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I'm a veteran. I spent 30 years serving in the United States Navy, retiring in August of 2003. I served in times of conflict, not war. We don't call it war anymore. I served on four ships and was in the arena during Desert Shield/Storm, which I am sure was nothing like serving in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan. Regardless, there were times when I experienced fear by just being on a ship in a dangerous atmosphere. I prayed a lot.
My father served in World War II as an engineer in the United States Merchant Marine Service. He served on transport ships that were mostly without protection of their own or of other ships or aircraft. I know that he was afraid, at times, because he told me. He hated going below decks into the engine room knowing his fate was sealed if they suffered an enemy attack. He prayed a lot.
Prior to the end of WW II, in November 1944, Thomas Sugrue (the author of the Edgar Cayce biography There Is a River wrote a letter to Edgar Cayce that was published in the A.R.E. bulletin. I rediscovered this letter while doing research for my Egypt group. It is as relevant today as it was then. We are still "in conflict," if not war, around the globe. Everyone either has or knows a brother, sister, father, mother, son, daughter, relative, friend, or neighbor serving in defense of our country. Pray for them.
Dear Boss [Edgar Cayce]:
It is a week today since we sat with the radio turned on all through the morning and afternoon and night, hearing the first news of the invasion. Between the brief, tantalizing bulletins, that said so little and suggested so much, we prayed that not too many would have to be killed, not too many maimed, not too many blinded, shocked, disfigured; for they were dying for our sins — to save a liberty we imperiled by denying it to others…
On last Tuesday night at 11:15, I lay in bed listening to a broadcast from the invasion coast—one of those records made by the on-the-spot reporters… Charles Collingwood…said he was soaked through, that their landing craft was loaded with TNT, and that he was frankly nervous. The sound of firing was audible. He said, "I see a Naval captain stopping to look curiously at my rig. Perhaps I can get him to say a few words. Will you come over, Captain?" Then I heard a voice—a voice very familiar to me—say, "I'm not a captain. I'm just a lieutenant, but after you've been on this beach a little while you look like almost anything."
"It's Jerry! Jerry Danzig!" I said to Mary. We listened closely. There could be no mistake—the phrasing, the choice of words, the laugh, all were Jerry's. But he sounded so calm, so matter-of-fact, that I could hardly believe he was not standing beside me, instead of supervising the unloading of a batch of dynamite on the invasion beach of Normandy, with shells dropping all around him…
Over the invasion coast the bombers flew. In one of them, two boys named Jim and Joe crouched at their guns—one in the top turret, one in the waist of the ship. They had come to see me before their crew left Drew Field in Tampa, to fly overseas. They were nervous, Jim particularly so. Both had been in England and completed the allotted 25 missions. They had returned to this country with the understanding that their combat days were over—they would be used to instruct. But there was a shortage of men; after a furlough and a stay at a rehabilitation center, they were assigned to a new crew—a green crew—and a new ship.
Their nervousness came from their feeling that they had run out of their luck. Joe's bomber was the only one left after 25 missions over Germany, the lone survivor of its squadron. Could he hope for the same good fortune again? Jim was even more depressed. He was one of five brothers, all in the service. Two had been killed; one had returned home, blind. He believed he had survived 25 missions because of the skill of his pilot; now he would have a new one, a green one…
"Well," I said, "You can't lose. You're holding a royal flush. If you get back, the world is yours, and you will have memories to make the rest of your life rich. If you don't come back, you go over to the other side with money in the bank. Few of us get a chance to die for a good cause—with most of us it is a selfish lingering, and if we leave behind anything but our insurance we are lucky.
"The only important thing is the pattern. The body is a mess of atoms grouped around the pattern, the way iron filings group around a magnet. Take the magnet away and they are free to do as they please again. Your plane isn't much good without its crew. The crew is the pattern.
"Once a pattern is free, it can operate in other places—look at the sky when you're on a night run. Every star is a sun. There are more worlds than there are people on this earth. On some of them, things will be easier. We may not have to eat, or dig ditches. Our bodies may be lighter. Instead of taste, smell, hearing, touch, and sight, our five senses may be love, kindness, humility, appreciation of beauty, and longing. If so, there would be things for them to exercise upon, as there are things here for us to exercise our eyes and fingers and ears and nose on. Wouldn't that be wonderful—to taste love the way you taste a steak, to smell beauty the way you smell a flower, to touch humility the way you stroke a kitten, to hear longing the way you hear the wind, or music?
"Those worlds are in all stages of evolution. They need strong, brave souls, to do the things necessary for their unfoldment. You boys would qualify—a world may need a Columbus to discover new continents, an Edison to discover electricity, a Washington to free a nation, a Wright to discover the airplane. You might get the assignment. You would deserve it."
I talked on in that vein, watching their reactions. Slowly their imaginations took fire. They were unmarried, young, adventurous—I painted a picture of the cosmos which sounded as attractive as the Wild West was to me in my boyhood. They began to make comments, to ask questions, to joke about what they would be and where they would go, after death.
"This place," I said, "is just a mudball. I'll be glad to leave when my work is done. But I want to be sure the work is done, and done well, before I go, otherwise I'll be demoted instead of promoted. That's where you fellows have a sure bet. You take the sins of the world on your shoulders when you fly into battle."
Our soldiers now are facing death, with clear eyes, strong hearts, and serene spirits. Can we face them in the same high way when they come back? If we have been about Our Father's business we can.
My love and best wishes to you …
[signed] Tom
1797-3 Report: July, 1944 Letter from Thomas Sugrue to Edgar Cayce
Used in 1944 A.R.E. Bulletin
Thomas J. Sugrue (1907–1953) was an outstanding writer, authoring seven exceptional books and
hundreds of articles. He sought the help of psychic Edgar Cayce for a rare arthritis disease for which
conventional treatments were not working. He entered Cayce's home an invalid and left walking in
October of 1941. It was during this time that he wrote There Is a River, the only biography of Edgar
Cayce written during Cayce's lifetime and the book that made the psychic a household name in 1942.
Visit EdgarCayce.org/radio to listen to a lecture podcast from the archives on from our Radio Show
Mickey, an inmate serving a life sentence at a South Carolina maximum security prison, was going blind. The Department of Corrections had paid for one cataract operation, which now had clouded over. The other eye had its problems as well with a newly formed cataract of its own. Mickey was legally blind.
The warden said the state would not pay for further medical help. Mickey was working in the chaplain's office and functioned in that capacity after the chaplain left each day. But, after nightfall, he could not see in the darkness. Those who needed help after dark were out of luck.
I was a volunteer chaplain at this prison. I wanted to help Mickey but I could not do it alone.
An Edgar Cayce Study Group that met weekly in my home became interested. We discussed what could be done. The warden was creating more obstacles than necessary. Why?
We set out to work through the obstacles we knew were standing in the way.
Word went out about Mickey's need for surgery. Generous and caring people sent money toward the surgery. Money accumulated from people who wanted to see a blind inmate, who was doing remarkable work with other inmates, regain his sight. Individuals helped. When the Lions Club found out about Mickey, they helped too.
Hearts were opening for an inmate, who had made a mistake in the past and was now serving others.
We located an ophthalmologist who agreed to do the work. This respected surgeon did not shrink from having a beige uniformed prison inmate with a brown stripe down his pant leg in his reception room. Mickey was shy and didn't want to appear in public wearing shackles and accompanied by two armed guards. The surgeon's acceptance of Mickey helped. Mickey had to do what he had to do. Without the surgery, he could be of no service to others. The surgeon could render him functional again. That was his dream and ours.
We were about to witness a miracle that fanned out in more directions than we could have imagined.
I called the warden's office. All the details had been worked out. The date for the medical pre-op appointment was made. The local police officers were ready.
Mickey watched the minutes of the wall clock tick toward 9 a.m. Any minute now the local police would arrive to take him to the appointment. He would be shackled, hand and foot. But Mickey could do it now, thanks to a magnanimous surgeon.
At 8:45 a.m. Mickey received devastating news. The warden ordered the operation stopped.
Once again we coordinated a new time for the procedure. I again notified the warden's office. But for a second time, the warden stopped the operation on the very day the appointment was set.
We were astounded. Why? It would take a miracle to help Mickey restore his sight.
From the grapevine we heard the reason. The warden was resolute. "No woman is going to tell me what to do." He misunderstood our intentions. We were trying to help an inmate who could not help himself.
But we had overlooked the warden's need. We looked at the situation. The warden was expressing his need to be respected. He had worked his way up through the ranks to the prison's highest position. He needed to exert his authority. Although we thought we had checked with him all along the way, the focus had been on Mickey. Apparently the warden needed more. Now, what could we do to help?
The Warden was hurting.
Our Edgar Cayce group knew from the Cayce readings that prayer was beneficial. We formulated a 30-day prayer for our group to use at the meetings and for each member to use daily: "May the highest and best be done for the warden." We each wanted the best for the warden.
In less than three weeks, something startling happened. Suddenly, the warden retired. He was leaving a system where he was unhappy. We rejoiced. He was getting what he wanted, and we were glad. If we could not help Mickey, we could help heal the warden's wounds.
A new warden was in place. We contacted him to see if there would be any objection to our continuing our efforts to help Mickey.
"No, of course not," came our answer.
Plans were formulated again. All went without a hitch.
When Mickey came from the operating room, he was staring at the wall, transfixed by the floral pattern he saw there. He had been unable to see details of any kind for months. He was captivated with the design on the wallpaper. To him the wallpaper's simple floral pattern was exquisite.
So we lifted our grateful hearts. The loving Creator had healed wounds we did not know about. A hurting warden had been helped, and the way for corrective surgery for Mickey had been cleared.
Mickey's miracle was all inclusive.
Barbara Derrick, PhD, a researcher, lecturer and writer on Edgar Cayce, is a counselor, family therapist, and mental health specialist who has successfully used a protocol suggested by Edgar Cayce to enhance and improve the lives of Alzheimer's patients. She has presented at the Edgar Cayce Health Symposium at Virginia Beach and her articles have appeared in Venture Inward magazine, available exclusively to Members by mail or online at
To learn more about A.R.E.'s Study Group Programs, visit EdgarCayce.org/studygroups.
In the Astrologer's Corner of the Oct-Dec 2012 issue of Venture Inward magazine, I noted the following:
Here we go again. Mercury will change direction, turning retrograde (Rx), on election day, November 6, 2012. Remember the Bush-Gore election in 2000 with the "hanging chads" and vote recounts? Mercury also changed direction on election day 2000. ... In the 2012 election there could be a possible breakdown in communications, even recounts, or irregularities that might eventually have some court involvement (Mercury will be in Sagittarius, ruler of the courts).
Well, the 2012 election is over, and the public did not see recounts or court involvements, but does that mean Mercury Rx was not an influence?
There was some definite confusion on Election Day, with long lines and some delays—especially with Florida's returns. David Letterman cracked a joke after the election about a 98-year-old woman who had voted for the first time in this election...but she had been in line since she was 78.
In addition, a little published fact about the actions of Mitt Romney provides an excellent example of how the use of the free will can change and negate the influences of astrology (although I assume that Romney had no knowledge of the Mercury Rx).
The Cayce readings emphasized over and over that the study of astrology can be helpful to everyone, but it never supersedes the power of free will. In the words of astrologer Dennis Harness PhD, "astrology is a 'choice revealer,' not a 'choice maker.'" Astrology shows influences only, but we still retain our free will to look at the choices that are revealed and make the most constructive choice we can.
An article titled "The Moment When Mitt Romney Knew He Had Lost" by Josh Voorhees was spotted by one of my clients and sent to me after the election. An excerpt from the article goes like this:
"Late Tuesday night, Karl Rove made quite the show of challenging Fox News' 'projection that President Obama had won Ohio, and thus a second term in office. Mitt Romney's staff was likewise ready to deploy to the Buckeye State and a trio of other battleground states to challenge the election-night tallies. For a moment, however brief, a prolonged political and legal fight over who had won the election appeared well within the realm of possibility... But then, Mr. Romney quietly decided it was over. 'It's not going to happen,' he said.'"
The possibility for this election ending up in court was clearly indicated in astrology by Mercury Rx in Sagittarius, and according to this report, the option was presented to Romney by Carl Rove and his staff. But Romney, using his free will, as the Cayce readings so often emphasized as the only way to work with astrology, made a different choice.
No matter what our own personal political beliefs are, we can recognize that an astrological influence was present, but the free will of a human overrode it.
RAYE MATHIS is a faculty member at Atlantic University where Transformational Astrology is among the courses she mentors. She has a BA in mathematics, a Master's degree in clinical social work, and has completed post-graduate work at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. She has maintained an on-going astrological counseling practice for almost 40 years. Her column, The Astrologer's Corner, appears in the A.R.E.'s Venture Inward magazine available exclusively to Members by mail or online at EdgarCayce.org/members. Beginning Wednesday, January 30, 2013 Raye Mathis will be mentoring a 4-week online eGroup titled Discover Your Life's Purpose Using Astrology as Your Guide. For more information, visit EdgarCayce.org/egroups.
You can read the entire article at Slate.com's blog.
Beginning with the April-June 2013 issue of Venture Inward magazine, we will add a psychic Q&A column!
Psychic Kim O'Neill, who is also the author of The Calling: My Journey with the Angels (published by 4th Dimension Press, an imprint of A.R.E. Press) has offered to respond to your queries. All we need now are your questions!
Kim, who has been a professional psychic for over 20 years, has been writing an "Ask Kim" column for a Texas publication called Indigo Sun for eight years. She has volunteered her services to show her appreciation for A.R.E.'s members and supporters.
Kim will choose at least one personal and one general question per column/magazine issue and report the answer given to her by her angel guides. Her column will then appear in every issue of Venture Inward.
Just send your question to firstname.lastname@example.com. Be sure to include your first name, first initial of your last name, age, and location of your residence (city/state/country).
All A.R.E. members can access the magazine online at EdgarCayce.org/members. In addition, traditional members receive the print magazine by mail. Not a member? Learn more about A.R.E. membership at EdgarCayce.org/membership.
Kim O'Neill, voted Houston's Top Psychic by Houston Press Magazine, has been a psychic channel for over 24 years. She conducts private channeling sessions for an international list of clients from all walks of life—physicians, attorneys, entertainment professionals, religious leaders, fellow psychics, and many more. Her "Ask Kim" column is a prominent monthly feature in Indigo Sun Magazine. She has established international motivational seminars and workshops designed to help people transform their lives and develop greater spiritual. She is a frequent guest on radio and TV talk shows, providing accurate and specific psychic information covering a wide range of topics. She is also the author of the best-selling book How to Talk with Your Angels. Kim lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband and their two children.
She'll be in Virginia Beach for the upcoming A.R.E. Headquarter's Conference How to Talk With Your Angels: A Workshop for Experiencing Your Angelic Guides on Saturday, March 2, 2013.
Edgar Cayce's A.R.E. blog offers opinion pieces from contributors with a wide variety of backgrounds. These opinions are valued and create points of discussion. Opinions expressed in our blog may not necessarily represent the opinion of A.R.E.


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Team Summify Expands
For some of us, nothing beats the atmosphere of energy and learning offered by an early stage start-up. With the recent launch of the iPhone app and many more releases on the way, it's an exciting time at Summify, so exciting that we almost forgot to introduce ourselves!
Although we're from entirely different backgrounds, the common thread that brought us all together was the opportunity to join two uber cool founders at ground level as they build an internet company. There's something about the unknown, the chance to make a difference, or is it just the free lunch? Either way, we're amped to be a part of a team we believe in. Here we are: the new kids on the block.
Mark Chua – Software Engineer
Joining us back in April, Mark has a degree in Computer Science from SFU and China's Zhejiang University. Outside of the office he enjoys origami and playing badminton. We had him at "free lunch."
Nimalan Mahendran – Software Engineer
It was a natural celebration when Nimalan joined us on the 4 of July. We may not be Americans, but who doesn't like fireworks? Previously, Nimalan worked at SAP and graduated from UBC with a MSc in Machine Learning, as well as a BMath in Computer Science from Waterloo. You may find him distance running in home-made sandals or planning a trip to Antarctica to visit penguins. We'll remind him to take a plane.
Robin Campbell – Community Guy
In a room full of hackers, Robin is the odd guy out. Prior to joining the Summify family in June, Robin was building the Canadian breakdance community through Famouscircle.com, organizing international events and managing online content. Graduating with a BCom in Entrepreneurship, he plans to shake things up a little. Office bootcamps, West Coast adventures and salsa lessons are not out of the question. He recently celebrated the 10 year anniversary of his breakdance crew, Filthee Feet.

subset: commoncrawl


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The 5 Biggest Mismatches in Movie Fight History
Fight: Tommy Riley (James Marshall) vs. Jimmy Horn (Brian Dennehy)
Gladiator is better known as that movie you accidentally started watching because you thought it was the one with Russell Crowe, and had to keep watching because you couldn't believe how bad it was.
It almost feels like nitpicking to call out just one aspect of a movie about underground boxing as being absurd. To begin with, we're pretty certain the world of illegal underground boxing doesn't exist, or at least isn't as easy to get trapped in as the filmmakers ask us to believe. Even more absurd—they ask us to buy Cuba Gooding Jr. as a black man.
The story follows Tommy Riley's rise through the seedy world of some strange boxing-like sport that's illegal for some reason. After beating his final opponent, you think the movie's over, but instead Riley goes on to fight the same guy who played Chris Farley's dad in Tommy Boy, who we think is supposed to be an evil trainer or something. To get an idea of just how mind blowingly strange this turn of events is, imagine if after Rocky beat Ivan Drago at the end of Rocky IV, there was a 20-minute scene in which he fought Drago's 65-year-old boxing trainer.
The highlight of the final fight has to be the tankini that Dennehy is sporting, though it just barely beats out the part where Dennehy punches Riley in the balls. You've got to hand it to the filmmakers, no one saw that ending coming.


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5 Conspiracy Theories That Are Shockingly Easy to Debunk
Just about every major event in history has a conspiracy theory attached to it, whether you've heard of it or not. It's just that most of them remain known only to the hardcore "we'll believe anything" true believers, where others, like the ones below, pick up real traction.
But even among theories like these (which count their believers in the millions), you find that the whole thing is usually based on some embarrassingly simple misunderstanding. For example ...
#5. The JFK Assassination Is Explained by How the Targets Were Sitting
Library of Congress / Getty
The Theory:
If you've seen Oliver Stone's JFK, then you'll remember the climactic scene in which Kevin Costner "proves" that the Kennedy assassination was a conspiracy by demonstrating the impossible path of Oswald's shot, which he sarcastically dubs "the magic bullet."
"I suspect warlocks are somehow involved."
The problem, according to those who believe in the conspiracy theory, is that Kennedy and Governor John Connally (who was seated in front of him) both suffered a constellation of wounds on their bodies from what the official investigation claims was a single bullet fired by Oswald. For this to be possible, the bullet would have had to curve around in midair several times, in multiple directions.
Since this openly defies the laws of physics, there must have been another shooter on the grassy knoll, or maybe the limo driver did it, or perhaps it was space lasers from a Nazi base on the moon. In Stone's film and elsewhere, you see it accompanied by a diagram like this:
John McAdams
Our guess? Connally had one of those shoulder magnets that were all the rage back then.
The Simple Misunderstanding:
JFK and Connally weren't sitting like that.
The people who draw up these diagrams invariably put Connally at an equal height to and seated directly in front of Kennedy. That's where they'd be sitting if they were two ordinary dudes riding in an ordinary sedan, but the problem is that this sedan happened to be carrying one ordinary dude and the president of the United States.
The people who are paid to arrange this kind of thing knew who the people in the crowd were really there to see, and it wasn't Governor Connally. So to prevent Connally from blocking the view of the president, he was put in a little jump seat, which was both set off from and lower than Kennedy's position. So they were actually sitting like this:
John McAdams
If only JFK had called shotgun.
If you think that's a convenient story trumpeted out to explain away the mysterious curving bullet, don't just take our word for it. That diagram was drawn from a photograph taken from behind Kennedy (the photographer was "Betzner") in which you can clearly see that Connally is either a hunchbacked dwarf or in a very strange sitting position:
Or else you can just look at a photograph of the inside of the car:
John McAdams
It's like someone put a booster seat on the floor or something.
You'll also notice that Kennedy and Connally weren't sitting rigid and facing forward like robots, as the conspiracy theorists suggest, but were twisted in their seats and waving at the audience as though, like, they were at a parade of some kind. Rearrange their bodies that way, and the path of the bullet -- Oswald's bullet -- goes straight through them. Just like it should.
#4. The Pearl Harbor Conspiracy Relies on a Terrible Understanding of Politics
PhotoQuest / Getty
The Theory:
Conspiracy theories didn't begin with Kennedy. Look back through history and you'll find that any time some disgruntled foreign agent ever committed an atrocity on American soil, there were people screaming "false flag!" -- meaning the government intentionally staged the attack to drum up support for some kind of evil foreign policy, or, at the very least, intentionally let it happen for the same reason.
All of those red coats are really George Washington.
Take Pearl Harbor. After the Japanese air force launched a surprise attack on the American fleet in 1941, it became a widespread belief among conspiracy authors that President Roosevelt knew the attack was going to take place, but allowed it to go ahead. Why? Quite simply, he had a hard-on for war with Germany, but didn't have the public support for it. Since Hitler had signed a pact with Japan, war with either of them meant war with both, and allowing everyone at Pearl Harbor to be murdered would give FDR all the public support he needed to enter the war. He could spank Hitler's ass while still looking like the victim.
The Simple Misunderstanding:
The Tripartite Pact, the pact between Japan, Germany, and Italy, was a defensive alliance only. That means Hitler was under no obligation to attack the United States just because his idiot friends did.
Photos.com/Photos.com/Getty Images
"C'mon, guys, seriously?"
Of course, Germany did declare war after Pearl Harbor, but it had nothing to do with the idea that Hitler's hand was forced by some deal he had with Japan. Instead, he cited the Lend-Lease Act and American naval activity as his reasons. That's because Roosevelt was already pissing Hitler off by ordering his destroyers to sink German submarines on sight while at the same time escorting boatloads of weapons and supplies to Hitler's enemies.
It's true that Roosevelt was pretty keen to enter the war against Germany ... to the point where he actually didn't want to go to war with Japan because a war in the Pacific would distract him from his German hate-boner.
A boner that usually made him too nervous to stand.
And speaking of "false flag" attacks ...
#3. The World Trade Center Did Not Collapse at "Free-Fall Speed"
AFP / Getty
The Theory:
Because it occurred in the Internet era, the 9/11 World Trade Center attack is the one historical event that has generated more conspiracy theories than the Kennedy assassination. There are tons of equally crazy variations of the theory, but they all come down to the curious way the towers fell.
Al Bello/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images
"This is clearly a murder/suicide. The South Tower was jealous of the North Tower's hat."
Conspiracy theorists say the buildings fell at "free-fall speed," meaning that they didn't just slowly crumble away or tip over like you might expect, but that the whole damn things just fell down at once, like a house of cards. That, they say, proves that the towers were wired with explosives by the U.S. government. Why else would sturdy skyscrapers just collapse in a puff of smoke like that?
The Simple Misunderstanding:
When somebody tells you that the towers fell at "free-fall speed," they're more or less pulling that out of their ass. Or at least, they're referencing some other conspiracy theorists who pulled it out of their ass. They're not referencing any kind of scientific theory or measurement; they're just timing the fall as they watch YouTube videos and declaring that it looks different from how it plays out in their imagination. In other words, they don't actually know what they mean by "free fall" except that the buildings seem to be falling more quickly than they'd expect from the almost certainly zero controlled demolitions they've seen before.
Jack Hollingsworth/Photodisc/Getty Images
Structural engineering is probably one of those "gut" things anyway.
Most of the video of the actual collapse is filmed in Cloverfield-style shaky-cam, but if you watch any of the still-camera footage, you can debunk the free-fall claim simply from the fact that there's debris coming off the tower that's falling faster than the tower is. We've known that objects free fall at the same speed ever since Galileo dropped some balls off the Leaning Tower of Pisa, so that more or less puts the kibosh on the whole free-fall business.
Part of the problem is that the Twin Towers were basically big, featureless rectangles that made it look like the whole thing was falling at once. Conspiracy theorists like Rosie O'Donnell like to rattle off statistics like how the towers fell in nine seconds, which just happens to be free-fall speed. But nine seconds is more likely the amount of time that Rosie put into researching the issue, because if she'd actually timed the collapse, she would have found that the towers took about 15 and 22 seconds to collapse, well short of free-fall speed. But then, that's why very few engineering graduates cite Rosie O'Donnell as a source.
Michael Loccisano / Getty
She is, however, considered a reputable expert on the Crimean War.
As for why the buildings collapsed at all, that has to do with the way they were designed and their resulting inability to stand up to the horrific fires caused by the crashes. As for why the buildings weren't designed to withstand this kind of attack, it's because the world can only do so much to protect you from unthinkable horrors, and nothing will change that.


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5 Horrifying Places Real People Got Trapped and Forgotten
The big difference between daily life now and a hundred years ago is that today you're always being watched. If you went missing, it wouldn't be long before your friends noticed you were no longer updating Facebook or Instagramming your lunch, and within hours the cops would find the security camera footage of you getting buried under a pallet of dog food at Costco.
The truth is that even in the modern world, people just ... fall through the cracks. The stories are more frequent -- and more horrifying -- than you'd think. And be warned: The entries on this list start escalating in severity fast.
#5. Nicholas White Was Stuck in an Elevator for 41 Hours
DAJ/amana images/Getty Images
On the evening of October 15, 1999, Nicholas White was working at the McGraw-Hill Building in New York City and went down to the ground level to have a smoke. After a refreshing nicotine hit, he headed back up to his 43rd floor office via an express elevator that skips floors 1 through 39.
Fuse/Fuse/Getty Images
"Good thing we installed these express elevators, otherwise it might take a long time to get up there."
On his way up, the elevator unexpectedly stopped. White hit the alarm and waited. Nothing. He investigated his surroundings -- there was nothing in his 6-by-6 box. No warning text, no elevator emergency phone, not even a mirror with which to check out his beautiful '90s mullet. So he waited some more. After all, how long could it really take for someone to notice that the elevator had never arrived? Half an hour? An hour?
Time passed. No one came. Starting to get desperate, White tried to pry the door open, presumably planning to climb down the elevator shaft like in Die Hard. Instead, he was met with a solid concrete wall with the number 13 stenciled on it. That's the thing about an express elevator -- it doesn't stop at those floors, so there were no openings. It was 39 floors of solid concrete shaft. White could do nothing but stand there for the rest of the afternoon. And into the night. And then overnight. Then all day the next day.
Comstock Images/Stockbyte/Getty
Giving all of his co-workers a free scapegoat for the day.
All told, White was stuck in that little metal box for 41 fucking hours, on the unlucky 13th floor, no less, with nothing but three matches, his wallet, and some cigarettes. No food, no water, no bathroom, and no indication that anyone was making any effort whatsoever to get him out. All he could do was pace around in dead silence (he kept the alarm going for as long as possible, but the constant ringing caused him to have auditory hallucinations). This is where you have to wonder if maybe your employers don't care about you quite as much as they say they do.
"That's horrifying," you say, "Why don't they have cameras or something in those elevators?" Oh, they do. Here's his entire ordeal, compressed into a three-minute clip and uploaded to YouTube:
At two minutes in, you see him try to climb out of the hatch at the top (it was locked) and repeatedly open the doors as if at some point he'd magically see something other than concrete there (some of those times, he's pissing down the shaft). So, yes, you now understand the truly disturbing part of this story: None of the security guards paid close enough attention to those video feeds to notice that there was a guy frantically trying to escape Car 30 for nearly two days. Five different shifts went by, this man trapped in plain sight, until finally someone noticed that, wait a second, there's a dude sleeping on the floor of one of the elevators.
At first a security guard thought a bum had sneaked into the building, so he buzzed the intercom to ask what was going on. After White determined that it wasn't God speaking, but an idiot security guard, he showed his ID to the camera and a mechanic was sent to free him from his prison. Yet the building staff couldn't even get that right -- when the elevator doors opened and White could see farther than 6 feet in any direction for the first time in 41 hours, he burst out into the hallway, only to see that the maintenance crew was waiting for him at the wrong elevator door down the hall.
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"I don't think this is the right one. There's no poop corner."
White sued, and found himself embroiled in a much longer ordeal. The case dragged out for four years, until a homeless, penniless, and jobless White settled for a small undisclosed sum. That also means that he can't even sell his story, like that guy who got stuck in the airport whose story was made into a Tom Hanks movie.
#4. A French Grandmother Got Stuck in the Bathroom for Three Weeks
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You could argue that it's better to be trapped in a bathroom than an elevator -- at least there you can relieve yourself, and you have water to drink. But what if instead of a healthy young man, it was an elderly woman? And what if her imprisonment was 10 times as long?
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If you're a boy in puberty, this is known as "the jackpot."
This one happened in a Paris suburb where, after using the facilities and trying to leave, a French grandmother found that her door lock was broken. While busting down jammed doors may simply be an inconvenience for burly Olympic athletes, it's a much tougher task for a 69-year-old grandmother with zero heavy sled-pushing experience, especially a French one. We suppose she could have surrendered to the door, but in this situation that probably wouldn't have helped.
Days passed. With no phone (an unthinkable prospect for most people going to the bathroom these days), she tried to alert neighbors to her distress by banging against the pipes at night, but all it did was annoy them. They had no idea the noises were a cry for help, and instead assumed the apartment complex was undergoing late-night construction. At one point a group of tenants started a petition to end the presumed maintenance work, as it was keeping them awake. To be fair, once they found out what had truly happened, they were appropriately horrified at the prospect. After almost three weeks of noise, someone finally caught on when they noticed the woman's absence and a stack of gathering mail.
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But only after the petition to "move that old bag's mail" had gathered the required signatures.
By the time French firefighters broke through to free the woman from her apartment turned prison, she had been trapped for 20 days. She should be applauded for her feat of Les Stroud-ian endurance, considering she survived solely on tap water and (presumably) a previously untouched bowl of hard candies from the late 1970s.
If you're insisting to yourself that you wouldn't let a flimsy bathroom door keep you from kicking your way to freedom, even in old age, would you say the same about a bank vault?
#3. A-91-Year-Old Got Locked Inside a Bank Vault
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A 91-year-old Frenchwoman residing in Rennes had some business to attend to at her nearest BNP-Paribas bank as part of her Saturday errands. The bank employee locked the vault after leading the woman inside to her safety deposit box, which is most likely bank protocol. What was not bank protocol, however, was having an epic brain fart and forgetting about the customer, leaving her in there for the rest of the day.
Keith Brofsky/Photodisc/Getty Images
"Uhh ... it is bank protocol to not tell my manager about this."
"But surely they remembered her at the end of the day, before going home?" you undoubtedly ask. "After all, somebody has to do some kind of vault check before everybody goes home for the night, right?" Nope, they just left her in there and turned out the lights, leaving her without any way to alert anyone of her predicament, since she was 91 freaking years old and didn't own a cellphone.
And if she was simply facing the prospect of an overnight stay in the vault until the staff came in the next day, that would be one thing. But remember, this was a Saturday, which meant the bank would not reopen until the following Tuesday (hey, it's Europe), which is a hell of a lot of time to be stuck in a vault for anyone at any age, but did we mention that she was 91? Yeah, if nobody intervened, they were going to open that door on Tuesday and find a goddamned corpse.
Keith Brofsky/Photodisc/Getty Images
"But nobody would have been able to steal her body, and that's what is really important here."
Thankfully, her son was worried after not hearing from his mother for a whole day and called the authorities. After retracing her steps and visiting all the elderly woman hotspots she frequented, they wound up at the bank. After some frantic calls, the bank manager arrived and was at long last able to get the vault open ... the next morning, at 10:00 a.m. Fortunately the woman was unharmed, with only a bit of dehydration. And, we imagine, seething with 91-year-old-woman rage.
WARNING: The stories get much, much worse from here.


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WHEELING - Rep. David McKinley, R-Wheeling, has signed on to a measure to keep open the nation's 149 airport towers slated for closure in June.
Among them is the tower at the Wheeling-Ohio County Airport, as well as a second in West Virginia in Parkersburg.
The "Air Traffic Control Tower Funding Restoration Act" would restore funding to airport towers eliminated through the "Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013" - the temporary spending bill passed by Congress last month.
The measure would return $50 million to the Federal Aviation Administration's operating budget, setting the funding at $7.44 billion.
To offset the increase, the FAA's facilities and equipment budget would be slashed by $23.9 million; and its research, engineering and development budget by $26.2 million.
"Political decisions like this one can have a devastating effect on communities like Wheeling and Parkersburg," said McKinley. "The Obama Administration is putting millions of Americans at risk to make a political point rather than finding waste and duplication to cut at the FAA ....
"Each year, the FAA spends more than $500 million on consultants and $200 million on employee travel and supplies. Additionally, over the last nine years, the FAA has ignored 555 recommendations from its Inspector General that could save millions of dollars. This is no reason to put the safety of millions of Americans at risk by closing air traffic towers."
HR 1432 was introduced last month by Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.
During a chamber of commerce breakfast in Wellsburg on March 28, McKinley spoke of how federal government is paying more attention to urban areas than rural areas.
He also noted that 70 percent of the 149 towers slated for closure were located in rural areas represented in the House by Republicans.


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29 Feb 2012 10:18 PM #1
Unanswered: dynamically how to get grid column's data?
hi all,
i have a grid in that 1 column is having combobox.user can select the data and save.
what i need is after saving,if reopened the form which is having grid,i need to get the values of the combobox column which was saved before.
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Media & Politics, Human Rights, Repression & Dissent, Political Communication and Research Methods
Ph.D. in Politics and International Relations, University of Southern California
M.S. in Radio, Television and Film, Syracuse University
B.F.A. in Communication, Emerson College
Jenifer Whitten-Woodring is an Assistant Professor of Political Science Department at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Her research focuses on the causes and effects of media freedom and the role of media in repression and dissent. Her articles have been published in The Journal of Conflict Resolution, International Studies Quarterly, and Political Communication. Her teaching focuses on intersections of media and politics and repression and dissent. She also teaches quantitative research methods. Courses developed at UMass Lowell include: Media and Politics (with a comparative focus), the Politics of Repression and Dissent, Political Communication, Political Analysis, and Advanced Research Methods.
Prior to becoming a political scientist, Whitten-Woodring worked as a journalist in print and broadcast media and received five first place awards from the New York State Associated Press Broadcasters Association. She became particularly interested in media freedom and the relationship between media and politics when she was a journalism instructor and student newspaper adviser, first at Cedar Crest College and then at California State University at San Marcos. To pursue these research interests, she went back to school and completed her PhD in Politics and International Relations at the University of Southern California in 2010. She also has a master's degree in Radio, Television, and Film from Syracuse University's Newhouse School.
Curriculum Vitae


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The school year has just begun! It's time to get your daughter involved in fun activities that will allow her to discover hidden talents, learn new skills, and experience a world of possibilities. Girl Scouts – Diamonds of Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas invites you and your daughter to drop in on the fun at our Fall Fun/ Back to Girl Scouting Event Saturday, September 14th at Pinnacle Mountain State Park from 10:00am to 2:00pm. The event is completely FREE! We are inviting girls in Grades K through 12 to come out and enjoy fun activities while learning all about what Girl Scouts has to offer. This event is open to Girl Scouts and non-Girl Scouts alike. Don't miss this chance to jump-start a new school year with a little Girl Scout fun. For more information contact Girl Scouts – Diamonds of Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas at www.girlscoutsdiamonds.org or call 800-632-6894.
Fall Fun/ Back to Girl Scouting
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Event date:
September 14, 2013 - 10:00am
Pinnacle Mountain State Park
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11901 Pinnacle Valley Road
Little Rock