President Obama's statement on Iran

"The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.

As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.

Martin Luther King once said – “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness."

NPR's coverage of the earthquake devastation in China

Anyone else listening to this?

NPR happened to have reporters there on the ground in China to cover another story (the developing Olympics preparation) and were able to give first hand accounts of the devastation - children buried under a collapsed school, parents waiting 4 hours before help came and digging through the rubble with their bare hands. It's heartbreaking.

I've found myself glued to the radio listening every morning and evening during my commute, hoping they found more survivors. The official death toll estimate is almost 14,500. There was one miracle - a woman uncovered after 50 hours was found alive, and she's 8 months pregnant. A glimmer of hope in so much sadness and despair.

This evening they featured the story of one family, whose son was dropped off at his grandparent's apartment on the 3rd floor shortly before the entire building collapsed. The parents were hoping and praying that somehow all 3 family members had survived. When the bulldozers and cranes came, and rescue workers with equipment to cut through the re barb - the mother ran through jagged metal to a newly dug hole in the rubble, without care for her own safety shouting her son's name and "Mommy's here! Mommy's coming!" And she kept shouting for her son to come out. Almost a half a day passed when they finally found the dead body of a neighbor woman. The neighbors began cutting up a white sheet into 3 pieces. This is the custom there, to cover the faces of the dead. The mother went limp with grief. She blamed herself - "Why didn't I take you to work with me today like you wanted? If only I had taken you and not dropped you off." The NPR reporter giving the report of what was happening - had such emotion in her voice - that by the end of the story I was sobbing. I felt like I was right there watching this grief stricken mother and I felt her pain and sorrow. I so hoped they would find her little boy alive.

A rescue worker emerges out of the debris and says he has found the body of a little boy. The mother asked if the boy looked to be 2 years old, and the worker confirmed that yes he appeared to be around 2. The mother cannot accept the fact that he is dead. She asks the worker if he shouted his name to make sure he isn't just unconscious. The mother and father hold each other and cry. Just listening was almost too much to bear.

They found that the boy was being held by his grandfather, and the grandmother was behind them, holding onto the grandfather. The mother stayed with her son's body and kept repeating, "Mommy's here. Mommy's here." Even just remembering the story and picturing that scene in my mind brings tears to my eyes.

As soon as I stopped the car, I held my 3 year old daughter tight and told her how much I loved her.

1991 Chevy Silverado hits the 1,000,000 mile mark

On Friday while driving to dinner, I was listening to All Things Considered on the radio, and they had Frank Oresnik on the line, owner of a 1991 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck that was about to cross the million-mile threshold. He talked with Robert Siegel (the host) from the road as his odometer hit 1 million miles. (Not sure what that looks like, as I had to leave the car to make my dinner reservation. Does it go back to zero?)

While many argue that foreign cars are far more reliable than domestic automobiles, here's at least one case for the Big 3.
Talk about the best commercial ever for Chevy! This story has lit up the message boards, and has people talking about Chevy...i.e., "Made in Americaaaa!!!"

When informed of Mr. Oresnik's impending milestone, Chevrolet General Manager Ed Peper said, "Most Dependable, Longest Lasting isn't just a slogan, and it applies not only to Chevy pickups but to the people who drive them. We get lots of mail from customers with hundreds of thousands of miles on their Chevy trucks - so much, in fact, we formed the Silverado 200,000 mile club in 2006 - but a million miles is certainly remarkable. We're glad to have Mr. Oresnik on the Chevy team." Congrats to Mr. Oresnik. May your next truck be as dependable as this one.

The Story
Frank Oresnik of Medford, Wisconsin bought his used '91 Silverado in 1996. At the time, it had 41,000 miles on the odometer and the previous owner's widow was selling it because it was too big for her. He has since racked up an average of 85,000 miles a year delivering seafood and steaks in the upper Midwest, in three states.

As for how he got this far, Oresnik credits regular maintenance and "a little luck." His detailed service records show 300 oil changes every 3,000 miles. It's had so many changes that the oil pan drain plug had to be rethreaded several times, he said, and "you never hear of that." The truck has had four radiators, three gas tanks, five transmissions and six water pumps, but the engine has never been overhauled, Oresnik said.

Frank Oresnik's trusty pickup truck — he calls it "the old girl" — passed the 1 million-mile mark on Friday with a camera crew filming the event and a public-radio audience listening in. "I can't tell you how much fun it was," he said. "It was really humbling, all this interest."

On hand was a film crew from Chevrolet's public relations and advertising company, and Mr. Oresnik was speaking live to Robert Siegel, host of National Public Radio's "All Things Considered."

A news crew from CBS had been with him earlier in the day.

"I wont say it was relief ... it was exhilarating," Oresnik said later during a stop in Gresham where he has one of his longtime customers. "This truck has been so dependable over the years."

What happens to the truck now?
Even though his truck is still in working order, Oresnik plans to retire it after having reached the 1 million miles. "I feel almost like the longtime NFL player as he goes into his last training camp knowing this is the end," Oresnik told The Detroit News.

Now that it's made history, the truck could be headed back to the automaker or Shell Oil. Oresnik said there's been some interested in GM or Shell Oil buying it.

Chevy Silverado 200K Mile Club

http://www.chevy200k.com/

Related story with less fanfare

Chevy with over 2 million miles.

Middle-age is truly depressing, study finds

According to a study using data from 2 million people in 80 countries, depression is most common among men and women in their forties.

"For the average persons in the modern world, the dip in mental health and happiness comes on slowly, not suddenly in a single year," Andrew Oswald (at Britain's Warwick University, who co-led the study) said. "Only in their fifties do people emerge from this low period."

One possibility may be that people realize they won't achieve many of their aspirations at middle age, the researchers said.

Another reason could be that after seeing their fellow middle-aged peers begin to die, people begin to value their own remaining years and embrace life once more.

Photo by: monkey wrench

But there is good news
The study found that if people make it to aged 70 and are still physically fit, they are on average as happy and mentally healthy as a 20-year old.

For sure physically you can't complete with a 20 year old physique, but who wants to be 20 again anyway? There were/are a lot of miserable 20 year olds. (Look at Britney Spears.) Let's not forget about all that angst and inner turmoil. I'm much happier now in my 30's than I was in my 20's. I think it really has more to do with being in a good place in your life, no matter how old you are.

Click here to read the entire article.

In Blog, a Military Man Writes About His Own Death

Photo by: Danny Dinges

"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato

The New York Times

By BRIAN STELTER
Published: January 7, 2008

Andrew Olmsted, a United States Army major who wrote an online blog for The Rocky Mountain News, prepared for the possibility of his death by writing a 3,000-word piece.

“I’m dead,” he wrote in July 2007 as he arrived in Iraq for an 18-month tour of duty. “But if you’re reading this, you’re not, so take a moment to enjoy that happy fact.”

The major, who was 38, was killed Jan. 3 by small-arms fire from insurgents in Sadiyah, 100 miles northeast of Baghdad. The next day, a fellow blogger published Major Olmsted’s eloquent essay, leading to an outpouring of comments from more than 1,000 readers. His blog became exponentially more popular in death than in life, garnering more than 100,000 page views on Saturday.

Major Olmsted was one of the first “milbloggers,” an Internet term for members of the military who blog. Thousands of readers had followed his posts for more than five years, first on AndrewOlmsted.com and later on the Web site of The Rocky Mountain News, a newspaper in Colorado.

While bloggers have died in war zones before, several prominent military bloggers said they could not recall any previous instances of posthumous blog entries.
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Blogging from the grave
"As with many bloggers, I have a disgustingly large ego, and so I just couldn't bear the thought of not being able to have the last word if the need arose. Perhaps I take that further than most, I don't know. I hope so.

Believe it or not, one of the things I will miss most is not being able to blog any longer. The ability to put my thoughts on (virtual) paper and put them where people can read and respond to them has been marvelous, even if most people who have read my writings haven't agreed with them. If there is any hope for the long term success of democracy, it will be if people agree to listen to and try to understand their political opponents rather than simply seeking to crush them. While the blogosphere has its share of partisans, there are some awfully smart people making excellent arguments out there as well, and I know I have learned quite a bit since I began blogging.

Blogging put me in touch with an inordinate number of smart people, an exhilarating if humbling experience."

He specifically asked that his death not be used for political purposes
"I do ask (not that I'm in a position to enforce this) that no one try to use my death to further their political purposes. I went to Iraq and did what I did for my reasons, not yours. My life isn't a chit to be used to bludgeon people to silence on either side. If you think the U.S. should stay in Iraq, don't drag me into it by claiming that somehow my death demands us staying in Iraq. If you think the U.S. ought to get out tomorrow, don't cite my name as an example of someone's life who was wasted by our mission in Iraq. I have my own opinions about what we should do about Iraq, but since I'm not around to expound on them I'd prefer others not try and use me as some kind of moral capital to support a position I probably didn't support. Further, this is tough enough on my family without their having to see my picture being used in some rally or my name being cited for some political purpose. You can fight political battles without hurting my family, and I'd prefer that you did so.

On a similar note, while you're free to think whatever you like about my life and death, if you think I wasted my life, I'll tell you you're wrong. We're all going to die of something. I died doing a job I loved. When your time comes, I hope you are as fortunate as I was."

Speaking to the circumstances of his own death
"I suppose I should speak to the circumstances of my death. It would be nice to believe that I died leading men in battle, preferably saving their lives at the cost of my own. More likely I was caught by a marksman or an IED. But if there is an afterlife, I'm telling anyone who asks that I went down surrounded by hundreds of insurgents defending a village composed solely of innocent women and children. It'll be our little secret, ok?"

His very personal & heartbreaking message to his wife Amanda of 10 years
"This is the hardest part. While I certainly have no desire to die, at this point I no longer have any worries. That is not true of the woman who made my life something to enjoy rather than something merely to survive. She put up with all of my faults, and they are myriad, she endured separations again and again...I cannot imagine being more fortunate in love than I have been with Amanda. Now she has to go on without me, and while a cynic might observe she's better off, I know that this is a terrible burden I have placed on her, and I would give almost anything if she would not have to bear it. It seems that is not an option. I cannot imagine anything more painful than that, and if there is an afterlife, this is a pain I'll bear forever.

I wasn't the greatest husband. I could have done so much more, a realization that, as it so often does, comes too late to matter. But I cherished every day I was married to Amanda. When everything else in my life seemed dark, she was always there to light the darkness. It is difficult to imagine my life being worth living without her having been in it. I hope and pray that she goes on without me and enjoys her life as much as she deserves. I can think of no one more deserving of happiness than her.

"I will see you again, in the place where no shadows fall."Ambassador Delenn, Babylon 5

I don't know if there is an afterlife; I tend to doubt it, to be perfectly honest. But if there is any way possible, Amanda, then I will live up to Delenn's words, somehow, some way. I love you."

His wish to have his last blog post published in the event of his death

In March Major Olmsted approached his friend Hilary Bok, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, and asked if she would publish a post for him if he died during the war. She said she immediately agreed. He sent a rough draft at the beginning of June, and kept redrafting until July 15, the day he arrived in Baghdad.

“When I first read it, I cried,” Ms. Bok said.

Click here to read the entire 3,000 word final post.

Two lives emerged from the ashes

Photo by: David McIntyre
Levi Bentley at age 4 in Langfang, China. He is standing in the field where he was found when he was about 6 weeks old, so badly burned that he wasn't expected to live.

Lisa Misraje Bentley was a bored U.S. homemaker when she reluctantly went to China with her family to open an orphanage. A charred baby boy would change everything.

By John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, December 12, 2007

BEIJING -- Lisa Misraje Bentley watches the boy in the No. 8 jersey as he careens across the soccer field and she marvels. His lower face a mask of scar tissue, his left arm gone at the elbow, the toes on his left foot missing, he zigzags along the green grass in defiance of his disabilities.

"Isn't he happy?" she says. "Look at the joy coming out of him!"

Bentley knows the boy probably should not be alive. Five years ago, he was left for dead in a cornfield, his tiny body so ravaged by fire that the villagers who found him thought he looked more like a charred log than a 6-week-old baby.

Back then, Bentley was new to China. She had come begrudgingly with her four children, following her husband, John, from Washington state. Together, the couple founded a Christian orphanage for special-needs children -- those most at risk in the Chinese child welfare system, which often lacks the resources to meet the demands of the disabled.

They wanted to help the undesirables. And when Bentley first saw the abandoned baby, gasping for breath inside a hospital incubator, she knew she had found perhaps the most undesirable one of all.

What happened next would test the limits of modern medicine and put Bentley in conflict with local customs, laws, national bureaucracies and even her own family.Who could have predicted the impact of one small life in China on a bored suburban homemaker from the Pacific Northwest?

Six years ago, Bentley sat in her four-bedroom home in Vancouver, Wash., and felt like crying. As a stay-at-home mother, she lived the good life: Her husband was a successful lawyer. She was pregnant with her fourth child. There was the minivan and the sports car. Yet she was miserable.

"I thought, 'If this is my life, this stinks,' " she says.

Then came an opportunity. John always had a fascination with China, and had seen his brother start a Christian orphanage in Africa. He wanted to start one in Beijing.

Assured financial backing for one year by a Christian philanthropist, John quit his job and prepared for the journey. Suddenly, the support fell through, but John still wanted to go.Bentley wasn't so sure. She wanted adventure, but China was like another planet. She had no Chinese language skills, and had always had a Woody Allen-like obsession with hygiene. China was no place to take four young children.

"I thought John was insane," she says. "But I said, 'OK, three months.' Then I figured I'd raise hell and we'd come back."

The family's first image of China didn't help. As they landed in Beijing, Bentley's 8-year-old daughter, Emily, looked out the plane window and remarked, "It looks like a trash can."

The couple settled in Langfang, a rural town an hour outside Beijing, and rented a concrete-block home without heat. Bentley remained a mother on guard, listening for the rats that scampered inside the building walls. Both she and John took jobs at a foreign-run orphanage.

No matter how hard she tried to comprehend the culture, China remained mysterious. She had run-ins with local hospital staff and officials, who considered her another pushy American. Bentley didn't fit the image of a Christian aid worker. She's hip and outspoken, likes '60s clothing, and doesn't come on strong with Bible-speak. She didn't connect here, and she wanted to go home.

The ghastly discovery came on a dreary March day in 2002: A badly burned baby was found in a field. A cluster of curious villagers encircled the infant as he wailed in agony. The baby's bright yellow jumper was soaked with blood and body fluids. Someone had carefully tucked a 10-yuan note -- less than $2 -- into his pocket.

One by one, the crowd drifted away. What could be done? The baby was sure to die. Except one old man. He saw that the infant's head had been shaved and a bandage remained where an IV had been inserted.

To read the entire article click here.

I Can't Believe "The Sopranos" Is Coming To An End

I have fond memories of "The Sopranos". Uwe and I started watching the series one summer after Uwe had shoulder surgery, about 7 years ago. We holed up inside and watched the first two seasons on tape. I remember our viewing saga even inspired us to make a trip out to the West Side that summer, to an Italian bakery, where we had Italian ice cream and cannoli (tube-shaped shells of fried pastry dough, filled with a sweet, creamy filling). After watching the characters on the show eating cannoli all the time, we suddenly developed a craving for it, even though we had never tried it before. That was a beautiful, memorable summer for us, and in the years following we always looked forward to getting together on Sunday to watch the show together, as a way to end the weekend and gear up for the week.

The cast and writing have been superb and it feels unreal that the show is ending. This Sunday will be the season finale and final episode.

So while I'm sad to see the series end, reading about other Sopranos fans and their love for the show made me smile. Enjoy!

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"Sopranos" filming locations draw mobs of fans

By Christian Wiessner

LODI, New Jersey (Reuters) - Every Saturday afternoon, the staff at the Satin Dolls go-go lounge clears the bar of matchbooks, coasters, napkins and anything else not nailed down because a sold-out tour bus is on the way from New York.

But the luxury coach heading for the nondescript, windowless building on a busy stretch of New Jersey highway isn't carrying rowdy bachelors with Bacchanalia in mind.

Soon, about four dozens fans of the hit television series "The Sopranos" file into the club, which since 1999 has doubled as the show's notorious, mob-run strip joint, the Bada Bing.

"Everything gets stolen off the bar, even if it doesn't say 'Satin Dolls' or 'Bada Bing' on it," said club manager Rouz, who, like the scantily-clad young women working the brass poles behind the bar, prefers to be known by just his first name.

HBO broadcasts the series finale of "The Sopranos" on June 10, and locations made famous by the saga of a northern New Jersey mob boss struggling to keep both his "families" in line attract flocks of fans.

"The 'Bada Bing' brings extra attention from people who wouldn't normally go to a go-go bar," Rouz said. "Most of them come in and have a look, then buy some merchandise and leave. And they don't know about the state laws."

Rouz was referring to the poetic license taken by the show's producers regarding New Jersey's policy on topless dancing and establishments that serve alcohol: you can have one or the other, but not both.

So while Tony Soprano and his crew sit in "the Bing" and plot their latest crimes amid a gaggle of topless dancers, Satin Dolls patrons are entertained by girls wearing bikinis and lingerie, albeit of the skimpiest variety.

One of the tour bus visitors is Paul Rickard of Inverness, Scotland, who says his rabid devotion to the show has little to do with the mob-related plot lines.

"It's about family, food and togetherness," he said between sips from a beer. "The mob is just a job, a distraction. Despite scenes of extreme violence, the show is about love."

Swiss tourist Antony Simone, sitting just down the bar from Rickard, says he's dreading a world in which he won't have fresh episodes to look forward to.

"I would like no end, because the Mafia has no end," he says.

PIZZA WITH MOB TIES

While "the Bing" has played a central role throughout the show's run and understandably attracts a fan following, any association with "The Sopranos" can prove a boon for business.
Pizzaland, a few miles south of Satin Dolls in North Arlington, appears for about one second during the show's opening credits. Despite never actually being in an episode, the already-thriving neighborhood favorite saw pizza sales spike once the show gained popularity.
The surprise to owner Paul Pawlowicz was how big a slice of his revenues now comes from shipping pizzas nationwide.

"They get shrink-wrapped, put on dry ice, and shipped overnight," Pawlowicz said as he pulled a steaming pie from the oven. "This week alone I've shipped pizzas to Texas, Louisiana and California, and I've sent 58 pies to a guy in Safety Harbor (Florida) this season alone."

"Hey, it's good pizza," he says, then adds a line that would be right at home in an episode of the show: "Once I get a customer, I got 'em for good."

THE HOUSE ON THE HILL Interior scenes of the Soprano family home are actually shot on a soundstage in the New York City borough of Queens. But exterior shots, often showing Tony in an open bathrobe shuffling down his steep driveway to pick up the newspaper, are set at a "real home" in the affluent town of North Caldwell.

No federal agents taking pictures or waiting to have a "talk" with Tony were seen parked in front of the house on a recent drive-by. But the code of omerta was in effect for two carloads of fans circling the cul-de-sac to have a look at the house: both sped off quickly when approached for a comment.

PORK STORE? WHAT PORK STORE? While most of the well-known locations on the show are actual commercial establishments, Satriale's pork store in Kearny has never existed.

Signage and the large pig that sits atop the brick-faced building were put up only for filming, and the site that saw its share of sit-downs and dismemberments will soon be whacked itself: Kearny officials say the town's planning board has approved an application from the owner to turn the property into condominiums.

Whether sight-seeing fans will continue to seek out "Sopranos" locations after the show's finale remains to be seen. But tour bus guide Marc Baron of On Location Tours (http://www.screentours.com), who has been an extra in several episodes, is optimistic.

"There is such an interest from overseas fans and the popularity of the show has only grown since it began showing on A&E," Baron said, noting the cleaned-up reruns now showing on another cable station. "I think we've got a good five years left."

Polish man wakes up to new world after 19 years in coma

Another case of life imitating art:

Today's story about a Polish man who awoke from after 19 years of being in a coma, to a new democratic Poland after the fall of Communism, is reminiscent of the German movie Good Bye Lenin!

In Good Bye Lenin! the story takes place in 1990, after the Wall has come down, and to protect his fragile mother from a fatal shock after a long coma; her son must keep her from learning that her beloved nation of East Germany as she knew it has disappeared.
From the BBC News, Brisbane Times, & CNN.com

A Polish man who spent 19 years in a coma has woken up and will now have to adapt to a country where the communists are no longer in power.

Railwayman Jan Grzebski fell into a coma after he was hit by a train in 1988, the private channel Polsat said.

In an interview, Grzebski (now 65 years old) said that he owed his survival to his wife, Gertruda. "She's the one who always took care of me. She saved my life," he said.

"For 19 years Mrs Grzebska did the job of an experienced intensive care team, changing her comatose husband's position every hour to prevent bed-sore infections," said Grzebski's doctor - Dr. Boguslaw Poniatowski.

Grzebski was a father of four at the time of the accident. He is now making the acquaintance of 11 grandchildren.

Doctors had not expected Grzebski to survive, let alone emerge from the coma.

"I cried a lot, and I prayed a lot. Those who came to see us kept asking: 'When is he going to die?' But he's not dead," said Getruda.

Grzebski said he vaguely recalled the family gatherings he was taken to while in a coma and his wife and children trying to communicate with him.

Poland's communist regime was still clinging onto power when Grzebski had his accident, only losing its grip the following year, in 1989.

"When I went into a coma there was only tea and vinegar in the shops, meat was rationed and huge petrol lines were everywhere," said Grzebski, describing his recollections of the communist system's economic collapse."

On the brash neon-lit streets of new European Union member Poland, the period seems a distant memory.

"Now I see people on the streets with cell phones and there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin."

"What amazes me today is all these people who walk around with their mobile phones and never stop moaning. I've got nothing to complain about," said Grzebski.