28 Feb 12 Malaysia bans Erykah Badu concert over photo of singer with body art of Arabic word for Allah
A government committee that monitors concerts decided to forbid Badu’s show because she has “offended the religious sensitivities” of Muslims by posing with such tattoos, an Information Ministry official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make public statements.
The 41-year-old, Dallas-born singer had already arrived in Malaysia. she can remain here as a tourist but will not be allowed to perform, the official said.
Information Minister Rais Yatim confirmed the decision on his Twitter account.
Razman Razali, managing director of the show’s Malaysian organizer, Pineapple Concerts, said his company was in contact with government officials and hopes the ban will be reversed.
Badu is “worried and dismayed,” Razman told The Associated Press. she was slated to perform in an auditorium that can hold about 3,000 spectators.
It was the first concert by a Western performer to be banned in Malaysia in recent years. Several other stars, including Gwen Stefani and Avril Lavigne, were warned by officials to dress modestly for their shows to proceed.
The photograph of Badu, which also appears on her official fan website, attracted attention after Malaysia’s most widely read English-language daily, The Star, published it Monday.
On Tuesday, the newspaper apologized to Muslims for what it called an “oversight,” saying it deeply regretted any offense sparked by the photo, which was “inadvertently published.” The Home Ministry summoned The Star’s editors to explain the photograph, which caused some Muslim activists to demand the newspaper’s suspension.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. all rights reserved. this material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
28 Feb 12 Historical group curator keeps hands on the past
LAFAYETTE, Ind. — John M. Harris spends each Tuesday and Wednesday quietly working in a small office surrounded by shelves stacked from floor to ceiling with boxes containing … well, that’s what Harris is finding out.
Outside his office, a much larger room is filled with stacks of boxes, filing cabinets and a conference table for sorting. throughout the Frank Arganbright Genealogy and Research Center, items are in storage — items someone at some point considered historically significant.
Nestled in his small office on the second floor of the center on 10th Street across from the Moses Fowler House, Harris’ task is to computerize the Tippecanoe County Historical Association’s hard-copy card catalogs and computerize years of donated items that escaped being enumerated or completely slipped through the cracks.
He rhetorically repeated the question to himself as he leaned forward in his chair, reaching for a 10-pound cannonball set on a table in front of him: “What is it that’s fun? being able to handle something like this that probably goes back to the Revolution,” he answered, holding out the solid shot that was found in the area of Fort Ouiatenon.
For Harris, 67, the fun is also bringing order from chaos and the chance to play history detective when he stumbles across undocumented items or some unrecognizable trinkets or artifacts.
Each week is different from the previous — another thing Harris enjoys about his job.
“It takes a lot of attention to detail, and it’s a kind of work that not everybody can do,” Harris said.
The hands-off rule enforced on most visitors to museums doesn’t apply to Harris, who for nearly four years has gone by various titles ranging from collections manager, collection coordinator or curator of collections. call him what you will, Harris sees himself as a simple curator of the association’s accessations that date back to its first gifts, received around 1925. and he’s happy to do it.
A 2008 grant from the Greater Lafayette Community Foundation allowed the association to purchase past Perfect, a computer program used nationally by museums to catalog and cross reference collections. the association then needed someone with museum experience to wade through the collections, the card catalogues and the museum’s undocumented donations. That’s where Harris came in.
“Kathy Atwell (TCHA director) approached me about setting up its software,” Harris said, noting after four years, he’s just scratched the surface of the association’s considerable holdings.
A former director of the Tippecanoe County Historical Association, Harris spent 15 years of his career in Tippecanoe County as the association’s director from 1972 to 1987, when he left to go to the Indiana Historical Society, from which he retired after 19 years.
He’s now a partner in his wife’s Indianapolis business, Heritage Photo & Research Services, and he treks back to his old stomping grounds twice a week.
At first, the grant paid him a part-time wage for his work.
“The grant ran out after a year,” Harris said, “but I just kept coming because I was having fun. I always wanted to be a curator.”
The association’s board recently hired Harris again to pay him for his labors. It’s a promising sign for the association, which just finished its third consecutive year in the black — albeit, barely.
Atwell hesitates to label the positive bottom line a turnaround or a sign of better financial days ahead.
Instead, she attributes it to watching expenses, tough fiscal decisions and successful fundraisers, such as the Feast of the Hunters’ Moon, which has escaped being rained out the past few years.
“We have a very small, dedicated staff,” Atwell said. “That helps.”
Colby Bartlett, the association’s board president, gave a few more details about the efforts to revitalize the association.
“It hasn’t been easy,” Bartlett said.
“As a result of that, sales tripled what they’ve been in the past,” Bartlett said of the shop’s revenues.
The association recently learned that a grant to fund needed repairs to the Fowler House from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources Division of Historic Preservation and Archeology was denied, Bartlett said. This leaves the group with a challenge of how to fund the repairs and preserve the 19th century house.
For Harris, his fondness for and familiarity with Greater Lafayette led him back to the Tippecanoe County Historical Association, where he can do what he enjoys without the hassles that Atwell daily faces.
“I think of TCHA as where I grew up,” Harris said.
In many ways, the association came of age under Harris’ tenure as director. the association grew to become the largest county historical association in the state during the 1970s and 1980s; it became accredited — an accomplishment allowed to lapse when renewal came up — and the Feast of the Hunters’ Moon grew and became a richer living-history and educational experience.
“There was definitely an increase in historical awareness that started about that time (of) the bicentennial,” he said when asked if 1976 drew people to the association and its events.
Interest in history continues today, Harris noted, pointing to the popularity of cable’s History Channel.
It’s a point Bartlett and Atwell both made.
While people might have grown disinterested in seeing dusty artifacts under glass at museums, they seem to enjoy the entertaining interactions that have education nuggets embedded in them, Bartlett said, suggesting that the association might develop more interactive programs, such as living-history events with re-enactors.
“I think in five years, we won’t look the same as an organization,” Atwell said.
“A lot of people don’t realize how historically significant our area is,” Bartlett said. “There’s a very rich 10,000 years of native history.”
Then there is the French colonial influence, French and Indian War and Revolutionary War events that played out at or near Fort Ouiatenon, leaving its mark on Tippecanoe County. the area witnessed the most significant old Northwest Territory Indian resistance at Prophetstown and the Battle of Tippecanoe, followed by the forced removal of Native Americans.
“We really took a top-to-bottom look at operations and asked, ‘how can we increase revenue and cut costs?’” Bartlett said.
Part of the answer was to partner with like-minded groups such as the Tippecanoe County Area Genealogy Association, Bartlett said.
Atwell pointed to marketing the association’s properties, most notably the Tippecanoe Battlefield Museum and its gift shop, which Bartlett said has an expanded and improved book selection on the Indiana frontier era to rival selections at national museums.
Atwell would like to see a day when the association can display more of its collections in a museum, but she realizes that small, county-run museums are rare.
“History museums are different from art museums,” Harris said. “History museums try to document the lives of everyday people, as well as important people.
“To document the everyday lives, you’re going to deal with the minutiae.”
That means hat pins, broaches and even undergarments that are of no monetary value have significant historical value to document lifestyles that seem foreign to today’s generations.
Of course, the association’s collections also include the invaluable work of George Winter, Harris said. Winter was a frontier artist who sketched and painted Native Americans in Tippecanoe County. Many of his works are on display at the Tippecanoe Battlefield Museum, thanks to Cable and Evelyn Ball, Lafayette residents who collected Winter’s work.
Insulated from the daily juggling act of running the association, managing its properties and watching the bottom lines, Harris creates computer records detailing what is in the associations’ possession.
TCHA opened Fowler House as a museum in 1941. the museum closed in 2005 as revenue declines forced staff cuts.
Should the day come when TCHA reopens its museum, it has sufficient and varied collections to recount the lives of those who lived and toiled here, and Harris’ work to computerize and catalog the collection will become priceless.
If that day never comes, Harris’ work still makes a difference in the lives of historians and the curious looking for clues to the past.
Harris said, “It’s worth it when somebody comes and says, ‘Can you show me a picture of some school house?’ and we can go to the computer and pull it up.”
03 Feb 12 Norovirus problem in NC
HICKORY —
County public health officials will be contacting those who got sick and those who didn’t after eating at Harbor Inn Seafood to figure out the source of the outbreak.
County and state health departments also are sending out information to restaurants and others on the norovirus and tips on how to avoid it.
The action stems from an apparent outbreak of the virus at Harbor Inn Seafood restaurant in Conover in early-to-mid January. as of Jan 28, 128 people had reported they got violently ill following a meal at the restaurant. most of the complaints were from people who ate at the restaurant on Jan. 13 and 14. the latest date associated with illness is Jan. 20. No one who got sick from eating at the restaurant required hospitalization.
Norovirus is often called the ‘stomach bug,’ food poisoning or viral gastroenteritis and is the most common cause of acute gastroenteritis in the country, according to health officials.
Catawba County Department of Health started a case-control study on Wednesday with people who ate at Harbor Inn Seafood, both those who got sick and those who didn’t, said Kelly Schermerhorn, spokesperson for Catawba County Public Health. around 100 patrons who had a meal at the eatery between Jan. 13 and Jan. 22 will be contacted by public health officials via phone, according to information from the public health department. those contacted will likely be those who reported getting sick to health officials, as well as those who didn’t get sick but were companions in the same dining parties, Schermerhorn said.
In addition to asking customers what they ate, participants will be asked about hygiene and whether they washed their hands before dining, she said.
County environmental health officials have visited the restaurant nearly every day to try to determine what could be the culprit of the virus outbreak. Officials hope the questionnaire will help solve the mystery.
“There does not appear to be any concern about ongoing exposure to norovirus at Harbor Inn,” said Doug Urland, health director at Catawba County Public Health. “A case-control study will give us and state health officials the ability to learn more about the nature of norovirus, how it spreads, and what steps may be available to help better prevent this type of illness in the future.”
According to information from county public health, officials have found no Environmental Health violations and the restaurant is following “extra-stringent safe foodservice recommendations.”
Officials say case studies can take up to three weeks and could be available several weeks afterward. the data collected may not point to a specific cause, because of the nature of the norovirus.
Norovirus a problem statewide
According to a media release from North Carolina Public Health, several health departments in the state have reported multiple outbreaks of norovirus, which caused state public health officials to issue advice on how to avoid it.
“the most important message we have right now is that people who are ill with vomiting or diarrhea should not work, go to school or attend daycare while they are having symptoms,” said State Epidemiologist Dr. Megan Davies. “everyone needs to wash their hands frequently and thoroughly with soap and water. this is the most effective way to protect you and others against norovirus since hand sanitizers alone are not as effective against this hardy virus.”
People who become sick from a norovirus are contagious from the moment they start to feel sick until at least three days after they recover. Noroviruses can be transmitted by direct contact, eating food or drinking something that has been contaminated with the virus. you shouldn’t prepare food for others until at least three days after. you also can get noroviruses by touching a contaminated surface, officials say.
Infection can be more severe in young children and elderly people.
Officials say surfaces that have been contaminated with the virus through stool or vomit should be cleaned and disinfected with a diluted bleach solution or a bleach-based household cleaner. Noroviruses are hard to kill with normal cleaning and disinfecting procedures, according to information from Public Health.
On the web: For more information on noroviruses, visit ncpublichealth.com
03 Feb 12 Adoption service inspections not tough enough, Ofsted concedes
Inspections of adoption services have been too lenient in the past, the deputy chief inspector of Ofsted has admitted.
Ofsted: adoption service judgments too lenient. Image: Phil Adams
Addressing delegates at the inspectorate’s first annual social care lecture, John Goldup said that adoption service inspections have not always focused on the right judgments.
“People are quite reasonably saying, how can it be true that 80 per cent of local authority adoption services are good or outstanding – which is what Ofsted inspection judgments say – when the number of children adopted from care is falling, when there is huge variation between authorities in the time it takes to place children for adoption and when the government is identifying a national crisis in our adoption system,” he said.
“I think these are very complex issues, and there are no simple or simplistic answers. But I do say, as far as inspection is concerned, I’m not sure we have been looking at the right things, at the things that make the most difference.”
He insisted that the quality of adoption service inspections has nothing to do with the ability of Ofsted inspectors, but argued that the old national minimum standards on adoption were unfit for purpose.
He added that it was wrong to try to evaluate adoption services within “the inappropriate straitjacket” of the every Child Matters outcomes.
“Actually the outcome that matters most for these children is the decision that they need a new family being made early enough and purposefully enough, and asking whether they are getting that life-changing opportunity as quickly as possible,” he said.
Responding to Goldup’s lecture as part of a panel debate, Matt Dunkley, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, said he had “a longer list of where Ofsted has got it wrong in the past”, aside from adoption services inspections.
“I do think the current safeguarding and looked-after children inspection model is still based on a deficit model,” he explained.
“The current social care inspection model is good at identifying failure. We’ve seen that 18 authorities out of 93 have been rated inadequate so far in this inspections cycle, but is it really true that only two out of 93 are outstanding?
“I don’t think the current inspection model is good at identifying different grades of success above the level of satisfactory or adequate. If it’s going to be part of a dialogue about improvement, it needs to move away from a deficit model.”
He went on: “A climate of fear is not good for the sector.”
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