Category: News Item

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All is well when you have a miracle maid

I know that I certainly think to look up whenever I hear a plane engine getting louder or really close. In fact, I was in NYC during Memorial Day weekend in 2005 where there was a fly over by some military jets. Buzzed right over downtown during Fleet Week celebrations, and I swear that you heard the entire city pause for a moment.

I’m not so sure that I would have had this quick of wit though. I guess you never really know until you’re put into that situation. Did 9/11 prime this woman to be more attentive for these types of situations?

NEW YORK (AP) — A woman in a high-rise apartment hit by New York Yankee Cory Lidle’s plane survived after her housekeeper saw the aircraft coming and rushed in from another room to get her out, a relative of the resident said Thursday.

Flames from the deadly crash scorched Ilana Benhuri’s back and legs but she “has very good spirits,” said her husband, Dr. Parviz Benhuri.

“She was in the same room that the nose of the plane hit,” said her brother-in-law Dr. Marc Benhuri. “I’m telling you it’s an absolute miracle that she’s alive. I honestly believe that God was sitting on her shoulder.”

Ilana Benhuri, 50, was doing paperwork at her desk when she heard the small plane outside her 30th-floor apartment, Marc Benhuri said. The housekeeper, Eveline Reategue, saw the plane coming and rushed into the room to get her, he said.

The plane crashed into the apartment as they were trying to get out, Marc Benhuri said. Lidle and his flight instructor, Tyler Stanger, were killed.

“I took my boss [by the arm], and we ran out,” Reategue, told the New York Post. “The floor was on fire, and it looked like it was going to cave in.

“The women closed the door of the room where the plane hit, then closed the front door and ran down a fire escape to safety, Marc Benhuri said. Closing the front door of the fiery apartment probably saved their lives, he said. [cnn]

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The old look is the way to go

I wouldn’t bank on it, but it’s almost like Alain Vigneault has been reading my blog or something.

New ‘Nucks dig old looks

Coach, players excited about retro jerseys for home opener
Elliott Pap
Vancouver Sun
Thursday, October 12, 2006

OLD SCHOOL: The Canucks will wear their vintage uniforms for Friday’s home opener but if head coach Alain Vigneault had his way, he’d order them up more often.

The Canucks are scheduled to skate in the old duds 15 times this season. Vigneault loves everything about them right down to the stick-in-empty-rink logo.

“It’s a beautiful colour and a beautiful sweater and I prefer this one,” Vigneault said Wednesday. “I gave my opinion to Dave Nonis [Canucks GM] and I’m sharing it with you. I don’t know if I should, but I am anyway. For me, the Canucks’ old sweater is what it’s all about.”

Goalie Roberto Luongo has come well prepared for vintage night, too, and was practising Wednesday in vintage coloured pads, gloves and mask

“I love them, I think they’re great,” said the Italian stallion. “I like vintage jerseys in any sport so it’s fun to wear them. The old logo is simple but, at the same time, it’s got a lot of history behind it.”

Former Canuck Anson Carter had the best description for the vintage uniforms, saying they were like “a boutique hotel, simple with not a lot on the walls.” [vancouversun]

I forwarded this over to Alanah over at VCOE and have to agree with her. “Italian stallion”? She said she nearly spit up her coffee when she read that, and I can’t say that I was too far off the mark. Regardless, bring back the old school Canucks jerseys full time!

Additionally, Salo is out for the game this Friday according to the rest of this article. Groin injuries are never good and take a long time to fully heal. I would expect to see Salo bouncing back and forth from this injury all season, especially if it’s bad enough to take him completely out of a game in the second period. Hopefully he’ll make me eat my words.

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There’s no smell or taste in Second Life

To be honest, I’ve never tried Second Life. I did think about it. Even got as far as downloading it for the Mac and installed it. For months it sat on my hard drive, and I finally deleted it.

Create an avatar, a new identity, and a whole other life in Second Life. It’s Sims meets MySpace meets social networking on steroids. That is to say, it’s yet another way for people to sit behind a terminal and communicate with each other from all over the world. Except in the real world, you just sit in front of your computer. In this virtual world, you walk around, teleport, go to parties, meet people, and whatever else some one dreams up. Yes, there is, of course, cybersex as well.

Ok, I don’t know everything that goes on in Second Life, but there is a lot out there to give me insight. When I first heard about it, I was curious and found the idea kinda cool. The fact that this really isn’t a game is where I started to rethink it. Podshow has its own island, Duran Duran is doing something in there, and now Sun Microsystems has joined in the party.

Sun Microsystems knows all four million Java developers worldwide can’t attend its popular JavaOne trade show, but it thinks it might have found the next best thing.

Tuesday, Sun became the first Fortune 500 company to hold an ‘in-world’ press conference to show off its new pavilion in Second Life, the popular 3D online world. Sun said it plans to invest in the Sun Pavilion as a place for developers to try out code, share ideas and receive training.

“Our problem is that every year our largest developer conference (JavaOne) attracts about 22,000 people and we get to meet with them face-to-face for a week,” said Sun’s chief researcher John Gage during the virtual event. He said Sun hopes to reach millions of Java developers in Second Life with training and other support features. [internetnews]

I’ve never been one to be overly concerned if I am missing the boat with all the cool kids, and this is no exception. Sun has done something a little more remarkable with this, but if you really want to get all that you can out of Second Life, then you have to give them your credit card. I guess I’m just the type of person who prefers going out into the real world rather than virtually walking out my front door.

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The power of pancake mix

When you instill the fear of terror in everyone, there is no telling what the effects can be. It can happen anywhere, anytime, and no one is safe. That’s what everyone is told, and some folks believe it to the most extreme. There is always reason to be cautious. Afterall, no one is safe.

“Suspicious” powder in Indianola is pancake mix

REGISTER STAFF WRITER
October 10, 2006

Three plastic bags containing a suspicious powder found in Indianola on Sunday turned out to be pancake mix.

The Des Moines police bomb unit was called out to help investigate the discovery of the three bags, placed at the intersection of East Fourth and Buxton streets.

Inspection procedures found the items were not explosive devices, police said in a report. “Two bags had broken open and contents were strewn onto the pavement. The items appeared to have been thrown.”

Investigators found no witnesses and ultimately determined that there not only was no health threat, there may not have been any criminal intent.  [desmoinesregister]

It’s not the biggest city in the state by any means.  With a small, private college in the area, I would doubt that it would be a high profile target.  Stranger things have happened.

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There needs to be a ban on ignorance

Here we go again.

‘Ban Harry Potter or face more school shootings’

A woman who maintains that the Harry Potter books are an attempt to teach children witchcraft is pushing for the second time to have them banned from school libraries.

Laura Mallory, a mother of four from the Atlanta suburb of Loganville, told a Georgia Board of Education officer that the books by British author J.K. Rowling, sought to indoctrinate children as Wiccans, or practitioners of religious witchcraft.

Referring to the recent rash of deadly assaults at schools, Mallory said books that promote evil – as she claims the Potter ones do – help foster the kind of culture where school shootings happen.

That would not happen if students instead read the Bible, Mallory said. [dailymail]

The article is worth reading the rest of, and so is this one. However, it should go without saying that banning anything is the worst thing that you can do. Banning books from a school library will not solve any situation. The next thing you know, kids will be sneaking away from their parents house to read. Oh the horror!

I was thinking about this a little bit futher today, and there has to be another side to the argument that we’re not getting. My assumption would be that the fact that you can read Harry Potter in the school library and not the Bible would probably be it. Obviously, religious text like that would be banned. Seperation of church and state would stand to reason.

The two publications, in their raw form, are just that. They are books. Their texts take on different meaning across the vast number of societies that make up the world, yet alone a tiny school district in Georgia. Just as you teach a child to read, you can teach a child to help understand that difference between wrong and right, good and bad, selfish and self-less, and so on. No one, and certainly not banning something, will do that any better.

There is also something to be said about stopping at Harry Potter. Do you ban everything by J.R.R. Toilken[wiki]? What about Phillip K. Dick[wiki]? Stephen King[wiki]? Witches and fantasy might lead us down a rabbit hole full of authors that we should wipe from the shelves, simply for telling us stories of the imagination.

When I was 13, I read The Boys From Brazil[wiki]. That freaked me out. Nazis, human cloning, little Hitlers? It was one of those rare book projects for school that I actually recall enjoying, not to mention the amount of times that I shivered from the chills it gave me. Even though the book was of fiction, I still sought to find out if cloning was even possible, which it wasn’t at that time.

And who was this Josef Mengele[wiki] guy that was in this story? There seemed to be more detail there that begged me to find out more, as I have forever been attracted to WWII history. Fact was darker than fiction when I discovered the true tales of that man. The fact is, I was inspired to learn more.

The printed word is a powerful thing. The Bible is a book that society uses to teach a way of life. There are many versions of it. There are also many interpretations of the things written inside. Not everyone takes away the same meaning, nor is it free from violence, corruption, darkness, and tales of evil. Simply saying reading that instead will not solve the problems of gun violence in schools.

I also find it incredibly ironic that a podcast called The Secrets of Harry Potter exists, and that it is created by a catholic priest. As it says on the site, “Fr. Roderick explores themes and symbols in the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling.” According to his podcast, The Daily Breakfast, he breaks down this argument of the books being pure evil and examines the connections to christian themes. Maybe Laura Mallory should subscribe.

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Podcast Ready vs. Apple vs. the telephone game

It’s been interesting to watch this unfold over the past few days. There are some folks that have been waiting for the moment to jump on Apple over everything they are doing within the world of digital media, DRM, copyright, trademarks, and so on. This is no exception.

Apple Computer has slapped Podcast Ready with a “cease and desist” letter, claiming that the terms “Podcast Ready” and “myPodder” infringe Apple’s trademarks, and that they cause confusion among consumers. The company has been cracking down on use of the word “pod” by all sorts of parties, even though its trademark is for the word “iPod.”

Podcast Ready CEO Russel Holliman said he’d consider dropping the name myPodder if he had to, but “Podcast Ready”? If that’s infringement, Apple is claiming that it owns the word “podcast.” Sure, the word originated with the word iPod, but most people now see it as a general term for downloadable audio shows that isn’t affiliated with one brand more than another.

Coincidentally, Apple’s letter arrived the day before Podcast Ready unveiled a new version of its software — one that works with the iPod. [wired]

The full version of this letter to Podcast Ready can be found on their site here. The debate is beginning to subside, and the way it has unfolded opens up a couple of observations.

The majority of folks reporting this took this as Apple making the move to trademark the term “podcast” so that no one can use it without their permission. Upon reading the full text of the letting from Apple’s lawyers, this isn’t exactly what this action is intending to do. However, people jumped on it and began bashing the move without getting the full story. In fact, the words “cease and desist” never appear. That didn’t stop the bloggers and podcasters from slamming Apple’s legal action against Podcast Ready.

Podcast411 released a special, soapbox episode[listen] about this issue, and it digs deep into the issue. In fact, Rob did his research, got a copy of the letter, talked to people at the U.S. Patent Office, and reviews how media organizations poorly reported this news. I had a feeling that there was more to this story, and this appears to be the truth. Adam Curry examined the issue as well on a recent episode of the Daily Source Code[dsc#468] and echoes what Rob said on Podcast 411.

Simply put, Apple is defending their right to what they have legally trademarked. “Podcast” is not under threat, and no one can trademark something that exists in the public doman. That’s like someone trying to get a patent on “television” or “radio”, and there is no way that will happen.

There are some folks that take issue with the word “pod” itself, as Apple claims trademark over it. To that, some say the name for the medium should change. I’m sorry, but “netcasting” is the worst thing I have ever heard. It sounds too similar, in meaning, to streaming. Podcasting is what it has come to be. You’ll be hard pressed to change it now.

The last thing I take issue with is the way that so many reporters took up this story without getting all their facts in check. Wired.com posted a follow up to the story above, with a copy of the letter to Podcast Ready. Not once did they mention anything about getting clarification on the matter by actually seeing a copy of the request from Apple’s legal team. There’s poor journalism going on here.

Regardless, Podcast Ready now has more publicity than it could have ever imagined.

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Dedication of Johnny Carson’s birthplace

When I met Wyn at one of the Metroblogging Vancouver meetups, she mentioned, with a lot of pride, how she puts a little bit of Halifax in everything that she posts, whenever she can. Afterall, it is her home town, and I think that’s what I try to do with a lot of the things that I write about here. If anything, I like to promote information about Iowa that some people might not be unaware of.

Take Johnny Carson[wiki] for instance. He’ll claim that most of his days spent growing up were in Nebraska, but his true place of birth is in the town of Corning, Iowa[wiki]. Yeah, Iowa… Corn… Corning? A historical pun of the sorts, but this is the truth.

Carson birthplace event called off; McMahon ailing

THE REGISTER
September 21, 2006
Thursday’s planned dedication of the Johnny Carson Birthplace in Corning is off, event organizers say, because Carson’s former pal Ed McMahon is unable to attend.

McMahon was to headline the day’s events honoring the memory of Carson, who died last year. The two were together during the three decades Carson hosted NBC’s “Tonight Show.”

“Mr. McMahon called us (Wednesday) night and told us he was ill and unable to fly,” said Beth Wadle of the Adams Community Economic Development Corporation. “He very much wants to be here when we dedicate the birthplace, so we’re holding off until he can reschedule.”

The small house where Carson was born in 1925, was recently purchased by a Corning native who plans to restore it to its original condition.

Carson also lived in Clarinda, Red Oak and Avoca as a child before his family moved to Nebraska. [desmoinesregister]

There are certain things that you have to be proud of, and for many Iowans, this is one of them. While it is true that Carson sat on his throne for nearly thirty years on the west coast, his roots run deep in the midwest. He always spoke with fondness about where he was from, if not making it apart of his jokes. It’s easy to do, and more acceptable when you are one of us.

I think what troubles me are those who move away from Iowa and do everything they can to hide where they are from. Actually, this goes for anyone from anywhere, and I’ve run into this with a vengence. I outted a girl for being from Indiana once, and that happened at the University of Iowa. I don’t think she liked me much prior to that moment, and she certainly hated me after.

It all comes down to stereotypes. Why not be truthful about your roots and defy those things that people already presume that we are? Not having the sense of pride to say where you are truthfully from doesn’t make your lie of where you claim to be any better.

People often ask me where I’m specifically from when I mention being an American. I’m not afraid to tell them where, and it’s rare to have a long conversation with anyone about it. I do live and reside in Vancouver, but you won’t hear me claim it as where I am from.

The fact is that a majority do not know a lot about Iowa other than what they saw in Field of Dreams[imdb].

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Air America having problems paying bills, filing bankruptcy

I had concerns when this network went on the air. The formula was a risky venture, and I can’t say that I’m overly surprised to see this happen.

Think Progress is reporting Air America radio will announce filing for bankruptcy protection on Friday according to three independent sources. The company has experienced financial difficulties throughout its existence, continuing to request infusions of capital and suffering the loss of several high-profile hosts. Five employees were laid off Tuesday without severance.

The network has had several controversies since its inception including a funding scandal involving Evan Cohen. Air America Radio funneled $875,000 dollars from Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club, a not-for-profit, in the form of a “loan” to fund its operations. Due to of the less-than-ethical funding arrangement, Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club has been disbanded. […]

However, the progressive talk radio format did exist with the variety of IndyMedia projects as well as Pacifica Radio. Air America, however, was the first radio that put through an entire slate of radio shows instead of syndicating individual shows. This has largely caused problems with their expansion as it required stations to pick up the entire network for 24 hours a day instead of the most popular shows. [blogcritics]

Everything has to start somewhere, and this makes the network ripe for the picking in terms of a buy out of some sort. If that were to happen, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some things change.

At the same time, the content is something that I haven’t paid enough attention to. I’ve read numerous things about people being upset about their programming, and that says something. All press is good press, but presenting alternative views on a liberial or left wing radio program in a conservative, right wing controlled nation is a delicate task.

There’s always good and not so good ways to do things, and it’s the same way that I feel about political campaigns. Attacking the other side will never work. Education and strong, valid arguments will always be better, in my opinion, than some one yelling slander into a microphone.

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The press and emergency services in B.C.

I am consistantly impressed with the way that the press interacts with emergency services in British Columbia, and the same can be true about the rest of Canada.  Sitting here and watching the news coverage of the recent shootings in Montreal, the amount of information coming from the police, in near real time, is really interesting compared to the news coverage I am used to in the U.S.

First off, I should say that my heart goes out to those people affected by this.  Regardless of who or why, things like these are shocking and scary.  While the CBC was covering this, I had sirens going off all around the west end.  Kinda spooky.

The media seems to be included on these events as they unfold, at least for the most part.  I so often see the morning news where there was a fire the night before.  While there are still firemen putting out the flames in the background, someone is talking to the camera, giving an update as to what happened, possible causes, and preliminary info about people affected.

What I’m used to back in the states is official statements that get released to the press or press conferences that happen hours, if not days, after the fact.  That gets printed up in the papers or some person with overly perfect hair tells you the facts on TV.  In between that time, everything is uncomfirmed and speculation.  You get some of that here, but the involvement of people on the scene is much higher.  It’s not some guy, outside of the whole situation, who has the job to collect the information and report it to the press.

It impresses me.  Maybe there is more confidence in the whole spectrum of distributing information, meaning the people on the scene, the media, and the person taking in the news, in Canada.  There is a lot more scrutiny in American media, always making sure that the right people are saying the right things at the right time.

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Vancouver could do Wi-Fi better

I’m surprised that there isn’t city-wide Wi-FI already established in Vancouver. I could stand to never have the need to hunker down in a cafe and avoid people trying to peak over my shoulder. It’s a pity that Toronto will have this before we do on the west coast.

Toronto Hydro rolled out the city’s free Wi-Fi – or wireless Internet access – Wednesday morning. The service will be free for six months – and will allow people wireless access to the World Wide Web throughout the downtown rather than solely at pre-existing Wi-Fi hotspots, generally cafes and restaurants.

The project is the largest of its kind in North America, and Mayor David Miller is enthusiastic it’ll be successful.

The signal will be available from Jarvis St. in the east to Spadina Ave. in the west, and from Front St. to the south, north as far as Bloor St. Customers will also be able to make phone calls over the Internet and, in time, watch video. [citynews]

Being such the tech friendly city that Vancouver is, there is probably talk that I’m not aware of. Still, everything I have experienced up to this point, in terms of the tech community that exists in this city, tells me that a Wi-Fi setup like the one going up in Toronto could be dwarfed by one setup in Vancouver.

A good friend of mine from college, Andy Stoll, was apart of a non-profit group trying to setup something like this in the “technology corridor” of eastern Iowa(the area between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City) I’m not too sure how well the operation is going, but the initative was pretty bold. cFree Wireless Network still exists, but I can’t say anything about the network itself.

With the amount of high rises that populate downtown Vancouver, one would think that this could be easily done. You just have to get past the asethetics police and those that feel the frequencies used to transmit wireless signals don’t cause tumors to grow all over your body.