Molasses Preparers and how it relates to me

Source: News & Observer ()

Leah Friedman, Staff Writer CARRBORO - Natnael Romaine sat on his knees, intently listening to his teacher read the tale of “The Gingerbread Man.”Natnael, 6, had never heard “The Gingerbread Man” before, nor eaten one with raisin buttons.But most everything these days is a first for Natnael — including Christmas.Eight months ago, Natnael was living in an orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.He had been begging on the streets to support his family. His father had died. And his mother could not afford to raise him and his younger brother.Last December, she put them up for adoption, keeping their older sister with her.Shortly after they arrived at the orphanage, Natnael’s 1-year-old brother died of sepsis — bacteria in the bloodstream.Natnael mourned for his brother, but living in the orphanage brought some relief. There was food and nannies who doted on him.Last spring, the Romaine family — Craig, Susan and their children Andrew, 14, and Catherine, 11 — was matched with Natnael through an adoption agency. Within months, the family flew to Addis Ababa to adopt Natnael.They met with Natnael’s mother, who agreed to the adoption because the Romaines promised to give her son a good education.New experiencesIn August, Natnael entered first grade at Carrboro Elementary School. He now speaks English and aces his spelling tests, including the optional challenge words, like parallelogram.He celebrated the Fourth of July at the beach. He was baptized Roman Catholic in August. He wore a Spider-Man costume for Halloween and discovered M&M’s.At Thanksgiving, he passed on the turkey, but lapped up the sweet potatoes — the only food he recognized at the feast.Natnael has also learned about American football. It’s now an obsession.On a recent day, Natnael wore a Carolina jersey, Carolina shorts and a Carolina wrist band. When asked his favorite team, he said, “Tennessee” — as in University — then looked at his father and laughed.That was a little sports humor in the Romaine …

Source: AllAfrica.com ()

The chairman of the presidential commission that probed illegal and irregular land allocations, Mr Paul Ndung’u, has claimed recommendations in the report on the molasses plant were factual.

Ndung’u said the report was not doctored to hit at the family of ODM presidential candidate, Mr Odinga.

Ndung’u said those accusing his team of inserting recommendations on the molasses plant after the report was complete were malicious.

Source: NewsOK.com (subscription) ()

By The Associated Press
FORT GIBSON — Tasha Carr said she has spent the past 20 years learning the secrets to great preserves. Her onion mustard, jalapeno jam, watermelon pickles and corncob jelly are just a few of her unique sweet treats she sells in her store, Buried Treasure Antiques in Fort Gibson.

“I grow most everything I use, except for the oranges and cranberries.”
But Oklahoma’s climate is perfect for one of her key ingredients in her Best Ever Mincemeat — green tomatoes.
“I have tried lots of different versions, and this one is one of the best I have made,” she said. “My 97-year-old aunt called it the best ever, and so that’s what I call it.”
Based on tradition
Traditional mincemeat was used more than 100 years ago as a way to use every leftover scrap people had. Carr said people would save their leftover meat, pork, ham, beef and fat, everything from their tables and store it in vinegar. They would do this all year until around harvest time, when they would add nuts, fruit and vegetables. Then they would add molasses to make it jell. At the end of harvest, they would make pie out of it for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“I don’t use actual meat in what I make,” Carr said. “I doubt people would want to eat that.”
But people are eating her unique recipes.
“I have sold cases of the mincemeat at a single time,” Carr said. “I have ladies who come in and will take the majority of what I make.”
Other unlikely foods
Carr remembers a time when she made a zucchini-pineapple spread.
“I always let my family taste my creations,” she said. “The zucchini-pineapple did well with all of us. It was great until I tried to sell it. Nobody wanted it. That’s when I decided to re-label the product as pineapple spread, and it sold out.”
Another of her unique recipes is corncob jelly. Carr said the corncob jelly tastes like honey.
put little bits of corn in the jelly to add color,” she said. “You just take …

Source: Seattle Times ()

MUSCODA, Wis. — A bison herd bunches up big and dark against the snow-covered prairie as members of the Ho-Chunk Nation in pickup trucks and tractors form a line behind the imposing beasts.

The bison anxiously eye the men and the machines.

But a spiritual connection explains why American Indian and bison have come face-to-face on this cold December day. While trucks and tractors have replaced horses for herding purposes, history is coming full circle.

The roundup and weigh-in of bison last week is intended to ensure the health of the majestic creatures. The Ho-Chunk are reintroducing them to better feed a people plagued by heart disease and diabetes — diseases that accompany high-carb, fast-food diets not native to American Indian culture. American bison, also known as buffalo, for centuries were central to the American Indian diet until herds were slaughtered by settlers and the U.S. military moved tribes onto reservations in the 1800s.

The Ho-Chunk — which vaccinated about 120 bison in last week’s roundup — are among 57 tribes in 19 states working to bring back bison to tribal lands.

“We believe that when the buffalo come back, everything else will come back,” including the health of the people, said Richard Snake, herd manager for the Ho-Chunk’s Muscoda Bison Prairie 1 Ranch along the Wisconsin River bottom in southwestern Wisconsin. Bison meat is lower in fat and calories than beef, pork or chicken, with a flavor similar to beef, only richer and sweeter.

“If you watch old movies, you never see a chubby Indian or a sick Indian,” Snake said matter-of-factly.

In some tribes, half the adults have diabetes, according to the South Dakota-based InterTribal Bison Cooperative, which is coordinating and assisting efforts to return bison to tribal lands across America.

American Indians are more twice as likely to have diabetes as non-Hispanic whites, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease …

Source: Washington Post ()

Wondering how to keep the holiday spirits high after all the gifts have been opened (or returned)? Consider a tour of the area’s best gingerbread houses.

BUZZ:901 Slaters Lane, Alexandria; 703-600-2899. Pastry chef Josh Short’s two-foot-tall mansion fronts on a pond, carolers sing and an apparently too-rotund Santa tries to extricate himself from the chimney. On display through Dec. 31.

Source: AllAfrica.com ()

Key figures in the three main presidential campaigns have been named in irregular deals involving public land whose value was given as Sh53 billion.

The government’s human rights watchdog accused top ODM and ODM-K leaders, including presidential candidates Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka, of benefiting from public land transferred to private use under questionable deals.

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights also said that PNU, the party sponsoring President Kibaki’s re-election, had benefited from contributions from business people who got public land irregularly under the Kanu administration.

Mr Odinga was blamed over the Kisumu Molasses Plant transaction while Mr Musyoka was also said to have benefited from public land in Ukambani.

And the report blamed President Kibaki for failing to act against those who had benefited from irregular allocations.

Releasing the report Wednesday at KNHCR headquarters, the coordinator of the Kenya Land Alliance, Dr Odenda Lumumba, said: "Each one of the presidential candidates has let Kenyans down in one way or the other," he said.

"Some of them are in the ODM Pentagon and others are business people funding the PNU campaigns."

But Mr Odinga Wednesday denied any wrongdoing in his family’s acquisition of the Kisumu Molasses plant.

In a paid advertisement appearing elsewhere in this edition, Mr Odinga dismissed the allegations saying the Odinga family-owned Spectre International acquired the land legally.

President Kibaki campaign manager George Nyamweya said: "Those funding President Kibaki re-election campaign are people of integrity. And to say that they got their money through corruption is a very strange way of looking at issues."

And Mr Musyoka said he had surrendered the parcel of land he was given at Masongaleni he had "properly and legally" bought another in Yatta.

"All the land I own is in my …

Source: Bloomington Pantagraph ()

ISHookah lights up in uptown Normal

By Mary Ann Ford
mford@pantagraph.com

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NORMAL — Jonny Olszewski and Drew Hannan recently finished finals and decided to relax at the ISHookah Lounge in uptown Normal.

“You gotta unwind after finals,” said Hannan, 19, an Illinois State University freshman from Peoria. “This is my first time here but it’ll definitely be something I come back to.”

“It’s a great time,” said Olszewski, 19. “I haven’t had a bad flavor yet. All the flavors are good.”

They were among many under 21-year-olds to hit the new nighttime option after it opened Dec. 11 — only a couple of weeks before a new state smoking ban would have prevented it at its current location, 202 North St., Suite A. The new law that takes affect Jan. 1 only allows new tobacco stores to be located in a free-standing structure.

ISU students Steve Peak, Mark Killick and Nick Alfonso are responsible for bringing the latest college trend to uptown Normal.

“It’s what ISU and Normal need,” said Peak prior to the opening. “There’s no central location for kids under 21 to socialize that’s safe.”

ISU sophomore Eric Schrock agreed.

“I’m surprised it took so long,” said Schrock, 19, of Chicago. “When I came to college, I expected two or three here. I was pretty excited when I heard it was opening.”

Schrock and Anastasia Leventopoulos, 19, of Chicago, said they routinely went to hookah lounges in the Chicago area before coming to college.

“I was very into hookah bars in Chicago,” Leventopoulos said. “I was very excited about (ISHookah Lounge). I came to the door every day to ask when it was opening.”

Leventopoulos said she likes the atmosphere at the lounge.

“It’s a nice to hang out with friends and chill out,” she said.

That also was one of the attractions …

Source: American Chronicle ()

If you are looking for the constipation cure then you are at right place because in next 15-20 minutes I will tell you how to treat constipation with some simple but really useful constipation home remedies

What is constipation?

Constipation refers to any abnormality in, or absence of bowel movements. The slow movement of food through the large intestine and the amount of time the waste remains in the colon are major factors that lead to constipation. More and more water is absorbed while the waste is in our body and the stool becomes drier and bulky thus more hard to pass. Home remedies can help in constipation cure.

Constipation can be cause by lack of exercise, a lot of junk food, poor diet, painkillers or pregnancy. Constipation is not a disease, it is just only a symptom.

Home Remedies for Constipation: Guaranteed Results

1) To clean and make well the digestive system take Aloe vera juice twice a day.

2) Turmeric powder boiled in milk along with figs also helps in constipation cure.

3) A good home remedy for constipation is to drink a glass of warm milk before going to bed. If the case is severe then mix two teaspoons of pure castor oil in the milk.

4) Mix equal amounts of carrot juice with spinach juice. Drinking this should give immediate relief and is well like constipation home remedy.

5) Take a teaspoonful of roasted fennel at bedtime with a glass of warm water for constipation cure.

6) The best and simplest home remedy for constipation is to drink a glass of lemon juice in water with a pinch of salt in it. This is a good remedy for constipation.

7) Pour boiling water over some prunes and permit to soak overnight. Add honey for taste. Eat the prunes first and drink the remaining liquid.

Take 1/2 cup of apple juice and 1/2 cup of olive oil and mix them both well. Drink mixture before going to bed. One of well like constipation remedy

9) Take 2 tablespoons of black …

Source: Boston Globe ()

Q&A with Dennis Lehane
How Boston became the cradle of the new American noir

(Ed Quinn/Corbis)

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By
Pagan Kennedy

December 16, 2007

ON OCT. 23, 1989, a flower-delivery man pulled up at the corner of Huntington Avenue and Francis Street. In the idling van, he checked his list and smoked a cigarette.An hour later, Charles Stuart - soon to become one of Boston’s most infamous murderers - drove toward that same corner. He and his wife Carol had just attended a birthing class, and now Stuart was looking for a spot where he could shoot his wife.After it was done, Stuart claimed that a black man had jumped into his car at the corner of Huntington and Francis, firing on both himself and Carol. The lie sent almost a hundred cops rampaging through the streets of Mission Hill, shaking down African-American residents; an innocent man nearly took the murder rap. When the truth came out, Stuart plunged to his death in the Mystic River.And Dennis Lehane - the delivery guy who had parked on that controversial corner - started writing crime novels, many of them influenced by the Stuart case. These “Boston noir” stories imagine the city as a dark empire, rife with political machines, ethnic mobs, and clouds of racism.Hollywood has brought his vision to the big screen with two major films based on Lehane books - “Mystic River” and “Gone, Baby, Gone.” Meanwhile, “The Departed” also springs out of the fictional world Lehane created (though the film is not based on his work).This trend is a startling break from the past. In the 1980s and early 1990s, TV shows and films portrayed Boston as the cutest of cities; it invariably appeared as a pastiche of cobblestones, brass rails, Brahmins, and a bar where everyone knows your name.Now there’s not a cobblestone in sight. Lehane might be considered the man who Boston.IDEAS: How is the underbelly of Boston different from the underbelly of other cities?LEHANE: We take …

Source: Globe and Mail ()

EDINBURGH — We may never know exactly why 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez was strangled in Mississauga this week. Her father, Muhammad, has been charged with murder, and he is, by all accounts, a very religious man, whereas his daughter didn’t want to cover her head in the style favoured by Muslims in his native Pakistan.
Whether her death was a direct result of this theological schism, or of some more prosaic explosion of family rage, is now irrelevant. It has become a story about the limits of tolerance. A national debate has erupted around poor Aqsa, and it is largely a debate about the place of extreme religious belief in a liberal society.
This happens to have been the central topic of a dramatic argument that has inflamed Europe’s leading thinkers for much of this year and it would be useful to ship some of its rhetoric across the Atlantic.
A lot of people have been using the words “integration” and “multiculturalism” to discuss the Parvez case. These concepts, I would argue, are somewhat beside the point. Members of the family are, in most important respects, fully integrated and fluent Canadians. And they don’t seem to have been stuck in a cultural ghetto; if there really were pressures inside the father’s head, they didn’t come from the varied and mostly secular people around them.

Enlarge Image

Muhammad Parvez, 57, appears at Brampton, Ont. court charged with the murder of his daughter, Aqsa aka Axa, a high school student. (Marianne Boucher/The Globe and Mail)

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