By Emily Yoffe, Slate

In one awful high-profile case after another — the U.S. Naval Academy; Steubenville, Ohio; now the allegations in Maryville, Mo. — we read about a young woman, sometimes only a girl, who goes to a party and ends up being raped. As soon as the school year begins, so do reports of female students sexually assaulted by their male classmates.

A common denominator in these cases is alcohol, often copious amounts, enough to render the young woman incapacitated. But a misplaced fear of blaming the victim has made it somehow unacceptable to warn inexperienced young women that when they get wasted, they are putting themselves in potential peril.

A 2009 study of campus sexual assault found that by the time they are seniors, almost 20 percent of college women will become victims, overwhelmingly of a fellow classmate. Very few will ever report it to authorities. The same study states that more than 80 percent of campus sexual assaults involve alcohol. Frequently both the man and the woman have been drinking.

The men tend to use the drinking to justify their behavior, as this survey of research on alcohol-related campus sexual assault by Antonia Abbey, professor of psychology at Wayne State University, illustrates, while for many of the women, having been drunk becomes a source of guilt and shame.

Sometimes the woman is the only one drunk and runs into a particular type of shrewd—and sober—sexual predator who lurks where women drink like a lion at a watering hole. For these kinds of men, the rise of female binge drinking has made campuses a prey-rich environment.

I’ve spoken to three recent college graduates who were the victims of such assailants, and their stories are chilling.

Let’s be totally clear: Perpetrators are the ones responsible for committing their crimes, and they should be brought to justice. But we are failing to let women know that when they render themselves defenseless, terrible things can be done to them.

Young women are getting a distorted message that their right to match men drink for drink is a feminist issue. The real feminist message should be that when you lose the ability to be responsible for yourself, you drastically increase the chances that you will attract the kinds of people who, shall we say, don’t have your best interest at heart. That’s not blaming the victim; that’s trying to prevent more victims.

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Boreal Mountain Resort is opening Nov. 1 at noon off the Nugget chairlift.

Boreal will offer one run with a four terrain park features. Early season conditions will exist and no beginner terrain will be available at this time. Skiing and riding will be on advanced terrain only.

Crews will re-evaluate the conditions Friday afternoon to determine the operating schedule for the following days. Go online for updates.

Boreal received more than 16 inches of snow in the past few days. Snowmaking started Oct. 27 to add to the natural base.

On Friday, lift tickets are $20 for all ages and all 2013-14 Boreal season passes are valid.

The South Lake Tahoe Republican Women Federated Club will meet on Nov. 4 from 5:30-7pm in the Loft of the Blue Angel Cafe at 1132 Ski Run Blvd.

The speaker will be Janice Baldwin from Project Americans Coming Together, an organization created to educate on the principles of the Constitution.

The meeting is open to all who wish to learn more about the Constitution of the United States of America. Men are also welcome to join the meeting and become associate members.

For more information, call Gerri at (530) 545.2839.

By Bonnie Rochman, Wall Street Journal

Amid the ghosts and ghouls spooking trick-or-treaters this week, there is something even more terrifying to their parents: sugar.

Research into candy and children helps explain why they love it and, despite some contradictory theories, offers a few guidelines for this time of year.

Children may be more partial than adults to sugar because of the way their taste buds are clustered. “Children have the same number of taste buds as adults, but their tongue is a whole lot smaller, so the flavors are more intense the younger you are,” says Brian Wansink, director of Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab, which researches why we eat what we do. “That’s why little kids don’t like bitter foods and really like sweet foods. The effect is magnified.”

Americans eat far more added sugar—white sugar, brown sugar, corn syrups and honey, among others—than is recommended. The average person consumes 22 teaspoons of added sugar a day, or 355 calories. Boys, ages 14 to 18, take in 34 teaspoons, or roughly 550 calories, according to the American Heart Association. Researchers say children and teens should follow recommendations for adults of no more than 9 teaspoons a day for men and 6 teaspoons for women.

U.S. government dietary guidelines use a different system, recommending that added sugars and solid fats combined, the so-called discretionary calories, should make up no more than 15 percent of a daily diet. However, kids and teens on average exceed this level from added sugars alone, which account for 16 percent of their daily total calories, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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The Amador-El Dorado Unit of CalFire lifted the burn restrictions on state responsibility lands within the Lake Tahoe Basin.

Homeowners may burn their debris piles that have accumulated over the summer.

Door-yard burn permits, aka residential landscape debris burn permits, will still be required until the end of fire season has been declared, but burn permits can be obtained for free at most local fire stations.

Daily CalFire will determine “burn/no burn day status”, so call the burn information line immediately prior to burning — (530) 621.5842.

Safety tips for burning:

• Make sure your pile(s) are no larger than 4 feet by 4 feet in size.
• Scrape a 10-foot wide ring around each debris pile down to bare dirt.
• Have a shovel and water supply (charged hose) close by to use in the event the fire escapes from the pile.
• Make sure an adult is in attendance until the pile is completely extinguished.

The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection Bureau of Air Quality Planning has launched a voluntary wood stove change-out program in the Carson City and Douglas County areas.

The program provides rebates ranging between $600 and $1,000 to homeowners to remove their pre-1992 wood stoves and replace them with new, clean-burning EPA-certified wood, pellet, or gas stoves installed by a licensed contractor.

The goal of the program is to reduce unhealthful fine particulate emissions from old wood-burning stoves and to improve air quality.

Participating local wood stove retailers will work with the UNR’s Business Environmental Program to make instant rebates available to qualifying homeowners. Residents of Carson City and Douglas County need only apply at participating wood stove retailers. The retailers will verify the resident’s old stove qualifies, provide the instant rebate, install the new stove, remove and recycle the old stove and do all necessary paperwork.

Approximately 250 rebates will be offered.

For more information or to apply, call (775) 834.3674.

By Kade Krichko, GrindTV

As far as X Games gold medalists go, Maddie Bowman is about as unassuming as they come.

The 19-year-old halfpipe skier doesn’t flaunt her accomplishments — two X Games medals and a handful of Dew Tour podiums, to name a few — and in many ways has retained a normal teenage identity. She graduated from South Tahoe High School in 2012 after captaining her school’s soccer team to a state championship, and, just like her classmates, went on to college, in Utah.

But while friends are rushing sororities and organizing pep rallies, the California native has stayed busy by pushing for a spot in the Sochi Winter Olympics — the first Olympic Games to include her sport. She is the face (and signature braid) of a young wave of competitors peaking at just the right time for Olympic success, but remains the coolest of customers on the competition circuit.

We got a chance to talk with her about life these days and what a shot at the Olympics would mean to the young skier with the easy smile. Here’s what she had to say:

You grew up in Tahoe; how did growing up in that community shape who you are today?

Growing up in Tahoe was one of the highlights of my childhood. It is a very down-to-earth and fun community. It has really taught me to appreciate the outdoors and take in every aspect of my adventures—something I learned from all my adventures at Sierra-at-Tahoe and throughout the summer.

Tahoe has also taught me to work very hard for my dreams because it has a very strong and successful middle class. I love where I grew up; it is truly the gem of the Sierra.

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This year was especially challenging for many locals, leaving food banks hard pressed to fill their shelves.

To help offset this year’s hardship, many local artisans will be gathering for an Old-tyme Holiday Bazaar on Nov. 9 at the Lake Tahoe Christian Fellowship Church in South Lake Tahoe.

An entrance fee of a cash donation to Christmas Cheer or canned goods will be collected at the door.

Booths will be full of unique, quality, well-crafted items. Donated items will be raffled to benefit Christmas Cheer. An espresso bar will benefit a local youth group, and a bake shop will benefit a local women’s group.

The event is from 10am-4pm at 3580 Blackwood Road, off Pioneer Trail.

For more info, contact Helen Pate at (530) 545.2535 or Liz Gieg a (530) 416.2140.

By Brian K. Sullivan, Bloomberg

Snow falling over Siberia is raising the prospect for frigid temperatures in New York come January.

Enlarge image Snow in Siberia

The weather half a world from Central Park can set off atmospheric events that result in icy air descending from the North Pole in December and January, driving U.S. temperatures down and natural gas and heating oil use up, according to Judah Cohen, director of seasonal forecasting at Atmosphere & Environmental Research in Lexington, Mass.

“It’s the best winter predictor that we have,” Cohen said in a telephone interview. “We haven’t made a forecast yet, but we’re watching it closely and the snow cover has definitely been above normal so far.”

The more ground covered by snow across northern Europe and Asia at the end of October, the greater the chances of triggering a phenomenon known as the negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation. That would flood North America, Europe and East Asia with polar air and possibly erect a blocking effect in the North Atlantic that would bottle up the cold in the U.S.

In September, 2.36 million square kilometers (911,000 square miles) of northern Europe and Asia were covered by snow, according to the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab. That compared with the 1981-2010 mean of 1.5 million.

“It’s running well above normal,” said Matt Rogers, president of Commodity Weather Group LLC, a commercial forecaster in Bethesda, Maryland. “Through the last week of September, it’s the highest snow total in Eurasia since 1977.”

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By Danielle McCrea, Las Vegas Sun

Five women sit in the quiet upstairs wing of a church, in a high-ceilinged room that serves as a computer lab, desktop computers sitting on rows of long tables. They take turns reading aloud from papers handwritten and typed with intimate stories of their past.

Linda Coble, 73, grey hair falling onto a thick flannel shirt, teases the room with a family secret involving her father. She alludes to homes for unwed mothers, child abuse and domestic violence. She doesn’t disclose details but promises to write it all down so her children will know the truth.

Christie Haynes, 96, her voice shaky, shares a story of a family tradition of going “pine-nutting” in White Pine County. When her children were growing up, they would collect pine nuts after the frost had opened up cones on the trees and bring them home in a gunny sack to roast in the open stove. She passes around black-and-white family photos taken from 1906 to 1920.

Ann Marshall, 71, with curly blonde hair and bright eyes popping behind smile lines, shares a trick on how to draw out memories. She’d found a moon calendar online to check the sky from a night in July 1967, the night she drove her boyfriend’s car — a 1963 white convertible Corvette — into a ditch on the French countryside. The calendar confirmed her memory of the “very, very dark” night.

The women are attending a weekly memoir-writing workshop. Some have been coming for months, others for only a week or two.

The “Life Stories” workshop, launched in 2010, is designed to inspire the members of the older generation to put their most precious memories, good and bad, to paper. Many write for their families, others to tell first-person perspectives of history, and some for therapy, to cope with hard memories and make sense of the present.

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