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Sparks’ aunt, Colette Noel Sparks, had died at age 16 in a house fire in Westlake Village. So in her memory, they called the baby Noel Colette Sparks.
Her mother, Wendy Anderson, immediately “felt like there was something unique and special about Noel,” said Pastor Shawn Thornton at a memorial service held Tuesday at Calvary Community Church in Westlake Village.
On Nov. 7, Sparks, who was 21 at the time, was gunned down in a mass shooting in Thousand Oaks. She was one of 12 people slain that night at Borderline Bar and Grill.
Sparks’ funeral, which drew hundreds of people, was particularly personal for church leaders: She sang at the church and led church youth groups and other activities.
Several pastors remembered Sparks as someone who volunteered to help with every activity. She was a church camp counselor. She baby-sat for church members. She always showed up.
During the service, a slideshow displayed pictures of Sparks, who had bright blue eyes and curly hair. A little girl wearing angel wings, a kid lying on the floor smiling at a sleepover, a young woman belting out a song in the church choir.
Boxes of Kleenex had been placed at the end of the rows before the service began. Many were nearly empty by the end of the first hour of the funeral.
Sparks, a student at Moorpark College, loved singing, dancing, playing cello and making pottery. She never missed a chance to line dance at Borderline. Every speaker told of how giving she was, an “old soul,” Dickey said.
She was especially kind to children and older adults. She wanted to sit with people and listen to their perspective, not change it.
Dickey wore a kilt to the service because Sparks always liked his kilts, he said. But she teased the pastor about playing the bagpipes.
Deena Metzger, a writer who was friends with Sparks and her mother, said Sparks, who was home-schooled by her mother, was a gifted writer who could hold her own in discussions with published authors. Sparks believed in empathy and peace, she said.
Metzger said she thinks things could have turned out differently if Sparks had met the man who fired those shots Nov. 7. Ian David Long, who took his own life after killing 12 others, was a man who “went to war and suffered injury that drove him mad,” Metzger said.
Sparks would have listened to him and known how to lead him to solace, she said. She would’ve brought him back to nature, encouraging him to swim and climb rocks.
“She would’ve listened to his unspeakable story and helped him heal,” Metzger said.
3:30 p.m.: This article was updated with additional editing.
How can you tell when MSNBC cable-show host Rachel Maddow utters falsehoods about Herbert Hoover? If she talks about him.
This is becoming enough of a pattern for Maddow, as I've described previously at NewsBusters, to border on the pathological.
You know who else had the excellent idea to freeze government spending during a recession? This guy! (holds up photo of Hoover) H.H., President Herbert Hoover. His fundamental misunderstanding of how to shore up a failing economy was so celebrated that the great armies of homeless and jobless Americans gave him naming rights for the shanty towns where they all lived in cardboard boxes and burned-out cars during the Great Depression -- Hoovervilles. Hoovervilles.
And now, (House Minority Leader) John Boehner and congressional Republicans are advocating the same policy.
In this context (referring to the recession), the Republicans are proposing a spending freeze. They're saying the government should stop spending. And also, rather than put your house fire out with water, they're going to switch the liquid in the firehose over to gasoline.
Much like that alleged tightwad Hoover during the Depression. Maddow at the same fire resolutely douses the blaze with water, regardless of whether it was electrical in origin.
Certain left-wing myths are so impervious to reality -- McCarthy chasing phantom communists, Reagan as amiable dunce, the doomed surge in Iraq -- that arguing with liberals about these sacrosanct beliefs is like trying to convert house plants. The best you can do is open them to sunlight.
When it comes to federal spending during Hoover's single term in office, 1929 to 1933, what actually happened? According to the Office of Budget and Management Web site, Table 1.1, just the opposite of what Maddow repeatedly claims.
Federal spending increased $166 million in 1929, or 5 percent. In 1930, it rose by $193 million over the preceding year, at 6 percent. The pattern continued in 1931, with an increase of $257 million, nearly 8 percent. And for 1932, it rose a whopping 30 percent, by $1.08 billion. All told, federal spending increased 57 percent in this four-year period, according to the OMB.
It was a "freeze" on spending much the way bitter cold is evidence of global warming, another laughable claim from the left.
Not surprisingly, Maddow relies on anecdote to make her shabby claim -- shanty towns dubbed "Hoovervilles" during the Depression -- instead of the "empirical evidence" she touted but never produced, given its pie-in-face potential for besmirking her dogma.
Maddow also gets it wrong about what current-day Republicans in Congress are proposing -- they want to "freeze" spending, which beyond MSNBC is universally understood to mean maintaining spending at current levels. This is hardly suggesting we "stop" spending.
An actual example of a politician determined to follow Hoover's lead by vastly increasing federal spending in an economic slump? Barack Obama.
The YMCA decided to keep moving forward with its plans to finish the Y at Eagle and Amity roads, adjacent to Hillsdale Elementary School, without a pool. The fitness center is scheduled to open May 25.
And now the Y is preparing to build the pool itself. Last week, Duro said a campaign will begin soon to collect $9 million to $10 million to build a pool building next to the west side of the new Y. Duro said the YMCA hopes to have pledges in place within 18 months.
It’s important, Duro said, that children in the fast-growing area learn how to swim so they can keep safe in the water. Idaho has the second-highest rate of drownings for children ages 1 to 5, trailing only Florida.
Pools also serve high school swimming programs, senior citizen and people who need exercise-based rehabilitation.
The new YMCA is about 6 miles southeast of the 12-year-old Homecourt Y at 936 Taylor Avenue, which includes a fitness studio, weights and four basketball courts. The city of Meridian paid the YMCA $4 million in 2016 to buy Homecourt and use it to expand the city’s community sports programs and class offerings. The Y used the proceeds to help pay for the South Meridian Y.
The new Y will be the fourth full-size YMCA in the Treasure Valley. The West Boise Y serves the most people, 20,000; followed by Caldwell, with nearly 17,000; Downtown Boise, 15,000; and Homecourt, 2,000. Only Homecourt lacks a pool.
The YMCA serves 55,000 members throughout the valley. Mike Kapuscinski, executive director for the South Meridian YMCA, said he hopes the Y will draw at least 1,900 families by December and 2,700 by the end of the first year, drawing from Meridian, Kuna and West Boise. Homecourt memberships will be transferred to the new Y.
The two-story, 60,000-square-foot building will include group-exercise studios with garage doors that can open during nice weather to allow participants to move outside. A four-level play structure called the Adventure Zone will encourage families to play together. There is a play room for children 7 and older and one for younger kids, and an indoor playground.
Fitness areas will include cardiovascular machines. The Y also includes a room with a teaching kitchen and an auditorium that can be separated into three rooms.
The Y is attached to the north side of Hillsdale Elementary School, which opened last fall. The school will share classroom space with the YMCA’s child development programs.
The Y also built a gym on the south end of the building that shares a common wall with the school. The gymnasium will provide space for Hillsdale physical education classes during the day and for YMCA basketball and other games after school, on weekends and during school breaks.
Security doors will prevent Y members from accessing the gym during school hours and will keep them out of the school when the gym is open for YMCA activities.
St. Luke’s Health System will operate an urgent care clinic and a separate wellness clinic in 8,000 square feet inside the building. In addition, the YMCA has partnered with the city to build a 10-acre city park. Hillsdale Park will include sports fields, a half-mile pathway, picnic shelters, benches meant to resemble hay bales and a playground with a toy tractor.
The Meridian Library District plans to build a library at the site, too.
The 23-acre site, known as The Hill, was part of a 160-acre first homesteaded in 1891, Angus Hill and his descendants raised sheep there. Hill’s grandson, Marti, and his partner, Dixie Cook, donated 15 acres for the school, park and YMCA. Brighton Corp., which is developing the Century Farm subdivision on former Hill land in the neighborhood, gave the West Ada School District land for the school.
“This is going to be the center of the community as far as family activities go,” Duro said.
The YMCA raised $18.5 million to open the Y, with contributions from companies, foundations, individuals and families.
Kapuscinski, the executive director, said he is eager for members to experience the new fitness center.
“I hope their first reaction will be, ‘finally,’ because they’ve been waiting for so long for a place like this,” he said.
Monthly membership fees are $25.90 for youths, $43.90 for adults, $74.90 for a family and $40.90 for seniors 65 and older.
The YMCA has a longstanding policy of not turning away people because of inability to pay. A quarter of the Treasure Valley’s YMCA members pay reduced fees or are admitted free, said David Duro, CEO and president of the Treasure Valley Family YMCA.
Tiger Woods may not be hitting the real links anytime soon, but an iPad version of EA's golf franchise would be able to show off the green in far greater detail.
Virtual air hockey gets more interesting when you move to bigger touch screens. While the iPad isn't table-size, we could see two people playing each other using a single iPad. Ping Pong and tennis could also get a boost when moving to the iPad.
Lots of folks are talking about how real-time strategy games would be well suited for porting to the iPad, making army mobilization as easy as pushing your finger. Big RTS franchises like Age of Empires and Civilization would be a great fit on a larger screen.
Yes, C&C is another RTS, but it's worth highlighting on its own as a more dynamic, action-oriented game with lots of simultaneous action. We'd also like to see Company of Heroes make its way onto the iPad.
While EA got its Need for Speed plug at launch, several iPhone racing titles should transition nicely over to the iPad. We like what 2XL has done on the iPhone and its racing games should get ported over quickly to the iPad. Jumbo versions of Mario Kart style titles like Shrek Karting should also make the jump.
During the iPad launch event, Apple made a big deal about showing an example of a driving game (Need for Speed) on the iPad. But Draw Race, an innovative iPhone game that has you trace the path of your car, would be even more fun on a bigger screen, especially if tracks could be double or triple the size.
Innovative puzzlers like Enigmo should definitely benefit from a move to a bigger screen, enabling even bigger Rube Goldberg-style kinetic events.
Board games like Monopoly, Life, and Trivial Pursuit have done very well on the iPhone. They'll make a nice transition to the iPad along with stuff like Battleship, turning the iPad into a killer app for multiplayer virtual board games. We're still waiting for Risk.
Popular Facebook games like Farmville seem primed for the bigger stage of the iPad. Resource management and icons will be much easier to depict on a 9.7-inch screen.
Field Runners has had a great run on the iPhone. Tower-defense-based games like these are no brainers for the iPad, and an enhanced version feels like a must.
Soccer's actually translated pretty well to the iPhone. Being able to see more of the field would obviously help. Same goes for games like NBA Live and Madden, which would also benefit from a larger screen for playcalling.
A larger screen for a game like Flight Control means opportunities for even more complicated flight paths and level designs, or even multiplayer single-pad gameplay.
Hybrid space sims/shooters that incorporate some real-time strategy elements, would play even better on a bigger screen, maybe even using pop-out control menus.
This tower-defense game would be bigger and even more challenging on the iPad.
There's been a YouTube video going around where some guys are playing Missile Command on a huge touch screen. The iPad's not that big, but Missile Command-style games would be more appealing on a larger screen.
Oregon Trail is decent on the iPhone, but with a larger device you could get more information on the screen and improve gameplay.
The iPhone has a few video pinball games, but the move to a larger screen would make these types of games much more appealing.
Adventure games like Secret of Monkey Island would certainly benefit from a boost in screen size. They're also ideal for touch-screen play.
This innovative iPhone adventure game that features a spider as the main character has received a lot of praise. Going bigger would make it that much better.
Shuffleboard games--at least certain ones--play pretty well on the iPhone. But more screen would definitely enhance the experience. This would also be true for bowling, Skee-ball, and carnival games like Ramp Champ (and possibly, after the Olympics, curling).
Sim City obviously would play much better on a larger screen, and the game's complicated data wouldn't be so squished.
Tilt-based games are sometimes hard to control on the iPhone and iPod Touch. While graduating to a large screen wouldn't necessarily make things easier, there's something about Super Monkey Ball that seems like a perfect fit for larger-scale controls.
The Sims feels a little played out at this point, but the iPhone version still did pretty well--and moving to a bigger screen would be nice.
The original version of this cult iPhone/iPod Touch hit used your fingers to pull off tricks--on a big screen, you could even develop a title with multiple boards and two-handed/multiplayer action.
There are already several takes on the classic tilting board game on the App Store, but an accelerometer-controlled version on a giant screen could finally be a true recreation of the larger-scale game we played in our basement in the 80s.
PopCap's monstrously addictive tower defense variant is already great on the iPhone, but the iPad would be an even better way of matching the feel of the PC/Mac original.
Cheap ports of classic strategy games abound in the App Store, but few are multiplayer-friendly. Updating a new version of Klaus Teuber's brilliant board game would allow for a much more board-game-like feel, and a multiplayer mode closer to the one on Xbox Live Arcade.
While Madden and NFL 2010 already aim to provide console-style football gaming on a handheld, free multiplayer casual games like Quick Hit Football take an armchair-quarterback top-down approach to play calling. Porting this to the iPad would be a perfect way to casually play tablet pigskin.
GTA: Chinatown Wars has been around the block, carrying its retro top-down gaming to the Nintendo DS, PSP and iPhone/iPod Touch. On the iPad, however, one could theoretically keep heads-up maps side by side with the action, or whole new submenus and screens for managing phone calls and e-mails while driving.
We'll admit it, we're still completely addicted to Peggle. The iPhone and iPod Touch version is admirable, but it squeezes a lot into a small space. Amping the graphics and animation in a full version would be fantastic.
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It's not just pumpkin spice lattes. Here are nine more pumpkin items to savor.
Pumpkin Spice Latte, found at Starbucks and other cafes.
Pumpkin Spice Oreos are one of the many cookie options.
I grew up in Detroit. I have the disease.
My first bout with it involved a 1977 Chevy Camaro that I purchased for a mere $100, an investment that was soon dwarfed by the cost of the Bondo required to patch the rust holes in the fenders, not to mention the spray paint that, for the first time in years, made the car one solid color — primer red. There were additional expenses — the carburetor that had to be rebuilt, and the valve cover gasket I had to replace. Then there was the exhaust manifold and muffler, and the alternator, and the radiator, and the hole in the floor on the passenger side, and the horn, and the plugs, and the battery ... My brother and I split entire summers between the restaurant where we waited tables, and the cars under which we slaved and slept.
Determined as I was to distance myself from the car-killer curse suffered by my father, my first car still became my first money pit. However, unlike my father, who took new cars and drove them until the wheels fell off (OK, the wheels actually fell off only one of the cars he owned), I was investing in an education. Every dollar I put into that beat-up old Camaro was more than matched in blood and sweat. And in return I received invaluable knowledge, as well as the ability to recognize any crooked auto repairman seconds after he suggests an unnecessary repair. But with this knowledge also came an affliction that is difficult to describe. And so, each year, I pay a visit to the Auto Show alone.
Despite the anticipation going in, most times I leave feeling drained and depressed. (The Big Three lost my attention about the time Ford transformed the Mustang into a hatchback.) This year was mostly more of the same in that regard, except for the Chevrolet Camaro concept car, a version of which is set to hit assembly lines in 2009, and showrooms in the 2010 model year — provided there's still a GM assembly line up and running next year. Not that I'll be in the market for one, but I might pretend long enough to take a test drive.
I took the camera along to the show on Saturday and put the photos together in the video slide show above. [The stills are online at this link].
* And if you go ... be sure to check out the Caraoke that VW set up inside a 2009 Beetle. It's posting videos directly to YouTube throughout the show and some of them are pretty damn funny.
Demi Moore and Bruce Willis Reunite for Daughter Rumer's 30th Birthday -- See the Pic!
Demi Moore and Bruce Willis came together on Thursday to celebrate their oldest daughter’s milestone birthday: Rumer turned 30!
The Dancing With the Stars champ celebrated with a sweet party attended by friends and family, including both her parents and little sisters Tallulah, 24, and Scout, 27. Tallulah took to Instagram to share adorable photo booth pics of herself with Moore and Willis in front of a playful pink background. The actors sandwich their youngest daughter in the snap, with Willis leaning in to give her a kiss on the forehead.
A video posted by Rumer's friend, Steph Matson Torres, shows that Willis in particular had a big part in his daughter's special day. He was right by her side as the guests sang "Happy Birthday."
The night before Rumer's party, Willis enjoyed a nice dinner with his three daughters. "Just before we took this photo my dad said, 'hurry up, I have to fart,'" Scout hilariously captioned a slideshow of pics taken outside the restaurant.
Rumer, Scout and Tallulah also spent time with their dad at Comedy Central's Roast of Bruce Willis last month -- where Moore made a surprise appearance to throw a few playful jabs her ex's way.
“Bruce is super generous. When our daughter Rumer was a baby and it was his turn to change the diaper in the middle of the night, he would lean over and whisper to me, ‘I’ll give you a thousand dollars right now if you change that diaper,'" she joked on stage.
As soon as I saw the poster announcing Dolores Huerta’s Thursday night speech, I immediately entered the event into my calendar. I had learned about Huerta’s work as a labor leader and civil rights leader, but did not know much more about her history.
Huerta’s name is more unknown than the activist who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association: César Chávez. However, her rallying cry is something many can recognize instantly: Sí, se puede — yes, it can be done.
Huerta said her first bout with activism was when she was a young girl in Girl Scouts, but she fully enveloped herself in activism after she became a teacher, when she frequently encountered farm worker families. Huerta helped lead the Stockton chapter of the Community Service Organization (CSO) in California soon after, where she aided voter registration efforts and lobbied the government to improve the local neighborhoods.