| SD Supreme Court Rules On Worker’s Comp Claim
The South Dakota Supreme Court says a man injured while working for a Sioux Falls landscaping company can get workers' compensation benefits because the company failed to show the accident was caused by the man's off-duty use of marijuana. The high court unanimously upheld the state Labor Department's decision to allow workers' compensation insurance to pay benefits for Thomas VanSteenwyk, who was hurt while working for Baumgartner Trees and Landscaping. Baumgartner argued that VanSteenwyk should not get workers' compensation benefits because his use of marijuana the night before the accident was a substantial factor in causing his injuries. But the Supreme Court agrees with the Labor Department's ruling that Baumgartner's expert witnesses failed to prove that marijuana was a substantial factor in the mishap.
Cote: A hand on the wheel of life
Let's get it out in the open. Miracle-Gro. Rebecca Kolls, Master Gardener and television personality, is paid to tout the stuff. Not that she's obnoxious about it; she doesn't slip the name of the product into every sentence, as in, "The tomato plant is thriving! It's a Miracle . . . Gro." But when she drops by the Rocky newsroom, two bags of the stuff accompany her, like loyal grubby friends. The one-time host of HGTV's Rebecca's Garden could be toting around bags of pig snot, and I wouldn't care. Kolls has informed me that she'll give me tips guaranteed to get my container garden thriving this year. "Gardening is changing," says Kolls, who gardens on 3 1/2 acres in Wisconsin. "The word alone conjures images of long weekends sweating and crossing our fingers that what we plant will grow.
Garden events for your calendar
Bronx: The Orchid Show: An Exhibition and Sale of Fine Orchids. Through April 8. $18, $16 seniors and students, $5 children. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. New York Botanical Garden, 200th Street and Kazimiroff Boulevard. 718-817-8700. Carmel: Spring Gardening School. Speaker: Marie Stella. Topic: How to Design Beautiful Gardens with Minimal Environmental Impact. Sponsor: Cornell Cooperative Extension. Registration. $25, $10 for box lunch. 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Putnam County Bureau of Emergency Services, 112 Old Route 6. 845-278-6738. Rye: Preparing a Butterfly Garden. Learn how to start your own butterfly garden and take home a native plant to get started. Free. 1 p.m. Edith G. Read Wildlife Sanctuary, Playland Parkway. 914-967-8720. Tarrytown: Garden Club of Irvington Rose Pruning Day.
Weapon Fizzles, De la Tour Cleans Up on London Stage: Matt Wolf
April 20 (Bloomberg) -- Anyone who thinks ideas no longer command pride of place on the London stage should head for ``Landscape With Weapon,'' the latest issues-based screed from Joe Penhall at the National Theatre. Whether they'll encounter an actual play is less clear. Not for the first time, a writer who hit it big in this same auditorium in 2000 with the polemical three-character work ``Blue/Orange'' has sacrificed the cut-and-thrust of drama to the hectoring ways of the debating chamber. There are flashes at the very beginning and end of a more human dimension to Penhall's various pairings of talking heads. But Roger Michell 's empathic staging, William Dudley's clever set bisecting the audience, can't in itself enliven what too often emerges as a protracted position paper on topics that, one would think, these particular characters had rehearsed long ago.
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