JC Shurburrt from 24/7 sports told Rick & Jamie that the Manziel ruling could be considered criminal and he also believed that had Dez Bryant not been drafted by the Cowboys he would have had a great case to bring against the NCAA. JC was asked about the coaching career of UGA Coach Mark Richt and which coaching icon his career might reflect when he is done?
They capped off the interview asking JC how likely he thought there would be two SEC teams in the National title game this year? He gave us several teams from different conferences that might make a challenge for the title.
4 alcohol brands dominate popular music mentionsPublic release date: 28-Aug-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Tim Parsons tmparson@jhsph.edu 410-955-7619 Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
Depictions of alcohol use in songs popular among youth overwhelmingly positive
Four alcohol brandsPatron tequila, Hennessy cognac, Grey Goose vodka, and Jack Daniel's whiskeyaccounted for more than half of alcohol brand mentions in the songs that mentioned alcohol use in Billboard's most popular song lists in 2009, 2010 and 2011, according to a new study from researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health and the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The study, published online by Substance Use & Misuse and the first to examine the context of specific brand mentions in depth, found that alcohol use was portrayed as overwhelmingly positive, with negative consequences rarely mentioned.
Of the 720 songs examined, 167 (23.2%) mentioned alcohol and 46 (6.4%) mentioned specific alcohol brands. The leading four brands accounted for more than half (51.6%) of all alcohol brand mentions. Alcohol mentions were most common in urban songs (rap, hip-hop and R&B 37.7% of songs mentioned alcohol), followed by country (21.8%) and pop (14.9%).
At least 14 long-term studies have found that exposure to alcohol marketing in the mass media increases the likelihood that young people will start drinking or, if already drinking, drink more. Adolescents in the U.S. spend approximately 2.5 hours per day listening to music.
"Given the heavy exposure of youth to popular music, these results suggest popular music may serve as a major source of promotion of alcohol use among youth," said study co-author David Jernigan, PhD, director of CAMY. "The findings lay a strong foundation for further research."
The researchers used Billboard Magazine annual listings of the most popular songs in 2009, 2010 and 2011 to identify 720 unique songs in four genres: urban, pop, country and rock. Three coders analyzed the lyrics of each song to determine alcohol references, brand references and the context for each.
Researchers found alcohol references in 167 songs. References to tequila, cognac, vodka and champagne brands were more prevalent in urban music (R&B, hip-hop and rap), while references to whiskey and beer brands were more common in country or pop music. There were no references to alcohol in the rock music examined.
"A small number of alcohol brands and beverages appear to make frequent appearances in popular music," said Michael Siegel, MD, MPH, professor of Community Health Sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health. "If these exposures are found to influence youth drinking behavior, then further public health efforts must be focused on youth exposure to alcohol portrayals in popular music."
Alcohol is responsible for at least 4,700 deaths per year among young people under the age of 21 in the U.S. More than 70 percent of high school students have consumed alcohol, and about 22 percent engage in heavy episodic drinking.
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This research was supported by grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
4 alcohol brands dominate popular music mentionsPublic release date: 28-Aug-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Tim Parsons tmparson@jhsph.edu 410-955-7619 Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
Depictions of alcohol use in songs popular among youth overwhelmingly positive
Four alcohol brandsPatron tequila, Hennessy cognac, Grey Goose vodka, and Jack Daniel's whiskeyaccounted for more than half of alcohol brand mentions in the songs that mentioned alcohol use in Billboard's most popular song lists in 2009, 2010 and 2011, according to a new study from researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health and the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The study, published online by Substance Use & Misuse and the first to examine the context of specific brand mentions in depth, found that alcohol use was portrayed as overwhelmingly positive, with negative consequences rarely mentioned.
Of the 720 songs examined, 167 (23.2%) mentioned alcohol and 46 (6.4%) mentioned specific alcohol brands. The leading four brands accounted for more than half (51.6%) of all alcohol brand mentions. Alcohol mentions were most common in urban songs (rap, hip-hop and R&B 37.7% of songs mentioned alcohol), followed by country (21.8%) and pop (14.9%).
At least 14 long-term studies have found that exposure to alcohol marketing in the mass media increases the likelihood that young people will start drinking or, if already drinking, drink more. Adolescents in the U.S. spend approximately 2.5 hours per day listening to music.
"Given the heavy exposure of youth to popular music, these results suggest popular music may serve as a major source of promotion of alcohol use among youth," said study co-author David Jernigan, PhD, director of CAMY. "The findings lay a strong foundation for further research."
The researchers used Billboard Magazine annual listings of the most popular songs in 2009, 2010 and 2011 to identify 720 unique songs in four genres: urban, pop, country and rock. Three coders analyzed the lyrics of each song to determine alcohol references, brand references and the context for each.
Researchers found alcohol references in 167 songs. References to tequila, cognac, vodka and champagne brands were more prevalent in urban music (R&B, hip-hop and rap), while references to whiskey and beer brands were more common in country or pop music. There were no references to alcohol in the rock music examined.
"A small number of alcohol brands and beverages appear to make frequent appearances in popular music," said Michael Siegel, MD, MPH, professor of Community Health Sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health. "If these exposures are found to influence youth drinking behavior, then further public health efforts must be focused on youth exposure to alcohol portrayals in popular music."
Alcohol is responsible for at least 4,700 deaths per year among young people under the age of 21 in the U.S. More than 70 percent of high school students have consumed alcohol, and about 22 percent engage in heavy episodic drinking.
###
This research was supported by grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
An eight-month Sun Sentinel investigation into the Jimmy Ryce law has uncovered shocking failures. Florida's safeguards have broken down at every stage, setting hundreds of rapists and child molesters free to harm again.
State legislators promise to overhaul sex offender laws in response to a Sun Sentinel investigation last week that found Florida has failed to stop hundreds of rapists and child molesters from attacking again.
In the Florida Senate and House, leading lawmakers now are working on legislation to toughen sentences for sex crimes and keep more of the most dangerous offenders confined after their prison terms end.
Senate President Don Gaetz vowed action the first week of the legislative session that begins in March.
"As a state, we need to come down very hard on the side of strengthening the laws and not letting bad people who have done these horrible things out onto the street," Gaetz told the Sun Sentinel in an interview. "After reading your series, this issue moves to the top of my priorities."
Changes under consideration include:
? Imposing mandatory minimum sentences for more sex crimes.
? Confining more predators after their release fromprison.
? Converting unused prison beds to expand the capacity of the state's sex predator treatment center.
"In the entire Legislature, everybody will be on board to do something," said state Sen. Eleanor Sobel, a Hollywood Democrat. "It's just a clear-cut, horrible shame on our society, what's happening to innocent people."
READ THE INVESTIGATIVE SERIES: 'Sex Predators Unleashed'
The Sun Sentinel's "Sex Predators Unleashed" series documented shocking failures in a law that allows Florida to keep sex offenders locked up after they finishtheir prison sentences. Named in memory of a South Florida boy who was raped and murdered, the Jimmy Ryce law requires the state to evaluate convicted sex criminals before their release and to recommend predators ? those with a mental disorder that makes them likely to reoffend ? for lockup at a treatment center in Central Florida.
In the 14 years since the law took effect, the Sun Sentinel found,at least 594 offenders reviewed and let go werelater convicted of a new sex crime in Florida. Forty percent attacked within a year of their release ? some the very same day. These offenders molested more than 460 children, raped 121 women and murdered 14.
"What I think your series has uncovered, and it's been a great service to the people of Florida, is the holes in the Jimmy Ryce Act are gaping," said state Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Senate president's son and chairman of the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee. "We've got to plug those gaps, and I don't think we should stop there."
The Fort Walton Beach Republican is considering tougher punishment for sex crimes.
Only two sex crimes now come with mandatory minimum sentences. Molesting a child under 12 calls for 25 years, and raping a child under 12 requires life in prison. Punishment for other sex offenses varies depending on factors including the convict's record.
"I'm supportive of extremely high mandatory minimum" sentences for sex crimes, Rep. Gaetz said.
Lawmakers also are considering expanding capacity of the treatment center for sex predators, the Florida Civil Commitment Center in Arcadia, by using empty prison beds.
"If we need to spend money to have more civil commitment facilities so that sex predators are behind bars instead of on our streets, then we will do it," Rep. Gaetz said. "Our focus on sexual predators is going to be supercharged."
Lawmakers across the state said they were shocked by the newspaper's findings that hundreds of sex offenders released under the Ryce law had gone on to hurt more woman and children, many horrifically. Victims of the repeat offenders include a college student tortured to near-death, a great-grandmother raped and shot in her own bed, and an elderly woman who was sexually assaulted and had her throat slit by a rapist released just three months earlier.
"That's about as heinous as it gets because it's a crime that is not only very damaging physically and life-threatening, it's a crime that is humiliating and degrading and just destroys people emotionally," said state Rep. Dennis Baxley, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. "That kind of victimization has to be stopped. Our first responsibility is public safety."
The Ocala Republican said some offenders with sexual disorders can't be cured.
Fifty years ago, black Americans -- and many whites as well -- descended on Washington, D.C., to insist on one simple thing: that the United States keep its word that "all men are created equal." Fifty years later, progress on equal rights has been realized in some ways, but it remains a dream in others.
By John Yemma,?Editor / August 24, 2013
A virginia family hosts a young boy from Harlem, N.y. as part of the Fresh Air Fund offered to urban youth.
Reza A. Marvashti/The Free Lance-Star/AP
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People change their minds for a million reasons. Sometimes a million people change their minds for one reason. Let?s go back to Aug. 28, 1963 ? midway through one of the most tear-stained years in American history. It was the year fire hoses and police dogs were used against civil rights marchers, when Medgar Evers was murdered in Jackson, Miss., and four little girls were killed by a bomb blast at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. Later that year, President Kennedy was assassinated.
Skip to next paragraph John Yemma
Editor, The Christian Science Monitor
John Yemma is Editor of The Christian Science Monitor, which publishes international news and analysis at?CSMonitor.com, in the?Monitor Weekly?newsmagazine, and in an email-delivered?Daily News Briefing. He can be reached at editor@csmonitor.com.
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Against that backdrop, hundreds of thousands of people descended on Washington, D.C. They were peaceful. They were polite. They were insistent about what had to happen. The centerpiece of the March on Washington was a speech like no other.
In 17 minutes, Martin Luther King Jr. swept through American history, recalling the broken promise of equality for all, ?the fierce urgency of now? in gaining civil rights, and the unstoppable power of ?meeting physical force with soul force.? His voice strengthened and his cadences built as he progressed through the refrain of ?Let freedom ring!? to the now sacred peroration: ?I have a dream? ? of reconciliation, brotherhood, and colorblindness but most of all of an America living up to the true meaning of its creed that ?all men are created equal.?
That late August day 50 years ago was a tipping point in history. Any honest observer had to acknowledge the moral imperative of racial equality. King?s dream was an inarguable vision for what America should be. Millions changed their minds. Within a year, the Civil Rights Act was law. Public spaces and workplaces changed. Discrimination was outlawed.
In a Monitor cover story, Carmen Sisson measures where racial equality stands in 2013. Progress has been indisputable. But if the era of stark injustice is a distant memory, many civil rights workers say subtle racism persists. King?s dream has become reality in some ways but remains a dream in other ways.
That squares with the view of another longtime observer of race relations (and an old friend and colleague). Wil Haygood has written about racial issues throughout his journalism career. His mother is from Selma, Ala. As a young reporter in Pittsburgh, he paid his own Greyhound bus fare to Washington, D.C., in 1983 to witness a commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the ?I Have a Dream? speech.?
Yes, racism persists, Wil says. But echoing America?s first black president in the wake of the verdict in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, he also says there is no doubt that ?the nation has moved further in front than retreated.? In a new book, ?The Butler: A Witness to History,? Wil tells the life story of Eugene Allen, a black man of quiet dignity who joined the White House staff as a ?pantry man? in 1952 and rose to White House butler, serving eight presidents. (A movie based on Mr. Allen?s life and starring Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey has just been released.) Allen?s vantage provides a unique window on the history of the past 50 years.
One measure of how far we?ve traveled: ?When Mr. Allen went to work at the White House,? Wil says, ?he would go home to Virginia and have to use segregated facilities. Look at that ? and then look at the astonishment of November 2008.?
If King?s dream is not fully realized, if it is still in part a dream, at least now it is the American dream.
?John Yemma is editor of the Monitor. He can be reached at editor@csmonitor.com?
Chemists at Indiana University Bloomington have produced detailed descriptions of the structure and molecular properties of human folate receptor proteins, a key development for designing new drugs that can target cancer and inflammatory diseases without serious side effects. Indiana University is home to the Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center Cancer Center.
Click here to read full press release.
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Among the research institutions NCI funds across the United States, it currently designates 67 as Cancer Centers. Largely based in research universities, these facilities are home to many of the NCI-supported scientists who conduct a wide range of intense, laboratory research into cancer?s origins and development. The Cancer Centers Program also focuses on trans-disciplinary research, including population science and clinical research. The centers? research results are often at the forefront of studies in the cancer field.
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Public release date: 28-Aug-2013
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Among the research institutions NCI funds across the United States, it currently designates 67 as Cancer Centers. Largely based in research universities, these facilities are home to many of the NCI-supported scientists who conduct a wide range of intense, laboratory research into cancer?s origins and development. The Cancer Centers Program also focuses on trans-disciplinary research, including population science and clinical research. The centers? research results are often at the forefront of studies in the cancer field.