Search Weight Loss Topics:

Page 165«..1020..164165166167..170..»

Home » How to lose weight safely » Page 165

11-01-2012 21:39 The True Way to Reach Your Fitness Goals: http://www.dynamicplateautraining.com If You want to see me WALK across the Country to Help Kids Reconnect with Nature Go Here to Donate ineedtogooutside.com

Read the original:
Miracle Pill Burns Fat WITHOUT Diet or Exercise - Video

MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif., Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Hello, swimsuit!  Bye bye, parka!  With the holidays behind us, bathing suit season is just around the corner.  To help you get a jumpstart on your beach body, SENSA® Products, LLC has launched the SENSA® Beach Challenge, a 6-month weight-loss challenge designed to help any and everyone get beach-ready by summer. 

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120207/LA48367)

By simply signing up for the Beach Challenge, you'll receive weekly motivational emails with small challenges that will make a big impact on your body and help keep you motivated and on track to meeting your weight-loss goals.  You'll also have the opportunity to join the mySENSA® Community and track your weight-loss with free online tools.

With more than 300,000 active Community members, you're sure to find like-minded people who will help you reach your weight-loss goals.  The mySENSA® Community has everything you need to succeed in your weight-loss journey, including:  weight-loss progress graphs; customized meal plans; a calorie counter; body measurement tracker; 24/7 support in forums; and more!

"SENSA® is excited to help people transform their bodies in time for beach season 2012. Whether you need to lose 10, 20, 30 pounds or more, the SENSA® Beach Challenge will help you get swimsuit ready for summer," said Stacey Kivel, Chief Marketing Officer.  "We all know how dreadful bathing suit season can be, which is why we've created this Beach Challenge.  It's not just about losing weight, it's about gaining confidence and not letting extra pounds hold you back from enjoying summer activities."

The SENSA® Beach Challenge will not only help make you slimmer by summer; if you take the Beach Challenge, you'll automatically be entered to win a 4 day/3 nights Sandals Resorts Luxury Included® Vacation for two so that you can show off your new hot body!  In addition, all Beach Challenge members will also be entered to win a monthly prize sweepstakes, valued at up to $400.

SENSA® makes it easy to shape up for summer!  Created by Dr. Alan Hirsch, M.D., SENSA® is a revolutionary 6-month weight-loss system that uses science and your sense of smell to help you lose unwanted pounds. Simply sprinkle it on all the foods you normally eat to safely and effectively curb your appetite and lose weight without feeling deprived.  In one of the largest clinical studies ever conducted with a non-prescription weight loss product, 1436 participants lost an average of 30.5 pounds in only 6 months.

To sign-up for the SENSA® Beach Challenge and enter to win a 4 day/3 nights Sandals Resorts Luxury Included® Vacation, visit SensaBeachChallenge.com. 

About the SENSA® Weight-Loss System

SENSA® is a leading weight-loss tool and lifestyle brand that has helped hundreds of thousands of people lose millions of pounds without restrictive dieting, stimulants or pills. Based on 25 years of research and testing from Dr. Alan Hirsch, this revolutionary weight-loss system uses science and your sense of smell to help you lose weight. Doctor formulated and clinically proven, SENSA® has an average weight loss of 30.5 pounds in six months. No other weight-loss product has such extraordinary results. For more information or to order the SENSA® Weight-Loss System, visit http://www.trysensa.com or http://www.facebook.com/Sensa.

Sandals Resorts

Sandals Resorts has earned a worldwide reputation for providing two people in love with the most romantic vacation experience in the Caribbean. Currently, there are 14 Luxury Included® Sandals Resorts located in Jamaica, Antigua, Saint Lucia and The Bahamas. Each offers stunning beachfront locations; a choice of à la carte restaurants, from white-glove dining to barefoot elegance; all premium brand wine and spirits, including an exclusive partnership with California's legendary Beringer Vineyards; luxurious accommodations in a range of categories; unrivaled watersports including the Caribbean's largest PADI certification program; Butler Service for truly indulgent pampering; Sandals Weddings by Martha Stewart™ ; and signature Red Lane® Spas, with services and treatments inspired by the region. 

Sandals Resorts has set the industry standard for the Luxury Included® vacation and has been voted the Caribbean's Leading Hotel Brand at the World Travel Awards for 18 years in a row, and World's Leading All-Inclusive Company for 16 years in a row.  For more information, call your local travel agent or 1-800-Sandals (1-800-726-3257) or visit http://www.sandals.com.

 

 

 

More:
6 Months to a Slimmer You! SENSA® Launches the SENSA® Beach Challenge

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Losing fitness or packing on fat with age each can be bad for the heart -- but avoiding either one of those fates may protect the ticker, a study published Monday suggests.

U.S. researchers found that of more than 3,100 healthy adults they followed, those who improved -- or simply maintained -- their fitness levels were less likely to develop high blood pressure, high cholesterol or other well-established heart disease risk factors.

Similarly, people who maintained their weight had fewer of those red flags than people who became heavier over time.

That may sound logical, but part of what's new in the findings, researchers say, is that changes in fitness and "fatness" each appeared important on their own.

In general, people who kept their fitness levels over time seemed to counter some of the ill effects of weight gain. And dips in fitness levels weren't as bad if a person lost some excess body fat.

The results suggest that protecting heart health is not as hard as some people think, according to lead researcher Duck-chul Lee, of the University of South Carolina in Columbia.

That is, just maintaining your weight and fitness levels as you age may be enough to see benefits.

"If you're overweight, losing weight and improving your fitness may be the best combination," Lee told Reuters Health. "But that's very challenging."

For many people, "maintenance" may be more achievable, Lee said.

The study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, included 3,148 men and women in the Dallas area who were in their early 40s, on average, at the outset.

Over six years, they developed high blood pressure at a rate of four percent each year, high cholesterol at a rate of three percent per year and so-called metabolic syndrome at a rate of two percent per year. (Metabolic syndrome refers to a collection of risk factors for heart disease -- including high blood pressure, unhealthy cholesterol levels, abdominal obesity and high blood sugar.)

But people who kept up or improved their fitness levels -- as measured during treadmill tests -- had lower odds of developing those heart risk factors.

Their risks of high blood pressure or high cholesterol were 26 percent to 30 percent lower, versus people whose fitness levels declined. And their risk of metabolic syndrome was 42 percent to 52 percent lower.

Similarly, when people increased their percentage of body fat over time, they were more likely to develop heart risk factors.

For each one percent increase in body fat, the odds of those risk factors climbed anywhere from three percent to eight percent.

But in general, people who gained weight stayed healthier if they kept up their fitness levels. And if overweight people shed some fat, they countered some of the negative effects of waning fitness.

The bottom line, according to Lee, is that people who are active should stay active. Even if you don't see a benefit on your bathroom scale, you'll stay fit.

"If you're already exercising, keep it up, and maybe increase the intensity if you can," Lee said.

If you're sedentary but healthy, he said, you can safely take up moderate exercise like brisk walking. Lee added, though, that people who are obese or have chronic health conditions should talk to their doctors first.

"It's the sedentary people who will get the most benefit from exercise in a short time," Lee said.

He was, however, referring to the benefit of improved fitness. Overweight people often fail to see the pounds fly off when they first start exercising -- possibly because they are hungrier and start eating more.

Don't get discouraged by that, Lee said. You can improve your cardiovascular fitness even without shedding the extra body fat. One way to tell if your fitness is improving, Lee said, is to simply notice how you feel when you go about your normal exercise routine; if it's getting easier, you're getting fitter.

To actually lose weight, diet changes are needed as well.

"Most people will lose weight with exercise," Lee said, "if they also pay attention to the calories they're taking in."

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/dIuKje Journal of the American College of Cardiology, online February 6, 2012.

See original here:
Fitness and "fatness" both matter to the heart

Only Pearson will know why his recommendation was yellow and not red. The Wales coach, Warren Gatland, admitted immediately after the game that “Bradley was very lucky not to get sent off”. He made no attempt to defend his player thereafter.

Then, in the last minute, with Ireland desperately defending a one-point lead, Stephen Ferris bent down low and launched in to a tackle on Ian Evans and definitely lifted him momentarily off the ground, with the lock’s hips above his head although the momentum of the tackle after that was more sideways than downwards.

Nor did Ferris lose control of his opponent as he took him safely back to ground as the laws say he must. It was, however, a careless, high-risk tackle given the circumstances which left him wide open to the referee’s interpretation of the incident.

Ireland, in truth, can have few arguments about the resulting penalty which Leigh Halfpenny stroked home to win the game but the home crowd reacted angrily when Ferris received a yellow card, thus putting his tackle on a par with that of Davies in the context of the game.

The tip-tackle incidents aside, Gatland also insisted afterwards that Wales were a “bit lucky” to win but frankly he does his side a disservice.

Despite being weakened by injuries before the game and losing captain Sam Warburton to a dead leg at half-time, Wales tore into Ireland with that exhilarating brand of fearless athleticism we grew to love in the World Cup. In George North on the wing they now have a “go-to” player who will scare any defence in the world.

“I thought we were a bit lucky, we have been a bit unlucky in the past. we didn’t play as well as we can, only 80 per cent of what we are capable of doing,” said Gatland.

“But I thought we showed some great character and North was absolutely world-class on the wing. We had a big weight advantage behind the scrum and we have to make it work for us. We also showed a lot of character when we needed to.”

Wales were a runaway train in the first half and how they turned round 10-5 will remain one of rugby’s great mysteries.

In one remarkable passage of play Davies, Mike Phillips, North and Ryan Jones all went agonisingly close to scoring in short order – the latter only losing out on a video decision TMO – as Ireland defended for their lives. The gauntlet was being thrown down mentally and physically and the game would have been lost there and then for Ireland.

Having seemingly weathered the storm, Ireland will therefore be disappointed to have then conceded a try down the blindside.

In fairness, a brilliant offload by Rhys Priestland was deserving of reward and the impressive Jonathan Davies made no mistake, touching down in the corner for the first of his two tries.

Priestland, enjoying mixed fortunes, rattled the woodwork with his conversion attempt and again hit the post moments later with a relatively simple penalty attempt.

Ireland, taking encouragement, hit back with a well-worked converted try for Rory Best to add to Jonathan Sexton’s earlier penalty.

The second half saw Sexton and Halfpenny swap penalties before a staggering burst in midfield and back-of-the-hand offload from North created Jonathan Davies’s second try.

The game was in the balance when the Bradley Davies tip-tackle incident occurred and a fired-up Ireland went upfield soon after to score through Tommy Bowe which seemed to herald a home win.

But back came Wales again with North forcing his way over amid a pile of green jerseys. Halfpenny missed the conversion and still Ireland led by one point which you fancy they should have been able to defend but the drama was far from over. And the repercussions are probably just beginning.

Match details

Scores: 3-0 Sexton pen (2 mins); 3-5 J Davies try (14); 8-5 Best try (37); 10-5 Sexton con (37); 13-5 Sexton pen (44); 13-8 Halfpenny pen (54); 13-13 J Davies try (55); 13-15 Halfpenny con (55); 16-15 Sexton pen (60); 21-15 Bowe try (68); 21-20 North try (76); 21-23 Halfpenny pen (78).

Ireland: R Kearney (Leinster); T Bowe (Ospreys), F McFadden (Leinster), G D’Arcy (Leinster), A Trimble (Ulster); J Sexton (Leinster), C Murray (Munster); C Healy (Leinster), R Best (Ulster), M Ross (Leinster), D O’Callaghan (Munster), P O’Connell (Munster), S Ferris (Ulster), S O’Brien (Leinster), J Heaslip (Leinster).
Subs: D Ryan (Munster) for O’Callaghan (63), R O’Gara (Munster) for Sexton (74), E Reddan (Leinster) for Murray (77). Not used: S Cronin (Leinster), P O’Mahony (Munster), T Court (Ulster), D Kearney (Leinster).

Wales: L Halfpenny (Cardiff Blues); A Cuthbert (Cardiff Blues), J Davies (Scarlets), J Roberts (Cardiff Blues), G North (Scarlets); R Priestland (Llanelli Scarlets), M Phillips (Bayonne); R Gill (Saracens), H Bennett (Ospreys), A Jones (Ospreys), B Davies (Cardiff Blues), I Evans (Ospreys), R Jones (Ospreys), S Warburton (Cardiff Blues, capt), T Faletau (Newport Gwent Dragons)
Subs: P James (Ospreys) for A Jones (70), J Tipuric (Ospreys) for Warburton (41), J Hook (Perpignan) for Cuthbert (41). Not used: K Owens (Scarlets), A Powell (Sale), L Williams (Cardiff Blues), S Williams (Scarlets). Sin Bin: B Davies (65)
Referee: W Barnes (England).

Original post:
Wales' Six Nations win over Ireland is marred by Bradley Davies tip tackle

Only Pearson will know why his recommendation was yellow and not red. The Wales coach, Warren Gatland, admitted immediately after the game that “Bradley was very lucky not to get sent off”. He made no attempt to defend his player thereafter.

Then, in the last minute, with Ireland desperately defending a one-point lead, Stephen Ferris bent down low and launched in to a tackle on Ian Evans and definitely lifted him momentarily off the ground, with the lock’s hips above his head although the momentum of the tackle after that was more sideways than downwards.

Nor did Ferris lose control of his opponent as he took him safely back to ground as the laws say he must. It was, however, a careless, high-risk tackle given the circumstances which left him wide open to the referee’s interpretation of the incident.

Ireland, in truth, can have few arguments about the resulting penalty which Leigh Halfpenny stroked home to win the game but the home crowd reacted angrily when Ferris received a yellow card, thus putting his tackle on a par with that of Davies in the context of the game.

The tip-tackle incidents aside, Gatland also insisted afterwards that Wales were a “bit lucky” to win but frankly he does his side a disservice.

Despite being weakened by injuries before the game and losing captain Sam Warburton to a dead leg at half-time, Wales tore into Ireland with that exhilarating brand of fearless athleticism we grew to love in the World Cup. In George North on the wing they now have a “go-to” player who will scare any defence in the world.

“I thought we were a bit lucky, we have been a bit unlucky in the past. we didn’t play as well as we can, only 80 per cent of what we are capable of doing,” said Gatland.

“But I thought we showed some great character and North was absolutely world-class on the wing. We had a big weight advantage behind the scrum and we have to make it work for us. We also showed a lot of character when we needed to.”

Wales were a runaway train in the first half and how they turned round 10-5 will remain one of rugby’s great mysteries.

In one remarkable passage of play Davies, Mike Phillips, North and Ryan Jones all went agonisingly close to scoring in short order – the latter only losing out on a video decision TMO – as Ireland defended for their lives. The gauntlet was being thrown down mentally and physically and the game would have been lost there and then for Ireland.

Having seemingly weathered the storm, Ireland will therefore be disappointed to have then conceded a try down the blindside.

In fairness, a brilliant offload by Rhys Priestland was deserving of reward and the impressive Jonathan Davies made no mistake, touching down in the corner for the first of his two tries.

Priestland, enjoying mixed fortunes, rattled the woodwork with his conversion attempt and again hit the post moments later with a relatively simple penalty attempt.

Ireland, taking encouragement, hit back with a well-worked converted try for Rory Best to add to Jonathan Sexton’s earlier penalty.

The second half saw Sexton and Halfpenny swap penalties before a staggering burst in midfield and back-of-the-hand offload from North created Jonathan Davies’s second try.

The game was in the balance when the Bradley Davies tip-tackle incident occurred and a fired-up Ireland went upfield soon after to score through Tommy Bowe which seemed to herald a home win.

But back came Wales again with North forcing his way over amid a pile of green jerseys. Halfpenny missed the conversion and still Ireland led by one point which you fancy they should have been able to defend but the drama was far from over. And the repercussions are probably just beginning.

Match details

Scores: 3-0 Sexton pen (2 mins); 3-5 J Davies try (14); 8-5 Best try (37); 10-5 Sexton con (37); 13-5 Sexton pen (44); 13-8 Halfpenny pen (54); 13-13 J Davies try (55); 13-15 Halfpenny con (55); 16-15 Sexton pen (60); 21-15 Bowe try (68); 21-20 North try (76); 21-23 Halfpenny pen (78).

Ireland: R Kearney (Leinster); T Bowe (Ospreys), F McFadden (Leinster), G D’Arcy (Leinster), A Trimble (Ulster); J Sexton (Leinster), C Murray (Munster); C Healy (Leinster), R Best (Ulster), M Ross (Leinster), D O’Callaghan (Munster), P O’Connell (Munster), S Ferris (Ulster), S O’Brien (Leinster), J Heaslip (Leinster).
Subs: D Ryan (Munster) for O’Callaghan (63), R O’Gara (Munster) for Sexton (74), E Reddan (Leinster) for Murray (77). Not used: S Cronin (Leinster), P O’Mahony (Munster), T Court (Ulster), D Kearney (Leinster).

Wales: L Halfpenny (Cardiff Blues); A Cuthbert (Cardiff Blues), J Davies (Scarlets), J Roberts (Cardiff Blues), G North (Scarlets); R Priestland (Llanelli Scarlets), M Phillips (Bayonne); R Gill (Saracens), H Bennett (Ospreys), A Jones (Ospreys), B Davies (Cardiff Blues), I Evans (Ospreys), R Jones (Ospreys), S Warburton (Cardiff Blues, capt), T Faletau (Newport Gwent Dragons)
Subs: P James (Ospreys) for A Jones (70), J Tipuric (Ospreys) for Warburton (41), J Hook (Perpignan) for Cuthbert (41). Not used: K Owens (Scarlets), A Powell (Sale), L Williams (Cardiff Blues), S Williams (Scarlets). Sin Bin: B Davies (65)
Referee: W Barnes (England).

Read more:
Ireland 21 Wales 23: match report

On a cold, sunny Sunday in early January, Le Pigeon chef Gabriel Rucker lies next to 6-month-old son Gus on the living room floor of his compact home, a football game on the TV. In the kitchen, Rucker's wife, Hana Kaufman, spoons vegetarian chili from a pot. Hanging nearby is the gold medallion Rucker won at last year's James Beard Awards naming him the best young chef in the United States.

In many ways, the vegetarian chili says more about Rucker than the cooking award. The chef, who has liberally loaded twisted takes on classic French fare with rich goose liver, veal cheeks and beef tongue for the past half-decade at his Southeast Portland restaurant, is on a meat-free kick. "We both gained a lot of baby weight," his wife quips. Rucker has stuck to the diet, at least at home, to lose a few pounds and get healthy, hoping to be a better father to Gus.

From the moment he decided to pursue a career in food, few have doubted Rucker's talent or drive. But the climb has been steep. In the past 10 years, he has risen from a party-hard college dropout to Portland's most highly decorated young chef.

He's not resting on his laurels. Just over a year ago, with strong support from staff and friends, he opened a second restaurant, a downtown bistro called Little Bird. A cookbook is in the works. But Rucker is no empire builder. Right now, he's happiest cooking on the line at Le Pigeon and spending time with his family.

Earlier the same week, Le Pigeon is a haven from the cold rain beating down on East Burnside Street, all brick and copper and pilot flames burning on the range. Rucker, carrying a tray of avocados, walks up from the basement prep kitchen, where a handful of young, bearded cooks are helping get ready for the night's service.

The 30-year-old chef is tall, but no longer lanky. A caricaturist might zero in on his large nose and ears, but his most dynamic feature are his dark, slightly asymmetrical eyes, which alternately shine -- as when he juts his lower teeth in a mischievous grin -- then dart about guardedly, as if he's about to get jumped. Still, he's handsome, rakish even. Today, Rucker is wearing one of his signature trucker caps cocked at a 45-degree angle from his forehead.

As Rucker slices avocados, a man with a bluetooth device in his ear walks in and asks to see Le Pigeon's last two electric bills. The owners of Le Pigeon's three-story building are looking into putting solar panels on the roof, he says.

"Go downstairs and find Fairlie (McCollough, a manager)," Rucker says. "I don't touch the bills."

Freeing himself from restaurant management tasks -- like paying bills, or even knowing where to find them -- is a way for Rucker to concentrate on his strong suits, cooking and recipe creation.

James Beard voters, made up of "expert" panelists and former award winners (now including Rucker), are not required to explain their picks. But if there's been a theme to the positive critical reception to Rucker's cooking, it's been praise for his natural creativity.

Rucker started cooking relatively late in life and rarely consults cookbooks, preferring to build recipes in his head. His cooking is truly personal, with recipes riffing on everything from inside jokes and wordplay to something he ate the night before.

Like Wendy's, Le Pigeon's burger comes with a square patty. A peanut butter milk dessert was similarly inspired by the Dairy Queen near Rucker's house. An entree of pan-seared pigeon with angel hair pasta, pesto and parmesan, added to the menu last month, would have had walnuts, but Rucker, who prefers alliteration, chose pecans.

His recipes often sound bizarre: Barbecued eel toast, foie gras profiteroles. But the results display a surprising balance, marrying salt with acid, cooked food with raw.

Ask Rucker why he won the James Beard award, given to "a chef aged 30 or younger who displays an impressive talent and who is likely to make a significant impact on the industry in years to come," and he'll shrug.

"It's just a piece of metal hanging in my kitchen," Rucker says. "I don't think about it on a daily basis."

But for those who have known him the longest, watching Rucker on stage at last year's James Beard Awards in his black suit and purple Vans (he accidentally packed two left dress shoes) was a moment hardly imaginable a decade ago.

Rucker grew up on a quiet street in Napa, Calif., close geographically, but light-years culturally, from the limousine-chauffeured wine country tours and four-star restaurants of the greater Napa Valley. His father, Dave Rucker, was a civilian machinist at Travis Air Force Base. His mother, Laurie, was a teacher at a Napa elementary school.

He wasn't exactly a cooking prodigy. "People think that he must have been interested in cooking since he was knee high to a grasshopper," Laurie Rucker says. "I mean, he could make toast..."

In high school, Rucker was restless, seeking a new, more-anonymous circle of friends amid the music and drug culture of the Bay Area's booming rave scene. (He still plays techno music occasionally during prep shifts at Le Pigeon, but these days, he spends most nights at home.)

At his mother's insistence, Rucker finished high school, and, in 1999, enrolled at Santa Rosa Junior College. Bored by a math class on his second day, he approached an adviser and, picking blindly from a list of vocational programs, landed in cooking school. "It sounded like good, blue-collar work," Rucker says.

The cooking classes, with their archaic lessons on the "five mother sauces," weren't exactly thrilling. But Rucker soaked up the lessons like a sponge. The once homework-hating student found himself picking up the cookbook of the French Laundry, noted chef Thomas Keller's Yountville, Calif. restaurant, and reading it, cover-to-cover, on his own time. Twice.

But the more advanced students in Rucker's class were those already working in restaurants. He left the program after one year and took a job at Napa's Silverado Resort & Spa. Eventually, he set off for Santa Cruz, walking up to a bistro's back door in his chef's whites to apply for a job.

"He was a recovering roller-blader with baggie jeans who listened to techno music and had no tattoos," says David Reamer, who cooked at the restaurant and remains a friend. "He was absolutely, 100 percent the opposite of what he is today."

The bistro gave him a job, the first of many in which Rucker enjoyed near-absolute creative freedom, with lightly supervised culinary experimentation and heavy on-duty drinking. But he was already accelerating past his peers.

"It was just obvious from day one that he was an unbelievably talented cook," Reamer says. "Even when he messed up it showed signs of greatness."

In 2003, Rucker and Reamer -- along with childhood friend Jacob Sims -- moved to Portland and landed in a low-rent Southeast Portland house. Rucker found a job at Paley's Place, where he picked up discipline and organization. But he was soon poached, along with fellow Paley's cook Jason Barwikowski, to help open North Portland's Gotham Building Tavern.

On a bright blue day in July 2004, Rucker's friends and Gotham coworkers drove to Washington's Washougal River for a day in the sun. Rucker and Barwikowski, by now close friends and friendly rivals, wandered off looking for big rock jumps. They found one, a 60-foot drop from the edge of a hiking trail.

Rucker leapt first, landing safely in the water. Barwikowski followed, but as he fell, onlookers gasped. He hadn't jumped far enough away from the cliff. On impact, Barwikowski glanced off a rock ledge, breaking his back in two places, shattering his tailbone, lacerating his liver and collapsing his lung.

Rucker, still in the water, pulled Barwikowski to shore and cradled him until an ambulance arrived.

"Gabe is a very calm, collected person, and very centered when he needs to be," says Barwikowski, who recovered after several months of physical therapy and is now executive chef at the newly opened Woodsman Tavern. "He was so kind and so gentle and helpful and solid. Afterward, he said it shook him up terribly. There was no doubt that he saved my life."

A few weeks later, Rucker got the first of many tattoos, a shark drawn by Barwikowski before the injury.

With Barwikowski in the hospital, Rucker began to take on more responsibility running the kitchen at Gotham.

"It was hard for him to be a sous chef," says former Gotham co-chef Tommy Habetz, himself a former sous to Mario Batali. "He's just naturally gifted and gutsy. I knew right away that he was on par with anyone I'd cooked with in New York."

Gotham, along with the larger Ripe restaurant group, collapsed on Rucker's 24th birthday. (There was a bright note to this period: It was the year Rucker met Kaufman, a Gotham server.)

Gabriel Rucker

Age: 30

Hometown: Napa, Calif.

Family: Wife, Hana Kaufman; son, Augustus Lightning Bolt

Restaurants: Le Pigeon, Little Bird

(A)typical dishes: Beef cheek bourguignon, square pattied-burger, foie gras profiteroles

Accolades for Rucker, Le Pigeon: The Oregonian Rising Star 2007, Food & Wine magazine Best New Chef 2007, The Oregonian Restaurant of the Year 2008, James Beard Rising Star Chef of the Year 2011.

Significance of Beard Award: Five Portland chefs have won James Beard awards in the Northwest region, which stretches from Alaska to Wyoming. Rucker's rising star award, which came on his fourth nomination, pitted him against talented young chefs across the country. It was the clearest sign to date that Portland's dining scene has arrived on the national stage.

Less than a year later, in 2006, Rucker was offered his first head chef position. He would take over Colleen's Bistro, a small restaurant on East Burnside. In meetings about the new concept, named for the tattooed birds now flocking up his right arm, Rucker was told he had two months to make the struggling restaurant profitable.

Le Pigeon broke even two months later.

By 4:45 p.m. on a Friday in January, 10 people have already gathered outside Le Pigeon. The group includes a trio of young Portlanders in the wine business, a Nike consultant from New York who "always eats at Le Pigeon" and two young women visiting from the Ukraine.

The avocado Rucker sliced that afternoon has been turned into a terrine, a foundation for an architectural construction of crab leg, heart of palm, Meyer lemon sorbet and a Kryptonite-green compressed cucumber slice -- a masterwork of color and flavor. Rucker hands it across the counter to a customer.

Rucker is supremely confident on the line, trading jokes with cooks and describing dishes to diners. The kitchen is open and lively, and nearly every longtime staff member has a nickname -- "Bones," "Puma" "Mastodon." Rucker, sometimes called "Young Turk," prides himself on his restaurant's constancy. But like it or not, change has come to Le Pigeon. Five years ago, Rucker was the youngest chef in his own kitchen. Today he's the oldest.

When the restaurant opened in spring 2006, there were so few customers, Rucker cooked all the food himself. Owner Paul Brady placed 10 percent-off coupons in local phone books. Among Rucker's first customers were his parents.

"He had a menu posted on the glass window, and that wonderful logo, the pigeon made up of cooking implements, but nobody knew about it," Laurie Rucker says. "People would stop, look at the menu, occasionally someone would open the door."

Word soon got out, first for the brunch, then for Rucker himself, who charmed customers, remembering names and favorite dishes. The coupons disappeared, then the brunch, replaced by nightly crowds gathered under Burnside's covered walkway.

They came for the cooks in dirty T-shirts; the chipped plates and silverware bought from the Goodwill; the service with a slice of attitude; and most of all for Rucker, the chef who'd never (and still hasn't) been to France but was reinventing French food. It all added up to a kind of magic, with fellow Gotham-refugees Erik Van Kley and Su-Lien Pino helping make Rucker's recipes a reality.

Rucker was named one of Food & Wine magazines best new chefs in 2007. Later that year, Andy Fortgang, a high-impact manager who grew up in upscale New York restaurants, came on board. Service eventually met the high standards of the cooking. Le Pigeon was named The Oregonian's 2008 co-restaurant of the year.

"It was crazy at that time," Fortgang says. "A basic thing in restaurants is position numbers. Every seat in a restaurant has a number so you can give people what they ordered. When I got there, servers would walk up to a table and say, 'Who's got the chicken?'"

In 2010, Rucker, Fortgang and Van Kley began brainstorming a second restaurant, partly as a way to give Van Kley his own kitchen. Little Bird, a handsome downtown bistro that shares an affinity for avian nomenclature with Le Pigeon, opened that December.

And a Le Pigeon cookbook is beginning to receive offers from publishing houses. The book will be written by Meredith Erickson, who co-wrote last year's impressive Joe Beef cookbook, with photos from Reamer, who has remade himself into a food photographer.

Right now, the mere idea of another big restaurant opening gives Rucker more headaches than excitement.

Kaufman, who works one night a week at Le Pigeon, agrees. "We talk about how fun it would be to live in New York, or live in Paris," she says. "But it's just fantasy stuff. It wouldn't be fun to have to live in those places and run restaurants. It's just so much work."

In many ways, Rucker has already exceeded any reasonable goal he could have set in his career. The Beard award, the first national cooking honor for a Northwest chef (five Portlanders have won regional Beard awards), was the icing on the cake. But he holds his Food & Wine best new chef honor -- a goal he set in his early 20s -- closer.

More important than the personal accolade, which Rucker attributes to the hard work of his staff and a healthy dose of happenstance (his family calls it "Ruck Luck), was the people the Beard award brought to his restaurants. After the ceremony, the 36-seat Le Pigeon served more than 100 diners a night, four nights in a row.

If anything, Rucker's roots in Portland are growing deeper. His parents recently bought a condo in Northeast Portland, stopping by Rucker's compact home two Sundays ago for a (yes, vegetarian) meal.

"I'm focusing on different goals outside my career right now," Rucker says. "Just being a restaurateur isn't the end all, be all. I'm lucky that I hit those goals, but now it's all about growing in a different facet of my life.

"Keeping the restaurants on par, being an excellent dad, an excellent husband. To come home, see my son smiling, and to know that my wife is happy. That's bigger than the James Beard Award that's sitting in my kitchen."

-- Michael Russell

Originally posted here:
The making of chef Gabriel Rucker: talent, hard work and 'Ruck Luck'

Posted: Wednesday, February 1, 2012 12:30 am | Updated: 4:07 pm, Wed Feb 1, 2012.

There’s an epidemic going on right now in children’s health, and you’ve no doubt heard the news reports — childhood obesity is at an all-time high.

Physicians and others have been sounding the alarm for several years now, yet the trend continues.

Dr. Burt Bromberg, a pediatric cardiologist with Mercy Children’s Hospital in Creve Coeur, has serious concerns, not just about what this means for children’s health presently, but in coming decades as they become adults.

The “epidemic” of childhood obesity being seen now is foreshadowing a far greater crisis that will come in 20 to 30 years, he said, when these children are adults and are diagnosed with heart disease.

“As a pediatric cardiologist, I see mostly kids with structural heart defects or electrical disorders,” said Dr. Bromberg, “but the number of kids with these pales in comparison with the ones who are brewing heart disease.

“If you look at the people who develop heart disease as adults there are a number of risk factors: 1. weight or body mass index (BMI); 2. hypertension or high blood pressure; 3. cigarette smoking; and 4. adverse parameters in their lipid panel, or high LDL cholesterol and high triglycerides.

Dr. Bromberg will be the keynote speaker at Mercy Hospital Washington’s annual Heart to Heart Fair being held this Saturday, Feb. 4, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the hospital. Admission is free.

Dr. Bromberg will speak about “The Coming Epidemic of Heart Disease in Children — What You Can Do to Combat It.” His presentation will include a question and answer period.

The overall theme for the heart fair is “Heart Health for All Ages.” Heart health in children is a growing concern as more children are diagnosed with risk factors for heart disease.

See the sidebar story for complete details on the Heart to Heart Fair.

Heart Disease Is Progressive

Dr. Bromberg said the evidence that childhood obesity is laying tracks for adult heart disease is made clear in the results of the Bogalusa Heart Study, a longitudinal study that began tracking some 14,000 children living in a small community in Louisiana in the early 1970s.

The children were checked annually on various parameters, including blood pressure, diet, whether or not they smoked and how much physical activity they engaged in, said Dr. Bromberg. Along the way, some of the children died for various reasons, and the researchers conducted autopsies to inspect their aorta and coronary arteries, taking into consideration whether or not the patient had any of the risk factors for heart disease.

In the end, what they found surprised them, said Dr. Bromberg.

“They found the fatty streaks that are the beginning of heart disease in 2 percent of the patients who had died and had no risk factors for heart disease. And they found them in 12 percent of those who had three or four risk factors . . . that’s six times as high.”

The fact that the beginning stages of heart disease could be present in children so young was eye-opening, said Dr. Bromberg, but added to that was evidence that these fatty streaks got worse as the children aged.

Over half of the children had these fatty streaks by the time they were 21 and 70 percent had them by the time they were 26 to 39 years old.

The message parents and caregivers of young children should take from these results is that heart disease starts young and is progressive, said Dr. Bromberg. It builds over time.

“And the risk factors only increase the severity of it,” he said.

Genetics Argument Doesn’t Wash

While genetics may account for some of the cases of childhood obesity and the presence of fatty streaks, Dr. Bromberg said as a whole it doesn’t explain the marked increase in these conditions over the past 30 years.

“In the 1990s, 10 states reported a prevalence of obesity in 10 percent of adults,” he said.

“By 2000, there wasn’t one state that had an obesity incidence of less than 10 percent, and in 23 states it was 20-24 percent, but no state had (incidence) greater than 25 percent.

“In 2010, there was no state with obesity incidence less than 20 percent; 36 states had (incidence) greater than 25 percent, and of those 36, 12 states, including Missouri, had an incidence of greater than 30 percent.”

Similar increases are seen in the number of children who are obese, said Dr. Bromberg. He cited a survey from 1976-’80 that found the incidence of obesity in children ages 6 to 19 was 5 percent.

By 1988-’94, that number had increased to 12 percent; in 2000 it was up to 15 percent; and the most recent data, from 2007, puts the number of children who are obese at 19 percent.

Tracks Into Adulthood

One of the reasons the increasing number of children who are obese is so alarming and of such concern is that research shows obesity in childhood tracks into adulthood, said Dr. Bromberg.

“Eighty percent of kids who are obese will be obese as adults,” he said, noting there also is some evidence that once people become overweight their bodies experience metabolic changes that make it harder to lose the weight.

“Their body may not burn as many calories at rest as it did before and there may be hormonal changes . . . that make them feel hungry more often,” he said.

Plus any behavorial or emotional issues that led to the person overeating in the first place may still be present, so “it’s like the horse is out of the barn,” Dr. Bromberg remarked.

What this means is that the ramifications of childhood obesity are far-reaching and affect all of us.

“If you think our problem with heart disease now is a problem, imagine what it will be like in 20 or 30 years,” Dr. Bromberg said.

The good news, he stressed, is that there is a very clear solution.

Calories In, Calories Out

The secret to keeping weight in check is really no secret at all, said Dr. Bromberg. It’s basic math.

“It’s calories in and calories out.”

The more calories you take in, the more you have to burn off in physical activity, or else you gain weight, he explained.

Right now, too many people are eating unhealthy foods and then living a sedentary lifestyle — sitting around watching TV, working on a computer and playing digital games on their handheld devices that require little to no movement.

“It isn’t just that we don’t burn calories, it is that we eat while we watch (TV), usually chips or cookies or ice cream,” said Dr. Bromberg. “We see commercials for (food) and it makes us hungry.”

So the solution isn’t just a better diet, although that is key, he said. It’s also about having enough activities for young people, which Dr. Bromberg sees as a community responsibility.

“Kids need at least 60 minutes of activity every day, and many schools today only have gym class two days a week,” he commented.

“And as kids get older, the sports teams they played on aren’t available to them anymore because they don’t make the team. Why aren’t there recreational (sports) leagues for kids who may not be able to make the school team?” Dr. Bromberg asked.

“And what (foods) are kids being served in school? I don’t think it’s unreasonable not to have soft drinks and candy bars available to them . . . but part of the problem is there are too many people or companies that have a stake in continuing these problems.”

What Parents Can Do

There are a number of ways parents can take charge of this situation, said Dr. Bromberg, beginning when children are very young — even newborn, by watching their own attitude about food and eating.

“Breast fed babies are less prone to be overweight,” he said, explaining there is no concern over how many ounces a baby drank because it can’t be measured.

Yet babies who are fed formula in a bottle where it can be measured may be encouraged to “finish the bottle,” even when they aren’t hungry for more.

When children move to the table for their meals, Dr. Bromberg stressed the importance of introducing a variety of healthy foods at an early age.

“Everyone should now be aware of the importance of a balanced diet – four to five fruits and vegetable servings a day, whole wheat bread and grains, 1 percent milk.

“The problem I frequently encounter is the parent who says, ‘He just won’t eat vegetables; he only likes chocolate milk; he will only drink sodas.’ These are learned patterns of behavior,” said Dr. Bromberg. “The reason Indians eat a largely vegetarian diet, that Chinese eat rice dishes with vegetables and spices, is that these are the foods with which they grew up.

“Parents need to be firm with their children from the time they begin baby food onward, continuously exposing and re-exposing them to healthy foods.

“The average exposures a baby needs to begin to accept a new taste is five to six times. Once they acquire a taste for fruits, vegetables, whole grain cereals, etc., you don’t have to battle them when they are 10 or 15 years old to change their eating patterns.”

Next, parents need to be cautious about placing their young children in front of the TV and, for older children, allowing them unlimited “screen time,” which includes TV, computers and any digital device.

“For children under 2 years old, there is no reason to have them in front of a TV. There is no educational benefit,” said Dr. Bromberg. “And beyond 2 years, the recommendation is two hours or less a day.”

Knowing much of the screen time children experience is a result of parents working or trying to keep a child occupied while they complete a few household chores, Dr. Bromberg suggests they look outside the home for solutions.

“So this is a situation where a community can look around and say, ‘We need a place where kids can do recreational things safely’ . . . so they’re not just walled off playing video games or holed up in the basement.”

Dr. Bromberg also puts pediatricians on the hook too.

“They need to be tracking a child’s weight from age 2 on,” he remarked.

Parents, teachers and community leaders who are looking for ways they can turn the tide on childhood obesity can find solutions online too. There’s more help out there than people may realize.

Dr. Bromberg suggested these websites:

• http://www.letsmove.gov, a portal to First Lady Michelle Obama’s initiative to address childhood obesity.

• http://www.choosemyplate.gov, where topics include sample meal plans, dietary guidelines and eating on a budget.

Posted in Feature stories on Wednesday, February 1, 2012 12:30 am. Updated: 4:07 pm.

Read more:
‘The Coming Epidemic’

Standard sized CT scanners too small for obese
CT scanners customised for horses could accommodate growing problem Dr Dharamshi, said he was told to refer patients to zoo

By Jenny Hope

Last updated at 3:47 PM on 15th January 2012

NHS hospitals have resorted to asking zoos and vets to scan patients who are too obese to fit into hospital scanners.

The bizarre requests to use CT scanners, normally intended for four-legged animals, at the UK’s leading veterinary college in north London were revealed as hospitals face pressure to adapt beds and wards for an increasingly obese population.

The Royal Veterinary College (RVC)yesterday said its CT scanners, customised for horses, could be used to accommodate patients weighing 30 stone or more but they would need to get a special licence to scan humans.

CT scanners usually used by zoos and vet for horses could help scan obese human patients

Riaz Dharamshi, a geriatric registrar at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, West London, said he was told to refer obese patients to London Zoo when he was training.

 

The practice of referring patients to zoos is commonplace in America where obesity has reached epidemic levels.

Writing on his blog, he said ‘Imagine the humiliation for the patient. ‘I’m sorry sir but you are too fat to have a CT scan, so we are going to have to send you to the zoo where they are used to dealing with larger specimens.’'

However a spokesperson from the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which oversees St Mary's Hospital, said: 'We have never referred or been asked to refer a patient to London Zoo or the Royal Veterinary College for scanning.'

London Zoo also denied taking obese patients but a spokeswoman for the Royal Veterinary College confirmed they have been approached.

She said ‘We have been approached on several occasions but have always said we are only licensed to perform scans on animals.’
It is not known whether any veterinary colleges are seeking licenses to perform the procedure.

Hospitals face pressure to adapt equipment for Britain's obese population

Dr Dharamshi added ‘Some bright spark decided it would be a good idea to up the loading capacity of the tables we use in the CT scanners, so the problem of having patients too big to scan is not one we face all that often.

‘Wheelchairs are wider, theatre operating tables are stronger and we have access to reinforced hospital beds when we need them. Being overweight has become the norm.’

The CT scanner at the RVC is housed in the equine hospital and is used with a specially built table to support anaesthetised horses.

CT scans are used by doctors to assess body fat as well as for more general health checks to see if anything is wrong.

Briatin’s fire crews have spent millions on callouts by the NHS in recent years shifting obese patients who have got stuck in the bath or their bedrooms, or who cannot be safely lifted by ambulance staff.

A report last year warned the NHS is ‘poorly prepared’ to deal with obese patients, lacking staff and equipment to care for them safely.

Bigger trolley, beds and wheelchairs are needed – with more than half of women and almost two thirds of  men likely to be obese by 2050, according to official estimates.

The report found incidents involved equipment not being able to take the weight of obese patients, with specially adapted equipment either not being available or normal equipment not working properly when used with obese patients.

 

See the article here:
'We are going to have to send you to the zoo' says doctor to obese patients too large to fit in scanners

Select a Publication:   N E W S P A P E R S ---------------------------------------------- ---Alberta--- Airdrie - Airdrie Echo Banff - Banff Crag and Canyon Beaumont - Beaumont News Calgary - The Calgary Sun Camrose - Camrose Canadian Canmore - Canmore Leader Central Alberta - County Market Cochrane - Cochrane Times Cold Lake - Cold Lake Sun Crowsnest Pass - Crowsnest Pass Promoter Devon - Dispatch News Drayton - Drayton Valley Western Review Edmonton - Edmonton Examiner Edmonton - The Edmonton Sun Edson - Edson Leader Fairview - Fairview Post Fort McMurray - Fort McMurray Today Fort Saskatchewan - Fort Saskatchewan Record Grande Prairie - Daily Herald Tribune Hanna - Hanna Herald High River - High River Times Hinton - Hinton Parklander Lacombe - Lacombe Globe Leduc - Leduc Representative Lloydminster - Meridian Booster Mayerthorpe - Mayerthorpe Freelancer Nanton - Nanton News Peace Country - Peace Country Sun Peace River - Peace River Record Gazette Pincher Creek - Pincher Creek Echo Sherwood Park - Sherwood Park News Spruce Grove - Spruce Grove Examiner Stony Plain - Stony Plain Reporter Strathmore - Strathmore Standard Vermilion - Vermilion Standard Vulcan - Vulcan Advocate Wetaskiwin - Wetaskiwin Times Whitecourt - Whitecourt Star   ---Manitoba--- Altona - Alton Red River Valley Echo Beausejour - Beausejour Review Carman - Carman Valley Leader Gimli - Interlake Spectator Lac Du Bonnet - Lac Du Bonnet Leader Morden - Morden Times Portage la Prairie - Portage Daily Graphic Selkirk - Selkirk Journal Stonewall - Stonewall Argus and Teulon Times Winkler - Winkler Times Winnipeg - The Winnipeg Sun   ---Ontario--- Amherstburg - Amherstburg Echo Bancroft - Bancroft this Week Barrie - Barrie Examiner Barry's Bay - Barry's Bay this Week Belleville - Intelligencer Bradford - Bradford Times Brantford - Expositor Brockville - The Recorder & Times Chatham - Chatham Daily News Chatham - Chatham This Week Chatham - Today's Farmer Clinton - Clinton News-Record Cobourg - Northumberland Today Cochrane - Cochrane Times Post Collingwood - Enterprise Bulletin Cornwall - Standard Freeholder Delhi - Delhi News-Record Dresden - Leader Spirit Dunnville - Dunnville Chronicle Elliot Lake - Standard Espanola - Mid-North Monitor Fort Erie - Times Gananoque - Gananoque Reporter Goderich - Goderich Signal-Star Grand Bend - Lakeshore Advance Haliburton - Haliburton Echo Hanover - The Post Ingersoll - Ingersoll Times Innisfil - Innisfil Examiner Kapuskasing - Kapuskasing Northern Times Kenora - Kenora Daily Miner and News Kenora - Lake of the Woods Enterprise Kincardine - Kincardine News Kingston - Frontenac This Week Kingston - Kingston This Week Kingston - Kingston Whig Standard Kirkland Lake - Northern News Leamington - Leamington Post Lindsay - The Lindsay Post London - The London Free Press London - The Londoner Lucknow - Lucknow Sentinel Midland - Free Press Minden - Minden Times Mitchell - Mitchell Advocate Napanee - Napanee Guide Niagara-on-the-Lake - Niagara Advance Niagara Falls - Review Niagara Falls - Niagara Shopping News Niagara Falls - W. Niagara Community Newspapers North Bay - North Bay Nugget Northumberland - Northumberland Today Norwich - Norwich Gazette Orillia - Packet and Times Ottawa - The Ottawa Sun Owen Sound - Sun Times Oxford - Oxford Review Paris - Paris Star Online Pelham - Pelham News Pembroke - Daily Observer Peterborough - Peterborough Examiner Petrolia - Petrolia Topic Picton - County Weekly News Port Colborne - Inport News Port Hope - Northumberland Today Port Elgin - Shoreline Beacon Sarnia - Observer Sarnia - Sarnia This Week Sault Ste Marie - Sault Star Sault Ste Marie - Sault This Week Seaforth - Seaforth Huron Expositor Simcoe - Simcoe Reformer St. Catharines - St. Catharines Shopping News St. Catharines - Standard St. Thomas - St. Thomas Times-Journal Stirling - Community Press Stratford - The Beacon Herald Strathroy - Strathroy Age Dispatch Sudbury - Sudbury Star Thorold - Thorold News Tillsonburg - Tillsonburg News Timmins - Daily Press Timmins - Timmins Times Toronto - The Toronto Sun Trenton - Trentonian Wallaceburg - Wallaceburg Courier Press Welland - Tribune Welland - Welland News West Lorne - The Chronicle Wiarton - Wiarton Echo Woodstock - Sentinel Review   ---Saskatchewan--- Meadow Lake - Meadow Lake Progress Melfort - Melfort Journal Nipawin - Nipawin Journal   MAGAZINES & SPECIALTY PUBLICATIONS --------- Biz Magazine Business London Cottage Home and Property Showcase Food and Wine Show Georgian Web Hamilton Halton Weddings Hamilton Magazine InterVin International Wine Awards Kingston Life London Citylife Muskoka Magazine Muskoka Trails Niagara Food and Wine Expo Niagara Magazine Ontario Farmer Ontario Golf Sault Bride Guide Sault Dining Sault Good Life Simcoe Life Sudbury Bride Guide The Home Show Vines Magazine What's Up Muskoka

See the article here:
Hwy. deaths spur police action

/ Friday, 27 January 2012

by Tracker editor Amy McQuire.

The most striking aspect of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy protests, which sprung onto the media’s radar on Survival Day, was the stark difference between the reports of the events, and the reality.

This week, 2000 people made their way to the tent embassy to camp on the land where four Aboriginal men had helped change the course of Aboriginal political history 40 years prior. On January 26, 1972, Michael Anderson, Billie Craigie, Bertie Williams and Tony Coorie staked their claim on the lawns opposite Old Parliament House, in a historic protest for land rights. Yesterday, Aboriginal people and their non-indigenous supporters came together to celebrate that occasion, and protest against the succeeding decades that brought little change.

The day began with a well-attended protest through the heart of Canberra. Starting at the Australian National University, the rally wound its way through the city, to Parliament House, and back to the Tent Embassy. It was peaceful, but lively, and mirrored the concerns of those four men in 1972. Men, women and children marched peacefully alongside the police escorts, calling for “Land Rights Now”.

By the end of the day, that protest would be forgotten, replaced by images of an “angry mob” that had “trapped” the Prime Minister and opposition leader in a Canberra restaurant.

I was at the tent embassy at the time we heard of Tony Abbott’s comments. Abbott had responded to the 40th anniversary by stating it was time the tent embassy move on:

“I think a lot has changed for the better since then … I think the indigenous people of Australia can be very proud of the respect in which they are held by every Australian … I think it probably is time to move on from that.”

Comments such as that from a man who wants to be prime minister were never going to go down well.

The common sentiment from the embassy was that they were insensitive remarks, and wildly untrue. The fact we were still protesting for land rights 40 years on put the lie to those claims.

There has been much discussion in the media about whether Abbott was misinterpreted,  but by saying “moving on” people did interpret that to mean move the tent embassy on, and today many people are still pretty angry at the literal interpretation. For many, it was seen as insensitive because things now are not much better than the 70s (eg. the gap is only getting wider).

When word got around the embassy that Abbott was at a restaurant less than 200 metres away from the camp, people slowly started to trickle over.

The Lobby Restaurant is encased in glass, with the interior easily visible to those outside. While protesters were angry, it’s safe to say the reaction would not have been as emotional had Abbott not made those comments.

But while there was anger, it was far from a “riot”. A riot involves violence and a disturbing of the peace. While it was definitely a loud demonstration, there was no damage. A few smudged fingerprints on the glass of the restaurant was the net result. There were about 1000 protesters around the café when Gillard and Abbott were rushed through their own mob of security guards.

When they did come out, there were few protesters in the firing line. In fact, people such as Michael Anderson, one of the original founding members of the tent embassy, was pushed out of the way and into the stair railing. One of the only Aboriginal protesters near Gillard when she was delivered to her car was a photographer who was unceremoniously pushed away by a policeman.

Similarly, it was the police that made Gillard stumble. There was no protesters around her. People such as  Anderson and Tiga Bayles, a prominent indigenous broadcaster, were involved in soothing the crowd and were negotiating with police who had made a line of blue outside the restaurant. There was a call for people to return to the embassy, as the “point had been made”.

The only violence I saw was on behalf of police, who were pushing protesters away. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop media from portraying an angry mob who were bent on terrorising our first female prime minister. Images of Gillard in the arm of her protector made the front page of newspapers around the country, but would it have been such a source of public outrage if she wasn’t a woman?

There was no attempt to hurt Gillard or Abbott. Protesters simply wanted to make clear their concerns about sovereignty, land rights and Aboriginal rights to the mainstream. On that part, they were effective. Would media even be reporting the protests of the tent embassy if this didn’t happen?

Page 1 of 2 | Next page

Tags: aboriginal tent embassy, australia day, Julia Gillard, Tent embassy protests, Tony Abbott

Categories: Federal

Comments page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |

Read this article:
View from the Tent Embassy: reality v news reports

Page 165«..1020..164165166167..170..»

Home » How to lose weight safely » Page 165