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SLT - January 23, 1998
Suspect in Utah Slaying
Nabbed by FBI in Texas; Suspect Held in Death Of S.L. Woman
Thursday, FBI agents in Houston arrested a man who once dated Frome. Salt Lake City police detectives interviewed the suspect in Texas on Thursday but he had not been charged in her death by evening. The suspect was questioned about the girl's whereabouts, but she remained missing, police said. The suspect, Brit Allen Ripkowski, had a growing obsession with Frome that lasted nearly 1 1/2 years and led to frightening encounters, forcing her to obtain a protective order, according to Utah court records. Ripkowski failed to attend court sessions and court-ordered counseling with few consequences.
"Brit has shown no remorse, no accountability, no responsibility in the matter of his abusive behaviors,'' a domestic-violence counselor wrote to Utah court officials in September after Ripkowski dropped out of counseling. "I am concerned for the safety of his partner and her children. . . . "
On Dec. 22, Monica Frome's body was found but investigators were not able to identify her at that time. Now, police are investigating whether she had been murdered in her apartment in Salt Lake City before her body was dumped near Monticello. Her husband, Nathan Frome, had separated from Monica a week before she was killed. When he went to pick up Dominique for Christmas, neither mother nor daughter were home. Family members became more concerned after Monica failed to pick up her two other children from her previous husband, Shawn Allen.
"We were all worried about her,'' said Nathan Frome. "Her kids meant everything to her. They were her whole life. We knew something was wrong." The family filed a missing person report, then waited. Meanwhile, San Juan County sheriff's investigators released a sketch of the dead woman's face. Police made the connection, and on Jan. 14, called Nathan Frome. Suspicion fell on Ripkowski, a 26-year-old computer technician who allegedly stalked other women as well, even while on probation, according to court records.
He was convicted of stalking former girlfriend Dennise Arroyo after lurking outside her Salt Lake City home in June 1996 and leaving threatening messages on her car. Third District Judge Lee Dever punished him with a $150 fine and an order to get counseling. Ripkowski continued stalking Arroyo, then began harassing Monica Frome, according to court records.
Sinister objects had appeared on the doorstep of her Murray home, her car had been vandalized, and she had found a Halloween mask with a threatening note, according to Murray police. The stalker left other notes, professing a desire to throw her from a moving car or shoot her with his father's gun, court records show. Murray police officers confronted Ripkowski. He denied harassing her and denounced Frome as "a liar.'' Police warned him to stay away.
Frome obtained a protection order on Feb. 5, and Murray City prosecutors charged Ripkowski with stalking. He moved to Baytown, Texas, last May. Frome reconciled and joined Ripkowski in the Houston-area town. Consequently, the Murray stalking case was dismissed, said Murray City Attorney H. Craig Hall. But four other cases remain pending against Ripkowski: charges of violating Frome's protection order filed by Salt Lake City prosecutors and three stalking cases involving Arroyo. Ripkowski was arrested April 22 for skipping court appearances and violating probation. His explanation: Arroyo had someone pretending to be him call the court to change hearing dates so he would, in turn, miss them.
In Texas, he began court-ordered domestic-abuse counseling through a Houston-based program, the Pivot Project. "He used blaming language and showed little ability to identify his abusive behaviors,'' wrote counselor Karena Valkyrie. "He sees himself as a victim rather than someone who could have made wrong choices.'' Ripkowski began group therapy but dropped out. "Brit is in a period of 'honeymoon' and overinflated sense of grandiosity and believes he is doing nothing improper,'' Valkyrie wrote.
Back in Utah, 3rd District Judge Joseph Fratto issued a warrant for Ripkowski's arrest after he failed to appear for an Oct. 21 court date. Officials, however, failed to serve that warrant. By September, Frome rented a Salt Lake City apartment. On Oct. 3, Ripkowski, who was back in town, exploded in anger during an argument. He slammed Frome and one of her daughters into walls and threw a rock through the windshield of Frome's Toyota van. Frome was injured during the argument and was treated at an emergency room, according to her protection-order affidavit.
A Nov. 10 court date was set for Frome to renew her protection order, but she did not appear. The petition was dismissed. This week, family members were making arrangements for Frome's funeral, set for Saturday in West Jordan. Acquaintances remembered her as taking a lesser-paying job in day care to be with her daughter, Dominique. "The greatest thing about Monica was her love for her children,'' said ex-husband Shawn Allen.
Added Nathan Frome: "She was wonderful. She was always happy. . . . She lived her life around her children.''
SLT - January 24, 1998
Stalker Leads Officers To Missing Girl's Body
The family of Monica Meza Frome was reeling from the 29-year-old Salt Lake City mother's murder when members were dealt a new blow Friday: Texas authorities found her toddler dead in a shallow grave outside Houston. Brit Allen Ripkowski, an estranged boyfriend who had been stalking Frome for more than a year, led authorities to the body of 2 1/2-year-old Dominique Frome after his arrest Thursday in Texas.
Ripkowski, 26, will face a likely a capital prosecution for Dominique's murder in a state that has the nation's largest number of executions. Police believe Ripkowski murdered Frome in her Salt Lake City apartment on Dec. 21. Neighbors heard an argument that night, but her murder was not discovered until about a week later. Investigators believe the suspect beat Frome to the death in the apartment, loaded her body and Dominique in the victim's Toyota van and headed to Texas, said Salt Lake City police Lt. Phil Kirk. Frome's body was dumped in southeastern Utah, where it was spotted by a motorist on U.S. Highway 666 near Monticello on Dec. 22.
Police suspect Ripkowski suffocated the child at his Houston apartment shortly after arriving in Texas, Kirk said. After his arrest, Ripkowski implicated himself in interviews with Salt Lake City police and directed authorities to look for the child buried near a reservoir northeast of Houston. Authorities found a little girl's body stuffed in a suitcase, buried near the Sheldon Reservoir. As of Friday night, the body had not been officially identified, nor had a cause of death been determined.
At the time of her murder, Frome was recently separated from Dominique's father, Nathan Frome, who had numerous run-ins with Ripkowski over the preceding year. Monica had dated Ripkowski in 1996. "A lot of times, I received calls from him saying that he was a better father than I could ever be and just to spite me, he would try to prove it,'' Nathan Frome said in an interview earlier this week. "He tried to tell me I couldn't see my daughter, so I beat the shit out of him.'' That incident resulted in a battery charge against Nathan Frome, which prosecutors recently dropped.
The Tribune has not contacted him since the fate of his daughter became known. Earlier this week, he was deeply worried about a little girl he loved. "She walks into a room and absolutely lights it up,'' he said. "She has to be the most cheerful baby I have ever been around with. She is always smiling and she has big brown eyes.''
Early last year, Ripkowski's harassment became so frightening that Nathan and Monica Frome moved to California for several months, according to court records. Authorities in West Valley City, Murray and Salt Lake City prosecuted Ripkowski for repeatedly stalking Frome and one of his co-workers, a woman who denies having a romantic relationship with the suspect. Ripkowski rarely was incarcerated even though he violated probation, missed court dates and dropped out of counseling.
Last March, he followed the Fromes to California, according to Nathan Frome and Monica's ex-husband, Shawn Allen. "They saw his car there and he had a baby seat in there like he was going to take the kids,'' said Allen, who has two daughters, ages 4 and 8, with Monica. "He's unstable, kind of a Jekyll and Hyde character. He could talk one minute about how he adored Nikki [Dominique] and how she adored him and how she called him daddy. Then he would say he wanted Monica to give up all of the children and that he didn't like the kids -- like he was jealous.''
Ripkowski moved to Texas last May with the blessing of 3rd District judges hearing the stalking cases. He was to complete a domestic-violence counseling program, but he dropped out of the Houston-based program on Aug. 19 when Monica Frome joined him in Texas and they reconciled, court records say. Friday, Ripkowski appeared before a U.S. magistrate to be arraigned on a federal kidnapping charge for allegedly taking Dominique across state lines. He was ordered to undergo a medical evaluation. Kirk said Salt Lake City police would review Frome's killing with Utah prosecutors for possible capital murder charges against Ripkowski. A conviction and death sentence in the Lone Star state, however, may make it unnecessary to prosecute him here.
HC - January 24, 1998
Tot found dead may be daughter of slain woman
Her daughter, Dominique Frome, was last seen alive on Dec. 21. The body found Friday, that of a small girl, was in a suitcase buried in a shallow grave near Fauna and Garrett roads about 3 :30 p.m. Houston Police Department spokesman John Cannon said the medical examiner's office still must confirm the buried child's identity and cause of death. Cannon and a FBI spokesman declined to say how investigators learned the body's whereabouts.
Ripkowski , who worked as a computer technician in Utah, was arrested in January 1997 for stalking Allen in her hometown of Murray, Utah, and a court ordered him not to go near Allen or her home. He was arrested in April on federal charges of violating that protective order, investigators said, and he apparently moved to Houston sometime later. Authorities said Ripkowski traveled to Utah last month to visit Allen.
Federal sources said he gave Houston homicide investigators a statement indicating Allen's daughter may be buried in this area.
HC - January 27, 1998
Man charged in death of 2-year-old
A southwest Houston man has been charged with capital murder in the death of a 2-year-old child whose body was discovered Friday buried in northeast Harris County. Britt Allen Ripkowski , 26, also may be implicated in the death of the child's mother in Utah last month.
Ripkowski was arrested Thursday at his apartment in the 9000 block of Town Park and charged with kidnapping the child, Dominique Frome. After his arrest Ripkowski confessed to killing the child and her mother, Monica Allen, 29, who was found beaten and strangled in Utah Dec. 22, police said.
Ripkowski told police he brought the child back to Houston on Dec. 24 and the next day he smothered her, stuffed her body in a suitcase, then buried her in a shallow grave near Little York and Beltway 8. The body was found by police after Ripkowski told them where he had buried the child.
Authorities said Ripkowski had worked
as a computer technician in Utah but moved to Houston after being arrested in
April for violating a protective order barring him from going near Allen. That order was issued after
Ripkowski 's arrest in January 1997 for stalking Allen in her hometown of
SLT - January 28, 1998
Texas Charges Ripkowski in Child's Murder
Ripkowski is being held without bail in the Harris County jail on the murder charge, which was filed Monday in 248th District Court in Houston. He also faces federal charges of kidnapping and interstate violation of a protection order in Houston's U.S. District Court. Federal agents arrested Ripkowski at his Houston apartment last week. The 26-year-old computer technician moved from Utah to Texas in May. The suspect directed officers to Dominique's body buried in a shallow grave outside Houston.
Ripkowski confessed to strangling the girl on Christmas Day at his apartment before stuffing her into a suitcase, said Houston police spokesman John Cannon. An autopsy confirmed Dominique was murdered by strangulation. Because it involves the intentional killing of a child under the age of 6, the Texas case is considered a capital crime, said Assistant Harris County District Attorney Kari Sckerl. Unlike Utah, Texas has no life without parole sentencing provision, but killers with a capital conviction must serve at least 40 years before they are eligible for release.
"If we were to seek the death penalty, we wouldn't be able to take this to trial until next year,'' said Sckerl. Ripkowski is to make his preliminary appearance before Judge W.R. Voigt today. The decision to seek the death penalty is up to Sckerl's boss, Harris County District Attorney Johnnie Holmes. Should Ripkowski avoid lethal injection in the Lone Star state, which leads the nation in administering the ultimate sanction, Salt Lake County prosecutors may choose to try the murder of Frome as a capital case.
HC - April 21, 1998
Indictment in tot's death
After his arrest, Ripkowski admitted killing the child and her mother, Monica Allen, 29, who was found beaten and strangled in Utah Dec. 22, police said. Ripkowski told police he brought the child to Houston on Dec. 24 and smothered her the next day.
HC - August 02, 1999
Jurors, relatives cry as defendant describes on tape how girl, 2, died
Three jurors wept Monday while watching the videotaped confession of a man accused of suffocating a 2-year-old girl whose body was folded into a small suitcase and buried in northeast Harris County in 1997. Relatives of the victim also cried as Britt Allen Ripkowski's confession was played during the first day of his capital murder trial. On it, he calmly explained to Houston and Salt Lake City, Utah, police how he began smothering a sleeping Dominque "Nikki" Frome. "I put it (my hand) over her head. She had a little, small head. It wasn't hard to do ... I felt her hand, her little hand, trying to pull it away," Ripkowski, now 27, said on the tape, recorded on Jan. 22, 1998. "At that point, I had to pull her closer to me and held her."
Ripkowski, who mumbled and sometimes rambled during the statement, described how he clamped his hand over the girl's mouth and nose for several minutes, or until she "quit kicking," as they lay on a couch in his Houston apartment early on Christmas Day 1997. On the tape, he also told police how he found a suitcase to put Frome's body in. "And then I came back downstairs and I had this suitcase and it just so happened to be the perfect size for her," Ripkowski told police.
If convicted of capital murder, Ripkowski will get either the death penalty or life in prison, which would mean 40 years behind bars before the possibility of parole. Testimony and evidence showed that Ripkowski once lived in Salt Lake City, where he had a tumultuous relationship with Frome's mother, 29-year-old Monica Allen. Ripkowski, a computer programmer with a drug habit, moved back to Houston after problems escalated between him and Allen, according to previous statements by police and testimony. On Dec. 12, 1997, he returned to Utah, and Allen's beaten and strangled body was found Dec. 22. Allen's body wasn't identified until mid-January 1998, but Frome was reported missing by Dec. 24, and local and federal authorities started looking for her.
Ripkowski has since been charged in Utah with Allen's death, but Texas law prohibits Harris County prosecutors from mentioning her death in the guilt-innocence phase of the capital murder trial in Frome's killing. Driving Allen's van, Ripkowski brought the girl to Houston after killing her mother, according to the evidence. He told police he meant to abandon her at a shopping center in Roswell, N.M., so she could be found alive, but he said he couldn't do it. Ripkowski told police he arrived in Houston with the girl on Dec. 24, 1997, and that he fed her, bathed her and that they went to sleep on his couch at his apartment in the 9000 block of Town Park.
The next morning, according to the evidence, Ripkowski killed the girl, stuffed her body in a suitcase and left it next to a tree in northeast Harris County. Then he went to Baytown to celebrate Christmas with his family. He told police he put the girl's Teddy bear and a picture of her mother in the suitcase with her. In his confession, he said he returned to the suitcase a week later, after buying a shovel, and buried it in a shallow hole in a swampy wooded area near Beltway 8. Later, when police found the suitcase with the help of Ripkowski, Frome's decomposing body was folded into the fetal position. No stuffed animals were found in the bag.
On cross-examination of state witnesses, defense attorney Patrick F. McCann tried to advance his contention that Ripkowski might have been high on cocaine when the girl was killed and that he had suffocated her unintentionally by cradling or holding her too forcefully. The defense also attacked Ripkowski's confession by suggesting that he was in no condition to waive his rights when he talked to police because he had been taking drugs, was suicidal and had a history of mental problems.
But in their questioning, prosecutor Kari Allen and Bill Hawkins seemed to scoff at the idea that Frome was somehow hugged to death. Every lawman who testified about Ripkowski's behavior on the day of his arrest said he appeared sober, intelligent and understood his rights. Testimony continues today in visiting state District Judge Doug Shaver's court. Closings arguments in the first phase of trial could come as soon as Wednesday.
HC - August 03, 1999
Lawyers rest cases in trial of man accused of killing 2-year-old
Both sides rested Tuesday in the capital murder trial of a man accused of abducting and suffocating a 2-year-old girl in 1997 after jurors heard conflicting testimony about possible mental illness and drug abuse. Using the testimony of a therapist, defense attorney Patrick F. McCann tried to portray Britt Allen Ripkowski, 27, as suffering from bipolar disorder, suicidal thoughts and a cocaine habit.
Prosecutor Bill Hawkins ripped into that assessment during cross-examination. And two rebuttal witnesses called by prosecutor Kari Allen testified that they did not believe Ripkowski was manic-depressive. They cast doubt on the defense's contention that he was in no state to talk to police when he confessed on Jan. 22, 1998.
Ripkowski could receive death or life in prison if he is convicted of capital murder in the Christmas Day 1997 killing of Dominque "Nikki" Frome, whose body was found folded into a small suitcase and buried in a swampy, remote area of northeast Harris County. Ripkowski once lived in Salt Lake City and had a tumultuous relationship with Frome's mother, Monica Allen, 29. In December 1997, he traveled from Houston to Utah, beat and strangled Monica Allen and kidnapped Frome.
Texas law prohibits jurors in this case from hearing about Monica Allen's death before the punishment phase of the trial. But they have heard testimony about the abduction, including the videotaped confession by Ripkowski. Monica Allen's body wasn't identified until mid-January 1998, but the search for her missing daughter started soon after she was taken away. FBI agents zeroed in on Ripkowski as a suspect in January, and he confessed to Houston and Salt Lake City police after being charged.
Ripkowski's attorneys say he might have killed the girl unintentionally after getting her back to Houston because he cradled her too forcefully. They contend the longtime drug abuser could have been high at the time and didn't know his own strength when he smothered the sleeping girl. The defense also contends his confession is tainted because he was suicidal, had mental problems and used drugs in the days before his arrest. Those factors, they say, mean he couldn't have intelligently waived his rights before confessing. To boost their case, the defense used Paula Lundberg-Love, a therapist who has taught psychology to college students. She examined Ripkowski and testified that he did suffer from mental problems and drug addiction and that he wasn't competent to waive his rights.
But on cross-examination, she admitted that there was no evidence to show that Ripkowski was using drugs before he killed Frome, and she eventually conceded that the videotaped confession showed no signs that he was suffering from cocaine intoxication. Under Hawkins' prodding, Lundberg-Love also testified that she never actually asked Ripkowski if he had understood his rights and acknowledged that he might have understood them because he showed some cognitive skills on the tape.
Prosecutors called two psychiatrists to the stand --
Dr. Deborah Osterman and Dr. Thomas Brandon, both of whom screen inmates
admitted at the county jail. They said their examinations of Ripkowski showed no
signs of bipolar disorder and that his drug use could have caused symptoms that
mirror such a condition. Both experts also said that even if Ripkowski was
using cocaine around the time he confessed, which drug test results confirmed,
then he could still possibly understand his rights. Closings arguments in
the case will be today at 9:30 a.m. in visiting state District Judge Doug
8/4/99 - 2:30 pm - Breaking News -
HC - August 4, 1999
Jurors find man guilty of killing 2-year-old girl
Jurors took about three hours Wednesday to convict a man of capital murder for suffocating a 2-year-old girl he had kidnapped from Utah and later buried in a small suitcase in northeast Harris County. The jury must now decide if Britt Allen Ripkowski, 27, gets the death penalty or life in prison for the Dec. 25, 1997, killing of Dominque "Nikki" Frome. If he gets life, he must serve 40 years before he is eligible for parole.
When the punishment phase starts today, jurors may now also hear about the death of Dominque's mother, who once dated Ripkowski and allegedly died by his hand before he kidnapped the girl. "It is difficult to accept that anyone would want to hurt a small child," said prosecutor Kari Allen, who became emotional during her closing remarks. "Britt Ripkowski did. (He) committed capital murder on Christmas Day 1997."
Both Frome's relatives and those of the defendant sobbed as Allen held up a picture of the victim and urged jurors to convict Ripkowski on the most severe charge. The panel could have also convicted him on the lesser charges of manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide.
Ripkowski once lived in Salt Lake City and had a tumultuous relationship with Dominque's mother, Monica Allen, 29, according to evidence. In December 1997, he traveled from Houston to Utah, allegedly beat and strangled Monica Allen and kidnapped Dominque. Texas law prohibited jurors from hearing about Monica Allen's death in the guilt-innocence phase of this trial. But they did hear about the child's abduction, including a videotaped confession by Ripkowski.
Monica Allen's body was not identified until mid-January 1998, but the search for her missing daughter started soon after she was taken away. FBI agents zeroed in on Ripkowski as a suspect in January, and he confessed to Houston and Salt Lake City police after being charged. He not only led police to the place where he had buried the girl, but he detailed how he brought her to Houston and shut off her nose and mouth as she slept next to him in his Houston apartment. "I put it (my hand) over her head. She had a little, small head. It wasn't hard to do. I felt her hand, her little hand, trying to pull it away," Ripkowski said on the Jan. 22, 1998, tape. "At that point, I had to pull her closer to me and held her."
Allen, who is no relation to Monica Allen, softly repeated that passage to jurors. But defense attorney Patrick F. McCann argued that the confession was tainted because his client had been using cocaine in the days before his arrest, was injured from a recent suicide attempt and suffered from mental problems. So, McCann argued, Ripkowski could not have intelligently waived his rights before talking to police, and thus should be acquitted. "He was injured, broken and shattered, and they still questioned him," McCann argued. "They knew it and they questioned him."
If jurors believed that Ripkowski had legally waived his rights, then McCann said they must consider that he had not meant to kill the girl because he had fed her, clothed her and taken care of her during the trip from Utah to Houston. "Think about the shattered, mentally ill person who sits here before you and ask yourself if he intended what happened," McCann said.
Allen countered by blasting the testimony of a defense expert who said Ripkowski had a bipolar disorder and was not competent to waive his rights, in part because of his drug use. She said the expert had relied too heavily on what Ripkowski told her to reach her diagnosis. Allen pointed out that Ripkowski was intelligent enough to work as a computer programmer and that he had acknowledged knowing and understanding his rights at least three times the day he was arrested -- twice from FBI agents and once more from a Houston police detective. She also reminded jurors that Ripkowski was not diagnosed as bipolar by two psychiatrists who saw him in jail, and that he had responded appropriately during the taped confession by giving police a detailed, orderly account. As for intent, Allen told jurors that if Ripkowski did not mean to kill the girl then he would have called paramedics when she stopped breathing. Instead, she said, his first thought was to bury her.
Punishment testimony starts at 9:15 a.m. today in visiting state District Judge Doug Shaver's court.
HC - August 5, 1999
Punishment-phase testimony will continue today in the capital murder trial of a man convicted of suffocating a 2-year-old girl. Jurors who convicted Allen Ripkowski, 27, must decide whether to give him the death penalty or life in prison for the Dec. 25, 1997, murder of Dominque "Nikki" Frome .
Prosecutors presented testimony Thursday on the death
of Monica Allen, 29, Dominque's mother. She once dated Ripkowski and allegedly
died by his hand in Utah before he kidnapped the little girl. Testimony
showed that Ripkowski brought the child to Texas and suffocated her as she slept
in his Houston apartment. He then folded her in a suitcase and buried it.
HC - August 7, 1999
Slain tot's mother killed in
same way, prosecutors claim
The jury wasn't allowed to hear about Allen's murder until the punishment phase of the trial for Dominique's death started. But now they have heard evidence that shows striking similarities between the deaths of the mother and daughter, including more of a videotaped confession in which Ripkowski describes how he killed the two. Ripkowski dated Allen, 29, when he lived in Salt Lake City. But when the relationship soured, Allen got a restraining order against Ripkowski. He moved to Houston, but went back to Utah in December 1997 for a visit. He said in his Jan. 22, 1998, confession to Houston and Utah police that Allen had cheated on him.
On the videotape, he told police how he went to Allen's apartment on Dec. 22, 1997, and attacked her. "She looked at me like she knew it was going to happen," Ripkowski said. "I was face-to-face with her with my hands covering her nose and her mouth . . . I told her, `Don't worry, we'll be together again. She tried to hit me again, and then I saw her eyes roll back. I gave her a hug and said, `I'm sorry.' " Ripkowski said it took five minutes for him to smother Allen in her washroom. An autopsy confirmed she had been suffocated and suffered blunt trauma to the head.
Ripkowski told police that Dominique was watching television as he suffocated her mom. "My heart was beating 20,000 miles a minute. I wanted her buried," said Ripkowski. After cleaning the blood out of the washroom, he loaded the body into Allen's van, along with her little girl. "Nikki didn't know what was going on. I cleaned up because there was blood on the ground where I had dropped her and cracked her skull."
Ripkowski said he drove around with the girl and the body, then returned to the apartment to make sure he had not missed any blood. He then left a note saying they had all gone out with someone. As the child slept, he said, he then drove to a spot close to Monticello, Utah, near the Colorado border. In a snowy, wooded area off State Road 666, he dumped Allen's body, leaving a stuffed animal nearby. Though the body was found the next day, it wasn't identified as Allen's until mid-January 1998.
Long before then, authorities had started searching for Dominique Frome , whom Ripkowski had taken to Houston after discarding the idea of abandoning her at a shopping center in New Mexico. FBI agents zeroed in on him as a suspect after interviewing him and searching his home. He was arrested Jan. 22, 1998. After being charged, he told police how he suffocated the girl in her sleep at his Houston apartment. He then led police to a swampy area in northeast Harris County, where he had buried the girl after folding her body into a small red suitcase.
Prosecutors Kari Allen and Bill Hawkins also presented testimony from two women who knew Ripkowski. One of the women, who was from Utah, dated Ripkowski, then introduced him to Allen. The other woman lives in Houston. Both women told jurors that Ripkowski stalked them. The Utah woman filed charges against him, and he was placed on the equivalent of probation there. Defense attorneys Patrick F. McCann and Robert Morrow will begin Monday to try to convince jurors to give Ripkowski life in prison. The effort is not expected to take long, because of a highly unusual strategy they adopted, with Ripkowski's blessing.
In Texas, before a judge can sentence someone to death, jurors must answer two questions: Is the defendant a future threat to society? Is there anything that mitigates against the imposition of the death penalty? If jurors decide the defendant is a threat and there are no mitigating circumstances, then the accused gets death. If jurors believe someone is not a threat or if they find mitigation, then a defendant gets life, which means 40 years behind bars before the possibility of parole. Ripkowski agreed to waive his right to have jurors consider mitigation, so jurors will only decide whether he poses a future danger to others.
(Webmistress's note: It is believed that Ripkowski's lawyers waived the right to offer mitigating circumstances in exchange for the prosecutors' agreement to not call the parents of Monica Allen for victim impact.)
HC - August 9, 1999
Closing arguments are set today for man guilty of suffocating girl
Closing arguments will be today in the capital murder trial of a man convicted of suffocating a 2-year-old Utah girl and burying the body in a in northeast Harris County. The jury of eight men and four women will then decide if Britt Allen Ripkowski, 27, will get the death penalty or life in prison for the Dec. 25, 1997, murder of 2-year-old Dominique "Nikki" Frome. Jurors took three hours to convict Ripkowski of capital murder last Wednesday.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Ripkowski, who is also charged in Utah with the Dec. 22, 1997, suffocation death of Frome's mother, Monica Allen, 29, who once dated him and was killed before her daughter was abducted. Punishment testimony presented by prosecutors Bill Hawkins and Kari Allen portrayed Ripkowski as a vicious stalker who victimized women he had dated and killed Monica Allen and her daughter in the same fashion.
Defense attorney Robert Morrow spent Monday
trying to convince jurors that Ripkowski deserved life by presenting testimony
about the stiff parole requirements for capital murderers and the security
measures in Texas prisons. If Ripkowski gets life, he must serve at least 40
years. Closing arguments will start at 9:15 a.m. in visiting state District
Judge Doug Shaver's court.
8/10/99 - Breaking News -
HC - August 10, 1999
A man who suffocated a 2-year-old Utah girl and buried her in northeast Harris County was sentenced to death Tuesday. Britt Allen Ripkowski, 27, showed no emotion as visiting state District Judge Doug Shaver read the jury's decision, but he sighed audibly when Shaver imposed the death sentence. His relatives wept.
Afterward, the family of the victim, Dominique "Nikki" Frome, tearfully thanked prosecutors Kari Allen and Bill Hawkins. Before the decision, Nate Frome, Dominique's father, said Ripkowski, a computer programmer also charged in Utah with murdering the child's mother, Monica Allen, richly deserved to die. "I want him dead," Frome said of Dominique's killer. "He didn't ask her if she wanted to live or if she wanted to die. She didn't have anybody standing up for her. Why should he be any different?"
Last week, jurors convicted Ripkowski of capital murder for killing the little girl on Dec. 25, 1997, just a few days after Allen was suffocated in Utah. He abducted Dominique, then suffocated her in Houston as she slept. After folding her body into a small suitcase, he buried it in northeast Harris County. Ripkowski led authorities to Dominique's body after he was arrested and confessed to the killing. Her mother's body was found in a snowy field near the Utah-Colorado border on Dec. 23, 1997. She had been dumped there by Ripkowski, and the body wasn't identified until mid-January 1998.
Although Allen, 29, and Ripkowski had dated, their relationship eventually fell apart and he left Utah. But prosecutors presented testimony that Ripkowski didn't take rejection well, arguing that he was a stalker who waged "psychological terrorism" on women.
Usually, before a judge in Texas can sentence someone to death, jurors have to address two issues: if the defendant a future threat to society and if there any reason he should receive life instead of death. In this case, Ripkowski waived his right for jurors to consider mitigating circumstances, so they only had to decide if he was a future danger. They agreed unanimously that he was, and that ruled out life in prison. Defense attorney Robert Morrow argued that Ripkowski was not a future threat because he would probably spend the rest of his life in prison. He also said the state had not proved that his client would pose a future danger.
Allen, however, told jurors that Ripkowski had shown repeatedly that he was a deliberate, self-absorbed stalker who never took responsibility for his actions. Hawkins told jurors: "He is a walking, talking continuing threat. You're the only ones in this room who can prevent this from ever happening again." Dominique's paternal grandfather, Robert, welcomed the verdict. "This has made a believer in the death penalty of every family member because of the utterly depraved and evil manner in which he took Nikki's life and Monica's life." Allen's father, Andy Meza, said his wife is tormented by nightmares of her daughter's death and wakes up crying in the middle of the night.
But Cynthia Reisner, Ripkowski's mother, insisted he was not a monster. She said that he needed help, and that she had bills from psychiatrists to prove it. "There are more than two victims here," Reisner said. "Those two (Allen and Ripkowski) had a long, tumultuous history. I'm not making any excuses because they've had a tremendous loss, but so have we. He's never been a bad or violent child. He'd never been in any trouble until he met Monica. My son is not the vicious animal that they made him out to be. He loved too much and she knew it."
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Brazilian legend Pele says he feels prepared for “90 minutes plus additional time” after leaving intensive care.
The 80-year-old had surgical procedure to take away a tumour from his colon on the Albert Einstein Hospital in Sao Paulo.
The three-time World Cup winner has been having remedy on the hospital since 31 August after the tumour was detected in routine checks.
“I’ve already left the ICU and I’m in my room,” he mentioned in a put up on Instagram thanking followers for help.
“I proceed daily happier, with loads of disposition to play 90 minutes, plus additional time. We can be collectively quickly.”
In February 2020, Pele’s son, ex-Santos goalkeeper Edinho, mentioned his father had change into “embarrassed” to depart his home as a result of he couldn’t stroll unaided.
His well being has been a priority in recent times; he had prostate surgical procedure in 2015 after he was admitted to hospital for the second time in six months, and he was admitted once more for a urinary an infection in 2019.
Pele is Brazil’s all-time main scorer with 77 targets in 92 video games and certainly one of solely 4 gamers to have scored in 4 World Cup tournaments.
Lionel Messi not too long ago handed him because the main South American males’s goalscorer in worldwide matches with a hat-trick in Argentina’s World Cup qualifying win in opposition to Bolivia.

domain: medical


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What is the coldest weather you have endured? No matter how cold, it cannot compare to Antarctica, where temperatures can approach minus 128.6 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 89.2 degrees Celsius! However, the cold in Antarctica is nothing compared to the terrifying new discoveries scientists are making in Antarctica! Even NASA is involved in these amazing discoveries! What have scientists discovered in the cold expanse of Antarctica? How does it affect you where you live? Join us as we bring you terrifying new discoveries scientists have made under the ice of Antarctica!
Many people know Antarctica is covered in ice. In fact, there is ice as far as your eyes can see in any direction. However, not many people know the place was not always covered in ice! The continent lay over the south pole without freezing for almost 100 million years. While the South Pole records average winter temperatures of 78 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, evidence suggests that Antarctica used to be as warm as Italy and covered by a green expanse of rainforest!
Then, about 34 million years ago, a dramatic shift in climate happened at the boundary between the Eocene and Oligocene epochs. The warm greenhouse climate, stable since the extinction of the dinosaurs, became dramatically colder, creating an « ice- house » at the poles that have continued to the present day.
Just what caused the climate shift from rainforest to an icebox is a question scientists are trying to answer! The answer is crucial because it should tell us more about how the climate responds to major controls like changes in the Earth’s orbit around the sun and the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Suppose you wonder how scientists could measure the temperature of Antarctica millions of years ago with a degree of accuracy. In that case, they do so by studying tiny microfossils in layers of deep-sea mud. This allows them to record climate changes over

domain: geography


Lack of Female Comedic News Hosts Must Be Taken Seriously
Posted in 2014 The Gnovis Blog
Earlier this month, “Saturday Night Live” executive producer Lorne Michaels announced that comedian Michael Che would replace Cecily Strong on the show’s “Weekend Update” segment. This is notable for multiple reasons, not least of which that Che will be the show’s first black anchor. But another particularly compelling one is that this will mark the first time the ‘Update’ desk, which boasts venerable alumnae Jane Curtin, Tina Fey, and Amy Poehler, is staffed by two men. Strong has stated that she is happy about the move, and is looking forward to doing more sketch work on SNL (and no doubt many viewers will laud the return of “The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party”). However, her replacement by a man could have grim implications for a late-night and satirical news media landscape that remains tirelessly male-dominated.
It was timely, then, that last week Georgetown Professor Leticia Bode assigned the students in CCT:505 two articles on comedic and satirical news, neither of which touched on gender politics: “Filmed in Front of a Live Studio Audience: Laughter and Aggression in Political Entertainment Programming,” of which she is a co-author, and Michiko Kakutani’s 2008 profile of Jon Stewart.
I wondered what the data would reveal if Professor Bode’s study had also considered its subjects’ reactions to known and unknown female hosts. The authors’ argument that the presence of audience laughter makes viewers perceive the host as “more credible and likeable and less aggressive” strikes me as accurate, but I suspect that perceived credibility, likeability, and nonaggressive-ness would be more difficult for a female host to earn. I’m certainly not trying to revive the tiresome “Can women be funny?” debate, but rather pointing out that viewers habituated to male hosts—Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and all the white boys of late-night talk shows—would likely be harder on women. It also would have been interesting to note the subjects’ genders and consider the differences between men and women’s perceptions.
There is little doubt that The Daily Show has earned its reputation as “both the smartest, funniest show on television and a provocative and substantive source of news,” and both Stewart and Colbert are uncontestably brilliant. Furthermore, Larry Wilmore’s Minority Report—The Colbert Report’s successor—promises to be a delight. But until more women are hosting comedic and satirical news programs (Daily Show sideliners Samantha Bee and Jessica Williams, anyone?), I fear that viewers’ ideas about who gets to be “funny” and “likeable” and “nonaggressive” will remain biased, problematic, and—case in point—unexamined.
 Bill Carter. “New Comic to Anchor ‘Update’ on SNL.” The New York Times, September 11, 2014. Web.
 Rebecca Rose. “Michael Che to Become First Ever Black Anchor of SNL’s Weekend Update.” Jezebel.com, September 11, 2014.
 Megh Wright. “Cecily Strong says she’s ‘Genuinely Happy’ About Leaving Weekend Update.” Splitsider.com, September 15, 2014.
 Emily K. Vraga, Courtney N. Johnson, D. Jasun Carr, Leticia Bode, and Mitchell T. Bard. “Filmed in Front of a Live Studio Audience: Laughter and Aggression in Political Entertainment Programming,” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 58:1, 131-150, DOI: 10.1080/08838151.2013.875020.
 Michiko Kakutani, “Is Jon Stewart the Most Trusted Man in America?” The New York Times, August 15, 2008.


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Arizona State Sun Devils faced the Colorado University Buffaloes in Boulder, Colorado, on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2016. The Colorado Buffaloes went on to defeat the Sun Devils 40-16.
Pieces featured at the "Please Touch" exhibition in Belgrade, Serbia; photographed by Aleksandrija Ajduković in fall 2015.
A collection of pieces from the New Animist
Photos of authors Jason and Taylor, theirs daughters, and their ASU experience, courtesy of Jason and Taylor Ake.

domain: artistic


Kevin Starr, California state librarian
2001 will be remembered with the intensity with which we remember certain key dates in the development of the republic - 1776, independence; 1789, the Constitution; 1861-65, Civil War; 1863, Emancipation; 1917, World War I; 1941, Pearl Harbor; 1945, the atom bomb. The day bonded us inextricably to the world order, challenging the deep American sense of ourselves as a continental nation, almost like an island.
Father Richard John Neuhaus, a Roman Catholic priest in New York and editor-in-chief of First Things
The raison d'être of American influence - political, diplomatic, military - is now redefined in terms of the contest with terrorism, which, willy nilly, is a conflict of civilizations. The implications of this are as major as the reconfigurations of world politics around the two World Wars and the cold war of the 20th century.
One of the least-remarked, and probably most important, things that happened is that the yellow ribbons disappeared and were replaced by flags. Nobody declared that you were supposed to get rid of your yellow ribbons, or not bring them out. Since the Iran hostage crisis under Jimmy Carter, that has been the automatic, reflexive action of millions of Americans at any time of national catastrophe. This time they didn't.
Where did they go? I think the yellow ribbons were at least somewhat associated with victimization, the victimhood mind-set, self-pity, sort of a sentimental response. And the flag obviously represents something like national unity and resolve. And people just intuitively knew that the nation was under attack, and this was no time for getting all weepy with yellow ribbons.
My hunch is most Americans are going to go on living their lives as they always have, and that is: riddled with deep ambiguity. There's going to be a lot of vice and greed and selfishness and all the other things that we know about the sinful human condition - that's not going to change. But as a generalization, has Sept. 11 and its aftermath been indicative of a revival of public virtue and the very idea of virtue itself? Yes, I think one would have to say that has been the case, and it's a very encouraging development.
Dick Cavett, comedian and talk-show host.
This is the year I wondered where dandruff went. I don't see dandruff any more, not on myself or on others.
More seriously, maybe there should be an abbreviation like B.C. - how about B.T., before the trade towers? The nation's history was sort of stopped at that point and started up again in a whole other way.
A few days after the attacks, Mr. Cavett faced the awkward challenge of talking to a Broadway audience as 'The Rocky Horror Show' reopened.
I started off with no reference to it as I'm doing this monologue, and then I said, 'Well, we've all been through a lot' - and I've never heard such a silence. It sucked the room downward. First of all, there's nobody talking. But below that silence is a deeper level, almost like a vacuum. And I thought, 'What have I done?' And I edged myself back to talk a little more about it and then said, 'We need a couple of hours of fun.' The applause nearly knocked me over. The show went on and did OK. There was that feeling, 'I can't laugh, it's in bad taste; I wish someone would make me laugh.'
Shirley Tilghman, president of Princeton University in New Jersey and genome-mapping molecular biologist
Sept. 11 should alert us to what globalization really means. It means Coca-Cola in every refrigerator. But it also means that we have to be sensitive to what is going on in the rest of the world - in a way that we can sometimes, in our power and arrogance, not be paying attention to.
Ronald Steel, international relations expert at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris
Only in the South had Americans been defeated in war, occupied, their crops and cities razed. The South has a tragic sense of history which the rest of the country has always denied and replaced with ideas of infinite hope, opportunity, wealth, that there's nowhere we can't go, nothing we can't do, and nobody can stop us.
Before Sept. 11, US had arrived at a pinnacle of power so great that it was really not challenged seriously by any other state. The September events dramatized the fact that danger to a state can come from individuals. What was even perhaps more psychologically threatening was that these attacks were carried out with our own instruments.
We have no sure defense now. In the cold war, the whole deterrence theory offered a sense of security, where you assume that states are rational and you can threaten them with destruction if they hurt you. It was a gamble, but it proved to be true for 50 years. But when you have people willing to commit suicide to cause damage, and who are inspired by a profound hate, it leads to a sense of disarray.
The whole thing about America's approach to the world is a search for invulnerability. We're seeking to keep the world on the outside. The proposed missile-defense shield is a perfect expression of the American approach. It goes back to isolationism. What the US wants is not to run the world - and this is where we're so often misunderstood - but to keep the world so orderly that it won't bother the United States.
Russia, to my mind, is the most interesting diplomatic aspect of this whole event. It's the coming in of Russia from the cold. Russia has become a kind of unofficial partner of the United States. And they took the first step.
Martha Nussbaum, professor of law and ethics at the University of Chicago
It really moved me that a huge number of Germans turned out in Berlin to display solidarity with Americans. I don't think Americans have ever felt that way about problems going on someplace else. Nothing that happened outside America has ever moved us as much as that. The fact that we're big and we're powerful has meant that we can isolate ourselves. So it's hard to know whether we'll just sink back to the normal isolationism, or move forward into a world community.
This is also the year when the problems of women in other parts of the world became very vivid to us: how their rights have been abridged on grounds of sex, how their basic right to education, to political participation, is abridged.
Thomas Krens, director of the Guggenheim museum, which is constructing a new building in New York City
Maybe it should not be a Guggenheim Museum. Maybe it should now be something like a World Cultural Center.
There have been dire times in the history of the world that we've emerged from in better shape than before, and I think this will be another one. Sensitivity will be increased. The world's problems will have a wider forum now. Whether we can sustain that will depend on how we build our environment and how we build our mechanisms of social interaction.
Richard Kohn, chairman of the 'Peace, War, and Defense' curriculum at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill
We've been so self-critical in this country in the last generation that we, to a degree, lost our perspective about the nature of our people and our society. This reminded us that we are, in fact, much greater than we realize.
It also reminded us that this out-of-control worship of the 'greatest generation' is really misplaced - that those people did wonderful things during World War II, but were by no means the 'greatest' generation. There is no such thing. Place them back with the Founders of the country, or people who saw the Civil War through to its ugly conclusion, or people who survived the Great Depression. It's American history by sound bite, and it speaks ill of us.
Alan Lightman, physicist, novelist, and professor of humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
From the '60s on, there has been a great mistrust of government. Americans decided that if their government could send them into a war in Vietnam that many considered unethical, and then lie to them about it, the government wasn't trustworthy anymore. Since the '60s, a lot of Americans felt there was some kind of separation between them and their government. That relationship has shifted enormously since Sept. 11.
The speed of life has increased to the point that we don't have time to think or reflect about who we are or where we're going. The national soul, if there is such a thing, has not been examined. Sept. 11 will force us to be more introspective.
Michael Berenbaum, Holocaust scholar and theologian in Los Angeles
What do you do in the aftermath of a rupture? You mend. And what is the strongest part of a garment? Where mending has taken place. So we are strongest precisely where we have changed. And we are weakest precisely where we have not changed or will not change.
Americans must ask, how do you have the fervor and the certitude that comes with profound faith - the sense of meaning, depth, passion, and certitude of position in the world - while still being able to affirm that there are other views and that those views have integrity? That's one of the issues we have to wrestle with. Otherwise, we're going to have a world in which individualized truths become weapons of destruction. We have to take seriously that these guys acted in the name of what they perceived to be the divine.
Anne Soukhanov, editor of the Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary. She works from her home in Bedford, Va.
It's unusual for a numeronym - a number-based word like 9/11 - to make its way instantly into the language. It just shows how important events can change our language and our world forever.
'Ground zero' has traditionally meant the impact area of a nuclear warhead. It goes all the way back to the Manhattan Project in the '40s. Then it developed another sense, I would say 20 years ago, which means the center or focus of a very important event. After 9/11, Ground Zero took on a new meaning, with a cap G and Z in our dictionary: 'the site of the World Trade Center attacks after the twin towers collapsed.'
AKIL AMAR, constitutional scholar at Yale University
The Constitution gives us nice guideposts, such as that seizures have to be reasonable. But what that means is, when you have real threats, that may justify more governmental intrusion. If the threats are real and bigger, then we're all willing to put up with an extra two minutes of questions at the airport. We might very well create a system with individual fingerprints on every mailed item. When you go to the post office, just as with an ATM, they'll make a photographic record of you making that transaction, so they can trace that package.
Harvey Cox, theologian at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass.
We showed that we are not a society that can be panicked into a kind of ethnic xenophobia. We could have been easily stampeded into a kind of anti-Arab hysteria. It was a test of the cultural pluralism of the US, and I think we came through that pretty well.
I think when people are hit as hard as we all were, we tend to return to something that may be deeper buried in our marrow or national memory. But religion can cut both ways. There can be destructive as well as salutary interpretations. The moment now has come when we have to be a little more candid about how we cope with those destructive elements in each of our traditions and see how they can be read in other ways.
It may seem odd that the favorite text of Gandhi, apostle of nonviolence, was the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita, which deals with war and divine justification for killing. But Gandhi read it as an evocation of the need of everyone to engage in a kind of spiritual battle against the false and dangerous elements within oneself. He spiritualized the passage.
Shelby Steele, race-relations expert at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, Calif.
One result of 9/11 is that some of the views that have undergirded American liberalism since the '60s won't be able to stand much longer. We will have to be judgmental as well as tolerant. We will have to understand that on the other side of 'different' is not necessarily 'equality.' That other cultures may not be equal to ours. That the problems people have that are keeping them in a state of inequality may not entirely come from the old enemies of racism and sexism and so forth, but may have to do with problems within those cultures and groups. My sense is that the old answers just won't satisfy any longer.
Reported by Mary Wiltenburg, Daniel B. Wood, Patrik Jonsson, Craig Savoye, and Roderick Nordell.


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"Our problem is to work out how to plant this area. It has for ages been used as the compost and bonfire corner. As the wall is only a few feet away from our next-door neighbour, we have moved the bonfire and compost heap, thinking them a bit unneighbourly where they were. This opens up quite a large space, where there are all sorts of possibilities: ferns, a collection of shade-tolerant plants, something a bit mysterious. What would suit it best?"
Kate Dyson and her husband, John, live in a tall house looking over the river at Barnes, in southwest London. The garden is all at the back of the house, about 25ft wide and six times as long. The boundary on the south side turns in a dog leg so that the bottom of the garden is a good 15ft wider than the top. The bottom boundary, as Mrs Dyson mentioned in her letter is formed by a magnificent old brick wall of 1720, at the moment rather overpowered by ivy.
The previous owner left the house in her will to the Society of Elderly Vegetarians. I thought this must be a Beachcomber invention, but the Dysons assure me it is not. Miss Doubleday, the elderly vegetarian in question, had lived in the Barnes house all her life and did not believe in killing things. The Dysons inherited a jungle with the bones of a late Victorian sunken garden buried deep within it. Crawling on their hands and knees through the undergrowth, they found the munitions hut, complete with patriotic flags, rise-and-fall lights, maps and boxes of earphones. A family of foxes lives under it now.
Despite the 16 years of clearing, the garden still has a dark, secretive air. It is richly planted with old roses and delphiniums, hollyhocks and geraniums, with big trees rising around the boundaries. Close to the house is a birch and in the far right-hand corner, an ash. The corner that the Dysons want to tackle is guarded by a superb tall holly. If you creep under its branches, you come to the empty corner where the bottom wall meets the left-hand boundary. It is hidden from the rest of the garden and I felt something should be happening there - a grotto perhaps or a strange obelisk - that would be a surprise and a pleasure to find after the long, meandering walk from the back of the house. Mrs Dyson has an antique shop, so might be able to put her hand on the odd grotto or crumbling stone statue.
The holly, a fabulous tree, needed some expert trimming, to make it more of a lure and less of a barrier. The Dysons had had the top taken out of it, leaving some stringy branches sprouting awkwardly from the truncated crown. If these were cut out, it would enhance the profile of the tree. The canopy of leaves could be lifted a little, too, so that, without losing any of the mystery, it would be easier to get under the tree into the secret corner.
The way to lift the canopy of a tree is not to whizz round the bottom with a chain saw, like a chef trimming pastry from a tart, but to run your hand up each individual branch and cut it where it joins on to a larger branch. In this way, you retain the natural, drooping, fringed outline that is characteristic of holly. A good arboriculturist goes with the flow of a tree. A bad one reduces everything - ash, elm, oak, holly, to interchangeable butchered blobs.
To the right of the holly tree lay the mounds left by the bonfires and compost heaps that used to occupy the area. They looked like what they were. They should be levelled out and the bonfire ash used round the borders in the rest of the garden. But looking at this specific area that the Dysons were wanting to tackle, you could see that in fact it was no good thinking about that corner in isolation. Whatever went on in the corner had to work with whatever was to happen along the rest of the bottom of the garden.
The Dysons were planning an island bed, with summer flowers on the right, where the garden was quite open and sunny. The holly was the only dominant feature on the left, together with the old brick wall. I suggested they stripped the ivy off the wall (there is plenty of undergrowth elsewhere in the garden for wildlife) and used it for plants which would be bold enough to sing out, even from the distance of the kitchen, on the first floor of the house.
Taking as the key the holly, at its best from autumn onwards with its shining leaves and berries, the Dysons could orchestrate an autumn and winter crescendo here at the bottom of the garden, throwing a giant-leaved Vitis coignetiae at the wall, and lacing it through with late-flowering Viticella clematises and the white-flowered Solanum jasminoides 'Album'. In autumn the leaves of the vine turn a fiery scarlet before falling. They would look superb with the holly.
Because of the burning and the composting going on down at the bottom of the garden, there hadn't previously been much room for shrubs, though there was a weary-looking hypericum there. To me, hypericum smells of nothing but bus stations and roundabouts. Out with it, I urged. In with a jagged-leaved mahonia to bloom now with cowslip-scented flowers and perhaps a bold hydrangea, such as H sargentiae which has leaves as rough as sharkskin, as big as dinner plates. The hydrangea would extend the season backwards a little as it flowers in July and August.
With these two landmark shrubs in place and the vision of the wall behind, clothed in bold climbers, you could begin to see how this space would work. You would wander down through the garden, drawn on initially by the imposing bulk of the ancient wisteria. This ate its original supports long ago and it is now jacked up from underneath with some very nifty carpentry carried out by Mr Dyson.
Coming round the wisteria, you would then be led on towards the holly with the mahonia and the hydrangea grouped to the right of it. There, an informal narrow path would lead past the shrubs and bend round to the left, under the holly, to bring you to the corner shrine. The main path would lift round to the right, run roughly parallel with the bottom boundary and curl itself round the summer island bed.
Since the holly will be taking a fair amount of moisture out of the ground and the soil itself is light and free-draining, the Dysons should not perhaps be too ambitious with their planting between the shrubs and the holly. They could introduce a few ferns, such as polypodys, which would not mind the dry situation. They would give a little height and a great deal of finesse to the scheme. Then they could carpet the ground underneath with masses of bulbs such as snowdrop, scilla and the corms of spring- and autumn-flowering cyclamen. The grotto/obelisk would moulder quietly away in its corner, attracting mosses and lichens, perhaps with ivy licking around its feet. Although you would not be able to see it from the house, the Dysons would know it was there - a powerful, hidden secret.Reuse content


When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, the prevailing assumptions on broad geopolitical issues were that global warming would require radical reduction of carbon use to prevent the destruction of much of the world’s habitable environment; that China was inexorably going to become the world’s preeminent economy; that the United States would soon become a predominantly non-white country; that many of the principal European nationalities would dwindle into extinction like the carrier pigeon, because of cultural dyspepsia and narcissism that strangled the will to procreate; and that the Roman Catholic Church would finally disintegrate and largely vanish, even as Islam, vigorous if disconcerting, asserted itself. This was the collective conventional wisdom, and while there were certainly dissenters from some and all of it, these views were very widely embraced. All of these suppositions have either evolved almost unrecognizably or evaporated altogether, a fact that we would do well to remember as new truisms take hold and become the subject of abject reflexive and even genuflective adherence.
Global warming has metamorphosed into climate change, a more or less orderly retreat from the deafening fear-mongering of the Copenhagen Conference of 2009, an army retreating on a peninsula, like MacArthur on Bataan and in Korea before his Inchon counter-stroke, buffeted and battered but not encircled and routed. The environmentalists are fighting hard for every inch but they are a bedraggled and battle-weary force compared with their former status as occupants of the commanding heights of public opinion, warning of inundations, species extinctions, and richly deserved Old Testament plagues to punish ecological abuse. As it stands now, global warming (one centigrade degree in 75 years) is improbable, climate change is unclear, and there is no probable causal link between human activity and climate change. Every sane person in the world accepts that environmental pollution must be relentlessly reduced and that extreme vigilance is called for, but there is no majority anywhere now to charge into the Valley of Fiscal and Economic Death of Kyoto and cap and trade.
The bloom is also off the forces-of-history, wave-of-the future Sino-groupiness; China’s ostensible growth rate is only down (from 10 percent) to about 7 percent, but the spectacle of vast apartment blocks in new cities eerily unoccupied and the increasing revelations of corruption and of the proportions of the housing bubble that drove much of recent Chinese economic growth have taken the wind out of this platitude that for at least a decade was endlessly repeated by commentators, lesser social bores, and even passers-by. China is the greatest developing-economy story in the history of the world. But it is still about 40 percent a command economy, and it is facing chronic deficit problems as well as the deflation provoked by all large bubbles when pierced. It is a country with no working political institutions, except perhaps the army, and one in which the official statistics do not add up and not one utterance of the government of the People’s Republic, verbal or numerate, can be believed. Hundreds of millions of people still live essentially as they did 3,000 years ago. And, like other emergent great powers, in flexing its muscles and demanding increased respect from its neighbors, China has pushed them together: The Indians and Indonesians (both countries under capable new leadership), Japanese, South Koreans, Filipinos, Vietnamese, Australians, and others have been driven into greater collective intimacy and the Chinese have managed to be expelled from Burma. Of course China is a great and important country, but taking the leadership of the world is not like falling off a log, as the leaders of the Third Reich, the Soviet Union, and Japan Inc. learned, but the rulers of Tiananmen Square didn’t notice. The Hong Kong unrest won’t just go away, though there is no reason to believe that unrest will spread around China as it did in the Arab world, but if the regime has to resort to repression again, it will be very damaging to China’s international economic relations.
It never particularly mattered what the skin color of most Americans was as long as the entire population subscribed to the American constitutional system, and strove, where necessary, to learn English, and the stresses between the component groups did not become intolerable; the melting pot had to go on simmering and creating committed Americans. This appears to be happening, but apart from that, the country has notoriously awakened to the immigration issue, even if the political system has fumbled and postured with as much cowardice and backbiting as ever. But in the affray over immigration, and the Mexican economic surge despite the drug violence along the border, the infiltration of unprocessed foreigners has been sharply reduced and the national demographic trends are unclear. Both U.S. political parties ignored the issue for decades, as they ignored abortion, income disparity, and other issues, and both share blame for the present impasse. Whatever anyone thinks of Obama’s half-measure of last week, it is only politics from a political leader who lost his last electoral battle, is revocable by a successor just by writing his (or her) name, and will not achieve anything. Obviously, the United States cannot expel 11 million people, any more than it can continue to allow unskilled peasants to flood into the country, but the trend that caused the confident predictions of the imminent end to the status of the United States as a Northern Hemisphere, Caucasian country has stalled.
These confident predictions of the takeover of the United States by a Latino and African-American coalition were uttered largely by Europeans, who did not notice that a much likelier event would be a Muslim demographic surge within the Western European countries that would be much less assimilable and more abrasive and dangerous to the host cultures than the continued increase in the Latin American population of the United States. The fact is that the conclusion that the Germans, Russians, Spanish, Italians, French, Dutch, and others were all headed for the demographic boneyard is and always was nonsense. They are rich cultures and – while they are still reeling from the blunders and atrocities that gave us two world wars, Communism, Fascism, Nazism, and the most heinous acts of genocide in history — they are not permanently possessed by a death wish. They will recover demographic stability and create conditions in which intelligent Muslims embrace the civilization to which they chose to emigrate while exercising normal religious freedom without infringing the rights of others. The Europeans, led in this by the French, will suppress the militants in their midst. The cradle of Western civilization, which, despite its torpor, is not seeking death with dignity (or otherwise), will not be strangled from within by an impoverished and ignorant minority of a minority, fanatically determined to destroy the venerable and distinguished nations where they reside. There will be turbulent times and many official acts of folly, mistaken appeasement, and implausible bravura, but the correlation of forces overwhelmingly favors the continuity of the West in all its principal states.
The process of containing the Islamist threat may accelerate the failure and abandonment of the last of the enumerated pillars of conventional wisdom: the demise of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Francis has struck from the hands of his church’s ancient and faddish foes the sword brandished for 60 years, that this was an anachronistic organization run by a claque of septuagenarian celibates and closet queens scolding the world about its sex life. The pope’s assertion that the raison d’être of the Roman Catholic Church was to be the ark of the Christian message, to assist and comfort souls (and that meant a gay person no less than a heterosexual or sexually abstinent one), disarmed the legions of ill-wishers without traumatizing the militant traditionalists within the Church. “Who am I to judge?” was a transformative assertion by this pope, its impact partly concealed by its simplicity. Religious attendance and vocations have moved generally up in many countries, sharply up in disparate places including South Korea (almost 100 percent), and Spain (40 percent); in Spain’s case the revival has been dramatized by one of the country’s most glamorous models and television personalities, Olalla Oliveros, abruptly joining a convent of the Order of St. Michael.
The spectacularly inadequate performance of the secular leaders in the main Western countries in this new millennium has highlighted the credibility, integrity, and effectiveness of Pope Francis. Despite the incumbency of atheism as the unofficial religion of almost all non-Islamic countries, the Western majority that believes in the existence of spiritual forces and some form of deity or quasi-deity will be fortified by the high expectations incited and dashed by the secularizers and materialists. Militants will devalue Islam; criminally diseased murderers cannot compete with a spirituality of saints and prophets. The Roman Catholic Church has been around this track many times. It has the problems inherent in any organization that espouses a heavenly kingdom through human spokesmen afflicted by human failings, but those failings are not as aggravated by exposed pretense as are those of the world’s political and commercial and cultural leadership, and in terms of ultimate legitimacy and proximity to truth as best it can be perceived, Rome remains the big brand, with the big market share, the most distinguished ethos, and the most compelling and humane chief. Rome isn’t going anywhere; people in numbers that will continue to scandalize and nonplus the New York Times and the BBC will continue to go to it.
— Conrad Black is the author of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom, Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full, A Matter of Principle, and Flight of the Eagle: The Grand Strategies That Brought America from Colonial Dependence to World Leadership. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org.


CHINOOK, Mont. (NMB) – Both Blaine and Phillips Counties reported a COVID-related death on Tuesday.
Blaine County also reported six new COVID-19 cases, and had three people meet the recovery criteria.
Blaine County has now reported 505 total COVID-19 cases. 42 are active, including four hospitalizations. 445 have recovered and 18 have died.
Phillips County also reported six new COVID-19 cases Tuesday, had four new hospitalizations and had five people meet the recovery criteria.
Phillips County has now reported 271 total COVID-19 cases. 47 are active, including six hospitalizations. 218 have recovered and six have died.


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I Adore You - Boston Terrier Dog Art By Jai Johnson
Ah, the Boston's....they are simply adorable! This colorful Boston Terrier painting by Jai Johnson features a realistic portrayal of this beautiful dog along with fresh, abstract brushwork for added interest and it will add charm to any environment.
Our 1 1/2" thick gallery wrapped canvas prints are available in three convenient sizes. Hanging hardware is included. Shipping is FREE on all canvas prints.
• CLICK HERE • to read more about our canvas prints

domain: design


text: © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. Reactive oxygen species (ROS)-induced osteogenic differentiation of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) is associated with the pathogenesis of vascular calcification. Vascular peroxidase 1 (VPO1), a peroxidase in the cardiovascular system, utilizes the hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) produced by co-expressed NADPH oxidases to produce hypochlorous acid (HOCl) and catalyze peroxidative reactions. The aim of this study was to determine whether VPO1 plays a role in the osteogenic differentiation of VSMCs in the setting of the vascular calcification induced by oxidized low-density lipoprotein (ox-LDL). In cultured primary rat VSMCs, we observed that the expression of VPO1 was significantly increased in combination with increases in calcification, as demonstrated via increased mineralization, as well as increased alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity and up-regulated runt-related transcription factor 2 (Runx2) expression in ox-LDL-treated cells. Ox-LDL-induced VSMC calcification and Runx2 expression were both inhibited by knockdown of VPO1 using a small interfering RNA or by an NADPH oxidase inhibitor. Moreover, the knockdown of VPO1 in VSMCs suppressed the production of HOCl and the phosphorylation of AKT, ERK and P38 MAPK. Furthermore, HOCl treatment facilitated the phosphorylation of AKT, ERK1/2 and P38 MAPK and the expression of Runx2, whereas LY294002 (a specific inhibitor of PI3K), U0126 (a specific inhibitor of ERK1/2) and SB203580 (a specific inhibitor of P38 MAPK) significantly attenuated the HOCl-induced up-regulation of Runx2. Collectively, these results demonstrated that VPO1 promotes ox-LDL-induced VSMC calcification via the VPO1/HOCl/PI3K/AKT, ERK1/2, and P38 MAPK/Runx2 signaling pathways.

domain: chemistry


text:
Even with the lack of publicity, the absence of wide-spread information-dissemination and general lack of time and preparations for mounting such an event, supporters and American believers of President Donald Trump still came out in droves and multitudes in marches in various key cities of the country on Saturday to show their support and declare their pride for their beloved President.
Waving U.S. flags and Trump signs, it was a beautiful show of nationalistic spirit and fervent solidarity among Trump supporters who turned out for the “March 4 Trump” events from D.C. down to Miami and Austin, Texas, to Olympia, Wash.
In the nation’s capital, thousands of bikers made their presence felt for Trump as they traveled and honked in an amazing coordinated and synchronized manner. Supporters also marched from the Washington Monument to Lafayette Park in front of the White House.
The Saturday “March 4 Trump” events are also aimed at showing unity among Trump believers amidst what demonstrators call a “seditious fringe” targeting to sabotage his vision for the country.
Other supporters aside from bearing U.S. flags also wore red, white and blue while enthusiastic participants even brought a life-sized cardboard cutout of the President. There were also speeches from organizers and supporters, as well as some Republican leaders who joined the events.
Many demonstrators share the view that they went out of their way to join the “March 4 Trump” to show their love for the country, and to express the sentiment being largely ignored by the biased mainstream media that many ordinary Americans love what Trump is trying to accomplish. They also said they strongly approve of Trump’s priority of making “America First” as a matter of policy.
The otherwise peaceful show of support for Trump was marred, however, by some disturbances as small groups of anti-Trump protesters stirred trouble and triggered clashes with Trump supporters. Six protesters, in fact, were arrested in St. Paul, Minnesota State Capital on felony riot charges after they lit fireworks in the area and fled.
Some mainstream media outlets also tried to undermine the pro-Trump rallies by erroneously reporting that only a “handful” showed up.
The “March 4 Trump” in spite of the limitations and constraints in mounting the events unlike more organized and well-funded protest rallies showed the narrative the mainstream media refuse to report on- the Americans’ support and approval of President Trump and his dreams and goal of making America great again.

domain: politics


2015 Ferrari FXX K
Submitted by Dan Buzdugan on Wed, 12/03/2014 - 06:01
Buckle up fellas, because the famous factory from Maranello made us an early Christmas present, they made the FXX official.
It's called FXX K, based on the LaFerrari model, but other than the shape and some parts of the engine unit, the "rocket" has nothing to do with it.
"K" moniker doesn't come from "kaboom", instead it's coming from Ferrari's hybrid technologi, called KERS. The car is so exclusive it won't be part of any competition, instead, it will be shared with a group of exclusive customers which will test it in future events.
We mentioned the engine has something in common with LaFerrari, it's true, it's the same 6.2L V12 unit, but it features new camshafts and a modified valve train with mechanical rather than hydraulic tappets. The intake manifolds have been redesigned and given a special type of polishing treatment. The exhaust system has been also modified as its silencers have been eliminated. The FXX K develops a maximum output of 1050 HP thanks to the combustion engine ( 860 HP) and 190 HP from the electric motor. The combined torque is more than 900 Nm.
Design wise, the car has suffered several changes, with added components like a double profile lip-kit, which generate air towards the sides, new sideskirts and around the back, the diffuser has been enlarged, featuring a more aggressive design. The upper part, ends with a double wing spoiler on each side.
All the power goes down via special made Pirelli tires, which calculate longitudinal, lateral and radial acceleration, as well as temperature and pressure.


text:
The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A View from Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology
Daniel N. Stern (Author)
October 13, 2000
6.1 X 0.78 X 9.05 inches | 1.08 pounds
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About the Author
Daniel N. Stern, M.D., is a professor of psychology at the University of Geneva and adjunct professor of psychiatry at Cornell University Medical Center-New York Hospital. An expert in the mother-infant relationship, he is the author of The Interpersonal World of the Infant and The Diary of a Baby.

domain: psychology


text:
Trioxys pallidus (Haliday)
Morphology: Head, antennae and thorax black, abdomen mostly dark with yellow stripes, about 1.5-3.0 mm in length.
Life history: A solitary endoparasitoid of aphids. The female lays an egg inside the host nymphs, usually preferring the elder stages. The emerging larva consumes the inside of the host, develops therein and pupates within the mummified aphid. The adult emerges through a small exit hole.
Economic importance: A major natural enemy of Monellia caryella and _Chromaphis juglandicola. Occurring naturally in the Middle East, it suppresses pest aphids attacking walnut in Turkey and has successfully been introduced into California. Overall its parasitism rates may reach 50-95%.
Effect of pesticides: Applications of insecticides can reduce the controlling effect of T. pallidus. Hyperparasitism early in the season can also diminish the effect of T. pallidus.
Atlihan, R., ÖzgÖkÇe , M.S., AkkÖprÜ E.P., Kasap, I., Kaydan, M.B. and Senal, D. 2015. Seasonal abundance of aphids and their natural enemies in walnut orchards in Lake Van Basin, Turkey. Türkiye Biyolojik Mücadele Dergisi 6: 3-12.
Hougardy, E. and Mills, N.J. 2009. Factors influencing the abundance of Trioxys pallidus, a successful introduced biological control agent of walnut aphid in California. Biological Control 48: 22-29.
Mansour, F. 1988. Parasites of Monellia caryella [Hom.: Aphididae]: Phenology and effect on the aphid population in pecan orchards in Israel. Entomophaga 33: 371–375
Mescheloff, E. and Rosen, D. 1993. Biosystematic studies on the Aphidiidae of Israel (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonoidea). 5. The genera Trioxys and Binodoxys. Israel Journal of Entomology 27: 31-47.
Rakhshani, E., Talebi, A.A., Kavallieratos, N. and Fathipour1, Y. 2004. Host stage preference, juvenile mortality and functional response of Trioxys pallidus (Hymenoptera: Braconidae, Aphidiinae). Biologia, Bratislava 59: 197-203.
van den Bosch, R., Hom, R., Matteson, P., Frazer, B.D., Messenger, P.S. and Davis, C.S. 1979. Biological control of the walnut aphid in California: impact of the parasite Trioxys pallidus. Hilgardia 47: 1-13.

domain: biology


text:
Americans may be wondering what this week's partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration is all about, given that it doesn't have anything to do with the debt ceiling. We wondered too, but mystery solved: Democrats have furloughed nearly 4,000 FAA employees and 70,000 workers at airport construction projects to preserve a White House indulgence for Big Labor.
This episode is another lesson in Washington intrigue. The FAA was last reauthorized in 2007, and it has since been strung along with 20 separate temporary funding measures. Senate Democrats and House Transportation Chairman John Mica, Republican of Florida, have been trying to negotiate a long-term agreement, but the talks stalemated this month. The major jams are over how much to subsidize flights to rural areas and a political favor the Obama Administration did two years ago for airline and railway unions.
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domain: news


text:
Local news for Newton, MA continually updated from thousands of sources on the web.
Tragic: 40 Stars Who Committed Suicide
How Should the US Government Respond to ISIS?
Did The Pope Perform a Miracle in Naples?
Updated: Sat May 23, 2015 03:08 pm
Copyright © 2015 Topix LLC


Adrick McKinney looks to pass.
March 13, 2013
Stats (.html) | Stats (.pdf) | Notes
KANSAS CITY, Mo.—TCU’s season came to a close Wednesday in the opening round of the 2013 Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship, as seventh-seeded Texas pulled away from the Horned Frogs in the second half for a 70-57 victory at Sprint Center.
The Frogs, who were the bracket’s No. 10 seed, finished the season with an 11-21 overall record. UT advanced to Thursday’s quarterfinal round, where it will face No. 2 seed Kansas State.
TCU hung tough throughout the evening, holding a one-point lead with 12:38 remaining in the contest before Texas ramped up its defensive effort to pull away for the victory. The Longhorns switched to a zone defensive scheme that limited the Frogs to just four field goals for the remainder of the contest.
UT, which was successful reaching the charity stripe all game, started its final push with four straight trips to the stripe to pull in front by five with, 51-46, with just 10 minutes remaining. Guard Julian Lewis, who scored a game-high 19 points, added a 3-pointer with 8:44 to extend the lead to eight. Following a basket by TCU senior forward Adrick McKinney, Texas added another 8-1 spurt to move in front by 13 with just over four minutes left.
The Frogs were able to climb back within 10 with just under three minutes remaining thanks to an old-fashioned 3-point play by freshman guard Charles Hill Jr., but the squad was unable to get any closer.
Senior forward Connell Crossland led TCU in the scorebook in his final game as a Frog with 11 points that included a perfect 7-of-7 showing at the free-throw line. Hill Jr. added 10 points for his second straight double-figure performance. Senior guard Nate Butler Lind and sophomore forward Devonta Abron chipped in nine points each, while senior forward Adrick McKinney and sophomore guard Kyan Anderson both totaled 8 points. Abron led the Frogs on the glass with a game-high 11 rebounds, his third game with 10 or more boards this season.
Joining Lewis in double figures for Texas were guards Myck Kabongo and Sheldon McClellan with 16 and 12 points, respectively. The Longhorns shot 57.9 percent from the field in the second half while pulling away for the victory and finished the contest at 51.3 percent overall. The squad went to the free-throw line 32 times, sinking 25 shots, while its strong second-half defensive performance helped limit TCU to only 32.7 percent shooting from the field for the game.
The Frogs hung with the Longhorns for much of the night after falling behind by as many as nine points less than seven minutes into the contest. TCU climbed back within one with the help of an 8-0 run that featured baskets by Anderson, Abron and senior guard/forward Garlon Green. Butler Lind sank a pair of 3’s late in the half to put the squad up by one with just 2:43 left in the frame at 22-21. Lewis answered with back-to-back treys for Texas.
TCU’s sharp outside shooting continued early in the second half, with Anderson drilling two long buckets and Hill Jr. adding another. Hill’s 3 gave the Frogs a one-point edge, 44-43, but it would be the squad’s last field goal for more than five minutes as the Longhorns began their final push.


text:
Until 5/28 at Target you can get a FREE $5 Target gift card when you buy 5 Clorox disinfecting wipes. Making them only $1.09 after coupons. They are regularly priced at $2.49 each!!
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Use two $1/2 Clorox wipes coupon (5/1 SS) – $2
Get back a $5 Target gift card
Final Price $5.45 or $1.09 each!!
Tip for shopping @ Target: If you haven’t already, sign up for a Target Red Card to save an extra 5% off ALL your purchases!! If you don’t want the credit there is also a debit version, both do the same. As a Target Red Card holder you will also get free shipping and an extra 30 days to return!

domain: economics


text:
How the Civil War Changed Modern Medicine
How the Civil Ware changed modern medicine is explained here. Learn more about how the civil ware changed modern medicine in this article.
- Despite its barbaric reputation, medical care during the Civil War helped dawn a new era of modern medicine.
- Techniques developed in response to sick and wounded soldiers led to advances in pain management.
- The Civil War saw the birth of organized triage, which directly influenced the modern ambulance system.
The American Civil War often gets credit for ending slavery and reshaping the federal government in this country. But the War Between the States has another, often overlooked legacy: It may have started a new era in modern medicine.
As soldiers fell in unprecedented numbers from both injuries and disease, anesthesia became a specialty. The fields of plastic and reconstructive surgery exploded. And doctors developed new ways to treat a surge in nerve injuries and chronic pain, marking the beginning of contemporary neurology.
At the same time, a visionary surgeon named Jonathan Letterman forever altered the flow of medical treatment from battlefield to hospital, said George Wunderlich, executive director of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, Md.
Now, 150 years later, Letterman's basic principles continue to affect medical care in a wide range of situations, from bombings in Afghanistan to heart attacks in American grocery stores.
"Civil War medicine was every bit as barbaric as it's made out to be, and surgeons weren't washing their hands," Wunderlich said. "But it was a million times more modern than almost anyone thinks. And there are a lot of lessons we can still learn from today."
Medically, the United States was woefully prepared when the Civil War began in the spring of 1861, said Michael Rhode, an archivist at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C. Nearly 80 years had passed since the end of the American Revolution, the country's last major war. And the new conflict was happening on a much bigger scale.
Scientists, meanwhile, had yet to come up with the theory that germs cause diseases. Doctors didn't know that they should wash their hands before amputating limbs. As soldiers from small towns came together in large groups, they became newly exposed to pathogens that their bodies had never encountered before. But there were no antibiotics and no antiseptics.
As a result, for every Civil War soldier that died of an injury or gunshot wound, more than two died from dysentery, diarrhea or other infectious diseases.
"They had no idea what was causing it," Rhode said. "The theory was something called miasmas, or bad airs. But no, it's not a miasma when a guy is wiping his surgical knives on a bootstrap with horse dung on it."
Medicine has come a long way since then. Injuries that resulted in amputations 150 years ago now lead to X-rays, the setting of bones, and a four- to six-week recovery period before returning to battle.
Over the course of the war, doctors learned some lessons that forever changed the way medical care happens, both on the battlefield and beyond.
There was, for example, a growing sense that cleanliness reduced fatalities. Doctors who treated soldiers made leaps in understanding about neurology and other fields, and specialists continued their lines of research even after the war ended.
Then there was Letterman, who as medical director for the Union Army created a well-organized system of care that began with triage close to the source of harm and was followed by rapid transportation to a series of clinics, hospitals and specialists. Even though technological advances have replaced horse and carriages with helicopters and jets, Wunderlich said, those kinds of protocols continue to be essential today.
As the Civil War ended and soldiers returned home, they retained their expectations for quick and efficient treatment in all situations. If a wounded man could be picked up in the midst of the Battle of Gettysburg, after all, shouldn't everyone be able to get rapid help after falling off a ladder on the street?
As a result, the end of the war saw the beginning of ambulance systems in many major cities. Letterman's ideas also directly influence the way today's 911 call system works. And the National Museum of Civil War Medicine has used the surgeon's ideas to train hundreds of thousands of medical professionals who have been sent to Afghanistan.
The war "was a watershed that really changed all medicine to the point where it could never completely go back to the way it was before," Wunderlich said. "All these changes had come about, and people weren't willing to go back."
A Civil War-era hospital filled with Union soldiers appears in the above photo.
Rare Civil War images of African American life and battlefield scenes appear in the new exhibit, “The Civil War in Photographs: New Perspectives from the Robin Sanford Collection.” The exhibit, at Southern Methodist University’s DeGolyer Library, runs through February, African American History month, and ends on March 15.
“Miss Major Pauline Cushman,” according to Peterson, was a federal scout and spy. “Pauline Cushman was an actress turned Union spy who was captured by Confederates and tried by General Braxton Bragg. Sentenced to death, she avoided hanging because of later Federal occupation of the area.”
“Photographs of Southern wartime regional life like this one are rare,” exhibit curator Anne Peterson, who is also in charge of photographs at the library, told Discovery News. She explained that this image shows “a group of African American women sitting on piles of cotton with two white male overseers.”
Churches on plantations were frequented by African Americans. This very rare photo shows one such church located on Wadmalaw Island in Charleston County, S.C.
“This is a casual view of Union Army camp life,” Peterson said. During free moments, the men would clean up and be shaved.
“Neither the North nor the South were prepared for war,” Peterson said. “There was a shortage of weapons, uniforms and trained officers on both sides. These young artillerymen are not even wearing uniforms yet.”
Three soldiers of the 22nd New York State Militia stand with a cannon at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.
This photograph shows the interior of Fort Sumter on the day after General Robert Anderson left Charleston. The fort had suffered one and a half days of bombardment by Confederate troops.
Peterson said, “Union Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort and evacuated. Note the Confederate soldiers in uniform in the photograph.”
“Photographer Thomas C. Roche took a number of early views of Union Army camp life,” Peterson said. Here, cooks prepare dinner for soldiers camped near the Potomac River.
This view, Peterson said, “shows a Union prison camp in upstate New York with Confederate prisoners lined up.” She added that “the overcrowded Elmira camp held more than 12,000 prisoners during the war; 25 percent died (2,963) primarily from malnutrition, poor sanitation, and exposure to harsh winters.”
“From November 1861 until the end of the war, the Union Army and Navy occupied a relatively small area around Beaufort and Hilton Head Island, S.C." Peterson said. "With the approach of Federal troops, planters there evacuated the area, leaving behind their slaves and plantations. As a result, there were thousands of abandoned slaves living in freedom for the first time.”
The U.S. Army's Camp Hamilton was organized on the site of what is now Phoebus, Va. This photo of the camp shows tents and soldiers, as well as a group of drummer boys and what were then known as “Zouaves.” This title referred to certain light infantry regiments in the French Army, but the term was also adopted during the Civil War. The Zouave uniform included short open-fronted jackets, baggy trousers and often sashes and headgear.
Texas wartime photographs like this one, showing Pontoon Bridge over the Rio Grande River, are extremely rare, according to Peterson. “Photographer Louis de Planque opened photography studios on both sides of the border between Mexico and the United States, in Matamoros, Mexico, and Brownsville, Texas,” she said. “Note the African American soldier on the bridge from the 114th U.S. Colored troops.”
"After learning of the fall of Vicksburg, the Confederates surrendered Port Hudson, La. on July 9, 1863," Peterson said. "New Hampshire photographer William McPherson and his partner, Mr. Oliver, documented the abandoned earthworks, ordnance and military equipment.”
“After the Confederates retreated from Petersburg, Va. just days before the surrender, photographer Thomas C. Roche and his assistant made a series of more than 20 views of dead Confederate soldiers,” Peterson said.

domain: history