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BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: JennyO Date: 02 Aug 04 - 11:40 PM SRS - yes, I had actually seen something about the maggot therapy on TV a while ago, and although the idea of it sort of grosses you out, it does sound like it works. I hope I never need it, I must say. Actually, I have a collection of newspaper articles in a folder that I have collected from time to time - they go back years, long before I had a computer. Quite often it's the creative and amusing headings that attract me. I wonder if any of them are still online anywhere? Must spend some time browsing.... Jenny (looking forward to my healthy glass of wine tonight) |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 02 Aug 04 - 11:22 PM Jenny, that's great. I'm glad to see when others post articles here--I didn't intend this to be my own personal reading room, but a place to stick interesting articles that don't necessarily require their own thread. I just wish that glass of wine in the evening didn't add so many calories--I've stopped having a glass each evening because I have been trying to take off a few pounds. The trick seems to be to have the wine at dinner, not later by itself. Your article is more appealing than this next one, though when you get past the "yuck" factor it has great news for folks with severe infections: Maggots Make Medical Comeback August 2, 2004 02:16 PM EDT WASHINGTON - Think of these wriggly little creatures not as, well, gross, but as miniature surgeons: Maggots are making a medical comeback, cleaning out wounds that just won't heal. Wound-care clinics around the country are giving maggots a try on some of their sickest patients after high-tech treatments fail. It's a therapy quietly championed since the early 1990s by a California physician who's earned the nickname Dr. Maggot. But Dr. Ronald Sherman's maggots are getting more attention since, in January, they became the first live animals to win Food and Drug Administration approval - as a medical device to clean out wounds. A medical device? They remove the dead tissue that impedes healing "mechanically," FDA determined. It's called chewing. But maggots do more than that, says Sherman, who raises the tiny, wormlike fly larvae in a laboratory at the University of California, Irvine. His research shows that in the mere two to three days they live in a wound, maggots also produce substances that kill bacteria and stimulate growth of healthy tissue. Still, "it takes work to convince people" - including hospital administrators - that "maggots do work very well," said Dr. Robert Kirsner, who directs the University of Miami Cedars Wound Center. "They'll probably be easier to use now that they're FDA-approved, and we'll talk about it more and think about it more," Kirsner said. He estimates he uses maggots in about one in 50 patients where conventional therapy alone isn't enough. This has been quite a year for wormlike critters. In June, FDA also gave its seal of approval to leeches, those bloodsuckers that help plastic surgeons save severed body parts by removing pooled blood and restoring circulation. And in the spring, University of Iowa researchers reported early evidence that drinking whipworm eggs, which causes a temporary, harmless infection, might soothe inflammatory bowel disease by diverting the overactive immune reaction that causes it. There's a little more yuck factor with maggots. Most people know of them from TV crime dramas, where infestations of bodies help determine time of death. Actually, maggots' medicinal qualities have long been known. Civil War surgeons noted that soldiers whose wounds harbored maggots seemed to fare better. In the 1930s, a Johns Hopkins University surgeon's research sparked routine maggot therapy, until antibiotics came along a decade later. Today, despite precise surgical techniques to cut out dying tissue, artificial skin and other high-tech treatments, hard-to-heal wounds remain a huge problem. Diabetic foot ulcers alone strike about 600,000 people annually and lead to thousands of amputations. It's not unusual to spend two years and $30,000 treating one, says Dr. David G. Armstrong, a Chicago specialist who first tried maggot therapy in frustration about seven years ago and says he's now used it on several hundred patients. Drop maggots into the wound and cover with a special mesh to keep them in place. Two to three days later, after the maggots have eaten their fill, lift them off and dispose. Wound size determines how many maggots, and how many cycles of therapy, are needed. It typically costs a few hundred dollars, says Armstrong, of the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. One of Sherman's studies found 80 percent of maggot-treated wounds had all the dead tissue removed, compared with 48 percent of wounds surgically debrided. Armstrong is about to publish research that suggests maggot-treated patients also spend fewer days on antibiotics. Patients say it's not that hard to accept. Pamela Mitchell of Akron, Ohio, begged to try maggots when surgeons wanted to amputate her left foot, where infection in an inch deep, 2-inch-wide diabetic ulcer had penetrated the bone. It took 10 cycles of larvae, but she healed completely. How did they feel? On day 2, when the maggots were fat, "I could feel them moving, because they were ready to come out," she recalls. But, "if you're faced with amputation or the maggots, I think most people would try the maggots." |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: JennyO Date: 02 Aug 04 - 11:04 AM This little article was in the Sydney Morning Herald today. I always knew that glass of wine was doing me good, what with the antioxidants and things, and this is even better! Pass the bottle, I need a little think. August 2, 2004 It is news guaranteed to raise a cheer among those who enjoy a glass or two: drinking half a bottle of wine a day can make your brain work better, especially if you are a woman. Research to be published today by academics at University College, London, has found that people who even drink only one glass of wine a week have significantly sharper thought processes than teetotallers. The benefits of alcohol can be detected when a person drinks up to four or five bottles of wine per week. In the research, part of a study set up in 1967 to monitor the long-term health of British public servants, required more than 6000 people to sit psychometric tests. Questions ranged from verbal and mathematical reasoning problems to tests of short-term memory. The public servants' performance was then matched against their drinking. The study in the American Journal of Epidemiology took into account all alcohol consumption and was not specific to wine. But the results showed those having just one glass of wine a week did much better in the tests than more abstemious drinkers. The benefits were most marked among women and showed no sign of flattening out with increasing consumption. The researchers say women might benefit more than men because of the different way they metabolise alcohol. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 02 Aug 04 - 09:05 AM That last one has become a national story and is still playing it self out--to no happy ending, apparently. Here is one that is also troubling, for different reasons. It busts some myths, but at the same time, concurs that these events do happen. Survey paints different portrait of online abuser August 2, 2004 04:50 AM EDT HONOLULU -- Contrary to popular view, child molesters who look for their victims online typically aren't after young children to abduct and rape. These adults flatter teenagers, most of them girls ages 13 to 15, who willingly meet them and usually agree to sex, according to a national survey, the first of its type. It was reported Sunday at the American Psychological Association meeting. Media reports have emphasized kidnappings of very young children lured through Internet contacts, "but that very seldom happens," says psychologist Kimberly Mitchell of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. The survey of 375 law enforcement agencies, partially financed by the U.S. Department of Justice, focused on 129 arrests of suspected molesters who "met" victims online. The cases accurately reflect the estimated 500 such arrests a year, says Mitchell, who analyzed findings with co-authors Janis Wolak and David Finkelhor. Among myths challenged by the survey: When teenagers do meet the adults, sex or oral sex almost always occurs, but only 16% of the children are coerced, police investigators say. Although molesters favor girls, about a quarter of the arrests were for abusing teen boys. These boys may be struggling with feelings of being gay and searching for support online, Mitchell says. "Our prevention strategy needs to change," she says. Parents have been warned to monitor kids' Internet use; filtering software can protect teens too, but many know how to bypass the programs. Parents should be open about discussing sexual topics and make it clear that sex with an adult is a crime, Mitchell says. Depressed or otherwise troubled children are most likely to form close online ties, studies show, and they might be particularly vulnerable to molesters, she says. Molesters capitalize on teens' yearning for acceptance, adds San Jose, Calif., psychologist David Marcus: "Being understood is a powerful aphrodisiac." |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 23 Jul 04 - 10:44 AM Leaping to conclusions, one can presume that this guy isn't so subtle a murderer as Scott Peterson or O.J. Simpson. . . with this guy's last name, you'd think he'd be more careful. And murder, of course, is the logical answer for any "underachiever." What an odd story. Missing Jogger's Husband Hospitalized July 23, 2004 08:07 AM EDT SALT LAKE CITY - Around the time Mark Hacking called police to report that his pregnant wife never returned from her morning jog, he was at a furniture store buying a new mattress, according to news reports. Hacking, 28, has not appeared publicly since Monday, the day he said his 27-year-old wife, Lori, vanished. Family members say he has since been hospitalized for stress. The Deseret News and television station KSTU reported Thursday that police found Hacking at a hotel about a half-mile from the couple's apartment early Tuesday. The station said he was running around naked outside the motel and was hospitalized. Police said only that they were called to a disturbance involving Hacking and that the matter was turned over to medical personnel. Detective Dwayne Baird said police considered Hacking a person of interest in the case but not a suspect, and that he had been interviewed as recently as Wednesday. Lori Hacking was five weeks pregnant when she disappeared just days before the couple was to move to North Carolina, where Mark Hacking said he was going to attend medical school. But he had lied to his wife and family - he never graduated from college, nor was he accepted to any medical school, authorities said Thursday. Meanwhile, The Salt Lake Tribune and KSL TV reported that Monday morning, in the minutes before he called police to report his wife missing, Mark Hacking was buying a new mattress. The owners of a Salt Lake furniture store told the Tribune that Hacking came in about 9:45 a.m. Lisa Downs, the wife of store owner Chad Downs, said the credit-card purchase went through at 10:23 a.m.. Police have said Hacking called them and reported his wife missing at 10:49 a.m. Friends told the Tribune that he had called them about 10 a.m. about his wife's disappearance and said he had twice run his wife's usual jogging route, three miles each way. Police removed a number of items from the couple's apartment Monday. They would not say what they have taken from the apartment, but television news footage showed paper bags, boxes and a box spring being removed. Police impounded a large trash bin from behind the apartment complex. Mark Hacking's family and in-laws said they were stunned to learn Wednesday that he had not graduated from college or been accepted at a medical school, as he had claimed. Thelma Soares, Lori Hacking's mother, said that she was certain her daughter had not known about the discrepancies. "Up to the time when I spoke with her last, she was deceived also," she told KUTV-TV. Douglas Hacking said even though his son is incapacitated by grief, they spoke of the deception Wednesday night at the hospital. "He has two older brothers who are high achievers, a physician and the other is an electrical engineer," he said. "He felt under some pressure to excel as well. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 20 Jul 04 - 04:04 PM Another Texas story: http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/9196663.htm Posted on Tue, Jul. 20, 2004 Lost tortoise gets a quick lift home By Shirley Jinkins, Star-Telegram Staff Writer Olive the traveling tortoise is home, thanks to a kindhearted driver who spied her crossing Curt Lane in southwest Arlington. Olive's family, Paul and Frances Venable and their children, posted signs in the neighborhood and talked to the Star-Telegram last week in their quest to find their pet of 13 years. "She has a little bit of eye irritation, probably from walking through tall grass, but other than that she seems just fine," Frances Venable said Monday. The rare desert tortoise escaped through a breach in the Venables' fence on July 8. Grant Morris spotted Olive about 5:30 p.m. Sunday as he was returning home from a game of disc golf at Veterans Park. "He said it was really huge," reported Morris' mother-in-law, Sudhe Mahajan, who is visiting from Delhi, India. "He saw the sign and then the turtle, and then it hit him, 'Oh my God, that's the turtle!' " Morris hustled the roaming reptile into his car and called the Venables, and Olive was home before dark. "Olive ate some flowers this morning and drank some water," Venable said Monday. "She went right into her burrow and seems happy to be home." |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 18 Jul 04 - 03:14 AM Obscenity Charge Vs. Texas Woman Dropped July 18, 2004 01:16 AM EDT CLEBURNE, Texas - An obscenity charge has been dropped against a woman who received nationwide attention when she was arrested for selling two sex toys to undercover police officers posing as a couple. A judge dismissed the case against Joanne Webb, Johnson County Attorney Bill Moore said Friday in a statement. He said he asked the judge for the dismissal to prevent wasting county resources, but didn't say when the dismissal occurred. No one answered the phone at Moore's office Saturday morning. Webb, a former fifth-grade teacher, started selling erotic toys and other adult products last year. The Passion Parties Inc. consultant hosts what she calls Tupperware-type parties for suburban housewives who feel more comfortable buying marital aids in a private home than at an adult bookstore or on the Internet. Webb was arrested Nov. 13, about a month after the undercover officers approached her at her husband's business in Burleson, about 10 miles south of Fort Worth, and bought two products. Had she been convicted of violating Texas' obscenity law, she could have been sentenced to a year in jail. Webb's attorney, BeAnn Sisemore, said she and her client are pleased with the dismissal. "We knew that it was a possibility, but we weren't contacted," she told the Cleburne Times-Review for its Sunday edition. According to the state's obscenity code, an obscene device is a simulated sexual organ or an item designed to stimulate the genitals. Adult stores get around the law by posting signs that say "sold only as novelties." Moore said a pending federal lawsuit filed by Sisemore would determine the constitutionality of the obscenity statute Webb was accused of violating. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: saulgoldie Date: 16 Jul 04 - 04:04 PM From a piece on NPR's Morning Edition: Moose draws on a dirty tunnel wall in Leeds, England. Credit: Alex Coley © Symbollix 2003 July 15, 2004 -- A British street artist known as Moose creates graffiti by cleaning dirt from sidewalks and tunnels -- sometimes for money when the images are used as advertising. But some authorities call it vandalism. Moose, whose real name is Paul Curtis, tells NPR's Steve Inskeep that he got the idea when he saw that people had written their names with their fingers on dirty tunnel walls in his hometown of Leeds. Moose does some freehand drawing, but also uses the grid from wall tiles to create perfect shapes and letters. The tools are simple: A shoe brush, water and elbow grease, he says. British authorities aren't sure what to make of the artist who is creating graffiti by cleaning the grime of urban life. The Leeds City Council has been considering what to do with Moose. "I'm waiting for the kind of Monty Python court case where exhibit A is a pot of cleaning fluid and exhibit B is a pair of my old socks," he jokes. Link: http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3379017 |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 16 Jul 04 - 02:15 PM That's that Mammalian dive reflex for you! But that resuscitation certainly took a longer time than one usually hears about. He's one very lucky little boy. I just looked up some drowning statistics. Scary and fast, especially down here where the water is so warm this time of year (Texas). SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Bagpuss Date: 16 Jul 04 - 09:17 AM 'Drowned' toddler brought back to life Gerard Seenan Thursday July 15, 2004 The Guardian The parents of a two-year-old boy who was resuscitated more than seven hours after he fell into a garden pond yesterday spoke of their joy at his remarkable recovery. Doctors at Heartlands hospital, Birmingham, thought they had little chance of reviving Joe Towey after he was brought to casualty with no heartbeat. But for seven hours they massaged the toddler's heart and managed to bring Joe back to life. He has sustained no long-term damage from the accident. The toddler's parents, Michael Towey and Jennifer Nock, were at Joe's bedside as doctors worked on him. Ms Nock noticed something was wrong on Boxing Day when she called Joe and received no response. She went to look for him and discovered him lying in a pond at the bottom of the garden. In the hospital, doctors noticed his body temperature had plummeted and a faint hope grew. Nick Makwana, who led the recovery team, said: "His temperature was only 26 degrees, when it should be 36.5. We knew that if he had been cooled very quickly there was a chance." When the body cools rapidly the brain and other organs can go longer without oxygen and glucose. Joe spent five weeks in hospital, but is now back home and fully recovered. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: wysiwyg Date: 15 Jul 04 - 04:37 PM Great quote: "Stupidity is the only infinitely renewable resource" ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 15 Jul 04 - 02:54 PM I saw some of a story about that this morning on Good Morning America. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: wysiwyg Date: 15 Jul 04 - 11:37 AM Woman sues doctor who inseminated her with wrong sperm NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — Laura Howard was hoping her trip to a fertility specialist would make her dream of a child with the man she loves come true. But as she left the office, the doctor suddenly ran out to the lobby and called her back. There was a grave mistake. Instead of being inseminated with the sperm of her fiance, she received a vial of semen from another man. (COURT TV WEBSITE) ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 15 Jul 04 - 11:31 AM Published: Thursday, July 15, 2004 http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/04/07/15/loc_lawsuit001.cfm Man jailed by mistake sues county A Marysville man was forced to change his name after it was used for years by a criminal. A criminal stole Christopher Ryman's name. Then the people who maintain law and order in Snohomish County took his peace of mind. The Marysville man this week headed to court to try to win back some of what he lost. Ryman, 35, on Monday filed a lawsuit against Snohomish County alleging that he was unlawfully imprisoned for two days in June 2002. It's a case of mistaken identity that never should have happened, maintain Ryman and his attorney, Brian Phillips of Everett. "You can't even imagine what this has done to me and my family," Ryman said. "I have no confidence in Snohomish County whatsoever." The lawsuit seeks damages for negligence, claiming that a sheriff's deputy and corrections officers at the county jail in Everett ignored evidence that a crook for years had been using Ryman's identity as an alias. The truck driver and father of six was arrested when a computer check during a routine traffic stop turned up arrest warrants issued in his name. Ryman wound up behind bars even though he was carrying a letter from an Eastern Washington prosecutor explaining that his name was being used as an alias by another man with a history of drug and traffic offenses. Ryman obtained the letter after close calls elsewhere in 1997 and 2001. In each case, he was detained for a couple of hours but was released after police determined he wasn't the person sought on the warrant. In his letter, the prosecutor suggested that Ryman "carry this letter with you for the purpose of identification to advise law enforcement that your name is indeed being used as a stolen alias," Phillips said in court papers. Ryman had the letter in his wallet, but the Snohomish County deputy who placed Ryman under arrest refused to look at the letter, according to court papers. Jail officials did read the letter, but told Ryman they didn't have authority to release him, Phillips said. He was set free the next day after being moved to a jail in King County, where officials checked his fingerprints and confirmed that he wasn't the man sought on the warrants. Ryman said he lost a $20-an-hour trucking job because of the arrest. He also lost his faith in law enforcement. Ryman last year went to court and convinced a judge to legally change his first name, which enabled him to get a new Social Security number. He no longer is known by the identity that was connected to his arrests. He asked that his former name not be printed in this story. The man who took his name is a stranger, and he wants nothing to do with the legal mess that man created, Ryman said. "That's what is scary. I don't know how this individual got my information," Ryman said. "He's worked under my name. He's committed crimes under my name." This week's lawsuit comes after the county did not take action on a $70,000 claim for damages Ryman filed earlier this year. County officials have discussed settling the case, but no agreement has been struck, deputy prosecutor Michael Held said. "I think the spirit of working toward a resolution exists," he said. Held said he was unaware of any changes in policy or procedure governing arrests in the county, but added that "the wisdom of such changes are being explored." Susan Neely, who oversees criminal justice matters for County Executive Aaron Reardon, said county officials are aware that steps to prevent similar mistakes need to be taken, but said she couldn't discuss details. Ryman was pleased to hear that changes may be coming. All he initially wanted was for the sheriff's office to pay the impound fees on his pickup truck. "All they had to do was give me my $369. They didn't even need to say they were sorry," he said. Sheriff's spokeswoman Jan Jorgensen declined to discuss the case because the lawsuit is pending. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 12 Jul 04 - 01:52 PM Officials smell a clue Posted on Mon, Jul. 12, 2004 Associated Press ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A strong odor led airline officials to what they believe is the 40 pounds of halibut a traveler reported missing from his checked bags two weeks ago. Brenee Davis, a general manager for Continental Airlines in Anchorage, said the company's baggage handlers discovered "a ton of rotting fish" under a luggage conveyor belt recently at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. There's no way to be certain, but she suspects it was the halibut that Ray Bolanos reported missing from a fish cooler he checked on a flight June 24 from Anchorage to Seattle. The fish smelled terrible and was thrown away immediately. "We've gone through a few cans of Lysol," Davis said. She said there is a new baggage belt system in the room, which has been in use for only a few weeks. Her theory is that Bolanos' cooler wasn't properly secured and came open on the conveyor belt. Bolanos is not sure he buys that explanation. When his fish cooler came off the luggage carousel in Seattle, he said he found a rope he had tied around the chest inside and his 40 individually wrapped one-pound chunks of halibut gone. Reached on his cell phone Saturday in Kenmore, Wash., Bolanos told the Anchorage Daily News he had already heard from a Continental official about the rotten fish. "She was trying to say that maybe the new conveyor chewed off my rope," Bolanos said. "It's not something that was chewed off. It was a clear cut." He said he made arrangements to send the rope to the woman so she could investigate further. He also passed along the name of another passenger who flew round trip to Anchorage from Seattle on Continental around the same time he did. That woman, Marian Maxwell, said about 20 pounds of halibut, a box of .38-caliber bullets and some fishing tackle vanished from her checked bags. Maxwell also believes her bags were pilfered. She said her two fish boxes came out last on the carousel, with their lids open and the nylon cords that had been tied around them sitting on top. Officials at Continental's headquarters in Houston, Texas, could not be reached for comment over the weekend because their office was closed. In Anchorage, Continental shares a baggage room with Frontier Flying Service, and Davis said usually five to 10 handlers are working in the area at a time. Davis said when the smell first arose in the days after Bolanos' flight employees thought it was related to construction at the airport. Then it got worse. "We started to get this huge smell like sewer," she said. "There was mass migration down there to figure out what the smell was." Davis wasn't sure how many pieces of fish had been found. "We're still finding it," she said. "We've got a long bag belt system." Several airport officials confirmed that rotten fish had been found, though none were directly involved in the discovery. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Amos Date: 09 Jul 04 - 02:48 PM Three miles??? He must have been dropped or thrown from a boat. Talk about one lucky little cat. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 09 Jul 04 - 01:38 PM Kitten found swimming 3 miles at sea July 9, 2004 10:24 AM EDT CLEARWATER, Fla., Jul 09, 2004 -- A boatload of friends gathering scallops on Florida's west coast said a 9-inch-long kitten was found desperately paddling along three miles from shore. Those in the boat picked him up Saturday and he has been adopted. But no one knows how he got there, The St. Petersburg Times reported Friday. When the apricot-colored kitten was spotted, the boat, traveling at 35 mph swerved around and picked it up. The kitten spent the rest of the day near Maggie Rogers, director of finances at the Clearwater, Fla., Marine Aquarium. After the others completed the day of scalloping, he was taken home, checked by a veterinarian and adopted by Rogers' sister-in-law, who named it Nemo, after the movie, "Finding Nemo." The question of how the kitten got there remains. Some suggest he might have fallen off another boat. Another idea was he was an unwanted pet thrown overboard to die and still another was that he was being used as shark bait. Fishing guides said they had never heard of anyone doing that. "My opinion is somebody that sick should be put on a hook himself," said Wade Osborne, of Afishiando Guide Services and a cat owner. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 23 Jun 04 - 08:17 PM Mandatory minimums give the judge no opportunity to BE a judge, to make a measured decision regarding the case at hand. They need to get rid of all of those "three strikes" laws also. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Amos Date: 23 Jun 04 - 12:35 PM Interesting idea. Mandatory minimums assume a lot of certainty about what happened. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 23 Jun 04 - 12:29 PM Read this one today online. It has been a long time coming. Would that Bush and Ashcroft try to do something USEFUL while they're in office. Instead of sneaking outrageous penalties for "indecency" in broadcasting into miltary funding bills, why don't they do something useful like look at the knee-jerk mandatory-sentencing legislation that has totally run amok in the last 20 years. photo cutline: Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy gestures during a news conference on Wednesday, June 23, 2004 in Washington. Kennedy said that society should re-examine how it spends money and makes choices about who goes to prison, how long they stay and what happens when they get out. Kennedy accepted the first copy of a report from the American Bar Association that determined that many get-tough approaches to crime don't work and some, such as mandatory minimum sentences for small-time drug offenders, are unfair and should be abolished. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) ABA: End Mandatory Minimum Prison Terms June 23, 2004 10:34 AM EDT WASHINGTON - Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said Wednesday that society should re-examine how it spends money and makes choices about who goes to prison, how long they stay and what happens when they get out. He accepted the first copy of a report from the American Bar Association, which found that many get-tough approaches to crime don't work and some, such as mandatory minimum sentences for small-time drug offenders, are unfair and should be abolished. Laws requiring mandatory minimum prison terms leave little room to consider differences among crimes and criminals, an ABA commission studying problems in the criminal justice system found. More people are behind bars for longer terms, but it is unclear whether the country is safer as a result, the ABA said. Long prison terms should be reserved for criminals who pose the greatest danger to society and who commit the most serious crimes, the report said. States and the federal government should find alternatives to prison terms such as drug treatment for many less serious crimes. "The costs of the American experiment in mass incarceration have been high," the report said. It said states and the federal government spent $9 billion on jails and prisons in 1982 and $49 billion in 1999, an increase of more than 400 percent. Kennedy noted that while prison populations are rising, schools cannot afford sports and music programs for students. "Society ought to ask itself how it's allocating its resources," he said. The report, nearly a year in the making, follows up on blunt criticism of the criminal justice system from Kennedy, a moderate conservative placed on the court by President Reagan. Kennedy asked the nation's largest lawyers' group to look at what he called unfair and even immoral practices throughout the criminal justice system. "The phrase `tough on crime' should not be a substitute for moral reflection," Kennedy said. The ABA conducted a lengthy study and recommended changes in sentencing laws and in other areas. In the case of mandatory minimum sentencing laws, state legislatures and Congress would have to pass new legislation to repeal the existing laws. The ABA, the nation's largest lawyers' group with more than 400,000 members, will vote in August on whether to adopt the recommendations as official positions of the organization. The ABA's policies are not law, but are influential. "For more than 20 years, we have gotten tougher on crime," said ABA President Dennis Archer. "Now we need to get smarter." The ABA report also urged governors and the president to pardon more deserving prisoners, and recommended stronger efforts to reduce racial disparities in sentencing and in the prison population. Based on current trends, a black male born in 2001 has a one in three chance of being imprisoned during his lifetime, compared with a one in six chance for a Latino male and one in 17 for a white male, the report noted. The report said that the likelihood that someone living in the United States will go to prison during his or her lifetime more than tripled to 6.6 percent between 1974 and 2001. An end to mandatory minimum prison terms is among the report's most specific recommendations, and probably one of the hardest to achieve. Mandatory minimum sentences have proliferated over the past two decades, and are often politically popular. They often respond to a specific new threat or phenomenon, such as the spread of crack cocaine in the 1980s. In 1986, Congress required certain long federal prison terms for possession of crack that were longer than sentences for the powder form of the drug. For example, possession of just five grams of crack yields a mandatory prison term of at least five years. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 22 Jun 04 - 05:35 PM Health & Lifestyle News - June 22, 2004 Here's a distorted "News" report Estrogen Pills May Raise Alzheimer's Risk June 22, 2004 03:00 PM EDT CHICAGO - Estrogen pills appear to slightly increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia in postmenopausal women, a study found, echoing recent findings involving estrogen-progestin supplements. The findings contradict the long-held belief that The research involved nearly 3,000 women, ages 65 to 79, who had had hysterectomies and had taken daily estrogen-only pills, sold by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals as Premarin, for an average of about five years. Dementia was diagnosed in 28 women who took estrogen, compared with 19 taking dummy pills. Those results were not statistically significant because the numbers were so small, but the trend was troubling, said co-researcher Stephen Rapp, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at Wake Forest University. "Translated to a population of 10,000 older women taking estrogen alone, there would be an additional 12 cases of dementia per year," said lead author Dr. Sally Shumaker of Wake Forest University. In addition, 76 women on "No matter which outcome we're looking at, there is no evidence of benefit," Rapp said. The pills offer "no protection against dementia, and in fact the likelihood increases on hormone therapy." The research "succeeded in resolving the important issue that hormone therapy should not be given to women older than 65 years to prevent or delay onset of dementia, or with any expectation for meaningfully improving cognitive function," said Dr. Lon Schneider of the University of Southern California. Whether different results would be found in younger women or with lower estrogen doses is unknown. SRS note: Now this really chaps my hide: they do this study using horse urine, and make no note that bioidentical estrogen is available and the results might be vastly different. I'd like to see someone study that! What this tells me is that taking horse hormones isn't good for human women! Dr. Gary Stiles, Wyeth's chief medical officer, called the results disappointing and said Wyeth is continuing to develop new products for treating menopause symptoms, which can include hot flashes and vaginal dryness. Estrogen-only pills have been linked to uterine cancer. Because of that, most women who take hormones at menopause have used combined estrogen-progestin pills. But use of both types has dropped steeply in the past two years as the WHI results have trickled out. Worldwide sales of Wyeth's estrogen and progestin pills fell from $2.1 billion in 2001 to $1.27 billion last year. Most doctors now advise women to take the lowest possible dose for the shortest possible time. The initial WHI results, announced in 2002, found that Wyeth's estrogen-progestin pills, sold as Prempro (SRS note: a synthetic hormone), increased older women's risk of breast cancer, strokes and heart attacks. The WHI study was government-funded. The analysis by Shumaker, Rapp and colleagues was funded by Wyeth and Wake Forest. Shumaker has served as a consultant for Wyeth. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 18 Jun 04 - 12:44 AM First I saw the cartoon by David Horsey for June 18, 2004 and wondered what it was about. So I looked it up and found this. I've trimmed it for the sake of not taking up too much Mudcat space. It's interesting but depressing. Sounds like this guy is a real huckster and is getting away with it. Wednesday, June 16, 2004 Gambling industry bankrolls Eyman Out-of-state casino dollars pour into I-892 campaign (Seattle P.I.) Led by casino operators based in Nevada and Canada, the gambling industry in just two and a half months has poured nearly $300,000 into an initiative effort to legalize electronic slot machines in Washington's non-tribal casinos. Tim Eyman, the prolific, for-profit initiative promoter, is sponsoring Initiative 892 as well as Initiative 864, a property tax-cutting measure, but it is the former that has become his cash cow. The gambling industry has given so generously to I-892 that Eyman is paying himself $3,100 a week -- a total of $27,900 in the first nine weeks -- to run the campaign. A leader of an opposition campaign, backed by casino-operating Indian tribes, suggested yesterday that Eyman might be diverting donations for the tax-cutting initiative to help cover expenses of I-892. The gambling initiative likewise would reduce property taxes, by whatever amount of tax revenue the electronic slots produce. Eyman yesterday flatly denied mixing money between the two initiatives. "Both campaigns are kept separate and all expenses are kept separate," Eyman said in an e-mail to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "Every campaign is different and the mix of expenses is always different. That's the way it's always been." However, his campaign finance reports through the end of May show that his I-864 committee has spent more than $147,000 on postage, mailing permits and printing, but his campaign committee for I-892 has spent only $8,400 on those items. His past tax-cutting initiative campaigns typically have each spent $80,000 or more for such expenses. Rollin Fatland, who is running No on I-892, a campaign mostly financed so far by the Muckleshoot Tribe, said of Eyman's two initiatives: "Both are petition-driven campaigns. Why would one have (high) printing (costs) and the other not? Why would one have postage and the other not? It doesn't compute." Fatland, a consultant to the Muckleshoot Tribe, which has a casino on its reservation, said: "There is something very suspicious about how he is funding these two campaigns. If I were some of his supporters (of Initiative 864), I would be looking for an explanation here." Critics of I-892 are betting that tax-opposing voters who form Eyman's political base are also opponents of expanded gambling. I-892 would allow non-tribal gambling licensees -- bowling alleys, bars, taverns and mini-casinos -- to operate as many electronic slot machines as Indian tribes are authorized to have, currently more than 14,000. It would impose a 35 percent tax on gambling profits and use the proceeds to lower the state property tax. I-864 would lower most local property tax levies by 25 percent. But while the gambling industry has infused I-892 with quick money, contributions to Voters Want More Choices, Eyman's campaign committee for I-864, have come in more slowly and in smaller amounts, a total of $218,650 in five months. To reach the November ballot, each initiative must obtain at least 197,734 valid signatures by July 2. Eyman's principal focus appears to be on I-892, by far his most personally remunerative campaign ever. He has spent $133,945 on paid signature gatherers for I-892 but only $40,000 for paid signatures for I-864. [snip] And a new anti-I-892 drive, the Campaign for Tribal Self-Reliance, has been launched with $96,131 contributed by the Nisqually Tribe's Red Wind Casino and $500 from the Washington Indian Gaming Association. The campaign co-chairmen are Ron Allen, chairman of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe and of the Washington Indian Gaming Association, and Brian Cladoosby, chairman of the Swinomish Indian Tribe. But those two efforts combined haven't matched the money pouring into Just Treat Us the Same, Eyman's campaign committee for I-892. Of the $300,441 given to I-892 as of May 31, at least $292,000, and possibly more, has come from non-tribal casino operators, gambling licensees and contributors associated with the gambling industry who would benefit from expanded gambling in this state. [snip] |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 17 Jun 04 - 12:26 PM Posted on Thu, Jun. 17, 2004 Frenzy over foul ball hit close to home By Bud Kennedy (Fort Worth) Star-Telegram Staff Writer I know how Nick O'Brien feels. Some guy ripped me off at a game 33 years ago. I've never forgotten. I'll admit that this was no plain old foul ball -- not like the one 4-year-old Nick lost Sunday in Arlington, when a former youth minister plowed over him for the grab. Matt Starr of Sachse has apologized for the now-infamous Showdown in Section 22. No, when I got robbed, I got robbed big-time. I lost a basketball. A grown man grabbed it from under my feet after I caught it in a halftime giveaway at a pro game. I use the word pro loosely, but back then the Texas Chaparrals were the only pros we had, even if they played with a red-white-and-blue basketball that looked more like a beach ball to the curious few watching in what is now the Fort Worth Convention Center. Today, the Chaparrals are the San Antonio Spurs, and that basketball would be worth about $3,000. The last time I saw it, some man in a camel-brown topcoat was running away with it down the arena concourse, charging the lane harder than the Chaparrals' Rich Jones or Ron Boone had all night. For a few fleeting moments, I was the proud owner of one of three ABA basketballs thrown to the crowd by the Chaparrals, struggling in a failed attempt to draw Fort Worth fans to a few token home games for Dallas' first pro basketball team. Unlike Nick O'Brien, I actually caught the ball. But I stashed it under my seat. It was my first pro basketball game. I didn't know that you're supposed to cover a loose ball. When the second half started, I heard a rustling noise behind me. When I looked over my shoulder, all I saw was the man and the back of that brown topcoat -- and a red flash of the basketball. Now that I look back, the odds of catching a basketball that night weren't all that bad. The Chaparrals only drew about 2,000 fans to games in Fort Worth, as few as 200 some nights. I don't remember anybody sitting around me being upset that I lost my basketball. Then again, I don't remember anybody sitting around me. Come to think of it, that man in the brown topcoat might have been some Chaparrals employee making a steal for future reuse. I went home and back to playing with my favorite toy of all: a manual typewriter. Not that I would have been any good at basketball. Even back then, I could never leap any higher than the top pantry shelf. As a victim of unrestrained fan greed, Nick O'Brien has come out much better. The Plano boy is getting autographed bats, baseballs and gifts from all over the country. He was in New York on Wednesday morning, grinning shyly on ABC's Good Morning America as Charlie Gibson gave his family a New York Mets bag and tickets to a Mets game. Gibson said the boy was "practically steamrolled by a bully." Then Gibson showed the now-famous TV clip of Starr smirking as Rangers broadcaster Tom Grieve said, "Yeah, you got the ball, buddy. Nice going. You took it away from a little kid. ... You know, there's a jerk in every park, and there is the biggest jerk in this park." The aggressive fan was identified as a 28-year-old Sachse landscaper and former youth minister at the Sachse Assembly of God Church. Friends are praying that reporters will learn more about his church mission work, the newspaper said. Until he offered an apology Wednesday, the fan himself had not been found. His only explanation had been the one he gave Rangers broadcasters Sunday: "I just caught the foul ball." When Starr fell into their laps, shoving Nick O'Brien aside to catch the foul ball, Nick's mother Edie O'Brien began swatting the intruder with a lineup card that she had been using as a hand fan. On GMA, she remembered the man's first words to her: "Don't hit me again." When she told him he had just pushed a 4-year-old boy, he only shrugged and said sarcastically, "Oh, well." The Dallas Morning News credited a Fort Worth man, Mike Hall, with starting the chant of "Give him the ball!" Even a woman with Starr seemed to be pleading for him to give Nick the ball, Edie O'Brien said on ABC. "He didn't care," she said. The famous foul ball inspired days of headlines. The Tucson Citizen played up the religious aspect: "4-year-old gets windfall after ex-youth minister knocks him aside." Other newspapers have called it the "Foul Ball Foul-Up" and christened Nick the "Foul Ball Boy." Starr's defenders also came forth Wednesday -- if not in public, at least on the KXAS/Channel 5 message board at www.nbc5i.com. Anonymous writers were saying that he only caught a foul ball and fell accidentally, and that he should not be expected to give Nick the ball. I just want to know whether he owns a brown topcoat. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Amos Date: 16 Jun 04 - 12:38 PM Sir Tim strikes me as a thoroughly good person. Good on him! A |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 16 Jun 04 - 11:34 AM Web Inventor Finally Earns a Profit June 16, 2004 07:11 AM EDT HELSINKI, Finland - Tim Berners-Lee, who received a $1.2 million cash prize Tuesday for creating the World Wide Web, says he would never have succeeded if he had charged money for his inventions. "If I had tried to demand fees ... there would be no World Wide Web," Berners-Lee, 49, said at a ceremony for winning the first Millennium Technology Prize. "There would be lots of small webs." The prize committee agreed, citing the importance of Berners-Lee's decision never to commercialize or patent his contributions to the Internet technologies he had developed, and recognizing his revolutionary contribution to humanity's ability to communicate. Berners-Lee, who is originally from Britain and was knighted last December, has mostly avoided both the fame and the fortune won by many of his Internet colleagues. Despite his prize, he remained modest about his achievements. "I was just taking lots of things that already existed and added a little little bit," said Berners-Lee, who now runs the standard-setting World Wide Web Consortium from an office at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Building the Web, I didn't do it all myself," he said. "The really exciting thing about it is that it was done by lots and lots of people, connected with this tremendous spirit." Berners-Lee indeed took concepts that were well known to engineers since the 1960s, but it was he who saw the value of marrying them. Pekka Tarjanne, chairman of the prize committee, said "no one doubts who the father of the World Wide Web is, except Berners-Lee himself." Finish President Tarja Halonen presented the biennial award, subsidized by the government. The cash prize is among the largest of its kind, and Berners-Lee is the first recipient. The prize committee outlined the award to be given for "an outstanding innovation that directly promotes people's quality of life, is based on humane values and encourages sustainable economic development." "Isn't this like a definition of the World Wide Web?" Tarjanne asked. Berners-Lee first proposed the Web in 1989 while developing ways to control computers remotely at CERN, the European nuclear research lab near Geneva. He never got the project formally approved, but his boss suggested he quietly tinker with it anyway. He fleshed out the core communication protocols needed for transmitting Web pages: the HTTP, or hypertext transfer protocol, and the so-called markup language used to create them, HTML. By Christmas Day 1990, he finished the first browser, called simply "WorldWideWeb." Although his inventions have undergone rapid changes since then, the underlying technology is precisely the same. His recent project - which experts say is potentially as revolutionary as the World Wide Web itself - is called the Semantic Web. The project is an attempt to standardize how information is stored on the Internet and to organize automatically the jungle of data found today on the Net into a "web" of concepts. By attaching meaning to data behind the scenes, computers can do a better job of searching for information. "It is an exciting new development that we're making," he said. In his acceptance speech, Berners-Lee focused on technology as an evolving process that was just in the beginning. "All sorts of things, too long for me to list here, are still out there waiting to be done. ... There are so many new things to make, limited only by our imagination. And I think it's important for anybody who's going through school or college wondering what to do, to remember that now," he said. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Amos Date: 13 Jun 04 - 02:52 PM Looks like the tip of an iceberg, to me, Mag...no telling what is in the depths behind that crazy claim. Obviously she's not very good at seeing how events link together -- she even acknowledges that she "never thought of the consequences", and she can't see why plotting the murder and paying for it to be done is more heinous than being a gun for hire...I agree she seems too dumb to live, but that might be reason under law to spare her! :>) Hmm--is that a new area of jurisprudence? A breakthough? Stupidity as a defense? Wow.... A |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 13 Jun 04 - 01:31 PM Here's another one that is just plain disturbing: http://start.earthlink.net/newsarticle?cat=6&aid=D834NKI81_story. This woman is one sick puppy. I'm not going to bother to post the article so it might go away fairly soon. It's called "Virginia Death Row Woman Says Sentence Unfair." Personally I don't like the death penalty, but this sounds like the kind of person it was meant for. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Mudlark Date: 13 Jun 04 - 01:26 PM Thanks again, SRS, for continuing this thread. My local Sunday paper did not arrive this morning--the only one I take--and I've amused myself much more reading back through all these posts. I don't know about 200 words, but somehow my corgis know whether I'm going into my office, to email, mudcat or whatever, or pass by that door and continue on outside. Obviously, the 2nd alternative is far more to their liking but they preceed me by several feet thru whatever door I'm planning on choosing. They wont always quit barking, however, even when I ask them very nicely. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 13 Jun 04 - 12:55 PM http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/04/06/13/loc_salmon001.cfm Return of the king Traditions of ceremony are passed down to a new generation By Diana Hefley, Herald Writer TULALIP - Standing side by side, young and elderly tribal members blended their voices together to welcome the first salmon of the season. They sang to bless the fishermen, to honor visiting tribes and those who have passed along tribal traditions, and they sang to greet Haik Saib Yo Bouch - Big Chief King Salmon in the Lushootseed language. Every year, the Tulalip Tribes celebrate the return of the first king salmon with a ceremony. On Saturday, hundreds gathered inside the tribal longhouse to hear how the first salmon of the season must be revered. "If we greet him and treat him with the respect he deserves, he provides for us all through the year," said Glen Gobin, who led the ceremony. Women and girls garbed in bright shawls danced around a circle of drummers. A dozen fishermen and women were blessed with a feather dipped in water. Soon a young boy ran into the smoky longhouse, announcing the arrival of the Big Chief. The drummers and dancers walked to the water's edge, where a canoe carried the treasured salmon. Joe Gobin carved this year's canoe. The tribes' master carver, Jerry Jones, taught Gobin the tradition. Jones died last fall following a traffic accident. "Our teachings have come down through the years," Glen Gobin said. "There are those who have stepped forward to keep us together as one." The gathering is an opportunity for young tribal members to understand more about their culture, said tribal member Judy Gobin. "We learn the ways of our ancestors. I think that's the greatest thing about this," she said. The ceremony proceeded as the Big Chief was placed on a bed of ferns and cedar boughs and carefully carried back to the longhouse. Tribal members ate the fish and later returned its bones to the water. Tradition says the Big Chief will return to the Salmon People and report back to the others about how he was treated. More salmon will return if the tribe has shown him enough respect. "If only we could work on the price of fish," Gobin joked during the ceremony. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 11 Jun 04 - 04:48 PM It was a Twilight Zone sort of story, and I hadn't really questioned it regarding it being an actual trip (someone had to take the photos, and they couldn't all have been by her). Here's a bit of the thread from that link:
e-POSHTA subscriber Mary Mycio writes: I am based in Kyiv and writing a book about Chornobyl for the Joseph Henry Press. Several sources have sent me links to the "Ghost Town" photo essay included in the last e-POSHTA mailing. Though it was full of factual errors, I did find the notion of lone young woman riding her motorcycle through the evacuated Zone of Alienation to be intriguing and asked about it when I visited there two days ago. I am sorry to report that much of Elena's story is not true. She did not travel around the zone by herself on a motorcycle. Motorcycles are banned in the zone, as is wandering around alone, without an escort from the zone administration. She made one trip there with her husband and a friend. They traveled in a Chornobyl car that picked them up in Kyiv. She did, however, bring a motorcycle helmet. They organized their trip through a Kyiv travel agency and the administration of the Chornobyl zone (and not her father). They were given the same standard excursion that most Chernobyl tourists receive. When the Web site appeared, Zone Administration personnel were in an uproar over who approved a motorcycle trip in the zone. When it turned out that the motorcycle story was an invention, they were even less pleased about this fantasy Web site. I started this thread as a place to post interesting stories--I don't think there's a particular theme, unless it is one of "eclectic reading habits." Some of these are just head-scratchers. Others are little stories that are kind of sweet or odd, and some are there just as think pieces, like the "no comment" photo they used to run on the back inside page of Ms magazine years ago. Thanks for giving us "the rest of the story," (though I never was a Paul Harvey fan). SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Amos Date: 11 Jun 04 - 12:07 PM Yeah I was disappointed to read that angle on it. But it didn't make a lot of sense for a single girl to be living that richly. As for that dog, now, it's an interesting question where the limit of this vocabulary is. You suppose they can learn verbs as well as nouns? I am remembering that wonderful fictional story about the signing gorilla named Amy who goes into the jungles as an interpreter on a scientific expedition. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: JennyO Date: 11 Jun 04 - 11:06 AM Oh dear. Goes to show you can't believe everything you read. I was totally sucked in by that one! |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: GUEST Date: 11 Jun 04 - 06:18 AM Not sure if anyone else pointed this out, as I just skimmed the thread, but I read recently that the chernobyl photo bike ride is a hoax. hoax |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 10 Jun 04 - 10:57 PM Finally, an Old Dog That Can Learn New Tricks By JAMES GORMAN, Published: June 11, 2004 Reports from owners notwithstanding, scientists have yet to discover a dog that can talk. But German researchers say they have found one that listens and learns like a human child. In a report being published today in the journal Science, the researchers say a 9-year-old border collie named Rico was able to learn the name of a new object in one try, by a process of elimination. Told to fetch an unfamiliar object with a name he had not heard before, Rico picked out the novel item from a group of familiar ones. Even more important, Rico proved in other tests four weeks later that he remembered what he had learned, said Dr. Julia Fischer, an author of the report who is a senior research fellow in the evolution of communication at the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. She said that Rico was displaying a kind of learning by inference that is called fast mapping. It was thought to be a language-learning ability specific to humans, but Rico's ability suggests it may be more widespread. Rico was not picked at random for the study. His abilities were known to television audiences in Germany long before the scientists started working with him. In fact, said Dr. Fischer, it was Rico's performance retrieving a variety of objects on a popular game show, "Wetten, Dass?" (roughly "Want to Bet?"), that brought him to her attention. The owners say the dog knows the names of 200 objects. The scientists did not test this claim but said anecdotal evidence supported it. The report is unlikely to surprise owners of border collies. The breed is known for its intelligence and intensity. Warren Mick, a border collie owner and trainer in upstate New York who is president of the Northeast Border Collie Association, said, "I've had dogs that could pick up something with one experience." He also said he had no doubt the dogs learned specific words. In a commentary accompanying the Science article, Dr. Paul Bloom, a psychologist at Yale, wrote that the proper scientific controls were used in the experiment to avoid the possibility of cues from the owner other than the command. Such hidden cues have invalidated other impressive achievements of animals, most famously those of a horse known as Clever Hans who was said to have done arithmetic but was actually responding to unconscious cues from his owners. Dr. Bloom added that without further experiment, it was unclear that Rico's performance was related to the way children learn words. "It is too early to give up on the view that babies learn words and dogs do not," he concluded. Dr. Fischer said the conclusions in the report were limited to Rico and could not be extrapolated to other border collies, or dogs in general, until more research was done. Rico might be a special case among dogs, she said, adding, "Maybe he's Albert Einstein." This came from the New York Times |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 31 May 04 - 09:23 PM Lots of American cultural baggage goes with this story, and it is a classic definition of the term "meal ticket." http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2601550 May 31, 2004, 5:34PM Last widow of a Civil War veteran dies at 97 MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- Alberta Martin, the last widow of a Civil War veteran, died on Memorial Day, ending an unlikely ascent from sharecropper's daughter to the belle of 21st century Confederate history buffs who paraded her across the South. She was 97. Martin died at a nursing home in Enterprise of complications from a heart attack she suffered May 7, said her caretaker, Dr. Kenneth Chancey. She died nearly 140 years after the Civil War ended. Her May-December marriage in the 1920s to Civil War veteran William Jasper Martin and her longevity made her a celebrated final link to the old Confederacy. After living in obscurity and poverty for most of her life, in her final years the Sons of Confederate Veterans took her to conventions and rallies, often with a small Confederate battle flag waving in her hand and her clothes the colors of the rebel banner. "I don't see nothing wrong with the flag flying," she said frequently. Chancey said she loved the attention. "It's like being matriarch of a large family," he said. "She was a link to the past," Chancey said Monday. "People would get emotional, holding her hand, crying and thinking about their family that suffered greatly in the past." Wayne Flynt, a Southern history expert at Auburn University, said the historical distinctiveness of the South, which is so tied to the Civil War, has been disappearing, but Martin provided people with one last chance to see that history in real life. "She became a symbol like the Confederate battle flag," he said. The last widow of a Union veteran from the Civil War, Gertrude Janeway, died in January 2003 at her home in Tennessee. She was 93 and had married veteran John Janeway when she was 18. In 1997, Martin and Daisy Anderson, whose husband was a slave who ran away and joined the Union Army, were recognized at a ceremony at Gettysburg, Pa. Anderson, who lived in Denver, died in 1998 at age 97. Janeway wasn't invited to the Gettysburg event because, at the time, no one outside her family knew her whereabouts. Alberta Stewart Martin was not from the "Gone With the Wind" South of white-columned mansions and hoop skirts. She was born Alberta Stewart to sharecroppers on Dec. 4, 1906, in Danley's Crossroads, a tiny settlement built around a sawmill 70 miles south of Montgomery. Her mother died when she was 11. At 18, she met a cab driver named Howard Farrow, and they had a son before Farrow died in a car accident in 1926. Stewart, her father and her son moved to Opp. Just up the road lived William Jasper Martin, a widower born in Georgia in 1845 who had a $50-a-month Confederate veteran's pension. The 81-year-old man struck up a few conversations with the 21-year-old neighbor and a marriage of convenience was born. "I had this little boy and I needed some help to raise him," Alberta Martin recalled in a 1998 interview. They were married on Dec. 10, 1927, and 10 months later had a son, William. She said her husband never talked much about the war, except the harsh times at Petersburg, Va. "He'd say it was rough, how the trenches were full of water. They were so hungry in Virginia that during the time they were fighting, they had to grab food as they went along. They came across a potato patch and made up some mashed potatoes," she said. Asked if she loved her husband, Martin said: "That's a hard question to answer. I cared enough about him to live with him. You know the difference between a young man and an old man." William Jasper Martin died on July 8, 1931. Two months later, Alberta Martin married her late husband's grandson, Charlie Martin. He died in 1983. She became the focus of a dustup over the depiction of her and her late Confederate husband in the 1998 book "Confederates in the Attic." Among other things, the book by Tony Horwitz described William Jasper Martin as a deserter. A group that defends Southern heritage disagreed, contending there were at least two William Martins who served in Company K of the 4th Alabama Infantry Regiment and that Horwitz got the wrong one. Horwitz said his research was carefully checked and the book was accurate. The state government considered Martin's record clean enough to award him a Confederate pension in 1921 and to give Alberta Martin Confederate widow's benefits in 1996. Martin's older son, Harold Farrow of North Little Rock, Ark., died last June. Her younger son, Willie Martin, lives in Elba. Alberta Martin is to be interred at New Ebenezer Baptist Church six miles west of Elba, in an 1860s-style ceremony following her funeral June 12. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: GUEST Date: 23 May 04 - 06:14 PM Glad I live in the UK |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Amos Date: 22 May 04 - 12:57 PM Wow, Nancy, that one is a pure-dee positive beat!! A |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Mudlark Date: 22 May 04 - 12:45 PM This is another item from Link TV, often the best thing on the box... Program notes: The Hole in the Wall...(watching these kids find and experiment with these computers is a total feel-good experience. Given the current administration and the tenor of most of the news, this made me feel great!) " A revolution in information technology is redefining poverty, as how much you know is becoming just as important as how much you own. "The Hole in the Wall" examines one possible solution to the growing technological gap between rich and poor -- the so-called 'digital divide' -- that threatens to consign millions to an "information underclass." When Indian researcher Sugata Mitra embedded a high-speed computer in a wall separating his firm's New Delhi headquarters from an adjacent slum, he discovered that slum children quickly taught themselves how to surf the net, read the news, and download games and music. Mitra then replicated the experiment in other locations. Each time the results were similar: within hours, and without instruction, the children began browsing the Internet. Can children -- given only access and opportunity -- really teach themselves the rudiments of computer literacy with no instruction? "The Hole in the Wall" experiment, and the documentary film that chronicles it, show the answer to be a "Yes!" Mitra estimates that, given access to one hundred thousand computers, one hundred million Indian children could teach themselves computer literacy within five years. The film concludes by noting that the spread of information technology is changing societies around the world, and the implications of Mitra's experiment are profound -- particularly for poor people." What a GREAT idea!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 21 May 04 - 03:23 PM This one is very important, and could actually be its own thread. A search brings this up in many papers; the link I'm using may require a free membership. HEALTH STUDY SAYS WORMS MAY HELP BOWEL DISORDERS (05-21-2004) - Having intestinal worms actually may be a good thing, say scientists studying treatments for irritable bowel disorders. University of Iowa researchers have been using pig whipworms to treat Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, having patients ingest parasitic worm eggs in a glass of Gatorade. Raymond Fiedler, 65, of Clinton, a study participant, said he wasn't squeamish about drinking them down. "What you don't see can't hurt you," he said. Dr. Joel Weinstock, lead researcher, said the theory is that the deworming of people in industrialized countries may be responsible for the increased incidence of disorders such as Crohn's and colitis. Both are painful, chronic inflammatory bowel disorders that can cause diarrhea, cramping and numerous complications. The worms, which are thin as a hair and can grow to half an inch long in the patient's intestine, may provide chemicals which suppress certain immune-system responses to antigens and keep the digestive tract healthy. "We assume that good hygiene is great, but maybe we don't want it," Weinstock said. "Being very, very clean ... we could be failing to get exposed to the healthy ones in our attempts to avoid the bad ones." He said the incidence of Crohn's and colitis in the United States was once 1-in-5000. Today, that ratio is about 1-250. "It's increasing and becoming a major health problem," Weinstock said. The study, funded by the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America and the California-based Broad Foundation, examined about 120 people who suffer from irritable bowel disease. Some were given a drink with 2,500 worm eggs, while others were given a placebo. Weinstock said it didn't take much arm-twisting to persuade patients to ingest the worm eggs, because many were taking 25 pills or more a day for their condition. Some drugs raise their risk of cancer, he said. "If you came to me and I said you could take something that was safe with no side-effects every two to three weeks, what would you do?" Weinstock said. "The eggs are microscopic, so you can't see them, you can't taste them, nothing comes crawling out of you," he said. "It's not that icky when you're ill." Weinstock said patients in the study showed significant improvement. Of 54 patients with ulcerative colitis, 24 were given a placebo and 30 drank the worm eggs. After three months, 13 of those given the egg drink improved. Only four of those given the placebo showed improvement. Twenty-nine patients with Crohn's disease swallowed the eggs. After three months, 82 percent of them were in remission. After six months, that number had risen to 91 percent. Fiedler, a retired middle school teacher, said he is now symptom free. "I feel fine - I feel great," he said. While Fiedler wasn't officially told whether he received the placebo or the worm drink, a videotape of a colonoscopy, done about a year after the study began, showed the worms in his intestine. "From what I've seen in the videotapes and photographs, they just attach themselves to the intestine and gobble away," Fiedler said. Weinstock presented the study's finding this week at a Digestive Disease Week conference in New Orleans. Telephone messages left Thursday for other experts in gastroenterology were not immediately returned. Weinstock said the pig whipworms were used because they're safe and live only a short time in humans, and cannot be transmitted to another person. By comparison, human whipworms can live in a person for up to two years, he said. Weinstock said no one before has studied the positive aspects of worms, which have always been considered to be negative. "I suspect, and this is total speculation, that it could be we want people to have worms - that the positive effects of worms would be good," Weinstock said. The research could lead to the development of drugs from chemicals produced by the worms, he said, adding that such drugs - and maybe even the worms themselves - "may be important not only for treating diseases but for prevention as well." Meanwhile, Fiedler continues to drink the worm egg concoction. "They're training me now to mix them myself, so I can keep them in my refrigerator here, so I don't have to travel to Iowa City as often," he said. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 20 May 04 - 12:18 PM Stilly River SAge (somewhere up in there) said, in part: the law of unintended consequences comes into play. It means that because these laws are poorly crafted and tie the hands of judges regarding things like "three strikes," There is in the law a maxim that "Hard cases make bad law, and bad law makes hard cases." That is, to make a rule of law (whether case law or statutory) as a result of uncertain or aggravated cases makes law that is uncertain or draconian. As a result of such bad law, other cases down the line get prosecuted, tried, or punished badly. Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Amos Date: 20 May 04 - 02:27 AM MAn, that is a good news tale. Thanks! A |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 20 May 04 - 12:17 AM There is a photo with this story. Wednesday, May 19, 2004 Homeward, healed By Victor Balta, Herald Writer SEATTLE - The scene couldn't have been more different. Eight-year-old Tae-Wau Ryu was near a ticket counter at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport throwing a baseball in the air, dishing out smiles for pictures, joking and laughing. Seven months ago, he wouldn't speak. Lost, confused and tired from a long flight, he only shook his head no, regardless of the question. "The poor kid just sat on the floor, hugged his photo album and cried for about four days," said David Cash of Lynnwood, Tae-Wau's host father. Tae-Wau was one of three South Korean boys brought to Snohomish County by Healing the Children, a nonprofit group. The boys suffer from microtia, a condition in which the ear, usually the right one, never fully develops. Monday, the boys went home, each sporting a significantly improved ear on the right side of his head. Tae-Wau was still unhappy. "Not good," he said about his new ear, although it didn't seem to dampen his spirits. Dr. Ron Krueger, a Healing the Children board member who did the surgery, doesn't take Tae-Wau's reaction personally. He can understand that after 26 office visits and four surgical procedures, Tae-Wau might have expected more. "It's imperfect. It doesn't look exactly like the other side, but these kids can walk through public and not be scrutinized," Krueger said. "The sad part, for me, is that I don't get to see the parents' reaction. I think his parents are going to be ecstatic." The operation, though cosmetic, is valuable in Tae-Wau's home country, where people with physical disabilities are often shunned, even by their own families. At a glance, Tae-Wau's ear appears normal, but a closer look shows that his upper ear is not quite released from the side of his head. Still, most people don't notice any deformity and are surprised to learn about the surgery. Since he arrived, David and Cheryl Cash and Tae-Wau have shared memories that will last all of their lifetimes. His English improved tremendously, along with his confidence. He abruptly decided several months ago that "Peter" would be his name in America. He quickly made friends at Oak Heights Elementary School in Lynnwood, where he enrolled six weeks ago and had a "birthday" cake in class Friday. (His birthday isn't until August.) His love for fishing also came to light as he spent hours scouring through rods and tackle at G.I. Joe's or Wal-Mart stores, and more time on the area's lakes. And he developed the true taste of the Pacific Northwest. "He's been one of Starbucks' best customers," Cash said. "They're going to see a little dip in their income and say, 'Oh, that's when Tae-Wau went back to Korea.'" After sucking down his last grande chocolate chip frappuccino on Monday, Tae-Wau gave his final hugs and headed for the departure gate with an escort and the two other boys. His host parents stood side by side, their arms pulling each other close, as Tae-Wau turned to give them one last smile and waved goodbye. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 17 May 04 - 02:09 PM From the Everett Herald: Women's project offers a comfortable setting to swim By Katherine Schiffner, Herald Writer EVERETT -- Nadaa Aliat glances up at the YMCA pool's glass entryway before easing into the chilly shallow end. A long white curtain covers the door and the window beside it. No one can peek inside. Time to swim. This is the only place Alait and most of the two dozen other women in the pool can swim laps, learn new strokes and soak in the hot tub. For religious and modesty reasons, they won't appear in swimsuits in front of men. This swim time, twice a month, is just for women and children. "Because we are Muslim, we can't show the body to other people," Aliat said. "If this program were gone, we couldn't do anything." Aliat, 30, who moved to Everett from Iraq 10 years ago, wears a head scarf and long black cloak in public. She has come to the Sunday swims for a year now. "Before, we didn't know how to swim, but now we're swimming and enjoying it," Aliat said. "Last time, my daughter was able to float without anybody helping. The kids have learned so fast." The women-only swim was started by Therese Quinn, leader of Snohomish County's Woman to Woman project, which aims to bring together women from different cultures. Woman to Woman, which also offers cooking classes, discussion groups, sewing circles and roller-skating nights, added the swim time at the suggestion of several Muslim high school girls. The informal gatherings, "give us the opportunity to learn from each other," Quinn said. "One of the women involved in the program had this notion that people from the Middle East were not like us," Quinn said. "After she got to know some of the women from the Middle East, and their children played together, she realized she was wrong." The swim times are open to all women and young children. Sisters Gerri Johnson and Barb Heckathorn of Marysville say they feel more comfortable doing water aerobics there. "It gives us an opportunity to get out and get moving without showing our rolls to men," Johnson said with a smile. Women-only swim The Woman to Woman Project hosts women's swims 9:30-11:30 a.m. on the second and fourth Sundays of every month. Women, girls and young boys swim in privacy at the Everett Family YMCA, 2720 Rockefeller Ave. Suggested donation: $1. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 17 May 04 - 12:15 AM Book Opened Orchid-growing To The World May 15, 2004 07:16 AM EDT From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Before there was an Orchid Thief, there was Rebecca T. Northen. Northen, whose 1950 book "Home Orchid Growing" is still the bible for growers -- amateur and professional alike -- did for orchids what Julia Child did for French cooking, said one orchid lover. Her greenhouse still contained hundreds of orchids when she died April 30 at age 93 in Des Moines, where she lived with her daughter. "She demystified this thing that was previously the purview of the rich doctors and the wealthy," said Bill Carley, who picked up Northen's book when he was a kid and got hooked. Now a member of the Northwest Orchid Society, he's still growing them 40 years later. And so are millions of others around the country, inspired by the woman who made orchid growing accessible to anyone with a little sun and some patience. "She's the reason we have orchids in Trader Joe's," said Northen's daughter, Betty Lyons. "Truly, she was an orchid grower's orchid grower," said Andy Easton, vice president of Kerry's Bromeliads in Homestead, Fla., one of the largest growers in the world. Kerry's produces more than 4 million plants a year, he said, "but if there's any one book I still go to on a regular basis, that's Rebecca Northen's 'Home Orchid Growing.' " Northen discovered orchids, the hothouse hotties of the flower world, in the coldest of places: Laramie, Wyo. Born in Detroit in 1910, Rebecca Tyson had hoped to become a doctor like her father. She studied biology at Radcliff College and received her master's degree from Mount Holyoke in Massachusetts. Just after graduating, however, she heard about a summer botany camp in Wyoming, still considered the "Wild West" in those days. She went for the adventure. Instead, love bloomed. She married her professor, Henry T. Northen, in 1937 and the two put down roots in Laramie, where they raised three children. One day, the professor came home with a flask of tiny orchid seedlings, enough to start hundreds of plants. Northen fell under their spell immediately, and hard. "There was something magical about them that captivated her," said her grandson Trent Northen of Arizona, who got his own start growing orchids from doing chores in his "Grandbecca's" greenhouse when she later lived in California. Those first seedlings rapidly took over every surface in the house, including the bathtubs. Soon thereafter, the Northens built their first greenhouse. To support her proliferating hobby, and pay the heating bill, Northen sold Cattleyas, or corsage orchids, by the prom-load. find the rest of the story here. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 15 May 04 - 01:23 PM Mudlark, if you know what program you were listening to, you can find a transcript or a recording of it online. When my parents were alive they used to regularly mail me big manila envelopes stuffed with old magazines of local Washington State interest (The Mountaineer, for example) and lots of clippings. Various subjects, whatever they were interested in or they thought would interest me. When my father died I opened one file cabinet drawer and found the growing stack he had for me for the next mailing. I make it a habit to print interesting stories or clip them from the paper and leave them on the dining room table for the kids to look at. Sometimes we read them out loud, if it is particularly good that way. Articles get clipped or printed because they illustrate somethine that is a concern that I want us to think about, and sometimes they discuss topics that are of interest to the kids (and I want them to know I was paying attention!) SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Mudlark Date: 15 May 04 - 02:08 AM Thanks for the vote of confidence, Amos! This thread makes me wish I read more print media for ease of copying. I heard a fascinating discussion on NPR while driving around doing chores yesterday about studies done on height through the ages. Seems like there is a definite correlation between height and physical well being (enough to eat, adequate health care, reasonable quality of life). Also seems that average US height has been losing out to Europeans for some time now. We peaked after WWII, now the average height in Holland, for instance, is substantially higher than that of the US. We are 25th I think, among major populations in infant death. These findings are quite at variance with the image of US as Empire. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Amos Date: 14 May 04 - 07:17 AM Mudlark: Forget yourself?? They should be so lucky!! Anyone says anything tell 'em there is no charge for those who mind their manners!! A |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Cluin Date: 14 May 04 - 12:50 AM Next thing, Dillinger's pickled prodigious pecker will show up on E-Bay after disappearing from J. Edgar Hoover's desk drawer back in `68. |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Mudlark Date: 14 May 04 - 12:43 AM SRS...loved the Ada Haug story! Gee, when I forget myself and burst into song while gassing up the truck, or strolling down the supermarket aisle everybody looks at me like I'm crazy. (Moi???) |
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper From: Stilly River Sage Date: 13 May 04 - 02:18 PM Here's an interesting one. Dillinger paper stolen years ago turns up on a web auction: Indiana Seeks to Reclaim Dillinger Document May 13, 2004 11:14 AM EDT INDIANAPOLIS - A missing prison form signed by the notorious Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger showed up at an auction, bid at $16,000. Now state officials want it back. The document was pulled from a May 1 Internet auction after Robert Edwards Auctions of Watchung, N.J., received a phone call from state prison officials. Dillinger, declared public enemy No. 1 for a string of bank robberies across the Midwest, was shot and killed in 1934 by federal agents in front of Chicago's Biograph Theater. A decade earlier, he entered the Indiana Reformatory at Pendleton after a botched robbery and signed a typewritten personal information form that later disappeared from state files. The form says Dillinger attended Sunday School for 12 years, got an 8th grade education and left home at age 16. His occupation when the crime was committed is listed as "idle." Under associates, the form stated, "Bad." The document is valuable because only about a dozen documents signed by Dillinger are known to exist, said Robert Lifson, president of Robert Edwards Auctions. Robert Schagrin, the president of Gotta Have It! Collectibles of New York City, which owns the item, told The Indianapolis Star it will not be sold while he considers the state's claim. He said the 80-year-old document may be public domain. All things considered, "[S]chagrin" is a pretty good name for the "owner" of this document! SRS |