Category: Uncategorized

Sanctioned

~ susie ~ 4 Comments

Swift, severe punishment from the NCAA for Penn State:

Penn State was socked with a four-year postseason ban, the loss of 40 scholarships over four years and a $60 million fine stemming from its actions in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal.


In addition, all victories from 1998-2011 have been vacated, a huge blow to the coaching legacy of Joe Paterno, now formerly the leader in Division I college football victories.


NCAA President Mark Emmert announced the penalties, saying that “one of the dangers in our love of sports is that sports themselves can become too big to fail, too big to challenge.”

Black lung is back

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

I kind of think this says something bad about our nation:

PRESTONSBURG, Ky. — Donald Marcum knew he was at least a passive participant in something that was against the rules, maybe even criminal. Every couple of months, his bosses had to submit to the Mine Safety and Health Administration five samples showing they were keeping dust levels under control. When he ran a continuous mining machine, which chews through coal and rock and generates clouds of dust, he was supposed to wear a pump to collect dust for eight hours.

That almost never happened. Most of the time, said Marcum, 51, who spent nearly 25 years in the mines of eastern Kentucky and suffers from the most severe form of black lung, the foreman or someone else would take the pump and hang it in cleaner air near the mine’s entrance.

“We just done what we was told because we needed to feed our families and really didn’t look at what it might be doing to our health,” he said.

In recent interviews, retired miners in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia — some of whom had worked as recently as 2008 — described similar tricks. Dust pumps ended up in lunchboxes or mine offices. Mine officials stalled regulators who had shown up for a surprise inspection and radioed to the men underground, who fixed the ventilation and cleaned up the work site.

“I don’t know if any [manipulation of dust samples] is going on today,” said Bruce Watzman, the National Mining Association’s senior vice president for regulatory affairs. “I hope not. We encourage our members to fulfill their obligations under the law.”

More than 40 years ago, Congress promised that the government would force mining companies to control levels of the dust that causes black lung. Instead, rampant cheating and exploitation of legal loopholes have become part of mining culture, an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity and NPR has found.

After decades of decline, black lung is back, with more cases of the fastest-progressing form of the disease robbing younger miners of their breath. As researchers struggle to explain this resurgence, there is widespread agreement that the samples used by regulators to assess dust levels in a mine bear little resemblance to the conditions miners typically face.</blockquote>

Angels in America

~ odd man out ~ 5 Comments

Many Americans don’t believe in universal health care, but an awful lot of them think there are angels out there who will take care of us when disaster strikes:

A former police officer who retired from the FBI due to post-traumatic stress disorder linked to her role in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks has written a book about seeing legions of angels guarding the Pennsylvania site where a hijacked airliner crashed.

Lillie Leonardi served as a liaison between law enforcement and the families of the passengers and crew members killed in the United Airlines Flight 93 crash. She arrived on the scene about three hours after the crash.

Although Leonardi’s book, “In the Shadow of a Badge: A Spiritual Memoir,” centers on her vision of angels, she argues her life has been changed more by what she didn’t see that day.

“The biggest thing for me is that that there were no bodies,” she said.

Leonardi, 56, remembers the burning pine and jet fuel stinging her nostrils. She said she also remembers a smoldering crater littered with debris too small to associate with the jetliner or 40 passengers and crew on board.

“I’m used to crime scenes but this one blew me out of the water. It just looked like the ground had swallowed up” the plane, Leonardi said.

“That’s when I started seeing like shimmery lights … and it was kind of misty and that’s when I first saw, like, the angels there,” Leonardi said. “And I didn’t say anything to the guys because you can imagine if I would have said, `I just saw angels on the crash site,’ they’d have called the office and they’d have said, `She lost her mind and tell her to go home.'”

Declaration of Independence

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

From A Tiny Revolution:

The unanimous Declaration of the world’s Normal People (we know who we are),

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for the Normal People of this Planet to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with their Leaders, and to give getting along without Leaders a real Shot, courtesy requires that we should declare the causes of this long-overdue separation, just so we’re all on the same page.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Leaders are a pretty dodgy proposition — That even the best ones are Self-Absorbed Primadonnas, and the rest are seriously Craze-o Lunatics — That Normal People have the right to tell their Leaders “…see Ya, wouldn’t want to be Ya” — That to secure this right of being left alone, we should set up a special Island to which all Leaders can be sent, so that they can bicker, and posture, and pursue the Phantom of Eternal Fame amongst themselves without Injuring all the rest of us — That this Island could maybe, this is just off the top of our heads you understand, be like Epcot Center, with the whole world in miniature so the Leaders could conquer it and lose it and bend it to their Mighty Will and lose it again, and generally Ruin It to their hearts’ content, without bothering Us. Prudence indeed will dictate that the long-established Idea of having Leaders should not be changed for light or transient Causes, but, come on. We’ve given this concept plenty of Time, at least 8,000 years, and it’s for the birds. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

The world’s Leaders have somehow convinced us that we are all on different Teams, sort of, and that they are the rightful captains of these Teams.

They have tried to weld us together by constantly harping on our Team’s Great and Glorious Destiny, assuming that we, like them, give a shit. In lower voices, they assure us that we will be in Big Trouble if we don’t do exactly as they Say.

They have persuaded us to try to kill members of the other Teams, instead of following our natural instinct, which is to indulge our curiosity about whether people from different countries have discovered any new Sex Tricks, or have Better Food.

They have gotten us to go on ludicrously dangerous missions against the other Teams, while they remain safely behind at their Impregnable Mountain Redoubts. This has insured that the people responsible for starting Wars always survive, and can’t wait to start the Next One.

They have started innumerable, catastrophic conflicts to, for example, impress some Girl that rejected them in High School, or to prove to their Mother that they’re just as successful as their Older Brother. Read their Biographies if you don’t believe Us.

They’ve informed us that they’ve talked to God, and that He agrees with them Completely.

They have made our laws so complicated that, while we know we’re being Screwed, we can never figure out Exactly How.

They think that we’re Fascinated by them, despite the fact that, by steadily reducing our voting rate for The past fifty years, we keep giving them a resolute and obvious Hint.

In every stage of these Oppressions we have humbly petitioned for redress by bitching among ourselves, reading the paper with a weary cynicism, and laughing at the opening monologues on late night television. We have even allowed Dennis Miller on Monday Night Football. The cost is finally too dear, and we need a new Strategy.

We, therefore, the Normal People of this Planet, who don’t care who’s on the money, or think that anybody will (or should) remember any of us in 500 years, do solemnly publish and declare that all the world’s Leaders are hereby relieved of their positions; that our feeling is, enough already with the Jihads and the Crusades and Glorious Struggles and Finest Hours; that we believe we will be much better off without them, relying for our safety instead on our inability to organize a three-person trip to 7-Eleven, much less sustained armed conflict; that it’s time to get this Leader Island idea off the ground; that if, once the Leaders have been sent to the Island, any of us develop Leader-tendencies, we will encourage such Persons to develop a Hobby, or get them a Date with somebody Nice, and this will help them remember what’s important. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence we mutually pledge to each other Lives, our Fortunes and our dearest Hope that we can finally get some Peace and Quiet. We are not Kidding.

Finally

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

Finally, someone in the church hierarchy is held accountable:

(Reuters) – A monsignor who oversaw hundreds of priests in the Philadelphia Archdiocese was found guilty on Friday of one count of endangering the welfare of a child, making him the first senior U.S. Roman Catholic Church official to be convicted for covering up child sex abuse.


The jury acquitted Monsignor William Lynn on two other counts – conspiracy and another charge of child endangerment -after 10 weeks of testimony in a trial that raised questions about personal responsibility and institutional constraints within the church hierarchy.


Removing his black clerical jacket but leaving on his collar, a stoic Lynn, 61, was led out of the courtroom and into custody by deputy sheriffs as his family members wept.


“Every juror there wanted to do justice. … We wanted to do what was right,” jury foreman Isa Logan, 35, a bank customer service representative, told reporters outside the courtroom.


Sentencing for Lynn, who faces up to seven years in prison, was set for August 13 by Judge M. Teresa Sarmina.


“This is a monumental victory for the named and un-named victims,” said Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams. “This was about evil men who did evil things to children.”


While the district attorney’s office argued that Lynn should immediately be jailed, the judge said she would consider house arrest if the defense asked for it.


The jury deliberated 13 days before reaching the mixed decision in the trial of Lynn, who, prosecutors charged, covered up child sex abuse allegations, often by transferring priests to unsuspecting parishes.


Lawyers for Lynn said they planned to appeal the case.


“He’s really upset,” said one of his attorneys, Jeff Lindy. “He’s upset, he’s crushed. He didn’t want anything other than to help kids, he’s crushed about this.”


Barbara Dorris, outreach director for Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the verdict put the Church on notice that it can no longer “shield and protect” abusive priests and expect to get away with it.


“This is a strong message, and we’re grateful for that message that kids’ safety has to come first,” she said.