Society's ChildS


Airplane

Flight 214 crash in San Francisco: A mystery to Louisiana pilots

Asiana Flight 214
© NOLA.com/The Times-PicayuneView full size
When Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crashed on landing at San Francisco International Airport, Todd Thrush was shocked. The Destrehan resident, a retired airline pilot who estimates he has flown into San Francisco 400 times, considers that airport one of the easiest in the United States for landing, with a runway posed against the bay so that pilots arriving from the east can enjoy a long, leisurely approach.

Besides, the weather at the time of Saturday's crash was so ideal that even the wind had calmed. After the crash landing, smoke from the ensuing fire lingered over the plane, instead of blowing out across the water.

On top of that, the aircraft model at issue, the Boeing 777, had experienced only two accidents, neither responsible for a death, since it went into service in 1994. And the part that had caused the most recent crash before Sunday's, an engine prone to icing, had been modified. The National Transportation Safety Board noted that the San Francisco plane did not seem to experience a mechanical failure. "The engines indicate that both engines were producing power," Chairman Deborah Hersman said.

So what had gone wrong on this flight, which ended with the deaths of two 16-year-old passengers and the hospitalization of 182 others? Why did the plane, which originated in Shanghai and flew into San Francisco on a routine 10-hour leg from Seoul, Korea, end in a fiery snarl?

With the safety board set to further review the data recorders that detail the final 30 minutes of the flight, Thrush and other New Orleans area pilots, monitoring the news from afar, began to wonder whether the fault might not lie with the pilots.

Stop

Chilean Students fiercely reject mainstream presidential nominees

Chile education protest
© Evan Lang / The Santiago Times.Massive education protests have shaped the presidential election, but many students feel unrepresented.
Members of student groups calling for education reform overwhelmingly dismiss major coalition nominees after primary elections.

Despite years at the forefront of the political agenda in Chile, and in the wake of Sunday's primary vote, student demonstrators approach November's general election feeling increasingly marginalized.

Student movement leaders have consigned themselves to the political periphery by fully rejecting the education reform plans outlined by either Michelle Bachelet or Pablo Longueira - winners in the left-leaning Concertación and conservative Alianza coalition primaries, respectively.

Red Flag

Chilean students re-Occupy high schools in Santiago as mass youth demonstrations continue

Santiago school protest
© Ashoka Jegroo / The Santiago TimesFour high schools in Santiago where occupied by students Tuesday morning.
With the conclusion of Chile's presidential primaries, students begin high school occupations once more in nation's capital.

Students from four high schools in Santiago have once again captured their schools, after they were evicted by police last Thursday to allow the buildings to be used as polling booths for the primary presidential elections.

On Tuesday, students from Liceo Arturo Alessandri Palma, Liceo Carmela Carvajal, Liceo 7 and Liceo José Victorino Lastarria returned to continue their "tomas," or occupations, following the weekend's vote.

Arrow Down

Postal worker discovers shocking case of animal cruelty in Southwest Philadelphia

Kuperus
© Adopt a Boxer RescueKuperus, following surgery for her injuries.
In a disturbing case of animal cruelty, a young dog was found wounded, emaciated and tied to a tree in Southwest Philadelphia last week.

Now named Kuperus by the rescue that took her in, the Boxer pup is slowly recovering after a mailman discovered her at 22nd and Alter Street emaciated and suffering from severe wounds to the head and jaw.

That mailman gave the dog food and water and called ACCT, which then transported the dog to Penn Veterinary Hospital, where she underwent surgery for a head wound possibly caused by a knife or bullet and had her fractured jaw wired. Kuperus also had multiple teeth extracted and was treated for sores all over her body.

Following surgery, Adopt a Boxer Rescue took in Kuperus, and a foster parent is nursing her back to health with lots of love and four meals a day.

Despite what she's been through, Kuperus' rescuers say she is a lovable girl who craves attention and human touch.

Video

Adam Curtis and Massive Attack: What is reality?

Image
© A.C./M.A.
Look at the flickering video images that bombard your world. Do you trust them? Or have they stranded you in an 'enchanted cocoon'?

Read an extract from Adam Curtis' video collaboration with Massive Attack from the Manchester international festival
We all live in two worlds.

One is the world of our own experience.

The other is created by the millions of flickering images recorded on film and video.

It is a strange world where the laws of time, space and mortality do not apply.

So many of the images are of people who died long ago. They are the modern ghosts who will never leave us.

It is a beautiful world. But it may not be as innocent as it seems.

It keeps us in an enchanted cocoon - a static world that suits the modern system of power.

This system reaches far beyond the old politics - into every part of our lives. It is a technocratic theory of management that wants to keep the world stable. It predicts what you want tomorrow on the basis of what you wanted in the past.

If you liked that - You will love this.

But it wasn't always like this.

Ambulance

10 killed in crash of Alaska air taxi

Image
© Rashah McChesney/Peninsula ClarionPolice and emergency personnel stand near the remains of a fixed-wing aircraft that was engulfed in flames Sunday at the Soldotna Airport in Alaska.
One of the worst civilian aviation accidents in the state in at least 25 years killed all 10 people aboard an air taxi in Alaska on Sunday, .

The crash happened at the airport in , a small city on the Kenai Peninsula about 75 miles southwest of Anchorage. The Daily News says that an initial report from the National Transportation Safety Board indicates the de Havilland DHC-3 Otter airplane was taking off at the time.

According to the newspaper:
"The Soldotna Airport is a municipal airstrip with a single paved 5,000-foot long runway adjacent to the Kenai River. The airport is busy in the summer months with fishing, hunting and sight-seeing flights that take off from the Kenai Peninsula town."
The long distances between communities and the desire among outdoors enthusiasts to reach remote places have made traveling on small planes common in Alaska. Unfortunately, as the Daily News says, because of that Alaska is also "a state with many fatal aviation accidents."

In 2010, in the crash of a small plane. Among the other accidents with high death tolls in recent decades was the 1987 crash of a Ryan Air Beechcraft 1900C. .

Arrow Down

Adult breast feeding report incenses China web users

Breastfeeding
© AFP/File, Frederic J. BrownA mother and nanny tend to a baby at a park in Beijing on September 23, 2010.
Beijing - Human breast milk has become a new luxury for China's rich, with some firms offering wet nurse services, a report said, provoking outrage and disgust among web users Thursday.

Xinxinyu, a domestic staff agency in the booming city of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong, provided wet nurses for newborns, the sick and other adults who pay high prices for the milk's fine nutrition, the Southern Metropolis Daily said.

"Adult (clients) can drink it directly through breastfeeding, or they can always drink it from a breast pump if they feel embarrassed," the report quoted company owner Lin Jun as saying.

Wet nurses serving adults are paid around 16,000 yuan ($2,600) a month -- more than four times the Chinese average -- and those who were "healthy and good looking" could earn even more, the report said.

Traditional beliefs in some parts of China hold that human breast milk has the best and most easily digestible nutrition for people who are ill.

But the report sparked heated debate in the media and on Chinese social media, with most users condemning the service as unethical.

Hardhat

Latest derailment in Canada sparks questions about safety of rail system

Lac Megantic explosion 11
© The Canadian Press/Paul ChiassonA police officer watches as smoke rises from railway cars that were carrying crude oil after derailing in downtown Lac Megantic, Que., Saturday, July 6, 2013

While the town of Lac-Megantic assesses the damage from an immense series of explosions that came after a train transporting crude oil came off the tracks, questions are being raised about the overall safety of transporting oil products to market.


Investigators still don't know why the train, which was stopped overnight in a nearby rail yard, came loose and rolled into the Quebec community, 250 kilometres east of Montreal.

The train, owned by Montreal Maine & Atlantic., had stopped for a crew change shortly before midnight Friday. Somehow, while the 73-car train was unattended, it got loose.

Ambulance

Death toll set to rise as 40 still missing following massive Lac Megantic, Quebec oil train explosion

Lac Megantic explosion
Devastation: The downtown of Lac Megantic, Quebec lays in ruins as fire fighters continue to water smoldering rubble on Sunday after a derailed train carrying crude oil ignited on Saturday moning
The death toll in a Quebec town that was wiped out after a runaway freight train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded in a fireball on Saturday has now risen to five.

The massive inferno in Lac-Megantic, which is about 250km from Montreal, was finally brought under control on Sunday - but as many as 40 people are still missing.

Parts of the town were evacuated in the early hours of Saturday morning as fireballs shot several meters in the air, flames spread to nearby homes and thick acrid smoke filled the air. Around 30 buildings were destroyed by the massive blaze.

'There are still people who have been reported as missing or unaccounted for,' Sûreté du Québec Lt. Michel Brunet said at a press conference. 'We can't give you a number. We know there will be other deaths. We are aware of that, but we can't give you any numbers at this time.'

Books

Best of the Web: Twelve-year-old Ali Ahmad explains the situation in Egypt in under 3 minutes

This 12 years old boy is just stunningly, incredibly smart. Listen to him as he excruciates the Muslim Brotherhood, relentlessly dissecting their power grab in Egypt. Interview by Egyptian newspaper El Wady, in Cairo on October 19, 2012.

Thanks to the Youtube channel 'FreeArabsChannel' for the video


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Comment: Most adults of the world apparently have some catching up to do to reach the Ali's level of awareness. Whether the Egyptian, Arab or global revolution is 'successful' or not, this is exactly what Brzezinski warned his fellow elites about - the politicization of the masses:

Wikileaks and the War for your Mind
In November 2008, current advisor to President Obama, Zbigniew Brzezinski, described to a group of British political and corporate elite two very basic transforming developments that he believes are occurring on the world scene:

"The first change concerns the surfacing of global issues pertaining to human well being as critical international issues such as climate, environment, starvation, health and social inequality. The second change concerns a global political awakening."

Brezezinski described this second change as "a truly transformative event on the global scene". He said that: "for the first time in all of human history, almost all of mankind is politically awake, activated, politically conscious and interactive. There are only a few pockets of humanity here or there in the remotest corners of the world which are not politically alert and interacted with the political turmoil and stirrings and aspirations around the world. And all of that is creating a world wide surge for the worldwide surge for personal dignity and cultural respect in a diversified world."

To an audience in the US he described the global 'terror threat' in this way:
"I'm deeply troubled that a very vague emotionally stated semi-theologically defined diagnosis of the central global menace is obscuring our national ability to comprehend the historically unprecedented challenge which is being posed in our time"
The historically unprecedented challenge is:
"A massive global political awakening and this is obstructing our ability to deal effectively with the global political turmoil that this awakening is generating."
Brzezinski went on to describe another new reality that global powers such as the US must face: "while the lethality of [our] power is greater than ever, [our] capacity to impose control over the politically awakened masses of the world is at an historical low". He further noted that:
"In earlier times, it was easier to control a million people than physically to kill a million people. Today it is infinitely easier to kill a million people than to control a million people."