PICHER, Oklahoma (CNN) — Wearing powder blue pants and a plaid fedora, 84-year-old Orval “Hoppy” Ray arrived fashionably late to a celebration in Picher, Oklahoma, a vacated mining town at the center of one of the nation’s largest and most polluted toxic-waste sites.
Former residents, bought out by the government because their town was deemed so dangerous, gathered in Picher’s elementary school to say farewell to a place where kids suffered lead poisoning, where homes built atop underground mines plunged into the Earth and where the local creek coughs up orange water, laced with heavy metals.
A toothpick dangling out of the corner of his chapped mouth, Ray greeted several old friends as if he were in any other small town in America.
“Hello there, Hoppy! How the hell are ya?” one called out.
Gray mountains of toxic gravel loomed behind the school, just out of sight, as Hoppy hobbled past a bundle of balloons and through the front doors, cane in hand. He tipped his hat as he entered.
“Looks like a good crowd,” he said. “Everybody seems to be havin’ a good time. That’s the main thing.”
In a town this tragic and for a person as stubborn as Hoppy, that’s a big statement.
As his abandoned town fades to dust, Hoppy has gone into the business of memories. He wants to remind townspeople, and the world, that a person’s home should always be loved — no matter how toxic.
The buyout plan was seen as a blessing by some scared families.
But not Hoppy.
Hoppy swore he wouldn’t leave his hometown, that he would die before he’d leave Picher, even if his electricity and water were turned off.
He’d grown up there, worked in the mines alongside his father — and all three of his brothers. But Picher was more than a place to make money. It was a place of patriotism and purpose: The metals they dug out of caves deep in the ground were processed and turned into bullets that armed U.S. soldiers in both world wars.
The wars ended, though, and so did the world’s interest in Picher. By 1970, the last mine shut down.
Hoppy’s family stayed.
They couldn’t leave a place that had threaded itself into their lives so deeply.
After making a quick stop in the crowded school cafeteria, Hoppy found a more suitable post on the sidelines of the reunion, in a narrow hallway.
He sat in a chair with a smirk on his face, using his cane to ping friends in the shins, or sometimes in the groin, to get their attention.
“This here’s the last man standing,” one man said, chuckling, as he stopped by Hoppy’s seat.
Hoppy’s son and grandson arrived with several cardboard boxes of books, pulled from the bed of the old miner’s pickup. With the help of another local-history buff, Hoppy has self-published three books. The latest, “Just Call Me Hoppy,” chronicles his memories of a pre-toxic Picher, a time he believes everyone else has forgotten.
The book begins in 1925, when the mines were at their peak — and the year Hoppy was born.
At 17, he left Picher to fight in World War II. After he was injured when his Navy ship was hit by a suicide bomber, Hoppy returned home to finish high school and go to work in the mines.
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Source:http://edition.cnn.com
NEW YORK – Each week Fox TV | Rasmussen Reports polls will explore the latest hot topics.
This week the Fox TV | Rasmussen Reports poll surveyed people’s feelings about the political sex scandals.
Check back here each Monday night where you’ll find exclusive polls on the topics people are buzzing about. Let’s get to this week’s results.
Survey of 1,000 Adults, June 24 – 25, 2009
1. Do most members of Congress have extramarital affairs or other inappropriate relationships?
37% Yes
24% No
39% Not sure
2. If a politician or public official has an affair, should they resign or be forced out of office?
40% Yes
41% No
19% Not sure
3. If a politician or public official is caught in a sex scandal or has an affair do you trust them less than other politicians?
61% Yes
31% No
8% Not sure
4. Are gun sales in the United States up because of the fear of increased crime or fear of increased government restriction on gun ownership?
23% Fear of increased crime
57% Fear of increased government restriction on gun ownership
20% Not sure
5. Is road rage in the United States increasing, decreasing or staying about the same?
36% Increasing
8% Decreasing
42% Staying the same
14% Not sure
NOTE: Margin of Sampling Error, +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information.
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Source:http://www.myfoxtwincities.com
PITTSBURGH | Designated hitter Mike Jacobs isn’t kidding himself. He knows he’s underperforming, and he’s open to adjustments in his approach at the plate. It’s just that doing so, on the fly in the middle of the season, is sort of like driving to a place you’ve never been in the dark.
“It’s tough when you’re going away from what you’ve done for so long and what you’re so used to doing,” he acknowledged. “Sure, it’s hard to buy into something else. But right now, there’s no reason not to look to change some things.
“I’m hoping to salvage the year. There is plenty of time left that I can still put up some pretty big numbers this year.”
The Royals touted Jacobs, after acquiring him last October from Florida for reliever Leo Nuñez, as their new power threat. And he had just hit a career-high 32 homers for the Marlins.
It hasn’t worked out.
Jacobs saw his average drop to .226 after ending Friday’s 5-3 loss to Pittsburgh with a strikeout. And while he has 10 homers, he also has just 26 RBIs in 66 games.
Worse, his trends are plummeting. Jacobs was batting a mere .159 in his last 25 games with only 13 hits in 82 at-bats. Worse still, he had only one homer and one RBI — but 27 strikeouts — in that span.
“We’re making some changes in my swing,” he acknowledged. “We’re trying to shorten it up and trying to simplify some things. With my tap, I’ve got to be so perfectly on time. I’ve been struggling this year. No doubt about it.”
The Royals also want him to adopt a less-rigid stance at the plate.
“A little bit of flex in his back leg should help him,” manager Trey Hillman said. “You can already see it helping. He was able to foul off some pitches (Tuesday) that he would normally swing through.
“It’s just a matter of him getting a little more comfortable. But he needs to be a little more flexible on his backside leg instead of being so erect.”
Davies dazzling
Right-hander Kyle Davies began his push to reclaim a spot in the big-league rotation in impressive style Thursday night by pitching eight shutout innings for Class AAA Omaha in a 7-0 victory at Memphis.
Davies permitted just three hits while striking out eight and walking one in a 98-pitch performance that included 64 strikes. It marked his first start since being optioned last Saturday to the O-Royals. Davies lost his job in the rotation after going 3-7 with a 5.76 ERA.
Buck begins rehab
John Buck is two games into his rehab playing assignment at Omaha. He was Davies’ catcher for the first three innings Thursday, and went one for three, before going hitless in four at-bats Friday as the designated hitter. Thursday marked Buck’s first game action since suffering a herniated disk May 30 against the White Sox.
New look
It’s Heritage Weekend at PNC Park, so the Royals and Pirates wore replica uniforms from the Negro Leagues on Friday and will do so again tonight. The Pirates wore uniforms of the Homestead Grays, while the Royals, no surprise, wore Monarchs’ uniforms.
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Source: http://www.kansascity.com
Inside the Seattle Police Department’s property room, rows of bicycles, Christmas decorations, wheelchairs and other unclaimed or seized items gather dust until they’re put up for auction. But bargain hunters no longer have to wait for police, or the King County Sheriff’s Office, to schedule a public auction to score a deal. They now merely need to log onto a computer.
Seattle police and the Sheriff’s Office contract with PropertyRoom.com, a California-based Web site that receives items from the property rooms of 1,600 law-enforcement agencies in the U.S. — 124 in Washington state — and sells them online.
Proceeds are split between the police departments and the Web site.
Before, the Seattle Police Department and Sheriff’s Office periodically held auctions to sell off unclaimed items — and there wasn’t even a guarantee they could sell it all.
“It’s a lot easier for them [PropertyRoom.com] to come and take it all than for us to auction it off,” said sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. John Urquhart “It’s a very efficient way to dispose of excess property we get.”
“It’s a very green way to do it,” added Cindy Granard, detective sergeant of evidence for Seattle police. “It’s recycling old material and giving it to someone new.”
When Granard wants to give items to PropertyRoom.com, she compiles a list and calls the Web site, which sends a truck to get them. The truck then takes the items to a facility in Seattle, where they move from one truck to another that goes to PropertyRoom.com‘s processing facility in Los Angeles.
“We usually wait until we have pallets full of stuff before we give to them.” Granard said.
Once the items arrive in Los Angeles, Gemological Institute of America-trained specialists look over items containing precious stones to ensure they are real. They are then listed for auction on the Web site.
Once an item sells, the originating law-enforcement agency receives 50 percent of the proceeds if the item sells for less than $1,000, and 75 percent if it’s more than $1,000.
Since using PropertyRoom.com starting in July 2003, Seattle police have seen their profits go up. From 2004 to 2005, for example, police recorded about a $28,000 increase in auction profit. In 2004, the department’s auction profit was $29,951. In 2005, it was $57,974.
Proceeds from the sale go toward the department’s pension fund.
PropertyRoom.com is set up as a kind of eBay for police auctions. Items are sold in categories including jewelry, fine art, tools, bicycles, watches and “everything else.” The site was founded by former police officers, including Daryl Gates, former chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, according to its Web site.
Since many of the items were stolen but never reclaimed, PropertyRoom.com will return them to their owners provided they can prove ownership of an item shown online.
When the site started in 2001, it had contracts with 100 departments and profits of $3 million. Now, the company has contracts with nearly 2,000 departments, 25,000 new bidders each month, and last year reported a profit of $35 million, according to company spokeswoman Cher Murphy.
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Source:http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
ELYRIA — High school girls like it when their senior prom dress is one of a kind. Rachel Cunningham didn’t have to worry about that. She constructed her dress, and her date’s tuxedo, out of duct tape.
Now, Cunningham and her date, Billy Oliver, who wore their whimsical creations to the Midview High School prom May 9, are competing for $3,000 scholarships in the Stuck at Prom contest, sponsored by Henkel Corp., the Avon-based maker of Duck brand duct tape.
If they win, Midview High School will also receive $3,000, according to Lisa Schwan, spokeswoman for Stuck at Prom. Second place prizes are $2,000 scholarships for each student and $2,000 for their school, and third place pays $1,000 scholarships to each student and $1,000 for their alma mater, Schwan said.
Cunningham and Oliver chose the theme of Mother Nature and Father Time for their colorful outfits, which used 47 rolls of duct tape in 18 colors.
Cunningham’s halter-top dress depicts a pair of pink flamingoes, a koala bear, a giraffe, a cardinal, a tree frog, an owl, autumn leaves, mountains, clouds, a rainbow, a tornado and a bear fishing for salmon. The halter top is laced up in the back with grape vines. Her accessories include a whale handbag, a duct-tape corsage, shoes covered with duct tape in a fish-scale pattern and sun and moon earrings. Even her fingernails were covered with duct tape.
Oliver’s outfit includes a top hat that is also a clock, shoes covered with duct tape, a cane numbered with the hours of the day and a pocket watch made from duct tape. The sleeves of his tuxedo are numbered with roman numerals one through 12 and his pants legs are festooned with an hourglass, a grandfather clock and calendar dates important to the couple, including their birthdays and the prom date.
Cunningham, 18, and Oliver, 17, are one of 10 couples selected from more than 215 entries nationwide for the Stuck at Prom contest, Schwan said. Judges who have worked with duct tape to create artwork, clothing and crafts selected the top 10 entries based on originality, quantity of duct tape used, craftsmanship, use of color and accessories.
Online voting at www.stuckatprom.com will determine the first-, second- and third-place winners. One vote a day will be counted from any e-mail account, according to Schwan.
Cunningham said she started the project in April.
“It took a lot of trial-and-error,” she said. “But I got better and better at it as I went.”
Oliver said he was skeptical of the idea at first.
“It was a lot of fun, and I’m glad Rachel talked me into it,” he said. “I played the role of mannequin and gofer and made a lot of trips to Wal-Mart for duct tape.”
The last day for voting is July 2, and winners will be announced July 9, Schwan said.
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Source:http://www.morningjournal.com
Former Viet Nam helicopter pilot Gilbert Eriksen has had a lifelong interest in figuring out how the world works. He graduated from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in psychology, and did graduate work in descriptive linguistics at the University of Oklahoma, Norman. After studying literature, prophecy and the Book of Revelation, Gil began to unravel keys to over unity energy systems, free energy, anti gravity systems and finally the implications Planet X has on mankind.
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thanks http://www.coasttocoastam.com
Are the Michael Jackson autopsy results supposedly “leaked” to the British paper The Sun authentic? Just when one was beginning to believe that Los Angeles County couldn’t keep anything secret from the media comes an update on the breaking story out of Britain that the paper had received a “leaked” version of the Los Angeles Coroner’s Office report on the autopsy results of Michael Jackson, who died suddenly Thursday when his heart went into cardiac arrest and subsequent efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful. The Sun revealed in graphic detail the condition of the body of the 50-year-old pop star. But, according to TMZ and the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office themselves, the “leaked” autopsy results are not those of Michael Jackson.
In fact, according to the Coroner’s Office, which released a short statement about the preliminary findings of their autopsy Friday, there has been no leak at all. TMZ posted the statement made by said Coroner’s Office: “The report that is being published did not come from this office. I don’t know where the information came from, or who that information came from. It is not accurate. Some of it is totally false.”
The Sun ran with the story Monday that they had knowledge of Michael Jackson’s autopsy results, results that had been “leaked” to them from some anonymous source. Given the kind of money media outlets are shelling out for exclusives these days (millions for pictures of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s children, for example), it is not difficult to believe that The Sun could have procured a copy of Michael Jackson’s autopsy report or that someone working within the Coroner’s Office (or even peripherally) could have “leaked” some of the autopsy information. Nor is it outside the realm of possibility that there was a leak in the Los Angeles County system. Just a few months ago, a sealed photo of a much battered “leaked” evidence photo of Rihanna made it to the TMZ website.
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Source:http://www.associatedcontent.com
A Yemeni passenger jet crashed off the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Comoros with 153 people on board, officials said, in the latest air disaster involving an Airbus.
“The plane crashed in the early hours of the morning several nautical miles off the Comoros islands, with 142 passengers and 11 crew aboard,” an official with the Yemeni national carrier Yemenia said.
“Most of the passengers are French or from the Comoros,” the official said, adding that rescue boats had been sent to the scene of the crash to hunt for possible survivors.
It is the latest air disaster involving Airbus since an Air France jet plunged into the Atlantic almost a month ago with 228 people on board.
“Yemenia regrets to announce the missing of its flight No IY626 from Sanaa to Moroni with 142 passengers and 11 crew onboard Airbus 310-300,” was the announcement on the airline’s website.
It gave two emergency contact numbers, +967-1250-800 and +967-1250-833.
There was no immediate information about the possible cause of the crash.
“Rescue boats from the Comoros and Madagascar are taking part in the search operation,” a Yemeni official told AFP, adding that the crash occurred about three kilometres from the coast.
An airport source in Paris, where the flight originated, said the aircraft had apparently “crashed into the sea several kilometres from the coast” as it was coming in to land in Moroni, capital of the Comoros.
It was was due to have touched down in Moroni at around 2300 GMT on Monday.
Yemeni Transport Minister Khaled al-Wazir is due to give a press conference about the disaster later in the day, officials said.
The flight started at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport on Monday when an Airbus A330-200 aircraft took off for Marseille in southern France and then on to Sanaa, the capital of Yemen.
In Sanaa, passengers changed to an Airbus A310 and departed for Moroni via Djibouti.
A crisis task force was set up at Charles de Gaulle airport, where 67 people had boarded the plane.
An Airbus A330 operated by Air France crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1 as it was flying from Brazil to France but the cause has not yet been determined.
Yemenia was set up in 1978 and is 51 percent owned by the Yemeni government and 49 percent by the government in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, according to its website.
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Source:http://news.theage.com.au
© 2009 AFP
CAMBRIDGE - Names, like looks, can be deceiving. Take Mean Creek, for instance. The Boston band, which formed a couple of years ago after singer-guitarists Chris Keene and Aurore Ounjian decided they wanted a rhythm section, has little to do with what that moniker conjures: country or bluegrass, or folk music from Appalachia, perhaps.
Instead, the name comes from the 2004 indie film about troubled teens and dark secrets – not entirely unlike the fretful disposition of the group’s often gorgeously melancholic material. And make no mistake about it: The foursome, rounded out by bassist Erik Wormwood and drummer Mikey Holland, is very much a rock band that favors big guitars and soaring melodies, with songs that speak as boldly as they do plaintively.
“You throw on one little harmonica part and all of a sudden you’re an ‘Americana’ band,’’ says Ounjian with a chuckle that suggests she finds these category distinctions all a bit silly. “I think of us as a rock band.’’
Ounjian, 24, and Keene, 27, believe the misguided perception can be traced to their days as an acoustic folk duo that was borne out of Ounjian’s fondness for the vocal harmonies of Mimi and Richard Fariña, and Keene’s immersion into Bob Dylan’s early works.
“It’s funny how a name can be genre-specific, ’’ says Keene, who grew up in Watertown and went to high school with Ounjian (who had moved to the area from Lebanon when she was 3). “Before I ever heard them, I thought Yo La Tengo was going to be a Spanish band.’’
The members of Mean Creek are seated around a table at a Harvard Square watering hole, talking about their slot opening for the veteran Boston alt-rock combo Buffalo Tom tonight at the Paradise, and their new album, “The Sky (or the Underground),’’ which comes out Sept. 1. ’’ (Mean Creek’s 2007 debut, “Around the Bend,’’ was recorded with a different lineup).
Before its official release, though, Mean Creek will play a dual CD release party Aug. 8 at the Middle East Downstairs with friends Drug Rug, who also have a new album, “Paint the Fence Invisible,’’ coming out next month.
“The Sky (or the Underground)’’ is destined to be one of the best local releases of the year. It’s an album of pathos and heartbreak, of big questions about life and mortality that go largely unanswered and unresolved. The title track, for instance, can be heard as a meditation on the order of things both natural and cosmic; hope and futility bundled into a four-minute format.
“Is there nothing more to be found/ In the sky or the underground/ Has it all been a pointless waste/ Or can we find what’s been misplaced,’’ Keene sings in a tender, questing half-whisper. Like many of the songs on the album, the track is freighted with a pervading sense of fatalism and an anguished elegance.
If the aching vocal harmonies and world-weary wondering do have the folk tradition behind them, the song’s soft/loud, verse-to-chorus dynamic reflects the band’s love of heavier sounds. (Holland put that penchant to the test, though, when he answered Keene’s ad seeking a drummer and told him he had an 18-piece drum kit and was ready to rock – a joke that left an alarmed Keene wondering how he could let the drummer from Lawrence down easy).
“When Chris and Aurore started the band,’’ says Maine-bred bassist Wormwood, 29, “[they] were doing folk music as a duo, which is where I think some people get the ‘Americana’ stuff. But there’s also a lot of contemporary stuff that we’re into: R.E.M., the Pixies, early alternative music.’’
For Keene, people like Dylan, John Lennon, and Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain were raw, inspirational forces. “When I listen to music, I listen to it to feel something,’’ Keene says. “I relate to strong emotions. When you hear ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ or you hear Kurt Cobain scream, you can’t just sit there and not feel anything.’’
Ounjian began playing folk music on acoustic guitar as a way to explore musical textures and modes of expression beyond the angst-fueled roar of grunge. “It was a nice change,’’ she says. “It really was inspiring to pick up a guitar and harmonica and strip everything down and focus on lyrics and actual vocal melodies instead of just screeching guitars.’’ She pauses and smiles. “Although I love screeching guitars.’’
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Source:http://www.boston.com
Kalat: An explosion at a petrol pump in Sorab near Kalat on Tuesday killing four persons, while 10 others were injured in the incident, police sources said.
The death toll can be increased sources said. According to reports it was a car bomb attack.
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