Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/62342
Wednesday, April 18, 2012 – Daily News FEATURES Startling facts about tobacco use Dear Annie: The facts about tobacco use are star- tling. Every day, nearly 4,000 kids under the age of 18 try their first cigarette, and another 1,000 become regular smokers. To hook kids, tobacco companies spend billions of dollars each year targeting kids like me with advertising near schools and malls, and they even alter these deadly products to look and taste like candy! They also oppose efforts to make it more diffi- cult for kids to obtain cigarettes, like tobacco tax increases and smoke-free laws. With almost 20 percent of high school students who are current smokers, we need a change, and it needs to be both youth led and adult supported. Cigarette companies cannot survive unless kids smoke, so I am thankful to be working with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids as a young advocate to fight to reduce tobacco use and its devastat- ing consequences on youth. Your readers can get involved by visiting www.tobaccofreekids.org to learn more about what is being done in their community and how they can help. — Judy Hou, age 17, volunteer at Y Street, The Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth, Richmond, Va. Dear Judy Hou: Many thanks for your terrific letter. We hope it will inspire readers to become involved, as well as con- vince others not to take that first puff. Smoking kills, and it can harm those around you. If you already smoke, please quit. It doesn't make you cool. It makes you stink. Dear Annie: My friend Annie's Mailbox by Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar ble mistake. The new girlfriend was verbally abusive and controlling and interfered with his relationship with his other children. He finally ended things and returned to his wife. Now the Other Woman is refus- ing visitation with the new baby. Steve and his wife have hired an attorney to fight this. I know Steve has tried very hard to put his life back together and wants to do the right thing. But I was disheartened to see the new mother badmouth him on Facebook, calling him a deadbeat dad and telling horrible lies about his family. Steve pays regular child support and has already added the baby to his insur- ance. Meanwhile, throughout her pregnancy, this woman drank and smoked, even though Steve pleaded with her to take better care of her- self. ''Steve'' has been married for 10 years. Six months ago, he had an affair. The other woman became preg- nant, so Steve left his wife. But within a few months, he realized he had made a terri- This is a small community, and I am appalled that she has dragged Steve's name through the mud. It is digging month, PG&E reminds customers to call 811 before digging. One call can prevent injuries, outages and damage to underground utility equipment. provides important infor- mation on where utilities exist beneath excavation areas. affecting his children at school. I worry about this woman raising a child. Steve thinks he has to accept the public bashing because he cheated. Is there any way to get his side of the story out there? — A Friend Dear A Friend: This is what friends are for. Feel free to refute the lies when the opportunities present themselves. But we cau- tion you not to say unkind things about the Other Woman. Steve has his hands full, and there's no rea- son to make the woman more defensive and angry than she already is. Dear Annie: This is in regard to the letter from ''California,'' whose stepdaughter's children keep play- ing with their iPhones during din- ner. I had this problem with my sister. During dinner, she kept playing with her phone, so I snapped a photo of her with my iPhone and sent it to her with a text message: ''Having a great time. Wish you were here!'' She laughed and put her phone down, and we had a nice visit. — Iowa Annie's Mailbox is written by Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar, longtime editors of the Ann Landers column. Please email your questions to anniesmailboxcomcast.net, or write to: Annie's Mailbox, c/o Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254. Call 811 before you dig to avoid danger During national safe Natural gas pipelines, electric power lines and other utilities buried underground can lie just a few feet from the sur- face. Whether planting a tree, installing a sprinkler system or building a fence, homeowners and professional excavators need to know where gas and electric lines lie underground to prevent injuries, property damage and outages. Once every three min- utes nationwide, a utility line is damaged by dig- ging. Many of these inci- dents could have been prevented with a call to 811, a free service that Calling 811 puts cus- tomers in direct contact with Underground Ser- vice Alert (USA), which notifies local utility com- panies to mark the approximate location of their underground facili- ties in and around the excavation site, helping customers and contractors avoid them. Anyone can call USA from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday, except for holidays. Cali- fornia law requires any- one doing excavation work to notify utilities at least two working days before digging. Requests will be accepted as early as 14 days in advance of an excavation. Once a request is received, the Events at CSU herbarium Upcoming workshops and events sponsored by the Friends of the Chico State Herbarium in May, include: The 4th Annual Herbarium Open House and Students' Plant Photo Contest on May 11. There will be a display of the Student's Plant Photo Contest during the Open House, scheduled noon to 4 p.m. in the Chico State Herbarium, CSUC Campus, Holt Hall Room 129. students. There is no fee for submission and there are cash prizes. Maximum of two entries per participant. All entries must be received by May 8 in order to be displayed and judged. Submit photos in 8"X10" format to the Gateway Science Museum Ticket Office, with the title or subject, your name, grade level, school and contact information or to mail entries, send to: 2012 Plant Photo Contest, Chico State Herbarium, CSU Chico, CA 95929- 0515. The contest is open to 6th through 12th grade Photos may not be returned and will be modified as needed for display purposes. Send an email to Elena at friendsoftheherbarium@gmail.com for questions or more information. Botanical Illustration by Judy McCrary is scheduled for May 19. Local illustrator and teacher, Judy McCrary, will concentrate on pencil and ink techniques, although other media may be explored depending upon the interests of the participants. The workshop will meet from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Holt 129 at CSU, Chico. Cost is $40 for the public and $30 for students and members. Register in advance by calling (530) 898-5356 or send- ing an email to jbraden@csuchico.edu. Detailed workshop descriptions and sign up forms are available on csuchico.edu/biol/Herb/Events.html. customer or contractor will receive a list of noti- fied utilities that may have underground lines in the area. PG&E offers these tips for a safe excavation: If you believe a utility has not marked its lines, call 811 again to notify USA. To help utilities, mark the proposed excavation area on paved surfaces with white chalk-based paint. Homeowners can also use other white sub- stances, such as sugar or flour. On unpaved sur- faces, use flags or stakes to mark the proposed excavation area. Carefully hand-exca- vate within 24 inches on either side of a utility- marked facility. facility marks while working. If you cannot see the markings, call 811 Be careful not to erase The Shasta College Economic & Workforce Development Division (EWD) announces offering a new class – Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. This is a very significant opportuni- ty for local businesses (hos- pitals, manufacturing plants, distribution compa- nies, etc.) to take advantage of very low cost training in Six Sigma. This class gives the participants the tools necessary to make business operations and processes run more efficiently. Learn how to streamline a process to get more "bang" for fewer bucks, as you work smarter, not just harder. The course will teach you how to identify exactly what is constraining your operation or process from ER: To answer your ques- tion, I consulted with my colleague, geriatrician Suzanne Salamon. She told me that she is reluc- tant to prescribe sleeping pills to her older patients. They lead to daytime grogginess and may con- tribute to cognitive prob- lems, poor balance and falls. TOR K: I am 70 and have always had sleep prob- lems. I've started to take a prescrip- tion nonbenzodi- azepine sleeping pill every night. It's working very well. Is it OK if I keep on taking it? DEAR READ- DEAR DOC- The type of sleeping pills you mentioned include Ambien (zolpi- dem), Sonata (zaleplon) and Lunesta (eszopi- clone). These drugs are effective, particularly in helping you fall asleep. But many people are 3B Non-drug strategies best for insomnia when you're sleepy. Dr. K by Anthony L. Komaroff, M.D. sleepy, and then return to bed. fall asleep quick- ly, get out of bed, go into another room and stay up until you're — Use the bed only for sleeping or sex. Don't read, watch TV, eat or lie there worrying. — If you can't — If you still can't fall asleep, repeat step 3 as often as necessary throughout the night. — Set your alarm to get up at the same time every morning, regardless of how much sleep you got during the night. — Don't nap during the day. and request a remarking. 811 requests are active for 28 days. Notify USA if work continues beyond that time. Immediately notify utilities about any type of contact or damage to their wires or pipes. If there is any type of damage to PG&E electric wires or gas pipelines, or if there is a possible gas leak, take these steps promptly: Move to a safe location Call 911 Call PG&E at 1-800- 743-5000 For more information about USA, visit www.call811.com. For daily tips on safe dig- ging, visit PG&E's Face- book page at www.face- book.com/pacific- gasandelectric or PG&E's Twitter feed at www.twitter.com/pge4m e. being the best it can be, and how to put controls in place so the process is done the same way each time. We will cover Six Sigma at the Green Belt Level (certification ready), Lean, and Theory of Con- straints (TOC). Lean will show you how to make a process or operation as efficient as like you: Once they start taking the medication, they don't want to give it up. However, these sleep- ing pills are not supposed to be used long term. Smaller doses eventually become less effective, so people have to go to a higher dose. That's when the side effects really become apparent, espe- cially in older people. There are several non- drug strategies you can try to help improve your sleep. They really work, as well as or better than sleeping pills. I suggest that my patients of any age try them, particularly people older than 65 who are more likely to have side effects from pills. One strategy is called "reconditioning." My col- league, sleep expert Dr. Lawrence Epstein, describes reconditioning in his excellent book "The Harvard Medical School Guide to a Good Night's Sleep." (To learn about the book, go to www.AskDoctorK.com.) Dr. Epstein divides recon- ditioning into six parts: — Go to bed only possible by eliminating all wastes. Theory of Con- straints will show you how to identify those parts of the process that are the limiting factors (con- straints) that are preventing the entire process from being more efficient. Six Sigma will show you how to remove any variation from that operation or This reconditioning program may cause you to be pretty tired for the first several days, but you'll find that it will "reset your sleep clock" and cause you to fall asleep faster, stay asleep and get more hours of sleep at night. Two other hints: First, caffeine interferes with sleep for 12 hours after you drink it. So consume little, or none, after noon. Second, don't use alcohol as a "nightcap": It does make you sleepy, so you fall asleep more easily, but it acts as a stimulant after several hours and causes you to awaken repeatedly during the night. take sleeping pills. On occasion, I use them myself. Prescription sleep medications can be useful, but they should be used at the lowest dose and for the shortest possible time. More natural methods, like the sleep recondition- ing program described above, are at least as effective as pills, and don't have the side effects that unfortunately are fair- ly common in people your age. I'm not saying never Dr. Komaroff is a physician and professor at Harvard Medical School. Go to his website to send questions and get additional information. Shasta College EWD offers class in Lean Six Sigma Green Belt process so it stays efficient, how to turn data into actionable information. This class will be from May 22 to Oct. 11, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 6-8 p.m. For more information or to register, go online to shastacol- lege.edu/ewd and click on "Pathways" or call (530) 242-7630.