Sunday, May 4, 2014


News Clips For The Day


http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/ukrainian-forces-tighten-grip-on-rebels-in-embattled-kramatorsk-sloviansk-346141.html
Ukrainian forces tighten grip on rebels in embattled Kramatorsk, Sloviansk
May 3, 2014, 9:25 p.m. | Ukraine — by Christopher J. Miller

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine -- Ukraine’s counterterrorism operation continued and even gained traction in the country’s gritty industrial east on Saturday, as its security forces destroyed pro-Russian rebel checkpoints and pushed their lines closer toward the fortified centers of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, where armed insurgents remain holed up inside key government buildings.

The Interior Ministry said and Kyiv Post confirmed that the SBU building previously seized by the rebels had been recaptured, as well as the TV tower during the early morning operation. Ukrainian troops from the country’s army, Interior and Defense ministries and Security Service (SBU) also managed to fortify the perimeter surrounding the airfield in Kramatorsk, the site of much upheaval in past weeks, and detain at least three men believed to be supporting the rebels.

Russian state media reported that 10 insurgents were killed and 15 more injured during the dawn assault. The Kyiv Post could not independently confirm the details, but saw no dead bodies or wounded people in the city’s center Saturday morning. Eyewitnesses did tell the Kyiv Post, however, that several people were carried off to medics and treated for wounds sustained during the Ukrainian operation, but that they saw no corpses.

It was just after noon when Ukrainian forces carried out an assault on a rebel checkout at a northern highway between Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, opening fire on water and gas trucks used as blockades by the rebel forces, who in turn burned a wall of tires in an attempt to stave off the assault, according to eyewitnesses at the scene.

Misha, a twenty-something pro-Russian checkpoint guard who did not give his last name for fear of being targeted by “fascist” Kyiv forces, said the two gas trucks filled with flammable gas exploded when fired upon, peeling back the metal tanks like sardine cans. The water trucks were riddled with bullet holes and spent casings littered the soot-stained street.

Around one o’clock, about two dozen men were working to rebuilding the barricades destroyed by the Ukrainian forces, piling tires five-high and raising a Donetsk Republic flag as a group of young children gleefully gathered the spent cartridges to keep as souvenirs.

A little more than a kilometer away, in the city’s center, flames and smoke rose from two trolley buses, a van and a sedan that were set alight by pro-Kremlin rebel forces to prevent the Ukrainian operatives from advancing toward their headquarters – Kramatorsk’s city administration building.

More than an hour after the counterterrorism assault on the city had ended, a group of seven heavily armed men in full combat gear rested in the shade of a tree some 20 meters from the burned out bus remains. Dozens of locals crowded around them to congratulate them on their “victory over the fascist forces,” as one man in the crowd put it. With Kalashnikovs laid across their laps and rocket-propelled grenade launchers strung over their shoulders, they soaked up the attention.

Three blocks away, at the city administration buildings, armed insurgents removed their masks momentarily while a chubby priest in a rose-colored robe prayed over them, asking God to keep them safe in war, before showering them and the group that had crowded around with holy water.

Back on the highway from Kramatorsk to Sloviansk, the Ukrainian armed forces remained frosty at the string of checkpoints set up to keep pro-Russian rebels from traveling outside the city limits. One masked officer nervously fingered his pistol as two others with Kalashnikovs scrutinized the documents of a driver looking to pass through the point.

After the man began arguing with the three officers, the man with the pistol cocked the weapon and pushed a Kyiv Post report back into his car to get him out of the line of fire.
Meanwhile, members of the Security Service of Ukraine’s elite Alpha group captured three pro-Russian men their captain told the Kyiv Post had been “helping” the rebels embedded in Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Six Alpha officers marched them at gunpoint to a Ukraine-controlled checkpoint five kilometers north of Sloviansk, put them on their knees and questioned them before escorting them into a nearby building.

As Dusk fell over the steppe here in the country’s embattled east, the tension seemed to subside. Four young members of the country’s army standing guard at the checkpoint just north of Sloviansk joked with a Kyiv Post reporter.

“I know English,” said one, who did not give his name because he was not authorized to do so. “Windows XP and apple juice.” With that, his comrades let out bellowing laughs. 




Kiev's forces made headway in Eastern Ukraine yesterday, destroying roadblocks and pushing Russian troops back around Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. The SBU or Secret Service building and TV tower were recaptured, as well as the strengthening of the perimeter of the airfield at Kramatorsk. They detained three civilian men who were supporting the Separatists. “Russian state media reported that 10 insurgents were killed and 15 more injured during the dawn assault.” They later attacked a highway checkpoint and shot water and gas trucks which were used as blockades, starting a fire that burned both gas trucks.

Afterward Russian forces brought together a group of two dozen men and rebuilt a checkpoint, while children “gleefully gathered the spent cartridges to keep as souvenirs.” The Russian forces “celebrated their victory over the fascist forces,” and a priest (Russian Orthodox rather than Ukrainian Orthodox, I assume) blessed the Separatist soldiers. Kiev's troops, meanwhile, maintained the highway checkpoints to prevent the Russian forces from leaving the city. Four Ukrainians at a checkpoint were also relaxed and joking with a reporter from the Kiev Post. I hope they aren't all having so much fun that they won't want to make peace. I imagine many in Western Ukraine are feeling relieved now that they are actually fighting back, plus they did achieve success at several places.





Bullied Students Sneak Thousands of Guns Into Schools – NBC
BY BILL BRIGGS
First published May 2nd 2014

Bullying victims are sneaking hundreds of thousands of firearms, knives and clubs into U.S. high schools, according to a chilling new analysis that carries the eerie echoes of one recent mass school assault and two potential near misses.

Extrapolating from a survey of American high school students by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers found that bullied students who are threatened or injured by a weapon on school property were eight times more likely to then choose, themselves, to carry a weapon to campus.

More alarming: Bullying episodes have a cumulative effect, vastly boosting the likelihood that a chronically harassed student will choose to pack a weapon before returning to a high school, the study found.

Specifically, bullied students who have endured four types of aggressive clashes at school — being verbally tormented, sustaining a physical assault, suffering personal property theft or damage, and cutting school due to safety concerns — are nearly 49 times more likely to have recently carried a weapon to school and 34 times more likely to have recently smuggled a gun into school, the study found.

“When you combine all of those risk factors, you see scary figures,” said the lead author, Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Steven & Alexandra Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York.

"The data is staggering."
“The CDC gave us the dots — we connected them. The data is staggering,” Adesman added during a phone interview. He will present the findings Sunday to a meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Vancouver, B.C.

By examining the responses of high school students in a biannual, national survey conducted by the CDC, the researchers estimated that more than 200,000 victims of bullies had secretly lugged weapons such as firearms, knives or clubs into their high schools at least once during a previous month.

“Looking at these risk factors, it’s not hard to know who’s most likely to carry a weapon to school,” Adesman said. He added that some victims of bullies also are bullies themselves, “so it's not always black and white."

Bullying is often discussed after mass shootings, even if evidence has been generally mixed. The Columbine shooters, for example, bragged about bullying students themselves. But previous studies have found bullying to be a factor in many school shootings.

The fresh findings are certainly consistent with three 2014 incidents during which students who were reportedly bullied later toted weapons to their schools — and one of those students allegedly inflicted mass injuries.

Alex Hribal, 16, is accused of a stabbing spree at a school near Pittsburgh that left 20 students and a security guard wounded. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that Hribal had received an online taunt the night before.

Two weeks later, a 9-year-old boy brought a handgun to Ellis Elementary School in Manassas, Va., and did so, police said, because he was being bullied.

Earlier this year, police in San Diego, hunting for truants, stopped a 15-year-old freshman at Serra High School who was carrying a gun in his backpack and who was en route to that school.

“He obtained the gun (earlier that morning) from where he was living. He hid it in a canyon on his way to school,” said Lt. Kevin Mayer, a spokesman for the San Diego Police Department. “He went to Serra High School where he was being bullied, and he got bullied again that day. He ditched a period. He went and retrieved the gun.”
“If victims felt supported, protected, and heard by at least one of their peers, would they need to bring a weapon to school?”

The new findings from Adesman don't surprise two top anti-bullying advocates, yet both agreed the figures should offer teachers, principals and even parents a more urgent understanding of where to find the seeds of eventual mass school shootings.

“The extent to which a youngster has a weapon with them at school, you create a feeling of a bit more bravado on their part,” said Ronald Stephens, executive director of the National School Safety Center, based near Los Angeles. “When you combine the weapon's availability with the intimidation, some type of confrontation could escalate significantly.

“And when you look at many of the school shootings, they start with the small things,” Stephens added. “It could be name-calling, cursing, yelling, hard looks, and then you’re just moving right up the violence-continuum scale."

This study “may move us further along” in the work now underway at many schools to curb bullying while placing extra responsibility on administrators, Stephens said, “because once school officials know there is bullying going on, it goes back to: What did you know, when did you know about it, what did you do about it?”

One method for school professionals to intervene well before a weapon is placed inside a backpack is to try to break the code of silence that exists among many students, said Donna Clark Love, a Houston-based anti-bullying advocate who works with school staffs and families.

“A common thread of these students who bring weapons to school is to tell someone — usually peers,” Clark Love said. "We have to give our kids permission and support to report what they hear when a peer is in trouble.

“We have to train our bystanders to become up-standers. Schools spend so much time focusing on the bullies, and yet so little time and effort in training the largest part of the student body, the bystanders,” she added. “If victims felt supported, protected, and heard by at least one of their peers, would they need to bring a weapon to school?”




Firearms, knives and clubs – it's pretty hard to hide a club. I wonder if they get them from their parents or other adults, or are able to buy them in a store. The significant thing is that so many young people feel the need for a weapon. This new study was made by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is surprising. I didn't know they got into mental health issues, which is the category that this problem fits into, I think. In a way it's not so surprising that teenagers have fallen into this pattern, since so many of their parents before them have. Many US citizens are choosing to buy guns rather than take some martial arts courses, for instance, so that they can defend themselves effectively without a deadly weapon.

Dr. Andrew Adesman is lead author of a report to be given May 4 at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. According to the researchers – “bullied students who are threatened or injured by a weapon on school property were eight times more likely to then choose, themselves, to carry a weapon to campus.” Kids who are “chronically abused” or abused in multiple ways are 49 times more likely to carry some weapon to school, and 34 times more likely to bring a gun. I was surprised when I saw that one bullied student who brought a gun to school was only 9 years old. That's the fourth grade. What are the teachers doing about these things?

This article says that “the figures should offer teachers, principals and even parents a more urgent understanding of where to find the seeds of eventual mass school shootings.” I don't know why the writer should say “even parents,” since the home that violent kids come from is at least partly the source of the problem, whether it is due to coddling the child, allowing him to abuse his smaller siblings without restraint or abusing him directly. Many parent's idea of proper discipline is actually emotional or physical abuse. As likely as not, those parents were brought up that way themselves as kids. They need to go get psychological help before they bring up children.

Kids need to be taught how to interact without escalating to violence. According to Ronald Stephens of the National School Safety Center, it starts almost always with verbal abuse. “This study “may move us further along” in the work now underway at many schools to curb bullying while placing extra responsibility on administrators, Stephens said, “because once school officials know there is bullying going on, it goes back to: What did you know, when did you know about it, what did you do about it?”

According to Donna Clark Love, the teachers and administration need to “break the code of silence that exists among many students.” Many kids who have brought a weapon to school do tell some of their peers, and that student has to go to the school officials and report it, in other words, “snitch.”

I think many parents and even teachers nowadays, in this era of glorification of group-oriented behavior above free thought, fail to educate their kids on the practical need to operate as an individual and not as a group member in some cases. Another thing should be taught, and that is the basic morality of gentleness and supportiveness as a group member, rather than gang-based abuse. There is an important place for church youth groups, Girl and Boy Scouts – now that gays and blacks are allowed to be members – 4-H, and other adult-supervised and morality based activities. So many kids have nothing like that in their lives, so they seek out gangs by default. Once you have gangs, you have bullying.

Finally, Love says, “We have to train our bystanders to become up-standers.” Verbal defense is often enough to stop a bullying episode, and calling in a teacher to intervene is very helpful. School officials should be made aware of who the bullies are. Sometimes they are the “popular” kids and from well-financed homes. Too often teachers assume those students are “the good kids.”

If verbal defense doesn't stop the bullying, a courageous bystander or two could grab the combatants and separate them. I have twice, while a young person, defended someone who was being bullied with nothing more than sharp words and a strong voice, and it did in both cases break up the incident. I always had a temper and would try to protect an underdog, probably because I was the smallest of my parents' kids and among the smallest on any playground. Luckily, I was not very afraid even when I was young. I also always had some friends of my own, so I was not as easy to single out and attack as some kids are.




Spy Plane Fries Air Traffic Control Computers, Shuts Down LAX – NBC
BY ANDREW BLANKSTEIN
First published May 2nd 2014

Relic from the Cold War appears to have triggered a software glitch at a major air traffic control center in California Wednesday that led to delays and cancellations of hundreds of flights across the country, sources familiar with the incident told NBC News.

On Wednesday at about 2 p.m., according to sources, a U-2 spy plane, the same type of aircraft that flew high-altitude spy missions over Russia 50 years ago, passed through the airspace monitored by the L.A. Air Route Traffic Control Center in Palmdale, Calif. The L.A. Center handles landings and departures at the region’s major airports, including Los Angeles International (LAX), San Diego and Las Vegas.

The computers at the L.A. Center are programmed to keep commercial airliners and other aircraft from colliding with each other. The U-2 was flying at 60,000 feet, but the computers were attempting to keep it from colliding with planes that were actually miles beneath it.

Though the exact technical causes are not known, the spy plane’s altitude and route apparently overloaded a computer system called ERAM, which generates display data for air-traffic controllers. Back-up computer systems also failed.

As a result, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had to stop accepting flights into airspace managed by the L.A. Center, issuing a nationwide ground stop that lasted for about an hour and affected thousands of passengers.

At LAX, one of the nation’s busiest airports, there were 27 cancellations of arriving flights, as well as 212 delays and 27 diversions to other airports. Twenty-three departing flights were cancelled, while 216 were delayed. There were also delays at the airports in Burbank, Long Beach, Ontario and Orange County and at other airports across the Southwestern U.S.

In a statement to NBC News, the FAA said that it was “investigating a flight-plan processing issue” at the L.A. Air Route Traffic Control Center, but did not elaborate on the reasons for the glitch and did not confirm that it was related to the U-2’s flight.

“FAA technical specialists resolved the specific issue that triggered the problem on Wednesday, and the FAA has put in place mitigation measures as engineers complete development of software changes,” said the agency in a statement. “The FAA will fully analyze the event to resolve any underlying issues that contributed to the incident and prevent a reoccurrence.”

Sources told NBC News that the plane was a U-2 with a Defense Department flight plan. “It was a ‘Dragon Lady,’” said one source, using the nickname for the plane. Edwards Air Force Base is 30 miles north of the L.A. Center. Both Edwards and NASA’s Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center, which is located at Edwards, have been known to host U-2s and similar, successor aircraft.

The U.S. Air Force is still flying U-2s, but plans to retire them within the next few years.
Gary Hatch, spokesman for Edwards Air Force Base, would not comment on the Wednesday incident, but said, “There are no U-2 planes assigned to Edwards.”
A spokesperson for the Armstrong Flight Research Center did not immediately return a call for comment.

Developed more than a half-century ago, the U-2 was once a workhorse of U.S. airborne surveillance. The plane’s “operational ceiling” is 70,000 feet. In 1960, Francis Gary Powers was flying a U-2 for the CIA over the Soviet Union when he was shot down. He was held captive by the Russians for two years before being exchanged for a KGB colonel in U.S. custody. A second U.S. U-2 was shot down over Cuba in 1962, killing the pilot.




A U-2 spy plane 'triggered a software glitch”in California”that led to delays and cancellations of hundreds of flights across the country.... The computers at the L.A. Center are programmed to keep commercial airliners and other aircraft from colliding with each other. The U-2 was flying at 60,000 feet, but the computers were attempting to keep it from colliding with planes that were actually miles beneath it.” The plane overloaded the ERAM display data program and backup computers as well, causing the FAA to issue a “nationwide ground stop.” Some two hundred flights were delayed or abandoned in the California and Southwestern regions, and the disruption lasted about an hour. The event ended harmlessly, but it does remind me of 9/11/01 when all flights across the country were grounded until all the planes carrying terrorists were found.





Breaking through autism with Disney movies
CBS NEWS May 4, 2014

Parents of autistic children dream of breaking through the barrier that keeps them apart, which is why one family's accidental discovery of a "way in" to the child they thought they'd lost seemed like nothing short of a miracle. Our Cover Story is reported by Lesley Stahl of "60 Minutes":

Ron and Cornelia Suskind will never forget the fear and confusion they felt when, within a period of three weeks, their chatty, energetic, nearly three-year-old son, Owen, vanished.

"He's chatting away," said Ron. "I mean, you know, 'Let's get ice cream! Where are my Ninja Turtles?'"

"And very engaged," said Cornelia.

And then . . . nothing.

"It was like trying to find clues to a kidnapping -- where did he go?" said Ron.

"He was developing completely normally -- what happened?" asked Stahl.

"I think the first thing that we noticed was that he stopped sleeping," said Cornelia. "And then he started to lose eye contact. And then he started to lose language" -- down to one word: juice.

It was 1994. Ron, then a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, and Cornelia, a stay-at-home mom, were frantic.

"It was the most devastating, horrifying thing to go through," said Cornelia, "because of course I thought I had done something wrong."

Ron added, "We're quizzing each other - Did you see something? Did you see something? We thought maybe he banged his head when we weren't looking."
Doctors had a different diagnosis: autism.

All the Suskinds knew of autism was the movie "Rain Man": "We said, 'That can't be our son,'" Ron said.

That was in the '90s. Today parents are all too aware that one in 68 children in the U.S. is diagnosed with this developmental disorder.

For Ron and Cornelia, their new normal was a little boy unable to communicate, disinterested in the world around him. The only thing that seemed to make him happy was watching Disney movies, for hours on end.

"He just sits and watches them," Ron said, "and it seems to give him a kind of comfort."
It was those Disney movies that would change Owen's life.

After nearly four years without speaking, Owen suddenly had something important to say. The occasion was his older brother Walter's birthday.

"Walter gets emotional kind of one day a year, on his birthday," said Ron. "And on his 9th birthday, he gets a little emotional. And Owen looks at us quite intently like something's coming, and he says, 'Walter doesn't want to grow up, like Mowgli or Peter Pan.'

"It's a very evolved thought," Ron laughed, "and it's full speech. Cornelia said it's like a lightning bolt went through the kitchen."

As Ron recalls in a new book, "Life, Animated," something in Owen's mind had unlocked -- and those Disney movies seemed to be the key.

Suskind continued: "So up I go into Owen's bedroom, I grab a puppet, which is one of his favorite characters, which is Iago. I crawl over to the bed, so he doesn't see me, I put the bedspread over my head and I push the puppet up through the crease in the bedspread, and I talk to him as Iago. I say, 'Okay, Owen. What does it feel like to be you?' And Owen turns to the puppet like he's bumping into an old friend, and he says, 'It's not good, and I have no friends and I'm lonely.'"

Suskind stayed in character: "We talked, Iago and Owen, for about two minutes. And of course, it's our first conversation for four years."

Today, Owen is 23 years old and about to graduate from Riverview School, a college program for special needs students.

Stahl asked him, "Do you remember when your dad started to talk to you as if he was one of the characters?"
"Yeah," Owen said. He described it as "amazing."

And what did he learn from the Disney movies? "When I grew up watching them, I learned how they could help me find my place in the world," he said. "That they could help me with the ways of life, and how you should live."

And that's not all: At eight years old, Owen taught himself to read by sounding out the films' credits, down to the grips and the best boys.

And the movies inspired him to draw his favorite characters -- not the heroes, but the "sidekicks" -- the characters he could relate to.

"Owen, at that point, saw the world for what it is," said Suskind. "He saw other kids racing forward when he's caught on the starting blocks. And he said, 'I am not the hero. I am the sidekick. I help others fulfill their destiny.'"

Kevin Pelphrey, who directs the Child Neuroscience Lab at Yale, said, "Individuals with autism have rich experiences, rich feelings, rich emotions -- those can be harnessed to help them learn, to engage with the world."

Pelphrey says that autistic children's obsessions -- which parents are often told to try and limit -- can instead be used in therapy. "This is sort of a new approach in thinking about taking that one thing and really making it central to the child's social world," he said.

Pelphrey is conducting a study that uses brain imaging to measure the effects of these treatments -- which he calls "affinity therapy" -- on autistic children. "And so you can know early if a treatment is working, and critically you can know if it's not," he said. "And you can alter it. You're not wasting time. The dream is to make it work better for each individualized child based on what you can get from their brain data."

With Kristin Holland's seven-year-old son Parker, his therapists are now trying to use his love of farm animals as a "way in."

"For Parker we saw a huge improvement," said Holland. "through the therapy we saw him sort of get interested in other people."

For families like the Hollands and the Suskinds, finding any door into the world of their autistic child is a miracle.

For Owen, Disney is also a way out, as he sang "That's What Makes the World Go 'Round," from "The Sword in the Stone."

Don't just wait and trust to fate, 
And say, that's how it's meant to be. 
It's up to you how far you go 
If you don't try, you'll never know. 
And so my lad, as I've explained, 
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

"Wow, is that Merlin singing?" said Stahl. "So what did you get out of that? What did you learn from Merlin singing?"

"To try new things, exciting things. of my place in the world," said Owen.

Owen's world -- once just his TV and Disney tapes -- now even includes a serious girlfriend, Emily.

Stahl asked Owen, "Now what movie helped you there?"

"I gotta say 'Beauty and the Beast,'" said Owen, quoting the dialogue:

BEAST: "I've never felt this way about anyone. I want to do something for her. But what?"
COGSWORTH: "Well, there's the usual things -- flowers, chocolates, promises you don't intend to keep ..."
LUMIERE: "Ahh, no no. It has to be something very special. Something that sparks her interest."

Three years ago, with Emily's help, Owen started a Disney Club on campus for classmates who love Disney as much as he does. He told Stahl he did it "to find people a lot like me."

And he did.

For the first time in his life, at Disney Club, Owen is more than a sidekick. He's a leader.
He introduced the film: "Tonight we watch some of 'Beauty and the Beast.'"

Stahl asked a question to those in the Disney Club: "Which Disney character speaks to you most?"

One boy said Simba, from "The Lion King": "Because he's strong and he's not as scared as he was as a kid."

Another said the Beast: "Because when he's an animal he kind of has incredible strength."

Owen's answer: "Aladdin, because he wants to show people that he's more than just a nobody. Show them that he's a happy diamond in the rough. And he is. Just like me!"

"So am I," said another.

The students sang along with the film -- and Cornelia Suskind cried.

"Yeah, it was really overwhelming to me," she told Stahl. "You know, they have a rich inner life that is every bit, if not richer, than yours and mine. And many of them have great difficulty expressing that to the rest of the world, to their families. But it doesn't mean it's not in there."




Ron and Cornelia Suskind had what they thought was a normal and healthy child when suddenly in the latter part of his second year the symptoms of autism appeared, closing him off from their love and attention. "He was developing completely normally -- what happened?" asked Stahl.

"I think the first thing that we noticed was that he stopped sleeping," said Cornelia. "And then he started to lose eye contact. And then he started to lose language" -- down to one word: 'juice.'... The only thing that seemed to make him happy was watching Disney movies, for hours on end.” For four years he sat and watched Disney movies, which seemed to comfort him, his parents said.

Then on his older brother's birthday he suddenly spoke a complete sentence showing a great deal of perspicacity. "'Walter gets emotional kind of one day a year, on his birthday," said Ron. "And on his 9th birthday, he gets a little emotional. And Owen looks at us quite intently like something's coming, and he says, 'Walter doesn't want to grow up, like Mowgli or Peter Pan.'As Ron recalls in a new book, "Life, Animated," something in Owen's mind had unlocked -- and those Disney movies seemed to be the key.”

Taking his lead from this change Ron takes a hand puppet and uses it to talk to Owen, asking him how he feels, and Owen says ,”'It's not good, and I have no friends and I'm lonely.'" As an adult, being interviewed by Leslie Stahl, she asks him how the Disney movies helped him. He says they taught him “the ways of life” and “how you should live.” Owen also taught himself to read by sounding out the credits to the movies. Ron also quotes Owen as saying as a child, “''I am not the hero. I am the sidekick. I help others fulfill their destiny.'"

Kevin Pelphrey, of the Child Neuroscience Lab at Yale, recommends trying to use the obsessions that Autistic kids tend to develop, which are called “affinities,” to get through to the child. Ron was doing that when he used the hand puppet to reach Owen. This is called “affinity therapy.” Today, through “The Beauty and the Beast” Owen developed a relationship with a young woman, and has started a Disney club on his school campus, trying to “find other people like me.” One thing is clear to me. Autism is not a lack of intelligence. I do hope the time will come when scientists can track and analyze the child's brain waves and brain chemistry so that they can detect what physically happened in the brain – is it a form of damage, a stalling of the brain's development or a brain chemical imbalance?

As an adult I stopped watching cartoon features by Disney and most of the other movies, but when I think of certain ones, they really stand out as drama and a way to learn about emotion for kids who are “blocked.” . “Old Yeller,” “Swiss Family Robinson,” Bambi (the original version), Lady and the Tramp, and others were enjoyable and I think helpful to me. Two other very good films that I had no idea were by Disney are “National Treasure” and “Never Cry Wolf.” “Never Cry Wolf” was absolutely startling and unique – recommended viewing for any of you who love animals and have an interest in science.

For Ron Suskind's book describing Owen's development as he grew up go to Amazon. It is currently available in hardback for $13.02 and $3.99 shipping. It is rated 5 stars.




Poised And Persistent, Reporter Broke White House Color Barrier – NPR
by SCOTT HORSLEY
May 03, 2014

Hollywood starlets will mingle with politicians and even humble reporters in Washington on Saturday night. That can only mean one thing: the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner. The black-tie event has evolved into a glitzy celebrity roast, but it began as a simple chance for journalists to break bread with the presidents they cover.
This year, the White House Correspondents' Association is celebrating its 100th anniversary, and it plans to posthumously honor the first African-American reporter to cover a presidential news conference.

That recognition is 70 years overdue.

It was 1944 when Harry McAlpin finally broke the color barrier in the White House press corps.

National Journal reporter George Condon, who's writing a book about the Correspondents' Association, says black newspaper editors had complained for years that white reporters covering the president weren't asking the questions their readers wanted answers to. At their urging, Franklin Roosevelt finally opened the door to McAlpin, a reporter for the Atlanta Daily World.

"He knew there was one black face in the room where there had never been one before," Condon says. "So after the press conference, Roosevelt, seated in his chair, called him over and shook his hand and said, 'Glad to see you here, McAlpin.' "

Ordinarily, Condon says, the head of the Correspondents' Association would have introduced a new reporter on the beat, but McAlpin didn't get that courtesy. The association was an all-white club at the time, and its leader actively tried to prevent McAlpin from entering the Oval Office.

"He told him, 'It's so crowded in there, you might step on a white reporter's foot and there could be a riot in the Oval Office.' McAlpin was privately furious," Condon says. "But he kept his calm, and said, 'Well, I'd be surprised if that happens. But if it does, that would be a hell of a news story, and I want to be there for that.' "

McAlpin's son Sherman says that sounds like his father — a man who was rarely confrontational but who could be persistent in pursuit of a goal.

"He was ... not into aggressively or truly overt means of achieving integration and so on. That doesn't mean he wasn't about to fight for equal opportunity and would press in a very measured way to achieve that," Sherman McAlpin says.

The elder McAlpin later served as a war correspondent in the South Pacific and eventually settled in Louisville, Ky., where he led the local chapter of the NAACP. Harry McAlpin died in 1985.

Even though he covered the White House under presidents Roosevelt and Truman, Harry McAlpin was never allowed to join the Correspondents' Association or invited to its annual dinner, his son says.

"Internally, I think it would have bothered him. But he was one of those people that simply would soldier on and would not be about to let it show," Sherman McAlpin says.
It was 1951 before the first black reporter was allowed to join the Association. Women were excluded from the dinner until 1962, when President Kennedy threatened to boycott unless they were allowed in.

On Saturday the Association will award its first-ever Harry McAlpin scholarship, in honor of the trailblazing correspondent. Association President Steve Thomma says the goal is to keep Harry McAlpin's story alive, inspire young reporters, and acknowledge the organization's past mistakes.

"Well, that's the definition of history. We're going to tell the whole story," Thomma says.
Harry McAlpin will finally receive an honorary membership in the group. Seventy years is a long time to wait for an apology, but Condon, whose historical research led to the scholarship, says, "It's never too late to try to set things right."



White House Correspondents' Association
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) is an organization of journalists who cover the White House and the President of the United States. The WHCA was founded on February 25, 1914, by journalists in response to an unfounded rumor that a Congressionalcommittee would select which journalists could attend press conferences of President Woodrow Wilson.[1]

The WHCA operates independently of the White House. Among the more notable issues handled by the WHCA are the credentialing process, access to the President and physical conditions in the White House press briefing rooms.[2][3]

The WHCD has been increasingly criticized as an example of the coziness between the White House press corps and the Administration.[6] The dinner typically includes a skit, either live or videotaped, by the sitting President in which he mocks himself, for the amusement of the press corps.[6] The press corps, in turn, hobnobs with Administration officials, even those who are unpopular and are not regularly cooperative with the press.[6] Increasing scrutiny by bloggers has contributed to added public focus on this friendliness.[6]




In 1944 FDR opened the White House door to its first black press corpsman, Harry McAlpin of the Atlanta Daily World. National Journal  reporter George Condon, who's writing a book about the Correspondents' Association, a white man's private club until that time, tells McAlpin's story. Their leader “actively tried to prevent McAlpin from entering the Oval Office,” saying “'It's so crowded in there, you might step on a white reporter's foot and there could be a riot in the Oval Office.' McAlpin was privately furious," Condon says. "But he kept his calm, and said, 'Well, I'd be surprised if that happens. But if it does, that would be a hell of a news story, and I want to be there for that.'"

After this coup he served as a reporter in World War II and settled in Louisville, KY, going on to lead the local NAACP. He died in 1985. The Correspondents Association continued to exclude him until 1951. “Women were excluded from the dinner until 1962, when President Kennedy threatened to boycott unless they were allowed in.” In the words of Muddy Waters, “that mean old white backlash” was still holding strong. I'm sure this book by Condon, unnamed so far and perhaps unfinished, will be a very big hit.