The world's biggest extraterrestrial explorer, NASA's Curiosity rover, rocketed toward Mars on Saturday on a search for evidence that the red planet might once have been home to itsy-bitsy life.

It will take 8 1/2 months for Curiosity to reach Mars following a journey of 354 million miles.

An unmanned Atlas V rocket hoisted the rover, officially known as Mars Science Laboratory, into a cloudy late morning sky. A Mars frenzy gripped the launch site, with more than 13,000 guests jamming the space center for NASA's first launch to Earth's next-door neighbor in four years, and the first send-off of a Martian rover in eight years.

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NASA astrobiologist Pan Conrad, whose carbon compound-seeking instrument is on the rover, had a shirt custom made for the occasion. Her bright blue, short-sleeve blouse was emblazoned with rockets, planets and the words, "Next stop Mars!"

The 1-ton Curiosity -- as large as a car -- is a mobile, nuclear-powered laboratory holding 10 science instruments that will sample Martian soil and rocks, and analyze them right on the spot.

There's a drill as well as a stone-zapping laser machine.

It's "really a rover on steroids," said NASA's Colleen Hartman, assistant associate administrator for science. "It's an order of magnitude more capable than anything we have ever launched to any planet in the solar system."

The primary goal of the $2.5 billion mission is to see whether cold, dry, barren Mars might have been hospitable for microbial life once upon a time -- or might even still be conducive to life now.

No actual life detectors are on board; rather, the instruments will hunt for organic compounds.

Curiosity's 7-foot arm has a jackhammer on the end to drill into the Martian red rock, and the 7-foot mast on the rover is topped with high-definition and laser cameras. No previous Martian rover has been so sophisticated or capable.

With Mars the ultimate goal for astronauts, NASA also will use Curiosity to measure radiation at the red planet. The rover also has a weather station on board that will provide temperature, wind and humidity readings; a computer software app with daily weather updates is planned.

The world has launched more than three dozen missions to the ever-alluring Mars, most like Earth than the other solar-system planets. Yet fewer than half of those quests have succeeded.

Just two weeks ago, a Russian spacecraft ended up stuck in orbit around Earth, rather than en route to the Martian moon Phobos.

"Mars really is the Bermuda Triangle of the solar system," Hartman said. "It's the death planet, and the United States of America is the only nation in the world that has ever landed and driven robotic explorers on the surface of Mars, and now we're set to do it again."

Curiosity's arrival next August will be particularly hair-raising.

In a spacecraft first, the rover will be lowered onto the Martian surface via a jet pack and tether system similar to the sky cranes used to lower heavy equipment into remote areas on Earth.

Curiosity is too heavy to use air bags like its much smaller predecessors, Spirit and Opportunity, did in 2004. Besides, this new way should provide for a more accurate landing.

Astronauts will need to make similarly precise landings on Mars one day.

Curiosity will spend a minimum of two years roaming around Gale Crater, chosen as the landing site because it's rich in minerals. Scientists said if there is any place on Mars that might have been ripe for life, it would be there.

"I like to say it's extraterrestrial real estate appraisal," Conrad said with a chuckle earlier in the week.

The rover -- 10 feet long and 9 feet wide -- should be able to go farther and work harder than any previous Mars explorer because of its power source: 10.6 pounds of radioactive plutonium.

The nuclear generator was encased in several protective layers in case of a launch accident.
NASA expects to put at least 12 miles on the odometer, once the rover sets down on the Martian surface.

This is the third astronomical mission to be launched from Cape Canaveral by NASA since the retirement of the venerable space shuttle fleet this summer. The Juno probe is en route to Jupiter, and twin spacecraft named Grail will arrive at Earth's moon on New Year's Eve and Day.
NASA hail this as the year of the solar system.

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Fugazi, the single-mindedly independent post-punk band from Washington, was famous for how it operated in concert. From its first shows in 1987 until it went on indefinite hiatus 15 years later, the group kept ticket prices low — $5 or so — and, to the relief of some fans and the annoyance of others, often paused when things got too wild in the mosh pit.

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Guy Picciotto, one of Fugazi’s two singer-guitarists during the band’s touring days, before it went on hiatus in 2002.

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Less known was that the band fastidiously recorded almost every concert. After letting audio tapes for more than 800 shows languish in a closet for years, Fugazi has begun putting them all on its Web site, with the first batch of 130 shows going up next Thursday.

In keeping with its commercial principles of low prices and trust in fans, the shows’ suggested price is $5 each, with a sliding scale of $1 to $100, for the cheap or the philanthropic.

As a career-spanning archival project, the Fugazi Live Series has few equals, putting the band in the unlikely company of acts like the Grateful Dead and Phish. And for Dischord, Fugazi’s self-run label, it has taken more than two years and tens of thousands of dollars, said Ian MacKaye, one of Fugazi’s two singer-guitarists and a co-founder of Dischord.

But to hear the band members tell it, they never had much of a purpose for recording the shows in the first place, and hardly listened to them at the time.

“I’d say it was for posterity, but to what end, we had no idea,” Mr. MacKaye said in an interview this week. “As with a lot of collections, once we had a couple hundred tapes, we just continued to amass them. Why stop? We’d already gotten this far.”

Fugazi, whose music drew on the scraping force of punk and the rhythmic undercurrents of reggae, had been prodded to record the tapes by one of its sound men, Joey Picuri. The group never used a set list and sometimes went on improvisatory tangents, so the tapes were partly meant to preserve spontaneous moments that might otherwise be forgotten, said Guy Picciotto, Fugazi’s other leader.

“When we played, we wanted it to be like a free fall,” Mr. Picciotto said.

Mr. Picuri has a more prosaic memory of the project’s origins. “I was working with a band that was able to afford the price of a cassette for every show,” he said with a laugh.

The recordings capture everything that happened onstage until the tapes stopped rolling, including stage banter, sparkling or dull, and performances, glorious or flubbed. For preservation’s sake, the band did not edit out anything.

“We liked this idea of, ‘Let’s just let it be everything,’ “ Mr. Picciotto said. “There doesn’t have to be the idea that this is the great, golden document. It’s all there, and it’s not cleaned up. You get what you get.”

The sound quality also varies, and taken as a whole, the project also tells a story about musical technology from the 1980s into the 2000s. The earliest recordings were made on cassettes, then came digital DAT tapes, then CD-R’s and a few hard drives. Sorting through it involved not only the process of formatting and mastering the audio but also even more tedious chores like scouring hours of onstage banter to identify unlabeled tapes.

“I got sleuthy about it,” Mr. MacKaye said. “I’d listen to the accent of someone in the crowd and go, ‘O.K., that was in Italy.’ “

Megafans will be able to gorge on hundreds of recordings of Fugazi classics like “Two Beats Off” and “Waiting Room.” For more casual followers — or anyone daunted by the prospect of sorting through 800 set lists — the Web site will also include a crowd-sourced rating system that should allow the cream to rise to the top.

Also included: fliers, tickets and photographs, meticulously collected and cataloged alongside the recordings. The band is encouraging fans to submit additional ephemera and to help fill in gaps of unrecorded shows.

For most bands this kind of exhaustive self-chronicling would be out of the ordinary. But as fans of Fugazi and Dischord know, the band and its label have long seen it as something of a mission to document their own work and the larger Washington underground scene carefully.

“Most labels put out records to get a band known,” Mr. MacKaye said. “The idea of Dischord was to document something that already had energy. In the beginning we were interested in documenting the music offerings of our scene, and it just kept going.”

Originally Found At:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/26/arts/music/fugazi-live-series-a-post-punk-bands-archive-of-shows.html

FAMU Marching 100 and college hazing

By Robert E. Pierre

For black college bands, this is one of the biggest weekends there is: the Bayou Classic.

Southern University and Grambling University football teams square off in New Orleans for their annual family reunion party and rivalry.

It is also one of the rare occasions when a national audience gets to see the real show: the high stepping, the hip-shaking and the horns blaring during the battle of the bands. But this weekend, the discussion around black college bands is not about fun and revelry.
In this Saturday, Nov. 19, 2011, photo, Robert Champion, a drum major in Florida A&M University's Marching 100 band, performs during halftime of a football game in Orlando, Fla. (Joseph Brown III - AP) It is about whether a culture of hazing led to the death of Robert Champion, one the drum majors for the famed Marching 100 band at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee. The band director has been fired. Band activities have been suspended. State and local criminal investigations are underway. And the governor has gotten involved after police said they think some form of hazing may have caused his injuries.

Rumors are swirling about why Champion, a clarinet player who was recently named a drum major, would have been hazed.

Hazing has a long history on college campuses. It ranges from binge drinking to demeaning pranks and, at its worst, beatings that have sometimes turned fatal.

At first blush, the use of the term seemed all wrong to me. In college fraternities—like the one I pledged—hazing was part of the initiation process. Those seeking to get in were at the bottom of the totem pole and, far too often, willing to do whatever was necessary to get in.

Once in, however, the threat of hazing ceased.

But friends and colleagues said that’s not the case in every organization. One, a retired Marine, wrote: “From a military point of view, hazing was a continuous thing. Although you weren’t hazed by your subordinates, you were welcomed (hazed) into your new group of peers once promoted.”

Sometimes hazing is trivial and silly. But it can also be dangerous. Universities have cracked down and so have fraternities and sororities to fend off lawsuits that have threatened to bankrupt them.

Wherever it happens, hazing typically requires the complicity of the pledge, the current chapter members and, almost always, adults in authority who conveniently look the other way.

Far too often, only significant injury or a death forces people to pay attention.

In this case, Champion, 26, was found unresponsive in a parking lot after the team’s game with Bethune-Cookman. He was vomiting and complained of shortness of breath. He died at a hospital a short time later. Florida Gov. Rick Scott has ordered an investigation punish “individuals directly or indirectly responsible for this death.”

Tallahassee attorney Chuck Hobbs said told the Associated Press that longtime band director Julian White--who has been fired--tried unsuccessfully to stop hazing.
In this photo taken Nov. 19, 2011, Florida A&M University's Director of Bands Julian White conducts the marching band during the halftime the Florida Classic at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando. White, the longtime director of the famed marching band, was fired Wednesday, Nov. 23 by the university. (Joseph Brown III - AP)“Hazing within the Marching 100 has often been met with reckless indifference by White’s superior officers who often ignored his requests for assistance,” Hobbs wrote in a letter to Florida A&M President James Ammons, according to the AP.

I hope that the inquiry doe not end with any young people who may have been involved. Nor should it end with FAMU. Thuggery that results in death or serious injury cannot and should not be tolerated.

Lawrence C. Ross Jr., in July, wrote a piece for The Root, calling out abusers who arrogantly assume that, through their actions, they are building better people.

“Hazers want and seek the power that comes with being able to order subservient pledges to do whatever they want,” wrote Ross, the author of “The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities .” “And for the pledges, the feeling of validation as a man, having gone through some trials and tribulations, is what motivates their continued participation in hazing activities.”

It is all of our jobs to remind our young people that there is nothing laudable about taking or receiving a beating.

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Chamber Encourages Support of Small Business Saturday

Business owners share what Small Business Saturday means to them.

• By Patricia Resende
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Black Friday is over and now it's time for small businesses to shine with Small Business Saturday.

"We appreciate the huge public relations push that American express has put on this Saturday as small business Saturday, they started this months ago picking a Saturday here or there but we have promoted small business Saturday, every Saturday since it began," said Jack Lank, president of the United Regional Chamber of Commerce, which supports businesses in 16 communities including Attleboro, Foxborough, Mansfield, Norton, Seekonk and Wrentham.

"Why can’t every Saturday be where you choose a small business to buy your goods and/or services," Lank added. "By purchasing goods and services from a local business, it helps put money right back into our local economy. For every $1 spent, 68 cents stays in the community."

Shoppers need to think outside of the box as support for local business goes beyond a traditional retail store. Supporting local businesses includes buying gift certificates from local restaurants and mom and pop shops including Miller's, Colonel Blackinton and Papagallos in Attleboro, the Reserve Wine Bin in Foxborough and Old Thyme Shoppe in Norton, to name a few. Buying gift certificates from local salons and service businesses is also supporting the community whether it includes buying hair products at Cutting Edge or a massage for friend at Full Circle Fitness.

It's also about evoking memories and childhood traditions by buying a Christmas trees at Attleboro'sStandley Tree Farm.

"It's been busy, but it's been normal as we get closer to the Christmas cutting season," Standley Tree Farm owner Bill Standley said Saturday afternoon.

Standley has his doubts that people are as interested in supporting local business.

"I think it's nice, but I'm not sure people give a darn," he said. "They are going to go where they want to go and buy what they want to buy."

For Standley, its small business Saturday every day. "I do business locally and it has to be made in the USA. When I see people who come in here who own a business I buy from them too if it is something I need and can buy from their business."

Just over the border is Seven Arrows Farm located at 346 Oakhill Ave. on the Attleboro/Seekonk town line.

The small business has been owned and operated for the past 30 years by husband and wife duo Judy and Michael Marcellot.

The Marcellots have not seen a rush of shoppers this Small Business Saturday, but that's okay, according to Judy.

"We have last minute Christmas shoppers," she said. "A lot of them make their own things. They start making their own things right before Christmas."

Marcellot said Seven Acres is an alternative business that doesn't quite conform with business modalities, "People come here to relax, enjoy a cup of tea, it's not like a Christmas rush."

It was business as usual at the Old Thyme Shoppe in Norton, at least for the pre-Christmas shopping season, according to a clerk. The small business had a busier day on Black Friday. Why? The store held a raffle for customers on Black Friday and marketed it in a newsletter that they sent out to customers in advance of Black Friday. "It worked," said the clerk. "We emailed the newsletter to all of our customers and I think it helped."

Lank said the Chamber understands that there are two sides of buying at the big box stores and buying at the little gift shop or small boutique, according to Lank. Communities need to do what they can to support the small businesses, that are the backbone of the local economy but people also need to shop at the big box stores because they provide hundreds of jobs for families, friends and neighbors.

"It's kinda of a Catch-22 situation," Lank said. "One challenge I made to our members at our Annual dinner, is to spend 50 percent of your holiday dollars at your local small business to support your local community and the other 50 percent at the Big box stores that provide local jobs for our friends and families."

"But buy local, you can help keep our region strong.

While she does not resent the existence of malls or big box stores, Marcellot said she has always been a small business shopper.

"I'm not a mall shopper, nope, no. I don't see it as a monetary thing to do. For me it is psychological and philosophical thing to do because you support your friends.

"We are all in this together," she added. "I want to know the owner of the shop or people behind the counter. I want someone to care that I came."

Originally Posted At:

http://norton.patch.com/articles/chamber-encourages-support-of-small-business-saturday-95cf5ab0