News, Continued

In Sunday's paper there's a sad item in the News of the Day from Across the Nation.  It's about the Memorial service for the cousins of our friend Evelyn--her cousin and her cousin's husband.  They were the only ones not found after the capsizing of the Costa Concordia--among more than 4000 people.  No, wait.  I'm mistaken.  They're the only Americans missing.  That's a less staggering fact but still sad.  Jerry and Barb Heil.

"U.S. relations  (with Egypt) at 30-year low as 19 Americans head to trial."  At a 30-year low?  What happened in 1982? Is that a reference to Israel's returning the Sinai to Egypt?  The Camp David accords were signed in 1978 and the alliance with Egypt became "a cornerstone of the U.S.-backed regional order."  Now that the criminal proceedings are beginning against 19 Americans and others, our foreign aid to Egypt--$1.5 billion--will be in jeopardy, and what will the Egyptian military do without it?
These 19 American+ defendants have been charged with operating local offices  which the powers that be in Egypt thing are "handing out cash to sow chaos in the streets."

I always love Earthweek:  A Diary of the Planet.  This past Sunday reported on the bald eagle population in Florida, which was almost wiped out in the 190s because of DDT.  But now they're on the rebound, and there are so many that they're now facing danger from power lines and heavy traffic.  Imagine!  "Caution:  Eagles flying."  From this column I also learned that elephant seals can go to depths of up to 5600 feet, but now they're having to go deeper still in search of food because of higher ocean temperatures.  They need to reach cooler waters but are reaching their physiological limits in the southern Indian Ocean.  And what about whales?  Humpback whales in the southern Indian Ocean sing different tunes from their counterparts in other places.  They have "unique vocalization."  As for rabbits, there's a "hopping explosion" in Australia.  These cute rodents are "crop-ravaging."

Interracial marriages are now "a record 1 in 12" according to a Pew Research Center study. 

There's news about Whitney Houston's memorial service, and my students are including her on a contact assignment their doing interviewing a native English speaker on musical preferences.

"Iran prepares site to develop more enriched uranium"  Doesn't this sound like our "discourse" on Iraq in 2003? 

A restaurant Jonathan's aunt and uncle introduced us to, Thanh Long, was featured in the 49 mile S.F. Food Tour on Sunday.  That's where Javier and I walked one day, feeling very youthful and strong until we found out that Jonathan jogs that distance in the morning when he visits.    But I love that restaurant and I like the way the reporter Jon Bonne writes about its being at "the ocean's edge and the demilitarized zone."  He says that's just a false image.  It has "its own little misty version of Venice Beach.  I hadn't realized that this restaurant opened in 1975. 

I'm also really interested in the concept of taking our city a square mile at a time for food!  I wonder what square we're in.  I think I'll leave this blog and ask Jon Bonne at jbonne@sfchronicle.com

What's in the News?

          I woke up at 2:00 am this morning, perhaps to the call of yesterday's newspaper.  I read "Foreign students say program uses them as cheap labor" (Julia Preston, NYT) about students from China, Nigeria, Romania, and Ukraine who were protesting because what they thought would be a cultural exchange--a chance to work and travel in the U.S. while learning English--turned out to keep the 400 of them "Lifting heavy boxes and packing Reese's candies, Kit-kats and Almond Joys on a fast-moving production line, many of them on a night shift." The money they were making wasn't enough to cover the expenses of their getting to the point of exploitation in the first place! But, hey, we need our chocolate bars!  And we weren't outsourcing the bars.  They were right here in the USA--in Pennsylvania.  I liked the flavor of the protest, too.  They were "shouting defiantly in many languages."  This was, according to the article, a program sponsored by the State Department.

           I was also interested to read that there's an Iraqi drug ring working with the Mexican cartels in San Diego!  These Iraqis are Chaldeans--Christians who fled Iraq to escape extremists. Now they have their own company, the Chaldean Organized Crime Syndicate.  (Is that how they advertise in the yellow pages?)  Their headquarters are in Detroit, but the arrest was in El Cajon, near San Diego, where 60 people were arrested after a six-month investigation by the DEA and local police.  Apparently, neighbors and even the spouses of some of the club members had been complaining for years about the criminal activity--murder attempts, sales of meth and marijuana, gambling and illegal firearms.

           "The 'Bad Hair Bandit," the bank robber who used wigs when she robbed banks, turns out to be a former nurse for the Correctional Medical Services. Her younger husband, someone she met when he was in prison for forgery, drove the getaway car.

          When I saw the headline "Letterman threat on jihadist website," I wondered why the jihadist website was letting him put the threat there.

For years I've kept a log of the day's headlines, but these quirky little pieces of news are also fascinating, aren't they!