2012 Mule Days September 20-23

Benson, North Carolina celebrates Benson Mule Days® the 4th Saturday of September each year. The kickoff concert is held on Thursday night in the Benson Singing Grove (located in Downtown Benson).

This festival, which draws 40,000-50,000 people, is filled with family fun and activities for everyone young and old. The weekend is packed with rodeos, a mule pulling contest, arts and crafts, vendors, street dances, carnival rides, camping, parades, bluegrass shows and more.

The parade alone draws about 20,000 people. This festival is considered one of the largest festivals in North Carolina and the parade has hundreds of horses, mules, buggies, and unusual entries. Visitors come from as far away as Alaska, Germany and California.

Benson Mule Days® was inducted into the Library of Congress in Washington, DC in May of 2000. This festival was submitted by Congressman Bob Etheridge who attended the 50th celebration and served as a parade judge. The Chamber prepared information which will be on display at the Library of Congress and on their web-site.

A week prior to the beginning of this annual celebration a golf tournament is held at a local golf course, Reedy Creek. The tournament features a four man superball with prizes and a big cookout following a day of golfing. This is open to all levels of golfers except professionals.

Charleston SC - Museum Mile Weekend

Charleston's Museum Mile is located along and around a one-mile section of historic Meeting Street in Downtown Charleston. Cultural sites featured along Museum Mile include six museums, five nationally important historic houses, four scenic parks and a Revolutionary War powder magazine. Meeting Street is also home to many historic churches and public buildings.

Snow White and the Huntsman 2012 EXTENDED BDRip XviD AMIABLE

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Festival in the park

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL

ince 1964, Festival in the Park has been bringing good music, good art and good times to Charlotteans and visitors from around the world. The sounds of "big band music" drift across Freedom Park's lake whose still surface reflects the lights strung from Camelot exhibit tents.

The scents of a variety of food fill the air, as small children with painted faces happily produce their first art work. Others find the many talented artists who can create an original work of art to grace their home or to give as the perfect gift.

• Festival in the Park has been ranked as one of the Top 200 Festivals in the entire U.S. by Sunshine Artists Magazine.
• Festival in the Park is a non-profit organization, which relies on public and private donations for funding of its operations.
• The Festival offers interactive, educational and hands-on opportunities for all children.
• Except for one full-time office employee and several seasonal employees, the Festival is produced by volunteers and the co-operation of Mecklenburg County Park & Recreation.
• Volunteering at Festival is a great way to fulfill Community Service Hours required by many schools and businesses.
• Historically, Festival in the Park visitors typically exceed 100,000 visitors each year.
• Seventy-two percent of the Festival-goers live within Charlotte's city limits.
• Seventy-seven percent have come back from a previous year; fourteen percent interviewed have attended for twenty years.
• Exhibiting artists compete for cash prizes and ribbons.
• A majority of the artists who participate are from the Charlotte area and have won many awards on the national level at other festivals.
• Some artists come from as far away as Washington State and this year over 21 states are represented.
• Festival in the Park needs you to bring your special talent and participate as an artist, performer or as one of the many volunteers!

The DASH Diet Eating Plan

What Is the DASH Eating Plan?

Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) is a flexible and balanced eating plan. DASH was one of three eating plans that were compared in research studies sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). The goal of this research was to study the effects of diet on high blood pressure. The results showed that the DASH eating plan lowers blood pressure. The plan:

• Is low in saturated fat, cholesterol, and total fat
• Focuses on fruits, vegetables, and fat-free or low-fat dairy products
• Is rich in whole grains, fish, poultry, beans, seeds, and nuts
• Contains fewer sweets, added sugars and sugary beverages, and red meats than the typical American diet

 The DASH Diet for Weight Loss

While the DASH diet was originally developed as an eating style to help lower blood pressure, it has been found to be a fabulous plan for weight loss. The DASH Action Plan is famous for introducing the DASH diet for weight loss. Because it has an emphasis on real foods, heavy on fruits and vegetables, balanced with the right amount of protein, it provides the perfect weight loss foundation. It is filling and satisfying. Because it is healthy, you can follow it for your whole life. And it is a plan that you can feed your entire family, with larger portion sizes for those who don't need to watch their weight. It helps you easily lose weight, even though you feel as if you are not on a diet, and actually makes you healthier!

Daily Nutrient Goals Used in the DASH Studies (for a 2,000-Calorie Eating Plan)

Total fat	27% of calories
Saturated fat	6% of calories
Protein	18% of calories
Carbohydrate	55% of calories
Cholesterol	150 mg
Sodium	2,300 mg*
Potassium	4,700 mg
Calcium	1,250 mg
Magnesium	500 mg
Fiber	30 g

Specifically the DASH diet plan includes:

Type of food	Number of servings for 1600 - 3100 Calorie diets	Servings on a 2000 Calorie diet
Grains and grain products (include at least 3 whole grain foods each day)	6 - 12	7 - 8
Fruits	4 - 6	4 - 5
Vegetables	4 - 6	4 - 5
Low fat or non fat dairy foods	2 - 4	2 - 3
Lean meats, fish, poultry	1.5 - 2.5	2 or less
Nuts, seeds, and legumes	3 - 6 per week	4 - 5 per week
Fats and sweets	2 - 4	limit

How old is our planet Earth?

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets.

Circumference: 40,075 km

Distance from Sun: 149,600,000 km

Escape velocity: 11,190 km/s

Density: 5.52 g/cm³

Population: 6,840,507,003 (2010) World Bank

Moon: Moon

The age of the Earth is 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years (4.54 × 109 years ± 1%). This age is based on evidence from radiometric age dating of meteorite material and is consistent with the ages of the oldest-known terrestrial and lunar samples. Following the scientific revolution and the development of radiometric age dating, measurements of lead in uranium-rich minerals showed that some were in excess of a billion years old.

Hinduism: Age of the earth according to Vedic chronology

"The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales still." "A millennium before Europeans were willing to divest themselves of the Biblical idea that the world was a few thousand years old, the Mayans were thinking of millions and the Hindus billions." Dr. Carl Sagan, (1934-1996) famous astrophysicist

What does the Bible tell us about the age of the earth?

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). The question of the age of the earth has produced heated discussions on debate boards, classrooms, TV, radio, and in many churches, Christian colleges, and seminaries. The primary sides are: Young earth proponents (biblical age of the earth and universe of about 6,000 years) Old earth proponents (secular age of the earth of about 4.5 billion years and a universe about 14 billion years old)