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24 Kan. App. 2d 595
No. 76,394
GARVEY ELEVATORS, INC. and its Representatives, Appellees, v. KANSAS HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION and ELI A. JACKSON, Appellants.
1. An appellate court's standard of review of a district court's findings of fact and conclusions of law is restated and applied.
2. The test to establish by indirect evidence a claim of disparate treatment in the workplace is restated.
3. Constructive discharge depends upon whether the employer by its illegal discriminatory acts has made working conditions so difficult that a reasonable person in the employee's position would feel compelled to resign.
Appeal from Sedgwick District Court; TIMOTHY G. LAHEY, judge. Opinion filed December 5, 1997. Reversed and remanded with directions.
Glenn Grayson, staff attorney, of Kansas Human Rights Commission, for appellants.
John W. Jordan, of Wichita, for appellees.
Before KNUDSON, P.J., ROYSE, J., and J. STEPHEN NYSWONGER, District Judge, assigned.
KNUDSON, J.: Eli A. Jackson filed a complaint against Garvey Elevators, Inc., (Garvey) before the Kansas Human Rights Commission (Commission) pursuant to the Kansas Acts Against Discrimination, K.S.A. 44-1001 et seq. Jackson, an African-American, alleges that because of his race he was subjected to unlawful employment practices prohibited under K.S.A. 44-1009(a)(1). He contends that while employed by Garvey, he was subjected to harassment and differential treatment because of his race. He further contends that these racially motivated abuses caused him to quit his job. The hearing examiner's decision in favor of Jackson was adopted by the Commission. Garvey appealed to the district court of Sedgwick County where the decision was set aside and Jackson's complaint dismissed. The Commission and Jackson have now appealed to this court, contending the district court arbitrarily disregarded undisputed evidence and its findings and conclusions are not supported by substantial competent evidence.
We reverse the decision of the district court and remand this case to the district court for rehearing because the uncontroverted evidence establishes there did exist a racially hostile work environment tolerated by management, and the district court must determine whether there was a constructive discharge from employment and then craft an appropriate final order under K.S.A. 44-1005. Our decision requires a detailed narrative of the underlying circumstances that allowed rampant racism to go unchecked during Jackson's employment with Garvey.
Jackson began working for Garvey in October 1983 after 23 years of employment with the Pillsbury Company Elevator, with the last 13 years as elevator superintendent. He was hired by Garvey to work at its Wichita terminal elevator as an assistant superintendent. He continued in that supervisory position until he left the employment in April 1989.
Garvey is a grain storage company with administrative offices in Hutchinson, Kansas. The Wichita terminal is actually two separate elevator facilities designated by the company as the west elevator and the east elevator. There were 21 employees at the terminal, including three supervisory positions. Jackson was hired to manage the east elevator. The west elevator was managed by Harry Bell. These two men were supervised by Clarence Schwemmer, who was superintendent of the entire terminal. Schwemmer reported to the vice-president in charge of terminal operations, whose office was in Hutchinson. When Jackson first began employment with Garvey, the vice-president was John Hirsch. After Hirsch retired, Harold Deardoff, an executive vice-president of Garvey, assumed Hirsch's duties.
Schwemmer and Bell are Caucasian. Both had worked for Garvey for many years before Jackson was employed. Schwemmer and Bell shared an office in the west elevator. Much of the communication between the west and east elevators was by two-way radio. In the west elevator the radio was located on Schwemmer and Bell's desk.
The evidence in the record on appeal is persuasive that Harry Bell is a racist.
Jackson testified that shortly after he began working at Garvey, Bell began making derogatory racial statements. The first statement Jackson could recall occurred approximately 3 to 4 months after Jackson had been hired. He testified that while he and Stanley Robertson, an employee who also is an African-American, were standing in the room, Bell stated, "'What do you think about those two nigger coaches?'" Robertson asked him what he said, and Bell then repeated the question.
On another occasion, Jackson was present when Bell told another employee that there was no time to shut down the facility to make repairs and the employee would have to "'nigger-rig it.'" Jackson also testified about a comment Bell made that "'if Blacks weren't so lazy our taxes wouldn't be so high.'"
Jackson testified about a comment he heard over the two-way radio used for communication between the east and west terminals. Bell was speaking with Robertson on the radio, and they were having difficulty hearing each other because of the connection. Robertson radioed Bell that the radio was fuzzy, and Bell called back and either said "no, it's not the radio that's fuzzy, it's the black man using it" or it was "those black voices."
Jackson testified that he complained to Schwemmer about the "black voices" comment made by Bell on the radio. Jackson testified he was extremely angry and Schwemmer told him to "cool off" and they would speak about the matter later. Jackson persisted and asked Schwemmer why he allowed Bell to "do and talk to people the way he does." Schwemmer replied that Bell could say and do anything he wanted, as long as Schwemmer said he could.
Schwemmer testified that he believed Bell was not making a derogatory racial comment but that Bell was just attempting to determine who was calling him on the radio. We note, however, Schwemmer does not dispute Jackson's complaint or Jackson's version of their conversation about the incident.
Jackson testified that the comments by Bell were of a continuous nature and occurred on a daily basis during his employment with Garvey. He attempted to avoid Bell whenever he could.
Jackson also presented the testimony of other Garvey employees, who testified to the racial comments they heard Bell make. Ken Byard, a Caucasian, was in charge of construction and maintenance. He testified that Bell made numerous racial remarks about Jackson. He testified that Bell told him, "'it's hard enough for me to control these Mexicans let alone a nigger trying to do it.'" In addition, he testified that Bell would refer to Jackson's office in the east terminal as the "'nigger hut.'" Byard stated that these type of comments occurred every time he came to the facility.
Stanley Robertson testified that he heard Bell make racial comments everyday, including the use of the words "nigger" and "Black ass." He testified that even before Jackson started working at Garvey, Bell was making derogatory racial comments about Jackson. On one occasion, Bell told Robertson that he could not understand how Pillsbury would let a "nigger" run the elevator. After Jackson started working at Garvey, Bell told Robertson that "'if he wanted a Black boy or a colored man to run the elevator, we could have put you down there instead of Eli Jackson.'"
Robertson also testified that Bell would refer to a white employee who became friends with Robertson or Jackson as "'what's a nigger.'" He also stated Bell made negative comments about Robertson driving a white man's car. Robertson also gave corroborative testimony regarding Bell's "nigger coaches" comments and added that Schwemmer was present during the exchange.
Robertson testified that he complained to both Schwemmer and Hirsch about Bell's racial comments.
Bob Baker testified that he heard Bell make derogatory racial comments on numerous occasions and that he had never seen so much racial prejudice in one place in his life. He recalled that Bell said that all black people were lazy and that Jackson's only problem was that he was black. Bell also told him that Jackson spoke just like a "nigger." He stated that there were many other racial comments that Bell made, but that he was unable to remember them at the time of his testimony. Finally, Baker testified that when the decision was made to start a bin cleaning project, Bell stated that he was not going to have to be involved with it because the "nigger's going to do it."
Garvey presented the testimony of Schwemmer, who testified that he shared a desk with Bell and that he never ever heard Bell make a derogatory or a racist remark to anyone, and that they were a professional group and would not make racial comments. He stated that there was no racial animosity between any of the employees at Garvey, although he did admit that Jackson told him that Jackson felt his job assignments were racially motivated. Schwemmer maintained that Bell never used the word "nigger."
In addition, both Hirsch and Harold Deardoff testified that Jackson did not complain to them about those racial remarks by Bell. Hirsch testified that although Jackson informed him about the operational difficulties he was having, Jackson never informed him about any racial problems. Hirsch was not asked and did not testify whether any other person complained to him about the comments by Bell. We note, however, that Byard testified that Hirsch was aware of the racial comments by Bell and that Robertson testified that he told Hirsch about the racial problems when Robertson left Garvey's employment in 1986.
Despite Hirsch's testimony that Jackson did not complain to him about the racial problems, Jackson testified at length that he did inform Hirsch on more than one occasion about the problems.
Deardoff testified that Jackson never told him about the racial problems he was experiencing at Garvey. Jackson acknowledged he did not complain to Deardoff. Bob Baker, however, testified that he told Deardoff about the racial atmosphere on numerous occasions. He testified that Deardoff stated that although Bell and Schwemmer might be prejudiced, Deardoff said that he was not. Deardoff denied that Baker made any complaints to him regarding racism and noted Baker had brought an age discrimination claim against Garvey when he was laid off.
In 1989, the Wichita facility's business had decreased sufficiently that Deardoff made the decision to clean the grain storage bins. The bins had not been cleaned since Garvey bought the facility in 1974. Deardoff brought in Ken Cross, the manager of one of the country elevators, to set up the project. Cross worked on the project for about one week. Deardoff testified that he then told Schwemmer that he wanted Jackson to begin supervising the bin cleaning project. He testified that he chose Jackson because the east elevator was not busy. Additionally, Deardoff stated that Schwemmer and Bell had indicated they would be retiring soon.
According to Jackson, Schwemmer said nothing to him about supervising the project. Jackson testified he was told by Schwemmer that he would be cleaning bins 3 days a week with other employees. Jackson also testified that Schwemmer told him the assignment would be temporary. After it became apparent to Jackson that the assignment was not merely temporary, he quit his employment with Garvey. Jackson testified that he felt that he was being "forced out" and that the discriminatory work assignments were starting again now that Hirsch was no longer working for Garvey.
Schwemmer initially testified on direct examination by Garvey's attorney that he clearly told Jackson he was to be the supervisor of the bin cleaning project and was not to do the manual labor inside the bins. However, on cross-examination, Schwemmer repeatedly explained that he was not told by Deardoff that Jackson would be the supervisor of the bin cleaning project. Schwemmer also admitted that he told Jackson that his work on the bin cleaning project would be temporary, although Schwemmer knew this was a long-term project.
Bob Baker testified that he observed Jackson during the bin cleaning operation and that Jackson always appeared to be in a supervisory position. In addition, Garvey produced records which showed that Jackson signed the bin entry permit indicating that it had been checked and approved for entry. The testimony was uncontroverted that the supervisor of the project was the person who would sign the entry permits.
Jackson argues that the district court's pivotal findings of fact are not supported by competent evidence and its findings are insufficient to support certain conclusions of law upon which its judgment is predicated.
Our standard of review is stated in Beech Aircraft Corp. v. Kansas Human Rights Comm'n, 254 Kan. 270, 275, 864 P.2d 1148 (1993):
"Where the district court has made findings of fact and conclusions of law, the function of an
court is to determine whether the findings are supported by substantial competent evidence and
the findings are sufficient to support the district court's conclusions of law. [Citation omitted.] . .
"Further, a negative finding that a party did not carry its requisite burden of proof will not be disturbed on appeal absent proof of an arbitrary disregard of undisputed evidence or some extrinsic consideration such as bias, passion, or prejudice. [Citations omitted.]"
Jackson contends that there is no substantial competent evidence to support numbered findings 17, 18, and 23 entered by the district court. They are as follows:
"17. With the exception of [a] phone call to Hirsch which preceded the memorandum in
1985, Jackson's complaints to Hirsch were presented solely as work related disputes without
"18. Hirsch and Jackson each held the other in high regard and on every occasion that Jackson came to Jack Hirsch with a complaint, Hirsch acted promptly to rectify the problem, and Jackson would concede that Hirsch stood by him 100%.
. . . .
"23. At the Commission hearing Jackson expanded on his initial complaints to allege that, during the course of his employment, Bell made other racial remarks in his presence (when no one else was present) and such remarks were a continuous thing. Bell did not testify to rebut the making of racial comments and no reasonable explanation was offered to explain his absence as a witness. Mr. Jackson indicated that the racial remarks had stopped by the time of his resignation evidently because Jackson avoided contact with Bell. Significantly, the only complaint Jackson made concerning racial remarks was a phone conversation in early 1985 with Mr. Hirsch. In the phone conversation (which preceded the 1985 meeting to clarify Jackson's job duties) Hirsch told Jackson he would take care of it. Thereafter, from mid-1985 to the time of his resignation in 1989, Jackson never reported to Hirsch or any other supervisor that the problem was not resolved or that the racial remarks continued."
Regarding findings 17 and 18, Jackson argues that he complained to Hirsch about the racial problems and notes that Hirsch did not testify that he told Bell to stop making the derogatory comments. He argues that there is no substantial evidence to rebut his testimony because Hirsch's testimony appeared totally confused as to the sequence of events, some of which took place after Hirsch retired.
On the other hand, Hirsch testified Jackson never informed him of any racial problems. Hirsch testified that all of Jackson's complaints were concerning his duties as a supervisor and operational concerns.
The district court is the finder of fact with the discretion to determine the weight and credit to be given the testimony of witnesses. If there is substantial competent evidence in the record to support the district judge's findings, those findings will not be disturbed on appeal. See Wisker v. Hart, 244 Kan. 36, 37, 766 P.2d 168 (1988).
Under this standard, we conclude there is evidence to support numbered findings 17 and 18 of the district court.
Finding of fact 23 presents a more serious problem, not so much for what is stated but because of what is not stated that was uncontroverted by the evidence. Additionally, it illustrates the district court's underlying misconception that only Jackson's complaints of racism were important in determining whether there was a racially hostile work environment. This problem is compounded when relied upon by the district court to support its conclusion of law in numbered paragraph 14 that reads:
|"14. Complainant has not met his burden to prove respondent knew or should have known of the 'continuous' racial comments by Harry Bell. Mr. Jackson tolerated the conduct by avoiding contact with Bell but he made no reasonable effort to inform respondent of the problem. The only complaint made was in early 1985 in a telephone call to Mr. Hirsch. No complaint was made about any racial comment from mid-1985 to the time of complainant's resignation in 1989, and there is no persuasive evidence which leads the Court to conclude that respondent knew or should have known of the comments which complainant acknowledges occurred only when he was alone with Bell. Respondent is not liable for a failure to act where it does not know and could not know of the problem. Higgins v. Gates Rubber Co., [578 F.2d 281 (10th Cir. 1978)]." (Emphasis added.)
Throughout its findings and conclusions, the district court ignores the uncontroverted evidence that conclusively establishes: (a) Harry Bell is an outspoken racist, and (b) Clarence Schwemmer knew or should have reasonably known of Bell's racism and the effect of that racism on working conditions for Jackson and other African-Americans working at the terminal. Both Jackson and Robertson complained to Schwemmer about Bell's racial remarks. Day in and day out, Schwemmer shared a desk with Bell. Schwemmer's testimony that he did not ever hear Bell make a racial comment is not susceptible to belief. It is wholly unreasonable to conclude Schwemmer did not have an awareness of Bell's racist attitudes.
Schwemmer was the superintendent of the terminal. What he knew or should have known is imputed to Garvey. We conclude that as a matter of law the evidence shows Jackson was subjected to a racially hostile work environment constituting an unlawful employment practice under K.S.A. 44-1009(a).
We next turn to Jackson's claim of disparate treatment at the hand of Garvey.
In Woods v. Midwest Conveyer Co., 231 Kan. 763, 767-68, 648 P.2d 234 (1982), the Kansas Supreme Court adopted the test advanced in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 36 L. Ed. 2d 668, 93 S. Ct. 1817 (1973), to establish by indirect evidence a claim of disparate treatment in the workplace. The court stated:
|"The burden of proof in a proceeding under the Kansas Acts Against Discrimination, K.S.A. 44-1001 et seq., is on the complainant to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the respondent is guilty of a discriminatory practice. Initially, the complainant must present a prima facie case of discrimination. Then the burden of going forward with the evidence shifts to respondent and this burden may be discharged by evidence of a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for respondent's conduct. Once the respondent discharges this obligation, the complainant must continue with the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the reasons offered by respondent were merely a pretext for discrimination."
The McDonnell Douglas test was the standard applied by the district court in considering Jackson's claim. We are satisfied after an exhaustive review of the evidentiary record that there was substantial competent evidence to support the trial judge's findings and conclusions that Garvey had a "legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason" for Jackson's role in the bin cleaning project; we further conclude the district court's negative finding that Jackson failed to prove Garvey's reasons were pretextual is not arbitrary or otherwise unsupportable from the evidence produced at hearing. Because reasonable minds could disagree as to whether Jackson carried his burden of proof, the decision of the district court as factfinder must stand upon the issue of disparate treatment.
There remains the issue of constructive discharge. We have already stated that Jackson was subjected to a hostile work environment as a result of Bell's continuous barrage of racial epithets. Upon remand, the district court must consider whether the discriminatory acts were sufficient to establish a constructive discharge from employment. The district court's inquiry should focus on "'whether the employer by its illegal discriminatory acts has made working conditions so difficult that a reasonable person in the employee's position would feel compelled to resign.'" Ramsey v. City and County of Denver, 907 F.2d 1004, 1010 (10th Cir. 1990) (quoting Derr v. Gulf Oil Corp., 796 F.2d 340, 344 [10th Cir. 1986]).
We have carefully considered all of the other issues raised by Jackson, but conclude they are without merit.
Reversed and remanded with directions to consider whether Jackson was constructively discharged from employment and, if so, the nature and extent of the award to be entered pursuant to K.S.A. 44-1005.


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The Catholic Archbishop of Detroit sparked controversy after he urged worshippers who support same-sex marriage to skip Holy Communion.
Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron recently was quoted saying that Catholics who receive Communion while supporting same-sex marriage would "logically bring shame for a double-dealing that is not unlike perjury."
Spokesman for the archdiocese Joe Kohn told The Oakland Press on Tuesday that the comments were not meant to target same-sex marriage specifically.
Kohn said that when you receive Holy Communion it "means something," and Catholics that oppose the church on serious matters such as the rejection of the divinity of Christ, racist beliefs, support for abortion or same-sex marriage contradict the church's beliefs.
"The archbishop is pointing out if you are redefining marriage … if you publicly oppose the church on a serious manner, he is pointing out you are in conflict … with the church," Kohn said.
The Archbishop wants to help Catholics avoid such a conflict, Kohn said.
Oakland Press Facebook page readers had differing opinions on the subject.
Reader Mary MacMaster wrote that churches should have the say in who can get married, not the government.
"Each religion has its own religious and moral doctrine and the government has no business or authority dictating what moral and religious code they should follow," MacMaster said. "The decision to marry should always be left up to two people and their clergy. If you can't follow your religion, then you always have the right to choose another, or none at all."
Reader Melanie Corp said she believes in both God and same-sex marriage.
"If my church frowns upon (my views), then it's not the right place for me," Corp said. "If this is true, every individual will have to make their own choice. The church is not a democracy, they don't always do things or make rules that will please the majority. They make their rules and you can accept or reject them and go elsewhere, where you can worship like-minded people."
Kim LeBeau Rastall of Clinton Township said: "I think they are judging — Jesus would not. What happened to Jesus loves all?"
Some thought the views were extreme.
Reader Mary Reyes said: "I think the Catholic Church has way too many rules that they judge so many people on. That's for God to judge."
Herold Webb thinks the Catholic Church needs to update their rules.
"I'm Catholic and I believe that the church needs to get out of the 1400s and change the way they think. God loves everyone and it's time the church did too," Webb said.
Contact Megan Semeraz at 248-745-4628 or email firstname.lastname@example.com or follow her on Twitter @MeganSemeraz

subset: commoncrawl


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Being that he's arguably the country's best known Mormon and much has been made of the political impact of his religion, there has been comparatively little reporting on how Mitt Romney has actually lived his faith. To some extent this is because it's easier for reporters to reduce Romney's faith to just another variable in the political calculus. But it's also true that reporting on someone's religious life is a deeply personal matter, and it requires great effort and understanding to do it right. With that in mind, I was particularly impressed with this sprawling and fascinating CNN profile of Mitt Romney's religious life. It's comprehensive (5,000 words!) and confronts a daunting task head on, tracking down scads of old friends and coreligionists to paint a picture of Mitt Romney's devotion to his religion from childhood on. This is all the more impressive when you consider the reporter got zero cooperation from the subject:
Repeated attempts to speak with the candidate, his wife, his children, his siblings – and, really, just anyone – about Romney's faith journey were denied by campaign headquarters. Even the reins it has on those outside the inner circle appear tight. A local LDS Church leader in Michigan, contacted in hopes of finding childhood friends, forwarded CNN's inquiry to campaign headquarters - prompting yet another slap down.
"What makes no sense to me is how you continue to push forward in writing about Gov. Romney's faith journey when we've made it clear in every way possible that this is not a story we want to participate in," campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul wrote in an email.
Undeterred, reporter Jessica Ravitz obviously went to extraordinary lengths to track down people from Romney's past. She's able to really flesh out some periods of the former Massachusetts governor's life that were really illuminating. Here's how the piece begins:
A cop arrived at the roadside wreckage of a June 1968 head-on collision in southern France, took one quick look at the Citroën's unresponsive driver and, according to one of the driver's friends, scrawled into the young man's American passport, "Il est mort" - "He is dead."
The man at the Citroën's wheel was Mitt Romney, who may have appeared dead but was very much alive – as is his bid today for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
Romney's car was hit head on by another car driven by Catholic priest that had drifted into his lane, killing one of Romney's passengers. That's a heck of a compelling intro to describing adversities Romney had to overcome in his two-and-a-half years as a Mormon missionary in France. Ravitz brings all kinds of vivid and unusual details to the table -- Romney and his fellow missionaries used to regularly see Bridgette Bardot walking her poodles near their mission home -- but her focus on how Romney's faith has been shaped by his missionary experience is really interesting. Ravitz notes that even as a young missionary, Romney preferred unusual tactics to engage people, as opposed to the standard Mormon missionary tactic of knocking on doors. Not surprisingly, she reports that Romney was a successful missionary and one can see where the experience would impact his approach to his later life as a businessman:
Romney lifted up deflated missionaries with silly made-up songs. He taught them to visualize all they could accomplish and challenged them to raise their expectations, McBride said.
Romney increased the conversion goal for the year by 40%, believing they could and would recharge. In the end they surpassed Romney's goal of baptizing 200 new members into the church.
A number of the stories she recounts are also illuminating about how Mormon teachings are applied in church operations. Ravitz tracks down an old Romney friend who describes how Romney roped him into taking over the leadership of a branch of Mormon Cambodian boat people:
"Andy, you know where this comes from," Romney answered, referring to the Mormon belief that God can reveal truths to individuals. "It's not me. You go talk to Him and tell me when you're ready."
For the next three years Anderson said he oversaw the poorest people in the Boston stake. The overwhelming task "nearly killed me," he said. But along the way he not only fell in love with the community, he learned to believe in himself and see that he could be a leader.
"I count Mitt as a friend, and it has been a real pleasure to work under him," he said. "If he was a real pain to work for, I'd know it. I've worked for people in the church I couldn't stand."
The piece isn't exactly perfect, however. There's a sizable section devoted to "Women's view of Romney," that lingers on the supposed problems of the patriarchal leadership of the Mormon church, though the Mormon church is hardly unique in this respect. Though female defenders of Romney are quoted, much of that section is devoted to a woman named Judy Dushku making a number of charges that Romney was unfair to women while he was a church leader in Boston. (Interesting bit of trivia that goes unmentioned -- unless there's another Judy Dushku who's Mormon and from Boston, I believe she's the mother of Buffy the Vampire Slayer actress Eliza Dushku.) I have no problem with being critical of Mitt here if it's warranted. However, given the nature of the specific allegations Dushku makes -- Romney, in Dushku's view, wrongly encouraged a woman to go forward with a pregnancy that risked her health, and unfairly asked a woman to forgive a philandering husband -- they are kind of incendiary charges to throw out there without more perspectives on what happened.
There is also this quibble:
In the 1980s and early 1990s, he served as a ward bishop – or part-time pastor – and stake president for the Boston area.
While Mormon bishops don't give up their day jobs, describing what they do as "part-time" dramatically undersells the effort involved. For most bishops, heading up a congregation is basically like having two full-time jobs.
I would also note the section upfront where Ravitz goes through what Mormons believe is basically accurate. However, while she notes a poll showing that only 51 percent of Americans consider Mormonism a Christian religion, she doesn't in any way flesh out why. Not that this is a subject that needs to be dwelt on, but given how comprehensive the article is -- it's odd that this is ignored, especially since she mentions doctrinal criticisms have been raised in the political arena by Mike Huckabee and Gov. Rick Perry supporter Pastor Robert Jeffress.
Still, there is a lot more to chew on here. I could offer a lot more praise and a few more quibbles, but I suppose I need not say any more than the article is a must read. Ravitz has really done readers a tremendous service here. Even those like myself that thought they knew a lot about Romney are likely to learn scores of new details and stories.


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Gabrielle Giffords, Mark Kelly Launch Initiative to Curb Gun Violence
(NEW YORK) -- After she was gravely wounded by gunfire two years ago in Tucson, Ariz., former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, imagined a life out of the public eye, where she would continue therapy surrounded by the friends, family and the Arizona desert she loves so much.
But after the slaughter of 20 first-graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., last month, Giffords and Kelly knew they couldn't stay silent.
"Enough," Giffords said.
The couple marked the second anniversary of the Tucson shooting by sitting down with ABC's Diane Sawyer to discuss their recent visit to Newtown and their new initiative to curb gun violence, "Americans for Responsible Solutions."
"After the shooting in Tucson, there was talk about addressing some of these issues, [and] again after [a movie theater massacre in] Aurora," Colo., Kelly said. "I'm hopeful that this time is different, and I think it is. Twenty first-graders' being murdered in their classrooms is a very personal thing for everybody."
During their trip to Newtown, Giffords and Kelly met with families directly affected by the tragedy.
"[The] first couple that we spoke to, the dad took out his cellphone and showed us a picture of his daughter and I just about lost it, just by looking at the picture," Kelly said. "It was just very tough and it brought back a lot of memories about what that was like for us some two years ago."
"Strength," Giffords said she told the families in Newtown.
"Gabby often told them, 'You got to have strength. You got to fight for something,'" Kelly said.
The innocent faces of the children whose lives were abruptly taken reminded the couple, they said, of 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, the youngest victim to die in the Tucson shooting at a Giffords constituent event.
"I think we all need to try to do something about [gun violence]," Kelly said. "It's obvious to everybody we have a problem. And problems can be solved."
Giffords, 42, and Kelly, 48, are both gun owners and supporters of the 2nd Amendment, but Kelly had strong words for the National Rifle Association after the group suggested the only way to stop gun violence is to have a "good guy with a gun."
There was a good guy with a gun, Kelly said, on Jan. 8, 2011, when Jared Loughner shot Giffords and 18 other people -- six fatally -- at her "Congress on Your Corner" event.
"[A man came out] of the store next door and nearly shot the man who took down Jared Loughner," Kelly said. "The one who eventually wrestled [Loughner] to the ground was almost killed himself by a good guy with a gun, so I don't really buy that argument."
Instead, Giffords and Kelly are proposing "common sense" changes through "Americans for Responsible Solutions."
The first change the couple hopes to enact is to require a comprehensive background check for the private sale of firearms.
"I bought a gun at Walmart recently and I went through a background check. It's not a difficult thing to do," Kelly said. "Why can't we just do that and make it more difficult for criminals and the mentally ill to get guns?"
The debate over high-capacity magazines and assault weapons has been renewed after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
Kelly, a veteran of Desert Storm and a gun owner, said he doesn't believe an extended magazine is necessary for the sport.
"An extended magazine is used to kill people," he said, "lots of people."
Loughner used a magazine that had 33 rounds in Tucson, while accused Aurora shooter James Holmes had a 100-round magazine. Adam Lanza, the Newtown shooter, used numerous 30-round magazines to load his Bushmaster AR-15.
Finally, Kelly hopes to address the issue of how the mentally ill are treated in the United States. Loughner, who was deemed incompetent to stand trial, pleaded guilty to 19 counts in August.
"Jared Loughner was clearly mentally ill," Kelly said.
"Sad," Giffords added.
Kelly said, "We have to learn how to identify these people and get them treatment. And we don't do a very good job at that."
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio


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Our School System's Only Flaws: Bad Students, Teachers, Principals, Politicians
Do you care about children, the education of children, or the future of children, and our system for educating them? Then we have bad news for you. Lots of bad news.
- New York City principals have been told that their schools will have to foot the bill for student lunches that kids' parents didn't pay for in full. Our schools can have eating, or learning, but not both.
- A new report says that less of half New York high school graduates are academically "prepared for college and well-paying careers." And surely less than half of them will graduate college or land a well-paying career, so what's the problem?
- So a bunch of do-gooders (NObama) had the bright idea to get rid of the principals of failing, horrible schools. One question for you, geniuses: Now who is going to be the principals?! They're trying to figure that part out now.
- Republicans refuse to change our nation's dumbass laws, so illegal immigrants who graduate college here still face terrible economic prospects: "Immigrants with bachelor's degrees in the sciences or social science end up bussing restaurant dishes and cleaning offices." Just like real Americans! We are one, in shitty jobs!
- Maybe the problem is that 13% of US public school biology teachers teach creationism.


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Environmental Management System
SCHURTER started integrating environmental protection principles as early as 1990 and was one of the first ISO 14001 certified companies in Switzerland in 1996.
"Caring for the environment is a key element of SCHURTER's corporate culture. We utilize resources efficiently, ensure environmental compatibility of our products, and sensitize our employees and partners to environmental concerns."
All of the company's environmental impacts are analyzed, monitored, and improved.
• We take environmental aspects into account already during
product development
• We fulfil international standards and regulations as RoHS and
• We identify, monitor, analyze, and reduce environmental impacts
of processes
• We employ environmentally compatible packaging material
• We minimize ecological risks
In addition, a special focus is placed on saving resources, and on reducing emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
SCHURTER's Certificates for standards such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001, IATF 16949 and OHSAS 18001 can be downloaded here.
The present Sustainability Report is based on GRI G3 guidelines and aims to document the current state of SCHURTER AG (SAG) in terms of sustainability. The Report is designed to serve as the basis for decisions relating to sustainability goals. SCHURTER picked the relevant economic, ecological and social or societal effects of its activities that are caused by the pursuit of the goals.
We have decided to apply the GRI Guidelines, because we want to inform our target groups comprehensively and transparently about our company's focus on sustainability. The reporting of SCHURTER AG fulfils the advanced application level C. The GRI content index shows the location of the profile details and performance indicators in the fields in SCHURTER AG's Sustainability Report.
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Product overview lists, which will report the fulfillment for use the use of hazardous substances according China-ROHS requirements. (Abbreviation for Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances).
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Halogens are a group of six chemical elements. The substances Fluorine, Bromine and Chlorine are relevant for electromechanical products, the other three elements (Iodine, Astatine, Unuseptium) are insignificant for technical applications.
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SCHURTER complies with all national and other applicable laws and regulations. As a consequence, we are committed to keeping our supply chain free from conflict minerals which are covered by laws and regulations concerning the sourcing of minerals from conflict areas.
SCHURTER fulfills the requirements of different organizations and standards. Accordingly, compliance and achievement in different certificates will be documented for both products and the company.


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Experienced PCSO (Police Community Support Officer) - CLPS (Central London Police Station)
BTP's mission is to work in partnership with others to help build a safe railway environment that is free from disruption and the fear of crime. PCSO's are vital in achieving our mission by acting as connector within our community and maintaining public confidence.
No two days will be the same as you help protect and reassure the passengers, railway staff and retailers within the BTP Community. As a national police force, we expect our people to be the best, without exception.
You'll be willing to work hard to learn the skills you need to serve your community and reassure the public. You will have all the responsibilities of a PCSO but focused within a railway environment which will also allow you to enforce BTP Byelaws. Typical duties will include visible patrols at stations, assisting passengers and supporting staff.
We are looking for resilient individuals with a flair for customer service. An ability to engage with the community and forge strong links with our partner organisations is essential. Articulate, adaptable, and able to think on your feet, you'll be known for your ability to resolve a diverse range of scenarios. Above all, you'll see this not as a job, but as a vocation - and you'll be passionate about having the chance to make a difference.
Candidates can expect this to be a difficult and demanding job, both physically and mentally, and the hours can be highly unsocial as you will be working a shift pattern that will include late finish times. However, there are few careers that are as interesting, exciting and fulfilling as working as an officer for BTP.
Sound interesting? Join us on the journey and bring your creativity and commitment on board and help us make a difference.
We are looking for experienced PCSOs join us as at our CLPS - Central London Police Station in London. Before the BTP progresses your application, consideration will be given to a number of initial eligibility criteria. Therefore please be aware of the following before completing an application:
- Candidates must have completed a minimum of two years' service as a Police Community Support Officer within a Home Office force
- Candidates must currently be serving as a Police Community Support Officer within a Home Office force
- Candidates must not have any findings of guilt for discipline, complaints or poor performance
- Candidates must not be subject to any current investigations for misconduct issues
- Must not currently be subject to an unsatisfactory performance review or action plan
- All mandatory training must be current and up to date
Internal PCSO's are not eligible to apply.
We want our organisation to be as diverse as the community it serves and welcome applications from everyone. Language skills can be especially valuable to community engagement and candidates who can speak additional languages such as Hindi, Arabic, Farsi, Bengali, Urdu, Amharic, Pushtu, Punjabi, Tamil and Somali are encouraged to apply. All applications will be judged on their individual merit.
You will not be eligible to apply if you have been unsuccessful in a PCSO paper sift in the last 6 months. Any cautions or convictions including those deemed 'spent' must be declared at the point of application but will not necessarily exclude you from employment.


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"Armageddon" and "Deep Impact," the fireball-laden 1998 movies about, respectively, an incoming asteroid and an incoming comet, were seen by well over a hundred million filmgoers. So word got out that our sector of the solar system is a giant pachinko game, stuffed with asteroids and comets that whiz around looking for something to crash into. These near-Earth objects, or NEOs, as astronomers call them, have been implicated in three mass extinctions, most famously when a seven-mile-wide asteroid slammed into the sea off the Yucatán Peninsula, setting the planet afire and killing off the dinosaurs.
That was a long time ago, even before Ben Franklin or Copernicus. More recently, in 2002, an asteroid exploded over the Mediterranean, and later that year a fiery NEO crashed into a Siberian mountain. In 2008, S.U.V.-size asteroids plunged into the Sudanese desert and streaked over Saskatchewan, and, in 2009, one blew up high above Indonesia, with three times the power of the atom bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Just last week, a several-ton rock blazed across the noonday sky above the Atlantic Ocean so brightly that it was visible from Massachusetts to Maryland. And still we earthlings haven't mustered a response.
The administrator of NASA, Charlie Bolden, recently declared that deflecting a NEO will be "what keeps the dinosaurs—we are the dinosaurs, by the way—from becoming extinct a second time." Then he admitted that the agency couldn't afford to do that. The annual federal allocation for "planetary defense" is $5.8 million—.03 per cent of NASA's budget—which supports a shoestring program to find NEOs and track their orbits. In truth, NASA doesn't really want the job of global savior, and no one else does, either. "With planetary defense, there's a complex interaction of science, psychology, politics, and money—and everything falls into a gap between disciplines," Robert Arentz, who heads the NEOs team at Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., said. "The science guys say, 'NEOs are not scientifically interesting, and saving the planet is not our job,' and the military guys say, 'We'll blow them up, but we don't have anything to do with telescopes or space missions.' The issue's an orphan."
Russell Schweickart has spent a decade trying to change all that. Schweickart, a rangy and congenial former astronaut known as Rusty, was the first man to fly a lunar module in space and the first to take an untethered space walk. He was also the Apollo program's resident hippie and gadfly, possessed of a New Age contrarianism which he maintains at the age of seventy-five. When he and other scientists launched a planetary-defense foundation, in 2001, they named it B612, after the home asteroid in Saint-Exupéry's "The Little Prince." In the belief that it won't be long before a big rock smashes into us at twenty-five thousand miles an hour, he has insistently prodded the government to find the undiscovered NEOs much faster, and to test a method of deflecting an asteroid in space by 2015.
This past June, Schweickart sat in his kitchen, in Sonoma, California, drawing complex orbital diagrams on a napkin to illustrate how a deflection could occur. He scoffed at such proposals as attaching a giant magnifying glass to a satellite to focus the sun's rays on an asteroid; wrapping a NEO in plastic, Christo style, to create a solar sail that would waft the danger aside; or placing a huge bazooka on the moon to pummel the intruder with boulders. Instead, he sketched out the three generally accepted options. Small asteroids discovered with plenty of warning could be nudged aside with a "gravity tractor"—a plasma-powered craft that would hover near the NEO and use its own gravity to divert the target. (If you slow or accelerate an asteroid by just one centimetre per second, and you start ten years before the projected impact, the cumulative divergence will be sufficient.) For larger or closer NEOs, or those requiring a greater degree of deflection, you'd use "kinetic impactors," spacecraft loaded with lead or copper, to ram the target—speeding nails aimed at a speeding hammer. For NEOs larger than half a kilometre across, or those only a few years out, you'd need nuclear weapons. Such is the confused state of affairs that the Air Force would have to borrow a warhead from the Department of Energy—but couldn't, by law, let NASA stow it on a rocket.
Nonetheless, Schweickart said, "after years of drought, this is the opportunity." He was about to co-chair a task force that would advise NASA on the topic, and the White House—which has taken an interest in asteroids since President Obama declared last year that he wanted to send humans to an asteroid by 2025, as a precursor to an eventual voyage to Mars—had just proposed increasing the agency's planetary-defense budget to $20.3 million. That wouldn't get a deflection mission farther than Topeka, yet Schweickart believed that it indicated a growing awareness of our place in the cosmos. "If there is a cosmic community out there," he said, "they will already have passed this test, of protecting themselves from asteroid impacts that could have wiped them out. If we want to join them, we have to do it, too." He cheerfully acknowledged that such talk had left him vulnerable to the inference that, like David Bowie's Major Tom, he's floating in a most peculiar way. "When Rusty started getting cranked up about this, I can't tell you the slanderous things I heard—'He was up in space too long, and the radiation cooked his brain,' " Robert Arentz said. "For the longest time, studying NEOs was like wearing an aluminum hat."
Many scientists simply can't stomach the issue's chunky gumbo of astrophysics, nuclear buccaneering, and end-times entertainment. Dwayne Day, the study director of "Defending Planet Earth," a comprehensive report published last year by the National Research Council, said, "We're talking about very small risks—if a big asteroid was out there, we'd have seen it by now. And yet every time you turn on the sci-fi channel Earth is getting blasted by one of these things." The report noted with vexation that spending guidelines for appropriate defensive procedures can't readily be assayed, as "it is very challenging to measure . . . the value of entire social entities (such as ethnic groups, cities, and nations)." And it concluded, rather disapprovingly, that should a large NEO be observed heading our way a response would be difficult to coördinate, as "there would likely be a tendency for the entire social structure to collapse."
Asteroids are would-be planets— rocky or metallic fragments left over from the beginning of the solar system, 4.6 billion years ago, that never amalgamated. There are several million in our general neighborhood, the bulk of them in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, all orbiting the sun up to ten times faster than a speeding bullet. They were once known as "vermin of the sky," because they always seemed to obscure whatever astronomers actually wanted to see, but, paradoxically, when you are looking for asteroids, they're extremely elusive. Most absorb more than eighty per cent of the sunlight that strikes them, making them as visible as ashes at dusk, and those in Earth-like orbits can be hidden behind the sun for decades. Once discerned, however, they prove astonishingly diverse. Some are sturdy as anvils; some are cottony rubble piles; some spin wildly, surrounded by tiny moonlets; and some resemble dog bones. Mark Boslough, a physicist at Sandia National Laboratories, said, "They're like snowflakes, but even more variable."
Like snowflakes, they fall to Earth. About a hundred tons of dust- and sand-size space rock bombards our atmosphere daily, and bolides—NEOs that catch fire upon entering the atmosphere—have been implicated in everything from the Chicago Fire of 1871 to the wrathful "brimstone and fire" visited upon Sodom and Gomorrah. In 3123 B.C., a Sumerian astronomer reported seeing a bolide a kilometre wide streaking across the sky like a "white stone bowl approaching." Along its path over Sodom and Gomorrah, en route to crashing in the Austrian Alps, it would have broiled those below at temperatures reaching seven hundred and fifty degrees. A pair of British astronautical engineers, Mark Hempsell and Alan Bond, argue that the bolide inspired the Greek myth of Phaeton—who lost control of his father's sun chariot and plunged to Earth—and was also responsible for the demise of Ötzi, the mummified "ice man" found in the Alps, in 1991, with an arrowhead in his shoulder. One suggestion is that Ötzi was sacrificed afterward to placate the gods, but Hempsell believes that he died in the explosion, and points out that if you're about to be hit by a colossal shock wave, "having a quiver full of arrows on your back is not a good idea."
Earth itself was born of repeated impacts from primordial asteroids known as planetismals, which gradually swelled the size of the globe. (Along the way, a collision with a Mars-size planet broke loose the mass that became the moon.) Those impacts also brought us water, carbon, nitrogen, and amino acids, making life possible. Through the ages, then, asteroids have behaved like strung-out parents, screeching up to the house at random intervals to bestow lavish gifts or savage whippings.
In July, NASA's Ad Hoc Task Force on Planetary Defense gathered for two days in a shabby, fluorescent-lit conference room at the Millennium Harvest House hotel, in Boulder, Colorado. They were seven graying men with laptops and unstylish haircuts. Their mission—at least as far as Rusty Schweickart was concerned—was to take the uncertainties inherent in dealing with NEOs and make the problem seem manageable, fundable, and pressing.
Near the outset of their first session, Schweickart fired a warning shot at his colleagues, most of whom were planetary scientists who liked to look before they launched. "Some scientist will die to know that a body is eighteen per cent magnesium—I don't care," Schweickart said. "I care about finding as many of these things as quickly as possible and determining if they're coming at us."
Richard Binzel, an M.I.T. professor, replied, "If an object's a serious threat, we'd want to know its composition." Otherwise, he said, you'd have no idea whether the NEO would be jarred by a deflection impact or whether it would splinter into dangerous shards. Our understanding of what it's like to operate near an asteroid is almost nil. In 2003, the Japanese sent an unmanned probe to the asteroid Itokawa; once there, the probe lost power and its rover inexplicably angled off into space.
Schweickart threw his arms up and cried, "Please allow me to continue where I'm going, in trying to save the planet!"
"Who could stop you?" another committee member asked. Binzel's cell phone rang, broadcasting the "Star Trek" theme, and everyone smiled.
Schweickart noted that, as NASA finds more NEOs, "we're going to have to make more and more decisions about whether to try to deflect without knowing much about what we're deflecting—not only what a NEO is, exactly, but where." Observations of NEOs are often so brief, before they disappear below the horizon or behind the sun, that astronomers can be hours off in plotting their orbits—with each hour translating to some twenty-five thousand miles. Many NEOs' positions can be determined only to within a realm of possibility known as the "probability cloud" or, more frankly, as the "error cloud."
Testimony from Ed Lu, a former astronaut who helped dream up the gravity tractor, reinforced Schweickart's point. Lu explained that, because asteroids shift course after a "close approach" to a heavy object such as a planet, "you're not insuring that a point misses Earth but that a probability cloud misses Earth. As Apophis shows, when there are close approaches it can be difficult to eliminate the possibility of a later hit."
The asteroid Apophis, named after the Egyptian god Apep the Destroyer, was first observed in 2004. Astronomers calculated that it had a one-in-thirty-eight chance of hitting us in 2029—on Friday, April 13th, as it happens—and that the three-hundred-metre-wide rock would strike with the force of fifty-eight thousand Hiroshimas. Subsequent observations increased the probability of impact to one in twenty-seven. Then, after yet more observations, the odds fell to near zero; it now looked likely to miss—though by a mere eighteen thousand miles, putting it inside the orbits of our communications satellites. But there remains a very slim chance that on its close approach Apophis could slide through a so-called keyhole—a region near Earth in which our gravitational field would deflect the asteroid just enough that it would slam into us on a subsequent pass, in 2036.
"The decision-maker's dilemma," Lu said, "is either get more data or act now. Waiting makes deflection harder—it's much easier to deflect an asteroid from a keyhole twenty years in advance than to have to deflect it from the planet three years in advance."
Schweickart observed, "The real decision people are going to have to make is 'Do we spend a billion dollars for a mission that up to ninety per cent of the time will turn out to be unnecessary?' " The prevailing scientific view is that we should try to divert any large object that has at least a one-in-a-hundred chance of hitting us; however, most politicians would be loath to spend significant sums—and a 2004 study put the cost of a nuclear-defense campaign at about twelve billion dollars—unless it's absolutely clear that they must.
Richard Binzel said, "So maybe the thing to focus on is a super-precise way of determining orbits, by putting a dish on—oh, I'm being crazy—Mercury."
"Not Mercury!" Don Yeomans, the manager of NASA's NEO program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, called out. To have the best view of near-Earth objects, he argued, you'd want to be inside Earth's orbit, looking away from the sun—but you'd also want to be much closer than Mercury, so that objects appeared larger and brighter.
"O.K., Mars," Binzel said. Yeomans shook his head: then you'd be looking toward the sun. "I'm just trying to make them go away in the first place," Binzel continued, crossly. "Pretend that astronomers on Venus had helped us out for ten years—maybe Apophis is already gone as a threat." Yeomans nodded his approval.
Schweickart protested the conversation's drift away from deflection, saying that while the scientists were busy trying to pinpoint orbits an asteroid might heave up and strike us. Ed Lu added, "It'd be like putting smoke alarms in your house, but not having a fire department. All you can do is run out of the house." Unless you're stuck there.
In 1980, only ninety-seven NEOs had been identified, and no one was really looking for more. We view the sky as fundamentally sheltering, and it's hard to conjure with events that occur on a timescale longer than our own; few people have firsthand recollections of the last major impact, in 1908, when an asteroid flattened two thousand square kilometres of forest in the Tunguska region of Siberia. Ken Ford, the chair of the NASA Advisory Council, said, "The very short perspective we have as humans makes the threat of asteroids seem smaller than it is. People of all sorts find it easier to kick the can down the road and hope for a mystical solution later."
It's also hard to gauge, with low-probability, high-consequence events like a NEO strike, whether it's more appropriate to be paranoid or blasé. Statistics from the National Research Council suggest that future asteroid impacts could kill an average of ninety-one people a year; by way of comparison, five people die annually from shark attacks, and a million from malaria. But the impacts figure is nothing more than a guesstimate, as the number of people known for sure to have been killed by asteroids is, well, zero. (In 1954, a woman in Sylacauga, Alabama, was somewhat bruised by a brick-size meteorite that plunged through the roof and bounced off her radio.)
Global anxiety over the matter spiked in 1994, when the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 hit Jupiter, leaving scars the size of Earth. The impressive photographs inspired screenwriters and bill writers alike. In 1998, Congress directed NASA to find and track ninety per cent of the NEOs greater than one kilometre in diameter, any one of which could obliterate France. In 2005, it amended the legislation to require the detection, by 2020, of NEOs larger than a hundred and forty metres in diameter: ones that could annihilate the Washington, D.C., region. By renting time on telescopes in the Western U.S., Puerto Rico, and Australia, NASA has met the earlier target; nine hundred and nine large NEOs have been identified, of the estimated thousand or so out there. But the agency lacks the resources to meet the deadline for smaller asteroids, having found only 6,903 of an estimated twenty-five thousand. "We need a leap, new tools," Jim Green, the director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, acknowledged.
The difficulty that planetary defense has always faced is that until an asteroid looms in its "death plunge" the topic seems remote from constituent concerns. No political glory or capital accrues from taking measures that might, decades later, prove to have been prudent. There's also the gravitas question, a.k.a. the "giggle factor." Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a conservative Republican from California's Orange County, who has been the leading (if not the only) voice in Congress for planetary defense, told me, "Anybody who talks about objects from space is ridiculed as the Chicken Little congressman." As a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, he was an early proponent of the Star Wars initiative to blast incoming missiles, and he explains, "If you're going to protect yourself from some rogue missile out of Pakistan or Iran, yeah, that could cost hundreds of thousands of lives, but some NEO could land in the Pacific and cause a tsunami that would kill millions of people in California!"
When Rohrabacher was six, he remembers, he was overwhelmed on a family vacation by the sight of Arizona's Meteor Crater. In his congressional tenure, he's been disturbed by visions of similar impacts, so he's discouraged by the relative modesty of his legislative accomplishments: he sponsored the original bill that established the 1998 NASA survey, and at his instigation Congress recently gave the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy the task of assigning a federal agency to oversee planetary defense. In his office, surrounded by model rockets, Rohrabacher gloomily observed, "I have no doubt that, if we saw one of these things, all of a sudden the members who now ridicule me would be saying, 'Oh, Dana, how visionary you were!' " In the meantime, he said, "the stampede of people trying to get the public to move on global warming versus the tiny number on an issue that really could destroy us—it gives me a further understanding of the flaws of humankind."
NASA, for its part, is stretched too thin to develop a muscular planetary-defense program, despite evidence that the public is devoted to the issue. (NASA's @AsteroidWatch Twitter feed has seven hundred and forty thousand followers, nearly as many as NASA's main feed.) The agency's budget, now nineteen billion dollars, has been cut severely since the Apollo program—to less than one-seventh its former share of federal spending. Not only does NASA lack the heavy-lift rockets necessary for an ambitious mission to intercept an asteroid; it won't even be able to get astronauts into near-Earth orbit once the Space Shuttle is mothballed, later this year. Elon Musk, the founder of the rocket-building company Space X, observed, "If something was on a track to hit us, one of the big rocks that leave only cockroaches and mushrooms, we'd be screwed. The state of rocketry sucks—we've regressed to being worse than the sixties."
Rusty Schweickart has always looked up for ideas about what to do next. As a boy, in rural New Jersey, he was transfixed by planes from a nearby naval air station that practiced dogfighting over his family's farm. After attending M.I.T., where he earned a B.S. in aeronautical engineering (and, later, an M.S. in aeronautics and astronautics), he became a fighter pilot. In 1963, he was chosen for NASA's third group of astronauts, along with Buzz Aldrin and Alan Bean. Bean recalls, "Rusty always had a broader, more humanitarian point of view. We had to take a nuclear device up to power experiments on the moon, and Rusty was unafraid to say, 'What happens if we have to abort? It could burn up and scatter nuclear waste all over'—where the rest of us were like, 'Shut the fuck up. Let's just hope that doesn't happen.' "
During his forty-seven-minute space walk, in 1969, Schweickart had a transforming experience. His epiphany, which he first discussed in 1974, at a New Age conference on Long Island, inspired a documentary film and a children's ballet and was later included in one of the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books. Schweickart spoke of apprehending Earth's vulnerability as he gazed down on it: "It is so small and so fragile and such a precious little spot in that universe that you can block it out with your thumb. And you realize that on that small spot, that little blue-and-white thing, is everything that means anything to you—all of history and music and poetry and art and death and birth and love." By some chance, he felt, he'd been picked out to realize this, to be "the sensing element for man."
In the seventies, Schweickart was as likely to be found aboard Jacques Cousteau's bathysphere as checking a Skylab manifest. Stewart Brand, the futurist who created the "Whole Earth Catalog," introduced him to California's governor, Jerry Brown, who in 1977 made Schweickart his Assistant for Science and Technology. Schweickart fostered Brown's interest in space policy, which led to a statewide Space Day and plans for a state satellite—and ultimately boomeranged on the politician, when he was dubbed "Governor Moonbeam." But Brand notes that Schweickart's idealism is grounded in experience: "Going camping with Rusty was a memorable experience, because he watches the sky in a different way—he's looking for traffic, calling out satellites. And it makes you jump to realize he was out there, on the other side."
Recalling the effect of his space walk, Schweickart told me, "I came to call it cosmic birth—Earth is giving birth to consciousness into the cosmos. The fetus, near nine months, puts out a lot of waste, just as we're now putting out a lot of pollution, and begins to demand more resources than are available—and then the mother, naturally, but violently and traumatically, expels the child. The real relationship between mother and child starts after birth, when the child can look back at his mother. And that's what I was doing. My prior inclination toward environmentalism was dramatically amplified—my environment now became the planet."
After the Task Force concluded its first day's work, its members relaxed over dinner, at the Boulder Dushanbe Tea House, by pitying all those who get planetary defense wrong, which turned out to be pretty much everyone but the Task Force. "We were all snickering over 'Armageddon,' with oil drillers going into space on the Shuttle to bury nukes deep in the asteroid," Clark Chapman, an eminent planetary scientist, said. (The Shuttle can't go beyond a near-Earth orbit; nukes would be deployed in standoff explosions to nudge the asteroid, rather than in subsurface blasts that would send smithereens everywhere; and oil drillers wouldn't . . . well, it's pretty clear.)
"An asteroid as big as Texas!" Brian Wilcox, the lead engineer on several NASA projects involving robotic vehicles, marvelled. "There's only one asteroid that size in the solar system, and Ceres is not going to hit us."
Chapman recalled, "At the Los Alamos Conference on planetary defense"—in 1992—"Ed Teller actually said, 'I would love to blow up Ceres!' " Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb, was also a zealous proponent of blasting rogue NEOs.
"What did Ceres ever do to us?" I asked.
Chapman squinted at me. "That wasn't really the point," he said. "The point was that it would be a really big bomb."
Deflection methods are freighted with symbolism: anything that smacks of nuclear vigilantism, or Bond-villain-style laser gizmology, could suggest that we're militarizing space. Alarmists have even suggested that the U.S. might seek to divert an asteroid just enough that it lands on our enemies. However, a military figure familiar with the issue scoffs, "There are so many ways to kill people that precision-plowing an asteroid would be a preposterous way to spend money." Also, few generals would be willing to wait decades or even centuries for the necessary asteroid to come along.
The head of Russia's space agency declared not long ago that his country was planning a mission to deflect Apophis—which some Americans worry could misdirect the asteroid into a keyhole. The question of how the world should make such decisions has been sitting in the United Nations' relevant circle of hell, the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, for twelve years. Norm Augustine, who chaired two reviews of NASA's mission, says that international coöperation on the topic is such that, if we tried to deflect an incoming asteroid, "it would be just our luck that we decided to push it to the east, and the Russians decided to push it to the west, and we got there at the same time."
On the second day of the conference, as the Task Force began to discuss its recommendations, Schweickart addressed Richard Binzel: "So your question, which got me thinking half the night, was 'How do we get the most precise orbits?' Because getting precision on these things turns out to be more important than finding more of them." The group had heard two proposals for placing a satellite equipped with an infrared telescope—the ideal tool for picking up NEOs, which are dim in the visible spectrum—in a Venus-like orbit. Such a satellite would enable NASA to meet the congressional requirement for spotting smaller NEOs in seven and a half years—rather than the twenty to forty allowed by ground-based telescopes—and also to track NEOs for longer periods and pin down their orbits. Schweickart, with the enthusiasm of a new convert, now suggested that such a telescope would "dramatically pay for itself," as it would obviate expensive false-alarm deflection missions.
Surprised, Binzel said, "We're in violent agreement!"
But then Brian Wilcox, the robotics expert, posed another challenge to Schweickart's plans. He questioned the need to test a deflection mission, pointing out that, even though the NASA survey has been seriously underfunded, "we've gone in the last dozen years from an estimate of 1,166 fatalities per year to ninety-one. And pretty soon we're going to be down to twenty-five per year—a number that derives from a twenty-five-thousand-fatality event that happens every thousand years, probably somewhere outside the United States. Just to play devil's advocate, we kill forty thousand people a year in America on the freeways. An intelligent person from the outside world is going to say, 'Why do we need to do anything more than keep looking as we have been?' " NASA's position is that its survey has pretty much ruled out our being hit by any planet- or country-killing NEOs in the next century; the agency's Jim Green told me, "We now know, to a high degree of probability, that we're not under imminent threat in our lifetimes."
One well-placed government expert argues that NASA's confidence is unfounded: "We're not effectively safer; we're just better informed. If an asteroid heads for us, we still have no plan in place." Indeed, if an unknown comet or asteroid were to pop out from behind the sun, we'd have just three to six days' warning. And while long-period comets pose less than one per cent of the over-all threat, their sheer mass and force would make them almost invincible, even with years of warning. In 2005, Ball Aerospace banged a rocket into the comet Tempel-1 at twenty-three thousand miles per hour, basically to see what would happen. The comet was unfazed.
What's more, recent work by the physicist Mark Boslough has shown that even asteroids well under Congress's hundred-and-forty-metre limit can cause significant damage. Boslough persuasively argued, using computer simulations, that the asteroid that flattened the Tunguska forest in 1908 was only thirty to fifty metres wide—about one-third as massive as had been thought. Boslough determined that the bolide actually blew up in the air, creating a violent downward shock wave. All of which means, as there are many more small asteroids than large ones, that we've been hit with airbursting asteroids—and will continue to get hit—much more than we'd thought, as often as every two hundred years. And small ones are the hardest to detect.
"The actuarial argument is important," Chapman now told Wilcox. "But, unlike with Hurricane Katrina, we can do something about an asteroid. The question is whether we'd rather be wrong in overprotecting or underprotecting."
The scope of American power and accountability—the extent to which we are responsible for a Tunguska-like event abroad—lay uneasily beneath the Task Force's closing discussions. Robert Arentz, of Ball Aerospace, sitting in after making a presentation, wondered, "Is it ethical to play God with the lives of the rest of the planet?"
In early October, the NASA Advisory Council met in Palmdale, California, to hear the Task Force's report. Schweickart's bold vision had carried the day, and the recommendations included setting up a Planetary Defense Coördination Office within NASA, and spending as much as three billion dollars over ten years to, among other things, place an infrared telescope into a Venus-like orbit, and test both kinetic impactors and gravity tractors. Ken Ford, the Advisory Council's chairman, told me, "What I liked about the report was it wasn't 'The sky is falling,' and it wasn't 'We need an Apollo-level effort.' It was measured, incremental, and actionable."
Schweickart was listening in via Skype from his hotel in Kuala Lumpur, where he was attending a congress of the Association of Space Explorers, an international group that he founded in 1985. It was after midnight, local time. He said, "I was sitting in the hallway with the Romanian cosmonaut Dumitru Prunariu, using the Wi-Fi from locked conference rooms, on mute, with the hotel staff vacuuming up and down the hall." When the Advisory Council unanimously approved the Task Force's findings, Schweickart and Prunariu jumped up and high-fived.
Nine days later, the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy recommended that NASA be the agency that oversees all research into planetary defense. Significantly, the decision also yoked NEO detection and mitigation to President Obama's plan to send humans to an asteroid by 2025, envisaging deflection activities "as part of the overall mission planning and objectives."
At the moment, the number of asteroids judged suitable for a human visit is fewer than nine, and perhaps as few as zero. So there is an obvious need to find more asteroids—and to learn considerably more about what it's like to operate in their neighborhoods. Paul Abell, the lead NEO scientist at NASA's Johnson Space Flight Center, said that, to find the right asteroid for a human mission, "my personal opinion is we need a space-based survey telescope, which could give us up to forty times the number of targets." Within two and a half years, the Venus-orbit telescope touted by the Task Force could find several hundred promising asteroids closer to home, which could cut billions of dollars out of the price of a mission. Yet what would be a small step for a human mission turns out to be a giant leap for planetary defense: NASA has already indicated that it doesn't have the roughly six hundred and fifty million dollars needed to fund the telescope. And a practice grapple with an asteroid may occur, as vaguely promised by the White House, only when the human mission launches, in fourteen years. (If it does launch: in January, an internal NASA study suggested that a human mission to an asteroid would be "too costly.")
One senior planetary-defense advocate suggests that should the human mission take precedence the tail would truly be wagging the dog. "Saving millions to billions of people and civilization itself is a more important goal than displaying American plumage and vigor by visiting an asteroid," he said. "But, in order to support three to five guys going to an asteroid, I may finally be able to find money for planetary defense."
Still, Schweickart believes that his work as the Johnny Appleseed of NEO deflection has begun to bear fruit. "We're going to have the decision-making systems up and running soon," he insists. "And in my lifetime, if you give me twenty more years, which would be nice, the chance of our being hit by a twenty-five- to thirty-metre object is one in ten—yet there will be, conservatively, at least twenty other objects that will look like they might hit us. So we're going to have to make a tough decision at least twice while I'm around." Even if politicians temporize, Schweickart predicted, "before too long there will be a bolide in the sky over Washington, D.C., and that's going to really focus us." ♦


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Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum
Teacher professional development and classroom resources across the curriculum
Authors and Literary Works
Pat Mora
Works by the Author
Works about the Author
Works by the Author
Mora, Pat. Agua Santa: Holy Water. Boston: Beacon Press, 1997.
This book of poems focuses on feminist themes, describing the lives of Mexican women, both earthly and celestial. Included along with poetry on motherhood, death, and displacement is a poem about Frida Kahlo and one about an Aztec goddess.
----. Aunt Carmen's Book of Practical Saints. Boston: Beacon Press, 1999.
Each of these poems is a fervent prayer from the heart of "Aunt Carmen," a fictional 80-year-old sacristan. Mora pairs each poem with an illustration of a saint carving, which Catholics from northern New Mexico have traditionally created as part of their worship.
----. Borders. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1986.
In Borders, Mora explores how borders both separate and bring people together, whether they be political, professional, gender-related, or personal borders.
----. Chants. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1984.
Mora's poetry focuses on the tension of belonging to two cultures at once, the divisions between people and cultures, family relationships, the desert landscape, and poetry itself. In Chants, Mora's first book, she explores desert culture and, according to Nicolás Kanellos, publisher of Arte Público Press, acts almost as a "shaman" in imparting a spiritual message of healing.
----. Communion. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1991.
Communion brings Mora's first two volumes of poetry, Chants and Borders, full-circle by exploring a variety of ways in which people can come together.
----. House of Houses. Boston: Beacon Press, 2002.
In this innovative memoir, Mora introduces the reader to her extended Mexican family through a series of first-person narratives. Drawing on Mexican history to tell the story of the family's narrow escape from Mexico during the bloody days of Pancho Villa and the Revolution, House of Houses then richly evokes their struggle to begin a new life in the United States.
----. Nepantla: Essays From the Land in the Middle. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993.
Containing essays, speeches, poetry, memoirs, and lectures, this book fleshes out some of Mora's most familiar subjects, such as bilingualism, women, family, and the need for ethnic groups to preserve their cultural heritage.
----. My Own True Name: New and Selected Poems for Young Adults 1984-1999. Texas: Arte P?blico Press, 2000.
----. The Night the Moon Fell: A Maya Myth. Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2000.
In this early-childhood tale, Mora retells a Maya Indian myth about the night the moon fell from the sky and broke on the ocean floor. With help from some friends, the moon rises again, new and whole. Evocative illustrations by Mayan artist Domitila Dominguez -- who also illustrated La Historia de los Colores (The Story of Colors) by Zapatista rebel Subcomandante Marcos -- help bring the story to life.
----. Tomás and the Library Lady. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.
In this award-winning children's book, Mora tells the true story of author Tomás Rivera, a child of migrant farm workers. Helped by a kind librarian, Rivera discovers the world of books, and his own imagination, at a town library. Rivera's novel ...y no se lo tragó la tierra (...And the Earth Did Not Devour Him) is also featured in Session 4 of this series.
Works about the Author
Barrera, Rosalinda B. "Profile: Pat Mora, Fiction/Nonfiction Writer and Poet." Language Arts, 75:3 (March 1998): 221-227.
This profile offers biographical information and a critical appreciation.
Hurado, Aida. "Sitios y Lenguas: Chicanas Theorize Feminisms." Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 13:2 (Spring 1998): 134-160.
This article considers Mora's work from an ethnic and feminist perspective.
Mora, Pat. Pat Mora's Web site.
This site offers samples of work, biographical information, and news.
Rosenmeier, Rosamond. "Three Poets: Three Feminist Worlds." Sojourner: The Women's Forum, 17 (1992): 39-41.
This article offers a look at Mora's treatment of women's issues.
James Welch
Works by the Author
Works about the Author
Works by the Author
Welch, James. The Death of Jim Loney. New York: Harper & Row, 1979.
----. Fools Crow. New York: Viking Press, 1986.
Set shortly after the Civil War, this is the story of a young Blackfeet and his spiritual initiation into manhood. Transformed from "White Man's Dog" into "Fool's Crow" in the course of his quest, the young tribal leader must decide whether to fight white society to preserve his people's way of life, or to assimilate.
----. The Heartsong of Charging Elk. New York: Doubleday, 2000.
Based on the true story of an Ogalala Sioux, this novel tells the tale of Charging Elk, who is touring France in the late 1880s with the Buffalo Bill Cody Wild West Show, performing sham Indian pageants for European audiences. Left by the troupe as he lies sick in a Marseilles hospital, Charging Elk wakes up alone in a world he has no way to negotiate or understand. When he kills a white man who rapes him, he is sentenced to 12 years in prison. The narrative moves back and forth between Charging Elk's memories of his life on the plains and his painful adaptation to this new world. When he is finally pardoned, Charging Elk must decide whether to adapt to the white man's world or find his own.
----. The Indian Lawyer. New York: W.W. Norton, 1990.
Drawing on Welch's own experience serving on a Montana parole board, his fourth novel is a psychological thriller that explores the conflict between two men. Sylvester Yellow Calf has become a prominent lawyer and has put his poverty-stricken past on the Blackfeet reservation behind him. But when an angry convict who was denied parole tries to destroy his career, the paradoxes and problems of life in two worlds become clear.
----. Killing Custer: The Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Fate of the Plains Indians. New York: W.W. Norton, 1994.
In this nonfiction work, Welch tells the Native American side of the story of General George Armstrong Custer's disastrous attack at Little Bighorn. Though the Native Americans were the "victors" in the battle, Welch chronicles how disastrous the attack was for them, as they were subsequently stripped of their freedom, power, and ancestral hunting grounds.
----. Riding the Earthboy 40. Lewiston, ID: Confluence Press, 1971.
Welch's only volume of poetry to date contains many of the themes he would go on to explore further in his fiction. These poems, including the title work, which refers to a family on the reservation and the acreage of their farm, are grounded in the Montana reservation life Welch knew intimately.
----. Winter in the Blood. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.
The narrator in Welch's first novel, Winter in the Blood, describes himself as "as distant from myself as a hawk from the moon." Searching for connection to his Indian heritage, and tormented by memories and visions, the narrator tells a discontinuous narrative that draws on elements of the tribal storytelling tradition. The novel, for all its bleakness, has a strong comic undercurrent that ranges from ironic to absurd to outright slapstick. Though little changes for the nameless character outwardly, inwardly he reflects on his ancestry and the deaths of his father, brother, and grandmother.
Works about the Author
Antell, Judith A. "Momaday, Welch, and Silko: Expressing the Feminine Principle Through Male Alienation." American-Indian Quarterly, 12:3 (Summer 1988): 213-220.
This article considers Welch's work in comparison with other great Native American authors.
Bovey, Seth. "Whitehorns and Blackhorns: Images of Cattle Ranching in the Novels of James Welch." South Dakota Review, 29:1 (Spring 1991): 129-39.
This article considers the politics of Welch's thematics.
McFarland, Ron. James Welch. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2000.
McFarland's biography offers a critical interpretation of Welch's works.
Nelson, Robert M. Place and Vision: The Function of Landscape in Native American Fiction. New York: Peter Lang, 1995.
This is a critical analysis of the work of Momaday, James Welch, and Leslie Marmon Silko.
Sands, Kathleen M. "Closing the Distance: Critic, Reader and the Works of James Welch." MELUS, 14:2 (Summer 1987): 73-85.
This article offers a reader-centered perspective on Welch's work.
Stromberg, Ernest. "The Only Real Indian Is a Dead Indian: The Desire for Authenticity in James Welch's The Death of Jim Loney." Studies in American Indian Literatures, 10:4 (Winter 1998): 33-53.
This article offers a critical analysis of Welch's work.
Vangen, Kate. "Thirteen Lumpy Stones for Luck and Friendship: Influences on James Welch's Poetry." Wooster Rev 8 (Spring 1988): 157-167.
This article presents a study of the influences on Welch's work.
----. Four American Indian Literary Masters: N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Gerald Vizenor. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982.
This book compares the thematics and structures of several Native American authors.
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text: Revolution comes back tonight after several months on hiatus. Can it recapture its former ratings glory? It premiered to a 4.1 rating at the start of the season, but slid pretty dramatically, with its last episode earning a 2.9 back in November. The Voice is also returning tonight for its spring premiere, so it should have the benefit of a generous lead in, but a nearly 4-month hiatus could lose the interest of even the most committed viewer. So what do you think? Make your predictions below and tell us why in the comments!


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First Published: 19 Jun 2019
How can we remove unnecessary barriers to justice and make sure people are supported to bring discrimination claims?
First Published: 09 Apr 2019
The Commission in Scotland's annual report 2016 to 2017 provides an overview of the extensive programme of work we have delivered in Scotland in the sole objective of making Scotland a fairer place for all.
First Published: 11 Oct 2018
We review people's experiences of prejudice, and people's attitudes towards others, in Britain today.
First Published: 11 Sep 2018
This research report looks at how duties on public sector bodies in Scotland have worked to reduce socio-economic disadvantage.
First Published: 23 Mar 2018
This report looks at the effectiveness of unconscious bias training and makes recommendations for employers, policymakers and human resource professionals
First Published: 06 Oct 2017
First Published: 18 Sep 2017
This guide helps you to understand how a Scottish Court works out how much a successful claim for discrimination is worth.
First Published: 07 Sep 2017
Updated submission to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
First Published: 14 Aug 2017
'Tackling disability-related harassment: Final progress report 2017' concludes the Commission's review into the actions and initiatives taken by public authorities in dealing with disability-related harassment.
First Published: 13 Jul 2017
This guide explains what the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is and what it means for you.


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Parliament steps
Parliament steps
Greeting cards
13x18 cm folded card printed on premium 300gsm white stock. Blank inside, supplied with envelope. Descriptive text on back.
All prints are printed and framed to order. Size refers to the dimension of the printed photograph. Photo paper is lustre (non-reflective semi-matte with a slight sheen). Quality black timber made-in-Melbourne frames are used. Frame dimensions will be chosen to best match the aspect ratio of your chosen image, with a mat surrounding the image of approximately 5 cm (again depending on the frame size). I use a white mat for black-and-white photographs and a black mat for colour photographs. Exact frame/image/mat dimensions can be provided on request, as can custom requirements for print size, frame colour and type and mat colour. Contact us to discuss your needs.
The image of a framed print is an approximation only.
Posters are printed on lustre photographic paper and laminated for extra protection. Image will be resized and cropped to best fill the finished size. Supplied in a postal tube. Other sizes available on request.


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- Maintenance Agreements
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Understanding the steps
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Senators grill spy chiefs, accuse them of lies
Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee lambasted the nation's top intelligence chiefs on Wednesday, complaining of lies about gathering the phone records of Americans and failing to cooperate with Congress in an investigation of the CIA's controversial interrogation programs.
Committee members grilled Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan at the first intelligence committee hearing since President Barack Obama proposed reforms to the spy program.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told them an ongoing "culture of misinformation" has undermined the public's trust in America's intelligence leadership.
"That trust has been seriously undermined by senior officials' reckless reliance on secret interpretations of the law and battered by years of misleading and deceptive statements senior officials made to the American people," Wyden said.
He said the deception didn't help the fight against terror, but instead hid bad policy choices and violations of civil liberties. Wyden singled out Clapper's testimony to Congress last March that the National Security Agency does not collect data on millions of Americans, an assertion proved false by leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Clapper has since apologized, suggesting he misspoke. But five members of Congress, led by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., called this week for the White House to fire Clapper for misleading Congress.
Clapper didn't address the charges of deception Wednesday. But he told the Senate panel that Snowden's leaks have damaged national security and exposed intelligence collection methods to terrorists.
"Snowden claims he's won and that his mission is accomplished," Clapper said. "If that is so, I call on him and his accomplices to facilitate the return of the remaining stolen documents that have not yet been exposed, in order to prevent even more damage to U.S. security."
Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Susan Collins of Maine agreed that Snowden's disclosures put America at greater threat of attack, and they suggested the leaks could endanger members of the military.
"What really bothers me sometimes is these romanticized notions about who Edward Snowden is and what he's done to this country," Rubio said.
Democratic Sens. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Mark Udall of Colorado criticized Brennan, the CIA chief. They said Brennan is failing to cooperate with the Intelligence Committee's probe of the CIA's post-9/11 detention and interrogation program. It included secret prisons and techniques such as waterboarding often equated with torture.
"Recent efforts undertaken by the CIA, including but not limited to inaccurate public statements about the committee study, are meant to intimidate, deflect and thwart legitimate oversight," said Heinrich.
Heinrich said the Senate Intelligence Committee should declassify and release the 6,300-page report it prepared on the program. The highly critical report alleges the CIA misled lawmakers about the value of the information produced by the interrogation technique.
The CIA has disputed the findings. But Brennan said Wednesday that he "vehemently disagrees" with the charge the CIA has not cooperated with the Senate probe.
Udall pressed Brennan on an internal report the CIA did of the program under former agency chief Leon Panetta. The findings weren't given to the Senate committee as it investigated.
Brennan wouldn't say if the CIA's internal report conflicts with what the agency told the Senate Intelligence Committee. He suggested that discussion involved classified information and would need to happen behind closed doors.


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Madonna Finally Comments on Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way'
From the "Backhanded Compliment" Department: Madonna has finally commented on the title track from Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way.' When the song dropped about a year ago, it was instantly met with accusations that Gaga had blatantly and directly ripped off and copied Madge's 1989 hit, 'Express Yourself.' It was not lost on Madonna herself, who only recently referred to the song as a 'redo.'
While Gaga even addressed those criticisms, pointing out that she releases pop music on a mass scale and isn't trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes, Madonna spoke to Newsweek's Jacob Bernstein, according to this Tumblr, and directly address the similarities.
"I thought, this is a wonderful way to redo my song," Madonna said about 'Born This Way' and 'Express Yourself.' She continued, "I mean, I recognized the chord changes. I thought it was…interesting."
Breaking down Madge's short but not-exactly-sweet assessment: She calls it wonderful, but then calls it a redo, so that's sorta backhanded. Her second statement, that it's "interesting," feels like it has a little bite to it. Madge isn't being catty and taking a swipe at Gaga, but she is asserting her dominance in a subtle way, which we're not used to, since she is overt.
Oh ladies, just get it over with. Exchange texts, blow air kisses and get in the studio for the duet of all time!
The piece will run in the Jan. 30 issue of the magazine.


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LOUIS D. BRANDEIS: A Life by Melvin I. Urofsky is reviewed by Alan Dershowitz in the New York Times. Dershowitz finds it a "monumental, authoritative and appreciative biography."
Annette Gordon-Reed's National Book Festival interview appeared in the Washington Post.
Also reviewed this weekend, THE CLINTON TAPES: Wrestling History With the President by Taylor Branch in the NY Times, and Theodore Roosevelt and theCrusade for America by Douglas Brinkley in the LA Times.


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