State Gov Restrict Feeding Homeless

When Philadelphia’s spring dogwoods blossom, Brian Jenkins will head to a triangular greenway on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway just before dusk and help set up two long, cloth-covered tables where cornbread, grilled Tilapia and peach cobbler are served to the homeless.
The outdoor feeding that begins each May includes music, sometimes a banjo-strumming gospel singer or a sound system and a choir. Parents come with children in tow, and while some have found a place to sleep, in an economy still recovering from recession, more are in need of something to eat.

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Homeless Picnics Razed by Food-Safety Crackdown

Saul Loeb/Getty Images

Homeless advocates are concerned the bureaucratic intrusions will cause some small operations, such as those that don’t have access to approved kitchens, to go out of business.

Homeless advocates are concerned the bureaucratic intrusions will cause some small operations, such as those that don’t have access to approved kitchens, to go out of business. Photographer: Saul Loeb/Getty Images

This year, the annual ritual has sparked a clash between groups such as Chosen 300 Ministries Inc., where Jenkins works, and Mayor Michael Nutter. The city has banned feedings in city parks, except for family picnics and public events, and is considering rules to protect the homeless from foodborne illness. Jenkins says the requirements, such as preparing items in approved facilities and attending food-safety classes, are a ploy to rid tourist areas of people deemed an eyesore.
“Jesus didn’t have to go to an approved kitchen,” Jenkins said. “If I have to pay a fine, then I will. I’m still going to feed outside, the way I always have. I’ll just put up a sign that says ‘God’s Family Picnic.’”
Philadelphia’s city leaders are entering a showdown that’s playing out across the U.S., according to advocates for the homeless. Dallas has implemented food-safety requirements and cities such as Middletown, Connecticut (STOCT1), and Nashville,Tennessee (STOTN1), have stopped food distribution that didn’t comply with public health codes. The churches and ministries aren’t going quietly.

Nationally Tense

“This is nationally very tense,” Philadelphia Health Commissioner Donald Schwarz said in an interview.
Homeless advocates say it’s not the cost that’s bothering them, since many municipalities are offering food-training classes for free. Instead, they’re concerned the bureaucratic intrusions will cause some small operations, such as those that don’t have access to approved kitchens, to shut down.
Philadelphia’s Board of Health is scheduled today to consider additional food-safety standards for feeding three or more people outside, including a mandatory permit. Nutter said another policy change that bans outdoor feeding at city parks will increase “the health, safety, dignity and support” for the homeless.
“It’s not about who is on the parkway but how it is used,” Nutter said in prepared remarks March 15 announcing his policy changes. “Providing food to those who are hungry must not be about opening the car trunk, handing out a bunch of sandwiches and then driving off into a dark and rainy night.”

Houston Ordinance

Houston Mayor Annise Parker has also been the target of criticism as her city considers restrictions on homemade meals.
“People have the best intentions, but you leave food out for four hours or don’t store it properly, it can be severe,”Jessica Michan, the mayor’s spokeswoman, said in an interview.
Houston this month considered making those who feed the homeless register, banning the storage or preparation of food in private homes and requiring that one person obtain food-safety training. Fines would have been as much as $2,000.
The proposal has been amended and now makes food-safety training voluntary, with violations of as much as $500 if permission to serve food isn’t obtained by the property owner. Hearings have brought crowds of almost 100 people and left one lawmaker in tears.
The measure was intended to protect the homeless, who may have less access to health care or be more at risk of complications if they develop foodborne illnesses, Michan said.

Red Herring

“It’s a red herring,” Randall Kallinen, a civil rights lawyer in Houston who has organized opposition to the city’s plans, said in an interview. “They can’t provide one example where someone got injured or sick. This is really a way to push homeless out of downtown.”
Targeting people and groups who try to share food with the homeless has become more common, according to a 2010 report by the Washington-based National Coalition for the Homeless and theNational Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. Limits on sharing food outdoors grew as the economic collapse in 2008 led to more demand for meals. There are restrictions on sharing food in at least 23 towns and cities in the U.S., according to the report.
New York City prohibits private donations of food to homeless shelters as part of a policy partly aimed at ensuring meals are nutritious.

New York Shelters

The Homeless Services Department has rules about food preparation going beyond nutritional standards the city set in 2009, and updated in 2011, said Samantha Levine, a spokeswoman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The mayor is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.
“We are regulated by the state in the provision and delivery of food to homeless people in our shelter system and those regulations are very specific and written to ensure safety and proper distribution of food to homeless people,” said Barbara Brancaccio, a spokeswoman for Homeless Services. “There is very little opportunity for people to come in with food from outside, and that’s how it’s always been.”
The safety measures can be an important public health protection as long as they don’t restrict access to food or the rights of the homeless, Neil Donovan, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said in an interview.

Good Samaritan Laws

“The only thing worse than being homeless is being homeless on the street with a stomach infection,” said Donovan, who supports the intent behind the proposals.
There were 636,017 homeless people in the U.S. in 2011, a 1 percent decrease from 2009, according to the Washington-basedNational Alliance to End Homelessness, a nonprofit policy group. Urban areas have the highest rate of homelessness, about 29 people per 10,000. Houston has an estimated 10,000 homeless people every night, according to the Beacon, a nonprofit group that provides services to the poor.
U.S. lawmakers have sought to encourage donations to the hungry. Congress passed a good Samaritan food donation act in 1996 under President Bill Clinton to protect businesses, organizations and individuals that donate food from legal liability. All 50 states and Washington, D.C., also have good Samaritan laws that provide additional protection to donors, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.
The latest city initiatives run counter to a philosophy of helping the homeless, said Heather Johnson, a civil rights attorney with the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.

Do-Gooder Rebellion

“Food-safety restrictions, while well intentioned, make it more difficult for groups to share food and may make it harder for the homeless to get meals,” Johnson said in an interview.“We’re seeing more cities and municipalities adopting these kinds of regulations.”
Philadelphia’s mayor last week instructed the parks department to issue a regulation in 30 days banning outside feeding in all city parks, with exceptions for picnics and permitted events. A temporary food distribution location at City Hall will be set up for groups to provide food to the homeless, according to a press release.
The regulations would apply to Jenkins’s site along the parkway, a mile-long scenic boulevard that connects City Hall to just near the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Jenkins, who currently feeds the homeless indoors because of the winter season, plans to resume his ministry’s outdoor program in May.
Jenkins called Nutter’s plan an “attack on the poor” and expects to fight, even if that means violating a ban.
“You can’t regulate someone doing good,” Jenkins said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-22/philadelphia-regulates-brotherly-love-to-curb-homeless-picnics.html

Iran Leader Warns of War with U.S

(CNN) -- The supreme leader of Iran issued a blunt warning Friday that a war would be detrimental to the United States.
"You see every now and then in this way they say that all options are on the table. That means even the option of war," Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said during Friday prayers in Tehran. "This is how they make these threats against us.
"Well, these kinds of threats are detrimental to the U.S.," he said. "The war itself will be 10 times as detrimental to the U.S."
His comments came after stern comments Friday from Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
"Today, unlike in the past, there is a broad global understanding that it is crucial to stop Iran becoming nuclearized and that no options should be taken off the table," he said.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has come to the conclusion there is a growing likelihood Israel could attack Iran sometime this spring in an effort to destroy its suspected nuclear weapons program, according to a senior administration official.
The official declined to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the information.
The United States and its allies have warned that Iran is trying to make a nuclear weapon. Iran insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful, civilian purposes

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/03/world/meast/iran-warning/

Comet Lovejoy Plunges into the Sun

Dec. 16, 2011: This morning, an armada of spacecraft witnessed something that many experts thought impossible.  Comet Lovejoy flew through the hot atmosphere of the sun and emerged intact.

"It's absolutely astounding," says Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab in Washington DC.  "I did not think the comet's icy core was big enough to survive plunging through the several million degree solar corona for close to an hour, but Comet Lovejoy is still with us."

In the SDO movies, the comet's tail wriggles wildly as the comet plunges through the sun's hot atmosphere only 120,000 km above the stellar surface. This could be a sign that the comet was buffeted by plasma waves coursing through the corona.  Or perhaps the tail was bouncing back and forth off great magnetic loops known to permeate the sun's atmosphere.  No one knows.

The comet's close encounter was recorded by at least five spacecraft: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and twin STEREO probes, Europe's Proba2 microsatellite, and the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory.  The most dramatic footage so far comes from

"This is all new," says Battams.  "SDO is giving us our first look¹ at comets travelling through the sun's atmosphere. How the two interact is cutting-edge research." 

“The motions of the comet material in the sun’s magnetic  field are just fascinating,” adds SDO project scientist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center.   “The abrupt changes in direction reminded me of how the solar wind affected the tail of Comet Encke in 2007 (movie).”

Comet Lovejoy was discovered on Dec. 2, 2011, by amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy of Australia.  Researchers quickly realized that the new find was a member of the Kreutz family of sungrazing comets.  Named after the German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz, who first studied them, Kreutz sungrazers are fragments of a single giant comet that broke apart back in the 12th century (probably the Great Comet of 1106).  Kreutz sungrazers are typically small (~10 meters wide) and numerous. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory sees one falling into the sun every few days.

At the time of discovery, Comet Lovejoy appeared to be at least ten times larger than the usual Kreutz sungrazer, somewhere in the in the 100 to 200 meter range.  In light of today's events, researchers are revising those numbers upward.

 SDO, which saw the comet go in (movie) and then come back out again (movie).

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/16dec_cometlovejoy/

Russians DOing Research at Both Poles

The journey

After having drawn a lot of attention from thepress, Koen left form Zaventem Airport on 15 December for Cape Town, where he spent a few days. His departure for the Russian Novolazarevskaya base was delayed due to a violent storm. On 23 December, Koen took his first steps in Antarctica and described his experience as “a marvelous and very special experience. The thermal shock was enormous. The cold stung my hands, feet and nose. It certainly felt like we were on the coldest continent on the planet.”

Arrival at the Princess Elisabeth Station

After another flight leaving from the Russian base Koen was able to reach his final destination: the Princess Elisabeth Station – just in time to celebrate Christmas in Antarctica! Koen arrived at the station at the same time as a team of German scientists from the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe - BGR), who will do geophysical research in the Sør Rondane mountains. However the German team had to postpone their research, given that the Mary Arctica, the ship bringing the helicopters they need to get, was blocked 130 km off the coast for several days. The Mary Arctica finally arrived at Crown Bay on 5 January, and Koen left this morning with other members of the station team to help offload equipment from the ship.

Meanwhile in Brussels…

To keep you up to date with Koen’s adventures at the station, an article and a photo gallery will be posted every two weeks during his stay in Antarctica.  We are also organizing teacher workshops (one on 25 January for the Flemish Community and one on 1 February for the French-Speaking Community) in the Class Zero Emission space at the headquarters of the International Polar Foundation (IPF) in Brussels. During the workshops, teachers will be able to chat with Koen and ask him questions via Skype video conference.

http://www.educapoles.org/projects/project_detail/klas_zero_emissie/

http://www.educapoles.org/news/news_detail/first_days_of_teacher_koen_meirlaen_in_antarctica/