Is pizza a vegetable? U.S. Congress will decide

WASHINGTON - Buried in a thick spending bill before Congress that must be approved to prevent a government shutdown is one line dealing with tomato paste.

The line would ensure that two tablespoons of tomato paste slathered on school pizzas can continue to be classified as a vegetable serving. It seeks to block a Department of Agriculture effort that critics say would make it harder to offer pizza in the federally subsidized school lunch program.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest has attacked the provision, saying in a statement that it "may go down in nutritional history as a bigger blunder than when the Reagan administration tried, but failed, to credit ketchup as a vegetable in the school lunch program."

Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the center, said in an interview that "Pizza should be served with a vegetable, not count as one."

The provision has drawn the attention, and ridicule, of "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart. Citing a congressional panel's struggles to come up with a deficit-reduction plan, Stewart joked, "So the one thing that you've all been able to sit down and agree upon is that pizza is a vegetable."

The Department of Agriculture, pushing for healthier food for kids, has sought a stricter provision requiring that food contain half a cup of tomato paste to qualify as a vegetable serving.

Currently, two tablespoons of tomato paste are considered by the government to be a vegetable.

The provision is included in a bill headed for congressional approval. The bill would fund the Department of Agriculture and some other federal agencies while extending spending authority for other departments until mid-December.

"If the USDA rule went forward as is, pizza would most certainly be all but impossible to serve in school lunch programs," said Corey Henry, a spokesman for the American Frozen Food Institute.

"Schools have to meet nutrition requirements at every meal to get reimbursed by the federal government," he added. "To get a vegetable credit using tomato paste under the USDA's proposed rule, schools would have to drown pizza in tomato sauce to the point where kids would never want to eat a slice of pizza. If schools have to add so much sauce to get a vegetable credit that pizza becomes inedible, they simply won't serve pizza any longer."

Wootan said the provision to retain the two-tablespoon-only threshold comes in response to heavy frozen-food industry lobbying.

"It's a shame that Congress seems more interested in protecting industry than protecting children's health," she said. "But this is Washington."

Henry of the frozen-food group said in an interview that "everybody agrees that there needs to be a concerted effort to improve nutrition, particularly in school meals. However, we don't think you can improve nutrition by removing items from school meals that kids like to eat and provide important sources of nutrients and vitamins like a single slice of pizza can.

"Pizza is not the problem here," he added. "Pizza can be served in a perfect healthy way."

Department of Agriculture spokesman Aaron Lavallee said the USDA proposal is backed by "practical, science-based standards" to serve more vegetables to kids, "either by putting other vegetables on the pizza itself or serving them elsewhere on the tray."

The tomato provision is in addition to another provision of the bill, pushed by lawmakers from potato-producing states, that would block proposed Department of Agriculture nutrition rules to limit the consumption of starchy vegetables, including potatoes and, Wootan notes, fries in schools.

John Keeling, executive vice president and chief executive of the National Potato Council, said in a statement that the group hopes to work with the Department of Agriculture "to promote the nutritional and economic value of potatoes, which provide school food service professionals the flexibility they need to deliver healthy meals to students."

A House Republican aide said that members of both parties have been contacted by local school officials expressing concern about changes to the lunch program. "Our primary concern was the cost to local school districts," the staffer said.

Courtesy: McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

The popularity of smartphones and social networking sites is keeping a growing number of people connected - to danger, deception and a loss of academic or career opportunities.

Many haven’t set secure privacy settings on their profiles, and may not realize how easy it is for a Facebook friend to spread embarrassing content from a private profile. Add in impulsivity, multitasking and the ability to instantly post or text from a mobile device, and the results can be disastrous, said Sameer Hinduja, the co-director of Florida Atlantic University’s Cyberbullying Research Center.

"I’ve seen personal and professional damage occur to individuals who posted or sent something online that will plague them for the rest of their lives," said Hinduja, an associate professor of criminology.

For example, an 18-year-old in Orlando, Fla., texted a nude photo of his 17-year-old girlfriend - and ended up on Florida’s sex offender list. A job applicant at a Miami Shores university ranted online about having to take a typing test, and lost the chance for the position. And a 13-year-old Hillsborough teen killed herself after sexting photos were spread around her school.

As a result, colleges and school districts say they’re making Internet safety a priority in their training efforts. They’re holding workshops, adding Internet safety to freshmen orientation exercises and counseling students as they apply for colleges or jobs.

In a recent session at Florida Atlantic University, Hinduja warned students to lock down their privacy settings and resist the urge to put profanity-laden rants and drunken keg stand pictures on their profiles.

At least 75 Facebook friends thought Boca Raton, Fla., resident Carolina Droze had created a new Facebook account. But the invitation came from an impostor who stole her photo and asked her friends for money.

She and her husband, Ryan Droze, said in March that they considered themselves savvy Web users, having worked for websites and having promoted their wedding photography business on Facebook.

"It creeped me out. I thought social networking was so important," Ryan Droze said at the time. "But I’ve changed my mind."

Ashley Atchison was fooled when she got a friend request last year from someone purporting to be an alumnus of her Florida State University sorority. But the "friend" started making sexually explicit requests and threatened to get Atchison kicked out of the sorority if she didn’t comply, she told NBC’s "Today" show.

Police say the person on the other end was actually Mitchell Hill, 27, of Key West, Fla., who used Facebook to harass sorority members at FSU, Louisiana State University, the University of Florida, the University of Alabama and Auburn University.

The practice of sexting - using a mobile device to send out explicit photos - has become mainstream, with more than half of college students acknowledging they’ve sent or received such an image, according to a recent University of Rhode Island study.

Hinduja conducted a study on sexting at middle and high schools and found that 13 percent of children aged 11 to 18 had received a naked or semi-naked photo of someone from their school. Nearly 8 percent admitting sending a photo.

Hope Witsell, 13, suffered from vicious bullying after a suggestive photo she texted to a boy got out at her middle school, according to the St. Petersburg Times. She hanged herself in 2009.

In a high school outside of Milwaukee, at least 31 male students reported they were seduced into sending naked photos of themselves after receiving a Facebook request from a pretty young girl. But it wasn’t actually a girl. On the other end was an 18-year-old named Anthony R. Stancl, who threatened to expose the photos if they didn’t have sex with him. He was sentenced last year to 15 years in prison.

Sexting has also led to child pornography convictions in Florida. The most famous happened four years ago when Phillip Alpert of Orlando, who had just turned 18, forwarded naked pictures of his 17-year-girlfriend to her family and friends after an argument. He is now a registered sex offender.

"He was unable to live with father, because his house was too close to a school," said his lawyer, David Lawrence. "He got kicked out school and couldn’t get a job."

Minors have also been prosecuted as sex offenders for sexting, although the state passed a law this year that decriminalized sexting charges among minors for first-time offenses.

The stakes are getting higher as more employers and colleges start to check out applicants through their social media pages and Google searches. Nearly a quarter of admissions officials check out an applicants’ Facebook page, up from 10 percent in 2008, according to a new survey from Kaplan Test Prep.

A 2010 survey from Microsoft showed that nearly 70 percent of all companies used the Web to research job candidates.

In 2007, a woman used the social networking site MySpace to vent her frustrations about a job interview at Barry University in Miami Shores. She was applying for a job overseeing the school’s online newsletter. She probably didn’t expect one of her readers to be Michael Laderman, Barry’s assistant vice president for communications.

"I saw that she had posted how ridiculous and insulting it was that she was asked to take a typing test," Laderman said. "Of course, she said it in much harsher words than I can repeat. And needless to say, there went any chance of me wanting to hire her."

People have lost jobs as well, including a Port St. Lucie, Fla., teacher whose skimpy bikini photo got out, and a Georgia teacher who was photographed on vacation with a glass of beer. A Lake County, Fla., teacher was suspended this year after he made derogatory comments about gay people on his Facebook page.

These decisions may not always seem fair, but they are a reality, Hinduja said.

Hinduja said people should focus on creating websites and social media profiles that present a positive online presence.

"Colleges, grad schools. Employers. They get a boatload of applications," he said. "What’s the quickest way to thin out the pile? Run your first and last name through Google."

TIPS FOR A SAFE ONLINE EXPERIENCE

- Learn about and use the privacy and security settings on social networks. Consider restricting access to your page to a select group of people, for example, your friends from school, your club, your team, your community groups, or your family.

- Think twice before posting pictures you wouldn’t want your parents or future employers to see.

- Be cautious about how much personal information you provide on social networking sites. The more information you post, the easier it may be for a hacker, thief or stalker to commit a crime.

- Install a security suite (antivirus, antispyware and firewall) that is set to update automatically.

- Use tools to manage the information you share with friends in different groups. If you’re trying to create a public persona as a blogger or expert, create an open profile or a "fan" page that encourages broad participation and limits personal information. Use your personal profile for trusted friends.

- Let a friend know if he or she posts information about you that makes you uncomfortable.

- If someone is harassing or threatening you, remove the person from your friends list, block the person, and report the incident to the site administrator.

- Make sure that your password is long, complex and combines, letters, numerals, and symbols. Ideally, you should use a different password for every online account you have.

- Be cautious about messages you receive on social networking sites that contain links. Even links that look they come from friends can sometimes contain malware or be part of a phishing attack.

- Be aware people you meet online may be nothing like they describe themselves, and may not even be the gender they claim.

- Flirting with strangers online could have serious consequences. Because some people lie about who they really are, you never really know who you’re dealing with.

Source: Florida Atlantic University

Sukh Ram gets 5-year jail

New Delhi, November 19
A CBI court today sentenced former Union Telecom Minister Sukh Ram to five years imprisonment for taking a bribe of Rs 3 lakh while awarding a Rs 30 crore contract to a private company in 1996.

Judge RP Pandey also slapped a fine of Rs 4 lakh on 86-year-old Sukh Ram, who was the telecom minister when PV Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister during 1991-96.

Yesterday, the court had convicted him under the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) for misusing his official position to favour Haryana Telecom Limited (HTL) in the award of contract for supplying cables to the telecom department.

The CBI prosecutor said Sukh Ram, a veteran politician from Himachal Pradesh who has been a senior minister in the state Cabinet, was being taken into custody immediately and sent to Tihar jail as statutory bail was granted only if a sentence was for three years or less.

As Sukh Ram stepped out of the court at Rohini in North-west Delhi, he was attacked by a person. The unarmed assailant, identified as Harvinder Singh, slapped and kicked the 86-year-old politician.

Harvinder was overpowered and taken to Prashant Vihar police station for questioning. The motive for the attack could not be ascertained immediately.

During the arguments on the quantum of sentence, Sukh Ram pleaded for leniency in view of his advanced age and the premise that he had participated in the trial for the past 13 years. Further, he has been suffering from age-related problems and has lost his wife.

Opposing his plea, the CBI pointed out that Sukh Ram was a habitual offender and had been sentenced in two other cases.

Sukh Ram would be lodged in prison number one of Delhi’s high-security Tihar Jail.

NY senator introduces law against cyber-bullying

Some 30 U.S. states already have laws dealing with online harassment. At least five states have laws dealing explicitly with cyber-bullying.

A New York State senator has introduced a cyber-bullying bill, saying outdated harassment laws fail to punish bullies who use the Internet and smartphones to torment others.

The bill presented by Jeffrey Klein is a response to several highly publicized cases of teen suicides following some form of online bullying.

Klein argued that current state law had not kept pace with technology as life increasingly moved online.

"If people know there is a tough law on the books and they’re going to be punished, they are going to act accordingly," he told a news conference on Monday.

Some 30 U.S. states already have laws dealing with online harassment. At least five states have laws dealing explicitly with cyber-bullying.

Under Klein’s bill, the crime of stalking in the third degree would be updated to explicitly include harassing a child using electronic communication.

The bill also removes requirements that the offender initiate the contact and that the victim be a direct recipient of the communication.

Although it is already a crime to intentionally cause or aid another person's suicide, the bill would update the state’s second-degree manslaughter statute to explicitly include cyber-bullying as a possible cause of a suicide.

Democratic Senator Diane Savino, a co-sponsor of the bill, said that although bullying has existed “since Cain and Abel,” it has been transformed by the Internet and smartphone technology.

Anne Isaacs, whose daughter Jamie, now 15, had to switch schools because of bullies, said online bullying was also much harder to escape than other forms.

“When Jamie would go online to do her homework she would go online and be screaming because messages would come up,” said Isaacs, who joined Klein at the press conference.

An attempt to legislate against cyber-bullying at the federal level foundered in 2008, and it has been left to the states to decide how to deal with the problem.