Tuesday, May 20, 2014


News Clips For The Day


High School Dropout Rate Depends on Mentorship, Study Finds
BY NONA WILLIS ARONOWIT
First published May 19th 2014

From the moment Luis E. Mateo started high school in Lowell, Massachusetts, almost ten years ago, he never felt safe. He remembers being bullied almost immediately—first for simply being a scrawny freshman, and later because of his race. Meanwhile, his home life was chaotic; he and his mother frequently fought.

“It was like, ‘where do I belong?’” he said. “I didn’t have support from [school] friends, and didn’t have support when I came home."

Mateo went to the guidance counselor’s office a couple of times to address the bullying, but says he only felt lectured there. One day, after a blowup with his mother, Mateo says she kicked him out of the house. The next day, he got in a physical fight with one of his bullies. That’s when he went to the guidance office and announced that he was leaving school. The counselor urged him to stay, but it was too late.

Mateo’s experience reflects many of the voices in “Don’t Call Them Dropouts,” a new report released Tuesday by America’s Promise Alliance, based on research conducted by the Center for Promise at Tufts University. Culled from in-depth interviews with 200 young people and nationwide surveys from 2,000 people ages 18-25, the study is the largest of its kind about teens who don’t earn a high school diploma—about 20 percent of kids who enter high school.

The study found that young people leave school not because of a single event but due to a confluence of factors, including a violent home life, an incarcerated parent, or homelessness. Sixty-six percent of these young people experienced from three to 12 of these challenges, with almost one-quarter experiencing at least six.

Jonathan Zaff, executive director of the Center for Promise, said the problem isn’t that these kids lack grit—it’s that they become overwhelmed and often find themselves without support. If there was one predictive question, he said, it was, “Is there an adult in your community you can turn to for help?"

“If the answer was no, [the young person] was much more at risk,” said Zaff. “It’s crucial to have several adults in their lives who can guide them and support them and have expectations for them."

“It seemed like the best thing was to sit back and say, ‘OK, I have to leave.'"

A particularly heartbreaking pattern: Before dropping out, many of these teens reached out to the adults around them only to feel let down and disillusioned by the experience. Mateo says he felt like his counselor “was listening but notreally listening.” This feeling extends to parents: The survey found that only 55 percent feel their parents actually care for them.

Many kids “are reaching and trying and sometimes they’re getting the door closed on them, literally and figuratively,” Zaff said. And even if the adults are responsive, many give up too soon: “The assumption is if we reach out to them, and they don’t immediately accept our help, then it’s their fault they didn’t finish high school."

Jennifer Silva, author of Coming Up Short, a book about working class young adults, said many teens at risk of dropping out learn at an early age to only count on themselves.

“Everyone grows up thinking school is where you’re supposed to succeed,” said Silva. “So when high school becomes a site of betrayal and bewilderment, it makes them feel like, ‘I shouldn’t depend on anyone.'"

During her research, Silva found that seemingly minor things—not being sure where the guidance counselor’s office was, not knowing which hotline to call—can frustrate and derail young people who are in need of support.

“It’s these step-by-step processes that seem really obvious if you’re middle class,” she said.

And there are the teens who feel too ashamed to reach out. When Kasandra Vega went from her neighborhood school to a private Catholic high school, the transition was “academically overwhelming,” said Vega, now 22. Her grades began slipping and she started drinking and smoking. Yet she didn’t approach any teachers for help, and didn’t want to burden her mom. “I felt embarrassed I didn’t understand the coursework,” she said. “[The teachers] had high standards, and they didn’t expect anybody to fail."

When she found out she was pregnant at 16, she retreated from school even more. “I felt like I’d let everybody down,” she said. “It seemed like the best thing was to sit back and say, ‘OK, I have to leave.'"

“One guidance counselor for every 1,000 students is not going to cut it."

Once struggling teens conclude that the adults in their lives are of no use to them, they tend to seek connection in far less productive ways, the study found. They’ll join gangs, for example.

“[Gang members] told me, ‘Come on, we’ll treat you like family,’” recalled Mateo, now 23. He resisted the temptation, because he had witnessed much of the violence and arrests that come with that pledge. But he understands why a lot of his peers are attracted to the acceptance of a gang. “If you’re offering somebody a place to belong, they’re going to take it”—and they’re going to drift further from school as a result.

Both Mateo and Vega eventually did find mentors, in the form of their transitional coaches at United Teen Equality Center, an organization in Lowell that provides young people who left high school with workforce training and GED classes. Gregg Croteau, the center’s executive director, said part of what UTEC does is provide that “one consistent, caring adult” that may not have been present during high school.

“[Teens] need that adult that makes them feel like they’re part of a community,” said Croteau. They need business owners from their neighborhood who can train them. They need schools that encourage interactive learning, so kids stay actively engaged.

And schools should “have that intentional philosophy [of creating] a sense of community,” said Cocteau. “It can’t just be luck of the draw, getting that one good teacher who cares."

There are, of course, teachers and community leaders who are naturally skilled at connecting with teenagers and fiercely devoted to at-risk kids—“magicians,” Zaff calls them. But he said there simply aren’t enough to go around. Not only is “one guidance counselor for every 1,000 students not going to cut it,” but those counselors and other adults have to recognize when a teen is asking for help, and have to be persistent. A teacher of Vega’s, for instance, once offered to tutor her, but she turned him down—and never got such an offer again.

Zaff envisions an “army of magicians,” people who adopt the philosophy of mentors at places like UTEC or Self-Enhancement, Inc. in Portland, Oregon, where they’re in the habit of saying, “I put my last name on that young person. They’re now family."

Of course, it’s impossible to give every kid a formal mentor; these nonprofits have limited bandwidth.

But these bonds can be formed "in all sorts of informal ways,” said Zaff. “We should get as many adults as possible to say, ‘I’m putting my name on you.’”




Luis E. Mateo, from his first days in high school, “never felt safe. He remembers being bullied almost immediately—first for simply being a scrawny freshman, and later because of his race. Meanwhile, his home life was chaotic; he and his mother frequently fought.... Mateo went to the guidance counselor’s office a couple of times to address the bullying, but says he only felt lectured there.” Finally, after a physical fight with one of his bullies, he quit school. School must be hell for these kids. It is too often a place without enough adult guidance, mentoring and discipline and as a result, too many developing hoodlums. Those overly aggressive and racially prejudiced kids grow up to be the same kind of adult, unless something jars them out of that pattern. That's why we still have the KKK in America, especially in conservative strongholds.

America’s Promise Alliance, has done a study of these kids who drop out. From their website is the following description of the organization: “We are the nation’s largest partnership of our kind, bringing together hundreds of national nonprofits, businesses, communities, educators and ordinary citizens behind the idea of making the promise of America accessible to all young people.” “Don’t Call Them Dropouts,” is their study based on 200 in depth interviews and 2000 completed surveys of high school aged kids or young adults. All those kids dropped out of high school, with an estimated 20% of today's students failing to get a diploma. I didn't realize the number was so high.

The article states, “The study found that young people leave school not because of a single event but due to a confluence of factors, including a violent home life, an incarcerated parent, or homelessness. Sixty-six percent of these young people experienced from three to 12 of these challenges, with almost one-quarter experiencing at least six.” Jonathan Zaff of the Center For Promise said that the presence of at least one reliable adult in their life was predictive of success rather than failure. He said, “'It’s crucial to have several adults in their lives who can guide them and support them and have expectations for them.'" I think the primary way that minority kids are failed by their teachers in so many schools is the lack of “expectations.” They are often considered to be less intelligent and less able to be good citizens. The article says that most of these kids did reach out to the few adults they had in their lives, but were failed by them and grew disillusioned, so they simply gave up. “The survey found that only 55 percent feel their parents actually care for them.”

“Jennifer Silva, author of 'Coming Up Short' a book about working class young adults, said many teens at risk of dropping out learn at an early age to only count on themselves.” They too often drift into the peer group acceptance of drugs, drinking and smoking or even gang membership for support. ...“...United Teen Equality Center, an organization in Lowell that provides young people who left high school with workforce training and GED classes” provides transitional coaches for individual support and aid. “Of course, it’s impossible to give every kid a formal mentor; these nonprofits have limited bandwidth. But these bonds can be formed "in all sorts of informal ways,” said Zaff. “We should get as many adults as possible to say, ‘I’m putting my name on you.’” These mentoring organizations aren't very well-known, but a search on the Internet might turn some up in the local community which would allow you to participate as a mentor if you're interested in helping.

The book Coming Up Short is available on Amazon at website http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Short-Working-Class-Adulthood-Uncertainty/dp/0199931461 for $25.96 in hardcover. This may be too expensive for many people, so maybe your public library will have a copy. They will usually be able to order one through an interlibrary loan if they don't have it on their shelves. I have a feeling this book would be very enlightening since it takes individual student cases and explores them. It might put a new light on poverty in today's America.





Raising Arizona: Yearbook Knocked for Depicting Teen Parents – NBC
— Bill Briggs
First published May 20th 2014

This spring's yearbook at Mesa High School in suburban Phoenix offers a candid snapshot of the class of 2014: Sports achievements, academic glory — and the children conceived by some students.

For some, photos of student parents and students expecting children cross the line for yearbook content.

Kathee Merkley has a 17-year-old daughter and a foreign exchange student enrolled as seniors at Mesa High this year. She told The Arizona Republic she was troubled by the image of a male student embracing the belly of a pregnant female student.

"When you look at the pages at first you think it is of a child development class," she said. "But then if you look closer you see the photo of the boy hugging the belly. I think that was unnecessary."

The two pages in question, titled "I'm Working a Double Shift" — a reference to the dual responsibilities of student and parent — have drawn complaints from families. But no changes will be made to the yearbook, Mesa Public Schools spokeswoman Helen Hollands said Monday.

While a yearbook is traditionally meant to commemorate the achievements that students — especially seniors — pull off in a given year, district officials are wary of trampling on the yearbook authors' First Amendment rights, Hollands said.

"When you have this kind of reaction from the community and the students to the content, it should help refine your judgment and inform your future focus on the appropriate content of your yearbook publication," Hollands said.

But she acknowledged that the designers of that small section of images are not advocating for teenagers to become parents — they are merely documenting the fact that some Mesa High students are living with that reality.

"It's not black and white. It is a conversation starter," Hollands said. "The students (when publishing a yearbook) tend to want to put themselves in the context of their world."




“Kathee Merkley has a 17-year-old daughter and a foreign exchange student enrolled as seniors at Mesa High this year. She told The Arizona Republic she was troubled by the image of a male student embracing the belly of a pregnant female student.” When I was going through a teen mother had to quit school until her baby was born. That is now considered unfair by most people, I think, but this school's Yearbook staff have gone too far for some parents, apparently.

I wonder how the students themselves feel about it? If that school is like ours was, the yearbook staff was made up by students with some adult supervision. There has been a trend among some young people to get pregnant purposely, “proving themselves to be fertile” – like a rite of passage. Some political conservatives cynically think they are actually putting themselves in a position to get money from the government. I don't know about that, but purposely getting pregnant for any reason goes too far for me, and I'm a progressive Democrat.

I tend to agree with Kathee Merkley simply because the yearbook will be viewed by people for generations to come, often with the purpose of deciding whether to hire the student, or accept them for a scholarship. Clearly it is better if their pregnancy or their child are not shown in the yearbook, as this prejudices too many people against them as having a “bad character.” The same is true for pictures on Facebook of drinking parties or scanty bathing suits. It just isn't smart.




Poppy Is Crowned World's Oldest Living Cat at Age 24 – NBC
— Tia Ghose Live Science
First published May 19th 2014, 7:33 pm

The world's oldest living cat is a 24-year-old feline with a hankering for KFC chicken and kebabs.

The cat, Poppy, is a mutt that lives in Bournemouth, England, with owner Jacqui West, her husband and two sons, as well as four other cats, a rabbit and a hamster.

Poppy, now blind and deaf, has lived through four United States presidents, and despite her frail health, she still rules the roost at home, her owners say. [ Images: See the World From a Cat's Eyes ]

Poppy is definitely the top cat and she is still quite feisty. If one of the other cats tries to eat her food she will bite them on the ear," West told the Guinness Book of World Records.

The family isn't sure exactly why Poppy has hung on for so long, but West said she eats canned and dried food, with occasional fast-food treats, such as KFC chicken, kebabs and fish and chips.

Before Poppy was crowned the oldest living cat, a 23-year-old Kansas feline named Pinky held the title. Pinky passed away last year. The oldest cat ever recorded, Creme Puff, lived in Austin, Texas, until her death at 38 years and 3 days in 2005. The average indoor cat lives about 15 years.

Poppy may be 114-years-old in people-years, but she's far from the oldest animal out there. Giant tortoises typically live for about 100 years, though one living in a Indian zoo reportedly lived to be 250 years old. An Asian elephant at a zoo in Taiwan also reportedly lived for 86 years. And an ocean quahog, or clam, found in a seabed near Iceland was a mind-boggling 507 years old when it was cracked open by researchers in 2006, USA Today reported.

But even those venerable animals are far from the oldest living things on the planet. An ancient bristlecone pine tree in California is thought to be almost 5,000 years old, and a colony of clonal aspen in Utah, named Pando, is at least 80,000 years old. In 2007, bacteria discovered in Siberian soil was found to be more than half a million years old.




Poppy the cat lives in Bournemouth England with her owners Jacqui West and her family, one of a house full of animals including four other cats, a rabbit and a hamster. Unfortunately she is now blind and deaf, and from her picture has arthritis, but “she still rules the roost at home,” according to Ms. West. “'Poppy is definitely the top cat and she is still quite feisty. If one of the other cats tries to eat her food she will bite them on the ear,' West told the Guinness Book of World Records.”

The oldest cat in recorded history was 38 years old and three days when she died. The average cat lives to about 15 years. A colony of aspens in Utah has been aged at 80,000 years and some bacteria in Siberia at half a million. The aspens were probably dated by tree rings and the bacteria possibly by a study of their DNA. I will be content to live to 85 or so.




More U.S. Planes Stand By In Case of Libya Embassy Evacuation – NBC
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Jim Miklaszewski
First published May 20th 2014

The U.S. Military has placed extra aircraft on standby in Italy in case the decision is taken to evacuate the American Embassy in Tripoli amid rising tension in Libya, defense officials said.

Four additional tilt-rotor Osprey transport planes and one additional C-130 Hercules were sent to Sigonella, Sicily, where nearly 200 Marines were already on standby.

That brings the total number of aircraft to 8 Ospreys and 3 C-130s.

The orders for the additional aircraft came after increased clashes between Libyan military forces and armed militant groups in and around Benghazi.

Intelligence reports warn that the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli could get caught in the middle of battles between competing militia in the city.

Officials said there were no indications that the embassy is under any specific threat, and the additional aircraft were ordered as a “prudent precaution” to cover all possible contingencies.

Heavily armed gunmen stormed Libya's parliament on Sunday and gunfire erupted across Tripoli, where rival militias clashed in some of the worst violence in the city since the end of the 2011 war against Muammar Gaddafi.

Saudi Arabia closed its embassy and consulate in the Libyan capital and withdrew all of its diplomatic staff on Monday due to security concerns.

Underscoring the turmoil, the commander of Libyan army special forces said on Monday he had allied with renegade general Khalifa Haftar in his campaign against militant Islamists.

Haftar has been denounced by the Tripoli government as attempting to stage a coup.

The Marines in Sigonella are part of a crisis response unit focused on embassy security that was created after the attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012, that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.





“Officials said there were no indications that the embassy is under any specific threat, and the additional aircraft were ordered as a “prudent precaution” to cover all possible contingencies.... Saudi Arabia closed its embassy and consulate in the Libyan capital and withdrew all of its diplomatic staff on Monday due to security concerns....the commander of Libyan army special forces said on Monday he had allied with renegade general Khalifa Haftar in his campaign against militant Islamists.” See the following update on Libya.


http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2014/05/18/death-toll-in-libyas-benghazi-rises-to-70

Renegade Libyan general's group says parliament has been suspended after its Tripoli attack
By ESAM MOHAMED and SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press
May 18, 2014

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Forces apparently loyal to a renegade Libyan general said they suspended parliament Sunday after earlier leading a military assault against lawmakers, directly challenging the legitimacy of the country's weak central government three years after the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Libya's leadership condemned the attack and vowed to carry on.

A commander in the military police in Libya read a statement announcing the suspension on behalf of a group led by Gen. Khalifa Hifter, a one-time rebel commander who said the U.S. backed his efforts to topple Gadhafi in the 1990s. Hours earlier, militia members backed by truck-mounted anti-aircraft guns, mortars and rocket fire attacked parliament, sending lawmakers fleeing for their lives as gunmen ransacked the legislature.

Gen. Mokhtar Farnana, speaking on a Libyan television channel on behalf of Hifter's group, said it assigned a 60-member constituent's assembly to take over for parliament. Farnana said Libya's current government would act on as an emergency Cabinet, without elaborating.

Farnana, who is in charge of prisons operated by the military police, said forces loyal to Hifter carried out Sunday's attack on parliament. He also said Sunday's attack on Libya's parliament was not a coup, but "fighting by the people's choice."

"We announce to the world that the country can't be a breeding ground or an incubator for terrorism," said Farnana, who wore a military uniform and sat in front of Libya's flag.

Early Monday morning, Libya's interim government condemned the attack on parliament and largely ignored the declaration by the general's group.

"The government condemns the expression of political opinion through the use of armed force," Libyan Justice Minister Salah al-Marghani said in a statement. "It calls for an immediate end of the use the military arsenal ... and calls on all sides to resort to dialogue and reconciliation."

Militias that backed the country's interim government manned checkpoints around the capital late Sunday. Hifter's forces in Tripoli appeared concentrated around the road to the city's airport and its southern outskirts.

The attack on parliament, which al-Marghani said killed two people and wounded more than 50, came after an assault Friday by Hifter's forces on Islamist militias in the restive eastern city of Benghazi that authorities said killed 70 people. On Sunday, gunmen targeted the Islamist lawmakers and officials Hifter blames for allowing extremists to hold the country ransom, his spokesman Mohammed al-Hegazi told Libyan television station al-Ahrar.

"This parliament is what supports these extremist Islamist entities," al-Hegazi said. "The aim was to arrest these Islamist bodies who wear the cloak of politics."

The fighting spread to the capital's southern edge Sunday night and along the airport highway.

Libya's army and police rely heavily on the country's myriad of militias, the heavily armed groups formed around ethnic identity, hometowns and religion that formed out of the rebel factions that toppled Gadhafi. Bringing them under control has been one of the greatest challenges for Libya's successive interim governments, one they largely failed at as militias have seized oil terminals and even kidnapped a former prime minister seemingly at will.

In the fighting Sunday, officials believe members of the al-Qaaqaa and Sawaaq militias, the largest in the capital, backed Hifter even though they operate under a government mandate. Al-Qaaqaa posted a statement on its official Facebook page saying it attacked parliament with Sawaaq because lawmakers supported "terrorism."

Islamist-backed parliamentary head Nouri Abu Sahmein earlier told Libyan television station al-Nabaa that parliament would convene Tuesday.



“Gen. Mokhtar Farnana, speaking on a Libyan television channel on behalf of Hifter's group, said it assigned a 60-member constituent's assembly to take over for parliament. Farnana said Libya's current government would act on as an emergency Cabinet, without elaborating.... He also said Sunday's attack on Libya's parliament was not a coup, but "fighting by the people's choice....We announce to the world that the country can't be a breeding ground or an incubator for terrorism," Hifter's spokesman said, “'This parliament is what supports these extremist Islamist entities," al-Hegazi said. "The aim was to arrest these Islamist bodies who wear the cloak of politics." Hifter is backed by the al-Qaaqaa and Sawaaq militias, in his fight against the Islamists. The Islamist government has announced that the parliament will convene on Tuesday despite the attack. There is no evidence in either of these two articles about whether the US government has is backing either party.





Ex-NFL players allege league illegally supplied them with drugs – CBS
AP May 20, 2014

WASHINGTON - A group of retired NFL players says in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that the league, thirsty for profits, illegally supplied them with risky narcotics and other painkillers that numbed their injuries for games and led to medical complications down the road.

The league obtained and administered the drugs illegally, without prescriptions and without warning players of their potential side effects, to speed the return of injured players to the field and maximize profits, the lawsuit alleges. Players say they were never told about broken legs and ankles and instead were fed pills to mask the pain. One says that instead of surgery, he was given anti-inflammatories and skipped practices so he could play in money-making games. And others say that after years of free pills from the NFL, they retired from the league addicted to the painkillers.

Steven Silverman, attorney for the players, said the complaint was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, and a copy was shared with The Associated Press ahead of the filing.

The complaint names eight players, including three members of the Super Bowl champion 1985 Chicago Bears: Hall of Fame defensive end Richard Dent, offensive lineman Keith Van Horne, and quarterback Jim McMahon. Lawyers seek class-action status, and they say in the filing that more than 400 other former players have signed on to the lawsuit.

McMahon says in the lawsuit that he suffered a broken neck and ankle during his career but rather than sitting out, he received medications and was pushed back on to the field. Team doctors and trainers never told him about the injuries, according to the lawsuit.

McMahon also became addicted to painkillers, at one point taking more than 100 Percocet pills per month, even in the offseason, the lawsuit says. Team-employed doctors and trainers illegally administered the drugs, the lawsuit alleges, because they didn't get prescriptions, keep records or explain side effects.

Van Horne played an entire season on a broken leg and wasn't told about the injury for five years, "during which time he was fed a constant diet of pills to deal with the pain," the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit comes on the heels of a landmark case that accused the league of concealing known risks from players' concussions. The NFL settled that case for $765 million. No blame was assessed and players received no punitive damages. Among the eight named plaintiffs, six were also plaintiffs in concussion-related litigation, including McMahon and Van Horne.

The latest lawsuit seeks an injunction creating an NFL-funded testing and monitoring program to help prevent addiction and injuries and disabilities related to the use of painkillers. It also seeks unspecified financial damages.

"The NFL knew of the debilitating effects of these drugs on all of its players and callously ignored the players' long-term health in its obsession to return them to play," Silverman said. His Baltimore firm, Silverman, Thompson, Slutkin and White, also represents former National Hockey League players in a concussion-related lawsuit.

Former offensive lineman Jeremy Newberry describes lining up in the San Francisco 49ers' locker room with other players to receive powerful anti-inflammatory injections in their buttocks shortly before kickoff. Newberry played for San Francisco from 1998-2006, including one season in which played in every game but never practiced because of pain from his injuries, according to the lawsuit.

He retired in 2009, and because of the drugs he took while playing, he now suffers from renal failure, high blood pressure and violent headaches, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit seeks class-action status for any former players who received narcotic painkillers, anti-inflammatories, local anesthetics, sleeping aids or other drugs without prescription, independent diagnosis, or warning about side effects or the dangers from mixing with other drugs.

"I was provided uppers, downers, painkillers, you name it while in the NFL," plaintiff J.D. Hill, who played for seven years in the 1970s, said in a statement. "I became addicted and turned to the streets after my career and was homeless. Never took a drug in my life, and I became a junkie in the NFL."





A group of retired NFL players have filed a suit over the league's practice of denying medical treatment for fractures, while giving them pain killers, some of which were narcotics, in order to keep them playing on the field with their injuries. The players have ended up addicted in many cases. “Lawyers seek class-action status, and they say in the filing that more than 400 other former players have signed on to the lawsuit.”

Steven Silverman is the attorney for the players. Quarterback Jim McMahon says he suffered a broken neck and ankle during his time playing, but the trainers and the NFL doctors never told him of these injuries. “McMahon also became addicted to painkillers, at one point taking more than 100 Percocet pills per month, even in the offseason, the lawsuit says. Team-employed doctors and trainers illegally administered the drugs, the lawsuit alleges, because they didn't get prescriptions, keep records or explain side effects.” One of the plaintiffs J D Hill said, “I became addicted and turned to the streets after my career and was homeless. Never took a drug in my life, and I became a junkie in the NFL."

“This latest lawsuit seeks an injunction creating an NFL-funded testing and monitoring program to help prevent addiction and injuries and disabilities related to the use of painkillers. It also seeks unspecified financial damages.” This case follows another large case about concealed concussions, which the NFL settled for $765 million without players getting any punitive damages, nor any blame being assessed on the NFL. Who got the $765 million? The lawyers? I hate to say it, but that smells like a truckload of garbage. Have you ever been driving along behind one of those? I think the new case on the abuse of painkillers will award the players more and make at least some people question the way our society worships team sports, especially the most violent of them. Baseball and basketball aren't so damaging to the players and, in my opinion, are much more exciting than football. Hockey is exciting, but it's too violent for me, too.





China warns U.S. of "serious damage" to military ties over hacking charges against Chinese officers
CBS/AP May 20, 2014

BEIJING -- China on Tuesday warned the United States was jeopardizing military ties by charging five Chinese officers with cyberspying and tried to turn the tables on Washington by calling it "the biggest attacker of China's cyberspace."

China announced it was suspending cooperation with the United States in a joint cybersecurity task force over Monday's charges that officers stole trade secrets from major American companies. The Foreign Ministry demanded Washington withdraw the indictment.

The testy exchange marked an escalation in tensions over U.S. complaints that China's military uses its cyber warfare skills to steal foreign trade secrets to help the country's vast state-owned industrial sector. A U.S. security firm, Mandiant, said last year it traced attacks on American and other companies to a military unit in Shanghai.

The charges are the biggest challenge to relations since a meeting last summer between President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in Sunnylands, California.

Ties already were under strain due to conflicts over what Washington says are provocative Chinese moves to assert claims over disputed areas of the East and South China Seas. Beijing complains the Obama administration's effort to shift foreign policy emphasis toward Asia and expand its military presence in the region is emboldening Japan and other neighbors and fueling tension.

Beijing has denied conducting commercial spying and said it is a victim of computer hacking, but has given little indication it investigates foreign complaints.

"The Chinese government and Chinese military as well as relevant personnel have never engaged and never participated in so-called cyber theft of trade secrets," said a foreign ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, at a news briefing. "What the United States should do now is withdraw its indictment."

The Ministry of Defense warned that the U.S. accusations would chill gradually warming relations between the two militaries.

"The United States, by this action, betrays its commitment to building healthy, stable, reliable military-to-military relations and causes serious damage to mutual trust," it said.

Despite the pointed language, damage to U.S.-Chinese relations is likely to be limited, with little change in trade or military links, because Beijing realizes the indictment of the five officers is symbolic, said Shen Dingli, a director of the Center for American Studies at Shanghai's Fudan University. He has close ties to China's foreign policy establishment.

Beijing is unlikely to engage in tit-for-tat retaliation such as issuing its own indictments of American soldiers and probably will go ahead with plans to take part in U.S.-hosted naval exercises next month, Shen said. He said cybersecurity cooperation is likely to be suspended indefinitely, but that should have little impact because the joint group achieved little in its three meetings.

"Political, security and commercial espionage will always happen," Shen said. "The U.S. will keep spying on Chinese companies and leaders, so why can't China do the same?"

The Cabinet's Internet information agency said Chinese networks and websites have been the target of thousands of hacking attacks from computers in the United States.

"The U.S. is the biggest attacker of China's cyber space," Xinhua said, citing a statement by the agency. "The U.S. attacks, infiltrates and taps Chinese networks belonging to governments, institutions, enterprises, universities and major communication backbone networks."

Monday's indictment said the People's Liberation Army officers targeted U.S. makers of nuclear and solar technology, stealing confidential business information, sensitive trade secrets and internal communications. The targets were Alcoa World Alumina, Westinghouse Electric Co., Allegheny Technologies, U.S. Steel Corp., the United Steelworkers Union and SolarWorld.

The Justice Department said the charges should be a national "wake-up call" about cyber intrusions. American authorities have previously announced details of cyberattacks from China but Monday's indictment was the first accusation to name individuals. The Justice Department issued wanted posters with the officer's photos on them.

The new indictment attempts to distinguish spying for national security purposes - which the U.S. admits doing - from economic espionage intended to gain commercial advantage for private companies or industries.

The United States denies spying for commercial advantage, though documents released by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden said the NSA broke into the computers of Brazil's main state-owned oil company, Petrobras. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said if that was true, then the motive would be to gather economic information.

"China has already expounded its stance and is strongly opposed to stealing commercial secrets," said Xiong Zhiyong, a foreign relations specialist at Tsinghua University. "I think there is no difference between China and the United States in allowing cyberspying for national security, though there is no open announcement by the Chinese government."

The defendants are believed to be in China and it was unclear whether any might ever be turned over to the U.S. for prosecution.

Intelligence officials have estimated that American companies lose about $250 billion every year in intellectual property -- much of it to the Chinese, reported CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.





One day after the announcement of the case against a group of Chinese hackers, China has responded. “China on Tuesday warned the United States was jeopardizing military ties by charging five Chinese officers with cyberspying and tried to turn the tables on Washington by calling it "the biggest attacker of China's cyberspace,'" claiming that the US has done the same thing to China. From the US viewpoint, “A U.S. security firm, Mandiant, said last year it traced attacks on American and other companies to a military unit in Shanghai.” This adds stress to the tension over recent Chinese land claims in the East and South China Seas. The Chinese foreign ministry representative Hong Lei, denies all the charges and says “'What the United States should do now is withdraw its indictment.'"

Shen Dingli, a director of the Center for American Studies at Shanghai's Fudan University says that in spite of China's claims, there is likely to be little damage to the US-China relationship and that both countries will undoubtedly continue in “ Political, security and commercial espionage,” no matter what happens with the case. I'm sure the US wouldn't considering military actions over such a thing, and since we owe China billions of dollars in loans we aren't likely to break off economic relations either. According to the website http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/toppartners.html the US top trading partners are Canada, China, Mexico and Japan, in a ranking of 15 nations. So I don't think I'll clip any more articles on this subject unless something dramatic happens. It's interesting, but not apparently important.