LA hair stylist Barbara James gladly accepted the call from 84-year-old client Pat Devine, who said she was running late and called from a pay phone because her cell phone had died.

James' bill from Network Communications International showed about $37 for the quick call, about $5 in regulatory fees and taxes, and about $3 for a "billing cost recovery fee."

NCIC president Bill Pope says the tiny number of collect calls makes such prices inevitable.

Federal Communications Commission spokeswoman Rosemary Kimball says collect calls are largely unregulated since most major companies left the business.

LA stylist learns modern meaning of 'pay phone' - Yahoo! News.

WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla. -

Ariana Leonard's high school students shuffled in their seats, eagerly awaiting a cue from their Spanish teacher that the assignment would begin.

"Take out your cell phones," she said in Spanish.

The teens pulled out an array of colorful flip phones, iPhones and SideKicks. They divided into groups and Leonard began sending them text messages in Spanish: Find something green. Go to the cafeteria. Take a picture with the school secretary.

Leonard's class at Wiregrass Ranch High School in Wesley Chapel, a middle-class Florida suburb about 30 miles north of Tampa, is one of a growing number around the country that are abandoning traditional policies of cell phone prohibition and incorporating them into class lessons. Spanish vocabulary becomes a digital scavenger hunt. Notes are copied with a cell phone camera. Text messages serve as homework reminders.

Teachers begin using cell phones for class lessons

1. If a boy is aloof, stand-offish, ignores you or is just plain rude, it is because he is secretly in love with you — and you are the point of his existence.


2. Secrets are good — especially life-threatening ones.


3. It’s OK for a potential romantic interest to be dimwitted, violent and vengeful — as long as he has great abs.


4. If a boy tells you to stay away from him because he is dangerous and may even kill you, he must be the love of your life. You should stay with him since he will keep you safe forever.


5. Even though you have no intention of dating an alternative male who expresses interest in you, it is fine to string the young man along for months. Also, you should use him to fix things for you. Maybe he’ll even buy you something.

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if you thought the problem in education was little Johnny can’t add or read your would be wrong. The real problem is teachers graduate without being aware of “heteronormativity”,“hegemonic masculinity,” and “internalized oppression”  Well the Univ. of Minnesota is set up to make big changes that will rectify that situation.  Any prospective graduate found to harbor any belief in the American Dream where any hardworking people regardless of  race, color and creed can get ahead on their own merits will be reeducated till they are  "cultural competent".  

The first step toward "cultural competence," says the task group, is for future teachers to recognize -- and confess -- their own bigotry. Anyone familiar with the reeducation camps of China's Cultural Revolution will recognize the modus operandi.

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For the first 3 years of his life the son of linguist d’Amond Speers, now 15 was spoken to only in Klingon. The language made up for Start Trek.

"I was interested in the question of whether my son, going through his first language acquisition process, would acquire it like any human language," Speers said. "He was definitely starting to learn it."

In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park.

Little did the do-gooder know that his altruistic act would put him in the cross hairs of the city's largest municipal union.

Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told Allentown City Council Tuesday that the union is considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing Anderson to clear a 1,000-foot walking and biking path at Kimmets Lock Park.

"We'll be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails," Balzano told the council.

Union troubled by Eagle Scout project in Allentown -- themorningcall.com.

Her cunning has not stopped there. One day, when a gull flew into her pool, she grabbed it, waited for the trainers and then gave it to them. It was a large bird and so the trainers gave her lots of fish. This seemed to give Kelly a new idea. The next time she was fed, instead of eating the last fish, she took it to the bottom of the pool and hid it under the rock where she had been hiding the paper. When no trainers were present, she brought the fish to the surface and used it to lure the gulls, which she would catch to get even more fish. After mastering this lucrative strategy, she taught her calf, who taught other calves, and so gull-baiting has become a hot game among the dolphins.

Why dolphins are deep thinkers | Science | The Guardian.

A service providing books to those unable to visit a library started with horse drawn wagons quietly ended today. The recently sold Berks County Bookmobile was driven off to its new home another victim of the economy.

Charlie's Diary: How habitable is the Earth?.