By DARRYN BENNETT
Voice of San DiegoJuly 29, 2008
"...A third year computer science graduate student, Whitehill and his colleagues are working to make a new generation of robots that would be effective and responsive teachers. They believe the key is to train them to recognize and respond to facial expressions, the way humans do naturally. Whitehill described the demonstration, part of his research at the University of California, San Diego's Machine Perception Laboratory, as "almost like having a remote control built into your face."...
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Better safe than sorry: cell phones and brain cancer
Preliminary results from a study of people who use cell phones over a period of ten years has some doctors worried, including Ronald Haberman of the University of Pittsburg Cancer Institute.
But most doctors want to wait until the final results are in before they warn against cell phone use.
Cancer researcher warns staff to limit cell phone use
By Jennifer C. Yates and Seth Borenstein
ASSOCIATED PRESS
published in San Diego Union Tribune
July 24, 2008
Herberman...said it takes too long to get answers from science and that he believes people should take action now – especially when it comes to children.
“Really at the heart of my concern is that we shouldn't wait for a definitive study to come out, but err on the side of being safe rather than sorry later,” Herberman said...
In the memo he sent to 3,000 faculty and staff members yesterday, he said children should use cell phones only for emergencies because their brains are still developing.
Adults should keep the phone away from the head and use a speaker or a wireless headset, he said...
A 2008 University of Utah analysis looked at nine studies – including some Herberman cites – with thousands of brain-tumor patients and concludes that “...The potential elevated risk of brain tumors after long-term cellular phone use awaits confirmation by future studies.”
...A driving force behind the memo was Devra Lee Davis, director of the university's center for environmental oncology.
“The question is, do you want to play Russian roulette with your brain?” she said. “I don't know that cell phones are dangerous. But I don't know that they are safe.”
But most doctors want to wait until the final results are in before they warn against cell phone use.
Cancer researcher warns staff to limit cell phone use
By Jennifer C. Yates and Seth Borenstein
ASSOCIATED PRESS
published in San Diego Union Tribune
July 24, 2008
Herberman...said it takes too long to get answers from science and that he believes people should take action now – especially when it comes to children.
“Really at the heart of my concern is that we shouldn't wait for a definitive study to come out, but err on the side of being safe rather than sorry later,” Herberman said...
In the memo he sent to 3,000 faculty and staff members yesterday, he said children should use cell phones only for emergencies because their brains are still developing.
Adults should keep the phone away from the head and use a speaker or a wireless headset, he said...
A 2008 University of Utah analysis looked at nine studies – including some Herberman cites – with thousands of brain-tumor patients and concludes that “...The potential elevated risk of brain tumors after long-term cellular phone use awaits confirmation by future studies.”
...A driving force behind the memo was Devra Lee Davis, director of the university's center for environmental oncology.
“The question is, do you want to play Russian roulette with your brain?” she said. “I don't know that cell phones are dangerous. But I don't know that they are safe.”
Friday, July 04, 2008
Farewell, Jesse Helms
I didn't agree with Jesse Helms' politics, but I've come to believe that he was exactly what nature intended him to be. He clearly had an anterior cingulate cortex that forbade him to change.
Jesse Helms: a polarizer, not a compromiser
By LARRY MARGASAK
AP
2008-07-04
"Compromise, hell!" Jesse Helms screamed in a 1959 editorial that captured what would become the legacy of his Senate career and his place in the conservative movement.
Jesse Helms mostly was a polarizer, not a compromiser. He would rather win elections by a razor's edge than change his conservative positions.
Many of his colleagues in the congenial Senate "club" sought compromises on the toughest social issues. Jesse Helms wouldn't play along. He relished his nickname as "Senator No," the man who knew the Senate rules so well that he blocked legislation that violated his right-wing principles and nominees he couldn't stomach.
Jesse Helms: a polarizer, not a compromiser
By LARRY MARGASAK
AP
2008-07-04
"Compromise, hell!" Jesse Helms screamed in a 1959 editorial that captured what would become the legacy of his Senate career and his place in the conservative movement.
Jesse Helms mostly was a polarizer, not a compromiser. He would rather win elections by a razor's edge than change his conservative positions.
Many of his colleagues in the congenial Senate "club" sought compromises on the toughest social issues. Jesse Helms wouldn't play along. He relished his nickname as "Senator No," the man who knew the Senate rules so well that he blocked legislation that violated his right-wing principles and nominees he couldn't stomach.
Have we forgotten the fundamentals of American patriotism?
The survival of American democracy depends on education, and we've been failing to teach our citizens the basic values of our democracy.
David S. Broder
Washington Post
July 4, 2008
...The ideas that define this country are found in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, as amplified by Supreme Court decisions and statutes in subsequent years. Those ideas have been tested in crisis and in war, and the leaders who steered the nation through those testing times are the heroes whose legacy we celebrate -- Washington, Lincoln, the two Roosevelts.
What disturbs the Bradley scholars is evidence that our generation is failing to educate the next one on the essentials of the American experiment..."
David S. Broder
Washington Post
July 4, 2008
...The ideas that define this country are found in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, as amplified by Supreme Court decisions and statutes in subsequent years. Those ideas have been tested in crisis and in war, and the leaders who steered the nation through those testing times are the heroes whose legacy we celebrate -- Washington, Lincoln, the two Roosevelts.
What disturbs the Bradley scholars is evidence that our generation is failing to educate the next one on the essentials of the American experiment..."
Black skin and patriotism
I've noticed that the most difficult relationships often involve the deepest love. So has Eugene Robinson:
Eugene Robinson
THE WASHINGTON POST
July 4, 2008
...think about the Buffalo Soldiers and the Tuskegee Airmen. Think about Dorie Miller, who, like so many black sailors in the segregated U.S. Navy of the 1940s, was relegated to kitchen duty – until Pearl Harbor, when Miller rushed up to the deck of the sinking battleship West Virginia, carried wounded sailors to safety and then raked Japanese planes with fire from a heavy machine gun until he ran out of ammunition.
Think about Colin Powell – but also think about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., a former Marine. And consider, as we celebrate Independence Day, how steadfast and complicated black patriotism has always been...
The fact that African-American patriotism is never simple doesn't mean it's in any way halfhearted; to the contrary, complicated relationships tend to be the deepest and strongest. It's a historical fact that black soldiers and sailors who fought overseas in World War II came home to Southern cities where they had to ride in the back of the bus – and that they were angry that the nation for which they had sacrificed would treat them this way. To some whites, I guess, it may seem logical to be suspicious of black patriotism – to believe that anger must somehow temper love of country.
Eugene Robinson
THE WASHINGTON POST
July 4, 2008
...think about the Buffalo Soldiers and the Tuskegee Airmen. Think about Dorie Miller, who, like so many black sailors in the segregated U.S. Navy of the 1940s, was relegated to kitchen duty – until Pearl Harbor, when Miller rushed up to the deck of the sinking battleship West Virginia, carried wounded sailors to safety and then raked Japanese planes with fire from a heavy machine gun until he ran out of ammunition.
Think about Colin Powell – but also think about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., a former Marine. And consider, as we celebrate Independence Day, how steadfast and complicated black patriotism has always been...
The fact that African-American patriotism is never simple doesn't mean it's in any way halfhearted; to the contrary, complicated relationships tend to be the deepest and strongest. It's a historical fact that black soldiers and sailors who fought overseas in World War II came home to Southern cities where they had to ride in the back of the bus – and that they were angry that the nation for which they had sacrificed would treat them this way. To some whites, I guess, it may seem logical to be suspicious of black patriotism – to believe that anger must somehow temper love of country.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Keep a low profile
Advice for followers:
"Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside."
--Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 1711
English poet & satirist (1688 - 1744)
Advice for leaders:
"Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend."
--Alexander Pope
From Wikipedia:
Pope was born in the City of London to Alexander (senior, a linen merchant) and Edith Pope (née Turner), who were both Roman Catholic. Pope's education was affected by the laws in force at the time upholding the status of the established Church of England, which banned Catholics from teaching on pain of perpetual imprisonment. Pope was taught to read by his aunt and then sent to two surreptitious Catholic schools, at Twyford and at Hyde Park Corner. Catholic schools, while illegal, were tolerated in some areas.
From early childhood he suffered numerous health problems, including Pott's disease[3] (a form of tuberculosis affecting the spine) which deformed his body and stunted his growth, no doubt helping to end his life at the relatively young age of 56. He never grew beyond 1.37 metres (4 feet 6 inches) tall. Although he never married, he had many women friends and wrote them witty letters.
In 1700, his family was forced to move to a small estate in Binfield, Berkshire due to strong anti-Catholic sentiment and a statute preventing Catholics from living within 10 miles of either London or Westminster.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Food Crisis Felt Most Acutely By the Poor
The global food crisis is causing some U.S. families to adopt survival tactics of those in developing countries, says Raj Patel, former analyst for Food First, a leading food policy think-tank. Patel, author of "Stuffed and Starved," tells Liane Hansen that poverty is what leads to hunger.
May 18, 2008
NPR
Listen to story.
May 18, 2008
NPR
Listen to story.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
McCain's pastor likened Catholic Church to "great whore"
John McCain's pastor said that "God punished New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina for planning a gay pride parade."
Then there was this from Reuters UK by Jim Forsyth:
"A Texas evangelical leader who endorsed Republican presidential candidate John McCain earlier this year has apologized for anti-Catholic remarks that angered Church members and embarrassed McCain's campaign.
"John Hagee, pastor of the 19,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, wrote a letter of apology to the Catholic League on Monday for comments in which he called the Church "apostate" and likened it to the "great whore" in a passage of the Bible..."
(http://uk.reuters.com/article/UKNews1/idUKN1343588920080513)
If you are wondering why Mr. Hagee said this, he has come up with an explanation. He made the statement, he says, "In my zeal to oppose anti-Semitism and bigotry in all its ugly forms..."
Clearly, we must be careful when judging others that we don't make an ironical spectacle of ourselves.
Then there was this from Reuters UK by Jim Forsyth:
"A Texas evangelical leader who endorsed Republican presidential candidate John McCain earlier this year has apologized for anti-Catholic remarks that angered Church members and embarrassed McCain's campaign.
"John Hagee, pastor of the 19,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, wrote a letter of apology to the Catholic League on Monday for comments in which he called the Church "apostate" and likened it to the "great whore" in a passage of the Bible..."
(http://uk.reuters.com/article/UKNews1/idUKN1343588920080513)
If you are wondering why Mr. Hagee said this, he has come up with an explanation. He made the statement, he says, "In my zeal to oppose anti-Semitism and bigotry in all its ugly forms..."
Clearly, we must be careful when judging others that we don't make an ironical spectacle of ourselves.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Retention: to flunk or not to flunk?
Voice of San Diego's Emily Alpert writes:
Getting Struggling Students Help Earlier
Parents don't like social promotion. They also don't like grade retention, which prevents kids from advancing a grade if they're failing academically. (If you don't believe that, check out this article about what happened when San Diego Unified let parents of failing students decide whether or not they would be retained.)
San Diego Unified has drafted a plan that aims to prevent both social promotion and holding kids back by directing help to struggling students earlier in the year. The new plan includes interventions at first, third and eighth grade, and will be up for approval by the school board on Tuesday.
Check out the plan HERE. The last page is a flow chart that shows the steps in the process, and what would happen to students who don't make the grade.
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/05/12/this_just_in/180struggling050908.txt
May 9, 2008
Getting Struggling Students Help Earlier
Parents don't like social promotion. They also don't like grade retention, which prevents kids from advancing a grade if they're failing academically. (If you don't believe that, check out this article about what happened when San Diego Unified let parents of failing students decide whether or not they would be retained.)
San Diego Unified has drafted a plan that aims to prevent both social promotion and holding kids back by directing help to struggling students earlier in the year. The new plan includes interventions at first, third and eighth grade, and will be up for approval by the school board on Tuesday.
Check out the plan HERE. The last page is a flow chart that shows the steps in the process, and what would happen to students who don't make the grade.
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/05/12/this_just_in/180struggling050908.txt
May 9, 2008
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Conservatives are happier; they are better at rationalizing inequalities
Are Conservatives Happier Than Liberals?
AOL News
Jeanna Bryner
2008-05-07
provided by Live Science
Individuals with conservative ideologies are happier than liberal-leaners, and new research pinpoints the reason: Conservatives rationalize social and economic inequalities.
Regardless of marital status, income or church attendance, right-wing individuals reported greater life satisfaction and well-being than left-wingers, the new study found. Conservatives also scored highest on measures of rationalization, which gauge a person's tendency to justify, or explain away, inequalities.
The rationalization measure included statements such as: "It is not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others," and "This country would be better off if we worried less about how equal people are."
To justify economic inequalities, a person could support the idea of meritocracy, in which people supposedly move up their economic status in society based on hard work and good performance. In that way, one's social class attainment, whether upper, middle or lower, would be perceived as totally fair and justified.
If your beliefs don't justify gaps in status, you could be left frustrated and disheartened, according to the researchers, Jaime Napier and John Jost of New York University. They conducted a U.S.-centric survey and a more internationally focused one to arrive at the findings.
"Our research suggests that inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals than on conservatives," the researchers write in the June issue of the journal Psychological Science, "apparently because liberals lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive (or at least neutral) light."
The results support and further explain a Pew Research Center survey from 2006, in which 47 percent of conservative Republicans in the U.S. described themselves as "very happy," while only 28 percent of liberal Democrats indicated such cheer.
The same rationalizing phenomena could apply to personal situations as well.
"There is no reason to think that the effects we have identified here are unique to economic forms of inequality," the researchers write. "Research suggests that highly egalitarian women are less happy in their marriages compared with their more traditional counterparts, apparently because they are more troubled by disparities in domestic labor."
The current study was funded by the National Science Foundation.
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/are-conservatives-happier-than-liberals/20080507160009990001
AOL News
Jeanna Bryner
2008-05-07
provided by Live Science
Individuals with conservative ideologies are happier than liberal-leaners, and new research pinpoints the reason: Conservatives rationalize social and economic inequalities.
Regardless of marital status, income or church attendance, right-wing individuals reported greater life satisfaction and well-being than left-wingers, the new study found. Conservatives also scored highest on measures of rationalization, which gauge a person's tendency to justify, or explain away, inequalities.
The rationalization measure included statements such as: "It is not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others," and "This country would be better off if we worried less about how equal people are."
To justify economic inequalities, a person could support the idea of meritocracy, in which people supposedly move up their economic status in society based on hard work and good performance. In that way, one's social class attainment, whether upper, middle or lower, would be perceived as totally fair and justified.
If your beliefs don't justify gaps in status, you could be left frustrated and disheartened, according to the researchers, Jaime Napier and John Jost of New York University. They conducted a U.S.-centric survey and a more internationally focused one to arrive at the findings.
"Our research suggests that inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals than on conservatives," the researchers write in the June issue of the journal Psychological Science, "apparently because liberals lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive (or at least neutral) light."
The results support and further explain a Pew Research Center survey from 2006, in which 47 percent of conservative Republicans in the U.S. described themselves as "very happy," while only 28 percent of liberal Democrats indicated such cheer.
The same rationalizing phenomena could apply to personal situations as well.
"There is no reason to think that the effects we have identified here are unique to economic forms of inequality," the researchers write. "Research suggests that highly egalitarian women are less happy in their marriages compared with their more traditional counterparts, apparently because they are more troubled by disparities in domestic labor."
The current study was funded by the National Science Foundation.
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/are-conservatives-happier-than-liberals/20080507160009990001
Monday, May 05, 2008
Mildred Loving: "We are not marrying the state."
Mildred Loving, black woman whose interracial marriage led to landmark ruling, dies at 68
05-05-2008
By DIONNE WALKER,
Associated Press Writer
RICHMOND, Va. (Associated Press) -- Mildred Loving, a black woman whose challenge to Virginia's ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down such laws nationwide, has died, her daughter said Monday.
Peggy Fortune said Loving, 68, died Friday at her home in rural Milford. She did not disclose the cause of death.
"I want (people) to remember her as being strong and brave yet humble _ and believed in love," Fortune told The Associated Press.
Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their right to marry. The ruling struck down laws banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states.
"There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the equal protection clause," the court ruled in a unanimous decision.
Her husband died in 1975. Shy and soft-spoken, Loving shunned publicity and in a rare interview with The Associated Press last June, insisted she never wanted to be a hero _ just a bride.
"It wasn't my doing," Loving said. "It was God's work."
Mildred Jeter was 11 when she and 17-year-old Richard began courting, according to Phyl Newbeck, a Vermont author who detailed the case in the 2004 book, "Virginia Hasn't Always Been for Lovers."
She became pregnant a few years later, she and Loving got married in Washington in 1958, when she was 18. Mildred told the AP she didn't realize it was illegal.
"I think my husband knew," Mildred said. "I think he thought (if) we were married, they couldn't bother us."
But they were arrested a few weeks after they returned to Central Point, their hometown in rural Caroline County north of Richmond. They pleaded guilty to charges of "cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth," according to their indictments.
They avoided jail time by agreeing to leave Virginia - the only home they'd known - for 25 years. They moved to Washington for several years, then launched a legal challenge by writing to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who referred the case to the American Civil Liberties Union...
After the Supreme Court ruled, the couple returned to Virginia, where they lived with their children, Donald, Peggy and Sidney. Each June 12, the anniversary of the ruling, Loving Day events around the country mark the advances of mixed-race couples...
http://sandiego.cox.net/cci/newsnational/national?_mode=view&_state=maximized&view=article&id=D90FIFEGK&_action=validatearticle
05-05-2008
By DIONNE WALKER,
Associated Press Writer
RICHMOND, Va. (Associated Press) -- Mildred Loving, a black woman whose challenge to Virginia's ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down such laws nationwide, has died, her daughter said Monday.
Peggy Fortune said Loving, 68, died Friday at her home in rural Milford. She did not disclose the cause of death.
"I want (people) to remember her as being strong and brave yet humble _ and believed in love," Fortune told The Associated Press.
Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their right to marry. The ruling struck down laws banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states.
"There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the equal protection clause," the court ruled in a unanimous decision.
Her husband died in 1975. Shy and soft-spoken, Loving shunned publicity and in a rare interview with The Associated Press last June, insisted she never wanted to be a hero _ just a bride.
"It wasn't my doing," Loving said. "It was God's work."
Mildred Jeter was 11 when she and 17-year-old Richard began courting, according to Phyl Newbeck, a Vermont author who detailed the case in the 2004 book, "Virginia Hasn't Always Been for Lovers."
She became pregnant a few years later, she and Loving got married in Washington in 1958, when she was 18. Mildred told the AP she didn't realize it was illegal.
"I think my husband knew," Mildred said. "I think he thought (if) we were married, they couldn't bother us."
But they were arrested a few weeks after they returned to Central Point, their hometown in rural Caroline County north of Richmond. They pleaded guilty to charges of "cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth," according to their indictments.
They avoided jail time by agreeing to leave Virginia - the only home they'd known - for 25 years. They moved to Washington for several years, then launched a legal challenge by writing to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who referred the case to the American Civil Liberties Union...
After the Supreme Court ruled, the couple returned to Virginia, where they lived with their children, Donald, Peggy and Sidney. Each June 12, the anniversary of the ruling, Loving Day events around the country mark the advances of mixed-race couples...
http://sandiego.cox.net/cci/newsnational/national?_mode=view&_state=maximized&view=article&id=D90FIFEGK&_action=validatearticle
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Overbearing authorities punish father for giving son lemonade
I saw the menu this man looked at when he ordered lemonade for his son.
It said:
Beer
Lemonade
Peanuts
If it had been all alcoholic beverages on the menu, I wouldn't buy the man's story that he made a mistake. But who would guess that there would be NO non-alcholic beverages on the menu?
From CLCIK ON DETROIT
Dad's Oversight Lands Son In Foster Care
April 28, 2008
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- An Ann Arbor couple's 7-year-old son ended up in foster care over Mike's Hard Lemonade.
Christopher Ratte, 47, a professor at University of Michigan, claims he accidentally gave his son, Leo, some of the alcoholic beverage at Comerica Park a few weeks ago. He said he didn't even know the alcoholic lemonade existed.
"I got a beer for myself and asked Leo if he wanted a lemonade because there is a sign that said, 'Mike's Lemonade,'" said Ratte.
He said he bought his son the drink at the beginning of the Tigers game and it wasn't until the ninth inning when a security guard noticed the bottle in Leo's hand.
The security guard asked Ratte if he knew it contained alcohol. He said he didn't and when he went to grab the bottle out of the child's hand, the security guard grabbed it first.
"It's just the simple fact that I didn’t know this brand and didn’t suspect some of the lemonade sold in ballparks are alcoholic."
A short time later, Ratte was being questioned by Detroit police at Children's Hospital, where the child was taken by ambulance.
The child said he was feeling a little nauseated, but showed no other symptoms of being intoxicated.
The security guard said the boy drank about 12 ounces of the hard lemonade, which is about 5 percent alcohol.
However, the child's bloodwork detected no trace of alcohol.
The child remained in foster care for two days before his mother, Claire Zimmerman, a U-M architecture professor, was able to take their son home as long as the father relocated to a hotel.
It was two more weeks before the father could move back home. The last hearing closed the case.
Ratte and his wife have filed a formal complaint with the Child Protective Services ombudsman's office stating they thought the treatment was excessive.
"Fine this guy bought this drink for his son. We need to look into it, but we don't need to take the most extreme measures," Ratte said in reference to Child Protective Services.
Ratte has apologized for his mistake.
http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/16031059/detail.html
It said:
Beer
Lemonade
Peanuts
If it had been all alcoholic beverages on the menu, I wouldn't buy the man's story that he made a mistake. But who would guess that there would be NO non-alcholic beverages on the menu?
From CLCIK ON DETROIT
Dad's Oversight Lands Son In Foster Care
April 28, 2008
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- An Ann Arbor couple's 7-year-old son ended up in foster care over Mike's Hard Lemonade.
Christopher Ratte, 47, a professor at University of Michigan, claims he accidentally gave his son, Leo, some of the alcoholic beverage at Comerica Park a few weeks ago. He said he didn't even know the alcoholic lemonade existed.
"I got a beer for myself and asked Leo if he wanted a lemonade because there is a sign that said, 'Mike's Lemonade,'" said Ratte.
He said he bought his son the drink at the beginning of the Tigers game and it wasn't until the ninth inning when a security guard noticed the bottle in Leo's hand.
The security guard asked Ratte if he knew it contained alcohol. He said he didn't and when he went to grab the bottle out of the child's hand, the security guard grabbed it first.
"It's just the simple fact that I didn’t know this brand and didn’t suspect some of the lemonade sold in ballparks are alcoholic."
A short time later, Ratte was being questioned by Detroit police at Children's Hospital, where the child was taken by ambulance.
The child said he was feeling a little nauseated, but showed no other symptoms of being intoxicated.
The security guard said the boy drank about 12 ounces of the hard lemonade, which is about 5 percent alcohol.
However, the child's bloodwork detected no trace of alcohol.
The child remained in foster care for two days before his mother, Claire Zimmerman, a U-M architecture professor, was able to take their son home as long as the father relocated to a hotel.
It was two more weeks before the father could move back home. The last hearing closed the case.
Ratte and his wife have filed a formal complaint with the Child Protective Services ombudsman's office stating they thought the treatment was excessive.
"Fine this guy bought this drink for his son. We need to look into it, but we don't need to take the most extreme measures," Ratte said in reference to Child Protective Services.
Ratte has apologized for his mistake.
http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/16031059/detail.html
Pillars of the community are sometimes worse than the delinquents
Dungeon case stuns Europe's media
BBC News
April 29, 2008
The events in the eastern Austrian town of Amstetten are front-page news across Europe. As well as disgust at the revelations surrounding the actions of Josef Fritzl, there is disbelief that he escaped the notice of the authorities - and the suggestion that he may have had outside help.
LE PARISIEN - FRANCE
Austria ran out of superlatives to describe the horror suffered by Natascha Kampusch, kidnapped and isolated in a dungeon by her captor for eight long years. Overwhelmed, Austrians will not find words strong enough to convey the monstrous and diabolic history which has played out in secret for three decades at Amstetten.
LIBERATION - FRANCE
The Austrians are asking themselves: Why didn't social services, who visited the family several times, notice anything unusual? How could the neighbours who all know each other in this part of town not have realised anything? How was Josef able to live a double life for almost a quarter of a century? And what did his wife, who according to the investigators "didn't ask questions", really know?
DIE ZEIT - GERMANY
What does this say about a community, in which an authority figure can go about breaking this private taboo without any great difficulty for almost a quarter of a century? Is this a society which is afraid to have to look into its own abyss?
DAILY MIRROR - UK
The World's Most Evil Dad... the brute whose word was absolute law, locked the door with a code only he knew and cruelly told Elisabeth and the children that it was booby-trapped with explosives.
DAILY MAIL - UK
Neighbours said the three [children] kept above ground were well-balanced and polite members of the police sports club and voluntary fire brigade. Their grandmother, according to many, was a pillar of the community, baking cakes for fetes and becoming an active member of the parent teachers' association at their private school.
DE STANDAARD - BELGIUM
How was it possible that Josef Fritzl regularly went on holiday to Thailand for two to three weeks without his prisoners starving in the cellar? Did he handle it completely by himself or did he have help from outside?
CORRIERE DELLA SERA - ITALY
You can see the birdcage from the pavement of Dammstrasse... When he wasn't playing the good husband with old Rosemarie, or wasn't too tired from being a good grandfather to the three son/grandsons that he ended up looking after, when he wasn't telling jokes in the bar, watering his lawn, going fishing or helping his neighbours fix their broken kettles, when he wasn't disappearing for hours into the cellar to work, when in reality he was opening up the secret bolt to feed his slaves, when his double face didn't have to divide itself between the normal and the horrific, he also found time for them - those small birds, poor little things.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7373462.stm
BBC News
April 29, 2008
The events in the eastern Austrian town of Amstetten are front-page news across Europe. As well as disgust at the revelations surrounding the actions of Josef Fritzl, there is disbelief that he escaped the notice of the authorities - and the suggestion that he may have had outside help.
LE PARISIEN - FRANCE
Austria ran out of superlatives to describe the horror suffered by Natascha Kampusch, kidnapped and isolated in a dungeon by her captor for eight long years. Overwhelmed, Austrians will not find words strong enough to convey the monstrous and diabolic history which has played out in secret for three decades at Amstetten.
LIBERATION - FRANCE
The Austrians are asking themselves: Why didn't social services, who visited the family several times, notice anything unusual? How could the neighbours who all know each other in this part of town not have realised anything? How was Josef able to live a double life for almost a quarter of a century? And what did his wife, who according to the investigators "didn't ask questions", really know?
DIE ZEIT - GERMANY
What does this say about a community, in which an authority figure can go about breaking this private taboo without any great difficulty for almost a quarter of a century? Is this a society which is afraid to have to look into its own abyss?
DAILY MIRROR - UK
The World's Most Evil Dad... the brute whose word was absolute law, locked the door with a code only he knew and cruelly told Elisabeth and the children that it was booby-trapped with explosives.
DAILY MAIL - UK
Neighbours said the three [children] kept above ground were well-balanced and polite members of the police sports club and voluntary fire brigade. Their grandmother, according to many, was a pillar of the community, baking cakes for fetes and becoming an active member of the parent teachers' association at their private school.
DE STANDAARD - BELGIUM
How was it possible that Josef Fritzl regularly went on holiday to Thailand for two to three weeks without his prisoners starving in the cellar? Did he handle it completely by himself or did he have help from outside?
CORRIERE DELLA SERA - ITALY
You can see the birdcage from the pavement of Dammstrasse... When he wasn't playing the good husband with old Rosemarie, or wasn't too tired from being a good grandfather to the three son/grandsons that he ended up looking after, when he wasn't telling jokes in the bar, watering his lawn, going fishing or helping his neighbours fix their broken kettles, when he wasn't disappearing for hours into the cellar to work, when in reality he was opening up the secret bolt to feed his slaves, when his double face didn't have to divide itself between the normal and the horrific, he also found time for them - those small birds, poor little things.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7373462.stm
Monday, April 21, 2008
April 20 birthdays include world's oldest person
Edna Parker of Shelbyville, Indiana turned 115 yesterday. She was born April 20, 1893. Scientists think she's lived so long because of genetics, environment, and not dwelling on stressful events.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Key scientist sure "God particle" will be found soon
Click here for original article
Key scientist sure "God particle" will be found soon
Mon Apr 7, 2008
By Robert Evans
GENEVA (Reuters) - British physicist Peter Higgs said on Monday it should soon be possible to prove the existence of a force which gives mass to the universe and makes life possible -- as he first argued 40 years ago.
Higgs said he believes a particle named the "Higgs boson", which originates from the force, will be found when a vast particle collider at the CERN research centre on the Franco-Swiss border begins operating fully early next year.
"The likelihood is that the particle will show up pretty quickly ... I'm more than 90 percent certain that it will," Higgs told journalists.
The 78-year-old's original efforts in the early 1960s to explain why the force, dubbed the Higgs field, must exist were dismissed at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.
Today, the existence of the invisible field is widely accepted by scientists, who believe it came into being milliseconds after the Big Bang created the universe some 15 billion years ago.
Finding the Higgs boson would prove this theory right.
CERN's new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) aims to simulate conditions at the time of that primeval inferno by smashing particles together at near light-speed and so unlock many secrets of the universe.
Higgs was in Geneva to visit CERN for the first time in 13 years in advance of the launch...
Key scientist sure "God particle" will be found soon
Mon Apr 7, 2008
By Robert Evans
GENEVA (Reuters) - British physicist Peter Higgs said on Monday it should soon be possible to prove the existence of a force which gives mass to the universe and makes life possible -- as he first argued 40 years ago.
Higgs said he believes a particle named the "Higgs boson", which originates from the force, will be found when a vast particle collider at the CERN research centre on the Franco-Swiss border begins operating fully early next year.
"The likelihood is that the particle will show up pretty quickly ... I'm more than 90 percent certain that it will," Higgs told journalists.
The 78-year-old's original efforts in the early 1960s to explain why the force, dubbed the Higgs field, must exist were dismissed at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.
Today, the existence of the invisible field is widely accepted by scientists, who believe it came into being milliseconds after the Big Bang created the universe some 15 billion years ago.
Finding the Higgs boson would prove this theory right.
CERN's new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) aims to simulate conditions at the time of that primeval inferno by smashing particles together at near light-speed and so unlock many secrets of the universe.
Higgs was in Geneva to visit CERN for the first time in 13 years in advance of the launch...
Friday, March 28, 2008
Neatness a sign of godliness — or compulsion?
Neatness a sign of godliness — or compulsion?
Spectrum of tidiness runs from merely orderly to life-hampering disorder
By Melissa Schorr
MSNBC contributor
March. 12, 2008
She has color-coded folders to organize her take-out menus and bills. Clear containers to stash her toddler’s toys. A fridge with condiments neatly in a row.
Welcome to the world of a compulsive neat freak.
“I do drive myself crazy,” confides Donna Sullivan, a mother of two and a part-time accountant in Scituate, Mass. “Sometimes I wish I wasn’t like this. But when I come in and everything is clean, I feel calmer. I think that’s why I do it.”
Call them neat freaks or clutter-phobes — the types who lament their house is a total mess if one coffee table book is slightly out of place. Experts say the desire for neatness runs along a spectrum, from finicky Felix Unger-types with a need for control to those with a truly life-hampering disorder, such as TV’s Adrian Monk, the obsessive-compulsive detective.
“It’s who I am,” says Perri Kersh, owner of Neat Freak Professional Organizing in Chapel Hill, N.C., who was dubbed “neatest” by her high school classmates and, at age 4, carried around an imaginary device for organizing ties. “I don’t think anyone who knew me would be surprised to know what I do for a living.”
Our attitude toward neatness is likely shaped during childhood, from parents who frown on messy rooms to picture books like “The Cat in the Hat,” with its implicit message against trashing the house.
Those who take it to the extreme as adults often have taken that message too far, associating neatness with a quality required to be a good person, says Amie Ragan, a clinical psychologist in Birmingham, Ala., who runs the blog Psychology of Clutter.
Clutter-phobia may also be programmed into certain people’s genes, since extreme cleanliness likely once conferred a survival advantage by warding off germs, disease and death.
"Anxiety has evolutionary value — it keeps us alert and vigilant,” says psychotherapist Tom Corboy, director of the OCD Center of Los Angeles. “The problem is people can develop this over-the-top anxiety to things that don’t deserve it, like knickknacks on a shelf.”
When it crosses the line into pathology, psychologists say, is when it begins to negatively affect your life. “It’s a problem when your need for constant order causes you extreme distress or problems in your relationship,” says Ragan.
Kersh says she hasn’t gone that far.
“I don’t think I’ve moved into the pathological side,” she laughs. “I’m not an obsessive hand-washer.” Instead, she sees hanging onto too many possessions as the true hang-up. “It’s just stuff, it’s not our memories, it’s not who we are. You’ve got to let go or you’ll be living in a storage unit.”
'It's not just putting up cool shelving'
In her quest for complete clutter control, Kersh and her family even underwent a “six-month experiment in buying nothing.” (Necessities excluded.) “We were so used to saying, `I want it, I’m going to go get it.’ Now, we’re very conscious of what we consume.” More news from MSN Health
Symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Overview of OCD
Are You a Clean Freak?
Support Groups for Messiness
Kersh believes anyone can rid their lives of clutter, but it requires commitment. “It’s not just putting up cool shelving,” she says. “It takes work.”
Erin Doland, editor-in-chief of the blog Unclutterer and a contributor to RealSimple.com, was once an amateur hoarder, saving everything from college T-shirts to ticket stubs, until her husband laid down the law. “I started purging, and it felt so good I kept going,” she recalls. “I went from one extreme to the other. Everything went.”
Today, she stacks her shoes in plastic tubs, has a firm re-gifting policy, and snaps digital pictures of sentimental items before tossing them in the trash.
Before her transformation, Doland says her clutter weighed on her. “I always felt like there was a cloud hanging over me,” she says. “Now, I can say, if something doesn’t have a purpose, why is it in my home? And I think that’s healthy.”
As she and her husband prepare to adopt a baby from China, they have already sat down the grandparents for a stern chat about limiting the influx of toys. “The kid’s not going to grow up in some minimalist bubble,” she says, “but we want to limit the insanity.”
After being on the receiving end of too many gifts that weren’t being used, Doland entered an agreement with her in-laws to re-gift any unwanted items with no hard feelings. “We started by talking about clothes that didn't fit and moved into other gifts that didn't necessarily ’fit’ either,” she says.
Kersh believes in taking a firm line against becoming a storage facility for your relatives’ castaways. That means not feeling obligated to inherit your grandmother’s set of china when you already have one. “You could host a dinner party for 60! Who’s going to do that?”
But when neat freaks and slobs must live under one roof, compromise is key. Kersh has inspired her once-messy husband to organize his dress shirts by color, while he has forced her to let the dirty dishes wait until after their Saturday morning stroll. “He’s helped me relax,” she admits.
Closer to God?
Still, conventional wisdom holds that neatness is the “morally superior” choice.
“Neat people are generally conscientious — they pay attention to order, think before they act. These are the people you want in the air traffic control tower,” explains Sam Gosling, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas in Austin and author of the upcoming book “Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You.”
But while most of us tend to think well of someone who is tidy, assuming that they are more considerate than their peers, that’s not necessarily the case. Gosling, who dubs this misperception the “Mr. Rogers factor,” did research that found neat people are no more likely to be kind or sympathetic than their messier counterparts.
David H. Freedman, co-author of the book, “A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder,” argues that extreme neatness does have some drawbacks.
One, he says, is the loss of creativity.
“If you make your environment very neat, you’re making everything predictable,” he says. “You will lock out bad things — you’re less likely to be late, things are less likely to spill or break — but you’re also locking out luck.”
That messy desk or kitchen is more conducive to making the random connection that could lead to a scientific breakthrough or a new recipe.
Another, surprisingly, is time.
True, messy people waste time rummaging for their keys. But, Freedman says, neat people spend all their time constantly putting things away throughout the day, while those who let things pile up and tackle them in one chunk save precious minutes in the long run.
“I’ve had hundreds of people tell me about neat freak habits, and not a single one has denied suspecting there is something a little wrong with them,” Freedman says. “People who are neat are helpless to be otherwise — they’re prisoners of it.”
Even the clutter-phobes admit their strategy can backfire. “I have one regret,” Kersh says. “Getting rid of this awesome pair of brown elk skin cowgirl boots.”
Melissa Schorr is a Boston-based freelancer who has written for the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe Magazine, Reuters Health, Working Mother, Self, GQ and People. She is the author of the young adult novel "Goy Crazy."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23565682/
Spectrum of tidiness runs from merely orderly to life-hampering disorder
By Melissa Schorr
MSNBC contributor
March. 12, 2008
She has color-coded folders to organize her take-out menus and bills. Clear containers to stash her toddler’s toys. A fridge with condiments neatly in a row.
Welcome to the world of a compulsive neat freak.
“I do drive myself crazy,” confides Donna Sullivan, a mother of two and a part-time accountant in Scituate, Mass. “Sometimes I wish I wasn’t like this. But when I come in and everything is clean, I feel calmer. I think that’s why I do it.”
Call them neat freaks or clutter-phobes — the types who lament their house is a total mess if one coffee table book is slightly out of place. Experts say the desire for neatness runs along a spectrum, from finicky Felix Unger-types with a need for control to those with a truly life-hampering disorder, such as TV’s Adrian Monk, the obsessive-compulsive detective.
“It’s who I am,” says Perri Kersh, owner of Neat Freak Professional Organizing in Chapel Hill, N.C., who was dubbed “neatest” by her high school classmates and, at age 4, carried around an imaginary device for organizing ties. “I don’t think anyone who knew me would be surprised to know what I do for a living.”
Our attitude toward neatness is likely shaped during childhood, from parents who frown on messy rooms to picture books like “The Cat in the Hat,” with its implicit message against trashing the house.
Those who take it to the extreme as adults often have taken that message too far, associating neatness with a quality required to be a good person, says Amie Ragan, a clinical psychologist in Birmingham, Ala., who runs the blog Psychology of Clutter.
Clutter-phobia may also be programmed into certain people’s genes, since extreme cleanliness likely once conferred a survival advantage by warding off germs, disease and death.
"Anxiety has evolutionary value — it keeps us alert and vigilant,” says psychotherapist Tom Corboy, director of the OCD Center of Los Angeles. “The problem is people can develop this over-the-top anxiety to things that don’t deserve it, like knickknacks on a shelf.”
When it crosses the line into pathology, psychologists say, is when it begins to negatively affect your life. “It’s a problem when your need for constant order causes you extreme distress or problems in your relationship,” says Ragan.
Kersh says she hasn’t gone that far.
“I don’t think I’ve moved into the pathological side,” she laughs. “I’m not an obsessive hand-washer.” Instead, she sees hanging onto too many possessions as the true hang-up. “It’s just stuff, it’s not our memories, it’s not who we are. You’ve got to let go or you’ll be living in a storage unit.”
'It's not just putting up cool shelving'
In her quest for complete clutter control, Kersh and her family even underwent a “six-month experiment in buying nothing.” (Necessities excluded.) “We were so used to saying, `I want it, I’m going to go get it.’ Now, we’re very conscious of what we consume.” More news from MSN Health
Symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Overview of OCD
Are You a Clean Freak?
Support Groups for Messiness
Kersh believes anyone can rid their lives of clutter, but it requires commitment. “It’s not just putting up cool shelving,” she says. “It takes work.”
Erin Doland, editor-in-chief of the blog Unclutterer and a contributor to RealSimple.com, was once an amateur hoarder, saving everything from college T-shirts to ticket stubs, until her husband laid down the law. “I started purging, and it felt so good I kept going,” she recalls. “I went from one extreme to the other. Everything went.”
Today, she stacks her shoes in plastic tubs, has a firm re-gifting policy, and snaps digital pictures of sentimental items before tossing them in the trash.
Before her transformation, Doland says her clutter weighed on her. “I always felt like there was a cloud hanging over me,” she says. “Now, I can say, if something doesn’t have a purpose, why is it in my home? And I think that’s healthy.”
As she and her husband prepare to adopt a baby from China, they have already sat down the grandparents for a stern chat about limiting the influx of toys. “The kid’s not going to grow up in some minimalist bubble,” she says, “but we want to limit the insanity.”
After being on the receiving end of too many gifts that weren’t being used, Doland entered an agreement with her in-laws to re-gift any unwanted items with no hard feelings. “We started by talking about clothes that didn't fit and moved into other gifts that didn't necessarily ’fit’ either,” she says.
Kersh believes in taking a firm line against becoming a storage facility for your relatives’ castaways. That means not feeling obligated to inherit your grandmother’s set of china when you already have one. “You could host a dinner party for 60! Who’s going to do that?”
But when neat freaks and slobs must live under one roof, compromise is key. Kersh has inspired her once-messy husband to organize his dress shirts by color, while he has forced her to let the dirty dishes wait until after their Saturday morning stroll. “He’s helped me relax,” she admits.
Closer to God?
Still, conventional wisdom holds that neatness is the “morally superior” choice.
“Neat people are generally conscientious — they pay attention to order, think before they act. These are the people you want in the air traffic control tower,” explains Sam Gosling, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas in Austin and author of the upcoming book “Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You.”
But while most of us tend to think well of someone who is tidy, assuming that they are more considerate than their peers, that’s not necessarily the case. Gosling, who dubs this misperception the “Mr. Rogers factor,” did research that found neat people are no more likely to be kind or sympathetic than their messier counterparts.
David H. Freedman, co-author of the book, “A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder,” argues that extreme neatness does have some drawbacks.
One, he says, is the loss of creativity.
“If you make your environment very neat, you’re making everything predictable,” he says. “You will lock out bad things — you’re less likely to be late, things are less likely to spill or break — but you’re also locking out luck.”
That messy desk or kitchen is more conducive to making the random connection that could lead to a scientific breakthrough or a new recipe.
Another, surprisingly, is time.
True, messy people waste time rummaging for their keys. But, Freedman says, neat people spend all their time constantly putting things away throughout the day, while those who let things pile up and tackle them in one chunk save precious minutes in the long run.
“I’ve had hundreds of people tell me about neat freak habits, and not a single one has denied suspecting there is something a little wrong with them,” Freedman says. “People who are neat are helpless to be otherwise — they’re prisoners of it.”
Even the clutter-phobes admit their strategy can backfire. “I have one regret,” Kersh says. “Getting rid of this awesome pair of brown elk skin cowgirl boots.”
Melissa Schorr is a Boston-based freelancer who has written for the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe Magazine, Reuters Health, Working Mother, Self, GQ and People. She is the author of the young adult novel "Goy Crazy."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23565682/
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Why children are falling through the cracks
Lots of children are failing, not just special ed kids. Most teachers can not handle teaching more than one level at the same time. They need to learn. I figured out how to do it, and it was fun, with kids of all levels working together and repecting each other. I would like to see the best teachers get paid more, and the worst teachers should be working under the supervision of good teachers.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
GreatSchools, Inc message board v. free speech
GreatSchools, Inc. has threatened me with legal action, saying that no one may quote content from their parent to parent message board without their permission.
I suspect that Katherine Kornas of GreatSchools, Inc. made her threat because attorney Dan Shinoff requested that she do so.
Why weren't Katherine Kornas and GreatSchools, Inc. concerned about education lawyers posing as parents in order to undermine parents who are trying to use the legal system to help their children?
I suspect that Katherine Kornas of GreatSchools, Inc. made her threat because attorney Dan Shinoff requested that she do so.
Why weren't Katherine Kornas and GreatSchools, Inc. concerned about education lawyers posing as parents in order to undermine parents who are trying to use the legal system to help their children?
Why can't people change their thinking?
Wall Street Culture Not Likely to Change
By JOE BEL BRUNO,AP
Posted: 2008-03-22 05:09:53
NEW YORK (AP) - Wall Street investment bankers got another lesson about the dangers of risk-taking this past week with the downfall of Bear Stearns Cos. The question now obviously is, how long will it last?
Those bankers, many of whom lived through market debacles like the dot-com bust at the start of this decade, turned out to have very short memories. And so analysts believe the sale of Bear Stearns to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for a stunning $2 per share ultimately won't have that much of an impact on how Wall Street conducts business.
In fact, bankers and traders are under even more pressure to reap big returns because of the ongoing credit crisis, and risk is just part of the game.
"There's an old saying on Wall Street that, for traders and bankers, you'd have to take a normal 30 year career and distill it to 15 years," said Quincy Krosby, chief investment strategist for The Hartford. "This whole episode might change Wall Street for a little while."
Krosby believes that Bear Stearns' near-collapse, which followed the company's investing too heavily in risky mortgage-backed securities, might force some bankers to change their ways in the short term. But it won't be enough to temper the financial industry's relentless pursuit of money.
Indeed, the past decade has seen a number of investing fiascoes that Wall Street doesn't appear to have learned much from. Krosby noted the go-go Internet days - when untested high-tech companies reaped piles of cash in public offerings. The lesson then was, don't put a lot of money into a venture that isn't on fairly solid ground - but mortgages granted to people with poor credit are quite akin to high-tech firms that had never turned a profit. In both cases, investors gleefully looked past the risk.
Now investors are smarting from what happened to Bear Stearns. And traders are somewhat chastened, for now.
Erin Callan, the chief financial officer for Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., said her firm has certainly become more wary about the risks it takes amid the credit crisis. However, the market's gyrations also offer Lehman's army of traders an opportunity to make money.
"We just try to come in, and run the business the best way we can," she said. "But, you can't survive if you take no risks at all. All we can do is plan in this environment, making sure we do all the things to optimize running the firm."
It seems there's little that will change an industry and a lifestyle attached to Wall Street, which is thought of by Americans as more than just the center of free-market capitalism. Its culture attracts men and women with a swashbuckling mentality - smart, aggressive risk takers with the potential to become very rich.
And, their skills in trading and investment banking were proven this past week - even after news of Bear Stearns' buyout.
Chief executives at Morgan Stanley , Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and Lehman Brothers pointed out that trading desks played a big part in offsetting massive mortgage-backed asset write-downs, which have ticked past $156 billion for global banks since last year.
As the three companies released first-quarter earnings data, Morgan Stanley said equity trading revenue surged 51 percent to $3.3 billion. Revenue at its fixed-income sales and trading group dropped 15 percent to $2.9 billion, but it was still the firm's second-highest performance ever despite having to write down $2.3 billion linked to subprime mortgages and leveraged loans.
And that pleased investors. Morgan Stanley had its largest gain in more than a decade on Wednesday, climbing 18.8 percent to $42.86. Rival investment banks also had their best week since 2001.
But, investors shouldn't get too comfortable - the investment banking industry, and Wall Street in general, still have a long way to go before they can be called healthy. It's not just the credit market problems that are an issue, it's also the struggling U.S. economy and its potential to hurt other countries.
"Until we feel more certain about the worldwide economies, we don't see things picking up dramatically," said Goldman Sachs CFO David Viniar. "We just need to keep plugging away."
http://money.aol.com/news/articles/_a/wall-street-culture-not-likely-to-change/n20080322050909990002
By JOE BEL BRUNO,AP
Posted: 2008-03-22 05:09:53
NEW YORK (AP) - Wall Street investment bankers got another lesson about the dangers of risk-taking this past week with the downfall of Bear Stearns Cos. The question now obviously is, how long will it last?
Those bankers, many of whom lived through market debacles like the dot-com bust at the start of this decade, turned out to have very short memories. And so analysts believe the sale of Bear Stearns to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for a stunning $2 per share ultimately won't have that much of an impact on how Wall Street conducts business.
In fact, bankers and traders are under even more pressure to reap big returns because of the ongoing credit crisis, and risk is just part of the game.
"There's an old saying on Wall Street that, for traders and bankers, you'd have to take a normal 30 year career and distill it to 15 years," said Quincy Krosby, chief investment strategist for The Hartford. "This whole episode might change Wall Street for a little while."
Krosby believes that Bear Stearns' near-collapse, which followed the company's investing too heavily in risky mortgage-backed securities, might force some bankers to change their ways in the short term. But it won't be enough to temper the financial industry's relentless pursuit of money.
Indeed, the past decade has seen a number of investing fiascoes that Wall Street doesn't appear to have learned much from. Krosby noted the go-go Internet days - when untested high-tech companies reaped piles of cash in public offerings. The lesson then was, don't put a lot of money into a venture that isn't on fairly solid ground - but mortgages granted to people with poor credit are quite akin to high-tech firms that had never turned a profit. In both cases, investors gleefully looked past the risk.
Now investors are smarting from what happened to Bear Stearns. And traders are somewhat chastened, for now.
Erin Callan, the chief financial officer for Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., said her firm has certainly become more wary about the risks it takes amid the credit crisis. However, the market's gyrations also offer Lehman's army of traders an opportunity to make money.
"We just try to come in, and run the business the best way we can," she said. "But, you can't survive if you take no risks at all. All we can do is plan in this environment, making sure we do all the things to optimize running the firm."
It seems there's little that will change an industry and a lifestyle attached to Wall Street, which is thought of by Americans as more than just the center of free-market capitalism. Its culture attracts men and women with a swashbuckling mentality - smart, aggressive risk takers with the potential to become very rich.
And, their skills in trading and investment banking were proven this past week - even after news of Bear Stearns' buyout.
Chief executives at Morgan Stanley , Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and Lehman Brothers pointed out that trading desks played a big part in offsetting massive mortgage-backed asset write-downs, which have ticked past $156 billion for global banks since last year.
As the three companies released first-quarter earnings data, Morgan Stanley said equity trading revenue surged 51 percent to $3.3 billion. Revenue at its fixed-income sales and trading group dropped 15 percent to $2.9 billion, but it was still the firm's second-highest performance ever despite having to write down $2.3 billion linked to subprime mortgages and leveraged loans.
And that pleased investors. Morgan Stanley had its largest gain in more than a decade on Wednesday, climbing 18.8 percent to $42.86. Rival investment banks also had their best week since 2001.
But, investors shouldn't get too comfortable - the investment banking industry, and Wall Street in general, still have a long way to go before they can be called healthy. It's not just the credit market problems that are an issue, it's also the struggling U.S. economy and its potential to hurt other countries.
"Until we feel more certain about the worldwide economies, we don't see things picking up dramatically," said Goldman Sachs CFO David Viniar. "We just need to keep plugging away."
http://money.aol.com/news/articles/_a/wall-street-culture-not-likely-to-change/n20080322050909990002
Monday, March 03, 2008
Going to church and being homeschooled doesn't mean a kid is on the right track
Yesterday, in the small town of Alba, Texas a 16-year-old girl killed her mother and two brothers, and tried to kill her father, because her family ordered her to break up with her boyfriend. The boyfriend and two other boys assisted in the murders.
Could this crime have been prevented?
Almost certainly.
The family clearly believed that evil comes from outside, and they were half-right in this case. Outsiders were definitely involved.
But there was also something destructive inside this girl that most likely came from her family, which provided both her environment and her heredity.
I suspect that the girl wasn't given the help she needed to deal with her anger, which may have been justified to some extent. It's quite possible she was abused by her family in some way.
People with rigid beliefs about right and wrong, who believe that they are very different from lesser mortals, often also believe in punishment as opposed to positive reinforcement to shape their children's behavior. They often think it is appropriate to use verbal abuse on a child, shaming her and frequently pointing out her spiritual unworthiness.
It probably would have been better to coach the girl on how to deal with the evil in the world, rather than merely trying to isolate her from the world.
Could this crime have been prevented?
Almost certainly.
The family clearly believed that evil comes from outside, and they were half-right in this case. Outsiders were definitely involved.
But there was also something destructive inside this girl that most likely came from her family, which provided both her environment and her heredity.
I suspect that the girl wasn't given the help she needed to deal with her anger, which may have been justified to some extent. It's quite possible she was abused by her family in some way.
People with rigid beliefs about right and wrong, who believe that they are very different from lesser mortals, often also believe in punishment as opposed to positive reinforcement to shape their children's behavior. They often think it is appropriate to use verbal abuse on a child, shaming her and frequently pointing out her spiritual unworthiness.
It probably would have been better to coach the girl on how to deal with the evil in the world, rather than merely trying to isolate her from the world.
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