Phony doctor gives free breast exams
Thu Apr 20, 11:40 AM ETMIAMI (Reuters) - A 76-year-old man claiming to be a doctor went door-to-door in a Florida neighborhood offering free breast exams, and was charged with sexually assaulting two women who accepted the offer, police said on Thursday.One woman became suspicious after the man asked her to remove all her clothes and began conducting a purported genital exam without donning rubber gloves, investigators said.The woman then phoned the Broward County Sheriff's Office and the suspect fled. He was arrested at another woman's apartment in the same Lauderdale Lakes neighborhood on Wednesday, a sheriff's spokesman said.The white-haired suspect, Philip Winikoff, carried a black bag and claimed to be visiting on behalf of a local hospital."He told the woman that he was in the neighborhood offering free breast exams," sheriff's spokesman Hugh Graf said in a statement.At least two women, both in their 30s, let him into their homes and he fondled and sexually assaulted them, the investigators said.Winikoff was not a doctor, Graf said. He worked as a shuttle driver for an auto dealership.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Passengers Bravely Take Down Plane Showing Big Momma's House 2
May 24, 2006 Issue 42•21
WASHINGTON, DC—The Federal Aviation Administration announced today that United Airlines Flight 43, which crashed outside Parkersburg, WV last Thursday, was in fact brought down by passengers who voluntarily sacrificed their lives in order to prevent the screening of the in-flight movie selection, Big Momma's House 2.
Crews search the crash site, just hours after Flight 43 went down.
All 105 people onboard died in the crash.
"As we examine the passengers' cell-phone calls and flight recordings, we get a sense of the incredible courage displayed by these ordinary men and women," said FAA Administrator Marion Blakey at a press conference Monday, during which excerpts from the recordings were played. "They acted in the only way they could to stop this unspeakable horror starring Martin Lawrence as an FBI agent who goes undercover as a nanny for a sexy murder suspect."
"These people are true American heroes," Blakey added.
Flight 43 left New York's LaGuardia Airport on schedule last Thursday at 10:17 a.m. en route to Los Angeles with no indication of any suspiciously bad entertainment activity aboard. Black-box evidence indicates that, 40 minutes after takeoff, the crew walked through the cabin and asked passengers to close their window screens. The audio recording goes eerily quiet after a flight attendant can be heard announcing that Big Momma's House 2 would be shown.
"It will be days, months perhaps, before we have a complete picture of exactly what happened," said FAA crash investigator Matthew Roberts, whose team was given the unpleasant job of analyzing Flight 43's last moments. "But we know that the passengers somehow assembled toward the rear of the cabin without attracting attention to themselves—which couldn't have been easy, considering the tense silence that typically accompanies a Big Momma's House film—and decided that they would rather die than let anyone do this to them."
Around 11:00, business-class passenger Charles Rice left an emotional message on the cell-phone voicemail of his fiancée, Kathi Kearney.
"Honey, it's me," Rice said in one of the excerpts. "I… God. Listen, they've darkened the cabin, and they've started showing Big Momma's House 2. The second one, I mean, and it… it's pretty bad. This might not go well, honey. A bunch of us are going to try to stop them. I have to go, we're going to go now. God, I am so sorry. You know I love you."
Although Roberts said they may never determine who acted first or how the passengers organized their resistance to the brutally awful comedy, it is believed that all onboard were united in their need to stop the movie from being shown. In an amazing coincidence, at least one other person aboard Flight 43 had actually survived a screening of the original Big Momma's House on an international flight in 2001, which may have given them impetus to act.
"It seems clear that, from the opening moments of the film, they knew exactly how it had to end—either 99 minutes later as Martin Lawrence's excruciating mugging brought it all to a heinous conclusion, or with the deaths of everyone aboard," Roberts said. "We can only hope that we would act with the same bravery and conscientiousness if presented with the same situation."
Cabin recordings seem to indicate that a refreshment cart was used to charge the attendant station at the front of the aircraft at a decisive moment in the film in which a sexy potential villain asks Lawrence's character for help removing her bra. Much of the recording is incoherent, but Blakey played a 15-second segment in which some of the flight attendants can be heard exhorting passengers to remain seated while others seemed to be voicing second thoughts.
"Clearly, the passengers were facing well-trained hard-liners intent on doing as much damage as they could," said Blakey, gesturing to the charred, partially melted Big Momma's House 2 DVD case found in the wreckage as evidence. "When they found the hospitality station locked down and secured as per airline policy, the only choice they had left was to infiltrate the cockpit."
One last garbled transmission was made from Flight 43 just before it disappeared from air-traffic control's monitors. Though the FAA has not released it publicly, Blakey confirmed that the passengers can be clearly heard reciting the Lord's Prayer over the scream of the engines and the high falsetto shriek of a female-impersonating Martin Lawrence.
Plans are already underway to honor the victims by presenting them with the Presidential Medal Of Freedom, a $4 million memorial in the West Virginia field where Flight 43 crashed, and a proposed Spring 2007 release of Flight 43, a big-budget action comedy-drama starring Chris Tucker as Martin Lawrence.
May 24, 2006 Issue 42•21
WASHINGTON, DC—The Federal Aviation Administration announced today that United Airlines Flight 43, which crashed outside Parkersburg, WV last Thursday, was in fact brought down by passengers who voluntarily sacrificed their lives in order to prevent the screening of the in-flight movie selection, Big Momma's House 2.
Crews search the crash site, just hours after Flight 43 went down.
All 105 people onboard died in the crash.
"As we examine the passengers' cell-phone calls and flight recordings, we get a sense of the incredible courage displayed by these ordinary men and women," said FAA Administrator Marion Blakey at a press conference Monday, during which excerpts from the recordings were played. "They acted in the only way they could to stop this unspeakable horror starring Martin Lawrence as an FBI agent who goes undercover as a nanny for a sexy murder suspect."
"These people are true American heroes," Blakey added.
Flight 43 left New York's LaGuardia Airport on schedule last Thursday at 10:17 a.m. en route to Los Angeles with no indication of any suspiciously bad entertainment activity aboard. Black-box evidence indicates that, 40 minutes after takeoff, the crew walked through the cabin and asked passengers to close their window screens. The audio recording goes eerily quiet after a flight attendant can be heard announcing that Big Momma's House 2 would be shown.
"It will be days, months perhaps, before we have a complete picture of exactly what happened," said FAA crash investigator Matthew Roberts, whose team was given the unpleasant job of analyzing Flight 43's last moments. "But we know that the passengers somehow assembled toward the rear of the cabin without attracting attention to themselves—which couldn't have been easy, considering the tense silence that typically accompanies a Big Momma's House film—and decided that they would rather die than let anyone do this to them."
Around 11:00, business-class passenger Charles Rice left an emotional message on the cell-phone voicemail of his fiancée, Kathi Kearney.
"Honey, it's me," Rice said in one of the excerpts. "I… God. Listen, they've darkened the cabin, and they've started showing Big Momma's House 2. The second one, I mean, and it… it's pretty bad. This might not go well, honey. A bunch of us are going to try to stop them. I have to go, we're going to go now. God, I am so sorry. You know I love you."
Although Roberts said they may never determine who acted first or how the passengers organized their resistance to the brutally awful comedy, it is believed that all onboard were united in their need to stop the movie from being shown. In an amazing coincidence, at least one other person aboard Flight 43 had actually survived a screening of the original Big Momma's House on an international flight in 2001, which may have given them impetus to act.
"It seems clear that, from the opening moments of the film, they knew exactly how it had to end—either 99 minutes later as Martin Lawrence's excruciating mugging brought it all to a heinous conclusion, or with the deaths of everyone aboard," Roberts said. "We can only hope that we would act with the same bravery and conscientiousness if presented with the same situation."
Cabin recordings seem to indicate that a refreshment cart was used to charge the attendant station at the front of the aircraft at a decisive moment in the film in which a sexy potential villain asks Lawrence's character for help removing her bra. Much of the recording is incoherent, but Blakey played a 15-second segment in which some of the flight attendants can be heard exhorting passengers to remain seated while others seemed to be voicing second thoughts.
"Clearly, the passengers were facing well-trained hard-liners intent on doing as much damage as they could," said Blakey, gesturing to the charred, partially melted Big Momma's House 2 DVD case found in the wreckage as evidence. "When they found the hospitality station locked down and secured as per airline policy, the only choice they had left was to infiltrate the cockpit."
One last garbled transmission was made from Flight 43 just before it disappeared from air-traffic control's monitors. Though the FAA has not released it publicly, Blakey confirmed that the passengers can be clearly heard reciting the Lord's Prayer over the scream of the engines and the high falsetto shriek of a female-impersonating Martin Lawrence.
Plans are already underway to honor the victims by presenting them with the Presidential Medal Of Freedom, a $4 million memorial in the West Virginia field where Flight 43 crashed, and a proposed Spring 2007 release of Flight 43, a big-budget action comedy-drama starring Chris Tucker as Martin Lawrence.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
States Signing on to Deadly Force Law
A campaign by gun rights advocates to make it easier to use deadly force in self-defense is rapidly winning support across the country, as state after state makes it legal for people who feel their lives are in danger to shoot down an attacker _ whether in a car-jacking or just on the street.
The law has spurred debate about whether it protects against lawlessness or spurs more crime. Supporters say it's an unambiguous answer to random violence, while critics _ including police chiefs and prosecutors _ warn that criminals are more likely to benefit than innocent victims.
Ten states so far this year have passed a version of the law, after Florida was the first last year. It's already being considered in Arizona in the case of a deadly shooting on a hiking trail.
Supporters have dubbed the new measures "stand your ground" laws, while critics offered nicknames like the "shoot first," "shoot the Avon lady" or "right to commit murder" laws.
At its core, they broaden self-defense by removing the requirement in most states that a person who is attacked has a "duty to retreat" before turning to deadly force. Many of the laws specify that people can use deadly force if they believe they are in danger in any place they have a legal right to be _ a parking lot, a street, a bar, a church. They also give immunity from criminal charges and civil liability.
The campaign is simply about self-defense, said Oklahoma state Rep. Kevin Calvey, a Republican and author of the law in his state. "Law-abiding citizens aren't going to take it anymore," he said.
"It's going to give the crooks second thoughts about carjackings and things like that. They're going to get a face full of lead," Calvey said. He introduced the bill at the request of the local National Rifle Association, and it passed with overwhelmingly support: The House agreed 83-4, the Senate 39-5.
Democratic Gov. Brad Henry signed it and said: "This act will allow law-abiding Oklahomans to protect themselves, their loved ones and their property."
Besides Oklahoma, the nine other states to sign on are Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and South Dakota, according to the NRA.
Critics say the NRA is overstating its success. Only six of those states expanded self-defense into public places, said Zach Ragbourn, a spokesman at the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. There already is a presumption in law that a person does not have to retreat in their home or car, he said.
And there have been a few high-profile defeats, too.
In New Hampshire, the measure passed the legislature only narrowly and then was vetoed by Democratic Gov. John Lynch, who was joined by police and prosecutors.
Police Chief Nathaniel H. Sawyer Jr. of New Hampton, N.H., said the legislation addressed a problem that does not exist. In 26 years in law enforcement, he has never seen anyone wrongfully charged with a crime for self-defense, he said.
"I think it increases the chance for violence," said Sawyer, also the president of the New Hampshire Association of Police Chiefs. "It increases the chance of innocent people being around the violence and becoming involved in it or hurt."
The bill would have allowed a person "to use deadly force in response to non-deadly force, even in public places such as shopping malls, public streets, restaurants and churches," Lynch said when he vetoed the legislation. Existing law already gives citizens the right to protect themselves, he said.
The NRA argues that victims wind up with an unfair burden if the law, as it does in New Hampshire, requires a duty to retreat, if possible. "That does crime victims little good when they have to make a split-second decision to protect their life from violent attack by a criminal," said Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive director.
"The only people that have anything to fear from this type of law is someone who plans on robbing, shooting or raping someone," LaPierre said.
That argument sounds good and it's winning supporters, said Florida state Rep. Dan Gelber, a critic of the law when it passed in his state last year and a former federal prosecutor.
But like Sawyer in New Hampshire, he does not see any instances now or in the past of a victim being prosecuted for failing to retreat. He sees the Florida law, and the national campaign, as an effort by the NRA to build support and keep its members riled up.
"The NRA is a victim of its own successes. No political party in Florida today is going to advance any serious gun-control agenda," said Gelber, a Democrat. "What's left is these little things which have no impact on every day life, but inspire and activate the base."
And, he argued, it gives defense attorneys a potential avenue to seek acquittal for crimes. In effect, criminals will benefit much more often than any innocent victim. "It's going to give the guy who's really looking for a fight, or does something totally irresponsible or venal, a defense he would not otherwise have."
Last week in Arizona, the state appellate court delayed the start of jury deliberations in the trial of a retired school teacher charged with second-degree murder for shooting a man on a hiking trail in May 2004. The court is deciding whether the new law applies to his claim of self-defense.
The law has spurred debate about whether it protects against lawlessness or spurs more crime. Supporters say it's an unambiguous answer to random violence, while critics _ including police chiefs and prosecutors _ warn that criminals are more likely to benefit than innocent victims.
Ten states so far this year have passed a version of the law, after Florida was the first last year. It's already being considered in Arizona in the case of a deadly shooting on a hiking trail.
Supporters have dubbed the new measures "stand your ground" laws, while critics offered nicknames like the "shoot first," "shoot the Avon lady" or "right to commit murder" laws.
At its core, they broaden self-defense by removing the requirement in most states that a person who is attacked has a "duty to retreat" before turning to deadly force. Many of the laws specify that people can use deadly force if they believe they are in danger in any place they have a legal right to be _ a parking lot, a street, a bar, a church. They also give immunity from criminal charges and civil liability.
The campaign is simply about self-defense, said Oklahoma state Rep. Kevin Calvey, a Republican and author of the law in his state. "Law-abiding citizens aren't going to take it anymore," he said.
"It's going to give the crooks second thoughts about carjackings and things like that. They're going to get a face full of lead," Calvey said. He introduced the bill at the request of the local National Rifle Association, and it passed with overwhelmingly support: The House agreed 83-4, the Senate 39-5.
Democratic Gov. Brad Henry signed it and said: "This act will allow law-abiding Oklahomans to protect themselves, their loved ones and their property."
Besides Oklahoma, the nine other states to sign on are Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and South Dakota, according to the NRA.
Critics say the NRA is overstating its success. Only six of those states expanded self-defense into public places, said Zach Ragbourn, a spokesman at the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. There already is a presumption in law that a person does not have to retreat in their home or car, he said.
And there have been a few high-profile defeats, too.
In New Hampshire, the measure passed the legislature only narrowly and then was vetoed by Democratic Gov. John Lynch, who was joined by police and prosecutors.
Police Chief Nathaniel H. Sawyer Jr. of New Hampton, N.H., said the legislation addressed a problem that does not exist. In 26 years in law enforcement, he has never seen anyone wrongfully charged with a crime for self-defense, he said.
"I think it increases the chance for violence," said Sawyer, also the president of the New Hampshire Association of Police Chiefs. "It increases the chance of innocent people being around the violence and becoming involved in it or hurt."
The bill would have allowed a person "to use deadly force in response to non-deadly force, even in public places such as shopping malls, public streets, restaurants and churches," Lynch said when he vetoed the legislation. Existing law already gives citizens the right to protect themselves, he said.
The NRA argues that victims wind up with an unfair burden if the law, as it does in New Hampshire, requires a duty to retreat, if possible. "That does crime victims little good when they have to make a split-second decision to protect their life from violent attack by a criminal," said Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive director.
"The only people that have anything to fear from this type of law is someone who plans on robbing, shooting or raping someone," LaPierre said.
That argument sounds good and it's winning supporters, said Florida state Rep. Dan Gelber, a critic of the law when it passed in his state last year and a former federal prosecutor.
But like Sawyer in New Hampshire, he does not see any instances now or in the past of a victim being prosecuted for failing to retreat. He sees the Florida law, and the national campaign, as an effort by the NRA to build support and keep its members riled up.
"The NRA is a victim of its own successes. No political party in Florida today is going to advance any serious gun-control agenda," said Gelber, a Democrat. "What's left is these little things which have no impact on every day life, but inspire and activate the base."
And, he argued, it gives defense attorneys a potential avenue to seek acquittal for crimes. In effect, criminals will benefit much more often than any innocent victim. "It's going to give the guy who's really looking for a fight, or does something totally irresponsible or venal, a defense he would not otherwise have."
Last week in Arizona, the state appellate court delayed the start of jury deliberations in the trial of a retired school teacher charged with second-degree murder for shooting a man on a hiking trail in May 2004. The court is deciding whether the new law applies to his claim of self-defense.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Revisionist History Antiwar myths about Iraq, debunked.
BY PETER WEHNER Tuesday, May 23, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
Iraqis can participate in three historic elections, pass the most liberal constitution in the Arab world, and form a unity government despite terrorist attacks and provocations. Yet for some critics of the president, these are minor matters. Like swallows to Capistrano, they keep returning to the same allegations--the president misled the country in order to justify the Iraq war; his administration pressured intelligence agencies to bias their judgments; Saddam Hussein turned out to be no threat since he didn't possess weapons of mass destruction; and helping democracy take root in the Middle East was a postwar rationalization. The problem with these charges is that they are false and can be shown to be so--and yet people continue to believe, and spread, them. Let me examine each in turn:
The president misled Americans to convince them to go to war. "There is no question [the Bush administration] misled the nation and led us into a quagmire in Iraq," according to Ted Kennedy. Jimmy Carter charged that on Iraq, "President Bush has not been honest with the American people." And Al Gore has said that an "abuse of the truth" characterized the administration's "march to war." These charges are themselves misleading, which explains why no independent body has found them credible. Most of the world was operating from essentially the same set of assumptions regarding Iraq's WMD capabilities. Important assumptions turned out wrong; but mistakenly relying on faulty intelligence is a world apart from lying about it.
Let's review what we know. The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) is the intelligence community's authoritative written judgment on specific national-security issues. The 2002 NIE provided a key judgment: "Iraq has continued its [WMD] programs in defiance of U.N. resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of U.N. restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade."
Thanks to the bipartisan Silberman-Robb Commission, which investigated the causes of intelligence failures in the run-up to the war, we now know that the President's Daily Brief (PDB) and the Senior Executive Intelligence Brief "were, if anything, more alarmist and less nuanced than the NIE" (my emphasis). We also know that the intelligence in the PDB was not "markedly different" from that given to Congress. This helps explains why John Kerry, in voting to give the president the authority to use force, said, "I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security." It's why Sen. Kennedy said, "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." And it's why Hillary Clinton said in 2002, "In the four years since the inspectors, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability and his nuclear program."
Beyond that, intelligence agencies from around the globe believed Saddam had WMD. Even foreign governments that opposed his removal from power believed Iraq had WMD: Just a few weeks before Operation Iraqi Freedom, Wolfgang Ischinger, German ambassador to the U.S., said, "I think all of our governments believe that Iraq has produced weapons of mass destruction and that we have to assume that they continue to have weapons of mass destruction."
In addition, no serious person would justify a war based on information he knows to be false and which would be shown to be false within months after the war concluded. It is not as if the WMD stockpile question was one that wasn't going to be answered for a century to come.
The Bush administration pressured intelligence agencies to bias their judgments. Earlier this year, Mr. Gore charged that "CIA analysts who strongly disagreed with the White House . . . found themselves under pressure at work and became fearful of losing promotions and salary increases." Sen. Kennedy charged that the administration "put pressure on intelligence officers to produce the desired intelligence and analysis."
This myth is shattered by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's bipartisan Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq. Among the findings: "The committee did not find any evidence that intelligence analysts changed their judgments as a result of political pressure, altered or produced intelligence products to conform with administration policy, or that anyone even attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to do so." Silberman-Robb concluded the same, finding "no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community's prewar assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. . . . Analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments." What the report did find is that intelligence assessments on Iraq were "riddled with errors"; "most of the fundamental errors were made and communicated to policy makers well before the now-infamous NIE of October 2002, and were not corrected in the months between the NIE and the start of the war."
Because weapons of mass destruction stockpiles weren't found, Saddam posed no threat. Howard Dean declared Iraq "was not a danger to the United States." John Murtha asserted, "There was no threat to our national security." Max Cleland put it this way: "Iraq was no threat. We now know that. There are no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear weapons programs." Yet while we did not find stockpiles of WMD in Iraq, what we did find was enough to alarm any sober-minded individual.
Upon his return from Iraq, weapons inspector David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), told the Senate: "I actually think this may be one of those cases where [Iraq under Saddam Hussein] was even more dangerous than we thought." His statement when issuing the ISG progress report said: "We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities" that were part of "deliberate concealment efforts" that should have been declared to the U.N. And, he concluded, "Saddam, at least as judged by those scientists and other insiders who worked in his military-industrial programs, had not given up his aspirations and intentions to continue to acquire weapons of mass destruction."
Among the key findings of the September 2004 report by Charles Duelfer, who succeeded Mr. Kay as ISG head, are that Saddam was pursuing an aggressive strategy to subvert the Oil for Food Program and to bring down U.N. sanctions through illicit finance and procurement schemes; and that Saddam intended to resume WMD efforts once U.N. sanctions were eliminated. According to Mr. Duelfer, "the guiding theme for WMD was to sustain the intellectual capacity achieved over so many years at such a great cost and to be in a position to produce again with as short a lead time as possible. . . . Virtually no senior Iraqi believed that Saddam had forsaken WMD forever. Evidence suggests that, as resources became available and the constraints of sanctions decayed, there was a direct expansion of activity that would have the effect of supporting future WMD reconstitution."
Beyond this, Saddam's regime was one of the most sadistic and aggressive in modern history. It started a war against Iran and used mustard gas and nerve gas. A decade later Iraq invaded Kuwait. Iraq was a massively destabilizing force in the Middle East; so long as Saddam was in power, rivers of blood were sure to follow.
Promoting democracy in the Middle East is a postwar rationalization. "The president now says that the war is really about the spread of democracy in the Middle East. This effort at after-the-fact justification was only made necessary because the primary rationale was so sadly lacking in fact," according to Nancy Pelosi.
In fact, President Bush argued for democracy taking root in Iraq before the war began. To take just one example, he said in a speech on Feb. 26, 2003: "A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region, by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions. America's interests in security, and America's belief in liberty, both lead in the same direction: to a free and peaceful Iraq. . . . The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder. They encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life. And there are hopeful signs of a desire for freedom in the Middle East. . . . A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region."
The following day the New York Times editorialized: "President Bush sketched an expansive vision last night of what he expects to accomplish by a war in Iraq. . . . The idea of turning Iraq into a model democracy in the Arab world is one some members of the administration have been discussing for a long time."
These, then, are the urban legends we must counter, else falsehoods become conventional wisdom. And what a strange world it is: For many antiwar critics, the president is faulted for the war, and he, not the former dictator of Iraq, inspires rage. The liberator rather than the oppressor provokes hatred. It is as if we have stepped through the political looking glass, into a world turned upside down and inside out.
Mr. Wehner is deputy assistant to the president and director of the White House's Office of Strategic Initiatives.
BY PETER WEHNER Tuesday, May 23, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
Iraqis can participate in three historic elections, pass the most liberal constitution in the Arab world, and form a unity government despite terrorist attacks and provocations. Yet for some critics of the president, these are minor matters. Like swallows to Capistrano, they keep returning to the same allegations--the president misled the country in order to justify the Iraq war; his administration pressured intelligence agencies to bias their judgments; Saddam Hussein turned out to be no threat since he didn't possess weapons of mass destruction; and helping democracy take root in the Middle East was a postwar rationalization. The problem with these charges is that they are false and can be shown to be so--and yet people continue to believe, and spread, them. Let me examine each in turn:
The president misled Americans to convince them to go to war. "There is no question [the Bush administration] misled the nation and led us into a quagmire in Iraq," according to Ted Kennedy. Jimmy Carter charged that on Iraq, "President Bush has not been honest with the American people." And Al Gore has said that an "abuse of the truth" characterized the administration's "march to war." These charges are themselves misleading, which explains why no independent body has found them credible. Most of the world was operating from essentially the same set of assumptions regarding Iraq's WMD capabilities. Important assumptions turned out wrong; but mistakenly relying on faulty intelligence is a world apart from lying about it.
Let's review what we know. The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) is the intelligence community's authoritative written judgment on specific national-security issues. The 2002 NIE provided a key judgment: "Iraq has continued its [WMD] programs in defiance of U.N. resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of U.N. restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade."
Thanks to the bipartisan Silberman-Robb Commission, which investigated the causes of intelligence failures in the run-up to the war, we now know that the President's Daily Brief (PDB) and the Senior Executive Intelligence Brief "were, if anything, more alarmist and less nuanced than the NIE" (my emphasis). We also know that the intelligence in the PDB was not "markedly different" from that given to Congress. This helps explains why John Kerry, in voting to give the president the authority to use force, said, "I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security." It's why Sen. Kennedy said, "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." And it's why Hillary Clinton said in 2002, "In the four years since the inspectors, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability and his nuclear program."
Beyond that, intelligence agencies from around the globe believed Saddam had WMD. Even foreign governments that opposed his removal from power believed Iraq had WMD: Just a few weeks before Operation Iraqi Freedom, Wolfgang Ischinger, German ambassador to the U.S., said, "I think all of our governments believe that Iraq has produced weapons of mass destruction and that we have to assume that they continue to have weapons of mass destruction."
In addition, no serious person would justify a war based on information he knows to be false and which would be shown to be false within months after the war concluded. It is not as if the WMD stockpile question was one that wasn't going to be answered for a century to come.
The Bush administration pressured intelligence agencies to bias their judgments. Earlier this year, Mr. Gore charged that "CIA analysts who strongly disagreed with the White House . . . found themselves under pressure at work and became fearful of losing promotions and salary increases." Sen. Kennedy charged that the administration "put pressure on intelligence officers to produce the desired intelligence and analysis."
This myth is shattered by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's bipartisan Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq. Among the findings: "The committee did not find any evidence that intelligence analysts changed their judgments as a result of political pressure, altered or produced intelligence products to conform with administration policy, or that anyone even attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to do so." Silberman-Robb concluded the same, finding "no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community's prewar assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. . . . Analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments." What the report did find is that intelligence assessments on Iraq were "riddled with errors"; "most of the fundamental errors were made and communicated to policy makers well before the now-infamous NIE of October 2002, and were not corrected in the months between the NIE and the start of the war."
Because weapons of mass destruction stockpiles weren't found, Saddam posed no threat. Howard Dean declared Iraq "was not a danger to the United States." John Murtha asserted, "There was no threat to our national security." Max Cleland put it this way: "Iraq was no threat. We now know that. There are no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear weapons programs." Yet while we did not find stockpiles of WMD in Iraq, what we did find was enough to alarm any sober-minded individual.
Upon his return from Iraq, weapons inspector David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), told the Senate: "I actually think this may be one of those cases where [Iraq under Saddam Hussein] was even more dangerous than we thought." His statement when issuing the ISG progress report said: "We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities" that were part of "deliberate concealment efforts" that should have been declared to the U.N. And, he concluded, "Saddam, at least as judged by those scientists and other insiders who worked in his military-industrial programs, had not given up his aspirations and intentions to continue to acquire weapons of mass destruction."
Among the key findings of the September 2004 report by Charles Duelfer, who succeeded Mr. Kay as ISG head, are that Saddam was pursuing an aggressive strategy to subvert the Oil for Food Program and to bring down U.N. sanctions through illicit finance and procurement schemes; and that Saddam intended to resume WMD efforts once U.N. sanctions were eliminated. According to Mr. Duelfer, "the guiding theme for WMD was to sustain the intellectual capacity achieved over so many years at such a great cost and to be in a position to produce again with as short a lead time as possible. . . . Virtually no senior Iraqi believed that Saddam had forsaken WMD forever. Evidence suggests that, as resources became available and the constraints of sanctions decayed, there was a direct expansion of activity that would have the effect of supporting future WMD reconstitution."
Beyond this, Saddam's regime was one of the most sadistic and aggressive in modern history. It started a war against Iran and used mustard gas and nerve gas. A decade later Iraq invaded Kuwait. Iraq was a massively destabilizing force in the Middle East; so long as Saddam was in power, rivers of blood were sure to follow.
Promoting democracy in the Middle East is a postwar rationalization. "The president now says that the war is really about the spread of democracy in the Middle East. This effort at after-the-fact justification was only made necessary because the primary rationale was so sadly lacking in fact," according to Nancy Pelosi.
In fact, President Bush argued for democracy taking root in Iraq before the war began. To take just one example, he said in a speech on Feb. 26, 2003: "A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region, by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions. America's interests in security, and America's belief in liberty, both lead in the same direction: to a free and peaceful Iraq. . . . The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder. They encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life. And there are hopeful signs of a desire for freedom in the Middle East. . . . A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region."
The following day the New York Times editorialized: "President Bush sketched an expansive vision last night of what he expects to accomplish by a war in Iraq. . . . The idea of turning Iraq into a model democracy in the Arab world is one some members of the administration have been discussing for a long time."
These, then, are the urban legends we must counter, else falsehoods become conventional wisdom. And what a strange world it is: For many antiwar critics, the president is faulted for the war, and he, not the former dictator of Iraq, inspires rage. The liberator rather than the oppressor provokes hatred. It is as if we have stepped through the political looking glass, into a world turned upside down and inside out.
Mr. Wehner is deputy assistant to the president and director of the White House's Office of Strategic Initiatives.
NEW York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. made "an apology" to graduates of SUNY New Paltz on Sunday that he and his generation weren't able to revolutionize the world. Sounding more radical than any of his Op-Ed columnists, the commencement speaker declared: "When I graduated in 1974, my fellow students and I ended the Vietnam war and ousted President Nixon. OK. OK. That's not quite true. Maybe there were larger forces at play. Either way, we entered the real world committed to making it a better, safer, cleaner, more equal place. We were determined not to repeat the mistakes of our pedecessors. We had seen the horror of war and smelled the stench of government corruption. Our children, we vowed, would never know that. So, well, I am sorry." But wait, there's more. Kingston Daily Freeman reporter Paul Kirby also quotes Sulzberger as saying, "It wasn't supposed to be this way. You weren't supposed to be graduating in an America fighting a misbegotten war in a foreign land. You weren't supposed to be graduating into a world where we are still fighting for fundamental human rights, be it the rights of immigrants to start a new life, the right of gays to marry, or the rights of women to choose." You get the idea.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Tommy Hilfiger and Axl Rose fight to the death
Tommy Hilfiger and Axl Rose spent Thursday night at a new club called The Plumm in New York, but Hilfiger ended up punching Axl repeatedly after he moved his girlfriend's drink.
"I moved his girlfriend's drink so it wouldn't spill," Rose told the Los Angeles radio station KROQ on Friday. "It was the most surreal thing, I think, that's ever happened to me in my life." According to the 44-year-old singer, Hilfiger, 55, smacked him in the arm and told him to put the drink back. "He just kept smacking me," Rose said. Rose was there to play a surprise set for "Rent" actress Rosario Dawson for her 27th birthday party. Rose did perform, and dedicated the song "You're Crazy" to "my good friend Tommy Hilfiger."
Tommy Hilfiger and Axl Rose spent Thursday night at a new club called The Plumm in New York, but Hilfiger ended up punching Axl repeatedly after he moved his girlfriend's drink.
"I moved his girlfriend's drink so it wouldn't spill," Rose told the Los Angeles radio station KROQ on Friday. "It was the most surreal thing, I think, that's ever happened to me in my life." According to the 44-year-old singer, Hilfiger, 55, smacked him in the arm and told him to put the drink back. "He just kept smacking me," Rose said. Rose was there to play a surprise set for "Rent" actress Rosario Dawson for her 27th birthday party. Rose did perform, and dedicated the song "You're Crazy" to "my good friend Tommy Hilfiger."
Friday, May 19, 2006
Injured Husband Talks to Action News
Exclusive Television Interview
TIOGA-NICETOWN - May 17, 2006 - A Philadelphia man is recovering from an attack, allegedly at the hands of his wife. The assault on his private parts has become public knowledge. In an interview with Action News after his release from, the 52-year-old victim spoke of his terrifying ordeal.
The 52-year-old Tioga-Nicetown man, who we are identifying only by his first name of Howard, arrived home late Wednesday, hours after his wife allegedly tore off two parts of his genitalia with her bare hands. Surgeons at Einstein successfully managed to repair the damage. 
Howard/Tioga-Nicetown: "Doctors did a beautiful job in E.R. and the paramedics did a wonderful job, they only took 4 minutes to get here."Howard says his 40-year-old wife Monica, who he says is bi-polar, somehow conceived the notion that he was cheating on her. So while he was asleep last night, she attacked him.
Police outside the home in Tioga-Nicetown following the domestic incident early Tuesday morning.
Howard: "I mean she just grabbed me all down there and yanking and yanking and tearing me up with those fingernails."Police and paramedics rushed to the man's row home in the 3800 block of Pulaski where they found him bleeding profusely. He was rushed to Einstein where doctors first labeled his condition critical. He was later upgraded to stable after having reattachment surgery and a few doses of morphine. Howard still cannot believe his wife of 11 years would allegedly do this him.
Howard: "I can see doing something like that to a rapist, or mugger but not a husband, not something like..."
Dann: "She thought that you were cheating on her?"
Howard: "I wasn't cheating on nobody, I'm home in bed at 8' 0 clock every night, I mean I'm not out there messing around."
Brian Lawson/neighbor: "I mean men cringing when they hear the story, I mean uh, I'm just cringing thinking about it."
Antoinette Fortune/Neighbor: "Who would wanna do something like that?"
Unidentified Neighbor: "That's kinda nasty. That's drastic isn't it? He's lucky to be alive."Some neighbors say Howard's had problems with his wife before and has thrown her out only to let her back in. They worry what'll happen next.
Dann Cuellar: "Howard, you're not gonna let her back in here are you?"
Howard: "Oh no, no, no. She's in jail where she belongs."At one point, Howard's wife Monica was facing attempted murder charges but now, the D.A.'s office has asked that a psychiatric evaluation be performed before any charges are filed.
What's the problem?
List of symptoms of Cirrhosis of the liver: The list of signs and symptoms mentioned in various sources for Cirrhosis of the liver includes those listed below. Note that Cirrhosis of the liver symptoms usually refers to various symptoms known to a patient, but the phrase Cirrhosis of the liver signs may refer to those signs only noticable by a doctor:
Fatigue
Nausea
Weakness
Weight loss
Exhaustion
Loss of appetite
Stomach upset
Ascites
Ankle swelling
Enlarged liver
Enlarged spleen
Jaundice
Muscle deterioration
Excoriations
Swollen leg
Swollen abdomen
Bruising easily
Bleeding easily
Itching skin
Gallstones
Personality changes
Degraded mental function
Neglect of personal appearance
Unresponsiveness
Forgetfulness
Trouble concentrating
Changes in sleep habits
Sensitivity to medication
Esophageal bleeding
Digestive bleeding
Dark urine
Blood in stool
Spider veins
Fluid retention
Edema
Red hands
Baldness
Male breast enlargement
Fatigue
Nausea
Weakness
Weight loss
Exhaustion
Loss of appetite
Stomach upset
Ascites
Ankle swelling
Enlarged liver
Enlarged spleen
Jaundice
Muscle deterioration
Excoriations
Swollen leg
Swollen abdomen
Bruising easily
Bleeding easily
Itching skin
Gallstones
Personality changes
Degraded mental function
Neglect of personal appearance
Unresponsiveness
Forgetfulness
Trouble concentrating
Changes in sleep habits
Sensitivity to medication
Esophageal bleeding
Digestive bleeding
Dark urine
Blood in stool
Spider veins
Fluid retention
Edema
Red hands
Baldness
Male breast enlargement
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Article: "China may not be seeking global domination—at least not yet—but it is definitely seeking regional domination. And the region it is trying to dominate will be as important, politically, militarily, and economically, to the rest of the world in this century as Europe was in the last one," writes Max Boot in the Weekly Standard.
Where are the bottle rockets and pube sandwiches?
On the Web, College Athletes Acting Badly
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
The indiscretions of college students — whether it is binge drinking, cheating or hazing — may be old school, but universities now face the new reality that their students' misbehavior will eventually be exposed on the Internet.
By the students themselves.
This new challenge to college administrators was underscored this week when the Web site badjocks.com posted photographs from a hazing by the Northwestern women's soccer team, leading to the team's suspension. Yesterday, badjocks.com followed up with photos from freshman, varsity and club team initiations at 12 other colleges, complete with links to the teams' rosters.
Badjocks.com plucked and collated the often disturbing photos from webshots.com, a site where students post and share thousands of pictures covering a variety of activities.
"This isn't just a fraternity thing or something we should elbow ourselves and chuckle about," said Bob Reno, who added hazing photographs last year to badjocks.com, which he founded in 2000. "People are getting hurt."
His goal in posting the photographs, he said, is to persuade universities to enforce their antihazing policies.
The ease with which students can download photos to webshots.com, or pictures and biographical information to another popular site, facebook.com, is making college administrators nervous. They do not know when a student may post embarrassing images that can dramatically undermine their policies against hazing or other prohibited activities.
"You're walking on eggshells every hour," said Jim Livengood, the athletic director at the University of Arizona, which is not one of the colleges depicted in the photos. "I can't rationalize the young person's thought process. You can't think those photographs won't be seen. It's crazy. It's like the old adage, 'I'll turn invisible at midnight and no one will know who I am.' "
He said the university had been monitoring facebook.com — which had yielded nothing compromising — but only became aware of badjocks.com three days ago.
"The hard part of it all is you can't control it," he said, adding that the issue would be discussed at Pacific-10 Conference meetings.
The photographs on badjocks.com show male and female athletes apparently drinking, passed out, blindfolded, tied up, cross-dressing and with their bodies scrawled with salacious phrases. Members of the women's lacrosse team at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., are seen in sexually suggestive poses with a male stripper in just a thong and socks.
"If the evidence demonstrates that any of our current students participated in these activities, appropriate disciplinary action will be taken," said Dr. Michael Allen, athletics director at Catholic University.
Another college cited by badjocks.com is Kenyon in Ohio; members of its 2005 baseball team are seen shaving their heads and drinking. One player's back is marked with an obscene phrase proposing anal sex.
Shawn Presley, a spokesman for the college, said an investigation had begun.
"We're dealing with a generation of students who are so used to the Internet and so used to putting anything on it, whether it's blogs or making their personal lives public, that they lose perspective," he said.
Bruce Madej, an associate athletic director at the University of Michigan, said that colleges would have First Amendment issues if they tried to bar students from posting photographs or text on the Internet.
"There is no silver bullet to tell them what they can or can't do," he said. "You have to tell them they not only represent the university but their families. You have to tell them corporations look at those Web sites. Is it awkward? You bet."
Photographs of the Michigan men's lacrosse team's initiations in 2003 and 2004 — which showed players apparently drinking — were posted on badjocks.com yesterday. But Madej said that the coach, John Paul, took disciplinary action against some of the team members two years ago.
Alan White, the athletic director at Elon University in North Carolina, said pictures on badjocks.com of freshmen on the 2005-6 baseball team drinking while blindfolded and wearing bras showed "unacceptable behavior." In a statement, he said that the pictures first appeared on a student's facebook.com page and that disciplinary had been taken against some players. The photos, thought to be destroyed, then resurfaced on badjocks.com.
The eruption of publicity for badjocks.com comes as three lacrosse players at Duke face rape charges, a case that has set off a national discussion on the behavior of athletes on campus. Douglas E. Fierberg, a lawyer who represents victims of hazing and their families, said the pictures had provided documentary evidence that hazing was still a part of campus life.
"You're seeing visually what's essentially been known to take place at universities for years," he said. "Normally you don't get photos because they're destroyed by the fraternities, which are secret organizations."
He said he was struck by a photo of a young woman who had passed out at the Fairleigh Dickinson women's softball team initiation in 2004; it reminded him of Lynn G. Bailey Jr., a University of Colorado freshman who was found dead on the floor of a fraternity house after drinking during an initiation ritual in 2004. "He laid there for nine hours and died," said Fierberg, who is representing Bailey's family in a lawsuit against the fraternity.
Some of the photos on badjocks.com look less insidious than others, and appear to show students at parties. But Susan Lipkins, a psychologist and expert on hazing who has talked about its effects with Reno, said that hazing was humiliating and degrading, even if it appeared to be fun.
"There is a tremendous amount of planning and continuing a tradition," she said. "At a party, you choose how much to drink, but in hazing, you do it to be part of a group, and the perpetrators want you to be blindly obedient."
Just as publicity of his site was cresting, Reno said yesterday that he would stop posting new hazing photos, to concentrate instead on exposing the sexual abuse of high school students by their coaches.
"We've made our point," he said. "I've reached the saturation point."
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
The indiscretions of college students — whether it is binge drinking, cheating or hazing — may be old school, but universities now face the new reality that their students' misbehavior will eventually be exposed on the Internet.
By the students themselves.
This new challenge to college administrators was underscored this week when the Web site badjocks.com posted photographs from a hazing by the Northwestern women's soccer team, leading to the team's suspension. Yesterday, badjocks.com followed up with photos from freshman, varsity and club team initiations at 12 other colleges, complete with links to the teams' rosters.
Badjocks.com plucked and collated the often disturbing photos from webshots.com, a site where students post and share thousands of pictures covering a variety of activities.
"This isn't just a fraternity thing or something we should elbow ourselves and chuckle about," said Bob Reno, who added hazing photographs last year to badjocks.com, which he founded in 2000. "People are getting hurt."
His goal in posting the photographs, he said, is to persuade universities to enforce their antihazing policies.
The ease with which students can download photos to webshots.com, or pictures and biographical information to another popular site, facebook.com, is making college administrators nervous. They do not know when a student may post embarrassing images that can dramatically undermine their policies against hazing or other prohibited activities.
"You're walking on eggshells every hour," said Jim Livengood, the athletic director at the University of Arizona, which is not one of the colleges depicted in the photos. "I can't rationalize the young person's thought process. You can't think those photographs won't be seen. It's crazy. It's like the old adage, 'I'll turn invisible at midnight and no one will know who I am.' "
He said the university had been monitoring facebook.com — which had yielded nothing compromising — but only became aware of badjocks.com three days ago.
"The hard part of it all is you can't control it," he said, adding that the issue would be discussed at Pacific-10 Conference meetings.
The photographs on badjocks.com show male and female athletes apparently drinking, passed out, blindfolded, tied up, cross-dressing and with their bodies scrawled with salacious phrases. Members of the women's lacrosse team at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., are seen in sexually suggestive poses with a male stripper in just a thong and socks.
"If the evidence demonstrates that any of our current students participated in these activities, appropriate disciplinary action will be taken," said Dr. Michael Allen, athletics director at Catholic University.
Another college cited by badjocks.com is Kenyon in Ohio; members of its 2005 baseball team are seen shaving their heads and drinking. One player's back is marked with an obscene phrase proposing anal sex.
Shawn Presley, a spokesman for the college, said an investigation had begun.
"We're dealing with a generation of students who are so used to the Internet and so used to putting anything on it, whether it's blogs or making their personal lives public, that they lose perspective," he said.
Bruce Madej, an associate athletic director at the University of Michigan, said that colleges would have First Amendment issues if they tried to bar students from posting photographs or text on the Internet.
"There is no silver bullet to tell them what they can or can't do," he said. "You have to tell them they not only represent the university but their families. You have to tell them corporations look at those Web sites. Is it awkward? You bet."
Photographs of the Michigan men's lacrosse team's initiations in 2003 and 2004 — which showed players apparently drinking — were posted on badjocks.com yesterday. But Madej said that the coach, John Paul, took disciplinary action against some of the team members two years ago.
Alan White, the athletic director at Elon University in North Carolina, said pictures on badjocks.com of freshmen on the 2005-6 baseball team drinking while blindfolded and wearing bras showed "unacceptable behavior." In a statement, he said that the pictures first appeared on a student's facebook.com page and that disciplinary had been taken against some players. The photos, thought to be destroyed, then resurfaced on badjocks.com.
The eruption of publicity for badjocks.com comes as three lacrosse players at Duke face rape charges, a case that has set off a national discussion on the behavior of athletes on campus. Douglas E. Fierberg, a lawyer who represents victims of hazing and their families, said the pictures had provided documentary evidence that hazing was still a part of campus life.
"You're seeing visually what's essentially been known to take place at universities for years," he said. "Normally you don't get photos because they're destroyed by the fraternities, which are secret organizations."
He said he was struck by a photo of a young woman who had passed out at the Fairleigh Dickinson women's softball team initiation in 2004; it reminded him of Lynn G. Bailey Jr., a University of Colorado freshman who was found dead on the floor of a fraternity house after drinking during an initiation ritual in 2004. "He laid there for nine hours and died," said Fierberg, who is representing Bailey's family in a lawsuit against the fraternity.
Some of the photos on badjocks.com look less insidious than others, and appear to show students at parties. But Susan Lipkins, a psychologist and expert on hazing who has talked about its effects with Reno, said that hazing was humiliating and degrading, even if it appeared to be fun.
"There is a tremendous amount of planning and continuing a tradition," she said. "At a party, you choose how much to drink, but in hazing, you do it to be part of a group, and the perpetrators want you to be blindly obedient."
Just as publicity of his site was cresting, Reno said yesterday that he would stop posting new hazing photos, to concentrate instead on exposing the sexual abuse of high school students by their coaches.
"We've made our point," he said. "I've reached the saturation point."
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Maslow's hierarchy of needs
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology that Abraham Maslow proposed in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation, which he subsequently extended. His theory contends that as humans meet 'basic needs', they seek to satisfy successively 'higher needs' that occupy a set hierarchy. Maslow studied exemplary people such as Albert Einstein, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frederick Douglass rather than mentally ill or neurotic people, writing that "the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy." (Motivation and Personality, 1987)
1. Physiological
2. Safety
3. Love/Belonging
4. Esteem
5. Actualization
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is often depicted as a pyramid consisting of five levels: the four lower levels are grouped together as deficiency needs associated with physiological needs, while the top level is termed growth needs associated with psychological needs. While our deficiency needs must be met, our being needs are continually shaping our behaviour. The basic concept is that the higher needs in this hierarchy only come into focus once all the needs that are lower down in the pyramid are mainly or entirely satisfied. Growth forces create upward movement in the hierarchy, whereas regressive forces push prepotent needs further down the hierarchy.
Isaac Hayes the Father of Baby Boy
The 63-year-old singer and his wife gave birth to Nana Kwadjo Hayes, born April 10 and weighed 8 pounds, 5 ounces. In the Ghanaian language, Nana means "King," and Kwadjo (pronounced "Kwo-Jo") means "boy born on Monday."
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Flutie Retires
The Flutie Chronology
Mike Beamish, Vancouver Sun Published: Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland, Oct. 23, 1962.
Toddler years: Falls asleep each night, cradling a football in his arms.
Football beginnings: Family moves to Melbourne, Florida in 1968. Doug plays first flag football game in Florida tyke league.
First contact: Weighing only 63 pounds, five short of the minimum requirement, Doug sits on bench for first tackle football game in 1971 while older brother, Bill, plays QB. At midseason, having reached weight requirement, Doug starts at safety.
First year at quarterback: In 1973, at age 11, Doug finally gets to start at quarterback but soon tires of continually have to use running plays. Asks to be switched to running back.
Move to Massachusetts: In 1975, the Flutie family relocates to Natick, Mass. Doug, now 13, asks his junior high school coach to allow him to call his own plays. Studies Bradshaw, Tarkenton, Staubach and his favourite quarterback, Bert Jones.
High School years: Doug makes Natick varsity as a freshman, playing free safety and wide receiver. As a high school sophomore, he takes over from brother Bill at quarterback. Plays both ways and never leaves the field.
College entrance year, 1981: No NCAA school offers a full-ride scholarship, believing that players who are 5-9, 175 pounds should be kickers, not quarterbacks. Boston College finally offers to take Flutie after its first two high-school QB recruits decide to go elsewhere.
The Hail Mary: On Nov. 22, 1984, the Flutie legend is imprinted on the national consciousness. Down 45-41 to the Miami Hurricanes and with the end zone 48 yards away and no time left on the clock, the little QB wings a 64-yard pass into the twilight and into a mass of players that comes down in the arms of Eagles' WR Gerard Phelan. Throwing 46 passes for 476 yards, three TDs and one miracle, Flutie cements his name as the favourite for the Heisman Trophy. Boston College finishes the season at 10-2 and wins its first bowl game since 1941, a 45-21 over Houston in the Cotton Bowl.
Heisman Trophy: A humanly scaled hero, Rhodes Scholar candidate and distinguished student who wins a National Football Foundation postgraduate scholarship, Flutie is elevated from college football hero to national celebrity by "The Pass." There is little suspense when Flutie is announced as the golden anniversary Heisman winner by the Downtown Athletic Club at the conclusion of an hour-long program televised nationally by NBC. Flutie receives a congratulatory phone call from President Ronald Reagan, whom the quarterback supported for re-election.
Draft year: Unimpressed by Flutie's stature, NFL teams wait until the 11th round of the 1985 draft before the Los Angeles Rams take him with pick No. 285. Flutie decides to sign a six-year, $8.3-million US contract with Donald Trump, owner of the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League. The USFL folds in 1986, with Flutie as the league's last active player.
NFL beginnings: Flutie signs with the Chicago Bears, halfway through the 1986 season. With starter Jim McMahon and backup Mike Tomczak injured, he starts the last game of the regular season and a first-round loss to Washington. Disliked by McMahon, who derisively refers to him as "America's midget", Flutie crosses NFL strike lines in 1987. Charges of being a scab follow him for the rest of his career.
Unwanted: Traded to New England, Flutie makes only one appearance in his first season with the Patriots. He leads the Pats to six victories in nine starts in 1988 after coming off the bench to spark a comeback win. In 1989, however, Flutie gets only three starts and is released, having completed just 36 of 91 passes.
The Lion King: Tailor-made for the expansive fields of the northern tundra, Flutie is signed by the CFL's B.C. Lions in 1990 and rediscovers his love of the game. The feeling is mutual. More than anyone, he brings the franchise back into prominence and jump-starts ticket sales at B.C. Place based on pure excitement. Given the play-saving luxury of room to roam, Flutie gets time to lob heart-stopping passes to brother Darren, Ray Alexander, Mike Trevathan and Matt Clark.
Rebirth in Canada: Winning his first of six CFL most outstanding player awards, Flutie plays out the 1991 season - and a $350,000 personal services contract with Lions' owner Murray Pezim - in style. Throwing for 6,619 yards, he has the most productive season of any professional quarterback anywhere, ever, before signing a free-agent deal with the Calgary Stampeders.
An Avalanche of Awards: Flutie is the CFL's MOP five more times, starting with Calgary in 1992 and ending with Toronto in 1997. Three times he is named the MVP of the Grey Cup game - in '92 with the Stampeders and again with the Argos, in 1996-97. In eight seasons with B.C., Calgary and Toronto, he plays with the ease and confidence of Joe Montana in a flag football game. His 48 touchdown passes with the Stampeders in 1994 are still a single-season CFL record. "I had more fun playing up there than I ever had playing football anywhere else," says Flutie, after throwing for 41,355 yards and 270 touchdowns. South of the 49th, however, he shows up only occasionally on cable sports highlight packages.
Return to the NFL: After wandering the football hinterlands, Flutie returns to the NFL at age 35 to find that the landscape has changed dramatically. Scrambling, improvisational quarterbacks are in vogue. A decade after McMahon's jibe, "America's midget" signs with the Buffalo Bills as a backup to starter Rob Johnson. After the Bills start the season at 1-3, Flutie takes over, goes 8-3 and leads Buffalo into the playoffs. He is named NFL Comeback Player of the Year and is selected to play in the Pro Bowl.
FLUTIE FLAKES: Doug and wife Laurie start "Dougie's Team" to honour son Doug Jr., who suffers from autism. A portion of the profits from Flutie Flakes are donated to the Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism, but provoke controversy when Dolphins' coach Jimmy Johnson pours a box on the dressing room floor and tells his players to stomp on them as a motivation tool. Johnson later issues a public apology.
MUSIC MAN: Playing drums, Flutie makes his 1999 release of the Ramblin', Scramblin' Man CD, recorded by his musical group, The Flutie Gang. NFL fans vote his band as the most musically accomplished on an ABC Monday Night Football special feature, "Monday Night at the MIC."
CHARGER MENTOR: The perennial underdog, Flutie is still battling for the No. 1 job as a 39-year-old challenger to Drew Brees after he signs with the San Diego Chargers in 2001. He turns 40 in his second season with San Diego. In 2003, he becomes the oldest player to score two rushing touchdowns in an NFL game.
THE HOMECOMING: After four seasons in San Diego, Flutie's career comes down to two options in the summer of '04 - retire or join the Patriots as a backup to Tom Brady. A lifelong Red Sox fan, Doug arranges with the ball club to catch batting practice home runs atop the Green Monster at Fenway. In February '05, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats seek to re-unite Doug and Darren Flutie, who last played together, for the Lions, in 1991, but the Patriots keep Doug in New England.
HISTORIC KICK: In the Patriots' regular season finale against the Dolphins on Jan. 1, 2006, Flutie successfully drop kicks the football for an extra point, something that had not been done in an NFL game since 1941. The Pro Football Hall of Fame calls the next day, seeking the ball for enshrinement. The fan who has it asks the Patriots for $100,000 plus a guarantee of eight seasons tickets for 25 years. The get-rich kick scheme fails when owner Bob Kraft rejects it.
FINAL BLAST: Doug makes his last NFL appearance in February 2006, playing with The Flutie Gang in bars and drinking holes around the Detroit-Windsor area during Super Bowl XL.
Interesting article
Monday, May 15, 2006
Sloppy bias if not out-and-out dishonesty is endemic in the reporting on the administration's terrorist surveillance programs. This is from another Times piece
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/washington/15intelcnd.html?ex=1305259200&en=b4caef3927f12eff&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss:
*** QUOTE ***
President Bush's national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, insisted today that a newly disclosed government effort to compile data on millions of telephone calls in search of terrorist-linked calling patterns was a legal and "narrowly designed program" that did not involve listening to individual calls.
*** END QUOTE ***
The headline: "Bush Aide Defends Eavesdropping on Phone Calls"--although in fact he is noting that the program in question doesn't involve eavesdropping.
www.slate.com
"Subject: Kaplan crosses into propaganda
From: Publius
Date: May 15 2006 3:45PM
There are a number of significant questions that might be raised legitimately about the NSA's collecting a massive database of which phone numbers were connected with which other phone numbers, but the legality of creating such a database is actually beyond dispute. This has nothing whatsoever to do with FISA or any of the court cases pertaining to FISA or the Church Committee or even the reported NSA program of intercepting certain international phone calls involving persons inside the United States (which Kaplan naturally refers to as "domestic surveillance").
Indeed, Kaplan is clearly trying his damndest to make no distinction between intercepting communications -- i.e., listening to them -- and acquiring from phone companies records of calls that have been made (not incidentally, records these companies keep endlessly for their own commercial purposes and without any consent from their customers). This is not merely dishonest but comes awfully close to being sheer fakery -- political propaganda of the worst sort.
The Supreme Court held in 1979 in Maryland v. Smith that even in the case of a government agency asking a phone company to place a "pen register," which gathered information about phone numbers called and calling into the targeted phone, there was no need for a warrant since (a) a pen register does not constitute a search within then meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and (b) the phone customer has no expectation of privacy about numbers reached (as opposed to the content of conversations). In large part, this was because, even in the 1970s before total computerization, that information was routinely known to the phone companies of necessity do they could bill for their services and phone customers took that for granted. As a result of this SCOTUS decision, the fruits of that "pen register" became admissible as evidence in a criminal trial.
Today, law enforcement agencies investigating crimes routinely "dump" phones -- that is, find out from the service provider all the incoming and outgoing calls of targeted phones and their times and durations (for various investigate reasons but usually in search of suspects) all without needing to seek any warrants. Due to automation, this no longer requires placing traps on specific lines; the phone company can disgorge all the details in seconds.
What NSA apparently did, if the reports are accurate, is to get the same sort of "dump" on a large scale, not specific to targeted numbers. Presumably to gain the phone companies ongoing cooperation, the information supplied was de-personalizied. Thus, NSA got info not on Publius's phone number but only on the number without my name or other personal data. Thus, the phone companies would feel more secure about disclosing information their customers might consider inappropriate, however legal it might be.
But now we come to the issue of what use NSA made or might make of the data? Oddly, Kaplan touches on this only to the extent that generally endorses what he supposes the NSA process to be as probably a "good idea" -- just one that runs afoul of FISA, etc.
But this is the real issue: with all its computers, experience with this kind of "traffic analysis" of communications and 35,000 employees, what exactly can NSA get that is of any intelligence value out of billions of phone call records? Kaplan speculates -- and it is wild speculation -- that if we're suddenly onto suspect X, we'd want to know with whom he talked in the past and having the data bank would somehow make that happen faster or better. But any one of the phone companies can summon up such data linked to a particular phone within seconds, while on the line with their NSA liaison -- and then, if need be, retrieve calling information on any or all of the numbers X called. So, it makes no sense to spend resources to assemble such a databank for this purpose.
More likely, NSA's plan was and is to perform a sophisticated type of link or traffic analysis on this data. With what precise goal, I don't know and am not going to speculate. I think it's fair to say, though, that whatever it is, it probably takes a lot of analysts' time and other resources, given the mind-bogglingly huge amounts of data involved. Again, I don't know but I suspect that there are more targeted ways to use those time and resources that would yield more and better results.
This is one of the endemic problems of intelligence agencies: they tend to go after big, budget-building programs when they can, and it's essentially impossible for anyone -- not the President, Congressional oversight or budget committees or even the new Director of National Intelligence -- to get a handle on the effectiveness of any particular program. Yet, as in all organizations, one choice precludes another. Might it not have been more productive for NSA to have hired more linguists and analysts? Devoted more traffic analysis to the myriad of jihadist websites? Established more senior-level liaisons on the spot with foreign intelligence services?
I don't know the answer to my own questions of course, since I know basically nothing about the NSA data mining program and what it may have yielded. I have a hunch, however, that bigger is probably not better in this case."
From: Publius
Date: May 15 2006 3:45PM
There are a number of significant questions that might be raised legitimately about the NSA's collecting a massive database of which phone numbers were connected with which other phone numbers, but the legality of creating such a database is actually beyond dispute. This has nothing whatsoever to do with FISA or any of the court cases pertaining to FISA or the Church Committee or even the reported NSA program of intercepting certain international phone calls involving persons inside the United States (which Kaplan naturally refers to as "domestic surveillance").
Indeed, Kaplan is clearly trying his damndest to make no distinction between intercepting communications -- i.e., listening to them -- and acquiring from phone companies records of calls that have been made (not incidentally, records these companies keep endlessly for their own commercial purposes and without any consent from their customers). This is not merely dishonest but comes awfully close to being sheer fakery -- political propaganda of the worst sort.
The Supreme Court held in 1979 in Maryland v. Smith that even in the case of a government agency asking a phone company to place a "pen register," which gathered information about phone numbers called and calling into the targeted phone, there was no need for a warrant since (a) a pen register does not constitute a search within then meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and (b) the phone customer has no expectation of privacy about numbers reached (as opposed to the content of conversations). In large part, this was because, even in the 1970s before total computerization, that information was routinely known to the phone companies of necessity do they could bill for their services and phone customers took that for granted. As a result of this SCOTUS decision, the fruits of that "pen register" became admissible as evidence in a criminal trial.
Today, law enforcement agencies investigating crimes routinely "dump" phones -- that is, find out from the service provider all the incoming and outgoing calls of targeted phones and their times and durations (for various investigate reasons but usually in search of suspects) all without needing to seek any warrants. Due to automation, this no longer requires placing traps on specific lines; the phone company can disgorge all the details in seconds.
What NSA apparently did, if the reports are accurate, is to get the same sort of "dump" on a large scale, not specific to targeted numbers. Presumably to gain the phone companies ongoing cooperation, the information supplied was de-personalizied. Thus, NSA got info not on Publius's phone number but only on the number without my name or other personal data. Thus, the phone companies would feel more secure about disclosing information their customers might consider inappropriate, however legal it might be.
But now we come to the issue of what use NSA made or might make of the data? Oddly, Kaplan touches on this only to the extent that generally endorses what he supposes the NSA process to be as probably a "good idea" -- just one that runs afoul of FISA, etc.
But this is the real issue: with all its computers, experience with this kind of "traffic analysis" of communications and 35,000 employees, what exactly can NSA get that is of any intelligence value out of billions of phone call records? Kaplan speculates -- and it is wild speculation -- that if we're suddenly onto suspect X, we'd want to know with whom he talked in the past and having the data bank would somehow make that happen faster or better. But any one of the phone companies can summon up such data linked to a particular phone within seconds, while on the line with their NSA liaison -- and then, if need be, retrieve calling information on any or all of the numbers X called. So, it makes no sense to spend resources to assemble such a databank for this purpose.
More likely, NSA's plan was and is to perform a sophisticated type of link or traffic analysis on this data. With what precise goal, I don't know and am not going to speculate. I think it's fair to say, though, that whatever it is, it probably takes a lot of analysts' time and other resources, given the mind-bogglingly huge amounts of data involved. Again, I don't know but I suspect that there are more targeted ways to use those time and resources that would yield more and better results.
This is one of the endemic problems of intelligence agencies: they tend to go after big, budget-building programs when they can, and it's essentially impossible for anyone -- not the President, Congressional oversight or budget committees or even the new Director of National Intelligence -- to get a handle on the effectiveness of any particular program. Yet, as in all organizations, one choice precludes another. Might it not have been more productive for NSA to have hired more linguists and analysts? Devoted more traffic analysis to the myriad of jihadist websites? Established more senior-level liaisons on the spot with foreign intelligence services?
I don't know the answer to my own questions of course, since I know basically nothing about the NSA data mining program and what it may have yielded. I have a hunch, however, that bigger is probably not better in this case."
Friday, May 12, 2006
"With nearly three weeks having passed since talk-show host Oprah Winfrey last issued an official command, approximately 60 million Oprah Winfrey Show viewers are on standby, stationed in front of their television sets and patiently awaiting further instructions from their leader."-- Onion
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28906, Sept. 9, 1998
"Oprah Winfrey has risen to a new level of guru. She's no longer just a successful talk-show host worth $1.4 billion, according to Forbes' most recent estimate. Over the past year, Winfrey, 52, has emerged as a spiritual leader for the new millennium, a moral voice of authority for the nation."-- USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2006-05-10-oprah_x.htm?POE=LIFISVA, May 11, 2006
Thursday, May 11, 2006
www.opinionjournal.com
Tal Afar Afield
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110008358Several readers had interesting elaborations on our item yesterday on a terrorist attack at Tal Afar, Iraq, which, as a Bloomberg report noted, is "a city that President George W. Bush has cited as an example of progress in fighting rebels in Iraq." Cliff May writes:
*** QUOTE ***
To win--in the eyes of the media--the insurgents don't have to take the city or the airport or the radio station. All they have to do is commit an act of random terrorism. They can count on the media directing outrage not at them but at President Bush. Bush--not they--is responsible for the carnage.
*** END QUOTE ***
And reader Marv Benson:
*** QUOTE ***
The al Qaeda document you reported on
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110008358#paradise described the media strategy as one in which al Qaeda bombs and the media blames the U.S. and Iraqi forces for not stopping it. Sure enough, that is exactly the spin that the Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/09/AR2006050900811.htmlputs on the Tal Afar story. Shouldn't they at least acknowledge that they are following the enemy's script?
Just to be different, how about discussing the wickedness of fooling noncombatants into thinking they are getting bargain flour so that they can be murdered and be part of a story attacking people not responsible for their murder?
*** END QUOTE ***
On a cheerier note, reader Robert Novak (no relation) writes: "If the enemy is now reduced to injuring and killing 'mostly' innocent women and children, how strong can they really be? And how long can it be before the Iraqis completely reject these terrorists?"
Patterson dies, was once youngest heavyweight champ
Associated Press
Floyd Patterson, an undersized champion who avenged an embarrassing loss to Ingemar Johansson by beating him a year later to become the first boxer to regain the heavyweight title, died Thursday. He was 71.
CLASSIC TRIBUTE
Watch Floyd Patterson regain his 1960 heavyweight title in Patterson-Ingemar Johansson II tonight at 9 ET on ESPN Classic.
Patterson died at his home in New Paltz, N.Y. He had Alzheimer's disease for about eight years and prostate cancer, nephew Sherman Patterson said.
Patterson's career was marked by historic highs and humiliating lows. He won the title twice but took a beating from Muhammad Ali in a title fight and was knocked out twice in the first round by Sonny Liston.
Patterson, who weighed only 189 pounds for the first fight, was a tenacious boxer who often fought bigger opponents -- and almost as often found himself on the canvas. He was down a total of 19 times in his career, getting up 17 of them.
"They said I was the fighter who got knocked down the most, but I also got up the most," Patterson once said.
Following the first knockout to Liston, Patterson was so embarrassed he wore a disguise. The two fought a rematch only 10 months later in Las Vegas, in 1963, and Patterson fared even worse.
Liston dropped him to the canvas three times before the fight was halted at 2:09 of the first round.
Patterson emerged from a troubled childhood in Brooklyn to win the Olympic middleweight championship in 1952.
Atlas On Patterson
Trainer and ESPN boxing analyst Teddy Atlas on Thursday remembered Floyd Patterson as "a gentleman" and said he was saddened by the news of his death.
"Obviously, I feel bad. I had a link with Floyd because of Cus D'Amato," who was Patterson's manager and trainer.
"Floyd would come home to Catskill [N.Y.] and bring guys to our gym.
"He was always a gentleman. Just a quiet, nice man who happened to be two-time heavyweight champion of the world at the time.
"As a fighter, he had terrific hand speed and put punches together very well. He was a pioneer where the heavyweight division was still evolving.
"He had plenty of heart. Everybody talks about his chin and how many times he's been on the floor. People should be talking about how many times he got up."
Atlas noted that while Patterson, at 21, became the youngest heavyweight champion of the world in 1956, another of D'Amato's fighters -- Mike Tyson -- would later break that record. Tyson knocked out Trevor Berbick at age 20 to become heavyweight champ in 1986.
When Patterson defeated Archie Moore to take the title, Atlas said that D'Amato wasn't surprised by how quickly Patterson rose from the middleweight ranks, where he won an Olympic gold medal four years earlier.
"Cus was campaigning to try to make him the youngest heavyweight champ, which is what he did," Atlas said. –David CooperESPN.com boxing editor
In 1956, the undersized heavyweight became, at age 21, the youngest man to win the title with a fifth-round knockout of Archie Moore.
But three years later, Patterson was knocked down seven times in the third round in losing the title to Johansson at the Polo Grounds in New York City.
Patterson returned with a vengeance at the same site in 1960, knocking out Johansson with a tremendous left hook to retake the title.
Despite his accomplishment, he was so humiliated when he lost the title on a first-round knockout to Liston in 1962 that he left Comiskey Park in Chicago wearing dark glasses and a fake beard. Patterson was again knocked out in the first round by Liston in 1963.
Patterson got two more shots at winning the title a third time. Battered and taunted for most of the fight by Ali, Patterson was stopped in the 12th round in 1965. He lost a disputed 15-round decision to WBA champion Jimmy Ellis in 1968.
Overall, Patterson finished 55-8-1 with 40 knockouts. He was knocked out five times and knocked down a total of at least 15 times. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991.
After retiring in 1972, Patterson remained close to the sport. He served twice as chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission.
His second term began when he was picked in 1995 by Gov. George Pataki to help rebuild boxing in New York.
On April 1, 1998, Patterson resigned the post after a published report said a three-hour videotape of a deposition he gave in a lawsuit revealed he couldn't recall important events in his boxing career.
Patterson said he was very tired during the deposition and "It's hard for me to think when I'm tired."
Patterson, one of 11 children, was in enough trouble as a youngster to be sent to the Wiltwyck School for Boys. After being released, he took up boxing, won a New York Golden Gloves championship and then the Olympic gold medal in the 165-pound class at Helsinki, Finland.
"If it wasn't for boxing, I would probably be behind bars or dead," he said in a 1998 interview.
He turned pro in 1952 under the management of Cus D'Amato, who in the 1980s would develop another heavyweight champion, Mike Tyson. Patterson fought as a light heavyweight until becoming a heavyweight in 1956.
After regaining the title, Patterson was on the verge of losing it again when he was knocked down twice by Johansson in the first round in 1961. But Patterson knocked down Johansson before the round was over and then won on a sixth-round knockout.
He made a successful defense but then lost the title to Liston in a fight a lot of people didn't want him to take. In fact, taking the match caused a split between Patterson and D'Amato.
Patterson said in 1997 that another person who didn't want him to fight Liston was President Kennedy.
"I'm sorry, Mr. President," Patterson said he told Kennedy. "The title is not worth anything if the best fighters can't have a shot at it. And Liston deserves a shot."
Patterson retired after been stopped by Ali in the seventh round of a non-title match in 1972 at Madison Square Garden.
Patterson and his second wife, Janet, lived on a farm near New Paltz. After leaving the athletic commission, Patterson counseled troubled children for the New York State Office of Children and Family Services.
He also adopted Tracy Harris two years after the 11-year-old boy began hanging around the gym at Patterson's home. In 1992, Tracy Harris Patterson, with his father's help, won the WBC super bantamweight championship.
Funeral services will be private.
Associated Press
Floyd Patterson, an undersized champion who avenged an embarrassing loss to Ingemar Johansson by beating him a year later to become the first boxer to regain the heavyweight title, died Thursday. He was 71.
CLASSIC TRIBUTE
Watch Floyd Patterson regain his 1960 heavyweight title in Patterson-Ingemar Johansson II tonight at 9 ET on ESPN Classic.
Patterson died at his home in New Paltz, N.Y. He had Alzheimer's disease for about eight years and prostate cancer, nephew Sherman Patterson said.
Patterson's career was marked by historic highs and humiliating lows. He won the title twice but took a beating from Muhammad Ali in a title fight and was knocked out twice in the first round by Sonny Liston.
Patterson, who weighed only 189 pounds for the first fight, was a tenacious boxer who often fought bigger opponents -- and almost as often found himself on the canvas. He was down a total of 19 times in his career, getting up 17 of them.
"They said I was the fighter who got knocked down the most, but I also got up the most," Patterson once said.
Following the first knockout to Liston, Patterson was so embarrassed he wore a disguise. The two fought a rematch only 10 months later in Las Vegas, in 1963, and Patterson fared even worse.
Liston dropped him to the canvas three times before the fight was halted at 2:09 of the first round.
Patterson emerged from a troubled childhood in Brooklyn to win the Olympic middleweight championship in 1952.
Atlas On Patterson
Trainer and ESPN boxing analyst Teddy Atlas on Thursday remembered Floyd Patterson as "a gentleman" and said he was saddened by the news of his death.
"Obviously, I feel bad. I had a link with Floyd because of Cus D'Amato," who was Patterson's manager and trainer.
"Floyd would come home to Catskill [N.Y.] and bring guys to our gym.
"He was always a gentleman. Just a quiet, nice man who happened to be two-time heavyweight champion of the world at the time.
"As a fighter, he had terrific hand speed and put punches together very well. He was a pioneer where the heavyweight division was still evolving.
"He had plenty of heart. Everybody talks about his chin and how many times he's been on the floor. People should be talking about how many times he got up."
Atlas noted that while Patterson, at 21, became the youngest heavyweight champion of the world in 1956, another of D'Amato's fighters -- Mike Tyson -- would later break that record. Tyson knocked out Trevor Berbick at age 20 to become heavyweight champ in 1986.
When Patterson defeated Archie Moore to take the title, Atlas said that D'Amato wasn't surprised by how quickly Patterson rose from the middleweight ranks, where he won an Olympic gold medal four years earlier.
"Cus was campaigning to try to make him the youngest heavyweight champ, which is what he did," Atlas said. –David CooperESPN.com boxing editor
In 1956, the undersized heavyweight became, at age 21, the youngest man to win the title with a fifth-round knockout of Archie Moore.
But three years later, Patterson was knocked down seven times in the third round in losing the title to Johansson at the Polo Grounds in New York City.
Patterson returned with a vengeance at the same site in 1960, knocking out Johansson with a tremendous left hook to retake the title.
Despite his accomplishment, he was so humiliated when he lost the title on a first-round knockout to Liston in 1962 that he left Comiskey Park in Chicago wearing dark glasses and a fake beard. Patterson was again knocked out in the first round by Liston in 1963.
Patterson got two more shots at winning the title a third time. Battered and taunted for most of the fight by Ali, Patterson was stopped in the 12th round in 1965. He lost a disputed 15-round decision to WBA champion Jimmy Ellis in 1968.
Overall, Patterson finished 55-8-1 with 40 knockouts. He was knocked out five times and knocked down a total of at least 15 times. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991.
After retiring in 1972, Patterson remained close to the sport. He served twice as chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission.
His second term began when he was picked in 1995 by Gov. George Pataki to help rebuild boxing in New York.
On April 1, 1998, Patterson resigned the post after a published report said a three-hour videotape of a deposition he gave in a lawsuit revealed he couldn't recall important events in his boxing career.
Patterson said he was very tired during the deposition and "It's hard for me to think when I'm tired."
Patterson, one of 11 children, was in enough trouble as a youngster to be sent to the Wiltwyck School for Boys. After being released, he took up boxing, won a New York Golden Gloves championship and then the Olympic gold medal in the 165-pound class at Helsinki, Finland.
"If it wasn't for boxing, I would probably be behind bars or dead," he said in a 1998 interview.
He turned pro in 1952 under the management of Cus D'Amato, who in the 1980s would develop another heavyweight champion, Mike Tyson. Patterson fought as a light heavyweight until becoming a heavyweight in 1956.
After regaining the title, Patterson was on the verge of losing it again when he was knocked down twice by Johansson in the first round in 1961. But Patterson knocked down Johansson before the round was over and then won on a sixth-round knockout.
He made a successful defense but then lost the title to Liston in a fight a lot of people didn't want him to take. In fact, taking the match caused a split between Patterson and D'Amato.
Patterson said in 1997 that another person who didn't want him to fight Liston was President Kennedy.
"I'm sorry, Mr. President," Patterson said he told Kennedy. "The title is not worth anything if the best fighters can't have a shot at it. And Liston deserves a shot."
Patterson retired after been stopped by Ali in the seventh round of a non-title match in 1972 at Madison Square Garden.
Patterson and his second wife, Janet, lived on a farm near New Paltz. After leaving the athletic commission, Patterson counseled troubled children for the New York State Office of Children and Family Services.
He also adopted Tracy Harris two years after the 11-year-old boy began hanging around the gym at Patterson's home. In 1992, Tracy Harris Patterson, with his father's help, won the WBC super bantamweight championship.
Funeral services will be private.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
City Journal
Why Robespierre Chose Terror
John Kekes
The lessons of the first totalitarian revolution
The American attitude toward the French Revolution has been generally favorable—naturally enough for a nation itself born in revolution. But as revolutions go, the French one in 1789 was among the worst. True, in the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity, it overthrew a corrupt regime. Yet what these fine ideals led to was, first, the Terror and mass murder in France, and then Napoleon and his wars, which took hundreds of thousands of lives in Europe and Russia. After this pointless slaughter came the restoration of the same corrupt regime that the Revolution overthrew. Aside from immense suffering, the upheaval achieved nothing.
Leading the betrayal of the Revolution’s initial ideals and its transformation into a murderous ideological tyranny was Maximilien Robespierre, a monster who set up a system expressly aimed at killing thousands of innocents. He knew exactly what he was doing, meant to do it, and believed he was right to do it. He is the prototype of a particularly odious kind of evildoer: the ideologue who believes that reason and morality are on the side of his butcheries. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot are of the same mold. They are the characteristic scourges of humanity in modern times, but Robespierre has a good claim to being the first. Understanding his motives and rationale deepens our understanding of the worst horrors of the recent past and those that may lurk in the future.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_2_urbanities-robespierre.html
John Kekes
The lessons of the first totalitarian revolution
The American attitude toward the French Revolution has been generally favorable—naturally enough for a nation itself born in revolution. But as revolutions go, the French one in 1789 was among the worst. True, in the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity, it overthrew a corrupt regime. Yet what these fine ideals led to was, first, the Terror and mass murder in France, and then Napoleon and his wars, which took hundreds of thousands of lives in Europe and Russia. After this pointless slaughter came the restoration of the same corrupt regime that the Revolution overthrew. Aside from immense suffering, the upheaval achieved nothing.
Leading the betrayal of the Revolution’s initial ideals and its transformation into a murderous ideological tyranny was Maximilien Robespierre, a monster who set up a system expressly aimed at killing thousands of innocents. He knew exactly what he was doing, meant to do it, and believed he was right to do it. He is the prototype of a particularly odious kind of evildoer: the ideologue who believes that reason and morality are on the side of his butcheries. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot are of the same mold. They are the characteristic scourges of humanity in modern times, but Robespierre has a good claim to being the first. Understanding his motives and rationale deepens our understanding of the worst horrors of the recent past and those that may lurk in the future.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_2_urbanities-robespierre.html
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Crisis?
http://www.wikihow.com/Deal-With-an-Existential-Crisis
How to Deal With an Existential Crisis
Once in a while, something (or everything) seems overwhelming. We think about things, sometimes obsessively; and when a problem seems too large or intractable, we feel bad. Maybe you're having a spiritual crisis, or a problem with your accomplishments in life, or with your failures in love or friendship. Feeling bad isn't the problem; the problem is the problem. This is a step by step account of how to respond to existential crises of all sorts.
Steps
Turn on a light, preferably 75 watt or brighter.
If necessary, clean whatever room you're in. Changing your surroundings for the better both clarifies your power over the world and gives you a few minutes to do some problem-solving on a less grandiose scale. Don't just straighten, clean. Use a cleaning product. (Note: Does not apply if you're OCD -- cleaning isn't your problem).
Now, try to verbalize what your problem is. Some people write full-length sentences to help clarify their issues. Others start with a poem that may get the thoughts and feelings flowing. Later, you can elaborate in prose.
Imagine several *different* people you like or respect giving you advice. Don't pick anyone abusive. Or try Mr. Rogers, your first grade teacher, and that girl (boy) you had a crush on in 9th grade. They don't help very much, do they? But it's fun talking to them.
Then imagine yourself giving someone else with your situation some advice. Really, if you were just the person talking to yourself, would you really think this was as big a problem?
If it's between 8am and 10pm, call or ask a parent -- one who loves you.
Now, problem solve. Remember how you figured out how to use that cleaning product? Likewise. If you can't figure it out your problem, well, that just means it's a real problem, for now. If your solution involves long term changes, take a few days to think on it.
So maybe you can't do anything about it right now. If it's late, go to sleep; if you can't sleep, find something to do that does not involve a television or computer screen. Blue light causes insomnia. You'll want to go to sleep later. If it's daytime, get some exercise or finish your job. Be professional. A few successes never hurt anyone.
Tips
Don't decide to refuse to confront your problem on the romantic basis that life is prettier when you suffer. This is crap, and only applies if you actually can't deal with a problem. Most likely, you can. If, maybe, later.
Don't do too much thinking after midnight. Trust me, that never goes well. You might turn into a gremlin or worse yet, a pumpkin. Seriously, you never know.
If you're married or have a live-in-other, here's a rule of thumb: don't wake them up tonight if you did so last night. He or she loves you, but they already gave you the advice you get in this 48-hour period. Suck it up.
Don't be afraid to laugh and make fun of yourself. It's a good way to clear out your self deceptions and get at the heart of your individuality. This practice gives you a true sense of personal freedom. Anyone can laugh at someone else but it takes a true individual to make themselves laugh. This is also a good way to sort out the trivial mistakes/problems from more important ones. If you find it difficult to laugh at something, it's a bigger problem.
Don't ever fool yourself into thinking there is such a thing as a normal. If you believe in normal, you're just adding unnecessary weight to your problems.
Warnings
Whatever you do, don't kill, cut, or maim yourself. Don't make any permanent changes: destroying the only copy of your novel or getting a facial tattoo is unacceptable. You may use henna or dye your hair blue, if you want to get in a fight with your parents.
Don't hesitate to call hotlines. They are there for the benefit of people who have similar difficulties with the troubles life throws at them. Life is hard. Help others and ask for help when you need it.
Respect the existence of others as well. If there is someone or something barricading you from achieving your goal, it is best to determine a mutually beneficial course of action. In other words, killing, maiming, or otherwise harming people is an unacceptable practice which will most likely lead to your own undoing. Live and let live, baby.
Things You'll Need:
Freedom
Individuality
To know yourself
To know what it means to be human
How to Deal With an Existential Crisis
Once in a while, something (or everything) seems overwhelming. We think about things, sometimes obsessively; and when a problem seems too large or intractable, we feel bad. Maybe you're having a spiritual crisis, or a problem with your accomplishments in life, or with your failures in love or friendship. Feeling bad isn't the problem; the problem is the problem. This is a step by step account of how to respond to existential crises of all sorts.
Steps
Turn on a light, preferably 75 watt or brighter.
If necessary, clean whatever room you're in. Changing your surroundings for the better both clarifies your power over the world and gives you a few minutes to do some problem-solving on a less grandiose scale. Don't just straighten, clean. Use a cleaning product. (Note: Does not apply if you're OCD -- cleaning isn't your problem).
Now, try to verbalize what your problem is. Some people write full-length sentences to help clarify their issues. Others start with a poem that may get the thoughts and feelings flowing. Later, you can elaborate in prose.
Imagine several *different* people you like or respect giving you advice. Don't pick anyone abusive. Or try Mr. Rogers, your first grade teacher, and that girl (boy) you had a crush on in 9th grade. They don't help very much, do they? But it's fun talking to them.
Then imagine yourself giving someone else with your situation some advice. Really, if you were just the person talking to yourself, would you really think this was as big a problem?
If it's between 8am and 10pm, call or ask a parent -- one who loves you.
Now, problem solve. Remember how you figured out how to use that cleaning product? Likewise. If you can't figure it out your problem, well, that just means it's a real problem, for now. If your solution involves long term changes, take a few days to think on it.
So maybe you can't do anything about it right now. If it's late, go to sleep; if you can't sleep, find something to do that does not involve a television or computer screen. Blue light causes insomnia. You'll want to go to sleep later. If it's daytime, get some exercise or finish your job. Be professional. A few successes never hurt anyone.
Tips
Don't decide to refuse to confront your problem on the romantic basis that life is prettier when you suffer. This is crap, and only applies if you actually can't deal with a problem. Most likely, you can. If, maybe, later.
Don't do too much thinking after midnight. Trust me, that never goes well. You might turn into a gremlin or worse yet, a pumpkin. Seriously, you never know.
If you're married or have a live-in-other, here's a rule of thumb: don't wake them up tonight if you did so last night. He or she loves you, but they already gave you the advice you get in this 48-hour period. Suck it up.
Don't be afraid to laugh and make fun of yourself. It's a good way to clear out your self deceptions and get at the heart of your individuality. This practice gives you a true sense of personal freedom. Anyone can laugh at someone else but it takes a true individual to make themselves laugh. This is also a good way to sort out the trivial mistakes/problems from more important ones. If you find it difficult to laugh at something, it's a bigger problem.
Don't ever fool yourself into thinking there is such a thing as a normal. If you believe in normal, you're just adding unnecessary weight to your problems.
Warnings
Whatever you do, don't kill, cut, or maim yourself. Don't make any permanent changes: destroying the only copy of your novel or getting a facial tattoo is unacceptable. You may use henna or dye your hair blue, if you want to get in a fight with your parents.
Don't hesitate to call hotlines. They are there for the benefit of people who have similar difficulties with the troubles life throws at them. Life is hard. Help others and ask for help when you need it.
Respect the existence of others as well. If there is someone or something barricading you from achieving your goal, it is best to determine a mutually beneficial course of action. In other words, killing, maiming, or otherwise harming people is an unacceptable practice which will most likely lead to your own undoing. Live and let live, baby.
Things You'll Need:
Freedom
Individuality
To know yourself
To know what it means to be human
Monday, May 08, 2006
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Friday, May 05, 2006
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Parents arrested after baby has up to 200 rat bites
MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) - A six-month-old Medford baby was bitten by a rat up to 200 times after it escaped from its cage in the boy's room. Police say the parents, 21-year-old Robert Horsfall and 19-year-old Maegan McCleary, found the rodent near a creek. Police say they took the infant to the emergency room at Rogue Valley Medical Center in Medford. Detectives say the parents apparently believed the rat was a domestic breed. They brought it home and kept it in a cage in the room where they slept with the baby. The next morning they found that the rat had escaped and bitten the boy. He had from 100 to 200 bites all over his body, including his face. He is being treated for infected wounds. A second child at the home was placed in foster care. The parents are being held in the Jackson County Jail on criminal mistreatment allegations.
MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) - A six-month-old Medford baby was bitten by a rat up to 200 times after it escaped from its cage in the boy's room. Police say the parents, 21-year-old Robert Horsfall and 19-year-old Maegan McCleary, found the rodent near a creek. Police say they took the infant to the emergency room at Rogue Valley Medical Center in Medford. Detectives say the parents apparently believed the rat was a domestic breed. They brought it home and kept it in a cage in the room where they slept with the baby. The next morning they found that the rat had escaped and bitten the boy. He had from 100 to 200 bites all over his body, including his face. He is being treated for infected wounds. A second child at the home was placed in foster care. The parents are being held in the Jackson County Jail on criminal mistreatment allegations.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Moussaoui Gets Life in Prison.
A federal jury decided Wednesday al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui deserves life in prison for his role in the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history, on Sept. 11, 2001. On the seventh day of deliberation, the jury of nine men and three women informed Judge Leonie Brinkema that it had reached a decision. The verdict was announced at 4:30 p.m. EDT.
UPDATE at 5/3/06 2:25:55 pm:
At CNN.com:
“America, you lost,” Moussaoui stated as he left the courtroom. “I won.”
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
According to two people who are familiar with Jones’s affidavit on the subject, Jones lists three “distinguishing characteristics” of the President’s erect penis: it is about five inches long; it has the circumference of a quarter; and it angles to one side.
— “Casting Stones,” by Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker, Nov. 3, 1997
— “Casting Stones,” by Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker, Nov. 3, 1997
Fear the phone, not the doorknob, germ expert says
Tue May 2, 2006 8:06 AM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Worried about colds, flu and other germs? Go ahead and touch those doorknobs and elevator buttons, but watch out for the telephone, fresh laundry and sinks, a top expert advises.
And while you should always wash your hands before making a meal, many people do not realize that they should do so afterwards also, says Charles Gerba, a microbiologist and clean water expert at the University of Arizona.
"Most of the common infections -- colds, flu, diarrhea -- you get environmentally transmitted either in the air or on surfaces you touch. I think people under-rate surfaces," Gerba said in a telephone interview.
And when they are cautious, they are usually cautious about the wrong things. Germs do not stick where people believe they will.
"Doorknobs are usually on the low side," said Gerba, who has conducted dozens of surveys of bacteria and viruses in workplaces and homes. "I guess they are not moist. Never fear a doorknob."
A recent informal survey of a Reuters office helped him illustrate how microbes take advantage of misconceptions to propagate themselves.
Two computer keyboards, for example, carried far more bacteria than an elevator button, the handles and button on the communal microwave oven or the office water fountain, an analysis by Gerba's lab found.
Keyboards and telephones -- especially when they are shared -- are among the most germ-laden places in a home or office, Gerba said.
LUNCH COUNTER FOR GERMS
"Keyboards are a lunch counter for germs," Gerba said. "We turn them over in a lot of studies and we are amazed at what comes out of a keyboard."
In fact, the average desk harbors 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet seat, says Gerba, whose latest survey focuses on the germiest professions.
"Nobody cleans the desktop, usually, until they stick to it," he says.
Perhaps not surprisingly, teachers have the highest exposure to bacteria and viruses, Gerba has found. Accountants, bankers and doctors also tend to have microbe-laden offices, while lawyers came out surprisingly clean in the germ-count stakes.
Offices are, however, becoming cleaner, Gerba says.
His lab does a simple overall bacteria count for its most general surveys. The person swabs each surface and sends it to Gerba's lab, which then cultures the bacteria in a lab dish.
The growth of whatever bacteria are present can be used to estimate an overall load of germs, including harmless E. coli bacteria -- which are found in the gut and are an indicator of what scientists delicately call "fecal contamination".
Some other bacteria usually present are Klebsiella pneumonia, Streptococcus, Salmonella and Staphyloccus aureus, some of which cause disease and some of which do not. And where there are bacteria, there can be viruses, which can hang onto a clean and dry surface for days and to a wet surface for weeks.
Such knowledge may be particularly useful as experts warn that a pandemic of H5N1 avian influenza may be looming. While the virus currently infects birds almost exclusively, experts say it shows the greatest potential of any virus in decades to cause a human pandemic.
If it begins to spread, basic hygiene would be essential to avoid infection. But viruses are of course invisible to the human eye and Gerba notes that people tend not to know where the most infectious places are.
For example, the bathroom.
"Toilets get a bad rap. So does the door on the way out," Gerba said.
Bathroom sinks, however, are another matter. "Sinks are usually high (in bacterial counts) to begin with," Gerba said. "They have got everything a bacteria likes. It's wet, it's moist. In a home we usually find more E. coli in a sink than a toilet."
Men's rooms, too. "Usually the dirtiest handles in public restrooms are urinal flush handles," he said.
DIARRHEA, NOT GONORRHEA
But urban legends about getting sexually transmitted diseases in a public restroom are untrue, Gerba said. "It's really diarrhea, not gonorrhea, you have to worry about," he said. Commonly found restroom germs include noroviruses, shigella, hepatitis A and Salmonella.
Food preparation is another good way to get germy, especially when handling raw meat, Gerba said.
And few people know just how dirty laundry is -- clean laundry.
"Most people don't realize that they actually should wash their hands after they make dinner and also after they do the laundry," Gerba said.
Americans have moved to short-cycle, cold-water washes to save energy and wear and tear on clothing, but this leaves viruses and bacteria largely intact.
"Water at 140 degrees F (60 degrees C) will sanitize laundry," Gerba said. But only 5 percent of Americans use hot water for laundry.
And viruses such as hepatitis A, rotavirus and bacteria such as Salmonella -- all of which cause stomach upsets and diarrhea -- can easily survive the average 28-minute drying cycle.
These are all carried fecally. "There is about a 10th of a gram of feces in the average pair of underwear," Gerba says. "You don't want to be doing your handkerchiefs with your underwear."
Gerba's studies are often funded by companies that make disinfectants, but Gerba says antimicrobial wipes and alcohol-based gel hand sanitizers do work.
"It has been shown that you can reduce a lot of absenteeism by using hand sanitizers," he says.
"We don't want to make people overly paranoid here," Gerba added. "You can reduce your risk of getting colds and flu by a few simple actions. You are always gambling with germs. You just want to keep the odds in your favor."
Tue May 2, 2006 8:06 AM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Worried about colds, flu and other germs? Go ahead and touch those doorknobs and elevator buttons, but watch out for the telephone, fresh laundry and sinks, a top expert advises.
And while you should always wash your hands before making a meal, many people do not realize that they should do so afterwards also, says Charles Gerba, a microbiologist and clean water expert at the University of Arizona.
"Most of the common infections -- colds, flu, diarrhea -- you get environmentally transmitted either in the air or on surfaces you touch. I think people under-rate surfaces," Gerba said in a telephone interview.
And when they are cautious, they are usually cautious about the wrong things. Germs do not stick where people believe they will.
"Doorknobs are usually on the low side," said Gerba, who has conducted dozens of surveys of bacteria and viruses in workplaces and homes. "I guess they are not moist. Never fear a doorknob."
A recent informal survey of a Reuters office helped him illustrate how microbes take advantage of misconceptions to propagate themselves.
Two computer keyboards, for example, carried far more bacteria than an elevator button, the handles and button on the communal microwave oven or the office water fountain, an analysis by Gerba's lab found.
Keyboards and telephones -- especially when they are shared -- are among the most germ-laden places in a home or office, Gerba said.
LUNCH COUNTER FOR GERMS
"Keyboards are a lunch counter for germs," Gerba said. "We turn them over in a lot of studies and we are amazed at what comes out of a keyboard."
In fact, the average desk harbors 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet seat, says Gerba, whose latest survey focuses on the germiest professions.
"Nobody cleans the desktop, usually, until they stick to it," he says.
Perhaps not surprisingly, teachers have the highest exposure to bacteria and viruses, Gerba has found. Accountants, bankers and doctors also tend to have microbe-laden offices, while lawyers came out surprisingly clean in the germ-count stakes.
Offices are, however, becoming cleaner, Gerba says.
His lab does a simple overall bacteria count for its most general surveys. The person swabs each surface and sends it to Gerba's lab, which then cultures the bacteria in a lab dish.
The growth of whatever bacteria are present can be used to estimate an overall load of germs, including harmless E. coli bacteria -- which are found in the gut and are an indicator of what scientists delicately call "fecal contamination".
Some other bacteria usually present are Klebsiella pneumonia, Streptococcus, Salmonella and Staphyloccus aureus, some of which cause disease and some of which do not. And where there are bacteria, there can be viruses, which can hang onto a clean and dry surface for days and to a wet surface for weeks.
Such knowledge may be particularly useful as experts warn that a pandemic of H5N1 avian influenza may be looming. While the virus currently infects birds almost exclusively, experts say it shows the greatest potential of any virus in decades to cause a human pandemic.
If it begins to spread, basic hygiene would be essential to avoid infection. But viruses are of course invisible to the human eye and Gerba notes that people tend not to know where the most infectious places are.
For example, the bathroom.
"Toilets get a bad rap. So does the door on the way out," Gerba said.
Bathroom sinks, however, are another matter. "Sinks are usually high (in bacterial counts) to begin with," Gerba said. "They have got everything a bacteria likes. It's wet, it's moist. In a home we usually find more E. coli in a sink than a toilet."
Men's rooms, too. "Usually the dirtiest handles in public restrooms are urinal flush handles," he said.
DIARRHEA, NOT GONORRHEA
But urban legends about getting sexually transmitted diseases in a public restroom are untrue, Gerba said. "It's really diarrhea, not gonorrhea, you have to worry about," he said. Commonly found restroom germs include noroviruses, shigella, hepatitis A and Salmonella.
Food preparation is another good way to get germy, especially when handling raw meat, Gerba said.
And few people know just how dirty laundry is -- clean laundry.
"Most people don't realize that they actually should wash their hands after they make dinner and also after they do the laundry," Gerba said.
Americans have moved to short-cycle, cold-water washes to save energy and wear and tear on clothing, but this leaves viruses and bacteria largely intact.
"Water at 140 degrees F (60 degrees C) will sanitize laundry," Gerba said. But only 5 percent of Americans use hot water for laundry.
And viruses such as hepatitis A, rotavirus and bacteria such as Salmonella -- all of which cause stomach upsets and diarrhea -- can easily survive the average 28-minute drying cycle.
These are all carried fecally. "There is about a 10th of a gram of feces in the average pair of underwear," Gerba says. "You don't want to be doing your handkerchiefs with your underwear."
Gerba's studies are often funded by companies that make disinfectants, but Gerba says antimicrobial wipes and alcohol-based gel hand sanitizers do work.
"It has been shown that you can reduce a lot of absenteeism by using hand sanitizers," he says.
"We don't want to make people overly paranoid here," Gerba added. "You can reduce your risk of getting colds and flu by a few simple actions. You are always gambling with germs. You just want to keep the odds in your favor."
Today's Review From
The Atlantic Monthly
Everyman
by Philip Roth
A review by Joseph O'Neill
Following the historical panoramas of his recent work, Roth's new novel -- a novella, really -- is a transfixing summary biography of a seventy-one-year-old mortal from Elizabeth, New Jersey: "He'd married three times, had mistresses and children and an interesting job where he'd been a success, but now eluding death seemed to have become the central business of his life and bodily decay his entire story."
Thus the personal history of this "average human being" is reduced almost to a surgical history: hernia trouble as a boy; a burst appendix and peritonitis in his thirties; and, in his fifties and sixties, disastrously recurrent cardiac difficulties that clutter him with six stents and a defibrillator. The vocabulary of heart disease hurled at the reader -- angiogram, anterior descending artery, ejection fraction, fatal cardiac arrhythmia -- is supplemented by the back braces, strokes, cancers, and migraines that plague our hero's nearest and dearest. The whole "onslaught" is horribly aggravated by his memories of carnal exaltation and bungled marriages and the beloved dead, not to mention by the awful truth that "there was nothing to be done. No fight to put up. You take it and endure it. Just give yourself over to it as long as it lasts."
Let's use a noun I've never used before: masterpiece. Whereas Roth's prize-laden recent fictions are a tad manipulative, in Everyman there is never any sense of a novelist trying to write a novel. Every sentence is urgent, essential, almost nonfictional.
The sophistication and indirection forced on practically every writer are replaced by a straightforwardness of, yes, masterly authority. The text so thoroughly embodies, rather than displays, expertise that only after I'd finished reading did I realize that the protagonist's name had been withheld. Everyman is therefore that rarest of literary achievements: a novel that disappears as it progresses, leaving in one's hands only the matters of life and death it describes.
The Atlantic Monthly
Everyman
by Philip Roth
A review by Joseph O'Neill
Following the historical panoramas of his recent work, Roth's new novel -- a novella, really -- is a transfixing summary biography of a seventy-one-year-old mortal from Elizabeth, New Jersey: "He'd married three times, had mistresses and children and an interesting job where he'd been a success, but now eluding death seemed to have become the central business of his life and bodily decay his entire story."
Thus the personal history of this "average human being" is reduced almost to a surgical history: hernia trouble as a boy; a burst appendix and peritonitis in his thirties; and, in his fifties and sixties, disastrously recurrent cardiac difficulties that clutter him with six stents and a defibrillator. The vocabulary of heart disease hurled at the reader -- angiogram, anterior descending artery, ejection fraction, fatal cardiac arrhythmia -- is supplemented by the back braces, strokes, cancers, and migraines that plague our hero's nearest and dearest. The whole "onslaught" is horribly aggravated by his memories of carnal exaltation and bungled marriages and the beloved dead, not to mention by the awful truth that "there was nothing to be done. No fight to put up. You take it and endure it. Just give yourself over to it as long as it lasts."
Let's use a noun I've never used before: masterpiece. Whereas Roth's prize-laden recent fictions are a tad manipulative, in Everyman there is never any sense of a novelist trying to write a novel. Every sentence is urgent, essential, almost nonfictional.
The sophistication and indirection forced on practically every writer are replaced by a straightforwardness of, yes, masterly authority. The text so thoroughly embodies, rather than displays, expertise that only after I'd finished reading did I realize that the protagonist's name had been withheld. Everyman is therefore that rarest of literary achievements: a novel that disappears as it progresses, leaving in one's hands only the matters of life and death it describes.
Monday, May 01, 2006
On this day in 1893
1893 - The World's Columbian Exposition, a World's Fair to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus, opened in Chicago, United States.
Famous firsts at the fair
Aunt Jemima pancake mix
Cracker Jack
Cream of Wheat
Quaker Oats
Congress of Mathematicians, precursor to International Congress of Mathematicians
Elongated coins
The Frontier thesis was first promulgated by Frederick Jackson Turner.
Ferris Wheel
Juicy Fruit gum
Shredded Wheat
The hamburger was introduced to the United States (others say it was invented at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis).
The United States produced its first commemorative stamp set.
The United States Postal Service produced its first picture postcards.
The first exotic dancer Little Egypt.
United States Mint offered its first commemorative coins: a quarter, half dollar, and dollar.
The term "midway" came into common use to define an area where park rides, entertainment and fast food booths are concentrated at parks and fairs, after the area of that type located on Chicago's Midway Plaisance at the World Columbian Exposition.
There is some debate surrounding the origin of Chicago's nickname, the "windy city". Some argue it was Charles Anderson Dana of the New York Sun who coined the term in regard to the hype of the city's promoters during the considerations as to where the Exposition would be held. Other evidence, however, suggests that this term was used as early as 1881 in relation to either Chicago's "windbag" politicians or to its weather.
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