LAKEPORT, Calif. – Join Sponsoring Survivorship in celebrating 20 years of serving Lake County and supporting local residents with breast cancer at its annual walk/run on Saturday, Oct. 1.

The fundraiser event will take place at Bank of America in Main Street in Lakeport beginning at 8:30 a.m., rain or shine.

Each year Sponsoring Survivorship's efforts have proven that we can all contribute to the battle against breast cancer.

For the past 20 years, Sponsoring Survivorship, has assisted local women and men with some of the costs associated with their struggle against breast cancer.

The cancer journey is sometimes lonely and frustrating. It also can be an opportunity for friendship, support, personal growth, humor and fulfillment.

The quality of our lives and our struggles can be defined by those who we see as our friends and to whom we offer our friendship and our support.

Sponsoring Survivorship is proud to call Lake County home and is grateful for its network of volunteers who support its mission.

More details are available at: http://www.sponsoringsurvivorship.com .

For a look at a previous Sponsoring Survivorship event, see the video above.

MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Middletown Lunch will host Middletown Unified School District Superintendent Catherine Stone as the speaker at the group's meeting on Wednesday, June 15.

The meeting will take place from noon to 1 p.m. at the Middletown Senior Center, 21256 Washington St.

Stone became the Middletown Unified School District Superintendent in June of 2015.

Assuming any new position of leadership requires a learning curve, but Stone's learning curve increased exponentially on Sept. 12, 2015, when the Valley fire began.

Her first year as MUSD's superintendent was a true trial by fire, a thorough test of her abilities and character under pressure. The reports are that she passed with flying colors.

Come meet Stone and hear how the schools and district are doing, what they've accomplished this year and what they're looking forward to in the 2016-17 school year.

For only $5 per person, enjoy spaghetti, zucchini and French bread.

Reservations are required. Please call 707-987-3113 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more information or to make a reservation before 6 pm Tuesday. After Tuesday evening, please call the senior center, 707-987-3113.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced the launch of the Veterans Legacy Program to memorialize veterans’ service and sacrifice through public educational programming. 

The program uses the rich resources found throughout VA national cemeteries, soldiers’ lots and monument sites. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert A. McDonald announced the program yesterday during a Memorial Day ceremony at Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, California.

 “The Veterans Legacy Program is meant to bring to life the stories of veterans buried in VA national cemeteries through lesson plans, interactive maps and video vignettes,” said Secretary McDonald. “Behind every marker is a story – a story of what it meant to be a Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Marine and Coast Guardsman at a particular moment in time. Our goal is to ensure that our nation does not forget their stories and their sacrifice.”

Using online educational products such as lesson plans, interactive maps and short video vignettes, VA, through the Veterans Legacy Program, will engage the general public, students and educators. 

VA launched this initiative earlier this year at two pilot sites: Beaufort National Cemetery in South Carolina and Riverside National Cemetery in California.

Over the next several years, online educational products and programs will be developed for all VA national cemeteries.    

VA has also formed a partnership with the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) to co-sponsor a “Teachers Institute,” a workshop for educators who will conduct research at VA and ABMC cemeteries. Information about the program may be found at www.cem.va.gov/cem/legacy/.

More than four million Americans, including veterans of every war and conflict, are buried in VA’s 133 national cemeteries.

VA also provides funding to establish, expand, improve, and maintain 100 veterans cemeteries in 47 states and territories including tribal trust lands, Guam and Saipan.

For veterans not buried in a VA national cemetery, VA provides headstones, markers or medallions to commemorate their service.

In 2015, VA honored more than 353,000 veterans and their loved ones with memorial benefits in national, state, tribal and private cemeteries.

Information on VA burial benefits is available from local VA national cemetery offices at www.cem.va.gov or by calling VA regional offices toll-free at 800-827-1000. 

For more information about the history of VA national cemeteries, visit www.cem.va.gov/history .

I am willing to guess that not a lot of people tuned into the six episodes of the international crime thriller “The Last Panthers” that had its run most recently on the Sundance Channel.

Fortunately, Acorn, specializing in world-class television from Britain and other foreign territories, has released the entire series about a thrilling jewel thief drama on DVD and Blu-ray for the convenience of your viewing pleasure.

While smartly written and coolly compelling as a complex character-driven crime thriller, having “The Last Panthers” on home entertainment allows one the ability to either pause to catch a breath or even replay some key scenes that may require a second look.

Shot in seven countries and five languages, this thrilling reinvention of the heist drama demands close attention to the English subtitles, except when British insurance adjuster Naomi (Samantha Morton) and former MI-6 offer Tom Kendle (John Hurt) spar over the investigation.

The six-episode series is a travelogue from the underbelly of the French port city of Marseilles to the dark corners of Hungary and the war-torn Balkan territories of the former Yugoslavia. Serbian bad guys are particularly nasty criminals.

Patterned after the real-life fearsome criminal organization of the Pink Panthers, “The Last Panthers” opens with a Marseilles jewel heist orchestrated by Milan (Goran Bogdan) that bears the hallmarks of the gang believed to be retired.

The getaway is botched by one of Milan’s hired thieves as he kills a young girl during a shootout with police, and as result, the stolen diamonds are considered virtually untouchable to anyone that might buy the purloined goods.

Meanwhile, French-Algerian cop Khalil Rachedi (Tahar Rahim), having grown up in the Marseilles ghetto with a keen insight into criminal behavior, doggedly pursues a police investigation that gets hobbled by bureaucracy as well as conflict with the British insurance investigators.

“The Last Panthers,” though a crime story with complex characters, is a gripping look at the dark side of illicit activities in Europe. Often complicated in scope, the series demands your careful attention but the payoff makes it worthwhile.

TNT Cable dives into the complicated nature of a crime family that is run by a matriarch in “Animal Kingdom,” in this case Ellen Barkin’s Janine “Smurf” Cody, a grandmother with a habit of lounging around the house with her adult sons while wearing a bikini top more appropriate to a woman half her age.

Meanwhile, her four sons range from the oldest and most dangerous Pope (Shawn Hatosy), returning home from a stint in prison and eager for the next heist, to Scott Speedman’s Baz, the second son with a girlfriend seemingly anxious to have him out of the family business.

The two other sons are Craig (Ben Robson) and Darren (Jake Weary), and the family unit adds on another member when Smurf’s grandson Josh (Finn Cole) moves in after his mother dies from a heroin overdose.

“Animal Kingdom” appears to have a small budget for wardrobe, as most of Smurf’s sons run around shirtless as if they were auditioning for modeling jobs at Abercrombie & Fitch. But then they reside in Oceanside, surfing on most days while intimidating those trying to share the ocean.

As a family unit, the Codys are an unruly bunch of criminals given to thuggish and reckless behavior, which is evident from a careless robbery in the first episode that doesn’t go smoothly, to say the least.

Tensions simmer in the Cody clan, especially when Pope becomes agitated when his mother insists that he should remain on the sidelines for an upcoming heist, considering he’s fresh out of prison and perhaps a bit rusty.

“Animal Kingdom” will have a ten-episode run over the course of the summer. From the first look at the opening episode, I am not completely convinced that I will stay engaged to the end, but my curiosity is likely to give the second installment a chance.

“Gridlocked,” an intense action thriller with a high body count in its energetic shootouts, is not likely to be found in movie theaters or even television, unless it appears as a video on demand.

This high-octane crime thriller does, however, bring the kind of crowd-pleasing explosive action and extreme fight scenes that turns “Gridlocked” into a natural straight-to-video entertainment.

Former SWAT leader David Hendrix (Dominic Purcell of “Prison Break”) is down on his luck and has failed to receive medical clearance after taking a bullet on the job.

He’s now stuck at a routine NYPD job and is not too happy about his demotion from the Strategic Response Team, or SRT.

To make matters worse, this tough guy cop is forced to babysit Brody Walker (Cody Hackman), an obnoxious hard-partying celebrity who’s been sent on a mandatory ride-along as part of his probation.

Hendrix and his charge end up visiting the cop’s old crew at a remote SRT training outpost, only to arrive just in time for an assault from vicious mercenaries under the command of a corrupt former military operative (Stephen Lang).

“Gridlocked” is an unrepentant B-movie display of violence perpetrated by relentless machine-gun shootouts that are easily forgettable soon after viewing.

By the way, Danny Glover shows up as an SRT facility guard in what can only be for the reason of an easy payday.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

LOWER LAKE, Calif. – The Lake County Democratic Club will hold its monthly meeting on Tuesday, June 14. 

There will be a short business meeting at 6:30 p.m. in the social hall of the Lower Lake Community United Methodist Church, 16255 Second St.

The meeting will be followed by a potluck dinner. Feel free to bring a dish to share and enjoy an evening of socializing with Lake County friends and neighbors as they discuss the outcome of the June primary.

Meetings are open to the public. Membership is open to all registered Democrats.

The Lake County Democratic Club is an officially chartered club of the Democratic Party of Lake County.

For more information visit www.lakecountydemocraticclub.org or contact the club at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – All branches of the Lake County Library system will be closed Saturday, July 2, to observe Independence Day.

Normal hours at all branches will resume on Tuesday, July 5.

Even though the library will be closed you can still go online to the library Web site at http://library.lakecountyca.gov to download ebooks, audiobooks and magazines.

You can also check on your account, renew any items you have checked out or requests books from libraries in Lake, Sonoma and Mendocino to pick up at your local branch when the library does reopen.

Call your local branch if you have any questions.

Lakeport Library, located at 1425 N. High St., is open Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. The phone number is 707-263-8817.

Redbud Library, 14785 Burns Valley Road, Clearlake, is open Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Wednesday, noon to 7 p.m. The phone number is 707-994-5115.

Middletown Library, 21256 Washington St., is open Tuesday through Friday, noon to 5 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The phone number is 707-987-3674.

Upper Lake Library, 310 Second St., is open Tuesday through Friday, noon to 5 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The phone number is 707-275-2049.

If you rage with frustration during a marital spat, watch your blood pressure. If you keep a stiff upper lip, watch your back.

New research from the University of California, Berkeley, and Northwestern University, based on how couples behave during conflicts, suggests outbursts of anger predict cardiovascular problems later in life.

Conversely, shutting down emotionally or “stonewalling” during conflict raises the risk of musculoskeletal ailments such as a bad back or stiff muscles.

“Our findings reveal a new level of precision in how emotions are linked to health, and how our behaviors over time can predict the development of negative health outcomes,” said UC Berkeley psychologist Robert Levenson, senior author of the study.

Link stronger for husbands

The study, published today in the journal Emotion, is based on 20 years of data. It controlled for such factors as age, education, exercise, smoking, alcohol use and caffeine consumption.

Overall, the link between emotions and health outcomes was most pronounced for husbands, but some of the key correlations were also found in wives. It did not take the researchers long to guess which spouses would develop ailments down the road based on how they reacted to disagreements.

“We looked at marital-conflict conversations that lasted just 15 minutes and could predict the development of health problems over 20 years for husbands based on the emotional behaviors that they showed during these 15 minutes,” said study lead author Claudia Haase, an assistant professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University.

The findings could spur hotheaded people to consider such interventions as anger management, while people who withdraw during conflict might benefit from resisting the impulse to bottle up their emotions, the researchers said.

“Conflict happens in every marriage, but people deal with it in different ways. Some of us explode with anger; some of us shut down,” Haase said. “Our study shows that these different emotional behaviors can predict the development of different health problems in the long run.”

Studying longtime couples

The study is one of several led by Levenson, who looks at the inner workings of long-term marriages. Participants are part of a cohort of 156 middle-aged and older heterosexual couples in the San Francisco Bay Area whose relationships Levenson and fellow researchers have tracked since 1989.

The surviving spouses who participated in the study are now in their 60s, 70s, 80s and even 90s.

Each five years, the couples were videotaped in a laboratory setting as they discussed events in their lives and areas of disagreement and enjoyment. Their interactions were rated by expert behavioral coders for a wide range of emotions and behaviors based on facial expressions, body language and tone of voice.

In addition, the spouses completed a battery of questionnaires that included a detailed assessment of specific health problems.

In this latest study, the researchers focused on the health consequences of anger and an emotion-suppressing behavior they refer to as “stonewalling.” The study also looked at sadness and fear as predictors of these health outcomes, but did not find any significant associations.

“Our findings suggest particular emotions expressed in a relationship predict vulnerability to particular health problems, and those emotions are anger and stonewalling,” Levenson said.

Raised voices, knitted brows

To track displays of anger, the researchers monitored the videotaped conversations for such behaviors as lips pressed together, knitted brows, voices raised or lowered beyond their normal tone and tight jaws.

To identify stonewalling behavior, they looked for what researchers refer to as “away” behavior, which includes facial stiffness, rigid neck muscles, and little or no eye contact. That data was then linked to health symptoms, measured every five years over a 20-year span.

The spouses who were observed during their conversations to fly off the handle more easily were at greater risk of developing chest pain, high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems over time.

Alternately, those who stonewalled by barely speaking and avoiding eye contact were more likely to develop backaches, stiff necks or joints and general muscle tension.

“For years, we’ve known that negative emotions are associated with negative health outcomes, but this study dug deeper to find that specific emotions are linked to specific health problems,” Levenson said. “This is one of the many ways that our emotions provide a window for glimpsing important qualities of our future lives.”

In addition to Levenson and Haase, co-authors and researchers on the study are Sarah Holley at San Francisco State University, Lian Bloch at Stanford University and Alice Verstaen at UC Berkeley. The study was funded by grants from the National Institute on Aging and the German Research Foundation.

Yasmin Anwar writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Medical Assistant Program offered through the Lake County Office of Education honored its latest graduates at a ceremony last week.

On Thursday, May 9, students, families and staff gathered at the Cornelison Center in Clearlake to celebrate the course completion of 18 students.

Tammy Serpa, education specialist of the Career & College Readiness Department, welcomed the crowd of more than 200 as she thanked Superintendent Brock Falkenberg for his continued support of career technical education in the county.

Dr. Elyse Donald addressed the students as she prompted them to always remember that they do not get to choose their patients and to practice their new trade with empathy.

Following Donald, family nurse practitioner Christine Dalva shared her inspirational message of medicine as a holistic approach to wellness.

Each student was individually recognized by instructors Diedra Lagle and Mandy Robbins for their unique traits including courage, assertiveness and compassion.

Graduates Charlotte Horton, Salutatorian Savanah Vargo and Valedictorian Monica Collins shared their words of wisdom as they each gave a speech expressing their struggles, successes, fears and joys during their journey to complete this comprehensive program.

Whether it was a lack of sleep, overuse of highlighters, medical tragedies or missing family events, student speakers reminded the audience that each student sacrificed something to get to this moment.

Certificates of completion were presented to the graduates by LCOE Coordinator Norma Cromwell, Serpa, Lagle and Robbins.

Although externships, finals and graduation are now behind them, these students still have one more hurdle. Soon they will sit for their national certification exams with the National Center for Competency Testing. Passage of this exam will earn them the right to enter the workforce as Certified Medical Assistants.

Special thanks was offered to Konocti Education Center Principal Jeff Dixon for the use of the facility and being the sound guy for the night, as well as to Walmart of Clearlake for loaning the beautiful plants that were used to decorate the stage.

The Lake County Office of Education is currently taking applications for the next Medical Assistant Program class starting in August.

For more information on the Medical Assistant Program, contact Tammy Serpa at 707-262-8918, Extension 287, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit www.lakecoe.org .

When it comes to “gun legislation,” not all politicians are liars; it’s just that about 90 percent of them give the other 10 percent a bad name!

It never ceases to amaze me how many “gun control” bills are written and passed merely on the basis of what our senators “think they know” or are told by other “anti-gun” politicians or the media. Many of them are deliberately lying for the purpose of their own personal agenda.

Responsible gun owners are tired of hearing comments like:

– “Ninety-nine percent of Americans want stricter gun laws.”
– “The AR-15 rifle is a 'military style assault weapon that sprays bullets'.”
– “The AR-15 stands for 'assault rifle'.”
– “The 'bullet button' on an AR-15 makes magazine changes in the blink of an eye.”
– “These new 'plastic pistols' can’t be detected at airport security and can be produced on a cheap 3-D printer.”
– and, the popular “high capacity magazines for handguns.”

It’s sickening that so many politicians are repeating this garbage when they truly have no real knowledge of firearms and/or how to even handle a firearm.

Most of them want stricter gun laws for the working class Americans, yet they (and their entire families) are protected 24 hours a day … with guns.

I am wise enough to know that people who are definitely “pro-gun” or “anti-gun” will most likely not change their point of view. I am directing this to address the “neutral” population and those who fall into the category of “ignorance” regarding gun ownership.

Ignorance is not a bad thing – it just means you have not been educated on the facts.

If you have been informed of the facts but continue to stick your head in the sand, well, then most likely you are an idiot and I can’t help you there!

The worst offenders are people who have been educated with facts but deliberately lie to the American people because they have their own agenda of how we should live. Continually repeating these lies does not make it true, it just makes you a chronic liar.

Fact No. 1: When you hear a statement like “the polls show 99 percent of Americans want stricter gun laws,” that is a lie. What they mean is, a poll was paid for by billionaire Michael Bloomberg and results were obtained from his “anti-gun” organizations.

Fact No. 2: The AR-15 rifle was never designed for the military. It was designed for the civilian market and does not “spray bullets” like a military weapon.

Fact No. 3: The “AR” does not stand for “assault rifle” and it is not an assault weapon. The “AR” was merely the letter designation of the manufacturer, “Armalite”; the same as Glock designates their pistol models with “G-17” or Sig Sauer designates their models starting with “P-938.”

Fact No. 4: The “Bullet Button” (prior legislation made it mandatory on a AR-15 in California) is extremely hard to manipulate, especially under stress. It cannot be depressed in the “blink of an eye.” I challenge anyone to come out to the range and demonstrate how fast they can manipulate this device to change magazines.

Fact No. 5: These so-called “plastic pistols” most certainly can be detected at airports and security screening facilities and in no way be completely produced with a 3-D printer. If you are anti-gun and believe this, you should “print one” and test fire it yourself. You are more of an idiot than I thought!

Fact No. 6: The “standard capacity” magazines for most handguns today is 12 rounds, 13 rounds, 15 or even 17 rounds. The “high capacity” magazines are the 34-round, 50-round or 100-round. Our California anti-gun politicians gave the term “high capacity” magazines to any magazine that holds more than 10 rounds.

I suggest you get out to your local gun range and get the facts for yourself. Even if you don’t want to own a firearm or participate in the shooting sports, at least get out to the range or talk to one of the range officers of our local law enforcement and get the facts.

Tim Prather lives in Cobb, Calif.