| A struggle to make ends meet
First in a series of occasional articles. Their days of dashing to Dunkin' Donuts on the way to work are history. So, too, are their Friday night family outings at Friendly's. And forget about a vacation to Disney World, though their 4-year-old, who is obsessed with Sleeping Beauty, still dreams about that trip. These days, Cori Desmond and Joe Zeuli could use a bit of magic to keep their kingdom afloat, because the bills in their Peabody home seem ready to swamp the place. "Our credit cards are maxed out," Desmond said. "We're playing catch-up and trying to pay them down." They've got plenty of company. Soaring costs of essentials such as housing, healthcare, and transportation, in the face of stagnant pay, are squeezing countless middle-class families, many to the brink.
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Throw in golf guru Tiger Woods and basketball legend Shaquille ONeal, and you get the feeling a lot of sports people out there are getting paid a hell of a lot of money for a game they would probably play for fun in any case.
So whats happening here? The butterfly effect of those type of sporting deals is growing from a ripple into a global tsunami driven by television and cashed-up promoters with no comprehension of a household budget.
Not surprisingly, the sports stars are loving it. And most of us at home are downright envious.
In New Zealand there has been some discontent at the massive international contracts now being offered to our best cricketers. Keeper/batsman Brendon McCullum has just jumped for joy at being offered $US700,000 an annual contract for the well known Indian Twenty/20 Cricket Series team, Kolkata.
More air carriers turn stingy as costs escalate
MUMBAI: Life used to be in the lap of luxury for flight crews, until recently. They got to stay in the best of five-star hotels, savoured the very best food and moved about in company-owned luxury cars, between logging flying hours. Today, with costs going through the roof, airlines have been exploring every possible corner where they could cut costs. Scissors are being run through many of the frills, including lodging, boarding and conveyance. So much so, some airlines have started putting up their crews in guest houses to save on hotel expenses. Predictably, car rental allowances, too, are getting pruned. After all, in a low-margin business, every penny counts. And the austerity drive goes way farther. SpiceJet, for one, has even reduced the grammage (weight) of its boarding passes in a bid to trim costs.
IndyCar pit crew member also a mechanic
On March 29th, racing fans will be out in full force at the HomesteadMiami Speedway for the opener of the IndyCar series, which features the same cars and drivers that will race in the Indy500. The crowd will be roaring, the drivers revving their engines and the announcers preparing to call the event. But on the sidelines, another group of people will be waiting for the race to begin: the pit crew. Glen Van Alstyne is a member of the Panther Racing crew, based out of Indianapolis. During races, he serves as the inside rear-tire changer. His duties include not only changing the tire but also pushing the car out of the pit box and assisting with the starter if the car stalls. ''I can take the tire off and put a new one on in about 4.9 seconds,'' Van Alstyne said.
Permira stalks Reed Business
PERMIRA, the British private equity group, has emerged as a potential suitor for Reed Business Information, the trade magazines arm of Reed Elsevier, which could soon be for sale for about pound stg. 1.25 billion ($2.66 billion). Permira joins a line-up of buyout firms including Cinven, Candover, CVC and Providence Equity Partners that are circling the owner of magazine titles such as New Scientist and Computer Weekly in Britain. In Australia, Reed Business titles include B&T, Australian Doctor and Money Management. It is also understood that Apax and Guardian Media Group, which together recently acquired Emap's business-to-business arm for pound stg. 1 billion, have held discussions in the past two weeks about the possibility of jointly bidding for the group's magazines business.
2 men nabbed in slashings, beatings
Two men were arrested late Saturday after a street fight outside the White Eagle Social Club in Bridgeport that left numerous people beaten and slashed. Jesse Rivera, 37, of New Street, Shelton, is charged with first-degree assault, two counts of second-degree assault and single counts of third-degree assault and breach of the peace. Officers seized a folding knife from Rivera, police said. A 17-year-old resident of Park Street, Bridgeport, allegedly punched Rivera as officers were trying to arrest him. Rivera had cut him, the teen later told officers, and he had cuts on his arm and face, police said. The teen is charged with third-degree assault, second-degree breach of peace and interfering with police. Police responded to an 11:15 p.m. street fight outside the rental club, at 595 East Washington Ave., and found numerous people with broken noses and bruises and cuts.
Every School Every Thursday -- Des Moines West
Presentations can include PowerPoint presentations, movies, demonstrations, Web quests, or re-enactments. Students also become aware of how to organize information and develop skills valuable in making presentations. Project-based learning has proven very successful in Shonts' English classes at Scavo. For a project in Eve Shonts' English class, Breann Schaffer planned a mini-unit on the Holocaust for Jewish Awareness Month. It has been an intense week of learning about the Holocaust and the many perspectives and stories regarding this horrendous atrocity. The culminating activity is a speaker coming in to talk to students and show video clips of several survivor stories. In addition to the Holocaust, students related this event to similar incidents throughout history. Many students were shocked to find out that we didn't learn our lesson and that genocide continues to this day.
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