Airman Saves Musical Treasure

A tale straight from an adventure book By Air Force Capt. Amy Hansen Air Force News Service WAKE ISLAND AIRFIELD, Wake Island, Dec. 6, 2011 - In a tale straight from an adventure book, contractors on this tiny Pacific island recently stumbled upon a vinyl record collection with an estimated value between $90,000 and $250,000. Air Force Master Sgt. John Solane, a 611th Air Support Group Detachment 1 contracting quality assurance specialist, looks at a Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers Band album at Wake Island Airfield. The yellow sleeves in the storage areas around Solane contain AFRTS-distributed records, which are copyrighted to protect the artists who gave the military authorization to use their recordings for overseas broadcast for free. U.S. Air Force photo by Capt. Amy Hansen  The 611th Air Support Group's Detachment 1 is making a comprehensive effort to preserve the nearly 9,000 vintage vinyl records and ship them to their rightful owner, the American Forces Radio and Television Service in Alexandria, Va., according to Master Sgt. Jean-Guy Fleury, the detachment's infrastructure superintendent, who took over the project from the former Detachment 1 commander, Maj. Aaron Wilt.No digging was required to access this treasure, as the records were cataloged and neatly organized on shelves in a small room on the second floor of the airfield's base operations building. The door was conspicuously stenciled with the name of a radio station, KEAD, and a "Restricted Area Warning" sign, which kept most people out. "That's a locked room, normally, but people in my department have known the records were there for years," said Colin Bradley, the communications superintendent with Chugach Federal Solutions Inc. CFSI is the contractor that manages operations on Wake Island with the oversight of Air Force quality assurance personnel. "Because of the completeness of the collection, I assumed it was quite valuable," Bradley said. "I have not run across a collection that well preserved or that intact in my career. It's a little time capsule." The collection includes a variety of vinyl albums and records specially made for military audiences, as well as some commercially available records. "In 1942, the American Forces Radio Service was starting to get American music out to the troops overseas," said Larry Sichter, the American Forces Network Broadcast Center's affiliate relations division chief. "Some of the radio productions were original, like GI Jill and Command Performance, and have significant value." The exact operational dates of the low-powered AM station on Wake Island remain unclear, but Bradley shared his estimate. "I would guess that [KEAD] started in the '60s, due to the dates on the records," he said. According to a 2007 Internet entry by Patrick Minoughan, who was stationed on Wake Island from 1963 to 1964, KEAD was operating in 1963. "On the second floor of the then-new terminal building was a very small AFRTS radio station," Minoughan wrote. "AFRTS had no personnel there, but sent in monthly shipments of music. While I was there, one of the communications guys named Steve Navarro would do a daily show for a couple of hours. When it was unattended, anyone could go in and play the records, which were broadcast on the island." AFRTS was able to get permission to use the work of many artists, and later actors, for free, Sichter said. Therefore, the records were copyrighted and only to be used for their official purpose of entertaining the troops overseas, and then returned to AFRTS. Since Wake Island Airfield is on a 1,821-acre atoll located about 2,000 miles west of Hawaii and 2,000 miles east of Japan, it is possible that the cost and logistics of returning the records to the mainland were prohibitive when the radio station was shut down, officials said. So now, about 30 years after the last record was spun on KEAD, Fleury is spearheading the operation to ship the records back to AFRTS. He has estimated that it will take about 75 16-inch-by-16-inch boxes, and about $10,000 worth of specialized material to properly pack up the records. AFRTS is providing the materials and Detachment 1 will do the packing, he said. The records will be used to fill any gaps in the American Forces Network's local museum, Sichter said, and the rest of the collection will be entered into either the Library of Congress or the National Archives to become a permanent piece of U.S. history, accessible to all. �

Related Sites: American Forces Radio and Television Service

NORAD Gears Up to Track Santa Claus

on Christmas Eve the children of the world look to NORAD 

By Cheryl Pellerin American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, Dec. 5, 2011 – For the 56th year running, the North American Aerospace Defense Command will add the job of tracking the global flight of Santa on Christmas Eve to its mission of North American aerospace warning and control. The North American Aerospace Defense Command based at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., will again track Santa Claus on his annual Christmas Eve flight to deliver presents to children around the globe. Courtesy graphic   "NORAD stands the watch protecting the skies of North America 365 days a year, but on Christmas Eve the children of the world look to NORAD and our trusted partners to make sure that Santa is able to complete his mission safely," said Army Gen. Charles H. Jacoby Jr. Jacoby commands NORAD, as well as U.S. Northern Command, both based at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado. The NORAD Tracks Santa mission “is a duty to the children of the world,” he added, “and a privilege we've enjoyed for 56 consecutive years.” From a NORAD video of the 2010 Santa flight, a military specialist looks up from a bank of computer screens: “Sir,” he says, turning to look at the camera, “we’ve picked up ‘Big Red’ on the radar. He’s entering from the northeast. “Recommend fighter escort as he transitions over North America,” the specialist adds, as the video shows an F-16 moving down the runway. This year, the NORAD Tracks Santa website went live Dec. 1 and features a Countdown Calendar, a Kid’s Countdown Village with holiday games and activities that change daily, and video messages from students and troops from around the world. The website is available in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese and Chinese. For the first time, using free apps in the Apple iTunes Store and in the Android market, parents and children can use their smart phones to count down the days until Santa and his reindeer take off from the North Pole to deliver presents to kids everywhere. Facebook, Google+, YouTube and Twitter also offer tracking opportunities. Santa followers can type “@noradsanta” into each search engine to get started. And that’s not the only technology that goes into the Santa tracking mission. To track the big man in red, NORAD uses radar, satellites, Santa cams and fighter jets. A NORAD radar system called the North Warning System consists of 47 installations strung across the northern border of North America. On Dec. 24, NORAD monitors the radar systems continuously for indications that Santa Claus has left the North Pole. The moment radar indicates a lift-off, satellites positioned in geo-synchronous orbit at 22,300 miles from the Earth’s surface are equipped with infrared sensors, which enable them to detect heat. Rudolph’s bright red nose gives off an infrared signature that allows the satellites to detect Santa’s sleigh. NORAD starting using the Santa cam network in 1998. Santa cams, according to NORAD, are ultra-cool, high-tech, high-speed digital cameras prepositioned at many locations around the world. They use the cameras once a year to capture images and videos of Santa and his reindeer. In the air, Canadian NORAD pilots flying the CF-18 fighter will intercept and welcome Santa to North America. In the United States, American NORAD fighter pilots in F-15s, F-16s or F-22 Raptors will fly alongside Santa’s airborne sleigh pulled by his famous reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph. Once data is collected on Dec. 24, it is pushed into Google Maps and Google Earth so families all over the world can follow Santa. Thanks to these systems and technologies, starting at midnight Mountain Standard Time on Dec. 24, visitors to the NORAD Santa website can watch Santa’s progress around the globe. It all started in 1955 when a Sears media advertisement directed kids to call Santa Claus but printed a telephone number that rang through to the crew commander on duty at the Continental Air Defense Command Operations Center. The colonel on duty told his staff to give all children who called in a "current location" for Santa Claus. The tradition continued when NORAD replaced CONAD in 1958. “The [NORAD Tracks Santa] effort,” Jacoby said, “could not be carried out without the superb assistance of numerous government and nongovernment contributors.” Sponsors of this year’s program include Acuity Scheduling, Big Fish Worldwide, Carousel Industries, the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce Military Affairs Council, General Electric, the National Tree Lighting Ceremony, RadiantBlue Technologies Inc., thunderbaby studios, the U.S. Coast Guard Band, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Band, Visionbox, and the West Point Band. Returning sponsors include the Air Force Academy Band, Analytical Graphics Inc., Air Canada, Avaya, Booz Allen Hamilton, Colorado Springs School District 11, the Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System, the Federal Aviation Administration, First Choice Awards & Gifts, Globelink Foreign Language Center, Google, the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation, Meshbox, the Naden Band of the Maritime Forces Pacific, Naturally Santa’s Inc., the Newseum, OnStar, PCI Broadband, the Space Foundation, tw telecom, Verizon and UGroup Media. “It is the generosity of these contributors, the hard work of the more than 1,200 volunteers who man the NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center, and vigilance of the Canadian and U.S. forces who work at NORAD that guarantees the program's success each and every year,” Jacoby said.

Biographies: Army Gen. Charles H. Jacoby Jr. Related Sites: NORAD Santa

Manhandling a lady teacher

It shows, party’s arrogance, insensitivity, brutality
Chandigarh// December 5, 2011//Bureau Report: 

The disgraceful incident of Akali Sarpanch manhandling a lady teacher, epitomizes all that is wrong with Shiromani Akali Dal. It shows, party’s arrogance, insensitivity, brutality, rudeness and cowardice. It is a matter of absolute shame that the Akali Dal representative slapped someone who deserved respect on three counts i.e. she was a citizen, a woman and a teacher!.
Worst, it happened in front of the police force and other employees of the government who stood by doing nothing. Even after many hours of the incident, the government did not take any action. The fact, that the Sarpanch had the impudence to file a police complaint against the teacher and the government has not taken any action against him, shows that there is no remorse on either side.

The so called anger of the manhandler is beyond comprehension. The lady teacher was merely expressing her anger against patently unjust policies of the government. As a citizen she is entitled to do that. In fact, citizens inability to reach the government and express their grievances leads to such situations, where they are left with no options but with a slim hope that of conveying their demands when they meet their reprsentatives during the latter’s public appearances. But there too, the so called leaders are surrounded by a battery of police personnel who ruthless push and shove everyone away.

The PPP strongly condemns the incident and calls for strictest possible action against the sarpanch and the police officials on duty who kept on watching the whole incident without intervening even when the lady was being brutally thrashed. What is also staggering is the silence of Mrs Harsimrat Kaur Badal. The incident happened in her public appearance and as a woman, a Member Parliament and as a member of the ruling family of the state, she should have empathized with the gross injustice and inhumanity involved in this incident. Instead of taking prompt, stern and exemplary action, she has chosen to observe perfect silence.

A government and leaders, who cannot show respect and dignity to its citizens, has no right to represent its people.

If voted to power....!

Shaheed Bhagat Singh rozgar yojna
Neta Ji Subhash Chander Bose health insurance 
Manpreet Singh Badal promised many more benefits

File photo:The Eagle Eye News

So as to ameliorate the living conditions of those inflicted with life threatening diseases like diabetes and cancer, Manpreet Singh Badal, President of People's Party of Punjab (PPP) today promised to offer an insurance of three lakh rupees. 
Addressing a rally at Ropar on Sunday, the PPP President said that if voted to power, the PPP will offer insurance of upto three lakh rupees for those belonging to ecnomically weaker section, suffering from such dreaded diseases. Manpreet said that it's government will spend 200 crores on this project which will be termed as "Netaji Subhash Chander Bose" health insurance scheme.
Manpreet added that certain belts of Punjab, especially Malwa area has Punjabis suffering from water borne diseases including cancer. As a fallout of contaminated water, people living in this area are suffering from cancer and other life threatening diseases.
Manpreet said that the PPP will not only offer insurance upto three lakhs but also ensure that the menace of contaminated water is removed from Punjab. This is not the first scheme that Manpreet has promised to make available for those belonging to economically challenged sections.
Manpreet in the recent past had promised to offer one lakh jobs for youths each year under the Shaheed Bhagat Singh rozgar yojna. Also, he had promised that PPP will get a fixed deposit of Rs 5,000 in the name of a newly born girl child in Punjab. The fixed deposit will be made available after twenty years.
Manpreet SIngh Badal said that if Punjab has to rise, the people living in the Punjab and those who remain deprived from basic amenities owing to financial constraints need to be empowered and made self dependent.
He said that not only jobs will be made availabe to youths but also PPP's endeavour will be to make the public independent by providing small business opportunities for Punjabis.
He added that PPP will also guarantee that the Police force serves the public and is not reduced to a political tool.

How to Raise Kids 'Scream Free'

By Kris Gonzalez Fort Bragg Public Affairs FORT BRAGG, N.C., Nov. 30, 2011 - Growing up is hard to do -- especially for grown-ups, according to Hal Runkel, founder of the ScreamFree Institute. Hal Runkel, author and founder of the ScreamFree Institute, discusses parenting techniques with community members during his ScreamFree Parenting seminar at the Division Memorial Chapel on Fort Bragg, N.C., Nov. 17, 2011. U.S. Army photo by Kris Gonzalez  And turning up the volume doesn't make it any easier, said Runkel, as he spoke to Fort Bragg community members Nov. 16-17, as part of two, 90-minute seminars designed to help military families grow strong.Runkel is a licensed marriage and family therapist and author of the book, "ScreamFree Parenting." He said he teaches parenting strategies based on the notion that parenting is not about kids -- it's about parents. "If it was about kids, then we'd call it kidding," he joked. "What parenting isn't about is controlling kids," Runkel continued. "The greatest thing parents can do for their kids is to learn how to control -- themselves." Runkel described his answer to the complaint he most-often hears from parents around the world: "My kids don't listen." "They listen," he said. "They hear every word you say. They just don't obey you. And you don't know what to do about that. You think, 'If they heard me, they would do it, so, I need to speak louder so they can hear me.'" Yelling doesn't work, and neither does shutting down, which Runkel said, is another form of screaming, only it's on the inside, but it causes just as much resentment. "Our definition of screaming is pretty broad," he said. "It's any time you let the anxieties of the moment override your thinking; it's that knee-jerk reaction." Runkel uses humor, first-hand accounts and real-life scenarios to help teach parents how to calm their emotional reactions to their children's behavior. "ScreamFree Parenting isn't just about raising children without raising your voice," said Vanessa Vazquez, a child advocate trainer with Fort Bragg's Family Advocacy Program. "It's a revolutionary approach to parenting that focuses on self-control, relationship building and self-care." Vazquez was one of about 20 Fort Bragg professionals and trainers who participated in a separate, two-day, train-the-trainer course taught by Runkel. The purpose of the training, she said, was for post family advocacy professionals and trainers to be able to implement the skills they learned with individuals, couples and groups in counseling or in crisis and to gain the ability to teach monthly ScreamFree parenting workshops to parents here beginning in January. Each monthly, 10-hour workshop provides a forum for parents to not only learn parenting tips, but also to meet other parents and learn from their experiences, Vazquez said. Participants who attend the workshops will receive workbooks and a DVD to help implement ScreamFree Parenting techniques at home. Charles Pennington, a family advocacy program specialist, said he thinks the workshop will offer a great opportunity for new fathers to become more involved with their kids, and to help take the load off of moms. Runkel said he thinks the workshop will be fantastic for any military leader or potential leader to attend, because it can equip them to better coach and mentor fellow service members as well as to provide some valuable skills about stress and anger control when handling conflicts with others.

Military-Civil Partnership Shines in Helmand

By Lisa Daniel American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, Dec. 1, 2011 - The senior U.S. civilian representative in Afghanistan today described as "rich" and "complex" the military-civilian partnership he and others say has brought great progress to the country's southwest region. The State Department's J. Paul Reid, who is located with the U.S. 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force, and Michael O'Neill, the senior British civilian representative in the area, spoke to the Pentagon press corps via video teleconference about dramatic changes in Helmand province and surrounding areas. "Anyone who wants to create a model of best practices should come here to Helmand," Reid said of the partnership that includes U.S., British, Danish, Estonian and Afghan forces alongside the State Department and other international civilian agencies. "We work hand-in-glove," O'Neill agreed. "And the areas of the best progress are where communications and coordination are the closest. Teamwork is absolutely essential." Even people in Afghanistan have been unaware of how much things have changed in Helmand since U.S. and British Marines pushed out the Taliban and secured the area, Reid and O'Neill said. Only a few years ago, they said, Helmand was under harsh Taliban rule without government services, medical care or roads, and girls weren't permitted to attend school. Today, through the work of NATO's International Security Assistance Force, Helmand has a network of paved roads that make a loop through the region and extend to the Iranian border, allowing commerce to thrive and making it harder for insurgents to plant roadside bombs, they said. Poppies -- the root of the illegal heroin trade -- are being replaced with high-value alfalfa and other crops, they said, and irrigation systems are improving agriculture. Helmand's residents are enjoying a closer relationship with the national government in Kabul, which has improved services and sent numerous judges, prosecutors, teachers and other public servants to the province. There are now 133 schools in Helmand, the officials said, and 20,000 of 90,000 students are girls, they said. Helmand's elected representatives include 38 women. "We're in a better place today than we've ever been in," Reid said. � As security improves, they said, the emphasis now is on training and bringing in foreign investments. The World Bank, United Nations, and Asia Development Bank were among the participants in a recent international donors conference, the officials said, which included two days of seminars on investment needs in construction of dams, canals, roads and other projects. The Afghans also have made great strides toward self governance, Reid said. "We've moved from doing these things for them to making it possible for them to do it themselves," he said. Perhaps the greatest threat to sustained progress in the area is government corruption, the pair said. "It's definitely a serious impediment to foreign investment," Reid said, adding that he considers it the biggest obstacle to private investment in Afghanistan. ISAF workers have been working to reduce corruption, but "ultimately, it's a cultural shift that will have to go on" as Afghans increasingly work with the international community, Reid said. The Afghan government will make an important showing as the sole host of the upcoming 3rd Bonn Conference on International Development Policy in Germany, O'Neill said. The conference, he said, will set the stage for other major venues for potential investment in Afghanistan, such as the NATO summit to be held in Chicago in May. "We look to this conference to demonstrate, once again, how Afghanistan is taking control of its own destiny," Reid said. �

Related Sites: NATO International Security Assistance Force

Left protest against FDI

Rally also condemned Pb Govt’s welcome to the FDI

Ludhiana//Kalyani Singh and Rector Kathuria// December 1, 2011

The district unit of Communist Party of India (CPI)  and CPI (M) held a rally at the Railway Station Ludhiana followed by demonstration to the Clock Tower Chowk to protest against the decision of the union cabinet to allow 51% FDI in retail as it is going to hit hard the small producer, trader as well as the consumer. This has been done at a time when the Parliament is in session and this decision has been taken without taking the Parliament into confidence. This is in complete violation of democratic principles. The reaction is obvious as not only the opposition or the UPA allies but a section of the congressmen have also opposed the decision. Various speakers addressing the rally warned that as per the latest reports the GDP  growth rate has further gone down belying all the claims of economic growth by the government; and rupee is continuously falling to its lowest ever. The decision to allow FDI in multi brand retail sector will further jeopardize the economy of our country. The speakers also condemned the Punjab Government’s welcome to the FDI when most of the states have opposed it. The international experience has shown that with the entry of these big players in the retail business the small businessman is hit hard as it is unable to compete with the big fish. Their sales have gone down in all such areas around the globe. In India 33-60% of the traditional fruit and vegetable retailers reported 15-30% decline in footfalls, 10-30% decline in sales and 20-30% decline in incomes across the cities of Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Chandigarh, the largest impact being in Bangalore, which is one of the most supermarket penetrated cities in India.

There is also loss of jobs. The experience in Vietnam has shown that the supermarket expansion also leads to employment loss in the value chain as compared to 18 jobs created by a street vendor, 10 by a traditional retailer and eight by a shop vendor in Vietnam, a supermarket like Big C needed just four persons for the same volume of produce handled.

The small farmers will be hit  as supermarkets will buy only ‘A ‘grade produce, that too on open market-based prices, and only a part of the output of farmers, who end up going to an APMC mandi to dispose of the remaining/rejected produce. Moreover there will be no commitment to buy regularly as they do not want to share the risk of growers. What is the guarantee that they will buy from the farmer at prices higher than they are being offered to them now?

So far as the role of FDI-driven food supermarkets in containing food inflation is concerned, the evidence from Latin American (Mexico, Nicaragua, Argentina), African (Kenya, Madagascar) and Asian countries (Thailand, Vietnam, India) shows that the supermarket prices for fruits and vegetables and other basic foods were higher than those in traditional markets. Even if it is accepted that supermarkets are able to offer lower prices, the low-income households may face higher food prices because of reasons of distance from supermarkets, and higher prices charged by supermarkets in low-income areas. How will these super markets solve the problem of food security and security of livelihood of the peasants of our country the speakers asked?

Those who addressed the rally include Com Kartar Singh Bowani-Distrtict Secretary CPI, Com. Sukhwinder Sekhon-Secretary CPI(M), Dr Arun Mitra, Com O P Mehta – City Secretary, Com Jatinder Pal singh, Com Jagdish, Com Gulzar Gorea, Com Ramesh Ratan, Com. Vijay Kumar, Com Gurnam Sidhu, Com  Gurnam Gill, Com.Mewa Singh Raikot, Com Raghbir Singh Venipal, Com Tersem Jodhan, Sukhminder Singh, Ragbir Singh, Dev Raj, Amarjit Mattu, Sudey Singh, Manjit Singh, Mahinder Parsad Dubey