Museum serves up a tasty treat for visitors

A FISH and chip shop starts frying today to give thousands of museum visitors an authentic taste of the past.

Davy's Fried Fish Shop in the pit village at Beamish Museum, County Durham, uses the last coal-fired frying range to have survived on Tyneside.FRY UP The opening of Davy's Fried Fish and Chip shop at Beamish Open Air MuseumThe Winlaton Mill chippie was built in 1937 by the brothers' grandfather John, and their parents Isabella and Robert took over the business in the 1950s. The family always used beef dripping for frying, and that will continue at the Beamish shop, which will be serving seven days a week.It was used until 2007, when the Davy family's fish and chip shop in Winlaton Mill in Gateshead closed.Brothers Brian and Ramsay Davy were guests at a preview frying at Beamish, where the first portion of cod and chips went to museum director Richard Evans.CAPTION(S):Richard Evans said: "No picture of pit village life in the North East is complete without a fish and shop."

FRY UP The opening of Davy's Fried Fish and Chip shop at Beamish Open Air Museum

$12M downtown Tulsa apartment complex targets December start

American Residential Group intends to open its first Metro at Brady Arts District apartment units by mid-December.

"Now they've decided to spend another $12 million here," said Bartlett. "It's just one more example about how the community is lucky to have such a great company that's willing to risk good money on a good idea.""In order to have a vibrant downtown, you've got to have people living downtown," he said. "This is a step in the right direction. But this is just a first step. One of many first steps.""I'm a native Tulsan," he said with a smile. "I remember when they formed the Tulsa Urban Renewal Authority.On the southeast corner, workers with contractor Worthing Southeast of Atlanta tackled interiors within the five-story Metro at Brady Arts, working from architectural plans by Jim Parker of Tulsa's Parker and Associates.Behind the lectern, a wire fence quartered off where the Arts and Humanities Council of Tulsa will raise its $11 million Hardesty Arts Center. Behind that, work continues to transform a block-long 1920s brick and concrete shell into arts facilities for the University of Tulsa, the Philbrook Museum of Art and the Gilcrease Museum, all fed by a new geothermal field installed across the street.In a unique move, four of its second-floor apartments will lease with connecting first-floor commercial spaces, the shops finished to tenant specs. But the 79,247-square-foot project's primary focus remains residential, its amenities ranging from a 2,000-square-foot clubhouse and swimming pool to an outdoor kitchen, fire pit, tanning ledges and water features.At the corner of Archer and Main streets, the Wednesday press conference offered views of many Brady District construction projects.Mayor Dewey Bartlett said the entire project should be finished by September 2012."We are dedicated to bringing families back to the downtown area," said TDA Chairman Julius Pegues. "In order for Tulsa to be one of the number one cities in the nation, we have to have people in the downtown area."Metro at Brady Arts District, 10 E. Archer St., will provide 28 one-bedroom units, the 735-square-foot floor plans starting at $850 a month. The 43 two-bedroom units will peak with a 1,285-square- foot apartment available for $1,400 a month.American Residential also is building a two-story parking garage for residents of both Metro at Brady and its neighboring Tribune Lofts complex, which the Tulsa company finished a decade ago as the first project to use and pay back a no-interest residential loan program from the TDA.Watching all of this advance holds special meaning for Pegues, who has served the TDA since 2008.

"In order to have a vibrant downtown, you've got to have people living downtown," he said. "This is a step in the right direction. But this is just a first step. One of many first steps."

Back to school

SIMULATE THIS!

The simulator allows students to trade in a live market environment or a specific volatile time period with CME market data, TT trading software and Reuters news feed and analytics.By Daniel P. CollinsCME built the trading simulator featuring real-time and historical data on cash, futures and over-the-counter markets. It partnered with Trading Technologies and Thomson Reuters on the technology and information side and is working with Tulane University and Energy Management Institute (EMI) on the education side."This is one of the most dynamic opportunities that I have seen in a long time to educate thousands and thousands of people from all around the world," says EMl founder Dominiek Chirichella. "We are not only in a trading room but in a live functioning trading room."John Conolly, CME Group associate director, program development, says a large target for the simulator and courses is commercial hedgers. He adds, though, that they are looking to their partners to help develop ways to utilize the simulator. "This is a great way to develop education that is relevant," Conolly says.It was all sort of a joke, but today the screen is where prices are discovered and there are not the massive active trading pits for traders to "learn by fire." CME Group and partners have put together a more dynamic Low Latency Simulator to teach traders, hedgers and anyone involved in the trading world the ropes.When electronic trading was in its infancy, exchanges held simulations for members and clerks to practice trading various markets on a computer screen. These sessions often broke down into sophomoric attempts to amass the largest gains or losses by throwing around unrealistic positions sizes.In September, classes will be offered in natural gas, crude oil and power trading in New Orleans and Chicago, with Instructors from Tulane, EMI and CME teaching students all aspects of trading and operating the various software applications.

By Daniel P. Collins

Lessons for brand success from Big Blue: IBM at 100 years old

THE WHITEBOARD

While competitive slogans were on the order of "Take Toshiba, Take the World" and "Compaq. Inspiration technology," IBM ran the relatively tame "Solutions for a small planet." If anyone was going to help you take the world it was IBM, but its "small planet" slogan acknowledged the challenges of the changing world we lived in without hyped bravado. Compaq now is gone, of course, while Toshiba is still a major brand, but far south of IBM in power and value.Lesson No. 3: Brand from the inside out.Ironically, even though IBM gets branding right in many ways, its brand name has been the justification for countless alphabet soup tri-letter brands that subsequently struggle to build recognition and attach sufficient meaning to the acronyms. IBM used its full name from 1924 to 1946, and was already a global leader when it switched to IBM. In 1972, it introduced the 13-bar logo it still uses today.IBM also is credited with many employee-friendly policy innovations, including paid vacations, group life insurance, survivor benefits and equal opportunity hiring practices, which Watson described as less about rights and more about gaining a competitive edge that would allow the company to hire the most talented people available.According to IBM's website, founder Thomas J. Watson Sr. introduced an internal one-word slogan in the 1920s: Think. It appeared in the company's publications and on the walls of its factories and offices, and it became a mantra for the business. It was a steadfast reminder from the very top of the corporation: We value innovation and ideas. IBM was, in a sense, a manufacturing company that was entering the knowledge economy about 50 years in advance.David Taylor is president of Lancasterbased Taylor Brand Group, which specializes in brand development and marketing technology. Contact him via www.taylor brandgroup.com.And that's Lesson No. 1 from Big Blue: Stay focused.Its acronym is likely the most well-known in the business world, with most of us able to respond, "International Business Machines," when asked for its origin. IBM is a rock - a no-nonsense, highly trusted brand. After all, nobody ever got fired for buying IBM, or so goes one of the all-time great business clich�s.IBM has always sought to be a leader in the business technology of the day. But unlike other brands that attempt the same approach, its vision transcends the technology itself. So when IBM finds it is on the downside of a technology curve, it doesn't go all Six Sigma and try to compete by being more efficient. It dumps the technology and moves on. It created the mass market for PCs, then quietly exited the industry in 2004 when it sold its PC business to Lenovo. It did the same with Lexmark printers and many other successful technical innovations over the years.Other brands are turning 100 this year as well - Whirlpool and Nivea come to mind - but from a branding standpoint, IBM is the best centenarian of them all. One hundred years later, its brand is still not really about the product, but about the thinking behind it.Oh, and in the 55 years since it changed to the acronym, it has spent about 1.2 gazillion dollars in advertising to help us remember it. (Bonus lesson: Use initials if you're already on top and have a ton of money. Otherwise, don't.)Lesson No. 2: Stay within yourself (or: Don't overpromise/overdeliver)."Providing business solutions" may sound like the mission statement for half the companies in the world, but IBM has steadily been a brand that can be depended upon to do just that.Sure, it led the development of the first smart typewriters, mainframe computers and even low-cost printers, but IBM also created the technology for UPC codes, ATMs, the floppy disk, the hard drive, the magnetic strip, the Sabre airline reservation system, Fortran programming language, Watson artificial intelligence and even the financial swap. Whew.Think about the IBM brand for a moment and what comes to mind? Solid. Corporate. Technology. Maybe even a little boring?But look a little deeper into the IBM brand and you'll find in stark contrast to its generic-sounding name one of the most innovative companies ever. Over the last 100 years it has stayed focused on providing practical business solutions to its customers in ways that touch each of us every day.

David Taylor is president of Lancasterbased Taylor Brand Group, which specializes in brand development and marketing technology. Contact him via www.taylor brandgroup.com.

Time to Fire Eric Holder

It has been strange to watch the mainstream media ignore the most incredible scandal of the modern era: the "Gun Walker" program used by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to pump American guns into Mexico while lavishing obsessive coverage on the News of the World phone-hacking debacle in England.

Strongly worded letters from Congress don't seem to get Eric Holder's attention. Perhaps impeachment proceedings will. The New York Times emphasized that "Article ? of the Constitution gives Congress the power to impeach the President, the vice president, and all civil officers of the United States," which they stressed would include cabinet members.Ken Melson doesn't want to be a fall guy. He's cooperating with congressional investigators, but their requests for information have been stonewalled by Arty Gen. Eric Flolder at every turn.Of course, the New York Times said all this with respect to a Republican Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez, in a May 2007 op-ed titled "He's Impeachable, You Know," by Frank Bowman. Surely their passionate and principled position hasn't changed any. It's time for Eric Holder to go.Meanwhile, over 150 Mexicans and at least one U.S. government agent, are dead because of Gun Walker. The ATF videotaped the sale of the gun that killed Border Patrol agent and military veteran Brian Terry. Weapons waltzed into Mexico under its "Operation Fast and Furious" have begun turning up in American cities. A second program called "Operation Castaway" has been discovered, walking guns into Honduras. MS- 13, the most dangerous gang in the world, has strong ties to Honduras.Everywhere the Obama Administration encounters legal controversy Eric Holder can be found, and rarely in a good way. He's been criticized by Congress for dragging his feet on terrorism investigations, and became famous for insisting on the lunatic idea of trying top terror masters in civilian courts - a notion even the White House has backed away from. His big shot at civilian prosecution of a terrorist ended with bomber Ahmed Ghailani's beating 224 murder counts. only to be convicted for what amounts to aggravated vandalism.House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa (R. -Calif.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R. -Iowa) of the Judiciary Committee, have sent an increasingly testy series of letters to Holder, most recently demanding he move the Justice Department "from spin mode to disclosure mode" and stop treating the Gun Walker scandal as "merely a public relations problem." Nevertheless, Holder continues to pump out billowing clouds of blue smoke, fill committee chambers with funhouse mirrors and wipe out 80% of the documents he hands over with the dreaded black marker of redaction.Of course, the motivations of the media are not difficult to understand. There has been absolutely no evidence that News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch had anything to do with the invasions of privacy carried out by certain employees at one of his many newspapers... But since he also owns influential conservative American media properties like the Wall Street Journal, and, especially. Fox News, media liberals find themselves looking at a very large domino and praying for it to fall.Holder has been instrumental in Obama's plan to ignore the Defense of Marriage Act. Attorneys general are supposed to enforce laws, not choose which ones to disregard out of personal distaste. That's one of the differences between a republic and a dictatorship.The Times declared that "the right of Congress to demand explanations imposes on the President, and on inferior executive officers who speak for him, the obligation to be truthful," and said that an attorney general who elects to testify "has no right to lie, either by affirmatively misrepresenting facts or by falsely claiming not to remember events. Lying to Congress is a felony - actually three felonies: perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice." They recommended impeachment as the ultimate remedy, cautioning Congress to "recognize that the issue here goes deeper than the misbehavior of one man."Operation Fast and Furious was run out of Phoenix, Ariz. Operation Castaway bubbled forth from the Tampa, FIa. office of the ATF. Some of the ostensible gunrunning "targets" of these operations turned out to be paid FBI informants. The programs enjoyed funding from the Obama "stimulus" package. These factors combine to make regional ATF supervisors, or acting ATF Director Ken Melson, unsuitable as fall guys.

Of course, the New York Times said all this with respect to a Republican Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez, in a May 2007 op-ed titled "He's Impeachable, You Know," by Frank Bowman. Surely their passionate and principled position hasn't changed any. It's time for Eric Holder to go.

Restored LDS meetinghouse from the 1890s open for tours in Historic

CHESTERFIELD, Idaho -- A chapel, restored to how it would have looked in the 1890s, has been added to this summer's tours in Historic Chesterfield, Idaho.

The pump organ with leather bellows is the one that was bought from a company in New York City, transported to Bancroft, Idaho, on the railroad and then 11 miles to Chesterfield in a wagon.The Chesterfield Foundation organization bought the building with the stipulation that it would be restored as a chapel. The Camp Squaw Creek DUP previously had a 50-year lease for the building. The the DUP Museum items have been moved to the Tolman/Barlow/Call/ Smith/Holbrook Brick Store that has been renovated on the townsite and can still be viewed.The chapel has the original woodwork carved with a chisel and a hammer by Judson A. Tolman, who was the presiding elder when the branch was organized, the first counselor when the first bishopric was formed, and the second bishop of the Chesterfield Ward.The restoration started in September 2010 with Rigby Construction replacing the asphalt shingles with original-style cedar shingles. Bybee Construction started in October 2010 with bat eradication and all but a few outside projects were finished in April 2011.Here the clay was dug from the hillside and placed in handmade molds -- one of which is on display in the Log Store on the townsite -- before being fired into brick in the pits dug into the ground in the area around the brickyard. There are two brick walls around this old beautiful building and the interior was filled with broken, chipped or discolored pieces of brick that provides excellent insulation, keeping the building cool during the summer months and helping to retain the heat in the winter.The townsite is open Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Memorial Day through Labor Day and hosts are on hand to give tours. For information, see chesterfieldfoundation.org.Chesterfield was settled in 1879 when Chester Call and his nephew Christian Nelson from Bountiful, Utah, came into the upper Portneuf Valley looking for grazing land for a herd of horses. It had just been opened up for homesteads, and they returned to Bountiful with stories of this wonderful place.Pearl Mickelson is on the Chesterfield Foundation Board.The restoration was funded by "Saving America's Treasures" grant, matching funds by the Chesterfield Foundation, an LDS Foundation grant, donations from the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers and the Loren Smith Family.It also has the original benches carved in 1892 by John Detton and others.The Greek revival style meetinghouse was originally built in the late 1880s and early 1890s by the local residents and was constructed of more than 80,000 bricks that were formed from a brickyard on the east side of the townsite.The pulpit has also been painted in original colors of cream and burgundy. During the restoration, plans of the building from the Church History Library were consulted, which had the furniture, paint colors and other information about the interior of the building. According to these records, the backroom -- a room behind the chapel -- wasn't used as the bishop's office, as this was in the Tithing House, although he may have conducted business and interviews there.The first piano is also in the room, and in the room behind the chapel, the second piano can be viewed. Due to their age and the cold of the winters in Chesterfield, these are not tuned.The next spring they brought 12 families with them to homestead and over the next few years families such as Barlow, Grant, Hatch, Sessions, Higginson, Tolman, Muir, Yancy, Willey, Davids and Loveland came to settle, and in the ensuing years, others followed them. The area grew and four wards were established in the area, Chesterfield, Hatch, Kelly and Toponce. There were more 700 people scattered through this area in the early 1900s.

Pearl Mickelson is on the Chesterfield Foundation Board.

CSPD officer shoots pit bull while trying to detain man

A Colorado Springs police officer fatally shot a pit bull Sunday evening in a southeast Colorado Springs house after it became aggressive with officers, police said.

The man believed to have fired the handgun at the house was later found and questioned by police. He was not arrested, police said, though officers are still investigating the case.The shooting happened as police investigated reports of a man firing a gun near the house in the 4100 block of Shining Way earlier that evening, according to Colorado Springs police.During the struggle, an officer shot a pit bull in the head after it "came towards the officers in an aggressive manner."A woman at the house, Karissa Chavez, 31, was later arrested on two outstanding misdemeanor warrants and was cited on suspicion of failure to obey a lawful order and child abuse. Three children, ages 6, 11 and 14, were inside the house.

The man believed to have fired the handgun at the house was later found and questioned by police. He was not arrested, police said, though officers are still investigating the case.