Discovery Lands in California

From NASA:

Space shuttle Discovery touched down at Edwards Air Force Base In California on Friday to end a 14-day mission to the International Space Station dedicated to outfitting the orbital laboratory with new experiments, science equipment, supplies and other gear the six people living on the station will need. Unacceptable weather conditions at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida Thursday and Friday forced the detour by Discovery to the West Coast.

"We're very happy to be back on land here in California," STS-128 Commander Rick "C.J." Sturckow said after the astronauts got off the shuttle and surveyed their craft. "It was a great mission and we just want to thank everybody for their support."

The crew of seven astronauts, including former station resident Tim Kopra, will fly to their training base at Johnson Space Center in Houston on Saturday. Meanwhile, technicians at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, adjacent to Edwards, will take about a week to get the spacecraft ready for its cross-country flight back to Kennedy atop a modified 747.

Welcome home Discovery!

What this day Means...

I don't think most of us will forget where we were and what we were doing when we heard about it. Even those of us 1400 miles away in the middle of Kansas. I was beginning my second year teaching, and had just finished taking roll for one of my biology classes when the chemistry teacher from across the hall came into my room. She walked directly over to me and whispered in my ear, "two planes simultaneously crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon..." My first thought, honestly, was that she was telling me a joke (...so a Rabbi, and Priest, and Minister all walk into a bar...). My second thought was "why in the hell is she interrupting my class to tell me this. The look on her face confirmed that my third thought was correct: what she was saying had really happened.

Our administrators turned on several TV's in the commons area of the high school, and an open pass was given for teachers to bring their students out to watch the news as it broke. As I shuffled my class through the hallway and into the commons area, I was taken back to that day at St. John's grade school when Sister Rita Ann shuffled my 4th grade class into the hallway to gather with our schoolmates around the one TV in the building to watch the Challenger explode over and over and over again in slow motion. Now, I as moved my own class towards one of the formative moments of their lives, I caught glimpses of conversations and information from the classrooms that we passed: "...a third plane hit the second tower...Tower 1 fell...Pentagon burning..."

We got to the commons area just in time to see Tower 2 fall...the death of thousands broadcast live to millions. I remember being stunned...almost numb. It's like when you look outside on a snowy day and there's no sound, no wind, no smells...just a vast quiet emptiness. I remember some of the conversations I had with my students at that moment. Who would do this? What will the US do? Could this possibly be just a really bad accident? At one point, I simply looked at a young girl and said, "you'll remember this moment for the rest of your life." I remember the conversations with my colleagues. What's "Al Qaeda"? How does Iraq fit into this? Is it true there was a fourth plane? Nuke 'em all! And, of course, how will this affect gas prices?

I don't think that the human mind is neurologically capable of fully understanding something like the September 11 attacks in real time. It needs processing time to take such a dramatically tragic event and assimilate it into our individual worldviews. And as the true scope of what happened became apparent over the hours, days and weeks to come, each of us came to grips with the attacks in our own ways. For most of us, the feelings of helplessness that we experienced as we watched the towers fall was replaced with a feeling of helplessness as we watched the friends and loved ones of the victims search for, and grieve for, the dead and missing. The acute stinging rage of those first confused moments was replaced with a deep national pride as we witnessed an outpouring of public support and goodwill the likes of which has never been seen before.

But this coming-to-terms didn't end when that fall of 2001 turned to winter. It continued for months and years to come...it continues today. It has continued through the cleanup and the rebuilding. It has continued through the two bloody, length, and ongoing wars that were spun from it. It has continued through two Presidential elections. Indeed, it has continued even through a time when 9/11 has become more of an icon of political division and frearmongering than a solemn remembrance. It has now continued through the memorial events of eight anniversaries, and it will continue through many more of these. Much as my generation is still learning lessons from the Pearl Harbor of our grandparents, the lessons of September 11, 2001 will still be evolving when my young son reaches adulthood and has his own family,and is setting down trying to record his own thoughts about the inevitable event that will define his generation's moment in history.

The funny thing about historical events is that they happened in a time that we can't visit anymore. The hurt and the pain and the ugly of that day can never be undone. Those lost to the rubble of the World Trade Center, and the fire of the Pentagon, and a grassy field in Pennsylvania will never be brought back. And while "9/11" has become an icon of political division and doomsday scare tactics, the tragic events of that day will continue to teach us lessons as long as we remember them.

And that's why we must remember. And that's why we will remember. Always.

Mystery "M"

I haven't done this yet this year, so let's give it a try. Can you identify where this "M" comes from?
Leave your guesses as a comment...the answer will be revealed next week. Good luck!

Here's a compilation of "mystery m's" from last year.

Video and Comments from David Grann

Thanks to the Texas Moratorium Network for noticing my post from last night, and for putting together a remarkable collection of information about the Willingham case.

Talkback Tuesday: Football Wins

The EHS football team got off to a great start last Friday by defeating Spring Hill 28-0 in their home opener. They will play 8 more regular season games, and up to 5 additional games if they make the playoffs. This week's "talkback" quesion is: How many games will the EHS varsity football team win this season?

Please vote in the right-hand margin of this page, and feel free to voice your opinion in the comments.

More on Willingham

A week ago, I posted about an article that appeared recently in The New Yorker detailing the conviction, appeals, and eventual execution of Cameron Todd Willingham for allegedly starting a fire that killed his three small children. I still believe that this is an important piece of reporting that needs to be read and shared.

On August 28, John Jackson, who was one of the prosecutors in the Willingham case and who is now a federal judge, published an op-ed piece in the Corsica Daily Sun, which is the local newpaper in Corsica Texas, where the Willingham fire occurred. Jackson, obviously, takes the opportunity to defend himself:

The Willingham trial has become a sort of cause celebre by anti-death penalty proponents because it seems to be an example of outmoded scientific techniques which led to a miscarriage of justice. In fact, the trial testimony...contains overwhelming evidence of guilt completely independent of the undeniably flawed forensic report.

Jackson goes on to list seven points that are supposed to prove that justice was served in the case.

The author of the New Yorker article, David Grann, defends himself by offering a point-by-point rebuttal of Jackson's claims. Both Jackson's letter and Grann's response are worth reading...neither is very long.

One of my favorite pieces in this back-and-forth is when Jackson reminds his readers that Willingham refused to take a lie detector test which could prove his innocence:

Consistent with typical Navarro County death penalty practice, Willingham was offered the opportunity to eliminate himself as a suspect by polygraph examination. Such opportunity was rejected in the most vulgar and insulting manner...

Grann responds:

I do not know if this is true, though it may be. After Willingham was charged with murder, he stopped coöperating with authorities. (On death row, Willingham wrote to several legal organizations asking them if they could give him a polygraph so that he could prove his innocence.) But even if he refused to take a polygraph after he was arrested, polygraphs are notoriously unreliable, and are not admissible in a court of law. As a result, defense attorneys routinely do not let their clients take polygraphs. Ernest Willis, who I discuss in my piece, was also convicted of committing arson, in a case that was eerily similar to Willingham’s. He had taken a polygraph, and the results were interpreted by police and the prosecutor as a sign that he was guilty. Evidence later emerged, however, that he had not set the fire, and he was exonerated and released, after seventeen years on death row. The idea that a lie-detector test (or the refusal to take one) could be considered evidence cuts to the core of the problems in the Willingham case: a reliance on unreliable and unsound scientific techniques. (emphasis mine)

I would add one piece to Grann's rebuttal. Jackson states in the conclusion to his column that:

The Willingham case was charged as a multiple child murder, and not an arson-murder to achieve capital status. I am convinced that in the absence of any arson testimony, the outcome of the trial would have been unchanged, a fact that did not escape the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

His argument here is that, even if Willingham didn't set the fire, he would still be eligible for the death penalty because the "crime" involved the "murder" of multiple children. The point that he is blatantly missing is that, if there was no fire, then the deaths of multiple children would not have occurred. I'm assuming that Judge Jackson is intelligent enough to see how flawed his logic is and am left thinking that he's simply hoping that his readers won't notice. The emperor is naked.

At some point, the people involved in the prosecution of this case are going to run out of excuses to hide behind and admit that they most likely executed an innocent man. And when that happens, we as a society will have to come to finally look at capital punishment as the barbaric practice that it really is.

Until then, I'm thankful people like Andrew Sullivan for spreading the word about stories like this.

Daily Recap: Tuesday, 9/8

Anatomy and Physiology:
We took notes over epithelial tissues. The assignment was to construct a graphic organizer listing the name, cell shape, number of layers, locations, and functions of each type of epithelium discussed (except for glandular, which we'll discuss later).

6th period was interrupted by construction noise and didn't get all of the notes taken. We'll finish them tomorrow before we begin the epithelium lab.

Biology:
We reviewed the scientific process.