SIDEBAR #59 - Travis Alexander forum

[Spellbound]

Nore, Sending Jingles your way. Wish you felt better.

 

[coffeejunkie]

http://ccm.net/forum/affich-78368-when-i-type-letters-going-all-over-the-place
I don't know if this will help, but it could be a sensitivity issue with the mouse pad. check out the suggestions on this link and see if it helps.

(I thought perhaps you were trying to teach us a new language for our trip. :giggle: )

Checked out this site and did a few different tweaks as they suggested and it seems be working ok for now. Thanks for the link, Spell No, no new language for me, hard enough time with English :giggle: I did a search on this myself and didn't come up with what you found You are good!

ETA: I did notice that I rest my hand on the mouse pad when I type and since I use a mouse instead of the pad, the pad is still active and my NUM LOCK key was on.

 

[coffeejunkie]

Get feeling back to your old chipper self soon Nore! :hug: :loveyou:

 

[coffeejunkie]

Niner ~ Kidney beans with spices mixed in=Mexican beans. Buy beans that say on the can: Chili Beans; you can get mild to hot. Brooks Chili beans are the best! And always use Chili Powder! I love Chili... it's my comfort food

 

[Zuri]

Tribute to Dr. Jon Marc Taylor, a Prison Education Crusader

"On December 27, at the ago of 54, Missouri state prisoner and prison education crusader Dr. Jon Marc Taylor died of a heart attack in his prison cell. For those who knew him, and those who knew of his amazing transformation and contributions to the field of prison education, he will be sorely missed.

The story of Jon Marc Taylor is anything but the typical story of a prisoner. Incarcerated since the age of 19 as a result of crimes committed in 1980, Dr. Taylor is perhaps the very ideal of reformation and rehabilitation. While incarcerated he earned his high school diploma, bachelor's of science and master's of arts through Ball State University, and finally his Doctorate in Public Administration from Kennedy Western University.

These are merely his educational feats, his advocacy feats, such as leading the charge to restore prisoner Pell grant eligibility, are a whole other story of remarkable success and realizing the seemingly impossible..."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris...c-ta_b_9104560.html?utm_hp_ref=crime&ir=Crime
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James Ridgeway’s Solitary Reporting

"...there may be no reporter in the United States who has collected more stories of solitary-confinement prisoners than the veteran investigative reporter James Ridgeway.

Since it is virtually impossible for a reporter to gain access to a solitary-confinement unit, Ridgeway came up with another strategy. “I wanted to use the prisoners themselves as reporters,” he told me. “Of course, that’s taboo in the mainstream press, since we all know they’re liars and double dealers and escape artists.” He chuckled. But breaking that taboo “didn’t bother me at all,” he said. “My position was: all we want to do here is, we want to know what is going on inside.”

Each week, Ridgeway leaves his home in Washington, D.C., walks to his local post office, and returns with about fifty letters from men and women locked in solitary-confinement units in prisons around the country. The letters began arriving in 2010, soon after Ridgeway launched a Web site, called Solitary Watch, with an editor named Jean Casella. “When we started, there was nobody writing about this,” she said. Ridgeway was then seventy-three years old. He dug into his retirement fund to help cover startup costs, and now, when he goes to the post office each week, he pushes a walker...

Ridgeway will turn eighty this year. Lately, his eyesight has been weakening, making it much harder for him to read and file all the letters that sit in piles atop his desk. “I have so many right now I can’t face them,” he said. But he has no plans to stop. “Most of these guys I write to, all they want is to reach out and have a human hand,” he said. “I used to think they wanted their cases dealt with, but all they really want is just to have some sort of correspondence, some kind of contact with the outside world.”.."

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/james-ridgeways-solitary-reporting
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Chicago Announces New Police Training For Dealing With Mentally Ill
The U.S. Justice Department is currently investigating the Chicago police's use of deadly force, among other issues.

"CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, facing sharp criticism over police shootings of civilians, announced reforms on Friday to address how police and other emergency workers respond to the mentally ill, including new crisis training for officers...

The reforms would increase the number of officers who receive a 40-hour "Crisis Intervention Team," training course, which teaches the best ways to de-escalate situations with people in crisis, especially the mentally ill, the mayor's office said.

The number of officers who receive this training would expand to 2,800 from 1,890 this year, so each district will have a CIT officer staffed on every watch.

In addition, all of the department's 12,000 police officers would receive eight hours of training on mental health awareness, and 911 dispatchers will be trained on identifying situations requiring crisis-intervention tactics..."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...af0772?ir=Crime§ion=us_crime&utm_hp_ref=crime
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This is a hot button issue for me. No Pell Grants for Prisoners. Period. My father was the one who brought it to the attention of Senators Pell and Biden that Pell grants were being granted to prisoners. Senator Pell had no idea as that was not his intent in the late 80's and 90's. Why should prisoners be ENTITLED to a higher education when WE have to take out loans for our kids OR they take them out and are faced with years of payments. IMOO.
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015...rants-for-prisoners-an-old-argument-revisited

 

[Mollyandme]

This is a hot button issue for me. No Pell Grants for Prisoners. Period. My father was the one who brought it to the attention of Senators Pell and Biden that Pell grants were being granted to prisoners. Senator Pell had no idea as that was not his intent in the late 80's and 90's. Why should prisoners be ENTITLED to a higher education when WE have to take out loans for our kids OR they take them out and are faced with years of payments. IMOO.
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015...rants-for-prisoners-an-old-argument-revisited

Student loans are currently the bane of my existence. I swear by the time I'm done paying them it will be time for me to help pay for my kids to go to college if that's what they choose.

 

[Hatfield]

Student loans are currently the bane of my existence. I swear by the time I'm done paying them it will be time for me to help pay for my kids to go to college if that's what they choose.

Just saw a sad news story about student loan debt on TV the other day. They talked about how a lot of students are taking out loans and then going for certain degrees they like but they don't pay that good when they graduate and so they end up taking many years to pay off their loans.

Which is sad because it means kids may start trying for degrees they dont even enjoy just to make sure they can make enough to pay off loans. It may prevent kids from going after degrees they really want to pursue.

Its sad that college is so expensive.

 

[Susza]

BBM

Count me in, and yoga on the beach in the morning sounds great!

If you go see "Carol," please let me know how you like it. I find Patricia Highsmith (who wrote the book on which it is based) a very interesting person.

BBM - I will as soon as I will have seen it.
I finally spent a homely sunday, lost in preparing a stock of hummus (I love it; together with fresh raw vegetables it's one of my favourite dinners), watching the women's final of the Australian Open and the final of the european handball championship, answering emails, cleaning, making order, chatting with parents, etc. etc.
Why are sundays so short???????

 

[Hatfield]

This is very interesting, both about the purses and the guns lol. It makes sense that you would find the different inner mechanics of a gun fascinating, as you have a great mind. I have never looked at a handgun up close, but my grandfather had a Winchester rifle that I recall from the 60's. He had a peach orchard and would shoot at squirrels IIRC. There is a Civil War rifle that hangs above the fireplace at my DH's river house that has been there forever. My dad had his rifle from the Marine Corps where he got a uniform pin that said "Excellent Marksman"? Or something like that. He told stories of shooting at tin cans on his uncle's farm.

Do you have to take the guns out of the safe and clean them regularly if you don't use them?

They recommend once a year is good to take them out and wipe them down with an oil rag on the metal and inside barrel. But I don't do it as often as that and they seem to store fine for years at a time without ever needing to touch them so long as the final cleaning before you store them, you leave a coating of oil on the metal parts. What I do is first clean them good and then before storing I have a clean rag that is very damp with gun oil and then I wipe the metal parts all over without putting any finger prints on the metal. That way when I store it, there is a nice coating of oil to protect the metal. You have to avoid touching the metal with fingers or hands since there is something in our skin that can cause the metal trouble.

I also love the wood finishes on the stock of a rifle. I have a nice Browning shotgun that has the most beautiful wood finish on the stock. I use furniture polish on the wood stock and wood parts which has a wax to it to protect the wood.

Investing in a good gun cleaning kit is a must. I have about 5 or 6 kits since different barrel sizes need different cleaning rods and brushes.



I am truly ignorant to all of this. You obviously are a responsible gun owner to say the least. Do you own any of the old ones that have the sterling or silver engraving on them? I guess like antique? If they don't make them like that any more?

I don't have any with the engraving markings like we see on TV or old movies but I have always wanted a nice engraved one. They are usually very expensive since the only ones that are engraved are usually expensive weapons. It makes sense if you think about it because nobody would take the time to engrave one unless it is a nice one.


You can actually still get engravings done if you send your firearm to a custom engraver but of course it is very expensive process and would cost a lot. The gun shows are fun to go to just to see ones like that. They have them there usually at the gun shows. Neat to look at but too expensive to buy. LOL

Is there such a thing as universal ammo or does each type of gun take its own specific type?

Each gun has its own very specific ammo. There is no universal ammo that all guns could use. Each type of gun has its own diameter of barrel and that is why it needs its own ammunition. For example .45 caliber , .357 magnum, .22 caliber, etc. The lower the number typically the smaller the diameter and typically less powerful but not always the case as the type of shells get pretty complicated. They are describing the bore diameter size of the barrel usually.

I am laughing at your safe deer population. My German Shepherds have both caught deer and I was horrified! My Mercedes caught a deer once, right at the driver door as I was on my way to work. I was not happy with the huge dent and having to crawl over the seat to get in or out. I left the deer hair there for the insurance people to get a load of.

Thank you for answering my questions. I like that your wife collects handbags! Does she have a Birkin bag? I have never seen one of those either in real life either!

I don't think she has any Birkin bags. I don't really remember all the brands she has but I do remember she has at least 1 from Dooney+Burke, Gucci, and Ralph Laruen are the 3 names I remember her talking about when they arrived in the mail.

I think she likes her Dooney bags a lot. I see her carrying those sometimes. The funny thing though is she ends up liking and using the less expensive ones the most. There is a J.C. Francis brand she got on the Liqucidation Channel for cheap and she really likes those. I guess it goes to show that we don't have to always have the best things as some of the standard things are the things we use the most.

Hello Zuri,
Answered the questions above in different color. Thanks for being sincerely interested. I grew up with a family that all hunted so I was trained in gun safety from an early age. My Dad was really good about teaching us kids gun safety if ever handling weapons. He was good that way and never would allow us kids to handle them unless we demonstrated to him that we followed his safety rules.

 

[Hatfield]

Not sure if already posted. They caught all 3 escapees that were dangerous. The 1 was called Hannibel because of how violent he was. He was a monster for what he did to the person he robbed before going to jail. Glad they are all caught.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-escape-idUSKCN0V72HD

 

[Niner]

Happy February 2016 WS SideBarers…and HAPPY LEAP YEAR! :wave:

My comments in Red

What is Leap Year?
A leap year (also known as an intercalary year or a bissextile year) is a year containing one additional day (or, in the case of lunisolar calendars, a month) added to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical or seasonal year.[1] Because seasons and astronomical events do not repeat in a whole number of days, calendars that have the same number of days in each year drift over time with respect to the event that the year is supposed to track. By inserting (also called intercalating) an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected. A year that is not a leap year is called a common year.
For example, in the Gregorian calendar, each leap year has 366 days instead of the usual 365, by extending February to 29 days rather than the common 28. Similarly, in the lunisolar Hebrew calendar, Adar Aleph, a 13th lunar month, is added seven times every 19 years to the twelve lunar months in its common years to keep its calendar year from drifting through the seasons.
The name "leap year" comes from the fact that while a fixed date in the Gregorian calendar normally advances one day of the week from one year to the next, the day of the week in a leap year will advance two days (from March onwards) due to the extra day added at the end of February (thus "leaping over" one of the days in the week). For example, Christmas fell on Tuesday in 2001, Wednesday in 2002, and Thursday in 2003 but then "leapt" over Friday to fall on a Saturday in 2004.

ON TO THE HOLIDAYS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY…
Month:

•American Heart Month
•An Affair to Remember Month
•Black History Month
•Canned Food Month
•Creative Romance Month
•Great American Pie Month
•National Cherry Month
•National Children’s Dental Health Month
•National Grapefruit Month
•National Weddings Month

Weekly Celebrations:
3rd Week International Flirting Week

ON TO THE WACKY HOLIDAYS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY…

February 2016 Daily Holidays, Special and Wacky Days:
1 National Freedom Day
2 Ground Hog Day
2 Candlemas
3 The Day the Music Died - Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper died in a plane crash in 1959.
4 Create a Vacuum Day
4 Thank a Mailman Day I thank my mailman every day!
5 National Weatherman's Day AND! My Father's 100th birthday!


Here he is hold One-Eyed Jack

6 Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day - first Saturday of month
6 Lame Duck Day
7 Wave All you Fingers at Your Neighbor Day
7 Send a Card to a Friend Day - obviously created by a card company
7 Superbowl Sunday - Superbowl 50 date varies GO BRONCOS! :cheer:
8 Boy Scout Day - celebrates the birthday of scouting
8 Chinese New Years - date varies This year is Year of the Monkey
8 Clean out Your Computer Day - second Monday of Month
8 Kite Flying Day - Some of you will say "in the middle of winter?! Not here!
9 Mardi Gras / Fat Tuesday - date caries
9 Toothache Day
10 Ash Wednesday - date varies
10 Umbrella Day
11 Don't Cry over Spilled Milk Day
11 Make a Friend Day
11 National Inventors Day
11 White T-Shirt Day
12 Abraham Lincoln's Birthday
12 Plum Pudding Day
13 Get a Different Name Day
14 Ferris Wheel Day
14 National Organ Donor Day
14 Valentine's Day I'll post what I made for my Huz!
15 Candlemas - on the Julian Calendar AND! My twin sisters' 67th birthday!



15 National Gum Drop Day
15 President's Day - third Monday of month
15 Singles Awareness Day
16 Do a Grouch a Favor Day
17 Random Acts of Kindness Day
18 National Battery Day
19 National Chocolate Mint Day
20 Cherry Pie Day
20 Hoodie Hoo Day
20 Love Your Pet Day
21 Card Reading Day
22 George Washington's Birthday
22 Be Humble Day
22 Walking the Dog Day
22 International World Thinking Day
23 International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day
23 Tennis Day
24 National Tortilla Chip Day
25 Pistol Patent Day
26 Carnival Day
26 National Pistachio Day - it's a nutty day!
26 Tell a Fairy Tale Day
27 Polar Bear Day
27 No Brainer Day this day is for me!
28 Floral Design Day
28 Oscar Night - date varies
28 Public Sleeping Day
28 National Tooth Fairy Day - and/or August 22
29 Leap Day - it occurs in 2016, once every four years

 

[Niner]

Hey everyone! :seeya:

Here's the Valentine's Day photo I made for the Huz. I was looking for cards at the store the other day - and the wording was PERFECT for my Huz and I - so I wrote down the words - didn't want to pay $7 for the card! $7 for a card! :gaah: LOL!



A beautiful morning here!! :skip:

We had a total of 15 inches of rain for January!! :happydance:

JINGLES!!! to you Nore!! Hope you feel better!!

Okay - I'm way behind in reading the DeOrr thread, so I'm going to head over there and start reading! nline:

Later folks!

 

[Dmacky]

Oh Niner you are so sweet!! Love the card :heartbeat:
Love the pic of your twin sisters and I even love ole One-eyed Jack. What great pics, thanks for sharing :loveyou:

ETA mark out clean the computer on the 8th...and replace it with my birthday :wink:
Cuz, I "aint cleanin" nothing :lol:

 

[Dmacky]

NORE ~ Sending you healing prayers. We miss your posts! Jingles Ms. Lady :heart:

 

[YESorNO]

Link: http://images58.fotki.com/v286/photos/7/1645627/8639937/GoodAfternoonBear-vi.gif
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CASEY ANTHONY
YARD BARKER

"Casey Anthony is learning her goal of anonymously blending into her new Florida neighborhood is tricky, especially when she hosts a yard sale.

A woman in West Palm Beach tells us she was checking out bargains in the area when one caught her eye. She recognized Casey almost immediately and struck up a conversation. She described Casey as "cheery and normal." She also says a large, muscular man was helping her out....

Word around town is that Casey moved in with a new boyfriend..."

http://www.tmz.com/2016/01/30/casey-anthony-yard-sale/

She needs a better bra, IMO. Maybe her *advertiser censored* are deflating (is that possible?). :facepalm:
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Starts this Tuesday on FX at 10:00 PM, if anyone is interested:

THE PEOPLE V. O.J. SIMPSON: AMERICAN CRIME STORY

"The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story is a limited series that takes you inside the O.J. Simpson trial with a riveting look at the legal teams battling to convict or acquit the football legend of double homicide. Based on the book The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson by Jeffrey Toobin, it explores the chaotic behind-the-scenes dealings and maneuvering on both sides of the court, and how a combination of prosecution overconfidence, defense shrewdness, and the LAPD’s history with the city’s African-American community gave a jury what it needed: reasonable doubt."

http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/american-crime-story/about
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2 Virginia Tech Students Charged With Murder of Missing 13-Year-Old Girl
Dylan Eisenhauer and Natalie Marie Keepers were charged with abduction and murder

"(BLACKSBURG, Va.)— A second Virginia Tech student has been arrested in connection with the death of a 13-year-old girl who disappeared earlier this week.

Virginia Tech issued a statement Sunday confirming the arrest of Natalie Marie Keepers, a sophomore at the school.

Keepers is the second person to be arrested in the death of Nicole Madison Lovell, whose body was found in North Carolina on Saturday. She has been missing from her home in Blacksburg since the middle of last week..."

http://time.com/4201443/virginia-tech-students-arrested-murder/?xid=homepage
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Virginia Tech cross-country student-athlete arrested in abduction and death of 13-year-old girl four days after she vanished from family's home

"...The body of Nicole Madison Lovell was found around 4 p.m. Saturday along a highway 57 miles south of the college campus in Blacksburg, hours after authorities nabbed cross-country student-athlete David E. Eisenhauer, 18..."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...sted-death-13-year-old-girl-article-1.2515348

WS thread: http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...e-Lovell-13-Blacksburg-27-January-2016/page11

Link: http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.town...1e5-957d-e3924afe9d46/56a953335483c.image.jpg
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An Aryan Brotherhood Kingpin from Texas Is Getting Life in Solitary Confinement
With only his back tat to keep him company.

"...James Byrd, 45, was already in federal prison. But that did little to stem his role in the Brotherhood, a prison gang that operates out of federal penitentiaries. Following a years long joint initiative by federal and state agencies, Byrd will live the rest of his days almost entirely shut off from the outside world.

"He will be in a box for 23 hours a day," said Tarrant County criminal prosecutor Allenna Bangs, who worked Byrd's case. "That will be 50 very hard years."

Prosecutors' goal, Bangs said, was to land Byrd in state prison, where unlike federal prison, policy permits solitary confinement on the basis of gang involvement. That means no time to mill about the yard with other inmates—the setting from which Brotherhood business is conducted.

"It was very significant to remove him," Bands said. "His removal in and of itself really calmed things down quite a bit. Because he can call shots, he can communicate with the higher ups.".."

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a39798/aryan-brotherhood-life-solitary-confinement/
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[YESorNO]

The last Holocaust survivors

""It is better to be happy than sad."

That was the message that Lola Taubman carried with her for her entire life, even after witnessing the horrors of the Holocaust firsthand and surviving internment at the Auschwitz death camp...

Lola, my cousin, died last month at the age of 90. She had been in declining health for several years, but there's still a missing part of my family now. For my entire life, it's been a given that there have been Holocaust survivors among my relatives. Now, we've lost one more of them, one more eyewitness to a grievous part of history that must never be forgotten — or denied...

No one keeps an official count of survivors. But two years ago, the U.S. Senate estimated that 109,000 to 140,000 remained in the United States.

"Obviously the number is smaller now," said Diane Saltzman, who directs the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's survivor affairs program..."

http://mashable.com/2016/01/31/holo...ource=feedburner&utm_medium=feed#obalpryF1EqZ
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Death camp guard living in NYC is last U.S. Nazi case

"(NEWSER) – During some three decades with Justice Department, Eli Rosenbaum has earned a well-deserved reputation as a Nazi hunter. He has worked on 137 cases involving suspected Nazis, and in all but 30 of them, the accused lost citizenship or was deported. Now, CNN reports, just a single active case remains. But when it comes to Jakiw Palij, who lives in Queens, NY, deportation isn’t likely. In fact, a federal judge ordered the 92-year-old deported in 2004, but the European countries he could be sent to won't take him. Palij, CNN notes, will likely die here. "What Mr. Palij did prevented other people from reaching old age," says Rosenbaum, who now also oversees more recent war-related crimes as the DOJ's director of Human Rights Enforcement Strategy and Policy. Palij is accused of being a guard at the Trawniki death camp in Poland—"in the end," Rosenbaum says, "everyone who was held there was massacred."..."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...-guard-living-nyc-last-us-nazi-case/79605166/
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As a Holocaust Survivor, I Know This Small Action Is the True Antidote to Hate

"...I am very concerned when I see presidential candidates fanning the flames of animosity. In the '30s in Germany, Jews were the target, but the dangerous rhetoric of today is focused on Muslims and particularly Syrian refugees. Like the anti-Semitic tirades of decades ago, many of the same ingredients are present in the speeches of candidates who hold surprisingly high levels of support from the American people.

It is an all too familiar recipe: Strip away individuality and wrap everyone in the group into an amorphous and frightening entity. Speak about what they will take from us and add in a strong nationalist sentiment that allows people to justify their hatred as patriotic allegiance. It was this lethal combination that sent my family to Auschwitz, my father to the gas chamber, and me, a boy of 16, to a slave labor camp where I was forced to build railroads on starvation rations. The SS guards were able to do this to us because they lost sight of our humanity and of our individuality..."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gene-...ers-_b_9082286.html?utm_hp_ref=fifty&ir=Fifty
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Israeli Auschwitz Survivor Could Be Oldest Man in the World

112-year-old Yisrael Kristal of Haifa was informed that he could hold the title, if he can prove his age.

"...Kristal turned 112 on September 15. According to the organization’s data, there is no living man who can document that he is older than Kristal. But Kristal faces a bureaucratic hurdle before he can be officially certified as the oldest living man.

The research group’s regulations require that he present an official certificate attesting to his age that was issued during the first 20 years of his life. However, the earliest official document attesting to Kristal’s age is his first marriage license issued in Poland 87 years ago, when he was 25. The organization is trying to determine whether it can be a little flexible in this matter and declare him the world’s oldest man in any case..."

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.698614
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Israeli Moves a Step Closer to Title of 'World's Oldest Man'
New documents from Polish archives help substantiate the claim that a Holocaust survivor in Haifa is 112 years old.

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.699261

Link: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/yisrael-kristal.jpg
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[YESorNO]

The End of Twitter

"... cracks in Twitter’s façade had been showing already. Changes to the product made it hard to follow conversations or narratives. A lack of rigor in verifying reliable sources made information suspect or confusing. More troubling was the growing wave of harassment and abuse that users of the service were dealing with—a quagmire epitomized by the roving flocks of hateful, misogynistic, and well-organized “Gamergate” communities that flooded people’s feeds with hate speech and threats...

What should worry Twitter is irrelevance, and there is growing data to suggest that that is where the company is headed. If Twitter’s real-time feed is its most powerful asset (and it is), it’s not difficult to see a future in which Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, or even a newcomer like Peach (yes, I am citing Peach) focus enough on real-time news that they obviate the need for Twitter’s narrow, noisy, and oft-changing ideas about social interaction..."

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-end-of-twitter?intcid=mod-most-popular
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The Triumph of Email
Why does one of the world’s most reviled technologies keep winning?

"Email, ughhhh. There is too much of it, and the wrong kind of it, from the wrong people. When people aren’t hating their inboxes out loud, they are quietly emailing to say that they’re sorry for replying so late, and for all the typos, and for missing your earlier note, and for forgetting to turn off auto-reply, and for sending this from their mobile device, and for writing too long, and for bothering you at all.

For an activity that’s so mundane, email seems to be infused with an extraordinary amount of dread and guilt. Several studies have linked frequent email-checking with higher levels of anxiety. One study found that constant email-checkers also had heart activity that suggested higher levels of cortisol, a hormone associated with stress—until they were banned from their inboxes...

If there’s any clue from the behavior of teenagers as to the direction of a given technology, email appears, well, doomed. Teens barely use it (or Facebook for that matter), opting instead for text messaging and chatting on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram. Three-quarters of teens regularly text one another, according to a 2012 Pew study, while just 6 percent of them exchange emails routinely..."

http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...after-email/422625/?ncid=newsltushpmg00000003

Link: http://treasure.diylol.com/uploads/post/image/901512/resized_grandma-finds-the-internet.jpg
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[YESorNO]

Was 14-year-old boy who ran away from home after a row with his father in 1982 murdered? Police question family and dig up back yard as 'suspicious' cold case is reopened

"Daniel Naylor, 14, went missing after an argument with his father in 1982
His bicycle was later found by a creek near his home in Fremont, California
A month later all of Daniel's possessions disappeared from the house
More than 33 years later, police have reopened the 'suspicious' cold case
Investigators questioned the boy's family and dug up their back yard
Detective refused to tell Daily Mail Online if search was for Daniel's body
Police no longer believe boy ran away and called case 'out of the ordinary' .."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...y-dig-yard-suspicious-cold-case-reopened.html

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Death Penalty - The Only Justice for Killers?

"...The compelling question is: if justice is served by putting a murderer to death, in what way is it served? As you will see, both sides offer strong arguments. With which do you agree?.."

http://crime.about.com/od/death/i/d...l&utm_campaign=list_crime&utm_term=list_crime
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Loved Ones Still Searching for Answers in Disappearance of Deanne Hastings

"Deanne Hastings left a note for her fiancé saying she had a great day and was headed to the grocery store.
That was on the night of November 3rd. Since then, no one has seen or heard from her..."

http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/miss...answers-deanne-hastings-disappearance-n479876

Link: http://media4.s-nbcnews.com/j/newsc...504f55185b9bb5ce65314b.nbcnews-ux-600-700.jpg

(Deanne Hastings and her fiance, Mike Tibbetts. The two became engaged four months before Hastings disappeared in early November)

WS thread: http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?294657-WA-Deanne-Hastings-35-Spokane-4-November-2015
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[YESorNO]

Peeling Back the Layers of a Born Salesman’s Life

"The woman on the telephone had news. Michael Forman was dead. She asked a reporter if there was any known next of kin.

Mr. Forman was a career criminal and con artist who had been in and out of prisons and jails as recently as last year at age 73. The woman, calling earlier this month from the Brooklyn Center care facility, had come across columns about him in this space in her search for relatives, and asked if the reporter had known Mr. Forman very well.
No. But peeling back the layers of his life last week raised another question: Did anyone? Not his ex-wife and two children. Not his fellow ad men of the 1960s. Not the promoters of Woodstock, working with him behind the scenes before the concert..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/30/n...-born-salesmans-life.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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MURDER IN THE BIG APPLE: THE MANHATTAN WELL MYSTERY

"Beneath the streets of New York's trendiest neighborhood is the scene of a 200-year-old unsolved murder.

Elma buttoned her winter jacket and vanished from her boarding house on Greenwich Street. It was the last night she was seen alive.

The young woman remained missing for 11 days. Then, on January 2, her body was discovered at the bottom of a well in Lispenard Meadow (pictured below), along Manhattan’s then-undeveloped southeastern side. Gouges around her neck implied strangulation. Suspicion fell on Eli, and he was quickly put on trial..."

http://www.the-line-up.com/manhattan-well-murder-mystery/
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Conjured criminals: A history of imagined perpetrators

"A US policeman thought to have been shot dead in the line of duty turned out to have staged his own death - and invented his would-be attackers. He's one of many who have conjured up criminals to cover their own misdeeds.

Illinois police officer Lt Joe Gliniewicz was regarded as a hero following his death in early September.

Police believed he had been killed while in pursuit of three suspects, and there was a big manhunt for his killers.

But investigators have discovered this was all an elaborate lie and declared it a "carefully staged suicide" and the work of an officer who had been stealing money from the department for years.

It's not the first time someone has invented a perpetrator to deflect the blame from themselves. Here are some of the more notorious examples..."

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34729001
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[YESorNO]

Books are dangerous
Contagion, poison and trigger. The idea that books are dangerous has a long history, and holds a kernel of truth

"At universities around the world, students are claiming that reading books can unsettle them to the point of becoming depressed, traumatised or even suicidal. Some contend that Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway (1925), in which a suicide has taken place, could trigger suicidal thoughts among those disposed to self-harm. Others insist that F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925), with its undercurrent of spousal violence, might trigger painful memories of domestic abuse. Even ancient classical texts, students have argued, can be dangerous: at Columbia University in New York, student activists demanded that a warning be attached to Ovid’s Metamorphoses on grounds that its ‘vivid depictions of rape’ might trigger a feeling of insecurity and vulnerability among some undergraduates.

This is probably the first time in history that young readers themselves are demanding protection from the disturbing content of their course texts, yet reading has been seen as a threat to mental health for thousands of years...

For the first time in their career, my academic colleagues report that some of their students are asking for the right to opt out of reading texts that they find personally offensive or traumatising. This self-diagnosis of vulnerability is unlike the traditional call for a moral quarantine from above. Once upon a time, paternalistic censors infantilised the reading public by insisting that reading literature constitutes a serious risk to its health. Now young readers infantilise themselves by insisting that they and their peers should be shielded from the harm caused by distressing texts..."

http://aeon.co/magazine/culture/rea...ail&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-399f22f459-68895113
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Dark books
What’s more wholesome than reading? Yet books wield a dangerous power: the best erode self, infecting readers with ideas

"Reading novels is good for you. This is the current wisdom, at least. A 2013 study by the New School for Social Research in New York City attempted to prove that reading passages by Don DeLillo and Lydia Davis had an immediate impact on participants’ ability to identify the emotions of others. Another, at Emory University in Georgia, found that reading novels had the potential to cause heightened ‘connectivity’ in the brain. A third, at the University of Sussex, made the case for books being one of life’s most effective stress-relievers.

While we might point to violent video games or sexually explicit films as potentially dangerous and corrupting influences on tender or vulnerable minds, the novel is treated as uplifting and salutary, regardless of its content: a kale smoothie for the soul. When we do talk about books being ‘dangerous’, it is usually with a knowing nod and a wink: and the implication is that those of us in the know know better. In a recent Guardian interview, the controversial British writer Melvin Burgess insists that ‘like most “dangerous” books, [Junk, his novel for young adults] is in fact a threat only to people who are themselves dangerous – people who want to control others’. Any suggestion that a book might be dangerous is, in other words, only ever a manifestation of bigotry or fear.

But it was not always thus. Throughout the 19th century, novels were regarded with the same suspicion with which we treat, say, Eli Roth’s ‘torture-*advertiser censored*’ Saw movies today. They were dangerous not simply because of the stories they might contain – the romantic expressions of wish-fulfillment, for example, that led Emma Bovary down the garden path of adultery – but also because reading itself was seen as a kind of possession: an encroachment of the ‘other’ upon the self..."

https://aeon.co/essays/how-books-ca...ail&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-c8fbde1d4f-68895113
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