Egypt on edge ahead of more protests

CAIRO (AP) ? Thousands of supporters and opponents of Egypt's embattled Islamist president held rival sit-ins in separate parts of Cairo Saturday on the eve of opposition-led mass protests aimed at forcing Mohammed Morsi from power.

The demonstrations follow days of deadly clashes in a string of cities across the country that have left at least seven people dead, including an American, and hundreds injured. The violence ? and wide expectation of more to come Sunday during rallies that the opposition says will bring millions into the streets ? has fed an impending sense of doom in the country.

Egypt has been roiled by political unrest in the two years since uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak, but the upcoming round of protests starting Sunday promises to be the largest and perhaps the bloodiest. The turmoil has compounded the country's social and economic woes, with crime surging, unemployment high and with shortages of basic items not uncommon.

Cairo, which saw large pro- and anti-Morsi rallies on Friday, was uncharacteristically quiet Saturday despite the sit-ins as the city braced for more potentially violent opposition protests. Many residents are thought to be staying home, while some left for safer locations elsewhere in the country to avoid possible violence.

For several days, members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group that helped propel Morsi to power, and the president's opponents have clashed in cities in the Nile Delta, while on Friday as least five Brotherhood offices across the country were ransacked and torched.

That has all come in the buildup toward Sunday ? the anniversary of Morsi's inauguration as Egypt's first freely elected leader ? when opposition groups promise massive demonstrations to force the Egyptian leader from office. The June 30 protesters have vowed to remain peaceful, while the military said it would intervene if violence breaks out.

With expectations of violence running high, the military has dispatched troops backed by armored personnel carriers to reinforce military bases on the outskirts of cities expected to be flashpoints. In Cairo, the additional forces were deployed to military facilities in the suburbs and outlying districts. Army troops are also moving to reinforce police guarding the city's prisons to prevent a repeat of the nearly half dozen jail breaks during the chaos of the 2011 uprising.

Morsi's backers on Friday staged their second mass rally in as many weeks in a Cairo suburb where they said they would stage an indefinite sit-in to counter the protests planned by the opposition outside the nearby presidential palace.

Smaller numbers of Morsi opponents are staging a sit-in in central Cairo's Tahrir square, the epicenter of the 2011 uprising that toppled Mubarak, as well as outside Morsi's palace across town. The president has temporarily moved to another palace.

Hard-line Islamists loyal to Morsi have repeatedly vowed to "smash" the protesters, arguing that they were a front for Mubarak loyalists determined to undermine Morsi's rule. They also say that Morsi is a freely elected president who must serve out his four-year term before he can be replaced in an election.

The opposition counters by saying Morsi has lost his legitimacy through a series of missteps and authoritarian policies and insist that early presidential elections must be held within six months of his ouster.

Many Egyptians fear the new round of unrest could trigger a collapse in law and order similar to the one that occurred during the 2011 revolt. Already, residents in some of the residential compounds and neighborhoods to the west of the city are reporting gunmen showing up to demand protection money or risk being robbed.

The police, who have yet to fully take back the streets after they disappeared in unclear circumstances in 2011, have stepped up patrols on the outskirts of the city, ostensibly to prevent weapons and ammunition from coming into the city to be used in the case of an outbreak of violence. The army is advertising hotlines for civilians to call if they run into trouble.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-edge-ahead-more-protests-105228905.html

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Obama: Marriage benefits should cross state lines

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) ? President Barack Obama on Thursday praised the Supreme Court's ruling on gay marriage as a "victory for American democracy" and said recognition for same-sex unions should cross state lines.

Obama's remarks came in his first stop on a planned weeklong African tour, in a country that outlaws homosexuality. He said while he respects differing religious views on the matter, he wants to send a message to Africans as well about the importance of nondiscrimination under the law.

"People should be treated equally and that's a principal that I think applies universally," he said.

Obama spoke at a news conference after a private meeting with Senegalese President Macky Sall in which Obama said gay rights did not come up. Sall responded that Senegal leads "a very tolerant country" and anti-gay laws are not being prosecuted, "but we are still not ready to decriminalize homosexuality."

"We are still not ready," Sall said, adding that "does not mean we are homophobic."

Obama said he's directing his administration to comb through every federal statute to quickly determine the implications of Wednesday's ruling, which gave the nation's legally married gay couples equal federal footing with all other married Americans.

He said he wants to make sure that gay couples who deserve benefits under the law get them quickly. Obama said he personally believes that gay couples legally married in one state should retain their benefits if they move to another state that doesn't recognize gay marriage.

"I believe at the root of who we are as a people as Americans is the basic represent that we are all equal under the law," he said. "We believe in basic fairness. and what I think yesterday's ruling signifies is one more step towards ensuring that those basic principles apply to everybody."

Obama also offered prayers for former South African President Nelson Mandela, who is gravely ill, ahead of Obama's planned visit to his country this weekend. Obama credited Mandela's example in the anti-apartheid movement of being willing to sacrifice his life for a belief in equal treatment with inspiring Obama's own political activism.

"If and when he passes from this place, his legacy is one that will linger on throughout the ages," Obama said.

Later Obama plans to reflect on the ties many African-Americans share with the continent as he takes a tour of Goree Island, Africa's westernmost point. Africans reportedly were shipped off into slavery across the Atlantic Ocean through the island's "Door of No Return."

Thousands of boisterous revelers welcomed Obama's motorcade Thursday morning in Dakar, cheering and waving homemade signs as the first African-American president made his way to the presidential palace. A large sign outside his hotel gate had pictures of smiling Obama and Sall that read, "Welcome home, President Obama.."

Some in the crowd drummed, danced and sang, and many wore white as a symbol for peace. Sall and his wife, Marieme Faye Sall, greeted Obama and first lady Michelle Obama before entering the palace for a bilateral meeting between the two presidents.

Obama's focus in Senegal is on the modern-day achievements of the former French colony after half a century of independence. Sall ousted an incumbent president who attempted to change the constitution to make it easier for him to be re-elected and pave the way for his son to succeed him. The power grab sparked protests, fueled by hip-hop music and social media, that led to Sall's election.

"Senegal is one of the most stable democracies in Africa," Obama said. "It's moving in the right direction."

But such people-powered democratic transitions are not always the story of the African experience. Fighting and human rights abuses limited Obama's options for stops in his first major tour of sub-Saharan Africa since he took office more than four years ago. Obama is avoiding his father's homeland, Kenya, whose president has been charged with war crimes, and Nigeria, the country with the continent's most dominant economy. Nigeria is enveloped in an Islamist insurgency and military crackdown.

Obama's itinerary in Senegal was designed to send a message, purposefully delivered in a French-speaking, Muslim-majority nation, to other Africans in countries that have not made the strides toward democracy that Senegal has. Obama plans to meet with civil society leaders at the Goree Institute and visit the Supreme Court to speak about the importance of an independent judiciary and the rule of law in Africa's development.

___

Follow Nedra Pickler on Twitter at https://twitter.com/nedrapickler

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-marriage-benefits-cross-state-lines-113509900.html

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Beaker & Flask Closed Permanently - Portland Food and Drink

Beaker & Flask

Bad news about Beaker & Flask. According to people ?familiar with the matter?, the popular bar and restaurant will not be reopening.

Kevin Ludwig was well known from his longtime position as bartender at Park Kitchen. In 2010 he realized his dream, opening Beaker & Flask on SE Sandy to great fanfare. The restaurant and bar was a favorite of many, both because of the care the bartenders put into their drinks and the culinary skills of the kitchen. At the time it opened I wrote, ?Beaker & Flask is a surprise, currently the only bar in Portland where the quality of the food matches the thoughtful detail put into the cocktails.?

I?m sad to see it closed. It?s a little punch in the gut to the Portland food scene. Hopefully Kevin will resurface somewhere. I use some of his drink recipes on a regular basis.

"I have a wide-range of food experience - working in the restaurant industry on both sides of the house, later in the wine industry, and finally traveling/tasting my way around the world. Whether you agree or disagree, you can always count on my unbiased opinion. I don't take free meals, and the restaurants don't know when, or if, I am coming."

Source: http://portlandfoodanddrink.com/beaker-flask-closed-permanently/

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Unlikely Planets Found In Violent Star Clusters

And here we thought we know it all.

I find it funny, but if you can find that planets can survive in extreme conditions, how the hell can you not think that life can't also? This always reminds me how the experts are experts on nothing, because we really know nothing about the universe.

But hey, let's spend more money then all the combined totals of the income of all 3rd world nations (totally making that figure up, too lazy to check) on killing people instead of advancing human knowledge.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/PVe_bD63mWU/story01.htm

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LinkedIn Celebrates 3 Million Company Pages ... - Marketing Pilgrim

LinkedIn started out as a place for career-minded individuals to network with other individuals but over the years it?s turned into the world?s biggest social network for everything business. They?ve added forums, mentor blogs, the ability to share videos and presentations. They also moved from the individual to the company with Company Pages.

According to their celebratory infographic, LinkedIn now has more than 3 million Company Pages, 500,000 of which were created in the past 12 months. Those pages represent 148 different industries and they range from think tanks to railroad companies and everything in between, beside, above and below. Dig around on LinkedIn and you can find The League of Paranormal Investigators, Inc, The Flipside Circus, and Tiny Paper Cranes ? a non-profit that makes origami birds for charity.

When LinkedIn says they have something for everyone, they?re not kidding.

Here?s my favorite slice from the infographic ? Ninja Style!

This slice makes me wonder about how much a company name effects business. Are you more likely to hire a company with the word Ninja or Samurai in the name or less likely? What about Pirate? How do you feel about weird names or unpronounceable names? You can say it?s all about results, but come on. . . when you?re scanning LinkedIn or Google you can?t help but be drawn in or put off by a company name.

Let?s look at one more slice:

I?m going to go out on a limb and say that you?re not using LinkedIn Company Pages to their fullest extent. Why am I saying this? Because there aren?t enough hours in the day to keep up every social media account you own. I get that. So here?s where you need to make a decision. If you?re a business to business company, spend more time on LinkedIn this week and less on Facebook. Post an interview with someone in your company. Add a video. Add a slide presentation.

Need inspiration? Mashable has the most engaged company page on LinkedIn. They?re a content site, so it?s easier for them to upload articles on a regular basis but I?d bet you have content on your hard-drive that you can use, too.? Look through your files and pick out two pieces of content that would be of interest to someone in your industry and post them.

With social media, what you get out of it is only as good as what you put in so make it a point to put in more on LinkedIn this week. It might help you find that one connection you need to take your business to the next level.

?

Source: http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2013/06/linkedin-celebrates-3-million-company-pages-infographic.html

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Source: http://rss.sciam.com/sciam/science-education

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Surre.al Launches A Kickstarter Campaign To Fund A Cross-Device, 3D Virtual World

Surreal Games, an independent game studio created by the co-founders of mobile gaming company Cellufun, is looking to Kickstarter to fund what it says will be a 3D virtual world (also called Surre.al) that will work across devices and provide access to a wide variety of game environments. The target for the campaign (which should be live here) is $100,000. If that doesn't seem like much money for a big, ambitious gaming project, well, the team already raised $300,000 in angel funding, and it has been developing the technology for the past 18 months. You can see a demo of Surre.al in the video below, and as CEO Arthur Goikhman (he's also one of the Cellufun co-founders) says, "It's not just a gleam in our eye."

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/OsRQ4APFCpI/

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91% We Steal Secrets: The Story Of Wikileaks

All Critics (46) | Top Critics (23) | Fresh (42) | Rotten (4)

Sometimes it takes a feature-length documentary to stitch together a story we think we already know.

A real-life cyber-thriller with real-life consequences, Alex Gibney's We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks is a riveting and revelatory documentary ...

Gibney builds a remarkable level of suspense, given how exhaustively WikiLeaks has been covered in the media.

Engaging, kinetic, revelatory and unexpected.

At once an awkward mingling of two complex life stories and a gripping, necessary look at how information is gathered, shared and, yes, stolen.

Who is "We" in the title We Steal Secrets? There's no need for a spoiler alert, but it's neither Gibney nor Assange.

Which is the real Assange? This movie cannot say. It's as if Gibney threw up his hands, put the whole mess in the audience's lap and said, "Here, YOU figure this guy out."

A psychological suspense film with an open ending that's more haunting than the tricky climaxes of most post-Hitchcock thrillers.

With an approach that feels like a thriller, Gibney looks at both sides of the debate over the site's purpose and effectiveness.

Smart and opinionated, it's a great introduction to this ongoing story.

Gibney continues his run as the premier nonfiction filmmaker working today.

Arguably furthers WikiLeaks' stated purpose, but with a necessary whiff of the investigative filmmaker's instinctive skepticism.

The film is fascinating and provocative, deftly navigating complex personalities and shifting allegiances.

Who decides what stays secret? This brilliant documentary explores that question, itself a meta-narrative as the documentarian exposes the secrets of the secret-sharers.

Works...as a saga of self-destructive behavior by capable people whose judgment was perverted by smugness about their own oprinciples.

A fascinating account of a man who loved stirring the pot until he was the one sitting in it.

Gibney has created one of the signature discussions on the signature debate of the post-9/11 information-security age, namely: Who needs to know?

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/we_steal_secrets_the_story_of_wikileaks_2013/

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Draghi defends ECB crisis measures

BERLIN (AP) ? European Central Bank head Mario Draghi again defended the ECB's bond-buying program Tuesday, saying the crisis backstop was more important now following recent market turbulence sparked by other central banks around the world.

Draghi said in a speech in Berlin that the offer to buy bonds issued by indebted countries "is even more essential now as we see potential changes in the monetary policy stance, with associated uncertainty, in other jurisdictions of the global economy."

The U.S. Federal Reserve has roiled markets by indicating it could taper off its emergency stimulus measures next year. The Fed has been buying longer-term bonds in the open market, which drove down long-term interest rates and sent stocks and bonds higher.

Meanwhile, Chinese authorities have tried to rein in excessive lending, leading to a spike last week in interbank borrowing rates. Japan has also said it will add large monetary stimulus. Draghi did not mention any central bank by name.

Draghi said that the ECB's exit from its own stimulus measures "is still distant, since inflation is low and unemployment is high."

The ECB's steps have included the bond offer; cheap, unlimited loans to banks; and a record low benchmark rate of 0.5 percent. The 17-country eurozone remains in recession with an unemployment rate of 12.2 percent.

The ECB hasn't bought any bonds since announcing its plan last year. But the mere offer has pushed up government bond prices and taken financial pressure off indebted governments by lowering their borrowing costs. The bond-buying help would only be available to countries that sign a bailout agreement with the eurozone's financial rescue fund and promise in writing to take steps to reduce their debts and deficits.

Germany, where Draghi was speaking Tuesday, is home to some of the ECB president's biggest critics. Skepticism toward rescue measures for indebted countries is widespread among Germans, who would be the biggest financial backers of any bailout because of the size of their economy.

The ECB bond-buying plan is also currently being challenged in Germany's Federal Constitutional Court and was also opposed by Germany's central bank.

Bundesbank head Jens Weidmann says such purchases would risk distributing any losses on purchased bonds to taxpayers in other countries. He has also said they could take pressure off governments to take tough steps to reform their economies and finances.

However the support of Chancellor Angela Merkel and the votes of the other members of the ECB governing council left Weidmann as a minority voice. Draghi was speaking at an event organized by a group linked to Merkel's conservative party, the Christian Democratic Union

Draghi on Tuesday rejected the argument that the program would transfer risk of loss from indebted countries to better-off ones, "over and beyond risks that are inevitable and inherent" in running one monetary policy for 17 countries.

He stressed that troubled countries could not get help from the bond purchase without committing to reforms. Because of the program, "the euro area is a more stable and resilient place to invest in than it was a year ago."

___

AP Business Writer McHugh contributed from Frankfurt, Germany.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/draghi-defends-ecb-crisis-measures-122601880.html

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Watch Wendy Davis' filibuster of Texas abortion law (VIDEO) (Washington Post)

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How to Raise Verbal Children

Listen to Lexicon Valley Episode No. 29: 30 Million By Four

In 1995, researchers Betty Hart and Todd Risley published the results of a nearly decade-long study of early childhood language and vocabulary development. The Journal of Early Intervention said that Hart and Risley?s book, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children, ?may very well change our thinking about how we arrange early experiences for our children, if not revolutionize our approach to childhood.? But for reasons both political and economic, that revolution never occurred. Now, 20 years later, one American mayor wants to put Hart and Risley?s research to a real-world test. Listen to Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss why talking may be the single most important activity you can do with your child.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley/2013/06/lexicon_valley_on_research_by_betty_hart_and_todd_risley_early_childhood.html

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NSA leaker's global flight appears stalled for now

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) ? Edward Snowden's stop-and-start flight across the globe appeared to stall in Moscow as the United States ratcheted up pressure to hand over the National Security Agency leaker who had seemed on his way to Ecuador to seek asylum.

In Ecuador's most extensive statement about the case, the foreign minister hailed Snowden on Monday as "a man attempting to bring light and transparency to facts that affect everyone's fundamental liberties."

The decision whether to grant Snowden the asylum he has requested is a choice between "betraying the citizens of the world or betraying certain powerful elites in a specific country," Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino told reporters while visiting Vietnam.

But what had been expected to be a straightforward journey to this South America nation dissolved into uncertainty by day's end. Snowden didn't use a reservation for a Havana-bound Russian airline flight that could have served as the first leg of a trip to safety in Ecuador, and his allies would not say where he was or what changed. Patino said Tuesday that he didn't know Snowden's exact whereabouts.

In Washington, the White House demanded that Ecuador and other countries deny Snowden asylum. It also sharply criticized China for letting him leave Hong Kong, and urged Russia to "do the right thing" and send him to the U.S. to face espionage charges.

A high-ranking Ecuadorean official told The Associated Press that Russia and Ecuador were discussing where Snowden could go, and the process could take days. He also said Ecuador's ambassador to Moscow had not seen or spoken to Snowden. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

Ecuadoreans debated whether accepting Snowden would be a step too far for leftist President Rafael Correa, who has won wide popularity with oil-funded social and infrastructure programs while picking public fights with his country's main export market, the U.S. Correa has expelled U.S. diplomats, shuttered an American military base and offered refuge at Ecuador's embassy in London to Julian Assange, praising the founder of Wikileaks for publishing reams of leaked secret U.S. documents. Assange has embraced Snowden and WikiLeaks experts are believed to be assisting him in arranging asylum.

With unprecedented international attention focused on Ecuador, many citizens said they felt giving asylum to Snowden would be courting trouble for no reason, particularly with a key U.S. trade agreement up for renewal in coming weeks.

"I think it's just being provocative," said Blanca Sanchez, 50, who sells cosmetics in the capital, Quito. "He needs to take responsibility for himself. This isn't our problem."

U.S and Ecuadorean officials said they believed Snowden was still in Russia, where he fled Sunday after weeks of hiding out in Hong Kong following his disclosure of the broad scope of two highly classified counterterror surveillance programs to two newspapers. The programs collect vast amounts of Americans' phone records and worldwide online data in the name of national security.

Assange declined to discuss where Snowden was but said he was safe. Assange said Snowden was only passing through Russia and had applied for asylum in Ecuador, Iceland and possibly other countries.

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the U.S. had made demands to "a series of governments," including Ecuador, that Snowden be barred from any international travel other than to be returned to the U.S. The U.S has revoked Snowden's passport.

The White House said Hong Kong's refusal to detain Snowden had "unquestionably" hurt relations between the United States and China. While Hong Kong has a high degree of autonomy from the rest of China, experts said Beijing probably orchestrated Snowden's exit in an effort to remove an irritant in Sino-U.S. relations.

Secretary of State John Kerry urged Moscow to "do the right thing" and turn over Snowden.

"We're following all the appropriate legal channels and working with various other countries to make sure that the rule of law is observed," President Barack Obama told reporters when asked if he was confident that Russia would expel Snowden.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the U.S. was expecting the Russians "to look at the options available to them to expel Mr. Snowden back to the United States to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged."

Carney was tougher on China.

"The Chinese have emphasized the importance of building mutual trust," he said. "And we think that they have dealt that effort a serious setback. ... This was a deliberate choice by the government to release a fugitive despite a valid arrest warrant, and that decision unquestionably has a negative impact on the U.S.-China relationship."

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said China had harmed its relationship with the U.S. by allowing Snowden to leave Hong Kong. China's move set a "bad precedent" that could unravel extradition treaties or other legal agreements between countries, she said Monday in Los Angeles.

Assange and attorneys for WikiLeaks assailed the U.S. as "bullying" foreign nations into refusing asylum to Snowden. WikiLeaks counsel Michael Ratner said Snowden is protected as a whistleblower by the same international treaties that the U.S. has in the past used to criticize policies in China and African nations.

Ecuadorean analysts said accepting Snowden could jeopardize tariff-free access to U.S. markets for Ecuador's fruit, seafood and flowers. U.S. trade, which also includes oil, accounts for half of Ecuador's exports and about 400,000 jobs in the nation of 14.6 million people.

The U.S. Andean Trade Preference Act requires congressional renewal soon and hosting Snowden "doesn't help Ecuador's efforts to extend it," said Ramiro Crespo, director of the Quito-based financial analysis firm Analytica Securities. "The United States is an important market for us, and treating a big client this way isn't appropriate from a commercial point of view."

At the same time, high oil prices, a growing mining industry and rising ties with China may give Correa a sense of protection from U.S. repercussions. Many of the Ecuadoreans who re-elected Correa in February with 57 percent of the vote see flouting the U.S. as a welcome expression of independence, particularly when it comes in the form of granting asylum.

"This person who's being pursued by the CIA, our policy is loving people like that, protecting them, perhaps giving them the rights that their own countries don't give them. I think this is a worthy effort by us," said office worker Juan Francisco Sambrano.

In April 2011, the Obama administration expelled the Ecuadorean ambassador to Washington after the U.S. envoy to Ecuador, Heather Hodges, was expelled for making corruption allegations about senior Ecuadorean police authorities in confidential documents disclosed by WikiLeaks.

American experts said the U.S. will have limited, if any, influence to persuade governments to turn over Snowden if he heads to Cuba or nations in South America that are seen as hostile to Washington.

"There's little chance Ecuador would give him back" if that country agreed to take him, said James F. Jeffrey, a former ambassador and career diplomat.

Snowden is a former CIA employee who later was hired as a contractor for the NSA. In that job, he gained access to documents that he gave to The Guardian and The Washington Post to expose what he contends are privacy violations by an authoritarian government.

Snowden also told the South China Morning Post that "the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data." He is believed to have more than 200 additional sensitive documents in laptops he is carrying.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nsa-leakers-global-flight-appears-stalled-now-051718996.html

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Unexpected discovery of the ways cells move could boost understanding of complex diseases

June 23, 2013 ? A new discovery about how cells move inside the body may provide scientists with crucial information about disease mechanisms such as the spread of cancer or the constriction of airways caused by asthma. Led by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), investigators found that epithelial cells -- the type that form a barrier between the inside and the outside of the body, such as skin cells -- move in a group, propelled by forces both from within and from nearby cells -- to fill any unfilled spaces they encounter.

The study appears June 23, 2013 in an advance online edition of Nature Materials.

"We were trying to understand the basic relationship between collective cellular motions and collective cellular forces, as might occur during cancer cell invasion, for example. But in doing so we stumbled onto a phenomenon that was totally unexpected," said senior author Jeffrey Fredberg, professor of bioengineering and physiology in the HSPH Department of Environmental Health and co-senior investigator of HSPH's Molecular and Integrative Cellular Dynamics lab.

Biologists, engineers, and physicists from HSPH and IBEC worked together to shed light on collective cellular motion because it plays a key role in functions such as wound healing, organ development, and tumor growth. Using a technique called monolayer stress microscopy -- which they invented themselves -- they measured the forces affecting a single layer of moving epithelial cells. They examined the cells' velocity and direction as well as traction -- how some cells either pull or push themselves and thus force collective movement.

As they expected, the researchers found that when an obstacle was placed in the path of an advancing cell layer -- in this case, a gel that provided no traction -- the cells moved around it, tightly hugging the sides of the gel as they passed. However, the researchers also found something surprising -- that the cells, in addition to moving forward, continued to pull themselves collectively back toward the gel, as if yearning to fill the unfilled space. The researchers dubbed this movement "kenotaxis," from the Greek words "keno" (vacuum) and "taxis" (arrangement), because it seemed the cells were attempting to fill a vacuum.

This new finding could help researchers better understand cell behavior -- and evaluate potential drugs to influence that behavior -- in a variety of complex diseases, such as cancer, asthma, cardiovascular disease, developmental abnormalities, and glaucoma. The finding could also help with tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, both of which rely on cell migration.

In carcinomas, for instance -- which represent 90% of all cancers and involve epithelial cells -- the new information on cell movement could improve understanding of how cancer cells migrate through the body. Asthma research could also get a boost, because scientists think migration of damaged epithelial cells in the lungs are involved in the airway narrowing caused by the disease.

"Kenotaxis is a property of the cellular collective, not the individual cell," said Jae Hun Kim, the study's first author. "It was amazing to us that the cellular collective can organize to pull itself systematically in one direction while moving systematically in an altogether different direction."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/z8YbWatzDnE/130623145100.htm

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Why Comprehensive Cancer Care is Important

There's more to treating cancer than eliminating the disease itself. The Cancer Support Community, a nonprofit committed to ensuring "whole patient" care, stands by this idea, providing social and emotional support to all those affected by the disease. On Thursday, the organization launched its Cancer Policy Institute as a step toward ensuring that everyone can have access to affordable and comprehensive cancer treatment.

"At a time when there are multiple viewpoints about how to approach health care, and [the country] stands on the cusp of implementing large structural changes to the health care system, we are here because we want the best possible outcomes for people with cancer and their families," said Kim Thiboldeaux, president and CEO of the Cancer Support Community.

The Wellness Community and Gilda's Club Worldwide joined forces in 2009 to create CSC, and the organization's mission is now "to ensure that all people impacted by cancer are empowered by knowledge, strengthened by action and sustained by community." In 2012, CSC provided more than $40 million in services, such as support groups, educational workshops, exercise programs and social activities, to patients and their families.

[Read: What Causes Cancer? 7 Strange Cancer Claims Explained.]

The cause

In 2008, the Institute of Medicine released a report linking positive social and emotional support to better patient outcomes throughout a cancer treatment process. Modern cancer care offers many state-of-the-art treatments, but those procedures frequently fail to address the psychological and psychosocial issues often associated with the illness, according to the study.

Given treatments, expenses, lifestyle changes and the fear of the unknown, it is not uncommon for people battling cancer to become overwhelmed. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., and a breast cancer survivor, knows those feelings firsthand. "My experience taught me about the importance of treating the whole person, not just the illness," Wasserman said on Thursday. "Cancer is not just frightening for those going through treatment. We need a safe and strong place to all come together."

After undergoing seven surgeries, Wasserman is proud to say she is cancer-free and continues to push for comprehensive care. "More and more young people are getting cancer, and metastatic rates are not going down," she said. "We've made progress, but there is certainly a long way to go."

[Read: Diet Changes That Might Cut Breast Cancer Risk.]

By the numbers

Ezekiel Emanuel, the keynote speaker at the Cancer Policy Institute launch, said $2.87 trillion was spent on health care in the United States, including $979 billion in federal spending, in 2012. To put this in perspective, if you compare that number to overall gross domestic products of other countries, the U.S. health care system is the fifth-largest economy in the world, he said.

So where does all this money go? "When you think about the health care system, you have to understand that health care costs and quality of care is not uniformly distributed across the population," said Emanuel, who is also the vice provost for Global Initiatives and chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. Approximately 50 percent of the population doesn't participate in the health care system, he explained. This portion is made up of younger, healthy individuals. People who periodically receive medical assistance, such as those with allergies or who are more prone to colds and the flu, make up another 40 percent of the population. The remaining 10 percent, which includes cancer patients, is the portion of the population that utilizes the most health care dollars.

"If [we] want to improve the system, we will have to focus on those patients because those are the ones who are high-cost and where there are quality problems," Emanuel said.

The cost of cancer treatment has risen approximately 600 percent over the past 30 years, according to Emanuel. From the patient-centric perspective of CSC and the Cancer Policy Institute, more comprehensive health coverage could benefit cancer patients several ways, including financially. When patients are more aware of their health care options, they can choose more cost-effective treatments, share decision-making processes with their doctors and have a better overall treatment experience, Emanuel said.

"We need to figure out how to change how we are delivering care," Emanuel said. "No person should go through cancer alone, and no person should go through an uncoordinated, disjointed system where they are suffering from cancer, have to do all the running around and do all the navigation themselves."

[Read: Free Services for Women With Breast Cancer.]

Moving forward

CSC's public policy efforts will continue "so that no one faces cancer alone," according to Institute supporters. "It's absolutely needed, and it's something that our patients and volunteers very much want," said Dick Woodruff, vice president of federal relations and strategic alliances for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. "ACS CAN currently has two bills pending in the House specifically related to improving patient quality of life through the provision of wider access to palliative care, throughout all health care settings, so it's not only something we fully support, but it's something we are actively working on as well."

Last week alone, CSC affiliates had more than 50 scheduled meetings with Capitol Hill representatives regarding health care policy changes stemming from the launch of the Cancer Policy Institute. "There is a lot yet to do to make change and improve cancer care in America, and we are fully committed to putting all our resources, energy and passion behind it," Thiboldeaux said. "We are very excited to move forward with these issues."

[Read: Singer Andrew McMahon on Overcoming Cancer.]

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/why-comprehensive-cancer-care-important-151016588.html

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Targeted viral therapy destroys breast cancer stem cells in preclinical experiments

June 24, 2013 ? A promising new treatment for breast cancer being developed at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center and the VCU Institute of Molecular Medicine (VIMM) has been shown in cell culture and in animal models to selectively kill cancer stem cells at the original tumor site and in distant metastases with no toxic effects on healthy cells, including normal stem cells. Cancer stem cells are critical to a cancer's ability to recur following conventional chemotherapies and radiation therapy because they can quickly multiply and establish new tumors that are often therapy resistant.

The study, published in the International Journal of Cancer, focuses on a gene originally cloned in the laboratory of primary investigator Paul B. Fisher, M.Ph., Ph.D. The gene, melanoma differentiation associated gene-7 (mda-7), also known as interleukin (IL)-24, has been shown to directly impact two forms of cell suicide known as apoptosis and toxic autophagy, regulate the development of new blood vessels and also play a role in promoting cancer cell destruction by the immune system. In the present study, the researchers used a recombinant adenovirus vector, an engineered virus with modified genetic material, known as Ad.mda-7 to deliver the mda-7/IL-24 gene with its encoded protein directly to the tumor.

"Therapy with the mda-7/IL-24 gene has been shown to be safe in a phase I clinical trial involving patients with advanced cancers, and prior studies in my laboratory and with collaborators have shown that the gene could also be effective against breast, prostate, lung, colorectal, ovarian, pancreatic and brain cancers," says Fisher, Thelma Newmeyer Corman Endowed Chair in Cancer Research and co-leader of the Cancer Molecular Genetics program at VCU Massey, chairman of VCU School of Medicine's Department of Human and Molecular Genetics and director of the VCU Institute of Molecular Medicine. "Our study demonstrates that this therapy may someday be an effective way to eradicate both early and advanced stage breast cancer, and could even be used to reduce the risk of cancer recurrence."

The researchers found that infection of human breast cancer cells with the adenovirus decreased the proliferation of breast cancer stem cells without affecting normal breast stem cells. It was also shown to induce a stress response in the cells that led to apoptosis by disrupting Wnt/B-catenin signaling, a process cells rely upon to transmit signals that initiate biological functions critical to survival. In mouse models, the therapy profoundly inhibited the growth of tumors generated from breast cancer stem cells and also killed cancer cells in distant, uninjected tumors.

Since discovering the mda-7/IL-24 gene, Fisher and his team have worked to develop better ways to deliver it to cancer cells, including two cancer "terminator" viruses known as Ad.5-CTV and Ad.5/3-CTV. Cancer terminator viruses are unique because they are designed to replicate only within cancer cells while delivering immune-modulating and toxic genes such as MDA-7/IL-24. Coupled with a novel stealth delivery technique known as ultrasound-targeted microbubble destruction (UTMD), researchers can now systemically deliver viruses and therapeutic genes and proteins directly to tumors and their surrounding tissue (microenvironment) at both primary and metastatic tumor sites. UTMD uses microscopic, gas-filled bubbles that can be paired with viral therapies, therapeutic genes and proteins, and imaging agents and can then be released in a site and target-specific manner via ultrasound. Fisher and his colleagues are pioneering this approach and have already reported success in experiments utilizing UTMD technology and mda-7/IL-24 gene therapy in prostate and colorectal cancer models.

"We are hopeful that this targeted gene therapy could be safely combined with conventional chemotherapies to significantly improve outcomes for patients with breast cancer and potentially a variety of other cancers," says Fisher. "When paired with promising new delivery techniques such as UTMD, physicians may one day be able to better target site-specific cancers and also monitor the effectiveness of these types of therapies in real time."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/OUtmjiftctE/130624111008.htm

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Methane leaks of shale gas may undermine its climate benefits

If methane leak rates are more than 3 percent of ?output, fracking of shale gas formations may be boosting greenhouse gas emissions rather than lowering them.

By Richard Schiffman,?Contributor / June 23, 2013

Workers tend to a well head during a hydraulic fracturing operation at an Encana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc. gas well outside Rifle, Colo., in March. While the gas industry claims that gas is helping the environment by displacing dirtier coal, leaks of potent methane in the drilling and distribution of the fossil fuel may actually be creating more greenhouse gas emissions.

Brennan Linsley/AP/File

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Debate about the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing or fracking usually centers around the potential risks to our water supply from contamination by toxic fracking fluids, which are pumped at high pressure over a mile under the ground to break up gas-bearing shale formations. In recent months, however, there has been renewed controversy over the effect that gas drilling has had on greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

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Proponents of fracking assert that the boom in natural gas has helped to cut America?s emissions of carbon dioxide, by encouraging coal-burning power plants to switch over to the cheaper and cleaner burning natural gas. CO2 output is now at its lowest level since the early 1990s, due in part to the increasing use of natural gas, and also to greater fuel efficiencies and the slow but steady growth in renewables.??

But critics counter that the climate advantage of less CO2 may be canceled out by higher emissions of methane. Natural gas is primarily methane, the most powerful of the greenhouse gases, and the next most abundant in the atmosphere after CO2. The critical question is how much methane leaks during the drilling process, and also subsequently during processing and transport of the gas. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) says that if leak rates are greater than 3 percent of the total output, then fracking may actually be increasing America?s greenhouse gas load rather than diminishing it, as the industry claims.

That?s because methane has anywhere from 20 to 70 times more warming potential than CO2, depending on the time frame that one considers. It is especially damaging in the short term, but has a briefer half life, leaving the atmosphere quicker than carbon dioxide, so methane?s long term effects are not as great.?

Attachment parenting long after adoption | Rowan Family Tree

?I?m going to make this place your home??

The song was playing on the radio as I?m driving to Penticton with two happy girls in the backseat. That?s not how we started the day though, and I thought I would dictate a post about today, from the coffee stop along the way. I think it?s a good example of what attachment parenting looks like? long past adoption day.

I?m not saying I?m the attachment parenting guru (ha!) as we?ve made many mistakes along the way. But today, I got it right.

As you know, Jason and I were gone for nine days in Morocco while my parents look after the girls. They did a great job by the way? My dad said that the jellybean jar with one candy for every day helped the girls countdown the time we were away. But I think the love and care from my parents was what held the girls together.

Nine days is a long time though, and when Jason started commuting to work in Penticton Wednesday, we got cries and screams of protest. Yesterday, Spice barely got herself together to go to school. And this morning the girls were so tired from the solstice and so upset that daddy was going to work again, that I decided to take them home for the day. So we took our time in the morning and made blue pancakes covered with sprinkles. Healthy! I know. The point is that it took time and we got to do it together. Then after getting ready for the day, the girls got busy doing massive crafts in the kitchen. 11 o?clock and we are on the road? Off to have lunch with daddy in Penticton. We both felt that even if it was 45 minutes together at the middle of the day, that would be special for the girls. So on the road we are.

I?m being reflective about attachment parenting because often we talked about the process of attachment as the foundations of our relationship post adoption. A really attachment is this ongoing process between any family members who love and trust each other. We have to work to reconnect and builds the bonds of attachment between parents. That?s what Morocco was all about! But we also have to constantly repair hurts and nurture the connection between children and parents as well.

So it doesn?t happen very often? But on days like today, we choose to put the needs of our children first. It was painstakingly obvious that our girls were feeling abandoned when daddy was going off to work, and I was not much of the salve on the wound. Somewhat humbling? Anyway, we decided that I would work this weekend instead, and tend to the children today. And I think it?s an investment that will pay off.

And what if I didn?t take the day is today to focus on the kids and drive to Penticton to have lunch with daddy?

No doubt we would?ve had hurt feelings and bad behavior all weekend. So maybe attachment parenting is self-serving! Because a little repairing now means a lot of enjoyment of my children later.

I would love to hear some of the things that you have done to support and reconnect with your kids, long past your adoption day. Or even if you gave birth to children, I would love to hear what you?ve done to put your children first. Comments?

Arnica

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Source: http://rowanfamilytree.com/2013/06/21/attachment-parenting-long-after-adoption/

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Mass. Senate race: This time, outside money is funding negative ad blitz

In 2012, Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown swore off negative ads paid for by groups outside Massachusetts. But in the Gomez-Markey Senate battle, the money is pouring in.

By Ryan Lenora Brown,?Correspondent / June 21, 2013

This photo provided by WGBH shows U.S. Senate candidates, Republican Gabriel Gomez, left, and Democratic U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, right before a debate moderated by R.D. Sahl, center, Tuesday, June 18, 2013, at WGBH studios in Boston. (AP Photo/WGBH, )

Meredith Nierman/WGBH/AP

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During the fiercely competitive 2012 Senate race in Massachusetts, the two candidates made an unusual promise: neither would allow outside groups to fund attack ads on their behalf. If either Democrat Elizabeth Warren or Republican Scott Brown broke this so-called ?People?s Pledge,? they agreed they would pay half the cost of the ad in question to a charity of their opponent?s choice.

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?We?re saying that we want to be able to run our own campaigns,? Ms. Warren, now senator, told Boston radio station WBUR at the time.?

Neither side backed down. When two outside groups ran ads on Mr. Brown's behalf several months before the election, he dutifully cut checks to Warren's charities. After that, the outside ad spending dried up.

But in this year's special election to fill the state's other Senate seat ? vacated by John Kerry ? things have been markedly different. When Rep. Edward Markey, a Democrat, asked Republican Gabriel Gomez to take the same pledge in early May, Mr. Gomez refused, saying his opponent could afford to make that promise only because he already had a sizable campaign war chest built up over his nearly four decades in Congress.?

?It?s an open seat but [Gomez] knew he was essentially running against an incumbent,? says Shannon Jenkins, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth. ?Markey has a huge network of donors, so Gomez needed all the help he could get.?

But now it seems that strategy may have backfired. Since the general election campaign began, outside groups have spent far more on Markey?s campaign than Gomez?s. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign spending, ?super political-action committees? and other groups have paid out about $2 million in support of Markey?s campaign?and another $2.5 million-plus against Gomez since the start of the election cycle.

For Gomez, on the other hand, outside groups have funneled about $700,000 into efforts on his behalf and spent another $700,000 against Markey.

And as the two candidates and their supporters race to reach lethargic voters more focused on summer beach trips and the Stanley Cup finals than politics, this outside money has fueled a blitz of TV and radio ads to hammer home the campaigns? messages.

Over the past month, the Senate Majority super PAC, for instance, has spent more than $1 million on Markey ads, with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee dropping another $700,000, according to the Sunlight Foundation, which also collects campaign finance data. A second super PAC, the NextGen Committee, which opposes the Keystone XL Pipeline, spent $153,000 of its own to run a string of anti-Gomez ads on the streaming radio service Pandora.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/fwq03_beBWs/Mass.-Senate-race-This-time-outside-money-is-funding-negative-ad-blitz

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Inside the Guggenheim Museum's Glowing, Ambient James Turrell Skylight

The atrium of New York's Guggenheim Museum is usually a bustling space, filled with crisp light and crowds of visitors. You wouldn?t have known it from the scene yesterday, as the museum opened its long-awaited James Turrell show: saturated in shimmering cobalt light, visitors quietly sprawled around the space, gazing up at Turrell?s ?skylight.?

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Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/9IfpMH2Gdi0/inside-the-guggenheim-museums-glowing-ambient-james-t-534613546

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Parent-Child Relationships: The Cornerst | Kindermusik Kids

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Source: http://kindermusikkids.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/parent-child-relationships-the-cornerst/

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U.S. Fed delays probe deadline of premature March minutes release

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve said on Friday it would miss a deadline to finish an investigation into its inadvertent release in April of market-sensitive policy documents, which were sent out a day early in an embarrassing lapse of central bank security.

In a slip the Fed said was accidental, a member of staff emailed minutes of its March policy meeting to over 100 congressional staffers and bank lobbyists on Tuesday, April 9, around 24 hours ahead of the scheduled release.

These top-secret documents give hints on future Fed action and can have major impact on global financial markets. That said, market movements after the March release were fairly mute compared with the volatility caused by minutes of other meetings.

The Fed's Office of Inspector General said it pushed back the completion date of the probe until end-September from the end of second quarter. It made the disclosure in a regular update of work in progress.

Officials in the inspector general's office were not immediately available to clarify why the date was pushed back three months.

The Inspector General is looking into how the minutes are distributed to staff and to "evaluate the Board's management controls to prevent the early release."

The Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission both confirmed they were contacted by the Fed in connection with the premature release of the minutes, but have declined to comment further.

Among those who received the minutes early were people with email addresses that identified them as working for a number of financial firms, including Goldman Sachs Bank USA , Barclays Capital , Wells Fargo & Co , Citigroup Inc , UBS and JPMorgan Chase & Co , which trade on new information about U.S. monetary policy.

After discovering the breach early on April 10, the Fed decided to publish the minutes at 9 a.m. (1300 GMT), five hours ahead of the scheduled release time.

(Reporting By Alister Bull. Editing by Andre Grenon)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-fed-delays-probe-deadline-premature-march-minutes-175023077.html

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Country singer Slim Whitman dies in Florida

This undated file photo shows country singer Slim Whitman. Whitman died Wednesday, June 19, 2013 of heart failure in Florida. He was 90. Whitman's career began in the late 1940s, and his tenor falsetto and ebony mustache and sideburns became global trademarks. They were also an inspiration for countless jokes thanks to the ubiquitous 1980s and 1990s TV commercials that pitched his records. (AP Photo, file)

Published: Wednesday, June 19, 2013 at 11:23 a.m.

Last Modified: Wednesday, June 19, 2013 at 11:23 a.m.

MIAMI - Country singer Slim Whitman, the high-pitched yodeler who sold millions of records through ever-present TV ads in the 1980s and 1990s and whose song saved the world in the film comedy "Mars Attacks!," died Wednesday at a Florida hospital. He was 90.

Whitman died of heart failure at Orange Park Medical Center, his son-in-law Roy Beagle said.

Whitman's tenor falsetto and ebony mustache and sideburns became global trademarks ? and an inspiration for countless jokes ? thanks to the TV commercials that pitched his records.

But he was a serious musical influence on early rock, and in the British Isles, he was known as a pioneer of country music for popularizing the style there. Whitman also encouraged a teen Elvis Presley when he was the headliner on the bill and the young singer was making his professional debut.

Whitman recorded more than 65 albums and sold millions of records, including 4 million of "All My Best" that was marketed on TV.

His career spanned six decades, beginning in the late 1940s, but he achieved cult figure status in the 1980s. His visage as an ordinary guy singing romantic ballads struck a responsive chord with the public.

"All of a sudden, here comes a guy in a black and white suit, with a mustache and a receding hairline, playing a guitar and singing 'Rose Marie,'" Whitman told The Associated Press in 1991. "They hadn't seen that."

For most of the 1980s, he was consistent fodder for Johnny Carson's monologues on late night NBC-TV, and the butt of Slim Whitman look-alike contests.

"That TV ad is the reason I'm still here," he said. "It buys fuel for the boat."

"I almost didn't do them. I had seen those kinds of commercials and didn't like them. But it was one of the smartest things I ever did."

He yodeled throughout his career and had a three-octave singing range. Whitman said yodeling required rehearsal.

"It's like a prize fighter. He knows he has a fight coming up, so he gets in the gym and trains. So when I have a show coming up, I practice yodeling."

Born Ottis Dewey Whitman Jr. in Tampa on Jan. 23, 1923, he worked as a young man in a meatpacking plant, at a shipyard and as a postman.

He was able to get on radio in Tampa and signed with RCA Records in 1949 with the help of Col. Tom Parker, who later became Presley's longtime manager. RCA gave Whitman the show business name Slim ? he was a slender 6-foot-1 ? to replace his uninspiring birth name.

In 1952, Whitman had his first hit record, "Love Song of the Waterfall," which 25 years later became part of the soundtrack of the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Another Whitman hit from that year, "Indian Love Call," was used to humorous effect in the 1996 "Mars Attacks!" ? his yodel causes the Martians' heads to explode.

He crossed paths with Presley in July 1954 when he starred at a concert in a Memphis park just as Presley ? mistakenly billed as "Ellis Presley" in one ad for the show ? was launching his career.

According to Peter Guralnick's book "Last Train to Memphis," Presley's brief, energetic turn on stage caused a wild reaction from the crowd. When Whitman came on for his performance, he told the audience: "You know, I can understand your reaction, 'cause I was standing backstage and I was enjoying it just as much as you."

With Whitman's early hits, he became a star on the "Louisiana Hayride" radio show.

His version of "Rose Marie," the title song from the venerable operetta that spawned "Indian Love Call," became a huge hit in England in 1955, staying at No. 1 on the charts for 11 weeks.

Whitman's other hits included "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You," ''Red River Valley," ''Danny Boy" and "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen."

"The material I did was lasting material," Whitman said in 1991. "A lot of people thought I wasn't doing anything, but I was in the studio. The biggest factor is the material you choose. You hunt, you cut."

He was survived by his daughter, Sharon Beagle, and his son, Byron Whitman.

Whitman told the AP in 1991 that he wanted to be remembered as "a nice guy."

"I don't think you've ever heard anything bad about me, and I'd like to keep it that way. I'd like my son (Bryon) to remember me as a good dad. I'd like the people to remember me as having a good voice and a clean suit."

Source: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20130619/wire/130619585

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They Deactivate Droids, Don?t They?

C-3PO and R2-D2: Does George Lucas care about metal people?

LucasFilms

The war crime plays out like so.

Two heroic Jedi storm onto the bridge of the enemy ship. They cut through the bridge?s crew, until the only targets left standing are a pair of unarmed battle droids. These rail-thin, vaguely snouted robots are the blaster fodder of the prequel-era Star Wars universe, the bumbling, comically-useless ground troops mass-produced by the bad guys, who can be safely, incessantly dismembered on screen, without appalling concerned parents.

To say the battle droids are charming is an overstatement, but they have personality. Back on the bridge, one droid waves his arms frantically. ?Don't shoot, I'm not the commander!? He points to the other battle droid. ?H-he's the commander.? Pew! Pew! The second droid is casually gunned down by a Clone Trooper?predecessor to the Stormtroopers, but in this episode of the Clone Wars cartoon, a good guy working for the Jedi. But that?s just the setup for the joke. ?I guess I?m the commander now,? says the original bot. The punch line comes immediately, in the form of two blaster bolts. All that?s missing is a rim shot, and the roar of an audience.

George Lucas doesn?t care about metal people. No other explanation makes sense. In a kid-targeted sci-fi setting that?s notably inclusive, with as many friendly alien characters as villainous ones, the human rights situation for robots is horrifying. They?re imbued with distinctly human traits?including fear?only to be tortured and killed for our amusement. They scream while being branded, and cower before heroes during executions.

There are exceptions, of course. Or one, really: R2-D2, a droid so treasured that the Queen of Naboo herself washed the grime and debris from his frame during The Phantom Menace, as a reward for repairing her ship while under enemy fire. Two movies later, in Revenge of the Sith, R2 was allowed to keep his memories, despite his knowledge of Luke and Leia?s true parents.

C-3PO is not so lucky. When Princess Leia?s adoptive father casually orders the protocol droid?s memory wiped, 3PO?s terrified. ?What?? he says. ?Oh no!?

And what does R2-D2 do? He laughs, in his shrill, beeping way. Because the story of Star Wars? great, unloved underclass isn?t R2-D2?s. It?s C-3PO?s. In his fear, and his fatalism, lies the truth about droids: They are slaves, through and through. What's worse, they have the built-in sentience to know it, to understand their bondage, and to contemplate their own deaths. Worst of all, though, is that George Lucas seems to think all that existential terror is a hoot. C3P0 is quite possibly the first fictional slave to be ridiculed for living in a state of perfectly reasonable panic.

When we meet C-3PO?in the original, 1977 Star Wars?he?s a nuisance. He?s a coward aboard Princess Leia?s besieged spaceship, and, after being sold to Luke Skywalker?s uncle (as part of a package deal, with the invaluable R2-D2), he spends nearly every moment aghast or needling at his braver companions. But C-3PO?s grating state of constant terror isn?t unwarranted. When Luke discovers that R2 and C-3PO have followed him without requesting permission, the protocol droid practically swoons. ?It wasn't my fault, sir,? he wails, ?please don't deactivate me!?

It's a throwaway line, part of C-3PO?s responsibilities as resident comic foil. But the implications aren?t so easily dismissed. As the movies progress, we see further evidence that droids experience fear, joy, and misery (even the redoubtable R2 is prone to the occasional whimper-whistle). And yet, they?re bought and sold like property. They are property, with C-3PO passed from owner to owner, his consciousness shut down temporarily when his nattering is too much to bear, or permanently rearranged without a moment?s hesitation or apology. C-3PO isn?t (simply) craven, when he quails before his new master. C-3PO knows the score. They deactivate droids, don?t they?

Granted, not everyone has sympathy for a ninny, or any robot, for that matter. Setting aside the licensed comics and novels and video games that comprise the so-called ?extended universe? of additional material, the Star Wars canon (the movies and recent cartoons) isn?t all that interested in matters of artificial intelligence or robot rights. Are droids just pretending at sentience and emotional intelligence? If so, what damn fools we are, for fretting over R2 and C-3PO?s survival. But if they are, in fact, as self-aware as their owners and deactivators ... well, what then?

George Lucas is no Isaac Asimov, to be sure. An unofficial Star Wars wiki mentions a TV documentary in which Lucas says that C-3PO doesn?t have a soul. Bleak stuff, indeed, but it?s unsourced, and buried (if it?s even true) in one of the dozens of documentaries the filmmaker has appeared in. At a 2005 event preceding the release of Revenge of the Sith, Lucas was asked which character he?d miss the most. ?Well, R2-D2,? he responded, ?because he's the hero of the whole thing. He's the one that always?comes through and saves everybody. I'd like to have a pal like that that would come and save me once in a while.?

All right, so Lucas doesn?t hate R2. But while that astromech droid goes about his charmed, beloved business, the question remains: Are we really supposed to laugh when apparently sentient robots get blown to hell? Maybe not. I harbor hopes that Lucas, in his mercurial fashion, has layered his pulp adventure with a sly bit of social commentary, creating a story whose own seemingly infallible heroes could care less about the plight of the slave caste propping up their society. Unlike the Harry Potter series, where Hermione calls for equal rights for the elves forced into indentured service, droids have no champions. With the prequels, and their multitudes of silly, simpering battle droids, maybe the satire has grown fangs. The dumb machines exude bathos before being shot and sabered to pieces, visuals that create their own meta-narrative dissonance?those aren?t charred limbs on the battlefield, kids, just the bisected corpses of some goofy robots! And when R2 has the audacity to laugh?laugh!?at C-3PO?s impending memory wipe, maybe that?s a master stroke, an unacknowledged moment that confirms R2-D2?s ugly sense of exceptionalism.

Maybe the droid emancipation is still to come, and Star Wars has been cruel to its thinking machines, only to set them free in the upcoming movies or newly announced cartoon, Rebels. Maybe things will change. A robot can activate his hope circuits.

If freedom is coming, though, it won't be C-3PO leading the march on Coruscant. There'll be no protest signs in his barely-articulating hands, and certainly no blood from his masters. Like Uncle Tom, his biological counterpart in a galaxy far, far away, C-3PO is resigned to live in bondage. A life of casual abuse and entrenched indignities has taught him the kind of lesson only a slave, or possibly a blues singer, can mutter without irony. "We seem to be made to suffer," he says, while trudging through Tatooine's dunes during Star Wars. "It's our lot in life." Cue the rim shot, light the applause sign.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/06/droids_in_star_wars_the_plight_of_the_robotic_underclass.html

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