A blog for all seasons; A blog for one; A blog for all. As the 11th most informative blog on the planet, I have a seared memory of throwing my Time 2006 Man of the Year Award over the railing at Time Warner Center.
Justice. Only Justice Shall Thou Pursue
In the midst of Jared Lee Loughner's murderous rampage through Rep. Gabrielle Gifford's meet and greet with constituents at a Tuscon supermarket that left six people dead and 13 people injured, including Rep. Giffords, there were people who stepped up and became heroes.
These people ought to be recognized for their bravery and heroic actions for they saved lives.
Moments later, he was at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' side. Less than a week after the 20-year-old intern started working for the congresswoman, he was using his bare hands to stop blood gushing from where a bullet had entered her head.
Hernandez, who trained as a certified nursing assistant, said he lifted Giffords' head to make it easier for her to breathe, then applied pressure to her wound.
"She was alert and conscious, but she wasn't able to speak, so the way she was communicating was by grabbing my hand and squeezing," Hernandez said.
Employees from the nearby Safeway supermarket brought out clean smocks from the meat department to cover Giffords' wound until paramedics arrived, he said.
"My main thing was just to keep her as alert as possible and just keep trying to interact with her... The entire time I was with the congresswoman, she was still responding," Hernandez said. "She was obviously in a lot of pain, so I let her know to squeeze my hand as hard as she needed to."
She "was my first and only priority," Hernandez added later in a CNN interview. I was "trying to take care of her emotional needs" and "keep her calm."
Hernandez's calm and methodical actions saved Giffords' life by providing prompt medical attention and tending to Giffords. So too were the unnamed supermarket workers who found needed items to help Hernandez get the bleeding under control and provide easier access for her to breathe.
The other heroes in this traumatic event included spunky 61 year old woman, Patricia Maisch, who wrestled away another magazine from Loughner as he was attempting to reload after two men who are so far unnamed wrestled Loughner to the ground.
"He shot the woman that was next to me, and I was just waiting for the next bullet," Maisch said.
Then Maisch saw the gunman was on the ground near her. "Two gentlemen had knocked him to the ground, and somebody yelled 'Get the gun,'" Maisch said. "So I knelt up - he was on his right side - I knelt up and reached over him. I couldn't reach the gun, but as he was doing that he also pulled another magazine out of his left pocket, which he dropped on the pavement, and I was able to get it before he did.
"At the same time, another gentleman had picked up the gun. So he was secured."
She said she could not get a good look at the gunman's face. "He had a stocking cap on, and the way he was pushed on the ground, I could only see a little bit of the left side of his face, 'cause he had the stocking cap almost up to his eyes, both at the side, and above his eyebrows," she said.
Had he been able to reload, the crowd would have been in jeopardy of being hit by another 30 rounds. After arriving on scene, law enforcement found more than 90 rounds of ammo in Loughner's pockets.
Currently, Rep. Giffords remains in critical condition although doctors are cautiously optimistic. She's in a medically induced coma that allows doctors to control swelling and they revive her from time to time to check her responses, which have so far been positive.
Six people were killed, including a federal court justice, a nine year old girl, and four others at a political event sponsored by Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords at a Safeway supermarket in Tuscon. The Congresswoman has survived a gunshot wound to the head. Federal Judge John Roll was among the six killed along with nine year old Christina Green was born on 9/11 and was featured in a book about babies born on 9/11. The others murdered by Loughner are:
* Gabriel Zimmerman, 30, was recently engaged to be married, was Giffords' director of community outreach. He graduated from Rincon High School in 1998 where he was active in student government. A vigil was held tonight by his friends who described him as "caring," "motivated," "a free spirit," and "a man who understood how to live life"
* Dorwin Stoddard, 76, was a church volunteer. When the shooting started, Dorwin tried to protect his wife by laying on top of her when the shooting started. She was wounded in the attack.
* Dorthy Morris, 76
* Phyllis Scheck, 79
Loughner, 22, who is in law enforcement custody, lives near the scene of the shooting, which killed six people and injured at least a dozen others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said there's reason to believe Loughner has "a mental issue" and described him as "unhinged."
"As we understand it, there have been law enforcement contacts with the individual where he made threats to kill," Dupnik said during a press conference Saturday evening. But he wouldn't say who those threats were aimed at.
Police are also seeking a second, older man who may have had a role in the shooting.
The evidence and reports about Mr. Loughner’s unusual conduct suggest an increasing alienation from society, confusion, anger as well as foreboding that his life could soon come to an end. Still, there appear to be no explicit threats of violence that explain why, as police allege, Mr. Loughner, 22, would go to a Safeway supermarket north of Tucson on Saturday morning and begin shooting at a popular Democratic congresswoman and more than a dozen other people, killing 6 and wounding 19.
Police officials on Saturday said that Mr. Loughner had a criminal record of some kind, but they did not provide any details. They also hinted that he might have had the help of a second person, adding that they were searching for another man.
Don Coorough, 58, who sat two desks in front of Mr. Loughner in a poetry class last semester, described him as a “troubled young man” and “emotionally underdeveloped.” After another student read a poem about getting an abortion, Mr. Loughner compared the young woman to a “terrorist for killing the baby.”
“No one in that class would even sit next to him,” Mr. Coorough said. Another fellow student said that he found Mr. Loughner’s behavior so eccentric — including inappropriate remarks and unusual outbursts — that he wondered if he might be on hallucinogens. Mr. Loughner grew up in Tucson and was an unremarkable student at Mountain View High School, classmates said.
Grant Wiens, 22, who graduated in 2006 from Mountain View High School, a year ahead of Mr. Loughner, described him as “a kind of rare bird, very shy.”
“He didn’t seem very popular, but he kind of did his own thing,” Mr. Wiens said.
Mr. Wiens said that something Mr. Loughner said during a discussion about religion had stuck in his mind: “Whatever happens, happens,” Mr. Wiens recalled the suspect saying. “Might as well enjoy life now.”
Another former high school classmate said that Mr. Loughner may have met Representative Giffords, who was shot in the head outside the Safeway supermarket, several years ago.
“As I knew him he was left wing, quite liberal. & oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy,” the former classmate, Caitie Parker, wrote in a series of Twitter feeds Saturday. “I haven’t seen him since ’07 though. He became very reclusive.”
Expect that Loughner will be given a psychological evaluation and that his lawyers (when he is either assigned or obtains one) will likely make an insanity case rather than face the death penalty. Clearly, the charges that would likely flow from such criminal acts include the state and federal charges of murder in the 1st and 2d degree, and the attack on Rep. Giffords falls under 18 USC 351.
UPDATE:
Was Loughner motivated by anti Semitism? Anything remains a possibility at this point as Giffords was Jewish and investigators think that Loughner may have been involved in a group called American Renaissance, which is anti-government, anti-immigration, anti -ZOG (Zionist Occupational Government), and anti-Semitic. However, that article claims that Giffords was the first Jewish female to be elected to such high position, but that doesn't quite make sense. Giffords is hardly the first Jewish woman to be elected to Congress (so I'm not sure how that article's assertion was made or the context). After all, we've had Jewish congresswomen before, and Sen. Feinstein of CA is Jewish (and one of the senior members of the caucus at that). It could make sense in the context of being the first female Jewish member of Congress from Arizona. The SPLC file on American Renaissance highlights the group's typical anti Semitic and racist diatribes.
UPDATE:
Rep. Giffords remains in critical condition as Loughner has begun to be charged in the murderous rampage. First up are a series of federal charges:
Jared Loughner is charged with one count of attempted assassination of member of Congress, two counts of killing an employee of the federal government and two counts of attempting to killing a federal employee.
Heather Williams, the first assistant federal public defender in Arizona, says the 22-year-old suspect doesn't yet have a lawyer, but that her office is working to get a lawyer appointed for Loughner.
Expect the state counts to roll in with murder and attempted murder in the coming days. Loughner would face the death penalty on the federal charges alone, but his mental health is all but likely to come into play here and may see him incarcerated in a mental health facility.
UPDATE:
A copy of the federal criminal complaint can be found here. It outlines the premeditated efforts by Loughner to assassinate Rep. Giffords.
UPDATE:
Federal Judge John M. Roll was killed in Arizona attack, NBC News reports along with a staffer of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Giffords was among those seriously injured after being shot in the head at close range. At least 12 people were shot.
President Barack Obama called the shooting an "unspeakable tragedy," and said that some had died and the congresswoman had been gravely injured, Reuters reported.
"And while we are continuing to receive information, we know that some have passed away, and that Representative Giffords is gravely wounded," Obama said in a statement.
C.J. Karamargin, a spokesman for Giffords, said the congresswoman was in surgery as of 1 p.m. local time and that an unspecified number of Giffords staff members were involved in the shooting. Karamargin said he had no other information on the conditions of the injured or on the circumstances of the shooting.
Gabrielle Giffords
Congressional officials said an aide to the Democrat was killed, and unknown number of others were injured, including staffers to the lawmaker.
'Sad day'
Little was known about the shooter in the chaos after the rampage; one official said the attack was carried out with an automatic weapon. The officials who described the events did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not permitted to comment publicly.
Another law enforcement official told NBC News that the suspect was born in 1988, but did not have more details at the time.
A bystander apparently tackled the assailant as he tried to run away. According to the Pima County Sheriff's Office, at least 18 shots were fired from some kind of pistol with an extended magazine. Video tapes are being pulled from nearby businesses. Details about the shooting are still developing.
My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those involved and now 6
Giffords, who was re-elected in November, has focused on immigration reform, military issues, stem cell research and alternative energy while serving in Congress. She is married to U.S. astronaut Mark Kelly.
She served on the House Armed Services, Science and Technology committees.
Before going to Washington, Giffords served in the Arizona Legislature from 2000 to 2005 and ran her family's tire and automotive business.
Jared Laughner is the accused gunman and MSNBC is reporting that at least six people were killed.
UPDATE:
Media reports are indicating that this is not the first run-in that Laughner has had with law enforcement.
The University of Arizona Medical Center is holding a briefing. 10 patients were received. One died at the hospital. Five are in critical condition with five currently undergoing operations. Neurosurgeons have completed surgery on the Congresswoman and have a good prognosis.
The deceased victim from the hospital was a young child.
Also, this may be Laughner's YouTube channel, and his videos are quite disturbing and present some insight into what he was thinking.
UPDATE:
Culling through Loughner's background reveals someone who appears to have planned this attack and was looking to carry out attacks against the existing political order. He also appears to have a video channel "Classitup10"
My name is Jared Lee Loughner!
Hometown:Tucson
Country:United States
Schools:I attended school: Thornydale elementary,Tortolita Middle School, Mountain View Highschool, Northwest Aztec Middle College, and Pima Community College.
Interests:My favorite interest was reading, and I studied grammar. Conscience dreams were a great study in college!
Movies:(*My idiom: I could coin the moment!*)
Music:Pass me the strings!
Books:I had favorite books: Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables, The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland, Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan, To Kill A Mockingbird, We The Living, Phantom Toll Booth, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Pulp,Through The Looking Glass, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha, The Old Man And The Sea, Gulliver’s Travels, Mein Kampf, The Republic, and Meno.
The shooting took place just about 10:00AM local time at a Safeway Shopping Center in Tuscon.
To get to the point, this was an attack on democracy itself. It affects how members will interact with their constituents and how constituents can join with their representatives.
UPDATE:
Reading through Laughner's materials, it's striking that not only is he expressing his interests in the past tense, but that he was calling for a change in the political currency of the country. While some people might think that Laughner was insane for espousing extreme political thought, and I fully expect his eventual lawyers to make that claim to avoid the death penalty for his attempted assassination of the Congresswoman, the murder of the federal judge, the young child, and anyone else who may have died or was injured in connection with this attack, that doesn't make him a murderous bastard with an expectation that he would not survive his plan (his writings were given in the past tense).
He clearly wanted a change in currency - not the tangible currency - but the currency of the existing political order. He was apparently looking to overthrow the government and existing polity. That puts him way out on the fringe politically, but that doesn't make him insane.
UPDATE:
President Obama speaks about the shooting:
Sen. John McCain has also responded about the shooting: "Whoever did this; whatever their reason, they are a disgrace to Arizona, this country and the human race, and they deserve and will receive the contempt of all decent people and the strongest punishment of the law."
Giffords has drawn the ire of the right in the last year, especially from politicians like Sarah Palin over her support of the health care bill. It's still not clear if the gunman had the health care debate in mind or was focused on his own unique set of political beliefs as witnessed in the Internet videos.Law enforcement officials said members of Congress reported 42 cases of threats or violence in the first three months of 2010, nearly three times the 15 cases reported during the same period a year earlier. Nearly all dealt with the health care bill, and Giffords was among the targets.
Giffords' Tucson office was vandalized a few hours after the House voted to approve the health care law in March, with someone either kicking or shooting out a glass door and window. In an interview after the vandalism, Giffords referred to the animosity against her by conservatives. Palin listed Giffords' seat as one of the top "targets" in the midterm elections because of the lawmakers' support for the health care law.
"For example, we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action," Giffords said in an interview with MSNBC.
In the hours after the shooting, Palin issued a statement in which she expressed her "sincere condolences" to the family of Giffords and the other victims.
The shooting occurred at a shopping center called La Toscana Village as Giffords met with voters outside a Safeway grocery store.
Alex Villec, 19, a volunteer for the event, told the Arizona Daily Star that the gunman asked to speak to Giffords, but Villec told him to go to the back of the line. The gunman did that, and minutes later he walked toward her.
"He was intent," Villec said. "He was intent when he came back - a pretty stone-cold glance and glare."
"I didn't see his gun, but it was clear who he was going for," he added. "He was going for the congresswoman."
Villec said the shooter walked past tables and toward Giffords, then raised his hand. Villec said he heard gunshots before ducking behind a pillar.
"It was bedlam," he said. "People were getting down on the ground. They were screaming. I just did what I could to keep myself protected."
Villec said he did not see two men tackle the gunman but afterward spoke with one of the men who was next in line to greet Giffords.
Law enforcement officials and reporters from around the country quickly descended on Tucson, the second biggest city in the state and home to the University of Arizona. The scene has been converted into a command post with about a dozen or so emergency vehicles and agents in FBI jackets milling about the location.
I'd be interested to see who were the targets of those incidents and the disposition as to whether anyone was arrested.
UPDATE:
The New York Times is reporting that a second suspect is being sought. I'm going to surmise that the second suspect may be somehow related to how Loughner arrived at the supermarket - a driver or someone who provided him with the weapons/ammo, etc. Suspect may not have been a shooter, but he or she enabled Loughner to arrive at the supermarket and go on his murderous rampage.
Legal experts seem to think that Arizona's new immigration enforcement act (AZ SB1070, with the full text here) may survive a legal challenge because it operates in an area of law known as concurrent enforcement between the federal primacy on immigration and border control and state enforcement.
The tests will come soon enough. Civil rights organizations are already planning their suits, said Lucas Guttentag, director of the immigrants’ rights project of the American Civil Liberties Union. The law, Mr. Guttentag said, “will increase racial profiling and discrimination against Latinos and anyone who might appear to be an immigrant.”
President Obama criticized Arizona’s bill last week before it was signed, calling for a comprehensive immigration overhaul as an alternative to such “misguided” efforts. He also asked the Department of Justice to “examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation.”
On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said the department was considering several options, including a federal court challenge.
The major issue in those challenges will be whether federal law should trump state action.
“The closer the law comes to the traditional federal role,” said Juliet P. Stumpf, an associate professor of law at Lewis & Clark Law School, “the more likely it is that the state law will be considered to be trespassing on the federal government’s domain.”
The new law, Professor Stumpf added, “sits right on that thin line of pure state criminal law and federally controlled immigration law.”
The courts have rebuffed state efforts through pre-emption in the past. Californians passed a voter initiative in 1994 that denied social benefits to illegal immigrants; a federal district court judge struck down the law in 1997 and the state later dropped its appeal.
Arizona has already won one challenge to a different immigration bill: the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld a 2007 law that penalizes businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Federal law is not settled, however, and a similar law in Hazleton, Pa., was struck down by a federal judge.
Even if the new law is constitutionally acceptable as written, the challenge will be on whether it will be constitutional as applied. On this latter point, I can see real problems with it.
Meanwhile, there are some serious questions that ought to be raised about the background of Kris Kobach, who was quoted in the New York Times article. Apparently the Times didn't do a thorough background check on Kobach and his ties to white supremacist groups and nativists via a group he represents, FAIR, which raises questions about his intentions and the true motivations for the Arizona bill.
Let's posit that electric cars like the Chevy Volt are tremendously successful and are bought up in droves. How and where exactly is the energy that these electric cars rely upon produced? The power isn't coming out of thin air. It has to be generated somewhere, and there are costs associated with the production and transmission to the end user.
Much of the country relies on coal for power. Nuclear power produces a fraction, and wind and solar produce a fraction of the power necessary to wean the nation off its dependency on oil. This chart shows where our energy comes from, and what it's used for.
Petroleum, natural gas, and coal account for more than 80% of the energy used by the nation. Petroleum is the primary energy source for transportation (95%), and this is the energy source that electric vehicles are supposed to displace.
There haven't been any new nuclear power licenses issued since 1996 according to the Energy Information Administration. Don't expect any new nuclear power plants to come online anytime soon, even though a nuclear power plant would produce more power than several coal powered plants combined, and on a smaller footprint.
That means that other energy sources have to be considered. Natural gas and coal are the backbone of electric energy production, but they too produce greenhouse gases, which leaves hydropower and other alternative energy sources, including solar.
There are several methods for collecting solar power, including using solar cells and Parabolic trough technology. A Spanish company is currently attempting to build the world's largest solar collector energy facility in the world in Arizona. The 280mw system would sit on 1,900 acres but the system would be able to produce power even after the sun goes down because it would store energy in the form of molten salt, which would release energy for several hours after dark.
However, compared to the limited size of a nuclear power footprint, the smallest of which could fit into a small building and yet power 20,000 homes, and you can expect to see opposition to such plans because of how it would alter the local environment - whether the views or the local ecosystem. We see similar opposition to wind power on similar grounds - they take up tremendous expanses of land and create visual pollution, and could negatively affect local ecosystems, including migratory wildlife.
Arizona officials are complaining that the federal government short-changed their sunny state when it designated “solar energy study zones” to accelerate development of solar power plants in Western states.
In July, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management identified 16,492 acres in Arizona suitable for the solar study zones — compared to 351,049 acres in California, 149,375 acres in Nevada and 120,584 acres in New Mexico.
“We have concerns regarding the process used to select solar zones in Arizona, and the resulting paucity of Arizona land identified for study,” wrote Kristin K. Mayes, chairman of the Arizona Corporation Commission, the state’s utility regulator, in an Aug. 3 letter to the federal task force managing the solar energy study zones.
The science is taking a back seat to the technological advancements and energy development of alternative energy, despite claims that the current Administration would change things. The more things have changed, the more they're the same.
That brings us to a major drawback on solar power - it simply isn't feasible for most of the world because it doesn't receive sufficient amounts of sun, whether because it is too far from the equator or is in part of the world that sees too few sunny days. Solar can be only a partial solution, which relies on other power sources that are based on more stable energy sources.
This is Agate Bridge, an extremely well preserved log of petrified wood, which spans a gully in Petrified Forest National Park. You'll note that there's a concrete support built underneath the wood. That was build in 1917 to replace a masonry support built in 1906 when park officals thought it best to preserve the structure with additional assistance.
Today, if such a fascinating find were discovered, the National Park Service would not engage in any such efforts - and let nature take its course:
"Current National Park Service philosophy allows the natural forces that create unusual features to continue. If discovered today, Agate Bridge would be left in its natural state. Eventually the natural forces that created Agate Bridge will cause it to fall with or without its supports. For your safety, and to help preserve the petrified log, please stay off the bridge."
One of the many logs of petrified wood to be found within Petrified Forest National Park. Taken April 2008. This one caught my eye because it was one of the larger pieces and I liked the composition with the hills in the background. It probably could have been a stronger composition if I had better light, but with limited time, that simply wasn't possible.
This is a photo of Oak Creek in Sedona. The creek winds its way through Sedona, and is a respite of green against the surrounding red rocks. It's also known for its excellent fishing, though I didn't have time to try my hand.
This photo of Sedona's beautiful scenery taken at dusk was shot by Mrs. Lawhawk from our rental car as we were driving into Sedona. Snoopy Rock can be found at the center.
If you look carefully, you'll see the rocks on the right forming Snoopy lying on his back. And if you look up the mountain the the left, you'll see Lucy sitting there, as if she's waiting for Charlie Brown to come by.
Lawhawk posted his photo of Montezuma's Castle yesterday. Well here is my photo of the same location, taken about two years ago, in November.
Montezuma's Castle National Park is a small park on the way towards Sedona. This is actualy one of my favorite photos because of the color contrast of the white rocks and the clear blue sky. This one was taken using a Minolta HTSIplus, Sigma 28-300 aspherica IF hyperzoom lens, and shot on Fuji Supra 100 film (yes, I am still a dinosaur.) I believe I also used a Hoya Polarizer filter, but not sure which model (I have 2 of them, don't remember when I bought the second one, if it was before or after this trip.)
In addition, here are two other photos I took during that trip. The first, is snoopy rock and was taken during one of the jeep tours Hawk described a few days ago. The second, was taken from a spa, I don't remember the name, that we had lunch at one afternoon. The views were the most incredible things I had ever seen. The set up for these pictures is the same as that stated above.
Montezuma's Castle National Monument. When early explorers discovered this ancient ruin, they thought that it was a castle for Mexican ruler Montezuma. That turned out not to be the case, but the name stuck.
This is Casa Grande National Monument. It's located between Phoenix and Tucson, and historians still aren't quite sure why it was built where it was and on a scale seldom seen for this type of structure. The structure was built by the Hohokam people, who lived in the Gila Valley. No one quite knows why the Hohokam abandoned the site around 1450.
The structure shielding the remains from the elements was actually the second such structure built. The original protective roof was built by the Federal General Land Office at the turn of the 20th Century and it literally rested upon the Hohokam structure. It was removed and replaced by the present distinctive roof in 1932 by famed architect Fredrick Law Olmstead, who also happened to design Central Park in New York City.
This National Monument makes a great side trip if you're going between Phoenix and Tucson, and is located in the town of Coolidge, Arizona.
As promised, here's a close up of a prickly pear cactus flowering - complete with the pollen grains and interior details. The photo was taken at Saguaro National Park outside Tucson, Arizona.
This post will also serve as my call for the best and brightest from around the web.
