Critical Compendium

Forum in Indiana to Focus Trends in Teen Drug Abuse

man — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 19:58:36 +0000

The forum takes its cue from a 2011 report from the Indiana Prevention Resource Center, which indicated that as of 2011, 5.6 percent of eighth graders in Indiana have used prescription painkillers. As these young people grow older, this number increases, with usage among high school seniors rising to 16 percent.

A Youth Worker Cafe on “Rushing, Crashing, and Dying: How prescription drug abuse and the meth epidemic are affecting our youth” will be presented by the Indiana Youth Institute on Wednesday. The cafe is set to run from noon until 1:30 pm, at St. John’s Episcopal Church, located in 212 S. Green St., Crawfordsville. Participants will be served lunch free of charge, as part of the Youth Worker Cafe program of IYI.

Some facts about drug abuse you know!!!

The cafe will have Indiana State Police Trooper Brock Russell and former meth dealer and addict George Dowell. Youth workers, parents, community leaders, youth ministers, educators, counselors, and others who are interested in the topic are encouraged to attend.

Yacht hire and sailing schools

man — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:34:39 +0000

Try the RYA it used to be at the top of the New North Quay. Otherwise get in touch with the Yacht club.

I have a couple of aquaintances visiting in Easter who are looking for a recommendation on sailing schools and yacht hire locally. This is an area (yes there are some) where I have no knowledge at all. Happy to receive PMs of good or bad recs. Thanks in advance.

they are around , and you will need to book, both yacht clubs should be able to help and south pier shipyard, has people in the know.

did’nt know you lived at st ouen’s dundee.
wind surfing at simon sand or canoeing on the pond, waterskiing on the resevoir?

The Mighty Wurlitzer, by Hugh Wilford

man — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:06:15 +0000

“It has been decades since the late historian Christopher Lasch wrote his famous essay “The Cultural Cold War” in the Nation, which showed that many postwar American intellectuals had accepted funds from the CIA, and argued that they were as compromised as those artists and intellectuals in Europe and those within the Soviet bloc who prospered by accepting KGB sponsorship.

With “The Mighty Wurlitzer” (Harvard University Press, 342 pages, $27.95), Hugh Wilford has given us the first comprehensive and thorough report of how the CIA — modeling its policies on the Comintern’s creation of Communist front groups — created their own fronts, with recipients who included not only the white male writers and artists who made up much of the postwar cultural establishment, but women, African-Americans, students, the labor movement, Catholics, and journalists.” Read the review at the New York Sun.

The Teapot Dome Scandal, by Laton McCartney

man — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:01:10 +0000

“To most Americans younger than, say, 50, the Watergate scandal is a vague affair. Oh sure, they know that it involved a break-in and cost Richard M. Nixon the presidency. But past that, the names and details are fuzzy at best.

That historical blank spot may surprise those older Americans who vividly recall Judge Sirica, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and all the rest. But these same older Americans have a similarly vague knowledge of the Teapot Dome Scandal — even though it made headlines throughout the 1920s, brought down Cabinet members, produced several corpses and exposed a corrupt government that had sold out to Big Oil. Now comes writer Laton McCartney, determined to introduce new generations to the details of Teapot Dome. His subtitle sums up his approach: “How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country.” Read the review at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Lincoln and the Court, by Brian McGinty

man — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 08:52:04 +0000

“The Supreme Court helped launch Abraham Lincoln’s national political career, albeit unintentionally. The 1857 Dred Scott decision, which declared that no African American could be a citizen and that even free states must respect the property rights of slaveowners, gave the Illinoisan an issue he would ride to the White House. His opposition to Dred Scott animated his debates with Stephen A. Douglas in 1858 and pervaded the New York speech in February 1860 that propelled Lincoln to the Republican nomination.

Yet when he took the oath of office in March 1861, five members of the Dred Scott majority, including the main opinion’s author, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, were still on the court. Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court was widely, and correctly, considered a potential source of opposition to the new president. Lincoln’s struggle to withstand judicial review is the subject of Brian McGinty’s fascinating book.” Read the review at the Washington Post.

The Assist: Hoops, Hope, and The Game of Their Lives, by Neil Swidey

man — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 08:52:10 +0000

“Now is the winter of every sports fan’s discontent. The sports page these days all too often reads like a rap sheet, if not a treatise on advanced pharmacology.

With the football season over, the weeks drag on in eager anticipation of spring training and March Madness. Maybe that’s why Neil Swidey’s The Assist, about a remarkable inner-city basketball team, seems to have arrived at the perfect time.

Aptly subtitled Hoops, Hope, and the Game of Their Lives, the book introduces us to Jack O’Brien, the near-legendary coach at Charlestown High School in Boston, whose life “seemed to begin and end with basketball.” Read the review at the Washington Post.