NCAA removes Seminoles from hostile list

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The NCAA will allow Florida State to use its Seminoles nickname in postseason play, removing the school from a list of colleges with Native American nicknames that were restricted by an NCAA decision earlier this month.

The NCAA said it was recognizing the relationship Florida State has long enjoyed with the Seminole Tribe of Florida, which assists the university with its pageantry and celebration of its culture and supports the school’s use of its name.

“The staff review committee noted the unique relationship between the university and the Seminole Tribe of Florida as a significant factor,” the NCAA said Tuesday. “The decision of a namesake sovereign tribe, regarding when and how its name and imagery can be used, must be respected even when others may not agree.”

Florida State President T.K. Wetherell had threatened to sue the NCAA immediately after its Aug. 5 announcement that the school’s highly visible nickname, “Seminoles,” was defined as “hostile and abusive” by a committee.

The NCAA said it would handle reviews from other schools on a case-by-case basis. The Illinois Fighting Illini, Utah Utes and North Dakota Fighting Sioux are among other prominent school nicknames that remain affected by the edict.

Under the NCAA restrictions, teams with American Indian nicknames would not be able to use them in postseason tournaments.

Well, good news for all those (including myself) who thought we shouldn’t promote the uncontrolled use of Stem Cells. Apparantely scientists have figured out how to convert ordinary skin cells into stem cells. Of course I don’t know all the details, and there is still a lot of work to do (just as there is in making Stem Cells useful in medicine), but at least we can hopefully avoid the whole moral dilemna.

Skin Cells Converted to Stem Cells

p.s. Think anyone is going to give Bush an apology for being so hard on him and his stance on this issue?

Well, in case some of you didn’t know, my left pinkie finger has a tendency to dislocate when it is jarred or hit the wrong way. This has happened while playing basketball, getting kicked while swimming, etc. The reason for this is b/c back in college I was playing basketball, and went up for a reverse 360 slam dunk from beneath the basket, and ended up jamming the ball into the bottom of the backboard, which caused my left pinkie (first knuckle closest to the hand) to completely dislocate! It looked absolutely nasty, and I was sure it was broken, but after the x-rays, and a quick pop back into place, everything looked normal…although still in pain and wearing a splint for a few weeks.

So…why am I telling you all of this and why is the title of this post “welcome to the club”? Well, Barbie has joined my elite group of people with pinkie dislocations, albeit her’s is the right hand. Upon taking Kymba for a walk on Saturday, Kymba spotted a jogger and took off full speed after him. Barbie, being a girl with motherly instincts, didn’t want to let go, so ended up hanging for a few seconds too long and ended up flying face first (superman style) into onto the asphalt, and her right pinkie somehow got dislocated with a chipped bone. Of course, the first thing she tells me is to get Kymba, and when I ask if she is OK, she repeats “Go get Kymba…I broke my finger…go get Kymba!” Needless to say, I followed orders and eventually chased Kymba down about 1/2 mile down the block. Of course Barbie went to the emergency room for X-Rays and to get things bandaged up (or ‘dressed up’ as they say). She is now basically having to learn how to be left handed in life, and using lots of voicemail instead of e-mail.

Kymba, of course, was not to be outdone, and didn’t want all the attention going to Barbie, so she somehow proceeded to injure her back right pad on her paw and spent the last day or two limping around also. So, now I am in a house where both my girls have injured extremities. I almost feel like dislocating my pinkie again just to fit in.

If you have any entrepreneurial tendencies, then you will love this book! Richard Branson, who you may or may not know, is the founder of Virgin Music and Virgin Atlantic airlines, along with many other small Virgin companies. The book starts off by him telling how he almost died on one of his crazy hot air balloon rides, and thus decided it was time to write an autobiography at the age of 43, instead of waiting until some unforeseen accident may occur that would prevent him from doing so. Therefore, he considers this volume I. The book I read was the original and goes up to 1993, but I think there is a new release that probably goes further..and I’ll be sure to pick it up!

Branson basically takes you through his life, and what he was thinking every step of the way. He almost makes you feel like, geez…anyone can become a billionaire if you are willing to work at it. Of course, he did have a fair amount of luck and timing, but overall, he was a hard worker that worked through the speed bumps, and continued to reinvent the company. He started off when he was around 15 or 16 creating a magazine called “Student”, which was obviously geared to students. After a while, he decided to get into the music mail order business since he noticed everyone around was always wanting some obscure music that the normal stores didn’t offer. Originally he had no intention of opening a store due to costs, but the Postal service went on strike, and he quickly had to find a place to sell music, otherwise the company would go into shambles. He then was able to persuade a shoe store owner to let them have the 2nd floor of his building for free, with the promise that the store would bring many students by his shop. This sounded like something my cousin Jon would end up doing, but no one else in the world could figure out how. Anyways, he that was his first Virgin Music store…and as they say, the rest is history. The book is filled with these kind of stories about saving money and keeping overhead down, but still making everyone happy in the end. It was also amazing to hear how the Banks have so much control over a company as volatile as Virgin, since they have to overdraft so much money. At one point, the company is worth $1 billion dollars, but the banks are still giving them hell because they are over drawn on their $50 million dollar limit. Amazing!! Well, I won’t spoil anymore for you, but the book is absolutely GREAT, and I highly recommend it.

Things just don’t seem as worthy of talking about on the site as they did in Europe, but I guess that is to be expected. Therefore, most of my content will now seem a little bit dull and trite, but that is life…so deal with it.

This past weekend, we did what any new homeowner with a yard or deck would do…we bought a BBQ. Now this is no ordinary BBQ…this thing is all Stainless Steel, with 6 burners, a Rotisserie, a Smoker, a very nice cart, and weighs a ton. It really didn’t look that big at the store, but on our deck, it looks huge. Monday night we had our first bbq with Jason…friend of Barbie’s…and it was gooooood. Shrimp appetizers, with corn on the cob and chicken. Nothing like a good bbq!!