OK, So a robbed and mangled Shakespear (SP) It should read "Beware yon Casius, he has a lean and hungry look" SEE THE FOLLOWING: Sludge Fertilizer Program Spurs Concerns April 13, 2008 11:15 AM EDT BALTIMORE - Scientists using federal grants spread fertilizer made from human and industrial wastes on yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test whether it might protect children from lead poisoning in the soil. Families were assured the sludge was safe and were never told about any harmful ingredients. Nine low-income families in Baltimore row houses agreed to let researchers till the sewage sludge into their yards and plant new grass. In exchange, they were given food coupons as well as the free lawns as part of a study published in 2005 and funded by the Housing and Urban Development Department. The Associated Press reviewed grant documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and interviewed researchers. No one involved with the $446,231 grant for the two-year study would identify the participants, citing privacy concerns. There is no evidence there was ever any medical follow-up. Comparable research was conducted by the Agriculture Department and Environmental Protection Agency in a similarly poor, black neighborhood in East St. Louis, Ill. The sludge, researchers said, put the children at less risk of brain or nerve damage from lead, a highly toxic element once widely used in gasoline and paint. Other studies have shown brain damage among children, often in poor neighborhoods, who ate paint lead-based based that had flaked off their homes. The idea that sludge - the leftover semisolid wastes filtered from water pollution at 16,500 treatment plants - can be turned into something harmless, even if swallowed, has been a tenet of federal policy for three decades. In a 1978 memo, the EPA said sludge "contains nutrients and organic matter which have considerable benefit for land and crops" despite the presence of "low levels of toxic substances." But in the late 1990s the government began underwriting studies such as those in Baltimore and East St. Louis using poor neighborhoods as laboratories to make a case that sludge may also directly benefit human health. Meanwhile, there has been a paucity of research into the possible harmful effects of heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, other chemicals and disease-causing microorganisms often found in sludge. A series of reports by the EPA's inspector general and the National Academy of Sciences between 1996 and 2002 faulted the adequacy of the science behind the EPA's 1993 regulations on sludge. The chairman of the 2002 academy panel, Thomas Burke, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says epidemiological studies have never been done to show whether spreading sludge on land is safe. "There are potential pathogens and chemicals that are not in the realm of safe," Burke told the AP. "What's needed are more studies on what's going on with the pathogens in sludge - are we actually removing them? The commitment to connecting the dots hasn't been there." That's not what the subjects of the Baltimore and East St. Louis research were told. Rufus Chaney, an Agriculture Department research agronomist who co-wrote the Baltimore study, said the researchers provided the families with brochures about lead hazards, tested the soil in their yards and gave assurances that the Orgro fertilizer was store-bought and perfectly safe. "They were told that their lawn, as it stood, before it was treated, was a lead danger to their children," said Chaney. "So that even if they ate some of the soil, there would not be as much of a risk as there was before. And that's what the science shows." Chaney said the Baltimore neighborhoods were chosen because they were within an economically depressed area qualifying for tax incentives. He acknowledged the families were not told there have been some safety disputes and health complaints over sludge. "They were told that it was composted biosolids that are available for sale commercially in the state of Maryland. I don't think there's any other further disclosure required," Chaney said. "There was danger before. There wasn't danger because of the biosolids compost. Composting, of course, kills pathogens." The Baltimore study concluded that phosphate and iron in sludge can increase the ability of soil to trap more harmful metals including lead, cadmium and zinc, causing the combination to pass safely through a child's body if eaten. It called the fertilizer "a simple low-cost" technology for parents and communities "to reduce risk to their children" who are in danger of lead contamination. The results were published in Science of the Total Environment, an international research journal, in 2005. Another study investigating whether sludge might inhibit the "bioavailability" of lead - the rate it enters the bloodstream and circulates to organs and tissues - was conducted on a vacant lot in East St. Louis next to an elementary school, all of whose 300 students were black and almost entirely from low-income families. In a newsletter, the EPA-funded Community Environmental Resource Program assured local residents it was all safe. "Though the lot will be closed off to the public, if people - particularly children - get some of the lead contaminated dirt in their mouths, the lead will just pass through their bodies and not be absorbed," the newsletter said. "Without this iron-phosphorus mix, lead poisoning would occur." Soil chemist Murray McBride, director of the Cornell Waste Management Institute, said he doesn't doubt that sludge can bind lead in soil. But when eaten, "it's not at all clear that the sludge binding the lead will be preserved in the acidity of the stomach," he said. "Actually thinking about a child ingesting this, there's a very good chance that it's not safe." McBride and others also questioned the choice of neighborhoods for the studies and why residents were not told about other, possibly harmful ingredients in sludge. "If you're not telling them what kinds of chemicals could be in there, how could they even make an informed decision. If you're telling them it's absolutely safe, then it's not ethical," McBride said. "In many relatively wealthy people's neighborhoods, I would think that people would research this a little and see a problem and raise a red flag." The Baltimore study used a compost of sludge mixed with sawdust and wood chips packaged as "biosolids," the term for sludge preferred by government and the waste industry. "What we did was make the yards greener," said Pat Tracey, a Johns Hopkins University community relations coordinator who recalled helping with the lawn work. "They were bald, bad yards. It was considered sterile fertilizer." Baltimore environmental activist Glenn Ross says choosing poor neighborhoods destined for demolition makes it hard to track a study's participants. "If you wanted to do something very questionable, you would do it in a neighborhood that's not going to be there in a few years," he said. HUD documents show the study's lead author, Mark Farfel, has pursued several other studies of lead contamination including the risks of exposure from urban housing demolitions and the vacant lots left behind. Farfel has since moved to New York, where he directs the World Trade Center Health Registry surveying tens of thousands of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. He denied repeated requests for interviews and referred questions to Baltimore's Kennedy Krieger Institute, the children's research facility that was the recipient of HUD grants with Farfel as project manager. The institute referred questions to Joann Rodgers, a spokeswoman for Johns Hopkins. She said a review board within its medical school approved the study and the consent forms provided to families that participated. "The study did not test children or other family members living in the homes," she said. Some of Farfel's previous research has been controversial. In 2001, Maryland's highest court chastised him, Kennedy Krieger and Johns Hopkins over a study bankrolled by EPA in which researchers testing low-cost ways to control lead hazards exposed more than 75 poor children to lead-based paint in partially renovated houses. Families of two children alleged to have suffered elevated blood-lead levels and brain damage sued the institute and later settled for an undisclosed amount. The Maryland Court of Appeals likened the study to Nazi medical research on concentration camp prisoners, the U.S. government's 40-year Tuskegee study that denied treatment for syphilis to black men in order to study the illness and Japan's use of "plague bombs" in World War II to infect and study entire villages. "These programs were somewhat alike in the vulnerability of the subjects: uneducated African-American men, debilitated patients in a charity hospital, prisoners of war, inmates of concentration camps and others falling within the custody and control of the agencies conducting or approving the experiments," the court said. ---

luvs..Thank you for the nice compliments. I've had those placemats for years..and only use them for special occasions. (with Grn Ups) :) Lucky Gkids to have you on Patrol...hope you get to catch up on some rest now..lol alex91..Thank you, and glad to know there's another 'Furnival' lover out there...lol. I've seen them on Ebay too, and know what you mean. I've been watching on Homeclick..they have the dinner plates for $7.20..w/no Picutre, saying image coming soon. The price seems too low, and w/no pic..I'm not convinced to buy. As a bird plate lover, you would love the Pheasant Platters that I have. They are b&w transferware and are very large..I can't believe what they want for them on Ebay. dd..Thank you for the compliments. I just got lucky last time around on Ebay. After seeing Tam's..it just inspired me to look again..I was just so surprised to find him. I had been looking for just that kind of turkey two months with no luck. Thank you for the compliments on the DR..I'm glad we were able to give it a 'new life'. jane

Suzie, I actually think that is how mine worked. The "girls" sort of gave me a wish list and I found a dress that worked reasonably well within the parameters. I wouldn't compromise on color. That dicates so much, flowers, etc. I think brides sometimes don't think through the dress thing very well. I was in a wedding many year ago, when I was in my early 20s. The bride shopped with the tallest, thinnest girl when choosing dresses. Mistake. She chose a dress that made that girl look like she had a figure she didn't have. But I had a figure and didn't need help looking more hourglass. I'll never forget it-portrait collar, tiny waist, flouncy peplum at the hips and a pencil skirt (did I mention hot pink?). I didn't look bad per se, but I definitely distracted attention from the bride and other girls. I looked va va voom. The MOB was less than pleased. I wish I looked like that now! 18 year later. The worst dress that almost was didn't happen because the wedding was cancelled by the groom (I felt badly for my friend, but was SO GLAD I didn't have to wear that dress in public). It was a few years later and I was a little heavier. Black and white satin mermaid/cha cha style. Truly horrifying. I looked Anna Nicole Smith (except brunette) from the fat years. Ridiculous. But the MOH was a wisp of a thing and it looked charming in a sort of trashy way on her. On me it was just trashy.

My parents were married for 25 yrs when they divorced. Their marriage didn't come first at all. I don't know that even us kids came first...LOL. My mother has not re-married, but my father has. I have been on both sides of the fence with step-families. I was an adult when my father remarried. I have taken my approach with my SS's from what I have learned as a child of divorce, and from the mistakes his wife has made. 1. The marriage to my DH is of equal importance as his children. 2. The children need one on one time with their father regardless of how good our relationship is as a family. Whether intact or not, children need one on one time with each parent. 3. If anything were to happen to my DH, the chilren will recieve all monies from his life insurance policy, any items of his that they want, etc. It has been made clear to me and my siblings that we are not welcome to a personal relationship with our father. We are allowed to have one with him AND his wife (which is fine, but sometimes you need one on one with your parents) When I got married the first time, my father was dating his now wife. He brought her to my wedding. That was the first time I met her. They had come from out of state (about 1,000 miles) to our wedding. I welcomed her openly. She was awful. Very rude to my brothers, my mother, and disrespectful to my grandparents. She made it clear that she didn't feel that I was old enough to get married, and that she would never allow her daughter (same age as me) to get married. (I was young...21) Six months later, her daughter married a meth addict. Nice.... Anyway, over the years she's pulled some pretty crazy stuff. Alienating one of my brothers totally, and pi$$ing of the rest of us. Here's the thing. I still invite her to all family functions becuase she's my fathers wife. I remarried a while back, and she was invited to the wedding, and she sat with my in-laws, etc. I would never dream of treating her with any disrespect. I don't have to like what she does, but she is my father's wife, and that is the choice he made. My relationship with my father isn't what it use to be, and that's pretty sad, but that is his choice. I love him regardless. So, understanding both side of things, my goal is to foster a positive, fulfulling relationship between my DH and SS's. They all deserve it. What's funny, is that my DH would never allow me (or anyone else for that matter) to come between him and his kids. Nor would he allow my SS's to be disrespectful to me. I've been lucky, my SS's are very good to me. I don't know what I'd do if they weren't. I know I'd be crushed. I just don't think it's ever OK to exclude a bio OR step parent. When my SS had his 12th b-day party, he was mad at his mother still (he had moved in with us a yr before)and I told him "you invite your Mom, or no party...period". He got the message. We're teaching him tolerance. It can go a long way, just like manners.