J's Cafe Nette

Archive for June 1st, 2007

Many days the news if filled with information which is cycled over and over until we all feel we could recite it in our sleep.

Once in a while there are a few stories which could apply to any of us which get one quick sound bite and then are gone into news history.

While we have all had accidents of one kind or another, this brought a few tears to my eyes.

Woman Accidentally Runs Over Her Family With New Van
Friday, June 01, 2007

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A woman trying out her new van accidentally hit four members of her family, including her infant daughter.

Police said the accident happened at an Annapolis apartment complex just before 10 p.m. Thursday, when the Patel family gathered to see their new Honda Odyssey. The woman driving — 35-year-old Urvashiben Patel — accidentally hit the gas instead of the brakes and ran into her family gathered on the steps of the complex’s community center.

I am sure there are those who would criticize another for a mistake such as this, but I feel nothing but compassion for this woman who will live forever with the memory of an innocent mistake.

After readingthis story though, I must admit I felt a bit conflicted.

Two toddlers wandered away from their home in northwestern Pennsylvania while their baby sitter slept and accidentally drowned in a nearby pond.

The baby sitter told authorities she put the girls down for a nap Wednesday morning and that she also took a nap. When she woke up, 20-month-old Jenna Walker and 2-year-old Maggie Kovski were missing from the house, the baby sitter said.

She found their bodies floating in a small, man-made fishing pond about 100 yards (90 meters) away from the home and frantically tried to help them.

I have devoted the better part of my life attending to children and I must say that there have been many days when they were resting I would have loved to close my eyes and do the same. One can certainly espress some compassion for this baby sitter as she will close her eyes each night and see these images. It would not be my place to lay blame at her feet, she will I am sure do enough of that herself but this story serves as a reminder that all children are someones most precious commodity. When they are placed in your care, those who love them most should anticipate you’re acting responsibily.

Also I wonder how the parents and the brother of this toddler will ever recover from this accident.

Cops: Toddler Dies After Climbing Into Dishwasher, Starting Cycle
Friday, June 01, 2007

An 18-month-old boy died Wednesday of suspected heat exposure after he climbed into a dishwasher that started running, police said.

Authorities are still investigating, but said it appeared the boy’s death was accidental.

This is probably the hardest, most emotional scene that these investigators will ever work,” said Chief Deputy Jeremy Clark of the White County sheriff’s office.

Blake Kurck was found dead in his home near the White County town of Romance at about 1 p.m. Wednesday, the sheriff’s office said. The boy’s 13-year-old brother found him inside the appliance, which was running, authorities said.

“The baby’s blanket was lying in front of the dishwasher, so (the brother) opened it,” Clark said.

Sorry for the downer stories but when I read and see Rosie, Anna Nicole and Britney Spears in the news pages day in and day out, I think it is time to get back to reality and the heartaches and challenges us “regular people” face each day.

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While the extremely far-right wing of the Republican party are busy throwing their annual fits over an immigration bill, this conservative Republican is going to talk about what might be the exit strategy in Iraq. Well, not a complete and total exit by our troops, but I’ll explain.

A couple of stories have caught my eye this week, but it wasn’t until the latest story that it began to make some sense to me.

We’ll be coming back to that story as this post progresses.

First, let’s look at this story.

WASHINGTON — President Bush would like to see the U.S. military provide long-term stability in Iraq as it has in South Korea, where thousands of American troops have been based for more than half a century, the White House said Wednesday.

White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters Bush believes U.S. forces eventually will end their combat role in Iraq but will continue to be needed in the country to deter threats and to help handle potential crises, as they have done in South Korea.

The United States has kept forces in South Korea since war erupted with North Korea in 1950 and currently has about 30,000 troops there.

“At some point you want to get to a situation in which the Iraqis have the capability to go ahead and handle the fundamental matters of security … so that if you need the ability to react quickly you can be there, but the Iraqis are conducting the lion’s share of their business,” Snow said.

[...]

Asked if U.S. forces would be permanently stationed in Iraq, Snow said, “No, not necessarily.” He said that the prospect of permanent U.S. bases in Iraq were “not necessarily the case, either.”

Later, Snow said it was impossible to say if U.S. troops would remain in Iraq for some 50 years. “I don’t know,” he said. “It is an unanswerable question. But I’m not making that suggestion. … The war on terror is a long war.”

The first part of the strategy, if it is a strategy (I am only guessing it is) is explained above.

It’s difficult for me to figure out how we could do a Korea model if we do not have some troops based in Iraq, just as we have some troops based in S Korea. Perhaps we could base our troops in a nearby country or in the Kurdish area, which seems to be more friendly to us. I don’t know the answer. Read the rest of this entry »

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Admittedly, my experiences with graduation ceremonies in the North were over nearly 40 years ago when my husband graduated from college in December 1967.

The ceremonies were dignified and every graduate’s name could distinctly be heard announced. After the ceremony there was applause from the audience, but participating in and watching graduations was a great experience.

We settled in the South. Now, I’m not picking on Southerners because I’m just as Southern now as I was Northern. I’ve lived here longer than I did in the North.

I first became aware of the Southern tradition (at least in this area) of people shouting and hooting and cheering loudly when someone they knew walked across the stage, thereby making it impossible to hear the name of the next graduate, who also had friends and family who acted the same way when my son graduated from high school. I mean they let out loud whoops.

When my son-in-law and then my daughter graduated from college I thought it would be a dignified event. I was wrong and it was actually worse because people from all over a large auditorium were making loud and embarrassing noises while these young people picked up their diplomas representing at least four years of hard work.

Today, I was pleased to read this article published in the local paper and telling of an event in my town.

Ryan Zimmerman knew that if he cheered for his younger brother during Fort Mill, S.C., High School’s graduation ceremony last weekend, he’d be asked to leave.

It was a price he decided to pay.

But the 18-year-old Fort Mill grad never thought it would land him behind bars.

Zimmerman, Chris Coghill, 20, of Fort Mill, and Chandler Roberts, 20, of Charlotte were arrested on suspicion of public disorderly conduct during the ceremony at Winthrop Coliseum on Saturday, according to a Rock Hill police report. According to the report, the three men stood and cheered during the ceremony, then walked to the concourse and yelled again, causing a disruption.

The trio say they were unfairly targeted. Police say the group was being disruptive.

[...]

Roberts, a 2005 Fort Mill High graduate, said the three friends discussed whether they should stay quiet. “We were deciding the entire time and when we saw other people cheered and nothing happened to them we figured that meant it was OK for us to do it,” Roberts said.

Zimmerman, Coghill and Roberts were released Saturday evening on $255 bond. They will appear in court June 19.

Lt. Jerry Waldrop of the Rock Hill Police Department said officers followed department policies. He said the school district hired police to provide security, and unruly individuals were subject to charges. The report is clear, he said, that the suspects were disruptive by calling out multiple times.

“They’re lucky they didn’t get charged with the high court offense of disturbing schools,” Waldrop said. “They really haven’t got a complaint.”

Fort Mill school board Chairwoman Martha Kinard said the graduation policy isn’t designed to discourage support, but to make sure each graduate receives equal recognition.

“When someone yells out, the next person in line, their family can’t hear,” Kinard said. “It’s a matter of respect.”

I hope this sets an example for future graduations in this area.

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The Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday questioned the continuing value of the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret interrogation program for terrorism suspects, suggesting that international condemnation and the obstacles it has created to criminal prosecution may outweigh its worth in gathering information.

The committee rejected by one vote a Democratic proposal that would essentially have cut money for the program by banning harsh interrogation techniques except in dire emergencies, a committee report revealed.

“More than five years after the decision to start the program,” the report said, “the committee believes that consideration should be given to whether it is the best means to obtain a full and reliable intelligence debriefing of a detainee.”

It added: “Both the Congress and the administration must continue to evaluate whether having a separate C.I.A. detention program that operates under different interrogation rules than those applicable to military and law enforcement officers is necessary, lawful and in the best interests of the United States.”

The sweeping report, which accompanies the annual bill authorizing the activities of all of the spy agencies, reflects a striking reassertion of aggressive oversight since Democrats took control of Congress this year. Some Republicans joined in the skeptical language about several spying programs, and the report as a whole was approved 12 to 3, with the backing of all eight Democrats and four of the seven Republicans.

Story here

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More from the never ending story.

Simon & Schuster has joined with its author Valerie Plame Wilson to file a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against the CIA, charging that the agency is interfering with Plame’s efforts to write her memoir. The suit, which names the CIA; the director of the CIA Michael Hayden; and J. Michael McConnell, director of national intelligence, alleges that the executive branch of the government is trying to stop Plame from using the dates she served in the CIA in her book even though those dates have been made public.

Read

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What happened to this well-oiled machine?

The Republican National Committee, hit by a grass-roots donors’ rebellion over President Bush’s immigration policy, has fired all 65 of its telephone solicitors, Ralph Z. Hallow will report Friday in The Washington Times.
Faced with an estimated 40 percent fall-off in small-donor contributions and aging phone-bank equipment that the RNC said would cost too much to update, Anne Hathaway, the committee’s chief of staff, summoned the solicitations staff last week and told them they were out of work, effective immediately, the fired staffers told The Times.
The national committee yesterday confirmed the firings that took place more than a week ago, but denied that the move was motivated by declining donor response to phone solicitations.
“The phone-bank employees were terminated,” RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt wrote by e-mail in response to questions sent by The Times. “This was not an easy decision. The first and primary motivating factor was the state of the phone bank technology, which was outdated and difficult to maintain. The RNC was advised that we would soon need an entire new system to remain viable.”
Fired employees acknowledged that the committee’s phone equipment was outdated, but said a sharp drop-off in donations “probably” hastened the end of the RNC’s in-house phone-bank operation.
“Last year, my solicitations totaled $164,000, and this year the way they were running for the first four months, they would total $100,000 by the end of 2007,” said one fired phone bank solicitor who asked not to be identified.
There has been a sharp decline in contributions from RNC phone solicitations, another fired staffer said, reporting that many former donors flatly refuse to give more money to the national party if Mr. Bush and the Senate Republicans insist on supporting what these angry contributors call “amnesty” for illegal aliens.

Story

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