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You can’t spell “NPR” without “PR,” as in “disaster,” as in what that particular media organization had more than its share of in 2011. Former CEO Vivian Schiller resigned last March in the wake of the Juan Williams firing and James O’Keefe undercover video fiascos. Now that position has been filled by Gary Knell, a … Continue reading
[Editress’ Note: Normally I wouldn’t mention something like this, but it’s one of my all-time favorite shows. Seriously, you should watch it.] At a panel at the New Yorker Festival featuring a conversation with the cast of the much loved and missed television series “Arrested Development,” the show’s creator, Mitch Hurwitz, provided updated information on … Continue reading
Note to women in the South Park Slope and surrounding Brooklyn: You might want to think twice before wearing shorts or skirts when you walk home alone at night. That’s the message some women say police officers are spreading as they step up patrols in the area in response to at least 10 unsolved sexual … Continue reading
Bank of America announced Thursday it will charge its debit card users a $5 monthly fee beginning in early 2012, provoking fury from a senior Democrat. The bank, the largest in the nation by assets, blamed its decision on the so-called Durbin Amendment, a provision of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law put into place by … Continue reading
Spanish scientists at the National Biotech Centre in Madrid say a new vaccine could reduce HIV to a “minor chronic infection.” The researchers report that 90% of participants given the MVA-B vaccine showed an immune response to the virus and 85% kept the immunity a year later. According to a press release from The Spanish … Continue reading
[Editress’ Note: published for my friend, the remarkable Mr. Michael Cassidy] Is it wise for the City of Rockford to contract with Mike Cassidy and McGuireWoods, the firm for which he works, to lobby on behalf of Rockford in Springfield? The cost is $10,000 a month, and aldermen voted 13 to 1 Monday to pay … Continue reading
One recent day in a federal prison hospital, accused Tucson gunman Jared Loughner refused to drink milk with lunch. Another day, prison staff noted, he stayed in bed for 18.5 hours. During one seven-day period, staffers said he appeared depressed 63% of the time. His demeanor was flat 84% of the time, and his hygiene was considered … Continue reading
The tantalizing possibility of of life on Mars, our planetary neighbor, has been a cultural fixation going back at least as far as the publication of H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds in 1898. If they were out there, what would they be like? Who would they be? As the saying goes, we’ve met … Continue reading
When the Supreme Court rejected Troy Davis’ request for a delay in his execution Wednesday night, there were no noted dissents attached to the one-sentence order. But that does not mean there were no justices opposed to the execution. The vote count might forever remain unknown. No member of the court currently believes that the … Continue reading
[Editress’ Note: “The law says ‘reasonable doubt,’ but I think a defendant’s entitled to the shadow of a doubt.” -Atticus Finch, To Kill A Mockingbird] Despite evidence that threw into question the veracity of Troy Davis’ conviction, pleas from a former president and the Pope, and even a last-minute review by the US Supreme Court on … Continue reading
I have good news and bad news about conservatives and LGBT equality. The good news is that LGBT equality will come from the right. The bad news is that this will happen only if we learn how to talk to conservatives — both gay and straight — and listen to them in return. You wouldn’t … Continue reading
KABUL—The Sept. 11 attacks that triggered the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan also uprooted 16-year-old Abdul Ghattar from his village in war-torn Helmand province, bringing him to a desolate refugee camp on the edge of Kabul. Yet Mr. Ghattar stared blankly when asked whether he knew about al Qaeda’s strike on the U.S., launched a decade … Continue reading
Daniel Tishman remembers when his dad built the Twin Towers. John Tishman was the chairman of Tishman Construction, the family-owned, New York-based construction company contracted by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey to build the World Trade Center. It was the 1960s, and Dan would accompany his dad to the site. He remembers … Continue reading
Michael McAuliff — A few weeks ago, just before I went on vacation with my family, I went to my basement and retrieved a legal-sized white envelope and an old computer tote bag. I brought them to the office, where I cut a rectangle from the bag’s outer flap pocket, and sealed it and the envelope … Continue reading
In 2004, Richard Clarke wrote a piece for the January/February 2005 Atlantic predicting what the world would be like ten years after September 11, 2001. His predictions reflected the prevailing zeitgeist of the time: what people thought mattered and what was likely to happen, where we were going wrong and where we were going right. Like all … Continue reading
I was in high school, on my way to class that morning, in the backseat of a friend’s powder blue Geo Prism. While listening to Mancow’s Morning Madhouse, we heard a report that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. My two friends in the car were having an argument concerneing their thoughts on … Continue reading
Ironically, much of our attention to the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks involves our distinctively American propensity to point to our own faults. Ten years have passed, critics moan, and One World Trade Center isn’t finished. Controversy lingers over both placement and content of the memorial at the site. (Even over whether the … Continue reading
via Erik Hayden, The Atlantic Wire
Two of the three suspects believed to be involved in a potential 9/11 anniversary plot against New York or Washington are of Arab descent and traveled to the United States last week, according to a U.S. government official. Authorities are operating under the assumption that two of the suspects have arrived on U.S. soil, and … Continue reading
President Barack Obama’s promise Thursday that everything in his jobs plan will be paid for rests on highly iffy propositions. It will only be paid for if a committee he can’t control does his bidding, if Congress puts that into law and if leaders in the future — the ones who will feel the fiscal … Continue reading
The Obama administration is seeking to broaden access to a two-year-old refinancing program that has helped far fewer homeowners take advantage of low interest rates than initially expected. President Obama announced the effort Thursday night as part of his package of measures to spur job creation, saying it would help “responsible homeowners” by reducing their … Continue reading
While men lost more jobs in the recession than women, women have been slower to recover, losing nearly 300,000 jobs since the economic “recovery” began in 2009. Some women’s organizations were concerned that President Obama’s jobs plan was going to focus on boosting male-dominated industries, such as construction and manufacturing, to the exclusion of the … Continue reading
NEW YORK — Security worker Eric Martinez wore a pin depicting the twin towers on his lapel as he headed to work in lower Manhattan on Friday, unfazed by a report of a credible but unconfirmed terror threat before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. He worked downtown then and lived through it. … Continue reading
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) wants the jobless to pass a drug test before they can receive benefits, but she seems to have an exaggerated sense of drug use among the unemployed. “I so want drug testing. I so want it,” Haley said during a Thursday question-and-answer session at the Lexington Rotary Club. She … Continue reading
The Brandt Standard 