Cedar Grove shoppers recently tried out a new way of bagging groceries.
Businessmen visited the Super Foodtown on Pompton Avenue to premiere the My Eco Bag System, in which shoppers sort foods into specially designed reusable bags.

The local supermarket was the first in the Northeast to see them, Company Partner Mikel Eisenberg said.

“It was a huge change to go from paper to plastic,” he said. “We’re hoping there can be a second culture change from asking, ‘paper or plastic?’ to ‘did you bring a bag?’”

Representatives bill the product as “a convenient four-shopping-bags-in-one-storage-tote reusable shopping bag system.”
Director of Business Development Jeff Bauman is ready to go with his groceries pre-sorted in the My Eco Bag System.
Director of Business Development Jeff Bauman is ready to go with his groceries pre-sorted in the My Eco Bag System.

“Like a puzzle, the grocery bags fit perfectly together into a shopping cart,” according to a company statement. “When the groceries reach the end of the checkout, they are placed directly into the My Eco Bag System jute bags within the cart.

“From there, they are easy to lift from cart to car and easy to carry from car to home.”

Each polyethylene custom bag is designed to hold a different type of grocery. One holds glass and beverages. Another customized bag holds fruits and vegetables. An insulated bag holds cold and frozen foods and the last bag holds everything else.

System Inventor Kristen Brown, an Environmental Protection Agency consultant, is the daughter of Gordon Dancy, who developed the modern plastic bag in 1977.

“Some of it is recycled polyethylene – such as what yogurt or sour cream containers are made out of,” she said. “Exactly what percentage, I’m not sure.”

Eisenberg said the $19.95 bags have sold well in other parts of the country and appear in supermarket chains Piggly Wiggly, Bi-Lo and Harris Teeter.

Last Monday, he and Director of Business Development Jeff Bauman demonstrated the products in the Pompton Avenue store.

Eisenberg packed up one Verona resident’s groceries into the shopping bags and wheeled the cart out to her car.

The woman, who asked the Times not to use her name, thought the reusable grocery bags were great.

Other shoppers may be similarly sympathetic to the idea.

Foodtown Manager Bob Lenthe put it simply: “The customers don’t like plastic.”

They may not have made headlines this past week, but these research developments are worth noting. So consider them noted (if not thoroughly developed in this space).

– One might think that frequently screening and treating teenage girls for chlamydia would cut back on just how common the disease is in that age group. Not so.

Turns out there are a lot of reinfections. Here’s the abstract, published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, and here’s the news release from Indiana University.

– We can talk about quality-of-care standards, but that doesn’t mean doctors will follow them. When it comes to procedures to ensure coordinated cancer care, for example, most breast cancer surgeons might just go their own way.

So suggests a survey of surgeons in Detroit and lvn jobs in orange county ca. Here’s the abstract, published in the January issue of Medical Care, and the news release from the University of Michigan Health System.

As for nursing jobs california home quality, elderly Hispanic people are more likely to live in not-so-good ones, at least as compared to their white counterparts. The findings come as the percentage of Hispanics in nursing jobs los angeles homes increases.

(CNN) — The message blaring out of the speakers on the van was stark: “Any black person who is hiding in Rosarno should get out. If we catch you, we will kill you.”

Abdul Rashid Muhammad Mahmoud Iddris got out.

He’s one of hundreds — perhaps thousands — of African migrants taken by bus out of the Italian town over the weekend after violent demonstrations shook southern Italy.

The unrest was among the worst of its kind in recent Italian history, said a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration.

“We have not witnessed such lvn jobs california protests in a long time,” said Flavio Di Giacomo. “There were several thousand, but I don’t know exactly how many people were involved in managed care nursing jobs.”

Interior Minister Roberto Maroni got involved Friday, declaring an “immigration emergency” and forming a task force under the authority of regional police to guarantee public order.

It was the shooting of an African migrant that sparked two days of protests, Iddris told CNN by telephone from Italy. He said the shooting was unprovoked. Police said they were investigating the circumstances of the shooting.

Iddris lived with other migrants working at managed care jobs outside Rosarno, he said.

On Thursday, a BMW pulled up outside the factory, a man got out, shot one of the Africans living there, 26-year-old Ayiva Saibou, and drove off.

A passing policeman told Iddris and his friends it was not his job to help the wounded man, so they called the Red Cross and people from lvn jobs in orange county ca to take the man to a hospital for treatment, Iddris said. Press reports said Saibou — who is a native of Togo with regular working papers — was shot with a compressed air gun.

A few hours after the shooting, a group of about 300 immigrants poured into to the street where the incident took place earlier. “They put on an angry demonstration, hampering the free circulation in the streets, damaging garbage bins, hitting with sticks and rocks numerous passing cars,” according to a police report.

Iddris and his friends then decided to march to Rosarno’s town hall to protest.

“About 2,000 people came — all of us,” he said. “It started about 6 or 7 in the evening, a few hours after he was shot.”

But police forced the demonstrators to turn back, threatening them with tear gas, Iddris said. Six or seven people were arrested, he said.

Police attempted talking with the immigrants, but negotiations did not produce positive results, according to a police statement.

The next morning, Friday, the immigrants tried again, playing drums as they tried to march from the factory to Rosarno’s town hall, he said.

That’s when they heard the warning.

“People took a van, an information van with speakers, saying any black person who is hiding in Rosarno should get out, if they catch anyone they will kill him,” Iddris said.

Iddris — who is originally from Sudan and has been in Italy for about 18 months, first as an asylum seeker and then without legal lvn jobs in los angeles documentation, and who picks oranges in season — said police arrested another 10 to 20 people at Friday’s demonstration.

(more…)

Speaking in an interview he once granted GTV, Kiki Gyan, the keyboard maestro of Osibisa, sounded very nostalgic. “Luxury is leisure and it is pleasure. It is not about sitting down with your dame around two bottles of beer in tartly surroundings.”

Then he cooed, “Man, hire a boat in New York. Have a new bird in tow and head for the Caribbean sun and sandy beaches. Get lost for two weeks.” He boasted – and justifiably so – “I have indeed seen the good life.” The interviewer asked him, “Would you do it again?” Longing for an era past, Kiki felt wistful and responded in a low voice, “If I have that sort of money, yes, because leisure that luxury affords reduces stress and recharges your batteries.”

The definitions of luxury offered by a source such as Britannica Online Encyclopaedia are as many as the stars on a bright night. To any ordinary person, luxury connotes a lifestyle of expensive items considered to be of best quality. Of what? Is it about the furnishing of your house, the model of your car or organic cotton night shirts womens clothes? Is it about food or your circle of friends? Whatever it is, it gives leisure and a sense of achievement that would make many people aspire to enjoy it.

Pick and choose what you wish. But be aware that luxury is neither lust nor lasciviousness. It is not worthless form of self-pity either. With modern concepts of branding, uniqueness and customization have become part of luxury. Therefore, luxury is no longer about” things” only. As Abelow Public Relations of New York puts it, “Luxury is not a jute bag or labels, but the perception that backs it; it’s an attitude towards life.” In that sense, the quality of your vacation travel, for example, is a luxury.

The brief Kiki interview sums up an upper class, if slightly erotic definition of luxury. Here was a man who was once as rich as any successful musician during his heyday in the 1970s and 1980s. He led his life to the fullest and did all the exclusive things that successful musicians were noted for. Unfortunately, his career took a nosedive and he could no longer indulge in his leisure pursuits. The take home lesson is that luxury is not for free. You indulge in what you can afford with your means.

There was this Foreman who used to work for me in the early 1980s. He hardly had any time or the means for leisure. On retirement, he set up his own motor repair custom bags workshop, became reasonably well-to-do and took to golfing. His son became his caddy and they now have an invigorating game once a week. And how they both love it!

So are poor people excluded from luxury? I know a night guard who spends a considerable part of his off-duty hours hanging out with his friends. They would go for “quarter” of akpeteshie, after which they would play several rounds of draught accompanied with banter. For his financial circumstance, that was the luxury he could afford. There is no argument about luxury being class-related. However, the assertion that with the current state of Africa, where poverty is rampant and many people earn less than the equivalent of $2.00 per day, people are excluded from any notion of leisure is not correct.

The stories about Kiki, the Foreman, his son and the night guard illustrate a good background for any discussion of leisure. Truly, it is said that each class has its luxury or leisure dictated by financial circumstances. Thus, it does not matter whether a man is dripping with cash or eking out a living on $2.00 per day. He has his own class of luxury. In an attempt to marry the concept of leisure to poverty. R.B. Lee did a study, Men, Women and Work in Foraging Society (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press) and concluded that work should be defined and time spent gathering enough food for having racerback tank top clothes.

“THE VALUE OF ANYTHING DEPENDS ON ITS RELATIVE SCARCITY.” THE PEOPLE IN THE LUXURY BUSINESS PROJECT SNOB VALUE AND EXCLUSIVITY. YOU CANNOT EXPECT A ROLLS ROYCE ON DISPLAY IN EVERY MOTOR SHOWROOM OR A DELUXE WINE SERVED IN AN AKPETESHIE BAR.

subsistence, and that in a hunter-gatherer society, people needed to work only 20 hours per week and may devote the rest of their time to leisure. What did they do for leisure? Theirs was an extremely simple society full of its peculiar leisure. I suspect they slept, wove their own garments, paraded in the fineries of the time and went on courtships. They must have sung and danced a lot.

The world is now more complex than that. Most of modern men are likely employed. They work a stipulated 40-hour week and are paid accordingly. The money is used to pay for food in reusable grocery bags, healthcare, education for the children, housing and for settling the utility bills. If they are able to save some money and can afford the time, they think of leisure. Not all leisure pursuits are expensive, though. Home-based activities such as watching television, playing ludo, card games or working Cross Word Puzzles are cheap.

To some stay-at-homes, do LVN jobs los angeles and absorbing Agatha Christie or James Bond thriller is all they need. The effect on a tired or bored mind is therapeutic. Some ladies may prefer trying their hands on new recipes in the kitchen and showing the products off to their husbands. They may also try knitting a design from a fashion magazine. Many LVN jobs orange county outdoor activities are not necessarily expensive. A Sunday morning kick-about with friends at the neighbourhood school park can be exhilarating. Or, you may walk to the nearest beach. Don your sunshade and simply drape yourself on the sands and listen to the squealing of the bathers above the humming of the surf. You lift yourself up and take a stroll along the shoreline with the surf gently lapping your feet. How much would Nursing jobs California cost you?

Nevertheless, we must not pretend that Africa is one huge, homogenous class creeping with beggars. Much as there are poor people, there are also moneybags with considerable loot and taste. They travel overseas for shopping in exclusive shops stocked with exclusive brands. They visit the spa or the health farm and get spoilt with care.

Yes, luxury can be expensive, because for maximum profit, the providers of luxury products work on the simple economic dictum, “The value of anything depends on its relative scarcity.” The people in the luxury business project snob value and exclusivity. You cannot expect a Rolls Royce on display in every motor showroom or a deluxe wine served in an akpeteshie bar. Great tastes come with a price. You wear a Gucci or an original Rolex if you can pay for it and not worry the next morning about the housekeeping money.

Are you in a fix as to what you can choose for your luxury? There are a number of marketers whose magazines advertise luxuries. I mean professional nursing Los Angeles, glossy and cutting edge magazines one of which I have before me. It is called, The Canoe. It is a quarterly published by Canoe Africa and marketed in a number of African countries. The roll call of the ports of sail and disembarkation is long and getting longer: Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Botswana and Zambia. Kenya and Egypt are waiting with open arms. There are impressive subscription bases in Canada, USA, UK and other parts of Europe.

The December Edition is titled, “Cutting Edge” and features the best of the best of Africa, Africans in Africa and Africans in the Diaspora. It portrays the culture and successful individuals in all their richness.

Where does the Canoe fit? The roll call is long: RN jobs Los Angeles, Airport Departure Lounges, Hotel Lobbies, The Travel Tourists’ Ticketing Office, The Beauty Salon, The Health Farms and the Spas, The Dentist’s Waiting Room, Individual Homes…Oh yes. It is a must for everywhere. It is certainly not for the Aketeshie Bar.

Grab a copy for your home and for your business.
Happy new year to all readers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What a year was 2009! It was a remarkable year that many people will always remember for either good or bad. It was the year when Barack H. Obama, the son of an African father and a white American mother, was sworn in to the highest office in the USA – the most powerful nation on earth.

This event is simply epoch making in a country that gave us the commercial awnings gas stations and lynching of the Blacks in America just a half century earlier when boxer Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) had won the gold medal in summer Olympic in Rome. Winning an Olympic Gold Medal for the USA by a talented Black athlete in 1960, 1964 and 1968 was an easier task than being recognized as an equal by a fellow white American. Ali learned it the hard way when he was refused service at a “whites-only” restaurant.

After protesting such a naked display of racism and fighting with a white gang of hoodlums he threw that medal into the Ohio River. That is how worthless that coveted gold medal counted to the greatest boxer of all times!

So, by most accounts, 2009 will go down in history as a year of change, and hopefully, for the better. The year ushered in the hard-won belief that “business as usual” was no longer an option that America could afford. She needed a new direction under a new chief – wiser and courageous.

As we say sayonara or goodbye to 2009, we may like to ponder the changes that had taken place since awnings for commercial buildings. That year, William Taft had taken the reign of the US government from Teddy Roosevelt. It was the year when the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was formed.

The average life expectancy back then was 47 years. Only 14 percent of the American households had a bathtub, only eight percent of homes had telephones, canopy for gas station, and the fuel for car used to be sold in drugstores. There were no band-aids, bikinis, yoga pants and tops, bubble gums, blenders, homecoming dresses, ballpoint pens, diapers, hair dryers, milk cartons, sunglasses, shopping carts, traffic lights, toasters and zippers. There were only 144 miles of paved roads in the USA for some 8000 cars that were limited to drive at a maximum speed of 10 MPH.

Ford, the only automaker, had rolled in its T-Ford, the “Tin Lizzie” model, from the assembly line. There was no Sears Tower (to be designed later by a Bangladeshi American Architect – Dr. Fazlur Rahman Khan) then, and only the Eiffel Tower, which was the tallest structure in the world, and that, too, in France, and not in the USA. A postage stamp cost two cents.

The average wage was only 22 cents per hour; but that was sufficient for most wage earners to take care of their families. A dozen of eggs cost only 14 cents (it now costs more than a dollar in most places), sugar was available at four cents per pound, and coffee was 15 cents a pound. One in five Americans had domestic help or servants. In 1909, twenty percent of the population could not read or write. Only 6% of the American population had a high school education.

Water was not so readily available and as such most Americans could not afford to take bath or wash their black dresses for women everyday. There was no shampoo. Women washed their hair with either Borax or egg-yolks once a month. The American culture was not so consumer-market driven as it is today. As such, there was no mother’s day, father’s day, boss’s day and the secretary’s day in those days.

The average American worker made somewhere between 200 and 400 dollars a year back in 1909. In 1909, of all the engineers, the mechanical engineers were expected to earn the most - $5000 per year (now chemical engineers are best paid). A veterinarian was expected to earn anywhere between $1500 and $4000 a year. There were few hospitals and more than 95% of births took place at home.

Most of the doctors (some 90%) had no formal college education and had only learned rudimentary medical knowledge from some schools. The five leading causes of deaths were pneumonia and influenza, tuberculosis, diarrhea, heat disease and strokes. Penicillin was not yet invented, but the German Researcher Paul Enrich had just found a cure for syphilis. Marijuana and heroin were not illegal and could be found all over the counter at the local drugstore. In 1909, there were only 45 stars in the US flag (and not 50). Leisure time was not spent in front of the TVs, but with family members in picnics, baseball games, horse-riding and sitting around the piano.

Back in 1909, there were only 1.7 billion people in our planet. Today, we have almost four times that number. Back then the population of Las Vegas – a.k.a. the Sin City – was only 30. There were only 230 reported cases of murder in the entire USA. Today, most major cities like Philadelphia have almost double that number in homicide.

Fast forward to 2009. With the economic meltdown in the Wall Street, 2009, saw one of the worst economic problems of our time, creating a ripple effect everywhere. Ten million Americans are without job today, even after the economic stimulus package. The band-aid measures taken thus far by the Obama administration to infuse life into the faltering economy have not done any miracle that the people had hoped for with the change of organic cotton night shirts womens in the White House.

It is, however, obvious that President Obama is taking a long term strategy towards bringing in a fundamental change to institutions where it matters. He is putting money in the education sector and into science programs so that years from now Americans would be better positioned to avoid such an economic mess in the future and would have the right ingredients to do the right things. For the first time in many decades the health reform bill passed the Senate.

So how will 2010 look like? I am not into the prediction business. But I believe that Igor Panarin, a former KGB analyst, currently the dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s academy for future diplomats, will be proven wrong. In case you are wondering, Panarin predicted that the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. No matter how bad the American economy is, the USA is in no position to fall apart. Economic recovery will be a very slow one.

Thus, it is easy to guess that the Democrats will lose quite a few seats within the US Congress in the 2010 mid-term election. Unless something miraculously wrong happens, which shows the current Obama administration totally ill-prepared, Democrats are expected to retain a majority in the both Houses. This, in spite of all the hysterical blabbering from war criminals like Cheney!

With such negatives in the American horizon though, it may be too tempting for some comfortable cotton bras for a cups people and Obama-insiders or advisers to sell the idea of going to war with Iran as an option. But that decision would be totally irresponsible and almost suicidal. A war with Iran will not only weaken Obama administration inside America, thus losing its liberal and anti-war support base that make up the majority, but the move will surely put a final nail in the coffin of free market economy. It will also evaporate the tremendous support and trust that Obama enjoys today outside. He will also do the greatest disservice and harm to the very Nobel Prize for Peace that was bestowed on him this year.

I also believe that terrorism of all sorts – state, individual and non-governmental – will continue to play a big role in our world. America has to revise its entire program around terrorism and come up with time-honored solutions that are scientific and feasible from both short- and long-term perspectives. American troops will remain, as already announced, in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. And as such, economy may not regain the necessary health required to show a positive upturn.

Happy New Year! May this year be a better one than the one that passed us by!