LISTA has announced that it has signed on to a letter urging the FCC to focus on deployment and adoption of broadband technologies in order to empower U.S. Latino children or the U.S. Latino community.

 

Washington, DC (CapitalWirePR) October 20, 2009- Broadband access is essential in providing economic opportunity within underserved and minority communities, including Hispanic communities. It is imperative that Latino voices are heard on all the issues that will benefit the Hispanic community if universal broadband access and adoption is achieved, such as improved healthcare applications and new educational opportunities.

LISTA issued the following statement on the importance of broadband for all:

“As the FCC draws closer to formulating a national broadband policy, we hope that the commissioners will keep in mind the importance that broadband deployment can have on the Latino community.  A focus on deployment and adoption will help provide economic opportunities for those who need it most.  Fast, affordable internet connections will help close the digital divide and allow more Latino-Americans to take classes online further their educations, develop new ideas into small businesses and access more employment opportunities” said Jose A. Marquez, President and CEO of LISTA. 

The importance of broadband access in creating economic opportunities cannot be overstated. Therefore, we caution the FCC to avoid heavy-handed regulation that would disincentivize private investment and leave disenfranchised communities behind.

About Latinos in Information Sciences and Technology Association (LISTA)

 

LISTA (http://www.a-lista.org)  is a national non-profit organization that promotes the utilization of the technology sectors for the empowerment of the Latino community. LISTA is committed to bringing various elements of Technology under one central hub to facilitate their partners, members and the community with the leverage and education they need to succeed in a highly advanced technologically driven society. You can follow LISTA on www.twitter.com/Lista1/ and www.techlatino2030.blogspot.com/

Profiled in the Loyola University New Orleans Magazine

Phys Ed: Does Ibuprofen Help or Hurt During Exercise?

September 1, 2009, 11:59 pm

 

By Gretchen Reynolds

Dan Saelinger/Getty Images

Several years ago, David Nieman set out to study racers at the Western States Endurance Run, a 100-mile test of human stamina held annually in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. The race directors had asked Nieman, a well-regarded physiologist and director of the Human Performance Laboratory at the North Carolina Research Campus, to look at the stresses that the race places on the bodies of participants. Nieman and the race authorities had anticipated that the rigorous distance and altitude would affect runners’ immune systems and muscles, and they did. But one of Nieman’s other findings surprised everyone.

After looking at racers’ blood work, he determined that some of the ultramarathoners were supplying their own physiological stress, in tablet form. Those runners who’d popped over-the-counter ibuprofen pills before and during the race displayed significantly more inflammation and other markers of high immune system response afterward than the runners who hadn’t taken anti-inflammatories. The ibuprofen users also showed signs of mild kidney impairment and, both before and after the race, of low-level endotoxemia, a condition in which bacteria leak from the colon into the bloodstream.

These findings were “disturbing,” Nieman says, especially since “this wasn’t a minority of the racers.” Seven out of ten of the runners were using ibuprofen before and, in most cases, at regular intervals throughout the race, he says. “There was widespread use and very little understanding of the consequences.”

Athletes at all levels and in a wide variety of sports swear by their painkillers. A study published earlier this month on the website of the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that, at the 2008 Ironman Triathlon in Brazil, almost 60 percent of the racers reported using non-steroidal anti-inflammatory painkillers (or NSAIDs, which include ibuprofen) at some point in the three months before the event, with almost half downing pills during the race itself. In another study, about 13 percent of participants in a 2002 marathon in New Zealand had popped NSAIDs before the race. A study of professional Italian soccer players found that 86 percent used anti-inflammatories during the 2002-2003 season.

A wider-ranging look at all of the legal substances prescribed to players during the 2002 and 2006 Men’s World Cup tournaments worldwide found that more than half of these elite players were taking NSAIDS at least once during the tournament, with more than 10 percent using them before every match.

“For a lot of athletes, taking painkillers has become a ritual,” says Stuart Warden, an assistant professor and director of physical therapy research at Indiana University, who has extensively studied the physiological impacts of the drugs. “They put on their uniform” or pull on their running shoes and pop a few Advil. “It’s like candy” or Vitamin I, as some athletes refer to ibuprofen.

Why are so many active people swallowing so many painkillers?

One of the most common reasons cited by the triathletes in Brazil was “pain prevention.” Similarly, when the Western States runners were polled, most told the researchers that “they thought ibuprofen would get them through the pain and discomfort of the race,” Nieman says, “and would prevent soreness afterward.” But the latest research into the physiological effects of ibuprofen and other NSAIDs suggests that the drugs in fact, have the opposite effect. In a number of studies conducted both in the field and in human performance laboratories in recent years, NSAIDs did not lessen people’s perception of pain during activity or decrease muscle soreness later. “We had researchers at water stops” during the Western States event, Nieman says, asking the racers how the hours of exertion felt to them. “There was no difference between the runners using ibuprofen and those who weren’t. So the painkillers were not useful for reducing pain” during the long race, he says, and afterward, the runners using ibuprofen reported having legs that were just as sore as those who hadn’t used the drugs.

Moreover, Warden and other researchers have found that, in laboratory experiments on animal tissues, NSAIDs actually slowed the healing of injured muscles, tendons, ligament, and bones. “NSAIDs work by inhibiting the production of prostaglandins,”substances that are involved in pain and also in the creation of collagen, Warden says. Collagen is the building block of most tissues. So fewer prostaglandins mean less collagen, “which inhibits the healing of tissue and bone injuries,” Warden says, including the micro-tears and other trauma to muscles and tissues that can occur after any strenuous workout or race.

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The painkillers also blunt the body’s response to exercise at a deeper level. Normally, the stresses of exercise activate a particular molecular pathway that increases collagen, and leads, eventually, to creating denser bones and stronger tissues. If “you’re taking ibuprofen before every workout, you lessen this training response,” Warden says. Your bones don’t thicken and your tissues don’t strengthen as they should. They may be less able to withstand the next workout. In essence, the pills athletes take to reduce the chances that they’ll feel sore may increase the odds that they’ll wind up injured — and sore.

All of which has researchers concerned. Warden wrote in an editorial this year on the website of the British Journal of Sports Medicine that “there is no indication or rationale for the current prophylactic use of NSAIDs by athletes, and such ritual use represents misuse.”

When, then, are ibuprofen and other anti-inflammatory painkillers justified? “When you have inflammation and pain from an acute injury,” Warden says. “In that situation, NSAIDs are very effective.” But to take them “before every workout or match is a mistake.”

Commentary: Latinos have made it, but there’s still work to be done

 

By Robert Menendez
Special to CNN

Editor’s note: Robert Menendez is the junior senator from New Jersey and the author of a new book, "Growing American Roots: Why Our Nation Will Thrive As Our Largest Minority Flourishes."

Across America, the Latino population is growing, and it is now the largest minority group in the country. Latino voices are being heard, and their economic impact is being felt in the marketplace, which is good for the whole of the nation.

Contrary to what may be a popular belief, most Latinos in America today are U.S. citizens. Many barely live above the poverty line, but many others have entered the ranks of the middle class and are contributing mightily to the culture as well as the economy.

Latinos are no longer on the outside looking in. They are at the table, making a difference. On every major issue before Congress and every major issue before the courts, Latinos, in larger and larger numbers, are engaged in the debate.

Our nation will thrive as our largest minority flourishes. It’s important to remember that, particularly in tough times such as these. Latinos have many role models, and now we have one more: Justice Sonia Sotomayor on the United States Supreme Court.

Sotomayor and I grew up at the same time in similar circumstances. She was raised in public housing in the Bronx. I was raised poor, in a tenement building in Union City, New Jersey, the son of Cuban immigrants. My mother was a seamstress; my father an itinerant carpenter. I was the first in my family to go to college.

I never dreamed that one day, I would be elected as one of 100 United States senators in a country of 300 million people, and be able to cast my vote in favor of the confirmation of an eminently qualified Hispanic judge who lived across the river from that old tenement in Union City. It was a proud moment for me, one I will always remember as a highlight of my time in the Senate.

One day, a new generation of young Latinos will follow in the footsteps of Sotomayor and other pioneering public servants. They will build on the successes of our community, contribute to strengthening our economy and leave their mark on the community and on our nation.

Being at the heart of the debate, part of the greater American community, is nothing new for Latinos in this nation. In my new book, I write that it is incumbent on us, as Latinos, to remind ourselves and the rest of America about our long presence here and the contribution we have made — and about how the success of the Latino community is important for the success of the entire country.

Latino patriots have served and fought in every war. They are artists, dancers, singers, poets and journalists, teachers and scientists. More and more Latinos are becoming entrepreneurs and businesspeople, contributing to the wealth and economic well-being of the nation. But they have also been characteristically humble, and have not spoken enough about their accomplishments and the contributions they have already made to the fabric of this nation.

From the earliest days of the republic — indeed well before the Revolution — Latinos have been an integral part of the establishment of this country. All Americans should have access to that history.

In politics alone, Latinos have played a larger role than most realize. Technically, the first Latino in Congress was Jose Marion Hernandez, who served briefly from 1822 to 1823 as a delegate from Florida before it became a state in 1845. Romualdo Pacheco of California won by one vote in 1876 to become the first Hispanic member of the United States Congress.

The first Hispanic senator was Octaviano Larrazolo of New Mexico, who served for a short time in 1928 before resigning because of ill health. There have been three Latino Nobel Prize winners from the United States and 11 Latino astronauts, and the list goes on. We need to enhance the teaching of the story of Hispanic life in America which will, in the end, shed more light than heat on the immigration debate taking place across this nation.

Latinos themselves need to fully understand and appreciate their accomplishments, but also to understand, as a community, where we have fallen short. Millions of Latinos are graduating into the middle class. More Latino children are going to colleges and universities than ever before. Latinos are increasingly serving in public office and in key areas of the economy.

But, at the same time, despite this progress in education, too many Latino children are dropping out of school. Too many families are struggling to make ends meet. And too many Latinos suffer from a lack of adequate health care. These are the realities, some we can justifiably be proud of. Others we must honestly confront and address if we are to succeed together as a nation, achieve our full potential and bring the next generation along.

Growing roots in America means recognizing our past, acting now and preparing the road for those new generations who will follow. It means engaging in sweeping efforts to improve education for Latinos and all American children, including specific programs to bring along those who have fallen behind in school through no fault of their own. It means comprehensive health care, elder care and economic opportunity — the same rights that all Americans want and deserve.

We must engage and encourage young Hispanics to enter public service, to be part of the debate, to be at the table and be part of the solution. We must instill in them a sense of history and a belief that it is our duty and obligation to give something back to the community to build a better, stronger nation.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Robert Menendez.

When To Raise Money

 

Henry Blodget|Oct. 19, 2009, 9:07 AM | 67 |

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Tags: Fundraising, Startups, Strategy And Tactics, Strategy

One of the most basic decisions an entrepreneur has to make is whether to take outside capital.

When your company needs more money than you can raise by bootstrapping, this isn’t a tough decision. When you could bootstrap but want to move more quickly, then it is often a very tough decision.

For the purposes of this post, however, let’s assume you’ve decided to go ahead and raise outside money. When do you do it?

Here’s the short answer, which became crystal clear to me in the decade I worked on Wall Street:

Raise money when you can, not when you have to.

What does that mean?

It means raise money when conditions are such that investors or lenders are pitching you, rather than the other way around.

Raising money means selling a piece of your business (equity) or making a lender confident that you’ll be able to pay a loan back (debt). It’s much easier and smarter to do either in a seller’s market rather than a buyer’s market.

As with every other kind of market, capital markets go through cycles. At the peak of these cycles, such as 2007, so many investors are trying to put cash to work that money is cheap and terms are good. At the bottom of these cycles, meanwhile, such as last spring, cash is king and investors can dictate whatever terms they want.

Similarly, the attractiveness of companies as investments also goes through cycles. Nothing is more attractive to an investor than a company that doesn’t need money–because then the investor feels lucky and privileged to be invited in. Similarly, nothing is less attractive than a company that needs money desperately and is going hat in hand to anyone who will listen.

So, from the perspective of an entrepreneur, the best time to raise money is in a red-hot capital market when you don’t need it. In these periods, you should raise more money than you think you’ll ever need.

The worst time to raise money, meanwhile, is at the bottom of the cycle when you’re running low on cash. If you wait until then to start fund-raising, you have to give your whole company away to get any cash in the door.

Of course, when times are good, many entrepreneurs make a common mistake: They extrapolate the good times into the hereafter. In doing so, they base their outlook for future cash requirements on this happy scenario, instead of asking what would happen if, say, their revenue got cut in half. Thus, when the cycle turns, they get caught flat-footed…and they suddenly need money just to survive.

Raising money when you can instead of when you need to means avoiding this mistake.

Never assume that good times will continue forever–because they won’t. Instead, when everything is going smoothly, ask yourself how much cash you would need if the economy suddenly collapsed. And if someone is willing to give that money to you on reasonable terms, take it.

Managing Your Career as a Business

October 15, 2009

By JAMES FLANIGAN

EMPLOYMENT experts have some advice for the many Americans either looking for work or fearing they soon will be: Consider yourself an entrepreneur — of your own working life.

The term entrepreneur is usually applied to people seeking to start their own small businesses. But those in the recruitment and employment industry say the uncertainty in the current economy means that workers need to think of their careers as their own small businesses.

“The lesson of today is that you’re working for yourself,” said Janice Bryant Howroyd, the founder and chief executive of Act 1 Personnel Services, a staffing and employment company. “Most people say they’re giving their lives to the company, but it’s more of a cooperative process. Companies have tasks to perform and you must put in your best effort and identify yourself with that job,” she said.

Employment experts say they see a complex picture of changing job patterns as employers respond to hard times, global competition and fresh opportunities. So as companies and organizations are forced to be more innovative, they say, so must employees.

Jim Jonassen, head of Jim Jonassen & Associates Venture Search, noted the explosion of online employment sites and social media that have transformed the marketplace in recent years. “You used to be scared your boss would see your résumé on Monster.com,” he said. “But today your boss’s résumé is on LinkedIn along with your own.”

Ms. Howroyd is an entrepreneur in the traditional sense. She said she left Tarboro, N.C., in 1976 to work for a brother-in-law’s talent agency in Los Angeles and two years later started her own small employment firm. At the beginning, she said, she played off the fact that “I was a minority-owned business in two ways, as an African-American and a woman.”

Through the years, Act 1 has grown past its original role as an employment agency. One division, Agile 1, for instance, supplies and, in some cases, employs people for other businesses. One of its clients is MetLife, the giant insurance company. Jeffrey Hebert, strategic sourcing consultant at MetLife, explained: “An operation may need a new person but not have the budget to hire this year. So we get somebody from an agency like Act 1, which handles that individual’s payroll and benefits.”

While flexibility helps businesses, it means that workers are not insulated from hard times and insecurity.

Mr. Jonassen, who has founded half a dozen software and personnel companies over two decades, said he and his latest firm suffered a dry period starting in the fall of 2008 when the high-technology start-ups that he recruits for stopped hiring and began laying off people. “The venture capital outfits that backed them had ordered these entrepreneurs to stop following their visionary plans and cut back to where they could make a small profit, by doing research for others in digital technology and other routine work,” Mr. Jonassen said.

But, he said, “In July of this year, demand picked up for computer and mobile phone applications, and these entrepreneurs found they had cut too much.” Now, he said, they are scrambling to hire skilled people, and his recruiting business is thriving.

Joy Chen followed her own entrepreneurial career path. Ms. Chen, with a master’s degree in business administration from the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles, had been a deputy mayor of Los Angeles and then went to work for Heidrick & Struggles, the management search firm. She left to start her own recruiting firm, Chen Partners in 2007, just as the economy started to slow. Business was initially scarce, she said. “Many employers were even then hunkering down.”

Then this year, Ms. Chen said, things changed. “Many companies noticed that after all the layoffs and uncertainty, skilled people were available at lower salary demands than in former years. And now business is very active.” The lesson of the economy’s ups and downs, she said, is that workers cannot let hard times or lower pay discourage them. “It’s a change in the market, not a depreciation of who you are as a person.”

Ms. Howroyd, whose Act 1 Group has grown in recent years as businesses have experimented with assembling staffs from a mix of full- and part-time employees, said she had noticed the same increase in demand. “We are growing this year,” Ms. Howroyd said, because “employers now recognize that they must decide how best to manage staffing, whether with independent contractors, temporary or full-time employees.”

Ms. Howroyd said temporary work used to be seen as a dead end but that that was not necessarily true anymore. “In the recent market, we see companies taking people on temporarily or as contract workers who could become full time when conditions improve,” she said. “It’s more flexible today and that’s smart, rather than hiring people on and then letting them go.”

Caris Diagnostics of Phoenix, which is also a client of Act 1, is a molecular testing company that employs cell biologists and skilled lab technicians. It does not routinely hire short-term help but occasionally needs to fulfill a special project, said Wendy Brown, the company’s human resources manager. “So we contract for as many as 40 scientists for limited periods.”

Scientists working as contract labor, part time, as needed — the old model of permanent positions and fixed employment has changed profoundly.

And workplaces will continue to do so, Mr. Jonassen predicted, because “recessions like this spawn entrepreneurs.” In the downturn of aerospace-defense industries in the early ’90s, he recalled, “many people had to rethink careers and become entrepreneurs.” Today, because companies can be formed cheaply thanks to cloud computing and mobile communications, he said, “I think we’ll see a new surge of entrepreneurs.”

This column about small-business trends in California and the West appears on the third Thursday of every month. E-mail: jamesflanigan@nytimes.com

“Mel” Martínez se va, la mafia se queda

 

Publicado el 13 Octubre 2009 en Especiales

Apenas instalado en su oficina de Washington, el sucesor del cubanoamericano Melquiades “Mel” Martínez en el Senado estadounidense, George LeMieux, ha nombrado como jefe de los asuntos estatales de la Florida en su gabinete al hombre de confianza de los hermanos Díaz-Balart, el “consultor” Carlos Curbelo.

“El nombramiento es el primer gran acierto del recién estrenado senador”, aseguró complacida, en su crónica del Diario Las Américas, la multimillonaria Remedios Díaz-Oliver. La opinión de “Reme” es reveladora, porque ella creó con un grupo de rabiosos extremistas un lobby para sobornar a políticos federales que mantienen políticas hostiles a todo acercamiento con Cuba.

LeMieux fue designado senador por el gobernador de la Florida Charlie Crist, cuando todos los pronósticos situaban al representante Lincoln Díaz-Balart en el puesto, pero este prefirió declinar para no perder su cargo como Representante. Crist será candidato a esta función hasta el 2010 y prefirió escoger a este leal colaborador.

Curbelo es, por cierto, el compromiso que conviene a tanto a LeMieux como a Díaz-Balart: consultor para el propio partido Republicano, dirigió la campaña de Crist en el 2006 y es un socio indefectible de los hermanos Díaz-Balart y de la extrema derecha de origen cubano que domina la ciudad de Miami.

Más aún, el joven relacionista fundador de Capitol Gains, una firma de comunicaciones en Miami, se declara aspirante a un escaño (por determinar) en la Cámara baja en el 2010.

Como lo indica el nombre de su firma, se especializa en la recolección de fondos, pieza clave de la vida política en la democracia norteamericana donde el favor de los electores se compra a golpe de millones invertidos en campañas publicitarias.

Detalle elocuente: Curbelo ha sido estratega y vocero de la campaña a la Presidencia del Senador ultraderechista John McCain.

La farsa mafiosa no termina aquí. De acuerdo con una nota del despacho del senador LeMieux, este político seleccionó para su equipo a Kerry Feehery, quién fue Director de comunicaciones de Mel Martínez antes de representar a Crist en Washington; Ben Moncrief, el asesor legal de Martínez; Michael Zehr, un ex director Legislativo del mismo personaje y Ken Lundberg, ex Secretario de Prensa y Director de Comunicaciones de “Mel”.

Curbelo trabajará en Miami donde dirigirá la oficina local de LeMieux. (JGA)

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URL del artículo : http://www.cubadebate.cu/especiales/2009/10/13/mel-martinez-se-va-la-mafia-se-queda/

Ryan Leslie

Talk about a talented human being!! Check out his web site and video. There is no stopping him…

http://www.ryanleslie.com/

A ‘capitol gain’ for LeMieux

Miami political consultant Carlos Curbelo, who specializes in Hispanic media and outreach, will be leaving the private sector to serve as state director for newly appointed U.S. Sen. George LeMieux.

Curbelo’s public relations/consulting firm, Capitol Gains, will be run by Curbelo’s associate, Roy Schultheis.

Curbelo, 29, has worked for Gov. Charlie Crist, Reps. Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart and former presidential candidates John McCain and Fred Thompson. Curbelo will be based in LeMieux’s new Miami office.

Curbelo is among a handful of Crist allies who will be moving over to LeMieux’s office and the governor’s Senate campaign. His former spokeswoman, Vivian Myrtetus, is already working as LeMieux’s deputy chief of staff. Maureen Jaeger, who is on Crist’s staff in South Florida, is also headed to Washington.

LISTA brings you: Rick Najera’s Daddy Diaries

 

 

MORE INFO: http://ricknajerarialto.eventbrite.com/

Latino in Information Sciences and Technology Association
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WWW.NLTAA.ORG or www.Techlatino2030.org

Latinos in Information Sciences and Technology Association is a non-profit organization founded in 2001 for the purposes of promoting the development and growth of Hispanic-owned businesses. It has been given a 501c3 status by the Internal Revenue Service, and as such, contributions from benefactors, members and/or sponsors are deductible as charitable contributions under the Internal Revenue Code.