Cairo Citizen Guards Protect Homes
Police appear to have withdrawn from many parts of the Egyptian capital and it is the people who now own the streets.
Locals armed with sticks and knives are setting up their own neighbourhood security groups to protect their homes and property.
Al Jazeera’s Jacky Rowland reports from Nasr City in Cairo.
Red Lion Area elementary school principal to machete attacker: 'I have forgiven you'
· Related coverage on Belief and Beyond blog: Principal sees God's hand in her survival, recovery
York, PA -
She was meant to be looking out the window that morning, at that moment. Norina Bentzel believes that.
On Feb. 2, 2001, the principal of North Hopewell-Winterstown Elementary School was preparing to leave her office to calm a crowd of rowdy students in the cafeteria.
She had a strange feeling at the door. She turned around, went to her desk and called her youngest son at the babysitter's -- something sherarely did, especially at 11:23 a.m. when he'd be getting ready for kindergarten.Bentzel has kept the plastic ID card that hung from her neck the day of the attack in 2001. At one point, Stankewicz swiped at her abdomen, but the machete cracked the card instead of slicing her open, she said. It s a lifeline to me, she said. (Daily Record/Sunday News -- Jason Plotkin)
From the window over her desk, with the phone at her ear, Bentzel saw the man for the first time.
Balding and stout, he was tugging on the locked front door. Any parent familiar with the school would have known that was the wrong side, she thought.
Bentzel told her son she loved him, hung up and went to help the stranger -- a lost grandfather, she figured. A mother approached the school trailing two preschoolers. When the office buzzed her in, he followed them inside.
"Excuse me, sir," Bentzel said when she found him peering into a kindergarten classroom. "Can I help you find someone?"
The man wheeled around, pulled a 2-foot-long machete fromhis pant leg and raised it to strike.Police take William Stankewicz into custody after his attack at North Hopewell-Winterstown Elementary School 10 years ago. (Daily Record/Sunday News -- File)
---
Ten years later, Bentzel says that phone call to her son Joshua was divinely inspired. If she'd gone to the cafeteria, the ruckus around her would have drowned out any shouts for help when the attack began.
"The call I was compelled to make that day put me in the place to get involved in this event," she said.
And to stop it.
Bentzel, then 41, endured blows from the machete until she could escape to her office and pound the schoolwide lockdown alarm.
Minutes later in the health suite next door, the 5-foot-2 principal leaped upon the attacker from behind, wrapping him in a bear hug. Bentzel pinned him over a desk until he relaxed. Police soon arrived.
William Michael Stankewiczinjured 14 that day, including 11 kindergarteners ages 5 and 6, Bentzel and two teachers. The rampage lasted mere minutes. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 132 to 264 years in prison.It has been 10 years since William Michael Stankewicz stole into a Red Lion-area school and terrorized students and staff. Principal Norina Bentzel, one of his victims, displays the letter she sent to Stankewicz in 2009. (Daily Record/Sunday News -- Jason Plotkin)
Bentzel's physical injuries took more than two years to rehabilitate. Surgeons reattached two severed fingers and a partially amputated thumb. They placed a titanium plate in her shattered wrist and attempted to restore severed tendons and nerves in her hands.
Therapists worked to help her regain dexterity. She returned to school the next fall, settled into old routines and sought to restore a sense of normalcy. She re-learned to play the saxophone and type, despite limited use of several fingers.
The hard work had yet to start.
---
Fora time, Bentzel, a Christian, considered whether God was punishing her for some offense.
She abandoned that theory and considered others, struggling all the time with questions. Why me? Why our school?
After much prayer, Bentzel determined she could forgive Stankewicz for what he'd done -- to her.
"I wasn't so sure about forgiving him for what he did to the children," she said.
That is, until the day in 2006 when a man barricaded himself in an Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Lancaster County. Charles Roberts IV shot 10 girls, murdering five, then killed himself.
Bentzel felt horrified watching the news, then amazed, when the following day the Amish went to the killer's family to express their forgiveness.
"I made the decision after that," she said. "If they could do it, it should be easy for me."
She tried to contact Stankewicz through a state mediation program for victims of crime. Bentzel wanted him to know of her forgiveness.
The process took three years, but in March 2009 a letter from Bentzel was delivered to Stankewicz at the state prison in Fayette County, south of Pittsburgh.
In her letter, Bentzel told Stankewicz she still doesn't understand his actions and explained the hardship he caused in her life.
"After your brutal attack on me two times, I wrapped my arms around you to comfort you," she wrote. "So you see, even though we didn't know each other at all and you tried to kill me, I could still comfort you!"
She also posed several questions, including a plea for details about the store where Stankewicz tried, unsuccessfully, to buy a gun on the drive from his home in Johnson City, Tenn., to York in 2001.
If she knew the name of that store, Bentzel said in an interview, she would go there to thank the clerk or manager who ran the background check on Stankewicz that day and declined his purchase.
"Because of that clerk's actions that day, there are still 350-some children walking this earth. And because of the clerk's actions that day, there are 56 adults who are still teaching children or are moms or dads or grandparents now," she said.
"And because he didn't give that man an opportunity to buy a gun, I'm talking to you today."
Stankewicz refused to read the letter from Bentzel. Bentzel subsequently asked the letter be read to him, but she was told it wasn't a good idea.
Stankewicz, in a letter to the York Daily Record in December, reiterated his reasoning for the 2001 attack: It was an outlet for his long-sought revenge against an ex-wife, Larisa Prokuda, whose daughters once attended the school.
Of Bentzel's letter, he said, "I will never read it. I was told it was 'nice.'
"I don't care about her life, her thoughts, her emotions. I don't know her. She is meaningless to me as a human being."
---
Bentzel speaks publicly about the ongoing emotional and psychological effects of traumatic events. Over the years, she has addressed trauma nurses, conferences of school counselors, even prison inmates.
Her message stresses healing and forgiveness, yet acknowledges how an unexpected image, object or scrap of news can trigger emotions that catapult her back to that day in February 2001.
Unexplained outbursts of violence, such as the recent shootings in Tucson, Ariz., prompt stomach-churning anguish. In public spaces, strangers who seem out of place can make her nervous.
In steak restaurants, she flinches upon seeing knives at her place setting. "I don't particularly like knives anymore."
A few years ago, Bentzel was leaving a wholesale-club store pushing a cart when she noticed a man near the exit. He was looking in Bentzel's direction from about 10 feet away, holding a set of pruning shears at chest level.
Panic sprang to the surface. Sweat beaded on Bentzel's skin. Her heart pounded.
"The poor guy was just standing there. My head knew that, but my body was saying, Alert!" she said.
"I told myself, as I always do, he's probably not going to kill you. He's probably not going to kill you -- probably. Because, I'm not so sure anymore."
She talked herself, step by step, into pushing her cart past him. At the sliding doors, she watched their reflection of the man, who turned and followed in her direction.
Bentzel froze in terror. She waited for him to sweep past her, presumably heading for his car.
Reflecting on the episode later, she told herself, "I have to start to learn to trust again."
---
Of the 23 kindergartners in the class Stankewicz terrorized, about 16 are still in the Red Lion Area School District, now in the ninth or tenth grades.
Bentzel made it a mission to keep in touch with them, writing letters to each once a year. She tells them how she is following their progress in sports, music and academic honors. She offers to meet for lunch if they ever want to talk. Some respond, some don't.
Allen Miller, a psychologist and director of behavioral health at Wellspan, said, even though they were 5 or 6 at the time of the attack, the teenagers likely retain clear memories of it, in part because of the trauma and violence of the event and its immense exposure in the media.
"How they make sense of it now (involves) all their experiences since then, all the things they've heard, read and been said to them about it -- all might affect their memories," Miller said.
"Their recollection might be different today than what is was right after the event, although the emotion of the memory might be the same."
Bentzel recalled a quote from the last living survivor of the Alamo. Enrique Esparza was 8 when he witnessed the 1836 battle where hundreds died.
Asked whether he remembered the Alamo, Esparza, in his 70s, said:
"It is burned into my brain and indelibly seared there. Neither age nor infirmity could make me forget, for the scene was one of such horror."
---
The machete attack has become legend of sorts among the families of the North Hopewell-Winterstown school.
When a new family moves to town, a neighbor inevitably fills them in on the events. Sometimes kids or parents recognize Bentzel in a re-broadcast 2008 episode of the Biography channel show "I Survived," in which she retold the story of Feb. 2, 2001.
Sometimes they call her a hero. "That's always nice to hear," she said.
She plans an open house at her home in West Manchester Township around the anniversary of the attack every year. The gathering has become a tradition.
"It's not only for the people who were there that day. It's also for my staff now, because that event is part of who we are as a school," she said.
Bentzel feels a strong bond with the school and community and hopes to someday retire from North Hopewell-Winterstown, a place she had once feared she could never tread again.
While hospitalized after the attack, she cried and cried -- not about her injuries or Stankewicz's brutality but over losing her school.
How could ever go back to the scene where she'd been so horrifically violated?
Her husband urged her to take time to heal. She now believes he was right.
"At home, later, I said, You fool, Bentzel: He took your hands as you knew them, he can't have your job," she said.
"Why would you let him have your life?"
The attack
On Feb. 2, 2001, William Michael Stankewicz, then 55, entered North Hopewell-Winterstown Elementary School with a 2-foot-long machete.
He injured 14, including 11 kindergarteners, the principal and two teachers who wrestled the weapon away and subdued him until police arrived.
Stankewicz was later sentenced to 132 to 264 years in prison. He is at the state prison in LaBelle, Fayette County, a maximum-security facility south of Pittsburgh.
In her struggle with Stankewicz, principal Norina Bentzel was severely cut on both hands and arms, incurring a shattered wrist and multiple bruises. Kindergarten teacher Linda Collier received a severe cut on her hand as she defended the children. Other injuries were less serious.
Timeline
The following is a minute-by-minute account of the machete attack at North Hopewell-Winterstown Elementary School on Feb. 2, 2001:
11:30 a.m.: A parent notices a man walking toward the front of the school.
The doorbell rings in the office, and school nurse Denise Zellers buzzes in a mother with two children, who are followed by William Michael Stankewicz.
Stankewicz pulls a machete from his left pantleg and attacks the principal near the lobby and a teacher in a kindergarten classroom.
Kindergarteners suffer minor injuries, including a broken arm, cuts, bruising and a chopped-off ponytail. There is blood in the hallway.
11:32 a.m.: York County 911 receives a call from someone at the school about a man inside chasing the school principal with a weapon.
11:34 a.m.: York County 911 receives a second call about the attack.
Principal Norina Bentzel wrestles Stankewicz and subdues him in the health suite, assisted by Zellers, who hid the machete in the hallway after Stankewicz dropped it.
Stankewicz is taken into custody by police and is non-aggressive when arrested.
11:48 a.m.: Authorities take Stankewicz to an undisclosed location.
Five children are taken to York Hospital for minor injuries, another is treated by a private physician. Three staff members are taken to Memorial Hospital.
CNN reports news of the attack, and other news media swarm the grounds, talking with parents and children.
12:30 p.m.: Children are dismissed from school, and parents of the injured students are notified. Parents arrive to pick up students.
5 p.m.: North Hopewell Township Police Chief Larry Bailets reports Stankewicz is being held on $2 million bail, noting Stankewicz has an FBI record that dates to 1996. Stankewicz is taken to York County Prison.
11 p.m.: Bentzel, flown by LifeLion to Baltimore's Union Memorial Hospital earlier in the day, remained in surgery as doctors reattached her severed fingers.
Other trauma in Red Lion
Red Lion Area School District students have dealt with traumatic events at least two other times in the past 10 years:
--- April 24, 2003: Eighth-grader James Sheets, 14, shot Principal Gene Segro and then shot himself in the head in crowded Red Lion Area Junior High School cafeteria. Sheets died at the scene. Segro was pronounced dead at the hospital.
--- Feb. 7, 2005: A 10th-grade student was charged with aggravated assault, among other charges. Police alleged he assaulted another student with a hunting knife during a class.
On the blogs
· York County, Pa., educator recounts machete attack on 'I Survived...'
The UFOs and dead fishes
Mortandad de Peces en Barrancabermeja es atribuida a fenómeno sobrenatural.
IN RCN Rádio – published in 25/01/2011
[http://www.rcnradio.com/noticias/25-01-11/mortandad-de-peces-en-barrancabermeja-es-atribuida-fen-meno-sobrenatural].
Muerte de peces en Colombia es atribuida a "fenómeno sobrenatural".
IN El Universal – published in 25/01/2011.
[http://www.eluniversal.com/2011/01/25/int_ava_muerte-de-peces-en-c_25A5042971.shtml].
The UFOs and dead fishes
Mortandad de Peces en Barrancabermeja es atribuida a fenómeno sobrenatural.
IN RCN Rádio – published in 25/01/2011
[http://www.rcnradio.com/noticias/25-01-11/mortandad-de-peces-en-barrancabermeja-es-atribuida-fen-meno-sobrenatural].
Muerte de peces en Colombia es atribuida a "fenómeno sobrenatural".
IN El Universal – published in 25/01/2011.
[http://www.eluniversal.com/2011/01/25/int_ava_muerte-de-peces-en-c_25A5042971.shtml].
Internet ‘Kill Switch’ Legislation Back in Play
Legislation granting the president internet-killing powers is to be re-introduced soon to a Senate committee, the proposal’s chief sponsor told Wired.com on Friday.
The resurgence of the so-called “kill switch” legislation came the same day Egyptians faced an internet blackout designed to counter massive demonstrations in that country.
The bill, which has bipartisan support, is being floated by Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican ranking member on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The proposed legislation, which Collins said would not give the president the same power Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak is exercising to quell dissent, sailed through the Homeland Security Committee in December but expired with the new Congress weeks later.
The bill is designed to protect against “significant” cyber threats before they cause damage, Collins said.
“My legislation would provide a mechanism for the government to work with the private sector in the event of a true cyber emergency,” Collins said in an e-mail Friday. “It would give our nation the best tools available to swiftly respond to a significant threat.”
The timing of when the legislation would be re-introduced was not immediately clear, as kinks to it are being worked out.
An aide to the Homeland Security committee described the bill as one that does not mandate the shuttering of the entire internet. Instead, it would authorize the president to demand turning off access to so-called “critical infrastructure” where necessary.
An example, the aide said, would require infrastructure connected to “the system that controls the floodgates to the Hoover dam” to cut its connection to the net if the government detected an imminent cyber attack.
What’s unclear, however, is how the government would have any idea when a cyber attack was imminent or why the operator wouldn’t shutter itself if it detected a looming attack.
About two dozen groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Library Association, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Center for Democracy & Technology, were skeptical enough to file an open letter opposing the idea. They are concerned that the measure, if it became law, might be used to censor the internet.
“It is imperative that cyber-security legislation not erode our rights,” (.pdf) the groups wrote last year to Congress.
A congressional white paper (.pdf) on the measure said the proposal prohibits the government from targeting websites for censorship “based solely on activities protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
Oddly, that’s exactly the same language in the Patriot Act used to test whether the government can wiretap or investigate a person based on their political beliefs or statements.
Photo: LeSimonPix/Flickr
See Also:
Southern fast food chain Chick-fil-A has caused an uproar with its support of anti-gay groups like Focus on the Family. People are boycotting it and circulating petitions! But why is no one mentioning that Chick-fil-A isn't that great?
The controversy was touched off by revelations that a Chick-fil-A franchise planned to donate food to a pro-marriage event hosted by the anti-gay Pennsylvania Family Institute. In fact, Chick-fil-A has a long history of being not very welcoming of non-Christian, non-straight people. From the Times:
The company's Christian culture and its strict hiring practices, which require potential operators to discuss their marital status and civic and church involvement, have attracted controversy before, including a 2002 lawsuit brought by a Muslim restaurant owner in Houston who said he was fired because he did not pray to Jesus with other employees at a training session. The suit was settled.
The sandwiches that will feed people who attend a February seminar, called "The Art of Marriage: Getting to the Heart of God's Design," in Harrisburg, Pa., are but a tiny donation. Over the years, the company's operators, its WinShape Foundation and the Cathy family have given millions of dollars to a variety of causes and programs, including scholarships that require a pledge to follow Christian values, a string of Christian-based foster homes and groups working to defeat same-sex marriage initiatives.
The Times article basically boils it down to an issue of separation of church and taste: Can tolerant Chick-fil-A fans ignore their favorite restaurant's religious-based bigotry enough to enjoy their food?
Some are threatening a boycott. About time! I've been boycotting Chick-fil-A for years. Because their sandwiches are not very good. A soggy chicken breast wedged between a brutally symmetrical bun with a limp pickle hiding in the thing? This is a sandwich for people who are terrified of vegetables. Like California's inexplicable obsession with the burgers at In-N-Out, the Chick-fil-A phenomenon is a function of rabid regionalism, not quality food.
Take a stand for gay rights and good taste: Eat a Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich.
[Image of chick-fil-a sandwich via Adam Kuban]
Send an email to Adrian Chen, the author of this post, at adrian@gawker.com.
Why Hawaii now wants to sell 'birth certificate'
State plans to create new document in bid to raise money for state coffers
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2011 WorldNetDaily
Despite national press reports to the contrary, the Hawaii state legislature has no intention of releasing Barack Obama's long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate – not even for $100.
By introducing HB1116 into the Hawaii legislature last week, five Democrats are giving the impression they are willing to make Obama's long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate available to the public for a fee.
Instead, the plan is for the state of Hawaii to create a completely new document that will be carefully designed to carry the seal of the state of Hawaii without ever having to certify details of parentage and birthplace.
Hawaii's Revised Statute HRS338 restricts making public birth certificate and other vital records only to those who have a "direct and tangible interest," namely the person applying for the certified birth certificate copy, a member of the immediate family, or others with a legal interest such as an adoptive parent or a legal guardian.
Now, the language of HB1116 attempts to skirt these restrictions by modifying Hawaii law such that for a fee of $100, the Hawaii Department of Health will release "a copy of a birth record" for those HB1116 defines as "persons of prominence."
The tip-off that the proposed legislation intends to withhold from public disclosure Obama's long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate, if such a document exists, came in an interview with Democratic Rep. John Mizuno, one of the Democratic co-sponsors of the measure.
"If the people are so concerned about Barack Obama and if he was actually born in Hawaii, born in the United States, let them pay a fee of 100 bucks," Mizuno told KHON2. "We can certainly use the money, and we don't need to hear their complaining anymore."
Mangieri in reporting Mizuno's comments noted Hawaiian lawmakers sponsoring the bill acknowledge they will need to clear the confidentiality hurdles in state law that prohibit the Department of Health from disclosing any information about a Hawaii vital record unless the requester has a direct and tangible interest in the record.
"We're hoping to work with our legal department, the attorney general's office, for an opinion to see if we can craft something which will justify that it is true, Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, and will have the state seal to certify that," Mizuno told KHON2. "Something very generic but won't violate any federal or state law."
Mizuno and the other Democrats co-sponsoring the measure plan to put the seal of the state of Hawaii on the newly created document.
"So if there's 1 million people on the mainland asking for his birth certificate, send over a $100 check or money order, and we'll send you over something certifying that he was born in Hawaii," Mizuno said. "That's 1 million people – that's $100 million to the state."
Nor did Mizuno stop there.
"The president of the United States, the No. 1 person in our country, from Hawaii – we need to capitalize," he continued. "If we don't take advantage of it, we're out of our minds. This is a golden opportunity."
In a separate development, it is now confirmed Dr. Neal Palafox did not withdraw his nomination as the new director of Hawaii's Department of Health, as was initially reported from Hawaii.
Instead, the governor's staff has now revealed that Gov. Neil Abercrombie asked Palafox to withdraw.
"While the governor's staff would not discuss the reasons or circumstances surrounding the sudden departure, Donalyn Dela Cruz, the governor's spokeswoman, confirmed last night that it was the governor and not Palafox who asked for the withdrawal," Derrick DePledge reported in the Honolulu Star Advertiser Friday.
Also cast in doubt as a possible "cover story" was the initial allegation Palafox had withdrawn his nomination because he was involved in a fraud investigation.
"He did not volunteer it on his own,” Brook Hart, Palafox's attorney, told the Star Advertiser. "He had no idea why the governor asked him to resign. But he did because the governor asked him to do so."
Hart also told the newspaper that Palafox has no information about any fraud investigation.
"He [Palafox] has no information at this point why there's an investigation, what the investigation is about or even a hint about what it is that somebody is claiming he did wrong."
The newspaper reported that before Abercrombie nominated him, Palafox, 58, was a professor and chairman of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine and the former director of the family-practice residency program. He is also on the medical staff at Wahiawa General Hospital.
Rutgers bars Jews from anti-Zionist gathering
Public event suddenly closed to all but supporters by campus police
By Alyssa Farah
© 2011 WorldNetDaily
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Rutgers University campus police tonight barred some 400 Jewish students and their supporters, including some Holocaust survivors, from attending what was billed as an anti-Zionist gathering at the state school tonight.
The student-sponsored event was announced with an open invitation campus-wide, and Rutgers policy is for all student activities to be open to the public.
However, when the sponsoring organizations of "Never Again for Anyone" saw they were outnumbered by Jewish students and their supporters by about 4-to-1, they asked campus policy to bar students wearing kippas – and eventually limited attendance to known supporters of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Americans for Muslims in Palestine and the Middle East Children's Alliance.
Pleas to university officials from the Jewish students and their supporters for access to the event went unheeded.
"They started charging money as soon as they saw Zionists outside," said Rabbi Akiva Weiss.
Rutgers campus police said they could not provide a statement as to why the public event would turn away 400 members of the public. One officer said they were called in late and weren't really sure what was going on.
When the Jewish students, led by Aaron Marcus, were denied entry, they gathered in the lobby and sang religious songs in Hebrew.
"We wanted to protest this event because as the children and grandchildren of victims of the Holocaust we believed it to be absolutely absurd to compare Israeli act of self defense to the viscous, systematic murder of millions of Jews, Catholics, Gays, Gypsies, Russians and others," Marcus said.
Members of the New Jersey branch of Young Americans for Freedom were in attendance to protest the discrimination against Jewish students.
The program at Rutgers is part of a national tour purporting to promote peace and justice for Israel and surrounding lands.
UFO Jerusalem Isreal, Jan 28, 2011 HD,SLOWED & ZOOM.mp4
See more at www.youtube.com
2nd Jerusalem Dome of the Rock Temple Mount UFO video surfaces from 01/28/2011.
See more at www.youtube.com
