San Antonio Fire

KENS5 Staff pic of Childress Memorial Church of God in Christ burning

Story: Historic S.A. church goes up in flames; firefighters on scene..

That Wasn't Cool, Mr. Costas

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Serious Kudos to Reddit

Image Source, and of course Reddit itself

For the first time I can recall since about September 11, 2001, I have been glued to the news regarding the Aurora, Co. movie theater incident.

I've flipped among HLN, CNN, MSNBC, and even FoxNews for almost two straight days now. While these networks have done a decent job in their reporting of the events as they occur (some better than others), their journalism skills are in great need of improvement.

FoxNews was actually very good with today's coverage of the investigation of Holmes's apartment. I don't normally watch FoxNews. Nope, never. CNN and HLN were both doing well at first until they both dropped the ball, and started rebroadcasting loops of CNN's Anderson Cooper's and Piers Morgan's interviews.. and HLN's Jane Valez-Mitchell & Vinnie Politan seemed to speculate for hours while independent media outlets were coming up with new updates by the minute!

Reddit user integ3r has provided to the public (along with hefty assistance from nilicule, shankee, quantumraiders, and dozens of other contributors), the most detailed report of the events -as they happened- as I've ever seen.. for any event, ever. These guys deserve some SERIOUS credit for the unprecedented realistic & thorough journalism work they've put in. (integ3r has already been given tons of credit across the Internets, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.)

The LIVE feed from 9NEWS out of Denver has been top-notch, and I have chosen to watch it over any of the main national media outlets. It is however not online 24/7. Nothing against them - they can only do so much, and what they have done has been incredible!

I have taken the time to post this because as a quasi-journalist myself, I am SICK of the national media, and their lame reporting of extremely important news. I remember how things were during the 9/11 attacks, but I was just beginning to see it then. They did the same thing during the Casey Anthony trial, and they do the same thing whenever there is a major celebrity death.

Something I saw on CNN today: "We are trying very hard to focus only on the victims in this case, and not the individual who chose to take the lives of these victims, blah blah blah.." Not a quote, it's my paraphrased statement. Five seconds later the station posts a picture of James Holmes, and the voice being heard says something of the like: "Who is this James Holmes? We'll be right back with more information about his background, his possible motives, and more details we've just discovered." Again, not a direct quote.

This is my point. Besides the fact that every 2 minutes someone is injecting their own speculation as to "why this, or why that." And it's not only that. The national media is a complete failure because of their inadequacy on the job. Mispronouncing names.. blatantly getting stuff wrong.. FoxNews is still to this minute saying there were 71 victims! "Why would he join a sex site?" is another gem I heard. Why would anyone join a sex site?

Here is the link to the creme of the crop coverage directly from Reddit. They have also provided a blog site with all of it in one place.

This is the definition of journalism.

An Incredible Wildfire Image

...from Colorado (enlarge!)

Via - (NSFW) / Image Source: Casey Christie/The Bakersfield Californian/Associated Press (via)

A 2003 Cold Set

Remedy


Suffocate


Gone Away (A Song for Starr)


Stupid Girl


A Different Kind of Pain 2005


Happens All The Time 2005



And the two that are in a class by themselves:

Cure My Tragedy


"Cure My Tragedy" is one of my favorite songs of all-time. It cleanses my soul, as it's the one that drove me to tears so many times. Thank you Stephanie, my love, and my everything!

Wasted Years


All I have to do is listen to Cold, and memories from September of 2003 come back really strong. I had just met the woman of my dreams. She rescued me from a terrible relationship, and the moment we met, I knew I had found "the one". We used to cruise around in her little green Mitsubishi Lancer listening to all sorts of stuff.. Godsmack, Staind, Chevelle.. But it was her introducing me to Cold that cemented so many memories. That's how it is. When you're going through changes in your life (and really even when you're not) the introduction of beautiful brand new music stays with you. And Cold will always stay with me for this reason. I love you Steph!

Couple Images Likely in the Running for Photo of the Year

CTE!

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CTE!

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In Pictures: Japan 6 Months Later

from the Sacramento Bee



Last Sunday was the six-month anniversary of the day the massive earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan's northeast coast. Some 20,000 people are dead or missing. More than 800,000 homes were completely or partially destroyed. The disaster rippled businesses, roads and infrastructure. The Japanese Red Cross Society estimates that 400,000 people were displaced.

Half a year later, there are physical signs of progress. Much of the debris has been cleared away or at least organized into big piles. In the port city of Kesennuma, many of the boats carried inland by the tsunami have been removed. Most evacuees have moved out of high school gyms and into temporary shelters or apartments.

Last week the Kyodo News agency distributed an amazing group of combination photographs showing three scenes. The first scene is right after the earthquake and tsunami hit, then three months later and finally, how the scene looks now.

This is a must-see set of photographs. Click here to see the huge set.

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Longer Video of the Crash that Killed Dan Wheldon

...with several dash-cam videos


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Story

9/11 Tribute - Part X

CTE!                                                                                                                                                   Via

We'll never forget!

9/11 Tribute - Part IX

Frank A. DeMartini - A Hero of 9/11/01

Frank DeMartini had a passion for old cars, motorcycles, sailing and everything Italian. He also loved restoring Brooklyn brownstones, and was fascinated with the World Trade Center. Mr. DeMartini, an architect, started working at the twin towers when he was hired to assess the damage from the 1993 bombing. He stayed on, becoming the construction manager, the man to see when you wanted to move a wall or rearrange the plumbing. Mr. DeMartini's wife, Nicole, also worked in the towers, and their children, Sabrina, 10, and Dominic, 8, could often be seen splashing around in the pool at the complex's Marriott Hotel.

Compact and athletic, Mr. DeMartini, 49, once used a baseball bat to chase away an intruder who had picked the wrong brownstone. "He was really very fearless," said Michael Prager, a longtime friend. When the north tower was struck, Nicole DeMartini was just leaving her husband's office on the 88th floor. Finding a stairway that was still intact, he ushered her to safety. But he refused to follow just then because others needed help. "He saw himself very much as a protector," Mr. Prager said. -- Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on December 1, 2001. (Source)

In regards to the Towers' immense solid steel construction, Frank A. DeMartini, Manager of WTC Construction & Project Management stated in an interview back in January 2001:

"The building was designed to have a fully loaded 707 crash into it. That was the largest plane at the time. I believe that the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners, because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door - this intense grid - and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting. It really does nothing to the screen netting."

Frank DeMartini died on September 11th a hero. After accompanying his wife down 88 flights of stairs from his office in the North Tower, he went back up with fellow WTC worker Pablo Ortiz and rescued over 70 people. DeMartini and Ortiz - both 49 years of age - perished in the collapse of the North Tower. (Source)



Frank DeMartini                                                         Pablo Ortiz
(Source)

9/11: Heroes of the 88th Floor is a must see!

9/11 Tribute - Part VIII

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9/11 Tribute - Part VII

Source

9/11 Tribute - Part VI

Yeah I forgot my 9/11 tribute post last night, and I apologize. So I guess it will be 10 posts in 11 days. Sorry about that!



Click the image, sit back, and remember..

9/11 Tribute - Part V

Rick Rescorla - A True Hero

If you never heard of Rick Rescorla, you are missing out on one of the best stories of an "American" hero.

Born born Cyril Richard Rescorla in Hayle, Cornwall, in 1939.

During WWII the 175th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. 29th Infantry Division was headquartered in Rick's hometown. Being a typical young boy he fell head over heals in love with the American G.I.s. He grew up an athlete, excelling in boxing.

Image Source

In 1957 Rescorla joined the British Army The Parachute Regiment and also serving with intelligence. Upon leaving the military he served various jobs as a police officer.

He moved to the United States and joined the United States Army in 1963, wanting to go to Vietnam to fight. In 1965 he was a platoon leader in the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and fought in the Battle of Ia Drang - the battle recounted in the book and depicted in the movie "We Were Soldiers (Once ... And Young)"

While serving in Vietnam Rick earned the Silver Star, the Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster, a Purple Heart, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. And didn't come back to the United States to throw any of them on the White House lawn, nor did he join The Winter Soldiers and undermine his military brothers still fighting, bleeding, and dying in Vietnam.

Rescorla was a very bright and astute man. He was a critical thinker. In 1992 he warned the World Trade Center's Port Authority that the massive structures were vulnerable to (what we call now) VIEDs in the basement parking garage, but his warning was not heeded. In 1993 the first terrorist attack on the WTC happened. Rick helped evacuate the building, and was the last man out.

Rescorla became director of security for Morgan Stanley headquartered in the World Trade Center in 1997. Feeling the WTC was too vulnerable a target for terrorists, Rick recommended Morgan Stanley leave the structure and find new office spaces. But they were locked into a lease. So, Rescorla then made certain all employees of Morgan Stanley train and practice in emergency evacuations from the WTC building, drilling them every three months.

On September 11, 2001 Rick Rescorla was supposed to be on vacation. Instead, he was filling in so one of his deputies could go on vacation.

This [at the beginning of the video], I believe, is one of the last known pictures taken of Rick Rescorla on 9-11-01 as he coaxed and lead the evacuation of Morgan Stanley's staff and employees out of WTCT2 and WTC5.



When all the Morgan Stanley employees were safely out, Rick went back inside to help more people escape the inevitable doom he had feared and predicted years before.

On the warm, bright, sunny morning of September 11, 2001 Rick Rescorla was not the last man out of the World Trade Center.

Rick Rescorla's birth certificate may have said England but he was an American hero through and through - in every cell of his body, and every fiber of his heart and soul.

Source

9/11 Tribute - Part IV

On Sept. 11, 2001, two planes crashed into the World Trade Center in Manhattan. A third hurled into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. But a fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark, N. J., to San Francisco, never made it to the hijackers' destination.

The 40 passengers and crew members realized their flight had been hijacked, and from air phones they learned about the attacks on the other sites. According to accounts from the phone conversations, the group took a vote and vowed to take back their plane, which crashed into a field in a remote, rural area near Shanksville, Pa., never to reach its possible target, the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. -- only 20 minutes flying time from the crash site.

In 2005, relatives of those who died on Flight 93 helped select Paul Murdoch's winning design for a memorial out of some 1,000 entries. The remote area proved a challenge. It is a former coal-mining site that required major soil and water cleanup. There also were landowner conflicts and a controversy over a crescent in the design that some took to be a Muslim symbol in the original plan.

To quiet debate, the design was altered from the original crescent shape, and the project eventually will feature a 93-foot-high Tower of Voices containing 40 wind chimes -- one for each passenger and crew member who died -- and 40 groves of red maple trees that will line a circular walkway that follows the natural bowl shape of the land, a result of the surface mining.

The $62 million plan includes 2,200 acres. Visitors can follow the flight path, and in phase one, they will view a slab of white marble inscribed with the names of the 40 victims. A concrete structure will form a gateway for visitors, separating the parking area and the memorial plaza, which extends along the edge of the crash site.

Continue on to the rest of Yahoo's article, and be sure to click the link that takes you to the photo gallery of the memorial (it looks like the pic above).

Or to skip the article, and go straight to the photos, click here..

Source

9/11 Tribute - Part III

Click the banner image to go see a very well done 9/11 Tribute site..

Source

9/11 Tribute - Part II

102 Minutes That Changed America - For 102 minutes on September 11, 2001, the world looked on in horror as terrorists flew hijacked passenger planes into New York City's mighty twin towers, destroying the iconic buildings and killing more than 2,700 people. Watch unfiltered videos from nine New Yorkers who witnessed the day that changed America.


Click the image above to go to the interactive site..

Source

9/11 Tribute - Part I

This is the beginning of an 11-day tribute to the heroes, the memory of victims, and the overall national mourning of the tragedy on September 11, 2001. I'm gonna do my best to post one each day. NatGeo is already airing documentaries for these two weeks, and they are very good, but haunting.


FDNY Chief Richard "Pitch" Picciotto                                                                     Image Source

The highest-ranking firefighter to survive the World Trade Center collapse, and the last fireman to escape the devastation, Richard "Pitch" Picciotto was on a stairwell between the sixth and seventh floors of the North Tower when it collapsed on September 11, 2001. An FDNY battalion commander, his is the harrowing true story of an American hero, a man who thought nothing of himself and gave nearly everything for others during one of our nation's darkest hours. Picciotto tells an outspoken account of that indelible day, shaking and inspiring audiences to the core.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Picciotto answered the call heard around the world. In minutes he was at Ground Zero of the worst terrorist attack on American soil, acting boldly to save innocent lives as the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center began to burn—and then to buckle. Already a veteran of terrorist attacks, Picciotto was present fighting a similar battle after the World Trade Center Bombing in 1993. Again inside the North Tower, where he found himself years earlier, burdened by an eerie sense of familiarity, he focused his concentration on the rescue efforts at hand. But it was there in the smoky stairwells that he heard and felt the South Tower collapse. He then made the call for firemen and rescue workers to evacuate, while he stayed behind with a skeleton team of men to assist a group of disabled and infirm civilians in their struggle to evacuate the inferno. And it was there in the rubble of the North Tower that Picciotto found himself buried for more than four hours after the building's collapse.

Having discovered that members of his team and a 59-year-old grandmother also were alive nearby, he and his men used their radios to send out Mayday calls until they made contact with a firefighter on the ground, and a search party was dispatched. When the light finally appeared about four stories above, he climbed upwards, reached the top, and saw the "unfathomable, mind-boggling destruction." And even then, it was not until after he organized the rescue of the others that he walked across the rubble to safety.

Picciotto's book, Last Man Down, is a tribute to the 343 firefighters and 2,400 civilians who lay dead in the rubble that surrounded him on that day. And moreover, it is a heartfelt remembrance of a day of infamy and profound humanity. The book was an immediate New York Times bestseller upon its release in May 2002.

Chief Picciotto is also a former New York City police officer, and has served as a fire marshal, an arson investigator, a lieutenant, and a captain prior to becoming chief in 1992. He is a 28-year veteran of the FDNY, and for the past nine years, he has presided over the department's Battalion 11, covering Manhattan's Upper West Side. He is the recipient of departmental awards and commendations for his bravery and meritorious service.

"People call us heroes, but we were just doing our jobs." — FDNY Battalion Commander Richard Picciotto

Source

The Psychology of Mass Shootings

The view from one of the bullet holes resulting from Charles Whitman's mass killing of 14 people, leaving 31 others injured, from the University of Texas tower in 1966. The tower where Whitman was perched is framed in the bullet hole.

The shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, in October 2009 were brutal and shocking. But they are hardly an anomaly: two days after the killings, two other mass shootings occurred: one in Tampa, Fla., and one in Portland, Ore. Mass killings have had a long and painful history in the United States. Normally perpetrated by male aggressors, the motivations for these occurrences vary, ranging from acts of revenge, twisted showings of compassion, fervent ideology, and, most often, a person who for one reason or another, snaps.

What causes someone to commit mass homicide? Newsweek asked experts about the various motivations that can lead to these tragedies.

Click the banner pic to see the full article..

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