submissive marti: February 2012

Friday, February 10, 2012

Afghan president postpones handover of US prison (AP)

KABUL, Afghanistan ? Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday claimed that an airstrike carried out by the international coalition killed eight children in eastern Afghanistan.

The Afghan leader said in a statement that the strike took place Wednesday in the Najrab district of Kapisa province, and that he has assigned a delegation of high-ranking officials and lawmakers to launch a comprehensive probe into the affair.

The coalition confirmed only that there was a "situation in Najrab district" that was being assessed by a team to determine what had happened. More information would be released when the assessment is completed, the coalition said in a statement.

Civilian casualties have caused serious tensions between the Afghan government and the international military coalition.

The U.N. has said that last year was the deadliest on record for civilians in the Afghan war, although the largest cause of death for the more than 3,000 killed were roadside bombs. The total number civilian deaths caused by international and Afghan forces dropped last year, although the number of civilians killed by airstrikes targeting insurgents rose to 187 in 2011, the U.N. said.

Also Thursday, Karzai's office said it has extended by one month the deadline for the transfer of the main American military prison in the country. It said the United States had until March 9 to transfer authority of the prison to the Afghan government.

Parwan Detention Facility is located outside Bagram Air Field, a main NATO base north of the capital, Kabul.

The statement said the delay was caused by a lack of cooperation from the U.S. side.

There was no comment from the U.S.-led international coalition.

The prison holds 3,000 detainees, including Afghans and foreign insurgents, and was to have been handed over on Feb. 5.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120209/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan

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Thursday, February 9, 2012

APNewsBreak: 8 minutes to send cops to Powell home

In this pool photo provided by the Pierce County Sheriff's Dept., an investigator walks through the garage area, Monday, Feb. 6, 2012, in the rubble of the home in Graham, Wash., where Josh Powell and his two sons were killed Sunday in what police said appeared to be a deliberately set fire. Powell's wife Susan went mysteriously missing from their West Valley City, Utah, home in December 2009. (AP Photo/Pierce County Sheriff's Dept., Ed Troyer, Pool)

Don Easton, a special investigator with Unified Investigations & Sciences, Inc., carries a melted gas can away in an evidence bag as he works, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012, in the charred rubble of the home where Josh Powell and his two sons were killed Sunday, in Graham, Wash., Powell, the husband of missing Utah woman Susan Powell, died along with his children Sunday in Washington. An autopsy showed the children also suffered hatchet wounds to their necks. He was a person of interest in his wife's 2009 disappearance. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Don Easton, a special investigator with Unified Investigations & Sciences, Inc., photographs evidence, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012, in the charred rubble of the home where Josh Powell and his two sons were killed Sunday, in Graham, Wash., in what police said appeared to be a deliberately set fire. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

A member of the West Valley City, Utah, Police Dept. looks through charred rubble, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012, at the home where Josh Powell and his two sons were killed Sunday, in Graham, Wash., in what police said appeared to be a deliberately set fire. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

In this pool photo provided by the Pierce County Sheriff's Dept., a melted gas can is marked with an evidence flag, Monday, Feb. 6, 2012, in the rubble of the home in Graham, Wash., where Josh Powell and his two sons were killed Sunday in what police said appeared to be a deliberately set fire. Powell's wife Susan went mysteriously missing from their West Valley City, Utah, home in December 2009. (AP Photo/Pierce County Sheriff's Dept., Ed Troyer, Pool)

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) ? Emergency call logs show that nearly eight minutes elapsed between when a social worker called 911 to report that Josh Powell's children were in danger and when sheriff's deputies were dispatched, and it took another 14 minutes for a deputy to get to the home.

The Associated Press obtained the logs Wednesday night under a public records request.

Recently released audio tapes of the 911 calls raised questions about the dispatch center's handling of the social worker's calls, which detailed that Powell, the husband of a missing Utah woman, had locker her out of the house during what was supposed to be a supervised visit with his two young sons.

Minutes later, Powell torched the home, killing all three.

The recordings showed that the man who took her call engaged in nearly seven minutes of questioning that ended with him saying he didn't know how long it would be before a deputy could respond.

The audio didn't make clear when the deputy was dispatched. The logs show that apparently happened about a minute after the call ended.

It wasn't known if a quicker response could have saved the boys, who had also been attacked with a hatchet.

It took almost two minutes from the start of the call for the dispatcher to learn Powell's address and more than three minutes to understand that she was there to supervise a child custody visit. Near the end of the call, she asked how long before officers could get there.

"I don't know, ma'am," he said. "We have to respond to emergency life-threatening situations first."

She responded: "This could be life-threatening ... I'm afraid for their lives!"

Authorities said the call could have been handled better, and that it was unfortunate for the dispatcher to leave the social worker with the impression no help was immediately on the way. The agency that runs the call center said it would review the matter and start a disciplinary investigation if necessary.

Still, the recordings raised questions about an emergency response to a custody visit that ended with Powell killing himself and his boys.

Pierce County Sheriff's Detective Ed Troyer said he did not believe the conversation caused unnecessary delays.

"Are we unhappy with the etiquette and the manner? Yes," Troyer said. "Did it affect the response time? No. Dispatchers are typing information and addresses while they're on the phone with callers."

The social worker had driven the Powell boys, 5 and 7, from their grandparents' home to their father's house on Sunday. Josh Powell had lost custody of the boys last fall, after his father, with whom they lived, was arrested in a child pornography and voyeurism investigation.

When she arrived, the boys ran into the house, and Powell slammed the door in her face, locking it.

She called her supervisor and 911 using her cellphone, reaching the call center in Tacoma about 10 miles away from Powell's house just outside Puyallup, authorities said.

In the first minutes of her first 911 call, the woman quickly laid out the situation:

"Something really weird has happened. The kids went into the house and the parent ? the biological parent ? whose name is Josh Powell will not let me in the door. What should I do?

"... I could hear one of the kids crying, and he still wouldn't let me in."

Nearly 20 seconds into the call, the dispatcher asked her for the address. The social worker didn't know and needed to look for it. It took her about 90 seconds to find it in her car.

At one point, she asked, "You can't find me by GPS?"

He responded: "No." And then there was a pause of approximately 10 seconds.

Pierce County, the second largest in the state and home to about 800,000 people, has an enhanced 911 system that is designed to give police an approximate location of the cell phone caller. It wasn't immediately clear if the call center used that feature to locate the social worker.

While she was still looking for the address, she said, "But I think I need help right away."

The dispatcher proceeded to question her repeatedly about who she was and her role.

"Who is there to exercise the visitation?" he asked.

"I am," she said. "The visit is with Josh Powell. And he's the husband of ..."

"And who's supervising?" he asked.

"I supervise."

"So you supervise and you're doing the visit? You supervise yourself?" he asked.

"I supervise myself. I'm the supervisor here."

"Wait a minute. If it's a supervised visit, you can't supervise yourself if you're the visitor."

After getting it straight, the dispatcher told her: "We'll have somebody look for you there."

"OK, how long will it be?" the woman asked.

That's when the dispatcher responded by saying he didn't know.

Moments later, the house erupted in flames.

The woman screamed in a separate call: "He exploded the house!"

Authorities also released a 911 call Josh Powell's sister made Sunday, saying she received emails from her brother explaining what to do with his property and saying he couldn't live without his sons.

Alina Powell told a dispatcher she feared her brother was going to do something because of pressure he faced after his wife, Susan, disappeared two years ago in Utah. Authorities considered him a "person of interest" in the case. It's unclear what time Alina Powell's 911 call was Sunday, but it appears the dispatcher had some knowledge of who Josh Powell was.

Crying, Alina Powell told the dispatcher: "I'm terrified to drive over there. I'm not afraid of him. He's never hurt me. I'm afraid of seeing something I don't want to see."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-02-08-Missing%20Mom-Utah--911%20Calls/id-b89346792b804f1a8af92c5382a2b67a

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Mindful Tea Drinking as Food for Thought ? Teatrekker's Blog

An interesting article by Jeff Gordinier appeared in today?s Dining & Wine section of the New York Times. It is titled: Mindful Eating as Food for Thought.

It presents the benefits of mindful eating ? that is, eating slowly ( not hoovering in the chow ) while paying attention to the food on your plate. Without the distraction of watching television or being connected to various electonica while eating.

For those who gobble their food in order to move on to the next thing, this notion may come as a surprise. Mindful eating is about focusing on the qualities and attributes of our food: the taste, the textures, and the interplay of flavors between the foods on your plate. Aromas and colors, too, are there to be appreciated, and who knows, such mindfulness might start many thinking about what the food on their plate actually is and where it came from.

According to the author, this concept has roots in Buddhist teachings. Just as there are forms of meditation that involve sitting, breathing, standing and walking, many Buddhist teachers encourage their students to meditate with food, expanding consciousness by paying close attention to the sensation and purpose of each morsel. In one common exercise, a student is given three raisins, or a tangerine, to spend 10 or 20 minutes gazing at, musing on, holding and patiently chewing.

?The rhythm of life is becoming faster and faster, so we really don?t have the same awareness and the same ability to check into ourselves,? said Dr. Cheung, who, with the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, co-wrote ?Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life.? ?That?s why mindful eating is becoming more important. We need to be coming back to ourselves and saying: ?Does my body need this? Why am I eating this? Is it just because I?m so sad and stressed out????

I was interested to see? such an article in the go-go New York Times. Not so long ago the Times was filled with reports and stories about the latest ?here-today- gone-tomorrow ?pop-up store, or roaming bar. So this article comes as a pleasant surprise.

We stress this same type of mindfulness about tea in our tea classes and whenever we are speaking with a tea customer who we think will listen.

Why? Because we are obsessed with the qualities that make premium artisan tea so special, and much of the appreciation of the flavor of the tea begins with the appreciation of the appearance of the tea itself. After all, one of the reasons that artisan tea is so great is because of the careful handling and hand-skills of the tea makers who made the tea.

So if you drink tea for the deliciousness of it, or for it?s cultural importance or its social opportunities ( and not just for a cafffeine jagg), perhaps you already look at the beauty of the leaves in the tea that you are purchasing or will be drinking. Do you ever wonder why certain leaf shapes are the way they are, or consider all of the different shade of color that tea can be?? Have you learned enough about the characteristics of some teas that you can? identify them just by looking at the shape and color? By the aroma?

This is our mantra about steeping and drinking a delicious cup of tea:? See, touch, hear, smell, taste.

We put that simple phrase, repeated below, on one of the handouts for our tea classes. We explain it, and some in attendance listen to us, and some don?t. Nevertheless, those who pay attention to their tea will, we believe, ultimately,? have a richer tea drinking experience, and gain a deeper appreciation for the craft of making and steeping.

Mindful tea drinking ? food for thought, indeed!

Tea Drinking Feeds All Five Senses

See: observe the color, shape, and size of the dried tea leaves, and then the color of the tea liquor in your cup

Smell: the aroma of the dried tea leaves before steeping and the aroma of the tea liquor in your cup

Hear: listen to the sound of the water being poured into the teapot and the tea liquor being poured into the cups

Touch: feel the smoothness or roughness of the teacup in your hand and against your lips. Admire the thin-ness of the lip and the curve at the base of the cup.

Taste: savor the sweetness or the bitterness of the tea liquor

Here is a link to the article in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/dining/mindful-eating-as-food-for-thought.html?ref=dining

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Source: http://teatrekker.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/mindful-tea-drinking-as-food-for-thought/

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Wednesday, February 8, 2012

30,000 NY Hotel Maids Getting Anti-Rape "DSK Buttons" [Crime]

Click here to read 30,000 NY Hotel Maids Getting Anti-Rape "DSK Buttons"

Temporarily-accused sex criminal and Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn may be safely back in the motherland, but the spectre of hotel rape remains. The threat is apparently disquieting enough to justify mandatory rape alert buttons for New York's hotel employees. More »