Happy Earth Day, April 22, 2010 Donate or recycle computers and other electronic products. Before driving and using up gas, find a place near you, whether it be workplace, organization, post office, office supply store or Goodwill.
Find a Local Program
Manufacturer and Retailer Programs
Government-Supported Donation and Recycling Programs
http://www.epa.gov/wastes/conserve/materials/ecycling/donate.htm

From a member of Northern Colorado Writers This year we are starting what we are calling our NSA or Neighborhood Supported Agriculture. My family has teamed up with another family on our cul-de-sac and together we are going to grow and tend a garden. To have a successful garden we need make sure we devote some time to it every day, nurture it, get rid of the weeds and provide it with the proper nutrients. To be a successful writer you need to apply the same principles to your writing life. All gardens have weeds as does all writing. Nothing is perfect. All writers have to take time to go back through their work and get rid of the weeds (passives, adverbs). A garden needs nutrients to grow and establish strong roots. Writers need nutrients as well, but ours come in the form of learning more about our craft. This can be done through books, magazines, workshops and conferences. A garden needs nutrients to grow and establish strong roots. Writers need nutrients as well, but ours come in the form of learning more about our craft. This can be done through books, magazines, workshops and conferences.

Pew Internet Study: Teens and Mobile Phones - Text messaging explodes as teens embrace it as the centerpiece of their communication strategies with friends, April 20, 2010
• "Daily text messaging among American teens has shot up in the past 18 months, from 38% of teens texting friends daily in February of 2008 to 54% of teens texting daily in September 2009. And it's not just frequency – teens are sending enormous quantities of text messages a day. Half of teens send 50 or more text messages a day, or 1,500 texts a month, and one in three send more than 100 texts a day, or more than 3,000 texts a month. Older teen girls ages 14-17 lead the charge on text messaging, averaging 100 messages a day for the entire cohort. The youngest teen boys are the most resistant to texting – averaging 20 messages per day. Text messaging has become the primary way that teens reach their friends, surpassing face-to-face contact, email, instant messaging and voice calling as the go-to daily communication tool for this age group. However, voice calling is still the preferred mode for reaching parents for most teens."
• See also via EPIC: "The U.S. Supreme Court held arguments in City of Ontario v. Quon. The Court will determine whether a government employer can review the contents of private text messages sent from an employee's pager through a private communications company. EPIC filed a "friend of the court" brief arguing that data minimization practices should be applied to public sector searches and that the search was therefore unreasonable."

Lynne Rossetto Kasper of The Splendid Table recommends Sally Schneider's e-newsletter and website, The Improvised Life (www.theimprovisedlife.com). "We know Sally as a food writer (her book, The Improvisational Cook, is a personal favorite) and a favorite contributor to the show, but with this site, she reveals with a wonderful eye her ways for living a life filled with beauty, function, originality and grace. Ideas for the kitchen, seeing new art in unexpected places and small efforts which yield unexpected results."

He started out playing jazz piano, and he was one of the best. His trio -- piano, bass and guitar -- turned rhythm and melody into a seamless mix. For that alone, we would celebrate Nat King Cole. But what defined his greatness, and his groundbreaking success, wasn't his playing. It was his voice. "The amazing thing about Nat's voice is that it has this kind of incandescent quality to it," music historian Will Friedwald says. "It's like some kind of magic spell is being cast."
And singer Aaron Neville: "He just hypnotized me. It was like medicine to me. If I had got a spanking or something that day, Nat would smooth it all out." "I think Nat was everybody's favorite singer," Neville says. "From Ray Charles to Sam Cooke to Marvin Gaye -- all of them loved him. Everybody wanted to do some Nat King Cole." Frank Sinatra said when he went home, he played Nat King Cole records to relax. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126110985

The Historic Costume and Textile Collection has been one of the best-kept secrets at Uinversity of Delaware for nearly 40 years, but Dilia López-Gydosh is hoping to change that. López-Gydosh, assistant professor of fashion and apparel studies who co-manages the collection with Prof. Belinda Orzada, describes it as a treasure trove that provides a fascinating look at the aesthetics, values and technology of past generations. “It’s a world full of different people out there, but one thing we all have in common is that we all wear some type of clothing,” López-Gydosh says as she points to a set of beautiful Japanese kimonos recently donated by Betty Fiske, AS ’83M. The collection serves as a valuable educational resource, not only for fashion design and merchandising students, but also for students in art conservation, history, museum studies and journalism, whose research is aided by a searchable computer database.
http://www.udel.edu/udmessenger/vol18no1/stories/feature_historic_costumes.html

Shen Yun Performing Arts is a Chinese dance and music company that performs around the world. http://www.shenyunperformingarts.org/ Click on calendar at bottom right to find a concert near you. The group will be in Toledo on May 14 at Stranahan Theater.