This 90-minute documentary is to air on the eve of Veteran's Day 2011 (11/11/11) -- local station WNIT (Channel 34) is airing it on 34.1 at 10 - 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time Zone
Synopsis
From a snowy, small town in northern Michigan to the mountains of Afghanistan, Where Soldiers Come From follows the four-year journey of childhood friends who join the National Guard after graduating from high school. As it chronicles the young men’s transformation from restless teenagers to soldiers looking for roadside bombs to 23-year-old combat veterans trying to start their lives again, the film offers an intimate look at the young Americans who fight our wars, the families and towns they come from — and the way one faraway conflict changes everything. A co-production of Quincy Hill Films and ITVS in association with American Documentary | POV, with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. (90 minutes)
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Canned Goods / Staple Foods DRIVE: Sat. Nov. 12 from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
as publicized in NILES ( Michigan) DAILY STAR (Nov. 9, 2011 edition):
The Niles H.S. Student Council is hosting a stuff-a-bus fundraiser from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Martin’s Super Market on South 11th Street, Niles. All food will be donated to the Niles Salvation Army.
Niles High School is also hosting a food drive next week. It will be class competition to see which class can collect the most food for the Salvation Army.
The Niles H.S. Student Council is hosting a stuff-a-bus fundraiser from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Martin’s Super Market on South 11th Street, Niles. All food will be donated to the Niles Salvation Army.
Niles High School is also hosting a food drive next week. It will be class competition to see which class can collect the most food for the Salvation Army.
On this date in History (1483): Martin Luther's birthday
from Writer's Almanac (Garrison Keillor, Public Radio International):
It's the birthday of a man whom Pope Leo X called "the wild boar in the vineyard": monk and theologian Martin Luther, born in Eisleben in what is now Germany (1483). His father was born a farmer, worked his way up to become a copper smelter, and hoped that his son would advance even further and become a lawyer. Martin did well at school, but his family's financial difficulties almost caused him to drop out -- at the age of 14, he ended up singing on the streets in return for bread. He had a very good singing voice, but it still wasn't enough to get him through school. A wealthy benefactor noticed the boy and helped pay for his education.
All was going according to plan -- Martin went to the university to study law — when he got caught in a terrible thunderstorm. He thought he was going to die, and he made a bargain with St. Anne that if he was saved he would become a monk. He survived, and soon after, he entered a monastery. Although his parents were very devout, they were crushed to learn that their son had given up his chances to become a lawyer.
As a young monk, Luther was obsessed with his own struggle for salvation, but could not find it. He would flagellate himself, or lie out all night in the snow, but to no avail. One of his superiors worried that Luther was spending too much time thinking about his personal spiritual torment, and decided he needed more to do, so he sent him to teach at the university in Wittenberg.
Luther visited Rome, where he was disgusted by the behavior of the Church authorities, who seemed to treat their religious duties as a joke and were most interested in selling indulgences. Luther went back to Wittenberg and continued his intense study of the Bible, and finally decided that the Church had it all wrong -- that salvation wouldn't come from performing acts, like paying indulgences for the forgiveness of sins, but rather from individual faith. The final straw for Luther came when members of his own parish started traveling to a neighboring territory to spend their hard-earned money on indulgences, and then told Luther that they had no need of confession since they had purchased forgiveness.
Luther was fired up, so he wrote out his argument in a document, and he mailed a copy to the Archbishop of Mainz and another to the Bishop of Brandenburg. On October 31st, 1517, he took a third copy and nailed it onto the door of the church at the University of Wittenberg, which was the custom -- the door functioned much like a bulletin board. He was anticipating a fierce academic debate, but not much beyond that. But his ideas coincided with the rise of the printing press, and within a few months, his words had spread all across Europe.
Luther said, "I would never have thought that such a storm would rise from Rome over one simple scrap of paper." But he continued to openly criticize the Church. In 1520, the pope issued a statement threatening excommunication; Luther publicly burnt it. So he was excommunicated and called before the Diet of Worms, a general assembly of representatives from all the estates of the Holy Roman Empire. There, Luther refused to recant any of his statements. He was condemned, his writings were banned, and in the Edict of Worms, the representatives wrote: "We have declared and hereby forever declare by this edict that the said Martin Luther is to be considered an estranged member, rotten and cut off from the body of our Holy Mother Church. He is an obstinate, schismatic heretic, and we want him to be considered as such by all of you." It was illegal to befriend Luther, to take him in, and although they had just released him, they immediately offered a reward for his capture. But Luther had earned the respect of Frederick III, his local ruler, who offered him sanctuary — he sent men who pretended to attack and kidnap Luther on his way home from the Diet of Worms, and then hid Luther in his castle.
While he was hidden away, Luther's ideas set off revolutions, as peasants violently turned against the upper class in what they saw as a natural continuation of Luther's thinking. Luther was appalled by this -- things had gotten away from him. Eventually, the armed fighting quieted down, but the Reformation had become a movement much larger than Luther.
When Luther was 41, he got married to a 26-year-old ex-nun named Katharina von Bora, whom he had helped smuggle out of a convent in a pickled fish barrel. They had a happy marriage. They gardened and played music together, and raised six children. Luther said: "Who loves not woman, wine, and song remains a fool his whole life long."
When a friend wrote Luther a letter confessing that he was depressed, Luther had some advice for him: "Be strong and cheerful and cast out these monstrous thoughts. Whenever the devil harasses you thus, seek the company of men or drink more, or joke and talk nonsense, or do some other merry thing. Sometimes we must drink more, sport, recreate ourselves, aye, and even sin a little to spite the devil, so that we leave him no place for troubling our consciences with trifles. We are conquered if we try too conscientiously not to sin at all. So when the devil says to you: 'Do not drink,' answer him: 'I will drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to.' One must always do what Satan forbids. What other cause do you think that I have for drinking so much strong drink, talking so freely and making merry so often, except that I wish to mock and harass the devil who is wont to mock and harass me. Would that I could contrive some great sin to spite the devil, that he might understand that I would not even then acknowledge it and that I was conscious of no sin whatever. We, whom the devil thus seeks to annoy, should remove the whole decalogue from our hearts and minds."
It's the birthday of a man whom Pope Leo X called "the wild boar in the vineyard": monk and theologian Martin Luther, born in Eisleben in what is now Germany (1483). His father was born a farmer, worked his way up to become a copper smelter, and hoped that his son would advance even further and become a lawyer. Martin did well at school, but his family's financial difficulties almost caused him to drop out -- at the age of 14, he ended up singing on the streets in return for bread. He had a very good singing voice, but it still wasn't enough to get him through school. A wealthy benefactor noticed the boy and helped pay for his education.
All was going according to plan -- Martin went to the university to study law — when he got caught in a terrible thunderstorm. He thought he was going to die, and he made a bargain with St. Anne that if he was saved he would become a monk. He survived, and soon after, he entered a monastery. Although his parents were very devout, they were crushed to learn that their son had given up his chances to become a lawyer.
As a young monk, Luther was obsessed with his own struggle for salvation, but could not find it. He would flagellate himself, or lie out all night in the snow, but to no avail. One of his superiors worried that Luther was spending too much time thinking about his personal spiritual torment, and decided he needed more to do, so he sent him to teach at the university in Wittenberg.
Luther visited Rome, where he was disgusted by the behavior of the Church authorities, who seemed to treat their religious duties as a joke and were most interested in selling indulgences. Luther went back to Wittenberg and continued his intense study of the Bible, and finally decided that the Church had it all wrong -- that salvation wouldn't come from performing acts, like paying indulgences for the forgiveness of sins, but rather from individual faith. The final straw for Luther came when members of his own parish started traveling to a neighboring territory to spend their hard-earned money on indulgences, and then told Luther that they had no need of confession since they had purchased forgiveness.
Luther was fired up, so he wrote out his argument in a document, and he mailed a copy to the Archbishop of Mainz and another to the Bishop of Brandenburg. On October 31st, 1517, he took a third copy and nailed it onto the door of the church at the University of Wittenberg, which was the custom -- the door functioned much like a bulletin board. He was anticipating a fierce academic debate, but not much beyond that. But his ideas coincided with the rise of the printing press, and within a few months, his words had spread all across Europe.
Luther said, "I would never have thought that such a storm would rise from Rome over one simple scrap of paper." But he continued to openly criticize the Church. In 1520, the pope issued a statement threatening excommunication; Luther publicly burnt it. So he was excommunicated and called before the Diet of Worms, a general assembly of representatives from all the estates of the Holy Roman Empire. There, Luther refused to recant any of his statements. He was condemned, his writings were banned, and in the Edict of Worms, the representatives wrote: "We have declared and hereby forever declare by this edict that the said Martin Luther is to be considered an estranged member, rotten and cut off from the body of our Holy Mother Church. He is an obstinate, schismatic heretic, and we want him to be considered as such by all of you." It was illegal to befriend Luther, to take him in, and although they had just released him, they immediately offered a reward for his capture. But Luther had earned the respect of Frederick III, his local ruler, who offered him sanctuary — he sent men who pretended to attack and kidnap Luther on his way home from the Diet of Worms, and then hid Luther in his castle.
While he was hidden away, Luther's ideas set off revolutions, as peasants violently turned against the upper class in what they saw as a natural continuation of Luther's thinking. Luther was appalled by this -- things had gotten away from him. Eventually, the armed fighting quieted down, but the Reformation had become a movement much larger than Luther.
When Luther was 41, he got married to a 26-year-old ex-nun named Katharina von Bora, whom he had helped smuggle out of a convent in a pickled fish barrel. They had a happy marriage. They gardened and played music together, and raised six children. Luther said: "Who loves not woman, wine, and song remains a fool his whole life long."
When a friend wrote Luther a letter confessing that he was depressed, Luther had some advice for him: "Be strong and cheerful and cast out these monstrous thoughts. Whenever the devil harasses you thus, seek the company of men or drink more, or joke and talk nonsense, or do some other merry thing. Sometimes we must drink more, sport, recreate ourselves, aye, and even sin a little to spite the devil, so that we leave him no place for troubling our consciences with trifles. We are conquered if we try too conscientiously not to sin at all. So when the devil says to you: 'Do not drink,' answer him: 'I will drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to.' One must always do what Satan forbids. What other cause do you think that I have for drinking so much strong drink, talking so freely and making merry so often, except that I wish to mock and harass the devil who is wont to mock and harass me. Would that I could contrive some great sin to spite the devil, that he might understand that I would not even then acknowledge it and that I was conscious of no sin whatever. We, whom the devil thus seeks to annoy, should remove the whole decalogue from our hearts and minds."
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Incumbent gains fourth term (Niles, MI Mayor) - Nov. 8 vote total report
from Niles Daily Star ( www. nilesstar. com ):
Incumbent mayor of Niles, Michigan Michael McCauslin defeated challenger and city councilman Tim Skalla 525 votes to 388.
“I’m very happy,” he said. “I’m excited to start the next term and continue work we’ve been doing and the work we will continue to do in our city.”
Skalla, 59, focused heavily on his desire to make Niles into more of a tourist town during his campaign, while also challenging the amount of revenue the city takes from its utilities department’s electricity sales. He will be able to continue those efforts as a representative of the fourth ward — a position he has held for five years.
McCauslin, 56, won each ward in the election.
The two candidates were the winners of a primary election in August, the city’s first in 12 years.
Voter turnout was again low at about 10 percent, slightly higher than the 6 percent that turned out in the primary.
Incumbent mayor of Niles, Michigan Michael McCauslin defeated challenger and city councilman Tim Skalla 525 votes to 388.
“I’m very happy,” he said. “I’m excited to start the next term and continue work we’ve been doing and the work we will continue to do in our city.”
Skalla, 59, focused heavily on his desire to make Niles into more of a tourist town during his campaign, while also challenging the amount of revenue the city takes from its utilities department’s electricity sales. He will be able to continue those efforts as a representative of the fourth ward — a position he has held for five years.
McCauslin, 56, won each ward in the election.
The two candidates were the winners of a primary election in August, the city’s first in 12 years.
Voter turnout was again low at about 10 percent, slightly higher than the 6 percent that turned out in the primary.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
City of Niles, State of Michigan: Polling places open 7 a.m. to close at 8 p.m.
City election of Mayor and City Council officials. Ward 2 voting at Niles High School (Gymnasium).
Asteroid fly-by (Tuesday Nov. 8, 2011) : 2005 YU55
from coverage by Washington Post online reporter (Nov. 2011):
Asteroid 2005 YU55 has a name only a scientist could love. They’re also loving the chance to stare at the nearly round, slowly spinning chunk of space debris as it flies by at some 30,000 mph.
“It will be scanned and probed and scanned some more,” said Marina Brozovic, an asteroid researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Starting last Friday (Nov. 4), Brozovic will ping the approaching asteroid with radar from giant dishes at Goldstone, Calif. She wants to map every crater and boulder while refining estimates of the asteroid’s path, which swings inside the orbit of Venus and then out near Mars, crossing Earth’s orbit.
Meanwhile, telescopes in Arizona and Hawaii will analyze light reflected from the asteroid to determine more precisely what it’s made of. Already scientists know it’s darker than charcoal, because it’s a “C-type” asteroid, heavy with carbon and silicate minerals. Astronomers will also look for signs of water.
Similar asteroids that have plunged to Earth — called carbonaceous chondrites — hold within them amino acids and other building blocks of life.
“These are the objects that probably seeded the early Earth with carbon-based materials and water that allowed life to form,” said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near Earth Object Program, which tracks space objects that veer close to our planet.
Since a humble start at a single telescope in the 1980s, NASA’s $5 million-per-year asteroid-tracking program has matured to the point where the agency said in September that it has detected more than 90 percent of “planet killer” asteroids, those bigger than one kilometer in diameter. None will hit Earth in the foreseeable future, the agency has said.
The tracking program detects hundreds of smaller space rocks each year, closely watching their orbits. So far, none of those pose a threat either.
In the past, giant asteroids have crashed into Earth and devastated life. The most famous, at least seven miles wide, blasted a crater in the Yucatan Peninsula some 65 million years ago, triggering a cataclysm that probably wiped out the dinosaurs.
If a space rock the size of 2005 YU55 ever hit Earth, it would explode like 500 nuclear bombs, trigger a 7.0 magnitude earthquake and, if it splashed down in the ocean, generate a 70-foot tsunami, said Purdue University’s Jay Melosh.
Already, scientists have determined this asteroid poses no threat for the next century or so.
Still, they’re treating the flyby as a drill, a chance to refine their tracking skills. Said asteroid hunter Richard Binzel of MIT: “If one were ever found on an incoming trajectory, we’ll want to apply all the techniques we are learning now.”
Asteroid 2005 YU55 has a name only a scientist could love. They’re also loving the chance to stare at the nearly round, slowly spinning chunk of space debris as it flies by at some 30,000 mph.
“It will be scanned and probed and scanned some more,” said Marina Brozovic, an asteroid researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Starting last Friday (Nov. 4), Brozovic will ping the approaching asteroid with radar from giant dishes at Goldstone, Calif. She wants to map every crater and boulder while refining estimates of the asteroid’s path, which swings inside the orbit of Venus and then out near Mars, crossing Earth’s orbit.
Meanwhile, telescopes in Arizona and Hawaii will analyze light reflected from the asteroid to determine more precisely what it’s made of. Already scientists know it’s darker than charcoal, because it’s a “C-type” asteroid, heavy with carbon and silicate minerals. Astronomers will also look for signs of water.
Similar asteroids that have plunged to Earth — called carbonaceous chondrites — hold within them amino acids and other building blocks of life.
“These are the objects that probably seeded the early Earth with carbon-based materials and water that allowed life to form,” said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near Earth Object Program, which tracks space objects that veer close to our planet.
Since a humble start at a single telescope in the 1980s, NASA’s $5 million-per-year asteroid-tracking program has matured to the point where the agency said in September that it has detected more than 90 percent of “planet killer” asteroids, those bigger than one kilometer in diameter. None will hit Earth in the foreseeable future, the agency has said.
The tracking program detects hundreds of smaller space rocks each year, closely watching their orbits. So far, none of those pose a threat either.
In the past, giant asteroids have crashed into Earth and devastated life. The most famous, at least seven miles wide, blasted a crater in the Yucatan Peninsula some 65 million years ago, triggering a cataclysm that probably wiped out the dinosaurs.
If a space rock the size of 2005 YU55 ever hit Earth, it would explode like 500 nuclear bombs, trigger a 7.0 magnitude earthquake and, if it splashed down in the ocean, generate a 70-foot tsunami, said Purdue University’s Jay Melosh.
Already, scientists have determined this asteroid poses no threat for the next century or so.
Still, they’re treating the flyby as a drill, a chance to refine their tracking skills. Said asteroid hunter Richard Binzel of MIT: “If one were ever found on an incoming trajectory, we’ll want to apply all the techniques we are learning now.”
Oakland University (Michigan) debate -- will GOP repudiate the GM & Chrysler bailout of 2010? - AP story Nov. 7
as posted at M Live dot-com (Michigan Live news website):
. . .eight Republicans attending Wednesday's debate at Oakland University in Rochester say they wouldn't have offered government loans to save GM and Chrysler, whose sprawling Auburn Hills headquarters is just a short drive from the university's campus 35 miles north of Detroit.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who won Michigan's 2008 GOP presidential primary, explained during Detroit-area campaign stops in June that his opposition to the bailouts wasn't about hurting the auto industry, but about keeping the U.S. taxpayer off the hook.
"Some people believe in bailouts. I believe in the process of the law," said Romney, whose father led American Motors before becoming Michigan governor in the 1960s. "The idea of just writing a check, which is what the auto executives were asking for, was not the right course ... It would have been best had the auto companies gone through the bankruptcy process without having taken $17 billion from government."
Obama campaign manager Jim Messina told reporters Monday in a conference call that Michigan voters will remember the Democratic president helped the faltering automakers, protecting middle-class jobs.
"Not only did the president extend the loan and restructuring packages that saved 1.4 million jobs up and down the auto supply chain, but he's made investments in innovative technologies like advanced batteries that are creating jobs and new products to export from Michigan," Messina said.
But Michigan GOP Chairman Bobby Schostak said many Republican voters see the federal bailout as a mistake, even though both GM and Chrysler have repaid most of the money and the government has been able to sell most of its investment in the two companies. He claims the federal government could have offered government loan guarantees and let the automakers go through a traditional bankruptcy.
"Don't become the lender. That's not the place for the federal government," Schostak said.
Michigan Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer doesn't buy the argument that the automakers would have survived without the federal funds. He expects voters will be listening closely Wednesday to the 90-minute CNBC-sponsored debate to see what the Republican candidates say about the automakers.
"It seems to me, issue No. 1 is for them to explain, as they hold a debate in the shadow of Chrysler headquarters — the building that now would be a vacant hulk if they all had their way — why they opposed the very successful rescue of the domestic auto industry," Brewer said.
Michigan has the nation's third highest unemployment rate at 11.1 percent, well above the national rate of 9 percent. Four years ago, when GOP candidates gathered for a presidential debate in Dearborn, Michigan had the highest unemployment rate among the 50 states — 7.4 percent.
The candidates want to make a good impression in Michigan, which will hold its GOP presidential primary on Feb. 28, the same day as Arizona. Romney is expected to have an edge in his birth state but it's not a winner-take-all contest, so others could come away with Michigan delegates if they have a strong enough showing.
Many of the leading candidates are gearing up their Michigan campaigns with that in mind, even though Obama won Michigan by 16 points in 2008. The last Republican to win Michigan's presidential contest was then-Vice President George H.W. Bush in 1988.
www.mlive.com/
. . .eight Republicans attending Wednesday's debate at Oakland University in Rochester say they wouldn't have offered government loans to save GM and Chrysler, whose sprawling Auburn Hills headquarters is just a short drive from the university's campus 35 miles north of Detroit.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who won Michigan's 2008 GOP presidential primary, explained during Detroit-area campaign stops in June that his opposition to the bailouts wasn't about hurting the auto industry, but about keeping the U.S. taxpayer off the hook.
"Some people believe in bailouts. I believe in the process of the law," said Romney, whose father led American Motors before becoming Michigan governor in the 1960s. "The idea of just writing a check, which is what the auto executives were asking for, was not the right course ... It would have been best had the auto companies gone through the bankruptcy process without having taken $17 billion from government."
Obama campaign manager Jim Messina told reporters Monday in a conference call that Michigan voters will remember the Democratic president helped the faltering automakers, protecting middle-class jobs.
"Not only did the president extend the loan and restructuring packages that saved 1.4 million jobs up and down the auto supply chain, but he's made investments in innovative technologies like advanced batteries that are creating jobs and new products to export from Michigan," Messina said.
But Michigan GOP Chairman Bobby Schostak said many Republican voters see the federal bailout as a mistake, even though both GM and Chrysler have repaid most of the money and the government has been able to sell most of its investment in the two companies. He claims the federal government could have offered government loan guarantees and let the automakers go through a traditional bankruptcy.
"Don't become the lender. That's not the place for the federal government," Schostak said.
Michigan Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer doesn't buy the argument that the automakers would have survived without the federal funds. He expects voters will be listening closely Wednesday to the 90-minute CNBC-sponsored debate to see what the Republican candidates say about the automakers.
"It seems to me, issue No. 1 is for them to explain, as they hold a debate in the shadow of Chrysler headquarters — the building that now would be a vacant hulk if they all had their way — why they opposed the very successful rescue of the domestic auto industry," Brewer said.
Michigan has the nation's third highest unemployment rate at 11.1 percent, well above the national rate of 9 percent. Four years ago, when GOP candidates gathered for a presidential debate in Dearborn, Michigan had the highest unemployment rate among the 50 states — 7.4 percent.
The candidates want to make a good impression in Michigan, which will hold its GOP presidential primary on Feb. 28, the same day as Arizona. Romney is expected to have an edge in his birth state but it's not a winner-take-all contest, so others could come away with Michigan delegates if they have a strong enough showing.
Many of the leading candidates are gearing up their Michigan campaigns with that in mind, even though Obama won Michigan by 16 points in 2008. The last Republican to win Michigan's presidential contest was then-Vice President George H.W. Bush in 1988.
www.mlive.com/
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