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You've got to stop dividing yourselves. You got to organize.
-H. Rap Brown 1943 Activist
Interview by Clayton Ruley
Editor's Note: Hans Bennett impressed me with his dedication to a cause. The cause is the freedom of Philadelphia's own Mumia Abu-Jamal. Whether you agree with Hans or think Mumia should be free, respect the hustle of this journalist. There is some language some might be offended by. Please excuse this language but the language is important to the Hans description of the case.
GeoClan.com (GC) : Can you give people a brief (maybe be hard) summary of Mumia's case and where it is right now?
Hans Bennett (HB) : Currently, both Mumia and the Philly DA are appealing to the US Supreme Court.
First, Mumia is appealing for a new guilt-phase trial
On March 27, 2008 the US Third Circuit Court's three-judge panel of Thomas Ambro, Anthony Scirica, and Robert Cowen ruled against three different appeal issues, refusing to grant either a new guilt-phase trial or a preliminary hearing that could have led to a new guilt-phase trial for Mumia. However, on the issue of racist jury selection, also known as the Batson claim, the three judge panel of split 2-1, with Ambro dissenting.
"Welcome to Philadelphia?"--Demonstration for Mumia, Philadelphia, Aug. 17, 2001.
The 1986 Batson v. Kentucky ruling established the right to a new trial if jurors were excluded on the basis of race. At the 1982 trial Prosecutor McGill used 10-11 of his 15 peremptory strikes to remove otherwise acceptable black jurors, yet the court ruled that there was not even the appearance of discrimination. In his dissenting opinion, Ambro wrote that the denial of a preliminary Batson hearing "goes against the grain of our prior actions…I see no reason why we should not afford Abu-Jamal the courtesy of our precedents."
Mumia will be filing an appeal of this ruling with the US Supreme Court by the deadline of Dec. 19.
Second, The DA is appealing to execute without a new sentencing-phase trial.
On March 27, the three-judge panel unanimously affirmed Federal District Court Judge William Yohn's 2001 decision "overturning" the death sentence. Citing the 1988 Mills v. Maryland precedent, Yohn had ruled that sentencing forms used by jurors and Judge Sabo's instructions to the jury were potentially confusing, and jurors could have mistakenly believed that they had to unanimously agree on any mitigating circumstances in order to consider them as weighing against a death sentence.
According to this ruling, if the DA wants to re-instate the death sentence, the DA must call for a new penalty-phase jury trial where new evidence of Mumia's innocence can be presented. However, the jury can only choose between a sentence of life in prison without parole or a death sentence.
The DA is appealing this ruling to the US Supreme Court, so that if the court rules in their favor, Mumia can then be executed without benefit of the new sentencing trial. However, if the court upholds the 2001 and 2008 rulings, then the DA will either request a new sentencing trial or accept life in prison without the chance of parole.
Notably, at the DA's request, during the post-2001 appeals, Mumia has never left his death row cell or been given general population "privileges" such as contact visits with family.
GC: What got you interested in Mumia's case and how long have you been active in the struggle?
HB: In the summer of 1995, after I returned home to the SF Bay Area from my first year in college on the east coast, there were major protests supporting Mumia during his August PCRA hearing that summer. I had been researching the Black Liberation movement of the 1960's (most notably Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party, and Martin Luther King's latter years when he spoke out against capitalism and the Vietnam War), and in Mumia's case I saw all of these important issues of US racism and injustice manifested in this case, which I immediately began to research.
I soon became 100% certain that he needed a new trial, and that he was being discriminated against because of his radical politics, most notably as a former Panther and a public supporter of the MOVE organization. As I read more, I have also come to believe that he did not shoot Officer Faulkner, even in self-defense.
There is major support in the SF area, including his honorary citizenship in SF, and Santa Cruz, where I also lived and went to college at UC-Santa Cruz, where I transferred to after a few years on the east coast. The movement supporting him was particularly strong at UC-Santa Cruz, where he was an honorary speaker at several graduation ceremonies. As the courts continued to deny him a new trial, I only became more outraged by the blatant injustice. At the 1999 anti-WTO protest in Seattle and the DNC protest in Los Angeles in 2000, I started taking photos, combining my dual interests of
photography and activism. When I finally graduated from UC-Santa Cruz in 2001 with a BA in American Studies, I moved to Philadelphia to photo-document the movement to free Mumia and all political prisoners.
Pam Africa, coordinator of The International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, leads a protest march for Mumia, with Philadelphia City Hall in the background, 4th of July, 2002.
Upon arrival in Philly, I began taking photos for various activist-oriented publications and websites including AWOL Magazine, The Defenestrator, and The Philadelphia Independent Media Center. In 2006, I began to write even more about the case, and in 2007 I co-founded (with German author Michael Schiffmann) the media-activist group "Journalists for Mumia" with the purpose of (1) Challenging the long history of corporate media bias against Mumia, (2) Promoting the work of other independent journalists covering the case, and (3) Creating professional-quality media to be used as a resource for Mumia's support movement. We started the Abu-Jamal-News.com website and began publishing our print newspaper.
GC: What do you think Mumia has on his side for advocacy towards his case?
HB: The facts. If people can see past the corporate media bias, both an unfair trial and a frame-up is undeniable.
GC: What are some of the negatives towards it?
HB: The opposition is very powerful and they play dirty. Around the world, but particularly in Philadelphia, any prominent figure expressing support for a new trial will be viciously attacked as supporting the "killing of police officers". Most recently you can see the attack on Chaka Fattah when he was running for mayor. In 2005 when Mayor John Street's office gave mini-liberty bells to a French delegation supporting Mumia, the FOP and others went ballistic! Even though at that time he did NOT express support for a new trial, he became the "black mayor who went too far," so to speak. The list goes on and on, including the intimidation of France for naming a street after him, and making him an honorary citizen of Paris. This actually included filing CRIMINAL CHARGES against the French supporters!
Perhaps worst of all is the media bias, wherein supporters of a new trial are treated with derision, and the evidence supporting Mumia is not fairly presented. Most recently, the mainstream media has almost uniformly ignored the newly discovered crime scene photos (the exception being NBC's Today Show), the new book The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Judge Ambro's dissent supporting Mumia's Batson claim.
So, this really is a "David v. Goliath" battle against some very powerful people, including Governor Ed Rendell, who was the DA in 1982 at the time of Mumia's trial. Simply to protect himself, he will obviously do everything he can to suppress evidence of the unfair trial and frame-up.
GC: Do you think race is the major factor in this case? If not and even if so what are other factors?
HB: If I had to cite one major factor, I would say Racism, Yes. That said, it is not all about racism. There's police brutality and corruption. Then there's classism and the fundamental unfairness of the criminal justice system for poor people that do not have the resources for an adequate defense. There is also the issue of political repression, and the ugly legacy of the FBI's COINTELPRO war against the Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement, Brown Berets, Young Lords (all militant organizations resisting institutionalized white supremacy), and the rest of the US left.
However, racism is inherently tied into those other issues, so let's look at that more. Regarding those who advocate Mumia's execution and claim he had a fair trial, they show a disturbing lack of concern about the undeniable problems of racism (and all documented police/DA/judicial misconduct) at so many levels. At the most fundamental level, the "Fry Mumia" campaign's lack of concern is racist. The campaign is fundamentally appealing to the same racist lynch mob mentality that has long infected the US. Calling this a "legal lynching" is no exaggeration.
There was racism from the very beginning. As I'm sure readers in Philadelphia know, Police Commissioner-turned-Mayor Frank Rizzo was an open racist and public advocate of police brutality. As a co-founder and Lieutenant of Information of the Philadelphia BPP, Mumia was a public critic of Rizzo's police force, and later as a prominent radio journalist, he became well known by the police. He had been under Philly police and FBI surveillance since his Panther days, and he was certainly unpopular in the eyes of those watching him. Rizzo left office in 1980 after his failed campaign urging people to "Vote White," but his legacy was there on the morning of Dec. 9. 1981, when Police Officer Daniel Faulkner pulled over Mumia's brother Billy Cook at the intersection of 13th and Locust.
UC-Santa Cruz professor and former political prisoner Angela Y. Davis is arrested at a civil disobedience for Mumia, at the federal court house in San Francisco, 2000.
In the new British documentary In Prison My Whole Life, which premieres this week on Sundance TV, Cook says that after pulling him over, Faulkner approached him, called him a "nigger" and began to beat his head bloody with the police flashlight. In the movie, Cook shows the scar still on his head today from the beating. The beating of Cook is not in dispute, but the police and DA claimed Faulkner responded to Cook punching him first, which Cook vehemently denies in this new interview.
It was at this point that Mumia approached the scene. What happened next is disputed, but it is not disputed that afterwards Mumia was found on the ground, after a near fatal gunshot in his chest. Faulkner was shot in the back and in the forehead, which killed him.
When police arrived, before Mumia was given a fair trial, they apparently decided he was "guilty" and viciously beat him at the scene—arguably with the intent to kill. Police claim the first kick to the face was in response to Mumia allegedly reaching for his gun, and then that they "accidentally" rammed his head into a pole and dropped him from several feet in the air. Once in the police wagon, Mumia says he was repeatedly hit in the head and called a "nigger" and a "black motherfucker" by the police.
It took over a half hour before Mumia was finally taken to the hospital, where according to witnesses, he was again beaten by a mob of angry cops. This demonstrates well how racism, police brutality, and the denial of a fair trial worked together from the beginning.
Then, you have the so-called "trial." In 2001, court stenographer Terri Mauer-Carter came forward and stated in an affidavit that at the beginning of the trial, she heard presiding judge Albert Sabo say outside the courtroom that he was going to help the prosecution "Fry the Nigger". Notably, the courts have denied the attempt to enter this in as new evidence. Judge Patricia Dembe argued that even if Maurer-Carter is correct about Sabo's stated intent to use his position as Judge to throw the trial and help the prosecution "fry the nigger," it doesn't matter. According to Dembe, since it "was a jury trial, as long as the presiding Judge's rulings were legally correct, claims as to what might have motivated or animated those rulings are not relevant."
Another one of the most racist aspects of the trial was the way in which the prosecutor used 10-11 of his 15 peremptory challenges to strike otherwise acceptable black jurors. As I explained earlier, this is "Batson" issue is central in Mumia's appeal to the US Supreme Court, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund has written a brief in support of Mumia's claim on this issue.
Racism also plays a key role among those supporting his execution. Recently, in April, 2007, in the weeks leading up to the April 24 demonstration supporting Mumia, Sgt. Delacey Davis of "Black Cops Against Police Brutality" (who was scheduled to appear at the April 24 protest) received several death threats from callers identifying themselves as police. Also, venues in NYC and Philadelphia that month, both caved into threats from police, and did not host the events. Comments posted by police officers on the infamous NYPD "RANT" blog website detailed this intimidation campaign. One post stated, "This fucker should be dead, we should ruin this event and make life miserable for every fucking Hollywood liberal scum liker that shows up, fry Mumia."
After the NYC event was forced to relocate, an April 15 thread on the "RANT" site was titled "NY Mumia Hip Hop Benefit Rally Gets Bitch Slapped." One post on this thread used imagery that explicitly drew the connection to the brutal history of U.S. lynchings, where Black victims of racist white mobs were literally burned alive, stating that "I'm waiting for Mumia to be well done on the rotisserie." Yet another post used the racist "Sambo" dialect attributed to African Americans for so many years in mainstream culture: "OH SNAP!!! da venue be changed? i hopez publik transpotation be making itz way ova dere fo me!"
After all this racist terrorism from the cops, Philadelphia Inquirer writer Monica Yant-Kinney wrote a disgusting article actually praising this campaign of intimidation.
More recently, a coalition of racist neo-Nazi groups showed up at the April 19, 2008 protest for Mumia. Some were holding signs that said "Fry Mumia and His Supporters." Another one of their signs was a tamed-down version of a poster that the neo-Nazi Keystone State Skinheads (KSS) have been wheat-pasting around the city that says "Guns Don't Kill People, Dangerous Minorities Do". On their website, the KSS proudly displays a photo of KSS member Keith Carney getting his copy of the book Murdered By Mumia signed by Maureen Faulkner, at Geno's "Speak English" Steaks, a longtime stronghold of those who want Mumia dead. (see photos here)
Regarding, racism, I could go on and on.
GC: Why do you think the Philadelphia Police Department and other powers are against Mumia and his case?
HB: Just as the movement supporting Mumia sees his case embodying so many important issues and problems in the US, I think that the FOP-led campaign against Mumia also sees this case encompassing many of their issues, including the right of police to maintain a monopoly of force. Both the Panthers and MOVE were advocates of self-defense against police brutality, which in the eyes of the FOP, is the ultimate offense. So, I think Mumia is being punished for his politics.
But also, the longer the railroading of Mumia continues, the more incentive there is to continue the cover-up. If the unfair trial and frame-up are exposed, all of these fanatics will be exposed as liars and criminals, as in the case of former-DA Ed Rendell, prosecutor Joseph McGill, and the many cops who played a role in the frame-up.
GC: What don't people ignorant to the case and Mumia, in particular, know?
HB: Most people believe the lie that the case against Mumia was "open and shut" and that he got a fair trial. Whole books have been written that challenge this assertion, but in the interest of space, I will cite a few key points that challenge the DA's case, which was essentially based on ballistics, eyewitness testimony, and an alleged "hospital confession".
Many believe that the bullet in Faulkner was matched to Mumia's gun. They don't know that officially police did not perform routine "smell" and "wipe" tests to see if Mumia had actually shot his legally registered .38 caliber Charter Arms revolver, the absence of which Amnesty International found "deeply troubling." Most likely, police did perform the tests, but hid this when the results did not implicate Mumia.
Even if we accept the DA's assertions about ballistics and look past many other contradictions, at the very best, police expert Anthony Paul testified in 1982 that the bullet could only be tied to "multiples of millions" of guns, including those not made by Charter Arms.
The DA's official version of events has been thoroughly discredited. The DA asserted that (1) Mumia approached from across the street and shot Faulkner in the back (2) As Faulkner fell in response, he turned around and shot Mumia in the chest (3) Mumia then shot down at Faulkner at close range and missed 2-3 times before the fatal shot in his forehead.
In contradiction, Mumia was shot in the chest at a downward trajectory, so it would have been impossible for Faulkner have shot him from below. Much more likely, Mumia was shot on approach while slightly bent forward from running, with Faulkner standing above him on the curb. This supports the contention that Faulkner fired the first shot, almost killing Mumia.
Another important observation has recently emerged with the recently discovered crime scene photos, and is emphasized by Michael Schifffmann in the new film In Prison My Whole Life. On the sidewalk, where Faulkner was found, there are no large bullet divots, or destroyed chunks of cement, which should be visible in the pavement if the prosecution scenario was accurate, according to which Abu-Jamal shot down at Faulkner - and allegedly missed several times - while Faulkner was on his back. Schiffmann writes: "It is thus no question any more whether the scenario presented by the prosecution at Abu-Jamal's trial is true. It is clearly not, because it is physically and ballistically impossible." The validity of this observation has also been strongly supported by Philadelphia journalists Dave Lindorff and Linn Washington Jr.
I personally agree with authors J. Patrick O'Connor and Michael Schiffmann that this is the most likely scenario: Faulkner first shot Mumia, and Faulkner was then shot in response by Kenneth Freeman (Cook's business partner and a passenger in his car) in the back, and then killed with the gunshot to his head. Freeman then ran away before police arrived. Likely murdered by police in an act of vengance, Freeman was found dead in a Northeast lot (reportedly naked, gagged, hand-cuffed, and with a drug needle in his arm) the day after the infamous May 13, 1985 police bombing of MOVE.
"Eyewitness" Testimony
Regarding the DA's two most important "witnesses" Amnesty International has documented that Cynthia White (a prostitute facing multiple charges) and Robert Chobert (an arsonist on probation, driving his cab without a license, which he had lost twice due to DWI) were extremely vulnerable to police coercion, and "altered their descriptions of what they saw, in ways that supported the prosecution's version of events." Suspiciously, no official eyewitness reported seeing White at the scene, and White is the only "witness" to report seeing Chobert's taxi parked behind Officer Faulkner's police car, where he claimed to have observed the shooting!
Regarding White, in her original statement to the police she said Mumia fired "four or five shots" at Faulkner, from as far away as 10-yards. Later, she changed her statement to say that Faulkner was actually shot at close range. Both Veronica Jones (in 1996) and another ex-prostitute, Pamela Jenkins (in 1997) testified that she was blackmailed into her testimony by the police, who had the power to pursue or drop prostitution charges against her, and in January 2002, yet another witness, Yvette Williams, testified that White's trial testimony against Mumia was the result of her fearing for her life because of threats by the police.
When Veronica Jones testified in 1982, she began to say that police "were trying to get me to say something that the other girl [Cynthia White] said. I couldn't do that." Jones reported that police offered to let her and White "work the area if we tell them." Calling her testimony "absolutely irrelevant," the DA moved to block the line of questioning and strike the previous statements. Because Sabo happily complied, the jury was ordered to disregard Jones' statement regarding White and a police offer of freedom to "work the area" in return for testimony that Mumia shot Faulkner.
Regarding Chobert, he first told police that the shooter ran away 30-35 feet, but at trial he changed this to 10 feet to more closely support the undisputed fact that Mumia was found on the ground just a few feet from Faulkner. Now, the newly discovered Polakoff crime scene photos show that the space behind Faulkner's car, where Chobert claimed he was parked when he allegedly viewed the altercation, is totally empty. If he was not parked where he said he was, one must ask whether he saw anything at all.
Now, get this! At prosecutor McGill's request, Judge Sabo blocked the jury from knowing that Chobert was on probation. Sabo justified this by ruling that it was not crimen falsi, ie. a crime of deception. Subsequently the jury never heard about this, or that Chobert was illegally driving on a suspended license. This probation violation could have given him up to 30 years in prison, so he was extremely vulnerable to pressure from the police.
The Alleged Hospital Confession
The alleged "hospital confession," where Abu-Jamal reportedly declared, "I shot the motherfucker and I hope the motherfucker dies," was first officially reported to police over two months later, by hospital guards Priscilla Durham and James LeGrand (Feb. 9, 1982), P.O. Gary Wakshul (Feb.11), P.O. Gary Bell (Feb.25), and P.O. Thomas M. Bray (March 1). Only 2 of these five witnesses were called by the DA: Gary Bell (Faulkner's partner and "best friend") and Priscilla Durham.
At Mumia's trial, Gary Bell testified that the 2 month lapse resulted from him being so upset over the death of Faulkner. Priscilla Durham testified, and added for the first time, that she had reported the confession to her supervisor the next day. Neither her supervisor, nor the alleged handwritten statement were presented in court. The DA sent an officer to the hospital, returning with a suspicious typed version. Sabo accepted the unsigned paper despite both Durham's disavowal, and the defense's protest that authorship and authenticity were unproven.
Gary Wakshul was not a prosecution witness, and on the final day of testimony in 1982, Abu-Jamal's lawyer discovered Wakshul's statement from Dec. 9 (Abu-Jamal's supporters cite this late discovery as one of many examples of incompetent representation--to which defense attorney Anthony Jackson testified about at the 1995 PCRA hearings). After riding with Abu-Jamal to the hospital and guarding him until his treatment, Wakshul reported: "the negro male made no comment." When the defense immediately sought to call Wakshul as a witness, the DA reported that he was on vacation. On grounds that it was too late in the trial, Sabo denied the defense request to locate him for testimony. Subsequently, the jury never heard from Wakshul or about his written report. When an outraged Abu-Jamal protested, Sabo cruelly declared: "You and your attorney goofed." TALK ABOUT AN UNFAIR TRIAL!
As Amnesty International concluded: "The likelihood of two police officers and a security guard forgetting or neglecting to report the confession of a suspect in the killing of another police officer for more than two months strains credulity."
Why do you think people have gravitated to this person and case on a local, national and international scale?
People are outraged because of the obviously unfair trial, and the numerous unfair rulings over the years where courts have reversed precedent in order to deny him a new trial. The overt racism and intimidation of the FOP campaign to kill him is very disturbing to many people.
Long known as the "voice of the voiceless," many see Mumia as a hero, because of his pre-arrest and post-conviction activism and journalism. While under the torturous, soul-crushing environment of death row, he has stayed strong and kept his humanity. He really is a beautiful person, and tough as nails to survive death row as he has.
His journalism never focuses on his own case, but rather on all the other injustices plaguing the world. Because his case receives more attention than others, he consciously uses this attention to spotlight others' plight.
GC: What can people do to support Mumia's cause?
HB: The International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal is the organization spearheaded by Pam Africa of the MOVE Organization, and works directly with Mumia. Check out their website, FreeMumia.com for the latest updates on the different campaigns going on. I also recommend the Educators for Mumia site. PrisonRadio records Mumia's radio-essays and has a complete archive.
Because the corporate media isn't going to help, we all need to "become the media" and spread the word in every venue we can think of. Readers should encourage websites, print publications, and radio stations to feature his essays, as well as jurnalists and activists that support a new trial for him. At the minimum, we need to ensure that media accurately presents Mumia's side next to that of the DA and FOP.
GC: Give the people some places they can go for information on the case?
HB: At our website, Abu-Jamal-News.com, we feature a wide variety of different journalistic projects, including several of my own, like the DVD video just released last week titled "Fighting For Mumia's Freedom: a report from Philadelphia," which is currently featured at our You Tube page.
To start with writing, a few shorter pieces are noteworthy. I recommend the Amnesty International report from 2000, where AI unequivocally calls for a new trial. Also, in 1995, after covering the PCRA hearings, conservative lawyer/journalist Stuart Taylor wrote an article called "Guilty and Framed." While I do not agree with Taylor's argument that Mumia is "probably guilty," he does call for a new trial (with the acknowledgement that because all of the police/DA/judicial misconduct has sabotaged the case against Mumia, a new trial will almost certainly free him) and provides honest and thorough coverage of the massive evidence of a frame-up that emerged during the PCRA hearings. Then, in his follow-up article on testimony from Veronica Jones, he takes a stronger stance that Mumia could be innocent.
There have been several excellent books written. First, there's the 2001 biography of Mumia, written by Terry Bisson, titled On a Move, which provides an excellent story of Mumia's life before his arrest, but does not go into the facts of the case.
In 2003, Philadelphia journalist Dave Lindorff wrote KillingTime, which is an independent investigation of the case. Lindorff provides an excellent analysis of the unfair trial and the later fraudulent rejections of Mumia's appeals for a new trial, but he is somewhat ambivalent regarding Mumia's actual innocence.
In contrast, the two more recent books go much further in their well-grounded arguments for Mumia's actual innocence, and both conclude (for somewhat different reasons) that the actual shooter of Faulkner was Kenneth Freeman. The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal, by J. Patrick O'Connor was published this May, but has yet to be even acknowledged by Philly's mainstream media (talk about a corporate media blackout!). Michael Schiffmann's new book Race Against Death was published in German in late 2006, but does not have a US publisher yet. An expansion of Schiffmann's PhD dissertation at The University of Heidelberg, Race presents a powerful new ballistics analysis alongside press photographer Pedro Polakoff's crime scene photos (never seen by the 1982 jury) that were discovered by Schiffmann just months before his book was released.
There have also been many excellent videos made. Most well known is the 1996 HBO special, Mumia Abu-Jamal: Case For Reasonable Doubt, but there are several other videos from the 90s which can be viewed online: Justice Denied, Behind These Walls, and From Death Row: Mumia Abu-Jamal.
The 2001 video Framing an Execution, narrated by Danny Glover, provides a harsh critique of the 1999 show about Mumia by ABC's 20/20, and the overall mainstream media bias towards Mumia.
Now, we have the new British film In Prison My Whole Life, which just premiered this week on the Sundance Channel, after an impressive tour at many of the world's most prestigious film festivals. Endorsed by Amnesty International, "In Prison" features the first video interview ever with Billy Cook, as well as the newly discovered crime scene photos alongside an interview with press photographer Pedro Polakoff and German author Michael Schiffmann. I just watched it myself for the first time, and it is highly recommended.
Fred Hampton Jr. speaks at Philadelphia demonstration for Mumia, Feb. 11, 2005
GC: What do you think of Change (thinking of GeoClan.com's slogan of Uploading Change)?
HB: Geoclan.com's work is a great example of using alternative media to build true community and challenge the injustices that the corporate media won't. We absolutely need to change the world and challenge the root causes of so much unnecessary suffering, not just because it's morally right, but also for the survival of the planet: environmental destruction and the threat of nuclear annihilation are a serious threat! We can learn a lot from Martin Luther King's last year when he was viciously attacked by President Johnson and civil rights groups like the NAACP and Urban League. King accurately called the US "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world", and proclaimed that US racism could never be abolished until both capitalism and militarism were also destroyed. I'd say this story of King's revolutionary politics, and his former allies' betrayal of him, is easily the "most censored story" of our generation! This year's interview of Rev. Jeremiah Wright by Bill Moyers, was the very first time I have ever heard King's anti-capitalism mentioned on TV.
To create fundamental change, it is important that activists use every tool available, and I think the internet's potential for contributing to democracy, justice, and the de-centralization of power, is just beginning to be realized. As expected, the corporate world is already trying to squash the revolutionary potential, and we need to fight that "tooth and nail".
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Syrian bloodshed spills across border into Lebanon
The uprising in Syria fueled intense clashes in neighbouring Lebanon for a third day Monday, with gunmen firing assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades as sectarian tensions spilled across the border.
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TRIPOLI, LEBANON—The uprising in Syria fueled intense clashes in neighbouring Lebanon for a third day Monday, with gunmen firing assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades as sectarian tensions spilled across the border.
At least four people have been killed in Lebanon's second-largest city, Tripoli, since the gun battles erupted late Saturday. Lebanon and Syria share a complex web of political and sectarian ties and rivalries, which are easily enflamed.
The revolt in Syria began 14 months ago, and there are fears the unrest could lead to a regional conflagration that could draw in neighbouring countries. The UN estimates the conflict has killed more than 9,000 people since March 2011.
Syria is overwhelmingly Sunni, but the country's President Bashar Assad and the ruling elite belong to the minority Alawite sect. The uprising has exacerbated Sunni-Alawite tensions in Lebanon, as well, sparking the clashes in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.
The clashes began late Saturday after authorities detained Lebanese national Shadi Mawlawi, an outspoken critic of Assad. Military prosecutor Saqr Saqr charged Mawlawi on Monday and five others, including a Qatari, a Palestinian and a Jordanian with belonging to an armed group and carrying out armed acts inside and outside Lebanon, judicial officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the media.
The arrests apparently enraged the Sunni population supporting the uprising, and clashes soon erupted between Sunni fighters and Alawites who support Assad.
Tripoli's Bab al-Tabbani neighbourhood is overwhelmingly Sunni and posters supporting the Syrian opposition hang on walls, and pictures of a local activist shot by a sniper in similar clashes in February read "Greetings to the free martyrs of Syria" and bear the Syrian revolutionary flag.
The fighters are clear about the root of the conflict that has them shooting at their neighbours.
"Syria. It wants it this way. It wants to start a battle here so it can say, look, even in Lebanon the Sunnis are killing the Alawites," said Mustafa Nashar, 35, whose family lives in an apartment overlooking Syria Street, which cuts through the neighbourhood.
Groups of men, many of them carrying assault rifles and wearing military-style vests ducked Monday through trash-strewn alleys. The residents who have remained in the neighbourhood take cues from fighters about when to sprint across alleys to evade the snipers up the hill.
A car with children crouching in the back sped past one alley, a bullet pinging the pavement right behind it.
The Lebanese army set up a small position a few hundred metres away from the fighting, but there was no sign of soldiers or police in the immediate area.
Resident fighter Mohammed Jaber, 49, said such local fighting in Tripoli has been going on for decades and that the Syria unrest set them off again.
"The old has become new," he said. "Once the Syrian revolution started we supported all efforts to get rid of the regime."
Syria's uprising started in March 2011 with protests calling for political reform, but a relentless government crackdown led many in the opposition to take up arms. Some soldiers also have switched sides and joined forces with the rebels.
World powers have backed the peace plan for Syria, which was put forward by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, but the bloodshed has not stopped. More than 100 UN observers have been deployed in Syria to oversee the truce between the government and armed rebels.
On Monday, Syrian troops shelled the rebel-held town of Rastan, sparking intense clashes that sent bloodied victims flooding into hospitals and clinics, activists said.
The violence in the restive central Homs province and elsewhere around Syria is eroding Annan's peace plan that many see as the last hope to calm the crisis.
An amateur video showed a young girl who apparently suffered shrapnel wounds in her thigh undergoing treatment in a makeshift Rastan hospital while screaming in pain. Asked where her mother was, the girl cries: "She died!" Another video showed four dead men half their bodies covered in a green sheet.
Rastan, just north of Homs, has been under rebel control since January. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the activist network called the Local Coordination Committees said the latest shelling of Rastan started on Sunday.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said the rebels were able to destroy several army vehicles during the clashes and kill soldiers. The accounts could not be independently confirmed.
The attack on Rastan came after Syrian forces killed at least five people when they raided a Sunni farming village in Hama province, torching homes and looting shops in what appeared to be a sign of worsening relations among the country's religious groups.
Also Monday, the Observatory and the LCC said government troops stormed the Damascus suburb of Qaboun where they conducted raids and deployed snipers on roofs of buildings.
In Brussels, The European Union imposed visa bans and asset freezes against three people associated with Assad's government. The measure brings to 128 the number of Assad's supporters targeted by the bloc.
In Damascus, state-run TV said the results of last week's parliamentary elections will be made public Tuesday. The government has praised the vote as a milestone in promised political reforms, but the opposition boycotted the polls and said they were designed to strengthen Assad's grip on power.
Bassem Mroue reported from Beirut.
Top News
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Functional evaluation of esophageal substitutes. | |
MedLine Citation:
PMID: 8940797 Owner: NLM Status: MEDLINE |
BACKGROUND: The function of esophageal Substitutes is not comparable to the normal esophagus. METHODS: To clarify the difference between esophageal substitutes and the normal esophagus, radionuclide scintigraphy and clinical assessment were used as study methods. The study was conducted in groups of substernal colon (n = 9), substernal ileocolon (n = 6), posterior mediastinal colon (n = 6) and posterior mediastinal gastric tube (n = 14). The control group consisted of normal volunteers (n = 8). RESULTS: Patients with substernal ileocolon did not experience nocturnal regurgitation, which occurred often in other groups. All esophageal substitutes had a decreased clearance ability compared to the normal esophagus. Among these substitutes, the posterior mediastinal gastric tube had the shortest swallowing time, while the substernal ileocolon had the longest. The substernal colon had a significantly prolonged transit time. Among these study groups, neither differences of clearance ability nor those of alimentary reflux reached statistical significance. CONCLUSIONS: From the view point of food transit, it is suggested that a posterior mediastinal gastric tube or posterior mediastinal colon is the first choice of esophageal substitute. |
M H Wu; N T Chiu; M Y Lin; Y L Tseng |
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Publication Detail:
Type: Journal Article |
Journal Detail:
Title: Zhonghua yi xue za zhi = Chinese medical journal; Free China ed Volume: 58 ISSN: 0578-1337 ISO Abbreviation: Zhonghua Yi Xue Za Zhi (Taipei) Publication Date: 1996 Sep |
Date Detail:
Created Date: 1997-01-02 Completed Date: 1997-01-02 Revised Date: 2004-11-17 |
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID: 0005327 Medline TA: Zhonghua Yi Xue Za Zhi (Taipei) Country: TAIWAN |
Other Details:
Languages: eng Pagination: 223-9 Citation Subset: IM |
Department of Surgery, National Cheng-Kung University Hospital, Tainan, Taiwan, R.O.C. |
Export Citation:
APA/MLA Format Download EndNote Download BibTex |
MeSH Terms | |
Adult Aged Esophagoplasty* Esophagus / physiopathology*, surgery* Female Humans Male Middle Aged |
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Percy Dearmer
Percival "Percy" Dearmer (27 February 1867 – 29 May 1936) was an English priest and liturgist best known as the author of The Parson's Handbook, a liturgical manual for Anglican clergy. A lifelong socialist, he was an early advocate of the public ministry of women (but not their ordination to the priesthood) and concerned with social justice. Dearmer also had a strong influence on the music of the church and, with Ralph Vaughan Williams and Martin Shaw, is credited with the revival and spread of traditional and medieval English musical forms.
Education and ordination[edit]
Born in Kilburn, Middlesex, to an artistic family—his father, Thomas Dearmer, was an artist and drawing instructor. Dearmer attended Streatham School and Westminster School (1880 – 1881), before going to a boarding school in Switzerland. From 1886 to 1889 he studied modern history at Christ Church, Oxford, receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1890.
Dearmer was ordained to the diaconate in 1891 and to the priesthood in 1892 at Rochester Cathedral. On 26 May of that year, he married 19 year old Jessie Mabel Prichard White (1872 – 1915), the daughter of Surgeon-Major William White. She was a writer (known as Mabel Dearmer) of novels and plays. She died in 1915 while serving with an ambulance unit in Serbia during World War I. They had two sons, both of whom served in World War I. The elder, Geoffrey, lived to the age of 103, one of the oldest surviving war poets. The younger, Christopher, died in 1915 of wounds received in battle.
The Parson's Handbook and incumbent at St Mary's[edit]
Dearmer's liturgical leanings were the product of a late Victorian debate among advocates of Ritualism in the Church of England. Although theoretically in agreement about a return to more Catholic forms of worship, high church clergy argued over whether these forms should be appropriated from post-Tridentine Roman Catholic practices or revived from the traditions of a pre-Reformation "English Use" rite. Dearmer's views fell very much on the side of the latter.
Active in the burgeoning Alcuin Club, Dearmer became the spokesman for a movement with the publication his most influential work, The Parson's Handbook. In this book his intention was to establish sound Anglo-Catholic liturgical practices in the native English tradition which were also in full accord with the rites and rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer and the canons that govern its use and, therefore, safe from attack by Evangelicals who opposed such practices. Such adherence to the letter was considered necessary in an environment in which conservatives such as John Kensit had been leading demonstrations, interruptions of services and legal battles against practices of Ritualism and sacerdotalism, both of which they saw as "popery".
The Parson's Handbook is concerned with general principles of ritual and ceremonial, but the emphasis is squarely on the side of art and beauty in worship. Dearmer states in the introduction that his goal is to help in "remedying the lamentable confusion, lawlessness, and vulgarity which are conspicuous in the Church at this time". What follows is an exhaustive delineation, sparing no detail, of the young priest's ideas on how liturgy can be conducted in a proper Catholic and English manner.
In 1901, after serving four curacies, Dearmer was appointed the third vicar of London church St Mary-the-Virgin, Primrose Hill, where he remained until 1915. He used the church as a sort of practical laboratory for the principles he had outlined, revising the book several times during his tenure.
In 1912 Dearmer was instrumental in founding the Warham Guild, a sort of practical arm of the Alcuin Club and Parson's Handbook movement, to carry out "the making of all the 'Ornaments of the Church and of the Ministers thereof' according to the standard of the Ornaments Rubric, and under fair conditions of labour".[citation needed] It is an indication of the founders' outlook, emphasis and commitment to the English Use that it was named for the last Archbishop of Canterbury before the break with Rome. Dearmer served as lifelong head of the Warham Guild's advisory committee.
Working with renowned composer Ralph Vaughan Williams and as musical editor, Dearmer published The English Hymnal in 1906. He again worked with Vaughan Williams and Martin Shaw to produce Songs of Praise (1926) and the Oxford Book of Carols (1928). These hymnals have been credited with reintroducing many elements of traditional and medieval English music into the Church of England, as well as carrying that influence well beyond the church.
In 1931 an enlarged edition of Songs of Praise was published. It is notable for the first appearance of the song "Morning Has Broken", commissioned from noted children's author Eleanor Farjeon. The song, later popularised by Cat Stevens, was written by Farjeon to be sung with the traditional Gaelic tune Bunessan. Songs of Praise also contained Dearmer's version of "A Great and Mighty Wonder" which mixed John Mason Neale's Greek translation and a translation of the German Es ist ein Ros entsprungen from which the music to the hymn had come in 1906.[1]
Later years[edit]
For the fifteen years following his tenure as vicar at St Mary's, Dearmer served in no official ecclesiastical posts, preferring instead to focus on his writing, volunteerism and affecting social change. During World War I he served as a chaplain to the British Red Cross ambulance unit in Serbia, where his wife died of enteric fever in 1915. In 1916 he worked with the Young Men's Christian Association in France and, in 1916 and 1917, with the Mission of Help in India. Dearmer married his second wife, Nancy Knowles, on 19 August 1916. They had two daughters and a son, Antony, who died in RAF service in 1943.
Politically, Dearmer was an avowed socialist, serving as secretary of the Christian Social Union from 1891 to 1912. He underscored these values by including a "Litany of Labour" in his 1930 manual for communicants, The Sanctuary. After being appointed a canon of Westminster Abbey in 1931 he ran a canteen for the unemployed out of it.
In addition to his writings, volunteer efforts and work with the church, Dearmer served as professor of ecclesiastical art at King's College London from 1919 until his sudden death of coronary thrombosis on 29 May 1936, aged sixty-nine. His ashes are interred in the Great Cloister at Westminster Abbey.
Works written or edited by Dearmer[edit]
Wikisource has original works written by or about: Percy Dearmer |
- Christian Socialism and Practical Christianity. London: The Clarion, Ltd., 1897.
- The Parson's Handbook. London: Grant Richards, 1899.
- The Cathedral Church of Wells: A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1899.
- The Cathedral Church of Oxford: A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1899.
- The Little Lives of the Saints. London: Wells, Gardner, Darton and Co., 1900.
- Highways and Byways in Normandy. Macmillan, 1900.
- The English Liturgy. 1903.
- The English Hymnal. 1906. (General editor.)
- The Training of a Christian According to the Prayer Book and Canons. London: A.R. Mowbray, 1906.
- Socialism and Christianity. Fabian Tract No 133. London: Fabian Society. 1907.
- The Ornaments of the Ministers. London: A.R. Mowbray, 1908.
- Socialism and Religion. London: A.C. Fifield, 1908.
- The Reform of the Poor Law. London: A.R. Mowbray, 1908.
- Body and Soul: An Enquiry into the Effect of Religion on Health. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1909.
- Everyman's History of the English Church. London: Mowbray, 1909.
- Fifty Pictures of Gothic Altars. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1910.
- The Church and Social Questions. London: A.R. Mowbray, 1910.
- The Prayer Book: What It Is and How We Should Use It. London: A.R. Mowbray, 1910.
- Reunion and Rome. London: A.R. Mowbray, 1911.
- Is "Ritual" Right? London: A.R. Mowbray, 1911.
- The Dragon of Wessex: A Story of the Days of Alfred. London: A.R. Mowbray; Milwaukee: The Young Churchman Co., 1911.
- Everyman's History of the Prayer Book. London: Mowbray, 1912.
- Illustrations of the Liturgy, being Thirteen Drawings of the Celebration of the Holy Communion in a Parish Church, by Clement O. Skilbeck. Milwaukee: The Young Churchman, 1912.
- The English Carol Book (with Martin Shaw). 1913.
- False Gods. London: A.R. Mowbray, 1914.
- Russia and Britain. Oxford University Press, 1915.
- Patriotism and Fellowship. London: Smith, Elder, 1917.
- The Art of Public Worship. Bohlen Lectures, 1919.
- The English Carol Book (with Martin Shaw), 2nd ed. 1919.
- The Power of the Spirit. Oxford University Press, 1919.
- The Communion of Saints. London: A.R. Mowbray, 1919.
- The Church at Prayer and the World Outside. London: James Clarke, 1923.
- Eight Preparations for Communion. London: SPCK, 1923.
- Songs of Praise (with Martin Shaw and Ralph Vaughan Williams). Oxford University Press, 1925.
- The Two Duties of a Christian: For the Use of Enquirers and Teachers. Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons, 1925.
- The Lord's Prayer and the Sacraments: For the Use of Enquirers and Teachers. Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons, 1925.
- Belief in God and in Jesus Christ. London: SPCK, 1927.
- The Truth about Fasting: With Special Reference to Fasting Communion. London: Rivingtons, 1928.
- The Sin Obsession. London: E. Benn, 1928.
- The Oxford Book of Carols (with Martin Shaw and Ralph Vaughan Williams). Oxford University Press, 1928.
- The Resurrection, the Spirit, and the Church. Cambridge: W. Heffer, 1928.
- The Legend of Hell: An Examination of the Idea of Everlasting Punishment. London: Cassell, 1929.
- The Communion Service in History. London: Church Assembly, 1929.
- The Eastern Origins of Christian Art and Their Reaction upon History. London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co., 1929.
- Linen Ornaments of the Church (1929), digitized by Richard Mammana
- The Sanctuary, A Book for Communicants, London: Rivingtons, 1930.
- The Urgency of Church Art: "Spiritual Truth Conveyed by Means of the Outward". London: 1930.
- The Escape from Idolatry. London: Ernest Benn, 1930.
- Some English Altars. Introductory Note by Percy Dearmer. London: Warham Guild, 1930-1944?
- Songs of Praise Enlarged Edition (with Martin Shaw and Ralph Vaughan Williams) Oxford University Press, 1931.
- The Server's Handbook, 3rd ed. Oxford University Press, 1932.
- Christianity and the Crisis. London: Gollancz, 1933.
- Songs of Praise Discussed, A Handbook to the Best-known Hymns and to Others Recently Introduced (with Archibald Jacob) Oxford University Press 1933
- Our National Church. London: Nisbet and Co., 1934.
- Christianity as a New Religion. London: Lindsey Press, 1935.
- Man and His Maker: Science, Religion and the Old Problems. London: SCM Press, 1936.
Styles and titles[edit]
- Mr Percival Dearmer (1867 – 1891)
- The Revd (or Fr) Percival Dearmer (1891 – 1911)
- The Revd Dr Percival Dearmer (1911-31)
- The Revd Canon Percival Dearmer (1931-6)
Notes and references[edit]
- ^ A Great and Mighty Wonder. "Carols.co". Retrieved December 9, 2011.
Further reading[edit]
- Gray, Donald (2000). Percy Dearmer: A Parson's Pilgrimage. Canterbury Press. ISBN 978-1-85311-335-2.
- Gibson, Paul (April 2001). "Review of Percy Dearmer: A Parson's Pilgrimage". Anglican Journal.
- Bates, J. Barrington (Spring 2003). "Percy Dearmer: A Parson's Pilgrimage". Anglican Theological Review 85 (2). Retrieved August 2014.
- Mews, Stuart (January 2002). "Book Review: Percy Dearmer A Parson's Pilgrimage". Theology 105 (823): 84–86. doi:10.1177/0040571X0210500137.
- Percy Dearmer A bibliography. Retrieved December 8, 2005.
- St Mary-the-Virgin, Primrose Hill. Retrieved December 8, 2005.
- Revd Donald Gray (2004). F. R. Southwell & F. R. Barry, ed. "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32763.
ignored (help)
- Yates, Nigel (1999). Anglican Ritualism in Victorian Britain, 1830-1910. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-826989-2.
External links[edit]


text:
Even the most avid MU sports fans may have never heard of David Reid and Nick Witthaus.
They're not the latest blue chip recruits. And neither has competed in organized athletics for years.
Still, the two have made a big impression on Tiger fans.
Reid and Witthaus run Tigerboard.com, the largest Web site devoted to MU athletics.
"As a Columbia native, I grew up in Tiger country. Seeing the black and gold banners hung up around town and hearing the Mizzou fight song everywhere, you can't help cheering on Ol' Mizzou," Reid said.
He wanted to give out-of-state fans the same opportunity to keep up with the Tigers.
"In 1995, the Internet was rapidly gaining popularity and campus computing gave incoming students their own Web space on a campus server," Reid said. "So I thought: 'I'll post my commentary on how the team looks for those people who want to know the real state of the team, instead of just a dry box score.'"
Reid asked other fans to e-mail comments, which he would then post along with his own impressions. He received so many e-mails that he put up a discussion forum where people could post their ideas and respond to others directly.
Today, Tigerboard receives about six million to eight million page views per month, which corresponds to about 60,000 unique users, Whitthaus said.
"Those numbers are about four times what they were in 2000," he said.
Tigerboard has developed its own subculture among the most ardent Missouri fans. Individual user names run the spectrum from "KU kid" to "OlivoForPresident."
For instance, subscribers can choose to block messages posted by fans of certain schools.
And posters can dole out "mob points" to anyone who becomes unruly or vulgar in commentary. Once a person acquires enough mob points, 50 for non-subscribers and 125 for subscribers, from at least 10 different users he or she is kicked off for a day.
"It helps keep the board clean and promote a better sense of community," said Witthaus. "I made it up on a whim one night because I was getting frustrated with all that was going on. So far, it's been one of my better ideas."
Witthaus has eliminated the "smackboard" where posters could argue back and forth because some got out of hand.
"I thought people would go over there and be clever, but they ended up just being stupid. It started spilling onto other boards, so I didn't see the point in keeping it up," he said.
Whitthaus said he did this in order to keep the board as civilized as possible.
The list of rules on the site even includes a snarky warning about Kansas which says that since it's common knowledge that Kansas stinks, posters shouldn't start their messages repeating that information.
Soon after starting the board, Reid was getting messages from all around the country thanking him for keeping people up to date.
Despite its popularity, or rather because of it, Tigerboard nearly went extinct in the summer of 1998.
"I didn't realize how busy Tigerboard was until one day I got an e-mail from campus computing explaining they had to take it down because it was getting too many visitors," Reid said.
He later learned that Tigerboard accounted for about 76 percent of all traffic to the student Web server.
Reid could not afford the cost of hosting a Web server, but didn't want Tigerboard to disappear.
Word soon leaked to the community that Tigerboard might be gone forever and Reid said he received a number of e-mails wondering when the site would be back up.
One of those e-mails was from Witthaus, an MU alumnus living in Chicago. When Witthaus learned of the problem, he told Reid that he had a Web server and would host Tigerboard at no charge.
"The way I see it, without Nick, Tigerboard would be a distant memory," Reid said.
"I found it a good way to keep track of what was going on at Mizzou since there wasn't a whole lot of coverage in Chicago. I pretty much got addicted to it," Witthaus said. "I told him I would pay for hosting it if he would help run it."
"He wasn't looking for fanfare or recognition; he just saw a need and wanted to do what he could to help the Tigerboard community survive," Reid said.
Witthaus now handles most of the responsibility for running Tigerboard while Reid is completing graduate school.
"I usually spend about one to three hours a day on it," Witthaus said. "But if I really get working on something, then it could be ten or twelve hours."
"I follow sports pretty regularly and keep up on computers," he said. "That pretty much takes up most of my days."
Occasionally, Witthaus will receive some feedback from players who are discussed on the site.
"Everybody says players don't read the board," he said. "But sometimes we'll hear from them directly or through a third party that either they weren't really happy about this or it was pretty cool that you wrote that."
Overall, running Tigerboard has been a rewarding experience says Witthaus, who is in the process of redesigning the site to add more features and make it faster.
"I approach it more from a computer geek side because I like that stuff," he said. "But I wouldn't be doing it for six, seven years now if I didn't enjoy it."
Despite the long hours he puts in, Witthaus said he feels fulfilled.
"It doesn't dominate my life," he said. "I don't do body painting or anything like that. I've just always enjoyed Mizzou sports. It was pretty easy to run with it when the opportunity came," he said.


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Opinion Line Extra (Jan. 30)
It appeared the national news media about wet their pants over the presidential inauguration.
If Mitt Romney had been elected president and planned his inauguration on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, would he have been accused of being a racist?
If other Republicans are like Rep. Mike Pompeo, the party will continue to take beatings. Will they ever learn that their sneers and name-calling of those with different views are construed as mean-spirited? Their ungentlemanly words and highly partisan actions are unbefitting for those elected to serve all.
Those worrying about Pompeo's mailers might want to consider Barack Obama's two round-trips to Hawaii on Air Force One during his vacation. Air Force One costs about $182,000 an hour to operate.
When Obama surrounds himself with children and victims, hold onto your constitutional rights.
I just wish someone from the national media had the guts to ask the president why, if he is so concerned about "the children," he doesn't do something about the thousands killed each year before they even have a chance to be born.
The more I learn about the Democratic Party, the more convinced I am it is one of America's most dangerous and destructive forces.
Americans need assault weapons like they need a hole in the head.
We need bulletproof school doors locked from the inside, bulletproof windows, cameras outside being monitored, and locks on the restrooms, which the children could use two at a time. I think it would work and be so much cheaper and safer than a guard with a gun that could be taken way by a student.
We could increase taxes on guns and ammunition by at least 20 percent, then give the money to schools to use for increasing safety in sensible ways.
Let's see how quickly Obama takes guns from his special friends in Hollywood. He won't. There will always be an exception. We the people will have to live by different rules.
I resent the Kansas legislators who want to drug test unemployment recipients. Maybe we should drug test members of the Legislature. I am 78 years old, have never used illegal drugs, and have not received unemployment compensation since 1969.
Hard liquor can be bought seven days a week already. Do we really need to make it available in grocery stores? Booze has no place where families shop. Keep it where it belongs – a liquor store. Besides, mega stores need no help killing small businesses.
I am looking for the "Made in America" labels. Join me.
Join the Discussion
The Wichita Eagle is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere on the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.


text:
Auto Art |
GT40 by Nick Watts(SOLD) |
Car art by Colin Carter |
Ferrari World Champions - by Danny Day |
Vic Elford - Legends by Danny Day |
Phil Hill - Legends by Danny Day |
Tribute to Dan Gurney by Danny Day |
We have a good selection of Car art by various artists. Many of the artworks are autographed by legendary race car drivers, including Phil Hill, Dan Gurney, Vic Elford, etc. |


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Tom Cannavan's wine-pages.com |
seductive, supple, ripe, plummy, smoky-oaky, sandalwood-scented
House White, Vin de Table, France, Marks & Spencer, Ł3.79.zingy, lemon zest-spiked non-vintage wine
2007 Sauvignon Blanc-Grenache, Maurel Vedeau. Tesco Ł3.99 until June 15two thirds floral, grassy sauvignon blanc; faintly appley, more full-bodied
2007 Sunrise Sauvignon Blanc, Concha y Toro. Waitrose, Ł5.49; Booths, Ł4.99floral, nettle and flowering currant-charged fruit
2006 Calder Grove Chardonnay. Somerfield, Ł4.99 until July 1bold, buttery, melon and peach-stacked chardonnay
2007 Periquita White, José Maria da Fonseca. Waitrose, Ł5.29.excellent, spicy, peach and grapefruit zest-stashed wine
2007 New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, Asda, Ł5.38.distinctive, grassily elegant, verdant, peapod-stashed sauvignon
Smooth, attractively dry, lemony, spicy white; 11.5% abv
2007 Vouvray, Champteloup Vieux Vauvert, Ł6.49 WaitroseMedium-dry with honeyed apple fruit and zingy acidity; 11% abv
2007 Côtes de Gascogne Cabernet Franc, Domaine Millet, Ł6.95 Yapp BrosLight, soft, raspberry-scented rosé; 11.5% abv
the ideal summery red to have on tap, literally.
2007 Jasničres Domaine des Gauletteries. Ł7.99, Majesticdried apricot and peach characters are focused by acidity
2005 St Chinian Hecht & Bannier, Languedoc-Roussillon. Ł12.95, Berry Brosgrenache and mourvčdre brings an extra dimension to the berry flavours.
smooth, spicy, sweetly oaked
2007 Fairtrade Live a Little Wildly Wicked White, (Ł5.65, Vintage Roots)fresh, aromatic, Chenin- and Sauvignon Blanc-based
2007 Ses'fikile Chardonnay, Western Cape (Ł6.99, Marks & Spencer)elegant, balanced, citrus-fruit and vanilla-like
2006 Origin Cinsault/Merlot, Western Cape (3 @ Ł4.66 Threshers, Wine Rack)fresh, raspberryish, lightly oaked
restrained, northern Rhône style, with a beautiful clarity of black-fruit
2006 Quinta do Coa Douro, Portugal (Ł7.50 Vintage Roots)Classy Douro white; full of sultry pineapple and turrón flavours
Louis Roederer Brut Premier (Ł30-Ł40; widely available)creamy, nutty loveliness
a swell of green reminiscent of undulating fields in June
Domaine André Vatan 'Les Perriers' Sancerre 2006. Ł12.50, Yapp BrothersA bit of gunflint and lovely tranquillity; sharp grass and citrus aromas soften
André Dezat Domaine Thibault Pouilly-Fumé 2006. Ł12.75 Berry Bros & Ruddit glides and slips and has hidden depths; more ethereal than many
Domaine Vacheron Sancerre 2007. Ł14.99, Majestic, Waitroseglacial calm; Minerallic, elegant, and serious


text:
A look at Moto's ingenious, proprietary computer system, Matrix.
Homaro Cantu has developed a menu for a cancer patients using the miracle fruit.
The Chicago Law Foundation's annual auction includes the chance to work in the kitchen at Moto.
New clues emerge about Homaro Cantu's enigmatic Edible Disruption Technology Platform


text:
Carnival Destiny Cruise Review by irish_scouter: Carnival Destiny
Member Rating
Carnival Destiny
This was our second and third trip on Destiny as we did a Back 2 Back Last time was 2010 where we had a Aft Balcony. During the summer, we know that we like side balconies a lot more. My D/W and I are both platinum members on Carnival and we loved the extra bennies.
(Aug 20 to Aug 25) Great cruise, great staff and our Cruise Director (Noonan) was the best. We did have a problem at HMC as one of the tenders broke down and the wife and I decided to stay on board.
(Aug 25 - 30) A nice cruise, really enjoyed Ochoa Rio. We did missed the stop at Grand Caymans, but as others have said, Mother Nature just did not cooperate. The weather was bad so tendering was out at this port. Nothing the crew could do about it-- many passengers seemed to blame them for the NO stop, but we loved that they put safety first. What can I say about Jamaica...Loved it. Every two years we invite family and friends along on our Biennial cruise and the next one will visit the Caymans and Jamaica. Cannot More
wait to get back and visit Mystic Mountain. Dunn River Falls on the other hand....been there, got the T-Shirt.
The ship is an older ship and did show some wear and tear, but she was very clean and is bound for a long overhaul. She will go in as the Destiny and come out as the Sunshine. We did pick up some extra items with Destiny logo.
We always make a point to get the Internet so we can keep up to date on what is going on with family and friends. Set up was easy and worked like a dream, even had access with my I Pad. It was nice that we could use it anywhere on the ship a really good setup.
We are planning to go on the Sunshine after she is home ported in NOLA. Less
Published 09/04/12
Read more Carnival Destiny cruise reviews >>
Read Cruise Critic's Carnival Destiny Review >>
Beware Celebrity Cruises
too many seniors critics
More "Defeat" than "Victory"
Very Disorganized, and Very Po...
Carnival is not for me.
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POSTED: 11:25 a.m. HST, Mar 05, 2013
LAST UPDATED: 11:36 a.m. HST, Mar 05, 2013
Hawaii coffee industry leaders are seeking federal emergency assistance to defend against the Coffee Berry Borer pest.
The Kona Coffee Farmers Association and the Hawaii Coffee Association sent a letter to President Barack Obama and Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack asking for more help from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to defeat the destructive beetle discovered on Hawaii island in late 2010.
The letter dated Feb. 28 said the pest has increased exponentially whereby billions of beetles threaten Kona Coffee farmers and potentially coffee growers on other islands despite more than two years of efforts combating the invasive insects.
"Clearly more expertise is rapidly needed," the letter said. "As a Hawaii-born citizen, Mr. President, you can understand the gravity of our situation as our agricultural business sector provides our diverse citizenry with the economic bases for life here on the Island of Hawaii."
Kona Coffee is grown on more than 700 mostly small family farms. Last year, all coffee in Hawaii was a $35 million crop produced by 830 farms, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service.


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Actively dedicated to the science of sleep. |
We have been making sleep products for over forty years. We have always been keenly interested in making our products provide the best sleep possible. Our products have improved as our knowledge of sleep increases. Working with Nebraska Wesleyan University and pioneers in the field of sleep we founded a sleep research group, American Sleep Research Institute, that in 1988 built the first stand-alone sleep research facility to study what healthy sleep is and how to achieve it. The research that followed yielded some surprising and important conclusions. We have learned that quality sleep is very important to good health and how long and how well we sleep can predict how long we might live. We have also learned what factors contribute to healthy sleep and we have designed those factors into the iSleep Bed. Even with spectacular improvements in healthcare during the past century, disease continues to persist. In many ways the causes behind this fact are linked to sleep. Sleep is one of the most important factors in good health and longevity. With Americans sleeping about two hours less on average than they did in 1900, one of the reasons for increased disease is apparent. The study of sleep is a young science. The important modern beginning of the science of sleep began in the 1950s and the basic understanding that there are different stages or types of sleep was learned in the 1960s. During that period there were very few people involved in sleep research. Today there are thousands of sleep scientists and healthcare professionals focused on sleep research. There is much yet to learn about why we sleep, the mechanisms of sleep, our internal biological timekeepers, and the impact sleep has on our lives. The healthiest and longest lived people sleep about eight hours a night on average. A shorter life span is associated with less than seven and more than nine hours per night average sleep. Less than seven hours is apparently not enough to receive the full health benefits of sleep and sleeping more than nine or ten hours can indicate a sleep disorder that robs the benefit of quality sleep. Among the reasons for shorter than average lifespans is that lack of sleep is linked to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and many other serious diseases. For example: studies have shown that night shift workers have higher cancer rates. Shift workers struggle with sleeping in synch with their internal bodyclock because the world around them is on a different schedule. Night shift workers also have higher traffic accident rates. So, it is not only disease that works into the statistics of shorter lifespan. How are disease and sleep linked? One reason is that our immune systems recharge during sleep. Lack of sleep lowers our defenses against disease. The first half of a night's sleep is the most important in physical healing and prevention of illness. The internal timekeepers that we all have orchestrate repair and rebuilding so that it occurs only during certain phases of sleep. If we do not sleep during those important phases the risk of disease increases. Another reason for the link between sleep and longevity is the immediate effect lack of sleep has on human performance. Missing sleep leads to poor decision making and can affect everything we do: rushing when we should be methodical, forgetting important procedures, loss of attention (such as when driving), not having the energy to exercise, poorer reaction time, higher stress levels, elevated blood pressure, and inability to adapt to change. These things lead to accidents in the short term, and poor health in the long term. It is only necessary to look at our own or other people's behavior after a single night of poor sleep. Irritable - Fatigued – Scattered - Sound familiar? Poor sleep can also contribute to obesity. Even a few nights of short sleep reduces our ability to utilize insulin by forty percent. This creates increased stress on our hormone system. There is good news though, quality sleep is an easy and important part of a weight loss program. When sleep is missed, we become hungry for fats and sugars and the body increases fat storage. Good sleep at the right time of night regulates hormone production to increase muscle mass and reduce fat storage. It is easier to maintain a healthy diet if food cravings are in order and quality sleep will do that. Remember to include a sleep plan in any diet. For athletes sleep is critical in repairing muscle and learning coordinated movement after training and exercise. For everyone, sleep is a critical part of the healing process after injury. Pain can interfere with sleep and delays this rebuilding and healing process. So how do we achieve quality sleep? It is important to have good sleep habits. From our years of sleep research, the following principles have been shown to be the most important for healthy adults starting a program of sleep improvement. iSleep Five Principles of Healthy Sleep 1. Wake up at the same time every day. 2. Make it a priority to sleep eight hours every night. 3. Have a quiet, dark, and peaceful sleep environment. 4. No caffeine or alcohol after dinner. 5. Sleep on a comfortable, posture correcting mattress. Your Doctor can also advise you about techniques to improve your sleep. Even if you are sleeping the recommended eight hours per night already, you might not be achieving the full benefit of deep, restful, sleep. It is one of the challenges to a good night's sleep that we are not aware of and cannot completely asses the true quality of our sleep because we are not conscious at the time. Is usually only after symptoms of poor sleep become so extreme that we seek help. This can be too late. |


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It's Father's Day, and what does everyone think of on this holiday? What is one thing that we know all fathers have in common, absent dads, neglectful dads, drunk dads, abusive dads, or even caring and responsible dads like the one I had? Why, it's testicles, of course. They all had at least one. So, in honor of the generative apparatus of our paternal predecessors, without which we would not be here, I have put together a few tributes to the testes, commendations to the cojones, a big hand for the balls. There's a little anatomy and physiology, a bit of development, some evolution of the scrotum, and even <shudder> a link to some recipes.
A Father's Day testimonial to the testicle!
4 Comments
I'm not ashamed to admit it, I've always wondered about this topic. I'd never heard anything more than speculation in terms of proposed explanations, but PZ does an excellent job finding the research (I supposed I should have guessed that someone would be researching this) and reviewing it for us.
Therefore I'm adding it to completely free-for-all and unauthoritative Panda's Thumb Hall of Fame on EvoWiki. I encourage others to add posts that strike them as particularly excellent.
I like PZ's posts too. Especially the one on the evolution of the ballsack.
Interesting factoid. The testis and the brain are the most similar in gene expression pattern. See Guo J, Zhu P, Wu C, Yu L, Zhao S, Gu X. In silico analysis indicates a similar gene expression pattern between human brain and testis. Cytogenet Genome Res. 2003;103(1-2):58-62.
Makes you think doesn't it.
Ian remarked
Makes you think doesn?t it.
Uh huh. But with what?