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Standing Committee Meeting Report PASSCAL
October 10-11, 2017, National Earthquake Information Center, Golden, CO
(Sweet) Collect list of links to google docs containing meeting seconds from all past PASC meetings and add those links to the PASC agenda webpages. - DONE
(Schmandt) Suggest that Brandon attend the ECI meeting at AGU (or other meetings) to represent the PASC and share PASSCAL-related info...including hardware/software issues, how to use the facility, etc.
(Sweet) Submit a Wavefields data mine article and perhaps a summary report of the Wavefields short course to the special session of SRL focused on Large N deployments.
(Kaip) Post results from the explosives testing work at UTEP to the SSF website and announce posting to PM and PASC.
(Anderson) Kent will send around the URL for NSF mid-size infrastructure dear colleague letter to the PASC - DONE
(Anderson) Kent will follow up with committee members not present to get their votes on the updated PASSCAL Data Policy. – Request sent
(Anderson) Kent will put together a draft of a revised Scope Management Plan for consideration by the PASC.
(Sweet) Justin will distribute the list of potential members to the PASC via email for their input by the end of next week. - DONE
(Sweet) – Compile all input from the community survey of facility usage and needs for instrumentation with the goal of generating guidelines for talking with vendors on future instrumentation needs, contributions to strategic vision, and contribution to PASSCAL Design Goals document.
(Anderson/Wagner/Schwartz) – Respond to DCL survey on mid-size infrastructure by Dec 8, 2017
(Wagner/Schwartz) – Provide a list of recommendations to CoCom for 4 committee rotations (replacing Schwartz (who is replacing Wagner), Christensen, Walter and Leidig)
Meeting Objectives
Review and approve minutes and action items from Spring 2017 meeting
Review Budget and provide recommendations for carryover
Review and approve Data Policy
Suggest community members for PASC rotations (4 regular members)
Provide comments to the Board on Best Practices for Governance and Management
Compile community input on current and next generation instrumentation
Review/Revise the PASSCAL Scope Management Plan
Program Management Update
Performance Targets
Kent Anderson provided an update on the portable program. He reported the numbers of new/existing portable experiments and noted that all PASSCAL performance targets were met for Q1 and Q2 of 2017 with the exception of polar broadband instruments. There were 2 large polar experiments which demobilized in the 2016-17 Antarctic field season which meant that a large number of polar broadbands were in "evaluation" status until they could be cleared for future experiments – no experiments were impacted by this missed target.
RT130 GPS Replacements
The Board approved $180k of carryover from SAGE Y3 to replace some of the older RT130 GPS antennas which had encountered problems for some deployments in tropical areas. PIC engineers worked to develop an in-house solution, rather than purchasing direct from Trimble/RefTek, that will cost substantially less and allow us to replace 100% of the current pool of older RT130 GPS antennas plus 10% sparing instead of the 70% replacement originally envisioned. PASSCAL is currently working on fabrication solutions, and should have the replacements completed within 3 to 6 months.
Budget Update
Projecting a +3.7% variance (~$189k) for just completed SAGE Y4, which is within the 5% variance allowance granted by the Board. Therefore, no PASSCAL funds are exposed to CoCom for reallocation to other programs. This positive variance was due to a combination of a small positive variance on NMT award and some slowed spending on M&S. As you recall, the Board granted program management flexibility to allow retention of FTE's at NMT until NGEO is awarded at the expense of slowed M&S spending. We still have an M&S spending plan to account for all M&S needs, but will hold off on full execution until NGEO award is better understood. Current spend plans for these funds were presented and PM suggested that the committee could request addition carryover that may be available from other programs (those with >5% carryover), but no suggestions were made from the PASC. PM suggested that we request full execution of M&S plan once NGEO is assured.
External Funding Search
Kent Anderson reported on a meeting with the Director of the Fossil Fuels Division of DOE (Alan Cohen) in Sept 2017 in DC where he discussed the past and potential future collaborations between DOE and IRIS/PASSCAL (>140 past DOE related experiments). We discussed PASSCAL's needs for recapitalization of our portable instrumentation and ways in which DOE might contribute in exchange for priority usage of the equipment. Kent has also been in discussion with the NNSA portion of DOE regarding funding support for large numbers of short period instruments (e.g. nodes) that DOE could have priority usage of and PASSCAL could manage and make available for academic use as well.
Polar Update
PASSCAL is seeing an increase in the number of Arctic experiments in conjunction with the completion of the TA in Alaska while Antarctic experiments have slowed. The PIC is discovering that bear hardening is proving to be as important as cold hardening for stations deployed in this region. The GLISN experiment is entering the last year of its current 5-year award. Work is underway to submit a proposal this fall for an additional 5 years of funding to continue this successful project. GEOICE has begun final procurements which will add 10 broadbands, 70 intermediate periods, and 200 nodes to the polar pool. PIC polar engineers are currently working to design a remote charging/programming/data offload rack that can be taken to the field in support of nodal deployments.
Experiment Outbriefs
Justin Sweet briefed the PASC on the results of recent experiment outbriefs with PASSCAL PIs, including positive and negative feedback received. Metric ratings were also shared, all of which have been trending higher (better) over the past year. Although these are gathering very helpful and constructive feedback – which the management team is using – the original intent was to see if this was a valid, quantifiable metric to suggest to NSF as a "quality of service" performance metric for the program. PM felt that although eventually, this could be valid, it was not ready to suggest for the last year of SAGE. We will consider this for NGEO.
Wavefields Short Course
Justin Sweet provided a short summary of the recent Wavefields Short Course, held in August 2017 at Indiana University. 29 students and 8 instructors came together for 5 days of lecture and group projects focused on the Wavefields dataset collected in Oklahoma during 2016. This fulfilled the PASC request to present training on wavefield-type datasets.
PASSCAL Instrument Center Update
Bruce Beaudoin and Sue Bilek provided an update on the state of affairs at the PIC, including several trend plots showing the number of instrument requests and funded instruments. Trends for Broadband instruments showed that although requests have been increasing, the number of funded experiments have substantially dropped from ~650 BB's out per year to ~250 (leaving ~400 BB's available and on the shelf – offering zero wait time). SP trends show similar increase in requests and only a slight drop in funded experiment levels. Unlike the BB sensors, the SP sensors are fully committed and we are having to deny SP experiment extension requests in order to meet scheduling commitments. More spare parts and SP sensors have been ordered to allow us more flexibility. Trend plots for the nodes show that PASSCAL nodes are fully subscribed out through 2019. Most PI's are limiting their requests to the current number of nodes in the pool, but a few have made requests at the level of current Texan pool (~3,000 nodes). Bruce also discussed PH5 development progress, and an alpha release of a new stationXML generator named Nexus. This new tool can simply generate metadata for files/folders of data collected in the field. This software tool will soon be going to the DMC and RESIF (France) for testing. PASSCAL hopes to release Nexus to users sometime in 2018.
UTEP Seismic Source Facility Update
Galen Kaip provided an update on UTEP SSF activities during 2017, including several projects in Texas, Alaska, and Colorado. The SSF has recently begun reloading their own shotgun shells and has also begun selling shells at-cost to other universities with active source needs. Current and future work includes data analysis from recent source testing at UTEP, and support for active source projects/proposals in Colorado, Mexico, and Utah.
Instrumentation Services Update
Bob Woodward provided an update on various projects across Instrumentation Services. The GSN is in the process of deploying new primary sensors (STS-6A and T360) and initial performance looks exemplary. The TA is now fully installed in Alaska, numbering 200 new stations and 80 upgraded existing stations. Several events and press releases this week and next to announce the completion of this monumental project. Current notional plan is for stations to be demobilized in 2019 and 2020, with the hope that some stations will be adopted by various groups and continue to operate after the rest of the TA departs. The MT TA is nearing completion in the lower 48. The MUSTANG metric tool LASSO has now completed development and is available for users at lasso.iris.edu. CCArray concept continues to gather momentum in Canada, however the current timeline for this project is unlikely to be ready in time to coincide with the demobilization of the TA from Alaska.
Data Management Center Update
Tim Ahern provided an update on activities at the DMC. DMC archive now up to 450TB with over 1PB of data distributed thus far in 2017. More than half of stations in the archive (14,958 out of 34,019) are from PASSCAL experiments. The DMC has made progress on 2 major projects during the course of SAGE: 1. MUSTANG, which is now fully operational, and 2. Research Ready Datasets, which are currently in beta mode and will be completed by the end of SAGE (Sept 2018). Tim also provided an update on seamless access to PH5 datasets at the DMC, which includes access via web services (sac, SEED) and web forms (SEG-Y).
IRIS Update
Bob Detrick gave an update on recent changes at NSF, including the appointment of a new program manager (Maggie Benoit) for the remainder of SAGE. Year 5 SAGE funding has been fully received from NSF at this time. No news on the status of the NGEO proposal. NSF is expected to present their recommendation to the National Science Board at their upcoming November or January meetings.
Community Input for Strategic Planning
Prior to the meeting, each of the committee members were asked to survey their portion of the seismologic community to determine what their science needs are and input on what instrumentation is required to make pertinent observations. During this portion of the PASC meeting, each member had 15 minutes to present the results of their discussions with community members (~40-50 community members responded!). A starting list of instrumentation requirements for some of the pool was drafted – including node-type, intermediate period and broadband systems. The rest of the instrument pool was not discussed in detail, but left for future discussion (short period, high frequency sensors, multi-channel recorders and cabling systems, sources, etc). This compilation of the community input needs to be documented (see action item 9)
The PASC worked on prioritized lists of 1. Needs, 2. Wants, and 3. Nice-to-haves for instrument system designs in each of three categories: Nodal, intermediate period, and broadband systems. The goal was to develop these lists that could then be provided to manufacturers to inform their future development efforts, and also to describe what we would like our future procurements of next-generation instrumentation to resemble. As mentioned above, this was only a subset of the entire PASSCAL pool and did not include a discussion of sources or source systems.
Strategic Planning Discussion
PM presented the need for the management team to have a strategic vision document and an updated Scope Management Plan (SMP) that allows the management team to implement the program and present budget impacts on strategic priorities to the governance. The current SMP is out of date and is no longer appropriate in that it is does not include program capabilities, but rather facility tasks. As written, the SMP would reduce the facility to a warehouse system before it would consider any reduction in instrumentation services.
PM volunteered to draft an update SMP for PASC consideration. The PASC encouraged the PM to develop a framework in which if changes to the Scope of PASSCAL became necessary, the PM (in consultation with the SC chair) would develop several possible options to accommodate budget realities by reducing the scope of the program in different ways. The PM and Chair would then present those options for consideration to the PASC. The goal is for the PASC to not micromanage the PM with how the changes in scope were implemented, but rather to guide the PM by indicating what changes in scope were most palatable at that time. In the case of time-critical matters, the PM will at least consult with the PASC Chair before implementing any changes in Scope. Bob Detrick seconded this basic plan outline.
Bob Detrick and Bob Woodward mentioned a recent NSF Dear Colleague letter that described the establishment of a mid-size (~$10-70m) infrastructure fund that could be relevant for recapitalization of the PASSCAL instrument pool. They encouraged this committee to respond to that letter with our needs. (see Action Item 10)
USGS Temporary Deployments
Harley Benz and William Yeck (both USGS) described the current USGS portable pool (RT-130's, compacts, episensors and newer Etna-2 systems) and how it's used to rapidly respond to various types of seismic events around the country. They expressed that the coordination with PASSCAL is very important to optimize aftershock response and that the data from PASSCAL RAMPs are only valuable to their system if received in real-time (telemetered data) or near-real-time (days). Kate Allstadt (USGS, PASC) provided a short update on the landslide group at the NEIC that also makes use of portable seismic deployments as part of their efforts.
PASSCAL Data Policy
The committee reviewed the updated PASSCAL data policy and the PASC members present voted unanimously to approve the policy as written. Action item to PM will verify with those PASC members not present.
Board document on Best Practices for Governance and Management
The committee reviewed the Board document and were requested to provide feedback to the Board. The standing committee members agreed that the document was important, and were pleased that the Board had written down guiding principles. However, did raise a concern at the meeting with regard to the communication between the Board and the Standing Committees. Currently, on the Management side, Bob Woodward is present at both the Standing Committee Meetings and at the Board Meetings so he can report directly from Management's perspective. The only commensurate link from the governance side is the Board Liaison. Traditionally, the Liaison has often been absent from SC meetings. The PASC encourages the Board to more strongly emphasize the vitality of Board Liaisons participation in SC meetings, or else consider including SC Chairs at appropriate portions of the Board Meetings.
In addition, during the final executive session, some concern was raised about the description of the Standing Committees as "advisory". This was a change from how several standing committee members had thought of the role of the SCs (as opposed to advisory committees).


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That was the most unexpected trip of year 2016. I was not required to be a part of the trip. But sheer need of a change and a vacant weekend pulled me in. So I set forth to travel 200 plus kms to experience the unseen forests of Bharuch, a district in Gujarat that is known for its industrial presence and Gulf of Khambat. I was not alone in the trip, Hardik and Akash my colleagues and friends were part of this adventure. Since it was an official visit, there was a vintage looking Bolero for company as well along with a very entertaining Chandanbhai at the steering.
As it was the month of July, there were only different hues of green around us. Before we get into forest, the objective behind the trip was to photo document the plantation efforts done by Forest Department in and around Bharuch to combat loss of biodiversity and to bring back lost species of trees and plants. I being a non-botany person, was about to be awed by what is in store. As you may know forests are divided in clusters for it's better and management. So we visited Netrang and Jhagadiya divisions of Bharuch. The visit was more than enriching. Firstly I could see the green side of a district that is more known for presence of industries. The two day trip took me to deep forest areas reserved for plantation and water conservation activities. The terrain was undulating, wet and full of thick foliage. My camera never rested. It captured the forests and its life, with all its glory.
Certainly a trip to forest will definitely not be uneventful. I had a fall, rather slipped and skied only to land on my bum. And all throughout this fall I was only concerned about the safety of the camera. The second adventure was to 'get lost in the woods' with zero mobile connectivity. I must tell you, here I realized the utmost importance of being physically fit to walk and run without losing breath. When rest of the team trekked to the top of hillock, I was catching breath and was thinking 'would I become the lunch of that leopard that must be watching me from over the tree and salivating'. Thanks to the foresters, who by then had filled my imagination with stories of frequent leopard sightings in and around the area where I got lost. But the fact is I was only worried for a while, because if at all a leopard finds me interesting, there was not much I could do, than surrendering myself. Once the worry faded away, I looked around and was astonished to see trees and variety of trees. Small and big ones, stood strong holding on to the ground, like a mother taking care of the newborn. These were the trees which for centuries are holding on to the earth and stop erosion of land only to provide a secured life to its dwellers, the living beings.
Bamboo forests, natural and man-made are abound in Bharuch. The smell of wet earth and dripping water from the long leaves painted a picture of a joyful monsoon. Rain drenched grasses never made by heavy feet feel the need of rest and for two days we wandered throughout the bamboo plantation and got introduced to many offshoots of older bamboo trees, as old as 30 years.
Undoubtedly the most astonishing part of the trip was the magnificent hilly range with a natural formation like that of the Mount Rushmore (to my bewildered eyes) known as Vadadhiya Dungar. Any lover of hills would be amazed to see the formation. Bharuch has many historical hot spots, like the Kadia Dungar Caves, which has seven caves carved from the mountain during the 1st and 2nd century AD. It is believed that the Pandavas stayed over here during exile.
So what is stopping you, when it is monsoon make a plan to visit Bharuch.
While travelling through the hillside villages of Bharuch on a warm July afternoon, I met this group of enthusiastic boys on cycle. While I was languishing in a rickety Bolero with a tele-lens mounted camera, they were having the time of their life on the unpredictable yet familiar roads. Many of you would surely relate with such escapades on cycle.
It was a holiday for them. More than the children, I was happy to find them. For those who travel, children following you in villages are a common sight, especially if you smile and be warm to them. Believe me, these are the true joy of travelling. No big take aways, no resort hoping, but some unconditional memories and of course little tiredness too.
For me, she is Ammichi and for many she is Agnes thathi. At 86, she is an inspiration for me, to keep aside troubles and move ahead in life. While I was growing up in the beautiful coastal village of Pallipuram in Vypin Island; I only wished to get a job and erase all her woes. For those who have heard of this for the first time, Vypin is one of the highly inhabited Islands in Kerala, the picturesque state of India.
Little did I know then, that it would be Ammichi who would inspire me to move on and achieve greater heights, especially in terms of education, financial stability and above all a happy family life. Not just for her family, but she has stood beside many to give that timely advice to ward off domestic and financial troubles.
Ammichi was born into a very humble family of four daughters and a relentlessly hardworking mother – father. She couldn't complete her education as desired by her. She dreamt of becoming a teacher, once she told me. Though, in life she was no less than a teacher, all those who are acquainted with her, would certainly vouch for this.
Soon Ammichi became a wife and mother to four daughters and three sons. And her life changed completely. Having a husband who was posted with the Indian Army, Ammichi took the reins of bringing up the family into her hands. Ammichi for the past 40 plus years has rarely missed opening her small wooden toffee shop near St. Mary's High School at Pallipuram. More or less, she has continuously witnessed over three generations of students, who still remember the ammayi muttai and kumbloose naaranga they ate from her pettikada (small shop in Malayalam). And the pettikada has played an important role in supporting her financial needs.
And what a beautiful family she has raised. In spite of not being a biological part of her family, she brought me up just the way she would have done with her own offspring. Indeed, she lived the role of my Ammichi (mother in Malayalam). As per the relation, I should have called her Ammama (grandma), but I never realized the difference, as she raised me with equal portions of love, patience and punishments.
Today, when she is celebrating her birthday, I stand here, educated, settled and with a loving family. This is when I realize the value of those moments of love and punishments. And how it has helped me to value life and count blessings, above all.
The ethos of India is beautifully etched on the many architectural marvels all around us. My early memories of visiting a heritage site dates back to 1993, when I was taken to Lal Darwaja one of the busiest market places of Ahmedabad. Thanks to my mother for holding on to her amused daughter of 13 years of age and showing around the city that was built more than 600 years ago. Here in Ahmedabad, my journey started. Work, yearly trips and an adventurous husband has taken me to few parts of the country. This collage is made from the trips made in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Goa and Kerala. These places have the signature architectural styles and patterns of the Mughal, Portuguese, Mewar, Maurya, Rajput, Indo-Saracenic and the Muzzaffarid as well as Solanki dynasty. This is a small tribute to the spectacular heritage of India.
Kachchh is a traveler's paradise. Who doesn't know that? Every nook and corner of this mysterious and beautiful place is an artist's impression on canvas. The expanse of Kachchh is so large that it is not difficult to find a place that is devoid of population. One such part of Kachchh is Lakhpat, which was once a thriving port and a hub for maritime trade. However, the glorious past has become fables now. The arid topography of Lakhpat still has many beautiful places, which are often found and cherished by travelers. I would certainly be doing a series on 'Lakhpat and around', so that more and more people get motivated to visit this nondescript corner of Kachchh.
This is such a place, which wouldn't have caught anyone's attention. The floating crematorium. Literally it doesn't float. But in my imagination it certainly does. Just as when I was rushing out of Koteshwar Mahadev temple (very popular place among visitors), my eyes fell on this small structure with no roof, right in the middle of sea. It formed a perfect painting in indigo with the blue sky merging with the Arabian Sea. Later on, I could know that the building is nothing but a crematorium. People in and around this western tip of Kachchh district still use this crematorium. Unfortunately I couldn't know much about how people would access the crematorium during high tide. However, it seems the pyre will be set on fire, when the tide is low. For me, the mystery continues.
it is the latest rage to travel alone; they say 'it leads you to self exploration'. Since I am yet to experience it, cannot vouch for that. So as of now, I believe in travelling together, with friends, family or colleagues. Travelling in company has its own benefits. When I say company, I don't mean that I only prefer 10 people. Not at all. One can enjoy the pleasures of travelling and the place more when travelling with the person you love the most. Like a close mate or your companion. It helps you be calm and sure about the surrounding. Moreover, you can be relaxed about the ever inquisitive strangers. I agree that not every stranger is a monster. The quiet conversations, those little arguments over luggage and fretting about last minute shopping; the travelling couple would have hundreds of such stories. It certainly gives an opportunity to plan and dream about a trip. Especially as you age, travelling together will make you fall in love again and again.
living in Gujarat for the past 21 years, has exposed me to many opportunities to travel across the breadth and length of the state. Of all the districts I have visited, certainly I am partial in my love for few. One among it is Dangs or The Dangs. After a long wait, I could finally visit Dangs in year 2010. It was in the sweltering summer of April. And while going up the mountains, I only saw a large stretch of yellow jungle through my taxi window, wondering and hoping to behold the green avatar of this beautiful district of Gujarat.
I didn't have to wait too long. In the same year again, I had a chance to visit Dangs, but this time in the month of July. The yellow jungle had by now attained a thick, dense and deep colour of green. Dense foliage displayed every possible hues of the colour green. Monsoons had clearly left its mark. Elated and surprised by the sporadic springs and falls, I continued the journey to the one and only place that could match with the definition of a hill station in my state; Saputara.
Certainly you don't have to go far to see the majesty and beauty of the Western Ghats. It's just here. Soon it would be the months of rains. This time make a plan to visit Dangs and sip the lili cha (tea made with lemon grass) and experience the forest. You would realize that forests surely has a life of its own.
i am 35, still feel like a hot headed young girl of 17 and love to irk my cousin of the same age of course with utmost innocence. May be age is just a number and it doesn't have anything to do with what we feel and do. From birth, till the end of journey, when do we lose the hold on being happy? When we grow up, that's my experience of three long decades. Changes which happen to us in a life time are of course results of our own choices and some mishaps. Met this beautiful octogenarian in a least developed coastal village, who had nothing to say to me but just smile and love me with her concern and warmth. I realized that day; indeed her smile holds the answer to being happy. I am sure you too can.
have your heard of the duck curry accompanied with succulent appams (a kind of pancake made with fermented rice paste /coconut and toddy, if you are lucky) Or the unending streams of picturesque backwaters. The older generation would also associate the place with many a freedom struggles, political uproar and the once famous coir industry. The place I am referring to is the rice bowl of Kerala and the Venice of the east; a district known as Alleppey and for many its Alappuzha (meaning 'The land lies between sea and its rivers).
I am one of the many daughter in-laws Alleppey would have. Like most of them, my visit is always shrouded with many plans to see that and eat this. However, each visit remains a surprise till the end. And of course more plans are made for the next visit.
Luckily this time, I was more blessed to have got a guided tour to the backyard. No way, i am not complaining. Even the backyard in Alleppey is worth taking a tour. And to add to the beauty, it rained the whole day. So I walked on the red coloured unpaved road to find this beautiful place.
The water was dark but clear in the middle. Grass in varied nuances of green and different sizes covered the edges of the backwaters. Scores of ducks fluttered its wings to get closer to the land before the next big rain.
Indeed the backwaters of Alleppey beckon you to spend more time in the quaint atmosphere. You will not even mind the never ending rain.
Life is a journey that must be travelled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations; says Oliver Goldsmith.
With a similar emotion, that day in the month of April the journey began for me and friends. We boarded the Okha- Guwahati Express from Ahmedabad at around 9 pm only to find over 200 co-passengers in the second class bogie meant to accommodate 72 people. It took us a while to get accustomed with the surrounding and the hundreds of people heading for respective hometowns. That day the meaning of 'shock' and 'disbelief' was redefined. And we knew that our 'reserved berth' was just a mirage and that the exodus had begun.
Generally all it takes is 60 minutes to adjust to the surrounding in a crowded train, at times even lesser. So in a while, we were busy probing and exploring with our co-passengers to find the reason for this rabble. And the answer was, "its Holi and we need to reach home".
Most of our co-passengers were natives from Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar and Assam migrated to Gujarat in search of work. Having found a job in the vibrant state of Gujarat, they only visit their families once in a year. Hence, the rush was well justified.
They were young, middle-aged, old and few who hopped in straight from the hospital, leaving the treatment half-way, keen to be home before the festivity begins in their respective villages. As they were taking turns to sleep and sit along the window seats, the scene illustrated a perfect travelling scene of giving each other a leg up to accommodate self as well as others. The bonhomie was contagious and soon we forgot our discomfort and joined the exodus.
It's recommended for photographers and story writers to board this train (before Holi, ofcourse) from Okha (Gujarat), if you want to hear amazing stories of finding employment, lack of jobs in one's native and so on from the people of seven states of India all in one go . The Okha -Guwahati Express travels a long journey of more than 3200 km in a span of four days. Don't miss my favourite, the second-class compartment in a summer night.


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Dick Cheney And Sean Hannity Fear Monger About A Nuclear Terror Attack
Posted by Ellen -7834.60pc on June 24, 2014 · Flag
Dick Cheney's back again! Less than a week after Megyn Kelly called him out for being "so wrong about so much" in Iraq, he got a double segment with lapdog Sean Hannity where the two agreed that everything wrong in Iraq is President Obama's fault – because the Bush administration invasion was so fab. And in case that isn't 2003 all over again enough for you, Cheney and Hannity got all mushroom cloudy on us.
I can't help but wonder if Cheney's Hannity gig wasn't a deliberate dose of Republican rehab. Not only did Kelly's interview go viral – at Cheney's expense – but last night Jon Stewart made great fun of Cheney – now memorably dubbed as "America's tragedy herpe."
Hannity wasted no time assuring us viewers that Iraq was "certainly better off than it was" and that it had become an "ally in the region" thanks to the Bush administration's invasion (under false pretenses). Now, it has all fallen apart and not only is it Obama's fault, Hannity faulted Obama for not taking responsibility.
As if Cheney has. Instead, the guy from the administration asleep at the switch on 9/11 began laying the foundation to blame Obama for any and all future terrorism:
I think it's important to understand, this isn't just about Iraq. …It's part of a much larger problem. …It's the fact that now Iraq and Syria are both potential trouble spots. And as we see this proliferation of terrorists, we've also, at the same time, had an administration that didn't want to recognize there was a problem.
Hannity helpfully suggested that if President Obama had left troops in Iraq, "We wouldn't be where we are today."
"I think that's an accurate statement," Cheney said.
Then it was time to ratchet up the fear factor, too.
Cheney said:
As we've seen this proliferation of terrorist organizations, there's also the problem of proliferating nuclear capability. We've now got the terrorist Taliban organization in Pakistan conducting a big raid on Karachi airport. Why do we care about Pakistan? Well, they have 50-100 nukes. And if you combine the terrorists with the ability to get their hands on a weapon of some kind, then obviously, we're gonna see a very serious situation.
Hannity just wanted to make sure he understood Cheney – by dialing up the rhetoric. "If we don't get real about the rise and the march of radical Islam right now… literally we face the potential of a human catastrophe on a scale that we've not seen before. Am I reading into that?"
Yes, that's exactly what Cheney was getting at:
I think that's an accurate statement. I think that threat will increase dramatically and as - well, we already know, for example, from A. Q. Khan, the man who put together the Pakistan nuclear program and then was under house arrest because he was selling stuff to the Libyans, he has said publicly in the press, a couple of years ago, that the Pakistanis sold nuclear technology to the North Koreans. And we know the North Koreans built a reactor for the Syrians which was taken out by the Israelis back in '07. So there's a network developing there where access to that kind of technology obviously becomes increasingly problematic. On top of that, we've got Iran trying to build a nuclear program.
Hannity interrupted, once again to make the rhetoric more incendiary: "I see the world the way you do. I view this as a real clear and present danger. Almost the potential for a modern day holocaust that we've not seen. Maybe in your grandkids' lives or my kids' lives. Pretty scary stuff."
And yet neither one of these two seem to be lifting a finger to help the situation other than to use it for their own political gain.
Watch the two chickenhawks deliberately frighten Americans to score partisan political points below. Then have some laughts watching Jon Stewart tear apart Cheney.
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Sandman2 commented 2014-06-25 16:21:54 -0400 · Flag
Cheney seemed befuddled that Pres. Obama hasn't reached out to him for his advice on the latest Iraq situation!
I laughed so hard I nearly ran off the road!!!
I guess Cheney is trying out his new comedy stand-up routine or something!
Kent Brockman commented 2014-06-25 12:27:05 -0400 · Flag
Dickhead sez
What I hate about Stalin is this – he didn't go far enough!
doors17 commented 2014-06-25 11:23:21 -0400 · Flag
It wasn't that long ago that whenever a former elected official or anyone who made any negative commentary against a sitting President it was considered not just a sin, but treasonous, especially in the time of war, and if such talk was said by an America in a foreign country, then smelling salts were required to revive our Yankee Doodle way of life with a star spangled bannered hug. Remember when such talk against the Commander-in-Chief could undermine the moral of our troops who were in harm's way?
Geeeee, I wonder when all that changed? That was a fad that didn't live very long. If I'm not mistaken it faded sometime around January 20, 2009.
Despite KKKlannity's constant polishing of Dickhead's legacy turd, it still looks and smells like a turd.
Homeboy Halligan commented 2014-06-25 07:34:57 -0400 · Flag
Sean Hannity set a new standard for journalistic incompetence last night with his "interview" of Cheney. Hannity did not ask anything even resembling a tough question of the man who some people say made the most stupid military decision in U.S. history with HIS decision to invade Iraq as a consequence of the 9/11 attack. The man who some people say bears a heavy responsibility for the mess at the VA as a result of the flood of wounded, broken bodies, PTSD scarred victims that occurred as a result of his stupid decision.
NewsHounds posted about Dick Cheney And Sean Hannity Fear Monger About A Nuclear Terror Attack on NewsHounds' Facebook page 2014-06-25 00:53:10 -0400
Dick Cheney and Sean Hannity go all mushroom cloud about Obama.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Simply put, I am a BIG fan of Dr. Kevin T. McCauley's research into the disease model of addiction. He is an accomplished medical doctor. He has conducted over 10 years of compelling addiction research and he has triumphed over his own personal experience with addiction & recovery. He has no other goal but to help addicts and their loved ones understand addiction. I believe his years of evidence-based research and his dedication to the area of Addiction Medicine deserves the utmost respect.
These are some of his words, his wisdom and his personal journey….


I am elbows deep in quilting the Pink Star quilt, but wanted to tell you I have a guest post for the Giant Chevron QAL over at the Elven Garden about free motion quilting today! Go check it out!
Here's a peek at the feathers I just finished! They are a lot of work, and use tons of thread. But they're gorgeous!
Big feathers! They are about 20 inches long.
Enjoyed your guest post at Elven Garden. Thank you very much. Wow! I hope someday I'll be able to produce something as beautiful as this!
Great choice for filling in that circle!
It is gorgeous, and I can't believe you're doing this on a regular sewing machine!
The feathers look great and yay for more echoed / double lines. Lovely! Your guest post is great and I hope more people are encourage to give FMQing a try!
lOVE THE FEATHERS IN PINK THREAD!!
Are you doing those feathers on a regular machine (not longarm)???!!!


either on my own (consecutive, short chuchotage) or with a team (simultaneous interpretation, longer chuchotage) in a wide variety of disciplines (politics, economics, finance, technology, science, IT, art and humanities, social sciences, legal topics, …). The differences between the various techniques are explained under Definitions.
Are you planning a large conference with several working languages requiring a full team of interpreters (including simultaneous interpretation equipment)? If so, there are several things I would need to know so as to provide you with a tailor-made quote: the type of event, the venue, the approximate number of participants requiring translation, the date(s) and working hours and the number of working languages. I also need to know whether there will be breakout sessions and whether any or all of them require interpretation in all working languages. Just send me an email and I will be happy to supply an estimate.
Please refer to the References page for customer references and examples of conferences for which I organised the team or where I was part of a team put together by a colleague.


text:
Laura E Dee
Current Teaching:
EBIO-6100: Ecology of Ecosystem Services Graduate seminar
This seminar has two core components:
(1) We will cover core and frontier concepts on the ecology of ecosystem services, through reading, discussing, and synthesizing the current literature.
(2) Students will work on a collaborative paper. This part of the seminar will also provide an opportunity to discuss key issues in collaborative synthesis science including authorship, ethics, and tools for collaboration.
EBIO 2040: Principles of Ecology
Previous Teaching and Advising:
I previously taught undergraduate and graduate courses at University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in the Sustainability minor and Fisheries, Wildlife & Conservation programs. To view the syllabi, please click on the course name. For more information on the course description and objectives, please see below. I was on the faculty for the Conservation Sciences and Ecology, Evolution and Behavior graduate programs.
SUST 3003: Sustainable People, Sustainable Planet (Intro to Sustainability)
FW5121: Conservation Planning & Structured-Decision Making
Course descriptions and objectives:
Conservation planning and structured decision making (FW5121)
We are impacting our planet and the species and ecosystems on it at an unprecedented rate. This creates key policy challenges to conserve species, ecosystems, and the benefits they provide to people. But, how do we decide what is the best way to tackle these challenges? How do we do this in a world with limited resources (time, money) for conservation, and multiple stakeholders with different objectives? How can we make systematic decisions to get the biggest bang for our conservation buck? To address these questions, this course will cover key topics and concepts in conservation planning and provide exposure and hands-on experience with techniques for conservation plans and decisions. We will cover topics ranging from protected areas, restoration, ecosystem services, and climate change to structured decision-making, adaptive management, and return on investment. The course has a lecture and in class computer lab component. This course will present structured approaches to problem-solving and decision-making from conservation perspective, and students will leave with tools for structuring and solving complex environmental problems. Therefore, this is a foundational course in conservation planning but will also provide students will a tool-box to formulate and solve complex problems in environmental management more broadly and in life.
Prerequisites: Senior or graduate standing, or permission of instructor. Recommended: One course in ecology, environmental science or permission of instructor.
Analyze and understand challenges for conservation in our current times
Apply and understand key concepts and principles in conservation planning, and their applications in real-world settings
Apply current approaches and techniques to solve complex conservation challenges and decisions
Evaluate key scientific literature in conservation planning through reading and analyzing scientific papers, and applying this knowledge to lab assignments designed as hypothetical conservation plans and decisions.
Sustainable People, Sustainable Planet (SUST 3003)
Sustainability recognizes that social equity, environmental integrity, and economic prosperity are all worthy goals, but that these goals compete, so that it is impossible to maximize all three of them concurrently. Some objectives of sustainability are therefore realized at the cost of other equally valid objectives. Sustainability is inherently ethical and requires decisions to be rooted in moral principles and value judgments. In Sustainable People, Sustainable Planet, we will approach sustainability from multiple viewpoints and explore various models for understanding and integrating these value judgments. We will demonstrate, by utilizing a variety of real-world case studies, the conflicts and trade-offs that occur from trying to put sustainability into practice.
Prerequisites: Sustainable People, Sustainable Planet is intended for sophomores and above. There are no formal prerequisites, but you should have previous exposure to critical reading, writing, and thinking (e.g., freshman writing). The course currently satisfies the CLE elective theme for Environment, and is also the introduction course for the Sustainability Studies Minor.
Describe, explain, interpret, and summarize basic facts and concepts involved in the study and practice of sustainability
Connect the diversity of perspectives involved in sustainability, including history, philosophy, psychology, economics, politics, religion, culture, science, and technology
Examine, and discuss competing economic, social, and environmental goals
Collaborate with others to find common ground in the search for sustainability
Appraise, assess, and evaluate real-world case studies involving sustainability trade-offs
Incorporate concepts of sustainability into your own life


text:
Noble Gas
Radon Noble Gas
Neon Noble Gas
Xenon Noble Gas
Helium Noble Gas
Argon Noble Gas
Noble Gas Compounds
What is a Noble Gas?
The noble gases, from the German word Edelgas, are a family of nonreactive monoatomic gases found on the far right of the periodic table. Noble gases include helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, radon, and the latest, ununoctium, with an atomic number of 118, only three atoms of which have been observed over the course of experiments running from 2002 - 2005. Helium, the most common noble gas, makes up about 1/4th of all atoms in the universe. Argon is the most common noble gas here on Earth, where it makes up 1% of our atmosphere. Helium is also available in substantial quantities from underground natural gas reserves.
In industry, noble gases are used as an inert atmosphere for processes where reactivity with air is a problem. The noble gas argon is often used in light bulbs, where it provides an inert atmosphere for the electrified tungsten filament. Noble gases are often a superior alternative to another gas used to provide a nonreactive atmosphere, hydrogen, because of their lack of flammability. Neon is used for lighting applications, and krypton is used for lasers.
Neon, a gaseous element sometimes used in neon signs, is a noble gas.
The noble gas helium is among the most versatile, and is used in applications from blimps to cooling superconductors. Helium has the lowest boiling point of all the elements, at 4.22 Kelvins, or only a few degrees above absolute zero. Liquid helium is extremely cold and can be used as a coolant of last resort, when liquid nitrogen is insufficient. Let's also not forget that helium may be inhaled to make your voice squeaky.
Krypton and argon are both noble gases used to create lasers.
The reason for the noble gases' extremely low reactivity is given by their full valence electron shells - their outer electron shells have all the electrons they can hold, making their electronegativity negligible - not in search of complementary electrons, they have little propensity for chemical bonding. However, xenon, krypton, and argon compounds can be formed under exotic conditions in a laboratory.
What Are the Noble Gases?
What Are the Properties of Helium?
What Is Electronegativity?
What are Helium Balloons?
What is Brown's Gas?
Which Material Has the Lowest Freezing Point?
matthewc23
I knew that the noble gases were commonly used to make lights. Neon's use is obvious and I knew argon was used in fluorescent light bulbs. I'm pretty sure xenon and krypton can be put into tubes and used to make "neon" lights. I think each of the elements has a different color when they are lit so not all neon lights are really neon.
I'm wondering though why the noble gasses light up when they are exposed to electricity. It must excite them in some way, but what makes them give off colors? I don't think any other elements do that, do they? How did someone even figure out in the first place that the noble gasses could make colors?
titans62
@kentuckycat - Good question. Technically, some of the noble gasses will join with each other to make molecules. Besides that, there are also some other commercially useful noble gas compounds.
I think xenon and krypton are the two most common elements that make compounds. Usually they bind with fluorine and can be extreme oxidizers. Like the article says, though, none of these are natural. They have to be made in a lab.
I am curious now if anyone knows how exactly they are able to get the noble gasses out of the air and into elemental form to be used. I assume it would be a similar process to isolating other elements where various elements are introduced to react with things like nitrogen and oxygen in the air.
kentuckycat
@jcraig - I remember reading about this several years ago and have always remembered it because I had the same question. They are called noble gases in reference to noble metals. I have never heard the term noble metals used, but it refers to elements like chromium that will not react (rust).
Even though noble gasses will not naturally react with other elements and form compounds that I know of, are there any noble gas compounds that have been made in a lab? Do they have any use, or are they only short lived molecules?
jcraig
I have always wondered why noble gases are called noble. Does anyone here know?
Because other elements will not react with them, noble gases are also used a lot in welding. Whenever you are welding, you want to make sure that elements and compounds in the air like oxygen and water can't get to the weld or it can cause problems.
Helium and argon are the two cheapest gasses, so they are the most used. By welding using a noble gas a "shield" you can prevent other things from affecting the quality of the weld.
anon138808
actually, helium does not need eight valence electrons. its outermost shell is full; its electron configuration is 1s^2. but it is true that not all noble gases are inert. the last three noble gases (Krypton, Xenon, and Radon) are able to form compounds, but only in labs and they aren't very stable.
no. Because only the other five had completed their atomic structure. Helium has only two valance electrons. it will react with other gasses to obtain the octet structure.
obsessedwithloopy
Noble gases are also referred to as rare gases, even though some are really not that rare.
Are all noble gases inert?
By: Karin Hildebrand Lau
By: Pavel Losevsky
By: Laurentiu Iordache
Argon, a noble gas, is used to create a shield for arc wielding, as well as in lighting and fire extinguishers.
Nobel gases are found on the far right column of the periodic table.


It could be argued that Interstellar is a product of how far humanity has come. In his ninth feature film, Christopher Nolan stretches technology to a near breaking point, producing a visceral absorption of sight and awe-producing sound (and silence). Narratively speaking, Interstellar also presents human technology at its highest heights, it's outermost point of human evolution. Man can go farther than they have ever gone before, reaching the ends of the galaxy, and more. Just like technological advancement isn't what keeps its characters scratching and crawling for life, Interstellar is a humanistic film grasping for something more. It pushes us to look to the stars. And when we do, we'll find something bigger than ourselves.
Stay up to date on my blogs. Don't worry, I won't spam you or make late night visits to your house.


text:
Law & Disorder: New Orleans Police, Post-Katrina.
An ongoing investigation by PBS' Frontline, The Times-Picayune and ProPublica examines the many violent incidents that took place between police officers and civilians in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Reporter A.C. Thompson recounts the difficulties of trying to piece together the details.
A. C. Thompson
Hurricane Katrina (2005)
Journalism & Photojournalism
Other segments from the episode on August 4, 2010
Fresh Air with Terry Gross, August 4, 2010: Interview with A. C. Thompson; Interview with Fred Hersch.
After Emerging From Coma, Fred Hersch Plays Again.
In 2008, jazz pianist Fred Hersch slipped into an AIDS-related coma for more than two months. When he came out of the coma, he couldn't walk, eat or play piano. Hersch explains how he rebuilt himself after his illness and composed music for his latest album, Whirl.
Fred Hersch
*** TRANSCRIPTION COMPANY BOUNDARY ***
..DATE:
..PGRM:
..TIME:
12:00-13:00 PM
..NIEL:
..NTWK:
..SGMT:
Law & Disorder: New Orleans Police, Post-Katrina
As we approach the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and as New Orleans
continues to rebuild, the Justice Department is investigating the New Orleans
Police Department.
Since February, federal prosecutors have charged 16 current and former New
Orleans police officers for offenses ranging – for offenses allegedly committed
after the levies failed, including shooting, murder and covering up crimes.
Five officers have pleaded guilty. The Justice Department is also investigating
hate crimes committed after New Orleans flooded.
My guest, journalist A.C. Thompson, broke some of the stories that contributed
to the Justice Department's decision to launch investigations. Thompson says
what emerged from his work was a disturbing picture of New Orleans in the days
after the storm, when the city fractured along racial fault lines as its
government collapsed.
Thompson is a reporter for ProPublica, an investigative journalism website.
He's been collaborating on the series Law & Disorder with reporters from the
New Orleans Times-Picayune and the PBS documentary series "Frontline." He's the
correspondent for the "Frontline" edition "Law & Disorder," which will be
broadcast August 25th.
A.C. Thompson, welcome to FRESH AIR. Let's talk about the case of Henry Glover,
since that's one of the cases you've been investigating for ProPublica and for
the PBS series "Frontline." Tell us what you know about how he was attacked.
Mr. A.C. THOMPSON (Reporter, ProPublica): What we know is that on September 2,
2005, Henry Glover was shot on the west bank of the Mississippi River near a
strip mall. And in that strip mall was a police substation.
He ran away after he'd been shot, and his brother and a friend and another man
put him into a car and drove him to a school, where a police SWAT team was
camped out. And the idea was that they were going to get medical help for Henry
Glover.
They thought, look, this is the closest place to go. We know the police are
trained in lifesaving. We want to get him help. It's closer than the hospital.
Let's take him there.
And so they drove him to the school with the idea that we're going to rescue
Henry. He's bleeding, but he's still alive. When they got there, according to
the other three men, the police didn't offer any help. What they did was they
physically assaulted the three able-bodied men, and they left Henry in the back
of the car, and they let him bleed to death.
And eventually the able-bodied men, after allegedly being physically assaulted
repeatedly by the police, were turned loose, and the witnesses say that the
police drove off with Henry's body.
When I came into investigating the story, what I learned was, from the autopsy
report, I went through about 800 autopsy reports from the post-Katrina time
period, and I found one that described how Henry Glover was found and what
state his body was in.
And what it said was that he had been severely, severely burned, just burned to
almost nothing. And I tracked down a source who knew about this, who had photos
of Henry Glover's body.
It was in the car that his friends had tried to rescue him in. It was left on
the banks of the Mississippi River, just a short distance from a police
station, and in the car, looking at the photos, you could see all of this, all
the stuff described in the autopsy report.
You could see a burnt skull. You could see pieces of big bones. You could see
ashes. And that was Henry Glover. He was delivered to the morgue in five body
bags, and nobody knew what happened to him.
His cause of death was left unclassified, which means we're not even going to
rule this undetermined. We're just not even going to fill in the blank. That's
what the coroner did, just left it blank. And nobody did anything about it.
GROSS: How did you first get on this story of Henry Glover?
Mr. THOMPSON: You know, the way I came into reporting this story is that I came
across a statement by a guy named William Tanner(ph), who said this whole crazy
story - and he made this statement to a police accountability group in New
Orleans - and he had this crazy tale, and it went something like: Shortly after
the storm, I encountered a man who'd been shot. I tried to rescue him. I drove
him to a school, a public elementary school where the police were camped out,
but the police didn't help him. I thought they'd help him, but instead the
police physically attacked me, and they physically attacked the other people
with me. They let Henry bleed to death, and then they took off with my car,
which I'd tried to rescue the man in, and they burnt up the car, and they burnt
up Henry Glover's body, and they dumped it on the banks of the river.
So I'm reading this, and I'm thinking, wow, this is really bizarre. This is a
really weird thing. And when you're an investigative reporter, you get kooky
people who come and tell you kooky stories, and they're, you know, they're
delusional. And I thought this might be the case.
But as I continued to work on reporting about the aftermath of Katrina, I came
across the autopsy report for Henry Glover, the man described in this account,
and he in fact had been burnt up.
And I thought, oh wow, this crazy tale that I had just read in this statement
might actually be true. There might be something to it, because here was a guy
who was very, very seriously burnt up during a flood, which looks pretty
suspicious.
And so I called around, and I finally tracked down the Glover family, and I
spoke to Henry's mom. And she said yes, I'd like to talk to you about my son.
Can you come to our apartment tomorrow?
And I went over there, and there were about 20 people in it, this small place,
and she said: This is all of Henry's family, and this is 2008. He died in 2005.
We still have no clue what happened to him. Do you know what happened to him?
And everyone was clamoring for information. All of his family members needed to
know what happened to Henry. All they knew was that the last time they'd seen
him, he'd been in police custody, and his remains had been found burnt up on
the banks of the Mississippi. They knew nothing.
And his brother, who'd helped to try to rescue him, was there. The man who had
made the statement about trying to rescue him was there as well, William, and
they all told me the same story, and it was just this macabre, disturbing
mystery.
GROSS: What did you learn about how and why Henry was shot in the first place?
Mr. THOMPSON: Well, you know, at first I had no clue why he was shot. I didn't
know at all. And there were different theories, you know. One person thought,
well, perhaps it was a police officer because there was a police substation in
the strip mall right near where he was shot. Other people thought it was a
shopkeeper who might have thought that Henry was trying to steal something from
the strip mall. Other people thought it might have been just a random act of
Nobody knew. Nobody that I was talking to early on had a clue. And over time
what came out was that there had indeed been a police officer at that strip
mall who had fired a shot at Henry Glover. And what became more and more clear
– and a lot of this was uncovered by my friends at the New Orleans Times-
Picayune – was that a police officer had fired a shot from his rifle. He in all
likelihood had shot and hit Henry Glover.
Henry's companions had spirited him away from that section, that area, without
really knowing that he'd been shot by the police, and according to the federal
indictments, that there was pretty quickly a cover-up that went into effect
where officers were basically trying to hide the fact that this shooting had
occurred.
GROSS: When you say a cover-up, what was the shape of that cover-up?
Mr. THOMPSON: Well, what you can divine from talking to sources and looking at
the federal indictments is that the federal government does not believe that
the incident report that was written up in the wake of the shooting describing
it is an accurate and truthful document. That's clear from what the federal
government is alleging in their indictment, in court papers.
Our reporting that I've done with the New Orleans Times-Picayune and PBS
"Frontline" has showed the same thing. The reporters at the Picayune really
figured that out early on, that this report that was written by the police
department about the shooting did not look to be a truthful, accurate
reflection of what happened.
You know, further, the federal government is saying that the officers involved
in this mess lied to federal investigators about what happened.
GROSS: What is one of the biggest obstacles you've run into as a result of
those cover-ups?
Mr. THOMPSON: You know, with the Henry Glover matter, the police department at
first told me they knew nothing about it. They knew nothing about it. There was
no information about it.
And when you look at that case, Henry Glover's mother went to the police
department and she said: My son, I believe he was shot. I don't know where he
is. I don't know if he's alive or dead. I think he's probably dead. Can you
figure out what happened?
And what we now know is that the police department, instead of following up on
her worry and on this, you know, terrible story that she's come and told them,
that they either did nothing or they actively made sure that that report didn't
go anywhere and nobody followed up. And that's the kind of stuff that you
encounter in New Orleans.
GROSS: You've read 800 autopsy reports as part of your research. Was it hard to
get access to those reports?
Mr. THOMPSON: When I started doing this reporting, the Nation Institute was
supporting it and bankrolling it, and they hired an attorney to sue the
coroner's office to make those documents available to us. They're public record
in the state of Louisiana, and they were supposed to be available to us, but
the coroner's office wouldn't do it.
So we had to go to court. We spent tens of thousands of dollars. The Nation
Institute poured a ton of money into it, and it was only after litigation and
winning in court that we finally got to review those documents.
GROSS: Why was it necessary to sue?
Mr. THOMPSON: You know, when I first called down and I spoke to the staff at
the coroner's office, I said, you know, look, I'm only interested in people who
were shot or otherwise died violently after the storm.
And the coroner's office staffer said, well, you know, I don't know what we can
do for you. And I said, well, would it be easier if I made a formal public
records request? And the person on the other end of the phone said, well, sure,
you know, you can do that, but we don't follow the law anyway.
GROSS: Well, what does that mean?
Mr. THOMPSON: That means that they weren't going to turn over documents that
they legally had an obligation to turn over, even if I made the formal request
under the law for them.
GROSS: Is there a possibility that the leadership in the city, in their
attempts to maintain a lawful atmosphere and to prevent anarchy from breaking
out, gave orders that were interpreted too harshly by some cops who were maybe
too ready to pull the trigger when they thought somebody was a looter?
Mr. THOMPSON: That is an ongoing question. That is something that we are still
really trying to figure out. What we have been told by many people is that
officers were instructed by higher-ups in the department to quote-unquote "take
the city back," to go after looters with extreme prejudice, to use force in
contexts that wouldn't normally be lawful, that normally if you are going to
use deadly force, you need to be threatened with deadly force yourself as a
police officer. You can't just shoot somebody willy-nilly who's stealing
something. And it's been alleged to us that that's what was going on at that
time period.
Now, other people, other officers, higher-ups in the department, say that's
definitely not true, that that did not happen. And so for us, that's something
that we're still trying to wrestle with, is why did these shootings occur and
what happened in the chain of command that might have triggered them.
Eleven people were shot in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. And when you look at
those shootings, there are a lot of disturbing similarities that make you
wonder both about the mindset of officers at that time and the possibility that
orders were given that gave officers the belief that they could use deadly
force in ways that they wouldn't normally use it in peacetime, in a non-
catastrophe situation.
As well, the mayor said we have martial law in effect right now, which might
have affected police officers and made them think oh, the normal rules of
engagement have changed.
The governor said: I'm sending in all these military troops, and they're locked
and loaded, and they're going to shoot people if they have to. And so there may
well have been a mindset with officers at that time that, hey, the normal rules
are out the window. You do what you got to do.
GROSS: Does it seem to you like Eric Holder, the head of the Justice
Department, is making the New Orleans Police Department, investigating the New
Orleans Police Department and cleaning it up, priorities?
Mr. THOMPSON: It's clear that investigating the New Orleans Police Department
and reforming the New Orleans Police Department is a major priority for the
Justice Department. There are at least eight ongoing civil rights probes of the
police department in New Orleans.
I can't think of any other police department in the United States of America
that is under that kind of federal scrutiny.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is A.C. Thompson. He's an
investigative reporter for ProPublica and a correspondent for the PBS series
"Frontline." He has been investigating hate crimes and shootings by civilians
and by police in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Let's take a
short break here, and then we'll talk some more. This is FRESH AIR.
and by police in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Now, we talked a little bit about one of the cases in which police were alleged
to have shot and then burned the body of and then covered up what happened to
an African-American man after Hurricane Katrina.
Let's look at one of the civilian, a civilian set of crimes committed,
allegedly committed, in the wake of Katrina. And I'm thinking here of a white
militia group that was formed as the floods were building up and people were
fleeing. Would you just, like, describe the neighborhood this happened in?
Mr. THOMPSON: Algiers Point sits on the west bank of the Mississippi River. So
it's cut off from the main part of New Orleans that you think about: The French
Quarter, the central business district and Canal Street, the heart of New
It's a little bit isolated from the rest of the city, and it's this beautiful
old neighborhood of well-maintained houses right on the river, and it's
predominately white, and it is linked to the city by a ferry terminal.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, that ferry terminal turned into an
evacuation center set up by the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard had an operation
there, and they were bringing all kinds of people into that ferry terminal by
land, by boat, and then they were taking them out of the city on buses, getting
them out of the city.
And in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when I talked to people about what
happened in that area, it was clear that for some of the white folks who lived
in that area, they were unhappy about this influx of new people to their
neighborhood, their small neighborhood, and that they had set up barricades in
the street.
They had taken fallen trees and rubbish and all kinds of stuff and barricaded
the streets so that people couldn't get in and out of their neighborhood very
easily, and they had mounted armed patrols. They were riding around the streets
and walking around the streets with assault rifles and shotguns and handguns,
and this was dry land.
This neighborhood didn't flood. So this was where people who were drowning were
coming to. And what the federal government says is that there was a plan to use
force and threats of force to keep African-Americans off the streets of this
neighborhood for about two weeks in the aftermath of that storm.
What people in that neighborhood will tell you, who I've interviewed, they'll
say it wasn't about race, it was just about keeping outsiders and criminals and
thieves out of our neighborhood. The federal government says otherwise, and
people who got caught up in this, African-American people, will tell you that
they think it was all about race.
GROSS: Can you give us an overview of the crimes that happened that were
allegedly tied to this white militia in Algiers Point?
Mr. THOMPSON: The federal government indicted a guy named Roland Bourgeois for
allegedly opening fire with his shotgun on three African-American men and being
part of this group of people who were conspiring to keep African-Americans off
the streets.
My reporting suggests that there were more shootings than that, there were more
incidents of threats and intimidation than that, but the total number is still
What we know is that Donnell Herrington, one of the three men that Roland
Bourgeois is accused of shooting, very nearly died. He was shot in the throat.
GROSS: You're the person who identified the alleged shooter. How did you do
that?
Mr. THOMPSON: I first started reporting on this in 2008. The first story came
out about this group and about these alleged hate crimes, and after that I got
a tip, and the tip was there was a woman who was around at that time period,
she might talk to you, she thinks she saw something.
And I contacted this person, and she gave me information that made me think
that she might know who shot Donnell Herrington, and then she disappeared. She
quit taking my calls, and she quit returning my emails.
So I wound up driving about eight hours from New Orleans to her house and
showing up at her house, which is in another Southern state that I won't
disclose, and she said, you know, I thought you would show up at some time;
some in and I'll tell you what happened and you can put it on film for PBS
"Frontline."
And she told me: My neighbor, a guy named Roland, I saw him jumping around,
threatening to kill people, apparently using his shotgun, and I believe that he
shot somebody, and it might be this guy Donnell Herrington.
GROSS: My guest, A.C. Thompson, will be back in the second half of the show.
He's a reporter for ProPublica, the investigative journalism website. He's also
the correspondent for the PBS "Frontline" edition "Law & Disorder," which will
be broadcast August 25th. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with journalist A.C. Thompson, a
reporter for the investigative journalism website ProPublica. We've been
talking about his investigations into crimes allegedly committed by members of
the New Orleans Police Department after the levees broke five years ago.
Thompson has also been investigating shootings allegedly committed by
vigilantes from the white neighborhood, Algiers Point, who are accused of
trying to keep out African-Americans trying to get to dry ground.
Roland Bourgeois of Algiers Point has been charged with shooting Donnell
Herrington. Bourgeois was first identified in one of Thompson's stories.
Thompson got the tip from one of Bourgeois' neighbors. But then Thompson had to
do a lot of research to back up her claim.
Mr. THOMPSON: We spent the next year trying to figure this out and piecing the
whole thing together. It took a year to do a 2,000-word story and a couple
short videos. And what we ended up doing was really reconstructing those
events. We, first of all, figured out that this Roland she was talking about
was a guy named Roland Bourgeois. We identified him as the possible shooter.
All we had, at first, was the first name.
Mr. THOMPSON: From there, we went to Donnell Herrington and his cousin, who was
with him at the time of the shooting, and described the witness's testimony and
her statements. We showed him a photo of Roland Bourgeois and he said that was
definitely one of the guys who was there that day; that was definitely one of
the men who was there when I was attacked.
We went to Roland Bourgeois' mother and we interviewed her. And she said, oh
yeah, my son and another man were definitely involved in a shooting. They
definitely opened fire on an African-American man and the only reason the
federal government is investigating my son is because the guy he shot survived
and is talking to the media. So we started thinking that we might have the
right guy. But there was a thread that ran through this. There was a clue for
us that we followed.
Our first witness said that Roland - she hadn't actually seen the shooting -
that she'd seen him take off planning to shoot a black man, using racial
epithets, and he ran around a corner and she heard a sound...
(Soundbite of mimicking gunfire)
Mr. THOMPSON: ...a gunfire. And that he came back with a bloody blue baseball
cap and he was happy about this shooting and that he was celebrating. And his
friends, who were also armed, were celebrating.
I went to Donnell and I said hey, what were you wearing that day? And he said
oh, I was definitely wearing a baseball cap - probably a Detroit Tigers or a
New York Yankees. And then finally, when I spoke to Roland's mother, she said,
oh yeah, and he kept the baseball cap from the man that he shot. I told him to
get rid of it and he finally got rid of it. And when all those things lined up,
we said oh, this probably is exactly the guy we're looking at. And that whole
thing about the baseball cap ends up in the federal indictment, that they
described the same scene.
GROSS: Why is this incident worth a year of reporting?
Mr. THOMPSON: This was an unsolved crime. This was somebody who had very nearly
been killed. Donnell Herrington was shot in the throat; he was shot in the
back, the arms, the torso. He had seven pieces of buckshot in his throat. His
internal jugular vein was shredded. He was going to bleed to death if he hadn't
been rescued. And he was luckily rescued, taken to the hospital and survived.
His surgeon told me he was close to death.
I thought that it was very disturbing to me, that a man fleeing a catastrophe,
trying to get to an evacuation center, trying to get out of the stricken city,
could allegedly be targeted for death because of his race. And that was what
really made me feel that I needed to figure out what happened.
GROSS: So what does the Justice Department have to say about this case?
Mr. THOMPSON: The Justice Department is not really talking beyond bringing down
charges on Roland Bourgeois. And in those charges, it portrays this incident as
a racially motivated attack and as part of a broader conspiracy, a broader
pattern of African-Americans being targeted in that area.
GROSS: So now that you've been publishing about these shootings and hate
crimes, are more people coming forward to speak with you?
Mr. THOMPSON: You know, it took a long time to get people to talk about a lot
of these things. And what I find in New Orleans that's different than other
places is people are very, very scared to talk about a lot of these things; and
that it takes a long, long time to convince them to talk. It's not like other
places. In a lot of other places, people are very happy to – or they're not
happy, but they're very willing to discuss these kind of incidents. And in New
Orleans there is a culture of fear that pervades, that keeps people from
wanting to go public with some of these things.
GROSS: What do you attribute that to?
Mr. THOMPSON: I think that in New Orleans, especially where you have a police
department that has been embroiled in scandals for the last 30 years, that
folks are scared to speak out about that police department, oftentimes, and
that's what they have told us that, you know, that's what's come through in our
reporting.
I have been writing about criminal justice and reporting on the criminal
justice system for more than a decade. And that was what was different about
New Orleans is, you know, with the alleged hate crimes I had all these people
describing shootings and attacks and racial threats to me. And the people who
were describing them were the people who were the victims of these attacks and
threats and harassment, as well as the people who were part of this group doing
it. And the police had never spoken to any of these folks. They'd never spoken
to the alleged victims or the alleged perpetrators or this broader group of
militia types. And that was what was different about New Orleans, is that there
didn't seem to be any interest from local law enforcement into finding out what
happened to people like Donnell Herrington who was shot in the throat.
GROSS: A.C. Thompson is a reporter for ProPublica, the investigative journalism
website. He is also the correspondent for the PBS Frontline edition, "Law and
Disorder," which will be broadcast August 25th. You can find links to his
articles on our website, freshair.npr.org.
Coming up, pianist Fred Hersch describes emerging from a two-month coma and
starting to play again.
This is FRESH AIR.
..COST:
..INDX:
Fred Hersch: Giving The Piano A 'Whirl' Post-Illness
(Soundbite of song, "Snow is Falling")
Jazz pianist and composer Fred Hersch has been a guest several times on FRESH
AIR. I was shocked to learn about the medical crisis that he experienced. He's
had AIDS since the late '80s and has managed to keep composing, performing and
touring. But in 2008, as a result of complications from AIDS, he suffered
temporary psychosis and then fell into a two-month coma. After emerging from
the coma, he had to relearn to use his hands. He's just released his first
album since recovering. It's called "Whirl." We've been listening to his
composition, "Snow is Falling."
Fred Hersch, welcome back to the show, and more important, welcome back to the
living. I'm just amazed that you were able to build yourself back up to the
point where you could make this album. It's remarkable.
Mr. FRED HERSCH (Pianist, composer): Yeah. It's been quite a couple of years of
what I might call just simply medical hell - a series of illnesses and
hospitalizations. The most dramatic of them being actually in a coma for two
months. And coming out of the coma for that length of time, you know, you
pretty much can't do anything. I couldn't walk. I couldn't eat. I was on a
feeding tube for eight months. I couldn't swallow. I had no hand coordination.
I couldn't hold a pencil. So I had to completely rebuild myself and, you know,
now I'm back and playing and feeling, if anything, better than I did before all
MARTIN: You've had AIDS since the mid-1980s. What set off this latest series of
illnesses?
Mr. HERSCH: Well, in the fall of 2007, I was quite busy. I was touring a fair
amount. I was losing weight. I wasn't eating well. And in December of 2007, I
was pulled off of my anti-retroviral drugs in order to give my system a break.
And unfortunately, what happened was the virus then attacked my brain, so I
spent the first two and a half months of 2008 basically psychotic.
GROSS: Were you very paranoid during - was it the kind of psychosis?
Mr. HERSCH: Yeah. I was very paranoid. I kind of holed up in my apartment. The
only people that I wanted to see was my partner Scott Morgan and my brother
Hank. I pretty much cut myself off from the world. I was convinced that people
had conspiracies against me and I was convinced that I had magical powers and
could stop time at will and it was pretty nutty.
GROSS: So when you were going through this really paranoid period, were you
afraid of your own family and of your own friends, and even of your partner?
Mr. HERSCH: No, I wasn't afraid of my partner nor my brother. I thought many of
my friends were lying to me. I didn't trust anybody. And it was scary. I mean I
began that period in what they call a semi-coma. I was in a hospital. I was
kind of in and out of consciousness for 10 days but if you would've asked me
afterwards how long I'd been in the hospital, I would've said oh, two or three
days. So I wasn't aware to the extent and the length that I was hospitalized,
while they tried to stabilize me, not only physically but psychologically.
GROSS: When did that stop? When did the craziness stop?
Mr. HERSCH: The crazy stopped early March of 2008 and then I had sort of a
honeymoon period. I was eating. I was gaining weight. I wrote a whole bunch of
music. Everything looked good. Two brand new anti-retroviral drugs had come on
the market just as I was entering this crazy period and they reduced my viral
load, which is the measure of the viral activity the AIDS virus in your body -
they reduced it from, you know, six or eight million copies to undetectable. So
that was a very good sign that I responded so quickly to these drugs, which are
new - they are a new classes of drugs, in fact, different ways of attacking the
virus.
So I came out and I felt good and strong, and went out around Memorial Day
weekend to Northern California. Happened to be the town where my father lives
in Healdsburg, which is up in Sonoma County - a wine country. And I played a
jazz festival there and felt fine and came back to New York in early June and
started to feel kind of off and, you know, running little bits of fever and
kind of feeling weird. And there was nothing that alarming. And then on the 9th
of June, I spoke with it wasn't actually my doctor, but his associate, since my
doctor was on vacation, and he gave me an antibiotic and he said if this
doesn't improve I'm going to order a chest x-ray for Tuesday. So on Tuesday I
was running fever and I decided it might be nice to just get in a bath and cool
So I got in the bathtub and was unable to get out physically. And Scott and I
kind of looked at each other and said we're going to the hospital. So we got in
a cab, went to the hospital and they checked me for fever. And I wasn't
presenting with fever, but then they stuck one of those gizmos on your finger
that measures your blood oxygen level and mine was below 70, which is
considered like kind of near death. And they immediately put me in triage and
discovered that I was in septic shock and my organs were all failing.
GROSS: Fred, you said during the period when you seemed to have recovered from
your psychotic period because the AIDS virus had gone to your brain, and there
was this like honeymoon period when you seemed to be okay that you started
composing again. Is any of the work that you composed then represented on the
new album?
Mr. HERSCH: Yes, three pieces, actually. I composed a suite of music for trio -
piano, bass, drums trio, and it was a full evening of music, and it was 12
pieces and 12 keys that were dedicated to 12 different people. "Whirl" is
dedicated to the ballerina Suzanne Farrell, and the rhythm of it comes from the
rhythm of her spinning and pirouetting. "Sad Poet" is a dedication to Antonio
Carlos Jobim, who I played his music ever since I started playing jazz. And
"Still Here" is dedicated to Wayne Shorter, who is not only one of my big
influences, but he's 75 and still making, you know, interesting and creative
and vital music. So I wrote that for him. And those compositions do appear on
"Whirl."
GROSS: "Whirl," you said is dedicated to the ballerina Suzanne Farrell. Why
were you thinking about her?
Mr. HERSCH: Something about the rhythm of the piece. She's from Cincinnati, as
I am. I saw her dance many times and there's something about a rhythm when, you
know, a dancer spins and, of course, they can't just keep spinning. They sort
of have to spot at a certain point or they'll get dizzy or fall over. So the
rhythm is kind of taken from the spinning and spotting of Suzanne. And I think
she's, you know, just the most deep and graceful and classically beautiful
dancers that I've ever seen - just really magnificent. She's a magnificent
GROSS: Well, why don't we hear "Whirl?" So this is composed and performed at
piano by Fred Hersch. It's the title track from his new CD "Whirl."
(Soundbite of song, "Whirl")
GROSS: That's the title track of pianist and composer Fred Hersch's new CD
We'll talk more with Hersch after a break.
GROSS: My guest is Fred Hersch, the pianist and composer. He has a new CD
called "Whirl." We're featuring the Fred Hersch Trio, and we're talking about
the two years in which he was very sick. He's had AIDS since the mid-1980s but
he - this was just a particularly horrible period these past two years that
included a two-month coma.
So let me ask you, after emerging from the coma, you spent quite a while where
you were helpless. You couldn't move. You had lost one of your vocal cords
because of the tube that was placed down your throat when you were admitted
into the hospital. You couldn't eat. You could barely speak. Just a hoarse
whisper was all you could get out. You had to have surgery to get your second,
your other vocal cord work - another vocal cord. I don't know how many we have.
Mr. HERSCH: We have two.
GROSS: We only have two? Okay. So you needed surgery to get the other one
working again. So you had a feeding tube for months. Going through all that,
what makes you - what gives you the drive to keep pushing forward and keep
living? I mean it can seem like a really bleak and hopeless existence, I would
guess?
Mr. HERSCH: Well, around the time that I found out that I had AIDS in the mid-
'80s, that was when I first began making my own albums - albums we called them
then - and for a number of times through the early '90s until better drugs -
protease inhibitor drugs, what they now call cocktail medications came along,
you know, AIDS was, you know, there wasn't anything anybody could do about it.
I was just luck of the draw if you were going to live or not. So I certainly
felt, during that period, that every CD or album I was making was going to be
my last. And my motivation then was that God forbid I should die, I'd like to
at least create some body of work where somebody might, you know, remember me.
I wanted to be heard.
And certainly, since the coma, and this is not just my opinion, I'm reflecting
opinions of others, because it's very hard to talk about one's work - in
general, I find it hard. There seems to be more relaxation, maybe more depth,
more direct connection to what I'm playing. Fortunately my technique has come
back, virtually completely, at the piano. But I realized, you know, when I was
that far down that I really wasn't done yet. There was more that I had to do as
a musician, as a partner. And whether it was just stubbornness or crankiness or
whatever, I felt like I'm not ready to checkout.
GROSS: At what point did music start becoming beautiful to you again? Were you
able to listen to it right away after emerging from the coma?
Mr. HERSCH: When I was in the rehab center I had a CD player and a little
portable DVD player - I could watch a movie. And I did begin listening again. I
found it very therapeutic. I didn't have enough energy to read - that took too
much energy at that point. But I emerged from the coma in early August, went
home shortly after Labor Day of 2008, and then I was knocked down with another
pneumonia, which probably caused by a gallbladder infection and I began
vomiting blood. I actually lost four units of blood and was readmitted to ICU
for - thank God it turned around in about four five days.
But I got out of the hospital on a Saturday in early October. I believe it was
the 11th. And there's a small jazz club here in New York called Smalls, and I
was just looking around on the Web. I, for some reason that day when I got out
of the hospital I had tons of energy. It was a classically beautiful fall day
in New York and Scott and I walked all the way through the Village and it just
felt great to be back in the world - and probably I was just pumped up with
saline or something and feeling good. But I went online later that afternoon
and looked at the Smalls website and I noticed that two days after that, the
Monday night, it said for the 7:30 set, it said pianist TBD - to be determined.
So I called up the owner and I said look, I know I just got out of the
hospital, but if I can pull a trio together I would really like to come and
play a set. So Scott, who'd been napping woke up and I said, you know, you're
not going to believe this but I booked a gig for two days from now.
Mr. HERSCH: And, you know, he was nervous and thought I was maybe a little
nuts, but I went down and I played a set with a bass player and drummer, who
I'm very friendly with. And it was something that I really needed to do to
prove to myself that this all had not taken away everything. I listened to the
recording subsequently, and sure it sounds, you know, a little weak and, you
know, not my A game playing but it wasn't bad either. And I think just doing
that and also the place was packed and everybody was there. I mean there was
just this incredible feeling of love. And the jazz community, you know, such as
it is, was incredibly solicitous while I was ill.
When I went home people came to visit, people visited me in rehab, people were
in touch with Scott, they really wanted to know how I was doing. And so, the
room was packed with people who really wanted to be there and this incredible
just big embrace from the jazz community. I think after I did that I realized
that okay, there's hope here, that I'm going to be able to do this. Ands so, I
started gigging again in the fall of 2008, you know, and, of course, I was
still on a feeding tube, so traveling with cans of liquid food and a food pump
was not the easiest thing in the world but...
GROSS: I can't believe you did that.
Mr. HERSCH: But I was determined, you know, and I never quit.
GROSS: Well, Fred Hersch, thank you again for being with us and I'm just so
happy to hear how well you've done after your period of health hell - medical
hell, as you put it. So, thank you again and all best to you.
Mr. HERSCH: Thank you. And I'm really feeling like I'm continuing to move
forward and continuing to challenge myself and that feels really good to me. So
GROSS: Pianist and composer Fred Hersch's new album is called "Whirl." You can
hear three tracks from the album on our website, freshair.npr.org, where you
can also download Podcasts of our show.
GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
GROSS: While shooting the action scenes for the new police comedy "The Other
Guys," director Adam McKay stressed safety first. But the film's star, Will
Ferrell, got his priorities straight...
Mr. WILL FERRELL (Actor): I would then, behind Adam's back, tell everyone don't
listen to him.
Mr. FERRELL: We've got to get this shot.
GROSS: Will Ferrell and Adam McKay on the next FRESH AIR.
Hurricane Katrina: As Seen On TV, Five Years Later.
This week marks the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall in the Gulf region, devastating the area and leading to levee breaches that flooded most of New Orleans. TV critic David Bianculli says that television was all over the story then -- and five years later, is all over it again now.
'Trouble The Water' Captures Katrina On Camcorder
As New Orleans' levees buckled, Kimberly Rivers Roberts turned her video camera on marooned friends, relatives and neighbors. Roberts' footage has been adapted into a powerful documentary that is as much about America as it is about the deadly storm.
Former Parole Officer Reflects On His Time Supervising 'The Second Chance Club'
Four and a half million Americans are on probation or parole — more than twice the nation's jail population. Parolees and probationers are required to check in regularly with officials, who are charged with helping them rebuild their lives.
Jason M Hardy


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