Thursday, September 18, 2014
The Daily Drift
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Today in History
| 1758 | James Abercromby is replaced as supreme commander of British forces after his defeat by French commander the Marquis of Montcalm at Fort Ticonderoga during the French and Indian War. | |
| 1759 | Quebec surrenders to the British after a battle which sees the deaths of both James Wolfe and Louis Montcalm, the British and French commanders. | |
| 1793 | George Washington lays the foundation stone for the U.S. Capitol. | |
| 1830 | Tom Thumb, the first locomotive built in the United States, loses a nine-mile race in Maryland to a horse. | |
| 1850 | Congress passes the second Fugitive Slave Bill into law (the first was enacted in 1793), requiring the return of escaped slaves to their owners. | |
| 1862 | After waiting all day for a Union attack which never came at Antietam, Confederate General Robert E. Lee begins a retreat out of Maryland and back to Virginia. | |
| 1863 | Union cavalry troops clash with a group of Confederates at Chickamauga Creek. | |
| 1874 | The Nebraska Relief and Aid Society is formed to help farmers whose crops were destroyed by grasshoppers swarming throughout the American West. | |
| 1911 | Russian Premier Piotr Stolypin dies four days after being shot at the Kiev opera house by socialist lawyer Dimitri Bogroff. | |
| 1914 | The Irish Home Rule Bill becomes law, but is delayed until after World War I. | |
| 1929 | Charles Lindbergh takes off on a 10,000 mile air tour of South America. | |
| 1934 | The League of Nations admits the Soviet Union. | |
| 1939 | A German U-boat sinks the British aircraft carrier Courageous, killing 500 people. | |
| 1948 | Margaret Chase Smith becomes the first woman elected to the Senate without completing another senator's term when she defeats Democratic opponent Adrian Scolten. Smith is also the only woman to be elected to and serve in both houses of Congress. | |
| 1960 | Two thousand cheer Castro's arrival in New York for the United Nations session. | |
| 1961 | UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold is killed in a plane crash while attempting to negotiate peace in the Congo. | |
| 1964 | U.S. destroyers fire on hostile targets in Vietnam. | |
| 1973 | East and West Germany and The Bahamas are admitted to United Nations. | |
| 1975 | Patty Hearst, granddaughter of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, is kidnapped by violent radical group SLA (Symbionese Liberation Army); she later took part in some of the group's militant activities, is captured by FBI agents. | |
| 1977 | Voyager I takes first photo of Earth and the Moon together. | |
| 1980 | Cosmonaut Arnoldo Tamayo, a Cuban, becomes the first black to be sent on a mission in space. | |
| 1998 | ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is formed to coordinate unique identifying addresses for Websites worldwide. | |
| 2009 | The US television soap opera The Guiding Light broadcasts its final episode, ending a 72-year run that began on radio. |
1981 News Report on the Internet is Now Hilarious
There
are so many amusing things in this 1981 television report about getting
newspaper content from the Internet that it's hard to keep track. The
smirk and smug tone of voice of the reporter, as if she's informing the
public of a quaint yet ridiculous idea that stands no chance of ever
being embraced by the public. The opening line: "Imagine if you will,
sitting down to your morning coffee and turning on your home computer to
read the day's newspaper." Mind boggling! The CRT screens, dial-up
connections using a phone receiver and hours of download time for a text
file.
I think the thing that I enjoyed most was the picture of the pioneering gent who was receiving the San Francisco Examiner online with his name and a caption underneath that read "owns home computer." Ahh, the 80s.
I think the thing that I enjoyed most was the picture of the pioneering gent who was receiving the San Francisco Examiner online with his name and a caption underneath that read "owns home computer." Ahh, the 80s.
High Schoolers Protest Sexist Dress Code That’s Landed More Than 100 Girls In Detention
by Tara Culp-Ressler
Tottenville high schoolers who say they refuse to follow the new dress code
Students at a Staten Island high school are frustrated with a strict new dress code
that’s landing girls in detention for wearing shorts, despite the fact
that many of their classrooms don’t have air conditioning. After the
school reportedly gave detention to 200 kids — 90 percent of whom were female students — teens are gearing up for a protest again the rules.The interim principal at Tottenville High School recently changed the dress code to prohibit tank tops, low-cut shirts, and shorts that don’t reach fingertip length. But it’s been hot during the first few weeks of school, and students say it doesn’t make sense to crack down on them for dressing comfortably for their “sweltering” classrooms.
“That’s what girls wear when it’s hot out. It’s unfair to them,” a senior at the school told the Staten Island Advance.
The students being punished for their clothing are being required to put on a large T-shirt and gym shorts provided by the school or wait in the auditorium for their parents to bring them a different outfit. In protest, some students are continuing to openly defy the dress code regulations and wear shorts and tank tops to school.
Both male and female students have complained that the dress code is “sexist” and “biased” toward young women. “Tottenville should just be an all boys school considering this dress code is only affecting the girls,” one teen pointed out. Another said it was “humiliating to be pulled aside like an object” to be told that her outfit was inappropriate.
Amid the growing controversy, school district officials released a statement noting they reserve the right to enforce a dress code in cases when students’s clothing “creates a distraction, is dangerous, or interferes with the learning and teaching process.”
Schools typically justify their dress codes by maintaining that it’s important to keep the classroom free from distractions; however, that language actually reinforces the idea that women’s bodies are inherently tempting to men and it’s their responsibility to cover themselves up. Students and parents across the country are increasingly pushing back against the double standard, saying that it sends harmful messages about gender stereotypes to kids. After all, if students are taught that girls need to dress a certain way so they don’t “distract” boys, that ultimately furthers the idea that boys can’t control themselves — and that unwanted sexual attention is sometimes justified because girls are “asking for it” with their short skirts and low-cut tops.
It’s also arguably more disruptive to the learning environment to single out female students in this way. Other girls have been called out in front of their peers, kicked out of school dances, sent home for the day, and forced to change into baggy gym clothes for wearing things that are deemed to be too revealing.
“I get that they want to teach us to respect ourselves and others, and that they want us to dress for success, but if you’re comfortable and relaxed in class — not sweltering or fearful you’re going to get pulled aside — you can pay attention better and learn,” one Tottenville student pointed out.
House repugicans Side With The Terrorists By Refusing To Support Obama Against ISIS
House repugicans emerged from a Tuesday morning conference meeting predicting a proposal to arm Syrian rebels to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) will pass — but only if Democrats provide significant support.House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (r-Calif.) said he wasn’t sure his amendment granting President Obama’s request for congressional authority would be backed by a majority of repugicans, many of whom expressed deep reservations about the plan.And Tom Cole (r-Okla.), a member close to Speaker John Boehner (r-Ohio), predicted that Democrats would have to supply a significant number of votes to approve the amendment, since many members on both sides are likely to oppose it.“It’s going to take a bipartisan coalition to pass it, and I think it’ll be bipartisan opposition,” Cole said.
The repugicans demand that the president do something
about ISIS. They have criticized the president for not doing enough, but
when push comes to shove, they can’t muster enough votes to give the
president the authorization that he needs to arm the Syrian rebels.
Democrats are skeptical of getting into another war. Those who oppose
the measure are doing so from a consistent position.
The repugican opposition is based on petty partisan
election year politics. House repugicans have decided that they aren’t
going to help President Obama on anything, including national security.
It is unimaginable, but repugicans are creating the perception that
they are rooting for Obama to fail on national security.
This measure should be a no brainer even in an
election year. The repugicans can’t spend weeks on television criticizing
President Obama for his strategy against ISIS, and then refuse to do
their part. If the authorization fails, it will illustrate the hypocrisy
behind the repugican strategy of obstruction and gridlock.
If ISIS is a threat to America, don’t expect House repugicans to do anything about it.
Editor For St. Louis Newspaper Blasts Faux News For Terrible Coverage Of Ferguson Protests
In a conversation with Media Matters for America this week, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Editor-In-Chief Gilbert Bailon blasted Faux News and other media outlets
for their coverage of the Ferguson protests in the aftermath of Michael
Brown’s death. The editor stated that Faux and some other papers focused
too much on the few instances of looting while also trying to portray
the entire St. Louis-area as being engulfed in chaos during the most
intense period of protesting. Bailon also took some news outlets to task
for running with stories that were poorly sourced or complete
fabrications.
Joe Strupp of Media Matters published a story on Tuesday centered on an interview Bailon gave to Media Matters
while attending the American Society of News Editors conference this
week in Chicago. Bailon praised CNN and MSNBC for their coverage of the
events in Ferguson, specifically due to their focus to tell the whole
story and delve deep into the root causes of the anger and frustration
going on in the community. Meanwhile, he said Faux News seemed only to
care about the chaos and looting and nothing else. They weren’t
concerned about context or actually presenting the news. He also pointed
out that once the protests grew calmer, and the police presence drew
down, Faux was the first one out of there, whereas CNN and MSNBC kept
reporters around much longer to do more investigating or report on
events that weren’t as ‘juicy.’
Bailon said the following to MMFA regarding Faux:
“I do think sometimes … it looks like the whole community was in flames, and it was really a few block area. Significant, but it wasn’t like St. Louis was on fire or out of control and there was mass chaos everywhere … it wasn’t like an all-consuming entire metropolitan area was hit by that, yet it commanded a huge presence of what was there“I think Faux took a different angle, their view was more of the view of the chaos, was really focusing on the looting and less of what was going on in the community pre-dating the looting. The looting was very dramatic…but there was the deeper story there. Some stayed on in town longer, I think there was a different viewpoint on them and less on the undercurrent. [Faux] didn’t look at it as deeply and as long as others, CNN did make an investment, MSNBC was there a lot.”
This is readily apparent to anyone who watched the
national news networks since Michael Brown’s death on August 9th. Faux
was only interested in the story for the sole purpose of race-baiting.
They wanted to present young black males out of control. They wanted to
focus on violence and rage and weren’t interested whatsoever in
presenting a the entire picture. Faux was only interested in showing a
largely black community in the grips of chaos and making it appear to
all the world that an entire large metro area was on the brink of
destruction at the hands of violent black thugs.
On the other hand, while neither CNN’s or MSNBC’s
coverage was perfect by any means, and both focused heavily at times on
the sensationalism and drama surrounding the encounters between police
and protesters, both networks actually did investigative journalism and
kept reporters on the scene after the tear gas and flash grenades were
put away. CNN’s Don Lemon and Jake Tapper and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes and
Trymaine Lee all presented compelling stories and breaking news
regarding the happenings in Ferguson. They also made sure to do their
best present only the facts, even during periods of tumultuous activity.
Regarding getting facts right, Bailon also ripped both the Washington Post
and New York Post for running with unverified stories all for the sake
of gaining attention or trying to be the first to break a major story.
He was referring to the Washington Post claiming that a police source had confirmed that Michael Brown had marijuana in his system and the New York Post running a story that Officer Darren Wilson had suffered an orbital fracture in his encounter with Brown.
The orbital fracture story was particularly heinous. Obviously, both the New York Post and Faux News picked this story up from the wingnut lunatic fantasy blogosphere and then ran with it as being true. Eventually, Lemon had to pop their balloon by reporting that Wilson did not, in fact, suffer a fracture to the face of any kind. He was checked out at the hospital after the shooting, but x-rays did not show any fracture. Prior to Lemon’s report, wingnut media and blogs were screeching that Wilson suffered a ‘blowout orbital fracture’ at the hands of Brown.“There’s been a couple of stories that I think the sourcing wasn’t quite as good on,. I don’t know whether these are wrong but we haven’t been able to verify it. There’s been talk that Michael Brown had marijuana in his system. Well that hasn’t been officially reviewed, we don’t know that yet. We haven’t reported that. The New York Post picked up some information about [police officer Darren Wilson] having an orbital fracture of his face … inflicted by Michael Brown. We have not found that to be true. In fact, it has been debunked by many.”
Autopsy Reveals That Utah Cops Shot Black Man Six Times While He Was Running Away
On September 10th, 22-year-old Darrien Hunt was shot
and killed by two police officers in Saratoga Springs, UT. The county
attorney’s office has claimed that police were forced to shoot Hunt due
to him lunging at the officers with a large samurai sword. However, Hunt’s family had a private autopsy performed, and
it reveals that Hunt was hit six times with bullets, all from the rear.
Also, the fatal shot hit him 100 yards from where he initially was in
contact with the officers. Witness accounts from the scene also report
that Hunt was running away from officers and none report seeing him go
after the police with his sword.
Witnesses at the scene took photos of the encounter.
A woman who was at a nearby gas station and snapped a picture of Hunt
speaking to the police prior to the shooting. Per the photo, Hunt and
the officers are calm with their arms at their sides. She said that a
few seconds later, while she was pumping her gas, Hunt was running from
the police and they were shooting at him. Hunt was finally brought down
with a shot to the back about 100 to 150 yards away from where he was
first speaking to police.
Saratoga Springs is an affluent suburban community
that is about a half-hour’s drive from Salt Lake City. Racially, the
town is overwhelmingly white, with less than 5% of the population being
non-white. Hunt was half-black, having a white mother and a black
father. He stood out in the community not only due to his color, but
also his large Afro. At the time of his shooting, he made an impression
as he was wearing a bright red shirt and had a sword slung across his
back. The two police officers that shot and killed Hunt are white.
Randall Edwards, the attorney for Hunt’s family,
claims that the sword that Hunt was carrying around on the day he was
killed was actually a toy sword one would win at a carnival. The sword
had a blunt edge, was merely for decoration and possessed no real danger
to others. Edwards also disputes the notion that Hunt tried to attack
the officers with the sword based on the autopsy results and witness
accounts saying that Hunt was running away and officers were shooting at
him from behind. If the officers felt their lives were in danger, why
did they need to chase him over 100 yards and shoot him multiple times
while he was fleeing?
Hunt’s mother, Susan Hunt, put it more bluntly when asked about why her son was killed last week.
Obviously, there are parallels one sees between this case and the case of Michale Brown, the unarmed black Ferguson teenager who was shot and killed by a white police officer while he was giving himself up. While the communities differ wildly — Ferguson is a poorer community where two-thirds of the population is black, Saratoga Springs is a rich, white town — the end results of the shootings are eerily similar. In both instances, a young black man who likely didn’t present a major threat to police was shot at multiple times and killed. Also, both shootings have witnesses who have given differing accounts than what the police have stated.“I’m in Saratoga Springs, cause it’s a safe little community and they killed him. They killed my son because he’s black. No white boy with a little sword would they shoot while he’s running away.”
How Much Would You Pay for the Good Society?
If we were able to ask the average American if s/he
would be willing to pay $12.50 annually so that thousands upon thousands
of people who work for a living might stand a chance of meeting their
basic needs, I wonder how s/he would respond? A fully-fledged national
conversation on income inequality might yield an answer.
In our last article, “How to Create Policies to Address Income Inequality?: De-Mythologize Upward Mobility,” I
argued that the entrenched and very powerful narrative of individual
upward mobility in U.S. culture, which often on some level informs our
political thought, poses a major obstacle to creating effective policies
to address income inequality as it legitimates income inequality rather
than systemically confronting it. An individual might escape a
low-wage job and move up the income ladder, but that doesn’t eliminate
the low-wage job or the work we need done as a society. I suggested that
to address income inequality, we actually need to do something more
direct—like actually address income inequality by, for example (among
many possible actions), raising the minimum wage.
My brother read the article and asked me a question
that I think is more generally at play in the debate: “Won’t the costs
of increasing the minimum wage simply be passed on to consumers?” My
first, rather knee-jerk, response to such a question is always why can’t
these costs come out of salaries at the top of these companies or come
out of corporate profits? I did, in that article, refer not just to
raising the minimum wage but also to equalizing wages, which—if you
didn’t get it—means salaries at the top might have to be adjusted lower
(go ahead and call me a communist), as any solution to income
inequality, almost by definition, will need to involve redistribution of
existing wealth. Corporations for decades have maximized profits by lowering wages and decreasing benefits. Can’t
we ask that corporations show a minimal responsibility not just to
their workers but to the society of which they are a part? Such behavior
is actually in the self-interest of these corporations—even Harvard
says so.
But then I moved past my knee-jerk thinking and
considered the question, and it became pretty interesting to me. So what
if the costs of raising the minimum wage were passed on to consumers?
When that question is posed, it is usually done so rhetorically, with
the assumed answer that—god forbid!–it would be horribly unacceptable to
raise prices for consumers, and thus we cannot raise the minimum
wage—end of conversation. But what would it mean to pass the cost of a
minimum wage hike on to consumers (who, let’s not forget, are typically
workers, too, a fact often lost or neglected in such conversations)? I
started to think about this question as something more than rhetorical,
and my thinking led me to reflect also on how this debate on income
inequality provides an important opportunity for us to really re-assess
American values and, in ways we haven’t done, consciously craft—and pay
for—the kind of world we want.
If corporations (who, after all, are apparently
people) are unwilling in the name of the Good Society (a concept I
refuse to believe is obsolete) to make sure their workers have the wages
and benefits necessary to meet their basic needs, are the rest of us
worker-consumers willing to fund it? It’s not at all clear that the
citizen-consumer of today wants the lowest-priced goods and services
regardless of social and human consequences. In fact, the opposite seems
to be true. CNBC
editor Heesun Wee reports, for example, that, “Particularly for younger
consumers, including millennials, purchasing decisions are about more
than cheap prices. Shoppers are buying based on a company’s values,
which can include domestic manufacturing, environmentalism and ethically
sourced raw materials, ranging from cocoa to cotton fibers.” These
millennials, and no doubt others across generations, appear to be
thinking very consciously about the type of world they want, buying
organic goods and recycled products to protect the environment,
free-range chickens to ensure humane treatment of the earth’s creatures,
fair-trade coffee, and the like.
It may very well be that this evolving socially
conscious consumer will pay for goods and services produced and provided
by unexploited labor, or by more justly paid labor. What would the cost
be for this Better, if not Good, Society? Well, a 2011
study regarding wages at Walmart offers some insight into this issue,
finding that to raise every worker at Walmart to at least a $12 per hour
wage would cost the average Walmart customer 46 cents per trip or about
$12.50 annually.
This doesn’t seem like much to pay so many can
receive a more livable wage (we might have to pay more for a true living
wage), but maybe I’m wrong. The main point I want to make, though, is
that I’m not sure we’ve ever posed the question to the average American
in a way that would enable us as a collective culture to make a
conscious choice in the matter. Our culture and economy function on the
assumption that consumers want the lowest price, but has anybody ever
asked the consumer if they want the lowest price regardless of social
and human consequences? If we were able to ask the average American if
s/he would be willing to pay $12.50 annually so that thousands upon
thousands of people who work for a living might stand a chance of
meeting their basic needs, I wonder how s/he would respond? A
fully-fledged national conversation on income inequality might yield an
answer.
And we can make the question more telling by
elaborating more fully the economic ramifications of this choice. For
example, while I am not a political economist by trade, let me risk the
observation that it stands to reason that if more Americans made a
living wage, state and federal governments would not only bring in more
tax revenues, they would also need to spend substantially less in
assistance programs from food stamps to housing and healthcare
subsidies. In such a scenario, our governments might legitimately be
able to afford to cut taxes, improving people’s economic lives even
further and returning more than that $12.50 required to raise the
minimum wage. Ironically, if corporations and the wealthiest Americans
want tax cuts, perhaps the surest way to achieve those cuts is by
raising the minimum wage and moving toward greater income equality.
While I don’t mean to absolve corporations of their
social responsibilties (more about this in a future article), I do want
us to think about options for empowering ourselves to create the world
we want even if we can’t get the cooperation of the Koch brothers and
their ilk. The argument that we need to exploit labor so that we have
affordable goods and services is both sad—not to mention pretty evil—as
well as finally uncompelling, I hope you’ll see. We can move toward the
Great Society for pennies a week. It’s hard to imagine a better bargain.
4 ways greedy capitalists rig the system to profit off our misery
by
Paul Buchheit
Each of us is a source of profit, as long as we rent or own a home, save a little money and drink water
The profit motive fogs the thinking of free-market advocates. The Economist gushes, "Take a bow, capitalism…the biggest poverty-reduction measure of all is liberalizing markets to let poor people get richer." Forbes proclaims its belief in "the unmatched power of capitalism to improve human life."Self-indulgent capitalists have turned much of America against its own best interests by promoting a winner-take-all philosophy that reaps great rewards for a few people at the expense of everyone else. To the neo-liberal, vital human needs like health and education are products to be bought and sold.
Here are some other examples of greed and the pain it causes.
Water
The city of Detroit, which is positioned next to the greatest supply of fresh water between the polar ice caps, has lost its access to water because of bad financial deals that have left unsuspecting citizens with over a half-billion dollars in interest payments. Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr responded by putting the whole water system up for sale.
Housing
Blackstone is a corporate model for making money at the expense of desperate former homeowners. Since the recession, it has become the nation's leading landlord, buying up tens of thousands of homes at rock-bottom prices, and then renting them back, often to the very people who lost them.
Savings
The financial industry indiscriminately targets all struggling Americans, from the impoverished class to the low-income class to the middle class. At the lowest level loom the payday lenders, with about as many locations in the U.S. as all the McDonalds and Starbucks combined, and with annualized interest rates that can reach 1,000 percent or more.
Justice Itself
With the highest incarceration rate in the world, and with imprisonment skewed toward minorities, our business-oriented society has effectively turned our poorest citizens into products, with an emphasis on product volume.
A staunch capitalist might point out that America's growing poverty has created markets for anyone able to capitalize on destitution. Each of us, after all, is a source of profit, as long as we rent or own, save a little money, and drink water.
The 6 Most Pretentious Dishes Rich People Pay Money For
We’ve posted restaurant dishes that are super expensive in order to generate publicity, and their price is justified by ingredients such as edible gold leaf and the jewel-encrusted souvenir dish they are served in. This is different. The list at Cracked contains dinner orders that come with theatrics or gimmicks, such as the Octopop.
The terrifyingly named octopop was conceived by Australian chef Adam Melonas at Dubai's Burj al-Arab hotel, presumably after he read the Necronomicon and mistook it for a confectionery handbook. Its basic idea is actually pretty simple: It's a piece of roast octopus on a stick.That’s just one of six really weird foods or food presentations that will set you back big bucks, described in the not-for-broadcast language of Cracked.
However, in true mad scientist fashion, Melonas has added to the process until the end result barely resembles octopus or, for that matter, food. The waxy sheen and structure of the octopop are achieved by vacuum-cooking the octopus for 12 hours, then using a knife and an enzyme called transglutaminase (a substance commonly used to glue bits of meat together) to turn the perished cephalopod into a pretty, flower-like construct. The end result is dipped in spiced gel and stuck on a stick with some dill for you to try and figure out what the hell you're chewing on.
Town begs cult and strip club to stop fighting
Coshocton, Ohio, has about 11,000 residents, a cult, and a strip
club. Dueling protests are apparently a weekly event, and local law
enforcement has had enough of policing them: "The protests are becoming
more personal and more problematic, so we felt the need to plead with both sides to at least stop for a while."
Police tell man to desist from telling blonde jokes to pedestrians
A man from North Kingstown, Rhode Island, Washington County, who was in
the habit of stopping his car to tell blonde jokes to random women as
they walked or jogged down the street has been told to desist and find
another venue for his comedy act.
Though the jokes weren’t sexual in nature, police said, the women who
reported the incidents said they felt uncomfortable every time he drove
up in his car and stopped to tell them blonde jokes.
On Sept. 6, North Kingstown police took reports from two North Kingstown
women who said they first encountered the man in July. He was driving a
grey Chrysler and stopped along side the women, both blonde, and told
them he wanted to tell them a joke. He told the joke and then left when
they started walking away, police said.
The women said they’ve run into the same person several times since them
and he continues to stop to tell them jokes.
And they weren’t laughing, for a number of reasons. “They both stated he tries to tell them the same jokes,” according to a police report. Last week while the women were walking, he reportedly stopped to tell another joke and “he put the vehicle in reverse and was backing his vehicle up as he attempted to tell the joke to them.” He then apologized and drove off.
One of the women said she was worried because her daughter told her the man, who was identified by police by his license plate, had been doing the same thing to female runners on the high school cross country team. Police responded to the jokester’s house later on Sept. 6 and in the presence of his wife, told him the women were uncomfortable to the point they felt the need to report it to police. He was advised to avoid the two women and the cross country team. Police said the man could be arrested if he continued telling jokes and he reportedly said he understood and would stop. The matter was documented.
And they weren’t laughing, for a number of reasons. “They both stated he tries to tell them the same jokes,” according to a police report. Last week while the women were walking, he reportedly stopped to tell another joke and “he put the vehicle in reverse and was backing his vehicle up as he attempted to tell the joke to them.” He then apologized and drove off.
One of the women said she was worried because her daughter told her the man, who was identified by police by his license plate, had been doing the same thing to female runners on the high school cross country team. Police responded to the jokester’s house later on Sept. 6 and in the presence of his wife, told him the women were uncomfortable to the point they felt the need to report it to police. He was advised to avoid the two women and the cross country team. Police said the man could be arrested if he continued telling jokes and he reportedly said he understood and would stop. The matter was documented.
Woman choked husband after he refused to buy her a hat
A woman was arrested on Saturday night after an argument with her husband over a hat turned in physical altercation.
Police responded at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville in Nashville,
Tennessee, where they say Sommer Trent, 33, became angry and assaulted
her husband after he refused to buy her a hat.
Witnesses reported Trent then took his hat off his head and threw it into the street. She allegedly then pushed him into the street and began to choke him.
Bystanders called police and restrained the woman until she arrived. Trent was booked into the Metro jail on charges of domestic assault with a bond of $2,500. The couple were visiting Nashville from West Virginia.
Legalizing Marijuana
Trace examines the benefits and drawbacks of legalizing weed,
looking at states that already have laws on the books permitting its
use.
15 International Greeting Rituals
Some epochs and cultures have had very elaborate greeting rituals, for example, greeting of a sovereign. Conversely, secret societies have often furtive or arcane greeting gestures and rituals, such as a secret handshake, which allow members to recognize each other. Here are 15 international greeting rituals.
What it's like at a modern longsword tournament?
Wonder Woman's secret history
In Smithsonian, Jill Lepore, author of The Secret History of Wonder Woman, profiles everyone's favorite Amazonian princess.
Wonder Woman's creator, psychologist William Moulton Marston:
“Frankly, Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who, I believe, should rule the world."
46 Priceless UNESCO World Heritage Sites Facing Extinction
It looks like people have forgotten that these wonders - from natural to man-made - won't last forever without the people who'll give them utmost importance and care. Here are the 46 priceless world heritage sites that are quietly and slowly facing extinction.
Massive 5,000-Year-Old Stone Monument Revealed in Israel
A lunar-crescent-shaped stone monument that dates back around 5,000 years has been identified in Israel.
Located about 8 miles (13 kilometers) northwest of the Sea of Galilee,
the structure is massive — its volume is about 14,000 cubic meters
(almost 500,000 cubic feet) and it has a length of about 150 meters (492
feet), making it longer than an American football field. Pottery
excavated at the structure indicates the monument dates to between 3050
B.C. and 2650 B.C., meaning it is likely older than the pyramids of Egypt. It was also built before much of Stonehenge was constructed.
Archaeologists previously thought the structure was part of a city
wall, but recent work carried out by Ido Wachtel, a doctoral student at
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, indicates there is no city beside it
and that the structure is a standing monument.
"The proposed interpretation for the site is that it constituted a
prominent landmark in its natural landscape, serving to mark possession
and to assert authority and rights over natural resources by a local
rural or pastoral population," Wachtel wrote in the summary of a
presentation given recently at the International Congress on the
Archaeology of the Ancient Near East.
The structure's crescent shape stood out in the landscape, Wachtel told
Live Science in an email. The shape may have had symbolic importance,
as the lunar crescent is a symbol of an ancient Mesopotamian moon god
named Sin, Wachtel said.
An
ancient town called Bet Yerah (which translates to "house of the moon
god") is located only a day's walk from the crescent-shaped monument
Wachtel noted. As such, the monument may have helped mark the town's
borders. While the monument is located within walking range of the city
it is too far away to be an effective fortification.
Massive structure
The structure is about 150 meters (492 feet) long and 20 m (66 feet)
wide at its base, and is preserved to a height of 7 m (23 feet),
Wachtel's research found.
"The estimation of working days invested in the construction [of] the
site is between 35,000 days in the lower estimate [and] 50,000 in the
higher," Wachtel said in the email.
If the lower estimate is correct, it means a team of 200 ancient
workers would have needed more than five months to construct the
monument, a task that would be difficult for people who depended on
crops for their livelihood. "We need to remember that people were
[obligated] most of the year to agriculture," Wachtel said.
Bet Yerah
At the time this monument was built, the site of Bet Yerah was located only 18 miles (29 km) away.
Bet Yerah was a large town with a grid plan and fortification system,
according to a study detailed in 2012 in the Journal of Near Eastern
Archaeology. Its inhabitants traded with the early kings of Egypt, as seen from several artifacts, including a jug with a hieroglyphic inscription.
The name Bet Yerah indicates that it was associated with the moon god.
However, it's uncertain whether the town actually bore this name 5,000
years ago. In the 2012 journal article, researchers said the name "Bet
Yerah" was recorded in 1,500-year-old Jewish rabbinic texts and may date
back much earlier.
Megalithic landscape
Other large rock structures have been found not far from the
crescent-shaped monument. One structure, called Rujum el-Hiri, isin the
Golan Heights (an area to the east of the Sea of Galilee) and has four
circles with a cairn at its center. The date of this structure is a
matter of debate; recent research by Mike Freikman, an archaeologist
with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, suggests it may predate the
crescent-shaped structure by several centuries.
Another stone monument, a giant cairn that weighs more than 60,000 tons,
was discovered recently beneath the waters of the Sea of Galilee. Its
date is unknown, but like the crescent-shaped structure, it is located
close to Bet Yerah.
Wachtel's
work at the crescent-shaped monument was conducted as part of his
master's thesis.Today, people living in the area call the monument by
its Arabic name, Rujum en-Nabi Shua'ayb, and it is sometimes referred to
as the "Jethro Cairn," a reference to the Druze prophet Jethro, who
plays an important role in local folklore.
The Sand Dollar
The Animal That Can Clone Itself
The Sand dollar is a sea urchin which burrows and comes from the order
Clypeasteroida - and you can see why it gets its name, as it resembles a
coin. Some joke that it is the only stable dollar in the world at the
moment.Humor aside, it does have one trick up its sleeve that we can only wish would apply to real money. The Sand Dollar can clone itself - creating a perfect copy.
Brain tumor removed from tiny goldfish
Suicide by Crocodile
Depressed woman commits suicide at a crocodile farm on the outskirts of Bangkok.
Chinese Sturgeon in trouble
State media reports that none of the rare fish were detected
reproducing naturally in the polluted and crowded Yangtze river last
year.
Coyote ran into home before taking refuge in the fireplace
A coyote ran into a house in Scottsdale, Arizona, on Friday, pursuing a
man and his dog, then barricaded itself in the chimney and refused to
leave.
The coyote wouldn't move.
Homeowner, Jonathan Radow called 911.
Scottsdale police officers arrived at the scene, along with a wildlife expert.
"The sergeant came over, he's like I've never seen anything like this in
my 39-year career. They were all laughing, saying this is one I'm not
going to forget," said Radow.
Finally, they were able to get the coyote in a crate.
He's now being cared for at Southwest Wildlife Center in North
Scottsdale.
"He's a young male, probably born this spring, so he's kind of like a
teenager in coyote terminology and he's just kind of clueless and trying
to figure out the world," said Kim Carr with Southwest Wildlife.
Caretakers believe he was curled up and scared.
"He just kind of shut down, he was probably so afraid, not knowing and
had never been in a house before and had no idea where he was," said
Carr.
"That's a place that felt safe to him, a nice little tight fireplace,"
she said.
He will be quarantined for three weeks and if all goes well he will be
released with a litter and join the family. "He might be able to go in
and be socialized with them and be part of the pack, and hopefully
they'll all get to be released as a unit," said Carr.
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