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To delay may mean to forget
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We at STAF, Inc. want to know how this advice website has improved your & your family's life
Let us know in your donation letter
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for all family matters, success, health, wealth
& for the good life
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OUR
(1) U.S. VETERANS
&
(2) ALL U.S. ARMED FORCES MEMBERS
- THEIR CHALLENGES -
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(3) Immigrant Topics
Click the green immigration title below
to see the important immigration info to realize how broken the whole system is in the U.S.
- Legal Immigrants Seek Reward for Years of Following the Rules
- New York Times - by Julia Preston
As the debate over immigration reform continues, more than 4.4 million legal immigrants languish in a broken visa system. ... India, Mexico and the Philippines — can wait a decade or two or even more to get their legal permanent resident visas after approvals even though the valid federal law states to finish the process immediately after the approval. Study the NYT article - click the green topic above. If the link has expired search the web with the title showing the NYT source or go to: The New York Times and search for the past articles: Click: The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimediawww.nytimes.com/ ___________________________________
In addition to guiding all U.S. families to a better quality of life and securing our children's future,
STAF, Inc. also guides the U.S. returning veterans & all U.S. Armed Forces members.
The war combats can create mental & emotional challenges potentially leading to physical challenges and to lack of proper quality of life.
Many more veterans than the U.S. public is aware of, land as homeless on the streets.
The suicide rate among our precious veterans is exceptionally high.
Also the suicide rate is quite high among the new recruits.
The U.S. government has mostly been applying medical solutions to help our veterans
and other Military - Armed Forces people.
The medical treatments have negative side effects and lead potentially to additional addictions.
In most cases medicating our veterans & other Armed Forces people is not bringing any reasonable results - that situation is not acceptable.
Other solutions, more updated and new innovated techniques, must be applied.
STAF, Inc.'s professionals (with the STAF, Inc.'s CEO-President, Dr. Christian von Christophers', Ph.D., N.D., D.D., guidance) have developed new techniques - no negative side effects & the desired results will come.
Dr. Christian is not a Medical Doctor. He is a Naturopathic Specialist and is trained worldwide in the leading, publicly known & published, tested & result-bringing natural techniques. The modern natural techniques have very little or no negative side effects.
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He is also widely trained in Counseling and Behavioral Sciences and is well-known to get good results even in the most complicated and demanding cases. See a powerful endorsement letter from one of Dr. Christian's clients in this website in the tab: Testimonials (at the very beginning of that tab - introduction & the actual client letter).
Sure, the Medical Science is necessary and saves lives. Thus, never refuse to accept a Medical Doctor's important & necessary "first-aid" advice. If your sickness situation allows the necessary time, have a 2nd or 3rd and perhaps also a 4th opinion from other medical specialists. The modern Medical Science is necessary as a starting point. The Medical Science and its methods are mostly short-term "emergency solutions" to keep the person alive. The natural methods are a long-term solution, thus taking also a longer time to bring the desired results.
The human body is "the best Doctor - the best Physician" capable of healing a person. Thus, the body must be given first the emergency help and then the proper guidance for a Healthy Lifestyle & for Correct Nutrition. Then the body can heal itself by its own natural methods (without any negative side effects).
Voltaire (the well-known French Philosopher 1694 - 1778) quoted:
"The Physician's duty is to entertain the patient until the body heals itself"
Published also as: "The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease"
For our precious veterans & all our armed forces members STAF, Inc. has new, tested, result-bringing solutions for all their mental, emotional & physical difficulties.
STAF, Inc. is negotiating with the U.S. Government to start applying the new techniques
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See below for continuously added up-to-date articles
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Often faulty criminal background checks provided by related service companies
have prevented some veterans (as other individuals) from going forward in their lives.
Especially our veterans with their war-caused sufferings are prone to give up too easily their fight for the truth.
One reason many veterans end homeless on the streets. It's a shame for our veteran care.
We must help our veterans, yes, especially veterans as they protect our safety. Sure, we have to help everyone else also.
____________________
July 25, 2012
Source: The New York Times, p. A 24 (Editorials)
This is your personal use, only
Faulty Criminal Background Checks
The federal government has historically paid little attention to the companies that collect and sell the data used by employers in hiring decisions — including data about an applicant’s criminal history.
But because 9 in 10 employers now use criminal background checks for some applicants, and the data are not always reliable, the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which share jurisdiction, need to get a better handle on an industry that has grown so fast over the last 20 years that no one can say how many companies there are.
They must make sure that the reporting companies obey the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which requires them to strive for accuracy. The law also requires the companies that furnish reports drawn from public records for employment purposes to notify the people named in the reports in a timely manner — so that any inaccuracies in the data can be challenged — or ensure that the public record is complete and up to date.
Sloppy reporting was not a huge problem in the past when there were fewer companies gathering data and the only way to get it was to examine court records in person. But, in recent years, this has become a computer-driven industry, with companies buying often incomplete records in bulk from the courts or from other screening companies and then not updating them. An incomplete report might show, for instance, that a job candidate was charged with a crime but not that he was exonerated. And faulty data can circulate forever.
A study issued in April by the National Consumer Law Center, an advocacy group, points to many other problems. Background reports often list the same offense many times, making it appear as if the applicant has an extensive record. Worse still, companies sometimes fail to do the basic checking necessary to distinguish among different people who have the same name.
In one particularly startling case that became the subject of a 2011 federal lawsuit in Illinois, a background report on a young white job applicant in his 20s listed several “possible matches” in a nationwide database. According to court documents, three of those “matches” were for a 58-year-old African-American who had been convicted of rape in another state in 1987 — when the applicant was not yet 4 years old.
The federal government clearly needs to step in. It should require companies to be federally registered, outline standards for accuracy, make sure that job applicants have a reasonable time to respond to erroneous reports and seek monetary and other penalties from companies that flout the law.
_____________________________________
Click the green immigration title below
to see the important immigration info to realize how broken the whole system is in the U.S.
have prevented some veterans (as other individuals) from going forward in their lives.
Especially our veterans with their war-caused sufferings are prone to give up too easily their fight for the truth.
One reason many veterans end homeless on the streets. It's a shame for our veteran care.
We must help our veterans, yes, especially veterans as they protect our safety. Sure, we have to help everyone else also.
____________________
July 25, 2012
Source: The New York Times, p. A 24 (Editorials)
This is your personal use, only
Faulty Criminal Background Checks
The federal government has historically paid little attention to the companies that collect and sell the data used by employers in hiring decisions — including data about an applicant’s criminal history.
But because 9 in 10 employers now use criminal background checks for some applicants, and the data are not always reliable, the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which share jurisdiction, need to get a better handle on an industry that has grown so fast over the last 20 years that no one can say how many companies there are.
They must make sure that the reporting companies obey the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which requires them to strive for accuracy. The law also requires the companies that furnish reports drawn from public records for employment purposes to notify the people named in the reports in a timely manner — so that any inaccuracies in the data can be challenged — or ensure that the public record is complete and up to date.
Sloppy reporting was not a huge problem in the past when there were fewer companies gathering data and the only way to get it was to examine court records in person. But, in recent years, this has become a computer-driven industry, with companies buying often incomplete records in bulk from the courts or from other screening companies and then not updating them. An incomplete report might show, for instance, that a job candidate was charged with a crime but not that he was exonerated. And faulty data can circulate forever.
A study issued in April by the National Consumer Law Center, an advocacy group, points to many other problems. Background reports often list the same offense many times, making it appear as if the applicant has an extensive record. Worse still, companies sometimes fail to do the basic checking necessary to distinguish among different people who have the same name.
In one particularly startling case that became the subject of a 2011 federal lawsuit in Illinois, a background report on a young white job applicant in his 20s listed several “possible matches” in a nationwide database. According to court documents, three of those “matches” were for a 58-year-old African-American who had been convicted of rape in another state in 1987 — when the applicant was not yet 4 years old.
The federal government clearly needs to step in. It should require companies to be federally registered, outline standards for accuracy, make sure that job applicants have a reasonable time to respond to erroneous reports and seek monetary and other penalties from companies that flout the law.
_____________________________________
Click the green immigration title below
to see the important immigration info to realize how broken the whole system is in the U.S.
- Legal Immigrants Seek Reward for Years of Following the Rules
- New York Times - by Julia Preston
As the debate over immigration reform continues, more than 4.4 million legal immigrants languish in a broken visa system. ... India, Mexico and the Philippines — can wait a decade or more to get their visas after approvals ___________________________________
Article 1 of 2 (Article 2 of 2 next below)
Important info - call your State & Federal Representatives
and ask to change this wrong law - this wrong attitude destroys people Teens Suffer Solitary Confinement in Prisons
New York and North Carolina are the only two states in the country
that prosecute all 16 and 17 years olds as adults, regardless of the crime
If found guilty, they are sent to federal prisons where they can be subjected
to solitary confinement, either as punishment or to protect them from adult inmates
“Being held in solitary confinement, it’s designed to break you down mentally. And when it breaks you down mentally,
it breaks you down physically as well,” said Ismael Nazario. At 17 years of age he was sentenced to 53 months for robbery and sent to Rikers Island, New York City’s main jail complex.
Nazario, who now works as a case manager for the Center for Community Alternatives, told the Epoch Times that in order to “try to find ways out of the box,” teenagers at Rikers Island would often fake suicide attempts.
Democratic senators said they would make reversing the law that automatically tries youth as adults a key issue in the state Senate.
“We are going to be moving on this as our top priority,” Sen. Velmanette Montgomery (D-Brooklyn) said during a July 11 rally in front of the Manhattan Municipal Building, along with community leaders, activists, and other officials, including Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx) and Sen. Ruth Hassell-Thompson (D-WF).
In the upcoming fight, the long-term effects of solitary confinement will most likely be a leading argument. Many speakers at the rally cited it as one of the most damaging incarceration policies for youths.
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan E. Méndez stated in a 2011 report that solitary confinement should be limited to extreme cases, yet “banned by States as a punishment or extortion technique.”
In the United States, however, such a form of penal punishment is still common. According to a 2012 joint report by Solitary Watch and Human Rights Watch, “At least 80,000 prisoners are in some form of isolated confinement.”
Solitary confinement is especially damaging to the mind. Sandra Schank, a staff psychiatrist at Mule Creek Prison, is quoted in the report stating, “It’s a standard psychiatric concept, if you put people in isolation, they will go insane. … Most people in isolation will fall apart.”
An estimated 95,000 youth under the age of 18 were held in prisons or jails in 2011, according to a Human Rights Watch and American Civil Liberties Union report. Approximately 2.3 million people are incarcerated in the United States, according to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
“A significant number of these facilities use solitary confinement—for days, weeks, months, or even years—to punish, protect, house, or treat some of the young people who are held there,” stated the report.
Solitary Confinement’s Origins
The practice was started in 1786 by Quakers looking for an alternative to criminal punishments that followed settlers from England—often public hangings or whippings. It began at Pennsylvania’s Walnut Street prison and was replicated in New York’s Auburn State Prison in 1821.
The effects, however, were horrific. In 1821, the French government commissioned a report on the system, which famously states “This absolute solitude, if nothings interrupted it, is beyond the strength of man; it destroys the criminal without intermission and without pity.”
With youth, whose minds are still developing, the effects are even more pronounced.
Young people are less resilient than adults when it comes to dealing with the psychological pressure caused by solitary confinement, according to Human Rights Watch/American Civil Liberties Union. “Adolescents in solitary confinement describe cutting themselves with staples or razors, hallucinations, losing control of themselves, or losing touch with reality while isolated,” a report sponsored by the organization states.
Help for Long-Term Effects
After young people get out of prison, the lasting psychological damage is compounded by the harm of a criminal record.
“There are very serious long-term effects,” Gabrielle Horowitz-Prisco, director of the Juvenile Justice Project at the Correctional Association of New York, told the Epoch Times.
Reverend Ruben Austria, executive director of Community Connects for Youth, believes the solution for troubled youth is in reform rather than punishment. He has tested and proved this theory by offering alternative incarceration programs, which are based on community involvement and mentoring.
“It’s when we kind of leave them alone on the street that they start making dumb decisions, and putting them in prisons certainly doesn’t help with the process,” Austria told the Epoch Times.
“They just need a community of people to come around them, to say we’re here for you, we’re interested in your welfare, we believe in you, we’ll help you reach your dreams, and we’re going to hold you in check if you start to stray from the right path,” he said.
Source: The Epoch Times - endorsed by STAF, Inc. Subscribe - you'll appreciate it - click below
Important info - call your State & Federal Representatives
and ask to change this wrong law - this wrong attitude destroys people Teens Suffer Solitary Confinement in Prisons
New York and North Carolina are the only two states in the country
that prosecute all 16 and 17 years olds as adults, regardless of the crime
If found guilty, they are sent to federal prisons where they can be subjected
to solitary confinement, either as punishment or to protect them from adult inmates
“Being held in solitary confinement, it’s designed to break you down mentally. And when it breaks you down mentally,
it breaks you down physically as well,” said Ismael Nazario. At 17 years of age he was sentenced to 53 months for robbery and sent to Rikers Island, New York City’s main jail complex.
Nazario, who now works as a case manager for the Center for Community Alternatives, told the Epoch Times that in order to “try to find ways out of the box,” teenagers at Rikers Island would often fake suicide attempts.
Democratic senators said they would make reversing the law that automatically tries youth as adults a key issue in the state Senate.
“We are going to be moving on this as our top priority,” Sen. Velmanette Montgomery (D-Brooklyn) said during a July 11 rally in front of the Manhattan Municipal Building, along with community leaders, activists, and other officials, including Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx) and Sen. Ruth Hassell-Thompson (D-WF).
In the upcoming fight, the long-term effects of solitary confinement will most likely be a leading argument. Many speakers at the rally cited it as one of the most damaging incarceration policies for youths.
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan E. Méndez stated in a 2011 report that solitary confinement should be limited to extreme cases, yet “banned by States as a punishment or extortion technique.”
In the United States, however, such a form of penal punishment is still common. According to a 2012 joint report by Solitary Watch and Human Rights Watch, “At least 80,000 prisoners are in some form of isolated confinement.”
Solitary confinement is especially damaging to the mind. Sandra Schank, a staff psychiatrist at Mule Creek Prison, is quoted in the report stating, “It’s a standard psychiatric concept, if you put people in isolation, they will go insane. … Most people in isolation will fall apart.”
An estimated 95,000 youth under the age of 18 were held in prisons or jails in 2011, according to a Human Rights Watch and American Civil Liberties Union report. Approximately 2.3 million people are incarcerated in the United States, according to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
“A significant number of these facilities use solitary confinement—for days, weeks, months, or even years—to punish, protect, house, or treat some of the young people who are held there,” stated the report.
Solitary Confinement’s Origins
The practice was started in 1786 by Quakers looking for an alternative to criminal punishments that followed settlers from England—often public hangings or whippings. It began at Pennsylvania’s Walnut Street prison and was replicated in New York’s Auburn State Prison in 1821.
The effects, however, were horrific. In 1821, the French government commissioned a report on the system, which famously states “This absolute solitude, if nothings interrupted it, is beyond the strength of man; it destroys the criminal without intermission and without pity.”
With youth, whose minds are still developing, the effects are even more pronounced.
Young people are less resilient than adults when it comes to dealing with the psychological pressure caused by solitary confinement, according to Human Rights Watch/American Civil Liberties Union. “Adolescents in solitary confinement describe cutting themselves with staples or razors, hallucinations, losing control of themselves, or losing touch with reality while isolated,” a report sponsored by the organization states.
Help for Long-Term Effects
After young people get out of prison, the lasting psychological damage is compounded by the harm of a criminal record.
“There are very serious long-term effects,” Gabrielle Horowitz-Prisco, director of the Juvenile Justice Project at the Correctional Association of New York, told the Epoch Times.
Reverend Ruben Austria, executive director of Community Connects for Youth, believes the solution for troubled youth is in reform rather than punishment. He has tested and proved this theory by offering alternative incarceration programs, which are based on community involvement and mentoring.
“It’s when we kind of leave them alone on the street that they start making dumb decisions, and putting them in prisons certainly doesn’t help with the process,” Austria told the Epoch Times.
“They just need a community of people to come around them, to say we’re here for you, we’re interested in your welfare, we believe in you, we’ll help you reach your dreams, and we’re going to hold you in check if you start to stray from the right path,” he said.
Source: The Epoch Times - endorsed by STAF, Inc. Subscribe - you'll appreciate it - click below
- The Epoch Times: Original Articles www.theepochtimes.com/n2/subscribe.html
- Covers breaking international and local news, with editions in US, Canada, Australia, UK, Ireland and New Zealand.
Article 2 of 2 (Article 1 of 2 next above)
They have been held in solitary confinement for at least 20 years,
each in his own 8-by-10-foot windowless cell at the Pelican Bay supermax prison,
with about a thousand others — half of whom have been there for more than a decade.
They are allowed only about an hour of “recreation” each day,
often in shackles, in a cement enclosure not much larger than their cell.
Several recent suits have begun to make some headway, including one in California that relies on the
Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment to call for an outer limit of 10 years in solitary.
Climbing Out of the Hole Date: July, 2013
Do you remember where you were standing at this moment five years ago? Ten years? Twenty? Seventy-eight men in Northern California do.
They have been held in solitary confinement for at least 20 years, each in his own 8-by-10-foot windowless cell at the Pelican Bay supermax prison, with about a thousand others — half of whom have been there for more than a decade. They are allowed only about an hour of “recreation” each day, often in shackles, in a cement enclosure not much larger than their cell.
Even among inmates accustomed to severe across-the-board restrictions of their liberties, there is a breaking point.
In July 2013, as many as 30,000 prisoners in California, most of whom are not in solitary confinement, went on hunger strikes to protest its mass use.
In truth, that breaking point was passed long ago. Every day, it seems, there is another news story, psychological study or official report demonstrating the severe damage caused by long-term solitary confinement.
A 2011 United Nations report said the practice can amount to torture and called for a ban on terms longer than 15 days. In this country, there are an estimated 25,000 prisoners in long-term solitary in supermax prisons; in California, the average stay is nearly seven years.
The inmates are isolated because prison officials have determined that they pose a threat to the safety of the guards and other prisoners, despite a growing body of evidence that such use of solitary does not reduce prison violence or promote safety.
At Pelican Bay, the overwhelming majority of the men in solitary don’t even have a record of violence; they are placed in solitary for their “gang associations,” despite the fact that such associations have hardly any predictive value for a prisoner’s likelihood to be violent.
The little hope these inmates have of leaving solitary lies mostly in what prison officials call “debriefing,” or snitching on other gang members. (California officials say that about 200 inmates statewide have been classified for return to the general prison population under a pilot program that considers behavior and other factors besides debriefing.)
Opponents of solitary do not deny that certain inmates are too dangerous or disruptive to live among the general prison population. The issue is whether depriving thousands of people of virtually all human contact for years on end, without real opportunities to get out, goes beyond any reasonable standard of proportionality in punishment. “They want to make these people suffer — it’s exactly what the goal is,” said Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama. “Whose interests are being undermined if you let someone for the first time in a year talk to their mother?”
Lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of solitary confinement are distressingly rare, mainly because of a strict federal law that limits litigation over prison conditions. But several recent suits have begun to make some headway, including one in California that relies on the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment to call for an outer limit of 10 years in solitary.
The Supreme Court has not ruled directly on the issue, but it has said that the length of a stay in solitary “cannot be ignored” when determining whether it violates the Eighth Amendment. And the court’s 2011 ruling that overcrowding in California’s prisons violates the Constitution might help pave the way for redress by suggesting that courts do not have to defer to prison officials on all matters of prison administration.
States that have recently reduced or nearly eliminated the use of solitary — from Mississippi to Ohio to Maine — have found it is possible to maintain safety and control in prisons while respecting basic human dignity. There is a difference, after all, between punishment and torture. Prisoners shouldn’t have to starve themselves for us to see that.
Click: Meet The New York Times’s Editorial Board
_____________________________
Click green below to connect to the original article with pictures
Climbing Out of the Hole - Editorial | Notebook. Climbing Out of the Hole. Jim Wilson/The New York Times. A prisoner in solitary confinement at Pelican Bay in California.
July 20, 2013 - By JESSE WEGMAN - Opinion / Sunday Review - Article - Print Headline: "Climbing Out of the Hole"
Click green for further info
Source: NYT
_______________________________
==========================================================================================================================================================
Every American Must Study This Article
Every American Must Call His/Her Congress/Senate/State Representative
and demand fast legislative action - this clear human torture must end
If this were happening in any other country, Americans would be aghast, filled with horror and shock - YET, it is happening and has been happening all the time in the USA - how many people are in street corners demonstrating against this American
craziness, legalized human abuse, torturing, life destroying? Not many - Have you seen any?
Sentenced to a Slow Death
If this were happening in any other country, Americans would be aghast.
A sentence of life in prison, without the possibility of parole, for trying to sell $10 of marijuana to an undercover officer? For sharing LSD at a Grateful Dead concert? For siphoning gas from a truck? The punishment is so extreme, so irrational, so wildly disproportionate to the crime that it defies explanation.
And yet this is happening every day in federal and state courts across the United States.
Judges, bound by mandatory sentencing laws that they openly denounce, are sending people away for the rest of their lives for committing nonviolent drug and property crimes. In nearly 20 percent of cases, it was the person’s first offense.
As of 2012, there were 3,278 prisoners serving sentences of life without parole for such crimes, according to an extensive and astonishing report issued in 11/12/13 by the American Civil Liberties Union.
click: American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
And that number, 3,278, is conservative. It doesn’t include inmates serving sentences of, say, 350 years for a series of nonviolent drug sales. Nor does it include those in prison for crimes legally classified as “violent” even though they did not involve actual violence, like failing to report to a halfway house or trying to steal an unoccupied car.
The report relies on data from the federal prison system and nine states. Four out of five prisoners were sentenced for drug crimes like possessing a crack pipe or acting as a go-between in a street drug sale. Most of the rest were sentenced for property crimes like trying to cash a stolen check or shoplifting. In more than 83 percent of the cases, the judge had no choice: federal or state law mandated a sentence of life without parole, usually under a mandatory-minimum or habitual offender statute.
Over the past four decades, those laws have helped push the American prison population to more than two million people, and to the highest incarceration rate in the world. As in the rest of the penal system, the racial disparity is vast: in the federal courts, blacks are 20 times more likely than whites to be sentenced to life without parole for nonviolent crimes.
The report estimates that the cost of imprisoning just these 3,278 people for life instead of a more proportionate length of time is $1.78 billion.
It is difficult to find anyone who defends such sentencing. Even Burl Cain, the longtime warden of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, which holds the most nonviolent lifers in the country, calls these sentences “ridiculous.” “Everybody forgets what corrections means. It means to correct deviant behavior,” Mr. Cain told the A.C.L.U. “If this person can go back and be a productive citizen and not commit crimes again,” he asked, why spend the money to keep him in prison? “I need to keep predators in these big old prisons, not dying old men.”
Several states are reforming sentencing laws to curb the mass incarceration binge. And Congress is considering at least two bipartisan bills that would partly restore to judges the power to issue appropriate sentences, unbound by mandatory minimums. These are positive steps, but they do not go far enough. As the report recommends, federal and state legislators should ban sentences of life without parole for nonviolent crimes, both for those already serving these sentences and in future cases. President Obama and state governors should also use executive clemency to commute existing sentences.
Just one-fifth of all countries allow a sentence of life without parole, and most of those reserve it for murder or repeated violent crimes. If the United States is to call itself a civilized nation, it must end this cruel and ineffective practice.
Click green for further info
Source: Meet The New York Times’s Editorial Board »
__________________________________________
They have been held in solitary confinement for at least 20 years,
each in his own 8-by-10-foot windowless cell at the Pelican Bay supermax prison,
with about a thousand others — half of whom have been there for more than a decade.
They are allowed only about an hour of “recreation” each day,
often in shackles, in a cement enclosure not much larger than their cell.
Several recent suits have begun to make some headway, including one in California that relies on the
Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment to call for an outer limit of 10 years in solitary.
Climbing Out of the Hole Date: July, 2013
Do you remember where you were standing at this moment five years ago? Ten years? Twenty? Seventy-eight men in Northern California do.
They have been held in solitary confinement for at least 20 years, each in his own 8-by-10-foot windowless cell at the Pelican Bay supermax prison, with about a thousand others — half of whom have been there for more than a decade. They are allowed only about an hour of “recreation” each day, often in shackles, in a cement enclosure not much larger than their cell.
Even among inmates accustomed to severe across-the-board restrictions of their liberties, there is a breaking point.
In July 2013, as many as 30,000 prisoners in California, most of whom are not in solitary confinement, went on hunger strikes to protest its mass use.
In truth, that breaking point was passed long ago. Every day, it seems, there is another news story, psychological study or official report demonstrating the severe damage caused by long-term solitary confinement.
A 2011 United Nations report said the practice can amount to torture and called for a ban on terms longer than 15 days. In this country, there are an estimated 25,000 prisoners in long-term solitary in supermax prisons; in California, the average stay is nearly seven years.
The inmates are isolated because prison officials have determined that they pose a threat to the safety of the guards and other prisoners, despite a growing body of evidence that such use of solitary does not reduce prison violence or promote safety.
At Pelican Bay, the overwhelming majority of the men in solitary don’t even have a record of violence; they are placed in solitary for their “gang associations,” despite the fact that such associations have hardly any predictive value for a prisoner’s likelihood to be violent.
The little hope these inmates have of leaving solitary lies mostly in what prison officials call “debriefing,” or snitching on other gang members. (California officials say that about 200 inmates statewide have been classified for return to the general prison population under a pilot program that considers behavior and other factors besides debriefing.)
Opponents of solitary do not deny that certain inmates are too dangerous or disruptive to live among the general prison population. The issue is whether depriving thousands of people of virtually all human contact for years on end, without real opportunities to get out, goes beyond any reasonable standard of proportionality in punishment. “They want to make these people suffer — it’s exactly what the goal is,” said Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama. “Whose interests are being undermined if you let someone for the first time in a year talk to their mother?”
Lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of solitary confinement are distressingly rare, mainly because of a strict federal law that limits litigation over prison conditions. But several recent suits have begun to make some headway, including one in California that relies on the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment to call for an outer limit of 10 years in solitary.
The Supreme Court has not ruled directly on the issue, but it has said that the length of a stay in solitary “cannot be ignored” when determining whether it violates the Eighth Amendment. And the court’s 2011 ruling that overcrowding in California’s prisons violates the Constitution might help pave the way for redress by suggesting that courts do not have to defer to prison officials on all matters of prison administration.
States that have recently reduced or nearly eliminated the use of solitary — from Mississippi to Ohio to Maine — have found it is possible to maintain safety and control in prisons while respecting basic human dignity. There is a difference, after all, between punishment and torture. Prisoners shouldn’t have to starve themselves for us to see that.
Click: Meet The New York Times’s Editorial Board
_____________________________
Click green below to connect to the original article with pictures
Climbing Out of the Hole - Editorial | Notebook. Climbing Out of the Hole. Jim Wilson/The New York Times. A prisoner in solitary confinement at Pelican Bay in California.
July 20, 2013 - By JESSE WEGMAN - Opinion / Sunday Review - Article - Print Headline: "Climbing Out of the Hole"
Click green for further info
Source: NYT
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==========================================================================================================================================================
Every American Must Study This Article
Every American Must Call His/Her Congress/Senate/State Representative
and demand fast legislative action - this clear human torture must end
If this were happening in any other country, Americans would be aghast, filled with horror and shock - YET, it is happening and has been happening all the time in the USA - how many people are in street corners demonstrating against this American
craziness, legalized human abuse, torturing, life destroying? Not many - Have you seen any?
Sentenced to a Slow Death
If this were happening in any other country, Americans would be aghast.
A sentence of life in prison, without the possibility of parole, for trying to sell $10 of marijuana to an undercover officer? For sharing LSD at a Grateful Dead concert? For siphoning gas from a truck? The punishment is so extreme, so irrational, so wildly disproportionate to the crime that it defies explanation.
And yet this is happening every day in federal and state courts across the United States.
Judges, bound by mandatory sentencing laws that they openly denounce, are sending people away for the rest of their lives for committing nonviolent drug and property crimes. In nearly 20 percent of cases, it was the person’s first offense.
As of 2012, there were 3,278 prisoners serving sentences of life without parole for such crimes, according to an extensive and astonishing report issued in 11/12/13 by the American Civil Liberties Union.
click: American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
And that number, 3,278, is conservative. It doesn’t include inmates serving sentences of, say, 350 years for a series of nonviolent drug sales. Nor does it include those in prison for crimes legally classified as “violent” even though they did not involve actual violence, like failing to report to a halfway house or trying to steal an unoccupied car.
The report relies on data from the federal prison system and nine states. Four out of five prisoners were sentenced for drug crimes like possessing a crack pipe or acting as a go-between in a street drug sale. Most of the rest were sentenced for property crimes like trying to cash a stolen check or shoplifting. In more than 83 percent of the cases, the judge had no choice: federal or state law mandated a sentence of life without parole, usually under a mandatory-minimum or habitual offender statute.
Over the past four decades, those laws have helped push the American prison population to more than two million people, and to the highest incarceration rate in the world. As in the rest of the penal system, the racial disparity is vast: in the federal courts, blacks are 20 times more likely than whites to be sentenced to life without parole for nonviolent crimes.
The report estimates that the cost of imprisoning just these 3,278 people for life instead of a more proportionate length of time is $1.78 billion.
It is difficult to find anyone who defends such sentencing. Even Burl Cain, the longtime warden of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, which holds the most nonviolent lifers in the country, calls these sentences “ridiculous.” “Everybody forgets what corrections means. It means to correct deviant behavior,” Mr. Cain told the A.C.L.U. “If this person can go back and be a productive citizen and not commit crimes again,” he asked, why spend the money to keep him in prison? “I need to keep predators in these big old prisons, not dying old men.”
Several states are reforming sentencing laws to curb the mass incarceration binge. And Congress is considering at least two bipartisan bills that would partly restore to judges the power to issue appropriate sentences, unbound by mandatory minimums. These are positive steps, but they do not go far enough. As the report recommends, federal and state legislators should ban sentences of life without parole for nonviolent crimes, both for those already serving these sentences and in future cases. President Obama and state governors should also use executive clemency to commute existing sentences.
Just one-fifth of all countries allow a sentence of life without parole, and most of those reserve it for murder or repeated violent crimes. If the United States is to call itself a civilized nation, it must end this cruel and ineffective practice.
Click green for further info
Source: Meet The New York Times’s Editorial Board »
__________________________________________
Fort Hood and the rarity of military executions
DALLAS (AP) — Hundreds of unarmed soldiers, some about to deploy to Afghanistan, were waiting inside a building for vaccines and routine checkups when a fellow soldier walked in with two handguns and enough ammunition to commit one of the worst mass shootings in American history.
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan doesn't deny that he carried out the November 2009 attack at Fort Hood, Texas, which left 13 people dead and more than 30 others wounded. There are dozens of witnesses who saw it happen. Military law prohibits him from entering a guilty plea because authorities are seeking the death penalty. But if he is convicted and sentenced to death in a trial that starts Tuesday, there are likely years, if not decades, of appeals ahead.
He may never make it to the death chamber at all.
While the Hasan case is unusually complex, experts also say the military justice system is unaccustomed to dealing with death penalty cases and has struggled to avoid overturned sentences.
Eleven of the 16 death sentences handed down by military juries in the last 30 years have been overturned, according to an academic study and court records. No active-duty soldier has been executed since 1961.
A reversed verdict or sentence on appeal in the Hasan case would be a fiasco for prosecutors and the Army. That's one reason why prosecutors and the military judge have been deliberate leading up to trial, said Geoffrey Corn, a professor at the South Texas College of Law and former military lawyer.
"The public looks and says, 'This is an obviously guilty defendant. What's so hard about this?'" Corn said. "What seems so simple is in fact relatively complicated."
Hasan is charged with 13 specifications of premeditated murder and 32 specifications of attempted premeditated murder. Thirteen officers from around the country who hold Hasan's rank or higher will serve on the jury for a trial that will likely last one month and probably longer. They must be unanimous to convict Hasan of murder and sentence him to death. Three-quarters of the panel must vote for an attempted murder conviction.
The jury will likely hear from victims and relatives of the dead. A handful of victims still carry bullet fragments in their body. Others have nightmares.
"It never goes away — being upset that it's taken so long for this trial to come," said Staff Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford, who was shot in the head, stomach and upper body. "So now's the day of reckoning, which is positive — very positive."
The trial's start has been delayed over and over, often due to requests from Hasan. Any of the hundreds of decisions large or small could be fair game on appeal. The entire record will be scrutinized by military appeals courts that have overturned most of the death sentences they've considered.
"A good prosecutor, in military parlance, would be foolish to fight only the close battle," Corn said. "He's got to fight the close battle and the future battle. And the future battle is the appellate record."
Hasan has twice dismissed his lawyers and now plans to represent himself at trial. He's suggested he wants to argue the killings were in "defense of others" — namely, members of the Taliban fighting Americans in Afghanistan. The trial judge, Col. Tara Osborn, has so far denied that strategy.
Hasan has grown a beard while in custody that he says expresses his Muslim faith, but violates military rules on decorum. After a military judge ordered him forcibly shaved, an appeals court stayed that order and took another judge off the case.
The last man executed in the military system was Pvt. John Bennett, hanged in 1961 for raping an 11-year-old girl. Five men are on the military death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., but none are close to being executed.
An inmate was taken off death row just last year. Kenneth Parker was condemned for killing two fellow Marines in North Carolina, including Lance Cpl. Rodney Page. But Parker was given life without parole last September by an appeals court. The court found his trial judge should have not allowed him to be tried for both murders at the same time, nor should the judge have allowed testimony that the appeals court said was irrelevant to the crimes.
Parker's accomplice in the killings, Wade Walker, was also sentenced to death, only for the sentence to be overturned.
Examples abound of other death sentences set aside. They include William Kreutzer Jr., who killed one soldier and wounded 18 others in a 1995 shooting spree at Fort Bragg, N.C.; James T. Murphy, who killed his wife in Germany by smashing her head with a hammer; and Melvin Turner, who killed his 11-month-old daughter with a razor blade.
Part of the problem, experts say, is that death penalty cases are rare in military courts.
A study in the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology identified just 41 cases between 1984 and 2005 where a defendant faced a court-martial on a capital charge. Meanwhile, more than 500 people have been executed since 1982 in the civilian system in Texas, the nation's most active death-penalty state.
While lawyers and judges in Texas may get multiple death penalty cases a year, many military judges and lawyers often are on their first, said Victor Hansen, another former prosecutor who now teaches at the New England School of Law. The military courts that are required to review each death-penalty verdict are also more cautious and likely to pinpoint possible errors that might pass muster at a civilian court, Hansen and Corn said.
Hansen compared the military's conundrum to small states that have a death-penalty law on the books, but never use it.
"You don't have a lot of experience or institutional knowledge," said Hansen, who compared it to "the reinventing of the wheel every time one is done."
If Hasan is convicted and sentenced to death, his case will automatically go before appeals courts for the Army and the armed forces. If those courts affirm the sentence, he could ask the Supreme Court for a review or file motions in federal civilian courts.
The president, as the military commander in chief, must sign off on a death sentence.
"If history is any guide, it's going to be a long, long, long time," Hansen said.
Click green for further info
Source: AP News
_________________________________________
Young British troops three times as likely
to commit violent crime after returning from combat
Combat soldiers 53 per cent more prone to violent crimes than colleagues
Military men three times more likely than civilians to commit violent offences
Links drawn between combat and alcohol misuse, violent crime and PTSD
Notice: Same facts are valid worldwide and also in the U.S. Military
Thus, "Young British troops" you could read "Young American Troops"
Please notice: this text is of British origin - thus, some words appear written in the British language manner
British soldiers who have experienced combat are more likely to commit violent crime and suffer from alcohol misuse and post traumatic stress disorder.
Men who had seen combat in Iraq and Afghanistan were 53 per cent more likely to commit a violent offence than comrades given non-combat roles.
Those with multiple experiences of combat had a 70 per cent to 80 per cent greater risk of committing acts of violence.
In the biggest study of its kind ever undertaken, researchers were given access to police records on almost 14,000 randomly selected men and women who were active or former members of the armed forces, mostly the Army.
Participants provided information about their experiences before and after joining the military and underwent psychological tests.
A search of the Police National Computer was made for any convictions, cautions or warnings relating to the study population.
Overall, 17 per cent of the men had criminal records, and 11 per cent had committed violent offences.
Of the 2,728 aged 30 and younger, 20.6 per cent had a criminal record for violence.
Professor Sir Simon Wessely said screening within the armed forces to identify at-risk individuals would not work
The findings, released on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War, are published in a special issue of The Lancet medical journal.
Study leader Dr Deirdre MacManus, from King's College London, said: ‘There has been a lot of media coverage and public debate about violence committed by veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
‘Our study, which used official criminal records, found that violent offending was most common among young men from the lower ranks of the Army and was strongly associated with a history of violent offending before joining the military.
‘Serving in a combat role and traumatic experiences on deployment also increased the risk of violent behaviour.’
Violent offences covered a broad range of acts, from verbal harassment to homicide. They did not include incidents of domestic violence.
A strong association was seen between violent offending and high levels of self-reported aggression.
Professor Sir Simon Wessely, co-director of the Centre for Military Health Research at King's College London, who co-authored the study, admitted that an aggressive streak can be useful in a soldier.
‘Some people with aggressive dispositions make very good soldiers, that's the nature of the game,’ he told a press conference in London.
He added: ‘My own view, and the view of many people in this area, is that you meet a lot of people in the armed forces who you're glad are in the armed forces, and it's doing them a lot of good.’
But he stressed that the vast majority of soldiers returning from tours of duty in combat zones never got into trouble.
‘Not every single person who joins the armed forces is Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad,’ said the professor.
‘We are suggesting there is a problem that needs to be looked at, but just as with post traumatic stress disorder this is not a common outcome in military populations. Overall you must remember that of those who serve in combat, 94 per cent of who come back will not offend.’
Screening within the armed forces to identify at-risk individuals would not work, he argued. For every correct prediction there were likely to be five that were wrong.
However he said his group had started conducting random mental health checks on several thousand members of the armed forces returning from active duty. In the US, this is a routine procedure.
Commenting on the report, a Ministry of Defence spokesman said: ‘We are committed to supporting members of our Armed Forces and their families as they return to civilian life post deployment.
‘That is why we funded this research and have comprehensive mental health support available before, during and after operations. We also ensure that all personnel go through a thorough period of decompression to help make this adjustment.
‘This report recognises that the vast majority of service personnel make this adjustment successfully and are not more likely to commit a violent offence post deployment - there is only an increased risk of 2 per cent when compared to the general population.
‘However, any violent offence is unacceptable and will not be tolerated by our Armed Forces. If a member of our Armed Forces or their family experiences violence there is a wide range of support and help available to them.’
THE SOLDIER WHO BECAME 'OBSESSED' WITH GUNS AND SHOT LANDLADY
Aaron Wilkinson, 24, shot his landlady Judith Garnett with a shotgun at point-blank range when he returned from Afghanistan.
But he was convicted with manslaughter rather than murder because he was suffering with post traumatic stress disorder at the time of the killing.
The court was told Wilkinson had been badly affected by seeing three Afghan soldiers blown up by a Taliban bomb.
On his return from Afghanistan Wilkinson worked on a game farm run by mother-of-two Mrs Garnett.
Judith Garnett had taken in Aaron Wilkinson and treated him like a member of her own family
Wilkinson worked for her and lived at her home in Woodlesford, near Leeds. She had taken him in a decade earlier when he was homeless after being thrown out by his mother, and treated him like a member of the family.
After his tour in 2010 Wilkinson talked constantly about his time in Afghanistan with the Welsh Regiment, wore combat clothing and held a shotgun as if he was carrying an Army rifle.
He even carried a piece of shrapnel in a jar that had been pulled out of his thigh after a mortar attack.
When Mrs Garnett ordered him to leave in January 2011, he snapped and killed her with three blasts from a shotgun.
He then dialled 999 and told the operator: ‘I have done something absolutely terrible... I just had a moment of madness.’
The court heard the combination of Asperger’s and PTSD left him unlikely to be able to exercise self-control.
He was convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility due to his PTSD and Asperger's syndrome.
Colleague Mark McCabe said during his service Wilkinson often built a campfire on his own away from other troops.
On one occasion he heard Wilkinson laughing and discovered he had skewered a cat with a red-hot poker.
Comment from the British public:
"This is a surprise to no one. It is hardly a secret that they don't get as much support or encouragement as their American and other foreign counterparts. American soldiers are always treated as heroes, British ones are treated like expendable foot stools by their government."
London, United Kingdom
______________________________________
to commit violent crime after returning from combat
Combat soldiers 53 per cent more prone to violent crimes than colleagues
Military men three times more likely than civilians to commit violent offences
Links drawn between combat and alcohol misuse, violent crime and PTSD
Notice: Same facts are valid worldwide and also in the U.S. Military
Thus, "Young British troops" you could read "Young American Troops"
Please notice: this text is of British origin - thus, some words appear written in the British language manner
British soldiers who have experienced combat are more likely to commit violent crime and suffer from alcohol misuse and post traumatic stress disorder.
Men who had seen combat in Iraq and Afghanistan were 53 per cent more likely to commit a violent offence than comrades given non-combat roles.
Those with multiple experiences of combat had a 70 per cent to 80 per cent greater risk of committing acts of violence.
In the biggest study of its kind ever undertaken, researchers were given access to police records on almost 14,000 randomly selected men and women who were active or former members of the armed forces, mostly the Army.
Participants provided information about their experiences before and after joining the military and underwent psychological tests.
A search of the Police National Computer was made for any convictions, cautions or warnings relating to the study population.
Overall, 17 per cent of the men had criminal records, and 11 per cent had committed violent offences.
Of the 2,728 aged 30 and younger, 20.6 per cent had a criminal record for violence.
Professor Sir Simon Wessely said screening within the armed forces to identify at-risk individuals would not work
The findings, released on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War, are published in a special issue of The Lancet medical journal.
Study leader Dr Deirdre MacManus, from King's College London, said: ‘There has been a lot of media coverage and public debate about violence committed by veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
‘Our study, which used official criminal records, found that violent offending was most common among young men from the lower ranks of the Army and was strongly associated with a history of violent offending before joining the military.
‘Serving in a combat role and traumatic experiences on deployment also increased the risk of violent behaviour.’
Violent offences covered a broad range of acts, from verbal harassment to homicide. They did not include incidents of domestic violence.
A strong association was seen between violent offending and high levels of self-reported aggression.
Professor Sir Simon Wessely, co-director of the Centre for Military Health Research at King's College London, who co-authored the study, admitted that an aggressive streak can be useful in a soldier.
‘Some people with aggressive dispositions make very good soldiers, that's the nature of the game,’ he told a press conference in London.
He added: ‘My own view, and the view of many people in this area, is that you meet a lot of people in the armed forces who you're glad are in the armed forces, and it's doing them a lot of good.’
But he stressed that the vast majority of soldiers returning from tours of duty in combat zones never got into trouble.
‘Not every single person who joins the armed forces is Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad,’ said the professor.
‘We are suggesting there is a problem that needs to be looked at, but just as with post traumatic stress disorder this is not a common outcome in military populations. Overall you must remember that of those who serve in combat, 94 per cent of who come back will not offend.’
Screening within the armed forces to identify at-risk individuals would not work, he argued. For every correct prediction there were likely to be five that were wrong.
However he said his group had started conducting random mental health checks on several thousand members of the armed forces returning from active duty. In the US, this is a routine procedure.
Commenting on the report, a Ministry of Defence spokesman said: ‘We are committed to supporting members of our Armed Forces and their families as they return to civilian life post deployment.
‘That is why we funded this research and have comprehensive mental health support available before, during and after operations. We also ensure that all personnel go through a thorough period of decompression to help make this adjustment.
‘This report recognises that the vast majority of service personnel make this adjustment successfully and are not more likely to commit a violent offence post deployment - there is only an increased risk of 2 per cent when compared to the general population.
‘However, any violent offence is unacceptable and will not be tolerated by our Armed Forces. If a member of our Armed Forces or their family experiences violence there is a wide range of support and help available to them.’
THE SOLDIER WHO BECAME 'OBSESSED' WITH GUNS AND SHOT LANDLADY
Aaron Wilkinson, 24, shot his landlady Judith Garnett with a shotgun at point-blank range when he returned from Afghanistan.
But he was convicted with manslaughter rather than murder because he was suffering with post traumatic stress disorder at the time of the killing.
The court was told Wilkinson had been badly affected by seeing three Afghan soldiers blown up by a Taliban bomb.
On his return from Afghanistan Wilkinson worked on a game farm run by mother-of-two Mrs Garnett.
Judith Garnett had taken in Aaron Wilkinson and treated him like a member of her own family
Wilkinson worked for her and lived at her home in Woodlesford, near Leeds. She had taken him in a decade earlier when he was homeless after being thrown out by his mother, and treated him like a member of the family.
After his tour in 2010 Wilkinson talked constantly about his time in Afghanistan with the Welsh Regiment, wore combat clothing and held a shotgun as if he was carrying an Army rifle.
He even carried a piece of shrapnel in a jar that had been pulled out of his thigh after a mortar attack.
When Mrs Garnett ordered him to leave in January 2011, he snapped and killed her with three blasts from a shotgun.
He then dialled 999 and told the operator: ‘I have done something absolutely terrible... I just had a moment of madness.’
The court heard the combination of Asperger’s and PTSD left him unlikely to be able to exercise self-control.
He was convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility due to his PTSD and Asperger's syndrome.
Colleague Mark McCabe said during his service Wilkinson often built a campfire on his own away from other troops.
On one occasion he heard Wilkinson laughing and discovered he had skewered a cat with a red-hot poker.
Comment from the British public:
"This is a surprise to no one. It is hardly a secret that they don't get as much support or encouragement as their American and other foreign counterparts. American soldiers are always treated as heroes, British ones are treated like expendable foot stools by their government."
London, United Kingdom
______________________________________
Article 1 of 2
The Right to Counsel: Badly Battered at 50
Click green for further info
A half-century ago, the Supreme Court ruled that anyone too poor to hire a lawyer must be provided one free in any criminal case involving a felony charge. The holding in Gideon v. Wainwright enlarged the Constitution’s safeguards of liberty and equality, finding the right to counsel “fundamental.” The goal was “fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law.”
This principle has been expanded to cover other circumstances as well: misdemeanor cases where the defendant could be jailed, a defendant’s first appeal from a conviction and proceedings against a juvenile for delinquency.
While the constitutional commitment is generally met in federal courts, it is a different story in state courts, which handle about 95 percent of America’s criminal cases. This matters because, by well-informed estimates, at least 80 percent of state criminal defendants cannot afford to pay for lawyers and have to depend on court-appointed counsel.
Even the best-run state programs lack enough money to provide competent lawyers for all indigent defendants who need them. Florida set up public defender offices when Gideon was decided, and the Miami office was a standout. But as demand has outpaced financing, caseloads for Miami defenders have grown to 500 felonies a year, though the American Bar Association guidelines say caseloads should not exceed 150 felonies.
Only 24 states have statewide public defender systems. Others flout their constitutional obligations by pushing the problem onto cash-strapped counties or local judicial districts.
Lack of financing isn’t the only problem, either. Contempt for poor defendants is too often the norm. In Kentucky, 68 percent of poor people accused of misdemeanors appear in court hearings without lawyers. In 21 counties in Florida in 2010, 70 percent of misdemeanor defendants pleaded guilty or no contest — at arraignments that averaged less than three minutes.
The Supreme Court has said that poor people are entitled to counsel “within a reasonable time” after a case is initiated. But defendants, after their arrest, can spend weeks or even months in jail without a lawyer’s help. In a Mississippi case, a woman charged with shoplifting sat in jail for 11 months before a lawyer was appointed.
The powerlessness of poor defendants is becoming even more evident under harsh sentencing schemes created in the past few decades. They give prosecutors, who have huge discretion, a strong threat to use, and have led to almost 94 percent of all state criminal cases being settled in plea bargains — often because of weak defense lawyers who fail to push back.
The competency of lawyers is, of course, most critical in death penalty cases. In dozens of states, capital cases are routinely handled by poorly paid, inexperienced lawyers. And yet, only very rarely are inmates ever granted a new trial because of incompetent counsel.
In a Georgia death penalty case last year, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that even though the main defense lawyer drank a quart of vodka each night of the trial, there was no need for a retrial. The lawyer was himself preparing to be criminally prosecuted for stealing client funds, and presented very little evidence about the defendant’s intellectual disability. But the court said the defendant had a fair trial because proof that he killed a sheriff’s deputy outweighed any weakness in his legal representation.
In an infamous 1996 Texas death-penalty case, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld a defendant’s death sentence even though his lead counsel slept during the trial.
The Supreme Court has made it possible for courts to uphold such indefensible lawyering. In 1984, in Strickland v. Washington, the court said that for a defendant to be entitled to a new trial, he must show both that his lawyer’s advice was deficient and that the deficiency deprived him of a fair trial — a very high hurdle. And the court’s majority defined competency as requiring only that the lawyer’s judgment be “reasonable under prevailing professional norms.”
Justice Thurgood Marshall, writing in dissent, said the result of this empty standard “is covertly to legitimate convictions and sentences obtained on the basis of incompetent conduct by defense counsel.” That is exactly what has happened in the past three decades. In fact, incompetent counsel for poor defendants is so widespread that under this standard the prevailing professional norm has been reduced to mediocrity.
After 50 years, the promise of Gideon v. Wainwright is mocked more often than fulfilled. In a forthcoming issue of The Yale Law Journal, Stephen Bright, president of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Georgia, and Sia Sanneh, a lawyer with the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama, recommend that all states have statewide public defender systems that train and supervise their lawyers, limit their workloads and have specialized teams in, for example, death-penalty cases.
There is no shortage of lawyers to do this work. What stands in the way is an undemocratic, deep-seated lack of political will.
Click green for further info
Source: NYT
________________________________________________________
The Right to Counsel: Badly Battered at 50
Click green for further info
A half-century ago, the Supreme Court ruled that anyone too poor to hire a lawyer must be provided one free in any criminal case involving a felony charge. The holding in Gideon v. Wainwright enlarged the Constitution’s safeguards of liberty and equality, finding the right to counsel “fundamental.” The goal was “fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law.”
This principle has been expanded to cover other circumstances as well: misdemeanor cases where the defendant could be jailed, a defendant’s first appeal from a conviction and proceedings against a juvenile for delinquency.
While the constitutional commitment is generally met in federal courts, it is a different story in state courts, which handle about 95 percent of America’s criminal cases. This matters because, by well-informed estimates, at least 80 percent of state criminal defendants cannot afford to pay for lawyers and have to depend on court-appointed counsel.
Even the best-run state programs lack enough money to provide competent lawyers for all indigent defendants who need them. Florida set up public defender offices when Gideon was decided, and the Miami office was a standout. But as demand has outpaced financing, caseloads for Miami defenders have grown to 500 felonies a year, though the American Bar Association guidelines say caseloads should not exceed 150 felonies.
Only 24 states have statewide public defender systems. Others flout their constitutional obligations by pushing the problem onto cash-strapped counties or local judicial districts.
Lack of financing isn’t the only problem, either. Contempt for poor defendants is too often the norm. In Kentucky, 68 percent of poor people accused of misdemeanors appear in court hearings without lawyers. In 21 counties in Florida in 2010, 70 percent of misdemeanor defendants pleaded guilty or no contest — at arraignments that averaged less than three minutes.
The Supreme Court has said that poor people are entitled to counsel “within a reasonable time” after a case is initiated. But defendants, after their arrest, can spend weeks or even months in jail without a lawyer’s help. In a Mississippi case, a woman charged with shoplifting sat in jail for 11 months before a lawyer was appointed.
The powerlessness of poor defendants is becoming even more evident under harsh sentencing schemes created in the past few decades. They give prosecutors, who have huge discretion, a strong threat to use, and have led to almost 94 percent of all state criminal cases being settled in plea bargains — often because of weak defense lawyers who fail to push back.
The competency of lawyers is, of course, most critical in death penalty cases. In dozens of states, capital cases are routinely handled by poorly paid, inexperienced lawyers. And yet, only very rarely are inmates ever granted a new trial because of incompetent counsel.
In a Georgia death penalty case last year, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that even though the main defense lawyer drank a quart of vodka each night of the trial, there was no need for a retrial. The lawyer was himself preparing to be criminally prosecuted for stealing client funds, and presented very little evidence about the defendant’s intellectual disability. But the court said the defendant had a fair trial because proof that he killed a sheriff’s deputy outweighed any weakness in his legal representation.
In an infamous 1996 Texas death-penalty case, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld a defendant’s death sentence even though his lead counsel slept during the trial.
The Supreme Court has made it possible for courts to uphold such indefensible lawyering. In 1984, in Strickland v. Washington, the court said that for a defendant to be entitled to a new trial, he must show both that his lawyer’s advice was deficient and that the deficiency deprived him of a fair trial — a very high hurdle. And the court’s majority defined competency as requiring only that the lawyer’s judgment be “reasonable under prevailing professional norms.”
Justice Thurgood Marshall, writing in dissent, said the result of this empty standard “is covertly to legitimate convictions and sentences obtained on the basis of incompetent conduct by defense counsel.” That is exactly what has happened in the past three decades. In fact, incompetent counsel for poor defendants is so widespread that under this standard the prevailing professional norm has been reduced to mediocrity.
After 50 years, the promise of Gideon v. Wainwright is mocked more often than fulfilled. In a forthcoming issue of The Yale Law Journal, Stephen Bright, president of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Georgia, and Sia Sanneh, a lawyer with the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama, recommend that all states have statewide public defender systems that train and supervise their lawyers, limit their workloads and have specialized teams in, for example, death-penalty cases.
There is no shortage of lawyers to do this work. What stands in the way is an undemocratic, deep-seated lack of political will.
Click green for further info
Source: NYT
________________________________________________________
Article 2 of 2
Right to Lawyer Can Be Empty Promise for Poor
Date: March 15, 2013
ADEL, Ga. — Billy Jerome Presley spent 17 months in a Georgia jail because he did not have $2,700 for a child support payment. He had no prior jail record but also no lawyer. In Baltimore last fall, Carl Hymes, 21, was arrested on charges of shining a laser into the eyes of a police officer. Bail was set at $75,000. He had no arrest record but also no lawyer. In West Orange, N.J., last summer, Walter Bloss, 89, was served with an eviction notice from the rent-controlled apartment he had lived in for 43 years after a dispute with his landlord. He had gone to court without a lawyer.
Fifty years ago, on March 18, 1963, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that those accused of a crime have a constitutional right to a lawyer whether or not they can afford one. But as legal officials observe the anniversary of what is widely considered one of the most significant judicial declarations of equality under law, many say that the promise inherent in the Gideon ruling remains unfulfilled because so many legal needs still go unmet.
Civil matters — including legal issues like home foreclosure, job loss, spousal abuse and parental custody — were not covered by the decision. Today, many states and counties do not offer lawyers to the poor in major civil disputes, and in some criminal ones as well. Those states that do are finding that more people than ever are qualifying for such help, making it impossible to keep up with the need. The result is that even at a time when many law school graduates are without work, many Americans are without lawyers.
The Legal Services Corporation, the Congressionally financed organization that provides lawyers to the poor in civil matters, says there are more than 60 million Americans — 35 percent more than in 2005 — who qualify for its services. But it calculates that 80 percent of the legal needs of the poor go unmet. In state after state, according to a survey of trial judges, more people are now representing themselves in court and they are failing to present necessary evidence, committing procedural errors and poorly examining witnesses, all while new lawyers remain unemployed.
“Some of our most essential rights — those involving our families, our homes, our livelihoods — are the least protected,” Chief Justice Wallace B. Jefferson of the Texas Supreme Court, said in a recent speech at New York University. He noted that a family of four earning $30,000 annually does not qualify for legal aid in many states.
James J. Sandman, president of the Legal Services Corporation, said, “Most Americans don’t realize that you can have your home taken away, your children taken away and you can be a victim of domestic violence but you have no constitutional right to a lawyer to protect you.”
According to the World Justice Project, a nonprofit group promoting the rule of law that got its start through the American Bar Association, the United States ranks 66th out of 98 countries in access to and affordability of civil legal services.
“In most countries, equality before the law means equality between those of high and low income,” remarked Earl Johnson Jr., a retired justice of the California Court of Appeal. “In this country for some reason we are concerned more with individuals versus government.”
With law school graduates hurting for work, it may appear that there is a glut of lawyers. But many experts say that is a misunderstanding.
“We don’t have an excess of lawyers,” said Martin Guggenheim, a law professor at New York University. “What we have is a miserable fit. In many areas like family and housing law, there is simply no private bar to go to. You couldn’t find a lawyer to help you even if you had the money because there isn’t a dime to be made in those cases.”
Even in situations where an individual is up against a state prosecutor and jail may result, not every jurisdiction provides lawyers to the defendants. In Georgia, those charged with failing to pay child support face a prosecutor and jail but are not supplied with a lawyer.
Mr. Presley lost his job in the recession and fell way behind on support payments for his four children. In 2011, he was jailed after a court proceeding without a lawyer in which he said he could not pay what he owed. He was brought back to court, shackled, every month or two. Each time, he said he still could not pay. Each time, he was sent back.
A year later, he contacted a public defender who handles only criminal cases but who sent his case to the Southern Center for Human Rights. Atteeyah Hollie, a lawyer there, got him released that same day, helped him find work and set up a payment plan.
An important service lawyers can provide defendants like Mr. Presley is knowledge of what courts want — receipts of medical treatment, evidence of a job search, bank account statements. On their own, many people misstep when facing a judge.
In Adel, Ga., a town of 5,000, child support court meets monthly. On a recent morning, a dozen men in shackles and jail uniforms faced Chuck Reddick, a state prosecutor, on their second or third round in court.
“In most cases, they simply can’t pay,” said John P. Daughtrey, who was sheriff here until losing an election in November. “An attorney could explain to the judge why jail is not the solution and how to fix it. As a sheriff, I want criminals in my jail, not a debtor’s prison.”
Mr. Reddick and Judge Carson Dane Perkins of Cook County Superior Court in Adel both said they would welcome lawyers for defendants because it would make the process clearer and smoother.
“If we could extend the right to a lawyer to civil procedures where you face a loss of liberty, that would be good,” Judge Perkins said. “Lawyers can get affidavits from employers and help make cases for those who can’t pay.”
The Southern Center for Human Rights has filed a class-action suit seeking a guarantee of a lawyer for such cases in Georgia. Sarah Geraghty, a lawyer there, said the center had received thousands of calls from Georgians facing child support hearings. Among them was Russell Davis, a Navy veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder who was jailed three times and lost his apartment and car while in jail.
Georgia also offers a case study on the mismatch between lawyers and clients at a time when each needs the other. According to the Legal Services Corporation, 70 percent of the state’s lawyers are in the Atlanta area, while 70 percent of the poor live outside it. There are six counties without a lawyer and dozens with only two or three.
Mr. Bloss, who faced eviction in New Jersey, went to legal services, which won for him the right to stay in his apartment while his case is under appeal.
In Baltimore, where Mr. Hymes was accused of shining a laser at a police officer and assigned bail of $75,000, first bail hearings do not include a lawyer. Tens of thousands are brought through Central Booking every year, facing a commissioner through a glass partition, who determines whether to release the detainee on his own recognizance or assign bail and at what level.
“For the poor, bail is a jail sentence,” said Douglas L. Colbert, a law professor at the University of Maryland. A study he conducted on 4,000 bail cases of nonviolent offenders found that two and a half times as many detainees were released on their own recognizance and bail was set at a far more affordable level if a lawyer was at the hearing.
Mr. Hymes was relatively lucky. When he eventually faced a judge with the help of a public defender, bail was slashed to $200 cash. It took his family a few weeks to pay. A student of Mr. Colbert’s, Iten Naguib, acted as an intermediary.
“If there had been an attorney involved at the initial stages,” Ms. Naguib said, “Mr. Hymes would likely have been released much earlier.”
Click green for further info
Source: NYT
______________________________________________________________________
Right to Lawyer Can Be Empty Promise for Poor
Date: March 15, 2013
ADEL, Ga. — Billy Jerome Presley spent 17 months in a Georgia jail because he did not have $2,700 for a child support payment. He had no prior jail record but also no lawyer. In Baltimore last fall, Carl Hymes, 21, was arrested on charges of shining a laser into the eyes of a police officer. Bail was set at $75,000. He had no arrest record but also no lawyer. In West Orange, N.J., last summer, Walter Bloss, 89, was served with an eviction notice from the rent-controlled apartment he had lived in for 43 years after a dispute with his landlord. He had gone to court without a lawyer.
Fifty years ago, on March 18, 1963, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that those accused of a crime have a constitutional right to a lawyer whether or not they can afford one. But as legal officials observe the anniversary of what is widely considered one of the most significant judicial declarations of equality under law, many say that the promise inherent in the Gideon ruling remains unfulfilled because so many legal needs still go unmet.
Civil matters — including legal issues like home foreclosure, job loss, spousal abuse and parental custody — were not covered by the decision. Today, many states and counties do not offer lawyers to the poor in major civil disputes, and in some criminal ones as well. Those states that do are finding that more people than ever are qualifying for such help, making it impossible to keep up with the need. The result is that even at a time when many law school graduates are without work, many Americans are without lawyers.
The Legal Services Corporation, the Congressionally financed organization that provides lawyers to the poor in civil matters, says there are more than 60 million Americans — 35 percent more than in 2005 — who qualify for its services. But it calculates that 80 percent of the legal needs of the poor go unmet. In state after state, according to a survey of trial judges, more people are now representing themselves in court and they are failing to present necessary evidence, committing procedural errors and poorly examining witnesses, all while new lawyers remain unemployed.
“Some of our most essential rights — those involving our families, our homes, our livelihoods — are the least protected,” Chief Justice Wallace B. Jefferson of the Texas Supreme Court, said in a recent speech at New York University. He noted that a family of four earning $30,000 annually does not qualify for legal aid in many states.
James J. Sandman, president of the Legal Services Corporation, said, “Most Americans don’t realize that you can have your home taken away, your children taken away and you can be a victim of domestic violence but you have no constitutional right to a lawyer to protect you.”
According to the World Justice Project, a nonprofit group promoting the rule of law that got its start through the American Bar Association, the United States ranks 66th out of 98 countries in access to and affordability of civil legal services.
“In most countries, equality before the law means equality between those of high and low income,” remarked Earl Johnson Jr., a retired justice of the California Court of Appeal. “In this country for some reason we are concerned more with individuals versus government.”
With law school graduates hurting for work, it may appear that there is a glut of lawyers. But many experts say that is a misunderstanding.
“We don’t have an excess of lawyers,” said Martin Guggenheim, a law professor at New York University. “What we have is a miserable fit. In many areas like family and housing law, there is simply no private bar to go to. You couldn’t find a lawyer to help you even if you had the money because there isn’t a dime to be made in those cases.”
Even in situations where an individual is up against a state prosecutor and jail may result, not every jurisdiction provides lawyers to the defendants. In Georgia, those charged with failing to pay child support face a prosecutor and jail but are not supplied with a lawyer.
Mr. Presley lost his job in the recession and fell way behind on support payments for his four children. In 2011, he was jailed after a court proceeding without a lawyer in which he said he could not pay what he owed. He was brought back to court, shackled, every month or two. Each time, he said he still could not pay. Each time, he was sent back.
A year later, he contacted a public defender who handles only criminal cases but who sent his case to the Southern Center for Human Rights. Atteeyah Hollie, a lawyer there, got him released that same day, helped him find work and set up a payment plan.
An important service lawyers can provide defendants like Mr. Presley is knowledge of what courts want — receipts of medical treatment, evidence of a job search, bank account statements. On their own, many people misstep when facing a judge.
In Adel, Ga., a town of 5,000, child support court meets monthly. On a recent morning, a dozen men in shackles and jail uniforms faced Chuck Reddick, a state prosecutor, on their second or third round in court.
“In most cases, they simply can’t pay,” said John P. Daughtrey, who was sheriff here until losing an election in November. “An attorney could explain to the judge why jail is not the solution and how to fix it. As a sheriff, I want criminals in my jail, not a debtor’s prison.”
Mr. Reddick and Judge Carson Dane Perkins of Cook County Superior Court in Adel both said they would welcome lawyers for defendants because it would make the process clearer and smoother.
“If we could extend the right to a lawyer to civil procedures where you face a loss of liberty, that would be good,” Judge Perkins said. “Lawyers can get affidavits from employers and help make cases for those who can’t pay.”
The Southern Center for Human Rights has filed a class-action suit seeking a guarantee of a lawyer for such cases in Georgia. Sarah Geraghty, a lawyer there, said the center had received thousands of calls from Georgians facing child support hearings. Among them was Russell Davis, a Navy veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder who was jailed three times and lost his apartment and car while in jail.
Georgia also offers a case study on the mismatch between lawyers and clients at a time when each needs the other. According to the Legal Services Corporation, 70 percent of the state’s lawyers are in the Atlanta area, while 70 percent of the poor live outside it. There are six counties without a lawyer and dozens with only two or three.
Mr. Bloss, who faced eviction in New Jersey, went to legal services, which won for him the right to stay in his apartment while his case is under appeal.
In Baltimore, where Mr. Hymes was accused of shining a laser at a police officer and assigned bail of $75,000, first bail hearings do not include a lawyer. Tens of thousands are brought through Central Booking every year, facing a commissioner through a glass partition, who determines whether to release the detainee on his own recognizance or assign bail and at what level.
“For the poor, bail is a jail sentence,” said Douglas L. Colbert, a law professor at the University of Maryland. A study he conducted on 4,000 bail cases of nonviolent offenders found that two and a half times as many detainees were released on their own recognizance and bail was set at a far more affordable level if a lawyer was at the hearing.
Mr. Hymes was relatively lucky. When he eventually faced a judge with the help of a public defender, bail was slashed to $200 cash. It took his family a few weeks to pay. A student of Mr. Colbert’s, Iten Naguib, acted as an intermediary.
“If there had been an attorney involved at the initial stages,” Ms. Naguib said, “Mr. Hymes would likely have been released much earlier.”
Click green for further info
Source: NYT
______________________________________________________________________
Mutual Benefits
Companies help immigrants obtain US citizenship
Date: August, 2013
Employers help immigrants achieve dream of becoming US citizens, earn loyalty from workers
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- For immigrants working toward the American Dream, some employers are now helping them reach their dream of becoming Americans.
Health clinics, hotels and a clothing factory are pairing up with immigrant advocates to offer on-site citizenship assistance as one of the perks of the job in greater Los Angeles, Miami, Washington and Silicon Valley as they aim to make naturalization more convenient for the 8.5 million legal immigrants eligible to become U.S. citizens.
The effort is billed as a win-win for both employee and employers: Workers avoid legal fees and having to shuttle to and from law offices to complete applications; companies create a deeper bond with immigrant workers and there's little cost as nonprofits pick up the tab.
"You create some sense of loyalty," said Leonie Timothee, human resources manager at InterContinental Miami, a luxury hotel that has helped six employees apply to naturalize since last year. "It is going to be a part of you for the rest of your life, and to know your place of employment helped you, assisted you in becoming a citizen — I think that's a great deal."
In most cases, immigrants can apply to become an American citizen after having a green card for five years and passing English and civics tests. But they often take longer to do so because they can't afford the application fees, fear their English isn't good enough or simply don't know enough about the process, studies have shown.
While high-tech companies frequently sponsor foreign workers for visas or green cards, most companies haven't gotten involved in the naturalization process. Their involvement usually ends at getting work papers unless the employee needs to travel extensively overseas or obtain national security clearance only available to a citizen, said Angelo Paparelli, an immigration attorney who specializes in employment-based issues.
Since last year, 19 companies have signed up to participate in the effort by the Washington-based National Immigration Forum to help more people become citizens. The focus of the so-called Bethlehem Project is on low-wage workers, who often face additional hurdles to naturalization such as long hours and extensive commutes and who may lack the cash to hire an immigration lawyer to help them complete the paperwork.
Uruguayan native Yolanda Oruc said she could have become an American citizen three years ago but didn't have the money for attorney's fees. When the 52-year-old who restocks hotel room mini bars learned that her employer had brought in immigration experts to help her fill out the papers for free, she jumped at the chance and naturalized in July.
"I didn't have a way to become a citizen because I didn't have the money," said Oruc, who works at The Betsy Hotel in Miami's South Beach.
For starters, companies host a free information session run by a nonprofit to let employees know about the process of becoming a citizen. The agencies then hold one-on-one meetings to help fill out the necessary paperwork.
Some employers go further and front the government's $680 naturalization application fee and deduct the funds from pay checks, said Jennie Murray, manager of the Bethlehem Project.
The effort is funded in part by the New Americans Campaign, which is a broader push to encourage citizenship through workshops, training sessions and the development of a mobile app to help immigrants determine if they're eligible to become Americans.
Overall, about $500,000 has been donated to jumpstart the project named for Bethlehem Steel, which in 1915 offered its immigrant workers free English-language instruction.
Some businesses are also offering their own citizenship-related perks. Trump International Beach Resort in Sunny Isles, Fla., is paying for English classes to help its employees pass the citizenship test, said Linda Geyer, the hotel's general manager. The hotel is also offering interest-free loans and letting workers cash out vacation time to cover the cost of citizenship application fees.
Evan Bacalao, senior director of civic engagement at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, said he'd like to expand the program to help naturalize workers in big factories and warehouses in Southern California's Inland Empire. The region consists of suburbs spread over miles where immigrants often can't make the half-hour or hour-long trip to an advocate's office for help.
While unions historically played a role in helping workers naturalize, businesses didn't often get involved. But companies may be looking for ways to hang onto low-wage workers as immigration to the U.S. has waned and the economy starts improving, said Louis DeSipio, a professor of political science and Chicano/Latino studies at University of California, Irvine.
He said larger companies with a sizable immigrant workforce are more likely to join such an effort.
"In tough economic times, keeping your workers isn't so valuable," he said. "Now as we're moving back into a tighter job market it makes sense for employers to find ways to hold on particularly to low-wage employees."
Beyond breeding loyalty and gratitude, companies such as the Southern California-based health care provider AltaMed see providing such assistance as part of their mission.
For years, AltaMed has focused on treating Latinos and underserved communities in cities such as Santa Ana, where about half of residents are immigrants. As a community service, the network also holds regular voter registration drives in the hopes of churning out more voters who support health care programs for the poor.
So adding citizenship assistance seemed like a natural fit, said Bob Turner, AltaMed's vice president of human resources.
"The voters need to influence the politicians," Turner said. "We believe that an informed electorate, and a voting electorate — it's the way to be able to influence social change."
Source: Associated Press
_____________________________________________
Companies help immigrants obtain US citizenship
Date: August, 2013
Employers help immigrants achieve dream of becoming US citizens, earn loyalty from workers
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- For immigrants working toward the American Dream, some employers are now helping them reach their dream of becoming Americans.
Health clinics, hotels and a clothing factory are pairing up with immigrant advocates to offer on-site citizenship assistance as one of the perks of the job in greater Los Angeles, Miami, Washington and Silicon Valley as they aim to make naturalization more convenient for the 8.5 million legal immigrants eligible to become U.S. citizens.
The effort is billed as a win-win for both employee and employers: Workers avoid legal fees and having to shuttle to and from law offices to complete applications; companies create a deeper bond with immigrant workers and there's little cost as nonprofits pick up the tab.
"You create some sense of loyalty," said Leonie Timothee, human resources manager at InterContinental Miami, a luxury hotel that has helped six employees apply to naturalize since last year. "It is going to be a part of you for the rest of your life, and to know your place of employment helped you, assisted you in becoming a citizen — I think that's a great deal."
In most cases, immigrants can apply to become an American citizen after having a green card for five years and passing English and civics tests. But they often take longer to do so because they can't afford the application fees, fear their English isn't good enough or simply don't know enough about the process, studies have shown.
While high-tech companies frequently sponsor foreign workers for visas or green cards, most companies haven't gotten involved in the naturalization process. Their involvement usually ends at getting work papers unless the employee needs to travel extensively overseas or obtain national security clearance only available to a citizen, said Angelo Paparelli, an immigration attorney who specializes in employment-based issues.
Since last year, 19 companies have signed up to participate in the effort by the Washington-based National Immigration Forum to help more people become citizens. The focus of the so-called Bethlehem Project is on low-wage workers, who often face additional hurdles to naturalization such as long hours and extensive commutes and who may lack the cash to hire an immigration lawyer to help them complete the paperwork.
Uruguayan native Yolanda Oruc said she could have become an American citizen three years ago but didn't have the money for attorney's fees. When the 52-year-old who restocks hotel room mini bars learned that her employer had brought in immigration experts to help her fill out the papers for free, she jumped at the chance and naturalized in July.
"I didn't have a way to become a citizen because I didn't have the money," said Oruc, who works at The Betsy Hotel in Miami's South Beach.
For starters, companies host a free information session run by a nonprofit to let employees know about the process of becoming a citizen. The agencies then hold one-on-one meetings to help fill out the necessary paperwork.
Some employers go further and front the government's $680 naturalization application fee and deduct the funds from pay checks, said Jennie Murray, manager of the Bethlehem Project.
The effort is funded in part by the New Americans Campaign, which is a broader push to encourage citizenship through workshops, training sessions and the development of a mobile app to help immigrants determine if they're eligible to become Americans.
Overall, about $500,000 has been donated to jumpstart the project named for Bethlehem Steel, which in 1915 offered its immigrant workers free English-language instruction.
Some businesses are also offering their own citizenship-related perks. Trump International Beach Resort in Sunny Isles, Fla., is paying for English classes to help its employees pass the citizenship test, said Linda Geyer, the hotel's general manager. The hotel is also offering interest-free loans and letting workers cash out vacation time to cover the cost of citizenship application fees.
Evan Bacalao, senior director of civic engagement at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, said he'd like to expand the program to help naturalize workers in big factories and warehouses in Southern California's Inland Empire. The region consists of suburbs spread over miles where immigrants often can't make the half-hour or hour-long trip to an advocate's office for help.
While unions historically played a role in helping workers naturalize, businesses didn't often get involved. But companies may be looking for ways to hang onto low-wage workers as immigration to the U.S. has waned and the economy starts improving, said Louis DeSipio, a professor of political science and Chicano/Latino studies at University of California, Irvine.
He said larger companies with a sizable immigrant workforce are more likely to join such an effort.
"In tough economic times, keeping your workers isn't so valuable," he said. "Now as we're moving back into a tighter job market it makes sense for employers to find ways to hold on particularly to low-wage employees."
Beyond breeding loyalty and gratitude, companies such as the Southern California-based health care provider AltaMed see providing such assistance as part of their mission.
For years, AltaMed has focused on treating Latinos and underserved communities in cities such as Santa Ana, where about half of residents are immigrants. As a community service, the network also holds regular voter registration drives in the hopes of churning out more voters who support health care programs for the poor.
So adding citizenship assistance seemed like a natural fit, said Bob Turner, AltaMed's vice president of human resources.
"The voters need to influence the politicians," Turner said. "We believe that an informed electorate, and a voting electorate — it's the way to be able to influence social change."
Source: Associated Press
_____________________________________________
More gun laws = fewer deaths,
50-state study says
States with more gun laws have fewer gun deaths,
study says but which ones work is uncertain
The results were published online 3/6/13 in the medical journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
CHICAGO (AP) -- States with the most gun control laws have the fewest gun-related deaths, according to a study that suggests sheer quantity of measures might make a difference.
But the research leaves many questions unanswered and won't settle the debate over how policymakers should respond to recent high-profile acts of gun violence.
In the dozen or so states with the most gun control-related laws, far fewer people were shot to death or killed themselves with guns than in the states with the fewest laws, the study found. Overall, states with the most laws had a 42 percent lower gun death rate than states with the least number of laws.
The results are based on an analysis of 2007-2010 gun-related homicides and suicides from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The researchers also used data on gun control measures in all 50 states compiled by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a well-known gun control advocacy group. They compared states by dividing them into four equal-sized groups according to the number of gun laws.
The results were published online 3/6/13 in the medical journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
More than 30,000 people nationwide die from guns every year nationwide, and there's evidence that gun-related violent crime rates have increased since 2008, a journal editorial noted.
During the four-years studied, there were nearly 122,000 gun deaths, 60 percent of them suicides.
"Our motivation was really to understand what are the interventions that can be done to reduce firearm mortality," said Dr. Eric Fleegler, the study's lead author and an emergency department pediatrician and researcher at Boston Children's Hospital.
He said his study suggests but doesn't prove that gun laws — or something else — led to fewer gun deaths.
Fleegler is also among hundreds of doctors who have signed a petition urging President Barack Obama and Congress to pass gun safety legislation, a campaign organized by the advocacy group Doctors for America.
Gun rights advocates have argued that strict gun laws have failed to curb high murder rates in some cities, including Chicago and Washington, D.C. Fleegler said his study didn't examine city-level laws, while gun control advocates have said local laws aren't as effective when neighboring states have lax laws.
Previous research on the effectiveness of gun laws has had mixed results, and it's a "very challenging" area to study, said Dr. Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center For Gun Policy. He was not involved in the current study.
The strongest kind of research would require comparisons between states that have dissimilar gun laws but otherwise are nearly identical, "but there isn't a super nice twin for New Jersey," for example, a state with strict gun laws, Webster noted.
Fleegler said his study's conclusions took into account factors also linked with gun violence, including poverty, education levels and race, which vary among the states.
The average annual gun death rate ranged from almost 3 per 100,000 in Hawaii to 18 per 100,000 in Louisiana. Hawaii had 16 gun laws, and along with New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts was among states with the most laws and fewest deaths. States with the fewest laws and most deaths included Alaska, Kentucky, Louisiana and Oklahoma.
But there were outliers: South Dakota, for example, had just two guns laws but few deaths.
Editorial author Dr. Garen Wintemute, director the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, said the study doesn't answer which laws, if any, work.
Wintemute said it's likely that gun control measures are more readily enacted in states with few gun owners — a factor that might have more influence on gun deaths than the number of laws.
Source: The results were published online 3/6/13 in the medical journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
___
BELOW STAF, Inc.'s comment placed on 3/7/13 on the internet for the above gun research article:
Comment by Save The American Family - STAF, Inc.,-not-for-profit-
By Dr. Christian von Christophers, Ph.D., N.D.
Practically all mass shooters have two things in common: (1) they are victims of a divorce & (2) they are all males.
A growing boy needs especially his father's continuous presence and guidance, more so than his mother's. The moral in our marriages has gone close to a zero. The children grow up disturbed & misled. In addition, the violent video games & violent movies are replacing the parental love & healthy attention - the children get a wrong picture about being a human being. The young mass killers suffer from the Broken Marriage Syndrome™.
In a family separation & divorce both spouses will experience (1) health challenges leading to a shorter life span and (2) to added financial difficulties. Any traditionally done marriage turned dysfunctional can be healed. Giving up as the first solution is not reasonable for anyone. A separation and a divorce are serious child abuse.
Every child experiencing a parental divorce faces serious life threatening disasters - the most important listed here: (1) overall increased risks to health & welfare; (2) 5 times more likely to commit suicide; (3) 32 times more likely to run away; (4) 20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders; (5) 14 times more likely to commit rape; (6) 9 times more likely to drop out of school; (7) 10 times more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs; (8) 20 times more likely to end up in prison; (9) increased learning difficulties; (10) increased risk of divorce when grown; (11) increased out of wedlock pregnancies; (12) Latest discovery by the researchers: highly increased risk of having a stroke during his/her life time.
In every recent case, including Colorado, all these above reasons were present. The CT mass shooter Adam Lanza hated his mother (killed her first) because she had initiated the divorce and took his father away.
He hated his father because (as any child would wrongly feel) Adam believed his father did not love him any longer and had abandoned him.. Any child specialist would know this reason. Adam's possible autism is not the reason for a violent behavior. But uncontrolled jealousy and denied love are - some of the reasons for the mass shooters' behavior. E.g., in many cultures (not that it is right) going after the other lover was widely (and still is) admired and even permitted.
The long-term solution is to start educating the whole nation how to heal the American Family & our homes where our children are growing up. In the U.S. marriage happiness & child raising education for every family & every teenager in our schools (and colleges) is fully missing today but is present in most other developed countries in their school curricula.
In a happy home with both parents present the children grow up healthy - no Broken Marriage Syndrome™ and no reason to go to punish the world by killing everyone around.
STAF, Inc.'s presence is needed in D.C. in the U.S. Congress (House & Senate). STAF, Inc.'s founding President is planning (1) to seek a seat in D.C. Congress/Senate to provide the necessary information to the D.C. lawmakers and (2) to establish a fully new federal agency, Healthy Lifestyle & Family Success Agency, and to be named its first federal director. New legislation and training for all these matters are needed in a results-bringing manner.
Visit STAF,Inc.'s extensive websites. To find the correct website, use STAF, Inc.'s Radio Show title - lower & upper keys as is here: "DrDrCanYouHelpMe" in the internet search. Listen to STAF, Inc.'s popular Radio Show - you'll get free CEU & College-University credits.
Respectfully,
Christian von Christophers, Ph.D., N.D.
STAF, Inc.'s founding President
___________________________________________
50-state study says
States with more gun laws have fewer gun deaths,
study says but which ones work is uncertain
The results were published online 3/6/13 in the medical journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
CHICAGO (AP) -- States with the most gun control laws have the fewest gun-related deaths, according to a study that suggests sheer quantity of measures might make a difference.
But the research leaves many questions unanswered and won't settle the debate over how policymakers should respond to recent high-profile acts of gun violence.
In the dozen or so states with the most gun control-related laws, far fewer people were shot to death or killed themselves with guns than in the states with the fewest laws, the study found. Overall, states with the most laws had a 42 percent lower gun death rate than states with the least number of laws.
The results are based on an analysis of 2007-2010 gun-related homicides and suicides from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The researchers also used data on gun control measures in all 50 states compiled by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a well-known gun control advocacy group. They compared states by dividing them into four equal-sized groups according to the number of gun laws.
The results were published online 3/6/13 in the medical journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
More than 30,000 people nationwide die from guns every year nationwide, and there's evidence that gun-related violent crime rates have increased since 2008, a journal editorial noted.
During the four-years studied, there were nearly 122,000 gun deaths, 60 percent of them suicides.
"Our motivation was really to understand what are the interventions that can be done to reduce firearm mortality," said Dr. Eric Fleegler, the study's lead author and an emergency department pediatrician and researcher at Boston Children's Hospital.
He said his study suggests but doesn't prove that gun laws — or something else — led to fewer gun deaths.
Fleegler is also among hundreds of doctors who have signed a petition urging President Barack Obama and Congress to pass gun safety legislation, a campaign organized by the advocacy group Doctors for America.
Gun rights advocates have argued that strict gun laws have failed to curb high murder rates in some cities, including Chicago and Washington, D.C. Fleegler said his study didn't examine city-level laws, while gun control advocates have said local laws aren't as effective when neighboring states have lax laws.
Previous research on the effectiveness of gun laws has had mixed results, and it's a "very challenging" area to study, said Dr. Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center For Gun Policy. He was not involved in the current study.
The strongest kind of research would require comparisons between states that have dissimilar gun laws but otherwise are nearly identical, "but there isn't a super nice twin for New Jersey," for example, a state with strict gun laws, Webster noted.
Fleegler said his study's conclusions took into account factors also linked with gun violence, including poverty, education levels and race, which vary among the states.
The average annual gun death rate ranged from almost 3 per 100,000 in Hawaii to 18 per 100,000 in Louisiana. Hawaii had 16 gun laws, and along with New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts was among states with the most laws and fewest deaths. States with the fewest laws and most deaths included Alaska, Kentucky, Louisiana and Oklahoma.
But there were outliers: South Dakota, for example, had just two guns laws but few deaths.
Editorial author Dr. Garen Wintemute, director the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, said the study doesn't answer which laws, if any, work.
Wintemute said it's likely that gun control measures are more readily enacted in states with few gun owners — a factor that might have more influence on gun deaths than the number of laws.
Source: The results were published online 3/6/13 in the medical journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
___
BELOW STAF, Inc.'s comment placed on 3/7/13 on the internet for the above gun research article:
Comment by Save The American Family - STAF, Inc.,-not-for-profit-
By Dr. Christian von Christophers, Ph.D., N.D.
Practically all mass shooters have two things in common: (1) they are victims of a divorce & (2) they are all males.
A growing boy needs especially his father's continuous presence and guidance, more so than his mother's. The moral in our marriages has gone close to a zero. The children grow up disturbed & misled. In addition, the violent video games & violent movies are replacing the parental love & healthy attention - the children get a wrong picture about being a human being. The young mass killers suffer from the Broken Marriage Syndrome™.
In a family separation & divorce both spouses will experience (1) health challenges leading to a shorter life span and (2) to added financial difficulties. Any traditionally done marriage turned dysfunctional can be healed. Giving up as the first solution is not reasonable for anyone. A separation and a divorce are serious child abuse.
Every child experiencing a parental divorce faces serious life threatening disasters - the most important listed here: (1) overall increased risks to health & welfare; (2) 5 times more likely to commit suicide; (3) 32 times more likely to run away; (4) 20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders; (5) 14 times more likely to commit rape; (6) 9 times more likely to drop out of school; (7) 10 times more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs; (8) 20 times more likely to end up in prison; (9) increased learning difficulties; (10) increased risk of divorce when grown; (11) increased out of wedlock pregnancies; (12) Latest discovery by the researchers: highly increased risk of having a stroke during his/her life time.
In every recent case, including Colorado, all these above reasons were present. The CT mass shooter Adam Lanza hated his mother (killed her first) because she had initiated the divorce and took his father away.
He hated his father because (as any child would wrongly feel) Adam believed his father did not love him any longer and had abandoned him.. Any child specialist would know this reason. Adam's possible autism is not the reason for a violent behavior. But uncontrolled jealousy and denied love are - some of the reasons for the mass shooters' behavior. E.g., in many cultures (not that it is right) going after the other lover was widely (and still is) admired and even permitted.
The long-term solution is to start educating the whole nation how to heal the American Family & our homes where our children are growing up. In the U.S. marriage happiness & child raising education for every family & every teenager in our schools (and colleges) is fully missing today but is present in most other developed countries in their school curricula.
In a happy home with both parents present the children grow up healthy - no Broken Marriage Syndrome™ and no reason to go to punish the world by killing everyone around.
STAF, Inc.'s presence is needed in D.C. in the U.S. Congress (House & Senate). STAF, Inc.'s founding President is planning (1) to seek a seat in D.C. Congress/Senate to provide the necessary information to the D.C. lawmakers and (2) to establish a fully new federal agency, Healthy Lifestyle & Family Success Agency, and to be named its first federal director. New legislation and training for all these matters are needed in a results-bringing manner.
Visit STAF,Inc.'s extensive websites. To find the correct website, use STAF, Inc.'s Radio Show title - lower & upper keys as is here: "DrDrCanYouHelpMe" in the internet search. Listen to STAF, Inc.'s popular Radio Show - you'll get free CEU & College-University credits.
Respectfully,
Christian von Christophers, Ph.D., N.D.
STAF, Inc.'s founding President
___________________________________________
Giffords urges support
for background checks in gun laws
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP), 3/7/13 — Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords returned to the scene of the horrific shooting that wounded her and killed six people two years ago, urging senators Wednesday to passbackground checks for gun purchases in her first public event at the site since the rampage.
Giffords, who is still recovering from her injuries, spoke fewer than 20 words in the parking lot of the Safeway grocery store in her hometown of Tucson in a brief but emotional call for stricter gun control measures.
"Be bold. Be courageous," Giffords said. "Please supportbackground checks."
At one point, Giffords pumped her fist in the air and grinned.
Other survivors joined Giffords at the news conference, along with her husband, Mark Kelly. Giffords and Kelly have returned to the Safeway previously to visit the memorial, but Wednesday marked their first public event at the store since the shooting. Sheriff's deputies were there to provide security.
A gun control group started by Giffords and Kelly began airing a new television ad in Arizona and Iowa Tuesday urging Congress to take action. Giffords and Kelly support extending background checks to gun shows and Internet purchases. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to take up tougher firearm regulations Thursday.
"This discussion is not really about the Second Amendment," Kelly said. "It's about public safety and keeping guns out of the hands of the dangerously mentally ill."
Jared Lee Loughner, 24, was sentenced in November to seven consecutive life sentences, plus 140 years, in the Tucson shooting. The rampage happened at a meet-and-greet event organized by Giffords outside the grocery store on Jan. 8, 2011.
Kelly said it was not difficult to return to the place where his wife nearly died. As he spoke, shoppers and vehicles moved throughout the ubiquitous shopping center that includes a nail salon, a Starbucks and dry cleaners. It smelled like grocery store fried chicken.
It's places like this, Kelly said, that Congress needs to make safer.
Supporters gave Giffords a standing ovation as she arrived at the event with her husband and staffers. With Kelly's help, Giffords walked directly to a memorial outside the supermarket honoring the victims of the shooting, where she placed a bouquet of white roses and daisies.
Kelly, who was not present when the shooting occurred, recalled the massacre that took place two years ago on a chilly morning. Loughner walked toward Giffords and shot her once in the head before directing fire at the crowd around her. He released 33 bullets in 15 seconds, Kelly said.
"It was clear that the shooter had a history of mental illness, but he had easy access to a gun," Kelly said. "If things were different, he would have failed that background check."
Giffords occasionally rubbed her husband's back as he called for gun control reform and introduced the victims of the shooting. Many of the 13 wounded survivors underwent multiple surgeries and months of physical therapy.
Susan Hileman described her excitement before the 2011 event as she waited to introduce her 9-year-old neighbor, aspiring politician Christina Taylor Green, to Giffords. Green was the youngest of those killed.
"I am tired of this," Hileman said. "If we can save one life, if we can keep one family from feeling this awful, empty ache, if we can do something, and if that something is a commonsense something, if that something is a responsible step ... then I wonder what the problem is, people?"
Emily Notterman recalled that her son's bullet-ridden body was left on the sidewalk outside the supermarket for hours as investigators scrambled to make sense of the chaos. Her son, Gabe Zimmerman, Gifford's director of community outreach at the time, was 30 years old when he was shot.
"It's very hard to be here today," Notterman said. "The system is riddled with holes — bullet holes. It needs to be fixed."
___
___
BELOW STAF, Inc.'s comment placed on 3/7/13 on the internet for the above gun research article:
Comment by Save The American Family - STAF, Inc.,-not-for-profit-
By Dr. Christian von Christophers, Ph.D., N.D.
Practically all mass shooters have two things in common: (1) they are victims of a divorce & (2) they are all males.
A growing boy needs especially his father's continuous presence and guidance, more so than his mother's. The moral in our marriages has gone close to a zero. The children grow up disturbed & misled. In addition, the violent video games & violent movies are replacing the parental love & healthy attention - the children get a wrong picture about being a human being. The young mass killers suffer from the Broken Marriage Syndrome™.
In a family separation & divorce both spouses will experience (1) health challenges leading to a shorter life span and (2) to added financial difficulties. Any traditionally done marriage turned dysfunctional can be healed. Giving up as the first solution is not reasonable for anyone. A separation and a divorce are serious child abuse.
Every child experiencing a parental divorce faces serious life threatening disasters - the most important listed here: (1) overall increased risks to health & welfare; (2) 5 times more likely to commit suicide; (3) 32 times more likely to run away; (4) 20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders; (5) 14 times more likely to commit rape; (6) 9 times more likely to drop out of school; (7) 10 times more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs; (8) 20 times more likely to end up in prison; (9) increased learning difficulties; (10) increased risk of divorce when grown; (11) increased out of wedlock pregnancies; (12) Latest discovery by the researchers: highly increased risk of having a stroke during his/her life time.
In every recent case, including Colorado, all these above reasons were present. The CT mass shooter Adam Lanza hated his mother (killed her first) because she had initiated the divorce and took his father away.
He hated his father because (as any child would wrongly feel) Adam believed his father did not love him any longer and had abandoned him.. Any child specialist would know this reason. Adam's possible autism is not the reason for a violent behavior. But uncontrolled jealousy and denied love are - some of the reasons for the mass shooters' behavior. E.g., in many cultures (not that it is right) going after the other lover was widely (and still is) admired and even permitted.
The long-term solution is to start educating the whole nation how to heal the American Family & our homes where our children are growing up. In the U.S. marriage happiness & child raising education for every family & every teenager in our schools (and colleges) is fully missing today but is present in most other developed countries in their school curricula.
In a happy home with both parents present the children grow up healthy - no Broken Marriage Syndrome™ and no reason to go to punish the world by killing everyone around.
STAF, Inc.'s presence is needed in D.C. in the U.S. Congress (House & Senate). STAF, Inc.'s founding President is planning (1) to seek a seat in D.C. Congress/Senate to provide the necessary information to the D.C. lawmakers and (2) to establish a fully new federal agency, Healthy Lifestyle & Family Success Agency, and to be named its first federal director. New legislation and training for all these matters are needed in a results-bringing manner.
Visit STAF,Inc.'s extensive websites. To find the correct website, use STAF, Inc.'s Radio Show title - lower & upper keys as is here: "DrDrCanYouHelpMe" in the internet search. Listen to STAF, Inc.'s popular Radio Show - you'll get free CEU & College-University credits.
Respectfully,
Christian von Christophers, Ph.D., N.D.
STAF, Inc.'s founding President
___________________________________________
for background checks in gun laws
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP), 3/7/13 — Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords returned to the scene of the horrific shooting that wounded her and killed six people two years ago, urging senators Wednesday to passbackground checks for gun purchases in her first public event at the site since the rampage.
Giffords, who is still recovering from her injuries, spoke fewer than 20 words in the parking lot of the Safeway grocery store in her hometown of Tucson in a brief but emotional call for stricter gun control measures.
"Be bold. Be courageous," Giffords said. "Please supportbackground checks."
At one point, Giffords pumped her fist in the air and grinned.
Other survivors joined Giffords at the news conference, along with her husband, Mark Kelly. Giffords and Kelly have returned to the Safeway previously to visit the memorial, but Wednesday marked their first public event at the store since the shooting. Sheriff's deputies were there to provide security.
A gun control group started by Giffords and Kelly began airing a new television ad in Arizona and Iowa Tuesday urging Congress to take action. Giffords and Kelly support extending background checks to gun shows and Internet purchases. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to take up tougher firearm regulations Thursday.
"This discussion is not really about the Second Amendment," Kelly said. "It's about public safety and keeping guns out of the hands of the dangerously mentally ill."
Jared Lee Loughner, 24, was sentenced in November to seven consecutive life sentences, plus 140 years, in the Tucson shooting. The rampage happened at a meet-and-greet event organized by Giffords outside the grocery store on Jan. 8, 2011.
Kelly said it was not difficult to return to the place where his wife nearly died. As he spoke, shoppers and vehicles moved throughout the ubiquitous shopping center that includes a nail salon, a Starbucks and dry cleaners. It smelled like grocery store fried chicken.
It's places like this, Kelly said, that Congress needs to make safer.
Supporters gave Giffords a standing ovation as she arrived at the event with her husband and staffers. With Kelly's help, Giffords walked directly to a memorial outside the supermarket honoring the victims of the shooting, where she placed a bouquet of white roses and daisies.
Kelly, who was not present when the shooting occurred, recalled the massacre that took place two years ago on a chilly morning. Loughner walked toward Giffords and shot her once in the head before directing fire at the crowd around her. He released 33 bullets in 15 seconds, Kelly said.
"It was clear that the shooter had a history of mental illness, but he had easy access to a gun," Kelly said. "If things were different, he would have failed that background check."
Giffords occasionally rubbed her husband's back as he called for gun control reform and introduced the victims of the shooting. Many of the 13 wounded survivors underwent multiple surgeries and months of physical therapy.
Susan Hileman described her excitement before the 2011 event as she waited to introduce her 9-year-old neighbor, aspiring politician Christina Taylor Green, to Giffords. Green was the youngest of those killed.
"I am tired of this," Hileman said. "If we can save one life, if we can keep one family from feeling this awful, empty ache, if we can do something, and if that something is a commonsense something, if that something is a responsible step ... then I wonder what the problem is, people?"
Emily Notterman recalled that her son's bullet-ridden body was left on the sidewalk outside the supermarket for hours as investigators scrambled to make sense of the chaos. Her son, Gabe Zimmerman, Gifford's director of community outreach at the time, was 30 years old when he was shot.
"It's very hard to be here today," Notterman said. "The system is riddled with holes — bullet holes. It needs to be fixed."
___
___
BELOW STAF, Inc.'s comment placed on 3/7/13 on the internet for the above gun research article:
Comment by Save The American Family - STAF, Inc.,-not-for-profit-
By Dr. Christian von Christophers, Ph.D., N.D.
Practically all mass shooters have two things in common: (1) they are victims of a divorce & (2) they are all males.
A growing boy needs especially his father's continuous presence and guidance, more so than his mother's. The moral in our marriages has gone close to a zero. The children grow up disturbed & misled. In addition, the violent video games & violent movies are replacing the parental love & healthy attention - the children get a wrong picture about being a human being. The young mass killers suffer from the Broken Marriage Syndrome™.
In a family separation & divorce both spouses will experience (1) health challenges leading to a shorter life span and (2) to added financial difficulties. Any traditionally done marriage turned dysfunctional can be healed. Giving up as the first solution is not reasonable for anyone. A separation and a divorce are serious child abuse.
Every child experiencing a parental divorce faces serious life threatening disasters - the most important listed here: (1) overall increased risks to health & welfare; (2) 5 times more likely to commit suicide; (3) 32 times more likely to run away; (4) 20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders; (5) 14 times more likely to commit rape; (6) 9 times more likely to drop out of school; (7) 10 times more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs; (8) 20 times more likely to end up in prison; (9) increased learning difficulties; (10) increased risk of divorce when grown; (11) increased out of wedlock pregnancies; (12) Latest discovery by the researchers: highly increased risk of having a stroke during his/her life time.
In every recent case, including Colorado, all these above reasons were present. The CT mass shooter Adam Lanza hated his mother (killed her first) because she had initiated the divorce and took his father away.
He hated his father because (as any child would wrongly feel) Adam believed his father did not love him any longer and had abandoned him.. Any child specialist would know this reason. Adam's possible autism is not the reason for a violent behavior. But uncontrolled jealousy and denied love are - some of the reasons for the mass shooters' behavior. E.g., in many cultures (not that it is right) going after the other lover was widely (and still is) admired and even permitted.
The long-term solution is to start educating the whole nation how to heal the American Family & our homes where our children are growing up. In the U.S. marriage happiness & child raising education for every family & every teenager in our schools (and colleges) is fully missing today but is present in most other developed countries in their school curricula.
In a happy home with both parents present the children grow up healthy - no Broken Marriage Syndrome™ and no reason to go to punish the world by killing everyone around.
STAF, Inc.'s presence is needed in D.C. in the U.S. Congress (House & Senate). STAF, Inc.'s founding President is planning (1) to seek a seat in D.C. Congress/Senate to provide the necessary information to the D.C. lawmakers and (2) to establish a fully new federal agency, Healthy Lifestyle & Family Success Agency, and to be named its first federal director. New legislation and training for all these matters are needed in a results-bringing manner.
Visit STAF,Inc.'s extensive websites. To find the correct website, use STAF, Inc.'s Radio Show title - lower & upper keys as is here: "DrDrCanYouHelpMe" in the internet search. Listen to STAF, Inc.'s popular Radio Show - you'll get free CEU & College-University credits.
Respectfully,
Christian von Christophers, Ph.D., N.D.
STAF, Inc.'s founding President
___________________________________________
Senate committee starting votes on curbing guns
Prospects shaky for expanding background checks as Senate panel ready to vote on gun curbs
WASHINGTON (AP), 3/7/13 -- President Barack Obama's prospects for winning near-universal background checks for gun purchases seemed shaky as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepared for Congress' first votes on curbing firearms since December's horrific shootings at a Connecticut elementary school.
The Democratic-led panel had four bills on its agenda Thursday as lawmakers began shaping their response to the slaughter of 20 first-graders and six staffers in Newtown, Conn. The shootings elevated guns to a top-tier national issue, though many of Obama's proposals have encountered opposition from the National Rifle Association and many Republicans.
Besides expanding background checks, the other measures would ban assault weapons and ammunition magazines carrying more than 10 rounds, make gun trafficking and the purchase of firearms for people barred from owning them federal crimes, and provide more money for schools to buy video cameras and other safety equipment.
All four measures were expected to pass the committee, perhaps Thursday. But their fate when the full Senate considers them, probably in April, was less certain. The trafficking measure by panel Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., was thought to have the best prospects and the assault weapons ban by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., seemed to have the slimmest chance.
Democrats had hoped to reach a bipartisan deal on expanding federal background checks with conservative Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. But on Wednesday, Democrats set aside their efforts to win over Coburn after weeks of talks failed to resolve a dispute over requiring that records of private sales be retained.
Their inability to craft a deal with Coburn was a blow to Democrats because of his solid conservative credentials and "A'' rating with the NRA. His support could have meant backing from other Senate Republicans and even moderate Democrats, including several facing 2014 re-election campaigns in GOP-leaning states.
In addition, gun-curb supporters say the Senate will have to approve legislation with strong bipartisan support to boost their chances of success in the GOP-led House. Republican leaders there have said they won't act until the Senate produces legislation.
Democrats said they would negotiate with other Republicans and would not give up on eventually cutting a deal with Coburn.
"We're confident plenty of senators already understand that this is the sweet spot where good policy and politics meet," said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a gun-curb group led by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino whose membership includes more than 800 mayors.
Expanding the checks is the cornerstone and most popular part of Obama's effort to rein gun violence. They are now mandated only for sales by the nation's 55,000 federally licensed gun dealers, not for private sales between individuals, like those at gun shows or online.
An Associated-Press-GfK poll in January found 84 percent favored requiring background checks at gun shows. Other proposed gun curbs were supported by just over half the public.
Thursday's Judiciary session prompted widespread efforts, especially by gun control advocates, to pressure recalcitrant senators and show signs of public support.
Supporters of gun curbs planned rallies outside the home-state offices of Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Judiciary's top Republican, and Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.
Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., grievously wounded in a Tucson mass shooting two years ago, solicited contributions by email for the political action committee she and husband Mark Kelly, the retired astronaut, have formed to help elect lawmakers who back gun curbs.
"Your contribution will help us keep the pressure on Judiciary Committee senators while ensuring the rest of them see our message" during Congress' recess late this month, she wrote.
NRA officials said they have urged their members, said to number more than 4 million, to contact lawmakers.
Democrats say background check records, whether kept by the individuals, manufacturers or others, are the only way to ensure that the checks are conducted for private sales. Coburn said such information could help create a federal registry of gun owners — something that is now illegal and the White House says would not happen.
Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Mark Kirk, R-Ill., also have been involved in the background check negotiations and said in a joint statement that they would continue looking for a compromise with other senators.
"Dr. Coburn is still hopeful they can reach an agreement," Coburn spokesman John Hart said Wednesday.
Lacking an agreement with Coburn, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., planned to seek a vote by the Judiciary Committee on a bill resembling a measure he initially proposed two years ago. It would require background checks for nearly all gun sales, with narrow exemptions including transactions between close relatives. It would also cut federal aid for states that don't send enough mental health records to the federal background check network — a widespread problem that has fueled critics' complaints that the current system should be fixed before it is expanded.
________________
Prospects shaky for expanding background checks as Senate panel ready to vote on gun curbs
WASHINGTON (AP), 3/7/13 -- President Barack Obama's prospects for winning near-universal background checks for gun purchases seemed shaky as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepared for Congress' first votes on curbing firearms since December's horrific shootings at a Connecticut elementary school.
The Democratic-led panel had four bills on its agenda Thursday as lawmakers began shaping their response to the slaughter of 20 first-graders and six staffers in Newtown, Conn. The shootings elevated guns to a top-tier national issue, though many of Obama's proposals have encountered opposition from the National Rifle Association and many Republicans.
Besides expanding background checks, the other measures would ban assault weapons and ammunition magazines carrying more than 10 rounds, make gun trafficking and the purchase of firearms for people barred from owning them federal crimes, and provide more money for schools to buy video cameras and other safety equipment.
All four measures were expected to pass the committee, perhaps Thursday. But their fate when the full Senate considers them, probably in April, was less certain. The trafficking measure by panel Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., was thought to have the best prospects and the assault weapons ban by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., seemed to have the slimmest chance.
Democrats had hoped to reach a bipartisan deal on expanding federal background checks with conservative Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. But on Wednesday, Democrats set aside their efforts to win over Coburn after weeks of talks failed to resolve a dispute over requiring that records of private sales be retained.
Their inability to craft a deal with Coburn was a blow to Democrats because of his solid conservative credentials and "A'' rating with the NRA. His support could have meant backing from other Senate Republicans and even moderate Democrats, including several facing 2014 re-election campaigns in GOP-leaning states.
In addition, gun-curb supporters say the Senate will have to approve legislation with strong bipartisan support to boost their chances of success in the GOP-led House. Republican leaders there have said they won't act until the Senate produces legislation.
Democrats said they would negotiate with other Republicans and would not give up on eventually cutting a deal with Coburn.
"We're confident plenty of senators already understand that this is the sweet spot where good policy and politics meet," said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a gun-curb group led by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino whose membership includes more than 800 mayors.
Expanding the checks is the cornerstone and most popular part of Obama's effort to rein gun violence. They are now mandated only for sales by the nation's 55,000 federally licensed gun dealers, not for private sales between individuals, like those at gun shows or online.
An Associated-Press-GfK poll in January found 84 percent favored requiring background checks at gun shows. Other proposed gun curbs were supported by just over half the public.
Thursday's Judiciary session prompted widespread efforts, especially by gun control advocates, to pressure recalcitrant senators and show signs of public support.
Supporters of gun curbs planned rallies outside the home-state offices of Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Judiciary's top Republican, and Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.
Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., grievously wounded in a Tucson mass shooting two years ago, solicited contributions by email for the political action committee she and husband Mark Kelly, the retired astronaut, have formed to help elect lawmakers who back gun curbs.
"Your contribution will help us keep the pressure on Judiciary Committee senators while ensuring the rest of them see our message" during Congress' recess late this month, she wrote.
NRA officials said they have urged their members, said to number more than 4 million, to contact lawmakers.
Democrats say background check records, whether kept by the individuals, manufacturers or others, are the only way to ensure that the checks are conducted for private sales. Coburn said such information could help create a federal registry of gun owners — something that is now illegal and the White House says would not happen.
Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Mark Kirk, R-Ill., also have been involved in the background check negotiations and said in a joint statement that they would continue looking for a compromise with other senators.
"Dr. Coburn is still hopeful they can reach an agreement," Coburn spokesman John Hart said Wednesday.
Lacking an agreement with Coburn, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., planned to seek a vote by the Judiciary Committee on a bill resembling a measure he initially proposed two years ago. It would require background checks for nearly all gun sales, with narrow exemptions including transactions between close relatives. It would also cut federal aid for states that don't send enough mental health records to the federal background check network — a widespread problem that has fueled critics' complaints that the current system should be fixed before it is expanded.
________________
Military Dictionary
See also the next article below: click: Proxy Marriage Now
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Military Abbreviations Dictionary The Dictionary of Military Abbreviations offers you access to more than 1000 military abbreviations and acronym used within NATO. In addition this dictionary also included the 3-digit ISO code for all countries and geographical entities.
Created By: Werner Christmann
Submitted to the Babylon Information Platform
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Military Abbreviations INDEX:
Please select a letter for all terms that start with it:A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 2
Term of the dayoceanographyThe study of the sea, embracing and integrating all knowledge pertaining to the sea and its physical boundaries, the chemistry and physics of seawater, and marine biology.
Source: U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Doctrine Division. ( About )
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The Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms deserves to be called the most comprehensive reference works when it comes to military terms and expressions. This outstanding dictionary supplements general English dictionaries with technical terms and terminology for military and associated use. This DOD dictionary was published in Spring 2001 by the Joint Doctrine Division. The present version was amended through October 2007.
The Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms sets forth standard US military and associated terminology to encompass the joint activity of the Armed Forces of the United States in both US joint and allied joint operations. These military terms constitute approved DOD terminology for general use by all components of the Department of Defense.
Note: an asterisk in parentheses after the term denotes DOD-NATO standardization of terminology.
Created By: Department of Defense (DOD), Joint Doctrine Division
Submitted to the Babylon Information Platform
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DOD Military Terms INDEX:
Please select a letter for all terms that start with it:A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z 4
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More than ever Military has become an international field. Whether you need language dictionaries translating technical terms or want to communicate with military members from abroad, our free Online Translation is just a click away. Get free online translations from and to 75 language, including full text translation. This service is divided into language pages such as Italian Translator, where you may look up single words or phrases.
Term of the day: oceanography
The study of the sea, embracing and integrating all knowledge pertaining to the sea and its physical boundaries, the chemistry and physics of seawater, and marine biology.
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Source: U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Doctrine Division. ( About )
Popular Terms
attrition minefieldgrid convergencerationalizationdead spacecollective self-defenseMILVAN
__________________________________________________________________
See also the next article below: click: Proxy Marriage Now
Military Dictionary | Term Index | About Us | Contact Us | Free Download
From all dictionaries Only from this dictionary
Military Dictionaries DOD Military Terms
DOD Joint Acronyms & Abbreviations
European Defence Agency Acronyms
International Relations & Security Acronyms
NATO Acronyms
Military Abbreviations
Rabintex Ballistic Dictionary
Military News
Military Abbreviations Dictionary The Dictionary of Military Abbreviations offers you access to more than 1000 military abbreviations and acronym used within NATO. In addition this dictionary also included the 3-digit ISO code for all countries and geographical entities.
Created By: Werner Christmann
Submitted to the Babylon Information Platform
under the title Military Abbreviations
Military Abbreviations INDEX:
Please select a letter for all terms that start with it:A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 2
Term of the dayoceanographyThe study of the sea, embracing and integrating all knowledge pertaining to the sea and its physical boundaries, the chemistry and physics of seawater, and marine biology.
Source: U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Doctrine Division. ( About )
Popular Terms
exploratory huntingport support activitydenied area MILVAN chassis information operations gradie
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The Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms deserves to be called the most comprehensive reference works when it comes to military terms and expressions. This outstanding dictionary supplements general English dictionaries with technical terms and terminology for military and associated use. This DOD dictionary was published in Spring 2001 by the Joint Doctrine Division. The present version was amended through October 2007.
The Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms sets forth standard US military and associated terminology to encompass the joint activity of the Armed Forces of the United States in both US joint and allied joint operations. These military terms constitute approved DOD terminology for general use by all components of the Department of Defense.
Note: an asterisk in parentheses after the term denotes DOD-NATO standardization of terminology.
Created By: Department of Defense (DOD), Joint Doctrine Division
Submitted to the Babylon Information Platform
under the title DOD Dictionary of Military Terms
DOD Military Terms INDEX:
Please select a letter for all terms that start with it:A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z 4
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More than ever Military has become an international field. Whether you need language dictionaries translating technical terms or want to communicate with military members from abroad, our free Online Translation is just a click away. Get free online translations from and to 75 language, including full text translation. This service is divided into language pages such as Italian Translator, where you may look up single words or phrases.
Term of the day: oceanography
The study of the sea, embracing and integrating all knowledge pertaining to the sea and its physical boundaries, the chemistry and physics of seawater, and marine biology.
.
Source: U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Doctrine Division. ( About )
Popular Terms
attrition minefieldgrid convergencerationalizationdead spacecollective self-defenseMILVAN
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Marriage by proxy
You May Now Kiss the Computer Screen
Internet Marriages on Rise in Some Immigrant & Military Communities
As more International Couples marry online,
The U.S. Immigration officers face new challenge
Click green for further info
What is a Proxy Marriage? click: Proxy Marriage Now
Click With a red embroidered veil draped over her dark hair, Punam Chowdhury held her breath last month as her fiancé said the words that would make them husband and wife. After she echoed them, they were married.
Guests erupted in applause; the bride and groom traded bashful smiles.
Just then, the Internet connection cut out, and the wedding was abruptly over.
Normally one of the most intimate moments two people can share, the marriage had taken place from opposite ends of the globe over the video chat program Skype, with Ms. Chowdhury, an American citizen, in a mosque in Jackson Heights, Queens, and her new husband, Tanvir Ahmmed, in his living room with a Shariah judge in his native Bangladesh.
Their courtship, like so many others, had taken place almost entirely over the Internet — they had met in person only once, years earlier, in passing. But in a twist that underscores technology’s ability to upend traditional notions about romance, people are not just finding their match online, but also saying “I do” there.
These are called proxy marriages, a legal arrangement that allows a couple to wed even in the absence of one or both spouses. They date back centuries: one of the most famous examples was between Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, who were first married in her native Austria in his absence, before she was shipped to meet him in France. Proxy marriages via telegraph have also been documented.
The procedure had been used infrequently in the United States, usually by deployed members of the military worried about being killed and leaving loved ones without benefits. But it is increasingly being used in immigrant communities, where people are seeking to marry partners from their homelands without the expense of matchmaking trips abroad.
Such convenience has also raised concerns that it will facilitate marriage fraud — already a challenge for immigration authorities — as well as make it easier to ensnare vulnerable women in trafficking networks.
The practice is so new that some immigration authorities said they were unaware it was even happening and did not typically provide extra scrutiny to ensure these types of marriages were not misused to secure citizenship. But even those who conduct or arrange these ceremonies have expressed reservations as the practice has grown more widespread.
The imam Mohd A. Qayyoom, who runs the New York Qazi Office in Jackson Heights and officiated Ms. Chowdhury’s wedding in February, said he had turned away people seeking to marry cousins in Southeast Asia in order to get them to the United States. Mazeda A. Uddin, a community activist from Queens, who often plays matchmaker, said she stopped organizing proxy weddings after witnessing people being married and left brokenhearted by unscrupulous foreigners seeking a green card, not a life partner.
“Part of the reason for having the two people come and appear before a priest or a judge is to make sure it is a freely chosen thing,” said Adam Candeub, a professor at Michigan State University College of Law who has studied proxy marriage. “There are some problems with willy-nilly allowing anyone around the world to marry.”
Technically, the Chowdhury-Ahmmed marriage “took place” in Bangladesh, where it was legally registered, not New York, where the practice is not allowed. Only a few states permit proxy marriages, and most require one partner to be in the military. But the United States generally recognizes foreign marriages as long as they are legally conducted abroad and do not break any laws here.
George Andrews, the operations manager for (click) Proxy Marriage Now, a company in Fayetteville, N.C., that facilitates such unions worldwide for a fee, said technology, like Skype, was driving the growth of proxy marriages. In the seven years the company has been in existence, business has increased by 12 percent to 15 percent annually to between 400 and 500 weddings a year. The share not involving someone in the military has grown to 40 percent.
Some of those couples are trying to circumvent restrictive local laws, like those in Israel and other countries, which recognize mixed-religion marriages but will not perform them, he said. Others who live in different countries seek marriage to pave the way to be together, a first step to attaining a visa or citizenship for a spouse, he said. Couples usually dial in to a ceremony in El Salvador, which has comparatively little red tape surrounding the process.
All people applying for American citizenship through marriage must first be interviewed by officials from the Homeland Security or State Department who are charged with rooting out fraud. Officials said that if the spouses were to explain they had been married thousands of miles apart over the Internet, it would quite likely raise a red flag.
And yet, while the agencies ask interviewees for details of their wedding during the immigration interviews, they do not specifically inquire whether it occurred by proxy.
Archi Pyati, the deputy director of the Immigration Intervention Project at the Sanctuary for Families, an organization that helps battered women, said the center frequently saw ways in which proxy marriage was abused. Some cases involve women, many from West Africa, who were married by proxy without their consent, or as children.
Other cases have involved proxy marriage used to bring women into the country who then find themselves pressed into sex work by traffickers.
The practice of proxy marriage is particularly widespread in Islamic countries where the Koran has long been interpreted to explicitly endorse it.
“After all these advancements in technology and all kinds of telecommunication tools, scholars came to the conclusion that it is acceptable,” said the imam Shamsi Ali, of the Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens.
“Skype is making it easier,” he added. “These days you have Google Hangout, too.”
There are those who oppose the practice for traditional reasons.
“It seems strange; I just feel like a wedding begins your new life together, not apart,” said Angela Troia, who owns the Wedding Company, a shop in Manhasset, N.Y., on Long Island, that sells invitations and offers planning guidance for many Queens couples. “I think it takes away from the meaning of it.”
But for Ms. Chowdhury, 21, and Mr. Ahmmed, 31, the giggling pair pretending to feed each other wedding dessert by holding forkfuls of cake to their computer screens that day, it felt full of the gravity of any other wedding. Ms. Chowdhury noted that her aunt had married similarly, long before the Internet age — by telephone.
Peering from the screen of a laptop, Mr. Ahmmed agreed. “This is my lawful wife,” he said.
At the last word, his bride squealed with joy.
Source: NYT
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Have hired guns finally scuppered Somali pirates?
By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent | Reuters
Date: 2/10/13
Posted between septuagenarian (= 70-79 years old) passengers in deck chairs, lookouts stand watch over the Gulf of Aden, scanning the horizon for pirates.
After more than half a decade of Somali men attacking Indian Ocean shipping from small speedboats with AK-47s, grappling hooks and ladders, the number of attacks is falling fast.
The last merchant ship to be successfully hijacked, naval officers monitoring piracy say, was at least nine months ago. It's a far cry from the height of the piracy epidemic two years ago, when several ships might be taken in a single week to be traded for airdropped multi-million dollar ransoms.
But as the Queen Mary 2, one of the world's most recognisable ocean liners, passes through the Red Sea, Indian Ocean and out towards Dubai, its owners and crew are taking few chances.
"The pirates have weapons and are not afraid to use them," Lieutenant Commander Ollie Hutchinson, the British Royal Navy liaison officer aboard the liner for its trip through the Indian Ocean, tells a briefing of passengers in the ship's theatre. "Once the pirates have identified their target, they will try whatever means they can to get on board."
To underline his point, he displays a picture of an Italian helicopter hit by small arms fire from a pirate dhow late last year followed by assorted images of gunmen holding AK-47 assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades.
In truth, the Queen Mary 2 - carrying 2,500 passengers and 1,300 crew from Southampton to Dubai on the first leg of a world cruise - is not particularly at risk.
Some 345 metres long and 14 stories high, even its promenade deck is seven floors above the sea. The liner is fast, hard to board and - on this passage at least - moderately well armed.
Like many merchant vessels, the QM2 now carries armed private contractors when passing through areas of pirate risk.
Cunard will not discuss precise security arrangements. But contractors on other vessels routinely carry M-16-type assault rifles and sometimes belt-fed machine guns, often picked up from ships acting as floating offshore armouries near Djibouti and Sri Lanka.
Additional lookouts from the ship's regular onboard security force - mostly Filipinos - are also posted on the main deck to give warning of any suspicious craft.
"Depending on what happens with attacks, I'm hopeful we may be able to reduce our security measures when we pass through the same waters next year," says Commodore Christopher Rynd, senior captain of the British-based Cunard line and current master of the QM2. "But that's not a decision we will be making at this stage."
A CHANGING GAME?
When ships do come under attack, the first phone to ring is usually in a nondescript white bungalow in the gardens of the British Embassy in Dubai.
The UK Marine Transport Operation (UKMTO) was set up shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks to provide security advice to British shipping in the area. As pirate attacks soared in the second half of the last decade, it found itself coordinating international shipping across much of the Indian Ocean.
Most vessels passing through the area - container ships, tankers, cruise liners and dhows - now register daily with UKMTO. If they believe they are in danger, they will contact the British team to request military support.
"We've had calls when you could hear gunfire and rocket propelled grenades in the background," saysLieutenant Commander Simon Goodes, the current officer in charge. "But lately, the phones are ringing much less."
The only confirmed attack this year, Goodes said, was on a merchant vessel in early January as it sailed towards the Kenyan port of Mombasa. On-board private security guards repelled the assault after a 30 minute firefight.
According to the European Union anti-piracy task force EU NAVFOR, 2012 saw only 36 confirmed attacks and a further 73 "suspicious events" - incidents in which a crew report a suspicious craft that might be pirate but could also be simply an innocent fishing boat. That itself was a substantial fall from 2011, with 176 attacks and 166 "suspicious events".
Only five ships were captured in 2012, down from 25 in 2011 and 27 in 2010.
"This is an important year," says Lieutenant Commander Jacqueline Sheriff, spokeswoman for EU NAVFOR. "We will find out whether this fall in piracy is really sustainable."
Sea-borne attacks off West Africa, however, appear to be on the rise in what some analysts believe is a sign that Nigerian and other criminal gangs may be tempted by the Somali pirate model.
PIRATE BUSINESS MODEL FAILING?
Exactly what is behind the fall in Somali piracy is a matter of debate.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the navies patrolling the Indian Ocean say the numbers show they are finally having an impact. Since piracy first grabbed global attention in 2008, a number of nations have sent ships to the region.
Sailing through the Internationally Registered Transit Corridor, a protected route between Somalia and Yemen, the QM2 passed warships from the United States, France, India and Australia.
As well as the EU force, there are separate flotillas from NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces that often include Asian vessels. Several other nations including China and Russia also keep ships there, running convoys through the "high-risk zone".
In May last year, EU NAVFOR launched its first onshore raid, targeting a suspected pirate group on the beach as it prepared to head to sea with helicopter and small arms fire.
Not everyone, however, believes that explains the fall. For many in the shipping industry, the fall in attacks is a vindication of the decision to massively ramp up the use of armed guards.
So far, not a single ship with armed guards has been taken by pirates - although naval officers and other piracy specialists say hired guards can be excessively trigger-happy and have fired on innocent fishermen from India, Oman and Yemen.
The situation is also changing in Somalia, which has been without a functioning government for two decades. The transitional administration is becoming more successful, as is a Kenyan-dominated African military force sent in to tackle Islamist rebels.
RETIRED PIRATE, DARKENED LINER
Last month, one of Somalia's highest profile pirates told Reuters he was giving up his life of crime at sea.
"I have given up piracy and succeeded in encouraging more youths to give up piracy," said Mohamed Abdi Hassan. "It was not due to fear of warships. It was just a decision."
In an apparently separate development, three Syrian hostages held since 2010 were released without the payment of a ransom. Four vessels are currently still held by pirates along with 108 hostages, the EU says.
The bottom line, some military officers and analysts believe, may be that the lower success rate for pirates in the last year has prompted those bankrolling them to stop.
But no one is taking the pirates for granted. An apparent attempted night-time attack on a merchant ship only a handful of miles from the entrance to the Gulf at the Strait of Hormuz was a reminder attacks can take place across a huge area.
Shortly before entering the Suez Canal, QM2 held a security drill to instruct passengers in what to do if the ship comes under attack.
Passengers were urged to return below and sit in the companionway outside their rooms until the danger passed.
As dusk falls, orders are given to darken ship. Passengers close the curtains over their portholes or balcony windows, while crew members install blackout curtains in public areas. Basic running lights remain on to avoid collision, however.
The purpose, Commodore Rynd says, is to make it harder for any pirates to identify what kind of ship the QM2 might be and how far away. The darkened ship also makes it easier for the lookouts, equipped with night vision goggles, to see.
Other more vulnerable ships - particularly the "low and slow" - take more precautions. Shortly after first light, QM2 passes a bulk carrier, its fire hoses blasting over its stern to make it harder for pirates to clamber aboard.
In more remote parts of the Indian Ocean, the nearest naval support can be eight or nine hours away.
Aboard the liner, however, passengers seem largely unconcerned.
"It doesn't worry me at all," says Kiki O'Connell, 66, from Portland, Maine, as the ship approached Dubai. "Although I don't suppose we'll see any pirates now. I was hoping for Johnny Depp."
_______________________________________________________________________________________
By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent | Reuters
Date: 2/10/13
Posted between septuagenarian (= 70-79 years old) passengers in deck chairs, lookouts stand watch over the Gulf of Aden, scanning the horizon for pirates.
After more than half a decade of Somali men attacking Indian Ocean shipping from small speedboats with AK-47s, grappling hooks and ladders, the number of attacks is falling fast.
The last merchant ship to be successfully hijacked, naval officers monitoring piracy say, was at least nine months ago. It's a far cry from the height of the piracy epidemic two years ago, when several ships might be taken in a single week to be traded for airdropped multi-million dollar ransoms.
But as the Queen Mary 2, one of the world's most recognisable ocean liners, passes through the Red Sea, Indian Ocean and out towards Dubai, its owners and crew are taking few chances.
"The pirates have weapons and are not afraid to use them," Lieutenant Commander Ollie Hutchinson, the British Royal Navy liaison officer aboard the liner for its trip through the Indian Ocean, tells a briefing of passengers in the ship's theatre. "Once the pirates have identified their target, they will try whatever means they can to get on board."
To underline his point, he displays a picture of an Italian helicopter hit by small arms fire from a pirate dhow late last year followed by assorted images of gunmen holding AK-47 assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades.
In truth, the Queen Mary 2 - carrying 2,500 passengers and 1,300 crew from Southampton to Dubai on the first leg of a world cruise - is not particularly at risk.
Some 345 metres long and 14 stories high, even its promenade deck is seven floors above the sea. The liner is fast, hard to board and - on this passage at least - moderately well armed.
Like many merchant vessels, the QM2 now carries armed private contractors when passing through areas of pirate risk.
Cunard will not discuss precise security arrangements. But contractors on other vessels routinely carry M-16-type assault rifles and sometimes belt-fed machine guns, often picked up from ships acting as floating offshore armouries near Djibouti and Sri Lanka.
Additional lookouts from the ship's regular onboard security force - mostly Filipinos - are also posted on the main deck to give warning of any suspicious craft.
"Depending on what happens with attacks, I'm hopeful we may be able to reduce our security measures when we pass through the same waters next year," says Commodore Christopher Rynd, senior captain of the British-based Cunard line and current master of the QM2. "But that's not a decision we will be making at this stage."
A CHANGING GAME?
When ships do come under attack, the first phone to ring is usually in a nondescript white bungalow in the gardens of the British Embassy in Dubai.
The UK Marine Transport Operation (UKMTO) was set up shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks to provide security advice to British shipping in the area. As pirate attacks soared in the second half of the last decade, it found itself coordinating international shipping across much of the Indian Ocean.
Most vessels passing through the area - container ships, tankers, cruise liners and dhows - now register daily with UKMTO. If they believe they are in danger, they will contact the British team to request military support.
"We've had calls when you could hear gunfire and rocket propelled grenades in the background," saysLieutenant Commander Simon Goodes, the current officer in charge. "But lately, the phones are ringing much less."
The only confirmed attack this year, Goodes said, was on a merchant vessel in early January as it sailed towards the Kenyan port of Mombasa. On-board private security guards repelled the assault after a 30 minute firefight.
According to the European Union anti-piracy task force EU NAVFOR, 2012 saw only 36 confirmed attacks and a further 73 "suspicious events" - incidents in which a crew report a suspicious craft that might be pirate but could also be simply an innocent fishing boat. That itself was a substantial fall from 2011, with 176 attacks and 166 "suspicious events".
Only five ships were captured in 2012, down from 25 in 2011 and 27 in 2010.
"This is an important year," says Lieutenant Commander Jacqueline Sheriff, spokeswoman for EU NAVFOR. "We will find out whether this fall in piracy is really sustainable."
Sea-borne attacks off West Africa, however, appear to be on the rise in what some analysts believe is a sign that Nigerian and other criminal gangs may be tempted by the Somali pirate model.
PIRATE BUSINESS MODEL FAILING?
Exactly what is behind the fall in Somali piracy is a matter of debate.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the navies patrolling the Indian Ocean say the numbers show they are finally having an impact. Since piracy first grabbed global attention in 2008, a number of nations have sent ships to the region.
Sailing through the Internationally Registered Transit Corridor, a protected route between Somalia and Yemen, the QM2 passed warships from the United States, France, India and Australia.
As well as the EU force, there are separate flotillas from NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces that often include Asian vessels. Several other nations including China and Russia also keep ships there, running convoys through the "high-risk zone".
In May last year, EU NAVFOR launched its first onshore raid, targeting a suspected pirate group on the beach as it prepared to head to sea with helicopter and small arms fire.
Not everyone, however, believes that explains the fall. For many in the shipping industry, the fall in attacks is a vindication of the decision to massively ramp up the use of armed guards.
So far, not a single ship with armed guards has been taken by pirates - although naval officers and other piracy specialists say hired guards can be excessively trigger-happy and have fired on innocent fishermen from India, Oman and Yemen.
The situation is also changing in Somalia, which has been without a functioning government for two decades. The transitional administration is becoming more successful, as is a Kenyan-dominated African military force sent in to tackle Islamist rebels.
RETIRED PIRATE, DARKENED LINER
Last month, one of Somalia's highest profile pirates told Reuters he was giving up his life of crime at sea.
"I have given up piracy and succeeded in encouraging more youths to give up piracy," said Mohamed Abdi Hassan. "It was not due to fear of warships. It was just a decision."
In an apparently separate development, three Syrian hostages held since 2010 were released without the payment of a ransom. Four vessels are currently still held by pirates along with 108 hostages, the EU says.
The bottom line, some military officers and analysts believe, may be that the lower success rate for pirates in the last year has prompted those bankrolling them to stop.
But no one is taking the pirates for granted. An apparent attempted night-time attack on a merchant ship only a handful of miles from the entrance to the Gulf at the Strait of Hormuz was a reminder attacks can take place across a huge area.
Shortly before entering the Suez Canal, QM2 held a security drill to instruct passengers in what to do if the ship comes under attack.
Passengers were urged to return below and sit in the companionway outside their rooms until the danger passed.
As dusk falls, orders are given to darken ship. Passengers close the curtains over their portholes or balcony windows, while crew members install blackout curtains in public areas. Basic running lights remain on to avoid collision, however.
The purpose, Commodore Rynd says, is to make it harder for any pirates to identify what kind of ship the QM2 might be and how far away. The darkened ship also makes it easier for the lookouts, equipped with night vision goggles, to see.
Other more vulnerable ships - particularly the "low and slow" - take more precautions. Shortly after first light, QM2 passes a bulk carrier, its fire hoses blasting over its stern to make it harder for pirates to clamber aboard.
In more remote parts of the Indian Ocean, the nearest naval support can be eight or nine hours away.
Aboard the liner, however, passengers seem largely unconcerned.
"It doesn't worry me at all," says Kiki O'Connell, 66, from Portland, Maine, as the ship approached Dubai. "Although I don't suppose we'll see any pirates now. I was hoping for Johnny Depp."
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Important information
Why Police Lie Under Oath
THOUSANDS of people plead guilty to crimes every year in the United States because they know that the odds of a jury’s believing their word over a police officer’s are slim to none. As a juror, whom are you likely to believe: the alleged criminal in an orange jumpsuit or two well-groomed police officers in uniforms who just swore to God they’re telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but? As one of my colleagues recently put it, “Everyone knows you have to be crazy to accuse the police of lying.”
But are police officers necessarily more trustworthy than alleged criminals? I think not. Not just because the police have a special inclination toward confabulation, but because, disturbingly, they have an incentive to lie. In this era of mass incarceration, the police shouldn’t be trusted any more than any other witness, perhaps less so.
That may sound harsh, but numerous law enforcement officials have put the matter more bluntly. Peter Keane, a former San Francisco Police commissioner, wrote an article in The San Francisco Chronicle decrying a police culture that treats lying as the norm: “Police officer perjury in court to justify illegal dope searches is commonplace. One of the dirty little not-so-secret secrets of the criminal justice system is undercover narcotics officers intentionally lying under oath. It is a perversion of the American justice system that strikes directly at the rule of law. Yet it is the routine way of doing business in courtrooms everywhere in America.”
The New York City Police Department is not exempt from this critique. In 2011, hundreds of drug cases were dismissed after several police officers were accused of mishandling evidence. That year, Justice Gustin L. Reichbach of the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn condemned a widespread culture of lying and corruption in the department’s drug enforcement units. “I thought I was not naïve,” he said when announcing a guilty verdict involving a police detective who had planted crack cocaine on a pair of suspects. “But even this court was shocked, not only by the seeming pervasive scope of misconduct but even more distressingly by the seeming casualness by which such conduct is employed.”
Remarkably, New York City officers have been found to engage in patterns of deceit in cases involving charges as minor as trespass. In September it was reported that the Bronx district attorney’s office was so alarmed by police lying that it decided to stop prosecuting people who were stopped and arrested for trespassing at public housing projects, unless prosecutors first interviewed the arresting officer to ensure the arrest was actually warranted. Jeannette Rucker, the chief of arraignments for the Bronx district attorney, explained in a letter that it had become apparent that the police were arresting people even when there was convincing evidence that they were innocent. To justify the arrests, Ms. Rucker claimed, police officers provided false written statements, and in depositions, the arresting officers gave false testimony.
Mr. Keane, in his Chronicle article, offered two major reasons the police lie so much. First, because they can. Police officers “know that in a swearing match between a drug defendant and a police officer, the judge always rules in favor of the officer.” At worst, the case will be dismissed, but the officer is free to continue business as usual. Second, criminal defendants are typically poor and uneducated, often belong to a racial minority, and often have a criminal record. “Police know that no one cares about these people,” Mr. Keane explained.
All true, but there is more to the story than that.
Police departments have been rewarded in recent years for the sheer numbers of stops, searches and arrests. In the war on drugs, federal grant programs like the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program have encouraged state and local law enforcement agencies to boost drug arrests in order to compete for millions of dollars in funding. Agencies receive cash rewards for arresting high numbers of people for drug offenses, no matter how minor the offenses or how weak the evidence. Law enforcement has increasingly become a numbers game. And as it has, police officers’ tendency to regard procedural rules as optional and to lie and distort the facts has grown as well. Numerous scandals involving police officers lying or planting drugs — in Tulia, Tex. and Oakland, Calif., for example — have been linked to federally funded drug task forces eager to keep the cash rolling in.
THE pressure to boost arrest numbers is not limited to drug law enforcement. Even where no clear financial incentives exist, the “get tough” movement has warped police culture to such a degree that police chiefs and individual officers feel pressured to meet stop-and-frisk or arrest quotas in order to prove their “productivity.”
For the record, the New York City police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, denies that his department has arrest quotas. Such denials are mandatory, given that quotas are illegal under state law. But as the Urban Justice Center’s Police Reform Organizing Project has documented, numerous officers have contradicted Mr. Kelly.
In 2010, a New York City police officer named Adil Polanco told a local ABC News reporter that “our primary job is not to help anybody, our primary job is not to assist anybody, our primary job is to get those numbers and come back with them.” He continued: “At the end of the night you have to come back with something. You have to write somebody, you have to arrest somebody, even if the crime is not committed, the number’s there. So our choice is to come up with the number.”
Exposing police lying is difficult largely because it is rare for the police to admit their own lies or to acknowledge the lies of other officers. This reluctance derives partly from the code of silence that governs police practice and from the ways in which the system of mass incarceration is structured to reward dishonesty. But it’s also because police officers are human.
Research shows that ordinary human beings lie a lot — multiple times a day — even when there’s no clear benefit to lying. Generally, humans lie about relatively minor things like “I lost your phone number; that’s why I didn’t call” or “No, really, you don’t look fat.” But humans can also be persuaded to lie about far more important matters, especially if the lie will enhance or protect their reputation or standing in a group.
The natural tendency to lie makes quota systems and financial incentives that reward the police for the sheer numbers of people stopped, frisked or arrested especially dangerous. One lie can destroy a life, resulting in the loss of employment, a prison term and relegation to permanent second-class status. The fact that our legal system has become so tolerant of police lying indicates how corrupted our criminal justice system has become by declarations of war, “get tough” mantras, and a seemingly insatiable appetite for locking up and locking out the poorest and darkest among us.
And, no, I’m not crazy for thinking so.
Michelle Alexander is the author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.”
Source: NYT
By MICHELLE ALEXANDER
__________________________________________________________________
FBI complies with FOIA request with blacked-out pages
The FBI = Federal Bureau of investigation and the American Civil Liberties Union = ACLU seem to have very different interpretations of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Click green for further info
As surfaced by the website Arstechnica, the FBI recently complied with a request from the civil rights organization—sort of.
The ACLU had filed the FOIA request back in July. (It had first heard of the memos when they were mentioned publicly by an FBI official during a panel discussion at the University of San Francisco earlier in the year.) The request asked for two memos that outline how the FBI interprets the Supreme Court decision blocking law enforcement from using GPS to track a suspect’s car without a warrant.
As the ACLU reported, the organization has just received a response—almost all of it blacked out.
One memo apparently outlines GPS tracking on things other than cars, and the other how the FBI interprets the Supreme Court case on other forms of tech besides GPS. The documents can be seen here and here in PDF format, along with the ACLU's original FOIA request.
Writing on the ACLU website, staff attorney Catherine Crump noted, "The Justice Department’s unfortunate decision leaves Americans with no clear understanding of when we will be subjected to tracking—possibly for months at a time—or whether the government will first get a warrant."
Crump added that "this is yet another example of secret surveillance policies—like the Justice Department’s secret opinions about the Patriot Act’s Section 215—that simply should not exist in a democratic society. Privacy law needs to keep up with technology, but how can that happen if the government won’t even tell us what its policies are?
The ACLU says that it will next ask the courts to force the Department of Justice to release the memos without all the redactions.
Further info
- FOIA.gov - Freedom of Information Actwww.foia.gov/
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a law that gives you the right to access information from the federal government. It is often described as the law that ...
Where to Make a FOIA request - Learn - FAQs - Data
Freedom of Information Act (United States) - Wikipedia, the free ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_(United_States)
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a federal freedom of information law that allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information ...
Background - Scope - History - Notable cases
________________________________________________
Just Explain It:
Who Pays For Presidential Perks?
The chief executive's salary is $400,000 a year, but expenses are in low-number billions yearly
Being the President of the United States comes with a tremendous amount of pressure and responsibility.
However, the commander-in-chief does enjoy preferential treatment most of us will never experience.
Some of those perks include: (1) having his limo transported by plane wherever he travels, (2) getting to see first-run and not-released movies free of charge, (3) never stopping for a stop light or sign and (4) his own private zip code.
What’s the value of the presidency when you add in all the perks for being Commander-in-Chief?
We may never be able to put a dollar amount on the value of the presidency. That’s because some of the costs associated with the position are buried in many different budgets and scattered between different governmental departments.
Let’s take a look at some of the presidential perks covered by your tax dollars. They not only make the president’s life easier, they’re for security and practical purposes too.
Number one -- the president’s salary is $400,000 a year. The Chief Executive also gets a budget for entertainment, business and travel expenses.
A former president’s net worth can grow substantially in retirement. After two terms in office, The Atlantic magazine reported Bill Clinton’s net worth at around $40 million. The increase was due to numerous speaking engagements and book deals.
Number two -- Transportation. To get the president from place to place safely, he has Air Force One, Marine One and a limo available at a moment’s notice. A 2012 Congressional Research Service report found that Air Force One costs about $180,000 an hour to operate.
According to the Hawaii Reporter, one round-trip flight to Honolulu by President Obama last month cost about $3.2 million. But the president made two of them because of the fiscal cliff crisis. That doubled the price tag to $6.4 million.
Number three – The White House. For the 2008 fiscal year, Bradley Patterson, a retired Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution *) see the end), estimated the cost of running the White House was almost $1.6 billion. And that amount didn’t include unpublished classified expenses.
The president’s White house staff also comes at a steep price. In 2012, the White House reported its payroll grew from $37 million in 2011 to $37.8 million. The list includes 468 names. 139 of which make more than $100,000 a year.
Number four – Secret Service access. Protecting the President, the First Lady & the Presidents children takes a great deal of manpower. The agency’s budget this year is $1.6 billion. A portion of that will go toward protecting president while in office and for life.
And number five – Retirement plan. According to CNBC, President Obama will receive over $191,000 a year for life as soon as he leaves office.
*) CNBC - see info at the end
A former president’s net worth can grow substantially in retirement. After two terms in office, The Atlantic magazine reported Bill Clinton’s net worth at around $40 million. The increase was due to numerous speaking engagements and book deals.
Click green for further info
(1) CNBC (officially the Consumer News and Business Channel until 1991)[3] is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the United States owned and operated by NBCUniversal.
CNBC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNBC
CNBC (officially the Consumer News and Business Channel until 1991) is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the United States owned ...
(2) Brookings Institution www.brookings.edu/
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Who Pays For Presidential Perks?
The chief executive's salary is $400,000 a year, but expenses are in low-number billions yearly
Being the President of the United States comes with a tremendous amount of pressure and responsibility.
However, the commander-in-chief does enjoy preferential treatment most of us will never experience.
Some of those perks include: (1) having his limo transported by plane wherever he travels, (2) getting to see first-run and not-released movies free of charge, (3) never stopping for a stop light or sign and (4) his own private zip code.
What’s the value of the presidency when you add in all the perks for being Commander-in-Chief?
We may never be able to put a dollar amount on the value of the presidency. That’s because some of the costs associated with the position are buried in many different budgets and scattered between different governmental departments.
Let’s take a look at some of the presidential perks covered by your tax dollars. They not only make the president’s life easier, they’re for security and practical purposes too.
Number one -- the president’s salary is $400,000 a year. The Chief Executive also gets a budget for entertainment, business and travel expenses.
A former president’s net worth can grow substantially in retirement. After two terms in office, The Atlantic magazine reported Bill Clinton’s net worth at around $40 million. The increase was due to numerous speaking engagements and book deals.
Number two -- Transportation. To get the president from place to place safely, he has Air Force One, Marine One and a limo available at a moment’s notice. A 2012 Congressional Research Service report found that Air Force One costs about $180,000 an hour to operate.
According to the Hawaii Reporter, one round-trip flight to Honolulu by President Obama last month cost about $3.2 million. But the president made two of them because of the fiscal cliff crisis. That doubled the price tag to $6.4 million.
Number three – The White House. For the 2008 fiscal year, Bradley Patterson, a retired Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution *) see the end), estimated the cost of running the White House was almost $1.6 billion. And that amount didn’t include unpublished classified expenses.
The president’s White house staff also comes at a steep price. In 2012, the White House reported its payroll grew from $37 million in 2011 to $37.8 million. The list includes 468 names. 139 of which make more than $100,000 a year.
Number four – Secret Service access. Protecting the President, the First Lady & the Presidents children takes a great deal of manpower. The agency’s budget this year is $1.6 billion. A portion of that will go toward protecting president while in office and for life.
And number five – Retirement plan. According to CNBC, President Obama will receive over $191,000 a year for life as soon as he leaves office.
*) CNBC - see info at the end
A former president’s net worth can grow substantially in retirement. After two terms in office, The Atlantic magazine reported Bill Clinton’s net worth at around $40 million. The increase was due to numerous speaking engagements and book deals.
Click green for further info
(1) CNBC (officially the Consumer News and Business Channel until 1991)[3] is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the United States owned and operated by NBCUniversal.
CNBC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNBC
CNBC (officially the Consumer News and Business Channel until 1991) is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the United States owned ...
(2) Brookings Institution www.brookings.edu/
- The Brookings Institution is a private nonprofit organization devoted to independent research and innovative policy solutions. For nearly 100 years, Brookings ...
Jobs and Internships - Events - About Brookings - Experts
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Have you heard about these people before ?
Dozens of People Live as 'John Doe'
Click green for further info
For the John Does walking among us, their lives are mysteries to society and to themselves. These seemingly invisible citizens can't answer the simple questions, "What's your name?" or "Where are you from?" They are blank slates.
They aren't eligible for health insurance, can't pay rent or get a driver's license. They can't get a job or apply for unemployment benefits.
Many of them suffer from mental illnesses that render them unable to remember who they are. Scans of their fingerprints lead to no matches, indicating that they do not have criminal records. Their faces do not appear in databases for missing people.
In February, a man was brought to a Fort Worth, Texas, hospital with a cranial bleed (cranial = relating to the skull or cranium = the skull, esp. the part enclosing the brain) . He did not know his name or remember any details from his life. He was admitted under the name "Bobby Jones," but only answered to "Smiley." They have guesstimated his age to be about 76. He can speak, but rarely answers questions. He is paranoid and no longer able to walk.
"I just keep thinking he was somebody's little baby once and you think about how much you love your children and what happened to his parents? Where have they gone?" wondered Kathleen Evans, the inpatient case manager for Fort Worth's JPS Health Network where Smiley was a patient.
The caretakers know that Smiley has been on the streets and in shelters in the Fort Worth area for about 20 years. He has no police record, proven by the lack of a fingerprint match. The hospital has been paying $24,000 every three months for his care, but Evans sees no other choice.
"We couldn't put him out on the streets," she said firmly. "I can't lay him out on the sidewalk. He's a human being and you have to send him to a safe place and the street would not be safe for him."
Smiley is now in a nursing home. Evans and the hospital tried every known avenue to search for his identity.
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), working under the U.S. Department of Justice, has several databases, but does not currently have one that includes the living unidentified. But after being presented with a number of cases of living unidentified, they are developing a new database that they hope to launch by the end of this year.
"The traditional system is in dealing with unidentified deceased, but we know there are unidentified living," NamUs spokesman Todd Matthews told ABCNews.com. "We have to include the missing. They're missing from somewhere."
Matthews does not have an exact count on the number of cases, but NamUs is aware of "dozens" of men and women living without identities. He believes there are many more cases out there that have not been reported because hospitals and authorities don't know what to do with them.
"I think people have seen this as a homeless person and they've just fallen ill, but that's not always the case," Matthews said. "I think we're really going to have people to focus on this and see how many are out there."
"It's a real problem," he said.
Benjaman Kyle can tell you how big and bewildering the problem is. Kyle is a working, productive member of society, whose lack of identity is a daily struggle. He made up the name Benjamin Kyle just so he would have a name.
In August 2004, he was found naked, unresponsive and covered with fire ant bites behind a Burger King Dumpster in Richmond Hill, Ga. When he awoke in a hospital, he was confused.
"I had no idea who I was. I couldn't remember," Kyle told ABCNews.com. "I had no idea how I got there."
Dozens of People Live as John Doe, Not Knowing Who They Are
The hospital called him "BK unknown" since he was found behind a Burger King. He felt strongly that his first name was Benjaman, but could not remember his last name. When pressed by the hospital for a last name, he picked Kyle—the first name he could think of that started with a "k."
Fingerprints and searches in both national and international databases turned up no matches for Kyle. He has been fingerprinted more than five times by the FBI with no luck.
"A police officer in Georgia told me once that it means one of two things—either I've never committed a crime or I'm so good at it that I never got caught," he said with a laugh.
Despite maintaining a sense of humor, there is sadness and frustrations beneath the surface.
"I'm not in any of the databases that they can search," he said. "Basically, I don't exist. I'm a walking, talking person who is invisible to all the bureaucracy."
There are a few bits and pieces of his life that Kyle remembers.
He believes his birthday is Aug. 29, 1948, making him 64 years old. He remembers that date because it is exactly 10 years before Michael Jackson's birth date. He also thinks he was born in Indianapolis and recalls sitting in the library at the University of Colorado at some point.
Kyle has two scars on his elbow and no tattoos or piercings. He has been diagnosed with amnesia and does not know if whatever unknown events that led up to him ending up behind the Dumpster caused him to lose his memory.
John Wikstrom, 21, made a documentary about Kyle and found himself personally frustrated with how few resources there are for the living unidentified.
"People who are unidentified, there's nothing they can do. There's absolutely nothing," Wikstrom told ABCNews.com.
It's incredibly frustrating. It makes you want to appeal to the highest possible authority and figure out if someone can get him out of this mess. Someone has to be able to do something."
When making his film, Wikstrom was struck by how normal Kyle is, a typical functioning and productive member of society.
"He's witty and articulate. Talking to him, it's shocking and I think one of the more sobering facts when relating to him is because he's so relatable," he said. "He has a family somewhere, even if it's not an immediate family. This isn't just some strange, distant icicle of a man. This guy is fun, which is again, a very strange concept."
Wikstrom has posted the documentary, "Finding Benjaman," online and recently launched a website
dedicated to discovering Kyle's true identity.
Following the documentary's release, Kyle was able to get a special Florida state identification card, but still doesn't have a birth certificate or Social Security number. He has been told that due to the presumption that he was given a Social Security number at some point, he cannot get another one.
After hearing his story, a Florida restaurant gave him a job in the kitchen and a landowner is allowing him to live in a shed on his property. The restaurant owner is paying Kyle out-of-pocket because without any information, he can't be on the official payroll.
Kyle believes he may have worked in a restaurant in the past because once he was in the kitchen, he discovered that he knew how to work the machines and fix a broken stove.
Kyle acknowledges the naysayers who may accuse him of faking his condition, but insists there would be no reason to do so.
"You'll find a lot of people who say it's all bogus, that I'm faking it for whatever reason, but one thing's for sure—I'm not getting rich out of it," Kyle said. "I'm 64. I'm trying to get on with my life as best as I can. I figure I've got 10 more years to live considering my social and economic bracket. I can't make any long terms plans other than try to get along mostly day to day."
Also Read
Click green for further info
This article is for your private use, only
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What's the matter with Congress?
Not enough farmers and cowboys (interactive)
Not enough farmers and cowboys (interactive)
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Most Americans seem to agree that Congress is seeped in a primordial soup of dysfunction, to put it lightly. When it comes to how things got to this point, there are more theories than there are representatives to theorize about. Some say money has corrupted lawmakers, others say the electoral system is broken, and one guy even thinks the 435-member House is too small.
Most of these explanations are agnostic as to who the members of Congress actually are. As we gear up for another round of hearty outrage at our legislators—there’s a debt-ceiling vote coming up—I would like to propose an alternative explanation: If Americans want broad agreements from Congress, they are electing the wrong type of people. It’s not the system. It’s us.
To measure how the makeup of Congress has changed over the decades and centuries, I turned to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, which maintains short biographies of nearly every one of the 12,000 people to serve in the U.S. legislature since day one of the country.
Browsed at random, the biographies have roughly the entertainment value of an Ikea assembly guide, so I downloaded them all and put together a small search engine to scan them and look for how common different words are over time.
Here, for example, is how often the word "war" pops up in the bios of members in each of the 113 sessions of Congress since 1789:
Mentions of 'war' in congressional biographies
And here is the frequency of the word "farm":
Mentions of 'farm' in congressional biographiesYou can try it yourself here: Type in anything you like and see how often it shows up. Click a bar to see members who match the search for that particular two-year session of Congress, and click the name of the members to read the bio.
.
If you play around with this for a moment, you quickly see that Congress is subject to the same demographic trends as the country, though perhaps on a somewhat gentrified frequency. If you type in “university college”—you want to capture either word here to get everyone—you see that only half to two-thirds of biographies mention higher education through 1900. Only in the last few decades have these words become universal.
Or try "lawyer," and see how that blossoms since 1950. (The word "attorney," on the other hand, peaks in the 65th congress between 1917 and 1919.)
So is that the problem with Congress? Too much schoolin’ and too many lawyers? Or two few farmers? Or too few soldiers and farmers? You would think educated people well versed in the law would make excellent legislators, and those Army commercials lead me to understand that military service breeds excellent leadership skills.
Then again, you might also think a legislator’s primary job was to write legislation. It is not. Their job is to agree on legislation.
My theory for Congress’s dysfunction, only loosely burdened by evidence, is that its members are too heavily staffed with lawyers and bureaucrats, leading to a culture in which compromise is of a lower priority than political victory. If you spend any time in a state legislature, you see a different kind of assembly: people with fulltime jobs unaffiliated with the law who spend a few months a year in the state capitol. The nutjob quotient is decidedly higher, but so is the probability that unusual and useful coalitions will coalesce when the opportunity arises. (Of course, in just as many cases, everything falls apart in the state legislatures as well.)
Thus, the word I nominate as most indicative of Congress’ woes is “employed,” given its decline in usage over the past 30 years. I say this not to be snide—I trust virtually all members of Congress have held down a job—but because the word typically corresponds to members who worked in an industry outside government. (The 1920s Texas representative Claude Benton Hudspeth, for example, was “employed as a cowboy.”)
Mentions of 'employed' in congressional biographies.But there are better words out there, and I want your theories for what single word best captures the present state of Congress. Each time you search for a word, it updates the tweet button to the right of the search bar. When you find one you like, tweet it out and I’ll compile the most popular searches for an update to this column.
Click green for further info
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STAF, Inc. agrees with President Bush's statement
Bush wades into immigration debate,
says immigrants ‘invigorate our soul’
2012, December - Former President George W. Bush made a rare foray into public policy when he urged the nation's leaders to take a "benevolent" approach to reforming the nation's immigration system.
Bush, who has maintained a low political profile since departing office four years ago, spoke briefly about immigration at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, a talk that was part of a daylong conference on immigration and the economy.
"America can become a lawful society and a welcoming society at the same time," Bush said, (Click:) according to the Texas Tribune. "As our nation debates the proper course of action on immigration reform, I hope we do so with a benevolent spirit and keep in mind the contributions of immigrants.
"Not only do immigrants help build the economy, they invigorate our soul," Bush added.
Bush has said one of his major regrets about his presidency is that he did not manage to pass immigration reform. In 2007, he hammered out a deal that would have put millions of illegal immigrants in the country on a lengthy path to citizenship. The measure died in the Senate when Bush couldn't persuade enough members of his own party to vote to consider it.
Immigration reform is again a hot topic in Congress after President Barack Obama won more than 70 percent of the Hispanic vote in November. Some leading Republicans have said the party must address reform in order to stay competitive with the growing demographic. Last week, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, introduced a bill that would give young illegal immigrants visas if they join the military. So far, it's faced criticism from immigrant groups, who say they won't accept reform bills that don't provide full citizenship.
This article is for your private use, only
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Important data for all of us
12 facts
Data show immigrants enforce,
not threaten, US values
Click green for further info
There is a rich irony in such concern over whether immigrants will become productive members of society: On several traditional measures of American values and societal productivity,
(1) America’s native-born citizens are being outperformed by its immigrants – both legal and undocumented.
Studies show that immigrants applying for citizenship surpass American citizens on tests of knowledge of American history and civics. To take one example, in a 2012 telephone poll, Xavier University researchers found that
(2) Click green: 35 percent of Americans failed the civics section of the US naturalization test. In contrast, 97.5 percent of immigrants applying for citizenship passed the test in 2012.
(3) Data show both legal and illegal immigrants are less likely than the native born to break the law.
(4) The willingness to defend one’s country is generally considered a reliable measure of patriotism. As General George S. Patton once said, “The highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is that of bearing arms for one’s country.”
Immigrants have served with distinction in the US military in every major armed conflict since the Revolutionary War. And according to the Center for Naval Analysis, the three-month attrition rate*) of non-citizen soldiers is nearly twice that of US citizens.
*) attrition rate = 1: The action or process of gradually reducing the strength or effectiveness of someone or something through sustained attack or pressure. 2: The gradual reduction of a workforce by employees' leaving and not being replaced rather than by their being laid off - Synonyms = abrasion - wear - friction
Many thousands of men and women have made the journey from non-citizen immigrant to citizen while fighting, and sometimes dying, in the US military. The Pentagon estimates that roughly 8,000 non-citizens join the military every year, which can be a path to citizenship.
Law abidance*) is another basic marker of good citizenship. And studies show that both legal and illegal immigrants are less likely than the native born to break the law. That was the conclusion of a 2010 Cato Institute report, which cited a 2008 study by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), the state with the highest number of immigrants.
(5) It found that “US-born men have an institutionalization rate that is 10 times higher than that of foreign-born men.”
*) abidance = acting according to certain accepted standards = follow the letter of law
Overall, the PPIC Public Policy Institute of California researchers found that
(6) American-born adult men are two-and-a-half times more likely to be incarcerated than foreign-born men, including both legal and illegal immigrants.
(7) The Cato report cites Harvard sociologist Robert Sampson, who in 2006 concluded that immigrants have not increased crime in America, and that they could actually be part of the reason why crime has decreased so much.
Religiosity is also a traditional American value. In his book “Democracy in America,” Alexis De Tocqueville wrote: “Religion in America ... must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country.”
(8) Legal immigrants are more religious than native-born Americans. The most important recent shift in religious observance has been the rise of the “nones” – those with no religious affiliation, whose share of the adult population reached 20 percent in 2012, according to the Pew Forum. In contrast, a May 2013 Pew Form survey found that only 14 percent of legal immigrants are religiously unaffiliated, a share that has remained relatively stable over many years.
Also, as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush pointed out in a recent speech, immigrants’ families are more likely to be intact than those of native-born Americans. According to the Census Bureau’s most recent data,
(9) 39 percent of births to native-born Americans are to unwed mothers, while just 24 percent of births to foreign-born mothers are out of wedlock.
In many cases, native-born Americans aren’t doing as well in school as the children of recent immigrants.
(10) A February 2013 Pew Research Center survey found that immigrants’ children are more likely than the general population to have a bachelor’s degree (36 percent to 31 percent).
(11) The report also found that “second-generation Hispanics and Asians place more importance than does the general public on hard work and career success.”
(12) Finally, native-born Americans start fewer businesses than immigrants. In fact, they were half as likely as foreign-born Americans to start a new business in 2011.
Click: ONE MINUTE DEBATE: 3 views on how US should combat illegal immigration
According to the Pew Research Center, 46 percent of Americans believe “the growing number of newcomers threaten traditional American values.” But the data show otherwise. Newcomers reinforce – not undermine – American values.
Click green for further info
Source: Daniel Allott is a writer in Washington, D.C.
__________________________________________________
12 facts
Data show immigrants enforce,
not threaten, US values
Click green for further info
There is a rich irony in such concern over whether immigrants will become productive members of society: On several traditional measures of American values and societal productivity,
(1) America’s native-born citizens are being outperformed by its immigrants – both legal and undocumented.
Studies show that immigrants applying for citizenship surpass American citizens on tests of knowledge of American history and civics. To take one example, in a 2012 telephone poll, Xavier University researchers found that
(2) Click green: 35 percent of Americans failed the civics section of the US naturalization test. In contrast, 97.5 percent of immigrants applying for citizenship passed the test in 2012.
(3) Data show both legal and illegal immigrants are less likely than the native born to break the law.
(4) The willingness to defend one’s country is generally considered a reliable measure of patriotism. As General George S. Patton once said, “The highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is that of bearing arms for one’s country.”
Immigrants have served with distinction in the US military in every major armed conflict since the Revolutionary War. And according to the Center for Naval Analysis, the three-month attrition rate*) of non-citizen soldiers is nearly twice that of US citizens.
*) attrition rate = 1: The action or process of gradually reducing the strength or effectiveness of someone or something through sustained attack or pressure. 2: The gradual reduction of a workforce by employees' leaving and not being replaced rather than by their being laid off - Synonyms = abrasion - wear - friction
Many thousands of men and women have made the journey from non-citizen immigrant to citizen while fighting, and sometimes dying, in the US military. The Pentagon estimates that roughly 8,000 non-citizens join the military every year, which can be a path to citizenship.
Law abidance*) is another basic marker of good citizenship. And studies show that both legal and illegal immigrants are less likely than the native born to break the law. That was the conclusion of a 2010 Cato Institute report, which cited a 2008 study by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), the state with the highest number of immigrants.
(5) It found that “US-born men have an institutionalization rate that is 10 times higher than that of foreign-born men.”
*) abidance = acting according to certain accepted standards = follow the letter of law
Overall, the PPIC Public Policy Institute of California researchers found that
(6) American-born adult men are two-and-a-half times more likely to be incarcerated than foreign-born men, including both legal and illegal immigrants.
(7) The Cato report cites Harvard sociologist Robert Sampson, who in 2006 concluded that immigrants have not increased crime in America, and that they could actually be part of the reason why crime has decreased so much.
Religiosity is also a traditional American value. In his book “Democracy in America,” Alexis De Tocqueville wrote: “Religion in America ... must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country.”
(8) Legal immigrants are more religious than native-born Americans. The most important recent shift in religious observance has been the rise of the “nones” – those with no religious affiliation, whose share of the adult population reached 20 percent in 2012, according to the Pew Forum. In contrast, a May 2013 Pew Form survey found that only 14 percent of legal immigrants are religiously unaffiliated, a share that has remained relatively stable over many years.
Also, as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush pointed out in a recent speech, immigrants’ families are more likely to be intact than those of native-born Americans. According to the Census Bureau’s most recent data,
(9) 39 percent of births to native-born Americans are to unwed mothers, while just 24 percent of births to foreign-born mothers are out of wedlock.
In many cases, native-born Americans aren’t doing as well in school as the children of recent immigrants.
(10) A February 2013 Pew Research Center survey found that immigrants’ children are more likely than the general population to have a bachelor’s degree (36 percent to 31 percent).
(11) The report also found that “second-generation Hispanics and Asians place more importance than does the general public on hard work and career success.”
(12) Finally, native-born Americans start fewer businesses than immigrants. In fact, they were half as likely as foreign-born Americans to start a new business in 2011.
Click: ONE MINUTE DEBATE: 3 views on how US should combat illegal immigration
According to the Pew Research Center, 46 percent of Americans believe “the growing number of newcomers threaten traditional American values.” But the data show otherwise. Newcomers reinforce – not undermine – American values.
Click green for further info
Source: Daniel Allott is a writer in Washington, D.C.
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Read this article - interesting info relating to immigration
My Grandfather, the Outlaw
By FRANK BRUNI
NYT
MY father’s father embodied the American dream. His is the kind of story trumpeted from the stages of our political conventions, the kind of life held up as an affirmation of the rewards this country holds for people willing to take chances, work like crazy and insist on something better for their children than they themselves ever knew.
He left Southern Italy in his early 20s, alone, with only enough cash to make it to the United States and last a short time here. It was 1929. He arrived just months before Black Tuesday and the dawn of the Great Depression and found himself scrounging for day labor as a stonemason.
And somehow, just barely, he stayed afloat and pressed on until the Depression began to lift. Until his luck turned. Until he could make a down payment on a small grocery store — a bodega, really — where he, his wife and my father, the eldest of their three sons, toiled so late into the night that the family dinner was often eaten in a stark, sad room in the back. Until his sons went off to Ivy League colleges and became great successes in their respective fields. And until he saw his grandchildren growing up in spacious homes in leafy suburbs, our charmed youths utterly unrecognizable from his own.
Did I mention that he was an illegal alien?
He took a ship to Canada from France, then entered the United States across a border that immigration historians tell me was famously porous then. A train deposited him in Manhattan, and soon after he settled in the nearby city of White Plains, which had a populous Italian community. He was undocumented, living off the books and outside the law, and remained so for about a decade before finally becoming a citizen.
The details of all of this are fuzzy: he died in 1980, and his wife — my grandmother, also an Italian immigrant — is long gone as well. What remains are their sons’ imperfect memories. But my dad and his brothers know that for a long time, like the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants at the center of our current political debate, Mauro Bruni wasn’t supposed to be here. He was trespassing in the country he came to love more fiercely than the one he’d left, the country in which his children and their children would lead highly productive lives, pay many millions of dollars in taxes over time, and get to be a small part of the decision, as voters, about how we were going to treat his spiritual descendants, who traveled here as he did: without explicit invitations or official authorization but with such ferocious energy, such enormous hope.
More Americans than admit or even know it have roots like mine and are the flowers of illegal immigration. And while that doesn’t diminish our need to make cleareyed and sometimes difficult assessments about how many newcomers we can accommodate and what degree of present forgiveness equals future enticement, it must inform our understanding of the people whose tomorrows are in the balance. Their countries of origin tend to be different from those of the illicit arrivals in my grandfather’s day. Their skin might be darker. But they’re really his kin. My kin. And to see them as some new breed of takers or moochers is to deny history and indulge in a cynical generalization, tinged with an insidious racism, whose targets simply change over time.
The uncertain journeys that wave after wave of immigrants have undertaken and the daily sacrifices that such transplants have made reflect a degree of grit that many of the American-born people I know have never been forced to muster, a magnitude of drive that we don’t possess. It wasn’t necessary for us. Wasn’t make or break. And these qualities have contributed in a mighty and essential way to this country’s dynamism, to its competitiveness.
Coming from southern Europe, Mauro Bruni was considered different from, and less desirable than, an immigrant from northern Europe. Donna Gabaccia, the former director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota, noted that in some circles back then, “Italians and others were ‘not quite white’ or ‘in between’ people.” From 1899 to 1924, she said, immigration officials even made distinctions among Italians. Those from the country’s north were more welcomed than those, like Mauro, from its south.
He spoke no English. The one person he knew in America couldn’t give him financial support or, for that matter, even put him up for the night. He had no safety net — and wasn’t looking to the government for one, because he couldn’t have the government looking his way. His health, his trade, his determination: these were his only assets.
On his first nights here, he paid by the night for a bed in a communal room. He took what masonry jobs he could get, whether they lasted just days or weeks. One of the best was at West Point, where he constructed a long stone wall. His sweat and that of other illegal immigrants went into the gilding of the United States Military Academy, if the accounts that he gave his sons are correct.
In White Plains he met my grandmother, who had managed to come here legally and was a citizen. They married in 1933, and in part because of that, he was later able to declare himself and, through a kind of amnesty, be anointed an American. This had happened by 1941, which was around the time he bought his market.
WERE there taxes evaded before he was documented? No doubt, but they couldn’t have amounted to much, given his income. The long view is this: he was a taxpayer for more years than he wasn’t, and he was the sire of many taxpayers to come. Among his children and grandchildren, there is no one on the dole, no one behind bars, a range of contributions to the vibrancy of this country, a panoply of professions: partner in an international accounting firm, college dean, owner of a plumbing company, investment banker, journalist, management consultant, headhunter, theater director, teacher, professional figure skater.
My grandfather and my grandmother Adelina indeed wanted to wring America for all it was worth. That was selfish, but also very fruitful. And their patriotism was all the stronger because America wasn’t their birthright but their choice. Their wager. They were invested in seeing it as the best possible decision, the only right call.
When I recently asked my Uncle Jim, their middle son, how intent they were on weaving their children into the fabric of this land, he told me about my grandmother’s early relationship with my own mother, whose Irish-English-Scottish family had been here for generations. Adelina Bruni would keep Leslie Jane Frier up late at night, just to prolong the conversation and listen awhile longer to my mother, who didn’t sound like any of Grandma’s friends. Grandma loved the music of Mom’s precise, unaccented English. It was the music of assimilation.
___________________________________________________________
My Grandfather, the Outlaw
By FRANK BRUNI
NYT
MY father’s father embodied the American dream. His is the kind of story trumpeted from the stages of our political conventions, the kind of life held up as an affirmation of the rewards this country holds for people willing to take chances, work like crazy and insist on something better for their children than they themselves ever knew.
He left Southern Italy in his early 20s, alone, with only enough cash to make it to the United States and last a short time here. It was 1929. He arrived just months before Black Tuesday and the dawn of the Great Depression and found himself scrounging for day labor as a stonemason.
And somehow, just barely, he stayed afloat and pressed on until the Depression began to lift. Until his luck turned. Until he could make a down payment on a small grocery store — a bodega, really — where he, his wife and my father, the eldest of their three sons, toiled so late into the night that the family dinner was often eaten in a stark, sad room in the back. Until his sons went off to Ivy League colleges and became great successes in their respective fields. And until he saw his grandchildren growing up in spacious homes in leafy suburbs, our charmed youths utterly unrecognizable from his own.
Did I mention that he was an illegal alien?
He took a ship to Canada from France, then entered the United States across a border that immigration historians tell me was famously porous then. A train deposited him in Manhattan, and soon after he settled in the nearby city of White Plains, which had a populous Italian community. He was undocumented, living off the books and outside the law, and remained so for about a decade before finally becoming a citizen.
The details of all of this are fuzzy: he died in 1980, and his wife — my grandmother, also an Italian immigrant — is long gone as well. What remains are their sons’ imperfect memories. But my dad and his brothers know that for a long time, like the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants at the center of our current political debate, Mauro Bruni wasn’t supposed to be here. He was trespassing in the country he came to love more fiercely than the one he’d left, the country in which his children and their children would lead highly productive lives, pay many millions of dollars in taxes over time, and get to be a small part of the decision, as voters, about how we were going to treat his spiritual descendants, who traveled here as he did: without explicit invitations or official authorization but with such ferocious energy, such enormous hope.
More Americans than admit or even know it have roots like mine and are the flowers of illegal immigration. And while that doesn’t diminish our need to make cleareyed and sometimes difficult assessments about how many newcomers we can accommodate and what degree of present forgiveness equals future enticement, it must inform our understanding of the people whose tomorrows are in the balance. Their countries of origin tend to be different from those of the illicit arrivals in my grandfather’s day. Their skin might be darker. But they’re really his kin. My kin. And to see them as some new breed of takers or moochers is to deny history and indulge in a cynical generalization, tinged with an insidious racism, whose targets simply change over time.
The uncertain journeys that wave after wave of immigrants have undertaken and the daily sacrifices that such transplants have made reflect a degree of grit that many of the American-born people I know have never been forced to muster, a magnitude of drive that we don’t possess. It wasn’t necessary for us. Wasn’t make or break. And these qualities have contributed in a mighty and essential way to this country’s dynamism, to its competitiveness.
Coming from southern Europe, Mauro Bruni was considered different from, and less desirable than, an immigrant from northern Europe. Donna Gabaccia, the former director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota, noted that in some circles back then, “Italians and others were ‘not quite white’ or ‘in between’ people.” From 1899 to 1924, she said, immigration officials even made distinctions among Italians. Those from the country’s north were more welcomed than those, like Mauro, from its south.
He spoke no English. The one person he knew in America couldn’t give him financial support or, for that matter, even put him up for the night. He had no safety net — and wasn’t looking to the government for one, because he couldn’t have the government looking his way. His health, his trade, his determination: these were his only assets.
On his first nights here, he paid by the night for a bed in a communal room. He took what masonry jobs he could get, whether they lasted just days or weeks. One of the best was at West Point, where he constructed a long stone wall. His sweat and that of other illegal immigrants went into the gilding of the United States Military Academy, if the accounts that he gave his sons are correct.
In White Plains he met my grandmother, who had managed to come here legally and was a citizen. They married in 1933, and in part because of that, he was later able to declare himself and, through a kind of amnesty, be anointed an American. This had happened by 1941, which was around the time he bought his market.
WERE there taxes evaded before he was documented? No doubt, but they couldn’t have amounted to much, given his income. The long view is this: he was a taxpayer for more years than he wasn’t, and he was the sire of many taxpayers to come. Among his children and grandchildren, there is no one on the dole, no one behind bars, a range of contributions to the vibrancy of this country, a panoply of professions: partner in an international accounting firm, college dean, owner of a plumbing company, investment banker, journalist, management consultant, headhunter, theater director, teacher, professional figure skater.
My grandfather and my grandmother Adelina indeed wanted to wring America for all it was worth. That was selfish, but also very fruitful. And their patriotism was all the stronger because America wasn’t their birthright but their choice. Their wager. They were invested in seeing it as the best possible decision, the only right call.
When I recently asked my Uncle Jim, their middle son, how intent they were on weaving their children into the fabric of this land, he told me about my grandmother’s early relationship with my own mother, whose Irish-English-Scottish family had been here for generations. Adelina Bruni would keep Leslie Jane Frier up late at night, just to prolong the conversation and listen awhile longer to my mother, who didn’t sound like any of Grandma’s friends. Grandma loved the music of Mom’s precise, unaccented English. It was the music of assimilation.
___________________________________________________________
Article 1 of 3
April 20, 2013
Relates to The Boston Marathon Bombing in April 2013
F.B.I. Interview Led Homeland Security
to Hold Up Citizenship for One Brother
Click green for further info
Department of Homeland Security officials decided in recent months not to grant an application for American citizenship by Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of two brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings, after a routine background check revealed that he had been interviewed in 2011 by the F.B.I., federal officials said on Saturday.
Mr. Tsarnaev died early Friday after a shootout with the police, and officials said that at the time of his death, his application for citizenship was still under review and was being investigated by federal law enforcement officials.
It had been previously reported that Mr. Tsarnaev’s application might have been held up because of a domestic abuse episode. But the officials said that it was the record of the F.B.I. interview that threw up red flags and halted, at least temporarily, Mr. Tsarnaev’s citizenship application. Federal law enforcement officials reported on Friday that the F.B.I. interviewed Mr. Tsarnaev in January 2011 at the request of the Russian government, which suspected that he had ties to Chechen terrorists.
The officials pointed to the decision to hold up that application as evidence that his encounter with the F.B.I. did not fall through the cracks in the vast criminal and national security databases that the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. review as a standard requirement for citizenship. The application, which Mr. Tsarnaev presented on Sept. 5, also prompted “additional investigation” of him this year by federal law enforcement agencies, according to the officials. They declined to say how far that examination had progressed or what it covered.
The handling of Mr. Tsarnaev’s application could be crucial for the Obama administration in the Senate debate that began this week over a bipartisan bill, which the president supports, for a sweeping immigration overhaul. Some Republicans skeptical of the bill have said they will watch the Boston bombings investigation to see if it reveals security lapses in the immigration system that should be closed before Congress proceeds to other parts of the bill, including a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
The record of the F.B.I. interview was enough to cause Homeland Security to hold up Mr. Tsarnaev’s application. He presented those papers several weeks after he returned from a six-month trip overseas, primarily to Russia, and only six days after his brother, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, had his own citizenship application approved. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is in custody and is in serious condition in a hospital.
Late last year, Homeland Security officials contacted the F.B.I. to learn more about its interview with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, federal law enforcement officials said. The F.B.I. reported its conclusion that he did not present a threat.
At that point, Homeland Security officials did not move to approve the application nor did they deny it, but they left it open for “additional review.”
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s record also showed that he had been involved in an episode of domestic violence in 2009. His father, Anzor, said in an interview on Friday in the Russian republic of Dagestan, where he lives, that Tamerlan had an argument with a girlfriend and that he “hit her lightly.”
Under immigration law, certain domestic violence offenses can disqualify an immigrant from becoming an American citizen, and perhaps expose him to deportation. But the Homeland Security review found that while Mr. Tsarnaev was arrested, he was not convicted in the episode. The law requires a serious criminal conviction in a domestic violence case for officials to initiate deportation, federal officials said.
Both Tsarnaev brothers came to the United States and remained here legally under an asylum petition in 2002 by their father, who claimed he feared for his life because of his activities in Chechnya. Both sons applied for citizenship after they had been living here as legal permanent residents for at least five years, as the law requires.
Click green for further info
Source: NYT
______________________________________________________
April 20, 2013
Relates to The Boston Marathon Bombing in April 2013
F.B.I. Interview Led Homeland Security
to Hold Up Citizenship for One Brother
Click green for further info
Department of Homeland Security officials decided in recent months not to grant an application for American citizenship by Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of two brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings, after a routine background check revealed that he had been interviewed in 2011 by the F.B.I., federal officials said on Saturday.
Mr. Tsarnaev died early Friday after a shootout with the police, and officials said that at the time of his death, his application for citizenship was still under review and was being investigated by federal law enforcement officials.
It had been previously reported that Mr. Tsarnaev’s application might have been held up because of a domestic abuse episode. But the officials said that it was the record of the F.B.I. interview that threw up red flags and halted, at least temporarily, Mr. Tsarnaev’s citizenship application. Federal law enforcement officials reported on Friday that the F.B.I. interviewed Mr. Tsarnaev in January 2011 at the request of the Russian government, which suspected that he had ties to Chechen terrorists.
The officials pointed to the decision to hold up that application as evidence that his encounter with the F.B.I. did not fall through the cracks in the vast criminal and national security databases that the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. review as a standard requirement for citizenship. The application, which Mr. Tsarnaev presented on Sept. 5, also prompted “additional investigation” of him this year by federal law enforcement agencies, according to the officials. They declined to say how far that examination had progressed or what it covered.
The handling of Mr. Tsarnaev’s application could be crucial for the Obama administration in the Senate debate that began this week over a bipartisan bill, which the president supports, for a sweeping immigration overhaul. Some Republicans skeptical of the bill have said they will watch the Boston bombings investigation to see if it reveals security lapses in the immigration system that should be closed before Congress proceeds to other parts of the bill, including a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
The record of the F.B.I. interview was enough to cause Homeland Security to hold up Mr. Tsarnaev’s application. He presented those papers several weeks after he returned from a six-month trip overseas, primarily to Russia, and only six days after his brother, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, had his own citizenship application approved. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is in custody and is in serious condition in a hospital.
Late last year, Homeland Security officials contacted the F.B.I. to learn more about its interview with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, federal law enforcement officials said. The F.B.I. reported its conclusion that he did not present a threat.
At that point, Homeland Security officials did not move to approve the application nor did they deny it, but they left it open for “additional review.”
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s record also showed that he had been involved in an episode of domestic violence in 2009. His father, Anzor, said in an interview on Friday in the Russian republic of Dagestan, where he lives, that Tamerlan had an argument with a girlfriend and that he “hit her lightly.”
Under immigration law, certain domestic violence offenses can disqualify an immigrant from becoming an American citizen, and perhaps expose him to deportation. But the Homeland Security review found that while Mr. Tsarnaev was arrested, he was not convicted in the episode. The law requires a serious criminal conviction in a domestic violence case for officials to initiate deportation, federal officials said.
Both Tsarnaev brothers came to the United States and remained here legally under an asylum petition in 2002 by their father, who claimed he feared for his life because of his activities in Chechnya. Both sons applied for citizenship after they had been living here as legal permanent residents for at least five years, as the law requires.
Click green for further info
Source: NYT
______________________________________________________
Article 2 of 3
April 20, 2013
Relates to The Boston Marathon Bombing in April 2013
Legal Questions Riddle
Boston Marathon Case
Click green for further info
The capture of the Boston Marathon bombing suspect raises a host of freighted legal issues for a society still feeling the shadow of Sept. 11, including whether he should be read a Miranda warning, how he should be charged, where he might be tried and whether the bombings on Boylston Street last Monday were a crime or an act of war.
The suspect, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, was taken, bleeding, to a hospital on Friday night, and it remained unclear on Saturday whether he was conscious.
The authorities would typically arraign a suspect in a courtroom by Monday, a process that involves his being represented by a lawyer.
Most experts expected the case to be handled by the federal authorities, who were preparing a criminal complaint, including the use of weapons of mass destruction, which can carry the death penalty because deaths resulted from the blasts.
The decision to seek the death penalty must be made by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. Under federal law, prosecutors must go through what is known within the Justice Department as a death-penalty protocol, under which the United States Attorney’s Office and Justice Department lawyers in Washington analyze all aspects of the crime, as well as the defendant’s background, criminal history and other characteristics.
“I think we can expect the prosecution to put together a meticulous case based on the forensic evidence, the videos, eyewitness testimony and any statements that the surviving defendant makes to the authorities,” said Kelly T. Currie, who led the Violent Crimes and Terrorism section in the Brooklyn United States Attorney’s Office from 2006 to 2008, where he supervised a number of terrorism prosecutions.
“I would think it’s going to be a very strong case, and ultimately all the pieces put together are cumulatively going to show a pretty full mosaic of this defendant’s actions leading up to the attack and in its wake,” Mr. Currie said.
Massachusetts has no death penalty, so a defense attorney in this case might seek to have the case tried in state court. State and county officials might also be eager to prosecute the defendant in the deaths of four of their residents.
President Obama described the attack that Mr. Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, 26, were accused of committing as “terrorism.” Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed.
The administration has said it planned to begin questioning the younger Mr. Tsarnaev for a period without delivering the Miranda warning that he had a right to remain silent and to have a lawyer present.
Normally such a warning is necessary if prosecutors want to introduce statements made by a suspect in custody as evidence in court, but the administration said it was invoking an exception for questions about immediate threats to public safety. The Justice Department has pressed the view that in terrorism cases the length of time and type of questioning that fall under that exception is broader than what would be permissible in ordinary criminal cases, a view upheld by a federal judge in the case of the man convicted of trying to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner in 2009.
Civil libertarians have objected to the more aggressive interpretation of the exception to the Miranda rule, which protects the Constitutional right against involuntary self-incrimination. Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that it would be acceptable to withhold Miranda before asking whether there were any more bombs hidden in Boston, but that once the F.B.I. went into broader questioning, it must not “cut corners.”
But some prosecutors suggested that if any confession was unnecessary to convict him, then the F.B.I. might keep him talking without a warning without ultimately invoking the more disputed version of the public-safety exception to introduce it in court.
“I see a fairly strong case against this young man based on a great deal of evidence so, as a prosecutor, the top of my list would not be necessarily to Mirandize him and get a usable confession,” said David Raskin, a former federal prosecutor in terrorism cases in New York.
At the same time, some Republican senators, including John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, argued that using the criminal-justice system was a mistake and that Mr. Tsarnaev should instead be held indefinitely by the military as an “enemy combatant,” under the laws of war, and questioned without any Miranda warning or legal representation, in order to gain intelligence.
Still, there is not yet any public evidence suggesting that Mr. Tsarnaev was part of Al Qaeda or its associated forces — the specific enemy with which the United States is engaged in an armed conflict. And some legal specialists also doubted that the Constitution would permit holding a suspect like Mr. Tsarnaev as an enemy combatant.
“This is an American citizen being tried for a crime that occurred domestically, and there is simply no way to treat him like an enemy combatant — not even close,” said Alan M. Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor and seasoned defense lawyer.
Whether legal proceedings take place in state or federal court — and both could occur, one after the other — a defense lawyer for Mr. Tsarnaev could contend that a fair trial was impossible in the Boston area and seek to have it moved. The lawyer could argue that so many people in Boston were affected by the bombings that no objective jury could be empaneled. The trial of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber responsible for killing scores and injuring hundreds in 1995, was moved to Colorado.
On the other hand, witnesses and officials are all in the Boston area, and a trial that required them to travel extensively could be seen by a judge as an inappropriate burden on the community.
Based on statements by the authorities to date, the case against Mr. Tsarnaev appears relatively strong. The F.B.I. released videos showing him and his brother at the marathon in the area of the explosions, carrying backpacks like those that forensic tests indicated contained the pressure-cooker bombs that killed three and maimed scores. Boston’s top F.B.I. official said when the videos were released that Mr. Tsarnaev, then identified as Suspect 2, placed one bag at the site of the second explosion, outside the Forum restaurant, moments before the second blast.
Law-enforcement officials have also said the brothers admitted to the bombings — as well as to the killing on Thursday night of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus police officer — to a man whose car they stole at gunpoint. There is, in addition, the possibility of testimony by one of the bombing victims, a man whose legs were blown off, who told the F.B.I. that he saw Tamerlan Tsarnaev place the other bomb.
Officers who exchanged gunfire with the brothers Friday morning would also be witnesses, and their testimony would most likely focus on the gun battle.
Thomas Anthony Durkin, a defense lawyer and former assistant United States attorney in Chicago, said he doubted that a fair trial could be had for Mr. Tsarnaev anywhere in the country, given the emotion around the case. In any case, he said, the primary goal of a defense lawyer would be “to save his life.”
To that end, he and others said, three factors would most likely be highlighted — Mr. Tsarnaev’s relative youth, at 19; the influence his older brother seems to have had on him; and his own impressive past of sports, friendships and academic performance.
Mr. Dershowitz, who said that any lawyer who took the case would become the most despised person in the country, agreed that a number of factors should play a role in preventing the death penalty. On the other hand, he noted, Mr. Tsarnaev is accused of putting down “a bag full of nails and bombs in front of an 8-year-old kid, and that will probably trump everything.”
Click: Bomb Suspect Is Charged and Could Face the Death Penalty
Click green for further info
Source: NYT
________________________________________________________________
April 20, 2013
Relates to The Boston Marathon Bombing in April 2013
Legal Questions Riddle
Boston Marathon Case
Click green for further info
The capture of the Boston Marathon bombing suspect raises a host of freighted legal issues for a society still feeling the shadow of Sept. 11, including whether he should be read a Miranda warning, how he should be charged, where he might be tried and whether the bombings on Boylston Street last Monday were a crime or an act of war.
The suspect, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, was taken, bleeding, to a hospital on Friday night, and it remained unclear on Saturday whether he was conscious.
The authorities would typically arraign a suspect in a courtroom by Monday, a process that involves his being represented by a lawyer.
Most experts expected the case to be handled by the federal authorities, who were preparing a criminal complaint, including the use of weapons of mass destruction, which can carry the death penalty because deaths resulted from the blasts.
The decision to seek the death penalty must be made by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. Under federal law, prosecutors must go through what is known within the Justice Department as a death-penalty protocol, under which the United States Attorney’s Office and Justice Department lawyers in Washington analyze all aspects of the crime, as well as the defendant’s background, criminal history and other characteristics.
“I think we can expect the prosecution to put together a meticulous case based on the forensic evidence, the videos, eyewitness testimony and any statements that the surviving defendant makes to the authorities,” said Kelly T. Currie, who led the Violent Crimes and Terrorism section in the Brooklyn United States Attorney’s Office from 2006 to 2008, where he supervised a number of terrorism prosecutions.
“I would think it’s going to be a very strong case, and ultimately all the pieces put together are cumulatively going to show a pretty full mosaic of this defendant’s actions leading up to the attack and in its wake,” Mr. Currie said.
Massachusetts has no death penalty, so a defense attorney in this case might seek to have the case tried in state court. State and county officials might also be eager to prosecute the defendant in the deaths of four of their residents.
President Obama described the attack that Mr. Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, 26, were accused of committing as “terrorism.” Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed.
The administration has said it planned to begin questioning the younger Mr. Tsarnaev for a period without delivering the Miranda warning that he had a right to remain silent and to have a lawyer present.
Normally such a warning is necessary if prosecutors want to introduce statements made by a suspect in custody as evidence in court, but the administration said it was invoking an exception for questions about immediate threats to public safety. The Justice Department has pressed the view that in terrorism cases the length of time and type of questioning that fall under that exception is broader than what would be permissible in ordinary criminal cases, a view upheld by a federal judge in the case of the man convicted of trying to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner in 2009.
Civil libertarians have objected to the more aggressive interpretation of the exception to the Miranda rule, which protects the Constitutional right against involuntary self-incrimination. Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that it would be acceptable to withhold Miranda before asking whether there were any more bombs hidden in Boston, but that once the F.B.I. went into broader questioning, it must not “cut corners.”
But some prosecutors suggested that if any confession was unnecessary to convict him, then the F.B.I. might keep him talking without a warning without ultimately invoking the more disputed version of the public-safety exception to introduce it in court.
“I see a fairly strong case against this young man based on a great deal of evidence so, as a prosecutor, the top of my list would not be necessarily to Mirandize him and get a usable confession,” said David Raskin, a former federal prosecutor in terrorism cases in New York.
At the same time, some Republican senators, including John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, argued that using the criminal-justice system was a mistake and that Mr. Tsarnaev should instead be held indefinitely by the military as an “enemy combatant,” under the laws of war, and questioned without any Miranda warning or legal representation, in order to gain intelligence.
Still, there is not yet any public evidence suggesting that Mr. Tsarnaev was part of Al Qaeda or its associated forces — the specific enemy with which the United States is engaged in an armed conflict. And some legal specialists also doubted that the Constitution would permit holding a suspect like Mr. Tsarnaev as an enemy combatant.
“This is an American citizen being tried for a crime that occurred domestically, and there is simply no way to treat him like an enemy combatant — not even close,” said Alan M. Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor and seasoned defense lawyer.
Whether legal proceedings take place in state or federal court — and both could occur, one after the other — a defense lawyer for Mr. Tsarnaev could contend that a fair trial was impossible in the Boston area and seek to have it moved. The lawyer could argue that so many people in Boston were affected by the bombings that no objective jury could be empaneled. The trial of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber responsible for killing scores and injuring hundreds in 1995, was moved to Colorado.
On the other hand, witnesses and officials are all in the Boston area, and a trial that required them to travel extensively could be seen by a judge as an inappropriate burden on the community.
Based on statements by the authorities to date, the case against Mr. Tsarnaev appears relatively strong. The F.B.I. released videos showing him and his brother at the marathon in the area of the explosions, carrying backpacks like those that forensic tests indicated contained the pressure-cooker bombs that killed three and maimed scores. Boston’s top F.B.I. official said when the videos were released that Mr. Tsarnaev, then identified as Suspect 2, placed one bag at the site of the second explosion, outside the Forum restaurant, moments before the second blast.
Law-enforcement officials have also said the brothers admitted to the bombings — as well as to the killing on Thursday night of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus police officer — to a man whose car they stole at gunpoint. There is, in addition, the possibility of testimony by one of the bombing victims, a man whose legs were blown off, who told the F.B.I. that he saw Tamerlan Tsarnaev place the other bomb.
Officers who exchanged gunfire with the brothers Friday morning would also be witnesses, and their testimony would most likely focus on the gun battle.
Thomas Anthony Durkin, a defense lawyer and former assistant United States attorney in Chicago, said he doubted that a fair trial could be had for Mr. Tsarnaev anywhere in the country, given the emotion around the case. In any case, he said, the primary goal of a defense lawyer would be “to save his life.”
To that end, he and others said, three factors would most likely be highlighted — Mr. Tsarnaev’s relative youth, at 19; the influence his older brother seems to have had on him; and his own impressive past of sports, friendships and academic performance.
Mr. Dershowitz, who said that any lawyer who took the case would become the most despised person in the country, agreed that a number of factors should play a role in preventing the death penalty. On the other hand, he noted, Mr. Tsarnaev is accused of putting down “a bag full of nails and bombs in front of an 8-year-old kid, and that will probably trump everything.”
Click: Bomb Suspect Is Charged and Could Face the Death Penalty
Click green for further info
Source: NYT
________________________________________________________________
Article 3 of 3
April 20, 2013
Relates to The Boston Marathon Bombing in April 2013
Bombing Suspects’ Immigration Story
Adds Layer to Debate on Overhaul
With the television in her pizzeria showing an endless loop of the Boston manhunt on Friday, Bessie Kontis glanced up at scenes of the quasi-military lockdown and shuddered.
“After something like that happens, they should stop all visas, for crying out loud,” said Ms. Kontis, 58, who owns New Wayne Pizza with her husband, Alex. “It’s insane. It just angers me.”
Ms. Kontis was born in Greece and immigrated to the United States as a child, but when two men of Chechen heritage were identified as the suspects in the fatal Boston Marathon bombings, her usually broad views about immigration became colored by concerns for national security.
“That is who’s coming in,” she said. “We don’t know what kind of people they are. The bottom line is we have to stop being goody-goody Americans.”
As a national debate over major immigration reform begins in Congress, some opponents are pointing to the Boston bombings as cause for concern about expanding visa programs and offering millions of illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.
On Friday, Senator Charles E. Grassley, a senior Iowa Republican on the committee debating the plan, which is proposed by a bipartisan group of eight senators, said the terrorist bombings should figure into the debate. Some conservative commentators and Congressional Republicans want to shift the focus away from economic and humanitarian concerns to border security and the potential threat from terrorists entering the country.
How successful their efforts turn out to be, and whether Boston slows momentum for change, could depend on how many citizens express views like Ms. Kontis’s.
But judging by a sampling of voters in one politically divided region, the western suburbs of Philadelphia, the Boston bombings may be an imperfect test case for opponents of reform.
In interviews Friday night, as the denouement of the manhunt played out in the hours when people gathered in taverns or strolled the streets on a pleasant evening, many mentioned that the two brothers linked to the attacks — Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, who was captured Friday, and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who was killed earlier — had arrived in the country a decade earlier, with a father who claimed asylum because of the conflict in their homeland. They could hardly have been identified by more vigilant border control, people said.
“You can’t stop people who came into the U.S. who 10 years later do bad things,” said Andrew Factor, 26, an investment adviser who stopped outside his office on the main street here. “We’re supposed to screen for terrorists when kids are 9 and 16?”
Nonetheless, the details of the Tsarnaev family’s odyssey may become lost in a larger debate over immigration policy, an issue that evokes visceral reactions. Two Republican senators favoring reform, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona, warned Friday of bringing Boston into the debate and insisted an overhaul would tighten security “by helping us identify exactly who has entered our country and who has left.”
But that message was not always embraced. “I’m a little more of an extremist now after what happened in Boston,” said Greg Ricker, 41, a stockbroker, as he stepped outside the Flying Pig Saloon in Malvern for a cigarette. “I think we should just stop letting people in.”
Like nearby Wayne, Malvern is part of a suburban belt that has grown more Democratic in recent elections. Attitudes toward immigration reform seem to be changing, in part along generational lines. Frank Cunningham, a 27-year-old accountant, said that he, unlike his father, favors a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country.
“The way I was raised, my dad says, ‘If you come into the country illegally, you don’t deserve to be here,’ ” Mr. Cunningham said. “But I’m wondering who is going to do those jobs?”
Gary Burnett, 35, said he favored a path to citizenship and expanded permanent-resident visas for those waiting outside the country, because the nation is already part of a global economy.
As a software engineer, he said, “I compete with the entire world already. I have to be able to do the work of at least three people in Asia to compete.”
He thought the potential that some immigrants might turn out to be terrorists was a red herring.
Melvin Cook, 57, who was buying a pizza, went further. He accused politicians of exploiting the Boston bombing. “They’re trying to put fear into us of immigrants,” he said. Mr. Cook, a truck driver, said of illegal immigrants, “The jobs they’re getting, nobody wants.”
Click Bomb Suspect Is Charged and Could Face the Death Penalty
Click green for further info
Source: NYT
__________________________________________________________
April 20, 2013
Relates to The Boston Marathon Bombing in April 2013
Bombing Suspects’ Immigration Story
Adds Layer to Debate on Overhaul
With the television in her pizzeria showing an endless loop of the Boston manhunt on Friday, Bessie Kontis glanced up at scenes of the quasi-military lockdown and shuddered.
“After something like that happens, they should stop all visas, for crying out loud,” said Ms. Kontis, 58, who owns New Wayne Pizza with her husband, Alex. “It’s insane. It just angers me.”
Ms. Kontis was born in Greece and immigrated to the United States as a child, but when two men of Chechen heritage were identified as the suspects in the fatal Boston Marathon bombings, her usually broad views about immigration became colored by concerns for national security.
“That is who’s coming in,” she said. “We don’t know what kind of people they are. The bottom line is we have to stop being goody-goody Americans.”
As a national debate over major immigration reform begins in Congress, some opponents are pointing to the Boston bombings as cause for concern about expanding visa programs and offering millions of illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.
On Friday, Senator Charles E. Grassley, a senior Iowa Republican on the committee debating the plan, which is proposed by a bipartisan group of eight senators, said the terrorist bombings should figure into the debate. Some conservative commentators and Congressional Republicans want to shift the focus away from economic and humanitarian concerns to border security and the potential threat from terrorists entering the country.
How successful their efforts turn out to be, and whether Boston slows momentum for change, could depend on how many citizens express views like Ms. Kontis’s.
But judging by a sampling of voters in one politically divided region, the western suburbs of Philadelphia, the Boston bombings may be an imperfect test case for opponents of reform.
In interviews Friday night, as the denouement of the manhunt played out in the hours when people gathered in taverns or strolled the streets on a pleasant evening, many mentioned that the two brothers linked to the attacks — Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, who was captured Friday, and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who was killed earlier — had arrived in the country a decade earlier, with a father who claimed asylum because of the conflict in their homeland. They could hardly have been identified by more vigilant border control, people said.
“You can’t stop people who came into the U.S. who 10 years later do bad things,” said Andrew Factor, 26, an investment adviser who stopped outside his office on the main street here. “We’re supposed to screen for terrorists when kids are 9 and 16?”
Nonetheless, the details of the Tsarnaev family’s odyssey may become lost in a larger debate over immigration policy, an issue that evokes visceral reactions. Two Republican senators favoring reform, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona, warned Friday of bringing Boston into the debate and insisted an overhaul would tighten security “by helping us identify exactly who has entered our country and who has left.”
But that message was not always embraced. “I’m a little more of an extremist now after what happened in Boston,” said Greg Ricker, 41, a stockbroker, as he stepped outside the Flying Pig Saloon in Malvern for a cigarette. “I think we should just stop letting people in.”
Like nearby Wayne, Malvern is part of a suburban belt that has grown more Democratic in recent elections. Attitudes toward immigration reform seem to be changing, in part along generational lines. Frank Cunningham, a 27-year-old accountant, said that he, unlike his father, favors a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country.
“The way I was raised, my dad says, ‘If you come into the country illegally, you don’t deserve to be here,’ ” Mr. Cunningham said. “But I’m wondering who is going to do those jobs?”
Gary Burnett, 35, said he favored a path to citizenship and expanded permanent-resident visas for those waiting outside the country, because the nation is already part of a global economy.
As a software engineer, he said, “I compete with the entire world already. I have to be able to do the work of at least three people in Asia to compete.”
He thought the potential that some immigrants might turn out to be terrorists was a red herring.
Melvin Cook, 57, who was buying a pizza, went further. He accused politicians of exploiting the Boston bombing. “They’re trying to put fear into us of immigrants,” he said. Mr. Cook, a truck driver, said of illegal immigrants, “The jobs they’re getting, nobody wants.”
Click Bomb Suspect Is Charged and Could Face the Death Penalty
Click green for further info
Source: NYT
__________________________________________________________
NYC study looks at immigrant banking habits
NYC study looks at banking habits in city's Chinese, Mexican and Ecuadorian communities
Date: April, 2013
NEW YORK (AP) -- A study of members of some of New York City's fastest-growing immigrant communities finds that their banking patterns can be very different, with some immigrants openingbank accounts by the time they've been here a few years and others still not having them after living here more than a decade.
The survey by the city's Department of Consumer Affairs looked at the Chinese, Ecuadorian and Mexican communities and also found that barriers to having accounts included having to maintain minimum balances as well as confusion over what documentation would be needed to open an account. The survey was scheduled to be released Friday morning.
Not being connected to the mainstream financial system can create hardships for people, said DCA Commissioner Jonathan Mintz (DCA = Department of Consumer Affairs). For example, if they don't have bank accounts, they would have to use check-cashing outlets to turn their paychecks into currency, and have to pay a fee for the transaction. Paying bills becomes more complicated if someone doesn't have a bank account to draw from.
"For the individual, it's sort of a poverty trap," he said. "It's just going to cost you more" than if you used a bank.
Participants, more than 1,300 immigrants from the three communities, were asked whether they had bank accounts or not, as well as if they had savings and savings goals, among other questions.
The survey found that the Chinese immigrants, with an average time of being in the United States of just under six years, were almost all likely to have bank accounts. The Ecuadorian immigrants surveyed had been in the U.S. an average of 11 ½ years, and about 65 percent had accounts. The Mexican immigrant participants were the least likely to have bank accounts, with 43 percent saying they did. They had been in the U.S. an average of just over 10 years.
When asked about what kept them from using banks, those without accounts gave reasons including not having enough money to meet minimum balances and pay fees. Some also expressed concerns about whether they would be able to open accounts if they didn't have documentation like Social Security numbers, as well as concerns over language barriers.
But even those without bank accounts said they made a practice of saving money, and had goals like saving for their childrens' education, buying a home, or sending money back to their native countries.
The report said the survey showed that there were steps that could be taken to get more immigrants in the banking system, like financial education campaigns and banks making sure immigrants knew about the language services available to them.
It's important to get them involved, said Alfredo Espinosa, a management consultant at Qualitas of Life, a New York-based nonprofit that provides financial literacy to Hispanic people and their families.
He pointed to the discussion over immigration reform going on in Congress. If those here illegally are given an opportunity to legalize, it would most likely require them to show how long they've been in the United States and what kind of roots they've put down, he said.
Without a banking history, he said, "they are losing an opportunity to prove they've been living here."
NYC study looks at banking habits in city's Chinese, Mexican and Ecuadorian communities
Date: April, 2013
NEW YORK (AP) -- A study of members of some of New York City's fastest-growing immigrant communities finds that their banking patterns can be very different, with some immigrants openingbank accounts by the time they've been here a few years and others still not having them after living here more than a decade.
The survey by the city's Department of Consumer Affairs looked at the Chinese, Ecuadorian and Mexican communities and also found that barriers to having accounts included having to maintain minimum balances as well as confusion over what documentation would be needed to open an account. The survey was scheduled to be released Friday morning.
Not being connected to the mainstream financial system can create hardships for people, said DCA Commissioner Jonathan Mintz (DCA = Department of Consumer Affairs). For example, if they don't have bank accounts, they would have to use check-cashing outlets to turn their paychecks into currency, and have to pay a fee for the transaction. Paying bills becomes more complicated if someone doesn't have a bank account to draw from.
"For the individual, it's sort of a poverty trap," he said. "It's just going to cost you more" than if you used a bank.
Participants, more than 1,300 immigrants from the three communities, were asked whether they had bank accounts or not, as well as if they had savings and savings goals, among other questions.
The survey found that the Chinese immigrants, with an average time of being in the United States of just under six years, were almost all likely to have bank accounts. The Ecuadorian immigrants surveyed had been in the U.S. an average of 11 ½ years, and about 65 percent had accounts. The Mexican immigrant participants were the least likely to have bank accounts, with 43 percent saying they did. They had been in the U.S. an average of just over 10 years.
When asked about what kept them from using banks, those without accounts gave reasons including not having enough money to meet minimum balances and pay fees. Some also expressed concerns about whether they would be able to open accounts if they didn't have documentation like Social Security numbers, as well as concerns over language barriers.
But even those without bank accounts said they made a practice of saving money, and had goals like saving for their childrens' education, buying a home, or sending money back to their native countries.
The report said the survey showed that there were steps that could be taken to get more immigrants in the banking system, like financial education campaigns and banks making sure immigrants knew about the language services available to them.
It's important to get them involved, said Alfredo Espinosa, a management consultant at Qualitas of Life, a New York-based nonprofit that provides financial literacy to Hispanic people and their families.
He pointed to the discussion over immigration reform going on in Congress. If those here illegally are given an opportunity to legalize, it would most likely require them to show how long they've been in the United States and what kind of roots they've put down, he said.
Without a banking history, he said, "they are losing an opportunity to prove they've been living here."
These 2 articles below, Part 1 & Part 2
were published in 2012 mid November after the 2012 Presidential election
as similar are published commonly after any Presidential election
Part 1
Secession petitions filed in 20 states
Click green for further info
(1) The right to petition your government is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
In the wake of 2012's presidential election, thousands of Americans have signed petitions seeking permission for their states to peacefully secede
from the United States. The petitions were filed on We the People, a government website.
(2) A University of Louisville political science professor who explained that these petitions aren't uncommon.
Similar petitions were filed following the 2004 and 2008 elections. Still, should the petitions garner 25,000 signatures in a month,
they will require an official response from the White House administration.
_____________
to secede
to withdraw formally from an alliance, federation, or association, as from a political union, a religious organization, etc.
States with citizens filing include Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Oddly, folks from Georgia have filed twice. Even stranger, several of the petitions come from states that went for President Barack Obama.
The petitions are short and to the point. For example, a petition from the Volunteer State reads: "Peacefully grant the State of Tennessee to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government." Of all the petitions, Texas has the most signatures so far, with more than 23,000.
Of course, this is mostly a symbolic gesture. The odds of the American government granting any state permission to go its own way are on par with winning the lottery while getting hit by a meteor while seeing Bigfoot while finding gluten-free pizza that tastes like the real thing.
An article from WKRC quotes a University of Louisville political science professor who explained that these petitions aren't uncommon. Similar petitions were filed following the 2004 and 2008 elections. Still, should the petitions garner 25,000 signatures in a month, they will require an official response from the Obama administration.
From the We the People site:
The right to petition your government is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
We the People provides a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country. We created We the People because we want to hear from you. If a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it's sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response.
Not everybody who wants to secede is polite enough to write a petition. Peter Morrison, treasurer of the Hardin County (Texas) Republican Party, wrote a post-election newsletter in which he urges the Lone Star State to leave the Union.
"We must contest every single inch of ground and delay the baby-murdering, tax-raising socialists at every opportunity. But in due time, the maggots will have eaten every morsel of flesh off of the rotting corpse of the Republic, and therein lies our opportunity... Why should Vermont and Texas live under the same government? Let each go her own way in peace, sign a free trade agreement among the states and we can avoid this gut-wrenching spectacle every four years."
EXPLORE RELATED CONTENT 1 - 4 of 20
were published in 2012 mid November after the 2012 Presidential election
as similar are published commonly after any Presidential election
Part 1
Secession petitions filed in 20 states
Click green for further info
(1) The right to petition your government is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
In the wake of 2012's presidential election, thousands of Americans have signed petitions seeking permission for their states to peacefully secede
from the United States. The petitions were filed on We the People, a government website.
(2) A University of Louisville political science professor who explained that these petitions aren't uncommon.
Similar petitions were filed following the 2004 and 2008 elections. Still, should the petitions garner 25,000 signatures in a month,
they will require an official response from the White House administration.
_____________
to secede
to withdraw formally from an alliance, federation, or association, as from a political union, a religious organization, etc.
States with citizens filing include Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Oddly, folks from Georgia have filed twice. Even stranger, several of the petitions come from states that went for President Barack Obama.
The petitions are short and to the point. For example, a petition from the Volunteer State reads: "Peacefully grant the State of Tennessee to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government." Of all the petitions, Texas has the most signatures so far, with more than 23,000.
Of course, this is mostly a symbolic gesture. The odds of the American government granting any state permission to go its own way are on par with winning the lottery while getting hit by a meteor while seeing Bigfoot while finding gluten-free pizza that tastes like the real thing.
An article from WKRC quotes a University of Louisville political science professor who explained that these petitions aren't uncommon. Similar petitions were filed following the 2004 and 2008 elections. Still, should the petitions garner 25,000 signatures in a month, they will require an official response from the Obama administration.
From the We the People site:
The right to petition your government is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
We the People provides a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country. We created We the People because we want to hear from you. If a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it's sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response.
Not everybody who wants to secede is polite enough to write a petition. Peter Morrison, treasurer of the Hardin County (Texas) Republican Party, wrote a post-election newsletter in which he urges the Lone Star State to leave the Union.
"We must contest every single inch of ground and delay the baby-murdering, tax-raising socialists at every opportunity. But in due time, the maggots will have eaten every morsel of flesh off of the rotting corpse of the Republic, and therein lies our opportunity... Why should Vermont and Texas live under the same government? Let each go her own way in peace, sign a free trade agreement among the states and we can avoid this gut-wrenching spectacle every four years."
EXPLORE RELATED CONTENT 1 - 4 of 20
- People celebrate in Times Square after …
- Texas Secession Petition to Obama
- Texas Secession Petition to Obama
A petition for Texas to secede from the union, submitted to the White House, reached the number of signatures …Full Story »Texas Secession Petition to Obama - U.S. President Barack Obama celebrates …
Click green for further info _________________________________________________________
These 2 articles, Part 1 (above) & Part 2 (below) were published in 2012
mid November after the 2012 Presidential election
Part 2
Secession petitions now filed for all 50 states Click green for further info
(1) The right to petition your government is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
In the wake of 2012's presidential election, thousands of Americans have signed petitions seeking permission for their states to peacefully secede
from the United States. The petitions were filed on We the People, a government website.
(2) A University of Louisville political science professor who explained that these petitions aren't uncommon.
Similar petitions were filed following the 2004 and 2008 elections. Still, should the petitions garner 25,000
signatures in a month, they will require an official response from the White House administration.
_______
to secede
to withdraw formally from an alliance, federation, or association, as from a political union, a religious organization, etc.
Click green for further info
President Barack Obama delivers his victory speech in Chicago on Nov. 6, 2012. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty)
Petitions signed by hundreds of thousands of Americans seeking permission for their states to peacefully secede from the union have now been filed for all 50 states on the White House website.
The secession petition push began last week on the site's We The People section after a Slidell, La., man filed a petition on Nov. 7 to allow Louisiana to secede. Residents from other states followed suit.
As of Wednesday afternoon, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas—all states that voted for former Gov. Mitt Romney—as well as Florida each had accumulated more than 25,000 signatures, the threshold needed to trigger an official response from the Obama administration. Collectively, the secession petitions now have more than 700,000 digital signatures.
Texas is in the lead with more than 99,000, but Gov. Rick Perry said on Tuesday that he does not support secession.
"Gov. Perry believes in the greatness of our Union and nothing should be done to change it," astatement from the governor's office read. "But he also shares the frustrations many Americans have with our federal government."
Meanwhile, residents of Austin, Texas' stubbornly liberal stronghold, have petitioned the White House to allow the city to "withdraw from the state of Texas [and] remain part of the United States."
Of course, the petitions are little more than symbolic—and nothing new. Similar petitions were filed after the 2004 and 2008 elections. And at least one petition filed on the site asks that the president sign an executive order to strip U.S. citizenship from anyone who signed a petition to secede and requests that they are "peacefully deported."
Secession, though, is not the only thing people are petitioning the White House for. Included among the 140 petitions currently displayed on the site: two seeking federal legalization of marijuana, one asking for the halt of U.S. drone strikes and one demanding a recount of the election.
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Californians asked to end death penalty - to save money
The reason STAF, Inc.'s editors decided to place this article with legal information is to guide you
to realize that in any legal case the options to lengthen the process are real and may be helpful for
your and your family's future to get your life in good order to avoid unnecessary miseries.
Contact a competent lawyer for a consultation
This article has information of the trend in the U.S. relating to the death penalty and the legal processes the defense lawyers use. The more the public knows how our legal system works, the better for every individual. In any other legal matter, e.g. foreclosure process, and in every legal case, a competent lawyer can drag the case for years forward. Those years may give you the time needed to organize your finances and other matters to avoid unnecessary losses and heavy suffering for you, your children, and for your whole family.
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- Death Penalty Information Center www.deathpenaltyinfo.org
A non-profit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment in the United States. Executions in the United States - State by State Execution - Innocence - Facts - Death row - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_row - Death row, in English speaking countries that have capital punishment, signifies the place, often a section of a prison, that houses individuals awaiting execution ... ____________________
Reuters
10/26/12
SAN QUENTIN STATE PRISON, California (Reuters) - Convicted murderer Douglas Stankewitz, who has spent more than three decades on death row, isn't pinning his hopes of survival on a referendum next month to abolish the death penalty in California - he knows that even if voters reject the measure, he may never be executed.
"They can't kill me because the system is messed up so bad,"Stankewitz, California's longest-serving death row inmate, told Reuters in an interview at San Quentin State Prison. "The death penalty is a joke."
Stankewitz, a 54-year-old who arrived on death row at age 20 for killing a woman during a drug- and alcohol-fueled carjacking, is one of 726 inmates on death row in California. The state hosts nearly a quarter of the nation's condemned prisoners but has executed none in the last six years.
A federal judge halted all California executions in 2006, saying a three-drug lethal injection protocol risked causing inmates too much pain and suffering before death. California revised its protocol, but executions have not resumed.
Public opinion in many states has been shifting away from the death penalty, with five states abolishing capital punishment over the past decade. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia do not allow the death penalty.
In California, proponents of repealing the death penalty are basing their campaign not so much on moral grounds, but rather on the question of cost. They say the system, with mandated appeals that can take decades, costs so much that the financially troubled state could save hundreds of millions of dollars by instead jailing the worst killers for life.
Polls show the referendum - one of 11 ballot measures facing Californians on the same day as the presidential election, November 6 - faces an uphill fight. A majority of Californians, 51 percent, oppose abolishing capital punishment, according to a September USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll of 1,504 people. Just 38 percent backed repeal, while the rest were undecided.
State offices do not track specific costs associated with prosecuting and housing death row inmates, but a number of studies have shown the burden is high.
A 2011 study by Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals senior judge Arthur Alarcón and Paula Mitchell, an adjunct law professor at Loyola Law School, said the death penalty has cost the state roughly $4 billion since 1978, when California voted to reinstate it following a nationwide pause.
It called California's capital punishment system "the most expensive and least effective" in the nation.
An independent budget watchdog, the Legislative Analyst's Office, has said repealing the death penalty could initially save the state $100 million a year, later growing to $130 million a year.
"It is a failed public policy that wastes so much public money. And it is an illusion. We haven't had an execution in over six years," Jeanne Woodford, a former San Quentin warden and a leading advocate of death penalty repeal, told Reuters.
ENDLESS GAME
Death penalty costs are driven by mandated appeals and a shortage of public lawyers qualified to handle capital cases, which means inmates can wait decades to make their way through the system.
Condemned inmates wait an average of five years to be given lawyers for an automatic appeal to the California Supreme Court, which is mandated by state law, Woodford said, and then another 12 years for an attorney to handle an automatic federal habeas petition, which is a formal request for a federal court to examine the legality of the petitioner's imprisonment.
The California Supreme Court spends a third of its time on death penalty appeals alone, she said.
Stankewitz, who has been on death row for 34 years, is among 44 inmates who have spent three decades or longer waiting to die.
Convicted in 1978, Stankewitz had his conviction and sentence reversed by the state Supreme Court in 1982 because his mental competence to stand trial had not been evaluated. He was then re-tried and re-convicted by a Fresno County court in 1983.
That trial spurred another automatic appeal to California's top court, which in 1990 declined to alter his conviction or sentence, according to court records. His first federal habeas appeal was filed in 1994.
By his own count, Stankewitz has gone through roughly a dozen public defenders, whom he refers to disparagingly as "dump trucks," and court records show more than 600 motions, orders and rulings in his case since 1991.
His appeals have run the gamut from questions over his own mental competence to the competence of his previous legal counsel and procedural and evidentiary complaints.
"I'm caught up in this game. I don't like this game," Stankewitz said in an interview inside a cramped visiting cell that was locked from the outside, monitored by guards and separated from the main visiting area.
Of the state's hundreds of death row inmates, just 13 have exhausted their appeals and are awaiting execution.
By 2050, California is projected to have sent 740 more inmates to death row, and more than 500 death row inmates will have died of old age or other causes before they can be executed, Alarcón and Mitchell said in their study.
Twenty-one inmates have committed suicide on California's death row since 1978, and 57 have died of natural causes, prison officials said.
An independent commission said in 2008 that the state's death penalty system was dysfunctional and warned that, if nothing were done to reverse structural delays in the appointment of counsel and appeals, the application of capital punishment in California could be declared cruel and unusual punishment and, ultimately, struck down as unconstitutional.
It said that a system with life without parole as the top punishment would cost only $11.5 million a year, well under the $137 million it pegs as the annual cost of capital punishment. The Alarcón-Mitchell report puts the cost of having the death penalty at $144 million a year.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said housing an inmate costs around $55,500 annually per prisoner. It does not break that down by sentence or crime.
HORRENDOUS CRIMES
Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, said capital punishment costs could be alleviated if sentencing appeals were not mandated, reducing the time from sentencing to execution to five or six years.
"That would cost less than we are spending now, and less than to incarcerate them for life," said Scheidegger, a co-chair of the coalition to keep the death penalty.
Opponents of ending capital punishment, including San Bernardino District Attorney Michael Ramos, are concerned about the danger of mixing death row inmates with the general prison population, arguing that such serious offenders need the additional security measures that are standard on death row.
Family members of victims of death row inmates have spoken out on both sides of the issue.
Sandy Friend, for example, wrote a public petition arguing that execution was the only fitting punishment for the man who kidnapped, tortured, raped and killed her 8-year-old son, Michael Lyons, in 1996.
"I believe that the only justice for these horrendous crimes these individuals have committed is the death penalty," Friend said in a video produced by repeal opponents. Her son was abducted on his way home from school by a man with two prior sex offense convictions, Friend said, and was tortured for 10 hours.
The man convicted of Lyons' death, Robert Rhoades, was sent to death row in 1999. His appeals are ongoing.
SAME SCRIPT, DIFFERENT NAME
Stankewitz's defense attorneys have largely based their appeals on questions about his intellect and childhood abuse. He suffered alcohol exposure in the womb, was removed from his home at age 6 after his mother beat him and bounced between foster care facilities where he was severely troubled and abused, court documents show.
He was 19 when he and a group of friends carjacked Theresa Graybeal, 22, from a K-Mart parking lot in Modesto and drove across California's rural heartland to Fresno, roughly 100 miles away.
There, Graybeal was shot and killed. Her family members could not be reached for comment.
One of Stankewitz's companions, 14-year-old Billy Brown, implicated him as the shooter in exchange for immunity from prosecution, records show. Stankewitz says he was framed by Brown. A federal judge granted him a new penalty phase trial - one that considers punishment only, not guilt or innocence - in 2009, but that remains under appeal.
"We are a script. Every person on death row is the same script with a different name," Stankewitz said.
Source: Reuters
Click green for further info
Californians asked to end death penalty - to save money
This article is for your private use, only
________________________________________
Shame Shame Shame
California Horror Stories and the 3-Strikes Law
Californians brought in 2012 a close to a shameful period in the state’s history when they voted this month to soften the infamous “three strikes” sentencing law. The original law was approved by ballot initiative in 1994, not long after a parolee kidnapped and murdered a 12-year-old girl. It was sold to voters as a way of getting killers, rapists and child molesters off the streets for good.
As it turned out, three strikes created a cruel, Kafkaesque criminal justice system that lost all sense of proportion, doling out life sentences disproportionately to black defendants. Under the statute, the third offense that could result in a life sentence could be any number of low-level felony convictions, like stealing a jack from the back of a tow truck, shoplifting a pair of work gloves from a department store, pilfering small change from a parked car or passing a bad check. In addition to being unfairly punitive, the law drove up prison costs.
The revised law preserves the three-strikes concept, but it imposes a life sentence only when the third felony offense is serious or violent, as defined in state law. It also authorizes the courts to resentence thousands of people who were sent away for low-level third offenses and who present no danger to the public.
The resentencing process is shaping up as a kind of referendum on the state’s barbaric treatment of mentally ill defendants, who make up a substantial number of those with life sentences under the three-strikes rule. It is likely that many were too mentally impaired to assist their lawyers at the time of trial.
Mentally ill inmates are nearly always jailed for behaviors related to their illness. Nationally, they account for about one-sixth of the prison population. The ratio appears to be higher among three-strike lifers in California. According to a 2011 analysis of state data by Stanford Law School’s Three Strikes Project, nearly 40 percent of these inmates qualify as mentally ill and are receiving psychiatric services behind bars.
Even before the recent ballot initiative, the clinic’s law students had overturned the life sentences of 26 people, based on newly discovered evidence or inadequate assistance of counsel, as when defense lawyers failed to present evidence of a client’s mental illness.
Asked about the relationship of mental illness and three-strikes prosecutions, Michael Romano, director of the Stanford project, responded, “In my experience, every person who has been sentenced to life in prison for a nonserious, nonviolent crime like petty theft suffers from some kind of mental illness or impairment — from organic brain disorders, to schizophrenia, to mental retardation, to severe P.T.S.D.,” or post-traumatic stress disorder.
Nearly all had been abused as children, he pointed out. All had been homeless for extended periods, and many were illiterate. None had graduated from high school.
In other words, these were discarded people who could be made to bear the brunt of this brutal law without risk of public backlash. Among the more horrifying cases investigated by the Three Strikes Project is that of 55-year-old Dale Curtis Gaines, who suffers from both mental retardation and mental illness. He has never committed a violent crime, but is serving a life sentence for receiving stolen property. His first two strikes, daytime burglaries of empty homes during which he was unarmed, appear to have involved thefts valued at little more than pocket change.
According to court documents, Mr. Gaines’s early childhood was a nightmare, filled with the most savage forms of abuse. His grandmother, a primary care giver, is said to have beaten him when he urinated or defecated in bed — and forced him to eat his feces as punishment. Later, as often happens with mentally impaired adolescents, he began to skip school because he was ashamed that he could not keep up with his classmates. He was often homeless. While serving time for his second crime, he was diagnosed by the prison system itself as both mentally disabled and schizophrenic.
He was clearly too impaired to help with his defense, and at one point simply put a blanket over his head and declined to speak to a doctor who was questioning him. His ability to read is comparable to that of a kindergartner.
At the time of his third strike, for receiving stolen computer equipment, Mr. Gaines was getting Social Security and disability benefits because of mental illness and retardation. His mental health history, readily available in the prison record, would probably have been recognized as a mitigating factor and prevented him from being so harshly sentenced. But, according to court documents, his public defender presented no evidence about his disability.
In 2010, 12 years after Mr. Gaines was convicted, the prosecutor who handled the case but by then had left the district attorney’s office wrote to him in prison, expressing regret and offering help if he wished to appeal. The Stanford students also noticed his case and are now trying to free him.
Mr. Gaines’s story is not unique. And as more cases unfold in court, judges, lawyers and Californians should look back with shame at the injustice the state inflicted on a vulnerable population that often presented little or no danger to the public.
Source: NYT, November, 2012
___________________________________
Confronting threats of military modernization
By: James G. Roche and Barry Watts
September 26, 2012
Click green for further info
In Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, space and cyberspace, the United States faces a bewildering array of military threats that are likely to grow worse in coming decades. For the U.S. military services, deciding which new systems and capabilities are worth investing in to meet future challenges is never easy. But given the additional constraints of the nation’s ballooning debt and the looming specter of sequestration, these choices are especially daunting today.
Of all the military services, the U.S. Air Force needs the most clarity and national consensus on the direction its modernization efforts should take in coming years. Our sense is that the highly successful but largely supporting role that air power has played in Afghanistan and Iraq has eroded clarity and consensus among civilian and even some military leaders about the core missions of the Air Force, and where the limited modernization funds are likely to be available in coming years should be focused.
The Air Force’s combat aircrafts are aging rapidly, due in part to the wear and tear of continuous combat since 1991. With a couple of exceptions, the service’s 160 bombers and the bulk of its roughly 2,000 tactical fighters were funded prior to 1994. Of these, only the 20 B-2s have both the range and stealth to reach targets from bases outside the range of China’s growing force of longer-range missiles, while evading advanced fighters and surface-to-air missiles.
The U.S. Air Force today is heavily weighted toward fighting from increasingly vulnerable forward bases with short-range aircraft. This posture was workable in Europe during the Cold War but faces severe limitations in the vaster expanses of the Asia-Pacific region against the growing capacity of the People’s Liberation Army to dominate Taiwan and the western Pacific with conventional missiles, advanced fighters and SAMs, cyber malware, anti-satellite weapons and other systems intended to exploit the vulnerabilities in the American military’s precision-centric way of war. Not only U.S. forward bases but even carrier strike groups in the western Pacific will be at risk in the event of a crisis or conflict with China, and Iran may eventually pose similar problems in the Persian Gulf.
In the long term, the foremost U.S. aim should be to deter China and Iran from acts of aggression or coercion. President Barack Obama’s strategic “pivot” to Asia-Pacific and Mideast illuminates the fundamental modernization imperatives now confronting the Air Force. The most basic Air Force missions — its raison d’être — are: to hold the adversary’s most valued assets at risk anywhere, anytime; to control the air; and to support friendly ground and naval forces.
Air control was never a serious challenge in either Afghanistan or Iraq after 2003. American fighters and bombers, operating from forward bases or aircraft carriers in undefended airspace, largely functioned as “bomb trucks” for coalition ground forces. Given the absence of robust enemy air defenses the U.S. military has experienced since 2003, it is easy to forget how difficult it was for the Allies to achieve air superiority over occupied France prior to the Normandy landings, or to sustain strike operations against North Vietnam in the face of Hanoi’s MiG fighters and SA-2 SAMs. The fact that American soldiers and Marines have not been subjected to attack by enemy aircraft since the Korean War rests on the U.S. ability to control the air with highly trained air crews and advanced fighters, and the country may yet regret the decision to halt production of the advanced F-22 at a paltry 187 planes. Nevertheless, the Air Force’s 1,365 F-16C/Ds and A-10s desperately need to be replaced, and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the best option.
What about the Air Force’s long-standing mission to be able to hold any target at risk anywhere, anytime? Because of the B-2’s high average unit cost (over $2 billion each because only 21 were built), some argue that this mission has become prohibitively expensive and may also be too difficult to retain given “doubts” about the future of stealth. After much study, the Air Force has decided to remain in the long-range strike business by designing and procuring 80-100 stealthy penetrating bombers to replace its B-52s and B-1s. These new platforms will be integral elements of a long-range, reconnaissance-strike capability aimed at containing unit costs and extending the effectiveness of stealth. Their development should not be sacrificed to declining defense budgets. Among other things, these new bombers will give credibility to the U.S. policy of reducing dependence on nuclear weapons.
In an era of fiscal austerity, the investment decisions the U.S. military services make in the coming years must give others pause as they consider military competition or conflict with the United States. For the Air Force, this means preserving a highly credible capability to strike any targets anywhere on the globe while recapitalizing its aging inventory of combat aircraft.
James G. Roche was the 20th secretary of the U.S. Air Force and is a retired Navy captain. Barry Watts is a senior fellow at the Center for Budgetary Assessments and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel. Both have served in combat.
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© 2012 POLITICO LLC
This article is for your private use, only
_______________________________________________
How junk food in schools affects the military
Serious facts:
Study also the next article just below
"One in 12 in military has clogged heart arteries"
The main reason for it: The way many eat: junk food; fast-food (= bad food; it's no food for any human)
Two risks for heart disease that haven't declined are obesity and diabetes, which are closely linked
(1) Being overweight or obese has now become the leading medical reason why young adults cannot enlist
in the military. The Defense Department estimates that 1 in 4 young adults is too overweight to enlist.
(2) When weight problems are combined with other disqualifying factors, like failing to finish high school
or being convicted of a serious crime, an estimated 75 percent of Americans age 17 to 24 are not able
to join the military.
(3) We cannot succeed in teaching our children to eat healthier foods while selling them 400 billion empty
calories of junk food in our schools every year.
New York City has a model for a solution:
New York City, for example, the country’s largest school district, stopped selling junk food in its schools and made other improvements in nutrition, physical activity and child- and parent-education both in the schools and citywide. Rates of obesity among children from kindergarten through eighth grade dropped by more than 5 percent in just four years.
________
How junk food in schools affects the military
By: Ret. Gen. Richard B. Myers
Source:
Politico, September 25, 2012
A candy bar on Monday. An ice-cream sandwich on Tuesday. A bag of chips on Wednesday.
For kids who buy junk food at school every day, the calories can add up.
When you look at the problem nationally, the figure is staggering.
Students consume almost 400 billion calories of junk food sold at school each year, according to the latest research by the Department of Agriculture. That’s the equivalent of nearly 2 billion candy bars, weighing almost 90 thousand tons — enough candy bars to circle the Earth more than six times.
Obesity rates among children have dramatically increased in recent decades. Being overweight or obese has now become the leading medical reason why young adults cannot enlist in the military. The Defense Department estimates that 1 in 4 young adults is too overweight to enlist.
When weight problems are combined with other disqualifying factors, like failing to finish high school or being convicted of a serious crime, an estimated 75 percent of Americans age 17 to 24 are not able to join the military.
Parents, of course, have the primary responsibility to ensure that their children eat right and exercise. But kids consume as much as half their calories during the school day. When parents send their children off with a brown bag or lunch money, they shouldn’t have to worry about being undermined by junk food for sale at school. It is no surprise that the Institute of Medicine recently called on schools to be a national focus in reversing the childhood obesity epidemic.
That’s why retired generals and admirals like myself are calling on our leaders in Washington to help reduce the junk food sold in schools. Too many schools still have vending machines and other venues where children can routinely buy candy, potato chips, cookies and sugar-sweetened fruit juices or sports drinks.
There is now strong evidence that replacing junk food with healthier choices can be part of the solution to the childhood obesity epidemic. New York City, for example, the country’s largest school district, stopped selling junk food in its schools and made other improvements in nutrition, physical activity and child- and parent-education both in the schools and citywide. Rates of obesity among children from kindergarten through eighth grade dropped by more than 5 percent in just four years.
Other school districts, including Philadelphia and the state of Mississippi, are also beginning to make meaningful progress in reducing childhood weight problems. Putting a stop to the routine selling of junk food at school reinforces the message to children that they need to adopt healthier eating and exercise habits that can last a lifetime.
But we cannot succeed in teaching our children to eat healthier foods while selling them 400 billion empty calories of junk food in our schools every year.
The retired generals and admirals of the national security organization called Mission: Readiness strongly supported the 2010 passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. This legislation requires the USDA to update nutrition standards for school meal programs and for “competitive foods” sold in vending machines, school stores and a la carte items in the cafeteria.
The act, which had bipartisan support in Congress and was signed in December 2010, goes a long way in reducing calories, fat and sodium in school meals.
The USDA is now working on reducing junk food at schools by updating decades-old nutrition standards for foods sold in vending machines and cafeteria snack lines. Mission: Readiness urges Congress to support this process and allow the USDA to finalize updated standards for these “competitive foods” with input from nutrition experts.
This should be part of a comprehensive action, involving parents, schools and communities, to help children make healthful food choices so our obesity crisis doesn’t turn into a national security crisis.
Gen. Richard B. Myers (Ret.) was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2001 to 2005.
Source:
© 2012 POLITICO LLC
This article is for your private use, only
___________________________________________________
Serious facts:
Study also the next article just below
"One in 12 in military has clogged heart arteries"
The main reason for it: The way many eat: junk food; fast-food (= bad food; it's no food for any human)
Two risks for heart disease that haven't declined are obesity and diabetes, which are closely linked
(1) Being overweight or obese has now become the leading medical reason why young adults cannot enlist
in the military. The Defense Department estimates that 1 in 4 young adults is too overweight to enlist.
(2) When weight problems are combined with other disqualifying factors, like failing to finish high school
or being convicted of a serious crime, an estimated 75 percent of Americans age 17 to 24 are not able
to join the military.
(3) We cannot succeed in teaching our children to eat healthier foods while selling them 400 billion empty
calories of junk food in our schools every year.
New York City has a model for a solution:
New York City, for example, the country’s largest school district, stopped selling junk food in its schools and made other improvements in nutrition, physical activity and child- and parent-education both in the schools and citywide. Rates of obesity among children from kindergarten through eighth grade dropped by more than 5 percent in just four years.
________
How junk food in schools affects the military
By: Ret. Gen. Richard B. Myers
Source:
Politico, September 25, 2012
A candy bar on Monday. An ice-cream sandwich on Tuesday. A bag of chips on Wednesday.
For kids who buy junk food at school every day, the calories can add up.
When you look at the problem nationally, the figure is staggering.
Students consume almost 400 billion calories of junk food sold at school each year, according to the latest research by the Department of Agriculture. That’s the equivalent of nearly 2 billion candy bars, weighing almost 90 thousand tons — enough candy bars to circle the Earth more than six times.
Obesity rates among children have dramatically increased in recent decades. Being overweight or obese has now become the leading medical reason why young adults cannot enlist in the military. The Defense Department estimates that 1 in 4 young adults is too overweight to enlist.
When weight problems are combined with other disqualifying factors, like failing to finish high school or being convicted of a serious crime, an estimated 75 percent of Americans age 17 to 24 are not able to join the military.
Parents, of course, have the primary responsibility to ensure that their children eat right and exercise. But kids consume as much as half their calories during the school day. When parents send their children off with a brown bag or lunch money, they shouldn’t have to worry about being undermined by junk food for sale at school. It is no surprise that the Institute of Medicine recently called on schools to be a national focus in reversing the childhood obesity epidemic.
That’s why retired generals and admirals like myself are calling on our leaders in Washington to help reduce the junk food sold in schools. Too many schools still have vending machines and other venues where children can routinely buy candy, potato chips, cookies and sugar-sweetened fruit juices or sports drinks.
There is now strong evidence that replacing junk food with healthier choices can be part of the solution to the childhood obesity epidemic. New York City, for example, the country’s largest school district, stopped selling junk food in its schools and made other improvements in nutrition, physical activity and child- and parent-education both in the schools and citywide. Rates of obesity among children from kindergarten through eighth grade dropped by more than 5 percent in just four years.
Other school districts, including Philadelphia and the state of Mississippi, are also beginning to make meaningful progress in reducing childhood weight problems. Putting a stop to the routine selling of junk food at school reinforces the message to children that they need to adopt healthier eating and exercise habits that can last a lifetime.
But we cannot succeed in teaching our children to eat healthier foods while selling them 400 billion empty calories of junk food in our schools every year.
The retired generals and admirals of the national security organization called Mission: Readiness strongly supported the 2010 passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. This legislation requires the USDA to update nutrition standards for school meal programs and for “competitive foods” sold in vending machines, school stores and a la carte items in the cafeteria.
The act, which had bipartisan support in Congress and was signed in December 2010, goes a long way in reducing calories, fat and sodium in school meals.
The USDA is now working on reducing junk food at schools by updating decades-old nutrition standards for foods sold in vending machines and cafeteria snack lines. Mission: Readiness urges Congress to support this process and allow the USDA to finalize updated standards for these “competitive foods” with input from nutrition experts.
This should be part of a comprehensive action, involving parents, schools and communities, to help children make healthful food choices so our obesity crisis doesn’t turn into a national security crisis.
Gen. Richard B. Myers (Ret.) was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2001 to 2005.
Source:
© 2012 POLITICO LLC
This article is for your private use, only
___________________________________________________
Fort Hood Hero Says Obama 'Betrayed'
Her, Other Victims
News date: February 2013
Click green:
(1) WATCH Exclusive Video of Fort Hood's Aftermath
(2) READ a Federal Report on the FBI's Probe of Hasan's Ties to al-Awlaki
(3) READ the Fort Hood Victims' Lawsuit
Three years after the White House arranged a hero's welcome at the State of the Union address for the Fort Hood police sergeant and her partner who stopped the deadly shooting there, Kimberly Munley says President Obama broke the promise he made to her that the victims would be well taken care of.
"Betrayed is a good word," former Sgt. Munley told ABC News in a tearful interview broadcast on "World News with Diane Sawyer" and "Nightline."
"Not to the least little bit have the victims been taken care of," she said. "In fact they've been neglected."
There was no immediate comment from the White House about Munley's allegations.
Thirteen people were killed, including a pregnant soldier, and 32 others shot in the November 2009 rampage by the accused shooter, Major Nidal Hasan, who now awaits a military trial on charges of premeditated murder and attempted murder.
The broadcast report also includes dramatic new video, obtained by ABC News, taken in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, capturing the chaos and terror of the day.
WATCH Exclusive Video of Fort Hood's Aftermath
Munley, since laid off from her job with the base's civilian police force, was shot three times as she and her partner, Sgt. Mark Todd, confronted Hasan, who witnesses said had shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he opened fire on soldiers being processed for deployment to Afghanistan.
As Munley lay wounded, Todd fired the five bullets credited with bringing Hasan down.
Despite extensive evidence that Hasan was in communication with al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki prior to the attack, the military has denied the victims a Purple Heart and is treating the incident as "workplace violence" instead of "combat related" or terrorism.
READ a Federal Report on the FBI's Probe of Hasan's Ties to al-Awlaki
Al-Awlaki has since been killed in a U.S. drone attack in Yemen, in what was termed a major victory in the U.S. efforts against al Qaeda.
Munley and dozens of other victims have now filed a lawsuit against the military alleging the "workplace violence" designation means the Fort Hood victims are receiving lower priority access to medical care as veterans, and a loss of financial benefits available to those who injuries are classified as "combat related."
READ the Fort Hood Victims' Lawsuit
Some of the victims "had to find civilian doctors to get proper medical treatment" and the military has not assigned liaison officers to help them coordinate their recovery, said the group's lawyer, Reed Rubinstein.
"There's a substantial number of very serious, crippling cases of post-traumatic stress disorder exacerbated, frankly, by what the Army and the Defense Department did in this case," said Rubinstein. "We have a couple of cases in which the soldiers' command accused the soldiers of malingering, and would say things to them that Fort Hood really wasn't so bad, it wasn't combat."
Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said the Department of Defense is "committed to the highest care of those in our military family."
"Survivors of the incident at Fort Hood are eligible for the same medical benefits as all servicemembers," said Little. "The Department of Defense is also committed to the integrity of the ongoing court martial proceedings of Major Nidal Hasan and for that reason will not at this time further characterize the incident."
Secretary of the Army John McHugh told ABC News he was unaware of any specific complaints from the Fort Hood victims, even though he is a named defendant in the lawsuit filed last November which specifically details the plight of many of them.
"If a soldier feels ignored, then we need to know about it on a case by case basis," McHugh told ABC News. "It is not our intent to have two levels of care for people who are wounded by whatever means in uniform."
Some of the victims in the lawsuit believe the Army Secretary and others are purposely ignoring their cases out of political correctness.
"These guys play stupid every time they're asked a question about it, they pretend like they have no clue," said Shawn Manning, who was shot six times that day at Fort Hood. Two of the bullets remain in his leg and spine, he said.
"It was no different than an insurgent in Iraq or Afghanistan trying to kill us," said Manning, who was twice deployed to Iraq and had to retire from the military because of his injuries.
An Army review board initially classified Manning's injuries as "combat related," but that finding was later overruled by higher-ups in the Army.
Manning says the "workplace violence" designation has cost him almost $70,000 in benefits that would have been available if his injuries were classified as "combat related."
"Basically, they're treating us like I was downtown and I got hit by a car," he told ABC News.
For Alonzo Lunsford, who was shot seven times at Fort Hood and blinded in one eye, the military's treatment is deeply hurtful.
"It's a slap in the face, not only for me but for all of the 32 that wore the uniform that day," he told ABC News.
Lunsford's medical records show his injuries were determined to be "in the line of duty" but neither he nor any of the other soldiers shot or killed at Fort Hood is eligible for the Purple Heart under the Department of Defense's current policy for decorations and awards.
Army Secretary McHugh says awarding Purple Hearts could adversely affect the trial of Major Hasan.
"To award a Purple Heart, it has to be done by a foreign terrorist element," said McHugh. "So to declare that soldier a foreign terrorist, we are told, I'm not an attorney and I don't run the Justice Department, but we're told would have a profound effect on the ability to conduct the trial."
Members of Congress, including the chairman of the House Homeland Security committee, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, say they will introduce legislation to force the military and the Obama administration to give the wounded and dead the recognition and honors they deserve.
"It was clearly an act of terrorism that occurred that day, there's no question in my mind," McCaul told ABC News. "I think the victims should be treated as such."
Former Sgt. Munley says she now believes the White House used her for political advantage in arranging for her to sit next to Michelle Obama during the President's State of the Union address in 2010.
Munley says she has no hesitation now speaking out against the President or taking part in the lawsuit, because she wants to help the others who were shot that day and continue to suffer.
"We got tired of being neglected. So this was our last resort and I'm not ashamed of it a bit," said Munley. She is also raising money for a movie about Fort Hood, and says some of the proceeds will go to the victims.
_____________________________________________________________
Her, Other Victims
News date: February 2013
Click green:
(1) WATCH Exclusive Video of Fort Hood's Aftermath
(2) READ a Federal Report on the FBI's Probe of Hasan's Ties to al-Awlaki
(3) READ the Fort Hood Victims' Lawsuit
Three years after the White House arranged a hero's welcome at the State of the Union address for the Fort Hood police sergeant and her partner who stopped the deadly shooting there, Kimberly Munley says President Obama broke the promise he made to her that the victims would be well taken care of.
"Betrayed is a good word," former Sgt. Munley told ABC News in a tearful interview broadcast on "World News with Diane Sawyer" and "Nightline."
"Not to the least little bit have the victims been taken care of," she said. "In fact they've been neglected."
There was no immediate comment from the White House about Munley's allegations.
Thirteen people were killed, including a pregnant soldier, and 32 others shot in the November 2009 rampage by the accused shooter, Major Nidal Hasan, who now awaits a military trial on charges of premeditated murder and attempted murder.
The broadcast report also includes dramatic new video, obtained by ABC News, taken in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, capturing the chaos and terror of the day.
WATCH Exclusive Video of Fort Hood's Aftermath
Munley, since laid off from her job with the base's civilian police force, was shot three times as she and her partner, Sgt. Mark Todd, confronted Hasan, who witnesses said had shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he opened fire on soldiers being processed for deployment to Afghanistan.
As Munley lay wounded, Todd fired the five bullets credited with bringing Hasan down.
Despite extensive evidence that Hasan was in communication with al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki prior to the attack, the military has denied the victims a Purple Heart and is treating the incident as "workplace violence" instead of "combat related" or terrorism.
READ a Federal Report on the FBI's Probe of Hasan's Ties to al-Awlaki
Al-Awlaki has since been killed in a U.S. drone attack in Yemen, in what was termed a major victory in the U.S. efforts against al Qaeda.
Munley and dozens of other victims have now filed a lawsuit against the military alleging the "workplace violence" designation means the Fort Hood victims are receiving lower priority access to medical care as veterans, and a loss of financial benefits available to those who injuries are classified as "combat related."
READ the Fort Hood Victims' Lawsuit
Some of the victims "had to find civilian doctors to get proper medical treatment" and the military has not assigned liaison officers to help them coordinate their recovery, said the group's lawyer, Reed Rubinstein.
"There's a substantial number of very serious, crippling cases of post-traumatic stress disorder exacerbated, frankly, by what the Army and the Defense Department did in this case," said Rubinstein. "We have a couple of cases in which the soldiers' command accused the soldiers of malingering, and would say things to them that Fort Hood really wasn't so bad, it wasn't combat."
Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said the Department of Defense is "committed to the highest care of those in our military family."
"Survivors of the incident at Fort Hood are eligible for the same medical benefits as all servicemembers," said Little. "The Department of Defense is also committed to the integrity of the ongoing court martial proceedings of Major Nidal Hasan and for that reason will not at this time further characterize the incident."
Secretary of the Army John McHugh told ABC News he was unaware of any specific complaints from the Fort Hood victims, even though he is a named defendant in the lawsuit filed last November which specifically details the plight of many of them.
"If a soldier feels ignored, then we need to know about it on a case by case basis," McHugh told ABC News. "It is not our intent to have two levels of care for people who are wounded by whatever means in uniform."
Some of the victims in the lawsuit believe the Army Secretary and others are purposely ignoring their cases out of political correctness.
"These guys play stupid every time they're asked a question about it, they pretend like they have no clue," said Shawn Manning, who was shot six times that day at Fort Hood. Two of the bullets remain in his leg and spine, he said.
"It was no different than an insurgent in Iraq or Afghanistan trying to kill us," said Manning, who was twice deployed to Iraq and had to retire from the military because of his injuries.
An Army review board initially classified Manning's injuries as "combat related," but that finding was later overruled by higher-ups in the Army.
Manning says the "workplace violence" designation has cost him almost $70,000 in benefits that would have been available if his injuries were classified as "combat related."
"Basically, they're treating us like I was downtown and I got hit by a car," he told ABC News.
For Alonzo Lunsford, who was shot seven times at Fort Hood and blinded in one eye, the military's treatment is deeply hurtful.
"It's a slap in the face, not only for me but for all of the 32 that wore the uniform that day," he told ABC News.
Lunsford's medical records show his injuries were determined to be "in the line of duty" but neither he nor any of the other soldiers shot or killed at Fort Hood is eligible for the Purple Heart under the Department of Defense's current policy for decorations and awards.
Army Secretary McHugh says awarding Purple Hearts could adversely affect the trial of Major Hasan.
"To award a Purple Heart, it has to be done by a foreign terrorist element," said McHugh. "So to declare that soldier a foreign terrorist, we are told, I'm not an attorney and I don't run the Justice Department, but we're told would have a profound effect on the ability to conduct the trial."
Members of Congress, including the chairman of the House Homeland Security committee, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, say they will introduce legislation to force the military and the Obama administration to give the wounded and dead the recognition and honors they deserve.
"It was clearly an act of terrorism that occurred that day, there's no question in my mind," McCaul told ABC News. "I think the victims should be treated as such."
Former Sgt. Munley says she now believes the White House used her for political advantage in arranging for her to sit next to Michelle Obama during the President's State of the Union address in 2010.
Munley says she has no hesitation now speaking out against the President or taking part in the lawsuit, because she wants to help the others who were shot that day and continue to suffer.
"We got tired of being neglected. So this was our last resort and I'm not ashamed of it a bit," said Munley. She is also raising money for a movie about Fort Hood, and says some of the proceeds will go to the victims.
_____________________________________________________________
Help for Veterans Twice Betrayed
In February, 2013, Representative Chellie Pingree, Democrat of Maine, and Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, introduced a bill that would make it easier for veterans to receive benefits for disabilities linked to sexual assault in the military. The bill is named for Ruth Moore, a Navy veteran who has been outspoken about what she calls her double betrayal.
The first was being raped, twice, by a supervisor when she was a teenager on her first Navy assignment in the 1980s — assaults that she says have brought her a lifetime’s worth of suffering, including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, a suicide attempt and homelessness.
The second was her 23-year battle with the Veterans Affairs Department to collect disability benefits for her PTSD. Like other women and men who were sexually assaulted, Ms. Moore struggled to be believed and compensated. Her claims were repeatedly denied, which veterans’ groups say happens all too often. The Service Women’s Action Network, an advocacy organization, found that the department approved only 32 percent of PTSD claims related to sexual trauma, compared with 53 percent of all other PTSD claims.
Sexual assaults are an underreported epidemic in the military — the Pentagon estimates that more than 19,000 service members are assaulted each year — and the damage they do is severe. Studies have shown that sexual trauma is the leading cause of PTSD among servicewomen. The V.A. recently made it easier for veterans who have served in war zones to qualify for PTSD-related benefits. But it has not done the same for survivors of sexual trauma, who can find it difficult to document a crime often cloaked in secrecy, denial and shame.
Women — who only now will be allowed into official combat roles — are deeply disadvantaged when seeking the compensation and treatment they deserve. The Ruth Moore Act would undo that injustice, easing the burden of proof for sexual-assault survivors who report mental health problems. It would also require the V.A. to submit annual reports to Congress on its handling of disability claims related to sexual trauma. For the thousands who have suffered in the aftermath of sexual assault, the bill brings a long-overdue promise of fairer treatment.
MORE IN OPINION (1 OF 25 ARTICLES) Op-Ed Contributor: Rape on the Reservation Read More »
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____________________________________
Why wait on Washington when there's Wal-Mart?
Date: January 2013
Wal-Mart plans to hire every veteran who wants a job and has been honorably discharged in the first 12 months off active duty. The program, which will start on Memorial Day, will include jobs mostly in Wal-Mart's stores or in its Sam's Club locations. Some will be at its headquarters, based in Bentonville, Ark. or the company's distribution centers.
Wal-Mart said the move will give part-time employees much higher earning potential. About 75 percent of its store management start as salespeople, who earn an average of $12.47 hourly. Managers, the company said, can make an average of $50,000 to $170,000 a year.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer and the biggest private employer in the U.S. with 1.4 million workers here, said Tuesday that it is rolling out a three-part plan to help jumpstart the sluggish U.S. economy.
The plan includes hiring more than 100,000 veterans in the next five years, spending $50 billion to buy more American-made merchandise in the next 10 years and helping its part-time workers move into full-time positions.
The move comes as Wal-Mart tries to bolster its image amid widespread criticism. The company, which often is criticized for its low-paying jobs and buying habits in the U.S., recently has faced allegations that it made bribes in Mexico and calls for better safety oversight after a deadly fire at a Bangladesh factory that supplies its clothes. Wal-Mart said its initiatives are unrelated to those events, but rather are meant to highlight that companies don't have to wait for lawmakers in Washington, D.C. to fix the economy.
"We've developed a national paralysis that's driven by all of us waiting for someone else to do something," Bill Simon, president and CEO of Wal-Mart's U.S. business, said Tuesday at an annual retail industry convention in New York. "The beauty of the private sector is that we don't have to win an election, convince Congress or pass a bill to do what we think is right. We can simply move forward, doing what we know is right."
Any changes that Wal-Mart makes to its hiring and buying practices garners lots of attention because of the company's massive size. Indeed, with $444 billion in annual revenue, if Wal-Mart were a country, it would rank among the largest economies in the world. But critics say the changes amount to a drop in the bucket for the behemoth, and they question whether Wal-Mart's initiatives will have a major impact on the U.S. economy.
"They sound impressive when you first hear the numbers but when you begin to look at them, it's a very tiny scale that doesn't add up to much," said Stacy Mitchell, senior researcher at the Institute for Local Self Reliance, a nonprofit national research organization.
The centerpiece of Wal-Mart's plan is a pledge to hire veterans, many of who have had a particularly difficult time finding work after coming home from Afghanistan and Iraq. The unemployment rate for veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan stood at 10.8 percent in December, compared with the overall unemployment rate of 7.8 percent.
Wal-Mart said it plans to hire every veteran who wants a job and has been honorably discharged in the first 12 months off active duty. The program, which will start on Memorial Day, will include jobs mostly in Wal-Mart's stores or in its Sam's Club locations. Some will be at its headquarters, based in Bentonville, Ark. or the company's distribution centers.
Dave Tovar, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said Wal-Mart hasn't worked out the details but it will "match up the veterans' experience and qualifications." Simon, who served in the Navy, said that veterans have "a record of performance under pressure" and "they're quick learners."
"I think that Wal-Mart has a tremendous opportunity to leverage operational skills that today's veterans bring," said Sean Collins, director of G.I. Jobs, a magazine and web site that highlight employment, education and small business opportunities for veterans.
Wal-Mart said First Lady Michelle Obama, who spearheaded a White House drive to encourage businesses to hire veterans, has expressed interest in working with Wal-Mart and with the rest of the business community on this initiative.
In the next several weeks, Simon said the White House will meet with the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense and major U.S. employers to encourage businesses to make commitments to train and employ American's returning veterans. The first lady on Tuesday called Wal-Mart's announcement "historic."
"We all believe that no one who serves our country should have to fight for a job once they return home," she said in a statement. "Wal-Mart is setting a groundbreaking example for the private sector to follow."
In addition to hiring veterans, Wal-Mart plans to spend $50 billion to buy more products made in the U.S. over the next 10 years. According to data from Wal-Mart's suppliers, items that are made, sourced or grown in the U.S. account for about two-thirds of the company's spending on products for its U.S. business.
Wal-Mart said that it plans to focus on buying more in areas such as sporting goods, fashion basics, storage products, games and paper products. The commitment comes as economics are changing for making goods overseas: Labor costs are rising in Asia, while oil and transportation costs are high and increasingly uncertain.
But even with the additional $5 billion that Wal-Mart plans to spend each year — the breakdown of $50 billion over five years — the amount that the company will spend each year on buying goods in the U.S. will only account for 2 percent of its total spending in the country. In the fiscal year that ended in January 2012, Wal-Mart bought $238.8 billion in goods for its U.S. stores.
The final piece of Wal-Mart's plan is to help part-time Wal-Mart workers transition into full-time employment if they so desire. Among the strategies, Wal-Mart said it will make sure that its part-time workers have "first shot" at the full-time job openings in the stores in their area.
Wal-Mart said the move will give part-time employees much higher earning potential. About 75 percent of its store management start as salespeople, who earn an average of $12.47 hourly. Managers, the company said, can make an average of $50,000 to $170,000 a year.
"There are some fundamental misunderstandings out there about retail jobs, and we need to do better at explaining the opportunities we offer," Simon, Wal-Mart's CEO, said.
Source: AP
_______________________________________________
SEAL who shot bin Laden speaks out
See the Comments from public below the article
SEAL = The United States Navy's Sea, Air, Land Teams, commonly known as the U.S. Navy SEALs, are the U.S. Navy's principal special operations force and a part of the Naval Special Warfare Command (NSWC) and SOCOMThe United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM)
_____________________________________
The U.S. Navy SEAL who shot and killed Osama bin Laden is speaking out for the first time since the May 1, 2011, raid on the al-Qaida leader's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
In an interview with Esquire, the former SEAL—identified as "The Shooter" due to what the magazine described as "safety" reasons—said he's been largely abandoned by the U.S. government since leaving the military last fall.
He told Esquire he decided to speak out to both correct the record of the bin Laden mission and to put a spotlight on how some of the U.S. military's highly trained and accomplished soldiers are treated by the government once they return to civilian life.
Despite killing the world's most-wanted terrorist, he said, he was not given a pension, health care or protection for himself or his family.
"[SEAL command] told me they could get me a job driving a beer truck in Milwaukee," he told Esquire.
Plus, he said, "my health care for me and my family stopped. I asked if there was some transition from my Tricare to Blue Cross Blue Shield. They said no. You're out of the service, your coverage is over. Thanks for your 16 years. Go f--- yourself."
The problem seems to be that "The Shooter" left the military well before the 20-year requirement for retirement benefits.According to the magazine, the government provides 180 days of transitional health care benefits, but the Shooter was ineligible because he did not agree to remain on active duty in a support role or become a "reservist." Instead, the magazine noted, he will "have to wait at least eight months to have his disability claims adjudicated."
The SEAL also gave his account of the historic raid, including the moment he pulled the trigger and shot bin Laden.
“In that second, I shot him, two times in the forehead," he told Esquire. "Bap! Bap! The second time as he’s going down. He crumpled onto the floor in front of his bed. He was dead. I watched him take his last breaths. And I remember as I watched him breathe out the last part of air, I thought: Is this the best thing I've ever done, or the worst thing I've ever done?
"I'm not religious," he added. "But I always felt I was put on the earth to do something specific. After that mission, I knew what it was."
He also recalled watching CNN's coverage of the first anniversary of bin Laden's death.
"They were saying, 'So now we're taking viewer e-mails. Do you remember where you were when you found out Osama bin Laden was dead?' And I was thinking: Of course I remember. I was in his bedroom looking down at his body."
In September 2012, fellow former SEAL Team 6 member Matt Bissonnette published a controversial book, "No Easy Day," under a pen name about the raid, drawing the ire of both his fellow SEALs and the Pentagon.
A spokeswoman for Esquire told Yahoo News that the magazine did not pay the SEAL for the interview.
Comments from the public
(1) Military vs politicians pension/benefits. Military = more risk but needs 20 years minimum.
Politicians = low risk one term gets benefits and pension.
Whats wrong with this picture?
Politicians need to EARN what they get and should be for many years service, not 5 or 6.
(2) I am truly thankful for your service and I am thankful that you accomplished the mission of taking out the worlds most notorious terrorist. I have the up most respect for those members of the SEAL community. I don't think people fully grasp what it takes to achieve the honor of wearing the "Trident". However, anyone that has served in the military (I am a veteran myself) knows that you don't receive any kind of pension/benefits until you reach the 20 year mark. You were at year 16, four more years and you and your family would have had the benefits you deserve. I don't understand two things, why cut your career short with only four years left until retirement and why are you questioning the fact that you aren't receiving these benefits when you haven't reached your 20 year mark?
(3) I'm surprised that a Navy Seal would make such a bad decision. He was not put out of the service - he made the decision to leave. EVERYONE in the military knows that if you leave before your 20 is up, you're back in the civilian world and do not get a pension (unless you get out on disability). Exceptions are not made for people who do awesome things.
_____________________________________________________________
See the Comments from public below the article
SEAL = The United States Navy's Sea, Air, Land Teams, commonly known as the U.S. Navy SEALs, are the U.S. Navy's principal special operations force and a part of the Naval Special Warfare Command (NSWC) and SOCOMThe United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM)
_____________________________________
The U.S. Navy SEAL who shot and killed Osama bin Laden is speaking out for the first time since the May 1, 2011, raid on the al-Qaida leader's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
In an interview with Esquire, the former SEAL—identified as "The Shooter" due to what the magazine described as "safety" reasons—said he's been largely abandoned by the U.S. government since leaving the military last fall.
He told Esquire he decided to speak out to both correct the record of the bin Laden mission and to put a spotlight on how some of the U.S. military's highly trained and accomplished soldiers are treated by the government once they return to civilian life.
Despite killing the world's most-wanted terrorist, he said, he was not given a pension, health care or protection for himself or his family.
"[SEAL command] told me they could get me a job driving a beer truck in Milwaukee," he told Esquire.
Plus, he said, "my health care for me and my family stopped. I asked if there was some transition from my Tricare to Blue Cross Blue Shield. They said no. You're out of the service, your coverage is over. Thanks for your 16 years. Go f--- yourself."
The problem seems to be that "The Shooter" left the military well before the 20-year requirement for retirement benefits.According to the magazine, the government provides 180 days of transitional health care benefits, but the Shooter was ineligible because he did not agree to remain on active duty in a support role or become a "reservist." Instead, the magazine noted, he will "have to wait at least eight months to have his disability claims adjudicated."
The SEAL also gave his account of the historic raid, including the moment he pulled the trigger and shot bin Laden.
“In that second, I shot him, two times in the forehead," he told Esquire. "Bap! Bap! The second time as he’s going down. He crumpled onto the floor in front of his bed. He was dead. I watched him take his last breaths. And I remember as I watched him breathe out the last part of air, I thought: Is this the best thing I've ever done, or the worst thing I've ever done?
"I'm not religious," he added. "But I always felt I was put on the earth to do something specific. After that mission, I knew what it was."
He also recalled watching CNN's coverage of the first anniversary of bin Laden's death.
"They were saying, 'So now we're taking viewer e-mails. Do you remember where you were when you found out Osama bin Laden was dead?' And I was thinking: Of course I remember. I was in his bedroom looking down at his body."
In September 2012, fellow former SEAL Team 6 member Matt Bissonnette published a controversial book, "No Easy Day," under a pen name about the raid, drawing the ire of both his fellow SEALs and the Pentagon.
A spokeswoman for Esquire told Yahoo News that the magazine did not pay the SEAL for the interview.
Comments from the public
(1) Military vs politicians pension/benefits. Military = more risk but needs 20 years minimum.
Politicians = low risk one term gets benefits and pension.
Whats wrong with this picture?
Politicians need to EARN what they get and should be for many years service, not 5 or 6.
(2) I am truly thankful for your service and I am thankful that you accomplished the mission of taking out the worlds most notorious terrorist. I have the up most respect for those members of the SEAL community. I don't think people fully grasp what it takes to achieve the honor of wearing the "Trident". However, anyone that has served in the military (I am a veteran myself) knows that you don't receive any kind of pension/benefits until you reach the 20 year mark. You were at year 16, four more years and you and your family would have had the benefits you deserve. I don't understand two things, why cut your career short with only four years left until retirement and why are you questioning the fact that you aren't receiving these benefits when you haven't reached your 20 year mark?
(3) I'm surprised that a Navy Seal would make such a bad decision. He was not put out of the service - he made the decision to leave. EVERYONE in the military knows that if you leave before your 20 is up, you're back in the civilian world and do not get a pension (unless you get out on disability). Exceptions are not made for people who do awesome things.
_____________________________________________________________
Study also the article just above: "How junk food in schools affects the military"
Serious facts:
One in 12 in military
has clogged heart arteries
Dated: December 25, 2012
STAF, Inc.'s comment:
The main reason for it: The way many eat: junk food; fast-food (= bad food; it's no food for any human)
Two risks for heart disease that haven't declined are obesity and diabetes, which are closely linked
See also 7 comments from the public (s0me of them military men) at the end of the article
SOURCE:
Journal of the American Medical Association, online December 25, 2012.
NEW YORK - Just over one in 12 U.S. service members who died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars had plaque buildup in the arteries around their hearts - an early sign of heart disease, according to a new study.
None of them had been diagnosed with heart disease before deployment, researchers said.
"This is a young, healthy, fit group," said the study's lead author, Dr. Bryant Webber, from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.
"These are people who are asymptomatic, they feel fine, they're deployed into combat," he told Reuters Health.
"It just proves again the point that we know that this is a clinically silent disease, meaning people can go years without being diagnosed, having no signs or symptoms of the disease."
Webber said the findings also show that although the U.S. has made progress in lowering the nationwide prevalence of heart disease, there's more work that can be done to encourage people to adopt a healthy lifestyle and reduce their risks.
Heart disease accounts for about one in four deaths - or about 600,000 Americans each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The new data come from autopsies done on U.S. service members who died in October 2001 through August 2011 during combat or from unintentional injuries. Those autopsies were originally performed to provide a full account to service members' families of how they died.
The study mirrors autopsy research on Korean and Vietnam war veterans, which found signs of heart disease in as many as three-quarters of deceased service members at the time.
"Earlier autopsy studies... were critical pieces of information that alerted the medical community to the lurking burden of coronary disease in our young people," said Dr. Daniel Levy, director of the Framingham Heart Study and a senior investigator with the National Institutes of Health.
The findings are not directly comparable, in part because there was a draft in place during the earlier wars but not for Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom/New Dawn. When service is optional, healthier people might be more likely to sign up, researchers explained.
Still, Levy said the new study likely reflects declines in heart disease in the U.S. in general over that span.
Altogether the researchers had information on 3,832 service members who'd been killed at an average age of 26. Close to 9 percent had any buildup in their coronary arteries, according to the autopsies. And about a quarter of the soldiers with buildup in their arteries had severe blockage.
Service members who had been obese or had high cholesterol or high blood pressure when they entered the military were especially likely to have plaque buildup, Webber and his colleagues reported Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
More than 98 percent of the service members included were men.
"This study bodes well for a lower burden of disease lurking in young people," Levy, who wrote an editorial published with the report, told Reuters Health.
"Young, healthy people are likely to have a lower burden of disease today than their parents or grandparents had decades ago."
That's likely due, in part, to better control of blood pressure and cholesterol and lower rates of smoking in today's service members - as well as the country in general, researchers said.
However, two risks for heart disease that haven't declined are obesity and diabetes, which are closely linked.
"Obesity is the one that has not trended in the right direction," Levy said.
"Those changes in obesity and diabetes threaten to reverse some of the dramatic improvements that we are seeing in heart disease death rates," he added.
SOURCE:
Journal of the American Medical Association, online December 25, 2012.
Comments from the public:
(1) Have you tried eating in an Army mess Hall in the last 30-years? Evidentally these "researchers" need to do more research! Bacon and eggs and omlettes and sausage with gravy over toast and hash browns and buttered toast with jelly and whole milk and sweet rolls and coffee. And that's just breakfast...
(2) The problem isn't the mess hall. The problem is the fast food industry. More and more of the junior troops are not using the meals provided but spending their hard (very hard) earned money on Taco Bell, McDougals and all the rest. I love a taco ro McMuffin now and then but not everyday, day in and...
(3) Eat in the mess hall a few times and that will definitely clog arteries and everything else..........
(4) How can you live in a country with a mcdonalds or a whataburger on every street corner, has hagen-daas after a workout, and considers meat lovers pizza a midnight snack, and not have clogged arteries?
(5) Most prominent foods in the diet of middle class America. Chicken wings, pizza, fast food and beer. A perfect storm for heart disease.
(6) It's the junk food and frozen microwaved processed bull crap that the have been fed since the toddler stage.
(7) A third of American adults are now obese & half is overweight. Time to straighten out our diets, wouldn't you say? That's not to mention all the obese kids sitting at their computers either.
See also the article below: Dystextia
_________________________________________________________________________
(1) Have you tried eating in an Army mess Hall in the last 30-years? Evidentally these "researchers" need to do more research! Bacon and eggs and omlettes and sausage with gravy over toast and hash browns and buttered toast with jelly and whole milk and sweet rolls and coffee. And that's just breakfast...
(2) The problem isn't the mess hall. The problem is the fast food industry. More and more of the junior troops are not using the meals provided but spending their hard (very hard) earned money on Taco Bell, McDougals and all the rest. I love a taco ro McMuffin now and then but not everyday, day in and...
(3) Eat in the mess hall a few times and that will definitely clog arteries and everything else..........
(4) How can you live in a country with a mcdonalds or a whataburger on every street corner, has hagen-daas after a workout, and considers meat lovers pizza a midnight snack, and not have clogged arteries?
(5) Most prominent foods in the diet of middle class America. Chicken wings, pizza, fast food and beer. A perfect storm for heart disease.
(6) It's the junk food and frozen microwaved processed bull crap that the have been fed since the toddler stage.
(7) A third of American adults are now obese & half is overweight. Time to straighten out our diets, wouldn't you say? That's not to mention all the obese kids sitting at their computers either.
See also the article below: Dystextia
_________________________________________________________________________
‘Dystextia':
Gibberish texts sound stroke alarm
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Imagine you were a devoted husband, waiting to hear from your wife about her due date after a visit to the obstetrician, and you saw these on your phone:
"every where thinging days nighing"
"Some is where!"
That's what happened last December to a Boston-area man, who knew that autocorrect - known for its bizarre replacements - was turned off on his 11-week-pregnant wife's phone.
You'd probably be tempted to make sure your wife, 25, got to the emergency room. When she did, doctors noted several signs of a stroke, including disorientation, inability to use her right arm and leg properly and some difficulty speaking.
A magnetic resonance imaging scan - MRI - revealed that part of the woman's brain wasn't getting enough blood, clinching the diagnosis. Fortunately, her symptoms went away quickly, and the rest of the pregnancy went just fine after she went home from the hospital on low-dose blood thinners.
The case, say three doctors from Boston's Harvard Medical School who reported it online today in the Archives of Neurology, suggests that "the growing digital record will likely become an increasingly important means of identifying neurologic disease, particularly in patient populations that rely more heavily on written rather than spoken communication."
The authors describe the phenomenon as "dystextia," which is the word used by other doctors in an earlier case involving a migraine, and symptoms of a stroke diagnosed for other reasons.
"In her case, the first evidence of language difficulties came from her unintelligible texts," one of the report's authors, Dr. Joshua Klein, told Reuters Health by email.
Strokes are rare in women aged 15 to 34, with about 11,000 per year, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published last year.
Dr. Sean Savitz, who directs the stroke program at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, said he has seen a few patients who sent emails suggesting they were having difficulty with language, a condition known as aphasia.
Such clues usually come with other information however. In this case, for example, the patient's obstetrician's office later remembered that she had trouble filling out a form. And they might have caught the language difficulty earlier had the woman not had a weak voice, thanks to a recent upper respiratory infection.
"So, this case report per se does not indicate to me if dystextia is going to be more common to pick up strokes," Savitz told Reuters Health by email, "but I do think it will be a valuable addition to the collection of information that neurologists should obtain when taking a history."
"The main stroke warning signs with respect to texting would be unintelligible language output, or problems reading or comprehending texts," said Klein. "Many smartphones have an ‘autocorrect' function which can introduce erroneous word substitutions, giving the impression of a language disorder."
Autocorrect, said Savitz, a professor of neurology, can confuse matters - even for doctors.
"I have often joked with my colleagues when using the dictation of the smartphone, that it gives me an aphasia*)," he said. "Potential for lots of false positives!"
*) Aphasia is the disturbance in formulation and comprehension of language
SOURCE: Archives of Neurology, online December 24, 2012.
__________________________________________________________________________
Gibberish texts sound stroke alarm
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Imagine you were a devoted husband, waiting to hear from your wife about her due date after a visit to the obstetrician, and you saw these on your phone:
"every where thinging days nighing"
"Some is where!"
That's what happened last December to a Boston-area man, who knew that autocorrect - known for its bizarre replacements - was turned off on his 11-week-pregnant wife's phone.
You'd probably be tempted to make sure your wife, 25, got to the emergency room. When she did, doctors noted several signs of a stroke, including disorientation, inability to use her right arm and leg properly and some difficulty speaking.
A magnetic resonance imaging scan - MRI - revealed that part of the woman's brain wasn't getting enough blood, clinching the diagnosis. Fortunately, her symptoms went away quickly, and the rest of the pregnancy went just fine after she went home from the hospital on low-dose blood thinners.
The case, say three doctors from Boston's Harvard Medical School who reported it online today in the Archives of Neurology, suggests that "the growing digital record will likely become an increasingly important means of identifying neurologic disease, particularly in patient populations that rely more heavily on written rather than spoken communication."
The authors describe the phenomenon as "dystextia," which is the word used by other doctors in an earlier case involving a migraine, and symptoms of a stroke diagnosed for other reasons.
"In her case, the first evidence of language difficulties came from her unintelligible texts," one of the report's authors, Dr. Joshua Klein, told Reuters Health by email.
Strokes are rare in women aged 15 to 34, with about 11,000 per year, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published last year.
Dr. Sean Savitz, who directs the stroke program at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, said he has seen a few patients who sent emails suggesting they were having difficulty with language, a condition known as aphasia.
Such clues usually come with other information however. In this case, for example, the patient's obstetrician's office later remembered that she had trouble filling out a form. And they might have caught the language difficulty earlier had the woman not had a weak voice, thanks to a recent upper respiratory infection.
"So, this case report per se does not indicate to me if dystextia is going to be more common to pick up strokes," Savitz told Reuters Health by email, "but I do think it will be a valuable addition to the collection of information that neurologists should obtain when taking a history."
"The main stroke warning signs with respect to texting would be unintelligible language output, or problems reading or comprehending texts," said Klein. "Many smartphones have an ‘autocorrect' function which can introduce erroneous word substitutions, giving the impression of a language disorder."
Autocorrect, said Savitz, a professor of neurology, can confuse matters - even for doctors.
"I have often joked with my colleagues when using the dictation of the smartphone, that it gives me an aphasia*)," he said. "Potential for lots of false positives!"
*) Aphasia is the disturbance in formulation and comprehension of language
SOURCE: Archives of Neurology, online December 24, 2012.
__________________________________________________________________________
Changing Two Lives, Then the World
A military love story - send support - see below
This is an emotional love story
A promising love relationship destroyed by the man joining the military.
There are challenges in everyone's life.
The military people, especially our veterans and their love lives and their happiness,
are often failing in life.
Their children suffer, the spouse suffers, all related individuals suffer.
_________
We at STAF, Inc. believe this moving article will make us think and see the difficulties in the military life.
The men and women active in the military must be given a fully proper emotional & mental help.
We at STAF, inc. believe this painful article will give you and everyone a deeper insight to the many reasons we
must start and learn to take much better care of our precious soldiers & veterans as they retire to their civil life.
Send a love & happiness support to restore this couple's love life
Life principle "What you do to others comes back to you" (The Bible)
Quotation "What you leave behind, you'll find in front of you" (Dr. Christian, STAF, Inc. CEO)
This couple, Specialist Kevin Farrell & his true love Kathryn, have both a real love between them - say the STAF, Inc.'s Marriage & Relationship Restorers - the leading specialists in all couple related matters.
Kevin Farrell is a specialist in the United States Army currently (October 2012) deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan, with the 508th Military Police Company out of Teaneck, N.J. - Teaneck National Guard Armory Phone 201-833-9812
Call them to ask how to send a support letter via an email or U.S. mail to Specialist Kevin Farrell who in October 2012
was ....... (state where in Afghanistan (info above) - Then:
Say: "Save The American Family, STAF, Inc., a New York State not-for-profit organization saving American Families and American Couples for Life & Happiness, gave me the story published in The New York Times on Sunday, October, 21, 2012, of Specialist Kevin Farrell (state above this position, 3rd line in this chapter) and gave me your Teaneck phone number to call. Ask them to what address to send via either U.S. mail or via email a support letter personally to Specialist Kevin Farrell.
You may also find Specialist Farrell in Facebook or any other social site.
Tell him who gave you his story and write a letter in double and ask him to forward one of the double support letters to Kathryn, his true love. If you email ask Specialist Farrell forward the email, or put in her social site, or mail it via the U.S. mail service. Ask Kevin & Kathryn to meet again and build a happy life together. Ask them to contact STAF, Inc. for a complimentary high-level couple & relationship counseling to restore their lost happiness - it is worth more than anything in both of their lives.
It is clear that both of these lovers have real love between them. This is what the Save The American Family - STAF, Inc., a leading not-for-profit organization's Marriage & Couple Relationship Restoring Specialist say: True love never dies. If true love is not allowed to work itself out in a relationship bringing deep blessings to the couple (in this case Kevin & Kathryn), both parties will suffer the rest of their lives.
_______________
Send via email to STAF, Inc. a copy of your double letter you delivered to Specialist Kevin Farrell and inform STAF, how you delivered your love & happiness support and when and to what email address or to what U.S. mailing address or to what Social site address.
STAF, Inc. - Email the info to: [email protected]
Describe in your email also (1) how you felt when you wrote & delivered the support letter
Give Kevin and Kathryn STAF, Inc.'s website address: www.staf1org.weebly.com (reads: stafone...)
and the email address: [email protected]
__________
Kevin Farrell is a specialist in the United States Army currently (October 2012) deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan, with the 508th Military Police Company out of Teaneck, N.J. Teaneck National Guard Armory Phone 201-833-9812
Call them and ask h0w to send U.S. mail or an email to Kevin Farrell
Address: 1799 Teaneck Rd Teaneck, NJ 07666 | Get Directions »
www.state.nj.us/military/army/
150 National Guardsmen from N.J. prepare for yearlong Afghanistan ...www.nj.com › New Jersey Real-Time News › Military news
Jul 15, 2012 – N.J. members of National Guard prepare to deploy to Afghanistan ..."They're out there doing their jobs day in and day out and taking care of ... at the
The New York article written by Specialist Kevin Farrell himself is below
Changing Two Lives, Then the World
A Military Love Story - send support to the couple - see above
Published in The New York Times
10/21/12
By KEVIN FARRELL -
Kevin Farrell is a specialist in the United States Army currently deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan, with the 508th Military Police Company out of Teaneck, N.J.
I WAS at Fort Drum in upstate New York last year when it really hit me. I don’t know if it was because I was getting ready to go to war and was nervous, or because I watched the sun rise every morning at first formation, and that always reminded me of Kathryn. Either way, all I knew for certain was that I was still in love with her, and I had to get her back into my life.
For a long time I had this crazy idea that I could change the world if I just worked hard enough. The downside of having that idea is that it took me away from home for long periods of time.
I dated Kathryn while I volunteered on the fire-and-rescue department, while I traveled the country for seven months with AmeriCorps, and while I was away for five months at basic training.
Kathryn was always at home waiting for me. All told I was away for an entire year of the two and a half years we dated.
I met Kathryn when I was 22 and she was 18. The short version of our story sounds great: Her house caught fire and I was in the fire department.
The long story is less romantic: I wasn’t on the call and she wasn’t even home. She messaged me on Facebook a few days later when she saw a comment I left about the fire department on a mutual friend’s wall. We chatted online for a few days, then texted, then saw a movie and had lunch, and that was the start of her first relationship and my longest.
We went to the beach and swam, held hands at the Fourth of July fireworks, went on roller coasters at Six Flags, ate Thanksgiving dinner with each other’s families, exchanged gifts on Christmas. We cried when I had to leave for long periods of time.
When I got back from basic training a couple of years ago, I felt different, as if I was doing things with my life and Kathryn wasn’t. I wanted something more, something bigger, and it didn’t seem that she did, so I broke up with her. She was crushed, but she didn’t try very hard to change my mind. Maybe she knew me well enough to know that when I decide to do something, there is no stopping me.
A few months later, in December, something bigger did happen. My National Guard unit was selected for a 2012 deployment to Afghanistan. With our country engaged in two wars, I knew it was not if I was going to war but when. Suddenly our monthly drills got more intense, and our annual two weeks of training that summer made me think over what was good in my life.
I called Kathryn and told her I was still in love with her and I was a fool to have let her go. She said she had a new boyfriend and was happy with him and didn’t want me back.
I looked on her Facebook page and saw pictures of him and her swimming at the beach and riding the roller coasters at Six Flags. I felt as if I was in a “Twilight Zone” episode where I woke up to discover someone else had replaced me in my own life. Even though Kathryn said she didn’t want me back, she entertained the texts I sent saying I loved her.
One day while she was in the shower, her boyfriend went through her phone and saw the texts, and their relationship ended shortly after. Two weeks later our new relationship started.
It was a lot different from the first time. Instead of going to school, Kathryn had a full-time fashion job in New York City that she commuted to every day from her parents’ home in North Jersey. She dyed her blond hair red, and she was less loving and affectionate.
Reminders of her ex-boyfriend were all over: the stuffed animal on her bed, the iPhone he bought her. I tried to ignore the image of her with someone else, and I tried even harder to make our new relationship like our old one. I tried, but I didn’t do so well.
Our evenings together mainly consisted of us eating takeout and her falling asleep on the couch as we watched reruns of “Project Runway.” Light from the television filled the dark room and flickered on us like a fire but gave no warmth. The space between us on the couch spoke more about our relationship than we did to each other.
After two months of this, we were eating dinner one evening when I brought up the elephant in the room: “What are we going to do when I deploy?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, quietly.
“Do you still want to date while I’m gone?”
She looked down at her plate. “Not really.”
“So then what are we doing?”
Again, quietly, she said, “I don’t know.”
She did know. We both knew. She just didn’t want to say out loud that she didn’t want to wait for me again. I understood. She was 22, beautiful and shouldn’t be wasting her life waiting for me. We broke up, but this time she broke up with me.
Not long after, she moved to the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She posted pictures on Facebook of herself at parties and bars, hanging out with guys I didn’t know. I deleted her from my friends’ list.
A week later, at my monthly National Guard drill, I stood in first formation as the sun rose. The first sergeant told us that our deployment was pushed back a few months and we wouldn’t be leaving until July. I thought I had only four months until I left, but all of a sudden I had eight months to sit and wait and be alone.
I tried going on dates, but it never went well. The deployment hung over my head like a guillotine, ready to cut me off from everything I knew and loved. My weekends were spent going out to restaurants and movies with girls I had met online, at bars or through friends. There would be small talk about our lives, the past and the present, but when the future came up, things went downhill.
“We’re still sending people over there?” they would ask.
“Yes. We’re trying to build a stable government in Afghanistan. It’s taking a long time to do that and deployments are on a rotational basis. My unit leaves in July.”
NO one wanted to start a relationship under those circumstances, and I wasn’t one for flings. After being turned down so many times, I stopped trying.
I didn’t take the conversation beyond small talk with the cute barista who always smiled at me when I walked up to the counter. I didn’t talk to the girl on the train who was reading my favorite book. I didn’t do much of anything. I spent my nights at home clicking through links on reddit.com instead of going out. The weeks and months passed and I stayed alone, waiting to leave.
A month before I left, I decided to send Kathryn an e-mail to see if she wanted to get together for coffee or dinner. I hadn’t seen or talked to her since we broke up seven months earlier. After not getting a response for a couple of days, I sent another e-mail asking if she got the first one.
The next day she wrote: “Yes, I got your e-mails, but I honestly don’t have anything to say. I don’t really see a reason to meet up or talk. I’m sorry. I’ll always wish you the best of luck though.”
I went to New York City and walked around, hoping to randomly run into her. As my feet hit the sidewalk, I felt like an old rusty anchor dragging along the bottom of a rocky seabed, never catching on anything, never getting a hold of anyone. Strangers streamed past me like rushing water.
The time came for me to leave, and I left. When I got to mobilization training, I figured something out. I realized that everyone belongs somewhere. Beautiful young girls who love fashion belong in New York City, at parties and bars, having fun and meeting boys. Headstrong young men who become soldiers belong on the other side of the planet, at war, shooting and being shot at. We were both where we belonged.
Over here in Afghanistan I’m doing one of the hardest things a person can do, and I might not make it home alive. I don’t know if I’m fighting for freedom, or democracy, or against terrorism. All I know is, I need to get Kathryn back into my life.
But I also know I won’t, and that’s just the way it is.
Kevin Farrell is a specialist in the United States Army currently deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan, with the 508th Military Police Company out of Teaneck, N.J.
This article is for your private use, only
____________________________________
A Military Love Story - send support to the couple - see above
Published in The New York Times
10/21/12
By KEVIN FARRELL -
Kevin Farrell is a specialist in the United States Army currently deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan, with the 508th Military Police Company out of Teaneck, N.J.
I WAS at Fort Drum in upstate New York last year when it really hit me. I don’t know if it was because I was getting ready to go to war and was nervous, or because I watched the sun rise every morning at first formation, and that always reminded me of Kathryn. Either way, all I knew for certain was that I was still in love with her, and I had to get her back into my life.
For a long time I had this crazy idea that I could change the world if I just worked hard enough. The downside of having that idea is that it took me away from home for long periods of time.
I dated Kathryn while I volunteered on the fire-and-rescue department, while I traveled the country for seven months with AmeriCorps, and while I was away for five months at basic training.
Kathryn was always at home waiting for me. All told I was away for an entire year of the two and a half years we dated.
I met Kathryn when I was 22 and she was 18. The short version of our story sounds great: Her house caught fire and I was in the fire department.
The long story is less romantic: I wasn’t on the call and she wasn’t even home. She messaged me on Facebook a few days later when she saw a comment I left about the fire department on a mutual friend’s wall. We chatted online for a few days, then texted, then saw a movie and had lunch, and that was the start of her first relationship and my longest.
We went to the beach and swam, held hands at the Fourth of July fireworks, went on roller coasters at Six Flags, ate Thanksgiving dinner with each other’s families, exchanged gifts on Christmas. We cried when I had to leave for long periods of time.
When I got back from basic training a couple of years ago, I felt different, as if I was doing things with my life and Kathryn wasn’t. I wanted something more, something bigger, and it didn’t seem that she did, so I broke up with her. She was crushed, but she didn’t try very hard to change my mind. Maybe she knew me well enough to know that when I decide to do something, there is no stopping me.
A few months later, in December, something bigger did happen. My National Guard unit was selected for a 2012 deployment to Afghanistan. With our country engaged in two wars, I knew it was not if I was going to war but when. Suddenly our monthly drills got more intense, and our annual two weeks of training that summer made me think over what was good in my life.
I called Kathryn and told her I was still in love with her and I was a fool to have let her go. She said she had a new boyfriend and was happy with him and didn’t want me back.
I looked on her Facebook page and saw pictures of him and her swimming at the beach and riding the roller coasters at Six Flags. I felt as if I was in a “Twilight Zone” episode where I woke up to discover someone else had replaced me in my own life. Even though Kathryn said she didn’t want me back, she entertained the texts I sent saying I loved her.
One day while she was in the shower, her boyfriend went through her phone and saw the texts, and their relationship ended shortly after. Two weeks later our new relationship started.
It was a lot different from the first time. Instead of going to school, Kathryn had a full-time fashion job in New York City that she commuted to every day from her parents’ home in North Jersey. She dyed her blond hair red, and she was less loving and affectionate.
Reminders of her ex-boyfriend were all over: the stuffed animal on her bed, the iPhone he bought her. I tried to ignore the image of her with someone else, and I tried even harder to make our new relationship like our old one. I tried, but I didn’t do so well.
Our evenings together mainly consisted of us eating takeout and her falling asleep on the couch as we watched reruns of “Project Runway.” Light from the television filled the dark room and flickered on us like a fire but gave no warmth. The space between us on the couch spoke more about our relationship than we did to each other.
After two months of this, we were eating dinner one evening when I brought up the elephant in the room: “What are we going to do when I deploy?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, quietly.
“Do you still want to date while I’m gone?”
She looked down at her plate. “Not really.”
“So then what are we doing?”
Again, quietly, she said, “I don’t know.”
She did know. We both knew. She just didn’t want to say out loud that she didn’t want to wait for me again. I understood. She was 22, beautiful and shouldn’t be wasting her life waiting for me. We broke up, but this time she broke up with me.
Not long after, she moved to the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She posted pictures on Facebook of herself at parties and bars, hanging out with guys I didn’t know. I deleted her from my friends’ list.
A week later, at my monthly National Guard drill, I stood in first formation as the sun rose. The first sergeant told us that our deployment was pushed back a few months and we wouldn’t be leaving until July. I thought I had only four months until I left, but all of a sudden I had eight months to sit and wait and be alone.
I tried going on dates, but it never went well. The deployment hung over my head like a guillotine, ready to cut me off from everything I knew and loved. My weekends were spent going out to restaurants and movies with girls I had met online, at bars or through friends. There would be small talk about our lives, the past and the present, but when the future came up, things went downhill.
“We’re still sending people over there?” they would ask.
“Yes. We’re trying to build a stable government in Afghanistan. It’s taking a long time to do that and deployments are on a rotational basis. My unit leaves in July.”
NO one wanted to start a relationship under those circumstances, and I wasn’t one for flings. After being turned down so many times, I stopped trying.
I didn’t take the conversation beyond small talk with the cute barista who always smiled at me when I walked up to the counter. I didn’t talk to the girl on the train who was reading my favorite book. I didn’t do much of anything. I spent my nights at home clicking through links on reddit.com instead of going out. The weeks and months passed and I stayed alone, waiting to leave.
A month before I left, I decided to send Kathryn an e-mail to see if she wanted to get together for coffee or dinner. I hadn’t seen or talked to her since we broke up seven months earlier. After not getting a response for a couple of days, I sent another e-mail asking if she got the first one.
The next day she wrote: “Yes, I got your e-mails, but I honestly don’t have anything to say. I don’t really see a reason to meet up or talk. I’m sorry. I’ll always wish you the best of luck though.”
I went to New York City and walked around, hoping to randomly run into her. As my feet hit the sidewalk, I felt like an old rusty anchor dragging along the bottom of a rocky seabed, never catching on anything, never getting a hold of anyone. Strangers streamed past me like rushing water.
The time came for me to leave, and I left. When I got to mobilization training, I figured something out. I realized that everyone belongs somewhere. Beautiful young girls who love fashion belong in New York City, at parties and bars, having fun and meeting boys. Headstrong young men who become soldiers belong on the other side of the planet, at war, shooting and being shot at. We were both where we belonged.
Over here in Afghanistan I’m doing one of the hardest things a person can do, and I might not make it home alive. I don’t know if I’m fighting for freedom, or democracy, or against terrorism. All I know is, I need to get Kathryn back into my life.
But I also know I won’t, and that’s just the way it is.
Kevin Farrell is a specialist in the United States Army currently deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan, with the 508th Military Police Company out of Teaneck, N.J.
This article is for your private use, only
____________________________________
WHAT IS VETERANS COURT?
"It saved my life. It made me change my ways,"
says: U.S. Army Veteran and recovering Alcoholic Mr. G. B. of the Brooklyn Veterans Court
WHAT IS VETERANS COURT?
In New York City the Council pushes drug courts for veterans - no matter what drugs and what addiction.
This nationwide new attitude will make a difference for our precious veterans.
It is struggles with pride and shame for the returning veterans. Our nation must start taking much better care of our veterans - that is the clear opinion of Save The American Family - STAF, Inc., not-for-profit.
Veterans Treatment Court - the Newest Model
Veterans Treatment Courts use a hybrid integration of Drug Court and Mental Health Court principles to serve military veterans, and sometimes active-duty personnel. They promote sobriety, recovery, and stability through a coordinated response that involves collaboration with the traditional partners found in Drug Courts and Mental Health Courts, as well as the Department of Veterans Affairs healthcare networks, Veterans Benefits Administration, State Departments of Veterans Affairs, volunteer veteran mentors, and organizations that support veterans and veterans’ families (Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2010).
The definitions of different Drug Courts:
Copy the title below and search the web to find the details & definitions
+ Adult Drug Court
+ Veterans Treatment Court - the Newest Model
+ DWI Court
+ Family Dependency Treatment Court (Family Drug Court)
+ Federal District Drug Court (Federal Reentry Court)
+ Juvenile Drug Court
+ Reentry Court
+ Reentry Drug Court
+ Tribal Healing to Wellness Court
+ Back on TRAC: Treatment, Responsibility, Accountability on
Campus
This year, 2,644 Drug Courts will serve over 120,000 people.
Addiction knows no race, gender, age or socio-economic background. Addiction is pervasive but it is also treatable. Drug Courts exist at numerous entry points throughout the justice system.
- CLICK the green: Problem Solving Courts
- Addressing a spectrum of issues...
- CLICK the green: Testimony
- NADCP click the green on left - it connects
- NDCI click the green on left - it connects
- NCDC click the green on left - it connects
- Site Map click the green on left - it connects
1029 N. Royal St, Suite 201, Alexandria, Virginia 22314 | 703-575-9400
| Contact Us click the green on left (contact Us) - it connects
___________________________
Woman to lead Air Force training after sex scandal
By PAUL J. WEBER | Associated Press
9/15/12
Click the green area for further information
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — The Air Force chose a woman Saturday to lead its basic training unit at a Texas base where dozens of female recruits have alleged they were sexually assaulted or harassed by male instructors within the past year.
Col. Deborah Liddick is taking command of the 737th Training Group, bringing a distinctly new face of authority to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. Six male instructors have been charged with crimes ranging from rape to adultery, and there are others still under investigation.
The Air Force announced Liddick's appointment in a statement that didn't mention the sex scandal or highlight choosing a woman to lead a unit where the number of women identified by military investigators as potential victims is approaching 40.
About one in five recruits at Lackland are women, while most instructors are men.
"I look forward to and have the utmost confidence in having Col. Liddick take the reins of basic military training," Col. Mark Camerer, commander of the 37th Training Wing at Lackland, said in the statement.
Lackland is where every new American airman reports for basic training, graduating about 35,000 each year.
Liddick is already stationed in San Antonio, where she serves as chief of the maintenance division at the former Randolph Air Force Base. She is scheduled to take command Friday.
She takes over for Col. Glenn Palmer, who was ousted last month as attention to the scandal intensified. Another commander at Lackland was also relieved over the summer for what military prosecutors described as a lack of confidence.
The most serious allegations at Lackland involved an instructor sentenced to 20 years in prison in July after being convicted of raping one female recruit and sexually assaulting several others. Earlier this week, another instructor was sentenced to a year in prison and received a dishonorable discharge after pleading guilty to having sex with a trainee.
Protect Our Defenders, an advocacy group that has pressed Congress to hold hearing on the Lackland scandal, continued calling for legislative changes to military policies with news of Liddick's appointment.
"Hopefully, Col. Deborah Liddick will do a great job," said Nancy Parrish, the group's president. She added that what's occurring at Lackland is part of "a much broader problem endemic throughout all the services."
U.S. Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, visited Lackland last week and said he believed the Air Force was being diligent in its investigation. In August, the White House pick for Air Force chief of staff was held up while Congress pressed the service for answers about the scandal.
Click the green area for further information
Source:
AP - Yahoo news
EXPLORE RELATED CONTENT1 - 4 of 20
Play VideoHero's Welcome At Hanscom Air Force …
WBZ Boston
This undated image provided by the U.S. (picture of the woman)
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force said on Saturday it selected a woman to serve as the new commander … Full Story »Air Force names woman to lead basic training amid sex scandal
Play Video
Protecting the president: Flying Bush
_________________________________________
By PAUL J. WEBER | Associated Press
9/15/12
Click the green area for further information
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — The Air Force chose a woman Saturday to lead its basic training unit at a Texas base where dozens of female recruits have alleged they were sexually assaulted or harassed by male instructors within the past year.
Col. Deborah Liddick is taking command of the 737th Training Group, bringing a distinctly new face of authority to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. Six male instructors have been charged with crimes ranging from rape to adultery, and there are others still under investigation.
The Air Force announced Liddick's appointment in a statement that didn't mention the sex scandal or highlight choosing a woman to lead a unit where the number of women identified by military investigators as potential victims is approaching 40.
About one in five recruits at Lackland are women, while most instructors are men.
"I look forward to and have the utmost confidence in having Col. Liddick take the reins of basic military training," Col. Mark Camerer, commander of the 37th Training Wing at Lackland, said in the statement.
Lackland is where every new American airman reports for basic training, graduating about 35,000 each year.
Liddick is already stationed in San Antonio, where she serves as chief of the maintenance division at the former Randolph Air Force Base. She is scheduled to take command Friday.
She takes over for Col. Glenn Palmer, who was ousted last month as attention to the scandal intensified. Another commander at Lackland was also relieved over the summer for what military prosecutors described as a lack of confidence.
The most serious allegations at Lackland involved an instructor sentenced to 20 years in prison in July after being convicted of raping one female recruit and sexually assaulting several others. Earlier this week, another instructor was sentenced to a year in prison and received a dishonorable discharge after pleading guilty to having sex with a trainee.
Protect Our Defenders, an advocacy group that has pressed Congress to hold hearing on the Lackland scandal, continued calling for legislative changes to military policies with news of Liddick's appointment.
"Hopefully, Col. Deborah Liddick will do a great job," said Nancy Parrish, the group's president. She added that what's occurring at Lackland is part of "a much broader problem endemic throughout all the services."
U.S. Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, visited Lackland last week and said he believed the Air Force was being diligent in its investigation. In August, the White House pick for Air Force chief of staff was held up while Congress pressed the service for answers about the scandal.
Click the green area for further information
Source:
AP - Yahoo news
EXPLORE RELATED CONTENT1 - 4 of 20
Play VideoHero's Welcome At Hanscom Air Force …
WBZ Boston
This undated image provided by the U.S. (picture of the woman)
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force said on Saturday it selected a woman to serve as the new commander … Full Story »Air Force names woman to lead basic training amid sex scandal
Play Video
Protecting the president: Flying Bush
_________________________________________
Air Force calls number of sex assaults 'appalling'
WASHINGTON (AP) - January 22/13 — The Air Force recorded an "appalling" number of reports of sexual assault last year even as it worked to curb misconduct in the wake of a sex scandal at its training headquarters in Texas, the service's top officer told lawmakers on Wednesday.
Gen. Mark Welsh, the Air Force chief of staff, said there were 796 reports of cases ranging from inappropriate touching to rape. The 2012 figure is a nearly 30 percent increase from 2011 when 614 cases were reported. The number could be much greater, Welsh said, because many cases are never reported at all.
"Calling these numbers unacceptable does not do the victims justice," Welsh said. "The truth is, these numbers are appalling!"
Welsh's testimony before the House Armed Services Committee underscores the challenges it and the other military branches face in stopping sexual assault within the ranks. Even more disturbing than the number of reports of sexual assault is the fact that most of these crimes are committed by fellow airmen, Welsh said.
The scandal at Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio continues to unfold nearly two years after the first victim came forward. All U.S. airmen report to Lackland for basic training. The base has about 500 military training instructors for about 35,000 airmen who graduate every year. While one in five recruits are women, most instructors are men.
The preliminary results of Air Force investigation released in November described abuses of power by bad instructors who took advantage of a weak oversight system to prey on young recruits.
The investigation, which is ongoing, has found so far that 32 military training instructors allegedly engaged in inappropriate or coercive sexual relationships with 59 recruits and airmen at Lackland, according to the Air Force. Six instructors have been convicted in court martials on charges ranging from adultery, rape and conducting unprofessional relationships. Another nine instructors are awaiting courts martial. Two more received non-judicial punishments. There are 15 instructors still under investigation.
The Air Force has changed the way it selects officers and instructors who train new recruits and created a special unit of lawyers and investigators to assist victims of sexual assault.
Welsh said he has stressed to the Air Force's officer corps and senior enlisted ranks the importance of eliminating sexual misconduct from the ranks. As part of that effort, Welsh issued a "Letter to Airmen" earlier this month that said images, songs and stories that are obscene or vulgar are not part of the Air Force heritage.
An Air Force veteran who pressed Congress to hold hearings on the misconduct at Lackland said there is a sexual assault epidemic in the military. Jennifer Norris said she medically retired in 2010 and was sexually assaulted while serving in the Air Force but not at Lackland. She told the committee she frequently has seen well-intentioned reforms fall short.
Fundamental reforms are needed "to change a military culture and fix the broken military justice system," said Norris, who serves as an advocacy board member of the group Protect Our Defenders.
Source: U.S. air force
____________________________________________
52 military women are raped every day
Women in military deserve better care
The Bad News Is:
52 military women are raped every day, according to the Pentagon, and hundreds of female soldiers are at risk
of becoming pregnant from rape each year. A day 52 - multiply it with 350, a year.
By: Lawrence Korb and Jessica Arons
September 24, 2012
Source: PoliticoClick green for further info
Both President Barack Obama and GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney regularly talk about the needs of our military men and women. Yet they are not addressing a serious military issue — access to reproductive care for military women.
Military women do not have coverage for abortion care, including in cases of rape and incest. Yet 52 military women are raped every day, according to the Pentagon, and hundreds of female soldiers are at risk of becoming pregnant from rape each year.
The Republican Party platform supports a constitutional amendment banning all abortions — including for victims of rape. However, after Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) made his now infamous “legitimate rape” comment, Romney did say that his administration would not oppose abortions in cases of rape. The Democratic Party unequivocally supports a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including access to safe and legal abortions, regardless of her ability to pay.
Neither party, however, has yet delivered for our nation’s military women. TRICARE, the military health insurance plan, only covers abortion when a woman’s life is endangered by the pregnancy.
Technically, a servicewoman is supposed to be able to obtain an abortion on base for reasons of rape and incest — if she pays for the procedure out of pocket. But because of confusion, misinformation and inconsistent policies and practices, abortion services are often unavailable in military facilities, particularly in combat zones.
An amendment to the FY 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, sponsored by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee, would rectify this problem by allowing TRICARE to again cover abortion services in the instance of rape or incest — as it did until 1981.
In doing so, the Shaheen Amendment would bring military policy in line with other current restrictions on coverage for abortion in government-sponsored or -managed insurance programs and plans. But as it stands now, servicewomen have less coverage for abortion than, for example, civilian federal employees or women enrolled in Medicaid.
It is particularly cruel and ironic that TRICARE denies coverage for abortions for rape and incest, given the long-standing challenges the armed services have faced in addressing sexual assault among the ranks. According to the Pentagon’s own data, 52 military women are raped every day, and we estimate that more than 300 women are likely to become pregnant from rape in the military each year.
Moreover, junior enlisted soldiers, who earn the least, are the most likely to be raped. In other words, those who are the most likely to need an abortion because of rape are the least likely to be able to afford it.
In addition, because abortion services are rarely available on base, women in the military must often travel long distances to find a safe and legal abortion provider. This means these women have to get permission to leave base and take time off from work and must disclose to a superior the reasons they need to take leave. Many soldiers, unwilling to reveal their reason or fearful of retaliation, turn to clandestine measures. These barriers are unfair, obstruct physical and psychological health and undermine military readiness.
Even among Republicans and people who are anti-abortion, there is broad support for the proposition that abortion should be allowed in cases of rape and incest. In fact, only 25 percent of Republicans would support banning abortion in cases of rape and incest, according to a recent Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll.
It is shocking that the Shaheen Amendment is subject to debate at all, and yet House Republicans (including Akin and GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan) have refused to add it to their version of this year’s defense authorization bill. Last year, Senate Republicans actually prevented a floor vote on the matter.
If the presidential candidates are true to their word, they should have no problem backing this straightforward measure.
Abortion coverage following rape or incest is the least that our military women deserve. It is shameful and disheartening that even this basic coverage is so difficult to obtain, for it is woefully insufficient. Congress and the administration should pass the Shaheen Amendment as a first step in working to meet all of the reproductive and sexual health needs of our servicewomen.
Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, served as assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. Jessica Arons is the director of the Women’s Health & Rights Program at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
© 2012 POLITICO LLC
Click green for further info
This article is for your private use, only
_____________________________________
________
Female prison guard abused at an Iowa state prison by the prison administrators as
well by the prisoners "Kill you" threats, "rape you" threats, "fire you" threats
until justice was served
Outrageously bad prison practices
_____
Female Prison guard fights 'inconceivable' practice
A perk for inmates at one of Iowa's most dangerous prison units
made Kristine Sink's life "misery" for years
At Iowa prison,
a lonely battle against sex movies
Lawsuit
(click green above)
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Administrators let offenders at one of Iowa's most dangerous prison units watch violent and sexually explicit movies and TV shows for years, despite repeated complaints from a female officer who said it encouraged inmates to sexually harass her.
Murderers, sexual predators and other men housed at a unit for mentally ill inmates at the maximum-security state prison in Fort Madison were allowed to watch movies such as "Deranged," a horror film that includes a scene in which a woman is beaten, raped, hung upside down and skinned. Among other movies inmates watched were "Delta of Venus," an erotic film; "Coffey," which shows sadism and attempted rape; and "Cruel Intentions," records show.
Despite correctional officer Kristine Sink's complaints, administrators told her not to turn off the movies or shows. When she did, they accused her of insubordination, according to department records that Sink provided to The Associated Press. One warden blamed Sink for causing problems by complaining, and another supervisor suggested her outfits — a standard-issue uniform — were enticing inmates.
Sink said she has fought a lonely battle under four wardens against movies that caused inmates to become sexually aggressive — through "10 years of misery." She filed a lawsuit Nov. 30 against prison officials alleging sexual harassment, discrimination and workplace retaliation, seeking an unspecified amount of damages.
"It's inconceivable. If I had not lived through it myself, I wouldn't believe this," she said.
Sink, who started at the prison in 2003 after the factory where she had been working shut down, said the movies played multiple times a day for a week on a television in a common area where 45 inmates could watch. Some inmates would openly masturbate and make sexually harassing comments to her.
Sink said that when prison officials finally acted on her complaints in September 2011 by largely barring movies with sexually explicit content, inmates blamed her and subjected her to a torrent of insults and threats to beat or even kill her. One threw urine on her. Despite the threats, Sink said her supervisors refused to move her to a job where she wouldn't be in contact with inmates for more than a year. She was finally moved to a desk job last month, after she filed her lawsuit.
Sink's attorney, Brooke Timmer, said the lawsuit is aimed at forcing changes to allow employees to file complaints without retaliation and be free from sexual harassment by inmates.
"No private employer could get away with this," she said.
Sink said she began complaining about the practice of allowing inmates to rent or purchase graphic movies to be shown to the unit soon after she went to work there. She filed a formal complaint with in 2007 after the showing of "Deranged."
"What are we saying to the sex offenders that are already convicted of these crimes and then we provide them visual viewing to fantasize about or to act upon," Sink wrote to then-Warden John Ault. She told him she has been waiting for management "to fix this wrong and make it right for over four years."
Sink told Ault, who retired in 2010, that inmates were accusing her of trying to eliminate their movies and suggested a supervisor had let them know she complained.
Ault responded that he took "umbrage" with her claim that management identified her, and said "you, and you alone, have put yourself out there" by turning off movies and complaining. He said it was her who got upset and filed the complaint, even though steps were being taken to select more appropriate movies.
"I question who here has created a 'more hostile environment to work in' or an 'unsecured environment to work in', as you call it," Ault wrote. "I cannot disagree with you that some of the scenes in movies have shown sexual violence, especially those involving females, and should not have been shown, and we believe we have tightened up the process to lessen the likelihood of such movies being shown. We must remember, however, that we are an institution of adult males, and much of what we show can be seen on general television broadcasts."
Sink claims a male supervisor then told her the department had received a complaint from an inmate that her clothes were too tight. Sink says she was humiliated when she was directed to turn around so the supervisor could inspect her uniform.
Weeks later, Ault dismissed Sink's complaint, saying officials determined the movies didn't violate the state's violence-free workplace policy. "As always, we encourage you to continue to report any inappropriate behaviors you may encounter while performing your job duties," he wrote.
Months later, Sink wrote that she turned off another movie after it showed sexual violence and she found one inmate masturbating in his cell. Another inmate said, "No offense but some women like it that way," she wrote to superiors. She said such movies jeopardized staff security and hurt the goals of sex offender treatment.
Department spokesman Fred Scaletta said he couldn't comment on Sink's allegations. He said the agency prohibits the showing of NC-17 films and requires any R-rated videos to have a "redeeming value." Unrated shows must be reviewed to ensure they are appropriate, he said.
In 2009, Ault adopted guidelines that allowed movies to be shown in inmates' cells after 9 p.m., not in the common area. But Sink said Ault's successor, Nick Ludwick, loosened the restriction at the urging of inmates. Ault and Ludwick declined interview requests.
In 2011, inmates were allowed to watch the Showtime series, "Californication." Sink said she objected to sex scenes that "whipped up" inmates and turned off the show despite an order not to do so. Sink said she was investigated for insubordination and later learned she received a disciplinary letter, which has since been removed from her file.
AP News
For your private use, only
Can be used for educational purposes
__________________________________________________________
well by the prisoners "Kill you" threats, "rape you" threats, "fire you" threats
until justice was served
Outrageously bad prison practices
_____
Female Prison guard fights 'inconceivable' practice
A perk for inmates at one of Iowa's most dangerous prison units
made Kristine Sink's life "misery" for years
At Iowa prison,
a lonely battle against sex movies
Lawsuit
(click green above)
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Administrators let offenders at one of Iowa's most dangerous prison units watch violent and sexually explicit movies and TV shows for years, despite repeated complaints from a female officer who said it encouraged inmates to sexually harass her.
Murderers, sexual predators and other men housed at a unit for mentally ill inmates at the maximum-security state prison in Fort Madison were allowed to watch movies such as "Deranged," a horror film that includes a scene in which a woman is beaten, raped, hung upside down and skinned. Among other movies inmates watched were "Delta of Venus," an erotic film; "Coffey," which shows sadism and attempted rape; and "Cruel Intentions," records show.
Despite correctional officer Kristine Sink's complaints, administrators told her not to turn off the movies or shows. When she did, they accused her of insubordination, according to department records that Sink provided to The Associated Press. One warden blamed Sink for causing problems by complaining, and another supervisor suggested her outfits — a standard-issue uniform — were enticing inmates.
Sink said she has fought a lonely battle under four wardens against movies that caused inmates to become sexually aggressive — through "10 years of misery." She filed a lawsuit Nov. 30 against prison officials alleging sexual harassment, discrimination and workplace retaliation, seeking an unspecified amount of damages.
"It's inconceivable. If I had not lived through it myself, I wouldn't believe this," she said.
Sink, who started at the prison in 2003 after the factory where she had been working shut down, said the movies played multiple times a day for a week on a television in a common area where 45 inmates could watch. Some inmates would openly masturbate and make sexually harassing comments to her.
Sink said that when prison officials finally acted on her complaints in September 2011 by largely barring movies with sexually explicit content, inmates blamed her and subjected her to a torrent of insults and threats to beat or even kill her. One threw urine on her. Despite the threats, Sink said her supervisors refused to move her to a job where she wouldn't be in contact with inmates for more than a year. She was finally moved to a desk job last month, after she filed her lawsuit.
Sink's attorney, Brooke Timmer, said the lawsuit is aimed at forcing changes to allow employees to file complaints without retaliation and be free from sexual harassment by inmates.
"No private employer could get away with this," she said.
Sink said she began complaining about the practice of allowing inmates to rent or purchase graphic movies to be shown to the unit soon after she went to work there. She filed a formal complaint with in 2007 after the showing of "Deranged."
"What are we saying to the sex offenders that are already convicted of these crimes and then we provide them visual viewing to fantasize about or to act upon," Sink wrote to then-Warden John Ault. She told him she has been waiting for management "to fix this wrong and make it right for over four years."
Sink told Ault, who retired in 2010, that inmates were accusing her of trying to eliminate their movies and suggested a supervisor had let them know she complained.
Ault responded that he took "umbrage" with her claim that management identified her, and said "you, and you alone, have put yourself out there" by turning off movies and complaining. He said it was her who got upset and filed the complaint, even though steps were being taken to select more appropriate movies.
"I question who here has created a 'more hostile environment to work in' or an 'unsecured environment to work in', as you call it," Ault wrote. "I cannot disagree with you that some of the scenes in movies have shown sexual violence, especially those involving females, and should not have been shown, and we believe we have tightened up the process to lessen the likelihood of such movies being shown. We must remember, however, that we are an institution of adult males, and much of what we show can be seen on general television broadcasts."
Sink claims a male supervisor then told her the department had received a complaint from an inmate that her clothes were too tight. Sink says she was humiliated when she was directed to turn around so the supervisor could inspect her uniform.
Weeks later, Ault dismissed Sink's complaint, saying officials determined the movies didn't violate the state's violence-free workplace policy. "As always, we encourage you to continue to report any inappropriate behaviors you may encounter while performing your job duties," he wrote.
Months later, Sink wrote that she turned off another movie after it showed sexual violence and she found one inmate masturbating in his cell. Another inmate said, "No offense but some women like it that way," she wrote to superiors. She said such movies jeopardized staff security and hurt the goals of sex offender treatment.
Department spokesman Fred Scaletta said he couldn't comment on Sink's allegations. He said the agency prohibits the showing of NC-17 films and requires any R-rated videos to have a "redeeming value." Unrated shows must be reviewed to ensure they are appropriate, he said.
In 2009, Ault adopted guidelines that allowed movies to be shown in inmates' cells after 9 p.m., not in the common area. But Sink said Ault's successor, Nick Ludwick, loosened the restriction at the urging of inmates. Ault and Ludwick declined interview requests.
In 2011, inmates were allowed to watch the Showtime series, "Californication." Sink said she objected to sex scenes that "whipped up" inmates and turned off the show despite an order not to do so. Sink said she was investigated for insubordination and later learned she received a disciplinary letter, which has since been removed from her file.
AP News
For your private use, only
Can be used for educational purposes
__________________________________________________________
CLICK THE GREEN TITLE BELOW - it connects to a full science article
Athletes’ Brain Disease Is Found in Veterans
News article May, 2012
The New York Times, below after the brief comment by Giselle Stolper, CEO, Mental Health Assn. of New York City
There is mounting evidence that traumatic brain injury can affect athletes and soldiers on more than just a physical level. The mental health effects of traumatic brain injury and chronic traumatic encephalopathy are just as debilitating: depression, suicidal ideation, an inability to focus and other issues manifest at every level of injury.
While the article does not differentiate between psychological problems and brain injury, it is important to recognize that these are not mutually exclusive; in fact, they are closely linked.
With continued awareness and partnerships like the National T.B.I. and Emotional Wellness Alliance being started by our association, we can finally hope to turn the corner on this issue and get all who suffer from chronic traumatic encephalopathy the physical and emotional help they will surely require.
GISELLE STOLPER
President and Chief Executive
Mental Health Assn. of New York City
New York, May 17, 2012
A version of this letter appeared in print on May 25, 2012, on page A30 of the New York edition with the headline: Traumatic Brain Injury.
_______________
Note by the STAF, Inc. writers:
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is caused by an concussion, e.g. in American football. Recently has been found that the modern war technology with is heavy blasts creates powerful air waves hitting the head and the brains with the same effect as concussion in sports. The condition leads to mental challenges. This reason is assumed being perhaps the real reason why so many recruits an veterans have severe mental challenges including their "skyrocketing" suicide rate. Previously was believed, just in our present times, that P.T.S.D. (= post-traumatic stress disorder) is the reason - and the recruits & the veterans were treated with psychiatric medication and therapy without the desired results. The Vietnam veterans did not have similar symptoms - obviously because in those days the war technology and its blasts were not as powerful as today in Iran, Afganistan, and in other areas.
________________
Early Detection for Brain Injuries
U.S. veterans, football teams of the future — even high school squads on limited budgets — may someday have a new tool to check players & war veterans for brain injuries. It’s a special form of headgear, packed with sensors that read the brain waves of athletes after they come off the field, thus detecting changes caused by the trauma of hard knocks.
The compact, portable sensors decipher neural activity by measuring changes in the brain’s tiny magnetic field. These small magnetometers — still in the laboratory and in prototype — have yet to be tried on athletes. But their potential is enormous for brain imaging and for inexpensive monitoring of brain diseases, as well as for many other applications like the control of prosthetics, said Dr. José Luis Contreras-Vidal, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Houston.
Dr. Contreras-Vidal’s research includes work on a system that will use brain signals to control prosthetic legs.
“This is a transformative technology” that could make brain interfaces available at a small cost, he said. “We could potentially use these devices to record in real time brain waves that could be analyzed for specific diseases such as Alzheimer’s, or the progression of these diseases.”
The research is occurring at a time of growing concern about collisions and subsequent brain injuries in sports — and the dire effects that may show up only many years later. But an inexpensive system for spotting changes in brain behavior could play an important safety role one day in boxing, football and many other sports.
The magnetic sensors, part of a field called optical or atomic magnetometry, were created at the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colo., by Svenja Knappe and colleagues.
“We are trying to make them small and inexpensive,” Dr. Knappe said of the devices, each roughly the size of a sugar cube. The sensors are designed to be mass-produced in the future, so that several hundred of them might one day line the inside of the special headgear that detects brain changes. She and her colleagues are also trying to improve the sensors’ performance.
Instruments that measure magnetic fields are not new, said Dr. Dmitry Budker, a physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and an editor of “Optical Magnetometry,” a coming book.
But the sensors under development at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and other labs may someday offer portability, compactness and flexibility that isn’t possible with conventional magnetometers called superconducting quantum interference devices, or Squids. Those superconducting devices are highly sensitive detectors for brain signals, said Matti S. Hamalainen, a neuroscientist who specializes in functional brain imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. But they require cryogenic cooling, and patients must be protected from the extremely low temperatures with a heavy, insulated housing.
Installing Squid systems can cost $1 million to $3 million, Dr. Hamalainen said. So they won’t be found on a high school football field soon.
He said the compact sensors have advantages. Unlike those in superconducting devices, they could be used at room temperature, and in helmets that could match the size of the head.
“It would be nice to be able to use a portable, adjustable sensor” that could be fitted closer to the skulls of smaller adults and children, he said. “The closer you are to the sources of the signals, the better the information you can get.”
The magnetic sensors may also help to interpret neural signals in other applications, Dr. Contreras-Vidal said. One standard, noninvasive way to read the complex snap, crackle and pop of neurons is by electroencephalography, or EEG. A cap of electrodes is placed on the skull to eavesdrop on the signal.
“But there are many artifacts when you record electrical brain waves with EEG,” he said. “You get a fuzzy, blurry picture of what’s going on inside. Some of these problems do not occur when you are using magnetic recordings.”
AT the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Thad G. Walker, an atomic physicist, uses optical magnetometry to monitor the magnetic fields of the beating heart rather than the brain. Professor Walker and his group have created small magnetometers that are an inexpensive alternative to superconducting devices now used to spot various heart abnormalities in a fetus.
The technology is sensitive enough to measure different features of the heart signal of a 20-week-old fetus, he said.
Research groups at many institutions are trying to find practical and economical ways to commercialize optical magnetometry, said Dr. Michael Romalis, a physics professor at Princeton University and a prominent researcher in the field.
“My guess is that it will take a few years for these efforts to mature,” he said.Source:
NYT 8/26/12
By ANNE EISENBERG
This is for your private use, only
__________________________________
U.S. veterans, football teams of the future — even high school squads on limited budgets — may someday have a new tool to check players & war veterans for brain injuries. It’s a special form of headgear, packed with sensors that read the brain waves of athletes after they come off the field, thus detecting changes caused by the trauma of hard knocks.
The compact, portable sensors decipher neural activity by measuring changes in the brain’s tiny magnetic field. These small magnetometers — still in the laboratory and in prototype — have yet to be tried on athletes. But their potential is enormous for brain imaging and for inexpensive monitoring of brain diseases, as well as for many other applications like the control of prosthetics, said Dr. José Luis Contreras-Vidal, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Houston.
Dr. Contreras-Vidal’s research includes work on a system that will use brain signals to control prosthetic legs.
“This is a transformative technology” that could make brain interfaces available at a small cost, he said. “We could potentially use these devices to record in real time brain waves that could be analyzed for specific diseases such as Alzheimer’s, or the progression of these diseases.”
The research is occurring at a time of growing concern about collisions and subsequent brain injuries in sports — and the dire effects that may show up only many years later. But an inexpensive system for spotting changes in brain behavior could play an important safety role one day in boxing, football and many other sports.
The magnetic sensors, part of a field called optical or atomic magnetometry, were created at the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colo., by Svenja Knappe and colleagues.
“We are trying to make them small and inexpensive,” Dr. Knappe said of the devices, each roughly the size of a sugar cube. The sensors are designed to be mass-produced in the future, so that several hundred of them might one day line the inside of the special headgear that detects brain changes. She and her colleagues are also trying to improve the sensors’ performance.
Instruments that measure magnetic fields are not new, said Dr. Dmitry Budker, a physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and an editor of “Optical Magnetometry,” a coming book.
But the sensors under development at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and other labs may someday offer portability, compactness and flexibility that isn’t possible with conventional magnetometers called superconducting quantum interference devices, or Squids. Those superconducting devices are highly sensitive detectors for brain signals, said Matti S. Hamalainen, a neuroscientist who specializes in functional brain imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. But they require cryogenic cooling, and patients must be protected from the extremely low temperatures with a heavy, insulated housing.
Installing Squid systems can cost $1 million to $3 million, Dr. Hamalainen said. So they won’t be found on a high school football field soon.
He said the compact sensors have advantages. Unlike those in superconducting devices, they could be used at room temperature, and in helmets that could match the size of the head.
“It would be nice to be able to use a portable, adjustable sensor” that could be fitted closer to the skulls of smaller adults and children, he said. “The closer you are to the sources of the signals, the better the information you can get.”
The magnetic sensors may also help to interpret neural signals in other applications, Dr. Contreras-Vidal said. One standard, noninvasive way to read the complex snap, crackle and pop of neurons is by electroencephalography, or EEG. A cap of electrodes is placed on the skull to eavesdrop on the signal.
“But there are many artifacts when you record electrical brain waves with EEG,” he said. “You get a fuzzy, blurry picture of what’s going on inside. Some of these problems do not occur when you are using magnetic recordings.”
AT the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Thad G. Walker, an atomic physicist, uses optical magnetometry to monitor the magnetic fields of the beating heart rather than the brain. Professor Walker and his group have created small magnetometers that are an inexpensive alternative to superconducting devices now used to spot various heart abnormalities in a fetus.
The technology is sensitive enough to measure different features of the heart signal of a 20-week-old fetus, he said.
Research groups at many institutions are trying to find practical and economical ways to commercialize optical magnetometry, said Dr. Michael Romalis, a physics professor at Princeton University and a prominent researcher in the field.
“My guess is that it will take a few years for these efforts to mature,” he said.Source:
NYT 8/26/12
By ANNE EISENBERG
This is for your private use, only
__________________________________
In the STAF, Inc. scale of 1-10 this article's importance # = 9-1/2
Source: The New York Times
May 16, 2012By JAMES DAO
Brain Ailments in Veterans Likened to Those in Athletes
Scientists who have studied a degenerative brain disease in athletes have found the same condition in combat veterans exposed to roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, concluding that such explosions injure the brain in ways strikingly similar to tackles and punches.
The researchers also discovered what they believe is the mechanism by which explosions damage brain tissue and trigger the wasting disease, called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., by studying simulated explosions on mice. The animals developed evidence of the disease just two weeks after exposure to a single simulated blast, researchers found.
“Our paper points out in a profound and definitive way that there is an organic, structural problem in the brain associated with blast exposure,” said Dr. Lee E. Goldstein of Boston University’s School of Medicine and a lead author of the paper, which was published online Wednesday by the peer-reviewed journal Science Translational Medicine.
The paper provides the strongest evidence yet that some and perhaps many combat veterans with invisible brain injuries caused by explosions are at risk of developing long-term neurological disease — a finding that, if confirmed, would have profound implications for military policy, veterans programs and future research.
The study could provide a starting point for developing preventive measures for blast-related brain injuries, as well as drug therapies and diagnostic tests for C.T.E., an incurable disease detected only by autopsy.
“The animal model developed by the researchers will enable a better understanding of the brain pathology involved in blast injuries and, ideally, lead to new therapies to help service members and veterans with traumatic brain injuries,” said Dr. Joel Kupersmith, the chief research and development officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which helped finance the research.
The paper also seems likely to fuel a debate that has raged for decades over whether veterans who struggle emotionally and psychologically after returning from war suffer from psychiatric problems or brain injuries.
Dr. Goldstein and his co-lead author, Dr. Ann McKee, co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University, assert that their paper shows that many of those veterans probably have organic brain injuries and should be given appropriate treatment and disability compensation.
“Not long ago, people said N.F.L. players with behavior problems were just having problems adjusting to retirement,” Dr. Goldstein said. “Now it’s more or less settled that there is a disease associated with their problems. But we do not have that consensus in the military world yet.”
Since 2001, the military has confirmed traumatic brain injury — widely considered the precursor to C.T.E. — in more than 220,000 of the 2.3 million troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, though some experts believe the actual number is higher. There is no way yet of estimating how many of those combat veterans may develop the disease.
Some experts who have read the paper questioned the authors’ conclusions, saying that there was not enough data to conclude that blast exposure leads to C.T.E. Dr. McKee autopsied only four veterans, and three of them had head injuries from multiple sources, making it hard to determine the cause of the disease, they said.
“It’s too small of a sample size,” said Dr. David Hovda, director of the Brain Injury Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a health adviser to the Pentagon.
But Dr. Hovda said that the growing body of research linking C.T.E. to multiple head injuries was “quite remarkable.”
Dr. Daniel P. Perl, professor of pathology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, the military’s medical school, said the study did not convince him that the injuries from blast exposure were identical to head injuries from sports, and he questioned whether data from the mouse research was applicable to humans. But Dr. Perl, who has just started his own project to study the brains of military personnel, called the paper “an important contribution.”
While acknowledging some issues in using mice, Dr. McKee said that animal tests helped resolve a problem scientists face in studying C.T.E.: human patients typically suffer concussions in several ways, whether from car accidents, sports or combat. With mice, the researchers could ensure that the brain damage was caused solely by blast exposure.
C.T.E. causes neurological decay and is linked to memory loss, personality changes, impaired judgment, depression and dementia. A once obscure disorder thought mainly to afflict boxers, it has entered the popular lexicon in recent years as more athletes have received the diagnosis, including David Duerson, the former All-Pro defensive back for the Chicago Bears, who killed himself last year.
The new study out of Boston is just the second time scientists have found C.T.E. in combat veterans. Last fall, a team of researchers led by Dr. Bennet Omalu discovered evidence of the disease in a 27-year-old Iraq war veteran who committed suicide in 2010. The former Marine had reported being close to mortar blasts and roadside bombs in Iraq, but also experienced multiple concussions from contact sports.
Dr. Omalu, the chief medical examiner for San Joaquin County, Calif., said he was preparing another paper documenting C.T.E. in eight veterans who had received diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder before they died.
Dr. McKee, who directs a brain donation center at the Department of Veterans Affairs medical center in Bedford, Mass., said it took her four years to gain access to the brains of the four veterans. Three of the veterans had single or multiple exposures to blasts, while a fourth had multiple concussions from football and vehicle accidents.
She compared tissue samples from those veterans with the brains of four athletes — three amateur football players and a professional wrestler — three of whom reported multiple concussions and all of whom died in their teens or 20s. She also studied the brains of four people with no record of concussions.
In all the veterans and athletes, Dr. McKee found the signature evidence of early phase C.T.E.: dead or dying neurons, abnormal clumps of a toxic protein and damaged axons, the fibers that transmit signals between nerve cells. She found no evidence of the disease in the people with no reported concussions.
For the animal part of the study, Dr. Goldstein developed a 27-foot-long “shock tube” to simulate explosions. At one end of the aluminum tube the researchers attached a device that uses compressed nitrogen to explode a Mylar membrane, generating force equal to the explosion of a 120-millimeter mortar round. At the other end, they tied down mice, allowing their heads to move freely.
The researchers found that shock waves from the blast moving at more than 1,000 miles per hour had no perceptible effect on brain tissue. But the subsequent blast wind, traveling at 330 m.p.h., shook the skull violently in what the researchers called “bobblehead effect.”
When the scientists examined specially stained tissue from the mouse brains under microscopes just two weeks later, they found the telltale signs of C.T.E.
The scientists also found that mice exposed to blasts showed short-term memory loss and declines in learning capacity just a few weeks later.
But when the researchers immobilized mouse heads during blasts, the mice did not develop learning problems later, suggesting that the brain trauma might be blocked by preventing the head from snapping around during an explosion.
Dr. Hovda said that one implication of the study might be that “traumatic brain injury is not an event that we recover from.”
“Maybe it is the beginning of a series of events that we have to deal with for years,” he said.
As devastating as that news may seem, it may also provide comfort to some military families.
Jennifer Smith, the widow of Michael Smith, the Marine found to have C.T.E. by Dr. Omalu, said she had gained a better understanding of his suicide after researchers told her his emotional problems might have been the result of a brain injury.
In an interview, Ms. Smith said that after her husband returned from his second tour of Iraq in 2009, he had nightmares and mood swings and seemed angry much of the time. (He also had a concussion from playing football in that period.)
Before he hanged himself in 2010, doctors gave him a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder and put him on antidepressant drugs, to no avail, she said.
“He had no control over it,” she said, referring to C.T.E.
__________________________________________
Source: The New York Times
May 16, 2012By JAMES DAO
Brain Ailments in Veterans Likened to Those in Athletes
Scientists who have studied a degenerative brain disease in athletes have found the same condition in combat veterans exposed to roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, concluding that such explosions injure the brain in ways strikingly similar to tackles and punches.
The researchers also discovered what they believe is the mechanism by which explosions damage brain tissue and trigger the wasting disease, called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., by studying simulated explosions on mice. The animals developed evidence of the disease just two weeks after exposure to a single simulated blast, researchers found.
“Our paper points out in a profound and definitive way that there is an organic, structural problem in the brain associated with blast exposure,” said Dr. Lee E. Goldstein of Boston University’s School of Medicine and a lead author of the paper, which was published online Wednesday by the peer-reviewed journal Science Translational Medicine.
The paper provides the strongest evidence yet that some and perhaps many combat veterans with invisible brain injuries caused by explosions are at risk of developing long-term neurological disease — a finding that, if confirmed, would have profound implications for military policy, veterans programs and future research.
The study could provide a starting point for developing preventive measures for blast-related brain injuries, as well as drug therapies and diagnostic tests for C.T.E., an incurable disease detected only by autopsy.
“The animal model developed by the researchers will enable a better understanding of the brain pathology involved in blast injuries and, ideally, lead to new therapies to help service members and veterans with traumatic brain injuries,” said Dr. Joel Kupersmith, the chief research and development officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which helped finance the research.
The paper also seems likely to fuel a debate that has raged for decades over whether veterans who struggle emotionally and psychologically after returning from war suffer from psychiatric problems or brain injuries.
Dr. Goldstein and his co-lead author, Dr. Ann McKee, co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University, assert that their paper shows that many of those veterans probably have organic brain injuries and should be given appropriate treatment and disability compensation.
“Not long ago, people said N.F.L. players with behavior problems were just having problems adjusting to retirement,” Dr. Goldstein said. “Now it’s more or less settled that there is a disease associated with their problems. But we do not have that consensus in the military world yet.”
Since 2001, the military has confirmed traumatic brain injury — widely considered the precursor to C.T.E. — in more than 220,000 of the 2.3 million troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, though some experts believe the actual number is higher. There is no way yet of estimating how many of those combat veterans may develop the disease.
Some experts who have read the paper questioned the authors’ conclusions, saying that there was not enough data to conclude that blast exposure leads to C.T.E. Dr. McKee autopsied only four veterans, and three of them had head injuries from multiple sources, making it hard to determine the cause of the disease, they said.
“It’s too small of a sample size,” said Dr. David Hovda, director of the Brain Injury Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a health adviser to the Pentagon.
But Dr. Hovda said that the growing body of research linking C.T.E. to multiple head injuries was “quite remarkable.”
Dr. Daniel P. Perl, professor of pathology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, the military’s medical school, said the study did not convince him that the injuries from blast exposure were identical to head injuries from sports, and he questioned whether data from the mouse research was applicable to humans. But Dr. Perl, who has just started his own project to study the brains of military personnel, called the paper “an important contribution.”
While acknowledging some issues in using mice, Dr. McKee said that animal tests helped resolve a problem scientists face in studying C.T.E.: human patients typically suffer concussions in several ways, whether from car accidents, sports or combat. With mice, the researchers could ensure that the brain damage was caused solely by blast exposure.
C.T.E. causes neurological decay and is linked to memory loss, personality changes, impaired judgment, depression and dementia. A once obscure disorder thought mainly to afflict boxers, it has entered the popular lexicon in recent years as more athletes have received the diagnosis, including David Duerson, the former All-Pro defensive back for the Chicago Bears, who killed himself last year.
The new study out of Boston is just the second time scientists have found C.T.E. in combat veterans. Last fall, a team of researchers led by Dr. Bennet Omalu discovered evidence of the disease in a 27-year-old Iraq war veteran who committed suicide in 2010. The former Marine had reported being close to mortar blasts and roadside bombs in Iraq, but also experienced multiple concussions from contact sports.
Dr. Omalu, the chief medical examiner for San Joaquin County, Calif., said he was preparing another paper documenting C.T.E. in eight veterans who had received diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder before they died.
Dr. McKee, who directs a brain donation center at the Department of Veterans Affairs medical center in Bedford, Mass., said it took her four years to gain access to the brains of the four veterans. Three of the veterans had single or multiple exposures to blasts, while a fourth had multiple concussions from football and vehicle accidents.
She compared tissue samples from those veterans with the brains of four athletes — three amateur football players and a professional wrestler — three of whom reported multiple concussions and all of whom died in their teens or 20s. She also studied the brains of four people with no record of concussions.
In all the veterans and athletes, Dr. McKee found the signature evidence of early phase C.T.E.: dead or dying neurons, abnormal clumps of a toxic protein and damaged axons, the fibers that transmit signals between nerve cells. She found no evidence of the disease in the people with no reported concussions.
For the animal part of the study, Dr. Goldstein developed a 27-foot-long “shock tube” to simulate explosions. At one end of the aluminum tube the researchers attached a device that uses compressed nitrogen to explode a Mylar membrane, generating force equal to the explosion of a 120-millimeter mortar round. At the other end, they tied down mice, allowing their heads to move freely.
The researchers found that shock waves from the blast moving at more than 1,000 miles per hour had no perceptible effect on brain tissue. But the subsequent blast wind, traveling at 330 m.p.h., shook the skull violently in what the researchers called “bobblehead effect.”
When the scientists examined specially stained tissue from the mouse brains under microscopes just two weeks later, they found the telltale signs of C.T.E.
The scientists also found that mice exposed to blasts showed short-term memory loss and declines in learning capacity just a few weeks later.
But when the researchers immobilized mouse heads during blasts, the mice did not develop learning problems later, suggesting that the brain trauma might be blocked by preventing the head from snapping around during an explosion.
Dr. Hovda said that one implication of the study might be that “traumatic brain injury is not an event that we recover from.”
“Maybe it is the beginning of a series of events that we have to deal with for years,” he said.
As devastating as that news may seem, it may also provide comfort to some military families.
Jennifer Smith, the widow of Michael Smith, the Marine found to have C.T.E. by Dr. Omalu, said she had gained a better understanding of his suicide after researchers told her his emotional problems might have been the result of a brain injury.
In an interview, Ms. Smith said that after her husband returned from his second tour of Iraq in 2009, he had nightmares and mood swings and seemed angry much of the time. (He also had a concussion from playing football in that period.)
Before he hanged himself in 2010, doctors gave him a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder and put him on antidepressant drugs, to no avail, she said.
“He had no control over it,” she said, referring to C.T.E.
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November 9, 2012
Necessary to study this and all veterans related articles
When War Comes Home
Click green for further info
About half a million American soldiers have suffered from brain-rattling concussions in Afghanistan or Iraq, and one result is an epidemic of traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder. We’re seeing many more suicides among recent veterans than among earlier generations, probably because of repeated, extended deployments in combat, coupled with an increase in improvised explosive devices and concussions.
We still aren’t doing nearly enough to provide timely mental health services for these soldiers and veterans. The administration and members of Congress talk a good game about honoring young men and women who went to war, but they don’t allocate the resources necessary to care of them. A result is certainly disability and suicides. Could it also include brutal crimes like this one?
WILMINGTON, Del. - A DECORATED combat veteran, Staff Sgt. Dwight L. Smith Jr. seemed the perfect soldier. Until, that is, he visited his family in Delaware last Christmas and, as he later told the police, “clicked on.”Inexplicably one morning, while driving his bright red Hummer on a public street, he ran down a 65-year-old woman, Marsha Lee, as she walked her dog, according to police accounts. Then, as a witness watched, he got out and threw Ms. Lee, injured and screaming, into the back seat and drove off.
Ms. Lee’s body, naked except for socks, was found discarded in a wooded area half a mile away. Her head had been bashed in with a heavy, sharp object, perhaps a rock. The police later established that she had been raped.
Police officers searched frantically for the Hummer, and that evening they arrested Sergeant Smith as he drove such a vehicle, still spattered with blood. A police affidavit says that Sergeant Smith admitted to the slaying that night, explaining that he had decided that he “wanted to kill someone.”
Ms. Lee was much loved in the community, for she had devoted herself nearly full time to local causes like an animal shelter and a home for the elderly. Her funeral was one of the biggest anyone can remember in Delaware, and the town has honored her by giving her street a second name: Marsha Lee Way. Her husband, Scottie Lee, declined to speak to me at the request of prosecutors. But family friends see this as straightforward: a case of a young man committing an act of pure evil.
Sergeant Smith, now 25, is in prison, and a trial is still more than a year off, but this may emerge as the pre-eminent American case exploring whether soldiers’ brain injuries and trauma overseas can lead to crimes committed later. The basic question is whether Ms. Lee, as she walked her dog on a quiet street here, became an indirect casualty of our foreign wars.
About half a million American soldiers have suffered from brain-rattling concussions in Afghanistan or Iraq, and one result is an epidemic of traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder. We’re seeing many more suicides among recent veterans than among earlier generations, probably because of repeated, extended deployments in combat, coupled with an increase in improvised explosive devices and concussions.
We still aren’t doing nearly enough to provide timely mental health services for these soldiers and veterans. The administration and members of Congress talk a good game about honoring young men and women who went to war, but they don’t allocate the resources necessary to care of them. A result is certainly disability and suicides. Could it also include brutal crimes like this one?
“I know my child,” said Sergeant Smith’s father, Dwight Sr., a 49-year-old manager in the Philadelphia schools. “This isn’t my kid. He was a goofy kid. This isn’t the same man that I sent over.”
The father was sitting morosely in his dimly lit dining room, the curtains all drawn. In the corner of the room was the purple heart that Dwight Jr. earned in Afghanistan, and in the living room just beyond was his wedding photo and a military portrait. It’s impossible to reconcile that beaming young man in the photos with the one who murdered and raped Ms. Lee.
“This is a tragedy for two families,” Mr. Smith added. “I just don’t think my son was ready to come back in regular society.”
Mr. Smith thinks that his son’s mind became poisoned by war, and Dwight Jr. seems to think that as well. I couldn’t get access to him in prison, but in a recent handwritten letter to his father (which is posted with the online version of this column), he wrote:
“I am going to be honest with you dad. I have killed a lot of men and children. Some that didn’t even do anything for me to kill them. Also some that begged for mercy. I have a problem. I think I got addicted to killing people. I could kill someone go to sleep wake up and forget that it ever happened. It got normal for me to be that way. I never wanted to be this way. I just took my job way to serious. I took things to the extreme. Anyone can tell you that I changed. It is like being a completely different person.”
If Sergeant Smith did indeed randomly kill civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan, I could find no record of that. What is clearer is that he was exposed to concussions while in combat, apparently at least two of them. One occurred when he was in Iraq and his Humvee was thrown into the air in an explosion. He was not visibly injured.
Then, in March 2011, a mortar shell landed near him in Afghanistan and blew him 15 feet in the air, shattering a ceramic plate in his body armor, according to his public defender, Bradley V. Manning. Sergeant Smith was hospitalized, flown back to the United States, and given a diagnosis of a traumatic brain injury with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Jasmin Smith, a 29-year-old German woman who is now his wife, and was then his girlfriend, recalls seeing him in the hospital shortly after his return.
“He was in a wheelchair,” she said. “His hand was shaking. He looked pretty bad. He didn’t say anything for 15 or 20 minutes. At the beginning, he didn’t even recognize me.”
She says they celebrated his apparent recovery by marrying two months later. But the recovery seemed fleeting, she says, for he began to abuse alcohol and prescription painkillers and would sometimes fly into violent rages.
“He was always angry about little things,” Mrs. Smith said. “He would throw laptops, punch holes in walls.”
“He used to go crazy,” she added. “He stood in front of me one time and said, ‘I should kill you, I should kill you.’ ”
Mrs. Smith says that he did once choke her and, fearing for her safety, she flew back to Germany. “I didn’t tell him I was leaving, because I was scared.”
Dwight Sr. says his son called then, despondent. “Dad, I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” the father quoted his son as telling him. “I just get mad. I can’t help myself.” Eventually, after he promised to control himself, Mrs. Smith did return to his base at Fort Drum, N.Y., and they resumed married life.
TWO months later, on the day of the murder, they were at Dwight Sr.’s home for Christmas vacation. Jasmin says that her husband asked her to go jogging in the morning, but she declined. Then he left the house — and allegedly killed and raped Ms. Lee.
He seemed relatively normal when he returned, Mrs. Smith told me, and they went Christmas shopping that afternoon. After he was arrested that evening, she spoke briefly to her husband; she says that his only explanation for the crime was that he had become enraged while running that he wasn’t physically fit enough. Sometimes since, she says, he has suggested that he blacked out and can’t remember exactly what happened. He also says that he wants to apologize to Ms. Lee’s family.
Rape hasn’t been part of the typical pattern of crimes committed by returning soldiers with T.B.I. or PTSD. But Bennet Omalu, an expert on brain injuries who is also a clinical professor of pathology at University of California, Davis, told me that T.B.I. could indeed lead to such sexual violence. Indeed, Dr. Omalu said he had recently performed an autopsy on an elderly woman who had been randomly raped and murdered by an Iraq war veteran.
Frankly, I hesitated to write this column. I feel strongly that we as a nation have let down our veterans, failing to provide the mental health services they need, and we owe them better. But I can’t be sure that the murder of Ms. Lee is related to these failures. In the end, I decided to go ahead because here’s a young man with no adult criminal record who was promoted rapidly within the military and then suffered brain injuries. And then on his return he allegedly committed a horrific rape and murder that do not make any sense — not to me, not to you, not to his family.
“You lie next to your husband every night,” Mrs. Smith said. “I know he had anger issues, but didn’t think he would do something like that.”
Could the Army have done a better job screening Sergeant Smith’s mental health and addressing his needs? The Army does indeed ask returning soldiers questions about mental health, but self-reporting doesn’t work well because soldiers don’t answer questions honestly. “They don’t want to get kicked out of the Army, and they don’t want to admit anything is wrong,” Mrs. Smith said.
Dwight Sr. notes that his son’s PTSD wasn’t diagnosed until after his arrest and thinks the Army should have given him more help after his brain injury in 2011. “I believe if he’d been in a program, I don’t think we’d be sitting here talking,” he said.
Stephen N. Xenakis, a psychiatrist and retired brigadier general who has advised the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on military mental health issues, agrees that we have failed our service members exposed to blasts. He compares it to the runaround soldiers were given for decades about damage from Agent Orange.
What the military most needs, he says, isn’t new weapons systems but a “surge against brain disease” to invest in protecting its most valuable assets — its people.
To its credit, the military this year has stepped up efforts to elevate mental health concerns. But the Defense Department and Department of Veterans Affairs will have to do far more — and this will suck up resources that planners may prefer to invest in ships and planes.
Another lesson has to do with the larger cost of war: President George W. Bush’s worst mistake was the Iraq war, and President Obama’s was roughly tripling the number of troops in Afghanistan. Let’s hope that future presidents remember that the cost of dispatching ground troops on foreign battlefields isn’t measured only in lives and limbs lost but also in the invisible mental health toll on warriors and those around them.
Mr. Manning, the public defender, is himself a veteran, and he thinks that there are going to be many more crimes like this. He declined to discuss his strategy for the trial, which is set for early 2014 because of the complex mental health issues involved, but added, “It’s hard to make sense of, but when you take somebody’s brain and rattle it around, it damages it in ways they don’t understand.”
I don’t know just what could have led an apparently normal young man to commit such a crime. All we know for certain is that a caring, much loved woman here in Delaware has been horrifically murdered, leaving a vacuum of sadness and a vexing uncertainty about whether there is a link to distant wars.
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This article is for your private use, only
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A Lesson for Paramedics:
How to Treat Dogs Who Work in a War Zone
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Hovering in a helicopter over an arid landscape in Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Mark Joseloff thought his elite paramedic training had prepared him for whatever awaited him below.
But not this.
Tending to a military dog that had collapsed in the 110 degree heat, Sergeant Joseloff, 34, leaned on what he knew about treating humans in similar situations.
He covered the dog in a wet blanket, applied electrolyte gel and ordered the helicopter to fly with its doors open. The dog, however, refused to drink water.
The dog survived, but the experience unsettled Sergeant Joseloff, a pararescueman in the New York Air National Guard. “I just kind of winged it,” he said. “I think I got lucky. That was an eye opener.”
Filling a gap in battlefield emergency care, more than a dozen rescuers in the Air National Guard, including Sergeant Joseloff, spent two days recently learning how to treat dogs in combat settings. With military dogs playing crucial roles in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the need for expertise in quickly tending to wounded or sick animals has become imperative.
“There’s no reason that what we do on the battlefield should not reflect the best medicine in the world,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Stephen Rush, who helped organize the training.
The training was conducted by Long Island Veterinary Specialists, which is considered one of the most advanced veterinary hospitals in the country, and by K-9 Medic, a company that teaches how to give emergency medical care to service dogs.
Colonel Rush, a clinical assistant professor of neurosurgery and radiation oncology at New York University, said the two-day training could serve as a model for future courses.
There are about 2,700 dogs serving in the armed forces; 29 have been killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a military spokeswoman.
The dogs sniff out bombs and detect booby-traps inside buildings and along roadways. The total value of a trained working dog — often German shepherds, black Labrador retrievers, or Belgian Malinois — can reach $40,000. In addition, the units they serve grow emotionally attached to their dogs.
“A dog is like a brother to these guys,” Sergeant Joseloff said. Elite pararescuemen, trained as emergency paramedics, are responsible for many rescue and recovery missions in remote and dangerous locations.
On a recent Monday at Long Island Veterinary Specialists in Plainview, the pararescue members took turns gently rolling two black Labrador retrievers, named Angel and Shadow, onto their sides. The men learned how to carry a dog without hurting its spleen and how to carry one with a back injury. A hospital worker showed the men how to examine a dog’s gums to determine if it is sick. They took the dogs’ pulses. For the most part, Angel and Shadow kept their poise, allowing the soldiers to poke and prod them.
“You might not have it so easy in the field,” said Marissa Soto, a veterinary technician.
The facility offers some of the most advanced animal care available anywhere, with a more sophisticated M.R.I. machine than many hospitals have and specialists who include dermatologists, ophthalmologists, hip surgeons and brain surgeons. Dr. Dominic J. Marino, the hospital’s chief of staff, has become so highly regarded for his work on dogs with certain neurological disorders that he has been invited to address conferences of doctors who treat humans with similar disorders.
During the training, instructors emphasized the similarities in treating dogs and humans. The soldiers practiced sewing wounds on preserved pigs’ feet using the same kind of stitching they would use for humans. In other lessons, like treating a dog in shock, the men learned the appropriate dog-size doses of fluid to use.
But there were important differences. Humans in pain rarely bite the medic treating them. Dogs can be a different story, so muzzling the injured animal is a priority. And the men were surprised to learn that applying a tourniquet to a wound, a standard procedure on humans, might cause more harm on a dog.
As part of the training, they put on blindfolds and used their hands and feet to feel the ground and reach a stuffed dog inside the hospital’s rehabilitation center. With an instructor narrating beside them, they simulated a check of the dog’s vital signs. The instructor sprayed water to simulate blood escaping the dog’s body as the soldiers applied bandages. Many forgot to muzzle the animals.
Jo-Anne Brenner, the director of K-9 Medic, helped plan the curriculum for the training. She said the goal was to make it hands-on and to ensure that the pararescuemen committed to memory the skills necessary to treat dogs in crisis situations.
Ron Aiello, the president of United States War Dogs Association, an advocacy group for working dogs, says that the military’s treatment of working dogs has improved significantly during the last half-century.
“I was a Vietnam-era dog handler,” Mr. Aiello said. “We knew nothing. Not even first aid. Not even first aid if your dog got hurt.”
Now, military dog handlers are trained in first aid and veterinarians are stationed in war zones. Still, training military paramedics in animal emergency care is important because they are often the first on the scene providing medical attention.
As Colonel Rush put it: “That’s how we’re hard-wired — to rescue people, or people’s dogs.”
Source:
By ERIC P. NEWCOMER
NYT
This is for your private use, only
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MORE IN N.Y. / REGION (1 OF 34 ARTICLES)Denouncing City’s Move to Regulate CircumcisionRead More »\
Read the article below (little bit down) - also cats can save human lives
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Important pet care information
Think before applying
As the veterinarian he knows he should brush them daily...
Veterinarian Confession: "I Don’t Brush My Dog’s Teeth"
Click green for further info
By Dr. Andy Roark | January 7, 2013 - HE knows he should brush them daily....
SEE BELOW WHY AND LEARN TO DO THAT FOR YOUR DOG (AND FOR YOUR CAT ?)
(IF your cats allows - most do not) - dogs like the brushing when you do it with love and speak nicely and hug your dog.
Remember Your Pet Is Unique.
Recently, I (= Dr. Andy Roark) did an oral examination on a Chihuahua named Taco Larry, whose teeth had been cleaned in our clinic eight months earlier. I looked at Larry’s owner with a pained expression on my face. “Again?” he asked. I nodded. He stammered, “But … my other dog has never had his teeth cleaned, and his are fine!”
The amount of dental maintenance required to keep a pet healthy varies among individuals and also among breeds. Know that your pet’s mouth, just like your pet, is unique, and resign yourself to providing the care that mouth needs. Ask your veterinarian for guidance on the specific needs of your pet.
Never Give Up the Goal. Even though daily tooth brushings simply don’t seem to get done in my house, I don’t give up the dream. I recommit regularly to making it a routine. But even if that dream is never realized, even if I fall short of brushing those handsome little teeth a few times per week, I am always going to aspire to daily brushing. Because no matter how hectic our lives are, effort directed at making our pets healthier and happier is never wasted.
Don’t know where to start with brushing? Learn about brushing your dog’s teeth and cat’s teeth, as well as more about the effects of periodontal disease.
Now you and Mrs. Griffith know the shameful truth: I am a veterinarian who does not regularly brush my pet’s teeth. If you don’t either, you’re not alone. Let’s at least agree that dental health is important and commit to doing the best we can for our pets. We owe it to those who don’t have thumbs for holding their own toothbrushes.
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Comments from the public - read them, please - interesting
Think before applying
As the veterinarian he knows he should brush them daily...
Veterinarian Confession: "I Don’t Brush My Dog’s Teeth"
Click green for further info
By Dr. Andy Roark | January 7, 2013 - HE knows he should brush them daily....
SEE BELOW WHY AND LEARN TO DO THAT FOR YOUR DOG (AND FOR YOUR CAT ?)
(IF your cats allows - most do not) - dogs like the brushing when you do it with love and speak nicely and hug your dog.
Remember Your Pet Is Unique.
Recently, I (= Dr. Andy Roark) did an oral examination on a Chihuahua named Taco Larry, whose teeth had been cleaned in our clinic eight months earlier. I looked at Larry’s owner with a pained expression on my face. “Again?” he asked. I nodded. He stammered, “But … my other dog has never had his teeth cleaned, and his are fine!”
The amount of dental maintenance required to keep a pet healthy varies among individuals and also among breeds. Know that your pet’s mouth, just like your pet, is unique, and resign yourself to providing the care that mouth needs. Ask your veterinarian for guidance on the specific needs of your pet.
Never Give Up the Goal. Even though daily tooth brushings simply don’t seem to get done in my house, I don’t give up the dream. I recommit regularly to making it a routine. But even if that dream is never realized, even if I fall short of brushing those handsome little teeth a few times per week, I am always going to aspire to daily brushing. Because no matter how hectic our lives are, effort directed at making our pets healthier and happier is never wasted.
Don’t know where to start with brushing? Learn about brushing your dog’s teeth and cat’s teeth, as well as more about the effects of periodontal disease.
Now you and Mrs. Griffith know the shameful truth: I am a veterinarian who does not regularly brush my pet’s teeth. If you don’t either, you’re not alone. Let’s at least agree that dental health is important and commit to doing the best we can for our pets. We owe it to those who don’t have thumbs for holding their own toothbrushes.
____________________
Comments from the public - read them, please - interesting
- James H. Hankins · Haines City, FloridaThe information disseminated here is exactly why you can't rely on a veterinarian for much in the way of sane, practical information. Dogs and their evolutionary predecessors lived in the wild for generations uncountable before toothbrushes or "enzymatic toothpaste" was ever a gleam in some chemists eye. Feed your dog the kinds of foods he or she has evolved to eat and see what the results are as far as their dental health. On the other hand, you can feed them the processed goo that comes out of a bag from your local PetSmart and subsequently shell out your hard-earned money to your local vet for anesthesia, teeth cleaning, skin problems--the list goes on and on (to include, with high probability, cancer). I've been caring for dogs for 40+ years, and I've never once had a veterinarian share one scintilla of information abo...See More
Reply · 1 · · 4 hours ago - Cindy Tefft · University of UtahI've been blessed with a gorgeous white shepherd/Samoyed mix whose breath was rank from the moment I adopted her. I don't know if it's the wide, open mouth that attracts more bacteria, or if it's just the chemical makeup of her saliva, but I've always battled her nasty breath---not normal dog breath, it's otherworld nasty. Now that she's at least 13, but probably 14, she's had most of her teeth pulled---even though I was very good about getting her dental cleanings done---an average of two times per year. I also brushed her teeth, but was always dismayed by the blood that would come out on the gauze (no matter how gentle I was). So, is it breed that determines dental issues, or does it just vary by dog?
Reply · · 7 hours ago - Rebecca Andres · Top CommenterI for one appreciate your honesty on this matter. I always think I'm going to brush all 7 of my dogs teeth daily but in reality it only happens once a week;however,their teeth are all checked twice a year and treated accordingly.
Reply · · 8 hours ago
Lynette Hutton · Lead Pet Care at Pet smartI am guilty of the same I work at a pet store and promote teeth cleaning everyday but I am not a brusher of my dogs teeth I do offer greenies and other dog oral care treats and bisqute - Reply · · 7 hours ago
- Ruey StockingI do brush my cat's teeth every night!
Reply · · 10 hours ago Read the article just below - also cats can save human lives _______________________________________________________________________________
Read the article just below - also cats can save human lives
Buddy, the cat, is a stray cat the Chaps Family rescued
never knowing that he'd save them right back.
click the green title below for a video of the cat
Cat's quick thinking saves owner's life
Buddy is a stray cat the Chaps rescued never knowing that he'd save them right back.
Jennifer Chap was working in her Orlando, Florida home office, when the family cat and former stray, Buddy, started acting strangely. She suspected something odd, grabbed Buddy and walked to the kitchen where she found her husband, Rick Chap going into a sudden cardiac arrest.
Ms. Chap proceeded to administer CPR until paramedics arrived and they were able to get a heart beat.
After receiving a heart procedure and six months of rehab, Rick Chap is doing well and says, "I really really owe my life to Buddy because without him, (my wife) would have never come out of that office."
Read the article just below - another moving story of a loving dog after his master's death
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Another story:
Holly the cat makes an incredible 190-mile journey from
Daytona Beach all the way home to West Palm Beach
Search the internet using the above title
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Holly the cat makes an incredible 190-mile journey from
Daytona Beach all the way home to West Palm Beach
Search the internet using the above title
_________________________________
Dog stands guard
over deceased owner’s grave for six years
ARE DOGS THE MOST LOYAL PET?
19,809 people have responded 97% say: Definitely - 1 % says No
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An extremely dedicated dog has continued to show its loyalty, keeping watch on its owner's grave six years after he passed away.
Capitan, a German shepherd, reportedly ran away from home after its owner, Miguel Guzman, died in 2006. A week later, the Guzman family found the dog sitting by his grave in central Argentina.
Miguel Guzman adopted Capitan in 2005 as a gift for his teenage son, Damian. And for the past six years, Capitan has continued to stand guard at Miguel's grave. The family says the dog rarely leaves the site.
"We searched for him, but he had vanished," widow Veronica Guzman told LaVoz.com. "We thought he must have got run over and died.
'The following Sunday we went to the cemetery, and Damian recognized his pet. Capitan came up to us, barking and wailing as if he were crying."
Adding to the unusual circumstances, Veronica says the family never brought Capitan to the cemetery before he was discovered there.
"It is a mystery how he managed to find the place," she said.
Cemetery director Hector Baccega says he and his staff have begun feeding and taking care of Capitan.
"He turned up here one day, all on his own, and started wandering all around the cemetery until he eventually found the tomb of his master," Baccega said.
"During the day he sometimes has a walk around the cemetery, but always rushes back to the grave. And every day, at six o'clock sharp, he lies down on top of the grave, stays there all night."
But the Guzman family hasn't abandoned Capitan. Damian says the family has tried to bring Capitan home several times but that he always returns to the cemetery on his own.
"I think he's going to be there until he dies, too. He's looking after my dad," he said.
Source:
By Eric Pfeiffer, Yahoo! News
This is for your private use, only
________________________________
Below another loyal dog story - study
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Month after Month - soon turning to years,
Loyal dog continues to attend mass at
church where owner’s funeral was held
ARE DOGS THE MOST LOYAL PET?
19,809 people have responded 97% say: Definitely - 1 % says No
A loyal dog whose owner died late last year has apparently been showing up for Mass every day for the last two months at the church where the funeral was held.
Tommy, a 7-year-old German shepherd, used to accompany his owner, Maria Margherita Lochi, to services at Santa Maria Assunta church in San Donaci, Italy, according to the Daily Mail, and was allowed to sit at her feet.
After Lochi died, the dog "joined mourners at her funeral service" according to locals and "followed after Maria's coffin" as it was carried into the church.
Tommy, a stray who was adopted by Lochi, has been showing up "when the bell rings out to mark the beginning of services" ever since.
"He's there every time I celebrate mass and is very well behaved," Father Donato Panna told the paper. "He doesn't make a sound."
None of the other parishioners has complained, Panna said, and villagers give the dog food and water and allow him to sleep nearby.
"I've not heard one bark from him in all the time he has been coming in," Panna added. "He waits patiently by the side of the altar and just sits there quietly. I didn't have the heart to throw him out—I've just recently lost my own dog, so I leave him there until Mass finishes and then I let him out."
Examples of this type of extreme canine loyalty are incredibly common.
In 2011, a fallen Navy SEAL's Labrador retriever lay down next to his owner's casket at a funeral service in Rockford, Iowa, refusing to leave.
The heart-wrenching photo of the scene, taken by the SEAL's cousin and posted to Facebook, soon went viral.
And on Tuesday, a 60-year-old man's dog watched and waited for 30 minutes as the Fire Department rescued his owner after he fell through thin ice into the freezing waters of the Colorado River:
Nearby hunters witnessed the accident and called 911. But while they waited for help, the man's dog refused to leave the scene. Like a worried relative in the waiting room, the dog paced back and forth, trying to reach the man, who repeatedly waved the dog off, fearing for its safety.
"This is simply who dogs are," Dr. Karen Overall, an Animal Behavior expert, told Yahoo! Shine. "We have had a close, cognitive, emotional and working relationship with dogs for tens of thousands of years, and we have both been changed by that history. Dogs are heroic to us because they live up to that relationship."
Canine loyalty extends beyond humans.
Last year, a male pit bull refused to leave the side of a female pit bull who had been dead on the side of a road in Phoenix. According to local news reports, the male pit bull stayed with her for more than 14 hours.
ARE DOGS THE MOST LOYAL PET?
19,809 people have responded 97% say: Definitely - 1 % says No
Click green for further info
Source: Yahoo news
(Click) Video: Dog Saves Newborn Baby
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(click the title) Fisherman adrift for 106 days in Pacific
says shark led him to rescuers
A man who survived while adrift in the Pacific for 106 days is crediting a shark for helping to save his life.
Toakai Teitoi, 41, a policeman from the Central Pacific island nation of Kiribati, had been traveling with his brother-in-law on what was supposed to be a short voyage, beginning May 27, from the Kiribati capital of Tarawa to his home island of Maiana.
But the mariners decided to fish along the way, and fell asleep during the night. When they awoke they were far at sea and adrift in their 15-foot wooden vessel. They soon ran out of fuel, and were short on water.
"We had food, but the problem was we had nothing to drink," Teitoi told Agence France-Presse news service.
Dehydration was severe. Falaile, the 52-year-old brother-in-law, died on July 4. That night, Teitoi slept next to him, "like at a funeral," before an emotional burial at sea the next morning.
Teitoi shared scant details of the ordeal after arriving in Majuro, in the Marshall Islands, on Saturday. He said he prayed the night Falaile died, and the next day a storm arrived and, over the next several days, he was able to fill two five-gallon containers with fresh water.
Days and weeks passed, however, and Teitoi, a father of six, did not know whether he'd live or die. He subsisted mostly on fish and protected himself against the searing tropical sun by curling up in a small, covered portion of the bow.
It was on the afternoon of Sept. 11 that he awoke to the sound of scratching against his boat. A six-foot shark was circling the boat and, Teitoi said, bumping against its hull.
"He was guiding me to a fishing boat," Teitoi said. "I looked up and there was the stern of a ship and I could see crew with binoculars looking at me."
The first thing he asked for after he was plucked from the water was a cigarette, or "a smoke." He was given food and juice and his rescuers continued to fish for several days before delivering him to Majuro.
Teitoi, who seemed in good health, said he booked flights back to his home island, adding, "I'll never go by boat again."
The record for drifting at sea is believed to be held by two fishermen, also from Kiribati, who were at sea for 177 days before coming ashore in Samoa in 1992.
--Note: Image is generic and the shark pictured is not the shark encountered by Toakai Teitoi
Click the green areas for further information
Source, Yahoo newsThis article is for your private use, only
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______________________________
Source: The New York Times - EDITORIAL
A Disservice to Disabled Troops
The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs have repeatedly promised to do a better job of handling the medical evaluations of wounded and disabled service members. Instead, they are doing worse.
The processing of disability cases is getting slower, not faster. Efforts to ensure a ''seamless transition'' out of the military are falling short. Men and women are languishing without treatment, struggling to readjust to civilian lives as they cope with post-traumatic stress disorder, brain injuries, drug addiction and other service-related afflictions. The system that should be producing reliable results is mired in delays and dissatisfaction.
A new report by the Government Accountability Office lays out the problem. In 2007, the two departments began combining their separate, complicated and cumbersome processes for disability evaluations into one system. The system is now in place worldwide, and officials from both departments promised the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee a year ago that it had become ''more transparent, consistent and expeditious.''
But the accountability office found otherwise. It said processing times for disability cases had actually gone up -- to an average of 394 days for active-duty troops and 420 days for National Guard members and reservists in 2011, well over the departments' goals of 295 and 305 days. In fiscal year 2010, 32 percent of active-duty troops and 37 percent of Guard and Reserve troops completed evaluations and received benefits within established timelines. Last year, those figures fell to a dismal 19 percent and 18 percent.
What's going on? The report says the causes are not fully understood, but it points to persistent staffing shortages, problems in collecting and reporting data, and differences among the service branches and between the Pentagon and the Veterans Affairs Department in the way cases are diagnosed and tracked. The accountability office says it will make recommendations later this year as it sees whether promised improvements are taking hold, including a hiring push by the Army -- a huge source of processing bottlenecks -- and the V.A.
Senator Patty Murray, chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, deserves credit for focusing attention on these and other failings in a series of hearings, including one last Wednesday that examined the bureaucratic delays. She also used the hearing to bring up disturbing reports that doctors at an Army base in Washington State had repeatedly -- and wrongly -- rejected soldiers' legitimate post-traumatic stress disorder claims.
Wounded and disabled service members should not be forced to wait endlessly without treatment or benefits while the government evaluates their injuries. Nor should they have to battle their own government for honest treatment. The evaluations should be accurate, not consistently wrong. Ms. Murray noted on Wednesday that there were about 27,000 military personnel in the system, three times the number in 2010. Many more are on the way. ''Clearly, much work remains to be done,'' she said. She is right. There is no excuse for more backsliding and delay.
___________________________
Source: The New York Times - EDITORIAL
A Disservice to Disabled Troops
The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs have repeatedly promised to do a better job of handling the medical evaluations of wounded and disabled service members. Instead, they are doing worse.
The processing of disability cases is getting slower, not faster. Efforts to ensure a ''seamless transition'' out of the military are falling short. Men and women are languishing without treatment, struggling to readjust to civilian lives as they cope with post-traumatic stress disorder, brain injuries, drug addiction and other service-related afflictions. The system that should be producing reliable results is mired in delays and dissatisfaction.
A new report by the Government Accountability Office lays out the problem. In 2007, the two departments began combining their separate, complicated and cumbersome processes for disability evaluations into one system. The system is now in place worldwide, and officials from both departments promised the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee a year ago that it had become ''more transparent, consistent and expeditious.''
But the accountability office found otherwise. It said processing times for disability cases had actually gone up -- to an average of 394 days for active-duty troops and 420 days for National Guard members and reservists in 2011, well over the departments' goals of 295 and 305 days. In fiscal year 2010, 32 percent of active-duty troops and 37 percent of Guard and Reserve troops completed evaluations and received benefits within established timelines. Last year, those figures fell to a dismal 19 percent and 18 percent.
What's going on? The report says the causes are not fully understood, but it points to persistent staffing shortages, problems in collecting and reporting data, and differences among the service branches and between the Pentagon and the Veterans Affairs Department in the way cases are diagnosed and tracked. The accountability office says it will make recommendations later this year as it sees whether promised improvements are taking hold, including a hiring push by the Army -- a huge source of processing bottlenecks -- and the V.A.
Senator Patty Murray, chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, deserves credit for focusing attention on these and other failings in a series of hearings, including one last Wednesday that examined the bureaucratic delays. She also used the hearing to bring up disturbing reports that doctors at an Army base in Washington State had repeatedly -- and wrongly -- rejected soldiers' legitimate post-traumatic stress disorder claims.
Wounded and disabled service members should not be forced to wait endlessly without treatment or benefits while the government evaluates their injuries. Nor should they have to battle their own government for honest treatment. The evaluations should be accurate, not consistently wrong. Ms. Murray noted on Wednesday that there were about 27,000 military personnel in the system, three times the number in 2010. Many more are on the way. ''Clearly, much work remains to be done,'' she said. She is right. There is no excuse for more backsliding and delay.
___________________________
Dog stands guard
over deceased owner’s grave for six years
Click green areas for further information
An extremely dedicated dog has continued to show its loyalty, keeping watch on its owner's grave six years after he passed away.
Capitan, a German shepherd, reportedly ran away from home after its owner, Miguel Guzman, died in 2006. A week later, the Guzman family found the dog sitting by his grave in central Argentina.
Miguel Guzman adopted Capitan in 2005 as a gift for his teenage son, Damian. And for the past six years, Capitan has continued to stand guard at Miguel's grave. The family says the dog rarely leaves the site.
"We searched for him, but he had vanished," widow Veronica Guzman told LaVoz.com. "We thought he must have got run over and died.
'The following Sunday we went to the cemetery, and Damian recognized his pet. Capitan came up to us, barking and wailing as if he were crying."
Adding to the unusual circumstances, Veronica says the family never brought Capitan to the cemetery before he was discovered there.
"It is a mystery how he managed to find the place," she said.
Cemetery director Hector Baccega says he and his staff have begun feeding and taking care of Capitan.
"He turned up here one day, all on his own, and started wandering all around the cemetery until he eventually found the tomb of his master," Baccega said.
"During the day he sometimes has a walk around the cemetery, but always rushes back to the grave. And every day, at six o'clock sharp, he lies down on top of the grave, stays there all night."
But the Guzman family hasn't abandoned Capitan. Damian says the family has tried to bring Capitan home several times but that he always returns to the cemetery on his own.
"I think he's going to be there until he dies, too. He's looking after my dad," he said.
Source:
By Eric Pfeiffer, Yahoo! News
This is for your private use, only
___________________________
over deceased owner’s grave for six years
Click green areas for further information
An extremely dedicated dog has continued to show its loyalty, keeping watch on its owner's grave six years after he passed away.
Capitan, a German shepherd, reportedly ran away from home after its owner, Miguel Guzman, died in 2006. A week later, the Guzman family found the dog sitting by his grave in central Argentina.
Miguel Guzman adopted Capitan in 2005 as a gift for his teenage son, Damian. And for the past six years, Capitan has continued to stand guard at Miguel's grave. The family says the dog rarely leaves the site.
"We searched for him, but he had vanished," widow Veronica Guzman told LaVoz.com. "We thought he must have got run over and died.
'The following Sunday we went to the cemetery, and Damian recognized his pet. Capitan came up to us, barking and wailing as if he were crying."
Adding to the unusual circumstances, Veronica says the family never brought Capitan to the cemetery before he was discovered there.
"It is a mystery how he managed to find the place," she said.
Cemetery director Hector Baccega says he and his staff have begun feeding and taking care of Capitan.
"He turned up here one day, all on his own, and started wandering all around the cemetery until he eventually found the tomb of his master," Baccega said.
"During the day he sometimes has a walk around the cemetery, but always rushes back to the grave. And every day, at six o'clock sharp, he lies down on top of the grave, stays there all night."
But the Guzman family hasn't abandoned Capitan. Damian says the family has tried to bring Capitan home several times but that he always returns to the cemetery on his own.
"I think he's going to be there until he dies, too. He's looking after my dad," he said.
Source:
By Eric Pfeiffer, Yahoo! News
This is for your private use, only
___________________________
Secret Service dog dies during bomb sweep for Vice President Biden
Date: January 28/13
A Secret Service dog fell to its death in New Orleans over the weekend while performing a sweep of a six-story parking garage. The garage was next to the Ritz Carlton where Vice President Joe Biden was speaking.
The bomb-sniffing dog, a Belgian Malinois, fell from the roof of the parking deck next to the hotel at approximately 6 p.m., New Orleans police told WWL-TV.
Biden was attending a fundraiser for Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's re-election campaign.
Federal agents rushed the black and brown shepherd to Metairie Small Animal Hospital via motorcade, but veterinarians were unable to revive the dog, WWL reported.
According to CNN, the agency began using canines to detect explosives in 1975:
It uses Belgian Malinois because they are small and have short hair—making it easy for them to work in the heat. They are also very sociable. Each dog and its handler has to complete 20 weeks of training before beginning work, the agency said. When it's time for a dog to retire—usually after about 10 years—it is retired to its handler.
Secret Service spokesman Max Milien told the network the dog's death was a "tragic accident."
________________________________
Source: The New York Times,
January 19, 2012
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Active-Duty Soldiers
Take Their Own Lives at Record Rate
WASHINGTON — Suicides among active-duty soldiers hit another record high in 2011, Army officials said on Thursday, although there was a slight decrease if nonmobilized Reserve and National Guard troops were included in the calculation.
The Army also reported a sharp increase, nearly 30 percent, in violent sex crimes last year by active-duty troops. More than half of the victims were active-duty female soldiers ages 18 to 21.
“This is unacceptable,” Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the departing vice chief of staff of the Army, said at a news conference, referring to the jump in violent sex offenses. “We have zero tolerance for this.” General Chiarelli said factors driving the increase in sex crimes were alcohol use and new barracks that offered more privacy. He said it was also possible that reporting of the offenses had increased.
General Chiarelli said that 164 active-duty Army, National Guard, and Reserve troops took their own lives in 2011, compared with 159 in 2010 and 162 in 2009. The increase occurred even as the Army expanded suicide prevention efforts and drug and alcohol counseling, in large part in response to a steady rise in Army suicides that began in 2004.
Asked if he was frustrated by the jump last year in suicide by active-duty soldiers, General Chiarelli said no.
“The question you have to ask yourself, and this is the number that no one can prove, what would it have been if we had not focused the efforts that we focused on it?” he said. He said that “for all practical purposes, for the last two to three years, it has leveled off.”
General Chiarelli held the news conference to release a new report, “Generating Health and Discipline in the Force,” a review of the overall health of the Army after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the longest period of conflict in the nation’s history. The report, printed well before Thursday, did not include the final number of 164 suicides among active-duty soldiers for 2011. General Chiarelli disclosed that statistic at the news conference, as well as the number of suicides among active-duty troops from 2008 to 2010.
General Chiarelli said that if nonmobilized National Guard and Reserve units were included, Army suicides dropped to 278 in 2011, from 305 in 2010.
Active-duty Army suicide rates have been higher than civilian rates since 2008, when there were nearly 20 suicides per 100,000 in the Army, compared with close to 18 suicides per 100,000 in a civilian population that was adjusted to be comparable to Army demographics. The Army projects that final 2011 numbers will be more than 24 suicides among active-duty soldiers per 100,000, another record high.
The rise in Army suicides has long been attributed to the stress of repeated deployments during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Army officials say there are many other factors at work, including alcohol abuse and a lowering of recruiting standards several years ago that allowed a higher-risk population into the military. In 2010, General Chiarelli said that about 60 percent of Army suicides occurred during a soldier’s first enlistment, typically four years, and that the most dangerous year was the first — suggesting that repeated deployments to war zones were not necessarily a major factor in suicide.
Since then, Army officials said there had been a decrease in the number of soldiers who committed suicide after one deployment and an increase in those who killed themselves after two or more deployments.
Last year, for example, about 40 percent of suicides occurred after one deployment and another 40 percent were committed after two or more deployments. Army officials could not explain the change, although they said they were asking themselves three questions in trying to analyze the data: Was their attention to suicide risk among young soldiers paying off? Did repeated deployments in fact place soldiers at higher risk of suicide? Did a dismal civilian job market discourage soldiers, already stressed by repeat deployments, from leaving the force?
General Chiarelli sought to paint the report in a positive light by saying that the Army leadership was paying serious attention to troubles within the force.
“The fact I’m in front of you here today laying this out for you shows you that we see these problems, we see where we’ve had successes, and we’re attacking those areas where we’ve got problems,” he said. “But I also think it shows the fact that after 10 years of war, with an all-volunteer force, you’re going to have problems that no one could have forecasted before this began.”
________________________________________
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Active-Duty Soldiers
Take Their Own Lives at Record Rate
WASHINGTON — Suicides among active-duty soldiers hit another record high in 2011, Army officials said on Thursday, although there was a slight decrease if nonmobilized Reserve and National Guard troops were included in the calculation.
The Army also reported a sharp increase, nearly 30 percent, in violent sex crimes last year by active-duty troops. More than half of the victims were active-duty female soldiers ages 18 to 21.
“This is unacceptable,” Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the departing vice chief of staff of the Army, said at a news conference, referring to the jump in violent sex offenses. “We have zero tolerance for this.” General Chiarelli said factors driving the increase in sex crimes were alcohol use and new barracks that offered more privacy. He said it was also possible that reporting of the offenses had increased.
General Chiarelli said that 164 active-duty Army, National Guard, and Reserve troops took their own lives in 2011, compared with 159 in 2010 and 162 in 2009. The increase occurred even as the Army expanded suicide prevention efforts and drug and alcohol counseling, in large part in response to a steady rise in Army suicides that began in 2004.
Asked if he was frustrated by the jump last year in suicide by active-duty soldiers, General Chiarelli said no.
“The question you have to ask yourself, and this is the number that no one can prove, what would it have been if we had not focused the efforts that we focused on it?” he said. He said that “for all practical purposes, for the last two to three years, it has leveled off.”
General Chiarelli held the news conference to release a new report, “Generating Health and Discipline in the Force,” a review of the overall health of the Army after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the longest period of conflict in the nation’s history. The report, printed well before Thursday, did not include the final number of 164 suicides among active-duty soldiers for 2011. General Chiarelli disclosed that statistic at the news conference, as well as the number of suicides among active-duty troops from 2008 to 2010.
General Chiarelli said that if nonmobilized National Guard and Reserve units were included, Army suicides dropped to 278 in 2011, from 305 in 2010.
Active-duty Army suicide rates have been higher than civilian rates since 2008, when there were nearly 20 suicides per 100,000 in the Army, compared with close to 18 suicides per 100,000 in a civilian population that was adjusted to be comparable to Army demographics. The Army projects that final 2011 numbers will be more than 24 suicides among active-duty soldiers per 100,000, another record high.
The rise in Army suicides has long been attributed to the stress of repeated deployments during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Army officials say there are many other factors at work, including alcohol abuse and a lowering of recruiting standards several years ago that allowed a higher-risk population into the military. In 2010, General Chiarelli said that about 60 percent of Army suicides occurred during a soldier’s first enlistment, typically four years, and that the most dangerous year was the first — suggesting that repeated deployments to war zones were not necessarily a major factor in suicide.
Since then, Army officials said there had been a decrease in the number of soldiers who committed suicide after one deployment and an increase in those who killed themselves after two or more deployments.
Last year, for example, about 40 percent of suicides occurred after one deployment and another 40 percent were committed after two or more deployments. Army officials could not explain the change, although they said they were asking themselves three questions in trying to analyze the data: Was their attention to suicide risk among young soldiers paying off? Did repeated deployments in fact place soldiers at higher risk of suicide? Did a dismal civilian job market discourage soldiers, already stressed by repeat deployments, from leaving the force?
General Chiarelli sought to paint the report in a positive light by saying that the Army leadership was paying serious attention to troubles within the force.
“The fact I’m in front of you here today laying this out for you shows you that we see these problems, we see where we’ve had successes, and we’re attacking those areas where we’ve got problems,” he said. “But I also think it shows the fact that after 10 years of war, with an all-volunteer force, you’re going to have problems that no one could have forecasted before this began.”
________________________________________
Navy SEAL commander dead in Afghanistan
in suspected suicide
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The commander of an elite U.S. Navy SEAL*) unit has died in Afghanistan, the Defense Department said on Sunday, and a U.S. military official said his death was being investigated as a suspected suicide.
*) SEAL is an acronym for sea, air, land.
Commander Job Price, 42, of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, died on Saturday of a non-combat related injury in central Afghanistan's Uruzgan Province, the Pentagon said in a statement.
"This incident is currently under investigation," it said.
Price, was assigned to a Naval Special Warfare unit in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and was the commanding officer of SEAL Team Four. He failed to show up for an event on Saturday and colleagues found him dead in his quarters, the U.S. military official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
NBC News and CNN also quoted unnamed military officials as saying that the death was being looked at as a possible suicide.
Lieutenant David Lloyd, a spokesman for Naval Special Warfare Group Two, which comprises the four SEAL teams on the U.S. East Coast, declined to comment on the cause of death, saying it was under investigation.
Price was married and had a daughter. He had been a naval officer since May 1993, Lloyd said.
Captain Robert Smith, the Group Two commander, said in a statement: "The Naval Special Warfare family is deeply saddened by the loss of our teammate. We extend our condolences, thoughts and prayers to the family, friends, and NSW community during this time of grieving.
"As we mourn the loss and honor the memory of our fallen teammate, those he served with will continue to carry out the mission."
SEAL is an acronym for sea, air, land.
___________________________________________________________________
in suspected suicide
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The commander of an elite U.S. Navy SEAL*) unit has died in Afghanistan, the Defense Department said on Sunday, and a U.S. military official said his death was being investigated as a suspected suicide.
*) SEAL is an acronym for sea, air, land.
Commander Job Price, 42, of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, died on Saturday of a non-combat related injury in central Afghanistan's Uruzgan Province, the Pentagon said in a statement.
"This incident is currently under investigation," it said.
Price, was assigned to a Naval Special Warfare unit in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and was the commanding officer of SEAL Team Four. He failed to show up for an event on Saturday and colleagues found him dead in his quarters, the U.S. military official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
NBC News and CNN also quoted unnamed military officials as saying that the death was being looked at as a possible suicide.
Lieutenant David Lloyd, a spokesman for Naval Special Warfare Group Two, which comprises the four SEAL teams on the U.S. East Coast, declined to comment on the cause of death, saying it was under investigation.
Price was married and had a daughter. He had been a naval officer since May 1993, Lloyd said.
Captain Robert Smith, the Group Two commander, said in a statement: "The Naval Special Warfare family is deeply saddened by the loss of our teammate. We extend our condolences, thoughts and prayers to the family, friends, and NSW community during this time of grieving.
"As we mourn the loss and honor the memory of our fallen teammate, those he served with will continue to carry out the mission."
SEAL is an acronym for sea, air, land.
___________________________________________________________________
Retired Gen. Peter Chiarelli
continues his siege on suicides
Source: Politico
#(1) Fact: more troops committed suicide year 2011 than were killed in combat in Afghanistan
#(2) Fact: While these suicides are tragic, the criticism being heaped on the nation’s military is being overshadowed
by an even more troubling number: the estimated 35,000 Americans who take their own lives each year.
By: Stephanie Gaskel
September 20, 2012
Politico
Retired Gen. Peter Chiarelli spent the final act of his career combating suicides in the Army.
Now, he says, it’s time to stop “scapegoating” military leaders when troops take their own lives and, instead, focus on preventing suicides among all Americans.
After 11 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, every branch of the military — especially the Army — has been under scrutiny over the increase in suicides. A recent Time magazine cover illustrated the problem with a powerful story headlined “One a Day,” referring to recent Army statistics showing that an active-duty soldier commits suicide nearly every day.
In fact, more troops committed suicide last year, 2011, than were killed in combat in Afghanistan.
While these suicides are tragic, Chiarelli told POLITICO, the criticism being heaped on the nation’s military is being overshadowed by an even more troubling number: the estimated 35,000 Americans who take their own lives each year.
“We’re beating up the services who’ve been fighting with an all-volunteer service,” said the former Army vice chief of staff. “We’ve decided that we’re going to scope in on 200 suicides. We ought to quit focusing on this and beating up on the services. What are we doing for the other 34,800?”
“The services are doing just about everything humanly possible,” he said. “In many ways, they are the scapegoat for our failure to handle this problem [nationwide].”
If Chiarelli sounds angry, he is.
“You want to get me upset? This gets me upset,” he said.
In uniform, Chiarelli worked to remove the stigma of seeking help for post-traumatic stress — he doesn’t call it a “disorder.” In retirement, he’s still fighting for the troops by trying to find an answer to one of the most misunderstood problems facing many soldiers on the battlefield: traumatic brain injury.
“I feel that this entire field is handicapped by a lack of research,” he said.
Chiarelli is now CEO of One Mind for Research, a Seattle-based company that promotes cutting-edge research on the effects of traumatic brain injury.
“I predict — and this is me, and my predictions aren’t worth a damn — but I predict that traumatic brain injury is going to be the Agent Orange of this conflict,” Chiarelli said, referring to the toxic herbicide used during the Vietnam War to destroy the enemy’s tree cover.
It took the Department of Veterans Affairs more than 40 years to fully comprehend — and acknowledge — the effects of the chemicals that may have sickened more than 200,000 troops. The VA just added Agent Orange to its list of “presumed” illnesses, opening a floodgate of new claims and adding to the department’s backlog.
“It’s so absolutely critical that we stop noodling this and that we start taking a little bit of risk, taking the best science out there and put some money into it so we get to a point where we can try to figure this out,” he said.
One Mind for Research just raised $50 million to study traumatic brain injury, but the money comes with strings: All of it must be spent on one study.
Part of the problem, Chiarelli said, is that research money is spread so thin that it’s often difficult to get meaningful findings specifically on traumatic brain injuries. “That’s how research is set up in this country — a little bit goes to everybody,” he said.
His suggestion: “Do the same thing they did for AIDS.”
“If the government really cared about our vets, they would go back and dust off what they did for AIDS and create a similar kind of environment,” Chiarelli said. “The AIDS model worked.”
Brain injuries are so complex, he said, that they require some real research to understand their effects. With roadside bombs as the No. 1 killer of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, combined with the fact that many troops played contact sports before joining the military, it becomes even more difficult to know just how to detect and treat them.
“We are so far behind in understanding the brain,” Chiarelli said. “We can’t take an X-ray or put on a blood pressure cuff. Traumatic brain injury can be a very subtle thing.”
Often called the war’s invisible wounds, the injuries are so subtle that it’s hard to see that there’s something wrong with many of its victims. “But there is something different about them,” Chiarelli said.
There are other factors involved in suicide, of course, including unemployment, marital problems, drug and alcohol abuse and access to guns.
“I wish we at least had the ability in the service — and this is Pete Chiarelli talking, not the service — if you have somebody who indicates suicidal tendencies, at least be able to look at that person and say, ‘Do you have a gun?’” he said. “This is not an assault on Second Amendment rights. Suicide is a compulsive act, and many times, it’s combined with drug and alcohol use.”
All the national talk of suicides in the military does help highlight the problem, Chiarelli said, but it also feeds into a narrative that has become prevalent in the country — that of the “crazy vet.”
“That worries me more than anything,” he said.
© 2012 POLITICO LLC
_________________________________________
52 military women are raped every day
Women in military deserve better care
The Bad News Is:
52 military women are raped every day, according to the Pentagon, and hundreds of female soldiers are at risk
of becoming pregnant from rape each year. A day 52 - multiply it with 350, a year.
By: Lawrence Korb and Jessica Arons
September 24, 2012
Source: PoliticoClick green for further info
Both President Barack Obama and GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney regularly talk about the needs of our military men and women. Yet they are not addressing a serious military issue — access to reproductive care for military women.
Military women do not have coverage for abortion care, including in cases of rape and incest. Yet 52 military women are raped every day, according to the Pentagon, and hundreds of female soldiers are at risk of becoming pregnant from rape each year.
The Republican Party platform supports a constitutional amendment banning all abortions — including for victims of rape. However, after Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) made his now infamous “legitimate rape” comment, Romney did say that his administration would not oppose abortions in cases of rape. The Democratic Party unequivocally supports a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including access to safe and legal abortions, regardless of her ability to pay.
Neither party, however, has yet delivered for our nation’s military women. TRICARE, the military health insurance plan, only covers abortion when a woman’s life is endangered by the pregnancy.
Technically, a servicewoman is supposed to be able to obtain an abortion on base for reasons of rape and incest — if she pays for the procedure out of pocket. But because of confusion, misinformation and inconsistent policies and practices, abortion services are often unavailable in military facilities, particularly in combat zones.
An amendment to the FY 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, sponsored by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee, would rectify this problem by allowing TRICARE to again cover abortion services in the instance of rape or incest — as it did until 1981.
In doing so, the Shaheen Amendment would bring military policy in line with other current restrictions on coverage for abortion in government-sponsored or -managed insurance programs and plans. But as it stands now, servicewomen have less coverage for abortion than, for example, civilian federal employees or women enrolled in Medicaid.
It is particularly cruel and ironic that TRICARE denies coverage for abortions for rape and incest, given the long-standing challenges the armed services have faced in addressing sexual assault among the ranks. According to the Pentagon’s own data, 52 military women are raped every day, and we estimate that more than 300 women are likely to become pregnant from rape in the military each year.
Moreover, junior enlisted soldiers, who earn the least, are the most likely to be raped. In other words, those who are the most likely to need an abortion because of rape are the least likely to be able to afford it.
In addition, because abortion services are rarely available on base, women in the military must often travel long distances to find a safe and legal abortion provider. This means these women have to get permission to leave base and take time off from work and must disclose to a superior the reasons they need to take leave. Many soldiers, unwilling to reveal their reason or fearful of retaliation, turn to clandestine measures. These barriers are unfair, obstruct physical and psychological health and undermine military readiness.
Even among Republicans and people who are anti-abortion, there is broad support for the proposition that abortion should be allowed in cases of rape and incest. In fact, only 25 percent of Republicans would support banning abortion in cases of rape and incest, according to a recent Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll.
It is shocking that the Shaheen Amendment is subject to debate at all, and yet House Republicans (including Akin and GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan) have refused to add it to their version of this year’s defense authorization bill. Last year, Senate Republicans actually prevented a floor vote on the matter.
If the presidential candidates are true to their word, they should have no problem backing this straightforward measure.
Abortion coverage following rape or incest is the least that our military women deserve. It is shameful and disheartening that even this basic coverage is so difficult to obtain, for it is woefully insufficient. Congress and the administration should pass the Shaheen Amendment as a first step in working to meet all of the reproductive and sexual health needs of our servicewomen.
Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, served as assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. Jessica Arons is the director of the Women’s Health & Rights Program at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
© 2012 POLITICO LLC
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This article is for your private use, only
_____________________________________
Eight women allege rape, retaliation U.S. military
Retaliation - see the next article below explaining the legal meaning for "retaliation"
Tue, Mar, 6 2012
This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only.
Source: Metro New York, Newspaper
By Ian Simpson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Eight current and former female members of the U.S. military allege in a lawsuit they were raped, assaulted or sexually harassed while in the military and were retaliated against when they complained.
The suit filed on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington is the latest to allege widespread sexual violence in the world's most powerful military. It comes less than two months after Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced new steps to curb thousands of sexual assaults a year.
The lawsuit accuses military leaders of having a "high tolerance for sexual predators in their ranks" and failing to take steps to deal with the problem despite avowals to do so.
The eight women include a Marine on active duty and seven veterans of the Marine Corps and Navy. Seven allege a fellow service member raped or tried to sexually assault them, and an eighth said she was harassed while deployed in Iraq.
Defendants include Panetta and former and current Defense and Navy secretaries and Marine Corps commandants.
"No one should have to submit to being raped to be able to serve," Susan Burke, the women's attorney, said on the margins of a news conference.
Cynthia Smith, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said in a statement it would be inappropriate to comment on pending litigation but that sexual assault had no place in the Defense Department.
Under a policy announced in December, service members who report a sexual assault can quickly transfer from their unit or base, she said.
The Defense Department also has increased funding for investigators and judges to get training in sexual assault cases and is putting together a database to track cases, Smith said.
OFFICER ACCUSED OF RAPE
One of the women, Ariana Klay, alleged she was raped by a senior Marine Corps officer and his civilian friend in August 2010 at her residence near the Marine barracks in Washington.
Harassment and retaliation from her superiors after reporting the rape led her to attempt suicide, the suit said. One of the accused rapists was court-martialed and convicted of adultery and indecent language.
Klay, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and an Iraq veteran, had complained of harassment and abuse before the attack. She had requested a transfer to Afghanistan to escape it but was turned down, the suit said.
"The complicit actions of my superiors was more traumatic than the actual event," said Klay, who has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
In announcing steps to curb sexual assaults in January, Panetta said 3,191 such attacks were reported in the military in 2011. Since most attacks are not reported, the true figure might be close to 19,000, he said.
In December a federal judge in Virginia dismissed a class-action suit filed by 28 current and former service members for sexual assaults they said took place while they were in uniform.
The judge said previous cases and Supreme Court decisions have found against judicial involvement in military cases.
Burke, also an attorney in that case, has appealed the decision.
The new case could go to trial in about 18 months if it survives a likely request for dismissal by the Pentagon, she said.
(Reporting By Ian Simpson; Editing by Daniel Trotta)
Retaliation - see the next article below explaining the legal meaning for "retaliation"Retaliation - see the next article below explaining the legal meaning for "retaliation"Retaliation - see the next article below explaining the legal meaning for "retaliation"
___________________
Three Key Factors to Describe Workplace Retaliation
Source:
Mesriani_Law_Group |
Oct 14, 2010
This article is for your personal use, only
Read more: http://www.infobarrel.com/Three_Key_Factors_to_Describe_Workplace_Retaliation#ixzz20Xz37oB2
Under federal and state laws, employees have the right to file complaints against their employers if they experience discrimination, harassment, or there is an illegal activity in their company. Most of these complainants become successful in their claims, but some of them experience adverse actions as a result of their "whistleblowing" activity. If an employee experiences hostility at work because of a previous complaint, it is considered as workplace retaliation.
Expert Los Angeles employment attorney consider three different factors to determine if a situation is workplace retaliation or not. Here are the three key terms:
Adverse Action
An action is considered adverse if it tries to keep an employee from opposing the illegal practices of a company. If the employee already filed the complaint with an agency, an adverse action may be any unreasonable policy that would be difficult for the employee to follow at work. Discrimination, harassment, and termination are also some examples of adverse actions.
Covered Individual
Retaliation is only applicable to covered employees. An employee will only be covered by the law if he has taken a legal action against an employer or company that discriminates against its employees. However, whistleblowers that expose non-discrimination issues are not covered by anti-retaliation laws.
Protected Activity
A protected activity is an action or policy that the employee believes to be discriminatory. If an employer orders his employee to take an adverse action against another worker, that employee has the option not to obey. The employer would not be able to retaliate against the said employee because of the protected activity that he refused to do.
If one of these factors applies to your situation and your employer continues to retaliate against you, you should seek legal assistance right away. Here are some of the steps you may take to resolve the workplace retaliation you are experiencing:
_____
Read more: http://www.infobarrel.com/Three_Key_Factors_to_Describe_Workplace_Retaliation#ixzz20XzBVCTO
_______________________________________
Source:
Mesriani_Law_Group |
Oct 14, 2010
This article is for your personal use, only
Read more: http://www.infobarrel.com/Three_Key_Factors_to_Describe_Workplace_Retaliation#ixzz20Xz37oB2
Under federal and state laws, employees have the right to file complaints against their employers if they experience discrimination, harassment, or there is an illegal activity in their company. Most of these complainants become successful in their claims, but some of them experience adverse actions as a result of their "whistleblowing" activity. If an employee experiences hostility at work because of a previous complaint, it is considered as workplace retaliation.
Expert Los Angeles employment attorney consider three different factors to determine if a situation is workplace retaliation or not. Here are the three key terms:
Adverse Action
An action is considered adverse if it tries to keep an employee from opposing the illegal practices of a company. If the employee already filed the complaint with an agency, an adverse action may be any unreasonable policy that would be difficult for the employee to follow at work. Discrimination, harassment, and termination are also some examples of adverse actions.
Covered Individual
Retaliation is only applicable to covered employees. An employee will only be covered by the law if he has taken a legal action against an employer or company that discriminates against its employees. However, whistleblowers that expose non-discrimination issues are not covered by anti-retaliation laws.
Protected Activity
A protected activity is an action or policy that the employee believes to be discriminatory. If an employer orders his employee to take an adverse action against another worker, that employee has the option not to obey. The employer would not be able to retaliate against the said employee because of the protected activity that he refused to do.
If one of these factors applies to your situation and your employer continues to retaliate against you, you should seek legal assistance right away. Here are some of the steps you may take to resolve the workplace retaliation you are experiencing:
- Ask your HR supervisor or employer regarding the adverse actions.
- Obtain evidence to prove that your employer is taking retaliatory actions against you.
- File a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
_____
Read more: http://www.infobarrel.com/Three_Key_Factors_to_Describe_Workplace_Retaliation#ixzz20XzBVCTO
_______________________________________
Air Force instructor sentenced to 20 years for rape
Source By WILL WEISSERT | Associated Press
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — An Air Force instructor was sentenced to 20 years in prison Saturday, 7/21/12, after being convicted of rape andsexual assault in a sweeping sex scandal that rocked one of the nation's busiest military training centers.
A military jury at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio found Staff Sgt. Luis Walker guilty Friday night on all 28 charges he faced, including rape, aggravated sexual contact and multiple counts of aggravated sexual assault. A judge consolidated those charges Saturday into 20, but that didn't affect Walker's maximum sentence. He could have received life in prison.
Walker is among 12 Lackland instructors investigated for sexual misconduct toward at least 31 female trainees. Six instructors have been charged, on counts ranging from rape to adultery, and Walker was the first to stand trial. Walker also faced the most serious charges of all those accused.
Prosecutors say from October 2010 through January 2011, Walker sexually assaulted or had improper sexual or personal contact with at least 10 female recruits. Walker's court-martial included testimony from all 10 women, including one who described him luring her into an office and sexually assaulted her on a bed, ignoring her pleas to stop. The Associated Press does not usually identify sexual assault victims.
Five women testified during Saturday's sentencing hearing, saying they couldn't sleep or maintain relationships with men after the assaults. They said Walker's actions eroded their trust in authority and affected their performance at work.
One said it affected her tour in Afghanistan because she felt uncomfortable being alone with men.
"It's made it extremely hard to interact with authority figures," she said. "During my tour in Afghanistan, I was a little bit more scared of everything. I can't work with certain individuals just since they remind me of Staff Sgt. Walker."
Lackland is where every American airman receives basic training. It has about 475 instructors for the approximately 35,000 airmen who graduate every year. About one in five recruits are female, pushed through eight weeks of basic training by a group of instructors, 90 percent of whom are men.
Walker was convicted by a jury of six men and one woman. Under Air Force rules, the jury can declare a defendant guilty by a three-fifths vote on each individual count, rather than the unanimous decision required in American civilian courts. ___________________________
Source By WILL WEISSERT | Associated Press
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — An Air Force instructor was sentenced to 20 years in prison Saturday, 7/21/12, after being convicted of rape andsexual assault in a sweeping sex scandal that rocked one of the nation's busiest military training centers.
A military jury at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio found Staff Sgt. Luis Walker guilty Friday night on all 28 charges he faced, including rape, aggravated sexual contact and multiple counts of aggravated sexual assault. A judge consolidated those charges Saturday into 20, but that didn't affect Walker's maximum sentence. He could have received life in prison.
Walker is among 12 Lackland instructors investigated for sexual misconduct toward at least 31 female trainees. Six instructors have been charged, on counts ranging from rape to adultery, and Walker was the first to stand trial. Walker also faced the most serious charges of all those accused.
Prosecutors say from October 2010 through January 2011, Walker sexually assaulted or had improper sexual or personal contact with at least 10 female recruits. Walker's court-martial included testimony from all 10 women, including one who described him luring her into an office and sexually assaulted her on a bed, ignoring her pleas to stop. The Associated Press does not usually identify sexual assault victims.
Five women testified during Saturday's sentencing hearing, saying they couldn't sleep or maintain relationships with men after the assaults. They said Walker's actions eroded their trust in authority and affected their performance at work.
One said it affected her tour in Afghanistan because she felt uncomfortable being alone with men.
"It's made it extremely hard to interact with authority figures," she said. "During my tour in Afghanistan, I was a little bit more scared of everything. I can't work with certain individuals just since they remind me of Staff Sgt. Walker."
Lackland is where every American airman receives basic training. It has about 475 instructors for the approximately 35,000 airmen who graduate every year. About one in five recruits are female, pushed through eight weeks of basic training by a group of instructors, 90 percent of whom are men.
Walker was convicted by a jury of six men and one woman. Under Air Force rules, the jury can declare a defendant guilty by a three-fifths vote on each individual count, rather than the unanimous decision required in American civilian courts. ___________________________
Source:
The New York Times
April 25, 2012
Veterans and Brain Disease
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
He was a 27-year-old former Marine, struggling to adjust to civilian life after two tours in Iraq. Once an A student, he now found himself unable to remember conversations, dates and routine bits of daily life. He became irritable, snapped at his children and withdrew from his family. He and his wife began divorce proceedings.
This young man took to alcohol, and a drunken car crash cost him his driver’s license. The Department of Veterans Affairs diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder, or P.T.S.D. When his parents hadn’t heard from him in two days, they asked the police to check on him. The officers found his body; he had hanged himself with a belt.
That story is devastatingly common, but the autopsy of this young man’s brain may have been historic. It revealed something startling that may shed light on the epidemic of suicides and other troubles experienced by veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
His brain had been physically changed by a disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E. That’s a degenerative condition best-known for affecting boxers, football players and other athletes who endure repeated blows to the head.
In people with C.T.E., an abnormal form of a protein accumulates and eventually destroys cells throughout the brain, including the frontal and temporal lobes. Those are areas that regulate impulse control, judgment, multitasking, memory and emotions.
That Marine was the first Iraq veteran found to have C.T.E., but experts have since autopsied a dozen or more other veterans’ brains and have repeatedly found C.T.E. The findings raise a critical question: Could blasts from bombs or grenades have a catastrophic impact similar to those of repeated concussions in sports, and could the rash of suicides among young veterans be a result?
“P.T.S.D. in a high-risk cohort like war veterans could actually be a physical disease from permanent brain damage, not a psychological disease,” said Bennet Omalu, the neuropathologist who examined the veteran. Dr. Omalu published an article about the 27-year-old veteran as a sentinel case in Neurosurgical Focus, a peer-reviewed medical journal.
The discovery of C.T.E. in veterans could be stunningly important. Sadly, it could also suggest that the worst is yet to come, for C.T.E. typically develops in midlife, decades after exposure. If we are seeing C.T.E. now in war veterans, we may see much more in the coming years.
So far, just this one case of a veteran with C.T.E. has been published in a peer-reviewed medical journal. But at least three groups of scientists are now conducting brain autopsies on veterans, and they have found C.T.E. again and again, experts tell me. Publication of this research is in the works.
The finding of C.T.E. may help answer a puzzle. Returning Vietnam veterans did not have sharply elevated suicide rates as Iraq and Afghan veterans do today. One obvious difference is that Afghan and Iraq veterans are much more likely to have been exposed to blasts, whose shock waves send the brain crashing into the skull.
“Imagine a squishy, gelatinous material, surrounded by fluid, and then surrounded by a hard skull,” explained Robert A. Stern, a C.T.E. expert at Boston University School of Medicine. “The brain is going to move, jiggle around inside the skull. A helmet cannot do anything about that.”
Dr. Stern emphasized that the study of C.T.E. is still in its infancy. But he said that his hunch is that C.T.E. accounts for a share — he has no idea how large — of veteran suicides. C.T.E. leads to a degenerative loss of memory and thinking ability and, eventually, to dementia. There is also often a pattern of depression, impulsiveness and, all too often, suicide. There is now no treatment, or even a way of diagnosing C.T.E. other than examining the brain after death.
While the sports industry has lagged in responding to the discovery of C.T.E., and still does not adequately protect athletes from repeated concussions, the military has been far more proactive. The Defense Department has formed its own unit to autopsy brains and study whether blasts may be causing C.T.E.
Frankly, I was hesitant to write this column. Some veterans and their families are at wit’s end. If the problem in some cases is a degenerative physical ailment, currently incurable and fated to get worse, do they want to know?
I called Cheryl DeBow, a mother I wrote about recently. She sent two strong, healthy sons to Iraq. One committed suicide, and the other is struggling. DeBow said that it would actually be comforting to know that there might be an underlying physical ailment, even if it is progressive.
“You’re dealing with a ghost when it’s P.T.S.D.,” she told me a couple of days ago. “Everything changes when it’s something physical. People are more understanding. It’s a relief to the veterans and to the family. And, anyway, we want to know.”
__________________________
The New York Times
April 25, 2012
Veterans and Brain Disease
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
He was a 27-year-old former Marine, struggling to adjust to civilian life after two tours in Iraq. Once an A student, he now found himself unable to remember conversations, dates and routine bits of daily life. He became irritable, snapped at his children and withdrew from his family. He and his wife began divorce proceedings.
This young man took to alcohol, and a drunken car crash cost him his driver’s license. The Department of Veterans Affairs diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder, or P.T.S.D. When his parents hadn’t heard from him in two days, they asked the police to check on him. The officers found his body; he had hanged himself with a belt.
That story is devastatingly common, but the autopsy of this young man’s brain may have been historic. It revealed something startling that may shed light on the epidemic of suicides and other troubles experienced by veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
His brain had been physically changed by a disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E. That’s a degenerative condition best-known for affecting boxers, football players and other athletes who endure repeated blows to the head.
In people with C.T.E., an abnormal form of a protein accumulates and eventually destroys cells throughout the brain, including the frontal and temporal lobes. Those are areas that regulate impulse control, judgment, multitasking, memory and emotions.
That Marine was the first Iraq veteran found to have C.T.E., but experts have since autopsied a dozen or more other veterans’ brains and have repeatedly found C.T.E. The findings raise a critical question: Could blasts from bombs or grenades have a catastrophic impact similar to those of repeated concussions in sports, and could the rash of suicides among young veterans be a result?
“P.T.S.D. in a high-risk cohort like war veterans could actually be a physical disease from permanent brain damage, not a psychological disease,” said Bennet Omalu, the neuropathologist who examined the veteran. Dr. Omalu published an article about the 27-year-old veteran as a sentinel case in Neurosurgical Focus, a peer-reviewed medical journal.
The discovery of C.T.E. in veterans could be stunningly important. Sadly, it could also suggest that the worst is yet to come, for C.T.E. typically develops in midlife, decades after exposure. If we are seeing C.T.E. now in war veterans, we may see much more in the coming years.
So far, just this one case of a veteran with C.T.E. has been published in a peer-reviewed medical journal. But at least three groups of scientists are now conducting brain autopsies on veterans, and they have found C.T.E. again and again, experts tell me. Publication of this research is in the works.
The finding of C.T.E. may help answer a puzzle. Returning Vietnam veterans did not have sharply elevated suicide rates as Iraq and Afghan veterans do today. One obvious difference is that Afghan and Iraq veterans are much more likely to have been exposed to blasts, whose shock waves send the brain crashing into the skull.
“Imagine a squishy, gelatinous material, surrounded by fluid, and then surrounded by a hard skull,” explained Robert A. Stern, a C.T.E. expert at Boston University School of Medicine. “The brain is going to move, jiggle around inside the skull. A helmet cannot do anything about that.”
Dr. Stern emphasized that the study of C.T.E. is still in its infancy. But he said that his hunch is that C.T.E. accounts for a share — he has no idea how large — of veteran suicides. C.T.E. leads to a degenerative loss of memory and thinking ability and, eventually, to dementia. There is also often a pattern of depression, impulsiveness and, all too often, suicide. There is now no treatment, or even a way of diagnosing C.T.E. other than examining the brain after death.
While the sports industry has lagged in responding to the discovery of C.T.E., and still does not adequately protect athletes from repeated concussions, the military has been far more proactive. The Defense Department has formed its own unit to autopsy brains and study whether blasts may be causing C.T.E.
Frankly, I was hesitant to write this column. Some veterans and their families are at wit’s end. If the problem in some cases is a degenerative physical ailment, currently incurable and fated to get worse, do they want to know?
I called Cheryl DeBow, a mother I wrote about recently. She sent two strong, healthy sons to Iraq. One committed suicide, and the other is struggling. DeBow said that it would actually be comforting to know that there might be an underlying physical ailment, even if it is progressive.
“You’re dealing with a ghost when it’s P.T.S.D.,” she told me a couple of days ago. “Everything changes when it’s something physical. People are more understanding. It’s a relief to the veterans and to the family. And, anyway, we want to know.”
__________________________
In the STAF, Inc. scale of 1-10 this article's importance # = 9
Source: The New York Times
April 14, 2012
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
A Veteran’s Death, the Nation’s Shame
HERE’S a window into a tragedy within the American military: For every soldier killed on the battlefield this year, about 25 veterans are dying by their own hands.
An American soldier dies every day and a half, on average, in Iraq or Afghanistan. Veterans kill themselves at a rate of one every 80 minutes. More than 6,500 veteran suicides are logged every year — more than the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq combined since those wars began.
These unnoticed killing fields are places like New Middletown, Ohio, where Cheryl DeBow raised two sons, Michael and Ryan Yurchison, and saw them depart for Iraq. Michael, then 22, signed up soon after the 9/11 attacks.
“I can’t just sit back and do nothing,” he told his mom. Two years later, Ryan followed his beloved older brother to the Army.
When Michael was discharged, DeBow picked him up at the airport — and was staggered. “When he got off the plane and I picked him up, it was like he was an empty shell,” she told me. “His body was shaking.” Michael began drinking and abusing drugs, his mother says, and he terrified her by buying the same kind of gun he had carried in Iraq. “He said he slept with his gun over there, and he needed it here,” she recalls.
Then Ryan returned home in 2007, and he too began to show signs of severe strain. He couldn’t sleep, abused drugs and alcohol, and suffered extreme jitters.
“He was so anxious, he couldn’t stand to sit next to you and hear you breathe,” DeBow remembers. A talented filmmaker, Ryan turned the lens on himself to record heartbreaking video of his own sleeplessness, his own irrational behavior — even his own mock suicide.
One reason for veteran suicides (and crimes, which get far more attention) may be post-traumatic stress disorder, along with a related condition, traumatic brain injury. Ryan suffered a concussion in an explosion in Iraq, and Michael finally had traumatic brain injury diagnosed two months ago.
Estimates of post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury vary widely, but a ballpark figure is that the problems afflict at least one in five veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq. One study found that by their third or fourth tours in Iraq or Afghanistan, more than one-quarter of soldiers had such mental health problems.
Preliminary figures suggest that being a veteran now roughly doubles one’s risk of suicide. For young men ages 17 to 24, being a veteran almost quadruples the risk of suicide, according to a study in The American Journal of Public Health.
Michael and Ryan, like so many other veterans, sought help from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Eric Shinseki, the secretary of veterans affairs, declined to speak to me, but the most common view among those I interviewed was that the V.A. has improved but still doesn’t do nearly enough about the suicide problem.
“It’s an epidemic that is not being addressed fully,” said Bob Filner, a Democratic congressman from San Diego and the senior Democrat on the House Veterans Affairs Committee. “We could be doing so much more.”
To its credit, the V.A. has established a suicide hotline and appointed suicide-prevention coordinators. It is also chipping away at a warrior culture in which mental health concerns are considered sissy. Still, veterans routinely slip through the cracks. Last year, the United States Court of Appeals in San Francisco excoriated the V.A. for “unchecked incompetence” in dealing with veterans’ mental health.
Patrick Bellon, head of Veterans for Common Sense, which filed the suit in that case, says the V.A. has genuinely improved but is still struggling. “There are going to be one million new veterans in the next five years,” he said. “They’re already having trouble coping with the population they have now, so I don’t know what they’re going to do.”
Last month, the V.A.’s own inspector general reported on a 26-year-old veteran who was found wandering naked through traffic in California. The police tried to get care for him, but a V.A. hospital reportedly said it couldn’t accept him until morning. The young man didn’t go in, and after a series of other missed opportunities to get treatment, he stepped in front of a train and killed himself.
Likewise, neither Michael nor Ryan received much help from V.A. hospitals. In early 2010, Ryan began to talk more about suicide, and DeBow rushed him to emergency rooms and pleaded with the V.A. for help. She says she was told that an inpatient treatment program had a six-month waiting list. (The V.A. says it has no record of a request for hospitalization for Ryan.)
“Ryan was hurting, saying he was going to end it all, stuff like that,” recalls his best friend, Steve Schaeffer, who served with him in Iraq and says he has likewise struggled with the V.A. to get mental health services. “Getting an appointment is like pulling teeth,” he said. “You get an appointment in six weeks when you need it today.”
While Ryan was waiting for a spot in the addiction program, in May 2010, he died of a drug overdose. It was listed as an accidental death, but family and friends are convinced it was suicide.
The heartbreak of Ryan’s death added to his brother’s despair, but DeBow says Michael is now making slow progress. “He is able to get out of bed most mornings,” she told me. “That is a huge improvement.” Michael asked not to be interviewed: he wants to look forward, not back.
As for DeBow, every day is a struggle. She sent two strong, healthy men to serve her country, and now her family has been hollowed in ways that aren’t as tidy, as honored, or as easy to explain as when the battle wounds are physical. I wanted to make sure that her family would be comfortable with the spotlight this article would bring, so I asked her why she was speaking out.
“When Ryan joined the Army, he was willing to sacrifice his life for his country,” she said. “And he did, just in a different way, without the glory. He would want it this way.”
“My home has been a nightmare,” DeBow added through tears, recounting how three of Ryan’s friends in the military have killed themselves since their return. “You hear my story, but it’s happening everywhere.”
We refurbish tanks after time in combat, but don’t much help men and women exorcise the demons of war. Presidents commit troops to distant battlefields, but don’t commit enough dollars to veterans’ services afterward. We enlist soldiers to protect us, but when they come home we don’t protect them.
“Things need to change,” DeBow said, and her voice broke as she added: “These are guys who went through so much. If anybody deserves help, it’s them.”
__________________________________
Source: The New York Times
April 14, 2012
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
A Veteran’s Death, the Nation’s Shame
HERE’S a window into a tragedy within the American military: For every soldier killed on the battlefield this year, about 25 veterans are dying by their own hands.
An American soldier dies every day and a half, on average, in Iraq or Afghanistan. Veterans kill themselves at a rate of one every 80 minutes. More than 6,500 veteran suicides are logged every year — more than the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq combined since those wars began.
These unnoticed killing fields are places like New Middletown, Ohio, where Cheryl DeBow raised two sons, Michael and Ryan Yurchison, and saw them depart for Iraq. Michael, then 22, signed up soon after the 9/11 attacks.
“I can’t just sit back and do nothing,” he told his mom. Two years later, Ryan followed his beloved older brother to the Army.
When Michael was discharged, DeBow picked him up at the airport — and was staggered. “When he got off the plane and I picked him up, it was like he was an empty shell,” she told me. “His body was shaking.” Michael began drinking and abusing drugs, his mother says, and he terrified her by buying the same kind of gun he had carried in Iraq. “He said he slept with his gun over there, and he needed it here,” she recalls.
Then Ryan returned home in 2007, and he too began to show signs of severe strain. He couldn’t sleep, abused drugs and alcohol, and suffered extreme jitters.
“He was so anxious, he couldn’t stand to sit next to you and hear you breathe,” DeBow remembers. A talented filmmaker, Ryan turned the lens on himself to record heartbreaking video of his own sleeplessness, his own irrational behavior — even his own mock suicide.
One reason for veteran suicides (and crimes, which get far more attention) may be post-traumatic stress disorder, along with a related condition, traumatic brain injury. Ryan suffered a concussion in an explosion in Iraq, and Michael finally had traumatic brain injury diagnosed two months ago.
Estimates of post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury vary widely, but a ballpark figure is that the problems afflict at least one in five veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq. One study found that by their third or fourth tours in Iraq or Afghanistan, more than one-quarter of soldiers had such mental health problems.
Preliminary figures suggest that being a veteran now roughly doubles one’s risk of suicide. For young men ages 17 to 24, being a veteran almost quadruples the risk of suicide, according to a study in The American Journal of Public Health.
Michael and Ryan, like so many other veterans, sought help from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Eric Shinseki, the secretary of veterans affairs, declined to speak to me, but the most common view among those I interviewed was that the V.A. has improved but still doesn’t do nearly enough about the suicide problem.
“It’s an epidemic that is not being addressed fully,” said Bob Filner, a Democratic congressman from San Diego and the senior Democrat on the House Veterans Affairs Committee. “We could be doing so much more.”
To its credit, the V.A. has established a suicide hotline and appointed suicide-prevention coordinators. It is also chipping away at a warrior culture in which mental health concerns are considered sissy. Still, veterans routinely slip through the cracks. Last year, the United States Court of Appeals in San Francisco excoriated the V.A. for “unchecked incompetence” in dealing with veterans’ mental health.
Patrick Bellon, head of Veterans for Common Sense, which filed the suit in that case, says the V.A. has genuinely improved but is still struggling. “There are going to be one million new veterans in the next five years,” he said. “They’re already having trouble coping with the population they have now, so I don’t know what they’re going to do.”
Last month, the V.A.’s own inspector general reported on a 26-year-old veteran who was found wandering naked through traffic in California. The police tried to get care for him, but a V.A. hospital reportedly said it couldn’t accept him until morning. The young man didn’t go in, and after a series of other missed opportunities to get treatment, he stepped in front of a train and killed himself.
Likewise, neither Michael nor Ryan received much help from V.A. hospitals. In early 2010, Ryan began to talk more about suicide, and DeBow rushed him to emergency rooms and pleaded with the V.A. for help. She says she was told that an inpatient treatment program had a six-month waiting list. (The V.A. says it has no record of a request for hospitalization for Ryan.)
“Ryan was hurting, saying he was going to end it all, stuff like that,” recalls his best friend, Steve Schaeffer, who served with him in Iraq and says he has likewise struggled with the V.A. to get mental health services. “Getting an appointment is like pulling teeth,” he said. “You get an appointment in six weeks when you need it today.”
While Ryan was waiting for a spot in the addiction program, in May 2010, he died of a drug overdose. It was listed as an accidental death, but family and friends are convinced it was suicide.
The heartbreak of Ryan’s death added to his brother’s despair, but DeBow says Michael is now making slow progress. “He is able to get out of bed most mornings,” she told me. “That is a huge improvement.” Michael asked not to be interviewed: he wants to look forward, not back.
As for DeBow, every day is a struggle. She sent two strong, healthy men to serve her country, and now her family has been hollowed in ways that aren’t as tidy, as honored, or as easy to explain as when the battle wounds are physical. I wanted to make sure that her family would be comfortable with the spotlight this article would bring, so I asked her why she was speaking out.
“When Ryan joined the Army, he was willing to sacrifice his life for his country,” she said. “And he did, just in a different way, without the glory. He would want it this way.”
“My home has been a nightmare,” DeBow added through tears, recounting how three of Ryan’s friends in the military have killed themselves since their return. “You hear my story, but it’s happening everywhere.”
We refurbish tanks after time in combat, but don’t much help men and women exorcise the demons of war. Presidents commit troops to distant battlefields, but don’t commit enough dollars to veterans’ services afterward. We enlist soldiers to protect us, but when they come home we don’t protect them.
“Things need to change,” DeBow said, and her voice broke as she added: “These are guys who went through so much. If anybody deserves help, it’s them.”
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Mending Broken Spirits
Navajo Veteran Wants to Heal Others With Wild Horses
When U.S. marine Larrison Manygoats returned from his tours of duty in Iraq, he was diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injuries (TBI). Recovery was a struggle, until a friend recommended a project with the Mustang Heritage Foundation, an organization that uses wild horses to help veterans overcome war trauma.
click: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) - Mayo Clinic
click: NIMH · Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)www.nimh.nih.gov/.../post-traumatic-s...National Institute of Mental Health
click:Traumatic Brain Injury Information Page: National Institute of ...www.ninds.nih.g...National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke Traumatic Brain Injury information sheet compiled by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).
According to Manygoats, horse therapy can address severe trauma in ways that pills and talk therapy can’t touch.
“Working with the horse pulls these things out of you, emotionally, physically, to make you see that there is an exit, there is something out there that makes you want to do better, to strive, to be open minded. It gives hope,” he said.
Inspired by his own healing experience, Manygoats wants to help other veterans living in his community on the Navajo reservation near the town of Tuba, in northern Arizona. click: Tuba City, Arizona
With the help of his father and a handful of volunteers, Manygoats recently finished building a basic facility on some unused land on the reservation, which he calls a reconditioning center.
The center currently consists of only two circular pens (one inside the other) and a small corral, but it’s enough to start. All that’s needed now is a wounded veteran and a wild horse, and the reservation has plenty of both.
Mending Broken Spirits PTSD is characterized by flashbacks, nightmares, and severe anxiety due to witnessing or experiencing a devastating episode. Symptoms may include uncontrollable outbursts of anger, unshakable guilt and shame, and poor sleep and concentration due to a mind that obsessively replays traumatic events.
Since World War II, Native Americans have the highest U.S. military enlistment per capita of any race, but they often have fewer therapeutic resources when they return. Some seek pain medication in border towns, others turn to alcohol, many isolate themselves from the civilian world.
“They’re tolerating something a civilian doesn’t understand,” Manygoats said.
Horse therapy helps the devastated reconnect with life in a non-threatening way. Manygoats compares working with a wild horse to looking into a mirror—giving trauma patients a reflection of themselves they can work with.
“You have to deal with a thousand-pound animal that will fight you, it will test you, it will do everything possible until you learn how to reach out to that scared animal,” he said. “At the same time you’re working with the courage to move forward, to be more compassionate and open minded about problems. It’s challenging and exciting for the person who is working with a horse.”
Manygoats works with a horse training method called gentling—a technique made famous by the 1998 film, the Horse Whisperer. As opposed to conventional horse training which employs brute force to break a horse’s spirit, gentling involves careful observation of the horse and control of one’s own body language. The technique is remarkably effective at calming a frightened animal, but the trainer must stay focused.
“You can’t hide your feelings from a wild horse. If you’re carrying stress, anger, anxiety, or depression the horse can feel it, and its natural reaction is to flee,” Manygoats said.
The U.S. military has begun to see the value of horse therapy. “Recon: Unbridled” is a 2012 Pentagon Channel documentary about horse healing success stories, and several horse therapists and local VA chapters have since teamed up to start Horses for Heroes, a free program to help veterans and active military with PTSD, physical injuries, or trauma.
Wild Horse Country Wild horses are typically considered a nuisance on the Navajo reservation in northeastern Arizona, which has by far the largest concentration of wild mustangs anywhere in the United States—estimates are as high as 75,000.
Until 2013 the Navajo Nation was resigned to a systematic slaughter of the region’s excess horse population. Public outcry and months of negotiations have stopped the plan, but the animals remain a significant problem. Wild horses drain resources leading to droughts and overgrazing, and cost the U.S. Bureau of Land Management $72 million in 2013 alone.
Manygoats’ plan would relieve some of the area’s horse congestion by recruiting wild animals into service.
After wild horses are tamed, they can also serve in other types of healing in a practice known as hippotherapy (from the Greek word “hippos” meaning horse). People with physical disabilities, autism, and stroke climb on horseback and form a bond with the animal. Through this therapy, the horse becomes a powerful extension of a damaged body, helping restore muscle strength and neurological function.
Healing Free of Charge Manygoats wants to offer the service free to veterans and elders in his community. He and his father are paying for the project out of their own pockets. Some of the structure was built with reclaimed materials (he recently returned from a long trip to collect railroad ties), but there is still a laundry list of materials left to collect: wood, saddles, blankets, bits, lead lines, hay, deworming paste and other horse medications.
“To have someone get inside the round pen for one month costs nearly $10,000, but that’s just the beginning phase of it. If this thing actually takes off and it starts to run smoothly, it will probably be about $4,000.”
Manygoats trusts that once the reservation sees what horses can do, the community will come forward to give him the support he needs. “We want people to come out and say, ‘Hey, you guys are doing a great thing.’ All we’re running on is encouragement and volunteer efforts,” he said.
Source: The Epoch Times - STAF, Inc. endorses The Epoch Times Click: Epoch Times
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Marine Doing Push-ups for Charity
Do you think you could do 1 million push-ups in a year? That's roughly 2,739 pushups a day, 114 an hour, or 2 a minute. Assuming you don't sleep. Sgt. Enrique Trevino can, and he's doing it all to raise money for The Wounded Warriors Project.
"It all started out as a new year's resolution. I thought I'd challenge myself to do a million push-ups," Trevino, who has been in the United States Marine Corps for eight years, told ABC News.
However, what began as purely a physical fitness challenge quickly morphed into something more. "Instead of me doing a million push-ups for myself, I wanted to do something where it benefits others." Trevino said. "So I sat down and thought and decided on The Wounded Warriors Project, helping out my brothers and sisters who have been injured in combat."
Trevino, whose stint in the Marines included service in Iraq, is now stationed in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where, as is expected a large portion of his day is now devoted to doing an almost inhuman amount of push-ups. Itl starts with a 6 a.m. wake up.
"In the morning before I go to work I'll probably knock out maybe 500 to 600 push-ups. I do push-ups every 5 to 10 minutes and generally try to get 25, 35, sometimes even 50 push-ups in one sitting."
Trevino, 27, said, "I continue this pace all the way up until lunch time when I'm at work, which is really good because I work with the Marines. They're real supportive. They don't ever have a problem with me dropping down and doing pushups."
According to Trevino, lunch is one of the most productive times of the day. "For 30, 40 minutes all I do is straight push-ups. During that time I will generally push out between 600 and 750."
This rigorous schedule is paying off, Trevino is ahead of schedule, having banged out over 845,000 push-ups at last count. His original goal was to raise $40,000 for The Wounded Warriors Project, but he has already surpassed that, raising $40,440.01. But this doesn't mean he's going to stop, doing push-ups or raising money.
"I'm not doing this for myself I'm doing this for The Wounded Warrior Project and for all the brothers and sisters who've been injured," Trevino said. "This is not about me. This is about something bigger and I want everybody to keep that in mind because their greatest fear is that they're forgotten, everything they did for this country."
To donate to the Wounded Warriors Project visit Trevino's Wounded Warriors Page. He is also tracking his progress on his Facebook page, where you can purchase T-shirts to support the cause, all proceeds go to The Wounded Warriors Project.
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August 12, 2012
The New York Times
Page 1, Sunday Review
War Wounds
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
IT would be so much easier, Maj. Ben Richards says, if he had just lost a leg in Iraq.
Instead, he finds himself losing his mind, or at least a part of it. And if you want to understand how America is failing its soldiers and veterans, honoring them with lip service and ceremonies but breaking faith with them on all that matters most, listen to the story of Major Richards.
For starters, he’s brilliant. (Or at least he was.) He speaks Chinese and taught at West Point, and his medical evaluations suggest that until his recent problems he had an I.Q. of about 148. After he graduated from West Point, in 2000, he received glowing reviews.
“Ben Richards is one of the best military officers I have worked with in 13 years of service,” noted an evaluation, one of many military and medical documents he shared with me.
Yet Richards’s intellect almost exacerbates his suffering, for it better equips him to monitor his mental deterioration — and the failings of the Army that he has revered since he was a young boy.
Military suicides are the starkest gauge of our nation’s failure to care adequately for those who served in uniform. With America’s wars winding down, the United States is now losing more soldiers to suicide than to the enemy. Include veterans, and the tragedy is even more sweeping. For every soldier killed in war this year, about 25 veterans now take their own lives.
President Obama said recently that it was an “outrage” that some service members and veterans sought help but couldn’t get it: “We’ve got to do better. This has to be all hands on deck.” Admirable words, but so far they’ve neither made much impact nor offered consolation to those who call the suicide prevention hot line and end up on hold.
The military’s problems with mental health services go far beyond suicide or the occasional murders committed by soldiers and veterans. Far more common are people like Richards, who does not contemplate violence of any kind but is still profoundly disabled.
An astonishing 45 percent of those who served in Iraq or Afghanistan are now seeking compensation for injuries, in many cases psychological ones. It’s unclear how many are exaggerated or even fraudulent, but what is clear is this: the financial cost of these disabilities will be huge, yet it is dwarfed by the human cost.
Richards’s finest hour, and in retrospect his worst, came in Iraq in 2007. He was then a captain assigned to the city of Baquba, a hotly contested area where he was welcomed on his first day by a 12-hour firefight. In Baquba, Richards pioneered an initiative to cooperate with local Sunni Muslim militias — who had previously attacked Americans — to defeat the local branch of Al Qaeda.
This was ferociously controversial at first and Richards was bitterly criticized by other officers for collaborating with the enemy. But the strategy worked and was broadly adopted by the military in Iraq. The New York Times wrote that year about Richards’s leadership; the Army promoted him, and he seemed destined for greatness.
Then one day a car bomb destroyed his Stryker vehicle, giving Richards a severe concussion that left him nauseated and dazed for a week. Three weeks later, a roadside bomb knocked him out again, and he suffered a second concussion, with similar results.
Richards, now 36, struggled for months with headaches, fatigue, insomnia and fainting spells; once he passed out in the middle of a firefight. Still, he didn’t seek medical care. He figured he wasn’t really injured, and that has been a widespread problem: the military value system is such that warriors disdain medical care as long as they are physically capable of fighting.
“Coming from an Army ethos,” he says wryly, “you’re not even entitled to complain unless you’ve lost all four limbs.”
Yet there’s growing evidence that concussions — whether in sports or in the military — are every bit as damaging as far bloodier wounds. When someone suffers blows to the head, the result can be a traumatic brain injury, or T.B.I. This, eventually, was Richards’s diagnosis.
Richards’s wife, Farrah, was thrilled when he returned “safely” from Iraq in the fall of 2007, and she counted them both very, very lucky. But almost immediately, Farrah says, she noticed that the man who came home wore her husband’s skin but was different inside. “There were obvious changes in his personality,” she recalls. “He was extremely withdrawn; he would go into the bedroom for hours.”
A once boisterous dad who loved to roughhouse with his children — now there are four, ages 1 to 14 — Ben no longer seemed to know how to play with them. He often suffered incapacitating headaches, overwhelming fatigue and constant insomnia. Especially when dozing, he was on a hair trigger. If Farrah rose at night, she sometimes didn’t return to bed for fear that her husband might think she was an enemy and attack her. Instead, she’d spend the rest of the night on the couch.
For a woman who had been functioning as a single mom and was now eager to resume her former married life, all this was devastating. And it got worse. Farrah would tell her husband things, and then he would repeatedly forget — and reproach her for not telling him. He was distracted, withdrawn and unhelpful, and he repeatedly let her down.
“Our marriage was at real risk at this point,” Richards says. “We got to a point where we thought about separating.”
Yet it became increasingly apparent that the problem wasn’t that Richards was a jerk. It was that he had a war injury, an invisible one.
It’s often said that traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, which Richards’s doctors also diagnosed, are the signature wounds of the Iraq and Afghan wars. That’s partly because of the strains of repeated combat tours and partly because the enemy now relies more on bombs than bullets.
These factors suggest an answer to a continuing mystery: Why is suicide among soldiers and veterans more common now? Data collection has been poor, but several studies suggest that suicides among Vietnam veterans were not elevated. And traditionally, suicide rates among military personnel were lower than among civilians. Yet that has changed in the last decade, perhaps because of the increased time that today’s troops have spent in combat and how common explosions — and resulting concussions — have become in war zones.
OF the 100 soldiers under Richards, about 90 were hit by at least one bomb blast, and one Stryker crew was hit five times, Richards says. Yet few received significant medical treatment or were pulled out of harm’s way to protect them from a repeat concussion.
Richards himself didn’t receive any thorough examination or prompt diagnosis, even though he sought help from a series of doctors and counselors. He and Farrah just knew that something was wrong with his mind — and the intellectual toll became clearer when the Army sent him to Georgetown University to earn a graduate degree. The once brilliant scholar found that his brain just didn’t function properly.
“The paper is disappointing,” Professor Nancy Bernkopf Tucker commented on one of his term papers, on China. “Parts are not coherent and overall it is not effective. It is not well written and it is sloppy. Of greatest significance is the lack of analysis.”
Tucker told me that she recalled Richards well. “I remember him partly because I liked him so much,” she said. “He never told me about his background, and all I saw was someone not living up to his potential.”
Richards agreed with her comments on his work. His pure reasoning capacity is unimpaired, but his memory and ability to concentrate are faulty. In effect, he is a brilliant man tracking his cognitive deterioration.
After stumbling along to complete his Georgetown degree, Richards moved to West Point two years ago to take up a teaching position. He was elated to be teaching there — but he found himself losing his train of thought in class. He couldn’t read more than a few pages at a time. Richards saw that students were looking at him questioningly, trying to figure out what was wrong.
“It hurts, it’s humiliating,” he said. “I was always thinking maybe this is just something psychological — I’m an Army guy, I can get over this.” It was at this time, three years after the concussions in Iraq, that military physicians finally gave Richards a diagnosis of traumatic brain injury. Meanwhile, the headaches, the insomnia, the fatigue and the concentration problems grew worse, and he was embarrassed that medication for the headaches led him to put on 45 pounds.
Realizing that he wasn’t cutting it as an instructor, Richards asked in March to be relieved of his teaching duties. After a battery of physical and psychiatric tests, including a scan that found eight lesions in his brain tissue, the Army confirmed that he was disabled. He is retiring this month.
“Leaving the Army is the hardest thing I ever did,” he told me, and he seemed near tears.
Sometimes Richards is optimistic and imagines that he can find a new career — “if I get smart again,” as he puts it. But then reality sets in, often in the form of an agonizing headache. As we sat together in their living room, Farrah gently dismissed the idea of Ben’s working and said that she can’t even trust him to look after the toddler. Ben bit his lip and nodded slowly. “I’m basically unemployable,” he said.
Ben and Farrah found that they could no longer afford to live near West Point, so they have just moved to Iowa to be near Farrah’s parents. The couple’s marital strains seem mended, and Farrah says that now that she understands that her husband is suffering from a war wound, she is committed to seeing him through.
“Farrah is an amazing lady to stick through this,” Ben told me. “I am not sure who is having a harder time with T.B.I., me or my wife. In many ways, I am different from the man she married.”
Countless spouses, parents and children of returning troops are struggling with similar challenges. Spouses often complain that the military treats them particularly poorly, and rarely communicates adequately. “They’ll be like, ‘your husband was briefed on that.’ ” Farrah said. “And I say, ‘well, my husband can’t remember that briefing.’ ”
COMPOUNDING the stress, the military and the Department of Veterans Affairs are vastly overburdened by the mental health demands of returning soldiers. And that’s not just the view of the troops but also of Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.
“This system is going to be overwhelmed,” he said at a Congressional hearing last month. “Let’s not kid anybody. We’re looking at a system — it’s already overwhelmed.”
Panetta said that the “epidemic” of military suicide was “one of the most frustrating problems” he has faced as defense secretary. Obama talked about the challenge of military suicides as early as the 2008 campaign, and his administration deserves modest credit for (inadequate) steps to improve mental health care. Dr. Jonathan Woodson, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, told me that the military had made progress in screening and treating traumatic brain injury and mental health, so that a soldier would be more likely to get help today than five years ago, when Richards suffered his blast injuries.
“We’re light-years more advanced now in terms of how we approach these problems and what we teach troops about getting help,” he said. In particular, blast injuries are tracked and treated more rigorously, he said, but he acknowledged that more work needed to be done.
Grim experiences like the one Richards endured might create an opening for Mitt Romney, but he isn’t taking it. As a governor and candidate, he has had a weak record on veterans, and he hasn’t shown leadership on the issue. He managed to speak to the Veterans of Foreign Wars last month without addressing veterans’ issues in a substantive way.
In any case, my take is that whatever political leaders say in Washington, and whatever directives emerge from the Pentagon, not nearly enough is changing on the ground. Mental health still isn’t the priority it should be. Just about every soldier or veteran I’ve talked to finds that in practice the mental health system is clogged with demands, and soldiers and veterans are falling through the cracks. Returning soldiers aren’t adequately screened, diagnosis and treatment of traumatic brain injury are still haphazard, and there hasn’t been nearly enough effort to change the warrior culture so that getting help is smart rather than sissy.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness recently offered an idea to help change this culture: the armed forces should award Purple Hearts for invisible, psychological wounds. That might help ease the stigma and would underscore that medical problems are real even if they are inside the head. The alliance also recommended that commanders be held accountable for preventable suicides.
While the challenges are acute for those on active duty, they often become even greater when troops take off their uniforms and become veterans seeking services from the hugely overburdened Veterans Affairs Department. Ben and Farrah have found it immensely difficult to get reliable information from the V.A. about what benefits they can count on. Richards says that in 11 phone calls, he has heard different stories every time.
“The V.A. is an abomination,” he said. “You see that hole in the wall?” He pointed at what looked like a rat hole. “That’s when I threw the phone after someone at V.A. hung up on me.”
None of this is a surprise. The V.A. says that veterans wait an average of eight months to get an initial decision on the claims they file. When service members seek to retire for medical reasons, the process takes an average of 396 days. Eric Shinseki, the secretary of veterans affairs, notes that the V.A. processes more claims each year than it did before, but that the number of new claims surges by an even greater amount. The upshot is that the V.A. steps up its game but still gets further behind.
Shinseki notes some areas of progress — the number of homeless veterans seems to have fallen significantly — and he points to new systems and hiring intended to make the system function better. The number of V.A. mental health staff members has risen from 13,000 in 2005 to more than 20,000 today, he said.
AT a time when nearly half of veterans returning from battle file disability claims, it’s fair to wonder whether word hasn’t spread that service members can claim some vague mental health ailment, like post-traumatic stress disorder, and get a paycheck from the government. The V.A. approves roughly half of claims, but the difficulty of diagnosis of mental health ailments means that they may not always be the legitimate ones. We may be getting the worst of all worlds: fraudulent claims approved, while legitimate ones are unrecognized or unconscionably delayed.
“The V.A. certainly doesn’t care,” says Jim Strickland, who runs the V.A. Watchdog Web site. “The very institution that should be at the forefront of caring for vets is dead last.” The Web site declares: “This country is capable of drafting you, putting you in boot camp, teaching you to kill someone, and then putting you in a war zone within six months. So why can’t they process a claim that fast?”
The same military that lavishes attention on its drones and aircraft carriers seems to take its people for granted. Stryker vehicles are refurbished, but not the men who operate them. The military health insurance won’t cover some of the treatments that doctors recommended for Richards.
All this is unforgivable, but it’s also shortsighted. The military’s most valuable assets aren’t its Strykers or tanks, but the highly trained troops inside them. When a soldier is harmed by repeat concussions, hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in training are squandered. And shoddy treatment of returning soldiers will undermine recruitment and retention in the future.
I asked Ben and Farrah why they agreed to tell their story and share medical and personal files, some of which detail Ben’s deterioration to a degree that is almost humiliating. “I regard this as my residual duty,” he replied. He thinks that he let his soldiers down by letting them return to action after suffering concussions, and he wants to atone by helping to call attention to a system that fails so many soldiers and veterans.
Farrah is scathing about what she sees as the failure of the Army and V.A. to support the troops. She adds, “Our leaders, political and military, have not been honest with people about the cost of the war.”
As for Ben, he’s not nearly as harsh. It’s clear that he still adores the Army, and he is less bitter than wistful.
“I’m extremely proud of what I did in Iraq,” he told me. “I recognize that this was a risk that I voluntarily accepted.” Many others have suffered far worse injuries, he notes, or are suffering alone without the soul mate he has in Farrah.
Both Farrah and Ben wish that his injury were more obvious. If he were in a wheelchair, neighbors would think of him as a hero, instead of as perhaps a malingering crackpot.
“I’d trade a leg for this in a heartbeat,” Ben said. “If all I was missing was a leg, I’d be a stud. And if I’d lost a leg, I’d be able to stay in the Army. That’s all I want to do.” He summed up his future: “it comes to failure.”
But that’s flat wrong. In speaking out with brutal candor about his injury and decline, Maj. Ben Richards exemplifies courage and leadership. He’s not damaged goods, but a hero. Maybe, if our leaders are listening, one of his last remaining dreams is still achievable: that his story will help win better treatment for so many others like him.
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The New York Times
Page 1, Sunday Review
War Wounds
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
IT would be so much easier, Maj. Ben Richards says, if he had just lost a leg in Iraq.
Instead, he finds himself losing his mind, or at least a part of it. And if you want to understand how America is failing its soldiers and veterans, honoring them with lip service and ceremonies but breaking faith with them on all that matters most, listen to the story of Major Richards.
For starters, he’s brilliant. (Or at least he was.) He speaks Chinese and taught at West Point, and his medical evaluations suggest that until his recent problems he had an I.Q. of about 148. After he graduated from West Point, in 2000, he received glowing reviews.
“Ben Richards is one of the best military officers I have worked with in 13 years of service,” noted an evaluation, one of many military and medical documents he shared with me.
Yet Richards’s intellect almost exacerbates his suffering, for it better equips him to monitor his mental deterioration — and the failings of the Army that he has revered since he was a young boy.
Military suicides are the starkest gauge of our nation’s failure to care adequately for those who served in uniform. With America’s wars winding down, the United States is now losing more soldiers to suicide than to the enemy. Include veterans, and the tragedy is even more sweeping. For every soldier killed in war this year, about 25 veterans now take their own lives.
President Obama said recently that it was an “outrage” that some service members and veterans sought help but couldn’t get it: “We’ve got to do better. This has to be all hands on deck.” Admirable words, but so far they’ve neither made much impact nor offered consolation to those who call the suicide prevention hot line and end up on hold.
The military’s problems with mental health services go far beyond suicide or the occasional murders committed by soldiers and veterans. Far more common are people like Richards, who does not contemplate violence of any kind but is still profoundly disabled.
An astonishing 45 percent of those who served in Iraq or Afghanistan are now seeking compensation for injuries, in many cases psychological ones. It’s unclear how many are exaggerated or even fraudulent, but what is clear is this: the financial cost of these disabilities will be huge, yet it is dwarfed by the human cost.
Richards’s finest hour, and in retrospect his worst, came in Iraq in 2007. He was then a captain assigned to the city of Baquba, a hotly contested area where he was welcomed on his first day by a 12-hour firefight. In Baquba, Richards pioneered an initiative to cooperate with local Sunni Muslim militias — who had previously attacked Americans — to defeat the local branch of Al Qaeda.
This was ferociously controversial at first and Richards was bitterly criticized by other officers for collaborating with the enemy. But the strategy worked and was broadly adopted by the military in Iraq. The New York Times wrote that year about Richards’s leadership; the Army promoted him, and he seemed destined for greatness.
Then one day a car bomb destroyed his Stryker vehicle, giving Richards a severe concussion that left him nauseated and dazed for a week. Three weeks later, a roadside bomb knocked him out again, and he suffered a second concussion, with similar results.
Richards, now 36, struggled for months with headaches, fatigue, insomnia and fainting spells; once he passed out in the middle of a firefight. Still, he didn’t seek medical care. He figured he wasn’t really injured, and that has been a widespread problem: the military value system is such that warriors disdain medical care as long as they are physically capable of fighting.
“Coming from an Army ethos,” he says wryly, “you’re not even entitled to complain unless you’ve lost all four limbs.”
Yet there’s growing evidence that concussions — whether in sports or in the military — are every bit as damaging as far bloodier wounds. When someone suffers blows to the head, the result can be a traumatic brain injury, or T.B.I. This, eventually, was Richards’s diagnosis.
Richards’s wife, Farrah, was thrilled when he returned “safely” from Iraq in the fall of 2007, and she counted them both very, very lucky. But almost immediately, Farrah says, she noticed that the man who came home wore her husband’s skin but was different inside. “There were obvious changes in his personality,” she recalls. “He was extremely withdrawn; he would go into the bedroom for hours.”
A once boisterous dad who loved to roughhouse with his children — now there are four, ages 1 to 14 — Ben no longer seemed to know how to play with them. He often suffered incapacitating headaches, overwhelming fatigue and constant insomnia. Especially when dozing, he was on a hair trigger. If Farrah rose at night, she sometimes didn’t return to bed for fear that her husband might think she was an enemy and attack her. Instead, she’d spend the rest of the night on the couch.
For a woman who had been functioning as a single mom and was now eager to resume her former married life, all this was devastating. And it got worse. Farrah would tell her husband things, and then he would repeatedly forget — and reproach her for not telling him. He was distracted, withdrawn and unhelpful, and he repeatedly let her down.
“Our marriage was at real risk at this point,” Richards says. “We got to a point where we thought about separating.”
Yet it became increasingly apparent that the problem wasn’t that Richards was a jerk. It was that he had a war injury, an invisible one.
It’s often said that traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, which Richards’s doctors also diagnosed, are the signature wounds of the Iraq and Afghan wars. That’s partly because of the strains of repeated combat tours and partly because the enemy now relies more on bombs than bullets.
These factors suggest an answer to a continuing mystery: Why is suicide among soldiers and veterans more common now? Data collection has been poor, but several studies suggest that suicides among Vietnam veterans were not elevated. And traditionally, suicide rates among military personnel were lower than among civilians. Yet that has changed in the last decade, perhaps because of the increased time that today’s troops have spent in combat and how common explosions — and resulting concussions — have become in war zones.
OF the 100 soldiers under Richards, about 90 were hit by at least one bomb blast, and one Stryker crew was hit five times, Richards says. Yet few received significant medical treatment or were pulled out of harm’s way to protect them from a repeat concussion.
Richards himself didn’t receive any thorough examination or prompt diagnosis, even though he sought help from a series of doctors and counselors. He and Farrah just knew that something was wrong with his mind — and the intellectual toll became clearer when the Army sent him to Georgetown University to earn a graduate degree. The once brilliant scholar found that his brain just didn’t function properly.
“The paper is disappointing,” Professor Nancy Bernkopf Tucker commented on one of his term papers, on China. “Parts are not coherent and overall it is not effective. It is not well written and it is sloppy. Of greatest significance is the lack of analysis.”
Tucker told me that she recalled Richards well. “I remember him partly because I liked him so much,” she said. “He never told me about his background, and all I saw was someone not living up to his potential.”
Richards agreed with her comments on his work. His pure reasoning capacity is unimpaired, but his memory and ability to concentrate are faulty. In effect, he is a brilliant man tracking his cognitive deterioration.
After stumbling along to complete his Georgetown degree, Richards moved to West Point two years ago to take up a teaching position. He was elated to be teaching there — but he found himself losing his train of thought in class. He couldn’t read more than a few pages at a time. Richards saw that students were looking at him questioningly, trying to figure out what was wrong.
“It hurts, it’s humiliating,” he said. “I was always thinking maybe this is just something psychological — I’m an Army guy, I can get over this.” It was at this time, three years after the concussions in Iraq, that military physicians finally gave Richards a diagnosis of traumatic brain injury. Meanwhile, the headaches, the insomnia, the fatigue and the concentration problems grew worse, and he was embarrassed that medication for the headaches led him to put on 45 pounds.
Realizing that he wasn’t cutting it as an instructor, Richards asked in March to be relieved of his teaching duties. After a battery of physical and psychiatric tests, including a scan that found eight lesions in his brain tissue, the Army confirmed that he was disabled. He is retiring this month.
“Leaving the Army is the hardest thing I ever did,” he told me, and he seemed near tears.
Sometimes Richards is optimistic and imagines that he can find a new career — “if I get smart again,” as he puts it. But then reality sets in, often in the form of an agonizing headache. As we sat together in their living room, Farrah gently dismissed the idea of Ben’s working and said that she can’t even trust him to look after the toddler. Ben bit his lip and nodded slowly. “I’m basically unemployable,” he said.
Ben and Farrah found that they could no longer afford to live near West Point, so they have just moved to Iowa to be near Farrah’s parents. The couple’s marital strains seem mended, and Farrah says that now that she understands that her husband is suffering from a war wound, she is committed to seeing him through.
“Farrah is an amazing lady to stick through this,” Ben told me. “I am not sure who is having a harder time with T.B.I., me or my wife. In many ways, I am different from the man she married.”
Countless spouses, parents and children of returning troops are struggling with similar challenges. Spouses often complain that the military treats them particularly poorly, and rarely communicates adequately. “They’ll be like, ‘your husband was briefed on that.’ ” Farrah said. “And I say, ‘well, my husband can’t remember that briefing.’ ”
COMPOUNDING the stress, the military and the Department of Veterans Affairs are vastly overburdened by the mental health demands of returning soldiers. And that’s not just the view of the troops but also of Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.
“This system is going to be overwhelmed,” he said at a Congressional hearing last month. “Let’s not kid anybody. We’re looking at a system — it’s already overwhelmed.”
Panetta said that the “epidemic” of military suicide was “one of the most frustrating problems” he has faced as defense secretary. Obama talked about the challenge of military suicides as early as the 2008 campaign, and his administration deserves modest credit for (inadequate) steps to improve mental health care. Dr. Jonathan Woodson, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, told me that the military had made progress in screening and treating traumatic brain injury and mental health, so that a soldier would be more likely to get help today than five years ago, when Richards suffered his blast injuries.
“We’re light-years more advanced now in terms of how we approach these problems and what we teach troops about getting help,” he said. In particular, blast injuries are tracked and treated more rigorously, he said, but he acknowledged that more work needed to be done.
Grim experiences like the one Richards endured might create an opening for Mitt Romney, but he isn’t taking it. As a governor and candidate, he has had a weak record on veterans, and he hasn’t shown leadership on the issue. He managed to speak to the Veterans of Foreign Wars last month without addressing veterans’ issues in a substantive way.
In any case, my take is that whatever political leaders say in Washington, and whatever directives emerge from the Pentagon, not nearly enough is changing on the ground. Mental health still isn’t the priority it should be. Just about every soldier or veteran I’ve talked to finds that in practice the mental health system is clogged with demands, and soldiers and veterans are falling through the cracks. Returning soldiers aren’t adequately screened, diagnosis and treatment of traumatic brain injury are still haphazard, and there hasn’t been nearly enough effort to change the warrior culture so that getting help is smart rather than sissy.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness recently offered an idea to help change this culture: the armed forces should award Purple Hearts for invisible, psychological wounds. That might help ease the stigma and would underscore that medical problems are real even if they are inside the head. The alliance also recommended that commanders be held accountable for preventable suicides.
While the challenges are acute for those on active duty, they often become even greater when troops take off their uniforms and become veterans seeking services from the hugely overburdened Veterans Affairs Department. Ben and Farrah have found it immensely difficult to get reliable information from the V.A. about what benefits they can count on. Richards says that in 11 phone calls, he has heard different stories every time.
“The V.A. is an abomination,” he said. “You see that hole in the wall?” He pointed at what looked like a rat hole. “That’s when I threw the phone after someone at V.A. hung up on me.”
None of this is a surprise. The V.A. says that veterans wait an average of eight months to get an initial decision on the claims they file. When service members seek to retire for medical reasons, the process takes an average of 396 days. Eric Shinseki, the secretary of veterans affairs, notes that the V.A. processes more claims each year than it did before, but that the number of new claims surges by an even greater amount. The upshot is that the V.A. steps up its game but still gets further behind.
Shinseki notes some areas of progress — the number of homeless veterans seems to have fallen significantly — and he points to new systems and hiring intended to make the system function better. The number of V.A. mental health staff members has risen from 13,000 in 2005 to more than 20,000 today, he said.
AT a time when nearly half of veterans returning from battle file disability claims, it’s fair to wonder whether word hasn’t spread that service members can claim some vague mental health ailment, like post-traumatic stress disorder, and get a paycheck from the government. The V.A. approves roughly half of claims, but the difficulty of diagnosis of mental health ailments means that they may not always be the legitimate ones. We may be getting the worst of all worlds: fraudulent claims approved, while legitimate ones are unrecognized or unconscionably delayed.
“The V.A. certainly doesn’t care,” says Jim Strickland, who runs the V.A. Watchdog Web site. “The very institution that should be at the forefront of caring for vets is dead last.” The Web site declares: “This country is capable of drafting you, putting you in boot camp, teaching you to kill someone, and then putting you in a war zone within six months. So why can’t they process a claim that fast?”
The same military that lavishes attention on its drones and aircraft carriers seems to take its people for granted. Stryker vehicles are refurbished, but not the men who operate them. The military health insurance won’t cover some of the treatments that doctors recommended for Richards.
All this is unforgivable, but it’s also shortsighted. The military’s most valuable assets aren’t its Strykers or tanks, but the highly trained troops inside them. When a soldier is harmed by repeat concussions, hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in training are squandered. And shoddy treatment of returning soldiers will undermine recruitment and retention in the future.
I asked Ben and Farrah why they agreed to tell their story and share medical and personal files, some of which detail Ben’s deterioration to a degree that is almost humiliating. “I regard this as my residual duty,” he replied. He thinks that he let his soldiers down by letting them return to action after suffering concussions, and he wants to atone by helping to call attention to a system that fails so many soldiers and veterans.
Farrah is scathing about what she sees as the failure of the Army and V.A. to support the troops. She adds, “Our leaders, political and military, have not been honest with people about the cost of the war.”
As for Ben, he’s not nearly as harsh. It’s clear that he still adores the Army, and he is less bitter than wistful.
“I’m extremely proud of what I did in Iraq,” he told me. “I recognize that this was a risk that I voluntarily accepted.” Many others have suffered far worse injuries, he notes, or are suffering alone without the soul mate he has in Farrah.
Both Farrah and Ben wish that his injury were more obvious. If he were in a wheelchair, neighbors would think of him as a hero, instead of as perhaps a malingering crackpot.
“I’d trade a leg for this in a heartbeat,” Ben said. “If all I was missing was a leg, I’d be a stud. And if I’d lost a leg, I’d be able to stay in the Army. That’s all I want to do.” He summed up his future: “it comes to failure.”
But that’s flat wrong. In speaking out with brutal candor about his injury and decline, Maj. Ben Richards exemplifies courage and leadership. He’s not damaged goods, but a hero. Maybe, if our leaders are listening, one of his last remaining dreams is still achievable: that his story will help win better treatment for so many others like him.
___________________________________
_Obama Cracks Down On For-Profit Schools
That Prey On Veterans
In the STAF, Inc. scale of 1-10 this article's importance # = 9
Washington D.C. News for Veterans, 4/28/12
In front of thousands of service members, President Obama signed an executive order aimed at protecting veterans from for-profit educational institutions trying to "swindle" and "hoodwink" them instead of providing the education they deserve.
Speaking to the Army's Third Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Ga., the president, with his wife at his side, described how some for-profit institutions target veterans, bombarding them with emails and phone calls, promising advanced degrees and future job placement.
"You're dealing with folks who aren't interested in helping you. They're not interested in helping you find the best program. They are interested in getting the money. They don't care about you; they care about the cash," he said. "That's appalling. That's disgraceful. It should never happen in America."
The order, part of the president's ongoing "We Can't Wait" executive action campaign, is intended to crack down on these improper recruiting practices and to strengthen student protections for veterans.
"The executive order I'm about to sign will make life a whole lot more secure for you and your families and our veterans - and a whole lot tougher for those who try to prey on you," the president said.
The order requires colleges that participate in the G.I. Bill program and the Department of Defense's tuition program to provide veterans with the "Know Before You Owe" form, a document that outlines the financial aid available to student and how much debt they will likely take on.
The order also directs the Department of Veterans Affairs to trademark the term "G.I. Bill" to prevent educational institutions from fraudulently marketing their programs to beneficiaries of the program.
While members of Congress have introduced legislation to address these same issues, today's action was intended to cast Obama as a take-charge president willing to circumvent gridlock on Capitol Hill.
__________________________________________________________
That Prey On Veterans
In the STAF, Inc. scale of 1-10 this article's importance # = 9
Washington D.C. News for Veterans, 4/28/12
In front of thousands of service members, President Obama signed an executive order aimed at protecting veterans from for-profit educational institutions trying to "swindle" and "hoodwink" them instead of providing the education they deserve.
Speaking to the Army's Third Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Ga., the president, with his wife at his side, described how some for-profit institutions target veterans, bombarding them with emails and phone calls, promising advanced degrees and future job placement.
"You're dealing with folks who aren't interested in helping you. They're not interested in helping you find the best program. They are interested in getting the money. They don't care about you; they care about the cash," he said. "That's appalling. That's disgraceful. It should never happen in America."
The order, part of the president's ongoing "We Can't Wait" executive action campaign, is intended to crack down on these improper recruiting practices and to strengthen student protections for veterans.
"The executive order I'm about to sign will make life a whole lot more secure for you and your families and our veterans - and a whole lot tougher for those who try to prey on you," the president said.
The order requires colleges that participate in the G.I. Bill program and the Department of Defense's tuition program to provide veterans with the "Know Before You Owe" form, a document that outlines the financial aid available to student and how much debt they will likely take on.
The order also directs the Department of Veterans Affairs to trademark the term "G.I. Bill" to prevent educational institutions from fraudulently marketing their programs to beneficiaries of the program.
While members of Congress have introduced legislation to address these same issues, today's action was intended to cast Obama as a take-charge president willing to circumvent gridlock on Capitol Hill.
__________________________________________________________
Obama flashing executive power in election year
* The same topic below as above but from another news source - provides a different view.
In the STAF, Inc. scale of 1-10 this article's importance # = 9
WASHINGTON (AP), 4/28/12
President Barack Obama, flashing his executive power in an election year, is promoting measures to safeguard veterans and members of the military against unscrupulous college recruiters.
In his Internet and radio address Saturday, Obama reiterated a series of measures he announced the day before at Fort Stewart, Ga., to protect current and former servicemen and women as they seek educational opportunities under the GI Bill.
"The sad truth is that there are people out there who are less interested in helping our men and women in uniform get ahead and more interested in making a buck," he said. "Even though the vast majority of schools do the right thing, we need to guard against the bad actors who don't."
The White House action, which does not need congressional approval, aims mainly at for-profit colleges that market heavily to military families because of the easy availability of federal money under the GI Bill. Some postsecondary schools try to attract current and former military service members using deceptive military-themed websites that appear to be government-run or connected to the GI Bill benefit system, administration officials said.
"It's not enough to just help our veterans and service members afford school — we need to make sure they have all the tools they need to make an informed decision when it comes to picking the right program," Obama said.
In the Republican address, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, criticized the Democratic-controlled Senate for not producing a budget and said Obama has failed to lead the country and put it on a path toward a smaller debt.
"The president is hunkered down in campaign mode and seems intent on dividing Americans for political gain instead of offering credible solutions to our most pressing fiscal and economic challenges," Ryan said.
__________________________________________________________
* The same topic below as above but from another news source - provides a different view.
In the STAF, Inc. scale of 1-10 this article's importance # = 9
WASHINGTON (AP), 4/28/12
President Barack Obama, flashing his executive power in an election year, is promoting measures to safeguard veterans and members of the military against unscrupulous college recruiters.
In his Internet and radio address Saturday, Obama reiterated a series of measures he announced the day before at Fort Stewart, Ga., to protect current and former servicemen and women as they seek educational opportunities under the GI Bill.
"The sad truth is that there are people out there who are less interested in helping our men and women in uniform get ahead and more interested in making a buck," he said. "Even though the vast majority of schools do the right thing, we need to guard against the bad actors who don't."
The White House action, which does not need congressional approval, aims mainly at for-profit colleges that market heavily to military families because of the easy availability of federal money under the GI Bill. Some postsecondary schools try to attract current and former military service members using deceptive military-themed websites that appear to be government-run or connected to the GI Bill benefit system, administration officials said.
"It's not enough to just help our veterans and service members afford school — we need to make sure they have all the tools they need to make an informed decision when it comes to picking the right program," Obama said.
In the Republican address, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, criticized the Democratic-controlled Senate for not producing a budget and said Obama has failed to lead the country and put it on a path toward a smaller debt.
"The president is hunkered down in campaign mode and seems intent on dividing Americans for political gain instead of offering credible solutions to our most pressing fiscal and economic challenges," Ryan said.
__________________________________________________________
U.S. Army battling racists within its own ranks
By Daniel Trotta
This is for your own use, only
FAYETTEVILLE, North Carolina (Reuters) - They call it "rahowa" - short for racial holy war - and they are preparing for it by joining the ranks of the world's fiercest fighting machine, the U.S. military.
White supremacists, neo-Nazis and skinhead groups encourage followers to enlist in the Army and Marine Corps to acquire the skills to overthrow what some call the ZOG - the Zionist Occupation Government. Get in, get trained and get out to brace for the coming race war.
If this scenario seems like fantasy or bluster, civil rights organizations take it as deadly serious, especially given recent events. Former U.S. Army soldier Wade Page opened fire with a 9mm handgun at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin on August 5, murdering six people and critically wounding three before killing himself during a shootout with police.
The U.S. Defense Department as well has stepped up efforts to purge violent racists from its ranks, earning praise from organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has tracked and exposed hate groups since the 1970s.
Page, who was 40, was well known in the white supremacist music scene. In the early 2000s he told academic researcher Pete Simi that he became a neo-Nazi after joining the military in 1992. Fred Lucas, who served with him, said Page openly espoused his racist views until 1998, when he was demoted from sergeant to specialist, discharged and barred from re-enlistment.
While at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, Page told Simi, he made the acquaintance of James Burmeister, a skinhead paratrooper who in 1995 killed a black Fayetteville couple in a racially motivated shooting. Burmeister was sentenced to life in prison and died in 2007.
No one knows how many white supremacists have served since then. A 2008 report commissioned by the Justice Department found half of all right-wing extremists in the United States had military experience.
"We don't really think this is a huge problem, at Bragg, and across the Army," said Colonel Kevin Arata, a spokesman for Fort Bragg.
"In my 26 years in the Army, I've never seen it," the former company commander said.
Experts have identified the presence of street gang members as a more widespread problem. Even so, the Pentagon has launched three major pushes in recent decades to crack down on racist extremists. The first directive was issued in 1986, when Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger ordered military personnel to reject supremacist organizations.
That failed to stop former Marine T.J. Leyden, with two-inch SS bolts tattooed above his collar, from serving from 1988 to 1991 while openly supporting neo-Nazi causes. A member of the Hammerskin Nation, a skinhead group, he said he hung a swastika from his locker, taking it down only when his commander politely asked him to ahead of inspections by the commanding general.
"I went into the Marine Corps for one specific reason: I would learn how shoot," Leyden told Reuters. "I also learned how to use C-4 (explosives), blow things up. I took all my military skills and said I could use these to train other people," said Leyden, 46, who has since renounced the white power movement and is a consultant for the anti-Nazi Simon Wiesenthal Center.
RATTLED BY OKLAHOMA BLAST
In 1995, eight months before the Fort Bragg murders, two former Army soldiers bombed the Oklahoma City federal building, killing 168 people. With a growing awareness of the spreading militia movement, the Pentagon in 1996 banned military personnel from participating in supremacist causes and authorized commanders to cashier personnel for rallying, recruiting or training racists.
"What's scary about Page is that he served in the 1990s when putatively this was being treated quite seriously by the military. There's plenty of other Pages who served during the war on terror, and we don't know what they're going to be doing over the next decade or so," said Matt Kennard, author of the forthcoming book "Irregular Army: How the U.S. Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members and Criminals to Fight the War on Terror."
Kennard argues the U.S. military was so desperate for troops while fighting simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that it allowed extremists, felons and gang members into the armed forces.
The military can grant a "moral waiver" to allow a convicted criminal or otherwise ineligible person into the armed forces, and the percentage of recruits granted such waivers grew from 16.7 percent in 2003 to 19.6 percent in 2006, according to Pentagon data obtained by the Palm Center in a 2007 Freedom of Information Act request. But the Pentagon says no waiver exists for participation in extremist organizations.
"Our standards have not changed; participation in extremist activities has never been tolerated and is punishable under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice," said Eileen Lainez, a Defense Department spokeswoman.
The Pentagon's third directive against white supremacists was issued in 2009 after a Department of Homeland Security report expressed concern that right-wing extremists were recruiting veterans returning from wars overseas.
The Pentagon's 2009 instruction, updated in February 2012, directs commanders to remain alert for signs of racist activity and to intervene when they see it. It bans soldiers from blogging or chatting on racist websites while on duty.
"This is the best we've ever seen," said Heidi Beirich, leader of the Southern Poverty Law Center's intelligence project, referring to the Pentagon's attitude. "It was really disheartening under the Bush administration how lightly they took it, so this is a major advance."
Her group monitors online chatter among self-described active-duty warriors serving overseas and reports it to military officials. It also receives regular calls from military investigators asking about racists in the service.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), another civil rights monitor, have helped train officers on how to spot extremists, although Mark Pitcavage, director of investigative research at the ADL, says the military lacks comprehensive training for recruiters and commanders. He called the military's reaction when alerted to white supremacists "patchy."
"We've discovered a great range of response, from getting a phone call the next day saying, 'He's already out,' to not doing anything at all," Pitcavage said.
THE TATTOO MATRIX
The Army showed Reuters a one-hour presentation it says was designed to educate soldiers and Army leaders about its extremism policy and how to respond, including to white supremacy groups. Penalties for extremist ideology may include being removed from the military, having security clearances yanked or being demoted.
"The standard hateful message has not been replaced, just packaged differently with issues like freedom of speech, anti-gun control themes, tax reform and oppression," the presentation says, noting that recruitment may be difficult to detect, occurring quietly "in bars and break areas" on bases.
The presentation instructs Army leaders to look out for tattooed symbols of lightning bolts, skulls, swastikas, eagles and Nordic warriors. Skinheads may have tattoos showing barbed wire, hobnailed boots and hammers.
In a detailed flowchart called a "Tattoo Decision Support Matrix," Army leaders are shown how to respond to various tattoos. At the time of publication, the Army was unable to identify the locations where this course was being taught.
SCREENING OUT ROGUES
"We're very strict on the tattoo policy here within this recruiting station," said Sergeant Aaron Iskenderian, head of the Army recruiting office in Fayetteville, the Army town next to Fort Bragg.
With the United States withdrawn from Iraq, winding down from Afghanistan and unemployment stuck above 8 percent, recruiters can be choosy again.
Iskenderian cited the example of a young man who came in recently with a tattoo of the Confederate flag.
"We're in the South here. It's considered Southern heritage. It's on the General Lee," Iskenderian said, referring to the car from the television show "The Dukes of Hazzard."
"Is it racist? I asked him, 'What does it mean to you?' and he said, 'Southern pride.'"
The potential recruit also told Iskenderian he had a black girlfriend. Iskenderian sent the issue up the chain of command, and the young man was rejected.
Academics who study white supremacists say proponents of the "infiltration strategy" of joining the U.S. military have adapted, telling skinheads to deceive military recruiters by letting their hair grow, avoiding or covering tattoos, and suppressing their racist views.
"You have to differentiate between some of the grandiose fantasies of some of the leaders of the movement and what actually is going on," cautioned the ADL's Pitcavage.
For neo-Nazis who get past the screeners, as with the gang members, the military needs a comprehensive strategy, said Carter F. Smith, a former military investigator who is now a professor of criminal justice at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee.
"They are some of the most disciplined soldiers we have. They really want to learn to shoot those weapons," Smith said. "The problem wasn't just that we were opening the floodgates to let them in. We let them out after prosecution or when their time was up and we didn't let the police know."
(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Lee Aitken and Prudence Crowther)
____________________________________________
By Daniel Trotta
This is for your own use, only
FAYETTEVILLE, North Carolina (Reuters) - They call it "rahowa" - short for racial holy war - and they are preparing for it by joining the ranks of the world's fiercest fighting machine, the U.S. military.
White supremacists, neo-Nazis and skinhead groups encourage followers to enlist in the Army and Marine Corps to acquire the skills to overthrow what some call the ZOG - the Zionist Occupation Government. Get in, get trained and get out to brace for the coming race war.
If this scenario seems like fantasy or bluster, civil rights organizations take it as deadly serious, especially given recent events. Former U.S. Army soldier Wade Page opened fire with a 9mm handgun at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin on August 5, murdering six people and critically wounding three before killing himself during a shootout with police.
The U.S. Defense Department as well has stepped up efforts to purge violent racists from its ranks, earning praise from organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has tracked and exposed hate groups since the 1970s.
Page, who was 40, was well known in the white supremacist music scene. In the early 2000s he told academic researcher Pete Simi that he became a neo-Nazi after joining the military in 1992. Fred Lucas, who served with him, said Page openly espoused his racist views until 1998, when he was demoted from sergeant to specialist, discharged and barred from re-enlistment.
While at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, Page told Simi, he made the acquaintance of James Burmeister, a skinhead paratrooper who in 1995 killed a black Fayetteville couple in a racially motivated shooting. Burmeister was sentenced to life in prison and died in 2007.
No one knows how many white supremacists have served since then. A 2008 report commissioned by the Justice Department found half of all right-wing extremists in the United States had military experience.
"We don't really think this is a huge problem, at Bragg, and across the Army," said Colonel Kevin Arata, a spokesman for Fort Bragg.
"In my 26 years in the Army, I've never seen it," the former company commander said.
Experts have identified the presence of street gang members as a more widespread problem. Even so, the Pentagon has launched three major pushes in recent decades to crack down on racist extremists. The first directive was issued in 1986, when Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger ordered military personnel to reject supremacist organizations.
That failed to stop former Marine T.J. Leyden, with two-inch SS bolts tattooed above his collar, from serving from 1988 to 1991 while openly supporting neo-Nazi causes. A member of the Hammerskin Nation, a skinhead group, he said he hung a swastika from his locker, taking it down only when his commander politely asked him to ahead of inspections by the commanding general.
"I went into the Marine Corps for one specific reason: I would learn how shoot," Leyden told Reuters. "I also learned how to use C-4 (explosives), blow things up. I took all my military skills and said I could use these to train other people," said Leyden, 46, who has since renounced the white power movement and is a consultant for the anti-Nazi Simon Wiesenthal Center.
RATTLED BY OKLAHOMA BLAST
In 1995, eight months before the Fort Bragg murders, two former Army soldiers bombed the Oklahoma City federal building, killing 168 people. With a growing awareness of the spreading militia movement, the Pentagon in 1996 banned military personnel from participating in supremacist causes and authorized commanders to cashier personnel for rallying, recruiting or training racists.
"What's scary about Page is that he served in the 1990s when putatively this was being treated quite seriously by the military. There's plenty of other Pages who served during the war on terror, and we don't know what they're going to be doing over the next decade or so," said Matt Kennard, author of the forthcoming book "Irregular Army: How the U.S. Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members and Criminals to Fight the War on Terror."
Kennard argues the U.S. military was so desperate for troops while fighting simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that it allowed extremists, felons and gang members into the armed forces.
The military can grant a "moral waiver" to allow a convicted criminal or otherwise ineligible person into the armed forces, and the percentage of recruits granted such waivers grew from 16.7 percent in 2003 to 19.6 percent in 2006, according to Pentagon data obtained by the Palm Center in a 2007 Freedom of Information Act request. But the Pentagon says no waiver exists for participation in extremist organizations.
"Our standards have not changed; participation in extremist activities has never been tolerated and is punishable under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice," said Eileen Lainez, a Defense Department spokeswoman.
The Pentagon's third directive against white supremacists was issued in 2009 after a Department of Homeland Security report expressed concern that right-wing extremists were recruiting veterans returning from wars overseas.
The Pentagon's 2009 instruction, updated in February 2012, directs commanders to remain alert for signs of racist activity and to intervene when they see it. It bans soldiers from blogging or chatting on racist websites while on duty.
"This is the best we've ever seen," said Heidi Beirich, leader of the Southern Poverty Law Center's intelligence project, referring to the Pentagon's attitude. "It was really disheartening under the Bush administration how lightly they took it, so this is a major advance."
Her group monitors online chatter among self-described active-duty warriors serving overseas and reports it to military officials. It also receives regular calls from military investigators asking about racists in the service.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), another civil rights monitor, have helped train officers on how to spot extremists, although Mark Pitcavage, director of investigative research at the ADL, says the military lacks comprehensive training for recruiters and commanders. He called the military's reaction when alerted to white supremacists "patchy."
"We've discovered a great range of response, from getting a phone call the next day saying, 'He's already out,' to not doing anything at all," Pitcavage said.
THE TATTOO MATRIX
The Army showed Reuters a one-hour presentation it says was designed to educate soldiers and Army leaders about its extremism policy and how to respond, including to white supremacy groups. Penalties for extremist ideology may include being removed from the military, having security clearances yanked or being demoted.
"The standard hateful message has not been replaced, just packaged differently with issues like freedom of speech, anti-gun control themes, tax reform and oppression," the presentation says, noting that recruitment may be difficult to detect, occurring quietly "in bars and break areas" on bases.
The presentation instructs Army leaders to look out for tattooed symbols of lightning bolts, skulls, swastikas, eagles and Nordic warriors. Skinheads may have tattoos showing barbed wire, hobnailed boots and hammers.
In a detailed flowchart called a "Tattoo Decision Support Matrix," Army leaders are shown how to respond to various tattoos. At the time of publication, the Army was unable to identify the locations where this course was being taught.
SCREENING OUT ROGUES
"We're very strict on the tattoo policy here within this recruiting station," said Sergeant Aaron Iskenderian, head of the Army recruiting office in Fayetteville, the Army town next to Fort Bragg.
With the United States withdrawn from Iraq, winding down from Afghanistan and unemployment stuck above 8 percent, recruiters can be choosy again.
Iskenderian cited the example of a young man who came in recently with a tattoo of the Confederate flag.
"We're in the South here. It's considered Southern heritage. It's on the General Lee," Iskenderian said, referring to the car from the television show "The Dukes of Hazzard."
"Is it racist? I asked him, 'What does it mean to you?' and he said, 'Southern pride.'"
The potential recruit also told Iskenderian he had a black girlfriend. Iskenderian sent the issue up the chain of command, and the young man was rejected.
Academics who study white supremacists say proponents of the "infiltration strategy" of joining the U.S. military have adapted, telling skinheads to deceive military recruiters by letting their hair grow, avoiding or covering tattoos, and suppressing their racist views.
"You have to differentiate between some of the grandiose fantasies of some of the leaders of the movement and what actually is going on," cautioned the ADL's Pitcavage.
For neo-Nazis who get past the screeners, as with the gang members, the military needs a comprehensive strategy, said Carter F. Smith, a former military investigator who is now a professor of criminal justice at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee.
"They are some of the most disciplined soldiers we have. They really want to learn to shoot those weapons," Smith said. "The problem wasn't just that we were opening the floodgates to let them in. We let them out after prosecution or when their time was up and we didn't let the police know."
(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Lee Aitken and Prudence Crowther)
____________________________________________
U.S. says surprised by Navy SEAL's book on bin Laden raid
This is for your personal use, only
By Tabassum Zakaria and Mark Hosenball
8/23/12
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government was surprised by the news that a Navy SEAL who participated in the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan has written a book about the operation in which the al Qaeda leader was killed, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.
"No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden" was written by a Navy SEAL under the pseudonym Mark Owen with co-author Kevin Maurer and is to be released next month on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
It was not vetted by government agencies to ensure that no secrets were revealed.
"The book was vetted by a former special operations attorney. He vetted it for tactical, technical, and procedural information as well as information that could be considered classified by compilation and found it to be without risk to national security," Christine Ball, a spokeswoman for the publisher, Dutton, told Reuters.
The book will be published at a time when Washington has been roiled by controversy over national security leaks ahead of the November 6 presidential election.
Republicans have charged that President Barack Obama's administration has engaged in selective leaks to bolster the Democrat's national security credentials. The White House denies those accusations and says it takes leaks of classified information seriously.
In the wake of Congressional criticism, the administration assigned federal prosecutors in Baltimore and Washington to conduct criminal investigations into leaks related to an undercover counter-terrorism investigation in Yemen and alleged U.S. and Israeli cyber-warfare against Iran's nuclear program.
But the coming book on the bin Laden raid appeared to catch officials off guard.
"We learned about this book today from press reports. We haven't reviewed it and don't know what it says," White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.
The Pentagon said it hadn't vetted the book or helped provide information to the authors. There are at least two Pentagon regulations requiring the Defense Department review writings by retired troops that contain sensitive material.
"This book came as a surprise to folks at the Pentagon," a senior defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said. "Naturally, we'll be interested to read the book when it is made available."
CIA spokesman Preston Golson said: "As far as we can determine, this book was not submitted for pre-publication review."
'TIME TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT'
Dutton, which is a member of the Penguin Group (USA), said the Navy SEAL author's experience culminated with "Operation Neptune Spear" in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he led one of the assault teams on bin Laden's compound and was "one of the first men through the door on the third floor of the terrorist leader's hideout and was present at his death."
The Navy SEAL is described as a former member of the U.S. Special Warfare Development Group, commonly known as SEAL Team Six, who was involved in hundreds of missions around the world.
His name and the names of the other SEALs mentioned in the book were changed for security reasons, the publisher said. The majority of the proceeds from the book will go to charities that support families of fallen Navy SEALs, the publisher said.
"It is time to set the record straight about one of the most important missions in U.S. military history," the Navy SEAL author said in the book, according to the publisher's statement. "'No Easy Day' is the story of ‘the guys,' the human toll we pay, and the sacrifices we make to do this dirty job."
Congressional Republicans criticized the administration for granting generous access to policymakers and some intelligence and defense personnel to a Hollywood team preparing a film on the bin Laden raid for release later this year.
The fact that U.S. officials said the Obama administration was unaware of the book about the raid until Wednesday suggests it will be difficult for Obama critics to attack him over the new book.
(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Paul Simao)
_________________________________________________________
This is for your personal use, only
By Tabassum Zakaria and Mark Hosenball
8/23/12
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government was surprised by the news that a Navy SEAL who participated in the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan has written a book about the operation in which the al Qaeda leader was killed, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.
"No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden" was written by a Navy SEAL under the pseudonym Mark Owen with co-author Kevin Maurer and is to be released next month on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
It was not vetted by government agencies to ensure that no secrets were revealed.
"The book was vetted by a former special operations attorney. He vetted it for tactical, technical, and procedural information as well as information that could be considered classified by compilation and found it to be without risk to national security," Christine Ball, a spokeswoman for the publisher, Dutton, told Reuters.
The book will be published at a time when Washington has been roiled by controversy over national security leaks ahead of the November 6 presidential election.
Republicans have charged that President Barack Obama's administration has engaged in selective leaks to bolster the Democrat's national security credentials. The White House denies those accusations and says it takes leaks of classified information seriously.
In the wake of Congressional criticism, the administration assigned federal prosecutors in Baltimore and Washington to conduct criminal investigations into leaks related to an undercover counter-terrorism investigation in Yemen and alleged U.S. and Israeli cyber-warfare against Iran's nuclear program.
But the coming book on the bin Laden raid appeared to catch officials off guard.
"We learned about this book today from press reports. We haven't reviewed it and don't know what it says," White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.
The Pentagon said it hadn't vetted the book or helped provide information to the authors. There are at least two Pentagon regulations requiring the Defense Department review writings by retired troops that contain sensitive material.
"This book came as a surprise to folks at the Pentagon," a senior defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said. "Naturally, we'll be interested to read the book when it is made available."
CIA spokesman Preston Golson said: "As far as we can determine, this book was not submitted for pre-publication review."
'TIME TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT'
Dutton, which is a member of the Penguin Group (USA), said the Navy SEAL author's experience culminated with "Operation Neptune Spear" in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he led one of the assault teams on bin Laden's compound and was "one of the first men through the door on the third floor of the terrorist leader's hideout and was present at his death."
The Navy SEAL is described as a former member of the U.S. Special Warfare Development Group, commonly known as SEAL Team Six, who was involved in hundreds of missions around the world.
His name and the names of the other SEALs mentioned in the book were changed for security reasons, the publisher said. The majority of the proceeds from the book will go to charities that support families of fallen Navy SEALs, the publisher said.
"It is time to set the record straight about one of the most important missions in U.S. military history," the Navy SEAL author said in the book, according to the publisher's statement. "'No Easy Day' is the story of ‘the guys,' the human toll we pay, and the sacrifices we make to do this dirty job."
Congressional Republicans criticized the administration for granting generous access to policymakers and some intelligence and defense personnel to a Hollywood team preparing a film on the bin Laden raid for release later this year.
The fact that U.S. officials said the Obama administration was unaware of the book about the raid until Wednesday suggests it will be difficult for Obama critics to attack him over the new book.
(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Paul Simao)
_________________________________________________________
Have hired guns finally scuppered Somali pirates?
By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent | Reuters
ABOARD RMS*) QUEEN MARY (Reuters) - *) RMS = Royal Mail Ship - Posted between septuagenarian*) passengers in deck chairs, lookouts stand watch over the Gulf of Aden, scanning the horizon for pirates. *) = a person who is from 70 to 79 years old.
After more than half a decade of Somali men attacking Indian Ocean shipping from small speedboats with AK-47s, grappling hooks and ladders, the number of attacks is falling fast.
The last merchant ship to be successfully hijacked, naval officers monitoring piracy say, was at least nine months ago. It's a far cry from the height of the piracy epidemic two years ago, when several ships might be taken in a single week to be traded for airdropped multi-million dollar ransoms.
But as the Queen Mary 2, one of the world's most recognisable ocean liners, passes through the Red Sea, Indian Ocean and out towards Dubai, its owners and crew are taking few chances.
"The pirates have weapons and are not afraid to use them," Lieutenant Commander Ollie Hutchinson, the British Royal Navy liaison officer aboard the liner for its trip through the Indian Ocean, tells a briefing of passengers in the ship's theatre. "Once the pirates have identified their target, they will try whatever means they can to get on board."
To underline his point, he displays a picture of an Italian helicopter hit by small arms fire from a pirate dhow late last year followed by assorted images of gunmen holding AK-47 assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades.
In truth, the Queen Mary 2 - carrying 2,500 passengers and 1,300 crew from Southampton to Dubai on the first leg of a world cruise - is not particularly at risk.
Some 345 metres (Am. meter/s) long and 14 stories high, even its promenade deck is seven floors above the sea. The liner is fast, hard to board and - on this passage at least - moderately well armed.
Like many merchant vessels, the QM2 now carries armed private contractors when passing through areas of pirate risk.
Cunard will not discuss precise security arrangements. But contractors on other vessels routinely carry M-16-type assault rifles and sometimes belt-fed machine guns, often picked up from ships acting as floating offshore armouries near Djibouti and Sri Lanka.
Additional lookouts from the ship's regular onboard security force - mostly Filipinos - are also posted on the main deck to give warning of any suspicious craft.
"Depending on what happens with attacks, I'm hopeful we may be able to reduce our security measures when we pass through the same waters next year," says Commodore Christopher Rynd, senior captain of the British-based Cunard line and current master of the QM2. "But that's not a decision we will be making at this stage."
A CHANGING GAME?
When ships do come under attack, the first phone to ring is usually in a nondescript white bungalow in the gardens of the British Embassy in Dubai.
The UK Marine Transport Operation (UKMTO) was set up shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks to provide security advice to British shipping in the area. As pirate attacks soared in the second half of the last decade, it found itself coordinating international shipping across much of the Indian Ocean.
Most vessels passing through the area - container ships, tankers, cruise liners and dhows - now register daily with UKMTO (= The UK Marine Transport Operation). If they believe they are in danger, they will contact the British team to request military support.
"We've had calls when you could hear gunfire and rocket propelled grenades in the background," says Lieutenant Commander Simon Goodes, the current officer in charge. "But lately, the phones are ringing much less."
The only confirmed attack this year, Goodes said, was on a merchant vessel in early January as it sailed towards the Kenyan port of Mombasa. On-board private security guards repelled the assault after a 30 minute firefight.
According to the European Union anti-piracy task force EU NAVFOR, 2012 saw only 36 confirmed attacks and a further 73 "suspicious events" - incidents in which a crew report a suspicious craft that might be pirate but could also be simply an innocent fishing boat. That itself was a substantial fall from 2011, with 176 attacks and 166 "suspicious events".
Only five ships were captured in 2012, down from 25 in 2011 and 27 in 2010.
"This is an important year," says Lieutenant Commander Jacqueline Sheriff, spokeswoman for EU NAVFOR. "We will find out whether this fall in piracy is really sustainable."
Sea-borne attacks off West Africa, however, appear to be on the rise in what some analysts believe is a sign that Nigerian and other criminal gangs may be tempted by the Somali pirate model.
PIRATE BUSINESS MODEL FAILING?
Exactly what is behind the fall in Somali piracy is a matter of debate.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the navies patrolling the Indian Ocean say the numbers show they are finally having an impact. Since piracy first grabbed global attention in 2008, a number of nations have sent ships to the region.
Sailing through the Internationally Registered Transit Corridor, a protected route between Somalia and Yemen, the QM2 passed warships from the United States, France, India and Australia.
As well as the EU force, there are separate flotillas from NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces that often include Asian vessels. Several other nations including China and Russia also keep ships there, running convoys through the "high-risk zone".
In May last year, EU NAVFOR launched its first onshore raid, targeting a suspected pirate group on the beach as it prepared to head to sea with helicopter and small arms fire.
Not everyone, however, believes that explains the fall. For many in the shipping industry, the fall in attacks is a vindication of the decision to massively ramp up the use of armed guards.
So far, not a single ship with armed guards has been taken by pirates - although naval officers and other piracy specialists say hired guards can be excessively trigger-happy and have fired on innocent fishermen from India, Oman and Yemen.
The situation is also changing in Somalia, which has been without a functioning government for two decades. The transitional administration is becoming more successful, as is a Kenyan-dominated African military force sent in to tackle Islamist rebels.
RETIRED PIRATE, DARKENED LINER
Last month, one of Somalia's highest profile pirates told Reuters he was giving up his life of crime at sea.
"I have given up piracy and succeeded in encouraging more youths to give up piracy," said Mohamed Abdi Hassan. "It was not due to fear of warships. It was just a decision."
In an apparently separate development, three Syrian hostages held since 2010 were released without the payment of a ransom. Four vessels are currently still held by pirates along with 108 hostages, the EU says.
The bottom line, some military officers and analysts believe, may be that the lower success rate for pirates in the last year has prompted those bankrolling them to stop.
But no one is taking the pirates for granted. An apparent attempted night-time attack on a merchant ship only a handful of miles from the entrance to the Gulf at the Strait of Hormuz was a reminder attacks can take place across a huge area.
Shortly before entering the Suez Canal, QM2 held a security drill to instruct passengers in what to do if the ship comes under attack.
Passengers were urged to return below and sit in the companionway outside their rooms until the danger passed.
As dusk falls, orders are given to darken ship. Passengers close the curtains over their portholes or balcony windows, while crew members install blackout curtains in public areas. Basic running lights remain on to avoid collision, however.
The purpose, Commodore Rynd says, is to make it harder for any pirates to identify what kind of ship the QM2 might be and how far away. The darkened ship also makes it easier for the lookouts, equipped with night vision goggles, to see.
Other more vulnerable ships - particularly the "low and slow" - take more precautions. Shortly after first light, QM2 passes a bulk carrier, its fire hoses blasting over its stern to make it harder for pirates to clamber aboard.
In more remote parts of the Indian Ocean, the nearest naval support can be eight or nine hours away.
Aboard the liner, however, passengers seem largely unconcerned.
"It doesn't worry me at all," says Kiki O'Connell, 66, from Portland, Maine, as the ship approached Dubai. "Although I don't suppose we'll see any pirates now. I was hoping for Johnny Depp."
After more than half a decade of Somali men attacking Indian Ocean shipping from small speedboats with AK-47s, grappling hooks and ladders, the number of attacks is falling fast.
The last merchant ship to be successfully hijacked, naval officers monitoring piracy say, was at least nine months ago. It's a far cry from the height of the piracy epidemic two years ago, when several ships might be taken in a single week to be traded for airdropped multi-million dollar ransoms.
But as the Queen Mary 2, one of the world's most recognisable ocean liners, passes through the Red Sea, Indian Ocean and out towards Dubai, its owners and crew are taking few chances.
"The pirates have weapons and are not afraid to use them," Lieutenant Commander Ollie Hutchinson, the British Royal Navy liaison officer aboard the liner for its trip through the Indian Ocean, tells a briefing of passengers in the ship's theatre. "Once the pirates have identified their target, they will try whatever means they can to get on board."
To underline his point, he displays a picture of an Italian helicopter hit by small arms fire from a pirate dhow late last year followed by assorted images of gunmen holding AK-47 assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades.
In truth, the Queen Mary 2 - carrying 2,500 passengers and 1,300 crew from Southampton to Dubai on the first leg of a world cruise - is not particularly at risk.
Some 345 metres long and 14 stories high, even its promenade deck is seven floors above the sea. The liner is fast, hard to board and - on this passage at least - moderately well armed.
Like many merchant vessels, the QM2 now carries armed private contractors when passing through areas of pirate risk.
Cunard will not discuss precise security arrangements. But contractors on other vessels routinely carry M-16-type assault rifles and sometimes belt-fed machine guns, often picked up from ships acting as floating offshore armouries near Djibouti and Sri Lanka.
Additional lookouts from the ship's regular onboard security force - mostly Filipinos - are also posted on the main deck to give warning of any suspicious craft.
"Depending on what happens with attacks, I'm hopeful we may be able to reduce our security measures when we pass through the same waters next year," says Commodore Christopher Rynd, senior captain of the British-based Cunard line and current master of the QM2. "But that's not a decision we will be making at this stage."
A CHANGING GAME?
When ships do come under attack, the first phone to ring is usually in a nondescript white bungalow in the gardens of the British Embassy in Dubai.
The UK Marine Transport Operation (UKMTO) was set up shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks to provide security advice to British shipping in the area. As pirate attacks soared in the second half of the last decade, it found itself coordinating international shipping across much of the Indian Ocean.
Most vessels passing through the area - container ships, tankers, cruise liners and dhows - now register daily with UKMTO. If they believe they are in danger, they will contact the British team to request military support.
"We've had calls when you could hear gunfire and rocket propelled grenades in the background," saysLieutenant Commander Simon Goodes, the current officer in charge. "But lately, the phones are ringing much less."
The only confirmed attack this year, Goodes said, was on a merchant vessel in early January as it sailed towards the Kenyan port of Mombasa. On-board private security guards repelled the assault after a 30 minute firefight.
According to the European Union anti-piracy task force EU NAVFOR, 2012 saw only 36 confirmed attacks and a further 73 "suspicious events" - incidents in which a crew report a suspicious craft that might be pirate but could also be simply an innocent fishing boat. That itself was a substantial fall from 2011, with 176 attacks and 166 "suspicious events".
Only five ships were captured in 2012, down from 25 in 2011 and 27 in 2010.
"This is an important year," says Lieutenant Commander Jacqueline Sheriff, spokeswoman for EU NAVFOR. "We will find out whether this fall in piracy is really sustainable."
Sea-borne attacks off West Africa, however, appear to be on the rise in what some analysts believe is a sign that Nigerian and other criminal gangs may be tempted by the Somali pirate model.
PIRATE BUSINESS MODEL FAILING?
Exactly what is behind the fall in Somali piracy is a matter of debate.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the navies patrolling the Indian Ocean say the numbers show they are finally having an impact. Since piracy first grabbed global attention in 2008, a number of nations have sent ships to the region.
Sailing through the Internationally Registered Transit Corridor, a protected route between Somalia and Yemen, the QM2 passed warships from the United States, France, India and Australia.
As well as the EU force, there are separate flotillas from NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces that often include Asian vessels. Several other nations including China and Russia also keep ships there, running convoys through the "high-risk zone".
In May last year, EU NAVFOR launched its first onshore raid, targeting a suspected pirate group on the beach as it prepared to head to sea with helicopter and small arms fire.
Not everyone, however, believes that explains the fall. For many in the shipping industry, the fall in attacks is a vindication of the decision to massively ramp up the use of armed guards.
So far, not a single ship with armed guards has been taken by pirates - although naval officers and other piracy specialists say hired guards can be excessively trigger-happy and have fired on innocent fishermen from India, Oman and Yemen.
The situation is also changing in Somalia, which has been without a functioning government for two decades. The transitional administration is becoming more successful, as is a Kenyan-dominated African military force sent in to tackle Islamist rebels.
RETIRED PIRATE, DARKENED LINER
Last month, one of Somalia's highest profile pirates told Reuters he was giving up his life of crime at sea.
"I have given up piracy and succeeded in encouraging more youths to give up piracy," said Mohamed Abdi Hassan. "It was not due to fear of warships. It was just a decision."
In an apparently separate development, three Syrian hostages held since 2010 were released without the payment of a ransom. Four vessels are currently still held by pirates along with 108 hostages, the EU says.
The bottom line, some military officers and analysts believe, may be that the lower success rate for pirates in the last year has prompted those bankrolling them to stop.
But no one is taking the pirates for granted. An apparent attempted night-time attack on a merchant ship only a handful of miles from the entrance to the Gulf at the Strait of Hormuz was a reminder attacks can take place across a huge area.
Shortly before entering the Suez Canal, QM2 held a security drill to instruct passengers in what to do if the ship comes under attack.
Passengers were urged to return below and sit in the companionway outside their rooms until the danger passed.
As dusk falls, orders are given to darken ship. Passengers close the curtains over their portholes or balcony windows, while crew members install blackout curtains in public areas. Basic running lights remain on to avoid collision, however.
The purpose, Commodore Rynd says, is to make it harder for any pirates to identify what kind of ship the QM2 might be and how far away. The darkened ship also makes it easier for the lookouts, equipped with night vision goggles, to see.
Other more vulnerable ships - particularly the "low and slow" - take more precautions. Shortly after first light, QM2 passes a bulk carrier, its fire hoses blasting over its stern to make it harder for pirates to clamber aboard.
In more remote parts of the Indian Ocean, the nearest naval support can be eight or nine hours away.
Aboard the liner, however, passengers seem largely unconcerned.
"It doesn't worry me at all," says Kiki O'Connell, 66, from Portland, Maine, as the ship approached Dubai. "Although I don't suppose we'll see any pirates now. I was hoping for Johnny Depp."
Military Dictionary
Military Dictionary | Term Index | About Us | Contact Us | Free Download
From all dictionaries Only from this dictionary
Military Dictionaries DOD Military Terms
DOD Joint Acronyms & Abbreviations
European Defence Agency Acronyms
International Relations & Security Acronyms
NATO Acronyms
Military Abbreviations
Rabintex Ballistic Dictionary
Military News
Military Abbreviations Dictionary The Dictionary of Military Abbreviations offers you access to more than 1000 military abbreviations and acronym used within NATO. In addition this dictionary also included the 3-digit ISO code for all countries and geographical entities.
Created By: Werner Christmann
Submitted to the Babylon Information Platform
under the title Military Abbreviations
Military Abbreviations INDEX:
Please select a letter for all terms that start with it:A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 2
Term of the dayoceanographyThe study of the sea, embracing and integrating all knowledge pertaining to the sea and its physical boundaries, the chemistry and physics of seawater, and marine biology.
Source: U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Doctrine Division. ( About )
Popular Terms
exploratory huntingport support activitydenied area MILVAN chassis information operations gradie
Home | About Us | Contact Us | Babylon 9
The Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms deserves to be called the most comprehensive reference works when it comes to military terms and expressions. This outstanding dictionary supplements general English dictionaries with technical terms and terminology for military and associated use. This DOD dictionary was published in Spring 2001 by the Joint Doctrine Division. The present version was amended through October 2007.
The Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms sets forth standard US military and associated terminology to encompass the joint activity of the Armed Forces of the United States in both US joint and allied joint operations. These military terms constitute approved DOD terminology for general use by all components of the Department of Defense.
Note: an asterisk in parentheses after the term denotes DOD-NATO standardization of terminology.
Created By: Department of Defense (DOD), Joint Doctrine Division
Submitted to the Babylon Information Platform
under the title DOD Dictionary of Military Terms
DOD Military Terms INDEX:
Please select a letter for all terms that start with it:A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z 4
Connect without Language Barriers
More than ever Military has become an international field. Whether you need language dictionaries translating technical terms or want to communicate with military members from abroad, our free Online Translation is just a click away. Get free online translations from and to 75 language, including full text translation. This service is divided into language pages such as Italian Translator, where you may look up single words or phrases.
Term of the day: oceanography
The study of the sea, embracing and integrating all knowledge pertaining to the sea and its physical boundaries, the chemistry and physics of seawater, and marine biology.
Source: U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Doctrine Division. ( About )
Popular Terms
attrition minefieldgrid convergencerationalizationdead spacecollective self-defenseMILVAN
Military Dictionary | Term Index | About Us | Contact Us | Free Download
From all dictionaries Only from this dictionary
Military Dictionaries DOD Military Terms
DOD Joint Acronyms & Abbreviations
European Defence Agency Acronyms
International Relations & Security Acronyms
NATO Acronyms
Military Abbreviations
Rabintex Ballistic Dictionary
Military News
Military Abbreviations Dictionary The Dictionary of Military Abbreviations offers you access to more than 1000 military abbreviations and acronym used within NATO. In addition this dictionary also included the 3-digit ISO code for all countries and geographical entities.
Created By: Werner Christmann
Submitted to the Babylon Information Platform
under the title Military Abbreviations
Military Abbreviations INDEX:
Please select a letter for all terms that start with it:A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 2
Term of the dayoceanographyThe study of the sea, embracing and integrating all knowledge pertaining to the sea and its physical boundaries, the chemistry and physics of seawater, and marine biology.
Source: U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Doctrine Division. ( About )
Popular Terms
exploratory huntingport support activitydenied area MILVAN chassis information operations gradie
Home | About Us | Contact Us | Babylon 9
The Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms deserves to be called the most comprehensive reference works when it comes to military terms and expressions. This outstanding dictionary supplements general English dictionaries with technical terms and terminology for military and associated use. This DOD dictionary was published in Spring 2001 by the Joint Doctrine Division. The present version was amended through October 2007.
The Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms sets forth standard US military and associated terminology to encompass the joint activity of the Armed Forces of the United States in both US joint and allied joint operations. These military terms constitute approved DOD terminology for general use by all components of the Department of Defense.
Note: an asterisk in parentheses after the term denotes DOD-NATO standardization of terminology.
Created By: Department of Defense (DOD), Joint Doctrine Division
Submitted to the Babylon Information Platform
under the title DOD Dictionary of Military Terms
DOD Military Terms INDEX:
Please select a letter for all terms that start with it:A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z 4
Connect without Language Barriers
More than ever Military has become an international field. Whether you need language dictionaries translating technical terms or want to communicate with military members from abroad, our free Online Translation is just a click away. Get free online translations from and to 75 language, including full text translation. This service is divided into language pages such as Italian Translator, where you may look up single words or phrases.
Term of the day: oceanography
The study of the sea, embracing and integrating all knowledge pertaining to the sea and its physical boundaries, the chemistry and physics of seawater, and marine biology.
Source: U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Doctrine Division. ( About )
Popular Terms
attrition minefieldgrid convergencerationalizationdead spacecollective self-defenseMILVAN
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Dr. Christian is the most qualified professional to provide in D.C. the information in all these topics.
He is the lead author in the new Healthy Lifestyle & Correct Nutritional Program developed by STAF, Inc.
This program covers all areas of successful life (also this extensive STAF, Inc. website covers many of those areas - not all). Anything like this new Healthy Lifestyle & Correct Nutritional Program did never before exist - it took 19 years of international research and testing. Then, to modify this new program for the U.S. needs, took the past 6 years - all totals to 25 years.
In 2013, after the 2012 election is over, Dr. Christian will introduce this new program in the D.C. to The U.S. Congress (The House & The Senate), The U.S. President, and to all related Federal Agencies.
Everyone in the U.S.A. and in any developed nation worldwide can afford to apply this new program. It will save much in nutrition costs for every family.
For the developing world countries and for their population this new STAF, Inc.'s Healthy Lifestyle & Correct Nutritional Program can easily be modified and applied for their use.
In addition, the new program is an 'automatic' weight loss program (nothing else to buy, nothing else to do except to follow the program and its very easy instructions).
Also new solutions are added to motivate every U.S. individual (and everyone worldwide) to accept & use this new program.
When applied nationwide in the U.S., this new program will (1) save hundreds of billions of dollars for the
U.S. government every year, (2) save millions of human lives, and (3) ease human suffering.
The same facts are valid in every country worldwide when they adopt this STAF, Inc.'s new program.
Additional, detailed information in this STAF, Inc. website in this home page and in other tabs. Continuous information is also provided in the radio show DrDrCanYouHelpMe Dr. Christian is hosting - see the link to all show recordings in tab: Radio & TV Shows.
As a listener you can achieve free CEU, College & University Credits (the details in the Radio & TV Shows tab).
____________________
STAF, Inc.'s CEO-President, Dr. Christian von Christophers, Ph.D., N.D., D.D., is planning, in the next U.S. election, to win a seat in The U.S. Congress or in The U.S. Senate.
He will also be available to establish & lead a new Federal Agency guiding our whole nation in Healthy, Successful Lifestyle & in Correct Nutrition. ("Successful lifestyle" will also include reliable instructions for profitable investment activities provided ("in a new manner") by the leading specialists, as it also will include all other topics necessary to guide every American family to health, wealth, happiness & success.)
Such an Agency does not exist, yet - Dr. Christian will fight for it - every American needs that new Agency - so does every person worldwide.
Dr. Christian will seek an endorsement from The U.S. President at the time he will pronounce his candidacy. Any person who is ready to lead our country as its President will recognize the importance of Dr. Christian' long nationwide & worldwide experience in D.C. & in the U.S. Congress.
When you give your vote to Dr. Christian, you win. He will fight for a better life for you, for your family, and for your State. Dr. Christian is one of the leading professionals nationwide & worldwide in all topics in this extensive STAF, Inc.'s website. His guidance in D.C. in The U.S. Congress is necessary for the U.S. lawmakers to create new, effective federal solutions to lower our high sickness level and to lower our extremely high sickness care costs (commonly called "health care costs" - "sickness care" is a more suitable term for the situation in our nation).
To become a volunteer in Dr. Christian's election campaign or to donate funds, call 212-946-1234 or send an email to: [email protected] - in subject line type: U.S. Congress needs Dr. Christian as the fighter for all American families.
STAF, Inc. has the new, result-bringing solutions to lower the sickness level in our nation.
Also, STAF, Inc. has the new, tested methods to effectively lower the homeless situation our returning veterans are experiencing. STAF, Inc. will also introduce in D.C. the result-bringing new & tested plans to lower the homeless situation among our U.S. civil population.
Dr. Christian is the most qualified professional to provide in D.C. the information in all these topics.
He is the lead author in the new Healthy Lifestyle & Correct Nutritional Program developed by STAF, Inc.
This program covers all areas of successful life (also this extensive STAF, Inc. website covers many of those areas - not all). Anything like this new Healthy Lifestyle & Correct Nutritional Program did never before exist - it took 19 years of international research and testing. Then, to modify this new program for the U.S. needs, took the past 6 years - all totals to 25 years.
In 2013, after the 2012 election is over, Dr. Christian will introduce this new program in the D.C. to The U.S. Congress (The House & The Senate), The U.S. President, and to all related Federal Agencies.
Everyone in the U.S.A. and in any developed nation worldwide can afford to apply this new program. It will save much in nutrition costs for every family.
For the developing world countries and for their population this new STAF, Inc.'s Healthy Lifestyle & Correct Nutritional Program can easily be modified and applied for their use.
In addition, the new program is an 'automatic' weight loss program (nothing else to buy, nothing else to do except to follow the program and its very easy instructions).
Also new solutions are added to motivate every U.S. individual (and everyone worldwide) to accept & use this new program.
When applied nationwide in the U.S., this new program will (1) save hundreds of billions of dollars for the
U.S. government every year, (2) save millions of human lives, and (3) ease human suffering.
The same facts are valid in every country worldwide when they adopt this STAF, Inc.'s new program.
Additional, detailed information in this STAF, Inc. website in this home page and in other tabs. Continuous information is also provided in the radio show DrDrCanYouHelpMe Dr. Christian is hosting - see the link to all show recordings in tab: Radio & TV Shows.
As a listener you can achieve free CEU, College & University Credits (the details in the Radio & TV Shows tab).
____________________
Veterans Topics Above
_____________
Other Topics Below
___
_____________
Other Topics Below
___
When Doctors Grieve
In the STAF, Inc. scale of 1-10 the importance # = 7
Main point at the end of the text:
additional training for healthy grieving must be added in all medical school programs - now missing
An interesting topic, rarely discussed - a more important topic than looks on surface.
May 25, 2012
By LEEAT GRANEKNote: the term "oncology" appears in this article - it is: a branch of medicine that deals with cancer; oncologist = doctor dealing with cancerMY mother died of breast cancer in 2005 after living with the disease for nearly 20 years. Her oncologist, whom I knew from the time I was 9 years old, was her doctor for most of that time. I practically grew up in the hospital, and my family felt quite close to the health care providers, especially the oncologist. After my mother died I wondered if the feeling was mutual.
Do doctors grieve when their patients die? In the medical profession, such grief is seldom discussed — except, perhaps, as an example of the sort of emotion that a skilled doctor avoids feeling. But in a paper published on Tuesday in Archives of Internal Medicine (and in a forthcoming paper in the journal Death Studies), my colleagues and I report what we found in our research about oncologists and patient loss: Not only do doctors experience grief, but the professional taboo on the emotion also has negative consequences for the doctors themselves, as well as for the quality of care they provide.
Our study took place from 2010 to 2011 in three Canadian hospitals. We recruited and interviewed 20 oncologists who varied in age, sex and ethnicity and had a wide range of experience in the field — from a year and a half in practice in the case of oncology fellows to more than 30 years in the case of senior oncologists. Using a qualitative empirical method known as grounded theory, we analyzed the data by systematically coding each interview transcript line by line for themes and then comparing the findings from each interview across all interviews to see which themes stood out most robustly.
We found that oncologists struggled to manage their feelings of grief with the detachment they felt was necessary to do their job. More than half of our participants reported feelings of failure, self-doubt, sadness and powerlessness as part of their grief experience, and a third talked about feelings of guilt, loss of sleep and crying.
Our study indicated that grief in the medical context is considered shameful and unprofessional. Even though participants wrestled with feelings of grief, they hid them from others because showing emotion was considered a sign of weakness. In fact, many remarked that our interview was the first time they had been asked these questions or spoken about these emotions at all.
The impact of all this unacknowledged grief was exactly what we don’t want our doctors to experience: inattentiveness, impatience, irritability, emotional exhaustion and burnout.
Even more distressing, half our participants reported that their discomfort with their grief over patient loss could affect their treatment decisions with subsequent patients — leading them, for instance, to provide more aggressive chemotherapy, to put a patient in a clinical trial, or to recommend further surgery when palliative care might be a better option. One oncologist in our study remarked: “I see an inability sometimes to stop treatment when treatment should be stopped. When treatment’s futile, when it’s clearly futile.” From a policy standpoint, this is an especially worrisome finding, given the disproportionately high percentage of heath care budgets spent on end-of-life care.
Unease with losing patients also affected the doctors’ ability to communicate about end-of-life issues with patients and their families. Half of our participants said they distanced themselves and withdrew from patients as the patients got closer to dying. This meant fewer visits in the hospital, fewer bedside visits and less overall effort directed toward the dying patient.
It’s worth stressing that most physicians want what is best for their patients and that the outcome of any medical intervention is often unknown. It’s also worth noting that oncologists and other physicians who are dealing with end-of-life issues are right to put up some emotional boundaries: no one wants their doctor to be walking around openly grief-stricken.
But our research indicates that grief is having a negative impact on oncologists’ personal lives and that there is a troubling relationship between doctors’ discomfort with death and grief and how patients and their families are treated. Oncologists are not trained to deal with their own grief, and they need to be. In addition to providing such training, we need to normalize death and grief as a natural part of life, especially in medical settings.
To improve the quality of end-of-life care for patients and their families, we also need to improve the quality of life of their physicians, by making space for them to grieve like everyone else.
Source: The New York Times, 5/27/12, section: 'Sunday Review', p. 12
Leeat Granek is a health psychologist and a postdoctoral fellow at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.
______________________________
In the STAF, Inc. scale of 1-10 the importance # = 7
Main point at the end of the text:
additional training for healthy grieving must be added in all medical school programs - now missing
An interesting topic, rarely discussed - a more important topic than looks on surface.
May 25, 2012
By LEEAT GRANEKNote: the term "oncology" appears in this article - it is: a branch of medicine that deals with cancer; oncologist = doctor dealing with cancerMY mother died of breast cancer in 2005 after living with the disease for nearly 20 years. Her oncologist, whom I knew from the time I was 9 years old, was her doctor for most of that time. I practically grew up in the hospital, and my family felt quite close to the health care providers, especially the oncologist. After my mother died I wondered if the feeling was mutual.
Do doctors grieve when their patients die? In the medical profession, such grief is seldom discussed — except, perhaps, as an example of the sort of emotion that a skilled doctor avoids feeling. But in a paper published on Tuesday in Archives of Internal Medicine (and in a forthcoming paper in the journal Death Studies), my colleagues and I report what we found in our research about oncologists and patient loss: Not only do doctors experience grief, but the professional taboo on the emotion also has negative consequences for the doctors themselves, as well as for the quality of care they provide.
Our study took place from 2010 to 2011 in three Canadian hospitals. We recruited and interviewed 20 oncologists who varied in age, sex and ethnicity and had a wide range of experience in the field — from a year and a half in practice in the case of oncology fellows to more than 30 years in the case of senior oncologists. Using a qualitative empirical method known as grounded theory, we analyzed the data by systematically coding each interview transcript line by line for themes and then comparing the findings from each interview across all interviews to see which themes stood out most robustly.
We found that oncologists struggled to manage their feelings of grief with the detachment they felt was necessary to do their job. More than half of our participants reported feelings of failure, self-doubt, sadness and powerlessness as part of their grief experience, and a third talked about feelings of guilt, loss of sleep and crying.
Our study indicated that grief in the medical context is considered shameful and unprofessional. Even though participants wrestled with feelings of grief, they hid them from others because showing emotion was considered a sign of weakness. In fact, many remarked that our interview was the first time they had been asked these questions or spoken about these emotions at all.
The impact of all this unacknowledged grief was exactly what we don’t want our doctors to experience: inattentiveness, impatience, irritability, emotional exhaustion and burnout.
Even more distressing, half our participants reported that their discomfort with their grief over patient loss could affect their treatment decisions with subsequent patients — leading them, for instance, to provide more aggressive chemotherapy, to put a patient in a clinical trial, or to recommend further surgery when palliative care might be a better option. One oncologist in our study remarked: “I see an inability sometimes to stop treatment when treatment should be stopped. When treatment’s futile, when it’s clearly futile.” From a policy standpoint, this is an especially worrisome finding, given the disproportionately high percentage of heath care budgets spent on end-of-life care.
Unease with losing patients also affected the doctors’ ability to communicate about end-of-life issues with patients and their families. Half of our participants said they distanced themselves and withdrew from patients as the patients got closer to dying. This meant fewer visits in the hospital, fewer bedside visits and less overall effort directed toward the dying patient.
It’s worth stressing that most physicians want what is best for their patients and that the outcome of any medical intervention is often unknown. It’s also worth noting that oncologists and other physicians who are dealing with end-of-life issues are right to put up some emotional boundaries: no one wants their doctor to be walking around openly grief-stricken.
But our research indicates that grief is having a negative impact on oncologists’ personal lives and that there is a troubling relationship between doctors’ discomfort with death and grief and how patients and their families are treated. Oncologists are not trained to deal with their own grief, and they need to be. In addition to providing such training, we need to normalize death and grief as a natural part of life, especially in medical settings.
To improve the quality of end-of-life care for patients and their families, we also need to improve the quality of life of their physicians, by making space for them to grieve like everyone else.
Source: The New York Times, 5/27/12, section: 'Sunday Review', p. 12
Leeat Granek is a health psychologist and a postdoctoral fellow at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.
______________________________
June 24, 2012
In the STAF, Inc. scale of 1-10 the importance # = 7
More Stringent Requirements Send Nurses Back to School
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
E.g.: Min. Bachelor's Degree in Nursing is required -
ABINGTON, Pa. — Jennifer Matton is going to college for the third time, no easy thing with a job, church groups and four children with activities from lacrosse to Boy Scouts. She always planned to return to school, but as it turned out, she had little choice: her career depended on it.
Ms. Matton, a nurse, works at Abington Memorial Hospital, one of hundreds around the country that have started to require that their nurses have at least a bachelor’s degree in nursing. Many more hospitals prefer to hire those with such degrees.
That shift has contributed to a surge in enrollment in nursing courses at four-year colleges, particularly at the more than 600 schools that have opened “R.N. to B.S.N.” programs, for people who are already registered nurses to earn bachelor’s degrees. Fueled by the growth in online courses, enrollment in such programs is almost 90,000, up from fewer than 30,000 a decade ago, according to theAmerican Association of Colleges of Nursing.
The need is so great that nurses without bachelor’s degrees are still in demand. But experts say that may change in years to come, particularly at hospitals, the largest segment of the profession and one of the best paid.
Enrollment in community college programs, the typical path to becoming a nurse, remains strong, but many of those schools are looking for new arrangements, like partnerships with four-year schools, to keep their graduates competitive.
Ms. Matton, 37, first went to college for an associate degree in radio and television broadcasting. By the time she returned to school for an associate’s in nursing, she was a wife and mother — she gave birth to her youngest a few days before taking an exam. Now she is weeks away from her third degree, a bachelor’s in nursing from Drexel University in Philadelphia, with most of the work done online.
“I wanted to get the bachelor’s at the start, but I needed to start earning some money,” said Ms. Matton, whose husband, Joel, is a computer programmer. “Now I need to do this for job security, to have opportunities down the road.”
Schools like Drexel have seized the opportunity. Its online R.N. to B.S.N. program began in the late 1990s with a few dozen students and today has 650. Over all, its College of Nursing and Health Professions has doubled over the last decade, to about 2,400 students, making it one of the nation’s largest.
“There are several hospitals in our region, like Abington, that will hire nonbaccalaureate nurses but give you a certain number of years to finish the baccalaureate, and some that won’t even interview you without it,” said Gloria Donnelly, dean of the nursing college.
Such policies are limited to a small fraction of the nation’s more than 5,000 hospitals — while no definitive count exists, they tend to be teaching hospitals in major metropolitan areas — but the number is rising fast. Hospital and nursing school officials say most hospitals insisting on bachelor’s degrees began doing so in the last five years, like Abington, a suburban hospital north of Philadelphia, which adopted its policy in 2010.
Surveys show that most hospitals prefer to hire nurses with bachelor’s degrees, though they often cannot find enough. Lawmakers in several states, including New York, have introduced bills that would require at least some hospital staff nurses to have bachelor’s degrees within 10 years, though none have become law.
No matter the type of nursing school, a graduate who passes a national licensing exam becomes an R.N., and for decades, that was the only credential that mattered to hospitals. (Licensed practical nurses, or L.P.N.’s, who take a different version of the exam, can perform fewer functions and are being phased out of hospitals.)
Not long ago, most nurses did not go to college at all, but to nursing schools run by hospitals — including one still run by Abington — that do not confer degrees. As recently as the mid-1980s, half of the country’s registered nurses had started that way. But by then, hospital-based schools were closing in droves, and community college education was becoming the norm.
Still, professional groups and employers continue to push for more education, citing studies linking better-educated nurses to better patient care. Where traditional nursing education focuses on practical skills, students in four-year programs learn more about theory, public health and research.
An added incentive for hospitals is the coveted “magnet” designation, awarded by the American Nurses Association to about 400 hospitals and sometimes featured in their advertising. Among the association’s criteria for magnet status is the nursing staff’s level of education.
A 2008 federal government survey showed that among newly minted nurses, only 3 percent had graduated from nondegree programs, 58 percent from community colleges, and 39 percent from four-year colleges. With more of them returning to school, half of the nation’s 3 million registered nurses had a bachelor’s or master’s degree in nursing.
In 2010, the Institute of Medicine called for raising that figure to 80 percent by 2020, but that is a tall order.
“The baccalaureate programs can’t find enough qualified instructors, so they turn away tens of thousands of qualified applicants every year,” said Geraldine Bednash, chief executive of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. “There’s going to be a big need for community-college-educated nurses for a long time, but they may be increasingly limited to nonhospital settings.”
But many community colleges are finding ways to appeal to students who want more than an associate degree. A handful of community colleges have won permission to offer bachelor’s degrees in nursing — notably Miami Dade College, one of the nation’s largest, which started its bachelor’s program in 2008 — and other schools have petitioned state regulators and accreditation agencies to do the same.
Many more junior colleges have made arrangements with four-year colleges to help nursing students move more readily from one to the other. In Oregon, eight community colleges and the state’s Health and Science University have shared a nursing curriculum since 2006, an approach since adopted by others around the country.
“I really don’t foresee a day when the nursing pipeline can continue without community colleges, but we have to take steps to ensure our graduates remain marketable, and some programs may not survive in the long run,” said Nell Ard, director of nursing at Collin College, a community college outside Dallas. Each Collin nursing student is enrolled simultaneously in one of two four-year state schools, allowing for a seamless transfer.
But a bachelor’s program sets a high a bar for many would-be nurses and working nurses, who are older than their counterparts of a generation ago and are more likely to have family obligations. It is, increasingly, a second career; the typical starting age is around 30.
“My school puts more pressure on us, no question, and more household stuff falls to the wayside,” said Ms. Matton, 37, sitting in her kitchen and eating a hamburger her husband had waiting when she got home. She shifted a few years ago to working part time.
Yet she endorses the bachelor’s requirement, pointing to the high stakes of her job, working in the emergency room. On a recent day that she described as slow, she had treated, among others, a middle-aged man who fainted in the heat and needed a cardiac work-up, a young woman in withdrawal from an opiate addiction, a pregnant woman with abdominal pain who spoke no English, an elderly woman with a badly infected thumbnail, an elderly man with gastrointestinal bleeding who had an adverse reaction to a plasma transfusion, and a young man whose tingling hands, head pain and elevated blood pressure persuaded a doctor to order a CT scan.
“It blows me away how much influence nurses have on serious treatment decisions,” Ms. Matton said. “After going back to school, I think more critically about what we’re doing, and I have a better understanding of why we’re doing it.”
Source:
The New York Times, 6/24/12
Section A, p. 13
For private, non-commercial use, only
_________________________________
In the STAF, Inc. scale of 1-10 the importance # = 7
More Stringent Requirements Send Nurses Back to School
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
E.g.: Min. Bachelor's Degree in Nursing is required -
ABINGTON, Pa. — Jennifer Matton is going to college for the third time, no easy thing with a job, church groups and four children with activities from lacrosse to Boy Scouts. She always planned to return to school, but as it turned out, she had little choice: her career depended on it.
Ms. Matton, a nurse, works at Abington Memorial Hospital, one of hundreds around the country that have started to require that their nurses have at least a bachelor’s degree in nursing. Many more hospitals prefer to hire those with such degrees.
That shift has contributed to a surge in enrollment in nursing courses at four-year colleges, particularly at the more than 600 schools that have opened “R.N. to B.S.N.” programs, for people who are already registered nurses to earn bachelor’s degrees. Fueled by the growth in online courses, enrollment in such programs is almost 90,000, up from fewer than 30,000 a decade ago, according to theAmerican Association of Colleges of Nursing.
The need is so great that nurses without bachelor’s degrees are still in demand. But experts say that may change in years to come, particularly at hospitals, the largest segment of the profession and one of the best paid.
Enrollment in community college programs, the typical path to becoming a nurse, remains strong, but many of those schools are looking for new arrangements, like partnerships with four-year schools, to keep their graduates competitive.
Ms. Matton, 37, first went to college for an associate degree in radio and television broadcasting. By the time she returned to school for an associate’s in nursing, she was a wife and mother — she gave birth to her youngest a few days before taking an exam. Now she is weeks away from her third degree, a bachelor’s in nursing from Drexel University in Philadelphia, with most of the work done online.
“I wanted to get the bachelor’s at the start, but I needed to start earning some money,” said Ms. Matton, whose husband, Joel, is a computer programmer. “Now I need to do this for job security, to have opportunities down the road.”
Schools like Drexel have seized the opportunity. Its online R.N. to B.S.N. program began in the late 1990s with a few dozen students and today has 650. Over all, its College of Nursing and Health Professions has doubled over the last decade, to about 2,400 students, making it one of the nation’s largest.
“There are several hospitals in our region, like Abington, that will hire nonbaccalaureate nurses but give you a certain number of years to finish the baccalaureate, and some that won’t even interview you without it,” said Gloria Donnelly, dean of the nursing college.
Such policies are limited to a small fraction of the nation’s more than 5,000 hospitals — while no definitive count exists, they tend to be teaching hospitals in major metropolitan areas — but the number is rising fast. Hospital and nursing school officials say most hospitals insisting on bachelor’s degrees began doing so in the last five years, like Abington, a suburban hospital north of Philadelphia, which adopted its policy in 2010.
Surveys show that most hospitals prefer to hire nurses with bachelor’s degrees, though they often cannot find enough. Lawmakers in several states, including New York, have introduced bills that would require at least some hospital staff nurses to have bachelor’s degrees within 10 years, though none have become law.
No matter the type of nursing school, a graduate who passes a national licensing exam becomes an R.N., and for decades, that was the only credential that mattered to hospitals. (Licensed practical nurses, or L.P.N.’s, who take a different version of the exam, can perform fewer functions and are being phased out of hospitals.)
Not long ago, most nurses did not go to college at all, but to nursing schools run by hospitals — including one still run by Abington — that do not confer degrees. As recently as the mid-1980s, half of the country’s registered nurses had started that way. But by then, hospital-based schools were closing in droves, and community college education was becoming the norm.
Still, professional groups and employers continue to push for more education, citing studies linking better-educated nurses to better patient care. Where traditional nursing education focuses on practical skills, students in four-year programs learn more about theory, public health and research.
An added incentive for hospitals is the coveted “magnet” designation, awarded by the American Nurses Association to about 400 hospitals and sometimes featured in their advertising. Among the association’s criteria for magnet status is the nursing staff’s level of education.
A 2008 federal government survey showed that among newly minted nurses, only 3 percent had graduated from nondegree programs, 58 percent from community colleges, and 39 percent from four-year colleges. With more of them returning to school, half of the nation’s 3 million registered nurses had a bachelor’s or master’s degree in nursing.
In 2010, the Institute of Medicine called for raising that figure to 80 percent by 2020, but that is a tall order.
“The baccalaureate programs can’t find enough qualified instructors, so they turn away tens of thousands of qualified applicants every year,” said Geraldine Bednash, chief executive of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. “There’s going to be a big need for community-college-educated nurses for a long time, but they may be increasingly limited to nonhospital settings.”
But many community colleges are finding ways to appeal to students who want more than an associate degree. A handful of community colleges have won permission to offer bachelor’s degrees in nursing — notably Miami Dade College, one of the nation’s largest, which started its bachelor’s program in 2008 — and other schools have petitioned state regulators and accreditation agencies to do the same.
Many more junior colleges have made arrangements with four-year colleges to help nursing students move more readily from one to the other. In Oregon, eight community colleges and the state’s Health and Science University have shared a nursing curriculum since 2006, an approach since adopted by others around the country.
“I really don’t foresee a day when the nursing pipeline can continue without community colleges, but we have to take steps to ensure our graduates remain marketable, and some programs may not survive in the long run,” said Nell Ard, director of nursing at Collin College, a community college outside Dallas. Each Collin nursing student is enrolled simultaneously in one of two four-year state schools, allowing for a seamless transfer.
But a bachelor’s program sets a high a bar for many would-be nurses and working nurses, who are older than their counterparts of a generation ago and are more likely to have family obligations. It is, increasingly, a second career; the typical starting age is around 30.
“My school puts more pressure on us, no question, and more household stuff falls to the wayside,” said Ms. Matton, 37, sitting in her kitchen and eating a hamburger her husband had waiting when she got home. She shifted a few years ago to working part time.
Yet she endorses the bachelor’s requirement, pointing to the high stakes of her job, working in the emergency room. On a recent day that she described as slow, she had treated, among others, a middle-aged man who fainted in the heat and needed a cardiac work-up, a young woman in withdrawal from an opiate addiction, a pregnant woman with abdominal pain who spoke no English, an elderly woman with a badly infected thumbnail, an elderly man with gastrointestinal bleeding who had an adverse reaction to a plasma transfusion, and a young man whose tingling hands, head pain and elevated blood pressure persuaded a doctor to order a CT scan.
“It blows me away how much influence nurses have on serious treatment decisions,” Ms. Matton said. “After going back to school, I think more critically about what we’re doing, and I have a better understanding of why we’re doing it.”
Source:
The New York Times, 6/24/12
Section A, p. 13
For private, non-commercial use, only
_________________________________
Source:
August 12, 2012
The New York Times Sunday Review, page 4
This is for your personal use, only
Beware the Nocebo Effect
By PAUL ENCK and WINFRIED HÄUSER
Green words connect to further information - click connects
EVERYONE knows that a placebo *) — a fake medication or sham procedure, typically used as a control in a medical trial — can nonetheless have a positive effect, relieving real symptoms like pain, bloating or a depressed mood. The placebo effect is a result of the patient’s expectation that the treatment will help. *
But expectations can also do harm. When a patient anticipates a pill’s possible side effects, he can suffer them even if the pill is fake. This “nocebo” *) effect has been largely overlooked by researchers, clinicians and patients.
In an article recently published in the journal Deutsche Ärzteblatt International, we and our colleague Ernil Hansen reviewed 31 studies, conducted by us and other researchers, that demonstrated the nocebo effect. We urge doctors and nurses to be more mindful of its dangers, particularly when informing patients about a treatment’s potential complications.
*) definition of 'nocebo' a harmless substance that, when taken by a patient, is associated with harmful effects due to negative expectations or the psychological condition of the patient
Consider the number of people in medical trials who, though receiving placebos, stop participating because of side effects. We found that 11 percent of people in fibromyalgia drug trials who were taking fake medication dropped out of the studies because of side effects like dizziness or nausea. Other researchers reported that the discontinuation rates because of side effects in placebo groups in migraine or tension drug trials were as much as 5 percent. Discontinuation rates in trials for statins ranged from 4 percent to 26 percent.
In a curious study, a team of Italian gastroenterologists asked people with and without diagnosed lactose intolerance to take lactose for an experiment on its effects on bowel symptoms. But in reality the participants received glucose, which does not harm the gut. Nonetheless, 44 percent of people with known lactose intolerance and 26 percent of those without lactose intolerance complained of gastrointestinal symptoms.
In one remarkable case, a participant in an antidepressant drug trial was given placebo tablets — and then swallowed 26 of them in a suicide attempt. Even though the tablets were harmless, the participant’s blood pressure dropped perilously low.
The nocebo effect can be observed even when people take real, non-placebo drugs. When medical professionals inform patients of possible side effects, the risk of experiencing those side effects can increase. In one trial, the drug finasteride was administered to men to relieve symptoms of prostate enlargement. Half of the patients were told that the drug could cause erectile dysfunction, while the other half were not informed of this possible side effect. In the informed group, 44 percent of the participants reported that they experienced erectile dysfunction; in the uninformed group, that figure was only 15 percent.
In a similar experiment, a group of German psychologists took patients with chronic lower back pain and divided them into two groups for a leg flexion*) test. One group was told that the test could lead to a slight increase in pain, while the other group was told that the test had no effect on pain level. The first group reported stronger pain and performed fewer leg flexions than the second group did.
A doctor’s choice of words matters. A team of American anesthesiologists studied women about to give birth who were given an injection of local anesthetic before being administered an epidural. For some women, the injection was prefaced by the statement, “We are going to give you a local anesthetic that will numb the area so that you will be comfortable during the procedure.” For others, the statement was, “You are going to feel a big bee sting; this is the worst part of the procedure.” The perceived pain was significantly greater after the latter statement, which emphasized the downside of the injection.
The nocebo effect presents doctors and nurses with an ethical dilemma: on one hand, they are required to tell patients about the potential complications of a treatment; on the other hand, they want to minimize the likelihood of side effects. But if merely telling patients about side effects increases their likelihood, what is to be done?
Better communication is the answer. When talking with patients, doctors and nurses often say things with unintended negative suggestions, like “it’s just going to bleed a bit” or “you must avoid lifting heavy objects — you don’t want to end up paralyzed.” We recommend more extensive training in communication for doctors and nurses, to help them use the power of their words appropriately. As the great cardiologist Bernard Lown once said, “Words are the most powerful tool a doctor possesses, but words, like a two-edged sword, can maim as well as heal.”
Paul Enck is a professor of psychology at the University of Tübingen. Winfried Häuser is an associate professor of psychosomatic medicine at the University of Munich.
*) Definition of FLEXION 1: a bending movement around a joint in a limb (as the knee or elbow) that decreases the angle between the bones of the limb at the joint—compare extension
Definition of FLEXION 2: a forward raising of the arm or leg by a movement at the shoulder or hip joint
______________________________________
August 12, 2012
The New York Times Sunday Review, page 4
This is for your personal use, only
Beware the Nocebo Effect
By PAUL ENCK and WINFRIED HÄUSER
Green words connect to further information - click connects
EVERYONE knows that a placebo *) — a fake medication or sham procedure, typically used as a control in a medical trial — can nonetheless have a positive effect, relieving real symptoms like pain, bloating or a depressed mood. The placebo effect is a result of the patient’s expectation that the treatment will help. *
But expectations can also do harm. When a patient anticipates a pill’s possible side effects, he can suffer them even if the pill is fake. This “nocebo” *) effect has been largely overlooked by researchers, clinicians and patients.
In an article recently published in the journal Deutsche Ärzteblatt International, we and our colleague Ernil Hansen reviewed 31 studies, conducted by us and other researchers, that demonstrated the nocebo effect. We urge doctors and nurses to be more mindful of its dangers, particularly when informing patients about a treatment’s potential complications.
*) definition of 'nocebo' a harmless substance that, when taken by a patient, is associated with harmful effects due to negative expectations or the psychological condition of the patient
Consider the number of people in medical trials who, though receiving placebos, stop participating because of side effects. We found that 11 percent of people in fibromyalgia drug trials who were taking fake medication dropped out of the studies because of side effects like dizziness or nausea. Other researchers reported that the discontinuation rates because of side effects in placebo groups in migraine or tension drug trials were as much as 5 percent. Discontinuation rates in trials for statins ranged from 4 percent to 26 percent.
In a curious study, a team of Italian gastroenterologists asked people with and without diagnosed lactose intolerance to take lactose for an experiment on its effects on bowel symptoms. But in reality the participants received glucose, which does not harm the gut. Nonetheless, 44 percent of people with known lactose intolerance and 26 percent of those without lactose intolerance complained of gastrointestinal symptoms.
In one remarkable case, a participant in an antidepressant drug trial was given placebo tablets — and then swallowed 26 of them in a suicide attempt. Even though the tablets were harmless, the participant’s blood pressure dropped perilously low.
The nocebo effect can be observed even when people take real, non-placebo drugs. When medical professionals inform patients of possible side effects, the risk of experiencing those side effects can increase. In one trial, the drug finasteride was administered to men to relieve symptoms of prostate enlargement. Half of the patients were told that the drug could cause erectile dysfunction, while the other half were not informed of this possible side effect. In the informed group, 44 percent of the participants reported that they experienced erectile dysfunction; in the uninformed group, that figure was only 15 percent.
In a similar experiment, a group of German psychologists took patients with chronic lower back pain and divided them into two groups for a leg flexion*) test. One group was told that the test could lead to a slight increase in pain, while the other group was told that the test had no effect on pain level. The first group reported stronger pain and performed fewer leg flexions than the second group did.
A doctor’s choice of words matters. A team of American anesthesiologists studied women about to give birth who were given an injection of local anesthetic before being administered an epidural. For some women, the injection was prefaced by the statement, “We are going to give you a local anesthetic that will numb the area so that you will be comfortable during the procedure.” For others, the statement was, “You are going to feel a big bee sting; this is the worst part of the procedure.” The perceived pain was significantly greater after the latter statement, which emphasized the downside of the injection.
The nocebo effect presents doctors and nurses with an ethical dilemma: on one hand, they are required to tell patients about the potential complications of a treatment; on the other hand, they want to minimize the likelihood of side effects. But if merely telling patients about side effects increases their likelihood, what is to be done?
Better communication is the answer. When talking with patients, doctors and nurses often say things with unintended negative suggestions, like “it’s just going to bleed a bit” or “you must avoid lifting heavy objects — you don’t want to end up paralyzed.” We recommend more extensive training in communication for doctors and nurses, to help them use the power of their words appropriately. As the great cardiologist Bernard Lown once said, “Words are the most powerful tool a doctor possesses, but words, like a two-edged sword, can maim as well as heal.”
Paul Enck is a professor of psychology at the University of Tübingen. Winfried Häuser is an associate professor of psychosomatic medicine at the University of Munich.
*) Definition of FLEXION 1: a bending movement around a joint in a limb (as the knee or elbow) that decreases the angle between the bones of the limb at the joint—compare extension
Definition of FLEXION 2: a forward raising of the arm or leg by a movement at the shoulder or hip joint
______________________________________
June 23, 2012
Alabama’s White Elephant
Federal taxpayers have spent almost $250 million on a new federal prison for women in Aliceville, Ala., that should never have been built. The prison is almost completed and, within a year or so, is scheduled to house around 1,500 secure prisoners as well as 250 minimum-security inmates — or about one of every eight women in federal prison.
But for many of the prisoners, the rural isolation of this expensive facility will hurt their chances of returning permanently to their families and communities after doing their time. Though it is the newest federal prison for women, Aliceville does not reflect the latest thinking about criminal justice policy for incarceration of women.
Experts have long argued that prisoners should be located within a reasonable distance of their families so they can keep connections with their children. Encouraging those connections benefits the criminal justice system by reducing the odds that a prisoner will end up back in prison after she is released. The location of the Aliceville prison works against these goals.
While women make up only 6.5 percent of the inmates in federal prison, the war on drugs and reduced community services for the mentally ill have led to faster growth in the population of female inmates compared with males in the past decade. The 14,100 women in federal facilities are mostly in for nonviolent crimes, like drug and property offenses. In 2009, more than half had minor children, according to a report by the National Women’s Law Center.
The federal Bureau of Prisons says the Aliceville prison is needed because federal secure prisons for women, holding around 5,800 prisoners, are 55 percent over capacity. The new facility, it says, will reduce overcrowding by almost half, putting the secure prisons at 31 percent over capacity — still twice as high as the bureau’s target.
But from what experts know, many female prisoners do not need to be incarcerated to protect public safety. It would be more sensible to place more of them in community-based facilities near their families and provide treatment for drug abuse and mental health problems for those who need it, as well as education and job training.
The Bureau of Prisons decided the new federal prison for women should be located in the Southeast, and the isolated location of Aliceville is typical of recent federal prisons. Because there are few facilities for women, the bureau says, imprisoning them within 500 miles of home is an acceptable range. Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama pushed hard for Aliceville, promoting the prison as a boon to economic development and a source of jobs for a needy part of the state. For a generation, that rationale has helped justify expanding America’s prison system.
Now, however, some states, faced with crushing costs, are moving to scale back incarceration. It is time to find better, more cost-effective ways to deal with most female offenders than by isolating them in places like Aliceville.
__________________________
Alabama’s White Elephant
Federal taxpayers have spent almost $250 million on a new federal prison for women in Aliceville, Ala., that should never have been built. The prison is almost completed and, within a year or so, is scheduled to house around 1,500 secure prisoners as well as 250 minimum-security inmates — or about one of every eight women in federal prison.
But for many of the prisoners, the rural isolation of this expensive facility will hurt their chances of returning permanently to their families and communities after doing their time. Though it is the newest federal prison for women, Aliceville does not reflect the latest thinking about criminal justice policy for incarceration of women.
Experts have long argued that prisoners should be located within a reasonable distance of their families so they can keep connections with their children. Encouraging those connections benefits the criminal justice system by reducing the odds that a prisoner will end up back in prison after she is released. The location of the Aliceville prison works against these goals.
While women make up only 6.5 percent of the inmates in federal prison, the war on drugs and reduced community services for the mentally ill have led to faster growth in the population of female inmates compared with males in the past decade. The 14,100 women in federal facilities are mostly in for nonviolent crimes, like drug and property offenses. In 2009, more than half had minor children, according to a report by the National Women’s Law Center.
The federal Bureau of Prisons says the Aliceville prison is needed because federal secure prisons for women, holding around 5,800 prisoners, are 55 percent over capacity. The new facility, it says, will reduce overcrowding by almost half, putting the secure prisons at 31 percent over capacity — still twice as high as the bureau’s target.
But from what experts know, many female prisoners do not need to be incarcerated to protect public safety. It would be more sensible to place more of them in community-based facilities near their families and provide treatment for drug abuse and mental health problems for those who need it, as well as education and job training.
The Bureau of Prisons decided the new federal prison for women should be located in the Southeast, and the isolated location of Aliceville is typical of recent federal prisons. Because there are few facilities for women, the bureau says, imprisoning them within 500 miles of home is an acceptable range. Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama pushed hard for Aliceville, promoting the prison as a boon to economic development and a source of jobs for a needy part of the state. For a generation, that rationale has helped justify expanding America’s prison system.
Now, however, some states, faced with crushing costs, are moving to scale back incarceration. It is time to find better, more cost-effective ways to deal with most female offenders than by isolating them in places like Aliceville.
__________________________
Sharp Cuts in Dental Coverage for Adults on Medicaid
August, 18/12
BOSTON — Banned from tightening (click green for info) Medicaid eligibility in recent years, many states have instead slashed optional benefits for millions of poor adults in the program. Teeth have suffered disproportionately.
Republican- and Democratic-controlled states alike have reduced or largely eliminated dental coverage for adults on Medicaid, the shared state and federal health insurance program for poor people. The situation is not likely to improve under President Obama’s health care overhaul: it requires dental coverage for children only.
Illinois became the latest state to drastically cut dental benefits last month, when Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, cut $1.6 billion out of its $15 billion Medicaid budget, reducing adult dental coverage to emergency tooth extractions. The state, whose Medicaid program was considered among the most generous, also cut vision benefits, eliminated chiropractic and podiatry coverage and started requiring co-payments for drugs.
In about half the states, Medicaid now covers dental care only for pain relief and emergencies, according to a recent report by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, a national health research group. Other states cover preventive exams and cleanings but not restorative services, like fillings and root canals.
The federal health care law generally prohibits states from tightening eligibility for Medicaid before 2014, when a vast expansion of the program to cover people with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty line is supposed to take effect. But states are still allowed to cut optional benefits, like vision, dental and drug coverage. Whether to seek broader cuts is part of a contentious debate between Mr. Obama and Mitt Romney over the future of Medicaid and Medicare, the government health care program for older Americans.
The dental benefits issue came to the forefront recently here in Massachusetts, a state known for generous Medicaid benefits. Under budgetary pressures, the state stopped paying private Medicaid providers for fillings, root canals, crowns and dentures in July 2010. But it recently decided to restore part of that coverage. Starting in January, Massachusetts Medicaid will pay for fillings — but only for those in the front of the mouth. The reasoning was that healthy front teeth were more important for getting and keeping jobs.
“A lot of folks are out of work,” said Courtney Chelo, coordinator of an oral health task force at Health Care For All, an advocacy group in Boston. “If you have a gap in the front of your mouth because you had a tooth extracted, it’s much more difficult to get a job.”
Dr. Michael Wasserman, the president-elect of the Massachusetts Dental Society, said that he was disappointed Massachusetts did not restore full coverage but that even a partial restoration was extraordinary in these fiscal times. Medicaid patients make up about 20 percent of his practice in Pittsfield, he said. “Of course we would have also liked to see the back teeth covered,” he said. “It’s nice to smile; it’s nice to chew. But we have to take what we can get at this point.”
Many adults on Medicaid have turned to community health centers. In Massachusetts, such clinics received 22,000 new dental patients statewide — 760 per site, on average — in the first six months after coverage was dropped.
At the Lynn Community Health Center outside Boston, demand has not stopped growing. The center added six dental chairs this year, bringing the total to 12, and hired more hygienists and dentists. Still, “the waiting room is packed,” said Lori Abrams Berry, the executive director.
Even in states where Medicaid enrollees can still get regular dental care, finding dentists who accept Medicaid can be next to impossible. That is partly because reimbursements, which were low to begin with, have also been cut. Dentists, many of whom do not take even private insurance, can get much higher payments from non-Medicaid customers.
At the same time, there are shortages of dentists in many poor and rural communities, according to the Pew Center on the States. In a report this year, Pew estimated that preventable dental problems were the primary diagnosis in 830,590 emergency room visits in 2009 — up 16 percent from 2006.
“It’s penny-wise and pound-foolish,” said Shelly Gehshan, the director of the Pew Children’s Dental Campaign. “Rather than an $80 extraction or a $300 filling, states are spending much more on emergency room visits that can’t fix the problem.”
Citing safety concerns, dental associations have fought efforts to allow dental therapists — midlevel providers with more training than hygienists but less than dentists — to do common procedures like filling cavities and pulling teeth. Currently, only Alaska and Minnesota allow dental therapists.
But Ms. Gehshan said other states would embrace the idea, partly because more than five million children will become eligible for dental coverage under the federal law. There are not enough dentists for them, she said, adding that research has found dental therapists to be “safe and effective.”
“There needs to be more rungs in the ladder,” Ms. Gehshan said. “The associations have taken a fearful defensive posture, but this can really be a win-win situation for dentists.”
Although the law does not address dental coverage for adults, it provides $11 billion to expand community clinics and build new ones. Many clinics, like the one in Lynn, are using the money to expand dental services as well as primary care. Of the 55,000 new square feet at the Lynn clinic — financed with $18.6 million in stimulus and Affordable Care Act money as well as private donations — 6,500 are reserved for dentistry, Ms. Berry said.
“I regret that I didn’t build more dental chairs,” she added. “It never seems to be enough.”
Source: NYT
By ABBY GOODNOUGH (click green for additional info)
_______________________________
August, 18/12
BOSTON — Banned from tightening (click green for info) Medicaid eligibility in recent years, many states have instead slashed optional benefits for millions of poor adults in the program. Teeth have suffered disproportionately.
Republican- and Democratic-controlled states alike have reduced or largely eliminated dental coverage for adults on Medicaid, the shared state and federal health insurance program for poor people. The situation is not likely to improve under President Obama’s health care overhaul: it requires dental coverage for children only.
Illinois became the latest state to drastically cut dental benefits last month, when Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, cut $1.6 billion out of its $15 billion Medicaid budget, reducing adult dental coverage to emergency tooth extractions. The state, whose Medicaid program was considered among the most generous, also cut vision benefits, eliminated chiropractic and podiatry coverage and started requiring co-payments for drugs.
In about half the states, Medicaid now covers dental care only for pain relief and emergencies, according to a recent report by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, a national health research group. Other states cover preventive exams and cleanings but not restorative services, like fillings and root canals.
The federal health care law generally prohibits states from tightening eligibility for Medicaid before 2014, when a vast expansion of the program to cover people with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty line is supposed to take effect. But states are still allowed to cut optional benefits, like vision, dental and drug coverage. Whether to seek broader cuts is part of a contentious debate between Mr. Obama and Mitt Romney over the future of Medicaid and Medicare, the government health care program for older Americans.
The dental benefits issue came to the forefront recently here in Massachusetts, a state known for generous Medicaid benefits. Under budgetary pressures, the state stopped paying private Medicaid providers for fillings, root canals, crowns and dentures in July 2010. But it recently decided to restore part of that coverage. Starting in January, Massachusetts Medicaid will pay for fillings — but only for those in the front of the mouth. The reasoning was that healthy front teeth were more important for getting and keeping jobs.
“A lot of folks are out of work,” said Courtney Chelo, coordinator of an oral health task force at Health Care For All, an advocacy group in Boston. “If you have a gap in the front of your mouth because you had a tooth extracted, it’s much more difficult to get a job.”
Dr. Michael Wasserman, the president-elect of the Massachusetts Dental Society, said that he was disappointed Massachusetts did not restore full coverage but that even a partial restoration was extraordinary in these fiscal times. Medicaid patients make up about 20 percent of his practice in Pittsfield, he said. “Of course we would have also liked to see the back teeth covered,” he said. “It’s nice to smile; it’s nice to chew. But we have to take what we can get at this point.”
Many adults on Medicaid have turned to community health centers. In Massachusetts, such clinics received 22,000 new dental patients statewide — 760 per site, on average — in the first six months after coverage was dropped.
At the Lynn Community Health Center outside Boston, demand has not stopped growing. The center added six dental chairs this year, bringing the total to 12, and hired more hygienists and dentists. Still, “the waiting room is packed,” said Lori Abrams Berry, the executive director.
Even in states where Medicaid enrollees can still get regular dental care, finding dentists who accept Medicaid can be next to impossible. That is partly because reimbursements, which were low to begin with, have also been cut. Dentists, many of whom do not take even private insurance, can get much higher payments from non-Medicaid customers.
At the same time, there are shortages of dentists in many poor and rural communities, according to the Pew Center on the States. In a report this year, Pew estimated that preventable dental problems were the primary diagnosis in 830,590 emergency room visits in 2009 — up 16 percent from 2006.
“It’s penny-wise and pound-foolish,” said Shelly Gehshan, the director of the Pew Children’s Dental Campaign. “Rather than an $80 extraction or a $300 filling, states are spending much more on emergency room visits that can’t fix the problem.”
Citing safety concerns, dental associations have fought efforts to allow dental therapists — midlevel providers with more training than hygienists but less than dentists — to do common procedures like filling cavities and pulling teeth. Currently, only Alaska and Minnesota allow dental therapists.
But Ms. Gehshan said other states would embrace the idea, partly because more than five million children will become eligible for dental coverage under the federal law. There are not enough dentists for them, she said, adding that research has found dental therapists to be “safe and effective.”
“There needs to be more rungs in the ladder,” Ms. Gehshan said. “The associations have taken a fearful defensive posture, but this can really be a win-win situation for dentists.”
Although the law does not address dental coverage for adults, it provides $11 billion to expand community clinics and build new ones. Many clinics, like the one in Lynn, are using the money to expand dental services as well as primary care. Of the 55,000 new square feet at the Lynn clinic — financed with $18.6 million in stimulus and Affordable Care Act money as well as private donations — 6,500 are reserved for dentistry, Ms. Berry said.
“I regret that I didn’t build more dental chairs,” she added. “It never seems to be enough.”
Source: NYT
By ABBY GOODNOUGH (click green for additional info)
_______________________________
Affiliates:
Spiritual / Religious Services using the most modern preaching techniques.
In case you are searching for competent, result-bringing spiritual/religious services, the STAF, Inc. affiliate Christian faith Church is Global Church of God - GCG.
We all need correct guidance for our spirit as we need correct nutrition to feed our physical bodies.
Global Church of God - GCG is the most modern church, a dream for the internet generation.
It is a community church for people of all faiths.
GCG provides guidance in health, wealth & success based on the Biblical success laws - the principles bringing the results in all these life topics.
What also is different in GCG's teaching The Bible is this: for each statement the church gives clear evidence based on the most modern, recent human science - then The Bible text will open up for you, and for all of us, in a new manner.
In addition, GCG uses modern English and guides you to use a Bible translation we all can understand, a translation that explains the facts based on today's English.
Most traditional, older churches, use old-fashioned English that is based on the 1700/1800 English.
We all need today's English to undestand the facts.
In most older churches their members do not fully know and see the real meaning of The Bible because of the old-fashioned language or use of Latin in their services. E.g. , in Italy little more than only a 100 years ago it is totally illegal for any private individual to read the Bible or even own a Bible and especially in a language the people could understand. People were persecuted, tortured, and killed for owning or reading The Bible. "That is what the Devil, the Satan, wants - The Devil wants to ruin our lives", state the GCG in their positive Gospel teaching work.
Global Church of God - GCG has also a Radio Ministry for anyone to listen & learn success for life. The Radio Ministry original recordings are available worldwide on the internet 24/7.
See the church website for further information: gcg1org.weebly.com
__________________________________
Additional high level services and service providers in tab: more…, there sub tab: about us and there a sub-sub tab: affiliates
______________________________
Spiritual / Religious Services using the most modern preaching techniques.
In case you are searching for competent, result-bringing spiritual/religious services, the STAF, Inc. affiliate Christian faith Church is Global Church of God - GCG.
We all need correct guidance for our spirit as we need correct nutrition to feed our physical bodies.
Global Church of God - GCG is the most modern church, a dream for the internet generation.
It is a community church for people of all faiths.
GCG provides guidance in health, wealth & success based on the Biblical success laws - the principles bringing the results in all these life topics.
What also is different in GCG's teaching The Bible is this: for each statement the church gives clear evidence based on the most modern, recent human science - then The Bible text will open up for you, and for all of us, in a new manner.
In addition, GCG uses modern English and guides you to use a Bible translation we all can understand, a translation that explains the facts based on today's English.
Most traditional, older churches, use old-fashioned English that is based on the 1700/1800 English.
We all need today's English to undestand the facts.
In most older churches their members do not fully know and see the real meaning of The Bible because of the old-fashioned language or use of Latin in their services. E.g. , in Italy little more than only a 100 years ago it is totally illegal for any private individual to read the Bible or even own a Bible and especially in a language the people could understand. People were persecuted, tortured, and killed for owning or reading The Bible. "That is what the Devil, the Satan, wants - The Devil wants to ruin our lives", state the GCG in their positive Gospel teaching work.
Global Church of God - GCG has also a Radio Ministry for anyone to listen & learn success for life. The Radio Ministry original recordings are available worldwide on the internet 24/7.
See the church website for further information: gcg1org.weebly.com
__________________________________
Additional high level services and service providers in tab: more…, there sub tab: about us and there a sub-sub tab: affiliates
______________________________
Source: The New York Times
July 12, 2012
This article is only for your personal use
Earliest Americans Arrived in Waves, DNA Study Finds
By NICHOLAS WADE
North and South America were first populated by three waves of migrants from Siberia rather than just a single migration, say researchers who have studied the whole genomes of Native Americans in South America and Canada.
Some scientists assert that the Americas were peopled in one large migration from Siberia that happened about 15,000 years ago, but the new genetic research shows that this central episode was followed by at least two smaller migrations from Siberia, one by people who became the ancestors of today’s Eskimos and Aleutians and another by people speaking Na-Dene, whose descendants are confined to North America. The research was published online on Wednesday in the journal Nature.
The finding vindicates a proposal first made on linguistic grounds by Joseph Greenberg, the great classifier of the world’s languages. He asserted in 1987 that most languages spoken in North and South America were derived from the single mother tongue of the first settlers from Siberia, which he called Amerind. Two later waves, he surmised, brought speakers of Eskimo-Aleut and of Na-Dene, the language family spoken by the Apache and Navajo.
But many linguists who specialize in American languages derided Dr. Greenberg’s proposal, saying they saw no evidence for any single ancestral language like Amerind. “American linguists made up their minds 25 years ago that they wouldn’t support Greenberg, and they haven’t changed their mind one whit,” said Merritt Ruhlen, a colleague of Dr. Greenberg, who died in 2001.
The new DNA study is based on gene chips that sample the entire genome and presents a fuller picture than earlier studies, which were based on small regions of the genome like the Y chromosome or mitochondrial DNA. Several of the mitochondrial DNA studies had pointed to a single migration.
A team led by David Reich of Harvard Medical School and Dr. Andres Ruiz-Linares of University College London reported that there was a main migration that populated the entire Americas. They cannot date the migration from their genomic data but accept the estimate by others that the migration occurred around 15,000 years ago. This was in the window of time that occurred after the melting of great glaciers that blocked passage from Siberia to Alaska, and before the rising waters at the end of the last ice age submerged Beringia, the land bridge between them.
They also find evidence for two further waves of migration, one among Na-Dene speakers and the other among Eskimo-Aleut, again as Dr. Greenberg predicted. But whereas Dr. Greenberg’s proposal suggested that three discrete groups of people were packed into the Americas, the new genome study finds that the second and third waves mixed in with the first. Eskimos inherit about half of their DNA from the people of the first migration and half from a second migration. The Chipewyans of Canada, who speak a Na-Dene language, have 90 percent of their genes from the first migration and some 10 percent from a third.
It is not clear why the Chipewyans and others speak a Na-Dene language if most of their DNA is from Amerind speakers. Dr. Ruiz-Linares said a minority language could often dominate others in the case of conquest; an example of this is the ubiquity of Spanish in Latin America.
If the genetics of the early migrations to the Americas can be defined well enough, it should in principle be possible to match them with their source populations in Asia. Dr. Greenberg had argued on linguistic grounds that the Na-Dene language family was derived from Ket, spoken by the Ket people in the Yenisei valley of Siberia. But Dr. Reich said there was not yet enough genomic data from Asia or the Americas to make these links. His samples of Na-Dene and Ket DNA did not match, but the few Ket samples he had may have become mixed with DNA from people of other ethnicities, so the test, in his view, was inconclusive.
The team’s samples of Native American genomes were drawn mostly from South America, with a handful from Canada. Samples from tribes in the United States could not be used because the existing ones had been collected for medical reasons and the donors had not given consent for population genetics studies, Dr. Ruiz-Linares said. Native Americans in the United States have been reluctant to participate in inquiries into their origins. The Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society wrote recently to all federally recognized tribes in the United States asking for samples, but only two agreed to give them, said Spencer Wells, the project director.
Interracial marriage — or admixture, as geneticists call it — may have distorted earlier efforts to trace ancestry because subjects assumed to be American may have had European or other DNA admixed in their genomes. Dr. Reich and his colleagues have developed a method to define the racial origin of each segment of DNA and have found that on average 8.5 percent of Native American DNA belongs to other races. They then screened these admixed sections out of their analysis.
Archaeologists who study Native American history are glad to have the genetic data but also have reservations, given that several of the geneticists’ conclusions have changed over time. “This is a really important step forward but not the last word,” said David Meltzer of Southern Methodist University, noting that many migrations may not yet have shown up in the genetic samples. Michael H. Crawford, an anthropologist at the University of Kansas, said the paucity of samples from North America and from coastal regions made it hard to claim a complete picture of early migrations has been attained.
“Sometimes the statisticians make wonderful interpretations, but you have to be very guarded,” he said.
The geneticists’ finding of a single main migration of people who presumably spoke a single language at the time confirms Dr. Greenberg’s central idea that most American languages are descended from a single root, even though the genetic data cannot confirm the specific language relationships he described.
“Many linguists put down Greenberg as rubbish and don’t believe his publications,” Dr. Ruiz-Linares said. But he considers his study a substantial vindication of Dr. Greenberg. “It’s striking that we have this correspondence between the genetics and the linguistics,” he said.
__________________________
July 12, 2012
This article is only for your personal use
Earliest Americans Arrived in Waves, DNA Study Finds
By NICHOLAS WADE
North and South America were first populated by three waves of migrants from Siberia rather than just a single migration, say researchers who have studied the whole genomes of Native Americans in South America and Canada.
Some scientists assert that the Americas were peopled in one large migration from Siberia that happened about 15,000 years ago, but the new genetic research shows that this central episode was followed by at least two smaller migrations from Siberia, one by people who became the ancestors of today’s Eskimos and Aleutians and another by people speaking Na-Dene, whose descendants are confined to North America. The research was published online on Wednesday in the journal Nature.
The finding vindicates a proposal first made on linguistic grounds by Joseph Greenberg, the great classifier of the world’s languages. He asserted in 1987 that most languages spoken in North and South America were derived from the single mother tongue of the first settlers from Siberia, which he called Amerind. Two later waves, he surmised, brought speakers of Eskimo-Aleut and of Na-Dene, the language family spoken by the Apache and Navajo.
But many linguists who specialize in American languages derided Dr. Greenberg’s proposal, saying they saw no evidence for any single ancestral language like Amerind. “American linguists made up their minds 25 years ago that they wouldn’t support Greenberg, and they haven’t changed their mind one whit,” said Merritt Ruhlen, a colleague of Dr. Greenberg, who died in 2001.
The new DNA study is based on gene chips that sample the entire genome and presents a fuller picture than earlier studies, which were based on small regions of the genome like the Y chromosome or mitochondrial DNA. Several of the mitochondrial DNA studies had pointed to a single migration.
A team led by David Reich of Harvard Medical School and Dr. Andres Ruiz-Linares of University College London reported that there was a main migration that populated the entire Americas. They cannot date the migration from their genomic data but accept the estimate by others that the migration occurred around 15,000 years ago. This was in the window of time that occurred after the melting of great glaciers that blocked passage from Siberia to Alaska, and before the rising waters at the end of the last ice age submerged Beringia, the land bridge between them.
They also find evidence for two further waves of migration, one among Na-Dene speakers and the other among Eskimo-Aleut, again as Dr. Greenberg predicted. But whereas Dr. Greenberg’s proposal suggested that three discrete groups of people were packed into the Americas, the new genome study finds that the second and third waves mixed in with the first. Eskimos inherit about half of their DNA from the people of the first migration and half from a second migration. The Chipewyans of Canada, who speak a Na-Dene language, have 90 percent of their genes from the first migration and some 10 percent from a third.
It is not clear why the Chipewyans and others speak a Na-Dene language if most of their DNA is from Amerind speakers. Dr. Ruiz-Linares said a minority language could often dominate others in the case of conquest; an example of this is the ubiquity of Spanish in Latin America.
If the genetics of the early migrations to the Americas can be defined well enough, it should in principle be possible to match them with their source populations in Asia. Dr. Greenberg had argued on linguistic grounds that the Na-Dene language family was derived from Ket, spoken by the Ket people in the Yenisei valley of Siberia. But Dr. Reich said there was not yet enough genomic data from Asia or the Americas to make these links. His samples of Na-Dene and Ket DNA did not match, but the few Ket samples he had may have become mixed with DNA from people of other ethnicities, so the test, in his view, was inconclusive.
The team’s samples of Native American genomes were drawn mostly from South America, with a handful from Canada. Samples from tribes in the United States could not be used because the existing ones had been collected for medical reasons and the donors had not given consent for population genetics studies, Dr. Ruiz-Linares said. Native Americans in the United States have been reluctant to participate in inquiries into their origins. The Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society wrote recently to all federally recognized tribes in the United States asking for samples, but only two agreed to give them, said Spencer Wells, the project director.
Interracial marriage — or admixture, as geneticists call it — may have distorted earlier efforts to trace ancestry because subjects assumed to be American may have had European or other DNA admixed in their genomes. Dr. Reich and his colleagues have developed a method to define the racial origin of each segment of DNA and have found that on average 8.5 percent of Native American DNA belongs to other races. They then screened these admixed sections out of their analysis.
Archaeologists who study Native American history are glad to have the genetic data but also have reservations, given that several of the geneticists’ conclusions have changed over time. “This is a really important step forward but not the last word,” said David Meltzer of Southern Methodist University, noting that many migrations may not yet have shown up in the genetic samples. Michael H. Crawford, an anthropologist at the University of Kansas, said the paucity of samples from North America and from coastal regions made it hard to claim a complete picture of early migrations has been attained.
“Sometimes the statisticians make wonderful interpretations, but you have to be very guarded,” he said.
The geneticists’ finding of a single main migration of people who presumably spoke a single language at the time confirms Dr. Greenberg’s central idea that most American languages are descended from a single root, even though the genetic data cannot confirm the specific language relationships he described.
“Many linguists put down Greenberg as rubbish and don’t believe his publications,” Dr. Ruiz-Linares said. But he considers his study a substantial vindication of Dr. Greenberg. “It’s striking that we have this correspondence between the genetics and the linguistics,” he said.
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America’s first president
was apparent grave robbery victim
The first President is not George Washington as many in the U.S. and also worldwide may think
November 25, 2012 marks the passing of the first man allegedly to be called “president” in the United States. His role in American history remains vague, and the current location of his body is a mystery.
John Hanson was the first official to serve a full term in office under the terms of the ratified Articles of Confederation in 1781.
In reality, Hanson’s role in the young U.S. government had little in common with the job of the chief executive described in the Constitution, which was drawn up in 1787.
But Hanson did have an important role during the Revolutionary War, and the debate over his role as “president” serves to educate people about the period before the Constitution was ratified.
George Washington was the first president as we know it and he was a crucial figure in keeping the nation together for eight years.
In fact, Washington was so central to the young republic as the head of the executive branch that he ran for office virtually uncontested, and his decision to not run for a third term set off a chain reaction that led to our current two-party political process.
The same can’t be said for John Hanson.
Hanson was a patriot who was named to the Continental Congress in 1780 as a member from Maryland. In his own state, Hanson supported independence and was a valued organizer.
The planter from Maryland became the president of what is known as the Confederation Congress in November 1781, in an apparent deal to secure his state’s approval of the Articles of Confederation that March.
Two other men, Samuel Huntington and Thomas McKeon, served partial terms as president of the body before Hanson.
The Articles only have a brief mention of a president, who would serve a very limited administrative role in conducting votes and signing paperwork.
Hanson was the first president of that Congress to be elected and serve a full term for one year. He died after leaving office on November 22, 1783.
While Hanson seemed to be destined to become an historical footnote, it seems that his descendants had other ideas. They lobbied for Hanson to be recognized as the nation’s first president.
In 1903, a statue of Hanson was put in the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall Collection, as one of two tributes allowed for each state.
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Since then, there have been various myths about Hanson, including one that he was related to Swedish royalty and another that he was of black ancestry.
Hanson’s statue also survived an attempt last year to replace it with one of Harriet Tubman in the Statuary Hall Collection.
Historians have also pointed out that Peyton Randolph was the first person to have the title of president, at the First Congress in 1774, and Hanson was the eighth person to be called president at a Congress.
Still, the idea of Hanson as the first president has a wide following on the Internet, and he’s considered as a key Founding Father in his home state of Maryland.
Hanson’s roles in creating the Great Seal of the United States and Thanksgiving are also the subjects of ongoing debates.
But in literal terms, Hanson remains a “lost” Founding Father because no one knows where his body is.
Hanson was staying at his nephew’s plantation, called Oxon Hill Manor, in Prince George’s County, Maryland, when he passed away in November 1783.
The original mansion burned down in 1895 and it appears that Hanson’s crypt went missing until the 1980s, along with his body.
A Hanson relative, Peter Michael, wrote in a Maryland newspaper in March that Hanson’s grave site was found, and it was listed as sealed and intact in a 1985 state survey on the former grounds of Oxon Hill Manor.
But two years later, Michael said an archeologist’s survey, commissioned by a developer that bought the property, found that the tomb was opened and robbed–Hanson’s body was gone.
The grave site itself went missing a few years later when the property was made into a waterfront resort. The mausoleum was apparently paved over for a parking lot.
Today, a marker sits near the grounds of Oxon Hill Manor as a tribute to Hanson. He’s called “an honored patriot of the American Revolution.”
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*) clemency = (law) the reduction in severity of a punishment imposed by law
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Facts about the real Abraham Lincoln
Filed Under:
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Click the green title for further info
America’s first president
was apparent grave robbery victim
The first President is not George Washington as many in the U.S. and also worldwide may think
November 25, 2012 marks the passing of the first man allegedly to be called “president” in the United States. His role in American history remains vague, and the current location of his body is a mystery.
John Hanson was the first official to serve a full term in office under the terms of the ratified Articles of Confederation in 1781.
In reality, Hanson’s role in the young U.S. government had little in common with the job of the chief executive described in the Constitution, which was drawn up in 1787.
But Hanson did have an important role during the Revolutionary War, and the debate over his role as “president” serves to educate people about the period before the Constitution was ratified.
George Washington was the first president as we know it and he was a crucial figure in keeping the nation together for eight years.
In fact, Washington was so central to the young republic as the head of the executive branch that he ran for office virtually uncontested, and his decision to not run for a third term set off a chain reaction that led to our current two-party political process.
The same can’t be said for John Hanson.
Hanson was a patriot who was named to the Continental Congress in 1780 as a member from Maryland. In his own state, Hanson supported independence and was a valued organizer.
The planter from Maryland became the president of what is known as the Confederation Congress in November 1781, in an apparent deal to secure his state’s approval of the Articles of Confederation that March.
Two other men, Samuel Huntington and Thomas McKeon, served partial terms as president of the body before Hanson.
The Articles only have a brief mention of a president, who would serve a very limited administrative role in conducting votes and signing paperwork.
Hanson was the first president of that Congress to be elected and serve a full term for one year. He died after leaving office on November 22, 1783.
While Hanson seemed to be destined to become an historical footnote, it seems that his descendants had other ideas. They lobbied for Hanson to be recognized as the nation’s first president.
In 1903, a statue of Hanson was put in the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall Collection, as one of two tributes allowed for each state.
Recent Constitution Daily Stories
Did Abraham Lincoln omit God from the Gettysburg Address?
50 shades of Abraham Lincoln
Who said it: Lincoln or Franklin?
Read six different versions of the Gettysburg Address
Since then, there have been various myths about Hanson, including one that he was related to Swedish royalty and another that he was of black ancestry.
Hanson’s statue also survived an attempt last year to replace it with one of Harriet Tubman in the Statuary Hall Collection.
Historians have also pointed out that Peyton Randolph was the first person to have the title of president, at the First Congress in 1774, and Hanson was the eighth person to be called president at a Congress.
Still, the idea of Hanson as the first president has a wide following on the Internet, and he’s considered as a key Founding Father in his home state of Maryland.
Hanson’s roles in creating the Great Seal of the United States and Thanksgiving are also the subjects of ongoing debates.
But in literal terms, Hanson remains a “lost” Founding Father because no one knows where his body is.
Hanson was staying at his nephew’s plantation, called Oxon Hill Manor, in Prince George’s County, Maryland, when he passed away in November 1783.
The original mansion burned down in 1895 and it appears that Hanson’s crypt went missing until the 1980s, along with his body.
A Hanson relative, Peter Michael, wrote in a Maryland newspaper in March that Hanson’s grave site was found, and it was listed as sealed and intact in a 1985 state survey on the former grounds of Oxon Hill Manor.
But two years later, Michael said an archeologist’s survey, commissioned by a developer that bought the property, found that the tomb was opened and robbed–Hanson’s body was gone.
The grave site itself went missing a few years later when the property was made into a waterfront resort. The mausoleum was apparently paved over for a parking lot.
Today, a marker sits near the grounds of Oxon Hill Manor as a tribute to Hanson. He’s called “an honored patriot of the American Revolution.”
RELATED STORIES
Ron Paul: Secession is right, Civil War maybe not
Rutherford B. Hayes: A misunderstood president?
The purpose of clemency*) : The case of Terrance Williams
*) clemency = (law) the reduction in severity of a punishment imposed by law
What would George do? An historical response to modern foreign entanglements
Facts about the real Abraham Lincoln
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Hold the eels? A Founding Fathers Thanksgiving meal
Issue: Culture RSS Founding Fathers RSS
Do you think the Founding Fathers observed Thanksgiving by eating turkey, dressing, and green bean casserole? In reality, there were a few things on the menu we wouldn’t see today, including an extinct bird and some slimy fish.
Thanksgiving in the generation after the Founding Fathers
For example, turkey is the centerpiece of the modern Thanksgiving meal, but back in Colonial days, Ben Franklin’s favorite bird may have been just one of several fowl on the menu.
More likely, goose or duck was the bird of choice, with swan and passenger pigeon as likely treats, along with wild turkey.
The passenger pigeon, in particular, was around for the holidays. Pigeon pie was a popular side dish.
The pigeons were combined with other meats and stock and baked in a puff pastry. But don’t expect a Passenger Pigeon Pie on your local buffet: The birds were hunted to their extinction in a quest for cheap meat. The last one died in 1914.
And how about some eels with your cranberry sauce?
That wouldn’t likely be accurate historically, since cranberry sauce was invented after the first Thanksgiving.
The eels were probably a slimy side course at the 17th-century version of the Thanksgiving feast. We’re not sure how the eels were prepared, but they were plentiful. Another possible side dish was seal.
But the most likely centerpiece of the first Thanksgiving meals was deer. Venison was common, and a whole deer could feed a lot of people.
Pork wasn’t used at the time for Thanksgiving, although colonist had brought pigs with them. So there was no Thanksgiving ham.
Other dishes included corn, beans, onions, and pumpkin. The pumpkin was probably stewed, since pumpkin pie wasn’t around.
Also absent from the first Thanksgiving meals were any potato products, chicken, corn on the cob, and eggs.
In the time of George Washington, Thanksgiving was observed as an unofficial national holiday, often in early December.
The date really depended on when crops were harvested and the availability of food for the feast.
Two accounts from the late 1700s show turkey and pumpkin pie showing up on the menu.
In a letter written by Juliana Smith in 1779, a typical New England Thanksgiving feast is detailed: Venison is the main course, but only because roast beef has been rationed during the Revolutionary War. Cider is also served in place of wine due to the war effort. Other courses include pigeon pies, turkey, goose, onions in cream, mincemeat pie, pumpkin pie, and yes, potatoes.
Nine years later, a prominent surgeon described a typical Thanksgiving meal in his diary. Mason Finch Cogswell said that turkey, pork, pumpkin pie, and apple pie were the main features of the feast.
Early 19th-century accounts from New England indicate that geese, chicken, turnips, and pumpkin pie were the prominent menu items in Connecticut, with a lot of cider, brandy, and whiskey in the mix.
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The real story behind the presidential turkey pardon
Hold the eels? A Founding Fathers Thanksgiving meal
It wasn’t until later in the century that turkey became the fowl of choice on the holiday. But one account from Massachusetts in 1836 makes it clear that one item was mandatory on the menu.
“Then come puddings and pies…among the most prominent of which is that savory dish, peculiar to New England–that sine qua non of a Thanksgiving dinner–the well filled, deep and spacious pumpkin pie,” said the New-Bedford Mercury.
One thing that was a late addition to the Thanksgiving dinner table was the fork.
In the time of the Pilgrims, there weren’t forks, and they were just being integrated into the dinner table by the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
So on Thanksgiving, remember to be grateful for your modern spread of delicious food–and your handy fork.
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The real story behind the presidential turkey pardon
By NCC Staff
The presidential pardon of the Thanksgiving turkey has become an annual event, but the peace pact between the fowl and the White House is a relatively new thing. And in fact, a few presidents actually ate their guests!
The first president to pardon a turkey was Abraham Lincoln, who instructed the White House to save a bird given to the president. Lincoln’s son had grown fond of the bird (and the president was a big animal lover).
But Lincoln didn’t start a tradition, and neither did President Harry S. Truman, who is often credited as the father of the presidential turkey pardon.
Photos from Truman’s administration show the president happily receiving a turkey as a gift from the Poultry and Egg National Board. President Dwight Eisenhower also was photographed receiving his bird from the turkey lobby.
An article that later appeared in The Washington Post revealed the real reason the men were smiling: They served up their guests on Thanksgiving Day as the main course! In one image fromTime magazine, Eisenhower is grinning widely as he’s carving a very large turkey.
The next president to spare a turkey given to the White House was John F. Kennedy, who decided after receiving a bird on November 19, 1963, that it shouldn’t stay as dinner. The turkey was wearing a sign that said, “Good Eatin’ Mr. President.” JFK spared the bird just three days before he was assassinated in Dallas.
Recent Constitution Daily Stories
America’s first president was apparent grave robbery victim
The real story behind the presidential turkey pardon
Hold the eels? A Founding Fathers Thanksgiving meal
Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan were all photographed at turkey press conferences with their guests of honor. It’s not 100 percent known if any of the birds survived their White House tour–without being stuffed, dressed, and served on a platter.
Reagan joked about pardoning a turkey during the days of the Iran-Contra affair, but the bird was already scheduled to live out its life at a zoo.
It was President George H.W. Bush who made the turkey pardon official when he took office in 1989.
Since then, turkeys across the United States have rejoiced, at least one day a year, as the leaders have spared a lucky bird from the Thanksgiving table.
But the turkeys, who are bred to be eaten, have a very short life span. One of two turkeys pardoned by President Barack Obama last year died on Tuesday at Mount Vernon.
The National Turkey Federation, which raises birds for the presidential pardon ceremony , says a pardoned bird will be lucky to live two years after it’s saved by the president.
Part of the confusion over the origin of the turkey pardon came from statements made by President Bill Clinton, who said the pardon as a tradition started with Lincoln and Truman.
It’s true Lincoln did a one-time turkey pardon, but Truman aficionados say there’s little evidence the president spared his birds.
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This article is for your private use, only
________________________________________________________
Click the title for further info
The real story behind the presidential turkey pardon
By NCC Staff
The presidential pardon of the Thanksgiving turkey has become an annual event, but the peace pact between the fowl and the White House is a relatively new thing. And in fact, a few presidents actually ate their guests!
The first president to pardon a turkey was Abraham Lincoln, who instructed the White House to save a bird given to the president. Lincoln’s son had grown fond of the bird (and the president was a big animal lover).
But Lincoln didn’t start a tradition, and neither did President Harry S. Truman, who is often credited as the father of the presidential turkey pardon.
Photos from Truman’s administration show the president happily receiving a turkey as a gift from the Poultry and Egg National Board. President Dwight Eisenhower also was photographed receiving his bird from the turkey lobby.
An article that later appeared in The Washington Post revealed the real reason the men were smiling: They served up their guests on Thanksgiving Day as the main course! In one image fromTime magazine, Eisenhower is grinning widely as he’s carving a very large turkey.
The next president to spare a turkey given to the White House was John F. Kennedy, who decided after receiving a bird on November 19, 1963, that it shouldn’t stay as dinner. The turkey was wearing a sign that said, “Good Eatin’ Mr. President.” JFK spared the bird just three days before he was assassinated in Dallas.
Recent Constitution Daily Stories
America’s first president was apparent grave robbery victim
The real story behind the presidential turkey pardon
Hold the eels? A Founding Fathers Thanksgiving meal
Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan were all photographed at turkey press conferences with their guests of honor. It’s not 100 percent known if any of the birds survived their White House tour–without being stuffed, dressed, and served on a platter.
Reagan joked about pardoning a turkey during the days of the Iran-Contra affair, but the bird was already scheduled to live out its life at a zoo.
It was President George H.W. Bush who made the turkey pardon official when he took office in 1989.
Since then, turkeys across the United States have rejoiced, at least one day a year, as the leaders have spared a lucky bird from the Thanksgiving table.
But the turkeys, who are bred to be eaten, have a very short life span. One of two turkeys pardoned by President Barack Obama last year died on Tuesday at Mount Vernon.
The National Turkey Federation, which raises birds for the presidential pardon ceremony , says a pardoned bird will be lucky to live two years after it’s saved by the president.
Part of the confusion over the origin of the turkey pardon came from statements made by President Bill Clinton, who said the pardon as a tradition started with Lincoln and Truman.
It’s true Lincoln did a one-time turkey pardon, but Truman aficionados say there’s little evidence the president spared his birds.
RELATED STORIES
Thanksgiving: An All-American holiday
Five losing candidates who came closest to becoming a president
A U.S. president's real-life vampire connection
Constitution Check: Could Richard Nixon have been tried successfully for a crime?
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This article is for your private use, only
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Affiliates:
Spiritual / Religious Services using the most modern preaching techniques.
In case you are searching for competent, result-bringing spiritual/religious services, the STAF, Inc. affiliate Christian faith Church is Global Church of God - GCG.
We all need correct guidance for our spirit as we need correct nutrition to feed our physical bodies.
Global Church of God - GCG is the most modern church, a dream for the internet generation.
It is a community church for people of all faiths.
GCG provides guidance in health, wealth & success based on the Biblical success laws - the principles bringing the results in all these life topics.
What also is different in GCG's teaching The Bible is this: for each statement the church gives clear evidence based on the most modern, recent human science - then The Bible text will open up for you, and for all of us, in a new manner.
In addition, GCG uses modern English and guides you to use a Bible translation we all can understand, a translation that explains the facts based on today's English.
Most traditional, older churches, use old-fashioned English that is based on the 1700/1800 English.
We all need today's English to undestand the facts.
In most older churches their members do not fully know and see the real meaning of The Bible because of the old-fashioned language or use of Latin in their services. E.g. , in Italy little more than only a 100 years ago it is totally illegal for any private individual to read the Bible or even own a Bible and especially in a language the people could understand. People were persecuted, tortured, and killed for owning or reading The Bible. "That is what the Devil, the Satan, wants - The Devil wants to ruin our lives", state the GCG in their positive Gospel teaching work.
Global Church of God - GCG has also a Radio Ministry for anyone to listen & learn success for life. The Radio Ministry original recordings are available worldwide on the internet 24/7.
See the church website for further information: gcg1org.weebly.com
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Additional high level services and service providers in tab: more…, there sub tab: about us and there a sub-sub tab: affiliates
______________________________
Spiritual / Religious Services using the most modern preaching techniques.
In case you are searching for competent, result-bringing spiritual/religious services, the STAF, Inc. affiliate Christian faith Church is Global Church of God - GCG.
We all need correct guidance for our spirit as we need correct nutrition to feed our physical bodies.
Global Church of God - GCG is the most modern church, a dream for the internet generation.
It is a community church for people of all faiths.
GCG provides guidance in health, wealth & success based on the Biblical success laws - the principles bringing the results in all these life topics.
What also is different in GCG's teaching The Bible is this: for each statement the church gives clear evidence based on the most modern, recent human science - then The Bible text will open up for you, and for all of us, in a new manner.
In addition, GCG uses modern English and guides you to use a Bible translation we all can understand, a translation that explains the facts based on today's English.
Most traditional, older churches, use old-fashioned English that is based on the 1700/1800 English.
We all need today's English to undestand the facts.
In most older churches their members do not fully know and see the real meaning of The Bible because of the old-fashioned language or use of Latin in their services. E.g. , in Italy little more than only a 100 years ago it is totally illegal for any private individual to read the Bible or even own a Bible and especially in a language the people could understand. People were persecuted, tortured, and killed for owning or reading The Bible. "That is what the Devil, the Satan, wants - The Devil wants to ruin our lives", state the GCG in their positive Gospel teaching work.
Global Church of God - GCG has also a Radio Ministry for anyone to listen & learn success for life. The Radio Ministry original recordings are available worldwide on the internet 24/7.
See the church website for further information: gcg1org.weebly.com
__________________________________
Additional high level services and service providers in tab: more…, there sub tab: about us and there a sub-sub tab: affiliates
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Consulting, seminar, and lecturing services
available for your organization
STAF, Inc.'s specialists are available nationwide and worldwide to give consulting, seminars & lectures (of any length) in all topics
in this website and also in all (1) business & (2) investments (U.S. & global) related topics.
For negotiations contact 212-946-1234.
Also Dr. Christian is available for these services. His resume is in this website at the end of the tab: University & College.
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available for your organization
STAF, Inc.'s specialists are available nationwide and worldwide to give consulting, seminars & lectures (of any length) in all topics
in this website and also in all (1) business & (2) investments (U.S. & global) related topics.
For negotiations contact 212-946-1234.
Also Dr. Christian is available for these services. His resume is in this website at the end of the tab: University & College.
___________________________________________________________
STAF Inc.'s presence in The U.S. Congress
in Washington D.C. is necessary
STAF, Inc.'s CEO-President, Dr. Christian von Christophers, Ph.D., N.D., D.D., is planning, in the next U.S. election, to win a seat in The U.S. Congress or in The U.S. Senate.
He will also be available to establish & lead a new Federal Agency guiding our whole nation in Healthy, Successful Lifestyle & in Correct Nutrition. ("Successful lifestyle" will also include reliable instructions for profitable investment activities provided ("in a new manner") by the leading specialists, as it also will include all other topics necessary to guide every American family to health, wealth, happiness & success.)
Such an Agency does not exist, yet - Dr. Christian will fight for it - every American needs that new Agency - so does every person worldwide.
Dr. Christian will seek an endorsement from The U.S. President at the time he will pronounce his candidacy. Any person who is ready to lead our country as its President will recognize the importance of Dr. Christian' long nationwide & worldwide experience in D.C. & in the U.S. Congress.
When you give your vote to Dr. Christian, you win. He will fight for a better life for you, for your family, and for your State. Dr. Christian is one of the leading professionals nationwide & worldwide in all topics in this extensive STAF, Inc.'s website. His guidance in D.C. in The U.S. Congress is necessary for the U.S. lawmakers to create new, effective federal solutions to lower our high sickness level and to lower our extremely high sickness care costs (commonly called "health care costs" - "sickness care" is a more suitable term for the situation in our nation).
To become a volunteer in Dr. Christian's election campaign or to donate funds, call 212-946-1234 or send an email to: [email protected] - in subject line type: U.S. Congress needs Dr. Christian as the fighter for all American families.
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Also, STAF, Inc. has the new, tested methods to effectively lower the homeless situation our returning veterans are experiencing. STAF, Inc. will also introduce in D.C. the result-bringing new & tested plans to lower the homeless situation among our U.S. civil population.
Dr. Christian is the most qualified professional to provide in D.C. the information in all these topics.
He is the lead author in the new Healthy Lifestyle & Correct Nutritional Program developed by STAF, Inc.
This program covers all areas of successful life (also this extensive STAF, Inc. website covers many of those areas - not all). Anything like this new Healthy Lifestyle & Correct Nutritional Program did never before exist - it took 19 years of international research and testing. Then, to modify this new program for the U.S. needs, took the past 6 years - all totals to 25 years.
In 2013, after the 2012 election is over, Dr. Christian will introduce this new program in the D.C. to The U.S. Congress (The House & The Senate), The U.S. President, and to all related Federal Agencies.
Everyone in the U.S.A. and in any developed nation worldwide can afford to apply this new program. It will save much in nutrition costs for every family.
For the developing world countries and for their population this new STAF, Inc.'s Healthy Lifestyle & Correct Nutritional Program can easily be modified and applied for their use.
In addition, the new program is an 'automatic' weight loss program (nothing else to buy, nothing else to do except to follow the program and its very easy instructions).
Also new solutions are added to motivate every U.S. individual (and everyone worldwide) to accept & use this new program.
When applied nationwide in the U.S., this new program will (1) save hundreds of billions of dollars for the
U.S. government every year, (2) save millions of human lives, and (3) ease human suffering.
The same facts are valid in every country worldwide when they adopt this STAF, Inc.'s new program.
Additional, detailed information in this STAF, Inc. website in this home page and in other tabs. Continuous information is also provided in the radio show DrDrCanYouHelpMe Dr. Christian is hosting - see the link to all show recordings in tab: Radio & TV Shows.
As a listener you can achieve free CEU, College & University Credits (the details in the Radio & TV Shows tab).
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in Washington D.C. is necessary
STAF, Inc.'s CEO-President, Dr. Christian von Christophers, Ph.D., N.D., D.D., is planning, in the next U.S. election, to win a seat in The U.S. Congress or in The U.S. Senate.
He will also be available to establish & lead a new Federal Agency guiding our whole nation in Healthy, Successful Lifestyle & in Correct Nutrition. ("Successful lifestyle" will also include reliable instructions for profitable investment activities provided ("in a new manner") by the leading specialists, as it also will include all other topics necessary to guide every American family to health, wealth, happiness & success.)
Such an Agency does not exist, yet - Dr. Christian will fight for it - every American needs that new Agency - so does every person worldwide.
Dr. Christian will seek an endorsement from The U.S. President at the time he will pronounce his candidacy. Any person who is ready to lead our country as its President will recognize the importance of Dr. Christian' long nationwide & worldwide experience in D.C. & in the U.S. Congress.
When you give your vote to Dr. Christian, you win. He will fight for a better life for you, for your family, and for your State. Dr. Christian is one of the leading professionals nationwide & worldwide in all topics in this extensive STAF, Inc.'s website. His guidance in D.C. in The U.S. Congress is necessary for the U.S. lawmakers to create new, effective federal solutions to lower our high sickness level and to lower our extremely high sickness care costs (commonly called "health care costs" - "sickness care" is a more suitable term for the situation in our nation).
To become a volunteer in Dr. Christian's election campaign or to donate funds, call 212-946-1234 or send an email to: [email protected] - in subject line type: U.S. Congress needs Dr. Christian as the fighter for all American families.
STAF, Inc. has the new, result-bringing solutions to lower the sickness level in our nation.
Also, STAF, Inc. has the new, tested methods to effectively lower the homeless situation our returning veterans are experiencing. STAF, Inc. will also introduce in D.C. the result-bringing new & tested plans to lower the homeless situation among our U.S. civil population.
Dr. Christian is the most qualified professional to provide in D.C. the information in all these topics.
He is the lead author in the new Healthy Lifestyle & Correct Nutritional Program developed by STAF, Inc.
This program covers all areas of successful life (also this extensive STAF, Inc. website covers many of those areas - not all). Anything like this new Healthy Lifestyle & Correct Nutritional Program did never before exist - it took 19 years of international research and testing. Then, to modify this new program for the U.S. needs, took the past 6 years - all totals to 25 years.
In 2013, after the 2012 election is over, Dr. Christian will introduce this new program in the D.C. to The U.S. Congress (The House & The Senate), The U.S. President, and to all related Federal Agencies.
Everyone in the U.S.A. and in any developed nation worldwide can afford to apply this new program. It will save much in nutrition costs for every family.
For the developing world countries and for their population this new STAF, Inc.'s Healthy Lifestyle & Correct Nutritional Program can easily be modified and applied for their use.
In addition, the new program is an 'automatic' weight loss program (nothing else to buy, nothing else to do except to follow the program and its very easy instructions).
Also new solutions are added to motivate every U.S. individual (and everyone worldwide) to accept & use this new program.
When applied nationwide in the U.S., this new program will (1) save hundreds of billions of dollars for the
U.S. government every year, (2) save millions of human lives, and (3) ease human suffering.
The same facts are valid in every country worldwide when they adopt this STAF, Inc.'s new program.
Additional, detailed information in this STAF, Inc. website in this home page and in other tabs. Continuous information is also provided in the radio show DrDrCanYouHelpMe Dr. Christian is hosting - see the link to all show recordings in tab: Radio & TV Shows.
As a listener you can achieve free CEU, College & University Credits (the details in the Radio & TV Shows tab).
____________________
Click green: Cronyism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronyism
Moreover, cronyism describes relationships existing among mutual acquaintances in private organizations where business, business information, and social ...
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Moreover, cronyism describes relationships existing among mutual acquaintances in private organizations where business, business information, and social ...
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NOTICE: Important info for every web visitor
The web provider, weebly.com, is working on this page and on this whole website to find out the reason for the technical malfunctioning. The orderly, original set up for article topics, lines and additional links with the complete texts is not holding. Mostly it seems to be happening in tab: Natural Weight Loss™ & in tab: University & College.
The lines are jumping unevenly, changing the font size and boldness is changing by itself after the website work. All is fine when STAF, Inc.'s editors save & publish the new information. When next time starting to work on the editing and placing new material, the pages may appear badly messed up - it happens after STAF, Inc.'s editors exit the whole website.
H0wever, all information stays in this extensive website and is available in full in every page and for every article.
STAF, Inc. is sorry for the inconvenience - the web provider will repair this technical malfunctioning.
All material in this website is being used in College & University education for every degree level. Despite the "jumping lines & other technical difficulties", you will and every web visitor still will get the high level science information.
Save The American Family - STAF, Inc.,-not-for-profit- __________________________________________
The web provider, weebly.com, is working on this page and on this whole website to find out the reason for the technical malfunctioning. The orderly, original set up for article topics, lines and additional links with the complete texts is not holding. Mostly it seems to be happening in tab: Natural Weight Loss™ & in tab: University & College.
The lines are jumping unevenly, changing the font size and boldness is changing by itself after the website work. All is fine when STAF, Inc.'s editors save & publish the new information. When next time starting to work on the editing and placing new material, the pages may appear badly messed up - it happens after STAF, Inc.'s editors exit the whole website.
H0wever, all information stays in this extensive website and is available in full in every page and for every article.
STAF, Inc. is sorry for the inconvenience - the web provider will repair this technical malfunctioning.
All material in this website is being used in College & University education for every degree level. Despite the "jumping lines & other technical difficulties", you will and every web visitor still will get the high level science information.
Save The American Family - STAF, Inc.,-not-for-profit- __________________________________________
This site is under re-construction. Please be patient - the updated information will be even more beneficial for you and your family.
Meanwhile, take the Color Test - click the BLOG tab at the top bar of this page; BLOG page # 1 (one) has the Color Test to look at some hidden info in your own or in your friends' personality and attitudes.
Have some fun with your family and friend - the Color Test will tell you interesting facts.
Meanwhile, take the Color Test - click the BLOG tab at the top bar of this page; BLOG page # 1 (one) has the Color Test to look at some hidden info in your own or in your friends' personality and attitudes.
Have some fun with your family and friend - the Color Test will tell you interesting facts.