Wednesday, April 30, 2014


News Clips For The Day


Mystery Oregon Corpse Could be Oldest Missing Man Marvin A. Clark
NBC News' Alexander Smith contributed to this report.
— The Associated Press
First published April 30 2014

Forensic DNA sleuths may be close to finding the truth behind one of the oldest unsolved missing persons cases in U.S. history.

The breakthrough will be too late for Marvin A. Clark, who vanished during a trip to Portland on Halloween weekend 1926 and would be more than 160 years old were he alive today, according to a report Wednesday by The Associated Press.

The case has been cold for 90 years but investigators have used modern DNA technology and several online databases to find three great-great-grandchildren on Clark's paternal side.

They are now working to locate someone on his mother's side to shore up the results.

Clark was a "well-known" Tigard, Ore., resident who went missing while traveling by bus to visit his daughter in Portland on Oct. 30, 1926, according to The Oregonian newspaper at the time. He was reportedly between 60 and 75 years old.

A frantic search and a $100 reward — more than $1,300 in today's money — returned no results, despite police across the Northwest being told to look out for Clark, who was partially paralyzed and had a "hanging gait."
Then 60 years later, on May 10, 1986 loggers in Portland discovered a skeleton alongside some unusual belongings: a 1888 V nickel, a 1919 penny, a pocket watch, leather shoes, wire-rimmed glasses, a Fraternal Order of Eagles pocket knife, and four tokens with the inscription "D&P," believed to be tavern tokens awarded in card games and used to buy alcohol.

Police also found a corroded revolver, and an expended .32-caliber bullet. A single shot had entered the skull at the temple. Medical examiners, who said at the time said it was the oldest case they ever had, ruled the unknown man's death a suicide.

The case went cold again. That was until Dr. Nici Vance, of the Oregon state medical examiner's office, made the recent breakthrough when she entered Clark's name into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), a free system used by officials to try to put names to unidentified corpses.




1926 was the year Marvin Clark disappeared while on a bus trip to Portland, OR to see his daughter. He was slightly disabled, being partially paralyzed and walking with a limp. Despite a modest reward for information there was no sign of him until 1986 when some loggers found a skeleton with a bullet hole in the skull and some small possessions. That skeleton was investigated by police, but it was decided that it was a suicide. That sounds unlikely to me if he was on his way to see his daughter. A pistol, some wire rimmed glasses, a pocket watch, two old coins, a pocket knife and some bar tokens were found with the body.

Recently, Dr. Nici Vance of the state medical examiner's office has taken up the case. Forensic DNA testing is underway to confirm his identity. It is not said in this article how Vance matched his name to the body. Perhaps it was on the Fraternal Order of Eagles pocketknife. She did find some relatives on his father's side for DNA matching. Hopefully the family will have some answers soon.




Archaeologists Discover Lost Cities in Cold War Spy Imagery -- NBC
By Alan Boyle
First published April 29 2014

An exhaustive survey of decades-old spy satellite pictures has turned up thousands of previously unknown archaeological sites — including the vestiges of lost cities.

The revelations come from the CORONA Atlas of the Middle East, a database of annotated Cold War imagery that received its formal unveiling last week at the Society for American Archaeology's annual meeting in Austin, Texas.
"The thing that's most exciting about this is the bigger picture that we're getting from mapping the region," University of Arkansas archaeologist Jesse Casana, a co-director of the project, told NBC News. "Within our study area in the Northern Fertile Crescent, we've documented 15,000 sites, and only a third of those have previously ever been even rudimentarily documented. Only a tiny number have been excavated."

The black-and-white images, spanning areas that stretch from Egypt to Iran, were captured by the United States' CORONA spy satellite in the 1960s and early 1970s, and declassified in 1995.

Casana and his colleagues at the University of Arkansas' Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies have been rectifying the raw CORONA images and checking them for the telltale signs of bygone settlements.

Today's satellites provide higher-resolution, full-color views of the same areas, but the CORONA imagery comes from a time when the Middle East's ancient sites were less disturbed by modern development. "It preserves the picture of a landscape that in many cases no longer exists," Casana said.

One of the CORONA pictures reveals the circular outline of a 370-acre (120-hectare) fortified city at Tell Rifaat in Syria. That outline "was never documented by archaeologists, and now is covered by the modern city," Casana said. Another picture shows what appears to be a previously undocumented 125-acre (50-hectare) city in south-central Turkey. That settlement probably dates back to the Bronze Age, more than 3,000 years ago.

Many of the newly recognized sites may well get a closer look, but the CORONA Atlas also shows how ancient settlements were distributed on a large scale, even in places where archaeologists can't go. "We can map the extent of settlements outside survey boundaries and across national boundaries," Casana said.




“The revelations come from the CORONA Atlas of the Middle East, a database of annotated Cold War imagery that received its formal unveiling last week at the Society for American Archaeology's annual meeting in Austin, Texas.” Apparently, until now, archaeologists either hadn't thought of using the photographs or they were still classified and unavailable. They have been using aerial photos for at least 15 or 20 years.

University of Arkansas archaeologist Jesse Casana, said that 15,000 sites have been documented in these pictures, only a third of which were known before, with even fewer being excavated. The Fertile Crescent is, of course, the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers where the Semitic tribes including the Jews first came to develop cities and national identities. “Today's satellites provide higher-resolution, full-color views of the same areas, but the CORONA imagery comes from a time when the Middle East's ancient sites were less disturbed by modern development. "It preserves the picture of a landscape that in many cases no longer exists," Casana said.

Every now and then a really big scoop occurs in archeology – the famous “Ice Man” of the Alps, King Tut's tomb, or Heinrich Schliemann's excavation of Hissarlik, believed to be the ancient city of Troy from the Homeric poems. To people who love old things it is always very exciting, and opens up the possibility of some totally new knowledge about human history. In England archeologists took aerial photos of primitive plow marks in a field, believed to be from the New Stone Age. Many sites in the Fertile Crescent go back that far, too. Hopefully these photos will stimulate lots of new excavations and interesting stories in the news.




Ukraine "unable" to stop pro-Russia militants in eastern regions, President Oleksandr Turchynov says -- NBC
AP April 30, 2014


HORLIVKA, Ukraine -- Ukraine's police and security forces are "helpless" to quell unrest in two eastern regions bordering Russia, and in some cases are cooperating with pro-Russian gunmen who have seized scores of government buildings and taken people hostage, the country's president said Wednesday.

Oleksandr Turchynov said the goal now was to prevent the agitation from spreading to other territories.
"I will be frank: Today, security forces are unable to quickly take the situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions under control," Turchynov said at a meeting with regional governors.

"The security bodies ... are unable to carry out their duties of protecting citizens. They are helpless in those matters. Moreover, some of those units are either helping or cooperating with terrorist organizations."

Turchynov instructed the governors to try to prevent the threat from spreading to more central and southern regions.
He spoke hours after pro-Russian gunmen seized more administrative buildings in eastern Ukraine. Insurgents wielding automatic weapons took control and hoisted a separatist flag on top of the city council building Wednesday morning in the city of Horlivka in the Donetsk region. They also took control of a police station in the city, adding to another police building which they had controlled for several weeks.

An Associated Press reporter saw armed men standing guard outside the building and checking the documents of those entering. One of the men said that foreign reporters will not be allowed in and threatened to arrest those don't obey orders. Similar guards were also seen outside the police station in the city.

The insurgents now control buildings in about a dozen cities in eastern Ukraine, demanding broader regional rights as well as greater ties or outright annexation by Russia. The militiamen are holding some activists and journalists hostage, including a group of observers from a European security organization.

In Luhansk, one of the largest cities in eastern Ukraine, gunmen in camouflage uniforms maintained control of several government offices they seized Tuesday.

Eastern Ukraine, which has a large Russian-speaking population, was the heartland of support for Viktor Yanukovych, the ousted president who fled to Russia in February. The government that replaced him in Kiev has resisted the insurgents' demands, fearing they could lead to a breakup of the country or mean that more regions could join Russia, as Crimea did.
Kiev and Western governments accuse Moscow of orchestrating the protests in eastern Ukraine. The United States and the European Union rolled out a fresh set of economic sanctions against Russia this week, but Moscow has remained unbowed, denying its role in the unrest and saying the actions were Kiev's fault.


http://www.ukrinform.ua/eng/topic/ukraine___presidential_elections_2014 is a helpful website I have found that tells many reports of interest on the upcoming Ukrainian elections of May 25 and other Ukrainian stories, if any readers would like to keep up more closely on a daily basis.

According to this article, police and security forces have been “unable” to control the situation and “in some cases,” have started cooperating with the Russian forces, Turchynov said, and that the new goal is to “prevent the spread” of the disorder. “Foreign reporters will not be allowed in” to Russian guarded areas and will be arrested for not obeying orders. The pro-Russian groups are demanding more freedom from Kiev and alliance with Russia, while holding hostages including observers from “a European security organization.”

“The government that replaced him [Yanukovych] in Kiev has resisted the insurgents' demands, fearing they could lead to a breakup of the country or mean that more regions could join Russia.” It is possible that if both sides would follow the plan agreed upon in Geneva that they could reach a truly peaceful solution, but the separatists have complained that they were not a part of the discussion and agreements that day. Russia was, however, but they also are making no effort to influence the rebels to leave the Eastern government buildings. I must say, though that Kiev also has not put the constitutional changes in place which were suggested. They said they are afraid it would cause the country to split up.

The problem with Kiev is that they either have insufficient armed forces to effectively combat the rebels or they lack the will power to do it. Also maybe they aren't organized enough from Kiev down to be a powerful opposition, because there are individual groups of them who have in some cases started to cooperate with the Eastern rebels. They aren't even putting up a fight. If they keep that up they will inevitably be vanquished. We can try to help them, but in the end it is their effort and not that of the US.

I hate to sound hawkish, but we need to do more than apply sanctions. That isn't really popular in the US, though. Our population doesn't usually want the US army to go into any foreign country until the President or Congress forces the issue. I wonder what will happen now? I was so happy when Western and Russian forces began to cooperate during and after Glasnost, but clearly just because Russian leaders are “modern,” it doesn't mean that they will be like Gorbachev. The trend in Russian society to be mainly aggressive still holds sway. I used to dislike the Russians intensely, and now maybe I'll have to go back to that position. I despise a bully, and that's what Putin and his cronies are.




Clippers potential buyers include boxers, musicians, media moguls
CBS/AP April 30, 2014

After the NBA gave Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling a lifetime ban for racist comments he made on a recorded conversation, Commissioner Adam Silver said he would call on the owners to vote to force Sterling to sell the team.

It didn't take long for a list of deep-pocketed suitors to express interest in buying the Clippers. 
CBS News has confirmed that Oprah Winfrey is considering teaming with media mogul David Geffen and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison to make a bid to buy the team.

Geffen told Forbes Tuesday that he "would very much like to buy" the Clippers if Sterling is forced to sell the team. Forbes says Geffen has an estimated net worth of about $6.2 billion. The Los Angeles Times reported that Geffen tried in vain to buy the team in 2010.

Meanwhile, boxing champ Floyd Mayweather Jr. said Tuesday that he's interested in putting together a group - with himself as a majority owner - to buy the team if it is put up for sale.

"Do we want to buy the Clippers? Yes we do," Mayweather said. "I'm very, very interested in buying the Clippers."
Mayweather may not have enough money to buy the Clippers by himself, but he's certainly got enough for a good down payment. The boxer will make another $40 million or so Saturday night when he takes on Marcos Maidana in the third fight of a six-fight deal with Showtime that is reportedly worth $250 million.

And he's plenty familiar with the team. Mayweather has a condo next to Staples Center and is a courtside fixture at both Lakers and Clippers games.

"We want to buy the Clippers and we can afford to buy the Clippers," Mayweather said.
Full coverage of the Donald Sterling scandal at CBSSports.com

Sterling bought the Clippers for $12.5 million in 1981. Forbes says the team's value now totals at least $575 million, however, it could sell for much more than that. Earlier this month, investors purchased the beleaguered Milwaukee Bucks, which Forbes had valued at $405 million, for a record $550 million. Mayweather said he had nothing bad to say about Donald Sterling, who he said often invites him to sit next to him and his wife at the games and has always treated him with respect.

Mayweather could have a few issues if he decides to pursue a purchase. He served a jail term in 2012 after pleading guilty to domestic violence and harassment charges in a case involving the mother of his children and he's a big sports bettor, often wagering six-figure amounts on NBA games. Meanwhile, former boxing star Oscar De La Hoya told reporters that he would be interested joining forces with Mayweather on the purchase.

"When it comes to business, what better than two minorities? The commissioner wanted to see more minority ownership in the NBA," said De La Hoya, who already has an ownership stake in the Houston Dynamo of Major League Soccer. "If he wants more minorities involved in the NBA, what better than me and Floyd to be part of a potential ownership group?

Actor Matt Damon told CNBC that he is also interested in entering into a minority ownership role with the team.

Meanwhile, real estate tycoon Rick Caruso told the L.A. Times that he also had interest in joining a group that would buy the franchise.

Magic Johnson, who has an ownership stake in the Los Angeles Dodgers, had been mentioned as a possible buyer for the Clippers but the Hall of Fame basketball player knocked down that report via Twitter on Monday: 
Forcing Sterling to sell the franchise would require approval of three-quarters of the current owners, and the process wouldn't be easy, experts say.

"They'd have huge legal hurdles," CBS News legal analyst Jack Ford said. "It'd be tough to go into a court of law and say we're going to force him to give up his property, what he owns, because of his comments."




I'm not really interested in sports, but I am concerned about the still too prevalent tendency for whites in this country, largely in the south but in other places, too, to have such hard set views against a whole other race of people that they don't want themselves or their friends to be seen “associating” with them. It's too unfair. I will associate with anybody of any race, economic status or religion on an individual basis. If people would just evaluate others one at a time and in depth – until they can see “the content of the soul” as Martin Luther King said rather than as a group and by superficial appearances, racism would simply disappear.

Not everybody wants to be fair or kind, however. Some people are hardhearted to the core and without mercy. Some of those people even think they are “Christians,” because they believe a certain set of stories, but if they don't read and follow the instructions of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and the Golden Rule, in my book they are neither truly Christians nor even slightly “good” people. Their high self-esteem is purely egotistical.




Deaths spark effort to rewrite marijuana rules in Colo.
CBS NEWS April 30, 2014

Colorado is re-thinking the rules for pot-infused food after two recent deaths.

A voter-approved ballot measure legalized recreational marijuana use in January. Colorado's Marijuana Enforcement Division meets Wednesday with lawmakers and edible-pot producers to discuss how much THC should be in a serving size. THC is the active ingredient in marijuana.

Concern about regulation of so-called "edibles" comes in the wake of two high-profile deaths linked to the products.

Edible marijuana comes in many forms, but labs that test the products say it's hard to know exactly what kind of buzz to expect.

Joseph Evans, of Steep Hill Halent, a cannabis testing laboratory, said, "Do you know if your marijuana is safe that you're buying? You really don't."

Genifer Murray, of CannLabs, said, "I think that there's been a misconception that all of this stuff has been tested, and it hasn't."

Last month, a 19-year-old student jumped to his death off a Denver hotel balconyafter friends said he ate a single marijuana cookie.

Tests showed it was the strength of six high-quality joints.
And the autopsy report cites "marijuana intoxication" as a "significant contributing factor."

In another case just this month, a woman called 911 saying her husband had eaten pot candy and was hallucinating. Denver authorities say he shot and killed herbefore police could get there.

It's unclear if edible pot is to blame. But, this week, the state will begin mandatory testing for potency. State lawmakers are also calling for new labeling rules to make sure users know what they're putting into their bodies and how it works.

Colorado state Rep. Jonathan Singer was one of the only state legislators to endorse legalizing recreational marijuana back in 2012.

He said, "What a lot of people do is they'll take a bite of a brownie, and maybe that's a serving, and they won't feel anything, and so they'll take another bite and another bite, and all of the sudden you've got an overdose situation."

But Singer wants to make sure it's regulated properly, the same as alcohol and prescription drugs.
He said, "We need to take the same steps that we did with those two drugs to make sure we're implementing marijuana in a way that's legal but, also, more importantly, safe."
Ten milligrams of THC is considered a serving size of the drug, but Colorado has no requirement that edibles be packaged in single servings, at least for now.


“Colorado's Marijuana Enforcement Division meets Wednesday with lawmakers and edible-pot producers to discuss how much THC should be in a serving size.... Joseph Evans, of Steep Hill Halent, a cannabis testing laboratory, said, "Do you know if your marijuana is safe that you're buying? You really don't.... Genifer Murray, of CannLabs, said, "I think that there's been a misconception that all of this stuff has been tested, and it hasn't."




There are too many questions here, plus individuals differ in their tolerance for drugs, and marijuana has never been exactly “safe” because it does do brain damage and can induce hallucinations. It can drive some people who are just a little bit bonkers already all the way around the bend. The same New Age thinkers that have banned sugar because it was supposedly so dangerous are now welcoming the possibility that kids can get their hands on the parent's supply and use it, plus maybe taking it to school and selling it on the playground. There are too many real problems here. What ever happened to mandating that the THC would be removed or greatly reduced in medical marijuana? If it is possible to get high on it people will and that is not the point of pain killers or asthma drugs or whatever they want to use it for.

Mandatory testing for potency and very thorough and clear labeling rules will both help, but why didn't they do that before they put the products on the market? “Ten milligrams of THC is considered a serving size of the drug, but Colorado has no requirement that edibles be packaged in single servings, at least for now.”

Those legislative people still have a lot of work to do on these laws to make this a fairly safe and reliably dosed product. From my (long ago) experience with it, smoking it gives results very fast, and eating it is slower. The body has to absorb it through the stomach walls.

The example that Rep. Jonathan Singer gave of continuing to take bite after bite because the user doesn't “feel” anything yet is very dangerous. With smoking it you know within 10 seconds that you have had a hit and you will feel some effect. That's one reason why marijuana cigarettes are usually shared between a group of people. Nobody needs a whole one.

Using too much THC can make you hallucinate and get paranoid. That's clearly what happened to the young man who jumped off the balcony. He ate one whole marijuana cookie and that was too much. As the article says, the dosages are not reliable or necessarily measured well from product to product. I wish the whole thing hadn't been legalized. It is too risky.




Pollution Report Paints Gloomy Picture of Smoggiest U.S. Cities – ABC
By LIZ NEPORENT

More than half of Americans breathe in unhealthy air, according to a new American Lung Association’s “State of the Air 2014” report.

The Association found that air pollution throughout the nation has gotten a little worse since last year’s report. In particular, ozone levels rose in the three year period from 2010 to 2012, possibly because of climate change.
“We’re making progress but some of that could be reversed with rising ozone levels,” said Janice Nolen, the Lung Association’s vice president of national policy. “A changing climate is going to make it harder to protect human health.”

Court Upholds EPA Rule on Cross-State Pollution
Many of the smoggiest cities are in car-heavy California, with Los Angeles topping the list for the fourteenth time in fifteen years. The Fresno-Madera area in California also stayed near the top of the list for worst particle pollution, a measure of tiny solid and liquid particles that can get deep into the lungs causing irritation and illness.

Air filled with filthy particles can be harmful even if in inhaled over just a few hours or days, and even if the year-round averages are low, the Lung Association warned.

Particle pollution increases the risk of heart disease, lung cancer and asthma attacks. People with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, really struggle to breathe dirty air, and it’s especially dangerous for children with developing lungs and seniors with weakened lungs.
Large metro areas in the Golden State aren’t the only places where it’s hard to breathe. Houston Texas and New York City rank among the worst cities for ozone levels and particle pollution. And Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago and Phoenix remain high on the dirty air list.

Air Pollution Tied to Premature Births
Want to breathe the cleanest air in the country? Head to Bangor, Maine, or Bismark, ND. These cities had zero days of unsafe air pollution levels. In general, smaller cities throughout the Midwest and West and parts of Florida enjoyed the least polluted air.
Nolen said that Maine used to be “America’s tailpipe,” with industrial pollution blowing in from other states. But thanks to tighter government and industry regulations, not to mention some fortunate weather patterns, it’s enjoying much cleaner air in recent years.

“Even with the same ingredients for pollution, location and wind patterns make a difference,” Nolen said.




“State of the Air 2014” – now that has a ring to it. Ozone is worse, and smog remains a big problem in California due to the auto pollution. Houston, NYC, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago and Phoenix are also high in both ozone or particulates. The good news is that Bangor and Bismark are among the best. Smaller cities in the West, midwest and Florida are very good. “..thanks to tighter government and industry regulations, not to mention some fortunate weather patterns,” Maine's air has cleaned up in recent years.

The statement that climate change can worsen the ozone level is a surprise to me. The following is on that subject: http://www2.ucar.edu/climate/faq/what-does-ozone-hole-have-do-climate-change. From this article comes the passages below. “The ozone hole does not directly affect air temperatures in the troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere closest to the surface, although changes in circulation over Antarctica related to the ozone hole appear to be changing surface temperature patterns over that continent.

Ozone is actually a greenhouse gas, and so are CFCs, meaning that their presence in the troposphere contributes slightly to the heightened greenhouse effect. The main greenhouse gas responsible for present-day and anticipated global warming, however, is carbon dioxide produced by burning of fossil fuels for electricity, heating, and transportation.

Higher up, the loss of stratospheric ozone has led to some cooling in that layer of the atmosphere. An even larger effect comes from carbon dioxide, which acts as a cooling agent in the stratosphere even though it warms the atmosphere closer to ground level. This paradox occurs because the atmosphere thins with height, changing the way carbon dioxide molecules absorb and release heat.
Together, the increase in carbon dioxide and the loss of ozone have led to record-low temperatures recently in the stratosphere and still higher up in the thermosphere. Far from being a good thing, this cooling is another sign that increasing levels of carbon dioxide are changing our planet's climate.

Keeping up with all the current information about climate change and which pollutants do what is very difficult. Hopefully the article from UCAR.EDU will shed some light. I had been under the impression that the ozone hole had closed up, but it appears that it reappears seasonally. We need ozone in the upper layers, but in the lower part of the atmosphere it increases global warming like CO2 does. Unfortunately smog has a great deal of lower level ozone in it, so the climate change is being made worse. Another article said that the amount of water vapor affects the ozone level, and global warming would, I think, increase the amount of water vapor held in the air. Air masses that are warm are also more moist. I can imagine that causing the more frequent and active storms that we have been having, too. The good news in this article is that the pollution is improved at least in several places. That's some progress.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014


News Clips For The Day



Four Things That Turn America into the 'Tornado Super Bowl' – NBC
By Bill Briggs
First published April 29 2014


A one-of-a-kind combination of weather factors make the United States the twister capital of the world, with the ominous funnels 10 times more common in the states than anywhere else on the planet, scientists say.

The four main ingredients all are geographical, all unique to America's borders: a massive mountain wall to the west, a warm ocean to the southeast, a cold-air “shield” to the north – and above these particular latitudes, a narrow river of wind, the jet stream, that surges eastward at hundreds of miles per hour.

“I call the area from the Rockies to the Appalachians and from the Gulf Coast to the Canadian border the ‘tornado super bowl’ of the world,” Ernest Agee, a professor at Purdue University, affiliated with the school’s Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Department.

“Other places have tornadoes, that’s for sure, but not as many,” Agee said.
“The Super Bowl is where you get the best together to create an event, so the 'tornado super bowl' is where you put the best ingredients together to make tornadoes."

Indeed, the sorts of heat-transferring “convective” storms that spawn tornadoes have been known to strike on every continent, except Antarctica, experts say.
But America has a permanent hold at No. 1 among tornado counters, averaging about 1,000 twisters per year, while Canada ranks second with about 100 annually, experts say.

According to the National Climatic Data Center – part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – tornadoes have formed in northern Europe, western Asia, Bangladesh, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, China, South Africa and Argentina.
“The Super Bowl is where you get the best together to create an event, so the 'tornado super bowl' is where you put the best ingredients together to make tornadoes,” Agee said.

“And we’re on a part of the planet where these ingredients can come together sometimes very quickly as they did Sunday,” Agee added.

An outbreak of tornadoes in three states killed at least 16 people Sunday, carving a particularly savage route through Arkansas.

In the most simple terms, super-cell storms are born from warm, moist air at low levels of the atmosphere – usually near the ground – that rise and mix with dry, cold air way above, said Harold Brooks, a senior researcher NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla.

But the fearsome foursome factors of American tornadoes begin, Agee said, with the fact that a “strong” jet stream blows above the nation, typically gaining speed during spring months as cold air from the northwest careens toward warm, wet air in the southeast.

“Not to sound sarcastic, but if you declared the land from the Yucatan (Peninsula in Mexico) to the Florida Keys to be a landfill, and there was no Gulf anymore, there would be no tornadoes."

That hot air wafts up and out over the salty currents and blue waves of the Gulf of Mexico.

“Not to sound sarcastic, but if you declared the land from the Yucatan (Peninsula in Mexico) to the Florida Keys to be a landfill, and there was no Gulf anymore, there would be no tornadoes,” Agee said. "The Gulf of Mexico is basically the fuel tank for these developing storms.

“But, of course, we have to have the jet stream, too. You get big storms in the tropics but they don’t have tornadoes because the jet stream is not there to help produce the tornadoes,” he added.

The northern regions of the country, meanwhile, offer the third geographical ingredient – a vast “continental shield” that extends from Western Canada to Greenland, behind which winter continues well into America’s spring, Agee said. That shield allows cold air to pool and remain to eventually fuel those mega-thunderstorms storms far south, carried there by the jet stream.

Of course, all of those cold, dry pockets up high, and that humid, juicy air down near the ground need an energy source to create what scientists like Agee call “vorticity,” or spinning. That’s where America’s greatest mountain chain enters the recipe.

“That we have a north-to-south mountain range like the Rockies help create the vorticity that’s needed for the storms, caused when the jet stream winds comes over those mountains," Agee said.

The Rockies, in fact, are considered “protypical” to Earth’s tornado-churning machine, Brooks said.

The 14,000-foot-tall range helps trap winds in the middle of the country.
“They extend a long way, north to south, and they’re wide, east to west, and there’s basically no way for the air in the central U.S. to get over there without having to go over the Rockies,” Brooks said.

"That we have a north-to-south mountain range like the Rockies help create the vorticity that’s needed for the storms, caused when the jet stream winds comes over those mountains."

In contrast, consider South America, which has the Andes, another north-to-south range yet very narrow when compared to the Rockies.

“In South America, the source of moist air for their severe thunderstorm region is the Amazon (rain forest),” Brooks said “It’s not quite as good as the Gulf because it's not a body of water.”

And on other continents, other huge mountain ranges run east-to-west, including the Himalayas in Asia and the Alps in Europe, allowing air to blow around the giant rock outcroppings instead of being forced to somehow push over the peaks, Brooks said.
“So that means, (in the U.S.) when we get the right wind profiles in the atmosphere, we are bringing in the temperature and moisture profiles that are most conducive to tornadoes,” Brooks said.

“Anywhere else on the planet,” he added, “the atmosphere has to produce the conditions and it has to work much work harder to bring these ingredients together.”




Ernest Agee, a professor at Purdue University, calls the US the ‘tornado super bowl’ due to the Rocky Mountains, the Gulf of Mexico, the “shield” of cold air to the north and the rapidly moving and powerful jet stream mixing and pulling the air. Right now a huge mass of circling air is sitting over the center of the continent and all around the edges are lines of large super-cell thunderstorms producing tornadoes. Worst of all that mass of air is not moving out to the east and to the ocean, but sitting more or less in place, swirling. As a result the morning forecast today said that this same pathway of storms is going to keep producing tornadoes for two or more days along the same paths, so that towns already devastated may be hit again today or tomorrow.

While a tornado can occur in most other parts of the world, the US has by far the most annually, “averaging about 1,000 twisters per year, while Canada ranks second with about 100 annually, experts say.” Due to the Southern climate and the presence of the Gulf of Mexico, we generate large thunder storms – “super-cell storms are born from warm, moist air at low levels of the atmosphere – usually near the ground – that rise and mix with dry, cold air way above, said Harold Brooks, a senior researcher NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla.” The moving and guiding factor, though, is the jet stream which pulls cold air high above the ground over a southerly path to collide with the warm southern air and the warm air rises upward through the cold, which can set up a circular motion.

“You get big storms in the tropics but they don’t have tornadoes because the jet stream is not there to help produce the tornadoes,” he added.” 'Vorticity' is the powerful spiral of air that defines the tornado or “twister.” The Rocky mountains, 14,000 feet high, provide a barrier which keeps the path of the jet stream in the center of the continent, where the air is guided from north to south. 'So that means, (in the U.S.) when we get the right wind profiles in the atmosphere, we are bringing in the temperature and moisture profiles that are most conducive to tornadoes,' Brooks said.

I have always been fascinated with strong thunderstorms and tornadoes, though we had few tornadoes in Piedmont NC. There were some however, and I have several times experienced hail which is associated with tornadoes. When a lightning storm came we all used to get up on a bed, sofa or chair and hunker down until the storms would pass. One of my most vivid memories of childhood concerned one of those storms which happened to occur on a very warm, moist day. We had no air conditioning then, so my father, our terrier Butch and I were all out on the front porch after the storm to cool down. All was well until suddenly a rounded explosion of white light struck the metal piece in the yard about 25 feet from the place where we sat. It made a terrific boom and, according to Mother, who thought we were foolish for being out there at all, we all including the dog came scrambling through the door at once, trying to get away from it. She always told the story and laughed at us. That's okay. It scared me, but it also thrilled me. I don't ever want to go through it again, though. Once was enough.




Affirmative Action's Next Phase May Target Class, Not Race – NBC
By Nona Willis Aronowitz
First published April 29 2014

With race-based affirmative action taking yet another, potentially lethal, blow after last Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision, experts say universities may soon need to get creative if they’re serious about diversity.

The ruling was relatively finite — it merely affirmed the constitutionality of Michigan’s 2006 ban on race as a factor in college admissions — but it opened the door for other states to do the same thing. The decision is the latest in several Supreme Court cases since 2011 that have chipped away at race-based admissions practices. But that doesn’t mean universities will cease trying to diversify—they’ll just find other ways to do it.

“I think class- and wealth-based affirmative action is the future,” said Dalton Conley, a professor of sociology, medicine and public policy at New York University. “You’re going to see a lot of experimentation on how to do this in the next few years.”

A few public university systems have already been experimenting with admissions policies meant to level the playing field for poor students, which indirectly boosts racial diversity. Texas, California and Florida have adopted versions of the “top 10 percent” plan, where a percentage (the number varies) of students from each high school in the state are guaranteed admission to state universities, giving a better chance to striving students from disadvantaged high schools. Texas, class-based affirmative action’s guinea pig, has been doing this since 1996.

Some experts, most notably Richard Kahlenberg of the Century Foundation, a public policy think tank, have held Texas up as an example, citing increased enrollment by black and Hispanic students eight years after the “top 10” plan began. Supporters say these methods are effective in creating a campus that’s both racially and economically diverse — rather than simply filling quotas by admitting privileged students of color, as many universities tend to do under traditional affirmative action.

“Texas’ percent program has been quite successful,” said Halley Potter, a policy associate at the Century Foundation who co-authored a study with Kahlenberg on the future of affirmative action. “Since [top 10] students are allowed to pick the campus they go to, this method has had a profound effect on UT Texas and Texas AMU,” the state’s flagship universities.

On the other hand, the University of California’s black and Hispanic populations plunged after “top 10” was implemented in 1997 and have never rebounded at selective campuses like UCLA and UC-Berkeley (a fact cited in Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion Tuesday). That’s likely because UC only guarantees admission to at least one of the campuses for “top 10” students.

“Many schools are reluctant to move beyond race, because admitting poor students has financial implications."

Stella Flores, associate professor of public policy and higher education at Vanderbilt University, says colorblind, class-based fixes like these don’t create racial diversity as effectively as race-based affirmative action does — and she says the numbers prove it.

Even though the number of black and Latino students enrolling in Texas schools increased, it hasn’t kept up with the demographic growth in that state. UT-Austin’s 2013 freshman class, for example, was 23 percent Hispanic and 5 percent black — well below the state percentages of 38 and 12, respectively. (The numbers of college-age black and Hispanic Texans are even higher).

This disparity mirrors the rest of the country: Hispanic and black college enrollment has soared in the past decade, but both groups continue to be underrepresented at four-year colleges, especially more selective schools like UT-Austin and UC-Berkeley. Fifty-six percent of Hispanic college students, for instance, enroll in a four-year college, versus 72 percent of their white counterparts.

Not to mention that “top 10” programs’ success depends on states remaining highly segregated by class and race — a dynamic that skeptics of the plan view as morally problematic.

But Potter said less sweeping, more individualistic ways to factor in socioeconomic status can be more effective than “top 10.” She pointed to the University of Colorado-Boulder, where admissions officers created an algorithm based on how prospective students’ performance compares to students with similar backgrounds and experiences. This “disadvantage index” allows them to measure the students’ relative perseverance in the context of obstacles to their upward mobility. For example, a B average from a kid who grew up in a single-parent household, speaks Spanish at home, and had a job during high school would mean more than a B average from a more affluent, third-generation American student.

According to Potter, University of Colorado-Boulder “has actually done a better job of increasing admit rates for…underrepresented minorities” than race-based affirmative action.

Solutions like Boulder’s have moved into the spotlight as race-based affirmative action phases out across the country — and some administrators even see a race-neutral future as a chance to revamp a system that, especially in the strapped state university system, tends to focus on recruiting wealthier students of color.

“Many schools are reluctant to move beyond race, because admitting poor students has financial implications for their institution,” Potter said. Since Pell grants often don’t fully cover tuition, colleges would either have to cut prices or raise financial aid to accommodate more low-income students. “To the extent that [class-based policy] is pushing colleges to really think about socioeconomic status and broaden their definition of diversity, I think that is positive,” she said.

At elite universities, a “top 10” class-based program would likely never happen because it would take away their ability to be selective. But according to Potter, top universities could benefit from a Boulder-like algorithm, since it’s “a better way of being meritocratic. You’re looking at not only students’ broad academic achievement but also the obstacles they’ve overcome,” she said.

At this point, many selective colleges already factor in both race and class as a consideration, and their large endowments would hypothetically render them more equipped to subsidize good, low-income students. The problem is, most high-achieving, low-income students don’t apply to top colleges at all; state colleges are often receiving their applications instead.

“Race shouldn’t matter more than other types of diversity."
It’s undeniable that the United States’ wealth gap correlates with race — black households’ net worth is only about 4.5 percent of whites’ median household wealth — so it would make sense that tackling class would solve two diversity problems at once. But many experts say there are racial factors to consider that are separate from class.

“Racial identity and tolerance are important aspects of one’s education,” said Brenda Shum, director of the Educational Opportunities Project at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. She pointed to a recent incident at the University of Mississippi, where a fraternity closed its chapter after three members were accused of tying a noose around a statue of James Meredith, the college’s first black student.
“Educators need to acknowledge how diversity promotes racial understanding” and combats prejudice, she said. In a state that’s almost 40 percent black, Ole Miss’s black population hovers at only about 17 percent. And the campus’ already tense race relations can’t abide potentially an even less diverse population under race-blind admissions policies, according to Shum.

Flores is also concerned that with a solely class-based system, deep-seated stereotypes about blacks and Latinos will remain.

“With race-based affirmative action, you have more income variation,” she said. If most of the students benefiting from new class-based policies are low-income and non-white, “what does that tell white students — that every person of color is poor?” (Potter counters that there’s “not a huge amount of evidence” that fewer affluent students of color will be admitted to colleges without race-based affirmative action.)
But for Ward Connerly, founder of the conservative American Civil Rights Institute, even if a colorblind future did mean a smaller and more homogenous pool of minority students, it’s a small price to pay for getting rid of what he sees as a prejudiced system.

“To engage in what amounts to racial discrimination in the name of ‘we want diversity’ I think is morally wrong,” said Connerly, who is black. “Race shouldn’t matter more than other types of diversity. Class-based remedies make sense in a society that is as fluid as ours is, with more and more black people finding themselves part of the middle class.”

Until there’s an outright federal ban on race-based admissions policies, it will be up to each university to decide which methods help them hit their diversity goals. And according to Flores, their standards should be high. “Universities have to ask themselves whether having a racially diverse student body leads to the best educations, the most employable students, a labor market that works in favor of their alumni,” she said.

They can have a 99 percent white student body if they want to, Flores said, “but does that does really contribute to the benefit of all?”




According to this article, “...experts say universities may soon need to get creative if they’re serious about diversity....'I think class- and wealth-based affirmative action is the future,' said Dalton Conley, a professor of sociology, medicine and public policy at New York University. 'You’re going to see a lot of experimentation on how to do this in the next few years.'” I must say, class should always have been a basis for achieving diversity. There are poor whites who can't afford college, too.

When I see scholarships that are purely based on high academic achievement I get angry. Wealthy people should not get their kids educations paid for, as they are well able to pay for it themselves, and there are bright kids born to all races and classes who need the right to go to college. There are some background based score differences that emerge between the wealthy and the poor, purely because the wealthy parents tend to be themselves well-educated so their kids hear a higher level of vocabulary spoken in the home, and they tend to send their kids to elite college prep private schools.

If Duke University or Harvard wants to be sure they maintain a high scholastic standing with high performing students so they can keep their bragging rights, they should do an IQ test as well as using the College Board score, which directly reflects the kids high school background more than IQ, and then give those brighter students a scholarship because they are more likely to be able to achieve well at college. Moreover, stop the practice of admitting students whose parents have made large donations to the college. Getting into the highest ranked colleges has never been an even playing field.

There is already progress along these lines. “Texas, California and Florida have adopted versions of the 'top 10 percent”' plan, where a percentage (the number varies) of students from each high school in the state are guaranteed admission to state universities, giving a better chance to striving students from disadvantaged high schools.” This, to me, is fair, and will loosen the hold of the economic elite on having a better chance to climb the ladder in life. The article points out that the Texas plan has been in place since 1996, and it has increased the number of black and Latino students. I'm sure it has also increased the number of poor white students.

This sentence stands out starkly in the article – “Many schools are reluctant to move beyond race, because admitting poor students has financial implications." It is generally the “privileged” black and Latino students who are admitted on race-based plans, and according to Stella Flores of Vanderbilt University the “color blind” plans don't tend to bring as many minority students. “Fifty-six percent of Hispanic college students, for instance, enroll in a four-year college, versus 72 percent of their white counterparts....'top 10' programs’ success depends on states remaining highly segregated by class and race — a dynamic that skeptics of the plan view as morally problematic.”

Halley Potter, a policy associate at the Century Foundation states that “the University of Colorado-Boulder, where admissions officers created an algorithm based on how prospective students’ performance compares to students with similar backgrounds and experiences. This “disadvantage index” allows them to measure the students’ relative perseverance in the context of obstacles to their upward mobility. For example, a B average from a kid who grew up in a single-parent household, speaks Spanish at home, and had a job during high school would mean more than a B average from a more affluent, third-generation American student.” Now that's the kind of thing that I think should be considered. Further, she adds that UC at Boulder “has actually done a better job of increasing admit rates for…'underrepresented minorities' than race-based affirmative action.” I think we have the solution to the problem here.

Brenda Shum, director of the Educational Opportunities Project at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, “said 'Educators need to acknowledge how diversity promotes racial understanding' and combats prejudice.....with a solely class-based system, deep-seated stereotypes about blacks and Latinos will remain.” A serious racial incident at the University of Mississippi is given as an example.

I must say, UNC-Chapel Hill, where I took a BA degree, was so diverse that I got used to seeing Indian women in saris walking the traditional ten steps behind their husbands and truly black-skinned people from Africa without the Caucasian mixture that occurs in this country, and I don't remember a single racial incident getting into the news then. Personally, I have always enjoyed the differences between people, and I do think my college experience, between the student culture and the academic courses I took, got rid of the last remnants of my white southern upbringing. Of course UNC is a liberal college in all ways, including the courses that are taught. They also try to admit people who probably wouldn't get into Harvard either academically or economically, and they give lots of scholarships while maintaining a lower tuition than those elite colleges. It's up to the student to study hard in order to reap the best education he can from the courses, poetry readings and other talks by authors, the concerts and lecture series that were free to all students.




Supreme Court Upholds Air Pollution Regulation – NBC
— The Associated Press
First published April 29 2014

The Supreme Court has given the Environmental Protection Agency an important victory in its effort to reduce power plant pollution that contributes to unhealthy air in neighboring states.

The court's 6-2 decision Tuesday means that a rule adopted by EPA in 2011 to limit emissions from plants in more than two-dozen Midwestern and Southern states can take effect. The pollution drifts into the air above states along the Atlantic Coast and the EPA has struggled to devise a way to control it.

Power companies and several states sued to block the rule from taking effect, and a federal appeals court in Washington agreed with them in 2012.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the court's majority opinion. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.




I hope this means that global warming inducing CO2 pollution as well as any chemicals which might be going into the air, will be included in this ruling. Presumably it will. I am sure there is such a thing as over-regulating, but the air and water pollution that we have fought since I can remember need desperately to be improved, and businesses will rarely do it on their own. I am very glad to see that the Supreme Court is not bought by the Republican party. This is good news.





Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: GeoResonance survey company says "wreckage of a commercial airliner" found
By Tucker Reals CBS News April 29, 2014

Last Updated Apr 29, 2014 10:17 AM EDT
The Malaysian government confirmed Tuesday that officials investigating the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 were looking into an Australian company's claim to have located aircraft wreckage on the sea floor in the northern Bay of Bengal -- thousands of miles from the search area scanned meticulously for weeks to the south.

Australian land and sea survey company GeoResonance said in a statement sent Tuesday to CBS News that it had discovered materials "believe to be the wreckage of a commercial airliner" about 100 miles south of Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal using proprietary technology which scans vast areas for specific metals or minerals.

The company's technology is often used to help clients find mineral deposits for mining, but GeoResonance also has participated in the hunt for old warships or aircraft on the ocean floor.

"During the search for MH370, GeoResonance searched for chemical elements that make up a Boeing 777: aluminum, titanium, copper, steel alloys, jet fuel residue, and several other substances. The aim was to find a location where all those elements were present," said the company in the written statement.

Scanning "multispectral images" taken from the air on March 10 -- two days after Flight 370 went missing -- GeoResonance says it found "an anomaly in one place in the Bay of Bengal" where many of those relevant materials were detected in significant amounts, and in a pattern which matched the approximate layout of a large aircraft.

The company said analysis of images take of the same area five days earlier showed the "anomaly had appeared between the 5th and 10th of March 2014."

In a statement released to the press on Tuesday, Malaysian Acting Minister of Transport Hishammuddin Hussein confirmed that his government was "working with its international partners to assess the credibility of this information."

A U.S. official with knowledge of the investigation told CBS News on Tuesday that they were still in the early stages of gathering information about GeoResonance's claim, but they were "very skeptical" it would lead to anything, given all the data that investigators have been working with points to the southern Indian Ocean.

A team of experts working for the International Investigation Team have been studying the data available on the flight, which includes the attempted communications between Flight 370 and satellites which led officials to focus their search in the so-called Southern Arc. They continue to analyze that data and their focus remains to the south, says CBS News transportation correspondent Jeff Pegues.

There have been many false leads in the hunt for the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 since it disappeared from commercial radar northeast of Manila on March 8.
Investigators believe the plane turned an inexplicable about-face after losing contact, heading southwest into the Indian Ocean.

Officials said Monday that, with not a clue found to date, the huge search area about 1,000 miles southwest of Perth, Australia -- which has been combed fastidiously by a robotic U.S. Navy submarine using sonar imaging -- would be expanded significantly and the air search called off.

"It is highly unlikely at this stage that we will find any aircraft debris on the ocean surface. By this stage, 52 days into the search, most material would have become waterlogged and sunk," Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Tuesday.
"Therefore, we are moving from the current phase to a phase which is focused on searching the ocean floor over a much larger area," he said. That search, according to Abbott, could take at least eight months.

GeoResonance said it first alerted officials with Malaysia Airlines, and the Chinese and Malaysian embassies in Australia, that possible aircraft debris had been found in the general area of its discovery on March 31, "well before the black box batteries had expired."

"These details were also passed onto the Australian authorities (JACC) in Perth on April 4, 2014. A more detailed study was completed in early April. The final 23 page report including the precise location of the wreckage was passed onto Malaysian Airlines, Malaysian High Commission in Canberra, Chinese Embassy in Canberra, and the Australian authorities (JACC) on April 15, 2014," according to the company.

It was not immediately clear whether the international search team has previously investigated GeoResonance's information.




Australian land and sea survey company GeoResonance, searching for materials of which an airliner is composed, said that “an anomaly” which resembles an airliner has been found in the Bay of Bengal, and that “analysis of images taken … five days earlier showed the 'anomaly had appeared between the 5th and 10th of March 2014.'" GeoResonance said it did inform both the Malaysians and the Australians of this finding first on March 31 and again on April 4. “It is not clear” whether the report has been investigated before now. If it wasn't that will probably be a scandal. I can only hope that investigation proves this to be the Malaysian airliner and that the “black boxes” will be found intact.





What are the NBA’s options with Donald Sterling?
CBS/AP April 29, 2014

There is little doubt the [sic] Donald Sterling has a troubled history of race relations, punctuated emphatically by an alleged audio recording of him making racist remarks to a girlfriend.

The fallout has been swift: current and former NBA players have publicly denounced Sterling, the NAACP is returning donations he has made and canceled a planned award ceremony next month and sponsors have fled.

Full coverage of the Donald Sterling scandal at CBSSports.com
The shoe that has yet to drop, however, is official league action. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has scheduled a press conference for Tuesday afternoon to discuss the league's investigation. It is Silver's first true test as NBA commissioner, and he vowed the league would "move extraordinarily quickly in our investigation."
A breakdown of the key elements heading into the press conference:

SILVER'S AUTHORITY:
CBS News legal analyst Jack Ford told "CBS This Morning" on Tuesday: "The commissioner has very broad powers that allow him to act 'In the interest of the league.'"
However, it remains unclear how far Silver's powers can reach so early in the process.

SUSPENSIONS:
Many have guessed Silver is likely to suspend the Clippers owner from participation in league activities, perhaps for up to a year. There is precedent, in the NBA and other professional sports leagues, for an owner to be suspended.
Ford said: "It sounds like you're going to see that."

If Sterling is suspended, he would be unable to attend games or team functions for the duration of the suspension and would likely have to appoint someone to take over the day-to-day operations of the team.

CBSSports.com's Ken Berger reports the NBA is likely to suspend Sterling indefinitely while a more thorough investigation of both Sterling and what other legal avenues the league has will take a while to complete.
FINES:

The league's bylaws allow for Silver to levy a penalty of up to $1 million without needing the approval of other owners if he deems Sterling's actions have damaged the league as a whole. A fine is likely, Berger reports, because the league does that frequently to owner, as is evidenced by the Dallas Mavericks' owner Mark Cuban.

OWNERSHIP REVOCATION:
Many, from LeBron James to Magic Johnson, have called for Sterling to be removed from the NBA altogether. In modern professional sports, there is only one precedent for forcing an owner to sell their team for incendiary commentary: Marge Schott, who owned baseball's Cincinnati Reds from 1986 to 1999.

"They could try to force the owner to sell the team, but they'd have huge legal hurdles," Ford told "CBS This Morning." "It'd be tough to go into a court of law and say we're going to force him to give up his property, what he owns, because of his comments."

CBSSports.com's Ken Berger reports there are few parallels between what happened with Schott and what is happening with Sterling.

Schott was only forced to sell "after years of pressure from baseball and fellow owners, and only after General Motors accused her of falsifying car sales with the names of team employees at a Chevrolet dealership she had since sold. Even then, Schott reaped the financial benefit of the sale and retained one ownership share as well as 21 box seats and a luxury suite, according to this story from the Cincinnati Enquirer," Berger wrote.

The league's owners are wary of forcing Sterling to sell his team, even if it would bring him a financial windfall. The league took over the New Orleans Hornets from previous owner George Shinn, but that was because of financial difficulties. The Clippers are a profitable team and Sterling is worth a reported $1.9 billion, so money is not an issue in this case. Plus, taking such measures would almost assuredly bring a lawsuit from Sterling and a long, expensive legal fight.

POSSIBLE SCENARIO:
Given that only a few days have passed since the recording first was made public, it would be hard to imagine a definitive move being made by Silver on Tuesday. The most likely possibility would seem to be an indefinite suspension while the NBA conducts a thorough investigation into not only this incident, but Sterling's past as well to try to determine if a pattern has developed. Silver could also issue a fine right away while leaving open the possibility for additional financial penalties pending the outcome of the investigation.




This story is especially interesting to me because, unlike the case of a testosterone based history of beating his wife or bar fights, Sterling has picked on a man with a squeaky clean background and a very good sports history, in other words one of the more well-loved players and a hero to young kids. It is also interesting that Sterling's girlfriend is clearly Asian. It's apparently just black people that he hates.

“The fallout has been swift: current and former NBA players have publicly denounced Sterling, the NAACP is returning donations he has made and canceled a planned award ceremony next month and sponsors have fled....NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has scheduled a press conference for Tuesday afternoon to discuss the league's investigation. It is Silver's first true test as NBA commissioner, and he vowed the league would "move extraordinarily quickly in our investigation." Silver's investigation into the matter will likely include looking to see whether or nor “a pattern” is involved.

I am glad to see that among sports fans and players alike, the callous and hateful anti-black remarks have produced outrage. Sports fans are mainly men, and men are more likely to be rabidly racist than women, but in this case at least there is no support for Sterling. CBS News legal analyst Jack Ford has predicted that Sterling will be suspended for as much as a year, unable to attend games and may have to appoint somebody else to run the team operations, plus possibly levying a fine of up to $1 million.




EU Follows U.S. In Imposing New Sanctions On Russia – NPR
by Scott Neuman
April 29, 2014
This post was updated at 9:30 a.m. ET.

The European Union has followed the U.S. in imposing a new round of sanctions on Russia for the Kremlin's intervention in Crimea and alleged support of separatist elements inside eastern Ukraine.

The sanctions, which specifically target Russian President Vladimir Putin's "inner circle," drew a response from Moscow, which described them in Cold War terms.
According to The Guardian, the EU has named 15 people for sanctions, including Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian general staff, and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, who has been charged with developing Crimea. Kozak was also named on Monday by the U.S.

Several leaders of the pro-Russian militia and protesters who have been occupying buildings in eastern Ukraine have also been named, according to the Guardian. They will be subject to asset freezes and travel bans.

The Washington Post says:
"The European Union has been more reluctant than the United States to target Russian businesses, in part because E.U. companies have far stronger economic relations with Russia than their U.S. counterparts. U.S. officials have indicated that they were ready to issue new sanctions last week but decided to wait for the European Union in order to project a unified front against what they say is Russia's escalating campaign to destabilize Ukraine."

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the U.S. and EU have revived the legacy of the Cold War.

"This is a revival of a system created in 1949 when Western countries essentially lowered an 'Iron Curtain,' cutting off supplies of hi-tech goods to the USSR and other countries," he said.

NPR's Corey Flintoff, reporting from Moscow, says Russian officials maintain that most of the sanctions will not seriously affect their economy.

However, Ryabkov says Russia's space program "could be hurt by a ban on sales of certain high-technology items that are made in the West," Corey says.

Meanwhile, The Guardian also reports that Gennady Kernes, the mayor of Kharkiv who was shot in the back by an unknown gunman on Monday, has been flown to Israel for treatment, where he is "fighting for his life."

Reuters reports that "hundreds of pro-Russian separatists stormed the regional government headquarters" in the eastern Ukraine city of Luhansk.

The news agency says:
"The government in Kiev has all but lost control of its police forces in parts of eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian activists have seized buildings in the region's second biggest city of Donetsk and several smaller towns."

"'The regional leadership does not control its police force,' said Stanislav Rechynsky, an aide to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov. 'The local police did nothing.'"




According to this report, “the EU has named 15 people for sanctions, including Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian general staff, and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, who has been charged with developing Crimea. Kozak was also named on Monday by the U.S....Several leaders of the pro-Russian militia and protesters who have been occupying buildings in eastern Ukraine have also been named, according to the Guardian. They will be subject to asset freezes and travel bans.”

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov stated, “This is a revival of a system created in 1949 when Western countries essentially lowered an 'Iron Curtain,' cutting off supplies of hi-tech goods to the USSR and other countries," he said. He went on to say that the Russian space program may be hurt due to their need for Western made high-tech items.

Gennady Kernes, mayor of Kharkiv is being flown to Israel for treatment after being shot in the back by “an unknown gunman” and is in very serious condition. Meanwhile the eastern city of Luhansk is now under attack by hundreds of separatists. "The government in Kiev has all but lost control of its police forces in parts of eastern Ukraine,” said Stanislav Rechynsky, an aide to Arakov in Kiev, continuing that the local police are doing nothing to stop the marauders.

The fact that journalists and international observers have even been kidnapped and in at least one case beaten is also very disheartening. Open warfare may be the only thing that will stop them. Of course, Putin has said that if Kiev makes an all out assault on the Russians in the east he will send in Russian troops in force. He wouldn't if the UN were to send in a large number of peace-keeping forces, I don't think, or if the US and EU countries were to go into Western Ukraine to build up Kiev's powers. I no longer have any sympathy or good will for Putin and his followers. They have nothing that passes for a conscience.

Monday, April 28, 2014


News Clips For The Day


First Thoughts: US Announces New Sanctions Against Russia – NBC
By Chuck Todd
First published April 28 2014

Obama administration hits Russia with a new round of sanctions

The Obama administration on Monday announced a new round of sanctions on Russia over the standoff in Eastern Ukraine, targeting seven Russian government officials and 17 companies linked to Russia President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. The sanctions also will freeze military-technology exports. The European Union will impose similar sanctions in the next day or two. Bottom line: These sanctions represent the United States’ decision to continue to go slow -- in order to remain united with a Europe that’s more economically tied to Russia -- rather than ramp up tougher unilateral sectoral sanctions that might not have Europe’s support right now. It’s a decision that has its detractors, something the president has acknowledged but also defended. “We’re going to be in a stronger position to deter Mr. Putin when he sees that the world is unified and the United States and Europe is unified, rather than this is just a U.S.-Russian conflict,” Obama said on Sunday. “If we, for example, say we’re not going to allow certain arms sales to Russia -- just to take an example -- but every European defense contractor backfills what we do, then it’s not very effective.” Nevertheless, the New York Times reported over the weekend that there’s a split inside the Obama administration on whether it’s better to keep a united front with Europe, or act unilaterally with the assumption that Europe will eventually follow.

Poll: 61% say U.S. should be less actively involved in world affairs
But if you wanted to know why Obama probably won’t get punished by American voters for going slow on Russian sanctions, check out these results from a poll for the United Nations Foundation (conducted by GOP pollster Bill McInturff and Dem pollster Geoff Garin): 61% of Americans say the U.S. should be LESS actively involved in world affairs. That percentage is up from the 55% who said this in 2008 and the 51% who said this in 2007. And here’s Obama at a news conference in the Philippines today: “Typically, criticism of our foreign policy has been directed at the failure to use military force. And the question I think I would have is, why is it that everybody is so eager to use military force after we’ve just gone through a decade of war at enormous costs to our troops and to our budget? And what is it exactly that these critics think would have been accomplished?” The president’s foreign policy stances, while unpopular with some hawks (a majority of whom dominate the overall foreign policy debate in Washington and New York), is actually in line with where the public is at. In fact, a more hawkish foreign policy, while more popular in the Acela corridor, as polling indicates might actually become a bigger political problem outside the national security intelligentsia circle.




New sanctions are about to take effect “targeting seven Russian government officials and 17 companies linked to Russia President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. The sanctions also will freeze military-technology exports,” to be followed later in the week by EU sanctions of similar types. The hawks say it isn't enough, but much of the American public is not ready for another hot war after the last 15 years without peace. Mr. Obama stressed the importance of having the EU with us rather than working against us. The EU has economic ties to Russia which cause the fear of, for instance, running out of natural gas supplies or having to pay extravagant prices for it. Apparently the EU has member states, too, that were selling technology to Russia, and if they decide not to withhold those sales it could weaken a unilateral US sanction on arms sales. So President Obama has decided to proceed “steady as she goes,” to echo Captain Kirk of the old Star Trek show.




Killer Virus Takes Emotional Toll on Pig Farmers – NBC
By Miguel Llanos
First published April 28 2014

Last Christmas was one farmer Greg Lear would rather forget.

"Yeah, some merry Christmas," he said of the December 19th call from his farm manager with news that all the sows, or breeding females, were throwing up and many had diarrhea. The sows survived, but within 96 hours "we probably had 500 little pigs that were dead," said Lear.

As fate would have it, the Spencer, Iowa, farm he helps run was next in line to be hit by a virus that's killed several million piglets across the country in the last 12 months. Rising pork prices have more than offset the financial damage, but the unknowns about the disease have farmers fretting that the worst is yet to come.

What killed Lear’s piglets was the Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv), a disease first reported in 1971 in Britain but never identified in the U.S. until April 2013. Officials believe this strain came from China and, by within 12 months, PEDv cases were reported in 30 states.

The virus is not a food safety issue since it cannot be passed on to humans, but it has become a factor in pork prices. It’s also taken an emotional toll on farmers and their workers.

"How do you keep up employee morale when you're asking, 'How many are dead today?'," Lear said. "Those pigs should have been walking out of the barn, and we were carrying them out. Mentally it just hammers you."

The virus causes intense diarrhea, which the youngest piglets, typically those less than a week old, can’t survive once it’s passed to them through their moms. “They’re not able to absorb any of mom’s milk,” Lear said.

Young piglets nurse on their mother sow in a farrowing crate on the Riverdale Ranch near Whittemore, Iowa, on April 21. Porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) poses the most risk to newborn piglets especially those 7 days and younger, which die from dehydration. PED does not infect humans or other animals.

Those piglets that haven’t died from dehydration are euthanized with carbon monoxide, and then the carcasses are trucked to rendering plants to be recycled as animal feed.
The National Renderers Association says the carcasses are heated to a minimum of 240 degrees for 40 minutes -- much higher than what’s been proven to kill the virus.
But it also notes that researchers are studying the possibility that blood plasma added to animal feed to help piglets battle diseases might be a way the virus spreads. A “feed risk assessment” is being undertaken with the rest of the pig industry “to determine if there are gaps in our knowledge of the virus in feed,” says David Meeker, an association vice president.

The industry is backing further research “to determine whether such a connection exists,” the group says in a position statement about the virus.

For all the lingering questions about the virus – including “How does it spread?” and “Can a vaccine be developed?” – the stark certainty is that it kills quickly.
"The swine industry has never seen anything like this," said Lear, a past president of the Iowa Pork Producers Association.

The virus also appears indiscriminate: Farms large and small, organic and non-organic, have been hit.

“The spread seems equally likely regardless of herd size or production type,” said Harry Snelson, spokesman for the American Association of Swine Veterinarians. “Our best guess is that approximately 50 percent of the sow herds in the U.S. have become infected.”

Snelson said even that is a guess because, up to now, farmers have not been required to provide a tally of cases. The USDA on April 18 ordered that all farms report cases, but Snelson isn’t optimistic it will change much. “We'll have to see,” he says. “It may be too late with this disease but it may help with understanding the epidemiology of future diseases.”

Chuck Wirtz’s 700-sow unit in Iowa sells pigs to a company that supplies the Chipotle fast-food chain. He too got hit, losing about 1,000 piglets. “We had pigs dying all over the place,” he said of the outbreak last November.

In Lear’s case, 850 pigs worth $48,000 were dead by the time the outbreak was contained – that’s about three and a half weeks of annual production on the farm.
And extra virus-protection measures have added some $75,000 to operating costs, he estimated. Those “biosecurity” steps include restricting who has access to barns – a bit of outside manure on a shoe could be enough to trigger an outbreak.

Containment typically means exposing all sows to the virus so that they build immunity to it. “We add diarrhea to the sows’ feed, the sows get sick and then on the fourth day they dry up and now they have immunity that they can pass on to their piglets,” said Wirtz.

“But the worst part is that it doesn’t end there,” added Lear, since the exposure opens the door to other bugs like E. coli and salmonella that “challenges little pigs’ intestines.”

Lear called these the “backside PEDv pigs” and has stepped up medication to battle those bugs.

An argument can be made that the virus, by reducing supply, has been a key factor in recent record pork prices.

“The net cost has not been negative. We’ve actually benefited, as sad as that sounds,” said Wirtz, citing an analysis estimating that while the virus has killed $567 million worth of pigs, the reduced supply is responsible for a $5 billion increase in the value of the 105 million pigs marketed annually across the nation.
Still, farmers are concerned about what might be around the corner.
“We don’t know if the PED is going to mutate and change,” said Lear.

Wirtz noted that larger sow units seem to have more trouble containing the virus since it’s hard to make sure all sows are exposed. He quickly contained the outbreak at his 700-sow unit, but a 2,400-sow unit in Illinois has lost 4,000 pigs “and they’re still dying,” he said.

Moreover, some farmers have seen the virus come back. “We seem to lose the immunity response over time,” said Wirtz. “That would be devastating if it were to break again.”

The number of PEDv cases reported nationwide has dropped to around 250 a week from a peak of more than 300 in late February, but even that’s misleading.

“This is to be expected as the weather warms,” said Snelson. Viruses like this one “tend to prefer colder temperatures and do not survive as well in the warmer months.”

That could also mean another jump in cases when the cold comes back.
“The biggest fear is that we’re going to have déjà vu all over again next winter,” said Wirtz.




“The sows survived, but within 96 hours 'we probably had 500 little pigs that were dead,' said Lear.” That's a lot of stock for one farm to lose. The virus, called Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv) originally came from China, migrating to England in 1971 and then was found in the US a year ago, but within the last 12 months has spread to 30 states here in this country.

Some of the babies survive, but “those piglets that haven’t died from dehydration are euthanized with carbon monoxide, and then the carcasses are trucked to rendering plants to be recycled as animal feed. The National Renderers Association says the carcasses are heated to a minimum of 240 degrees for 40 minutes -- much higher than what’s been proven to kill the virus,” so hopefully animal feed will be virus free. Some researchers, however, are investigating the addition of blood plasma to animal feed because it may be a way that the disease has been spread. I remember during the Mad Cow panic that we banned the feeding of animal products to cows in the US. However it spreads, which the article says could be as simple as a bit of feces on a farmer's shoe, carrying the virus to a neighboring farm, it is believed to have spread already to as much as 50% of US farms.

It is worth mentioning that 850 pigs lost on one farm were worth $48,000, which is a lot of money to lose over a period of several days. “And extra virus-protection measures have added some $75,000 to operating costs, he estimated. Those 'biosecurity' steps include restricting who has access to barns.” “Containment” of the virus means exposing sows to the virus – presumably while they have no piglets nursing – to produce an immunity to it for the future. That isn't totally safe because it is typically done by adding a small amount of feces from an infected animal to their feed, which also introduces e-coli and salmonella to the sow's intestines. Also, the larger the sow unit is, the more difficult it is to see that all of them are exposed to the virus, so sometimes they still lose large numbers of piglets on those farms. Farmer Chuck Wirtz stated, “We seem to lose the immunity response over time,” said Wirtz. “That would be devastating if it were to break again,” so the exposure method of immunizing doesn't last forever, and presumably, down through generations.

The good news for farmers is that the price of pork has gone up and tends to cover the costs of the disease. Still, since this disease tends to come back the next winter, individual farmers could go bankrupt because of the enormity of the loses. Farming has always been a high risk business, however, which is one reason why the government does subsidize them. It is also why some smaller farms with less capital to put into it have been going under in the last thirty years or so. If they are growing crops they have drought and plant diseases to battle. It is important that our farms continue to be able to supply a large portion of the food we eat in this country, or we will be totally dependent on imports. I don't know much about economics, but if our imports outstrip our exports that can't be a good thing.




Mystery of Unbearably Cute Cub Named Tahoe Solved – NBC
By Elisha Fieldstadt
First published April 27 2014

For more than a week, a wildlife organization in California has been trying to solve a confounding — albeit adorable — mystery of a baby bear that was left in a kennel on their driveway, and on Friday, they finally got their answer.

A man placed an anonymous call to The BEAR League in Lake Tahoe explaining that he found the cub “crying and hugging her deceased mother,” the BEAR League said in a statement.

The statement said that the man must have been the person who dropped off the bear, who they have named “Tahoe,” on April 16 because he knew the color of the blanket and kennel she was left in.

Although the man told the BEAR League that authorities told him to leave the bear alone, “his conscience would not allow him to walk away and leave her to die ... thankfully,” the statement said.

BEAR League employees brought Tahoe to Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care, Inc., where she was examined by a vet and deemed to be healthy at 5.4 pounds and about 10 weeks old, according to the organization.

Over the past week, the BEAR League’s Facebook page has been dedicated to updating Tahoe’s fans with her developments. “Soon she will learn how to lap her formula out of a bowl, but there will be lots of messes made in the process,” read one post.
Many posts also begged for the person who dropped Tahoe off to come forward, because without her origin, Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care would have trouble determining where she “will be released next winter or spring when she is big enough and ready to conquer the world,” Ann Bryant, the Executive Director of Bear League told NBC News.
The caller told the Bear League he found the baby bear near the Humboldt Redwoods State Park, which is nearly 400 miles away from the facility, Bryant said, but her name will remain Tahoe because that’s where her new caretakers found her.




The BEAR League is a California organization whose website http://www.savebears.org/ will undoubtedly let you donate money to their cause. It is also worth looking at for the photographs and information about the black bear. This story is about one man who couldn't bring himself to follow the orders of authorities that he leave the baby bear where it was, obviously mourning the death of its mother. He placed an anonymous call to the BEAR League and took her in a kennel to their driveway, where he left her with a blanket. He had found her “crying and hugging her deceased mother.” I have read about bears' intelligence and the fact that they are considered to be “an emotional species,” as are cats and dogs and probably horses.

The BEAR League took her to Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care, Inc. where she was examined by veterinarians and deemed healthy. The BEAR League has added a page to its facebook site on which they intend to keep the public aware of Tahoe's progress. It said recently, “Soon she will learn how to lap her formula out of a bowl, but there will be lots of messes made in the process.” Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care will eventually be released into the woodlands where she was found when she is big enough to survive. I loved this story. The photograph of the bear shows her with her cloth toy bear looking at it intently as though it were real. To see it, go to the NBC website, or to Google and search “Tahoe bear cub.”




The things she carried – CBS
2014 Apr 27

The final gifts that a mother and father gave their 14-year-old Jewish daughter as she boarded a train to escape the Nazis

60 Minutes producer Harry Radliffe was in a cinema with a friend, waiting to for a movie to start, when his friend asked if he had heard the story of Nicholas Winton. Winton, a 29-year-old stockbroker, used his vacation time to save hundreds of children from the Nazis by organizing a rescue mission from Czechoslovakia to London on the eve of World War II.

"My friend told me what the story was about, and then she said, 'The man who's now Sir Nicholas Winton is still alive.' And I said, 'You're kidding me.'" Other heroes of the Holocaust, like Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg, have been dead for decades. Winton is 104 years old.

That evening, Radliffe called up 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon and said "If you had an opportunity to speak with Raoul Wallenberg or Oskar Schindler, you would, wouldn't you?" Simon said yes, and Radliffe said, "Well, we oughta do this story."
Radliffe and Simon's story of Nicholas Winton airs on the 60 Minutes broadcast this week. It's a heart-wrenching and inspiring tale that features an interview with Winton himself.

"We were obviously concerned about what it would be like to interview someone who's 104 years old," says Radliffe. "We didn't know how well he'd be able to articulate his own story."

When the 60 Minutes crew turned its cameras on, Radliffe's concerns disappeared. At turns, Winton was funny, philosophical, and remarkably detailed in his memory of the "kindertransport" he organized in the late 1930s. In all, Winton was able to save 669 children, most of them Jewish and living in Czechoslovakia.

"I think stories that show that one person can make a difference are worth telling," says Radliffe. "Look at the difference that this one person made. Here's a guy who didn't have to get involved, who got involved, and look at what happened. The number of people who are alive today who would not be alive if a guy named Nick Winton hadn't decided to use his vacation to go to Prague and get involved, is extraordinary."

With the help of associate producer Vanessa Fica, Radliffe tracked down several of the children Winton saved. Fourteen-year-old Alice Eberstark, now 88 and living in Bethesda, Md., is one of them.

The story of how Alice and her two sisters made it onto one of Winton's trains is the subject of this week's 60 Minutes Overtime feature (in the video player above).
"Alice has one of the most heart-wrenching stories to tell," says Radliffe. "She remembers very clearly, before they left home, her father sitting on the edge of the bed, sobbing uncontrollably. They clearly had debated whether this was the right thing or not."

At one point in the interview, Alice showed the 60 Minutes team several things her parents gave her just before she boarded the train to London. Some of the items were made by her mother, including a beautifully embroidered nightgown.
"Think about what it must represent to Alice," says Radliffe. "This was the last act of love on the part of her mother."

After boarding the train that day, Alice never saw her parents again. They likely perished in a concentration camp.

"Many survivors feel guilty for having survived--I feel very grateful to my parents," says Alice, who now goes by the last name Masters. "Our parents' courage, I think, is the most important because most people said, 'We will go together or not at all.'"
Nicholas Winton's list of children courtesy the Yad Vashem Archives




Harry Radliffe of 60 Minutes tells “the story of Nicholas Winton. Winton, a 29-year-old stockbroker, used his vacation time to save hundreds of children from the Nazis by organizing a rescue mission from Czechoslovakia to London on the eve of World War II.” Winton will be interviewed on the broadcast this week. He is 104 years old. The producers were concerned that Winton would be typically “elderly,” with a wandering or incoherent narrative, but he was not. “At turns, Winton was funny, philosophical, and remarkably detailed in his memory of the "kindertransport" he organized in the late 1930s. In all, Winton was able to save 669 children, most of them Jewish and living in Czechoslovakia.”

I think heroes come in different kinds, the firefighter from several years ago who caught a child single handedly as he jumped from an upper story window and was injured himself in the process, or the mongrel dog that woke his sleeping mistress so she could get out of a house fire. There are some people, though, who get a great idea and move mountains to attain their goal – like Nicholas Winton. "I think stories that show that one person can make a difference are worth telling," says Radliffe. Radcliffe also did his research and found a number of the people who were rescued by Winton for the show.

Alice Eberstark, 88, of Bethesda, MD and her two sisters are among those survivors. She remembers “her father sitting on the edge of the bed, sobbing uncontrollably” and a beautiful embroidered night gown her mother made for her. “Many survivors feel guilty for having survived--I feel very grateful to my parents," says Alice, who now goes by the last name Masters. "Our parents' courage, I think, is the most important because most people said, 'We will go together or not at all.”

Now in Europe there is a new upsurge in anti-Semitic feeling. It seems that these kinds of groups are never completely defeated. There are some people who can't maintain their own self-esteem without putting somebody else down. The southern and western sections in the US are full of this, even though it is more against blacks than Jews. May we never see in the US our own “holocaust,” whether it be against blacks, Native Americans, Asians or Jews. Those parts of our political spectrum must be fought unto the end. I pray that I will never become so fearful of my life that I will sit back and silently watch that kind of thing happen, as it did in Germany.

My college roommate in 1964 was a girl whose looks amazed me. She was beautiful with light tan skin, long, dark curly hair and dark brown slightly slanted eyes. She was lively and funny and very intelligent and we became very good friends. When my fiance met her he turned to me when she had left and said, “You didn't tell me she was a Jew.” That was the first time that I had come across the hatred for the Jews. Through the years he made other anti-Semitic comments. He came from a fairly upscale Methodist church in Thomasville, and his father was a preacher's son – very nice in most ways, but also anti-Semitic. My ex-husband also doesn't like blacks. His “conservative” leanings were part of the reason that I finally left him. I want to be on the side of basic goodness and free thinking in this particular war. I think that if there is a God of Love, He or She will want me to follow that path.




Paul Simon arrested in Conn. on disorderly conduct charges
By Crimesider Staff CBS News April 28, 2014

NEW CANAAN, Conn. -- Singer Paul Simon and his musician wife Edie Brickell have been arrested on disorderly conduct charges.

New Canaan Police arrested Simon, 72, and Brickell, 47, on Saturday on a charge of disorderly conduct for a disturbance at his New Canaan home.
A New Canaan police spokeswoman provided no other details, except to say the arrests stemmed from an incident Saturday. An arraignment in Norwalk Superior Court is expected Monday afternoon.

There is expected to be a press conference on the incident at 11:30 a.m.
Simon has lived in New Canaan since 2007.

Simon married Brickell -- his third wife -- on May 30, 1992. They have three children together.

Simon is a 12-time Grammy winner and a member of The Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame -- as half of the duo of Simon and Garfunkel and as a solo artist.

Brickell's "What I Am," recorded with her band the New Bohemians, was a hit in 1988.





“Simon married Brickell -- his third wife -- on May 30, 1992. They have three children together.” I had been under the impression that Simon and Garfunkel were a gay couple. Bi, maybe, but not gay apparently. He has always stayed out of trouble until now. I am curious as to what really happened with the police. Were drugs involved? However it was, he and Garfunkel remain one of the best musical sounds of all the Rock groups, and I will always hold them fondly in my heart.





Laughter may work like meditation in the brain – CBS
By Robert Preidt HealthDay April 28, 2014

Laughter triggers brain waves similar to those associated with meditation, according to a small new study.

It also found that other forms of stimulation produce different types of brain waves.
The study included 31 people whose brain waves were monitored while they watched humorous, spiritual or distressing video clips. While watching the humorous videos, the volunteers' brains had high levels of gamma waves, which are the same ones produced during meditation, researchers found.

During the spiritual videos, the participants' brains showed higher levels of alpha brain waves, similar to when a person is at rest. The distressing videos caused flat brain wave bands, similar to when a person feels detached, nonresponsive or doesn't want to be in a certain situation.

Researchers were led by Lee Berk, an associate professor in the School of Allied Health Professions, and an associate research professor of pathology and human anatomy in the School of Medicine, at Loma Linda University, in California.

The study was scheduled to be presented Sunday at the Experimental Biology meeting held in San Diego. The data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

"What we have found in our study is that humor associated with mirthful laughter sustains high-amplitude gamma-band oscillations. Gamma is the only frequency found in every part of the brain," Berk said in a university news release.

"What this means is that humor actually engages the entire brain -- it is a whole brain experience with the gamma wave band frequency and humor, similar to meditation, holds it there; we call this being 'in the zone,'" Berk explained.

He said that with laughter, "it's as if the brain gets a workout." This effect is important because it "allows for the subjective feeling states of being able to think more clearly and have more integrative thoughts," Berk said. "This is of great value to individuals who need or want to revisit, reorganize or rearrange various aspects of their lives or experiences, to make them feel whole or more focused."




Researchers were led by Lee Berk, an associate professor in the School of Allied Health Professions, showed study participants “humorous, spiritual or distressing video clips” with distinctly different results. Humor produced lots of “gamma waves,” while the spiritual clip caused “alpha waves,” inducing a feeling of being at rest. The “distressing” video – I wonder what was distressing about it – caused “flat” brain waves as in a state of detachment or lack of response.

I have experienced Sidha Yoga meditation, so I know what “gamma waves” feel like. It was a state in which I was not focused clearly on my surroundings, and my mind wandered from thought to thought while I felt very, very relaxed. I experienced a vision of a brilliantly white and shining new born baby in a woman's arms. I was told that many people have that vision. I used to listen to a spiritual tape by Deepak Chopra, and I did find it very relaxing, though I don't really think it changed my “philosophy” or thinking pattern unless to make me temporarily feel more positive and somewhat “comforted.” I've less often had the experience of watching anything disturbing unless it is the oldstyle horror stories on “Creature Feature” or some of the scenes of animals attacking – crocs taking down wildebeest, for instance – from Animal Planet. There is something very disturbing about a very primitive animal like a crocodile, a bat, a spider or a shark. I think I do zone out to distance myself from that kind of thing, but I still watch those Animal Planet shows. The world of animals is too fascinating to me for me not to.

“Gamma is the only frequency found in every part of the brain," said Berk. It puts the brain into a state in which a “subjective” state that allows more integrated and clear thinking, especially good if the person has a great deal that they need to think through and “rearrange.” I have always enjoyed listening to comedians, but have never noticed that I had any different thinking pattern afterwards. I have, however, noticed that making a joke when I am worried can relieve the worry. I have always heard that comedians sometimes are not really very light-hearted and happy individuals, but use comedy to combat their state of mind. It is also interesting that certain medical doctors are beginning to have “laugh” therapy with their patients, on the grounds that it improves their healing. I should get a joke book out of the library and see what it does for me.