After being told last month they had to remove all fences and sheds from their yards, tenants of public housing in Phillipsburg, New Jersey had their questions answered Wednesday night. The Housing Authority says the changes are for the residents' safety.

About 20 upset residents came out to voice their outrage at the Phillipsburg Housing Authority Board of Directors meeting. For nearly two hours they addressed concerns and answered questions.

The authority notified tenants last month of a blanket ban of fences, sheds, clotheslines and personal belongings in yards when they took over grass cutting responsibilities due to liability concerns.

"We were notified by the insurance company that we have certain risks on our property that we have to take care of and we're addressing it," explained Housing Authority Executive Director Paul Rummerfield.

He says most residents are fine with the changes, adding out of 372 rentals less than 10 have a shed or fence. According to him it came down to a safety issue with the insurance company.

"A lot of garbage, a lot of fences and sheds that are in bad repair," shared Rummerfield. "Kids climbing on clothes poles."

People at the meeting had a different view. Many folks voiced concern about how they will dry their clothes once the lines are taken down this month and the units don't include dryers.

"We have to get apartment-sized dryers and they're very expensive," added Christine Pyatt. "The dryers are more than our rent if we have to go buy one."

"I still don't think it's fair," said Eva Smith.

She still hasn't removed the metal fence around her yard. She says she keeps her property clean and safe and feels like she's being punished because of those who haven't done the same.

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P-burg Public Housing residents told to remove fences , sheds

The proverb "Good fences make good neighbors" is truer than ever when your neighbors happen to be the kings of the jungle. The New York Times reported on lion researcher Craig Packer's crusade to bring fences to the Serengeti to protect endangered lions from farmers, who hunt down the beasts that feast on their livestock.

Traditionally, conservationists have attempted to let wildlife roam free, which helps make tourists feel like theyre in virgin African wildnerness. But Packer told the Times that hes over that kind of magical thinking, which has contributed to the disappearance of 75% of Africas lions in the last 100 years. Part of the problem is that Africas population has grown significantly, putting more humans, and their farm animals, into contact with lions:

Reality has to intrude, he said. Do you want to know the two most hated species in Africa, by a mile? Elephants and lions.

Packer was a co-author on a recent paper in Ecology Letters, which compared unfenced and fenced lion populations in 11 different African countries. "Nearly half the unfenced lion populations may decline to near extinction over the next 2040years," the paper concludes, and argues for the installation of fencing--expensive at $3,000 per kilometer--wherever humans and lions are cohabitating.

"In some cases, human-occupied zones within larger wildlife-dominated ecosystems may even need to be fenced as enclaves," reads the paper, citing the fact that about "30,000 people live in 40 villages inside Mozambiques Niassa National Reserve."

So is it the humans, or the lions, that need to be fenced in? The ethical, aesthetic, and financial challenges could make Packers strategy a hard one to pull off.

Zak Stone is a staff writer at Co.Exist and a co-founder of Tomorrow Magazine. Continued

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Can More Fences Mean More Wildlife?

Fence change for this year's race after accusations of animal cruelty In 2012 two horses had to be put down after falling over the old fences The plastic core of the fences will be softer and safer than the birch This year's Grand National will be on Saturday

PUBLISHED: 14:12 EST, 1 April 2013 | UPDATED: 10:19 EST, 2 April 2013

After a string of horse deaths over the last ten years, this week's Grand National will now be run over new plastic fences in the hope of making the course less dangerous.

Last year joint favourite Synchronised and outsider According to Pete had to be put down after falling at the sixth fence of the Grand National, the infamous Becher's Brook at Aintree racecourse, Liverpool.

The deaths led to public outcry and calls from animal welfare groups for the Grand National to be banned.

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Outcry: According to Pete injured himself during the 2012 Grand National falling over the old birch barrier and had to be put down

Infamous: The new Becher's Brook fence at Aintree racecourse no longer has a hard birch core but has been covered by spruces so it will not affect the appearance of the course

Aintree has responded to criticism by introducing several safeguards to help make the demanding course more horse-friendly.

The most important change will be the fences, which have seen many dangerous falls in the past.

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Plastic brushes replace birch fences at the Grand National as organisers attempt to limit multiple horse death toll

Fences 2

I have no icons on my desktop. I have two wide-screen monitors totaling almost 4,000 horizontal pixels, and not a single icon because one icon often begets many, ending up with a messy, disorganized desktop and crowding my beautiful wallpapers. But $10 utility Fences 2 has me rethinking my anti-icon stance.

Stardock's Fences 2 eliminates all of the annoyances traditionally linked to desktop icons, and makes what's good about them even better. Installed, it feels like such a natural part of Windows, it makes me wonder how come Microsoft doesn't build a feature like it right into the OS.

At its simplest, Fences groups your icons into virtual folders on the desktop. You can have a bunch of icons for your favorite applications, and another bunch for frequently used documents, and yet another for Internet bookmarks. It's a similar system to what some fastidious users may already be doing on their ownbut it makes the process of grouping your icons together easy enough for the rest of us. When you first launch Fences, it offers to group your existing icons automatically, so you get three fences to begin with. They won't be perfect, but they're easy to customize: You can rename them, pull icons out or put new ones in, and move them around the desktop.

For reasons of both aesthetics and privacy, you may not always going to want icons cluttering up your wallpaper, so Fences can hide the icons once you leave the desktop idle for a while. When you want to reveal the icons again, double-click anywhere on the desktop and all of your Fences pop back into view. It's instant, and it's my favorite feature because it lets me enjoy my wallpapers and still use the icons whenever I want them. You can also disable the timeout and opt to hide or show the icons yourself.

Taking a cue from the world of smartphones, Fences 2 introduces a feature called Desktop Pages. Just like home screens on a smartphone, you can have multiple "pages" on your desktop. Bring your mouse to the edge of the screen, hold the mouse button down, and drag: The screen swipes over, revealing more space for fences. This sounds like it could conflict with some Windows 8 gestures which also use the edges of the screen, but on my desktop it doesn't. If moving your mouse all the way to the edge of the screen is too much work, you can also click the desktop, hold down Alt, and rotate the mousewheel to quickly flip pages.

Another interesting feature new to Fences 2 is Folder Portals, which let you place interactive shortcuts to folders on your desktop. If you have a folder with many files and subfolders, you can create a Folder Portal for it, and then get at those files directly. It's basically like having that folder constantly open on your desktop. It's an interesting feature, but has drawbacks: You can't use the keyboard to quick-search within a folder, and you can't drill down to subfolders (clicking a subfolder just opens it in your file manager).

Fences was an excellent product to begin with, and Fences 2 keeps the good parts and largely manages to avoid bloat. I'm not convinced Folder Portals are all that useful, but Desktop Pages are a welcome addition, and feel fast and natural. Even if you're not the sort of user who enjoys having icons on your desktop, Fences 2 may convert you. Give it a shot.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page will download the software to your system.

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Review: Fences 2 makes desktop icons smarter, cleaner, and more useful

Griswold softball coach Rick Arremony recalled traveling to Granby last year for a Class M state quarterfinal game, and watching helplessly as a line drive to center field just kept rolling with no fence to stop its momentum.

It didnt cost the Wolverines the game Granby won, 5-1 but, it was frustrating, he said.

Waterford coach Liz Sutman recalls standing inside her dugout at a state semifinal game at West Haven High School. Not being happy with the play on the field, she let her players know about it. Afterward, she realized CPTV, which was broadcasting the game, was attached to her dugout and may have heard every word that was said.

On most high school baseball fields in the state, an outfield fence and two dugouts are common. On most softball fields, the opposite is true.

Its kind of nerve-wracking, Griswold centerfielder Emily Slonski said. If its windy, the ball can just keep going and theres nothing to stop it. If the field is really bouncy, it can also send it shooting past you and it just keeps rolling.

Fences arent cheap, and softball fields generally are not reserved for high school teams.

Arremony, however, has a solution. In many Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference sponsored-sports, there are minimum standards. If a field doesnt meet those standards, a state tournament game cant be played.

Arremony wants to mandate temporary fences for those fields. If the fences arent in place, the home team loses a home game and, sooner or later, the message will be delivered.

Does the Waterford baseball team have that concern? Arremony said. Schools should accommodate the sport and take care of it, if theyre going to have it. They owe that to the sport. Who deserves it more than Liz, with what she has done with that program?

Veterans Field, where Waterford plays, has a fence but is well beyond the recommended National Federation of High Schools distance of 185 to 235 feet. Sutman has looked into a temporary fence, but the field is town-owned, not Board of Education controlled. That means after every game, any banner the Lancers put up must be taken down. The same would be true with a temporary fence, and there is no place to store such an item.

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Lack of fences , dugouts hamper state softball programs

Originally published March 30, 2013 at 8:03 PM | Page modified March 30, 2013 at 10:29 PM

Every hitter at Safeco Field has a sob story (or 10) the blast he was sure was going out until it died in the marine layer.

Well, there's a flip side to that standard tale of woe, of course. For every hitter sulking in the agony of a tater lost, there has been a pitcher reveling in the ecstasy of an ERA preserved.

"If everyone looked back," said right-hander Blake Beavan, "you can think of certain pitches; you're like, 'I don't know if that's going to stay in ... oh, thank you.' That big, deep breath you let out."

Since the Mariners announced Oct. 2 they are moving in the fences for the 2013 season, much of the focus has been on the impact the change will have on hitters, who have exhaled in unison. But the other part of this equation is whether it will backfire by harming Mariners pitchers more than it helps their hitters.

The consensus in the organization is that the tradeoff will be worth it, an opinion strongly held by the Mariners' ace, Felix Hernandez. He gave general manager Jack Zduriencik his blessing for the move last season, and then proved his lack of concern by signing a seven-year contract extension over the offseason.

"I'm not worried at all," Hernandez said. "When we play on the road and play in short ballparks, we've pitched pretty good. I'm not worried about that. We need to keep the ball down and make good pitches."

Pitching coach Carl Willis, in fact, plans to preach to his staff to keep their same priorities.

"I don't think anything changes," he said. "You can't go out and necessarily pitch to the ballpark. We're going to continue to be aggressive early in counts, try to establish pitchers' counts, as opposed to hitters' counts. ... I don't think from our pitchers' standpoint it's going to be that much different."

But there's no doubt Mariners pitchers have thrived from playing half their games in Safeco. In all 13 full seasons since the ballpark opened, Seattle has had a lower earned-run average at home than on the road. The biggest discrepancy of all came in 2012, when Mariners pitchers put up a 2.96 ERA at home (second lowest in the American League) compared to 4.59 on the road (ninth in the AL). The difference of more than a run and a half a game (1.63) surpassed the 1.36 differential in 2000, the first full season of the ballpark.

Continued here:
Mariners' pitching strategy won't change with fences moved in at Safeco Field

WEST JORDAN, Utah UTA is taking new steps to increase the safety of commuters crossing TRAX and FrontRunner tracks.

Theyre installing new safety devices across the Wasatch Front, including at the intersection of 3200 West and 8600 South in West Jordan where Shariah Casper was hit and killed by a TRAX train back in June 2011.

New channeling fences are going up in 160 locations where sidewalks intersect with TRAX and FrontRunner lines.

Were getting them to look down both ways, even if they dont realize theyre doing it, said Chad Saley with UTA. Weve had a lot of issues with people that are distracted in the past. With pedestrians whether they have headphones in or maybe a hood on or theyre paying attention to a phone.

The system is designed so that a sidewalk ends at a fence, forcing pedestrians to change their direction and perhaps see an oncoming train they would have otherwise missed.

Its zig-zaggy and its usually straight, said pedestrian Jaycia Griffin. It makes you more aware, that you have to stop before you go across the tracks.

Construction is complete in 70 of the 160 locations designated for channeling fences. The rest are expected to be finished within a year.

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UTA installing new fences for pedestrian safety

Dead around here. Then I remembered, it's kind of sort of a holiday. When I was a kid in Southwest Louisiana, we always went to school on Good Friday. And, count on it, we ate fish sticks in deference to prevailing religious custom. (Don't jump to any conclusions, Peter Banko. I like fish sticks.)

But, to finish up with a bit of news:

Huh? Mena? Capitol Zoning District?

The zoning district, by law, governs development in areas around the Capitol and Governor's Mansion to preserve their historic character. It functions as a planning commission, more or less.

Fences? The proposed law grows out of a case that went to court over the Commission's denial of a variance for a 48-inch fence requested by Patrick Cowan for his historic house on Scott Street. Cowan lost. Then came the legislation. Cowan got blamed for Bell's bill. So blamed, in fact, that many believe he was defeated in a recent race for president of the Downtown Little Rock Neighborhood Association on account of the legislation. Some people like the existing limitation, apparently, or at least they prefer a process by which the Commission, and neighbors, are in charge of a waiver from the minimum height. Boyd Maher, director of the commission, explains the rule by saying that fences historically were low and ornamental in Little Rock. Maher spoke against the bill when it came up in committee. He said he believed it was preferable to deal with disagreements on existing rules by a review and a change through the usual rulemaking process. If the rule needs changing, he said, it should arise in the neighborhood and be supported there.

Mena? I wouldn't presume to speak for Bell. But I have confirmed that a key force behind the measure is one Gabe Holmstrom, chief of staff to House Speaker Davy Carter. He confirms his involvement, if not direct responsibility. Holmstrom lives in the neighborhood. He's friends with Cowan. He's remodeled apartments on Scott Street and is renovating a house on Louisiana Street as a personal residence. He applied for and received permit for a fence at his house. But he was unhappy to learn he'd need commission approval for the 48-inch fence he wanted to keep his dogs safely penned. Rather than simply apply for a waiver and make his case, he chose instead to attend a commission meeting and lecture the commission about the rule. He said it would discourage people who "looked like" him from making investments in the neighborhood. Some black members of the commission took that badly. I'll buy Holmstrom's explanation that he spoke poorly and meant only to say that overly stringent rules would discourage investment in a neighborhood that needs it. He bought his own house out of foreclosure, he said.

Whatever. Don't start feeling sorry for a high legislative staffer. Swinging a big stick around is efficacious. Squeaky legislative big wheels get greased. Rules can be changed. The Commission voted last night to initiate a review of whether the rule should be changed to a 48-inch limit. Maher said this didn't constitute a recommendation by the staff to make a change. It does give neighbors a public hearing process to see if sentiment favors a change. The final decision will be up to the Commission, which is appointed by various public officials.

Meanwhile, the legislature is keeping the pressure on. An unidentified member of the House has put a hold on the operating appropriation for the Capitol Zoning District Commission. Though approved by the Senate, the appropriations bill was bucked back to Joint Budget Committee, where it rests. But .... a rule change process can't be completed before the legislature is due to end. At least 30 days are required to take public comments, then a commission meeting would have to be scheduled.

Can we agree that a Mena Republican legislator's bill to dictate an eight-inch change in fence heights in a few hundred acres of Little Rock, with the encouragement of the Republican House speaker's chief of staff (a former Democratic Party official), is somewhere short of good government?

* OIL PIPELINE SPILL NEAR MAYFLOWER: Fox 16 provides the photo above of the aftermath of an oil spill from a pipeline break near Mayflower in the Northwood subdivision, which has been evacuated as a precaution against fires. Call U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin. He'll tell you it's silly for people to worry about potential damage from oil pipelines. Early reports from Fox 16 say an Exxon interstate pipeline near Lake Conway ruptured. Traffic was bollixed up near the I-40 exit from Mayflower around 5 p.m.

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The fences -make-bad-neighbors open line

After 35 years of field research in the Serengeti plains, Craig Packer, director of the Lion Research Center at the University of Minnesota, has lost all patience with the romance of African wilderness. Fences, he says, are the only way to stop the precipitous and continuing decline in the number of African lions.

"Reality has to intrude," he said. "Do you want to know the two most hated species in Africa, by a mile? Elephants and lions."

They destroy crops and livestock, Packer said, and sometimes, in the case of lions, actually eat people.

Packer's goal is to save lions. Fencing them in, away from people and livestock, is the best way to do that, he believes, both for conservation and economics. He made that argument in a paper this month in Ecology Letters, along with 57 co-authors, including most of the top lion scientists and conservationists.

The paper lays out the value of fences in clear terms, although it stops short of endorsing fencing as the only sensible option. That is Packer's own view. With a growing human population whose rights must be respected, he says, open and free co-existence with lions is not practical, nor is it fair to the humans who have to live with the big cats.

In conversation, Packer goes beyond the measured scientific prose of the paper, venting his frustration with the fantasy often offered to tourists of a free and unfettered African wilderness.

"That's 130 years ago," he said. "I'm just trying to push people to

Lions in Africa have lost 75 percent of their range in the past 100 years, problems between people and lions have increased, and some populations suffer from genetic isolation. Panthera, a conservationist organization devoted to big cats, estimates there are 30,000 lions in Africa today, down from 200,000 lions 100 years ago.

Some populations are doing well, such as those in the Serengeti, which is not fenced, and those in large and small reserves in South Africa.

Using surveys from 42 sites in 11 countries in Africa, the authors of the paper concluded that without fencing, it would cost $2,000 per square kilometer, or less than half a square mile, annually to keep lions at 50 percent of their potential numbers. With fencing, the cost would be $500 a year to maintain 80 percent of their potential numbers.

Read the rest here:
Fences could be best route to saving African lions, U researcher says

August Wilson's Fences, Starring Lenny Henry, to Transfer to the West End's Duchess Theatre

By Mark Shenton 15 Mar 2013

The current touring production of August Wilson's Fences, which premiered at Bath's Theatre Royal in February starring Lenny Henry, is to transfer to the West End's Duchess Theatre, beginning performances June 19 prior to an official opening June 26, for a 13-week run through Sept. 14.

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It is currently on the road, with remaining dates to be played at Milton Keynes Theatre (March 18-23), Oxford Playhouse (March 25-30), Theatre Cymru, Mold (April 2-6), Malvern Theatre (April 8-13) and Cambridge Arts Theatre (April 15-20).

It is directed by Paulette Randall, former artistic director of Talawa Theatre Company, who is directing her fifth play by Wilson here. Henry, who has played the title role of Othello in the West End and starred in The Comedy of Errors at the National Theatre, plays Troy Maxson, a once gifted athlete denied his turn at the big time and now struggling through daily life in Pittsburgh. Resentful of a world he believes has denied him chances at every turn, he takes out his anger on a sports-obsessed son and his loyal wife.

The play, which won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 1987 Tony Award for Best Play, was originally produced at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut in 1983, beofre premiering at Broadway's 46th Street Theatre (now the Rodgers) in 1987, starring James Earl Jones as Troy Maxson. It was subsequently revived at the Cort Theatre in 2010 with Denzel Washington. It was previously seen in the West End in 1990 starring Yaphet Kotto.

To book tickets, contact the box office on 0844 4124659 or visit http://www.nimaxtheatres.com for more details.

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August Wilson's Fences , Starring Lenny Henry, to Transfer to the West End's Duchess Theatre