How do you make a "good person"? North Korea has a system

North Korean labor camps a ghastly prospect for U.S. journalists
U.S. pair convicted by North Korea

If their sentence is carried out, Laura Ling and Euna Lee face possible torture and even death in North Korea's notorious gulag system, experts say.
By John M. Glionna and Paul Richter
Los Angeles Times
June 9, 2009

If no deal is reached, the two women face a grim future in a brutal prison system notorious for its lack of adequate food and medical supplies and its high death rate.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for San Francisco-based Current TV, were convicted by the nation's top Central Court of an unspecified "grave crime" against the hard-line regime after they were arrested in March along the Chinese-North Korean border while reporting a story on human trafficking.

In a terse statement Monday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency did not say where the women are to serve the time. North Koreans who receive similar sentences of "reform through labor" often face starvation and torture in a penal system many consider among the world's most repressive, said David Hawk, author of the 2004 study "The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea's Prison Camps."

Amid an international outcry over the sentences, the White House said Monday that it was "engaged through all possible channels" in seeking the release of Ling, 32, and Lee, 36.

A top U.S. goal is to prevent the effort from being linked to the larger dispute over North Korea's nuclear weapons program. But the outcome of that effort is anything but certain, experts said.

"I think it very unlikely that the North Koreans would let them go without some serious extortion," said L. Gordon Flake, a Korea expert and president of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, a Washington think tank. "But giving in to that extortion would fundamentally undermine broader U.S. national security interests."

The question of linkage may be the most important to the fate of the women. U.S. officials fear that the North Koreans may attempt to make any reduction in the journalists' sentences dependent on what kind of punishment is imposed by the United Nations or by individual countries in response to Pyongyang's recent nuclear detonation and missile tests.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that while the administration was "deeply concerned" about the length of the sentences, America's differences with North Korea over Pyongyang's arms program are "separate and apart from what's happening to the two journalists."

However, if the U.S. refuses to mingle the two issues, analysts said, the eventual release of the two women could be delayed.

If the pair are held for a lengthy period, analysts believe they may be sent to a kyo-hwa-so, or "reeducation" reformatory, "that is the equivalent of a felony penitentiary in the U.S., as opposed to a county jail or misdemeanor facility," Hawk said.

"It's extremely hard labor under extremely brutal conditions," he said. "These places have very high rates of deaths in detention. The casualties from forced labor and inadequate food supplies are very high."

Many North Korean reeducation camps, he said, are affiliated with mines or textile factories where the long work shifts are often followed by self-criticism sessions and the forced memorization of North Korean communist policy doctrine.

The literal meaning of kyo-hwa-so is "a place to make a good person through education," said Hawk...

Arizona doctor was fired for being pro-choice

Feminist Daily News Wire
May 27, 2009

Arizona Doctor Wins Settlement in Discrimination Case

A settlement has been reached in a discrimination case filed by an Arizona doctor who alleged he had been fired as a result of his pro-choice position. Dr. Christopher Carey, who formerly led the Maricopa Medical Center�s ob-gyn residency program originally filed suit in 2005 and alleged that he was harassed and removed from his position because he publicly supported providing training on abortion procedures to interested residents. In the settlement, Carey was awarded $1.4 million.

According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, Dr. Carey publicly opposed a move by county officials in 2003 who attempted to remove an abortion training program at the medical center and also protested when officials tried to transfer the program to a Catholic institution. The Maricopa Board of Supervisors proceeded to conduct baseless investigations against Carey, spread misinformation that damaged his reputation, and ultimately voted to remove him from his position in 2004.

After the settlement, Dr. Carey said "I am extremely pleased with the settlement, but it's important to remember that the shortage of abortion providers in this country is extensive. A resident's ability to obtain abortion training is crucial to ensuring women receive quality healthcare when they need it."

The murder of George Tiller, abortion provider

Kan. abortion provider was polarizing force
Associated Press
By ROXANA HEGEMAN
May 31, 2009

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — When George Tiller was young he dreamed not of being one of the most visible and strident advocates for abortion rights, but of becoming a dermatologist.

The 67-year-old physician, who was shot and killed Sunday in his church, had said his path was altered by a 1970 plane crash that killed his father, mother, sister and brother-in-law.

The former Navy flight surgeon was left with his father's family practice in Wichita, and he soon learned a secret. One of his father's patients asked him whether he, like his father, would perform abortions.

At first, Tiller said, he did not believe his father had risked his medical license by performing then-illegal abortions. But after the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortions in 1973, Tiller began providing them.

By the time he was killed, his clinic, Women's Health Care Services, was among just three in the nation to perform abortions after 21 weeks of pregnancy, when the fetus is considered viable.

He was a focus of abortion opponents for years, most peaceful, some violent.

"George dedicated his life to providing women with high-quality health care despite frequent threats and violence," his Tiller's widow, four children and 10 grandchildren said in a statement. They called him "a good husband, father and grandfather and a dedicated servant on behalf of the rights of women everywhere."

Tiller's clinic was bombed in 1985, and he was shot in both arms in 1993 by abortion protester Rachelle "Shelley" Shannon of Grants Pass, Ore.

In 1991, the Summer of Mercy protests organized by Operation Rescue drew thousands of anti-abortion activists to Wichita for demonstrations marked by civil disobedience and mass arrests.

Federal marshals protected Tiller during the Summer of Mercy protests, and he was protected again between 1994 and 1998 after another abortion provider was assassinated and federal authorities reported finding his name on an assassination list.

The women's clinic is fortified with bulletproof glass, and Tiller hired a private security team to protect the facility. Once outside the clinic, Tiller was usually seen accompanied by a bodyguard.

Anti-abortion groups condemned Tiller's slaying.

"We value life, completely deplore violence, and are shocked and very upset by what happened in Wichita today," said Mary Kay Culp, executive director of the anti-abortion group Kansans for Life.

Tiller in 1997 said his "gifts of understanding" helped him bring a service to women that aided them in making their dreams of a happy, healthy family a reality.

Tiller, who in his later years largely shunned interviews and public appearances amid his family's increasing fear of violence against him, said abortion was as socially divisive as slavery or prohibition.

But he said the issue was about giving women a choice when dealing with technology that can diagnose severe fetal abnormalities before a baby is born.

"Prenatal testing without prenatal choices is medical fraud," Tiller once said.

Tiller contended that he pioneered the use of sonogram imaging during procedures, a process that has since been adopted by abortion providers nationwide.

In 2002, Tiller founded ProKanDo, a state political action committee, to help elect abortion rights supporters and support abortion-friendly legislation.

His resume includes the National Abortion Federation's highest honor, The Christopher Tietze Humanitarian Award, as well as the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights' Faith and Freedom Award.





Tiller Murder: Ann Coulter's Happy Day?
Huffington Post
Adele Stan
May 31, 2009

The killing of George Tiller will likely be attributed to some lone and deranged individual, acting on his or her own. (As I write, the suspect remains at large.) Indeed, Operation Rescue, the hold-no-prisoners anti-abortion group, issued a immediate statement from Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, decrying Tiller's shooting as "a cowardly act."

In fact, the hands are many in the death of George Tiller, some more directly than others. Take Ann Coulter, for example. I watched her describe, to a church full of right-wing activists, abortion-clinic doctors and health care personnel who were murdered, as either having been shot, "...or, depending on your point of view, had a procedure performed on them with a rifle." And she's still out there today, spewing the same bile with violent force.

Several weeks ago, President Barack Obama's commencement address at Notre Dame University spurred controversy when anti-abortion activists pressed the Catholic university to withdraw its invitation to the pro-choice president. Coulter responded with the suggestion that for next year's ceremony, "Notre Dame have an abortionist perform an abortion live on stage? They could have a partial-birth abortion for the advanced degrees."

As if that wasn't enough, Coulter added this:

Being such a prestigious institution, Notre Dame could probably get famed partial-birth abortion practitioner George Tiller to do the demonstration at next year's graduation. Obama could help -- inasmuch as Tiller the abortionist is a close friend of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

George Tiller, M.D., was unlikely national figure, but to the religious right, he was Enemy Number One.

Close watchers of national news may have known the name of George Tiller, M.D., from the extraordinary actions of former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, who, three years ago subpoenaed from Tiller's clinic the records of hundreds of women who had undergone abortion procedures there. Kline, a frequent speaker at religious-right gatherings, claimed he needed the records for an investigation as to whether Tiller was following the law, but many in the reproductive health community saw Kline's actions as an attempt to intimidate women who were considering undergoing late-term abortions. Kline's case against Tiller was dismissed in 2006, after Kansas voters booted the AG from office.

Tiller's name became part of inside-the-Beltway parlance with the nomination of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sibelius to head the Department of Health and Human Services, when campaign contributions from Tiller and his associates became a bone of contention in her confirmation process. (She has since been confirmed, and is now HHS secretary.)

So my question to Ann Coulter is: Did George Tiller have "a procedure performed on him by a rifle"? Did he simply get his just desserts?

If the murderer was not a follower of Coulter's, he certainly acted from the sort of hateful sentiment she disseminates in popular and right-wing media.

Consider this comment left by a reader of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's posting of Associated Press coverage of the Tiller murder:

Although I would never do something like this, he got what was coming to him. Now he needs to answer to God for the thousands of innocent babies he has murdered.

Sounds like one of Annie's kids to me.






Abortion provider Tiller shot dead at Kansas church
Associated Press
May 31, 2009

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - A suspect is reported in custody in the shooting death of Dr. George Tiller, 1 of the nation's few providers of late-term abortions.

Tiller was shot and killed this morning in a Wichita, Kan., church where he was serving as an usher and his wife was in the choir.

The gunman fled, but Johnson County Sheriff's Deputy Tom Erickson says a suspect is now in custody. Erickson says the suspect is being held in New Century, about 170 miles northeast of Wichita, until Wichita police can question him.

Tiller was long a focus of national anti-abortion groups, including a summer-long protest in 1991. He was shot during morning services at Reformation Lutheran Church. His attorney calls Tiller's killing "an unspeakable tragedy."

Tiller's Women's Health Care Services clinic is 1 of just three in the nation where abortions are performed after the 21st week of pregnancy.





O'Reilly's campaign against murdered doctor
The Fox News star had compared Tiller to a Nazi, called him a "baby killer," and warned of "Judgment Day"
By Gabriel Winant
May 31, 2009

When his show airs tomorrow, Bill O'Reilly will most certainly decry the death of Kansas doctor George Tiller, who was killed Sunday while attending church services with his wife. Tiller, O'Reilly will say, was a man who was guilty of barbaric acts, but a civilized society does not resort to lawless murder, even against its worst members. And O'Reilly, we can assume, will genuinely mean this.

But there's no other person who bears as much responsibility for the characterization of Tiller as a savage on the loose, killing babies willy-nilly thanks to the collusion of would-be sophisticated cultural elites, a bought-and-paid-for governor and scofflaw secular journalists. Tiller's name first appeared on "The Factor" on Feb. 25, 2005. Since then, O'Reilly and his guest hosts have brought up the doctor on 28 more episodes, including as recently as April 27 of this year. Almost invariably, Tiller is described as "Tiller the Baby Killer."

Tiller, O'Reilly likes to say, "destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth date for $5,000." He's guilty of "Nazi stuff," said O'Reilly on June 8, 2005; a moral equivalent to NAMBLA and al-Qaida, he suggested on March 15, 2006. "This is the kind of stuff happened in Mao's China, Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union," said O'Reilly on Nov. 9, 2006.

O'Reilly has also frequently linked Tiller to his longtime obsession, child molestation and rape. Because a young teenager who received an abortion from Tiller could, by definition, have been a victim of statutory rape, O'Reilly frequently suggested that the clinic was covering up for child rapists (rather than teenage boyfriends) by refusing to release records on the abortions performed.

When Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, an O'Reilly favorite who faced harsh criticism for seeking Tiller's records, was facing electoral defeat by challenger Paul Morrison, O'Reilly said, "Now we don't endorse candidates here, but obviously, that would be a colossal mistake. Society must afford some protection for viable babies and children who are raped." (Morrison ultimately unseated Kline.)

This is where O'Reilly's campaign against George Tiller becomes dangerous. While he never advocated anything violent or illegal, the Fox bully repeatedly portrayed the doctor as a murderer on the loose, allowed to do whatever he wanted by corrupt and decadent authorities. "Also, it looks like Dr. Tiller, who some call Tiller the Baby Killer, is spending a large amount of money in order to get Mr. Morrison elected. That opens up all kinds of questions," said O'Reilly on Nov. 6, 2006, in one of many suggestions that Tiller was improperly influencing the election.

Tiller's excuses for performing late-term abortions, O'Reilly suggested, were frou-frou, New Age, false ailments: The woman might have a headache or anxiety, or have been dumped by her boyfriend. She might be "depressed," scoffed O'Reilly, which he dismissed as "feeling a bit blue and carr[ying] a certified check." There was, he proposed on Jan. 5, 2007, a kind of elite conspiracy of silence on Tiller. "Yes, OK, but we know about the press. But it becomes a much more intense problem when you have a judge, confronted with evidence of criminal wrongdoing, who throws it out on some technicality because he wants to be liked at the country club. Then it's intense."

Tiller, said O'Reilly on Jan. 6 of this year, was a major supporter of then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. "I think it's unfairly characterized as just a grip and grin relationship. He was a pretty big supporter of hers." She had cashed her campaign check from Tiller, "doesn't seem to be real upset about this guy operating a death mill, which is exactly what it is in her state, does she?" he asked on July 14 of last year. "Maybe she'll -- maybe she'll pardon him," he scoffed two months ago.

This is where it gets most troubling. O'Reilly's language describing Tiller, and accusing the state and its elites of complicity in his actions, could become extremely vivid. On June 12, 2007, he said, "Yes, I think we all know what this is. And if the state of Kansas doesn't stop this man, then anybody who prevents that from happening has blood on their hands as the governor does right now, Governor Sebelius."


Three days later, he added, "No question Dr. Tiller has blood on his hands. But now so does Governor Sebelius. She is not fit to serve. Nor is any Kansas politician who supports Tiller's business of destruction. I wouldn't want to be these people if there is a Judgment Day. I just -- you know ... Kansas is a great state, but this is a disgrace upon everyone who lives in Kansas. Is it not?"

This characterization of Tiller fits exactly into ancient conservative, paranoid stories: a decadent, permissive and callous elite tolerates moral monstrosities that every common-sense citizen just knows to be awful. Conspiring against our folk wisdom, O'Reilly says, the sophisticates have shielded Tiller from the appropriate, legal consequences for his deeds. It's left to "judgment day" to give him what's coming.

O'Reilly didn't tell anyone to do anything violent, but he did put Tiller in the public eye, and help make him the focus of a movement with a history of violence against exactly these kinds of targets (including Tiller himself, who had already been shot). In those circumstances, flinging around words like "blood on their hands," "pardon," "country club" and "judgment day" was sensationally irresponsible.




Seeking Clues on Suspect in Shooting of Doctor
New York Times
By SUSAN SAULNY and MONICA DAVEY
Published: June 1, 2009

OVERLAND, Kan. — From the one-story house she once shared in this Kansas City suburb with her former husband, now suspected in the death of a doctor who performed late-term abortions, Lindsey Roeder recalled on Monday how he seemed to undergo a drastic personality shift more than a decade ago.

“The man I married disappeared into this other person,” Ms. Roeder, shaken and puffy eyed, said of Scott Roeder, who was being held in a Wichita jail in the death of Dr. George R. Tiller, who was fatally shot at his Wichita church on Sunday. The authorities said charges were expected soon against Mr. Roeder.

“He wanted a scapegoat,” Ms. Roeder said. “First it was taxes — he stopped paying. Then he turned to the church and got involved in anti-abortion.”

But Mr. Roeder, 51, had not been among the people considered most worrisome to abortion rights groups, some of which keep a close eye on anti-abortion groups and their Web sites to monitor what they consider threats, some leaders here said. “Nobody recognizes his name,” said Marla Patrick, a state coordinator for the National Organization for Women in Kansas.

Law enforcement officials here and in Wichita, a conservative town that has for years been a focal point of tense abortion debate in large part because of Dr. Tiller’s clinic, gave little sense of whether they had previously viewed Mr. Roeder as a concern. After he was taken into custody, they indicated that they were only beginning to delve into his past and his associations.

Still, as Mr. Roeder’s relatives and others who had come into contact with him over the years began looking backward, they said they now saw some signs that might have hinted at more serious trouble ahead. For more than 10 years, Mr. Roeder had been linked, at various times and in varying degrees, to the Freemen, a group that rejected federal authority and the banking system, and to people who believe that the killing of abortion providers was justified by the abortions it prevented.

In 2007, someone identifying himself as Scott Roeder posted a message on the Web site of Operation Rescue, a group based in Wichita that had devoted much of its effort to blocking Dr. Tiller from performing late-term abortions. The posting read, in part: “Tiller is the concentration camp ‘Mengele’ of our day and needs to be stopped before he and those who protect him bring judgment upon our nation.” ...

Climate Change Killing 300,000 Per Year

Climate Change Killing 300,000 Per Year
CNN

LONDON (May 29, 2009) -- The first comprehensive report into the human cost of climate change warns the world is in the throes of a "silent crisis" that is killing 300,000 people each year.
More than 300 million people are already seriously affected by the gradual warming of the earth and that number is set to double by 2030, the report from the Global Humanitarian Forum warns.


A new report examines the human cost of climate change, which it said causes more than 300,000 deaths per year. The report, released Friday, shows the impact of climate change on population displacement, malnutrition and diseases, such as malaria. "Climate change is not something waiting to happen," said former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.


"For the first time we are trying to get the world's attention to the fact that climate change is not something waiting to happen. It is impacting seriously the lives of many people around the world," the forum's president, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, told CNN.


Speaking to CNN's Becky Anderson in London on Friday, Annan said the migration of people from newly uninhabitable areas presents a security issue...

Malaria's range is expanding as the world warms; also

I just got back from El Salvador, where those who can afford it take powerful, dangerous medications every six months to get rid of parasites. Everything grows better in the tropics--including all manner of creepy, crawling things, some of which are very hard to get rid of. I also saw an out-of-control wild fire in the pine hills near Pequin.

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
Reuters
Climate health costs: bug-borne ills, killer heat
May 28, 2009

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tree-munching beetles, malaria-carrying mosquitoes and deer ticks that spread Lyme disease are three living signs that climate change is likely to exact a heavy toll on human health.

These pests and others are expanding their ranges in a warming world, which means people who never had to worry about them will have to start. And they are hardly the only health threats from global warming.

The Lancet medical journal declared in a May 16 commentary: "Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century."

Individual threats range from the simple to the very complex, the Lancet said, reporting on a year-long study conducted with University College London.

As the global mean temperature rises, expect more heat waves. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects 25 percent more heat waves in Chicago by the year 2100; Los Angeles will likely have a four-to-eightfold increase in the number of heat-wave days by century's end.

These "direct temperature effects" will hit the most vulnerable people hardest, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, especially those with heart problems and asthma, the elderly, the very young and the homeless.

The EPA has declared that carbon dioxide, a powerful greenhouse gas. is a danger to human health and welfare, clearing the way for possible regulation of emissions.

At the same time, the U.S. Congress is working on a bill that would cap emissions and issue permits that could be traded between companies that spew more than the limit and those that emit less.

RISING SEAS, SULTRY AIR

People who live within 60 miles of a shoreline, or about one-third of the world's population, could be affected if sea levels rise as expected over the coming decades, possibly more than 3 feet (1 meter) by 2100. Flooded homes and crops could make environmental refugees of a billion people.

As it becomes hotter, the air can hold more moisture, helping certain disease-carriers, such as the ticks that spread Lyme disease, thrive, the EPA said.

A changing climate could increase the risk of mosquito-borne diseases like malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever and various viral causes of encephalitis. Algae blooms in water could be more frequent, increasing the risk of diseases like cholera. Respiratory problems may be aggravated by warming-induced increases in smog.

Other less obvious dangers are also potentially devastating.

Pine bark beetles, which devour trees in western North America will be able to produce more generations each year, instead of subsiding during winter months.

They leave standing dead timber, ideal fuel for wildfires from Arizona to Alaska...

China has rage, too

A man who pushed another man off a bridge claims to have done so out of purely unselfish motives. Some might think he was trying to speed up traffic so he could get home to dinner, or trying to stifle a protest he did not support. But no, he was doing a public service by pushing someone off a bridge for being "selfish."

Man pushes would-be suicide off bridge
May 25, 2009
Reuters

A Chinese man was pushed off a bridge by an angry passer-by after his threat to commit suicide held up traffic for five hours, Chinese media reported on Saturday.

Retired soldier Lian Jiansheng, 66, broke through a police cordon and reached out to shake the hand of would-be jumper Chen Fuchao before shoving him off the bridge.

"I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish. Their action violates a lot of public interests," Lai was quoted as saying by the China Daily newspaper.

"They do not really dare to kill themselves. Instead, they just want to raise the relevant government authorities' attention to their appeals."

Chen, 2 million yuan ($293,200) in debt because of a failed building project, fell 8 metres (yards) onto a partially inflated emergency air cushion and was hospitalized with wrist and back injuries. Lai was detained by police.

Chen was at least the twelfth person since early April to threaten suicide at the same spot, the Haizhu bridge in Guangzhou. But none jumped and -- until Lian gave Chen a helping hand -- none was pushed.

Liberty University bans College Democrats; founder Jerry Falwell would be pleased

Conservative University Founded by Jerry Falwell Bans College Democrats Club
The club is barred from using Liberty University's name, advertising events and holding meetings on campus
AP
May 22, 2009

RICHMOND, Va. -- Liberty University has ordered its fledgling College Democrats club to shut down, saying the group stands against the conservative Christian school's moral principles.

Club president Brian Diaz said he was shocked to be notified by e-mail last week that the club was being banned by the private university in Lynchburg founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell. The university first recognized it in the fall.

"We were shocked, as well, that (the club) even got accepted. It was huge, and we were glad that Liberty did that," Diaz said in a telephone interview from Orlando, Fla.

The club is barred from using Liberty's name, advertising events and holding meetings on campus. Violators could be reprimanded and face expulsion for repeated offenses.

Vice president of student affairs Mark Hine said in the e-mail sent to Diaz on May 15 that the Democratic party violates the school's principles by supporting abortion, socialism and the "'LGBT' agenda," referring to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people. The e-mail said that even though the campus group "may not support the more radical planks of the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party is still the parent organization of the club on campus."

Mathew Staver, the dean of Liberty's law school who also is overseeing a review of university policies, said the decision stemmed from a new policy governing student groups. No other groups have been affected, including the campus Republican organization, he said.

Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. said the club's previous recognition by the school was "an oversight by an administrator" who didn't thoroughly consult school policy.

He said he likes the group's members and knows they mean well, but that the university has received "lots of complaints from parents and donors" about the club's existence.

"They're great Christian kids. I hope they'll find a Democratic organization that is pro-life and pro-family so they can become endorsed," he said in a telephone interview.

The 30 members of the Democratic club, which was started in October, canvassed neighborhoods to promote Barack Obama's presidential run and called voters from phone banks. Diaz said it's natural to wonder if the group was somehow being penalized for those activities.

Staver denied that Liberty was targeting the Democrats. The university won't prevent the group's members from interacting on campus, he said, but they can't hold meetings as the Liberty University College Democrats.

In a conference call with reporters, club adviser and 2004 Liberty graduate Maria Childress said she was unsuccessful so far in arranging a meeting to plead her case with the chancellor.

She said the Republican Party and its platform is "preached on every avenue" to a captive campus audience. During last fall's presidential campaign, she said, GOP viewpoints were expressed in the absence of any Democratic perspective...

Human beings would rather know something bad will occur than not know anything about what's coming

May 20, 2009, 9:30 pm
What You Don’t Know Makes You Nervous
By Daniel Gilbert
New York Times

...people feel worse when something bad might occur than when something bad will occur. Most of us aren’t losing sleep and sucking down Marlboros because the Dow is going to fall another thousand points, but because we don’t know whether it will fall or not — and human beings find uncertainty more painful than the things they’re uncertain about.

But why?

A colostomy reroutes the colon so that waste products leave the body through a hole in the abdomen, and it isn’t anyone’s idea of a picnic. A University of Michigan-led research team studied patients whose colostomies were permanent and patients who had a chance of someday having their colostomies reversed. Six months after their operations, patients who knew they would be permanently disabled were happier than those who thought they might someday be returned to normal...

[Maura Larkins' comment: Perhaps this is why voters frequently choose leaders who speak very assuredly of what the future holds, and what must be done about it. These voters don't want someone who says, "We have to find out what we don't know, and then figure out the best way to respond." They just want someone who says, "Do this, and then the boogeymen won't get you." I'm amazed at how voters do a 180-degree turn when their chosen leader's absolute certainty turns out to be simply wrong. I don't understand voters sudden hostility to the poor foolish man that they put into high office. He honestly believed he knew what was right. He thought God was on his side, and the voters thought that, too. It was a shared delusion. The voters should blame themselves just as much as they blame their erstwhile hero.]

Christian bookstore owner: Do as he says, not as he does

Christian bookstore owner in Morgan Hill arrested on suspicion of sexual battery
By Mark Gomez
Mercury News
05/20/2009

The owner of a Christian bookstore in Morgan Hill has been arrested for touching a female employee inappropriately, according to police.

Richard Dresser, 55, of Morgan Hill, was arrested Saturday after a 23-year-old female employee reported the incident to police. Officers responded to Eternal Treasures bookstore located at 433 Vineyard Town Center and took Dresser to the police department for questioning.

Police say Dresser was interviewed and confessed to the crime. He was arrested and booked into Santa Clara County jail on suspicion of touching intimate part against restrained person, indecent exposure, recording video for pleasure and secretly video taping person when they have an expectation of privacy...

Privacy laws violated by healthcare provider

Farrah Fawcett: Dealing with cancer much easier when not "under a microscope"
Westlake Ent. Group © Westlake Ent. Group
CBS Channel 8 San Diego

...The former Charlie's Angels star said that unlike other cancer patients, she has not been given the right of privacy and the opportunity to choose with whom she wants to share the news of her illness...

The 62-year-old's cancer fight has been in the news since she disclosed it in October 2006. Since then, the actress has denounced the National Enquirer for publishing leaked details of her illness, and even set up a sting operation to prove to UCLA Medical Center that one of its employees was responsible for sharing the information.

Fawcett was shocked to see how quickly her diagnosis appeared in the Enquirer. "I couldn't believe how fast it came out," Fawcett said. "Maybe four days."

Partly because of Fawcett's experience, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law tougher penalties for people and entities that violate patients' privacy.

Federal prosecutors who investigated the case accused a UCLA employee of receiving $4,600 in checks from the Enquirer in her husband's name. The employee pleaded guilty to a felony charge of violating federal medical privacy laws but died of cancer before she could be sentenced.

Elizabeth Edwards stands up for herself amid tragedies and humiliations

Elizabeth Edwards: Why so much hate from the media?
May 12, 2009
by Tina Jordan

I have been following the whole flap over the new Elizabeth Edwards book, Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life's Adversities -- you know, the one where she talks about her death of her son, her cancer, and the affair of her husband, John -- and I'm stunned by the negative media reaction to it. Maureen Dowd wrote in the New York Times, "Now Saint Elizabeth has dragged [John] back into the public square for a flogging on Oprah and in Time and at bookstores near you. The book is billed as helping people 'facing life's adversities.' But it's just a gratuitous peek into their lives, and one that exposes her kids by peddling more dregs about their personal family life in a book, and exposes the ex-girlfriend, who's now trying to raise the baby girl, a dead ringer for John Edwards, in South Orange, N.J." Then, in response to Edwards' appearance on the Today Show yesterday (embedded below), Daily Beast editor Tina Brown wrote a piece under the headline "Elizabeth Edwards fed herself to the Vultures" that said, "If she had stuck with her health and her loss, Edwards might have held on to our sympathy. But her insistence on belittling to Oprah the dreaded 'other woman,' Rielle Hunter, was so embarrassingly self-righteous it almost made me feel sorry for the Democratic twinkie John." Huh?

I guess I’m not sure I understand all this venom. And I certainly don’t agree with it. Elizabeth Edward’s reasons are her own, and she’s justified to make them. Who are we to sit in judgment? When Gloria Allred and Tina Brown appeared on the Today Show this morning to discuss the whole thing, Brown said at one point that she didn’t think Elizabeth needed “to parade her lack of resolution to the cameras.” Meredith Vieira seemed visibly annoyed, saying at one point, “Why is she the one being judged when she’s the victim in all this?” I never thought I’d find Gloria Allred the voice of reason, but I sure agreed with her when she said, “I think she was giving an honest reaction that she has every right to give. She is looking at the good and the bad and the ugly, and giving weight to all of that.”






Elizabeth Edwards: the Green-eyed Monster?
Caryl Rivers
May 12, 2009
Huffington Post

...Edwards, I believe, is seeking something more profound than mere vengeance. It's about who owns her story, and through that narrative, herself.

One of the major themes to emerge from the second wave of the women's movement of the 70s was the desire of women to be, at long last, at the center of their own stories. They no longer wanted to be somebody's mother, somebody's wife, somebody's victim, somebody's muse, or the object of somebody's desire.

In those days, the idea of women as actors in their own right, uncoupled from the Male Gaze, was a radical one. Joseph Campbell, the famous scholar of mythology, was once asked if women could have a quest, a journey of their own. He said no, because women were the objects of quests by men. "Women don't need to make the journey. In the whole mythological journey, the woman is there. All she has to do is realize that she's the place that people are trying to get to."

Elizabeth Edwards wants to present her life on her own terms. She wants to tell us of a life that mattered. She doesn't want history's picture of her to be the one we've seen so often with political wives. They stand beside their straying spouses, mute in support, and then shuffle off into the shadows of politics and history.

Edwards' breast cancer has metastasized into her bones. She knows she is coming prematurely to the end of her life. She doesn't have many years ahead of her, as Hillary Clinton did, to forge her own story and triumph in her own right...

As the late critic Carolyn Heilbrun pointed out, "above all other prohibitions, what has been forbidden to women is anger, together with the open admission of the desire for power and control over one's life ...Because this has been declared unwomanly, and because many women would prefer (or think they would prefer) a world without evident power or control, women have been deprived of the narratives, or the texts, plots, or examples, by which they might assume power over--take control of--their own lives."...

Some Republicans ready to move on from wedge issues of God, guns and gays

On Politics Dwindling, GOP Won't Look Inward
New York Times
May 8, 2009‎
By MARK PAZNIOKAS
...ON June 4, Newt Gingrich is to address a shrinking Connecticut Republican Party that has sworn off God, guns and gays as wedge issues...

Granddaughter of pastor arrested for murder of 8-year-old in Tracy

Teacher Arrested in Cantu Murder
By TERRY COLLINS
AP
April 11, 2009

A Sunday school teacher was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and killing 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, whose body was found in a suitcase in an irrigation pond.
Melissa Huckaby, 28, was arrested at 11:55 p.m. Friday, about five hours after she drove herself to the local police station at the request of officers, said police Sgt. Tony Sheneman.

Police have arrested a Sunday school teacher and pastor's daughter, Melissa Huckaby, 28, in the death of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu. The girl's body was found in a suitcase submerged in an irrigation pond on April 6. Sandra vanished on March 27...

Huckaby's family had been questioned at length during the investigation, and their home and vehicles had been searched, Sheneman said.

Huckaby was being held without bail at the San Joaquin County Jail, with arraignment set for Tuesday, according to the county sheriff's Web site...

Huckaby had previously told The Tracy Press that Sandra visited her home on the day of her disappearance to play with her 5-year-old daughter. But Huckaby said she'd turned Sandra away because her daughter needed to pick up her toys and Sandra went to another friend's home. Huckaby also said she had left her suitcase in the driveway that day, and that it was missing.

The Tracy Press reported that Huckaby was released Thursday from Sutter Tracy Community Hospital, where she spent several days in intensive care for what she described as "internal bleeding."

Huckaby is a granddaughter of Pastor Clifford Lawless, whose Clover Road Baptist Church was the subject of a police search. Huckaby taught Sunday school at the church and lived with Lawless in the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park that also was Sandra's home...

'The $25000 Pyramid' may replace 'Guiding Light' on CBS

In the old days, Americans were interested in guiding moral principles, but not so much nowadays. It's becoming clearer by the day that Americans have changed their focus. Why? Have we been corrupted by financial success?

Reid Says Roberts 'Didn't Tell Us the Truth'

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid suggests Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts misled senators into believing he was not too conservative.
FOXNews.com
March 27, 2009

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Friday that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts did not "tell us the truth" during his 2005 confirmation hearings, suggesting Roberts misled senators into believing he was more moderate than he really was.

According to Politico.com, Reid complained about Roberts during a discussion hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

"Roberts didn't tell us the truth. At least (Samuel) Alito told us who he was," Reid said, according to the article.

"But we're stuck with those two young men, and we'll try to change by having some moderates in the federal courts system as time goes on -- I think that will happen."

According to Politico.com, while Reid said Democrats will try to bring more moderates to the bench, he said they will not try to block Republicans' ability to filibuster nominees.

The Dr. Fox effect explains why meaningless speeches get high ratings

The Dr. Fox effect
from Wikipedia

...Professor of law Deborah Merritt summarized the Dr. Fox Effect as it was observed in the first experiments:

"The experimenters created a meaningless lecture on 'Mathematical Game Theory as Applied to Physician Education,' and coached Fox to deliver it 'with an excessive use of double talk, neologisms, non sequiturs, and contradictory statements.'

At the same time, the researchers encouraged Fox to adopt a lively demeanor, convey warmth toward his audience, and intersperse his nonsensical comments with humor. ...

Fox fooled not just one, but three separate audiences of professionals and graduate students. Despite the emptiness of his lecture, fifty-five psychiatrists, psychologists, educators, graduate students, and other professionals produced evaluations of Dr. Fox that were overwhelmingly positive....

The disturbing feature of the Dr. Fox study, as the experimenters noted, is that Fox’s nonverbal behaviors so completely masked a meaningless, jargon-filled, and confused presentation."

AIG scandal proves we are ruled by a government of men, not laws

Welcome to double-standard America

By David Sirota
Salon.com
March 21, 2009

United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard likes to say that Washington policymakers "treat the people who take a shower after work much differently than they treat the people who shower before they go to work." In the 21st century Gilded Age, the blue-collar shower-after-work crowd is given the tough, while the white-collar shower-before-work gang gets the love, and never before this week was that doctrine made so clear.

Following news that government-owned American International Group devoted $165 million of its $170 billion taxpayer bailout to employee bonuses, the White House insisted nothing could be done to halt the robbery. On ABC's Sunday chat show, Obama advisor Larry Summers couched his passive-aggressive defense of AIG's thieves in the saccharine argot of jurisprudence. "We are a country of law -- there are contracts (and) the government cannot just abrogate contracts," he said.

The rhetoric echoed John Adams' two-century-old fairy tale about an impartial "government of laws, and not of men." Only now, the reassuring platitudes can't hide the uncomfortable truth.

Last month, the same government that says it "cannot just abrogate" executives' bonus contracts used its leverage to cancel unions' wage contracts. As the Wall Street Journal reported, federal loans to G.M. and Chrysler were made contingent on those manufacturers shredding their existing labor pacts and "extract[ing] financial concessions from workers."...

According to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, these allegedly inviolate AIG agreements promised bonus money the company didn't have and were crafted by executives who knew the firm was collapsing, meaning there is a decent chance these pacts could be invalidated under "fraudulent conveyance" statutes.

They also might be canceled via "force majeure" clauses allowing one party to rescind a pact in the event of extraordinary circumstances -- like, perhaps, the collapse of the world economy. (Note: BusinessWeek reports that corporations are already citing the recession as reason to invoke such clauses and nix their business-to-business contracts.)

But, then, those legal cases require a government that treats AIG's shower-before-work employees with the same firmness that it treats the auto industry's shower-after-work employees, not the government we currently have -- the one that believes "the supreme sanctity of employment contracts applies only to some types of employees but not others," as Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald says.

Mind you, this double standard works the other way, too.

Congressional Republicans have long supported the laws letting bankruptcy courts annul mortgage contracts for vacation homes. Those statutes help the shower-before-work clique at least retain their beachside villas, no matter how many of their speculative Ponzi schemes go bad. But for those who shower after work, it's Adams-esque bromides against "absolving borrowers of their personal responsibility," as the GOP announced it will oppose legislation permitting bankruptcy judges to revise mortgage contracts for primary residences.

...Most of us know that the selective application of legal principles is as old as the Republic. However, lots of us are only now discovering that inequality is so pronounced that the time of day we bathe determines the enforcement and reliability (or lack thereof) of even the most basic contracts.

We are just realizing that for all the parroting of America's second president, we are ruled by a government of men, and not of laws.

Rick Steves: Mr. Rogers in Iran?

The other side of Rick Steves

He may seem like Mister Rogers. But in a revealing interview, the travel guru shares his daring views on Iran and terrorism, spoiled Americans and the best places to smoke pot in Europe.

Salon.com
By Kevin Berger
March 20, 2009

[Rick Steves is] so good-natured and devoted in his PBS travel specials to showing places that Fodor's would never send tourists to in their floral shirts that he's created a monstrous new travel industry. He's the apotheosis of the anti-Carnival Cruise crowd...

In short, Steves wants Americans to get over themselves. He wants us to please shed our geographic ego. "Everybody should travel before they vote," he has written. We should be represented by politicians who want America to act as a good global neighbor.

Steves' agenda is epitomized in his recent TV special on Iran. At the request of a friend in the United Nations to help "build understanding between Iran and the U.S.," Steves has produced a loving portrait of the demonized country. Characteristic Steves-on-the-street interviews open closed minds to the sophistication of Iranian citizens and their lack of antipathy toward Americans. In one scene, a man in a car pokes his head out the window and says to Steves, "Your heart is very kind." Steves is incredibly proud of his Iran film and is offering the DVD for $5 to any community group that wants to discuss it.

I recently caught up with Steves while he was killing time in the Tulsa, Okla., airport, where he had just given a talk about Iran, and was heading home to Washington state. In conversation, he was as ebullient as ever, fearlessly spelling out his views on globalization and terrorism, the scourges of tourism and the importance of decriminalizing marijuana.

Conservatives continue to harp that the U.S. shouldn't negotiate with Iran, and call Obama weak for even appearing agreeable toward the country. What can your Iran show say to American hard-liners?

When I made the show, I was not interested in endorsing or challenging the complaints we have about Iran's government. Maybe they do fund terrorism, maybe they do want to destroy Israel, maybe they do stone adulterers. I don't know. I just wanted to humanize the country and understand what makes its people tick.

When I came home after the most learning 12 days of travel I've ever had in my life, I realized this is a proud nation of 70 million people. They are loving parents, motivated by fear for their kids' future and the culture they want to raise their kids in. I had people walk across the street to tell me they don't want their kids to be raised like Britney Spears. They are afraid Western culture will take over their society and their kids will be sex toys, drug addicts and crass materialists. That scares the heck out of less educated, fundamentalist, small-town Iranians, which is the political core of the Islamic Revolution and guys like Ahmadinejad.

After all, this is a country that lost a quarter of a million people fighting Saddam Hussein, when Iraq, funded by the United States, invaded Iran. And they remember the invasion like it was yesterday to them. It's amazing: They have a quarter of our population and they lost a quarter of a million people, fighting Hussein. That's a huge scar in their society...

Religious cancer patients use more life-prolonging care

Religious patients more likely to get intensive life-prolonging care
By Madison Park
March 18, 2009
CNN

Cancer patients who rely on religion to cope with their terminal illnesses are more likely to use intensive life-prolonging care, according to a study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Aggressive treatments such as machine ventilation and resuscitation keep the patients alive, but they ultimately don't cure them.

"Religious copers may decide to undergo therapies with high risks and uncertain benefits because they trust that God could heal them through the proposed treatment," the study authors wrote.

Cancer patients who had high levels of religious coping were three times more likely to receive aggressive life-prolonging care.

"We're not saying every religious coper is likely to get aggressive care," said one of the authors, Holly Prigerson, director of the Center for Psychooncology and Palliative Care Research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. "Most of them did not. Among those who were getting the most aggressive care, it was disproportionately a function of their being a religious coper."
How cancer patients cope
A new study finds that religiousness affected end of life treatments.

Percent receiving ventilation
High in religious coping: 11.3
Low in religious coping: 3.6

Percent receiving life-prolonging care
High in religious coping: 13.6
Low in religious coping: 4.2

Percent receiving resuscitation:
High in religious coping: 7.4
Low in religious coping: 1.8

Source: Journal of the American Medical Association

About 10 percent of those who had high levels of religious coping died in the intensive care unit, as opposed to 4.2 percent who had low levels of religious coping.

In this study, nearly 80 percent of the 345 patients with advanced stages of various cancers said religion helped them cope, and about 32 percent reported that their faith was "the most important thing that keeps you going."

More than half reported praying, meditating or taking part in religious studies. The study participants were primarily Christian and were followed until death.

The Coping with Cancer study, funded by the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Mental Health, examined the relationship between psychological and social factors and the end-of-life outcomes at seven medical facilities in Dallas, Texas; Boston, Massachusetts; West Haven, Connecticut; and Hookset, New Hampshire...

Personality disorder of Austrian father: controlling, ruling by fear, and able to ignore his own wrongdoing

Father Pleads Guilty in Incest Case
By VERONIKA OLEKSYN
AP
March 18, 2009

In a stunning turn of events, an Austrian on trial for imprisoning his daughter for 24 years and fathering her seven children pleaded guilty Wednesday to all charges against him — including negligent homicide — after hearing his daughter's heart-wrenching testimony....

A psychiatrist, meanwhile, told the court Wednesday that [Josef]Fritzl had a very serious personality disorder and would still pose a threat even at his advanced age if freed. Psychiatrist Adelheid Kastner recommended that Fritzl serve out his sentence in a psychiatric ward.
...Kastner, the psychiatrist who met with Fritzl several times and put together a psychological profile for the court, said the Austrian needed to control people. She said Fritzl had an ability to block out his crimes but knew what he was doing was wrong, acknowledging he had a guilty conscience when he went to bed at night and when he woke up in the morning.
"Fritzl is guilty for what he did," she said.
Fritzl had testified earlier this week that he had a difficult childhood and a bad relationship with his mother.
"The climate in his parent's house was marked by fear," Kastner said...

Pope insists on controversial anti-condom policy

Pope in Africa reaffirms "no condoms" against AIDS
Tue Mar 17, 2009
By Philip Pullella and David Lewis

YAOUNDE, March 17 (Reuters) - Pope Benedict on Tuesday reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to the use of condoms in the fight against AIDS as he started a visit to Africa, where more than 25 million people have died from the disease in recent decades.

The Pope, who arrived to a tumultuous welcome in the capital of Cameroon, also said the continent's people were suffering disproportionately due to the global challenges of food shortages, financial crises and climate change.

"It (AIDS) cannot be overcome by the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem," he said in response to a question about the Church's widely contested position against the use of condoms.

The disease has killed more than 25 million people since the early 1980s, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, and some 22.5 million Africans are living with HIV.

His words were some of his most explicit on the use of condoms to stop the spread of AIDS since his election in 2005.

The Church teaches that fidelity within heterosexual marriage, chastity and abstinence are the best ways to stop AIDS. It does not approve condoms but some Church leaders have been calling for allowing their use in rare cases between married heterosexual couples where one partner has the disease.

"The only solution is two-fold: the first is a humanisation of sexuality, a human, spiritual renewal which brings with it a new way of behaving among people and, secondly, a true friendship, especially for those who are suffering, a willingness to make personal sacrifices," he said.

He called for "correct behaviour regarding one's body".

TUMULTUOUS WELCOME

The Pope was greeted by tens of thousands of dancing and singing people lining the 25 km route from the airport to the city.

With the number of practicing Catholics dwindling in the developed world, Africa is seen as vital to the Church's future. But the relationship is not without controversy, mainly over the condoms issue.

"At a time of global food shortages, financial turmoil, and disturbing patterns of climate change Africa suffers disproportionately," he told crowds on his arrival.

"More and more of her people are falling prey to hunger, poverty and disease. They cry out for reconciliation, justice and peace, and that is what the church offers them," he said.

Speaking to reporters on the plane, the Pope said the economic crisis was a product of a "deficit of ethics in economic structures"...

[I agree with the Pope that lack of ethics in economics causes poverty. But I disagree with his AIDS decree. The poor (and the rich) should be allowed to protect themselves from disease even if they aren't sexually pure.]

Let your listeners doodle during class or meetings

Turns out, doodling during class—or meetings—may actually help your concentration. (If only the same were true for texting.)
By Dina Fine Maron
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Feb 26, 2009


In a victory for absent-minded scribblers everywhere, one study now suggests that doodling can help your memory. Though research suggests multitasking or daydreaming can be distracting, psychologist Jackie Andrade of the University of Plymouth in England thought it might be a different story for a simple task like doodling.

She asked 40 adult volunteers to listen to a monotonous mock telephone message about a party. Half the participants were told to doodle (filling in some random printed shapes) while listening to the message and to write down mentioned partygoers' names but to ignore all the other information. The other half were told to do the same, except they weren't given the doodling option. Later all 40 listeners were asked what they remembered from the message on a surprise memory test. The results, published online Thursday in Applied Cognitive Psychology, suggest that the doodlers actually had better recall: on average they remembered 29 percent more information, and they also wrote down more partygoers' names accurately.

Andrade spoke with NEWSWEEK's Dina Fine Maron about the virtues of doodling, and why texting might be the anti-doodle. Excerpts:

MARON: Why do a study on doodling?
ANDRADE: I was interested in daydreaming, although we didn't actually measure daydreaming. When you have something really boring to do in a laboratory, you aren't just doing that task—you are thinking about shopping, picking the kids up from school, what you're going to have for tea. We don't usually take those things into account. Daydreaming takes up a lot of mental energy and can be distracting. I had the idea that maybe some small, simple task would catch just enough energy to keep you focused on the [main] task at hand, and though it wouldn't make the task you're doing less boring, it could help you focus.

What are the implications for someone in a school setting?
Doodling can be a good thing. If there's a choice between doodling and daydreaming, you're better off if your students are doodling. Of course, it's best if you aren't boring them at all, but doodling isn't necessarily a sign of your students being naughty—it's a sign that it may be hard for them to concentrate without something visual.

You are a professor, right?
Yes.

So, in light of your findings, will you be more willing to allow your students to doodle in class?
I think I might be. If it's a sign of them being bored, then it would worry me a bit. Really, they're more likely to text each other, though.

Do you think texting also helps them with their memory?
No, I think not. I think that's them just being distracted.

Would you refuse life-saving treatment if stem cells made it possible?

Getting personal on embryonic stem cell ethics
USA Today
March 7, 2009

Would you refuse -- for your parent, your child or yourself -- a treatment for a terrible ailment because it was developed with embryonic stem cell research?

Would you want your doctor to keep you in the dark about such a treatment because he or she is morally opposed to it?

Before I get into the arguments about the ethics of embryonic stem cell research, I wanted to get those questions out there. The issues at hand are not just arguments for scientists, politicians, clergy and theologians. These are questions that you and I may one day face.

California Teachers Association puts politics before the First Amendment

Peg Myers is facing an election in May as President of Chula Vista Educators.







I woke up this morning and found all the posts missing from my San Diego Education Report Blog.

Who could have done it?

My prime suspect is the last person who visited my most recent post. This person visited at 12:21 a.m. Interestingly, this person was using the same computer as the anonymous person who posted this comment just a few days ago:

Anonymous said...

Thank goodness for the perseverance of the attorneys in Shinoff's firm...some day this crazy nonsensical web site will come down!

The post on my blog that apparently triggered the erasure of my blog was about the deposition of Chula Vista Educators president Peg Myers.

A witness told me that Peg Myers used the word "crazy" to refer to me. Putting all the information together, I am suspecting Peg Myers, who is facing an election in May if she is to continue as President of Chula Vista Educators. It's perfectly understandable that wouldn't want her deposition to be exposed during the campaign.

I also know that California Teachers Association protects sitting presidents of CTA locals, and that CTA information has previously disappeared from my website.

This is the information I have about the anonymous visitor:

IP Address
72.220.30.144
Cox Communications
United States
California
Chula Vista
Time of Visit Mar 1 2009 12:21:31 am
Visit Length 10 minutes 6 seconds
Page Views 2
Out Click SAN DIEGO EDUCATION REPORT WEBSITE
Time Zone UTC-8:00

UPDATE: Further research supports my conclusion. This person visited every single page of Peg Myers' deposition on SAN DIEGO EDUCATION REPORT WEBSITE, and also this page, which contains part of Robin Donlan's deposition transcript. Donlan and Myers were members of the "Castle Park Five."

Game theory could save the world

Telegraph.co.uk
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
09 Jul 2008

New hope that people around the world can work together to combat global warming has come from a new theoretical study.

A team has been using "game theory" - where mathematics is used to capture how people deal with each other - to show that a classic problem that undermines the ability of individuals to cooperate can be overcome, if people are diverse enough, as is the case when it comes to the 6.5 billion citizens of planet Earth.

Working together for the common good is crucial for progress in any society - not least for effectively addressing big issues such as recycling and tackling climate change. But there is a basic problem with how to make the public share responsibility for common problems, such as climate change.

This was most vividly illustrated by Prof Garrett Hardin, of the University of California, Santa Barbara, in his highly influential 1968 paper 'The tragedy of the commons'.

He used the example of a public pasture. Each herdsman will keep adding cows to a common field, because the benefit of an additional cow goes exclusively to the herdsman. Because the cost of overgrazing is shared by all, the pasture will end up ruined.

Mathematical models have confirmed that this is a profound problem, whether for coming together to fight climate change or pay taxes, but today, in the journal Nature, hope for cooperation is raised by Prof Jorge Pacheco of the University of Lisbon, who did the work there with Ms Marta Santos and Dr Francisco Santos from the Free University of Brussels.

Existing mathematical models treat individuals as equivalent, ignoring real-life diversity and population structure. So the team made the mathematics more realistic in this respect.

The team shows that, contrary to expectations, the temptation to cheat ("Why shouldn't I let others pay more for being green?") declines as society becomes more diverse.

Another discovery is that diversity also plays an important role in wealth distribution.

"Cooperation blooms whenever the act of giving is more important than the amount given," said Prof Pacheco.

The most important factor, he said, seems to be that people actually contribute to the public good.

"In particular, the fact that the wealthy minority contributes stimulates the contribution from the rest, who take them as role models," he said.

Prof Pacheco recalled the words of Anna Dreber and Prof Martin Nowak from Harvard University, leading game theorists, who stated that “preserving the global climate is the biggest public good dilemma ever, the one we cannot afford to lose."

Those who resort to punishment are losers

Telegrah.co.uk
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
19 Mar 2008
David Rand, Anna Dreber and Martin Nowak who were part of the research team


Taking the law into your own hands is ineffective. Nor is it true that sparing the rod spoils the child, according to a study that shows people who resort to punishment are losers.

These are not the ravings of someone who has been penalised once too often but the conclusion of an eminent group of biologists, economists and mathematicians at Harvard University, led by Prof Martin Nowak.

Earlier work suggested that punishment helps people to cooperate but was only based on people playing one off games, not having to deal with each other again and again.

When a long term relationship is taken into account, "the kind of punishment by people who 'take the law into their own hands' is now proven to be ineffective," says Prof Nowak.

But he adds that the new work focuses on peer punishment, not that meted out by the state. "Sanctioning institutions (such as the state enforcing law) is a different type of punishment, which still needs to be investigated from an evolutionary perspective."

The team bases its conclusions on a mathematical analysis of strategic games. In these games, people are given the choice of making a fair contribution or free loading.

Over the years, some earlier experiments seemed to suggest that cooperation founders without punishment. These observations lead to the bleak conclusion that cooperative societies need peer punishment.

But the new study published in the journal Nature, concludes that the people who engage in costly punishment do not benefit from their behaviour.

Working with the Harvard Business School, Prof Nowak asked 104 college students to take part in a variant of a classic game, called the Prisoner's Dilemma.

In this game people have a choice between cooperation and defection. Cooperation means paying $1 for the other person to receive $3.

Defection means taking away $1 from the other person. In the extended version of the game there is a third option: costly punishment, which means paying $1 for the other person to lose $4.

The study found that those who punished lost out overall, and that punishment bestows no benefit on the group as a whole.

The five top-ranked players never used costly punishment. More successful players would use tit for tat, while players who earned the lowest payoffs punished most often. "Put simply, winners don't punish," says co-author David Rand.

Punishment is to do with telling someone who is boss, or to defend a possession, and not part of the fabric of a society where people cooperate, as was previously thought.

"Punishment can lead to a downward spiral of retaliation, with destructive outcomes for everybody involved. The people with the highest total payoffs do not use costly punishment."

"Costly punishment," the punitive behaviour studied by Prof Nowak and his colleagues, refers to situations where a punisher is willing to incur a cost - whether a financial one or to his reputation - in order to penalise someone else.

Importantly, most real world punishment is costly in one way or another. Punishers are typically driven by anger and not by altruistic motives.

The reason the findings overturn textbook wisdom is that earlier work has "not been on situations where individuals use punishment in the context of ongoing interactions," says co-author Anna Dreber.

"We make the setting more realistic by having subjects play repeated games and introducing costly punishment as one of several options."

The new study shows that punishment is not an effective way to promote cooperation, the glue that holds society together, but probably evolved for other reasons such as establishing dominance and defend ownership.

"Punishment may be a tool for forcing another person to do what you want," Dreber says. "It might have been for those kinds of dominance situations that the use of punishment has evolved."

"Our finding has a very positive message: in an extremely competitive setting, the winners are those who resist the temptation to escalate conflicts, while the losers punish and perish," says Prof Nowak.

This study was supported by the John Templeton Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Jan Wallander Foundation, and billionaire philanthropist Jeffrey Epstein.

Women are less tolerant than men

Women less tolerant of each other than men are, study finds
Telegraph.co.uk
13 Feb 2009

Women are less tolerant of each other than men are, according to a new study which may explain why some women prefer to have a male boss.
13 Feb 2009

The research, published in the US journal Psychological Science, found that women formed a negative view of their peers much quicker than men did.

The team from Emmanuel College in Boston asked male and female college students to rate their room-mates under different scenarios.

When asked to judge how they would rate their room-mates if they carried out a single fictional act of negative behaviour, after they had been otherwise completely trustworthy, women were far more likely to be critical of them.

Men, on the other hand, were much more tolerant.

Women were also more likely to switch to a new room-mate than men were.

The authors, led by associate professor of psychology Joyce Benenson, concluded that women were harsher on their peers because they expected more from their same-sex relationships than men did.

They wrote: "Women may simply weight negative information more heavily than men do, because negative information disrupts the establishment of intimacy, which serves a more important function in same-sex relationships for women than for men."

While the study did not take place in the workplace itself, it would appear to back up previous surveys that have found women prefer to work for a male boss.

Fossils reveal truth about Darwin's theory

Dimetrodon

Transitional creatures found include the 'fishibian' and the 'frogamander'
MSNBC
By Robin Lloyd
Feb. 12, 2009

With the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin this week, people around the world are celebrating his role as the father of evolutionary theory. Events and press releases are geared, in part, to combat false claims made by some who would discredit the theory.

One frequently cited "hole" in the theory: Creationists claim there are no transitional fossils, a.k.a. missing links. Biologists and paleontologists, among others, know this claim is false.

As key evidence for evolution and species' gradual change over time , transitional creatures should resemble intermediate species, having skeletal and other body features in common with two distinct groups of animals, such as reptiles and mammals, or fish and amphibians.

These animals sound wild, but the fossil record — which is far from complete — is full of them nonetheless, as documented by Occidental College geologist Donald Prothero in his book "Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters" (Columbia University Press, 2007). Prothero discussed those fossils last month at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, along with transitional fossils that were announced since the book was published, including the "fishibian" and the "frogamander."

At least hundreds, possibly thousands, of transitional fossils have been found so far by researchers. The exact count is unclear because some lineages of organisms are continuously evolving.

Here is a short list of transitional fossils documented by Prothero and that add to the mountain of evidence for Charles Darwin's theory . A lot of us relate most to fossils of life closely related to humans, so the list focuses on mammals and other vertebrates, including dinosaurs.

Mammals, including us

* It is now clear that the evolutionary tree for early and modern humans looks more like a bush than the line represented in cartoons. All the hominid fossils found to date form a complex nexus of specimens, Prothero says, but Sahelanthropus tchadensis, found in 2001 and 2002, threw everyone for a loop because it walked upright 7 million years ago on two feet but is quite chimp-like in its skull size, teeth, brow ridges and face. It could be a common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, but many paleoanthropologists will remain unsure until more fossils are found. Previously, the earliest ancestor of our Homo genus found in the fossil record dated back 6 million years.

* Most fossil giraffes have short necks and today's have long necks, but anatomist Nikos Solounias of the New York Institute of Technology's New York College of Osteopathic Medicine is preparing a description of a giraffe fossil, Bohlinia, with a neck that is intermediate in length.

* Manatees, also called sea cows, are marine mammals that have flippers and a down-turned snout for grazing in warm shallow waters. In 2001, scientists discovered the fossil of a "walking manatee," Pezosiren portelli, which had feet rather than flippers and walked on land during the Eocene epoch (54.8 million years ago to 33.7 million years ago) in what is now Jamaica. Along with skull features like manatees (such as horizontal tooth replacement, like a conveyor belt), it also had heavy ribs for ballast, showing that it also had an aquatic lifestyle, like hippos.

* Scientists know that mastodons, mammoths and elephants all share a common ancestor, but it gets hard to tell apart some of the earliest members of this group, called proboscideans, going back to fossils from the Oligocene epoch (33.7 million years ago to 23.8 million years ago). The primitive members of this group can be traced back to what Prothero calls "the ultimate transitional fossil," Moeritherium , from the late Eocene of Egypt. It looked more like a small hippo than an elephant and probably lacked a long trunk, but it had short upper and lower tusks, the teeth of a primitive mastodon and ear features found only in other proboscideans.

* The Dimetrodon was a big predatory reptile with a tail and a large sail or fin-back. It is often mistaken for a dinosaur, but it's actually part of our mammalian lineage and more closely related to mammals than reptiles, which is seen in its specialized teeth for stabbing meat and skull features that only mammals and their ancestors had. It probably moved around like a lizard and had a jawbone made of multiple bones, like a reptile...

Twelve deputies with guns drawn sieze less than an ounce of pot and arrest 8 college kids

After a photo of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps smoking pot appeared in the media, a South Carolina Sheriff ordered a major police action.

Has Sheriff in Phelps Pot Case Gone Too Far?
Eight Arrested, Less Than an Ounce of Marijuana Seized
By BETH TRIBOLET
ABC News' Law and Justice Unit
with ANDREA CANNING and JONANN BRADY
Feb. 12, 2009

Two South Carolina defense attorneys are questioning the motives of Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, who is pursuing criminal charges against eight people who allegedly smoked marijuana with Olympian Michael Phelps.

Authorities have arrested eight people for marijuana possession.

"It is a fascination if not an effort to destroy a public hero," said Joe McCulloch, an attorney for one of the suspects, today on "Good Morning America." "He's the sheriff, not the Terminator!"

Authorities recently executed search warrants at two private homes in Columbia, S.C., and arrested eight people for marijuana possession in connection with an investigation into the photo of Olympic swimmer Phelps holding a bong. Less than an ounce of marijuana was confiscated by sheriff's deputies, sources told ABC News.

"This is ridiculous. This is about college kids smoking pot and in no way justifies 12 officers entering a house with guns drawn to terrorize college kids," said attorney Dick Harpootlian, who is representing another suspect...

Tennesse Valley Authority CEO pay cut; coal ash lawsuit

Photo: DUNCAN MANSFIELD / ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tennesse Green.com
Settling ponds and ash piles are shown at the Kingston Fossil Plant in Kingston, Tenn., on Monday, Jan. 12. A breach in a containment wall released 1.1 billion gallons of ash and sludge from the plant on Dec. 22, 2008. The Tennessee Valley Authority has been spending $1 million a day since then to clean it up.


TVA board cuts CEO Tom Kilgore’s pay
Former Republican Party chief chosen
By BRAD SCHRADE and ANNE PAINE
The Tennessean
February 12, 2009

The TVA board sliced CEO Tom Kilgore’s potential pay today, eliminating “performance incentives” that could have sent his salary as high as $3.275 million this year.

The board also – in an unusual split vote – elected a new incoming chairman who is fresh out of the National Republican Committee chairmanship. One critic has called it an "overly partisan and tone deaf move."
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Kilgore’s salary will now be capped around $1 million, including his base pay and deferred compensation package.

His pay had been particularly controversial with the public who were outraged when the board approved in October what could amount to a 20% raise for him. Residents were struggling to pay electric bills after their rates had soared about 20% in previous months, mainly to cover rising fuel costs.

The board made cutbacks in incentives TVA-wide, as cleanup costs for the Dec. 22 coal ash disaster at TVA’s Kingston power plant reach $31 million.

The price tag is anticipated to rise to $525 million and possibly $825 million, not including the cost of lawsuits, Kilgore told the board.

In other action, the board elected Mike Duncan as its incoming chairman to take over May 18, with four board members in favor and three against.

Duncan is the former head of the Republican National Committee...


A Coal Day in Hell
by Diane G
Dec 26th, 2008

Right as they are on the brink of selling "Clean Coal Technology" to the American Public, Kingston Tennessee gets buried in 300 million tonnes of coal sludge. Its now in the watershed...

Nothing like cadmium in your water cocktail with a nice fat lead stick to swizzle it and a sprinkle of mercury bits on the brown foam topping.

For the sake of a job, you have been poisoning yourselves, your children and grandchildren for a hundred years. How long will the denizens of Tennessee, West Virginia and Kentucky put up with Coal Mining not only for its irresponsible lack of environmental control, when will they figure out its just a bad overall idea, plain and simple?...


TVA found in violation of federal Clean Water Act
February 10th, 2009
by Jennifer Walker-Journey

Following the investigation of the Kingston, Tennessee coal ash impoundment that failed and spilled more than a billion gallons of toxic material on to 300 acres of east Tennessee property, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in violation of the federal Clean Water Act, according to Knoxville Biz.

In a letter released late last week, EPA regional administrator Stanley wrote that the EPA “considers the Kingston spill to be an un-permitted discharge of pollutant in contravention of the Clean Water Act.” The TVA has been ordered to produce a plan to correct the violation as soon as possible and to keep the EPA in the loop with all its data communication with the state Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC).

Officials hope that data that already has been turned in to TDEC and future data will help pinpoint the why the impoundment failed last December, pouring 2.2 million pounds of coal ash onto a rural neighborhood. The coal ash contains toxins that could be hazardous to human health, including arsenic, lead, chromium, manganese and barium...

Diego has no opinion on Darwin's theory of evolution

Diego is 150, living in the Galapagos Islands once again. He must have been born just a few years after Charles Darwin visited the Galapagos Islands.

Voice of San Diego has a great little story about Diego, who used to live at the San Diego Zoo.

Back in the 1950s, kids were allowed to ride the tortoises at the San Diego Zoo. I loved it. Actually, "ride" is probably the wrong word. As I recall, I just got a place to sit. I envied my brother, whose tortoise actually took off across the enclosed area at the Children's Zoo. But then, perhaps "took off" isn't the right word either.

Lamarck is the skunk at Darwin's (200th) garden party

Lamarck thought that if you worked out faithfully, your children would have bigger muscles. This was wrong, but it turns out that Lamarck was partly right: genes do not entirely account for our hereditary traits. The "new" Lamarckism is gaining ground among scientists.


At tributes to Darwin, Lamarckism—inheritance of acquired traits—will be the skunk at the party.
NEWSWEEK
Sharon Begley
Published Jan 17, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Jan 26, 2009

Alas, poor Darwin. By all rights, 2009 should be his year, as books, museums and scholarly conclaves celebrate his 200th birthday (Feb. 12) and the 150th anniversary of "On the Origin of Species" (Nov. 24), the book that changed forever how man views himself and the creation. Teamed with genetics, Darwin's explanation of how species change through time has become the rock on which biology stands. Which makes the water flea quite the skunk at this party.

Some water fleas sport a spiny helmet that deters predators; others, with identical DNA sequences, have bare heads. What differs between the two is not their genes but their mothers' experiences. If mom had a run-in with predators, her offspring have helmets, an effect one wag called "bite the mother, fight the daughter." If mom lived her life unthreatened, her offspring have no helmets. Same DNA, different traits. Somehow, the experience of the mother, not only her DNA sequences, has been transmitted to her offspring.

That gives strict Darwinians heart palpitations, for it reeks of the discredited theory of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829). The French naturalist argued that the reason giraffes have long necks, for instance, is that their parents stretched their (shorter) necks to reach the treetops. Offspring, Lamarck said, inherit traits their parents acquired. With the success of Darwin's theory of random variation and natural selection, Lamarck was left on the ash heap of history. But new discoveries of what looks like the inheritance of traits acquired by parents—lab animals as well as people—are forcing biologists to reconsider Lamarckism.

The lab mice, of course, came first. Since 1999 scientists in several labs have shown that an experience a mouse mother has while she is pregnant can leave a physical mark on the DNA in her eggs. Just to emphasize, this is not a mutation, the only way new traits are supposedly transmitted to children. Instead, if mother mouse eats a diet rich in vitamin B12, folic acid or genistein (found in soy), her offspring are slim, healthy and brown—even though they carry a gene that makes them fat, at risk of diabetes and cancer, and yellow. It turns out that the vitamins slap a molecular "off" switch on the obesity/diabetes/yellow-fur gene. (Don't try this at home: no one knows which human genes soy, B12 and folic acid might silence.) This was the first evidence, now confirmed multiple times, that an experience of the mother (what she eats) can reach into the DNA in her eggs and alter the genes her pups inherit. "There can be a molecular memory of the parent's experience, in this case diet," says Emma Whitelaw of Queensland Institute of Medical Research, who did the first of these mouse studies. "It fits with Lamarck because it's the inheritance of a trait the parent acquired. There is even some evidence that the diet of a pregnant mouse can affect not only her offspring's coat color, but that of later generations."

Inheriting a DNA-silencing mark that your mom acquired is not as dramatic as giraffes passing on elongated necks to their kids. And the new Lamarckism doesn't mean that human moms who work out will pass along toned abs to their children, or that human dads who dye their hair red will have red-haired children. But preliminary evidence suggests that Lamarckism acts in people, too. In 2005, scientists in London found that the grandsons of men who had abundant food when they were boys (the study was done on men in a small town in northern Sweden) were much more likely to have diabetes and to die an early death than were the grandsons of men who suffered food shortages as boys. A 2006 study by the same scientists found that when fathers smoked as young boys, their sons tended to be more obese than did the sons of men who did not smoke as boys. Similar to the lab mice, the experience of the parents is visited upon the children and even the grandchildren. If the results hold up, says Whitelaw, "it would signal a paradigm shift in the way we think about the inheritance" of traits.

The existence of this parallel means of inheritance, in which something a parent experiences alters the DNA he or she passes on to children, suggests that evolution might happen much faster than the Darwinian model implies. "Darwinian evolution is quite slow," says Whitelaw. But if children can inherit DNA that bears the physical marks of their parents' experiences, they are likely to be much better adapted to the world they're born into, all in a single generation. Water fleas pop out helmets immediately if mom lived in a world of predators; by Darwin's lights, a population of helmeted fleas would take many generations to emerge through random variation and natural selection. The new Lamarckism promises to "reveal how the environment affects the genome to determine the ultimate traits of an individual," says Whitelaw.

Some of these studies will not hold up, as is typical with revolutionary new science. And resistance to what is being dubbed "the renaissance of heresy" is firm; one scientist called a paper on this stuff "a misguided attempt at scientific humor." But evidence for the new Lamarckism is strong enough to say the last word on inheritance and evolution has not been written.


A water flea without a helmut, from bioBlog at University of Waikato, New Zealand.

In some circumstances (water temperature, presence of predators), rather than having that sharp little point on their heads (top of the picture, above the eyespot) some Daphnia will have a longer, spikier 'helmet'. And this is where it gets interesting: it depends on the mother. If a 'helmet-less' female Daphnia is in an environment where there are also predators, her offspring will sport helmets. If not, they won't.