After all the bad news of this past week, I thought that you would all enjoy a little “star shine.” Here is a selection of songs from the Broadway musical “HAIR.”
Eirik Solheim is a talented Norwegian videographer and photographer. He has created some amazing time-lapse images, such as ONE YEAR IN 90 SECONDS (see below).
Eirik’s website, Eirikso is full of helpful, technical information.
If you are into photography, videography or just enjoy looking at amazing photographs, then you must check out Eirik's website.
The extended weather forecast for Southern California does not look promising. Rain, wind and miserable conditions are predicted for next week.
This is the weather advisory from the National Weather Service:
A MAJOR PATTERN CHANGE IS EXPECTED NEXT WEEK WITH THE POTENTIAL FOR EXCESSIVE RAINFALL AND STRONG WINDS...
A MAJOR CHANGE IN THE UPPER LEVEL PATTERN IS EXPECTED TO BEGIN ON SUNDAY AND CONTINUE THROUGH NEXT WEEK. A VERY POWERFUL WEST TO EAST JET STREAM SAGGING SOUTHWARD THROUGH THE PACIFIC WILL BREAK DOWN THE PERSISTENT RIDGE ACROSS THE WEST COAST. THIS WILL ALLOW A SERIES OF STORM SYSTEMS TO TRACK INTO SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WHILE MAINTAINING A RICH SOURCE OF SUBTROPICAL MOISTURE.
CONFIDENCE IS GROWING THAT SIGNIFICANT AND POSSIBLY EXCESSIVE RAINFALL WILL OCCUR OVER SOUTHWESTERN CALIFORNIA FROM LATE SUNDAY THROUGH MOST OF NEXT WEEK. LIGHT RAIN COULD DEVELOP ACROSS SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BY LATE SUNDAY... WITH INCREASING RAIN COVERAGE AND INTENSITY MONDAY INTO MONDAY EVENING. THIS FIRST SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO BRING .50 TO 2 INCHES ACROSS MOST COASTAL AND VALLEY AREAS... WITH 2 TO 4 INCHES ACROSS FOOTHILL AND MOUNTAIN AREAS. THE STATION BURN AREA CAN EXPECT THE HEAVIEST RAINFALL WITH THIS FIRST SYSTEM FROM MONDAY AFTERNOON INTO MONDAY EVENING.
THE SECOND STORM SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO AFFECT THE REGION ON TUESDAY.
THE THIRD AND MOST LIKELY STRONGEST STORM SYSTEM IS EXPECTED WEDNESDAY INTO EARLY THURSDAY. A COLD AND UNSTABLE AIR MASS WILL CONTINUE TO KEEP A THREAT OF SHOWERS INTO AT LEAST FRIDAY. FOR THE ENTIRE WEEK...
THERE IS THE POTENTIAL FOR RAINFALL TOTALS OF 4 TO 8 INCHES IN COASTAL AND VALLEY AREAS... AND 8 TO 16 INCHES IN THE FOOTHILLS AND MOUNTAINS. LOCAL RAINFALL AMOUNTS OVER 20 INCHES WILL BE QUITE POSSIBLE ACROSS FAVORED SOUTH FACING COASTAL SLOPES.
THE STRONG SOUTHERLY WINDS THAT ARE PROJECTED AT TIMES NEXT WEEK COULD BRING SIGNIFICANT OROGRAPHIC ENHANCEMENT OF RAINFALL ACROSS SOUTH FACING SLOPES. EARLY INDICATIONS ALSO SHOW THE POSSIBILITY OF EMBEDDED THUNDERSTORMS AT TIMES DURING THE WEEK. RAINFALL RATES BETWEEN ONE HALF INCH AND ONE INCH PER HOUR WILL BE POSSIBLE DURING TIMES OF HEAVIEST RAINFALL... ESPECIALLY ACROSS SOUTH FACING SLOPES.
IF THUNDERSTORMS DEVELOP... THERE WILL BE THE POTENTIAL FOR ISOLATED RATES IN EXCESS OF ONE INCH PER HOUR.
THE LARGE AMOUNT OF EXPECTED PRECIPITATION... AS WELL AS THE POTENTIAL FOR HIGH INTENSITY RAINFALL... WILL BRING A SIGNIFICANT THREAT OF FLASH FLOODING AND DEBRIS FLOWS... ESPECIALLY TO THE RECENT BURN AREAS. AS SOILS BECOME MORE SATURATED THROUGH THE WEEK... THERE COULD ALSO BE AN INCREASED RISK OF URBAN AND SMALL STREAM FLOODING. IF THE STRONG STORM MATERIALIZES FOR THE WEDNESDAY INTO THURSDAY TIME FRAME... THERE COULD ALSO BE SOME MAIN STEM RIVER FLOODING CONCERNS.
SNOW LEVELS ARE GENERALLY EXPECTED TO RANGE BETWEEN 4000 AND 6000 FEET NEXT WEEK. AS STRONG SOUTHERLY WINDS PRECEDE THE STRONG SYSTEMS... SNOW LEVELS SHOULD BRIEFLY RISE ABOVE 6000 FEET ON MONDAY AND WEDNESDAY. THERE IS THE POTENTIAL FOR SIGNIFICANT SNOW IN THE MOUNTAINS NEXT WEEK... WITH SEVERAL FEET OF NEW SNOW POSSIBLE AT RESORT LEVELS ABOVE 6000 FEET.
THERE WILL LIKELY BE PERIODS OF STRONG SOUTHERLY WINDS NEXT WEEK...
WITH THE POTENTIAL FOR WIDESPREAD GALE FORCE WINDS ACROSS THE COASTAL WATERS AND DAMAGING WINDS ACROSS PORTIONS OF SOUTHWEST CALIFORNIA.
AS THESE STORMS MOVE INTO THE AREA NEXT WEEK... THEY WILL ALSO BRING THE POTENTIAL FOR A LONG DURATION OF HEAVY SURF CONDITIONS AND DANGEROUS RIP CURRENTS TO LOCAL BEACHES. THE COMBINATION OF STRONG WINDS AND HIGH SEAS COULD ALSO BRING SOME COASTAL FLOODING ISSUES... ESPECIALLY NEAR TIMES OF HIGH TIDE.
RESIDENTS OF SOUTHWESTERN CALIFORNIA ARE URGED TO STAY TUNED FOR THE LATEST INFORMATION ON THESE POTENTIALLY STRONG STORM SYSTEMS. LISTEN TO NOAA WEATHER RADIO OR YOUR FAVORITE MEDIA SOURCE... OR VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT WEATHER.GOV/LOSANGELES FOR THE LATEST UPDATES OF FORECASTS AND WARNINGS.
ALBERT HAMMOND – It Never Rains (SURE!) In Southern California
(From the NY Times - Music Section - January 14, 2010)
Teddy Pendergrass, the Philadelphia soul singer whose husky, potent baritone was one definition of R&B seduction in the 1970s but whose career suffered a blow in 1982 when an auto accident left him severely paralyzed, died on Wednesday night in Bryn Mawr, Pa. He was 59.
As the lead singer for Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, and in a solo career in which he sold millions of albums, Mr. Pendergrass brought gospel dynamics to bedroom vows in songs like “If You Don’t Know Me by Now,” “The Love I Lost,” “Close the Door,” “Turn Out the Lights” and “Love T.K.O.”
His performances rose from breathy whispers to gutsy exhortations, making his voice the deeper, more aggressive counterpart to the styles of 1970s soul men like Al Green and Marvin Gaye. It was the flagship sound for Philadelphia International Records, riding lush strings and big-band disco from the producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.
TEDDY PENDERGRASS – Love TKO
TEDDY PENDERGRASS – Come Go With Me
TEDDY PENDERGRASS – Close the Door
TEDDY PENDERGRASS (With Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes) – If You Don’t Know Me By Now
TEDDY PENDERGRASS (With Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes) The Love I Lost
As we all by now know, on January 12, a massive earthquake struck Haiti just before 5:00 p.m. (local time), The quake’s epicenter was located about 10 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, the country's capital. The quake was the worst in the region in more than 200 years. The day after the quake Haiti's president, René Préval, called the destruction "unimaginable.'' About three million people -- a third of the country's population -- have been affected.
The quake has left the country in shambles, without electricity or phone service, making it difficult to coordinate efforts to provide relief. Attempts, by Haitian and international agencies, to provide emergency services and distribute food and water were halting and, in some places, seemingly nonexistent.
More than 30 significant aftershocks of a 4.5 magnitude (in the Ritcher Scale) or higher rattled Haiti in the hours immediately following the earthquake. According to Amy Vaughan, a geophysicist with the United States Geological Survey.
Huge portions of the capital, Port-au-Prince, lay in ruins, and hundreds of thousands of people were feared dead in the rubble left behind by the earthquake. Human limbs protruded from piles of disintegrated concrete, and muffled cries emanated from deep inside the wrecks of buildings, as this impoverished nation struggled to grasp the grim, still unknown toll.
Aid agencies from around have begun the massive relief effort. Agencies already in Haiti said they would open their storehouses of food and water there, and the World Food Program was flying in nearly 100 tons of ready-to-eat meals and high-energy biscuits from El Salvador. The United Nations said it was freeing up $10 million in emergency relief funds, the European Union pledged $4.4 million, and groups like Doctors Without Borders were setting up clinics in tents and open-air triage centers to treat the injured.
President Obama said that United States aid agencies were moving swiftly to get help to Haiti and that search-and-rescue teams were already en route. In addition to governmental and corporate aid, the President has urged individual Americans to dig into their pockets and to go to the White House’s official website to find ways to donate money.
The Caribbean is not usually considered a seismic danger zone, but earthquakes have struck here in the past. Haiti sits on a large fault that has caused catastrophic quakes in the past, but this one was described as among the most powerful to hit the region.
The fault is similar in structure to the San Andreas Fault that slices North – South through California. The San Andreas Fault was the cause of the 8.0 magnitude 1906 earthquake that destroyed the city of San Francisco.
The earthquake that struck Haiti last Tuesday will be a tragedy of near-epic proportions. Haiti is, by far, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Four out of five Haitians live in poverty - more than half live in abject poverty. Deforestation and over-farming have left much of Haiti eroded and barren, driving up food prices and leaving the country even more vulnerable to natural disasters. Its long history of political instability and corruption has added to the turmoil.
I have lived all my life in California where earthquakes are a natural part of the landscape. In fact, much of California’s rugged beauty - from its seaside cliffs to its towering mountains - has been shaped by eons of tectonic activity. I lived in the San Fernando Valley (just northwest of Los Angeles) when the 1994 Northridge Earthquake struck in the early hours of January 17. That earthquake had a magnitude of 6.7 in the Richter Scale and cause massive damage throughout the region. In California, unlike Haiti, the government has for years been engaged in a massive campaign to make the state, and its population, as “earthquake-safe” as it is possible given current technologies. The people of Haiti, however, are not as fortunate.
Accordingly, the destruction and devastation caused by the January 12 earthquake will affect a wider, and deeper, sector of the island’s population. I strongly encourage you to go online and visit the sites of various relief agencies who are working to help the people of Haiti during these difficult times.
Assistance comes in many different ways; you can donate food and clothing to the Red Cross, you can make cash donation to groups like Mèdecins Sans Frontières, you could even donate pet food and supplies to the rescue groups who use search dogs to look for buried victims. There is no limit to the ways we can help – just don’t stand idly by while there are people who are in need of your help.
Thank you.
A NOTE ABOUT THE RITCHER SCALE
Developed in 1935 by Charles Richter in partnership with Beno Gutenberg, both of the California Institute of Technology, the scale was first intended to be used only in a particular study area in California, and on seismograms recorded on a particular instrument, the Wood-Anderson torsion seismometer. Richter originally reported values to the nearest quarter of a unit, but decimal numbers were used later. His motivation for creating the local magnitude scale was to separate the vastly larger number of smaller earthquakes from the few larger earthquakes observed in California at the time.
The Richter magnitude scale, also known as the local magnitude (ML) scale, assigns a single number to quantify the amount of seismic energy released by an earthquake. It is a base-10 logarithmic scale obtained by calculating the logarithm of the combined horizontal amplitude of the largest displacement from zero on a Wood–Anderson torsion seismometer output. So, for example, an earthquake that measures 5.0 on the Richter scale has a shaking amplitude 10 times larger than one that measures 4.0. The effective limit of measurement for local magnitude ML is about 6.8.
WHAT THE MAGNITUDE NUMBERS MEAN
Richter magnitudes-Description-Earthquake effects-Frequency of occurrence
Less than 2.0 Micro Microearthquakes, not felt. About 8,000 per day
2.0-2.9 Minor Generally not felt, but recorded. About 1,000 per day
3.0-3.9 Often felt, but rarely causes damage. 49,000 per year (est.)
4.0-4.9 Light Noticeable shaking of indoor items, rattling noises. Significant damage unlikely. 6,200 per year (est.)
5.0-5.9 Moderate Can cause major damage to poorly constructed buildings over small regions. At most slight damage to well-designed buildings. 800 per year
6.0-6.9 Strong Can be destructive in areas up to about 160 kilometres (100 mi) across in populated areas. 120 per year
7.0-7.9 Major Can cause serious damage over larger areas. 18 per year
8.0-8.9 Great Can cause serious damage in areas several hundred miles across. 1 per year
9.0-9.9 Devastating in areas several thousand miles across. 1 per 20 years
10.0+ Epic Never recorded; see below for equivalent seismic energy yield. Extremely rare (Unknown)
IMAGES FROM THE 1994 NORTHRIDGE (CALIFORNIA) MAGNITUDE 6.7 EARTHQUAKE
The photographs used throughout this article are copyrighted. Their respective owners fully reserve to themselves all rights to their work. The photographs are reproduced here for illustrative and educational purposes only. No commercial use is intended, express or implied. If there are any problems, please contact the editor of this blog.
This past Monday, January 11, 2010, California, along with other states in the Union, commemorated Human Trafficking Awareness Day with a Proclamation by Governor Schwarzenegger. This modern-day form of slavery forces 12.3 million adults and children each year according to the United Nations. Sadly, California is not exempt from this terrible crime.
California is a top destination for victims as they are lured to our beautiful communities with promises of good jobs, education and a fresh start. When they arrive, they instead find themselves trapped in forced labor with little or no wages or forced prostitution under threat of harm to themselves or their family members. They are also made to fear being deported or sent to prison or severe reputational and financial harm that make victims feel they have no choice but to continue in service. The recent global financial crisis has highlighted two disturbing concurrent trends: a shrinking global demand for labor and a growing supply of workers willing to take even greater risks for economic opportunities.
WHAT IS HUMAN TRAFFICKING
In a previous blog post, I wrote about human trafficking ( Human Trafficking ). To recap, human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery. Victims of human trafficking are young children, teenagers, men and women. Victims of human trafficking are subjected to force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor.
After drug dealing, trafficking of humans is tied with arms dealing as the second largest criminal industry in the world, and is the fastest growing.
Many victims of human trafficking are forced to work in prostitution or the sex entertainment industry. But trafficking also occurs in forms of labor exploitation, such as domestic servitude, restaurant work, janitorial work, sweatshop factory work and migrant agricultural work.
Modern Slavery – Human Trafficking
Traffickers use various techniques to instill fear in victims and to keep them enslaved. Some traffickers keep their victims under lock and key. The more frequent practice, however, is to use less obvious techniques including:
• Debt bondage - financial obligations, honor-bound to satisfy debt.
• Isolation from the public - limiting contact with outsiders and making sure that any contact is monitored or superficial in nature.
• Isolation from family members and members of their ethnic and religious community.
• Confiscation of passports, visas and/or identification documents.
• Use or threat of violence toward victims and/or families of victims.
• The threat of shaming victims by exposing circumstances to family.
• Telling victims they will be imprisoned or deported for immigration violations if they contact authorities.
• Control of the victims' money, e.g., holding their money for "safe-keeping."
If victims attempt to seek help, they often don’t know where to turn. Fortunately, there are organizations that can help such as the Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition (www.bsccoalition.org), the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking) and the U.S. Department of Justice Trafficking Information and Referral Hotline (888-373-7888).
Ten Facts About The “S” Word
Here are some additional facts about human trafficking that may surprise you:
THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT HUMAN TRAFFICKING
1. The average cost of a slave around the world is $90.
2. Trafficking primarily involves exploitation, which comes in many forms, including:
• Forcing victims into prostitution • Subjecting victims to slavery or involuntary servitude • Compelling victims to commit sex acts for the purpose of creating pornography • Misleading victims into debt bondage
3. According to some estimates, approximately 80% of trafficking involves sexual exploitation, and 19% involves labor exploitation.
4. It is estimated that there are approximately 27 million slaves around the world.
5. Between 2001 and 2005, 140 defendants have been convicted of human trafficking in the U.S. which is a 109% increase from 1996-2000.
6. Around half of trafficking victims in the world are under the age of 18.
7. More than 2/3 of sex trafficked children suffer additional abuse at the hands of their traffickers.
8. Trafficked children are significantly more likely to develop mental health problems, abuse substances, engage in prostitution as adults, and either commit or be victimized by violent crimes later in life.
9. Women who have been trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation experience a significantly higher rate of HIV and other STDs, tuberculosis, and permanent damage to their reproductive systems.
10. There is only one shelter in the U.S. designed specifically to meet the needs of trafficking victims, and it currently only houses a total of seven to nine victims.
11. Trafficking victims normally don't get help because they think that they or their families will be hurt by their traffickers, or that they will be deported.
WHERE WE STAND
At Between Home, we condemn the ugly and inhumane practice of human trafficking. We pledge ourselves to do all we can to prevent it. Raising awareness is the first step; there is, however, much more work to be done.
THINGS WE CAN DO
For more information on what you can to do to help prevent, and eventually eradicate, human trafficking, please click on the following links.
In Second Life, please go to the excellent exhibit put on by Abbey Zenith and Rolig Loon at Info Land.
Human Trafficking Exhibit & Experience Info Island
Opening January 11th at 6 PM SLT (Second Life Time)
This multi-media exhibit will allow visitors to learn about the dark underworld where people are bought and sold, living lives as abused and dehumanized slaves. The United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking reports that this criminal activity is second only to drug trafficking. No region of the world, no race, no gender, no age group is beyond the reach of traffickers. This exhibit serves to provide information about human trafficking, but also places the visitor inside this world to experience a small sampling of the hardships faced by victims.
Together, we can work to make the world a safer, healthier and saner world for the million of men, women and children who still suffer under the yoke of slavery.
