David Stone, a national leader with local roots, was remembered Sunday during an uplifting memorial service at Dundee-Crown High School.

More than 100 friends and former classmates gathered in the school’s auditorium to pay tribute to the talented athlete from Algonquin who went on to become the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security.

Stone, 57, died in November from a heart attack at his Virginia home.

Among those paying tribute were President Barack Obama, who wrote a letter to Stone’s wife, Faith, that said, “Rear Admiral Stone led the Transportation Security Administration with the same distinction and dedication that he demonstrated as a Naval officer. Throughout his life, he set and example for his colleagues of integrity and commitment to public service.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton also wrote a letter to Faith Stone, describing Stone as “an extraordinary man whose devotion to our country and commitment to service will forever be his inspiring legacy”

On a more personal note, Stone’s sister, Peg Schwartz, praised her brother during Sunday’s service.

“After meeting Dave, he made you want to be a better worker, husband, wife, friend and person,” she said.

Another memorial service for Stone was held in December at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

Stone was the Transportation Security Administration’s first Federal Security Director at Los Angeles International Airport. There he developed the post-September 11, 2001 security standards required by law, including the electronic screening of all checked baggage.

President George W. Bush then appointed Stone as Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for the TSA. He remained in the position from 2003 to 2005, overseeing an agency responsible for the safety of the country’s mass transit, rail, highway, pipeline, maritime and aviation systems.

Most recently, Stone served as president of safety and security of Cisco Smart+Connected Communities, based in India.

A 1970 graduate of Irving Crown High School in Carpentersville, since merged with Dundee High School to become Dundee-Crown, Stone was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 2005.

He was recruited to play basketball at the U.S Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., where he earned a bachelor of science degree and began his naval career in 1974. He retired 28 years later with the rank of Rear Admiral.

In May, Stone will receive a memorial burial with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

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One of the burglary suspects injured in the crash is taken away from the scene by a helicopter. (Photo for the Tribune by Warren Skalski)

One of two burglary suspects was killed this afternoon when their car crashed into two others in Hazel Crest, while fleeing police from neighboring Country Club Hills.

The men were taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. One of the men, whose identity was unavailable, was pronounced dead at the hospital, said a spokesman for the Cook County medical examiner’s office. A condition for the survivor was unavailable. 

About 1 p.m., Country Club Hills police responded to a call of a residential burglary in the area of 179th Street and Anthony Avenue in the south suburb. Police spotted and men and chased them as they fled.

The suspects’ Mazda Millenia crashed into a Lincoln Continental and a Toyota Avalon at 175th Street and Kedzie Avenue in Hazel Crest. The people in the Lincoln and Toyota were not hurt.

Searching the Mazda, police found items believed to have been taken from the burglary, including a 40- or 50-inch television, officials said.

Authorities were searching for a third suspect believed to have been involved in the burglary.

– Jeremy Gorner and Warren Skalski

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Eddie Johnson lost his state job in 2008, then lost his rental apartment and soon became one of the new regulars picking up monthly food supplies at the Lakeview Pantry.

The North Broadway storefront fills up each Monday afternoon with crowds now bigger than volunteers have ever seen. This week, more than 40 people filled the waiting area, taking numbers for their turn to collect everything from bulk boxes of rice to fresh produce.

A core population of people who have long lived in poverty is now being joined by Chicagoans like Johnson, recession victims driving food pantry demand to new highs.

“I thought, ‘Man, I have this good job, nothing like that could ever happen to me,’” said Johnson, 31, who worked as a case manager for the Department of Human Services until the fall of 2008. “But here I am. It happens fast.”

A nationwide study released to be Tuesday by the ChicagoChicago reviews-based hunger relief group Feeding America indicates a sharp uptick in the number of Americans relying on food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters for day-to-day survival. In Cook County, the report estimated that more than 678,000 people — including a quarter of a million children — received some form of emergency food last year.

The overall figure is a 36 percent increase compared with the findings of a similar study released in 2006.

The report’s statistics paint a chilling picture of the impact the nation’s economic crash has had on families here and across the country.

“All of this felt like a punch to the stomach, but the jab that hurt the most were the numbers around children,” said Kate Maehr, executive director of the Greater Chicago Food Depository, which supplies about 600 food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters. “Thirty-seven percent of the people we served last year were children under the age of 18, which is disproportionate to the overall population. And nine percent of the people we served were under the age of 5. We figured out that if you put them all in a school bus, you would need 733 school buses.”

Lori Eddy, 81 and living on a fixed income, has been coming to the Lakeview Pantry for years. Now when she sits and waits once a month, she sees an array of new faces, and more people with children tagging along.

“A lot of parents with children are having trouble feeding them,” she said. “I feel really sorry for them. It’s just hard on a lot more people right now, I guess.”

Vicki Escarra, president of Feeding America, said her organization saw early signs of the increasing need in the early part of 2008, when demand at the food pantries they supply across the country increased an average of 30 percent.

“We’ve seen this build,” she said. “Now we’re seeing more people that are new to food banks. This is going to be the new normal for our work at least over the next two to five years.”

In the 2009 fiscal year, Feeding America gave out 2.6 billion pounds of food, but the group says that even with donations up nationally, about 70 percent of their pantries report either a lack of food or funding.

Maehr of the Greater Chicago Food Depository said: “As significant as this data is, it already feels old to us. Every month in the calendar year of 2009, the number of visits to our pantries was up over the previous year. The most recent month that we have numbers for right now is November of 2009, and that month actually set a record for us with 463,173 people visiting pantries, soup kitchens or shelters in Cook County.”

Johnson said he has begun to get back on his feet. He’s now volunteering with a youth program at the Center on Halsted, a community center for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. And he believes a time will come soon when he won’t need the extra food each month from the Lakeview Pantry, but he knows that’s not the case for many of the people he sees coming to the pantry .

“They lost their job, they had houses, had cars, and now it’s all gone,” Johnson said. “A lot of people are just finding they can’t make it.”

–Rex W. Huppke

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Mayor Richard Daley today applauded President Barack Obama for focusing on the economy in his first State of the UnionThe Union reviews speech Wednesday night.
 
“It’s a much more serious economy,” Daley said at an event promoting winter tourism in ChicagoChicago reviews. “I think the president last night realized that, and finally Washington has realized. The president has always realized that, but I think both parties have to come together in regards to the future of this country.”

In his speech, Obama warned that the nation had developed a “deficit of trust” in government and promised to put the public’s top concerns — jobs and the economy — at the center of his second year in office while continuing to press for a health care overhaul and the rest of his stalled agenda.

Read more on Clout Street.

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After dinners of chicken and a night’s rest, dozens of Haitian refugees who took shelter on the West SideWest Side reviews will be on their way to relatives and friends all over the country today, officials at the shelter said Friday.

A Safe Haven Foundation Inc. has so far received about 200 Haitian evacuees, all of whom are U.S. citizens and are using ChicagoChicago reviews as a hub before reaching their final destinations elsewhere, said Brian Rowland, manager of the shelter.

The first group of  refugees arrived at the shelter at 2750 W.
Roosevelt Road on Wednesday night, and an additional group arrived
Thursday.  About 20 of the Haitians are already en route to New York,
where they have relatives waiting. Another 40 are scheduled to leave
for South Florida this afternoon, Rowland said.

Rowland said the latest group of refugees, which includes 41 children, are tired and eager to get in touch with their families.

Among the survivors, Joseph Avril  spoke about his peril at a news conference Friday.
Avril, a Florida native who was living in Haiti, said he walked for
three hours after the earthquake to reach his wife, Yvetha, and his two
children, Robert, 6, and Ella,2.

“I am dead mentally,” said Avril.

He plans to drop off his children with his mother in Miami on Saturday
and then return to Haiti to be with his wife, who is not an American
citizen.

The refugees will stay until arrangements can be made to get them to
family around the United States, said A Safe Haven Foundation vice
president Mark Mulroe.

A Safe Haven is accepting donations to help the next wave of arrivals. Information is available at www.asafehaven.com.

– Alejandra Cancino

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WASHINGTON — Saying childhood obesity has tripled in the last 30 years, first lady Michelle Obama asked the nation’s mayors to help her battle an epidemic that could see today’s kids lead shorter lives than their parents.

Obama, speaking before the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said no matter how much she’d read and thought about the problem of obesity among young people, the pertinent statistics “never fail to take my breath away.”

She said nearly one-third of U.S. children now are overweight or obese. She said one-third of today’s children eventually will suffer from diabetes, and, in the African American and Latino communities, the proportion will be almost half.
Obesity, she said, “could now be an even greater threat to America’s health than smoking.” And if the nation stays on its current path, nearly 50 percent of all Americans will be obese in 10 years — “not just overweight, but obese.”

“This isn’t the kind of problem that can be solved in one year, or even one administration,” according to Obama, who is expected to unveil an anti-obesity initiative next month. “But make no mistake about it, this is a problem that can be solved.”

Obama said a host of factors were contributing to the problem, from time-pressed parents with less time to prepare home-cooked meals to kids sitting for hours in front of televisions or playing video games.

She said as a busy working mom she turned too often to pizza or to a drive-through for food, until a nudge from her daughters’ pediatrician, who suggested she modify their diets.

Obama heralded what mayors across the country already are doing to fight fat and promote fitness. She singled out Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett, who challenged residents to lose a million pounds and created a Web site, thiscityisgoingonadiet.com, for people to track their progress and share tips.

“So far, 40,000 people have signed up — and together, they’ve lost more than half a million pounds,” she said.

Forty of those pounds lost were Cornett’s, she noted.

Obama said she understands that when he dines out now, everyone watches what he orders. “I can relate,” she said to laughter.

Obama also noted that the Arlington, Texas, mayor, who is a physician, gave children pedometers at the end of the school year; in Columbia, Mo., the mayor is building walkways and bikeways; in Bowling Green, Ky., the mayor launched a Web site to encourage exercise, find parks and trail maps and learn about upcoming races; and in Minneapolis, the mayor brought in farmers’ markets to bring fresh produce to underserved areas.

Obama said she wants “ideas and input” from mayors — and their leadership. “We’re looking to you to be the leaders on the frontlines of this effort across the country,” she said.

She told them that when she tucks her girls into bed at night, she thinks about wanting them to happy and healthy and to “have every chance to follow their aspirations and ambitions.”

She said she wants them to have the tools for success, not just “education and opportunities, but the physical and emotional strength to seize those opportunities.”

“I want them to be able to engage in life with the energy, endurance, and focus,” she said, “because we all know they’re going need it to meet the challenges they’ll face along the way.”

She added: “And I want them to have the blessing that my husband and I have, and that my mother has, of being there to see their own children and grandchildren grown up-and, God willing, their great grandchildren too.”

Obama said what she wanted for her daughters she wants “for every single child in this country.”

The conference, meeting in the Capital Hilton, runs through Friday.

ChicagoChicago reviews Mayor Richard M. Daley, for whom Obama once worked, is among about 220 mayors attending the conference.

Daley praised the speech as “very good,” and said cities are talking about the issues Obama raised, including increasing access to quality foods and grocery stores and promoting exercise.

And he said, in answer to a question, that he thinks mayors will heed Obama’s call to get involved in the fight since “it’s an issue that strikes all families.”

– Katherine Skiba

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Here’s a story that I have not heard reported much in the mainstream news media: The stimulus response from Western country’s has probably been too weak. That’s not the gist of this story about why developing nation’s have been less hard hit by the recession/depression, but it wouldn’t be an illogical way to summarize the data the story contains. Developing countries such as India, Brazil and China invested more money by percentage of their GDPs in stimulus and in many cases increased social and jobs programs at the time when it was likely to be needed. The result? A much softer landing than Western Europe and the U.S. in terms of reduced economic growth and, tellingly, a happier, more content population, which even returned the incumbent to power in India. So, while we’re not out of it yet—while we’re fuming at Wall Street bankers, maybe we can also demand a bit more from our current administration. The proof is out there, stimulus stimulates.

Helen Maurene Cooper, fluorescent on orange with sparkles, 2009.

ART & DESIGN -  “Helen Maurene Cooper: Hard Candy.”
Luscious colors and textures suffuse Cooper’s large-scale photos of Harold Washington students’ fingernail art. President’s Gallery, Harold Washington College, 30 E Lake St, room 1105. 9am–6pm. FREE.

FILM – Blue VelvetBlue Velvet reviews
Ever since Blue Velvet, we’ve never been able to take either Heineken or Pabst Blue Ribbon seriously as beer options. Of course, we’ve also had weird nightmares involving severed ears and Isabella Rossellini. Great movies have a strange power over us. This one should have a strange power over you. Doc Films, University of Chicago, 1212 E 59th St between Kimbark and Woodlawn Aves (773-702-8574). Metra: Elec Main to 59th St. Bus: 4 (24hrs), X4, 14, 28, 59, 171. Wed 20 at 7, 9:30pm. $5.

MUSIC – State Champion + Rabble Rabble + Phantom Family Halo
No-frills neo-country with a taste for the shambling, stripped down and shuffling over anything close to slick, the Louisville/Chicago act State Champion is celebrating the release of its Stale Champagne, a disc that shows “casual” is not the same thing as “lazy.” Also on the bill is the skuzzier and louder Rabble Rabble plus Louisville’s equally ramshackle Phantom Family Halo. Empty Bottle, 9pm, $5.

DANCE – DanceMasters Class with Lee Ching-chun
Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan’s associate artistic director leads a master class for intermediate and advanced students and professionals at Hubbard Street’s West Loop facility. Ms. Lee combines contemporary dance with ancient techniques Tai Chi and Tao Yin (an ancient form of Chi Kung). Her meditative movement lesson will include material drawn directly from Lin Hwai-min’s Moon Water, which the company performs Sat 22 and Sun 23. Lou Conte Dance Studio (1147 W Jackson, 312-850-9766) El: Blue to Racine. Bus: 126. 6pm, $15.

GAY & LESBIAN – Grindr Party
Meet all those hot guys you’ve been cruising live at this homage to the latest, greatest iPhone app. The Glenwood Bar, 6962 N Glenwood Ave (773-764-7363). El: Red to Morse. Bus: 147, 151. 8pm, FREE.

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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – A powerful new earthquake struck Haiti on Wednesday, shaking rubble from damaged buildings and sending screaming people running into the streets only eight days after the country’s capital was devastated by an apocalyptic quake.

The magnitude-6.1 temblor was the largest aftershock yet to the Jan. 12 quake. The extent of additional damage or injuries was not immediately clear.

Wails of terror rose from frightened survivors as the earth shuddered at 6:03 a.m. U.S. soldiers and tent city refugees alike raced for open ground, and clouds of dust rose in the capital.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered about 35 miles (56 kilometers) northwest of Port-au-Prince and was 13.7 miles (22 kilometers) below the surface.

Last week’s magnitude-7 quake killed an estimated 200,000 people in Haiti, left 250,000 injured and made 1.5 million homeless, according to the European Union Commission.

A massive international aid effort has been struggling with logistical problems, and many Haitians are still desperate for food and water.

Still, search-and-rescue teams have emerged from the ruins with some improbable success stories – including the rescue of 69-year-old ardent Roman Catholic who said she prayed constantly during her week under the rubble.

Ena Zizi had been at a church meeting at the residence of Haiti’s Roman Catholic archbishop when the Jan. 12 quake struck, trapping her in debris. On Tuesday, she was rescued by a Mexican disaster team.

MORE HERE

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The island of Haiti was hit by another earthquake on Wednesday morning (6:03 a.m.) just one week after the magnitude-7 quake that killed 200,000 people.This quake magnitude-6.1 was located 35 miles (56 kilometers) northwest of Port-au-Prince and was 13.7 miles (22 kilometers) deep.The is the strongest aftershock that rocked the country in 7 days.Haitians ran to the street after the temblor out of fear.No damages or injuries were reported officially so far.According to rumors a building collapsed near the Oloffson Hotel.

Source

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The number of poor people increased 5.2 million in the last decade and almost of half of them are living in America’s suburbs, according to a report released Wednesday by the Brookings Institution.

The number of poor grew by 25 percent in suburbs from 2000 to 2008–almost five times the growth rate in primary cities–making the suburbs home to the largest and fastest growing poor population in the country, according to the study, “The Suburbanization of Poverty: Trends in Metropolitan America, 2000 to 2008.”

ChicagoChicago reviews too has seen a significant increase in the suburban share of the metro area’s poor. In 2008, 51.9 percent of poor people lived in the Chicago area’s biggest cities, which include Naperville and Joliet, compared to 48.1 percent in the suburbs.

Based on increases in unemployment throughout 2009, Brookings projects that the Chicago metro area may experience an increase in its poverty rate of approximately 2.3 percentage points.

“This trend toward the ’suburbanization’ of poverty is only likely to continue in the wake of the most recent recession,” said Elizabeth Kneebone, a Brookings senior research analyst and co-author of the report.

Nationwide, the poor population increased by 15.4 percent from 2000 to 2008, which led to a significant increase in the nation’s poverty rate. By 2008, 13.2 percent of Americans lived below the poverty line, which is $21,834 for a family of four.

–Kristen Mack

Technorati Tags: America, area, Area 51, Brookings, brookings institution, chicago, chicago area, chicago metro area, co author, country, decade, Elizabeth Kneebone, growth, half, home, increase, institution, kneebone, Kristen Mack, last decade, living in america, Metro, metropolitan america, Naperville, News, number, percent, percentage points, poor, poor population, population, poverty, poverty line, poverty rate, poverty trends, rate, Recession, report, research analyst, STUDY, Suburbanization, Unemployment, Wednesday

The number of poor people increased 5.2 million in the last decade and almost of half of them are living in America’s suburbs, according to a report released Wednesday by the Brookings Institution.

The number of poor grew by 25 percent in suburbs from 2000 to 2008–almost five times the growth rate in primary cities–making the suburbs home to the largest and fastest growing poor population in the country, according to the study, “The Suburbanization of Poverty: Trends in Metropolitan America, 2000 to 2008.”

ChicagoChicago reviews too has seen a significant increase in the suburban share of the metro area’s poor. In 2008, 51.9 percent of poor people lived in the Chicago area’s biggest cities, which include Naperville and Joliet, compared to 48.1 percent in the suburbs.

Based on increases in unemployment throughout 2009, Brookings projects that the Chicago metro area may experience an increase in its poverty rate of approximately 2.3 percentage points.

“This trend toward the ’suburbanization’ of poverty is only likely to continue in the wake of the most recent recession,” said Elizabeth Kneebone, a Brookings senior research analyst and co-author of the report.

Nationwide, the poor population increased by 15.4 percent from 2000 to 2008, which led to a significant increase in the nation’s poverty rate. By 2008, 13.2 percent of Americans lived below the poverty line, which is $21,834 for a family of four.

–Kristen Mack

Technorati Tags: America, area, Brookings, brookings institution, chicago, chicago area, chicago metro area, co author, country, decade, Elizabeth Kneebone, growth, half, home, increase, institution, kneebone, Kristen Mack, last decade, living in america, Metro, metropolitan america, Naperville, News, number, percent, percentage points, poor, poor population, population, poverty, poverty line, poverty rate, poverty trends, rate, Recession, report, research analyst, STUDY, Suburbanization, Unemployment, Wednesday

When she was a top student in her ChicagoChicago reviews high school French class last year, Reyna Wences tried every excuse to avoid a planned field trip to Quebec. She secretly longed to join but knew she’d be arrested if she tried.

“Is it the money?” she recalled her teacher at Walter Payton Prep  asking.

Wences, fed up with the double life she’d been leading since her parents brought her into the country illegally nine years ago, finally said: “You know what? I’m undocumented.”

In an event that might have been stymied by fear even a year ago, Wences and more than a dozen other undocumented students will risk making their status even more public Monday at a four-hour “coming out” summit in Pilsen coordinated by a new group hoping to push harder for reforms to the nation’s Immigration system.

The Immigrant Youth JusticeDark Justice reviews League, made up of about 15 Chicago-area students, is part of a wave of younger immigrant activists around the U.S. using more aggressive, in-your-face tactics to seek legal status as part of a volatile national debate that has stalled in Congress in recent years. They see an expected renewal of the debate this year as a last, best stand.

The students whose activism was born during massive immigrant marches in Chicago and elsewhere years ago, have been behind several smaller recent battles, bouncing between Facebook campaigns and old-school organizing with equal ease.

In Chicago, they helped drive rallies staged on behalf of Rigo Padilla, 21, a Mexican-born student at the University of Illinois at Chicago who won a one-year stay of deportation last month.  Outside an immigrant detention center in Miami, another group of students staged rallies that helped win a similar deferral for two Venezuelan brothers at Miami-Dade College.

“(These youth) are maturing politically, they are becoming more sophisticated in their strategies and are also recognizing that something more drastic needs to be done to achieve their legal status,” said Nilda Flores-Gonzalez, a sociology professor at UIC who has been tracking youth activism in the Immigration movement.

A spokeswoman in Chicago for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement indicated Sunday that, despite their public declarations, the students would not necessarily be a high-priority for arrest.

“With limited resources, ICE prioritizes its enforcement actions based on implications to national security and public safety,” Gail Montenegro wrote in an e-mail.

The Immigrant Youth Justice League was inspired by ongoing efforts to pass the so-called Dream Act, legislation that would grant conditional legal status to students who arrived as children. But the group, mostly Mexican-born, derives mainly from the Padilla campaign.

“There was this feeling that, if we can win that, there’s so much more we could do as a group,” said Tania Unzueta, 26, who, along with Padilla, is a founding member of the group.

Their success may depend on how comfortable the group’s growing membership is with risking deportation.

Like Wences, many have kept their family histories secret. Brought into the U.S. as children, they know this country far better than their homelands and often speak English more naturally than any other language.

“I was really afraid of coming home from school and not finding my mom or not finding my brother,” said Wences, 18.

For Uriel Sanchez, 18, the frustrations of not having legal status surfaced a week before he was set to start as a freshman at DePaul University last fall.

Though he had been promised financial aid for tuition, the money quickly evaporated when a school administrator asked him to provide a Social Security number, Sanchez said.

“I knew that there would be absolutely no way to pay the thousands of dollars toward tuition,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez now attends the more affordable Harold Washington College, where he studies political science. He expressed bitterness while reading a statement in English-accented Spanish at a news conference last week.

“When we fail to speak up, when we fail to criticize … ” he said. “It is a far greater blow to the freedom, the decency and to the justice which truly represents this nation we call home.”

–Antonio Olivo

Technorati Tags: activism, Antonio Olivo, chicago, chicago area, Chicago Students, college, country, debate, deferral, deportation, enforcement, field trip, flores, Gail Montenegro, Group, Immigrant, immigrant detention, immigrant marches, immigrant youth, Immigration, Immigration Reform, immigration system, Justice League, Mexican-born, Miami, miami dade college, money, nation, national debate, Nbsp, News, nilda flores gonzalez, nine years, padilla, part, Pilsen, Quebec, reform debate, Reyna Wences, rigo, school, sociology professor, Status, student, Tania Unzueta, U.S., U.S. Immigration, undocumented students, University, university of illinois at chicago, Uriel Sanchez, walter payton, Walter Payton Prep, year, youth, youth justice

Mayor Richard Daley today urged Chicagoans to contribute to Red Cross efforts to help the victims of the massive earthquake in Haiti.
 
“Actually, we’ve found the best thing to go to is the Red Cross,” Daley said. “We’ve found out that when you start doing special things it gets lost. We’re asking people to make a donation, whether it’s five, 10, 15, 20 – whatever it is, to the Red Cross, because the Red Cross can handle this.”
 
The mayor said he has been struck by the harrowing images of survivors searching for loved ones in the rubble of Port-Au-Prince, the country’s capital.

Read more in Clout Street on chicagotribune.com.

Technorati Tags: Au, capital, chicago, chicagoans, chicagotribune, clout, Clout Street, com, country, Cross, Daley, Donation, earthquake, Haiti, Haiti Relief Effort, images, massive earthquake, mayor, Mayor Richard Daley, Nbsp, News, PEOPLE, Port, Port-Au-Prince, Read, Red, red cross, Richard Daley, rubble, Survivors, thing, today

Four people were still being questioned by Country Club Hills Police, almost 24 hours after 15 people were taken into police custody following a shooting that left one person wounded and resulted in a barricade situation at a nearby home in the south suburb.

Police along with Mayor Dwight Welch responded to 169th Street and Old Elm Drive at about 6:20 p.m. for a report of a person shot in the street, Welch said.

Officers found a “young adult” had been shot in the leg through the thigh, and he was taken to a local hospital. Welch said the injuries did not appear to be life-threatening, and the victim was conscious and talking at the scene. He was treated and released from South Suburban Hospital in Hazel Crest, according to a village news release.

Seven people, including a 1-year-old child and its mother, holed up in a house near the shooting during the standoff. Police had surrounded the house for several hours and demanded the residents come out. There was no indication any of them had been held hostage. They surrendered to police peacefully about about 9:20 p.m., authorities said.

In addition, police took eight other people into custody for questioning after the shooting, including the four who were still being questioned this afternoon, a spokeswoman for Country Club Hills said in a release.

The 1-year-old child was unharmed, Welch said.

He could not say what may have led to the shooting.

–Sam Unger and Jeremy Gorner

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A major 7.0 earthquake near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince has brought incredible tragedy to an island nation that has already suffered interminable sadness, injustice and instability. The United Nations is releasing $10 million immediately from its Central Emergency Relief Fund to assist Haiti.

Those concerned in Chicago are already reacting and spreading the word about raising relief funds—often through Twitter. Many Twitter users are also asking individuals to contribute through text-message campaigns. The Red Cross has already raised $800,000 for Haiti through a text-message campaign.

Here are some sample tweets on Haiti donations:

Wycelf Jean is encouraging people to text “Yéle” to 501501, which will automatically donate $5 to the Yéle Haiti Earthquake Fund
(wyclef)

@haitian_jane Sweet Nicks Caribbean will be taking food/clothes/donation..741 w. howard-evanston 847-869-7172

Megacorp WalMart has pledged $600,000 for Haiti relief and set up a page for customers to donate for nonprofit efforts in Haiti.

Pat Robertson, showing that he has even less class than we thought possible, has said that Haitian rebels swore a pact with the devil to defeat the French and the country has been cursed.

Mashable has 9 ways to help Haiti now.

CNN has a list of resources rated by CharityNavigator.

Those wanting to aid in relief efforts can also text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross. Donations to the Red Cross, which has already pledged $200,000 to assist those affected by the earthquake, can be made through the organization’s new donation gift catalog as well.

AmeriCares Help For Haiti. Donate to AmeriCares International Disaster Relief Fund.

UNICEF has set up a special page for donations for the children of Haiti. In an e-mail, UNICEF’s Alissa Pinck reports: “UNICEF’s country office in Haiti and the regional office located in Panama is on the ground and have already deployed emergency teams to assess the situation and determine what the additional emergency needs are for the people of Haiti.”

Mercy Corps’s website is devoted to the Haiti earthquake disaster; it’s deploying a team bound for Haiti now.

HaitiArise has provided education and relief for the past six years. It’s a registered Canadian charity and reports that 100 percent of donated funds go directly to Haiti.

Haiti Emergency Relief Fund by Vanguard Public Foundation in San Francisco. Established for Haiti before the earthquake.

Personally, I’d say the most direct way to contribute would be donating to Oxfam, which already has a team on the ground in Haiti. Via a press release, “200 people on the ground in Haiti and a team of 15 highly-experienced emergency specialists based in the capital will be responding with public health, water and sanitation services to prevent the spread of waterborne disease.”

To support Oxfam’s response in Haiti, donate to the Haiti Earthquake Response Fund. Donations can be made at www.oxfamamerica.org, by phone (1-800-77-OXFAM), by fax (1-617-728-2562) or by mail (Oxfam America, Haiti Earthquake Response Fund, PO Box 1211, Albert Lea, MN 56007-1211).

Please add links to your preferred resource for Haiti relief in the comments below.

Technorati Tags: Albert Lea, Alissa Pinck, american red cross, american red cross donations, AmeriCares, capital, Caribbean, chicago, clothes donation, CNN, country, Cross, Disaster, disaster relief fund, Donation, E Mail, earthquake, Emergency, emergency relief fund, emergency teams, Events, fund, fund unicef, ground, Haiti, haitian capital, haitian rebels, international disaster relief, international disaster relief fund, Jean, megacorp, Miscellaneous, Night Life, Oxfam, pact with the devil, page, Panama, pinck, PO Box 1211, Port-Au-Prince, Red, red cross donations, relief, response, Robertson, San Francisco, team, text, Theatre, Tweets, Twitter, UNICEF, Walmart, Yéle

A major 7.0 earthquake near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince has brought incredible tragedy to an island nation that has already suffered interminable sadness, injustice and instability. The United Nations is releasing $10 million immediately from its Central Emergency Relief Fund to assist Haiti.

Those concerned in Chicago are already reacting and spreading the word about raising relief funds—often through Twitter. Many Twitter users are also asking individuals to contribute through text-message campaigns. The Red Cross has already raised $800,000 for Haiti through a text-message campaign.

Here are some sample tweets on Haiti donations:

Wycelf Jean is encouraging people to text “Yéle” to 501501, which will automatically donate $5 to the Yéle Haiti Earthquake Fund
(wyclef)

@haitian_jane Sweet Nicks Caribbean will be taking food/clothes/donation..741 w. howard-evanston 847-869-7172

Megacorp WalMart has pledged $600,000 for Haiti relief and set up a page for customers to donate for nonprofit efforts in Haiti.

Pat Robertson, showing that he has even less class than we thought possible, has said that Haitian rebels swore a pact with the devil to defeat the French and the country has been cursed.

Mashable has 9 ways to help Haiti now.

CNN has a list of resources rated by CharityNavigator.

Those wanting to aid in relief efforts can also text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross. Donations to the Red Cross, which has already pledged $200,000 to assist those affected by the earthquake, can be made through the organization’s new donation gift catalog as well.

AmeriCares Help For Haiti. Donate to AmeriCares International Disaster Relief Fund.

UNICEF has set up a special page for donations for the children of Haiti. In an e-mail, UNICEF’s Alissa Pinck reports: “UNICEF’s country office in Haiti and the regional office located in Panama is on the ground and have already deployed emergency teams to assess the situation and determine what the additional emergency needs are for the people of Haiti.”

Mercy Corps’s website is devoted to the Haiti earthquake disaster; it’s deploying a team bound for Haiti now.

HaitiArise has provided education and relief for the past six years. It’s a registered Canadian charity and reports that 100 percent of donated funds go directly to Haiti.

Haiti Emergency Relief Fund by Vanguard Public Foundation in San Francisco. Established for Haiti before the earthquake.

Personally, I’d say the most direct way to contribute would be donating to Oxfam, which already has a team on the ground in Haiti. Via a press release, “200 people on the ground in Haiti and a team of 15 highly-experienced emergency specialists based in the capital will be responding with public health, water and sanitation services to prevent the spread of waterborne disease.”

To support Oxfam’s response in Haiti, donate to the Haiti Earthquake Response Fund. Donations can be made at www.oxfamamerica.org, by phone (1-800-77-OXFAM), by fax (1-617-728-2562) or by mail (Oxfam America, Haiti Earthquake Response Fund, PO Box 1211, Albert Lea, MN 56007-1211).

Please add links to your preferred resource for Haiti relief in the comments below.

Technorati Tags: capital, chicago, country, Cross, Donation, earthquake, Emergency, Events, fund, ground, Haiti, Miscellaneous, Night Life, Oxfam, page, relief, response, team, Theatre, Twitter, Walmart, Yéle

Category 6: Day of Destruction 6-10pm, SYFY. In this TV movie, a hurricane and a tornado meet over Chicago as the country is experiencing a nationwide blackout.

Watchmen 7-10pm, HBO. This three-hour epic adaptation of Alan Moore’s graphic novel premieres tonight on HBO.

The Real Superhumans and the Quest for the Future Fantastic 7-9pm, SCIENCE. Meet a woman who “tastes” music, a painter who was born blind and a man who can stand extreme cold.

Saturday Night Live 10:30pm-Midnight, NBC. Charles Barkley hosts tonight, with Alicia Keys as the musical guest.

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I can’t be alone when I admit that the cold wave enveloping the country and our fair city has forced me to embrace the part of me that is a secret member of the couch potato nation. What can you do? It’s time to watch DVDs—loads of ‘em (often twice), snack, put recycled logs on the fire, drink cider and cover yourself up with heavy blankets. I know we’re calling ourselves Time Out Chicago, but the past week has been some serious Time In time for yours truly. But now I think I’m over it; I’m going out to eat all the time, shop, see my friend’s band, whatever sounds halfway plausible…not because I’m one of those native Illinoisans unfazed by bone-chilling cold, but because I’ve had my home time, too much of it, and almost lost my mind. Plus I have a new comfy hat.

Here are five things to do today.

MUSIC – The Velcro Lewis Group + Vee Dee
You don’t have to love a band that cites acts as diverse as Can, the Flamin’ Groovies and the Staple Singers as influences, but you should at least give it a shot, especially when it nails psychedelic soul as well as the Velcro Lewis Group. Space rocker Vee Dee captures the sound of a garage band fueled rather than impaired by all the toxic car fumes. Empty Bottle, 9:30pm, FREE!

FILM – Billy LiarBilly Liar reviews
We’re betting you couldn’t name a British film of the 1960s without a lot of work. Fair enough. Billy Liar is a great place to start; it looks at the dreams and delusions of a working-class bloke (terrific Tom Courtenay) in a dead-end job. Doc Films, University of Chicago, 1212 E 59th St between Kimbark and Woodlawn Aves (773-702-8574). Metra: Elec Main to 59th St. Bus: 4 (24hrs), X4, 14, 28, 59, 171. 7pm. $5.

Jan Tichy, Installation No. 6 (Tubes), 2009.

ART & DESIGN – Jan Tichy: Installations
Tichy’s nine video- and photo-based works wait in the dark on the Hancock Center’s 24th floor, in the empty former offices of an insurance firm. Though occasionally spooky, “Installations” primarily suits its venue because of Chicago-based Tichy’s focus on light and architecture. For Installation No. 7 (2009), the SAIC M.F.A. alters a small room by applying porcelain monoliths and hillocks to its walls and floor. A projected animation interacts with these forms, illuminating individual elements before casting a diffuse light over them like the sun rising over a mountainous landscape. We’ve rarely seen video and sculpture integrated as effectively. Richard Gray Gallery, 10am–5:30pm.

NIGHTLIFE – Bad Meaning Good
DJs Intel and Popstatic reveal their cinematic side at this monthly that’ll screen films that hit so low on the taste scale they manage to come full circle, somehow becoming hideously good. The cinematic exploit for this go-round is Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, which features a giant prehistoric man-eating shark and special effects that are more horrific than its toothed protagonist. The Burlington, 8pm, FREE.

SHOPPING & STYLE – Robin Richman sale
Sure, you should be pinching your pennies, but it’s okay to splurge every now and then. Stop by this inspiring Bucktown women’s boutique for 50% off select clothes, shoes and accessories by designers such as Dusica Dusica, Gary Graham and Hussein Chalayan. You deserve it.

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Authorities in southwest suburban Richton Park are investigating a house fire that displaced nine people this morning.

About 3:30 a.m., Richton Park firefighters responded to a residential fire in the 22900 block of Millard Avenue, Deputy Fire Chief Rick Kara said.

Firefighters were able get the fire under control within 90 minutes and no one was hurt. Authorities from Madison, Monee, ChicagoChicago reviews Heights, University Park, Park Forest, and Country Club Heights assisted, Kara said.

Arson investigators, including officials with the Illinois State Fire Marshal’s office, remained at the scene this afternoon, Kara said.

The American Red Cross has been contacted to assist the people displaced, which include adults and children, Kara said.

– Serena Marie Daniels

Richton Park firefighters work at the scene of a 2-alarm fire at a single family residence in the 22900 block of Millard Avenue in Richton Park today. (Photo for the Chicago Tribune by Warren Skalski)

Technorati Tags: 22939 Millard Avenue, Richton Park, Il., afternoon, Alarm, Alarm Fire, American, american red cross, Arson, block, chicago, chicago heights, chicago tribune, Chief Rick Kara, club, control, country, crime, Cross, Deputy Fire, deputy fire chief, Fire, Fire Authorities, Firefighters, Forest, House, illinois, illinois state fire, illinois state fire marshal, Investigators, Kara, Madison, marie daniels, marshal, Millard Avenue, Monee, morning, Nbsp, News, office, park forest, Red, residential fire, Richton Park, scene, Serena Marie Daniels, single family residence, skalski, state, state fire marshal, University Park, Warren Skalski

Matt Bree, 13, has the ski slopes all to himself in the Villa Olivia Country Club in Bartlett Sunday, as the area contends with single-digit temperatures. (Stacey Wescott/ChicagoChicago reviews Tribune)

The Chicago area could see subnormal temperatures for at least the next
week to 10 days, including single digits to below-zero readings in some
suburbs.

Today’s high temperatures across the area will range from 17 to 21 with wind chills as low as 5 below to 15 below early in the morning, according to the National Weather Service. Winds will be out of the northwest at 10 to 15 mph.

Tonight, lows will be 5 to 9 above, except 13 to 17 downtown, with wind chills as low as zero to 10 below.

Temperatures will rise slightly midweek but will remain very cold and
below normal, perhaps reaching a high of 23 degrees on Wednesday at
O’Hare.

Because of the cold and winds, lake effect snow will continue in northwest Indiana and southwest lower Michigan for at least the next few days. Since last Thursday, some portions of that area have seen accumulations of up to 2 feet.

But temperatures will plunge again. Another shot of bitterly cold Arctic air will spread over the area late this week into the weekend. Wind chills may be 20 below in spots.

Click HERE for the latest conditions and forecasts from WGN meteorologist Tom Skilling.

The City of Chicago reminds residents to check on neighbors and family in times of extreme cold. There are warming centers available, and city workers to help get homeless into shelters. Anyone needing help or anyone who is experiencing problems because of the cold is asked to call 311.

A 24-hour warming shelter run by the city is at 10 S. Kedzie Ave.

Five other warming shelters are open Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. They are at 4740 N. Sheridan Ave., 4345 W. Armitage Ave., 4314 S. Cottage Grove Ave., 8750 S. Commercial Ave. and 845 W. 69th St.

The city also coordinates 60 other overnight shelters with 4,000 beds. Last night, 3,400 of those were filled, according to Department of Family Support Services spokeswoman Anne Sheahan.

So far this winter, four people in Cook County have died from exposure.

– Staff report

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Two male suspects were shot Saturday night during an apparent home invasion in Wauconda, police said.

While few details were being released pending the ongoing investigation, Wauconda police late Saturday said the first call came in at 5:47 p.m. from a residence in the Country Ridge subdivision in the far northwestern suburb.

Two masked males had pushed their way into the home and would not leave after repeated demands and physical altercations with the two homeowners, police said.

One of the homeowners shot both suspects, who were found wounded in front of the home when police arrived on the scene, according to a Wauconda police news release.

The two wounded suspects were taken to Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington for treatment of gunshot wounds, but police could not provide details on the wounds or conditions for the two. The residents of the home were also taken to the same hospital to be checked out, and were treated and released.

Wauconda police late Saturday were not releasing additional details, saying more information might be available Sunday following an ongoing investigation with members of the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force.

–Staff report

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Last Thursday the Twitterverse got all aflutter when news came that the Bristol had been selected by GQ’s Alan Richman as one of the best new restaurants in the country. Here’s how it went down: Ellen Malloy, a publicist who owns the website the Bristol uses for their PR, started the tweets like so:

THE BRISTOL IS ONE OF THE 10 BEST RESTOS IN CHICAGO ACCORDING TO GQ MAGAZINE!!!! WOOOOTTT!!!

Malloy quickly corrected herself—the list is of the best restaurants in the country, not Chicago—but she had already been retweeted copiously: This girl RT’d it,  this guy RT’d it, this guy RT’d it, they RT’d it…there was a lot of chatter. Steve Dolinsky chimed in as well, sort of taking credit:

I’m glad Richman listened to me: congrats to Bristol for being the only Chicago rep on 10 Best Restos in GQ

What nobody was talking about was Nightwood—or, more specifically, Nightwood’s rigatoni with confit of mutton, which Richman selected as one of his top dishes of the year. Or HotChocolate’s Mindy Segal, which Richman wrote a nice blurb about. Even XOCO and Rick Bayless—both big topics on Twitter—were looked over, even though the cubano torta was named one of Richman’s favorite artisanal pork sandwiches. (The ever modest Bayless tweeted about the Bristol, but didn’t mention the kudos he himself received.)

Was this a matter of the Bristol’s props being somehow more noteworthy than the others? I guess that’s possible, though personally I think having one of the top five dishes is just as notable as being one of the top ten restaurants. But more than that, I think what happened on Twitter that day was indicative of a publicist using social media to bypass journalists and hit the general public itself. Malloy has over 3,000 followers on Twitter, and though I have no numbers to go by, I think we can safely assume that many of her followers are not journalists. Regular restaurant-going people follow Malloy because she doesn’t just represent food personalities—she’s become a food personality herself.

It’s a brilliant situation for publicity, because Malloy (and other publicists like her, though I don’t know of any with such a following) can generate buzz for her clients without having to use a journalist or story to do so. But I wonder if all of her followers know the score. Because her enthusiastic tweets come from her personal account (her company has a separate twitter account, and the two often tweet the same news), Malloy’s tweets could easily be taken as just that: Simple enthusiasm, without an agenda. And who knows, maybe a lot of her tweets are. After all, Malloy does tweet about restaurants that don’t use RIA. Though even then, one has to wonder if the motivation is signing more clients. So you see what I mean—it’s complicated.

Is it a problem? Not really. Malloy is a great businesswoman, and she’s just working hard for her clients. Besides, if one of her followers doesn’t realize that there may (or may not) be other motives at work, that’s their error—the onus is on us to examine the source from which we get our news.

But it does speak to a new and, for me, slightly itchy dynamic in the media. Publicists, restaurateurs, journalists and readers—we’re all playing in the same sandbox now. The traditional tiers of distributing information have been leveled. So now there’s more information, but a crucial tier—one that was supposed to separate those with an agenda from those without—is gone. And without it stories can get skewed.

So from my journalist’s chair, the people walking around knowing that the Bristol was named in GQ, but not that XOCO, HotChocolate and Nightwood (all of whom don’t send out press releases) are—they don’t know the whole story. In fact, they only know a quarter of it.

But from a publicist’s chair? Those people probably know everything they need to know.

Technorati Tags: account, agenda, Alan Richman, best restaurants, Blurb, Bristol, chair, chicago, confit, country, doesn, dolinsky, Ellen Malloy, Events, Followers, food, GQ Magazine, guy, hotchocolate, information, journalist, Kudos, last thursday, lot, malloy, Media, mindy, Mindy Segal, mutton, News, Night Life, Nightwood, pork sandwiches, PR, Publicist, Restaurants and bars, RESTOS, Ria, Rick Bayless, rigatoni, Steve Dolinsky, story, Theatre, torta, Tweet, Tweets, Twitter, who owns the website, XOCO

We’ve received multiple tips right around 10 pm that TwitterTwitter was hacked and defaced with the message below. The site was offline for a while.

We’re looking into this and awaiting on a response from Twitter.

The message read:

NOW WHICH COUNTRY IN EMBARGO LIST? IRAN? USA?
WE PUSH THEM IN EMBARGO LIST
Take Care.

Update: – We have just found out that the same defacement is appearing at at least one other site, mawjcamp.org. We are not able to see what was at this domain before, but it is now displaying the same defacement that Twitter was only a few minutes ago.

Twitter does not have the best record with security issues. We have previously covered a number of incidents, and as recently as two months ago their web servers were misconfigured to reveal detailed internal network information. We also previously wrote about their admin interface having a password of ‘password’ on one account, and the well-known Twitter doc incident. It was hoped that with the hiring of a new COO, Dick Costolo, as well as a number of other high-level engineers, including security experts, that Twitter had grown out of the phase of being vulnerable to security incidents on such a large scale.

We do not know a lot about the group claiming responsibility for the attack as we haven’t heard their name before and they do not show up in any defacement mirrors or security sites. Similar Iranian groups were active during the election campaign in that country. We have emailed the group (they were kind enough to leave an address on the defacement) for a comment (also added them on Gchat – worth a shot).

Update 2.: Twitter.com is down, status.twitter.com is down. Some tweets are getting through at the moment because parts of the API are up. Search also seems to be working. The Firehose is up – Tweets are coming in from FriendFeed (all those tweets about ‘is twitter down’ are from third-party sites)

Update 3.: It is suggested that if you use the same password on your Twitter account with other accounts, now would be a good time to change your password on those other accounts.

Update 4.: There is a history between Iran and Twitter. It was well noted and covered in the media that Twitter was used as a tool during the Iranian election protests. The US government actually intervened to assure that Twitter was available to the protestors in Tehran and around the country. This attack may be an act of reprisal from groups who were not happy with the role that Twitter played during the protests.

Update 5.: There is speculation at the moment that this may be a DNS redirect, which means that the Twitter.com domain has been redirected to the defacement page. This doesn’t explain why some sub-domains are down, while others are currently still alive (such as search)

Update 6.: Twitter.com is back. The company updated its status blog saying: “Twitter’s DNS records were temporarily compromised but have now been fixed. We are looking into the underlying cause and will update with more information soon.”

Update 7.: Twitter’s Platform Lead engineer Alex Payne has a funnier update on the current status

Source

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Technorati Tags: admin interface, Alex Payne, api, Army, claiming responsibility, com, Coo, country, Cyber, cyber army, defacement, Del, Dick Costolo, domain, Don, election campaign, EMBARGO, few minutes, gmail, hackeado, internet, Iran, iran usa, Iranian, iranian cyber army, iranian cyber army twitter, Iranian Site, large scale, level engineers, List, message, News, password, security, security experts, security incidents, security issues, site, Status, Tehran, Tweets, Twitter, twitter down, twitter hack, twitter hackeado, twitter hacked, twitter iran, twitter iranian, twitter news, twitter problems, twitter status, U.S.A., Update, US, usa, web servers, worth a shot

What’s up y’all?!  Here is the dirt…

Stop the press!  Miss Celie…AKA…Fantasia Barrino done got a reality show!  As if VH1 and BET flooding our idiot boxes with foolishness wasn’t enough they done gave Fantasia’s country behind a reality show.  Fantasia is currently taping the first eight episodes which are scheduled to premiere on VH1 in [...]

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During a special 9:00 p.m. edition of Countdown after President Obama’s Tuesday speech, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann attacked former Vice President Cheney for a recent interview criticizing President Obama for some of his actions in the war on terrorism, with Olbermann accusing Cheney of being "cowardly" for opposing the administration’s plan to try suspects behind the 9/11 attacks — like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — in New York City: "So cowardly is Mr. Cheney, in fact, that he trembles at the thought of an accused terrorist coming to New York City in chains." Olbermann also charged: "Mr. Cheney revealed that unlike authentically tough people, he is still so panicked that he still mistakes acting tough for being tough and makes the corollary error that failing to act tough implies that you are weak."

And because the former Cheney took exception with Obama for giving an unusually "deep bow" to some world leaders, after invoking President Nixon bowing to Japanese Emperor Hirohito, Olbermann snapped: "If you can`t summon up just the boilerplate grim respect your former responsibilities still demand, maybe you should shut up, Dick."

In the opening teaser, as he previewed an interview with retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson — a former assistant to Secretary of State Colin Powell – Olbermann also blamed Cheney for the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, charging the former Vice President with "cutting and running" in 1991: "And Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson on the arrogance of the former Vice President who has spoken out, even though it was his insistence on Iraq in 2002 that made Afghanistan what it is today, who`s cutting and running as Secretary of Defense in 1991 made the Taliban what it is today."

On Monday, during a discussion with Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, Olbermann had similarly charged that Cheney "cut and ran from Afghanistan in 1991 after he basically created the Taliban." Olbermann: "And coming back to the base, the other political wild card I`m wondering about in this, can they get anywhere by selling this, especially to the left, as we`re cleaning up, not just George W. Bush`s mess as President in Afghanistan and Dick Cheney`s mess as Vice President in Afghanistan, but you know what, we have to clean up when Dick Cheney cut and ran from Afghanistan in 1991 after he basically created the Taliban while he was Secretary of Defense."

Below is a complete transcript of the relevant segment from the Monday, December 1, Countdown show on MSNBC:

KEITH OLBERMANN, IN OPENING TEASER: And Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson on the arrogance of the former Vice President who has spoken out, even though it was his insistence on Iraq in 2002 that made Afghanistan what it is today, who`s cutting and running as Secretary of Defense in 1991 made the Taliban what it is today.

DICK CHENEY AUDIO: This continual, sort of, agonizing over what the policy ought to be has consequences.

…

OLBERMANN, AT 9:17 P.M.: Also, unfriendly fire, perhaps unhinged fire from the right. The former Vice President speaks in terms of treason. In terms of, prior to the delivery of the speech, how his attacks on the commander-in-chief may have revealed much more about himself than they did about Obama. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson will join me for that. You`re watching Countdown on MSNBC.

…

OLBERMANN, AT 9:27 P.M.: Twenty-four hours before the commander-in-chief addressed the nation, the troops, the allies, the enemies abroad, the previous vice president accused him of giving aid and comfort to the enemy, committing, in legal terms, treason. Dick Cheney, on the warpath, out of his mind. Plus, now, we know the plan for the country where bin Laden is not, what indeed about the country where he reportedly is? Pakistan and the path forward, ahead on Countdown.

…

OLBERMANN: The very day before Mr. Obama`s speech tonight, former Vice President Cheney gave an interview primarily about Mr. Obama`s Afghanistan plan in which Mr. Cheney accused the U.S. President, in legalese, of treason and revealed, not for the first time, that the Vice President, who failed to fight terrorism, had instead personally succumbed to its most insidious aspect, panic. In a 90-minute interview yesterday with Politico, Mr. Cheney revealed that unlike authentically tough people, he is still so panicked that he still mistakes acting tough for being tough and makes the corollary error that failing to act tough implies that you are weak. Because, apparently, in trashing America`s President the day before a vital foreign policy speech, Mr. Cheney cannot conceive that displays of grace and humility might arise instead from actual grace and humility.

CHENEY AUDIO: Here`s a guy without much experience, who now travels around the world apologizing. I think our adversaries, especially when all of that`s preceded by a deep bow to the head of government or whoever he`s visiting, I think they see that as a sign of weakness.

OLBERMANN: What did you think when Nixon bowed to Hirohito? The guy is the President of the United States and it was a former elected official. If you can`t summon up just the boilerplate grim respect your former responsibilities still demand, maybe you should shut up, Dick.

Perhaps betraying just how effective terrorism has been against Mr. Cheney, he described himself as both worried and beginning to get nervous, blaming Mr. Obama`s policies for his lack of nerve, his deficit of courage despite the fact that his own doctor has said, quote, "There was real fear throughout Mr. Cheney`s office after 9/11." The former Vice President even imagines others feeling his fear claiming Afghan citizens, after eight years of Bush-Cheney dithering will suddenly now switch sides out of fear if America says, as the President did tonight, it may one day leave.

So cowardly is Mr. Cheney, in fact, that he trembles at the thought of an accused terrorist coming to New York City in chains. So lacking in faith is Mr. Cheney or simply an understanding of America`s strength that he revealed he`s afraid, not of what a freed terrorist might do, but of what a captured terrorist might say.

CHENEY: Our al-Qaeda adversaries out there are going to think that this is a great set of developments for their cause because one of their top people will be given the opportunity, courtesy of the United States government and the Obama administration to have a platform from which they can espouse this hateful ideology that they adhere to.

OLBERMANN: Which administration distributed and verified all those Osama bin Laden tapes? Sadly predictable perhaps that Mr. Cheney thinks a feeble, primitive, fear-based ideology would benefit from exposure. But Mr. Cheney went further in his critique of the Obama

administration decision to put Khalid Sheikh Muhammad on trial claiming, quote, "I think it`s likely to give encouragement, aid and comfort to the enemy," U.S. Constitution defining giving aid and comfort to America`s enemies as treason. The former Vice President of the United States accused the current commander-in-chief on the eve of the presidential declaration about the way forward against the enemy of treason.

Joining us tonight, retired U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief-of-staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell and is currently the Pamela Harriman visiting professor at the College of William and Mary. Thank you for your time tonight, Colonel.

RETIRED COLONEL LAWRENCE WILKERSON, U.S. ARMY: Thanks for having me, Keith.

OLBERMANN: Can you think of anyone in our history who served as high as Mr. Cheney did in a U.S. administration accusing a sitting President of the legal definition of treason on the eve of a wartime speech to the American people and the troops and the allies and the enemies?

WILKERSON: I think it would be difficult to find such an example in our history. I don’t, Keith, I don`t recognize this man anymore. He`s not the man that I knew who was Colin Powell`s boss when he was Secretary of Defense. He`s a mystery to me.

OLBERMANN: Mr. Cheney was also asked whether his administration bears any responsibility for the current status of Afghanistan as a nation or as a problem today. And he replied, "I basically don`t." You were part of that administration. Do you basically don`t as well?

WILKERSON: Not at all. I saw former Vice President Cheney`s remarks as sort of being like Macbeth, accusing the king of getting in the way of his lady`s dagger. This is incredible that, in an administration that took its eye off as early as November 2001 in Afghanistan, turned it into an economy of forced theater, told General Franks to concentrate on planning for Iraq and then began shifting troops and other assets that were husbanded, at best, already, towards Iraq. It would now be accusing a President, who inherited a mess they created, of malfeasance in office. This is laughable, Keith.

OLBERMANN: You say you don`t recognize him anymore. There was another thing in the interview that`s a little bit off the main beaten path of the topic here. But he said that he believes Mr. Obama does not believe that the United States is special, quote, "the greatest, freest nation mankind has ever known." And yet, at the same time, he`s arguing – Mr. Cheney is – for secret prisons and for torture. Do you have a sense of what Mr. Cheney thinks makes America great and particularly free? I mean, is this just sort of knee-jerk nationalism? Or does he even still get what America means and that the ideas of torture and freedom are pretty much mutually exclusive.

WILKERSON: Well, you hit the heart of the matter here. The power that we wield that is most formidable is the power of our ideas and our ideals lived up to on a day-to-day basis. No one, in a long time, has done a better job of restoring those ideals and restoring what they mean, rhetorically at least, than President Obama. I`m waiting for him. I`m waiting on tenterhooks for him to put action behind those words. And I`m giving him every benefit of the doubt that he will eventually do that. But I will not brook any opposition from the man who did more to damage those ideals and those ideas than anyone in our history, Dick Cheney.

OLBERMANN: Then, contextualize your reaction to tonight`s speech in that context. Did the President take the best option of a bunch of bad ones that were available to him? Could he have chosen a different path? What did you think of the speech?

WILKERSON: I`d have to say that what he did was, in my mind, deliberate at some length, listening to all manner of advice from all manner of people. That`s good. He didn`t pull a 45 from his holster and shoot like the last administration did. I know, I was a member of it. He deliberated and what he came up with was the least worst of a whole range of very bad possibilities. And that was reflected in the speech. It was very realistic. It was very sober and somber, and I think was justified given the audience and also given the degree of the challenge that this President and that audience confronts.

OLBERMANN: And do you think that this tone will be recognized by this country that has been used to, when the subject of war has been brought up in the last two presidential administrations, has really had the flag kind of thrust foremost into their face before any rational calm, good points, bad points analysis of a situation has been offered to it?

WILKERSON: Keith, I think that, I continue to believe, as I think the president does, he probably wouldn`t put it this low. But at least 75 percent, maybe 80 percent of the American people are staying sober, pragmatic and realistic. They seek the center, the radical center, if you will. And those people will understand the challenge the President faced and understand the speech he gave and the decision he’s made. The proof of the pudding, of course, will be in the next 18 to 24 months. I`m really worried in that regard about the economic situation. The President has a real challenge there that, in many ways, it`s a bigger threat than al-Qaeda or Afghanistan or Iraq or any other potential foreign threat.

OLBERMANN: Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, formerly chief-of-staff for Secretary of State Powell, now at the College of William and Mary, always, we benefit from your insight. Thank you again for it, sir.

WILKERSON: Thanks, Keith.

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Pet Airways employee Tracy Mandera looks to place one of the small dogs being airlifted from Midway Airport into a cage before loading them onto a fligh for New York. (Alex Garcia/ChicagoChicago reviews Tribune) | MORE PHOTOS

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Dozens of dogs plucked from puppy mills may have new homes for the holidays after being taken to Long Island.

Some 50 Yorkshire terriers, Pomeranians and other purebred dogs arrived Friday at Republic Airport in Farmingdale after flying in from Chicago’s Midway Airport. Animal-rescue workers say many had been taken from Utah puppy breeding operations. Some came from a Missouri shelter that didn’t have room for them.

North Shore Animal League spokeswoman Devera Lynn says the dogs are undergoing medical evaluations and might be ready for adoption next week.

The flight on Pet Airways was part of the “Pup My Ride” campaign, which transports dogs and cats from parts of the country that are over-saturated with unwanted pets to regions with fewer animal control problems, where the demand for pet adoptions is typically higher.

“The Midwest has an over-abundance of dogs,” because of a thriving puppy mill industry, Ohrtman said, whereas the Northeast has less of a problem.

Her group has moved about 2,600 dogs across the country in the last two years, often from the Midwest and California.

Among those saved this week was a 2-year-old, brindle French bulldog who rescuers say was scared of people and refused to be touched; Ohrtman surmised the dog had been abused. On the other end of the personality spectrum was a little Shi Tzu who, out for a walk before the flight, grabbed her leash in her mouth and playfully shook it.

The canine passengers included a variety of breeds, though most were smaller dogs. All had to be checked by a veterinarian to ensure they were healthy enough to fly.

Ohrtman said the rescued animals are usually transported by truck, but in this case the free flight will save time and gas money. They arrived in Chicago by bus Thanksgiving Day and were given a rest break and special holiday meals before heading to Long Island.

Pet Airways founder and CEO Dan Wiesel said he donated the trip as a Thanksgiving present for the dogs.

“I really don’t like the concept of euthanasia,” he said.

“They’re in great shape,” Wiesel said. “They come from a traumatic experience. … they don’t know what’s going on. [But] they’ve got 15 people hugging and kissing them.”

– Associated Press

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