AMERICA AND GUNS

Mass School Shootings: A History

This April 28, 1999 file photo shows an unidentified woman with 15 crosses posted on a hill above Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. on April 28, 1999 in remembrance of the 15 people who died during a school shooting on April 20. (Eric Gay/AP Photo)

By LAUREN EFFRON (@LEffron831)

Dec. 14, 2012

As the numbers of the dead from a Newtown, Conn., elementary school shooting climbed into the double digits, it's hard not to remember that we have been here before.

The Sandy Hook elementary school shooting is the deadliest at a high school or grade school in the history of the country, but it is far from the first. Several mass school shootings have speckled our recent history.

LIVE UPDATES: Newtown, Conn., School Shooting

Thirteen years ago, the small community of Littleton, Colo., was rocked by a massacre at Columbine High School. Gunmen Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, walked into their school on April 20, 1999, and opened fire, killing 12 of their classmates and a teacher, and injuring 21 more, before turning their firearms on themselves.

At the time, it was dubbed the most deadly school shooting in American history, and it changed the way many communities across the country thought about school safety.

But then the nation was once again rocked to its core when a gunmen went on a terrorizing rampage at Virginia Tech, almost a decade later.

On April 16, 2007, Virginai Tech senior Seung-Hui Cho unleashed a rampage on the college campus, shooting and killing 32 students, and wounding 17 more people. More than a year before the massacre, in December 2005, a district court in Montgomery County, Va., deemed Cho "mentally ill" and "an imminent danger to self and others."

The aftermath of the Virginia Tech shooting prompted Congress and President George W. Bush to sign the first major change to U.S. gun laws in more than 10 years -- it expanded the federal background check database -- and overhauled how the way many campuses handled crime and security alerts.

Before these rampages, there were multiple other fatal school shootings. The death toll wasn't as high, but the violence was just as great.

This year, on Feb. 27, T.J. Lane, 18, allegedly entered Chardon High School in Ohio with a .22 caliber handgun and a knife. He shot four students in the cafeteria and one in the hallway before walking out, leaving three dead. Police detained him within a mile of the school. He remains in custody and is expected to stand trial for the shootings in January.

On Oct. 2, 2006, a gunman took about a dozen girls hostage, killing at least three of them, at a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County, police said. The shooter was among the dead when police arrived.

On March 21, 2005, 16-year-old Jeff Weise shot and killed five classmates, a teacher and an unarmed guard at a high school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota, where about 5,000 Native Americans live, before taking his own life. Weise had killed his grandfather and his grandfather's companion before heading to school that day.

Between 1997 and 1998, there were three school shootings within a few months of one another.

On May 21, 1998, two teenagers were killed and more than 20 people were hurt when 15-year-old Kip Kinkel opened fire at a Thurtson High School in Springfield, Ore., after killing his parents. Kinkel was sentenced to nearly 112 years in prison.

On March 24, 1998, two boys, ages 11 and 13, fired on their Jonesboro, Ark., middle school from nearby woods after pulling the fire alarm, killing four girls and a teacher, and wounding 10 others. Both boys were later convicted of murder and were incarcerated until they turned 21.

On Dec. 1, 1997, three students were killed and five wounded at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky. Michael Carneal, 14, and a freshman, later pleaded guilty but mentally ill to murder charges and is serving life in prison. He is eligible for parole in 2023.

One of the most iconic school shootings in American history remains at Kent State Univeristy in Ohio. On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guard troops opened fire to quell an anti-Vietnam War demonstration, killing four students and wounding nine others. The shooting became known as the May 4 Massacre

ABC News

Peter’s Piece

America must be almost unique in the world with its attitude about guns.

Elsewhere, logic dictates that carrying a gun for personal protection does not make one safer. It will only heighten the risk of dying of gunshot wounds.

But in spite of this a majority of Americans are in love with guns, and gun laws will not change until a clear majority of Americans campaign for radical change.

HOW TO SAVE FUEL

Path of least resistance:
Aero trailers gaining traction

Jack Roberts|November 14, 2012

Old concepts of good truck and trailer design are being replaced

Aerodynamic tractors have been a growing part of the heavy-duty truck market for decades. With much of the tractor aero gains already carved out from years of wind-tunnel testing and refined engineering, attention now has swung to trailers. MinStar, a long-haul dry van fleet running out of Eagan, Minn., began experimenting with aerodynamic tractors when fuel was still less than $1 a gallon. It wasn’t until last year that MinStar began working with trailer aerodynamics.

“We had some classic models in our fleet a few years ago,” says Mitch Miller, MinStar president. “But we stay away from them now entirely because of the cost of fuel.”

The carrier’s primary focus now is on closing the gap between the cab and the trailer with adjustable fifth wheels and cab extenders, while also using tank fairings and trailer skirts.

“Based on our own testing, a full aerodynamic tractor-trailer combination gets ¾ of a mile per gallon better fuel economy than a non-aerodynamic rig,” Miller says. “We feel that aerodynamics allow us to operate a fuel-efficient vehicle for $800 a month less than for a non-aerodynamic model.”

“When diesel fuel prices drop to less than $3 a gallon, there is not much interest in paying for an aerodynamic improvement that will take six years to pay for itself,” says Dave McKenna, director of powertrain sales and marketing at Mack Trucks. “But at approximately $4 per gallon, there are a lot of ‘aero-religious’ converts.”

The other driving force for more aerodynamic tractor-trailers is environmental concern for lower emissions. That’s why California and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have been pushing aero equipment aggressively.

“Already many millions of dollars have been earmarked by the U.S. Department of Energy to help the cause,” says Sean Graham, president of Freight Wing, an aerodynamic trailer component designer and manufacturer involved in DOE’s effort. “Our goal is to realize a 15 percent improvement in fuel economy over trailers without fairings.”

That’s a 6 percent improvement over what is commercially available now through Freight Wing’s side skirt and gap fairing. “This would come from a combination of side skirts, gap fairings that streamline turbulence between the tractor and trailer, and fairings at the end of the trailer,” Graham says. “We’re well on course to make this happen.”

Drag increases exponentially with speed. “Even with all available aerodynamic gains, a sharp increase in road speed can easily negate any net fuel economy gains,” McKenna says. “Our research shows that an average road speed of 62 to 65 miles per hour with a full array of aerodynamic components at work is the best of both worlds in terms of productivity and fuel economy.”

One reason for the attention on trailer aerodynamics is that all components of a vehicle’s design interact with each other. Optimizing the tractor, trailer and driver as a complete system of mutually supporting elements is essential, says Rick Mihelic, manager of vehicle performance and engineering analysis for Peterbilt.

“Enhancing synergy between leading-edge areas like the crown, windshield edges, mirrors and bumper with downstream effects on the tractor and trailer will yield optimal performance gains,” Mihelic says.

“We’re already seeing this in current designs as OEMs and third parties work to provide components that further integrate combination vehicles,” says Frank Bio, product manager for Volvo Trucks. In redesigning a truck for optimum aerodynamics, Volvo looks at all exterior components and how they interact together – all the way to the trailer. “The entire truck works as a system, so a change to one component can affect how air flows around another,” Bio says.

Trailer-tails are tough and designed to fold away quickly and easily
before docking and can reduce drag by up to 5% on the highway.

It’s hard to imagine a less aerodynamic structure than a 53-foot long box with no rounded edges. Making matters worse with a trailer’s aerodynamics is the gap between it and the tractor, says T.J. Reed, director of product marketing for Freightliner Trucks.

“Wind moving around even the most aerodynamic tractor gets sucked into this gap and creates a tremendous amount of turbulence and drag,” Reed says. “Even crosswinds can add to the drag created in this area. That’s why you need to reduce as much friction and turbulence as possible.” Peterbilt has added scoops on its raised roofs to push air over the trailer “because that transition of air between tractor and trailer is so critical to good aerodynamic performance,” he says.

Air also gets sucked in and under the trailer, creating still more drag and turbulence. “You’ve no doubt seen more and more trailers equipped with side skirts to improve aerodynamics and fuel efficiency,” says Graham. Freight Wing has invested heavily in third-party tests that show fuel improvements of up to 7 percent on trailers equipped with side skirts versus trailers without.

“We’ve found that fleets typically report 4 to 6 percent fuel economy improvements, depending upon their application and driving environment,” Graham says. “Most fleets see a return on investment for a skirt-equipped trailer at about 50,000 miles.”

E-books by Peter Blakeborough

The final challenge with trailer aerodynamics is due to the vacuum created by its tall squared-off rear as the trailer moves at high speed. Because nature abhors a vacuum, air flowing on all four sides of the trailer immediately curls inward to fill this void, creating more drag.

Trailer tail devices can minimize that effect. Babur Ozden, chief marketing officer for ATDynamics, says his company’s TrailerTail fins create a funnel effect, preventing air from attempting to fill the low-pressure area, thereby decreasing drag.

TrailerTails deliver 6.6 percent fuel savings at 65 mph, according to third-party SAE Type II J1321 testing, Ozden says. Improved trailer aerodynamics also increases trailer stability due to reduced turbulence at the vehicle’s rear – and thus reduces tire wear and driver fatigue – and improves safety through reduced spray in wet weather, he says.

http://www.overdriveonline.com/path-of-least-resistance-aero-trailers-gaining-traction/

Peter’s Piece

Truck and trailer designers should be talking with aircraft designers to learn about real aerodynamics.

For many years there has been a belief that streamlining the tractor unit is all important in reducing drag and fuel consumption. But it is the back end shape that is most important and anyone who doubts this statement should take a look at both ends of a jumbo jet.

The Boeing 747 has one of the best high lift/low drag ratios of any airliner
and a 747 was able to stay airborne  for almost 30 minutes after volcanic
ash stopped all four engines. When partial power was regained the
aircraft still had more than 10,000 feet of air under it.  Boeing designers
regarded the rear of the fuselage as more important than the
front for reducing drag.

On all sub-sonic aircraft the blunt end comes first and the streamlined end follows behind. This is because the leading end of the fuselage, or the leading edge of the wing, is able to send an advance signal of its approach through the air and the airflow then divides with little resistance. Only on supersonic aircraft is it necessary to have a needle-shaped fuselage and knife-edged wings to cut through the air because the sound is no longer able to travel in advance.

With so little resistance caused by the front of an aircraft, or truck, that leaves the rear-end as the main cause of high fuel consumption.

One of the basics of aerodynamics is that a square box in a wind tunnel will produce 70% of its drag from the rear surface because the airflow must curl around to compensate for the decreased air pressure on that surface.

Drag created by the top, sides and underneath of a tractor-trailer is also more important than the front. Having a fully enclosed underside will not only reduce drag and fuel consumption, but will also lower maintenance costs and noise levels. The undersides of tractors and trailers at present seem to be a case of out of sight, out of mind.

The trailer-tails mentioned above while claiming to reduce fuel consumption by up to 7% are a rather clumsy attempt to address a major problem. A better back-end could result from tapering, inflatable anti-drag bags, which could be quickly deflated and stowed prior to docking. 

The fuel savings from such devices could be many times the 7% already claimed.

Most drivers and fleet operators understand that a small increase in speed will result in a large increase in fuel consumption. This fact has little to do with engine efficiency and more to do with air resistance. To understand just how critical air resistance is it must be remembered that when velocity is doubled air resistance goes up four-fold.

Cars, buses and trucks would be much more efficient, aerodynamically, if they were turned turned around and run backwards.

FROM NEW ZEALAND BY TRUCK

The Undie 500 – from the
pages of Highway America

For the next two days the journey continued through beautiful Appalachian country to Elkton, Maryland, and a Petro truckstop a little over an hour from the drop-off. I parked on the end of a long line of trucks, went for dinner and came back to read a book while music filled the air from the truck radio. When it was time for bed I pulled the blinds around the windscreen and side windows and stripped off to my underpants.

Suddenly there was a loud bang and the truck rocked on its suspension. Earthquake, I immediately thought. Then I heard a scraping noise as a semi trailer was dragged around the front of my tractor. I ripped the blinds open in time to see the culprit drive slowly away looking for a parking space. With visions of Carlos having me fired for having yet another accident I leapt down to the pavement in my bare feet and underpants and ran after the errant driver.

My Undie 500 lasted barely a hundred yards by which time the turban-headed young driver was most apologetic. It was his first day on the road and he was still getting accustomed to the size of the rig and the amount of space needed to turn. In Maryland the police are required to attend all accidents involving trucks and we exchanged details while we waited for them. An hour later an officer arrived, looked at both trucks (I had my clothes on again by then), took our details and departed.

My encounter with the police was better than that of a CalArk driver called Mike. When he got lost in Chicago he stopped a cop and asked for directions.

‘Follow me,’ the cop said obligingly.

They twisted and turned through narrow streets and alleyways for what seemed an age until they finally arrived at a police station where Mike was fined $990 for driving on streets where trucks were prohibited.

As the traffic flow pushed Old Bluey (my truck) along the New Jersey Turnpike at sixty-five miles an hour I watched the big signs flash passed overhead; Willingboro, Trenton, East Brunswick, Sayreville. The number of lanes increased along with the traffic volume and the number of interchanges. I was getting close to the turnpike extension and I needed to stay alert. The Perth Amboy sign flashed by and Carteret, Linden and Elizabeth appeared quickly. The exit for Newark Liberty International Airport slipped by and I changed lanes to line up for the turnpike extension at Exit 14. Suddenly just a few yards away parallel to the turnpike a big jet was taking off from Runway 4 Right at Newark while others waited to line up and the sky around buzzed with jets circling to land.

I looked ahead for the Jersey City sign as thousands of cars and trucks sped towards the heart of the great New York metropolis like minnows into the jaws of a whale. I lined up beneath the sign and followed the ramp through a ninety degree right turn. The Manhattan skyline, the Twin Towers and the Statue of Liberty came into view across the Hudson River as I looked ahead for Exit 14A. I shifted right again trying to recall the precise directions. I needed to go to the toll gates and up another ramp to Route 169 South and turn onto New Hook Road at the second light and proceed to Avenue J and the Exxon plant.

After carefully making all the correct turns to connect with Route 169 South I was dismayed to be confronted with a sign indicating that I was on Route 440 instead. Where the hell did that come from? I asked myself as I slowed and looked for somewhere to park while seeking assistance from the locals. There was a gap between the two carriageways but no free space on the sides so I stopped on the median and ran across the opposite carriageway to an office building that seemed to be just inches from the traffic flow.

‘I’m looking for New Hook Road,’ I told one of the workers.

‘Just keep right on down the one-sixty-nine. It’s about a mile on the left.’

‘How do I get to the one-sixty-nine?’

He looked at me as though I really was the dummy that I was beginning to feel like. Then he looked across at my idling truck in the middle of the busy dual carriageway and back at me again.

‘You’re on the one-sixty-nine, buddy. Are you Australian?’

‘No. I’m a Kiwi from New Zealand.’

He looked at me again as his expression changed to one of incredibility.

‘You come all the way from New Zealand in a truck?’

‘Not quite,’ I replied pointing to a jetliner blasting across the heavens from Newark. ‘I came on one of those. I picked up the truck in Little Rock.’

‘Little Rock, Arkansas.’ He still seemed uncertain about whether to believe me. ‘You know Bill Clinton?’

For a moment I was stunned by the thought that Little Rock could be thought of as so little that everyone living there could be a personal friend of everyone else including the former Governor and President.

‘Well, no. I guess I’m one of the few people who have never actually met him. But thanks for your help, mate. I think I’d better move my truck.’

For an e-book copy of Peter Blakeborough's Highway America go to: Smashwords.com 

 

KEYBOARD VANDALS

The 10 golden rules of
Twitter – and Facebook

David Aaronovitch

No week seems to pass without some tweeter or other having their handle felt by officers of the law. So if you don’t want to be one of them but you do want to communicate in 140 characters, here are my 10 Golden Rules:

1.    Twitter IS publishing. Putting it out there for others to read is publishing. So don’t tweet anything you wouldn’t be happy to see on the newsagent’s shelf with a picture of you above it.

2.    You think you know the law of libel. You don’t. Nor do any of your friends. I have had grown men telling me on Twitter this week that repeating a libel is not itself libel (it is) or that if you don’t directly say X is a rampant Y, but just hint at it then it doesn’t count (it does).

3.    If you’re an obscure nobody who no one follows, but who wants to say something rude sort-of privately, don’t do it under a trending hashtag. You will bring the wrath of thousands of strangers down on your hapless head.

4.    Some people LIKE the wrath of strangers. They’re called trolls. If you feel yourself bridling at repeated rude comments aimed at you and your cherished views then just BLOCK the offender. They disappear as if by magic.

5.    You are hurt. Wounded. Someone has questioned your talent or integrity. You wish to howl with online pain. Don’t. Those who enjoy your discomfiture will gather like crows around a carcass. Laugh. Put up a smiley.

Print books: GypsyBooks

E-books: Smashwords

6.    That brilliant retort you have composed, replete with pungent sexual or violent imagery, which will utterly destroy the Twitter foe who has, despite my advice, so annoyed you? Cherish it. Roll its 140 characters on your tongue. And then, for God’s sake, DELETE IT.

7.    Don’t tweet while drunk. You think it’s clever, and funny, you giggle and dribble at your own brilliant verbiage. But you are opening wide the gates of Hell. Morning will come, cold and clear.

8.    Don’t EVER meet a jolly Twitter companion, even one you’ve been ff’ing (suggesting people follow you every Friday) for months. Not without a police report. I learnt the hard way.

9.    Get yourself a decent avatar (picture) on Twitter. Not that default egg or the eye slicing scene from Un Chien Andalou. For everyone else’s sake.

10. Lastly, the golden rule, the rule of rules. Never, ever tweet anything about anybody that you wouldn’t say to their face. There’s a REASON why you wouldn’t say it to their face. They might hit you, or sue you. So why would you want to tweet it?

@DAaronovitch

Read more: “The unhealthiest falsehood spread on social networks is that users are living lives of constant glamour and hilarity,” says Libby Purves

Peter’s Piece

There is some sound advice above. Using Facebook and Twitter can be a rewarding and fun experience, but all too often the experience can be shattered by people who are cowardly graffiti vandals with a keyboard. 

ADOLF HITLER

Viewpoint: His dark charisma

Adolf Hitler was an unlikely leader but he still formed a connection with millions of German people, generating a level of charismatic attraction that was almost without parallel. It is a stark warning for the modern day, says historian Laurence Rees.

At the heart of the story of Adolf Hitler is one gigantic, mysterious question: how was it possible that a character as strange and personally inadequate as Hitler ever gained power in a sophisticated country at the heart of Europe, and was then loved by millions of people?

The answer to this vital question is to be found not just in the historical circumstances of the time - in particular the defeat of Germany in World War I and the depression of the early 1930s - but in the nature of Hitler's leadership.

It's this aspect of the story that makes this history particularly relevant to our lives today.

Hitler was the archetypal "charismatic leader". He was not a "normal" politician - someone who promises policies like lower taxes and better health care - but a quasi-religious leader who offered almost spiritual goals of redemption and salvation. He was driven forward by a sense of personal destiny he called "providence".

Before WWI he was a nobody, an oddball who could not form intimate relationships, was unable to debate intellectually and was filled with hatred and prejudice.

But when Hitler spoke in the Munich beer halls in the aftermath of Germany's defeat in WWI, suddenly his weaknesses were perceived as strengths.

His hatred chimed with the feelings of thousands of Germans who felt humiliated by the terms of the Versailles treaty and sought a scapegoat for the loss of the war. His inability to debate was taken as strength of character and his refusal to make small talk was considered the mark of a "great man" who lived apart from the crowd.

More than anything, it was the fact that Hitler found that he could make a connection with his audience that was the basis of all his future success. And many called this connection "charisma".

"The man gave off such a charisma that people believed whatever he said," says Emil Klein, who heard Hitler speak in the 1920s.

But Hitler did not "hypnotise" his audience. Not everyone felt this charismatic connection, you had to be predisposed to believe what Hitler was saying to experience it. Many people who heard Hitler speak at this time who thought he was an idiot.

"I immediately disliked him because of his scratchy voice," says Herbert Richter, a German veteran of WWI who encountered Hitler in Munich in the early 1920s.

"He shouted out really, really simple political ideas. I thought he wasn't quite normal."

In the good economic times, during the mid-to-late twenties in Germany, Hitler was thought charismatic by only a bunch of fanatics. So much so that in the 1928 election the Nazis polled only 2.6% of the vote.

Yet less than five years later Hitler was chancellor of Germany and leader of the most popular political party in the country.

What changed was the economic situation. In the wake of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 there was mass unemployment in Germany and banks crashed.

"The people were really hungry," says Jutta Ruediger, who started to support the Nazis around this time. "It was very, very hard. And in that context, Hitler with his statements seemed to be the bringer of salvation."

She looked at Hitler and suddenly felt a connection with him.

"I myself had the feeling that here was a man who did not think about himself and his own advantage, but solely about the good of the German people."

Hitler told millions of Germans that they were Aryans and therefore "special" and racially "better" people than everyone else, something that helped cement the charismatic connection between leader and led.

He did not hide his hatred, his contempt for democracy or his belief in the use of violence to further political ends from the electorate. But, crucially, he spoke out only against carefully defined enemies like Communists and Jews.

Since the majority of ordinary Germans were not in these risk groups then, as long as they embraced the new world of Nazism, they were relatively free from persecution - at least until the war started to go badly for the Germans.

This history matters to us today. Not because history offers "lessons" - how can it since the past can never repeat itself exactly? But because history can contain warnings.

In an economic crisis millions of people suddenly decided to turn to an unconventional leader they thought had "charisma" because he connected with their fears, hopes and latent desire to blame others for their predicament. And the end result was disastrous for tens of millions of people.

It's bleakly ironic that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was greeted in Athens recently with swastika banners carried by angry Greeks protesting at what they see as German interference in their country.

Ironic because it is in Greece itself - amid terrible economic crisis - that we see the sudden rise of a political movement like the Golden Dawn that glories in its intolerance and desire to persecute minorities.

And is led by a man has claimed there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz. Can there be a bigger warning than that?

Laurence Rees is a former creative director of history programmes for the BBC and the author of six books on World War II.

More in BBC News Magazine

Peter’s Piece

Here are some of the triggers that can propel Hitler-type half-wits to power:

·           High levels of unemployment and business failure.

·          A belief that a simplistic new economic order will solve all problems.

·           Widespread racial and religious intolerance.

·           General dissatisfaction with the courts and the sentencing of criminals.

·           A loss of faith in democratic government.

·           Growing numbers of people who regard themselves as victims.

·           Loud-mouthed half-wits shouting simplistic solutions to all the above.

That’s all it takes and wherever we live, we all need to be vigilant.