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Monday, April 30, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
ShopAndroid Daily Giveaway #59: Incipio NGP Case for RAZR MAXX, Krusell DONSo Leather Pouch & more!
Today's ShopAndroid.com Daily Giveaway will feature some fantastic Android accessories such as the Incipio NGP Semi-Rigid Soft Shell Case for Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX, Krusell DONSo Mobile Leather Pouch, Motorola Skin Case for XOOM, and the Samsung Horizontal Leather Pouch.
To become eligible to win one of these featured accessories, just leave a comment below stating which item you'd like for your Android device. One winner will be selected at random and announced next week. Good luck!
Incipio NGP Semi-Rigid Soft Shell Case for Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX
The NGP Semi-Rigid Soft Shell Case safeguards your Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX with a semi-ridi polymer shell. Featuring custom-cut holes, you'll have access to your RAZR MAXX camera hole and other functions. The touchscreen of your RAZR MAXX is left exposed for complete access. The NGP wraps the front edges of this device giving it added protection and an extra lift. As sleek as it is functional, NGP makes a great choice.
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Thursday, January 26, 2012
Millions now manage aging parents' care from afar (AP)
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. ? Kristy Bryner worries her 80-year-old mom might slip and fall when she picks up the newspaper, or that she'll get in an accident when she drives to the grocery store. What if she has a medical emergency and no one's there to help? What if, like her father, her mother slips into a fog of dementia?
Those questions would be hard enough if Bryner's aging parent lived across town in Portland, Ore., but she is in Kent, Ohio. The stress of caregiving seems magnified by each of the more than 2,000 miles that separate them.
"I feel like I'm being split in half between coasts," said Bryner, 54. "I wish I knew what to do, but I don't."
As lifespans lengthen and the number of seniors rapidly grows, more Americans find themselves in Bryner's perilous position, struggling to care for an ailing loved one from hundreds or thousands of miles away.
The National Institute on Aging estimates around 7 million Americans are long-distance caregivers. Aside from economic factors that often drive people far from their hometowns, shifting demographics in the country could exacerbate the issue: Over the next four decades, the share of people 65 and older is expected to rapidly expand while the number of people under 20 will roughly hold steady. That means there will be a far smaller share of people between 20 and 64, the age group that most often is faced with caregiving.
"You just want to be in two places at once," said Kay Branch, who lives in Anchorage, Alaska, but helps coordinate care for her parents in Lakeland, Fla., about 3,800 miles away.
There are no easy answers.
Bryner first became a long-distance caregiver when, more than a decade ago, her father began suffering from dementia, which consumed him until he died in 2010. She used to be able to count on help from her brother, who lived close to their parents, but he died of cancer a few years back. Her mother doesn't want to leave the house she's lived in for so long.
So Bryner talks daily with her mother via Skype, a video telephone service. She's lucky to have a job that's flexible enough that she's able to visit for a couple of weeks every few months. But she fears what may happen when her mother is not as healthy as she is now.
"Someone needs to check on her, someone needs to look out for her," she said. "And the only someone is me, and I don't live there."
Many long-distance caregivers say they insist on daily phone calls or video chats to hear or see how their loved one is doing. Oftentimes, they find another relative or a paid caregiver they can trust who is closer and able to help with some tasks.
Yet there always is the unexpected: Medical emergencies, problems with insurance coverage, urgent financial issues. Problems become far tougher to resolve when you need to hop on a plane or make a daylong drive.
"There are lots of things that you have to do that become these real exercises in futility," said Ed Rose, 49, who lives in Boston but, like his sister, travels frequently to Chicago to help care for his 106-year-old grandmother, Blanche Seelmann.
Rose has rushed to his grandmother's side for hospitalizations, and made unexpected trips to solve bureaucratic issues like retrieving a document from a safe-deposit box in order to open a bank account.
But he said he has also managed to get most of the logistics down to a routine.
He uses Skype to speak with his grandmother every day and tries to be there whenever she has a doctor's appointment. Aides handle many daily tasks and have access to a credit card for household expenses. They send him receipts so he can monitor spending. He has an apartment near his grandmother to make sure he's comfortable on his frequent visits.
Even for those who live near those they care for, travel for work can frequently make it a long-distance affair. Evelyn Castillo-Bach lives in Pembroke Pines, Fla., the same town as her 84-year-old mother, who has Alzheimer's disease. But she is on the road roughly half the year, sometimes for months at a time, both for work with her own Web company and accompanying her husband, a consultant for the United Nations.
Once, she was en route from Kosovo to Denmark when she received a call alerting her that her mother was having kidney failure and appeared as if she would die. She needed to communicate her mother's wishes from afar as her panicked sister tried to search their mother's home for her living will. Castillo-Bach didn't think she could make it in time to see her mother alive once more.
"I won't get to touch my mother again," she thought.
She was wrong. Her mother pulled through. But she says it illustrates what long-distance caregivers so frequently go through.
"This is one of the things that happens when you're thousands of miles away," Castillo-Bach said.
Lynn Feinberg, a caregiving expert at AARP, said the number of long-distance caregivers is likely to grow, particularly as a sagging economy has people taking whatever job they can get, wherever it is. Though caregiving is a major stress on anyone, distance can often magnify it, Feinberg said, and presents particular difficulty when it must be balanced with an inflexible job.
"It's a huge stress," she said. "It can have enormous implications not only for someone's quality of life, but also for someone's job."
It can also carry a huge financial burden. A November 2007 report by the National Alliance for Caregiving and Evercare, a division of United Health Group, found annual expenses incurred by long-distance caregivers averaged about $8,728, far more than caregivers who lived close to their loved one. Some also had to cut back on work hours, take on debt of their own and slash their personal spending.
Even with that in mind, though, many long-distance caregivers say they don't regret their decision. Rita Morrow, who works in accounting and lives in Louisville, Ky., about a six-hour drive from her 90-year-old mother in Memphis, Tenn., does all the juggling too.
She has to remind her mother to take her medicine, make sure rides are lined up for doctor's appointments, rush to her aid if there's a problem. She knows her mom wants to stay in her home, to keep going to the church she's gone to the past 60 years, to be near her friends.
"We do what we have to do for our parents," she said. "My mother did all kinds of things for me."
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USDA sets guidelines for healthier school meals (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? School meals for millions of children will be healthier under obesity-fighting U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) standards unveiled on Wednesday that double the amount of fruits and vegetables in cafeteria lunches - but won't pull French fries from the menu.
In the first major changes to school meals in more than 15 years, the new USDA guidelines will affect nearly 32 million children who eat at school. They will cost about $3.2 billion to implement over the next five years.
"Improving the quality of the school meals is a critical step to building a healthy future for our kids," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement.
The new meal requirements are part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act championed by first lady Michelle Obama. President Barack Obama approved the measure in late 2010.
The guidelines double the amounts of fruits and vegetables in school lunches and boost offerings of whole grain-rich foods. The new standards set maximums for calories and cut sodium and trans fat, a contributor to high cholesterol levels.
Schools may offer only fat-free or low-fat milk varieties and must assure that children are getting proper portion sizes, the USDA said.
The new standards will be largely phased in over a three-year period, starting in the 2012-13 school year.
About 17 percent of U.S. children and teenagers are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About one-third of U.S. adults are obese.
FRIES WITH THAT?
Lawmakers altered the guidelines in November. They barred the USDA from limiting French fries and ensured that pizza counted as a vegetable because of its tomato paste.
Trade associations representing frozen pizza sellers like ConAgra Foods Inc and Schwan Food Co as well as French fry sellers McCain Foods Ltd and J.R. Simplot Co were instrumental in blocking changes to rules affecting those items.
Margo Wootan, nutrition policy director for the non-profit Center For Science in the Public Interest, said that the new standards were a big improvement despite food industry lobbying and the congressional revamp.
"The new school meal standards are one of the most important advances in nutrition in decades," she said in a statement.
The Environmental Working Group said the changes could pack a financial punch since they may help reduce medical bills related to diabetes and other obesity-related chronic diseases.
"A healthier population will save billions of dollars in future health care costs," said Dawn Undurraga, EWG's staff nutritionist.
As an example of a new meal, the USDA said an elementary school lunch could be whole wheat spaghetti with meat sauce and a whole wheat roll, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, kiwi, low-fat milk, low-fat ranch dip and soft margarine.
That lunch would replace a meal of a hot dog on a bun with ketchup, canned pears, raw celery and carrots with ranch dressing, and low-fat chocolate milk.
As part of the new standards, schools will receive another 6 cents a meal. The USDA also will increase the number of inspections of school menus.
Food and beverages sold in vending machines and other school sites "will also contribute to a healthy diet," the USDA statement said.
The USDA gives school districts funds for meals through its National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs.
(Additional reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles)
(Reporting By Ian Simpson. Editing by Paul Thomasch)
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Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Mixed record for Obama's State of the Union goals (AP)
WASHINGTON ? As President Barack Obama prepares to deliver his annual address to Congress, many goals he outlined in previous State of the Union speeches remain unfulfilled. From reforming immigration laws to meeting monthly with congressional leaders of both parties, the promises fell victim to congressional opposition or faded in face of other priorities as the unruly realities of governing set in.
For Obama, like presidents before him, the State of the Union is an opportunity like no other to state his case on a grand stage, before both houses of Congress and a prime time television audience. But as with other presidents, the aspirations he's laid out have often turned out to be ephemeral, unable to secure the needed congressional consent or requiring follow-through that's not been forthcoming.
As Obama's first term marches to an end amid bitterly divided government and an intense campaign by Republicans to take his job, it's going to be even harder for him to get things done this year. So Tuesday night's speech may focus as much on making an overarching case for his presidency ? and for a second term ? as on the kind of laundry list of initiatives that sometimes characterize State of the Union appeals.
"State of the Union addresses are kind of like the foam rubber rocks they used on Star Trek ? they look solid but aren't," said Jack Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College. "Presidents will talk about solving some policy problem, and then the bold language of the State of the Union address disappears into the messy reality of governing."
For Obama, last year's State of the Union offers a case study in that dynamic. Speaking to a newly divided government not long after the assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Ariz., Obama pleaded for national unity, a grand goal that never came to pass as Washington quickly dissolved into one partisan dispute after another.
Many of the particulars Obama rolled out that night proved just as hard to pull off.
Among the initiatives Obama promoted then that have yet to come to fruition a year later: eliminating subsidies to oil companies; replacing No Child Left Behind with a better education law; making a tuition tax credit permanent; rewriting immigration laws; and reforming the tax system.
The list of what he succeeded in accomplishing is considerably shorter, including: securing congressional approval of a South Korea free trade deal; signing legislation to undo a burdensome tax reporting requirement in his health care law; and establishing a website to show taxpayers where their tax dollars go.
White House press secretary Jay Carney argued Monday that the unfinished business from last year's speech didn't represent a failure.
"I think that any State of the Union address which lays out an agenda has to be ambitious, and if you got through a year and you achieved everything on your list then you probably didn't aim high enough," Carney said.
One of Obama's pledges from last January's speech ? to undertake a reorganization of the federal government ? he got around to rolling out only this month. And other promises are vaguer or more long term, such as declaring a "Sputnik moment" for today's generation and calling for renewed commitments to research and development and clean energy technology; pushing to prepare more educators to teach science, technology and math; promoting high-speed rail and accessible broadband; and seeking greater investments in infrastructure.
"Clearly as time goes on and a presidency matures you get less and less of it and the State of the Union becomes an aspiration for what you want to do as opposed to a road map for what you can accomplish," said Princeton University historian Julian Zelizer. As voters' enthusiasm fades and opposition deepens, Zelizer said, "You lose some of your power and you get closer to the next election and no one wants to work with you."
Last year's address already contained more modest goals than the speech Obama gave to a joint session of Congress a month after his inauguration, which although not technically a State of the Union report had the feel of one. At the time Obama called for overhauling health care and ending the war in Iraq ? promises he kept ? but also for closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and imposing caps on carbon pollution ? promises unmet.
Obama this month announced plans to use tax credits to encourage employers to create jobs in the U.S. instead of overseas ? an idea he also raised in his State of the Union speech two years ago. Some of his goals, such as immigration and education reform, have resurfaced in multiple addresses, but still without being accomplished.
And rarely has Obama's rhetoric as president reached as high as the lofty promises of his campaign, when he pledged to change the very way Washington does business and remake politics itself. It's a far cry from those promises of change to the ambition of meeting monthly with Democratic and Republican congressional leaders ? but even that relatively modest goal, from Obama's 2010 State of the Union, went unfulfilled.
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Fed to Introduce Game Changing Communications Policies ...
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The Federal Reserve plans to introduce changes to its communications policies to the public on Wednesday, making it easier for the central bank to move ahead with another round of asset purchases later this year by helping to explain the need for additional stimulus.
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However, officials have said that it has no plans for further easing so long as the economy continues to recover. The Fed has lately been able to focus on communication in large part because it no longer must devote all of its energy to crisis management. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has waited five years to make these improvements.
Central to the new policies is the plan to publish the predictions of senior Fed officials about the level at which they intend to set short-term interest rates over the next three years, including when they expect to end their commitment to keep rates near zero.? The Fed also will describe the expectations for the management of the central bank?s investment portfolio.
After a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, which will begin Tuesday, the Fed will publish the first forecast, and may also publish a statement describing the its goals for the pace of inflation and level of unemployment, neither of which has ever been formalized.
By being more transparent, the Fed hopes to garner more public support for its policies. But several Fed officials have said they are hesitant to support new efforts to improve growth because they think monetary policy has exhausted most of its power since the last recession began. They have also expressed concern about inflation.
?Steady even if unspectacular growth accompanied by inflation in the neighborhood of 2 percent justifies some reluctance to change, in either direction, the F.O.M.C.?s accommodative policy,? said Dennis P. Lockhart, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
However, the persistence of high unemployment requires that the Fed keep thinking about doing more, added Lockhart, though Fed officials have made clear that high unemployment in itself is insufficient cause for additional action, at least as long as inflation remains near 2 percent.
Don?t Miss: France, Germany Will Implement Basel III
To contact the reporter on this story: Emily Knapp at staff.writers@wallstcheatsheet.com
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Damien Hoffman at editors@wallstcheatsheet.com
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