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Ketchikan: Hospice: Not a place, but a face - Throughout our lives, all of us encounter difficult and challenging situations. Most of us can remember someone who helped during those times--a grandparent, a special teacher, even a stranger who became a friend. The recollections of these "faces of caring" bring comfort and calm in the midst of crisis.

Yet when recalling end-of-life situations of those we love, many of us have different recollections. These memories may include the hurt on the face of a loved one in pain; the sorrow on the face of a family member who did not get the opportunity to say goodbye to a dying relative; the stress on the faces of those making difficult decisions about end-of-life choices without guidance or support.

Since its beginnings in early 2006, KGH has trained two groups of volunteers in intensive week-long orientation sessions. Training covers such topics as basic patient care, death and dying, grief and bereavement, family dynamics, and cultural concerns. These volunteers have made approximately 100 visits, and assisted fifteen families. Some of their typical roles are companionship, providing respite, running errands, and being resource persons when information is needed about end-of life issues. They provide these volunteer services at no cost to families.

"Our focus is to help each family find their own unique way to a satisfying and meaningful end," said Jerri Taylor-Elkins, Volunteer Hospice Coordinator for KGH. "The volunteers and myself feel especially privileged to be part of such a personal time for a family." - More...
Friday PM - November 24, 2006

Alaska: Computer firm lures hackers in to snare them By RICHARD RICHTMYER - To hackers, it looks like any one of the thousands of vulnerable computers connected to the Internet.

But to the folks at Anchorage-based network-security company 3SG, it's a powerful tool that helps turn the tables on an ever-growing swarm of cyber scoundrels.

They call it a "honey pot," and it's designed to attract the spammers, identity thieves, vandals, pranksters and others who buzz around the Internet looking for unsecured computers that they can use to do their misdeeds.

The idea is to make the bad guys think they've found an easy mark, then watch how they break in and what tools and tricks they use to compromise the computer once they've gained access to it.

"It looks just like any other computer on the Internet," said Brian Evans, 3SG's vice president of marketing.

Little do the hackers know, however, that once they get in, they're being watched.

The "victim" computer logs everything - every command they enter, every bit of computer code they upload, every file they look at, every password they try. Then 3SG technicians analyze the information and use it to make sure their network-security systems defend against the newest threats. - More...
Friday PM - November 24, 2006

National: Family stands by Marine accused in Iraq incident By CINDI LASH - Growing up in Western Pennsylvania and later in Granger, Ind., Justin Sharratt had one career goal: to be a U.S. Marine.

He wore camouflage military-style clothing every chance he got. Starting in his sophomore year, he hung out with recruiters.

"We're not a (military) family. We think he was born that way," said his mother, Theresa Sharratt, 50, of Canonsburg, Pa. "We tried to bribe him (not to go) with a car the night before he was to leave, but he said, 'No, this is what I want to do.' "

Now, his military career and his future depend on the findings of an investigation into the controversial slayings of two-dozen Iraqi civilians a year ago this week. - More...
Friday PM - November 24, 2006

Medical: We're more genetically diverse than previously thought By LEE BOWMAN - Humans are considerably more genetically diverse than once thought, individually different not just by pairs of genes here and there, but in huge clusters of DNA segments missing or excessively duplicated across many parts of our chromosomes.

The new, more sophisticated map of human genes, published in a group of research papers this week in the journals Nature, Nature Genetics and Genome Research, suggests that the work of finding genetic causes of disease - and related ways to diagnose and prevent or treat them - may be more much complex than scientists thought even a few years ago. An international team of scientists went back to a reference map for human genetic diversity - specifically, the DNA samples of 270 individuals from Africa, Asia and North America.

Previous screening had looked only at the differences in specific pairs of genes - single base-pairs equivalent to a single letter on a written page. The new search essentially looked for differences in whole sentences, paragraphs and pages. Those differences were found in about 3,000 genes, or 10 percent of the total genes that make up a "normal" human. - More...
Friday PM - November 24, 2006

Science - Technology: New data provides DNA time machine to Neanderthals By LEE BOWMAN - Studies by two international teams working with DNA recovered from the same 38,000-year-old Neanderthal leg bone indicate that our extinct yet nearest hominid relative was more than 99.5 percent genetically identical to us.

The largest comparison of gene codes yet done determined that the last common ancestor of humans and Neanderthals lived about 700,000 years ago. And researchers found that no matter how much interbreeding may have taken place in the nearly half-a-million years that the two were separate species, it left little or no mark on the genetic code of either one.

Although scientists have been fascinated with Neanderthals since the first bones were found in Germany 150 years ago, the relatively few specimens and artifacts found with them have produced a lot more questions than answers about how our cousins lived alongside our human ancestors in Europe and western Asia until the Neanderthals disappeared about 30,000 years ago.

"All the theories on Neanderthals have been based on a few artifacts," said Edward Rubin, senior author of a study appearing in the journal Science and a researcher at the U.S. Energy Department's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. - More...
Friday PM - November 24, 2006

Political Cartoonists  Energy Policy Laocoon Artist RJ Matson, The St. Louis Post Dispatch Read Today's Political Cartoons, Click Here Viewpoints Opinions/Letters Basic Rules "Cabals" By Al Johnson - Friday PM KHRA Toy Run Dance By Dan Hart - Thursday PM Thanksgiving Thanks By Valerie Cooper - Thursday PM Middle of Winter - Newtown Parking still an issue! By Bobbie McCreary - Thursday PM It may not be to 'nowhere', but it's still an outrageous waste. By Peter Stanton - Thursday PM Elections: Consolidation and Otherwise By Dave Kiffer - Thursday PM Who pays for your bridge? By Rob Glenn- Thursday PM No Bridge in Ketchikan By Don Hoff Jr. - Thursday PM President Bush Fails to Learn the Lessons of Vietnam! By Robert Freedland - Thursday PM Open Sign Policy By Dave Price, Rick Ruaro & Dennis Pope - Wednesday AM Same sex Schoenbar By Anita Hales - Wednesday AM Ketchikan's Bridge Needed By Forrest Mackie - Wednesday AM Consolidation Ballot By Dayle Amundson - Wednesday AM Consolidation By Glen Thompson - Sunday PM Consolidation By Al Johnson - Sunday PM Clear the Air, then Solve Pension Crisis By Sen. Bert Stedman & Sen. Lyda Green - Sunday PM Sharing the land By Craig Moen - Sunday PM More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Ketchikan Ketchikan Police Report AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Today's Forecast Satellite Today's Weather Images Marine Forecasts Ketchikan Weather Data Current AK Weather Map CLASSIFIEDS Auto-post your ad in the proper category, or email your ad & photos to ads@sitnews.us  CLASSIFIEDS' CATEGORIES Announcements For Sale / Free Stuff Garage Sales Homes / Apts/ Property Pets Wanted Lost & Found Local Services SitNews Archives November 2006 Click on the date to read the stories published on that day. S M T W T F S       01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30     More Front Page Archives

Dave Kiffer: The Big Recliner In The Sky - A gentleman in Pacheco, California had a lot to be thankful for last week.

It seems his wife shot him with a .357 Magnum. But he was saved. By his recliner.

Okay, you may laugh. Especially the women out there who think their husbands have actually become "one" with their recliners after decades of "sitting."

After all, the guy WAS watching a football game at the time (but it couldn't have been the 49ers or the Raiders. He would have shot himself).

But that's the not the kicker. The husband swears it was an accident. Did I tell you, the wife fired not once, but twice?

Anyway, according to the Contra Costa Times, 67-year-old Norman Kamp was "camped" out watching football in his leather recliner - no word if it was a Lay-Z-Boy, Barcalounger or the Ambassador Dual Motor Electric Riser - when his wife who was "on pain medication for severe arthritis and drinking alcohol" began "fiddling" with the handgun in their dining room, some 20 feet away. - More...
Friday PM - November 24, 2006

Michael Reagan: It's Not a Quagmire, It's a Muddle - This is a time for giving thanks, and among the many things for which I am thankful is the fact that I am not George W. Bush.

Think about it -- in the sixth year of his presidency he is besieged on all sides, not only by his foes, but by his friends and supporters as well.

On the one side are those demanding that the president adopt some kind of face-saving solution that will allow him to withdraw from Iraq without admitting the United States has lost yet another war -- the solution once recommended by former Vermont Sen. George Aiken, who advised that we declare victory in Vietnam and get out.

Among those advocating this kind of sleight of hand are members of George Herbert Walker Bush's administration, perhaps even former Secretary of State James Baker. Baker co-chairs the widely touted Iraq Study Group, which has leaked its recommendations for coping with the war by calling for negotiations with Syria and Iran. - More...
Friday PM - November 24, 2006

Marsha Mercer: Election settled more than the control of Congress - I'm in the dentist's chair when he tells me the war in Iraq is "unwinnable."

That's what Susan, his assistant, has told him. She's from Jordan, a gentle Muslim who wears a hajib, the scarf that covers her hair and neck.

"I'm his consultant on the war," Susan says. My dentist has a consultant on the war?

She has a simple exit strategy. "The United States needs to get out of Iraq immediately," Susan declares, as practiced as any talking head on TV.

On Sunday after church, the talk over coffee and pumpkin bread turns to incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. John Murtha and how to get out of Iraq. "Phased withdrawal," somebody says. Heads nod. But nobody's quite sure what "phased withdrawal" means, but it sounds reasonable.

And in the grocery line, I overhear a couple talking about the tough job facing "the ISG" - the Iraq Study Group. The bipartisan panel, headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton, is to release its plan for peace in Iraq next month.

It won't be "stay the course," the man says. But it won't be "cut and run," either, says the woman. - More...
Friday PM - November 24, 2006

Peter Navarro: Beware fake drugs that could hurt you - People take prescription drugs to stay well or get well. But what if your drugs aren't really what they are supposed to be? That's happening today with ever increasing frequency as impeccably packaged but extremely dangerous counterfeit drugs are being slipped into the global supply chain by Chinese pirates. Here's just a small sampling of the risks:

Your father almost dies because the "Norvasc" he was taking for high blood pressure had no active ingredients. Days later, your mother winds up in the hospital with a broken hip because her phony Evista medication for osteoporosis was molded chalk. Your brother orders Viagra over the Internet and winds up in a hospital bed with a wild heartbeat. The very next week your prized Himalayan "lap cat" succumbs to liver failure because her tick medicine turned out to contain poison.

With at least one of 10 packets of medicine worldwide now fake, drug counterfeiting is big business. Just consider this sampling from the 21st century global medicine cabinet: "Cough syrup" laced with antifreeze. "Meningitis vaccine" made from tap water. "Birth-control pills" punched from compressed wheat flour. - More...
Friday PM - November 24, 2006