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For 15-year-old Kapeka Aweau, Friday, March 10, 2000, was supposed to be the first day of the rest of her life. But things took an unexpected swerve, and nothing has been the same since.
For the first time in months, Aweau says, she was going on a "girls' night out." No big plans– drive around, listen to music, get an ice cream. Most of her friends at Monticello High School did that sort of thing every day.
Aweau, however, was a teen mom, who typically went straight home to Keene to be with her four-month-old son, Kai. Hanging out was a rare adventure.
After stopping at McDonald's, Aweau and her friends drove back to school. "I felt so great," she remembers, "like something different was going to come." Seven teenagers, out for fun, maybe a movie.
"My friend Holli Nash and I had time for ourselves. Alone time. That was probably the most cherished time in my life. Holli and I got a lot of things off our chest that only we two could relate to. We spoke some really meaningful words," she says.
Kapeka and Holli were in Holli's Mitsubishi, the third car in their group to pull away from Monticello High onto Route 20. "We were listening to 311," remembers Aweau.
They might have been on a natural high, but there were no drugs, no drinking involved, Aweau says. Holli, a licensed driver for only three months, wasn't going that fast– she figures 20 mph. Those curves near the high school are treacherous, though. When her car edged over the right shoulder, Holli pulled the steering wheel around– too hard, too fast. They veered across the center line. Holli tried to correct, hit a patch of gravel, skidded, and slammed head-on into a Nissan pickup going a then-legal 50 mph, according to police records. Athletes on the fields behind Monticello– including Aweau's brother– heard the crash. Another accident on Route 20, they all thought, and kept on playing.
Unlike Kapeka Aweau, Jason Coleman doesn't remember his accident.
Early Sunday morning, December 2, 2001, Coleman was driving from his home in Lovingston back to his dorm at Radford University, when his Honda Accord hit a tree and flipped over. He remembers waking up in the hospital and asking why his parents were there.
"We were awakened at four in the morning," says his father, Jay Coleman, "and got that phone call that all parents dread."
Jason had dislocated his ninth and tenth thoracic vertebrae, right in the small of his back, with severe spinal cord injury. "So we drove to Roanoke," says his father. "That was a tough drive. A lot of crying."
His son was a guy who had pushed the limit– snowboarding, skiing, ocean kayaking. He had played soccer in high school and college. So often had he banged up his tall, lean body that when Pegasus 'coptered him to UVA Hospital, the staff recognized him. Now Jason had no feeling or movement from the diaphragm down. When told of his injury, his first comment was, "I'm out of here."
"He didn't want to live," recalls his father. "We couldn't get any lower."
Thomas Finney's accident happened on Monday, April 15, 2002, midday. He had been up too late the night before, and now he was on his way to work. He blacked out at the wheel of his Toyota Tacoma and accelerated into the car in front of him. As his truck flipped, Finney flew out the window and 50 feet through the air, landing headfirst, some witnesses later told him. When his mother got the phone call, it was a déjà vu experience. Her older son, Eli, had suffered head injuries in a car accident six years before. "It brought the whole thing back up for me," she says. "I went into prayer mode."
Thomas Finney has snapshot memories. The ambulance EMT was the brother of a friend. He vomited as they hoisted him into Pegasus. He had a lightning-bolt gash across his skull and eight broken vertebrae: the atlas (top vertebra), six of seven cervical vertebrae, and the top thoracic vertebra– every bone but one in his neck. Amazingly, his spinal cord suffered no damage. No paralysis occurred. Doctors decided surgery would be risky. Finney was fitted with an immobilization halo, literally screwed into his temples and connected by rods to a vest, to hold his neck straight while it healed.
Kapeka, Jason, and Thomas– three Central Virginians under the age of 20 whose lives changed irreversibly when they survived life-threatening auto accidents. While our curiosity may linger on the accidents themselves, powerful stories come from these young people's transformations during the months and years after.
Thomas Finney's rapid healing defied predictions. Told he would wear the halo-vest for up to a year, he emerged from it in six weeks. His mother, Ocea Wilkes, a massage therapist at Keswick Club, believes fervently in alternative therapy. She tended him constantly, augmenting medical treatments with her own nutritional and spiritual regimen. Her efforts began the moment she saw Thomas on a stretcher, coming into the hospital for x-rays.
"I could feel my energy anchor and work with him," she says. "I was giving him the pep talk, saying, 'They do what they do, and we do what we do.'"
For two weeks, Finney was on a glucose drip in the hospital. His mother fed drops of what she calls "super water" into his parched lips. Once he could eat, she made him formulas of raw egg, organic milk with colostrum, kefir, protein powder, and essential fatty acids, and tended him with a potpourri of mind-body techniques: kinesiology, kinergetics, neurological programming, energy balancing.
"I would etherically go into his field, and then I would surrogate," says Wilkes. "I was in this shamanic flow. I was using my energy– my chi– to feed Thomas. I wanted his body to go into repair mode."
Those were psychologically chaotic times for Finney. Crash flashbacks haunted him. Pain killers knocked him out. He lapsed into an eight-day-long psychotic break– medical staff at the Kluge Rehabilitation Center called it a "dissociated state of mind," says Finney– and he was transferred to Cumberland Hospital in New Kent for detoxification.
In the midst of it all, he dreamt that he had broken his neck many times, in many lifetimes, but this time, he was not going to die. He says he stood at the foot of the Buddha and became a special warrior.
Finney yearned for a non-pharmaceutical way to relieve his pain. That was when he connected with North Garden chiropractor Chadwick Hawk of the Virginia Institute of Chiropractic (who, in the interest of full disclosure, this reporter has seen).
Hawk describes a chiropractor's work as adjusting the body, especially the spine, so it can heal itself. Chiropractors claim that misaligned vertebrae cause "subluxation," an interruption in the flow of blood or nerve impulses up and down the spine. For decades, the American Medical Association deemed the whole notion quackery. But that was before 1987, when a federal judge ruled in Wilk v. AMA that the physicians' group unfairly maligned the practice of chiropractic.
While serious doubts remain, Thomas Finney firmly believes in the practice.
The medical plan, that his broken neck vertebrae would fuse back whole, had worked. But it wasn't enough.
"I could hold my head up without my collar," says Finney, "but I had no muscle movement. I couldn't turn my head either way. I could only give a little nod." After a year of chiropractic, he felt less pain. Moreover, he could look up and down, right and left.
But in April, the anniversary of his accident, Finney fell back into another episode of dissociation– talking to himself, seeming to others in a dream world, sometimes lashing out violently, throwing and breaking things. His mother was out of town at a conference, so Eli, his older brother, did what he could to calm him. Eli remembers that one day Thomas said nothing, just did Tai Chi for hours. The one person Thomas remembers seeing during the breakdown was Hawk, whom he credits as a calming influence. "I went from scared and weirded out to mellow," Finney says.
He looks out across the field where he, his mother, and his brother live in a rental house on a historic Shadwell farm.
"Look, there's your white deer," says his mother.
Thomas smiles. There in the distance is an albino deer– his totem animal, sign of the strength he has summoned through 15 months of healing. "It changed me a lot," says Finney of the accident. "It doesn't matter how old you are. You can die at any time."
"It has been a tremendous spiritual walk for all of us," says Jay Coleman, reflecting on how the 19 months since his son's accident have affirmed his family's born-again Christian faith.
Transferred into Health South for rehabilitation, Jason faced the fact that he would live life in a wheelchair. He suffered complete spinal cord injury: no sensation or movement in his lower body. Maybe his parents could see a blessing– "He still had his arms, he still had his brain, he was still Jason," his mother says– but Jason saw nothing to be thankful for. Then he met Zeppo.
Zeppo is a stocky, silky, black Labrador retriever, a service dog trained by Peggy Law of Service Dogs of Virginia.
"I have been looking for the right person for him," Law told Jason, "and you're the one." For two weeks, Jason and Zeppo worked eight hours a day, developing their tight-knit working relationship. Zeppo goes everywhere with Coleman. He opens doors. He turns lights on and off. He brings the phone and the keys to Jason. "And he's a babe magnet," adds Jason's father, as Jason beams.
Six months after his accident, Jason went back to work as a data entry assistant at PRA International. He had been prescribed pain-killers like oxycodone, but early on decided against them. He suffered from chronic pain, though, and a nurse recommended Hawk.
"Every time I went to him, he would make me feel one hundred percent better," says Coleman. "Things started happening. He would do something, and I would feel sensations through my legs– a little shot of feeling, more feeling than I had had before. When I told Chad I was getting tingles in my toes, he got so excited."
In December 2002, Jason Coleman and his parents, together with Kapeka Aweau and her son, traveled to Washington University's Spinal Cord Injury Program in St. Louis, famous for treating Christopher Reeve. For Jason's type of injury, though, the program had nothing to offer. Its activity-based methods require that muscles contract, and Jason's don't. The Coleman family came away believing that stem-cell research holds the greatest promise. "We know he's going to walk again," his mother says. "We have hope and faith– and Jason does sometimes, too."
Meanwhile, Jason is bringing his sports life back up to speed. He drives an ATV in the Nelson County hillsides; he kayaks on the Outer Banks. He hit the expert slopes at Wintergreen on his second day on an adaptive ski and will be a ski instructor next season. While college is training him for information management, he dreams of opening a sports club for people with spinal cord injuries and finding other ways to give to others.
This spring Coleman visited Harlem on an "urban immersion" mission trip. He could look an alcoholic straight in the eye and say, "See what happened to me?" Already on a spiritual path when the accident happened, he believes it "jumped me way far ahead" in the process.
"This whole situation has made me stronger," says Coleman. "The little bumps in the road seem minuscule. Every once in a while, something will hit me like a ton of bricks, but I get over it in a day."
"I remember everything before and after," says Kapeka Aweau. "Everything except the impact itself. I remember hands flying in the air."
Friends in front watched the accident in their rear-view mirrors. Cars stopped. People came to the rescue: a woman named Mrs. Dudley. Rob Garland, photography instructor at Monticello High, called 911.
"It seemed like hours, days, years, before the ambulance arrived," remembers Aweau. Mrs. Dudley reached in and held her hand. "I kept saying over and over again, 'Don't let me die – I've got a baby. I've got a baby.'"
Aweau remembers trying to lift her head, feeling it just wobble. Mrs. Dudley helped hold it up. "She was what helped me through," the young woman says.
"I would open my eyes and hear this loud ringing. Then I would doze off for seconds. I thought about the things that were not done, not said, that had been done that I wished I could take back. Family and friends, family and friends."
She looked over at Holli, unconscious in the driver's seat. "I couldn't even help myself, so I couldn't help her," she says. As rescue squad workers pulled her friend out of the car, Aweau later learned, Holli Nash's blood pressure dropped precipitously, and she died soon after. "She went with no pain," says Aweau today. "She left the world looking just as beautiful as she was all 16 years. I thank God for that."
Patricia Branscome, Aweau's mother, got a phone call at work from her younger daughter, Hannah. There had been an accident. Kapeka was in the hospital, but she could talk.
"That's when I knew it was bad," says Branscome, a hospice nurse, who arrived at the University Hospital emergency room to find it already crowded with kids. Doctors at first thought she was Holli Nash's mother, and she sensed the terrible news they needed to deliver. In a treatment room, she stood at Kapeka's side for only minutes before watching her daughter being wheeled away.
"She was right there, and she was coherent," remembers Branscome. "She was initially quadriplegic. There was a lot of internal bleeding. She had one collapsed lung. The potential for abdominal injury was great, because of the impact on her whole right side. They shut those big doors, and I could hear her moaning through them. I lay down and sang her songs through the crack under the door."
Most seriously, Aweau had broken her lowest cervical and her top thoracic vertebrae, where the neck joins the body. The disk between had jammed into the spinal cord. UVA neurosurgeons Mark Shaffrey and John Jane Jr. grafted tissue from Aweau's hip to help the disk regenerate. Working through her chest, they strengthened that section of her spine with a metal plate. Other injuries required attention later: five broken ribs, a crushed pelvis, both arms broken, a broken thumb.
Aweau spent nine days in Pediatric Intensive Care where machines kept her breathing. She slept on an air bed to minimize pressure. What sensations she had made her skin feel like plastic, but her mother's touch made her "magically feel better."
She left intensive care wearing a stiff neck collar. Her arms stuck out in casts, her elbows at right angles. "I didn't get bathed for weeks and weeks, but all that didn't matter," she says. Her father flew in from Hawaii, and family members brought Kai in for daily visits. "He did very well without his mama," says Aweau. "I didn't do so well."
On Sundays, says Branscome, "there was this energy, like sparks in the air, a stirring in the air that you could feel inside of you. Churches were remembering her in prayer."
The community poured out support for Aweau. Roy Chilson, a schoolmate's parent, established a charitable fund. Chilson, Rob Garland, and Kapeka's best friends organized an all-school dance that raised $9,000. Brown Motors provided a car at cost. Mattresses, furniture, carpentry, renovations– Aweau's world was redesigned for her needs, thanks to generosity of people who knew her, and many who didn't.
She had gone into surgery a quadriplegic, but she regained upper body movement– a medical miracle in itself. From her waist down, though, Aweau was paralyzed, destined to live in a wheelchair the rest of her life.
"With spinal cord injury, they say that after a year and a half, what you have is what you get," says Aweau nearly 40 months after her accident. "I'm walking proof that that's a load of bull," she says, even though she still spends most of her time in a wheelchair. Now and then she arches her back and lifts up out of the seat, or she bends her knee and holds a leg close to her chest. "Movement, movement, movement," she says, reciting Reeve's mantra.
Aweau's week revolves around rehabilitation: aquatherapy, weightlifting, swimming, hand-bicycling. Every day she practices walking with a brace. "It is hard, very hard. It's all arm strength," she says.
And every day she spends an hour in a standing frame. "I feel awful while I'm in it, but I know I have to do it," says Aweau. "I have to strengthen my bones for the day that I will walk again. I think of it as a baby learning how to do all these things." In other ways, though, Aweau says she feels like a hundred-year-old woman.
"Pain is a constant factor in her life," her mother says. Like Finney and Coleman, Aweau was prescribed pain-killers, but even as doctors upped the dosage, the pills seemed less potent. She tried electroshock therapy. Then a nurse at Kluge Rehab suggested Hawk (who helped find some of this story's interviewees).
In his office, her mother helped lift her up on her right side, and Hawk applied a swift thrust with the palm of his hand to her atlas vertebra, right behind her ear. "It was like two years of stress and tension and frustration just melted away," remembers Hawk. As he recalls, when she got off the table, Aweau said, "I don't believe it, Mom. I don't hurt."
That first adjustment targeted the upper cervical region, where nerves pass through to the brain and brain stem, informing respiration, diaphragm control, and proprioception, the body's spatial sense. "If we remove the subluxation in that area, then the human body starts to heal itself," says Hawk.
Hawk begins by scanning a new patient's spine electronically. In Aweau's case, he says, the scan indicated slight muscular activity.
"It was very low," says Hawk, "but when we see activity, we know there's a chance for improvement." In the 15 months since Aweau has been receiving chiropractic treatments, she has gained some sensation in her lower body. She can feel hot and cold, she feels crude touch, and she has "two-point discrimination" she can tell whether one or two fingers are touching her. She has an occasional involuntary jerk or tremor. All indicate increased nerve functions.
Hot debates may erupt over whether such patient improvement should be credited to doctors, nature, or to chiropractic. But Aweau's mother credits Hawk: "Of everything we have done, he has made the most difference."
Since she has been wheelchair-bound, music means more to Aweau. "The first time I went to an Aerosmith concert, Steven Tyler, the lead singer, came off the stage and made a beeline to me," she beams. "He came up to me and said 'Thank you," then he started singing a song to me. That was just the beginning of it all."
Aweau has always had a passion for music. In addition to Aerosmith, she likes 311– the music playing at the time of crash– as well as Incubus. But Fuel is her passion.
"People know me for being the Fuel girl," says Aweau. She has befriended Brett Scallions, Fuel's lead singer, who makes sure she gets a front-row spot and a backstage pass to their concerts. At one of them last year, she was sitting in front in her wheelchair, legs crossed, when she smacked her knee– and her leg jumped, a reflex reaction that hadn't happened since the accident.
"I started crying," recalls Aweau. "Later that night, I told the band, and they all had tears in their eyes. I really do owe so much to the music."
At Washington University, Aweau's prospects were brighter than Jason Coleman's. "My doctor was amazed by the progress that I had made already, nervewise," she says. "She found some voluntary muscle movement that we didn't know about. She asked me to be part of the research, but it would cost a lot."
The Washington University program includes an experimental technique called functional electrical stimulation. Electrodes implanted in non-functioning muscles model nerve stimuli from the brain, which might ultimately reinvigorate spinal cord cells that are still intact. But, says Aweau, the process costs $1,000 a day. To bring the machine home could cost $20,000.
All these families have had to gauge the price of miraculous medical help. Coleman and Aweau each paid $300 for an hour-long evaluation in St. Louis. Aweau and Hawk have begun to put their heads together, seeing if there might be a better way. They are hoping that her personality, his expertise, and their friends might synergize into a nationally– even internationally– significant organization to help people with spinal cord injuries.
"The vision is to be able to create a foundation to support chiropractic care for spinal cord injury patients from around the country at little to no charge," says Hawk. Because chiropractic care is considered medically questionable, insurance covers it minimally, if at all.
"Always expect a miracle," says Hawk. He's talking about his own optimistic approach to treating patients– the middle-aged man with lower back pain, the elderly woman with osteoporosis, or the young woman, wheelchair-bound from the age of 15. A spinal cord injury foundation is a dream right now. But as Hawk says, "Kapeka and I both expect a miracle."


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- Joyous Tomorrows
- Hummer's Delight
- Random Meanderings
- 'Over thy dead body'
- A Brit in the Boonies
- A Little Bit of Irish
- Small-Leaved Shamrock
- Cemetery Curiosities
- Anglo-Celtic Connections
- Homestead Origins
- 'Dear Zakaria'
- Extra Extra Read All About It!
- [Family] History is the lie comm....
- Ancestor Soup
- Adventures in Genealogy
Welcome to my genealogy blog. I hope you find my anecdotes and research tips interesting and helpful in your own search for ancestors. This blog is protected by Australian copyright laws. Reproducing any part of my blog requires my permission ©
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
Church Kneelers : a source of local and family history.
It is always exciting for a family historian to see a photograph of the church where his or her parents, grandparents or great great great grandparents were married. There is a real sense of connection with ancestors when I see a concrete connection, the actual church where a forebears was married or baptised, in some cases, centuries ago. I always spend some time researching the history of the churches connected to my ancestors, where they were christened or married and in some instances, where they were were ministers, choirmasters and members of the congregation. My husband has an entire chapel in Kent dedicated to a female ancestor by her affluent husband. There are so many ways in which churches and their records are an important resource. Parish record, a well known source of valuable information, provide dates for baptisms, marriages, deaths and often the names and dwelling place of a further generation. Churches can tell us much about the local communities in which our forebears lived and about their lives as well. My own ancestors have been married in modest timber or stone churches in rural farming communities, chapels and larger imposing churches and churches of many denominations. There is nothing so moving as standing in a church where a forebear was once christened or married. Until recently, there was something of great relevance within these churches, which I had overlooked: Church Kneelers.
Until I read an article in a recent Country Life magazine, I had never given much thought to church kneelers, ( the pads or cushions on which one kneels in prayer ), as a source of local, family history. Kneelers have been used in many churches for centuries and many are hand woven, cross stich, long stich or tapestry, works of religious and folk art. There has been a move in the UK to form a register of church kneelers with photographs of them to be kept as a record of their important role in church and local histories. In many churches, volunteers are recording the local and family history of the church community in the new cross stitch or tapestry kneelers being sewn to replace old tired ones. Church kneelers, as well as depicting religious themes, can be a valuable source of local information which contain names, dates, local events, family or royal crests, village buildings, village and rural life, dates and information about battles fought and heroic heroic deeds performed. Some are dedications to individuals or groups or are dedicated to deceased family or community members. Kneelers may be a rich source of information unable to be found elsewhere. In some churches, the kneeler covers are of a religious theme, depicting well known Biblical stories such as Noah's Ark, however in a significant number of church communities where kneelers are used, the pictorial narratives which the kneelers provide, may go back to ancestors in the time of William the Conqueror.
My daughter was married two years ago in a Naval Chapel overlooking Sydney Harbour. I recall admiring the kneeling cushions, which were displayed on the pews, when we visited the Chapel prior to the wedding. Beyond the fact that the colourful display of bright kneelers greatly enhanced the beautiful interior of this 1960's chapel, I took little notice of their designs. (Wedding preparations tend to preoccupy everyone to the exclusion of noticing details of even the most colourful church kneelers).
Since reading about kneelers in the magazine article, I have looked into the significance of the chapel kneelers in the Naval Chapel. The beautiful tapestry covers were lovingly made by wives, mothers and daughters of Naval Officers. Onto each kneeler cover these women have woven in coloured cross stitch, the names and badges of ships of the Royal Australian Navy. These wonderful kneeler cushions are a pictorial narrative of Australian naval history and if I have another opportunity to visit the chapel, I will certainly soak up some of that history more attentively.
Before I was married, my grandmother gave me a small gold satin cushion. She explained that it had been used by several generations of women in her family in Northern Ireland and by herself, to kneel on as part of their marriage ceremonies. The cushion was hand sewn and adorned with patterns of beautiful beading. Not all churches make use of kneelers and since my own church where I was married was quite new and had abandoned the tradition of using kneelers for even for ceremonial purposes, I decided to follow my family tradition and use my grandmother's Irish kneeler as part of my wedding. My kneeler doesn't tell a story through a picture woven into its cover, nor are there names or dates embroidered on it but it is a significant part of my own family history and of church practice. I now plan to have the names and dates of marriage of the women in my family who knelt on this beautiful kneeler, embroidered on it. Unfortunately at the time of my eldest daughter's marriage I had not thought of using my kneeler but will most likely add her name to it anyway along with those of her sisters who are now very excited at having a family kneeler to use at their weddings. My kneeler will show the following:
Sarah Jane Clarke and Joseph Shaw Thompson: 1856
Sarah Thompson and Hugh Eston White: 1896
Jemima Florence White and Colin Hamilton MacDade: 1930
I will add myself, a MacDade and my daughters (who coincidentally, like their great grandmother have the surname White). The kneeler is packed away right now but as soon as I unpack it I will add a photograph of it to this blog post.
From the article which I read in the December, 29 Issue of Country Life I have learned that in England, St Edmund Church in Southwold possesses more than 300 beautiful kneelers and other churches which are worth visiting for their wonderful kneelers are, St Bartholemew, Chipping, Lancashire and St Andrew's. Much Hadham, Hertfordshire.[1]
As for myself, I will be paying much more attention to church kneelers as a wealth of history both local and family. For information on how to help register, repair or make church kneelers, visit the website below. Kits and books on how to make kneelers can be purchased also, if you are interested in making your own kneeler or your church needs new ones. These are easily found by googling 'Church Kneeler Kits.'
[1] http://www.parishkneelers.co.uk/
Photograph of the Naval Chapel taken from the cover of the RAN Chapel information booklet.
Photographs of the kneelers taken by R White.

subset: commoncrawl


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Right now, the old parties are failing to take meaningful action to address climate change.
This election is our big chance. As the polls tighten, Adam and the Greens could again hold balance of power in Parliament. We could change politics and put global warming back on the national agenda, but we need your help!
We're holding a massive Climate Day of Action in Melbourne and across the inner city. If we can win in Melbourne once more, and get four other Greens into the lower house we can finally take real action on climate change.
We know that conversations are the most powerful way to connect with voters and ask them to support Adam on the issues that matter. That's how we won Melbourne last time. This year the fight is on and we need to do it all again.
Come along to our Climate Day of Action to doorknock and talk to voters in Carlton about global warming! Training will be provided on the day, and you will be well supported by our friendly team of volunteers.
Join us and other doorknocking teams after the event, from 1.15pm at the Union Club Hotel (164 Gore st, Fitzroy) to celebrate our achievements!
Carlton North, VIC 3054
Google map and directions


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Million dollar supercars, Formula 1 cars, priceless historics and gobsmacking concepts – all of these were on display over the weekend at the Top Gear Festival at Sydney Motorsport park.
But if by some cruel twist of fate you weren't there sniffing the petrol-soaked air yourself, never fear.
Wheels has compiled the best shots from across the weekend. Brace yourself for supercar exotica, tyre shredding action and plenty of Top Gear silliness.


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Firm that checked NSA leaker's background under investigation
WASHINGTON The government contractor that performed a background investigation of the man who says he disclosed two National Security Agency surveillance programs is under investigation, a government watchdog said Thursday.
Patrick McFarland, the inspector general at the Office of Personnel Management, said during a Senate hearing that the contractor USIS is being investigated and that the company performed a background investigation of Edward Snowden.
McFarland also told lawmakers that there may have been problems with the way the background check of Snowden was done, but McFarland and one of his assistants declined to say after the hearing what triggered the decision to investigate USIS and whether it involved the company's check of Snowden.
"To answer that question would require me to talk about an ongoing investigation. That's against our policy," Michelle Schmitz, assistant inspector general for investigations, told reporters after the hearing. "We are not going to make any comment at all on the investigation of USIS."
USIS, which is based in Falls Church, Va., did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said she and her staff have been told that the inquiry is a criminal investigation related "to USIS' systemic failure to adequately conduct investigations under its contract" with the Office of Personnel Management.
McCaskill said that USIS conducted a background investigation in 2011 for Snowden, who worked for government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden says he is behind the revelations about the NSA's collection of Americans' phone records and Internet data from U.S. Internet companies.
"We are limited in what we can say about this investigation because it is an ongoing criminal matter," McCaskill said. "But it is a reminder that background investigations can have real consequences for our national security."
McFarland told reporters that his office has the authority to conduct criminal investigations.
- How did low-level contractor gain access to NSA programs?
- Pentagon reviewing private contractors, Hagel says
A background investigation is required for federal employees and contractors seeking a security clearance that gives them access to classified information.
Of the 4.9 million people with clearance to access "confidential and secret" government information, 1.1 million, or 21 percent, work for outside contractors, according to a January report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Of the 1.4 million who have the higher "top secret" access, 483,000, or 34 percent, work for contractors.


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Farrow & Ball Paint has just introduced 18 new paint colors in their line. I like the Farrow & Ball Paint range because it is complete yet concise. The specification of the product is very clear without too many different finishes or too large a product range to make it confusing. To use, it is just superb, like brushing silk onto the walls. The depth of colour can only be compared to silk, a fibre with a great capacity for pigment.
The product is premixed ensuring good colour matching. Every Farrow & Ball Paint colour is perfect. It is the exact shade or tint that works for a particular colour. The depth of colour and finish is way above all other paints. Every colour is a winner.
I also love the names of the colours; no other product allows you to specify 'Drab' and have the result be fabulous! I am especially happy to see the bottom 3 new Farrow & Ball colors: Pelt, Tanners Brown & Pitch Black and can hardly wait to try them. Wimborne White and Skimming Stone will definitely be on my list of new whites to try. I have paired some of these Farrow & Ball colors to pictures that I think might closely approximate the new paint colours in their line, so you can see how they might work in a room setting. Paint is a wonderful avenue for decorating. I always tell my clients that one colour doesn't cost anymore than another, but it can make all the difference in the world.
In rooms like the ones above I would use Farrow & Ball Paint No. 239 Wimborne White to bring out the detail in an all white space.
Photos Scott Yetman
Farrow & Ball Paint No.254 Pelt - A rich plum-brown, would be an elegant and very current choice for this room.
Farrow & Ball Paint No. 264 Cinder Rose for this room - "a fresh mauve colour" with perhaps just a little more pink in it than this picture.
Farrow & Ball Paint No.244 London Clay - the name says it all.
Farrow & Ball Paint No.242 Pavilion Gray - a pretty light gray
Farrow & Ball Paint No.249 Lancaster Yellow - a fresh and clean pale yellow
Farrow & Ball Paint No.247 Terre D'Egypte - a deliciously warm red-brown terracotta
Farrow & Ball Paint No.253 Drawing Room Blue - A traditional 'salon' blue, this colour's clean hue is reminiscent of the pigment Cobalt,
used by artists and discerning decorators ever since its discovery in the 19th century.
Farrow & Ball Paint No.248 Incarnadine - A rich, crimson red, similar to the red gloss paint used by the late David Hicks
at Baron's Court in the 1970s.
Farrow & Ball Paint No.240 Cat's Paw - A stylish, yellow-based neutral colour which has an especially soft tone.
Farrow & Ball Paint No.251 Curlish Green - A yellow-green colour has been used decoratively for centuries,
both on its own and as a ground beneath patterned wallpapers
Farrow & Ball Paint No.245 Middleton Pink - A very delicate and near-translucent traditional
pale pink which is pretty without being too sugary.
Farrow & Ball Paint No.255 Tanner's Brown - A dark, earthy brown, considered one of the most timeless of decorative tones.
Check out another post on the new Farrow & Ball paint colors at Windlost's Blog
Patricia Gray writes about 'WHAT'S HOT 'in the world of Interior Design, new and emerging trends, modern design,
architecture, and travel, as well as how your surroundings can enhance your world.
© Patricia Gray Interior Design Blog, 2009


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Synthetic Grass Knocklyon
Apco Synthetic Grass are the number one suppliers and installers of synthetic grass in Knocklyon. We have been serving this area for many years with a friendly genuine service and and have many loyal and satisfied customers. We specialise in all types of synthetic grass and would be delighted to call to you for a free no-obligation consultation and advice. We are professional, reliable and provide an efficient service where our work is very neat and we tidy up after we are finished so you wouldn't even know we had just left.
About Us
We have built up a reputation for being a reliable and honest synthetic grass supplier and installer and we depend on your recommendations. This ensures we strive to make our customers 100% happy on every project we undertake. See our about us page for more information about Apco Synthetic Grass.
Artificial Grass Types
Apco Synthetic Grass supply and install a variety of artificial grass types. Depending on your needs we can recommend a grass type to fit your requirements and budget. See our artificial grass types page for more information.
The installation process for synthetic grass is a multi-step process. We ensure we carry out each step in the process in a professional way to ensure your finished lawn will last as long as possible and retain it's original look also. See our installation page for a step by step illustration of how we lay your artificial lawn.
We thought we would save you time on any queries you may have about your atifical grass installation. We have composed a list of frequently asked questions that we commonly get asked. Have a look at our FAQ's page and if you find that we have not answered your query please feel free to contact us.
Colm Henry
We are here to help. Contact us today and we will be on-site with you soon to offer our expertise and knowledge.