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Does anyone care if Texas presenter had an ‘F’ rating from the BBB?
Does anyone care if a company has a bad grade with the Better Business Bureau?
We’re asking because we may want to examine how companies get a bad grade, and then what happens in the minds of consumers.
Recently, the BBB notified Spokane-area media that a Texas-based workshop presenter would be in Spokane and in Coeur d’Alene.
This was Armando Montelongo Seminars, LLC. His spiel is called “’Flip Grow Rich,” and he’s managed to earn his position in part from a cable show called “Flip This House.”
The BBB mailing notified the media that Montelongo’s business in San Antonio has an “F” grade with the local BBB. That F is based on some government action against his firm for alleged deceptive marketing and failure to address consumer issues adequately.
We get the impression the people who attended the session didn’t know about the BBB rating. Or they did, but didn’t care.
If anyone went to the sessions here, give us a holler. We’d like to discuss you views. Contact us at Business@spokesman.com. Include a phone number where we can reach you.
COLUMN: Legislature must address growing crisis in mental health services
Texas owns the bragging rights over other states in a number of areas — our economy, climate, wealth of natural resources; a rich, colorful history, and the can-do spirit of our citizens. Unfortunately, the Lone Star State doesn’t fare so well in an important measure of public health. We are last among the states in per capita spending on people with mental disabilities.
That regrettable statistic evolved from good intentions. As stewards of the public’s hard-earned tax dollars, we in the Legislature have strived to be judicious with the state budget, to spend as wisely and prudently as possible. That means making smart investments and spending tax dollars in areas where Texas will get the most bang for its buck.
But in the process, our diligence has led us to be penny wise and pound foolish in the area of mental health services. Now the problem has grown and must be addressed. In a recent hearing of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, it was disclosed that the list of people waiting for on-going mental health community services has grown a staggering 642% since September 2004.
There is no question that the demand for services will continue to grow, and that we as a state have a responsibility to provide them — for both compassionate reasons and our economic self-interest. When people with mental disabilities are ignored, they may require emergency crisis treatment or end up in the criminal justice system. Both of those options always end up costing more.
The lack of services and available hospital facilities is evident in our county jails, many of which have become default treatment centers for the mentally ill. On an average day, 25% of the prisoners in the Harris County jail receive psychotropic medication. Indeed, the Harris County jail on most days treats more individuals with mental health issues than Texas’ ten psychiatric hospitals combined. Extrapolate that to the county jails in Dallas, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Austin, El Paso and other cities across Texas and the numbers quickly get out of hand.
As one witness told the committee: “The jails have become the psychiatric hospitals of the United States.” Mentally ill inmates cost more than non–mentally ill inmates for a variety of reasons, including increased staffing needs. The average prisoner in Texas costs the state about $22,000 a year, but those with mental illness range from $30,000 to $50,000 a year. As stated by the Department of State Health Services and the Legislative Budget Board, incarcerated persons with mental illnesses cost 11 times more to treat in the criminal justice system than to treat with community based services.
By putting enough resources into continuing mental health services, we can prevent mentally ill patients from going into the crisis and criminal justice systems, saving a lot of heartache and precious tax dollars as well.
When the Legislature convenes in January, we will once again have many budget challenges to face. Education will be a priority, along with criminal justice, public safety, and health care. Mental health, which has a significant impact on these systems, must be a priority as well.
Keeping mentally ill people out of jails is not a partisan issue. Whether viewed through the lens of compassion or economic common sense, it is simply an issue we can no longer ignore.
This column was written by Sen. Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio; and Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Southside Place. They serve on the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.
Rich pickings
Yafour Saeed Al Hameli used to use 10,000 gallons of water for each irrigation. But then this passionate farmer decided to switch to hydroponics style of farming and today the farm yields more fruit and counsumes just 600 to 800 gallons of recyclable water
THE OVERWHELMING scent of tomato vines was bringing out not only a strong desire for a tomato salad drizzled with olive oil, but childhood memories of distant rural farms in Eastern Europe, where the aroma of the ripen fruit takes over the entire garden after a summer rain. Only the scent is left, though, from these old days — and ways — of growing tomatoes.
Deep in the Liwa desert, in the Western Region of Abu Dhabi, the vegetable garden of Yafour Saeed Al Hameli is far from traditional. From the at least 800 farms dotted along the oasis’ 40 villages, his was among the first to switch to the hydroponics system.
“I switched to hydroponics because it uses less water and no soil is needed, which is perfect for our desert environment,” said Yafour.
The middle-aged man learnt the skill and imbibed the passion for agriculture from his father when he was just a boy. His father, though, was into camel racing business in al Ain, but in the early 90s the family sold the camels and returned to Liwa, where their ancestral lands were. Yafour received a small plot of land as a gift from his father, but he wanted something bigger to fit his ambitious agricultural plans, so he went to the municipality, where he exchanged his plot for a bigger and better one. He thus began growing crops in 1997.
“I work with the Farmers’ Services Centre, which has an office here in Tharwaniya village, and two years ago they began to talk about hydroponics. Six months later they sent a few of us to Australia to see the system for ourselves. When I came back I applied the system to my farm, which I also use now as a demonstration farm for all the other farmers here in the region.”
Hydroponics has been around since the 18th century, when scientists had discovered that plant roots don’t necessarily need soil to grow. All they need from soil is the minerals, which may be provided through nutrients dissolved in water, so this agricultural technique is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil.
There are two main types of hydroponics, the solution culture and the medium culture. The first uses just water mixed with nutrients, while the second has a solid medium for the roots such as sand, gravel or rockwool. Nowadays, advanced technology and machinery is used in the western world, making hydroponics an exact science, but on his farm high up on a dune in Tharwaniya, Yafour has learnt to adapt, cutting up old water pipes and turning them into channels for irrigating his plant roots or mixing up the fertilizers and nutrients manually.
“I built this farm the way I thought it’s acceptable to me and the farmers around here. I started with soil-less medium to avoid fungus, plant diseases and the saltiness of the water. It is a very low cost technique and easy to use,” he pointed out.
For him the cost of setting up a hydroponics style farm wasn’t so high since he already had a few greenhouses for growing vegetables. All Yafour had to do is to plant the vegetable seeds, which don’t need any kind of treatment for growing in a hydroponic style, then transfer the seedlings into buckets of his water pipes filled mostly with peat. Irrigation pipes also run along all roots, while plants have plenty of space to grow along the wires hanging high up towards the ceiling. Giant looking fans are constantly on controlling temperature and humidity, which may easily damage the plants.
“I started with 600 cucumber plants, which, in winter time, only needed two minutes of irrigation in the morning, and another two-three minutes in the evening,” said Yafour. During the hot and humid summer months, this was increased to four times a day, and the water used for irrigation one day, was the next used to water the outdoor plants.
I still grow some cherry tomatoes outside, and I also have a lot of palm trees,” he mentioned.
To this water he adds four different types of fertilizers, depending on the age of the plant, and nutrients, 40 percent of which he collects himself from his garden soil.
Despite the high consumption of electricity to keep the fans going, not to mention the desalination plant, since ground water around here is still quite brackish, agriculture in the desert still makes environmental sense. Not only does it help the local community make a living, but it saves on imports, which cost a lot of carbon emissions from transportation and packaging. Switching to hydroponics has the added benefit of huge water consumption cuts.
“Before I used 10,000 gallons of water for each irrigation, and I had to water the plants three times a day, but now, with hydroponics, I only use 600 to 800 gallons of water, which is also recyclable,” explained Yafour.
After a yield of nearly three tons of cucumber, he has now switched to tomatoes and three types of capsicum, with other vegetables like aubergines and beans considered for the future. “I don’t know if it is possible to grow organic plants this way. I guess if organic fertilisers were available, then the answer would be yes, but I never heard of organic fertilisers in UAE,” said Yafour.
As for pesticides, he admits to using some, but “a lot less” than in the usual type of agriculture, and only when the plant is young. It’s not only that less chemicals are required to grow plants hydroponic style, but they actually produce fruit much more and much faster than “traditional” plants. Even though Yafour only planted his tomatoes on April 17, they are already ripening.
Once the crops are ready for picking, he sells them to Farmers’ Services Centres, which them will sell them to supermarkets mostly in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
“The price depends on the type of vegetable, time of the year and demand, but my minimum price is Dh2 for one kilogramme,” explained Yafour.
Since dozens of farms around Liwa oasis have expanded into vegetable crops, and not just date farming, and a few have adopted the hydroponics, the latest community move is to open a local market, selling, once a week, locally produced fruit, vegetables, meat and the all-too-important camel milk.
silvia@khaleejtimes.com
Nitin Chhoda’s Instant Dental Newsletter Service Now Helps Dental Practices … – Virtual
Instant Dental Newsletter is a 21st century dental marketing solution for today’s busy private practice. Each month, it automatically delivers two content rich newsletters to a dental practice’s patients without having to write a single word. The result: more new patients as well as increased qualified referrals from newsletter readers. Thus, growing dental businesses faster and easier, as per Nitin Chhoda’s, a marketing expert, latest blog post.
Denville, NJ (PRWEB) May 18, 2012
The Instant Dental Newsletter publication is designed to bring and connect dental clinics practices with current and new patients in a completely new way that differs from traditional advertising or online marketing. Since it was introduced just later this April, it helps to target a specific segment of the general public to produce more efficient results from the current website information that is published online.
This system was built by a private practice owner, Nitin Chhoda, who understands that most dental clinic managers don’t have much time to spend on marketing. This fully customizable, done-for-you dental newsletter technology guarantees to resolve marketing problems once and for all. All a practice manager has to do is sit back and relax because the content is generated by a team of licensed medical practitioners who go to work for the practice every two weeks, keeping their business in front of and in the minds of patients and doctors.
This content rich dental marketing solution is way to boost referrals from current patients. It allows dental clinic offices to collect email addresses from website visitors by providing instant access to downloadable eBooks once the site visitor enters their name and address into the practice’s website. The Instant Dental Newsletter is automatically delivered twice a month to subscribers in the local area and the dental clinic’s management does not have to do a thing.
The service has been well received since its launch in early March of this year. This newsletter program even allows the user to print or fax copies of their clinic’s newsletter. They can also have the option of sending out customized emails for birthday greetings as well as appointment reminders. It is an exceptionally cost efficient way to stay in touch with current patients as well as keeping the clinic’s profile highly visible in the surrounding community.
Instant Dental Newsletter is the brainchild of Nitin Chhoda, a licensed physical therapist and published author. Chhoda brings a unique perspective to Instant Dental Newsletter, understanding both the medical aspect of the field and also, being a writer, understanding how to engage readers with content. His goal with Instant Dental Newsletter was to find new ways to automate marketing and referral generation using technology and in general. Nitin Chhoda, states,” It is dental and dentist marketing for dental clinics business growth.“
Instant Dental Newsletter helps dental clinics practices market their business in a way that connects them with patients on a whole new level with a uniquely designed dental newsletter. The publication assists private practice owners by keeping patients informed with the latest in dental practices and techniques. It’s easy to use and runs on complete automation.
Chhoda’s office can be reached by phone at 201-535-4475. For more information, visit the website at http://www.nitin360.com.
ABOUT NITIN CHHODA
Nitin Chhoda is a licensed physical therapist, a doctor of physical therapy, and a certified strength and conditioning specialist. He’s the author of “Total Activation: The New 5 Step Fitness Mantra” and “Marketing for Physical Therapy Clinics.” He’s been featured in numerous industry magazines, major radio and broadcast media, and is the founder of Referral Ignition training systems, Private Practice Summit, the Private Practice Formula and the Private Practice Mastermind group. Chhoda speaks extensively throughout the U.S., Canada and Asia. He’s the creator of the Therapy Newsletter, along with Clinical Contact, a web-based service that boosts patient arrival rates.
For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prwebdental-newsletter/dentist-marketing/prweb9439479.htm
Troupe continue to grow
Members of Torquay Theatre Troupe at rehearsal.
Following the success of their 2010 and 2011 productions, the Torquay Theatre Troupe will once again be presenting a quality theatre production.
Directed by Gay Bell, David Lindsay Abaire’s award winning Rabbit Hole is a play about a family coping with grief – rich in honesty, love, laughter and compassion. Torquay Theatre Troupe has chosen this award winning script for its next production.
With rehearsals well under way, director and actors alike are enjoying the thrill of discovering the depth of humanity, candour and humour in this absorbing and entertaining piece of theatre.
Play director Gay Bell said she was delighted for the Troupe to be returning with another performance and expected this year’s event to be the best yet.
“Torquay Theatre Troupe’s performances continue to grow, getting bigger and better each year – and Rabbit Hole will be no different,” she said.
“The past few years, we have been fortunate enough to have received some wonderful feedback from our audience members. We hope to delight the audience with this year’s production again.”
Don’t miss out on what is set to be one of the best regional theatre performances in Torquay. Torquay Theatre Troupe’s Rabbit Hole will be performed at 16 Price Street, Torquay from May 17-19, and 24-26 at 8.00pm. On May 20 a matinee performance will begin at 2:00pm.
Tickets cost $19 adults, $15 concession and can be purchased from Surf Sight Optical or by phoning Marie on 5261 9035. For information please visit www.ttt.org.au.
More Federal Officials Don’t Like Natural Gas— This Time in Gas Rich Zone
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As Americans grow increasingly skeptical about global warming, and the availability of shale oil and natural gas is greater than ever in the U.S., a federal official based in Colorado says the climate threat is so dire that electric utilities should not plan long-term for the development of natural gas power plants.
Meanwhile another official in the Centennial State – a regional regulator for the Environmental Protection Agency that oversees areas with vast fossil fuel reserves – is on the record saying the number of scientists skeptical about the dangers of global warming is nearly non-existent.
The first official, Daniel Arvizu (pictured), director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, made his remarks Monday at the World Renewable Energy Forum in Denver.
“If we don’t start phasing out even a scale-up of natural gas by 2040, 2050, we will not achieve any of the carbon-loading goals we have set for ourselves,” he said. “Natural gas, while it might be a nice bridge technology, is not the answer to what we are actually looking for in terms of a transition and transformation.”
As for the EPA official, Region 8 Administrator James Martin, he believes “You could have a convention of all the scientists who dispute climate change in a relatively small phone booth.” That comment was captured by the Denver Post in 2008 when he was executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Martin helped write former Democrat Gov. Bill Ritter’s Climate Action Plan, dubbed “a living document,” which means its liberal authors can change it to mean anything they want it to – much like the Constitution. Martin’s territory with EPA covers the Dakotas, Wyoming, Utah, Montana and Colorado.
A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office says trillions of barrels of potentially recoverable oil – possibly as much or more than the entire world’s current proven oil reserves – lies underneath Colorado and Utah, The Colorado Observer reported Monday.
Arvizu and Martin wield influence over a region with some of the richest oil and natural gas reserves in the country, which the Climate Action Plan acknowledged. “Colorado contains eight percent of the nation’s natural gas reserves, with proven reserves of 16 trillion cubic feet,” the authors wrote. But the plan also considered natural gas part of “our bridge strategies to a cleaner energy future for Colorado.”
While climate catastrophists Arvizu and Martin see the nation’s fossil fuel resources as a “bridge” to the future, realists see the massive deposits of oil and natural gas – with as much as 200 years’ worth of capacity accessible – as the energy future with no need for a bridge. Technologies such as hydraulic fracturing have expanded the ability to extract those resources, and states like Pennsylvania and North Dakota are seeing economic booms as a result.
For the comparably few renewable energy advocates, however, the proliferation and associated low prices for natural gas (when it comes to electricity generation) is bad news. Without huge tax credits, grants and incentives, wind and solar cannot compete with cheaper coal and natural gas. Hence, the climate panic must be perpetuated and the outlook for natural gas must be degraded – otherwise what is the need for a NREL?
“The rapid growth of energy demand, the uncertainty of future supplies, the increasing reliance on oil from unstable regions, and the resulting dramatic rise in fossil fuel prices—all these are creating formidable challenges to our economy and our energy security,” Arvizu wrote on the NREL Web site. “At the same time, the growing concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere is a looming threat to our environment.”
Arvizu was paid $691,570 for the fiscal year ending in September 2010 (the most recent year tax records are available) by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, which runs NREL. At least a dozen other staffers earn well into six-figures. ASE took in nearly $444 million through its contract with the U.S. Department of Energy. According to his NREL biography, Arvizu has “overseen an increase of more than 50 percent in the lab’s operating budget, overseen a doubling of lab technical staff, and has helped attract over $400 million for new infrastructure.”
Martin, the EPA regulator, was appointed by President Obama in April 2010 and reports to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. Prior to his work for Gov. Ritter, he was a senior attorney for 10 years for Environmental Defense, and earlier he headed the Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Colorado School of Law.
Martin fits well into the Obama/EPA/Jackson/environmental extremism approach to delay and obfuscate the access of fossil fuel resources on federal lands. For example, plans by Denver-based Gasco to drill for natural gas in Utah’s Uintah Basin – with a compliance process that began in 2006 – have been held up by Martin and EPA over concerns about climate change and air pollutants. Regulators have been especially concerned about high ozone levels in the basin, where significant drilling already exists, but scientists are unsure whether the heightened levels are attributable to the activity, a nearby coal-fired power plant, or something else. Drilling companies have reduced their emissions and still the ozone problems – which also require sunlight to form – persist.
“They studied the problem for five years here and still don’t have answers,” said Elaine Crumpley, a spokeswoman for Citizens United for Responsible Energy Development, to the Denver Post.
And in a highly controversial case in Pavillion, Wyoming, EPA and Martin insinuated that groundwater contamination was attributable to hydraulic fracturing in the area, although testing did not prove conclusive. In hearings about the case, House Science, Space and Technology Committee’s Energy and Environment Subcommittee Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., accused EPA of “substituting outcome-driven science for rigorous objective science” and engaging in “another example of politics trumping policy and advocacy trumping science” in the December release of a draft report. Also Thomas E. Doll, supervisor of Wyoming’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, accused EPA’s regional office of rushing out the draft report with incomplete data and technically inadequate conclusions, the Oil Gas Journal reported.
According to the publication, “Doll said Wyoming agencies are concerned that EPA likely introduced synthetic and organic chemicals as it drilled, completed, tested, and sample its two monitoring wells.” Also, Doll challenged Martin’s claim that EPA consulted frequently with the state about the situation, an assertion that Martin did not back away from.
“EPA notified Wyoming’s Department of Environmental Quality that it was drilling the monitoring wells literally as the rigs were moving in,” Doll said.
This week another study, released by an independent environmental and water resource consulting firm, determined that EPA did not “adequately distinguish between potential natural impacts and those from gas drilling activities.” The report, according to the International Business Times, faulted “poor study design” and that EPA’s conclusions were based on just four samples.
Comments like Martin’s “phone booth” remark about scientific “consensus” over global warming show he can be out of touch with reality. More than 31,000 American scientists have signed a petition (which existed when Martin made his statement) that says, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”
Also, in 2008 Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma issued a report (an update of an earlier report) that showed more than 650 international scientists dispute the alarmist position on global warming. And new studies and reports come out almost daily that show climate change is at least equally affected by natural factors or is not a significant concern that justifies trillions of dollars of costs to attempt to avert it.
Fit all that in a phone booth.
That matters little to President Obama and his environmental advocate minions like Jackson, Martin and Arvizu (and another EPA regulator who recently lost his job, Al Armendariz). They are part of the plan to appease his eco-extreme voting base, who live in a world where electricity rates must “necessarily skyrocket” as cheap energy is made expensive so expensive energy seems cheap.
It’s a world where made-up problems like global warming, despite having been discredited, still drive politicos in key positions to make stupid statements in order to preserve their statuses and six-figure salaries.
Paul Chesser is an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center.
Salmon Grow on Trees: Fishermen and Loggers Disagree Over Tongass Watershed
In Southeast Alaska, there’s a controversy brewing.
A controversy between loggers and fisherman.
Last year, the salmon catch in Southeastern Alaska was the highest in the state, exceeding even salmon-rich Bristol Bay. Something in excess of 15-billion pounds of salmon was caught there in 2011.
That wasn’t always the case. In 1967, the salmon catch in southeast commercial fisheries hit a record low, just 215 million pounds.
There are many possible reasons for the low catch, but scientists agree, among those reasons were the logging practices of the time.
In the 1960′s, areas like Prince of Wales Island were heavily logged in clear-cuts. Forest restoration was not widely practiced, and it is a known fact that sedimentation and lack of shade can harm salmon spawning streams.
But there were probably other factors as well. Asian vessels that were doing illegal drift net fishing, and possibly pollution factors in the Pacific.
One thing is clear. Logging in the Tongass National Forest was greatly curtailed in the 1990′s. The reduction cost at least 6,000 loggers their jobs and devastated the economies of many communities.
Coincidentally or not, in the 1990′s the salmon catch in Southeast Alaska went up. And it continued to go way up into the first decade of the 21st century. By 2011, it reached a new record; the biggest catch ever in the Southeast.
Fishermen see a direct correlation between the scaling back of the logging industry and the increase in their catch.
But the largest native corporation in the state, Sealaska, says that with modern forest regeneration practices, logging can coexist with a health salmon industry.
The U.S. Division of Forestry has been conducting experiments and generating healthy second-growth forests in the Tongass just 50 years after old-growth clear cuts were made. The second-generation forests are not as ecologically diverse as the original old-growth forests, but they are a vast improvement over so-called “untreated forests”.
Right now logging in the Tongass has been cut back from its maximum of over three-quarters of a billion board feet of lumber, to about 100-million board feet per year.
At 100-million board feet, you never have to touch old growth forest again. All you need to do is re-harvest the second growth forests.
Fishermen love that. Loggers do not. A Southeast Alaska logging industry that used to employ 6,000 to 7000 people now only employs 200.
Sealaska, which owns 3% of the Tongass, would like to see logging nearly triple, to about 270-million board feet.
Fishermen say logging is fine just where it is. In fact, some would like to see it reduced further and more money put into watershed restoration.
Fishing now directly supplies 7,000 jobs in Southeast Alaska, and they feel it would be unwise to risk that.
The controversy is likely to continue. The Division of Forestry plans would technically allow 270-million board feet of lumber to be harvested.
But, in a presidential election year, it seems unlikely that moves will be made to increase the lumber harvest anytime soon.
Peruvian-Japanese on the North Shore
TIFFANY HERVEY
Growing up in Peru’s rich and colorful culture, Diana Delgado DesRoches’s favorite pastime was helping her mother in the kitchen. DesRoches says Peru’s geography plays an important role in their cuisine, providing a variety of ingredients and styles–native foods such as quinoa, 3,800 different types of potatoes, mate, maize, goji berries and chili peppers such as aji amarillo and panca.
Diana’s roots, a Japanese mother and Peruvian father, gave her family kitchen a fusion that will be new to most tasters here. This Japanese-Peruvian cuisine debuted in food wagon form in January on Kamehameha Highway near the Rocky Point beach access on Oahu’s North Shore. Diana runs the wagon, called Nikkei, with her family.
Nikkei is a term that refers to any Japanese descendent that lives outside of Japan and adopts a new culture. Japanese immigrants arrived in Peru as contract plantation laborers in the late 1800s and stayed on beyond their contracts to settle. Today, Japanese-Peruvians are a flourishing and sizable community in Peru. The artwork on each side of the food wagon celebrates this hybridization with a samurai on one side and an Inca on the other.
Nikkei serves made-to-order plates that embody this fusion. Using fresh, local (when available) ingredients, the plates feature the dominant flavors of Peruvian food such as chilies, cilantro, garlic and onion, balanced with the dominant flavors of Japanese food–ginger, vinegar and shoyu.
The menu offers cold dishes of seafood and salad as well as hot dishes that can mostly be likened to stir-fries. Raw fish is where the Nikkei culinary genius shines. Ceviche is a typical Peruvian dish using white fish, and Nikkei’s features fresh, local fish with red onions, cilantro, aji amarillo (Peruvian chile) and plenty of lime juice. When you order the ceviche, called Tiradito Aji Amarillo ($9), they cut the fish, onions and limes to order, and serve the dish with sweet potato and corn. If DesRoches is at the window, she will remind you that ceviche is meant to be eaten right away–the longer you wait, the more the lime juice acid cooks the fish.
The Tiradito Nikkei ($10) features sashimi-like cuts, only thinner. The fish–usually ‘ahi–is served over lettuce with your choice of a spicy aji amarillo creamy sauce or Nikkei Sauce (a more traditional Japanese flavor) sprinkled with ume furikake and togarashi. Other cold dishes include Solterito Salad ($7) comprised of tomatoes, queso fresco, red onion, corn, cilantro, lime juice and an olive oil drizzle, and Kyuri Salad ($6.50) with lettuce, tomatoes, kyuri (Japanese cucumber) and bean sprouts, served with the special Nikkei dressing.
Highly recommended by regular Nikkei patrons is Wok Rice ($7-10 depending on your protein choice), served as a large enough portion to either share or save for a second round. Peruvian rice, egg tortilla, green onions, red onion, red bell pepper, ginger, shoyu, oyster sauce and sesame oil are the base for your choice of chicken, shrimp, New York steak or fish. The flavors are bold and heavenly without ever being too rich.
Another must for the adventurous palate is the Shrimp Seco ($10), in which shrimp and stir fried red bell peppers ignite with garlic-cilantro sauce and beer base over Peruvian rice. Served with a side salad, this dish truly makes one feel like they’ve never had shrimp so light and zesty.
Diana’s mother, Luisa Jitsuya Delgado, cooks with her in the wagon and says they put a lot of pride into the food because they enjoy cooking for others and believe in a healthy lifestyle. Diana’s brother, Daniel Eiji Delgado Jitsuya, is credited as the executive chef and creator of the wagon’s menu. He started the famous Osaka restaurant in Peru and continued to open chains in Argentina, Chile and Mexico. Later, he opened another restaurant called M, in Argentina and has other restaurant projects in the works there.
“There’s nothing more rewarding than a happy customer who truly enjoyed our cooking,” Diana says. “Our ingredients are from family-owned businesses and my husband’s farm. Eventually the goal is to have my husband grow every ingredient and create a circle. For fish we go to Pier 38, and if a friend catches fish, they will call us.”
The food wagon is more than a dream come true for her; it’s been a reunion for her and her mother. “My mom had been trying [to move here] for a very long time, and something always came up,” Diana explains. “Finally this food wagon idea made my mom’s move to beautiful Hawaii a reality.”
“We are happy to be here in Hawaii and finding such a special clientele who have open minds and are eager to experiment with different kinds of foods,” Diana says.
Eager experimentation is definitely the demographic you will find: Nikkei is usually flanked by surfers cruising on their tailgates eating their meals, local families picking up their lunch or dinners to take home, and curious tourists grabbing a one-of-a-kind meal for their beach picnic.
Nikkei’s Peruvian-Japanese food hits the spot with surfers.
Peruvian-Japanese on the North Shore
tiffany hervey
China: Growing old before it can grow rich?
16 May 2012
Last updated at 23:31 GMT
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Will China’s rapidly ageing population threaten its economic prosperity?
China’s economic miracle has been accompanied by astonishingly rapid population ageing. Could growing old too fast end China’s irresistible march out of poverty?
Where Shanghai leads, China follows. The city is ultra-modern – but also one of the fastest-ageing places on Earth.
One in four of Shanghai’s permanent residents is retired
You can see it in the city’s vast branch of the furniture store, Ikea. A greying crowd show little interest in flat-pack furniture.
Mr Ni is 72 years old, single and smartly turned out in a tweed cap. “This is a great place to talk to people,” he says.
The in-store restaurant offers cheap food to tempt couples setting up home. But this part of the store is buzzing with the elderly, here to flirt and find love.
Mr Ni is a widower whose children have all left home.
“I find it easier to talk to women whose husbands have died,” he says. “I know how hard it is.”
Ageing metropolis
Under protest, Ikea’s managers have set up a special area for elderly singles. All over town, Shanghai is visibly growing old.
“Before he fell, he used to love going dancing,” says 77-year-old Mrs Zhang.
She looks across at her husband who is rocking back and forth. Since an accident two years ago, he has been suffering from dementia.
The couple live together in a tiny one-room apartment. “I have to take care of him all by myself,” says Zhang.
The glitz of Shanghai’s Bund, an avenue of skyscrapers, is close-by. But in the teeming lanes behind the skyscrapers, there are hundreds of fading blocks crammed with the elderly and poor.
The average age goes up as countries develop, because people live longer and have fewer children. But in China, the one-child policy has triggered a rapid decline in the birth rate.
“The speed of ageing in China is unique,” says Professor Peng Xizhe, a leading demographer at Fudan University.
China has taken just 20 years to reach an age profile that took Britain or France 60 or 70 years, he says.
New figures show that one in four permanent Shanghai residents is now retired.
The rest of China is catching up – by the year 2050, a third of Chinese people, 450 million, will be aged over 60.
Basic welfare
Mrs Zhang is proud and private, telling her husband to stop talking when he complains. The couple survive on his factory-worker’s pension of about £40 a week.
With her only child living away from home Mrs Zhang is responsible for most of her husband’s care
She worked in a back-street factory, so has no retirement money.
Local government volunteers visit the couple, but beyond that, care is minimal. Doctors do not make house visits.
Across China, fewer than 2% of the elderly will find a place in a state nursing home, because beds are full.
“I don’t have enough money for a [private] nursing home, or to pay someone to come and help,” says Zhang, the stress showing in her face.
China’s basic welfare system is now struggling with the number of elderly people needing care.
Ten million qualified carers are needed, according to a government committee. So far there are only 100,000 in all of China.
Until recently, this did not matter so much. Traditionally, the elderly lived with their children under Confucian values of “many generations under one roof”.
But because of strict birth control, many retirees now have only one child – so that is not an option.
Mr and Mrs Zhang’s only daughter lives with her in-laws, returning for a few nights each week to help out.
“Chinese society has not been prepared [with] its pension system and social-security systems,” says Professor Peng Xizhe. “People are worried.”
Labour shortages
China’s leaders worry about ageing, too – but for a very different reason. They fear China’s very economic model could be breaking down.
China’s export-led system relies on a seemingly endless supply of young, cheap workers. Research suggests that a quarter of China’s economic success depends on its cheap labour supply.
Shanghai in particular has relied on rural migrants to mask the problem of its ageing local population.
But in the smog of Yiwu, to the south of Shanghai, it is clear that the supply of young people is disappearing.
There are plenty of empty desks at the jewellery factory
“It’s really tough to find new workers, and the cost of labour is increasing,” says Jerry Mo, a former foreman who borrowed heavily to open his own small factory two years ago.
His 40 workers snip, mould and bake plastic into costume jewellery items that end up on shelves in Britain. There are lots of empty work stations.
“You can see the way an ageing society is affecting the labour force,” he says.
There is an acute labour shortage here.
In addition, migrants – who have their own elderly parents to support – are increasingly quitting to find work in their home towns.
Jerry Mo says his workers demand higher wages but he cannot afford them. “We are becoming unprofitable,” he says.
The lack of young workers has hit China’s economy just when it needs to pay for the elderly.
There is a Chinese saying about why the country is so worried. China, they say, will become “too old to get rich.”
Despite its economic success, China is still a developing country.
“We are really worried about this,” says Professor Peng. “In China we have become older but we’re still in a very poor situation.”
You can find out more about China’s ageing population on BBC Radio 4′s Crossing Continents on Thursday, 17 May, 2012 at 11:00 BST, repeated Monday 21 May 20:30 BST. Watch a TV report on this page or at the Newsnight website.
Chasing the Dots – Guilty Until Proven Rich!
I apologise for plagiarising the title which I heard many years ago and has remained in my mind ever since. Now time to scratch! Namibian democracy is 22 years old and we are at a crossroad; do we drift into despotic elitism and become like many other resource rich African states or; do we grow our democracy to meet the needs of the people of Namibia?
It is already apparent that the separation of powers between the legislature and the executive is a myth due to ministerial overload! It quite apparent that the stated and constitutional requirements put forward by our elected are being constantly over-ridden by actions driven by personal gain. Despite a few notable exceptions, our elected seem intent on ducking issues that improve the general well being of all Namibians and focus upon matters benefitting themselves.
While professing to “help the poor”, more poverty, while seeking the creation of more productive jobs, more unemployment, while hunting for ways to improve health services, get treated privately and while on a quest with N$ billions to improve education their kids go to private schools and politically funded tertiary institutions. This poor performance is all well documented but defended by our elected as OK.
The citizens last hope (!) is the judicial system which despite hiccups has shown considerable and well measured resistance to political interference at senior level. However there are major factors preventing justice being available to all. Barriers that prevent matters getting before the process of judgement and when matters do get on the roll, the path to finality the road is strewn with legal and administrative mines. If judgement is finally reached, apart from a succession of lengthy appeal processes such judgements or recommendations are often blatantly ignored by the guilty!
Equally the law is frequently used as a weapon by making complaints that often have little or no substance but require the accused or “victim” to spend large amounts of money preparing a defence. A favourite trick of rogue governments, global companies and the super rich; throw down the “gauntlet” with mega expensive lawyers such that a contest will reduce the weaker to instant poverty and thus force submission.
Out of court settlements, with confidentiality agreements, let the mighty off cheaply, with no admission of guilt and thus continue bad practices! This situation often carries on until the prosecution has presented its case and the case is withdrawn before the defence case is put forward. The innocent accused, by then is broke as no judgement is made on costs.
Other problems with getting cases to court relate to lawyers and administrators who have multiple techniques to delay trials. Missing witnesses, sick lawyers and defendants, mislaid court documents, withdrawal of lawyers from the cases, possible political influence, the sheer load of evidence and anything fertile imaginations can dream up, cause delay. And yes, the more expensive the lawyer the more likely is victory.
The counter of this is the huge number of “accused” who remain in custody as they cannot afford bail (some should not get it) but clog up court proceedings with numerous hearings. Yes, our legal system needs speeding up, especially with cases where guilt is self evident despite the protestations of obviously lying defendants and fee seeking lawyers!
I look at the Caprivi trial and the furore around our voters roll as matters where our government should be taking action on behalf of the people. Unfortunately it seems that matters of principle or democratic deviance are unimportant. Is “Guilty until proven Rich” a democratic disease needing urgent cure?