s no longer a program, but just the way it is,? she exclaims.?Her vision is that in 10, 20, 30 or 40 years, other countries will look at the United States and see how FoodCorps schools and Farm to School programs have changed children?s diets and say, ?That is how you raise a healthy nation.?
This photo taken Feb. 8, 2013, shows Sandy Stier, left, and Kris Perry, the couple at the center of the Supreme Court's consideration of gay marriage, at their home in Berkeley, Calif. Whatever the outcome of their momentous case, Perry and Stier, who have been together 13 years, will be empty-nesters as the last of their children will heads off to college. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
This photo taken Feb. 8, 2013, shows Sandy Stier, left, and Kris Perry, the couple at the center of the Supreme Court's consideration of gay marriage, at their home in Berkeley, Calif. Whatever the outcome of their momentous case, Perry and Stier, who have been together 13 years, will be empty-nesters as the last of their children will heads off to college. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
In this photo taken Saturday, March 23, 2013, Jessica Skrebes of Washington reads while waiting in line with others outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington in anticipation of Tuesday's Supreme Court hearing on California's Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage, and Wednesday's Supreme Court hearing on the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) ? Big change is coming to the lives of the lesbian couple at the center of the fight for same-sex marriage in California no matter how the Supreme Court decides their case.
After 13 years of raising four boys together, Kris Perry and Sandy Stier are about to be empty nesters. Their youngest two children, 18-year-old twins, will graduate from high school in June and head off to college a couple of months later.
"We'll see all the movies, get theater season tickets because you can actually go," Stier said in the living room of their bungalow in Berkeley. Life will not revolve quite so much around food, and the challenge of putting enough of it on the table to feed teenagers.
They might also get married, if the high court case goes their way.
Perry, 48, and Stier, 50, set aside their lunch hour on a recent busy Friday to talk to The Associated Press about their Supreme Court case, the evolution of their activism for gay rights and family life.
On Tuesday, they plan to be in the courtroom when their lawyer, Theodore Olson, tries to persuade the justices to strike down California's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages and to declare that gay couples can marry nationwide. Supporters of California's Proposition 8, represented by lawyer Charles Cooper, argue that the court should not override the democratic process and impose a judicial solution that would redefine marriage in the 40 states that do not allow same-sex couples to wed.
A second case, set for Wednesday, involves the part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that prevents same-sex couples who are legally married from receiving a range of federal tax, pension and other benefits that otherwise are available to married people.
The Supreme Court hearing is the moment Perry and Stier, along with Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo of Burbank, have been waiting for since they agreed four years ago to be the named plaintiffs and public faces of a well-funded, high-profile effort to challenge Proposition 8 in the courts.
"For the past four years, we've lived our lives in this hurry-up-and-wait, pins-and-needles way," Perry said, recalling the crush of court deadlines and the seemingly endless wait for rulings from a federal district judge, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, also based there, and the California Supreme Court.
Stier said Olson told them the case could take several years to resolve. "I thought, years?" she said.
But the couple has been riding a marriage rollercoaster since 2003, when Perry first asked Stier to marry her. They were planning a symbolic, but not legally recognized, wedding when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered city officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004. So they were married, but only briefly. Six months later, the state Supreme Court invalidated the same-sex unions.
They went ahead with their plans anyway, but "it was one of the sadder points of our wedding," Perry said.
Less than four years later, however, the same state court overturned California's prohibition on same-sex unions. Then, on the same day Perry and Stier rejoiced in President Barack Obama's election, voters approved Proposition 8, undoing the court ruling and defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Their lawsuit was filed six months later, after they went to the Alameda County courthouse for a marriage license and were predictably refused.
"It's such a weird road we've been on," Perry said.
All the more so because neither woman defined herself as a gay rights activist before the marriage fight.
Perry, a native Californian from Bakersfield, and Stier, who grew up in rural Iowa, moved in together in 2000, with Stier's two children from a heterosexual marriage and Perry's from a previous relationship. Utterly conventional school meetings, soccer games and band practice ? not the court case ? have defined their lives together.
As if to highlight this point, their son, Elliott, briefly interrupted the interview to ask for a pair of headphones. Perry said the boys find her useful for two basic reasons these days. "Do I have any headphones and do I have any money?" she said with a smile.
Perry has spent her professional life advocating on behalf of early childhood education. Stier works for the county government's public health department.
"When you've been out as long as I have been, 30 years, in order to feel OK every day and be optimistic and productive, you can't dwell as much on what's not working as maybe people think you do," Perry said.
Even with Proposition 8's passage, Perry and Stier said they were more focused on Obama's election.
"I was all about health care reform and Kris is all about education reform and that was everything. Gay rights, that would be great, but it's a way off," Stier said.
They don't take the issue so lightly anymore. Of course, they could not imagine a U.S. president would endorse gay marriage along with voters in three states just last November.
When Obama talked about equal rights for gay Americans in his inaugural speech in January, Perry said she felt as if "we've arrived at the adults' table. We're no longer at the kids' table."
They will watch the argument in their case and then return home to wait for the decision, worried that it could come the same day as the boys' high school graduations in mid-June.
They know the court could uphold Proposition 8, which would almost certainly lead to an effort to repeal it by California voters. Recent polls show support for repeal.
Any other outcome will allow them to get married. But Perry said they are hoping the court strikes "a tone of more inclusion" and issues the broadest possible ruling.
They will get married quickly, in a small, private ceremony. "We did the big celebration a long time ago," Perry said. "I hope this will be something a lot bigger than the two of us."
___
Follow Mark Sherman at http://twitter.com/shermancourt
In this photo combo, Wayne LaPierre, left, CEO of the National Rifle Association, makes remarks at CPAC 2013, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Md., Friday, March 15, 2013; and at right, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks to the Economic Club of Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012, in Washington. Two of the loudest voices in the gun debate say it's up to voters now to make their position known to Congress. LaPierre and Bloomberg claim their views on guns have the support of the overwhelming number of Americans. (AP Photo, Ron Sachs, Manuel Balce Ceneta)
In this photo combo, Wayne LaPierre, left, CEO of the National Rifle Association, makes remarks at CPAC 2013, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Md., Friday, March 15, 2013; and at right, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks to the Economic Club of Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012, in Washington. Two of the loudest voices in the gun debate say it's up to voters now to make their position known to Congress. LaPierre and Bloomberg claim their views on guns have the support of the overwhelming number of Americans. (AP Photo, Ron Sachs, Manuel Balce Ceneta)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Two of the loudest voices in the gun debate say it's up to voters now to make their position known to Congress.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and National Rifle Associate Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre claim their opposing views on guns have the support of the overwhelming number of Americans. They are looking at the next two weeks as critical to the debate, when lawmakers head home to hear from constituents ahead of next month's anticipated Senate vote on gun control.
Bloomberg, a former Republican-turned-independent, has just sunk $12 million for Mayors Against Illegal Guns to run television ads and phone banks in 13 states urging voters to tell their senators to pass legislation requiring universal background checks for gun buyers.
"We demanded a plan and then we demanded a vote. We've got the plan, we're going to get the vote. And now it's incumbent on us to make our voices heard," said Bloomberg.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday that legislation would likely be debated in his chamber next month that will include expanded federal background checks, tougher laws and stiffer sentences for gun trafficking and increased school safety grants. A ban on assault-style weapons was dropped from the bill, fearing it would sink the broader bill. But Reid has said that he would allow the ban to be voted on separately as an amendment. President Barack Obama called for a vote on the assault weapons ban in his radio and Internet address Saturday.
Recalling the horrific shooting three months ago at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school that left 20 first graders and six school administrators dead, Bloomberg said it would be a great tragedy if Congress, through inaction, lost the moment to make the country safer from gun violence. Bloomberg said that 90 percent of Americans and 80 percent of NRA members support universal background checks for gun purchases.
"I don't think there's ever been an issue where the public has spoken so clearly, where Congress hasn't eventually understood and done the right thing," Bloomberg said.
But the NRA's LaPierre counters that universal background checks are "a dishonest premise." For example, mental health records are exempt from databases and criminals won't submit to the checks. Background checks, he said, are a "speed bump" in the system that "slows down the law-abiding and does nothing for anybody else."
"The shooters in Tucson, in Aurora, in Newtown, they're not going to be checked. They're unrecognizable," LaPierre said. He was referring to the 2011 shooting in a Tucson shopping center that killed six and wounded 13, including former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and the July assault in a suburban Denver movie theater that killed 12 and injured 70. In both instances, as well as in the Newtown killings, the alleged shooters used military-style assault rifles with high-capacity ammunition magazines.
LaPierre slammed Bloomberg for the ad buy.
"He's going to find out this is a country of the people, by the people, and for the people. And he can't spend enough of his $27 billion to try to impose his will on the American public," LaPierre said, adding, "He can't buy America."
"Millions of people" from across the country are sending the NRA "$5, $10, $15, $20 checks, saying stand up to this guy," LaPierre said, referring to Bloomberg.
LaPierre said the NRA supports a bill to get the records of those adjudicated mentally incompetent and dangerous into the background check system for gun dealers, better enforcement of federal gun laws and beefed up penalties for illegal third-party purchases and gun trafficking. Shortly after the Newtown shooting, LaPierre called for armed security guards in schools as well.
LaPierre would like to see Congress pass a law that "updates the system and targets those mentally incompetent adjudicated into the system" and forces the administration to enforce the federal gun laws.
"It won't happen until the national media gets on the administration and calls them out for their incredible lack of enforcement of these laws," LaPierre said.
In Colorado, a state with a pioneer tradition of gun ownership and self-reliance, Gov. John Hickenlooper just signed bills requiring background checks for private and online gun sales. The legislation also would ban ammunition magazines that hold more than 15 rounds.
"After the shootings last summer in the movie theater, we really focused on mental health first then universal background checks," Hickenlooper said on CNN's "State of the Union." ''I think the feeling right now around assault weapons, at least in Colorado, is that they're so hard to define what an assault weapon is."
Hickenlooper said he met with a group of protesters against the bills in Grand Junction, Colo., were "very worried about government keeping a centralized database, which I assured them wasn't going to happen." The protesters, he added, view the background checks as "just the first step in trying to take guns away."
We stopped for a water break and views on the Chalet?s deck and Nidiver reminisced about riding the lift, taking in the views, having a tasty meal- ?the food was excellent up here? and then venturing out of bounds. Locals had long whined for a backcountry lift where they could pay a reduced rate for lift-accessed OB but that had never happened.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 26-Mar-2013
Share ] 
Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, speaks at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, to remove three state Supreme Court justices who legalized same-sex marriage, Oct. 25, 2010. VgxH8.jpg)