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Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Slain GI's Vietnam letters returned too late for parents
By Miranda Leitsinger, msnbc.com
Courtesy of the Richland County Public Library
The obit of Steve Flaherty of Columbia, S.C. published in The State Newspaper on March 30, 1969.
Letters written by an American soldier killed in Vietnam in 1969 were returned too late for his deceased parents and brother to read, but the rest of his family will cherish the last mementos of their beloved relative, his uncle said Monday.
The missives, penned by Army Sgt. Steve Flaherty, were taken by Vietnamese forces after his death at age 22 in Vietnam and used in broadcasts during the war. They were handed back to American officials during a landmark meeting in the Southeast Asian country on Monday, in which the United States also returned a long-held diary belonging to a Vietnamese soldier.
?It?s a treasure, it?s remembrance,? Flaherty?s uncle, 80-year-old Kenneth Cannon, of Prosperity, S.C., told msnbc.com. When he learned about the documents, he said: ?I felt very good about it. ? I was eager and anxious to learn about Steve, what his thoughts were when he was there.?
Cannon said he did not know two of the people the letters were addressed to, identified as ?Betty? and ?Mrs. Wyatt,? but he said the family would try and find them. He described his nephew as an excellent student and athlete who loved life and was well-loved, especially by his older brother Ronald, who had spotted Steve, about 14 years his junior, in an orphanage while he was stationed in Japan with the Army and asked his parents to adopt the boy.
Then six, Steve Flaherty, whose biological father was American and his mother Japanese, traveled on his own by plane and train to his new home in Columbia, S.C., Cannon said. Before enlisting, Major League Baseball scouts had expressed interest in recruiting him, but Flaherty wanted to join the Army, his uncle said.
An obit for Flaherty published in The State newspaper upon his death on March 25, 1969, said he won the outstanding athlete and baseball player awards in 1966 at his high school, enlisted in October 1967 and was sent to Vietnam one year later. He was killed near the A Shau Valley.
Vietnam has given U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta the personal letters of a soldier who was killed in the Vietnam war in 1969. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.
Vietnamese Col. Nguyen Phu Dat kept Flaherty?s letters, but it was not until last August, when he mentioned them in an online publication, that they started to come to light. Early this year, Robert Destatte, a retired Defense Department employee who had worked for the POW/MIA office, noticed the online publication, and the Pentagon began to work to get the letters back to Flaherty's family.
Panetta visits Vietnam, exchanges soldiers effects
In a letter to his mother, Flaherty wrote: "Our platoon started off with 35 men but winded up with 19 men when it was over. We lost platoon leader and whole squad.? He added, ?The NVA soldiers fought until they died and one even booby trapped himself and when we approached him, he blew himself up and took two of our men with him.?
Another letter to his mom reads: "If Dad calls, tell him I got too close to being dead but I'm O.K. I?was real lucky. I'll write again soon."
Flaherty?s mother, Lois, died in 2002. His father, Army Lt. Col. Raymond G. Flaherty, passed before her though it?s not clear when from his wife?s obituary. His brother Ronald died in 2009 at the age of 76.
Cannon?s son, Mike, a 54-year-old living in Surprise, Ariz., said it had been an emotional journey for him since Destatte contacted the family. He was 10 when Steve died and didn?t fully grasp the larger implications of the Vietnam War or why his cousin had gone there.
?I was just blown away that they even existed after this many years,? he said, at points breaking down in tears. When asked what he hoped his family would get from the letters, he said, ?You can?t really say closure. ? Whatever I could read about it would be very helpful.?
It?s not clear when they will receive the letters, but Kenneth Cannon said they would be shared among the family.
?Nobody has ever forgotten Steve,? he said. ?They?ll go into frames and they?ll be cherished.?
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Rhythmic firing of nerves involved in body?s movements
ScienceDaily (June 4, 2012) ? A new model for understanding how nerve cells in the brain control movement may help unlock the secrets of the motor cortex, a critical region that has long resisted scientists' efforts to understand it, researchers report June 3 in Nature.
Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis, Stanford University and Columbia University have shown that the motor cortex's effects on movement can be much more easily understood by looking at groups of motor cortex neurons instead of individual nerve cells. In the study, scientists identified rhythmic brain cell firing patterns coordinated across populations of neurons in the motor cortex. They linked those patterns to different kinds of shoulder muscle movements.
"Populations of neurons in the motor cortex oscillate in beautiful, coordinated ways," says co-first author John Cunningham, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. "These patterns advance our understanding of the brain's control of movement, which is critical for understanding disorders that affect movement and for creating therapies that can restore movement."
Until now, scientists had based their studies of the motor cortex on decades-old insights into the workings of the visual cortex. In this region, orientation, brightness and other characteristics of objects in the visual field are encoded by individual nerve cells.
However, researchers could not detect a similar direct encoding of components of movement in individual nerve cells of the motor cortex.
"We just couldn't look at an arm movement and use that to reliably predict what individual neurons in the motor cortex had been doing to produce that movement," Cunningham says.
For the new study, conducted at Stanford University, scientists monitored motor cortex activity as primates reached for a target in different ways. They showed that the motor cortex generated patterns of rhythmic nerve cell impulses.
"Finding these brain rhythms surprised us a bit, as the reaches themselves were not rhythmic," says co-first author Mark Churchland, PhD, who was a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford at the time of the study and is now assistant professor of neuroscience at Columbia University. "In fact, they were decidedly arrhythmic, and yet underlying it all were these unmistakable patterns."
Cunningham compares the resulting picture of motor cortex function to an automobile engine. The engine's parts are difficult to understand in isolation but work toward a common goal, the generation of motion.
"If you saw a piston or a spark plug by itself, would you be able to explain how it makes a car move?" Cunningham asks. "Motor-cortex neurons are like that, too -- they are understandable only in the context of the whole."
Researchers are applying their new approach to understanding other puzzling aspects of motor cortex function.
"With this model, the seemingly complex system that is the motor cortex can now be at least partially understood in more straightforward terms," says senior author Krishna Shenoy, PhD, associate professor of electrical engineering at Stanford.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Washington University in St. Louis, via Newswise.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Mark M. Churchland, John P. Cunningham, Matthew T. Kaufman, Justin D. Foster, Paul Nuyujukian, Stephen I. Ryu, Krishna V. Shenoy. Neural population dynamics during reaching. Nature, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/nature11129
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
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Monday, June 4, 2012
WATCH: 'Hunger Games': Stars Who Didn't Make The Final Cut Revealed!
In this 'After Hours,' Elizabeth Banks explains why Chris Colfer, Chloë Moretz and others never made it to the big screen.
By Ryan J. Downey
"Hunger Games" star Elizabeth Banks
Photo: MTV News
"The Hunger Games" is nominated in several categories, including Best Movie, at the 2012 MTV Movie Awards tonight (June 3). Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and the rest of the cast have surely gotten massive career boosts from the runaway success of the box-office phenomenon. We can only imagine, then, how badly some of the actors who didn't make the cut must feel.
What sort of choices did they make in their own careers that caused filmmakers to excise them from the flick? Elizabeth Banks, of course, won the coveted role of Effie Trinket. In this exclusive MTV "After Hours" episode, the "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" and "40 Year Old Virgin" veteran revealed some never-before-seen footage to MTV News.
"It was an amazing experience [making 'The Hunger Games']. We had such a great cast. But, you know, there were so many really great actors who had to be cut because of time," Banks explained. "We had to cut some people out of the film. It's not because they were terrible in the film."
Certainly, the army of "Gleeks" would have loved to have seen Chris Colfer in "The Hunger Games," right? Chloë Grace Moretz turned up in last month's "Dark Shadows" but who's to say she couldn't have had time in her schedule for the "Games" a little before? This previously lost footage reveals how, for instance, Jeanne-Claude Van Damme would have approached a role in "The Hunger Games." (Here's a hint: It doesn't involve a shirt.)
"Actors make choices; that's what we do. Unfortunately, there are some actors who make really, really bad choices," Banks said.
"New Girl" star Max Greenfield really gave his performance his all, from what this "After Hours" footage revealed. Colfer tried more than one approach to the line "I volunteer!" Moretz had her own ideas about the movie's subject matter and ?uestlove had a great character name. Vinny Guadagnino, from MTV's own "Jersey Shore," had some unique ideas, as did singer Robin Thicke. Clark Gregg from "The Avengers?" Creative, as well.
"There was a bit of improv. Some would say too much," Banks said. "I would say that."
"Of course, I'm so proud of this film," she added. "Mostly, I'm proud that the editor cut all the deadweight."
Check out this unearthed footage cut from "The Hunger Games" and then judge for yourself whether it should have stayed in the movie.
Head over to MovieAwards.MTV.com to cast your vote for Best Hero and Best Movie now! The "Movie Awards Punk'd Pre-Party" starts at 8 p.m. ET, followed by the 21st annual MTV Movie Awards live tonight at 9 p.m. ET!
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Cancer Survivors Celebrate Victory
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KGAN/KFXA) -- June 3rd is "National Cancer Survivor's Day".? Celebrations across the country mark the accomplishments of those who defeated cancer.
It is not unusual to hear bells ringing in Mercy's Hall-Perrine Cancer Center, a sound celebrating those who have endured a lot.
"I'm a typical, average, 45-year-old female," Julie Potter says.
Julie doesn't think she's anything special, and at first glance, you would not know she had cancer.
"Cancer hit me hard," she says.
Julie battled breast cancer for 8 months, diagnosed just this past September.
"Within two weeks of my diagnosis, I had a double mastectomy," she says.
All the while, she kept a close eye on a bell in the center. The bells are symbolic of survival. Cancer patients get to ring that bell on their last day of treatment.
Julie was just one of dozens of cancer survivors celebrating victory at the cancer center.
"Our treatments are getting better and are getting to be more targeted medicine, so that it's individualized for each patient. Their survival rate is higher. They live longer," says Dee Eadie, Hall-Perrine Cancer Center executive director.
Those advancements are giving hope, where hope was once lost.
"Every day is a celebration. Every day is a new day forward in the life of a cancer patient, and every day is a new day of survivorship," Eadie says.
The bell's sound means a new day, one that patients like Julie won't ever take for granted.
"Cancer can be beaten," she says, "I am proof of that."
There are nearly 12 million cancer survivors nationwide. Experts say it's a growing survival rate due to personalized medications.Cancer Survivors Celebrate Victory
Sunday, June 3 2012, 11:20 PM CDT
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Hurricane season looks to be near-normal this year
Several factors are contributing to the near-normal hurricane outlook. Among them, sea-surface temperatures in regions where the Atlantic's tropical cyclones form, and conditions in the tropical Pacific that have an extended influence over weather patterns elsewhere.
Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security talked at the National Hurricane Center in Miami during a news conference kicking off the first day of the hurricane season Friday. At her right is Craig Fugate, Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. While not officially beginning until June 1, the season has already seen two named storms.
Peter Andrew/Miami Herald/AP
EnlargeLook for a near-normal Atlantic hurricane season this year.
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That's the outlook from several groups who produce seasonal forecasts for the Atlantic hurricane season, which began Friday.
Here's a sampler:
? The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration anticipates a 70 percent chance that from nine to 15 storms will reach tropical-storm status and earn names. Between four and eight will become hurricanes. Of those, from one to three are expected to become major hurricanes, where maximum sustained winds top 111 miles an hour.
? At Colorado State University, where atmospheric scientist William Gray pioneered seasonal tropical cyclone forecasts, he and colleague Philip Klotzbach anticipate 13 named storms, five hurricanes, and two major hurricanes.
? Researchers at Florida State University give the season a 70 percent chance of producing 10 to 16 named storms, and from five to nine hurricanes.
? Tropical Storm Risk.com, a consortium of scientists and insurance-industry specialists based in Britain, is anticipating (in round numbers) 13 tropical storms, six hurricanes, and three major hurricanes.
RELATED:?Are you scientifically literate? Take our quiz!
The average between 1981 and 2010, the base period federal forecasters now use for determining above- or below-normal conditions, is 12 named storms a year, of which half reach hurricane status.
Several factors are contributing to the near-normal outlook. Among them, sea-surface temperatures in regions where the Atlantic's tropical cyclones form, and conditions in the tropical Pacific that have an extended influence over weather patterns elsewhere.
Tropical cyclones form over and feed off of warm surface waters. And while still warm by snow-bird standards, waters across the tropical Atlantic from Africa to Central America have posted their third-coolest May readings since 1995, when the current, relatively intense long-term period of tropical-cyclone activity began, notes Jeff Masters, a meteorologist and co-founder of the website Weather Underground. Sea surface temperatures are running only about a half a degree Fahrenheit above normal, suggesting that it may take longer for waters to warm enough to fuel tropical cyclones.
But he also points to a broad patch of unusually warm water running up the East Coast from Virginia through southern New England. There, average surface temperatures are running up to 7 degrees or more Fahrenheit above normal ? perhaps setting the stage for sustaining or intensifying the strength of any hurricane that travels up the eastern seaboard.
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Graduation day tragedy: Ohio crash kills 3 teens
By msnbc.com staff and news services
A car carrying five teenagers went airborne as it sped over railroad tracks early Sunday and crashed, killing the 18-year-old driver hours before his high school graduation and two of his passengers, the Ohio State Highway Patrol said.?
The other two passengers, one of them also an impending graduate, were hospitalized.?
Less than 13 hours after the crash, Brunswick High School students left empty seats covered with flowers at their graduation ceremony to remember driver Jeffrey Chaya and Kevin Fox, who was critically injured.?
"It was very sad," Superintendent Michael Mayell said after the commencement ceremony at the University of Akron. "There were a lot of tears."?
The 2001 Chevrolet Cavalier was traveling at a high speed just after midnight when Chaya lost control in Columbia Township in northeast Ohio, troopers at the Elyria post said. The car went airborne and off the right side of the roadway, then swerved across the left side of the road, hit a ditch and tree, then flipped over, according to the troopers' report.?
Chaya, front-seat passenger Blake Bartchak, 17, and back-seat passenger Lexi Poerner, 16, died in the crash, according to The Chronicle-Telegram newspaper.?
Cleveland's?Plain Dealer?reported that?Chaya and Bartchak were close friends, having first met in fourth grade when Chaya moved to the neighborhood. The two were?together "constantly," Chaya's parents told the newspaper.?
Fox, a back-seat passenger, was thrown from the car into a ditch, troopers said. He was flown to Cleveland Metro Health Medical Center, where he was listed in critical condition. Fox, 18, also was scheduled to graduate Sunday.?
The fifth person in the car, identified by troopers as 17-year-old Julia Romito, was taken to Southwest General Hospital, which wouldn't release information on her.?
'Very popular students'
Fox and Chaya were called during the commencement, which included a moment of silence and comments about the tragic accident, Mayell said. More than 600 students graduated Sunday.?
Grief counselors were available to meet with students at the high school later in the day. Memorial services were held Sunday evening at a church and a performing arts center.?
"We want to allow the families to grieve in peace, and do whatever we can to get through this very tragic situation," Mayell said.?
Troopers were still investigating the crash Sunday. They said the only confirmed factor was unsafe speed, although they were still calculating the car's estimated speed.?
Mayell has known Poerner's family for years, and said the students who were killed were well known at school, taking part in school activities and volunteering.?
"They were very popular students, very well-liked," Mayell said. "We've always been a very tight-knit community," he said. "It's one of those things that happens that I just don't get."?
Chaya,?a wide receiver on the Brunswick High football team, was the kind of teen with a lot of "best friends," his mother Paula Chaya?told the Plain Dealer. ?
"He just loved being around his friends, and he had a ton of people who loved him," she told the newspaper.?
Chaya had posted Saturday on his Twitter account: "Weird to think graduation is tomorrow time does fly big time."?
On Saturday, graduating seniors at another northeast Ohio high school wore special red and black ribbons as a sign of unity and remembrance in the aftermath of the Feb. 27 Chardon school shootings that killed three students and wounded two others.?
The Associated Press contributed to this report.?
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