Welcome to the Overnight News Digest
(graphic by palantir)
The OND is published each night around midnight, Eastern Time.
The originator of OND was Magnifico.
Current Contributors are ScottyUrb, Bentliberal, wader, Oke, rfall, JML9999 and NeonVincent who also serves as chief cat herder.
Eclipse crosses Asia, US: Millions look skyward
An annular solar eclipse is seen briefly during a break in clouds over Taipei, Taiwan, Monday, May 21, 2012. The annular solar eclipse, in which the moon passes in front of the sun leaving only a golden ring around its edges, was visible to wide areas across the continent Monday morning.
Photo: Wally Santana / AP
More Photos at sfgate.com
Hate-crime case against Occupy activists dropped - (05-21) 18:35 PDT OAKLAND -- Alameda County prosecutors dropped robbery and hate crime charges Monday that they had filed against three Occupy Oakland demonstrators who got into an ugly altercation with a woman at a rally.
The activists - Michael Davis, 33, Nneka Crawford, 23, and 25-year-old Randolph Wilkins - had been scheduled to go to trial Monday.
Instead, Crawford and Wilkins were cleared, while Davis pleaded guilty to misdemeanor vandalism ...
Deputy District Attorney Teresa Drenick said the dismissal was appropriate given Davis' plea deal ...
Davis' attorney, Yolanda Huang, who had called the case a political attack on Occupy Oakland, said she was gratified by prosecutors' decision.
--Demian Bulwa
In S.F., wounded veterans demand action from VA - More than 200 veterans, from an old man who stormed Normandy to a young man who invaded Baghdad, came together Monday in San Francisco with a common purpose: getting the government to pay for their wounds.
A severe backlog of disability claims, which hit Northern Californians especially hard, prompted Reps. Jackie Speier and Barbara Lee to hold a public forum at the War Memorial Veterans Building, where they demanded better service from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The event was part scolding and part workshop. Veterans Affairs officials stationed claims representatives at seven tables, where they met with some of the more than 200 people who signed up in an attempt to get their cases completed.
--Demian Bulwa
Court won't reduce student's music download fine - BOSTON - A former Boston University student who was ordered to pay $675,000 for illegally downloading and sharing 30 songs on the Internet says he will continue fighting the penalty, despite the Supreme Court's refusal Monday to hear his appeal.
Joel Tenenbaum, 28, of Providence, R.I., said he's hoping a federal judge will reduce the amount.
"I can't believe the system would uphold a six-figure damages amount for downloading 30 songs on a file-sharing system that everybody used," Tenenbaum said. "I can't believe the court would uphold something that ludicrous."
--DENISE LAVOIE, AP Legal Affairs Writer
The First Nations News & Views Sunday weekly series is one element in the "Invisible Indians" project put together by navajo and Meteor Blades, with assistance from the Native American Netroots Group. The OND periodically prints excerpted items on Monday nights.
First Nations News Briefs
Navajo Artist Tony Abeyta is a "Living Treasure"
By navajo
Tony Abeyta
–Photo by Jennifer Esperanza
Every year, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe holds the
Native Treasures Indian Arts Festival.
Tony Abeyta (
Navajo) is being honored as this year's "living treasure."
At age 46, Abeyta finds it a little strange to be considered a living treasure. He was selected for "his style, his time spent mentoring other young Native American artists and his refusal to fall back on formulas when it comes to creating art. Abeyta is among the artists who are pushing the envelope when it comes to redefining American Indian art."
Abeyta grew up in Gallup, N.M., but left at age 16 to attend the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe. He has studied art across the nation as well as in France and Italy. He now has studios in Santa Fe and in Chicago. In addition to oil paintings, Abeyta also works on large-scale drawings, large sculptures and designing jewelry.
Thumbnails of Tony Abeyta's art
Narciso Abeyta
His father,
Narciso Abeyta, was also an artist. Born in 1918, he began his art career at the early age of 11 by drawing his first creations on canyon walls on the land of the Navajo Nation. By 32 he was published in
Art in America. During World War II, he was one of the famed Code Talkers. He walked on in 1998.
The festival opens May 26. More than 200 native artists from some 40 tribes and pueblos have been invited to the two-day festival. A wide range of art forms — pottery, carvings, jewelry and more — will be on display, much of it for sale. There will also be an "Emerging Artist" section to showcase new talent.
Thumbnails of Narciso Abeyta's art
Day and Time for American Indian Caucus at Netroots Nation is Announced
By navajo
Meteor Blades and navajo are pleased to announce the date and time for the American Indian Caucus, which has been held every year since 2006 at Yearly Kos/Netroots Nation. Please join us! In light of the Elizabeth Warren controversy, we will be discussing and answering questions about what it is to be Indian, voter suppression on and near Native reservations and what can be done about it, and our experience in building First Nations News & Views.
Hyraxes found to sing with varying syntax - Hyraxes' songs have something rarely found in mammals: syntax that varies according to where the hyraxes live, geographical dialects in how they put their songs together. The research was published online Wednesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Bird songs show syntax, this ordering of song components in different ways, but very few mammals make such orderly, arranged sounds. Whales, bats and some primates show syntax in their vocalizations, but nobody really expected such sophistication from the hyrax, and it had been thought that the selection of sounds in the songs was relatively random.
Hyraxes are common in Africa and the Middle East, and there are quite a lot of them where Kershenbaum lives. He kept hearing their songs and thinking, "I simply don't believe that these complex songs can be totally random."
So he and his colleagues recorded hyraxes around Israel and analyzed the makeup of the songs using mathematical techniques drawn from genetic analysis. They found a complex syntax that did vary. They suspect that the dialects may be carried by males when they leave their home territory as they mature, and that changes in dialect come as other hyraxes copy the songs imperfectly or improvise.
--JAMES GORMAN, New York Times (via sfgate)
San Rafael elementary students gather thousands of signatures to get company to recycle markers - A group of 40 students at Sun Valley Elementary School in San Rafael is using an online petition to push the Crayola Co. to give consumers a convenient way to recycle its felt-tip markers.
The students and their volunteer adviser have launched: "Crayola: Make Your Mark!" — a campaign via Change.org that has gained more than 50,000 signatures. Change.org describes itself on its website as a "social action platform" to help bring about change.
The students' petition asks the Easton, Pa.-based Crayola to give consumers a convenient way to recycle the billions of Crayola markers manufactured every year. Students are petitioning Crayola to create a "take back" program that would allow consumers to easily recycle their plastic markers.
--Mark Prado, Marin Independent Journal
'How Will You Measure Your Life?' enables personal growth
The book by Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor, seeks to codify what makes for a successful life and career. It values happiness and integrity.
In spring 2010, suffering from a cancer similar to the one that had killed his father, Christensen was asked to turn this discussion into an address to the entire graduating class of Harvard Business School. Karen Dillon edited the speech into an article, still one of the business review website's most read, and she and James Allworth helped him rework the ideas into this book.
The inspiration for discussing with his students the question of how to lead a life of happiness and integrity came from his five-year reunions with his own business school classmates at Harvard.
Gradually, Christensen realized their idealism was disintegrating in many cases into "personal dissatisfaction, family failures, professional struggles, even criminal behavior" — one contemporary was Jeff Skilling, the disgraced former chief executive of Enron. Skilling was "a good man," he says in the book, but "something had clearly sent him off in the wrong direction."
Discontent and deviation from ethical norms continue to discolor corporate life, which explains in part why this book and its lead author are garnering such attention.
The post-Enron period ushered in a stronger emphasis on ethical leadership, but it turned out to be the prelude to a far greater banking crisis, almost a case study of what happens when individuals ignore the book's lessons about maintaining personal integrity.
--By Andrew Hill, latimes.com