Issue 4: April 2009
SOCIAL SECURITY
1935 - Social Security created: designed to pay maximum $30/month. 1940 - Ida May Fuller, a 65 year old legal secretary, receives the first Social Security check -- $22.54.....James Ridgeway, Mother Jones
WORLD DIGITAL LIBRARY
The World Digital Library, an electronic resource devoted to offering the totality of human knowledge in seven languages opened last week. Presented in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portugese, Spanish and Russian, the Internet resource is meant to accomodate an unlimited number of entries from any country or library that wishes to contribute. So far, the offerings include oracle bone-rubbings from the Library of China, a Japanese work that is considered the first novel ever written, and interviews with former American slaves. "Everybody is welcome," said U.S. Librarian of Congress, James Billington. ..... The Week
LAWYERS
Lehman Brothers became the largest company ever to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last September. Now, its bankruptcy lawyers, Weil, Gotshal & Manges, have set the record for the largest quarterly billing by a bankruptcy advisor: $55.1 million. ..... The Wall Street Journal
KEEP ON WORKING
The world's oldest Nobel laureate has turned 100. Rita Levi-Montalcini, who shared the 1986 medicine prize for her work on mechanisms that regulate cell and organ growth, still works daily at the European Brain Research Institute in Rome which she founded. At her birthday party there, she recounted how Benito Mussolini's anti-Jewish laws forced her to abandon university work and focus on research, which she conducted in a homemade lab. "If it wasn't for this, then today I'd be an old woman - which obviously I am - but I think that difficulties can be really helpful in life," she said. "At 100, I have a mind that is superior - thanks to experience - than it was at 20." ..... The Week
DON'T TASE ME BRO
An Indiana police officer is suing his department for firing him because he refused to be Tasered during a training exercise. Officer Ray Robert, 54, says he has a spinal disc injury and was advised by his doctor not to undergo the powerful electric shock of a Taser, which can be used to subdue suspects. But his supervisor said it's important for officers to know how it feels to be jolted with 50,000 volts of electricity. "Every single person who underwent the training found value in the exposure," said Hamilton County Sheriff Doug Carter. ..... The Week
LET'S GET IT RIGHT
Massachusetts officials admitted that some road signs for the popular fishing spot in Webster, Mass. were misspelled as: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchaoggaggchaubunaguhgamaugg. The signs will be corrected to Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg. ..... The Week
YOUTUBE
YouTube will lose $470 million this year, even though visitors to the site will download about 75 billion videos, according to an estimate by Credit Suisse. YouTube has to pay for a massive broadband connection and expensive licensing fees, while few advertisers want to be associated with goofy, lewd or bizzare videos. ..... Slate.com
IMMIGRATION ISSUES
Illegal immigrants have given birth to about 4 million children on U.S. soil, a Pew study found. These children are U.S. citizens by right of birth, making about 8.8 million people members of "mixed status" families, in which some members are citizens and some face potential deportation...... San Jose Mercury News
CLEAN POWER FROM SPACE
It's a dream from science fiction, but will soon be a reality - solar panels in orbit around the Earth, beaming energy down to power people's homes. A start up California company called Solaren Corp. is planning to launch an energy gathering "solar farm" into orbit sometime before 2016. A satellite covered in solar panels would capture the powerful, unfiltered light from the sun for 24 hours per day, beaming it via radio waves to a receiver on the ground. The science behind the idea has already been demonstrated: Last year, a former NASA scientist used electromagnetic waves to transfer power between two stations on Hawaiian islands, 92 miles apart. San Francisco's PG&E clearly believes in the technology; with the permission of the California Public Utilities Commission, it has agreed to buy 200 megawatts of power from Solaren once the satellite is up and running, "We're convinced it's a very serious possibility that they can make this work," PG&E spokesman Jonathan Marshall tells the ..San Francisco Chronicle. "It's staggering how much power is potentially available in space. I say "potentially" because a lot remains unknown about the cost and other details."
MILT'S MORSEL OF THE MONTH:
"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom." ..... Thomas Jefferson, quoted in the Roanoke, VA Times
JIM'S STETHASCOOP:
"Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people." ..... W.C. Fields, quoted in the London Independent
