Commencement weekend is hard to plan at the University of California, Los Angeles. The university now has so many separate identity-group graduations that scheduling them not to conflict with one another is a challenge. The women’s studies graduation and the Chicana/Chicano studies graduation are both set for 10 AM Saturday. The broader Hispanic graduation, ‘Raza,’ is in near-conflict with the black graduation, which starts just an hour later. Planning was easier before a new crop of ethnic groups pushed for inclusion. Students of Asian heritage were once content with the Asian-Pacific Islanders ceremony. But now there are separate Filipino and Vietnamese commencements, and some talk of a Cambodian one in the future. Years ago, UCLA sponsored an Iranian graduation, but the school’s commencement office couldn’t tell me if the event was still around. The entire Middle East may yet be a fertile source for UCLA commencements. Not all ethnic and racial graduations are well attended. The 2003 figures at UCLA showed that while 300 of 855 Hispanic students attended, only 170 out of 1,874 Asian-Americans did. Some students are presumably eligible for four or five graduations. A gay student with a Native American father and a Filipino […]
BOSTON — New data show the populations of some of America’s well-known birds in a tailspin, thanks to the one-two punch of habitat fragmentation and, increasingly, global warming. From the heartland’s whippoorwills and meadowlarks to the Northern bobwhite and common terns of the nation’s coasts, 20 common bird species tracked by the National Audubon Society have seen their numbers fall 54 percent overall since 1967, with some down about 80 percent, the group reported Thursday. Most of the trouble lies with loss of bird habitat, and has for decades, due to expanding agriculture and suburban development. The Rufous hummingbird’s population has fallen 58 percent due to logging and development in its Pacific Northwest breeding range – and in its winter range in Mexico. The same thing has happened to whipporwills, whose numbers are down 57 percent due to loss of their forest habitat. At the same time, scientists say changes in migration patterns due to global warming are emerging, too. ‘Habitat loss is still the major concern,’ says Greg Butcher, Audubon’s bird conservation director in an interview. ‘But we’re also seeing increasing impact from large-scale problems like global warming.’ Thursday’s study updates and expands earlier efforts: […]
WASHINGTON – In February 2005, Marines in Iraq made a ‘priority 1 urgent’ request for 1,169 military vehicles with V-shaped undersides that save lives by deflecting blasts from roadside bombs. But instead of those Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, the Marines back home sent armored Humvees, vehicles that offer far less protection. It wasn’t until May 2006 that the Marines ordered the MRAPs, and then only 185 of them. Defense Secretary Robert Gates now is asking the Marines to investigate and explain what happened. Today MRAPs are a priority with Gates. Congress is spending $8.4 billion to meet the military’s request for 7,774 MRAPs. And the Army is checking to see whether it needs thousands more to replace Humvees. Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., a longtime critic of the war and a presidential candidate, wrote Gates in May asking him to determine by Friday how many more MRAPs are needed, and to set a production plan to get them into Iraq as fast as possible. He also has asked President Bush to declare the drive to build MRAPs a national priority. Roadside bombs cause 70 percent of American casualties in Iraq, and MRAPs reduce the […]
Scientists have criticised a major review of the world’s remaining oil reserves, warning that the end of oil is coming sooner than governments and oil companies are prepared to admit. BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy, published yesterday, appears to show that the world still has enough ‘proven’ reserves to provide 40 years of consumption at current rates. The assessment, based on officially reported figures, has once again pushed back the estimate of when the world will run dry. However, scientists led by the London-based Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, say that global production of oil is set to peak in the next four years before entering a steepening decline which will have massive consequences for the world economy and the way that we live our lives. According to ‘peak oil’ theory our consumption of oil will catch, then outstrip our discovery of new reserves and we will begin to deplete known reserves. Colin Campbell, the head of the depletion centre, said: ‘It’s quite a simple theory and one that any beer drinker understands. The glass starts full and ends empty and the faster you drink it the quicker it’s gone.’ Dr Campbell, is a former […]
GAZA — The darkness has fallen and invaded all of the Gaza Strip. We tried to protest against the war today, but gunmen shot at us when we tried to cross the street. This was a peaceful demonstration to try to get these gunmen to stop killing our future, to stop killing our hope. The darkness has fallen. There are no other words. Gaza is not a place for human beings anymore. Hamas and Fatah have defeated the Palestinian people. Both factions have triumphed against the hope for the future, for a state of our own. These factions are killing the future for my daughter. She is six years old and has to live through this senseless civil war. Yes, it’s a civil war to me - you can call it what you like. This has to stop; these young killers in the street are just boys. They’re 17, 19, and 21 years old. They’ve become killers and they don’t realize that they’re just being used - by both factions. They’re being used by the political leaders who are shouting every day on the satellite TV news shows. These so-called leaders in suits are the real killers, turning […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
