Wings of a Bird

Seal hunters' boats trapped in thick ice floes - Courier Mail
About 100 small boats carrying seal hunters had been trapped by thick ice off Canada's Atlantic coast and at least one crew had to abandon ship, the Coast Guard said today.
The boats were caught in the ice, and face damage or even sinking, as crews hunted the young seals off the northeast coast of Newfoundland, where most of the annual hunt takes place. ...

Labels: karma

From small warrior to student nurse: program in Spain helps former child soldiers - A.P.
Edwin Tholley wasn't yet 10 years old — he can't remember his exact age — when rebel bosses in Sierra Leone first injected cocaine into his face, a quick way to get it surging into his brain. They wanted him high: an unthinking, vicious, little warrior for their campaign of terror.
Tholley's face still bears scars from the needle-pricks. Now, however, under an innovative rehabilitation program in Spain, Tholley hopes to redeem himself and save lives by studying to be a nurse, and maybe someday a doctor.
"My ambition is to help others," said Tholley, 20, one of four Sierra Leone natives brought here by Todos Son Inocentes (They Are All Innocent), a Spanish aid agency that works with children in war zones. ...

Labels: war

Laws Limit Options When a Student Is Mentally Ill - N.Y. Times
... Universities can find themselves in a double bind. On the one hand, they may be liable if they fail to prevent a suicide or murder. After the death in 2000 of Elizabeth H. Shin, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who had written several suicide notes and used the university counseling service before setting herself on fire, the Massachusetts Superior Court allowed her parents, who had not been told of her deterioration, to sue administrators for $27.7 million. The case was settled for an undisclosed amount.
On the other hand, universities may be held liable if they do take action to remove a potentially suicidal student. In August, the City University of New York agreed to pay $65,000 to a student who sued after being barred from her dormitory room at Hunter College because she was hospitalized after a suicide attempt.
Also last year, George Washington University reached a confidential settlement in a case charging that it had violated antidiscrimination laws by suspending Jordan Nott, a student who had sought hospitalization for depression. ...

Labels: mental illness, suicide

Could reaching out save lives? - by writer Brenda Peterson in the Seattle P-I
... "You know, after he searched for me on Facebook," Charlotte said slowly, "Question Mark friended me,"
"What does this mean ... friended?" I asked.
"You have to give someone your permission to friend you and then you can write back and forth. But his e-mails were really weird. So I just kept an eye on him sitting there in the back of our classroom with his baseball cap pulled over his face. He was so quiet, it was like ... loud. A loner. When the teacher asked him to give an oral report, the guy just got up and walked out of the classroom."
Then Charlotte got another e-mail from a girlfriend who had just filed a restraining order against Question Mark. "I believed he was a stalker, so I deleted him from my Facebook. I unfriended him."
"Did you ever talk to him?" I asked.
...
When Cho Seung-Hui's photo was flashed on the television screen, Charlotte barely recognized him without his baseball cap. "I realized I never really looked at him. Never really saw him at all." She hesitated, her voice dropping. "I feel bad now for never talking to Question Mark. We knew he was weird and stuff, and yeah he did stalk that girl, but it seems like he just really needed a friend." ...

Woman sues after falling into open grave -A.P.
An elderly woman who broke her hip when she fell into an open grave as she tried to place flowers on a friend's casket is suing the town and the funeral home.
...
"It is not much fun being down there, where it's nice and black, and you are looking up and I am saying 'Jean, I don't want to go with you,'" May said of her late friend Jean Murphy Henderson.
Her husband, 92-year-old William May, claims the accident has cost him the affection of his wife. May wouldn't reveal her age but said she wasn't as old as her husband. The couple are suing for more than $75,000. ...

Across cultures and borders, families of shooting victims are united in grief - A.P.
... Professors, too, were drawn from around the world. Liviu Librescu, 76, survived the Holocaust, Cold War repression in Romania and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before arriving in Blacksburg, Va., as an internationally recognized scholar.
Witnesses said Librescu was shot while holding his classroom door closed so that his students could escape through a window. ...
***
[There's a more detailed article about Prof. Librescu in the N.Y. Times: Professor’s Violent Death Came Where He Sought Peace]

Labels: compassionate people, karma

Do bank robbers think twice if hit with nice? - Seattle Times
Scott Taffera sensed something was wrong when a man walked into the Ballard bank branch he manages wearing garden gloves, a hat and sunglasses.
But instead of following the nonconfrontational strategy used by most banks with suspicious people, Taffera approached the man with a hearty greeting and an offer to help. He invited him to remove his hat and sunglasses, and guided him to an equally bubbly teller.
In the end, the oddly dressed man requested a roll of quarters before slinking out the door.
This new approach toward suspected bank robbers — dubbed by one FBI agent as "customer service on steroids" — may be one reason for a significant drop in bank robberies in the Seattle area. ...

Sea lion attacks Australian girl - BBC News
A teenage girl has been attacked by a sea lion while surfing behind a speedboat off Australia's west coast.
Ella Murphy, 13, suffered cuts to her throat, a broken jaw and lost three teeth when the mammal leapt out of the sea and mauled her.
She is in a stable condition in a Perth hospital after having surgery.
A marine scientist said attacks by sea lions were rare and it may have been trying to play with the girl. Sea lions can grow up to 300kg (660 pounds). ...

Labels: animals

Resisting the Nazis Despite the Odds - N.Y. Times
... Others forms of resistance are reflected in objects that in ordinary times have no distinctiveness: a ritual slaughterer’s knife used at great risk to butcher kosher chickens in Denmark so they could be smuggled into Germany in the 1930s; a blue-and-white wrestling sash from 1934 awarded to Jewish contestants no longer permitted to compete with their fellow Germans; a girl’s 1938 report card from a school founded by Jews in Berlin after Jewish children were banned from public schools.
...
There is even a pillowcase given to a Lithuanian woman by Rivka Gotz, who defied the Nazi ban on Jewish childbirth and smuggled her newborn son, Ben, out of the Shavli ghetto in a suitcase, placing him under the woman’s secret care. The pillowcase now comes from Ben Gotz’s collection. ...

What can the Danes teach us about happiness? - BBC News
... "In countries such as Italy and Spain, people have much higher expectations for what the coming year will bring, but they're not especially happy or satisfied with their existence."
But Danes take a more realistic view of life, he suggested at the time.
"Year after year we're just happy that things didn't go as badly as we'd feared." ...

Almost Human, and Sometimes Smarter - N.Y. Times
... Chimps display a remarkable range of behavior and talent. They make and use simple tools, hunt in groups and engage in aggressive, violent acts. They are social creatures that appear to be capable of empathy, altruism, self-awareness, cooperation in problem solving and learning through example and experience. Chimps even outperform humans in some memory tasks.
...
Other researchers combine field work showing chimp behavior in natural habitats with laboratory experiments that are created to disclose their underlying intelligence — what scientists call their “cognitive reserve.”
For example, chimps on their own would not sit at a computer responding with rapid touches on the screen as a test of their immediate memory. Videos of their doing just that at Kyoto University in Japan especially impressed the symposium scientists.
Tetsuro Matsuzawa, a Kyoto primatologist, described a young chimp watching as numbers 1 through 9 flashed on the computer screen at random positions. Then the numbers disappeared in no more than a second. White squares remained where the numbers had been. The chimp casually but swiftly pressed the squares, calling back the numbers in ascending order — 1, 2, 3, etc.
...
The emotions of caring and mourning have been observed, as in the case of the chimp mother that carried on her back the corpse of her 2-year-old daughter for days after she had died. After fights between two chimps, scientists said, others in the group were seen consoling the loser and acting as mediators to restore peace.
Devyn Carter of Emory described the sympathetic response to a chimp named Knuckles, who was afflicted with cerebral palsy. No fellow chimp was seen to take advantage of his disability. Even the alpha male gently groomed Knuckles. ...

Wind snaps flagpole, killing girl - Detroit Free Press
A 5-year-old kindergartner was killed Monday afternoon when a flagpole snapped in high winds and hit her in the head as she was playing in the courtyard of a Ferndale school. ...
Other authorities confirmed that her first name was Angel.
No one else was hurt. Krause recalled, "I held her, I touched her and supported her. We were there for her ...
"She was a precious little girl. Kind of quiet. A wonderful student who got along well with her classmates," the principal added. "And she had an incredible smile."
Diana Keefe, a reading specialist, ... took half of the afternoon kindergartners out to play while their classmates took a standardized test. "We were just about to switch," she said Monday. "Within moments we would have gone inside." ...

Labels: karma

Dad is accused of packing two children in car's trunk - A.P.
An Oregon man was arrested after police found two of his children traveling in the trunk of the car for a family vacation, according to the Washington County Sheriff's Office.
...
Police confirmed that there were two children, ages 12 and 13, traveling in the trunk of the vehicle.
Willy, his fiancée and their four children were taking a trip to Seaside, but the automobile they were driving did not fit all six passengers. So, according to police, Willy put two of the children in the trunk to avoid taking a second vehicle. ...

Stilettos ‘sent fetish thief over the edge’ - Times of London
... He began robbing shoes from the feet of women as they walked down the street. ...
“But when I got to my house, I opened the gate and stepped on to the path with my right leg. As I was bringing my upper leg forward to walk into the house, someone grabbed hold of me around my waist and I was bent forward slightly. He was gripping me with both arms, because I knew I couldn’t have got out of that. It was a very firm grip. I was suspended, bent over, and I’m a strong girl.”
She said that the mechanical engineer appeared to be “well practised” in the art of removing ladies’ shoes.
In a “swift” motion, he ran his hand down her leg, gripped her ankle and removed her stiletto. “It only lasted a few seconds,” she said. “He seemed to lose his grip from around my middle and I felt a hand come down my leg, hold on to my ankle, and then just take my stiletto shoe off. It didn’t hurt me and wasn’t aggressive in any way, but it was well practised, swift and quick. It seemed as if he had done it before.”
She said that he then bolted across the road and did not stop running. “He just legged it.
...
“He said, although he was sexually attracted to women and had had a sexual relationship with a girlfriend as recently as November 2005, his past relationships with women had been somewhat complicated by the fact that he would find a particular girlfriend’s shoes more sexually attractive than the girl herself,” ...

Labels: attachment

After Darfur, Starting Anew in the Midwest - N.Y. Times
Looking at old pictures taken in the desert sand in the Darfur region of Sudan, Fawzia Suliman pointed to one after the other: mother-in-law, sister, sister-in-law, cousin, and so on.“Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead,” she said. “All dead.”The last place that Ms. Suliman called home was a grass-topped hut that janjaweed militia members burned to the ground. She offers the scars on her feet as testament to how fast she ran to escape them in the summer of 2005, at the beginning of an unlikely journey that led to an apartment here [in Indiana].
...
“I came fresh from the problem area to America and I did not know I would have so many friends here,” Ms. Suliman said in the English she still struggles to master. “So many people from Darfur come to help me, to say welcome here. I still cannot believe, every day, my God.”
...
Her time in Fort Wayne has been peppered with many firsts: first time wearing pants, driving a car, using a fork, saving money in a bank account, not having to walk two hours for fresh water, being able to eat to the point of feeling full.
“One thing I still have a problem with is the nice food in America,” she said. “I keep the pictures of my family on my refrigerator to remember when we could not eat. It makes me sick. I do not like to remember.”
There is a picture of her husband on the refrigerator, too. They were separated during their chaotic nighttime flight from the approaching militia in the summer of 2005.
She prays that he is alive, that one day he will meet their 1-year-old son, Zakaria.
“I am working to find him,” she said, “so I can bring him here and show him how nice the life is.”

For a U.S. officer in Iraq, caring about the dead means caring for the living - International Herald Tribune
Heavy casualties are taking a tremendous emotional toll on a U.S. Army brigade in Diyala Province. The brigade chaplain, Major Charlie Fenton, likes to say a unique Psalm or Bible verse when he visits each dead soldier. But he says he has almost run out of suitable Scripture.
...
The troops ache and rage over the loss of friends. After Sebban was killed, "I was just mad," said Sergeant Roy Mitchell, who was wounded slightly in the attack. "I had in my mind, the first person I saw, I was going to shoot them."
...
Five men from Charlie Troop, interviewed separately, all recalled that Sebban yelled the warning that allowed some soldiers to take cover. Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Poppas, the squadron commander, said Sebban faced an instantaneous decision: to dive for cover and save himself or to shout a warning to others. "He never sought cover for himself," Poppas said. ...

Labels: grief, war

Computers help Croat ex-soldiers - BBC News
"We all became animals during the war. I saw things I really don't want to talk about now," Ante tells me, looking into the distance, his words slow and thoughtful.
"Like many others, I suffered psychological problems after the war ended.
"I couldn't find peace of mind or concentrate on anything. I wouldn't even speak to my family and locked myself in a room."
Ante Slavic, a former Croatian soldier from the mountain town of Knin, has largely recovered from the post-traumatic stress he suffered. But his recovery has not been down to medicines or psychological counselling.
It is a result of a pioneering project set up and run by war veterans themselves.
The bullet holes have still not been plastered over on the walls in the town. These days high unemployment and a poor economy are people's main concerns.
"We wanted to do something for ourselves," says Boris Kraljic, who was one of the initiators of the war veterans' project.
"We set up this centre and began offering computer courses to former soldiers. ...

Labels: war

15st boy is taken from grandparents who lost their daughter to anorexia - Times of London
He was the apple of his grandparents’ eye, but under their loving care and continual feeding, ten-year-old Daniel reached 100kg (15st 10lb) in weight.
Fearing for the boy’s health, social workers in the northern Spanish region of Asturias stepped in, taking him to a hospital where he has been put on a diet.
The boy’s grandparents, Con-suelo GarcÍa and José Sánchez – who saw their daughter die of anorexia – have been distraught, unable to comprehend why their youngest grandchild has been taken away.
...
Grandparents everywhere may be known for spoiling their grandchildren. But Spanish psychologists said that Daniel’s grandparents come from a generation that experienced terrible food shortages after the civil war, which ended in 1939. “For them, a chubby child is a healthy child, and the more he eats the better,” a health official said. ...

In Mideast, a Growing Linguistic Divide - Washington Post
Shrinking Numbers of Israelis, Palestinians Studying Each Other's Language
... As their physical separation grows, a shrinking number of Israelis and Palestinians are studying each other's language, a casualty of the enduring hostility between two peoples still sharing one land. Those Israelis and Palestinians studying Arabic and Hebrew, both official languages of the Jewish state, are doing so for reasons that reveal vastly different outlooks on the future.
"The attitude on both sides toward the other language, and by extension those who speak it, is very disappointing," said Sasson Somekh, who helped found the Arabic department at Tel Aviv University nearly 40 years ago. Now retired, he is lobbying against its closure. "Both sides are just very afraid of the other," he said.
...
Today, among those Israeli Jews studying Arabic, many more than a decade ago are doing so for one reason: preparing for service in the Israeli security agencies. ...

Two people shot at UW - Seattle P-I
A woman shot to death on the University of Washington campus Monday morning had lived in mortal fear for weeks about a man who was stalking her, her friends and co-workers said.
Her attacker killed himself after killing the woman, police said. The woman... had recently taken out a court order against her ex-boyfriend who would ultimately shoot her to death.
Jonathan Rowan, 41, had repeatedly threatened her. On March 7 -- a day after Griego sought court protection from him -- and again on March 14, he called her at work and threatend to kill her...
Griego had, at times, worked from home because she was afraid to come to work. She also had considered riding her bike to work so she could vary her route ...
Griego had changed her telephone numbers, moved a couple of times and e-mailed to co-workers in the UW's real estate program a description and photograph of her stalker ...
She described him as a suicidal alcoholic who had tackled and punched her when they lived together.
"I forgave him because he was drunk, but now I see that was wrong, and he has threatened to hurt me again."
She said he had also threatened her dog and her family. ...

Labels: attachment, murder, suicide

Someone's Gotta Love It - Time magazine
As the host of the Popular Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel, Mike Rowe has taken on some of the most disgusting and dangerous work, including shark-suit tester (ouch!) and sewage-treatment worker (ick!). After more than 150 of these jobs, Rowe has developed special insights into the nature of work ...
Why do people do dirty jobs?
Personal gratification. The evidence that they've made a contribution. These people take great pride in what they do. Everyone I've met who has a dirty job knows that if you removed them from the chain, then the whole thing falls in on itself. You'll see a lot of optimism and cheerfulness. These are happy people. ...

Too Busy to Notice You’re Too Busy - N.Y. Times
... In our busy, busy world, however, I sometimes feel as if I am the odd one out. Although those who are overworked and overwhelmed complain ceaselessly, it is often with an undertone of boastfulness; the hidden message is that I’m so busy because I’m so important.
...
Paradoxically, Dr. Hallowell writes in “CrazyBusy,” it is in part the desire for control that has led people to lose it.
“You can feel like a tin can surrounded by a circle of a hundred powerful magnets,” he writes. “Many people are excessively busy because they allow themselves to respond to every magnet: tracking too much data, processing too much information, answering to too many people, taking on too many tasks — all in the sense that this is the way they must live in order to keep up and stay in control. But it’s the magnets that have the control.” ...

Police still investigating shooting as students, teammates mourn - Seattle P-I
Students mourn the loss of a Franklin High School senior with a checkered past and a promising future who was gunned down under dubious circumstances.
... Court records show a boy placed in drug treatment at 16 after being charged with theft, burglary and forgery.
Those who'd watched him grow saw Hunter, the caring young man. The star player celebrated by his classmates for reviving an ailing football team. The sometime-student taking night classes to graduate by August. ...

Mom charged with offering 7-year-old daughter for sex - Detroit Free Press
Child could be photographed or molested for cash, mother said
According to authorities, the woman allegedly provided an undercover deputy from the Internet Crime Unit with a menu that ranged from taking sexually suggestive photos of the child to sexual penetration, depending on how much money was offered.The woman’s five children, ages 6, 7, 9, 11 and 12, have been turned over to Child Protective Services. ...

Girls, 12, allegedly poison teacher at school - Seattle P-I
Flavored lip gloss used to sicken instructor allergic to strawberries
... In a caper worthy of Wile E. Coyote's finest failures, two 12-year-old girls from Bainbridge Island are accused of attempting to elude punishment for a tardy assignment Thursday by poisoning their teacher, Kasey Jeffers, with a flavored lip balm they knew would make her ill.
Jeffers, 58, is violently allergic to strawberries -- common knowledge at Sakai Intermediate School, according to police, who arrested the youths on suspicion of assault after they were accused of coating the rim of their teacher's coffee cup and water bottle with strawberry lip gloss.
"They had discussed using real strawberries but decided that would be fatal and this would just make her sick enough to leave school ...