Solutions for Towns Hit by Toxic Waste Events - Mayflower

Jan Schlichtmann, the attorney whose story was told in the best seller and movie, "A Civil Action," discusses options for towns faced with Toxic Waste Events growing more common today.  Hosting the event is Geologist and Environmental Consultant, David Lincoln  as the two talk about Exxon's response after the spill (highlighting the inadequate and wrongful actions).  Learn about  Qualified Settlement Trust Fund and what they can do to save your town, neighborhood, and family. 

Visit Our Website, Green Fields Renewal

More on Qualified Settlement Trust Funds and other tools to help your community recover.  

Most people want to see the right thing done by their neighbors.  So do we. 

We are using a Qualified Settlement Trust (468B), to organize and strengthen our negotiating position, allowing for a negotiated settlement which will act in the best interests of ALL PARTIES.  This provides transparency, with direct court supervision, allowing for costs to be paid before final settlement and, finally, provides individual flexibility within an umbrella trust.

For more answers, go to this site. 

Qualified Settlement Funds: Everything You Wanted To Know But Were Afraid To Ask

Ohio Residents File Class Action Lawsuit Against State & Fracking Corps

From:  Popular Resistance 

by By Tish O’Dell

 

BROADVIEW HEIGHTS, OH:  Today, residents of Broadview Heights, Ohio, filed a first-in-the-state class action lawsuit against the State of Ohio, Governor John R. Kasich, and Bass Energy, Inc. and Ohio Valley Energy Systems Corp.  The lawsuit was filed to protect the rights of the people of Broadview Heights to self-governance, including their right to ban fracking.

In November 2012, residents of Broadview Heights overwhelmingly adopted a Home Rule Charter Amendment – proposed by residents – banning all new commercial extraction of gas and oil within the City limits.  The Amendment establishes aCommunity Bill of Rights – which secures the rights of human and natural communities to water and a healthy environment.  The Bill of Rights bans fracking and frack waste disposal as a violation of those rights.

In June 2014, Bass Energy and Ohio Valley Energy filed a lawsuit against the City of Broadview Heights to overturn the Community Bill of Rights.  The corporations are contending that the community does not have the legal authority to protect itself from fracking, and that corporations have the constitutional “right” to frack.

Residents involved in drafting and proposing the Community Bill of Rights attempted to intervene in the lawsuit, to defend the community’s right to self-governance, including the right to say “no” to fracking and other threats.  However, in September, the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga County denied the motion to intervene, ruling that the residents did not have a direct “interest” in this case.

With the court’s denial of intervention, residents decided to move forward with the class action lawsuit.  In filing the lawsuit, Broadview Heights residents argue that the Ohio Oil and Gas Act, known as HB 278, and the industry’s enforcement of the Act, violate the constitutional right of residents to local self-government.

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) assisted residents of Broadview Heights to draft the Community Bill of Rights.  CELDF is providing its support and expertise to the residents of Broadview Heights with the filing of the class action lawsuit.

CELDF Executive Director, Thomas Linzey, Esq., stated, “This class action lawsuit is merely the first in Ohio, and expected to be one of many filed by people across the United States whose constitutional rights to govern their own communities are routinely violated by state governments working in concert with the corporations that they ostensibly regulate.  The people of Broadview Heights will not stand idly by as their rights are negotiated away by oil and gas corporations, their state government, and their own municipal government.”  The residents of Lafayette, Colorado, filed a similar lawsuit in August of this year.

Through grassroots organizing and public interest law, CELDF works with communities across the country to establish Community Rights to democratic, local self-governance and sustainability. CELDF has assisted nearly 200 communities to ban shale gas drilling and fracking, factory farming, water privatization, and other threats, and eliminate corporate “rights” when they violate community and nature’s rights.  This includes assisting the first communities in the U.S. to establish Rights of Nature in law, as well as the first communities to elevate the rights of communities above the “rights” of corporations.

Our CIA, Empowered by JFK Murder Cover-up, Blocks Senate Torture Report

From:  Justice Integrity Project 

by Andrew Kreig 

The CIA's obstruction of all three major government probes of President Kennedy's 1963 assassination helps explain the agency's success thus far in blocking Senate oversight of CIA-run torture.

The agency this fall is fighting publication of a Senate report on torture while it also avoids for the most part adverse news coverage and government inquiry regarding Kennedy's death.

The CIA has sought on national security grounds major edits in the Senate probe of agency torture of terror suspects.

The agency's delaying tactics would lack credibility if not for previous cover-ups of alleged CIA crimes. This fall marks the 50th anniversary of the Warren Commission’s dubious claim that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone to kill JFK. Serious questions remain about the agency's role in the cover-up and the killing.

The CIA-friendly Obama White House is deferring to the agency in a torture scandal that began during the Bush administration, and prompted a Senate probe beginning in 2009.

“Continued White House foot-dragging on the declassification of a much-anticipated Senate torture report is raising concerns that the administration is holding out until Republicans take over the chamber and kill the report themselves,” according to Dan Froomkin, writing “Is Obama Stalling Until Republicans Can Bury the CIA Torture Report?” for First Look / Intercept. “Senator Dianne Feinstein’s intelligence committee sent a 480-page executive summary of its extensive report on the CIA’s abuse of detainees to the White House for declassification more than six months ago.”

Froomkin’s analysis might puzzle those who believe in conventional wisdom about Obama: That he and his White House operate far to the left of the CIA-friendly Feinstein, the California Democrat shown at right who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

But the senator and her staffers became angry earlier this year because CIA Director John Brennan initially refused to apologize after his team was caught spying on agency staff, who represent the  elected senators who ostensibly oversee the agency. McClatchy reported the reasons in, CIA admits it broke into Senate computers; senators call for spy chief’s ouster.

Brennan, a well-connected career CIA officer who was a White House advisor during Obama's first term, is shown below at far right in an official photo of his nomination ceremony Jan. 7, 2013. Former Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican was nominated at the same time to become secretary of defense, and is at the left of the president.

My opinion column below, the 22st segment in the Justice Integrity Project's “JFK Assassination Readers Guide” series, amplifies my recent lecture carried on C-SPAN3's American History TV, The JFK Murder 'Cover-up' Still Matters. 

Many of the previous segments in our series provided updated research tools regarding JFK-focused books, films and archives. But the historian at some point needs to provide also conclusions, as my Cornell professor Alan Bloom taught long ago in assigning his class Friedrich Nietzsche's Use and Abuse of History. 

In this instance, the torture issue is one of the better-documented of the inherently secret power struggles within the intelligence/defense communities. Another recent example is the forced resignation of last week of Hagel, a Republican, for unexplained reasons we shall illuminate in a separate column.

The torture report is particularly important. It centers on core values of United States democracy.One is the ability of elected leaders to oversee a hidden government represented by the CIA, as reported in previous segments of this series.

Moreover, rendition and torture of suspects -- often without the protections of a criminal process or prisoner-of-war status -- undermines both the morality and effectiveness of United States war-making that the CIA increasingly undertakes in covert operations.

With that background, we examine three big secrets that decipher the Senate-CIA-White House impasse:

Secret number One:  Obama is a product of the intelligence community's centrist wing, but also fears it. The CIA and its allied front organizations, including the Ford Foundation when it was run by Lyndon Johnson's former National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, fostered the careers of both of Obama's parents and the young Obama. The future president's first job after college graduation in 1983 was with the CIA front company Business International Corp. My book Presidential Puppetry: Obama, Romney and Their Masters, documented this family background, in part by citing pioneering researchers whose findings are ignored by the mainstream media.

Second, Obama, like his White House predecessors, is undoubtedly aware that the Warren Commission’s account of the Kennedy killing was a cover-up, and that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s ostensible killer, Jame Earl Ray, was a patsy imprisoned in a set-up scenario similar to Oswald's.Our JFK Readers Guide has documented that the CIA acts at times on behalf of a “High Cabal” of private sector potentates, and has been implicated in the Warren Commission whitewash if not the killing. Government personnel who opposed JFK's policies relied on the mob, Cuban exile community and government allies on a need-to-know basis to deliver government control to the president's CIA-friendly Vice President Johnson, whom some best-selling authors now allege to have helped plan JFK's murder.

No. 122 – November 6, 2014 – When 'Change' Delivers More of the Same

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

'Wag the Dog' is an expression which denotes, “to purposely divert attention from what would otherwise be of greater importance, to something else of lesser significance. By doing so, the lesser-significant event is catapulted into the limelight, drowning proper attention to what was originally the more important issue.”

Now, the Dog has been Wagged. Feel better? If you were voting for someone with an R beside their name you probably feel good. If you went for the big D, you are sad. No matter. The present trajectory is not going to change unless or until we take control of our own lives and our own communities.

What you just witnessed was a cast change of no real significance. One team of professional liars 'D,' is just giving liars team 'R' their turn. This is intended to distract us so we remain passive where it matters, here, where we live.

I understand why it happens. When we are hungry for hope, any hope, elections are very seductive. The fiery speeches and promises make things seem possible. But in the end nothing changes except the names of the rascals who are taking and spending your money and transferring more of your personal life to their direct control. Solving problems in our own community, ourselves, recedes into the distance again.

Several months ago I interviewed the candidate for Ohio's 14^th Congressional District. A classical Conservative was running. He answered every question asked just as President William Howard Taft or Senator Barry Goldwater would have done. He loved Barry's line on gays in the military. “You don't have to be straight to shoot straight.” He and Barry shared the same view on abortion, too, and on preserving the environment.

You had a chance to vote for him last Tuesday. No, it was not the Libertarian. The candidate was Michael Wager. He sounded shocked when I told him.

William Howard Taft, the president who went down to defeat in 1912, would have stopped the FED, nixed the IRS and made sure the Hetch Hetchy was not converted into a water supply for San Francisco. His views were known. He was a Conservative.

Oh. And the pledge of allegiance was written by a socialist whose goal was to stop the study of our founding documents in schools.

Direct governance by the people was the original form of government intended by our founders. We still need it.

Utah Is on Track to End Homelessness by 2015 With This One Simple Idea

From:  Nation Swell 

by Jenny Shank 

Utah has reduced its rate of chronic homelessness by 74 percent over the past eight years, moving 2000 people off the street and putting the state on track to eradicate homelessness altogether by 2015. How’d they do it?

The state is giving away apartments, no strings attached. In 2005, Utah calculated the annual cost of E.R. visits and jail stays for an average homeless person was $16,670, while the cost of providing an apartment and social worker would be $11,000. Each participant works with a caseworker to become self-sufficient, but if they fail, they still get to keep their apartment.

MORE: How much food could be rescued if college dining halls saved their leftovers?

Other states are eager to emulate Utah’s results. Wyoming has seen its homeless population more than double in the past three years, and it only provides shelter for 26 percent of them, the lowest rate in the country. City officials in Casper, Wyoming, now plan to launch a pilot program using the methods of Utah’s Housing First program. There’s no telling how far the idea might go.

AND: If you want to hire someone to help the homeless, why not the formerly homeless?

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Utah had reduced its rate of homelessness by 78 percent. It’s been reduced by 74 percent. 

Source: Wyofile

Read more: http://nationswell.com/one-state-track-become-first-end-homelessness-2015/#ixzz3H5Eusi4t

New Evidence Links Earthquakes to Fracking

From:  EcoWatch 

by Anastasia Pantsios

The evidence linking fracking to earthquakes continues to pile up.

A study by seven researchers from California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and the UK, The Environmental Costs and Benefits of Fracking, said “Unconventional oil and natural gas extraction enabled by horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing [fracking] is driving an economic boom with consequences described from ‘revolutionary’ to ‘disastrous.’ The reality lies somewhere in between.”

This map shows the intensity of shaking in the area of a magnitude-3.9 earthquake that struck near Youngstown, Ohio, on Dec. 31, 2011. Research has linked this earthquake to the underground injection of wastewater from fracking.
Map credit: U.S. Geological Survey

The studies findings were many, including that fracking “generates income and, done well, can reduce air pollution and even water use compared with other fossil fuels.” But it also found it can reduce investment in renewables and when done carelessly, can release toxic chemicals into the environment. It also agreed: fracking causes earthquakes.

In a section headed “Induced Seismicity,” the study said, “The reactivation of faults from hydraulic fracturing, wastewater disposal and other processes such as CO2 sequestration occurs by increasing the pore pressure and therefore reducing the effective stress within a fault zone. The increased pressure allows elastic energy stored in rock to be released more easily, much like removing weight from a box to make it easier to slide along the floor. Injecting fracturing fluids or wastewater underground can intersect a fault zone directly or transmit a pulse in fluid pressure that reduces the effective stress on a fault.”  MORE

No. 114 – September 11, 2014 – What Happened to World Peace?

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster 

 

As the memorials for September 11, 2001 end it is time to remember the potential for peace which existed in the days following.

The world grieved with us.

Ordinary people around the globe reacted with outpourings of sympathy, protesting these acts of terrorism. World leaders immediately responded, condemning the murders and offering support. Among these leaders was Vladimir Putin. Russia's president urged "the entire international community should unite in the struggle against terrorism," also saying the attacks were "a blatant challenge to humanity."

Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi called the attacks "horrifying" telling Muslims that "irrespective of the conflict with America it is a human duty to show sympathy with the American people." Mohammed Khatami, president of Iran, expressed, "deep regret and sympathy with the victims." Yasser Arafat, Palestinian president, denounced the attacks. Appearing stunned, he repeated how, "unbelievable" they were.

Saddam Hussein expressed sympathy for those who died.

North Korea also offered its sympathy to Americans.

Few people demonstrated anything but sympathy for America. Prayers and vigils by people of most faiths took place as across the world tens of thousands came out to protest the attacks.

So, who planned the attacks?

Osama bin Laden adamantly denied involvement in the 9/11 attacks in an interview by Ummat, a Pakistani daily, published in Karachi on September 28, 2001 He expressed his views on the loss of life, saying, “Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children, and other people.”

Osama went on to say, “They needed an enemy. So, they first started propaganda against Usamah and Taleban and then this incident happened.” Speculating who was to blame, he advised looking, “within the US system,” or for those responsible, or for persons who seeking conflict between Islam and Christianity. Finally, he suggested involvement by American intelligence agencies. 

 

Terror, Obama said, “is the most dreaded weapon in modern age and the Western media is mercilessly using it against its own people.”

 

According to the CIA 15 of the 19 hijackers had Saudi citizenship, 2 United Arab Emirates, 1, Egyptian and 1 Lebanese. 

 

No plan to invade Saudi Arabia was suggested by Bush. 

 

Afghanistan was not involved in 9/11, yet we invaded them. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein expressed his willingness to leave Iraq, if paid. But we invaded. Millions died. 

 

These wars were policy built on lies. Find those who benefited and you have all the answers.

No. 108 – July 31, 2014 – Let's Have Lunch – John Fund and the Tape

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

“John Fund?! He never sent us the autographed book we paid him for,” Monique said, with some heat. They reminded him several times but never received a response. I was not surprised, but suggested a short article about the incident might elicit a long awaited response and apology.

The book Monique bought from John was not his original, Stealing Elections, but the new version full of new disinformation titled, Who's Counting?: How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk, by John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky at the Glen Beck - Free PAC Conference in Dallas from July 26 - 28 in 2012.

John really didn't want to write about elections but it was his consolation prize when he blew the opportunity to be a speech writer for Bush Jr. in 1999. The scandal over his relationship with Morgan, my much strange daughter, reminded them they had to stand up for family values.

Monique was delighted to meet John - at the time.

Monique and I get together when our schedules allow, at Casa Capelli on Main Avenue. Over lunch we chatted on about our families, the economic prognosis, and politics. It was the conversation on family which caused Monique's mouth to drop open, over a story about John Fund.

Since Sex, Lies, and the Tape, the article by John Connolly from Vanity Fair is still up on line at American Political Journal it was easy for her to hear for herself. That tape got John bounced from the 700 Club.

Looking back, it is now easy to see John and Morgan had a lot in common. No conscience. Desperate need for drama. Less decency than the real people portrayed in the book, Fifty Shades of Gray, now shocking readers and headed for the big screen.

John got the boot from the Wall Street Journal finally not over the scandal but because no one told Murdoch, when he purchased the WSJ, John is not paid for his writing but because he is a useful political operative. John's first such job was in 1978, working for the Kochs on taking over the Libertarian Party.

And today John is at National Review, a real step down. And he still needs to make Monique happy. But he doesn't need to send the book, just a refund. And if he has lost her address he can just contact me and I'll provide it. 

Find out more about John Fund at JohnFund.blogspot.com 

No. 109 – August 8, 2014 – The Delights of the Rummage Sale

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

The bags and boxes started accumulating on the stage in the upper church dining room several months ago. People remembered It Was Coming.

Saint Peter has a rummage sale every year and the event attracts people who delight in poking though the books, household items, clothing, and enormous variety of items which begin to fill up the tables, crowding out the After Church Coffee people, who sigh and take the opportunity for an early preview of what is available.

This year the number of beautiful dolls, some of them collector's items were thick upon the ground, or the tables. But also in evidence as the tables filled up to the groaning point are ancient tools, new electronics, new shoes, still in the box, Christmas decorations, craft supplies, appliances, furniture, and toys, toys, toys.

But the Stuff to be sold is only part of the story for the Saint Peter Rummage Sale. Much of the fascination is people, the ones who sort, clean, arrange, hauling tables and shaking their heads over items no one knows how to categorize.

Carol Wardell has been 'doing' the Rummage Sale since the last Captain of Commerce, Neddy, turned the ship over to her years ago. Carol says it is like Christmas. Sort of. Opening the boxes and finding ever more smaller and smaller items is always brings the unexpected, something which is true of life in general, she says.

Captain Carol is joined by swabbies and crew who change depending on the needs of their families but the jolly discussions of 'what it is worth,' continue throughout it all.

Sometimes an early browser will gasp at the sight of something which brings back memories, painful or joyous. You see the object grasped, sometimes with reverence, turned and examined as the times past flow through the expression on the face. From such moments come discussions which touch the heart and take us all back to a multitude of 'thens.'

Other objects, for instance items which can serve projects Saint Peter People are undertaking, for instance shelving for the Food Pantry, about to start, and useful additions to the church kitchen are washed and shelved immediately.

Debbie Nelson and her crew have made the Pantry their ministry.

Rummage is the cast-offs of many; Items no longer useful to someone which become precious acquisitions for others. And always, the Rummage Sale brings people together, August 15 & 16^th.

How Fertilizer Is Poisoning the Water Supply of 400,000 People

From:  Motherboard 

by Ben Richmond

Coinciding with the return of a prodigal Cavalier, it's possible that many in northern Ohio didn't give second thought to a warning from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that this summer would be another bad one for toxic algae blooms in Lake Erie. But there's no remaining ignorant about the situation now. 

Fueled on fertilizer and warm weather, the toxic algae has been blooming like crazy, making 2014 a bad year for anyone around the lake, the fish in it, and the 400,000 people in and around Toledo, who can't shower or drink the water from their taps.

On Saturday, Toledo officials issued a warning not to drink the water, after they discovered high levels of the toxin microcystin in the water, coming from a huge bloom of the cyanobacteria (or, “blue-green algae”) microcystis in Lake Erie’s Maumee Bay, where the city of 284,000 draws its drinking water. Boiling tap water only concentrates the toxins further, so residents were left emptying store shelves of bottled water and lining up at water distribution centers, as their water supply turned a sickly shade of Satanic vomit-green.

MORE

July 3, 2014 – Declaring Revolution July 2, 1776

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

As the memory of fireworks fade the day after the 4^th of July, remember the date for declaring Independence from England was actually July 2^nd.. A final version of the Declaration took two more days. It was the 2^nd which John Adams believed would become, “the most memorable epocha in the history of America.” He was wrong.

July 4^th was the date Congress approved the finalized text of the Declaration produced by the five man committee assigned to give final form and substance to the ideas and causes which had compelled the Continental Congress to action. But not all agreed. One of the committee members, Robert Livingston, believed was a far too drastic step at that time and refused to sign.

Thomas Jefferson, who we remember as the Father of the Declaration, watched his final draft undergo 86 changes, shortening the overall length by more than a fourth. Many of these changes, including his inclusion of anti-slavery language, were made over his strong objections.

Jefferson had drawn on two primary sources for his own draft. The first a preamble to the Virginia Constitution and George Mason’s draft of Virginia’s Declaration of Rights. Jefferson's document is a restatement of John Locke’s contract theory of government, stating that governments derived “their just Powers from the consent of the people.”

On July 5^th around 200 copies of the Declaration were typeset and printed in John Dunlap’s Philadelphia print shop. Copies were dispatched to various committees, assemblies, military commanders and foreign nations.

On July 6^th the Pennsylvania Evening Post became the first newspaper to reprint the whole Declaration.

The first public reading of the Declaration occurred on July 8, 1776 in Philadelphia.

Getting the news out to the world, especially to King George and the rest of the colonies, proceeded as rapidly as possible. News of the Declaration reached London the second week of August via the Mercury packet ship.

The London Gazette, the official Crown organ, broke the news in its Saturday, August 10 edition.

The official ceremony of signing took place a month later, on August 2. But the text of the Declaration had already been published and republished in newspapers in a minimum of twenty-nine American newspapers and one magazine.

Jefferson later said he did not intend to say things that "had never been said before." But this is exactly what had transpired and because of these events the world changed.

Ohio Fracking Fire Likely Cause of Large Fish Kill

From:  EcoWatch 

by Brandon Baker

Ohio Department of Natural Resources and state Environmental Protection Agency officials have launched an investigation to find out what killed a large, but unspecified, amount of fish in a creek that feeds into the Ohio River.

While Ohio officials are willing to concede that a fire at a nearby shale gas fracking site “likely” contaminated Monroe County’s Opossum Creek, according to the Columbus Dispatch, one environmental group appears more certain that those dots have a connection. An ODNR official confirmed the fish kill Sunday—just a day after the fire temporarily displaced about 25 area families.

Ohio officials initially said they did not know if a nearby fracking fire caused a fish kill, but that soon changed. Photo credit: Nathan Johnson / Ohio Environmental Council

“The fracking fire appears to have left a miles-long trail of death and destruction in its wake with thousands of dead fish and wildlife floating belly up in this once pristine stream,” Nathan Johnson, staff attorney for the Ohio Environmental Council. “This may be unprecedented, perhaps the biggest Ohio fish kill in memory related to the oil and gas industry.”  MORE

Eye on Celebrities - Vampira, Maila Nurmi, a Child of Ashtabula, and Rayelan Allen, A Retiree of Ashtabula

In pursuit of interesting individuals who lived in Ashtabula we found the list below, available on the Wikipedia. After a diligent search we had to conclude Ashtabula tends to produce people about whom there is little gossip and scandal, a condition now relieved in some part by the relocation of our previously featured celebrity, Rayelan Allen, AKA Darlene Rae Smith, Raye Smith, etc.

But then we chanced upon two names with some history in the Entertainment Industry, including Maila Nurmi, known to posterity as Vampira.

This interesting development came into her life while she was studying acting in New York City. During this time she reportedly played a vampire in Mike Todd's NYC show,  "Spook Scandals."But more vampiric fame was yet to come.  

This persona, developed by Maila, lasted for 50 years as she was nominated for an Emmy for her role as a TV program hostess for KABC (Channel 7) in Los Angeles.

But she was raised in Ashtabula, having immigrated with her family to the town from her native Finland in 1924 when she was two.

After her training in New York she and a group of friends headed West to Hollywood where she found work as a pinup model and high-kicking showgirl at Florentine Gardens and Earl Carroll's Theatre (now Nickelodeon Studios - on Sunset Blvd). 

In 1953 Nurmi chose a tight-fitting black dress for a masquerade ball. The dress is said to have been inspired by Charles Addams' New Yorker magazine drawings.

She won first prize. Soon, her time in the lime light began as a KABC producer, who was looking for a late-night hostess who could entertain watchers with brief skits while introducing old horror films, newly syndicated for television, was being planned.

The Vampira Show made its show business debut on television on April 30, 1954.

Nurmi was an instant hit. Her persona as a funny, pun-loving deathly sexpot was burnished by her 38-17-36 figure. The name, “Vampira,” was suggested by her first husband, screenwriter Dean Riesner.

This appears to be a startling coincidence since Vampira made a career of pretending to be a vampire, this founded on the choice of a Halloween costume, and that of Rayelan Allen, AKA Darlene Rae Smith, Raye Smith, etc.

Vampira left Ashtabula to become famous, albeit in a marginalizing role in television, and Rayelan, who has retired to Ashtabula from a career as a doyen of Conspiracy on the Internet.  Rayelan's fame hinged on the reason for which Rumor Mill News was founded, this being to defend the good name of her third husband, Gunther Russbacher.  Claiming to be the number 3 man in the CIA Russbacher's career is memorialized on Rumor Mill News (RMN).  The site is aptly named. Where does rumor meet reality is the questions many ask.  

Russbacher, who reportedly died around 1998, lived a life which appears to be made up of   many flights of fancy. These are memorialized in an article titled, A Pro Con, which appeared in the Chicago Tribune on March 17, 1992, written by Michael Tackett.

The latter part of Maila's life was fraught with frustrations as the persona she had made famous was adopted by Elvira, another winsome late night personality associated with the world of vampires.   

Consider getting in touch with Rayelan now as she is moving out of the city of Ashtabula proper and, belabored by her happy habit of hoarding, has found herself stuck with the impossibility of finishing her packing even with a host of helpers.  (It is reported the first 250 boxes failed to make more than a dent in the whole of her holdings.) 

But the enterprise is being celebrated as a God Send by local owners of storage units.   

But, please, do not bring house warming gifts that are not consumable on the spot, else wise they will have to be packed.

List of Ashtabula Celebrities

• (1795-1864) Joshua Reed Giddings*
• (1800-1864) Platt Rogers Spencer*
• (1800-1878) Benjamin Wade, U.S. Senator*
• (1810-1876) Betsy Mix Cowles, feminist and abolitionist*
• (1817-1883) Charles Case, U.S. Representative*
• (1825-1909) Matthew Turner, shipbuilder
• (1835-1905) Decius Wade, the "Father of Montana Jurisprudence"
• (1838-1905) Albion W. Tourgée, soldier, lawyer, judge, novelist, diplomat
• (1841-1919) Louis C. Shepard, Union Navy sailor
• (1857-1933) Francis Joseph Hall, theologian
• (1858-1942) Jesse Fuller McDonald, civil engineer, surveyor
• (1862-1924) Chester Hardy Aldrich, Governor of Nebraska
• (1890s-1942) T-Bone Slim, songwriter, hobo, IWW labor activist
• (1893-1967) Charles E. Burchfield
• (1921 - 2008 ) Maila Nurmi*
• (Born 1926) Ken Meyer, football coach
• (born 1943) Don Novello - January 1
• (born 1964) Urban F. Meyer, football coach, sportscaster
• (born 1968) Jarrod Bunch
• (born 1972) Tammy Cochran* Actually born and raised in Austinburg
• (born 1972) Brian James Anderson*
  

Chevron Hides Evidence That Proves Guilt in Ecuador Rainforest Contamination Case

From:  EcoWatch 

by Karen Hinton

In the wake of a controversial U.S. court ruling that a $9.5 billion Ecuador judgment against Chevron is fraudulent, the oil giant has been touting loudly its innocence of any environmental crimes in the South American country.

Chevron’s lawyers even successfully pressured some CBS News corporate suits to yank a damning 60 Minutes piece from the network’s website about the deliberate contamination of the Ecuador rainforest from 1964 to 1992 by Texaco, which Chevron later bought.

(See the dead link here. You can see the segment on my company’s web site. So sue me, CBS.)

Instead of succumbing to Chevron’s pressure tactics, CBS’ lawyers should grow a backbone and demand to see contamination “playbook” documents that Chevron has been forced to produce in an international arbitration proceeding.

They are explosive and prove 60 Minutes got it right, and the U.S. judge got it wrong.   MORE

Ohio Gov. John Kasich Signs Nation’s First Renewable Energy Freeze

From:  EcoWatch 

by Brandon Baker 

It took two weeks, but now it’s official—Ohio is the nation’s first state to roll back renewable energy standards.

After the state House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 310 in May, Gov. John Kasich signature was all that was missing to ensure Ohio’s clean-energy fall from grace. The standards—first passed in 2008 and reauthorized two years ago—previously required the state’s utilities to sell more solar and wind energy each year and charged them with finding efficiency solutions for their customers. Kasich’s signing means the standards are put on hold until 2017, when a committee formed by the bill’s passage could agree to permanently freeze them.

Kasich signed the bill Friday without any comment to the media, The Plain Dealer reported.

John Kasich signed a bill on Friday that freezes renewable energy for at least two years. Video screenshot: JohnKasich2010/YouTube

“Dirtier air. Higher electric bills. Lost jobs and investment. These are the new ‘dividends’ in store for Ohio from this major divestiture in clean energy,” said Trish Demeter, managing director of Energy and Clean Air Programs for the Ohio Environmental Council (OEC).   MORE

No. 101 – June 12, 2014 – How ideas impact us – Meet the Homunculus

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

It started with philosophers sitting around observing the world around them and extrapolating on how things worked, which they could not actually see. Anything related to sex was naturally of extreme interest, the profession of philosopher being entirely male.

Theophrastus, Hippocrates, Aristotle and Aeschylus, weighed in with theories of how babies came about. Then one of them, likely, in 458 BC, who must have had very good eyesight, looked closely at some sperm, which he reportedly held in his hand. He deduced that sperm were tiny human beings, homunculi, which would be planted in the womb of the woman. He then proposed the interesting theory that the male was the only real parent of the child, the female carrying out the role of "nurse for the young life sown within her".

In the 1700s this interesting theory received more attention and back up through the work of Dutch microscopist Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723). Anton discovered what he called "animalcules" in the sperm of humans and other animals. You can imagine these fellows peering intently into the lens of their microscope.

These scientists started a school of thought known as the "spermists" repeating the original contention of Aeschylus that the only contributions of the female were to provide the womb.

The Theory of the Homunculus was noted by legal sages who were writing law and became the justification for giving fathers the entire legal control of the children born to his wife. 

 

Naturally, this ignored the room and board, so to speak, the woman had provided for nine plus months and the related services of nourishing and caring for the child after the often painful and dangerous process of birth was completed. 

 

If you calculate the entire biological capitalization needed to produce a baby, conception to birth, ownership, or liability, would be viewed very differently, of course. 

 

Sperm generally have a negative value since men must pay to give them away. Human eggs cost around $8,000, ready to be fertilized and implanted. Payment for gestation services runs up to $100,000. Therefore, the capitalization of the baby making, calculated monetarily, is around: Male 1 Share, Female 99,000 Shares. 

 

This example of using theory to make law without thoroughly thinking through the ramifications and objectively assessing each contribution to the entire process is a useful exercise today. 

 

It gives us a moment to pause and consider many other issues which need rethinking.

No. 100 - May 5, 2014 - Discover Your Body's Largest Organ

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster 

 

Not long ago your skin was believed to be your body's largest organ. Advances in medical science have changed this.

In his book, “The Genie in Your Genes,” Dawson Church reveals the recent understanding of how a previously overlooked organ functions, linking this to the potential for each of us to take direct control of our health and happiness through prayer.

Any system with complex functions must have the means to coordinate their action. We are no different.

In your body this takes place through the much overlooked system of connective tissue encasing your organs through a complex including tendons and ligaments. Running through every part this matrix, made of collagen fibers, built from molecules arranged in highly regular arrays, are the lines through which energy and information pass.

The system functions as a liquid crystal semi-conductor.

These lines of fibers are the system on which Eastern medicine has been based for thousands of years, called meridians. Chinese healers discovered points along the meridians could be stimulated to achieve the balance of energies, restoring health. These practices were memorialized in the reign of the Yellow Emperor, Huang-ti, who reigned from 2697 to 2597 BC and is viewed as the initiator of Chinese civilization.

This knowledge also existed in Europe thousands of years earlier, but was lost.

Tattoos found on the body of the Ice Man, dated from 3300 BC, discovered in the summer of 1991 in the Alps, correspond closely with the same meridian lines used by the Chinese.

In Western medicine pacemakers are an example of the return to the use of energy for health and healing. The use of energy in medicine is expanding rapidly.

Western scientists had to be able to see the microscopic structure of this system to accept how it functions alongside the chemical system they already understood. Now, this is happening.

The communication/energy system in your body works with your body's chemical system, synchronizing the whole. It also reaches into the cell nucleus, and into the DNA, turning your DNA on, and off. No part is separate from this internal matrix - and these communications take place much faster than can be accounted for by traditional physics.

Scientific experiments confirm prayers from the faithful can heal - even when the afflicted don't know someone is praying for them. The power is in our hands. With faith, nothing is impossible.