Cisco has just launched their first efforts in packing the (Cisco Networking Engineer) course down into bite-sized, mobile-friendly pieces. Called Cisco M-Learning, it all begins with an iPhone/iPod Touch app, with plans to roll out to the iPad and BlackBerry within the next few months.
via Cisco takes their certification courses mobile, beginning with the iPhone.
Flushing For Fuel: Wastewater grows energy-rich plants and algae
By Brett Walton
Circle of Blue
Though liquid fuels derived from plants have the potential to shift energy production to much cleaner products and practices, to date the environmental benefits do not yet surpass the risks, according to a number of influential studies including a 2009 United Nations report.
That tilt may soon be righted by researchers at the University of Virginia and the Seawater Foundation, who discovered that the most important source of the risk-benefit imbalance was the heavy reliance on fresh water and the need for petroleum-based fertilizer to improve plant productivity. Researchers at both organizations substituted wastewater rich in organic material and developed much cleaner and efficient practices for biofuels development.
Andres Clarens and colleagues in the Civil Engineering Department at the University of Virginia found that algae production could be cleaner and municipal wastewater treatment costs could be reduced if the two processes worked together symbiotically.
One option studied by Claren’s team includes growing algae in nutrient-rich wastewater, which reduces the need for synthetic fertilizer. In turn, the algae remove nutrients from the water and save energy by doing part of the treatment plant’s work. The consequence of scaling up the team’s work is potentially immense.
Removing nutrients from wastewater uses 60 to 80 percent of a treatment plant’s energy budget, said Clarens.
“The nice thing about partnering with a wastewater treatment facility is the financial incentive for them. And it’s a win-win by reducing the algae’s footprint,” Clarens said.
A recent study by Clarens and his colleagues at the University of Virginia found that algae fares worse than switchgrass, canola and corn in energy use, greenhouse gas emissions as well as water use. “Indirect water use is the real contribution, having to produce a lot of things upstream of the cultivation,” Clarens told Circle of Blue. “There’s the power to run the plant, making the fertilizers – this is where we saw a lot of the impact.”
This systematic view of energy also underlies the production process for another biofuel for jet aircraft.
Carl Hodges, an atmospheric scientists and founder of The Seawater Foundation, has pioneered a multi-stage form of agriculture called integrated seawater farming. The goal is to use waste material from one crop as a productive input to grow something else.
Hodges conducted his research in arid, coastal regions where high-quality land and freshwater supplies were limited. He piloted the program in Africa and has since launched a second farm in Mexico.
His system begins with a canal dug inland from the ocean. Seawater fills aquaculture ponds for raising shrimp, fish, and seaweed. Wastewater from the ponds is then diverted to fields planted with salicornia, a saltwater-tolerant plant that grows in sandy desert soils. Salicornia is harvested for its oil, which is refined into a biofuel.
The water then flows to mangrove wetlands, which are full of trees and plants that grow in saline coastal habitats. The trees can be monetized as carbon credits, while their wood is used for timber.
The biofuel component has drawn the attention of several large corporations.
Boeing, Honeywell and Etihad Airways announced in January that they would partner with the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi to develop saltwater-tolerant biofuels on a commercial scale through the Sustainable Bioenergy Research Project. The project will use Hodges’ integrated seawater farming system to produce jet fuel.
Hodges, who could not be reached for comment, has been named a special advisor to the project.
“We are forging our energy future by developing a renewable fuel supply now, not when fossil fuels are depleted,” said Jim Albaugh, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, in a news release. “Developing and commercializing these low-carbon energy sources is the right thing for our industry, for our customers and for future generations.”
Brett Walton is a reporter for Circle of Blue. Reach Walton at [email protected], and read more of our Water+Climate: Energy coverage here.
Gregory T. Huang wrote:
If you watched last night’s NCAA men’s basketball championship game on the Web, or followed any of Major League Baseball’s opening day action via video on your mobile phone, then you have an idea of the market that Elemental Technologies is trying to tap.
Elemental, a Portland, OR-based video processing startup, is announcing today its most ambitious product to date: a real-time video encoding system that will let broadcasters, media companies, and cable networks stream live video to any type of device across any network. It could be a significant step toward the company’s ultimate goal of letting consumers watch video on any device. That means watching live events as the action is happening with a smooth and seamless experience, instead of getting a jittery picture or waiting for the video to load.
The new product is based on Elemental’s core approach of using off-the-shelf graphics processing units (GPUs) and smart software to do video processing much more efficiently and cheaply than conventional systems that use central processing units or specialized hardware. The difference between this and its two previous video products—a post-production system and an on-demand server—is that “Elemental Live” works in real-time as the video is being sent from a camera to the viewer’s device. The company has filed five patent applications on its technology.
“We spent a ton of time building an interface that’s really easy for anyone to use,” says Sam Blackman, the CEO and co-founder of Elemental. “The product line is fleshed out now.”
Of course, the Major League Baseballs, Turner Broadcasting Systems, and NBCs of the world already have streaming video systems in place. But they don’t always work that well, and they tend to be costly. So the question is whether Elemental can deliver much better live-video performance, such that it immediately drives up traffic and advertising revenues for these big networks. One promising sign: CBS Sports has reported that its ad revenues from streaming video are increasing without …Next Page »
UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS
Wired magazine’s Haiti Rewired blog has an excellent piece on the ‘psychological typhoon eye’ phenomenon, discovered after studies of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China, where those closest to the centre of the devastation actually reported less concern about their safety and health.
The effect was initially reported shortly after the disaster and was found to still be present in a follow-up study one year later.
From the Wired piece:
Two suggestions have been provided to account for the psychological eye, namely “psychological immunization” or “cognitive dissonance”. The former seemed like a plausible explanation after the initial survey, since there is wide anecdotal documentation of “coping measures” adopted by those who experience significant personal trauma or hazards. However, the fact that subsequent surveys found relatives experiencing a variation of the psychological eye, suggests that the extent of personal experience, which strongly drives psychological immunization, is not sufficient to account for the observed effect.
Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance is defined as an uncomfortable psychological state in which two opposing cognitions are experienced and need to ultimately be reconciled. In the example of the psychological eye, the devastation of the area creates a sense of danger, yet the individual may have no choice but to remain close by, counter to the survival instinct. To reconcile these conflicting beliefs, the individual may unconsciously lower self-assessed risk to justify remaining in the area. Cognitive dissonance is very difficult (impossible?) to modify in the field, as noted by the authors, and thus, this proposal will remain more speculative until follow-up studies in a controlled fashion can be done.
The author, Nature’s Noah Gray, goes on to suggest that “Surveyors must maintain a cautious and healthy skepticism when interviewing survivors and assessing areas for aid because information provided and opinions given will not likely reflect the dire situations being experienced.”
One difficulty in these situations is that mental health workers usually hurriedly arrive from other countries and may not fully understand how trauma and psychological distress are experienced by the local population, or how they integrate with other sorts of decision-making.
We tend to assume that trauma is a universal reaction to a difficult situation but this singular concept is something of a mirage – common psychological reactions to devastation have differed over time and differ between cultures.
The model of trauma described as the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD simply doesn’t fit the common reactions of people from many cultures, despite the fact that this is the most common conceptual tool used by Western mental health workers.
In a 2001 article for the British Medical Journal psychiatrist Derek Summerfield noted:
Underpinning these constructs is the concept of “person” that is held by a particular culture at particular point in time. This embodies questions such as how much or what kind of adversity a person can face and still be “normal”; what is reasonable risk; when fatalism is appropriate and when a sense of grievance is; what is acceptable behaviour at a time of crisis including how distress should be expressed, how help should be sought, and whether restitution should be made.
In these cases, not understanding the local culture may mean that aid workers may assume that individuals don’t understand the risks of the situation, when, in fact, each may be basing their risk assessment on different priorities – as has been found in studies on cultural differences in risk perception.
Treating trauma seems like a no brainer. It intuitively seems like one of the most worthy and naturally important responses to a disaster, which is probably why disaster area are now often flooded with ‘trauma counsellors’ after the event (Ethan Watters’s book Crazy Like Us charts the response to the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka where floods of well-meaning but poorly trained therapists arrived in the following weeks much to the bafflement of the locals and annoyance of the established relief organisations).
However, this is actually one of few areas where well meaning but poorly prepared therapists can actually do harm. Although experiencing extreme danger raises the risk of mental illness, contrary to popular belief, only a minority of people caught up in disasters will experience psychological trauma and immediate psychological treatment, either in single or multiple sessions has found to be useless or to make matters worse.
The psychological impact of devastation changes through time and space and we need to be careful to understand its local significance lest we inadvertently amplify the chaos.
Link to Haiti Rewired on the ‘psychological typhoon eye’.
Childhood amnesia is the phenomenon where we are generally unable to remember the earliest years of childhood. This is often assumed to be purely because the brain is too underdeveloped to successfully store and organise memories but an interesting study from 2000 reported that the extent of childhood amnesia differs between cultures and sexes.
Cross-cultural and gender differences in childhood amnesia
Memory. 2000 Nov;8(6):365-76.
MacDonald S, Uesiliana K, Hayne H.
In two experiments, we examined cross-cultural and gender differences in adults’ earliest memories. To do this, we asked male and female adults from three cultural backgrounds (New Zealand European, New Zealand Maori, and Asian) to describe and date their earliest personal memory. Consistent with past research, Asian adults reported significantly later memories than European adults, however this effect was due exclusively to the extremely late memories reported by Asian females. Maori adults, whose traditional culture includes a strong emphasis on the past, reported significantly earlier memories than adults from the other two cultural groups. Across all three cultures, the memories reported by women contained more information than the memories reported by men. These findings support the view that the age and content of our earliest memories are influenced by a wide range of factors including our culture and our gender. These factors must be incorporated into any comprehensive theory of autobiographical memory.
This doesn’t mean that brain development plays no role, of course, but it raises the question of how many of the things we recall from childhood are influenced by culture.
For example, memories that seem genuinely to be from the early years may appear that way due to us being brought up with the retelling of family stories or from seeing photographs and subsequently absorbing them as our own memories thanks to source amnesia.
It could be that this form of social remembering differs between cultures or is influenced by the sex of the child which may encourage people to report earlier or later memories, or alternatively, may actually strengthen genuine memories as they are re-told during our early years.
pdf of full text of culture and childhood amnesia study.
Link to PubMed entry for same.
Last week, I revisited some of our Kitchen Tours to look at extra counter space added by way of islands, carts, and tables. But, some of you asked, what about adding counter space to super small kitchens without room for the smallest of stands or carts?
Filed under: Fitness, Healthy Eating, How I Stay Fit
Eight years ago, Carole Carson went on a mission to get healthy. She changed her eating habits, started exercising regularly, lost 62 pounds and felt like a million bucks. She has written four books and is spearheading community weight-loss efforts … Read more
Becoming a Cisco-Certified Network engineer can add that extra little somethin-somethin’ to your resume — and hopefully your paycheck. Alas, studying for the tests on-the-go is generally a pretty sure fire way to wreck your back, given that the books tend to be about as heavy as a box of bricks.
Looking to save the next generation of network monkeys everywhere from self-inflicted Scoliosis, Cisco has just launched their first efforts in packing the course down into bite-sized, mobile-friendly pieces. Called Cisco M-Learning, it all begins with an iPhone/iPod Touch app, with plans to roll out to the iPad and BlackBerry within the next few months.
Intended as a supplement to other training materials (read: the massive book, and/or a real, live, breathing teacher), Cisco M-Learning cuts some of the beefier topics down into individual “learning modules”. Each learning module is made up of videos, slides, review questions — all the sort of stuff you’d expect — and individually priced at $4.99 a pop. With around 18 learning modules available at launch (and plans to launch more from the more advanced courses soon), snatchin’ them all up won’t come cheap — but hey, it’s worth it if it helps you pass the test, right?
Carey Mulligan and Kristen Stewart will battle it out for a role in a Hollywood makeover of the Swedish thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Fight Club director David Fincher has signed on to revamp the flick and is eyeing the Twilight cutie and the Oscar-nominated Brit for the role of his leading lady.
The film — based on the bestsellling novel by Stieg Larsson — follows an unconventional heroine who helps a journalist track down a missing woman. The girls will go head-to-head for the coveted role, which is said to be “edgy, sexy and demanding.”
Last year, Carey nabbed a Best Actress in a Leading Role nomination for An Education, but David may have a soft spot for Kristen, whose career he helped when she co-starred alongside Jodie Foster in his 2002 film Panic Room.
The Program Coordinator for SEE is responsible for a very important area of student life at the University of Maryland, College Park. SEE is a dynamic student organization that sponsors small and large-scale concerts, lectures, comedy, and cultural events that educate and entertain.
The Coordinator is a member of the Engagement Team, which is a part of the Campus Programs unit within the Adele H. Stamp Student Union – Center For Campus Life. The team is composed of staff, who advise student organizations and coordinate programs to enhance student engagement opportunities at the University. The Coordinator reports to the Assistant Director of Engagement.
The Coordinator works directly with this area and with over 100 colleagues in the Adele H. Stamp Student Union – Center for Campus Life to create and sustain a student-centered environment that promotes academic success and personal development; serves as a safe and inviting campus center; and is characterized by a strong commitment to multiculturalism, excellence, and a positive work environment.
Primary Advisor to SEE
The Program Coordinator serves as the primary advisor to SEE, the largest student programming board on campus comprised of 22 volunteer Directors and 100+ members, while managing an annual budget in excess of $500,000. Duties include working closely with student leaders to insure a diverse and nationally renowned series of popular concerts, lectures, comedy, film and cultural entertainment events. Strive to enhance both the academic, personal, and co-curricular development of the student population. Serve as primary liaison between SEE and agents, managers, and promoters in negotiation of contractual agreements for performances. Role also includes contract negotiations and corporate sponsorships.
Graduate Student Supervision
Supervise two graduate assistant advisors in translating student development theory into practice.
For more information, contact Alice Bishop at ambishop {at} umd(.)edu
by Duncan Hollis
I figure it’s never too late to catch up on some of last week’s April 1 reporting. The Harvard Law Record got a great “scoop” with this story:
Speaking to a lunch seminar held by the National Security Law Association, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was shocked to discover that the term “self-executing” did not exactly mean what he had imagined when he voted for a new arms reduction treaty with Russia earlier this year.
Inhofe, a Republican, approved the treaty on the belief that the “self-executing” language had been sneakily inserted by members of his party in order to make the law ineffective upon passage.
“Wait, what?” the 75 year old lawmaker, who has served in the Senate for 16 years, exclaimed. “I literally thought ‘self-executing’ mean that the law would be dead on arrival. Well, this is embarrassing,” he admitted to the audience, which consisted primarily of law students and a reasonable number of Cambridge hobos, many of whom were the most amused at Inhofe’s error.
“I mean, this is pretty much foreign relations law 101,” said Jack McGrinty, a begging fixture in Harvard Square. “I bet he doesn’t even know the Senate has ultimate treaty-making authority. Well, at least this chump’s ignorance at least means that we now live in a safer world, for once”. He later added, “spare some change?”
All joking aside, I wonder how many U.S. Senators actually know what it means for a treaty to be non self executing (or what criteria identify such treaties)? They do have the advice and consent power after all. On the other hand, a uniform definition may be pretty hard to come by when academics can’t even agree on a single definition, or two, or three, or four, or . . . well you get the idea.
And it’s not just that he’s used that sham of a nickname for years. He just did last week.
At a campaign really for McCain on March 26th, Palin asked Arizona voters to “send the maverick back to the United States Senate” as McCain looked on. She told the crowd that McCain’s “maverick” status hasn’t won him friends from the “Washington D.C. elite machine.”
One reason McCain may be shedding the “maverick” label is that it doesn’t play well with Republican primary voters. McCain is facing a primary challenge from former congressman J.D. Hayworth, who has deemed McCain less than a true conservative.
Really brings the choice of Palin into focus, doesn’t it?
Gibbs: Team Obama ‘Frustrated’ With Karzai’s Remarks
Relations between the U.S. and Afghanistan were further strained over the weekend after the White House caught wind of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s musings that he might join the Taliban as a reaction to pressure from the West to make some changes in his country. Politico reported over the weekend that Karzai called U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday to “clarify” the accusations he’d made earlier that week about the United States’ alleged role in election fraud in his country. However, that call apparently happened before Karzai let fly with his comment about taking up with the Taliban, which spurred White House press secretary Robert Gibbs to voice dismay “on behalf of the American people” on Monday. “The Two-Way” on NPR: “On behalf of the American people, we’re frustrated with the remarks,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters this morning. According to the Associated Press, the news of what Karzai reportedly said came from Afghan lawmakers who met with him Saturday. “He said that ‘if I come under foreign pressure, I might join the Taliban’,” said Farooq Marenai, who represents the eastern province of Nangarhar, AP reported. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/04/karzai_taliban_white_house_fru.html
Relations between the U.S. and Afghanistan were further strained over the weekend after the White House caught wind of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s musings that he might join the Taliban as a reaction to pressure from the West to make some changes in his country.
Politico reported over the weekend that Karzai called U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday to “clarify” the accusations he’d made earlier that week about the United States’ alleged role in election fraud in his country. However, that call apparently happened before Karzai let fly with his comment about taking up with the Taliban, which spurred White House press secretary Robert Gibbs to voice dismay “on behalf of the American people” on Monday.
“The Two-Way” on NPR:
“On behalf of the American people, we’re frustrated with the remarks,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters this morning.
According to the Associated Press, the news of what Karzai reportedly said came from Afghan lawmakers who met with him Saturday.
“He said that ‘if I come under foreign pressure, I might join the Taliban’,” said Farooq Marenai, who represents the eastern province of Nangarhar, AP reported.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/04/karzai_taliban_white_house_fru.html
Related Entries
- April 5, 2010 U.S. Slaps Toyota With Record Fine
- April 5, 2010 How the Corporations Broke Ralph Nader and America, Too
[JURIST] The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will seek a record civil penalty of $16.375 million against Toyota Motor Corporation for a four-month delay in notifying the agency about a problem with “sticky” gas pedals in various car models, US Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Monday. The fine, which would become the largest ever assessed against a car maker, was announced based on a preliminary review of extensive corporate documents attained through an investigation launched by the NHTSA in February. Toyota will have two weeks to appeal the fine, but, if further defect-related violations are discovered, the NHTSA may increase the fine. NHTSA statutes require that a vehicle manufacturer notify the NHTSA within five days of discovering a safety defect and launch a recall. The NHTSA has evidence that Toyota knew of the defect in late September, but notification and a recall were not launched until January.
Toyota has been under federal scrutiny since December, and has conducted three recalls. The automaker has recalled more than eight million vehicles and is facing hundreds of private lawsuits. In March, the NHTSA enlisted the help of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and NASA to conduct a 15-month investigation into the sources of recent safety defects. The agency has faced a hearing before the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce and strong criticism regarding the effectiveness of its recent investigations into car safety defects. Previously, the largest fine assessed by the NHTSA was of $1 million against General Motors for failing to conduct a timely recall in 2004. At the time, the NHTSA was also criticized for appearing to be lenient on the American vehicle manufacturer.
SEC Slow To Reform
A year-long effort by the Securities and Exchange Commission to overhaul its enforcement of laws against corporate crime has run into courtroom setbacks and internal…
Diane Dimond: Justice in a 2.0 World
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Census Counts Gay Marriages Even In States That Don’t Allow Them
NEW YORK — With strong backing from the Census Bureau, gay-rights activists are urging maximum participation by their community in the first U.S. census that…
Quick Fact: Morris falsely suggested health care reform will lead to “higher premiums” for “most”
Dick Morris falsely suggested that the recently-passed health care legislation would lead to “higher premiums” for “most” Americans. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that by 2016 the Senate’s version of health care reform — on which Obama’s plan is largely modeled — would not increase premiums for the vast majority of Americans, and for many, premium costs would decrease.
From the April 5 edition of Hannity:
SEAN HANNITY (Host): Joining me now with analysis on why it took the President of the United States 17 minutes to justify hiking taxes on you, the American people is the author of the forthcoming new book 2010: Take America Back, Dick Morris is with us.
[…]
MORRIS: What is interesting is that he spent 17 minutes and he still didn’t tell the truth. The truth is that the big tax increase in this bill is the one that is going to force insurance companies to levee on people in the form of higher premiums, and that is going to take effect immediately, and in the next few months most of the listeners to this program will receive notices from their insurance companies saying that there are higher premiums.
CBO: Premiums in group market will not increase. CBO estimated that the large group and small group markets make up 83 percent of the insurance market and that those premiums would essentially remain unchanged and could decrease.
PolitiFact: “CBO reported that, for most people, premiums would stay about the same, or slightly decrease.” A January 27 PolitiFact.com analysis labeled the claim that health care reform would cause premiums for most Americans to increase “pants on fire” false and stated, “The CBO reported that, for most people, premiums would stay about the same, or slightly decrease.” From PolitiFact.com:
On Nov. 30, 2009, the Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, released a detailed analysis on how health insurance premiums might be affected by the Senate Democrats’ health care bill. The CBO is an independent agency whose estimates for pending legislation are considered nonpartisan and rigorous.
The CBO reported that, for most people, premiums would stay about the same, or slightly decrease. This was especially true for people who get their insurance through work. (Health policy wonks call these the large group and small group markets.) People who have to go out and buy insurance on their own (the individual market) would see rates increase by 10 to 13 percent. But more than half of those people — 57 percent, in fact — would be eligible for subsidies to help them pay for the insurance. People who get subsidies would see their premiums drop by more than half, according to the CBO. So most people would see their premiums stay the same or potentially drop.
CBO: Most individual enrollees would receive subsidies, which would decrease the premiums they pay by “56 percent to 59 percent” on average. CBO estimated that by 2016 a majority of people insured on the individual market would receive subsidies, which would decrease their premiums compared to what they would pay without health care reform. CBO stated, “The majority of nongroup enrollees (about 57 percent) would receive subsidies via the new insurance exchanges, and those subsidies, on average, would cover nearly two-thirds of the total premium, CBO and JCT [Joint Committee on Taxation] estimate. Thus, the amount that subsidized enrollees would pay for nongroup coverage would be roughly 56 percent to 59 percent lower, on average, than the nongroup premiums charged under current law.” Claims that the bill would increase premiums in the individual market are based on estimates that do not factor in subsidies.
Washington Post’s Ezra Klein: “CBO found health-care reform would reduce premiums.” The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein reported on an exchange between Obama and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) during the February 25 health care summit:
Lamar Alexander and Barack Obama just had a contentious exchange on this point, so it’s worth settling the issue: Yes, the CBO found health-care reform would reduce premiums. The issue gets confused because it also found that access to subsidies would encourage people to buy more comprehensive insurance, which would mean that the value of their insurance would be higher after reform than before it. But that’s not the same as insurance becoming more expensive: The fact that I could buy a nicer car after getting a better job suggests that cars are becoming pricier. The bottom line is that if you’re comparing two plans that are exactly the same, costs go down after reform.
Charged Hutaree Member: I’m No Extremist
Kristopher Sickles, one of the alleged Hutaree militiamen accused in a plot to kill police and the creator of a series of colorful YouTube videos, insists in a statement released by his brother that he is “not an extremist, racist or a cop killer.”
Gearing Up For Midterms, GOP Heavyweights Raise $30M For New 527 Group
Some of the biggest names in the GOP are organizing an outside group to help Republicans win in the 2010 midterms — and donors have already pledged a whopping $30 million for the new project, according to National Journal.
Three of the nine teenagers accused of relentlessly bullying 15-year-old Phoebe Prince for months prior to her death in January are slated for arraignment today but not one of them will set foot in the Massachusetts courthouse.
Their lawyers filed paperwork waiving the teens’ right to appear at the Hampshire Superior Court proceeding.
Sean Mulveyhill, 17, of South Hadley is charged with statutory rape, violation of civil rights, criminal harassment and disturbing a school assembly.
Kayla Narey, 17, of South Hadley is charged with violation of civil rights, criminal harassment and disturbing a school assembly.
Austin Renaud, 17, of Springfield is charged with statutory rape.
On Thursday, three more accused teens face arraignment in juvenile court.
Ashley Longe, 16, of South Hadley is charged with violation of civil rights as a youthful offender.
Sharon Chanon Velazquez, 16, and Flannery Mullins, 16, both of South Hadley face charges of stalking and violation of civil rights as a youthful offender.
Three younger girls also face delinquency charges.
Phoebe Prince committed suicide after months of torment according to District Attorney Elizabeth Sehiebel. Her death and the subsequent charges leveled against 9 teenagers have caused a deep rift in the small town where some parents have called for school administrators to step aside.
“This has been extremely hard for us, extremely hard. Through lack of quick and decisive leadership, people have become polarized,” said parent Luke Gelinas.
Gelinas has two kids in the school system and would like to see Superintendent Gus Sayer and South Hadley High School Principal Dan Smith step-down.
“These teachers need leadership. This town needs leadership. These kids need leadership and that’s where this system has failed- in leadership,” said Gelinas. “We have the death of a child here. All we want is the truth and we want our schools back.”
As the community takes steps toward healing, Schiebel is seeking justice. When the district attorney announced the charges against the nine teenagers last week she acknowledged the patience and cooperation of Phoebe Prince’s family.
“The Prince family has asked that the public refrain from vigilantism in favor of allowing the judicial system an opportunity to provide a measure of justice for Phoebe,” said Scheibel. “Now is not the time for retribution or reprisal with an aim toward targeting those named in these indictments. Rather, this should be a time of reflection and thought about the role each of us can play in recognizing and teaching civility and respect for one another.”
According to The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft will be announcing its line of “Project Pink” phones in a press conference on April 12th. The devices are said to be geared towards “younger users” and those that use social networking on a daily basis. Manufactured by Danger (the Microsoft division that manufacturers the Sidekick line of devices), the “Project Pink” phones are said to be exclusive to Verizon Wireless in the US and will offer a special operating system (in other words, not Windows Phone 7). No word on pricing or official release dates, though I imagine it will become clear on the 12th.
PhoneDog will be on hand to provide live coverage of the event, so stay tuned!
Via PhoneScoop
