March 11th, 2010
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Author: ORLANDO, Fla. — The Florida Highway Patrol was flooded with e-mails criticizing their handling of the investigation of the crash involving golfer Tiger Woods that led to him admitting to extramarital affairs.
A review by the Orlando Sentinel found that the highway patrol and its umbrella agency, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, got more than 400 e-mails in the days after the November crash outside Woods’ home near Orlando.
Many of the e-mails accused the highway patrol of doing shoddy work and of treating Woods more like a celebrity than a suspect. A small percentage of e-mails praised the highway patrol’s work.
Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles Department press secretary Ann Howard says the highway patrol handled the investigation professionally.
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Information from: Orlando Sentinel, http://www.orlandosentinel.com
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ORLANDO, Fla. — The Florida Highway Patrol was flooded with e-mails criticizing their handling of the investigation of the crash involving golfer Tiger Woods that led to him admitting to extramarital affairs.
A review by the Orlando Sentinel found that the highway patrol and its umbrella agency, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, got more than 400 e-mails in the days after the November crash outside Woods’ home near Orlando.
Many of the e-mails accused the highway patrol of doing shoddy work and of treating Woods more like a celebrity than a suspect. A small percentage of e-mails praised the highway patrol’s work.
Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles Department press secretary Ann Howard says the highway patrol handled the investigation professionally.
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Information from: Orlando Sentinel, http://www.orlandosentinel.com
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On the eve of World Kidney Day, Adrian Mole Author Sue Townsend – who underwent a kidney transplant operation last year – is appealing for people to come forward as altruistic donors.
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On the eve of World Kidney Day, Adrian Mole Author Sue Townsend – who underwent a kidney transplant operation last year – is appealing for people to come forward as altruistic donors.
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Like a lot of L.A. musicians, my friend Matt is an amazing vocalist who works killer hours and earns barely enough to get by. He lives in a tiny one-room flat and has no health insurance; he drives to Mexico to get his teeth fixed. He has virtually no social life, no savings and no safety net. But at least he’s working and keeping his head above water, and in that way he’s better off than the 3,000-plus singers helped by the Sherman Oaks-based Society of Singers (SOS), the only organization solely dedicated to helping singers not only in Los Angeles, which has long been the center of the American music business, but all over the world. (Disclosure: I have served on the SOS board of directors.)
SOS CEO Jerry Sharell is a veteran record executive, well-loved in a business infamous for its sharp-elbowed competitiveness. I first “met” him over the phone in the early ’70s, when he persuaded me to review a mediocre record for the music magazine for which I toiled. “I don’t care what you think of it,” he yelled — loud enough I’m not sure I needed the phone — from what I imagined to be the palatial offices of Buddah Records (spelled differently than the founder of a certain Eastern set of beliefs and, with its bubblegum roster, not quite as enduring). “It’s a hit.” He was right.
Sharell, a pretty good Sinatra-style singer himself, works with colleagues Wendy Garfinkel and Judy Varley to raise money via private appeals to music lovers and public events like the ELLA Awards, whose recipients have included Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis and Ella Fitzgerald herself.
Marie, a successful jazz singer, came to SOS recently in dire straits. Diagnosed with breast cancer, she’d lost her health insurance and couldn’t begin to pay for the six-month treatment plan her doctor said she needed to survive. SOS handled the complex details of referrals to community programs and partner agencies that allows her to cover her basic expenses while she’s getting treatment and is unable to work.
Whether the issue is doctor visits, counseling, or basic and often emergency assistance with transportation or a place to live, the bottom line is that far too many singers have few if any assets after decades of performing and recording. And since most work as independent contractors, they generally don’t qualify for government help via Social Security, Disability and the like.
A small but mighty outfit, the twenty-five year old SOS leverages its links to an array of complementary organizations to get things done. MusiCares — established by the Recording Academy (producers of The Grammys) “to sustain music and its makers as a force in all of our lives” — chips in with SOS clients in various ways; in Marie’s case they’ll help with her rent. MusiCares executive director Debbie Carroll explains, “MusiCares’s mission is similar to that of the Society of Singers. We offer a safety net of critical assistance to music people in times of need. We have many music people reaching out to us with very difficult and complex issues. Some are such that the need is much greater than one organization can provide.”
Other groups which serve their communities in conjunction with SOS include the Actors Fund, AFTRA, AGVA, California Jazz Foundation, Career Transition for Dancers, American Federation of Musicians, Motion Picture Television Fund, SAG, Sweet Relief, and the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation.
Sharell helps promote singers in another way via his weekly 3-hour Great American Songbook broadcast on Los Angeles radio station KGIL AM. Recently, he played “Let Me In” by Deborah Ash, one of the singers SOS has been instrumental — pun intended — in helping.
Community can be created in many ways — geographically, electronically, or around a shared interest or cause. The community of singers which has formed around SOS and its sister organizations needs help from another community: us listeners, whose lives have been so enriched by the wonderful singers – past and present — performing in Los Angeles and around the world.
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The very first time I ever watched the Glenn Beck show was this week when Eric Massa was his only guest. It was clear from Beck’s hilarious set-up, including the questions he had written on a blackboard, that his expectations were high. In fact, there seemed to be salivating involved.
What followed was absolutely unwatchable, except that it was hard to turn away. There was something about Eric and Glenn together that seemed to make them both worse than they already were, if that is possible either theoretically or realistically. Later I saw a set of clips from “the interview” on Countdown and the fabulous Lawrence O’Donnell, in for Keith, was doing a little salivating of his own, thrilled even to introduce such a trainwreck.
I saw enough to know that there is strong evidence to support the theory that Eric Massa is a white collar serial sexual harasser, at the very least. He is that special brand of sexual controller that has used his intelligence, sense of superiority, ambition, and understanding of power to accommodate his needs. It was all there in his own answers. Glenn was so busy trying to extract that which he believed was going to change our nation that he missed the most basic clues as to who Eric Massa is.
The biggest giveaway was the particular language that Massa used to support his version of taking responsibility for his actions. I didn’t have the stomach to count how many times he said he “owned” his behaviors. And the piece de resistance was when he properly asserted that it didn’t matter what he intended with his inappropriate actions, it was how those actions were received by the other guy. And of course there were the excuses as to why his intentions were actually harmless, citing this is how it was done in the Navy but apparently not in Congress and he should have realized that. Who knew that such standards were measured by tolerance of male to male tickling? And in hindsight, he supposed it was a bad idea to become so close to his staffers, to actually live with them because who could afford a place in DC? And, after all, they were young bachelors. Indeed.
It seems likely that Massa has been successful in creating and sustaining this sexual culture around him for a very long time, one that he could defend as not really sexual but was confusing and demeaning to his subordinates. But when telling is involved, power shifts. His resignation signals a groundswell from which even he realized he could probably not recover. I doubt it had much to do with national politics but more the politics of sexual power. But you know, he didn’t really mean it that way. But if they took it that way, well, that’s all that really matters. Now that he’s been exposed.
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SAN JOSE — Sometime in the near future, a federal judge will decide whether Google can proceed with its plan to create a digital library and bookstore out of millions of old books scanned from libraries around the world.
Google Book Search has already spawned a class-action lawsuit, and now, a surge of opposition from scholars, consumer advocates and business competitors who contend the plan gives Google too much control over a priceless store of information. The legal issues are complex.
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We live in a far too complex and interconnected world to expect there is an easy way out in solving our environmental crisis. We can’t rely on a 3-second Google search to provide all the answers, or a “miracle pill” to suddenly shrink our carbon footprint. If we want to see a real difference, we are going to have to dig deeper – transforming the current values and beliefs we live by into ones that will guide us to a new, sustainable lifestyle. The Rainforest Newsladder has reflected this, highlighting the individuals, businesses and countries working hard at laying the groundwork for a sustainable world today so that we have a future tomorrow. We, along with our partner Rainforest Alliance, hope that as you join in the conversation you also become inspired to extend a helping hand.
It is clear that the planet will not always be able to support the type of lifestyle we have enjoyed and become accustomed to. By increasing our focus on sustainable living and business practices we are displaying a consideration for future generations. As our first story makes clear, it is this next generation that holds the key to a successful, sustainable future. Realizing that preparation and education would be more beneficial than any amount of charity money, two Berkeley bioengineering graduate students, Rick Henrikson and Richard Novak co-funded the outreach organization Future Scientist. Armed with their mission to teach science and practical technical skills to young people in rural, developing regions, Future Scientist is able to give these communities a resource they will never run out of – a generation of children with the ability to sustainably address their own needs.
Of course you don’t have to start an activist group to start making a difference. By simply doing little everyday things to help the environment you become a part of an important domino effect. As with any consumer trend, businesses take note; the more demand from individuals for eco-friendly choices, the more green options businesses will supply. For example, realizing that more tourists have become conscious about how their trip impacts the environment, the travel industry has made strides in providing sustainable travel. Smart Voyager is a certification program founded by Conservación y Desarrollo in partnership with the Rainforest Alliance that provides vacation goers an option by holding cruise ships and other tour operators to high environmental and social standards.
Innovation is clearly needed in shifting towards a sustainable lifestyle, but our next story points out that Mother Nature has already provided us with many of the clues. This is theme behind The National Science and Engineering Week online vote to “Find the identity of Nature’s greatest engineer”. This article reminds us how many everyday items, such as Velcro, were an product of an engineer being inspired by some natural phenomenon, as well as revealing how a termite colony can be studied as a model of sustainable development.
On an international scale, countries that have depleted much of their rainforests, are making sure that history doesn’t repeat itself. First, a look into the progress and opportunity potential of Brazil, calling attention to the efforts being made by the agribusiness, specifically beef producers, to work on sustainability. And then in Haiti, where as leaders continue the process of rebuilding their country, they are planning to put systems in place that will provide for the long-term.
We have come to a point where we can either be pro-active in securing a strong future, or we can wait until we run out of all our resources and are forced to change. Let’s not wait until it’s too late. Let’s make smart decisions now by continuing to make strides towards sustainable living. Visit our Facebook page to find out what other people are doing to help and stay informed on all the latest issues by checking out the Rainforest Newsladder.
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Designer Tommy Hilfiger is finally coming clean on why he clocked rocker Axl Rose at Plumm in 2006.
According to the blog Poison Ivy, in a discussion with Worth Magazine Editor-in-Chief Richard Bradley Wednesday night at the French Institute Alliance Francaise’s Fashion Talks series, Hilfiger claimed the punch was in self-defense.
Axl pushed me [out of the way], and I said ‘That was rude.’ [He turned around and] had a huge ring on. He wears all this jewelry. [I'm thinking], if I get hit, it’s over. No teeth, no eye. So I hit him before he hit me. It was self-protection. Now we’re friends.
No word on whether or not Hilfiger joined his “friend” Rose on his recent three-week bender around town.
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Sky News talked to French First Lady Carla Bruni about rumors that both she and her husband Nicolas Sarkozy are having extra-martial affairs. Carla said she trusts Nicolas and, “he would never have affairs.” She said, “the real fairy tale is how lucky it was for me to fall in love at 40 years old.” Check out her thoughts on monogamy and whether her marriage will last.
WATCH:
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