After surging more than 60% in the past year, shares of discount retail giant Dollar Tree were priced for perfection Thursday morning when it announced fiscal first-quarter financial results. (The quarter ended April 28.)

Results exceeded expectations as earnings rose 15% to $116.1 million, or $1 a share, and sales jumped 11% to $1.72 billion. Same-store sales increased 5.6%.

But Dollar Tree (ticker: DLTR) disappointed investors, projecting for the current quarter earnings per share between 87 cents and 93 cents on revenue of $1.66 billion to $1.7 billion. Analysts were calling for 95 cents per share on revenue of $1.7 …

That’s the reason Precious Blood Father Leonard Kostka decided to create a “One Drop” cross. Available as a pin or necklace, it serves as a reminder that one drop of the blood of Jesus can save the world from trouble.

“We get so used to the Eucharist, we need a pinprick sometimes to revive our devotion,” he said.

The lapel pin or necklace consists of a sterling silver Celtic cross with an almandine garnet in the center. Father Kostka consulted Rensselaer silversmith and St. Augustine parishioner Lana Zimmer. They decided they liked the Celtic cross and she developed the design. A company custom casts the cross and she assembles the parts.

Father Kostka is a former Saint Joseph’s College professor and a former pastor at St. Augustine in Rensselaer.

Zimmer, who also teaches in the education department at Saint Joseph’s College, said about 150 people around the country have one of the crosses. Father Kostka said at least one priest in Africa has one, also.

He wanted to use a ruby instead of a garnet, but the cost would be prohibitive, he said.

The crosses, which went on sale in December 2006, symbolize, in a world where “the more violent the better,” the one drop needed to clean it from all the “garbage,” Father Kostka said. Because symbols speak better than words, he decided to dramatize it.

He stressed the sacrifice Christ made, citing “Adoro Te Devote,” in which St. Thomas Aquinas refers to Jesus as a loving pelican.

Pelicans were once thought to feed their blood to their young by piercing their own breasts, Father Kostka said.

Father Kostka said the hymn has the theme that one drop is ransom for the entire world’s guilt.

The reason it’s called “most precious blood” instead of simply “precious blood” is because of its ability to nourish and cleanse, he said.

The crosses cost $48, which covers materials and labor.

Father Kostka, who said he’s never done something like this before, doesn’t receive any money from the crosses and hasn’t tried to advertise them much.

Betty Tonner, a parishioner at St. Augustine, Rensselaer, said she first heard about the cross at a Precious Blood Companion meeting at which Father Kostka talked about his idea.

“That idea sort of stuck with me,” she said. She bought one that year and the next Christmas bought five more for her daughters-in-law and her daughter.

She said the cross has grown to have a special place in her heart and she wears it everywhere. When she’s at Mass she holds onto it when the wine is consecrated, hoping for a special connection to the blood of Christ and for special blessings. “It just rings a bell in my heart,” she said.

She also treasures the cross because of her admiration for Father Kostka, who she calls “our resident saint.”

For more information, e-mail lzim53@yahoo.com.

After losing more than 80 pounds, she taught her kids how to control their portion sizes, shop at the farmers market, eat vegetables with every meal and avoid a lot of sugar.

Her efforts are working. At a time when approximately one-third of American children are overweight or obese, McDonald’s kids are at healthy weights.

So why is every day still a struggle for the blogger and mother of five?

“I have had to deal with teachers who hand out Skittles, candy bars, lollipops and giant frosted sugar cookies to the children in class … before 10 a.m.,” McDonald says. “I think this is setting kids up for failure and un-teaching the healthy habits I have instilled.”

The fact that doughnuts and cupcakes are given out as a reward after soccer practice or dance class is a paradoxical hurdle in the fight against childhood obesity. As doctors and parents struggle to encourage healthy behaviors, our sugar-filled, sedentary surroundings resist every step.

Think about it, says Dr. Stephen Daniels, chief pediatrician at Children’s Hospital Colorado. Every day kids are exposed to advertising about fast food instead of home-cooked meals. They’re surrounded by vending and soda machines at school. They have hundreds of channels on TV, own three video game systems and live in neighborhoods that were built without sidewalks.

“Our environment is constantly pushing kids in the wrong direction.”

Childhood obesity isn’t just a cosmetic issue, although studies have shown overweight children are often isolated and bullied by their peers.

Obese youth are more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease, diabetes, sleep apnea, liver disease and bone and joint problems, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Excess fat has also been linked to many types of cancer. About two-thirds of obese children grow up to be obese adults.

Gary Evans is an environmental and developmental psychologist at Cornell University. His latest study, published this year in the journal Pediatrics, analyzed the effects of stress on weight gain in children and adolescents.

Researchers know that both adults and children seek higher fat foods in response to stress. Evans and his team found that stress also damages a child’s ability for self-control, which leads to a higher body mass index as a teen.

Evans examined children who were dealing with stressful situations, such as poverty, single parenthood, housing problems and domestic violence. In the study, stress hormones hurt the brain’s pre-frontal cortex — the one responsible for our ability to plan and avoid temptations — at the cellular level.

See also: How to stop your kids from stressing

It’s kind of a quadruple whammy, Evans notes. Lower income children have less healthy food stores nearby, more junk food available because it’s cheap, fewer places to play outdoors and, as his team found out, a harder time curbing bad impulses.

“If you are born poor, your life expectancy is less,” Evans wrote in an e-mail. “Perhaps even more striking … upward mobility does not remove the ill effects of early childhood poverty on subsequent health and well-being.”

For parents trying to raise healthy kids, this is all kind of depressing.

“What we need to do as a society is work to make the healthier choice the easier choice,” says Daniels.

There has been movement in that direction. Policymakers are issuing new rules for healthier food in schools and local programs are encouraging more activity. But realistically, an environmental overhaul could take years.

There’s a danger in being too pessimistic about the influence we have on the ways our kids live, Daniels says. Research shows that children who lose weight are less likely to gain it back than teenagers or adults.

“As hard as it is to make a change at age 10, it’s that much easier than at 30 or 40.”

Twins Molly and Chris McGann, 15, are perfect examples of this. In third grade, Molly was bullied for being overweight. The McGanns started attending the Shape Down program at Children’s Hospital Colorado.

Shape Down’s instructors taught the whole family how to measure their food, cook with different colors — broccoli, red peppers, carrots — and include exercise in their daily lives. Molly dropped the extra pounds and is still at a healthy weight.

Her twin Chris hit a tough spot in middle school when undiagnosed sleep apnea caused his weight to creep up. As a teenager he is finding it more difficult to stay on track because of peer pressure. His school cafeteria, for instance, has a pizza buffet and a long line of desserts available every day.

“My friends eat the pizza and the Little Debbie cakes and they’re all as thin as rails,” he says. “It’s really hard to walk by that stuff because it looks so good. I just think I want to be healthy, I want to lose weight and I know if I eat those things it’s not going to happen.”

Daniels doesn’t talk about dieting or weight loss with his patients. He talks about getting the entire family on board to eat healthier and be more active.

“You have to understand what kinds of behaviors are leading to the problem and the changes to take,” he says. “It’s helpful to go slow. It’s about simple goals. You don’t have to get to a perfect weight in order to have the health benefits.”

For more help conquering your environment, the Mayo Clinic has suggestions on making weight loss a family affair.

]]> http://romancatholic.biz/why-its-hard-for-kids-to-lose-weight/feed 0 http://romancatholic.biz/e-books-spur-reading-among-americans http://romancatholic.biz/e-books-spur-reading-among-americans#comments Fri, 18 May 2012 17:07:24 +0000 HermPink http://romancatholic.biz/e-books-spur-reading-among-americans Editor’s note: Amy Gahran writes about mobile tech for CNN.com. She is a San Francisco Bay Area writer and media consultant whose blog, Contentious.com, explores how people communicate in the online age.

So says new research from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which states that about one-fifth of U.S. adults have read an e-book in the past year.

And if you expand that to include Americans over 16 who have used an e-reader device or app to read news articles or magazine-style features, the figure jumps to 43%.

E-book users tend to read more often than people who read only print material, Pew found. In particular, they read more books. A typical e-book user read 24 books in the past year, compared with the 15 books reported by typical non-e-book users.

Also, a third of people who read e-content say they now spend more time reading than they did before e-books. This is especially true for people who own tablets and e-book readers.

This might be good for the economy. According to Pew, e-book users are “also more likely than others to have bought their most recent book, rather than borrowed it, and they are more likely than others to say they prefer to purchase books in general.”

E-readers and tablets (including Amazon’s Kindle Fire e-reader, which is a modified Android tablet) were a popular holiday gift item last year. Currently 28% of Americans age 18 and older own at least one tablet or an e-book reader. And that’s not even counting the people who read books on a smartphone or iPod Touch app.

Then again, Pew also noted that e-book users often start searching for books online — which isn’t great news for people who run brick-and-mortar bookstores.

For now, print reading material still rules the consumer market, however. Pew found that nearly three-fourths of U.S. adults read a printed book in 2011, and 11% listened to an audiobook. Print books are especially popular when people read to children.

Print books are also the most popular choice when people want to borrow or lend a book. That’s not surprising — recently author Dave Taylor explained step-by-step how to borrow a Kindle book from a public library. It’s not too difficult, but is still considerably more complicated than walking into the library and pulling a book off the shelf.

The survey also found that just slightly more people prefer e-books over print for reading in bed.

On the flip side, Pew noted that nearly 20% of U.S. adults said they had not read a single book in the past year. In general, people who don’t own electronic reading devices are more likely not to read much at all.

In addition, nearly 20% of Americans 16 and older said they had “physical or health conditions that made reading difficult or challenging.” Most of these people are older (25% of those over age 50), unemployed or low-income. But an interesting aspect of e-book and audiobook technology is its potential to improve the accessibility of written content.

Most e-reading devices allow the reader to adjust the font, font size, contrast, column width, and other factors to compensate for impaired vision. Plus, they often include text-to-speech technology that can read books or articles aloud — maybe not with thrilling delivery, but still a useful option. This can also be helpful to people with limited literacy.

The cost of e-reading devices keeps dropping, and it’s likely that in the next year or two companies like Amazon may be giving away basic e-readers for free (on the principle that you can make more money selling “blades” than “razors”).

As the price of e-readers approaches zero, it opens up more opportunities for people who have been left on the wrong side of the digital divide to access the same wealth of information, entertainment and education as people with normal vision and average-or-better income.

Since the invention of writing, the written word has always disrupted the balance of power in societies. While e-books might have started out as a high-tech novelty for early adopters, they may ultimately prove to be a great equalizer across boundaries of ability, resources and education.

The opinions expressed in this post are solely those of Amy Gahran.

]]> http://romancatholic.biz/e-books-spur-reading-among-americans/feed 0 http://romancatholic.biz/banco-chins-ccb-pode-entrar-na-amrica-latina-com-um-olho-no-brasil http://romancatholic.biz/banco-chins-ccb-pode-entrar-na-amrica-latina-com-um-olho-no-brasil#comments Fri, 18 May 2012 14:07:24 +0000 HermPink http://romancatholic.biz/banco-chins-ccb-pode-entrar-na-amrica-latina-com-um-olho-no-brasil

It looks the business thanks to optional black 17in alloy wheels, black wing mirror housings, matching black side sills, wheel arch extensions and bumper skirts, a black roof and, of course, Monte Carlo badges.

You don’t get masses of equipment as standard but there’s air conditioning, electric front windows, sports seats, electric heated wing mirrors and a rather lovely red-stitched leather steering wheel, handbrake and gear knob set.

The options list is comprehensive and most things on there are fairly priced. There’s a touchscreen display to replace the retro standard LCD display, cruise control, climate control and more. There’s also a no-cost option to have the seats finished in red cloth instead of the more subtle black and white fleck.

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The decision has been taken at the federal level and no exemptions will be permitted, according to Humaid Mohammad Obaid Al Qutami, Minister of Education.

Al Qutami told Gulf News: "When deciding the calendar we were aware of the difficulties faced by many schools and universities, which are linked to foreign educational systems. We see no harm in these schools having links to foreign systems. But we don’t see this has anything to do with the unification of the holidays and breaks."

He said the ministry is willing to be flexible on minor issues and added that the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research as well as the Ministry of Education were entrusted by the Cabinet to implement the goals of unification, which will be achieved completely from the following academic year nationwide.

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