Steff

By JILL BARTON, Associated Press Writer WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Uceba Babson used to trudge through flooded plains for more than a mile to reach her one-room schoolhouse, her lunch pail full of syrup-covered biscuits. That was before buses and roads came to rural Pahokee, and the swampy land made getting to school an adventure. But in 1931, Babson gave up her daily commute through Florida swamps to marry a vegetable farmer. She now has 81 grandchildren and great-grandchildren to hear her schoolgirl tales, but the end of the story always troubled her. So after outliving three husbands and letting seven decades pass since her last high school class, Babson decided it was time to go back to school. After two years of heard work, never missing a day of class, she took part in a graduation ceremony Tuesday night, a few months after her 90th birthday. She received a rousing standing ovation, a bouquet of red roses and a congratulatory letter from Gov. Jeb Bush. Babson — born before World War I broke out, before Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic Ocean, before women won the right to vote — now has new stories of getting to school. "I studied and studied, and then I learned I actually passed," Babson said. "A lot of it was memorizing. You had to remember the rules and at 90, it's hard." She tells of days that begin at 4 a.m. with a hot shower and water bottles to get her knees working. She drove herself in a 1997 Mercury on roads that didn't exist in her childhood. Inspired by a book about a man who was in his 90s when he started high school, Babson dove into her math, English, science and social studies courses. "I thought, 'If he can do it, there's no reason why I shouldn't,'" Babson said. "It gave me a purpose and I said, 'If it takes me five years, I'm going to do it.'" She spent many hours a day studying, learning in social studies about the wars that she had lived through and in science about the photosynthesis that helped her family's cornstalks grow. "I couldn't even pick up a magazine because I felt guilty because I thought I should pick up my books for school," Babson said. On her first day at the Adult Education Center, her classroom was nearly unrecognizable from the one-room schoolhouse in Pahokee she had left behind. The desks had computers and the seats were filled with people from Jamaica, Haiti and Latin America. "We all just blended together. It was wonderful," Babson said. The center helps students as young as 16 study for their high school equivalency diploma and helps others take exams and brush up on their English or writing skills. For Babson, whose quick gait and proud posture make her appear decades younger than she is, putting on her blue cap and gown and picking up her diploma is the culmination of a dream. "This is something I promised myself a long time ago," Babson said. "It's been a challenge, but a wonderful challenge."

* Damon Andrews, who has been pre-game and post-game host for Bulls and White Sox broadcasts on Fox Sports Net Chicago, is leaving to join KTLA-TV in Los Angeles as sports director and main sports anchor, starting in mid-July. He joined Fox Sports Net from WBAL-TV in Baltimore in 2000.

Oh hell... not again.

I'm out of that mix. Thankfully...

LOL... I was reading it yesterday and it was admirable to see Brando's passion is still burning. I didn't even think about people thinking it was a NEW deal..

I agree.. but since the article and the incident IS what you're basing your comments on... And maybe I'm niave.. but I don't think getting drunk as a "rag doll" is the norm.

Eagle Scouts taught my brother how to shoot a rifle. Think he just got them mixed up?

When will you all learn that it doesn't matter how many runs Billy gives up.. or how many walks.. or how many "almost" saves he blows... as long as he wins.

You missed this part of the article...? "While defense attorneys have denied drugs were involved, Hess said he will call an expert witness who will testify that the girl appeared to be under the influence of a date rape-type drug. "

If they had only been going to church on a regular basis....

If Your Husband Has a Porsche, Follow Him BERLIN (Reuters) - Don't trust a man with a fast car. Porsche drivers are less faithful than any other group of car owners, with almost 50 percent of them cheating on their partners, a survey published in German magazine "Men's Car" has revealed. Among German men, Porsche drivers were the least faithful, with 49 percent admitting infidelity, followed by BMW drivers at 46 percent. Among women, Audi drivers were the least reliable, 41 percent admitting to affairs. The most faithful group were owners of Opel-Vauxhall cars, with only 31 percent of male and 28 percent of female drivers in Germany having committed adultery. The survey was carried out by Hamburg-based opinion poll institute Gewis, which questioned 2,253 male and female drivers aged 20 to 50. The results follow similar findings from the same magazine showing that male BMW drivers had the most sex.

What if, as it's suggested here, she was given the "date rape" drug? Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think drinking until you are a "rag doll" is a normal activity.

Maybe we should just get the hell out of there and let the idiots kill themselves. if these people don't want to be "free" then screw 'em. BAGHDAD - The most-wanted terror thug in Iraq claimed responsibility yesterday for an early-morning car bomb attack that wounded a senior security minister and killed at least five people, including four cops. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist who beheaded American Nick Berg, said the attack was carried out by a "heroic martyr" of the "death battalion." He warned Iraqis against helping the U.S. "Your brothers in the Jama'at al-Tawhid and Jihad attacked the treacherous apostate the deputy interior minister" said a statement posted on an Islamist Web site. The official, Abdul-Jabbar Youssef al-Sheikhli, was in stable condition in a hospital last night. Al-Zarqawi's statement said the attacks would not stop, and it boasted he is "crushing the morale of enemy troops" in Iraq. He said the bomber came from Syria, bolstering U.S. claims that foreign fighters are fueling attacks in Iraq. His group claimed credit for killing Iraqi Governing Council head Izzadine Saleem last week. Also yesterday, the U.S. military said a soldier died and three others from the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division were hurt in an attack south of Baghdad. In Najaf, in the south, new fighting broke out between U.S. forces and the militia of rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr near the police headquarters and the governor's office. In combat there Friday, a mortar round fell 10 yards from the house of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, Iraq's leading Shiite cleric. It was not clear who fired it. More details of U.S. abuse in Abu Ghraib prison surfaced yesterday. A lawyer for one of the suspects told investigators a captain at the prison is prepared to implicate a general in the scandal, according to The Washington Post. Also, Spec. Diane Liang, an ex-guard, told Newsweek that although military intelligence set the stage for abuse, she blamed some prisoners as well. She said a man seen in recent photos smeared in excrement did it to himself and was often cuffed to stop him.

It's long, but worth it IMO. The following is excerpted from a letter written by Michael Berg, father of Nicholas, who was beheaded in Iraq. It was read at the Stop the War Coalition's demonstration in London last weekend. WHEN I eulogized my son Nick, I said that he was my teacher and my hero. He was the kindest, gentlest man I know -- no, the kindest, gentlest human being I know or have ever known. Did you know that he quit the Boy Scouts of America because they wanted to teach him to fire a handgun? Nick, too, poured into me the strength I needed and still need to tell the world about him. People ask me why I focus on putting the blame for my son's tragic and atrocious end on the Bush administration. They ask: "Don't you blame the five men who killed him?" I have answered that I blame them no more or less than the Bush administration, but I am wrong: I am sure, knowing my son, that somewhere during their association with him, these men became aware of what an extraordinary man my son was. I take comfort in the fact that when they did the awful thing they did, they weren't quite as into it as they might have been. I am sure that they came to admire him. I am sure that the one who wielded the knife felt Nick's breath upon his hand and knew that he had a real human being there. I am sure that the others looked into my son's eyes and got at least just a glimmer of what the rest of the world sees. And I am sure that these murderers, for just a brief moment, did not like what they were doing. But George Bush never looked into my son's eyes. George Bush doesn't know my son. And he is the worse for it. George Bush, though a father himself, cannot feel my pain, nor that of my family or the world who grieve for Nick, because he is a policy maker, and he doesn't have to bear the consequences of his acts. George Bush can see neither the heart of Nicholas nor the American people -- let alone the people his policies are killing daily. Donald Rumsfeld said that he took the responsibility for the sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners. How could he take that responsibility when there was no consequence? Nick took the consequences of the policies both stated and given with a wink and a nod by the Bush administration. And, even more than those murderers who took my son's life, I can't stand those who sit and make policies to end lives and break the lives of the still living. Nick was not in the military, but he was a soldier. He had the discipline and dedication of a soldier. But Nick Berg was a soldier of peace in Iraq (who went) to help the people without any expectation of personal gain. The trouble was he was only one man. But through his death he has become many. So what were we to do when we in America were attacked on Sept. 11, that infamous day? I say we should have done then what we never did before: Stop speaking to the people we labeled our enemies and start listening to them. Stop giving preconditions to our peaceful coexistence on this small planet and start honoring and respecting every human's need to live free and autonomously, to truly respect the sovereignty of every state, whether it be Israel or Palestine or Iraq. To stop making up rules by which others must live -- and then separate rules for ourselves. George Bush's ineffective leadership is a weapon of mass destruction, and it has allowed a chain reaction of events that led to the unlawful detention of my son. That detention immersed my son in a world of escalated violence, (and) were it not for his detention I would have had him in my arms again. That detention held him in Iraq not only until the atrocities that led to the siege of Fallujah but to the revelation of the atrocities committed in the jails in Iraq in retaliation for which my son's wonderful life was put to an end. My son's life was put to an end, but his work still goes on. Where there was one peacemaker before, I now see and have heard from thousands of peacemakers. And for every one of them there are thousands more who can't find the words but feel the same way. We the people of this world now need to act on our beliefs. We need to let the evildoers on both sides of the Atlantic know that we are fed up with war. We are fed up with the killing and bombing and maiming of innocent people. We are fed up with the lies from our government about Nick's detention, and we are fed up with the lies from our government about the reasons for this war. Yes, we are fed up with the suicide bombers, and with the failure of the Israelis and Palestinians to find a way to stop killing each other. We are fed up with negotiations and peace conferences that are entered into on both sides with preset conditions that preclude the outcome of peace. Many people have offered to pray for Nick and my family. I appreciate their thoughts, but I ask them to include in their prayers a prayer for peace. I ask them to do more than pray. I ask them to demand it from the politicians and leaders in the White House and in the statehouses across the world and in the mountain camps where they may hide. And let them know that if you don't get it, they aren't going to work for you as their leaders any more. Continued prayers for the Berg family...

I'm sorry.. I knew I wasn't clear after I hit reply... I know you're not condoning it. I just can't bring myself to say "well.. don't drink and bad things won't happen to you.." I don't think that's fair or accurate.

Small minds are easily amused

Tex.. I have no idea. But I sure don't feel that the action deserves a reaction such as this.

Apparently it's thought she was given the "date rape" drug. Regardless.. IMO, "a good reason not to get drunk" is a weak argument. People get drunk all the time without incident.

Perhaps they should market their plan to the superpowers of the world.. Rival Gangs Agree to Truce in New Jersey City By David Brinkerhoff NEW YORK (Reuters) - Rival street gangs the Crips and Bloods have agreed to a truce in Newark, New Jersey, aimed at stemming the violence that has plagued the city and gone too far for even the gang members, officials said on Tuesday. The peace agreement, reached over the weekend, involved 150 members from several gang factions and laid out a 10-point plan including an immediate cease-fire. The plan also asks gang members to refrain from using gang hand signals, graffiti or other symbols to incite the killing of rivals. Under the truce, gang members also vowed to designate places like schools, churches and parks as neutral zones and to avoid encroaching on each other's territory without notice. "Anything that will stem the violence is welcome. Time will tell how effective it is," said Kevin Rehmann, a spokesman for the New Jersey State Police. Newark Deputy Mayor Ras Baraka and the Nation of Islam helped mediate the truce, officials said. The Crips and Bloods originated in Los Angeles in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Crips often wear blue and Bloods red. Members, who range in age from 13 to 40, often deal in drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and marijuana and their rivalry has spawned years of bloodshed for both sides. While local police declined to estimate gang membership, an FBI (news - web sites) Web site estimates each gang has about 10,000 members nationwide. An aid to Newark's deputy mayor said talks to draw up the peace deal began two months ago when gang members saw the movie "Redemption," about the life of Crips co-founder Stanley "Tookie" Williams, who now speaks out against violence from his cell on California's death row. "These young men were tired of committing violent acts and being blamed for ones they didn't do," said David Muhammad, an aid to Baraka. "(The truce) would give the whole community a sense of security. Grandmothers don't want children outside for fear of stray bullets," Muhammad said.

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/news/050304_nw...sault_case.html SANTA ANA — Jurors Monday were shown photographs that a prosecutor said proved three teenage boys used a bottle, juice can, lit cigarette and large end of a pool cue to sexually assault an unconscious 16-year-old girl. San Clemente resident Gregory Haidl, the 18-year-old son of Orange County Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl, and Kyle Joseph Nachreiner and Keith James Spann, both 19 from Rancho Cucamonga, each face up to 55 years in prison if convicted of the 24 charges against them. "They threw her onto a (pool) table and sexually penetrated her genitals with a can, a bottle and a stick, and they danced with joy" to rap music, Orange County Deputy District Attorney Dan Hess said in his opening statement. "They danced and smiled and laughed, and that's the way they set it up," the prosecutor told the panel, adding that the alleged attack was videotaped by the defendants. But defense attorneys told the panelists that the now-18-year-old woman orchestrated the videotaping, then only pretended to be drunk. "There was videotaped sex and it is awful and disgusting," said John Barnett, Nachreiner's attorney. "But what the evidence will show is this: this pornography stuff, she used that along with the appearance of being intoxicated as an excuse, as a way of explaining bad choices, very bad choices, but they were choices (she made). "Nobody is going to argue this is OK, that this is morally all right," Barnett added. "It ain't. Nobody's going to argue that it's not disgusting. It is. But it was a choice. On the video, she ... is acting. This is exactly what she said she wanted to do." Barnett said all four teens, including the girl, are part of a subculture "for whom pornography has become acceptable, even glamorous." "Pornography has become an excuse, an explanation for promiscuity," Barnett said. If one is "acting, everything is OK," he said. "It's conduct we don't want to look at, four teenagers who lost their moral compass. But for all that, there was no crime" because it was consensual. Haidl's attorney, Joseph Cavallo, said the girl took part in the videotaped sex in order to try and make a young man jealous after he had rejected her. "She wanted to be popular," Cavallo said. "She knew how to use her body and she knew how to use sex -- not in any ordinary way." Each defendant faces three counts of rape by intoxication, two counts of oral copulation by intoxication, 14 counts of sexual penetration by intoxication, four counts of penetration by force and one count of assault with a deadly weapon. The alleged attack took place on the evening of July 5, 2002, and into the early hours the following day, according to police. The youths were gathered in the garage of the home, and the attack allegedly took place on a pool table. The girl, Haidl's girlfriend and two other young women had spent the Fourth of July at the Corona del Mar home of the elder Haidl, who was away. Cavallo said the girl jumped into a swimming pool and had sex with Nachreiner within 10 minutes of meeting him, then had sex with Haidl and Spann later in the day. The girls went back home to their homes in Rancho Cucamonga the next morning. One of the boys invited the alleged victim to return the next night, with the other girls, but the other two did not want to go back, Cavallo said. The alleged victim realized she would have the boys all to herself and went to the home after getting off work, Cavallo said. Orange County Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseno denied the prosecution's request to show the videotape during opening statements, but he did allow still photographs taken from the tape to be shown. Hess told jurors that they will view the videotape "several" times during the trial. In accordance with the judge's order, the media and the public will not be able to see the tape during the trial. The beginning of the videotape shows the defendants giving the girl a drink that she told them she didn't like because it tasted like pine needles, Hess said. Initially, the girl -- who Hess referred to as "Jane Doe" -- sat on the couch. "I am so f----- up," she reportedly said after imbibing the drink. "She is slouched on the couch, slurring her words," Hess said. One photo taken from tape shows her engaging in a sex act with Nachreiner on the couch, and Spann kneeling behind her, Hess said. At one point, he said, "she falls on her face unconscious on the couch." Several times, the girl was slapped on the buttocks, and each time she failed to respond, the prosecutor said. Hess told jurors that the boys pointed to the pool table in the garage and one said, "Let's switch her up." "Jane Doe is flopping like a rag doll," Hess said. `Her arms are splayed out, and she is completely limp. Lying naked and unconscious on the pool table, the camera is aimed (up her legs)." While the attack is under way, "Spann is mugging for the camera. Sex rap music is playing. They dance along with the music, making hand signs," Hess said. "Spann ... gets up on the table and rapes Jane Doe again." Then, Hess said, "defendant Haidl takes his turn" with the victim by inserting the items. Despite the defense's insistence that the girl willingly participated in the videotape to supposedly realize a dream of becoming a porn star, Hess said the girl did not want to be photographed having sex. A few days before the alleged attack, the teens had secretly videotaped the girl and Spann -- who were dating at the time -- having sex, Hess said. When she saw the footage, "she told them to erase it but they didn't," the prosecutor said. "They targeted her, isolated her, got her intoxicated and filmed her anyway," Hess alleged. While defense attorneys have denied drugs were involved, Hess said he will call an expert witness who will testify that the girl appeared to be under the influence of a date rape-type drug. The investigation into the case began after friends of the younger Haidl watched the footage. One couple, fearing the girl was a victim, took the camcorder home and showed it to a Pasadena police officer, Hess said. Cavallo said Haidl's father, an assistant sheriff who is not paid a salary, "came from nothing and made himself into what he is today." "He developed a business on his own ... he raised his son as best he could," Cavallo said. "His father should not be here prosecuted. He's a self-made man." Cavallo said the defense will call friends of the woman in an attempt to attack her credibility. Prosecutors have said that despite previous consensual sex, it is against the law in California to have sex with someone who is unconscious.

1929 — Pinch-hitters Pat Crawford of the Giants and Les Bell of the Boston Braves hit grand slams in New York's 15-9 victory. 1930 — Joe Sewell of the Cleveland Indians (news), who fanned only three times in 353 at-bats during the season, was struck out twice in the same game by Pat Caraway of the White Sox. 1956 — Cincinnati Reds (news) pitchers John Klippstein, Hershell Freeman and Joe Black combined for 9 2-3 hitless innings, but lost 2-1 in 11 innings to the Philadelphia Phillies (news). 1959 — Harvey Haddix of Pittsburgh pitched 12 perfect innings before losing to Milwaukee 1-0 in the 13th on an error, a sacrifice and Joe Adcock's double. 1962 — Sandy Koufax struck out 16 Phillies to lead the Dodgers to a 6-3 victory. 1995 — Southern California and Fresno State combined for an NCAA (news - web sites) postseason baseball record of 39 runs in the Trojans' 22-17 win in the West Regional. USC scored three runs in the top of the ninth to break the record of 37 set by the Trojans and Houston in 1990. 1996 — The Chicago White Sox (news) became the 16th team in AL history to hit four homers in one inning in their 12-1 win over Milwaukee. Frank Thomas, Harold Baines and Robin Ventura hit consecutive homers and Chad Kreuter added another in Chicago's seven-run eighth. 1997 — Chicago's Sammy Sosa and the Pirates' Tony Womack hit inside-the-park homers in the sixth inning of the Cubs' 2-1 win. It was the first time two inside-the-park homers have been hit in the same inning in 20 years. Today's birthday: Randall Simon, 29. Happy Birthday to the Sausage wacker

More memories...

Memories...

Uh no. Steff is not in this competition. I have no issue with NASCAR being called a sport, nor with the folks who enjoy it.