IDAHO FALLS, Idaho — Can you hear me now? A pelican at the Tautphaus Park Zoo took something other than food in his bill when a cell phone that had been dropped in a pool at the exhibit made its way down the hatch. The flock in the exhibit were playing with the phone Monday until one of the birds swallowed it. For three hours, zookeepers couldn't figure out which bird did it until the culprit coughed up the goods.
"Luckily, the bird regurgitated it so it wouldn't harm him," zoo superintendent Bill Gersonde said. "We just need folks to be really cautious when they're in the zoo and remember that they're guests in the animals' homes and they need to keep their personal belongings as close to them as possible."
According to a Los Angeles Times story by Joe Flint, News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch and GE's Jeff Immelt met in June to discuss the vitriolic on air sniping back and forth between the Fox News Channel's nasty conservative Bill O'Reilly and MSNBC's nasty liberal Keith Olbermann.
Here's what Flint wrote:
The on-screen and behind-scenes feuding between rivals Fox News and MSNBC, which has erupted in recent months like two kids squabbling, has gotten so loud that their parents are trying to tell them to knock it off.
Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corp., which owns Fox News, and Jeffrey Immelt, chief executive of General Electric Co., which owns MSNBC, met up at the Microsoft CEO summit in Redmond, Wash., to figure out how to defuse tensions between the two channels, according to people familiar with the situation.
Apparently any cooling-off agreement that Murdoch and Immelt might have made hasn't trickled down and stopped the vitriol. Both cable TV channels continue to allow their hottest personalities (O'Reilly, Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and Glenn Beck) to escalate, not tone down, their on-air insults and feuds.
The situation brings to the fore several business, journalistic, strategic, and entertainment issues.
First, continuing the on-air spats reinforces the fact that Fox News and MSNBC are not in the news business, they are in the entertainment business. The most important element in the entertainment business is storytelling, and the fundamental element in a story is conflict. The second most important element in entertainment is star quality. An entertainment company cannot succeed without either great stories or popular stars, and a hit requires both.
Therefore, Fox News and MSNBC, as purveyors of entertainment, require a constant infusion of stories full of conflict, delivered by popular stars. With the ready-made conflict of a political campaign over, new conflict needs to be either found or invented.
It takes a fair amount of time and lots of promotion and exposure to create a star, and these elements require the commitment of significant resources, the most valuable being air-time in the form of prime time, hour-long exposure and on-air and off-air promotion.
Thus, Fox News and MSNBC have huge investments in their stars O'Reilly, Beck, Olbermann, and Maddow. They created these venomous snakes, they have long-term contracts with them, and most importantly, they depend on them for ratings, which have gone up, in part, because of the feuding.
During a recession in which most media companies' ad revenue is declining, newspaper and magazine advertising revenues are falling off a cliff. Therefore, if the print divisions of large conglomerate media companies such as News Corp. are to survive, they need the revenue from the Web and TV businesses to keep them afloat.
News Corp. in particular needs the Fox News revenue because its main Web business, MySpace, is not doing well -- revenue is off -- and Murdoch's current pet project, the Wall Street Journal needs lots of money while it is in the process of a make-over in preparation of going after The New York Times.
If there is any doubt whatsoever in anyone's mind that Rupert's strategy is to attack the weakened Times, one only has to read the house ad on page A8 of the Monday, August 3, print edition, the headline of which reads: "All the news that's fit to read. Every day."
To compete with the Times Murdoch desperately needs O'Reilly and Beck's ratings and ad revenue generation, so he's not likely to tone them down. Immelt, for his part, probably understands Murdoch's needs and, I suspect, is sympathetic. MSNBC's profits are a mere pimple on GE's income statement, so they are not vital to GE's survival. Immelt's concern is whether Olbermann's and Maddow's sniping becomes so outrageous that it affects NBC News's credibility and, thus, GE's credibility, which is very important to Immelt.
Immelt's problem is that if it appears that he has muzzled Olbermann and Maddow, then it becomes "corporate interference" which, in turn, means that if he can influence Olbermann and Maddow, he can influence Brian Williams and NBC News and steer them clear of criticizing GE. Such interference would become a huge story that every self-righteous journalist, columnist, and blogger (in other words, virtually all journalists, columnists, and bloggers) would jump on and eviscerate Immelt.
So, Immelt is not going to say anything to MSNBC or its stars, and Murdoch is not going to tell Roger Ailes to muzzle anyone (Ailes runs the highly profitable Fox News and the profitable Fox Television Station Group). The only thing Rupert might say is "keep it up," which they are doing.
I suspect that when Murdoch and Immelt met they reassured each other that the vitriolic on-air feud among their valuable stars would not affect their personal relationship, the relationship between NBC and Fox on Hulu, or on any other business relationships they had.
The one thing we can be absolutely certain about in regards to these two industry giants is that above all else they know that business is business.
DAYTON, Ohio — An Oregon man is $10,000 richer after winning the 2009 National Scrabble Championship in Ohio.
Dave Wiegand of Portland, Ore., took first place Wednesday with 25 wins and six losses in the 31-game competition. It was the second time the 35-year-old mortgage underwriter has claimed the national title.
Forty-two-year-old Nigel Richards of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, finished second. Sixty-three-year-old Joel Wapnick of Montreal, Canada, placed third.
The National Scrabble Association said the final match featured words such as acini, which is a saclike part of a gland, and wawl, meaning to cry like a cat.
Nearly 500 players from 40 states and several countries competed for five days in Dayton. Competitors ranged in age from 10 to 92.
I was at the National Alliance to End Homelessness Conference in Washington, DC from July 28-31, listening to U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan sum up what's been accomplished in recent years and what remains to be done to prevent and end homelessness.
Earlier in the month, HUD released its 2008 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, a study of homelessness from one year to the next, and the Secretary is focusing on how we need to redouble our efforts in the midst of the worst economic downturn in memory.
In its Assessment, HUD concludes overall chronic homelessness held steady from 2007 to 2008, a more welcomed piece of news than if it had increased significantly during that time frame.
I believe this small bright spot is due, in large part, to the fact that 11% more supportive housing units were made available to homeless people over the same period last year. Supportive housing effectively addresses chronic homelessness by providing stable, permanent homes and care for individuals and families facing multiple medical and behavioral challenges. People who were once written off as unwilling or unable to be housed and treated are succeeding in supportive housing.
As Secretary Donovan said: "The fact is we have now proven that we can house anyone. Our job now is to house everyone - to prevent and end homelessness."
We certainly want to see more progress, and it is clear supportive housing is making a difference. In addition to the recent Assessment, the 2006 to 2007 HUD report shows a decrease in chronic homelessness and also a marked increase in supportive housing units.
Although the numbers provide hope, more must be done to end long-term homelessness and respond to the increasing needs of vulnerable families, veterans, and homeless people with disabilities who are being discharged from hospitals, treatment programs and correctional institutions.
One way to effectively confront homelessness is to further target the supportive housing that is available to those most in need of this higher service model. As Secretary Donovan has noted, one troubling aspect of the new HUD Assessment is the unfortunate increase in the number of homeless families, particularly in suburban and rural areas. This is likely a reflection of the beginnings of the economic downturn that started in 2008 and the consequences of earlier administrations' policies cutting the Section 8 housing voucher program.
The Corporation for Supportive Housing is doing its part and has been addressing the issue of families facing homelessness by supporting important legislative and policy changes, including:
Efforts to capitalize the National Housing Trust Fund to significantly expand the pool of affordable housing;
Successful advocacy for enactment of McKinney-Vento reauthorization, recently signed by President Obama, which includes increased resources for the prevention of homelessness, designates 10 percent of funds for the development of permanent housing for families, and expands the definition of homelessness to include families who are doubled-up and highly unstable or at imminent risk to lose their housing; and,
Working to secure more federal dollars for Section 8 vouchers and other mainstream social safety net programs.
CSH applauds the Obama Administration and Congress for their decision to use Recovery Act funds to fight homelessness and create more affordable and supportive housing. At the conference, Secretary Donovan spoke about how HUD will begin reporting on homelessness on a quarterly basis to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of the economic crisis and to better inform public policy. In fact, their "Homeless Pulse Project" for the first quarter of 2009 is now available for public review.
Secretary Donovan also made a compelling case for why ending homelessness is so closely linked to healthcare reform. He is citing several studies that conclude that supportive housing reduces many public service and healthcare costs while improving outcomes for patients.
He goes so far as to say supportive housing "is an ideal platform for advancing cost savings in the country's health care system."
Secretary Donovan's remarks are refreshing and reflect an Administration that is taking the problem of homelessness seriously.
As more families confront the possibility of losing their homes, a strong response from Washington today is vital to ensuring that future HUD assessments reflect a decline in homelessness across the board. Holding steady beats an increase in homelessness, especially in this bad economy, but there is no substitute for policies that ensure fewer of our neighbors will face the pain or prospect of being homeless.
NEW YORK — The leader of a powerful labor union that recently endorsed Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his re-election campaign was charged Wednesday with taking bribes from contractors who were scheming to cut labor costs.
Michael Forde, executive secretary-treasurer of the New York City District Council of Carpenters and Joiners, surrendered to the FBI Wednesday to face racketeering, conspiracy and other charges.
Nine other men – seven lower-ranking union officials, a construction contractor and a trade group representative – also were named in an indictment in federal court in Manhattan. There was no immediate response to a telephone message left Wednesday with Forde's attorney.
Prosecutors said that in exchange for about $1 million in bribes, the union leadership let contractors pay workers with cash at below-union rate wages and employ nonunion and undocumented laborers. The defendants concealed the conspiracy by falsifying and destroying paperwork meant to keep the jobs honest, authorities said.
The men "turned a blind eye on contractors' schemes to cheat the rank-and-file," said Joseph Demarest, head of the FBI's New York office. "Motivated by self-interest, they sold out the interests of their members."
In June, the Bloomberg campaign announced it had received an endorsement from the 21,000-member carpenters' union, saying it "is known to have one of the best get-out-the-vote operations in organized labor, and on Election Day they will be putting their manpower to use on behalf of the mayor." A video posted on Bloomberg's campaign Web site shows Forde giving the mayor a hug after introducing him at a union rally.
Bloomberg said Wednesday he was surprised by the arrests, but he insisted the case had not tainted the endorsement.
"It's sad, and I don't know whether it's true," he said when asked about the allegations. "But you know, it's the men and women of the carpenters' union that have endorsed me, and I'm thrilled to have it."
The union has been under scrutiny since 1994, when the government claimed it had been infiltrated by the mob. A court decree obtained at that time barred officials from associating with mobsters.
The new indictment alleges that the trade group representative lied in a deposition when he denied meeting a member of the Genovese organized crime family.
Why does TV news continue to get their information wrong? Is it laziness or they just don't care about being accurate? You would expect a journalist to do even a minor amount of research.
I'm not an apologist for Sara Jane Moore. But I am a stickler for accuracy. I continue to hope there can be some level of professionalism left in the electronic world of TV news reporters. Especially over something that is simple to check.
It is obvious to me the story about Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme's release from prison was grabbed over a wire and threw it out there with not even a small amount of fact checking? Is the newsroom so sure the wires are right?
It appears that TV news rooms takes the quick and dirty approach to secondary stuff as though it just doesn't matter whether it is accurate. After all, who cares about a background story about the "other" assassination attempt on Pres. Gerald Ford.
But, they are wrong: there was only one assassination attempt -- by Sara Jane Moore.
Fromme never intended to shoot Ford. Her intention was to wave the gun around and get arrested. Simple research will tell you that Fromme was hoping to get Charlie back in court. More corrections for the news rooms:
Sara Jane Moore was never a Manson woman.
She was never friends with Charles Manson in West Virginia.
She was never a member of the SLA.
She was not obsessed with Patti Hearst.
Sara Jane Moore never knew Squeaky Fromme until they met in prison.
The differences between Fromme and Moore are significant. Not that one potential assassin was "better" than another. However, Fromme's actions had nothing to do with political ideology. It was about her depraved devotion with Charles Manson. Moore went to the St. Francis Hotel to kill Ford, not get her boyfriend a new trial.
What they did have in common were circumstances. If Ford had not traveled through Sacramento where Fromme was living, she would not have traveled to attack the president. As such, if Ford had not met with the World Affairs Council in San Francisco, Sara Jane Moore would not have attempted to assassinate the president.
The Secret Service and Dangerous Assumptions
The Secret Service actually had Sara Jane Moore in custody just the day before her attempt. She was being questioned by the U.S. Secret Service as she had made a threat against Ford. Yet they did not hold her as they didn't see her as a danger to the president. After all she was a 45 year old woman, mother and doctor's wife. She was so far off their radar they knew she would not do anything to harm the president.
The only reason Ford was not killed is that the gun Sara Jane used that day was not her own. She bought it in haste that very morning not knowing the sight was off six inches. That is exactly what the FBI measured when they examined where the bullet had hit the cement behind Ford.
In his final remarks at Sara Jane's hearing, Judge Samuel Conti told said that her aim was true and had it not been for the faulty gun, President Ford might be dead.
The mistake by the Secret Service haunts them to this day. They are not trying to unravel the mystery of Squeaky Fromme. There is none. They are still trying, 34 years later, to unlock the events that lead Sara Jane Moore, a West Virginia girl to the sidewalk in San Francisco that day.
Geri Spieler is the author of, Taking Aim at the President: The Remarkable Story of the Woman who shot at Gerald Ford, Palgrave Macmillan.
The power of publicity couldn't be easier (or less expensive) than right now. Social media, social networks and better access to media and blog connections has put new capabilities in the hands of entrepreneurs and executives to tap outlets regarding news and articles on their companies. In the past, this was tough at best. Today, more journalists and bloggers are better accessible and more willing to be part of the business community than ever before. However, with this expanded opportunity and new media landscape comes a lot of new dynamics and rules. These past few weeks, conversations have been buzzing on the topic, in part surrounding the new book, Putting The Public Back in Public Relations. It sparked a discussion among the women entrepreneurs and executives in my world. Media coverage can do tons for your company. But, in a new media market, how should you be doing PR now?
"PR needs to be completely redefined," said friend and fellow entrepreneur Nicole Jordan, who boasts nearly a decade in the business. "It means knowing how to connect with all of our 'publics.' For me, mine are current and potential customers and partners, data providers, investors, employees, thought leaders in my industry -- publics are how YOU define them."
"A hit in USA Today doesn't guarantee you are hitting YOUR public, the one your business really needs," Jordan adds.
If anybody would know, it's Jordan. As one of the most connected women on the Internet and in technology business, she's known for her high level connections and talent for putting people together. She's been a driving force behind some of the industry's best campaigns and projects. "The needed tool set from PR has vastly expanded due to the Internet and social web, creating an entirely new set of skills that most practitioners don't know how to use in a complimentary manner."
Today's women entrepreneurs and executives couldn't agree more.
"I had hired someone to help with PR and after a month, found that he didn't really understand the market. He rarely had anything to update me on and constantly talked about how difficult it was to reach the press we needed," shared one female entrepreneur who had asked to remain anonymous. "We stopped working with the firm and began doing a lot of the work ourselves. We get responses from journalists and bloggers, and it has resulted in a few articles. I wouldn't recommend this for everybody, but with budgets tight, we can't take the risk of spending money without results."
For Jordan, public relations is seen from a business view point. As she writes on her blog (which also regularly lists local Los Angeles tech/Internet industry events), her approach is to "listen to what my company needs and develop programs from there, and media relations is just a fraction of my tool kit." Among her strategies are weekly meetings with each department, engaging with customers and partners, and participating in executive planning meetings. "Every day I approach my job and the decisions I make with the question: How will this contribute to our goals? I never ask the question, 'How will this contribute to our awareness."
When it comes to the new world of PR, wiser words couldn't be spoken. Power Girls know the PR playing field has changed -- and they're making the adjustment.
Chicago Public Schools officials have been awfully tight-lipped about the federal probe into alleged use of clout in admissions to the city's selective-enrollment high schools. The[y] have reason.
The Obama administration launched a broad government effort this week to overhaul mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and is considering splitting the companies and putting their troubled assets in a new federally backed corporation, administration officials said.
CHICAGO (AP) -- Under a new policy, Chicago Transit Authority bus drivers and train operators can be fired after the first time they're caught using an electronic device on the job.
The CTA says the zero-tolerance policy unveiled Wednesday goes into effect immediately.
The previous policy allowed employees to have up to four violations before a recommendation was made that they be fired.
Under the new policy, possession of an electronic device will bring probation and a three-day suspension. Using the device on duty can lead to discharge.
Electronic devices include cell phones, smartphones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), MP3/music players, wireless headsets or any other appliance.
The CTA says transit agencies nationwide have recently adopted similar policies.
(CNN) -- Jim Nicholson could've just handed over the cash. Instead, he gave the would-be robber a run for his money -- and paid for it.
The 30-year-old bank teller said the suspect, dressed in black and wearing sunglasses, walked up to his counter at the Key Bank branch in suburban Seattle, Washington, demanding he fill the man's bag with cash.
You have to know that when it comes to Kim Jong-Il, nobody, not even political spin machinist Bill Clinton, can fully compete with the mass manipulation pageantry of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Evan Ramstad of the Wall Street Journal referred to the Clinton trip as a "boon" for KJ:
Mr. Kim scored two propaganda victories -- a chance to show North Koreans that he cuts a big figure by dining and getting his picture taken with Mr. Clinton, and a chance to show the world that he's not such a bad guy by freeing two reporters who didn't deserve their sentence of 12 years of hard labor.
The North Korean state-run press played up the meeting of the "Dear Leader" and former U.S. head of state as a joint meeting of issues of common concern to the U.S. and North Korea, not a major public relations coup for Clinton in securing the release of U.S. journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling.
But on the American side of the Pacific, it was "Showbiz Tonight" meets "High School Reunion."
CNN's John Roberts gushed about Clinton's "star power diplomacy" and referred to the Burbank fly-in as the sun rose above the mountains as a Hollywood production. In short order the more powerful A-list politicos eclipsed the story line of Lee and Ling's homecoming.
The Release became The Embrace.
The New York Times headlined, "Clinton-Gore, Together Again." Adam Nagourney wrote about two would-be characters in a romance novel: "They shook hands first, and than hugged for a full five seconds, with Mr. Clinton patting his hand along Mr. Gore's back and lingering before moving on to greet the waiting family members...."
The Bob Hope Airport was an appropriate reentry point for Lee, Ling, and Clinton as the Southern California airport to the rich and famous. And richness and fame these two former imprisoned journalists from Al Gore's Current TV will gain from the book, speaking tour, and movie deal to follow. The poor and obscure don't get a private whisk away from Pyongyang on a jet owned by serial impregnator and Democratic Party uber-investor Stephen Bing.
The Big Dog is certainly having his Dog Day, but Kim Jong-Il is having his too, obviously satisfied with the face-saving he scored with the Democratic Party elder statesman. We'll worry about those pesky NK nukes that can reach Burbank another day.
Though reported like a Jesse Jackson swoop-in diplomatic mission, Clinton's surprise humanitarian mission was at least a month in the making. KJ, in a classic F.O.B. move, invited President Clinton, and only President Clinton, to appear before the Grateful Undead on the world stage and in the people's hearts and minds. Mr. Kim had to prove to his people in classic authoritarian management style that reports of his poor health or demise are greatly exaggerated. What better way than to release a slew of photos of Clinton and Kim seated stiffly with frozen expressions like Madame Tussaud figures from the Cold War. If anyone smiled, it was Kim Jong Il, while President Clinton made sure to conceal any glad-handedness.
Poor Hillary had second billing to husband Bill, reduced to a few sound bites after arriving in Nairobi, Kenya for an African tour of seven nations. Remember Africa? She acknowledged speaking to her husband aboard the Bingcraft. She didn't think the journalists' release would dramatically change the future of U.S.-North Korean relations. It's "up to them," she told a group of accompanying reporters, not the gasping paparazzi in the Burbank hangar. She went on:
They have a choice if they continue to follow the path that is filled with provocative action, which further isolates them from the international community ... or they can decide to renew their discussions with the partners in the six-party talks.
Blah, blah.
Such sleep-inducing diplospeak does not make for the most exciting of global photo ops. In the spirit of the recent Suds Summit at the White House, Secretary Clinton may want to start referring to the Six-Party Talks as the Six-Pack Chat. And invite Bill to help pour it on.
WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Judd Gregg says he'll vote for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, breaking with most of his fellow Republicans.
The New Hampshire senator says that he may not agree with Sotomayor on all issues or share her political ideology but that she's obviously well-qualified to be a justice. He becomes the eighth Republican to publicly announce he will support President Barack Obama's first high court nominee.
Nearly three-quarters of the Senate's Republicans have said they'll vote against Sotomayor, including all but one of the party's leaders. But with no Democrats expected to oppose her, she has more than enough support to be easily confirmed in a vote expected as early as Thursday.
CHICAGO (AP) -- The state of Illinois is giving doctors a 90-day grace period for violations of a law on abortion that went into effect this week.
The Department of Financial and Professional Regulation accepted the recommendations Wednesday of its Medical Disciplinary Board.
The board recommended Friday that doctors be given more time to understand their obligation to notify a pregnant girl's parents before she has an abortion.
The Illinois law was enacted 14 years ago, but court challenges delayed it from being enforced. A federal appeals court's action last month means it finally took effect Tuesday.
Tom Brejcha (BRECK'-uh) is president of the Thomas More Society, a Chicago-based group that supports parental notification. He has said the grace period isn't needed. -ASSOCIATED PRESS
In a speech entitled "A New Beginning," President Barack Obama addressed the Muslim world two months ago at Cairo University in Egypt.
It's been two months since President Barack Obama delivered his heralded address to the Muslim world in Cairo, promising a new era of respect and engagement. How's his opening to the Muslim world going so far?
Well, it seems, but with a couple of big question mark items, both beginning with the letter "I," one of them highlighted by the inauguration today in Tehran of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second four-year term in office.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was inaugurated for a second four-year term today in Tehran.
The controversy and furor over Ahmadinejad's re-election, especially the Iranian regime's violent response to protests following the election, has stymied a key element of Obama's strategy of engagement. Not that we've ended up with different people in power there than we should have expected, nor people acting any differently than we should have expected them to act. More about that in a moment.
Obama's Cairo speech may have helped a pro-Western government take power in Lebanon and has certainly helped spark an upswing in positive opinion about America pretty much everywhere around the world except Israel. Which is the other big question mark item beginning with the letter "I."
The Cairo address also proved to be very well-received here in America, including with the Jewish community. In fact, Obama gets higher marks for foreign policy than for domestic policy in looking at his job approval as president, currently at a very healthy 56% in the Gallup Poll.
Beyond the overall impression of the Cairo address two months on, which is quite positive, and also relatively easy, let's look at some specific areas that are a lot more challenging.
Iranian security forces cracked down on demonstrators after the disputed June 12th presidential election.
** Iran. In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn in for his second term as president today. The much hoped-for revolution against the radical conservative Islamist regime, touted in the wake of Ahmadinejad's disputed June 12th re-election landslide, has, not surprisingly, not materialized, as students and urban professionals make for a narrow political base.
But bitter infighting amongst the Islamic republic's ruling elite has materialized. It's not simply pragmatic conservatives against hardliners. It's also internecine fighting amongst the hardliners. Ahmaedinejad triggered some of it when he appointed his son's father-in-law as first vice president. Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei had declared that Iran is friend to all the world's peoples, including Americans and Israelis, a statement which, needless to say, did not go down well with some radical hardliners.
So Ahmadinejad moved him from the vice presidency and made him the presidential chief of staff. Which has not exactly ameliorated bad feelings, though it did enable the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to continue his backing of Ahmadinejad.
The Obama Administration is giving Iran till the end of September to show some progress on engagement, including progress on ramping down its nuclear weapons program, which Tehran says doesn't exist even as it crows about how many centrifuges it has.
Ahmadinejad's appointment of his in-law looks like a positive sign. But the infighting may be too debilitating and distracting for Iran to get a credible negotiating posture together. Or it may simply serve as an excuse for delay.
With far rightist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman sidelined, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak (a former Labor prime minister) has taken the point position in dealing with the Obama Administration.
** Israel. Issues with Israel are also very much about Iran, so that part first. Israel doesn't want Iran to have nuclear weapons, not surprising in that Iranian leaders have threatened to wipe out the Jewish state. The US agrees with Israel. Israel, with perhaps the most right-wing government in its history, wants to continue settlements by fundamentalist religionists in the West Bank. The US is strongly opposed, as it wants to move forward with a peace settlement establishing a state of Palestine.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who's been cultivated by Obama, said today that his country should accept the US peace plan for Israel and Palestine.
A string of high-level American envoys descended on Israel late last month. First was Middle East special envoy George Mitchell, the former Senate majority leader. Then Defense Secretary Bob Gates, the former CIA director. Followed by National Security Advisor Jim Jones, the former Marine Corps commandant and NATO commander, and special advisor Dennis Ross, the former Mideast negotiator.
They dealt with the settlements issue and with continuing talk of a potential Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear program. All of it shrouded in some mystery.
The director of Mossad said last month that Iran can't have a nuclear bomb until 2014, making calls for a prompt military strike against Iran's nuclear program sound somewhat hysterical. But Israeli sources say that Iran may be able to master the technology to the extent it can test a nuclear device in the next year, still a far cry from producing a deployable nuclear weapon. Iran says it's not developing a nuclear weapon. In any event, it's a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Israel's internal politics are also complicated. Defense Minister Barak, a former Labor prime minister who is perhaps the most decorated soldier in Israeli history, has taken the place of the foreign minister in Middle East peace talks involving the US. That's because Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, a far right figure in Israeli politics, took the remarkable step a month ago of removing himself from the talks. Why? Because Lieberman is himself a West Bank settler.
I predicted that it would be a long time before we saw Lieberman in Washington, if in fact he ever comes. Lieberman is the head of a very far right Israeli party whose support was necessary for Bibi Netanyahu -- himself the head of the very conservative Likud -- to become prime minister. Lieberman demanded and got the foreign minister post. But it's an odd portfolio for him, as he and his party are widely regarded as anti-Arab, making it difficult for him to be much of a diplomat with the rest of the world.
** Syria. Late last month, the US lifted its embargo on infotech and aerospace shipments to Syria. The move is designed to further the Mideast peace process and to further isolate Iran in the region. The Obama Administration has been working Syria hard, dispatching not one but two envoys. Progress is being made, and Obama's speech was helpful in laying the groundwork, giving America a friendlier face.
The Pakistani Army undertook a sweeping offensive against the Taliban.
** Pakistan. Obama's Cairo address was reportedly very well received in Pakistan. Which is fortunate, since Obama had prodded the government to push forward with a military offensive against the Pakistani Taliban.
The offensive caused between two and three million internal refugees. But many have returned home and schools are re-opening. We won't know for awhile just how effective the move against the Taliban has been. It doesn't look like the Pakistani Army took down all the jihadists whose activities are focused outside of Pakistan. But Taliban encroachment against the authority of the central government, which had become alarming, has been pushed back.
** Afghanistan. The new US policies of scaling back air strikes that have caused civilian deaths and promoting negotiation with the Taliban are probably more important than Obama's speech. But it certainly didn't hurt, and the August 20th elections are moving forward.
President Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appeared together two weeks ago at the White House to say that the US withdrawal is on schedule.
** Iraq. The new face Obama has placed on America, symbolized by the Cairo address, has improved relations with Iraq.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited Obama in the White House last month, embracing the American president in a way he never could have done with George W. Bush. American combat troops have been pulled back from the cities to bases, as scheduled.
In all, Obama's Cairo address looks, two months on, like a significant success. Of course, it's only a speech, and words can only do so much. But it looks like a strong beginning.
In 2005, archaeologists unearthed the earliest empirical evidence of noodles ever found, a 4,000-year-old bowl of noodles in China. Scientists reported this as the earliest example of our staple dish ever found.
This bowl of preserved, thin and long yellow noodles was discovered inside an overturned sealed bowl at an archaeological site in northwestern China. It was buried under ten feet (three meters) of sediment.
The discovery also implies that the origins of the world's most popular food is in Asia and that noodles are not an Italian source. (Don't tell Guido that, though!)
This got me thinking about what matters over time, and what matters in life. What will survive 4,000 years from now? What will be left in 6010?
HOW MUCH DOES IT MATTER?
In the span of time, how important is it that I get bent out of shape about a scheduling conflict, or about someone who keeps me waiting, forever. How much time and energy do I spend lamenting the loss of a creative project I bid on, or a botched project that started out high and mighty but ran into a major hiccup and the whole thing crashes?
We could spend endless hours and dollars trying to re-live the past or we can focus our energy on resolving what didn't work and then move on to what's in front of us and making the present better.
In the bigger national picture, why does every administration spend any time paying attention to what didn't work during the previous President's administration? How much energy do we need to focus on that? Does it help the "today?" Does it matter for the tomorrows? Some, but not much. Best to move on.
WHAT WILL BE FOUND IN 6010?
A yummy bowl of noodles sounds good right about now, but in 6010? Thanks, I'll pass on that one, especially if it's 4,000 year old.
4,000 years from now, will all the worries and frets we have about yesterday or tomorrow be even a blip in time? Even next week, what we worry and fret about today will be gone. 4,000 years from now, instead of noodles, will pizza bites or a tray of French fries and a cheeseburger lay dormant, nestled in a pocket deep below the line-up of fast food restaurants along West 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues in New York City? Will archaeologists find a pile of SUVs hot-melted together in a giant lump ten feet underground somewhere in Los Angeles?
If it's metal that will survive the next 4,000 years, for sure the underground landscape will be peppered with all the metal from our prisons and jails across the U.S. If you're not concerned about the fact that the U.S, with 5% of the world's population, now houses 25% of the world's reported prisoners, then check out this eye-opening page to learn more.
Author Sunny Schwarz, nationally recognized expert in Criminal Justice reform, wrote a compelling book, Dreams from the Monster Factory: A Tale of Prison, Redemption, and One Woman's Fight to Restore Justice to All. It's worth the read! She writes about what matters, whether you're involved in criminal justice work or not. If you're a citizen of the world, a member of humanity, then this matters.
If you're like me, and want to appreciate your life rather than fret, a good start is to hold some gratitude for what is before you today. Even if it's a day with all it's bumps, big and small, a "bad day" is better than the alternative, no day at all. We'll all be six-feet under eventually, so to speak (or scattered to the winds) but I doubt we'll be discovered 4,000 years from now.
Yesterday left, and who really knows what tomorrow brings? Do you really want to miss out on life? Stick with what matters for today, and leave the rest.
The National Rifle Association is not known for fighting battles it cannot win. But its opposition to the Sotomayor nomination was destined to be an exercise in futility. Many observers are puzzled as to how the NRA could make such an obviously misguided strategic decision. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) called it "dumb". Actually, the gun lobby's behavior in the Sotomayor matter reveals much about what makes the organization tick and even more about the politics of gun control.
The NRA's denunciation of Sotomayor was expressed in the strongest possible terms. Charging the nominee with having "a hostile view of the Second Amendment and the fundamental right of self-defense," the NRA's Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox found her unqualified to "serve on any court, much less the highest court in the land." They added, darkly, that the vote on the nomination "will be considered in NRA's future candidate evaluations."
Many of the NRA's Congressional stalwarts have reacted with defiance. The day after the LaPierre/Cox letter was issued, four members of the House Hispanic Caucus, who described themselves as having "consistently high ratings from the NRA," wrote to the two NRA executives asking them to reconsider their opposition to Sotomayor. Their extraordinary letter said they were "mystified" by the NRA's characterization of Judge Sotomayor as "hostile to the rights of gun owners." The letter suggested that the NRA may be judging her "by a different standard" than it applied to nominees Roberts and Alito, who gave similarly noncommittal answers on the Second Amendment, but did not incur the NRA's wrath.
We have since witnessed a steady parade of NRA "A-rated" Senators announcing that they would vote for the nominee over the gun lobby's objection. Senators Baucus and Tester of Montana, Nelson of Nebraska, Webb and Warner of Virginia, Graham of South Carolina, Alexander of Tennessee, Martinez of Florida, Specter of Pennsylvania, and Johnson of South Dakota, among others. Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) told The Hill newspaper that he was "very disappointed" in the gun lobby, and added: "The NRA at some point has gone beyond its mission, and are perhaps allowing themselves to get hijacked by those who are in the extreme."
Senator Warner had it almost right. It's not that the NRA has been "hijacked" by extremists on the single issue of the Sotomayor nomination. The plain truth is that the NRA's policy positions long have reflected the extremist ideology of its leadership, and a core group of "Second Amendment absolutists" in its membership to which its leadership must be responsive. Once the NRA's policies are understood as driven primarily by ideological extremism, its behavior during the Sotomayor nomination becomes far easier to understand. The only way Judge Sotomayor could have satisfied the NRA's Second Amendment ideologues was to repeat the constitutional catechism that is their Holy Writ. But that would have been either to defy well-established precedent or to prejudge issues likely to come before the High Court. Even Robert Levy of the CATO Institute, the "Godfather" of last year's landmark Heller Supreme Court decision expanding Second Amendment rights, found her rulings on the Second Amendment "well within the bounds of responsible judging."
Obviously, the Senators who have decided to sacrifice their NRA "A-ratings" to vote for confirmation do not regard their vote as an act of political suicide. Rather, they have made a calculation that implicitly recognizes a fact of great significance: most gun owners (and, indeed, most NRA members), are not "Second Amendment absolutists." For example, over 80% of gun owners support closing the "gun show loophole" by extending Brady Act background checks to private sales at gun shows. Most self-identified members of the NRA support handgun registration and mandatory safety training before purchasing a gun. The NRA's policy views are driven by ideologues who do not represent its membership.
In short, the story of the NRA and the Sotomayor nomination is a "teachable moment" for those in Congress traditionally allied with the NRA. The lesson is this: to reject the extremist positions of the NRA is not to turn your backs on gun owners.
"I want to become a dancer...in New York," said the girl with dreamy eyes. Dressed all in white, she was sitting with perfect posture in a defiantly confident pose.
In another setting her statement would sound like an ordinary ambition for a teenage girl to have. But there, in BRAC's classroom in Afghanistan, among teenage and adolescent girls wrapped in headscarves who were experiencing school for the first time, her statement sounded as a bold and defiant battle-cry.
The room burst with giggles. I was astonished and amazed that this girl who had never seen professional dancers, much less New York, had dared to dream beyond her ken. I was also convinced that she'd probably do it.
Education was going to be her passport out of that village, out of an arranged marriage to an older man before she was 18 and 4 or 5 children by 25. Her fate was not yet sealed as it had been for so many others. She seemed so determined, so hopeful. She was ready for a struggle for a life more beautiful, full of love and freedom, where she could express the uniqueness of her soul and character through her passion for dancing.
I carry her with me as I watch the news of conflict in Afghanistan. I balance the gloomy news by recalling her shining face and the incredibly warm and uplifting documentary Afghan Star. This film tells the story of the making of Afghan television's version of American Idol. Audiences of this film are left with a totally different representation of the country. Afghanistan is not just about bombs, bare mountains, conflict and misery. It's also about young Afghan men and women who have given wings to their aspirations and dreams.
Poverty and stigmatization are among the greatest obstacles towards the realization of the Afghan people's bold dreams. I was glad to discover during my travels in Afghanistan that a mood of despair was giving way to hope and determination. People around the country are working to rebuild their lives and to lift themselves out of poverty.
BRAC loans provide families with support to start small business and generate income. I met many borrowers from BRAC's microfinance programs. At the time, all the borrowers were women and they were all convinced life was better for them now than during the Taliban. They were less afraid and had more freedom, more to eat and opportunities to send their children, especially their daughters, to school.
One very thin poor woman was a weaver. She proudly showed her handloom. Another mother and daughter used their loan to buy a sewing machine. Their neighbors made school bags. I visited several modern beauty shops which seemed to be thriving. I met a local baker who made bread over a traditional stove. In the countryside, women borrowed money to develop small agricultural plots, and poultry and livestock businesses. They were raising fruit tree saplings and growing vegetables.
I was accompanied by male staff so the women always wore their bright blue burkhas. I was so curious how it felt to be under one. To see what they see when draped in cloth. Of course these good humored curious women got a kick out of dressing me up in one of them. For me, it sure didn't feel like freedom to have one more layer on top of me in that heat. But many women explained how it protects them and gives them freedom to move about more easily. The lens of our own culture can distort the true picture and not allow us to comprehend how relative everything can be.
The rest of my trip was as eventful and rewarding as the beginning. I saw BRAC schools and met with parent teacher associations and school management committees that BRAC has formed. I visited health clinics that were packed with women waiting to see a doctor or nurse. I remember a pharmacist who lost a leg to a landmine. He was so grateful to have his job that his work mitigated the consequences of his disability.
It was rewarding to see how BRAC programs in microfinance, health and sanitation, education, adolescent development, agriculture and livestock and social and capacity development had touched the lives of thousands of people, giving them chances for a dignified life and a more secure future for their children.
With an option agreement set to expire, the fate of six acres at the famous Hollywood Hills intersection of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Mulholland Drive hangs in the balance. What is now a refuge for mule deer, hawks, bobcats and other wildlife, can quickly turn into a housing development, if $145,000 is not raised by August 17th. If we are successful, we will keep the northern gateway to rock and roll history-rich Laurel Canyon on a trajectory to be permanent public open space. If we fail, all points eastward in the Santa Monica Mountains will begin an irreversible decline in wildlife diversity -- not to mention, the 20 million plus motorists who cross the intersection annually will see their commute interrupted by long traffic delays and construction.
Since December 2007, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority has pooled $515,000 of public and private funding to keep the Laurel Canyon property under option. The MRCA's contract provides a phased plan to pay off the remainder of the $4 million over two years. Given the wealthy neighborhoods affected by this intersection, one would think raising this money would be relatively easy. Indeed, anyone who has ever tried to make it over the canyon in rush hour sees the importance of our effort. But as the economy has stalled, so has our efforts. That is why we're calling on the LA community, wildlife activists, environmentalists and even rock and roll fans to join us in our movement to protect the neighborhood that has given us extraordinary music from The Doors, Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and so many others.
As part of a contiguous 500-acre block of urban wilderness, this property is essential for wildlife to cross Laurel Canyon Boulevard to reach Nichols and Runyon Canyons and eventually the 5,000-acre Griffith Park. Scenic Mulholland Drive and the wildlife populations east of Laurel Canyon will never be the same if this land is further developed.
Please urge the community at large to spread the importance of this land acquisition effort and encourage those able to make donations to do so, in order to keep this campaign alive. As incentive, the largest donor will receive permanent park naming and signage rights (make that, tasteful signage rights) for this highly-trafficked area. All donations are fully tax-deductible.
The coming weeks will dictate whether the greater Los Angeles community will forever regret not raising the money necessary to keep the heart of the mountain range breathing, or if it will, as the most popular signs in canyon read, allow it to live in "peace."
For a nation enmeshed in a generational and technological realignment, it's not shocking that doubts have begun to surface about the viability of our unprecedented president's vision for a new American era. As casual citizens and politicos terrified for years by threats of violence, economic collapse and moral certitude cling to the familiar mechanisms of the news cycle, partisan sparring and polling data, I'd argue that we're exactly on track to achieve the reform this country badly needs, despite all the hysterics surrounding health care. We need, specifically, to embrace online communications, welcome the Millennial generation to fruition, abandon the limitations of political party infrastructure, and reframe stagnant debates so that progress can take its course. Before any of that can happen, of course, we'll have to brace ourselves during the unraveling of institutions we've grown accustomed to, and a lot of people will probably freak out. (See: Lou Dobbs.)
Barack Obama introduced us to a new kind of politics, and veterans of the old guard aren't sure how to handle it while the emerging young leaders who built it haven't established enough clout to reinforce it. Meanwhile, legal-based technology constraints on the inside of the executive branch illustrate the efficiency of private industry, as Obama's reliable multi-media management tools and connection to the blogosphere can't be used to fuel his governing agenda the way it did during his campaign. This hands power back to the MSM, which is run by old people who want to tell the same old stories about politicians whose 25-year-old legislative aids probably have a better shot at rebuilding the GOP than they do. And suddenly it appears to be 1992, with pics of Bill Clinton and North Korean dictators headlining the evening news while Americans scratch their heads trying to understand "The Public Option."
Such is the nature of transition and "change." It comes with growing pains.
The new politics is: community organizing, vested interest from multiple and non-traditional political alliances, equality of opportunity, personal responsibility and efficient government. Notice the terms leave room for bipartisan interpretation and execution. This is the philosophy of the Millennial generation, and it will ultimately permeate political discourse as we assume more influential leadership roles. Under these auspices, liberals and conservatives will appropriately debate the limits of our Social Contract issue by issue, and health care is our first example. Not everyone will agree on it, but we'll tackle the next issue with zeal and the electoral process will error correct us along the way. For now, Obama is the first leader of this genre, and people of all ages, races, classes and ideologies will impose their perspectives onto him, as is easy to do given his multi-racial heritage and relative youth.
I read two pieces of commentary this week that perfectly encapsulated the dichotomy of the present moment. On the macro-level, Yale professor David Bromwich explores the challenges (or what some would characterize as flaws) in Obama's Saul Alinsky-inspired community organizing leadership philosophy. On the micro-level, former Hillary Clinton new media strategist Peter Dao breaks down how the summer's health care battle specifically illustrates community organizing's effectiveness gap between campaign and governance. Both men's posts have merit, and in terms of minutia they are correct in assessing some missteps and constraints preventing Obama from delivering on his promises. Yet.
Obama is a man at the epicenter of a convergence of external factors. Where we have little evidence to doubt is his ability to step into such a maelstrom and provide leadership. Yes, he could be short-sighted and push through health care reform by leaning on Democrats, but that would be counter-productive to the larger implications at stake. His greatest responsibility is to show us, no matter how vehemently we resist, how the new politics will be executed.
In recent weeks he has struggled, but the crescendo has come. He's engaged at the micro-level too much and will now return to the basics using his unique methods. He must provide a metrics for success (winning an election was obvious, legislation is not). He must use direct channels to the public and stop relying on press conferences where his message is misconstrued into side shows like the Beer Summit. And he must provide local, actionable options for supporters. Evidence that this is happening is already emerging, with the White House's creation of the health care smear fact page, and an email sent out to supporters this afternoon asking them to recommit to the grassroots activism they invested in last summer to pass health care legislation.
If Americans could remain poised, rely on facts, and be bold instead of submitting to fears about this confusing time, we might find ourselves face-to-face with the antidote to our long-held complaints about government. We'll be more collaborative, individually empowered, and capable of perfecting the American dream.
CORTLAND, N.Y. — Kareem Brown jumped out of the car he was in and saw the vehicle his friend had been driving wrapped around a tree, a mangled mess of metal and glass.
"I knew he was dead," the New York Jets tight end recalled Tuesday.
Brown, a converted defensive lineman trying to make the team at a new position, was at a club in his hometown of Miami on July 24 when his childhood friend, Jeffrey Nelson, stopped by.
"When he got there, I was on my way out," Brown recalled. "So he was like, 'OK, I might as well go home, too.'"
It was around 3:30 a.m. when the former high school football and basketball teammates left the club. It was also the last time they would speak.
Close to his home in Miami Gardens, Nelson lost control of his car, which went up onto a median and slammed into a tree. The 24-year-old Nelson died at the scene.
And, Brown saw it all unfold from the car he was riding in just a few yards away.
"The way the car was wrapped around the tree, no one could survive that," Brown said. "I witnessed the whole thing with my own two eyes. And I was the one that had to call his mother and his girlfriend and let them know, so that's something that's going to stick with me forever. It just hurts."
Brown said he didn't think his friend wasn't drinking that night, but isn't sure what caused the accident.
"He was in the car by himself, so we don't know what happened," Brown said. "I don't know if he was texting – I don't know. No one knows. It's just one of those freak things where he lost control of his car. He lived right around the corner. That's another crazy thing about it."
Brown reported to SUNY Cortland with the rest of his teammates last Thursday with a heavy heart.
"I came up because I wanted to get away," Brown said. "There were a lot of things going on in Miami and I just wanted my head to be clear. So I came up to be with the team and they supported me."
He left last Friday afternoon so he could attend Nelson's funeral service in Miami on Saturday, but got right back on a plane when it was over and was on the practice field Sunday.
"We left it up to him," coach Rex Ryan said. "You just take as much time as you need and he wanted to come back. He's having to deal with it."
Brown has spoken regularly with Dr. Sara Hickman, the team psychologist, about what he witnessed that night.
"You try to think of it in a positive light, like what would he have wanted me to do?" Brown said. "I'm sure he would've wanted me to be here busting my butt and getting the job done. So I try to look at everything like that and I know he's watching over me and his family and his child."
Brown has gotten back to football and is focused on winning a job as a backup tight end behind starter Dustin Keller. He's competing with free agents Jack Simmons, J'Nathan Bullock and recently signed Kevin Brock.
"Nobody has really stepped up and taken the job," Ryan said. "He's coming on, and you expect it. This is a brand-new position for him, but he flashes at times."
Brown is still learning about playing tight end after being a defensive lineman at the University of Miami and in his first two NFL seasons with New England and New York. He was waived by the Patriots after being inactive the first 11 games in 2007, and claimed by the Jets a day later. Brown was inactive four games before making his NFL debut on special teams in the season finale.
He was inactive for seven games last season before being waived and re-signed by the Jets and placed on the practice squad.
Ryan and offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer decided to try him out at tight end, and Brown has made a remarkable physical change. When he was drafted by the Patriots in the fourth round of the 2007 draft, Brown weighed 322 pounds. He's now listed at 260, a loss of 62 pounds.
"I feel great, better than ever," he said. "Tight end is coming along good. It's a process, just learning the whole offensive scheme. It's the little things on offense that are most important because you could learn all the playbook, but you've got to learn little things from the vets. They teach you little tricks of the trade and stuff that takes you that extra mile."
He has made a few catches this summer, and is working on his blocking skills – something the Jets need from their tight ends after allowing the versatile Chris Baker to become a free agent in the offseason.
"I'm doing pretty good," Brown said. "Hopefully in the preseason, I'll do even better and we'll take it from there."
Jeanine Pirro, the former Westchester County district attorney-turned-TV judge, has gotten her paws on the case of the five-legged puppy saved from a Coney Island freak show.
NEW YORK — A judge has barred the ex-wife and daughter of Italian fashion scion Paolo Gucci from selling the family name to market handbags, gelato and other goods.
In a decision Wednesday in federal court, U.S. District Judge Richard Berman ruled in favor of Manhattan-based Gucci America. The company had sued Jenny and Gemma Gucci for trademark infringement in 2007.
The judge concluded in a written verdict following a non-jury trial that the defendants had "willfully infringed and diluted the Gucci trademarks" by entering into a licensing agreement that resulted in a "confusingly similar" line of products using their names and mimicking Gucci's classic, green-red-green color scheme.
There was no immediate response to a message left for a lawyer for Jenny and Gemma Gucci.
Jenny Gucci was married to Paolo Gucci – grandson of the founder of the family's fashion empire – from 1977 to 1990, when they separated. He died in 1995 after years of family infighting that ultimately drove all the Guccis out of the company that still bears their name.
Gucci and its American branch are now owned by the French retail group PPR SA.
Jenny Gucci, who was described in the ruling as "a classically trained opera singer," testified at the trial in June that she considered Gucci America "Big Gucci," and herself "Little Gucci." She and her daughter – sponsor of a jewelry line called "Gemma by Gemma Gucci" – claimed previous court rulings in trademark cases, including one involving Paolo Gucci, allowed them to use the name.
But Berman wrote that the defendants "did not take precautions to avoid infringing plaintiff's trademarks." His order prohibits the mother and daughter from making any commercial use of their names on a long list of products including "coffee, bedding, housewares, cosmetics, hosiery, handbags, wine and gelato."
Seven months after the federal government gave final approval to a controversial plan to collect DNA samples from undocumented immigrants, the program has yet to launch.
As of mid-June, the FBI had given federal agencies more than 55,000 kits to collect DNA from people arrested or detained, an FBI spokeswoman said in an interview. The FBI lab had received 697 DNA samples in return, but all of them were from people arrested in criminal cases, not detained immigrants.
A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of Homeland Security, said the agency isn't currently collecting DNA from detained immigrants. Two ICE officials told us they weren't even aware of the program.
"Given the enormity of the issue, we are still working through implementation," said Matthew Chandler, a spokesman for Homeland Security, which oversees the immigrant DNA collection mandate.
Chandler declined to discuss the specific problems that have to be solved before the program can begin. "We have the largest law enforcement force in the federal government and it's a matter of making sure we're implementing this in the best way possible," he said.
Under the program, which the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have argued amounts to an unconstitutional search and seizure, some 1.2 million DNA samples would be sent each year to the FBI's already overburdened crime lab in Quantico, Va. Scientists there will then enter the samples into the national DNA database.
Congress passed a law authorizing the collection program in 2005, but rules specifying how the process would work weren't finalized until early this year.
If and when the program is implemented, federal agents will take most of the DNA samples by swabbing the inside of a person's cheek, a process that proponents of expanded DNA testing say is no different from taking someone's fingerprint.
Supporters of the 2005 DNA Fingerprint Act say the expanded database will help law enforcement officers catch dangerous criminals like Angel Resendiz, a serial killer who was executed in Texas in 2006. Resendiz, an undocumented immigrant, was apprehended and returned to Mexico many times before reentering the U.S., where he was arrested and charged with murder in 1999.
Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who co-authored the DNA Act, wrote in a 2005 press release, "If his DNA had been taken at one of those deportations, Resendiz would have been identified as soon as that sample was tested."
Immigration lawyers and civil liberties advocates object to the law because they say most undocumented immigrants are held for suspected violations of civil, not criminal, laws and therefore shouldn't be entered into a criminal database.
David Leopold, a Cleveland attorney and president-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, has said that some people rounded up during immigration raids turn out to be U.S. citizens. Those who are, in fact, undocumented immigrants "are mostly hard-working folks, not criminals," he said, adding that collecting their DNA "serves no legitimate law enforcement purpose."
Others oppose collecting DNA from immigrants because of the strain it will put on the FBI's lab, which has a backlog of more than 293,000 untested DNA samples from people arrested or convicted of federal crimes. Also waiting to be tested are unidentified DNA samples from about 2,000 crime scenes.
As we've previously reported, victims' advocates argue that testing delays allow rapists and murderers to remain on the streets.
Originally, the FBI's DNA database was limited to these convicted violent offenders. Over the years, however, its scope has expanded. Under the 2005 law, it now includes DNA samples from anyone arrested or detained by federal authorities, even if they aren't ultimately charged or convicted. People later acquitted of crimes can petition to have their DNA profiles expunged from the FBI's database.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano assured Kyl at a hearing in May that her agency intends to carry out the mandate. She said Homeland Security "has been working with [the Department of Justice] and the FBI to resolve outstanding operational questions."
She did not specify what those operational questions might be.
Kyl's office referred questions to a Republican staffer for the Senate Judiciary Committee, who told us that Republicans are satisfied with the department's progress.
Michael Risher, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California, said he was not surprised that the effort still isn't off the ground.
"The rule was not thought out well enough," Risher said, "and now we are stuck with it just because of politics."
I would like to continue to inform potential patients of the various imaging procedures that are performed by radiologists and this week I will discuss myelograms.
A myelogram provides detailed information about the spinal cord and the nerve roots. This information is valuable in helping your doctor make a diagnosis or plan the appropriate treatment to help relieve back or leg symptoms. A myelogram is a procedure that involves multiple images obtained after an iodine containing contrast agent was injected into the spinal canal and the sac that contains the spinal cord and nerve roots.
A myelogram is performed by placing a needle in the lower back or occasionally in the neck. The needle placement is localized using imaging guidance. Although local anesthesia is used, the needle tip is in a location near the nerve roots, so pain or an electric shock sensation may be felt down the leg; if this happens, the needle position can be adjusted. A small amount of cerebrospinal fluid is removed and contrast is injected, and the needle is removed. A series of x-ray images are obtained. A CT scan is routinely performed after the myelogram in order to provide cross sectional information. Much of the procedure is performed with the patient lying face down. The entire procedure from start to finish lasts approximately one hour and the patient is awake during the procedure.
In order to prepare for a myelogram certain medications should be withheld because they lower the seizure threshold; e.g. anti-depressant medications, Zyban (for smoking cessation), anti-psychotic medications, CNS stimulants, muscle relaxants or any other medication that lowers the seizure threshold. The physician and the radiologist should be informed in advance so that these medications can be stopped at least 48 hours before the procedure. Patients should not have any caffeine or alcohol on the day of the procedure. A nurse will take vital signs, start intravenous line and answer any questions just prior to the procedure. Routine radiographs are usually performed prior to a myelogram.
Are there alternatives to a myelogram? Yes. An MRI can provide much of the same information as a myelogram without an injection of contrast. In those individuals who cannot tolerate MRI scanning because of claustrophobia or contraindications, such as a pacemaker, a myelogram is an extremely useful examination. In certain instances the physician may recommend that both tests (a myelogram and an MR examination) be performed.
After the procedure the patient will be placed on bed rest with their head elevated (about 30 degrees) to decrease the risk of headache and encouraged to drink plenty of fluids throughout the day of the procedure. Mild soreness at the site of the lumbar puncture is expected. Headache is not an uncommon complication and may occur immediately after the procedure or within hours, lasting from hours (usually) to days. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are usually used for treatment.
I never imagined Basil Rathbone would ever be surpassed when it came to playing Sherlock Holmes. But surely now Jeremy Brett is the definitive detective. For some, Margaret Rutherford holds the same place of honor when it comes to Miss Marple, the deceptively sweet and mild-mannered little old lady with a keen eye for clues. Others give TV's Joan Hickson first place of honor. But we can all agree the recent relaunch of Miss Marple with the excellent actress Geraldine McEwan was a flop. Miss Marple with a long-lost love? One shudders. They've started from scratch (again) because they know mystery buffs will line up and watch anything with stately homes, British accents...and MURDER.
But surely they're pushing it with the desultory batch of episodes in AGATHA CHRISTIE MARPLE SERIES 4 ($59.99; Acorn). The new Miss Marple is Julia McKenzie, of the delightful miniseries Cranford. (Well worth renting, that one.) Her Jane Marple is certainly a little more Marple-ish than McEwan's but still not spot-on for my taste. This Marple actually seems a bit overwhelmed and flustered at times, even rather confused. (Very mildly, of course.) Yes, she gently prods the local police towards the proper clues but there isn't as much fun made of this as there might be.
I might be reading too much into a banal reaction shot, but one touch I did like was a hint of passion for Marple: when her predictions come true and another person is murdered, a close-up of Marple reveals the barest hint of a thrill of delight coursing through her. At another point, she's asked if she would ever consider heading to a mansion where murder is feared and the close-up shows Marple pretending to weigh the idea when of course wild bulls couldn't keep her away.
But no Marple could overcome the rote nature of these productions. We're offered 4 complete mysteries, each about 90 minutes in length. The first ("A Pocket Full Of Rye") takes a beastly half an hour to involve Marple properly in the goings-on and is unfortunately rather broadly comic in tone. In the last, she takes a bit of a back seat to young people investigating their first crime (Sean Biggerstaff of Harry Potter is the main one).
Yes, all four include the usual array of top-notch British talent: Brian Cox, Rupert Graves, Shirley Henderson, Matthew Macfayden, Jemma Redgrave, Prunella Scales, Samantha Bond, Alex Jennigns and even Joan Collins are all on hand. But every episode contains a clutch of lesser performers who are genuinely bad and overact in the extreme, to the point of provoking laughter. (Blood...will...OUT!" sputters one young woman in "They Do It With Mirrors," rather hilariously.) And the casting of big names, as so often happens, provides the most obvious clues of all. If I ranked the episodes, I would be choosing which one was the least weak. So the biggest crime here is the one committed against Agatha Christie.
ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:
BALLERINA ($24.95; First Run) -- It took me a few weeks to catch up with this documentary about five dancers in the Russian Kirov (aka Mariinsky). The five women range in age and disciplines, but their talent and extreme hard work link them completely. You see rehearsals and exercise and pain and talk with them while preparing for performances of crowd-pleasers like Swan Lake and Romeo & Juliet. But even those warhorses are incredibly demanding. Obviously, dance lovers will love this, but it's a testament to the sweat that goes into any artistic endeavor worth the name and anyone can appreciate it. Also out is the charming Carmen & Geoffrey ($24.95; First Run), which captures the remarkable love story and artistic accomplishments of dancers Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder. You'll appreciate my ignorance of the world of dance when I tell you I only knew Holder as the guy from those 7-Up ads and the James Bond film Live and Let Die.
RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN ($39.99 Special Edition and $44.99 BluRay; Disney) -- OK, before I bemoan the changes made to Escape To Witch Mountain (what, kids think the word "escape" is too dull so they changed it to "race") not to mention the inclusion of The Rock, let's be clear. I had fond thoughts for the original Seventies kid flick but it was pretty tame, even at the time. So Race To Witch Mountain doesn't soil a beloved classic, it just takes a high concept idea and revamps it for today. No harm, no foul. But no good movie, either. The BluRay costs $5 more than the Special Edition but only $3 more on sale at Amazon ($25.99 versus $22.99). But the single disc edition costs only $15.99 on sale, which is a very substantial difference. It's nice to see BluRay and Special Edition DVDs coming closer in price, but until they're regularly under $20, fans won't bother with either. The BluRay does contain a regular DVD along with the digital copy that also comes with the Special Edition. Is all that confusing? For $26 instead of $16, you can get a lot of flexibility (a copy for the BluRay player, a regular DVD for the kid's room and road trips and a digital copy to carry on a laptop or other device). But that's a lot of money for a little convenience. Kudos to them for releasing all three versions at the same time, but cut out all the bonus features or keep them and lower the price and drop the stripped down one-disc version and send those only to video stores and Netflix. The array of choices is confusing and wasteful and tiresome and BluRay is about to go under for good if it hasn't already as an option.
FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS SECOND SEASON ($29.98; HBO) -- During the first season of this show about a New Zealand duo looking for pop success in the US, I often fast-forwarded to the always delightful musical numbers. But slowly the show is growing on me or the guys are just finding their rhythm. In either case, it's become a quiet charmer...even when they're NOT singing.
THE SOLOIST ($29.98; DreamWorks) -- Oscar bait, but no one was nibbling. The TV movie-ready story of a down on his luck newspaper reporter (Robert Downey Jr) helping out a talented homeless man (Jamie Foxx) with a gift for classical music) is pure mawkishness that two fine actors can't overcome.
THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD ($59.99; Athena) -- This six -part PBS miniseries turns the science of cartography -- map-making -- into an exploration of the globe. Narrated by Patrick Stewart, it does have the air of a lecture, but a very good lecture indeed. Teens might think they won't be interested, but they will be. It's often damning with faint praise to say a series can inform and educate you, but that surely was the goal here and they achieved it.
PROJECT RUNWAY SEASON 5 ($27.95; Genius) -- The most star-studded PR yet, with guests like Sandra Bernhard, LL Cool J, Brooke Shields and Natalie Portman popping in alongside Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum. The men were completely shut out of the female-dominated final three and rightly so. And while a reality series might be the wrong place to make this argument, why do they wait till right before the beginning of the new season to release a show on DVD? In the UK, they release shows on DVD as soon as the series ends (sometimes, even while it's still airing) and that piggybacking on all the reviews and publicity seems smart to me. Anyone who wants to catch up before the new season only has a blink of an eye to do it here. (That's really a pain when it comes to 24, for example.) Get it out as soon as the show ends; don't hold onto it until right before the new season begins.
THE TIGGER MOVIE: 10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION ($29.99; Disney) -- I don't like endless spin-offs of Disney characters. I really don't like the direct-to-DVD mush (though this one was released theatrically) and I don't think a character like Tigger -- a classic supporting role if ever there was one -- should be front and center, any more than I want to see a Peanuts film focusing on Snoopy. So sue me, I was wrong. The Tigger Movie is the exception, thanks to songs by the legendary Sherman Brothers, great voice work and a better than average script. Gentle fare that can hold its head high. And if it leads you to reading the A.A. Milne books aloud to your kids, all the better. Extras include two new Tigger shorts.
THE LOVE BOAT SEASON 2 VOLUME 2 ($36.98; Paramount) -- How in God's name did I sit and watch this series every Saturday night as a kid? It is almost embarrassingly predictable and trite, with the least sexy crew-members on a cruise ship ever. (And where are the gay cruise ship employees?) Heartily condemned by critics at the time and now I'm old enough to know they were right. Not that this stopped me from skipping ahead to the episode starring Charo and you may feel compelled to search out the ones with Sonny Bono, Corey Feldman, Reggie Jackson, Minnie Pearl and the like, depending on your taste or age range. Sure, regular folk had Social Security. But aging celebs had The Love Boat. (Now, I guess they have Dancing With The Stars.)
While ideology and profit politics predominate discussions and inhibit momentum toward any meaningful and sweepingly effective health care reform in America, there are fundamental and effective options on the table for changing the health culture and health of Americans. Toward the top of that list is the subject of this week's World Breastfeeding Awareness Week.
While Americans still get caught up in discussions of breastfeeding as if it were strictly a life style decision of the mother and a matter of ordering her priorities, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization are adamant that babies are born to be breastfed and that human milk should be the main source of calories for human babies for at least the first year of life, and the exclusive source for the first six months. WHO goes further than AAP and recommends two years or more of access to human milk. Research on brain development and many aspects of health from allergies, to infections and diabetes, supports these recommendations.
The morbidity and mortality related to infant formula use around the world has been documented well for the past 25 or 30 years. Not as well documented is the obliteration of critical natural resources such as wood and water used in preparing formula, or the interruption of natural child spacing caused when long term breastfeeding is not practiced.
In our country, where water sterilization is not so much of a problem, the health issues related to not breastfeeding, for both mother and infant, are myriad and well established by research, but are not as immediately dramatic as the death by diarrhea seen in so-called third world countries. Both formula and human milk have some bio contamination issues that are complex, but despite issues of contamination in human milk, the research is still hands down unanimous in favoring human milk as the optimal nourishment for human babies, and research even shows that human milk helps babies handle wider contamination issues more effectively. It's astonishing to me that the superiority of human milk over formula should have to be proven to anyone. Human milk is alive, complex, immunologically active and impossible to reproduce commercially.
In recent years, when the Department of Health and Human Services tried to launch a big campaign based on the dangers of not breastfeeding, their efforts were effectively squelched by the great political strength of the lobbyist for the formula/pharmaceutical companies.
America's lack of adequate paid parental leave and its attendant encouragement of a healthy length of time at breast for newborns and older infants is a major part of the scandal of American health culture. I think most Americans would be astonished to find out what goes on in many other "advanced" societies in terms of long term parental leave, often for both parents, leave time which allows the establishment of firm family ties and an biologically appropriate length of access to human milk and consistent, present parenting. Human milk is by my assessment one of the most important seriously threatened natural resources on the planet.
With all the vast amount of media attention to the issue of obesity and its attendant health problems today, far too little attention is given to the fact that it is well known that access to breast milk in infancy and beyond is protective against later childhood and later life obesity.
The slogan of the now defunct Department of Health and Human Services campaign to promote breastfeeding was "Babies are Born to Be Breastfed". This is a simple human and biological fact. It is not made any less true by ardent discussions of the rights of woman to decide to not breastfeed.
The bottom line is that every woman who has a baby wants a healthy baby with a healthy brain. The best way to get that is good prenatal nutrition in a low stress, non- toxic environment and then long term breastfeeding with adequate workplace support for suckling and pumping. Even a few months at the breast is much better than none at all.
It's World Breastfeeding Week, and this week the Breastfeeding Bill of Rights, which has been passed by both houses of the New York State legislature is on Governor Patterson's desk waiting to be signed. Urging the Governor to sign this bill without delay would be one fundamental way that everyone can support one aspect of real health care reform while the politics of insurance goes on front and center.
Black, who also speaks on gay rights issues and safe sex practices across America, is planning to sue Starzlife Inc. who published photos of Black engagaing in sex acts in 2006 with his then boyfriend Justin Delancey for breach of privacy and copyright infringement.
Black has also filed a lawsuit against Michael Lawrence Delancey's ex-boyfriend who alleges he stole the photos from Delancey's computer while they were together.
Black claims in the lawsuit that he thought the photos were merely of "their heads and upper torsos", were not of a sexually explicit nature and were to remain private.
This is an incredibly bad idea. As the owner of a blog that's had several unnecessary lawsuit threats, I'd like to offer a bit of free advice on internet public relations. (Also a complete copy of the court filings at the end.)
Two Case Studies in Bad Damage Control
It never ceases to amaze me how stupid some lawyers can be when it comes to the internet. Two recent examples from the Bilerico vaults:
Indiana blogger Gary Welsh Gary Welsh is a gay Republican blogger that is often the brunt of the local blogosphere's jokes. He's a staunch "birther" who often lashes out at other bloggers and media and has no qualms about being inflammatory or derisive; it's why he's so often a target for ridicule. Bilerico-Indiana alumni Tyrion Lannister was a critic of Welsh's posts about candidates Andre Carson and Barack Obama.
In April of 2008, Welsh sent me a howling e-mail referencing Tyrion's use of a pen name. "You can graciously identify the name of this person, or you can be named as a defendant in a lawsuit and be served with a subpoena commanding you to reveal his identity," he wrote. He wanted his critic silenced.
Rather than email back, I replied in a blog posting that told him, literally, "F--k directly off." I also took the opportunity to recount all of Welsh's faults, his history with the blogosphere, and his online reputation for using racist and xenophobic tactics. Welsh's tactic backfired; instead of getting what he wanted it made for a bigger story that was picked up by many political bloggers around the state and even a local radio talk show.
His intimidation tactics got my hackles up and left a bad taste in the mouth of most other political junkies. It was simply not a good PR move and he would have been better off letting it go.
After I blew the lid on Rockstar's legal blustering, the story spread like internet wildfire. Other bloggers talked about the threats they'd received and stories popped up on numerous websites and in other media. At one point social media giant Reddit's users were complaining at how often something about Rockstar Energy Drink was on their front page as a top story.
In the end, Rockstar did the right thing and started talking to bloggers and critics instead of trying to silence or punish us; a bold agreement was reached between ROCKSTAR Energy Drink and several LGBT rights organizations. This agreement resulted in significant changes to Rockstar Energy Drink's corporate practices to reflect LGBT-friendly policies, and also saw more than $100,000 distributed to four LGBT organizations through a multi-year, systemic gift.
The Dustin Lance Black Sex Pics Controversy
Black's history as a safe-sex advocate was besmirched by evidence of his barebacking. We all make mistakes, however, and while we're a judgmental community, sadly, barebacking isn't something that is likely to stick out in people's minds. He's apologized and explained his actions and should stick to advocating for safe-sex education; his own personal story will only make his testimonies more compelling.
While I don't deny that Black didn't want the photos published, his claims that he didn't know the pics showed anything more than his head and torso ring incredibly false. Let's face it, tons of gay men have naked pictures of themselves. In the days of internet dating, hook-up sites and chat rooms, the c--k shot or sexy nude pose has become de rigueur for the sexually active gay man. Nonetheless, most anyone would probably be embarrassed to have those pictures splashed across the internet and queer news portals.
As the owner of a serious queer news and opinion blog, I can testify to the power of sex to bring attention and dollars. Our slightly scandalous posts bring the viewers needed to pay the bills. (See the top ten posts for a typical month and do a comparison of serious vs sexy to see what I mean.) While Black's barebacking might be a mini tempest of talk to begin with, it's the sex factor that will keep gay men coming back for more. As a young, cute and famous queer, Black's image will likely only be bolstered by the nudie shot floating around in cyberspace.
A Better Solution
Dustin Lance Black would be better served by letting the issue die a quiet and ignoble death. The original hit to his image is now taking a double dose of negative publicity as talk about the pictures comes back to the headlines If you want something to go away quietly, you don't shout about it from the roof of a stadium.
While Gary Welsh sank like a ship during his PR battle, Rockstar Energy Drink wised up quickly. Welsh is still a target of ridicule, but Rockstar ended up with quite a bit of positive publicity and goodwill. (Just look at this post; I've been able to link all the past posts which just keeps those events alive on the web.)
Black's ill-served decision to sue the website for a huge sum of money only serves the same purpose. Now his photos are circulating again and being linked to by website that have untold millions of viewers. He's creating his own perfect storm.
Letting the story die on its own while reaping the rewards of the average gay man's penchant for the occasional nudie pic would be a much smarter PR move. Black should fire whoever is advising him and hire a web savvy PR firm; this is a rookie mistake that could have been avoided.
This week the guys talk about some funny crime stories in Chicago -- and some not so funny crime stories.
Former ABC-7 political reporter and new Better Government Association boss Andy Shaw outlines his plan for combating corruption. It involves a teapot and you. And they're bring the heat with an all-sports Speed Score. Cue chin music.
The prospect of a wholesale overhaul of the health care system is bringing a new face to the Capitol Hill lobbying scrum. The National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA), a network that represents independent pharmacists across the country, is spending much more money than it ever has before in an effort to make its voice heard.
But in a legislative fight that has drawn record amounts from all parties, the pharmacists could be drowned out all the same.
Until 2006, the NCPA spent from $100,000 to $300,000 on lobbying per election cycle. But during the 2008 election they laid out almost $1 million and they've spent an additional $830,300 since November.
The reason the pharmacists felt the need to spend so much will sound familiar to many of those who have been following the debate: They worry that the legislation will overly reflect the massive clout of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
Their goal is to establish themselves as stakeholders in the health care debate -- and defend their revenue from better-moneyed members of the industry.
John Norton, Associate Director of Public Relations for the NCPA, said pharmacists would like to play a more active role in the reform debate. If patients have better relationships with their pharmacists they can better comprehend and adhere to their medication regimens and potentially avoid complications related to non-compliance, he said. Such changes would significantly contribute to cost reduction.
The initial impetus for NCPA to join the lobbying fray was the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, which came into effect in 2006.
The legislation placed processing and payment of prescription drug claims into the hands of large third-party administrators known as Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs).
The PBMs adjusted the reimbursement schedule so that pharmacies were being reimbursed less regularly. "That created a lot of cash flow issues" said Norton. He noted that at the time of the shift about 5 percent of independent pharmacies went out of business.
"Because they're so massive, they enter into contract negotiations with us and we are given 'take it or leave it' contracts, where essentially we're told take this contract or lose access to the patients," Norton said.
The NCPA is at present seeking an antitrust exemption to be able to collectively bargain with the PBMs, and the group is lobbying on current legislation to adopt a different reimbursement mechanism on any public option plan.
When asked about their position on the prospect of a public option, Kevin Schwears, NCPA's vice president of public affairs said they were "advocating that any so-called 'public option' insurance plan doesn't disadvantage community pharmacy." But on whether or not there should be a public option at all, the group remains "agnostic."
You either feel good, or you don't. Life is either moving smoothly, or it isn't. You either have what you need, or you don't. You either think you are enough or have enough, or you don't
When you don't, you are in stress.
When you are in stress, your body will let you know by causing you some kind of discomfort -- physical, emotional, mental or psychological.
This is how your body speaks to you. Experiencing hunger? The body is letting you know it needs food. Feeling tired? The body is letting you know it needs rest. Feeling frustrated? The body is telling you to reassess your situation because you are not getting your needs met and perhaps you may need to turn elsewhere.
The body first communicates subtly, in whispers -- a pang in the neck, a tingle in the stomach, feeling run down or out-of-sorts. It speaks to you through emotional symptoms -- like overwhelming sadness or experiences of annoyance. It communicates through your own thoughts, be they judgmental notions toward yourself or worries regarding your future.
Through discomfort of one kind or another -- physical, mental, emotional or psychological -- the body lets you know that there is an underlying problem it would like you to address. It has to do it this way, otherwise you would not know that it was time to eat, sleep, or change positions. For instance, if you sat in the same position for 10 hours and your body did not register some sort of discomfort consciously for you, you would not move and your muscles would atrophy,
Now imagine that your body did register discomfort, but you could not move because you were trapped. The mild discomfort would become outright pain. Your mild irritation might turn into outright panic. Your body is no longer whispering and you are now screaming! Help!!
This is what happens when stress accumulates and is not taken care of: The stress response which uses every system of your body goes into over-drive so that your body will break down.
Your goal is therefore to find as many ways as possible for your brain and body to release endorphins, other hormones and neurotransmitters like oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin, which can turn this stress response off.
Here are 8 things you can do:
1. Exercise: Releases endorphins, other hormones and neurotransmitters, like serotonin. Find an activity that you will do -- the more fun, the more likely you will do it. Find a buddy! 2. Nutrition: Avoid too much of foods that increase inflammation in the body like processed foods, simple sugars, trans-fats and baked goods made with white flour for example (small amounts are okay). Instead, choose foods that lower inflammation like dark leafy greens, whole grains, omega-3 rich oils, turmeric, and proteins that are not too fatty. 3. Meditate: Research is very strong on how effective any type of meditation practice is on turning off the stress response. Choose from a variety of methods including, tai chi, yoga, transcendental meditation, vipassana, mindfulness, visual imagery, listening to meditative music, etc. You can pick up a CD and just let it guide you into relaxation. 4. Sleep: If you are getting adequate sleep, you will feel rested upon awakening. On average, you need around 8 hours of sleep, which may vary from individual to individual. It also doesn't have to be all at once. So take a nap if you are tired. 5. Laugh: Studies show that a simple smile will send messages to your brain to involve neurons and other brain centers to help you reduce activity of the stress response. Laughter is even better as a good belly laugh will help you use up calories too! 6. Support: Humans are social animals. Connecting to others and having their support has been found to help many medical conditions and help people live longer, as well as turn off the stress response. Turn to your community -- be it the folks in your religious or spiritual group, or social club (book, golf, sewing, etc.) 7. Love: The research is getting stronger, showing that love in its many forms -- romantic, platonic, maternal, spiritual, and altruistic -- is good for you. In the state of love, oxytocin, morphine-like products, dopamine and the like are released in higher amounts into your brain and body, turning off the stress response and helping you feel better. So go hug and get hugged or perform a random act of kindness. In this way, not only will you feel better, but you will help someone else feel better too. 8. Engage: Engage in an activity you love. When you are engaged and happy, your mind is no longer experiencing fear and stress, but rather enjoyment and flow. Take a class in something you have always wanted to learn just for fun or simply make the time, even if it is only 10 minutes a day, to do something creative that you enjoy.
Since Jon & Kate Plus 8 stars Jon and Kate Gosselin announced they were divorcing on June 22, their lives have been turned upside down. Jon's life has become a circus and he's been criticized for partying in St. Tropez and in N.Y.'s Hamptons, and for dating two younger women, Hailey Glassman and tabloid reporter Kate Major. "Things have gotten out of control," Jon tells In Touch in a revealing interview. "Many people think that everything moved too fast, that I was out partying too quickly. But Kate gave up on the marriage last October, and the divorce will be finalized by September 30." Jon, 32, met with In Touch on August 2 in New York to set the record straight about his marriage, his new girlfriend, how all of the drama is affecting his children and why he's tired of being blamed.
What is the biggest difference in your life now, compared to a year ago?
Let's go back to October of last year -- that's when all of this happened. Kate basically came to me out of the blue and said, "I am done. You are going to live your life, and I am going to live my life." I was like, "What?" I didn't really know what was going on. When she said that, I was really upset and nervous.
Why did she want to break up?
I think she initiated the split because she wanted a career. Maybe I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, and she was going to move on regardless. I said, "Are you sure about this?"
Did you want to work it out?
Yes, I asked, "What do I have to do to mend the relationship? What did I do wrong?" I was beating myself up about it. So I read a lot of books about personalities, like The Five Love Languages. Throughout the marriage, I felt like my personality had changed a lot. In December, I went to therapy. I asked Kate to come, but she didn't want to. She said, "If you have a problem, go fix it."
When did you and Kate start living separate lives?
We went to Utah on January 1. On January 12, she flew back with security and I stayed. That's when I started to just hang out and meet people, and feel free. Not too many girls, just with my guy friends. I couldn't do that for nine years. When I came back on the 17th, Kate and I weren't talking. So I just said, "I'm moving out of the house," and that was it.
What was your first relationship?
Hailey -- it started around May. She is the polar opposite of Kate. It's really different. I feel good about myself and people see my good qualities. I'm not being put down. If I want to go out with my friends, Hailey says, "Oh, go out." I'm not used to that. I was used to, "No, no, it's your fault." Sometimes I ask Hailey permission, like I used to do with Kate, and she says, "You don't have to ask permission." I was used to living like that, and now it's like a breath of fresh air. You can have a balanced relationship but also spend time with your friends.
How did you fall in love with Hailey?
We started talking and got along well. I started getting really attracted to her, like, on the phone. She really listened to me and took in what I was saying. Then she came back to her parents' house in May and I went up to see her. We hit it off. It was great. She is amazing.
Kate Major said she was dating you.
I felt like, "Okay, I have a cool new person in New York and we can just go out for dinner." Then it was a conflict of interest with her work. I have always been true to Hailey.
How are the kids handling the split and all of the drama?
Even though they are young, it still hurts them. They can't figure it out. They're like, "Why aren't they together? Why can't you hug her?" The other day, Alexis said, "I want you and Mommy to be home together." And it hurts because it's not going to happen -- and how do you explain that? I just let them know we love them no matter what. It's hard. I feel like I failed them.
When will you introduce Hailey as your girlfriend to the kids?
I think it would have to be after the divorce is finalized. I can't just show up with Hailey. I think we all need a little routine in our lives. Right now, it's helter-skelter. Once there is a routine, we'll start off slowly, like going out to dinner. We are dealing with eight different personalities, and they will each handle it in different ways. They may never be comfortable.
For the full exclusive interview with Jon Gosselin, check out this week's issue of In Touch Weekly, on newsstands now.
I know I should be happy-go-lucky this month, I really do. It's August and everyone's lounging on the beach, playing hooky from work and generally just sipping lemonade all day long, but there's something that has me so fired up that I just can't let it slide. So forgive the seriousness of my missive, and don't let this become rain on your summer parade ... just let it help reinforce what you already know to be true.
Last week, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition released something they call a "systematic review" of the nutritional quality of organic foods, and you know what? They determined that there are no significant differences between the nutritional content of organic and conventional foods. This story was picked up by what seemed to be every news outlet on the planet, and consumer reactions can more or less be summed up as: "Aha! Just as we thought! Another great hoax perpetrated upon us to get us to spend more money."
For those of us who are passionately committed to spreading the "organic gospel," this was not welcome news. Not that we actually believe or accept the findings of the review, but we already deal daily with feedback from adults who may have "survived" growing up on processed, non-organic fare, and their mentality is often that of, "well, it didn't kill me, so it probably won't kill my kid." Sadly, that this isn't necessarily so, as the stakes are much higher today, what with a frequently polluted food supply. This generation has to dodge all sorts of nutritional bullets, from pesticide residue to tainted packaging.
Luckily, there is a voice of sanity in all this, as the Organic Trade Association took on the broader questions of "what is health?" versus "what is nutrition?" and emphatically declared that a food system which does not include pesticides, synthetic growth hormones and antibiotics, while generating healthy soil and protecting natural resources absolutely does promotes good health and nutrition. Amen! (Read OTA's Statement here.)
The days that followed the initial wave of anti-organic feedback have since been filled with voices of outrage; and thank goodness for that. So, as you bask in the glow of summer's final month -- eating outdoors and enjoying the season's bounty -- please do try to choose foods not treated with harsh chemicals and pesticides, or grown amid sewage sludge. By the way, you'll also be opting to promote soil fertility, combat climate change, protect farmers' health and livelihoods and more. And that matters, nutritionally and otherwise.
In the late 1970s, President Carter struggled to gather institutional and public support for a national urban agenda that would focus federal policy on cities. Urban areas, he believed, were in decline because the federal government had neglected them. Ultimately, his national urban policy was a bust that fizzled out upon Reagan's assumption of the presidency. However, as President Obama strives to formulate his own urban agenda, at least one of his policy innovations - federal urban impact analyses - ought to be revived.
On August 16, 1978 Carter signed an executive order requiring all executive agencies to develop Urban and Community Impact Statements. The Office of Management and Budget later clarified what the UCIAs would contain. Every federal agency was to analyze each of its proposed initiatives for their impact on cities, counties, and communities and inform the OMB and the White House about policies that ran counter to Carter's urban policy. The agencies were to evaluate initiatives based on income, population, employment, state and local governments' fiscal condition, and other factors (e.g. neighborhood stability) in central cities, suburbs, non-metropolitan communities, communities with high unemployment, and low-income communities.
Though the process varied somewhat, federal agencies generally had to submit the UCIAs to the OMB along with their budget requests, which the OMB then reviewed and submitted to the president for final determination of what programs and funding levels to request from Congress. Tying UCIAs to the budgetary process was a significant, and perhaps overly ambitious, action, as the formulation of the federal budget is one of the most important and work-intensive of the White House's tasks.
The UCIAs were supposed to inform substantively OMB's evaluation of agency budgetary and legislative requests, ideally striking proposals with the worst impacts on urban areas and maintaining those with the best. In practice, a GAO report on UCIAs released just prior to Reagan's termination of the analyses, found that most federal agencies failed to produce UCIAs and that OMB failed to utilize them when they were provided. But the GAO report emphasizes that the limited effectiveness of the UCIAs resulted from procedural and administrative mistakes, not programmatic ones.
Bringing UCIAs back, either through congressional action or through an executive order, would be a significant step towards unearthing the already existent hidden federal urban agenda. Indeed, federal policies like the mortgage interest tax deduction are widely recognized to have a significant impact on cities and suburbs, but decision makers do not recognize this impact when formulating policy. The UCIAs would help elevate the government's federal urban presence to explicit urban policy.
A new UCIA program could learn from the mistakes of the Carter administration. UCIAs could be completed by the White House Office of Urban Affairs, instead of by the agency charged with formulating the policy, mitigating political considerations in the evaluation of urban impacts. The UCIAs could be informed by public comment and made public after their formulation, unlike during the Carter administration. This would both engage the public in policy formulation and allow community groups and others a window into how a wide range of policies - not just explicitly urban ones - will affect their communities. The UCIAs could even be modeled after Environmental Impact statements. This would mean that they would be performed on every proposed federal project that would significantly affect cities, but would not be tied to the budgetary process, easing the burden on the White House at an already hectic time.
Reinstating Urban and Community Impact Analysis would not mean an immediate shift to a federal policy that benefited cities, but would certainly help bring the urban impacts of federal policy - both good and bad - into the light.
Europe's leadership role in the current financial crisis has been to arrange a record number of summits. President Sarkozy of France persuaded President George W. Bush to host a G20 summit in Washington and Prime Minister Gordon Brown proudly hosted the next one in London. European summits were plentiful, and as empty as expected.
What emerged from those initiatives is a troubling suspicion that Europe's actions will not live up to the rhetoric surrounding all these summits.
Is this hypocritical? After all, European bank losses were as high as those in the U.S.. They even used the same compensation system. More importantly, their fragmented and ineffective regulatory system shares responsibility for the crisis. Europe needs to address its own weaknesses, and put its own house in order, rather than merely point fingers.
Having followed closely the European reactions, I would venture that they suffer not so much from hypocrisy as from impotence to resolve problems within the European Union. By holding summits and issuing abrasive declarations, European leaders sought to convince their citizens that they had European solutions to the problem, even though they did not. This was particularly true during the very active French Presidency in the second half of 2008.
The European Union does not have strong financial regulatory institutions. They never wanted the equivalent of an SEC: I remember participating in the debates of the European task force for European financial services and writing a comment letter stating that "Ten great police precincts would never make Scotland Yard". European politicians are hypocritical when they bemoan Europe's inability to take common initiatives. They did everything to prevent Europe from having the institutional framework to act decisively.
The European Central Bank, which acted admirably during the crisis, has no regulatory power. Everything is decided by the Member States. Europe has 27 SECs, 27 Central Banks and 27 Ministries of Finance. Their coordination is very complex because some are not member s of the Euro and are therefore not participants in the European Central Bank system. To add to the complexity, France and Germany are using these reforms to undercut the City of London, thereby creating a conflict with the United Kingdom.
Furthermore, if a decision is taken today by the European Commission , it might be approved by the Council of Ministers in a few months, sent to the European Parliament who may deliberate for more than a year, and, last but not least, submitted to the 27 individual parliaments. Today's decision could be implemented in 2011 at the earliest.
The European system simply cannot accommodate rapid measures such as the TARPs, or the stimulus package, or other urgent regulatory reform. Rather than admitting this difficulty and acknowledging that the best way forward is to cooperate with the United States, Europe will wake up after its long vacation to find the United States already implementing new regulations on compensation, rating agencies, short sales, credit cards, etc. They will likely criticize the U.S. for acting unilaterally, but will eventually follow suit.
The best example of this dynamic is the stress tests. Despite doubts in the U.S. about aspects of the methodology, everybody recognizes that the tests reduced anxiety by providing some degree of transparency regarding the health of leading U.S. banks. The Europeans chose to criticize the initiative and refused to follow course. Realizing their mistake, the European Commission recently launched a system of stress tests at national levels that will be "substantially" the same but whose results will not be disclosed. These opaque tests will not relieve pervasive doubts about European banks.
Despite their protests to the contrary, European leaders have a fundamental problem with transparency, whether at political or business level. The United States cannot wait for the Europeans to arrive at a consensus that might never be achieved, and needs to continue to reform their financial system. The Europeans will eventually, begrudgingly, follow.
The U.S. financial authorities are well aware of their predicament. How do you handle a proud, sometimes loud, but impotent critic? The proper response is to remain focused on the problem while avoiding the temptation to retaliate. So far, the U.S. has been impressively silent about the fundamental weakness of its European partners. Their weakness might, in fact, suit American policies. "Divide et imperas" (Divide and rule) is an old Roman dictum. The Europeans could make it easier for the U.S. by dividing themselves.
CAIRNS, Australia — A group of tiny Pacific Island countries appealed to the world Wednesday to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent to help save them from rising seas.
The seven nations, whose coral atolls rise just a few yards (meters) above sea level, urged rich nations to make the cut in their polluting emissions by 2020.
"As you drive along the roads along the coast, you will see coconut trees in the water – that's an indication of the sea level rise" in Tuvalu, Prime Minister Edward Natapei told reporters Wednesday at the annual summit of South Pacific leaders. At least one village has been abandoned, he said.
The seven countries, part of the 16-member Pacific Islands Forum, said in a statement they are worried about the "serious and growing threat posed by climate change to the economic, social, cultural and environmental well-being and security" of their populations.
Wednesday's appeal was the latest made by Pacific Island countries at international forums, and comes ahead of negotiations in Copenhagen in December on a new global pact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
U.N. climate change negotiator Yvo de Boer said industrialized countries need to adopt ambitious targets in Copenhagen and "engagement" from major developing countries was needed if a new agreement is to succeed.
"A number of these low-lying islands are clearly under threat already," de Boer told Sky News television on the sidelines of the South Pacific summit, which he is attending as an observer.
Many scientists agree that carbon dioxide and other harmful gases are warming the planet and melting ice caps, gradually raising sea levels.
Pacific countries including Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu have coral atolls no more than 10 feet (3 meters) above sea level, and rising oceans are threatening to eat away coastlines, pollute freshwater sources and kill off fruit-bearing trees and other crops.
South Pacific countries' small populations and impoverished states leave them with little diplomatic or economic clout at big international meetings.
They won some rhetorical support Wednesday from summit host Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who called climate change "the greatest challenge of our time." He promised to become an advocate of the islanders' plight in Denmark.
"Half the populations of these island countries are lying in the pathway of coastal inundation," said Rudd. "Australia's responsibility (is) to argue as clearly and cogently as we can the interests of our friends and neighbors in the councils of the world."
South Pacific countries "are among the least responsible for the causes of climate change. But they will bear the brunt of its impact the most," Rudd said.
Rudd has set a target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by up to 15 percent below 2000 levels by 2020, but says he might go deeper if a new pact is reached in Copenhagen.
The group of seven small countries – the Cook Islands, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau and Tuvalu – adopted the position of the global Association of Small Islands States that asks developed nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent by 2020 and 85 percent by 2050.
After eight people were burnt alive, over 50 houses destroyed and a church desecrated in the village of Gojra, Pakistani Christians have expressed their rage and frustration. There have been nationwide protests, and Christian schools across Pakistan were closed for three days from the 3rd of August.
"We are closing the schools to show our anger and concern," Bishop Sadiq Daniel said. "We want the government to bring all perpetrators of the crime to justice."
Interestingly enough, these schools are not restricted to the Christian community. A large portion of this country's elite attends these schools that were established in the 19th century. Convents such as St Patrick's High School and St Joseph's Convent, run by the Catholic Church, are considered to be prestigious educational institutes.
The province of Punjab has long been at the heart of assaults on Pakistani Christians. The Christians of Pakistan are the largest religious minority in the country. In 2008, they were estimated to make up about 1 percent of the population, but Christian leaders argue the number is closer to 5 percent. More than 90 percent of the country's Christians live in Punjab, which makes them the largest religious minority in the province.
The Daily Times points out that:
'Charges of blasphemy and desecration of the Quran are "used" against them, but the latter is used against them collectively, followed by organized dispossession and destruction of property.'
(As was the case in Gojra.)
Many argue that Punjabi landowners, some of the most influential and affluent people in Pakistan, who constitute a large part of the political elite, use the blasphemy law to usurp properties owned by Christians. The law states that anyone insulting the Quran or Prophet Mohammad is subject to life imprisonment or death. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has repeatedly demanded the repeal of the law on the grounds that it can be used for sectarian witch-hunts.
The British brought in the blasphemy law during the colonial rule, but amendments introduced by the military ruler, General Zia-ul-Haq, have made it an instrument of religious discrimination and persecution.
Just a couple of months ago, it was reported that the Christians of Kasur, a village also situated in Punjab, were similarly threatened by the Muslims of the area. Over a hundred families had to flee into fields in the middle of the night to escape a mob ready to burn down their homes. The allegation here too was blasphemy.
Roman Catholic Archbishop of Karachi Evarist Pinto held a press conference in Karachi where he said that 'the recurrence of such violent acts, coupled with the indifference of the security forces, was spreading feelings of insecurity amongst members of minority communities.'
Blogger Dr Awab Alvi, professional dentist and well-respected member of the Pakistan Twitter scene, tweeted an email sent out by Bishop Ijaz Inayat of Karachi's Holy Trinity Cathedral. In his email, the bishop asks 'why the police and the Agencies allow the situation to simmer in spite of a [very large] history of such incidents in Pakistan.'
Though thought to be defunct, extremist organizations like the Sipah-e-Sahaba, are still capable of instigating locals as we witnessed in Gojra. Witness accounts tell us that the masked men who arrived from the neighboring district of Jhang managed to gather a mob of hundreds. The HRCP claims that announcements were made from mosques to 'make mincemeat of the Christians.' This speaks of the street power of such extremist organizations and the mindset of the people. Nicholas D. Kristof has written in the New York Times about the 'creeping Talibanization' and how in his more recent travels to Punjab, he found it more troubled than in the past.
According to the Christian Science Monitor, Joseph Francis of the Christian National Party sees a link between violence against Christians and the US-led war in Afghanistan. The Muslim mob in Gojra had been incited with hate-speech that called Christians "America's dogs." He says, "Since 9/11, we've felt a lot more at risk. Whenever we have large gatherings or processions, we have to ask for police protection."
This is not the first time an attack on Pakistan's Christians has been linked to the US-led war on terror. In October 2001, over a dozen were killed at a Protestant church in Bahawalpur, once again a Punjabi town. Worshipers said that as the gunmen opened fire they declared Pakistan would become a graveyard of Christians to avenge deaths in Afghanistan. The timing of the attack made the connection all the more believable. Already vulnerable, Christian leaders had asked for protection before the United States launched its military offensive against Afghanistan.
Even though, Hindus, another minority group, are viewed as being synonymous with the projected archenemy, India, it is the Christians who are attacked again and again.
The Chief Minister of Punjab has assured that protection as well as compensation will be served to the victims of the Gojra tragedy while the perpetrators of the crime will be brought to justice, but Pakistani Christians are not satisfied. They are looking for a more permanent solution to their insecurity. Joseph Francis has said that a black day of mourning is to be observed on August 11, marked in Pakistani calendars as Minority Day.
Analyst and columnist, Cyril Almeida, claims that the government may be reluctant to take on extremist organizations like the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Sipah-e-Sahaba despite the latter's links with al-Qaeda. "While the army is already tackling the Taliban, that is their first priority. They probably don't want to start another confrontation with organizations that are more sectarian in nature." He said this in the context of India's demands of Pakistan to take on Hafiz Saeed and his banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, which they believe to be behind last year's Mumbai attacks.
The movie Julie & Julia, and my recent trip to Paris where much of this movie is set, reminded me of how huge a role Julia Child played for those of us who learned to cook in the 1960s and 70s. Her Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volumes One and Two and her subsequent books are all stained with gravies and wine and vermouth (used in place of wine, as she suggested). They were like Bibles to me.
Cooking was a passion for many years, and I grew my own veggies and herbs in a Westchester County 20 by 20 plot. I faithfully followed Julia's recipes and threw monthly multi-course dinner parties that took all weekend to pull off. I was defined as "a really serious cook," which is probably why I eventually stopped. I wanted to be defined by other things.
I was privileged eventually to meet Julia Child (see below) and the following legendary cooking writers who each connected with each other, and for a bit, with me.
Claudia Roden
In the early 70s I was a young-married living in Hampstead Garden Suburb, 20 minutes north of Trafalgar Square. Hubby 1 was studying for his Phd and we were renting an Edwardian manse as he did research at Oxford and Cambridge. We were lucky twenty-somethings with two toddlers and a nanny-- living a briefly charmed life.
The house owners decided to sell, and the buyer was an Egyptian-born artist named Claudia Roden. She and I hit it off immediately, kind of like I did with Andrea Reynolds (Claus Von Bulow's lover, whom I previously wrote about).
Claudia was in the process of writing a cookbook about Middle Eastern food and wanted to try out her recipes. Many days she would come by and cook something as simple and delectable as prunes in wine. I met her children, and her parents, who were from ancient Alexandria and who told tales of life in a crossroads of the world at the beginning and middle of the 20th century.
The book she was writing was the first of many award-winning cookbooks for Claudia, who became a TV personality in England, doing a show from the house. (Nigella Lawson, a current cooking star, cites Claudia as her role model.)
One night after I had cooked Claudia a dinner of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, she told me that the night before she had met Julia Child, who had cooked for her. Imagine, I was a 20-something amateur cook, cooking for a cookbook author who had eaten a Julia-Child-prepared meal the night before!
James Beard
Today James Beard is associated with the highest awards in the cooking world. But in the early 1970s I was invited to a book party at his town house in Greenwich Village. Claudia's cookbook had become an instant classic, and I was invited as one of her guests.
At the time, James Beard was the preeminent America cooking icon in a world of few American food stars. My aunt Hilda, who herself had been one of the first female pastry chefs at the Waldorf Astoria, used his cookbooks when I visited her in New York. I remember that it was because of his recipe that I first ate the exotic thing called "zucchini." And oh the taste of delicious, mysterious soups named "mulligatawny" and "Billi bi."
The Beard townhouse, which today is the site of the James Beard Foundation, was decorated like a Persian tent. I remember first seeing Mr. Beard sitting in a peacock throne chair, in an embroidered kaftan. He was a whale of a man, bald with prominent ears. Several young chefs doted on him. This was before coming out was the norm, and I remember my naïve surprise. The smells and sights and tastes were lushly stimulating.
(One other cooking-writer connection: Barbara Kafka, an award-winning food writer and prolific cookbook author, contributes to my website Sololady.com. Of her many accolades she is justly proud of her James Beard awards.) Jacques Pepin
In 1999 I attended a long-weekend press trip at a Cape Cod resort. Guests were learning to play croquet, and on the last day we all dressed in whites like out of The Great Gatsby, and we celebrated with a cotillion and croquet match.
One of the fellow invited guests was Jacques Pepin. This gifted French chef was as sweet and soft-spoken as he appears on TV. His wife was the tougher of the two, and stayed close to him throughout the weekend. At the time he was doing a show with Julia Child, and talked of her support of young chefs and her sometimes casual approach to recipes. He emphasized her authenticity and honesty.
Before we left, Jacques gave each of our fellow revelers a signed copy of his dessert book, and the recipes are simple and perfect. He is as impressive a person as he is a cook. Sara Moulton
I was invited to a luncheon at Gourmet magazine kitchens at the Conde Naste building in New York. Sara Moulton, an award-winning Jame Beard cook herself, had been Julia Child's assistant for 10 years. She took us into the demonstration kitchen and a half dozen of us helped cook a creative meal of southwest cuisine which we would later be served in the adjacent dining room, in part by Sara herself.
Sara is a petite and friendly woman who taught us how to tie our aprons like chefs and seemed open to suggestions. Like Jacques Pepin, she spoke of Julia with respect. She spilled some vinegar, but no secrets, and you could tell that Sara felt that she learned from a master. Julia Child
Yes, all of these cooks intersected with each other. They are all great ones. But the greatest to me and so many, was Julia. In the early 199os I attended a lecture at the New York Public Library where Julia Child was speaking on a panel. I sort of remember the other famous panelists-including author/food critic Ruth Reichl, who became the editor of Gourmet magazine where I later was to have that southwest luncheon.
But it was Julia who was the star. I remember she kept defending butter, cream and other fattening ingredients and she spoke testily in that sing-song voice at the very idea of removing them or even substituting. "Just eat less, but don't stop eating good things," was her mantra.
After the presentation I waited to speak with her. When the crowd around her thinned, I told her of our mutual friendship with Claudia Roden. She seemed bent and frail, but still tall. She graciously talked about Claudia's talent for a moment, and then was escorted away. And I felt a circle had closed.
Over thirty years ago, Woody Allen redefined the connection between movies and fashion with the iconic Annie Hall starring Diane Keaton. In this summer's hit, (500) Days of Summer, the female lead, Summer Fin played by Zooey Deschanel, is equally quirky, with a style all her own.... Read my story today from the Washington Times plugged in section.
"[The tape] is not real, so it makes me sort of sad. It's unfortunate that it got carried as far as it did... I definitely understand the nature of people better now and that the mere allegation of something like that could be headline news. People think it's real because somebody says it is," she told Harper's Bazaar.
Meester graces the cover of the magazine's September fall fashion issue and inside poses for an editorial spread in which she ages from her 20s to her 50s. Here are some more highlights from her interview. On handling her fame: "I don't want most of what comes along with all of this. I'm doing everything I can to keep things separate. I feel like my friends are in a cult because we're like, No outsiders! I've never been crazy. I'm a very good girl, to be honest. I don't do anything to hurt anybody. Honestly, all I ever do is work."
On aging in Hollywood: "Any fear of aging, I think, is simply vanity because what comes with age is so many wonderful things: wisdom, understanding. Every year, I'm always happy to be done with the previous age. If people want [to get Botox], do it."
According to two new studies published in the journal Pediatrics this week, 10-15 minutes of sunshine each day could help prevent today's children from developing life-threatening diseases.
I know what some of you are thinking: Don't our kids get enough time to play? Sadly, it's now the case that outdoor, unstructured play is on the decline and that our nation's children are participating in increasingly dangerous levels of sedentary activities. Not only has this led to an epidemic of obesity, heart disease and diabetes amongst youth, but we have now found that it's also led to hazardous deficiencies in Vitamin D in this same population.
With unfettered exposure to sunlight the human body will produce Vitamin D, a nutrient necessary for proper, healthy development. Beyond the risk of developing weak bones and even rickets, not getting enough Vitamin D often goes hand-in-hand with higher blood pressure and lower levels of good cholesterol, and may increase a child's risk of developing heart disease later in life, experts say.
Shockingly, 70 percent of American kids aren't getting enough vitamin D. About 7.6 million children, adolescents and young adults have Vitamin D levels so low they could be considered deficient. An additional 50.8 million have higher levels of the vitamin in their system, but at levels still low enough to be insufficient.
High levels of sedentary, indoor activities amongst our children have certainly contributed to this problem. "Screen time" - specifically television, DVDs, and computer use - has replaced much of the time that was previously available for outdoor play. Children under six years old spend an average of about two hours a day with screen media and youth between the ages of eight and 18 spend an average of 4-6 hours a day with screen media--more than 45 hours a week!
So what can we do to address this potentially dangerous deficiency? Get your kids outside and playing on a daily basis!
The simple act of running, jumping and swinging in the sun for just 15 minutes a day can ensure that your kids will get enough of this important vitamin. Dr. Michael F. Holick, Ph.D., a professor of medicine, physiology, and biophysics at Boston University School of Medicine, and the author of "The Vitamin D Solution" states in a recent CNN.com article, "It is next to impossible to get enough vitamin D from diet, and the sun-phobic attitude has made the problem much worse."
Since 1995, KaBOOM! has worked to promote healthy, outdoor child's play by building great places to play across the United States. Recently, we developed a free, searchable directory called the KaBOOM! Playspace Finder, a user-generated too that helps individuals to enter, search for, and rate playspaces in their communities. Right now, more than 90,000 playspaces have been entered on our website. Check it out for yourself to see how easy it is for you and your kids to get out and play.
So long story short - get your kids outside and playing to make sure they're getting enough vitamin D. They'll be having fun, getting good exercise, AND will be taking in important vitamins at the same time.
On July 26 Diane Schuler entered a busy upstate highway going the wrong direction with her 2-year-old daughter and three young nieces, ages 8, 7 and 5 in the car with her. All were killed when she collided with a SUV, going the right way, down the same highway. The crash also killed all three men in the SUV, Guy Bastardi, 49; his father, Michael Bastardi, 81; and a family friend, Daniel Longo, 74, all of Yonkers. Only Schuler's 5-year-old son survived.
Until yesterday why Dianne Schuler was driving the wrong direction was unknown. Yesterday it became known.
She was drunk and stoned; driving and at least at that moment living, "under the influence". Schuler's blood-alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit of 0.19 said State Police Maj. William Careyand and she still had undigested alcohol in her stomach.
According to authorities, Schuler had more than 10 drinks of alcohol in her system and a broken 1.75-liter bottle of Absolut vodka was found in her wrecked minivan.
Blood tests also showed that she had smoked marijuana 15 minutes to an hour before the crash, said Betsy Spratt, chief toxicologist for the Westchester County medical examiner.
This example is extreme because it shows the final chapter of alcohol and drug abuse in it's most horrific, high relief. Imagine the sense of helplessness and confusion of those children in their final moments of life, riding with a mother/aunt , someone they loved and trusted, drunk and out of control. (Or maybe, like so many children who ride in the back seat with a drunk parent at the wheel, myself included, they just learned to look out the window and get lost in the world passing by.) Imagine the pain of the family members of the children who were killed and that of the families of the innocent passengers of the SUV that Schuler, in her stupor, plowed into.
The truth is, it's too horrible to imagine and it is too close to the bone, it just plain affects too many of us. That is why this issue of addiction is such a tough thing to talk about. Even as I write this I want to apologize for saying something so upsetting. But then I remember the cardinal lesson that I learned growing up with addiction. It's that all too often it's the person who says there is a problem who gets in trouble, not the person who is the problem. Saying that there is something that's wrong becomes the sin, not doing it.
According to Sis Wenger, President/CEO of The National Society for Children of Alcoholics, (www.NACOA.org) addiction isn't something want to acknowledge or talk about. "It's an uphill battle when it comes to raising both awareness and funds to train all those who touch the lives of children to learn that doing a little can make all the difference in "reaching into the darkness and helping a hurting child." Apparently people will give to save one child form leukemia or poverty but will balk and become uncomfortable when it comes to helping the silent suffering of those children who are trapped in families where a parent is abusing alcohol or other drugs. They will give to museums, humane societies, even to save trees, rivers and streams but when it comes to saving the minds, hearts and in this case lives of children who grow up every day with the helpless and hopelessness of a parent who abuses drugs and alcohol, it's a much tougher sell.
The sad truth is that children who live with addicted parents get in the car with drunk moms and dads every day. They fetch their beers for them, get sent to the store for cigarettes because their parent is too smashed to go themselves or simply sit lonly in front of TV sets trying their best to take care of themselves because their parent wants them quiet and out of the way. Kids in these homes learn well how not to set their parents off, it is the hyper-vigilance I have been talking about for the last few weeks in my articles on codependency.
The word co-dependent, in point of fact, came straight out of twelve step rooms. It actually began as co-addict. Co-dependent originally referred to those people who were in "dependent" relationships with an addict like spouses and children. The roots of codependency encompass the kind of hopelessness and fear experienced by children and spouses when they are forced to witness someone they love and "depend" upon behaving in ways that put their minds, hearts and, in this case, their lives at risk. The only thing different here is that this mother was at the wheel of a car. But mothers and fathers are always at the wheel, steering the lives of their children. Parenthood is stressful, if you learn to cope with the added stress and anxiety of parenting with alcohol and drugs, many lives are adversely affected.
When I asked Sis Wenger what might have been done to prevent this tragedy she gave me a list of questions that we can ask ourselves: • "Who knew - and didn't act? She was a "good mom", so are a lot of alcohol abusing mothers. But unfortunately, it's their drunkenness or their disease that all too often drives their actions, not their rational thinking or their good hearts. • I wonder if her doctor ever did a brief screening and intervention - does her doctor do that routinely; if not why as the evidence is powerful that it saves lives (and families), and the tools are available and free. • Did the children's teachers know; is there a student assistance program in their school which could help children living with alcohol or drug abusing parents learn to cope and be safe? • Did the family belong to a faith community; who in the congregation knew and did nothing; did the pastor know there was a drinking problem? • She was apparently loved at work. Did the employer have an Employee Assistance Program; did the employer's insurance program cover addiction treatment? Did her colleagues know but do nothing to intervene? Why? • Who knew and thought she was such a nice person they didn't want to offend her? Why do we let the nicest people we know sink into this fatal disease until a tragedy happens or they just die too young? • When are pediatricians, family practitioners and nurses going to stop feeling too afraid to ask the simple question of children '' "anyone in your family you are worried about because of their drinking or drug use?"
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the largest foundation devoted to improving the health and health care of all Americans, has identified substance abuse as the nation's number one health problem. According to a new survey conducted by Roper ASW for the Council of Public Relations Firms, one in every four Americans believes drug and alcohol addiction is the nation's most serious health issue, placing the problem ahead of heart disease, cancer and depression.
Our prayers go out to Dianne Shculler's son, husband and relatives who will be living with this horror for the rest of their lives and to the Bastardi and Longo families. All who have now become statistics of alcohol and drug related losses.
Our prayers also go out to all of those spouses and children who daily live with the fear, sorrow and terror of addiction, who never make the papers or show up in statistics but whose lives are forever altered by living with the legacy of addiction.
As Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton begins a seven-country African trip with a visit to Kenya, the main U.S. foreign aid agency is in limbo, entering its seventh month without a permanent director despite pledges by the Obama administration to expand development assistance and improve its effectiveness in poor countries.
My name is Grove O'Rourke, and I'm a stockbroker with Sachs, Kidder, and Carnegie. You can learn more about me in Norb Vonnegut's novel, Top Producer, which is available September 2009. Today, I'm blogging for Acrimoney and standing in for Norb. He just finished the first draft of his second novel and is taking a break.
Okay, enough with the commercial. Let's get down to business. Norb knows plenty about wealth management. But as a fictional character, I'm close to perfect. I take care of my clients, and things work out for us -- even when there are white knuckles along the way. So let's discuss something that bugs me:
Why do members of the Supreme Court command more respect than stockbrokers?
I know the numbers. There are nine Supreme Court justices. There are over 300 stockbrokers at Sachs, Kidder, and Stanley. And at firms like Morgan Stanley or Bank of America -- forget about it. There are over 10,000 financial advisers in each of those organizations. Supreme Court justices, by comparison, are a rare and unique species.
But we manage your money.
I don't care if there are over one million financial advisers worldwide. You can't spend a Supreme Court decision prohibiting four-letter words on the radio. Know what I mean? Investors, it seems to me, should revere their financial advisers.
Yeah, right.
If I introduce myself as a "stockbroker" at a cocktail party, people look at their watches and say, "I'm late for a drive-through root canal." Call it angst or fear of the sales pitch. Financial advisers--my band of merry brothers and sisters--rank lower on the food chain than snails. Our lowly social standing was sealed long before the market meltdown of 2008.
But we manage your money.
The problem, I think, lies with compensation. Nobody has figured out the perfect way to charge for wealth management. Our system is rife with conflicts of interest. And I'll be the first to admit, there are some who abuse the system and give financial advisers a bad name.
Take commissions. They create incentives to buy and sell, even when trading is not in the best interest of clients. That's why I eliminated commissions from my practice. Clients pay me an annual fee for investment advice. There are no conflicts of interest.
Not so fast.
Fees have their own conflicts. I charge more for managing stocks than bonds. And I charge more for managing bonds than "cash" or money market funds. Equities, the holy grail of long-term investors, are far more profitable for Wall Street than bonds or cash.
Let's return to January 2008, when as a fictional character with perfect market timing, I advised clients to sell stocks and put everything in cash. I'm a hero. We missed the big crash of 2008. Everybody's happy.
Not.
Sachs, Kidder, and Carnegie is livid. Equities carry annual fees of about 1 percent. Cash management fees vary widely, but let's use .25 percent as our average. When I advised clients to go all cash, my firm took a 75 percent pay cut. By comparison, the Dow fell about 40 percent during 2008. See the conflict?
Balanced accounts attempt to fix the problem. They charge the same fee on all asset classes. These accounts are a good solution. But they're not perfect.
Nothing ever is, except in fiction.
Balanced accounts can be expensive. Assume I charged .60 percent for managing a blend of stocks, bonds, and cash. And then in January 2008, I sold all stocks and bonds. I would be managing cash for .60 percent, which is too much. Earlier, we agreed that .25 percent is a reasonable rate for managing cash.
Most likely, clients would thank me for avoiding last year's carnage. But they'd also note that .60 percent is too high a fee for managing cash. And they'd be right. We'd renegotiate the fee schedule even though we missed last year's disaster..
There are no gold medals for avoiding train wrecks.
Nor is there a "killer app" for money management fees. Nobody has cracked the code and solved the conflict-of-interest problem. Compensation creates "acrimoney" between advisers and clients, which relegates my brethren to a social rung well below the Supreme Court.
What kind of name is Learned Hand anyway?
Maybe I've missed something. I'd like to hear from financial advisers. Have you found a way to charge for your services that is unique? Have you found a way that minimizes conflicts of interest? Tell us about it.
Walk around Kodinji village and you'll think that you have double vision.
The village is home to as many as 230 sets of twins. Nobody knows why there are so many twins in the village of 15,000 people, although one local doctor suspects it might be due to the water.
Read Part 1 and Part 2 of "Leslie Van Houten: A Friendship".
Attorney Paul Fitzgerald, after many years' involvement defending the Manson women at various trials, said to The Los Angeles Times, "If Leslie Van Houten had never existed, the La Biancas still would be dead." But Leslie won't let herself off that easily. "I blame myself," she answered. "I'm part of what made him [Manson] a leader. If he didn't have followers, he wouldn't be a leader," and she later told Karlene Faith, "A follower is as responsible [as a leader] for allowing a leader to lead them foully."
As much as the sex angle was built up in the press, the truth was surprising to some. Leslie slept with Manson "maybe three times," she testified in court, and only "in the first month" she was with the group. Leslie would never admit this but she had better taste in Manson men. Bobby Beausoleil, a.k.a. "Cupid", was the most traditionally handsome of Charlie's boys and had starred in Kenneth Anger's movie Lucifer Rising and was Leslie's first boyfriend inside the Family. Even Charlie was a little in love with Bobby, and Leslie remembers being shocked at seeing Bobby orally service Charlie during one of their group sex evenings. "I didn't 'sleep with the devil,'" Leslie told Karlene Faith, "I slept with an ex-con who had an extensive record of pimping and abusing women. But I didn't know that." "The ranch," she remembers to Connie Turner, "was set up and run the same way as a stable of hookers although none of us realized it at the time."
"Are you crazy enough to believe in me?" Charlie asked Leslie and after months of LSD trips, isolation in the desert, and hours and hours of his continuous insane political rantings, Leslie, like most of the other "girl" converts, was. "'Bow like sheep,' Manson would order us," Leslie remembered in 1983. "We wore Bowie knives on belts around our waists and were only [dressed] in our underwear, I think, unless it got cold," she told Connie Turner. "We'd sit around on our feet and grunt...we were seeing how long we could go without drinking water...I was carrying a twenty-pound backpack filled with rice. We were building roads from nowhere to nowhere by moving rocks around...it was hard." Susan Atkins, Leslie's co-defendant, said in one of her parole hearings that they "were three young women clearly not in our right minds who lived in slavish obedience to a madman." Catherine Share, an early Manson Family member who finally managed to break free after serving time for the gun robbery, remembers Manson "just stealing everyone's soul." "Thinking is stinking," he used to say. And while Gypsy never killed for Charlie she understood the state of mind of the ones who did. "The killers couldn't even form a thought," she sadly remembered from her own experience. "Tex" Watson's psychological-reports doctor stated that "Tex" "had confusion as to who or what he was. Sometimes he 'felt like a monkey.' He actually believed that the victims were imaginary people." "Tex" told the shrink that he looked in the mirror at the Tate house, trying to figure out who he was. "I wasn't anyone," he remembered, "I wasn't Charles Watson, I was an animal. The end of the world was then. I was the living death..."
Seeing Leslie today in the visiting room, it's hard to imagine her with this past. The X on her forehead has almost faded away and she looks like an upscale intelligent woman I would definitely come across in my life in New York or Los Angeles. She could be seated next to you at any dinner party of professional people and it would never dawn on you that this woman has been in prison for four decades. She even went to the Oscars with a female friend in 1978 when she was out on bail and nobody recognized her! "But what did you talk about to the people you met that night?" I wondered, knowing she had been released from death row not that long before, not exactly a center of industry screenings or "For Your Consideration" Oscar campaigns. "If someone brought up one of the nominees," she shrugged, "I'd just say 'No, I missed that one' or 'I was away when that was playing.'"
Leslie and I have gotten older together in that visiting room and I've seen the prison rules constantly change. I used to be able to buy her three packs of cigarettes to take back to her cell but now it's illegal to smoke anywhere in jail in California. What used to feel so old-school-Women Behind Bars-cigarettes-as-money is gone forever. Now I get to buy her three cans of Pepsi! Stylistically, it's just not the same thing. Worse yet, about five years ago suddenly none of the women in Leslie's jail were allowed to use any kind of hair coloring.
Overnight the entire prison population aged ten years in appearance and on my first visit since the ban, I knew something was wrong but it took me several minutes to realize that everybody had two inch gray roots. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment!
Leslie and I have shared good times and bad times. And yes, Leslie does have good times. She's taught illiterate women to read in prison classes, she's stitched a portion of the AIDS quilt, made bedding for the homeless, recorded books on tape for the blind. She has clerked for the administrators, the nurses, the associate warden, the head of education, the kitchen, and the priest. And it's not that she jumps from job to job -- rules restrict inmates from working longer than two years in the same position. She can be lighthearted, too. She even sang "Santa Baby" at the prison Christmas show one year.
Yet somehow Leslie continues to live through the bad times without despair and inspires others to do the same. When Divine died suddenly in1988, Leslie was one of the first to console me by letter. "I'm so sad and wish I could be closer for you. I know you loved him and enjoyed in the success of his life and helped him through his hard times... I am sorry I will not get to know him."
She counseled me on a personal level, too. After a relationship of mine ended, Leslie was a good shoulder to lean on and I hope I've given her good advice, too, when she's had crushes from prison on men in the outside world. I've met two of her longest-lasting roommates: Becky the bank-robber whom I adored and is now free, and another inmate I called "Little Miss Manslaughter" because she was so bubbly and was an actual fan of my movies before she was sentenced.
Since no cable TV is available in jail, Leslie has seen few of my movies but did finally get to see my version of Hairspray and it was nice to get her good review. "I loved it," she wrote to me, "I was really into the public dances and all that. I lived to go to the Harmony Ballroom in Anaheim. I bought my shoes by how well they slid on the wood floor. I'm telling you it was my life!" It was her life. From Mashed Potatoes to Manson's Monster Mash in just a few short years. Luckily for her, Leslie still has a sense of humor. She even joked about my role in Hairspray as an evil psychiatrist who uses a ridiculous optical medical tool to hypnotize a teenage white girl into never dating black boys. "I never had one of those spinning wheels flashed in front of my face," Leslie admitted after decades of therapy, "Do you think it would help?"
I've always secretly wondered if Leslie ever felt "cool" when she was with the Manson gang and I finally got up the nerve to ask. She looked at me in confusion. "Cool? We had no concept by then of any such possible word!" she answered. And now the "celebrity" was even more unfathomable. "There's nothing sadder than to be asked for an autograph because of infamy," she once wrote to me, "I've had to explain I'm not proud of what I have done or why they [people] are aware of me. It's an awful feeling. The 'unwilling star'" And when her autograph or letters are sold on murder memorabilia sites it makes her feel worse because someone she has written to has betrayed her, and she's not sure who -- "So creepy. All disgusting and distasteful."
We've always discussed current events, how paralyzed she was with sadness over the Waco tragedy and how similar David Koresh was to Manson -- even more so than Jim Jones. Or how she understands the mind-set of kamikaze suicide bombers because this is how she was trained by Manson to feel and act once. And when the riots broke out in L.A. in 1992, after the Rodney King beating, an event Manson loyalists likened to Helter Skelter finally happening for real, Leslie was so far away from the Manson ideology that the comparison never even occurred to her. "This has been a really emotional time for me," she wrote that week, "First there was the first execution in nearly half a century in California," (Robert Alton Harris who was strapped into the gas chamber for thirteen minutes, released due to appeals, and then put back in the same day and executed) "and then the days L.A. went mad. I sat watching on TV images usually seen in other countries. John, it was so frightening -- to think of what is supposed to be safe as totally out of control."
I've tried to be her "agent" in the world of Hollywood. She agonized with me whether to co-operate and be interviewed for the TV news magazine show Turning Point but after meeting Diane Sawyer, Leslie agreed this news correspondent was "a class act". After seeing the completed show, Leslie admits she "had been treated better than I ever have." When the distressing news came in 2003 that CBS was remaking Helter Skelter again as a new TV movie, I called the director John Gray, whom I didn't know, at his home. Probably wondering why I was calling, or worse yet, thinking I was happy about the news, he took my call and listened quietly as I begged him to realize what a terrible unfair effect this project would have on Leslie's parole chances, how she was ashamed and horrified about the crimes, how further notoriety on the case would only please Manson and hurt the privacy of victims' families. I think my call may have worked a little because when I saw the finished project, Leslie's character was minimal and her part in the crime was truthfully shown to have been ordered by a vengeful Manson. A year or two later, my hunch was proven correct. In Los Angeles, in a restaurant to meet my agent and five minutes early, I was shown to my table alone and the waitress approached me with an odd expression. "Can I ask you something personal?" she shyly requested. "Sure," I replied, realizing she recognized me but never expecting what was coming next, "Are you the head of that 'Friends of Leslie' organization?" "No, there is no 'head' and that group has been disbanded officially, but there are many people who support her parole chances," I answered. "Because I played Leslie in the newest Helter Skelter," she revealed. Only in L.A.! Her name was Catherine Wadkins and I suddenly felt bad realizing I might have contributed to making an actress' part smaller. "Yes, you did," she confided after I told her the story of my call to her director, which she already knew about. "That's okay," Catherine smiled. "I think Leslie should get out and I tried to play the part in a way to show how brainwashed she was."
Leslie never asked me for money or material goods over the years. I've sent her books I loved and together we've discussed James Purdy, Mary McGarry Morris, Michael Cunningham, and Anne Tyler novels. After maybe one too many of my intense choices, Leslie started requesting her own titles, many of which had to do with the history and plight of the Native American Indian and I was happy to oblige. The only reading material I sent her that was rejected by the mailroom was, oddly enough, an issue of Paper Magazine that contained a fashion shoot that must have contained a little too much nudity. Once I offered to buy Leslie a TV for her cell but she declined. My kind of gal.
I was lucky enough to meet some of Leslie's friends on the outside, too. She has a support group that is tireless and relentless. "I like that several people close to me are also now friends of yours," Leslie wrote me after years of visiting. The most dedicated is Linda Grippi, a friend of Leslie's since high school who began visiting her not long after she was convicted and has never stopped. Linda is practically a nun in the religion of Leslie's rehabilitation and the firmest believer that Leslie should be paroled. Linda has dedicated her life to the cause of Leslie's freedom. She is a kind but convincing, level-headed pit bull who goes after anyone who believes otherwise with a reasoned defense. If Linda could testify at Leslie's parole hearing as "support" the way the victims' families can, I think Leslie might have already received a release date.
But Leslie meeting my friends was more problematic because of the East Coast locations and the strict rules about visiting high profile prisoners like her. I am afraid I have betrayed Leslie, too. A long time ago she mentioned to me that she "hoped I never 'used' our friendship or her plight for freedom" as dinner party conversation in my travels around the world. And I am embarrassed to admit, in my enthusiasm for her rehabilitation and my pride in our friendship, I have. Leslie Van Houten is quite a name to drop and famous people are eager to hear her story. When we were filming Cry-Baby, Johnny Depp heard my pleas concerning Leslie's parole and offered to visit her. Leslie, like everyone else in the world, had great respect for Johnny Depp and was moved that he, as my buddy, cared about her case. But we must have been nuts! Can you imagine the press if they found out? Think of the headlines -- "Johnny Depp joins Manson Family". Luckily for all of us, Johnny's visiting form was turned down because of an "impending assault charge", probably a hot-headed reaction to paparazzi.
Excerpted from the book Role Models by John Waters, to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2010. Role Models is a self- portrait told through intimate literary profiles of his favorite personalities; some famous, some unknown, some criminal, some alarmingly middle of the road.
Gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis strayed from script this week when he jabbed an unlikely target: staffers at the state Department of Labor and Employment.
McInnis, a Grand Junction Republican and former congressman, traditionally has saved his criticism for the usual suspects, including Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter and President Barack Obama.
On July 26th, Long Island's Diane Schuler heretofore inexplicably drove a minivan full of children and adults onto the wrong side of the Taconic State Parkway and crashed head-on into an SUV, resulting in Westchester County's worst traffic accident in 75 years. Eight people died in the fiery crash: Schuler, four children, (her own 2-year-old daughter and three nieces), and the SUV's three adult male passengers. Following the crash, there was much speculation that Schuler had become ill, disoriented and had fallen victim to some sort of sudden affliction.
But with Tuesday's toxicology report released, we now know she was simply drunk out of her freakin' skull, high on marijuana, and driving with one hand on the wheel and the other on a bottle of vodka, according to police. Her blood-alcohol level was .19, more than twice the legal limit where someone is considered DWI. Experts said she had the equivalent of 10 shots of 80-proof alcohol in her system.
My heart goes out to Schuler's brother Warren Hence and his wife, whose three young children died so senselessly at the hands of their mind-numbingly selfish aunt. I also feel for Schuler's husband Daniel, who lost his 2-year-old daughter, and will now be raising his 5-year-old son Bryan--the only crash survivor--without a mother.
To say this is a tragedy of epic proportions would still be a gross understatement. There are people who get killed every day through no fault of their own. They are simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. People like those three men in the SUV, and Schuler's tiny passengers. Or innocent bystanders during a robbery. Or people like my late wife, the actor/writer/director ("WAITRESS") Adrienne Shelly, who are brutally murdered by intruders in their homes and offices. These unfortunate souls played no role in their very untimely and undeserving deaths. But Schuler had choices. She knew exactly what she was doing, and fully understood she was putting the lives of so many people in danger. And the choice she made was to get so utterly shitfaced that, for several miles and minutes, she could not even realize she was on a wrong-way death-drive.
I have house in upstate New York. I sat in traffic for almost 4 hours that fateful Sunday--a normally uneventful drive which lets me zip back into Manhattan in 1:40. So I knew something had been terribly wrong. Then the radio reports came in. And then I eventually passed the charred remains of the toppled, mangled minivan. It made me sick. And what also made me sick was the utter senselessness of it all. That it all could've been avoided. That those four beautiful little children, and the three men from Yonkers, could all still be alive today. That a couple from Long Island would not have to attend funerals for their three young daughters.
My wife, and thousands like her, had no choice. Their lives were savagely ripped from them. I know what it feels like to live through horrific death. I also know what it feels like to raise a 2-year-old by myself. But what I don't know is why people continue to make stupid, irresponsible and selfish choices that bring on such horror and cause death to so many. I suppose I will never understand.
Joseph Cotchett, the San Francisco trial lawyer who last week made a splash when he sat down with convicted Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, is using the fruits of that interview to take aim at Wall Street, The Post has learned.
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