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War seared Sarah Blum. As a longtime Army nurse in an operating room within earshot of Vietnam's battlefields, Blum saw what modern warfare could do to the human body – and soul.
Soldiers and civilians, bodies torn asunder by enemy and friendly fire, rivers of human blood, suffering on a lunatic scale. For a young woman determined to do her duty, the war cut cruelly, horribly, lastingly deep.
"It was the hardest thing I ever had to do. It was crazy," Blum said of treating the wounded in an evacuation hospital in a battle zone by the Iron Triangle. In that thickly forested, 120-square-mile area, most of the heavy fighting took place in 1967.
"Can you imagine seeing people with their bodies partially mutilated, mangled, blown apart?" Blum said. "I've never seen so much blood in my life. Where I worked, the operating room, I was covered with blood. … I literally was standing in blood. It was horrible."
Because battle lines were not sharply drawn in the confused jungles and thickets of Southeast Asia, Blum's hospital also served as a MASH unit. The airlifted wounded came quickly and frequently to doctors and nurses at the 12th Evacuation Hospital in Cu Chi, making it the largest user of fresh blood in all of Vietnam, Blum said.
Despite the challenges, Blum said, the efficient hospital staff saved more wounded than it lost.
"I saw the worst because of where we were," she said. "We were right beside the Ho Bo Woods, where all the fighting was going on. I saw it. I heard it. I smelled it."
Sights, smells, and sounds that shaped what Blum would become. Drawing on her wartime experiences as a decorated Vietnam War nurse and her later training stateside, Blum works today to heal others psychologically torn by war and other traumatic events — even as she was torn. Her long, and at times difficult, journey ultimately led to a fulfilling career as a practicing nurse psychotherapist, energy healer and author.
Blum is a psychotherapist living in Auburn, and counsels clients from all walks — men and women, active duty and reserve, and veterans in King County and beyond.
She specializes in helping people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Blum's personal experiences taught her a great deal about trauma and how to heal it. War, she said, has proven to be the best preparation for being an effective psychotherapist and coach. What she didn't know then, as an Army captain nurse, is that psychological symptoms associated with PTSD would follow her home.
Blum got through those terrible days in the operating room by "building up a brick wall around my heart." She only succeeded in suppressing her feelings.
"(In Vietnam) I couldn't let the emotions get the best of me," she said. "I had to learn really fast to turn it all off, so that it didn't show. I did a lot of stuff internally to be able to survive."
She deals with the same issues today.
"Being a client, I was doing my own healing work. I spent years in my own therapy and dealt with issues from Vietnam and uncovered the early childhood issues and healed those," she said.
Blum vows to heal, not assuage, patients.
"I tell people when they come to see me, 'If you just want to cope, see somebody else. If you want to get better, if you want your life to be better, then let's roll up our sleeves and get to work,'"she said.
A gifted surgical nurse, Blum decided to get out of the operating room and treat others in a different way. As her military stint ended, Blum went to college, earning her bachelor's degree in nursing at Seattle University. Later, she earned her master's degree in psychosocial nursing at the University of Washington.
She has been married. She raised a family in Auburn. Her daughter, Lorna, is a social worker. Her son, Sean-David, a professional musician, served in the U.S. Army Band.
Blum has made an impact with her practice and in her efforts elsewhere. She was among the first women to be elected to the Vietnam Veterans of America National Board of Directors. She has worked with others on legislation to help victims of Agent Orange. She was a member of the first international volunteer group, called PeaceTrees Vietnam, which returned to the country in 1996 to plant trees on land once ravaged by war. She went to heal herself — and to heal the land.
"A veteran had given me a letter and asked me to read it when I got to Vietnam and to plant it under a tree," Blum said of her personal pilgrimage. "It was emotional."
Blum has set her experiences down on paper. Her first, soon-to-be-published book, "Women Under Fire: Abuse in the Military," relates real stories of women who were raped or otherwise sexually assaulted in the military. She is working on a second book, "Women Under Fire: PTSD and Healing," that chronicles her own experiences and those of others.
Blum says there are more options today for those struggling with PTSD and other anxiety disorders. Attitudes towards afflicted war veterans and soldiers have changed since the Vietnam era, she said.
"It's much more accepted today. There's a lot more education about it," Blum said of PTSD. "I think that's what Vietnam Vets have done for our country, in that they educated people about the trauma of war, about PTSD and what it is.
"(The past) has helped modern-day veterans become more accepted and respected because of what we went through from the public."
Blum recognizes there is more work to be done. She is doing her part. It is her calling in life.
"I'm interested in the truth," she said of helping to treat the emotional wounds of others. "I'm a clear thinker, a problem solver. I'm a very strong person. I am someone who heals."
If you are a veteran, contact the Kitsap County Veterans Assistance Program to learn more about local services that are available to you.


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What Role Have Women Played in the History of the Space Program
*Please note that this page is a student project written by Nicole Turner. It was not written or edited by Windows to the Universe scientists.*
From Harriet Quimby (the first licensed woman pilot,) to Amelia Earheart (the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean,) one way women started to explore space was through aviation. Between these two remarkable women were many others who fought to achieve their hopes and dreams to become aviators. Yet these women went pretty much unnoticed, they played an important roll in the history of the space program. Some of these notables are Bessie Coleman (the first African-American woman pilot,) and Phebe Farigrave Omelie (the first woman transport pilot, and was appointed as Special Assistant for Air Intelligence of the National Advisory committee for Aeronautics, a forerunner of NASA.)In 1961, the Mercury 13 women aviators were secretly, and extensively tested for their physical and psychological tolerance to the then-unknown rigors of spaceflight. The first women to go through the Mercury 13 astronaut test was Jerrie Cobb. A 28-year-old pilot, with three world records, and 7,000 hours of flying time, Jerrie Cobb had ice water injected into her ears to test her balance. This was just one of the strange tests made to test women. She, as well as Wally Funk, were the only women who successfully completed the tests used for the original seven Mercury astronauts. In spite of these women completing all three of the phases, and 11 other women completing Phase I, they would never get the chance to go into orbit. NASA refused to authorize the successful completion of these tests for fear that the public might take it as approval fo women to be "astranettes" (the female version of an astronaut.)
Through testimonies before House Space subcommittees in the 1960's, and years of more thorough testing, NASA placed the first American woman in space, Dr. Sally Ride. June 8-16, 1983, Sally became the first American woman in space, and the first woman to deploy and retrieve a payload on the Shuttle using the remote manipulator arm. Sally was the breaking off point for NASA. Although mostly dominated by men, a few more women began to pop up here and there in the science fields. This was a grand slam for women in the playing field of space exploration with NASA.
Dr. Anna Fisher was one of the women who had a chance through Sally Ride's amazing struggle. November 8-16, 1984, Anna became the first person to retrieve a malfunctioning satellite with the remote manipulator arm. This became the first "salvage" mission. Dr. Rhea Seddon became the first to try a satellite repair out of the earth's atmosphere with the remote manipulator arm. She designed a makeshift "fly swatter" contraption space walkers attach to their arm. Rhea used the arm to grab a lever on the malfunctioning craft. She loggged over 720 hours in space on three missions. April 12-19, 1985, Dr. Kathryn Sullivan proved to us that it is possible to refuel a satellite during a spacewalk. In November 1985, Dr. Bonnie Dunbar, running a group of four missions, and logging 1,000 hours, worked with the crew of STS-61A to conduct the first comprehensive series of materials-precessing experiments in space. May 4-8, 1989, Dr. Mary Cleave became the first person to deploy a planetary probe from the Shuttle.
Dr. Tamara Jernigan was the payload commander on the first Shuttle flight dedicated in its entirety to investigating how the body adapts to micro-gravity. Dr. Mae Jemison became the first African-American woman in space in September 1992. April 8-17, 1993, Dr. Ellen Ochoa became the first Hispanic woman in space. Skipping right along, we come to Shannon Lucid, one of the first six women to graduate from the NASA Space Program for Astronauts. She was the second astronaut ever, and the first woman to serve as a Mir crew member. In 1996, she established a new American record for the longest time spent in space. She remained aboard Mir, when the rest of her STS-76 crew returned home aboard the Shuttle. (She beat the men on this one!)
Most women that wanted to go into the space field had many difficult times getting through school. Wanting to go into the space field, they had to take higher math classes, engineering, and higher science classes. The classes were often classified as "boy fields." Girls were not encouraged to take these classes. Their teachers, friends, principals, and even some parents criticized them about taking the "boy classes." They were treated unfairly, and not given the same opportunities, and respect as the boys were. I can easily relate to some of the diffuculties, and I am only going in to the sixth grade.
What roles have women played in the history of the space program? I hope this essay has contributed to your understanding, and ideas about women in space. During their struggle, many women lost their determination, and will to go into a "man's world," and a "man's field." These women helped future generations to see that these occupations can be successfully held by women. A special thank you goes out to those women who tried to make it in science fields, but could not, and to those who tried, and did. Thank you for helping pave the road for future generations of women to explore space! Their history, is our future!

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by Ewan Pinnington
Forests play an important role in the global carbon cycle, removing large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere and thus helping to mitigate the effect of human-induced climate change. The state of the global carbon cycle in the IPCC AR5 suggests that the land surface is the most uncertain component of the global carbon cycle. The response of ecosystem carbon uptake to land use change and disturbance (e.g. fire, felling, insect outbreak) is a large component of this uncertainty. Additionally, there is much disagreement on whether forests and terrestrial ecosystems will continue to remove the same proportion of CO2 from the atmosphere under future climate regimes. It is therefore important to improve our understanding of ecosystem carbon cycle processes in the context of a changing climate.
Here we focus on the effect on ecosystem carbon dynamics of disturbance from selective felling (thinning) at the Alice Holt research forest in Hampshire, UK. Thinning is a management practice used to improve ecosystem services or the quality of a final tree crop and is globally widespread. At Alice Holt a program of thinning was carried out in 2014 where one side of the forest was thinned and the other side left unmanaged. During thinning approximately 46% of trees were removed from the area of interest.
Figure 1: At the top of Alice Holt flux tower.
Using the technique of eddy-covariance at flux tower sites we can produce direct measurements of the carbon fluxes in a forest ecosystem. T
he flux tower at Alice Holt has been producing measurements since 1999 (Wilkinson et al., 2012), a view from the flux tower is shown in Figure 1. These measurements represent the Net Ecosystem Exchange of CO2 (NEE). The NEE is composed of both photosynthesis and respiration fluxes. The total amount of carbon removed from the atmosphere through photosynthesis is termed the Gross Primary Productivity (GPP). The Total Ecosystem Respiration (TER) is made up of autotrophic respiration (Ra) from plants and heterotrophic respiration (Rh) from soil microbes and other organisms incapable of photosynthesis. We then have, NEE = -GPP + TER, so that a negative NEE value represents removal of carbon from the atmosphere and a positive NEE value represents an input of carbon to the atmosphere. A schematic of these fluxes is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Fluxes of carbon around a forest ecosystem.
The flux tower at Alice Holt is on the boundary between the thinned and unthinned forest. This allows us to partition the NEE observations between the two areas of forest using a flux footprint model (Wilkinson et al., 2016). We also conducted an extensive fieldwork campaign in 2015 to estimate the difference in structure between the thinned and unthinned forest. However, these observations are not enough alone to understand the effect of disturbance. We therefore also use mathematical models describing the carbon balance of our ecosystem, here we use the DALEC2 model of ecosystem carbon balance (Bloom and Williams, 2015). In order to find the best estimate for our system we use the mathematical technique of data assimilation in order to combine all our available observations with our prior model predictions. More infomation on the novel data assimilation techniques developed can be found in Pinnington et al., 2016. These techniques allow us to find two distinct parameter sets for the DALEC2 model corresponding to the thinned and unthinned forest. We can then inspect the model output for both areas of forest and attempt to further understand the effect of selective felling on ecosystem carbon dynamics.
Figure 3: Model predicted cumulative fluxes for 2015 after data assimilatiom. Solid line: NEE, dotted line: TER, dashed line: GPP. Orange: model prediction for thinned forest, blue: model prediction for unthinned forest. Shaded region: model uncertainty after assimilation (± 1 standard deviation).
In Figure 3 we show the cumulative fluxes for both the thinned and unthinned forest after disturbance in 2015. We would probably assume that removing 46% of the trees from the thinned section would reduce the amount of carbon uptake in comparison to the unthinned section. However, we can see that both forests removed a total of approximately 425 g C m-2 in 2015, despite the thinned forest having 46% of its trees removed in the previous year. From our best modelled predictions this unchanged carbon uptake is possible due to significant reductions in TER. So, even though the thinned forest has lower GPP, its net carbon uptake is similar to the unthinned forest. Our model suggests that GPP is a main driver for TER, therefore removing a large amount of trees has significantly reduced ecosystem respiration. This result is supported by other ecological studies (Heinemeyer et al., 2012, Högberg et al., 2001, Janssens et al., 2001). This has implications for future predictions of land surface carbon uptake and whether forests will continue to sequester atmospheric CO2 at similar rates, or if they will be limited by increased GPP leading to increased respiration. For more information on this work please see Pinnington et al., 2017.
Wilkinson, M. et al., 2012: Inter-annual variation of carbon uptake by a plantation oak woodland in south-eastern England. Biogeosciences, 9 (12), 5373–5389.
Wilkinson, M., et al., 2016: Effects of management thinning on CO2 exchange by a plantation oak woodland in south-eastern England. Biogeosciences, 13 (8), 2367–2378, doi: 10.5194/bg-13-2367-2016.
Bloom, A. A. and M. Williams, 2015: Constraining ecosystem carbon dynamics in a data-limited world: integrating ecological "common sense" in a model data fusion framework. Biogeosciences, 12 (5), 1299–1315, doi: 10.5194/bg-12-1299-2015.
Pinnington, E. M., et al., 2016: Investigating the role of prior and observation error correlations in improving a model forecast of forest carbon balance using four-dimensional variational data assimilation. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 228229, 299 – 314, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2016.07.006.
Pinnington, E. M., et al., 2017: Understanding the effect of disturbance from selective felling on the carbon dynamics of a managed woodland by combining observations with model predictions, J. Geophys. Res. Biogeosci., 122, doi:10.1002/2017JG003760.
Heinemeyer, A., et al., 2012: Exploring the "overflow tap" theory: linking forest soil co2 fluxes and individual mycorrhizo- sphere components to photosynthesis. Biogeosciences, 9 (1), 79–95.
Högberg, P., et al., 2001: Large-scale forest girdling shows that current photosynthesis drives soil respiration. Nature, 411 (6839), 789–792.
Janssens, I. A., et al., 2001: Productivity overshadows temperature in determining soil and ecosystem respiration across european forests. Global Change Biology, 7 (3), 269–278, doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2486.2001.00412.x.


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As far as I know, if you want to install BuddyPress you've got to have a WordPress MU installation (I know WordPress 3.x already is MU in itself) with a unique database, which has different tables for each blog.
But my situation is quite different: we have a blog network, and we would like to have a buddypress installed for all our blogs. This way users could register once and comment on the blogs automatically, see their activity, link to other users, etc. But the blogs are on different servers :(
Our current physical division of blogs (some of them are together in the same server, but others are in different servers, each with its own database) makes me think this is quite difficult to do. I know that the Multi-DB plugin could help us with the database thing, but... what if the blogs are, as in our situation, in different servers/VPS's?


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HOUSTON (AP) — If the Trump administration gets its way, U.S. citizens boarding international flights will have to submit to a face scan, a plan privacy advocates call a step toward a surveillance state.
The Department of Homeland Security says it's the only way to successfully expand a program that tracks nonimmigrant foreigners. They have been required by law since 2004 to submit to biometric identity scans — but to date have only had their fingerprints and photos collected prior to entry.
Now, DHS says it's finally ready to implement face scans on departure — aimed mainly at better tracking visa overstays but also at tightening security.
It says it won't keep the face scans of U.S. citizens, but privacy advocates are skeptical and say Homeland Security is overstepping its authority.
"Congress authorized scans of foreign nationals. DHS heard that and decided to scan everyone. That's not how a democracy is supposed to work," said Alvaro Bedoya, executive director of the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown University.
Trials begun under the Obama administration are underway at six U.S. airports — Boston, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Kennedy Airport in New York City and Dulles in the Washington, D.C., area. DHS aims to have high-volume U.S. international airports engaged beginning next year.
During the trials, passengers will be able to opt out. But a DHS assessment of the privacy impact indicates that won't always be the case.
"The only way for an individual to ensure he or she is not subject to collection of biometric information when traveling internationally is to refrain from traveling," says the June 12 document on the website of Customs and Border Protection, which runs the DHS program.
John Wagner, the Customs deputy executive assistant commissioner in charge of the program, confirmed in an interview that U.S. citizens departing on international flights will submit to face scans.
Wagner says the agency has no plans to retain the biometric data of U.S. citizens and will delete all scans of them within 14 days. However, he doesn't rule out CBP keeping them in the future after going "through the appropriate privacy reviews and approvals."
A CBP spokeswoman, Jennifer Gabris, said the agency has not yet examined whether what would require a law change
Privacy advocates say making the scans mandatory for U.S. citizens pushes the nation toward a Big Brother future of pervasive surveillance where local and state police and federal agencies, and even foreign governments, could leverage citizens collected "digital faceprints" to track them wherever they go.
Jay Stanley, an American Civil Liberties Union senior policy analyst, says U.S. law enforcement and security agencies already exert "sufficient gravitational pulls in wanting to record and track what masses of individuals are doing," he says.
Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said U.S. citizens should be able to opt out.
"I intend to closely monitor this facial recognition program to ensure that Americans can say 'no' to being subject to facial recognition and that DHS and airlines are fully transparent with the public about their future plans," he said in an emailed statement.
A network of government databases collects face scans from mug shots, driver's license and other images.
In an October report, the Georgetown center estimated more than one in four U.S. state and local law enforcement agencies can run or request face-recognition searches and federal agencies including the IRS have all had access to one or more state or local face recognition systems.
Bedoya said the images of at least 130 million U.S. adults in 29 states are stored in face recognition databases.
The FBI alone has more than 30 million photos in a single database, and New York state recently announced it would begin scanning the faces of drivers entering New York City bridges and tunnels.Another DHS initiative worrying privacy advocates is TSA's Precheck, the voluntary program designed to speed enrollees through airport security with more than 5 million enrollees.
Participants are not being told the digital fingerprints and biographical data they submit for background checks when enrolling are retained in an FBI identity database for life, said Jeramie Scott, an attorney with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a public interest nonprofit. Since last month, trials that let enrollees use a digital fingerprint scanner to speed through TSA security are underway in Atlanta and Denver.
EPIC worries not just about potential governmental abuse but also the vulnerability to hackers. In the 2015 breach of the federal Office of Personnel Management, 5.6 million sets of fingerprint images were stolen.
The biometric exit endeavor will cost billions. That's partly because U.S. airports don't have dedicated secure immigration areas for departing international flights. Domestic and international passengers commingle in the same concourses.
Currently, foreigners arriving in the U.S. submit to photo and digital fingerprint recording but there are no "exit" scans. U.S. citizens are subject to neither; their photos are digitally stored in a microchip in their passports with biographical data.
In written testimony to Congress in May, CBP said U.S. citizens leaving on international flights cannot be exempted from face scans because 1) It's not practical to run separate boarding systems for citizens and non-citizens and 2) Scanning U.S. citizens' passports will ensure they don't travel on a passport not their own.
"This is a technologically advanced way to check identity as opposed to the 'analog' way it happens now," said DHS spokeswoman Jenny Burke.
Face recognition technology is getting better, but is far from perfect, however. A smile recorded at the gate could, for example, trigger a mismatch when compared to a serious gaze in a passport photo.
Even the most accurate systems fail 5 percent to 10 percent of the time, said Anil Jain, a Michigan State professor.
Robert Mann, an aviation consultant in Port Washington, New York, said such a failure rate would be "a non-starter" by slowing the boarding process.
Congress last year approved up to $1 billion over the next decade collected from visa fees to get the program rolling technically. That won't cover the additional border agents needed for gate checks, for starters.
DHS officials hope to defray costs through partnerships with airlines that are incorporating biometrics to boost efficiencies. Two airlines in the pilot program — Delta and JetBlue — tout identity-verification technology's convenience for other ends: Delta for speeding baggage handling, JetBlue for eliminating boarding passes. Both carriers say they will not retain customers' face scan files.
CBP knows it won't have a full picture of who is overstaying visas until face scans are also done at U.S. land and sea borders.
Such concerns shouldn't stop the government from moving ahead with the program and U.S. citizens have already sacrificed considerable privacy as the price of fighting terrorists, said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which promotes restrictions on immigration.
He called it a "moral and security imperative."
More than 700,000 overstayed their visas in the year ending Sept. 30.
But Ben Ball, a biometrics consultant and former DHS analyst, says the government hasn't yet addressed the thorniest questions.
"This is still a theoretical system," he said. "We are the first country on earth to attempt a comprehensive biometric system and it's technically very complicated."
Australia is among global pioneers in facial recognition for traveler processing. It is currently an option for bypassing manual immigration controls for arriving and departing international air travelers. Citizens from 15 nations including the United States are eligible.
The European Union is also moving toward face scans and fingerprint collection — but limited to third-country nationals crossing external borders. An agreement reached June 30 will now be submitted to the European Parliament.
Koenig reported from Dallas. Kristen Gelineau in Sydney contributed to this report.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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This is our official Chattanooga Real Estate Investors Alliance Event Calendar. Be sure to check this calendar often for our many monthly real estate training seminars, workshops, field trips, networking events and community service projects. Put your mouse over the dates highlighted on the calendar below to see what events we have going on that day.
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Works in Progress: Mountain Justiceby Nathan Rutz '09 |
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Funded by a Dill Internship Grant, Nathan Rutz spent two months in West Virginia with Mountain Justice Summer, a non-profit "call to action from the people of the Appalachian mountains for help in saving mountains, streams, and forest" from controversial "mountaintop removal" coal mining. His experiences—whether he was hanging out with the people of Coal River, WV, working with activists in the Justice movement, or dropping in on a revival at The Jesus Church—challenged his beliefs about government and made him more determined to defend the environment and the people and local culture it sustains. WM asked him for a glimpse of his experience. The drive up Kayford Mountain Road is an awakening. My first time up was with Matt Noerpel, a slender, red-headed 25-year-old environmental engineer from New Jersey who participated in the first Mountain Justice Summer in 2005 and never left West Virginia. We were driving up to change the rechargeable batteries in the security cameras Matt installed for Larry Gibson, the only remaining permanent resident on Kayford Mountain, the man they call "The Keeper of the Mountains." To get to Kayford Mountain Road, you have to drive up Clear Fork to a big, circular orange sign for a gas station that's not there anymore. The town of Clear Fork used to be a much bigger, but there are fewer jobs nearby these days. We make a left, drive past a few rows of houses, and start climbing at about a 35-degree angle. Then the pavement ends. This is the first gravel mountain road I have ever been up. I can't quite see what the drop offs look like from the passenger-side window, but, switchback after switchback, I feel the hillside getting steeper as we climb. When my sense of wonder overcomes my dread of falling, occasional glimpses I get of the ridges beyond the trees become increasingly magnificent, framed by tiny blooming wildflowers. We roll by piles of lustrous black and blue butterflies, alongside an exposed rock wall being carved by a perpetual drip along the road. Between looks at the scenery, Matt and I laugh about snack foods we loved as little kids. I mention Funyons, how unnatural and weird they seem now, but how delicious and cool they were in third grade. Matt mentions snacking on Slim Jims, a thing of the past now that he's a strict vegan. "Dude, do you remember Munchos?" I ask. "Those things are freakin' crazy." "Munchos?!" Matt grins. "Hell yeah!" Reaching Larry's cabin, Matt and I change the rechargeable batteries in the hunting cameras that are Larry's security cameras, installed after his cabin was burned down and one of his dogs was shot. Larry is certain someone supporting the coal industry did it. As we walk up a wooded path, Matt shows me what wood sorrel looks like, tells me that it's good to eat. We see two mine breaks, where abandoned underground mines have collapsed, causing a split all the way to the surface. The mine breaks here are caused by artificial seismic activity—mountaintop blasting by Massey Energy, the state's largest coal producer, run by CEO Don Blankenship, the man The New York Times said might as well be governor for all the power he wields. The end of the trail is my introduction to the process of mountaintop removal (MTR)—how it starts, and where all the bits of exploded mountain go. To our left is an area being mined—a blasted gray canyon with machines scattered throughout. In front of us is a "reclaimed" area. The reclaimed area is a field of dying sod streaked with erosion. The miners are barely visible. Matt tells me that the tires on their trucks are 16 feet tall. Our conversation grows grim as we drive back down Kayford Mountain Road. "If you were hiking and saw Don Blankenship hanging off the edge of a cliff, what would you do?" I ask Matt. "I think I'd help him up," he says. Pauses. "No, I'd definitely help him up. What about you?" "To be honest, I think I'd walk on by." I'm beginning to understand why Matt is so committed to this work, and why he never left West Virginia. And, in the ensuing weeks at the Coal River Mountain Watch Campaign House, I discover there are many other reasons someone might want not to leave West Virginia and the anti-MTR movement. I learn to sword fight with Jen, activist and part-time wolf trainer. I talk about music with dread-locked and bearded Bobby, listen to Hillary's stories of her days doing high profile direct actions with Greenpeace. I laugh when 15-year-old Coal River resident Dustin talks about showing off for "hot women," and I sit on the porch getting made fun of by Charles Ballard. Charles Ballard is 71, bald, brags on his Suzuki Sidekick like it's a Lamborghini, has no teeth, and claims to have smoked since he was six. Depending on how it fits the night's conversation, he may also have a woman in every county, or he might tell you that one is as much as any man could ever need. Charles is from Dry Creek, just a few miles up the road, and has lived there most of his life. Charles rolls up to the campaign house in a jeep slathered with "I love Mountains" bumper stickers, yelling about the valley's latest news. Next thing I know, his old belly button's winking at me from the under his plaid shirt that's only buttoned twice. "Betcha did'n know I came round here earlier today didja? Heh heh." I brace myself for some revelation; "Hey Bobby, d'you know what this guy was doin' earlier?" "Nope," Bobby replies. "He was locked in the closet cryin' since his girlfriend left." "Y'know Charles, we've got some mighty fine vegetables all cooked up right now," I retaliate. "You an your goddam vegtables," Charles says. "How can you eat nothin' but vegtables?" He crinkles his face and lights another cigarette to get the imagined taste of vegetables out of his mouth. One of my favorite stories is about a day Charles says he really stuck it to Massey. Charles was going fishing and took a road owned by a Massey subsidiary. He drove straight toward the guard shack in protest. The guard caught a glimpse of the stickers on Charles' Jeep and said, "I don't like your stickers!" Charles yelled back, "Well that's good, 'cause I don't like goddamn Massey!" "Sir, you can't come up this road." "Is that so?" Charles told the guard as he reached toward the floor of his Jeep. "Go on! Go on!" the guard stammered, waving him through. "That's what I thought," Charles chuckled as he drove off. "This is my home, and them mountains are pretty," Charles tells me. I can't think of better justification for ending mountain top removal. On my second trip up Kayford Mountain, I finally got to meet Larry Gibson. My girlfriend had come to visit, and I thought she needed to see the destruction. It was just good luck that we met Larry—he was actually waiting for some photographers when we arrived. I'd read about Larry; his story has been told in magazines and newspapers from Audubon to Oprah. He's something of a hero in the anti-MTR movement—he's been fighting for more than 20 years. "STOP MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL" in black on the most violently fluorescent yellow I have ever seen emblazons Larry's hat and the t-shirt stretched over his belly. "The Keeper of the Mountains" is about as tall as my shoulder. He seems glad we're there and offers to show us around with the photographers. They arrive in a rental van, sporting the trappings of city-dwelling artists. Still, Larry treats them the same as anyone else. He jokes with my tall girlfriend, "For every step you take, I have to take three." He's more than 60 years old, but Larry walks the trail quickly. He stops for a moment when we reach what he calls "the Gates of Hell." It's the edge of Larry's family land trust. The ground past the gate is coal company property. There's a sign on a tree there that says before any blasting, a series of warning whistles will blow. Larry tells us they hardly ever actually follow that protocol, and he ducks under the gate. We stand on the edge of a cliff overlooking thousands of acres of bare rock and machinery. The roar of engines echoes from hundreds of feet below. Larry's jovial voice turns solemn, almost weary. He mentions matter-of-factly that he's been shot at. He tells us about the protests where he's been arrested, of the reporters from other countries that have come to learn about MTR, and how the people of West Virginia suffer from having "the best politicians money can buy." I wish the photographers would hurry up and stop worrying about the lighting and take their shots. Standing here so close to the mining feels like watching an assault from a few feet away. Larry takes us to the Stanley family cemetery. It's much larger than I'd imagined, the graveyard for quite an extended family. There are fresh flowers at several of the headstones. Larry quietly shows us where to step and how to avoid treading on the ground immediately in front of a headstone. I look at the markers as we pass. Some are fairly recent, others are much older. Still other markers have disappeared, or gone smooth. In a few places, the ground in front of the headstone sinks. Larry tells us that's where the graves have collapsed because of the nearby blasting. Then he points out an even older cemetery to us. He says that the cemetery has graves over 270 years old, but most of them are totally sunken in. The graveyard is an island surrounded by strip mining. It's illegal to strip mine a cemetery, but the coal company has the mineral rights and has mined under it. Underground mining mixed with blasting is just the thing to collapse graves, Larry tells us. Coming back from the cemetery, I notice something I'd missed on my last trip. I'd seen the white rock that used to mark the road to the church on Kayford Mountain—John 3:16 is painted on the front of it. But on the back in fading black paint, Psalm 95:4 reads, "In His hands are the deep places of the earth, the strength of the hills is His also." I'd never heard that verse before. I stayed at the campaign house five days after my family left, spending much of my time four-wheeling, swimming with Dustin (who was still on the lookout for "hot women"), and making fudge for the Coal River Watch campaign house crew (and Charles Ballard, of course). As I packed up to go home, I wasn't nearly as excited about finally getting to read the seventh and final Harry Potter book as I had imagined I would be when I planned my return date months ago. The farmer-poet Wendell Berry writes, "To countenance mountaintop removal in West Virginia is to agree to the destruction of Yosemite or Yellowstone." I could see Kayford Mountain in my mind even as I drove home to Cincinnati, even as I drove past the five coal-fired power plants that line the road along the Ohio River, even as they filled my mind with images of the land and the people of West Virginia ad come to love. Read about Mountain Justice Summer at www.mountainjusticesummer.org |


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Posted by Editor on 01/12/11
Last November, Canadian 'cross racer Shaun Adamson decided to try his hand at cyclo-cross in the home of the sport: Belgium. His first race was the extremely difficult Koksijde World Cup (November 27th), and he has been racing ever since. Shaun sent us his first report on his experiences to date on December 10th (see Daily News: Shaun Adamson - A Canadian Cyclo-crosser in Belgium). Here is his second report:
Zolder World Cup (Belgium) December 26th
Well, it's only been two weeks since the Zolder World Cup, but it feels like it's been a lifetime. Some of us had gone to pre-ride the course the week before Christmas and it was absolutely covered in snow and ice. Race day brought similar conditions, although they had removed the ice from the roads and the snow was now covered in ruts. That, in addition to the sketchy descents, was going to make for a very tough day!
I was feeling good and was pretty comfortable on the course. I knew that the start was going to be chaos when we hit the snow, and it was - the ruts were throwing the leaders all over the place and everyone was piling into each other. I felt like I was able to make up spots, running by people. In the trees, it was basically single file until we hit the next snowy, rutted section, where there was yet more crashes. Being in a group wasn't going to be a big deal today, it was just going to [be important to] be smooth and consistent. I focused on that as much as I could, as well as putting the power down on the sections that I could. There were parts of the course where I was having a blast and parts of the course where I was getting really frustrated; I wouldn't be able to clip in from running and then I couldn't get up the next climb or down the next descent.
I did ride with Brian Matter for a few laps, until Lars [Boom] and Niels [Albert] came by me. That did make for some good TV time and I did ride a section that gave Lars some trouble, although they were a lap ahead of me. It wasn't a great result, but it was a good day and I think I made improvements in my riding.
Superprestige Diegem (Belgium) December 27th
I was looking forward to racing in Diegem. It was the very first race I ever did in Europe, and I remembered it being a pretty good course for me. This time I got to race with the big boys, in the dark. It was a good course, with lots of pedaling (something I had missed the day before in Zolder), but it certainly wasn't going to be easy.
There was a little stress in the tent warming up as I realized that my chain was broken; I quickly jumped onto my other bike and The Famous Gregg Germer took a link out ... good as new. I had a great start, navigating through the traffic, good enough to even have a few people comment about it to me. Unfortunately, that's about as far as it went, as I found myself stuck behind people going through the mud by the first pit and then following a wheel that I thought would help me bridge up to the group just ahead, but instead got in my way and slowed me down in the mud and snow. I never would get back up to that group.
But I was feeling good on the course and felt like I could really put the power down. I crashed pretty spectacularly on one of the icy, rutted corners. I didn't feel bad after, though as there was more than one crash there that night, taking down some of the best riders in the world. I definitely didn't make the lead lap again tonight, but I knew that I went as hard as I could. I am also feeling more and more comfortable in these crazy ruts!
GVA Trofee - Azencross (Belgium) December 29th
It's kind of funny how I remember these courses. I remember loving Diegem, but didn't like it so much yesterday and I remember disliking Azencross, but loved it this time!
It was a lot of fun, with some nice mud, some running, some fast sections, good corners, ruts, and of course the whoops! I was feeling pretty decent today and really wanted to have a good ride. I started well again on the really long start straight, avoiding a few major crashes, and managed to get around a few guys in the first mud section. My biggest mistake of the day was trying to ride too much of the mud when I should have just picked up my bike and ran.
I really felt like I was riding well, but after one lap, I just could not accelerate to stay with the group I was with. I lost them for good on the really long straight, so I began simply focusing on accelerating hard and driving well. I did that, but the best riders in the world really are amazing and they caught me after only four laps. I definitely got something out of it and look forward to the day when I get to ride a full 60 minutes with these guys!
Grand Prix Hotel Threeland Petange (Lux) January 1st
I decided to make the trek to Petange, Luxembourg this year, as that is what everyone else was doing and the other option - the GP Sven Nys in Baal - is an incredibly hard course. My legs were definitely not 100% and all the climbing on the course was going to be tough. Right from the gun I was suffering a lot, but I was feeling good in the mud and on the long descents, and would catch guys there. I was hurting really bad after just one lap and wanted to pull the plug and go right to sleep, but I knew that I couldn't do that, I told myself when I first got here that I wasn't going to DNF any races. So I kept pushing and was riding with some of the guys I had been riding with in some of the B races and focused on my driving in the muddy descents.
Fidea Cyclo-cross Tervuren (Bel) January 2nd
When we got home from Luxembourg, some of us were planning on doing the B race in Waregem on Sunday, but we saw Pete Webber's pre-ride photos and video, and it looked like a horrid course with far too much running in muddy fields! Luckily, we're in Belgium and there was another great race, although again with the best riders in the world, but it would be another experience on a great course. And the course was really good. Really hard, but really good.
It was going to give me lots of practice riding the mud, in ruts, up and down, and just fun. I was tired! I came through the first corner and along the super muddy false flat stretch near the back, but ran by a few people in the congestion. In the TV coverage they even said "The Canadian, Shaun Adamson" as I ran by another guy. I was working hard, trying my best to find good lines and nail all the technical sections. The other thing I really needed to do better today was focus on fighting for every second rather than just waiting to get lapped. I'll get there. And until then, I'm really looking forward to a week off!
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Sold Documentaries On Public TV, Firms Get Ads
In recent months, American not-for-profit organizations and start-up firms have been receiving calls from a Florida production company saying they can be the focus of short TV documentaries hosted by former network news anchor Hugh Downs.
They are promised the shows will be educational in nature and reach an estimated 60 million American households on public television stations across the country.
But the programs aren't documentaries; they're marketing segments that will cost the firms that are their subjects roughly $25,000 apiece. And the spots, created by Vision Media of Boca Raton, Fla., are likely to receive little airtime, if any, on local PBS member stations.
"They are selling something that they generally cannot deliver," says Garry Denny, program director of Wisconsin Public Television and a past president of the professional association of programming officials for PBS member stations. "In fact, they are probably not carried by any public television station around the country."
Officials at PBS and at PBS member stations in California, Colorado, Kentucky, New York, South Carolina and Virginia were all aware of the Hugh Downs spots. Yet not one knew of a concrete instance in which the spots featuring Downs appeared on their stations or those of others. PBS and its member stations say they adhere to guidelines banning marketing programming paid for by subjects of the programs.
Mark Miller, one of Vision Media's owners, would not agree to an interview with NPR but responded to some questions by e-mail. He said his firm was not deceiving its clients but instead providing valuable services at a reasonable price. Stations in approximately 100 markets have signed program request forms allowing them to air the spots featuring Downs, Miller wrote, though he would not identify any of those markets. Nor would he say where any spots have appeared.
As Vision Media points out, the public television spots aren't the only thing clients receive. They can use the professionally produced videos as marketing materials. And they also become infomercials, which appear on cable channels in some markets through some local cable providers. In those instances they are clearly marked as paid programming.
But Downs doesn't appear on the cable infomercials or in the marketing videos. According to both Downs' agent and Vision Media's Miller, the retired anchor's contract limits his involvement to public television. Yet for many people approached by Vision Media's cold-calling pitchmen, he's by far the strongest selling point.
One of the firms recently pitched is Portland, Maine-based Putney Inc., which develops generic drugs for pets. "Hugh Downs! I know that name," said Jean Hoffman, Putney's CEO. "We were of course pretty excited, pretty interested, and pretty eager to cooperate."
It seemed like a splendid opportunity, until Hoffman and her colleagues started to bore in on the details. "They send the signal that they're doing a story" as journalists, Hoffman said. "Then, they try to sell us what under questioning was revealed to be advertising."
Putney passed on the opportunity. Hoffman said she thought it was deceptive and would have been a poor use of the small company's marketing budget.
Among the outfits that have purchased the Vision Media spots in the past couple of years are the Warren County, Ohio, convention and visitors center; Foxcroft Academy, a prep school in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine; and the National Funeral Directors Association, based outside Milwaukee.
Robert Biggins is past president of the funeral director trade group and owner of a funeral home in Rockland, Mass. He said Vision Media's promise of a presence on public television and the involvement of Downs were crucial.
"He brings a credibility in reporting," Biggins said. "I felt that dealing with an organization that he's so intimately involved in gave us the opportunity to share our message, and to do so in a warm and gracious manner."
If their spots did not air on public television, Biggins said, "That would be a serious concern."
The National Funeral Directors Association provided NPR with a copy of the contract it signed with Vision Media. The association paid $22,900 in 2007 for the production of different versions of the spot, plus an additional $3,000 as a "location fee" -- presumably for travel costs. The contract and additional material from Patrick Wilson of American Artists, the segments' distributor, stated the "estimated reach is over 40 million households" on public television stations. The brochure also suggests the spots will reach 84 million households nationwide on cable -- the overwhelming majority of all homes subscribing to cable television.
The price has gone up, and so have the claims for the audience reach. Vision Media marketing materials received this year by Washington Cash, a not-for-profit microlending firm based in Seattle, showed the production cost listed at $23,900. An enclosed letter from distributor Wilson estimated that 60 million households would be reached through public television stations. Washington Cash decided against pursuing the pitch.
Vision Media offers other benefits. It promises to upload the corporate videos to YouTube and, if given e-mail addresses of possible clients, to promote the appearance of those videos on public television and cable stations.
As the promotional materials put it, "When you e-mail someone about your service, product or organization, it's considered spam. When we e-mail someone about your service product or organization, it's considered an online documentary."
It's all very similar to an arrangement a few years back that initially boasted the late Walter Cronkite and Aaron Brown as hosts of similar paid spots created by another Boca Raton production company. The hosts backed out as media reports revealed the details of the deal.
The 89-year-old Downs is the former anchor of NBC's Today show, ABC's 20/20 and PBS's classical music show Live From Lincoln Center. The School of Human Communication is named for him at Arizona State University. He is on a two-month-long cruise and has been unreachable. But his agent, Rick Hersh, says Downs' involvement was limited to taping on a single day, two years ago, in a television studio in Phoenix. Hersh says PBS's strict standards ensure the integrity of anything aired on public television stations and that Downs' contract limits his participation to public TV.
Despite repeated requests, Miller of Vision Media and Wilson, his distributor, wouldn't say where the Downs spots have appeared. Instead, Miller bristled at questions about the videos. He said clients appreciate their distribution on cable and use his videos for marketing purposes. The company has taken tougher aim at other critics. Vision Media filed a $20 million lawsuit against a blogger who called its business model a scam.


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Academic Dishonesty Policy Statement and Procedures
Appeals of Academic Evaluations Policy and Procedures
Adjustments to Academic Regulations
Credit/No Credit Regulations
Probation and Suspension
Transfer of Non-Drake Credits
Student Responsibility
Withdrawal Policy
Formal Student Grievance Policy
Below are the procedures from the college handbook:
4.6 Procedures for Appeals of Academic Evaluations
This appeals process is established to deal with: a) appeals from actions taken as a result of an instructor's determination that a student's performance involved academic dishonesty including, but not limited to, plagiarism and cheating and b) student petitions challenging a grade or alleging arbitrary and capricious grading practices.
[Note: These are the procedures typically followed by the College of Arts and Sciences. However, these procedures are subject to change without prior notice and they do not constitute a contract between Drake University and its students.]
4.6.1 Academic Dishonesty.
4.6.11 Definitions.
Academic dishonesty is an all encompassing term involving any activity that seeks to gain credit for work one has not done or to deliberately damage or destroy the work of others. Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, the following:
Plagiarism - The misrepresentation, either by intent or negligence, of another's ideas, phrases, discourse, or works as one's own.
Cheating - the act, or attempted act, of giving or obtaining aid and/or information by illicit means in meeting any academic requirements, including examinations.
Fabrication - intentional and unauthorized falsification or invention of any information or citation in an academic sense in any academic exercise.
Facilitating Academic Dishonesty - intentionally or knowingly helping or attempting to help another to commit an act of academic dishonesty.
Examples of academic dishonesty include, but are not limited to:
Each instructor reserves the right to further clarify and define his/her expectations of academic integrity orally or in written form, such as through the course syllabus.
4.6.12 Conscientious Retraction of Submitted Work.
A student may retract work (including examinations) he or she has submitted that violates this Policy, if such a retraction is an act of conscience. Should such a conscientious retraction occur, it will be governed by the following:
4.6.13 Procedures and Penalties.
The penalty for academic dishonesty will vary from incident to incident, depending upon the scope and magnitude of the offense and the circumstances in which it occurred; upon the prior record of the person being penalized; and upon evidence suggesting the existence or absence of a pattern of academic dishonesty in the academic performance of the person committing the offense.
Not later than fourteen (14) days after an alleged Academic Integrity Policy violation comes to his/her attention, the instructor shall (1) provide the student with written notice describing the alleged violation and (2) make a good faith effort (normally, both an e-mail and a phone mail message during the academic year; and an e-mail and a regular U.S. letter during the summer or winter break) to meet with the student to discuss the alleged violation. After the meeting, or after it becomes clear that the student refuses to meet, the instructor shall exercise professional judgment in selecting his or her course of action. Among the possible courses of action are the following:
If the instructor under b or c above determines that a violation has occurred and assigns a penalty, he/she will notify the Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences and the chair of the instructor's department. If the student is majoring in a program in a college outside of Arts and Sciences, the Associate Dean will notify the Dean of that college.
Note: Anytime a matter is timely brought before the Academic Integrity and Appeals Committee, either by the instructor or the student, the Committee has the right to decide anew whether an Academic Integrity violation occurred according to the definitions in 4.6.11 and/or the instructor's policies as stated in the syllabus and/or other written or oral communications provided to the class.
4.6.14 Initiation.
Academic Integrity proceedings will commence upon notification in one of the following situations, both of which may be present in a single case:
Note: If the student does not wish to appeal the decision on academic integrity but only the final course grade resulting from the instructor's penalty, the student should initiate a Grade Appeal pursuant to 4.6.4 below.
4.6.15 Notification of Hearing.
The Chair of the Academic Integrity and Appeals Committee must notify the student and the instructor in writing at least ten (10) working days prior to the hearing date. The notification shall include the alleged Academic Integrity Policy violation giving rise to the hearing, hearing procedures, the date, time, and location of the hearing, copies of documents that the Committee intends to use at the hearing and the name of the Chair.
In responding to the hearing notification, the accused may do any of the following:
Requests will be granted or denied in the reasonable discretion of the Chair of the Academic Integrity Committee.
4.6.16 Attendance at the Hearing.
Attendance at the hearing is restricted to the members of the Academic Integrity and Appeals Committee, the instructor of the course involved, the accused student, and witnesses. At least five members of the Committee must be present. Witnesses, other than the accused, may be excluded from portions of the hearing at the discretion of the Chair. The accused may invite an advisor, who may attend the hearing, but the advisor may not represent the accused, offer testimony, or question witnesses. Upon approval of the Chair, other invitees of the accused or the instructor who are not witnesses may be allowed to attend.
If a student or instructor has received timely notice but fails to appear at the hearing, and has not requested and received a postponement, the hearing may still go forward as provided below, at the discretion of the Chair.
If a witness has reasonable cause as to why he or she will be unable to attend the hearing, the Chair must make accommodations to hear the witness's testimony or obtain a signed written statement. No decision may be rendered by the Committee prior to making reasonable accommodations to hear all testimony or obtain a signed written statement from any requested witness.
4.6.17 Record.
Prior to each hearing, one of the Committee members will be designated as recording secretary by the Chair. A handwritten summary of the proceedings shall be created during the hearing and housed in confidentiality with the Dean following the conclusion of the hearing. At the request of either party or the Committee, the proceedings shall additionally be tape-recorded and held with the other records.
4.6.18 Hearing Proceedings.
The Chair of the Academic Integrity Committee shall inform the accused as to the procedures to be followed throughout the course of the hearing. With the exception of the Committee members, the accused, the accuser (usually the instructor), and witnesses, those present will not participate in the proceedings. The Chair shall take reasonable measures to insure an orderly hearing, including the removal of individuals who impede or disrupt the proceedings.
The hearing shall progress in the following manner:
At the conclusion of the hearing, the parties are excused and the Committee will deliberate in closed session on the alleged Academic Integrity Policy violation.
4.6.19 Deliberation.
The Academic Integrity Committee considers any and all evidence offered at the hearing and deliberates until a verdict is reached. The Academic Integrity Committee presumes that all students are aware of this Academic Integrity Policy, including the specific conduct described in 4.6.11.
An Academic Integrity Policy violation can be found only if the preponderance of the evidence establishes that the alleged Academic Integrity Policy violation occurred.
Where the alleged violation is solely based upon conduct proscribed by the instructor's syllabus and/or other written or oral communications, (i.e. not based on the conduct described in 4.6.11 of the Academic Integrity Policy) the evidence must additionally establish by preponderance of the evidence that the instructor had clearly provided this information to the students in the class.
At the end of the deliberation, a secret ballot is taken and a majority vote is required to judge the accused to have violated the Academic Integrity Policy. The only record of the deliberation shall be the verdict and a brief statement of rationale for the verdict.
If the verdict is not guilty, the instructor is bound by that finding and may only evaluate the assignment as to its content or other time-honored bases of academic evaluation.
If the verdict is guilty, the Committee will then reinstate the course penalty applied by the instructor. If the instructor has timely recommended that the Committee consider suspension or expulsion from the College, the Committee shall make a determination, again by majority vote, on whether to impose one of those penalties. In making this decision, the Committee may consider:
If there is no timely appeal, the Committee decision is final.
4.6.20 Hearing Report.
A concise report of the Committee's decision and its reasons therefore shall be submitted in writing to the accused student, the instructor and the Dean within three (3) working days of the Committee's decision.
4.6.21 Appeal of Academic Integrity Committee Decision.
The student or the instructor may appeal the decision(s) of the Academic Integrity and Appeals Committee to the Dean. A written notice of appeal must be delivered to the office of the Dean within ten (10) working days from the receipt of the hearing report from the Committee. The following guidelines apply to appeals:
4.6.22 Appeal Decision Report.
A concise report of the Dean's decision and his/her reasons therefore shall be submitted in writing to the accused student and the instructor within three (3) working days of the Dean's decision.
4.6.23 Student Records.
Notations will be made in the student's permanent file of any convictions in accordance with this Policy.
4.6.3 Procedures for Cases Involving a Student Who Is Not a Member of the College of Arts and Sciences.
If a recommended penalty goes beyond any course-specific action, and the student is not a member of the Arts and Sciences College, the Dean must report the offense and recommended penalty to the Dean of the student's college/school before the penalty is imposed.
a. If the student's Dean is in agreement with the recommended penalty, the penalty shall be imposed, in which case it shall apply to the student as if it had been imposed by the student's college/school. This includes suspension and expulsion.
b. If the student's Dean is not in agreement on the penalty, the case shall be referred to the Provost for a final decision on the appropriate penalty.
Below are the procedures from the college handbook:
4.6.4 Grading Appeals.
22.214.171.124 Appeals Procedure for Grades and Grading Practices.
A student who wishes to challenge the grading practices of an instructor of the College may appeal for a change of a final grade, using the following procedures.
a. Timetable.
The student must initiate the appeals procedure with the instructor within 10 (ten) business days following the final grade submission due date published by the Registrar. First, the student must meet with the instructor involved in an attempt to resolve the problem.
If the matter remains unresolved, the student must request a meeting at which the Department Chair (or the Program Director), the instructor, and the student are present. The student must make this request to the Department Chair (or Program Director) within five (5) business days after the meeting with the student and instructor (excluding summer terms). The student shall be given the opportunity to explain their position and present relevant documentation to the Department Chair (or Program Director).
The Department Chair (or Program Director) shall prepare a written summary of the issues, their findings of fact, and a proposed resolution to be presented to the student and the instructor within five (5) business days following the meeting.
If the proposed resolution of the Chair or Director is not satisfactory to the student, they may appeal in writing to the Dean, who will refer the appeal to the Academic Integrity and Appeals Committee. All appeals must be delivered to the Dean within ten (10) working days of presentation of the proposed resolution to the student and instructor. Absent a timely appeal by the student, the proposed resolution of the Chair or Director becomes final.
Upon receipt of the appeal the Committee shall invite the instructor to submit a written response to the appeal.
The Committee may meet, alone or with some or all of the parties involved, (1) to familiarize itself with the relevant facts and review the instructor's written grading policy as stated in the syllabus and other relevant documents and (2) to decide if a formal hearing is necessary. Note: A formal hearing is not necessary unless there is at least one material disputed fact issue, the outcome of which depends upon the credibility of a witness.
If the Committee determines a hearing is not necessary, the Committee shall determine, by a preponderance of the evidence, whether there had been either:
If either question is answered in the affirmative, the Committee shall recommend the appropriate change in grading practice and/or a particular grade. If not, the Committee shall recommend that the grading practice and/or grade remain unchanged. The Committee, having considered all appropriate information, shall submit to the Dean, in writing, its findings of fact and recommendations within five (5) working days of its decision.
If the Committee determines a hearing is necessary, the Committee will notify the student and the instructor in writing at least five (5) working days prior to the hearing date. The notification shall include a summary of the facts, copies of any documents which may be relied upon by the Committee, a description of the hearing procedures, and the date, time, and location of the hearing.
b. Hearing Procedures.
Hearing procedures shall be similar to those outlined in Sections 4.6.15-4.6.20 above. The Committee's charge is to determine, by a preponderance of the evidence, whether the grading practice and/or grade under review is either by a preponderance of the evidence, whether there had been either:
If either question is answered in the affirmative, the Committee shall recommend the appropriate change in grading practices and/or a particular grade. If not, the Committee shall recommend that the grading practice and/or grade remain unchanged. The Committee, having considered all appropriate information shall submit to the Dean, in writing, its findings of fact and recommendations within five (5) business days of its decision.
c. Final Decision.
The Dean reviews the Academic Integrity and Appeals Committee's findings and recommendations and makes a final and unappealable decision with regard to all matters pertaining to the appeal. The Dean shall provide a concise written decision to the members of the Academic Integrity and Appeals Committee, the student, and the instructor within five (5) working days of the Dean's decision.
Please visit this link to access the previous policy in effect until September 14, 2022.
Students who seek adjustments to the academic regulations of the college may do so by filing an Academic Petition. Students wishing to petition for adjustments should first obtain the approval of their academic advisers and then submit their petition to the associate dean. Proper forms are available in the Office of the Dean.
Arts and Sciences students may take a maximum of 12 hours of coursework on a credit/no-credit basis as provided by the general academic regulations of the University. Courses which students elect to take on a credit/no-credit basis may be counted toward the fulfillment the total of 124 hours required for graduation and the requirement of 40 upper-division hours, but may not be counted toward other college requirements. Courses offered only on a credit/no credit basis are not included in the 12-hour maximum nor excluded from counting toward a college requirement.
Arts and sciences students are governed by the University policies regarding probation, suspension and satisfactory progress found in the academic regulations section of the catalog. Additional probationary conditions may be imposed by the dean.
The following govern the applicability toward the Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree of credit hours earned other than at Drake University:
Each student must be familiar with the academic regulations of the college and is responsible completing all requirements for graduation.
The College of Arts and Sciences follows the ''withdrawal" policy outlined in the front section of the catalog under the heading ''CURRICULA MODIFICATION." Ordinarily the college permits no exceptions to the official University withdrawal policy. However, under extraordinary circumstances a student may, with adviser concurrence, petition the dean for permission to withdraw late from a course.
Formal Student Grievances that do not fit into any category listed above may be filed with the Arts and Sciences Dean's office in the case that students have a conflict, or other concern with faculty or staff members.
Before filing a Formal Student Grievance, the student should first take steps to resolve the issue informally, either through contact with the appropriate faculty or staff member, or through the appropriate department chair.
If a satisfactory solution may not be reached by means above, the student may then file a Formal Student Grievance. To do so, the student must prepare a written document that outlines the nature of the complaint, including a summary of any supporting evidence. The document must also contain the student's name, address, and phone number. Once prepared, the document may then be turned in to the Arts and Sciences Dean's Office in Harmon Fine Arts Center, room 268a. The document will be reviewed and addressed by the Deans Office, and the student will be contacted to resolve the issue.
If the issue is not resolved acceptably through the above means, a Formal Student Grievance may be submitted to the Provost's office.


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BERLIN (AP) — German officials on Monday vowed tighter controls on meat products and stronger penalties for companies that violate food-labeling rules as more items marketed as "all beef" were pulled from supermarket shelves after testing positive for horse meat.
Germany, Europe's largest economy, is one of several countries across the continent investigating the improper use of horsemeat and mislabeling of meat products in a still-unfolding scandal.
Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner and her state counterparts announced a 10-point plan seeking to allay Germans' fears after five national supermarkets recalled lasagna, chili, tortellini and goulash — all with traces of horse meat. Most recently, German discount supermarket Lidl on Monday said it had recalled Combino brand "Beef Tortelloni," sold at its stores in Austria, after tests showed it contained horse meat.
Aigner said Germany will step up testing and look for any meat not clearly noted on the label — not just horse. "I can't say this is the end," she told reporters. "We have to count on other cases being discovered."
In addition to implementing a European Union action plan on testing meat products, some of Germany's other plans include making sure consumers are more quickly informed as soon as a company has detected that its product may be mislabeled, and facilitating better information flow between state and federal agencies.
Horse meat has turned up across Europe in frozen supermarket meals such as burgers and lasagna, as well as in in beef pasta sauce, on restaurant menus, in school lunches and in hospital meals.
Millions of products were pulled from store shelves in Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway after the scandal broke, and supermarkets and food suppliers were told to test processed beef products for horse DNA.
European officials have said the scandal is the result of fraud, and possibly an international criminal conspiracy to pass off cheap horse meat as more expensive beef. And although officials say that eating horsemeat is not generally dangerous, the scandal has upset people in places where such meat traditionally is not eaten.
France agreed on Monday to partially restore the health certification of a meat seller at the heart of the uproar.
In a decision just ahead of a meeting between French government officials and workers at the Spanghero company, French Agriculture Minister Stephane Le Foll said he would allow it to resume production of ground meat, sausages and some cooked goods after inspectors found nothing amiss there over the weekend.
However, frozen goods to be sold and processed elsewhere, which were the center of questions over whether Spanghero officials deliberately passed off horse meat as beef, remain off limits for the company.
The French agriculture minister reiterated at a news conference the allegation of fraud at the plant in southern France — but said the workers "aren't responsible." The government's final report is due Friday.
The director general of Spanghero, Olivier Gemin, expressed relief at the partial reopening of the plant, but noted in an interview with RTL radio that the scandal risks lasting damage for the company, which employs some 300 people. "Our company is still in great danger," he said.
Relief at the partial start-up was palpable among employees. "This is a big step, or we've climbed up the first step, I should say," Marc Adiveze said. "We now need to climb up the entire staircase. We need to restore consumer confidence."
The French government has said the chain of fraudulent meat sales reaches across 28 firms in 13 countries.
At least some of the horse meat originated at abattoirs in Romania, and was sent through a Cyprus-registered trader to a warehouse in the Netherlands. Spanghero bought the meat from the trader, then resold it to the French frozen food processor Comigel; it was then marketed in other countries.
On Monday, the Czech Republic said it was trying to confirm that nearly 15,000 packages of lasagna made by Comigel had horse meat. If confirmed, that would be the first time the scandal had spread to the country.
Germany also intends to rethink food labeling regulations so that consumers can be sure where products come from.
"We want to be as transparent as possible for the consumer," Aigner said.


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WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 1,600 museums across the country will offer free admission to active-duty military personnel and their families this summer in a program that has more than doubled in size since 2010.
The expanded Blue Star Museums initiative will be announced today at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City where more than 40 museums are participating. The offer of free admission runs from Memorial Day until Labor Day at sites nationwide.
The program began in 2010 as a partnership between the National Endowment for the Arts, Blue Star Families and the Defense Department. It's adding 300 new museums this year.
The participating sites include art museums, science centers, history museums, nature centers and about 70 children's museums.
New participants include the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar in Richmond, Va., the New Mexico Museum of Space History, San Francisco's Children's Creativity Museum and the World Figure Skating Museum and Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colo.
First lady Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, also are helping to promote the effort this year through their Joining Forces initiative to support military families. It comes at an important time for military families and can be a way to welcome military families to new communities as they often relocate, said Navy Capt. Brad Cooper, executive director of Joining Forces.
"A large percentage of moves happen over the course of the summer,' often from one end of the country to the other, Cooper said. Opening access to museums "really just opens up the aperture of what families are able to do in their travels and their vacation time,' he said.
Rocco Landesman, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, said it's good for museums, too.
"This is both an opportunity to thank military families for their service and sacrifice, as well as a chance to create connections between museums and these families that will continue throughout the year,' he said in a statement.
Last week, the Interior Department announced it would give military families free access to every national park in the country with annual passes. The passes normally cost $80 and provide access to more than 2,000 national parks, wildlife refuges and other public lands.


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Manchester is the largest city in the U.S. state of New Hampshire, the tenth largest city in New England, and the largest city in northern New England, an area comprising the states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. It is in Hillsborough County along the banks of the Merrimack River, which divides the city into eastern and western sections. Manchester is near the northern end of the Northeast megalopolis. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 109,565, the most of any New England city north of Boston, including other Massachusetts cities.
Interstates 93 and 293 and the F.E. Everett Turnpike are multi-lane highways that connect the metropolitan area to Concord and the White Mountains to the north and Nashua and Boston to the south. NH 101 is a four-lane highway eastbound from Manchester to Hampton Beach, connecting the city with the southeastern part of the state and the seacoast, as well as Maine and the Massachusetts North Shore via Interstate 95. West of Manchester, NH 101 is a two-lane highway serving as the main artery to Keene, the Monadnock region, and other points in southwestern New Hampshire, eventually connecting to NH 9 and the state's border with Vermont.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger New Host of NBC's Celebrity Apprentice
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NBC has tapped Arnold Schwarzenegger to replace Donald Trump as host of The Celebrity Apprentice. He said it first in the movie 'True Lies' (1994), now Arnold will say, "You're Fired!" every week for television.
Twice-elected California governor and international movie superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger has been named the new host of NBC's The Celebrity Apprentice, which will return to the network for the 2016-17 season.
Schwarzenegger served two terms as governor of California, managing more than 300,000 state employees and a state budget in the hundreds of billions. He has successfully invested in both real estate and sports franchises, and is known to millions globally for his starring role in the Terminator film franchise. His films, over a six-decade career, have grossed billions of dollars in worldwide box office. The former governor will replace Donald Trump who, in his role as host of the seven seasons of The Celebrity Apprentice, helped raise more than $15 million for charity.
The Apprentice franchise is one of the most successful reality formats in television history. In The Celebrity Apprentice, business-savvy celebrity contestants work in teams and are asked to perform various tasks and win challenges, all the while employing a business model that promotes teamwork and, hopefully, ends with a financially successful outcome – all for a worthy charity. Contestants are subjected to long hours, grueling deadlines, intellectual challenges, personality clashes and intense scrutiny. Each task will end in the Boardroom, where contestants must account for their actions or risk being "fired" by the host until one remains.
Previous Celebrity Apprentice winners include Joan Rivers, Piers Morgan, Bret Michaels, Trace Adkins, Arsenio Hall, John Rich and Leeza Gibbons.
The Celebrity Apprentice is produced by United Artists Media Group. Mark Burnett, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Page Feldman and Eric Van Wagenen are executive producers.


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CRS: North Korean Supporters in Japan: Issues for U.S. Policy, November 7, 2003
From WikiLeaks
About this CRS report
This document was obtained by Wikileaks from the United States Congressional Research Service.
The CRS is a Congressional "think tank" with a staff of around 700. Reports are commissioned by members of Congress on topics relevant to current political events. Despite CRS costs to the tax payer of over $100M a year, its electronic archives are, as a matter of policy, not made available to the public.
Individual members of Congress will release specific CRS reports if they believe it to assist them politically, but CRS archives as a whole are firewalled from public access.
This report was obtained by Wikileaks staff from CRS computers accessible only from Congressional offices.
For other CRS information see: Congressional Research Service.
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If you have other confidential material let us know!.
For previous editions of this report, try OpenCRS.
Wikileaks release: February 2, 2009
Publisher: United States Congressional Research Service
Title: North Korean Supporters in Japan: Issues for U.S. Policy
CRS report number: RL32137
Author(s): Emma Chanlett-Avery, Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division
Date: November 7, 2003
- Abstract
- This report provides a background on Chosen Soren and its membership in Japan and explores its relationship with the Japanese government. It goes on to discuss documented links, both legal and illegal, with the North Korean government, including weapons, drugs, and cash transfers. A third section outlines changes to Japans policy toward Chosen Soren, ranging from taxation policy to shipping surveillance to restructured credit unions. The report concludes with a discussion of possible options for Congress and U.S. officials.
- Download


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Bill Belichick and six members of his Patriots staff worked out WR Kelvin Benjamin at the Florida State campus last Friday.
NFL Media analyst Gil Brandt reported the news.
The Patriots are famously tight-lipped about what prospects they regard highly enough to invite to a private workout, so it's especially intriguing when word like this gets out.
Now, a private workout alone doesn't guarantee Benjamin is a target for New England, but the team does have a need at the position and Benjamin could still be on the board when it's time for the them to pick with the 29th overall selection. Plus, the presence of Belichick counts for something -- he doesn't strike us as a guy who would waste his time on a player that didn't intrigue him.
Benjamin was very impressive at his pro-day workout last week and has rare size at 6-foot-5, 240 pounds. He'll be a mismatch nightmare for defensive coordinators at the next level and the general consensus is he has the potential to develop into a No. 1 wide receiver.
The Patriots have already re-signed their leading receiver from last season, Julian Edelman, and added former Panthers receiver Brandon LaFell in free agency. Throw Benjamin into the mix, and perhaps even a healthy Rob Gronkowski -- Tom Brady could have a very nice array of targets heading into the 2014 season.