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Author: Ann Murray
Scavengers in Dire Straights
Vultures can eat 20% of their own body weight in one sitting. And they have digestive systems with special acids that will dissolve toxic bacteria and viruses. (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)
For most people, the slow spiral
of airborne vultures means that
some unlucky animal has died. Now,
in some regions of the world, vulture
populations are dying. An American
scientist is part of an international
effort to save these massive scavengers.
Ann Murray has the story:
https://environmentreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/feature_murray_112709.mp3
It's hard to get too excited about an ugly bird that eats dead, rotting flesh. Let's face it, vultures don't have a good rep. But vultures are amazing animals. They can eat 20% of their own body weight in one sitting. And they have digestive systems with special acids that will dissolve toxic bacteria and viruses. Meaning, vultures prevent the spread of killer diseases like rabies and anthrax when they scarf down the carcasses of sick animals.
"With the meat goes the disease."
That's Todd Katzner, Director of Conservation and Field Research at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh. Katzner says, sadly, with all the good vultures do, many species are in big trouble.
"Vultures are in dire conservation straits in much of the world because of things like habitat loss, poisoning and now these new problems like diclofenac."
Diclofenac is a medicine given to sick livestock in central Asia. Vultures that eat livestock carcasses with traces of the drug almost always die of immediate kidney failure. It took scientists some time to figure that out. Katzner's friend Vibhu Prakash, an Indian ornithologist, recognized the beginnings of this vulture die-off.
"This was almost 20 years ago that Vibhu started seeing vultures near Barrackpore, India. They were sitting in a tree with their heads hanging down .Eventually they'd just fall out of the tree and die on the ground."
Since then, Indian white-backed vulture numbers have plummeted from 30 or 40 million birds to just thousands. This massive decline has left scientists scratching their heads about how many vultures are left in central and south Asia and other parts of the world. Because vultures move around a lot, it's been hard to keep track of individuals. There's never been an accurate total population count – anywhere. That's where Katzner and the National Aviary come in.
For several years, Katzner and his field team have been traveling to mountainous grazing lands in Kazakhstan and the northern plains in Cambodia . Katzner says the one place vultures reliably congregate is at feeding sites.
"We ask people if any livestock have died .We drive up to those sites . Usually the vultures have been there. When vultures feed on the carcass they leave feathers everywhere. And when we go to the carcass, we're able to pick up sometimes 500 or 1000 feathers."
Once the feathers are collected, Katzner's team extracts DNA from them to identify individual birds. The scientists will use this information to create population models. This new counting method is faster and more reliable than capturing, marking and recapturing birds.
Katzner expects researchers will use his feather- based system to count endangered vultures in other places. That includes here, in the United States, where California Condors are dying from lead poisoning.
(sound of a vulture eating)
Before I leave the Aviary, Katzner points out an American black vulture. She's gobbling a breakfast of chick pieces and mice. Katzner hopes his work will help to keep other vultures happy and hungry. He says we all need 'em on the job as nature's cleanup crew.
For The Environment Report, I'm Ann Murray
The National Aviary
Wikipedia's page on vultures
Author Ann MurrayPosted on November 27, 2009 Categories FeaturesTags animal, animals, bird, birds, bodies, body, carcass, carcasses, contaminated, danger, dead, disease, diseases, endangered, food, foods, health, healthy, illness, scavenger, scavengers, sick, sickness, vultures
A Spark in Your Step
The brace can crank up to 20 watts with each step - that means ten minutes of walking can power a laptop for a half hour. (Photo courtesy of Bionic Power, Inc.)
When you think about alternative energy
sources, you probably don't include people on your
list. But Ann Murray reports that scientists are
tapping into bionic people power:
Today, we really do have bionic technology.
(Opening of the "Six Million Dollar Man") "Gentleman, we can rebuild him. We have the technology."
Okay, maybe not to turn you into
the Six Million Dollar Man. But how about a mobile power plant?
Let's start with the back story.
About 15 years ago, a couple of young
scientists, Doug Weber and Max Donelan, worked together. Donelan wrote
his grad school dissertation on the energy people create when they walk.
He asked Weber, now a biomedical engineer at the University of
Pittsburgh, to run with his idea.
"He approached me with the idea of building a wearable device that could actually harvest
that energy. And not only generate electricity but potentially make it easier
to walk."
Weber and Donelan put together a rough prototype in his garage. A lab
tested version of their early demo was just published in the journal Science.
The bionic gizmo looks pretty much like a knee brace with a power pack
attached. Weber calls up a video on YouTube to show me how it works. On
the screen, a guy with a brace on each leg is walking on a treadmill.
"With each step he takes on the treadmill power is generated when the
knee is swinging in extension. It's during that extension phase that we turn
on the generator and as the traces below the video show, generate large
peaks in power."
Those peaks in power show up as the hamstring muscle "brakes" to keep
the leg from going too far forward. That's when the bionic brace kicks in. It
grabs that potentially wasted energy and turns it into electricity.
The brace can crank up to 20 watts with each step. That means ten
minutes of walking can power a laptop for a half hour. No other lightweight
people-powered generator can top that.
Yad Garcha's betting that people
will be intrigued. He's the CEO of Bionic Power, a company formed to
market the brace. With some product tweaking, he envisions a world of
alternative energy possibilities. Especially for people who have to depend
on batteries or don't have much access to electricity. His list includes
millions of people in developing countries, amputees, and soldiers.
"It is a green product primarily for the military because of the number of
batteries that they throw away."
Garcha says, for example, Canadian soldiers carry up to 20 pounds of
disposable batteries.
"And these throw-away batteries cost a lot of money for them to get them into the
theatre or wherever they're doing their fighting."
Garcha's already been talking to Canadian military reps about field tests.
But the brace probably won't be ready for another year or two. The
prototype still needs to be quieter, lighter, and more efficient before it makes
its way into the hands – or rather, the legs – of consumers. Better move over
Steve Austin!
("Six Million Dollar Man" theme music)
For The Environment Report, this is Ann Murray.
A story on the brace in National Geographic
A YouTube clip of the brace in action
Bionic Power, Inc.'s website
Author Ann MurrayPosted on April 21, 2008 Categories FeaturesTags brace, electricity, energy, generate, generated, generator, leg, legs, military, people, power, step, walk, walking, walks
Nature and Ice Wine
Vidal blanc grapes used in ice wine. The vines are netted to protect the grapes from high winter winds and animals. (Photo courtesy of Mario Mazza)
When you think about wine you might think about sunny Italy or warm
Napa Valley in California. But one wine is the product of cold
weather. Ann Murray has the story:
Today, the weather and the sales are brisk at the Mazza Winery and
Vineyards.
Sales Person: "Did you want these in a bag?"
Mary Ventura: "Yes, this is all going to the same spot."
Mary Ventura is buying small bottles of wine that she describes as
"liquid candy." Ventura and the sales clerk chime in when I ask her
what she's talking about:
"This is ice wine. It's not something you can find on all the shelves.
And so we came across this little winery and it's great."
Mazza's is one of the few wineries in the United States that sells and
produces ice wine. More and more people are discovering this rare,
super sweet dessert wine:
"We're going to head out right behind the winery, actually."
Mario Mazza is a third generation grower. He says their vineyard's
location along the Lake Erie shoreline in Pennsylvania makes ice
wine production possible. For vineyards in this region, the Great Lake
changes the local climate:
"In the spring it keeps the shore a little bit cooler, keeps the grapes
from budding too early, which is a good thing… prevents them from
getting hit from the later spring frost. In the fall, we have the reverse
happen. In September and even in October we have a little bit more
warmth along the lake shore here."
But the real ticket to producing ice wine is a final burst of cold winter
weather. In December or January, winds off Lake Erie can bring the
temperature to well below freezing. As snowflakes whip around the
vineyards, Mazza stands next to rows of grapes still on the vine. The
rows are netted by hand to protect the vines from high winter winds
and hungry animals:
"These vineyards we're looking at here are vidal blanc grapes.
They're a great variety because they have a relatively thick skin and
can hold up to the colder climate, to the colder weather and leaving
them on the vine for an extra two months."
Natural ice wines require a hard freeze to occur sometime after the
grapes are ripe. If a freeze doesn't come fast enough, the grapes
might rot and the crop will be lost. If the freeze is too severe, no juice
can be extracted.
(Sound of bottling inside winery)
Back inside the winery, Mazza helps out with bottling. During a break,
he says that catching the right sustained freeze means that workers
must be ready to roll out of bed early to pick the grapes used in ice
wine:
"When we go out there and pick 'em about 5:00 in the morning with
headlights down the rows, you're actually picking these grapes at
about 18 degrees Fahrenheit so they're actually frozen, just like a marble.
You get very, very sweet juice when you press that out."
Ice wines are very sweet because the grapes dehydrate the last two
months on the vine. That concentrates the sugar and the flavor:
"The sugars are twice that we get in a normal harvest date in October. And
the flavors are just so much more intense and concentrated."
Murray: "So you don't end up with a lot of juice then?"
Mazza: "Hence the rarity, the sale in a smaller bottle and the price
tags on ice wines. A lot of people look at them and say wow, those are
awfully expensive. When they learn about the extensive effort put into
making these wines, they then understand that it's well worth it."
At $40 dollars a half-bottle, ice wine generally is worth the extra work
for growers. It might take months to completely ferment ice wine.
Regular wines take days or weeks. Each year, the Mazzas produce
only about 250 gallons of ice wine — a tiny amount compared to other
wines.
Worker: "There should be about a case down there."
Upstairs, customers continue to stream in and out of the Mazza wine
shop, some of them eyeing the small bottles of liquid gold that nature
and patience help make possible.
What is ice wine?
Where to find ice wines
More on the Mazza Winery
Author Ann MurrayPosted on January 21, 2008 Categories FeaturesTags cold weather, fall, freeze, grapes, great lakes, harvest, lake erie, vineyards, wine, winery, winter
More Scrap Tires Reused
A variety of products using crumb rubber, which is manufactured from scrap tires. (Photo courtesy of Liberty Tire)
At the 2006 Superbowl in Detroit, the football field turf was made of crumb rubber. (Photo courtesy of Liberty Tire)
Americans get rid of almost 300 million scrap tires every year.
Historically, a lot of used tires have ended up at the bottom of
ravines or in huge tire piles. These piles have created eyesores,
toxic fire traps and places for mosquitoes to breed. But Ann Murray
reports that the days of widespread illegal dumping and monster tire
piles are waning:
Michelle Dunn is making her way through shoulder high knotweed to
show me an urban tire dump:
"This is the start of the tires. They're all entwined in here."
About 300 tires have been chucked over the hill in this quiet
Pittsburgh neighborhood. Dunn's with a non-profit that helps
communities clean up old dump sites. She says illegal tire dumping is
still a problem but not the gargantuan problem it used to be:
"I don't think you're seeing new major piles appearing. The regular
Joe isn't dumping as many tires because people are now becoming
educated. They have a service they can take their tires to have them
disposed of properly."
In many states, the place to take old tires is now the neighborhood
tire store. Since the early 1990s, about 35 states have required tire
dealers to collect small fees to dispose of used tires. Now fewer
people dump tires and about 4 out of 5 scrap tires have been
cleaned up. Numbers have nosedived from a billion stockpiled tires to
less than 200 million.
Not all states have had equal success reducing their cache of old
tires. Some states such as Alaska, Wyoming and Nevada are still
struggling. Their rural landscapes have made it hard to catch illegal
dumpers and collect tires. Many other states have stepped up
enforcement. They now make dumpers pay to clean up waste tire
sites and register scrap tire haulers. But Matt Hale says new laws
aren't the only reason scrap tire programs are working. Hale directs
the division of solid waste for the US Environmental Protection
"In many cases a successful program is the result of being near
markets for tires. In the southeast for example, tires are in demand as
a fuel use and that certainly makes state tire programs in that part of
the country easier."
Stricter waste tire laws have made it easier for the tire
recycling industry to take hold. Dave Quarterson is a senior director
with Liberty Tire. Liberty's the biggest tire recycling company in the
"It has been difficult for companies like ours in the past to look at
having to invest 5 or 10 million dollars into a facility to recycle tires
and then to have to compete on the street with a guy with a $1000
pickup truck who's rolling 'em down an embankment somewhere."
In 1990, very few of the 300 million scrap tires generated each year
were re-used. Today about 90 percent are recycled. A majority of
these tires are chipped and shipped to cement kilns and paper mills
to be burned for fuel. A fuel source that US EPA says is relatively
safer than burning coal but environmental groups say is still polluting.
Tire recyclers like Liberty Tire are now in big demand. Liberty uses
almost 75 million scrap tires a year. Their headquarters
plant specializes in making "crumb" rubber. Crumb's used in
everything from football field turf to brake lining. It's made from
shredded tires that are frozen with liquid nitrogen and then pulverized
into various sized bits.
Dave Quarterson, says tire recyclers are starting to move away from
producing tire chips for fuel to making newer products like crumb
rubber:
"We've got a lot more money into producing it but it's a lot more
rewarding financially."
States are also encouraging new uses for the decades old tires that
still remain in big, abandoned piles. Even with this backlog of old
scrap tires, states and recyclers are optimistic that growing markets
and new laws mean more and more scrap tires will have a useful
second life.
The EPA on management of scrap tires
The Rubber Manufacturers Association on scrap tires
Website devoted to scrap tire news
Author Ann MurrayPosted on September 17, 2007 Categories FeaturesTags dave, dunn, epa, illegal, markets, matt, michelle, recycling, scrap tires, tires
Prescription: Enviro-Knowledge for Doctors
Chances are your doctor doesn't know much about environmentally-related
illnesses. Ann Murray looks at why most US doctors and nurses aren't even
talking about environmental connections to their patients' health and what's
being done to remedy the situation:
In 1999, Jo Ann Meier was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was shocked
to discover she had the disease. No one in her family had a history of cancer.
And she only had one of the standard risk factors for the illness:
"Of course, you always speculate when you have a disease like this. Was it
something I did or was it something that I was exposed to?"
Meier says her doctors never talked to her about possible environmental
links to her illness. Today, Meier is cancer free and runs a non-profit that
raises money for breast cancer research. She hears similar stories about other
primary care physicians from the breast cancer patients she works with every
"There's a great deal of anger about the misinformation or lack of
information given to them in general. I mean, it would be great if your PCP would
say you have to look at what you're doing on a day-to-day basis that might
be affecting your health."
Jo Ann Meier's experience isn't unusual. Experts agree that most doctors and
nurses aren't ready to deal with the environmental links to dozens of
illnesses like cancer or lung disease. Sometimes crowded doctors' schedules
or fear of being seen as an environmental advocate get in the way. Leyla
McCurdy directs the Health and Environment Program at the National
Environmental Educational and Training Foundation in Washington, DC.
McCurdy says medical providers don't know much about environmental
health issues because training is so hard to come by.
One of the challenges that we are facing in terms of integrating environmental
health is the lack of expertise in the area. There are very few leaders who
are willing to take the time and create their own materials to educate the
students at the medical and nursing schools:
"As a result of this small pool of experts, and an already crowded set of
courses, most med students get only about seven hours of environmental
health education in four years of school. Established doctors and nurses have
even fewer training options.
A small but growing number of health care institutions, non-profits and
agencies are stepping in to fill the training gap. On this morning, medical
residents and staff doctors crowd into a hospital lecture hall.
"Welcome to medical grand rounds. Our speaker today is Doctor Talal ElHanowe,
who is going to talk to us about estrogenic pollutants in the environment and
the risk they pose to people."
"Can these chemicals, which resemble estrogen, in one way or the other, cause an increase in the risk
to develop cancer? And the answer is yes."
ElHanowe is a medical doctor and research scientist. He works with the
University of Pittsburgh's Center for Environmental Oncology. The Center
is developing environmental health training for doctors and nurses. After his
seminar, ElHanowe says response to the program has been good. But his job
of relating environmental health risks can be tough because doctors aren't
used to treating diseases with causes that are hard to pin down.
"In the scientific community, we can't prove everything. Many things are
very difficult to prove."
ElHanowe's boss, Devra Davis, says medical providers will have to be
satisfied with substantial evidence, not absolute proof, that certain
environmental toxins increase the risk of illnesses, and steer patients to safer
alternatives. Davis is a nationally known epidemiologist. She says
environmental medicine's emphasis on prevention is the shot in the arm
American health care needs:
"Because no matter how efficient the health care system becomes at finding
and treating disease, if we don't reduce the burden of the disease itself, we'll
never be able to improve the health of Americans."
But to make environmental medicine standard issue in schools and practice,
a lot more doctors and nurses will need to be educated. And that means a lot
more funding. It's hoped as medical providers make the connection between
environmental exposures and public health, funding sources will open up
and environmental medicine will make its way into mainstream health care.
The National Environmental Education Foundation
The National Institute of Environmental Health Science
The Center for Environmental Oncology
Author Ann MurrayPosted on June 18, 2007 Categories FeaturesTags agencies, breast cancer, cancer, davis, disease, doctors, environmental health, epidemiologist, hospital, lung disease, pollutants, public health, university of pittsburgh
Horses Bring Logging Back to the Future
A horse logger directing his team through a forest. (Photo courtesy of Troy Firth.)
The logger detaching logs from his cart. (Photo courtesy of Troy Firth.)
A healthy forest. (Photo courtesy of Troy Firth.)
Some forest owners are going back to past practices to do less damage to their land. Commercial horse logging is finding a viable niche in woodlands around the country. Ann Murray has this story:
https://environmentreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/murray_102306.mp3
In a hardwood forest, Troy Firth points out trees he's marked for cutting.
"We put a blue slash on the trees that are designated as log trees."
Firth is a sawmill owner in Northwestern Pennsylvania. He's an advocate of sustainable forestry and says it takes excellent silviculture and mechanics to harvest timber.
"Silviculture has been defined as the art and science of growing trees. Mechanics is the way the logs are moved out of the woods once they're cut."
Firth believes the best way to get logs out of the woods is with horses. He contracts about a dozen men who use workhorses to haul or "skid" logs to road sites. One of his long time horse loggers is Ray Blystone, a brawny guy with a long ponytail. Today, Blystone and his team of Belgian horses are working with Jeremy Estock, an experienced chainsaw operator.
"I just need to bring the horses to come around and get 'em hooked up and out onto the skid road."
The chainsaw is really, really loud, but Blystone's well-trained horses calmly munch on leaves. The massive caramel colored animals are harnessed to a small open-ended cart called a log arch. Once Estock has cut down a tree and sawed it into useable lengths, Blystone hammers spikes into one of the logs. Then he attaches the timber to his cart with chains.
"It's basically just to get the front end of the log off the ground. It makes it so much easier for the horses."
Blystone stands in the cart. He looks a lot like a Roman gladiator. He gently urges the horses back to shorten the chain and then signals them to get going.
"Git up Billy, Kate."
The surprisingly agile Belgians step around chopped wood and low bushes. The horse-drawn cart and log make a trail through the woods that's barely six feet wide. There aren't any visible ruts.
Troy Firth, who's on site, says that's one reason he prefers horses over heavy mechanized skidders. He motions toward another skid road in the forest just a few feet away.
"We have a skid road that was used by a rubber tired log skidder on a previous logging job and the tracks are still here from 30 years ago."
"So damage could last for 30 years? That's how much they're compacting the soil?"
"It will last longer than that."
Firth says when mechanized skidders compact the soil, it can make it harder for tree roots to grow, and these big machines can do a lot of damage to nearby trees that aren't cut. But, that kind of power also means that motorized equipment can haul timber much faster than horses and with less cutting.
"Simply because you have so much power, you can bring a whole tree out at once. It's the mechanics of getting through the woods."
Getting trees out of the woods faster can mean a cost savings of nearly 25% over horse driven skidders. But Ray Blystone says he has more work than he can handle. He's found that more and more landowners recognize the long-term low-impact benefits of horse logging. And besides all that, he really likes his job.
"It means a lot to me. I enjoy being around horses, and it's important to me that I do something for a living that's environmentally friendly."
Although no one seems to have an accurate count, there are hundreds of commercial horse loggers in the United States. Most work in the northeast and the Pacific Northwest. They're part of a small but growing movement going back to logging's roots.
Troy Firth's website
A related story
Logging and Sawmilling Journal story
Author Ann MurrayPosted on October 23, 2006 Categories FeaturesTags jeremy, logging, lumber, ray, sawmill
Developing Countries Get Hospital Castoffs
A street in Havana, Cuba. After more than 40 years of a U.S. economic embargo and more than a decade after the loss of their Soviet trading partners, Cubans have learned to improvise and make do with old stuff - cars, machines, and even medical equipment. (Photo by Ann Murray)
Tons of medical materials that normally would end up in U.S. landfills are being rescued, repackaged and sent to other countries. An aid group is working with local hospitals and volunteers to get surplus medical supplies to Latin America and the Caribbean. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium's Ann Murray takes us on the trip from salvage to salvation:
Tons of medical materials that normally would end up in U.S.
landfills are being rescued, repackaged and sent to other countries.
An aid group is working with local hospitals and volunteers to get
surplus medical supplies to Latin America and the Caribbean. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium's Ann Murray takes us on the trip from
salvage to salvation.
(Sound of warehouse activities)
In a warehouse near Pittsburgh, Global Links staffers are preparing to load a shipment of medical aid into a forty-foot container bound for Cuba. Workers haul pallets of dialysis kits, mattresses, waiting room chairs and gurneys to the loading dock. Everything here has been carefully sorted, evaluated, and matched with requests from the Cuban Ministry of Health.
Kathleen Hower founded Global Links with two friends back in 1989. It used to operate out of their houses. Since then, Global Links has sent $110 million worth of medical aid, all of it requested by the receiving countries. About two-thirds of that has gone to Cuba.
"Cuba's unique in so many ways; they're very advanced medically, they do transplant surgery, they have a lot of doctors. There's no shortage of physicians there. They're very different than other countries."
What Cuba shares with other developing countries is critical shortages of equipment and supplies.
(Sound of busy street)
Here in Havana, the streets are filled with Eisenhower-era cars and lined with shops that repair everything from pots to paperbacks. After more than forty years of a U.S. economic embargo and more than a decade after the loss of their Soviet trading partners, Cubans are masters of improvisation.
The same is true for the island's medical community, says Sebastion Pererra, the former director of Cuba's Center for Electromedicine.
PERERRA/TRANSLATOR: "The embargo has been like a school for us. It taught us how to keep working with the same machines and not have the identical parts to replace them."
Pererra says parts and technical information from Global Links have helped keep old medical equipment going. They've also supported new programs in breast cancer screening and dialysis research.
MURRAY: "Has the equipment that Global Links sent to you saved lives?"
PERERRA/TRANSLATOR: "It is undeniable."
Global Links sends materials to Cuba that other countries can't use. That's because medical care is not as advanced in many other developing countries.
Doctor Armando Pancorbo uses the salvaged equipment for minimally invasive surgery at the aging hospital where he works. He and his team have done nearly four thousand operations, using equipment and supplies that were thrown out by U.S. hospitals.
This morning, the O.R. is busy. Anesthesiologists prepare a middle-aged patient for gallbladder surgery while nurses set up sterilized instruments.
Back in Global Links' Pittsburgh office, volunteers help with the labor-intensive job of packing supplies for shipping. Kristin Carreira says this work is helpful on two fronts.
"Our mission here is both humanitarian and environmental. Environmental because all of our medical supplies that we're working on would have been put in an incinerator or landfill and so we're really recycling in that sense."
The American Hospital Association estimates that U.S. hospitals produce about three million tons of waste every year and they pay about three billion dollars to dispose of it. Many of the supplies that end up in the trash are opened but unused. Worries about liability, changes in technology, and a rash of government regulations account for much of the still-useful materials being thrown out.
Vicky Carse is a nurse who traveled to Cuba as a volunteer.
"Seeing people re-washing gloves where we just would open gloves and throw them away, drapes that we just open up and throw away. To see these people harbor these items, re-wash them and re-wash them because they don't have supplies, just makes you value what you have."
The medical community is beginning to take notice. More and more US hospitals are contacting aid organizations. Laura Brannen directs a joint environmental program for the American Hospital Association and the U.S. EPA. She says Global Links and similar groups offer hospitals much needed guidance.
"They provide the infrastructure around what can be used around the world. And without those guidelines, hospitals would be tossing this kind of materials because they don't know where else to send it."
Global Links founder Kathleen Hower is happy to set up the guide posts. She says we have to realize that we are all members of a much broader community – one that could use our help, even when it's a matter of just sharing stuff we'd normally throw away.
For the GLRC, this is Ann Murray reporting.
Learn more from the Global Links website
Hospitals for a Healthy Environment
Author Ann MurrayPosted on July 11, 2005 Categories FeaturesTags aid, cuba, developing countries, doctor, equipment, health, landfill, medical, pittsburgh, recycling, soviet, supplies, surgery, trade
Exploring a Great Lakes Salt Mine
Salt is an essential resource for all people, especially those who live in areas where the roads get icy. (Photo by Lucian Binder)
Ever wonder where road departments get the mountains of salt they use each winter? Here in the Midwest, the answer can be found deep under Lake Erie. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium's Ann Murray has the
Ever wonder where road departments get the mountains of salt
they use each winter? Here in the Midwest, the
answer can be found deep under Lake Erie. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium's Ann Murray has the story:
Orvosh: "Step right in there."
Murray: "Ok, thanks."
For Don Orvosh, an elevator ride nearly 2000 feet underground is just part of the daily grind.
(sound of clanking)
"It's about a four and a half minute ride to the bottom. 1800… about 1800 feet."
Orvosh supervises the Cleveland salt mine owned by Cargill Corporation. It's one of only eleven active salt mines in the country. The mine lies beneath the northern edge of Cleveland and extends about four miles under Lake Erie.
Orvosh: "Most people in the city don't even realize there's a mine right here."
Murray: "Are you all the way down?"
Orvosh: "We're at the bottom right now. This is it."
(sound of opening air-lock door)
A few feet from the elevator, Orvosh walks through a series of air-locked metal doors. They rotate to reveal a subterranean repair shop. Massive dump trucks and cranes are fixed here. The cavernous room is also the starting point for hundreds of miles of tunnels. These tunnels connect a honeycomb of old and active areas in the mine. Everyday, 150 workers travel this salt encrusted labyrinth by truck or tram.
"We're going to get in this little buggy here now and in a couple minutes we'll be under the lake."
Lake Erie is a geological newcomer compared to the salt buried below it. This bed – extending from upper New York to Michigan – was formed 410 million years ago. That's when an ancient sea retreated and left behind its brine. Oil drillers accidentally discovered the deposit in the 1860's. As Orvosh drives north through the dark passageways, he says salt wasn't extracted here until many years later.
"This shaft was sunk in the late fifties and the actual mining of salt occurred, started in the early sixties so it's been here 40 plus years."
In the last four decades, the mining process has stayed pretty much the same. Orvosh compares it to the room and pillar method used in underground coal extraction. He points up ahead to a brightly lit chamber. Machine generated light bounces off the room's briny, white walls. Its 20 foot high ceiling is bolstered by pillars of salt the size of double-wide trailers.
Orvosh: "This is an active production section. This is where we are mining salt."
Murray: "What's happening here?"
Orvosh: "He's drilling the face here."
A miner sits atop a machine with a large needle nosed drill. It bores six holes into the seam. Later in the day, workers will load explosives in the holes and blow out big chunks of salt. Farther into the mine, the loose salt from last night's blasting is being scooped up by front-end loaders and dumped into a crusher. All of the big chunks are broken into small pieces. Then the salt is loaded on conveyor belts and sent to the mine's three-story-high underground mill. Salt is crushed, sized, screened and sent to the surface by elevator.
All told, the crews at the Cleveland mine produce two million tons of salt a year. A sizable chunk of the 15 million tons of salt used on icy US roads each winter. Demand for road salt has skyrocketed since it was introduced as a de-icer in the early 1950s. But Robert Springer, a 27- year veteran at this operation, says each mine fights for a market share.
Springer: "It is a competitive market. There's another salt mine just in the Cleveland area, out there in Morton, Morton Salt."
Murray: "We needed you today. The roads were really icy. Do you look forward to icy days to keep production up?"
Springer: "I guess you could say we look forward to bad weather. We enjoy the bad weather because we know there's going to be salt used."
(sound of radio and weather report)
Back on the surface, Bob Springer has gotten his wish… Cleveland has just been hit with a winter storm. At least a dozen trucks swing through the mine's loading dock to pick up tons of salt. Later in the day, salt will be dumped onto barges and transported across the Great Lakes to places like Chicago and Toronto. This is high season for road salt. The crews here know that come March, they'll start rousing salt from its ancient bed for the winter of 2006.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Ann Murray.
Learn what's in the Cargill road salt from Cleveland (.pdf document )
Read about the history of salt from the Salt Institute
This document outlines some of the methods to prevent salt contamination from the use of road salt (.pdf document)
Author Ann MurrayPosted on February 7, 2005 Categories FeaturesTags ancient, brine, cargill, chicago, cleveland, coal, cranes, deposit, drill, elevator, explosives, extraction, geological, great lakes, ice, lake erie, market, michigan, mine, new york, oil, roads, salt, sea, season, storm, toronto, tunnels, underground, weather, winter
Living Entirely Off the Grid
Solar panels aren't just for rocket scientists anymore. Consumers are now starting to use solar and other alternative energies to power their homes. (Photo courtesy of NASA.gov)
With no power lines in sight, one western Pennsylvania couple lives pretty much like the rest of us. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium's Ann Murray has this story of a home "off the grid":
With no power lines in sight, one western Pennsylvania couple lives pretty much like the rest of us. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium's Ann Murray has this story of home "off the grid":
Ted Carns is busy hanging art in the foyer of his house. While he holds a picture in place against the wall, he plugs in an electric drill.
(sound of drill)
Ted and Kathy Carns' entire two-bedroom house uses electricity powered by the sun or wind. Their rustic stone and plank home sits on top of a steep wooded hill, miles from the nearest neighbor.
"There's no water, there's no soil, there's no public utilities up here. So everything that we designed, you have to keep in mind, was done in this harsh condition."
It's taken the Carns twenty years to design and expand their alternative energy system. Ted, a self-described scrounger and handyman, has found many components through flea markets and friends. In fact, Kathy says their off-grid system began with a gift of shoebox-sized batteries.
Kathy: "Somebody gave us a bunch of batteries-nickel cadmium batteries. And then we started thinking about how to recharge the batteries. Thinking wind. The windmill came first."
Ted: "It took me eight climbs to install the new windmill, I had a different one up there. The bottom of the tower I built."
Murray: "How tall is that?"
Ted: "Seventy-six feet."
(sound of chimes)
The metal tower now looms over the house, outbuildings and organic garden. As the wind whips the chimes at its base, the turbine blades whirl and drive an alternator to generate electricity. The electricity is stored in a bank of batteries.
Murray: "Is the wind consistent here?"
Carns: "Winter good. Summer not. Then in summer the solar panels kick in. So it just sort of balances out."
The Carns' rooftop solar panels accept sunlight into silicon chips and convert the light into electricity. Because it's sunny today, Kathy can run their specially manufactured clothes washer with solar energy. First, she pushes a button on the living room wall and a red light starts to blink. The light indicates that stored electricity is being converted from a DC to AC current.
"That means the house is on 110 power. Turn the water on and then just… It's on."
The Carns also vacuum when the sun shines or the wind blows. They run their TV, stereo and lights off 12-volt DC batteries, much like a car. They heat their water with solar energy in the summer and wood in the winter. And warm their house with a wood stove. They also capture air from underground and use it to refrigerate food and cool their house. All told, Ted and Kathy have spent about 3,000 dollars to upgrade their alternative energy system. Ted says, except for burning wood, the system is nonpolluting. He believes it's also pretty much hassle free.
Carns: "There's no inconvenience that we've seen… There's maybe two or three days that we don't have ample hot water. The nice thing about that is that it – you never stop appreciating the conveniences because periodically for a very short time sometimes you have to do without."
Perez: "More and more people are discovering that they can power their homes and small businesses using solar and wind."
Richard Perez is the founder and publisher of Home Power Magazine. Perez says states are doing far more than the federal government to encourage the residential use of renewable energy.
"There are tax credits, there are rebates, there are buy-downs. Every state has a slightly different scheme but most states have some sort of financial incentive for installing small-scale renewables in your home."
Perez says homeowners don't have to wait wait for government support to set up a system. Ted and Kathy Carns agree.
(sound of plates and silverware)
As the couple gets ready for dinner, Kathy says they want to inspire the many people who come to see how they live off-grid.
"We have a friend who has a solar lawnmower now. We have friends in Philadelphia that took some solar panels; it's not their total system, but it's a little part of their system. If we get enough company and enough people have been here, it sort of branches out, and goes off."
An estimated 180 thousand households in the United States generate some or all of their own electricity. But alternative energy systems aren't for everybody. For people who are downright afraid of technology or inconvenience, life off the power grid isn't a real option just yet.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I'm Ann Murray.
Learn more about alternative energy from the U.S. Department of Energy
Find out about incentives for using renewable energy in your area
Author Ann MurrayPosted on January 31, 2005 Categories FeaturesTags air, alternative energy, batteries, dteenergy, electric, electricity, energy, financial, home, house, incentive, neighbor, power, public utilities, rebate, silicon, soil, solar panels, stone, sun, tax credit, turbine, underground, vacuum, water, wind, windmill, wood
Lake Shoreline Preserved From Development
The Coho site, a 540-acre tract of undeveloped land along Lake Erie, was intended to be used for power plant development. When those plans fell through, conservation groups rallied to buy the land. They're now celebrating a successful purchase. (Photo by Cathy Pedler)
Sunset at the Coho Site, in late summer. (Photo by Cathy Pedler)
In an ongoing study on the health of the Great Lakes, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified shoreline development as one of the biggest threats to the health of the five Lakes. Conservation groups have continually worked to slow the spread of shoreline development. And now along a stretch of Lake Erie, they've scored a major success. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium's Ann Murray has more:
In an ongoing study on the health of the Great Lakes, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
has identified shoreline development as one of the biggest threats to the health of the five Lakes.
Conservation groups have continually worked to slow the spread of shoreline development. And
now along a stretch of Lake Erie, they've scored a major success. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium's Ann Murray has more:
Tom Furhman and Cathy Pedler with the Lake Erie Region Conservancy have come to what's
called the Coho site to celebrate.
(champaign bottle cork pops)
(laughs) "Coho ho ho ho!"
This 540-acre tract was named after Coho salmon. It's the largest undeveloped and unprotected
parcel of land left along Pennsylvania's Lake Erie shoreline. There were plans to build a power
plant here. Those plans were abandoned and the conservation groups have been trying to get a
hold of it. It's taken five long years to buy the land.
"We organized a group in '98 to try to get the utility company to sell it and really there was no
interest to sell that parcel so we partnered with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and most
recently with the Conservation Fund to buy it. And when we thought about the best use we got a
hold of the state and said this could be a great state park."
After finishing their Champaign, Furhman and Pedler hike down to the western front of the Coho
parcel. Here, the property's 90-foot cliffs loom over the water's edge for more than a mile. Pedler
says most of Pennsylvania's 43-mile long Lake Erie shoreline is privately owned. And
development has contributed to erosion and damage to bluffs. She stands on the property's
narrow rock strewn beach and admires the unfettered view.
(sound of water)
"You can see just how magnificent this is with the water running over the slate and the high cliffs
and the bare magenta trees and an eagle. Yeah, I think we kind of want to keep that! Laughs.
(sound of waves fade under)
"It is a very significant site."
Charles Bier is a conservation biologist with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.
"It's really that narrow band of land that's sometimes less than a half a mile wide. That's this very
unique interface between Lake Erie and the mainland of Pennsylvania."
As part of a larger project, the Conservancy performed a natural history inventory of the Coho
property. The site has high bluffs, wetlands and old growth forests. Inland dunes formed 15,000
years ago when glacial movement made the lake elevation higher.
"All of these habitats come together for 11 species of plants that are considered to be very rare
and unusual."
Back on site, Cathy Pedler points out that this parcel of land is also historically important. Pedler
and her husband, Dave, are archeologists. This afternoon, they trudge up a thickly wooded hill
above an access area to Elk Creek, one of the state's best fishing spots.
"Oh, we'll go this way."
At the top of the hill, the trees give way to a large plowed field. The farmer who has leased this
land has unearthed fragments of stone tools and pottery. The Pedlers believe that an ancient
village was located here.
This is really a special property archeologically. It's not just a site. We think it's a pretty
significant complex of them.
Six archeological sites on the Coho property have already been inventoried. Some are at least
10,000 years old. The Pedlers think the best way to protect these historic locations and sensitive
natural areas will be to make the land a state park. In the next few months, the Conservancies
plan to transfer the parcel to the state of Pennsylvania.
But some local government officials have raised questions about making the lake front site public
land. They say the stretch of land could be developed and property taxes collected. If it's put into
parkland, the local government loses that tax money. Gretchen Leslie is spokesperson for the
Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Leslie says despite the loss of
property taxes, she sees the acquisition of this parcel as a smart move for the region.
"We believe this property has economic value and that you can locate industrial developments or
business parks in many, many different locations throughout the region. But there are only a few
locations that have such special natural qualities to them that they will serve an important tourism
role. And this is one of them.
(sound of waves)
And the cliffs above Lake Erie are unique. Pennsylvania is a large state, but only a small piece of
the state sits on the Great Lake. And many think that the one-mile stretch of shoreline that Coho
covers is worth preserving.
Check out the Lake Erie LaMP
More about the Coho site from the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy
Author Ann MurrayPosted on February 9, 2004 Categories FeaturesTags conservation, economic development, economic value, economics, epa, erie, great lakes, nature, pennsylvania, preservation, property taxes, public land, state government, wildlife


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Home > Instrumentation > Database > Next-Generation Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRISng)
Next-Generation Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRISng)
Operated By:
Major components of the AVIRISng airborne flight package. Also shown here is an optional lidar companion instrument.
The NASA Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) has been in operation since 1989 acquiring contiguous spectral measurements between 380 and 2510 nm for use by a range of terrestrial ecology science investigations related to: (1) pattern and spatial distribution of ecosystems and their components, (2) ecosystem function, physiology and seasonal activity, (3) biogeochemical cycles, (3) changes in disturbance activity, and (4) ecosystems and human health. While AVIRIS continue to make unique and significant science contributions, such as its deployment to the Gulf of Louisiana in May 2010 for the assessment of the amount of oil spilled by the offshore well, the need for a new sensor to share AVIRIS' workload and to eventually replace AVIRIS is inevitable. Indeed, since the late summer of 2009 a new NASA Earth Science airborne sensor called the Next Generation Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRISng) is being developed by JPL through the funding support from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The technical and programmatic oversights of the AVIRISng development is provided by NASA's Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO).
Similar to its predecessor, the AVIRISng is being designed to be compatible with a broad array of possible aircraft platforms, such as NASA's ER-2 jet, the Twin Otter turboprop, Scaled Composites Proteus and NASA's WB-57.
Instrument Type:
ER-2 - AFRC, Proteus, Twin Otter - GRC, WB-57 - JSC
Point(s) of Contact:
Robert O. Green (POC; PI), Ernesto Diaz (Co-I), Michael Eastwood (Co-I), Ian McCubbin (Co-I), Scott Nolte (Co-I), Charles Sarture (Co-I), Rios, Luis (Co-I), Mark Helmlinger (Co-I), Linley Kroll (Co-I)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
The Black List 2015: The Year's Most Liked Unproduced Screenplays
By Angie Han/Dec. 14, 2015 1:00 pm EST
For over a decade now, the Black List has come out each December to reveal the most-liked unproduced screenplays of the year. We say "most-liked" because the folks involved are very clear that "the Black List is not a 'best of' list. It is, at best, a 'most liked' list." The list, which was compiled by polling over 250 film executives, contains dozens of screenplays written in (or "somehow uniquely associated with") 2015 but won't have started shooting by the end of the year. See the Black List 2015 after the jump.
As always, there are screenplays of all sorts, from comedy to sci-fi to drama, by writers of all kinds, from established veterans to total newcomers. According to the Black List site, over 225 films have been made from Black List screenplays, winning a total of 35 Oscars from 171 nominations. Last year's list included what are now upcoming films by Marc Webb (Gifted), Doug Liman (Mena), and Kenneth Lonergan (Mandhester by the Sea); the year before included Spotlight, American Sniper, and The End of the Tour. Other past Black List scripts include Whiplash, Argo, Django Unchained, Slumdog Millionaire, and The King's Speech.
So without further ado...
The Black List 2015
44 votes: Bubbles by Isaac Adamson
A baby chimp is adopted by the pop star Michael Jackson. Narrating his own story, Bubbles the Chimp details his life within The King of Pop's inner circle through the scandals that later rocked Jackson's life and eventually led to Bubbles' release.
40 votes: Stronger by John Pollono and Scott Silver
The true story of Jeff Bauman, who lost his legs in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and became an integral part of helping the police locate the Tsarnaev brothers.
37 votes: The Libertine by Ben Kopit
After the Head of the French National Assembly is placed under house arrest for accusations of sexual assault, he must live in a guarded apartment with his estranged wife until the case comes to a close.
37 votes: Rocket by Jeffrey Gelber and Ryan Belenzon
Roger "The Rocket" Clemens, one of the greatest pitchers of all time, has 4672 strikeouts, 354 wins and a record 7 Cy Young awards. This is the story of why he is not in the Hall of Fame.
34 votes: Crater by John J. Griffin
On the moon, five teens take an unauthorized and adventure-filled road trip just before one of them is to be sent away on a seventy-five year journey to another planet, leaving behind his best friends.
31 votes: Miss Sloane by Jonathan "Jonny" Perera
A powerful lobbyist sacrifices her career on Capitol Hill so she can push through an amendment enforcing stricter federal laws regulating guns.
28 votes: True Fan by John Whittington
After interfering with a foul ball during a Chicago Cubs playoff game, Steve Bartman was tortured and stalked by die hard Cub fans for potentially costing them their first National League pennant since 1945. Years later, in a new town with a new identity — but depressed, overweight and working a dead end job — Steve meets a woman who gives him a new lease on life and reason to live.
26 votes: Pale Blue Dot by Brian C Brown and Elliot DiGuisseppi
Twelve months after returning from a space mission, decorated astronaut Laura Pepper is arrested for the attempted murder of a fellow astronaut.
25 votes: Reagan by Mike Rosolio
When Ronald Reagan falls into dementia at the start of his second term, an ambitious intern is tasked with convincing the commander-in-chief that he is an actor playing the president in a movie.
21 votes: Bump by Ori Guendelman and Rob McClelland
After an accidental hit and run, a young lawyer's entire life unravels over the span of one night as he attempts to dispose of a corpse that turns out to be way more than an innocent victim.
21 votes: Eli by David Chirchirillo
Having moved into a "clean house" to treat his auto-immune disorder, eleven-year-old Eli begins to believe that the house is haunted. Unable to leave, Eli soon realizes that the house, and the doctor who runs it, are more sinister than they appear.
20 votes: Septillion to One by Adam Perlman and Graham Sack
A former FBI agent working the fraud unit of the Texas State lottery falls in love with a woman he's investigating after she mysteriously hits the jackpot three times.
20 votes: White Boy Rick by Logan Miller and Noah Miller
The true story of Richard Wershe, Jr., the only successful white boy gangster/drug kingpin in an African American dominated 1980's Detroit ghetto.
18 votes: Boomtown by Matt King
A slick corporate investigator with a closely guarded secret discovers a sinister criminal conspiracy in North Dakota oil boom country.
18 votes: Dreamland by Nicolaas Zwart
With his family's farm on the precipice of foreclosure, fifteen-year-old Eugene Evans is determined to capture a fugitive bank robber and collect the bounty on her head. Against all odds, he beats out the FBI and the local police to capture her, only to discover that all may not be what it seems.
18 votes: The Fisherman by Will Dunn
A fisherman sails out of Martha's Vineyard in search of the shark that killed his fellow sailors while they were stranded in the water for four days after their ship was attacked by a Japanese submarine.
18 votes: The Water Man by Emma Needell
A young boy tries to save his mother from terminal cancer by seeking out the town's bogeyman, "The Water Man," who is fabled to have conquered death.
17 votes: All the Money in the World by David Scarpa
The story of the Getty kidnapping crisis encompassing the Red Brigades, the Italian tabloids and the Vatican.
17 votes: Boy by Mattson Tomlin
A teenage boy is born with special abilities and spends his childhood switching names and cities in order to keep his identity hidden. When he loses control and accidentally kills his father, he and his mother have to go on the run.
17 votes: The Shave by Thomas White and Miles Hubley
A dirty cop, exonerated in the murder of a high school honor student, visits the boy's father at his barbershop and, while receiving a straight razor shave, listens to him recount the story of his son's life.
16 votes: Do No Harm by Julia Cox
An ambitious surgeon's life takes a dangerous turn when she indulges in an a air with a doctor whose god complex challenges her own.
16 votes: Hammerspace by Mike Van Waes
A terminally-ill teenager looking for answers about his missing father finds a key that unlocks an opening to an alternate animated dimension, and a new friend helps him repair his broken family.
16 votes: The Wretched Emily Erringer by Chris Thomas Devlin
Gleefully terrifying her small town as a serial killer known as "The Misfit Butcher," 13-year-old Emily Derringer becomes annoyed when a new killer comes to town and residents begin attributing his sloppy murders to the Misfit Butcher. In a macabre coming of age story, Emily must deal with her competition while also taking on the other trials and tribulations of junior high school life.
15 votes: Pandemonium, Splendidly Managed by Brett Conrad
A local Phoenix newscaster at the pinnacle of local celebrity slowly descends into the depths of madness while trying to become a game show host in Los Angeles.
15 votes: The Virginian by Michael Russell Gunn
Based on the novel by Owen Wister, a young, down-and-out George Washington, desperate to join the British Army, accepts a dangerous mission to conquer a French fort and save the American colonies.
14 votes: Castle Drive by Matthew Scott Weiner
Based on real events, the story of the writing of Fatal Vision, the 1983 bestselling true crime classic that chronicles the summer journalist Joe McGinness spent with "Green Beret Killer" Jeffrey McDonald while he was on trial for the brutal murder of his wife and children.
14 votes: Cut and Run by Zoe McCarthy
A female urologist and a retired hooker form an unlikely friendship when they team up to take down a notorious sex trafficker in Miami.
13 votes: The Burning Woman by Brad Ingelsby
A reckless, fun-loving young woman confronts the dark side of life after losing her daughter.
13 votes: Mayday 109 by Samuel V. Franco and Evan Kilgore
Based on actual events, a young John F. Kennedy struggles to save the crew of his PT Boat after it is sunk by a Japanese warship during World War II.
13 votes: Morningstar by David Birke
The war is over. A bitter and uneasy truce has been reached with an invading alien race, and a new cold war has begun. Fueled by suspicions of an alien spy in their ranks, the United Nations Intelligence Division entrusts their top agent, Martin Webber, with finding the mole.
13 votes: Move That Body by Lucia Aniello and Paul W. Downs
Five friends rent a beach house in Miami for a bachelorette weekend and accidentally kill a male stripper.
13 votes: Nyad by Robert Specland
Based on the true story of marathon swimmer Diana Nyad, who in 2013, after 4 failed attempts and at the age of 64, became the first person ever to open-swim from Cuba to Florida (55 hours non-stop) overcoming impossible odds, personal tragedy, and 103 miles of open ocean.
13 votes: Queen of the Air by Cat Vasko
Based on the book "Queen of the Air" written by Dean N. Jensen. The story of famed trapeze artist Lillian Leitzel and her relationship with fellow trapeze artist Alfredo Codona, who were two of the most famous entertainers of the world during their time.
13 votes: Spring Offensive by Matthew McInereney-Lacombe
Dr. Liz Scott, a British epidemiologist with the World Health Organization, is tasked with containing an outbreak of Ebola in Afghanistan's war torn Helmand province as the Taliban's assault on allied forces threatens to turn the localized outbreak into a global catastrophe.
12 votes: Blackfriars by Chris Bremner
Set around the Blackfriars massacre of 1978, the true story of a Boston police officer and a con man-turned-witness, who become unlikely friends hiding out in Bermuda, ultimately perpetrating a con on the Boston DA they're tasked to serve.
12 votes: Circle of Treason by Anna Waterhouse and Joe Shrapnel
Based on the book "Circle of Treason: A CIA Account of Traitor Aldrich Ames and The Men He Betrayed" written by Sandra Grimes & Jeanne Vertefeuille. When two women in the CIA suspect there is a mole working there, they have to overcome the institution's hierarchy and chauvinism to bring down the traitor.
12 votes: Star One by David Coggeshall
Two CIA agents must overcome their opposing worldviews to evade the Soviet and Chinese armies during a dangerous mission to Tibet in 1950. The true story of the first CIA agent ever to die in the line of duty; the "first star' on the CIA Memorial Wall.
11 votes: Bare Knuckle by Dave Matillo
New York City 1862: The bare knuckle boxing champion, Bad Jack, develops a crush on a common French girl and uses his political influence to send her Irish lumberman husband off to the Civil War so he can take her for his own. Unfortunately for Bad Jack, the Irishman doesn't die in the war and comes back a killer looking to exact revenge on the pugilist and his entire corrupt entourage.
11 votes: Chappaquiddick by Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan
A historically factual look at what really happened when Ted Kennedy drove off the road into a Martha's Vineyard bay with Mary Jo Kopechne in the car.
11 votes: Great Falls by Andy Friedhof
After negligently killing a hunter with their patrol car, an alcoholic Sheri 's Deputy and her superior officer must decide what to do with the only witness to their crime – a death row inmate only days from execution.
10 votes: Hunting Eichmann by Matthew Orton
The thrilling capture of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann by a secret Mossad team in South America.
10 votes: Battle of New Orleans by Dan Kunka
In one of the greatest untold stories in American history, General and future President Andrew Jackson reluctantly partners with world-renowned pirate Jean Lafitte to lead a rag-tag team of soldiers against the indomitable British Army in the climactic battle of the War of 1812.
10 votes: Crimson Trail by Jeremy Shipp
Based on a true story. Devastated by the cold-blooded murder of his family, a devout frontier preacher risks his soul to lead a posse in pursuit of the Harpe Brothers—America's first serial killers.
10 votes: Labyrinth by Christian Contreras
Based on the book LAbyrinth by Randall Sullivan. The story of the investigation into the murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious BIG.
10 votes: Our Week With Waller by Evan Mirzai and Shea Mirzai
After getting laid off, two Americans cash in their vacation pay and head abroad to Spain where their paths collide with one of the world's most dangerous terrorists.
10 votes: Set It Up by Katie Silberman
Two young assistants realize they can get more free time if they occupy their bosses' time by setting them up on a date.
10 votes: A Speck in the Sea by Jeff Pope
Based on the article "A Speck in the Sea" by Paul Tough. The true story of the rescue of lobster fisherman John Aldridge who fell into the ocean in the middle of the night on July 24th, forty miles off Montauk with no life vest and no way to signal where he was.
10 votes: Untitled Sociopath Project by Topher Rhys-Lawrence
A successful New Yorker's seemingly perfect life starts unraveling once he's suspected for the murder of his co-worker, and his only alibi is the doppelganger that's begun stalking him
9 votes: Ares by Geneva Robertson-Dworet
The survival story of an astronaut whose space capsule crash lands in the African desert and whose mission to space was part of a larger conspiracy.
9 votes: Final Journey by Michael Lee Barlin
A mistreated elderly Inuit (Eskimo) woman is forced out of her village to survive alone on the savage arctic tundra.
9 votes: Militia by Henry Dunham
After a shooting at a police funeral by a suspected militia member, a recluse ex-cop and fellow militia man must interrogate the suspected gunmen in his own militia before copycat attacks start a nationwide war between cops and militias.
9 votes: Salem by Mark Bianculli and Jeff Richard
Fifteen years after the witch trials, the scars of Salem are reopened when young women begin showing up dead. Desperate for answers, the town elders turn to a man of science to uncover the truth behind its terrifying events plaguing their community.
9 votes: Tomorrow on the Runway by Frederick Seton
Kermit St. Lucy has a ridiculous name and is ridiculously ill-equipped to deal with adult responsibilities. After a tragedy shakes him to his essence, Kermit takes it upon himself to look after and raise two young children.
9 votes: Treasure Island by James Coyne
Based on the Robert Louis Stevenson classic, young Jim Hawkins finds a map to a buried fortune; to claim it means a perilous voyage, pirate treachery, and the wicked mentorship of Long John Silver.
9 votes: Untitled Larry Hillblom Project by Matt Portenoy
The strange-yet-true story of the battle over the estate of Larry Lee Hillblom, billionaire founder of DHL.
8 votes: An African Western by Chloe Castellon and Ridgeway Wilson
When a young African woman's village is destroyed by a "Christian" paramilitary unit and her sister is kidnapped, she uses every weapon at her disposal on an odyssey to save her last living relative.
8 votes: Atlantic Wall by Zach Dean
A lone American paratrooper stranded behind enemy lines hours before D-Day, is tasked with delivering intelligence critical to the outcome of the war and compelled to fulfill a promise to protect the young son of a murdered ally.
8 votes: Bed Rest by Lori Evans Taylor
An expectant mother who is con ned to bed rest starts to experience paranormal events.
8 votes: I Believe in America by Terry Clyne
A behind-the-scenes look at the making of THE GODFATHER, revealing the creative forces behind one of the nest American films ever made were all as cunning and ruthless as the mobsters portrayed in Mario Puzo's bestseller.
8 votes: Ida Tarbell by Mark McDevitt
Ida Tarbell's magazine series "The History of the Standard Oil Company," would not only change the history of journalism, but also the fate of Rockefeller's empire, shaken by the powerful pen of its most implacable observer.
8 votes: A Life Fantastic by Natalie Antoci
A single mother with a terminal diagnosis embarks on a road trip with her eccentric nine-year-old son and nanny to find a loving and progressive family that will accept him for whoever he may grow up to be.
8 votes: Lou by Maggie McGowan Cohn
An elderly woman who hacks out a rough existence on a remote island is forced to help her dimwitted neighbor rescue her daughter from her ex who has kidnapped her and run off into the woods.
8 votes: Preconception by Jake Morse and Scott Wolman
A couple on the verge of parenthood embarks on a pre-baby bucket list.
8 votes: Senior Year by Andrew Knauer and Arthur Pielli
A cheerleader wakes up after a twenty year coma and returns to sit at the cool table and try to become prom queen, as a thirty seven year-old woman.
8 votes: Verona by Neil Widener and Gavin James
A re-imagining of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
7 votes: 105 and Rising by Andrew Cypiot
Amid the chaos of a failing nation on April 29, 1975, the objective was clear: safely evacuate all remaining Americans from Saigon. But to Major Jim Kean and Ambassador Graham Martin, the moment represented something else: the final opportunity to uphold promises and obligations to the people of South Vietnam.
7 votes: The Boy by Owen Egerton
Sixteen years after stabbing a classmate to appease a legendary phantom known as the Boy, a repentant woman returns to her hometown to live with her sister and nephew. But as the Boy continues to haunt her she must face her deepest terror and discover the truth about the Boy before he claims her nephew.
7 votes: Free Agent by Sam Regnier
A female NBA executive for the Golden State Warriors pursues the biggest free agent of her career while managing a messy divorce and a complicated relationship with a younger colleague and his teenage sister.
7 votes: Homegrown by Jacques Edeline
A teenage boy, raised in total seclusion and indoctrinated by his enigmatic father, is sent to live with a foster family and enrolled in a public high school when his father is incarcerated, threatening their relationship and causing the boy to question everything he's learned.
6 votes: The Canyon by Alex Koplow
When parents reunite with their grown children for a road trip to hike the Grand Canyon, the family conflicts on the way prove far more grueling than the twenty mile hike.
6 votes: Carnival by Matias Caruso
A deadly carnival knife-thrower hunts down the members of a powerful crime syndicate who murdered his sister.
6 votes: Crook County by Gita Pullapilly and Aron Gaudet
A whistleblower's harrowing journey into an undercover FBI operation in 1980's Cook County, Illinois, sending him toe-to-toe with corrupt judges, hustling defense attorneys, and Chicago mobsters; and ultimately resulting in the largest number of convictions of government officials in the history of the United States.
6 votes: Damsel by Bryan McMullin
After first being locked up in a tower and then hidden deep in the forest to prevent a prince from rescuing her, long-haired Rapunzel vows to get revenge.
6 votes: Francis and the Godfather by Andrew Farotte
Facing financial ruin, auteur filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola is forced to direct the adaptation of Mario Puzo's pulp novel The Godfather, pitting him against legendary mega-producer Robert Evans in this comedy about art versus commerce.
6 votes: Green River Killer by Michael Sheen
Based on the Eisner Award winning graphic novel of the same name. The story follows the detectives in the Green River Killer case as they attempt to unravel not only the facts behind the gruesome series of murders that plagued the Paci c North West for over a decade, but also the psychosis of the killer they now find themselves face to face with.
6 votes: Landslide by Will Staples and Tony Camerino
Based on the book How to Break a Terrorist by Tony Camerino. The story of America's search for terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and the man who played a key role in tracking him down by using psychological warfare.
6 votes: Resurface by Pete Bridges
An underwater earthquake decimates a research crew working at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, leaving two survivors with limited resources to ascend 35,000 feet and reach the surface before their life support runs out.
6 votes: Songs of Treblinka by Viorica Blan
Based on a true story. A renowned Jewish conductor plots a revolt with fellow prisoners as he attracts the respect of his Nazi captors in Poland's most notorious death camp.
6 votes: Three Months by Jared Frieder
After being exposed to HIV the weekend of his high school graduation in 2011, a punk gay teenager from Miami attempts to start a new relationship with a someone from his support group as they try to endure the three months it takes to get accurately tested.
6 votes: Wish Upon by Barbara Marshall
When sixteen-year-old misfit Claire finds a magic box that promises a chance at the life she has always wanted, she never could have guessed that each wish would demand a deadly payment.


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Shyanna Moore (left), Martie Franzen, Kiersten Trainer and Lexi Dannaker, all dressed as characters from the Japanese comic book "My Hero Academia," talk with Phil Mizuno (right) at the Tokyo in Tulsa convention in Broken Arrow. MATT BARNARD/Tulsa World
MattBarnardTulsaWorld
Convention guests line up to buy Japanese snack food at the Tokyo in Tulsa convention in Broken Arrow. MATT BARNARD/Tulsa World
Angelina Willis cosplays as Ruby from "Steven Universe" at the Tokyo in Tulsa convention in Broken Arrow. MATT BARNARD/Tulsa World
Cosplayers walk through the convention at the Tokyo in Tulsa convention in Broken Arrow. MATT BARNARD/Tulsa World
James Dunlop of Broken Arrow arrived at Tokyo in Tulsa in costume as Subject Delta from the video game Bioshock 2. Jimmie Tramel/Tulsa World
Jimmie Tramel
Sightseeing: Relocated Tokyo in Tulsa continues to be visual treat
By Jimmie Tramel Tulsa World
Gallery: See the creative and amazing costumes from the 2019 Tokyo in Tulsa show
Gallery: The best cosplay costumes we've seen at local conventions
BROKEN ARROW — Tokyo in Tulsa's move to Broken Arrow worked out well for James Dunlop: The convention came to him.
A 12th-year convention dedicated to Japanese culture and pop culture, Tokyo in Tulsa relocated this year from downtown Tulsa to Broken Arrow. The inaugural Broken Arrow show began Friday and continues through Sunday.
Tokyo in Tulsa annually draws visitors from around the globe. Among those attending the convention on opening day was Dunlop, a Broken Arrow resident who said he lives about five minutes away.
How does he feel about the change of venue?
"It depends," he said. "It's a bit difficult with the multiple locations, but I have kind of gotten used to it at this point, so it's a little more convenient."
Stoney Creek Hotel & Conference Center is the Tokyo in Tulsa headquarters (go there for panels, etc.) and free shuttles are available to transport convention attendees to four additional venues that are being used for Tokyo in Tulsa activities.
The shuttle situation adds a new element to the people-watching. Whether you are a Tokyo in Tulsa attendee or not, you can sit at a shuttle stop and watch all kinds of costumed characters board and de-board buses. Did I just see someone in a giant cat costume walk off a shuttle carrying the head of the cat costume under an arm?
Cosplaying is a big, colorful part of Tokyo in Tulsa and it's safe to say that, other than Halloween, Broken Arrow has never been populated by this many costumed characters. Dunlop is among them. He attracted attention by cosplaying as Subject Delta, the protagonist in the Bioshock 2 video game, when he arrived at the convention's vendor and artist venue, a former Hobby Lobby at 720 W. New Orleans St. The costume included a moving drill that took him a few months (working off and on) to build.
Asked about seeing all the costumes, Dunlop said that is definitely a fun aspect of Tokyo in Tulsa.
"But I would say the most fun part is just kind of getting into characters," he said. "As soon as you put on a costume and you are really into this cosplay, you are not really yourself anymore. You are just this character that clearly you liked so much that you put a lot of time into it. Like I don't think of myself as just a normal guy because people don't see me as like who I normally am. They see me as Subject Delta. It's like, wow, this is really cool."
Cosplayers usually love having their picture taken, but it's considered proper etiquette to ask before photographing.
Also among first-day attendees was Norman's Madyson McDowell, who said this was her fifth year at Tokyo in Tulsa.
"I come mainly because I love anime so much," she said. "Basically it's just fun to hang out with other people who like the same thing as me. ... We basically become family after a while."
McDowell bought a few items (including a "Yuri on Ice" poster) at the bazaar, alias the vendor venue. During a brief wait for a shuttle, she said her plans for the remainder of the weekend included going to panels, getting to know other people and making friends. She won a "date" with a Yuri cosplayer during a panel at the 2018 convention.
In past years, Tokyo in Tulsa was held at one facility, Cox Business Center. Asked about the convention's move to Broken Arrow, she said, "At first I was sketchy about it because we are going different places, but I got used to it."
Jimmie Tramel 918-581-8389
jimmie.tramel@tulsaworld.com
Twitter: @JimmieTramel
A 12th-year convention dedicated to Japanese culture and pop culture, Tokyo in Tulsa relocated this year from downtown Tulsa to Broken Arrow. …
Keep an eye out for these characters this weekend at Tokyo in Tulsa, Oklahoma's largest anime, Japanese and pop culture event.
Tokyo in Tulsa
Tokyo in Tulsa is Oklahoma's largest anime, Japanese and pop culture event. The 2019 convention started Friday at multiple locations in Broken Arrow and continues through Sunday. For tickets and information, go to www.tokyointulsa.com
Saturday and Sunday convention times
Registration: Saturday 9 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sunday 9 a.m.-2 p.m.
Convention hours: Saturday 10 a.m.-2 a.m.; Sunday 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
Xtreme Racing & Entertainment
Registration: Saturday 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sunday 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
Convention hours: Saturday 10 a.m.-11 p.m.; Sunday 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
Registration: Saturday 9 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sunday 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
Convention hours: Saturday 10 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sunday 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
Madyson Mcdowell
Jimmie is a pop culture and feature writer at the Tulsa World. A former Oklahoma sports writer of the year, he has written books about former Oklahoma football coach Barry Switzer and former Oklahoma State football coach Pat Jones. Phone: 918-581-8389
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CARE: Wash Separately in warm water; fabric softener is not recommended. A Chlorine free stain remover may be sprayed directly on stubborn stains. Bleach is not recommended. Tumble dry on medium heat, remove immediately.
Bamboo is native to Asia, and as our textiles come from that region, we are fully committed to ensuring that we only work with factories that have passed the Social Responsibility Audit. This confirms that no children work there, that the employees are paid fair wages and that they have been anonymously interviewed to ensure that the standards of their working conditions are good.
When you sleep, your pores open up and absorb whatever you are sleeping on. This means that you can absorb things such as bleach, fabric softener, perfumes, and chemicals. We at BedVoyage care greatly about what is on our linens. Because of that we do not use flame retardants such as Antimony Trioxide, which studies show can cause many conditions, ranging from allergies to Autism. We also do not use formaldehyde, which is commonly used to make linens wrinkle-resistant. We feel that most consumers would rather endure a bit of wrinkling than breathe in formaldehyde while they sleep. Further, bamboo is grown without pesticides or fertilizer and can grow up to 3 feet a day. The stalk is cut, not pulled by the roots, allowing it to re-grow and be harvested again and again. Bamboo also plays a critical role in the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide as it release 35% more oxygen, and takes in five times the volume of greenhouse gases as an equivalent stand of timber trees.
We are committed to using only the most eco-friendly textiles, and hold the Oeko-Tex Confidence in Textiles certification as confirmation. Bamboo is one of the most renewable resources on the planet, and is grown without pesticides or fertilizer, unlike cotton which uses 25% of the world's insecticides. We further ensure that the processing of the fibers is done so in the closed-loop system which keeps re-using and re-circulating the solvents needed to breakdown the stalk, not allowing it to leak out into air or waterways.
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Tesla has recalled all 90,000 Model S sedans over a seatbelt issue
Nate Swanner
Former Reporter, TNW
TNW's former West Coast writer in the PNW (Portland, Oregon). Nate loves amplifying developers, and codes in Swift when he's not writing. If (show all) TNW's former West Coast writer in the PNW (Portland, Oregon). Nate loves amplifying developers, and codes in Swift when he's not writing. If you need to get in touch, Twitter is your best bet.
If you're one of the 90,000 Model S owners, Tesla will soon be in touch.
As first reported by Business Insider — and later confirmed to us by Tesla — Model S seatbelts may function improperly in an accident. This is reportedly in response to a single incident in Europe, where a driver complained her seatbelt came loose as she was turning to speak with a passenger in the back seat.
Tesla confirmed the driver's complaint, noting the seatbelt could come loose during an accident. The company has not been required to recall any vehicles; this appears to be voluntary and preventative.
We've reached out to Tesla for details on what's happening here, and will update when we hear back.
Update: Tesla has responded to our request for comment. Here's the email going out to all Tesla Model S owners today:
We are sending you this email to inform you of a proactive action Tesla is taking to ensure your safety. Tesla recently found a Model S in Europe with a front seat belt that was not properly connected to the outboard lap pretensioner. This vehicle was not involved in a crash and there were no injuries. However, in the event of a crash, a seatbelt in this condition would not provide full protection. First and foremost, we care about your safety.
This is the only customer vehicle we know of with this condition. Even though we have since inspected the seat belts in over 3,000 vehicles spanning the entire range of Model S production and found no issues, we have decided to conduct a voluntary recall as a proactive and precautionary measure to inspect all front Model S seat belts and make absolutely sure that they are properly connected. (We have no concerns regarding seat belts in the rear of Model S.)
The email had methods for scheduling repair, but also told drivers how to test for the issue:
If you are concerned about the status of your seatbelt prior to your scheduled inspection, you may be able to detect this condition by pulling very firmly on the lap portion of your seat belt with a force of at least 80 pounds. This procedure may detect an improperly attached seat belt but performing this procedure does not replace the need for an inspection by a Tesla technician.


"CSA" stands for "Community Supported Agriculture," a partnership between farmers and consumers. Pike Box is an opportunity for community members to invest in a "share" of local farms by signing up for a season's worth of fresh produce that is sourced from our Pike Place Market farmers.
The produce is packed by Pike Place Market staff and dedicated volunteers, and then conveniently delivered to participating offices, work places, or community centers each week. Pike Box pick-up is also available right here at the MarketFront Plaza. Come down, pick up your share, and enjoy the weekly CSA events.
The Pike Box CSA program supports local farmers in growing their businesses by opening additional sales channels, connecting them with new customers, and allowing them to experiment with new crops and varieties.
What will I see in my Pike Box?
During the peak growing season (20 weeks from mid-June through October), you will receive a weekly selection of items sourced from the freshest, most flavorful produce the farmers at Pike Place Market have to offer, as well as recipes, storage tips, and easy preparation ideas to help make the most of your fruits and vegetables. You can also visit our online store and choose from a variety of add-ons -- from milk and honey to bread, jam, and even a bouquet of flowers.
This share feeds 2 people who frequently eat fresh produce during the summer or a household of 4 or more that eats a moderate amount of produce.
This share feeds 1 person who eat a small or moderate amount of produce.
For the 2019 season, Pike Box is available for pick-up each Wednesday from June 19 – October 30.
Please contact the Pike Box team at pikebox@pikeplacemarket.org, or your office site coordinator.
The Pike Box program is funded in part by the Pike Place Market Foundation and WSDA's Specialty Crop Block Grant Program.


I've been volunteering at the Liberty Humane Society in Jersey City as of late and absolutely love the animals. true love and care are given to the animals and tons of the hard work goes into getting each and everyone of them adopted. Adoption success stories make my day and this week, I'm proud to share this story from my friend, Alexis Farah of RandomActsofLipstick.com, who has opened her LA home to fostering dogs. I couldn't be more proud of her!


More than 60 firefighters were tackling a blaze in the upper floors of a hotel tower block near Dublin airport last night, forcing a full evacuation.
Fire broke out at about 7.30pm at the Metro Hotel building in Ballymun and spread to about seven of its 15 storeys. No one was reported injured or missing and it was unclear whether the affected floors were occupied.
The fire brigade deployed eight fire engines and up to a dozen other units. Firefighters were still tackling the blaze in the early hours of this morning. Witnesses described falling debris, windows exploding from the heat and firefighters entering the building with breathing apparatus.


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Sky's the limit: Making drones more accessible to agricultural industry with World Drone Challenge
/ By Courtney Fowler
Posted FriFriday 28 OctOctober 2016 at 5:11amFriFriday 28 OctOctober 2016 at 5:11am
This drone could help a pastoralist survey land. (Nathan Coates)
A Queensland researcher is looking to highlight what drone technology means for graziers and how they manage their livestock in northern Australia.
Toowomba drone expert Josh Keegan is currently working with CASA to create a new global competition to showcase how drone research can be applied to various industries.
Duration: 4 minutes 36 seconds 4m 36s
rural-ntch-dronechallenge-281016 (ABC Rural: Courtney Fowler.)
Download 2.1 MB
Mr Keegan said he hoped the World Drone Challenge would demonstrate how farmers could use drone technology safely to do everything from inspecting water infrastructure, tracking stock.
"The whole idea of the World Drone Challenge is to [showcase] drones outside of the city scenario, where they can have the most value and the most impact by pushing them in terms of capacity and endurance," he said.
"The reason we're doing this is because drones, at the moment, are currently limited to around about 20 kilometres due to battery capacity.
"And in terms of weight lift capacity, or payload, they're very limited, to around five or 10 kilograms.
"In order for drones to become more effective, they need to lift more weight, which means when you're using them in the agricultural industry, you'll be able to put on different sorts of cameras.
"That will include things like infrared cameras to actually monitor and spot stock, plus at the same time to monitor water levels on troughs out in regional areas."
Adapting drones for agriculture
Mr Keegan said the first step for pastoralists interested in adopting drone technology on their properties was to identify what they wanted the drones to do and to consider the effect of the technology on wildlife and livestock.
"What you want to do determines your distance and the type of payload your drone is able to carry," he said.
"If you're going to be doing trough inspections for on a couple of thousand acres then what you're looking at is a fixed wing [which] have a general tendency to have a longer duration and operating range.
"If you're looking to see if there's a pump leaking on a particular trough, then you would be looking to use a rotary aircraft; they're able to do detailed inspections which eliminates the human altogether.
"However, it needs to be in visual line of sight as [the legislation] stands at the moment, which kind of defeats the point."
A drone or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle can monitor crops for pests and weeds. (Laurissa Smith: ABC Rural)
Technical and legislation challenges
Mr Keegan said there were a number of technical and legislative challenges to overcome during the competition in order to effectively adapt the technology to the agricultural industry.
"[Currently] there's no such thing as yet to actually use GPS markers to get your drone to automatically do things for you because it needs be in visual line of sight during operation," he said.
"To operate legally beyond visual line of sight, you must present a safety case to CASA in order to get that approval.
"CASA must be warned at least five days prior to flying the drone, they must not be any more than 400 feet above ground level and they must not be in populous areas."
Mr Keegan said he hoped if competitors were able to demonstrate safety and reliability during the World Drone Challenge, the use of drones could become more widespread.
"The World Drone Challenge is aiming to address those needs to actually begin change to legislation for those competing teams which will have impacts on the rest of industry."
The two-day event is set to begin in Toowoomba in September 2017.
Interested participants are encouraged to visit the World Drone Challenge website or Facebook page for more information.
Posted 28 OctOctober 2016FriFriday 28 OctOctober 2016 at 5:11am
Senate set to hold inquiry into drone use
Satellite-controlled drones map paths for autonomous tractors
Posted 7mminutes agoSunSunday 17 JanJanuary 2021 at 1:08am


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Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Suna
Anti-coup crackdown continues in Turkey
Diego Cupolo Ankara
07/15/2017 July 15, 2017
One year on, Turkey's crackdown on suspected coup plotters shows no signs of ending - and has now reached human rights workers. Diego Cupolo reports from Ankara.
https://p.dw.com/p/2gVqW
New purge as Turkey celebrates failed coup attempt
Mert's story is just one of many and typical of the current situation in Turkey. He had voiced concern in group meetings, as he always did, but instead of citing personal disagreements on the day he was laid off, he said his boss accused him of having links to a terrorist organization. Speaking under an alias to avoid repercussions, Mert, 37, said he was dismissed from his job at an Ankara government ministry last fall for questioning his superiors.
"He said I was a Gulenist," Mert told DW, referring to Fethullah Gulen, an exiled cleric who the Turkish government blames for plotting last year's failed coup. "To make such a claim is ridiculous because he knew it wasn't true. He just wanted to get rid of me."
Read more: In Turkey, hope for 'justice is fading away just like my muscles'
Turkey: A year after the attempted coup
Since then, Mert has remained without work and his passport has been revoked. Similar to the more than 150,000 people who have been sacked or suspended in Turkey's ongoing purges, Mert has been rendered unemployable by his dismissal, which is all too visible to prospective employers in Turkey's social security database.
"I am blacklisted and this is much worse than you can imagine," Mert said.
One year after a failed coup sparked nationwide purges on suspected plotters, Turkey's crackdown continues to spread beyond its initial target of Gulen followers, implicating members of opposition groups, media outlets and humanitarian organizations, effectively silencing many forms of public dissent.
Turkey's Justice Ministry data shows that about 50,000 suspected Gulenists have been jailed since the coup. During the same period, 110 media outlets were shuttered and more than 100 journalists were imprisoned, including German-Turkish correspondent Deniz Yucel. Turkey has now more jailed journalists than any other country in the world, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Dozens of elected representatives with the country's second-largest opposition party, the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), have also been imprisoned or dismissed, including co-chairs Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag.
Read more: Turkey detains dozens of academics, university staff
The crackdown on and arrests of suspected Gülen supporters show no sign of abatingImage: picture-alliance/AP Photo/O. Duzgun
Crackdown expands to human rights groups
The purges show few signs of abating as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ruled out the possibility of lifting the year-old state of emergency imposed following last year's failed coup.
In the last few days, dozens of academics have been detained at the Bogazici and Medeniyet Universities in Istanbul, more than 100 IT workers arrested and warrants issued for the detention of 51 people, including 34 former employees of the state television network, TRT. On Friday, Turkey dismissed another nearly 7,500 civil servants.
Last week, the crackdown targeted human rights workers, when 10 rights activists were detained on suspected terror links, including Amnesty International's director for Turkey, Idil Eser.
Eser is the second Amnesty staff member to be detained within the space of a month, joining the organization's local chairman, Taner Kilic, who was arrested in June on similar charges. While members of Amnesty International have been arrested in the past by other governments, having two leading figures simultaneously behind bars is unusual, said Andrew Gardner, a researcher for Amnesty Turkey.
"It's a test case," Gardner told DW. "If 10 human rights defenders end up in prison, there's no guarantee that next time it won't be me or someone from HRW [Human Rights Watch] or someone from the Human Rights Association. There's no security for anyone if this is allowed to pass."
Read more: Amnesty slams Turkey for mass dismissals after failed coup
The crackdown on critical voices has now reached members of human rights organizationsImage: Getty Images/E.Dunand
'A kind of torture'
According to Sebnem Korur Fincanci, president of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TIHV), the crackdown on dissent began prior to the failed coup and was accelerated in the aftermath.
While Turkey's human rights record has long caused international concern, Fincanci said what worried her most was the worsening conditions in prisons holding suspected coup plotters. Over the last year, she said she received reports showing increased use of solitary confinement, strip searches and, at times, physical violence. Methods of detaining suspects have also become more brutal, Fincanci said, citing recent cases where women were detained in hospitals days after giving birth.
Fincanci says the most difficult aspect of Turkey's political climate is not knowing who will be targeted next.
"It's random, totally random, everything is random," Fincanci said, who is also a faculty member at Istanbul University. "I expect to be dismissed because I am a peace petitioner, but they haven't had dismissals at Istanbul University yet. Who knows when they will dismiss us."
"Not being able to know what happens next and having this uncertain future is the most disturbing situation, I think," she added. "This is a kind of torture in a way."
Amnesty InternationalTurkey


About 75 pediatricians from across the state brainstormed today to discuss the preventive measures to be taken to fight pneumonia which according to the UNICEF data claims more lives in children below five years of age than any other illness.
During the Pneumococcal Disease Conference held here today,the pediatricians and members of the Asian Strategic Alliance for Pneumococcal (ASAP) disease prevention said in order to combat invasive pneumococcal disease,the pneomococcal conjugate vaccince (PCV) has shown positive results in the West and South Africa.
"Though no clinical trial has been conducted in India,we are soon going to undertake the probe trials in the four districts in the country. However,the success and efficacy of the vaccine has already been established in the US since 2000 where about 36 per cent reduction was seen in pneumonia cases. Besides,in South Africa too,particularly in Zambia,the vaccine has shown positive results," said Shyam Kukreja,convener,ASAP.
"Every year 20 per cent of the children in the world who die even before they attain five years of age are the victims of pneumonia which can result from various reasons. In India,about four lakh children below five die of the disease," he added.
Dr AJ Chitkara,member of ASAP,said that of these four lakh children,two lakh are the cases of pneumococcal disease. The participants at the conference were on the view that PCV should be introduced in the country so that the disease and the deaths caused by it could be prevented. "There are 90 identified strains of pneumonia and the vaccine will help combat the seven more serious strains," said JS Chugh,from the Pahwa Hospital.
"Both ASAP India and and IAP have recommended the use of PCV on one to one basis as per the IAP immunisation schedule," said Dr Kukreja. The participants also agreed to represent to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to include PCV in the National Immunisation Programme.
"The vaccine is very expensive at present and is available at a price of about Rs 3,000 to 4,000. But we along with the government of India are trying to make the vaccine available at more affordable prices (at Rs 40) and introduce it by 2011," said Rohit Aggarwal,secretary,IAP and co-convener of ASAP.
"The National Immunisation Programme covers six main diseases at present. However,the routine immunisation coverage on the average is about 55 per cent in the country. It is therefore necessary to sensitize doctors,general population and the government about the significance of vaccinations available to prevent all these diseases," said Dr Chitkara.
Dr Chitkara added that pneumonia is a forgotten killer of children which still kills more children than malaria,measles or AIDS. "Over the years,an increasing incidence of drug resistant pmeumonococcus has been noticed which is a serious cause for concern," said Dr Daljit Singh,principal of the Dayanand Medical College and Hospital,who was present at the conference.
The participants stated that World Health Organisation has also identified the inclusion of PCV in the national immunisation programmes as a priority in countries where the mortality rate in the children below five years of age is more than 50 per 1,000 live births. About 27 lakh children die in India every year before they turn five.