CAROLINA NATURALLY: Oct 31, 2012

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

The Daily Drift

Some of our readers today have been in:

Cape Coast, Ghana

Canberra, Australia

Mugla, Turkey

San Juan, Puerto Rico

Ampang, Malaysia

Vilseck, Germany

Jakarta, Indonesia

Athens, Greece

Leeds, England

Makati, Philippines

Lahore, Pakistan

Kiev, Ukraine

Lodz, Poland

Cape Town, South Africa

Durres, Albania

Sampaloc, Philippines

Imphal, India

Belgrade, Serbia

Tbilisi, Georgia

Shah Alam, Malaysia

Lille, France

Vienna, Austria

London, England

Rue, France

Fermont, Canada

Johannesburg, South Africa

Paris, France

Riga, Latvia

Novi Sad, Serbia

Kuching, Malaysia

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Today in History

1517		Martin Luther nails his 95 Theses to the door of the church at Wittenberg in Germany. Luther's theories and writings inaugurate Protestantism, shattering the external structure of the medieval church and at the same time reviving the religious consciousness of Europe.
1803		Congress ratifies the purchase of the entire Louisiana area in North America, adding territory to the U.S. which will eventually become 13 more states.
1838		A mob of about 200 attacks a Mormon camp in Missouri, killing 20 men, women and children.
1864		Nevada becomes the 36th state.
1941		After 14 years of work, the Mount Rushmore National Memorial is completed.
1952		The United States explodes the first hydrogen bomb at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific.
1968		The bombing of North Vietnam is halted by the United States.
1971		Saigon begins the release of 1,938 Hanoi POW's.
1984		Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated in New Delhi by two Sikh members of her bodyguard.

Samhain
Also called	Samhuinn (Scottish Gaelic) Sauin (Manx Gaelic)
Observed by	Historically: Gaels Today: Irish people, Scottish people, Manx people, Celtic neopagans and Wiccans
Type	Cultural, Pagan (Celtic polytheism, Celtic Neopaganism, Wicca)
Significance	End of the harvest season, beginning of winter
Date	Sunset 31 October – sunset 1 November (N. Hemisphere) Sunset 30 April – sunset 1 May (S. Hemisphere)
Celebrations	Bonfires, guising, divination, apple bobbing, feasting
Related to	Halloween, Hop-tu-Naa, Calan Gaeaf, Kalan Gwav, All Saints' Day, All Souls' Day

/ˈsɑːwɪn/, /ˈsaʊ.ɪn/, or /ˈsaʊn/),^[1]—sometimes Anglicized as Sawin, Sowin, or similar—is a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the 'darker half' of the year. Most commonly it is held on 31 October–1 November, or halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. Along with Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasadh it makes up the four Gaelic seasonal festivals. It was observed in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. Kindred festivals were held at the same time of year in other Celtic lands; for example the Brythonic Calan Gaeaf (in Wales), Kalan Gwav (in Cornwall) and Kalan Goañv (in Brittany).
Samhain is mentioned in some of the earliest Irish literature. Many important events in Irish mythology happen or begin on Samhain. It was the time when cattle were brought back down from the summer pastures and when livestock were slaughtered for the winter. In much of the Gaelic world, bonfires were lit and there were rituals involving them, as at Beltane. People and their livestock would often walk between two bonfires as a cleansing ritual, and the bones of slaughtered livestock were cast into its flames.^[2] Samhain (like Beltane) was seen as a time when the 'door' to the Otherworld opened enough for the souls of the dead, and other beings, to come into our world. Feasts were had, at which the souls of dead kin were beckoned to attend and a place set at the table for them. It has thus been likened to a festival of the dead. People also took steps to protect themselves from harmful spirits, which is thought to have led to the custom of guising. Divination was also done at Samhain.
It was popularized as the "Celtic New Year" from the late 19th century, following Sir John Rhys and Sir James Frazer.^[3] It has been linked with All Saints' Day (and later All Souls' Day) since the 9th century, when the date of that holiday was shifted to 1 November. Both have strongly influenced the secular customs of Halloween.^[4]
Samhain is still celebrated as a cultural festival by some (though it has mostly been replaced by Halloween) and, since the 20th century, has been celebrated as a religious festival by Celtic neopagans and Wiccans.^[5] Neopagans in the southern hemisphere often celebrate Samhain at the other end of the year (~30 April–1 May).
More

A Worldwide Celebration Of Halloween

Halloween is still largely considered to be an American holiday, but more and more countries are joining in on the spooky sweet fun each year, and it seems like Halloween may one day be a holiday that the entire world celebrates together. Here's an overview of how Halloween is celebrated worldwide.

Did you know ...

The Samhain Edition

That nothing's spookier than abandoned mortuaries

That zombies very popular for this year's costumes

About London's ghoulish legacy: grave-robbing for scientific study

and be sure to get your H.P. Lovecraft action figure!

Are there clinical explanations for vampires, zombies or werewolves?

When people don’t understand how something works, they often come up with their own explanations. For example, when ancient societies ...

Weekly portions of oily fish — but not supplements — can help ward off stroke

Eating at least two servings of oily fish a week is moderately but significantly associated with a reduced risk of ...

Lucy the Elephant 1881 novelty house survived Sandy

Todd Lappin reports:

Monday night, tropical story Sandy made landfall approximately 5 miles southwest of Atlantic City, NJ. That means Sandy came ashore in Margate, NJ, on the exact site of Lucy the Elephant -- a charming 19th century house built in the shape of a gigantic circus elephant. Lucy has survived the ravages of time for more than 120 years, but she sits just a block off the beach in Margate, so things did not look good for the old girl when Sandy struck. Tuesday morning, however, Patrick Armstrong took a photo of the site which revealed that Lucy the Elephant survived — and more or less intact. Incredible.

Fuhgitabouit

How New Yorkers reacted to Sandy

The shrub’s FEMA Director During Katrina Criticizes Obama For Responding To Sandy Too Quickly

Former FEMA Director Michael Brown offered criticism of President Obama’s early responses to Hurricane Sandy yesterday, including a dig at the administration’s response to last month’s attack in Libya.
Yesterday, ahead of the storm’s pummeling of the eastern seaboard, Brown gave an interview to the local alternative paper, the Denver Westword, on how he believed the Obama administration was responding to Sandy too quickly and that Obama had spoken to the press about Sandy’s potential effect too early.
Brown turned then to a reliable wingnut attack on the President’s response to the attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi that killed four Americans:

“One thing he’s gonna be asked is, why did he jump on [the hurricane] so quickly and go back to D.C. so quickly when in…Benghazi, he went to Las Vegas?” Brown says. “Why was this so quick?… At some point, somebody’s going to ask that question…. This is like the inverse of Benghazi.”

Wingnuts have been hitting Obama for weeks on his attendance at a fundraiser in Nevada following the assault in Benghazi, claiming at alternate times that the President either cared more about politics than lives lost or that he was trying to downplay the attack’s significance. Now the critique has mutated into a belief that Obama is currently “playing President” to score points during disaster relief in the run-up to the election, in contrast to his actions in September.
Brown is not the only one making the insinuation that Obama and his administration are responding too quickly to Sandy only for political reasons. He’s joined in his accusations by such prominent right-wing commentators as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and columnist Charles Krauthammer.
However, Brown’s comments carry a special irony due to the role he played during the Hurricane Katrina debacle in 2005. As director of FEMA during the legendarily botched response, Brown, famously dubbed “Brownie” by the shrub, was in the center of criticism from both sides of the aisle that the Bush administration was too slow to respond. An internal review by the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector-General following the disaster concluded, “Much of the criticism is warranted.” Brown resigned from his position as director less than two weeks after Katrina hit.

The truth be told

Romney bought $5k of food for people to “donate” back to him at phony “hurricane” rally

You See Victims, Romney Smells “Opportunity”

It IS Paul Ryan and the soup kitchen!

From McKay Coppins at Buzzfeed:

But the last-minute nature of the call for donations left some in the campaign concerned that they would end up with an empty truck. So the night before the event, campaign aides went to a local Wal Mart and spent $5,000 on granola bars, canned food, and diapers to put on display while they waited for donations to come in, according to one staffer. (The campaign confirmed that it “did donate supplies to the relief effort,” but would not specify how much it spent.)

Distributing birther-inspired anti-Obama t-shirts
at the “non-partisan” rally.

Empty-handed supporters pled for entrance, with one woman asking, “What if we dropped off our donations up front?”The volunteer gestured toward a pile of groceries conveniently stacked near the candidate. “Just grab something,” he said.
Two teenage boys retrieved a jar of peanut butter each, and got in line. When it was their turn, they handed their “donations” to Romney. He took them, smiled, and offered an earnest “Thank you.”

No relief for you!
We’ve all been through it before. Grandma’s getting old. Mom goes and buys grandma’s Christmas gifts, or maybe mom even gives you a 20 and tells you to buy yourself something from grandma, then wrap it up for Christmas eve – and make sure you look surprised when you unwrap your gift in front of grandma!
And that’s okay, because grandma’s 90 years old and has a hard time getting around.
What’s Mitt Romney’s excuse?

Team Romney Admits “Relief” Event Was Staged for Political Reasons

I also found this part of the story fascinating. The Romney campaign admits that the intent behind the rally was swing state election visibility, not hurricane relief:

But Boston wasn’t quite ready to lose a full day of swing state visibility with a week left in the race. So, after some deliberation, the campaign decided to use their existing venue in Ohio to stage a makeshift, and nonpartisan, humanitarian project. It would be a way for Romney to show leadership — and get on the local news — without looking craven or opportunistic.

They weren’t willing to lose a day’s visibility in a swing state, so they came up with the event and crafted it in a way that would still get them political benefit, but would camouflage the intent. So, as I predicted, Team Romney saw Hurricane Sandy – saw the imminent peril of tens of millions of Americans – as a political “opportunity” to exploit.

Reporters question whether relief rally isn't really political event.

Philip Rucker of the Washington Post.

And as the reports from the rally prove, Romney’s “relief event” was a lot of partisan politics, and not much relief.
And keep mind, the Red Cross doesn’t want these “donations.” The Red Cross specifically says on its Web site NOT to give it donations of goods. It needs money and blood donations. When people send goods, it requires staff time to go through, distribute them, etc – time that is better spent working on more efficient means of helping disaster victims. And I quote from the Red Cross Web site:

Unfortunately, due to logistical constraints the Red Cross does not accept or solicit individual donations or collections of items. Items such as collected food, used clothing and shoes must be sorted, cleaned, repackaged and transported which impedes the valuable resources of money, time, and personnel.

It’s the “Chinese Jeeps” of Charity Events!

Mitt Romney spent $5,000 on a political stunt when he should have simply donated the $5,000 to the Red Cross. But had he donated the money, it wouldn’t have been nearly as good a PR event, and remember, with Mitt Romney, it’s not about helping people – it’s about fueling his ambition.
Need more proof? Jennyjinx on Twitter just noted the following:

@aravosis Why couldn’t Romney have asked his supporters to write a check or plop money in a can?

The Romney people decided that you “had” to have food in hand in hand to donate, or they wouldn’t let you in. But if you didn’t have any food, they’d give you some food they bought – food the Red Cross doesn’t want. Why didn’t the Romney people at the very least ask people who didn’t bring food to write a check, or donate cash? They could have a laptop sitting there with a connection to the Internet, and people could have donated to the Red Cross via the Red Cross’ own Web site. But they didn’t. Because this event wasn’t about helping the Red Cross or Hurricane Sandy’s victims.
How long until Romney voters try to destroy this charity as well? Then again, by intentionally impeding the Red Cross’ hurricane relief work, they’re already off to a good start.
PS Compare Romney’s made-for-TV stunt with what President Obama did when visiting FEMA HQ this morning:

No TV cameras allowed. But, what – you say – the President isn’t trying to make hurricane relief a partisan media spectacle of opportunity? Clearly, un-American.

Red Cross had to divert staff to deal with Romney’s phony “relief effort”

Please Ignore the Black Man on the T-shirts

As we warned earlier, because the Romney campaign preferred a political stunt to actually helping Hurricane Sandy victims, the Red Cross is now busy wasting valuable resources processing donations from the Romney campaign that its own Web site admits it does not want.
As you’ll recall, Mitt Romney, after promising not to campaign today, campaigned anyway. And to add insult to injury, he used the pretense of Hurricane Sandy to hold campaign events wrapped in a cloak of “storm relief.”
Not surprisingly, Romney then turned his “relief” events today into what the campaign called “victory rallies,” including a Romney campaign propaganda video and the distribution of t-shirts saying “Obama, You’re Fired!”

Here is a tweet from CNN’s Jonathan Karl:

Note that that woman must have gotten that

Obama t-shirt at the non-partisan disaster relief rally.

So it’s abundantly clear what kind of non-partisan event this was. In fact, Mitt Romney used the suffering of millions of Americans as a shield to fend off criticism that this was a political event. But it was a political event, as countless reporters attested. (And it was more than a shield. He used people. He used their suffering to advance his own ambition. And he got caught.)

Here’s Something You Said You Don’t Want, Hope You Like It

The other way that Romney attempted to camouflage his campaign event as a “relief effort” was by, yet again, asking people to bring donations of supplies that the Red Cross has said repeatedly it does not want, and in fact, they’ve said it will impede hurricane relief efforts.
And I quote from the Red Cross Web site:

Unfortunately, due to logistical constraints the Red Cross does not accept or solicit individual donations or collections of items. Items such as collected food, used clothing and shoes must be sorted, cleaned, repackaged and transported which impedes the valuable resources of money, time, and personnel.

And that’s what happened as a result of Mitt Romney’s little hurricane stunt earlier today. We learn via a tweet from CNN’s Jim Acosta that the Red Cross is now having to spend staff time dealing with the collected food and other items the Romney campaign gathered today:

From CNN National Political Correspondent Jim Acosta.

Here’s the longer Red Cross statement. Read it, then let’s talk about the criticism of Romney buried between the lines:

“The American Red Cross appreciates the support from the Romney campaign and is working with the campaign to process this donation of supplies,” the statement read. “We are grateful that both the Obama and Romney campaigns have also encouraged the public to send financial donations to the Red Cross. We encourage individuals who want to help to consider making a financial donation or making an appointment to give blood.”

Note that last line: “We encourage individuals who want to help to consider making a financial donation or making an appointment to give blood.” That’s the equivalent of your grandma saying “thank you so much for the inflatable Elvis doll, honey, and I encourage anyone else wanting to get me a birthday gift next year to try something I can actually use.”

Forget About You, What About Me?

The Red Cross outright told anyone else doing what Romney did today, to collect financial donations or blood – not supplies. It was a subtle rebuke to the Romney campaign, and an effort by the Red Cross to undo the damage Romney has already done in sending the message to the American people that the Red Cross needs us to donate food, when they don’t, and it will actually hurt their relief efforts by diverting necessary manpower.
And that is exactly what happened today, now that the Red Cross is having to “work with the Romney campaign to process this donation of supplies,” instead of focusing on the actual victims of Hurricane Sandy who need their help in the eastern United States.

This repugican congressman: Hurricane Sandy aid shouldn't go to "Gucci bags and massage parlors"

Christ, what an asshole. Congressman Steve King, a repugican from Iowa (a state that has long benefited from a shit-ton of federal funds and tax breaks) said Tuesday federal aid for people whose homes and lives were trashed by Hurricane Sandy should include restrictions against using aid "Gucci bags and massage parlors."
Quoth the douche, "I want to get them the resources that are necessary to lift them out of this water and the sand and the ashes and the death that's over there in the East Coast and especially in the Northeast."
"But not one big shot to just open up the checkbook," he later added, "because they spent it on Gucci bags and massage parlors and everything you can think of in addition to what was necessary," he said, referring to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

This repugican House hopeful mum on campaign manager’s incendiary, false tweets about Hurricane Sandy

Chris Wight For Congress Owes New Yorkers an Apology

There were a lot of amazing tweets during the night about the increasingly dire situation in New York City during the height of Hurricane Sandy, including some extraordinary photos of the damage.
But several of the most inflammatory tweets that went viral, and were used by newsrooms, were a lie.
Buzzfeed’s Jack Stuef discovered that they were posted Shashank Tripathi, a man working as campaign manager for repugican US House candidate Chris Wight, who’s running against Democratic Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York’s 12th congressional district, which includes parts of Manhattan that were flooded by Hurricane Sandy. According to some reports, Tripathi is Wight’s campaign manager.
Stuef is also a vocal supporter of Mitt Romney, and claims to have organized phone banks for Romney in New York.
A sample of the things Tripathi wrote last night (Buzzfeed has many more):

That’s some pretty incendiary stuff.

Not a Word From Wight About Hoax

So it’s odd that wannabe congressman Chris Wight hasn’t said boo about his staffer trying to incite mass panic in New York last night during a national disaster.
Wight replaced Tripathi as campaign manager with someone else today, but Wight’s statement says absolutely nothing about the scandal committed by own campaign manager. Not an acknowledgement, not even an apology.
You’d think Chris Wight would issue a statement apologizing to the people of New York, who he hopes to represent. After all, the hoax was played on his own to-be constituents (should he win). They deserve an answer.
What’s particularly odd is that Chris Wight replaced
Was this about trying to harm Democrats? Was it about trying to influence the election in some way? Did Chris Wight know that his campaign manager was orchestrating this charade?
We don’t know because Chris Wight isn’t talking.
Maybe time he did.

Ann Romney hates public education

She wants the whole "thing" dismantled. yet another Romney "let them eat cake" moment.

Ann Romney told Good Housekeeping magazine that the campaign issue closest to her heart is taking on teachers unions and dismantling public education as we know it. - More

Obama's Army of Election lawyers are being dispatched all over the country

Obama's reelection campaign, openly concerned that repugicans will try to block
Democratic voters, is offering legal help to voters who see problems.

The president today said that the campaign has enlisted an army of lawyers to clear hurdles away
for his supporters, saying, "If people have problems voting, we can solve those problems.
We've got lawyers all across the country."

Urging supporters to vote early , he said that voters should contact his campaign if they are prevented
from voting. "If you vote early and you see that problem, we've got time to fix it," he said.

Democrats are worried that repugicans will block minorities and the poor at the polls.

More

Two thoughts:

It's nice to see Obama acting like he ain't no bandleader.

Bring your camera when you vote. If some repugi-thugs try to stop you,
record it, upload it to Youtube and then send the link to everyone you know.

The repugican's nasty campaign tactics: Phony voting instructions

With a week to go until Election Day, the nasty campaign tactics are coming out.People in Florida, Virginia and Indiana have gotten calls falsely telling them they can vote early by phone and don't need to go to a polling place. In suburban Broward County, Fla., a handful of elderly voters who requested absentee ballots say they were visited by unknown people claiming to be authorized to collect the ballots.
And there's a mysterious DVD popping up in mailboxes that purports to be a documentary raising questions about the true identity of President Barack Obama's father.
It's one more indication of just how close this presidential election is. Voting rights advocates say reports of political deception and underhandedness are on the rise.
"Unfortunately it seems like the shadowy individuals that want to prevent people from voting are doing things earlier," said Eric Marshall, legal mobilization manager at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The organization is part of a coalition called Election Protection that is monitoring voting access and rights nationwide, including a toll-free hotline set up to take complaints.
"Each American's vote matters. It's important to them and it's important to the community," Marshall said.
Indiana's secretary of state launched an investigation of the phony voting instructions being phoned to homes in that state, and Virginia officials issued a warning to voters there asking them to report any such calls.
In the Broward County, Fla., case, elderly voters "were told, 'I'm an official and I'm here to pick up your absentee ballot,'" said Alma Gonzalez, a senior Florida Democratic Party official working on voter protection efforts. "There is no official who picks up your ballot."
In addition to those cases, garish billboards warning that voter fraud is a crime punishable by jail time and fines were put up in minority neighborhoods in Ohio and Wisconsin. They were recently taken down amid complaints they were aimed at intimidating African-American and Latino voters. The people behind the billboards have not come forward.
"It's hard to believe that these were just public service announcements," Marshall said. "Those neighborhoods were specifically targeted."
"It doesn't pass the smell test."
Independent Florida voter Jane Bowman smelled something bad, too, when she recently discovered a DVD in her mailbox questioning the identity of Obama's father.
"I think it's just a dirty trick. It just astonished me," said Bowman, a Jacksonville resident who says she plans to vote for Obama as she did four years ago. "I think they're doing everything they can to win Florida. It's a sorry situation."
The DVD's director, who says he has mailed some 7 million copies to homes in swing states, says that he is unaffiliated with political campaigns or their supporters and that the film reflects his own painstaking research into Obama's family background.
The DVD, "Dreams from My Real Father," posits that the president's true father was a communist agitator, author and poet living in Hawaii named Frank Marshall Davis — not the Kenyan man who shares the president's name. Both men are now dead.
The title is a reference to Obama's book about his family history. That book does mention a poet named "Frank" who was a friend of Obama's maternal grandfather.
In an interview, DVD director Joel Gilbert described himself as a nonpartisan independent who seeks only to tell what he views as an extremely important story. Gilbert said he did not coordinate distribution of the DVD with any political entity and also took no political contributions to finance it. Yet the DVD was targeted at voters in key battleground states, including 1.5 million in Florida and 1.2 million in Ohio, according to Gilbert's website.
"It's a publicity measure," he said of the free mail distribution. "This has been an effort to force and embarrass the media into covering the content of the film."
Gilbert declined to disclose how the DVD and its distribution were financed, saying his production company is private and not required to. He has also made what he calls "mockumentaries" exploring whether former Beatle Paul McCartney might really be dead — as was rumored in the 1960s — and finding Elvis Presley alive and living as a federal agent in Southern California. He has also done films on Islamic-Jewish relations and Iran's strategic ambitions.
Obama campaign spokesman Adam Fetcher declined comment on the DVD.
Another mysterious batch of mailings to voters in at least 23 Florida counties is being investigated by the FBI and state officials. These anonymous letters, which were postmarked from Seattle, raise questions about the voter's citizenship and provide a form that supposedly must immediately be filled out and returned to elections officials. Otherwise, the letter says, the voter's name will be purged from the rolls.
"A nonregistered voter who casts a vote in the State of Florida may be subject to arrest, imprisonment, and/or other criminal sanctions," warns one of the official-looking letters complete with eagle-and-flag logo, which appear to have been aimed mainly at registered Republicans.
Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner has asked all of the state's supervisors of elections to report any similar letters. There could also be federal charges against those responsible.
Voting rights advocates also say there have been scattered complaints of bosses ordering employees to support a particular presidential candidate or face job repercussions. And in the past, students and other groups have been the targets of robocalls falsely saying they can vote on the day after Election Day if the lines are too long.
Marshall said such misinformation tactics surface election after election because it's not illegal in most states to deceive someone about the timing or place of an election, or to lie about a candidate's political affiliation. Most laws, he said, are more geared toward preventing voter intimidation and ensuring physical access to polling places. Those who do get caught in deception usually claim it was all a big misunderstanding.
"It's very difficult to stop," he said. "The tactics have evolved but the law hasn't."
_____
Election Protection voter complaint hotline: 1-866-OUR-VOTE

Boy faces murder trial in neo-Nazi dad's death

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2011/05/18/jeff_hall_AP101022137034_244x183.jpg

Jeff Hall holds a Neo Nazi flag while standing at Sycamore Highlands Park near his home in Riverside, Calif.

The 10-year-old son of a neo-Nazi leader told his younger sister that he planned to shoot their father, then a day later took a gun from his parents' bedroom and fired one bullet into his father's head as he slept on a couch, a prosecutor alleged Tuesday.

The boy's father, Jeff Hall, was an out-of-work plumber who as regional leader of the National Socialist Movement headed rallies at a synagogue and a day labor site.

In opening statements at the murder trial, Riverside County prosecutor Michael Soccio dismissed the notion that Hall's neo-Nazi beliefs contributed to his son's behavior, as the defense maintains, and instead said the boy, now 12, was a violent child who had been kicked out of every school he attended.

The boy also suspected his father was going to leave his stepmother, and he didn't want the family to split up, prosecutors have said.

"You'll learn that (the child) would have shot his father even if he'd been a member of the Peace and Freedom Party. It made no difference," Soccio said, before showing the court photos of Hall playing tea party with his young children. "They lived a relatively normal life."

The Associated Press is not identifying the child because he is a juvenile.

The boy with light brown hair sat quietly in court next to his attorney and wore a purple polo shirt and glasses. He showed little emotion when the prosecution flashed photos through a projector of his blood-spattered father, and he appeared to be taking notes in a spiral-bound notebook.
On several occasions, he asked his attorney how to spell the name of a witness taking the stand.
Defense attorney Matthew Hardy countered in his opening statement that his client had grown up in an abusive and violent environment and was conditioned to believe it was right to kill people who were a threat.
Hall taught his son to shoot guns, took him to neo-Nazi rallies and once to the Mexican border to teach him how to "make sure he knew what to do to protect this place from the Mexicans," Hardy said.
"If you were going to create a monster, if you were going to create a killer, what would you do?" he said. "You'd put him in a house where there's domestic violence, child abuse, racism."

Hardy also claimed the boy's stepmother Krista McCrary, who is expected to testify, goaded the boy into killing Hall because Hall was planning to leave her for another woman. Hall sent her text messages on the night he was shot saying he would divorce her, and spent more than five hours talking to his girlfriend on the phone, Hardy said.

McCrary sat in on the child's interviews with police and psychiatrists after the shooting, he said, and she lied to investigators.

The boy saw an opportunity when his father came home from a party but was locked out and had to get in the house by crawling through a window, Soccio said.
Hall fell asleep on the couch, and the boy got a gun from his parent's room and shot Hall at near point-blank range behind his left ear, the prosecutor said.
"He held the gun about a foot away and, as he explained, he took four fingers and put them into the trigger and pulled the trigger back and the gun discharged," Soccio said, showing images of a bloodied Hall on the couch covered by a blue blanket.
Several police officers testified that the boy and at least one of his siblings voluntarily gave statements immediately after the shooting that indicated the boy had killed his father.
One younger sister asked the boy why he hadn't shot their father in the stomach, as he said he planned to do, according to Officer Robert Monreal, who picked up the exchange on a belt recorder.
Prosecutors previously said the two siblings talked about the killing as they played on a swing set.

Another officer testified that the boy was held in a patrol car at the scene and began to talk almost non-stop from the backseat. Officer Michael Foster said the child acknowledged shooting his father and began to show remorse.

"He was sad about it. He wished he hadn't done it," Foster recalled. "He asked me about things like, do people get more than one life, things like that. He wanted to know if he was dead or if he just had injuries."

The boy has a history of being expelled from school for violence, starting at age 5 when he stabbed a teacher with a pencil on the first day of kindergarten, Soccio said outside court. He also tried to strangle a teacher with a telephone cord a few years later, he said.

Hall, 32, who said he believed in a white breakaway nation, ran for a seat on the local water board in 2010 in a move that disturbed many residents in the recession-battered suburbs southeast of Los Angeles. The day before his death, he held a meeting of the neo-Nazi group at his home.

The boy's stepmother told authorities that Hall had hit, kicked and yelled at his son for being too loud or getting in the way. Hall and the boy's biological mother had previously slugged through a divorce and custody dispute in which each had accused the other of child abuse.

Kathleen M. Heide, a professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa who wrote "Why Kids Kill Parents," said children 10 and under rarely kill their parents and that only 16 such cases were documented between 1996 and 2007.

Heide also said parenting and home life would undoubtedly play a role in the development of the boy.

If a judge finds the boy murdered Hall, he could be held in state custody until he is 23 years old.

The state currently houses fewer than 900 juveniles.

The High Rise Slums of Venezuela

In the early 1990s, the 45-story Torre David office tower in Caracas, Venezuela, was near completion when its developer died and then the economy cratered. What happened next is the strange story of an abandoned tower and the squatters that moved in:

Torre David, about 90% finished at the time, was abandoned--as both a project and a property. Electrical infrastructure had not yet been installed. The lower stories were still missing finished flooring, sewage pipes, and paint. Large slabs of marble meant for a luxury hotel on the first six floors had been carted into the building but never installed.
Looters, not surprisingly, picked over the remains. Then came the families: More than 750 of them who moved in anyway over the years, occupying the skeletal office tower like a kind of vertical slum. The world’s resourceful poor have for years manufactured makeshift communities on the edges of mega-cities. But this was a notably different model, a one-time high-end high-rise turning the sprawling shantytown on its ear. After all, why should such a formidable structure, designed by Venezuelan architect Enrique Gómez, sit vacant? If a luxury hotel won’t move in, why can’t the poor?

Emily Badger of Fast Company has the story: here.

Random Photo

Russian Beard Tax Token

Peter the Great (1672-1725), Tsar of Russia, wanted to Westernize his nation. To do so, among other actions, he required the men of Russia to shave their beards in imitation of the highborn men of Western Europe. Or, alternatively, to pay a beard tax. Men who paid this tax were given a token as proof:

On 16 January 1705, men 'of all ranks', including merchants and artisans (but not priests, deacons and peasants), were ordered to shave. Anyone who wished to keep his beard and whiskers had to pay a fine on a sliding scale according to status: 60 roubles for nobles, military officers and chancellery officials, 100 roubles for merchants of the first guild, and so on. Permits took the form of a beard token disc obtainable from the Police Office. Bearded persons had to pay a kopeck each time they entered the city gates.

A freshly-discovered document highlighting negative attitudes towards Robin Hood has been deciphered by an academic at the University of St. Andrews.

The previously unknown chronicle entry introduces never before seen facts about "a certain outlaw named Robin Hood".

Rather than depicting the traditionally well-liked hero, the article suggests that Robin Hood and his merry men may not actually have been "loved by the good".

Dr. Julian Luxford from the University's School of Art History found the reference to the legendary figure in an inscription from around 1460 which appears in an English manuscript owned by Eton College.

Dr. Luxford, an expert in medieval manuscript studies, explained, "The new find contains a uniquely negative assessment of the outlaw, and provides rare evidence for monastic attitudes towards him."

The pre-Reformation article is the only English chronicle entry to have been discovered which mentions Robin Hood. To date, just three Scottish medieval authors are thought to have set Robin in a chronological context.

Dr. Luxford continued, "The new find places Robin Hood in Edward I's reign, thus supporting the belief that his legend is of thirteenth century origin." A translation of the short inscription, which contains only 23 words in Latin, reads, "Around this time, according to popular opinion, a certain outlaw named Robin Hood, with his accomplices, infested Sherwood and other law-abiding areas of England with continuous robberies."

Dr. Luxford said, "While Little John is not mentioned here, Robin is assigned partners-in crime. And the inscription's author does at least acknowledge that these men were active elsewhere in England.

"By mentioning Sherwood it buttresses the hitherto rather thin evidence for a medieval connection between Robin and the Nottinghamshire forest with which he has become so closely associated."

The discovery has been written up as an article which will be published later this month in the Journal of Medieval History.

*(http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Places/Property/907138)*

Science News from a British perspective

Martian soil sample 'like Hawaii'

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Fyffes warns of fruit price rise

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Another Sandy Casualty: NYC Bees

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Found below the altitude of 600m in undisturbed, subtropical rainforest, the species survives on the vine Carronia multisepalea, a collapsed shrub that provides the food and habitat the moth requires in order to breed.
Lui said: 'Sadly this moth is very rare I only know of a single adult seen last year so I do not have photographs of the adult yet.
'This southern subspecies is listed as nationally endangered in Australia.'

The Daily Mail has more awesome photos by Lui: More

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