By Kathryn Reed

Lake Tahoe is often well represented in the Winter Olympics. Expect nothing less in 2014.

Today, 25 athletes are vying to be part of the Games that are in Russia Feb. 7-23. Some are household names – especially for those who live in the basin and follow skiing and snowboarding, while other athletes are newcomers to this level of competition.

Sierra-at-Tahoe, Heavenly Mountain Resort, Squaw Valley, Northstar, Sugar Bowl and Mammoth Mountain all expect to send competitors to the Olympics. In the coming months they will be competing throughout the world with the goal of making the U.S. Team.

Though, for Joanna “PNut” Dzierzawski, she is hoping to make the Poland team as a slopestyle snowboarder. She trains at Heavenly. And Kaya Turski, who trains at Mammoth, is hoping to be competing in skier slopestyle for Canada.

Here are the athletes from the greater Lake Tahoe who are in contention for the U.S. Olympic team:

• Maddie Bowman: Freeskier, from South Lake Tahoe, trains at Sierra-at-Tahoe. Gold at the 2013 X Games in halfpipe. This would be her first Olympics.

• Jamie Anderson: Snowboard slopestyle, from South Lake Tahoe, trains at Sierra-at-Tahoe. Decorated X Games competitor. This is the first year for slopestyle as an Olympic sport.

• Hannah Teter: Won gold at the 2006 Winter Olympic Games and a silver at the 2010 Winter Olympics in snowboarding, lives in Meyers, trains at Sierra-at-Tahoe.

• Kyle Smaine: Halfpipe skier, from South Lake Tahoe, trains at Sierra-at-Tahoe.

• Mark Hoyt: Snowboard slopestyle, trains at Sierra-at-Tahoe.

• Elena Hight: Snowboard halfpipe, from South Lake Tahoe, trains at Northstar. Competed in 2006 and 2010 Olympics. Well decorated at the X Games.

• Sho Kashima: Moguls, lives in Stateline, trains at Heavenly. Missed the 2010 Olympics because of a knee injury.

• David Wise: Freeskiing halfpipe, from Reno, trains at Northstar. Multiple X Games awards.

• Chas Guldemond: Snowboarding halfpipe and slopestyle, lives in Reno, trains at Northstar.

• Shaun White: Snowboarding halfpipe and slopestyle, from Southern California, trains at Northstar. Won gold in snowboard halfpipe at 2006 and 2010 Winter Games.

• Julia Mancuso: Ski racer, from Squaw Valley, trains at Squaw Valley. Won gold in giant slalom at 2006 Olympics and at the 2010 Games won silver in the downhill and silver in the combined.

• Marco Sullivan: Ski racer, from Truckee, trains at Squaw Valley. Competed in the 2002 and 2010 Games.

• Travis Ganong: Ski racer, lives in Squaw Valley, trains at Squaw Valley.

• Ross Andrews: Boardercrosss, from Michigan, trains at Sugar Bowl.

• Jayson Hale: Boardercross, from Sierraville, trains at Sugar Bowl. Competed in 2010 Olympics.

• Charlotte Mia Skinner: Skiercross, lives on North Shore, trains at Sugar Bowl.

• Greg Bretz: Halfpipe snowboarding, lives in Mammoth, trains at Mammoth. Competed in the 2010 Olympics.

• Trevor Jacob: Boardercross, lives in Mammoth, trains at Mammoth.

• Luke Mitrani: Snowboard halfpipe, lives and trains in Mammoth.

• Kelly Clark: Snowboard halfpipe, lives and trains in Mammoth. Won gold in 2002 Olympics and bronze in 2010.

• Sammy Carlson: Freeskier, from Oregon, trains at Mammoth.

• Aaron Blunck: Halfpipe skier, from Colorado, trains at Mammoth.

• John Teller: Skiercross, lives and trains at Mammoth.

Fiona

Fiona may look a little scary, with her cropped ears, but she is a very sweet, mellow pit bull mix who is house trained, walks nicely on her leash, and loves people.

She also loves to play with other dogs, but she can be a little bossy with other girls. She is fine with well-mannered children, and didn’t even chase the cats that she met at the shelter. She is a really nice girl – just imagine her with big, soft, floppy ears.

Fiona is spayed, microchipped, and vaccinated. She is at the El Dorado County Animal Services shelter in Meyers, along with many other dogs and cats who are waiting for their new homes.

Go online to see photos and descriptions of all pets at the shelter.

Call (530) 573.7925 for directions, hours, and other information on adopting a pet.

For spay-neuter assistance for South Tahoe residents, go online.

— Karen Kuentz

Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the Oct. 21, 2013, Sacramento Bee.

Our Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal.” Over the years, Americans have removed many barriers to that great aspiration – with the Fourteenth Amendment, the vote for women, the civil rights acts, public education and more.

But since the late 1970s, the United States slowly has become the most unequal of the world’s developed nations in its distribution of income and wealth. Our middle class is shrinking.

A new film, “Inequality for All,” hopes to bring attention to this. The protagonist is the passionate Robert Reich, an economics professor at UC Berkeley, and a former labor secretary during the Clinton administration.

The timing certainly is right for a clear explanation of what has happened economically to the middle class in the last 30 years, and the impact it is having on our democracy. All to the good if it can begin a spirited conversation to consider remedies.

Read the whole story

By Michael Orton

SPARKS — Sharon Landsberry, the wife of the Nevada guardsman and teacher killed during a school shooting in Sparks last month, recounted during a tearful memorial ceremony here Sunday that her husband had reconnected with friends and reiterated his Marine values just two days before he died.

Master Sgt. Michael Landsberry – the Sparks Middle School seventh-grade math teacher and Marine veteran who joined the Nevada Air Guard in 2001 – died Oct. 21 after a 12-year-old student fired gunshots that killed Landsberry and injured two others before the shooter took his own life.

A Marine salutes the family of Marine veteran and Nevada Guard Airman Master Sgt. Michael Landsberry on Nov. 3 during  a memorial service.
Photo/James Pierce

More than 1,000 people, including Gov. Brian Sandoval, attended the memorial service that included full military honors at the Sparks Christian Fellowship church.

Sharon Landsberry said her husband had played golf with friends and recited the Marine anthem entitled Ask Me What I Was just days before the incident.

She repeated the anthem during her eulogy to her husband.

“I have seen death and felt its warm breath. It did not faze me for I was different. I was a warrior. You ask me what I was? It was my destiny, until my last breath, to be a United States Marine. And my spirit shall live forever,” she said.

Witnesses said Michael Landsberry acted in a heroic manner and tried to stop Jose Reyes when he realized the student had a semi-automatic pistol and had fired shots outside the school building moments before class started.

“Mr. Landsberry’s heroic actions, by stepping toward the shooter, allowed time for other students in the playground area to flee,” Washoe County School District Police Chief Mike Mieras said.

The event rocked the school’s faculty and its more than 600 students. Vigils were held leading up to a viewing Saturday and the service Sunday.

Government officials, military personnel, family and friends spoke during the ceremony. One of them was Andrea Cook, Landsberry’s stepdaughter, who graduated from Navy basic training a few days after the shooting.

“I love you dad and I will make you proud,” Cook said. “One of the hardest things was to graduate from boot camp and not have you there because you were the reason I joined. You were the reason I pushed so hard in my physical fitness assessment and studied for my tests. I just wanted to make you proud.”

“There’s no such thing as an ex-Marine and (Landsberry) lived that,” said Brig. Gen. Bill Burks said, the Nevada National Guard’s adjutant general.

“He lived the core values. He was the consummate military professional, and with his Batman personality and pictures of him in costume, he just had this unique sense of humor.”

Landsberry’s impact and influence on his students was well represented during the memorial ceremony.

“He had such a great personality,” said Chelsey Avera, a student of Landsberry’s whom he nicknamed “Cherry Top” because of her red hair. “He would always make people smile. He liked to walk down the halls at school on Wednesdays yelling, ‘Hump day.’ He was our hero.”

Landsberry enlisted in the Nevada Air Guard in 2001, the same year he began teaching in the Washoe County School District. He deployed to Kuwait in 2006 and Afghanistan in 2011. During his military career, Landsberry earned more than 20 awards and decorations.

“No one could have imagined or anticipated what happened that day,” Sandoval said. “What is conclusive, though, is Michael Landsberry’s selfless act to give his own life that others may live.”

In Cook’s closing words, she summed up what fellow teachers, military personnel, family and friends had expressed throughout the ceremony.

“You have always been a hero and your friends and family knew that, but now the whole world knows that,” she said. “You’re my hero and I will make you proud of what I will do. I love you.”

Michael Orton is a specialist with the 106th Public Affairs Detachment.

Craniosacral therapy is available at Tahoe Wellness Cooperative Community Center on Nov. 4 from 2-4pm.

Colleen will clear energy around your meridian points for cleansing healing to happen.

Short sessions fill up quickly, so arrive early to sign up. First come, first served.

The center is at 3445 Lake Tahoe Blvd., South Lake Tahoe.

Donations accepted.

By Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times

Count on coal this Christmas.

That’s what researchers at Morgan Stanley are saying in the first major forecast of a decidedly dour holiday season. Retailers hoping for a respite from a year of so-so shopping can instead expect the worst Thanksgiving-to-Christmas sales since 2008, the financial services firm said Thursday.

Five years ago, the industry was free-falling into recession. This year, a new collection of worrisome economic conditions looms as stores gear up for a period that can sometimes account for 40 percent of annual revenue.

Shopper confidence is low. The recent federal government stalemate and shutdown was a damper. The window for holiday shopping is six days shorter than it was last year.

Read the whole story

By Lisa Costantini, TeamUSA

October was Breast Cancer Awareness month, but every month snowboarder Elena Hight promotes awareness for the disease that one in eight women will be diagnosed with.

Last year, the two-time winter Olympian and halfpipe specialist became an ambassador for Boarding For Breast Cancer, a youth-focused breast cancer education and prevention foundation.

“I haven’t personally been affected by breast cancer but I know a lot of friends who have been, and in the sports world in general. B4BC really focuses on how a healthy lifestyle can help prevent cancer and breast cancer, and I’m really connected with that portion of the message,” the South Lake Tahoe resident who rides for Northstar said.

Elena Hight hopes to represent Lake Tahoe in the 2014 Winter Olympics.

The last Tuesday of every month the food lover is the featured guest chef in a segment called “Tasty Tuesday” on B4BC’s blog. It is where the foundation gives readers recipes and ideas for healthy eating. Hight has shared her personal recipes for everything from stuffed peppers to vegan cookies, and said she got involved because “I am a huge fan of cooking, and cooking with local organic healthy ingredients.”

It was thanks to the 24-year-old’s busy travel schedule — which has had her circling the globe on the professional snowboard circuit since she was 14 — that she was able to see so much of the world, causing her to become “inspired by the different cultures and how food is a part of every culture. “Now,” she said, “cooking is a huge part of my life.”

She recalled being around 16 years old when she first started experimenting in the kitchen — trying to recreate some of the things that she found on the road that she couldn’t find when she got home. Cooking, she said, is “one of the best things that I have on the road to make me feel like I’m at home, no matter where I am. And I definitely use it kind of meditative. It takes me out of snowboarding and gives me something else to focus on during the season.”

But don’t think that means that snowboarding is not her number one priority. “My main goal moving forward is to win a medal from Sochi.”

To prove it she spent the summer on snow — including a month in New Zealand — preparing to get her snowboarding to a place she was happy with. And now that fall has arrived, she plans to spend a lot of time in the gym: strength training, conditioning, doing a lot of yoga — and just trying to be as strong as she can before the season starts. But for Hight, building strength doesn’t always equal time in the gym.

“I try to mix things up. Because even though the gym can be a great tool, it can also be very stale.”

She admitted that working out has not always been in her wheelhouse. “When I first got into snowboarding, there wasn’t a dry land training side of it.” Instead, she said, they spent their time snowboarding and playing other sports.

“But over the last five years, the progression has gotten so much higher — and the tricks that we’re doing have so much more risk that we really have to be at the top of our game,” Hight said. “So, now, getting into the gym and really making the most of that side of it has become a huge part of my snowboarding.”

And even though she has come to like the gym, she said she enjoys finding new and exciting things to do.

“I obviously do a lot of strength training, but I love doing classes, spin classes. I’m a huge yoga fan. I’ve gotten into mountain biking this year. Surfing. Just trying to make a workout out of everything and anything,” she said.

All of that, she said is helping her feel more prepared for her third Winter Games. “I learned a lot at both Torino and Vancouver, and I feel like it’s going to benefit me going into this season; just knowing how the qualifying works and what to expect once I get to the Olympics.”

Having been twice before she knows “there is no other stage like the Olympic venue. So there’s no way to prepare for it unless you’ve been there. And I definitely think that’s going to be an advantage for me.”

In the past, one of her advantages has been her ability to be the first when it comes to her sports progression. She was the first female to land a 900 in competition (and she did it at only 13 years old). And earlier this year, she made history by becoming the first to land a double backside alley-oop rodeo in competition — something she said she continues to work on so she can land it every time at contests.

“As far as tricks right now, I’m just working on getting bigger amplitude and being very consistent going into the season — cleaning up the runs that I already have,” she said.

Another first she could see adding to her resume: the first snowboarder with a cookbook? “That would be amazing!”

But she said there is one thing you won’t see in it. “I am a pretty experimental eater, but the only food that I absolutely cannot handle are oysters.”

We asked Hight to share one of her favorite — oyster-free — recipes with us, a kale lentil salad. She said salads are a great go-to on the road because they keep you from reaching for heavier foods.

“Airport eating is tough, so I always carry snacks with me: a fresh piece of fruit, a good granola bar or even protein powder.”

Here is what you’ll need to make your own Hight approved meal.

 Elena Hight’s Kale Lentil Salad

Everyone has his or her diet staples — their go-to recipe that is simple and easy to throw together because you have made it so many times that you don’t even need to think about it. This salad is one of my staple lunches. It is chock-full of goodness from super food ingredients that fill me up and keep me going through the day. It is very quick to throw together and delicious, so there is no reason to not enjoy a healthy lunch no matter how many things I am trying to fit into my day.

Salad:

A handful of kale (I like curly red kale but any kale will work)

½ inch slice red onion

½ red bell pepper

½ avocado

¼ cup sprouted lentils

4-6 walnuts chopped

Apple Cider Dressing:

¼ cup sesame oil

¼ cup apple cider vinegar

1 T mustard

1½ tsp honey

½ tsp ginger

½ tsp cinnamon

1 tsp cumin

A pinch cayenne pepper

Boil ¼ cup sprouted lentils in ¾ cup water. I like to use sprouted lentils for a few reasons, but please note: they cook extremely fast! Just 4-6 minutes and they will be done. While the lentils are cooking, chop your vegetables and walnuts and plate. Strain lentils and add to your salad plate.

To make the dressing, thoroughly mix all ingredients in a jar. Drizzle desired amount over salad and save the remainder.

• Clean Tahoe is now in the Tahoe Valley Pharmacy building at 2074 Lake Tahoe Blvd., Suite 6, South Lake Tahoe. The number is the same – (530) 544.4210.

• Here is the Sierra roadwork schedule from Caltrans for this week.

• Bob Roberts, president of the California Ski Industry Association, will be giving a winter resort update on Nov. 12 from 7-8:30am at the Truckee Airport. Cost is $10 for the public, $8 for Truckee-Donner Chamber of Commerce members. For more info, call (530) 587.2757.

• Only 300 tickets at $100 each will be sold, with the prize being an all-expense paid trip for two to the Super Bowl XLVIII. The prize was donated by the National Football League in support of the Gene Upshaw Memorial Fund that is administered by the Tahoe Forest Health System Foundation. Call (530) 582.6277 to buy a ticket.

• Granlibakken in Tahoe City is hosting a Women’s Wellness Weekend Nov. 9-10. For more info, go online.

By Sharon Noguchi, San Jose Mercury News

Reinforcing its threat to punish California for dumping its old standardized state tests next spring, the U.S. Department of Education said that decision could cost the state at least $3.5 billion.

The state could lose $15 million it receives to administer a federal program for poor children, known as Title I. More critically, a letter sent Tuesday by Deborah S. Delisle, an assistant secretary of education, hinted California risks significantly more money from other federal initiatives, for the lowest-performing schools, English-language learners, disabled students, rural schools, migrant children and teacher training. Those totaled about $3.5 billion last school year.

The dispute between state and federal education officials boils down to whether students need to take standardized tests in English and math every year, and whether the public should be able to see those results. Federal officials say the law requires that, but California believes that’s unreasonable.

State Board of Education President Michael Kirst said he was surprised that federal authorities would send a threatening letter. He and members of the California Department of Education have been meeting with U.S. officials about reconciling California’s new testing regimen with federal law.

He characterized the talks as constructive. “I don’t believe we are stuck at all.”

The federal threat comes as California begins major changes to the way it teaches K-12 students. It has adopted a new standard for learning called Common Core, which is intended to offer practical and relevant lessons, teaching students to think critically and solve problems.

Read the whole story

By Ralph Maughan

After almost every large wildfire or fires that do significant damage to structures, people ask for proactive measures. The desire for this is rational. It needs no explanation.

Officeholders usually respond, verbally at least. Politicians’ solutions, however, are often useless. One reason is lack of knowledge, but probably as often they have other agendas that can be fanned by fear of wildfire. These politicians’ proposed solutions often sound plausible because they use common public ignorance to achieve credibility for what the politician is pushing. The most common plausible sounding solution used in the Western United States is large scale fuel reduction — little fuel; little fire.

A big problem with fuels reduction is that you have to pay to have it done. Potential fuel covers hundreds of millions of acres. We say “potential” fuel because what will burn varies greatly. Some years are too wet. Every year hundreds of fires burn out, but a wind, not drought could make them quickly into great conflagrations. Politicians often use the words “logging” and “fuel reduction” in the same breath, but commercial logging, where the land owner gets paid, only works for good timber. That’s mostly not what is burning. Dry brush, droughty green trees, dying or dead trees, cheatgrass, and annual weeds — that’s what is usually burning. It is difficult and far too expensive to eliminate these.

One idea that is rarely mentioned is to keep the stream bottoms green and raise the humidity. How could this be done? Let’s restore beaver to the creeks of the Western United States. This is much less expensive than cutting out or clearing potential fuels. It also has significant fish and wildlife benefits. We can often add flood control too, plus the recharge of aquifers.

A string of beaver ponds up a drainage is like a permanent fire break. The ponds not only enlarge the area covered with water, more importantly, they increase the portion of the creek or streamside area (the riparian zone) that stays green all summer. They raise the ground water level. Beaver ponds also increase the humidity of air in the drainage. The result is fewer hours in a day when wildfires can burn hot and hard.

Beaver reestablishment is not a sudden new idea. In fact, during the Cold War days there was fear the Soviets would burn off the West by launching thousands of incendiary devices to start range and forest fires. One plan to foil this was to have a massive effort to restore beaver ponds on as many creeks as possible. The Soviets are gone now, but the likelihood of fire has grown as the climate has mostly changed towards drier, with rising temperatures, especially as we look northward.

Additional fire related benefits of beaver are that their ponds offer remote, dispersed water storage reservoirs that could be used by firefighters during fires. Areas with beaver may serve as refuges for all animals during a fire. Finally, beaver ponds trap sediment and the debris that washes down from burns. As a result a fire’s effect on water quality is reduced.

There are those who complain mightily about beaver due to changes in a creek channel, the animal’s tendency to plug culverts and small bridges, and flooding from some of their ponds. Beaver sometimes cut shade and ornamental trees, trees that are unique for some reason. However, a large scale program could utilize and efficiently deploy the many methods that have devised to stop or prevent this kind of damage.

Those who trap beaver for fun and profit could have their trapping diverted to live trapping to remove beaver in problem places and redistribute them about the landscape. A wise program could outbid the often small price they get from pelts.

Some observers might point out that many creeks, ponds, and meanders in the West have not had beaver in the memory of anyone living or even any written report of the location. However, British, French and American fur trappers began trapping the beaver 300 or more years ago. Entire areas were not just heavily trapped long ago, but deliberately trapped out — trapped until none were left as part of early day conflict between European powers and the incipient American nation-state. So beaver restoration in places might be a restoration far more profound than that of wolves after an 80-100 year absence.

Beaver could be a powerful tool to tame the effects of climate change.

Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections.