News To Me

Rich Power MMA Photo Shot by Darin Codon in San Diego

2010-04-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

Photo by Darin Codon

Rich “Super” Power – A Force to Be Reckoned With
By Taff Davies
With so much focus on MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) these days, more and more people are being drawn away from the United States’ original combat sport, Boxing. If you asked fight fans to name the top 3 pound for pound fighters in MMA, many would be able to name BJ Penn, George St. Pierre, and Anderson Silva. Would they be able to do the same for Boxing? It’s gotten to the point where some sports experts are predicting that Boxing will eventually drift off into obscurity while MMA continues its dizzying climb as the world’s fastest growing sport.
However, as MMA and its practitioners have evolved, the game has changed. No longer is the sport dominated by ground fighters and no longer does Grappling win the majority of the matches. Jiu Jitsu and Wrestling are still very important skills for fighters to have in their arsenal, but now Boxing is just as important for success in the Octagon. MMA fighters’ abilities to neutralize ground attacks are constantly increasing, which is why there are more and more knockouts as the level of Boxing increase. Ironically, as long as MMA continues to grow, the need for solid Boxing abilities will continue to grow with it.
Enter Rich “Super” Power, San Diego’s newest addition to the professional fighting scene. At 6’5” and 245 lbs., Power stands out in a crowd. But what really sets him apart are his Boxing skills. Currently managed by the same group who managed former Heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, Power is being looked at as a potential star in the Boxing world. A Southpaw, Power is currently 10-0 as a Pro Heavyweight, with 7 wins coming by way of Knockout.
He recently moved from his hometown of Detroit to San Diego to further advance his career in Boxing. Although not as well-known for Boxing as it once was, there is still some great Boxing training to be found in San Diego with local trainers like Ernest Johnson Sr., who is father to well-known San Diego boxer Ernest “EJ” Johnson Jr. and trainer to numerous professional and amateur boxers. There is also access to some tough sparring in the So Cal region in gyms like The Rock and Wild Card, where Manny Pacquiao trains.
But Power also plans a career in MMA. Seeking the best gym in the country for MMA training, Power chose The Arena, the San Diego MMA gym that houses the largest professional fight team in Southern California. There, Power gets the opportunity to work with numerous high-profile MMA athletes such as 6x World Jiu Jitsu champion Xande Ribeiro. At The Arena, Power instructs these athletes in the finer points of Boxing while getting some hard-core MMA training in return.
Power has also had the chance to do some serious sparring at The Arena, including going rounds with UFC striking standout Junior Dos Santos, who is being viewed as a potential heavyweight champion in MMA. During these sparring sessions, Power learned there is a big difference between pure Boxing and MMA. But Power is a natural athlete who was both a collegiate boxer as well as collegiate basketball player. He is quickly picking up the skills needed for success in MMA and anticipates launching a professional MMA career within the next year while continuing his quest for Boxing glory.
Like his fellow teammate at The Arena, Professional fighter K.J. Noons (former MMA champion and boxer who now fights in Strikeforce), Power wants to blaze a trail across both sports. With his determination, athleticism, and access to some of the best training in the world, one thing is certain. Rich “Super” Power is a force to be reckoned with and will be making a big name for himself in the near future, whether in Boxing, MMA, or both.
For more info or to contact Rich Power or The Arena, go to http://www.TheArenaMMA.com or call 619-222-5554.

Huckabee Responds to 2008 Republican Caucus win in Iowa

2008-01-05T20:25:00.000-08:00

JIM LEHRER: Judy Woodruff was on the flight with Huckabee to New Hampshire this morning and spoke with him again early this afternoon.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Governor Huckabee, congratulations.

MIKE HUCKABEE (R), Presidential Candidate: Thank you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The first question, is you had a lot less money.

MIKE HUCKABEE: Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You had a much smaller organization.

MIKE HUCKABEE: Mm-hmm.

JUDY WOODRUFF: How do you think you did it in Iowa?

MIKE HUCKABEE: I think we did it because we had a message that people resonated with.

And they wanted to believe that there was still a place in American politics for a person who didn't come at them with a lot of money and razzle and dazzle, but came at them with an authenticity that they felt like was about them, not about the campaign, but about the people, who are supposed to be the very recipients of all this message we create.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Do you think that what happened in Iowa translates to the state of New Hampshire, where we are right now, a very different state...

MIKE HUCKABEE: Sure.

JUDY WOODRUFF: ... everybody has started to point out?

MIKE HUCKABEE: Americans different in some maybe thoughts or emphasis still have the same ideas. They want a government that lets them be free, that leaves them alone, that doesn't interrupt and interfere with every aspect of their life, that lets them go to work and keep more of what they've worked hard to have.

Those are principles that I think are valid anywhere. Now, there may not be as much focus, for example, in New Hampshire on the sanctity of life or maybe even traditional marriage, as you would see in Iowa. But on issues like lower taxes, less government, and then a more efficient government, that'll be a focus here in New Hampshire that I think is universal anywhere.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Why do you think there's less focus on those issues here?

MIKE HUCKABEE: It's probably just because of the demographics of the state.

There are a lot of conservative people on social issues -- values voters I think is now the vogue term -- a lot of them here in New Hampshire. But this state has a long history, dating all the way back to the fact that it was the state that declared independence six months before the rest of the country did.

It's an independent state. Their motto, live free or die, and they mean it up here.

Mike Huckabee
Mike Huckabee
Presidential Candidate
There's this sort of myth that Christian conservatives only care about God and gays. Well, you know what? Christian conservatives care about their families eating. They're concerned about energy independence.

Despite N.H. polls, Huckabee fights

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now, you're coming in here competing in a place where the polls are already showing Governor Romney and Senator McCain neck and neck. You're way back. Are you going to compete all the way here?

MIKE HUCKABEE: We'll compete. Whether or not we can win New Hampshire, that's never been something that we said we had to do. We knew that we needed to do well in Iowa. We didn't think we had to win there to stay on our feet.

But we're running first place in South Carolina, first place in Florida and in Texas and a lot of other states. And, so, what we want to do is to still be one of those people that are competing in these early states, and then start winning in places like South Carolina and Florida.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, you...

MIKE HUCKABEE: In essence, we ended up doing better than we thought in Iowa, better than we should have done, by anybody's conventional standards of how politics is supposed to play. We might even surprise some people in New Hampshire.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, Governor Romney, among other things, this morning, he complimented you on your win, but he went on to say that you were helped, in his words -- and he used the word unusual several times -- unusual strengths. And he mentioned the fact you're a pastor.

Your base, something like 80 percent, or maybe even more, of the vote that you received in Iowa was from Christian conservatives. And they are saying you don't have that situation in New Hampshire. You don't have it in a lot of other states.

MIKE HUCKABEE: You know, there's this sort of myth that Christian conservatives only care about God and gays. Well, you know what? Christian conservatives care about their families eating. They're concerned about energy independence. They're concerned about functional government.

And so the fact that they're Christians, there may be a lot of them in Iowa, doesn't mean they're not also fiscal conservatives, doesn't mean they also want a strong national defense and they want a strong position on terror. Those are issues that are also important to them.

So, I think it's the same mind-set that said all along when you say, the commentators say that this is why it was, these are the same commentators that said, if I didn't have $100 million by the end of the year, I wouldn't make it. Well, I made it, so they were wrong. And I'm still here.

Mike Huckabee
Mike Huckabee
Presidential Candidate
I felt that the positive approach worked better for us there. And people appreciated it. His ads hurt us, there's no doubt about it, because he attacked me.

Negative campaigning backfires

JUDY WOODRUFF: Governor Romney also ran some pretty tough ads.

MIKE HUCKABEE: He did.

JUDY WOODRUFF: He might say they're not so tough. He would say just that he's pointing out the facts...

MIKE HUCKABEE: Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: ... about your record, being lenient with illegal immigrants in the state of Arkansas.

Do you expect that kind of a campaign here over the next few days? And, if so, are you going to run ads that are critical? You ended up pulling one back in Iowa.

MIKE HUCKABEE: Yes.

You know, I felt that the positive approach worked better for us there. And people appreciated it. His ads hurt us, there's no doubt about it, because he attacked me. He ran over 14,000 ads in Iowa -- that's a lot of ads -- many of them targeted toward me.

In addition, Washington special interest groups, like Club For Growth, hammered me with over half-a-million dollars of negative, nasty television ads.

But I think, at the end of the day, a lot of people in Iowa just said, you know, this political dumpster-diving has got to stop. It demeans all of us and the system. And no matter what they said, people just got to the point they said, I'm not believing this stuff.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And does that mean you're not going to be criticizing him? I mean, what exactly does that mean in this campaign?

MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, I certainly reserve the right to defend my record. I reserve the right to point out where he's been completely inaccurate when he's portrayed things on my record, which he has on many occasions.

Senator McCain's doing a pretty good job of taking him on here in New Hampshire, because he did the same thing to Senator McCain here that he tried to do to me in Iowa, and that's just act like, "Well, we're both good men, but" -- and then relentlessly hammer away and make up things about our records, which I found very offensive.

It's one thing to say something about my record that I have to say, hmm, boy, he got me on that one. I really did it.

But when he said things like that I had cut the sentences for methamphetamine dealers, when, in fact, I had doubled the sentences, and they were four times harsher than his in Massachusetts, meth labs went down 48 percent in my state during the time I was governor, when he said that I increased spending, and The New York Times called him out on that, and pointed out that his figures were totally made up, and that, in fact, my expenditure increases during the 10-and-a-half-year tenure was pretty much in line with what he had done in his four years in Massachusetts.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You mentioned John McCain. The two of you are saying pretty nice things about each other. Some people are wondering if you have reached some kind of a pact, where you're not going to -- where you're basically going to let each other alone.

MIKE HUCKABEE: It's not about a pact. I think it's about the fact that both of us believe that the discourse of politics ought to be more civil.

We both believe that we have unique positions that we ought to stand for. We're not so weak in our own positions that we have to attack somebody else as to kind of do the political sleight of hand, so, watch this hand, so you don't see what I'm doing with this one.

I think both of us have records that we can proudly stand on and defend. So, I don't have to attack John McCain. John McCain doesn't have to attack me.

Besides that, I do -- I like the guy. I think he's an honorable guy, and I've said that publicly. I've said it in debates. I will say it to you. I will say it to anybody.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Are you going so far as to say as you would cede New Hampshire to him, that you wouldn't compete as much here?

MIKE HUCKABEE: Oh, I don't know about ceding anything. I think he's in a very strong position. He's a well-known commodity here. I'm not that well-known here.

He's spent a lot of time, has deep relationships here. He'd be the favorite to win it. But five days is a long time in New Hampshire. I'm not giving up yet.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, finally, the turnout in Iowa last night, big turnout -- bigger turnout on the Republican side...

MIKE HUCKABEE: Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: ... much bigger on the Democratic side. In fact, the turnout in the Democratic, almost twice what it was among Republicans, even though the voter registration is about even.

Does that say something nationally that should be a cause for concern for Republicans?

MIKE HUCKABEE: Not yet. No, I don't think so.

We had a much bigger turnout than was predicted. Some people thought that the turnout would be as low as 80,000. It was clearly over that. We saw that. We went to Waterloo, almost couldn't get in, got stuck in traffic, didn't think I'd get in or get out and get back to Des Moines.

In fact, when I got back to Des Moines, I landed, my BlackBerry was lighting up like crazy when we got to turn it on. Turned out, while we were gone, flying around, trying to get back there, I'd won the doggone Iowa caucuses.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Governor Huckabee, thank you very much, and congratulations, again.

MIKE HUCKABEE: Thank you, Judy.

Judy Woodruff
Judy Woodruff
Senior NewsHour Correspondent
I was told by one of McCain's very close friends in Iowa. He said: Just watch. When we get to New Hampshire, we're holding nothing back. And, sure enough, you're seeing that here in the ads that they're running.

Huckabee, McCain vs. Romney

JIM LEHRER: More from Judy now and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: Hi, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Hello, Margaret.

MARGARET WARNER: In that interview, very interesting interview, you just did with Mike Huckabee, he seemed to be tamping down expectations for himself in New Hampshire.

But what are his people saying privately? What kind of an opening do they say they see and how hard a fight are they saying they're really going to mount there?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, we spent time talking to them on the plane last night, Margaret. And then, just a few minutes ago, I talked again with one of his leading -- Governor Huckabee's leading strategists, who said -- very clearly, he said: We are in third place right now. Our internal polling shows us. We think we can come in second here if everything goes right for us.

He says: We've got the resources. We've got the money. He's been able to raise money that he couldn't raise before. He said: We are up on television. We will be for the next few days.

And he says, very blatantly, very openly, they are working a coordinated strategy, you might say, with John McCain to go after Mitt Romney. They don't want Mitt Romney to win New Hampshire, and they're doing everything they can to prevent it.

MARGARET WARNER: And then what about Romney and McCain, who, at least up until this eve-- up until last night, were leading in the polls in New Hampshire? How were they adjusting today to the post-Iowa reality?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, I don't know if it's the shoot-out at the OK Corral, but it may be the modern-day equivalent of that.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You talk to the McCain people, and all -- they can barely get the words out. Many of them are personally angry at some of the ads that you heard Governor Huckabee refer to.

And they say -- I was told by one of McCain's very close friends in Iowa. He said: Just watch. When we get to New Hampshire, we're holding nothing back.

And, sure enough, you're seeing that here in the ads that they're running and in what John McCain is saying himself. He commented today -- he said, for Mitt Romney to call himself an agent of change is just laughable.

And, then, for Romney's part, the Romney campaign part, I just, within the hour, spoke with one of his senior strategists. And they say, look, we know Iowa was a blow. We know that it's been a setback for us, but we still see a path to success. And it's kind of like a chess game.

They say that, in fact, Huckabee doing well hurts McCain. They also say Obama doing well hurts McCain, because he takes away some of the independent vote here in New Hampshire. And, finally, they say: We're running ads. We're going after McCain on immigration. We're going after him on opposing the Bush tax cuts.

They have a very specific strategy that they say will lift them up. So, they're all very clear, and it's not very pretty.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, Judy, I'm sure you're going to have a great time covering it this weekend. And we'll see you Monday.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Thank you. See you.

David Brooks
David Brooks
New York Times
I think Romney spent $1 million on one radio station here in Iowa. I think - I read he spent $237 a vote. It doesn't get you there if you don't have the message. And that's something that needs to be - we need to be reminded of from time to time.

Huckabee threatens establishment

JIM LEHRER: And to the analysis of Shields and Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, who's in New Hampshire, and New York Times columnist David Brooks, who's in Iowa.

David, any new insights overnight as to why Mike Huckabee did so well in Iowa?

DAVID BROOKS: No, I don't think so.

I mean, there are some big stories. The money is a good story. Huckabee talked about it with Judy. And we all -- people in Washington place so much value on money. It's not that important. Message is so much more important.

I think Romney spent $1 million on one radio station here in Iowa. I think he -- I read he spent $237 a vote. It doesn't get you there if you don't have the message. And that's something that needs to be -- we need to be reminded of from time to time.

JIM LEHRER: Mark, on the point that Huckabee made that he's not ceding anything in New Hampshire to McCain or anybody else, what are his prospects? What do they look like in New Hampshire at this point?

DAVID BROOKS: He could come in second and that would be...

MARK SHIELDS: New Hampshire is not a good fit for Mike Huckabee. He...

JIM LEHRER: I'm sorry. I'm sorry, David. I was going to ask -- I was going to bring Shields in for a -- just a moment or two.

DAVID BROOKS: Oh, that's...

JIM LEHRER: OK. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

MARK SHIELDS: Thanks, Jim.

JIM LEHRER: Go ahead, Mark.

MARK SHIELDS: And thank you, David.

He's not -- Mike Huckabee is not a natural fit with New Hampshire, either stylistically or ideologically.

He is -- perhaps stylistically is unfair, but ideologically and philosophically, he is not. This is a state that has been not terribly friendly to Southerners in the past, including John Edwards most recently in 2004.

But I think, most of all, Jim, he put his finger on it. I mean, it's a state that is different in its libertarian impulses than are the religious values voters, who gave him his great victory in Iowa.

But I think he's hot right now. He's already had an enormous impact on this race. He took the well-oiled, well-disciplined, almost inevitable machine of Mitt Romney and dismantled it in Iowa. And he gave John McCain a new lease on life by so doing. So he's changed -- and I'll tell you this. He has struck terror into the Wall Street tax-cut, tax-break cadre of the Republican Party. They will do anything to stop Mike Huckabee.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree with that, David; the Republican establishment will do anything now to stop Mike Huckabee?

DAVID BROOKS: I don't know if they would do anything, but they do want to stop him.Â And that's why I think ultimately they'll go to McC--

JIM LEHRER: Why? Why? Why is it so important to stop him, David?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, (A), they think he's unelectable. They think someone who doesn't believe in the theory of evolution is not going to win in the fall.

But, (B) -- and Mark and I have talked about this in the past...

JIM LEHRER: Yes.

DAVID BROOKS: ... he is not your classic free-market Republican. He is someone who really pays most attention to people earning $30,000 to $50,000 a year. And those people sometimes need some security. And that security has to come from government.

And that doesn't mean he'd structure it the way the Democrats do. It's overstated to say he's a socialist, which Romney and other people have implied. But he does not share the same old "libertarian government is always the enemy."

But I think what he does have to do right now is saying: I'm not running against the Republican Party.

This would be a mistake. He has taken on Rush Limbaugh. He has taken on the Club For Growth, but he can't go for the next two and three months saying: I'm against Republicans.

He's got to pivot and talk about the conservative stuff, the economically conservative stuff he did in Arkansas. That's the only way he's going to get this thing.

JIM LEHRER: Mark, how do you think Huckabee has handled himself so far in the interview with Judy and other things he's said since he won last night in Iowa?

MARK SHIELDS: Jim, I think he's been superb.

And I thought, in one passage there in his interview with Judy, he put his finger on his success. At Franklin Roosevelt's funeral, there was a radio reporter along Pennsylvania Avenue, where people were packed 30 deep, and he saw one well-dressed man who was just bereft. He was in tears.

And the radio reporter asked him, he said: Did you know President Roosevelt?

And he said: No, but he knew me.

And Mike Huckabee put his finger on it when he said, campaigns are not about the candidates. They're about the voters.

And that's the kind of campaign he's run so far. And that is a secret. It isn't about: I'm ready. I'm fit to be president. I'm qualified to be president. I want to be president.

I mean, it really is about the voters. And I think Mike Huckabee understands that probably better than anybody else in this race.

Unanswered questions for Gary Groman

2007-08-03T18:48:00.000-07:00

Since the Ole Seagull (Gary Groman) has referred to Terry Dody as "Darth Vadar" (per bransonmissouri.blogspot.com/2007/07/what-about-terry-dody.html), maybe the City could put on a Star Wars skit at the Landing with the following cast:

Terry Dody: Darth Vadar
Mayor Presley: Princess Leia
Stan Barker: Luke Skywalker
Jack Purvis: Han Solo
Paul Link: Obi-Wan Kenobi
Sandra Williams: Luke's aunt
Dick Gass: Luke's uncle
Bob McDowell: R2-D2
Stephen Marshall: C3PO

Or, maybe have Stephen Marshall pay Luke Skywalker, which could lead to this interesting dialogue (per bransonmissouri.blogspot.com/2007/07/education-leads-to-heated-debate-over.html):

Luke (S. Marshall): Darth, you are pigheaded!

Darth (T. Dody): I'm not pigheaded, I'm your father!
Last edited by bgroman : 07-30-2007 at 10:10 AM.
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Unread 07-30-2007, 05:25 AM #3
TheOleSeagull
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BransonMoTiger - Anonymity - Codon
Quote:
Originally Posted by BransonMoTiger View Post
Since the Ole Seagull (Gary Groman) has referred to Terry Dody as "Darth Vadar" (per bransonmissouri.blogspot.com/2007/07/what-about-terry-dody.html), maybe the City could put on a Star Wars skit at the Landing with the following cast:

Terry Dody: Darth Vadar
Mayor Presley: Princess Leia
Stan Barker: Luke Skywalker
Jack Purvis: Han Solo
Paul Link: Obi-Wan Kenobi
Sandra Williams: Luke's aunt
Dick Gass: Luke's uncle
Bob McDowell: R2-D2
Stephen Marshall: C3PO
Mercy, what people will do to take something out of context and distort a fact to fit their own purposes. However, in the context that the the Ole Seagull actually made a Darth Vadar comment about Dody, he would suggest that to get the best performance from the actor suggested for the role of Darth in BransonMoTiger’s post, Terry Dody, the show would have to be done behind closed doors in a secret executive session. Don’t know how this would fit in with a performance on the Public Square in Branson Landing.

The following is an explanation of the “Darth Vadar” comment referred to in the post in an effort to add context to the above "quote" and comment.

Darin Codon, apparently the author of the blog entry in question, for whatever reason, has a propensity to refer to the Ole Seagull in various the posts he makes. In this particular case Codon elected take select certain words, from a particular sequence of words that the Ole Seagull wrote, out of context, to apparently create his own version of a “fact” to suit his own purposes. Codon wrote, “Branson's city administrator Terry Dody has been most discussed by local journalist Gary Groman who has alluded to him (among other less flattering descriptions) as the Darth Vadar of Branson.”

The Ole Seagull wrote an April 2007 column entitled, “A little sunshine on Darth Vader, a plaque, a name, a laundry, a fountain, etc?” In that column he said, “In the Ole Seagull’s opinion, the leadership in this area [Missouri Sunshine Law] of the man that the Ole Seagull considers to be the Darth Vader of Missouri’s Sunshine Law in the city of Branson, its current administrator, Terry Dody, has been one of exclusion rather than inclusion.”
Last edited by bgroman : 07-30-2007 at 09:47 AM.
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Unread 07-30-2007, 05:34 AM #4
TheOleSeagull
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Big Veterans Show during Veterans Homecoming
How about a huge free morning veterans show during Veterans Homecoming, with as much participation from Branson Shows, entertainers, and attractions as possible?
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Unread 07-30-2007, 11:25 AM #5
lakecity
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How many events can the City use the town square for per year?
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Unread 07-30-2007, 11:59 AM #6
BransonMoTiger
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"Landlord shall be entitled to periodically hold Landlord sponsored and paid for events or activities on the On-Site Public Improvements and up to 12 events per calendar year which are not more than 2 days in any 30 day period sponsored by another group as specifically designated by Landlord subject to appropriate scheduling through Tenant and the payment by Landlord or the sponsoring group for event designated by Landlord of Tenant’s actual direct costs for providing the necessary services and facilities for the Landlord, event or activities.”
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Unread 07-30-2007, 12:04 PM #7
ggh
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Where does the city propose that folks park if the city is going to use the landing as a city gathering spot for attractions?

I've been down there on a w/end when there wasn't a big celebration going on, and had to search for half an hour for parking... if there WAS a big celebration, where would folks be expected to park? Is there a local shuttle from another parking spot?...
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Unread 07-30-2007, 01:19 PM #8
Donsgal
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Branson EDGE View Post
Mayor says Branson Landing is legally required to host civic events.
Since she's busy, if you were in charge of choosing events at the Landing, who would you choose? How do you think we should choose what events happen in our town square?
Town square? A stip mall is your town square?

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Unread 07-30-2007, 10:23 PM #9
CowboyChef
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In order for this production to be approved as an actual Branson City 'Show', somebody has to put on the fake teeth.

aside: why does EVERY SINGLE SHOW have a guy wearing the fake goofy teeth????
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Unread Yesterday, 07:57 AM #10
Branson EDGE
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Gary is that you?
Howdy y'all. Wow things really got going a different direction than I'd hoped for in here......

Donsgal - Town Square - That's a really funny comment - yes our town square is in an outdoor mall. What's so funny is that it took a long time for anyone to say it. One paper called it the 420 million dollar "insert thrilling description" here. The other required an insertion of TIF funded into every article relating to the project. A third publication used the first approach constantly.

----
Ole Seagull Said- How about a huge free morning veterans show during Veterans Homecoming, with as much participation from Branson Shows, entertainers, and attractions as possible? - Great Idea

On the comments relating to the article "What about Terry Dody"

Mr. Gary Groman,
Long before I ever published a picture in the paper (a little over a year ago) or published a printed word in Branson, I studied press politics. It's a scholarly interest of mine. There are certain actions and positions you've taken that I disagree with - but:

By far, of any journalist in our region - you have shown extroadinary courage. It's served as an inspiration for me and I think our local publications should show more of it. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this aspect of your character and prose. I see you as a man of conviction with extraordinary talent as a journalist.

You're also by far the most visible voice in the community. The sheer diversity of mediums which you've been able to achieve success is astounding. Once again, I stand inspired.

You've always been friendly and our open discussion about the workings of our community are something that I have valued. Our debates, though sometimes heated ,were always in the spirit of friendship - and a quest for greater truth. That's our job - what we search and write for, right?
I can say I've benefited from these interactions.

In many papers, an editorial board exists. By committee, I believe the Springfield News-Leader has 12, positions on the editorial review board before unsigned editorial positions are chosen in this fashion. In the committee market, you're the only opinion voice (I'm considering Gary Groman and the Ole Seagull) as the same person. In some cases I'm really upset about that. In my opinion, we should have covered more before the election. I think we did a diservice to the public by not publishing all the issues and sides (we as a working group of journalists)

When I discuss pubished opinions relating to editorial, it's for the benefit of the community. After all, one voice is a dictatorship, many a democracy. I try to provide food for thought and balance the sides of the issue for an intelligent person to make an opinion. I understand this to be one of the fundamental purposes for a news outlet.
The written word helped communicate the information we need to be free and self governed.

As you know, I've fought hard for more open government. I've championed, at great cost, for greater access to public documents and more open government. Right?

As the sole published "opinion" voice of our areas most well read paper, I've taken the opportunity to exam and challenge specific assertions. That is what your trying to do when you right editorial right? You are trying to initiate public dialogue and debate ...right?

As you well know, remains well established and documented fact, you've published many articles - many of which you re-publish here - asserting your distaste for Mr. Dody.

I'm neither confirming nor denying what you've said about Mr. Terry Dody is true or false. What I'm saying is - exactly what I said. No journalist has addressed Dody in the pages of the community paper more than you have.

I respectfully ask you to review your statements and beg you to reconsider if my assertions are "distortions of fact" to establish true attitudes opionions and circumstances or rather an accurate summary to inform and debate the question, "What about Terry Dody" posted a week before Terry Dody's departure.

You write as if you don't know me. So I ask you here, - "Do you know Darin" (it sounds to me like you don't) and "Is Darin a man of integrity" Is he without honor?" and lastly, if I make the statement, Darth Vadar as one of the nicer descriptions - would this be true?
Branson EDGE

Pope Speech to Alma Mater

2006-09-24T15:28:00.000-07:00

Your Eminences, Your Magnificences, Your Excellencies,
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a moving experience for me to be back again in the university and to be able once again to give a lecture at this podium. I think back to those years when, after a pleasant period at the Freisinger Hochschule, I began teaching at the University of Bonn. That was in 1959, in the days of the old university made up of ordinary professors. The various chairs had neither assistants nor secretaries, but in recompense there was much direct contact with students and in particular among the professors themselves. We would meet before and after lessons in the rooms of the teaching staff. There was a lively exchange with historians, philosophers, philologists and, naturally, between the two theological faculties. Once a semester there was a dies academicus, when professors from every faculty appeared before the students of the entire university, making possible a genuine experience of universitas - something that you too, Magnificent Rector, just mentioned - the experience, in other words, of the fact that despite our specializations which at times make it difficult to communicate with each other, we made up a whole, working in everything on the basis of a single rationality with its various aspects and sharing responsibility for the right use of reason - this reality became a lived experience. The university was also very proud of its two theological faculties. It was clear that, by inquiring about the reasonableness of faith, they too carried out a work which is necessarily part of the "whole" of the universitas scientiarum, even if not everyone could share the faith which theologians seek to correlate with reason as a whole. This profound sense of coherence within the universe of reason was not troubled, even when it was once reported that a colleague had said there was something odd about our university: it had two faculties devoted to something that did not exist: God. That even in the face of such radical scepticism it is still necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason, and to do so in the context of the tradition of the Christian faith: this, within the university as a whole, was accepted without question.

I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara - by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. It was presumably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than those of his Persian interlocutor. The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur’an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship between - as they were called - three "Laws" or "rules of life": the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur’an. It is not my intention to discuss this question in the present lecture; here I would like to discuss only one point - itself rather marginal to the dialogue as a whole - which, in the context of the issue of "faith and reason", I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.

In the seventh conversation (*4V8,>4H - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood – and not acting reasonably (F×< 8`(T) is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...".

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practise idolatry.

At this point, as far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we are faced with an unavoidable dilemma. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God’s nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, the first verse of the whole Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: "In the beginning was the 8`(oH". This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, F×< 8`(T, with logos. Logos means both reason and word - a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist. The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance. The vision of Saint Paul, who saw the roads to Asia barred and in a dream saw a Macedonian man plead with him: "Come over to Macedonia and help us!" (cf. Acts 16:6-10) - this vision can be interpreted as a "distillation" of the intrinsic necessity of a rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek inquiry.

In point of fact, this rapprochement had been going on for some time. The mysterious name of God, revealed from the burning bush, a name which separates this God from all other divinities with their many names and simply declares "I am", already presents a challenge to the notion of myth, to which Socrates’ attempt to vanquish and transcend myth stands in close analogy. Within the Old Testament, the process which started at the burning bush came to new maturity at the time of the Exile, when the God of Israel, an Israel now deprived of its land and worship, was proclaimed as the God of heaven and earth and described in a simple formula which echoes the words uttered at the burning bush: "I am". This new understanding of God is accompanied by a kind of enlightenment, which finds stark expression in the mockery of gods who are merely the work of human hands (cf. Ps 115). Thus, despite the bitter conflict with those Hellenistic rulers who sought to accommodate it forcibly to the customs and idolatrous cult of the Greeks, biblical faith, in the Hellenistic period, encountered the best of Greek thought at a deep level, resulting in a mutual enrichment evident especially in the later wisdom literature. Today we know that the Greek translation of the Old Testament produced at Alexandria - the Septuagint - is more than a simple (and in that sense really less than satisfactory) translation of the Hebrew text: it is an independent textual witness and a distinct and important step in the history of revelation, one which brought about this encounter in a way that was decisive for the birth and spread of Christianity. A profound encounter of faith and reason is taking place here, an encounter between genuine enlightenment and religion. From the very heart of Christian faith and, at the same time, the heart of Greek thought now joined to faith, Manuel II was able to say: Not to act "with logos" is contrary to God’s nature.

In all honesty, one must observe that in the late Middle Ages we find trends in theology which would sunder this synthesis between the Greek spirit and the Christian spirit. In contrast with the so-called intellectualism of Augustine and Thomas, there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which, in its later developments, led to the claim that we can only know God’s voluntas ordinata. Beyond this is the realm of God’s freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazn and might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God’s transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions. As opposed to this, the faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason there exists a real analogy, in which - as the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 stated - unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness, yet not to the point of abolishing analogy and its language. God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love, as Saint Paul says, "transcends" knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is Logos. Consequently, Christian worship is, again to quote Paul - "8@(46¬ 8"JD,\"", worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).

This inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of the history of religions, but also from that of world history - it is an event which concerns us even today. Given this convergence, it is not surprising that Christianity, despite its origins and some significant developments in the East, finally took on its historically decisive character in Europe. We can also express this the other way around: this convergence, with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe and remains the foundation of what can rightly be called Europe.

The thesis that the critically purified Greek heritage forms an integral part of Christian faith has been countered by the call for a dehellenization of Christianity - a call which has more and more dominated theological discussions since the beginning of the modern age. Viewed more closely, three stages can be observed in the programme of dehellenization: although interconnected, they are clearly distinct from one another in their motivations and objectives.

Dehellenization first emerges in connection with the postulates of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Looking at the tradition of scholastic theology, the Reformers thought they were confronted with a faith system totally conditioned by philosophy, that is to say an articulation of the faith based on an alien system of thought. As a result, faith no longer appeared as a living historical Word but as one element of an overarching philosophical system. The principle of sola scriptura, on the other hand, sought faith in its pure, primordial form, as originally found in the biblical Word. Metaphysics appeared as a premise derived from another source, from which faith had to be liberated in order to become once more fully itself. When Kant stated that he needed to set thinking aside in order to make room for faith, he carried this programme forward with a radicalism that the Reformers could never have foreseen. He thus anchored faith exclusively in practical reason, denying it access to reality as a whole.

The liberal theology of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries ushered in a second stage in the process of dehellenization, with Adolf von Harnack as its outstanding representative. When I was a student, and in the early years of my teaching, this programme was highly influential in Catholic theology too. It took as its point of departure Pascal’s distinction between the God of the philosophers and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In my inaugural lecture at Bonn in 1959, I tried to address the issue, and I do not intend to repeat here what I said on that occasion, but I would like to describe at least briefly what was new about this second stage of dehellenization. Harnack’s central idea was to return simply to the man Jesus and to his simple message, underneath the accretions of theology and indeed of hellenization: this simple message was seen as the culmination of the religious development of humanity. Jesus was said to have put an end to worship in favour of morality. In the end he was presented as the father of a humanitarian moral message. Fundamentally, Harnack’s goal was to bring Christianity back into harmony with modern reason, liberating it, that is to say, from seemingly philosophical and theological elements, such as faith in Christ’s divinity and the triune God. In this sense, historical-critical exegesis of the New Testament, as he saw it, restored to theology its place within the university: theology, for Harnack, is something essentially historical and therefore strictly scientific. What it is able to say critically about Jesus is, so to speak, an expression of practical reason and consequently it can take its rightful place within the university. Behind this thinking lies the modern self-limitation of reason, classically expressed in Kant’s "Critiques", but in the meantime further radicalized by the impact of the natural sciences. This modern concept of reason is based, to put it briefly, on a synthesis between Platonism (Cartesianism) and empiricism, a synthesis confirmed by the success of technology. On the one hand it presupposes the mathematical structure of matter, its intrinsic rationality, which makes it possible to understand how matter works and use it efficiently: this basic premise is, so to speak, the Platonic element in the modern understanding of nature. On the other hand, there is nature’s capacity to be exploited for our purposes, and here only the possibility of verification or falsification through experimentation can yield ultimate certainty. The weight between the two poles can, depending on the circumstances, shift from one side to the other. As strongly positivistic a thinker as J. Monod has declared himself a convinced Platonist/Cartesian.

This gives rise to two principles which are crucial for the issue we have raised. First, only the kind of certainty resulting from the interplay of mathematical and empirical elements can be considered scientific. Anything that would claim to be science must be measured against this criterion. Hence the human sciences, such as history, psychology, sociology and philosophy, attempt to conform themselves to this canon of scientificity. A second point, which is important for our reflections, is that by its very nature this method excludes the question of God, making it appear an unscientific or pre-scientific question. Consequently, we are faced with a reduction of the radius of science and reason, one which needs to be questioned.

I will return to this problem later. In the meantime, it must be observed that from this standpoint any attempt to maintain theology’s claim to be "scientific" would end up reducing Christianity to a mere fragment of its former self. But we must say more: if science as a whole is this and this alone, then it is man himself who ends up being reduced, for the specifically human questions about our origin and destiny, the questions raised by religion and ethics, then have no place within the purview of collective reason as defined by "science", so understood, and must thus be relegated to the realm of the subjective. The subject then decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective "conscience" becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical. In this way, though, ethics and religion lose their power to create a community and become a completely personal matter. This is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity, as we see from the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which necessarily erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it. Attempts to construct an ethic from the rules of evolution or from psychology and sociology, end up being simply inadequate.

Before I draw the conclusions to which all this has been leading, I must briefly refer to the third stage of dehellenization, which is now in progress. In the light of our experience with cultural pluralism, it is often said nowadays that the synthesis with Hellenism achieved in the early Church was a preliminary inculturation which ought not to be binding on other cultures. The latter are said to have the right to return to the simple message of the New Testament prior to that inculturation, in order to inculturate it anew in their own particular milieux. This thesis is not only false; it is coarse and lacking in precision. The New Testament was written in Greek and bears the imprint of the Greek spirit, which had already come to maturity as the Old Testament developed. True, there are elements in the evolution of the early Church which do not have to be integrated into all cultures. Nonetheless, the fundamental decisions made about the relationship between faith and the use of human reason are part of the faith itself; they are developments consonant with the nature of faith itself.

And so I come to my conclusion. This attempt, painted with broad strokes, at a critique of modern reason from within has nothing to do with putting the clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modern age. The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvellous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is – as you yourself mentioned, Magnificent Rector - the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which belongs to the essential decisions of the Christian spirit. The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith.

Only thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today. In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world’s profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures. At the same time, as I have attempted to show, modern scientific reason with its intrinsically Platonic element bears within itself a question which points beyond itself and beyond the possibilities of its methodology. Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought – to philosophy and theology. For philosophy and, albeit in a different way, for theology, listening to the great experiences and insights of the religious traditions of humanity, and those of the Christian faith in particular, is a source of knowledge, and to ignore it would be an unacceptable restriction of our listening and responding. Here I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: "It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about being - but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss". The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur – this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. "Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God", said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university.

Branson, Missouri Airport 'Understanding' sparks county friction

2006-03-10T00:00:00.000-08:00

Airport ‘understanding’ sparks county friction

By Brandon Cone
BDN Staff Writer

During the Taney County Commission’s weekly meeting Monday, the assessor questioned a “memorandum of understanding” with Branson Airport Authority, LLC, signed by commissioners last week.

“I come before this board today not as the Taney County assessor, but as a Taney County taxpayer,” James Strahan said. “I am disappointed that this commission signed a document paying my taxpayer dollars directly to the owners of an airport.”

Branson Airport is a proposed $93 million commercial airport that would be located near U.S. 65 north of the Arkansas border. The group Branson Airport Authority has been trying to get the project off the ground since 2001.

The memorandum proposes that the county pay $5 of incremental tax money to the airport for each passenger that comes to the area from the airport, with a cap of $1 million each year for 10 years.

“That’s money the county is going to gain in sales tax, because when people come here, they’re going to spend money,” Commissioner Ron Herschend said. “If the airport doesn’t bring anyone in, then we don’t owe them a dime.”

“All that document shows is that we're not opposed to this plan,” Presiding Commissioner Chuck Pennel added.

The airport group approached the commission in mid-2005 and requested the tax money, generated by visitors, to help offset certain expenses. Commissioners said they just recently were presented with a plan they could agree with.

“It wasn’t easy for me to come to this decision,” Pennel said. “I have done a lot of research and talked to many people before getting to the point where I would say yes to this document.”

County Attorney Bob Paulson said the memorandum is not contractually binding.

“This is not a contract,” Paulson said. “This a document that the airport's attorneys can take and begin composing something more official from.”

The assessor’s brother, Commissioner Danny Strahan, was the only commissioner who did not vote in favor of the plan.

“I didn’t vote for this memorandum of understanding because I didn't understand it,” he said. “I’d hate to think county tax money was benefiting a private owner.”

Herschend said the tax money would not be used for private benefit.

“The money would help public infrastructure, not private,” he said.

James Strahan questioned why the commission did not approve the document during a public meeting.

“Why didn’t you sign it here at this meeting now, instead of in your office, if there wasn’t something to hide?” he asked.

Paulson said that if the document had been a contract, it would have been voted on during a meeting.

“All this says is that they feel this plan might be workable,” Paulson said. “No one is obligated to pay any money based upon this document.”

Branson Considers Transportation Alternatives

2006-03-09T22:19:00.000-08:00

Branson considers transportation alternatives
By SBJ Staff
3/7/2006

Branson is holding a public meeting this week to consider transportation improvements – including a possible “sky train” – to alleviate traffic congestion.

The meeting will be held 4:30–6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Municipal Courtroom in Branson City Hall, 110 W. Maddux. The public is invited to the “open house” meeting to review proposed transit alternatives and provide input.

The meeting is part of a transit study that began in 2004 when Branson received a $450,000 federal grant, used to hire consultant and study leader Jacobs Civil Inc. The study will produce an Alternatives Analysis/Draft Environmental Impact Statement at the end of this year.

At Thursday’s meeting, the public will be able to review the results of a 2005 travel patterns survey of Branson’s visitors, employers, employees and attractions; learn about proposed transit alternatives and express their preferences; and discuss the potential ridership of each alternative.

Jacobs has begun to detail the city’s transit alternatives, and choices include creating a Transportation System Management alternative or a series of build alternatives.

The Transportation System Management option would provide a shuttle bus service on Main Street and Route 76, as well as several loop bus service routes on the city’s color-coded streets.

The build alternatives include adding bus routes and a 6.5-mile elevated fixed guideway system, or “sky train,” with 11 stations, or adding bus routes and a 7.5-mile guideway system with 13 stations.

According to Jacobs’ pre-study report, Route 76 remains a major travel artery that cannot be widened easily and is constrained by its pedestrian-unfriendly environment. There is currently no public transit system available in Branson.

“Avoided trips ultimately translate to reduced business revenues and fewer jobs, because the inability to easily and reliably get to venues reduces paying customers and diminishes visitor potential,” according to Jacobs’ pre-study report.

In addition to the open house meeting, the city has plans to gather input several other ways. A Project Oversight Committee has been established that includes representatives from the city’s Transportation Advisory Committee, the city’s hospitality industry, the tourism industry, downtown representatives, property owners and the development community. Also, federal, state and local resource agencies will be invited to several meetings to review the study as it develops.

Itialian Law Requires Internet Cafe's to ID Users

2005-12-09T15:10:00.000-08:00

ROME, Italy (AP) -- In a heavily immigrant neighborhood near the main railway station, Ahmed Sohel points dejectedly to the empty computer terminals at the modest storefront where he sells Internet and telephone service.

"Before, I was full of Internet clients, now I have no one left," said Sohel, a gentle, middle-aged immigrant from Bangladesh.

A new Italian law requires businesses that offer Internet access to the public, like Sohel's, to ask clients for identification and log the owner's name and the document type.

Internet cafes also must make and keep a photocopy of the ID and be registered with their local police station, dictates the law, part of an anti-terror package approved after the July terrorist bombings in London.

Many cafe owners say the law has increased their work load and decreased their profits.

"We're selling the store, and in part this is the reason," said Dolores Cabrera, who owns Kokonet, an Internet storefront across town near the Vatican. About half Cabrera's prospective clients either don't have their passport with them or aren't willing to show it, she said.

Enforcement is spotty at many cafes, however, and besides Internet cafe owners and civil libertarians, the law appears to bother only people who fear scrutiny by the authorities, such as illegal immigrants.

Angela De Angelis, a 21-year-old Italian student using an Internet cafe near the Vatican, was dubious about the new law's worth.

"I think it's all right if it serves to protect us, though sincerely, I can't see how it's useful," she said.

Italy is the only European Union country to require Internet cafes to record ID information on clients, said Richard Nash, secretary general of EuroISPA, which represents Internet providers in Europe.

Non-member Switzerland, however, does requires people who go online at Internet cafes to show IDs, according to Robin Gross, of the U.S. civil liberties group IP Justice.

Several Asian countries and cities, most prominently China and including the Indian technology hub of Bangalore, require registration at cafes.

But the leaders of some of those nations tend to be thinking at least as much about inhibiting speech as preventing terror attacks in making the requirement. In Vietnam, Internet cafes also are required to block access to Web sites deemed subversive and pornographic.

The Internet's potential as a terrorist tool was highlighted by the 2002 kidnapping and murder in Pakistan of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, whose abductors used e-mail to issue demands and send photos. However, those messages were traced to a computer in a private residence, not an Internet cafe. Pakistan does not require cafe users to register.

Daniele Capezzone, a leader of Italy's Radical Party that often campaigns on human and civil rights issues, opposes the new law and explains why he thinks it has stirred little debate.

"Two reasons: one, the political class isn't talking about it, and two, the media hasn't shined a light on it," he said.

Internet cafe owners who rely in large part on a clientele that may not be in the country legally are often opting to turn a blind eye.

"Fifty percent of the people who come for Internet don't want to show their document," Sohel said, opening his registry book and pointing to where a few clients among those who used the computers left their names but not their passport numbers. As for successfully photocopying IDs, he said customer compliance is rare.

Giuseppe Italia, whose office at Rome's central police station oversees the application of the new law in the province of Rome, acknowledges that Internet cafes that cater to immigrants might not be complying consistently.

Sabino Acquaviva, a sociologist at the University of Padua who specializes in terrorism, says compliance is indeed haphazard.

"People either won't register their documents, and others will show fake ones," he said. "I think this law is useless."

An added problem is that police cannot sanction violators -- license suspension or revocation are among the stipulated penalties -- unless they have approved a cafe owner's license, Italia said.

As of mid-November, only about 130 Internet cafe operators in the province of Rome had been approved and one rejected by police with more than 950 still pending.

Italia did not return a call seeking updated information this week, but the Internet magazine Punto Informatico reported on its Web site that seven Internet parlors in Florence were temporarily closed last month for not complying with the law and at least one was shuttered indefinitely for not recording clients' names and failing to register with police.

Some owners bemoan another requirement of the new law: They must be able, if necessary, to track the sites visited by their clients. And some bellyache about the added expense. Contents of people's e-mail is, however, supposed to remain private and can only be made available to law enforcement through a court order.

Italy also obliges telecommunications companies to keep traffic data and European ministers agreed last week to require the carriers to retain records of calls and e-mails for a maximum of two years. The European Parliament's two largest groups endorsed the data retention initiative on Wednesday despite complaints from privacy advocates and telecoms, and the full body is expected to adopt a bill next week.

Back at the cafes, there isn't much confidence among workers that such measures could help prevent a terror attack.

"These people caused the Twin Towers to collapse," said Edoardo Righi, a computer tech at a store near the tourist-rich neighborhood of Campo dei Fiori. "They're not going to stop because they can't send an e-mail."

Dolly Has Halifax singing 9 to 5

2005-11-14T19:41:00.000-08:00

Dolly has Halifax singing '9 to 5'
New music venue may employ 2,500
Thousands attend the groundbreaking for Carolina Crossroads Music and Entertainment District, just off Interstate 95 in Halifax County. Backers promise thousands of jobs.
Staff Photo by Chuck Liddy

Jerry Allegood, Staff Writer
With "I Saw the Light" and a revival's fervor, Dolly Parton and brother Randy on Friday launched a $129 million country music complex that residents hope will be the salvation of a stagnant economy.
An estimated 10,000 people turned out for a groundbreaking of the Carolina Crossroads Music and Entertainment District, just off Interstate 95 in Halifax County. They thronged a stage built on the site of a 1,500-seat theater that will be the centerpiece of the 750-acre complex, meant to compete with Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Branson, Mo.

"I wouldn't have missed this for anything in the world," said Dolly Parton, who brought along a cadre of Grand Ole Opry veterans. "You're definitely going to be in for some great entertainment."

Many hoped they would also be in for some great jobs. Backers say 2,500 people eventually will work at the complex. "It's going to bring much-needed employment," said Freda Sexton of Roanoke Rapids, who held a large "I love you Dolly" sign.

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"It will change the whole face of the community," said Alton Anderson, a Weldon physician.
Roanoke Rapids, a town of about 17,000 near the Virginia border, is on one of the country's busiest interstates. But for years, the region's economy has sagged as residents have seen their jobs shipped abroad. While North Carolina's urban centers have thrived, Roanoke Rapids and other rural areas have seen their young people leave, their downtowns decay and their hopes wither.

Population in what the Census Bureau calls the Roanoke Rapids micropolitan area -- the town and the outlying areas dependent on it -- declined from 79,456 in 2000 to about 77,352 in 2005. Projections had called for a decline of 2.6 percent by 2010.

'Economic engine'

Boosters say that with the addition of motels, stores and recreational activities, Randy Parton's project will become a major tourist attraction and bring in some of the thousands of cars that speed by each day. Some see the entertainment and service industry jobs as a way to overcome setbacks from the loss of textile jobs that largely built the area.

"It's going to break the region wide open," Dan Brown, head of the Roanoke Rapids Sanitary District, said in an interview after the ceremony. "We're going to convert a farm into an economic engine."

He said the area once had about 3,000 textile jobs. "There is literally zero now," he said.

The old textile mills downtown are disappearing. A smokestack stands over rubble around one mill that is being demolished. Several blocks away, the red brick buildings of another are shuttered and silent.

Brenda West, whose family has operated West and Sons Garage across the street from the closed plant since 1976, said the area was bustling with people and traffic when the textile plants were operating.

"People would leave their cars here," West said in the garage office. "That parking lot over there would be full."

Now, she said, there is talk of making the plant site into apartments or condos, another transition from the neighborhoods of small houses where mill employees lived.

Beverly Massey put up a "Welcome Carolina Crossroads" message on the sign in front of her small gift shop in Roanoke Rapids. She said she hoped the entertainment center would bring more people into town and into her shop.

Gladys Mobley, who was helping out in the store Friday, worked at a J.P. Stevens plant for 15 years. She remembers when textile employees kept businesses along Roanoke Avenue bustling. "Roanoke Rapids has been dormant for so long, it needs something to liven it up," she said.

Cheers for Parton

Outside town, Dolly Parton, who has been expertly working crowds since she joined Porter Wagoner's television show in 1967, was hard at work.

The audience politely applauded entertainers including Jim Ed Brown, Helen Cornelius, Jan Howard, Ray Pillow, Jeannie Seely and Billy Walker. Only when Dolly bounded onto the stage did they break into cheers.

She told the crowd she would be on a television program next week with Elton John. "I don't know what kind of dress he's going to wear, but mine's going to be gold and white," she said.

The Partons sang "God Bless America" and "The Star-Spangled Banner" and took turns at the microphone with the other performers for "I Saw the Light."

"It's unbelievable that we're going to be better than Branson, Mo.," Roanoke Rapids Mayor Drewery N. Beale told the crowd.

Staff writer Jerry Allegood can be reached in Greenville at (252) 752-8411 or jerrya@newsobserver.com.

Show Sued Over Copyright Issues

2005-11-12T21:36:00.000-08:00

Published November 17, 2004

Show sued over copyright issues
Songs' owners say Branson's "50's At The Hop" used material without license.

Nedra Culp performs at '50's At The Hop' in Branson. A suit filed against the show is seeking $750 to $30,000 in damage for using copyrighted songs without permission.
Nedra Culp performs at "50's At The Hop" in Branson. A suit filed against the show is seeking $750 to $30,000 in damage for using copyrighted songs without permission.
News-Leader File Photo, 2001
By Ryan Slight
News-Leader

Women in poodle skirts and guys with greased hair in a Branson production shouldn't be dancing to "Rock Around the Clock."

The "50's At The Hop" show is performing that and six other copyrighted tunes without permission, according to a federal lawsuit filed by several music companies.

Kansas City attorney Christopher Brandt, who represents the songs' owners, asked U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple last week to restrain the production from using the songs.

Brandt requested damages ranging from $750 to $30,000 per song against Rock and Roll Music Corporation and its president, Krystal Rene Snow, in his complaint filed at Springfield's federal courthouse.

"We've asked them many times to obtain the necessary license and they've refused to do so," said Andy Schaeffer, a New York attorney with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).

Snow referred comment to Branson attorney Hank Griffin, who said he had not seen the complaint this week and could not discuss the allegations.

The "50's At The Hop" show performs more than 50 songs recalling rock 'n' roll music's inception, according to the production's Web site. It is staged at the Jim Stafford Theatre.

Brandt alleged the defendants did not seek or obtain a license agreement for certain tunes with the companies or ASCAP. Some of the companies are owned by Time Warner or General Electric.

The copyrighted songs reportedly performed on July 31 at "50's At The Hop" were "Rock Around The Clock," "It's My Party," "Unchained Melody," "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," "Charlie Brown," "Witch Doctor" and "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"

ASCAP — a membership organization representing hundreds of thousands of music creators — grants businesses a license to perform a wide spectrum of copyrighted music publicly for a fee. The songs' creators get distributions of the proceeds.

License fees vary for theaters based on factors such as seating capacity, the number of shows and ticket prices, Schaeffer said.

ASCAP has licensing individuals go to public venues such as theaters and offer licenses and explain the need for them, he said.

If a theater does not comply, ASCAP will send a private investigator to a performance to get copyright infringement evidence for court, the attorney said.

"Most places in Branson comply with the law and have a license," Schaeffer said. He was unaware of current action against any other theater.

According to ASCAP, there are a few limited venues where permission is not needed for public performances, such as a church. However, churches would need a license if their services were broadcast on radio or television.

The "50's At The Hop" show is not the first Branson production taken to court by copyrighted song owners.

Several sued the Positive Country Theater in 1999 for allegedly using such songs as "Let It Snow" and "Jingle Bells" without permission. Schaeffer was unaware whether that case was ever resolved.

Tourism Board Plans For Future Marketing

2005-11-10T21:11:00.000-08:00

Tourism board plans for future marketing

By Cliff Sain
BDN Staff Writer

It was a four-year struggle to get a new marketing tax approved by voters Tuesday, but now the real work begins.

Kent Turner, chairman of the tourism district board of directors, said he's currently trying to determine when he can get the seven-member board together for a meeting. The board's next step will be to solicit proposals from companies interested in being the tax board's marketing agent. Turner said he hopes that some of the tax money can be used for a winter ad campaign in late 2006.

“The state won't start collecting the tax until next April, so we won't get those funds until late next year,” Turner said. “The plan is to be able to have a 2007 marketing campaign and maybe something for late 2006.”

Turner said the board will most likely want to work on a three-year contract.

The 1-cent sales tax will be collected on businesses within the tourism tax district, which encompasses Branson, Indian Point village, Silver Dollar City and State Park Marina. It was approved by voters who live in the district. It's expected to raise $6 million a year.

Turner said it was encouraging to see that the tax passed with more than 58 percent of the vote. When it was presented to voters in February 2002, it failed with only 42 percent voter support.

“I was optimistically hoping we'd win by a narrow margin,” Turner said. “It surprised a lot of people.”

Turner said a lot of people deserve credit for passage, including several who manned telephones in the final days to get the word out about the tax. But much of the credit he said goes to Ann McDowell, who directed the campaign committee dedicated to getting the word out about why many felt the tax was crucial to the area's future.

“Ann ran an aggressive campaign,” Turner said.

Currently, the city of Branson collects a 4-cent sales tax on hotels and ticketed attractions and a half-cent on restaurants. That tax raises approximately $2.5 million a year that the Branson/Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce uses to market the area. Turner said the additional $6 million will allow the area to reach more people more often.

“We can go wider, and we can go deeper into our markets,” he said. “Our goal is to attract more first-time visitors. We are convinced that if we can get them here, they'll keep coming back.”

Internet holds only future for newspapers, experts warn

2005-11-10T20:24:00.000-08:00

Internet holds only future for newspapers, experts warn

MADRID (AFP) - Newspapers have no future without online and digital services, media executives heard at a World Association of Newspapers meeting in Madrid.

"We are getting the whole organisation ready for a digital future," said Simon Waldman, director of digital publishing at Guardian Newspapers, whose Guardian Unlimited site is by far the most popular British newspaper online site, ahead of The Sun, The Times and The Telegraph.

Within "six to seven years", the group planned to dedicate 80 percent of its time to digital activities, compared to 20 percent at present, Waldman told the conference, entitled "Beyond the Printed Word".

The Guardian's 15 Internet sites, which became profitable this year and are funded almost solely from advertising, command similar numbers of readers in the United States and in Britain.

Meanwhile the Internet arm of El Mundo (Elmundo.es), Spain's second-best selling daily in print, has the highest readership of all online European papers with 750,000 visitors a day, and is the most read title in the Spanish-speaking world.

A digital strategy dating back nearly 10 years has made the site "very profitable" since 2003, with a profit of 1.3 million euros (1.5 million dollars) in 2004, according to Elmundo.es director of development Emilio Plana Hidalgo.

"Digital revenue is serious business ... Online business is a growth business, while newspapers are not," echoed Helmar Hipp, regional director of Austria's Voralberger Nachrichten, which draws 15 percent of its revenue from the Internet and related activities.

The two-day conference was jointly organised by the World Association of Newspapers, the IFRA publishing association and the International Federation of the Printed Press (IFPP).

© Copyright Agence France-Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained In this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of Agence France-Presse.

11/10/2005 13:15
AFP

Divide and Prosper

2005-11-09T01:50:00.000-08:00

Divide and prosper
e-mail print

Tuesday, November 8, 2005

By KEVIN G. DeMARRAIS
STAFF WRITER

Last week, Cendant Corp. announced that it was reversing its longtime strategy of diversification by dividing the travel and real estate services company into four separate public companies: hospitality, travel service, real estate and car rentals.

All but travel services, which will be based in Manhattan, will be based in Parsippany.

Hospitality services, which will include Cendant's hotel and time-share operations, will be headed by Stephen Holmes, Cendant's vice chairman and a longtime associate of Henry Silverman, founder and chief executive of a predecessor company, HFS Inc.

The Record sat down with Holmes at corporate headquarters to look at how the company came to this point; how it has emerged from massive fraud perpetrated by executives of CUC International, the company with which it merged to form Cendant; and where the still unnamed stand-alone hospitality division is headed.

Q. You've been with Henry Silverman and HFS from the start. How do you feel about leaving him and beginning this new venture?

It's very exciting, but it's a little bittersweet. We've spent the last 15 years building this company, first as HFS and now as Cendant. It's a phenomenally strong business, great brands in real estate and travel. Now we're disassembling them.

Having said that, I'm very, very excited about the group that I'm going to be with in the future, the hospitality group. It's something I've been involved with since Day One, and was probably part of the driving force to bring timeshare into Cendant.

When we started HFS, I was the CFO, so most of the deals that were done ... before we merged with CUC were deals I was involved in. It is a little bittersweet to see them go.

But for this to work for the shareholders, the best thing to do is to align the businesses as we've aligned them.

Q. What did you learn from him?

To focus on what's important. Henry is a master at keeping the focus where it needs to be to successful ... on our customers and our employees. Along the way, we have to make sure that our shareholders and bondholders are kept in the front of our minds.

No. 2, and it probably should be No. 1, is his incredible integrity, incredible honesty. We lived through the darkest of times when we merged with a company and found fraud. Henry didn't hesitate for a heartbeat to raise his hand and say we have a problem, as difficult as that was for us to do.

Q. What's going to be different?

By being in one industry, you can be very focused. I think that will give greater intensity to the effort of this public company toward that industry, and it will give more clarity to the shareholders.

They will know exactly what we stand for. We are a hospitality business in hotel and timeshare, just like Marriott, Hilton, Starwood and other big players.

Q. Much of Cendant's growth was through acquisition. Is that part of your strategy?

I don't think our model has changed at |all. We're very disciplined. We didn't go chasing Wyndham at too high a price. We waited until the situation was right to be able to buy |it.

Will we be doing deals in the future? Absolutely. I think we'll be looking at them. We'll be extremely disciplined as we we've been in the hotel group in deciding when was the right time to buy Wyndham.

We had been looking at that biz for seven years.

Q. How does hospitality compare with the time-share group?

The time-share business is the larger piece of the hospitality business, about 60 percent. Time share is growing at a compound rate of about 15 percent over the last 10 or 15 years. It's the fastest growing segment of the hospitality industry.

You've probably heard of some of the big players, Marriott and Hilton, are in it, but we actually have more members in our clubs than anyone else.

Q. The industry has received negative publicity because of high-pressure sales. Is that a problem?

It's an old problem that isn't a prevalent as it used to be. Most of the big players in the marketplace right now are quality operations, like ourselves, Disney, Marriott, Four Season, Ritz-Carlton. When companies like Marriott or Disney got into it, they really changed the way the product is sold; they changed the perception.

What you're referring to is the old land sales back in the Seventies, land that didn't exist or swampland in Florida. That was more of the early cowboys in the industry.

Q. What plans do you have to grow the business?

We're constantly adding new product. We're building somewhere in the neighborhood of $400 [million] to $500 million worth of product every year. We're building in Las Vegas, we just converted a product in Atlantic City from long-term condominium to time share. We just bought a development out in the Poconos within the last several months ...

We built this business by first buying Fairfield Resorts ... We could buy other businesses down the road. We're not afraid to look at opportunities.

E-mail: demarrais@northjersey.com

6812529

Branson Chiefs Warn Lock Up Your Car

2005-11-05T19:10:00.000-08:00

By Cliff Sain
BDN Staff Writer

Law enforcement officials stress that car owners can prevent many of the car thefts in the Branson area.

Hollister Police Chief Darren Parker said that since arriving in Hollister more than a year ago, he has been surprised at what he deems a "rash" of stolen vehicles in the area. He said that through July, the Hollister Police Department had reports of 11 stolen vehicles. He said that last week, a maintenance vehicle was stolen from the Hollister School District. The good news, however, is that it is easy for motorists to guard against theft.

"In the vast majority of cases, everything was left unsecured," Parker said. "I'd say that in about 50 percent of the cases, the keys were left in the car."

In Branson, 30 cars had been stolen through September. That pace is consistent with 2004 when 31 cars had been stolen through the same period.

Although some locked cars do get stolen, Branson Police Chief Caroll McCullough said the majority of cases could be prevented.

"Don't make it easy for these people," McCullough said. "Lock your vehicles."

In Branson's most recent case, a 1998 Toyota Corolla was stolen Tuesday from behind a Branson shopping mall while the owners were inside the mall. It was recovered Friday in a Branson hotel parking lot.

"We were only in about 20 minutes," car owner Jessie Estrada said. "My digital camera, my wallet and our cell phones were still in the car."

She said the department told her that video surveillance had shown a person approach the car from a field and enter through the passenger side.

"I love that car," she said. "It's almost paid off."

McCullough said that as with Estrada's car, most cars that are stolen are eventually recovered. However, Estrada was lucky in that the car was still in good condition and most of the valuables inside were still there.

"A lot of them we'll find abandoned. We'll find them in other states, wrecked or in a traffic stop," he said.

Parker said that, while the chances of a car being stolen are still unlikely, an even bigger concern for most people should be theft of items inside a car.

"That's almost a daily occurrence," he said. "These are crimes of opportunity. If the owner will take a second to clear valuables from view and lock their doors, that would take care of the problems."

Story created Nov 05, 2005 - 09:16:55 CST.

US Loses Position As World's Internet leader

2005-11-04T07:56:00.000-08:00

US Loses Position As World's Internet Leader

The English market is about to take a major hit and lose its ranking as the world’s internet leader to the breadth of language markets surfing online by the year 2007.

New York, NY (PRWEB) October 19, 2005 -- The US online market is about to take a major beating, as it loses its position as the world’s leader in e-commerce to the conglomeration of Asian and European countries booting up and building online, a recent study released by Universal Engine, a leader in multilingual online marketing, shows.

With the expansion of broadband in foreign markets and with the UN’s persistent push to bring the world Internet access, the English market is about to take a major hit and lose its ranking as the world’s Internet leader to the breadth of language markets surfing online by the year 2007, the report states.

In the year 2001, 43 percent of the Internet was made up of English speakers. But, as the Internet continues to become more global, English speaking surfers are being dominated by the Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and German online populations.

In 2004, English surfers dropped to 35.2 percent, and by 2007 it is predicted to make up only 26 percent or 1/3 of the total Internet population down from about 2/3, in 5 years the study revealed. Currently, 1 billion people are online.

Bill Hunt, co-author of the forthcoming book “Search Engine Marketing, Inc.” to be published by the IBM Press, wrote, “Search Engine Optimization has become one of the most popular and effective forms of marketing available to a global company. According to a recent report, nearly 60 percent of all searches are done in languages other than English.”

The UN’s efforts to expand the Internet are bringing in astounding results and threatening US e-business’ grasp on the Internet. With 1 million new Internet subscribers a month in China (soon to be about 200 million Internet surfers or only 9 percent of the total Chinese population, with an annual growth rate of 18.6 percent), it’s no wonder search companies believe it will soon become their main source of income over the English US market.

E-businesses have turned to translation and multilingual search engine optimization companies to help them adapt to this shift in the online market. Trying to tap into the Asian market, Yahoo! recently bought Alibaba, a Chinese website similar to eBay with its own PayPal-like system called “Alipay” for $1 billion, or roughly 40 percent of the company, Google bought a $70 Million stake in Baidu.com, a Chinese search engine, and eBay launched a Chinese version of their English-based mega-site.

But, the Chinese market is not the only threat to US Ecommerce, so shows Universal Engine’s study. The Japanese market is surging at an annual growth rate of 12 percent or 100 Million surfers, and the Spanish online population will rack up roughly 100 Million users by the year 2007. The Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and German online markets outweigh the English market by 3 times.

“The development of these language-specific markets is major news that will have a rippling affect across US e-businesses, as the US loses its position as the world’s online leader,” said Dr. Eli Goldstein, co-founder of Universal Engine. “From this study, it is evident that the US is slipping from being the world’s leader. If American-based e-businesses want to survive during this shift, they are going to have to adapt with the ever-changing, multifaceted internet or be stomped out by their multilingual competitors.”

Time Share Fruad Leads to Prison

2005-11-04T07:51:00.000-08:00

Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 20, 2005 12:00 AM

A Gilbert man convicted of defrauding time-share owners was sentenced Wednesday to more than eight years in prison for bilking about 2,000 victims.

Ingo Melvin Rewald, 51, was ordered to serve the prison time by U.S. District Judge Frederick Martone after pleading guilty in April to mail fraud, according to federal prosecutors.

Rewald admitted that from 1998 to 2003 he operated three companies - Aventure-Time-Marketing, TimeShares-R-US and Condos-R-US - in connection with the scam.

Using an assumed name, Rewald contacted victims and told them he would connect them with a buyer for their time shares in return for a $395 finder's fee. There were no buyers, and he collected the funds via postal boxes.

For sentencing purposes, the judge ruled that Rewald had taken in up to $1 million. The defendant was ordered to pay $264,412 and serve three years of probation.

Springfield News-Leader - Past Littered with plans that fell through

2005-11-03T22:09:00.000-08:00

Past littered with plans that fell through

Branson's dramatic growth has been tempered by developments that never came to pass.

Kathryn Buckstaff
News-Leader

The Branson area has steadily grown as a tourism destination since the turn of the 20th century. But in 1991 came unprecedented national attention: In late August, it was a story in Time magazine. Next came mentions in People, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal.

But what really lit the fire was on Dec. 8, 1991, when "60 Minutes," the most watched show on national TV, did an appealing segment with show host Morley Safer. He called Branson "the live country music capital of the universe" and "a wonderful nowhere, a cafe, a five-and-dime, 3,000 people, and it gets 4 million visitors a year."

Engler Block
Nationally known entertainers and entrepreneurs came in waves. Within the next two years, the number of theaters, hotels, restaurants and visitors doubled. In 1993, the value of new construction hit $119.5 million, a record likely to be broken this year.

The Branson area has seen dramatic growth over the past 15 years, but not everything that was announced came into being.

Here are some past projects — and what has happened on those sites.

1992

# Branson South was planned for 1,600 acres south of town. Developer Chuck Wofford announced plans for luxury hotels, a 10,000-seat conference center, five theaters, a shopping center, golf courses and homes. After the topsoil was torn off, financial backers were never found. Some of that property has now been purchased by the Argonaut Group. Its plans include a golf course, homes and condominiums and retail.

# Texas developer Ed Logan proposed a theater, 540-room hotel and 1,000-seat restaurant called "Logan's Branson Station" on 14 acres near the Grand Palace. The land is still vacant.

# The Gatlin Brothers Summitt on Forsythe Road near the Grand Palace was to have included two theaters, a hotel and restaurant. The developer was Global Productions Inc. of Dallas. The land is still vacant.

# Merle Haggard's management announced that Haggard would build a theater in 1993. He shared the stage with Willie Nelson at what is now Yakov's American Pavilion during the summer. Neither entertainer returned after that.

# Johnny Paycheck announced that investors would buy him the Foggy River Boys theater. The theater was torn down the following year. Paycheck played only a few dates in Branson.

# A monorail was supposed to cure serious traffic woes. The bullet-shaped cars were to be elevated along Missouri 76. But the city balked at the $5 million-per-mile price tag. The California engineers went home. Now, the city has commissioned a traffic study to look into monorail transit and search for grants that might be available.

1993

# The highlight of proposals was Heartland America, a 265,000-square foot enclosed mall anchored by a major department store with cinemas and restaurants. The development on property owned by the Presley family also was to include three hotels, a 3,000-seat theater and office complex. Disputes between investors nixed the project. A time-share condominium project by Marriott now occupies some of the property.

1994

# This was the year of convention centers that didn't happen. Three were proposed, including one by Springfield's John Q. Hammons that was to have been located behind the Grand Palace. Springfield developer John Swanson and Californian Robert Psenka also asked the city to help with funding. The city said no to all three. The city of Branson will break ground this month on a city-owned convention center on the downtown lakefront.

# Knott's Berry Farm, a Southern California staple, took a look at Branson, but it never took shape. The proposed site is now the location for The Shoppes outlet mall.

# "Hello I'm Gellatin" was to be the first franchise of an all-Jell-O take-out restaurant developed by Charles Shamoon of Atlanta. He said he was devising special Branson dishes including "M-M-Mel-o-Jell-O," named for stuttering Mel Tillis.

# Sun City, one of the nation's largest developers of retirement communities, did preliminary studies for a Branson location.

# Former Chrysler Corporation Chairman Lee Iacocca announced plans for a golf course and resort hotel in Branson Hills. Iacocca never came back, but a Colombia developer is now building Branson Hills Plaza with a Target and Home Depot. An Alabama-based consortium also plans a golf course and homes on the property.

# Camelot came and went. After three weeks of operation, owners of the renaissance theme park near Blue Eye fired the 65 employees and left the area. The development was apparently headed by 14 investors including Chuck Wofford, who tried unsuccessfully to develop Branson South in 1992.

CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prison

2005-11-02T10:53:00.000-08:00

CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons
Debate Is Growing Within Agency About Legality and Morality of Overseas System Set Up After 9/11

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 2, 2005; Page A01

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.

In Afghanistan, the largest CIA covert prison was code-named the Salt Pit, at center left above.
In Afghanistan, the largest CIA covert prison was code-named the Salt Pit, at center left above.

The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA's unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA's covert actions.

The existence and locations of the facilities -- referred to as "black sites" in classified White House, CIA, Justice Department and congressional documents -- are known to only a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country.

The CIA and the White House, citing national security concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions in open testimony about the conditions under which captives are held. Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long.

While the Defense Department has produced volumes of public reports and testimony about its detention practices and rules after the abuse scandals at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at Guantanamo Bay, the CIA has not even acknowledged the existence of its black sites. To do so, say officials familiar with the program, could open the U.S. government to legal challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the risk of political condemnation at home and abroad.

But the revelations of widespread prisoner abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq by the U.S. military -- which operates under published rules and transparent oversight of Congress -- have increased concern among lawmakers, foreign governments and human rights groups about the opaque CIA system. Those concerns escalated last month, when Vice President Cheney and CIA Director Porter J. Goss asked Congress to exempt CIA employees from legislation already endorsed by 90 senators that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of any prisoner in U.S. custody.

Although the CIA will not acknowledge details of its system, intelligence officials defend the agency's approach, arguing that the successful defense of the country requires that the agency be empowered to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists for as long as necessary and without restrictions imposed by the U.S. legal system or even by the military tribunals established for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.

The Washington Post is not publishing the names of the Eastern European countries involved in the covert program, at the request of senior U.S. officials. They argued that the disclosure might disrupt counterterrorism efforts in those countries and elsewhere and could make them targets of possible terrorist retaliation.

The secret detention system was conceived in the chaotic and anxious first months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the working assumption was that a second strike was imminent.

Since then, the arrangement has been increasingly debated within the CIA, where considerable concern lingers about the legality, morality and practicality of holding even unrepentant terrorists in such isolation and secrecy, perhaps for the duration of their lives. Mid-level and senior CIA officers began arguing two years ago that the system was unsustainable and diverted the agency from its unique espionage mission.

"We never sat down, as far as I know, and came up with a grand strategy," said one former senior intelligence officer who is familiar with the program but not the location of the prisons. "Everything was very reactive. That's how you get to a situation where you pick people up, send them into a netherworld and don't say, 'What are we going to do with them afterwards?' "

Ernie Raney hails from Dogpatch USA

2005-10-31T11:10:00.000-08:00

Ernie Raney hails from Dogpatch USA

Monday, October 31, 2005 10:50 AM CST

Written by: Chris Houston, LCL staff writer

BROOKFIELD - While scores of baby boomers have been to the place from which Brookfield R-3's Elementary Principal came, few of them have made his epic journey from the stereotyped hollows of hillbilly semiliteracy to the summit of formal educational attainment.

Ironically, although his ancestral home was constructed so deep within a rural "holler" its television could only receive one station, the local public school administrator learned some of life's most fundamental lessons sitting atop "a bluff that overlooked the entire park."

Ernie Gene Raney was born and raised in Dogpatch USA, a theme park developed within a thousand acre tract of Ozark splendor and based on a comic strip that satirized Northwestern Arkansas's threadbare hill folk.

In a day before political correctness would have otherwise hushed cartoonist Al Capp's humorous tales of simple-minded caricatures like Li'l Abner, Ernie was more interested in exploring nature than lingering around Dogpatch's man-made amusements.

"What do you do for fun as a boy in the middle of a theme park?" he asks already knowing the answer full-well in his heart. "Well, I enjoyed riding the train and seeing the skits hillbilly characters like Mammy and Pappy Yokum and Daisy Mae and Abner would put on, but I realized they were real people just playing fictional characters, doing a job and leaving the park to go home somewhere else when they were done."

As Ernie explains, the true joy was to be had after the theme park shut down for the day.

He recalls, "You would walk through the silence of the woods and hollows, and it was then that the natural sounds would reveal themselves."

Describing the vast expanses around the park that were never tamed and commercialized, Ernie continues, "There were two streams flowing through the park, and one came out of the mouth of a cave. You could sit on this big rock at the mouth of that cave, getting cooled on warm summer evenings by the mist that would blow out. Then I would go down to this waterfall called Marble Falls, watch the rushing water and immerse myself in the total feeling of freedom and wonder."

Reflecting on his beginnings that were humble but free of want, Ernie says, "We didn't have name-brand clothes or fancy cars. We could rarely eat out and only went on one vacation I can ever remember, but we had so much of what nature could provide us... And we had each other."

Explaining "there are some things you just feel that provide you with support your whole life," he says he and his kid brother, Scott, "had a love-hate relationship" but shared many memorable adventures in their Ozark paradise.

"In the summer,' Ernie recalls, 'he and I would inflate our [rubber] raft and float down the big stream...We would catch crayfish, pull their tails off and boil them. Not a meal fit for a king, just a few victuals that also made great bait for catching trout. And in the winter until well after dark, we would sled down the ice-covered hill the stream would freeze into, the steel sled rails throwing sparks like Halley's comet when they would strike rock."

He continues, "We didn't have backup electricity and our little two-bedroom house was heated by a wood stove. When it snowed a lot and the power went out, the fireplace, wood stove, and candles worked just fine."

Ernie remembers cutting wood every weekend, his dad, Ernest, wielding the axe while he tossed cut logs into the bed of their truck and his brother stacked them, singing all the while. "Dad and I would try to keep the pace brisk to distract Scott from his singing," he recalls.

In the idyllic wilderness of their childhood, Ernie and Scott explored every cave, hill, and hollow, narrowly avoiding the peril of falling into one seemingly bottomless sinkhole and crawling through forbidden subterranean dens to collect ancient Indian arrowheads and "soda straws" (stalactites).

Other potential dangers included a few bears and a mountain lion only glimpsed on occasion. "We didn't really worry about them," says Ernie. "We belonged there with them. It was our home."

Always more intrigued as a boy by what he could find off the beaten path than by what attracted tourists to the developed area of Dogpatch, the now-grown elementary school principal observes, "The whole art of teaching a child involves gaining access to the backroads of his heart and mind, allowing him to be what he is and waiting to help him take that next step when he is ready."

That sentiment hearkens back to the educational romanticism of philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau as well as the importance of schooling Ernie's own father patiently stressed during his formative years.

Like the naturalism that permeated the principal's boyhood, the "state of nature" the 18th Century philosopher equated with childhood has provided the educational foundation upon which the biography of the Ozark lad and the history of all modern children-at least in the Western world-has been built.

Modern American educators from John Dewey forward have taken account of Rousseau's admonition to allow a child to be what he naturally is at his present stage of development, and that lesson hasn't been lost on Ernie Raney.

Never straying far from his roots, Ernie still often returns to the hills of his fabled childhood.

The remnants of Dogpatch, the theme park, rest silently in ruins after years of disuse. Gone are the tourists. Gone are Lonesome Polecat and Hairless Joe, although the cave where they were supposed to have brewed Kickapoo Joy Juice can still be found there.

But what is left of the old attractions that have since been eclipsed by more technologically sophisticated parks like those at Six Flags and in Branson aren't important to Ernie.

"I like to take my boys to see the clubhouse my brother and I built by stacking limestones and the bluff my granddad once fell off of," he relates. "I want them to see the land my family homesteaded, the place where I couldn't imagine living right next door to someone with a tiny yard."

The boy reared in the lap of so-called hillbilly ignorance-the man who has since earned five college degrees, the principal who is presently leading the way in implementing a literacy improvement program at Brookfield R-3-is still carefree when he pauses at memory's doorway to the past.

"I have consumed myself with work as an adult," he confesses. "But all that labor has helped me appreciate the freedom to play I had as a child in Dogpatch."

Branson Negotiates Eminent Domain

2005-10-31T11:00:00.000-08:00

Branson, land owner grapple in eminent domain case
By Dee Dee Nilsen
Springfield Business Journal Staff
10/28/2005
The city of Branson is stepping in to expedite negotiations between Branson School District and the owner of property that district officials have their eyes on.

The Branson Board of Aldermen Oct. 24 gave initial approval on first reading of an ordinance that would begin the process power of eminent domain for the creation of a road requested by the district.

The district has been searching for several years for a solution to traffic congestion and the resulting safety hazards surrounding Cedar Ridge Elementary School, said superintendent Doug Hayter. Earlier this year, the district opted to create a second access to the school by building a road west of it that turns northward and connects with Highway 248 at Gretna Road.

“We’ve looked at numbers of options around the campus, we’ve talked to several land owners and after years of looking at it, that’s just about the only and best option we have at this time,” Hayter said.

However, there’s a catch. Branson resident Darrell Ledbetter owns the land and a golf driving range on the property where the road is to be built.

Hayter said negotiations to acquire the land have been ongoing for several months, but Ledbetter said he’s waiting for an offer to be made.

“To me, a negotiation is where they offer you $5, you say no, I’ll take $20, and they offer $12,” Ledbetter said. “There hasn’t been anything done like that yet.”

David Miller, Branson city engineer, said the city had included the new road in its master plan at one time and met with Ledbetter on several occasions. The project has since been dropped from the city’s list of priorities, Miller said, and the school district has taken it on.

The major holdup in negotiations is the determination of the road’s location, Hayter said.

“I told them in the beginning I had no objection to the road being built, but I would like to have it built to where I could save the business I have on the property,” Ledbetter said.

Miller said that, even in early negotiations, plans for the road have always put it through Ledbetter’s business because avoiding it would pose driving risks.

“The only way to avoid going through the golf driving range would be to put an extremely sharp turn in the road, go a short distance and put another extremely sharp turn in the road,” he said. “All the curves wouldn’t meet the ability for cars to drive around at a safe speed – you just physically can’t do it.”

If the district and Ledbetter do not come to an agreement by the board’s Nov. 14 meeting, the eminent domain ordinance will go up for a final vote.

Can't Take It With You - Stealing New Orleans

2005-10-28T12:19:00.000-07:00

CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU
The buzzards are swarming to pick at the pieces of New Orleans culture left in the ruins
Friday, October 28, 2005
By Chris Rose

This is only my second column here in the esteemed pages of Lagniappe but I fear it may be near my last.

The reason is not what might seem obvious: Poor job performance.

No, the real reason is that, in a matter of weeks, there, in fact, will be no events to report in these pages. No sports. No festivals. No parades. No music. No food listings.

It appears that while this city drowns under water, negligence, helplessness and poverty, the civic scavengers from other states are circling around us, trying to pick at the rotting corpse that is New Orleans.

The most obvious culprit is the sleazy and verbose mayor of San Antonio, Phil Hardberger, whose gleeful dance over our communal devastation almost makes Tom Benson look like a nice guy. He says the Saints belong to his city now. Done deal. And he's probably right.

Then, of course, the wags in Las Vegas announced that they would be happy to host Mardi Gras this year and why not? Since that city has done its best to turn New York City, Paris and Venice into theme parks, why not let them have the greatest free show on Earth?

Problem is, nothing in Vegas is free -- unless you lose a fat wad at the craps table and then they give you some steak and eggs for breakfast.

I just want to see the looks on the Vegas high school band tuba players when somebody tells them they have to march six miles every night for three weeks.

And then we have Austin, Texas, which will be hosting the Flaming Arrows Mardi Gras Indian celebrations next year. An event, which I can only assume, will be steeped in the grand themes of typical Indian parades -- culture, history, neighborhood, family, corner bars and go-cups.

If the Indians thought they had trouble with New Orleans cops, wait until a couple of Spy Boys get liquored up and start blocking downtown traffic in their beaded finery.

Iko, Iko, pod'ner, and off to jail we go.

And Galatoire's is opening in Baton Rouge. Personally, I can't imagine a city that is in more need of a four-hour Friday lunch consisting of a Godchaux Salad and seven martinis. But, are you kidding me? Galatoire's in Red Stick?

What are they going to take from us next? Certainly there's more of the carcass left. For instance, contrary to the graffiti on his house that says "R.I.P. Fats," it turns out that Fats Domino is, in fact, still alive, so certainly Branson, Mo., ought to come down here and scoop up the Fat Man so he can join Mel Tillis and the Captain and Tennille up there on the strip.

I hear that folks in Topeka are going to start burying their dead in above-ground mausoleums as a way of boosting their tourist industry.

And since the brimstone ministers tell us it was New Orleans' accommodation of gay citizens that caused the hurricane in the first place, maybe we'd better send Southern Decadence abroad as well.

I'm picturing Salt Lake City for that one.

Just who the hell are these people who are trying to pick and choose among our cultural touchstones and lay claim to them in their towns?

I mean, some are just plain stupid; I give the Baton Rouge Galatoire's eight months survival, a year at most. I mean, are there really enough alcoholic former queens of Carnival in Baton Rouge to keep that place afloat?

As for San Antonio: It's galling. I know you probably think so, too, so I'm doing the public service of giving you the mayor's phone number so you can apprise him of your thoughts on the matter.

It's (210) 207-7060. In case you're stuck in the '90s, the fax is (210) 207-4168.

Give Phil a call. See what else he needs from us. Like, maybe a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse? Or maybe the carousel from City Park. Or, what the hell -- why not see if he just wants to come over and cart that whole damn park away and put it on the Rio Grande.

Bam!

Oh, that reminds me: They can take that guy, too. What the hell. As long as we've got our front stoops, a couple of guitars and some Abita Amber, I guess we'll be OK.

Or did I just hear that Miller bought Abita?

Anyway, that's the end of my rant. My time here is done. That's because the Las Vegas Sun is going to start publishing Lagniappe in its paper starting next Friday.

So thanks for all your support for all these years and hopefully our paths will cross again some day. Say, maybe next week at the Bridge City Gumbo Festival in Tuscon.

. . . . . . .

Columnist Chris Rose can be reached at chris.rose@timespicayune.com; or at (504) 352-2535 or (504) 826-3309.

Yahoo - Editorial Integrity Questioned

2005-09-16T05:43:00.000-07:00

Yahoo Moves Into the Hot Zone

[Print story] [E-mail story] [Rants + Raves] [Reprint story]
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By Kim Zetter | Also by this reporter

02:00 AM Sep. 16, 2005 PT

Yahoo's latest online news project is called "The Hot Zone" and is billed as a much-needed look at war-torn regions that have drawn scant mainstream media coverage. But the title could just as easily describe the trouble the media giant could encounter as it ventures for the first time into original news reporting.
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Web portals have traditionally played the role of news aggregators, publishing the work of others but doing little or no original reporting on their own. Now Yahoo is crossing over with a new project to be created by news veteran Kevin Sites, who will visit dozens of war zones around the globe and file video and other reports online. Sites gained notoriety last year when NBC aired controversial footage he filmed in Iraq showing a Marine killing an apparently wounded and unarmed Iraqi prisoner in a mosque.

Yahoo has yet to publish a single report from Sites, but already some media watchdogs are wondering about Yahoo's journalistic integrity, citing recent revelations that it helped Chinese authorities jail a journalist last year.

This revelation, and the fact that Yahoo previously censored its Chinese-language search engine to appease Chinese authorities, raises questions about the portal's ability to deliver transparent and objective news if it fails to protect the first amendment ideals journalists uphold, these people say.

"As Yahoo appears to be evolving in that direction (toward news gathering), it's something we'll likely have to address," said Abi Wright, Asia program director for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Last week Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based organization that monitors human rights and press freedom, revealed that Yahoo's Hong Kong division helped Chinese authorities track journalist Shi Tao, who sent an e-mail through his Yahoo account allegedly containing state secrets.

The e-mail contained a warning the Chinese government gave officials and the media that pro-democracy dissidents might return to China to agitate trouble on the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising.

Shi, believing it wasn't secret, mailed the information to a pro-democracy group in New York, which published it on its news site. Yahoo's Hong Kong division helped authorities track the e-mail to Shi's work computer, and in April he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for leaking state secrets abroad.

Reporters Without Borders accused Yahoo of currying favor with the Chinese government. Yahoo and other companies have sought a foothold in China's lucrative internet market and have made concessions to get it. Yahoo signed China's voluntary pledge of "self-discipline" that, among other things, asks internet companies to refrain from producing or posting "pernicious information" that could jeopardize state security and disrupt social stability. The company also put blocks on its Chinese-language search engine to prevent users from accessing pro-democracy sites. Last month the company achieved its foothold when it purchased a 40 percent share in one of China's largest internet companies.

But Yahoo said it wasn't currying favor when it helped track the journalist, it was complying with Chinese law.

"Just like any other global company, Yahoo must ensure that its local country sites must operate within the laws, regulations and customs of the country in which they are based," the company said in a statement.

While critics like Wright acknowledge that Yahoo, as an ISP, would also have to cooperate with authorities in the United States under a court order, the issue gets cloudy as the portal ventures into journalism.

If authorities in the United States or elsewhere sought access to a Yahoo reporter's e-mail, the company would have to decide if it was going to act like an ISP or a news agency. And things would get trickier if the ISP side of Yahoo were to give authorities access to e-mail belonging to another news organization's reporter while the journalism side protected its own reporter's correspondence.

Tom Regan, executive director of the Online News Association, said the conflict between the business and news sides of media isn't novel. But the addition of an ISP, which controls e-mail, to the mix is a new wrinkle the industry hasn't pondered.

Of course, even traditional media companies don't always make decisions that side with journalists. Aly Colón, who teaches journalism ethics at the Poynter Institute in Florida, points to Time magazine's controversial decision to hand its reporter's notes to Justice Department officials investigating the Valerie Plame leak.

"These decisions are not black and white, and they're not easy to make," Colón said.

Sites' Yahoo page vows that his reporting will adhere to the Society of Professional Journalists' ethics code. Journalists upholding the code seek to report the truth, give voice to the voiceless and be "free of obligation to any interest other than the public's right to know."

Robert Padavick, a veteran TV producer working with Sites, said Yahoo fully supports their effort to produce transparent journalism. He couldn't say, however, how the company might handle journalism issues outside of Sites' coverage.

End of story

Missouri Senate - Protection Law Repealed

2005-09-15T20:49:00.000-07:00

Missouri Senate repeals Interent posting law as session ends
Thursday, September 15, 2005
KELLY WIESE

Associated Press Writer

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- The Senate on Thursday approved a measure repealing a new state law barring posting of personal information about public officials on the Internet, sending the item to the governor for his signature.

The measure repealing the law had passed the House earlier. The Senate voted 32-0 in favor of it. Lawmakers later concluded the special session called by Gov. Matt Blunt to pass additional abortion restrictions and fix several new laws.

The new Internet law had said no court or government agency could post online the home address, Social Security number or phone number of any elected or appointed official without their consent.

But county officials worried how they would enforce the restriction. They say government Web sites contain much information, such as property records, and it would be hard to remove it for certain people named under the law.

"It was a piece of legislation that had good intentions," said Sen. Rob Mayer, R-Dexter. "Probably we should have given it more in-depth study and analysis."

Boone, Cass, Jackson and Platte counties sued the state, claiming among other things that the law would impose a cost on counties without providing funding, in violation of the state constitution.

A Cole County judge has so far agreed with the counties, blocking the state from enforcing the law. A hearing on a permanent injunction is set for October, but an attorney for the counties said if the provision were repealed, they likely would drop the litigation.

Blunt said he signed the measure into law because the bill also contained many other worthy provisions, but he urged government agencies to ignore this part of the law and asked lawmakers to undo it during their special session.

The new bill deletes the language about public officials. Instead it would make it a misdemeanor to post the name, home address, telephone number or Social Security number of anyone on the Internet with the intent "to cause great bodily harm or death." The revision makes no distinction as to whether the target is an elected official or who did the posting.

The Senate also passed a bill that earlier cleared the House to correct conflicts within various bills that passed during the regular session creating new laws on drunken driving, child abuse and distribution of prescription drugs at schools.

Both measures also contain an emergency clause, meaning they will take effect as soon as Blunt signs them.

The House passed a resolution stating the Legislature's opposition to plans to create a spring rise in the Missouri River by releasing more water from upstream dams, citing concerns about flooding of Missouri farms and communities.

Crime cleanup bill is HB2; Internet bill is HB3.

A Wicked Deal For Tickets

2005-09-05T17:32:00.000-07:00

A wicked deal for tickets
Black markets taking root around famed theme parks
By MIKE SCHNEIDER
Associated Press

ORLANDO, FLA. - Roberto Alvarez was jealous of the amount of time his girlfriend spent with the head of a crime family that dealt in millions of dollars of contraband, so he became a confidential informant for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
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Not long after talking with the agents, the 38-year-old Alvarez was shot to death; his body was found near the bus he drove in his job shuttling tourists to the theme parks.

If it had been guns or drugs that Alvarez was snitching about, his unsolved murder would have had a familiar ring. But, in an only-in-Orlando scenario, Alvarez was helping investigators track down theme park tickets illegally purchased with fake or stolen credit cards.

A black market for park tickets has grown up in this theme park mecca. Detective Kelly Boaz of the Orange County Sheriff's Office said it's a multimillion-dollar business.

This underground market is an unintended consequence of annual ticket-price increases and the popularity of multi-day passes that have made the tickets very valuable. A single-day ticket to a park costs almost $60, while a four-day park hopper, granting entry into all four Disney parks in Orlando, can cost $220 a person.

The black market also has been fueled by the proliferation of booths selling discounted tickets.

The area's major theme parks � Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld Orlando � often sell tickets discounted 10 percent off the gate price to time-share companies, AAA and other tourism-related businesses. International tour companies get an even better deal � as much as 20 percent off the gate price.

But those 20 percent-off contracts are limited and coveted. So companies, in violation of their agreements with the parks, often sell their tickets to middlemen brokers or to booths that can't get the discount.

Some of the shady ticket dealers sell multiday park tickets to tour groups at discounted prices, provided the groups bring back the passes at the end of a single day. The passes are then resold at discount the next day. Others, known by the police as "walkers," target tourists, selling multiday park passes that have days already used up, Boaz said.

Law enforcement agencies have tried to stop black market ticket brokers much like they would drug dealers.

Alvarez started talking with authorities in 2000 about schemes run by Victor Aquino, who used fake or stolen credit cards to purchase park tickets.

The operation was made up of Aquino's family members and associates. It included Aquino's teenage son, Amin, who along with a former pizza cook, Mario Locasio, would buy tickets with stolen or fake credit cards provided by Victor Aquino. Aquino would sell the tickets to Roberto Alvarez's girlfriend, Marilu Clement, who then supplied brokers like Franklin Fox or travel agencies, according to depositions. Fox was once described by law enforcement as the ringleader of illegal ticket brokers.

Alvarez was gunned down in July 2001. The group's schemes fell apart as its members, one by one, were arrested in 2002.

Clement, who is serving probation for fraud, claimed she never knew the tickets were purchased with bad credit cards. Amin Aquino was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison for fraud, while his father, Victor, was sentenced to 5 1/2 years for trying to run over a sheriff's deputy with a Mercedes.

Alvarez's murder may be an extreme case, and authorities won't comment on it since the case is still open and unsolved.

Fox pleaded no contest to two counts of petty theft last year and was sentenced to a year of probation, which was terminated in June. He denied dealing in stolen tickets and said he made a plea to avoid a trial.

Branson Promise

2005-08-30T09:37:00.000-07:00

By Gary Groman aka The Ole Seagull, Editor
12/31/2005

A November 5, Washington Post article, entitled “It's a Victory for People Like Us,” was about why Carey and Tara Leslie, the mother and father of three children, voted for George W. Bush as president. The article used the Leslies to illustrate the 77 percent of, “the millions of voters, who describe themselves as ‘white evangelicals,’” who voted for Bush and who “said that moral values was the single issue that mattered most to them.”

The article pointed out that, “They are precisely the people that the Bush campaign built its reelection strategy on.” The type of people “who would put faith-based moral values above every other consideration when it came time to vote, including the war in Iraq, terrorism, the economy and, in the Leslies' case, a life that has been in financial peril since Sept. 11, 2001.”

“But Seagull why would millions of people vote for a President based on faith and moral values?”

“Fear of the moral direction that their nation is headed and the persistent and increasing pressures to remove all vestiges of their God and His spirit from public life and government.”

It was the one of the few opportunities, where the average citizen felt that they could be heard and do something to help reverse the downward moral spiral that our nation is in today. From the removal of prayer from our schools to the taking of “Christmas” out of Christmas they are frustrated with being offended in the name of offending someone else all under the banner of “constitutional rights” and being “politically correct.”

“Well, that’s all well and good but what does that have to do with Branson?”

“Branson’s future depends on the support of the same type of people who reelected George W. Bush as president.”

“Do you mean those ‘white evangelicals’ to whom moral values are the single issue that mattered most?”

“No, any Christian who gives moral values a high priority.”

The recent branding study conducted under the auspices of the Branson Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce and paid for by the City of Branson indicated that the strongest “identifier” people had with the “Branson brand” was values. Predicated in large part on “the character, personality and values of the Branson community” the study developed a marketing tool called “The Branson Promise.”

Although not the sole marketing tool that will attract the new visitors “The Branson Promise” is certainly a tool that will be used in that endeavor and one that the study says “Is the glue that holds the Branson experience together” for the “Loyals” who return to Branson.

Upon what is “the character, personality and values of the Branson community,” the “faith” referred to in “The Branson Promise,” and the “glue” that will make the visitors return to Branson based? An Ole Seagull would respectfully suggest that it is based on the same values that got George W. Bush reelected, the values of those who believe that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

“Isn’t that a little radical Seagull?”

“No, its Branson’s blessing.”

Interestingly enough, the article closed with Cary Leslie saying, “Jobs will come and go. But your character -- you have to hang on to that, it's what you're defined by.” As Branson heads into 2005, an Ole Seagull would pray that it would hang on to its unique character and profess it to the world because it is what we are defined by, what makes Branson the unique place that it is.

“Now Seagull, you need to be careful. If we have gospel songs or hold the name of Christ up as part of our shows, say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays” or take a stand against shows that have off color jokes, etc. we might offend someone.”

“No, they will offend themselves.”

Hilton Names GM for Branson

2005-08-15T17:02:00.000-07:00

Mark Hartman Named General Manager of New Hilton Branson Landing Project

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 15, 2005--Hilton announced today that Mark Hartman has been named general manager of the new Hilton Branson Landing project that, when complete, will feature a 243-room boutique hotel, a 290-room convention hotel and a 225,000 square foot convention center to be operated by Hilton. Branson Landing is a 95-acre shopping, living and entertainment development on the waterfront in Branson, Missouri. The boutique hotel is set to open in June 2006, followed by the convention hotel and convention center in 2007.

A Hilton veteran for 22 years with extensive experience in opening new properties, Hartman joins the Branson Landing project from the Doubletree Hotel & Executive Meeting Center on Chicago's North Shore, where he has served as general manager since December 2003. In his new capacity, Mark will report to Tim Benolken, area vice president for Hilton's North Central Region.

Hartman began his hospitality career in 1983 at the Guest Quarters Suite Hotel in Atlanta as director of sales. In 1986, he joined the Compri Hotel as director of operations and director of accommodations. In 1988, he joined Doubletree Hotels, where he served in a variety of director-level roles at properties throughout the United States. He became rooms division manager of the Doubletree Hotel & Conference Center St. Louis in 1991, and then got his first general manager position in 1992 at the Doubletree Club Hotel in Charlotte, North Carolina. He also served as general manager for Doubletree properties in Cincinnati, Dayton, St. Louis, Chicago, and, most recently, served as general manager for the Doubletree Hotel & Executive Meeting Center on Chicago's North Shore.

Hartman received his Bachelor of Science degree in agronomy from the University of Georgia at Athens.

Hilton Hotels Corporation is recognized internationally as a preeminent hospitality company. The company develops, owns, manages or franchises approximately 2,300 hotels, resorts and vacation ownership properties. Its portfolio includes many of the world's best known and most highly regarded hotel brands, including Hilton(R), Conrad(R), Doubletree(R), Embassy Suites Hotels(R), Hampton Inn(R), Hampton Inn & Suites(R), Hilton Garden Inn(R), Hilton Grand Vacations Club(R) and Homewood Suites by Hilton(R).

Branson Church Reaches out to HIspanics

2005-08-15T16:59:00.000-07:00

Church reaching out to Hispanics

Sacred Heart has a plan for how to help immigrants, but it is lacking the funds.

Hispanics and the Catholic Church

# Percentage of U.S. Catholic population growth since 1960: 71

# Percentage of U.S. Catholics who are Hispanic: 39

# Percentage of Hispanics who are Catholic (2002): 72.6

# Approximate number of U.S. parishes with Hispanic ministry: 4,000

# Percentage of U.S. parishes with majority Hispanic presence: 20.6

# Number of Hispanic priests in the United States: 2,900

# Number of active Hispanic bishops: 25

Source: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Web site
Want to go?

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development will host the following meetings open to the public:

# At 9 a.m. today at The Kitchen, at 420 E. Commercial St., to discuss the rehabilitation ministry at The Kitchen.

# At 7:30 p.m. today at Our Lady of the Lake Church in Branson to discuss the unskilled workers moving to Branson in search of jobs. The local Catholic churches are in the early stages of examining this issue.

• Police look at selling plane

• Strafford aldermen to vote on library branch

• Annual event a warm-up for rockhounds

• Church reaching out to Hispanics

• Swimmer's ear caused when bacteria grow in ear canal

• Catch a game and good food at Cooper Field

• Sitting on Capitol Hill

• Stuff to do

• Fun stuff

• Tell us about your WiFi experience

• School board to reject higher levy

• More people now eligible to donate blood

• Teens offer alternative to booze, drug use

• Panel backs away from endorsing closure of 3 schools

• Victory Mission helps kids get ready for school

• Three girls suspected in vandalism

• Kindergarten students more violent, teachers say

Juliana Goodwin
News-Leader

Members of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Springfield have studied the needs of Hispanic immigrants. They have a plan to help. They just aren't sure how they will pay for it.

"This is a poor parish and we are struggling," said Sister Laureana Perez, "but it is the poor who help the poor."

Sacred Heart has seen its Latino congregation dramatically grow over the past six years, with more than 250 Hispanics packing the church for its Spanish-language Sunday Mass.

Two years ago, Sacred Heart formed a committee to better understand the needs of recent Hispanic immigrants and how the church might help.

They held meetings and interviews in both English and Spanish.

It wasn't easy, said Rolanda Avila, a committee member.

"Some were reluctant to share information because of fear of being deported. Some were hard to reach," she said.

Olga Kilmer, another member, agreed that gaining trust was a serious roadblock.

"The immigrants who come here have been through so much. Many times they are mistreated. They have struggled and don't know who to trust," Kilmer said.

On Sunday during a meeting with parishioners and two staff members from the national offices of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the committee explained what is needed to help immigrants transition into society.

The committee found three things the church could do to help:

# An information center to assist Hispanics with basic information when they arrive in the area;

# Additional English as a Second Language classes, including computer-assisted classes that would not require a teacher;

# Assistance with legal immigration paperwork and services.

Avila said the committee found two types of Latino workers come to this area: those who are promised jobs and those in search of jobs.

Those in search of a job tend to face more challenges.

The information center would offer basic information on how to open a bank account, how to find an apartment, how to wire money and where to grocery shop, Emge said.

"They don't know where to go or how to rent a house," said Perez.

"It is awful the way some of them have to live. The health care is a serious problem. They have to wait until they are practically dying to get attended."

Many new immigrants do not have and cannot afford health care, she said.

Armida Lopez said the information center would also help people find a physician.

The church currently offers English lessons, but wants to expand this to computerized tutorials so people who work late, such as construction workers, can still learn English.

The last prong of the plan is to provide legal services and help with immigration paperwork.

Representatives from CCHD said they were impressed with the grass-roots effort and commitment from members of the church.

"What made the best impression on me is people just didn't decide what they want, they asked others what they need, which is at the heart of our program," said Lee Anne Adams, economic development specialist with CCHD.

As it stands now, the three-point plan is still a dream. The church is in the middle of a construction project but cannot fund it fully. Construction costs have escalated to $1.7 million from $1 million originally.

For the church's Hispanic plans to become a reality, it needs more money, volunteers, and training, Kilmer said.

Every November, Catholic churches across the country take up collections to help fund the CCHD campaign and those funds are later distributed in the form of grants. The representatives are visiting various churches and organizations in the area.

Founded in 1969, the CCHD is the domestic anti-poverty, social justice arm of the U.S. Catholic bishops, formed to tackle the root causes of poverty in America.

The church is considering applying for a grant from CCHD, but had not done so yet. Don Emge, director of Social Ministry at Sacred Heart, said first he wants the representatives of CCHD to understand what the church is doing.

Sister Perez was not sure where the funds would come from or how their dream would become a reality, but she believes it will.

"We will do all we can to start this center and see it come to fruition," Perez said.

New York Times - Voices of 9/11

2005-08-14T18:11:00.000-07:00

I don't believe this post will ever be removed from the New York Times.

New York Times - Voices of 9/11

2005-08-14T18:10:00.000-07:00

This page will never be removed from the New York Times. It is a part of history.

Matt Drudge - Excerpt Drudge Manifesto

2005-08-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

FROM DRUDGE MANIFESTO
By Matt Drudge and Julia Phillips
December 23, 1999
Hollywood, CA

[BOOT UP]

This is the most exciting moment in the history of News.

Anyone from anywhere can cover anything.

And send it out to everyone.

Reports on last hour's 8.7-mag. quake in The Kodiak Islands of Alaska, tomorrow's firing of ConnieChung from THECBSEVENINGNEWS, or next week's NEWSWEEK’s spiking of a piece on past Presidential predilection for penile pumping by plump, politically-placed, post-pubescent White House Pretties can be dispatched faster than an incoming inter-continential blistered nuke. Fired from Pakistan, compliments of U.S. tech stolen by China, sold to Iran, transferred from Russia on Taiwanese hardware processed by Israeli software.

Hey, it’s The Zeroes.
Just hit the ENTER button.
I have. And lived to sell the tale.

If I'm not interesting, the world's not interesting.

If the DRUDGE REPORT is boring, the world is boring.

It’s Zero, Babies.
And if I’m boring, you’re boring.

24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a 12-month year, 10 years a decade, 10 decades a century and 10 centuries a millennium, as far as a chip can see, wire services from all over the world move raw data…all over the world!

I can access, edit, headline and…link to it all!

Throw it up on a website and wait for you to come.

I’ve reported when, how, and what I’ve wanted.
My only limitations have been those I’ve created.
There’s been no editor, no lawyer, no judge, no president to tell me I can’t.
And there never will be.

Technology has finally caught up with individual liberty.

On the boulevards, we call it “freedom of the brain”.

In this post-satellite dish era - when individuals can broadcast their wetdreams with neither a license nor a handbook of regulations issued by Government - The Elites, fearing loss of power, see chaos and anarchy.

I see only sunshine.

The world is interesting, I’m interesting, you’re interesting.

It all starts with the wires. It all ends with the wires.

Information being power and all.

A random Associated Press NewsAlert© begets CNNBreakingNews© begets Reuters© begets Rush Limbaugh©. If the Alert™ becomes A Story after 157 minutes, it’ll beget 20/20DatelineEntertainmentTonight60Minutes®. If it lasts 3¼ days, it’ll run above the fold in TheNewYorkTimes® and below in TheNationalEnquirer™. Give it two weeks and someone at the New Yorker© will pound out a re-write, win a Pulitzer©. A month, and ScottRudinSherryLansingHarveyWeinstein(sm) options it for PaltrowDamonMingella® or P.T. Anderson©, thinking Oscar© just as David E. Kelley©, demanding Emmy, races a secret script for a series starring SomeoneSuperSkinny[PatentPending]. Still bouncing in six months? Billboard© pronounces SonyMottolaLaurynHill’s© rap will wrap up Grammy®. A year in, PrNewswire© reports DonDeLillo’s© handed in his first 1000 pages on a National Book Award Winner® that began…with the stray AP NewsAlert© a thousand cycles ago.

Welcome to the Zeroes, pal.

You’ll get it where you want it.

The buffet’s bigger than at WynnBellagio©.

I like to start the meal with the XINHUA wire from China mixed with KYODO from Japan.

A soupcon of AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE stirred with ITAR-TASS from Moscow.

ISLAMIC REPUBLIC wire for curry and the JERUSELUM POST for matzo.

NORTH KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY when it’s cold.

UK’s PRESSASSOCIATION when it’s wet.

AdAgeDeadlineE!ChannelBskyBBBCFoxNews if I’m lonely.

DeutschePresse-AgenturMSNBCHollywoodReporter when I’m blue.

It’s always waiting for you.

Anywhere you want it. You can get it.

For the first time in the history of communication, you don’t have to live in a corporate “newsroom” for access to instant information. With a modem, a phone jack, and an inexpensive computer, your newsroom can be your living room, your bedroom… your bathroom, if you’re so inclined.

You can take on the Big Boys between flushes.

You can beat CNN to the announcement of Princess Diana’s death by eight minutes, as I once did, thanks to an e-tip from a reporter on the scene.

As They debate, edit, re-write, fix ‘n’ figure what the real slant is, you’ve reported it and graduated it.

Dished it, dismissed it, moved it.

And proved it.

-----------------------------------

Miss you like crazy, Julia.

Drudge
January 03, 2002
Miami Beach

Blunt Appoints Hartzler to Missouri Women's Counci

2005-08-12T20:15:00.000-07:00

Blunt Appoints Hartzler to Missouri Women's Council
The Council is comprised of 15 members, of which 11 are appointed by the governor.

Harrisonville, MO - infoZine - Gov. Matt Blunt announced the appointment of Vicky J. Hartzler as chairwoman of the Missouri Women's Council.

Hartzler, 44 of Harrisonville, is co-owner of Hartzler Equipment Company and Hartzler Farms, Inc. Hartzler holds a bachelor's degree in education from the University of Missouri- Columbia and a master's in education from Central Missouri State University. Hartzler represented the 124th House District from 1995 through 2001.

The Missouri Women's Council was established in 1985 by the State's 83rd General Assembly to identify and address issues affecting the economic and employment status of women in Missouri.

Hartzler's appointment is subject to Senate confirmation for a term ending on Dec. 6, 2007. She replaces Kimberly Carlos who resigned

Missouri News - Kansas City Star

2005-08-12T20:12:00.000-07:00

Posted on Sun, Aug. 07, 2005

NEWS FROM ACROSS MISSOURI

News from across Missouri

boonville

BOOKKEEPING CRISIS — Boonville City Administrator Selby Myers is eagerly awaiting the arrival of the city’s newly hired bookkeeper.

When Myers started in November 2004, the city’s books were several months behind and financial statements had not been prepared for some time. Myers’ predecessor, Tracy Walkup, was fired by the council in the spring of 2004. “I have no idea when we will be caught up,” he said.

columbia

TEEN NOT INEBRIATED — An 18-year-old who drowned in the Douglass Park swimming pool in June was not intoxicated, an autopsy report said.

Police said Omarr Burress, whose mother said he couldn’t swim, scaled a 7-foot iron fence to get into the pool after playing basketball with friends June 24.

dixon

OFFICER CHARGED — A police officer is accused of threatening his wife and striking his stepson.

James Scott Rhodes, 36, was charged with second-degree domestic assault. Rhodes’ wife, Loretta Rhodes, 34, said James Rhodes dragged her out of the truck she had been driving and struck his 17-year-old stepson in the forehead.

jefferson city

OPEN CONTAINER BAN — The City Council last week adopted ordinances aimed at strengthening the city’s liquor license regulations.

The council made it illegal to have an open container of alcohol on a city street, sidewalk or parking lot. Until now, police officers had to catch an offender taking a sip to write a ticket.

st. louis

DJS FIRED — A hip-hop radio station said it fired two of its radio personalities after an on-air discussion last month of ways to fight police officers.

The disc jockeys — whose professional names are DJ Kaos and DJ Sylli Asz — and callers to their morning show discussed how to fight for an officer’s radio so the officer can’t call for help. The comments were made eight days after a police sergeant was killed in Kirkwood.

TANEY COUNTY

WEST NILE WARNING — Several hundred mosquitoes collected from Taney County have tested positive for West Nile virus, prompting health officials to urge the public to take extra precautions.

According to officials with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, mosquitoes tested positive in 12 out of nearly 100 pools.

van buren

NEW JUDGE ASSIGNED — A Cape Girardeau County judge has been assigned to preside over the case of Lance D. Shockley, a 28-year-old Van Buren man accused of gunning down a Missouri Highway Patrol sergeant in his driveway.

A judicial assignment was filed last month with the circuit court in Carter County naming Presiding Circuit Judge William L. Syler to the case. Presiding Circuit Judge R. Jack Garrett recused himself on July 22.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
— Boonville Daily News — Columbia Daily Tribune — The Associated Press — Jefferson City News Tribune — The Associated Press — Branson Daily News — Daily Dunklin Democrat

Hispanic Population rising in Missouri

2005-08-12T20:11:00.000-07:00

Friday, August 12, 2005
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News > St. Louis City / County > Story

Missouri's Hispanic population continues to boom
By Kim Bell
Of the Post-Dispatch
08/11/2005

The Hispanic population in Missouri grew by nearly 25 percent between 2000 and 2004, according to figures released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The bureau accounted for 148,201 Hispanics living in Missouri in the population estimates of July 1, 2004. That's an increase of 29,584 since 2000.

"They've continued at an impressive rate," said Daryl Hobbs, senior research associate at the University of Missouri's Office of Social and Economic Data Analysis. "It's a large increase. But the Hispanic population is still only 2 percent of the population of the state."

Hobbs said his office put together a Missouri map with census figures showing that all but 11 counties in the state saw an increase in the number of Hispanics. Advertisement

"Nothing on that map surprises me," he said. "The patterns of growth are very similar to what they were between 1990 and 2000."

In that decade, Missouri's Hispanic population grew to 118,000 from about 60,000, he said.

The Census Bureau's report, released Thursday, focused on county and state population estimates by age, sex, race and Hispanic origin. Hispanics, who may be of any race, are the fastest-growing minority group nationwide. In fact, they accounted for half of America's total population change from 2003 to 2004.

The bureau's figures also show that Texas has now joined California, Hawaii and New Mexico as states where minorities make up more than 50 percent of the population.

Illinois counted 1.7 million Hispanics in 2004, compared with 1.5 million in 2000.

Matthew Christenson, a demographer with the Census Bureau, said the population estimates for Hispanics try to take into account undocumented migrants. "However, we need to take (estimates) with a grain of salt because it's a difficult enterprise, and we don't have a good handle on the numbers of undocumented migrants," he said.

What's bringing Hispanics to the Show-Me State? Jobs - first and foremost, Hobbs says.

In the rural pockets of Missouri, such as Barry and McDonald counties, Hispanics largely come for jobs at poultry processing plants. But nearly three of every four Hispanics in Missouri live in a metro area. In mid-Missouri's Boone and Cole counties, "what's driving it are the jobs in health care and education. There's a need for a lot of support services, laundry, maintenance," Hobbs said.

Jackson County, which includes Kansas City in western Missouri, has traditionally been a draw for Hispanics. The census numbers account for 43,000 Hispanics in that county. St. Louis County has the second-highest concentration of Hispanics, with 17,244.

Haniny Hillberg, who helps organize the annual St. Louis Hispanic Festival, has been in St. Louis for more than 30 years. She said St. Louis lacks a barrio for its Hispanics like Kansas City has, but she still sees a constant migration to this area.

She says she has known about 200 Hispanics who have moved to the city in the last four years. They come from Texas, Florida, Chicago.

"They come for better opportunities in the Midwest," she said. "During the summer, they find jobs in landscaping. People treat them very nice."

Hillberg, 57, of Florissant, said Hispanics "are exposed to Spanish language 24 hours a day, seven days a week in places like Chicago and Texas and Florida. Here in Missouri, you're forced to learn English because you have families, and you need to educate them."

Elisa Bender, 29, of St. Charles, is Hillberg's daughter. She said St. Louis' cost of living is lower than that of other large U.S. cities, and St. Louis has more rural areas nearby that provide farm work. She said the Hispanic communities in the St. Louis area can be found near Cherokee Street in St. Louis and in Fairmont City, Ill. St. Ann, Overland and the St. Charles area also have growing Hispanic populations.

Steve Bolhafner of the Post-Dispatch news research department contributed to this report.

Cities, counties to appoint tax board members

2005-08-12T20:08:00.000-07:00

Cities, counties to appoint tax board members

By Cliff Sain
BDN Staff Writer

A board trying to place a tourism tax on the November ballot will be undergoing some changes.

The Branson/Lakes Area Tourism Community Enhancement Board of Directors decided this week how it will transition from a board appointed mostly by chambers of commerce, to a board appointed entirely by cities and counties.

The board had to choose whether to simply allow chamber appointees' terms to expire naturally, or whether the chamber appointees should resign at the end of the month when new legislation goes into effect requiring the change in appointments.

"We chose option A," board President Kent Turner said.

The board is working to place an issue on the Nov. 8 election ballot that would, if approved, raise an additional $6 million a year to promote the Branson area. If approved, the legislation would allow a one-cent sales tax to be collected within a district that includes Branson, Silver Dollar City, Indian Point Village and State Park Marina. Only residents of the district will vote on the issue. The tax would not apply to hotels, theaters and ticketed attraction within the Branson city limits, because they already pay a four-cent tourism tax.

The tourism board would then take on the responsibility of determining what company would decide how to best spend the money.

The Branson/Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce is the entity that administers the current tourism tax, which generates approximately $2.4 million a year.

This will be the second attempt for the tax, which fell to defeat in February 2002. This time around, the tourism board worked to have state legislation changed that would make the tax more appealing to voters. In addition to making the board more accountable to elected officials, the tax will also go almost entirely to tourism marketing, rather than other community programs.

The current board has five members, with two appointed by the Branson chamber, one by the Indian Point Chamber of Commerce, one by the city of Branson and one by the village of Indian Point. Two of the chamber appointees still have two years remaining on their three-year terms.

The board will now expand to seven members, with three appointed by the city of Branson, two by Indian Point, one by the Taney County Commission and one by the Stone County Commission.

One of the concerns with the transition process was maintaining a fair balance of members. Because of the way the legislation is worded, in 2007, Branson will end up with four of the seven board members, before dropping back to three in 2008, when the transition will be complete.

"The only way around that is if the city voluntarily surrenders an appointment for that year," Turner said.

Branson Communications Director Jerry Adams said it would be up to the city's Board of Aldermen to do that.

"The board of aldermen have not made a decision on appointments to the board," he said.

Story created Aug 12, 2005 - 09:46:00 CDT.

Branson Shows - SNL

2005-08-12T20:07:00.000-07:00

Branson Shows

THE GRAND PALACE

• Hot acts to take stage at Missouri State Fair

• 'Branson Jubilee' musical special coming to PBS

• 'Seascape' raises relationship questions

• First meal of Korean food tasty

• Quiet times add depth to crime film

• Film shows pope's struggles with Nazis, communists

• Area artists showcased in Missouri 50

• Moonlight Tour Benefit car show

• Orchestra auditions held

• Stones song not directly aimed at Bush, Jagger says

• Fine dining, with emphasis on fine

• Park Day a time to remember

• Theater a jewel in Harrison

• Longtime R&B band comes home to jam

• Campout perfect for music fans

• Rowdy 'Wedding Crashers' delivers fun summer comedy

• 'Dukes' stupid from start to finish

• Move, learn and play this weekend

• Outdoor Cinema Visit galleries tonight

• Free stuff

• Kidz Zone debuts at the 69th annual Ozark Empire Fair

• Cave a place of legendary beauty

• Free stuff

• Faith onstage

• Event aims to get kids outdoors

• Triple serving of fun coming up in Ozark

• 'Penguins' a rare treat

• 'Sky High' outlandishly fun flick

• Founders Park fun Charity rides

• Grandstand entertainment caters to variety of tastes

Here's a look at this season's shows and their times. Call ahead if you are going to see a specific show at a specific time.
Acrobats of China featuring the New Shanghai Circus: At the show's namesake theater. 336-8888, 1-877-212-4462 or www.acrobatsofchina.com.

Act of God (musical): At the Musical Palace. Shows at 10 a.m. Tuesday through Sunday through Dec. 10. 339-1960, www.actofgodbranson.com.

Bob Anderson Show: At Club Vegas, inside the Lodge of the Ozarks. Shows at 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. 334-7535 or 1-877-574-8227.

Baldknobbers Jamboree: At Baldknobbers Theater. Shows at 8 p.m. (preshow at 7:15 p.m.) Monday through Saturday through Dec. 17 (closed Oct. 31-Nov. 3). 334-4528 or www.baldknobbers.com.

Moe Bandy: At the Moe Bandy Theater. Shows at 8 p.m. Sunday through Friday. 334-5333, 1-888-322-6394 or www.moe bandy.com.

The Biggest Magic ... Brett Daniels & Kirby VanBurch: At the Grand Palace. Shows at 2 and/or 8 p.m. Thursday through Tuesday through Oct. 30. 336-1220, 1-800-884-4536 or www.thegrand palace.com.

Bounce, the All-American Basketball Show: At the Legends Family Theater. Shows at 12:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday through Aug. 13. 339-3003, 1-800-374-7469, www.bounceshow.com.

The Branson Follies: Starting Sept. 13 at the Follies Theatre. 335-2000.

Braschler Music Show: At Hamner Barber Theater. Shows at 3 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 8 p.m. on Sunday through Dec. 16. 334-4363 or 1-800-789-7001 or www.braschlermusicshow.com.

Breakfast with Mark Twain and Norman Rockwell: At Owen's Theatre. Shows at 10 a.m. (breakfast at 9 a.m.) Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday through Dec. 31. 336-2112, 1-800-358-4795 or www.bransonsuperstars.com.

Brett Family Singers: At the Legends Family Theater. Shows at 10 a.m. Monday-Saturday. 336-4222, www.brettfamily.com.

Broadway! The Star-Spangled Celebration: At Branson Variety Theater. Shows at 10 a.m., 2 or 8 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday through Dec. 11 (Christmas show with Jimmy Osmond starts Nov. 1). 334-2500, 1-888-462-7267 or www.bransonvarietytheater.com.

Les Brown and the Band of Renown: At the Mickey Gilley Theatre. The season resumes in Sept. 28 and runs through Dec. 11. 334-3210, 1-800-334-1936 or www.gilleys.com.

Celebrate America: At Mansion America Theater. Shows at 8 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday through Dec. 18. 239-1333, 1-866-707-4100 or www.mansionamerica.com.

Christmas Dreams: Starting Nov. 3 at the Grand Palace. Shows at 3 and 8 p.m. through Dec. 12. 336-1220, 1-800-884-4536 or www.thegrandpalace.com.

Circle B Chuckwagon Cowboy Music Show: At Circle B Chuckwagon. Shows at 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday (dinner at 5 p.m.). 336-1828, 1-800-678-6179, www.circlebchuckwagon.com.

Cirque: At the Remington Theatre. Shows at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Friday and Sunday; 2 and 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday through Dec. 11. 336-1220, 1-800-884-4536 or www.remingtontheatre.com.

Comedy Jamboree: At Grand Country Music Hall. Shows at 1 p.m. Monday through Saturday through Dec. 31 (closed Sept. 4-10). 335-2484.

Country Tonite: At the Country Tonight Theatre. Shows at 3 and 8 p.m Thursday through Tuesday through Dec. 10. 337-9333, 1-877-336-7827, www.starlite- entertainment.com.

Cowboy Church with Norma Jean: At Branson Mall Music Theatre. Shows at 10:30 a.m. Sunday. Free. 339-3939.

Dalena Ditto: At the Mickey Gilley Theatre. Shows at 10 a.m. Wednesday through Sunday through Dec. 11. 334-3210, 1-800-334-1936 or www.gilleys.com.

Dixie Stampede: At the show's namesake theater. Shows start at 5:30 and 8 p.m. daily; the season continues through Dec. 31, 337-9400, 1-800-520-5544 or www.dixiestampede.com.

Duttons: At the Dutton Family Theatre. Shows start at 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday; 2 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The season continues through Dec. 14. 332-2772, 1-888-388-8661, www.theduttons.com.

Elvis and the Superstars: At Owen's Theatre. Shows at 8 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday; and at 2 p.m. Tuesday and Saturday through Dec. 31. 336-2112, 1-800-358-4795 or www.elvis inbranson.com.

The Elvis Experience with Tony Roi: At Music City Centre. Shows at 2 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; 8 p.m. on Monday through August; the season runs through Dec. 30. 336-1600 or www.musiccitycentre.com.

Exploring Life in Heaven with Rose Martin: At the Nova Theatre. Shows at 10 a.m. Thursday and Friday. Free. 334-6806, 1-877-446-6824, www.exploringlifein heaven.com.

50s at the Hop: At the Jim Stafford Theatre. Shows at 2 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday through Saturday; 2 and 8 p.m. on Sunday through Oct. 29; the Christmas show starts Nov. 1 and the season runs through Dec. 31. 335-5300; or www.50satthehop.com.

Justin Flom: Experience Illusion: At Branson Mall Music Theatre. Shows at 5 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Friday through Dec. 9. 339-3939.

14 Karat Country Music Show: At the Wildwood Flower Theater. Shows start at 2 p.m. Monday through Friday through Dec. 11. 334-7714, 1-866-886-1414 or www.14karatcountry.com.

From Patsy to Present: At Nova Theatre. Shows at 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday through Dec. 31. 334-6806, www.patsyinbranson.net.

Doug Gabriel: At the Jim Stafford Theatre. Shows at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Thursday through Aug. 21. 335-8080, 1-800-954-8554 or www.douggabriel.com.

Doug Gabriel's Branson Spotlight show: At the Jim Stafford Theatre. Shows at 11 p.m. Friday through Oct. 21. 335-8080, 1-800-954-8554 or www.douggabriel.com or www.branson-spotlight.com.

Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers: Shows with Pam Tillis run Sept. 13 through Oct. 22; shows with the Lennon Sisters run Nov. 2 through Dec. 10. 337-7469, 1-800-734-5515 or www. sullivanshows.com.

Mickey Gilley: At his namesake theater. Shows at 8 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday through Dec. 11. 334-3210, 1-800-334-1936 or www.gilleys.com.

Grand Jubilee: At Grand Country Music Hall. Shows at 3:30 and 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday through Dec. 31 (closed Aug. 21-27). 335-2484.

Grand Old Gospel Hour: At the Grand Palace, 10 a.m. Sunday all year. Free. 337-8888 or 1-888-840-1888.

Great American Songbook: At the Follies Theatre. Shows at 8 p.m. today, 2 and 8 p.m. Aug. 13 and 2 p.m. Aug. 14; the show resumes Sept. 21. 335-2000.

Greatest Stars Series: At the Grand Palace. Concerts with the Oak Ridge Boys, Alison Krauss, George Jones, Bill Engvall, Ricky Skaggs and others. 1-800-884-4536 or www.thegrandpalace.com.

Hank and Patsy Together Again: At Owen's Theatre. Shows at 2 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday; at 8 p.m. Sunday through Dec. 30. 336-2112, 1-800-358-4795 or www.bransonsuperstars.com.

The Haygoods: At Music City Centre. Shows at 8 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday through Aug. 25; the season continues through Dec. 30. 336-1600 or www. musiccitycentre.com.

Hamner Barber Variety Show: At Hamner Barber Theater. Shows at 8 Tuesday through Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday through Dec. 11. 334-4363 or 1-888-335-2080 or www.bransonvariety.com.

Hot Lix Revue: At the Nova Theatre. Shows at 5 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday through Dec. 10. 334-6806, 1-877-446-6824.

Hot Seat game show: At Hughes Brothers Celebrity Theatre and Dinner Theatre. Shows at 12:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday through Aug. 20. 336-3688, 1-800-635-3688 or www.hughes- brothers.com.

Hughes Brothers: At Hughes Brothers Celebrity Theatre and Dinner Theatre. Shows at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday; 7:30 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday through Oct. 29. Christmas shows Nov. 1 through 17 and Dec. 29, through 31. 336-3688, 1-800-635-3688 or www.hughes-brothers.com.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat: At Mansion America Theater. Shows at 3 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday through Dec. 18. 239-1333 or 1-866-707-4100 or www.mansionamerica.com.

Tony Kenny's Ireland: Starting Oct. 11 at the Branson Mall Music Theatre. Shows at 8 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday through Nov. 25. 339-3939, 1-866-306-7469, www.tonykenny.com.

Ladies of Motown: At Owen's Theatre. Shows at noon Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday through Dec. 31. Free admission. 336-2112, 1-800-358-4795 or www.bransonsuperstars.com.

The Legacy Lives On: A tribute to Jim Reeves: At the Nova Theatre. Shows at 3 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday through November. 334-6806, 1-877-446-6824.

Legends in Concert: At the Legends Family Theater. Shows at 3 and 8 p.m. daily; the season continues through Dec. 31. 339-3003, 1-800-374-7469, www.legends branson.com.

Lit'l Nashville Opry Show: At the American Jukebox Theater. Shows at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday through Friday through Dec. 16. Admission is free for veterans. Call 334-6113.

Lost in the 50s: At the Starlite Theatre. Shows at 8 p.m. daily through Dec. 10. 337-9333, 1-877-336-7827, www.starlite- entertainment.com.

Lowe Family: At the Welk Resort Theatre. Shows at 10 a.m. today, then Sept. 1 through Dec. 15 (closed Oct. 28-29 and Nov. 25). 337-7469, 1-800-734-5515 or www.thelowefamily.com.

Magic of Taylor Reed: At Branson Mall Music Theatre. Shows at 9:30 a.m. Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday through Dec. 10. 339-3939.

Magnificent 7: At the White House Theatre. Shows 7 p.m. Monday-Friday through December. 335-2396; 1-877-487-2386.

Splinter Middleton: At the Grand Country Music Hall. Shows at 1 p.m. Monday through Saturday. 335-2484.

MoTown Downtown: At the Nova Theatre. Shows at 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday through Dec. 31. 334-6806, 1-877-446-6824, www.motowndowntown.biz.

Murder in the Ozarks (murder mystery luncheon): At the American Jukebox Theater. Shows at 11:30 a.m. Monday through Saturday through Dec. 15. 336-6100.

No. 1 Hits of the 60s: At the Musical Palace. Shows at 8 p.m. Monday-Saturday through Dec. 10. 339-1960, www.1hits ofthe60s.com.

Ozark Mountain Jubilee: At Grand Country Music Hall. Shows at 7 p.m. Sunday through Dec. 11 (closed Aug. 14). 335-2484.

Paul Harris: At Caravelle Theater. Shows at 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday; plus at 3 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday. 334-5100 or www.paulharrisshow.com.

Pierce Arrow Show: At Pierce Arrow Theater. Shows at 3 and 8 p.m. Monday-Saturday through Jan. 1. 336-8742, 1-877-687-4241; www.piercearrowtheater.com.

Gregory Popovich Comedy Pet Theatre: At Grand Country Music Hall. Shows at 10 a.m. through Sept. 10 and Dec. 24-31. 335-2484.

Peter the Adequate: At Owen's Theatre. Shows at 2 p.m. Sunday through Dec. 25. 336-2112, 1-800-358-4795 or www.branson superstars.com.

Presley's Country Jubilee: At the show's namesake theater. Shows at 8 p.m. Monday-Saturday through Dec. 10. 334-4874 or www.presleys.com.

Red, Hot & Blue!: Starting Aug. 14 at Grand Country Music Hall. 335-2484.

Rico J and the Hot Hit Show: At the Wildwood Flower Theater. Shows start at 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday through Dec. 16. 337-7426.

Joey Riley Comedy and Music Revue: At Branson Mall Music Theatre. Shows at 2 p.m. Monday and Wednesday through Saturday through Dec. 17. 339-3939.

Roy "Dusty" Rogers Jr. and the Highriders: At Happy Trails Theater in the Roy Rogers Dale Evans Museum. Shows at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday through December. 339-1925 or www.royrogers.com.

Shepherd of the Hills: At the Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Theatre. Shows at 8:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday. 334-4191, 1-800-653-6288; www.theshepherd ofthehills.com.

Showboat Branson Belle: Cruises on Table Rock Lake depart daily from White River Landing. Call 1-800-775-2628 or visit www.silverdollarcity.com.

Showcase Jubilee: At the White House Theatre. Shows at 7 p.m. Saturday through December. 335-2396; 1-877-487-2386.

Siegfried & Roy Present Darren Romeo: At the Welk Resort Theatre. Shows continue through Dec. 10. 337-7469, 1-800-734-5515 or www.sullivanshows.com.

Red Skelton, a Performance Tribute by Tom Mullica: At Music City Centre. Shows at 5 p.m. Sunday through Friday through August; the season continues through Dec. 31. 336-1600 or www.musiccitycentre.com.

Yakov Smirnoff: At his namesake theater. Shows at 8 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday through August; the season continues through Dec. 8. 1-800-336-6542 or www.yakov.com.

Spirit of the Dance: At Branson Variety Theater. Shows at 2 or 8 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday through Oct. 26. 334-2500, 1-888-462-7267 or www.branson varietytheater.com.

Jim Stafford: At his namesake theater. Shows mostly at 7:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday through Dec. 14, then reopening on Dec. 26. 335-8080, www.jimstafford.com.

StarMania: At Branson Mall Music Theatre. Shows at 11:15 a.m. Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday through Dec. 10. 339-3939.

Ray Stevens: At his namesake theater. Shows resuming Sept. 12. 335-3000.

Stuck on the 70s: At the Starlite Theatre. Shows at 3 p.m daily through Oct. 22. 337-9333, 1-877-336-7827, www. starlite-entertainment.com.

Sunday Gospel Jubilee: At Grand Country Music Hall, shows at 2 p.m. Sunday through Dec. 11. 335-2484.

Shoji Tabuchi: At his theater. 334-7469, 334-7401 (groups) or www.shoji.com.

Tall Timber Lumberjack Dinner Show: At Tall Timber Theatre. Shows at 5:30 p.m. daily through Aug. 13; the season continues through Oct. 31. 338-2957, 1-866-338-2957 or www.talltimbershows.com.

Tatiana: At the American Jukebox Theater. Shows at 7:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday through Dec. 15. 336-6100.

John Tweed: At the Moe Bandy Theater. Shows at 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday through Dec. 10. 334-5333.

Two Fluffy Women: At Owen's Theatre. Shows at 5 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday; at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday through Dec. 30. 336-2112, 1-800-358-4795 or www. bransonsuperstars.com.

Bobby Vinton: Nov. 1 through Dec. 9 at Branson Variety Theater. Shows at 2 or 8 p.m. Sunday through Friday. 334-2500, 1-888-462-7267 or www.bransonvariety theater.com.

John Wayne Story: At the Wildwood Flower Theater. Shows start at 10 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday through Dec. 17. 334-9996.

John Wayne with America's Yodeling Sweetheart: At the Nova Theatre. Shows at 2 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. 334-6806, 1-877-446-6824, www.john wayneshow.com.

Andy Williams and Petula Clark: At Williams' Moon River Theatre. Shows Sept. 9 through Oct. 26. Christmas shows (Williams only) are Nov. 1-Dec. 11. 334-4500, 1-800-666-6094.

Gene Williams Country Music Television Show: At the Wildwood Flower Theater. 2 p.m. Aug. 21; Sept. 11; Oct. 2, 23; Nov. 13; Dec. 4, 23. Free. Call 332-0167.

World Famous Platters: At the Starlite Theatre. Shows at 10 a.m. Monday-Saturday through Dec. 10. 337-9333, 1-877-336-7827, www.starlite-entertainment.com.

Yearys Music Show: At the Musical Palace. Shows at 3 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday through Dec. 11. 339-1960 or visit www.sweetheartsofbranson.com.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Branson Jubilee musical special coming to PBS

2005-08-12T20:05:00.000-07:00

'Branson Jubilee' musical special coming to PBS

Want to watch?
Branson Jubilee, a two-hour music special, will air on Ozarks Public Television at 5 p.m. and midnight Saturday. For more details, visit www.bransonjubilee.tv.

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• 'Companion' tells about all things bathroom

• Play days at the fair

• Newly designed nickel expected to be hit with coin collectors

• Directing the Ozark Empire Fair

• Film will focus on Christ's childhood

Kathryn Buckstaff
News-Leader

BRANSON — A two-hour music special taped in Branson will air twice on Ozarks Public Television on Saturday. Locally and nationally known entertainers will be featured.
Over the next two months, "Branson Jubilee" will be shown in more than 100 television markets in 29 states including New York, Florida and California. The exposure is expected to bring new visitors to Branson and could lead to a weekly variety series, said Debra Moreno-Lowther, who produced the show with her husband, Springfield attorney Jerry Lowther.

This project has been the focus of Moreno-Lowther's efforts for more than two years. About 500 hours of entertainment has been taped and 10 shows are completed with more editing to come, Moreno-Lowther said.

That PBS is airing the program indicates television is ready for a wholesome, family-oriented variety show, she said.

"After 9/11, people started realizing we need a little kinder, gentler programming," she said.

Moreno-Lowther has a long resume of performance onstage and in films and television. She came to Branson in the mid-1990s to perform in "Blondes, Blondes, Blondes," a show she wrote and produced in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

She's also known for her support of veterans and has co-produced and performed on Tony Orlando's Yellow Ribbon Salute to Veterans for several years.

The special hosted by Jimmy Osmond includes performances by Mickey Gilley, Ray Stevens, Jim Stafford, Tony Orlando, Doug Kershaw, Les Brown Jr., Glen Campbell, Crystal Gayle, Restless Heart and Jake Simpson. It was produced by the Lowthers' Branson Entertainment LLC, Bel Air Productions in Los Angeles and WLIW-TV in New York.

"Branson Jubilee" also will showcase the area's diverse attractions, she said.

"It's about the region, the beauty of the Ozarks," she said.

And the show's Web site offers vendors a chance to market Branson-related products.

Arlen Diamond, general manager of Ozarks Public Television, said "Branson Jubilee" is among shows being offered by PBS to its stations during the current membership drive.

"She pulled together a lot of performers who appeal to the segment of the public TV audience age 50 and up," Diamond said. That demographic also is among public television's most generous supporters, he said.

In some markets, "the Branson name may not be the draw, but the performers are universal. If you like Glen Campbell, it doesn't matter where you live," Diamond said. PBS stations also may use a DVD of the show as a thank-you gift for those who pledge.

If the show pulls in pledges, it could lead to a series, Diamond said.

"They're testing the waters," he said. "It's a good-looking show."

"Branson Jubilee" could become a "big deal" for Branson, said Ross Summers, director of the Branson/Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce.

"It will introduce people to what we have to offer," Summers said. "The quality of the production is outstanding, and the talent is very good."

Branson Poised for Summer Cruise

2005-08-12T20:03:00.000-07:00

Branson poised for 'Super Summer Cruise'

CHANDRA HUSTON
Bulletin Staff Writer
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo by Kurt L. Moore

Hundreds of classic cars and trucks will be on display at the Shepherd's Super Summer Cruise today through Sunday in Branson, Mo. The four-day event features a daily show and shine, Saturday midnight cruise down Shepherd of the Hills Expressway and a new elimination burn-out competition at the Remington Theater parking lot.
Shepherd's Super Summer Cruise Schedule

Today

8 a.m.-5 p.m. — Vehicle registration

8 a.m.-5 p.m. — Vehicle show and shine at The Shepherd of the Hills

10 a.m.-5 p.m. — Entertainment, DJ, and music

8 p.m. — Kick-off and welcome at The Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Theatre

8:30 p.m. — Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Drama performance

(All Thursday registered guests get in free)

Friday

7 a.m.-5 p.m. — Vehicle registration

8 a.m.-5 p.m. — Vehicle show and shine at The Shepherd of the Hills

10 a.m. — Judging begins and continues throughout the day

10 a.m. -noon — "Enos Strate" from the "Dukes of Hazzard" personal appearance with the General Lee, Hazzard patrol car and Cooter's Tow Truck

10 a.m.-5 p.m. — Entertainment, DJ, music and games hosted by Street Machines of Table Rock Lake, Host Car Club Members

8:30 p.m. — Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Theatre production

10:30 p.m. — Preliminary round of the new Ozarks Tire Fryer Elimination Burn-out Competition at the Remington Theatre

Saturday

7 a.m.-noon — Vehicle registration

8 a.m.-5 p.m. — Vehicle show and shine at Shepherd of the Hills

9 a.m.-1 p.m. — Judging is concluded for the event

10 a.m.-noon — "Enos Strate" from the "Dukes of Hazzard" personal appearance with the General Lee, Hazzard patrol car and Cooter's Tow Truck

10 a.m.-5 p.m. — Entertainment, DJ, music and games hosted by Street Machines of Table Rock Lake, Host Car Club Members

1 p.m.-4 p.m. — "Enos Strate" from the "Dukes of Hazzard" personal appearance with the General Lee, Hazzard patrol car and Cooter's Tow Truck

4 p.m. — Best of Show presentation, Pavilion Theatre at The Shepherd of the Hills

8:30 p.m. — The Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Theatre production

10:30 p.m. — Finals of the new Ozark's Tire Fryer Elimination Burn-out Competition at the Remington Theatre

Midnight — The Shepherd's Super Summer Cruise

Sunday

10 a.m. — Church service in the Pavilion Theatre, open to the public.

BRANSON, Mo. — The tourist town of Branson is well known for its traffic jams. Today through Sunday will be no exception, but it will be a fun traffic jam.

An annual car show and cruise featuring the oldest and the latest in automobiles will invade the town beginning today and continuing throughout the weekend.

Shepherd of the Hills gets in on the automotive action with its annual Shepherd's Super Summer Cruise. The four-day festival is famous for its show and shine and midnight cruise down Shepherd of the Hills Expressway.

This year's cruise takes place Saturday night instead of Friday. The cruise will begin on Highway 76 from Gretna Road and then down Shepherd of the Hills Expressway.

Also new this year is the elimination burn-out competition at the Remington Theater parking lot. The preliminaries will be Friday at 10:30 p.m. with the finals Saturday at 10:30 p.m.

Shepherd's Super Summer Cruise draws thousands of visitors to the old homestead, where Harold Bell Wright wrote his book "The Shepherd of the Hills," to take a gander at hundreds of classic cars, trucks, roadsters, jeeps, kit cars and unique creations.

Shepherd of the Hills officials promise this year there will be more cars, more music, more entertainment and more vendors.

Ticket prices for Shepherd's Super Summer Cruise are:

Today — $10

Friday — $12

Saturday — $14.

A three-day pass is $30, and a two-day pass is $20. Tire Fryer admission is one night for $10 and two nights for $15.

Exhibitor and cruise registration is $25 in advance and $30 at the gate. The fees includes event T-shirt for the first 500 cars, dash plaques for all registered cars on the park, midnight cruise, cash awards, trophies and plaques.

Tire Fryer burn-out competition fees are $25 advance and $30 at the gate. A combination registration for the cruise and burn-out is $40 advance and $50 at the gate.

Another car show, Cruisin' Branson Lights, is usually held at the same time as the Shepherd's Super Summer Cruise, but the event has been pushed back to Aug. 25-28 at the Ramada Inn grounds.

chuston@baxterbulletin.com

Jail Tax

2005-08-12T19:57:00.000-07:00

Jail tax in the works

By Cliff Sain
BDN Staff Writer
The Taney County Commission agreed Monday to ask voters to approve an eighth-cent sales tax in November to help with operating costs of a new jail.

According to Taney County Presiding Commissioner Chuck Pennel, the commission decided to hire an attorney to draft the ballot language. He said it's necessary for the county to be able to operate the jail, which will be part of a new judicial facility that will be under construction early next year.

He said the county could likely pay the $25 million price tag of the facility, but not day-to-day operations.

"We figured it will take $1 million additional income annually," Pennel said.

The judicial facility will be located downtown near the current courthouse and jail.

The new jail will have 238 beds. Pennel said if it opened today, Taney County could fill approximately 120 to 130 of them. Currently, the county pays to house many of its prisoners in other counties.

Ballot issues for November need to be registered with the county clerk by Aug. 23. If the commission misses that date, its next opportunity to place the jail tax on the ballot would be in February. Pennel said he did not want to wait that long because the commission plans to award a construction contract in January or February.

If the tax makes it on the November ballot, it will share the ballot in much of Taney County with a one-cent tourism tax. Pennel attended a meeting of the Branson/Lakes Area Tourism Community Enhancement District's board of directors to inform them himself Monday of the county's jail tax plans.

"I know it's not what you guys want to hear," Pennel said. "It's a necessity. We need a jail."

The tourism tax would affect a district that primarily includes Branson and State Park Marina in Taney County. It also includes Indian Point Village and Silver Dollar City in Stone County. Only residents within the district can vote on it. If approved, it will raise an additional $6 million a year to promote tourism.

Pennel told the tourism tax board the commission is considering placing yet another issue on the November ballot to establish zoning codes for the county. Branson/Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Ross Summers insisted the county at least hold off on that issue.

"You'll bring out every naysayer in the county," Summers said. "You'll kill both issues."

Time Shares Fuel Branson Construction Boom

2005-08-12T19:28:00.000-07:00

Time shares fuel Branson construction boom

During 2003, they generated $430 million in sales and 6,565 jobs.

A member service representative, Jason Conner (right), explains a package plan to Greg Howard and his wife Pam of Naples, Fla., Wednesday afternoon at Fairfield Bay Resort in Branson.

NOPPADOL PAOTHONG / NEWS-LEADER

Time share facts

Statistics for time-share resorts from the American Resort Development Association:

# More than 5,425 resorts worldwide

# 1,590 in the U.S.

# Most resorts: Florida, South Carolina, California

# Average one-time price in U.S. to reserve a week a year for life: $14,500

# Average maintenance fee in U.S.: $385 per week of annual use

# Time-share owners pay property tax, more than $249 million in the U.S.

# Median age of owner: 54

# Median household income: $85,000

# Attended college: 46 percent

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• Road crews keeping busy

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• Branson D.A.R.E. officer receives top state honors

• DNR: Tug's spill poses minimal environmental threat

• Veteran event planned for 2006

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• Liberty Tree recycled for Branson eatery

• Area anti-drug forces to get grants

Kathryn Buckstaff
News-Leader

BRANSON — Locals call it "Time-share Valley."

Hundreds of multistory condominiums inhabit both sides of a mile of Wildwood Drive in the heart of Branson. Until 1994, it was a rocky glade dotted with cedars.

Thousand Hills Golf Resort runs through the center of the valley. It opened in 1995 when, as developer John Redford recalls, Andy Williams hit the first golf ball.

Because of sound land management practices, the course teems with water features, native grasses, wildflowers and trees that give sanctuary to deer, wild turkey and quail.

Time-share companies, which sell time at a resort on an annual basis, soon discovered the location, and a boom was born.

Over 10 years, the time-share industry has become a significant economic generator for the town, and there's no end in sight, say time-share industry experts.

Twenty-three time-share resorts in several locations now call Branson home. For the first six months of this year, the construction value of new condominiums was $13.5 million, 20 percent of total construction value, said city spokesman Jerry Adams.

Plus, the time-share industry now brings in about 12 percent of the estimated 7 million tourists each year, said Ross Summers, director of the Branson/Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce. Many are coveted first-time visitors to the area.

"It's a pretty big rock in our pond here," Summers said.

They boost local revenue through direct purchases of hotel rooms and attraction tickets to offer as sales tour incentives. And they create thousands of jobs for resort and construction workers. In 2003, Branson time-shares contributed $430 million in sales and 6,565 jobs, a survey by the American Resort Development Association found.

"I think time-share has made a major contribution to this town," Redford said. "The economics of time-share has been phenomenal."

HAPPY CAMPERS

Fairfield Resorts Inc. opened one of the country's first time-share resorts in 1966 in Fairfield Bay, Ark. In 1993, Fairfield built its first Branson resort. Fairfield now has a total of 438 condos at three resorts: the Falls, the Meadows and Mountain Vista, said communications director Jim Cohn. Fairfield employs 371 people.

As part of its sales tours, Fairfield this year will buy 161,000 nights at area hotels and about 40,000 attraction tickets, said John McIntosh, regional vice president of sales for Fairfield.

"The theaters are in huge demand," McIntosh said. "People are really interested in them, and we have a lot of repeat guests."

This year, an estimated 28,679 owners and their guests will stay at the resort. Time-share parties spend an average of $1,795 per week in Branson, according to a study by the American Resort Development Association in Washington, D.C.

Lewis Ann Thomas — "named after my father" — and her husband, Emmett Thomas, of Clarksville, Ark., bought into Fairfield in Kissimmee, Fla., 10 years ago. They've traveled to resorts in Pigeon Forge and Nashville, Tenn., but Branson's Fairfield has become the site for Thomas family reunions.

This week was their second trip to Branson in less than a month, said Emmett Thomas, 63, retired after 26 years as a deputy sheriff.

"We come and bring his folks with us and meet other relatives here," she said. "We have Christmas dinner up here all together."

He said time-share is a good way to vacation.

"We just really highly recommend it for people that just love to go and get out and be with people," he said. "It's the greatest thing for the money we know of."

FEWER COMPLAINTS

In the early years of the time-share industry, there were problems. Greg Howard of Naples, Fla., looked into time-share 25 years ago.

"It was a pretty high pressure," Howard said. "Get the sales at whatever cost."

In 2004, they bought time at Fairfield Resorts, and made their second visit to Branson last week.

"We just haven't found that at all with Fairfield," he said.

Several factors changed the time-share industry. One was legislation making companies more accountable. In Missouri, complaints about time-share sales continue to decline, said Jim Gardner, spokesman for Attorney General Jay Nixon.

From 2001 to 2002, they logged 671 complaints statewide. In 2003 to 2004, that dropped to 356, Gardner said.

"Certainly, consumer-protection issues have been a high priority for Mr. Nixon, and the consumer complaint unit has worked hard and aggressively on any violations," Gardner said.

Another change was the entry of established corporations such as Marriott International Inc., raising the level of product and service. Horizons by Marriott Vacation Club International opened in Branson in November 2001. It has 88 units now, and plans to expand over the next few years to 414 units, said sales manager Rick Renda.

Customer demand also created change.

Most time-shares now offer more flexible packages than the old way of selling time by the week. Now, they sell points. Points can be spent in a variety of ways. Busy families often would rather take a weekend trip, and save some of their points for the next trip, Cohn said. The points also may be deeded to survivors as a legacy, often an incentive for families to buy, he said.

Pam and Greg Howard put their Fairfield points to work. Through partnerships Fairfield provides, they are redeeming points for airfare and a hotel when they go to British Columbia in September where their oldest son is getting married.

"It's just not as restrictive as it used to be," Pam Howard said.

NO END IN SIGHT

Bluegreen Vacation Club based in Boca Raton, Fla., is adding units to its two Branson area resorts. Three buildings with 29 units will be added to the Fall Village. And just south of Branson in Ridgedale, 64 units and 11 cabins will be added this year to the Wilderness Club time-share at Big Cedar Lodge.

Fairfield also continues to grow, although not in Branson at this time, Cohn said.

Bonnet Creek Resort in Orlando, Fla., near Disney World opened last year with plans to build 1,500 units. Some 4,000 people have already bought time in the resort, Cohn said.

There is growing demand for more than a hotel room, Cohn said. In a condo, there can be multiple bedrooms, a kitchen, living room and more.

Cohn's family recently vacationed at Fairfield Ocean Walk Resort in Daytona Beach, Fla. His children are ages 7 months and 3 years.

"I can't imagine not having a washer and dryer," Cohn said.

"Act of God' breaks Branson Show Mold

2005-08-12T19:25:00.000-07:00

'Act of God' Breaks Branson Show Mold
BRANSON, MO, (NAMC) - "Act of God" is a live production currently being performed at the Musical Palace in Branson and consists of great music and story telling, but what's unique about this new Branson show is it breaks every traditional Branson mold.

One of the first things this 100 percent God-centered show does is pay tribute to our nation's veterans, but it doesn't do so in the typical Branson tradition which for years has been by asking veterans in attendance to stand.

After speaking with veterans, they confirmed my feeling that this practice was uncomfortable for them too. It's true that a tree doesn't eat of its own fruit, and likewise, these men and women didn't serve to glorify themselves but to preserve a godly heritage for their children's children. "Act of God" insightfully pays tribute by exorcizing one of the essential freedoms that our soldiers fought, sacrificed and died for, the freedom to pray. Thankfulness is quickly established with a simple prayer devoted to our country's soldiers and leaders while at the same time glory is given to God where it belongs.

At the end of the production the cast walks out in front of the closing curtain to greet the audience. What's different is these cast members model their behavior after the Apostle John's encounter with the angel in the book of Revelation where he kept bowing, forcing the angel to remind him that it was inappropriate for him to bow to an angel because angels were merely humble servants like him. If you ask one of the cast members for their autograph don't be surprised if they pull out their own autograph book and ask you for yours. If that's how "Act of God" begins and ends, imagine what happens in between. With ten original songs and four “Carol Burnett Style” skits all derived from the Lord's Prayer, it will be an unforgettable experience you may just have to see to believe.

The "Act of God" pricing: Standard adult rate is $19 (tax included). Children 12 and under accompanied by a parent are free. Family pass is $39. Groups of 10 or more are $13. Youth groups are $5 per child until Aug. 28, 2005. From Sept. 3 through Dec. 10, 2005 youth groups will be 50 percent off standard $19 rate.

"Act of God" schedule: From July 12 through Aug. 28 performances will be Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday & Sunday. From Sept. 2 through Dec. 10 performances will be Tuesday through Sunday. All shows at 10 a.m.

"Act of God" is currently being performed at the Musical Palace located at 2353 W. Hwy. 248 in Branson, MO at 10 a.m. For more information contact "Act of God" on line at www.actofgodbranson.com or phone (417) 339-1960.

Contact:
John Lindsay
ACT OF GOD
586-615-4242

Water Demand High in Branson - Cliff Sain

2005-08-12T19:23:00.000-07:00

Water demand high in Branson
By Cliff Sain
BDN Staff Writer

The city of Branson says it recently had two days of water usage among the three highest in history.

On July 23, the city's two water plants and the city's wells produced 6.19 million gallons of water, the second highest day in city history. On July 31, the city produced 6.05 million gallons, the third highest. The highest was 6.2 million on Aug. 17, 2003, according to the city.

Most of the city's water comes from Lake Taneycomo, but during busy times, its wells act as a supplement.

"We run the wells during peak times, usually on weekends and usually between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.," said public works division head Mike Ray.

City officials say they have been able to provide plenty of water, despite a dry summer. The city performs weekly echo-soundings of each city well, and those tests indicate the water levels are in good shape and not fluctuating.

"Lake Taneycomo provides Branson with a more long-term, dependable source of water than dependence on wells," Public Works Director Larry VanGilder said. "When demand for water is high, like it was during the two peak days in July, city wells supplement that water supply. If demand were to continue at that level and drought conditions persisted, the wells would have to run day and night to keep up, causing wear and tear on the pumps and lowering the water table."

Officials said the city can produce more than 10 million gallons of water per day.

However, just because there is plenty of water, that's not a reason to waste it. City Environmental Specialist Debbie Redford recommended that residents avoid watering during the middle of the day, and to check for water drips and leaks. Even turning off the water while brushing your teeth or shave can save five gallons of water each time you stand at the sink, Redford said.

Branson Strikes at Virus - BDN

2005-08-12T19:12:00.000-07:00

Branson strikes at virus

Jeff McRoy, with the Branson Health Department, sprays pesticides along a treeline Thursday at Branson Lakeside RV Park along Lake Taneycomo in an effort to rid the area of mosquitoes following positive test results for West Nile virus. The city will continue to spray public areas, including city parks, later this month. BDN photo by Krystal J. Carman
By Krystal J. Carman
BDN Staff Writer

Following the announcement of the presence of West Nile virus in Taney County, the city of Branson has begun spraying for mosquitoes.

On Thursday, Branson Health Department officials chose two locations - Branson's city campground on Lake Taneycomo, and Sunset Park - to spray insecticides to eliminate mosquitoes that could be carrying the virus. Earlier this month, the county received word that 12 pools of mosquitoes out of approximately 100 tested positive for the virus.

Although the city will continue to spray at the city campground and city parks, officials say it is up to residents to eliminate breeding conditions.

"We can spray and kill the mosquitoes there are now, but that's not going to take care of all of them," said Jeff McRoy, with the Branson Health Department, which is spearheading the effort. "You have to get rid of places where they can breed. In standing water, brush, anywhere they can breed."

To guard against infected mosquitoes, health officials suggest wearing long-sleeved shirts and pants when outdoors at dawn and dusk; wearing insect repellent that contains DEET, picaridin or oil of lemon eucalyptus; and reducing mosquito breeding sites by removing weeds, trash and places that hold standing water.

McRoy said he did not know whether the city plans to spray along city streets in the future, but did say the spraying of public areas would begin later this month.

With the discovery of the virus in Taney County for the second year in a row, Taney County Health Department officials say the public is at a higher risk of catching the virus.

In October of last year, mosquitoes from a neighborhood in north Branson along Lake Taneycomo tested positive for the virus. Taney County is one of 16 counties in Missouri that have tested positive for West Nile virus in mosquitoes.

The infected mosquitoes were trapped over the past few months by Branson Health Department officials, with each pool containing between 5 and 50 mosquitoes. Another 100 pools of mosquitoes were recently sent to the state for West Nile testing. West Nile Virus is an infectious disease that arrived in the United States in 1999.

Brumley to Perform in Branson - SNL

2005-08-12T19:05:00.000-07:00

Al Brumley and an all-star band will perform two shows Thursday in Branson.

NEWS-LEADER FILE PHOTO

Want to go?
What: Stroll Down Memory Lane with Al Brumley Jr.

When: 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Thursday

Where: Tri-Lakes Center, 2527 Missouri 248 in Branson

Cost: Tickets are $5

Call: 336-0219

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• Fluffy proves to be friend to birds

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• Godly Play workshop offered

• Live it up in August

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• Smart UPN series 'Veronica Mars' shows up on CBS

• Murphy goes bareback for Jordache ads

By Michael A. Brothers
News-Leader

Al Brumley Jr. wants to take audiences on a journey down memory lane next week, but it won't necessarily be a straight path.
The two shows Brumley and an all-star backing band will perform Thursday at the Tri-Lakes Center in Branson will feature pop songs, country songs and gospel songs. It will have pop vocal elements with Brumley and Detroit native Debbie Brady singing, and it will have plenty of swing with members of the Les Brown Band of Renown backing them up.

"We're really shooting for '40s, '50s, '60s type of music," says Brumley. "Music like 'Sittin' On Top of the World' and 'Sleepwalk.'"

Both concerts will be captured on video for possible use on PBS television stations around the country during pledge drives and on cable television, though no deals have been inked yet.

"In a way it's a pilot," Brumley says.

Brumley is best known as a gospel singer, and his father, Albert E. Brumley, is famous for the more than 900 gospel songs he composed in his lifetime, including classics like "I'll Fly Away." His brother Tom, who also will perform on the show, is a member of the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame and has played onstage and in the studio for Buck Owens, Dwight Yoakam and many others.

"It's a lot of the old pop standards and a lot of dad's songs," Tom Brumley says. "I think that will appeal well to the people who come to Branson."

Al Brumley Jr.'s most recent recording project is a collection of standard and original pop songs backed by a big band.

In addition to players from the Brown Band, members of the Lawrence Welk Band and a handful of string players from the Springfield Symphony will flesh out the sound at the Branson performance.

"It's dynamite," Brumley says. "It's a good, full sound."

Brumley says he wanted to keep the ticket price low at $5 to get as many people as possible into the massive 2,700 seat Tri-Lakes Center, formerly the Mel Tillis Theater. A good audience makes for a better television product, and Brumley is hopeful the program will be able to help PBS stations.

"That's the whole thing — for the pledges," he says

P&Z puts off decision about commercial development BDN

2005-08-12T18:55:00.000-07:00

P&Z puts off decision about commercial development

By Cliff Sain
BDN Staff Writer
The Branson Planning & Zoning Commission decided this week to table a decision about a hotly contested commercial subdivision.

Wehr Industrial Center Developments, LLC, had requested the approval of a preliminary application for a group of commercial lots along Missouri 248 and James F. Epps Road. However, several residents of adjacent subdivision Branson North objected.

"I have concerns about compatibility with Branson North," said Branson North resident Eric Farris. "Branson North is a special area. It's a unique and treasured subdivision."

According to Planning Director Don Stephens, the development would include approximately 20 lots for commercial use along 248 and a second road that would run from Epps Road west, to 248 east, approximately 400 feet from the entrance into Branson North.

Jim Rader, who spoke on behalf of the developer, said he anticipates the development will bring another medical building to 248, which has seen several similar facilities spring up in the last couple of years. He said the developer is also looking at a financial institution and "maybe a restaurant."

"I see nice stuff - upper-end stuff," Rader said. "They'll have to be (upper end) to be able to afford it. (Missouri 248) is going to be a main corridor."

Much of the commission's concern with the development had to do with traffic. With an entrance several hundred feet from Branson North's entrance, there were safety concerns. In addition, the entrance from Epps Road raised concerns because of the amount of school traffic from the Branson School District's Cedar Ridge campus.

Rader said the eastern entrance could be eliminated from the plan, but he was less concerned with the Epps traffic because he said school traffic is congested for only 20 minutes, twice a day and will be reduced when the district moves the fifth- and sixth-grade students to a new building next year.

In other business, the P&Z Commission:

€Approved language for an ordinance regulating when and how search lights can be used at a business. The ordinance now has to be approved by the city aldermen.

€Approved language for an ordinance to regulate the brightness of computerized message boards. It also needs aldermen approval.

€Denied a request to change zoning of property along Hugo Drive from single family to apartments.

Restaurateur to introduce Montana Mike's to Branson

2005-08-12T18:54:00.000-07:00

Jennifer M. Phelps
News-Leader

With live shows, outlet shopping and Silver Dollar City, there are plenty of reasons to load up the minivan and head to Branson.
By the end of the year, Paul Rasmussen hopes people add a visit to Montana Mike's Steakhouse to their to-do list.

Rasmussen, president of ITEC Attractions, will introduce the casual dining restaurant to the tourist destination in November. ITEC owns Branson's IMAX Entertainment Complex.

He discovered Montana Mike's during a road trip through Kansas in January.

"I was really impressed by the quality of food and menu prices," he said.

That led him to stop at another Montana Mike's on the way home later that week. There he decided the restaurant's rustic, hunting lodge theme — mounted deer heads adorn the walls — would fit Branson's "down-home country atmosphere."

He learned about franchise opportunities and found a location. Renovations began last week on a vacant Country Kitchen at the intersection of Missouri 76 and Gretna Road, next to the new Titanic museum and the Best Western Centre Pointe Inn.

"It's soon to be Branson's hottest corner," Rasmussen said.

When Montana Mike's is complete, Country Kitchen's old gray-and-pink exterior will be dark green, trimmed with logs and topped with corrugated sheet metal.

The 8,000-square-foot restaurant will seat 235. The menu will feature steaks, grilled chicken, seafood, pastas, salads, soups and appetizers, like onion rings breaded fresh to order. There's a children's menu, too.

Rasmussen says his beef will be aged 28 days prior to being served, creating a more tender piece, and will be cut by an in-house butcher.

A date for the grand opening has not been set.

Mark Scholler, director of operations for Montana Mike's, said there's a lot riding on this venture.

Based on the success of the Branson location, another eight to 10 restaurants could open in the Midwest by the end of 2006.

Branson Bucks Building Trend

2005-08-12T18:52:00.000-07:00

Branson bucks building trend

By Cliff Sain
& The Associated Press
Branson continues to enjoy a surge in construction spending while, nationally, builders are cutting back.

According to city officials, Branson issued permits for more $8.3 million in construction in July, continuing on a pace that will make 2005 one of the city's highest ever. Among the significant permits issued in July include that of Target, the first permit issued for Branson Plaza, a large retail project located on Branson Hills Parkway. The city is currently reviewing plans for a Home Depot on the site, but no building permit has been issued.

''We're seeing a nice diversity of new businesses,'' City Communications Director Jerry Adams said.

The Target building is valued at $4 million, according to the city, and is expected to open in spring 2006. For the year, the city has permitted $67.6 million worth of new construction, putting it close to last year's entire total of $76.5 million and already surpassing 2003's total of $61.4 million. Branson's biggest year for construction came in 1993 at $119.5 million.

At a national level, builders, showing some restraint, trimmed spending on construction projects around the country in June, marking the fourth consecutive monthly cutback.

The latest snapshot of construction activity released by the Commerce Department showed that builders have been paring spending each month after the value of all construction projects surged to an all-time high of $1.13 trillion, on an annualized basis, in February.

Spending on all construction projects dipped by 0.3 percent in June from the previous month. Even with the decline, though, the value of all projects was still at a healthy level of $1.1 trillion, at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate.

The drop took analysts by surprise. Before the release of the report, they were predicting construction spending would rise by 0.5 percent.

''The biggest worry is material costs, plus widespread tight supplies of cement,'' said Ken Simonson, chief economist for Associated General Contractors of America. ''Although recent numbers have been a bit sluggish, there are plenty of indicators that activity will gain momentum in the second half of 2005 and beyond.''

In June, spending cutbacks were mixed. Spending by private builders on residential projects declined, as did their spending on factories, hotels and motels and power plants. Spending by private builders on office buildings and transportation facilities increased.

Major projects permitted in Branson in July, other than Target, include Branson Regional Eye Center, located on James F. Epps Road and valued at just under $1.2 million; and a new parking lot for the Branson School District bus barn on Bee Creek Road, valued at $165,000.

''The medical field continues to grow in Branson,'' Adams said. ''There's also more shopping, which is an activity (tourists) can do during down times.''

The government trimmed overall spending on construction in June. Cuts in spending on power plants, highways and streets, schools and health-care facilities swamped spending increases on offices, transportation projects and public safety facilities.

Even with the moderation in overall construction activity over the last three months, the economy grew by an energetic 3.4 percent in the April-to-June quarter, the government reported last week. Analysts believe the economy will perform even better in the current quarter if businesses rebuild inventories of supplies.

With economic growth solid, Federal Reserve policy-makers are focusing on making sure inflation doesn't become a problem to the recovery. The Fed is widely expected to boost interest rates by another quarter-point when it meets next week. That would mark the 10th interest increase of that size since the Fed began to tighten credit in June 2004.

Although builders are keeping a watchful eye on the supply of new residential projects, sales of both new and previously owned homes soared to record highs in June.

''Private residential construction is likely to shrink gradually over the next year. But there isn't likely to be a crash,'' Simonson said. ''Long-term interest rates are still remarkably low and builders remain optimistic, with large backlogs of unused permits.''

Greenspan has expressed concern about ''speculative fervor'' in the booming housing market, which in some local market may have propelled house prices to ''unsustainable levels.'' If prices were to drop or if interest rates were to suddenly shoot up, some home buyers and lenders could find themselves in a bad financial situation, the Fed chief has warned.

Gay couples mark first anniversary of Missouri marriage ban

2005-08-12T18:40:00.000-07:00

|| News ||

August 05, 2005

Gay couples mark first anniversary of Missouri marriage ban

Erick Semenske and Tim Coleman joined hands Wednesday, then walked into a St. Louis City Hall office and asked for a marriage license. A clerk politely directed them to another office where they could register as domestic partners, and Recorder of Deeds Sharon Carpenter then met Semenske, 25, and Coleman, 35, in the hallway and explained why the marriage license couldn't be issued. "It's the law," Carpenter said. "We must follow it."

Their request was intended as a peaceful protest of a Missouri constitutional amendment passed one year ago. The St. Louis couple and several other gay and lesbian couples across the state planned to apply for marriage licenses on the anniversary of the passage of Amendment 2, which defines marriage in Missouri as being the union of a man and a woman. The two said they were simply seeking the same rights as a married heterosexual couple and hope Missouri will one day recognize same-sex marriages and allow them custody, inheritance, medical, and other rights.

At an afternoon rally, only a handful of supporters turned out. Meanwhile, one gay organization opposed the action, feeling it could harm other efforts for gay rights. "In our opinion, it's gong to do nothing but drive resentment and hate toward the gay and lesbian community," said Charles Stadtlander, president of the St. Louis chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans, a national gay political group. (AP)

Missouri Routes Calls to Montana

2005-08-12T18:39:00.000-07:00

Posted on Thu, Aug. 04, 2005

Missouri mistakenly directs Medicaid calls to Montana

DAVID A. LIEB

Associated Press

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - The Missouri Department of Social Services acknowledged Thursday that a typographical error in a letter informing 339,000 Medicaid recipients of impending cuts wrongly listed a Montana woman's toll-free number as the state help line for hearing or speech impaired people.

The letters mailed Monday already have resulted in hundreds of calls to Sharon Rivera, who lives in Columbia Falls, Mont. - more than 1,200 miles northwest of Missouri's capital - and books concerts for an American Indian folk singer.

Many of the callers are older - some are weeping, others cursing - and don't understand when she tries to explain the mistake, Rivera said. So instead of hanging up on them, she has been listening.

"This has been a nightmare for me. It swallows a huge amount of my time. My phone rings constantly," Rivera said in a telephone interview. "And I honestly am feeling very, very sad for the people who call. My heart aches for them, and of course, there's simply nothing that I can personally do."

The state plans to reimburse Rivera for the phone calls. And officials in the Division of Medical Service plan to decide Friday how notify Medicaid recipients of the mistake, said department spokeswoman Deborah Scott. One possible way: another round of letters, which cost the state about $80,000 the first time, Scott said.

At the urging of Republican Gov. Matt Blunt, the GOP-led Legislature this year eliminated Medicaid health care coverage for about 90,000 of Missouri's 1 million Medicaid recipients. It cut services such as dental care, eyeglasses and crutches for an additional 339,000 adults remaining on Medicaid, and imposed new co-payments ranging from 50 cents to $10.

Several thousand adults were dropped from the rolls starting July 1, and a federal lawsuit claims those notification letters violated due process rights.

The latest letters informed people that certain services would no longer be covered effective Sept. 1, and that co-payments also would be required beginning then.

The end of the two-page letter lists a correct toll-free number for the Medicaid program's voice-automated recipient services section. But in the letterhead are two other toll-free numbers - one for voice calling and the other for text telephones used by the hearing or speech impaired.

The number for the text telephone is off by one digit, resulting in calls to Rivera's home-based business, Hawkstone Productions. Rivera books concerts and sells music for Jack Gladstone, who promotes himself as a singer, songwriter, lecturer and storyteller.

The department spokeswoman said Rivera has been very kind with them - just as she has been with Medicaid callers.

"She's been very gracious," Scott said, "and we have let her know that we obviously will be compensating her for her time and her phone expense."

---

The correct toll-free number for hearing or speech impaired Medicaid recipients is 800-735-2966.

ON THE NET

Social Services: http://www.dss.mo.gov

LIfe expectancy climbs, abortions drop in Missouri

2005-08-12T18:37:00.000-07:00

LIfe expectancy climbs, abortions drop in Missouri
BY DEBORAH L. SHELTON
Of the Post-Dispatch
08/04/2005

Life expectancy, births to unmarried women and births by Caesarean section reached record highs in Missouri last year, according to data released Thursday by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. Abortions hit a near-30-year low.

Life expectancy reached 76.8 years, according to provisional statistics. The improved life expectancy reflected a 4 percent decline in the overall death rate from 9.7 per 1,000 population in 2003 to 9.3 in 2004.

But life expectancy in Missouri remained lower than the national average of 77.6 years in 2003.

"We're not sure of the reasons for the difference," said Joe Stockbauer, chief of the health department's bureau of health data analysis. "It's good that life expectancy increased, but obviously it could go higher." Advertisement

Both male and female life expectancy hit records. For women, it climbed to 79.4 years from 78.9. For men, it rose to 74.1 years from 73.8 years.

C-sections jumped by 7 percent last year and 47 percent since 1994, reaching 29.4 percent of all births. The rise could be the result of more elective surgeries, Stockbauer said. "This is a phenomenon that's going on all over," he said.

Abortions decreased by 3.8 percent, from 12,476 in 2003 to 12,000, the lowest number in nearly 30 years.

The rate of births to unmarried mothers reached 37 percent. Teen births overall increased 1.3 percent, but births to teens under 18 decreased 2.7 percent.

Heart disease was the state's No. 1 killer, followed by cancer, stroke, chronic lung disease, unintentional injuries, diabetes, pneumonia and influenza, Alzheimer's disease, kidney disease and suicide. Suicide replaced blood poisoning as the 10th-leading cause.

Deaths caused by six of the top 10 causes - heart, stroke, chronic lung disease, diabetes, pneumonia and influenza and kidney disease - decreased in 2004. The remaining four - cancer, unintentional injury, Alzheimer's disease and suicide - all increased.

Heart disease has been the leading cause of death in Missouri for 85 consecutive years. But the gap between deaths from cancer and heart disease has been narrowing because heart disease mortality has been declining for several decades, and cancer mortality has remained relatively stable. If the trend continues, cancer will overtake heart disease as the state's No. 1 killer by 2016.

Cancer is the leading cause of death for people younger than 85 nationally - and has been in Missouri since 2001.

Among other leading causes of death, pneumonia and influenza decreased 13.5 percent, diabetes decreased 11.3 percent and stroke deaths decreased 2.1 percent. The reduction in pneumonia and flu deaths, primarily due to the absence of a major flu outbreak, likely helped lower deaths from other causes, particularly chronic diseases.

Although there was little change in overall unintentional injury deaths, motor vehicle crash deaths declined sharply, while injury deaths such as falls and poisonings increased. Homicides and AIDS deaths rose last year after reaching low points in 2003.

The infant death rate decreased, from 7.8 to 7.5 per 1,000 live births. But Missouri's infant death rate remains above the 2004 national rate of 6.6 per 1,000 live births.

Despite the decrease in very small babies, the overall rate of low birth weight (less than 5.5 pounds) rose from 8.0 percent in 2003 to 8.3 percent in 2004, the highest such rate in more than 40 years. The largest increase was in moderately low birth weight infants of 3.3 pounds to 5.5 pounds.

Live births increased 1 percent to 77,709, the highest count since 1991. That contrasts with the peak of the baby boom in 1959, when there were 98,537 live births in the state, Stockbauer said.

Multiple births remained at 3.4 percent of births, the same as 2003, but 26 percent above the 1994 rate.

Top 10 causes of death in Missouri, in descending order:
Heart disease
Cancer
Stroke
Chronic lung disease
Unintentional injuries
Diabetes
Pneumonia and influenza
Alzheimer's disease
Kidney disease
Suicide

Source: Missouri Dept. of Health and Senior Services

Reporter Deborah L. Shelton
E-mail: dshelton@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8203

Man Who Helped Branson Thrive Dies at 76

2005-08-09T19:23:00.000-07:00

Man Who Helped Branson Thrive Dies at 76

By Associated Press

BRANSON, Mo. -- Bill Dailey, who is credited with helping build Branson into today's entertainment mecca, died of pancreatic cancer Friday, his friends said. He was 76.

When Dailey moved to Branson in 1979 with his wife, novelist Janet Dailey, there were only eight theaters in town. His projects included the Country Music World and Americana theaters and the Wildwood Flower Supper Club, paving the way for more than 30 other theaters to open.

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In 1990, Dailey started the first widely known morning show, featuring singer and dancer Jennifer Wilson. More than a dozen morning shows now play in Branson.

Dailey's latest project was the New Shanghai Theatre, which opened last week.

Dailey sought the help of fellow Branson entertainers as he planned his own funeral, said singer Bill Lennon.

Branson, Mo., Looks Beyond RVs and Buffets - Washington Post

2005-08-07T19:10:00.000-07:00

Branson, Mo., Looks Beyond RVs and Buffets
Prosperous Conservative Movement Has Blue-Collar Retreat Aiming to Go Upscale

By Lois Romano
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 8, 2005; Page A03

BRANSON, Mo. -- Here in the lush foothills of the Ozarks it is barely 9 a.m., with temperatures inching toward 100, and already throngs are pushing into Silver Dollar City. It's an 1880s-era theme park that launches every day with the Pledge of Allegiance, hosts four packed Sunday Christian services and requires customers to dress in appropriate family attire.

This is the way visitors like it in Branson, where 7 million people a year come for live shows at about 45 theaters -- more seats than Broadway -- as well as camping, fishing and all-you-can-eat buffets. Offering wholesome entertainment, Branson is a popular Middle America summer destination for families, veterans, conservatives and others seeking affirmation of traditional values with a strong Christian influence. "The best way we can serve you is to offer prayer to Our Lord Jesus Christ for any need you may have," a bedside card at the Honeysuckle Inn offers.

Highway 76 is home to most of the live performance theaters in Branson, Mo., that attract millions each year. A $400 million lakefront complex opens in 2006. (Branson/Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce and Convention & Visitors Bureau Via Associated Press)

Now, city officials and business leaders are banking it is the right time for this small, homey town to reposition itself to attract a more sophisticated following among the prosperous conservative movement that has taken root in the country. Moving beyond its roots as a working-class resort, next year Branson will see a $400 million lakefront complex open with two Hiltons, a large convention center and upscale shops, such as Ann Taylor Loft and Brookstone. Branson Landing has leased 80 percent of its national retail space and sold $75 million worth of condos.

"Branson will always be a slice of America," said Ross Summers, president of the local chamber of commerce. "We never intend to alienate our base. . . . [But] we're aiming at a new market that might be more upscale -- people who have a preconceived notion that Branson is just country shows, traffic, buses and senior travelers."

Since the early 1900s, when people came by the trainloads to enjoy the town's 800 miles of lakeshore and leafy mountains, Branson has been a low-cost vacation spot. In the 1950s, Branson made its mark as a Christian community after a local artist built an enormous, lighted Nativity scene that grew to draw tens of thousands to see the Christmas lights.

In the past two decades, Branson has seen exponential growth, becoming famous when a country-music boom brought acts such as Willie Nelson and Loretta Lynn to town.

In addition to family, God and country, the past is also memorialized here, with retrospectives on entertainers such as Patsy Cline and Frank Sinatra's "Rat Pack." Shows are expected to offer the clean entertainment of another era -- no dirty jokes, no sexual innuendoes, no bad language.

There is a museum dedicated to war veterans, a highway "strip" lined with American flags, and Bobby Vinton, a regular live act, can still be heard crooning on the local radio station.

"Branson is a metaphor for red state America," said Robert Schmuhl, professor of American studies at the University of Notre Dame, who has written extensively on the intersection of culture and politics.

"There are those on the coasts that might snicker in their sleeves, but the town represents what many conservative people in the Midwest see as America, the America they want, the America they hold in their heads from yesterday. Maybe it is part mythical -- but it's the America they want to cling to."

Andy Williams, who first arrived in 1991, remains one of the more popular shows in town. Williams said in an interview that he decided to build his Moon River Theatre here because he was "burned out" on traveling and on Las Vegas. Although Williams, 77, was a friend of Bobby and Ethel Kennedy's, he said he is a lifelong Republican who grew up in Iowa singing in church choirs and feels right at home in Branson.

"There's no doubt in my mind that people on the West Coast -- L.A. particularly -- and the East Coast have no clue at all about what's happening outside their own little bailiwick. And they think everybody is stupid because they are not sophisticated," he said. "People on the East Coast just look down their noses on Branson. But this is America."

Isn't Branson Landing just another Shopping mall - Seagull

2005-08-07T19:09:00.000-07:00

Isn’t Branson Landing just another Branson shopping mall that is located on the shores of Lake Taneycomo?”
By Gary Groman aka The Ole Seagull, Editor
08/07/2005

“Isn’t Branson Landing just another Branson shopping mall that is located on the shores of Lake Taneycomo?”

In a recent column the Ole Seagull referred to Branson Landing, Branson’s new $420 million master-planned shopping entertainment development, being built on the shores of beautiful Lake Taneycomo in historic downtown Branson. He ventured his opinion that it will “provide Branson with a tourist shopping, dining, and entertainment experience that is fresh, new, exciting and unique.”

For obvious reasons no one has questioned the “new” aspects of the comment. Some, however, have had a problem with the use of the words “fresh,” “exciting” and “unique.” Why some have actually asked,

“Isn’t Branson Landing just another Branson shopping mall that is located on the shores of Lake Taneycomo?”

Yeah sure, and some might consider a 15 pound Rainbow Trout as just another trout, hearing their granddaughter sing a solo as just another voice, and the Shoji Tabuchi Show as just another show. How many shopping malls in Branson have the blend of national brand retail stores, shops, galleries, restaurants, and ambiance that Branson Landing will have?

May an Ole Seagull suggest that the answer is “none?” In Branson today, to get anywhere near the shopping choices that will be available at Branson Landing, guests park their cars, shop until it’s time to eat, and then get in their cars to go somewhere else to eat. In terms of what Branson currently has to offer, just the combination of the pure shopping experience that Branson Landing will provide and the convenient availability of a variety of restaurants for just about every taste and budget makes Branson Landing fresh, exciting and unique.

Branson aside, do many shopping malls anywhere have an easily accessible and useable 1.5 mile waterfront boardwalk running its entire length that is integrated into its overall theme? How many are built on over a mile and a half of panoramic water front under the natural backdrop similar to Branson’s beautiful Ozark bluffs?

An active marina or an integrated waterfront “town square” big enough to accommodate 5,000 people for community and other special events, festivals, shows, etc. is an integrated part of how many shopping malls? How many have the choice of waterfront dining that Branson Landing will have?

A nightly, synchronized sound, light, fire, and water attraction costing $7.5 is standard fare at how many shopping malls in the United States? More importantly, is there another shopping mall in all of America, offering all this, plus the depth, variety, and quality of the family entertainment that is “Branson?”

Like most attractions, shows, shops, etc. that have come to Branson since the Lynch family started operating Marble Cave as a sightseeing attraction in 1894 and the publishing of Harold Bell Wright’s book, “The Shepherd of the Hills,” in 1907, the reason that the Branson Landing is being built in Branson is because of what is already here. Just as those coming before did, Branson Landing will add to what Branson already is as it becomes part of that ever changing entertainment experience that is Branson.

Branson Landing is a lot of things but one of them isn’t “just another Branson shopping mall that is located on the shores of Lake Taneycomo.” It is a unique shopping entertainment destination, within Branson, that will provide an experience not currently available in Branson or anywhere else, and give people yet another reason to visit Branson for the first time or to come back again and more often.

First Baptist Church to Host Picnic - SNL

2005-08-06T19:06:00.000-07:00

First Baptist Church to host Battlefield Community Picnic

• Spanish finds home on air

• 'Branson Jubilee' musical special coming to PBS

• First meal of Korean food tasty

• Film shows pope's struggles with Nazis, communists

• Orchestra auditions held

• Moonlight Tour Benefit car show

• Raising prize pigs

• Without our support, Springfield Regional Opera may fade away

• Fluffy proves to be friend to birds

• Translator resurrects voices of Japanese from World War II era

• Etheridge ready to get back onstage

• Learning to share housework

• Sleepovers call for planning

• 'Companion' tells about all things bathroom

• Play days at the fair

• Newly designed nickel expected to be hit with coin collectors

• Directing the Ozark Empire Fair

• Film will focus on Christ's childhood

• Godly Play workshop offered

• Live it up in August

• Writer's life revolves around work

• Jean: Music heading toward mash-ups

• Smart UPN series 'Veronica Mars' shows up on CBS

• Murphy goes bareback for Jordache ads

The First Baptist Church of Battlefield parking lot will be the site of the third annual Battlefield Community Picnic on Aug. 13.
The community is invited to celebrate its ongoing progress following the May 2003 tornado that destroyed portions of the town.

Free hot dogs will be served from 4:30 to 6 p.m. There will be games for adults and children, water activities, singing, a watermelon-eating contest and other entertainment.

The Children's Miracle Network bus also will be there.

In addition to First Baptist, churches participating will include Battlefield Assembly of God, Battlefield United Methodist, Gateway Christian and Wilson's Creek Baptist.

'Trembling at the Word' seminar to be held in Branson

A Messianic Christian congregation in Branson will host a "Trembling at the Word" seminar later this month.

First Fruits of Zion, a Denver-based ministry, will present the seminar on Hebrew roots of the Christian faith on from 6 to 9 p.m. Aug. 17 at The Tabernacle in the Branson Hills Ministry Center, 256 Church Road.

The seminar will include sessions on how Jesus understood and applied the Scriptures, the relevance of biblical commands in today's world and digging for ancient, biblical boundaries.

Admission is free; an offering will be taken. Materials will be available for sale. For information, call 334-7373 or (479) 253-4214, or visit www.jeremystorch.org.

Branson Pioneer Dailey dies at 76 - Kathryn Buckstaff

2005-08-06T19:02:00.000-07:00

Kathryn Buckstaff
News-Leader

BRANSON — The Branson community is mourning the death Friday of Bill Dailey, a colorful impresario credited by many for popularizing the town's entertainment industry in its early days.
William "Bill" Augustus Dailey Jr. was born in New Orleans and died in his home at the age of 76 after a battle with cancer.

Dailey married his wife, Janet Dailey, a well-known novelist, in 1964. They moved to Branson in 1979 and in 1985, he opened the Country Music World theater. There were about eight theaters in town then. Now, there are 45. Among performers he presented there was Shoji Tabuchi, now among Branson's most prominent entertainers.

He later built the Wildwood Flower Supper Club, showcasing a variety of entertainers. And in 1990, he presented the first widely known morning show, featuring singer and dancer Jennifer Wilson, leading to what has become a staple. More than a dozen morning shows now play in Branson.

Dailey, president of Dailey Enterprises, specialized in artist management and real estate development. His latest project was the New Shanghai Theatre that opened last week, built specifically for the Acrobats of China troupe. Dailey's funeral service will be held there Monday.

Jim Stafford will be among those adding a musical tribute at Monday's memorial service at Dailey's request, he said.

When Jim and Ann Stafford came to Branson in 1990, Dailey loaned him money to buy his first theater, Stafford said.

"He opened the door for us," Stafford said. "He was probably more sure than I was that this would all work out. And sometimes that show of confidence is what you need to make it work out."

Dailey was a great man in many ways, Stafford said. "He was a man of his word. He spoke his mind, and he did what he said he'd do."

Stafford said he was a friend and a fan of Dailey's: "He did what he wanted to do, and he did it his way," Stafford said. "That will be part of his legacy."

For Dailey, retirement wasn't an option, he said as the Shanghai Theatre was under construction. His plan was to build theaters and lease them.

"I'll build a hothouse if someone wants it," Dailey said.

His longtime friend Jim Thomas — who came to Branson in 1968 — and Dailey were partners in the Lodge of the Ozarks.

Dailey was known for his candor and salty language.

"I forgave him for his crudeness as he forgave me for mine," Thomas laughed.

Dailey was "blunt, but he was truthful," Thomas said. "You could trust him, and that's a trait that everyone should appreciate in a person. He was an important person in my life, and when I heard about him this morning, I got a big lump in my throat."

In addition to his wife, Dailey is survived by three sons, two daughters, 13 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.

Meth Bust First Under New Law - Wichata Eagle

2005-08-05T19:02:00.000-07:00

Posted on Fri, Aug. 05, 2005

Meth bust first under new law

DAVID TWIDDY

Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The seizure of an alleged methamphetamine lab in west-central Missouri marks the first bust credited to a new state law that tracks the sale of certain ingredients for making the illegal drug.

Authorities said they arrested Clint Young, 21, this week in Clinton, about 80 miles southeast of Kansas City, after reviewing records that showed he went to several pharmacies and bought medications containing pseudoephedrine. Young had not been charged as of Friday, and Henry County prosecutor Richard Shields said he was waiting for lab results.

Under a law that went into effect July 15, the powder pill forms of medications containing ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, which is found in some cold medicines, must be kept behind the counter and dispensed only by pharmacists or their technicians. Also, buyers must show photo identification and sign a log book, although retailers have until Sept. 13 to begin recording purchases.

In addition, people can buy no more than nine grams per month of the substance in powder form. Nine grams is equal to 300 30-milligram tablets of the cold medicine Sudafed.

Patrol Capt. Chris Ricks said troopers and members of the West Central Missouri Drug Task Force have begun checking pharmacy records throughout western Missouri and eastern Kansas. A Kansas law restricting the sale of pseudoephedrine and ephedrine went into effect June 1.

"Apparently, this guy's name came up in several different places," Ricks said.

Using that information, authorities obtained a search warrant for Young's home, where they found an alleged meth lab.

Young was arrested on suspicion of making illegal purchases of pseudoephedrine and attempted manufacture of methamphetamine, authorities said.

The state doesn't have a centralized database of meth lab arrests, but the Missouri State Highway Patrol said it was the first meth-lab seizure under the law. And Jim Gardner, a spokesman for Attorney General Jay Nixon, said it was the first case involving the new law that his office has heard about.

Missouri has led the nation in meth lab seizures each of the past several years, busting 2,788 meth labs last year alone, according to the Highway Patrol. Through April of this year, authorities had seized 1,322 labs, the patrol said.

Shields said he thinks Henry County's meth problem is comparable to other Missouri counties, although, he said, "one-third of my caseload is meth-related in some way."

Ricks said that the task force members found some other suspicious names on the log books and that more arrests are expected.

"From what I've heard, we're getting excellent compliance" from retailers, Ricks said. "What you'll find is they're used to doing this anyway on other drugs."

Italians Pee Coke

2005-08-04T20:54:00.000-07:00

Measuring Italy's coke use through its sewage
Researchers in Milan, Italy have analyzed sewage to estimate how many people in Italy's Po valley use Cocaine. The scientists from the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research tested river and sewage water for a cocaine byproduct pissed out by users of the drug. According to their data, 40,000 "doses" of cocaine are taken daily in the region. Official estimates say that "15,000 users admit to taking the drug at least once a month." From a press release about the study published in the scientific journal Environmental Health:

Ettore Zuccato, from the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan, Italy, and colleagues tested a new tool to measure a cocaine residue called benzoylecgonine (BE), present in flowing river and sewage waters because it is excreted in the urine of cocaine users. The residue is a by-product of metabolism in the human body, and cannot be produced by other means. The researchers measured the levels of BE in the river Po and in the sewage water of medium-sized Italian cities. Their results show that the Po, the largest Italian river, with five million people living in its vicinity, steadily carried the equivalent of about 4 kg of cocaine per day