100Feed: Oklahoma Ranks 36th in the Nation on ACT Test Scores

Oklahoma’s graduating class of 2012 scored below the national average on the ACT college entrance exam, but student performance on the exam varies greatly by school, according to data released Monday by the Education Department. Seniors at the Oklahoma School for Math and Science had the highest average ACT score in the state with a 31.4, while at the bottom of the list is a small alternative high school in Oklahoma City for at-risk students with an average score of 13.7. The four-hour long multiple-choice exam is scored on a scale from 0-36. It has become synonymous with college acceptance for Oklahoma seniors. A high score can mean entrance into the university of their choice and more scholarship money, while a low score can tip the admission’s scale toward a rejection letter. The average score among all Oklahoma high school seniors on the ACT is 20.7. That is close to the national average on the exam 21.1 but well below admissions standards for the state’s two largest universities.

Top scores largely come from the suburbs of Tulsa and Oklahoma City, but a few inner city specialty schools with admissions requirements are in the top ten performers. At the Oklahoma School for Science and Mathematics, students must take the ACT as an entrance exam for the school, said Suzanne Donnolo, the school’s director of admissions and registrar. Sophomores from across the state can apply to attend the free public boarding school for their final two years of high school. Donnolo said the average score for incoming juniors on the exam is a 26, and then the students are required to take the exam three more times before they graduate. “Many of them take it a lot more than that,” Donnolo said. Her students are motivated by the lucrative Academic Scholars Program, which offers substantial scholarships to students who score in the very top echelons on the ACT or SAT. “They are required to read so much more here and do so much more between the reading and the math. That usually helps,” Donnolo said. “Some of our students who have taken it multiple times even tell us that they will see the same reading passage on a different test. If you know what to expect, then that test anxiety goes down.”

In Oklahoma about 76 percent of high school seniors have taken the ACT, which is much higher than the national average. Only 27 states in the U.S. have more than 50 percent of their students take the ACT. The fee for the full exam is $50, but waivers are available to students who qualify for free and reduced price lunch. All three of the regular Edmond Public High Schools are in the top ten list for the highest composite ACT scores in the state, and the district’s overall average score of 23.7 was the highest ever. According to the district 80 percent of their graduating seniors took the exam. The second highest composite score in the state, at 25, is from Classen School of Advanced Studies, an Oklahoma City specialty school that has admissions standards. The school has a college preparatory track for students as well as a fine arts school.

“They have a wide range of students in terms of academic achievement with those two groups, so they’ve been working with both groups to improve the overall ACT,” said Sheli McAdoo, executive director of secondary schools and reform for Oklahoma City Public Schools. The district also has a high school with one of the lowest average scores in the state on the ACT. Oklahoma Centennial High School seniors scored an average of 14.8 on the ACT in 2011. McAdoo said the district is undergoing a number of reforms at all grade levels to improve college readiness. including the professional development program America’s Choice. “A lot of our work with America’s Choice has been to work with our students to increase the level and rigor in the class,” McAdoo said.

100Feed: Costs of big wildfire season hurting some states

By Samantha R. Selman

A huge wildfire in California is just the latest destructive blaze to stretch resources across the West during a fire season that has been one of the worst in years. The fires have left some states with thin budgets to scramble to get people, planes, bulldozers and other tools on fire lines to beat back the flames. And that’s with about a third of the annual wildfire season remaining.

According to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, the nation as of Wednesday had seen 42,927 wildfires this year, which burned just over 7 million acres. While the number of fires is down from the 10-year average of 54,209 as of Aug. 22, the acreage was well above the average of 5.4 million acres, said Don Smurthwaite, a NIFC spokesman. “The fires are bigger,” Smurthwaite said.

In Colorado Springs, Colo., this summer, about 350 homes were burned in the most destructive wildfire in state history. Another fire in northern Colorado just before it scorched 257 homes. The costs have mounted, not just in the damage to houses and other buildings.
In Utah, for example, officials have spent $50 million as of mid-August to fight more than 1,000 wildfires, far surpassing the $3 million a year the Legislature budgeted for fighting wildfires.

The state’s share is estimated at $16 million, said Roger Lewis of the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands. He said lawmakers will need to figure out how to come up with $13 million. That’s the largest-ever supplemental appropriation request needed for firefighting in the state, agency spokesman Jason Curry said. He said, “It’s obviously been a big year.”

Washington state fire officials project that they will spend about $19.8 million on emergency fire suppression activities in the current fiscal year that ends next June. That is expected to far surpass the $11.2 million the agency was allotted for such work, meaning the Department of Natural Resources will have to ask the Legislature for supplemental funds.
Not all Western states are seeing their budgets busted because of fires.

In Oregon, the state estimated it had spent $3.4 million through last Saturday to fight wildfires, with more than two months of the season left. Last year, it spent $6.6 million. In Montana, forest managers told Gov. Brian Schweitzer that long-term forecasts call for fire conditions through the end of September, which is longer than normal.

The Northern Rockies Coordination Center put the total cost of fighting large wildfires in Montana, including costs to federal and state agencies, at $64 million so far this season. The state’s share is about $25 million to fight fires that have burned about 1,100 square miles. Schweitzer said the state has already burned through cash reserves set aside for such natural disasters, but that plenty of money is available from surplus general funds.

While parts of the Southwest, particularly Southern California, still have three months of fire season left, Smurthwaite said, shorter days, declining temperatures and higher humidity will help curtail fires. “That’s almost like putting a little wet blanket over a fire,” he said. In California, state fire spokesman Daniel Berlant said Wednesday that while crews were getting a handle on many of the fires in the northern part of the state, more lightning strikes in Southern California could trigger a new round of blazes.
“There’s no reprieve just yet,” Berlant said.

Firefighters in northern California on Wednesday made progress in containing a huge wildfire that has burned dozens of homes and scorched about 38 square miles. It was 50 percent contained Wednesday morning. The threat to homes dropped from 3,500 earlier this week to roughly 200 residences, officials said.

Fire crews assessing the rural area determined Tuesday that 50 buildings had been destroyed since it was sparked by lightning Saturday. It was unclear when the structures burned and how many were homes. More than 2,100 firefighters were battling the fire near several remote towns about 170 miles north of Sacramento. Angie Nelson, 38, of Shingletown and her family were swimming at Whiskeytown Lake on Saturday when they got a phone call saying the fire was advancing on their house.

They drove home and her husband and teenage son climbed on the roof and cleaned the gutters of pine needles and leaves, watered the yard and started putting clothes, family pictures and other mementoes together. Since then, the couple and their four children have been sleeping on the floor of Nelson’s mother’s house. “It’s stressful. I can’t wait to go home. It’s awkward staying at somebody’s house, even if it is your mother,” she said. “They’re really going to appreciate sleeping in their own beds.”

Nelson said she still had family pictures loaded in special evacuation buckets from the last time they had to leave their house four years ago. She said her 10-year-old son took a teddy bear, her daughter chose a clothes hanger full of belts. Her teenage son took his collection of super balls. “I looked back in the car and saw that and said ‘What are you doing?’ and he said ‘Mom, I’ve been collecting these for months.'”

Elsewhere in California, a large wildfire in Plumas National Forest continued to expand, helped by gusty winds. The blaze, about 120 miles north of Sacramento, has consumed nearly 98 square miles since it started at the end of July and threatens about 900 homes. It was 37 percent contained Wednesday. In Washington state, fire crews still hoped to fully contain a week-old wildfire that has destroyed 51 homes and 26 outbuildings and damaged at least six other homes, authorities said.

The fire, about 75 miles east of Seattle, has caused an estimated $8.3 million in property damage. In south-central Idaho, authorities have spent more than $23 million fighting a fire near the towns of Pine and Featherville and another in a forest near the resort town of Stanley. Those wildfires have each consumed about 150 square miles, and will not be extinguished for some time, Smurthwaite said.
“We expect to be managing them for weeks to come,” he said.

100Feed: Going Hungry in America

Dave Krepcho, director of the Second Harvest Food Bank, checks inventory at the food bank warehouse in Orlando, Fla. In the past four years, food distribution to 500 pantries, shelters, and other relief agencies in the six-county area has jumped about 60 percent. In the last year alone, that amounted to 36 million pounds of food. Krepcho estimates about 30 percent of those seeking help are first-timers. They’re blue-collar and white-collar, many middle class, even some upper middle class. They include college-educated couples and professionals. (John Raoux/AP)

By Tim Skillern

Cheryl Preston knows that others are worse off. But she’s still hungry. As grocery prices creep higher and her income sags, rationing her family’s food is a daily task. The 54-year-old mother of three and grandmother of three in Roanoke, Va., says there are days she skips meals so her husband and son can eat. If they notice, she says, she’ll let them think she’s fasting. She waters down the milk and juice to make it last longer. She visits food pantries, but it’s not enough.

“Who would think that in the land of plenty, hard-working families would go hungry? But I am living proof it is true,” Preston writes in a first-person account for 100Feed.

In the last three years, she hasn’t been able to replace a $500 loss in monthly income. Her husband’s job can’t always guarantee 40 hours a week; his second job lasted only through Christmas. So mealtime suffers: Her family eats in one day what they used to eat at one meal. Often, they manage on a nearly barren cupboard for five or six days until the next pay day. They sometimes skip family gatherings at restaurants because they can’t pay the tab.

“It is distressing,” Preston writes.

“When you get a check for $250, and your basic needs require at least $400, you are already defeated. You can only cut back so much and then you have no choice but to do without. I long for the days when I could pay my bills on time, buy more than enough groceries and have money left over.”

She’s not alone. Eighteen percent of Americans say there have been times this year that they couldn’t afford the food they needed, according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday. In particularly hard-hit regions of the United States, like the South, at least one in five didn’t have enough money for food. In Preston’s Virginia, 15.2 percent of state residents are affected. (See a full list.)
To put a face on hunger in America, Yahoo! asked readers and contributors to share their personal stories: Are they going hungry? How are they coping with higher food prices? Did they ever think they’d be in this position?

Six years ago, Robert Watkins and his wife earned more than $100,000 combined. Groceries comprised 5 percent of their budget. They kept an emergency fund–good for three months’ expenses–in a money market. Now, Watkins writes, they keep a “rainy day” jar of about $250 in assorted change by the bedside.

“If I had to travel to the market and buy groceries for dinner tonight, would I have the money to do so? The truth is, yes, I would,” Watkins writes. “Yet it’s strange to think that this is life in America today. Like tens of millions of other people in the United States, we look closely at an expenditure that we took for granted just a few years ago–the cost of food.”

Seventeen months ago, Watkins was downsized from his job and while he works contractually and part-time, his income “pales in comparison” to two years ago. Couple their one-income family with inflated food prices, and their grocery budget is almost 10 percent of their net income.

At 46, he says “it’s a humbling exercise.”

To make due, they’ve taken advantage of living in a farming community in Lancaster, Pa. Fruits and veggies are affordable; there’s plenty of corn on the cob, red potatoes, lettuce, and tomatoes. They create their own dressing and get water from a well. And they eat lots of pasta.

“Is it scary sometimes? You bet it is,” Watkins writes. “However, it could always be a whole lot worse.”
In Arizona, Jeremy Shapiro lives on a nutrition assistance program, receiving $50 a week for food. It’s significantly altered his eating habits: less food, less often.

“I have reduced my portion sizes and meal frequency,” he writes. “Creativity and flexibility is key.”
Shaprio, 35, says he has always tried to eat healthy. When he was employed and food prices were more reasonable, it was easy. Now it’s tricky with less money.

“I only shop sales. I hunt for online and paper ads and cut coupons. I also do not stock food unless it’s extremely fiscally prudent,” Shaprio writes.

That means no more fresh fruit; canned and concentrate must suffice. Only frozen chicken, beef and fish are affordable. Brand-name cereals are out. Milk must be on sale, and hormone-free varieties aren’t “financially feasible.” Generics and store brands have replaced Tillamook cheese, Boar’s Head meats and Laura Scudder’s peanut butter.

“One day, I will have gainful employment and afford more and better again,” Shapiro writes. “However for today, I keep my head up and spirits high — and body healthy — as best I can.”

Here’s a taste of Tom Servo’s bare-bones grocery list: A few bags of dried beans. Breakfast cereal of some kind — usually whatever’s on sale. A large canister of dried oats. Lots of bananas — typically a few pounds. A bag of apples. Other miscellaneous fresh fruits and veggies — whatever’s in season and on sale.

The 29-year-old college student in Tampa, Fla., says his grocery list is written for nutrition, not taste. He sticks to bare essentials and buys in bulk. But two weeks of groceries used to cost him $50; now it’s almost $100.

For example: “I used to pay 99 cents for one pound of dried black beans; now they cost $1.49 or more. Two years ago I paid $2.39 for a 16-ounce jar of generic peanut butter; now the same peanut butter costs $3.99.”

“For the first time in my life, I’ve recently had to make a choice between groceries or some other expense,” he writes.

Michelle Zanatta once spoiled her husband with her elaborate Italian meals of fresh vegetables and heaps of garlic bread. They were expensive, too: Her four-cheese lasagna cost $18 to make. The Italian ham and cheese rolls set them back $20.

But after her once-successful business started failing and their home went into foreclosure, she faced the reality of food prices. She and her husband are also dealing with higher food costs in Atlanta after a move from Delaware. (“The cost of a fresh-baked loaf of Italian bread was 98 cents from the local Wal-Mart, while here in Georgia, it’s a $1.49 — plus food tax!”)

“I at no time thought about how much money I spent grocery shopping, until we had to set a very tight budget,” she writes. “I was also never a huge fan of couponing because I thought it was time-consuming; however, at 34, my perspective on coupons has changed greatly.”
Her family visits local food banks and shaves costs off milk, eggs, cereal and cheese through a WIC program.

“Though times seem tough, and my lavish meals have dwindled down to two times a month, my children learned to appreciate those special meals,” Zanatta writes, “and I have learned to use my resources and shop smartly.”

When she worked as a Wal-Mart cashier, Michelle Croy remembers watching seniors decide between buying food and buying medicine.
“Their medicine often ranked first so that meant that Vienna sausages and crackers sufficed for the month for sustenance,” she writes. “I never really entertained the thought that someday that would be me.”

The single mother in Huntington, W.V., says she is shocked she must scramble to pay bills and feed her children. Milk runs upward of $4 a gallon, and a pack of hamburger costs $9. “This is why my family settles with a banana or cereal for breakfast, skips lunches entirely, eats a dinner that is produced almost entirely from our garden, and hardly ever eats out.”

Croy, now a student teacher in Huntington (“where jobs are as scarce as rain in the Sahara”), writes that while groceries trump other needs and wants, they could be in worse shape.

“My case is nowhere near as disheartening as those of the children who go to bed hungry every night, or the families who survive solely on donations from food banks,” she writes, “but it’s indicative of the reality that most of us middle-class Americans face: We are all just one paycheck away from going hungry or living homeless out on the streets.”

100Feed: Former Penn State President Graham Spanier Cites His Own Child Abuse

By Jane Zuckerberg

Graham Spanier, the former Penn State University president who stepped down in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal, told ABC News today that he was a victim of child abuse so severe that he required several surgeries to correct the damage.

His history as a victim, he said, was a deeply personal rejoinder to those critics who accuse him of trying to cover up Sandusky’s crimes and not caring about the children.

“I’ve never met anyone who has had a higher level of awareness [about child abuse,]” Spanier said in an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Josh Elliott.

Spanier, 64, is on a campaign to resurrect his once pristine reputation. Though not charged with a crime, the findings of an independent investigation accuse him of failing to prevent a “child sexual predator harming children for over a decade.” The abuse he sustained at the hands of his father, a working class immigrant, began when he was a child and continued through his adolescence. Spanier said he has had four surgeries in his adulthood to correct problems with his breathing, face and head as a result of the injuries.

“It resulted in, of course, some emotional scarring, but also some substantial physical damage,” he said of the abuse. Before his tenure as a university administrator, Spanier was a professor specializing in the study of dysfunctional families and child abuse, an interest he said resulted directly from his childhood.

Spanier objects to the findings of the Freeh Report calling it “wrong in its conclusions” and denying the accusation that he “conspired to conceal a known child predator.”

Spanier insists when an assistant football coach reported seeing Sandusky acting suspiciously with a boy in the team showers in 2001, he was only made aware that Sandusky had engaged in “horseplay” with a child.

An independent investigation ordered by the unviersity, the so-called Freeh Report, and others have questioned why Spanier did not further investigate Sandusky after learning even that information.

“Never in my time as president of Penn State did I ever receive a report or even a hint that Jerry Sandusky was engaged in child abuse, a sexual act, criminal activity or anything resembling that with any child. Had I known that, or even suspected it, I would have forcefully intervened. But I never heard a report like that,” he said.

Spanier said he had only met Sandusky once and was only marginally involved when in 1998 and again in 2001 reports were made that Sandusky was seen engaged in inappropriate behavior with a child.
“I do not get involved in police matters. I always had a very hands-off attitude and issues pertaining to people were dealt with by the police, by human resources, or by supervisors in various areas of the university,” he said of the 1998 incident. He also noted that police, the state Department of Public Welfare and prosecutors all determined that Sandusky had not molested a child at that time.

In 2001, however, Spanier was copied on an email about another Sandusky incident, witnessed by assistant coach Mike McQueary who heard sexual noises and saw an underage boy in the shower.

In emails two administrators, Athletic Director Tim Curley and now retired Vice President Gary Schultz, proposed not alerting the authorities but instead letting Sandusky off with a warning and the promise that he would get “professional help.” Spanier agreed to that plan. However, he noted in an email that by not bringing the accusations to police they would be “vulnerable for not having reported it.”

That phrase has dogged Spanier and was crucial in the Freeh’s reports assessment of what he knew and how he failed to act. “‘Vulnerable’ was not best choice of a term,” Spanier told ABC News, adding that “it was a reaction to the possibility that we didn’t want this to happen.” Spanier said he had “no recollection of being concerned” that the school might be held legally liable.
Spanier recalled the anger with the university when the grand jury indicted Sandusky, leading ultimately to Spanier’s demotion to professor and the firing of legendary football coach Joe Paterno.

“I opposed the firing [of Paterno]… There could be riots, it could be a rush to judgment, they knew it was his last season” and Paterno should have been allowed to finish the season, he said. Spanier said he and Paterno had secretly signed agreement that the coach would retire at the end of 2012. In July, Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of abuse against 10 boys. Curley and Schultz are awaiting trial on charges of perjury and failing to report child abuse.

100Feed: West Nile Virus Spreads – Warnings and Symptoms

 

By Samantha R. Selman
Photo by Wanda King

Last Wednesday, the mayor of Dallas declared a state of emergency in the ninth largest U.S. city to combat the spread of West Nile virus infections, which have been more prevalent than usual in Texas and Oklahoma this year. There have been more cases of West Nile virus reported so far this year than any year since the disease was first detected in the United States in 1999, according to the Centers for Disease Control said on its website. Nearly half of the 693 human cases of the mosquito-borne West Nile virus infections reported this year to the CDC have been in Texas, along with 14 of the 26 deaths confirmed by the federal agency as of Tuesday.

The Texas health department said the number of cases of West Nile in the state had reached 465 and there had been 17 deaths. There is a lag in the CDC confirming cases and deaths. The emergency declaration by Mayor Mike Rawlings followed a similar action last week by Dallas County officials and paves the way for aerial pesticide spraying to begin this week. Aerial spraying also is being used elsewhere, including in neighborhoods in New York City and Sacramento, California, to combat the spread of West Nile virus. Officials say such spraying is the most effective way to fight the mosquitoes that carry the disease despite safety concerns about exposing people to chemical pesticides.

We are on track to have the worst year ever for West Nile virus in the United States. It is unclear why the number of West Nile cases is so high. Scientists believe it could be related to a warmer winter and abnormally rainy spring. Wildfires, which have terrorized many of the states also suffering from an epidemic of West Nile Virus, are thought to be a contributing factor. Mosquitoes, which are infamous for their tendency to spread the disease, thrive in warm climates and places where water is readily available. Experts in the Dallas  area suggest watering less, turning off sprinklers, and removing any standing water from around your home will help keep WNV-carrying mosquitoes away from your home.

West Nile Virus mainly infects birds, but is known to infect humans, horses, dogs, cats, bats, chipmunks, skunks, squirrels, domestic rabbits, crocodiles and alligators. The main route of human infection is through the bite of an infected mosquito. It should be noted that approximately eighty percent of West Nile virus infections in humans are without symptoms. The West Nile virus produces one of three different outcomes in humans. The first is an asymptomatic infection; the second is a mild febrile syndrome termed “West Nile fever”; the third is aneuro-invasive disease termed West Nile meningitis or encephalitis. The population proportion of these three states is roughly 110:30:1. The febrile stage has an incubation period of two to eight days followed by fever, headache, chills, diaphoresis (excessive sweating), weakness, lymphadenopathy (swollen lymph nodes), drowsiness, pain in the joints and symptoms like those of influenza. Occasionally, some patients experience short-lived gastrointestinal symptoms including nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, or diarrhea. Symptoms are generally resolved within seven to 10 days, although fatigue can persist for some weeks and lymphadenopathy up to two months. The more dangerous encephalitis is characterized by similar early symptoms, but also a decreased level of consciousness, sometimes approaching near-coma. Deep tendon reflexes are hyperactive at first, later diminished. Recovery is marked by a long convalescence with fatigue.

The virus is transmitted through mosquito vectors, which bite and infect birds. The birds are amplifying hosts, developing sufficient viral levels to transmit the infection to other biting mosquitoes which go on to infect other birds (in the Western Hemisphere, the American robin and the American crow are the most common carriers) and also humans. The infected mosquito species vary according to geographical area; in the US, Culex pipiens(Eastern US), Culex tarsalis (Midwest and West), and Culex quinquefasciatus (Southeast) are the main sources.

There is no vaccine for humans. A vaccine for horses based on killed viruses exists; some zoos have given this vaccine to their birds, although its effectiveness is unknown. Dogs and cats show few if any signs of infection. There have been no known cases of direct canine-human or feline-human transmission; although these pets can become infected, it is unlikely they are, in turn, capable of infecting native mosquitoes and thus continuing the disease cycle.

Avoiding mosquito bites is the most straightforward means to avoid infection; remaining indoors (while preventing mosquitoes from entering) at dawn and dusk, wearing light-colored clothing that covers arms and legs, and using insect repellents on both skin and clothing (such as DEET, picaradin, or oil of lemon eucalyptus for skin and permethrin for clothes). If one becomes infected, generally, treatment is purely supportive: analgesia for the pain of neurologic diseases, and rehydration for nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea; encephalitis may also require airway protection and seizure management.

The use of pesticide spraying to combat mosquitoes and curb outbreaks of West Nile virus has sparked concern regarding the health effects of the chemicals used, but experts say, in these cases, the benefits of spraying far outweigh the risks. Aerial pesticide spraying began on Thursday in Dallas, where an outbreak of West Nile virus has infected 200 people and killed 10. Pesticide spraying also recently began in parts of New York City. There are several reasons why aerial pesticide spraying for West Nile is considered safe. For one, these sprays use very small amounts of pesticides — much lower than the amounts used on agricultural crops, said Robert Peterson, a professor of entomology at Montana State University. Even if someone was outside during the spraying, “the amount of insecticides that they would be exposed to is below any amount known to cause any adverse effects,” Peterson said. Because the exposure to these pesticides is negligible, the risks to people’s health are negligible.

During a spraying, a tiny cloud of aerosolized pesticide is released from a plane. The droplets are very small, and intended to fall on, and kill, mosquitoes. Even larger insects are typically not affected by the spraying, because the droplets bounce right off them, according to Peterson. In addition, the modern pesticides used in these sprays have a very short life in the environment, and are degraded by sunlight into non-toxic chemicals. “It will kill the things you want it to, and disappear very quickly thereafter,” David Savitz, an environmental epidemiologist at Brown University, said. When public health is threatened, authorities must balance the risks of an action — in this case, exposure to pesticides — with the benefits.

In Dallas, where West Nile cases have reached a high level, authorities have made a sound judgment to use pesticides. To avoid direct exposure to pesticides, the New York City Department of Health recommends people stay indoors during the spraying when possible, and bring children’s toys and belongings inside. Generally, there have been concerns over pesticide exposure for pregnant women, because it’s known that the fetus is especially sensitive to environmental chemicals. Exposure to a large amount of any substance, including pesticides, can be harmful. People exposed to large amounts of pesticides, can experience acute neurological problems.

100Feed: Who Coined the Phrase, “United States of America”?

By Anderson Cooper

It may seem surprising, but nobody is really sure who came up with the phrase, “United States of America.”

Speculation generally swirls around a familiar cast of characters – the two Toms (Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson), Alexander Hamilton, Ben Franklin, and even a gentleman named Oliver Ellsworth (a delegate from the Constitutional Convention of 1787). But every instance of those gentlemen using the name “United States of America” is predated by a recently discovered example of the phrase in the Revolutionary-era Virginia Gazette.

So who was perhaps the first person ever to write the words “United States of America”? A PLANTER.

That was how the author of an essay in the Gazette signed the anonymous letter. During that time, it was common practice for essays and polemics to be published anonymously in an attempt to avoid future charges of treason – only later has history identified some of these authors.

The discovery adds a new twist – as well as the mystery of the Planter’s identity – to the search for the origin of a national name that has now become iconic.

Several references mistakenly credit Paine with formulating the name in January 1776. Paine’s popular and persuasive book, “Common Sense,” uses “United Colonies,” “American states,” and “FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES OF AMERICA,” but he never uses the final form.

The National Archives, meanwhile, cite the first known use of the “formal term United States of America” as being the Declaration of Independence, which would recognize Jefferson as the originator. Written in June 1776, Jefferson’s “original Rough draught” placed the new name at the head of the business – “A Declaration by the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA in General Congress assembled.”

Jefferson clearly had an idea as to what would sound good by presenting the national moniker in capitalized letters. But in the final edit, the line was changed to read, “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.” The fact that “United States of America” appears in both versions of the Declaration may have been enough evidence to credit Jefferson with coining the phrase, but there is another example published three months earlier.

Beginning in March 1776, a series of anonymously written articles began appearing in The Virginia Gazette – one of three different Virginia Gazettes being published in Williamsburg at that time. Addressed to the “Inhabitants of Virginia,” the essays present an economic set of arguments promoting independence versus reconciliation with Great Britain. The author estimates total Colonial losses at $24 million and laments the possibility of truce without full reparation – and then voices for the first time what would become the name of our nation.

“What a prodigious sum for the united states of America to give up for the sake of a peace, that, very probably, itself would be one of the greatest misfortunes!” – A PLANTER

So who is A PLANTER?

Likely candidates could be well-known Virginians, like Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, or even Jefferson. Some of the essay’s phrasing can be found in the writings of Jefferson. For example, “to bind us by their laws in all cases whatsoever,” appears in both the essay and Jefferson’s autobiography.

A Planter could be the nomme de plume of an intrepid New Englander, like John Adams, attempting to rally support for independence in the South, a similar motive for why he charged Jefferson, a Southerner, to pen the Declaration.
A Planter could be Benjamin Franklin, who was well-known for his hoaxes and journalistic sleight-of-hand. Or maybe, A Planter is exactly whom the letters portray, an industrious, logistics-minded landowner, evangelizing about the promise of increased prosperity should the “united states of America” ever become an independent nation.
There is a possibility the author was aware of the historical significance of introducing the new name for the first time, as he or she observes:

“Many to whom this language is new, may, at first, be startled at the name of an independent Republick, [and think that] the expenses of maintaining a long and important war will exceed the disadvantages of submitting to some partial and mutilated accommodation. But let these persons point out to you any other alternative than independence or submission. For it is impossible for us to make any other concessions without yielding to the whole of their demands.”
So, the mystery continues.

Our anonymous author, A Planter, certainly did plant a few seeds in the spring of 1776. Those seeds came to fruition as the first documentary evidence of the phrase “United States of America” – an experiment in self-government that quickly became one of the most powerful and influential nations in the world.

100Feed: ‘We Know Your House’ Posts Photos Of Your Home To Expose Twitter Risks

By Gerry Smith

One Twitter user wrote cheerfully “I’m at home sweet home Accounts.”

“In a connected society like today, people share way too much about themselves, which has never been a good thing,” the site’s creators said in an e-mail.

“The site was created to show its really dumb to check in at home, or say you’re at home with locations enabled,” they added. “People need to understand this, whether they like it or not, and a site of this nature attracts attention and gets results.”

Though they consider their site to be a public service, the site’s creators admit they initially went too far. When it first launched, they left users’ full Twitter handles and street addresses visible. After re-launching on Thursday, the site now partially censors that information, and only displays information from the past hour before deleting it to protect the users privacy, according to its creators.

WeKnowYourHouse.com is not the only site drawing attention to the security risks of over-sharing. The website “PleaseRobMe.com” uses similar techniques, but to do the opposite: to show when you’re not at home.

Its goal is to remind users of the potential dangers of posting about being away from home by aggregating location check-ins to create a list of empty homes that could be “new opportunities” for bank robbers.

The fact that people share too much about themselves on social media isn’t new. But the possible risks of doing so generated fresh headlines last week when the daughter of PC magnate Michael Dell posted a photo of her brother on the family jet.

The picture drew attention to how Alexa Dell often detailed her every move on Twitter, even broadcasting the exact time, date, location of her family. Her Twitter account was later shut down.

One security expert said the incident demonstrated how Twitter, in particular, raises concerns by instantly broadcasting users’ location information.

“You get that GPS location of exactly where you are,” Jason Thorsett, the director of operations at bodyguard firm Custom Protective Services, told BusinessWeek. “It’s just insane.”

100Feed: Drought Side Effects May Include Toxic Crops In The Midwest

By Michael Hirtzer and Meredith Davis

CHICAGO, Aug 15 – The worst U.S. drought in five decades has parched the land and decimated crops. It now threatens to deal a second blow to farmers, who may have to throw out tonnes of toxic feed.

Growers are rushing to check the nitrate levels of that silage, the stalks and leaves that corn farmers often harvest to feed to locally raised cattle or hogs.

Agriculture groups are warning farmers that drought-hit plants may have failed to process nitrogen fertilizer due to stunted growth, making them poisonous to livestock.

Exceptionally early spring planting has caused a crush of early summer requests for the tests. Farmers are also expected to chop down a near-record swathe of their fields for silage to make up for this year’s poor yields.

“We’ve had a lot of walk-in business and normally we are not a walk-in business,” said Lola Manning, a 30-year employee of Agri-King, a laboratory that tests for nitrates and other toxins. “At this point it’s the busiest I’ve seen it.”

Manning said the facility, approved by the National Forage Testing Association, checked about 400 samples — roughly double the norm — in July.

So far, few samples have shown elevated levels of toxins, she said. But late-season rains — far too tardy to help salvage the corn crop — could prompt mostly mature plants to draw even more nitrogen out of the soil and into the stalks.

“The tests are coming out OK but as soon as they have rain, the situation will change,” Manning said.

SO FAR, SO GOOD

Two months of dry weather and high heat that stunted plants and shriveled ears likely caused the absorption of excessive amounts of nitrogen, experts say. Instead of being distributed safely through the plant, the chemical built up in the lower portions of the stalk at potentially toxic levels.

Kenny Wagler, a dairy farmer in Nashville, Indiana who also farms 2,500 acres (1,000 hectares) of corn and pasture, is testing his corn for the first time since the last major drought in 1988.

“It’s almost never a factor,” said Wagler, who raises about 1,500 dairy cows and cattle, adding that he is testing this year on recommendation from his farm nutritionist.

Nearly half of what he typically harvests to sell as a cash corn crop will be cut for silage this year because most of the plants had no ears of grain.

In the worst-case scenario, silage with high levels of nitrate can be absorbed into an animal’s bloodstream, causing poisoning leading to death.

The absorption causes hemoglobin to be converted to methemoglobin, which is incapable of transporting oxygen and so can be fatal to the animal, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Symptoms of nitrate poisoning include labored breathing, rapid heartbeat, weakness, lack of coordination and blue-gray discolored skin.

Extensive losses of livestock are an unlikely, extreme scenario, beef and dairy experts say.

“Certainly there are instances of dead cattle from nitrate,” said Chris Hurt, agriculture economist at Purdue University. “Widespread education has helped reduce the problem.”

But nitrate-laced silage would force those farmers to buy extra feed grains in order to sustain their animals.

LOW GRAIN YIELDS, MORE SILAGE?

Silage is usually harvested while plants are still green and contain a high level of moisture. It is then fermented, often in silos. Many dairy farmers raise corn specifically for silage, in part to avoid having to buy feed elsewhere.

The rest of the crop is allowed to mature and is harvested as grain to be sold to elevators for export or feed use, or to ethanol makers.

Farmers are expected to harvest more of their corn crop for silage than usual this season due to poor yields, which are forecast by the USDA to be the lowest in 17 years.

As many as 9 million acres — or 9 percent of the corn crop — may not be harvested for grain this year, according to USDA data released last week. That would be the most abandoned acres in a decade. Much of that will be used instead as silage.

At Agri-King in western Illinois, tests cost $8 per sample for nitrate. Farmers are advised to take six stalks, chop them up and put them into a bag for testing.

Nitrate levels under 4,400 parts per million are considered safe while those over 15,000 ppm are considered potentially toxic and should not be fed to livestock, said Randy Shaver, extension dairy nutritionist at the University of Wisconsin.

At between 8,800 and 15,000 ppm, silage should be limited to less than half of the total feed ration and well fortified with minerals, data from that university showed. However, acceptable nitrate levels vary slightly from state to state.

“We’ve had quite a few tests that have come in at 14,000 parts per million or higher, and that seems to come up after a rain,” said Travis Meteer, a beef extension specialist at the University of Illinois, one of several universities to issue bulletins about nitrates in silage in recent weeks.

LIVESTOCK PAIN, CORN’S GAIN

If the silage proves to be toxic, farmers like Wagler could be forced to cull their herds, as many ranchers are doing. Or they could buy additional grains from the cash market to feed their livestock — incurring extra expenses in a year when some of their income will depend on crop insurance claims.

Extra demand could add fuel to corn prices, which have already rallied more than 60 percent in two months to a record as drought deepened across two-thirds of the country.

“It will mean higher feed costs for livestock producers,” said Roger Elmore, a professor of agronomy and a corn specialist at Iowa State University. “In addition to the drought, forage quality and the quantity will be less.

“We’ll have less forage out there, so that price will also increase. All of that increases the cost of production for livestock producers,” he added.

100Feed: Weird Stuff From Craigslist

By Jane Zuckerberg

One can always find some pretty bizarre things for sale while surfing Craigslist. Sometimes, though, the same creepy things seem to crop up again and again in different forms. For example, there is no doubt that every week you can and will find very strange weaponry for sale, from throwing stars to swords replicated after famous movie props. But this week’s dose of weird weaponry takes it to a whole new level: framed knives wall art. A little unsettling, right? This unique decor is not quite the piece we’d pick to compliment our living rooms, but hey, to each their own. And this is just one of the nine weird Craigslist items we found for sale this week. Here are some more below!

I don’t know about you, but I would not want that above my bed.

When we think of a mini-bar we’d like in our home, we typically don’t picture it being inside a…knight’s helmet. But this is definitely a conversation piece, just really not one we want to have in our homes.

The weirdest thing we find about this ad is not the statue itself (although it’s not your average lawn ornament). It’s the fact it’s for sale for $5,000. Yes, we are dead serious. No takers? Really, that’s shocking.

For some reason we’re still surprised when we come across a seller who advertises something this strange as yard art or lawn ornaments. I mean, come on, really? Whose yard, the grim reaper?

If you don’t recognize what this is, well then thank you, you’ve just made us feel that much older. Wait, is this now being considered an antique? Oh gosh, we hope not. But seriously, of all the strange things people like to keep in their homes, why a pay phone? Do you have any idea of the amount of germs that are likely lingering on this thing?

First of all, the seller advertises this as a “pony horse statue.” Well, which is it, a pony or a horse? Okay, regardless, the gripping stare on this animal has us wondering what is possessing it. The somber-looking background in this photo doesn’t help us picture it sitting pretty at our place either. Pass.

Technically the seller is offering up three food grinders as a set, but the fact that one of them is rusty and disgusting just doesn’t have us jumping at the opportunity. Can you imagine actually using this to grind meat? It’s definitely a gnarly case of food poisoning just waiting to happen.

We can’t believe there is actually a magazine like this! “Weird New Jersey” is apparently a paranormal travel guide telling tales of legends and ghost stories…specific to New Jersey? We can’t imagine the crazy antics within these issues and to be honest, we kind of wish we could take a peek.

The seller is actually not getting rid of this gem, darn. They are just showcasing it for us, so we know why they are searching for scraps of metal. Well, now that we know it’ll be going to something like this, we’ll round up the scraps we’ve got lying around…

100Feed: Pet Ownership Down In U.S. Since Recession

By Bonnie Kavoussi

Since the beginning of the recession, many Americans have given up on having kids. It seems they also have given up on having pets.

Americans now own fewer pets than in 2006, according to a new study by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). As a result, the U.S. pet population has shrunk. (Hat tip: Time.)

Pets still are popular: 56 percent of all U.S. households owned a pet at the end of last year. But that share is down 2 percent from the end of 2006, according to the study. And pet ownership has fallen across all categories of animal: cats, dogs, birds, horses, specialty pets and exotic pets.

The U.S. population of dogs, cats, pet birds, and horses has plunged. There now are 3 percent fewer dogs, 9 percent fewer cats, 26 percent fewer pet birds and 33 percent fewer horses than before the recession.

Pets can be expensive. Cats and dogs cost more than $1,000 to take care of during the first year, and more than $500 per year after that, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). (Find more information about the cost of pets here.)

In a similar trend, the U.S. birth rate is projected to plunge to a 25-year low this year, after peaking before the recession, according to Demographic Intelligence. It costs between $12,290 to $14,320 per year to raise a child in a middle-income family, according to the Department of Agriculture.

Meanwhile, the median U.S. household’s annual income was $50,020 as of January, according to Sentier Research, 8 percent less than at the end of 2007.

The economy could be on the upswing. Americans recently have been indulging in more haircuts, dinners out and plastic surgeries. But the pace of consumer spending growth has slowed sharply over the past year, according to the Commerce Department.