Who Needs Fiction: Do You Measure Up?

Click on the title of this post to read the whole article.

Japan, Seeking Trim Waists, Measures Millions

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

AMAGASAKI, Japan — Japan, a country not known for its overweight people, has undertaken one of the most ambitious campaigns ever by a nation to slim down its citizenry.

Summoned by the city of Amagasaki one recent morning, Minoru Nogiri, 45, a flower shop owner, found himself lining up to have his waistline measured. With no visible paunch, he seemed to run little risk of being classified as overweight, or metabo, the preferred word in Japan these days.

But because the new state-prescribed limit for male waistlines is a strict 33.5 inches, he had anxiously measured himself at home a couple of days earlier. “I’m on the border,” he said.

Under a national law that came into effect two months ago, companies and local governments must now measure the waistlines of Japanese people between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkups. That represents more than 56 million waistlines, or about 44 percent of the entire population.

Those exceeding government limits — 33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women, which are identical to thresholds established in 2005 for Japan by the International Diabetes Federation as an easy guideline for identifying health risks — and having a weight-related ailment will be given dieting guidance if after three months they do not lose weight. If necessary, those people will be steered toward further re-education after six more months.

To reach its goals of shrinking the overweight population by 10 percent over the next four years and 25 percent over the next seven years, the government will impose financial penalties on companies and local governments that fail to meet specific targets. The country’s Ministry of Health argues that the campaign will keep the spread of diseases like diabetes and strokes in check.

The ministry also says that curbing widening waistlines will rein in a rapidly aging society’s ballooning health care costs, one of the most serious and politically delicate problems facing Japan today. Most Japanese are covered under public health care or through their work. Anger over a plan that would make those 75 and older pay more for health care brought a parliamentary censure motion Wednesday against Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, the first against a prime minister in the country’s postwar history.

But critics say that the government guidelines — especially the one about male waistlines — are simply too strict and that more than half of all men will be considered overweight. The effect, they say, will be to encourage overmedication and ultimately raise health care costs.

Yoichi Ogushi, a professor at Tokai University’s School of Medicine near Tokyo and an expert on public health, said that there was “no need at all” for the Japanese to lose weight.

“I don’t think the campaign will have any positive effect. Now if you did this in the United States, there would be benefits, since there are many Americans who weigh more than 100 kilograms,” or about 220 pounds, Mr. Ogushi said. “But the Japanese are so slender that they can’t afford to lose weight.”

Mr. Ogushi was actually a little harder on Americans than they deserved. A survey by the National Center for Health Statistics found that the average waist size for Caucasian American men was 39 inches, a full inch lower than the 40-inch threshold established by the International Diabetes Federation. American women did not fare as well, with an average waist size of 36.5 inches, about two inches above their threshold of 34.6 inches. The differences in thresholds reflected variations in height and body type from Japanese men and women.

Comparable figures for the Japanese are sketchy since waistlines have not been measured officially in the past. But private research on thousands of Japanese indicates that the average male waistline falls just below the new government limit.

That fact, widely reported in the media, has heightened the anxiety in the nation’s health clinics.

In Amagasaki, a city in western Japan, officials have moved aggressively to measure waistlines in what the government calls special checkups. The city had to measure at least 65 percent of the 40- to 74-year-olds covered by public health insurance, an “extremely difficult” goal, acknowledged Midori Noguchi, a city official.

When his turn came, Mr. Nogiri, the flower shop owner, entered a booth where he bared his midriff, exposing a flat stomach with barely discernible love handles. A nurse wrapped a tape measure around his waist across his belly button: 33.6 inches, or 0.1 inch over the limit.

“Strikeout,” he said, defeat spreading across his face.

Who Needs Fiction: Cracking the Code

A friend sent me this article, from which I've excerpted a portion below. It's fascinating. If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to the original article. There, you will find a slide show that you won't want to miss. Enjoy.

Mystery on Fifth Avenue

By PENELOPE GREEN

THINGS are not as they seem in the 14th-floor apartment on upper Fifth Avenue. At first blush the family that occupies it looks to be very much of a type. The father, Steven B. Klinsky, 52, runs a private equity company; the mother, Maureen Sherry, 44, left her job as a managing director for Bear Stearns to raise their four young children (two boys and two girls); and the dog, LuLu, is a soulful Lab mix rescued from a pound in Louisiana.

They are living in a typical habitat for the sort of New Yorkers they appear to be: an enormous ’20s-era co-op with Central Park views (once part of a triplex built for the philanthropist Marjorie Merriweather Post), gutted to its steel beams and refitted with luxurious flourishes like 16th-century Belgian mantelpieces and custom furniture made from exotic woods with unpronounceable names.

But some of that furniture and some of those walls conceal secrets — messages, games and treasures — that make up a Rube Goldberg maze of systems and contraptions conceived by a young architectural designer named Eric Clough, whose ideas about space and domestic living derive more from Buckminster Fuller than Peter Marino.

The apartment even comes with its own book, part of which is a fictional narrative that recalls “The Da Vinci Code” (without the funky religion or buckets of blood) and “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,” the children’s classic by E. L. Konigsburg about a brother and a sister who run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and discover — and solve — a mystery surrounding a Renaissance sculpture. It has its own soundtrack, too, with contributions by Kate Fenner, a young Canadian singer and songwriter with a lusty, alternative, Joni Mitchell-ish sound, with whom Mr. Clough fell in love during the project.

It all began simply enough, Ms. Sherry said, when she and her husband bought the 4,200-square-foot apartment for $8.5 million in 2003.

“I just didn’t want it to be this cookie-cutter, Upper East Side, Fifth Avenue kind of place,” she said.

The six-foot-tall Ms. Sherry doesn’t fit the mold of Fifth Avenue either: she is a former triathlete and nonfiction writer who is more interested in her children’s sneakers than in the offerings of the shoe department at Barneys.

Architects she met with made very cookie-cutterish proposals, until she met Mr. Clough, now 35, who was a friend of a friend, and they got to talking. He had smart ideas, like moving the front door and eliminating the very grand and formal front hall, the kind with marble floors and too many doors “that you’d put a round table in the middle of and flowers on top of that,” Ms. Sherry said. “A total waste of space.”

What Ms. Sherry didn’t realize until much later was that Mr. Clough had a number of other ideas about her apartment that he didn’t share with her. It began when Mr. Klinsky threw in his two cents, a vague request that a poem he had written for and about his family be lodged in a wall somewhere, Ms. Sherry said, “put in a bottle and hidden away as if it were a time capsule.” (Ms. Sherry said that her husband is both dogged and romantic, a guy singularly focused on the welfare of children, not just his own. Mr. Klinsky runs Victory Schools, a charter school company that seeds schools in neighborhoods around the country, as well as an after-school program in East New York that his own children help out with regularly.)

That got Mr. Clough, who is the sort of person who has a brainstorm on a daily basis, thinking about children and inspiration and how the latter strikes the former. “I’d just read something about Einstein being inspired by a compass he’d been given as a child,” he said. The Einstein story set Mr. Clough off, and he began to ponder ways to spark a child’s mind. “I was thinking that maybe there could be a game or a scavenger hunt embedded in the apartment — that was the beginning,” he said.

Before long, his firm, 212box, was knee-deep in code and cipher books, furnituremakers were devising secret compartments, and Mr. Clough’s former colleague, Heather Bensko, an architectural and graphic designer who had been his best friend at the Yale School of Architecture, found herself researching the lives of 40 historical figures, starting with Francis I of France and ending with Mrs. Post.

Ms. Bensko said she began writing chapters for a book, imagining scenes from the childhoods of those inspirational figures and trying to connect them. When that didn’t pan out as a narrative technique, she invented two best friends living in New York City who discover a mystery in an apartment and, in the course of unraveling the mystery, a sort of treasure hunt, they “meet” the historical figures.

All of that was tied into gizmos Mr. Clough, Ms. Bensko and others in their office hid in the apartment — without telling the clients — in a way that is almost too complicated to explain.

Who Needs Fiction: It's Tough to be Rich

A friend sent me this article, from which I excerpted a portion below. If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to the whole article.

Times are tough for everyone, including apparently, the very wealthy.

It's Not So Easy Being Less Rich
By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY

NANCY CHEMTOB, a divorce lawyer in Manhattan, has found that her days have become crammed seeing clients, all worried about how an economic downturn will affect their marriages.

They seem to have nothing to fret about: their net worths range from $5 million to $1 billion. A blip in the markets shouldn’t send their chateau-size Park Avenue co-ops to foreclosure or exile them to Payless Shoes.

But Ms. Chemtob’s clients are concerned all the same, she said, because their incomes have shrunk, say, to $2 million a year from $8 million, and they know that their 2008 bonus checks are likely to be much less impressive.

One of her clients recently confessed that his net worth had decreased to $8 million from more than $20 million, and he thinks that his wife will leave him. He has hidden their fall in fortune by taking on debt to pay for her extravagant clothes and vacations.

“I literally had to sit there and tell him that he had to tell his wife that she had to stop spending,” she said. “He was actually scared she would leave him because their financial situation changed so drastically.”

The wealthy don’t generally speak publicly about their finances, in good times or bad. It’s in poor taste, for one, and their employers could fire them for talking even a little. But people who provide services to the wealthy — lawyers, art advisers, personal trainers and hairstylists — say they are getting an earful about their clients’ financial anxieties.

Interviews with the people who actually see the bank statements, like divorce lawyers and lenders, say their clients are definitely living on less than they did a year ago, regardless of how expansive the definition of “less” may be. Hairstylists and private jet rental companies say the wealthy are cutting back on luxuries like $350 highlights and $10,000-an-hour jet rentals. Even nutritionists and personal trainers notice a problem. The wealthy are eating more and gaining weight because of the stress.

These financial problems — if they can be called that — will hardly elicit tears from the rest of us. But in those gilded living rooms, there is a quiet nervousness about keeping up appearances.

“Even if they’re not in danger of not paying their mortgage, there’s still a psychological change,” said Chris Del Gatto, chief executive of Circa, which has watched its business jump by 50 percent in the last year as wealthy clients sell their spare diamonds and Rolexes. “The economy is an issue even for people who don’t need the money.”

THEIR spouses could leave them when they discover that their net worth has collapsed to eight figures from nine. Friends and business associates could avoid them as they pass their lunchtime tables at Barney’s or the Four Seasons. And these snubs could trickle down to their children.

“They fear their kids won’t get invited to the right birthday parties,” said Michele Kleier, an Upper East Side-based real estate broker. “If they have to give up things that are invisible, they’re O.K. as long as they don’t have give up things visible to the outside world.”

Livin' the High Life

From AP via ABCNews. Click on the title of this post to go to the original story.

Dublin Beer Bandit Raids Guinness

Irish Police Hunt Beer Bandit Who Stole 450 Kegs From Guinness Brewery

By SHAWN POGATCHNIK

The Associated Press

DUBLIN, Ireland

Irish police were hunting for a beer bandit who stole 450 full kegs from the Guinness brewery the largest heist ever at Ireland's largest brewer.

National police said a lone man drove into the brewery a Dublin landmark and top tourist attraction on Wednesday and hitched his truck to a fully loaded trailer awaiting delivery to city pubs.

Diageo PLC, the beverage company that owns Guinness, said the brewery had never suffered such a large-scale theft before in its 248-year history.

Police said the raider took 180 kegs of Guinness stout, 180 kegs of U.S. lager Budweiser and 90 kegs of Danish beer Carlsberg. Guinness brews both of those foreign brands under license for sale in Ireland.

Police declined to say whether the theft had been captured by closed-circuit surveillance cameras. No description of the suspect was issued, suggesting that nobody got a good look at him.

Each keg holds about 88 British-sized pints, the most common serving size in Ireland, equivalent to 20 ounces each. The total theft involves 39,600 pints with a retail value exceeding $235,000.

Police said it would be difficult for the thief to sell the stolen beer without attracting attention, unless he has criminal associates who own a network of pubs.

But customs agents say it is common for pubs to sell stolen or smuggled cigarettes and alcohol, particularly counterfeit-labeled supplies of vodka, to avoid paying hefty taxes.

In the past, the outlawed Irish Republican Army and other gangs have hijacked truck shipments of alcoholic beverages and cigarettes for resale in pubs run by sympathizers or friends. Those raids typically happen in rural areas, never in the center of Dublin.

The Republic of Ireland, a country of 4.2 million, has more than 10,000 pubs and bars. The Guinness brewery in Dublin is the biggest supplier, producing more than 5 million kegs annually.

Hip Hop in Japan to Promote Cultural Awareness

Below is an excerpt from an article on Yahoo. If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to the full article.

Japan's Ainu fuse tradition, hip-hop for awareness

By Yoko KubotaTue Nov 27, 7:28 PM ET

When Tsubasa Okitsu was growing up in northern Japan, he was ashamed of his heritage as an Ainu, an indigenous ethnic group that has long suffered discrimination in a country where many take pride in cultural homogeneity.

"In the past, I rejected myself as an Ainu," he said, recalling on how his classmates teased him for looking different.

Now the 27-year-old Okitsu has come to terms with his identity as a member of a group of young Ainu musicians and dancers who blend traditional strains and modern hip-hop in hopes of boosting broader awareness of their rich culture.

"We wanted to do something new and cool to improve the status of the Ainu people," Okitsu told Reuters during a recent performance of the group called "Ainu Rebels."

"The way we do it is by playing music and adding our own arrangements and ideas," added Okitsu, clad in a full-length navy Ainu cloak adorned with white scrolling -- and trendy diamond studs sparkling on each ear.

A hunting and gathering people thought to be descendants of early inhabitants of Japan who were later displaced mainly to the northern island of Hokkaido, the Ainu have a culture and language distinctive from those of ethnic Japanese.

Deep-set eyes, muscular bodies and heavier body hair for men distinguish their appearance, although the differences have blurred through intermarriage.

Okitsu, a half-Japanese, half-Ainu lover of hip-hop, founded the Ainu Rebels with other young Ainu living in the Tokyo region over a year ago, creating one of the first performance groups of its kind mixing traditional Ainu culture with hip-hop and rock.

The group plays traditional Ainu instruments such as the mukkuri (jaw harp), sings Ainu poems in the native tongue, raps in Japanese about the harsh experiences of being Ainu and arranges traditional dance steps to rock and hip-hop beats.

The group's only rap song in Ainu is based on a traditional 'yukar' song, an epic about totemic gods and ancestral heroes.

FUSING OLD AND NEW

The fusion of old and new has sparked criticism from some who favor a more pristine approach to preserving the culture.

"Some people say that this is not traditional, that this is not Ainu culture," said Mina Sakai, the 24-year-old leader of Ainu Rebels.

"We think that culture is something that constantly changes. We are confident that we have the spirit -- the spirit that we want to do something, to express something about the Ainu."

Beginning in 1869, the government forced Ainu to change their names, banned traditional hunting and started encouraging ethnic Japanese to settle in Hokkaido.

About 24,000 Ainu now live in Hokkaido, although numbers are imprecise since many still hide their heritage, but their native language is nearly extinct, with just a handful of fluent speakers. Ainu Rebel members are taking language classes, but still have to look up words in a dictionary when writing lyrics.

Despite decades of intermarriage and assimilation, discrimination remains strong in Hokkaido.

Surveys show persistent gaps in income and education, and members of Ainu Rebels still recall being bullied as kids.

"Most of the group's members used to hate the fact that they are Ainu and had a complex," Sakai said.

Performing in the band is a way both to accept their own ethnicity and raise social awareness of Ainu culture.

"Now we are confronting ourselves," Sakai said. "We want people to know the Ainu are here and to know more about the Ainu, and see that we are full of life and proud to be Ainu."

Looked for, he can not be seen ...

Remember the old Kung Fu TV series? Remember the description of a Shaolin monk?

Listened for, he cannot be heard.
Looked for, he cannot be seen.
Felt for, he cannot be touched.

Well, a Japanese inventor came up with something. If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to the full article. An excerpt follows. Please follow the link, as you'll want to see the pictures. I didn't want to spoil the article by putting any of the pictures here.

Fearing Crime, Japanese Wear the Hiding Place

By MARTIN FACKLER

TOKYO, Oct. 19 — On a narrow Tokyo street, near a beef bowl restaurant and a pachinko parlor, Aya Tsukioka demonstrated new clothing designs that she hopes will ease Japan’s growing fears of crime.

Deftly, Ms. Tsukioka, a 29-year-old experimental fashion designer, lifted a flap on her skirt to reveal a large sheet of cloth printed in bright red with a soft drink logo partly visible. By holding the sheet open and stepping to the side of the road, she showed how a woman walking alone could elude pursuers — by disguising herself as a vending machine.

The wearer hides behind the sheet, printed with an actual-size photo of a vending machine. Ms. Tsukioka’s clothing is still in development, but she already has several versions, including one that unfolds from a kimono and a deluxe model with four sides for more complete camouflaging.

These elaborate defenses are coming at a time when crime rates are actually declining in Japan. But the Japanese, sensitive to the slightest signs of social fraying, say they feel growing anxiety about safety, fanned by sensationalist news media. Instead of pepper spray, though, they are devising a variety of novel solutions, some high-tech, others quirky, but all reflecting a peculiarly Japanese sensibility.

Take the “manhole bag,” a purse that can hide valuables by unfolding to look like a sewer cover. Lay it on the street with your wallet inside, and unwitting thieves are supposed to walk right by. There is also a line of knife-proof high school uniforms made with the same material as Kevlar, and a book with tips on how to dress even the nerdiest children like “pseudohoodlums” to fend off schoolyard bullies.

There are pastel-colored cellphones for children that parents can track, and a chip for backpacks that signals when children enter and leave school.

The devices’ creators admit that some of their ideas may seem far-fetched, especially to crime-hardened Americans. And even some Japanese find some of them a tad naïve, possibly reflecting the nation’s relative lack of experience with actual street crime. Despite media attention on a few sensational cases, the rate of violent crime remains just one-seventh of America’s.

But the devices’ creators also argue that Japan’s ideas about crime prevention are a product of deeper cultural differences. While Americans want to protect themselves from criminals, or even strike back, the creators say many Japanese favor camouflage and deception, reflecting a culture that abhors self-assertion, even in self-defense.

“It is just easier for Japanese to hide,” Ms. Tsukioka said. “Making a scene would be too embarrassing.” She said her vending machine disguise was inspired by a trick used by the ancient ninja, who cloaked themselves in black blankets at night.

To be sure, some of these ideas have yet to become commercially viable. However, the fact that they were greeted here with straight faces, or even appeared at all, underscores another, less appreciated facet of Japanese society: its fondness for oddball ideas and inventions.

Japan’s corporate labs have showered the world with technology, from transistor radios to hybrid cars. But the nation is also home to a prolific subculture of individual inventors, whose ideas range from practical to bizarre. Inventors say a tradition of tinkering and building has made Japan welcoming to experimental ideas, no matter how eccentric.

“Japanese society won’t just laugh, so inventors are not afraid to try new things,” said Takumi Hirai, chairman of Japan’s largest association of individual inventors, the 10,000-member Hatsumeigakkai.

In fact, Japan produces so many unusual inventions that it even has a word for them: chindogu, or “queer tools.” The term was popularized by Kenji Kawakami, whose hundreds of intentionally impractical and humorous inventions have won him international attention as Japan’s answer to Rube Goldberg. His creations, which he calls “unuseless,” include a roll of toilet paper attached to the head for easy reach in hay fever season, and tiny mops for a cat’s feet that polish the floor as the cat prowls.

Mr. Kawakami said that while some of Japan’s anticrime devices might not seem practical, they were valuable because they might lead to even better ideas.

“Even useless things can be useful,” he said. “The weird logic of these inventions helps us see the world in fresh ways.”

Who needs fiction: Reality meets the books.

There has been a lot of bizarre news laterly, where real life coincides with popular works of fiction:

Take this story, where a man goes on a murdering spree using a rattlesnake as a weapon:

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/crime/ny-lidevo0914,0,782961.story

and the Sherlock Holmes story, the Case of the Speckled Band:

http://www.amazon.com/Case-Files-Sherlock-Holmes-Speckled/dp/1899562257/ref=sr_1_1/103-1104095-2784624?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190133486&sr=1-1

Then there is this story out of Peru:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,,2171920,00.html

and The Andromeda Strain:

http://www.amazon.com/Andromeda-Strain-Michael-Crichton/dp/0060541814/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-1104095-2784624?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190133614&sr=1-1

Then finally, this report of a student being Tazered at a John Kerry event:

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/09/18/police_taser_student_at_kerry_speech/4703/

and 1984:

http://www.amazon.com/1984-Signet-Classics-George-Orwell/dp/0451524934/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/103-1104095-2784624?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190133728&sr=1-2

Who needs fiction: Creatures from the Deep

This is an article that appears at Yahoo. If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to the original article that in turn has links to images of these otherworldly creatures.

Colorful Carpet of Cool Sea Creatures Discovered 2 Miles Deep

Jeanna Bryner
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.comFri Aug 24, 9:20 AM ET

A submerged mountain ridge beneath the North Atlantic Ocean has revealed a new crustacean species and oodles of other life forms, ranging from polka-dotted glass squid resembling beach balls to grim viperfish with teeth like ice-picks.

The finds were made by a team of 31 scientists during a five-week expedition to explore life along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge using remotely operated vehicles equipped with digital cameras and other technologies.

The "underwater eyes" surveyed regions from a half-mile to 2 miles (800 to 3,500 meters) deep and revealed distinct habitats, with colorful carpets of sponges and corals covering the rocky cliffs, and starfish, brittle-stars, sea cucumbers and burrowing worms taking residence in the softer sediments. Above the ridge, fishes, crabs, squid and shrimps foraged for food.

On the western side of the underwater ridge, the scientists, led by Monty Priede of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, discovered swarms of what could be a new species of Ostracod, or seed shrimp. The shrimp-like animal camouflages itself in the murky waters between depths of 164 and 656 feet (50 and 200 meters) with its see-through body.

As with the seed shrimp, the appearance and lifestyle of all the ridge's wonky creatures are a perfect fit for deep-sea life. The jewel squid, for instance, sports lopsided eyes to keep an eye out for predators (like the viperfish) both above and below.

“It is like surveying a new continent half way between America and Europe," Priede said. "We can recognize the creatures, but familiar ones are absent and unusual ones are common. We are finding species that are rare or unknown elsewhere in the world.”

The scientists still have extensive work to do studying the collected creatures along with physical data from the region.

"The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is still relatively unexplored so this voyage will have played a vital role in expanding our knowledge of the biodiversity of the region," said Steve Wilson, director of science and innovation for the Natural Environment Research Council in Wiltshire, England, which funded the expedition.

Top 10 Freaks of Nature Image Gallery: Under the Sea: Life in the Sanctuaries 10 Amazing Things You Didn't Know About Animals Original Story: Colorful Carpet of Cool Sea Creatures Discovered 2 Miles Deep

Visit LiveScience.com for more daily news, views and scientific inquiry with an original, provocative point of view. LiveScience reports amazing, real world breakthroughs, made simple and stimulating for people on the go. Check out our collection of Science, Animal and Dinosaur Pictures, Science Videos, Hot Topics, Trivia, Top 10s, Voting, Amazing Images, Reader Favorites, and more. Get cool gadgets at the new LiveScience Store, sign up for our free daily email newsletter and check out our RSS feeds today!

Who needs fiction: Time Travel

Below is an excerpt from an article that appeared in EETimes, a trade magazine for engineers. If you click on the link, you'll be directed to the full article.

Israeli researchers tout time machine model

Amir Ben-Artzi (08/06/2007 8:07 AM EDT) URL: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201203157

NETANYA, Israel — Researchers at the Technion University (Haifa, Israel) claim they have developed a theoretical model of a time machine that, in the distant future, could enable future generations to travel into the past. The team's findings were published in the latest issue of Physical Review. "In order to travel back in time, the spacetime structure must be engineered appropriately," explains Professor Amos Ori of the Technion's Faculty of Physics. "This is what Einstein's theory of general relativity deals with. It says that spacetime can be flat. That is " it has a trivial, simple structure. But it can also be curved with various configurations." The team stresses the main question is whether — according to the principles of curvature development in the theory of relativity — a time machine can be created. "In other words " can we cause spacetime to curve in such a way as to enable travel back in time? Such a journey requires a significant curvature of spacetime, in a very special form." The researchers explain that traveling back in time is actually closing time-like curves so we can go back to an event at which we were present in the past. In flat space, it is not possible to close curves and go back in time. In order for closed time-like curves to exist, there has to be a curvature of a specific form on spacetime. The question Prof. Ori is investigating is whether the laws of gravity permit the development of spacetime with the required curvature (closed time-like curves). In the past, scientists raised a number of objections to this possibility. Now, Prof. Ori is proposing a theoretical model for spacetime that could develop into a time machine.

Who needs fiction: A Note on Relationships in Japan

An old article...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-06-02-japan-women-usat_x.htm


No sex please ― we're Japanese
By Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY

TOKYO ― Junko Sakai was nervously looking forward to a romantic getaway with the man she'd been seeing. But when they arrived at a seaside hotel last fall, her beau requested separate rooms.

Stunned, Sakai nonetheless anticipated a late-night knock on the door. It never came. "Nothing happened," the Tokyo writer says.

Nothing is happening with depressing regularity between Japanese men and women these days. Marriages, births and hanky-panky are all spiraling downward with troubling implications for the nation's future: A sagging birthrate means that fewer working-age people will be around to support a growing population of elderly; a social crisis looms.

Only in Japan would a popular weekly newsmagazine deem it necessary to exhort the nation's youth to abstain from sexual abstinence: "Young people, don't hate sex," AERA magazine pleaded last month in a report detailing a precarious drop in sales of condoms and in business at Japan's rent-by-the-hour "love hotels."

More and more Japanese men and women are finding relationships too messy, tiring and potentially humiliating to bother with anymore. "They don't want a complicated life," says Sakai, who has written a controversial bestseller, Cry of the Losing Dogs, on the plight of unmarried Japanese thirtysomething women like herself.

And so, to an astonishing degree, men and women go their separate ways ― the women to designer boutiques and chic restaurants with their girlfriends or moms, the men to karaoke clubs with their colleagues from work or the solitude of their computer screens to romance hassle-free virtual women.

"Men don't want to spend time with their girlfriends, especially shopping," says Takayuki Mori, 40, a single man who works for a Tokyo advertising agency. He says he isn't dating.

Better educated, more widely traveled and raised in more affluence than their mothers, young women no longer feel bound by the Japanese tradition that says a woman unmarried after age 25 is like a Christmas cake on Dec. 26 ― stale. Men, meanwhile, seem intimidated and bewildered by assertive young women who are nothing like their moms.

As a result of the disconnect between genders, Japan, just emerging from a long economic slump, is experiencing a social recession in:

-Marriage. Japanese are postponing marriage or avoiding it altogether. Weddings dropped last year for the second straight year. Fifty-four percent of Japanese women in their late 20s are single, up from 30.6% in 1985. About half of single Japanese women ages 35 to 54 have no intention to marry, according to a survey in January by the Japan Institute of Life Insurance.

-Births. Just 1.1 million babies were born in Japan last year, the third straight decline. The average Japanese couple now produces just 1.32 children, well below the minimum 2.08 needed to compensate for deaths. As a result of plummeting birth rates, Japan's population is expected to peak in 2006, and then decline rapidly.

-Sex. In a 2001 survey, condom maker Durex found that Japan ranked dead last among 28 countries in the frequency of sex: The average Japanese had sex just 36 times a year. Hong Kong was next to last with 63. (Americans ranked No. 1 at 124 times a year.)

AERA reports that condom shipments are down 40% since 1993 (probably in part because Japan finally legalized birth-control pills in 1999) and love-hotel check-ins are off at least 20% over the past five years. What's more, an increasing number of those visiting love hotels aren't there for romance, AERA says; they've found that love hotels offer the cheapest access to karaoke machines and video games.

I won't get married!

Over tea in the sunlit lobby of the Akasaka Prince Hotel near the Imperial Palace in downtown Tokyo, and later over soba noodles and chicken yakatori at a nearby restaurant, Japanese writer and television personality Yoko Haruka describes the shortcomings of love and marriage Japanese-style. The husband works long hours and carouses into the night with his pals from work. The wife is expected to stay home, clean house and take care of kids. If the children behave badly, she's a bad mother. If her husband has an affair, she's a bad wife.

The author of Kekkon Shimasen (I Won't Get Married!), Haruka abandoned her own plans for marriage a decade ago when she realized her fiance wanted her to give up her career and lead the traditional life of a Japanese housewife. She says Japanese men sometimes propose to women with lines like: "I want you to cook miso soup for me the rest of my life." Not surprisingly, Japan's increasingly educated and well-traveled young women are not impressed.

"I'm not expecting men will change," Haruka says.

Her assistant, Miho Higuchi, who has kept silent throughout the conversation, suddenly blurts out: "Never again!" A mother of three, she divorced her husband because he refused to do anything to help her clean house and take care of the kids.

In fact, Japan's divorce rate rose steadily to 2.3 divorces for every 1,000 people in 2002 from 1.3 in 1990; it appears to have dropped a bit last year, partly because fewer people have been getting married. (The divorce rate in the USA was 4 per 1,000 people in 2002. )

As for men, they seem bewildered by the rising assertiveness of Japanese women.

"Men are getting weaker," says Takayuki Tokiwa, 23, a student at a Tokyo vocational college. "Women don't have to rely on men anymore. They can live on their own."

Masahito Wakauchi, 24, would seem to be a good catch. He has fashionably wavy hair and a good job with an advertising agency in Tokyo. Is he dating? Wakauchi shakes his head sadly.

"It's very, very difficult" to meet women these days, he says.

Rather than risk rejection or summon the energy to maintain a modern relationship, many Japanese men simply pay for affection in the country's ubiquitous hostess bars and brothels.

Others prefer virtual women online to the real kind. "They seem to find the relationship cumbersome. ... You have to be attentive to your partner," says Kunio Kitamura, president of the Japan Family Planning Association's Family Planning Clinic. "A quick way to get satisfaction is so-called cybersex."

In fact, as many as a million young men ― mostly teenagers, but increasingly older men as well ― suffer from what is known here as hikikomori. It's a condition in which they seclude themselves in their rooms for weeks at a time (though the causes seem to go well beyond fear of women to traumatic experiences from the past, such as being bullied at school).

But most young Japanese seem to enjoy the single life. In 1973, a Japanese government survey found that the happiest people in the country were those over age 60. A similar survey 24 years later found that the happiest people were in their 20s, and twentysomething women were the happiest of all: 77.7% said they were content with their lives. Maybe Gloria Steinem was right: Women need men like fish need bicycles.

Many young Japanese women live carefree lives, staying at home with their parents, paying little if any rent, letting their mothers cook their meals, clean their rooms and do their laundry. Many work dead-end jobs that don't pay much but don't cause much stress and give them enough spending money to buy designer handbags, shoes, clothes and jewelry and enough time to take overseas holidays with their girlfriends.

Emerging from the Louis Vuitton shop on Namikibashi street in the heart of the Ginza shopping district, Tokyo secretary Yukiko Matsumoto, 38, says she's happily single and living at home with herparents.

"I don't want to change my rhythms," she says. "Men expect women to stay home and take care of them." Not likely: Matsumoto travels abroad twice a year with her best friend and shopping companion, Terumi Yanagibashi, 38. They've already been to Hawaii together three times.

'Parasite singles'

A few years ago, Tokyo Gakugei University sociologist Masahiro Yamada coined the phrase "parasite singles" to describe young people who sponge off their parents and use their rent-free incomes to splurge on designer goodies, expensive dinners and trips abroad. It came from the 1997 Japanese horror movie Parasite Eve and applies to young, live-at-home men and women alike, though Yamada says the most carefree of the parasite singles tend to be women; the men are more serious about establishing careers and moving out on their own one day.

The phrase caught on. Some single women even printed up business cards defiantly describing themselves as "parasite singles."

In the past, it made sense for young people to leave home early. In the 1940s and 1950s, Japanese families were large. Staying at home meant sharing a room with brothers or sisters. But after decades of prosperity and falling birthrates, many young adults are pampered only children. Leaving home to marry means the drudgery of housework (especially for women) and the poverty of having to pay your own bills.

Sociologist Yamada says the single life in Japan isn't as blissful as it seems. For one thing, many young women still want to marry: They keep waiting for the perfect man ― a rich handsome guy who either helps with the housework or can afford to hire help. But Prince Charming never quite arrives. "They hold on to the illusion they will find a man with a high income," Yamada says.

"The good men are all married," writer Junko Sakai says. "Those left behind are all nerds or without jobs or violent or not nice-looking."

And what happens to the parasite singles when their parents become infirm or die? Yamada says their future is grim. He cites one case study that he fears will be a model for the future. A woman lived with her parents until they died, inherited the family home but found that her job didn't pay enough now that her parents weren't around to foot the bill for groceries and other necessities. She ended up bankrupt after borrowing heavily in a futile effort to maintain her lifestyle.

The phenomenon of parasite singles also is creating a demographic nightmare. Japan now has about four working-age people to contribute to pension plans to support one of today's retirees. By the middle of the century, there will be just two workers for each retiree, which will create huge financial problems for the country.

Yamada says young men and women need to get more realistic. Men need to start helping with the housework and supporting their wives' careers. Women need to stop waiting for the flawless man who's never going to show up. "They've got to compromise," he says.

But it's going to take a lot of convincing to get Japanese women to give up their independence. Sakai says Japanese society still thinks there's something wrong with unmarried women over the age of, say, 30. She calls spinsters like herself "losing dogs." But fewer and fewer women care about tradition. "I know I'm a losing dog," Sakai says, "but I'm quite satisfied with my life."

Contributing: Naoko Nishiwaki in Tokyo

Who needs fiction: The Cat of Death

This story appeared on Yahoo. If you click on the title of the post, you'll be directed to the full text. This just confirms my opinion that cats are the handmaidens of Satan!

Oscar the cat predicts patients' deaths

By RAY HENRY, Associated Press WriterWed Jul 25, 7:25 PM ET

Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.

"He doesn't make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," said Dr. David Dosa in an interview. He describes the phenomenon in a poignant essay in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Many family members take some solace from it. They appreciate the companionship that the cat provides for their dying loved one," said Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor of medicine at Brown University.

The 2-year-old feline was adopted as a kitten and grew up in a third-floor dementia unit at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The facility treats people with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and other illnesses.

After about six months, the staff noticed Oscar would make his own rounds, just like the doctors and nurses. He'd sniff and observe patients, then sit beside people who would wind up dying in a few hours.

Dosa said Oscar seems to take his work seriously and is generally aloof. "This is not a cat that's friendly to people," he said.

Oscar is better at predicting death than the people who work there, said Dr. Joan Teno of Brown University, who treats patients at the nursing home and is an expert on care for the terminally ill

She was convinced of Oscar's talent when he made his 13th correct call. While observing one patient, Teno said she noticed the woman wasn't eating, was breathing with difficulty and that her legs had a bluish tinge, signs that often mean death is near.

Who Needs Fiction: Steamed Buns

This is an excerpt from an article appearing on Yahoo. If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to the full article.

Beijing steamed buns include cardboard

BEIJING - Chopped cardboard, softened with an industrial chemical and flavored with fatty pork and powdered seasoning, is a main ingredient in batches of steamed buns sold in one Beijing neighborhood, state television said.

The report, aired late Wednesday on China Central Television, highlights the country's problems with food safety despite government efforts to improve the situation.

Countless small, often illegally run operations exist across China and make money cutting corners by using inexpensive ingredients or unsavory substitutes. They are almost impossible to regulate.

State TV's undercover investigation features the shirtless, shorts-clad maker of the buns, called baozi, explaining the contents of the product sold in Beijing's sprawling Chaoyang district.

Baozi are a common snack in China, with an outer skin made from wheat or rice flour and and a filling of sliced pork. Cooked by steaming in immense bamboo baskets, they are similar to but usually much bigger than the dumplings found on dim sum menus familiar to many Americans.

Who Needs Fiction: Working for the Government in China

With the Olympics's on their doorstep, the Chinese don't need any bad publicity right now, but they've had plenty of it. Here in the US, there was the case of the tainted pet food. Then there was the story about the tainted toothpaste. I saw a story the other day about how hundreds of thousands of automobile tires had to be hastily recalled before they were distributed.

China is not taking these quality issues laying down. Below is an excerpt from the LA Times. If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to the entire article.

Chinese applaud ex-official's execution

The former head of food and drug safety was convicted of taking bribes, which in some cases involved approving lethal products.

By Mark Magnier
Times Staff Writer

July 11, 2007

BEIJING — The heightened anger and fear felt by average Chinese over the safety of food ingredients, medicine and other consumer products were vividly on display here Tuesday after the execution of the former head of China's food and drug safety agency.

Within hours of an announcement that Zheng Xiaoyu, 62, had been put to death for taking bribes from pharmaceutical companies, China's Internet lighted up.

"Good job!" said an anonymous posting on Sina.com, a major Chinese Web portal.

"He deserves it," said another, writing under the moniker Lgzxm2005.

"We can't even count how many people Zheng has killed," chimed in a third.

In China's one-party state, with its nascent legal system and heightened concern for social stability, justice can be swift, particularly in highly political cases. Zheng, who headed the State Food and Drug Administration from 1998 to 2005, was convicted in late May of taking bribes, granted an appeal in June and executed in early July.

Details on how the sentence was carried out were not immediately available. In recent years, China has made greater use of lethal injection, sometimes undertaken in mobile execution vans, reducing its traditional use of a bullet to the back of the head. Executions are traditionally carried out at 10 a.m. by the People's Armed Police.

"It was decided by the Politburo, so what can I say?" said a law professor who declined to be identified, citing his links with the government. "This case is very sensitive. Nor is it unusual in China to execute a person in short order."

Yet even by Chinese standards, Zheng's punishment was harsh, reflecting a wellspring of anger among Chinese concerning their health and the growing international fallout.

In recent months, a series of safety scandals have tarnished the nation's export juggernaut and threatened to undermine the "Made in China" label abroad.

Zheng was convicted of taking bribes worth about $850,000 and dereliction of duty. During his tenure, the administration reportedly approved six medicines that turned out to be fake, including an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths in China.

In North America, authorities this year have blocked or recalled toxic seafood, juice made with unsafe color additives and toys coated with lead paint imported from China.

This followed the death of several dogs and cats last year who ate pet food containing Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine, a fire retardant.

In Panama last year, dozens of people died after ingesting medicine contaminated with highly toxic diethylene glycol, an ingredient in brake fluid, that originated in China and was confused with harmless glycerin.

Counterfeit Colgate toothpaste containing traces of the same liquid was found on store shelves in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. No deaths have been reported from the counterfeit toothpaste.

Though other countries, including the United States, use the death penalty, China has come under growing criticism for its wholesale use, particularly involving economic crimes such as tax evasion and corruption.

Beijing recently narrowed its use of the death penalty. But it still carries out more state-sanctioned executions than all other nations combined.

"Abolishing the death penalty is a goal for China's legal future, but realistically I don't expect it to happen in my lifetime," said Qian Lieyang, a Beijing-based attorney who has represented defendants in several high-profile death penalty cases. "In Zheng's case, it's not just the amount of money involved, it's also the circumstances."

Yet the Chinese Communist Party walks a fine line. Even as it tries to appease millions of angry citizens with Zheng's rapid execution, it faces an uphill battle portraying his brand of corruption as the exception rather than the rule.

"The few corrupt officials of the [State Food and Drug Administration] are the shame of the whole system," said Yan Jiangyang, a spokesman at the agency. "Their scandals have revealed some very serious problems."

China's propaganda ministry has sought to focus public anger at a relatively narrow target — Zheng and a small number of colleagues — but it hasn't taken long for some people to demand similar treatment for other offenders. "Our country will have no peace unless corrupt officials are killed," said an anonymous posting on Sina. "We should kill more!"

"Corrupt officials are like leeks in the field," said another on Sohu.com, by a writer identified as "Common Man." "We cut a bunch, more come out. Even if we killed every second official in China, nobody innocent would die by mistake."

Who Needs Fiction: Character Building

You can't make this stuff up. I think there's a Darwin Award here. If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to the whole story.

Man Dies of Thirst During Survival Test

By ED WHITE, Associated Press Writer

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

(05-02) 10:44 PDT Boulder, Utah (AP) --

A man died of thirst during a wilderness-survival exercise designed to test his physical and mental toughness, even though guides had water. They didn't offer him any because they did not want to spoil the character-building experience.

By Day 2 in the blazing Utah desert, Dave Buschow was in bad shape. Pale, wracked by cramps, his speech slurred, the 29-year-old New Jersey man was desperate for water and hallucinating so badly he mistook a tree for a person.

After going roughly 10 hours without a drink in the 100-degree heat, he finally dropped dead of thirst, face down in the dirt, less than 100 yards from the goal: a cave with a pool of water.

But Buschow was no solitary soul, lost and alone in the desert. He and 11 other hikers from various walks of life were being led by expert guides on a wilderness-survival adventure designed to test their physical and mental toughness.

And the guides, it turned out, were carrying emergency water on that torrid summer day.

Buschow wasn't told that, and he wasn't offered any. The guides did not want him to fail the $3,175 course. They wanted him to dig deep, push himself beyond his known limits, and make it to the cave on his own.

Nearly a year later, documents obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act reveal those and other previously undisclosed details of what turned out to be a death march for Buschow. They also raise questions about the judgments and priorities of the guides at the Boulder Outdoor Survival School. What matters more: the customer's welfare or his quest?

"It was so needless. What a shame. It didn't have to happen," said Ray Gardner, the Garfield County sheriff's deputy who hiked six miles to recover Buschow's body. "They had emergency water right there. I would have given him a drink."

Family members are angry.

Fighting Buddhist Monks

When it comes to "fighting Buddhist monks," I don't think this is what comes to mind. If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to the full article.

Buddhist monks clash in Cambodia amid anti-Vietnam protest

(Kyodo) _ At least two Buddhist monks were injured Friday in a street clash in Cambodia's capital between two opposing groups of monks during a protest against Vietnam, which some monks accuse of suppressing religious freedom.

The demonstration march was made by some 40 monks, most of whom identified themselves as Khmer Krom, an ethnic Khmer minority people of Vietnam who inhabited the Mekong Delta area prior to the colonization of that area by Vietnamese settlers.

The marchers were demanding relief from alleged religious suppression of Khmer Krom by Vietnamese authorities, and had hoped to deliver a protest letter to the Vietnamese Embassy but were dispersed by some 150 riot police.

They then walked to the Royal Palace, where the clash occurred, and to the U.S. Embassy.

Marcher Lim Yuth, 23, his face bloody from a cut above his eye, said he was injured by an object thrown by a small group of Buddhist monks, still unidentified, during his group's peaceful march.

It was unclear whether the Buddhist monks who clashed with the marchers acted on their own or under orders from above.

Who needs fiction: Hang glider attacked by eagles.

From Yahoo News

Wild eagles attack paraglider
By Rob Taylor

Fri Feb 2, 9:22 AM ET

Britain's top female paraglider has cheated death after being attacked by a pair of "screeching" wild eagles while competition flying in Australia.

Nicky Moss, 38, watched terrified as two huge birds began tearing into her parachute canopy, one becoming tangled in her lines and clawing at her head 2,500 meters (8,200ft) in the air.

"I heard screeching behind me and a eagle flew down and attacked me, swooping down and bouncing into the side of my wing with its claws," Moss told Reuters on Friday.

"Then another one appeared and together they launched a sustained attack on my glider, tearing at the wing."

The encounter happened on Monday while Moss -- a member of the British paragliding team -- was preparing for world titles this month at Manilla in northern New South Wales state.

One of the giant wedge-tailed eagles became wrapped in the canopy lines and slid down toward Moss, lashing at her face with its talons as her paraglider plummeted toward the ground.

"It swooped in and hit me on the back of the head, then got tangled in the glider which collapsed it. So I had a very, very large bird wrapped up screeching beside me as I screamed back," Moss said.

She said she thought about dumping her parachute-style canopy and using the reserve.

"But then I would have been descending on my reserve as the birds continued shredding it, which I wasn't happy about," she said.

Wedge-tailed eagles are Australia's largest predatory birds and have a wing-span of more than two meters.

Moss said the attack ended after the second bird freed itself and the glider reached a height of only 100m from the ground, taking her outside the territory of the pair, who probably mistook her as a bird intruder.

Veteran Australian paraglider pilot Godfrey Wenness said eagle attacks were rare, but Moss had been flying in an area where the birds were not accustomed to human pilots.

"Eagles are the sharks of the air. But if you're a regular they just treat you pretty indifferently," he said.

Moss, who crashed into a gum tree in Australia last year while flying in Victoria, said her latest encounter had not put her off flying.

"I see the eagles quite often and they are incredibly beautiful, but I must say I have never been so relieved to reach the ground," she said

Who needs fiction: Drag-boat racing?

If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to the full article.

Ethnic games tainted by cross-dressing cheats

BEIJING (Reuters) - Touted as a celebration of sport, culture and national unity, the Ethnic Minority Games held in southwestern China descended into a farce of cross-dressing cheating and mob violence, state media reported.

Athletes representing China's 55 ethnic minorities assembled in southwestern Yunnan province last week to compete in blow-pipe darts, horse-riding events and other traditional sports.

But blind pursuit of victory lead to some unorthodox tactics, Xinhua news agency reported.

Results of the women's dragon-boat racing event were reviewed after athletes complained of "big women with Adam's apples", Xinhua said. Referees subsequently found that several of the competitors were actually men wearing wigs.

A dispute between a team from the games' host city, Zhaotong, and another from Wenshan city in Yunnan province over the result of a wrestling final turned into a brawl, Xinhua said.

The Wenshan team was eventually chased away by a local gang with blades and sticks called in by the Zhaotong team, Xinhua said.

Who Needs Fiction: Western Values Causing Mental Illness in Asia

If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to the original article.


Western values 'are causing mental illness'
From Leo Lewis in Tokyo

THE rapid spread of Western business practices in Japan has caused widespread mental illness and is responsible for a deepening demographic crisis, government officials say.
Statistics indicate that 60 per cent of workers suffer from “high anxiety” and that 65 per cent of companies report soaring levels of mental illness.

Meanwhile, the size of the Japanese population is shrinking, and for the first time the Government has acknowledged that the falling birth rate is linked to job-related factors.

Directors of the Japanese Mental Health Institute blame the same factors for rising levels of depression among workers and the country’s suicide rate, which remains the highest among rich nations.

Merit-based pay and promotion are of particular concern because they are at odds with the traditional system, built on seniority, that has reigned supreme in corporate Japan. In the harsh new atmosphere of cut-throat rivalry between workers, the Institute for Population and Social Security argues, young people do not feel financially stable enough to start families.

The trend is put down to Japanese companies’ attempts to globalise by adopting working practices more closely in line with US and British models. Larger numbers of temporary staff, a greater willingness to sack people and greater pay disparities are the downside.

A spokesman for the Mental Health Institute said that the emphasis on individual performance was driving Japanese workers — particularly those in their thirties — to mental turmoil. “People tend to be individualised under the new working patterns,” he said. “When people worked in teams they were happier.”

Who needs fiction: Maurice Clarett

If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to the story.


Former OSU star Clarett arrested with guns in SUV after chase
By ANDY RESNIK, Associated Press WriterAugust 9, 2006
AP - Aug 9, 7:17 am EDT

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Maurice Clarett was arrested early Wednesday after a highway chase that ended with police using Mace on the former Ohio State running back and finding four loaded guns in his sport utility vehicle.

Officers used Mace to subdue Clarett after a stun gun was ineffective because the former Fiesta Bowl star was wearing a bullet-resistant vest, Sgt. Michael Woods said.

"It took several officers to get him handcuffed," Woods said. "Even after he was placed in the paddy wagon, he was still kicking at the doors and being a problem for the officers."

Police planned to charge him with carrying concealed weapons and other counts, Woods said. He was taken to police headquarters to be interviewed, then was moved to the Franklin County Jail.
Wearing tan jail-issue clothes, he talked on the telephone in the booking area, separated from reporters by a window. He was to be held at the jail at least until an arraignment Thursday morning, unless his attorneys work out an agreement for his release, police said.

Clarett made an illegal U-turn on the city's east side and failed to stop when officers, in a cruiser with lights flashing, tried to pull him over, Woods said.

Police pursued Clarett onto eastbound Interstate 70 when he darted across the median and began heading west. Clarett drove over a spike strip that was placed on the highway, flattening the driver's side tires of the SUV.

Clarett exited the highway and pulled into a restaurant parking lot, where officers removed him from the SUV after he failed to obey numerous orders to exit the vehicle, Woods said.
After Clarett was placed in a police van, officers discovered a loaded rifle and three loaded handguns in the front of his vehicle.

Woods said he did not know where Clarett got the guns or why he had them, and that federal authorities plan to trace their ownership.

The 22-year-old Clarett is currently awaiting trial on two counts of aggravated robbery, four counts of robbery and one count of carrying a concealed weapon in a separate case. Authorities said he was identified by witnesses as the person who flashed a gun and robbed two people of a cell phone in an alley behind the Opium Lounge in Columbus in the early hours of Jan. 1.

Messages seeking comment were left Wednesday morning for Clarett's attorneys in that case, Nick Mango and Michael Hoague.

Clarett scored the winning touchdown in the second overtime of the Fiesta Bowl against Miami to lead Ohio State to the 2002 national championship, the school's first since 1968. But that was the last game the freshman played for Ohio State.

He sat out the 2003 season after being charged with misdemeanor falsification on a police report, then dropped out of school. He sued to be included in the 2004 NFL draft and lost in court.

A surprise third-round pick in the 2005 draft, he was cut by the Denver Broncos during the preseason.

Who needs fiction: Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for bad writing

Click on the title of this post for the story ...

"Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean."