A couple clips from my FAVORITE show, This American Life.
The Weiner Circle
Joss Whedon Song on DVD Comentaries
The Weiner Circle
Joss Whedon Song on DVD Comentaries
DETROIT A 16-year-old honor student from Michigan lied to persuade her parents to get her a passport and then flew to the Middle East to be with a West Bank man she met on MySpace.com, authorities say.
U.S. officials in Jordan persuaded her to turn around and go home before she reached the West Bank.
She returned home Friday.
Katherine Lester is a straight-A student and student council member, according to her father, Terry.
"She's a good girl," Terry Lester said. MySpace.com is a social networking website with more than 72 million members who can post items including photos and blogs. There have been scattered accounts of pedophile predators trolling the site.
Katherine disappeared Monday after talking her family into getting her a passport by saying she was going to Canada with friends, sheriff's officials said.
She apparently planned to visit a man whose MySpace account describes him as a 25-year-old from Jericho, Undersheriff James Jashinske said.
The FBI traced the teenager to a Wednesday flight from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to Tel Aviv. At a scheduled stop in Amman, Jordan, U.S. officials persuaded her to return home, FBI agent Robert Beeckman said.
Television news footage showed Katherine waving as she walked across a tarmac at Bishop International Airport in Flint late Friday. She was taken to a private area to be reunited with her family.
Katherine apparently contacted the man from Jericho about three months ago, Jashinske said.
Jericho is a relatively calm area of the West Bank.
MySpace forbids youngsters 13 and under from joining, and the profiles of 14- and 15-year-olds are restricted to people the teens have listed as friends.
Older users have the option of restricting certain personal data to access by people they have identified as friends.
Shawn Lester told the Saginaw News her daughter had "never given me a day's trouble . I just don't understand with all these new laws protecting America how a 16-year-old kid could get out of the country."
She said her daughter had never had a boyfriend.
Katherine and her mother live in Gilford, about 80 miles northwest of Detroit.
U.S. officials in Jordan persuaded her to turn around and go home before she reached the West Bank.
She returned home Friday.
Katherine Lester is a straight-A student and student council member, according to her father, Terry.
"She's a good girl," Terry Lester said. MySpace.com is a social networking website with more than 72 million members who can post items including photos and blogs. There have been scattered accounts of pedophile predators trolling the site.
Katherine disappeared Monday after talking her family into getting her a passport by saying she was going to Canada with friends, sheriff's officials said.
She apparently planned to visit a man whose MySpace account describes him as a 25-year-old from Jericho, Undersheriff James Jashinske said.
The FBI traced the teenager to a Wednesday flight from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to Tel Aviv. At a scheduled stop in Amman, Jordan, U.S. officials persuaded her to return home, FBI agent Robert Beeckman said.
Television news footage showed Katherine waving as she walked across a tarmac at Bishop International Airport in Flint late Friday. She was taken to a private area to be reunited with her family.
Katherine apparently contacted the man from Jericho about three months ago, Jashinske said.
Jericho is a relatively calm area of the West Bank.
MySpace forbids youngsters 13 and under from joining, and the profiles of 14- and 15-year-olds are restricted to people the teens have listed as friends.
Older users have the option of restricting certain personal data to access by people they have identified as friends.
Shawn Lester told the Saginaw News her daughter had "never given me a day's trouble . I just don't understand with all these new laws protecting America how a 16-year-old kid could get out of the country."
She said her daughter had never had a boyfriend.
Katherine and her mother live in Gilford, about 80 miles northwest of Detroit.
Vince Welnick, a keyboardist who possessed a fluid and precise style and played with the Tubes, Todd Rundgren and the Grateful Dead, died Friday in Sonoma County at the age of 55.
The cause appears to be suicide, Sonoma County sheriff's department said.
Mr. Welnick, whom friends called a gentle and sensitive man, was classically trained and spent hours practicing each day. Although he was a member of the Dead for just five years, until the band folded after the death of guitarist Jerry Garcia, he left an indelible mark on his bandmates.
"He was a good soul, a very sweet guy," said band spokesman Dennis McNally. "He was also an exceptionally competent keyboardist."
In a statement posted on its Web site, the band said, "His service to and love for the Grateful Dead were heartfelt and essential. He had a loving soul and a joy in music that we were lucky to share. Our Grateful Dead prayer for the repose of his spirit: May the four winds blow him safely home."
Mr. Welnick was born in Phoenix, where he started playing piano as a kid. He and friends put together a garage band called the Beans, which became the Tubes when they moved to San Francisco in 1969.
"Thank God for rock 'n' roll, because it was a place for all us skinny artistic kids to go when it was 115 degrees outside and we didn't fit in anywhere else," said Michael Cotten, a member of the Tubes who designed many of the band's album covers and elaborate stage shows.
The Tubes toured constantly, and their rowdy antics and energetic shows -- which integrated rock music, video technology and outlandish costumes and sets -- earned them a devoted following. The band recorded more than a dozen albums and scored hits with "White Punks on Dope" in 1975 and "Talk to Ya Later" in 1981.
"It was an amazing time. We played everywhere, and I don't think Vince ever missed a show," said Tubes vocalist Fee Waybill. "But even with all the success, we were still a hippie band from San Francisco. We all lived together, traveled on the same bus, shared everything."
Throughout his time with the Tubes, Mr. Welnick also played with Todd Rundgren.
Mr. Welnick auditioned for the Dead in 1990 after keyboardist Brent Mydland died of a drug overdose. He was among a handful of musicians who sought the job, and he immediately impressed the band.
"He just magically appeared, and he had the attributes they were looking for," McNally said.
Mr. Welnick cherished his years with the Dead and thoroughly appreciated both the tradition and hoopla of Deadhead lore and of the band, McNally said.
His soulful, high harmony vocals and classical training were a good fit for the band, and his "moment to shine" came whenever the band played the Who classic "Baba O'Riley," which begins with an instantly recognizable keyboard passage, McNally said.
It "opens with one of the most amazing riffs in rock 'n' roll," he said. "Vince was great at that."
Mr. Welnick was devoted to his craft and spent hours a day practicing for most of his life, friends said. He was especially proud of his Boesendorfer piano, which is the piano equivalent to a Stradivarius violin.
"His fingers just flew on that thing," Cotten said.
Mr. Welnick was close to Garcia, and when the guitarist died of a heart attack in 1995, Mr. Welnick fell into a deep depression.
"He was extremely shattered by Jerry's death and was very frank about it," McNally said.
Still, Mr. Welnick continued to perform and write. He formed the band Missing Man Formation and performed with Ratdog, a band featuring Dead guitarist Bob Weir and bassist Rob Wasserman.
One of the highpoints of his post-Dead career came in April 2005 when the Tubes had an impromptu reunion at the Rio Theater in Santa Cruz.
Five of the original members were playing, and Waybill invited other alumni. They all wound up onstage, playing together.
"It was amazing, like walking on air," said Cotten, who is working on a Tubes documentary.
"The place was packed. People went nuts," Waybill said. "It was a great, great night. Vince was always up for things like that. He was really excited about playing with the Tubes again."
And so it was that Mr. Welnick's death came as such a shock.
"A few of us were just talking about Vince today and about the incredible music he brought us," Cotten said. "What they call chops, that's what Vince had. That's what we want to remember."
Mr. Welnick's death is the latest in a string of recent tragedies for the Dead. Three other members of the band's extended family have died since May 17 -- crew member Lawrence "Ram Rod" Shurtliff, drummer Hamza El-Din and road manager Jonathan Riester.
He also is the fourth of the band's five keyboardists to die, after Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, Keith Godchaux and Mydland.
"It's not a happy history," McNally said. "Each one of these guys had a fragility, which isn't that uncommon for musicians."
Mr. Welnick is survived by his wife, Lori Welnick.
The cause appears to be suicide, Sonoma County sheriff's department said.
Mr. Welnick, whom friends called a gentle and sensitive man, was classically trained and spent hours practicing each day. Although he was a member of the Dead for just five years, until the band folded after the death of guitarist Jerry Garcia, he left an indelible mark on his bandmates.
"He was a good soul, a very sweet guy," said band spokesman Dennis McNally. "He was also an exceptionally competent keyboardist."
In a statement posted on its Web site, the band said, "His service to and love for the Grateful Dead were heartfelt and essential. He had a loving soul and a joy in music that we were lucky to share. Our Grateful Dead prayer for the repose of his spirit: May the four winds blow him safely home."
Mr. Welnick was born in Phoenix, where he started playing piano as a kid. He and friends put together a garage band called the Beans, which became the Tubes when they moved to San Francisco in 1969.
"Thank God for rock 'n' roll, because it was a place for all us skinny artistic kids to go when it was 115 degrees outside and we didn't fit in anywhere else," said Michael Cotten, a member of the Tubes who designed many of the band's album covers and elaborate stage shows.
The Tubes toured constantly, and their rowdy antics and energetic shows -- which integrated rock music, video technology and outlandish costumes and sets -- earned them a devoted following. The band recorded more than a dozen albums and scored hits with "White Punks on Dope" in 1975 and "Talk to Ya Later" in 1981.
"It was an amazing time. We played everywhere, and I don't think Vince ever missed a show," said Tubes vocalist Fee Waybill. "But even with all the success, we were still a hippie band from San Francisco. We all lived together, traveled on the same bus, shared everything."
Throughout his time with the Tubes, Mr. Welnick also played with Todd Rundgren.
Mr. Welnick auditioned for the Dead in 1990 after keyboardist Brent Mydland died of a drug overdose. He was among a handful of musicians who sought the job, and he immediately impressed the band.
"He just magically appeared, and he had the attributes they were looking for," McNally said.
Mr. Welnick cherished his years with the Dead and thoroughly appreciated both the tradition and hoopla of Deadhead lore and of the band, McNally said.
His soulful, high harmony vocals and classical training were a good fit for the band, and his "moment to shine" came whenever the band played the Who classic "Baba O'Riley," which begins with an instantly recognizable keyboard passage, McNally said.
It "opens with one of the most amazing riffs in rock 'n' roll," he said. "Vince was great at that."
Mr. Welnick was devoted to his craft and spent hours a day practicing for most of his life, friends said. He was especially proud of his Boesendorfer piano, which is the piano equivalent to a Stradivarius violin.
"His fingers just flew on that thing," Cotten said.
Mr. Welnick was close to Garcia, and when the guitarist died of a heart attack in 1995, Mr. Welnick fell into a deep depression.
"He was extremely shattered by Jerry's death and was very frank about it," McNally said.
Still, Mr. Welnick continued to perform and write. He formed the band Missing Man Formation and performed with Ratdog, a band featuring Dead guitarist Bob Weir and bassist Rob Wasserman.
One of the highpoints of his post-Dead career came in April 2005 when the Tubes had an impromptu reunion at the Rio Theater in Santa Cruz.
Five of the original members were playing, and Waybill invited other alumni. They all wound up onstage, playing together.
"It was amazing, like walking on air," said Cotten, who is working on a Tubes documentary.
"The place was packed. People went nuts," Waybill said. "It was a great, great night. Vince was always up for things like that. He was really excited about playing with the Tubes again."
And so it was that Mr. Welnick's death came as such a shock.
"A few of us were just talking about Vince today and about the incredible music he brought us," Cotten said. "What they call chops, that's what Vince had. That's what we want to remember."
Mr. Welnick's death is the latest in a string of recent tragedies for the Dead. Three other members of the band's extended family have died since May 17 -- crew member Lawrence "Ram Rod" Shurtliff, drummer Hamza El-Din and road manager Jonathan Riester.
He also is the fourth of the band's five keyboardists to die, after Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, Keith Godchaux and Mydland.
"It's not a happy history," McNally said. "Each one of these guys had a fragility, which isn't that uncommon for musicians."
Mr. Welnick is survived by his wife, Lori Welnick.
Hurricane season is here and the message remains the same: Be prepared for the worst.
But this year, the tone has changed. Government officials from President Bush to local emergency managers have stripped away the sugar coating:
Failing to plan could kill you.
"No more coddling,'' said Larry Gispert, Hillsborough County's emergency management director. "We're telling them the first 72 (hours) are on you. The laggards need to wake up and be ready to take care of themselves."
That means having enough food, water, emergency supplies and medicine to last at least three days.
Don't expect the government to provide for your every need within hours of a hurricane hitting.
The aggressive approach was prompted by last season's heavy death toll and the obvious lack of preparation by people in South Florida for Hurricane Wilma.
"No government on Earth can adequately respond to a natural disaster if the people are unprepared," Gov. Jeb Bush said at his annual hurricane conference in May.
Gispert said he's been banging his head against a wall for more than 20 years to get people to stock up on supplies and come up with an emergency plan.
So many people demand smaller government and less taxes, Gispert said. But when a disaster strikes, they scream for government to supply their every need.
Bush emphasized at his hurricane conference that aid and workers will still pour quickly into disaster areas. But it's a "lot harder when people line up in their Lexuses and Mercedes to get ice and water at a public distribution site when the Publix is open a block away," Bush said.
But this year, the tone has changed. Government officials from President Bush to local emergency managers have stripped away the sugar coating:
Failing to plan could kill you.
"No more coddling,'' said Larry Gispert, Hillsborough County's emergency management director. "We're telling them the first 72 (hours) are on you. The laggards need to wake up and be ready to take care of themselves."
That means having enough food, water, emergency supplies and medicine to last at least three days.
Don't expect the government to provide for your every need within hours of a hurricane hitting.
The aggressive approach was prompted by last season's heavy death toll and the obvious lack of preparation by people in South Florida for Hurricane Wilma.
"No government on Earth can adequately respond to a natural disaster if the people are unprepared," Gov. Jeb Bush said at his annual hurricane conference in May.
Gispert said he's been banging his head against a wall for more than 20 years to get people to stock up on supplies and come up with an emergency plan.
So many people demand smaller government and less taxes, Gispert said. But when a disaster strikes, they scream for government to supply their every need.
Bush emphasized at his hurricane conference that aid and workers will still pour quickly into disaster areas. But it's a "lot harder when people line up in their Lexuses and Mercedes to get ice and water at a public distribution site when the Publix is open a block away," Bush said.
Children as young as 12 feel pressure to have sex..
CHILDREN lack the knowledge and confidence to say no to sex or to keep themselves safe as they come under pressure from their peers to experiment, the charity ChildLine says today.
Rather than wait until they are emotionally prepared for sex, children as young as 12 are turning to alcohol to help to get them through losing their virginity. Most are too embarrassed, confused, drunk or illinformed to think about the risks of pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections, so contraception is barely even considered, a charity report says.
Anne Houston, director of ChildLine, which has merged with the NSPCC, said that callers to the charity spoke of lives in which sex and alcohol were far more readily available than information on how to deal with them.
She said that most of the 5,800 calls last year about pregnancy came after young people had engaged in risky sexual behaviour.
Publication today of the ChildLine report coincides with a survey produced jointly by the teen magazine Sugar and the NSPCC, which found that 45 per cent of teenage girls had had their bottom or breasts groped against their wishes. The web survey of 674 Sugar readers revealed an abusive undercurrent to much of their early sexual experimentation.
The ChildLine report is based on 5,843 calls that it received from children about pregnancy last year. Three quarters of callers were 15 or under; most (5,459) were girls.
ChildLine counsellors suggest that children believe that contraception is expensive, and that they do not know where to get free condoms. They also wrongly think that visits to their doctor are not confidential. Some girls say that they do not know how to use condoms; others believe that the Pill will make them fat.
One counsellor said: Callers tell me that, in their biology lessons, they might be shown how to put a condom on a cucumber, but they arent told how to actually go out and get condoms and then use them.
Ms Houston said that she believed that children who called ChildLine were broadly representative of the population. One of ChildLines strengths is that we know children from all walks of life use the helpline, she said.
The report calls for a review of personal, social and health education in schools, noting that laws are confusing. Schools are required by law to teach only the biological aspects of sex, contraception and sexually transmitted infections, and these are often covered in science lessons.
Learning about sexuality, relationships, choice, delay, safer sex, risks and pregnancy are only outlined in government guidance.
So my question to you all, how old were you the first time? And did you do it because you wanted to or because you felt pressured to?
CHILDREN lack the knowledge and confidence to say no to sex or to keep themselves safe as they come under pressure from their peers to experiment, the charity ChildLine says today.
Rather than wait until they are emotionally prepared for sex, children as young as 12 are turning to alcohol to help to get them through losing their virginity. Most are too embarrassed, confused, drunk or illinformed to think about the risks of pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections, so contraception is barely even considered, a charity report says.
Anne Houston, director of ChildLine, which has merged with the NSPCC, said that callers to the charity spoke of lives in which sex and alcohol were far more readily available than information on how to deal with them.
She said that most of the 5,800 calls last year about pregnancy came after young people had engaged in risky sexual behaviour.
Publication today of the ChildLine report coincides with a survey produced jointly by the teen magazine Sugar and the NSPCC, which found that 45 per cent of teenage girls had had their bottom or breasts groped against their wishes. The web survey of 674 Sugar readers revealed an abusive undercurrent to much of their early sexual experimentation.
The ChildLine report is based on 5,843 calls that it received from children about pregnancy last year. Three quarters of callers were 15 or under; most (5,459) were girls.
ChildLine counsellors suggest that children believe that contraception is expensive, and that they do not know where to get free condoms. They also wrongly think that visits to their doctor are not confidential. Some girls say that they do not know how to use condoms; others believe that the Pill will make them fat.
One counsellor said: Callers tell me that, in their biology lessons, they might be shown how to put a condom on a cucumber, but they arent told how to actually go out and get condoms and then use them.
Ms Houston said that she believed that children who called ChildLine were broadly representative of the population. One of ChildLines strengths is that we know children from all walks of life use the helpline, she said.
The report calls for a review of personal, social and health education in schools, noting that laws are confusing. Schools are required by law to teach only the biological aspects of sex, contraception and sexually transmitted infections, and these are often covered in science lessons.
Learning about sexuality, relationships, choice, delay, safer sex, risks and pregnancy are only outlined in government guidance.
So my question to you all, how old were you the first time? And did you do it because you wanted to or because you felt pressured to?
