School board takes stand over violent video game By Robert Brumfield, Assistant Editor, eSchool News

The Miami-Dade County School Board has taken unusual and preemptive action against the maker of a new video game that officials fear will encourage school violence.

March 21, 2006—The maker of the controversial video game Grand Theft Auto is reportedly set to release a new game, Bully, that some officials believe will lead to increased violence on school campuses. The Miami-Dade School Board in Florida has taken local action to limit the sale of the game to minors.

As originally reported in The Miami Herald newspaper, a resolution passed by the Miami-Dade School Board on March 16 urged retailers not to sell Bully to minors and directed the district to inform parents "on the potential harmful effects to children of playing interactive video games containing violence."

Slingshot ride will test fear of heights DAWN BRYANT TOURISM TALK

A slingshot ride that will hurl people into the air above Ocean Boulevard plans to open by the end of March.

Riders will soar as high as 180 feet - about 70 feet higher than the peak on the Hurricane roller coaster a few blocks south at The Myrtle Beach Pavilion Amusement Park.

Each flight will cost between $20 and $25. The exact ticket price hasn't been set yet.

Crews will start hanging steel for the ride next week. The ride came by boat from Austria and is waiting at the Charleston port for a ride to Myrtle Beach, said Bill Prescott, who owns and will operate the thrill ride.

Prescott is shooting to open before the first round of seasonal crowds visit the beach during the Easter holiday, the weekend of April 16.

"We are making progress," Prescott said. "We are just making darn sure that we don't miss Easter."

The ride replaces the Ocean Adventure Miniature Golf Course at the corner of Ocean Boulevard and 12th Avenue North.

The corner will have kiosks selling ice cream, snacks and possibly air brushed items. It also will be the new home of Air Boingo bungee jump, which Prescott used to operate on 8th Avenue North.

The slingshot ride originally was to open last summer, but was delayed as it awaited approvals from the city and state.

It has clearance now, though some officials, including the entire Myrtle Beach Planning Commission, opposed the ride because of concerns over noise, safety and its 210-foot height.

City of the future

How do you want North Myrtle Beach to look in five years? How about 10 years?

Figuring out that vision is one of the goals of Paul Williams, incoming president of the North Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce. The chamber's board of directors hired him a week ago to fill the top job, which used to carry the title "executive director."

Williams plans to talk with the chamber's 1,144 members to get their input on a vision, then develop a plan that will carry the area into the coming years.

"The next decade is just going to be explosive," said Williams, who lives in the Arcadian Shores area. "We need to know where we are going to be five, 10, 15 years from now."

Williams' predecessors haven't lasted long enough to focus on the long term. He is the fourth executive since the chamber was formed six years ago. The chamber had been without a leader since May, when the previous executive director was fired.

The turnover doesn't bother Williams, who will leave his job as general manager of The Breakers Resort to take the chamber job.

"I've always been put in positions where there has been a little volatility," he said. "And I've been able to calm it down."

New park leadership

Four coastal state parks have new managers, but they aren't strangers.

Veteran park leaders stepped up to fill the vacancies left by retirements and promotions, said Marion Edmonds, spokesman for the S.C. Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department, which runs the state's 46 parks.

The parks are an important part of the beach's tourism, with about 9,000 acres of protected marshland and maritime forest, 10 miles of beach and nearly 800 campsites and 25 cabins.

"Because of the way it occurred, we've had a big change among the leadership," Edmonds said. "We've been able to groom successors."

The changes:

Gerald Ives moves to Myrtle Beach State Park. Ives was manager of Sesquicentennial State Park in Columbia. He replaces Bobby Turner, who retired after 35 years at the Myrtle Beach park.

Brenda Magers moves to Huntington Beach from the Mountain Bridge Wilderness Area.

Susan Spell, a former assistant manager at Myrtle Beach, moves to Edisto Beach.

Jeff Atkins, former manager of Edisto Beach, shifts to Hunting Island.

Archery banned in Fort Mitchell By Kevin Eigelbach Post staff reporter

It appears that history was made twice Monday at the Fort Mitchell's meeting of the City Council.

First of all, someone was arrested.

Second, the City Council passed an ordinance banning the use of bows and arrows within city limits.

Fort Mitchell resident Robert Dryer, 54, was arrested about 30 minutes into the meeting when he became belligerent during a heated debate on the proposed ordinance, according to police Sgt. Tom Loos.

"He refused to step down from the podium, he became loud and aggressive, he was ejected from the meeting, and he refused to leave," Loos said.

Officers had to forcibly remove Dryer, Loos said, and he wouldn't settle for anything less than being arrested.

Loos charged Dryer with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and disrupting a meeting - all misdemeanors.

"I think we made Fort Mitchell history tonight," Loos said.

"We couldn't come up with a single other arrest at a council meeting," Loos said

Dryer came to the meeting to make a presentation against the proposed bow-and-arrow ordinance, Loos said.

It was in vain, as council approved a second and final reading of the ordinance, according to Loos.

It says that no one shall be allowed to shoot a bow and arrow in Fort Mitchell.

It includes an exception for schools that offer archery programs for students, Loos said.

City Council has been debating the issue since at least last September, when the ordinance was first read, officials said.

Members of a committee council charged to examine the issue witnessed an archery demonstration, put on by city residents, in January, officials said.

The city started taking a closer look at the idea after a Highland Avenue family's cat was struck by an arrow.

The arrow hit the cat while it was playing in woods behind the family's house, city officials said.

Even though the cat survived, the family had to pay about $1,000 in veterinary bills, officials said.

Other Northern Kentucky cities also have banned using bows and arrows - as well as air rifles, pellet guns, slingshots, toy guns, pistols and rifles, according to officials.

These cities include Covington, Crestview Hills, Edgewood, Erlanger, Elsmere, Florence, Fort Wright and Park Hills, officials said.

Slingshot Company Wham-O Sold To Chinese Company

Wham-O! Legendary toymaker is American-owned no more

Chinese investors couldn’t buy an oil company or the Maytag appliance company, but now a Hong Kong group has a claim on a genuine American business legend — Wham-O Inc., the maker of Frisbee, Hula Hoop, Silly String and Slip ’N Slide toys.

Privately held Wham-O said it had been sold to Hong Kong toy distributor Cornerstone Overseas Investments Ltd. for an undisclosed amount.

The 58-year-old company, of Emeryville, Calif., in recent years has bounced around more than a Super Ball — another of Wham-O’s famed inventions.

This marks the fourth change in Wham-O’s ownership since Rich Knerr and Spud Melin founded the company in 1948.

Wham-O got its name from the sound made by its original product, a slingshot.

Wham-O became ingrained in pop culture a few years later when it bought the rights to the Pipco Flying Saucer, which was later named the Pluto Platter before finally landing on the Frisbee brand in 1958.

The Hula Hoop craze made the company’s name a household word.

“Our brands aren’t considered hot because they are so old, but they are still cool,” said Mojde Esfandiari, Wham-O’s president. She hopes to double Wham-O’s sales during the next two to three years under Cornerstone’s ownership.

As the company changes hands yet again — Mattel held it for a time in the 1990s — its new owners promise to use their factories in China to deliver the products to new markets around the world.

“This is a very exciting deal, because of the strong brands and the expansion opportunities,” said James Rybakoff, chief executive of Akin Bay Co., the investment company that advised Cornerstone. “American retro-legacy brand names is what is in, and the Chinese love them.”

The deal also is an example of the new Chinese purchasing power — evidenced last year by bids for Unocal Corp. and Maytag Corp., although those ultimately failed.

In the past, U.S. companies outsourced their production or created joint ventures with Chinese partners that handled manufacturing and distribution. Now the Chinese are increasingly interested in buying established businesses and running the operations themselves.

“They want to keep the management and creativity and marketing in the U.S., but they want to have the manufacturing and back-office operations” in China, Rybakoff said.

Cornerstone plans to move Wham-O’s production to its larger Chinese factories to take advantage of economies of scale. Cornerstone is already doing business in 54 countries.

Cornerstone Chief Executive Jeff Hsieh owns a chain of 400 toy stores across China, making immediate distribution in Asia easier.

Cornerstone would not disclose the purchase price but said it was an all-cash deal for less than the $80 million Wham-O sought when it was on the auction block in 2004. Cornerstone said it would keep most of Wham-O’s 300 or so employees for now but had not made a decision for the long term.

“We’ve been expecting a sale of Wham-O for a long time, because the company has been struggling for quite a while,” said Jim Silver, editor of Toy Wishes magazine. “Their Frisbee sales have been shrinking. In in the water-slide business, they’ve lost market share to competition. And the majority of the hoop business is now with Maui Toys.”

The business was never huge — sales last year totaled about $80 million.

Back in my day, outdoors ruled the day....

Outdoors: Skip Hess
Back in my day, outdoors ruled day



I hear more and more people who hunt, fish and camp express their concern that kids are losing interest in outdoor activities; that they spend too much time in front of a computer screen and not enough time around a campfire or hiking a wooded trail.

I suppose that I'm among those folks who are guilty of saying, "When I was a kid . . . " That conversation invariably ends with, "Well, I suppose things change." But for me on this and every Christmas, things don't change. Christmas is a time to reflect on my childhood, when expensive gifts were not piled under an imperfect tree decorated with bubble lights, icicles and strings of popcorn.

When I was a kid (you knew it was coming, didn't you?), two or three gifts amounted to a bonanza. And two of those "presents" were usually socks and underwear.

I can't speak for the girls 50 or 60 years ago, but back then the boys high-tailed it outside on Christmas to play with things that we made ourselves. Down the alley about a half-block was a homemade basketball goal, the only one in the neighborhood, attached to the top of a chicken house.

The old leather basketball we used leaked air and belonged to the kids that owned the goal. When they took their ball and went home, the game was over. Nobody else had a ball. The small court was dirt; mud if it had rained or snowed. It was a place where you perfected your shooting, for if you missed the backboard, the ball hit the top of the shed, bounced into a fenced chicken pen and scattered squawking hens.

The ball always landed and rolled around in you-know-what, so the kid who shot the ball also had to clean it before it was put into play again. For my older brother and me, that game usually ended before noon, when it was time to climb into the 1952 two-door green Plymouth and head north to my grandparents' farm. And that's where many basketball games were played in the barn lot. The goal was a rusty metal band that once held barrel staves in place. It was nailed to the side of the barn.

Cousins Davie Lee, Rudy "Toot," Danny, Kerry and Ricky John who lived down the blacktop road came to play. So did the Crozier boys, as we called them. They had first names, but we never used them for some reason. They also had the ball. It was just a matter of time before the makeshift goal was bent beyond repair and we moved on to play hockey. The rink was down a gravel road where water pooled and froze in an open spot in the woods.

Hockey sticks were fashioned from tree branches and the puck was a tin can. When that game was over, we took a break to share (one swig each) a Nehi grape or orange soda. There was never a need for a bottle opener because the Crozier boys removed the caps by prying them off between their back teeth. Then we would go "hunting" down by the creek or over at the cliff. Our weapons were slingshots, made from tree branch forks, rubber Mason jar sealing rings or strips of inner tubes, and leather from an old shoe tongue.

The leather held the ammunition, which were quarter-size rocks that we carried in our pockets. We'd kick up a rabbit or covey of quail and fire our weapons. The arcing rocks might have traveled 20 feet at best. We'd return to my grandparents' house at sundown and sit around a potbellied stove, the only heat in the house, and wait for Granddad to fetch apples from the cellar. That was his Christmas gift to us. Sure, things have changed. Granddad and Grandma are gone. So are Rudy, Kerry and one of the Crozier boys.

But now, I see parents buying $100-plus tennis shoes for Christmas while I recall that we played outside on Christmas with cardboard from Quaker Oats boxes stuffed inside our leather shoes to plug holes in the soles. I see $100 play tents and recall that we built our own tent, using tree limbs for a frame and hay and straw for a canopy. We were outdoors because there was nothing to do indoors but, as adults put it, get under somebody's feet. But now, there's the Internet and there are no Dells and Gateways down the alley, in the barn or down by the creek.

In defense of kids, we have forced them to play inside by supplying them with endless video games to play in the theater room, and then wonder why they don't spend more time outside. So look around this Christmas, and if you see kids outside playing hockey with tree limbs and tin cans instead of on an electric air hockey table in the game room, or spot kids walking around with oatmeal box cardboard inserts in their shoes, let me know. I'll get the Crozier boys to bite the cap off of a Nehi soda and we'll celebrate -- right after we make some slingshots, gather some rocks and blast those confounded computers to smithereens.