Thursday, May 22, City Museum, 7:00 pm

Midwest Mayhem is back to rock the City Museum, Saint Louis’s most exciting and eclectic setting. From pop to blues to zydeco to country and beyond, the lineup reflects KDHX’s commitment to diversity, and the fun extends to face painting, dance and even a burlesque revue.

Twelve local bands – including So Many Dynamos, Gumbohead, Rough Shop, Caleb Travers, Chris Talley Trio, Alvin Jett and the Phat Noiz Blues Band, the Hibernauts, Dub Kitchen, Earthworms, Zimbabwe Nkenya, Jon Hardy and the Public, and the Feed -- will perform at this annual party for the public. The Alley Cat Revue, Saint Louis’s premier burlesque troupe, will be strutting their stuff and adding to the merriment.

Inside a 600,000 square-foot building, once home to the International Shoe Company, the City Museum is a self-described "children's playground, funhouse, surrealistic pavilion, and architectural marvel made out of unique, found objects." It is located at 701 North 15th Street in downtown Saint Louis.

Midwest Mayhem takes place at the City Museum on Thursday, May 22, 2008 from 7:00 pm until 1:00 am. Tickets will be available at the door for $15. If you donated $50 or higher during our Spring Membership Drive, your ticket(s) will arrive in the mail. All proceeds benefit KDHX Community Media (88.1 FM and TV 21 22).
 

The Amnesia nightclub was the venue of an adrenaline-charged, alcohol-soaked Vybz Rum Party on Saturday night that ended with deejay Vybz Kartel, head of the Portmore Empire, being arrested for use of indecent language after cursing repeatedly during his performance.

He will appear in the Ocho Rios Resident Magistrates’ court on February 5.

Hpnotiq Qrew understands that the party, which attracted a large turnout from the area, went on until well after 7 a.m on Sunday when the superintendent of police for the area came to lock off the sound. Vybz Kartel, who was having a great time, begged the superintendent for more time and even told the patrons to ‘big up the supe’ and then sang ‘Empire Army’ before leaving the club. However, he did not get far and was later arrested for the use of indecent language. He was bailed a few hours later.

The party was sponsored by Vybz Rum. There were performances from other members of the Portmore Empire like Deva Brat,Doza Medicine, Blak Ryno, Sean Storm and of course, the CP Inc.

- Written By Flava D

By Sharon L. Peters, Special for USA TODAY 

At Stray Rescue of St. Louis, every inch of two tiny buildings is devoted to accommodating strays that have been plucked from the streets and are being nursed into adoptability. The "office" exists in name only; it houses dogs, so the staff does paperwork at home. Anyone who uses the bathroom shares it with Josephine, a shepherd mix who is assigned that space.

Today, Stray Rescue — which specializes in capturing and rehabilitating dumped or abandoned street dogs — will be declared the winner of a $1 million makeover, a windfall exceeding its $800,000 annual budget and an amount rarely heard of in the shelter world.

"My first thought was that Josephine won't have to live in the bathroom much longer," says Stray Rescue founder Randy Grim. He was informed of the win Saturday (and sworn to secrecy until today) by Richard Thompson, multimillionaire founder of Zootoo, an online community created in October to convene animal lovers and to wage a national competition for animal shelters.

The $1 million prize includes money, goods and services provided through Zootoo.

"It's been an uphill struggle for a lot of years," Grim says. "Now I feel like we can climb to the top of the mountain and stick the flag in." He can now renovate a 16,500-square-foot building donated in November. It's still unused: He'd raised only $700,000 of the $3 million needed to reconfigure it for animals and to accommodate the four animal-welfare groups he invited to share the space.

"Things can happen really fast now," he says, and the non-profit will be able to save many more than the 2,000 strays a year it now rescues, treats ($500,000 a year goes to medical care), socializes and adopts out.

The makeover runners-up, Humane Society of the Ohio Valley in Marietta, Ohio, and Jefferson County SPCA in Watertown, N.Y., will receive $20,000 and $10,000 respectively. They were among nearly 1,000 shelters in a hotly contested five-month online competition. Shelters earned points whenever a supporter accessed zootoo.com and posted pet videos, shared training tips, discussed pet news or reviewed pet products.

Thompson declared Stray Rescue the winner because it demonstrates features that could make it a "national model," including collaborative relationships with other animal-welfare groups; "a community that has rallied behind it and a mayor who has taken a leadership role" by calling on local unions to donate energies to the renovation; a new location in the heart of town; and a large, loyal volunteer corps.

Animal-loving benefactor

Thompson, an entrepreneur who amassed great wealth (he was chief executive of Meow Mix for years and made millions when it was sold), decided last year that he wanted to do something to help shelter animals. Rather than simply donate money, he devised a plan to create a site where pet lovers could meet, share information and ideas, and at the same time learn about and support their local shelters. He ponied up millions, got a few investors and hired 36 staffers last fall.

In the final weeks of the competition, shelters were in a neck-and-neck race that shifted their positions in the top 20 almost hourly. Although conventional wisdom suggested that all the leaders would be massive shelters in big population centers, 17 of the top 20 were in small communities — including The Second Chance Animal Shelter in East Brookfield, Mass. (population 2,097) and the Humane Society of Madison County in London, Ohio (population 8,771).

Thompson visited all 20 finalists to gain more information, including structure or infrastructure needs; the likely outcome of investing $1 million in goods, services and expertise; and the level of ongoing community support.

He was greeted by huge crowds, cheerleading teams and elected officials. Bagpipers entertained him in West Virginia, there was a police escort in Marietta, and in some communities, school was canceled so children could attend. Emotional shelter directors told him that even if they didn't receive the $1 million, they were grateful because the competition had brought community focus to their facility, increasing contributions and volunteers. "Adoptions and donations are up 14% to 20% at some," says Thompson, who calls shelter workers "heroic."

A personal mission

Stray Rescue's Grim, a former flight attendant, began coaxing street dogs out of their perilous existence two decades ago. When he could house no more, he would "comb the real estate ads for empty houses with fenced-in yards where I could stash dogs until I could find temporary housing for them," he says. In 1998, he formalized his activities, forming the non-profit.

It can take months to get a street dog family-ready. Addressing health problems — 80% have heartworm, many have treatable venereal cancer, some have a missing ear or eye or leg (or they're surgically removed because of injuries or infections) — often entails weeks convalescing in one of the two little buildings Grim calls the ICUs. Once they are healthy, they go home with a volunteer who works on socialization.

Though most are feral or semi-feral, Stray Rescue deals with three other categories of dogs: pregnant females; injured strays, many hit by cars or bullets; and pets abandoned in houses and apartments. The shelter also finds new homes for 200 cats a year.

St. Louis has 40,000 dogs living on the streets, and Grim wants them all. "Man created these situations, and man needs to fix them."

Release Date: 06/05/2008

SNS Ships New Evo (Fibre Channel, 10Gb iSCSI and NAS) Shared Storage System

Latest Advancement in Shared Storage for Post-Production Workgroups Offers Fibre Channel, 10Gb iSCSI SAN and NAS in One Box St. Louis, Missouri – June 5, 2008 – Studio Network Solutions (SNS), a premier provider of post-production storage systems, today announced that its recently introduced shared storage system, Evo, is now shipping with additional new features.

The new Evo offers file sharing, volume sharing, Fibre Channel, iSCSI, NAS, and up to 24 Terabytes per system. Each unit now also includes Postmap, a powerful metadata management application that lets users tag and quickly locate files on the storage system.

Evo’s integration of SAN and NAS enables everyone in a workgroup to edit, share and review projects, media and other large files using the most appropriate connection type for the assigned task. The Evo shared storage system is compatible with Final Cut Pro, Avid, Adobe Premiere Pro, Pro Tools, and most similar applications for Mac and PC.

“Customers who choose Evo will have the latest in advanced shared storage systems, providing an array of advantages over the usual SAN-only or NAS-only products,” comments Eric Newbauer, Vice President of Studio Network Solutions. “The out-of-box performance alone is remarkable, but having everything tightly integrated into one easily expandable product makes Evo the perfect storage solution for many video and sound editing professionals.”

Evo easily expands to accommodate more storage capacity, additional users and increased performance. It offers Fibre Channel and Ethernet ports for direct connection of up to ten computers – without a switch. A 10Gb Ethernet option is also available for users who require the absolute maximum bandwidth.

Evo is incredibly versatile, and among its list of advanced features it even offers the ability to bridge existing Fibre Channel storage over iSCSI or NAS. Bridging offers customers the capability to re-purpose their older storage, such as an Xserve RAID, and extend it over long distances with Ethernet.

Evo is available from SNS resellers worldwide. For more information, please contact SNS or visit www.studionetworksolutions.com