Hooked on classics

Every Saturday afternoon, a dozen students meet at the canteen of Renmin University of China in Beijing. They do not come for food or tea as others do. Instead, they gather for a Chinese classic, called The Book of Odes. Undistracted by noise and the smell of food, they spend four hours reading, debating and sharing views on the ancient poetry, which dates back to the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476BC). The students are pursuing their major, Chinese Classics, a two-year labor of love.

Ji Baocheng, president of Renmin University, says the rediscovery of Chinese Classics has become "necessary to restoring China's cultural confidence".

The school set up a four-year bachelor's degree and two-year master's degree in 2005, and has enrolled around 130 undergraduates and 30 graduates to date.

"As opposed to Chinese language learning, the Chinese Classics is a combination of Chinese literature, history and philosophy as an integrated whole,"

says Chen Junchan, a senior student at the school.

When she was young, Liu Fang's parents asked her to recite Chinese classical poems. By primary school, she had already read A Dream of the Red Chamber, the most popular Chinese classic novel, almost 20 times. At secondary school, Liu started to compose her own poems.

Like Liu, many of the students in the school were nurtured on Chinese literature or traditional art.

One of the features of the course is a series of reading courses analyzing about 20 traditional classics, including Lao-Ztu, Chuang-Ztu, Mencius, The Odes of Chu, Yimutology, The History of the Han Dynasty and poetry of different dynasties, all of which were written by China's most distinguished writers, philosophers or historians. In the past, they were the required reading for Chinese scholars.

"The students must be patient and know the original readings by heart," says Deputy Dean Sun Jiazhou.

However, it is not easy to either teach or learn these works. Liang Tao, an associate professor of the history of ideology, considers it a long-term mission. "Every classic book deserves lifelong digestion and can be increasingly internalized into one's personal wisdom."

The students also come up with different methods to digest the classics. Wu Qinli, a senior, for instance, joined Yi Dan Xue Tang, a Beijing-based organization dedicated to the sharing and spreading of traditional Chinese culture. One of its modes is reading classics aloud in the morning. "Breathing fresh air and learning through reading is a wonderful experience," says Wu.

The school emphasizes self-study. For the History of China's Historiography, the class divides into groups, and each is asked to prepare a group presentation.

Chen Junchan's group was responsible for introducing three types of historical works. For a whole week, they spent hours each night reading the materials sentence by sentence and discussing every detail. "We seemed to act like the ancient scholars, the only difference was that we did not put on long gowns," she says.

The students also leave the classroom to walk. This year the school initiated a program called "learning by traveling", as there is a Chinese saying, "Knowledge comes from thousands of books and ten thousands of miles".

In June and July, the senior students visited the provinces of Shandong, Zhejiang, Hunan and Jiangxi, traditional places of culture where scholars studied or lived, like Qufu, the home of Confucius.

Students regard it as an effective combination of knowledge and practice. "I couldn't help pondering philosophical questions in places where ancient scholars had stood. It was fantastic," says 21-year-old Chen Chanzhi.

They also composed a host of poems and essays based on their reflections during the journey.

No matter what they do after graduation, the lessons of Chinese Classics have already influenced on their personal development. As Yuan Lei, a senior student, says: "What we actually harvest is sincerity, goodness and tolerance."

Source: People's Daily Online, December 04, 2007.

Anthology of Chinese Literature: Volume I: From Early Times to the Fourteenth Century (Anthology of Chinese Literature)

Legendary prophetess never afraid of death

One winter night a knight in shining armor appeared in a village. He entered a house and uttered:

“The world is on the threshold of disaster. Millions of people will die. And you will stand here and prophesy. Do not be afraid! I’ll tell you what you should say.”

This phantom visited 30-year-old Vangelia Pandeva Dimitrova in January, 1941.

Just like this Vanga started making predictions.

Vanga was known in Bulgaria and abroad, she helped many people from different countries. Her house in Rupite at the joint border of Bulgaria, Macedonia and Greece is believed to be a source of incredible cosmic energy. This energy must have fed the human phenomenon of Vanga.

Her father was conscripted into the Bulgarian Army during World War I, and her mother died when Vanga was quite young. The family was living a hard life after the war. Her father had an animal farm, and Vanga had to drive the milk-can.

A terrible storm occurred one day. The sky was dark and strong wind blew. Lumps of mud, leaves and branches created an enormous vortex. The storm lifted 12-year-old Vanga up and threw her in the field. She was found after a long search. Her eyes were covered with sand. Afterwards, she began to lose sight. No healing gave results. Vanga prayed to God. Soon she became blind but acquired another vision.

Vanga started making predictions when she was 16. She helped her father to find a sheep stolen from his flock. She provided a detailed description of a yard where the animal was being hidden by the thieves.

Vanga had dreamed about some distressing events even before the knight appeared. All these events unfortunately came true.

During World War II Vanga attracted more believers — a number of people visiting her, hoping to get a hint about whether their relatives are alive, or seeking for the place where they died. She advised people how to protect themselves on the battlefields, how to cure themselves with herbs, clay and beeswax, where to find lost things.

Long before world-wide fame Vanga was put in prison because she predicted Stalin’s death. But in a year set at liberty – Stalin died. Though, she entrusted such important data as leaders’ obits and global disasters only to a limited group of people. She did not want to scare anyone.

When her brother Vasil joined a partisan party, Vanga cried and begged him not to go, telling him that he would be cruelly killed at the age of 23. But Vasil did not believe her. In October of the same year he surrendered. He was terribly tortured and then shot down. It was very difficult for her to know the destiny and have no means to resist it.

Vanga was not afraid of death. She said that there is no death:

"I have told you that after death the body decomposes like anything living, but a part of the body – the soul, or something I don’t know how to call, does not decompose. But what remains from a man is his soul. It does not decompose and continues to develop to reach higher states. This is the eternity of soul.”

Vanga believed that people are born for good works. Bad works never escape punishment. She always tried to do good for people.

© 2007 «PRAVDA.Ru», translated by Ksenia Sedyakina.

Predicting the Future

Half-Evolved Turtles

Millions of people are taught in schools and textbooks all over the world that the fossil record furnishes scientific proof of evolution. But, where are there fossils of half-evolved dinosaurs or other creatures?

Fully Formed

The fossil record contains fossils of only complete and fully-formed species. There are no fossils of partially-evolved species to indicate that a gradual process of evolution ever occurred. Even among evolutionists there are diametrically different interpretations and reconstructions of the fossils used to support human evolution from a supposed ape-like ancestry. In fact, all of the fossils, with their fancy scientific names, that have been used to support human evolution have eventually been found to be either hoaxes, non-human, or human, but not both human and non-human.

Lying Bones

Yet, many modern school textbooks continue to use these long disproved fossils as evidence for human evolution. Evolutionists once reconstructed an image of a half-ape and half-man (known as The Nebraska Man) creature from a single tooth. Later they discovered that the tooth belonged to an extinct species of pig. The "Nebraska Man" was used as a major piece of evidence in the famous Scopes Trial in support of Darwin's evolutionary theory.

Scattered Bones

At times evolutionists have used various bones gathered from many yards of each other and classify them as belonging to the same creature (even when there's no proof). They then reconstruct from these bones whatever will support their hypotheses. The fossil case "Lucy" is an excellent example of this. Scientists have only forty percent of the bones for Lucy. The bones were found yards from each other, some were found even a mile or more away. The knee joint (the main evidence used) was found two hundred feet below ground from the rest of the bones. Many of the leading scientists doubt that the bones all belong to the same species or individual. And, some of the key bones are crushed. Yet, from all of this evolutionists have reconstructed a drawing of an ape-man creature (in full color) for display in textbooks and museums. Many experts are not convinced that Lucy was an ape-man because they're not convinced all of the bones belong to the same individual or even the same species. Many leading authorities have said that "Lucy" is really an extinct ape, but not an ape-man. Those scientists who are convinced that Lucy was an ape-man are the ones that receive all the attention from the mainstream media.

No Partially-Evolved Species

Even if evolution takes millions and millions of years, we should still be able to see some stages of its process. But, we simply don't observe any partially-evolved fish, frogs, lizards, birds, dogs, cats among us. Every species of plant and animal is complete and fully-formed.

Another problem is how could partially-evolved plant and animal species survive over millions of years if their vital organs and tissues were still in the process of evolving? How, for example, were animals breathing, eating, and reproducing if their respiratory, digestive, and reproductive organs were still incomplete and evolving? How were species fighting off possibly life-threatening germs if their immune system hadn't fully evolved yet?

Scientist Dr. Walt Brown, in his fantastic book "In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood",makes this point by saying "All species appear fully developed, not partially developed. They show design. There are no examples of half-developed feathers, eyes, skin, tubes (arteries, veins, intestines, etc.), or any of thousands of other vital organs. Tubes that are not 100% complete are a liability; so are partially developed organs and some body parts. For example, if a leg of a reptile were to evolve into a wing of a bird, it would become a bad leg long before it became a good wing."

A lizard with half-evolved legs and wings can't run or fly away from its predators. How would it survive? Why would it be preserved by natural selection? Imagine such a species surviving in such a miserable state over many millions of years waiting for fully-formed wings to evolve.

No Transitional Links

Some evolutionists cite the fossil of an ancient bird known to have claws as an example of a transitional link. However, there are two species of birds living today in South America that have claws on their wings, but even evolutionists today do not claim that these birds are transitional links from a reptilian ancestry. These claws are complete, as everything else on the birds.

Recently it was thought they had discovered fossils of dinosaurs with feathers until they found out that the so-called feathers were really scales which only had the appearance of feathers. Scientists theorize the scales took upon a feather-like appreance during some brief stage of decomposition before being fossilized. Even if they were feathers, this still wouldn't be any kind of evidence to support macro-evolution unless they can show a series of fossils having part-scale/part-feather structures as evidence that the scales had really evolved into feathers.

Common Designer

Many times, evolutionists use similarities of traits shared by different forms of life as a basis for claiming a transitional link. But, the problem for evolutionists is that all the traits which they cite are complete and fully-formed. And evolutionists are not consistent. The duck-billed platypus, for example, has traits belonging to both mammals and birds but even evolutionists won't go so far as to claim that the duck-billed platypus is a transitional link between birds and mammals.

Evolutionists claim that the genetic and biological similarities between species is evidence of common ancestry. However, that is only one interpretation. Another possibility is that the comparative similarities are due to a common designer who designed similar functions for similar purposes in all of the various species and forms of life. Neither position can be scientifically proved.

Punctuated Equilibrium

In fact, it is precisely because of these problems that more and more modern evolutionists are adopting a new theory known as Punctuated Equilibrium which says that plant and animal species evolved suddenly from one kind to another and that is why we don't see evidence of partially-evolved species in the fossil record. Of course, we have to accept their word on blind faith because there is no way to prove or disprove what they are saying. These evolutionists claim that something like massive bombardment of radiation resulted in mega mutations in species which produced "instantaneous" changes from one life form to another. The nature and issue of mutations will be discussed later and the reader will see why such an argument is not viable.

Natural Selection

Although Darwin was partially correct by showing that natural selection occurs in nature, the problem is that natural selection itself is not a creative force. Natural selection is a passive process in nature. Natural selection can only "select" from biological variations that are possible and which have survival value. Natural selection itself does not produce any biological traits or variations.

The early grooves in the human embryo that appear to look like gills are really the early stages in the formation of the face, throat, and neck regions. The so-called "tailbone" is the early formation of the coccyx and spinal column which, because of the rate of growth being faster than the rest of the body at this stage, appears to look like a tail. The coccyx has already been proven to be useful in providing support for the pelvic muscles.

Abortion clinics have been known to console their patients by telling them that what they're terminating isn't really a human being yet but is only a guppie or tadpole.

Single Cell

But, didn't we all start off from a single cell in our mother's womb? Yes, but that single cell from which we developed had all of the genetic information to develop into a full human being. Other single cells, such as bacteria and amoeba, from which evolutionists say we and all other forms of life had evolved don't have the genetic information to develop into humans or other species.

Biological variations are determined by the DNA or genetic code of species. The DNA molecule is actually a molecular string of various nucleic acids which are arranged in a sequence just like the letters in a sentence. It is this sequence in DNA that tells cells in the body how to construct various tissues and organs.

Mutations Harmful

The common belief among evolutionists is that random mutations in the genetic code produced by random environmental forces such as radiation, over time, will produce entirely new genetic sequences or genes for entirely new traits which natural selection can act upon resulting in entirely new biological kinds or forms of life . Evolutionists consider mutations to be a form of natural genetic engineering.

However, the very nature of mutations precludes such a possibility. Mutations are accidental changes in the sequential structure of the genetic code caused by various random environmental forces such as radiation and toxic chemicals.

Almost all true mutations are harmful, which is what one would normally expect from accidents. Even if a good mutation occurred for every good one there will be thousands of harmful ones with the net result over time being disastrous for the species.

Most biological variations, however, occur as a result of new combinations of previously existing genes - not because of mutations, which are rare in nature.

Mutations simply produce new varieties of already existing traits. For example, mutations in the gene for human hair may change the gene so that another type of human hair develops, but the mutations won't change the gene so that feathers or wings develop.

Sometimes mutations may trigger the duplication of already existing traits (i.e. an extra finger, toe, or even an entire head, even in another area of the body!). But mutations have no ability to produce entirely new traits or characteristics.

Furthermore, only those mutations produced in the genes of reproductive cells, such as sperm in the male and ovum (or egg cell) in the female, are passed on to offspring. Mutations and any changes produced in other body cells are not transmitted. For example, if a woman were to lose a finger it would not result in her baby being born with a missing finger. Similarly, even if an ape ever learned to walk upright, it could not pass this characteristic on to its descendants. Thus, modern biology has disproved the once-held theory that acquired characteristics from the environment can be transmitted into the genetic code of offspring.

Science cannot prove we're here by creation, but neither can science prove we're here by chance or macro-evolution. No one has observed either. They are both accepted on faith. The issue is which faith, Darwinian macro-evolutionary theory or creation, has better scientific support.

For more, see . .

--an article by scientist and biochemist Dr. Duane T. Gish "A Few Reasons An Evolutionary Origin of Life Is Impossible".

--articles by scientists at Institute for Creation Research in San Diego, California.

The author, Babu G. Ranganathan, has an B.A. with academic concentrations in Bible and Biology from Bob Jones University. He has been recognized in the 24th edition of Marquis Who's Who In The East.

© 1999-2006. «PRAVDA.Ru».

Dog brings home part of mammoth

2007/10/04

A miniature dachshund out for a walk on a beach found a bone which turned out to be part of a woolly mammoth's leg.

Daisy spotted the fossilized remains sticking out of a beach near the low tide mark, reports the Daily Mirror.

Her owner Dennis Smith said:

"Daisy just stood staring at it so I went over to see what it was. She looked quite pleased with herself."

The retired turf salesman, 69, from Witham, Essex, showed the 13ins find to a geologist who identified it as part of a two million year old giant woolly mammoth.

The 8 lb section of leg is believed to have lain hidden at Dunwich, Suffolk, for centuries until uncovered by storms.

Woolly mammoths were 14ft tall and weighed up to eight tons. They died out 11,000 years ago.

The Great Unknown

Guitarist Dies Before Show

After Thanksgiving dinner with his family in Ohio, Hawthorne Heights guitarist Casey Calvert boarded a bus with his band mates Friday morning to start their "Wintour 07," a grueling schedule of back-to-back concert dates that was to include a show in Washington on Saturday night.

But the fast-rising pop-punk group, which finished up a show in Detroit on Friday night, never got a chance to perform for local fans. D.C. police were called to the 9:30 Club in Northwest Washington about 2:30 p.m. Saturday and found Calvert unconscious on the band's tour bus, according to Officer Junis Fletcher, a police spokesman.

Calvert, 25, was pronounced dead at the scene, Fletcher said. Police are awaiting the results of an autopsy.

Family, friends and fans were reeling from the news.

Fan tributes poured in at the Hawthorne Heights Web site, www.hawthorneheights.com, where band members Eron Bucciarelli, Micah Carli, Matt Ridenour and JT Woodruff announced that their "quirky and awesome" best friend had "passed away in his sleep."

"At this time we're not sure what exactly happened. Just last night he was joking around with everyone before he went to bed," the band members wrote in a posting dated Saturday.

The group sought to head off any rumors about Calvert's death. The band's posting said:

"We can say with absolute certainty that he was not doing anything illegal. . We don't want his memory to be tainted in the least."

Hawthorne Heights formed in 2001 and has released two albums. Buzz on MySpace helped boost the first album, "The Silence in Black and White." The second, "If Only You Were Lonely," entered the Billboard charts at No. 3, and the single "Saying Sorry" got play on MTV and VH1.

Calvert picked up a love of music from his father, Greg, a member of Gary and the Hornets, a 1960s band that once performed on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson." His father played bass, but the younger Calvert preferred guitar, his stepmother said.

He loved Dr. Seuss books and Tim Burton films and was so fastidious about his health that he was a vegetarian, she said.

He married about a year ago. His wife is a schoolteacher, his stepmother said.

"He was a very good and kind young man, and right now there aren't any answers."

"Guitarist Dies Before Show at 9:30 Club" by Theola Labbé, Washington Post Staff Writer, Monday, November 26, 2007.

Engineered Poorly

Two University of Virginia students snatched a man off a street corner in the Tysons Corner area, tied him up in a Falls Church motel bathroom and demanded a $500,000 ransom.

The kidnappers used the victim's cellphone to make their demands, and police were able to pinpoint the motel after AT&T provided an approximate location in Falls Church as the origin of the calls, court records show.

Fairfax County police and the FBI staked out a motel in that area and spotted two men going in and out of a room there. When an officer and an FBI agent knocked on the door, they were allowed into the room and found the victim bound and gagged with duct tape in the bathtub, a search warrant affidavit states.

Police charged Guanyu Lu, 19, and Baichuan Shu, 19, both of Charlottesville, with abduction with intent to extort money. Both were arraigned yesterday in Fairfax County General District Court and ordered held without bond.

The suspects were second-year engineering students at Virginia, university spokesman Jeff Hanna said. Both are Chinese nationals, as is their victim, a 20-year-old man who was living with a host family in McLean, Fairfax Officer Don Gotthardt said.

Someone called the victim's host family that night and demanded, in Chinese, $500,000 for the victim's life, Allen wrote. The caller also threatened to blow up the family's home if they contacted police, the affidavit states.

Gotthardt said:

"This is not a random crime. We think this particular victim was targeted."

Shu lives in an apartment on campus, and Lu lives off campus, said a friend of Shu's from U-Va. who also knew him in Shanghai and who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals:

"That's unbelievable. I couldn't imagine this kind of stuff would happen. He plays sports. He plays basketball. He has a lot of friends."

© 2007 The Washington Post Company, "Two U-Va. Students Charged in Kidnapping", by Tom Jackman, Washington Post Staff Writer, Tuesday, November 27, 2007.

Chinese Playground : A Memoir

UFOs in Russia

An unidentified flying object appeared in the sky above the village of Molebka in the Perm region of Russia 15 years ago. The anomalous phenomena that have been observed in the area ever since have earned the reputation of the Russian Bermuda Triangle for the village. Foreign ufologists dubbed the place as Zone-M.

Local residents believe the anomalous stories told across villages and towns in the area. Pavel Gladyshev, a specialist in nuclear physics, a native of Molebka, lived in the city of Perm and returned to his home village after retirement.

“I have seen the strange objects in the sky on several occasions. As a physicist I can say that they do not look like man-made objects. I didn’t believe any of those stories until I saw the flying ball myself. That year I was working in the field making hay. We started early in the morning at 4 a.m. All of a sudden we saw another moon in the sky above the field. The ball was throwing dim light on the field, which game shivers to me and my partner. I counted seven beams of light coming down from the ball. When the ball disappeared we came to our senses and tried to work but it seemed all so hard and heavy. I became physically weak for two days."

UFOs have not honored Molebka with their presence for quite a while, but the anomalous zone continues to attract people’s attention. An esoteric company charges about 60 dollars for a trip to the zone. Local residents do not understand those people who come to their village from cities to conduct training sessions on ufology. Old-timers say that their native village has turned into a place of Sabbath.

"Small village in Russian province becomes great attraction to ufologists" 21.11.2007, Elena Trokhova, Pravda.ru

Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us

American Gulag Survivor Dies

John Noble, an American who never knew why the Soviets imprisoned him in their notorious gulag, but not only lived to write books on the grim, decade-long experience but also recovered his family's company and castle in the former East Germany, died on Nov. 10 in Dresden, Germany. He was 84.

Noble's story surfaced in the early years of the cold war, as the United States repeatedly asked the Soviet Union about him, only to be told that the Russians knew nothing. President Dwight Eisenhower personally intervened and won his release in January 1955 after nine and a half years of captivity.

His incarceration included backbreaking labor; minimal water and food; temperatures that regularly plunged 50 degrees below zero; and solitary confinement — first in Russian prisons in Germany, including Buchenwald, the former Nazi concentration camp. Then Noble was sent to Russia's slave labor camps, the notorious gulag. He was Slave No. 1-E-241.

For all the physical pain, the most agonizing experience was never being told why he was arrested in 1945 on charges of espionage. When he was finally tried in 1950, he was summarily sentenced to 15 years of hard labor and given a confession to sign. If he refused, he was told, someone else would sign it.

Noble's path to freedom began with smuggling out a cryptic message taped to the postcard of a prisoner with mailing privileges. His family enlisted the help of a Michigan congressman who met with President Eisenhower, who leaned on the authorities in Moscow.

Soon after Noble's release, The New York Times reported on his reunion with his family in New York on Jan. 17, 1955. Contrary to his later accounts, he said he had been treated well, and the article said he appeared to be in excellent health.

But he soon spoke more darkly of his experiences in many interviews, speeches and writings, which included a series of articles in The New York Times and books that included "I Was a Slave in Russia" (1958) and "I Found God in Soviet Russia" (1959), written with Glenn D. Everett, with an introduction by the Rev. Billy Graham.

He long charged that the Soviet Union continued to hold many American prisoners. In 1968, he said at a mock trial of international Communism organized by anti-Communist groups that the Soviets had held 3,000 Americans in 1955 and still had many. The State Department replied that it knew of no such captives.

He fueled his message with religious conviction annealed in Soviet jails, and an anti-Communism so fierce that he went on a speaking tour for the ultra-right-wing John Birch Society in the mid-1960s. He was founder and director of the Faith and Freedom Forum, which sold recordings of his books, among other things.

Noble was born on Sept. 4, 1923, in Detroit, where his father, a former Christian missionary, had moved from Germany, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported in its obituary. In Detroit, his father, Charles, took over a photo-finishing company that became large and profitable. Because of poor health, Charles took his family to Dresden to be near German hot springs.

In 1938, the elder Noble bought a camera manufacturer in Dresden, exchanging his own American company as part of the deal. The German company's two founders were Jewish and no longer felt safe in Nazi Germany.

The company, Kamera Werkstatten, in 1939 introduced an early 35 millimeter single-lens reflex camera, the Praktica. Partly because the new camera was immediately popular, the Germans permitted the company to operate through the war. The Nobles, though, were restricted to Dresden.

The family tried to leave under a Swiss-brokered exchange of nationals but were inexplicably turned back at the border, BusinessWeek reported in 1994. When the war ended, the Soviets seized the plant and merged it with other German companies.

The Nobles were advised by the American military to sit tight because the Soviet Union was an ally. They did, and Charles and John were arrested as spies. John's brother and mother were not.

As father and son were shuttled among prisons in eastern Germany, John came up with religious services, exercise programs and other activities to occupy fellow prisoners. One pastime involved counting the number of bodies hauled away, 200 one Christmas Day, BusinessWeek reported.

"It was impossible to block out the screams," Noble said.

His father died in 1952. Noble is survived by his wife and five children, The Telegraph reported.

Money grew tight in the 1970s, and he reluctantly set up an Amway distributorship. He had less and less time for speeches.

"I was trying to save the country," he told BusinessWeek. "I had no intention of selling soap."

In 1990, after the Berlin Wall fell, Noble regained control of part of the German company, but not of its Praktica trademark. He recovered the family castle overlooking Dresden. He introduced new products, including the Noblex, a new panorama camera with a lens that rotates 360 degrees. He was honored with a French knighthood.

But he failed in his attempt to build a robust capitalist enterprise in the former Soviet bloc. In 1997, as his company teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, he sold it to his employees.

International Herald Tribune "John Noble, 84, gulag survivor" by Douglas Martin, Monday, November 26, 2007.

The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror (Annals of Communism Series)

Hand in the Cookie Jar

NEW YORK - Broadway producer Anthony D. Marshall, the son of philanthropist Brooke Astor, has been indicted on charges of plundering her $198 million estate.

An indictment unsealed Tuesday charges Marshall, 83, with grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, forgery, scheme to defraud, falsifying business records, offering a false instrument for filing and conspiracy.

The top count, grand larceny, is punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

Marshall's former attorney, Francis X. Morrissey Jr., also was indicted on those charges.

"The indictment charges that Marshall and Morrissey took advantage of Mrs. Astor's diminished mental capacity in a scheme to defraud her and others out of millions of dollars," said District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.

Marshall's son, Philip, prompted the criminal investigation last year after he accused his father of neglecting Astor's care and stealing her money. Astor died in August at age 105.

Anthony Marshall, a former diplomat and Tony award winning producer, has denied all allegations that he abused his mother's trust — saying that he cared about her more than anyone else.

Astor, known for decades as the grande dame of New York society and philanthropy, gave away nearly $200 million to institutions such as the New York Public Library and Carnegie Hall and to other causes.

In the final year of her life, the nasty family feud over her care was splashed all over the city's tabloids — including allegations that she was forced to sleep in a torn nightgown on a couch that smelled of urine while subsisting on a diet of pureed peas and oatmeal.

Astor's friends, Annette de la Renta, the wife of designer Oscar de la Renta, and David Rockefeller, the banker and philanthropist, both signed affidavits supporting Philip Marshall's claims.

The grand jury heard testimony for almost a month on how Marshall and Morrissey managed Astor's estate and documents related to it. Philip Marshall, a professor at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, testified before the grand jury, according to his spokesman, Frazier Seitel.

Yahoo! News "Astor's son indicted in estate case" by SAMUEL MAULL, Associated Press Writer, November 27, 2007.

Warming Fix

LONDON (Reuters) - A series of giant pipes in the oceans to mix surface and deeper water could be an emergency fix for the Earth's damaged climate system, the scientist behind the Gaia theory said on Wednesday.

James Lovelock, whose Gaia hypothesis that planet Earth is a living entity has fuelled controversy for three decades, thinks the stakes are so high that radical solutions must be tried -- even if they ultimately fail.

In a letter to the journal Nature, he proposes vertical pipes 100 to 200 meters long and 10 meters wide be placed in the sea, so that wave motion pumps up water and fertilizes algae on the surface.

This algal bloom would push down carbon dioxide levels and also produce dimethyl sulphide, helping to seed sunlight-reflecting clouds.

"If we can't heal the planet directly, we may be able to help the planet heal itself," Lovelock, of the University of Oxford, and co-author Chris Rapley, from London's Science Museum, said.

The two scientists argued it was unlikely any of the well-intentioned technical or social schemes for limiting carbon would restore the planet's status quo.

International climate experts have warned that global warming, blamed mainly on greenhouse gases emitted by burning fossil fuels, will bring more droughts, heatwaves, floods and rising sea levels.

Commenting on Lovelock's idea, Brian Hoskins, professor of meteorology at the University of Reading, said it was scientifically sound but there were huge unknowns.

"This is the latest in a line of geo-engineering solutions," he said. "In my opinion, our uncertainties over the likely regional impact of what our greenhouse gas emissions may do is high. The uncertainties over what these solutions may do is an order of magnitude higher."

© Reuters 2007, by Ben Hirschler.

Toward a More Perfect Espresso

Italian roaster Illycaffè will introduce this month a coffee machine in the U.S. Called Hyper Espresso, it pairs a custom machine produced by Illy, which runs $600 to $800 for home versions, with a coffee-filled plastic capsule, also made by Illy.

Like other single-serve systems, including Nestle's Nespresso and Kraft's Tassimo, it's meant to make it easier for groggy consumers or harried waiters to make a serviceable cup.

But it also represents a departure: Current one-cup setups take the familiar brewing process of an espresso or drip coffee maker and put it inside a disposable disc or cartridge.

Illy's system, on the other hand, tweaks the espresso recipe--changing parameters like temerature and pressure that baristas and jittery espresso geeks long considered absolute.

From an article appearing August 31, 2007 in The Wall Street Journal by Jeff Grocott.

Irish Gangster in Sicily?

The fugitive gangster James "Whitey" Bulger and his girlfriend, Catherine Greig, may have been spotted in Sicily in April by a vacationing federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent who shot a brief video of the couple before they slipped away.

Among 'Ten Most Wanted'

The FBI posted the video and a still photo today on its website and launched a media blitz in Italy and throughout Europe in an effort to boost the international profile of Bulger, 78, one of the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted," and Greig, 56, who is believed to be traveling with him.

The video taken April 10 shows a white-haired couple strolling past shops in the seaside resort town of Taormina. The man is wearing Bulger's trademark sunglasses and baseball cap and dressed in khaki pants and a sweater over a plaid shirt. He's accompanied by a woman with short hair, also wearing sunglasses.

Investigators who have been tracking Bulger for years agree it's "a very good look-alike, probably the best they've seen in a very long time."

Warned to Flee

Bulger, a longtime FBI informant, was warned to flee just before his January 1995 federal racketeering indictment in Boston by his former handler, retired FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr.

Bulger has eluded authorities ever since, despite a worldwide manhunt. Since he fled, he's been charged with 19 murders. The FBI is offering a $1 million reward for information that leads to his capture.

Obstruction of Justice

Connolly was convicted in 2002 of racketeering and obstruction of justice for protecting Bulger from prosecution and is serving 10 years in prison. The former agent is also awaiting trial in Florida on charges that he helped Bulger and fellow informant, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, orchestrate a 1982 gangland slaying.

From an article printed in the International Herald Tribune by Shelley Murphy of the Boston Globe on September 14, 2007.

Don't Ask About Him

Jane Wyman, who starred in the television series "Falcon Crest" while her ex-husband Ronald Reagan was in the White House, died of undisclosed causes Sept. 10 at her home in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

Off Limits

She forbade reporters to ask about the U.S. President. She said she felt she had long proved herself as an actress and celebrity in her own right and walked away from those who questioned her about subjects she considered off-limits.

Too Boring

While making "Johnny Belinda," she ended her eight-year marriage to Reagan, then a B-list actor starting his political career in the Screen Actors Guild. Initially attracted to his modest and mild demeanor, Ms. Wyman said she they grew apart as she focused more on her fast-moving career and he on his political interests.

She once described becoming bored by his breakfast table commentary "expounding on the far right, far left, the conservative right, the conservative left."

A Daughter and Son

They had a daughter, Maureen (who died in 2001) and adopted a son, Michael, now a right-wing radio talk show host. Another child died in 1947, soon after birth, and Ms. Wyman left for New York. She announced to a reporter her dissatisfaction with the marriage but neglected to tell Reagan, who tried to win her back before eventually giving up.

In 1952, Reagan married actress Nancy Davis, who became his spouse during his governorship of California and during his eight years in the White House.

Oscar Winning

Jane Wyman, who won an Academy Award as best actress for "Johnny Belinda," had a career spanning six decades and more than 80 films, Ms. Wyman earned Oscar nominations for "The Yearling" (1946), as the backwoods wife of Gregory Peck; "The Blue Veil" (1951), as a nursemaid viewed over many decades; and "Magnificent Obsession" (1954), as a blind woman romanced by a playboy (Rock Hudson) who accidentally killed her saintly husband.

Early Role Cut

Her biggest early-career role, in a party scene in the William Powell-Carole Lombard screwball comedy "My Man Godfrey" (1936), was mostly cut.

She grieved at the time but years later tried to have a sense of humor:

"I'm still in the picture, next to the monkey and the organ grinder . . . That monkey bit me, too."

'Stage Fright'

The next year, she went to England to film "Stage Fright" with director Alfred Hitchcock. He reportedly accepted her reluctantly, complaining she was more a star than an actress. He fought with her as she tried to glamorize the outfits she was supposed to wear while playing a poor drama student trying to clear a friend (Richard Todd) of murder.

'Essentially Alone'

She was comfortable with solitude, telling one reporter:

"I have always felt that I was essentially alone at the beginning of my life and that I will be essentially alone at the end of it."

Adapted from an obituary appearing in The Washington Post by Adam Bernstein on September 11, 2007.

Second Life

Ric Hoogestraat sits at his computer with the blinds drawn, smoking a cigarette. He chats online with a tall, slim redhead while his wife, Sue, watches television in the living room.

'Curiosly Real Dimensions'

He's never met the woman outside of the computer world of Second Life, a well-chronicled digital fantasyland with more than eight million registered 'residents' who get jobs, attend concerts and date other users. He's never so much as spoken to her on the telephone. But their relationship has taken on curiously real dimensions.

They own two dogs, pay a mortgage together and spend hours shopping at the mall and taking long motorcycle rides. Their bond is so strong that three months ago, Mr. Hoogestraat asked Janet Spielman, the 38-year-old Canadian woman who controls the redhead, to become his virtual wife.

The woman he's legally wed to is not amused. Says Sue Hoogestraat, 58, an export agent for a shipping company, who has been married to Mr. Hoogestraat for seven months:

"It's really devastating. You try to talk to someone or bring them a drink, and they'll be having sex with a cartoon."

Only a Game

Mr. Hoogestraat plays down his online relationship, assuring his wife that it's only a game. While many busy people can't fathom the idea of taking on another set of commitments, especially imaginary ones, Second Life and other multiplayer games are moving into the mainstream.

The site now has more than eight million registered 'residents,' up from 100,000 in January 2006. A typical 'gamer' spends 20 to 40 hours a week in a virtual world.

Says Byron Reeves, a professor of communication at Stanford University:

"People respond to interactive technology on social and emotional levels much more than we ever thought. People feel bad when something bad happens to their avatar, and they feel quite good when something good happens."

Bounced Between Jobs

Before discovering Second Life, Mr. Hoogestraat had bounced between places and jobs, working as an elementary schoolteacher and a ski instructor, teaching computer graphics and spending two years on the road selling herbs and essential oils at Renaissance fairs.

Mr. Hoogestraat was fascinated by the virtual world's free-wheeling, Vegas-like atmosphere. With his computer graphics background, he quickly learned how to build furniture and design clothing.

Mr. Hoogestraat's real-life wife is losing patience with her husband's second life:

"It's sad; it's a waste of human life. Everybody has their hobbies, but when it's from six in the morning until two in the morning, that's not a hobby, that's your life."

Online Support Group

Mrs. Hoogestraat joined an online support group for spouses of obsessive online gamers called EverQuest Widows, named after another popular online fantasy game that players call Evercrack.

Mrs. Hoogestraat says she's not ready to separate.

"I'm not a monster; I can see how it fulfills parts of his life that he can no longer do because of physical limitations, because of his age. His avatar, it's him at 25. He's a good person. He's just fallen down this rabbit hole."

Better Than Real Life

Sitting alone in the living room in front of the television, Mrs. Hoogestraat says she worries it will be years before her husband realizes that he's traded his real life for a pixilated fantasy existence, one that doesn't include her.

"Basically, the other person is widowed. This other life is so wonderful; it's better than real life. Nobody gets fat, nobody gets gray. The person that's left can't compete with that."

From an article appearing in the Wall Street Journal by Alexandra Alter on August 10, 2007.

Next Year in Jerusalem

Police said Sunday they have cracked a cell of young Israeli neo-Nazis accused in a string of attacks on foreign workers, religious Jews, drug addicts and gays.

Soviet Immigrants

Eight immigrants from the former Soviet Union have been arrested in recent days in connection with at least 15 attacks, and a ninth fled the country, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said, in the first such known cell to be discovered in Israel.

All the suspects are in their late teens or early 20s and have Israeli citizenship, Rosenfeld said.

News of the arrests came as a shock in Israel, which was founded nearly 60 years ago as a refuge for Jews in the wake of the Nazi Holocaust and remains a most sensitive subject. Any forms of anti-Semitism around the world outrage Israelis, and the discovery of such violence in the country's midst made the front pages of newspapers and dominated talk on morning radio shows.

'Heil Hitler!'

Police found knives, spiked balls, explosives and other weapons in the suspects' possession, Rosenfeld said. One photo that was seized showed one suspect holding an M16 rifle in one hand and in the other, a sign reading "Heil Hitler," he added.

Police discovered the skinhead ring after investigating the desecration of two synagogues that were sprayed with swastikas in the central Israeli city of Petah Tikva more than a year ago, Rosenfeld said.

Part of International Movement

Police computer experts have determined they maintained contacts with neo-Nazi groups abroad, and materials seized include a German-language video about neo-Nazis in the U.S.

The group planned its attacks, and its targets were foreign workers from Asia, drug addicts, homosexuals, punks and Jews who wore skullcaps. In one case they discussed planning a murder, Rosenfeld said, without providing details.

Not Haters, Just Deniers

Israel doesn't specifically have a hate crimes law, and suspects in past cases have been tried as Holocaust deniers, he said.

The Anti-Defamation League, a U.S.-based group that fights anti-Semitism, condemned the neo-Nazi cell, but urged Israelis not to stigmatize the entire Russian immigrant community based on the acts of what appeared to be a marginal group.

Their statement read . .

"The suspicion that immigrants to Israel could have been acting in praise of Nazis and Hitler is an anathema to the Jewish state and is to be repelled. The tragic irony in this is that they would have been chosen for annihilation by the Nazis they strive to emulate."

Amos Herman, an official with the semiofficial Jewish Agency, which works on behalf of the government to encourage immigration to Israel, said the phenomenon was not representative of the Russian immigration.

He called the gang a group of frustrated, disgruntled youths trying to strike at the nation's most sensitive core.

"We thought that it would never happen here, but it has and we have to deal with it."

Adapted from an Associated Press story by Amy Teibel appearing September 9, 2007.

Double Oops

The discovery of an ancient penguin fossil has shaken u a debate over when modern birds evolved, writes Jeff Hecht in New Scientist.

Paleontologists long believed that most birds and all dinosaurs died at around the same time, about 65 million years ago. The few avian survivors evolved rapidly to produce today's modern birds, who have little in common with their dinosaur-era forebears.

But according to some molecular biologists, the genes of modern birds suggest they were flying as far back as 100 million years ago, overlapping with dinosaurs. That theory gained credence after paleontologists described a bird fossil they called Waimanu, which looked like a penguin, had a cormorant-like head and lived in New Zealand about 62 million years ago.

It is the second fossil of a modern-style bird from that period--the first was a waterfowl. Because both kinds of birds are relatively high up the evolutionary chain, they would have to have emerged earlier, around 90 million to 100 million years ago.

adapted from an item appearing in the New York Times

Fugitive Fundraiser Captured

GRAND JUNCTION, COLORADO -- Fugitive political fundraiser Norman Hsu, who skipped out on San Mateo County authorities this week rather than face sentencing for a 1992 fraud conviction, was apprehended Thursday night by federal and local lawmen in Grand Junction, Colo.

Captured at Hospital

Authorities said Hsu was taken into custody at St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction at 7 p.m. local time. He had been on the lam for almost two days after failing to appear in a Redwood City courtroom Wednesday to surrender his passport.

Sick on Train

Hsu was taken off an eastbound passenger train at the Grand Junction train station earlier in the day by paramedics who requested a backboard to move him, said Sgt. Lonnie Chavez with the Grand Junction Police Department. The exact nature of Hsu's condition was unclear, Chavez said.

Disappearing Act Deja Vu

Hsu's disappearing act seemed to be a reprise of a move he pulled 15 years ago, when he failed to show up for sentencing in the same grand theft case. Hsu was facing up to three years in state prison, a $10,000 fine and restitution payments after pleading no contest to a single count of grand theft in what prosecutors described as a $1 million fraud scheme.

But while free on bail after his plea, Hsu dropped from sight for 15 years, apparently spending time in Hong Kong, the Philippines and Taiwan, only to emerge in recent years as a seemingly wealthy New York resident who donated generously to Democratic political campaigns, regularly attended fundraisers and was photographed with party leaders.

Two Million Dollar Bail

A week ago, Hsu, 56, surrendered to San Mateo County sheriff's deputies in Redwood City after press accounts linked him to the earlier grand theft case. He spent a few hours in county jail before posting $2 million bail and agreeing to surrender his passport.

After Hsu posted bail, his attorney, Jim Brosnahan, sent a legal assistant to Hsu's New York condominium Monday to retrieve the passport but was unable to find it after a 90-minute search.

'Hillraiser'

Hsu, listed as a "Hillraiser" committed to bringing in $100,000 or more to the presidential campaign of New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, has given an estimated $600,000 of his own money to candidates ranging from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Assemblywoman Fiona Ma to presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.

The size and scope of Hsu's contributions made him one of the party's largest individual contributors. While he gave $23,000 to Clinton and $7,000 to Obama, he also gave $62,000 to New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, $50,000 to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, and $50,000 to the New York State Democratic Party.

Ponzi Scheme

In the 1991-92 grand theft case, Hsu was charged with bilking about 20 investors, including his ex-girlfriend, out of about $1 million in connection with a business that was supposed to provide latex gloves to another firm - only no gloves were ever bought or sold, prosecutors said.

Prosecutor Ron Smetana said at a preliminary hearing . .

"What Mr. Hsu was in the business of was running a Ponzi scheme. He was taking money and spending part of it on himself and returning it as it was available. As with any Ponzi scheme, the first ones in and the first ones out always do quite well. Those (who) hope that their investment will continue and stay to the end tend to lose their shorts."

Kidnapped and Rescued

After the glove business collapsed in April 1990, Hsu was kidnapped four months later in San Francisco by a Chinatown gang leader in an effort to collect a debt from him, police said. The abduction was foiled after the car they were riding in ran a red light in Foster City and was pulled over by police, who rescued Hsu, authorities said.

Adapted from a story appearing in The San Francisco Chronicle by Jaxon Van Derbeken and John Coté on September 7, 2007

Female Elvis Dies

Janis Martin rose to fame in the 1950s as Elvis Presley’s label mate at RCA Victor, which promoted her as the Female Elvis. Her first record and biggest hit, “Will You Willyum,” was released in 1956, when she was just 15. The song made the Billboard Top 10 for one week and sold about 750,000 copies.

She appeared on the “Tonight” show and “American Bandstand” and toured with Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Faron Young, Hank Snow, Porter Wagoner and Jim Reeves. She became a star in Europe, where she is still popular, Mr. Whitt said.

Ms. Martin was voted Billboard’s most promising female artist in 1956. She formed her own band, the Marteens, and played clubs and fairs before retiring from show business in 1958. She remained largely inactive in the business until the late 1970s, when the rockabilly revival led to extensive tours in Europe and introduced Ms. Martin to a new generation of fans.

She had been scheduled to perform at the Americana, an international rockabilly show in Britain, on July 4, but had to cancel because of her illness, Mr. Whitt said.

Along with performing, Ms. Martin managed the Danville Golf Club.

In addition to her husband, she is survived by a sister, Geraldine Connor of South Boston, Va.; a granddaughter; and a great-granddaughter. She had a son, who died, by a previous marriage.

“She was a free-spirited lady who was devoted to her fan base,” Mr. Whitt said in a telephone interview. “She would stay for hours after a show and never leave a person standing, taking pictures and signing for them for four or five hours.”

The cause was cancer.

adapted from an Associated Press report

Ooops

Time to redraw humanity's evolutionary path

An international team of researchers say their new fossil discovery disproves the notion that over the last two million years ancestral humans followed a straight evolutionary trail from Homo habilis to Homo ergaster to Homo erectus and finally to us, Homo sapiens.

Instead, the team - including geochronologist Ian McDougall with the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra - wrote overnight in the journal Nature that H. habilis and H. erectus lived side-by-side in the same park of Kenya for nearly half-a-million years.

“Their co-existence makes it unlikely that Homo erectus evolved from Homo habilis,”

concluded author Maeve Leakey of Stony Brook University in New York State and co-director the Koobi Fora Research Project in Kenya.

adapted from an article appearing in The Australian by Leigh Dayton on August 09, 2007

Perhaps They Should Have Signed Him

Before becoming a most notorious murderer, Charles Manson was known as just another hippie singer/songwriter. The original freak-folk – the Manson family – would sit around and listen to Charlie interpret Revelations, regale them with his philosophy of Helter Skelter, and play his psych-folk guitar music.

Taught by a Gangster

Manson was taught by a gangster how to play a steel guitar during one of his many prison stints before the Tate-LaBianca murders. Once outside, he felt his playing and songwriting needed to be heard. He fell in with the Beach Boys and Neil Young and even convinced Young and Dennis Wilson to pitch his songs to their record executives.

Eventually the Beach Boys did record a Manson composition called 'Cease To Exist. The title was changed to 'Never Learn Not To Love"' and was released as the 'B' side of the single 'Bluebirds Over The Mountain', which climbed to number 61 in early 1969, giving Manson a hit record on Billboard's Hot 100. It took a while for Dennis to catch on that Manson was a "hanger on" and by the time Dennis ended the friendship, Manson had soaked him for over $100,000.

Repeatedly denied recording contracts, Manson unleashed his most vitriolic threats and hatred upon the producers who turned him down. It became clear during the trial that Manson chose the Polanski/Tate house as the primary target because he believed Terry Melcher, the last record exec to refuse to release Manson’s music and previous owner of the home, still lived there.

Separating the Man from the Music

Thirty six years after the murders, with Manson refusing to appear at his latest parole hearing, we are finally approaching the time when we can separate the music from the man. In a time when the hippie-collective aesthetic is enjoying a renaissance, it is more than a little fascinating to hear the Manson family sing, play and improvise.

A Real Knack for Songwriting

Manson’s song structures come from pop, rock and blues, and he plays a lot of major seventh chords, creating drones that are always on the verge of resolution. His voice is not terrible, and in the wake of some recording today, it sounds comparably great. Tracks such as "Look At Your Game, Girl," "Arkansas," "Garbage Dump," and "Devil Man" display a real knack for songwriting. The really eerie parts of this album come in the form of family sing-alongs like "I’ll Never Say Never To Always," and Manson’s life-lessons, that one can picture being ingested by half-naked teenage girls on LSD.

Adapted from an article written by Ben Weiss Friday, 28 April 2006 on
KBGA 89.9FM Missoula website.

10,000 Year-Old Camel Found in Arizona

MESA, ARIZONA--Workers digging at the future site of a Wal-Mart store in suburban Mesa have unearthed the bones of a prehistoric camel that is estimated to be about 10,000 years old.

Arizona State University geology museum curator Brad Archer hurried out to the site Friday when he got the news that the owner of a nursery was carefully excavating bones found at the bottom of a hole being dug for a new ornamental citrus tree.

"There's no question that this is a camel; these creatures walked the land here until about 8,000 years ago, when the same event that wiped out a great deal of mammal life took place," Archer told The Arizona Republic.

"In my 15 years at ASU doing this work I can think of six or seven times when finds this important have been made. This is the first camel. Others have been horses, once a mammoth on Happy Valley Road. This sort of thing is extremely rare."

© From an article appearing April 28, 2007 in the English-language version of Pravda.