Can't stop a good thing, now can you!
Saturday, October 25, 2008
A reader responds
Earlier today I posted a piece about Greensburg, Kansas and how they were rebuilding their town and doing so 'Green' and I received this message from Anita - a resident of Greensburg, Kansas:
As of this moment ...
4187 Brave men and women will not be returning from Iraq
Alive!
Support OUR Troops ... Bring them home now!
Alive!
Support OUR Troops ... Bring them home now!
Question of the Day
Why do those who are always 'playing games' think everyone is like they are?
*****
*****
This is actually a repeat question of the day because recent events have reminded me of a group of 'games players' who had perverted a forum into a place where blathering idiots ran roughshod over any who had the temerity to stand against them.
Yet another forum was assaulted by these 'games players' - this one a new forum still in its infancy ... though growing exponentially because the 'games players' where/are absent - but failed miserably.
I left the former forum because of the 'games players' and led the successful defense of the other forum.
Some just will not learn.
Yet another forum was assaulted by these 'games players' - this one a new forum still in its infancy ... though growing exponentially because the 'games players' where/are absent - but failed miserably.
I left the former forum because of the 'games players' and led the successful defense of the other forum.
Some just will not learn.
Christians feud over Church of Holy Sepulcher
From the "Oh, my aching back!" Department:
Two rival monks are posted at all times in a rooftop courtyard at the site of Jesus' crucifixion: a bearded Copt in a black robe and an Ethiopian sunning himself on a wooden chair, studiously ignoring each other as they fight over the same sliver of sacred space.
For decades, Coptic and Ethiopian Christians have been fighting over the Deir el-Sultan monastery, which sits atop a chapel at the ancient Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The monastery is little more than a cluster of dilapidated rooms and a passageway divided into two incense-filled chapels, an architectural afterthought alongside the Holy Sepulcher's better-known features.
And yet Deir el-Sultan has become the subject of a feud that has gone far beyond the walls of Jerusalem's Old City. The Ethiopians control the site, but the Egypt-based Copts say they own it and see the Ethiopians as illegal squatters.
The quarrel has erupted into brawls - in 2002, when the Coptic monk moved his chair into the shade and too close to the Ethiopians, a dozen people were hurt in the ensuing melee. And today, the Ethiopians claim the fight could result in the monastery's collapse and even in damage to other parts of the church, one of the holiest sites in Christendom.
Since the 1970s, the Israeli government has refused to allow renovations or significant repairs at the disputed monastery until the Ethiopians and the Copts come to terms. That hasn't happened, and the Ethiopian Church says the years of neglect have put the structure in danger. The Copts suggest the Ethiopians are merely trying to further cement their hold.
The Ethiopian Church commissioned a report from an Israeli engineer backing up its claim, and in early October the Ethiopian patriarch, Archbishop Matthias, asked the Israeli government to carry out urgent repairs. The archbishop attached the engineer's assessment that the humble monastery structure could collapse - and possibly damage the chapel below - if steps are not taken to repair it.
The report, compiled by Yigal Berman of the Milav engineering firm, cited "safety hazards" that "endanger the lives of the monks and the visitors," according to a report in the daily Haaretz newspaper. Yifredew Getnet, a spokesman for the Ethiopian Embassy to Israel, confirmed the report. A committee made up of embassy representatives, churchmen and lay leaders has been appointed to oversee the monastery, he said.
Outside the monastery, Coptic monk Antonious El-Orshlemy said his church owns Deir el-Sultan, and that the Ethiopian claim that the monastery is about to collapse is false.
"The building is very fine, and not dangerous to someone," he said.
The most recent round of the feud began in 1970, when Ethiopian monks changed the locks while the Copts were at services on the eve of Easter and moved in.
The Ethiopian Church has six monasteries and 70 monks in the Holy Land, according to the office of the patriarch. A handful are stationed at Deir el-Sultan. The main parts of the Holy Sepulcher are divided between the Catholics, Armenians, and Greek Orthodox.
Three years before the Easter takeover, Israel captured the Old City from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast War and found itself in charge of the Holy Sepulcher.
The Copts appealed to an Israeli court, which ruled that the Ethiopians should not have altered the fragile status quo at the church but said it was the government's job to decide what to do. The government decided not to take action, according to Daniel Rossing, director of the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations and an expert on the city's fractious religious mosaic.
International politics likely played a role in the decision: At the time, Israel had warm ties with Ethiopia and was at war with Egypt. Later that was reversed: Communists came to power in Ethiopia and cut ties with Israel, and Egypt and Israel signed a peace agreement. But Israel still did not act, possibly because of concerns that angering Ethiopia could hamper the emigration of the country's Jewish community.
Feuds like the one over Deir el-Sultan "don't have a solution, period," Rossing said. "The trick, then, is to do the very best job to make things as livable as possible, within the limitations of never being able to solve these issues."
Israel's interior minister, Meir Sheetrit, now plans to mediate the dispute, and the government will help renovate the site as soon as the sides can agree on a course of action, said spokesman Ilan Marciano. But with each side entirely rejecting the other's claim to the monastery, it is unclear if an agreement is possible.
The feud is only one of a bewildering array of rivalries among churchmen in the Holy Sepulcher, where each group remains on guard against any encroachment onto their turf. Fights have flared over issues such as who is allowed to sweep which steps, and Israeli police occasionally intervene.
McPain aides say Pale-lyn's 'going rogue'
With 10 days to go until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between repugican vice presidential candidate Sarah Pale-lyn and key aides to senator John McPain have become so intense they are spilling out in public, sources say.
Several McPain advisers have suggested that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Pale-lyn "going rogue." A Pale-lyn associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to "bust free" of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.
McPain sources say Pale-lyn has gone off message several times, and they privately wonder if the incidents were deliberate. They cited that she labeled robo-calls -- recorded messages often used to attack a candidate's opponent -- "irritating" even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan.
A second McPain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McPain campaign.
"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McPain adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.
"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."
A Pale-lyn associate defended her by saying she is "not good at process questions" and that her comments on Michigan and the robo-calls were answers to process questions.
But this Pale-lyn source acknowledged that Pale-lyn is trying to take more control of her message, pointing to last week's impromptu press conference on a Colorado tarmac.
Tracey Schmitt, Pale-lyn's press secretary, was urgently called over after Pale-lyn wandered over to the press and started talking. Schmitt unsuccessfully tried several times to end the unscheduled session.
"We acknowledge that perhaps she should have been out there doing more," a different Pale-lyn adviser recently said, arguing, "It's not fair to judge her off one or two sound bites" from the network interviews.
The Politico reported Saturday on Pale-lyn's frustration, specifically with McPain advisers Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt. They helped decide to limit Pale-lyn's initial press contact to high-profile interviews with Charlie Gibson of ABC and Katie Couric of CBS, which all McPain sources admit were highly damaging.
But two sources, one Pale-lyn associate and one McPain adviser, defended the decision to keep her press interaction limited after she was first picked, both saying flatly that she was not ready and missteps could have been a lot worse.
They insisted she needed time to be briefed on national and international issues and on McPain's record.
Pale-lyn spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt came to the back of the plane Saturday to deliver a statement to traveling reporters: "Unnamed sources with their own agenda will say what they want, but from governor Pale-lyn down, we have one agenda, and that's to win on Election Day."
Yet another senior McPain adviser lamented the public recriminations.
"This is what happens with a campaign that's behind, it brings out the worst in people fingerpointing and scapegoating," this senior adviser said.
*****
Are we surprised?
In a word, NO.
TALKING CLOCK
After closing time at the bar, a drunk was proudly showing off his new apartment to a couple of his friends. He led the way to his bedroom where there was a big brass gong and a mallet.
'What's that big brass gong?'' one of the guests asked.
'It's not a gong. It's a talking clock,' the drunk replied.
'
A talking clock? Seriously?' asked his astonished friend.
'Yup,' replied the drunk.
'How's it work?' the friend asked, squinting at it.
'Watch,' the drunk replied.
He picked up the mallet, gave the gong an ear-shattering pound and stepped back.
The three stood looking at one another for a moment.......
Suddenly, someone on the other side of the wall screamed,'You asshole! It's three-fifteen in the morning!'
No rest for dead at foreclosed funeral home
Even the dead can't escape foreclosure in suburban Detroit. Five bodies and the cremated remains of 22 people were evicted Friday from a funeral home in Pontiac.
The remains from the House of Burns Memorial Chapel were delivered to the Oakland County medical examiner's office for storage. A medical examiner's administrator, Robert Gerds, said some of the cremated remains date to the 1990s.
The county will send the bodies to another funeral home if a family member makes a claim.
A pastor who went to the building Friday to attend a funeral service says he disapproves of the timing and the way the eviction was carried out.
Detroit television stations also aired video of caskets being removed. Gerds says no bodies were inside.
Lightning strikes only once - but kills 52 cows
In this picture released by the police department of San Jose, some of the 52 cows that were killed by lightning lie along a fence on a ranch in Valdez Chico village near San Jose, Uruguay, Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2008. The cows were killed when lightning hit the wire fence during a fierce storm, according to police.
Lightning struck only once - but 52 cows are dead at an Uruguayan ranch. The newspaper El Pais reports that the cows had pressed against a wire fence during a storm when the lightning bolt struck in the northern state of San Jose.
A photograph released by the San Jose Police Department shows the black and brown cows lying dead in a long row.
The newspaper said Friday that veterinarians at the scene confirmed the cause of the deaths, which happened Wednesday. The veterinarians told the newspaper that cows often crowd around fences to seek protection during storms.
Meteorologist Fernando Torena told the newspaper he wasn't surprised that a single lightning bolt killed so many cows. But he called it "very bad luck."
200-lb wild boar struck by car
This was no ordinary road kill. Massachusetts State Police say a 200-pound Russian wild boar was euthanized after being struck by a vehicle on a road in Lancaster earlier this week.
That was a big surprise to state wildlife experts. They say although some wild boars are known to live in northern New England, there never has been a native population of feral swine in Massachusetts.
Ohio woman gives birth to triplet granddaughters
Not only has a 56-year-old Ohio woman given birth to triplets, but they're her own granddaughters. Jaci Dalenberg, of Wooster, carried the babies as a surrogate for her daughter, Kim Coseno. The two identical twins and their sister were born by Caesarean section Oct. 11 at the Cleveland Clinic's Hillcrest Hospital in Mayfield Heights and are still in the hospital's care. They were more than two months premature and each weighed less than three pounds.
A Cleveland Clinic news release says infants and grandmother are all doing well.
According to a Clinic spokesman, Dalenberg offered herself as a surrogate when Kim Coseno and her husband, Joe, were waiting to adopt. The couple used in vitro fertilization, and embryos were implanted in Dalenberg's uterus.
Civil War re-enactor's injury shakes die-hards
In the passionate world of Civil War re-enactors, authenticity is everything - from uniforms with historically correct stitching to hardtack made from scratch.
A battle re-enactment last month pushed realism to the limits: a retired New York City police officer portraying a Union soldier for a documentary film was shot in the shoulder, possibly by a Confederate re-enactor.
The shooting sent the 73-year-old to the hospital and left the Isle of Wight Sheriff's Office in rural southeastern Virginia with a Civil War-style CSI case. Investigators used film to piece together what happened and have narrowed a suspect to one re-enactor.
The Sept. 27 injury also sent ripples through the tight-knit re-enactment community, which can be understandably sensitive to public perceptions of thousands of enthusiasts toting swords and firearms in roughhewn uniforms, often on horseback.
"We were sort of freaked out because this hits the hobby hard," said Ed Hooper, editor of Camp Chase Gazette, a monthly magazine aimed at re-enactors. "It is so out of the norm."
The shooting of Thomas R. Lord Sr. in a Suffolk park violated the cardinal rule of re-enacting - no loaded weapons. Black powder brings the flash and bang to the pageantry, but even that primitive explosive is used gingerly.
Re-enactors said Lord's shooting may have happened in part because walk-ons were used. These are re-enactors who typically are not affiliated with a unit and unfamiliar with the chain of command or safety rules, akin to a football player showing up on game day to play for a team the athlete has never met.
Lord's shooter was among several Confederate re-enactors who showed up at the filming, said John C. Jobe, a member of Lord's unit who witnessed the shooting.
Re-enactors who have worked in filmed battles said the camera itself might have been a factor, saying filmmakers sometimes put realism over safety and ignore the hobby's strict rules of engagement. The re-enactors who were there when Lord was hurt said they weren't sure whether the film crew checked for loaded weapons before the battle commenced.
Sheriff C.W. "Charlie" Phelps said he didn't have evidence that the filmmakers were negligent.
"I can't say that anybody dropped the ball," he said.
Lord was shot in the shoulder while portraying a member of the 7th New York Cavalry. The unit answered an Internet casting call from a film company called Alderwerks.
Officials with the Virginia Film Office were not familiar with the company or the director, listed on the casting call as Matthew Burchfield, who was credited as a casting assistant on director Terrence Malick's 2006 film "The New World," starring Colin Farrell and Christian Bale.
Re-enactors' attention to detail was on display again this month at Cedar Creek Battlefield in northern Virginia, when thousands participated without any serious injuries, according to Jake Jennette, who commanded the Confederate forces that weekend.
With the cadence of a retired Marine Corps infantry officer, Jennette ran through a laundry list of inspections his troops must undergo, from weapons inspections to repeated drills.
"When we go on the field we are satisfied that the weapon is cleared," Jennette said. "We've trained these guys. We start them out as a private in the ranks."
Walk-ons would not be allowed to fight under Jennette's command.
"We don't let strangers fight," he said. "We fight together, we trust each other."
Rookies typically will have faces smudged with powder to signal a new arrival - known as "seeing the elephant," he said. Bayonets are removed, and weapons are aimed upward during a charge.
According to witnesses, Lord was raising his arm in victory when a musket ball ripped into him. "I felt like I got hit in the shoulder with a baseball bat," Lord told The Daily Press of Newport News.
The hobby has come a long way from its ragtag origins to the near-fanatical authenticity modern purists demand.
The National Park Service allowed 2,500 re-enactors to stage a battle in 1961 on Manassas National Battlefield Park, in what some view as the birth of Civil War re-enacting. A horse-drawn caisson bolted and had to be chased down and someone was knocked down by a cannon blast.
The park service no longer allows battlefield re-enactments.
Hooper, the editor of the re-enactor magazine, believes the hobby has been surprisingly injury-free despite the frenetic battle scenes.
The most serious incident he could recall was a shooting 20 years ago at the re-enactment of the Battle of Gettysburg. A Charlottesville man was wounded when he was accidentally shot by a re-enactor from France, according to news accounts.
Phelps said the shooter could face a misdemeanor charge of reckless handling of a firearm up to a felony, malicious wounding.
For his part, Hooper said the shooting will only amplify safety.
"This will make people, especially the commanders, take a good look at the men in his unit," he said.
I see I am not the only one not surprised ...
RS Janes has this to say about the McPain 'volunteer' who lied about being attacked ...
Was Ashley Todd’s Imaginary Attack a Desperate Rovian Dirty Trick?
Not to be callous, but your slow-on-the-draw Tattler admits that when he first heard, partially awake, on the radio that someone named Ashley Todd was assaulted by a tall black man in Pittsburgh because she had a McCain sticker on her car, and the added fillip that the alleged attacker had ‘carved a B on her cheek,’ I thought the announcer was talking about the insect, as in, ‘he inscribed a BEE on her cheek,’ and a surreal mental scenario followed that featured an angry tattoo artist yelling, “Hey, c’mon you, hold still while I finish this wing!”
The story seemed a little suspicious from the git-go and Thom Hartmann noted on his radio show Friday that the ‘B’ was backwards, the way someone not-too-bright and looking in a mirror would sketch a ‘B’ on her cheek.
Later in the day, after John McCain and Sarah Palin had rushed to the phones to offer their condolences to the 20-year-old Texas Republican, Ashley confessed that she had invented the whole lurid tale – it was a tasteless hoax, apparently designed to make Obama supporters, and particularly those of the large black male variety, look bad.
Aside from the hideous Susan Smith aspect to the false charge, and the chance that the Pittsburgh police might have commenced a wholesale harassment of black men to find the nonexistent perpetrator, McCain and Palin’s haste to involve themselves in the incident bespeaks two things: a.) They were trying to make political hay out of this young woman’s misfortune, which calls into question their judgment or b.) The McCain campaign was somehow in on the deal, which paints them as over-the-edge con artists.
Todd had worked for the College Republican National Committee in New York, and recently moved to Pennsylvania to act as a full-time McCain-Palin volunteer on behalf of the group. (The College Republicans are the same organization that spawned such upstanding GOP choirboys as Jack Abramoff, Karl Rove and Ralph Reed.)
As yet, there is no evidence that the McCain campaign was directly involved, but it wouldn’t be hard to imagine the impact that the ugly tableau of a fiendish black male sexually attacking a young white lady might have on rural Caucasians in Pennsylvania, a state McCain must win in order to have any shot at the presidency. Joe the Plumber move over, here comes the Scary Obama-Supporting Black Sexual Predator.
Under-the-radar rumors of creepy McCainiacs trying to goad Obama voters into violence while media cameras are present have been floating around recently, the invective particularly aimed at inciting dark-skinned Obamaites, but not much has come of it up to now except some of the demented Starboard Side of the Blogosphere typically and perversely whining about those mean lefties trying to smack down Republicans who wave around McCain-Palin signs in public. (Yep – from the same crowd that counts among its ‘base’ tolerant sophisticates who shout “Kill him!” and “Traitor!” at McPalin academic retreats.)
As the always effervescent-with-bile Michelle Malkin elucidates: “The Obamedia diaper-wetters are gripped with fear over a few over-the-line catcalls at McCain-Palin rallies.”
Uh, it’s not just a ‘few over-the-line catcalls’ at the downhome Bund affairs; it’s a river of right-wing effluvium oozing endlessly from the TV screen, computer monitor and radio speaker, as well. (And Michelle herself could use a mirror.)
Down by double-digits in the so-called battleground states and facing a humiliating landslide loss, would McCain’s campaign actually go this far – setting up a white woman with a fake story of being viciously attacked by a politically-motivated black man? (Was the Pope named Ratzenberger?)
As we’ve seen thus far in this election season, the notion of losing does strange things to the neocon mind. I’d like to think the Classic-Coke McCain would never have allowed this kind of thing, but the new Red Bull McCain – it’s hard to say.
This story may or may not sprout legs but, whether there was any participation by the McCain campaign, McPalin’s rush to honk up publicity for Todd’s phony allegations points to the easy assumption that Popeye and Olive Oyl intended to politically milk it for all it was worth, and that’s despicable in itself.
*****
RS Janes posted the above over at BartBlog on Saturday, October 25, 2008
LDF Secures Voting Rights That Protect Foreclosure Victims
Today (Friday, October 24, 2008), the NAACP Legal Defense Fund ("LDF") settled the lawsuit it filed just two days ago in Indiana state court to ensure that eligible voters with property subject to foreclosure proceedings or evictions cannot have their right to vote challenged during the upcoming November 4th election.
In settling the case, the Plaintiffs and Defendants, Marion County Election Board, and non-parties Marion County Democratic and Republican parties, agreed that such challenges are not permitted under Indiana law.
In settling the case, the Plaintiffs and Defendants, Marion County Election Board, and non-parties Marion County Democratic and Republican parties, agreed that such challenges are not permitted under Indiana law.
Read the rest of the story here.
'Living shorelines' eyed to stop coastal erosion
Around Dauphin Island, Alabama crews keep building high sand barriers to protect this fragile strip of land from erosion, and nature's wrath keeps washing them away.
Most recently, on Sept. 1, Hurricane Gustav erased a 10-foot-tall berm, a wall of sand that stretched for more than three miles.
Now marine scientists are turning to nature itself as the solution in an experiment to mend eroded shorelines.
By planting tons of oyster shells to form angular breakwaters near Dauphin Island, they hope to show that aquatic life drawn to the shells can create a "living shoreline," preventing coastal erosion better than ugly bulkheads, blunt seawalls or feeble berms that inevitably have to be rebuilt.
Most recently, on Sept. 1, Hurricane Gustav erased a 10-foot-tall berm, a wall of sand that stretched for more than three miles.
Now marine scientists are turning to nature itself as the solution in an experiment to mend eroded shorelines.
By planting tons of oyster shells to form angular breakwaters near Dauphin Island, they hope to show that aquatic life drawn to the shells can create a "living shoreline," preventing coastal erosion better than ugly bulkheads, blunt seawalls or feeble berms that inevitably have to be rebuilt.
Museum features Kansas town that went green
Tiny Greensburg, Kansas, rebuilding from scratch after nearly being wiped away by a tornado last year, is quickly becoming a model for going green.
Along with Masdar City, a planned car-free community outside Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, and other developments, the rural Kansas town offers vivid examples of sustainable living in "Green Community," a new exhibit at the National Building Museum. The exhibit opened Thursday and will run for a year.
"They are really making a wonderful opportunity out of an absolute tragedy," curator and architect Susan Piedmont-Palladino said of Greensburg. "Masdar and Greensburg do make a really good pair because they're both looking at the whole package of green technologies - from very old ways of doing things to high-tech ways."
Where windmills once dotted the Kansas landscape, Greensburg plans to embrace them again to harvest enough wind energy to power the town of about 700, which had twice as many residents before the tornado.
Greensburg gets only 22 inches of rain a year, so street runoff and rainwater that hits buildings will be collected and used to irrigate plants, part of a master plan that "treats each drop of water as a precious resource," said Stephen Hardy, a city planner with the architectural firm BNIM, which is helping with the effort.
And the town has resolved to build public buildings - from city hall to the hospital and school - that meet the most stringent standards for efficient design. Even the John Deere dealership is pursuing certification from the U.S. Green Building Council and plans to sell wind turbines for homes and businesses.
"Any time you're trying to rebuild a town, there are huge economic hurdles," Hardy said. "The fundamental shift in their thinking is they don't want to build a building they'll be paying for for 20 years. They want a building that will be paying them back."
The Building Museum exhibit breaks some traditional rules by using no precious artifacts and few physical objects to tell the story of green communities. It doesn't feature pieces from a tornado-damaged home, for example.
Instead, it uses satellite photos, community snapshots, short documentaries and interactive displays on the myriad ways people can make their hometowns greener.
The center of the space is like walking through a huge bar graph. Giant, transparent columns are filled with shredded tires or plastic bottles - materials otherwise headed to the dump. Marked on the columns are raw statistics on recycling or mass-transit use among various cities.
The numbers show Houston has the lowest recycling rate, with just 2.6 percent of the city's trash being salvaged, while San Francisco, which has an organic composting program for food scraps, topped the chart at 70 percent.
"None of these issues are brand new," Piedmont-Palladino said. "Ever since the Roman senate passed a law requiring water to be stored for dry periods, it sort of reminds us that ... it's been the key to successful living forever. We have just forgotten."
More than a dozen communities are noted in the exhibit, and they offer a mosaic of green initiatives worldwide, Piedmont-Palladino said.
"There's no single way to go green," she said.
Atlanta, for example, is featured for its redevelopment of an old steel mill site in the walkable Atlantic Station development.
This is the Building Museum's third in a series of green-themed exhibits, which have drawn record numbers of visitors despite the museum's not being on the usual Washington tourism route. The last exhibit, "The Green House," drew more than 130,000, including first lady Laura Bush, museum spokeswoman Jasmine Zick said.
Having small towns and big cities embrace environmentally friendly architecture and technologies will help change people's minds about how realistic environmental building can be, Piedmont-Palladino said.
In Greensburg, the vision to go green has helped maintain an optimism that the town can indeed rebound from all it has lost.
"Ninety percent of the town was just gone overnight, and yet the social fabric was intact even without the buildings," Hardy said. "That has driven them in a way that's unlike any community I've worked with."
Sick teen kicks 3 extra points in first, only game
Way to go kid! We need more stories like this ...
Darin "Doogie" Weiks is a high school football celebrity in central Wisconsin - thanks to playing one game that was his first and also his last.
Darin "Doogie" Weiks is a high school football celebrity in central Wisconsin - thanks to playing one game that was his first and also his last.
"I never thought it would happen," the Athens High School senior said Friday. "This is very special and the best thing in my life. I wanted to play football pretty bad."
Weiks, 17, has a rare, genetic liver disease that prevented him from playing the sport - until Thursday night's 33-19 win over Abbotsford.
A friend on the team suggested that Weiks, who plays on the Bluejays' basketball and baseball teams, be the kicker for the last game. The coaches and his parents agreed, and after just three days of practice, Weiks pulled on No. 5 for the season finale.
Since middle school, Weiks wanted to play football, but the chance was too risky of a hit rupturing his enlarged liver. He has an ailment called glycogen storage disease, he said. Last month, doctors found cancerous tumors and Weiks is now on a list for a liver transplant.
All that was forgotten when Weiks trotted onto the field for his first extra point try Thursday night in Athens, a farming town of about 1,000 people 30 miles northwest of Wausau, as his father, the field announcer, called out his name and number.
"I heard him. It was pretty special," the teen recalled Friday in a telephone interview from the 200-student high school.
His teammates urged him on.
"They told me that it didn't matter if I made it or missed it," Weiks said. "Just that they were happy that I could be out there with them."
With his mom in the stands next to a banner reading, "This Weik's Special is a Kicker," the "pretty pumped up" rookie lined up for the kick.
"It went right down the middle," he said. "I didn't really hear the crowd, but I guess they were pretty loud."
For the night, Weiks made three of five extra point tries.
"It was pretty special to be part of the team," said the senior who hopes to study nursing after he graduates. "I was just so grateful that all my friends would be able to do that for me - being out there with them guys on the last game of our career."
The team finished 3-6, out of the playoffs, but Weiks said he felt like a celebrity Friday - and a little like the star of the 1993 movie "Rudy," an account of Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger and his dream of playing football at Notre Dame.
While he awaits a call for the liver transplant, Weiks intends to continue his athletic career.
"I am pretty happy," he said. "I start basketball Nov. 17."
Internationally Read Daily
Carolina Naturally is read in all corners of the globe in ...
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Helsinki, Finland;
Beijing, China; Dublin, Ireland;
Rotterdam, Netherlands;
Toyota, Japan; Lima, Peru;
Warsaw, Poland;
Cairo, Egypt; Algiers, Algeria
Beijing, China; Dublin, Ireland;
Rotterdam, Netherlands;
Toyota, Japan; Lima, Peru;
Warsaw, Poland;
Cairo, Egypt; Algiers, Algeria
The McPain Campaign May Not Want You to See This
Hummm. Makes you wonder what they are hiding or what they are afraid of, doesn't it?!
Not only is the moron wrong - you can not have anyone arrested for being on a public sidewalk -he is guilty of assault and the police would have cuffed him and hauled him off should they have come due to his call to them to have the woman arrested.
Not only is the moron wrong - you can not have anyone arrested for being on a public sidewalk -he is guilty of assault and the police would have cuffed him and hauled him off should they have come due to his call to them to have the woman arrested.
McPain volunteer made up robbery story
A McCain campaign volunteer made up a story of being robbed, pinned to the ground and having the letter "B" scratched on her face in what she had said was a politically inspired attack, police said Friday.
Ashley Todd, 20-year-old college student from College Station, Texas, admitted Friday that the story was false, said Maurita Bryant, the assistant chief of the police department's investigations division. Todd was charged with making a false report to police, and Bryant said police doubted her story from the start.
Dressed in an orange hooded sweat shirt, Todd left police headquarters in handcuffs late Friday and did not respond to questions from reporters. The mark on her face was faded and her left eye was slightly blackened when she arrived in district court.
Todd was awaiting arraignment Friday on the misdemeanor false-report charge, which is punishable by up to two years in prison. She will be housed in a mental health unit at the county jail for her safety and because of "her not insignificant mental health issues," prosecutor Mark Tranquilli said.
Todd initially told investigators she was attempting to use a bank branch ATM on Wednesday night when a 6-foot-4 black man approached her from behind, put a knife blade to her throat and demanded money. She told police she handed the assailant $60 and walked away.
Todd, who is white, told investigators she suspected the man then noticed a John McCain sticker on her car. She said the man punched her in the back of the head, knocked her to the ground and scratched a backward letter "B" into her face with a dull knife.
Police said Todd claimed the man told her that he was going to "teach her a lesson" for supporting the Republican presidential candidate, and that she was going to become a supporter of Democratic candidate Barack Obama.
Todd told police she didn't seek medical attention, but instead went to a friend's apartment nearby and called police about 45 minutes later.
Todd could provide no explanation for why she invented the story, police said. The woman told investigators she believes she cut the "B" onto her own cheek, but did not provide an explanation of how or why and said she doesn't remember doing so, police said.
Police said the woman reported suffering from "mental problems" in the past, and that they do not believe anyone put her up to the act.
Tranquilli said Todd will remain jailed over the weekend pending a psychiatric evaluation, which won't happen until Monday at the earliest.
Bryant said somebody charged with making a false report would typically be cited and sent a summons. But because police have concerns about Todd's mental health, they are consulting with the Allegheny County District Attorney.
Todd worked in New York for the College Republican National Committee before moving two weeks ago to Pennsylvania, where her duties included recruiting college students, the committee's executive director, Ethan Eilon, has said.
"We are as upset as anyone to learn of her deceit, Ashley must take full responsibility for her actions," College Republican National Committee spokeswoman Ashley Barbera said in a statement.
Police reported Todd's claims Thursday, as a photo of her injuries made it onto numerous blogs and news sites. By Friday, police said they had found inconsistencies in Todd's story. They gave her a lie-detector test, but wouldn't release the polygraph results.
Police interviewed Todd after she contacted police Wednesday night and again on Thursday, Bryant said. They asked her to come back Friday, ostensibly to help police put together a sketch of the man. Instead, detectives began interviewing her.
"They just started talking to her and she just opened up and said she wanted to tell the truth," Bryant said.
Police suspected all along that Todd might not be telling the truth, starting with the fact that the "B" was backward, Bryant said.
"We have robbers here in Pittsburgh, but they don't generally mutilate someone's face like that," Bryant said. "They just take the money and run."
*****
Why am I not surprised.
Former Bush Aide Backs Obama
Former Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said he will vote for Sen. Barack Obama in the presidential election.
Said McClellan: "From the very beginning I have said I am going to support the candidate that has the best chance for changing the way Washington works and getting things done and I will be voting for Barack Obama and clapping ...
Man charged with threatening Ohio elections chief
An Ohio man has been charged with making a death threat against the state's top elections official.
The State Highway Patrol says Dana McArtor was charged Friday with intimidation in a telephoned threat to the office of Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.
Brunner spokesman Jeff Ortega says the call last Friday threatened to kill the secretary of state.
Her office says it has been inundated with threats during a busy season of voter lawsuits and alleged registration irregularities.
The 51-year-old Columbus man remains jailed. He is to be arraigned Saturday.
More evidence of the affect and effect of the hate-mongering that the repugicans have been spewing and continue to spew.
The State Highway Patrol says Dana McArtor was charged Friday with intimidation in a telephoned threat to the office of Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.
Brunner spokesman Jeff Ortega says the call last Friday threatened to kill the secretary of state.
Her office says it has been inundated with threats during a busy season of voter lawsuits and alleged registration irregularities.
The 51-year-old Columbus man remains jailed. He is to be arraigned Saturday.
*****
More evidence of the affect and effect of the hate-mongering that the repugicans have been spewing and continue to spew.
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I just want to thank you for featuring Greensburg... I am a life-long resident of Greensburg, my children are the 6th generation of my family to live here...
I now work for a non-profit organization, Greensburg GreenTown We help residents learn about green building and green living, and help them find the resources they need. We are also building demonstration homes featuring various green building techniques that will eventually be bed and breakfast inns. People will be able to come and stay a few days and experience what living in these sorts of houses is like, and how the alternative energy sources really work.