Findcate

Emma Pinch talks to the writer who wants people to understand that the face of HIV is the one that looks back in the mirror

IT WAS one of those nights, says Cate, which would be stamped on her memory for ever. The kids had sausage and mash for tea, and argued over whose turn it was to help wash up. She put them in the bath they swished the bath foam over the sides and tucked them in bed with a story. She gathered up clothes for the laundry basket, recapped the toothpaste, and laid out damp towels to dry.

And while that thoroughly ordinary domestic scene was being played out, one thought was repeating itself across her mind: Tomorrow I find out if I’m going to die.

Cate Jacobs was 32 and had been working as a volunteer at Liverpool’s Sahir House, providing support to people affected by HIV. There she’d met her partner, Martin, who was HIV positive.

“It was 1994 and there were a lot of myths about how you could contract HIV back then, but I felt pretty clued up in terms of effects and routes of transmission. I was reasonably confident I wouldn’t contract it, as long as we were careful and protected ourselves,” says Cate. “We never took risks.”

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Over the past three decades, California lawmakers and voters have sought to combat crime with an ever-expanding list of sentencing laws, adding years to inmates’ terms and returning parolees to prison more often.

That get tough approach has led to a ballooning prison population with unintended consequences prisons commanding an ever larger share of the state’s budget and unconstitutional conditions for inmates.

The federal courts have found that the prison system’s delivery of health and mental health care, for example, is so negligent that it’s a direct cause of inmate deaths.

The state’s day of reckoning for its years of prison overcrowding is expected to come this week in a federal courtroom in San Francisco.

A special three-judge panel reconvenes Tuesday and is prepared to decide whether crowding has become so bad that inmates cannot receive proper care. If they do, a case rooted in several court challenges dating back more than two decades will move to a second phase.

In that phase, the judicial panel will decide if lowering the inmate population is the only way to fix the problems.

That could result in an order to release tens of thousands of California inmates before their terms are finished, a move Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Republican lawmakers say would endanger public safety.

The state is trying to focus the judges’ attention on the consequences of ordering prisoners freed before they complete their full sentences.

The judges are acting for the first time under the federal Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The act requires the judges to initially find that crowding is the main cause of substandard conditions, a ruling they are likely to make this week.

They then can order inmates released only if they find there are no other options for improving care. The judges hope to complete the second phase of the trial by Christmas.

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Some more light has been shed on the firing and eventual re-hiring of Burlington Parks supervisor Adam Cate. Inappropriate access to emails was the main issue.

City officials have remained silent on the circumstances surrounding Cate’s firing in October, following a six-month investigation into Cate’s conduct and actions as the person in charge of the city’s waterfront operations. Personnel matters and discipline are supposed to be confidential.

In the meantime, Channel 3 News has learned that Cate was accused of hacking into the city’s email system in an attempt to find out what top city officials were talking about. There was also an allegation involving improper handling of cash derived from Parks and waterfront fees.

At issue was a proposed reorganization of the Parks department and its possible merger into the Public Works Department. The city’s Parks commission later re-instated Cate, but also handed him discipline — two weeks of suspension without pay, and six months of probation on the job.

The matter is expected to be discussed at Monday night’s City Council meeting. Council president Kurt Wright, R-Ward 4, says he’ll introduce a resolution calling for a full accounting of the money spent on an investigation of Cate’s alleged wrongdoing and the procedures that were followed. Wright has acknowledged that certain details of Cate’s case must remain confidential.

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Poor, struggling Della thinks the perfect Christmas gift for her husband, Jim, would be a chain worthy of his heirloom watch.

That’s right. Director Bob Hensley finally gets to open the present he’s wanted for so long the chance to bring “The Gifts of the Magi” to the stage.

Based on a short story by O. Henry, “The Gifts of the Magi” introduces a couple in the early 1900s who have “come to the city and not done well. They’re very poor, and they want to find a way to celebrate Christmas for each other,” Hensley said. “Everyone knows the story, and I think almost everyone loves the story.”

“Representing everyone else in the city of New York are the City Him and City Her, played by Bill Lipski and Dana Feigenblatt,” Hensley said. “We see them as normal citizens, shopkeepers, a policeman, of course, a butcher at one point.”

Yes, and they’d probably have to portray someone who accepts jewelry in a pawn shop and someone who buys hair to make wigs – but let’s not give away the whole plot.

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The poetic justice of the situation is that the city councilors seemed to have discovered this right to know only after their own quest to find out what’s happening in the Cate affair was ignored and trampled as if they have no role in running city government. You know that openness is becoming an issue when a councilor complains of being “spoon fed” information by the administration.

It is reassuring to hear elected officials actually claim there is a public right to know, rather than the too-often demonstrated propensity of those in power to withhold anything they choose to.

Now the City Council must make sure the information doesn’t stop with them, and that the voters of Burlington also get the full story behind the Cate affair. If the councilors are frustrated by the lack of disclosure, imagine how residents who must foot the bill with their taxes feel.

There are enough examples of less-than-full disclosure in the history of local government to make anyone believe that many of those who hold power truly do think they can do what they please, when they please, without ramification.

We have mayors who prefer to manage in secret, ruled by the advice of lawyers who fear the wrath of lawsuits rather than the wrath of voters. We have city councilors and Selectboard members who too often are reluctant to challenge the administration, and fail to speak up for the voters who elected them.

The Burlington City Council has stood up for open government, for their right to know. The councilors need to make sure this is no exception, but the rule, and that the right to know goes beyond council chambers.

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Called Mixerz, the drinks are made by Creative Juices, a company in the Cummings Center.

The 6 oz. mini-bottles come in eight flavors including sour apple, pomegranate, margarita and mojito, and will be packaged with about 20 other unique and interesting products from around the world.

They’ll be going to “1,200 potentially very influential people,” said publicist Joan Joffa, a Florida woman who’s in charge of putting together the gift baskets each year.

It could become a new favorite for Dick Wolf, the “Law and Order” producer who’s receiving the International Emmy Founders Award — which went to Al Gore last year for his documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” Or perhaps it will emerge on the set of the FX drama “Rescue Me” via actress and Emmy presenter Andrea Roth.

Although they don’t air in the United States, the International Emmy Awards in New York City feature this year’s international Emmy-nominated television programs, and world-class producers and directors who will speak about their work … and possibly sip an organic cocktail.

“Who knows who’s going to be trying it,” said Mixerz marketing coordinator Christina Pesente. “I really think it’s going to give us an opportunity to get out there.”

Mixerz was started about 18 months ago. The drinks are made by hand in small batches using fresh fruit juices and purees, pure cane sugar, natural flavors and no artificial ingredients.

Pesente said Joffa, a freelance publicist who specializes in product placement for many different companies, gave the staff at Mixerz a call and asked them to donate the 1,200 mini-bottles.

“I’m very big on following new products, and I’m very fond of organic and natural products,” Joffa said. “I wanted to find a cocktail mixer that was made out of all good things.”

While the gift basket is still a work in progress, celebrities will also receive high-end cosmetics, bottled water and alcohol samples.

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At an airfield in 1957 Nevada, Indiana (Harrison Ford) and pal Mac (Ray Winstone) encounter villainous Soviet agent Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) and her gun- toting goons.

Indy whip-cracks and wisecracks his way out of trouble, then returns to Marshall College where Dean Stanforth (Jim Broadbent) asks the professor to take “an indefinite leave of absence”.

A chance encounter at the railway station with a rebellious greaser called Mutt (Shia LaBeouf), an acquaintance of Indy’s old pal Professor Oxley (John Hurt), propels the archaeologist on a quest to locate the legendary Crystal Skull of Akator.

Alas, Irina and her henchmen also seek the artefact, and they intend to use Indy to find it threatening to kill his old flame Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) if he doesn’t help.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is only half of a great movie. During the action sequences, when director Steven Spielberg is on a sure footing, this fourth film in the blockbusting series is an absolute joy, delivering adrenaline pumping thrills and spills, interspersed with smart one liners.

Unfortunately, the hocus pocus storyline holding all these breathtaking set-pieces together is both thin and preposterous.

However, considering it’s been almost 20 years since Ford last flexed his trusty bullwhip as the eponymous treasure hunter, he’s in remarkably good shape for his pensionable years.

Blanchett is under-served, which is a pity because she has great fun with the role, while LaBeouf clearly prepares to accept the mantle of Indy’s fedora for subsequent films.

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These are only some of the Career and Technology Education (CATE) classes the Sealy ISD board discussed offering as part of the Academic Excellence (AE) program.

The AE program will offer two basic tracks of learning to students. The academic track seeks to prepare students for the rigor of college, while the CATE track would give them a more technical education.

Health science classes, for example, would give students a taste of the medical field while also teaching them technical skills and offering them the chance to earn a certificate as an emergency medical technician.

Although both tracks of the AE program are meant to include stringent guidelines, students mainly taking AP classes could take a CATE course as an elective and also as a way to explore a supplemental career interest.

Hermann suggested improving CATE classes to the point where students on that track can get all the knowledge they need in those classes without having to take supplemental AP courses.

One example Hermann gave was possibly offering a sales and marketing course, where students would not only learn the business side of the trade, but would also take courses like drama to better develop their personality - an important skill to salespeople.

Student surveys have helped the district better determine the needs of its students. Eighth-graders take career assessments in the spring semester and then meet with counselors to determine what classes would best be suited for them.

“Once they do that and we find out what they like and what they’re interested in, then we can say, look at this pathway,” SISD Superintendent Pamela Morris said.

And through applied knowledge classes, the CATE program will help students live what they are learning.

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After many years waiting for it and with a hesitant Steven Spielberg finally getting embarked as director of the project, the action cinema lovers had in front of their eyes the new Indiana Jones film. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was a little masterpiece in the genre, and according to Harrison Ford, he was waiting for the right script to come back to incarnate to the intrepid professor and archeologist. Funnily, we could say that it is precisely the script the weakest part of the film. The introductory sequence in the military base already tells that this is going to be the weakest Indiana Jones movie so far, and the continuation does not improve much the first impression.

The movie has some good moments and features, like the plausible appearance of Harrison Ford who makes fun of his own age, or the good choice of Shia Labeouf as Mutt. But Cate Blanchett′s role is certainly a parody of what a good “evil” character must look like in the saga and some action sequences like the attack of the giant ants, the atomic explosion or Mutt jumping like a monkey from tree to tree are too far ridiculous.

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Some naysayers wonder if winning an Academy Award really has that much impact in terms of box office, prestige or even being remembered a few months later, but no one at the studios seems to be listening, since the battle for Oscar gold continues to be a frenzied, all-consuming process, littering multiplex battlefields with also-rans and subjecting audiences to a year’s worth of “prestige” movies in a six-week period.

Yes, after months of mediocre and uninteresting Hollywood product, here comes the tidal wave of Oscar bait some of it will be mediocre and not worth the trouble, yes, but many of these titles will wind up being the most ambitious and challenging non-indie American movies of the year.

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