New School Lunch Guidelines: Hold the Fries, Please
According to USDA Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack, the school lunch program that serves more than 30 million children daily is likely to get healthier very soon. The USDA is proposing significant changes to improve the nutritional quality of the school meals that are served to America’s youth. While American youngsters consume up to half of their daily calories at school, unfortunately, approximately 1/3 of American children are obese or at risk for becoming obese.
"Goldman's plan to take the creation of structured financial products out of the hands of traders and give that responsibility solely to investment bankers is a positive move. The next step for Goldman, in burnishing its tarnished reputation, should be to ensure that complex products it creates are understood by their creators, by Goldman's directors and regulators, and by its customers."
Boston University School of Law professor Daniel Berman, director of the Graduate Tax Program, offers his view on the future of tax reform after passage of the tax compromise bill.
"This tax package is a temporary compromise that deserves its widespread condemnation. The only optimistic sign for tax policy is some new support for tax reform, voiced by the president and others.
"Tax reform has proven to be enormously difficult to accomplish, and almost as difficult to preserve once achieved. But it may offer the best way out of our present economic and political mess."
Getting ready to host that big annual holiday bash, but looking for new alternatives to those tired old stuffed mushrooms and pigs in a blanket? How about treating your guests to some delicious and waist-friendly hors d'oeuvres that won't fill them up before the main course. Joan Salge Blake, clinical associate professor of nutrition at BU's Sargent College, says to focus on fruits, vegetables and fish. She fills us in on a few of her favorites in the video below. All of the recipes are available on her blog.
Charles Kravetz, the founding news & programming director and station manager of New England Cable News (NECN), has been appointed the new general manager of WBUR-FM, effective January 1, 2011. Kravetz succeeds Paul A. La Camera who was appointed general manager in September of 2005 and will now take a two-year appointment as BU’s administrator of public radio, a new job in which he’ll help manage both the leadership transition and public representation of the station.
Kravetz has set his immediate sights on creating new programs, bolstering the station's new marketing campaign "UR WBUR" and enhancing the station’s digital presence, along with the continued drive to decrease time spent on-air fundraising and seeking alternative means of reaching donors.
“The challenges that WBUR faces are many, like every organization in the media, but it comes to those challenges from a position of strength,” said Kravetz. “Our listeners want access to the quality journalism we do in every platform, whether it’s an iPad, an iPhone, any written form through the Web, through Twitter.”
Kravetz joins WBUR at a time when the station has held its listener lead against a remade public radio competitor, Brighton-based WGBH. WBUR ranked 11th in the Boston radio market Arbitron ratings in October, versus 24th for WGBH.
“It’s a wonderful thing to be able to take over the leadership of an organization that is in such a strong position,” said Kravetz. “WBUR is uniquely situated in the Boston market. It is financially sound and owned by an extraordinary academic institution that supports it and gives it the freedom to do the kind of quality journalism we all admire.”
In 1992, NECN hired Kravetz to engineer its news operation from scratch. In five months, he oversaw the building of a newsroom, hiring of 90 staffers, and the start of 24 hours-a-day programming. Over 16 years, he opened four New England satellite bureaus, started the country’s first streaming video news site, and secured NECN’s perch among the top 10-rated Boston cable channels. He also led the news team to Peabody, Murrow, and duPont-Columbia awards.
In 2008, Kravetz was appointed NECN’s president/general manager where he guided the channel through its expanding distribution, now reaching almost 4 million homes, making it the largest regional cable news channel in the country. Prior to his post at NECN, Kravetz was an executive at WCVB-TV from1980 to1991, where he was responsible for creating the long-running TV newsmagazine Chronicle as its original producer and executive producer, later rising to assistant news director at Boston’s ABC affiliate.
COM will host Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, noted author and BU Visiting Professor of Journalism Isabel Wilkerson to discuss her latest book The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration today at 4:30 PM at the Photonics Center. The event will be moderated by John Stauffer, Chairman of the American Civilization Program and Professor of English and African and African-American Studies at Harvard University, and will include a book reading, reception and book signing. The event is free and open to the public.
