Monday, July 16, 2007
Pizza Hut waitress gets $10,000 tip - A.P.
Check came from family of regulars who heard she couldn’t afford college
A family of regulars at a northeastern Indiana Pizza Hut liked their waitress so much, they gave her $10,000.
The family — a mother and two sons — stopped in recently for their usual: two Mountain Dews, a cup of hot water for tea and a large Meat Lover's Stuffed Crust pizza. They requested Jessica Osborne, 20, as their usual waitress and chatted about their lives.
"They make your day better when they come in," Osborne said. ...
Check came from family of regulars who heard she couldn’t afford college
A family of regulars at a northeastern Indiana Pizza Hut liked their waitress so much, they gave her $10,000.
The family — a mother and two sons — stopped in recently for their usual: two Mountain Dews, a cup of hot water for tea and a large Meat Lover's Stuffed Crust pizza. They requested Jessica Osborne, 20, as their usual waitress and chatted about their lives.
"They make your day better when they come in," Osborne said. ...
From executive suite to Baghdad’s slums - MSNBC
Reactivated Army reservist starts charity to help impoverished Iraqi kids
... Deierlein and the other soldiers in his civil affairs unit weren’t usually charged with providing security in one of the world’s most dangerous cities. They were in Baghdad to help restore the most basic infrastructure, such as garbage collection. It wasn’t going well.
But amid the chaos, they had found a way to make a small difference — by doing what they could to help the city’s most impoverished residents.
...
Deierlein didn’t have to be in that filthy Baghdad neighborhood. When the Army reached back into his life in October 2005, he was well past his eight-year service obligation to the military. A senior-level advertising executive, he lived in a trendy Manhattan apartment and had a share house in the Hamptons. He was engaged to marry a beautiful airline pilot. He owned a tuxedo and wore it often. He hadn’t worn an Army uniform in 12 years.
...
The Army provided thousands of bags of food and bottles of water to the people of Iraq, but Deierlein decided to go further. Shaken by the malnourished, desperately poor children he saw, he asked loved ones and well-wishers back home who wanted to send him care packages to send supplies for Iraqi kids instead. ...
Reactivated Army reservist starts charity to help impoverished Iraqi kids
... Deierlein and the other soldiers in his civil affairs unit weren’t usually charged with providing security in one of the world’s most dangerous cities. They were in Baghdad to help restore the most basic infrastructure, such as garbage collection. It wasn’t going well.
But amid the chaos, they had found a way to make a small difference — by doing what they could to help the city’s most impoverished residents.
...
Deierlein didn’t have to be in that filthy Baghdad neighborhood. When the Army reached back into his life in October 2005, he was well past his eight-year service obligation to the military. A senior-level advertising executive, he lived in a trendy Manhattan apartment and had a share house in the Hamptons. He was engaged to marry a beautiful airline pilot. He owned a tuxedo and wore it often. He hadn’t worn an Army uniform in 12 years.
...
The Army provided thousands of bags of food and bottles of water to the people of Iraq, but Deierlein decided to go further. Shaken by the malnourished, desperately poor children he saw, he asked loved ones and well-wishers back home who wanted to send him care packages to send supplies for Iraqi kids instead. ...
Labels: war
Woman dead for 20 minutes - Daily Telegraph
FOR 20 minutes, Danielle Hogno was clinically dead.
She lay lifeless on the floor after suffering a heart attack at work.
She wasn't breathing and had no pulse.
The 18-year-old owes her life to one man - workmate Graham Meyer, who fought desperately to resuscitate her until the ambulance arrived.
Doctors say Danielle's survival is a miracle that hinged on Mr Meyer's efforts performing cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR), breathing air into her lungs and pumping her chest, which fed oxygen to her brain.
"She was gone. She'd gone blue in the face and her eyes were black pools,'' said Mr Meyer, "a stubborn bugger'' who never gives up.
In an eerie coincidence, Mr Meyer, 59, was also saved from the brink of death - at 18 - from drowning.
Doctors who treated Danielle at Tamworth Base Hospital last month told her parents it was a one-in-15-million chance that she survived without brain damage.
The number of people who suffer a cardiac arrest out of hospital and fully recover is just two per cent.
...
Mr Meyer, who had had CPR training through work, had bruising around the mouth from giving mouth-to-mouth and suffered sleeping problems.
"I was offered counselling, but Danielle's recovery is my medicine,'' he said.
Mr Meyer said saving Danielle was not heroic, "just a duty'', and an opportunity to give someone else a second chance at life "as I was given all those years ago''. As for Danielle, her boyfriend Scott Dowton proposed recently and she has plans for a long life. ``Everything happens for a reason. There's a bigger plan for everyone. I probably should be dead,'' she said.
FOR 20 minutes, Danielle Hogno was clinically dead.
She lay lifeless on the floor after suffering a heart attack at work.
She wasn't breathing and had no pulse.
The 18-year-old owes her life to one man - workmate Graham Meyer, who fought desperately to resuscitate her until the ambulance arrived.
Doctors say Danielle's survival is a miracle that hinged on Mr Meyer's efforts performing cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR), breathing air into her lungs and pumping her chest, which fed oxygen to her brain.
"She was gone. She'd gone blue in the face and her eyes were black pools,'' said Mr Meyer, "a stubborn bugger'' who never gives up.
In an eerie coincidence, Mr Meyer, 59, was also saved from the brink of death - at 18 - from drowning.
Doctors who treated Danielle at Tamworth Base Hospital last month told her parents it was a one-in-15-million chance that she survived without brain damage.
The number of people who suffer a cardiac arrest out of hospital and fully recover is just two per cent.
...
Mr Meyer, who had had CPR training through work, had bruising around the mouth from giving mouth-to-mouth and suffered sleeping problems.
"I was offered counselling, but Danielle's recovery is my medicine,'' he said.
Mr Meyer said saving Danielle was not heroic, "just a duty'', and an opportunity to give someone else a second chance at life "as I was given all those years ago''. As for Danielle, her boyfriend Scott Dowton proposed recently and she has plans for a long life. ``Everything happens for a reason. There's a bigger plan for everyone. I probably should be dead,'' she said.
Labels: karma
Sunday, July 15, 2007
He gave up six-figure income to follow a richer calling - Seattle P-I
Just a few years out of college, Chris Canlas was helping run a Seattle investment firm that managed $100 million in assets.
He had a car, house and six-figure salary.
Life was good. He was happy. But not complete.
Canlas quit his job, sold or gave away virtually all his possessions and moved to Portland last fall to study to become a priest. The 28-year-old leaves for a seminary later this year, and he plans to return in four years to become a priest with the Archdiocese of Seattle.
"I always knew I had a call to priesthood," he said. "I just didn't know how to answer it." ...
Just a few years out of college, Chris Canlas was helping run a Seattle investment firm that managed $100 million in assets.
He had a car, house and six-figure salary.
Life was good. He was happy. But not complete.
Canlas quit his job, sold or gave away virtually all his possessions and moved to Portland last fall to study to become a priest. The 28-year-old leaves for a seminary later this year, and he plans to return in four years to become a priest with the Archdiocese of Seattle.
"I always knew I had a call to priesthood," he said. "I just didn't know how to answer it." ...
Tears for the girl in red flip-flops - P-I columnist Robert L. Jamieson Jr.
She was only 12. Her innocence -- and family's immigrant dream -- is why so many are touched by the way Zina Linnik was taken from this world and so savagely tossed away. ...
She was only 12. Her innocence -- and family's immigrant dream -- is why so many are touched by the way Zina Linnik was taken from this world and so savagely tossed away. ...
Paratroopers mistakenly land at prison - A.P.
A unit of 25 military paratroopers landed inside the perimeter of a state prison, but not to quell a riot or attempt some movie-script breakout. They just goofed. ...
A unit of 25 military paratroopers landed inside the perimeter of a state prison, but not to quell a riot or attempt some movie-script breakout. They just goofed. ...
U.S. brothers recovering from gory run - A.P.
A bull that broke from the pack seriously gored two American brothers, catching one on each of its horns during the running of the bulls festival in Pamplona, where both were recovering Friday in the hospital.
Lawrence and Michael Lenahan were gored simultaneously by the bull, which also injured 11 other people Thursday. ...
A bull that broke from the pack seriously gored two American brothers, catching one on each of its horns during the running of the bulls festival in Pamplona, where both were recovering Friday in the hospital.
Lawrence and Michael Lenahan were gored simultaneously by the bull, which also injured 11 other people Thursday. ...
Labels: karma
Police looking at Zina Linnik suspect for similar crimes - Seattle P-I
Charges to be filed in death of girl adored by family
... The convicted sex offender whose information led police to Zina's body is now being investigated for possible links to other unsolved disappearances of girls in the Tacoma area and nationally, police and FBI officials said Friday.
...
Nina and her parents were inside their house when they heard a scream and knew instantly it was Zina.
Her father ran outside and was able to give police a description of a gray van driven by an Asian man and which had a partial license plate.
...
When he was 7, according to these documents, Adhahn was sexually assaulted regularly by one of his older brothers. The abuse continued for two years.
In 1975, his mother married an American soldier and the family moved to the U.S. two years later.
In 1983, Adhahn enlisted in the Army, eventually becoming an Airborne Ranger, according to the documents.
Married in 1986, Adhahn and his wife had a daughter.
At some point, it appears that Adhahn was stationed in Pierce County. That's where he was living with his wife and daughter when he was arrested for a drunken attack during which he raped his 16-year-old half-sister. ...
Charges to be filed in death of girl adored by family
... The convicted sex offender whose information led police to Zina's body is now being investigated for possible links to other unsolved disappearances of girls in the Tacoma area and nationally, police and FBI officials said Friday.
...
Nina and her parents were inside their house when they heard a scream and knew instantly it was Zina.
Her father ran outside and was able to give police a description of a gray van driven by an Asian man and which had a partial license plate.
...
When he was 7, according to these documents, Adhahn was sexually assaulted regularly by one of his older brothers. The abuse continued for two years.
In 1975, his mother married an American soldier and the family moved to the U.S. two years later.
In 1983, Adhahn enlisted in the Army, eventually becoming an Airborne Ranger, according to the documents.
Married in 1986, Adhahn and his wife had a daughter.
At some point, it appears that Adhahn was stationed in Pierce County. That's where he was living with his wife and daughter when he was arrested for a drunken attack during which he raped his 16-year-old half-sister. ...
Taking heart - and giving one - Globe and Mail
The phone call came at 6:20 in the evening. David Prince thought it was probably a telemarketer, because the call display flashed an unfamiliar name. He picked it up anyway. "How soon can you be at the hospital?" the caller said. "We want you on the table at 7:30."
Four months after David Prince began to die, they had a heart for him.
Valerie Serba's phone rang at 2 a.m. It was her former husband. Their 25-year-old son, Michael, had been brutally assaulted and lay unconscious in a downtown Toronto hospital. The situation, he told her, was not good. "Tell Michael to hold on till I get there," she said.
...
"I was pretty overwhelmed when I saw him," says Dr. Ross, 44, a dynamic personality at the top of the heart-research field. "His blood pressure was really low. His hands and feet were cold because his body was starting to shut down. He was in walking cardiogenic shock."
David's life expectancy was somewhere between hours and days. Dr. Ross told the Princes that he needed a new heart.
...
Transplant patients have powerful feelings about the donors. There's gratitude for a gift that can never be repaid. There's also guilt that someone had to die so they could live. People waiting for an organ sometimes confess with shame that they eagerly tune into the news on a long weekend. They want to hear about the car crashes. ...
The phone call came at 6:20 in the evening. David Prince thought it was probably a telemarketer, because the call display flashed an unfamiliar name. He picked it up anyway. "How soon can you be at the hospital?" the caller said. "We want you on the table at 7:30."
Four months after David Prince began to die, they had a heart for him.
Valerie Serba's phone rang at 2 a.m. It was her former husband. Their 25-year-old son, Michael, had been brutally assaulted and lay unconscious in a downtown Toronto hospital. The situation, he told her, was not good. "Tell Michael to hold on till I get there," she said.
...
"I was pretty overwhelmed when I saw him," says Dr. Ross, 44, a dynamic personality at the top of the heart-research field. "His blood pressure was really low. His hands and feet were cold because his body was starting to shut down. He was in walking cardiogenic shock."
David's life expectancy was somewhere between hours and days. Dr. Ross told the Princes that he needed a new heart.
...
Transplant patients have powerful feelings about the donors. There's gratitude for a gift that can never be repaid. There's also guilt that someone had to die so they could live. People waiting for an organ sometimes confess with shame that they eagerly tune into the news on a long weekend. They want to hear about the car crashes. ...
Labels: sickness
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Motorist drove home with body in windshield - A.P.
A motorist hit two pedestrians, then drove home with one of the bodies lodged in his windshield, police said. The man in the windshield died.
Police said Steve Warrichaiet was drunk when he struck the pedestrians as he returned home from a friend's house late Sunday. One pedestrian was found lying on a street, critically injured, and police said the second victim remained lodged in Warrichaiet's windshield while he drove seven blocks home and parked in his garage.
...
In a similar case in 2001 in Texas, a former nurse's aide hit a homeless man, drove home with him wedged in her windshield and then left him to bleed to death in her garage. Chante Jawan Mallard was convicted of murder and sentenced in 2003 to 50 years in prison. ...
A motorist hit two pedestrians, then drove home with one of the bodies lodged in his windshield, police said. The man in the windshield died.
Police said Steve Warrichaiet was drunk when he struck the pedestrians as he returned home from a friend's house late Sunday. One pedestrian was found lying on a street, critically injured, and police said the second victim remained lodged in Warrichaiet's windshield while he drove seven blocks home and parked in his garage.
...
In a similar case in 2001 in Texas, a former nurse's aide hit a homeless man, drove home with him wedged in her windshield and then left him to bleed to death in her garage. Chante Jawan Mallard was convicted of murder and sentenced in 2003 to 50 years in prison. ...
Saturday, July 07, 2007
The Gregarious Brain - N.Y. Times
If a person suffers the small genetic accident that creates Williams syndrome, he’ll live with not only some fairly conventional cognitive deficits, like trouble with space and numbers, but also a strange set of traits that researchers call the Williams social phenotype or, less formally, the “Williams personality”: a love of company and conversation combined, often awkwardly, with a poor understanding of social dynamics and a lack of social inhibition. The combination creates some memorable encounters. Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and author, once watched as a particularly charming 8-year-old Williams girl, who was visiting Sacks at his hotel, took a garrulous detour into a wedding ceremony. “I’m afraid she disrupted the flow of this wedding,” Sacks told me. “She also mistook the bride’s mother for the bride. That was an awkward moment. But it very much pleased the mother.”
Another Williams encounter: The mother of twin Williams boys in their late teens opened her door to find on her stoop a leather-clad biker, motorcycle parked at the curb, asking for her sons. The boys had made the biker’s acquaintance via C.B. radio and invited him to come by, but they forgot to tell Mom. The biker visited for a spell. Fascinated with how the twins talked about their condition, the biker asked them to speak at his motorcycle club’s next meeting. They did. They told the group of the genetic accident underlying Williams, the heart and vascular problems that eventually kill many who have it, their intense enjoyment of talk, music and story, their frustration in trying to make friends, the slights and cruelties they suffered growing up, their difficulty understanding the world. When they finished, most of the bikers were in tears. ...
If a person suffers the small genetic accident that creates Williams syndrome, he’ll live with not only some fairly conventional cognitive deficits, like trouble with space and numbers, but also a strange set of traits that researchers call the Williams social phenotype or, less formally, the “Williams personality”: a love of company and conversation combined, often awkwardly, with a poor understanding of social dynamics and a lack of social inhibition. The combination creates some memorable encounters. Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and author, once watched as a particularly charming 8-year-old Williams girl, who was visiting Sacks at his hotel, took a garrulous detour into a wedding ceremony. “I’m afraid she disrupted the flow of this wedding,” Sacks told me. “She also mistook the bride’s mother for the bride. That was an awkward moment. But it very much pleased the mother.”
Another Williams encounter: The mother of twin Williams boys in their late teens opened her door to find on her stoop a leather-clad biker, motorcycle parked at the curb, asking for her sons. The boys had made the biker’s acquaintance via C.B. radio and invited him to come by, but they forgot to tell Mom. The biker visited for a spell. Fascinated with how the twins talked about their condition, the biker asked them to speak at his motorcycle club’s next meeting. They did. They told the group of the genetic accident underlying Williams, the heart and vascular problems that eventually kill many who have it, their intense enjoyment of talk, music and story, their frustration in trying to make friends, the slights and cruelties they suffered growing up, their difficulty understanding the world. When they finished, most of the bikers were in tears. ...
Suicide exposes squalor in Texas prison - A.P.
After months alone in his cell, Scot Noble Payne finished 20 pages of letters, describing to loved ones the decrepit conditions of the prison where he was serving time for molesting a child. Then Payne used a razor blade to slice two 3-inch gashes in his throat. Guards found his body in the cell's shower, with the water still running.
"Try to comfort my mum too and try to get her to see that I am truly happy again," he wrote his uncle. "I tell you, it sure beats having water on the floor 24/7, a smelly pillow case, sheets with blood stains on them and a stinky towel that hasn't been changed since they caught me."
...
Elsewhere in Texas, a female inmate's family sued [prison operator] GEO in 2006 after she committed suicide at the Val Verde County Jail near the Mexican border. LeTisha Tapia alleged she was raped by another inmate and sexually humiliated by a GEO guard after reporting to the warden that guards allowed male and female inmates to have sex. ...
After months alone in his cell, Scot Noble Payne finished 20 pages of letters, describing to loved ones the decrepit conditions of the prison where he was serving time for molesting a child. Then Payne used a razor blade to slice two 3-inch gashes in his throat. Guards found his body in the cell's shower, with the water still running.
"Try to comfort my mum too and try to get her to see that I am truly happy again," he wrote his uncle. "I tell you, it sure beats having water on the floor 24/7, a smelly pillow case, sheets with blood stains on them and a stinky towel that hasn't been changed since they caught me."
...
Elsewhere in Texas, a female inmate's family sued [prison operator] GEO in 2006 after she committed suicide at the Val Verde County Jail near the Mexican border. LeTisha Tapia alleged she was raped by another inmate and sexually humiliated by a GEO guard after reporting to the warden that guards allowed male and female inmates to have sex. ...
Labels: suicide
Homelessness affects mental and emotional health - Real Change
Real world stories from clients of a Portland non-profit
...
Kevin: “...When you are homeless like that, and it is a day-to-day thing about how you are going to make this appointment or get your clothes washed, or just it is a constant battle to try to keep your head above water and stay clean. And then, add to that the lack of housing and the places to sleep outside all are gone, you know, all those murders and all the crack and the violence on the streets, it is just, you know, it is hard. No wonder some of those people drink and do drugs, you know? People think, ‘Why don’t they just get out of it.’ Well, until you have experienced it, you cannot really judge it. It is like an evil monster.
“Somehow when you become homeless, it does something to your psyche, no matter how strong you are, it just does something to you that, the longer you are there the harder it is to get away from it. I wish I could explain it. It is beyond words, but it is real, I know it is real.” ...
Real world stories from clients of a Portland non-profit
...
Kevin: “...When you are homeless like that, and it is a day-to-day thing about how you are going to make this appointment or get your clothes washed, or just it is a constant battle to try to keep your head above water and stay clean. And then, add to that the lack of housing and the places to sleep outside all are gone, you know, all those murders and all the crack and the violence on the streets, it is just, you know, it is hard. No wonder some of those people drink and do drugs, you know? People think, ‘Why don’t they just get out of it.’ Well, until you have experienced it, you cannot really judge it. It is like an evil monster.
“Somehow when you become homeless, it does something to your psyche, no matter how strong you are, it just does something to you that, the longer you are there the harder it is to get away from it. I wish I could explain it. It is beyond words, but it is real, I know it is real.” ...
Labels: homeless, mental illness
Friday, July 06, 2007
Family grieves for little boy lost to fireworks - Register-Guard (OR)
Kevin Freeman didn't bring the fireworks into his house until the weather turned hot. He figured they were safer in the trunk of his car than in the two-story duplex he and his partner, Tiffany Bell, shared with their four children, Bell's parents and Freeman's 16-year-old nephew.
But when the temperature began to rise, Freeman worried that the firecrackers might ignite. So on Sunday afternoon, he put the children down for naps, slipped outside and brought the fireworks up to the walk-in closet in his bedroom. He thought they would be safe there.
But they weren't.
Caleb - his sunny 4-year-old middle child, the one who loved to eat and who smiled even when he was being scolded - found them. In the early hours Wednesday, while everyone else slept, Caleb must have found matches or a lighter and gone looking for firecrackers. ...
Kevin Freeman didn't bring the fireworks into his house until the weather turned hot. He figured they were safer in the trunk of his car than in the two-story duplex he and his partner, Tiffany Bell, shared with their four children, Bell's parents and Freeman's 16-year-old nephew.
But when the temperature began to rise, Freeman worried that the firecrackers might ignite. So on Sunday afternoon, he put the children down for naps, slipped outside and brought the fireworks up to the walk-in closet in his bedroom. He thought they would be safe there.
But they weren't.
Caleb - his sunny 4-year-old middle child, the one who loved to eat and who smiled even when he was being scolded - found them. In the early hours Wednesday, while everyone else slept, Caleb must have found matches or a lighter and gone looking for firecrackers. ...
The Wages of Hate - Newsweek
David Ritcheson was brutally beaten and sexually assaulted in 2006. This spring, he testified before Congress in favor of stiffer hate-crimes laws, and seemed to be putting his life back together. He didn't quite make it. David's story.
...
Then Tuck and his sidekick, Keith Robert Turner, spent the next several hours beating and torturing Ritcheson while shouting “White power!” according to court testimony. They stripped him, burned his skin with cigarettes, poured bleach on his wounds, rammed the end of a patio umbrella into his anus and kicked it with steel-toed boots deep enough to rupture his internal organs, according to witness testimony. They started to carve a swastika in his chest, but some of the onlookers thought that was going too far. Ritcheson told members of Congress that God had spared him the memory of what happened that night, but “today I still bear that scar on my chest like a scarlet letter.” Tuck and Turner, who pleaded not guilty, were convicted of aggravated sexual assault; Tuck received a life sentence, while Turner received a 90-year sentence.
...
Yet Ritcheson did seem to be slowly mending himself. Though he refused counseling, his family and friends didn’t insist on it because he appeared to be recovering so well, both physically and mentally, says Leon, the family attorney, who grew close to Ritcheson in the last year. “David was very upbeat, in spite of everything that happened to him,” says Leon. “He was a very caring guy, and he wanted everyone around him to think that he was happy.”
...
Though he hated people associating him with the violence unleashed on him and “he didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for him,” says Leon, he chose to make such a public appearance because of his commitment to strengthening state and federal hate-crime laws. His own case was never tried as a hate crime, since it didn’t fit the federal statutes and under Texas criminal law, first-degree felonies are exempt from hate-crimes provisions. ...
David Ritcheson was brutally beaten and sexually assaulted in 2006. This spring, he testified before Congress in favor of stiffer hate-crimes laws, and seemed to be putting his life back together. He didn't quite make it. David's story.
...
Then Tuck and his sidekick, Keith Robert Turner, spent the next several hours beating and torturing Ritcheson while shouting “White power!” according to court testimony. They stripped him, burned his skin with cigarettes, poured bleach on his wounds, rammed the end of a patio umbrella into his anus and kicked it with steel-toed boots deep enough to rupture his internal organs, according to witness testimony. They started to carve a swastika in his chest, but some of the onlookers thought that was going too far. Ritcheson told members of Congress that God had spared him the memory of what happened that night, but “today I still bear that scar on my chest like a scarlet letter.” Tuck and Turner, who pleaded not guilty, were convicted of aggravated sexual assault; Tuck received a life sentence, while Turner received a 90-year sentence.
...
Yet Ritcheson did seem to be slowly mending himself. Though he refused counseling, his family and friends didn’t insist on it because he appeared to be recovering so well, both physically and mentally, says Leon, the family attorney, who grew close to Ritcheson in the last year. “David was very upbeat, in spite of everything that happened to him,” says Leon. “He was a very caring guy, and he wanted everyone around him to think that he was happy.”
...
Though he hated people associating him with the violence unleashed on him and “he didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for him,” says Leon, he chose to make such a public appearance because of his commitment to strengthening state and federal hate-crime laws. His own case was never tried as a hate crime, since it didn’t fit the federal statutes and under Texas criminal law, first-degree felonies are exempt from hate-crimes provisions. ...
The cat came back — after crossing the Pacific - A.P.
Calico kitty spent 3 weeks without food or water in shipping container
A cat that spent nearly three weeks crossing the Pacific inside a shipping container with no food or water appears to be just fine.
Pamela Escamilla lost sight of her 3-year-old calico, Spice, while packing a large container with household goods in Waikoloa Village, Hawaii. The container was shipped June 15 to Southern California.
...
When Escamilla opened the container, she and family members noticed fluffs of cat hair on the floor. They started removing items, and Escamilla climbed into the container to search.
She said she saw Spice poke her head out from behind some bicycles.
“I started to scream,” she said. ...
Calico kitty spent 3 weeks without food or water in shipping container
A cat that spent nearly three weeks crossing the Pacific inside a shipping container with no food or water appears to be just fine.
Pamela Escamilla lost sight of her 3-year-old calico, Spice, while packing a large container with household goods in Waikoloa Village, Hawaii. The container was shipped June 15 to Southern California.
...
When Escamilla opened the container, she and family members noticed fluffs of cat hair on the floor. They started removing items, and Escamilla climbed into the container to search.
She said she saw Spice poke her head out from behind some bicycles.
“I started to scream,” she said. ...
Labels: animals
Asbestos victim joins call for ban on the fiber that's killing her - Seattle P-I
Judy Clauson knows that a fast-killing cancer caused by exposure to asbestos has left her with only a short while to live. She says her remaining days are precious. But Friday, the 44-year-old mother of two from Aberdeen plans to join Sen. Patty Murray in Seattle to support the need for laws to ban the use of asbestos in this country.
...
"The doctors couldn't believe I had mesothelioma. They said I was too young and I never worked with asbestos. They treated me for all sorts of problems, but when my lungs filled with fluid, they finally figured it out," Clauson said.
Mesothelioma normally takes 20 or more years for symptoms to develop, and she said her doctors finally determined that her exposure to asbestos was from her former husband who worked at a metal foundry in Hoquiam.
"He would come home every day covered head to toe in heavy black dust, and I would wash his work clothes. We didn't know the dust contained asbestos. We had no clue," she said. ...
Judy Clauson knows that a fast-killing cancer caused by exposure to asbestos has left her with only a short while to live. She says her remaining days are precious. But Friday, the 44-year-old mother of two from Aberdeen plans to join Sen. Patty Murray in Seattle to support the need for laws to ban the use of asbestos in this country.
...
"The doctors couldn't believe I had mesothelioma. They said I was too young and I never worked with asbestos. They treated me for all sorts of problems, but when my lungs filled with fluid, they finally figured it out," Clauson said.
Mesothelioma normally takes 20 or more years for symptoms to develop, and she said her doctors finally determined that her exposure to asbestos was from her former husband who worked at a metal foundry in Hoquiam.
"He would come home every day covered head to toe in heavy black dust, and I would wash his work clothes. We didn't know the dust contained asbestos. We had no clue," she said. ...
Labels: sickness
Girl lost intestines in Minnesota pool - Seattle Times
A 6-year-old girl who sat on an open drain in a wading pool lost part of her intestinal tract to the drain's powerful suction, her family said.
Abigail Taylor was injured in the wading pool June 29, according to her family.
Her father, Scott Taylor, said the suction caused a 2-inch tear in Abigail's rectum and pulled out much of her small intestine. Doctors had to remove the part of her intestines that remained, according to the family's lawyer, Bob Bennett. Abigail remained in intensive care at Children's Hospital on Thursday and appeared to be improving, Bennett said.
Bennett said the swimming pool's drain was improperly uncovered. However, the general manager of the club where the pool is located denied a problem with the pool. He referred questions to the attorney for the club's insurance company, who declined to comment. [end]
A 6-year-old girl who sat on an open drain in a wading pool lost part of her intestinal tract to the drain's powerful suction, her family said.
Abigail Taylor was injured in the wading pool June 29, according to her family.
Her father, Scott Taylor, said the suction caused a 2-inch tear in Abigail's rectum and pulled out much of her small intestine. Doctors had to remove the part of her intestines that remained, according to the family's lawyer, Bob Bennett. Abigail remained in intensive care at Children's Hospital on Thursday and appeared to be improving, Bennett said.
Bennett said the swimming pool's drain was improperly uncovered. However, the general manager of the club where the pool is located denied a problem with the pool. He referred questions to the attorney for the club's insurance company, who declined to comment. [end]
Labels: suffering
Thursday, July 05, 2007
7 secrets to a long — and happy marriage - Today
Two bachelors share wisdom from couples who have been married decades
... “Love is a four-letter word spelled G-I-V-E”Marriage Masters have a high degree of selflessness. “I’ll never forget what my mentor told my wife and me before we got married 42 years ago,” said a Marriage Master named Walter. “He looked at us and said, ‘Most people think marriage is 50/50. It’s not. It’s 60/40. You give 60. You take 40. And that goes for both of you.’”It’s always super-apparent in the best of the best marriages that both spouses have followed this philosophy. Though it’s not a difficult concept to understand — putting one another first —it’s surely a bit more difficult to practice consistently, especially with the prevailing “Me first (and second)” mentality today. “The younger generations seem to have a sort of me-me-me mentality,” says Donna Lee, married 45 years. “The great part is that the me gets everything it needs when it puts the we first.” ...
Two bachelors share wisdom from couples who have been married decades
... “Love is a four-letter word spelled G-I-V-E”Marriage Masters have a high degree of selflessness. “I’ll never forget what my mentor told my wife and me before we got married 42 years ago,” said a Marriage Master named Walter. “He looked at us and said, ‘Most people think marriage is 50/50. It’s not. It’s 60/40. You give 60. You take 40. And that goes for both of you.’”It’s always super-apparent in the best of the best marriages that both spouses have followed this philosophy. Though it’s not a difficult concept to understand — putting one another first —it’s surely a bit more difficult to practice consistently, especially with the prevailing “Me first (and second)” mentality today. “The younger generations seem to have a sort of me-me-me mentality,” says Donna Lee, married 45 years. “The great part is that the me gets everything it needs when it puts the we first.” ...
Baby survives being buried alive - BBC News
A two-day-old baby girl in India has survived after being buried alive in a field by her maternal grandfather in the south of the country.
The baby, who had apparently never been fed, was discovered by a farmer near a village some 150km south of Hyderabad.
He said he only spotted her because her tiny hand was sticking out of the soil.
Police say they have arrested the baby's grandfather, 52-year-old Abdul Rahman, after he confessed to trying to kill the newborn by burying her alive.
"I am yet to marry off four daughters and cannot take responsibility for a fifth one, even when she is only a granddaughter," Mr Rahman was quoted as telling police.
It was not immediately clear whether Mr Rahman's daughter, the mother of the baby, had given her consent for her child to be taken away.
The baby, who has not yet been named and weighs just 1.7kg, is being treated in a nearby hospital.
The practice of female foeticide and female infanticide does occur in some rural areas.
A girl child is often viewed as inferior to a boy and a bride's dowry can also cripple a family financially.
Government figures suggest that around 10 million girls have been killed by their parents - either in the womb or immediately after birth - over the past two decades. [end]
A two-day-old baby girl in India has survived after being buried alive in a field by her maternal grandfather in the south of the country.
The baby, who had apparently never been fed, was discovered by a farmer near a village some 150km south of Hyderabad.
He said he only spotted her because her tiny hand was sticking out of the soil.
Police say they have arrested the baby's grandfather, 52-year-old Abdul Rahman, after he confessed to trying to kill the newborn by burying her alive.
"I am yet to marry off four daughters and cannot take responsibility for a fifth one, even when she is only a granddaughter," Mr Rahman was quoted as telling police.
It was not immediately clear whether Mr Rahman's daughter, the mother of the baby, had given her consent for her child to be taken away.
The baby, who has not yet been named and weighs just 1.7kg, is being treated in a nearby hospital.
The practice of female foeticide and female infanticide does occur in some rural areas.
A girl child is often viewed as inferior to a boy and a bride's dowry can also cripple a family financially.
Government figures suggest that around 10 million girls have been killed by their parents - either in the womb or immediately after birth - over the past two decades. [end]
Labels: murder
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Chris Benoit's World - Newsweek
What made the professional wrestler snap? Authorities search for clues into the murders of his wife and child and Benoit's grisly suicide.
By all appearances, professional wrestler Chris Benoit and his 7-year-old son, Daniel, shared a loving bond. The boy’s room in Fayetteville, Ga., was filled with posters and action figures of his father ...
Authorities believe Benoit, 40, strangled his son and his wife, Nancy, before committing suicide at the family’s new 7,500-square-foot home in a tony neighborhood south of Atlanta. All the more disturbing: police say the killings appear to have been drawn out over the course of the weekend—first Nancy, sometime Friday night, then Daniel on Saturday, and finally Benoit himself in the wee hours on Sunday. ...
What made the professional wrestler snap? Authorities search for clues into the murders of his wife and child and Benoit's grisly suicide.
By all appearances, professional wrestler Chris Benoit and his 7-year-old son, Daniel, shared a loving bond. The boy’s room in Fayetteville, Ga., was filled with posters and action figures of his father ...
Authorities believe Benoit, 40, strangled his son and his wife, Nancy, before committing suicide at the family’s new 7,500-square-foot home in a tony neighborhood south of Atlanta. All the more disturbing: police say the killings appear to have been drawn out over the course of the weekend—first Nancy, sometime Friday night, then Daniel on Saturday, and finally Benoit himself in the wee hours on Sunday. ...
Video shows people stepping over dying woman - A.P.
Surveillance camera captures shoppers bypassing Kansas stabbing victim
As a stabbing victim lay dying on the floor of a Kansas convenience store, five shoppers, including one who stopped to take a picture of her with a cell phone, stepped over the woman, police said. ...
Surveillance camera captures shoppers bypassing Kansas stabbing victim
As a stabbing victim lay dying on the floor of a Kansas convenience store, five shoppers, including one who stopped to take a picture of her with a cell phone, stepped over the woman, police said. ...
Pilots shot down in Iraq tell of dramatic escape - Washington Post
Comrades rescue ambushed officers
... It was also the opening salvo of what participants described as a dramatic ordeal of combat and survival, with two Army pilots crash-landing their aircraft, taking cover in neck-high water and reeds in a canal, avoiding insurgent fire, and dashing to a helicopter that lifted them to safety.
...
Burrows waded into knee-deep water, stepped off a steep underwater embankment and started sinking into the mud. Weighed down by his armor, he thought he would drown. As the water reached his neck, he hit firm ground. Cianfrini was in up to his chin.
The pilots had planned to cross the canal to reach a field on the other side, but the mud made it hard for them to move. Moments later, they realized that being stuck probably kept them alive: Insurgents were waiting on the opposite side.
About 15 or 20 insurgents with AK-47 assault rifles and other weapons then converged on both sides of the canal and started firing at the pilots.
...
The Apache [helicopter] had only two seats. Cianfrini took one, while one of the Apache pilots, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Micah Johnson, strapped himself onto the exterior of the helicopter. Burrows used his survival vest to strap in on the other side.
Soaking and covered with mud, Burrows held onto the handgrip on the outside of the Apache, as it lifted off and headed back to base at 120 mph, buffeting him hard with the wind. ...
Comrades rescue ambushed officers
... It was also the opening salvo of what participants described as a dramatic ordeal of combat and survival, with two Army pilots crash-landing their aircraft, taking cover in neck-high water and reeds in a canal, avoiding insurgent fire, and dashing to a helicopter that lifted them to safety.
...
Burrows waded into knee-deep water, stepped off a steep underwater embankment and started sinking into the mud. Weighed down by his armor, he thought he would drown. As the water reached his neck, he hit firm ground. Cianfrini was in up to his chin.
The pilots had planned to cross the canal to reach a field on the other side, but the mud made it hard for them to move. Moments later, they realized that being stuck probably kept them alive: Insurgents were waiting on the opposite side.
About 15 or 20 insurgents with AK-47 assault rifles and other weapons then converged on both sides of the canal and started firing at the pilots.
...
The Apache [helicopter] had only two seats. Cianfrini took one, while one of the Apache pilots, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Micah Johnson, strapped himself onto the exterior of the helicopter. Burrows used his survival vest to strap in on the other side.
Soaking and covered with mud, Burrows held onto the handgrip on the outside of the Apache, as it lifted off and headed back to base at 120 mph, buffeting him hard with the wind. ...
Inside Rio's violent favelas - BBC News
... The police will launch operations here without warning. They will come with the Caveirao, an armoured vehicle they call the "pacifier".
Kids here don't fear the bogeyman, they fear the Caveirao. Police shoot at you without asking who you are.
We have heard about the measures promised by the government, including building better roads.
We think this is to give police easier access to the favela. Roads are too narrow for the Caveirao.
So, every improvement for us is also an improvement for them. ...
... The police will launch operations here without warning. They will come with the Caveirao, an armoured vehicle they call the "pacifier".
Kids here don't fear the bogeyman, they fear the Caveirao. Police shoot at you without asking who you are.
We have heard about the measures promised by the government, including building better roads.
We think this is to give police easier access to the favela. Roads are too narrow for the Caveirao.
So, every improvement for us is also an improvement for them. ...
BBC's Johnston describes relief - BBC News
BBC reporter Alan Johnston has said it is "just unimaginably good to be free" after 114 days in captivity in Gaza.
He said his ordeal felt like being "buried alive", and was "sometimes quite terrifying".
...
"Maybe you have to have been a prisoner of some kind, for some time, to know how good it is just to be able to do the basic things that freedom allows," he said.
"You want to do everything at the same time, to read books and newspapers, go to the movies, go to the beach and sit in the sun, and eat and talk and all the rest of it."
Having worked in Gaza for the past three years, Mr Johnston said he was well aware of Palestinian traditions of hospitality and regarded his abductors as an "aberration".
...
Having covered many kidnappings, he said: "I had imagined what it would be like dozens of times and it was exactly like that - it was a faintly surreal experience as if I had lived it before."
Mr Johnston said during his captivity "it became quite hard to imagine normal life again".
"The last 16 weeks have been the very worst of my life," he added. "I was in the hands of people who were dangerous and unpredictable.
"I literally dreamed many times of being free and always woke up back in that room." ...
BBC reporter Alan Johnston has said it is "just unimaginably good to be free" after 114 days in captivity in Gaza.
He said his ordeal felt like being "buried alive", and was "sometimes quite terrifying".
...
"Maybe you have to have been a prisoner of some kind, for some time, to know how good it is just to be able to do the basic things that freedom allows," he said.
"You want to do everything at the same time, to read books and newspapers, go to the movies, go to the beach and sit in the sun, and eat and talk and all the rest of it."
Having worked in Gaza for the past three years, Mr Johnston said he was well aware of Palestinian traditions of hospitality and regarded his abductors as an "aberration".
...
Having covered many kidnappings, he said: "I had imagined what it would be like dozens of times and it was exactly like that - it was a faintly surreal experience as if I had lived it before."
Mr Johnston said during his captivity "it became quite hard to imagine normal life again".
"The last 16 weeks have been the very worst of my life," he added. "I was in the hands of people who were dangerous and unpredictable.
"I literally dreamed many times of being free and always woke up back in that room." ...
In Mauritania, Seeking to End an Overfed Ideal - N.Y. Times
... But this is the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, the mirror opposite of the West on questions of women’s weight. To men here, fat is sexy. And in this patriarchal region, many Mauritanian women do everything possible — and have everything possible done to them — to put on pounds.
...
Other cultures prize corpulent women. But Mauritania may be unique in the lengths it has gone to achieve its vision of female beauty. For decades, the Mauritanian version of a Western teenager’s crash diet was a crash feeding program, devised to create girls obese enough to display family wealth and epitomize the Mauritanian ideal. Centuries-old poems glorified women immobilized by fat, moving so slowly they seemed to stand still, unable to hoist themselves onto camels without the aid of men’s willing hands.
Girls as young as 5 and as old as 19 had to drink up to five gallons of fat-rich camel’s or cow’s milk daily, aiming for silvery stretch marks on their upper arms. If a girl refused or vomited, the village weight-gain specialist might squeeze her foot between sticks, pull her ear, pinch her inner thigh, bend her finger backward or force her to drink her own vomit. In extreme cases, girls died.
The practice was known as gavage, a French term for force-feeding geese to obtain foie gras. ...
... But this is the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, the mirror opposite of the West on questions of women’s weight. To men here, fat is sexy. And in this patriarchal region, many Mauritanian women do everything possible — and have everything possible done to them — to put on pounds.
...
Other cultures prize corpulent women. But Mauritania may be unique in the lengths it has gone to achieve its vision of female beauty. For decades, the Mauritanian version of a Western teenager’s crash diet was a crash feeding program, devised to create girls obese enough to display family wealth and epitomize the Mauritanian ideal. Centuries-old poems glorified women immobilized by fat, moving so slowly they seemed to stand still, unable to hoist themselves onto camels without the aid of men’s willing hands.
Girls as young as 5 and as old as 19 had to drink up to five gallons of fat-rich camel’s or cow’s milk daily, aiming for silvery stretch marks on their upper arms. If a girl refused or vomited, the village weight-gain specialist might squeeze her foot between sticks, pull her ear, pinch her inner thigh, bend her finger backward or force her to drink her own vomit. In extreme cases, girls died.
The practice was known as gavage, a French term for force-feeding geese to obtain foie gras. ...
After Iraq, Contractors Face Mental Health Issues - N.Y. Times
... Workers tell haunting tales of their psychological torment. Tate Mallory, a police officer from South Dakota who worked as a Dyncorp police trainer, was grievously wounded by a rocket-powered grenade last fall. After returning home, he was so mentally scarred that he begged his brother to kill him.
Kenneth Allen, a 70-year-old truck driver from Georgia whose convoy was ambushed in Iraq, says he endures mood swings, jittery nerves and is often awake all night. And Nathaniel Anderson, a Texan whose truck was hit by rockets while hauling jet fuel, lost a contractor friend to suicide. Though suffering from stress-related symptoms himself, he has yet to see a doctor.
The toll of the war on contractors has largely been hidden from public view. About 1,000 have died since the conflict began, and nearly 13,000 have been injured. While some are well compensated, many more collect modest wages for providing support services that are vital to the military. ...
... Workers tell haunting tales of their psychological torment. Tate Mallory, a police officer from South Dakota who worked as a Dyncorp police trainer, was grievously wounded by a rocket-powered grenade last fall. After returning home, he was so mentally scarred that he begged his brother to kill him.
Kenneth Allen, a 70-year-old truck driver from Georgia whose convoy was ambushed in Iraq, says he endures mood swings, jittery nerves and is often awake all night. And Nathaniel Anderson, a Texan whose truck was hit by rockets while hauling jet fuel, lost a contractor friend to suicide. Though suffering from stress-related symptoms himself, he has yet to see a doctor.
The toll of the war on contractors has largely been hidden from public view. About 1,000 have died since the conflict began, and nearly 13,000 have been injured. While some are well compensated, many more collect modest wages for providing support services that are vital to the military. ...
A new scourge strikes Florida: Big, airborne fish - International Herald Tribune
... It may seem bizarre, but it is no joke. Leaping sturgeon have injured three people on the Suwannee so far this year, including a woman on a Jet Ski and a girl whose leg was shattered when one of the big fish jumped aboard her boat. Eight others were hit last year, and with traffic growing on the storied river, sturgeon are joining alligators and hurricanes on the list of things to dread in Florida.
"These injuries are very impressive," said Lawrence Lottenberg, director of trauma surgery at the University of Florida College of Medicine in nearby Gainesville. "You've got people sitting on the front of an open boat, and the boat is going 20, 30, 40 miles per hour. The fish jumps up and usually slaps these people right across their face and upper chest. Almost every one of them, universally, has been knocked unconscious. If you're not wearing a life jacket, you're going to fall in the water and potentially drown."
...
Sturgeon have been around since the dinosaur age, and they look it.
They have long, flat snouts and hefty bodies covered in sharp, bony plates. Gulf sturgeon can grow up to 8 feet long and weigh 200 pounds, or 90 kilograms, but even the smaller ones can inflict serious harm.
In recent years, injuries have included a broken pelvis, a fractured arm and a slashed throat.
Brian Clemens was motoring down the Choctawhatchee River in the Florida Panhandle in 2002 when a sturgeon "jumped up and hit him dead center in the chest," his wife, Joy, said. It broke his ribs and sternum, caused one of his lungs to collapse and put him in intensive care for three days, she said.
"There's a permanent dent in his chest," she said, "where that fish hit him."
Wildlife officials have posted signs warning boaters to slow down. Leah Daniel, a friend of Carter's, said there was only one other precaution to take: "Pray." ...
... It may seem bizarre, but it is no joke. Leaping sturgeon have injured three people on the Suwannee so far this year, including a woman on a Jet Ski and a girl whose leg was shattered when one of the big fish jumped aboard her boat. Eight others were hit last year, and with traffic growing on the storied river, sturgeon are joining alligators and hurricanes on the list of things to dread in Florida.
"These injuries are very impressive," said Lawrence Lottenberg, director of trauma surgery at the University of Florida College of Medicine in nearby Gainesville. "You've got people sitting on the front of an open boat, and the boat is going 20, 30, 40 miles per hour. The fish jumps up and usually slaps these people right across their face and upper chest. Almost every one of them, universally, has been knocked unconscious. If you're not wearing a life jacket, you're going to fall in the water and potentially drown."
...
Sturgeon have been around since the dinosaur age, and they look it.
They have long, flat snouts and hefty bodies covered in sharp, bony plates. Gulf sturgeon can grow up to 8 feet long and weigh 200 pounds, or 90 kilograms, but even the smaller ones can inflict serious harm.
In recent years, injuries have included a broken pelvis, a fractured arm and a slashed throat.
Brian Clemens was motoring down the Choctawhatchee River in the Florida Panhandle in 2002 when a sturgeon "jumped up and hit him dead center in the chest," his wife, Joy, said. It broke his ribs and sternum, caused one of his lungs to collapse and put him in intensive care for three days, she said.
"There's a permanent dent in his chest," she said, "where that fish hit him."
Wildlife officials have posted signs warning boaters to slow down. Leah Daniel, a friend of Carter's, said there was only one other precaution to take: "Pray." ...
Labels: animals
Foreign Doctors Queried in Bomb Plot - Washington Post
... All eight suspects now in custody are believed to have worked for Britain's National Health Service, seven as doctors or medical students and one as a laboratory technician, according to officials and British media reports.
...
At Glasgow Airport, the acrid scent of the Jeep fire still hung in the air Tuesday. "Apart from the smell, we are getting back to normal," said Wilma Adam, a sales assistant in a clothing store there. "But to tell you the truth, I don't think we have taken it all in yet."
John Smeaton, a baggage handler who knocked one of the men in the blazing Jeep to the ground, is now something of a celebrity, hailed on Web sites as Glasgow's Jack Bauer, hero of the American TV drama "24." One Web site set up in Smeaton's honor is asking people to pay $6 for a pint of beer for him; it claims 1,000 pints have already been ordered. ...
... All eight suspects now in custody are believed to have worked for Britain's National Health Service, seven as doctors or medical students and one as a laboratory technician, according to officials and British media reports.
...
At Glasgow Airport, the acrid scent of the Jeep fire still hung in the air Tuesday. "Apart from the smell, we are getting back to normal," said Wilma Adam, a sales assistant in a clothing store there. "But to tell you the truth, I don't think we have taken it all in yet."
John Smeaton, a baggage handler who knocked one of the men in the blazing Jeep to the ground, is now something of a celebrity, hailed on Web sites as Glasgow's Jack Bauer, hero of the American TV drama "24." One Web site set up in Smeaton's honor is asking people to pay $6 for a pint of beer for him; it claims 1,000 pints have already been ordered. ...
Farmer, 4 rescuers overcome by methane - A.P.
Methane gas emanating from a dairy farm manure pit killed five people — a Mennonite farmer who climbed into the pit to unclog a pipe, and then, in frantic rescue attempts that failed, his wife, two daughters and a farmhand, officials said Tuesday.
"They all climbed into the pit to help," Rockingham County Sheriff Donald Farley said.
Farmers typically take pains to ventilate manure pits where methane often gathers. A relative of the farmer who died questioned whether cattle feed could have trickled into the pit and accelerated the formation of the gas. "You cannot smell it, you cannot see it, but it's an instant kill," said Dan Brubaker, a family friend who oversaw the construction of the pit decades earlier. ...
Methane gas emanating from a dairy farm manure pit killed five people — a Mennonite farmer who climbed into the pit to unclog a pipe, and then, in frantic rescue attempts that failed, his wife, two daughters and a farmhand, officials said Tuesday.
"They all climbed into the pit to help," Rockingham County Sheriff Donald Farley said.
Farmers typically take pains to ventilate manure pits where methane often gathers. A relative of the farmer who died questioned whether cattle feed could have trickled into the pit and accelerated the formation of the gas. "You cannot smell it, you cannot see it, but it's an instant kill," said Dan Brubaker, a family friend who oversaw the construction of the pit decades earlier. ...
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Survivor of hate-crime attack jumps from cruise ship, dies - International Herald Tribune
A teenager who survived a brutal pipe beating and later testified before the U.S. Congress in support of a hate crimes bill died after jumping from a cruise ship into the Gulf of Mexico, his father said Monday.
...
Ritcheson, a Mexican-American, was beaten unconscious and sodomized with a plastic pole by two men shouting "White Power!" during a drug-fueled party in April 2006. He was hospitalized for more than three months and endured more than 20 painful surgeries in the months following the attack. ...
A teenager who survived a brutal pipe beating and later testified before the U.S. Congress in support of a hate crimes bill died after jumping from a cruise ship into the Gulf of Mexico, his father said Monday.
...
Ritcheson, a Mexican-American, was beaten unconscious and sodomized with a plastic pole by two men shouting "White Power!" during a drug-fueled party in April 2006. He was hospitalized for more than three months and endured more than 20 painful surgeries in the months following the attack. ...
Widows Suffer in Afghan Village - A.P.
Fatama's husband left home one night to smuggle drugs from their mud-thatch border village into Iran. The next morning, her brother-in-law gave her the news: Her husband had been killed.
Fatama joined hundreds of other bereaved women in Bunyat, known locally as a "widows village'' because so many of its men have died during Afghanistan's long wars, or because of a more recent plague - the highly profitable but dangerous business of opium and heroin smuggling.
Among the 1,000 or so families who live here, there are 350 widows, village elders said.
Fatama, who is about 30, was left to raise four children. Sometimes widows are cared for by other male relatives, but many must support themselves by weaving carpets, baking bread or doing laundry and cleaning. ...
Fatama's husband left home one night to smuggle drugs from their mud-thatch border village into Iran. The next morning, her brother-in-law gave her the news: Her husband had been killed.
Fatama joined hundreds of other bereaved women in Bunyat, known locally as a "widows village'' because so many of its men have died during Afghanistan's long wars, or because of a more recent plague - the highly profitable but dangerous business of opium and heroin smuggling.
Among the 1,000 or so families who live here, there are 350 widows, village elders said.
Fatama, who is about 30, was left to raise four children. Sometimes widows are cared for by other male relatives, but many must support themselves by weaving carpets, baking bread or doing laundry and cleaning. ...
Labels: suffering
African migrants' stories: Nigerian slave now in the UK - BBC News
Baba was an orphan in Niger who had been kept as a slave all his life. He was often beaten by his master. He finally escaped from his village on a donkey and made his way to the Ivory Coast, and from there to the UK.
...
The journey took about two weeks. I knew it was coming to an end when I looked out and saw white people. I got off by going down the gangway again.
I was happy, but still worried because I did not know where I was. I did not know what would happen. I could hear people speaking, but I could not understand their language - although some of it was familiar from what I had heard in Abidjan.
Then I found a train and took it to central London. I did not pay for the train, I just got on - as I had done with the boat.
I went to try and find a place with black people. A man told me to take the bus to Woolwich. In Woolwich, I met this guy Ede. He gave me somewhere to stay and found a job for me. ...
[See other African migrants' stories]
Baba was an orphan in Niger who had been kept as a slave all his life. He was often beaten by his master. He finally escaped from his village on a donkey and made his way to the Ivory Coast, and from there to the UK.
...
The journey took about two weeks. I knew it was coming to an end when I looked out and saw white people. I got off by going down the gangway again.
I was happy, but still worried because I did not know where I was. I did not know what would happen. I could hear people speaking, but I could not understand their language - although some of it was familiar from what I had heard in Abidjan.
Then I found a train and took it to central London. I did not pay for the train, I just got on - as I had done with the boat.
I went to try and find a place with black people. A man told me to take the bus to Woolwich. In Woolwich, I met this guy Ede. He gave me somewhere to stay and found a job for me. ...
[See other African migrants' stories]
Monday, July 02, 2007
Drunken driving exacts quiet toll on crash survivors - Seattle P-I
Joline Heldt isn't used to seeing her son's legs so shrunken that his bones show through his skin.
She remembers his broad shoulders edging out opponents in rec league basketball games. Now they are a hallmark of muscle atrophy, which has stolen 40 pounds from his frame.
Sean Heldt, bedridden in a rehabilitation facility, is in a coma, four weeks after a drunken, wrong-way driver on Interstate 90 hit his Chevrolet Lumina head-on.
Doctors don't give his mother much hope. But Heldt still talks to her 24-year-old son, clinging to the idea that her love gets through the tubes and casts that cover him.
"When he wakes up, we don't know if he'll remember us," she said. "I don't know if I'm going to get my son back."
Sean Heldt is one of the drunken-driving victims rarely heard about -- people permanently scarred, gravely injured or clinging to life with crushing medical bills. ...
Joline Heldt isn't used to seeing her son's legs so shrunken that his bones show through his skin.
She remembers his broad shoulders edging out opponents in rec league basketball games. Now they are a hallmark of muscle atrophy, which has stolen 40 pounds from his frame.
Sean Heldt, bedridden in a rehabilitation facility, is in a coma, four weeks after a drunken, wrong-way driver on Interstate 90 hit his Chevrolet Lumina head-on.
Doctors don't give his mother much hope. But Heldt still talks to her 24-year-old son, clinging to the idea that her love gets through the tubes and casts that cover him.
"When he wakes up, we don't know if he'll remember us," she said. "I don't know if I'm going to get my son back."
Sean Heldt is one of the drunken-driving victims rarely heard about -- people permanently scarred, gravely injured or clinging to life with crushing medical bills. ...
Baby boy born five days after father's death in Iraq - Seattle P-I
... Five days after her husband, Joel, a Fort Lewis soldier, was killed in Iraq, [19-year-old Alia ] Dahl gave birth to their first child.
...
Her ordeal, however, was compounded last week when a thief stole her car and everything inside. Albuquerque residents were furious, said Bernalillo (N.M.) County Sheriff Darren White.
"I can't tell you how angry I was at this low-life creep who did this," White said by phone Friday.
"The community has really felt strong about righting this wrong. Alia's life had been turned upside down and to add to it having her car stolen -- that was enough to put the community over the edge."
Dahl's water broke Thursday night just after deputies recovered her 1988 Honda Civic. It was damaged, with parts torn out. Dahl wasn't concerned with that. Also gone: a baby quilt made by a grandmother, photos of her husband and a CD of their favorite songs he had made for her before he left.
...
White said the response from the community was electric. More than $30,000 had been collected for the fund by Friday. "I've probably been offered 15 cars," White said. "The hallway outside my office looks like I had a baby shower; (it's) covered in baby supplies, diapers, wipes and clothes." ...
... Five days after her husband, Joel, a Fort Lewis soldier, was killed in Iraq, [19-year-old Alia ] Dahl gave birth to their first child.
...
Her ordeal, however, was compounded last week when a thief stole her car and everything inside. Albuquerque residents were furious, said Bernalillo (N.M.) County Sheriff Darren White.
"I can't tell you how angry I was at this low-life creep who did this," White said by phone Friday.
"The community has really felt strong about righting this wrong. Alia's life had been turned upside down and to add to it having her car stolen -- that was enough to put the community over the edge."
Dahl's water broke Thursday night just after deputies recovered her 1988 Honda Civic. It was damaged, with parts torn out. Dahl wasn't concerned with that. Also gone: a baby quilt made by a grandmother, photos of her husband and a CD of their favorite songs he had made for her before he left.
...
White said the response from the community was electric. More than $30,000 had been collected for the fund by Friday. "I've probably been offered 15 cars," White said. "The hallway outside my office looks like I had a baby shower; (it's) covered in baby supplies, diapers, wipes and clothes." ...
Labels: compassionate people, war
Cost of living is squeezing out the region's working folks - Susan Paynter, Seattle P-I columnist
... Take Perry Davies, 54. ... Perry was 18 and manning the counter at his father's corner grocery -- Woodring's Fine Foods at Northwest 67th Street and Third Avenue Northwest in Ballard -- when he was held up at gunpoint. His father, Edgar, ran after the fleeing female thief and was shot to death.
"We lost everything after dad's death," Perry told me. His mom, Marie, went back to work as a legal secretary. Perry got a job at Ivar's. And, together, they scraped up enough to go halvesies on a house on Beacon Hill.
Shortly after they moved in, Marie was running an errand when she was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver.
Despite this devastating second setback, Perry , stayed on, fixed the place up, and eventually worked his way to his goal of the house he now owns. He's also extended himself as a contributing citizen, volunteering on neighborhood projects, attending public meetings on growth and development, and organizing Neighborhood Watch "Night Out" parties. ...
... Take Perry Davies, 54. ... Perry was 18 and manning the counter at his father's corner grocery -- Woodring's Fine Foods at Northwest 67th Street and Third Avenue Northwest in Ballard -- when he was held up at gunpoint. His father, Edgar, ran after the fleeing female thief and was shot to death.
"We lost everything after dad's death," Perry told me. His mom, Marie, went back to work as a legal secretary. Perry got a job at Ivar's. And, together, they scraped up enough to go halvesies on a house on Beacon Hill.
Shortly after they moved in, Marie was running an errand when she was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver.
Despite this devastating second setback, Perry , stayed on, fixed the place up, and eventually worked his way to his goal of the house he now owns. He's also extended himself as a contributing citizen, volunteering on neighborhood projects, attending public meetings on growth and development, and organizing Neighborhood Watch "Night Out" parties. ...
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