McCormick Place development fight held over to 2013

The lengthy battle for control over property slated for hotel development adjacent to McCormick Place will extend into 2013 after a federal bankruptcy judge on Thursday gave the long-time property owners more time to show their plans have financial viability.

Judge Jack Schmetterer this month had given Olde Prairie Block Owner LLC until Thursday to show him it had plausible plans to repay its lenders, chief among them CenterPoint Properties Trust.

Olde Prairie, whose principals include Pamela Gleichman, her husband, Karl Norberg, and Gunnar Falk, have proposed selling portions of the properties for hotel development, with two deals projected to bring in $180 million. The developers said this would be sufficient to pay back lenders in full and develop the properties.

The lender, CenterPoint Properties Trust, contends the plan is not financially viable, in part because the sales agreements contained contingencies. As well, it argued that the structure of the deals would not provide sufficient funds to fully repay lenders.

Schmetterer gave Olde Prairie until Jan. 10 to show the potential buyer of the larger parcel had a firm financing commitment. He also is seeking greater clarity in the sales contract language.

The case has been closely watched because it involves parcels long eyed for development linked to McCormick Place. Speculation has swirled around possibilities,from hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues, including a possible casino, to an arena that could host the DePaul men's basketball team as well as corporate and religious assemblies.

The properties include a 3.67-acre parcel at 330 E. Cermak Rd., directly north of the administrative offices of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the state-city agency that owns McCormick Place, and a 1.23-acre parcel directly west of it at 230 E. Cermak, across the street from the center's West Building.

The authority, known as McPier, this month purchased a separate parcel on the 230 E. Cermak block, with an eye toward gathering enough property to expand hotel, restaurant and entertainment amenities near the convention campus.

kbergen@tribune.com

Read More..

Melton among 5 Bears earning Pro Bowl honors

Henry Melton said last week he was as good as any 4-3 defensive tackle in the NFL than himself last week and now he’s been recognized as one of the best.

Melton was selected to the Pro Bowl for the first time, one of five Chicago Bears to be named to the NFC’s team Wednesday. Cornerback Tim Jennings, who leads the league with eight interceptions, also was a first-time honoree, joining fellow cornerback Charles Tillman, defensive end Julius Peppers and wide receiver Brandon Marshall as all-star selections.

Weak-side linebacker Lance Briggs, the team leader with 118 tackles, was not selected after being named to seven consecutive Pro Bowls. Briggs could be added later as an alternate.

Melton, who has not played in the last two games because of a clavicle injury, has six sacks and has improved greatly as a two-way player against the run this season. The Pro Bowl bid can only help him in his drive for a new contract as he will be a free agent after the season.

“It’s an amazing feeling. It’s been a long journey from playing running back and defensive end and now being a Pro Bowl defensive tackle,” Melton said. “It’s an amazing feeling. There are a lot of people who had a hand in helping me, and I just appreciate it.”

Melton was a fourth-round pick in 2009, and defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli quickly got the idea to move him from end to tackle. He started to take off last season, giving the Bears a pass-rushing presence on the inside that had been missing.

“He’s a great guy, a great coach,” Melton said. “We spend a lot of hours together working, working extremely hard trying to mold me into a better man and definitely a better football player. I’ve got a lot of love for him and hopefully we can keep it going.

“I just wanted to help the defense any way I could, and when he said I had the stuff that he looks for in a premier defensive tackle, I listened to him and just got to work. If he said that he saw me as an elite defensive tackle, he’s seen everybody -- (Warren) Sapp and a lot of guys that had come before me, and for him to say that I believed in what he was saying.”

When Melton got the news, he turned to Peppers, who was selected to his eighth Pro Bowl, and said, “We’re going to be roommates?”

Not exactly. But they can have fun in Hawaii during the week of the game -- one Jennings made clear he will be playing in.

“That's the most exciting thing really, playing really,” Jennings said. “Getting voted in and I'm actually going to play. They're not going to vote you in and you're not going to play. That's not the way it's going to work. Just being over there with all the guys, all the future Hall of Famers, just taking that in. I'm going to live for the moment and just kind of soak it all in right now. But I'm excited to just see what it's really about.”

Jennings, who was benched in Week 16 last season, re-signed with the Bears during free agency on a two-year deal. He started making plays and wound up leading all cornerbacks in the NFL in fan voting. At 5-8, he hopes he serves as an inspiration for undersized kids playing sports.

“Hopefully a lot of kids that's in my situation, that's gone through my situation, can take it all in and understand that it doesn't matter what people may think about you or you think you're not good enough,” Jennings said. “If you really want it and you enjoy doing it just kind of go out there and have fun and just try to be the best that you can be and everything can take care of itself.

“I think I've been doubted a lot. To put me where I am today, I took it all in stride. I enjoyed playing sports and I enjoyed playing football and I got a whole bunch of opportunities and blessings from God. And I just wanted to make the best of it and kind of just enjoy it and make the best of it while I still can because I know it's not going to last forever. So I just want to enjoy it while I can and make the best of every opportunity I get.”

Peppers had three sacks in Sunday’s victory at Arizona to give him 11 ½ for the season. He’s the first player opposing offenses prepare for and based on how the defense has played, even in the recent struggles for the team, it’s not a surprise he was selected. Tillman gets his second consecutive Pro Bowl selection. He had 10 forced fumbles, tying him for the most in a single season since 1991. He scored his third touchdown of the season in the victory over the Cardinals with an interception.

Marshall trails only the Lions’ Calvin Johnson in receiving yards with 1,466. He also is second with 113 receptions, both numbers Bears’ single-season records. Marshall, who was the MVP of the Pro Bowl last year playing for the Miami Dolphins, also had 11 touchdown receptions.

bmbiggs@tribune.com

Twitter @BradBiggs

Read More..

Analysis: Amazon’s Christmas faux pas shows risks in the cloud

(Reuters) – A Christmas Eve glitch traced to Amazon.com Inc that shuttered Netflix for users from Canada to South America highlights the risks that companies take when they move their datacenter operations to the cloud.

While the high-profile failure – at least the third this year – may cause some Amazon Web Services customers to consider alternatives, it is unlikely to severely hurt a fast-growing business for the cloud-computing pioneer that got into the sector in 2006 and has historically experienced few outages.

“The benefits still outweigh the risks,” said Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry.

“When it comes to the cloud, Amazon has got it right.”

The latest service failure comes at a critical time for Amazon, which is betting that AWS can become a significant profit generator even if the economy continues to stagnate. Moreover, it is increasingly targeting larger corporate clients that have traditionally shied away from moving critical applications onto AWS.

AWS, which Amazon started more than six years ago, provides data storage, computing power and other technology services from remote locations that group thousands of servers across areas than can span whole football fields. Their early investment made it a pioneer in what is now known as cloud computing.

Executives said last month at an Amazon conference in Las Vegas they could envision the division, which lists Pinterest, Shazam and Spotify among its fast-growing clients, becoming its biggest business, outpacing even its online retail juggernaut. Evercore analyst Ken Sena expects AWS revenue to jump 45 percent a year, from about $ 2 billion this year to $ 20 billion in 2018.

The service has boomed because it is cheap, relatively easy to use, and can be shut off, scaled back or ramped up quickly depending on companies’ needs. As the longest-running player in the game, Amazon now boasts the widest array of datacenter products and services, plus a broader stable of clients than rivals like Google Inc, Rackspace Inc and Salesforce.com Inc.

Outages such as the one that took down Netflix and other websites on the eve of one of the biggest U.S. holidays are part and parcel of the nascent business, analysts say. Moreover, outages have been a problem long before the age of cloud computing, with glitches within corporate datacenters and telecommunications hubs triggering myriad service disruptions.

COMING SOON: POST-MORTEM

Amazon’s latest service failure comes months after two high-profile outages that hit Netflix and other popular websites such as photo-sharing service Instagram and Pinterest. Industry executives, however, say its downtimes tend to attract more attention because of its outsized market footprint.

Netflix – which CEO Reed Hastings said relies on AWS for 95 percent of its datacenter needs – would not comment on whether they were pondering alternatives. Analysts say the video streaming giant is unlikely to try a large-scale switch, partly because all cloud providers experience outages.

“Despite a steady stream of these service outages, the demand for cloud services offered by AWS, Google, etc. continues to escalate because these services are still reliable enough to satisfy customer expectations,” said Jeff Kaplan, managing director of consultancy ThinkStrategies Inc.

“They offer cost-savings and elasticities that are too attractive for companies to ignore.”

But “Netflix and other organizations which rely on AWS will have to reexamine how they configure their services and allocate their service requirements across multiple providers to mitigate over-dependency and risks.”

AWS spokeswoman Rena Lunak said the outage was traced to a problem affecting customers at its oldest data center, run out of northern Virginia, which was linked also to the June failure.

The latest glitch involved a service known as Elastic Load Balancing, which automatically allocates incoming Web traffic across multiple servers in order to boost the performance of a website. She declined to provide further details about the outage, saying the company would be publishing a full post-mortem within days.

AWS has traditionally been used by start-up tech companies and smaller businesses that anticipate rapid growth in online traffic but are unwilling or unable to shell out on IT equipment and management upfront.

The company has more recently started winning more and more business from larger corporations. It has also set up a unit that caters to government agencies.

Regardless, Amazon’s clientele would do well not to put all their eggs in one basket, analysts say.

“Service outages do occur, but they are not common enough to cause users of these services to abandon today’s Cloud service providers at significant rates. In fact, every major Cloud service provider has experienced outages,” Kaplan said.

“Therefore, organizations that rely on these services are putting backup and recovery systems and protocols in place to mitigate the risks of future outages.”

(Additional reporting; editing by Edwin Chan and Richard Chang)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Analysis: Amazon’s Christmas faux pas shows risks in the cloud
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

DC police investigating ‘Meet the Press’ incident

WASHINGTON (AP) — District of Columbia police say they are investigating an incident in which NBC News journalist David Gregory displayed what he described as a high-capacity ammunition magazine on “Meet the Press.”

Gun laws in the nation’s capital generally restrict the possession of high-capacity magazines, regardless of whether the device is attached to a firearm. Gregory held up the magazine as a prop for Sunday’s segment, apparently to make a point during an interview, even though D.C. police say NBC had already been advised not to use it in the show.

“NBC contacted (the Metropolitan Police Department) inquiring if they could utilize a high capacity magazine for their segment. NBC was informed that possession of a high capacity magazine is not permissible and their request was denied. This matter is currently being investigated,” police spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump said in a written statement. She declined to comment further.

While interviewing National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre for Sunday’s program, Gregory held up an object that he said was a magazine that could hold 30 rounds.

“Here is a magazine for ammunition that carries 30 bullets. Now, isn’t it possible that if we got rid of these, if we replaced them and said, ‘Well, you can only have a magazine that carries five bullets or ten bullets,’ isn’t it just possible that we could reduce the carnage in a situation like Newtown?’” Gregory asked, referring to the December 14 shooting in which a gunman massacred 20 children and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

LaPierre replied: “I don’t believe that’s going to make one difference. There are so many different ways to evade that even if you had that” ban.

It was not clear how or where Gregory obtained the magazine, and an NBC News spokeswoman declined to comment Wednesday.

“Meet the Press” is generally taped in Washington.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: DC police investigating ‘Meet the Press’ incident
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Elwood V. Jensen, Pioneer in Breast Cancer Treatment, Dies at 92

Elwood V. Jensen, a medical researcher whose studies of steroid hormones led to new treatments for breast cancer that have been credited with saving or extending hundreds of thousands of lives, died on Dec. 16 in Cincinnati. He was 92.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, his son, Thomas Jensen, said.

In 2004 Dr. Jensen received the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, one of the most respected science prizes in the world.

When Dr. Jensen started his research at the University of Chicago in the 1950s, steroid hormones, which alter the functioning of cells, were thought to interact with cells through a series of chemical reactions involving enzymes.

However, Dr. Jensen used radioactive tracers to show that steroid hormones actually affect cells by binding to a specific receptor protein inside them. He first focused on the steroid hormone estrogen.

By 1968, Dr. Jensen had developed a test for the presence of estrogen receptors in breast cancer cells. He later concluded that such receptors were present in about a third of those cells.

Breast cancers that are estrogen positive, meaning they have receptors for the hormone, can be treated with medications like Tamoxifen or with other methods of inhibiting estrogen in a patient’s system, like removal of the ovaries. Women with receptor-rich breast cancers often go into remission when estrogen is blocked or removed.

By the mid-1980s, a test developed by Dr. Jensen and a colleague at the University of Chicago, Dr. Geoffrey Greene, could be used to determine the extent of estrogen receptors in breast and other cancers. That test became a standard part of care for breast cancer patients.

Scientists like Dr. Pierre Chambon and Dr. Ronald M. Evans, who shared the 2004 Lasker prize with Dr. Jensen, went on to show that many types of receptors exist. The receptors are crucial components of the cell’s control system and transmit signals in an array of vital functions, from the development of organs in the womb to the control of fat cells and the regulation of cholesterol.

Dr. Jensen’s work also led to the development of drugs that can enhance or inhibit the effects of hormones. Such drugs are used to treat prostate and other cancers.

Elwood Vernon Jensen was born in Fargo, N.D., on Jan. 13, 1920, to Eli and Vera Morris Jensen. He majored in chemistry at what was then Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio, and had begun graduate training in organic chemistry at the University of Chicago when World War II began.

Dr. Jensen wanted to join the Army Air Forces, but his poor vision kept him from becoming a pilot. During the war he synthesized poison gases at the University of Chicago, exposure to which twice put him in the hospital. His work on toxic chemicals, he said, inspired him to pursue biology and medicine.

Dr. Jensen studied steroid hormone chemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology on a Guggenheim Fellowship after the war. While there, he climbed the Matterhorn, one of the highest peaks in the Alps, even though he had no mountaineering experience. He often equated his successful research to the novel approach taken by Edward Whymper, the first mountaineer to reach the Matterhorn’s summit. Mr. Whymper went against conventional wisdom and scaled the mountain’s Swiss face, after twice failing to reach the summit on the Italian side.

Dr. Jensen joined the University of Chicago as an assistant professor of surgery in 1947, working closely with the Nobel laureate Charles Huggins. He became an original member of the research team at the Ben May Laboratory for Cancer Research (now the Ben May Department for Cancer Research) in 1951, and became the director after Dr. Huggins stepped down.

He came to work at the University of Cincinnati in 2002, and continued to do research there until last year.

His first wife, the former Mary Collette, died in 1982. In addition to his son, Dr. Jensen is survived by his second wife, the former Hiltrud Herborg; a daughter, Karen C. Jensen; a sister, Margaret Brennan; two grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Dr. Jensen’s wife was found to have breast cancer in 2005. She had the tumor removed, he said in an interview, but tested positive for the estrogen receptor and was successfully treated with a medication that prevents estrogen synthesis.

Read More..

Toyota to pay big to settle suits

Toyota Motor Corp., moving to put years of legal problems behind it, has agreed to pay more than $1 billion to settle dozens of lawsuits relating to sudden acceleration.

The proposed deal, filed Wednesday in federal court, would be among the largest ever paid out by an automaker. It applies to numerous suits claiming economic damages caused by safety defects in the automaker's vehicles, but does not cover dozens of personal injury and wrongful-death suits that are still pending around the nation.

The suits were filed over the last three years by Toyota and Lexus owners who claimed that the value of their vehicles had been hurt by the potential for defects, including floor mats that could cause the vehicles to surge out of control.

ROAD TO RECALL: Read The Times' award winning coverage

In addition, Toyota said it is close to settling suits filed by the Orange County district attorney and a coalition of state attorneys general who had accused the automaker of deceptive business practices. The costs of those agreements would be included in a $1.1-billion charge the Japanese automaker said it will take against earnings to cover the actions.

"We concluded that turning the page on this legacy legal issue through the positive steps we are taking is in the best interests of the company, our employees, our dealers and, most of all, our customers," Christopher Reynolds, Toyota's chief counsel in the U.S., said in a statement.

Toyota's lengthy history of sudden acceleration was the subject of a series of Los Angeles Times articles in 2009, after a horrific crash outside San Diego that took the life of an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer and his family.

Under terms of the agreement, which has not yet been approved in court, Toyota would install brake override systems in numerous models and provide cash payments from a $250-million fund to owners whose vehicles cannot be modified to incorporate that safety measure.

In addition, the automaker plans to offer extended repair coverage on throttle systems in 16 million vehicles and offer cash payments from a separate $250-million fund to Toyota and Lexus owners who sold their vehicles or turned them in at the end of a lease in 2009 or 2010. The total value of the settlement could reach $1.4 billion, according to Steve Berman, the lead plaintiff attorney in the case.

The lawsuits, filed over the last several years, had been seeking class certification.

News of the agreement comes scarcely a week after Toyota agreed to pay a record $17.35-million fine to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for failing to report a potential floor mat defect in a Lexus SUV. Those come on top of almost $50 million in fines paid by Toyota for other violations related to sudden acceleration since 2010.

The massive settlement does not, however, put Toyota's legal woes to rest. The automaker still faces numerous injury and wrongful death claims around the country, including a group of cases that have been consolidated in federal court in Santa Ana, and other cases awaiting trial in Los Angeles County.

The first of the federal cases, involving a Utah man who was killed in a Camry that slammed into a wall in 2010, is slated for trial in mid-February.

The California cases are set to begin in April, among them a suit involving a 66-year-old Upland woman who was killed after her vehicle allegedly reached 100 miles per hour and slammed into a tree.

Edgar Heiskell III, a West Virginia attorney who has a dozen pending suits against Toyota, said he is preparing to go to trial this summer in a case that involved a Flint, Mich., woman who was killed when her 2005 Camry suddenly accelerated near her home.

"We are proceeding with absolute confidence that we can get our cases heard on the merits and that we expect to prove defects in Toyota's electronic control system," he said.

Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said the settlement would have no bearing on the personal injury cases.

"All carmakers face these kinds of suits," he said. "We'll defend those as we normally would."

The giant automaker's sudden acceleration problems first gained widespread attention after the August 2009 crash of a Lexus ES outside San Diego.

That accident set off a string of recalls, an unprecedented decision to temporarily stop sales of all Toyota vehicles and a string of investigations, including a highly unusual apology by Toyota President Akio Toyoda before a congressional committee. Eventually Toyota recalled more than 10 million vehicles worldwide and has since spent huge sums — estimated at more than $2 billion, not including Wednesday's proposed settlement — to repair both its automobiles and public image.

Read More..

Ex-Bull Asik dominates as Rockets trounce Chicago 120-97

Using a more profane term, Joakim Noah light-heartedly said he hoped Omer Asik played like garbage in Tuesday's homecoming game.

Instead, the Bulls did.

Remember that huge road victory over the Knicks last Friday? That was so 96 hours ago. Posting consecutive double-digit losses for the first time in Tom Thibodeau's tenure, the Bulls got blown out 120-97 by Asik and the Rockets in their first Christmas Day home game in 15 years.

"Our defense wasn't very good," Noah said. "Terrible Christmas. We didn't play with the right edge. Omer was great rolling to the basket. We should've fouled him more."

Don't let a fun, fourth-quarter rally featuring Taj Gibson at center and four perimeter players fool anybody. The Bulls tied for the most points allowed in Thibodeau's tenure, surrendered 56.1 percent shooting and were outrebounded for the fifth time in seven games.

"We were completely outplayed right from the start," coach Tom Thibodeau said. "My job is to have them ready. Obviously, we're not ready. So that part's on me."

Asik's dominant night featured 20 points, 18 rebounds and three blocks, falling one point and rebound shy of career highs. James Harden added 26 points, Chandler Parsons had 23 and Jeremy Lin finished with 20 points and 11 assists in the Rockets' fourth straight win.

Houston enjoyed a 29-8 advantage in fast-break points and 66-32 in points in the paint.

In another lowlight for the Bulls, Luol Deng turned his right ankle and, limping badly, said he will see if he can play Wednesday.

Nate Robinson scored all 27 of his points in the second half to lead the Bulls, who trailed by 35 on Asik's tip-in with 4 minutes, 58 seconds left in the third quarter. Marquis Teague came off the bench to team with Robinson and provide some energy, finishing with eight points, as the Bulls once closed to within 15.

But for the second straight game, the Bulls looked lifeless and now have a back-to-back against the surging Pacers.

Just like on Saturday in Atlanta, the Bulls collapsed in the second quarter, getting outscored 31-19. After committing no turnovers in the first quarter, they had five in the first 3:30 of the second, allowing the Rockets' transition game to get going and open with a 12-4 run.

The Bulls have been outscored 67-35 in the last two second quarters.

"We had a bad fourth quarter in New York," Thibodeau said. "We had a bad performance in Atlanta. And we followed it up. Things can change very quickly in this league. If you don't have an edge, you're not going to win without playing with intensity.

"We're not going to outscore people. So we have the wrong mindset right now."

Asik now has 13 double-doubles

"It's been fun," he said. "It's a young team that's getting to know each other. We're getting better each game."

When Asik blocked Carlos Boozer and Harden scored on a three-point play in transition, the big man remained stoic, never cracking a smile. His teammates' faces said it all.

"Omer is a big-time player in the middle," Rockets coach Kevin McHale said. "He was blocking shots, playing big, getting the break going. It was a big-time game for him."

kcjohnson@tribune.com

Twitter @kcjhoop

Read More..

Jessica Simpson’s Christmas tweet seems to confirm pregnancy rumor

(Reuters) – U.S. actress, singer and fashion designer Jessica Simpson sent a Christmas Twitter message that apparently confirms media rumors that she is pregnant – showing a photo of her daughter Maxwell with the words “Big Sis” spelled out in sand.

The picture’s caption reads “Merry Christmas from my family to yours.”

Simpson had her first child, Maxwell Drew Johnson, in May. She has since become a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers.

A representative for Simpson was not immediately available for comment.

Simpson rose to fame as a teen pop star and became a household name after starring in a TV reality show with her then-husband Nick Lachey, a member of the boy band 98 Degrees. The pair divorced after three years of marriage.

She went on to star in the 2005 film version of “The Dukes of Hazzard” and re-invented herself as a country singer in 2008. She currently designs apparel, accessories and other fashion products and is a mentor on the TV contest “Fashion Star.”

Simpson’s fiancé, Eric Johnson, is a former U.S. professional football player whose career spanned seven seasons for both the San Francisco 49ers and New Orleans Saints. (Reporting By Mary Wisniewski and Paul Simao)

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Jessica Simpson’s Christmas tweet seems to confirm pregnancy rumor
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

NORAD says record number of calls to track Santa

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. (AP) — Most of the thousands of children who call the annual Santa-tracking operation at a Colorado Air Force Base on Christmas Eve ask the usual questions: “Where’s Santa, and when will he get here?”

So volunteer Sara Berghoff was caught off-guard Monday when a child called to see if Santa could be especially kind this year to the families affected by the Connecticut school shooting.

“I’m from Newtown, Connecticut, where the shooting was,” she remembers the child asking. “Is it possible that Santa can bring extra presents so I can deliver them to the families that lost kids?”

Sara, just 13 herself, was surprised but gathered her thoughts quickly. “If I can get ahold of him, I’ll try to get the message to him,” she told the child.

Sara was one of hundreds of volunteers at NORAD Tracks Santa who answered thousands of calls, program spokeswoman Marisa Novobilski said. Spokeswoman 1st Lt. Stacey Fenton said that as of midnight Tuesday, trackers answered more than 111,000 calls, breaking last year’s record of 107,000.

First lady Michelle Obama, who is spending the holidays with her family in Hawaii, also joined in answering calls as she has in recent years. She spent about 30 minutes talking with children from across the country, telling some who asked that her favorite toys growing up were Barbie dolls and an Easy Bake oven.

She also received an invitation to visit an 11-year-old boy in Fort Worth, Texas, and a request to put her husband on the phone. “He’s not here right now. But you know what, I will tell him you asked about him. OK?” she replied.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command, a joint U.S.-Canada command responsible for protecting the skies over both nations, tracks Santa from its home at Peterson Air Force Base.

NORAD and its predecessor have been fielding Christmas Eve phone calls from children — and a few adults — since 1955. That’s when a newspaper ad listed the wrong phone number for kids to call Santa. Callers ended up getting the Continental Air Defense Command, which later became NORAD. CONAD commanders played along, and the ritual has been repeated every year since.

After 57 years, NORAD can predict what most kids will ask. Its 11-page playbook for volunteers includes a list of nearly 20 questions and answers, including how old is Santa (at least 16 centuries) and has Santa ever crashed into anything (no).

But kids still manage to ask the unexpected, including, “Does Santa leave presents for dogs?”

A sampling of anecdotes from the program this year:

___

THE REAL DEAL: A young boy called to ask if Santa was real.

Air Force Maj. Jamie Humphries, who took the call, said, “I’m 37 years old, and I believe in Santa, and if you believe in him as well, then he must be real.”

The boy turned from the phone and yelled to others in the room, “I told you guys he was real!”

___

DON’T WORRY, HE’LL FIND YOU: Glenn Barr took a call from a 10-year-old who wasn’t sure if he would be sleeping at his mom’s house or his dad’s and was worried about whether Santa would find him.

“I told him Santa would know where he was and not to worry,” Barr said.

Another child asked if he was on the nice list or the naughty list.

“That’s a closely guarded secret, and only Santa knows,” Barr replied.

___

TOYS IN HEAVEN: A boy who called from Missouri asked when Santa would drop off toys in heaven.

His mother got on the line and explained to Jennifer Eckels, who took the call, that the boy’s younger sister died this year.

“He kept saying ‘in heaven,’” Eckels said. She told him, “I think Santa headed there first thing.”

___

BEST OF: Choice questions and comments wound up posted on a flip chart.

“Big sister wanted to add her 3-year-old brother to the naughty list,” one read.

“Are there police elves?” said another.

“How much to adopt one of Santa’s reindeer?”

“What’s the best way to booby-trap the living room to trap Santa?”

“When you see Santa, tell him hello for me, I never see him.”

“How does Santa make iPads?”

____

INTERNATIONAL FLAVOR: NORAD got calls from 220 countries and territories last year, and non-English-speakers called this year as well.

Volunteers who speak other languages get green Santa hats and a placard listing their languages so organizers can find them quickly.

“Need a Spanish speaker!” one organizer called as he rushed out of one of three phone rooms.

___

HE KNOWS WHEN YOU’RE AWAKE: At NORAD’s suggestion, volunteers often tell callers that Santa won’t drop off the presents until all the kids in the home are asleep.

“Ohhhhhhh,” said an 8-year-old from Illinois, as if trying to digest a brand-new fact.

“I’m going to be asleep by 4 o’clock,” said a child from Virginia.

“Thank you so much for that information,” said a grateful mom from Michigan.

___

CHRISTMAS EVE IN AFGHANISTAN: Five U.S. service personnel answered calls from Afghanistan for about 90 minutes through a conferencing hookup.

“They had a great time,” said Novobilski, the program spokeswoman.

NORAD wanted to set up a call center in Afghanistan but that proved too complex, she said.

___

HEY, MR. ELF: “Mr. Elf,” said one caller, “This is Adam, and I’ve been really good this year.”

___

FOR GEARHEADS: For people who want to know the specs of Santa’s sleigh, NORAD offers a trove of tidbits, including:

Weight at takeoff: 75,000 GD (gumdrops).

Propulsion: 9 RP (reindeer power).

Fuel: Hay, oats and carrots (for reindeer).

Emissions: Classified.

___

Online:

Track Santa online at http://www.noradsanta.org

___

Follow Dan Elliott at http://twitter.com/DanElliottAP

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: NORAD says record number of calls to track Santa
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Op-Ed Contributor: Our Failed Approach to Schizophrenia

TOO many pendulums have swung in the wrong directions in the United States. I am not referring only to the bizarre all-or-nothing rhetoric around gun control, but to the swing in mental health care over the past 50 years: too little institutionalizing of teenagers and young adults (particularly men, generally more prone to violence) who have had a recent onset of schizophrenia; too little education about the public health impact of untreated mental illness; too few psychiatrists to talk about and treat severe mental disorders — even though the medications available in the past 15 to 20 years can be remarkably effective.

Instead we have too much concern about privacy, labeling and stereotyping, about the civil liberties of people who have horrifically distorted thinking. In our concern for the rights of people with mental illness, we have come to neglect the rights of ordinary Americans to be safe from the fear of being shot — at home and at schools, in movie theaters, houses of worship and shopping malls.

“Psychosis” — a loss of touch with reality — is an umbrella term, not unlike “fever.” As with fevers, there are many causes, from drugs and alcohol to head injuries and dementias. The most common source of severe psychosis in young adults is schizophrenia, a badly named disorder that, in the original Greek, means “split mind.” In fact, schizophrenia has nothing to do with multiple personality, a disorder that is usually caused by major repeated traumas in childhood. Schizophrenia is a physiological disorder caused by changes in the prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain that is essential for language, abstract thinking and appropriate social behavior. This highly evolved brain area is weakened by stress, as often occurs in adolescence.

Psychiatrists and neurobiologists have observed biochemical changes and alterations in brain connections in patients with schizophrenia. For example, miscommunications between the prefrontal cortex and the language area in the temporal cortex may result in auditory hallucinations, as well as disorganized thoughts. When the voices become commands, all bets are off. The commands might insist, for example, that a person jump out of a window, even if he has no intention of dying, or grab a set of guns and kill people, without any sense that he is wreaking havoc. Additional symptoms include other distorted thinking, like the notion that something — even a spaceship, or a comic book character — is controlling one’s thoughts and actions.

Schizophrenia generally rears its head between the ages of 15 and 24, with a slightly later age for females. Early signs may include being a quirky loner — often mistaken for Asperger’s syndrome — but acute signs and symptoms do not appear until adolescence or young adulthood.

People with schizophrenia are unaware of how strange their thinking is and do not seek out treatment. At Virginia Tech, where Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people in a rampage shooting in 2007, professors knew something was terribly wrong, but he was not hospitalized for long enough to get well. The parents and community-college classmates of Jared L. Loughner, who killed 6 people and shot and injured 13 others (including a member of Congress) in 2011, did not know where to turn. We may never know with certainty what demons tormented Adam Lanza, who slaughtered 26 people at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, though his acts strongly suggest undiagnosed schizophrenia.

I write this despite the so-called Goldwater Rule, an ethical standard the American Psychiatric Association adopted in the 1970s that directs psychiatrists not to comment on someone’s mental state if they have not examined him and gotten permission to discuss his case. It has had a chilling effect. After mass murders, our airwaves are filled with unfounded speculations about video games, our culture of hedonism and our loss of religious faith, while psychiatrists, the ones who know the most about severe mental illness, are largely marginalized.

Severely ill people like Mr. Lanza fall through the cracks, in part because school counselors are more familiar with anxiety and depression than with psychosis. Hospitalizations for acute onset of schizophrenia have been shortened to the point of absurdity. Insurance companies and families try to get patients out of hospitals as quickly as possible because of the prohibitively high cost of care.

As documented by writers like the law professor Elyn R. Saks, author of the memoir “The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness,” medication and treatment work. The vast majority of people with schizophrenia, treated or untreated, are not violent, though they are more likely than others to commit violent crimes. When treated with medication after a rampage, many perpetrators who have shown signs of schizophrenia — including John Lennon’s killer and Ronald Reagan’s would-be assassin — have recognized the heinousness of their actions and expressed deep remorse.

It takes a village to stop a rampage. We need reasonable controls on semiautomatic weapons; criminal penalties for those who sell weapons to people with clear signs of psychosis; greater insurance coverage and capacity at private and public hospitals for lengthier care for patients with schizophrenia; intense public education about how to deal with schizophrenia; greater willingness to seek involuntary commitment of those who pose a threat to themselves or others; and greater incentives for psychiatrists (and other mental health professionals) to treat the disorder, rather than less dangerous conditions.

Too many people with acute schizophrenia have gone untreated. There have been too many Glocks, too many kids and adults cut down in their prime. Enough already.

Paul Steinberg is a psychiatrist in private practice.

Read More..