Polyurethane is an extremely resilient substance.
It's used in thousands of applications across dozens of industries.
Its mechanical properties make it easily manipulated through chemistry.
Polyurethane is also used as an industrial coating for various surfaces. And it's very beneficial to several industries.
But what are the benefits of a Polyurethane coating? Let's dig in and find out.
Polymers are long, repeating chains of smaller molecules called monomers.
To manufacture this polymer, you have to combine two compounds. Diisocyanate and diol.
This resultant material is nearly indestructible. It can be smashed, scratched, and stretched without much result.
It comes in three forms: liquid, solid, or foam.
Each has its use in different applications across a variety of industries.
There are several categories of polyurethane. Each with a unique use.
Named for its elastic quality, elastomers also maintain a rigid form.
You'll find this in wheels for dollies and other carts that must take on a lot of weight.
It's useful because it can take the pressure, deform, and then return to its original shape quickly.
This plastic looks a lot like other plastics. They are smooth and rigid. They also feature a sealed surface impervious to water.
It's a plastic used in applications where durability and strength are needed.
This is a viscous form of polyurethane used to coat steel or concrete and other metals.
It's a thermosetting resin that sets and turns into a durable solid when your apply heat.
And it's the primary reason why we're here today.
What Is Polyurethane Coating Used For?
We know that polyurethane coating is a useful substance only if we know what it's used for.
Let's take a quick look at the different applications for this durable coating.
At 26% of the market share for polyurethane products, the building and construction industry is the most popular place where polyurethane coatings are used.
Since polyurethane is great for preventing corrosion and make materials more durable, the construction industry coats a lot of their surfaces with this coating.
A lot of floors, steel supports, and concrete supports are sprayed with polyurethane coating. This makes them stronger and less susceptible to rust.
It's also a great way to make buildings look aesthetically pleasing.
While the coating that we put on furniture may not be the industrial strength coating found on buildings, it's still an effective coating.
Most furniture coatings are either water or oil based.
Water-based is the most popular furniture coating.
It's a low odor and low toxicity solution. And it's a clear coating, unlike oil based versions.
Water-based also dries a lot faster than oil, making it a great choice for when you don't have much time.
Because it's a thin solution, water-based polyurethane coatings do not stand up well to heat and chemicals.
Oil-based coatings are more durable. They stand up to heat better. It will change the color of the wood slightly.
And you can apply them both with a simple roller.
If you are coating your furniture yourself, make sure you use a mask as the fumes are toxic.
Again, not industrial in nature, but a cousin of the industrial coating, textile polyurethane coating is meant to make clothes water resistant.
You'll find it on outdoor clothes, swimsuits, diapers, and shower curtains.
The use of polyurethane in vehicles is widespread.
From scratch resistant paint on cars to coatings on windshields to make their surfaces stronger, polyurethane is a popular material in the transportation industry.
But it's of particular interest right now, because of the advancements being made in polyurethane coatings for transportation.
Scientists have been working on self-healing polyurethane for a while.
And it seems they've made a breakthrough.
They've combined polyurethane with a water resistant molecule called "F-POSS."
It's of particular interest to the marine industry.
One of the biggest problems with boats is the coating. It eventually scratches and abraids and has to be replaced.
If the coating isn't replaced, it creates drag on the boat. And the drag increases fuel consumption.
The claim for this new polyurethane coating is that it could reduce the fuel consumption of large vessels.
Electronics are sensitive to atmospheric changes. They can easily be compromised by water corrosion in a matter of seconds.
Polyurethane coating can stop the damage from moisture and other influences in the environment.
It's used to protect sensitive electronics such as motherboards in computers.
The only downside to coating a component in polyurethane is the inability to repair what's under the coating.
If something goes wrong with the component, it must be replaced rather than repaired.
What Are The Benefits Of Using Polyurethane Coating?
As you can see there are many uses for polyurethane.
And its benefits are just as numerous.
There is a clear benefit when using it in a construction application.
If you apply it to floors or any structure, it adds durability. A wall or a floor will last years longer than it would otherwise.
It seals the structure against chemicals. Chemicals can seep into concrete or destroy steel. Polyurethanes won't bend to these attacks.
Polyurethane won't scratch as easily as most surfaces.
It's a flexible material, so it won't crack or flake.
It's waterproof. And it's used in multi-level car garages and ice houses to keep moisture from destroying the structure.
Water will just roll right off the surface of polyurethane and it helps in drainage situations.
It bonds thoroughly to the surface of whatever you apply it to. It won't allow bubbles or loose areas to form between it and the surface.
The advantages of polyurethane are clear in so many industries and applications. It's definitely a wonder substance.
If you are interested in polyurethane coatings or any other kind of industrial coating, contact us and we'll help you out.


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Will a discount auto insurance company have my back?
Can I depend on a discount auto insurance company?
Many people who consider purchasing discount auto insurance wonder if a cheaper auto insurance company will have their back in case they need to file a claim.
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Try our FREE online quote tool to find discount companies that offer the coverage you need. Enter your ZIP code below and compare at least three to four policies today!
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One of Geico's marketing strategies is to convince auto insurance companies to compare Geico rates to the customer's current auto insurance company's rates.
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One way to research auto insurance companies before you purchase a policy is to examine customer satisfaction surveys, such as those conducted by JD Power and Associates.
JD Power and Associates is a well-respected market research firm that evaluates many types of companies, including auto insurance carriers.
JD Power and Associates conducts market research studies that are unbiased and scientific. Many companies, including auto insurance companies, seek to be high on the JD Powers Best lists.
Not only does being ranked high by the agency make a statement about how customers view the company, but a high ranking is also a great marketing tool for those highly rated companies.
In addition to scientific market research studies, many company review sites allow customers to post reviews about various companies, including auto insurance providers.
The best way to find out if a discount auto insurance company will have your back in case you need to file a claim is to thoroughly research the company before purchasing a car insurance policy.
Of course, you will never know for sure unless or until you need to file a claim.
Should the unforeseen happen, and you need to file a claim with your discount auto insurance provider, you will know right away if they have your back.
You should periodically review your rates and customer service and switch auto insurance companies if needed.
Hopefully, enough research before purchasing your policy in combination with selecting a reputable discount auto insurance provider will ensure that you are well-taken care of in case of an accident or if you are the victim of auto theft.
The Better Business Bureau provides a database that allows users to search for a company in their area.
The Better Business Bureau gives the user the chance to examine not only an auto company, but also the particular agents and offices in their area.
Navigate to the site and type "auto insurance" and your City and State into the Search box. A list of car insurance agents in your geographical area is then revealed.
Click on the entry for each office to read the reviews about that office or location.
Created in 1999, Epinions.com is one of the most established and reputable customer review sites.
Search for the auto insurance company you wish to review on the site and read what customers are saying about the company.
The-Top-Tens.com researches companies — including car insurance providers — and then lists customer reviews for the Top Ten.
The Top Tens is a great site for finding the best of the best for any company.
ViewPoints.com is a newer customer review site, but one of the distinguishing factors about this site is that the moderators use customer reviews to rank companies.
Find useful customer reviews, as well as company rankings with this site.
Once you have researched the various discount auto insurance companies and their customer service, shop around for the best policies and rates between these companies.
Even though you are considering discount auto insurance companies, don't forget as well that cost is not the only factor. You should also consider what type(s) of coverage you actually need.
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text:
Q: Find eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a matrix $\begin{pmatrix} 2 & 12 \\ 2 & -3 \end{pmatrix} \textbf{v} = k \textbf{v}.$
For what values of $k$ which are real there exists a 2-vector $v$ satisfying the above equation?
How do I start this problem? Should I just let $n=\binom{a}{b}$ and plug it in?
Thanks!

A: For a matrix $A$ if $Av=kv$ for $v$ a non zero vector then $k$ is an eigenvalue of $A$ and $v$ an eigenvector.
$$
\begin{pmatrix} 2 & 12 \\ 2 & -3 \end{pmatrix} \begin{pmatrix} v_1 \\ v_2 \end{pmatrix} = \begin{pmatrix}2v_1+12v_2 \\ 2v_1-3v_2 \end{pmatrix}
$$
So we want:
$$
2v_1+12v_2=kv_1\\
2v_1-3v_2=kv_2
$$
This system is equivalent to the following:
$$
(2-k)v_1+12v_2=0\\
2v_1+(-3-k)v_2=0
$$
which corresponds to:
$$
\begin{pmatrix} 2-k & 12 \\ 2 & -3-k \end{pmatrix} \begin{pmatrix} v_1 \\ v_2 \end{pmatrix} = \begin{pmatrix}0 \\0 \end{pmatrix}
$$
This systems has a non trivial solution $v=(v_1,v_2)$ when the determinant of the matrix is $0$, namely when:
$$
(2-k)(-3-k)-24=0 \Leftrightarrow k^2+k-30=0 \Leftrightarrow (k+6)(k-5)=0 \Leftrightarrow k=-6, \quad k=5
$$
For each of these values of $k$ you can find $v\neq (0,0)$ that satisfy the above equations.
Can you find such $v$'s for each of these $k$'s? If not, I can elaborate further.

A: Let's try doing it via elementary means. Using your notation, we have the system:
\begin{align}
\tag{1}\label{eq1}2a+12b &= k \cdot a\\
\tag{2}\label{eq2}2a-3b &= k\cdot b
\end{align}
With $\eqref{eq1}$, we find that $(k-2)a=12b$ $\,\,(*)$.
Multiplying both sides of $\eqref{eq2}$ by $12$, we get $24a-3\cdot 12b=k\cdot12b$. We now substitute $(*)$ into this equation, obtaining
$$24a-3(k-2)a=k(k-2)a$$
which we may rearrange to obtain $$(k^2+k-30)\cdot a = 0$$
This implies that either $a=0$, $k=5$ or $k=-6$.
We see via $(*)$ that $a=0$ implies $b=0$, and then any $k$ will do. These are the trivial solutions.

Now, suppose $k=5$. Then we get from $(*)$ that
$$3a=12b \iff a=4b$$
So we get a family of solutions $n=(4t,t)$ and $k=5$. For instance, $n=(4,1)$ and $k=5$ is a solution.

Now, suppose $k=-6$. Then we get from $(*)$ that
$$-8a=12b \iff -2a=3b$$
So we get a family of solutions $n=(-3t,2t)$ and $k=-6$. For instance, $n=(-3,2)$ and $k=-6$ is a solution.

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text:
"Tristram Shandy" Book Club - Part 1 of 2
Saturday mornings, 10 am to noon PST, Jan 7 - Feb 11, 2023
at Virtual
Choose your own price
This early-bird-special price expires November 24.
$141.48 with fees
This is full admission for the first half of the 3-month class, without making a contribution to the financial assistance fund.
This is full admission for the first half of the 3-month class plus a $50 contribution to the financial assistance fund.
This is full admission for the first half of the 3-month class plus a $100 contribution to the financial assistance fund.
This is the first half of the Tristram Shandy book club, for anyone who would like to pay in installments.
This event is part of Quarantine Book Club: "Tristram Shandy" by Laurence Sterne. Click here to purchase series passes or see more events.
Saturday mornings, 10 am-noon Pacific, Jan 7-April 1, 2023
Quarantine Book Club: "Tristram Shandy" by Laurence Sterne
Saturday mornings, 10 am to noon PST, Feb 18 - April 1, 2023

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text:
Mama Told Me Not to Come
I was looking for something to write about for the week between Thanksgiving and the beginning of the Christmas season, which I still think of as 1 December. (I've mentioned before that I have two adult children whose birthday is 30 November. I promised them when they were kids that I wouldn't start Christmas decorating until after their birthday. They are twins.)
Keeping in mind the birthdays at the end of the month, (I also have a student with a birthday toward the end on November.) I started looking at celebrity birthdays, and I found it! Randy Newman turns 70 on 28 November. Yup, Randy Newman.
Randy Newman's Awards
Randy Newman is a singer/songwriter. What has he written? Everything.He is probably best known for Short People and the scores for the Toy Story movies as well as the Princess and the Frog. He has written for dozens of Disney/Pixar movies, and was proclaimed a Disney Legend in 2007. Until 2001, he held the record for most Oscar nominations with no wins and 15 nominations. He broke his losing streak that year with"If I Didn't Have You" from Monsters, Inc, beating out even Paul McCartney! To date, he has been nominated 20 times for Best Score or Best Original Song with 2 wins; the other win was for "We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3. He's won 3 Emmys and 7 Grammys. In 2002, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and in 2013, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Randy Newman's Music and "Mama Told me Not to Come"
When I decided to write about Newman, "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" was one of the songs I considered highlighting. Then, in my research, I found out that as a young songwriter, he had sold ALL the rights to the song. This means that even though it is possibly his most covered song, he gets nothing in royalties. Nada. Zilch. So, I decided not to write about that song.
Randy Newman always knew he was going to go into music. While his father was a doctor, he had three uncles: Alfred, Lionel and Emil, all famous soundtrack composers with 10 Oscars between them. For him, going to the piano is like going to work. He sits down and writes music.
Many song writers talk about how their music is autobiographical. Newman is not one of those writers. He likes to take on a character and write from that point of view. Many of his songs are satirical: Short People's "I Love L.A." for example. The song that I'm going to highlight is his first big hit. Not that it was a hit when he recorded it. It wasn't even a hit for any of the subsequent first versions recorded by anyone else. Nope. It was the second of many, many versions that became a hit:
Want some whiskey in your water? Sugar in your tea?
What's all these crazy questions they're askin' me?
This is the craziest party that could ever be.
Don't turn on the lights 'cause I don't wanna see.
"That ain't the way to have fun, no"
Open up your window, let some air into this room,
I think I'm almost chokin' from the smell of stale perfume.
And that cigarette you're smokin' 'bout scare me half to death.
Open up the window, sucker, let me catch my breath.
"That ain't the way to have fun, son"
The radio is blastin', someone's knockin' at the door.
I'm lookin' at my girlfriend, she's passed out on the floor.
I seen so many things I ain't never seen before,
Don't know what it is, I don't want to see no more.
She said, "That ain't the way to have fun, son"
Mama told me, mama told me
Mama told me, told me, told me
Mama told me, told me, ooh, yeah, yeah
Mama told me not to go
Ain't that the truth
Newman is writing from the point of view of "a guy going to a party, and he's a little scared." There are a few drug references here. Whiskey. (Yes, alcohol is a drug.) "Sugar in your tea" is probably an LSD reference—drops of the drug would be placed on sugar cubes. The cigarette may be a joint.
The first recorded version was in 1966 by Eric Burdon of the Animals of House of the Rising Sun fame. The album, Here Is Eric, was his first solo outing even though it is credited to Eric Burdon and the Animals—his backing band was not the Animals, but The Horace Ott and Benny Golson Orchestras. (Maybe that explains the odd harpsichord opening.) There are actually three Randy Newman songs on the album: "Mama Told Me Not to Come," "I Think It's Gonna Rain Today," and "Wait Till Next Year." I guess that Burdon started the trend of ignoring the actual music in this song. He tends to speak the verses with the instruments playing the chords behind him. He even makes the chorus his own: going up when the music has him going down, that type of thing.
When Three Dog Night got the song, they took it to Number 1 in 1970. The other members of the band were not in favor of recording the song, but Cory Wells, who sings lead on the song, pushed for it. Cory liked to claim that this was the first ever rap song. It was included in their 4thalbum, It Ain't Easy, and includes two songs by Newman, "Mama Told Me," and "Cowboy." This album also includes "Your Song," by Elton John and Bernie Taupin.
Three Dog Night was an interesting band. I always loved their sound. Though highly polished, their music still had an almost garage-band energy to it. Toto, for example, is so polished that there isn't a rough edge anywhere. Not a lot of energy, either.
Breaking Down "Mama Told Me Not to Come" and Its Iterations
Listening to the myriad version of this song and looking at the sheet music, (of course I have the music for it!) I have discovered a few things. First off, let's talk about the rhythms that Newman uses. They are weird. Randy Newman loves to utilize the off-beats. If you are tapping your foot in time to the music, a lot of music will have important words falling on the beat (when your foot is touching the floor). Newman likes the up-beat. That is when your foot is at the top, just getting ready to descend back to the floor. This can make things sound a little off kilter, which in this song works really well.
1970 was a busy year for "Mama Told Me Not to Come." Not only did Three Dog Night make a hit of the song, but several other versions came out that year. The Jackson Five (featuring a very young Michael Jackson) recorded it. Let me just say that is three minutes and 10 seconds that I will never get back.
Paul Frees recorded an odd version with The Animals backing him up. (Presumably without Eric Burdon!) Paul Frees was a voice-over artist. Along with Mel Blanc, he was the Man of a Thousand Voices (think of the Rankin/Bass Christmas and Easter cartoons). He voiced numerous characters in them, as well as just about every cartoon in the 1960s through the 1980s. I was surprised to discover some other voices he did in the course of a long career. In the 1959 classic movie, Some Like It Hot, Frees supplied much of the falsetto voice for Tony Curtis when his character was portraying a woman. In Humphrey Bogart's last film, The Harder They Fall, Bogart's voice was suffering. He would later be diagnosed with esophageal cancer. So, Frees was called in to dub some of Bogart's lines. Wow. Anyway, in 1970, he recorded an interesting version as W.C. Fields. Unlike a lot of the versions, this is less of a cover and adds some funny bits to an already fun song.
That same year, Randy Newman recorded his own song. You have to get past his voice to enjoy it. Perhaps his voice is an acquired taste. I have not acquired it. But, he does follow his own music, unlike just about everyone else. Although, with the way he sings, it is a bit hard to tell that he's singing and not talking. Coming in at two minutes and one second, this is also one of the shortest versions of the song. It's just Newman and a piano. This is his preferred style of performance.
There are a lot of versions of this song! I'm going to jump ahead to 1998 and Lou Rawls. Rawls sang the songs for the early Garfield specials, if that helps you to figure out who he was. He did so much more. His version of the song is quite different from the others. He sings the verses, but much more smoothly than Newman does. It has a slight R&B slant to it. I think it's a little bland, but that's my taste.
A couple of years after Lou Rawls, in 2000, Tom Jones collaborated with the Welsh group The Stereophonics on a cover of the Three Dog Night version of our song.
Tom Jones has been around forever, it seems. He started in the early 1960s and at 78 is still performing. He said in an interview a few years ago, that women still throw their panties on the stage, it's just that now the panties are a bit bigger. According to Tim Burton's Mars Attacks, after civilization is destroyed, Tom Jones will be left still singing, performing for the surviving animals.
In 2006, Yo La Tengo, aka YLT, an American indie band, did a great version of our song from their album Yo La Tengo is Murdering the Classics. This album is especially interesting because it is made up of covers that were part of a charity fundraiser. The station, WFMU, ran an annual fundraiser, and YLT would come. People could call in and for a pledge, YLT would attempt to play any song that was requested. The album is their more successful covers from an eight-year span. They add in bits and pieces from another Three Dog Night song: "One Is the Loneliest Number." It's another fun take on the song.
Three Dog Night's version has been in three different movies: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, G.I. Jane, and The Sweetest Thing. It was sung by members of the cast in the 2015 movie Joy. That version gives us a Latin feel with the instrumentation. It's really cool.
Just this past August, Randy Newman took to the stage of the Hollywood Bowl, and with the full orchestra behind him performed songs from his 50 years of composing. "Mama Told Me Not to Come" was in the playlist. Conducting the orchestra was his cousin, David Newman. Music does seem to run in that family. Kind of like the Force.
Why, after all this time are people still singing this song? It could be considered something of a novelty song, but I think that it hits a chord in all of us. Who hasn't gone somewhere, possibly a party, and felt completely out of their depth? I don't think anyone is so cool that they haven't felt out of place at least once. I think the reason the drug references are so oblique is because that may not be the only reason for feeling out of place, for realizing that Mama told you not to go.
I'll be posting some versions of this song every day on my Minnich Music Facebook page, so visit there to hear them! If you have any stories about "Mama Told Me Not to Come," or favorite versions, let me know in the comments section, I'd love to hear from you.
I'll be posting roughly once a week with a new song. I'm trying to make the songs seasonal, but I can make exceptions. So, if there's a song that you'd like some background on, or questions about what it means, let me know.
Alice's Restaurant
"Alice's Restaurant" is a changeable song. The original version, which is the one I'm going to focus on, was the title track of Arlo Guthrie's first album. It tells the story of Arlo getting arrested for littering on Thanksgiving Day in 1965 and later being declared too immoral to be drafted because of his littering conviction.
Arlo Guthrie
Guthrie is a consummate story teller. I think it runs in his blood. The son of Woody Guthrie, he grew up surrounded by the folk music scene. Who is Woody Guthrie, you ask? Whoo boy. I barely know where to start. Woody Guthrie was a major influence for Bruce Springsteen and Nobel Laureate (I love saying that!) Bob Dylanto name just two in a very, very long list. Possibly his most well-known song is "This Land Is Your Land," which he wrote because he was sick of hearing Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" on the radio.
Anyway, that was Arlo's dad. Arlo was himself also very influential in the folk music, counter-culture scene of the 1960s. He was just 18 when the story that became Alice's Restaurant Massacree began.
Behind the Song
Normally, I would give you the lyrics of the song in the course of this blog. Today, I won't. The song runs a whopping 18 minutes and 34 seconds. Guthrie likes to say that this is the same length of the missing Watergate tapes. Coincidence?
Apparently, the word Massacree that Arlo uses in the title, is a word used in the Ozark mountains. It describes "an event so wildly and improbably and baroquely messed up that the results are almost impossible to believe." It is a corruption of the word massacre (itself of French origin, possibly from the now nearly extinct Missouri French dialect) but carries a much lighter and more sarcastic connotation, never being used to describe anything involving actual death.
Anyway, while some things have been embellished for dramatic effect, the story that he tells is true. It begins on Thanksgiving Day in 1965. Arlo and a friend, Richard, were having dinner with Alice and Ray. Alice owned a restaurant, although it was not open that day. They were living in an old church and had a lot of garbage around. Arlo and Richard volunteered to clean it up and take the load to the dump. Unfortunately, the dump was not open on Thanksgiving. So, they found a place nearby and dumped the stuff. Also, unfortunately, it was private property. The gentleman called the local police who then had to go through everything to try and discover whose trash it was. They found an envelope with Ray's name on it. Not long after, Arlo was arrested for littering.
A court date was set, and the arresting officer had a set of carefully detailed pictures showing the scene of the crime. When the judge came in with a seeing-eye dog, the officer knew that all the work that had gone into the pictures had been a colossal waste of time. Arlo was tasked with cleaning up the mess.
Time passes. How much? No idea. The Vietnam War is in full swing, and Arlo is called up by the draft. He goes to the draft board hungover, hoping that would make him look too sickly to go. No help. He goes to the appointed psychiatrist and tells them how much he wants to kill people. They tell him that he is just the type of person that they are looking for and pass him along to the next office.
This is where things come to a screeching halt: his criminal record is discovered. It had never occurred to him that an arrest for littering could prevent him from going to Vietnam. But this apparently proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he was too immoral to go and fight in the war.
Does the song really have anything to do with Alice's Restaurant? Nope. Does Alice really have that much to do with the song? Nope. But the chorus makes for nice bumpers to the anti-stupidity story that he tells. Originally, the opening line of the chorus was "You can hide from Obenhein at Alice's Restaurant." Obenhein was the Officer Obie in the story—the arresting officer.
A few years after the song came out, there was a movie of the same name. I've seen it. It is not terribly memorable. But I do remember seeing it, which puts it ahead of a lot of movies that I've seen but do not remember. (Often someone will mention a movie, and I'll say that we should see it as my husband shakes his head and tells me that we already have.)
Arlo and the Song Now
As the years have passed, Arlo has come out with new versions of the song for different occasions. Since this is more a story than a song, he can put almost anything in there, so long as he keeps the chorus the same. He stopped performing it live first in the 1970s. Then he began performing it on anniversary years. In 2015, he toured performing the song for it's 50thanniversary. At the moment, he has no plans for a 60thanniversary tour—not sure he'll still be around or able to play come 2025.
I'll be posting some versions of this song every day on my Minnich Music Facebook page, so visit there to hear them! If you have any stories about "Alice's Restaurant," or favorite versions, let me know in the comments section, I'd love to hear from you.
Why are there so few Thanksgiving songs?
We have a lot of songs that are suitable for Halloween: "Monster Mash," "Purple People Eater," "Season of the Witch," anything from Rocky Horror and Little Shop of Horrors, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," and of course, "Thriller." Those are just a few from off the top of my head. I stopped because I didn't want to overburden my point.
And do we even need to mention the thousands of Christmas songs? Even if you decide to only do secular holiday music, there are still hundreds of choices.
But, Thanksgiving. . . hmm. . . "Over the River and Through the Woods." Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant." Yes, "Alice's Restaurant." It starts on Thanksgiving. I can pull out a few songs that are sacred: "All Good Gifts" from Godspell, "Give Thanks," "We Gather Together," "Come Ye Thankful People," "Come." I know that there are a few others; a quick search pulls up "Thanksgiving Song," and "Thanksgiving Prayer." But, there really aren't that many.
It used to be that Thanksgiving was a big deal, with a full week off from school, decorations—the whole shebang. And the end of the Macy's Thanksgiving parade was the beginning of the Christmas season. Now, the schools in my area get 3 days off. Decorations are spare, and the Christmas season is starting earlier and earlier. There is a radio station that starts playing nothing but Christmas music on 1 November! I know people who put up their tree the same day that station starts up. Where is the space for Thanksgiving in the midst of all that?
I even feel the pressure. Years ago, I promised my older kids, who happen to be twins, that I would not put up the Christmas décor until after their birthday, which is 30 November. Even though they are adults and not living with me anymore, I still feel bound by that promise. But, I have students who come in looking for the Christmas stuff right after Thanksgiving. My compromise is to put the tree up right after Thanksgiving, but I wait to put the decorations on it until 1 December. The cats need time to adjust to the tree anyway.
Of course, just like Columbus Day is now becoming Indigenous Peoples' Day, there is a movement to do away with Thanksgiving. Most of what we learned about it in school is just plain wrong. There probably was a cross-cultural harvest feast, but who was there and what was eaten are more than likely far different from what we were taught. There are some who are calling for a national Day of Atonement for what we Europeans did to the Native populations. While I can't say that I blame them, I doubt that Thanksgiving is going anywhere anytime soon. Can't you just hear the complaints about the "War on Thanksgiving?"
But, this still doesn't address the dearth of Thanksgiving Day music. I'm looking for songs that revel in the food and the family fights. We are fortunate, in that in the immediate family, we are all on the same political spectrum, but I have friends for whom the day is fraught with peril.
What is your favorite Thanksgiving song? I will admit, I am torn between "All Good Gifts" from Godspelland "Alice's Restaurant." Let me know what songs make your mouth water in anticipation.
Recuerdame or Remember Me
Dia de los Muertos was just last week. I live in New Mexico, so this is an important part of the local scene. A few months ago, I saw the Disney/Pixar movie, Coco, which is about a Day of the Dead celebration. Sugar skulls and that type of decoration are becoming popular, but not everyone knows what they are really for. To many, this is a high holy day. The song Remember Mefrom Cocoreally shows the true intent of the day. Although, saying 'day' is a bit of a misnomer, as the celebration takes up several days.
First off, let's talk about the Dias de los Muertos. November 1 is called Día de los Inocentes ("Day of the Innocents") and Día de los Angelitos ("Day of the Little Angels"). This is dedicated to the souls of children who have died. November 2 is the Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead and is dedicated to the adults who have died. Families make and decorate altars to the souls of their loved ones that include flowers and candles as well as the favorite foods and drinks of the dead. They gather together and tell stories about their loved ones and say prayers for their souls. I know to many this may sound morbid, but the celebration is a happy one. Often the graves are visited and decorated.
If you haven't seen the movie Coco, you really should. It is such a beautiful movie. The explanation of Dias de los Muertos is touching and happy at the same time. I do warn you, there will be tears. Lots of them. There will be spoilers in this blog. Also, if you follow the links to the different versions of the song, there will be tears. At least three hankies are needed, so read at your own risk!
The song, Remember Me, comes into the story in three ways. It is a lullaby that a father sings to his young daughter when he has to go away for work. It is a grand Hollywood spectacular, and it is a song that a boy sings to reconnect with his great-grandmother who suffers from dementia. (And an argument could be made for a fourth version, the duet over the closing credits, which has more of a pop feel.)
The song writers, the husband-wife team of Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, were very aware of the requirements of the song. They studied Mexican music to learn how Mariachi/Rancherasongs were composed. And they also looked at some of the greatest ballads out there, keeping Yesterday by Paul McCartney in mind. The song's Wikipedia page says that: "The song seems to be inspired from Chopin's "Raindrop" Prelude, Op 28, No. 15." (I'm already not thrilled with this statement. It should read "inspired BY" not "inspired FROM.") But, just to check, I listened to both and looked at the sheet music for both. I can sort of see where the author of the article was coming from… if I squint just right. The opening phrase "Remember me" is very close to a recurring phrase in the Prelude, but that was about all I could find. I will admit, I did not examine the chord structure of the Chopin very closely. It's a dense piece, and my mind quickly boggled.
Let's look at the four versions of the song, starting with the lullaby:
Remember me, though I have to say goodbye.
Remember me, don't let it make you cry.
For even if I'm far away, I hold you in my heart.
I sing a secret song to you each night we are apart.
Remember me, though I have to travel far.
Remember me, each time you hear a sad guitar,
Know that I'm with you the only way that I can be,
Until you're in my arms again, remember me
The character Hector sings this song to his little girl, Coco, when he has to leave her to go on the road. Such is the life of a professional musician. Kristen Anderson-Lopez said in an interview that the line about singing a secret songhas a particular meaning to her. She and her daughters have all sorts of secret songs that they sing, that only they know about. She sings them when she misses her girls while she is across the country working. This version made me cry thinking about my own deceased father and the bond that we shared as well as the secret songs that my now-grown kids and I shared. (First hankie moment.)
Then we have the grand Hollywood musical moment. This is sung by Ernesto do la Cruz, a larger-than-life (or larger-than-death!) Mexican movie star. He takes the same lyrics and turns them on their respective heads. I sing a secret song to you each night we are apart. In this version those words become filled with double entendre. And instead of a soft, tender ending, we are treated to bombastic high notes.
The Importance of Softness
One of the hardest things for young singers to realize is the importance of softness. And I say this as someone who always wanted higher and louder when I was younger. But, eventually, I learned that higher is not necessarily better. And if everything is loud, it begins to be like hitting the audience over the head with a sledgehammer. With this version of the song, the poignancy of the lyrics is lost. I'm not saying that it's bad, I'm just saying that it is very different, which was the whole point.
The last version in the movie proper comes at the end when Miguel sings it to his great-grandmother who has dementia. As he sings softly to her, strumming his guitar, (and let me say, I was impressed with the guitar-playing animation! He changed chords! They may even have been right) she begins to tap along with the rhythm. And by the end, she is singing along with Miguel.
Music has been shown to aid Alzheimer and dementia patients. It can help with memory and mood. Many studies have suggested learning a musical instrument as a way to boost brain power in the elderly. So, for Coco to respond to the song that her Papa used to sing to her is completely believable. (It was also the second hankie moment.)
Then we have the pop version that comes over the closing credits. This is a lovely duet that gives us the lyrics in English and Spanish. It is very up-beat and danceable. We also get more lyrics than the earlier versions of the song:
Remember me, though I have to say goodbye
Remember me, don't let it make you cry
For even if I'm far away, I hold you in my heart
I sing a secret song to you each night we are apart
Remember me, though I have to travel far
Remember me, each time you hear a sad guitar
Know that I'm with you the only way that I can be
Que nuestra canción no deje de latir
Sólo con tu amor yo puedo existir
Recuérdame, si en tu mente vivo estoy
Recuérdame, mis sueños yo te doy
Te llevo en mi corazón y te acompañaré
Unidos en nuestra canción, contigo ahí estaré
Recuérdame, si sola crees estar
Recuérdame, y mi cantar te irá a abrazar
Aún en la distancia nunca vayas a olvidar
Que yo contigo siempre voy, recuérdame
If you close your eyes and let the music play
Keep our love alive, I'll never fade away
Remember me, for I will soon be gone
Remember me, and let the love we have live on
And know that I'm with you the only way that I can be
So, until you're in my arms again, remember me
The movie Coco has been praised for its depiction of Mexican culture. (Although Disney tried to trademarkthe words Dia de los Muertos, they withdrew the request after the huge public backlash.) And the movie has been used to help young children understand the death of loved ones. In one instance, a little boy was serenading the altar to his deceased baby sister. (Third hankie moment.)
This is a lovely song that has won many awards, including the Oscar for best original song. It has depth and yet is very simple: Remember me.
I'll be posting some versions of this song every day on my Minnich Music Facebook page, so visit there to hear them! If you have any stories about Remember Me, or favorite versions, let me know in the comments section—I'd love to hear from you!
Thanks for reading! Hasta luego!


Property tax reform is among his highest priorities, announced Governor Tom Wolf. During his first budget address on March 3, 2015, Wolf laid out his plan to increase school funding, while reducing the tax burden on homeowners in Pennsylvania. Gov. Wolf's proposal would not eliminate the school property tax, but he believes it will reduce the average homeowner's property tax bill by 50 percent. To do that, the governor proposes imposing a tax on natural gas extraction, as well as an increase in personal income tax and sales tax. Last session, the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors® (PAR) engaged in a campaign to eliminate the school property tax in Pennsylvania. That plan, Senate Bill 76, would have eliminated property taxes dedicated to school districts and replace the funding by raising the personal income tax from 3.07 to 4.34 percent and increasing and broadening the sales tax from 6 to 7 percent to include previously exempted items. Click here for more.
On Feb. 26, 2014, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved new "net neutrality" rules, which gives the Commission strong legal authority to regulate broadband providers more heavily than in the past and restrict their power to control download speeds on the web. The new rules ban Internet providers from blocking or slowing any traffic and from striking deals with content companies, known as paid prioritization, for smoother delivery of traffic to consumers. The new rules are a victory for consumers, and for REALTORS® who embrace technology and online resources to meet the needs of their clients. NAR will continue to work with Congress as it considers net neutrality legislation to ensure that final rules work for REALTORS® and their customers. FindNAR Net Neutrality Resources here.
If you are a REALTOR® and running in the upcoming municipal or county primary, the SRA would like to know. Please contact the Suburban REALTORS Alliance atsra@suburbanrealtorsalliance.com.
The Centennial School District is looking for residents interested in serving on a Comprehensive Planning Steering Committee. The committee will work over the next few months on future student needs, with district Superintendent Joyce Mundy and JoAnn Perotti from the Bucks County Intermediate Unit serving as committee facilitators. Interested residents will be asked to attend a committee meeting on April 15 from 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the board room of the Centennial District Administration Building, 433 Centennial Rd., Warminster, PA. Two additional sessions with an assigned small group committee may also be required. Residents interested in serving should send a letter of interest to Beth Katits at katiel@centennialsd.org by March 11. Click here for the Centennial School District website for more details.
Teva Pharmaceuticals plans to sell its West Rockhill facility to a New Jersey pharmaceutical company in a deal that company officials say will preserve jobs. The sale to G&W Laboratories includes all buildings, land and equipment at the site, where Teva makes more than 50 generic drugs. As part of the deal, G&W will purchase approximately 25 products from Teva's portfolio, which it will make at the site and sell in the U.S. under the G&W label. G&W plans to offer employment to the Teva employees at the site. Teva, an Israeli drug company, announced two years ago it would close the West Rockhill facility by 2017 in an effort to streamline its business and reduce costs worldwide. At the time of the announcement, about 475 people were employed there. The deal is expected to close within the next two months.
Hilltown Township supervisors recently viewed a sketch plan for a mobile home park on the township portion of the former Souderton Area High School property. Proposed by School Lane Development, the sketch plan calls for 74 single-wide mobile homes on the 24 acres of land between County Line Road and Route 309, said Hilltown Township Manager Richard Schnaedter. A mobile home park would be a permitted use on the property, which is in the Planned Commercial zoning district, but no formal plans have been submitted to the township. "They just basically wanted to get the board's comments and feelings before deciding to proceed," Schnaedter said. The board discussed issues with lot size, parking and road widths in the plan.


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Third party content on your own website must be paid for pursuant to Swiss legislation
If you operate a website, you cannot dispose of the copyright of third party contents without authorisation. If you use third party contents on your own website, you require an authorisation from the author pursuant to Swiss legislation in effect, irrespective of the type of the technical integration. SUISA issues licences for the online exploitation of music, including music in videos, and negotiates these case by case. Text by Manu Leuenberger
Pursuant to Swiss law, authors decide on the use of their works on the internet. (Photo: Manu Leuenberger)
Music, lyrics, films, photos or videos bring a website to life. Via the internet, anyone can usually access contents anywhere and at any time. The operator of a website makes content thus available for exploitation outside the domestic/personal sphere.
According to Swiss law in effect, authors have the sole right to decide on the usage of their works. This includes that only the author has the right to "make [his work] available in such a way that persons have access to it from places and at times of their choice". This right is established in the URG (CopA), Article 10 (2) c.
Legally relevant: From where the content is accessible
From the point of view of Swiss copyright, the "making available" is actually authoritative. In other words: The deciding issue in Switzerland is from where "the door is opened" to the content. The door-opening is done via the website where works can be viewed, read or listened to. It's the website that enables the access to the content. Plus it ideally benefits from the attractiveness of the media which can be perceived there.
This function of a door-opener applies specifically to websites which contain embedded content. 'Embedding' means that third party content can be embedded via hotlinking, inline linking or framing, resp. inline frames into your own offering. YouTube, for example, actively provides HTML code for embedding videos apart from the hyperlink for sharing the video on its platform.
Website operators require an authorisation for the exploitation of the work
Irrespective of a technical solution, an exploitation takes place via the making available of works on a website. This exploitation is subject to a duty to pay copyright remuneration pursuant to Swiss law. In other words: The authors need to provide their authorisation for the use of their works in the form of a licence and are due a remuneration for the usage.
The website operator must obtain the licence in the case of work usages on the internet, or more specifically: the owner of the domain via which the works are made available. What must be considered in this context is that SUISA only issues licences for the repertoire that has been assigned to it.
SUISA does not represent all potential entitled parties
Especially in the case of multimedia content, many entitled parties may be involved, in particular: Producers (of film and sound recordings), photographers, lyricists, some publishers as well as scriptwriters, actors, artists, broadcasters and possibly others.
Some of these rightsholders represent themselves, for example the big film and sound recording producers, others such as composers have assigned a collective management organisation with the administration of their rights. There is an overview at www.swisscopyright.ch about which collective management organisation represents which type of rightsholders. SUISA is only responsible for the rights management of music. This also applies to music included in online videos.
SUISA's focus is currently not on private websites and blogs
SUISA continues to negotiate the licence and the remuneration level for the usage of music on websites just as before. Its focus is on clearly commercial offers. Private websites and blogs without any commercial intent and without advertising revenue (e.g. from Google Ads) are not in SUISA's focus. Regarding the latter, the proportion between the effort and the income is currently not reasonable. In other words: As long as collecting licence fees costs more than the amount thus secured, licensing does not make any sense.
Simple and efficient solution for Social Media remuneration suggested
Not only in this context but especially with regards to an efficient management it would be welcome if the work exchange on the internet in social networks could be remunerated via the collective management systems. This subject was discussed by the working group initiated by Federal Councillor Simonetta Sommaruga concerning copyright, "AGUR12".
The working group suggested to the Federal Councillor that the options for the creation of a simple blanket remuneration solution for work usages in social media should be examined. With such a solution, a blanket licence for the usage of music, photos, videos etc. on social media would only be issued by one single collective management organisation. Swiss users would, in return, have the authorisation to share protected content by third parties via social networks.
Based on the well-established system of collective management organisations a cost-efficient distribution of the remuneration would be guaranteed. This way, authors whose music, lyrics, films, photos or videos make the internet so attractive, will receive the remuneration they're due pursuant to Swiss legislation in effect for the online use of their works.
Stream ripping – tape recorders on the internet – Stream ripping software records audio and video streams. A copy of the entire stream can thus be saved as a file. Swiss copyright legislation provides for a private copy remuneration which is applicable to recording and storage media. Stream ripping apps are not covered by the statutory obligation to pay a levy – just like the tape recorders in the past. Read more
Swiss Copyright Review: SUISA in charge of a working group – Given the diverging reactions to the preliminary draft for the copyright law review, Federal Councillor Simonetta Sommaruga consulted the AGUR12 again in the summer of 2016 – the latter is a working group consisting of representatives from the affected sectors. The working group had the goal to look for conjoint solutions. Read more
Plagiarism accusations – what does SUISA do? – Various media have been reporting on plagiarism accusations against a Swiss artist in the last few days. The topic is not new, but it seems to continue to be shrouded in ambiguity: Who is the accuser? What happens to an artist who lifts from another? How much does he have to pay? And what role does SUISA actually play? Read more
This article was posted in Music use.
Tags: AGUR12, SUISA, Work exploitation on the internet


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Q: Why CSS file not working in my application? I'm trying to use .css files in my project but it doesn't work. The directory hierarchy is: /resources/static/css/style.css. In my html file I tried
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en" xmlns:th="http://www.thymeleaf.org">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>Header</title>
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href = "/css/style.css" th:href="@{/css/style.css}" >
</head>

but it does not work. What to do to make the style work? I read several articles but did not understand how to solve the problem

A: When using / at the start of your href address you are addressing from the root. so you should change the CSS link to this:
<link rel="stylesheet" href = "/resources/static/css/style.css"  />

or just link it relatively with ./
for more information read this :
having-links-relative-to-root

A: try to add type="text/css"
and adding dot to href="./your/location/style.css"


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Photo: David Ferri Durà
"Laurence Meikle in the role of Count Horn showed what a fine singer he is. With his dark, resonant bass he reached terrific results"
- Bachtrack 2019, Un ballo in Maschera,
Teatro San Carlo Naples
"Buoni pure tutti i comprimari, tra cui si segnala, per volume di voce ed espressività, quella di Laurence Meikle un Sam o Conte Horn in cui all'importanza della voce si unisce quella scenica"
- Operaclick 2019, Un ballo in Maschera,
"...very interesting the dark voice of Laurence Meikle's Colline, who received
enthusiastic applause for
Vecchia Zimarra"
- Spettacolo 2019, La Bohème
Bass-baritone Laurence Meikle made his principal debut with Opera Australia at the age of 22 at the Sydney Opera House, and since that time, his burgeoning career has encompassed performances at some of Europe's most important opera houses and concert halls.
After having sung with most of Australia's major opera companies and orchestras, Laurence pursued studies on the opera course at London's Royal Academy of Music, where he graduated with honours and the Opera Rara Bel Canto Prize. During the course of his studies, he made debuts with Opera Holland Park (Betto - Gianni Schicchi), Grange Park Opera (Angelotti - Tosca), and the London Handel Festival (title role - Saul, and the Herald - Belshazzar). He also toured regional theatres in Italy during this period, singing Colline in La Bohème and Escamillo in Carmen.
Upon graduation, Laurence was offered a contract by the Deutsches Nationaltheater und Staatskapelle Weimar, Germany, where he sang a varied repertoire, including the title role in Don Giovanni, Comte des Greiux in Manon, Hobson in Peter Grimes, Elmiro in Rossini's Otello, Astolfo in Vivaldi's Orlando Furioso, Colline in La Bohème (a role he has sung over 90 times in Australia, Germany, the UK, France, and Italy), Escamillo in Carmen (productions in Germany, Italy, and in Scotland with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra), both Gretch and Borov in Giordano's Fedora, Angelotti in Tosca, Der Sprecher in Die Zauberflöte (in Australia and Germany), Martino in Rossini's L'occasione fa il Ladro, Hercules in Cavalli's Il Giasone conducted by Dame Jane Glover, Geronte in Manon Lescaut, Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas, Luiz in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers, and Cascada in Die Lustige Witwe. During this time, he also appeared with Theater Erfurt, Theater Nordhausen, Landestheater Altenburg, and Bühnen der Stadt Gera.
After some years in Germany, Laurence returned to Italy where he sang Guglielmo in Così fan tutte for the Festival della Valle d'Itria, conducted by Fabio Luisi, followed by Zuniga in Carmen at the Teatro delle Muse Ancona, and his role debut at Teatro San Carlo in Naples singing Osmin in the legendary Strehler production of Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
Based in Italy since 2017, the 2017-18 season saw his return to Teatro San Carlo in Naples in several roles, Colline in La Bohème, Il Faraone in Rossini's Mosè in Egitto, Portye in Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, and Grenville in La Traviata featuring Leo Nucci. He was also re-invited to the Festival della Valle d'Itria, where he sang Belmonte in Meyerbeer's Margherita d'Anjou, again with Fabio Luisi conducting, and at the same time covered the role of Astolfo in Vivaldi's Orlando Furioso with Diego Fasolis and the Barocchisti. Amongst several concerts that season were Rossini's Petite Messe Sollennelle at the Festival Suoni dal Golfo in Lerici, and a concert of Vivaldi arias with Diego Fasolis.
In 2018-2019, Laurence began the season with Colline in La Bohème, again at Teatro San Carlo, and Samuel in Un Ballo in Maschera, with an all-star cast led by Donato Renzetti. After his debut as Don Basilio in Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Teatro Sociale di Campobasso, he recorded his first album in partnership with Concerto Classics, featuring the Psalms of Benedetto Marcello, which is due for release in 2021. Concerts included Mozart's Requiem for the Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova and Festival Suoni dal Golfo, and Mozart's Missa Brevis in C Major with Christoph Poppen and the Kölner Kammerorchester.
Laurence began the 2019-2020 season singing the title role in Don Giovanni at the Teatro Sociale di Rovigo. Other roles for this season include Gualtiero Valton in I Puritani at Teatro San Carlo in Naples, The Herald in Prokofiev's The Love of Three Oranges, Crébillon in La Rondine, as well as debutes at Orchestra Svizzera Italiana di Lugano, Teatro Municipale di Piacenza, Teatro Verdi di Padova, Teatro Sociale di Rovigo, Teatro Comunale di Ferrara, Teatro Verdi di Pisa, Teatro Goldoni di Livorno, and Teatro del Giglio di Lucca, with repertoire to be announced soon.
Laurence has worked with conductors Sir Charles Mackerras, Fabio Luisi, Richard Bonynge, Daniel Oren, Diego Fasolis, Stefano Montanari, Renato Palumbo, Stefano Ranzani, Donato Renzetti, Dame Jane Glover, and Richard Hickox, and directors such as John Copley, Ferzan Öspatek, John Cox, David Pountney, and Martin Kušej.
As a concert soloist, he has sung with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the London Handel Players, the Gulbenkian Orquestra, Orchestra Internazionale d'Italia, the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Barocchisiti, the Cambridge Philharmonic, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Bourmouth Symphony, and the English Concert Orchestra; singing most of the major bass/baritone oratorio literature of Handel, Mozart, Rossini, and Bach, as well as concert works of Mahler, Delius, Brahms, Dvorak, and others. Highlights include concerts with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Angelika Kirchschlager, Yvonne Kenny, and Dame Emma Kirkby, and a Royal Command recital for Queen Elizabeth II; at venues such as Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, Kings Place, the Royal Court Theatre, the Royal Albert Hall and the cathedrals of Canterbury, St Albans, and Exeter in the UK, the Mozarteum Großersaal in Salzburg, the Sydney Opera House, and the Melbourne Town Hall, to name a few.
Laurence studies in Italy with Maestro Fernando Cordeiro Opa; major teachers have included Ryland Davies and Tom Krause, and he has studied closely with many notable singers, for example, Sir John Tomlinson, Sir Thomas Allen, and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.


When the Lenoir City Utility Board (LCUB) decided to replace two existing water tanks and a booster station, LDA was hired to complete several tasks. LDA was responsible for the demolition of the two existing tanks, site grading, construction, and design of the new tank, and site utilities. The new water tank was constructed out of pre-stressed concrete with a capacity of 750,000 gallons.


TECH FIX Your Wi-Fi Security Is Probably Weak.
Chances are that when you bought a Wi-Fi router, you probably did not prioritize strong network security.
After all, when we think about wireless connectivity in our homes, most of us generally care more about speed of data transmissions and how much range the router can cover.
But it's time to change our views. Network security needs to be high on our list of considerations because a Wi-Fi station is the gateway for devices to get on the Internet. If your router is infected with malicious software, all your Internet-connected devices become vulnerable, including your smartphone, computer, smart watch, television and Amazon Echo.
A recent cyberthreat underscores the need to take network security more seriously. Last month, Cisco's threat research arm, Talos, in collaboration with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, discovered that a malware system with links to Russia had infected hundreds of thousands of Wi-Fi routers made by popular brands like Netgear, TP-Link and Linksys. This month, Talos revealed the problem was even worse than initially thought: Routers from other brands like Asus and D-Link had also been infected.
That means base stations from every well-known router brand were a target for this malware, known as VPNFilter, which is capable of manipulating your web traffic. Attackers could use it to load a fake banking site on your computer browser that looks like the one you normally use and steal your credentials and clean out your bank accounts. They could also load spoof versions of an email site you use to steal your password and gain access to your communications.
Netgear, D-Link and Linksys said they advised people to install the latest security updates and to choose strong user names and passwords. TP-Link and Asus did not respond to requests for comment.
Our remedy? For starters, make sure your Wi-Fi station is always running the latest version of its "firmware," or software system, just as you are supposed to keep operating systems up-to-date for your smartphone and computer. In a 2014 survey of I.T. professionals and employees who work remotely conducted by the security firm Tripwire, only 32 percent said they knew how to update their routers with the latest firmware.
"Most consumers don't know to patch these things," said Matt Watchinski, a senior director of Cisco Talos, who helped research the VPNFilter malware. "They don't treat it like they do their air-conditioner or refrigerator, where we all know we should change the filters." Here's a guide to some of the best practices you can embrace to ensure that your router — and, by extension, all your Internet gadgets — is safe.
After entering the router's IP address into a web browser, log in to the base station with your user name and password. In the router's web dashboard, click on the firmware settings. Look for a button that lets you check for the latest firmware version.
When you log in to your router, if your user name and password are something like "admin" and "password," you have a problem. Many Wi-Fi stations come with weak, generic passwords by default that manufacturers intend for you to change.
The problem with having a weak user name and password is that anybody within range of your router could log in to it and change its settings, potentially opening it up to the outside world, said Dave Fraser, chief executive of Devicescape, a company that helps make public Wi-Fi networks more reliable for mobile phone service.
So while you are checking for firmware updates in your router's web dashboard, make sure to also check your security settings and change the user name and password to something strong and unique. Security experts recommend creating long, complex passwords consisting of nonsensical phrases and added numbers and special characters. (Examples: My fav0rite numb3r is Gr33n4782# or The cat ate the C0TT0n candy 224%.) Write down these credentials on the same piece of paper where you recorded your IP address.
How did we get here in the first place? Historically, manufacturers have designed routers by cobbling together open-source software platforms with commodity components to produce base stations as cheaply as possible — with little care for long-term security, Mr. Fraser said.
"It is a miserable situation, and it has been from day one," he said. But Mr. Fraser added that there were now "new world" routers with operating systems, tougher security and thoughtful features to make network management easy.
If it is time to update your router, rid yourself of some of these headaches by looking for a smarter router. Check for Wi-Fi systems that offer automatic updates to spare you the headache of having to check and download updates periodically. Many modern Wi-Fi systems include automatic updates as a feature. My favorite ones are Eero and Google WiFi, which can easily be set up through smartphone apps.
The caveat is that smarter Wi-Fi systems tend to cost more than cheap routers that people are accustomed to. Eero's base stations start at $199, and a Google WiFi station costs $119, compared with $50 for a cheap router. For both of these systems, you can also add base stations throughout the home to extend their wireless connections, creating a so-called mesh network.
Another bonus? Mr. Fraser noted that more modern Wi-Fi systems should have longer life spans because the companies sometimes relied on different revenue streams, like selling subscriptions to network security services.
A version of this article appears in print on June 13, 2018, on Page B6 of the New York edition with the headline: Don't Overlook the Security of Your Wi-Fi.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently granted Amazon two patents directed to remote control of human hands. The Amazon patents are able to obtain and record users' location and the detailed movements of their hands. Therefore, highly private information such as when an employee takes a bathroom break or pauses to scratch may be obtained and recorded by the patented system. That, in turn has led to concerns that the patents could violate protected privacy rights of employees under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Fourth Amendment applies to government actions, and would be implicated in a legal challenge to the Amazon patents, since patents are issued and enforced by the government. In addition, Amazon patents can run afoul of state statutes and common law privacy protections, which have adopted similar Fourth Amendment privacy standards.
Article I Section 8, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution, also known as the Patent and Copyright Clause authorizes Congress to grant inventors and authors exclusive rights to their respective inventions and works of authorship for limited periods of time. Under current law, patents enjoy a 20-year monopoly period, backed by the power of Federal Government.
The U.S. Constitution contains no express right to privacy. However, the Supreme Court, in numerous decisions since the 1920s, has relied on the Bill of Rights to carve out certain rights based on privacy considerations. These carved out rights include privacy of a person's freedom from unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment.
The Amazon patents describe a system and mechanism for tracking and guiding workers' hands relative to the position of inventory storage bins. The stated aim of the patents is to improve the efficiency of inventory management system by making it faster and easier for workers to accurately locate the bins in which items are stored and retrieve ordered items from them. The Amazon patents criticize existing processes for keeping track of inventory bin locations as uneconomical and inefficient, and find proposed improvements in the form of a computer vision apparatus to track location of inventory bins inadequate as cumbersome and costly.
Instead, the patents propose a system that uses ultrasonic communication to track employee hand movements by sending ultrasonic pulses at predetermined intervals to the worker's wristband in order to keep track of the relative positions of the worker's hands and the target inventory storage bins. The patented system directs the worker's hands toward the correct bin by sending a pulse to alert the worker when the worker's hands are in close proximity to a target bin.
Amazon has dismissed potential privacy concerns raised by the implementation of its patents as "speculation" and "misguided." In a released statement, Amazon analogized its proposed wristband system to handheld scanners, which are in widespread use for checking inventory and for fulfilling customer orders. According to the company, the wristbands and their accompanying mechanism improve efficiency by freeing up employees' "hands from scanners and their eyes from computer screens."
The debate regarding the trade-off between privacy and efficiency at workplace is not new. Common worker monitoring techniques, including cameras, employer monitoring and access to employee emails and Internet browsing, have been around since the 1990s. However, such concerns have come into renewed focus with the Amazon patents as they potentially cross the currently prevalent arena of surveillance and monitoring of employees into the uncharted territory of directing and even physical control of employees.
The question regarding the Amazon patents is whether they will pass muster in the face of likely challenges to their constitutionality. Challenges to patents duly issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) are not new. Back in 2013, the Supreme Court found genes to be not eligible for patent protection.
As noted above, because implementation of the Amazon patents in the workplace would involve obtaining potentially private information from employees, they would likely raise concerns about violation of workers' constitutionally protected privacy rights. Amazon, in turn, has downplayed such concerns and has instead tried to focus the debate on the enhanced efficiency resulting from the introduction of its patented technology.
The U.S. Supreme Court has identified certain factors that courts must consider in determining whether employer monitoring of employees and obtaining information from them passes legal muster. In City of Ontario v. Quon, the Supreme Court affirmed that workers do enjoy Fourth Amendment rights in their workplace to guarantee their "privacy, dignity and security of persons against certain arbitrary and invasive acts" by the government as an employer. Factors, identified in City of Ontario, which courts are to consider in determining the permissible scope of employer intrusion on its employee's Fourth Amendment rights include: 1. whether the employee has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the information obtained; 2. whether the employer has a legitimate work-related rationale for the intrusion; 3. whether the intrusion is reasonable in scope; 4. availability of less intrusive means to achieve the same purpose; and 5. public acceptance of the conduct.
In City of Ontario, the city had provided its employees with pagers which were used to send and receive text messages to allow employees to be contacted in the event of an emergency. The city's employee policy manual made clear that the city had the right to access and monitor communications to and from the city issued pagers and that employers should not have any expectation of privacy or confidentiality in using the pagers. When Jeff Quon, a city employee with a city-issued pager, repeatedly exceeded the monthly character limit for use of his pager, the city ordered an audit of his communications to determine if the usage was work related. In conducting the review, the city discovered that most of the messages sent by Quon were not work related but were personal and many were of sexually explicit nature, and proceeded to implement disciplinary measures against Quon. Quon responded by filing suit against the city for violating his Fourth Amendment rights.
Discussing the particular facts and circumstances of the case, the Supreme Court allowed for a certain extent of privacy in communications on the pagers provided by the city but concluded that expecting complete privacy would not be reasonable since Quon had been informed of the potential auditing of his messages and that his position as a law enforcement officer indicated his likely awareness of scrutiny of his actions and that such scrutiny may involve examination of his communications during the work hours. Next, the Supreme Court concluded that the search of Quon's messages was motivated by a proper purpose, that it was tailored to the problem at hand and had been reasonable in scope. The Court did not give much weight to the availability of less intrusive methods by the city to achieve the same goal.
With respect to the Amazon patents, the question before the courts will be whether the additional intrusive step of controlling and directing an employee is justified by the expected incremental improvement in efficiency and productivity resulting from the patents. In the long run, the answer may lie in the public's acceptance of the trade-off between efficiency and privacy in response to new technology.
Dr. Dariush Adli, Ph.D., Esq., is the founder and president of ADLI Law Group. His practice focuses on business and intellectual property litigation, media and entertainment, real estate, products liability, family law, labor and employment, and transportation law.
Herndon, VA – In a letter submitted yesterday, the Land Mobile Communications Council (LMCC) asked Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Michael O'Rielly to help eliminate the sale of non-compliant radio devices distributed by eBay, Inc., and Amazon.com, Inc., a virtual identical effort that Commissioner O'Rielly is pursuing with these same companies concerning the sales of TV set-top boxes that do not meet the Commission's equipment authorization requirements or falsely claim that they have been certified by the agency.
Redmond, Wash, June 14, 2018 — Zetron, a global leader in integrated mission critical communications technology, today announced its unique capability to deliver end-to-end communications in a fully standards-compliant lifecycle, from NG9-1-1, into the command and control center, and out to FirstNet. This enables public safety answering points (PSAPs) on Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) networks to receive and handle emergency communications beyond just voice.
MAX Call Taking now supports fully integrated VoIP, Text To 9-1-1, robust location services, and mapping technologies. And earlier this year, Zetron announced its MAX Dispatch and ACOM Command & Control systems are FirstNet Ready. These systems have long supported core voice communication standards, including Project 25 (P25), Digital Mobile Radio (DMR), and Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA).
MAX Systems also support network-integrated, broadband Push-To-Talk (PTT) interoperability with three of the four largest US cellular carriers, as well as interoperability with over-the-top PTT solutions, such as ESChat. Both MAX Dispatch and ACOM systems are also ready for IOC-1, pre-MCPTT integration with FirstNet, and are field-upgradable for future 3GPP Mission Critical PTT (MCPTT) interworking.
For more information on Zetron's integrated suite of mission critical standards-compliant communications solutions, visit www.zetron.com.
NATE unveiled a video entitled "Look out Below" that focuses on the risks associated with dropped objects and provides safety guidance on preventing these scenarios while working at elevation on a communications structure. The video is the fourth in Volume 3 of the Association's popular Climber Connection series.
The video includes personal anecdotes and experiences from a tower technician on measures that can be implemented by elevated workers to prevent dropped objects. The video also portrays a live demonstration of the impact a dropped tool can make when it falls to the ground at a tower site.
NATE encourages tower technicians and industry stakeholders to actively participate in this campaign by posting the video on their respective social networking platforms using the hashtag #ClimberConnection.
On June 11, the FCC's transparency requirements, which were adopted as a part of the Order repealing Net Neutrality rules, went into effect. Per these requirements, Internet service providers must publicly disclose information regarding their network management practices, performance, and commercial terms of service. These disclosures must be made via a publicly available, easily accessible company website or through the FCC's website.
Carriers with questions about these requirements should contact the firm for more information.
On June 7, the FCC adopted an Order granting a petition filed by NTCA—The Rural Broadband Association (NTCA) and the United States Telecom Association (USTelecom) (collectively, Petitioners) for forbearance from the application of Universal Service Fund (USF) contribution requirements to broadband Internet access transmission services provided by rural incumbent local exchange carriers (rural LECs). The Order is effective immediately.
In the Order, the FCC found that it has consistently declined to impose USF contribution obligations on retail broadband Internet access service, and therefore found that requiring a subset of rural LECs that provision a component of that service as a common-carriage offering to comply with our legacy rate-of-return rules is not "necessary" to ensure that the rural LECs' charges or practices in connection with this service are "just and reasonable." On the contrary, the FCC held that such obligation on a limited group of rural providers of this service is in itself "unreasonably discriminatory" because it raises the prices for consumers in rural areas served by small carriers.
The FCC also found no evidence that enforcement of USF contribution requirements on rural LEC-provided broadband Internet access transmission services offered on a common-carrier basis (but not any other input to broadband Internet access service nor that same input when provided by other carriers) served any significant consumer protection purpose. Rather, the FCC found that such enforcement negatively impacts customers of those rural LECs by effectively requiring them, but not other broadband consumers, to bear additional costs.
On June 7, the FCC adopted all eight items under consideration. Summaries of each item are set out below, along with links to the final documents.
Wireline Infrastructure: a Second Report and Order that will revise the FCC's section 214(a) discontinuance processes, network change disclosure processes, and Part 68 customer notification process to remove barriers to infrastructure investment and promote broadband deployment. (WC Docket No. 17-84).
Prior to the meeting the FCC considered and adopted — and thus removed from the agenda — the following items: Audacy satellite authorization, O3b market access grant, improving intercarrier compensation to eliminate access arbitrage, and the Enforcement Bureau action against HobbyKing.
On June 6, Chairman Ajit Pai announced that that he has circulated a draft order to the other Commissioners that would take immediate action to increase funding for the Universal Service Fund's Rural Health Care Program. Specifically, Chairman Pai's proposal would increase the program's current annual funding cap from $400 million to $571 million.
According to a Press Release, this increase represents what the funding level would be today had the cap established in 1997 included an inflation adjustment. The order would apply the increased cap to the current funding year. The order would also allow unused funds from prior years to be carried forward to future years.
This money will help health care providers get the connectivity they need to better serve patients throughout rural America. Demand for funding has been outpacing the program's funding cap, so I also believe that the increased cap should apply to the current funding year so that rural health care providers can be fully reimbursed. This is an important step to allow these providers to continue offering critical telemedicine services in their rural communities. Health care has become increasingly reliant on connectivity over the past two decades, and this proposal reflects the need to keep pace with this evolution. I hope my colleagues will support my plan without delay.
The FCC has recently adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that seeks to update the framework for licensing Educational Broadband Service (EBS) spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band, and that could create new opportunities for our firm's clients. In brief, the NPRM proposes to provide greater flexibility to existing EBS licensees, and to use competitive bidding to award licenses for areas where the EBS spectrum is not currently in use.
Since much of the unused EBS spectrum is in rural areas, the forthcoming auction could provide an opportunity for our clients to obtain unused 2.5 GHz spectrum for the provision of next generation wireless broadband, including 5G. Federal Register publication sets comments due Monday, July 9, 2018; and reply comments due August 6, 2018. Clients interested in participating in comments should contact us, especially if you can share any input about 5G spectrum needs and acquisition efforts that can help us shape rules that will be advantageous for rural providers.
The 2.5 GHz band (2496-2690 MHz) constitutes the single largest band of contiguous spectrum below 3 gigahertz and is prime spectrum for next generation mobile (e.g., 5G) operations. The band includes 80 megahertz of spectrum allocated to the Broadband Radio Service (BRS), a radio service that was previously known as MDS and MMDS and licensed for multichannel video and later wireless broadband service, and 114 megahertz of EBS, a service that was previously known as Instructional Television Fixed Service (ITFS) and is licensed primarily to public and private educational institutions and nonprofit organizations whose purposes are educational. Since 1983 the Commission has allowed EBS licensees to lease their excess capacity to commercial providers, but it has required EBS licensees to retain five percent of their capacity for educational use, and that they use each channel at least 20 hours per week for educational purposes.
The FCC proposes and seeks comment on a number of steps to encourage and facilitate more efficient use of the EBS spectrum. First, given the irregularity of current EBS geographic service areas (as well as outdated regulatory requirements), the Commission proposes to rationalize existing EBS holdings so that existing licensees have new opportunities to put 2.5 GHz spectrum to its highest and best use. Second, the Commission seeks comment on whether to open one or more local priority filing windows so that existing licensees, Tribal Nations, and educational entities could get access to unassigned spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band. Third, the Commission proposes to use geographic area licensing to assign any remaining spectrum, which may result in the auction of any licenses for 2.5 GHz spectrum still unassigned after rationalizing holdings and any new filing windows. Finally, the Commission seeks comment on additional approaches for transforming the 2.5 GHz band, including by moving directly to an auction for some or all of the spectrum.
The ideas teed up in the NPRM seek to allow more efficient and effective use of this spectrum band and to provide new opportunities for EBS eligible entities, rural Tribal Nations, and commercial entities to obtain unused 2.5 GHz spectrum to facilitate improved access to next generation wireless broadband, including 5G.
The rules that this resolution would restore were enacted by the FCC in 2015 to prevent broadband providers from blocking, slowing down, prioritizing, or otherwise unfairly discriminating against Internet traffic that flows across their networks. Without these protections, broadband providers can decide what content gets through to consumers at what speeds and could use this power to discriminate against their competitors or other content. Under this new regime, the Internet would no longer be a level playing field. Instead, big corporations who could pay would enjoy the benefits of a fast lane and speedy delivery of their content to consumers while those who could not pay these tolls — such as startups and small businesses, schools, rural Americans, and communities of color — would be disadvantaged.
As we reported in a previous edition of the BloostonLaw Telecom Update, the repeal became effective on June 11, 2018.
To prevent interference to authorized users of the bands where they operate, white space devices must include a geo-location capability and the capability to access a database that identifies incumbent uses entitled to interference protection, including, for example, full power and low power TV stations, broadcast auxiliary point-to-point facilities, PLMRS/CMRS operations on channels 14-20, and the Offshore Radiotelephone Service. The database is also used to register the locations of fixed white space devices and the protected locations and channels of incumbent services (including licensed wireless microphone and 600 MHz wireless service band operations) that are not otherwise recorded in FCC databases. The database indicates to a white space device which frequencies are available for use at its location.
The FCC can designate one or more entities to administer a white space database. At the beginning of this designation process in 2009, it issued a public notice inviting interested entities to apply. After reviewing the database administrator proposals and comments received in response to the public notice, OET designated all of the responding entities as white space database administrators.
On November 16, 2017, Nominet filed a proposal with OET seeking designation as a white space database administrator. Nominet's proposal provided the information requested by OET's 2009 public notice that invited proposals from parties seeking to be designated as white space database administrators.
On June 12, US District Court Judge Richard Leon ruled that the merger of AT&T and Time Warner can proceed, finding that the Department of Justice had not met its burden of proof that the effect of the combination would be to "substantially to lessen competition" in violation of Section 7 of the Clayton Act.
CNBC reports that the judge did not impose conditions on the merger's approval, and also urged the government not to seek a stay when issuing his decision in a closed-door room with reporters.
"We continue to believe that the pay-TV market will be less competitive and less innovative as a result of the proposed merger between AT&T and Time Warner. We will closely review the Court's opinion and consider next steps in light of our commitment to preserving competition for the benefit of American consumers," Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim said in a statement.
On June 6, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn issued her closing statement as she steps down from her seat on the FCC. "I want to begin by thanking President Barack Obama for nominating me, in 2009, to become a member of the Federal Communications Commission. Although humbled by the honor, I had no idea, then, how much this agency would mean to me," she said.
Her statement, which can be found here, went on to recount a number of decisions she supported (including Title II classification for broadband, Lifeline reform, inmate calling reform, and 700 MHz interoperability). She also recounted a number of decisions she "wish[ed] came out differently" (including the repeal of Title II classification for broadband, repeal of media consolidation rules, and the reinstatement of the UHF discount).
This novel idea, that the Federal Communications Commission is empowered to make sure that all people in the United States have access to affordable, world-class communications services, is one that is timeless and is at the heart of the Commission's goals to provide "universal service" across this country.
Like you, I know the power of this agency. I have witnessed for nearly nine years how much it can do. This is a consequential agency that has the ability, or dare I say the mandate, to take on, head first, those challenges that impact every single part of the U.S. economy. On my trips around the country, I saw where the policies we put in place are making a real difference in peoples' lives and what is clear is this: that this agency can either be an enabler of opportunities or it can stifle opportunities. I have seen firsthand where our policies have done much good, but I have also witnessed where inaction or bad decisions have created undue hardship.
Fulfilling these obligations requires the Commission to strike a sometimes difficult-to-achieve balance between making sure that consumers are protected and trying not to get in the way of market-driven innovation—but at the end of the day, the public interest must be served. That is non-negotiable.
As reported in a previous edition of the BloostonLaw Telecom Update, President Trump has tapped Geoffrey Starks to take Commissioner Clyburn's seat.
If you are sending text messages to cell phones via email, email-to-text, or using the email address of the phone and experiencing message receipt delays or missing messages all together, that can be a result of the cell carriers and or Internet service providers (ISPs) SPAM filters mistaking your messages as spam. ISPs and wireless providers constantly upgrade their SPAM filters to try and eliminate abusive messaging.
The InfoRad Messaging Gateway available in the InfoRad v10.4.2 software can resolve delayed or missing message issues thus greatly increasing the reliability of cell phone text messaging compared to using 'email-to-text' service. The InfoRad Messaging Gateway provides enterprise level connectivity to all the cell carrier service providers with only needing to know the cell phones 10 digit phone number.
Alternately, some carriers offer enterprise level messaging which also provides more reliable messaging. Usually there are additional fees associated and or require individual registration of each phone to use their enterprise level messaging service. Typically each carrier or service plans are different.
Please feel free to contact us with any questions on the InfoRad Messaging Gateway and to activate your free / no obligation 30-day/1000 message trial.
I read your quotations about poverty with interest. I just finished a bike ride across north Georgia where I was face to face with rural poverty. It is a disgrace that a country as wealthy as the US has many, many counties where the childhood poverty rate is over 25%. And in this case it is not an issue of discrimination. These are counties that are 90% white. There are no easy answers, but making the super-rich even richer is not one of them.
Amantine Lucile Dupin, best known by her nom de plume George Sand, was a French novelist and memoirist.


China implements new regulations to improve transparency in the online advertising space, requiring all paid-for content to be labelled as adverts. Anna Myburgh reports.
Just how prevalent are kickbacks and rebates in the media buying ecosystem? The Association of National Advertisers has released its findings. Ben Dunham reports.
Were inferred targeting and content warnings sufficient to prevent unsuitable ads being seen by children? Anna Williams reports.
Following some hefty fines issued in May 2016, the Competition and Markets Authority has published an open letter to suppliers and retailers on how to identify and avoid engaging in resale price maintenance. Jamie Heatly reports.
PhonepayPlus announced a raft of changes in July – including a name change, amended policy statement and updated digital media guidance. Daisy Jones reports.
What does the Privacy Shield mean for advertisers?
After months of EU/US negotiations, the 'Safe Harbour' replacement is finally available. Thomas Spanyol reports.
Recent enforcement action against Change and Save Ltd is just one in a long list of examples of the ICO's tough approach to unlawful direct marketing. Georgina Graham reports.
"All you can eat data" should mean unlimited for all legitimate activities; the ASA re-confirms the importance of transparency in data plan advertising. Eleanor Locke reports.
"Full of goodness" and "nutritious"? Special K is challenged for making general health claims without authorised specific health claims in close proximity. Can authorised specific health claims be displayed before general health claims? Is "nutritious" a health claim? Chloe Deng reports.


text:
Selected readings from D.C. Public Schools incident reports*
by Mike Kanin and Katherine Marsh November 19th, 2004 August 29th, 2020
Incident No. 63
Suicide—Attempted
Kenilworth Elementary School
Sept. 8, 3:14 p.m.
A female school nurse was coming out of her office when she observed a male student with a back pack wrapped around his neck. The nurse went to approach the student. The student was pulling the straps choking himself. The nurse called for help. A female security [guard] responded to assist. The nurse and security guard took the back pack from around the student's neck. The nurse escorted the student to her office to be examined. The student had no injuries to report. The student's father was notified, responded to the school and took the student home.
Incident No. 113
Spingarn Senior High School
Sept. 16, 11:48 a.m.
An unknown male informed a Metropolitan Police Department dispatcher via telephone that a bomb was in the building. The male stated, "A bomb is in a locker in the school and will go off at 12 noon, I'm a student and I am in the school." "I have a 45 and I'm going to pull a Columbine because I was suspended for 35 days." The school assigned MPD officer and Security searched the school with negative results. The building was not evacuated. The male made the call from a cell phone, which did not display a number. However, the cell phone did display an address, which was Eastern High School's address. MPD completed a report.
Kelly Miller Junior High School
Sept. 28, 3:45 p.m.
A female student was leaving the school when a parent/mother and 2-5 unknown males and females confronted the student on the parking lot. One of the suspects struck the student in the lower back with a Crowbar. When the student fell to the ground, suspects 2-5 began kicking and punching her. The student sustained injury to the nose. The school assigned nurse administered first [aid.] Medical attention not required. The mother is the parent of a student that the other student had been in a physical altercation with. The mother and the Suspects attacked the student in retaliation for her daughter. The school assigned MPD completed a report.
*Minor edits have been made for clarity.
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